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Pastoral Blog (Page 4)

Blog postings by our pastor Rev. Ben Daniel.

From the MPC Family: Guest Writer Lynn Viale

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…

From the Pastor’s Pen

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…

From the Pastor’s Pen

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…

FROM THE PASTOR’S PEN

Friends, I have been feeling melancholy recently. I’m not entirely sure why: it may be that the stress and uncertainty of the COVID era are finally getting the upper hand in the emotional mix that is my inner life; it could be that I’m still grieving as the anniversary of my father’s passing approaches, or maybe I’m just becoming someone whose eyes…

FROM THE MPC FAMILY: Maggie Harmon, guest writer

Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me? Put your trust in God, for I yet give thanks to the one who is my help and my God. Psalm 43:5 Having now come through our second Thanksgiving of Covid we may well be feeling continued heaviness and disquiet. Certainly things are better…

From the Pastor’s Pen

Friends, Let me start with a word of gratitude. I am grateful for all that you have done, and continue to do, to make our return to indoor, in person, celebration a reality. So far, we’ve had three worship services in the sanctuary, and each service has been better attended and more smoothly executed than the one before it. Certainly, we are…

FROM THE MPC FAMILY: Bonnie Hamlin, Guest Writer

Interested in America’s Relationship with Russia??  The City of Oakland has an official Sister City (and Sister Port) relationship with a port city in the Russian Far East: Nakhodka, not far from Vladivostok.  The agreements were signed in 1972 as a result of the Nixon Brezhnev détente, when 4 other US cities were paired with 4 other Soviet Cities.  In the mid-1970s…

FROM THE PASTOR’S PEN

Friends, Right now the biggest thing on my mind is the fact that we will be going back inside for celebration this coming Sunday, October 24. A return to the sanctuary has been a long time coming, but unfortunately, this doesn’t mark the end of the road for MPC’s COVID era. We will still be taking a lot of precautions and following…

From the Pastor’s Pen

Friends, I want to give you a bit of an update around plans to return indoors for celebration on Sunday Mornings. At its last meeting the reopening task force set Sunday, October 24 as the tentative date for our first Sunday in the sanctuary with the understanding that: Masks will be required, Strict social distancing protocols will be in place Efforts to…

From the Pastor’s Pen

Friends, Last week I took a vacation. Actually, these being the days of COVID, it was technically a “staycation” because I spent every night in my own bed, but on one of my staycation days I took a long drive to Lake County and back. It was a mini pilgrimage to Bo-No-Po-Ti, an island in Clear Lake that most folks today call…