Listening for the Voice of God         The writers of the Old Testament included quite a few stories about a prophet named Samuel.   One of those stories is our lectionary reading for today.  The setting for this story is in a place called Shiloh.  Long before Solomon built his famous temple in Jerusalem there were […]

The Gospel According to Francis of Assisi This is the day when we remember Saint Francis of Assisi or the as he was known in his day, “the Little Poor Man.”  He was in fact fairly short.   Francis was born in the town of Assisi in the year 1181.  Assisi is a small hill-top town […]

Elizabeth Monroe      Elizabeth Jane Kortright was born in New York City on June 30, 1768, which means it was British America at the time.      Her father was a wealthy merchant who was also one of the founders of the New York Chamber of Commerce.  He was also part owner in several privateers during […]

     My name is Jocelyn Schlegel. Today I will be joining you to share the children’s book I wrote and talk about some of the inspiration behind writing it. Some of you may know my dad, Chuck, who visits and serves here at All Saints.      I grew up in Sunbury and am a lifetime […]

Jacob, the Amazing Dreamer      Today’s Old Testament reading is one of the stories of Abraham’s grandson, Jacob.  In fact, it is probably the best known of all the Jacob stories.  It’s sometimes called “the story of Jacob’s ladder” — a story depicted in the art of several renaissance artists.      In this story Jacob […]

Searching for the “Good Life” A friend of mine recently learned that he needed hearing aids.  He had probably needed them for quite a while. But he had finally gotten around to having his hearing tested.  Once he got the results from his test my friend began shopping for hearing aids. He was amazed at […]

Religion — True and False The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.  Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and […]

St. Nicholas Day is December 6th, just a few short days away. For those of you who don’t know, the true story of Santa Clause begins with St. Nicholas. He was born during the third century in the village of Patara. At the time the area was Greek and is now on the southern coast of […]

How We Celebrate All Saints’ Day Around the World Death is a universal human experience.  As much as we may want to, we cannot cheat death.  It’s not that, historically we haven’t tried.  Humans have been and probably will continue to be, obsessed with the idea of cheating death.  We have the Fountain of Youth, […]

Thomas Cranmer This presentation is about Thomas Cranmer, who was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Henry VIII and Edward VI.  He helped build the case for Henry VIII’s annulment from Catherine of Argonne and the more I read about him, the more I realized that this […]