Each month, a member of the board will share a reflection on the Soul Matters monthly theme and the state of the church. The theme for December is Stillness. This month’s post is offered by Cathy Bujold.

We seem to be in a season of stark contrasts.

On the one hand, there is so much silence.  My husband Dan and I spent a quiet Thanksgiving without extended family – without my parents, without our children and grandchildren.  Our church building, built to allow us to gather together and to sing together, is instead silent for the most part.  And then of course there is the silence of those whose lives have been snuffed out by the pandemic . . . and the silent toll this pandemic is taking on all of us . . . Too much silence.

And at the same time, there is so much noise.   The cacophony of the election and its aftermath.  Jarring social media posts.  Incessant clamoring of competing points of view.  The dissonant diatribes of a divided nation . . . Too much noise.

Last Sunday during worship Lois Saunders selected the poem “To Worship” by Jacob Trapp which was read by Gary Charles.  There was a line in that poem that particularly stood out for me. “To worship is to listen in the face of the storm to the still small voice inside.” Continue reading →

Each month, a member of the board will share a reflection on the Soul Matters monthly theme and the state of the church. The theme for November is Healing. This month’s post is offered by Shelley Buss.

Not so long ago, my daughter Haley was single handedly keeping band-aid companies afloat. I can’t tell you how many times I found bandage wrappers on the bathroom floor, under her bed, under my bed, in her closet… Finally I dropped the hammer and said “Haley Bird, unless there’s flowing blood, hands off”. No more Minion on the back of a hand that was slightly pinker after she banged it against the door. No more Queen Poppy on her toe after stubbing it on the chair.  She was independently self-soothing the best way she knew how when she felt pain. She grabbed a comfortable character, opened it all by herself, managed the stickiness, and applied her fix; a visible reminder that something underneath wasn’t right, but it also was no longer exposed or vulnerable. Continue reading →

Each month, a member of the board will share a reflection on the Soul Matters monthly theme and the state of the church. The theme for October is Deep Listening. This month’s post is offered by Bill Arnold.

“Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable.” – David Augsburger

Last week, I read a description of how different people interpret a simple question. Imagine you are watching TV and someone asks: “What are you doing?”. The simple response, of course, is “Watching TV”. Most likely, however, that was not the actual question being asked. It might have really been “Can I join you?” or “Why are you sitting there when you have a bunch of work to do?”. This is an example of simple versus deep listening. We should be more than just aware of the sounds around us. Listening is recognizing context, processing, contemplating, and considering other points of view. Continue reading →