Pastor's Message
Pastor's Message for April, 2008
Lightening the Load Janet and I are discovering, in preparing to leave the manse in June after 26 years, what many other "nesters" before us have discovered: it is unbelievable how much household accumulation mark that many years of life... more...
Pastor's Message for March, 2008
Early Easter Easter comes early this year!...about as early as it can possibly come. That fact throws worship planners into a bit of a panic mode as the services of Holy Week and Easter seem to be coming upon us... more...
Pastor's Words to Congregation, Sunday, January 20, 2008
This week all of you who are members or friends of the Dutch Neck Presbyterian Church received the letter announcing my retirement, to be effective June 1st of this year. This morning I would like to reiterate some of the... more...
Pastor's Message for December, 2007
Keep Advent Purple! I was in the local Dunkin Donuts last week purchasing a "Box o' Joe" while a loud pop version of a familiar Christmas carol rang out among the bagels and the coffee beans. As it was yet... more...
Pastor's Message for September, 2007
New Beginnings "New Beginnings" is something of of the theme of our program year ahead at Dutch Neck as we return from summer back into the quickened pace of the fall season. "New beginnings," for me, is a notion... more...
Reflections on 25 Years
Reflections on 25 Years (I want to share some of the remarks I made at the grand celebration the congregation threw for Janet and me on June 8th - minus a few of the jokes and escapades related - and... more...
Pastor's Message for February, 2007
Optimism, Pessimism...and Hope I was interested to read in the January 21st New York Times Magazine of all the research and speculation about the effect of either an optimistic or a pessimistic outlook on a person's life. According to some... more...
Pastor's Message for December, 2006
Father Christmas People have various rituals for marking the beginning of the pre-Christmas season, markers that assure us we're "into it" once again for another year. For some, it might be getting out the Christmas music and putting the... more...
Pastor's Message for November, 2006
Look in Any Sanctuary On my youthful trips to and from school, sometimes on foot, sometimes on bicycle, I would invariably go past the All Saints Roman Catholic Church, where my best friend, Bruce Connor, went to church. The church... more...
Pastor's Message for September, 2006
Message in the Stars One of the activities our family enjoys on our Cape Cod vacations is the frequent "walks around the loop" at night, after dinner and before bedtime, when the sky is black and - if the weather... more...
Pastor's Message for July/August, 2006
The Rhythm of the Saints It has long seemed to me that the healthy spiritual life is one that has a sense of rhythm about it. My dictionary defines rhythm as "a regularity or flow of movement which groups by... more...
Pastor's Message for June, 2006
Pentecost...and Beyond Some (almost) summer musings Pentecost is like the popping of the champagne cork - the wine of the Spirit proves to be lively, bubbly, and uncontainable. And once the Holy Spirit is loosed into the life of... more...
Pastor's Message for May, 2006
Keep On Praying Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Romans 12:12 At last"”a scientific study that proves the ineffectiveness of prayer for healing illness, reported the New York Times last month in a story about a... more...
Pastor's Message for April 2006
Resurrection: God Does Something New (This reflection on the meaning of Easter is taken from "The Whole People of God" curriculum from several years ago; I commend it to you as a perceptive understanding of the central event of our... more...
Pastor's Message for March 2006
Back to Basics: Who Are We Presbyterians? For the past four years, a task force has been at work in our Presbyterian Church, seeking to "lead the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in spiritual discernment of our Christian identity in and for... more...
Pastor's Reflection for February, 2006
"Creation's Lord, We Give Thee Thanks..." February, in this northern hemisphere, seems like a good time to ponder God's creation. It feels to be creation's most dormant time. The earth's fecundity is less visible now and must be anticipated for... more...
Pastor's Reflection for January, 2006
Janet shared with me this week a poem that she found on the internet. Isn't it strange how princes and kings, and clowns that caper in sawdust rings, and common people, like you and me, are builders for eternity? Each... more...
Pastor's Reflection for November, 2005: "A Faith That Soars... and Sustains"
One of the things that catches my eye frequently is the Salisbury Cathedral, in Wiltshire, in south central England. I have only been there once, nearly fifteen years ago, but it catches my eye because a print of John Constable's... more...
October 2005: Big Tent
It seems I never get as much reading done in the summer as planned, and especially as vacation time is deliciously taken up with more important family matters such as building sand castles with grandchildren or solving the New York... more...