Nancy Kennedy

1 week ago | chronicleonline.com | Nancy Kennedy

It’s the difference between giving out a limited number of bags of fruit and harvesting bushels of fruit year after year. It’s the difference between a little and an abundance. That’s the idea behind the Community Food Bank’s (CFB) Trees of Life initiative, a garden of fruit-bearing trees that will eventually yield a bountiful harvest to share among the thousands of people they serve.

1 week ago | chronicleonline.com | Nancy Kennedy

At dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake … (and) an angel of the Lord came down from heaven …rolled back the stone and sat on it …. The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.’” (Matthew 28:1-6)Easter Sunday sunrise services have long been a tradition observed by many Christians around the world.

2 weeks ago | chronicleonline.com | Nancy Kennedy

Did you know that in Germany, kids roll eggs down a hill and sometimes do an egg dance — dancing on an egg-filled floor while trying not to step on them. In Northern England, kids play an Easter game called “egg tapping” or “egg jarping.” Players get their own hard-boiled egg and tap another player’s egg with their own, trying to break their opponents’ eggs while keeping theirs unbroken. The player with the last intact egg wins and the losers have to eat their broken eggs.

2 weeks ago | chronicleonline.com | Nancy Kennedy

Editor's note: This column is adapted from a 2012 Grace Notes column. When I was 9, I bent down to say hi to a friend’s basset hound and it jumped up and bit my face, tearing a hole from the right edge of my lip to my chin. I’m 70, and I still have the scar and still remember the bite, although it hasn’t affected my life in any significant way other than I never, ever put my face near a dog’s mouth. Acne scars have actually affected me more, I think. Years ago, I wrote a series about people’s scars.

2 weeks ago | chronicleonline.com | Nancy Kennedy

Sometimes I’ll be thinking about something, an idea to work out as I write this column, and then I’ll hear a sermon from my pastor that is, if not the same thing that’s on my mind, at least similar. I take it as a confirmation from God. This past week my pastor spoke about “a culture of kindness,” and that the church is to be a community of kindness. He used the Hebrew word “hesed,” which is difficult to translate into a simple English word.