When I have attended United Methodist events, the prayer rooms all seem to have a common feature- a labyrinth. It seems that some with a spiritual bent all seem to think that we should be walking the labyrinth to connect with God.”The term labyrinth is often...
I have been a student of the Matthean Beatitudes scripture since my own Holy Spirit-directed encounter with it several years ago. I have had several conversations with my associate pastor, who prefers the Lukan rendition of “blessings and woes”. He is from...
A few weeks ago I was listening to a program on NPR and heard part of an essay about an encounter with a mountain lion being read by Craig Childs, a desert dwelling naturalist from Arizona who’s written a book on his encounters with animals-. The Animal...
This week I had another specific example of how God works in my life….how He shows his providential hand and his love. After three weeks of driving a man to the county’s remote jail annex site weekly to visit his girlfriend, he was jailed, too…..both...
While in a psychology class, one of the assignments was to draw a picture that represented one’s life. I drew the doodle shown here. The hand with the heart represents, for me, God’s love and providential work in my life. The other symbols are medical...
Recently, I was going through some worship books I’d accumulated from participating in weekends at a Christian retreat camp. I came across one with notes in the back cover that I’d written on April 22, 2005. It was during a Friday morning communion service...
September 1st I started with “minimum full time” (32 hours a week) at the church. My hours at the homeless shelter dropped to 15 a week. It’s been challenging to manage my schedule for best use of my time, but I’m feeling better about it after...
This weekend I was challenged to think about gifts-based service and servants in the Bible, besides Jesus. As I reflected on various individuals, I was considering the various gifts of each person. One gift that I focused on was the gift of helping. Many people with...
Working in a homeless center has provided me a view of human dignity that I might not otherwise have had……A troubled soul, one who is often difficult and incoherent, who takes the initiative to clean the coffee center, just because it needs...
In his Nazareth sermon (Luke 4:18) Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me . . .to bring good news to the poor. . .to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. . .to let the oppressed go free.”As I studied for certification as a...
