(I know. It’s Halloween and I’m already talking about Christmas! But if you want to order one of these resources, we’ve got just a month until Advent.) If you’ve been here for very long, you know that I’ve talked about Advent as a season of preparation before Christmas. In the Northern Hemisphere where this description […]

Back to talking about presence: The woman was walking by the coffin, lost in grief. Her husband, gone years ago. Her only son, her only hope, her only support, now heading to the cemetery in that wooden box. We have a word for widow. We have a word for orphan. We have no simple word […]

God. I think we really need you. We are, we admit, weary of all the noise and fear and confusion. We are weary of our friends yelling at our friends.We are afraid of what will happen if someone thinks we said the wrong thing.We are confused by all the opinions and ultimatums and statements which […]

Years ago, I remember reading Eugene Peterson: “my primary educational task as a pastor was to teach people to pray.” I think that’s true for chaplains, too. It’s not our only task. But it may be our primary educational task, the thing that we can teach. The challenge in teaching about prayer is that many people […]

I visited a woman who had just given birth. The family was part of the church where I worked. The pastors took turns visiting. It was my day. I had been a pastor, with the title officially in front of my name, for a few months. I went to the room, I talked with the […]