by Andrew Beard | Apr 4, 2025 | Easter, Words from Pastor Andrew
Last night at dinner, we had a very serious theological conversation.
Should any food ever touch the palm of your hand?
Weird question, I know—but watch a little kid eat, and you’ll see every food group being palmed like it’s a basketball. Personally, I find that gross…but I’m also not a child, and I’m a recovering germaphobe, so maybe that’s just me.
Adults, on the other hand, tend to keep their food at the fingertips—unless it’s popcorn, nuts, or candy. Those get a pass. Otherwise, palm-to-food contact? No thank you.
Sarah and I made our case. It was clear, logical, and morally superior (obviously). No palm-to-food contact—except for small snacks. Case closed. I even triumphantly challenged the table:
“Name one food that should touch the palm of your hand.”
Keating didn’t miss a beat. “Banana,” he said.
Banana?!
by Andrew Beard | Mar 10, 2025 | Words from Pastor Andrew
I love the sun setting later. I love longer and brighter evenings. I love the lengthening of days and the feeling that spring is inching forward with Summer in the not too distant future.
While at the same time…I hated the way I felt this morning.
Anybody else?
I mean, I travel a bit, my wake up time and bed time adjust regularly, but this morning, was terrible.
Again, anybody else?
by Andrew Beard | Oct 23, 2024 | Words from Pastor Andrew
Several years ago, Sarah and I shared one account for our phones. That way we could share music and pictures and everything else stored on our phones…to be honest, we didn’t realize almost two decades ago that all of our life would be on our phones…that didn’t even occur to us.
The problem with sharing one account is, occasionally, for no reason we completely understood, some of our texts, calendars, emails and other things would show up on the other persons phone without going through a series of menu options to change that or stop it from happening.
We maybe didn’t send the initial text or send the initial email or initial calendar invite and yet, we had this bit of information that was intended for someone else and we were seriously confused.
Have you ever tried to understand a conversation with only reading one side of it?
Whether it is sitting there listening to someone talk on their phone, but have no idea what the person on the other end is saying.
It is very confusing.
by Andrew Beard | Aug 19, 2024 | Words from Pastor Andrew
When I was a kid we had the media cabinet in our living room with a record player, a cassette player, and sometime in the late 80’s or early 90’s, a CD player.
Records were obviously the mode of sharing recorded music for over 100 years, hitting the scene in the late 1800’s and held that position confidently. But as all know, dealing with vinyl records is time consuming, they are delicate, things need to be handled with care, and you need a good record player to truly appreciate them.
When cassette tapes were invented in the 60’s it would still take a decade or so before they would come close to toppling the preferred listening mode. In 1984, they finally did it. Cassette tapes were how you made mix tapes, how you recorded stuff with your friends, how you could copy and redistribute music and recordings easily from your home.
What we gave up for this convenience…was audio quality.
by Andrew Beard | Jun 4, 2024 | Words from Pastor Andrew
“Ummm…Brian…I kicked a hole in your door.”
“What? No way. You’re just trying to get me to open up.”
“Nope. I’m serious.”
I then laid down, because I was starting to crash coming down from the rush of adrenalin and sobering up to the reality of the trouble I was going to be in when my parents got home. So I closed my eyes and hoped that when I woke up, it would have all been a dream.
When I was a kid, I was described as “having lots of energy”. I was energetic, emotional, gregarious, and on occasion, known to be angry. Now let me state, I was the instigator of most of the chaos and typical scuffles between me and my brothers. I liked to poke the bear and get attention. Also, my older brother, who is much more cool, calm, and collected than I ever was or will ever be seemed to like to watch me spiral out.
You know. Brothers.
