Recent Posts
It’s Gonna Be a SNOW DAY on Sunday!
This past Wednesday, local schools were cancelled as we braced for some severe weather that never really materialized. A measly couple of inches of snow. While it wasn’t enough for proper sledding or cross-country skiing, it still won our kids and young people an official snow day. Despite the lack of precipitation, I’m confident that many kids woke up on Wednesday morning with a Christmas-like glee when they learned, “No school. It’s a snow day!”
As an older parent, with no kids in the house, I had this thought: “This is what the Sabbath is supposed to be like. The slate just got wiped clean. It’s a snow day!”
Super Sunday 2025
It’s gonna be an amazing Sunday for at least a couple of reasons: First, a bunch of us Americans will gather together to watch the Philadelphia Eagles play the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX (aka 59 for non Romans : ) While the Chiefs will be trying to win an unprecedented 3rd consecutive Superbowl, I’m more excited for an entirely different reason – our annual congregational meeting!
Binge Lit
While the idea of “binge-watching” the latest series on Netflix has been possible only for the last decade or so (are you old enough to remember having to wait an entire week for the next installment of your favorite show to arrive?), folks have been “binge-reading” their favorite books and novels for centuries. I have happy memories of getting lost for evenings - even days! - when I first discovered The Chronicles of Narnia or my elementary school favorite, the Encyclopedia Brown series. Later, my tastes matured a little bit: Lord of the Rings and Sherlock Holmes, and there are still times - a cold winter afternoon, for example - when a cup of tea and a great book are just the thing for me.
The More Things Change…
When the calendar turns the page into a new year, there’s always a small, naive prayer that emerges from my spirit: “God, let this be the year when we humans will change our ways, seek your face, practice war no more, and lean into the peace that passes understanding.”
Most years, it only takes a few days to make it clear that my “prayer” is more of a childish wish or aspiration. The more things change on the calendar, the more human behavior stays the same. We’re barely a week into 2025, and it seems like, from my little vantage point, that the roller coaster of human history remains as wild as ever. Already in this short year, there has been...
Christmas Stinks in the Spiritual Suburbs
If left to my own devices, I would choose to live either in the woods or in the heart of downtown Chicago. I’m drawn to the extremes. Alas, God has plunked me down in the suburbs - the middle place where there is neither the tranquility of the forest nor the urban hum of human activity at its most intense. At least I get to serve at a great church here in suburbia!
While I’ve embraced living in the physical suburbs, I try to avoid the spiritual suburbs at all costs. Where are the spiritual ‘burbs?!
Fresh Fruit in December
December isn’t really fruit season in Illinois. Long gone are the days when plump local berries and ripe apples cascaded in abundance at our local farm stands. But, even on these cold, short days, a different type of fruit is still in season: Spiritual fruit!
While we’re just wrapping up the pledge phase of our Hearts Ablaze Campaign,* this coming Sunday, we’ll share the exciting news of what our congregation has pledged in Sunday’s worship service. I don’t know what the number will be yet as I type this in the wee hours of Friday morning, but I do know that there have been all kinds of healthy signs of generous and sacrificial giving along the way. For example:
Kids as young as six, and senior saints well into their 80’s, and all ages in between have made pledges...