ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 8, 2026 Guest Writer: Sandra Clifford (Board Member) I miss coffee shops. I’m not talking about the national chain coffee shops where there is loud music piped in, paper cups with cutesy sayings, and everybody’s on their devices. I’m talking about old-fashioned coffee shops with booths and counters where people would gather, ceramic mugs and real conversation. The type of coffee shops where real life
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 7, 2026 Abraham Joshua Heschel was the Rabbi with whom most folks would like to have dinner. He died in 1972, though he was the Rabbi that was often pictured alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His books on the Hebrew Prophets were required reading in graduate school, while his book entitled, “In This Hour,” gave me insight into the heart of the man who
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 6, 2026 After work the other day, on my drive home, I was listening to the 70s station on the radio. The song, “Signs,” came on the radio by Five Man Electrical Band. Without looking it up, I could not remember the name of the band, but as I was listening, I realized that I had not been paying attention to the words. There’s a
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 5, 2026 When I was in Indianapolis last week for the Board Meeting of the Christian Church Foundation, the hotel did not have hot water. It was a nice hotel, and they were apologetic, but both mornings I took a very cold shower. Talking to others, they heated up small containers of water in their microwaves and did what some call a sponge bath. That
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 4, 2026 Prayer for the Week: There are places within each of us that go unacknowledged, yet they hold within them unspoken fears and loneliness; unvoiced grief and lostness. In our avoidance grows a lie—an invention rooted in denial, seeking to evade everything that is far from okay. Holy God, Merciful and Guiding Spirit, we can pretend only for a while. The capacity to bury
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 3, 2026 Have you ever been in a funk, feeling pretty low, when suddenly something happened that changed your mood dramatically and quickly? This has occurred numerous times in my own life. There have been situations where I was given some perspective that shook me from my doldrums. In other moments, I have felt lifted from despair, whether it was something within me or something
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 2, 2026 On this day in 1611, the King James Version of the Bible was first printed in London. It had been commissioned in 1604 by King James I of England. And though we have the King James Version of the Bible today with those very words on the cover, that was not the case when it was first printed. The cover read, “THE HOLY
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS May 1, 2026 Last year, I didn’t get my tomato plants in the ground early enough, and though I saw a few tomatoes in early June, my plants were nearly dead by mid-June. The heat was simply too much. It’s about timing, though the weather does have a lot to do with it, especially if the brutal heat holds off until mid-July. This year, I planted
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS April 30, 2026 In yesterday’s Etching, I talked about gratitude, specifically for those things we may not even see. Well, today, I want to give thanks for something we can see, though not necessarily a “thing,” but a person. I want to give thanks for Rev. Dr. Amber Mattingly, who served as our Interim Youth Minister. To be honest, I needed someone who could step in,
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS April 29, 2026 I was sitting at the airport yesterday waiting for my flight back to Houston when I saw a man with a guide dog, though he was also being assisted by an airline employee. It was a beautiful dog, and it got me to thinking about the gift that a four-legged friend has been to that individual. Moments later, I opened my computer and,