Wild Dignity
Mag Richer Smith
This week our community made the national news. Floods, water in our houses and businesses… Mess… Distress…for ourselves and our neighbors. We look for a caring community…people who will lift sandbags and help us deal with the muddy situations in life. This week meals have been shared and visits have been made, and we celebrate […]
Being Alone with the Alone
Dan Schrock
Most of us go into the wilderness at some point in our lives, but there are at least two kinds of wilderness experiences. The first kind of wilderness experience is the one most of us do not want. We get divorced, and the divorce is difficult. Our best friend dies, and we mourn for several […]
The More of God
Mag Richer Smith
In 1975, I climbed a mountain. In actuality it was probably just a big hill, and it was behind our short-term voluntary service unit in San Clemente, California. (We were there to help in the resettlement of the boat people who had escaped from Viet Nam.) That morning I’d read an article encouraging women to […]
Come and See
Joanne Gallardo
A few weeks ago, after work I took a look at my news feed on my phone. I find that over the past year I do so with a great amount of fear and trepidation. I was amazed that a certain crude, descriptive word, not censored, no stars or symbols where certain letters should be, […]
A Visual Discipleship
Dan Schrock
On September 19, 2016, our former pastor, Marilyn Rudy-Froese, began a three-and-a-half month sabbatical. None of us knew it at the time, but that day marked the beginning of seven pastoral transitions in our congregation. The first pastoral transition was receiving Ron Guengerich, who worked as a substitute pastor while Marilyn was on sabbatical. When […]
The Boo of Christ
Mag Richer Smith
At the beginning of Advent, I was walking with our 2 year old grandchildren in Pittsburgh. And when we came to a nativity scene in a neighbor’s yard, they both commented that there was no baby Jesus there. Where is he? they wanted to know. I tried to explain that it’s Advent and we are […]
Going Home by Another Route
Joanne Gallardo
Christmas is not over. Not yet, anyway. This Sunday is Ephiphany, the day we celebrate the 3 Magi, or wise men, or kings, who came to Bethlehem because they heard the king of the Jews had been born. The Magi are rather central to the story, because they’ve made such an impression on commercialized Christmas. […]
What Makes a Good Life?
Dan Schrock
What makes for a good life? You can find one vision of a good life at a blog called mrmoneymustache.com. Since 2011 the host of this website, who calls himself Mr. Money Mustache, has been handing out opinioned arguments on how people ought to be managing their money and their work lives. His basic point […]
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