Today’s message was written by Guest Pastor, Chaplin Bob Griffiths. I never know when and how God is going to bless me. Forget the big stuff (blinding lights, thunderclaps, etc.) because, like Elijah experienced, God most often comes as a “still, small voice” – and that voice often is another of God’s children (that would […]
Today’s message was written by Guest Pastor, Chaplin Bob Griffiths. Poet Emily Dickinson wrote that “Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul,” where it sings without pause. She tells us that it sounds sweetest “in the gale” and that she’s heard it “in the chillest land and on the strangest sea.” How […]
Today’s message was written by Guest Pastor, Chaplin Bob Griffiths. Since retiring from full-time chaplaincy in 2020, I have been blessed with opportunities to continue that ministry in varying situations. One of the most meaningful has been to work with men transitioning from prison life to civilian life. It has shown me how God can […]
Today’s message was written by Guest Pastor, Chaplin Bob Griffiths. It is easy to be the object of love. But who is it I’m supposed to love? The answer is that we don’t set the definitions: Jesus does. “Love thy neighbor.” And Jesus defines a neighbor as anyone we meet. Anyone? How many of those awful people around me […]
Today’s message was written by Guest Pastor, Chaplin Bob Griffiths. We read in the Bible of the many ways that the Holy Spirit operated through history from the beginning: “And the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” Then, later, the Spirit came to the prophets and then, in the New Testament, to Zechariah and […]
In my fifteen years of hospice and nursing home ministry, I heard some wonderfully moving comments and questions from people with dementia. Joan W., for instance, near the end of her life: “Why do I love Jesus so much?” Elizabeth N., as December began in 2007: “When Jesus comes, will he walk with me in […]
The two richest periods of spiritual development in Christian history were the periods of eremitic movements – eremitic, from which we get the word hermit. The first was the time of the desert fathers and mothers – the desert spirituality of 200-400. The second was the eremitical movements of roughly 1000-1300, which brought us religious […]
On the bedroom wall, I have a framed calligraphic rendering of my favorite message from the prophet Micah: “This is what the Lord asks of you, only this: to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God.” It is challenging to manifest that in this angry world. I need to strive […]
Most of us can recall bits of poetry we once read as kids in English class, even though we may not remember the name of the poem or the context of the quote. And so it is with poems about hope. Alexander Pope, for example, in his “Essay on Man (1732): “Hope springs eternal in […]
There can be many kinds of resurrection in our lives at any time. Your spirit, for instance. Is it beaten down by 15 months of COVID-related difficulties and challenges? Other issues? Mine was. I spent several months last summer in a depression brought on by the pandemic, my retirement from the most rewarding ministry of […]
