Leading up to the third Sunday of Advent this year, I kept thinking about the 2006 movie “The Pursuit of Happyness.” The movie stars Will Smith as Chris Gardner, an aspiring entrepreneur and sales person who gets an opportunity to do an unpaid stockbroker internship...
“Peace can be difficult to feel because of the chaos that surrounds us.” I wrote that line more than a year ago for my 2019 Mindful Advent series, but is really true now. Everything in this year feels like chaos — the disruption of a pandemic, the helplessness created...
I’ve written before about how I slept with a bedside lamp on (not just a nightlight) until I was 11 years old. As a child, I was prone to having nightmares about things I had read about or watched on TV. I saw shadowed ghosts in the hallway outside my bedroom. I saw...
https://youtu.be/BqdBo1dH6AQ “It’s Not About You.” If Dr. Haldeman was giving you a “talk” that included this phrase, you were not being your best self. Seminary classmates and I grew accustomed to hearing these words from my worship professor and advisor, Dr. Scott...
Each Christmas season, I make a ritual of watching the Frank Capra Christmas Classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Though I know there is a strong cult following for the movie starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, there is an equally large group of those who furrow their...
I remember one time many years ago I was talking to my mother on my cell phone while driving somewhere through Iowa. (Don’t worry. Hands free.) The conversation resulted, as it often did, in conflict. I was skating along the edge of my last nerve with her — a sadly...
I wonder if part of my annoyance with Christmas lights going up earlier and earlier in the season is because they obscure the darkness we actually need to rest and grow. Glaring lights that we put in our porches, trees and balconies may bring temporary holiday cheer,...
Because I love the Christian season of Advent that leads up to Christmas, I will again be writing each week of Advent a piece around the week’s theme and inviting you into a spiritual practice with me. I felt almost everything but peaceful this week. Scattered....
Because I love the Christian season of Advent that leads up to Christmas, I will again be writing each week of Advent a piece around the week’s theme and inviting you into a spiritual practice with me. Early morning darkness comforts and relaxes me. In the pre-dawn...
According to the book of Phillipians, God’s peace is something “which surpasses all understanding.” (Phillipians 4:7,...
We have a problem with darkness. Not only because the white majority in the U.S. has some seriously, immoral unresolved needs for power and control over people with darker skin. Not only because we anesthetize ourselves with drugs, alcohol, food, caffeine and all...
News of grand jury decisions not to indict the killers of Michael Brown and Eric Garner left me reeling in a way that few news stories have in years. I’m not a lawyer, nor do I have any special insight into what happened in those grand jury rooms in St. Louis and New...
Adapted from a sermon preached by Rev. Nicole Havelka on Dec. 8, 2013 at Pilgrim UCC, St. Joseph, MI For months, I nodded along politely while my fellow seminary students earnestly discussed their daily prayer and meditation practices. I was totally convinced that...
I don’t know about you, but I remember quite vividly the wiggly anticipation with which I greeted Christmas Eve as a child. I remember dressing up in my new Christmas dress (often a red one which was a favorite color even back then) and my annual pair of black patent...
Rev. Nicole Havelka kicks off the Iowa Conference UCC Advent devotional series with a little inside joke here among the Iowa Conference staff. Then, she invites you to answer the question, "What are YOU hoping for?"