Rev Jeffrey Dodson

04/11/2026

04/02/2026

It is immoral and wrong to threaten and detain religious leaders. I stand with our Islamic and interfaith leaders in Milwaukee condemning today’s detainment of the leader of the Islamic Society.

April 2, 2026  The Wisconsin Council of Churches expresses its solidarity with the Islamic Society of Milwaukee (ISM) and the family of Mr. Salah Sarsour, its president, in the wake of his detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Monday, March 30th outside his home. It i

03/01/2026

Lord Have Mercy
Christ Have Mercy
Lord Have Mercy

“Christ Breaks the Rifle”

kellylatimoreicons.com

03/01/2026

God, in your mercy, hear our prayer. May we study war no more. May peace prevail in our hearts, our minds, and our communities. May our world have peace. Bring justice to those who experience violence and make blessed the peacekeepers. Amen.

02/20/2026

A poem by Mary Oliver, that I was reminded of in a conversation this morning. Perhaps in this season of lent, we might listen to God‘s calling for us to love and to be loved.

Wild geese
Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

02/17/2026

In a time when so much is crumbling, is burning, I don’t want to romanticize the ashes that come with destruction and devastation. As we approach Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, I do want to keep asking what the Holy One can do with dust, and to keep looking for how I can be part of that. So many blessings to you, beloved ones, as the new season arrives.

BLESSING THE DUST

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
janrichardson.com/books

Image: “Ash Wednesday Cross”
© Jan Richardson
janrichardsonimages.com