This year’s Advent theme is Awake in the dark.  We based it on the gospel for this coming Sunday from Mark chapter 13.  The reading begins with the sun being darkened, and ends with the words of Jesus: “What I say to you, I say to everyone: Keep awake.”  It…

I appreciated Carolyn May and Phil Hart’s exploration of darkness imagery last week, and it reminded me of Joel’s sermon (a while ago!) that interwove the song “Joyful is the Dark.” In screening thousands of songs for Voices Together, I have become all the more aware of how some biblical…

A mentor once told me, “Brent, when you decide to change yourself for the better and really bear down, the universe will test you. When you decide to take control, the universe is going to give you all sorts of…*STUFF*… before it gives you any shinola.” When I started writing…

“What is this place, where we are meeting?” A monitor screen, covered with a patchwork of squares, filled with the faces of people A community, a family, “a body that lives” even though we are gathered virtually. We affirm that the God that is here with me is also there…

On November 3rd, I served as an election poll worker.  I hadn’t worked at the polls before then, but ever since I became eligible to vote some decades ago, I’ve voted in every general election and most primaries.  I believe in the democratic election process.  It has always given me…