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I’m a Martha. My kitchen is my holy place.
By Elise Seyfried I AM NO STRANGER TO SACRED SPACES. For 20 years I worked at a church where, several times each week, I’d leave my office, slip into the sanctuary, and sit in welcome, peaceful silence for a few minutes. On frantic Sundays, I had a hard time feeling...
At home in the Holy Land
By Cetera Jacobs MARHABA (HELLO) FROM PALESTINE! This past year, I was one of seven ELCA Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) volunteers who served in Jerusalem and The West Bank this past year—a beautiful, eye-opening experience. Palestinians are the most hospitable...
Sing out loud
By Karen Wright Marsh THE REFORMER MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546) gave out a great deal of advice, much of it documented in his 3,000 letters to parishioners, friends and family members, princes and commoners. Topping the pastor’s “Don’t” list: lying late abed, gluttony,...
The blessings of a nap
By Elise Seyfried WHEN I WAS YOUNG, I spent a lot of time with my dad’s mom, my beloved Nana. Nana would rent a cottage at the New Jersey shore for the whole summer and invite our family down for weeks at a time. It was a welcome respite from the brutal New York City...
December 2023 Advent devotional: “Topsy-turvy” by the Rev. Hannah Hawkinson
In her song, Mary, the mother of Jesus, praises God for turning the world upside down--or perhaps, turning the world right-side-up! Gather's annual Advent devotional focuses on the Magnificat song of Mary (see Luke 1:46b-55), as well as parallel topsy-turvy stories of...
Fall 2023: “Holy places,” a three-session Bible study by the Rev. Dr. Meghan Johnston Aelabouni
Physical places often shape our identities, relationships and faith. “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it,” Paul writes. Part of what this means is that faith doesn’t just reside in our thoughts or emotions. Faith resides in our whole bodies,...
Summer 2023 Bible study: Salvation Now by the Rev. Dr. Anna Madsen
Session One: Promised Salvation Now—Jesus Brings Wellness Of all the gospel writers, John is uniquely concerned about the effectiveness of Jesus’ immediate presence. One clue is his regular use of the word “now,” a tiny but powerful word which appears more here than...
All in good time
What I love about Ecclesiastes by Anne Basye MY MOM KEEPS A TO-DO LIST. It shows everything she is going to do the rest of her life. When my son wrote these words in a long-ago grade school essay, I was pleased... and uneasy. His assignment was to recommend me for a...
Dandelions
The miraculous in the common by Jennifer Grant THE GROUNDSKEEPERS have just mowed the park. Walking across the meadow, I kick at thick, matted clumps of grass. Then I spy, a few feet ahead of me, a lone dandelion standing up straight. About six or seven inches tall,...
Clinging and letting go
by Lisa A. Smith I’VE BEEN A MOTHER since the week of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I was on a work-related training trip out of state, my heart already full of emotion, when I first heard about the shooting. My husband and I had been trying to start a...
Rocking chair prayers
Sacred time at the back of the sanctuary by Kimberly Knowle-Zeller Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. —1 Thessalonians 5:16‑18 Excerpted from The Beauty of Motherhood:...
And why has this happened to me?
The visit of Mary to Elizabeth by Audrey Novak Riley MARY SET OUT AND WENT WITH HASTE to Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, she was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women! And why has this happened to me,...
The hour is coming . . .
Jesus said it is now by Lindsay Hardman Freeman Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? John 4:11 SO SAYS THE SAMARITAN WOMAN—a skeptical, assertive, bright soul— who argues with Jesus as do few others in the Bible. Authentic...
Feet tell the story
by Jennifer M. Ginn A mom living, and dying, with purpose MY MOTHER WAS ALWAYS on the way somewhere, her heels clicking briskly across the church parking lot or her Daniel Green slippers clomping on hardwood floors toward the kitchen. She moved with purpose you could...
Moms and miracles
by Elizabeth Hunter CAN YOU REMEMBER A TIME when a mom or another mother figure turned and gave you “the look”? That look may have communicated something like, I’m not worried about what you just said. And you are going to help me with this now. At the wedding at Cana...
Breathe on us
Jesus overcomes all barriers.. by Angela !Khabeb YOU ARE PROBABLY FAMILIAR with the story of “Doubting Thomas.” Thomas is a man on a journey of faith, known by a moniker that he did not really earn. Thomas is the person who basically tells the other disciples: “Let’s...
My body is not a prayer request.
Don’t conflate disability with suffering. by Amy Kenny I AM CERTAINLY NOT THE FIRST PERSON to think of God as disabled. Nancy Eiesland, who pioneered disability theology, imagined God in a sip-and puff wheelchair. After a friend declared that her disability would be...
May 2023 devotional: Love in action The art of intergenerational hospitality by Sarah Carson
Love in action The art of intergenerational hospitality by Sarah Carson In writing to the Romans, Paul advised this early Christian community: "For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body...