These past weeks, I have been deeply immersed in the final days of the earthy life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated on this day in 1968. Some of that investment is of course due to the service we are holding tonight at 7:00pm, but much is also because his prophetic voice…

Alice got left out of this past Sunday’s sermon, an unfortunate casualty of the cutting room but one that ultimately resulted in a more cohesive sermon. But that omission drives me to include some ruminations that are not likely to fit anywhere else. Most of us are familiar with the Cheshire Cat’s famous line: “We’re…

It slipped by without my realizing it — the two-month mark. Only yesterday, while in conversation with another local clergy-person, did it occur to me that this past Sunday marked our second full month of Sundays together. Time has gone so quickly… and so slowly… somehow simultaneously. I’m embarrassed to admit how much remains in boxes. Those…

March proves transient, especially where the weather is concerned. “In like a lion; out like a lamb,” the voices of old recite, and yet neither they nor we are so naive as to assume any sort of linearity. This may be March’s curse — and gift — this erratic and unpredictable nature to its weather.…

I spent a couple days off my anxiety meds this week. It was not voluntary — a combination of not realizing I was that low until I went to refill my pill sorter, and then the time it takes for the prescription to be transferred to a new pharmacy and filled. I don’t recommend it.…

First, a note: I don’t know how other pastors have used this space, but I’m approaching it as an opportunity to share some of what has been taking up space in my mind and body and spirit each week. At times, you may find these notes dovetail with the sermon to follow on Sunday; at…

I am thinking about resistance. And because I’m me, I’m thinking about how resistance finds force and fuel through music. Now I know that not everyone connects with music in the same way, and as such this week’s column may have a more narrow audience than others. I hope there may be some relevance here…

Folks in our CBC family are being targeted in a texting scam. You may receive a text which appears to be from Pastor Michael, and has your name and asks for a favor. If you check, however, the originating phone number does not belong to him and has too many digits for a US number.…

The fact that I have been in “funeral mode” this past week means that I have also been thinking about one of my favorite modern poets — Mary Oliver, who died just six years ago. For anyone unfamiliar with her work, she wrote beautifully and powerfully about the natural world, the pain and joy of…

Just this morning, while sipping my coffee — one kid clambering on my lap and another watching a cartoon — God spoke to me. But this was not a Moses and the burning bush kind of encounter, nor that of the visions of Isaiah or John the Revelator. Nor (to be clear) was it a…