Pastor's Devotions by Tim Harris

About 12 years ago, when I was moving my grandmother out of her NYC apartment, I discovered some family items that had been brought to America by her mother and grandfather. In them was a train pass from 1895 that had belonged to my great-grandmother’s grandfather, picture and all! (That would be my great-great-great grandfather!). It was like a passport that gave him the ability to travel from his hometown to Vienna, Austria. The hometown was listed as Lemburg, Austria. When I looked up Lemburg, Austria I found that after WWI, that part of Austria had become part of Ukraine and became known as Lviv, Ukraine. (The borders had been changing for many years.)  The name of that city immediately rang a bell in my head as I remembered, that was the city from which Kim’s mother’s family had come. In other words, both Kim’s mom’s family and my mom’s family had come from the very same city in Europe! And, I couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that, in spite of my family being Jewish and...

This week I have once again been on what is called, “the road to recovery.”  On Monday I had double hernia surgery. Since then, I’ve had to take things a bit slow—to say the least!  Thankfully, each day is a bit better than the one before as I manage the pain, get some extra rest, and am mindful not to strain the muscles around the area where the surgery took place. Mostly, however, I’ve got to be patient for the healing process is never a quick one.    This is not the first time I’ve had to travel this road. Last year’s road, following major spinal surgery, was a road that was a lot longer and harder than the one I am on today. Rather than the 4-6 weeks road that I am currently on, that road was a 4-6 months road—and even longer. On that road I was walking with a walker and then a cane for at least two months; on this road I’ve been able to walk on my own from the start. In the end, however, no matter how hard and long the road to recovery is, the goal is always to ...

A couple of weeks ago some friends of mine introduced me to the online word game, Wordle. Each day there is one new five letter word (so you play only once per day) and the player has six chances to figure out what that word is. He or she does so by placing the letters of a word of their choosing into the boxes given. If the word is correct, all the letters show up as green. If a letter is not in the word of the day, that letter show up as gray. Letters that are in the word but are in the wrong spot show up as gold. Again, the player has six chances to find the right word by eliminating letters, moving letters around, adding letters and forming various words. Of course, everyone wants to come up with the right word in as few tries as possible. The best I have done is three tries. My worst has been five. My norm is four.  Let me ask you, have you ever struggled to find the right word or words? Not for a game like Wordle or Scrabble, but in life. Maybe you’ve had to come alongside of...

A few months ago I joined a Facebook group entitled, “Runners 60+ (Long May We Run).”  Obviously, it’s for people who run who are 60 years old or older. I thought it might be a couple hundred people from across the country. I soon learned that it is now over 7,000 people from all across the globe! Thus, I get to read posts from people who are sharing their runs, running stories, and challenges from places as far away as Australia, Dubai, India, Ireland, Brazil, and of course from across the US. One person even posted their marathon run from Antarctica! Mostly, however, it is a group of runners who cheer each other. The group, you might say, is a bunch of 60+ cheerleaders!   This week I posted on the group page, as I did on my own FB page, the run I took on the one year anniversary of my back/spinal surgery. Since July I’ve been doing some runs and had built up to mostly 5K’s (I did one four miler). To celebrate that day, I did a full 10K (6.2 miles). I then posted my run ...