This year, our Christmas tree lights have been on more often than ever before. We’ve always turned our Christmas tree on whenever we were home and this year we’ve been home a lot. This is the first year that we haven’t traveled during Christmas week. This is the first year we haven’t seen family during …
Advent is the official beginning of the church calendar. It comes before the new calendar year and for many clergy, it is the kick off to starting over in telling the good news of the coming of the Divine here on earth. This year this starting over begins at the end of a long journey …
As we brought our Christmas Tree into our house this year, I worried there wouldn’t be space for it. Our house is currently serving as a preschool, a business office, a home to four kids, two adults and two dogs, and a sanctuary during the Advent season for virtual worship services. Where would it go? …
There is so much about this holiday season that’s different. There are gatherings we can’t go to, traditions that are not safe in the midst of a pandemic, and constant changes all around us. When things feel different, sometimes I find myself retreating into the mindset “This will never get better. The holidays are ruined.” …
For the last five years, I have been either pregnant, nursing, or postpartum. It seemed like a significant moment when I took my last postpartum vitamin. It also felt strange that there was no celebration, no marker that happens after you have carried and nursed a baby. There is no fanfare or ritual that marks …
As a young, first-time pastor, I thought that hope was positivity. I thought that hope was faith that was put into action. I thought that hope was something that you hung up during Advent proclaiming the good news that the Messiah is coming. After years of pastoring, I’ve discovered hope is something that you hang …
We started Advent by creating space. Like many other Americans right now, our home is school, office, and home all combined into one. We couldn’t decorate or prepare our home for Christmas season without moving some things around. That moving around lead to a going through and sorting. We discarded broken toys, donated some toys …
In the afternoons, we try to spend as much time outside soaking up the sun and Vitamin D, creating pirate ships, and practicing climbing fences. This time is one of my favorite times of the day because it reminds me of the creativity and spontaneity that children just naturally carry with them. At times there …
After school as the sun begins to set and the day is coming to a close, our four-year-old asks, “Is it light/dark yet?” He’s asking if the time is coming where it will be time to get ready for bed and rest. Most of us call it an evening. If we are feeling poetic, we …
The past three nights, there has been Ellen’s Greatest Night of Giveaways. The unsuspecting crowd was drawn in under the pretense of filming another show. The winners of thousands of dollars were interviewed under the pretense of a show that was about how people in difficult situations turn their lives around never giving up and …
