Rev. Ruth D. Fitzgerald served in parish ministry for nine years before being called into conference ministry as Area Minister for the Grand West Association in Michigan. She retired in 2023 from that position. Ruth served on the community board for Pilgrim Manor, then a United Church Homes community, and has been an active board member for the Fountain Hill Center for Counseling and Care, and Ele's Place--West Michigan (a healing center for grieving children and teens) all in Grand Rapids. Ruth has two grown children and three precious grandchildren. Travel, hiking, knitting, and reading fill her “spare” time.
In 2008 I traveled to the border lands between Arizona and Mexico. This was a trip required for my graduation from seminary; an “intercultural immersion” experience...
When I was young, I knew most of the nooks and crannies of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Our family attended a large, downtown church and sometimes on Sunday afternoons..
Life Hymn-list One of the blessings of this pandemic time has been the regular schedule of meetings with the “circle” of folks who participate in writing this blog. We..
Illuminating books. We can read that phrase a couple of different ways. Are books, by their contents illuminating? Do they shed new understanding on life’s experiences..
When I entered seminary as a 45-year-old adult, I learned a new phrase: “Already, and not yet.” There are many ways that seminarians parse this phrase, but for me, it is..
I’m tired! Are you? I’m tired of this new paradigm that shapes our lives, this global pandemic. It seems that just about everything has been changed a bit in light of..
Some of my fondest childhood memories are of my grandmother and my mother, sitting at the piano, playing and singing their favorite hymns. For my grandmother it was “How..
Three common words-- Rooted in love. Three words of scripture-- Rooted in love. Three words.
