The easiest time to have faith is when life is going as we would like it to go when everyone is healthy, happy, and we are successful. This is when we feel the graces of God the strongest. The hardest time to have faith is when everything is going wrong and life is just one … [Read more…]
When we think of change: whether it is in the world, our careers, or our personal lives, what comes to your minds? Change can be exciting but it can also be a time full of anxiety and dread for many. Change can be frightening because we can’t always predict what will come next or how … [Read more…]
You ever stand in an excited crowd and just feel overwhelmed by the emotions of the mob? You might know me to be a Boston Red Sox fan but my husband is a diehard Yankee fan. Every year we make a pilgrimage to Yankee Stadium to see a game each summer. There is nothing quite … [Read more…]
Promise and hope is what the Lenten season is to lead us to with the Easter morning. We are promised paradise and we are given hope in the new life. What we experience here isn’t the only life that is offered to us. Through coming to understand the depth of the love Christ experienced for … [Read more…]
At our last Lenten Supper as we discussed Christ’s final words on the cross, one of the participants mentioned that when Christ said “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”, that this showed Jesus’ humanity and suffering. I found that this stuck with me as it is something I have spent years pondering … [Read more…]
When you look at these crosses what images come to your minds? (show a series of different styles of crosses) They represent our faith and Christ’s sacrifice. They don’t represent the horrible form of execution that the cross actually was. They don’t represent death but rather they represent the life that Christ’s sacrifice brought to … [Read more…]
How important are credentials to you? How might you feel going in for surgery and finding out that the person doing the surgery was self taught? When I was a teenager, I had a huge fear of needles and blood work. I had to go to Yale Medical Center to get some blood work and … [Read more…]
Advent is the time of year where we contemplate the hope, love, joy, and peace offered to us in the Christ child. Yet, every year the Sunday after Christmas we hear this horrifying tale of the killing of the innocence which initiated Jesus, Joseph, and Mary’s flight to Egypt seeking safety from those who would … [Read more…]
One of my favorite Christmas cartoons is Charlie Brown’s Christmas. It has been a family tradition since I was a little girl to watch it during the Advent Season. As an adult, I love how innocent and faithful Charlie Brown is when he chooses this raggedy half dead stick of a tree as their Christmas … [Read more…]
Let’s do a little exercise. Let’s see how long it takes us to name all the Ten Commandments. Starting now. (let the congregation call out the ten commandments). When I was in seminary, I would often eat lunch with the students of the rabbinical school next door and one day conversation turned to the Ten … [Read more…]
