During this pandemic, God brought back to my mind something that he used a stranger to teach me years ago. When I was in my forties with a full-time job and two children, my widowed mother was hospitalized with complications from breast cancer. She was scheduled to be released from the hospital to our home.…
A few weeks ago, Dr. Harold Coble, a retired professor at NC State, brought our daughter Sarah Kate about 20 tiny monarch caterpillars. He provided a cage and needed food, the milkweed plant. Monarchs begin as eggs before turning into caterpillars and then butterflies. In case you don’t know much about monarchs, they must have…
I would like to share a musical work by Handel that is not as well-known as his oratorio, Messiah, but arguably just as powerful and skillfully wrought. I’m referring to his Dettingen Te Deum, a musical setting of an early (3rd-4th c.) hymn of praise, similar to the Gloria text that we sing in church.…
“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” – Zephaniah 3:17 As this pandemic drags on, I’ve found myself drawn to unexpected places in my Bible reading. I’ve long loved…
In our Staying in Touch video this past week, Paige and I shared a little bit about how we are trusting God for his guidance in these new days. I want to share a bit more concretely how I’m personally attempting to do this while also offering some tools that may be helpful to you…
While each day is feeling more and more like a scene out of the movie, Groundhog Day, navigating these days of unanticipated time with my immediate family has been endearing and unforgettable, peppered with some tense moments. Our college-aged girls moved out of their dorms for the semester and have filled their rooms with a lot of…
At nine o’clock every night, without fail, two men and two women from among the thirty members of a small, informal, Christian community in Huntingdonshire, England, gathered to read aloud antiphonally the entire Psalter, while the others retired for the night. The recitation lasted until about one o’clock in the morning. Every member of their…
A seasoned pastor was once asked this question: “If you were only able to have one book of the Bible, which would you choose?” He responded immediately saying, “That’s easy! The Book of Psalms because they encapsulate every emotion of life.” It’s easy to understand why the pastor would respond in this way. The…
Looking for a special way to observe the season of Lent? You are invited to spend 40 Days with the Psalms. This is the title of our Holy Trinity Lenten prayer booklet and it will be available behind each seat in the church and on tables in the lower lobby and narthex on Sunday, Feb.…
Prayer is a central bedrock of our dynamic relationship with God. Yet all too often, prayer falls to the wayside amidst the busyness of life – often an afterthought or a last-ditch effort during rock bottom times rather than a daily, front-line initiative. This is unfortunate because prayer offers us the exact thing we…