“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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
These title words from Walt Whitman’s poem have been winding their way around my head this week. Whitman wrote this poem as a tribute to President Abraham Lincoln following his death. The poem doesn’t specifically mention Lincoln but for Whitman he was the captain of our collective ship, the United States, which had just barely…
I found myself laughing out loud this week when I saw that a friend posted on Facebook that January was just a month of Mondays. I so agree with her. The bitter cold weather, the new Covid variant, and the build up of troops at the Ukrainian border have it truly made it a month…
On Monday morning some of the students, other paras and I watched from our classroom window the smoke and steam rise from the fire at the old Seaway Hotel. We didn’t know what was burning at the time but it made an impressive cloud. I later learned it was the old hotel, now vacant and…
We all remember where we were a year ago on January 6th. It was a truly frightening day, made even more so in Duluth because we were in the midst of a city-wide internet outage. No one here could get access to information for several hours. Around five in the afternoon the internet was restored and…
When I am among the trees,especially the willows and the honey locust,equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,they give off such hints of gladness.I would almost say that they save me, and daily. I am so distant from the hope of myself,in which I have goodness, and discernment,and never hurry through the worldbut walk…