Pastor Tom's Community

We fall; we rise. We are adjudicated and found guilty and then … The Judge steps down from the bench to plead our case. It is as if we cannot lose; every loss becomes a win.

The psalms teach us to pray deeply and honestly without pretense or presumption. They just let it out and then let God sort it all our. What if we did not judge or measure our prayers before we prayed them?

                Last of all … Servant of all … A child ….                 and the one who receives the child … These are the greatest because they have become the least. "And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first,…

  I have often availed myself of the wide place. I was having a moment of gratitude the other day when I realized that I was not wobbling, staggering, and swaying as I had been at other times in my life. I was sure happy for the wide places when I was. " You gave…

Several years ago, I was  browsing, looking for that quote from Aeschylus on the awful grace of God. Naturally, most links were to Bobby Kennedy's speech on that terrible night in 1968 when he had to inform the gathered crowd of the assassination of Martin Luther King. He was advised not to attend the rally for fear of…

“This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead.” – John 21:14 My favorite event in the early years of my schooling was neither recess nor lunch; it was “Show and Tell. “ Students would bring objects from home and tell stories about…

   “LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. “– Psalm 8:1 Creation gets in our face over the matter of the excellent majesty and power of God. Sometimes it simply takes our breath away in its function of inspiring awe among the…

"And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs." – Luke 24:13 I can’t help it. Whenever I am out on an open highway with no end in sight, I imagine Willie Nelson singing, “On the Road Again.” And then I have to…

"One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people." – Exodus 2:11 It was a day of awakening for Moses. It was not his best day, but it was a turning point out of which would come good. He saw what he had never seen before and he realized that his very own people were being oppressed. What good might have Moses…

What is the sacrament of failure? It is the offering of reality that accepts the reality of our vulnerability, our flaws, our incapacity, and our wavering resolve in light of God's unwavering grace, mercy, and love. It is the simple pathway through which pass on the way to and with the Way. It is the…