Spirituality

By Fr. Glenn Jones:

I’ve been watching the old black and white episodes of “Gunsmoke” during relax time lately, and saw a rather poignant one recently (Ssn 9, Ep.26). A struggling farmer was feeling that he was getting “old” (a whole 43 … puh-leeaasssse!) and was depressed because he felt that he had been of no consequence in his life—barely making a living, no kids, and a shrewish wife declaring him a “failure”. A rather timid yet good fellow, he goes into Dodge City hoping to find some way to make his mark, and ends up publicly backing down to a bully in shame (in front of a woman who had been kind to him, Read More

Clergy from left, Deacon Amy Schmuck, Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, retired, The Rev. Mary Ann Hill and The Rev. Lynn Finnegan. Photo by Nate Limback/ladailypost.com

By Deacon Cynthia Z. Biddlecomb, M.Div.
ELCA retired

Approaching another birthday ending in zero or five can make one feel old. A lot of history got us this far. For the eldest among us, we wonder what could possibly equal the joys in our past. And yet, through the lens of our faith (and as we know from experience), there are still good things to come.

Change, we have learned, is inevitable. We don’t always like the changes we see around Read More

By Fr. Glenn Jones:

There sure is a lot of screaming and vitriol these days. Accusations of fascism here, genocide there … every “-phobia” and “-ism” imaginable … and some never thought of before. Much of it, of course, is just political or protester hyperbole to manipulate others toward a their “side”, or even to just score cheap points without taking into account all the facts or the whole of often myriad various concerns and variables. But underlying so many of demonizations seem to be airs of superiority. But for a true evaluation of self, humility is an essential ingredient, for “Arrogance Read More