Maybe it’s because I moved here from Minnesota, but I’ve always loved Garrison Keillor. His tales about Lake Wobegon could always amuse and delight an audience.
This week I could say, along with Mr. Keillor, “It’s been a busy week in Lake Wobegon.” And it has been! There’s a lot happening at 36 South Street… Read more →
Have you been watching the Olympics? I look forward to them and was glad when they made the decision to alternate the summer and winter Olympics so that some version of the Olympics would happen every two years instead of every four.
I’ve enjoyed the new sports– the Boardercross in particular has had me gulping a few times (and feeling old– how DO they do some of those aerial things and survive?!), but mostly I’ve been glad to see young talent being, well, talented. Read more →
Congratulations are due to our fantastic Green Team on the occasion of our certification! We were honored by the presence of Stacey Kennealy, Certification Program and Sustainability Director for GreenFaith, who awarded us our banner this past Sunday. It would not have been possible without the hard work of the whole team, headed up so ably by Gary Matthews, who shepherded the work from beginning to end. Read more →
There’s a talented cartoonist who has been doing cartoons for the Episcopal Church for several years–in fact, every year there is a calendar printed that features one of his cartoons each month. (You can see more of them here). At the church office, it’s on the wall just as you enter. It caught my attention recently and I stopped to look at the January cartoon:
One of my favorite things about Redeemer is our participation in Morristown’s Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend events. This year that included worshiping at Bethel A.M.E., the Interfaith Breakfast at Headquarters Plaza, and the service at Calvary Baptist. While each of the events is its own reminder of the legacy of Dr. King, they are also each a “kick-in-the-pants” to remind us how much work there is yet to be done. I was tired (who knew that clapping could require SO much energy?!), but happy when I arrived at work on Tuesday morning, only to learn that sometime recently, someone had carved a swastika on the wall of the men’s room in the Parish Hall. I wasn’t expecting such a vivid reminder that the dream of each of us being created equal has not yet been fulfilled. I can only hope that it will motivate us to redouble our efforts to move forward with Dr. King’s legacy.
Yours in faith,
Cynthia
While preparing my sermon for our service at Bethel A.M.E. this weekend I was looking at various translations of the scripture texts we’ll use. We don’t use a contemporary reading at Bethel, and at Redeemer we’ll read the Psalm from the Prayer Book, but this translation of Psalm 40 seemed too good not to share. Enjoy– and don’t keep the good news of God’s love to yourself!
Psalm 40:1-11 (paraphrased by Jim Taylor)
1 I believed I could make it on my own.
But I slipped and fell.
I sank into a morass of my own making. Read more →
Dave shared a W.H. Auden poem with me earlier in the week, as we were experiencing cold weather. It’s from “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio.” Written in 1942, when the world was at war, Auden’s “Oratorio” is a parable that merges the Biblical and the contemporary in a work that is simultaneously audacious and poetic.The Three Magi are speaking in this excerpt:
The weather has been awful,
The countryside is dreary,
Marsh, jungle, rock; and echoes mock
Calling our hope unlawful;
But a silly song can help along Read more →
What a whirlwind Advent and Christmas were– and what a delight it was to have a packed church on Christmas Eve! Now the Wise Ones are inching towards Bethlehem (although they will make it in time for Epiphany–January 6– we don’t actually observe the feast until the Sunday after Epiphany, January 12). In our crèche scene in the church, they move a few inches closer each day! Read more →
