From Rev Ben: We have officially passed the Fall equinox, which means it’s fall. 2020, with all of its craziness is 75% gone, though it seems like there cannot yet remain a quarter of the year. Our community continues to worship each Sunday because we know that by being faithful in our celebrations we bear witness to those things that endure in…

From Rev Ben: A week after we started sheltering in place for COVID-19 we were supposed to have had a Sunday celebration featuring four writers from our congregation sharing work they had done in response to climate change. I was really looking forward to the worship service, and was disappointed when the writers were displaced by the pandemic. But six months into…

From Rev Talitha: Please join us for Celebration! This week’s online celebration is truly one of a kind; never before have so many stuffed animals come to church. As I mentioned in this week’s Contact, it is a chance for us adults to try to follow Jesus’ mysterious challenge: “change and become like children.” During such apocalyptic times it is important to…

From Rev Ben: If the weather forecasters have forecast correctly, by the time you read this we will be in a heat wave, a weather pattern already anticipated in this week’s celebration. I filmed my sermon in the sanctuary, while wearing a tweed sports coat. The next day I filmed the charge and benediction wearing a short sleeved linen shirt, all of…

From Rev Ben: It is hard to believe that we have reached the end of August, but here we are. The air alternates between pure bay-breeze and smelling like the inside of one of the pipes I used to smoke in Seminary, while wearing patches on the sleeves of my tweed sportscoats. It has been hot and chilly and, like a lot…

From Rev Ben: I’m writing this note on Friday morning, looking out of my dining room window at the smoky sky and, to be honest, I’m feeling a bit anxious. Fires scare me and smoke keeps me from exercising. Besides it’s hot, and the COVID-19 pandemic certainly hasn’t packed its bags and vacated the premises of our common existence. True confession: in…

From Rev Ben: For celebration this week we worked a bit of Magic. For months now, John Lochner of Dallas, Texas, has been attending Montclair Presbyterian Church’s online celebrations. This week he is leading us in a call to Celebration and, magically, we have Dallas-like weather in Oakland (actually, on Friday when I wrote this, it was fifteen degrees hotter in Dallas…

From Rev Ben: This week I have been on a “mission un-trip” with the youth of the church. With grief over the fact that we were not able to travel to Mexico, and with lots of appropriate covid restrictions, we still managed to put some programming together and have a good time. Please join us for a service of worship that brings…

From Rev. Ben: This Sunday begins a week during which it seems particularly important to reflect upon the United States’ nuclear strikes against Japan, which happened 75 years ago, on August 6th and 9th, 1945. During our online celebration we will remember these events in preaching, prayer and in music. This week’s celebration looks at some really difficult issues. It’s hard sometimes…

From Rev. Ben: In preparation for my sermon this week I walked around my garden with my camera, taking macro photos of various flowers, leaves and fruit. I’m not sure what is stranger—the fact that my sermon preparation now includes my camera, or that it felt so natural to be preparing for a sermon by thinking about things like aperture, shutter speed…