Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
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Greetings Brothers and Sisters in Christ. We continue with our Advent story this week. Let’s take a closer look at the Advent wreath. As I mentioned last week, our wreath has five candles; four on the outside and one in the middle. The outer candles are either purple or blue and many churches have three of those and a fourth one that is pink. There is a center candle that is white and is called the Jesus candle. The four outer ones are Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. The Hope candle is not the word hope we use in everyday conversation. I hope I g...
With two exceptions, my weekly sermons are based on scripture. The exceptions are Advent and Lent. The ways in which we celebrate these two holiday seasons are based on tradition. Advent is the beginning of our church calendar year. We use this season to prepare to celebrate the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Lent is the time leading up to Holy Week, when we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord on Easter Sunday. You will not find mention of these two seasons in scripture. However, both of these events hold an important part in our church...
I hear from time to time that surely, with all the strife currently happening, the world must soon be coming to an end. There have been, from time to time, people who have predicted the actual day the world was ending. Judgment Day! Christ's second coming! Yep, they knew the actual day it was going to happen. Well, those days have come and gone and we are still here. Our earth has not ceased to exist. Early on when the coronavirus was spreading like wildfire, I had an acquaintance tell me that this pandemic was predicted in the book of Revelati...
I remarked the other day that when I was young, I would hear “old” people talk about how fast time went the older they got. I thought that was pretty silly. Time was time, it didn't change speed. Now, being that I am included in that “old fogy” group, I do indeed understand that time goes by more quickly the older I get. Now here we are nearing the end of summer. How did that happen so quickly? Seems like just last week seed was going in the ground and now it is time for harvest. Teams involved in fall sports are practicing and the summer...
On a long car trip comes the question from a child in the back seat, “Are we there yet?” Many of us around here these days look at the calendar, think about spring and ask, “Are we there yet?” We have received so much snow this year. It started early and it is still here. The calendar says it is spring but our streets and yards and fields sure don't look like it. Even the 10-day weather forecast says it isn't Spring yet. I am hoping that forecast is wrong. I want a change in our weather patterns. This is a season of change; a season of transit...
Peace and Grace to you, brothers and sisters in Christ. For those people who work a Monday to Friday job, Wednesday is often called “hump day.” The meaning being that once we get past Wednesday, we’re over the hump and the weekend is almost here. In many of our professional sports, approximately halfway through their seasons they have an all-star break of a few days and play an all-star game before getting back to their regular season schedule. In college basketball, the regular season is over, conference tourneys have been played, and “Marc...
Peace. We use that word quite often. My first encounter with that word came about as I was growing up. This was in the 1960s. We were indeed in turbulent times. The conflict in Vietnam was going strong with no signs of letting up and the number of casualties were growing. It was during this time, and I have no idea exactly when or where it came about, but giving the “peace sign” to others came to be the thing to do. We did this by making what looked like the letter V with our index and middle fingers. As I recall, and admittedly my memory isn...
Greetings dear friends in Christ. I think that for many, if not most, August is not a month where we look both backward and forward. January 1, New Year's Day would seem more appropriate for that kind of thing. With the beginning of a new year, we think of resolutions to make and eventually break. After all, nobody actually keeps a New Year's resolution. Maybe, as individuals we might use a birthday or anniversary as a time of reflection. But August? The end of August? Why would we choose now for that type of thinking? I'm thinking it is a grea...
Do not fear. Fear Not. Do not be afraid. All these commands are found in the bible. The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, a young Jewish virgin girl, and announced that she was to become the mother of our Savior. He tells her to not be afraid. It is certainly understandable that when all of a sudden, an archangel from God appears and starts talking to us, who wouldn’t be afraid? Joseph is visited by an angel in a dream and is told that he is not to be afraid to continue his betrothal to Mary even though she is with child. She had not been u...
Follow is an appropriate word for today. For most of the summer it has been an appropriate word for those who have to drive on Highway 281 between Sheyenne and New Rockford. I would imagine that like me, it is getting very tiresome for all of us sitting in our vehicles waiting for that pilot car with the sign on the back that says “Follow Me.” I recall times when I had friends or family visiting when I was living in Minneapolis or Denver and we would be going out to eat or to a ball game or whatever. There were too many of us to go in one car...
August is here. Where did the summer go? It seems like we just celebrated the fourth with picnics and parades and related festivities. Family and school reunions have come and gone with only memories remaining. August is one of the several transition months we have here in North Dakota. Of course, many of the northern tier states and several others in the upper Great Plains experience the changes of the four very different seasons. We start out August with hot and sometimes humid weather. We will end the month thinking about the first frost...
Is spring finally here? It sure looks like it. I walked to work today and didn't have to worry about slipping on the ice. It was a beautiful morning. We had so much ice this year and let's throw in wind as well. Nothing like a strong wind blowing snow over the ice to polish it up nice and shiny and slippery. I had a meeting with a family at the funeral home early this afternoon. Sometime between my walk to the office in the morning and my afternoon drive to New Rockford to the funeral home, it got quite windy, cold and even a drop a two of...
