Throughout Advent, I’m grateful for the chance to offer a series of reflections about Advent and the grief we experience in our lives, in our churches, and in our world. Part two: The forgotten sadness of congregational grief Advent has begun. Thanksgiving’s leftovers are mostly finished, and the pace of life is picking up. At church, hallways are festooned with…
For the next three weeks, I’ll be offering a series of reflections about Advent and the grief we experience in our lives, in our churches, and in our world. Part One: Singing Silent Night in a minor key Grief’s appearance during Advent and Christmas rattles us like the ghosts who inhabit Ebenezer Scrooge’s Christmas Eve dreams. While our culture is…
As I fumbled to fill the church’s Advent candles with oil on Sunday, I found myself snagged by the grief’s sneaky undertow. But that is how grief often operates. It is much less a sequence of predictable events we can check off than it is a series of repeating waves that rise and fall according to their own somewhat random…
Healing the Heart: Grief and the Body A Virtual Afternoon Pastor’s Retreat June 24, 2021, 1:30 – 4:30 PM Sponsored by the Presbyteries of Missouri Union, Giddings-Lovejoy, Northern Kansas, and Southern Kansas “Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.” – Oscar Wilde EVENT FLYER FOUND HERE | REGISTRATION FOUND HERE Strengthening our skills in grief work is essential in…