Emmaus Blog

Thursday, October 22, 2026:  God knows how to have fun in ways we mortals can’t even begin to imagine. On a recent Nova program , I learned about the role rocks may have played in bringing forth life on our planet. I’ve always loved rocks. Apparently, God is comfortable being a humble, inscrutable mineral, waiting to see what his own inner turmoil might bring forth. God knows how to have fun in ways we mortals can’t even begin to imagine. But watching Nova wasn’t fun for me. My species is complex and by all appearances, quite destructive. I am ashamed and befuddled. “Sit with that,” God says. So I sit. And sit. The paint dries, the hands on the clock move, the clouds drift by, the grass grows, the flowers bloom, and the molecular miracle that I am begins to vibrate in harmony with the universe—a stringed instrument being plucked in defiant hope by God, my buddy, my nemesis, my imaginary friend. The thread that initially stitched me together is intended to dissolve. I know this. I a...

Wednesday, October 21, 2026:  something wild, dangerous, unfettered, and free in the character of Yahweh." My  family recently gained new neighbors when a family of Carolina wrens moved into the mailbox affixed to our house. The mother bird and I had been negotiating this arrangement for a couple of weeks; she would begin to place twigs and grass inside the mailbox, and I would remove her efforts while retrieving our dusty, twig-laden mail. Then, my family went away for a weekend. In a mere 48 hours, the mama bird not only created an entire nest but also staked her claim definitively by laying five beautiful eggs — inside my mailbox. I am not too proud to admit defeat. Her need was clearly greater than my own, so I wrote a note to all postal workers informing them of our new feathered neighbors and asking them to redirect our post to the bin beside the door.  My daughters, ages 7 and 4, were ecstatic about these winged developments. We checked the nest multiple times a da...

  Monday, October 19, 2026:  Empire and Christianity:  The Games of Empire Once Christianity became enmeshed with empire, we could no longer talk about the opening line of the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). Emperors don’t want people who are poor in spirit. They want loyalists. They want people who salute the flag and follow the rules.  They want national security states. Any talk of nonviolence frankly goes underground until the twentieth century. That’s how well empire Christianity buried the gospel message. Empires need clear judgments about up and down, who’s in and who’s out, who’s right and who’s wrong, who’s our enemy and who’s our friend.  Here’s an example of how thoroughly it infected the church. In 1054, with no sense of irony, the bishop of Rome and the patriarch of Constantinople, representing the Latin church and the Greek church traditions, mutually excommunicated one another. Each side effectively called them...

SUNDAY, October 11, 2026: Join us tomorrow and Celebrate Indigenous People and their Wisdom with Enid, Mary Ellen and Jane. Meet with us starting at 3:45pm in Person or on Zoom: In Person: We meet in Classroom 8 of Christ Church United Methodist Church 1717 Yulupa Avenue, Santa Rosa, California 95405 You are invited to our Emmaus Celebration using Zoom Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5193158573?omn=81756952234 Passcode: 1234 If you start Zoom from yoou browser :  Meeting ID: 519 315 8573 Passcode: 1234 Using you phone? One tap mobile +16699006833,,5193158573# US (San Jose) Ring the Singing Bowl (Mary Ellen) – Let us take a moment of silence to prepare ourselves for today’s liturgy. Introduction (Enid) -  Tomorrow is Indigenous Peoples Day. Our liturgy today will celebrate the indigenous people who lived on our land for thousands of years before settlers arrived on our shores. We meet today on land that was home to the Southern Pomos. They along with the Coast ...

Saturday, October 10, 2026: Join us tomorrow and Celebrate Indigenous People with Enid, Mary Ellen and Jane. Meet with us starting at 3:45 in Person or on Zoom: In Person: We meet in Classroom 8 of Christ Church United Methodist Church 1717 Yulupa Avenue, Santa Rosa, California 95405 You are invited to our Emmaus Celebration using Zoom Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5193158573?omn=81756952234 Passcode: 1234 If you start Zoom from yoou browser :  Meeting ID: 519 315 8573 Passcode: 1234 Using you phone? One tap mobile +16699006833,,5193158573# US (San Jose) Ring the Singing Bowl (Mary Ellen) – Let us take a moment of silence to prepare ourselves for today’s liturgy. Introduction (Enid) -  Tomorrow is Indigenous Peoples Day. Our liturgy today will celebrate the indigenous people who lived on our land for thousands of years before settlers arrived on our shores. We meet today on land that was home to the Southern Pomos. They along with the Coast Miwok lived in So...

Friday, October 9, 2026:  Across US, Catholics take to streets as momentum builds for immigrant solidarity On the last Sunday of September, Catholics marched through the city of St. Louis in support of migrants and refugees. The same day, St. Louis Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski for the first time called on U.S. leaders to end "indiscriminate detention and mass deportation." For Rozanski, the urgency was local and painfully concrete. He pointed to Nixon Perez and Glendy Gonzalez de la Cruz, a Guatemalan couple who had lived in the St. Louis area before Perez was deported and Gonzalez followed him with their family. Rozanski said the couple was later found murdered in Guatemala, their infant nearby in a severely dehydrated condition. The archbishop said their deaths deeply affected the parish community that had known them.  "I'm so proud of our pastors who are ministering in immigrant communities who are facing such difficult conditions because of the crackdown on immig...