A weblog by Rev. Beth Buckingham-Brown, interim pastor for MPC.
On my refrigerator is a magnet that has a stunning picture of a much older woman (in her mid to late 80’s it would appear) in a swimsuit and swim cap looking lean and fit. The caption on the magnet is “Growing Old is Not For Sissies.” Every morning I see that magnet and the deep truth behind it confronts me yet…
A few people have asked me recently to preach on what is going on in the world. My response to one person is that I am not sure what to say yet. Surely I don’t need to run through the list of all of the traumatic events in the US and beyond. Surely I don’t need to point out how our government…
What is going well for you right now? Where is the good news in your life? What makes you feel like celebrating tonight? As you go through your day, what brings a smile to your face or adds lightness to your step? When you think about all of the things you are “doing” currently, which of those things gives you energy? Sometimes…
This week I am spending time with my step-father. He is in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease and despite a variety of issues that must be very frustrating for him, he is still kind and gentle. He is a reminder that many of us age in the same way we live our lives. If we are no fun to be around…
Recently I spent a week at a conference center at Lake Tahoe. The beauty of the lake and all of its complex colors evoked awe in me once again. This year Lake Tahoe is particularly stunning with the snow capped mountains surrounding the multi-hued water. Sometimes I pretend I am a photographer and I try to imagine what shots I would try…
Last week my wife and I went to “Family Camp” with 75 people from the church. We spent a glorious week up at Lake Tahoe and if you haven’t seen the snow covered mountains on a summer day up at Lake Tahoe, be sure to put it on your list of places to go! The church has been doing “Family Camp” for…
The church I grew up in was a fundamentalist Presbyterian Church. We heard a great deal about hell and what we had to do to escape it and how we would find ourselves on the fast train down. The three biggies I can remember as a child who was “taught” was that if we drank, smoked or had sex before marriage, we…
While I don’t often rant about politics, there are times when I just cannot help myself. Politicians are people, too, and I try to look at them with compassion because I know what’s it like to try to please a group of people who at times all want very different things from me. Politicians are similar to pastors in that their constituency…
The first “graduation” I experienced with my children was when our oldest daughter, Emily, “graduated” from pre-school. It was an alternative pre-school so the word “graduation” was never used, but my goodness, there was certainly enough “ceremony” to go around for the day. Pictures had been taken of each child throughout the year and then each family was given the task of…
One of the best songs of all time is the song from South Pacific called “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” It talks about how before you are six or seven or eight years old you have to be taught to hate people your family hates or to be afraid of people who are different from you. The idea behind the song…