A prayer for the thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

God. We feel disconnected. Isolated. Lonely. Even when we are with people all day long, helping, serving, working, we feel disconnected. Even with invisible community connections of chat, we feel lonely. And when we are away from home, away from routine, away from what we know best and do best, we feel isolated. We feel […]

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A small gathering in the woods.

Jane Munk died suddenly in November 2024. Now, a couple weeks before that anniversary, some friends of Jane came to this nature center for a hike in the woods, for story-telling, for food. A couple dozen people stood around a couple tables in the conference room. “Jane curated this gathering,” Jason said. “Even though she’s […]

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Opportunity

I’ve spent much of my time as a chaplain being afraid. “Don’t mess up” was what I told myself as I walked into the building. Because, of course, there are implications of getting things wrong. If the paperwork is filled out wrong, a body could go to the wrong funeral home. If you read the […]

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Some Context For Peacemaking

Rich Dixon is back. Last time we talked about peacemaking based on one of the Beatitudes: Blessed are the peacemakers,    for they will be called children of God. I’ve learned it’s important to read scripture in context rather than cherry picking a specific verse that happens to fit my agenda. Jesus probably didn’t offer these ideas randomly, so […]

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A prayer for the thirtieth Sunday in ordinary time

God. We are not quite ready to despair, most of us.  But some moments we come close. We come close to simply running out.  Our bodies run out. Our courage runs out. Our creativity runs out. Our love, our patience, our forgiveness. We are running out.  And there is almost nothing we read or watch […]

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