The Sauntering Pilgrim

October 2, 2022

Increasing Our Faith

I don’t know why the “apostles said to [Jesus], ‘Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5). It may have been because their faith was being increasingly tested. Jesus had told them clearly about the high cost of following his way (Luke 9:21-27). Now they’re on the way to Jerusalem, where his death awaits him (9:51), and he… Continue reading

Ruminations

abundant life, assurasnce, catechism, Christian love, conviction, cost of discipleship, creeds, faith, guarding the good treasure, I believe, keep it simple, Martin Luther, Occam's Razor, power of love, testing faith
September 25, 2022

A faithful use of money

If it’s not a church-goer’s nightmare, it’s probably at least a very bad dream – a gospel passage and a sermon about money, about our relationship with it, and about how we use it – but it leads to helpful guidance for how to faithfully use the money entrusted to our care. I’m referring not… Continue reading

Ruminations

Christian use of money, financial stewardship, God and wealth, John Wesley, Lazarus, Lazarus and dives, lovers of money, money, stewardship, wealth
September 18, 2022

Choose

Today is Rally Day in our congregation, as it is in many others. Family vacations and holidays are mostly over. The kids are back in school; high school students are back in class; college students have begun a new semester. And in the church, we’re gearing up for a new season of ministry. Before we… Continue reading

Ruminations

Carl Sandburg, choice, choosing, critical moments, daily choices, discontent, harmony with God, James Russell Lowell, little cat feet, loyalty, new beginning, Promised Land, quality of life, Rally Day, restlessness, Saint Augustine, shaping life, to serve God, two masters, why
September 11, 2022

Finding the missing piece

There used to be a feature in the Sunday Buffalo News called The Magic Eye. At first glance, it appeared to be the kind of image you’d see on your computer screen when the mother board was failing, a mass of colorful, squiggly, incoherent lines. But if you changed your perspective and focused your eyes… Continue reading

Ruminations

abundand life, authentic Christianity, community, division, dualism, God's perspective, inclusiveness, kingdom of God, parable of the lost sheep, parables, reconciliation, reign of God, the aim of ministry, the gospel, the hundred sheep
September 4, 2022

The blessing of true community

The best blackberry cobbler I ever ate was served in the mid 1960s during a family reunion. Four generations of the Neal clan harvested pail after pail of the big, juicy fruit from the hillside behind the house in the Oriole Valley where my grandfather was born and raised. The next day some of those… Continue reading

Ruminations

authentic community, banquet of heaven, Bowling Alone, common life, community, family reunion, God's vision of community, Hbakkuk's vision, laboratory of faith, loss of community, Robert Putnam, spiritual laboratory, true community
August 29, 2022

Coming down to earth

Appearances are almost always deceptive. You need to look at a person very closely, with full attention and sometimes for a long time, to see the truth hidden below the surface. And a person’s truth is not found so much as it is revealed. In a congregation I served several years ago, there was a… Continue reading

Ruminations

abundant life, Antaeus, Bronnie Ware, confession, down to earth, downward mobility, expressing feelings, Five Top Regrets of the Dying, friends, God-nature, happiness, Hercules, humble, humility, mother earth, second half of life, spiritual birth, staying in touch, true to yourself, upward mobility, working hard
August 21, 2022

The call to stand tall

Today’s gospel (Luke 13:10-17) begins as a story about the healing of “a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years” (v. 11). It’s also a story about the need to look clearly at what’s happening in our lives, and about raising our vision so we might see something greater and live… Continue reading

Ruminations

abundant life, authentic self, church attendance decline, church is dying, church membership decline, civic engagement, dancing with God, dancing with the Spirit, dependence, disrupting normal, dreams, falling short, full potential, healing, hope, making all things new, possibility, prevenient grace, priorities, seeing clearly, self-awareness, social action, spirituality, woman in the synagogue
August 14, 2022

With the eye of the heart

After reading today’s gospel (Luke 12:49-56), I have a bone to pick with Jesus. I understand he might have felt frustrated with those who didn’t see what he saw, who didn’t understand what he understood. I imagine he might have wondered if he’d ever get through to the knuckleheads who wanted to be his disciples… Continue reading

Ruminations

born of the Spirit, hypocrites, identity, in a glass darkly, integrity, kingdom of God, mask, new birth, seeing, self-deception, spiritual blindness, Thomas Merton, transformation, what are you living for?, William Stafford
July 24, 2022

Teach us to pray

One of Jesus’ disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). If there’s ever a time when we need to learn how to pray, this is it. Following every mass shooting, as predictable as sunrise, the comments come, mostly from politicians and public officials, about communities being in their “thoughts and prayers.”… Continue reading

Ruminations

a precarious life, Anne Lamott, community, effective prayer, God at the ceneter, healing, Help, ineffective prayer, Jabez, justice, living in community, Make America Great Again, make the nation great again, Our Father in heaven, peace, prayer, prayer for shooting victims, prayer of Jabez, prayer of Jesus, precarious, principles of prayer, relationship with God, Thanks, the Lord's prayer, thoughts and prayers, to pray, transformation, transforming prayer, what is prayer?, Wow
July 17, 2022

First things first

An approaching vacation brings to mind the words of Pogo, the cartoon character who’s been one of my longstanding spiritual advisors. “Important work,” he said, “like sittin’ around fishin’ remains to be done.” I’m not a fisherman, but I do enjoy “sittin’ around” occasionally. And I recall the words of William Henry Davies (1871-1940), the… Continue reading

Ruminations

Pogo, sittin' around fishin', vacation

About Me

Rich Neal is, in no particular order, a wordsmith and graphic designer; lover of typography, books, and publishing; photographer; contemplative; saunterer; and a retired and still-active pastor. He claims neither special wisdom nor particularly deep insight into life, only occasional glimpses of what lies behind the veil along the way. He shares them here in the hope of connecting the pieces of life’s puzzle that come to him in the journey and would consider it a gift if sharing them also connected him with others who travel an unmarked path toward the same unknown end.