Yesterday's Prayer Station provided an opportunity for interested folks to share a book recommendation. The suggestion was to "...write the name of a book (or books) that changed your life, that you found meaningful or that you would recommend to others."

The books listed below were recommended by someone from your faith family!

Who Stole My Church? - Gordon MacDonald
Traveling Mercies - Anne Lamott
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy - Eric Metaxes
The Road Less Traveled - M. Scott Peck
The Power of NOW - Eckhart Tolle
Living on The Ragged Edge - Charles Swindoll
Tying Rocks to Clouds - William Elliot
The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus - Peter Gomes
The Source - James Michener

Thanks to everyone who shared a book! If you would like to add to the list please provide your book recommendation in the comments. A full list will be published in September's Horizon.

This is the Wordle generated from our answers to the question, "Forgiveness is ...." Click on it to see an enlarged version.

A wordle is a "word cloud" generated from text provided. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the text.

"What's On Your Bookshelf?" is the title for this Sunday's sermon. As I mentioned in a previous post, we will be discussing the impact of Christian fiction (particularly The Shack and The Da Vinci Code) on people of faith and those in the wider culture.

In preparation for this Sunday I would like you to give some thought to the books you read. What genre do you like? Do you read for enjoyment or mostly for work, school, etc.? If you had a free day just for reading what would you read?

I'd also like for you to consider what books (if any) have changed your life. Was there a book you read at a particular time in your life that impacted the way you saw the world? Is there a book that you keep returning to over and over? A book that speaks to you in a timeless way?

If you would like to, you can come with a couple of titles in mind that you would recommend to others. There will be a place a the Prayer Station where you can share the titles of your favorite books. The books you recommend don't have to be specifically Christian books. I would ask that they be books that influenced your life in a positive way. Those titles will then be shared with the larger congregation through a 'virtual' bookshelf.

The summer can be a tough time for the church financially. The summer is a time of vacations and relaxing. Often our most faithful members and contributors don't make it to church, and neither do their pledges. This can leave the church in tough spot. As we all know, bills still need to be paid in the summer!

It is at this time that we can begin focusing on what we don't have. We watch the balance in our church checkbook decrease and we worry we don't have enough. We talk about the money we don't have and the bills we can't pay. Ouch!

And in the middle of this anxiety, God calls us to a life of abundance. Jesus tells us, "I came that you may have life and have it abundantly." God has given us a wonderful community of faith with amazing gifts. We have been blessed!

God has blessed us with a beautiful summer filled with opportunities to spend time with friends and family. God has blessed us with the resources we need to do the ministry that we are called to do in at this time and in this place. Let's make sure that these two blessing meet so we can enjoy the abundant life which is our gift. If you are going to be away, may God bless you! And may you consider sending your pledge ahead of time so our summer may be one of abundance and not of scarcity!

This Sunday is the third Sunday of our three week series on forgiveness. The topic will be "Doing the Hard Work: Forgiving Others."

If nothing else, our conversations on forgiveness have taught us that forgiveness is difficult. Because we are human we are confronted with the challenge to forgive every day of our lives. We are fallible and the people we come into contact with are fallible. Each day we are challenged to forgive things large and small.

One of my favorite books on forgiveness is Why Forgive by Johann Christoph Arnold. In it he writes, "...in the end we won't have to answer for what others do to us ~ only for what we do to them."

In my own life I struggled with forgiveness for a long time. (And in my honest moments I admit that I still struggle with it.) As I've shared with you before, several years ago I was the victim of a sexual assault and attempted murder. The assault happened in the parsonage where I was living. The perpetrator was arrested and charged with the crime. Through the course of the criminal proceedings and sentencing he never expressed remorse or apology.

Under the circumstances I found it very difficult to forgive. I held on to the hurt for many reasons. Yet, in holding onto the hurt, I eventually discovered that the only one I was hurting was myself. When I finally decided to forgive him for what he had done to me I experienced a great sense of freedom. To paraphrase the words of Craig Barnes, I finally accepted that I would never have a better past. By forgiving I didn't forget the hurt or condone what he had done. What I did, with God's help, was give myself back my future.

We all have a story of forgiveness. In fact, I'm sure we all have several stories of forgiveness. What I have shared is just one of mine. As we approach this final Sunday in our forgiveness series I invite you to reflect on your own experiences of forgiveness. When have you struggled to forgive? When has forgiveness been easy?

To quote Johann Christoph Arnold again, "The love of a forgiving heart is never wasted."

Sitting here at my office desk, I keep getting distracted by something that catches my attention out of the corner of my eye. It is the fire-orange blossoms of the day-lilies growing outside my office window. Since most of the year they aren't there at all, they are quite eye-catching and I find myself staring at them often throughout the day. (Many thanks to who ever planted them there!)

There are other things that have caught my attention lately as well. The warm air, the sound of the birds and the cloud formations over the Green Mountains are just a few. When I let myself pay attention to these things I am reminded of the wonder of God's creation and I can't help but give thanks.

Summer in Vermont is one of the best seasons ~ along with Autumn, Winter and Spring! The joy of living in New England is that each season is so distinct, with it's own unique blessings. My message for you today is not very profound. I would simply encourage you to pay attention. If something is distracting you or something keeps catching your attention~ look at it ~ pay attention to it. You may even feel moved to give thanks for it.

Blessings to you on this BEAUTIFUL Vermont summer day!