Today is a pivotal day.
Today is a pivotal day in the journey of Elijah and Elisha.
Today is a pivotal day in the journey of Jesus and his disciples….

This morning I’m going to do two things I almost never do with a sermon:
           give it a title and…
            use all the readings!

Today’s homily may look a little more like a Bible study than a sermon…           I have a lot of questions for today’s gospel story.
      I humbly offer you my reflections.

Life is full of decisions:
            some are small,
      and some are big….

Have you ever gotten to the end of your day,
and felt like you were just then sitting down for the first time?

Even if you had been sitting at a computer all day….

This past Tuesday Ray sent me a text with a photo of a scene out of a hospital window.

In the foreground were the rooftops of buildings
            with their requisite large vents and other hunks of metal….

Advent is a season when we talk about waiting and watching – 
          waiting and watching for Christ in our midst – but how are we to wait and watch with so many distractions around us?

One early evening a few days before Thanksgiving, a friend pulled into a parking spot at her neighborhood Walgreen’s.

As she walked around the corner, she almost stepped on a man who was sitting on the ground, leaning up against one of the pillars….

A couple of months ago as I was sitting in a packed airport, waiting for my flight, I heard the “ding” of the phone of the woman sitting next to me….

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down….!”

With this passionate plea we begin our new year in this season of Advent….

I remember taking a family trip to Washington, D.C.
Each of us had a list of places that we wanted to visit…

 “Concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters.…”
“…the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”
“…let us keep awake and be sober…”

I called to check on someone having a procedure in the hospital, fully expecting the surgery to be complete, but instead their spouse said:
“They just took him back…
It feels like a day of ‘hurry up and wait.’”

Visions….
            the Bible is filled with them!

But in today’s Western world,
            it seems that visions are looked upon with suspicion….

This morning I want to talk about light…

God’s Light… and your light.

Today we hear the end of Paul’s letter to the church community at Philippi, but I want to back up to the beginning of that letter.

The October light has arrived in the Western North Carolina skies!

Ray and I got our first glimpse as we took our dogs for a walk one evening earlier this week….

God offers life!

I want to begin there and end there today,
even if we wander through the muck of life in the middle…

Consider this scenario:

On your way home one afternoon you hear an announcement on the radio that one of your favorite musicians is going to give an acoustic concert. …

God bless Peter:
            he’s still trying to get it right!