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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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The key to life
It would be difficult to count the number of lives Dr. Jonathan Daniels touched, not only the parents and children in his pediatric practice who looked up to him but also the medical students in the school of medicine at the University at Buffalo for whom he was a mentor. “Students at the medical school… Continue reading
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Wind the clock, drive the truck
At the end of their long captivity in Babylon, God promised joy and blessings to the house of Israel and its descendants, descendants that include you and me (Isa. 66:10-14). But what if that house is built upon foundations that crumble? If the foundations are destroyed, what can the good do? The question is as… Continue reading
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The Sauntering Pilgrim 