I sometimes think of a backpacking trip with a now-deceased friend on the Appalachian Trail in western North Carolina’s Nantahala Range—early February, 75 miles, eight days. Rain the entire week…
“Love means never having to say you’re sorry” (Love Story). “Forgiveness guaranteed. Repentance optional” (sign in front of a Lutheran church). This year Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day fall…
“Amor significa nunca tener que pedir perdón” (Historia de amor). “Perdón garantizado. Arrepentimiento opcional” (letrero frente a una iglesia luterana). Este año, el Miércoles de Ceniza y el día…
Jesus does two incredible things in John 11. He weeps at death. He calls forth life. Jesus must know, somehow, that he has the power to raise Lazarus to life….
John 9 tells the story of Jesus healing a man “blind from birth.” No accident in life caused the blindness, no disease—he had been blind from the womb, unable to…
I’m from the Pacific Northwest, where I now live again. I’ve rediscovered that we who live in the Pacific Northwest always, always have water within our reach. It’s all around…
When I was a little girl, a beloved Sunday school teacher gave me a small ivory cross with the words “John 3:16” etched on one side and the entirety of…
How do we engage our whole selves in worship? Martin Billmeier, pastor of St. Lucas Lutheran Church, Toledo, Ohio, reflected on this question in a meditation last Lent, asserting he…
Some years ago, just before Christmas, I was sitting and enjoying conversation with a staff member one minute, then lying on the ground the next, completely unaware that my body…
Should we give something up or take something on in Lent? It seems the rules aren’t quite as clear as they used to be: fish on Fridays, evening worship on…
“All we had to eat was red Jell-O, flour and communion wafers,” she remembered, her eyes gazing into the past. A fundraiser for the ELCA’s global ministries, I was out…
You make beautiful things out of the dust / You make beautiful things out of us —Gungor. My dad knew the beauty of dust. Even before he was sick and…
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