“Those intrepid English women whose courage, fortitude, and devotion brought a new nation into being.” So reads the inscription on the Pilgrim Maiden Statue in Brewster Garden in Plymouth, MA. Those Sturdy Surviving Pilgrim Women are immortalized in the work of Henry Hudson Kitson’s sculpture, dedicated to their endurance, courage, and devotion in 1924. ”The Mayflower set sail for the New World from England in September 1620 with nineteen women among the 102 passengers. The […]
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Lent and Learning to Fast Again
Thank you Bishop Rinehart for your thoughts about applying an ancient practice to our very modern challenges. Though appropriate any time, Lent seems a particularly good time to incorporate this practice into our lives. Lent begins next Wednesday with Ash Wednesday. Lent and Learning to Fast Again by Michael Rinehart God cannot fill what is full. — Mother Teresa The three disciplines of Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Jesus instructs his followers on these three […]
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Christmas Carol
It’s hard to imagine a Christmas season without Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol making an appearance. This Christmas/Holiday season finds me giving copious quantities of cash to assorted home supply shops as I organize my new apartment. My daughter and her daughter are celebrating all of us being together this year by helping me bake cookies for a church fundraiser to support a local charity. I hope you’ll enjoy this rerun from 2018. May the transformed Ebenezer […]
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Peace and Goodwill
Advent, the prelude to Christmas, is upon us. It is the season of peace on earth and goodwill toward all. And yet we still have war, conflicts, and unprovoked attacks on innocent people. Peace and goodwill are nice sentiments, but we have a ways to go to achieve them. I thought you might be encouraged to read what a few insights have said about peace and goodwill. From Dr. Martin Luther King First up, thoughts […]
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Leiden
Leiden in The Netherlands is a delightful city of about 125,000. If you overlook the bicycles, cars, and modern buses, the center city is much as it might have been in the 1600s when the future Pilgrims settled there in 1609. After a year in Amsterdam, Separatists religious refugees from northern England relocated to Leiden to get away from church conflicts among other English religious refugee groups. At that time, Leiden was a significant industrial […]
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