Emmaus Blog

Tuesday, December 30, 2025:  The world no longer trusts Christians who “love Jesus” but do not seem to love anyone else. He asked us several times to follow him, and never once to worship him. His only command: Love one another. We close our 2025 Daily Meditations reflecting on what “being salt and light” means for all people of good will. Father Richard Rohr writes: Have you ever noticed that the expression “the light of the world” is used to describe the Christ (John 8:12), while Jesus also applies the same phrase to us? (Matthew 5:14:) “You are the light of the world.” Apparently, light is less something we see directly, and more something by which we see all other things. Light reflects off objects and we see them - we see colors and textures and our fellow humans.  Jesus Christ seems quite happy to serve as a conduit, rather than a provable conclusion. (If the latter was the case, the incarnation of Jesus would have happened after the invention of the camera and the video...

Monday, December 29, 2025: Invitation for Tomorrow: The Poor Save Us with MEGAN MCKENNA. RSVP to Nancy Hello Everyone: Our Education Committee will present the 2nd video of a 4-part series on  Tuesday (tomorrow)  Dec. 30th,  1:00pm at Nancy and Bob’s.   Please  RSVP to Nancy at RNMCFAR1938@yahoo.com or text or call 707-280-4705.   Below is info on Meghan McKenna, the speaker, and a brief description of her talk. Contemplative Summit Day 1 Replay: The Poor Save Us  featuring MEGAN MCKENNA What if true wealth isn't what you keep - but what you give away? Join Megan McKenna as she invites us to rethink wealth, spirituality, and community through a contemplative lens. As she describes it, contemplation is a "long loving look at reality." especially the hard truths of poverty, injustice, and suffering Discover how being truly seen-and learning t o see others as God sees them-breaks down barriers o f "us versus them" and calls u s into compassionat...

Sunday , December 28, 2025: Please join us for our Emmaus Celebration  Today! We begin with a greeting at 1:45 followed by our Liturgy at 2:00 In person at Christ Church United Methodist 1717 Yulupa, Santa Rosa   Or On Zoom  Please join our Zoom Meeting using this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5193158573?omn=82142452838 Passcode: 1234 Or start Zoom in your browser, Join meeting and type in the Meeting ID: Meeting ID: 519 315 8573 Passcode: 1234 One tap mobile for calling in: +16699006833,,5193158573# US (San Jose) +16694449171,,5193158573# US Emmaus Liturgy for December 28, 2025 Welcome: Dan Vrooman: John Steinbeck hid in a migrant camp under a fake name – just to see if America would treat him like one of its own. It didn’t. It was 1936, the heart of the Great Depression. Steinbeck kept hearing stories – families from Oklahoma and Texas, farmers who had lost everything to dust and drought, flooding into California in broken trucks. They came chasing a dream, but w...

Saturday, December 27, 2025: Please join us for our Emmaus Celebration  Tomorrow. We begin with a greeting at 1:45 followed by our Liturgy at 2:00 In person at Christ Church United Methodist 1717 Yulupa, Santa Rosa   Or On Zoom  Please join our Zoom Meeting using this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5193158573?omn=82142452838 Passcode: 1234 Or start Zoom in your browser, Join meeting and type in the Meeting ID: Meeting ID: 519 315 8573 Passcode: 1234 One tap mobile for calling in: +16699006833,,5193158573# US (San Jose) +16694449171,,5193158573# US Emmaus Liturgy for December 28, 2025 Welcome: Dan Vrooman: John Steinbeck hid in a migrant camp under a fake name – just to see if America would treat him like one of its own. It didn’t. It was 1936, the heart of the Great Depression. Steinbeck kept hearing stories – families from Oklahoma and Texas, farmers who had lost everything to dust and drought, flooding into California in broken trucks. They came chasing a dream, b...

 Friday, December 26, 2025:  Seeing in the Dark To Know the Dark To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings. - Wendell Berry SEEING IN THE DARK Our year begins in the dark, as do so many other generative processes. Seeds and bulbs grow in the soil of the earth, and embryos form in the womb. Animals and plants hibernate. Those who desperately needed a message of liberation in a world of conflict and power, like the shepherds and magi, were in the dark when they heard the good news.  In early Greek healing centers, the first thing doctors had patients do was bathe and then sleep. We all need sleep and renewal in the darkness, which is essential to our well-being. Home was described to me as a place you can walk about in the dark! We use the dark as shorthand for anything that scares us. But we can redeem the true meaning of dark...

Thursday, December 25, 2025: Christmas Day: With these virtues in our hearts, unafraid of the night, we can go forth to meet the dawn of a new day." Poem by E. E. Cummings: little tree little silent Christmas tree you are so little you are more like a flower who found you in the green forest and were you very sorry to come away? see          i will comfort you because you smell so sweetly i will kiss your cool bark and hug you safe and tight just as your mother would, only don't be afraid look          the spangles that sleep all the year in a dark box dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine, the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads, put up your little arms and i'll give them all to you to hold every finger shall have its ring and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy then when you're quite dressed you'll stand in the window for everyone to see and how they'll stare! oh but you'll be very proud and my little ...

Wednesday, December 24, 2025: Christmas Eve:  Even this late it happens:  the coming of love, the coming of light.   Even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of light.  You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,  stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,  sending up warm bouquets of air. Even this late the bones of the body shine  and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath. - By Poet Mark Strand 1934 - 2014 Christmas Eve 2025:  Light in the World, Light in Us   Do you remember how the whole biblical story begins? “In the…” And do you remember the first creation that is spoken into being? “Let there be light… and it was good” On Christmas Eve, we celebrate a new beginning. We welcome the dawning of a new light. A new day begins with sunrise. A new year begins with lengthening days. A new life begins with infant eyes taking in their first view of a world bathed in light. And a new era in human history began when our...

Tuesday, December 23, 2025  An Invitation to celebrate Christmas Eve at Christ Church United Methodist: Lindsey Kerr, Pastor of Christ Church United Methodist is inviting us to attend the Christmas Eve service at Christ Church with her community: Lindsey writes:   "We 'd love to see you in person next Wednesday Evening, December 24, 2025 at 7:00PM"  Merry Christmas!  If you can’t attend in person, here's the Zoom link to our Christmas Eve service next Wednesday December 24, 2025 at 7:00PM https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83355435726. Of course, we 'd love to see you in person as well! Merry Christmas!  In the bleak midwinter frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone: snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter, long ago. Enough for him whom cherubim worship night and day, a breastful of milk and a mangerful of hay: enough for him whom angels fall down before, the ox and ass and camel which adore. Angels and archang...