There is always the opportunity to start again.....

Who doesn’t like the clean page of a journal especially when you have something to say?


Who doesn’t like the final exam being by blue book especially when you know the material?


Who doesn’t like the new page on the calendar especially when the previous month has been harrowing?


In all this newness and in response to my need to reflect and write and…gulp!….share it and in reply to several persons (bless you) who inquired as to what happened to my blog… I begin again…..to keep things simple and because I tried other blog sites and my technological acumen was clearly lacking...I return to what worked previously and build on that good foundation.


I define myself as a minister on the margins. I have been ordained 24 years this past June in the United Methodist church. Ten of those years I spent as pastor to congregations in Pittsburgh, Greensburg, New Castle and Erie. The last fourteen, I have answered the call in extension ministry settings around justice work and community organizing on issues of public education reform, children, persons with disabilities and health and wellness.


I am drawn to the outsider, the freak, the one who marches to one’s entire own orchestra, those too often labeled so as to be easily dismissed by those in power. The ministry, as all good ministry should be, is a shared one a dynamic of both listening to and learning from, giving to and getting back, being and becoming…together.


This blog will be some reflection, some rants, some remembering of those days of yesterday which still define my present.


As pencils were gripped tightly or as fingers poised to strike the keyboard, in the words of the college professor prior to permission given to open the examination book, I, too say…”Begin;”

sj;