Why? So often this is a question asked by children of their parents. They see something they are not familiar with so it stands to reason that they would ask why. Even everyday occurrences, things that are so common to us we don't even notice them, can be a wonderment to little ones. Sometimes they don't know why there are rules or why they are forbidden to do some things. “Come inside, it's starting to rain,” says mom. Do we have to? Why? “Because you will get wet.” So? We get wet when we take a bath. Why can't we get wet in the rain? “Your c...
If you were to think of a single word, one which would sum up the Lent season, what would it be? Sadness? Worry? Death? Suffering? Jesus? Cross? There are any number of words that come to mind. And most likely, they would all be correct to some extent. Certainly all the ones I just listed would qualify. But the one I've come up with, the one word that to me signifies this season on our church calendar is Forgiveness. It is indeed a difficult concept to truly understand. In other religions of the world, they don't have a God that will forgive a...
This week begins the portion of the church calendar that separates Christianity from all other religions, Easter. As a prelude, a time for preparation, for nearly all Christian denominations to observe the season of Lent. The season of Lent lasts for 40 days and begins on Ash Wednesday. But if you were to count the actual days on your calendar from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday you would find there are 44 days. The answer to this is that as Sunday is a day of worship, it is not counted as a day of preparation. So, taking the days of this...
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father. Amen. The Bible. I'm sure the vast majority of homes in the area have at least one. That's good. Unfortunately, in too many homes, we're not quite sure where it is. If asked, is your answer some place in the bookcase, or maybe in a drawer somewhere? Here is another question. Did you receive one as a gift many years ago, and it still has that “new car” smell and not even the title page has been read? I wish there weren't so many people who would agree with those answers. However, the good news is that...
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father. Amen. It is getting to be about that time of year. Halloween is over and retail outfits, big and small alike, are skimming over Thanksgiving and marching right into the Christmas season. It seems a shame, but if I were in retail, it is likely I would be doing the same thing. After all, how hard it must be to put a really big sales push into a season in which we are to be thankful for what we already have. Along with this season comes the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the Christmas season....
Change, transition, whatever name you wish to put on it, we are experiencing it right now. I've been known to repeat this a number of times so bear with me if you have heard me say this before. When I was young, I would hear grown-ups say that the older they got, the faster time went by. I would think to myself, how dumb is that? It made no sense to me at all. Time did not go fast. It went too slow. The things I wanted to happen took forever to get here. However, now as I get older, I am finding that the grown-ups knew what they were talking...
I am attending a wedding this week. What is amazing to me is that not so very long ago, those who knew me would have been very surprised at that statement. Truth is, I would go to great lengths to avoid such gatherings. I don't really know for sure why that was but I just didn't go to them unless absolutely necessary. If it were a family event involving a sibling or a nephew or niece, that was different. It was always great to see relatives I hadn't seen for a while and the partying was usually pretty good also. But other than that, I didn't...
Greetings dear friends in Christ. It’s hardly news anymore. I can’t imagine there is any person, anywhere, that isn’t aware of COVID-19. In actuality, it hasn’t been that long since the coronavirus first made the news even though it seems like it's been around forever. As I recall, back then it was a news item but not of any particular importance. IT was just another bug, somewhat reminiscent of the Swine Flu or the Bird Flu of a few years back. We would just let it run its course and all would be fine. Well, it hasn’t worked out that way....
Do not fear. Fear not. Do not be afraid. All these commands are found in the bible. The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced that she was to become the mother of our Savior. He tells her to not be afraid. It is certainly understandable that when all of a sudden an archangel from God appears, at first she would have been afraid. Joseph is visited by an angel in a dream and is told that he is not to be afraid to continue his betrothment, to take Mary as his wife even though she is with child. It was the will of God. Shepherds, keeping...
There was a television program some time ago, reruns continue today. “Fraiser” was based on a psychiatrist who had given up private practice and now had a radio program where people would call in with problems of various levels of seriousness, though usually intended to be humorous. On one particular episode, the psychiatrist was told that he had to have a little song to be played as an intro to his program. Eventually, at the program’s ending, what they came up with was if you wanted help, no matter what your problem, if you wanted help,...
Greetings. What a wonderful time of year. Swimming pools are open, we can again have picnics in the park, chase that little white ball around golf courses, and enjoy leisurely walks in the evenings, listening to the birds singing. If you have the inclination, you can even sit back and relax in the sun with a fishing pole in your hand. We have no worries about icy roads, wondering if the car will start, and so forth. But, this year, after such a cold winter, we were so looking forward to finally having spring and then the coronavirus hit. While...
Division. No, I’m not speaking of a function of mathematics. And I am not speaking of a grouping of sports teams that get scheduled to play against each other. Neither am I talking about a large military unit like an Infantry or Armored division. While elementary school children might not agree with me, none of these definitions of division are a bad thing. We need to learn how to divide one number by another. It can be a source of pride to win one’s division in sports. NDSU has become very successful in winning it’s division champ...
Here it is February already. Can winter really be half over? Didn't we just celebrate Christmas? That seems like so long ago doesn't it. Time does move on and the older we get, it seems as if it goes by faster, but spring is on the way. We've had some very nice weather this past week but those of us who have lived here for any length of time at all, we know there is a lot of winter yet to come. We have just observed Groundhogs Day. Legend would have it that because Phil didn't see his shadow, we will have an early spring. Don't count on it....
