A Two Goal Lead is the Most Dangerous Lead...

The Rev. Aron Kramer Advent 4 December 23 rd , 2012 I began working at St. Paul’s in Duluth in July of 2000. I had been three years in Berkeley California at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, working on my Masters of Divinity. Seasons are different in California than they are here in Minnesota, and 2001 was the first Spring I had experienced since leaving for seminary in 1997. That first Spring was amazing, I realize that spring in Minnesota tends to be muddy and, for the most part, absent these days, but in 2001, I watched each bud on all the trees in town grow with possibility and purpose. I watched as the grass went from dead brown to glorious green. The earth seemed to be birthing something new in a way I had not seen before. So, one Sunday, when I was preaching, I preached about the earth seeming to be pregnant with possibility. That this spring was filled with newness, I reflected back on this text, the approach of Mary and how in Elizabe...

This sciatica, and the pain in my leg has kept me from being able to play with Eliot and Naomi for a month now. They are getting frustrated with me, saying, “Daddy, when are you going to get your leg fixed?” It is hard not to be able to be active, to feel horrible pain with every step I take or every shift I make when I am sitting down. It is even harder to watch Eliot and Naomi play in the snow and know that I can’t run and jump and throw them around right now. But on Friday, that unfortunate feeling in my soul was one that I found myself being grateful for. Because there is no way I could imagine the pain of a parent who had just lost their child in the way that 20 families lost their own children in Connecticut.  I am still numb, I am still trying to wrap my head around the idea that a young man walked into a school and killed 20 children and 7 adults. It just doesn’t make sense. Why would someone do that? Why? I don’t have the answer, and I sure as he...

I ran away I could not take the burden of both me and you It was too fast Casting love on me as if it were a spell I could not break When it was a promise I could not make "Hold on to what you believe" by Mumford and Sons. Mumford and Sons have captured my heart, soul, body, all of me. This song is my song of the day. It's a good one.

The Rev. Aron Kramer Advent 2, December 9 th , 2013 The hardest thing I do in my entire life happens each Saturday between 5:30 and 6PM. That moment is the one moment in my life where I enter into a space and no matter how I look at it, I see that I am far from perfect. I see clearly, that I have made mistakes in my life. That half hour window is the hardest moment I experience, and I experience it every single week, But it is also a moment of redemption, it is a moment when I get to take stock, understand who I was and begin to look at how I can become a better person. It is, for me, today, a moment that is motivational, still painful, still filled with hills and valleys, but very much a moment where I can be made new, where my flesh can see the salvation of God. That moment is the time I drop Eliot and Naomi off at their Mom’s house. Divorce has been difficult, it has been transformative, and it has been filled with hills and valleys. Words meant to...

It’s empty in the valley of your heart / The sun, it rises slowly as you walk / away from all the fears / and all the faults you’ve left behind. This opening line from Mumford and Son’s song called the The Cave caught my attention this week. Aren’t we always trying so hard to walk away from all of our fears, and all of our faults? Aren’t we always trying to start fresh, to understand more clearly how we are called to be? Or are we meant to be happy with who and where we are? This is a fascinating question for us to consider, are we called to change, to move forward in dramatic and powerful ways or are we called to be happy with who we are, after all, everything we need, we have right here, inside of us. God made us and God made us good. God didn’t make us to become anyone else, God made us to be us. It’s empty in the valley of your heart / The sun, it rises slowly as you walk / away from all the fears / and all the faults you’ve left behind. I think w...