Blog Archives

The First Sunday After Christmas

12/29/2019

Printer-Friendly Version
I hope all of you had a blessed Christmas Day. I hope that if any of you traveled, or your families and friends traveled, that you were safe. And, I hope that you are well rested and ready to face the week ahead … and that you will welcome the New Year with a spirit of wonderment.

0 Comments

Christmas Eve

12/24/2019

0 Comments

Printer-Friendly Version
Every Christmas we hear these same lessons from Isaiah, Titus, and the Gospel of Luke. Most of us grew up hearing the story of the birth of Jesus read to us as children, and we saw depictions of the story in art, and holiday cards and manger scenes on our mantles. The stable with the animals, the angels and the shepherds, the stars in the heaven. And we sang songs that told us how peaceful and serene the event was. The story of the birth of Jesus is so very familiar to us that we sometimes have a tendency to not listen as closely to the story as we would if we were hearing it for the first time.

0 Comments

4 Advent

12/22/2019

0 Comments

Printer-Friendly Version
This is the season for Christmas trees, Santa Claus, and Nativity scenes. Nativity scenes with the baby Jesus in a manger surrounded by Mary and Joseph, shepherds, angels, cows, donkeys, and sheep, and the Three Wise Men.

0 Comments

3 Advent

12/15/2019

0 Comments

Printer-Friendly Version
Throughout this Advent season we have been hearing about the yearnings of God’s people. In the readings from the prophet Isaiah, from the Psalms, from the letters of Paul, and from our Gospel readings from Matthew. And, on this Third Sunday of Advent, we recited the Song of Mary … the Magnificat.

0 Comments

William “Bal” Balanaztegui Funeral

12/8/2019

0 Comments

Printer-Friendly Version
Several years ago, I was worshipping with my wife, Caren, at Temple Bet Yam, the Reformed Jewish synagogue on Wildwood Road. While looking through their Prayer Book I came across this poem. It is called “Epitaph”… it is by Merrit Malloy.

When I die
Give what’s left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you.
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give them
What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.

Look for me
In the people I’ve known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live on in your eyes
And not your mind.

You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands,
By letting bodies touch bodies,
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.

Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away.

0 Comments

<<Previous

The First Sunday After Christmas

Christmas Eve

4 Advent

3 Advent

William “Bal” Balanaztegui Funeral

PAST SERVICES

GET IN TOUCH

ABOUT

CONNECT