Lent

March 6, 2026 We get offered books all the time from people cleaning out their parents’ or grandparents’ estates. We get offered sets of encyclopedias which we politely decline. Because of the world wide web encyclopedias have become unnecessary – like phone books. But I remember when encyclopedias were the go to for wanting to…

March 5, 2026 The very first committee in recorded history was the Back to Egypt Committee in the Book of Exodus. When we are confronted with something difficult we often long nostalgically for the past. Even if it is not reasonable. They were slaves! Why would you want to go back to that?! Nostalgia is…

March 4, 2026 The basic outline of a story is that you need a plot and an antagonist and a protagonist. The antagonist tries to end the story. The protagonist tries to push the story into the future. The antagonist wants to end. The protagonist wants to continue. When we tell ourselves same-old-same-old, it’s no…

March 3, 2026 Carl Sandburg’s book of poetry, The People, Yes, published in 1936, is a collection of folk wisdom. Sandburg takes these nuggets of folk wisdom and sayings that he has gathered over the years and weaves poetry around them and celebrates the everyday people who do most of the living and loving and…

March 2, 2026 One of the better deer hunters I knew wrote on his bow: “Pick a spot; hit it!” Before every time I roll the ball in bowling I say to myself “1-2-3 Pendulum Pose watch the Ball cross the Spot.” A pastor in southwestern Wisconsin had a sign in the pulpit where only…

February 28, 2026 In the Gospel reading this weekend Nicodemus, a religious professional, goes to see Jesus. He comes at night because he doesn’t want any of his cohort to see them together. He is fascinated and troubled by Jesus’s righteousness and the fact that he spends so much time with the bad people rather…