Pastor Don's Ponderings

 At one of our son's home the other morning I happened to step out the front door and look up in time to see this: Three jets on divergent paths, each with a vapor trail marking their route away from the others. In the cold morning sunshine it took me a few moments to recognize what was happening above me, then a few moments more to open my cell phone for a couple of pictures. After looking into the sun shining brightly in my screen and hoping upon hope the camera had captured the action in the skies over my head, I stepped back and watched all three aircraft go their own way and wondered where they were going and from whence they had come. When first I spotted them, they appeared so close that it fleetingly crossed my mind that they might have each just appeared there, then started from a mutually agreed upon point in the sky. That is what made me stop and watch them. Yes, I know it was all an optical illusion, that in reality they had thousands of feet, maybe even miles between t...

 Cathartic. That is what the daffodils in the vase are to my inner child, cathartic. This morning, while sitting in one of the patient rooms of my dermatologist, when asked by the doctor if there was anything she needed to know, without a whole lot of forethought I expressed our family's gratitude for the care she had exercised in tending to my Dad for the last couple of years. You see, throughout his later years, Dad had been treated quite often for a variety of skin cancers and, in the course of time, had undergone somewhere around twenty-five or six different surgeries, not to mention the numerous skin spots the doctors had frozen on his skin. If that seems like a unusually high number of procedures, just remember that Dad lived to 97 years of age - and had spent most of his life working the land in the sun.  Long before the idea of skin cancers and other sun-related skin issues, Dad had worked in the sun, first behind horses and mules, then on tractors which had no cabs an...

 Attending a volleyball match the other evening, I was in an excellent position to capture a few photos of our granddaughter, Norah, on the court throughout the sets. After arriving home and taking some time to sort through the photos which, earlier, I had only seen through the cell phone lens, I realized that many of the images captured Norah soaring through the air, flying in such a manner as to meet the volleyball and command its return to the hinterlands on the other side of the net. Looking through the photos time and time again, it occurred to me . . .  Superman has children - and the oldest of them is named Norah. Oh, I have observed this mild mannered young lady since first she was born and, to be perfectly candid, I didn't realize how obvious her superpowers are. So on this day, it was as though she arrived at the gym as a normal young lady, hanging with her teammates, making jokes, assessing the other team, warming up, getting ready. Yet, somewhere in the midst of th...

 "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few." Matthew 9:37 I was blessed to spend yesterday at the farm helping with harvest. As equipment changes and becomes more complex, so are reduced the number of farming operations I am prepared to step into on a moment's notice or on the chance day off from ministry. Hauling grain, either to the elevator or to the farm for storage, is something I still know how to do, so haul grain I did. Corn in the morning, soybeans in the afternoon. You couldn't ask for a better day. Late afternoon, as the sun was winding its way down towards the western horizon and the dust from the combine was hanging in that lazy lingering fashion like a shroud covering the land for a half mile or so, I caught this picture of my brother, Larry, as he was maneuvering the combine through the field. Less than one percent of the total American population is actively engaged in farming, an even lesser amount are on true family farms. Larry, along with...

Sometimes it seems that our American culture has become so obsessed with rooting out the worst seen in each other that we have lost our own sense of the good God has placed in each one of God's own children. It is as if the Kingdom can only be that which we approve it as being. When Jesus speaks in parables concerning the Kingdom of God in the Gospel according to Matthew, He teaches about the tiny mustard seed, the beautiful pearl, the hidden treasure, the yeast . . . and of a Sower who casts seeds about willy-nilly, and of a Landowner willing to allow the weeds to grow up along with the wheat until the day of harvest. In telling His parables, I wonder if Jesus ever took into account the possibility that the created would one day weary of searching for the plantings of the Creator? That rather than seek the mustard seed we would only be happy with the full-grown bush? That instead of treasuring the found pearl we would insist on the full jewelry store? That instead of committing ou...

Jeremiah received the Lord’s word: Go down to the potter’s house, and I’ll give you instructions about what to do there. So I went down to the potter’s house; he was working on the potter’s wheel.  But the piece he was making was flawed while still in his hands, so the potter started on another, as seemed best to him.  Then the Lord’s word came to me: House of Israel,  can’t I deal with you like this potter, declares the Lord?  Like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in mine, house of Israel! Jeremiah 18:1-6 CEB   The good news is this: We are in God’s hands. We may be cracked, flawed, weak, unprepared, seemingly unusable, unstable or even outright broken, yet we are still in God’s hands. I don’t know about you, but I am clinging to that good news with all my heart, mind and spirit!! Pulling down statues does not change history. Changing your heart and being molded by the Potter transforms the present and the future. Covid-19 exploits our weaknesses...

In June of 2017 Nancy and I had the good fortune to share in a trip with her brother, Bill, and his wife, Cathy, to visit their son and our nephew, Andrew, and his lovely wife, Christine, while they were stationed in Germany with the Air Force. Christine and Andrew had arranged time off to travel with us and planned a comprehensive and thorough trip around the country which included an overnight stay in the walled castle town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Rothenburg ob der Tauber, the red roofed city above the Tauber River, was officially founded in 1274, though its roots are believed to date back into the 10th century. It was an amazing place to visit and wander through the streets, shops, restaurants and on the covered wall which circles nearly the entire community, allowing the history and enduring beauty of this piece of God's creation to seep into your soul.  While there we had the good fortune to take a tour of the oldest part of the town near sunset of our first day. Gui...

When my 94 year old Dad tells stories about the Depression years and the time of rationing during WWII he inevitably ends up highlighting memory after memory of how people took care of people, family took care of family, and communities took care of each other. Yes, he talks about not having much, about how little money and resources were readily available and about how you made something out of nothing at all. Everything was kept to be reused in another way, nothing was thrown away and time was taken to mend, repair and restore . . . 'disposable' just was not an option. Yet, more than anything else of which he speaks regarding those times, Dad speaks of relationships: parents and children, neighbors and strangers, those who had something sharing with those who didn't . . . and the list goes on and on. Those were times which galvanized communities and families, times which shaped the collective spirit and imagination of nations and cultures, times which forged strength...