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Love Show Up – looking back on Easter

Love Shows Up and makes an impact! The gospel for this Sunday, April 28 is about Thomas, you remember, the one who ‘doubted’. He wanted to see the nail holes in Jesus’ hands before he believed. I often feel like him- wanting to make sure of the facts before putting my whole heart into something. Pastor Wally Gustav is going to preach at Holy Cross this week (Sunday at 9:30 am) about that story – I have the sunday off, but before I go, I want to talk about Easter – the first Sunday of Easter, April 21st at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Salem. We had a lot of people show up – with big smiles, and lots of kids! The kids sermon was at the chancel (the floor by the foot of the altar) so we could accomodate them all and Natalie Nyquest saved me by helping pass out things to the kids!  The kids were very interested in the stickers I brought!002 Continue reading “Love Show Up – looking back on Easter”

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Love Shows Up

Love Shows Up! – At Easter, in our lives, and we ought to pay attention. This week at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Salem, Oregon, we had Love Show up in a couple of ways – first some amazing young men from Blanchet (Catholic School here in Salem) showed up to add their artistic touches to our Garden!  The Garden is already wonderful – its a joint project of my church, and La Casita – the little house which is a ministry to our neighborhood here at the corner of Sunnyview and Lansing – it features a Thursday coffee time for local mothers and young children, as well as the amazing Garden which the La Casita ladies plant and maintain the last few years (Holy Cross planted it for a few years to start). We have Garden Club every summer in there for local kids, too. But these young men showed up and painted the Garden in such a wonderful, whimsical way! We are so pleased!IMG_3281 Continue reading “Love Shows Up”

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Gethsemane

My husband Joe and I were in the Garden of Gethsemane in late January. The olive trees, gnarled and old, will stay with me for a long time. Our guide told us some olive trees live up to 2000 years. So, the olive trees we gazed upon that day are connected, somehow to the olive trees that Jesus was among on his last night with friends.  Continue reading “Gethsemane”

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Tragedy on all fronts

The memories come back for me, of four little girls killed in the bombing of a church, September 15, 1963, in Birmingham Alabama. I was a little girl, and yet I have a wisp of a memory. Years later I would watch the documentary https://www.amazon.com/4-Little-Girls-Spike-Lee/dp/B00KG2RCS0 and begin to get the facts straight in my own mind. These acts of burning traditionally black churches are designed I suppose to be an attack on the black community, and yet they seem to me nothing so noble, rather, they are simply acts of hatred. Continue reading “Tragedy on all fronts”

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Walking Alongside – then what?

A vision of two people walking a dusty road for seven miles as they leave Jerusalem, heading toward Emmaus. Their steps are heavy, but I do not see them as broken. Their story is recounted in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 24. They are Cleopas and the other one, who leave on Easter Sunday, headed home. But we had hoped, is the phrase that defines this walk. They had hoped that He (Jesus) was the one to redeem Israel. Perhaps you know the story. These two are joined by a third, who asks questions, and is told the story of the one these two were following, and of his death. They have heard from some women in thier company that he has not stayed dead, but they are not convinced.  Continue reading “Walking Alongside – then what?”