This week I have been back in the school building helping teachers in their preparations and packing materials for the summer. It is quite unusual, to say the least, to be doing this with more instructional time in front of us. However, in order for students to be able to get the materials they left at school before the closure took place due to the virus, we needed to do some work in gathering it all together for the great “get your stuff drive-thru” in a few weeks. It is also both unusual and disconcerting to be unable to get closer than six feet to those beside whom you have worked throughout the year. (And in some cases for many years.) My first inclination upon seeing them was to rea
Colossians 3:12-17 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever y
I Corinthians 15:50-58 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is yo
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the s
I can only watch so much TV and do so much reading. I think my eyes need to rest so I often turn to listening to music. In regard to that I am very eclectic in my tastes, though I have discovered I am an old soul in a lot of my preferences. One of the artists that I have particularly enjoyed over the years is the duo Simon and Garfunkel. As I was listening to them this week, one of the more popular songs from back in the day began playing through my headphones. Part of the song says this: I am a rock, I am an island. I’ve built walls, A fortress deep and mighty, That none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain. It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain. I am a rock