Were the psalmist writing in our own time, both his and the owl’s mournful cry would be amplified, since human and avian life are under siege.

Sarah laughed to herself, saying “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” - Genesis 18:12 (NRSV)

What I do know is that none of us bears our sorrow alone. The One who calls us to this day is the One who was—and is—acquainted with grief.

So I wonder if that night, when he was alone, praying in the shadows of Gethsemane, Jesus remembered this psalm by someone who’d also found themselves lost in the valley of the shadow of death.

This Transfiguration Sunday, it’s the disciples’ journey up and down the mountain that caught my attention. Perhaps like the disciples’ hike, perhaps like your own physical or metaphorical hiking, my own treks up mountains and down canyons have taught me some lessons about life and faith:

Our faith calls us to encounter the adult Jesus, not just the child. The grown-up Jesus who told stories that challenged people to think about God, themselves, and this world in new ways.

Given his time and culture, it’s doubtful that Isaiah had ever seen a birth either. Yet, he knew that new life seldom comes without hard labor and struggle.

Given the importance of sheep in the ancient Near East, it’s not surprising that “shepherd kings” are found in Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian traditions, too.

nd like many Indigenous prayers, Psalm 84 described the right relationship with God’s dwelling place. “How lovely is your dwelling place” also translates as “How beloved is your dwelling place.”

We could ask that question of our wealthy, modern nation. Why are such persons often consigned to live on the streets or pushed outside city limits?

Perhaps John’s admonishment was only against statues of gold or silver. But the first Christians were people like us, so he might have been warning them about our kinds of idols, too.

Sometimes dismissed by Christian scholars as a praise song to the law or a pedantic teaching tool (each stanza begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet), Psalm 119 can be profoundly comforting and empowering in our time.

To be sure, God’s presence can be known through the words of Psalm 139. But for the people trying to find their way through an ever more dangerous and deadly place, that Presence needs to known in the flesh—their flesh and our flesh.

I’ve always had trouble with the third Beatitude. The other blessings from Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount are worthy goals: hungering for righteousness, showing mercy, striving for peace. But being “meek”—as the King James Bible, the Revised Standard Version, and the NRSV translate Matthew 5:5—has always been personally unattainable.

"A Good Friday Credo" - A UCC Daily Devotional by Rev. Talitha Arnold

Sometimes the prayer for daily bread took on other tangible forms. I prayed for daily sunrises, daily walks, or a daily check-in with a coll

Breaking the silence, asking for help, giving thanks, remembering the covenant and God’s past deliverance from fear and falling. Maybe that’

The day after the inauguration, Psalm 145 reminds us that—no matter who occupies the White House or walks the halls of Congress—when we pray

We’re getting ready for the birth of Jesus. Why this story about the death of Elijah? What do a chariot and horses of fire have to do with t