Pastor’s Column
September 4, 2025
I chose to call us to worship with the following:
God shines forth in perfect beauty.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
the skies proclaim the work of God’s hands.
We are God’s creation, God’s handiwork,
made in God’s image.
We worship the Master Artist, whose imagination is reflected in all that is beautiful and true.
Art reminds us of our divine origin. Painting, music, literature, and all that is made with care reflect the creativity of God.
Let us lift our voices and our hearts in worship, honoring the Creator of all beauty. Amen.
Louise Cronenwett, our worship assistant, was reading the Call to Worship on Saturday, in preparation for leading worship the next day. She emailed me that it reminded her of a gorgeous picture she had seen just that morning in the paper. The picture shows thousands of newborn stars in a kaleidoscope of colors and sizes. In the foreground of the picture is a dramatic cloud of star-forming dust and gas. The embryos of stars which have not yet been born are deep inside the cloud.
What a thrill to realize that God is still actively creating! This truth has come home to me in the last two months as I have marveled at the miracle of our newborn grandson. I love to cuddle him in my arms, feeling his soft, warm skin against mine. I stare at his perfectly formed nose and mouth and fingers and toes.
As Robert Short, the author of the book that was my inspiration for the Peanuts sermons wrote, “Both the language of faith and the language of art have a way of communicating to the heart of a person in a way that will grab their attention.” I would add that the beauty of a newborn star and the beauty of a newborn baby similarly speak to the heart of the beholder in a way that will lift their attention to God!
The amazing photo was taken by NASA's Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful telescope ever sent into space. That one picture took the telescope more than five hours to capture. The newborn stars are 5,500 light-years away, with each light year equal to 5.8 trillion miles, a distance that only a few years ago would only have been visible to God! The cloud which is nurturing the star embryos is called the Lobster Nebula.
In never-ending amazement at our loving Creator God,
Pastor Cindy
September 8, 2025
My dear church family,
September 8, 2025 My dear church family, I enjoyed preaching the “Gospel According to Peanuts” and especially enjoyed see all your laughing faces at the final panels of so many of the comic strips. I love the way that Charles Schulz was able to capture human nature in so few words and simple drawings. He enabled us to get to know each of his characters and the distinct personality of each. What a creative artist he was! I chose to call us to worship with the following: