There are so many opportunities in this ministry to stand with you on holy ground.  Thank you for these moments!  The ground felt holy under my feet this past Sunday evening as I gathered with pastors and their families from Eastern Iowa Association around the beautiful communion table at Edwards Congregational UCC in Davenport.   We came together to worship.  We sang.  We raised Psalms.  We fed each other bread and cup.

I preached some Easter, drawing from Luke.  We are nearly as far from Easter as we can get - by the calendar, at least.  It's a decidedly un-Easter-ish morning in Baldwin.  The view from my window is of a distant haze, a gray sky, and bare walnut trees, their leaves fallen once more.   Surely there are seasons for each of us when we feel as far from Easter as we can possibly get in ways that have nothing to do with calendars.  We experience moments, and long stretches of moments,  when the story that is at the heart of us - "He is not here, but has risen" - seems, as it did to the apostles who first heard it, an idle tale. 

Gray late September days are good for reading Easter gospels and singing hymns of resurrection, for humming alleluias while planting bulbs, for drawing near to worship with dear brothers and sisters who stand at varying distances from the empty tomb.   I thank God for your congregation and for its holy work of proclaiming resurrection in word and deed.