Dear Ones, Though it is true that we all live in uncertainty these days have too many names. These day, we can too easily and too often put a precise name to the feelings of uncertainty shaping our lives. How much risk should we take entering a store or dwelling without a mask? How much … Continue reading Feb. 23, 2022 Minister’s Message
Dear Friends, I am grateful to be back in Mankato after two and a half weeks away, grateful for the necessary rest that this congregation granted to me in the form of professional study leave and personal vacation. And grateful because I am so tired, so very tired. I am tired of Covid-19. I am … Continue reading February 16, 2022 Minister’s Message
The empty chair is very present for many of us at this time of year. As I prepare to spend the weekend with my mother, my sister, and my sister’s family, I hold in my heart all of you for whom the holiday season is not simply happy. The loss of my father weighs heavy. … Continue reading Minister’s Message Dec. 15, 2021
In the words of activist Adrienne Maree Brown, “Ultimately, love for the self is the deepest pleasure we deny ourselves. I work daily to be courageous enough to indulge in the purest pleasure of selflove.” Indulgencing in selflove, in loving our bodies—creaky, injured, aging, ill, currently just fine—is necessary for living as whole human beings. … Continue reading December 8, 2021 Minister’s Message
Most of us are well aware of what makes us happy. I think happiness is especially available to us in this holiday season, both by the presence of certain things or their absence. Family. Security. Tradition. Familiarity. We know and we cherish those feelings of warmth and closeness, miss them when they leave us. Yet … Continue reading December 1, 2021 Minister’s Message
Today, I took the morning for some worship planning into the new year. And now I am getting ready for the arrival later tonight of my children. I am so very excited that they will journey from east and from west to be with us for cooking and eating dinners together, cutting and decorating a … Continue reading November 24, 2021 Minister’s Message
The Thanksgiving holiday has long been my favorite. Early on, as extended family expected attendance on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Thanksgiving became a day to make our own. For many years, our table overflowed with friends and chosen family, with children’s friends and sometimes their siblings, with academic friends who could not get home … Continue reading November 17, 2021 Minister’s Message
On June 3, 2021, Michelle Norris wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post, “Germany faced its horrible past. Can we do the same?” In it, she says, “Amnesia gets in the way of atonement in America. But amnesia is actually too benign a word because it sounds as though people just forgot about the … Continue reading November 10, 2021 Minister’s Message
Sometimes, forgetting seems a lot easier to do than remembering. Forgetting seems somehow inevitable. My brain is full from too many thoughts and too much information after so many decades of life. Forgetting is just part of the aging processes. Some things I just don’t want to remember, I want to will them out of … Continue reading November 3, 2021 Minister’s Message
“I love myself when I am laughing. And then again when I am looking mean and impressive.” This quotation come from African American and Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston. I copied it onto a piece of paper in 1985, when I first taught her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. The paper is tattered … Continue reading October 27, 2021 Minister’s Message
