Letter from the Pastor

Some time ago, a newspaper article was entitled, “Simple courtesy facing extinction in America.”  The writer told of four different instances in which he had gone out of his way to be helpful, and not one of the persons he had helped even bothered to say “thank you.”  I guess that most of us can recall similar experiences.  You held a door open for someone carrying an armload of packages, and he passed through and hurried away without saying a word.  You paused to let a driver pull into your lane of traffic, which he promptly did without so much […]

One of the most painful experiences in life is the to be disappointed by some person in whom we have truly believed.  Sooner or later that happens to everyone.  For most it begins in childhood, with the discovery that our parents are not perfect.  They are only people with the same weaknesses and problems that afflict us all.  Then later we learn that teachers do not always know all the answers. To experience this kind of disappointment in people is part of the process of growing up.  But it does not end with childhood.  It carries over into adult life […]

Do you know that a sickness of the soul, no less than a sickness of the body, can become a chronic condition?  Look for a moment into your own life and tell me if this isn’t true.  Could you not put your finger on an unhealthy spiritual condition that has remained unimproved year after year?  It doesn’t take an expert to analyze this kind of problem; all it takes is honesty. Were you touchy, overly sensitive and difficult to live with years ago?  Look at that area of your life today.  Has anything changed?  Has the condition improved at all?  […]

In the middle years of the nineteenth century, a clergyman named Charles Kingsley was the personal chaplain to Queen Victoria of England.  He was a man whom she greatly admired.  The story is told that one day she asked him the secret of his beautiful life.  To which he replied, “I had a friend.” Most of us would not think of describing our own lives as beautiful.  And we would probably be embarrassed if someone else should do so.  But we would doubtless agree with him that whatever beauty there is within us is largely attributable to our friends.  People […]