Sam and Debbie are great friends, the kind of friends that when you are talking you pick up right where you left off no matter how long ago it was that you left off. We first met Sam and Debbie 24 years ago when we first arrived at First Presbyterian Church in Menominee, Michigan.  To say they are good friends is an understatement. Continue reading →

You would think they could make an exception.

We Presbyterians are suspicious of too much power. We know too much power is a dangerous thing. We worry, especially, about pastors with too much power. We limit what a pastor can do without consulting with or having approval from the elders. And for the sake of a balance of power, we tell the elders there are a few thing a pastor can do without approval from the elders.  All in all, it is a good system.

But you would think they could make an exception. Continue reading →

Predictable as an April shower, our annual storm of Easter indignation has blown in, this time from across the Atlantic.

The National Trust in the U.K., sort of the National Endowment for the Arts, oversees Easter egg hunts every year at over 250 sites throughout the country. Cadbury, the big chocolate company famous for its chocolate eggs, is the corporate sponsor. Some of the promotional materials for the 2017 edition of this annual event are calling it the Cadbury Egg Hunt, Easter is no longer listed as one of the corporate sponsors.

The Prime Minister, prelates of the Church of England, and all the tabloids have declared positions in this scandal. One more step in the de-Christianizing of the nation, some say. Political correctness run amok others opine.  Cadbury, for its part, claims nothing but altruism; its only thought for the growing population of non-Christian children who might enjoy the day on the village green. Apparently it never occurred to them that they might sell a few more of their famous chocolate eggs.

The neo-pagans are delighted, saying the Christians had it coming for having stolen the egg from the fertility goddess Oestre’s nest a millennium ago. Continue reading →

Our church member photo directories have arrived. Some of us grabbed our copies last night at the Faith Acts dinner or before choir practice. They will be available Sunday after worship in the Fellowship Hall. Of course 8:30 worshipers will be able to receive theirs right after the service, but 9:45 folks, please wait until Coffee Hour to take yours. I know, some 9:45ers may be tempted to get in line with the 8:30 crowd and get their copy before worship, but you need to know that the ushers have been instructed to confiscate the directory from anyone caught browsing through it during the service. Continue reading →

Last week Becky and I made a quick trip to Boston to see our son and daughter-in-law and their three wonderful children who just happen to be three of our five wonderful grandchildren. The youngest of the three is twenty-months old, and is happy and full of life. Gideon is a good eater, but prefers carbs to vegetables. Just the sight of carrot sticks and cucumber slices on his lunch plate the second day of our visit threw him into the kind of meltdown only a twenty-month old knows how to pull off.

I think Gideon needs a good course in non-Euclidean geometry.

I was a history major in college, but had to take some math and science classes to fulfill the general education requirements. The college offered a series of math courses for non-math majors, and I chose non-Euclidean geometry. The particular form of non-Euclidean geometry we studied was Lobachevskian, for those of you who care about such things. Continue reading →