Cooking with Elsa

pastoral prayer

  • Pandemic Prayers for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

    I adore the repetition that the beloved community offers in trying to embody the call to love. It’s why my prayers these past few weeks have been drawn to the epistle first but it doesn’t quite reverberate with the way… Continue reading

    Pandemic Prayers for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

  • Pandemic Prayers for the Fifth Sunday of Easter

    I have seen pictures appear in my feed of pastors taking that much needed break after Easter. Some didn’t go much further than their backyard but they have their feet up and they are relaxing. Others — having been fully… Continue reading

    Pandemic Prayers for the Fifth Sunday of Easter

  • Pandemic Prayers for the Resurrection

    Hope comes again despite all that has happened. The worst thing is not the last thing. There is still more that God will do. There is still more that God is doing and I pray that is especially true for… Continue reading

    Pandemic Prayers for the Resurrection

  • Pandemic Prayers for Proper 20

    It has been six months. I lost count. I could have sworn it had been longer since my husband redeployed from South Korea and we almost immediately cancelled the vacation I’d been looking forward to for nine months and went… Continue reading

    Pandemic Prayers for Proper 20

  • Pandemic Prayers for Proper 19

    Though I didn’t do anything with the text last week, I’m still thinking about the question Kathryn Matthews posed in her weekly musings in the United Church of Christ’s Sermon Seeds about the grieving parents in the Passover story. How… Continue reading

    Pandemic Prayers for Proper 19

  • Pandemic Prayers for Proper 14

    This gorgeous reflection on 1 Kings 19:9-18 by Richard W. Swanson has got me thinking about silence. Silence feels all consuming right now. There is so much of it. Or, at least, there is for me. Continue reading

    Pandemic Prayers for Proper 14

  • Pandemic Prayers for Proper 13

    I’m finding it hard to enter the power of the miracle in Matthew’s Feeding of the Five Thousand. I feel myself withdraw and not in the prayerful and restorative manner that we imagine Jesus does in that thirteenth verse. Continue reading

    Pandemic Prayers for Proper 13

  • Pandemic Prayers for Easter 6A

    When this all started, there were lots of reflections about God’s absence. It wasn’t my experience. I didn’t feel like God had given up or disappeared anymore than I felt like God had brought this pandemic upon the global community.… Continue reading

    Pandemic Prayers for Easter 6A

  • Pandemic Prayers for Easter 5A

    I join the circle of preachers who have expressed their familiarity with this text at the graveside. It’s the Gospel Lesson I always choose when the family doesn’t steer me in another direction, not because of the many mansions or… Continue reading

    Pandemic Prayers for Easter 5A

  • Pandemic Prayers for Easter 4A

    After I posted the prayers last week, I felt awkward. I wondered if these prayers could speak to such a broad audience. I wondered if it was even possible to capture the vastness of this pandemic into a few words.… Continue reading

    Pandemic Prayers for Easter 4A