Pastor Don's Ponderings

 "You need to stand and listen to the graves of the saints." In a Zoom meeting the other day, one of the members present observed that it seems our current world culture really has not learned much from our shared past. Referencing the overt bigotry against the LGBTQIA+ community, the ongoing racial unrest in so many forms, the painful grievous nature of the ongoing warfare in Ukraine, and our shared unwillingness to extend mercy and grace to others that they not be brought low by our stiff-necked system of beliefs within the Church itself, another of the participants, a Veteran of the military and of the cross as a minister, quietly, simply said, "You need to stand and listen to the graves of the saints." That so struck me, I wrote it down immediately and have been mulling on that wisdom ever since. What does it mean to, ". . . listen to the graves of the saints"? Then came the most recent of school shootings, this one in a Nashville, Tennessee, Christian...

 I stepped out of our home early this morning just to breathe in the dawning moments of the day when, unexpectedly, it struck me, 'Spring!' There was something about the very smell of the air, whether in something which is budding or blooming, something in the nearing weather system that my arthritis is pinging on, or something of the very day itself, my mind just instantly nearly yelled the word, 'Spring!', and I was transported back to when I was a kid growing up on our family dairy farm. As I stood outside our home this morning, my heart transported me to the twelve year old boy standing at the water hydrant waiting for a five gallon bucket to fill with water to be carried to the calves. It was there this morning's air was first consciously thought of as 'Spring!', overflowing with the sound of robins, cardinals, redwings, finches and blackbirds singing at the top of their lungs, layered with nearby wheat fields greening and pastures rising out of dormanc...