Lord, teach me. . . .

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. –Khalil Gibran In many congregations, the Sunday following Resurrection Sunday is celebrated as Holy Humor Sunday. There are as many ways to celebrate as there are celebrants. Some pastors encourage children to tell knock-knock jokes or elephant jokes (Q: Why did the elephant stand on the marshmallow? A: So she wouldn’t fall in the hot cocoa .) Folks might be invited to wear silly hats or crazy-colored socks. The creativity of the church is the only limit. What’s behind this zany show of humor, anyway? When Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty, and when Jesus appeared, first to her and later on, to Jesus’ disciples, one thing became very clear. Death was not going to have the last word. Jesus’ resurrection was the ultimate affirmation of life. In other words, God d...

You just have to keep on doing what you do. It’s the lesson I get from my husband; he just says keep going. Start by starting. –Meryl Streep Holy Week has come and gone. We have reflected for forty days on the journey Jesus made, from amazing worker of miracles and flipper of tables, to a man wholly despised and rejected by those with the power to decide. The liturgical season of Easter has begun, seven weeks to further contemplate Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Throughout Lent, we paused with Jesus, remembering again (or for the first time) how quickly Jesus went from beloved to despised. We could have stopped or gotten stuck at any point. Jesus could have stopped at any point. In the garden at Gethsemane, he is nearly overcome—but he keeps moving. Focused on his goal, Jesus keeps his eye set on the horizon and keeps moving forward. What can we learn from the journey we’ve wandered every year for as long as we have been part of a church? I believe the best ...

We sometimes encounter people. even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.  –Fyodor Dostoevsky ( Enjoy this week’s meditation from John Edgerton, via Still Speaking .) Coffee Hour I love coffee hour, all my people are there.  I know who they are, they know who I am. There's coffee, sometimes there are tiny sandwiches.  It's great! But then there are those moments that gum up the works.    Newcomer moments.   Like when I'm topping off my coffee and I catch a glimpse of someone standing alone by the door—gingerly balancing a coffee cup in one hand and a plate with two sugar cookies and three loose grapes in the other looking as if they have strayed far from their comfort zone.    I always wonder what brought them to church.  Was it the Facebook posts or the community garden? That clever sermon title from a couple weeks back or the rainbow flag ...

Deadlines aren’t bad. They help you organize your time. They help you set priorities. They make you get going when you might not feel like it. –Harvey Mackay How full is your plate right now? How many things do you absolutely have to get done before bedtime/ tomorrow/ next week? And how much of that stuff is life-or-death important? Some people don’t feel like they’re doing their job if they’re not really, really busy. All the time. The longer the list, the more successful the world thinks we are. The more we check off, the better we (ought to) sleep at night. Life is short. None of us knows how many days we have left, how many beats our heart will offer before giving out. All those lists of Stuff To Do become pretty irrelevant in light of our own mortality. So what really matters? Here’s what I think: What really matters is how well we have loved. Not how many hands we have shaken or how many books we have read or written. How many people, at the end of t...