Rev. Marshall is our minister of Lifespan Faith Development. Read more.
Rev. Lyn Marshall and friends will explore our relationship with animals, and offer a blessing for your pets. Well-behaved animals who will not be traumatized by coming to church are welcome to accompany you to receive their blessing in person, and all are invited to send in photos of the animal companions that bless your … Continue reading Blessing of Animals
At Meadville Lombard Theological School, students all begin their studies with “beauty walks” – taking a walk through a community in Chicago, and then around the community that surrounds the congregation where they will do their internship. What might you notice if you walked around your own neighborhood with fresh eyes, looking, listening, smelling… is … Continue reading Beauty Walks
In Judaism, the practice of sabbath, and sabbatical, were both religious and practical. In an agrarian culture, a day of physical rest is good for both body and soul. To leave one’s fields fallow every seven years is good for the long term health of the soil and the crops grown there. Lyn will return … Continue reading The Beauty of Rest
When you toss a pebble into water, it creates a series of ever-widening concentric waves. When you toss in a second pebble, a new series of ripples spreads and interacts with the first series. We all belong to multiple circles of concern and as circles meet, there may be beautiful patterns created, or apparent chaos. … Continue reading Overlapping Circles
Martin Luther King, Jr. is remembered for how he lived out his intention to create a better world where racism and poverty would be things of the past. In his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail, King addressed white clergy who had condemned his participation in protests as “unwise and untimely, saying, “… since I … Continue reading Paved with Good Intentions
It has become a tradition for us to share stories of the hymns that touch us deeply. If there is a hymn that is especially meaningful to you that you would like to share with the congregation, please be in touch with Lyn. Everyone will have the opportunity to request the hymns that bring you … Continue reading The Joy of Singing
There is a proverb, “Joy shared is joy doubled; sorrow shared is sorrow halved.” While the recipe’s ratios might need some adjustment for individual situations, it feels emotionally true that joy increases when it is shared, and sorrow is easier to bear if we don’t feel we are alone. We practice this each week when … Continue reading Sharing Joy
There is a cultural narrative about the First Thanksgiving that the United States retells on the third Thursday of November each year. However, humans have gathered for harvest celebrations and feasts of gratitude since long before colonists shared a meal with Wampanoag people in Plimoth, and our reasons for continuing the tradition of a national … Continue reading Let’s Talk Turkey
Over millennia, living humans have devised countless rituals and customs to honor, and to appease, the dead. Our ancestors, whether by blood or by culture, impact who we are. There are the ancestors of blessed memory, and the restless, unhappy ghosts who haunt us. How can we cultivate relationships with the ancestors that celebrate their … Continue reading Dancing with the Ancestors
Each time we enter a new group, a new situation, a new community, we look for cues as to whether we are welcome, wanted, and safe. Welcoming words are a start, but we also notice the physical space, the visual messages, and the behavior of others in the community as we determine whether we, too, … Continue reading The Possibility of Belonging
