Journal

photo by: Cynthia D. Stowell, Mary Hote, 1978 “I’m ready to stop coming to church.  I have not been fed for a long time.  My faith is withering from lack of nourishment.  I leave church… Read More »The Communion of Saints

My call to serve as the Associate Pastor at First Presbyterian Church, Medford, Oregon, was brief.  As it turned out, it was not from any planning on my part that I left after a little… Read More »Transitions

Every Tuesday evening, the  yellow school bus picked up the high school age youth from Sherman Institute, a federal boarding school for Native American young people from the Southwest, and dropped them off at Calvary… Read More »Silence

Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16 (Sermon preached at Calvary Presbyterian Church, SF, on September 30, 2018) Introduction In my many years of ministry, and in every church I have served, I have lost count of how many… Read More »“We are all ministers”

Alice was an active laywoman at Calvary Presbyterian Church in Riverside, CA, where I was called right out of seminary to my first position as Minister with Youth.  She was one of the adult leaders… Read More »Annual Consultations

My last (final) call, after 54 years of ordination, was to Calvary Presbyterian Church, San Francisco.  So my 54 years of ministry are bookended by churches named Calvary.  One of the most popular and successful… Read More »Calvary Presbyterian Church, Riverside, CA

Luke 6:27-38 Sermon preached at Calvary, San Francisco, in 2019.” Introduction My daughter, Robin, often came home from school in tears because the kids in her class picked on her.  I asked her to put… Read More »“Perfect Fear Casts Out Love”

My proposal was met with silence.  It seemed like forever before an elder on the Session of the  Warm Springs United Presbyterian Church broke the silence.  “Well, you know it is a dangerous place there.” … Read More »The Frontier

The call to serve the United Presbyterian Church on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Central Oregon may well have had its origin in 1965.  I was in my Middler year at San Francisco Theological… Read More »Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs

What qualifies anyone to be a teacher? How does one learn to teach? What is teaching? I would dare to say that every one of us can remember a favorite teacher (or teachers if fortunate… Read More »Teaching