“When Love Is Divine” 

So many songs through the years get at it.  " Heaven, I'm in heaven . . .when we're dancing cheek to cheek", Irving Berlin wrote and Fred Astaire sang in 1935, in the movie "Top Hat". "Almost paradise; we're knocking on heaven's door . . . I swear that I can see forever in your eyes, Paradise! It seems like perfect love´s so hard to find . . .." Eric Carmen and Dean Pitchford wrote, and Ann Wilson and Mike Reno sang, 49 years later, in 1984, in the movie "Footloose".  And 29 years later, in 2013, in a fascinating (and borderline scandalous) reworking of metaphors, Hozier wrote and sang in his song "Take Me To Church": "I should've worshipped her sooner; If the Heavens ever did speak she is the last true mouthpiece . . . the only heaven I'll be sent to is when I'm alone with you". 

We desire to find love in our lives, and we desire to find love that is "heavenly"--that is "divine"--that indeed transcends the day-to-day humdrum workaday lives we find ourselves living.  And we write songs about it, and dream of it, and sometimes even seek it out, and grasp for it--not always in successful ways, because more often than not it is like trying to catch a butterfly--you're better off being in the area where the butterflies are, and waiting for one to land on you.  And it is fairly inevitable that one will, particularly if you don't scare it away. 

"Not Yet Old Enough," and "Seeing God"

This Sunday, April 8, my colleague and friend Rev. Dr. William B. Randolph will be preaching (and I am excited to hear him!).  Will and I have known each other for years, and as he is now back in Western Pennsylvania after a stint in Nashville as Director of Aging and Older Adult Ministries for the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church.  His sermon at 9:15 will be "Not Yet Old Enough" from Psalm 139:1-18; at 11 it will be "Seeing God" from Genesis 33:1-15.

Click on this link to the Pastor’s Ponderings for April 8, 2018, to learn more about Will and to check out the Scriptures for Sunday.

See you in worship, at 9:15 AM (Modern) and/or 11:00 AM (Traditional).

                                      Grace and Peace, Pastor Bruce

Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday Thoughts

We love the kind of stories where seeming defeat is overcome with unexpected, redemptive victory.  That is Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter in a nutshell. More than a redemptive story of victory in the face of defeat, it is THE redemptive story of victory in the face of defeat.  It is the prototype for the kind of story we all love.

To do a fuller justice to the story (I can't claim to really do it the full justice it deserves), ATTEND ALL THREE of the worship services, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday.  Experience the emotions, the questions, the unfolding of the events. You will appreciate even more THE prototype redemptive story, and that YOU are part of it.

“Desire and Obsession”

Once again, I draw from the wisdom and fluency of Frederick Buechner: "Lust is the craving for salt of a person who is dying of thirst".  How does this tie in with Jesus processing into Jerusalem on that Palm Sunday a couple of thousand years ago? How does that tie in with him being crucified by the Friday of that same week? We'll look at this on Sunday, and you can read a longer exposition of this idea through this link to the Pastor’s Ponderings for March 25, 2018.

See you in worship, at 9:15 AM (Modern) and/or 11:00 AM (Traditional).

                                      Grace and Peace, Pastor Bruce