Category Archives: Reflections

Continuing in our summer series of exploring different Spiritual practices, this week I offer you a very simple one: the spiritual practice of reading. Even if you are not an avid reader, there are many different possibilities within this practice to allow you to find something that is right for you.  One clear possibility is toContinue reading “Wednesday Reflection – Pastor Amanda McGlynn (7/14/21)”

This summer as a part of our newsletter, I have been continuing to share a new spiritual practice each week. We as active church members are often good at living out our faith in a church setting, or even in a group setting, but are less comfortable living it out in our personal lives. This week IContinue reading “Wednesday Reflection – Pastor Amanda McGlynn (7/7/21)”

Continuing in our mini-series of learning a new spiritual practice each week, today I’d like to introduce you to the practice of “Discerning God’s Presence from A Lawn Chair”. Step one is to set up a lawn chair in your front lawn. A porch swing, rocking chair, picnic blanket, or anything like that will suffice.Continue reading “Wednesday Reflection – Pastor Amanda McGlynn (6/30/21)”

As promised in last week’s newsletter, we continue this week by learning another Spiritual Practice. Today, I would like to offer you the practice of Psalm writing. Psalms in scripture are a wonderful articulation of humanity’s relationship with God, in good times and bad. They speak into life’s disorienting moments and laments; they name pain andContinue reading “Wednesday Reflection – Pastor Amanda McGlynn (6/23/21)”

How are you doing spiritually? Do you tend to your spiritual life multiple times daily? Is it something you have not considered much at all before reading this paragraph? Or perhaps, like many of us, you fall somewhere in between. Spirituality means different things to different people, but in general it is the word weContinue reading “Wednesday Reflection – Pastor Amanda McGlynn (6/16/21)”

This past year and a half has been challenging to say the least, and one of the many things that has been present more than usual is grief. Pandemic grief is often unnamed, unrealized, unarticulated. We know that we are more anxious than we once were, and we might experience frustration, anger, defeat, and similarContinue reading “Wednesday Reflection – Pastor Amanda McGlynn (6/9/2021)”

I love gardening, though the complexities of soil nutrients, or of why different crops prefer different seasons, are things I have never really understood. I am an avid hiker, and yet even on my favorite, most frequented trails, I do not know the placement of every little stone, every flower, every turn of the path.Continue reading “Wednesday Reflection – Pastor Amanda McGlynn (6/2/2021)”

What a joy it is to witness God’s abundance. This time of year, it is full of abundance for many – an abundance of rain and the green landscape it brings, an abundance of harvest from spring crops, an abundance of both tests and then relief that come with the end of a school year.Continue reading “Wednesday Reflection – Pastor Amanda McGlynn (5/26/2021)”

It’s been 8 years since I regularly attended Calvary By The Sea Lutheran Church – my home congregation. When I worship with them now on Zoom or on Facebook, I look around and notice that I no longer recognize at least three quarters of the congregation. Families that I grew up with have moved away,Continue reading “Wednesday Reflection – Pastor Amanda McGlynn (5/19/2021)”

Throughout our lectionary readings in the weeks that follow Easter, we hear numerous passages from both John and Acts. While Easter does not have overarching themes as well known or consistent as those of Advent or Lent, this ambiguity opens the possibility up for us all to hear new themes emerging from our Easter texts,Continue reading “Wednesday Reflection – Pastor Amanda (5/5/21)”