It has been quite a week. Rachel and I went to another doctor’s appointment yesterday as Rachel seeks to make a decision about her upcoming surgery for breast cancer. I am finishing my time at Bethel and I feel the sadness of saying goodbye to people I care about. I am about to move to Las…
Did you see this news article about the 5th graders who righted a 60 year wrong? It reminds me that the power of grace will always be stronger than hate. Here is that story from CBS News… Reverend Gilbert and Grace Caldwell were overjoyed about tying the knot 60 years ago. They were then immediately heartbroken,…
If you are from Bethel Lutheran Church in Cupertino and did not see the email I sent out this morning, I informed the congregation that I will be leaving Bethel in mid-October. If you are reading about this for the first time, I apologize for the shock of these words. I accepted a call to…
Last week I wrote about horses and hurricanes. You can read the article here: https://benbergren.com/article-horses-and-hurricanes/. Since then, many people have asked me how the Spanish Colonial Mustangs are doing after Hurricane Dorian past over the Outer Banks of North Carolina. After doing a little digging online, I am happy to report the wild Spanish Colonial Mustangs…
In 1524 Giovanni da Verrazano of Spain mapped the coastline of North Carolina. Most likely Verrazano left a gift that still resides in North Carolina today. Wild Spanish Colonial Mustangs still roam the outer banks of North Carolina today. There are not many left and they are critically endangered. Currently, there are about 100 Spanish…
Last week my friend and colleague the Rev. Cindy McCalmont of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) wrote an “op ed” for the Mercury News that has not yet been published. She sent this to me and other clergy to ask if we would sign on to this “op ed” at the time of publishing….
Before his arrest, Robert Courtney served as a deacon at the Assembly of God Church he was a member of in Kansas City. In 1990, Courtney began purchasing pharmaceuticals on the “gray market” and using them to fill prescriptions at his pharmacy. In time, he began diluting prescriptions to increase profits. Both practices were and…
If you didn’t know, our Lutheran church body gathers for a “churchwide assembly” to do the business of our church. It is a like a congregational meeting for the entire Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Over 5 days the assembly: worships, learns, elects and set the course for our national church body. The delegates of…
Flawed American writer and intellectual David Foster Wallace once gave a commencement address before he committed suicide in 2008. This is what he said to the graduating class… “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism …. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship….
I am distraught. Like you, I heard about the murders at the Gilroy Garlic Festival on Sunday evening and now the shootings in El Paso, Texas. I am not distraught because it is so close (Gilroy), I am saddened that mass gun violence is prevalent and a part of our culture and this event reminded…
