by bschmutzler | Mar 22, 2023 | Pastor's Blog
Friends, I woke up today to a news story about yet another “Bomb Cyclone” weather event hitting the Bay Area in Northern California – more devastation, more destruction, more injuries and loss of life. It seems like these events have been frequent and severe...
by bschmutzler | Mar 15, 2023 | Pastor's Blog
Friends, “Welcome to SXSW. Enjoy the festival. Don’t move here!” I’ve seen that message so many times on social media posts this past week, in one form or another. At first it elicits a chuckle. As Austinites, we love sharing our city with visitors. We love it when...
by bschmutzler | Mar 9, 2023 | Pastor's Blog
Friends, In our Sunday morning book study we are reading Bishop Willimon’s book, “Fear of the Other.” Early on, he defines exactly what he means by the book title: Xenophobic, exclusionary fear of the Other is more than a matter of preference for people whom we enjoy...
by bschmutzler | Mar 2, 2023 | Pastor's Blog
Friends, It’s allergy season in Central Texas! For many of us that means dealing with headaches, sniffles, sore throats, and feeling lethargic almost all of the time. It’s a strange predicament to be in, because all of those beautiful blossoming trees that indicate...
by bschmutzler | Feb 23, 2023 | Pastor's Blog
Friends, Yesterday at noon, a dozen of us gathered around the fountains to begin our Ash Wednesday service. It was an outdoor service, designed to be an ‘enactment’ of our journey through Lent – we journeyed from the fountains to the bell tower, to the center of the...
by jbarden | Feb 10, 2023 | Pastor's Blog
Friends, As difficult as it was last week for all of us to endure ice and cold and power outages, destruction to trees and cars and homes, our inconvenience seems to be just that – an inconvenience – when we hear stories of the devastation in Turkey and Syria, the...