Author Archives: stevelong

God’s Trombones… (revisited)

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One of MWPC’s saints told of her joy in reading the book God’s Trombones by James Weldon Johnson. This poem (Go Down Death) from that book states so well what our sister Sarah Liz would likely say to us now that she’s passed, including the phrases
 
“And she whispered to us; I’m going home, And she smiled and closed her eyes”
“Weep not – weep not, She is not dead; She’s resting in the bosom of Jesus.”
~ God’s Trombones, p. 29
 
What books or readings would you want people to see as testimony of your time on this earth?
 
POTENTIAL ACTIONS:
  • take a look through your Bible and other favorite books/articles to remind yourself of noteworthy learnings
  • consider summarizing some of these noteworthy ideas for possible use at your own celebration of life.
  • want thoughts about how to share these ideas with family? Check out links HERE
May we live life as a continual pilgrimage, equipping ourselves and others with new approaches (and reminders) while embracing Spirit’s strengthening and stirrings along the way…

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, August 24, 2025:

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

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Pilgrimage practices…

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Have you ever done something you considered a pilgrimage? Have any meaningful practices you’d like to share?

Richard Rohr has plenty to say about Spiritual Disciplines of Pilgrimage in this CAC post, including the importance of:

  • Silence
  • Solitude
  • Discipline of Speech – “Our patterns of many years are that whenever there is a moment of silence, we fill it up by talking. Let’s see if God can teach us a way to say only what’s necessary and what’s important.”
  • Journaling as a summary of thoughts, not of activities
One Celtic saint made a substantial journey with several companions to the island of Iona in the 6th century. You can read much more about Columba at any number of sites, including on Wikipedia HERE. The tales that have been told are substantial…
 
Yet, one doesn’t need to travel great distances for pilgrimage. Perhaps by making space in our daily lives for these practices, we can still journey to untold “soul-full” heights and distances? 
 
POTENTIAL ACTIONS
  • Would current time with God and soul friends benefit from characteristics of Rohr’s suggested practices? Maybe a little solitude? silence? discipline of speech?
  • If not currently part of daily life, is there an opportunity to make pilgrimage happen “right here, right now?”
  • If you have any meaningful pilgrimage practices you’d like to share from reading and/or experience, please send those along to salong_now @ yahoo.com. Thanks in advance!
May we live life as a continual pilgrimage, equipping ourselves with new approaches while embracing Spirit’s strengthening and stirrings along the way…

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, August 3, 2025:

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

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Sources of Joy…

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Our appreciation just continues to grow for the Center for Action and Contemplation along with their promotion of key thinkers like Howard Thurman and Henri Nouwen. Here’s yet another example of fabulous material in the posting What is the Source of Your Joy?

In particular, these lines leap out from the CAC post

There is a strange quality of awe in their joy, that is but a reflection of the deep calm water of the spirit out of which it comes. It is primarily a discovery of the soul, when God makes known [God’s] presence, where there are no words, no outward song, only the Divine Movement. This is the joy that the world cannot give. This is the joy that keeps watch against all the emissaries of sadness of mind and weariness of soul. This is the joy that comforts and is the companion, as we walk even through the valley of the shadow of death. [1]  ~ Howard Thurman

That is what the spiritual life—the life with God—is about. It is being in touch with that love that becomes joy in us…. Underneath all our fluctuations is a deep solid divine stream that is called joy. ~ Henri Nouwen

To quote Michael Card from his song – – “there is a Joy in the Journey!”

It’s not just the final destination that brings this joy-filled experience; it can happen at any time and any place. Right here. Right now.

What are some effective ways to stream joy in your existence? Does it involve silence? Nature? Community? Solitude? Touch? Scents? Sights? Sounds? Tastes?
 
Let us continue this journey with joy, embracing Spirit’s strengthening and stirrings along the way…

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, June 29, 2025:

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

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Why Should Another Child Go Hungry?

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Does the posting heading seem out of place on this day celebrating women? (FEROMO** Day as Disciple Playbook likes to promote it, Mother’s Day more commonly)

Thinking that through, it seems VERY appropriate. How many mothers want to see their children or other women’s children going hungry?***

Yet, here we are.

