What better way to spend Palm Sunday than at the church where I hear God speak the most powerfully to me — nature. It’s on a cold, rainy trail where thoughts of legacies, palms and my redeemer, got me wondering: What do I really need in life? So let’s usher in Holy Week together. Join me. I promise you won’t get wet like I did. I pray our time together will be a blessed time. (Oh, and there was a little surprise during filming. Something that I wonder if Rev, the cat, had something to do with? A little smile from heaven?
Getting ready for Palm Sunday at Old Stone Well Farm and realized just how not ready I am. Ever find yourself in a season where all your best laid plans got changed? Perhaps, when this happens, it is God’s invite to us to really be open to something new. Or perhaps it’s just an invite to stop “doing” and just be. So, won’t you join in this short time together to just “be”?
It’s April’s Fools Day at Old Stone Well Farm and my chickens played a joked on me that involves one of their eggs!
So I invite you this day, to take a few minutes, press play and listen to how after I got done laughing, their joke got me thinking about the season of sadness I’ve been in and the need for self care. And let me know if you have ever had the experience I have had. I’m learning so much about chickens.
(And a reminder, I will be off this Sunday and so no worship video, but please go to YouTube and make your Sunday an Old Stone Well Farm rerun day…or marathon!
Go to YouTube and type in “Donna Frischknecht” in the search and you will see in the library 156 videos! I will be honest, there are some I really should take down. Wow. Old Stone Well Farm has and is always evolving!)
Need a smile? Need encouragement? Need to feel the love and grace in your lives again? Then let’s “run” back to where we will find wholeness again. On this fourth Sunday in Lent we ponder the parable of the Prodigal Son with a little help from Rembrandt, Henri Nouwen — and some cute little piglets! Enjoy your time in Vermont at Old Stone Well Farm. Comment, share…and let me know your answer to what brings a smile to your face.
My favorite season is here. No, not spring, but maple sugar season!
The sap is flowing from the trees and the sweet air from the sap being boiled into syrup is wafting on parts of the trail I run on daily. Maple syrup season makes mud season almost bearable — almost.
So, as we begin our third week in Lent, I invite you to the farm where I think about God, maple syrup, sugar shacks and this thing called “community.”
And a shout out to Rathbun’s Maple House, rathbunsmaple.com, for always serving such a wonderful breakfast! It’s a blessing to live near such an iconic place.
The second week in Lent begins at Old Stone Well Farm and I find comfort on a cold, snowy day wrapped in a prayer shawl and thinking about chicks, mother hens and how comforting it is to think of God as a protective hen that I can run to when feeling down or lost. Who do you turn to when feeling down or lost? And I am curious, what’s your favorite image of God? Come, join me at the farm. Like, comment, share! Blessings!
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. — Isaiah 55:8–9
Jesus tells us in Matthew 25 that when we feed the hungry, we are indeed feeding him. Yet, how do we define “feed”? Is feeding a free church meal? Is it a food pantry in the church basement? Is feeding one of those micro pantries set up on the church property that allows 24/7 access for those who are hungry?
At the heart of all these questions is the most important one: How do we get to the point where free meals, food pantries and micro pantries are obsolete? How do we eradicate hunger? Perhaps we begin by looking at the systems in place that keep folks hungry. What if national grocery chains didn’t pick locations for stores based on profitability, but real need? For example, many rural areas are labeled as food deserts — places where healthy, affordable food cannot be found. What if lobbyists didn’t advocate for corporations that perpetuated food waste? What if, after cleaning up a free church dinner, the faithful sat down and asked, “Is there more that can be done?”
A young college graduate asked just that when returning to his rural community. After noticing perfectly fine vegetables and fruits left in the fields, he asked for permission from the farmers to glean the fields and take what was collected to area food pantries. When we began noticing those who really needed the fresh produce were not showing up — the elderly who could no longer drive to the pantry — he asked, “What more can be done?” He secured a generous grant to buy a van and began driving into the area food deserts. His veggie van became a healthy version of an ice cream truck. And while no ditty or catchy tune played announcing its arrival, the van nevertheless put a smile on the faces of those it would bless. One young man was eradicating hunger, and it all began by asking, “Is there more that can be done?”
Pray
Creative God, your ways are so much better than what we can ever imagine. As we seek to live the vision of Matthew 25, help us to let go of all our preconceived ideas of what serving you entails. Open us up to new ideas. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
Ponder
In what creative ways is God asking us to feed the hungry? As Isaiah notes, our ways are not God’s ways. This day, think beyond the ways the hungry are traditionally fed. Is there a veggie van in your future? Or is there a gleaning ministry waiting to be born?
I have often found my energy — and faith — lagging midweek. So if you are having one of those weeks, or simply need a quick retreat into the Vermont woods with me (and Robert Frost!), then allow yourself a few minutes to step away from the news, from deadlines, from stress and worries. Renew your souls. Take a coffee break and escape to a quieter place and reflect on where God is leading you in this the first week in Lent.
Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, which ushers in the season of Lent, has traditionally been a day of preparation for the 40-day journey to the Easter. That preparation has included presenting one’s self to a priest to confess sins, also known as shriving, thus, the name for the day — Shrove Tuesday. It was also a time to clean out the pantry of flour, eggs, butter and sugar. And what better way to use all these items up than to make pancakes? Join me here at Old Stone Well Farm as we get ready for Lent together. And, yes, it involves pancakes!
Our Lenten journeys are about to begin! But before we enter into this season of discernment, join me in the kitchen at Old Stone Well Farm where a little butter churning reminds me of how moments of change are not just found on the mountaintops, but often right in ordinariness of life. A little cream turns into delicious butter, and all it takes is perseverance and prayer.
Before you take you seat at the farm table and pour yourself a cup of coffee and begin watching today’s message, I want to extend a thank you to the Rev. Sarah Bigwood who invited me to guest preach this Sunday at Southampton Presbyterian Church via video. Sarah is a pastor with vision and passion, and thinking beyond traditional pulpit supply is just one example of how she embraces the new thing God is doing.
So today, you not only join me at the farm, but you have other friends from Southampton at the farm table.
accidental country pastor 