Prairie Musings

You might think this is a strange post for a priest to write, but I think it is very important in this time of so much vitriolic rhetoric that Christians make a strong stand. The Book of James in the Bible has quite a lot to say about the power of our speech and the need for taming the tongue: If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile (1:26). The tongue is a small part of the body, yet it has great pretensions. Think how small a flame sets a huge forest ablaze. And the tongue is a fire! The tongue represents the world of wrongdoing among the parts of our bodies. It pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence – and is set on fire by hell...It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people made in God’s image. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. These things should not be so, my brothers and sisters (3:5-6, ...

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light ” (Matthew 11:28-30). Weary…that’s a good word for what I’m feeling right now—how about you? Weary. Weary from the COVID-19 fight: weary from its social isolation, weary from the loneliness of not spending time with friends and family, weary from the worry and uncertainty and unpredictability of the spread of the disease, weary of the day-by-day grind. Weary, too, of the ever-escalating rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum: weary of the yelling and the violence and the threats, weary by our inability to find common ground and common purpose in our lives together in community. Just…weary.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus invites us, and all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, to come to him and find rest. Jesus offers u...

Zoom is optimized for voice, and it tries to be intelligent about silencing background noise. Unfortunately, it usually interprets instrumental music like a piano or guitar as background noise! Here are the instructions for when you want to do live music via zoom (for when you want to prevent zoom from trying to get rid of instrumental music because it thinks it’s background noise). Note that, depending on how much your everyday zoom meetings have background noise, you may want to put these settings back the way they were for M-F meetings, and change them only for a meeting with music like your Saturday/Sunday worship. (i.e. with the changes below, Zoom will no longer try to get rid of noise from someone running the vacuum cleaner in the other room when you're at home on Tuesday afternoon 😊) Step 1 - Open your zoom settings Step 2 – Go to Audio Settings Step 3 – Click on Advanced Settings Step 4 – (three changes) * Click “Show in-meeting option to Enable Original Sound… * Disable ...