There is a joke about how to tell if you live in a rural, suburban or urban neighborhood: If you stand naked on the front porch and the neighbors can’t see you, it’s rural. If you stand naked on the front porch and the neighbors call the cops, it’s suburban. If you more »
If you peek around my kitchen, currently perched in a wooden basket on top of the microwave, you will find an empty mason jar. This jar has moved around the kitchen quite a lot the last few months. For a while it was sitting next to my sink, it’s clear glass catching the light and more »
The First Day of Lent. Brittany sat in her car outside of the church. The Ash Wednesday service was over and it was now Lent. She peeked into the mirror on her visor and saw the dark smudge of ashes on her brow. The shape of a cross and it stood out harshly against her more »
The Cracks in My Walls 11/4/2019 Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge I have been doing a lot of painting lately, the painting of walls. Over the last several weeks, I have been immersed in French Colony, a sophisticated grey-blue. I have stirred up two cans of Sand Castle, a creamy latte tan and I have more »
Try Something NewRev. Karen Fitz La Barge 1/9/2019 Recently, my family and I went out to eat and we decided to try out a, “new to us” restaurant. We all love Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai food, but we each have our favorite dishes that we tend to order over and over again. My daughter is more »
Kayla and James stood together in the doorway of their 3 year old’s bedroom. It was, for once, blessedly quiet. Their eyes moved over the plethora of items scattered all over the floor. Stuffed animals, duplo blocks, plastic dinosaurs, trucks, board books, balls, socks, and happy meal toys were all sprawled without dignity where they more »
Our flat-roofed fixer-upper house is located on a small lake. Every year we watch a new spring flock of baby geese grow from excited balls of fuzz to awkward and indolent teens by midsummer and turn into mostly disciplined young flyers eager to migrate south in the fall. In 2011, one gosling was deformed. His more »
“If Jesus could live his life breaking so many of the rules of the Old Testament in the pursuit of his mission to enact the love of God upon the world, what makes us think that we should be so concerned with making hundreds of rules that we would impose on other people?” -Rev. Karen more »
Cultural Changes and the Church The idea for the Pony Express came out of necessity. California had experienced a gold rush, they were part of the still growing union of states and the population living there needed to be able to have fast reliable communication with the rest of the country back east. To that end, more »