Today’s post heading is the title of the Our Moral Moment post HERE. The whole post is worth the read, including powerful, historic quotes – “Starving a child is violence” ~ Coretta Scott King – and staggering statistics – “One in five children is “food insecure” in this, the richest nation in the history of the world.”

The authors go on to mention the House bill that is coming up soon and they say

It calls for the Agriculture Committee in the House to cut $230 billion from SNAP over the next decade. They are scheduled to vote this week on proposals for how to do this. Every option on the table would mean millions more US children go hungry.

Is this what we want to happen? Would women role models in your sphere want this to happen?

On this FeRoMo/Mother’s Day, let’s raise up some prayers and actions to help our country to a place where the day comes that ALL children who want a meal have one available. Some potential actions are listed in the POTENTIAL ACTIONS – FOOD INSECURITY section below plus in the Why Should Another Child Go Hungry post. We need to DO BETTER!

Let us journey with joy, embracing Spirit’s strengthening and stirrings as we go about assuring all God’s children nationwide and worldwide have food to eat, encompassed in love!

P.S. Happy FeRoMo/Mother’s Day to all you special women in our world!

** Female Role Model (FeRoMo) Day

***And on MaRoMo Day (Father’s Day) we would dare say the same thing to the men in our world

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, May 11, 2025:

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

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Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy!

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“There’ll be Joy in the Morning on that Day!”

Those song lyrics from Joy in the Morning (sung HERE) have the opportunity to run through one’s mind while reading the post HERE by Brother Curtis Almquist.

Brother Almquist’s words are a reminder of the quote attributable to the Buddha: “Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.” During this Lenten season in particular, the faithful get this. There will be joy, but a deep void was also the experience of the followers that Eastertide.

The hills and valleys of emotion are evident in the CAC weekly summary HERE. The summary contains a Matthew Fox commentary on Resurrection practice, including these compelling lines:

To be Resurrection for another I need to be Resurrection for myself. That means I cannot dwell in darkness and death and anger and oppression and submission and resentment and pain forever. I need to wake up, get up, rise up, put on life even when days are dark and my soul is down and shadows surround me everywhere…. I have to listen to the voice that says: “Be resurrection.”

Be resurrection!

Let us journey with joy, embracing Spirit’s strengthening and stirrings!

P.S. Perhaps the version of the song Now the Green Blade Riseth HERE provides a little example of the contrast of darkness and resurrection?

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, May 4, 2025:

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

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Earth Day insights…Called by Name!

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Happy Earth Day!

Today’s CAC post entitled Called by Name (HERE) is a great read, especially on this Earth Day 2025. Highlighting comments by Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis,** the post includes these gems and many more:

I have seen the crucified Body of Christ in all those places: in Indigenous people, in the broken heart of Mama Earth, in the brown bodies on the border, in the Black bodies languishing in prisons, I have seen the Lord in the struggling transwoman coming out…. I have seen the Lord in the teen who doesn’t know how to tell his pastor he’s queer.

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.

Perhaps this Earth Day will find you listening to some music about our earth from your collection or from The Disciple Playbook YouTube collection HERE (including For the Beauty of the Earth; Big Blue Boat and Now the Green Blade Riseth)? Maybe it’ll help us feel all-the-more deputized?

Let us celebrate the Earth, fully deputized for the journey with Spirit’s strengthening and stirrings!

** 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:

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

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“Earth itself celebrates with us.”

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Wendy M. Wright in her book** The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter and Pentecost speaks of Holy Saturday in stirring ways, including the fact that

We gather as the people of God, mindful of our story, longing to be liberated, trusting in the promise of the dawning light. Earth itself celebrates with us.

Earth Day 2025 is coming soon (more HERE.) Perhaps today or in the upcoming week we will each find time to celebrate Earth as it celebrates with us.

The song Now the Green Blade Riseth is perfect for this season of resurrection plus spring growth (in many portions of our globe.)

  • the song lyrics are HERE
  • HERE is a choral version with nice musical touches including organ.
  • HERE is one by Smoke Fairies with stringed instruments and vocals, a great complement to the other! 🙂

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:

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

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When you come to the fork in the road…

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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:

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

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Lenten Prayer by Rev. Dr. LP Jones…

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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:

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

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Be Still (do not be afraid…)

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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…

Shadows in Myanmar

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, April 6, 2025:

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

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