Christ is everywhere. Christ is in all things. We are all one. When you’re hungry, my stomach growls. When someone chops down a tree, I’m cut. When the oceans are being poisoned, I feel thirsty for something different.

And then there’s this final, inspiring invitation:

I’m inviting you to look in the mirror and see yourself. Recognize yourself as deputized by the Living God. Amen.

** Adapted from Jacqui Lewis, “Easter Liturgy: We Shall All Be Changed,” The Universal Christ Conference, Center for Action and Contemplation, March 31, 2019.

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, April 27, 2025:

• Acts 5:27-32
• Psalm 118:14-29 or Psalm 150
• Revelation 1:4-8
• John 20:19-31

Know someone who might like receiving messages like this?**  If so, forward this message to them and they can sign up HERE

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

• share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
• check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
• volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
• find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items
• accept a Call to Action item from Season of Peace devotional posting

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically. Included now is a grin-inducing New Bible Reading Plan (Pearls Before Swine)

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

Let us celebrate the Earth, enjoying the journey all the more with Spirit’s strengthening and stirrings!

** This book by Wendy is a real treasure. It’s never too early or late to consider purchase of this book… 🙂

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, April 20, 2025:

• Acts 10:34-43 or Isaiah 65:17-25
• Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
• 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 or Acts 10:34-43
• John 20:1-18 or Luke 24:1-12

Know someone who might like receiving messages like this?**  If so, forward this message to them and they can sign up HERE

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

• share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
• check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
• volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
• find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items
• accept a Call to Action item from Season of Peace devotional posting

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically. Included now is a grin-inducing New Bible Reading Plan (Pearls Before Swine)

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

So many times the posts of Joan Chittister come along at just the right time. On the heels of the Hands Off rallies of last weekend, we can find ourselves at moments of despair and hope. Joan’s post HERE, entitled Life is Not One Road, does a great job of framing this.

In particular, these words resonate:

Life is not one road. It is many roads, the walking of which provides the raw material out of which we find hope in the midst of despair.

Let us head out on the road(s) with hope & energy, enjoying the journey all the more with Spirit’s strengthening and stirrings!

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, April 13, 2025:

• Isaiah 50:4-9a
• Psalm 31:9-16
• Philippians 2:5-11
• Luke 22:14-23:56 or Luke 23:1-49

Know someone who might like receiving messages like this?**  If so, forward this message to them and they can sign up HERE

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

• share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
• check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
• volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
• find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items
• accept a Call to Action item from Season of Peace devotional posting

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically. Included now is a grin-inducing New Bible Reading Plan (Pearls Before Swine)

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

Members and friends** of Mt. Washington Presbyterian in Cincinnati were blessed by so many facets of Rev. Dr. LP Jones’ ministry, including regular written materials in the weekly newsletter.

• In the early 2010s, LP prepared and shared a Holy Week prayer in the weekly newsletter column
• Regular DP readers will recognize this Lenten Prayer as a typical element of the season’s postings (including the confessional elements focus a week or two ago)
• Perhaps today will find you reading or listening to the Lenten Prayer HERE?

The Lenten journey brings additional time for Lenten Prayer efforts and/or study time for many. Still others enjoy Wednesday night or other community gatherings with a focus on the season. Whatever the season may bring…

Let us go out with energy and joy, strengthened and spurred by the Spirit!

** and strangers who immediately became friends

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, April 6, 2025:

• Isaiah 43:16-21
• Psalm 126
• Philippians 3:4b-14
• John 12:1-8

Know someone who might like receiving messages like this?**  If so, forward this message to them and they can sign up HERE

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

• share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
• check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
• volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
• find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items
• accept a Call to Action item from Season of Peace devotional posting

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically. Included now is a grin-inducing New Bible Reading Plan (Pearls Before Swine)

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

This past week included a variety of wonderful posts delivered via email. What a blessing! Two in particular are highlighted next…

“The Power of Stillness” from Center for Action and Contemplation is HERE. It’s well worth the read, including quotes like this one:

Inaction sometimes is the greatest action we can take. Stillness is sometimes the most important move we can make. ~ Charles Lattimore Howard, Pond River Ocean Rain 

That same post continues on with Howard Thurman’s suggestions on stillness practices, moving towards “creative lassitude” (what a great phrase!) That section concludes with this:

Such periods may be snatched from the greedy demands of one’s day’s work; they may be islanded in a sea of other human beings; they may come only at the end of the day, or in the quiet hush of the early morning. We must, each one of us, find [our] own time and develop [our] own peculiar art of being quiet.

A key for stillness success? There is no “right” way – we must make it our own!

While being quiet, does a voice ever resonate “Do Not Be Afraid?”  The Henri Nouwen Foundation post HERE includes that phrase and goes on to say…

The voice uttering these words sounds all through history as the voice of God’s holy messengers, be they angels or saints. It is the voice that announces a whole new way of being, a being in the house of love, the house of the Lord

It’s a wonderful reminder of the song Be Not Afraid (a version HERE.)

Let us go out, willing to be quiet and unafraid, strengthened and spurred by the Spirit!

P.S. The photo below is of a Myanmar evening several years ago. Prayers of strength and support plus loads of lovingkindness are with those in Myanmar as recovery efforts continue…

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, April 6, 2025:

• Isaiah 43:16-21
• Psalm 126
• Philippians 3:4b-14
• John 12:1-8

Know someone who might like receiving messages like this?**  If so, forward this message to them and they can sign up HERE

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

• share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
• check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
• volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
• find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items
• accept a Call to Action item from Season of Peace devotional posting

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically. Included now is a grin-inducing New Bible Reading Plan (Pearls Before Swine)

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

As Christians, we periodically enjoy a reawakening and/or recharging. Many in SW Cincinnati, OH, experienced that with the pastorate of Rev. Dr. LP Jones.

