Pastor Tom's Community

We are here today, standing on a rolling ball, trying to maintain our balance yet balanced by an unseen hand.We are suspended between the ground beneath and the sky above and somehow unimpressed.We are ever bumping into one another and looking the other way with muttered apologies for living.We see through and around and over…

Living and working on a shoestring, we are often drawn into a mood of want, breathing the air of scarcity, and singing the song of a beggar. Developing big dreams on a shoestring requires an elevated level of commitment. When you are short on resources, you must draw on something else, something deep and limitless.…

  We dream; we grow;We move; we flow;We laugh; we glow.While here below,We live in anticipationOf pomp and circumstanceAnd graduation.We are matriculated in the school of lifeArticulated by toil and tears and strife.We are students of all that passesWork and play, day by day, our classes.We are classmates with our fellow creatures.These also are our…

"It is in dying that we are born to eternal life." – Prayer of St. Francis So, let me die today and die daily.There is nothing in my instincts to pray such a prayer.But then, there is nothing in my instinctual drive to cling …… to extinct-ual or… extinguishable"living" thatlives beyond the moment.I pray to…

  Judge – The defendant will rise.Defendant – Yes sir, Your Honor.Judge – This court finds you not-guilty of the charge of Grand Larceny.Defendant – Thank you, Your Honor. Does that mean I can keep the watch? Beloved, you do not ultimately answer to me for who you are. I am not your judge. I…

I was looking back over some notes I made on the scriptures for this day several years ago. I was in a bit of a hurry. It is one of the things I deal with. Sometimes I am inclined to hurry God. Seldom have I prayed, "No hurry God – no need to rush." I…

Prayer is a deep spiritual mystery. Mutual communication with God is going on far beneath the surface of our lives. Not only do we often not know what to pray, we often know not what we are praying. This is not said that we might disengage our minds, but that, with engagement, we might also…

The thirst thought I have is to eliminate the "and" because an adequate definition of "shalom" includes "well-being" of all and that includes justice. Furthermore, an adequate definition of justice implies well-being and the righting of wrongs. Peace is not the absence of conflict. That is an inadequate definition of peace. There is plenty of…