*May we each pray with enduring love, faithfulness and intention what is deepest in our hearts today and in all seasons. Thank you, O Friend, for following and for your partnership in making true the good news of God's gift of eternal love. - Grateful, Bob Guffey O Lord / Dear Friend, All I want for Christmas is... a world filled with empathy, understanding, respect for others and God's creation, peace, love, humility, kindness, mercy, selflessness, just sharing, caring partnerships,...

In one way or another in his many works, Walter Brueggemann has asked his readers, “Shall we truly hear the Psalms?” I hear in his question a challenge to learn to hear the psalms as they were heard by the first hearers, hearers who were or were living the memories of the threats of exodus, exile and empire. I hear a call to be vulnerable to the history of the texts that we might be immersed in the praise, pain, trauma and urgency resident in these texts. I hear, too, a charge to not let the...

While waiting to hear from an ophthalmologist about a cataract. (08.11.23) O LORD, Thank you for reminders of age that let me know life has beginnings and endings I cannot control. Thank you for the frustration of fatigue that says I need to let others share in the vocation of well-doing. Thank you for those occasional glitches in memory that push me to trust you as the One for whom I live “in remembrance of.” Thank you for aches and bruises that take just that little bit longer to heal, and...