Bethel Lutheran - Auburn, MA Campus of Grace Lutheran Ministries, ELCA

06/14/2026

https://youtu.be/bP_rflITg2Q

We the people are the church.

06/10/2026

06/10/2026

PERCEPTION

Our adult study sessions are well attended where we get into some in-depth discussions around the topics of faith.

To assist the group in recognizing the variety of ways any of us perceive ideas and situations, I recently administered a version of the Spinosa Sensory Inventory. I typically include the inventory within confirmation training to assist the young people in gaining insight as to how classmates and friends might make sense of things. It helps to clarify that someone not understanding something exactly the way in which we do doesn’t mean that they are stupid or dumb!

The slant of Jesus’ teaching doesn’t include a sensory inventory per se. However, Jesus made certain that people recognized they had met the Divine through his witness, regardless how they made sense of the world. Using a variety of tactile, auditory or visual means, he touched and healed, preached and taught through parables and memorable sayings, and demonstrated through acts witnessed by multitudes like raising the dead.

As we are all variously gifted with perception, the upshot is that if we listen and hear each other, we can gain improved insight about life on earth plus the things of faith and the Divine!

Let us pray for and patiently engage with each other and the Divine through the Power of the Spirit’s encouragement, so to live into the blessedness of life as gift in which we all have a part to play when we can get out of the way of worldliness to instead lean into sanctity.

O God, may Your Kingdom come about more fully amongst your children here on earth! Amen!

06/07/2026

https://youtu.be/UVSZevFo6cY

Jesus seeing into our need and meeting us where we are.

06/03/2026

ENVIRONMENTAL

I feel blessed to not only have a lifetime of exposure to the breadth and depth of New England, and on a smaller scale with California, the American Midwest, the mid-American Eastern Seaboard region, Florida, Arizona and Northern Mexico, Utah, the Hawaiian Islands, the entirety of the United Kingdom, Quebec, and the Levant.
Each presents unique fauna, weather, wildlife and culinary attributes, albeit with popular crossovers that our global connectedness fosters.

To say that I am most at home in New England would be an understatement. But I enjoy traveling to grow my appreciation for the wonders of Creation!

I began thinking about this as I had my morning walk, listening to the varied bird calls, encountering the wafting breeze, smells of earth and blooming trees and plants, it was an enveloping sense of peace and gratitude!

And it reminded me for how faith in its practice develops in a person an environment fostering gratitude and peace in a similar way as we encounter the holding of the Spirit, enlightenment of Wisdom and inspiration of heart, mind and soul!

God always seeks to supply for our environmental health and well-being in many varied, and mysterious, ways. It is, however, up to us to engage and benefit from Grace and in the protection for the many environments designed to bless us all!

05/31/2026

Video link

The importance is Trust and belief in God leading to wholeness, leaving the mystery of God as just that.

05/28/2026

ILLUSORY
If a child has both hands full of shells at the beach and they spy another prize and wish to collect it, they have to decide what to do; likely lose what they already have to gain the prize, or be satisfied with what is already in their possession. You can read the angst in their face!
Each of us own opinions about what is of value and what is not. Our environments of nurture, past and present, have a lot to do with this.
Jesus’ teaching includes the concept for being satisfied and settled without the stress of worrying about bigger and better: us learning to allow ourselves the freedom (the trust) for being led by the Spirit into an ever-growing appreciation of life, each other and the world as we share of who and what we are that is necessary and helpful.
True happiness and wholeness are illusory if our life-center isn’t adequately grounded.

05/24/2026

https://youtu.be/yUo6Xdddcvo

The Spirit meets our "thirst", including restlessness and aching.

05/17/2026

https://youtu.be/MIzFT6f9Bp4

Jesus blessing for our well-being AND through us, all people!

05/12/2026

INCLINATION

Human lives are not playthings to be manipulated.

Every person has been birthed into the gift that is life. Each life holds much potential with development of ability and skill.
However, it came to mind early in human development how one person might control others to their own benefit.

This is not the design of our Creator, who gave us free-will, then provided direction through Grace and Mercy in becoming the best we can be and in dealing respectfully with every other person.

In revealing Godself to humanity the encouragement of the Divine is for relationship, faith, where we trust the Truth and Wisdom that is related to us as we pray and look for the Maker’s response to our petitions.

Because God is not about manipulation and relates with us through distributed Love, justice and Mercy, when our race turns upon itself there is absolutely a cry from heaven.

People of faith that seek Godly Wisdom and look to Godly Truth own the responsibility for authentically representing the True Humanity which Jesus modeled; us respectfully caring for each other; listening, assisting, bearing with, healing, standing up for, helping unite our race into a family whose lives are, at root, a blessing from our Maker.

God provides us direction as to what is required in living a Godly life where Jesus’ roll-up of the Commandments is summarized as: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and love your neighbors as you love yourself.

What is our inclination?

May we not be tolerant of abuse against the sanctity of life and intent of our Maker for life as blessing. May we all refrain from being drawn-into excuses against following a daily practice of faith in which we trust Divine guidance. The Power that is God, represented in Jesus’ ministry and resurrection, is available in helping us deny the chaos-monster so we might thrive and become a blessing to others and God.