by Guy Sayles | Nov 19, 2023 | Uncategorized
Among the many gifts for which I am grateful this Thanksgiving season is the simple, lifesaving, and life-changing truth that God really is love. I have known that glad affirmation from childhood on but integrating it into my heart and experiencing its power to heal...
by Guy Sayles | May 5, 2023 | Uncategorized
When Amanda and Eliot were young, we’d often fly a kite on Easter afternoon. After lunch, I’d feel groggy from the busy and glad morning of worship leadership, but the kids would be amped-up on chocolate bunnies, peanut-butter cup eggs, and jelly- beans. I’d want to...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 4, 2023 | Uncategorized
Photo by Reign Abarintos on Unsplash Recently, when quiet enough to listen, I’ve heard whispered the word gentle. The whispers have become a beckoning to explore how to be gentler in my relationships with creation, others, and myself. Gentle has a checkered history in...
by Guy Sayles | Nov 10, 2022 | Uncategorized
It had been one of “those” Sundays: the sermon misfired, the choir was off-key, the chair of deacons mentioned a member who complained she didn’t get a visit when she was in the hospital, someone slipped a critical anonymous note under the office door, and the roof...
by Guy Sayles | Nov 1, 2022 | Uncategorized
I’m a flawed follower of Jesus. I’m aware of gaps between what he teaches and how I live. There’s distance between his vision of the world as God means it to be and the world that my ego insists upon. In other words, I’m a sinner. To paraphrase the confession I pray...
by Guy Sayles | Jun 26, 2022 | Uncategorized
(photo: pixbay) This post comes from journal reflections. While I’m reluctant to share them, I do so with the hope that they can help others. “I pray and incur silence” (poet R. S. Thomas, “The Presence”). For more than a year, until very recently, God has been...
by Guy Sayles | Apr 18, 2022 | Uncategorized
Source: Unsplash A few weeks ago, hiking late in the day near Hot Springs, I got lost–not just temporarily detoured, utterly and completely lost. I was alone and hadn’t told anyone of my plans. I was in an area I know well, so I didn’t take a trail map or...
by Guy Sayles | Mar 13, 2022 | Uncategorized
This morning at Grace, we heard two gospel readings: the one assigned for the day from the 13th chapter of Luke’s Gospel and, by a series of fortunate (for me, at least) events, another from John’s Gospel. I heard the passage from John’s Gospel often in the church of...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 3, 2022 | Uncategorized
Just before New Year’s Day, I was walking along A1A in Flagler Beach, with a clear view of the ocean to one side and of various homes and businesses on the other. I was in a reflective mood: pondering what has been and what might be, clarifying what matters most...
by Guy Sayles | Nov 11, 2021 | Uncategorized
Credit: Pixbay We’ve got a lot of recovering to do, don’t we? We’re trying to move toward healthier and more whole lives in the wake of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic; unveilings of entrenched racism, growing income inequality, and inadequacies in our healthcare...
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