We each have, tucked away in our hearts, memories of extra special moments throughout our lives when we felt especially loved. In fact, it’s a wonderful thing to do, once in a while—an exercise that’s good for our heart and our hope–to revisit those moments in our lives, starting from the time we were very […]
Read more "To Love Truly"Memories are such funny things. This week, out of the blue, I remembered a moment from more than 30 years ago that became the seed for this morning’s message. My brother John had come to visit when I was living in Brown County, and we were having coffee in the kitchen that morning when he […]
Read more "Our Part in Peace"Well no matter how much we plan or hope or buy, Christmas this year—in 2020—is destined to be a Christmas like no other. We’ve already had 10 months of unexpected and trying circumstances, and now, as Christmas grows close, the pandemic is impacting even our best-loved traditions. The family events that are such a big […]
Read more "A New Chance to Love"Here in central Indiana, we are having one of the most beautiful falls I can remember. And that follows an unusually perfect and balanced summer in which we experienced no drought, only short stretches of humidity, and surprisingly few storms and tornado warnings. How kind of God to turn up the dial on beauty and […]
Read more "Unique and Precious"Those of you on our Wednesday night Zoom call heard me describe the events of last Sunday—Christopher and Ashley’s wedding—as one of the five best days of my life. All week I feel I’ve been floating along, buoyed by the love and magic of that day. There really is something to the idea that moments […]
Read more "A Simple Love"I’m going to start our message today with a confession. Most weekday nights last week, as the PBS Newshour signed off the air, I found myself standing about five feet from my television, watching intently, usually in tears. My heart was deeply touched by the stories anchor Judy Woodruff tells at end of the newscast […]
Read more "What Love Will Do"Fifteen years ago I was working as a chaplain at St. Vincent Hospital and I was on call one weekend when I was paged by a nurse in the emergency room. They had just had a death—a woman in cardiac arrest—and her son, a cognitively challenged adult who functioned at about the level of a […]
Read more "An Innocent Faith"Good morning, Friends. Our message this morning could also be called, “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.” I mentioned to a friend last week that I was hoping I would have a week of “prayerful gardening.” And it turned out to be that and more. I’ve been feeling peaceful and quiet internally, which means I […]
Read more "The Quiet of Home"Happy Father’s Day to you if you are a father, have had a father, or have loved someone who is a father! I read some interesting research this week that showed that being a good dad really does make a difference—a lasting difference—in your children’s lives. Of course we all just know this inherently, if […]
Read more "Through the Eyes of Love"Our Friendly Reflection this morning is a well-known phrase from William Penn: “Let us then try what Love will do,” reminding us that we have a choice in the way we think about, understand, and respond to the changing circumstances around us each day. Instead of responding with irritation or upset, boredom or resistance, we can pause […]
Read more "Morning Thought: Saturday"