There’s a hole in the middle of the street, and I keep hitting it.  Of course, it is pothole season, but this is not so much a pothole as a mini sinkhole.  You may have hit it driving south on Bellevue half way between the Bella Tori and the church.  You can’t miss the thud.

So, I hit the sinkhole on the way to church, get to church and get busy, and not think about it until I hit it again the next time I am out. I don’t know how many thuds it took before I remembered to steer clear of the mini-sinkhole.  The car will probably need a frontend alignment pretty soon.

We hit potholes and sinkholes on our journeys through life, and sometimes it takes way too many thuds before we learn to steer clear of them. Continue reading →

A true story. Names and other details altered slightly.

The request came Sunday afternoon from Ted’s brother who lives in another state.  I did not know Ted or his brother. Would I please visit Ted who had been admitted to the hospital on Saturday and was facing a very serious diagnosis?  The brother and I had a further conversation on Monday and I went to see Ted on Tuesday.

You never know what you might face in a hospital cold call, but I liked Ted almost instantly and, yes, though never much of a church goer, he was happy to talk with a pastor. Ted had not made any room for church and not much room for God in his life because it hadn’t seemed as if there was much need for God or any need for the church.  Saturday had changed everything. Continue reading →

I’m just back from a study leave trip to California. I couldn’t have asked for a better trip, though there was the matter of both the flight from Philadelphia to San Francisco and the flight from San Francisco to Philadelphia being delayed by mechanical issues on the planes.  The outbound flight was flight was two and a half hours late because the original and the replacement plane required repairs of some sort. The passengers never knew exactly what that was all about.

The return trip left San Francisco 90 minutes late because of a missing screw somewhere on the tail rudder.  Apparently the repair took about 20 minutes and the paperwork to document the repair took over and hour to prepare and file.  The passengers were told all about it.

It is a tale of two pilots. Continue reading →

I’ve lost track of exactly how many times I have attended the West Coast Presbyterian Pastors Conference.  I know the number is well over 30.  I began to attend when I lived on the west coast, but before I was a pastor. I have been nearly each of the 25 years I’ve been a pastor, but as a pastor I’ve never lived on the west coast.  Kent will be my roommate once again.  Kent was also the best man at our wedding. Kent and I met our first year of college. We go back a ways. Jonathan and Kristy will be there, as well. We go back only ten years, but in recent years they have come to add even more joy to attending the West Coast Presbyterian Pastors Conference.

The West Coast Presbyterian Pastors Conference always begins eight days after Easter and it is always held at Mount Hermon Conference Center in the redwood forest above Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay on the central coast of California.  The speakers are almost always good and the friendships are of the best sort. Continue reading →

While we were doing some calendar work at our last staff meeting, Tyler, our youth director, noticed that his calendar showed this coming Sunday first as April Fools Day then as Easter. A quiet commentary on our world, if nothing else.

The last time Easter Sunday fell on April 1 was 1956. Only we senior citizens have a memory of an April Fools Day Easter.

My twin brother was the master of April Fools Day.  I fell for his lines more than once in the 1950s. It was probably more like 1959, but I remember the April 1 when Joseph ran excitedly into the house to announce snow was falling. April 1. San Diego, California. I ran to the window to see the never in a lifetime phenomenon. “April Fools!” he shouted victoriously. Continue reading →