Pickled

The Baptism of Our Lord, January 10, 2021, The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz.

Genesis 1:1-5. God saw that light was good.
Acts 19:1-7. No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.
Mark 1:4-11. People from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem…[and] Jesus came from Nazareth

O God, manifest in us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.


What a week. I’ve been reflecting more than usual on the history of Emmanuel Church, organized by a group of religious progressives, abolitionists whose wealth had come largely from the economics of enslaving people, though they were not slaveholders themselves. They formed Emmanuel in the spring of 1860, just eight months before states seceded from the United States, one year before the Civil War began. Our cornerstone was laid at the same time as the Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. Many in the North thought the conflict would be resolved quickly. They were so wrong; yet, their hope for the future represented by their church planting has produced so much good fruit, and it’s still producing today.

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Gratitude

There were many feelings going around after the election results came in, almost all negative: anger, sadness, and fear. Common art took place on Wednesday morning, so it was especially fresh in everyone’s minds. As I mentioned in my last blog post, we had started working on a “gratitude tree” – a tree drawn on poster board that the whole community helped color in, and started writing things for which they feel grateful on cut-out leaves and sticking them on the tree.

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