Dear Friends, Thank you for a wonderful congregational meeting on Sunday. It was a treat to hear your voices and see your faces. Thank you for taking care of Calvary’s essential business. You have demonstrated yet again that even a global pandemic cannot stop us from...
Dear Friends, I have hit the “Covid-19 wall,” and as it turns out, I am not alone. Last week, a clergy friend directed me to an online article that described how adrenaline has helped us push through the first several months of this pandemic. But human...
Dear Friends, I have been vindicated! Imagine my delight when I randomly opened a magazine last week to discover this headline: “57 Percent: That’s how much less likely you are to develop heart disease if you eat chocolate 5+ times a week.” I knew it!! The health...
Dear Friends, Last Tuesday (1/5) I sat at my desk to write my first blog of 2021. A few days before, I had spent fifteen hours in the car, driving the 1000 miles back to Fairfax from Arkansas. So, I’d had plenty of uninterrupted, quiet time...
Dear Friends, Without a doubt, this is not the blog I had intended to compose to kick-start 2021. Marcelo’s unexpected death yesterday has left a gaping hole, and it will take time for me to come to terms with it, both personally and from the perspective...
Dear Friends, As you read this, I am likely somewhere on Interstate 81 or 40, heading down through Virginia and across Tennessee on my way to spend a couple of weeks in Arkansas with my mother. Like so many people around the country, she has spent...
Dear Friends, Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Boy, am I grateful for this truth this year! I mean, we say it—and sing it—every Advent, but in this most crazy of years, 2020 has led me to a deeper understanding and appreciation of just how...
Happy Advent, Friends! I can hardly believe it, but the calendar has turned, and it is December. Though I am still eating the last of the turkey and dressing leftovers, I have also joined throngs (translation: tens of millions!) of people doing online Christmas shopping. In...
Dear Friends, Thanksgiving week is here and for many of us, it will be quite a different holiday than in years past. Like everything else in our lives, the novel coronavirus has upended our normal traditions and routines. If you are feeling a sense of loss...
Dear Friends, Without a doubt, there are myriad ways people will describe 2020 once it is finally in our rearview mirror. For me, it is already clear that I will remember it as a year for learning new things, and on Sunday, we will have yet...