Category: Pastors’ Letters

Where have I seen the Holy Spirit at Work? I don’t usually experience the Holy Spirit with the same fierce, shocking power as the disciples did on Pentecost. For me, …

Where Have I Seen the Holy Spirit at Work? Like the followers of Jesus, who were hiding on the day of Pentecost, I have seen the Holy Spirit at work …

This year, May is an in-between month on the liturgical calendar. It falls between the two church holidays of Easter (April 17) and Pentecost (June 5). It is still a …

Over the past weeks, I have shared the difficult news about my upcoming transition away from ELPC into a new chapter of ministry service. In the years approaching eventual retirement, …

A writer recently paraphrased Susan Sontag and said that “biography is the revenge of research upon the intellect.” What she meant is that biography takes a lived life—a human existence …

I was thinking recently about the phrase, “accident of birth.” The moral philosopher Martha Nussbaum referred to it in the following paragraph: “All human beings are worthy of equal respect …

“I just can’t make up my mind!” How often have you said those words or heard someone else say them to you? Difficult decisions can be small or large. It …

Welcome to January 2022! There is so much energy around celebrating the holidays in the month of December that we often forget to extend the same sentiments to its successor, …

Let’s raise a toast to the “ordinary”! Having gone through months of what have been extraordinary events, there is something special about the plain ol’ ordinary. Routines that don’t change …

Every so often I read a sentence that stops me in my tracks. Here is the opening line from a book review: In the deep sea, it is always night …