When bugs of various kinds appear in our house, it is my responsibility to see that they are escorted out, usually via a simple flush or smashed in a tissue and dropped in the trash can. It’s a good system and I see no reason for us to change it. I’m sorry, I don’t think we need the share our space with little crawly things. But I don’t often appreciate how amazing those little crawly things are.

One of the joys of my week in California was a series of conversations with my brother who lives in San Francisco. It began on a long walk over some of the fabled hills of the city and then into the night and over coffee the next morning. Peter is a very good brother and the conversation was good. Among the things Peter talked about was a book he had read, The Givenness of Things, by Marilynne Robinson. I had read Robinson’s Gilead trilogy, but none of her non-fiction. As Peter talked, I knew I wanted to read The Givenness of Things, so I loaded the Kindle version onto my iPad and it was my companion on the flight back to Philadelphia. Continue reading →

Eight days after Easter. It is a tradition that stretches back to my days as a youth director. Eight days after Easter, the West Coast Presbyterian Pastors Conference begins at the Mount Hermon Conference Center in the redwood forest near Santa Cruz, California. Since I was youth director at First Presbyterian Church in Santa Cruz, California, the conference was a 10-minute commute. My trip to WCPPC began to take the shape of a pilgrimage when it became an annual trek first from Portland, Oregon, then from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, next from Western Pennsylvania and now from Langhorne. Continue reading →

We will sing on Sunday. LPC is a singing church, but especially on Easter Sunday we will sing. The hymns and songs we sing at the first two services are well-known, sung by generations of faithful worshipers. The songs sung at the 11:30 service are more contemporary, but likewise powerful songs declaring “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.” Indeed, “the day of Resurrection, earth tell it out abroad!”

We encourage our members to share Easter worship with their friends. “Bells, brass, Hallelujah Chorus,” we say of the 9:45 service. We’ll set up extra chairs if we need to. The hymns we sing on Sunday are teaching hymns. Both lyrics and tunes nurture our understanding of what happened that day at the center of time. Continue reading →

For LPC people the photo depicts a place that is familiar. For those who are not a part of the worshiping community at Langhorne Presbyterian Church, this is our Sanctuary. We gather here on the Lord’s Day for worship; to hear the Word preached, to receive the Sacraments, and to offer our prayers before the throne of grace, and our praise in hymns and psalms and spiritual songs. In this place promises have been made that bind a man and a woman to a life of faithful marriage, our children have been baptized here, and, having traveled with loved ones through the valley of the shadow of death, we have declared our sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is an important place for us. Continue reading →

Our daughter in Michigan does not like Daylight Saving Time. No wonder. Sturgis, Michigan, is about as far west as you can go and still be in the Eastern Time Zone. This coming Sunday when we spring ahead (even though it is not yet spring – sort of like March Madness spilling in to April), the sun will rise in Sturgis at 7:56 a.m., 43 minutes after we’ve seen the sun in Langhorne. It makes for some very dark March mornings. By mid-June, Sturgis sunset will be around 9:30 p.m. Try putting your two-year old and four-year old to bed at a decent hour when dusky light lasts until 10:00.

When you live in Sturgis, Michigan, you wish they’d just leave well enough alone.

Nine years ago when Daylight Saving Time was extended to nearly eight months, the golf and barbecue industries were the big spenders in lobbying for a mid-March start to DST and the candy companies pushed hard for an early-November end; you sell more candy when trick-or-treaters troll the street when its still light. Read the story here. Continue reading →