Pastor’s Pen

Dear People of Peace, Thank you for the warm welcome that you have extended to me in my first month as your sabbatical preacher.  I am enjoying getting to meet you all and learn a bit about your neighborhood, your parish and its mission.  If I don’t call you by name, please keep telling me […]

Dear People of Peace, I am so much looking forward to our time together, to getting to know you and the ministry of Peace Lutheran and the community in which you live, to the adventures you have planned for this sabbatical time.  The old proverb says that “March comes in like a lion and goes […]

The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened. – Matthew 13:33 Beloved of God, I love baking bread from scratch.  In my book few things in life match the satisfying aroma of freshly baked bread just out of […]

Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt—marvelous error! — that a spring was breaking out in my heart. I said: Along which secret aqueduct, oh water, are you coming to me, water of a new life that I have never drunk? – Antonio Machado Beloved of God, As we mark the beginning of the […]

We are your people of the night, we long to see your newborn light,   Distant glimmer rising from afar!  We await you, holy morning star!   For in our winter we are dead, lead us in hope to see ahead   the springtime and the gift that is to come. Come and save us, be God’s only […]

“Christ is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” – Colossians 1:17   Beloved of God, “Hold it together, Erik,” the voice said.  Turns out, it was my own. “Hold it together” is a key phrase in my self-talk lexicon.  An appropriate one, too, at those times when I have so many […]

“Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.  When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck Jacob on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint.” – Genesis 32:24-25 Beloved of God, There’s been a lot of wrestling going on in our household […]

“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” – Jeremiah 29:11 Beloved of God, It started, innocently enough, as a seemingly random conversation about shoes.  But it didn’t stay there. We were at REI in […]

“I saw the LORD sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of God’s robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above God…and one called to another and said: ‘HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of God’s glory!’ ” – Isaiah 6:1-3 Beloved of God, […]

“The Spirit sends us forth to serve, we go in Jesus’ name, to bring glad tidings to the poor God’s favor to proclaim. We go to be the hands of Christ, to scatter joy like seed, and all our days to cherish life, to do the loving deed.” – Delores Dufner, ELW #551 Joyful Servants! […]