Tag: joy
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Tears as Prayers
The full meaning of our tears always escapes us, but they are taken into the gracious love of God, in Christ.
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Advent Crows – a poem
Advent Crows Cawing, keening crowsloud overhead on the bike path;inky silhouetted flockagainst deep indigo sky,twilight of Advent. Lift, turbulence, beating wings;cacophony in whorled airbecome, somehow, invitation toenvelopment in mad feathered flight,toward hidden social roost. Memory of Colville’s Seven Crowsgliding in captured stillnesstoward some opaque future,encircled viewer drawnforward in uncertain landscape, or foreboding of Cyclist and…
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Grace in the Pandemic
The past weeks have been difficult and stressful for many of us, or perhaps all of us. It’s no exaggeration to say there have been sleepless nights, worries in the day, challenges in family life, and a kind of fogginess about where life is going. This is on top of the very real suffering that…
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Advent Psalm (126)
Advent Psalm (126) Weary and sleepless, caught off guard by racing pulse, panic, vertigo; rare reprieve to breathe, palpable lostness. Heading for home, down old Highway 6 through tears, Aberfoyle, Puslinch, Clappison’s Corners, steering south on automatic pilot, college kid’s stick-shift Jetta. Over Skyway Bridge, past belching steelwork ugliness, along escarpment’s familiar lines; angled off-ramp…
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a glutton and a drunkard #jesus
Over the past number of days, the Prime Minister of Turkey has faced something of a crisis. A protest that began in Istanbul over plans to demolish a city park, has developed into a more widespread protest against his authoritarian tendencies. There is concern among some in that secular country that Prime Minister Erdogan wants…
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Christ the King Sunday – Joy, Gentleness, Peace (a sermon)
This is a day of lasts. Not a day of firsts, but of lasts. Today is our last Sunday looking at Paul’s letter to the Philippians. And today is also the last Sunday of the church year. Each year we close out the liturgical calendar, we end the church year with the celebration of the…
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say thank you (or not…)
What does gratitude look like? How should gratitude be expressed in our lives? For most of us, one of the earliest things we were taught by our parents was to say “Thank you.” When someone paid you a compliment: “Did you say thank you?” When someone was giving you a gift: “Remember to say thank…
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altogether joy?
My sermon from this past Sunday – the first in a series in the book of James. ____________________ This morning we begin a series of sermons in the book of James – a relatively short letter that comes just after the book of Hebrews in the New Testament. The book of James, as we’ll see,…
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He Ascended
A sermon in my continuing series on the Apostles’ Creed. ________________________________ Departure scenes almost always feel heavy and sad, don’t they? You can easily picture it in your mind. A man and woman embrace at the airport, one obviously flying to some far-flung place. There are tears. There is sorrow on each face.…
encrusted words 