October 2011
19 posts
1 tag
Here Comes the...
This happened at First Presbyterian Church of South Bend, but not on my watch. My dear friend David (1946-2011), who has since entered the Church Triumphant, was the officiating pastor for this wedding with a charming story attached.
You must know that First Presbyterian Church of South Bend is one of many very large and elegant Presbyterian Churches by the famed Philadelphia church...
If You Wanna Bump It...
Why is it that some folks get the wrong impression about the center aisle of the church? Is it perhaps because choirs sometimes process and recess, singing as they go up or down the aisle as the case may be? I have several wedding center aisle stories that are worth passing along for your amusement…. This goes back to First Presbyterian Church of South Bend and a wedding in which the bride...
1 tag
The Strain of a Haunting Refrain...
Churches are such interesting places, a microcosm of society. One cannot help but be enlightened by seeing and appreciating the merely funny as well as the absurd and the ridiculous in life. And seeing and appreciating the poignant and the beautiful and the serious things of life, too. From time to time when I was in Pittsburgh (1987-1997) I would be asked to do a wedding at a location other than...
1 tag
The Unity Candle...
Pastors have differing views about the use of a Unity Candle in weddings. The idea (as far as anyone can tell), comes from a wedding on a daytime soap opera. So the origins are definitely not religious in nature. I can say that in 1982 when I was ordained, the practice was very new and seldom asked for. These days, there are few weddings that occur without a unity candle. Back in the Fox Chapel...
“May God be gracious to you this day. And may God bless you.”
Finding A Niche at the Church
Another Memorial Garden story from my 1987-1997 Pittsburgh days…
We had such wonderful caretakers at Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church; that is, the custodial staff. They kept the church sparkling clean and bright, and did so with a faithfulness that was a marvel to behold. They saw it as a labor of love, and although they were usually behind the scenes, they made the scenes lovely. I believe...
How Does Your Garden Grow?
It happened at Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church some time after the Memorial Garden, pictured above, had been completed. The Memorial Garden by the way is a beautiful space, cruciform in shape and surrounded by brick walls that give it a sense of a place apart. The Memorial Garden was the vision of a number of church members, led by Polly M., who also selected all of the plantings therein, with an...
Question Asked - And Answered!
Another Janice story; this one from the no comment department…
Place: The Chapel at Fox Chapel.
Present: Janice, our DCE; Ray, our Property Committee Chairman; our Head of Staff; and myself.
Occasion: Janice was supervising the placement of the Presbyterian Creed Banners which had been made by church members and now were to be suspended all around the room, representing The...
His Eye Is On The...
Another Janice story, if I may… As every Director of Christian Education knows, it is sometimes hard to manage the flow of supplies that are used for Sunday School Classes. Whether paste, construction paper, crayons, markers, scissors, or glue, these things seem to disappear from the supply closet fast. Janice, who served as our DCE at Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church for many of the years...
And Now, Mother Will Share a Song...
Then there was that memorial service…. For a church member who died, but no one bothered to tell us. We heard it when we were doing a different memorial service at the same retirement community, when the activities director said in a stage whisper, “You know K… died?” I said, “No! When? No one bothered to tell the church.” The activities director sort of...
They Have Room!
I am reminded of something that happened many years ago. One busy day, a representative of an area retirement center, St. Barnabas, stopped by Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church. The representative came with a collection of brochures and other printed material that was very professionally done. He spent some time with me explaining the virtues of this new community, and I must say that it sounded very...
1 tag
Some Visitors...
A Janice and Lois story. The first week I was in Florida, as a newly arrived Pastor and Head of Staff of Wekiva Presbyterian Church, I was busily at work, when into the parking lot pulled a big Buick sedan that looked mighty familiar to me. And my eyes had not deceived me. For, there they were, about a thousand miles from where I might have expected to see them, my friends Janice and Lois, from...
Geometric Art by John A. Dalles follows...
July 2010
1 post
3 tags
My Heart Was Awake
I have been reading a novel that is appearing chapter by chapter on line, posted in a blog. The novel is called “My Heart Was Awake” and it is about a young woman of about a hundred years or so ago, in a remote part of Italy.
The story has a real charm to it and it is fun to wonder what will happen next.
You can read it at:
http://myheartwasawake.blogspot.com/
June 2010
4 posts
December 2009
4 posts
November 2009
58 posts
1 tag
D R E A M S . . .
“For every dream of yours you make come true, you’ll pay the price in heartbreak.” Grandmother Lettie to Esther Blodgett, in “A Star is Born”
Banter
Hickory: Some day they’re going to erect a statue to me in this town, and - Aunt Em: Well, don’t start posing for it now.
“Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like...”
– Famous Last Words: The Wicked Witch of the West
“No sound of wheel or hoof beat breaks
the silence of the summer day
As by the...”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Cadenabbia”
“Everyone soon or late comes round by Rome.”
– Robert Browning
