• Moonlight

    On Sunday evening I watched the lunar eclipse from our attic window. I was isolating up in our attic because I had Covid. Yes, I had succumbed to the virus and was hoping my husband wouldn’t.  The attic was a safe space that gave me a place to read, to sleep and to watch the moon….

  • Ask the Animals

    “But ask the animals, and they will teach you,    the birds of the air, and they will tell you;8 ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you,    and the fish of the sea will declare to you.9 Who among all these does not know    that the hand of the Lord has done this?10 In his hand is the life of every…

  • Blessed Trees

    I part the out thrusting branchesand come in beneaththe blessed and the blessing trees.Though I am silentthere is singing around me.Though I am darkthere is vision around me.Though I am heavythere is flight around me.           Wendell Berry,  Woods Over the school break we got away and walked among the trees. Tim and I traveled to…

  • Don’t Hold On

    Oh river, rolling river Sing me your dream Oh river, rolling river Sing me your dream.                          Sara Thomsen Last Saturday we hiked up to the Fifth Falls at Gooseberry State Park. After leaving the shoveled trail that led to the main waterfall, we only saw one other pair of hikers. I was glad we…

  • Touching Grace

    Wednesday’s snow day for the Duluth Public Schools was such a bummer. The snow day canceled the field trip for the Lincoln Park eighth grade music students to see “Footloose” in the Twin Cities. I was going along with two of the students I work with as a paraprofessional. This trip was a big deal,…

  • Bird Watching

    “but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,    they shall mount up with wings like eagles,they shall run and not be weary,    they shall walk and not faint.”    Isaiah 40:31 I was recently invited by the 150th anniversary committee of my former congregation to write up some of the stories of the matriarchs and patriarchs of…

  • Stitched Together

    For it was you who formed my inward parts;    you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139: 13- 14 I remembered this Psalm last Sunday when the Ukrainian folk tale, The Mitten, was told at Pilgrim Church. In the folk tale, Nicki longs for snow…

  • Be a Chicken

    “Oh Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings . . . “   Luke 13 These words are part of Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem just a few days prior to his death. These words struck me hard these days as we…

  • Dust and Ice

    On late Tuesday afternoon we walked our dog along the shore of Lake Superior. So many people were out on the lake walk. In the warm breeze and changing light, folks were running, walking and even out skating on the big lake. The ice had come in clear and smooth along the shoreline. And so…

  • In the midst of them

    36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”   Mark 9:36 – 37 This weekend we will head north again to…