Regular DP readers will recognize this Lenten Prayer as a typical element of this season’s postings. In the early 2010s, Rev. Dr. LP Jones prepared and shared a Holy Week prayer with the MWPC community as part of his weekly newsletter column [read or listen to the entire Lenten Prayer HERE]

Focusing on the Lenten Prayer lines relating to confession:

…We know our sins are many, but why must we confess them so often? Remind us, gracious God, that you call us to confession not to burden us, but to free us. Help us to offer you every fear, failure, and sin, so that your forgiveness can calm and cleanse us and your steadfast love can draw us to new beginnings…

The first two sentences feel like part of the human experience – confessing sins AGAIN this week. Really? It’s easy to get that burdened feeling relating to confession.

LP brings it to a great spot just like the song Amazing Grace does for many – “to free us.” Though making plenty of mistakes, we can be inspired by the forgiveness of our Creator!

Let us go out, willing to make a suitable number of mistakes – strengthened and spurred by the Spirit!

[author note: The book Help, Thanks, WOW by Anne Lamott comes to mind in such situations – HELP (us take these words into our lives.) THANKS (for the inspirational aspects that LP’s ministry shared with MWPC, and for other inspirational message-sharers to various communities in the past, present and future.) WOW (let these words surround and inspire us to love and good works.) ]

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, March 23, 2025:

• Isaiah 55:1-9
• Psalm 63:1-8
• 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
• Luke 13:1-9

Know someone who might like receiving messages like this?**  If so, forward this message to them and they can sign up HERE

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

• share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
• check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
• volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
• find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items
• accept a Call to Action item from Season of Peace devotional posting

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically. Included now is a grin-inducing New Bible Reading Plan (Pearls Before Swine)

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

“Pruning season occurs primarily during the winter months…The vinedresser typically pulls out his shears just before bud break…The branch is very much alive and never more poised for fruitfulness than in the wake of winter. We know how the grapevine feels…You can taste the breakthrough…But just before it comes to fruition – faith made sight – your breakthrough ends up looking suspiciously more like a breakdown.” Chasing Vines, Beth Moore, p. 148-149.

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, February 16, 2025:

• Jeremiah 17:5-10
• Psalm 1
• 1 Corinthians 15:12-20
• Luke 6:17-26

Know someone who might like receiving messages like this?**  If so, forward this message to them and they can sign up HERE

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

• share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
• check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
• volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
• find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items
• accept a Call to Action item from Season of Peace devotional posting

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically. Included now is a grin-inducing New Bible Reading Plan (Pearls Before Swine)

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

• “ ‘Two pressed flowers,’ beauty off the bloom, memories of past good days, remain in memory and heart long after the event has ended.”
• “ ‘letters from our friends,’ touch us so that we might eventually learn to touch others.”
• ” ‘Notes in the margins of our scriptures’ lift us above the mundane and make us look again at what we are, at what we are called to be.”

• which Bible? Good News? Life Application? Bible in a Year? Inspire? King James from confirmation?…  Each has meaning and writing in the margins depending on the time and purpose of use
• the note might be from a dear loved one, jail ministry participant, ministry partner, picture of a stranger on the street or ???
• pressed flowers might take the natural form or visual form like picture(s) – of people, places, creatures, of sky, …

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, February 2, 2025:

• Jeremiah 1:4-10
• Psalm 71:1-6
• 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
• Luke 4:21-30

Know someone who might like receiving messages like this?**  If so, forward this message to them and they can sign up HERE

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

• share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
• check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
• volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
• find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items
• accept a Call to Action item from Season of Peace devotional posting

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically. Included now is a grin-inducing New Bible Reading Plan (Pearls Before Swine)

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, February 2, 2025:

• Jeremiah 1:4-10
• Psalm 71:1-6
• 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
• Luke 4:21-30

Know someone who might like receiving messages like this?**  If so, forward this message to them and they can sign up HERE

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

• share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
• check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
• volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
• find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items
• accept a Call to Action item from Season of Peace devotional posting

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically. Included now is a grin-inducing New Bible Reading Plan (Pearls Before Swine)

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, January 26, 2025:

• Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
• Psalm 19
• 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
• Luke 4:14-21

Know someone who might like receiving messages like this?**  If so, forward this message to them and they can sign up HERE

POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY: This season will likely find increasing numbers of folks looking for food, presenting opportunities to

• share financial and/or food offerings with a local food pantry
• check with your faith community about upcoming opportunities to feed community members
• volunteer to help with a local mobile food pantry or community dinner
• find a Little Pantry in your area and help stock it with shelf-stable food items
• accept a Call to Action item from Season of Peace devotional posting

NOTE: for those in the Cinci region, some food organizations are listed HERE

DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK HUMOR – click HERE for MORE humor, updated periodically. Included now is a grin-inducing New Bible Reading Plan (Pearls Before Swine)

STREAMING WORSHIP SERVICES – Cincinnati, Bowling Green and more!

CLICK ON ICONS BELOW FOR LINKS TO DISCIPLE PLAYBOOK PAGES ON DEVOTIONALS, PRAYERS, MUSIC, STUDY AND LOVE