Friends, I am using this installment of “The Pastor’s Pen” to thank you for all the ways you continue to keep COVID safe. In general, thing have gotten more relaxed COVID-wise. The State of California has eased off on many masking requirements, folks are getting out more and traveling, and sometimes I have felt as if things are almost back to normal.…
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Posts by Ben Daniel (Page 3)
Friends, Over the last week, several folks in the congregation have been kind enough to ask how I’m processing the recent news that Talitha has taken a call to serve as a Chaplain at the Children’s Hospital. I’d like to share a bit of what’s been going through my mind. First and foremost, I’m really happy for Talitha. She has a strong…
Friends, I’m going to use this installment of the “Pastor’s Pen” to remind you that Holy Week begins on Sunday, as we celebrate Palm/Passion Sunday. The observations of Holy Week will continue with a Maundy Thursday service at seven PM on Thursday and a Good Friday service at seven PM on Friday. All of these services will be hybrid, meaning you can…
I wrote this article as a letter to the editor of our local paper, The Gilroy Dispatch, where it was published in February. Our MPC pastors have helped raise awareness of the continued mistreatment of our Native American siblings, and our Presbytery is challenging us to be active in making our voices heard. I’m from Tyler, Texas, and I attended Robert E.…
Friends, Because Sunday was Mister Rogers Day in the Presbyterian Church (USA), I spent a lot of time over the weekend thinking about the importance of kindness and of gentleness and wondering about how I might be a better neighbor to people close to home and far off. A lot of my “Rogersesque” musing started when I watched two films about Fred…
Friends, As I was in the process of trying to figure out what to write in Contact this week, someone asked me what I thought a positive outcome for the war in Ukraine would look like, and while I suspect the person asking may have been looking for something more geopolitical in scope, I had to say that my most basic prayer…
Friends, Four years ago, my wife, Anne, gave me an olive tree which I planted in the back yard of the manse, and I waited to see if any fruit would set on the branches. The first year there were no olives. I believe I harvested 28 olives in the second year. The third year my yield was maybe twelve olives. This…
Joy I have a question. How can I experience joy when my life isn’t joyful? For the past two years, my husband has been dealing with aggressive metastatic prostate cancer. My heart breaks when I see him in pain. Our lives are turned upside down not only by Covid, but by cancer. We’ve canceled four trips, we’ve had up to eight doctor…
Dear Friends, Starting in September, I am planning to lead MPC folks on four retreats, one for each season of the year. The purpose of these retreats is to create a spiritual space in which folks form across the MPC family can deepen our connections to God, to one another, to the earth and to the world, and to explore what that…
Friends, Ordinarily, I’d use this space—my column in the last Contact issue before Christmas, to share a few ideas and insights that, for whatever reason, didn’t make it into my Christmas sermon. This year, I’m writing to exhort you to be careful as you celebrate Christmas. A year ago, we had our Christmas Eve services on YouTube, and the service was really…