Prairie Musings

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid (Easter 6C, John 14:23-29).  The peace of the Lord be always with you…[“And also with you.”] We say this every week, don’t we? Do you remember where exactly in the liturgy this happens?...Right at the beginning of the service of Holy Communion. Right at the start of the celebration of the Sacrament of Christ’s on-going presence. Jesus promises us his presence in today’s Gospel reading, and he promises to send us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to teach us and remind of what Jesus has said to us. What is it that Jesus has said to us? One of the first things that comes to mind is Jesus’ summary of the law: “love God, love your neighbor as yourself.” The second thing might be what we call the Great Commission: “Go to all the world, making disciples and teaching.” But you know, based on number of occurrences, can you guess, t...

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35).   (Easter 5C: Acts 11:1-18, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35) This is an emotional weekend for me: my middle son, Joey, is graduating from high school, and those of you who know me well will not be surprised to find that at any given moment you’ll see me breaking into tears of joy because I'm so proud of him, or tears of excitement because I'm so happy for his next step in life at Doane University this fall, or tears of despair because he'll be moving away to his dorm room and I'll miss him so...SO…this weekend my brain is overflowing with all the great memories of Joey throughout the years. Like many kids, Joey loved bugs and spiders when he was younger. For his 5 th birthday, he got a bug science kit that included these great, giant, green ...