Connected While Apart Advent/Christmas 2020 — “Awake to Invitation” Awake to Invitation:  Advent/Christmas 2020 So many invitations we have offered or received this year have ended up in the pile of the postponed or the cancelled.  Even if invitations are still out there, we hesitate to note them in our calendars because the weeks of […]

Connected While Apart Different Kinds of Pilgrims The Thanksgiving altar at Mayfield, November 2018. Dear Mayfield, In her 1983 children’s book Molly’s Pilgrim, author Barbara Cohen wrote this simple description:  “A Pilgrim is someone who came here from the other side to find freedom.”  At about the same time a Thanksgiving Litany was included in […]

Greetings Mayfield, Our weekend resources for Thanksgiving Reflection and Worship are linked below.  My prayer is that all of us will remain safe and well throughout the coming days as we figure out how best to celebrate in the middle of all that is difficult and scary.  May you sense the supportive grace of one […]

Connected While Apart Root for Others Steel Roots at Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum Chicago, IL Dear Mayfield, There is a company called Your True Nature.  For quite a while now they have been putting out products including magnets, tee shirts, greeting cards, book marks, and art prints, to name a few.  Their items most often […]

Connected While Apart Not Always Easy Now Dear Mayfield, For a  number of years, on the Melrose side of Nettelhorst School, the south side of the building, there has been a large mural with this sentiment “better together.”  I passed by it in the dark last night on my way to drop off something at […]

Dear Mayfield, First and foremost, please stay safe and well as Covid-19 rages across our geography and through our lives.  Prayers are with any of us who are dealing with the pandemic in our intimate circles of family and friends.  I am aware of these people who have been mentioned to me who are currently […]

Connected While Apart Inspiration in Well and Woe Inspiration is always a surprising visitor.  (John O’Donohue) Dear Mayfield, Our English word “inspiration” can be traced back to the Latin inspirare which means “to blow into or breathe upon.”  I have been breathing with a parade of inspiring moments, encounters, or discoveries this week.  They form […]

Connected While Apart Such Trust: Seeds on the Move a familiar fall scene “Journeys ended, journeys begun, to go where we have never been, to be beyond our past.”  (Gregory Norbet) Dear Mayfield, In the third chapter of the Gospel of John, we read of the nighttime encounter of Jesus with the Pharisee Nicodemus, also […]

Dear Friends, See below the link for this weekend’s materials.  Please note at the end of the bulletin that we are beginning our Advent/Christmas collection to cover the $800 costs for our JAMS student in the coming year.  Thank you for these gifts and for your gifts to cover the ongoing Mayfield expenses.  Be safe, […]

Connected While Apart An Oak Surprise November Oak Leaves Dear Mayfield, Before this year I hadn’t paid that much attention to oak leaves.  In my experience, they have pretty much simply turned brown in autumn.  Their shape is interesting, but fall coloration is often a bit dull.  This year they have been a spectacular surprise.  […]