Snow? In Williamsburg??

Published in January 31st, 2010

Posted by Pastor in St. Stephen Lutheran Church

Believe it! The snow fall was so beautiful yesterday. And this morning dawned clear and bright.
Patty and I walked into church. Two worshipers were already there, and we ended up with 10 for the 8:30 service! At the 11:00 service there were 28!
A quiet morning, of informal worship and sharing of friendship.

Wherever I’ve served, I’ve always [...]

Pictures Have Been Added!

Published in January 29th, 2010

Posted by Pastor in St. Stephen Lutheran Church

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I’ve illustrated my previous blogs with pictures. Check out the blogs again!

To the other side of the Sea of Galilee

Published in January 29th, 2010

Posted by Pastor in St. Stephen Lutheran Church

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In the lectionary I use for daily prayer, this morning’s gospel reading is from John 6. The chapter begins, “After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee …”
In the gospel stories set in this location, Jesus is frequently crossing to the other side of the Sea of [...]

The Golan Heights, Sepphoris, and Nazareth

Published in January 25th, 2010

Posted by Pastor in St. Stephen Lutheran Church

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Before going on this trip, I thought all of Israel was desert. (That’s what you see in all those cheesy movies about Jesus, isn’t it?) But Israel, a country about the same size as New Jersey, features an amazing variety of geography. Within a few hours of driving, there is desert, the Dead Sea (the [...]

Ah, Jet Lag

Published in January 25th, 2010

Posted by Pastor in St. Stephen Lutheran Church

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Several hours of being wide-awake last night.
The gift of wakefulness is an opportunity to read another short story by Alice Munro. Last night I came across this paragraph from her exquisite story, “Runaway,” in which a woman is describing a recent trip to Greece:
“Where I was, this little village, this little tiny village with my [...]

Two Days in Galilee

Published in January 24th, 2010

Posted by Pastor in St. Stephen Lutheran Church

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I’m writing this from home. There was a problem getting onto the Internet at our last hotel, in Tiberius, so I’m sorry that I haven’t been timely. It’s also the evening of the day I’ve gotten home. So, we’ll see how long I last and how coherent the writing is, with the jet lag and [...]

An extra day at Ein Gedi

Published in January 18th, 2010

Posted by Pastor in St. Stephen Lutheran Church

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Something extremely unusual happened last night. It rained. All night. And, since Ein Gedi is right next to the Salt/Dead Sea, which is the lowest elevation on the entire earth, all of Israel (well, as far north and west as Jerusalem) drains into the Sea.
There is one main north-south road in this part of the [...]

Shabbat Shalom

Published in January 16th, 2010

Posted by Pastor in St. Stephen Lutheran Church

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Sabbath peace, from the Kibbutz Ein Gedi, on the Dead Sea.
This is a wonderful day off from the relentless schedule of the tour. I slept eight and a half hours last night — until 7:30 AM — and spent a leisurely hour and a half doing Morning Prayer and reading the Bible and thinking [...]

Two Days in Jerusalem

Published in January 13th, 2010

Posted by Pastor in St. Stephen Lutheran Church

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We’ve spent two FULL days in the holy city of Jerusalem, under the expert guidance of Dr. Monte Luker, Professor of Hebrew Bible at the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, in Columbia, SC. (The two other professors along provide occasional commentary.)
We have spent time on Temple Mount (where the temple was during Jesus’ time; where the [...]

Climbing Mt. Sinai

Published in January 11th, 2010

Posted by Pastor in St. Stephen Lutheran Church

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I’m in Jerusalem!
We’ve been in Egypt the past four days. We were in Cairo the first two, and I felt like it was warp speed touring. We saw the Egyptian Museum, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, and some other sites, but I didn’t feel like we spent enough time at any of them. It was interesting [...]

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- Spiritual Nourishment at a Council Meeting March 10, 2010
  Faith formation is the aim of everything we do as a congregation — every worship service, every study group, every children’s class, even every meeting! Yes, even meetings are sources of spiritual nourishment — when we’re attentive to God’s presence with us; aware that the work we are to be about is God’s work; discerning how [...] […]
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- Word Play March 10, 2010
  A.) Out on my early morning bike ride, I saw this saying on a car license plate: Y Tax Is this driver protesting all taxes, or just the personal property tax? If I ever see that car in a parking lot, I think I’ll put this note under the windshield wiper: Y tax? 2 repair the roads u drive ur [...] […]
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- Out Like A Lamb? March 8, 2010
  Robin and Linda Williams are a husband-wife folk singing duo who live outside Staunton, Virginia. Patty and I have seen them in concert six or seven times. (They usually play with two other musicians, a bass player and a mandolin player, who they call their “Fine Band.”) In one of my favorite Robin and [...] […]
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- When the time is right… March 5, 2010
  During an April, 2002 visit to the Strand book store in New York City, I bought Walking the Bible, by Bruce Feiler. I had heard that it was good, and I thought I should buy it, because I should read it. (The bonus was that the book was on one of the countless remainders tables [...] […]
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- Shuffling Along March 3, 2010
  I’ve been having a terrible time sleeping. You know, the basic stuff: awake in the middle of the night with the old confusion – forgetting that I’m not the Creator; I’m only the creature; and so I can’t “fix things”; I can only do the work God gives me to do; and so why am I [...] […]
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- Could this be a new avenue for Christian civic participation? March 2, 2010
  I love this revision of the current populist mood! Could there be promise in this, for Christian civic participation? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/us/politics/02coffee.html?ref=todayspaper […]
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- Giving Thanks for the Blessings of this Day … March 1, 2010
  … and praying for those who are suffering. I was moved by this picture of two Chilean women, with their children, at dawn. They are just outside of their houses, which were near the epicenter of the earthquake. All night, sitting up, worried about aftershocks and without shelter. And for a current report on the complete breakdown [...] […]
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- The Lunar Phase February 27, 2010
  Last night, up for a “body break” in the middle of the night, I noticed how bright the light was outside. A full moon! That means Easter is only one lunar cycle away — since, of course, Easter is the first Sunday affter the first full moon following the Vernal Equinox. (Of course! You knew that, [...] […]
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- Two colds in one season! February 26, 2010
  I never catch a cold! Well, that’s been true in past years. This week, I’ve been socked in by a terrible cold; the second one I’ve had in three months! (The first hit me at the end of Advent, and I simply had to keep going, or so I assumed in my [...] […]
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- Rain is wonderful February 25, 2010
  I made an extravagent purchase a couple of months ago: a Bose “Soundlink” system. The system includes a plug-in to a computer’s USB port. When I go to a radio station’s internet site and click on its live stream, the plug-in becomes a transmitter, sending the signal to a portable speaker with incredible sound. I [...] […]
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St. Stephen Lutheran Church and Preschool

Snow? In Williamsburg??

Pictures Have Been Added!

To the other side of the Sea of Galilee

The Golan Heights, Sepphoris, and Nazareth

Ah, Jet Lag

Two Days in Galilee

An extra day at Ein Gedi

Shabbat Shalom

Two Days in Jerusalem

Climbing Mt. Sinai

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