An Elder Pilgrim's Reflections

  Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone What sort of place comes to mind when you imagine a wilderness?  A dry and weary place, an inner, personal space of hardship? It's comforting to imagine a wilderness this way because we can then place our trust and hope in Jesus who experienced this type of wilderness. Living in the Poconos as I do, the wilderness is more for recreation so placing hope and trust in Jesus is far from the need for placing hope and trust in the Israelite wilderness. The Israelites’ wilderness was a place of survival testing. As their journey went from generation to generation, they had to continue to build on their hope and trust. It is this same trust and hope that is teste...

  And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. (From Matthew 17:1-9 ) For years, Elaine and I made a pilgrimage to Southwest Harbor, a little village in Acadia National Park. We “soaked in God” in quiet moments: sitting on sun-warmed rocks, awe inspired watching sunlight glitter across the breaking waves, and the endless blue. We “soaked in God” hiking, walking Carriage Roads and climbing mountains with awe views of the harbors and coastline. During our stay at our cottage, we made friends with a lobsterman, housekeeping staff, and manager so We visited together, shared meals, of fresh lobster rolls or fish chowder. As time passed travel became difficult, our routine changed, because we could no longer travel that distance to Acadia. Understanding Matthew’s Gospel means knowing what was going on at the time. The synagogues were experiencing arguments about membership and worries about the Roman Empire: A s...

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.      And what does the  Lord  require of you? To act justly and to love mercy      and to walk humbly [ a ]  with your God. (from Micah 6:1-8) The image of 5-year-old Liam Ramos and his bunny hat surrounded by ICE soldiers still haunts me. Recognizing he was walking home from preschool, taken from his dad, transferred to a detention facility, and gets sick while confined, doesn’t help. What kind of experience of loneliness and darkness is this poor child having? How terrified is this boy being transferred from one place to another by soldiers? I find this blog difficult to write because I have been through my own “terrors of the night” (PS 91:5) some as a child, some as a teen, some as a young adult, now some as an elder. This phrase comes from Psalm 91:5, which speaks to finding comfort in faith during times of fear. What creates the difficulty is the apparent lack of hope in a “terr...

  "I waited patiently for the Lord ; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand." (from   Psalm 40 ) Wilson Bentley, also known as Snowflake Bentley, a farmer, American meteorologist, photographer, was the first known person capturing and documenting detailed snowflake photographs. With his camera he developed a method to photograph snowflakes on black velvet before they melted, discovering that each one has a distinct shape. A major scientific contribution of his time was the theory that no two snowflakes were identical. Reflecting on the belief of God as Creator leads me to meditate on the snowflake as a blessing of God’s creation. Looking at a huge, plowed heap of snow at my driveway’s end, I can either see a pile of snow or a mountain of God’s blessings. With continuing media coverage of violence, I feel like I’m in the “slimy pit with mud and mire.” descr...