It is not your child’s fault! It is not your partner’s fault! Nor the fault of the cashier at the grocery story or the clerk at the bank. This pandemic, and all of the changes and challenges it has created, is not the fault of your child or partner or anyone else.   I say this because when our frustration and alarm are overflowing, as they can be these days, it is easy for those emotions to be directed in the wrong way at the wrong person. We can end up hurting those we love and those who are helping us....

Hope! Usually spring brings with it a deep sense of hope as we watch birds return, the days grow longer and flowers begin to poke through (anyone seen any prairie crocuses yet?) This year however is unusual to say the least.  Hope may feel a bit elusive – but hope still exists.   This week I share with you an article written by Dr. Alan Wolfelt, with whom I did grief studies. It says all that I could say and more about nurturing hope. PDF: Nurturing_Hope_-_Alan_Wolfelt.pdf It is also found at: https://www.centerforloss.com/2020/03/nurturing-hope-in-difficult-times/   The key thing is that nurturing hope is a practice. ...

Where is God? Who is God? For people of faith, that may be a key question in the midst of this pandemic.  Any crisis, personal or communal, can lead us to ask deep questions about our faith and about everything we believe about life.  And, as we physically isolate, we might have a great deal of time to think about questions such as these.  If we are facing, in addition, other challenges such as the loss of work, challenges to our finances, the death of a loved one, then we can easily begin re-evaluating everything we thought we once believed.  ...

Grace and Peace to you this day.   You are in my prayers today as I bring thoughts of you to my mind and hold you in my heart. These days are indeed filled with scatteredness and all the trembling that comes with anxious times. Today I am especially mindful of all the lacks and losses we are experiencing. All we can do is find our tears and grieve. What?!, you say. What do you mean find our tears? Isn’t this the time to be strong and be resilient in the face of such a crazy time? Stay with me now....

Our children are now home from school for an undetermined period, weeks if not months. We as adults feel alarm and anxiety and so do our children and teens. Our faith has a gift for us in the midst of this current situation: the message that “God is with us; we are not alone!” God doesn’t magically cure or change things in the world; God’s love does work through us, with us and within us through all that life brings our way. It is the love we know from God and the love that we share with family and friends (even...

The Covid-19 virus has taken over the news cycle, and now is starting to affect various events and maybe even our daily routines. We might feel the alarm growing within us as we wonder just how worried we should be. Here is my advice and how I’m approaching this:   SLOW DOWN!   I mean this in two ways. First of all, slow down the reactions. Right now, many of us are perfectly safe. We should practice good flu season basics – washing hands, staying home when we are sick, not touching our face and not shaking hands with other people....

I invite you to enjoy this 12 minute video of couples (of all sorts) from around the world, as they share what it has meant to them to be together for 30+ years. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/advice-from-couples-married-for-30-years-great-big-story/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=02-03-2020   Blessings, Rev. Susan  ...

I’m so glad that we have a dog in our house, an American Cocker Spaniel, named Marco. He is a crazy dog, who falls off backwards from the couch and doesn’t even seem to mind. I can’t begin to count the number of times that we end up just sitting there and laughing together at the dog’s antics. Marco brings out the playfulness in us, and I am grateful.   We all need to play. Sometimes we forget that as adults, but play is a gift of God, a gift built into our systems to bring us rest and restoration. Deep...

Romance and attraction brings us into the marriage. But romance doesn’t last and it is not a full-time state for the marriage relationship forever and ever. So, what is marriage (meaning any committed partnership between any two people) – what is the purpose of marriage?   We are meant to be in relationship with other human beings. In the unfolding of nature, God has provided relationship as a gift where we can grow, mature and become all that we are meant to be in this world. Children grow and mature within the care of loving adults. And two adults who have...

“You always hurt the one you love The one you shouldn't hurt at all” -- so go the lyrics by an old Mill Brothers song.   It takes my breath away when I stop to realize how easily I could emotionally wound my husband and my children. It would only take a moment to pierce their hearts with words that I know would devastate them. I am so privileged to have them in my life. I love them and cherish them so dearly. Yet, I could so easily hurt them.   We’ve all seen it happen in relationships – our own...