Rich reflects on America's two months of "feasting festivals" at the end of every year-- Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations, celebrations, and feasts with family and friends. But how or when did it all begin?
With the changing of the seasons, we now turn our attention from summer to early autumn activities. But something big happened in October 502 years ago that we should also celebrate-- a watershed moment in world history, second only to the coming of Christ into the world 2020 years ago. What is Rich talking about?
Back in 2012, there was a movie made about hunger in America narrated by Jeff Bridges. It was called A Place at the Table. Rich's reflection this month is about a different kind of hunger and a different kind of table, but a table, nonetheless. Rich ties together one of the Beatitudes, Grace, and Jesus' Parable of the Great Banquet. And gives us food for thought, as always.
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” Many of us have heard this saying before, probably from the mouth of our mother or grandmother. But where did it come from and what does it mean?
This Fourth of July, we as a nation celebrate our 243rd year of declaring our freedom from Great Britain. On June 9 we as a Christian church celebrated over 2000 years of another kind of freedom, freedom from sin in the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (see II Cor. 3:17). The Apostle Paul said, “you have been set free from sin. . .” (Romans 6: 18). So how is this possible? Rich thinks that perhaps we first have to understand what freedom is and isn’t.
This month Rich Pollock reflects on the National Day of Prayer theme centered around Jesus' command for us to love one another. Rich says, "Indeed prayer is a powerful agent for change." And we need some changing.
We celebrate for more than a month at Christmas anticipating the birth of Jesus. Shouldn’t we be even more excited about Easter and the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ? This month Rich Pollock, retired Presbyterian minister and our Worship Committee Chair, shares a poignant personal story from college and what the resurrection means to him.
This month, Rich uses familiar spring imagery-- "in like a lion and out like a lamb" -- in a new and powerful way, explains our self-directed time of reflection and repentance on Ash Wednesday, March 6, 9-10 a.m., at the chapel, and recommends ways to get new perspectives on the Cross.
Rich shares, "As I sit here at my desk looking over the United Methodist Worship Planning Calendar for 2019 that the Board of Governors gives to various committee chairs each year, I am struck by the fact that there is no special religious day in February. There is no special Sunday like Epiphany or Christ’s Baptism in January, or Transfiguration Sunday or Lent in March, or Palm Sunday or Easter Sunday in April this year. Or is there...?"
Now that Thanksgiving is over, we immediately start preparing for Christmas.
Hopefully we can all find time to pause and reflect upon the true reason for the season.
It’s hard to believe that it's November already! But, thank goodness, October is over. After Florence and Michael, I think most of us have had enough visits from “unwelcome visitors” recently. It will be great to see the end of hurricane season on November 30.
November is the month of Thanksgiving, and this year we have much to be thankful for. . .
