This photo Tim took reminded me of Mary Oliver’s poem, Summer Day, especially the part where she writes, I don’t know exactly what prayer is I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll…
This coming Sunday I will lead worship at Pilgrim Congregational Church while Pastor Carla Bailey is on vacation. It will be the first time I pray publicly since retiring from Peace Church in January of 2021 after 30 years of ministry there. I’m surprisingly anxious about it. I have also been thinking a lot about…
Fourth of July festivities were postponed in Duluth due to the foggy, rainy weather. In so many ways this was fitting after the news of the last few weeks. We are a nation fogged in by Supreme Court decisions, January 6th hearings and mass shootings. It feels like we have lost our way. Instead of…
“Consider the lilies of the field . . . “ Matthew 6:28Today is my grandmother’s birthday. I find myself thinking of her as I water our small gardens alongside our house. I filled our gardens with purple bachelor buttons because that was a flower my grandmother always grew in hers. Bachelor buttons are a perennial…
My husband Tim and I walk most mornings. There is such beauty in the quiet of the dawn. Walking together early before work there is time to listen to one another. There is space to remember what a precious gift each day is. What a strange and wondrous path we have shared with one another. Our youngest…
“Let the little children come to me,” Jesus said, “and do not hinder them . . .” — Matthew 19:14 Most mornings I hold the doors of Lincoln Park Middle School open for the kids as they come off their buses. As a para- professional, part of my job is to meet the kids from…
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….
“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…
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…
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…