A Devotional from Rev. Bridgett Green Temporary new normal. Getting back to normal. In this time of surviving the spread and mitigation of COVID-19, these are common refrains in daily conversations. They help us as adjust to a life of social distancing and staying at home. Maybe in a few weeks or a few months, we will return to normal. Or maybe, we won’t. Lately, I have wondered whether I want to return to normal. Do I want life to return as it used to be? Regardless of my preference, living through this pandemic is changing me. I imagine that it …
A Lenten Devotional
A devotional from staff member Martha Sloan Written from a study her church has been reading, “Lent in Plain Sight” by Jill Duffield. In the book, Duffield takes common objects like coins, sandals, oil, etc. and uses them as the basis for her Lenten meditations. In Martha’s devotional, the object is “coats.” Exodus 28:4-5 “These are the vestments that they shall make: a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a checkered tunic, a turban, and a sash. When they make these sacred vestments for your brother Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests, 5 they shall use gold, blue, purple, …
#ConfessionsOfAPastor – Psalm 51
A devotional from Rev. Dr. Aram Bae I’m tired of this. We’re three weeks deep, and I am over this (truth be told, I was over it after day 3). I’m having a hard time with this stay at home, work from home, take an afternoon stroll, Zoom everything, FaceTime some things, record this and that, email non-stop because everything is an emergency and changes quickly, must stay in front of the situation and not behind, do this and that creatively and online, look at the screen, multiple screens at the same time, grab your earbuds, where the heck are …
“Be still, and know that I am God!” Psalm 46:10
A devotional from Lewis Galloway March 24, 2020 One of the hardest things to do in a crisis is to be still! As a confirmed extrovert, I have never found, even in easy times, stillness and quiet to come easily. Being told to be still is a bit like being told to calm down when the mind, heart and body are on fire with anxiety. The words of W. B. Yeats, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world… (The Second Coming)” fit our time. The lives of loved ones are threatened by a …
SO, WE DO NOT LOSE HEART
A devotional from the Rev. Eileen Lindner The following is a reflection on 2 Corinthians 4:7-18. Offered at the MRA Board Meeting, March 17, 2020 In this fraught moment of the coronavirus pandemic Paul reminds us that we “have these treasures in clay jars…” Today all over the globe these clay jars are sickened, shattered and broken by the coronavirus. We know that as the clay jars break so to do human hearts. For such a time as this did Paul write these words of courage, faith and hope. “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed but …