Story: Finding Sweetness

February 15, 2026 / Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

February 15, 2026

Exodus 24:12-18
Matthew 17:1-9

Last week it was saltiness. This week it’s sweetness. We’re making our way around the taste buds, I guess. I don’t actually have plans to visit sourness or bitterness, but who knows?

An i’iwi was having a hard time. They’re used to sipping nectar from ohi’a flowers and koa flowers and mamane flowers and lots of other flowers, and nectar is basically flower sugar. It’s pretty sweet. It does change, though, a little like the way that some oranges are sweeter than others. It’s got to do with the rainfall or lack of it, and the soil nourishment, and lots of other things that I don’t know about and the i’iwi doesn’t know about and the tree might know about but trees don’t talk about that sort of thing very much.

In any case, the i’iwi wasn’t finding much in the way of sweet nectar. Nectar, yes. Enough to keep her from getting hungry, yes. Sweetness that satisfied: not so much.

So she went looking for sweetness.

It’s not uncommon for the nectar-feeding birds of the mountains to fly about looking for nectar. She had a somewhat different agenda, though: sweeter nectar, and not just nectar. For whatever reasons, though, the nectars she sampled tasted much the same: a little dry, a little bland. She could eat it, but she really wanted something better. It was the difference between your grandmother’s chocolate chip cookie, and the cookie you ate the reminds you how much better grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies are.

She didn’t find it.

She was sitting grumpily on a branch complaining about this to her mother. I’iwi can be pretty good at being grumpy birds, and she was putting in the practice to get really good at it. Her mother, I must say, wasn’t a particularly grumpy bird and didn’t want to be.

“So you want to find sweetness?” she asked her daughter. “Where have you looked?”

Her daughter described her flights up the mountain, and down the mountain, and along the slopes of the mountain, and how the nectar just wasn’t what she wanted or hoped for.

“Those are the only places you checked?” said mother.

“Where else?” said the daughter. “I could fly farther but will that work out any better?”

“I don’t know,” said her mother, “especially because I think you can find sweetness much closer to home.”

“Where?” demanded her daughter. “Where is there sweetness here?”

“There’s the warmth of the sun on your feathers,” said her mother, “and the sound of the rain on the leaves. There’s the scent of mamane on the wind, the great blue of the clear sky, and the dramatic greys of the cloudy sky.”

“Those are ordinary things!” her daughter protested.

“Well, there’s also the way your father loves you, and your grandparents love you, and the way I love you,” mother said. “Is that ordinary?”

“It is,” said the daughter, “but it’s special, too.”

“Best of all,” said mother, “is the sweetness that’s inside you. It goes with you wherever you fly. You never have to worry that it will run out. Even when no one is around, even in the coldest, darkest night, even when none of the trees are in blossom, there is sweetness in your heart.”

“You helped put it there,” said her daughter.

“Sip that sweetness when you need to, daughter,” said her mother. “Sip it and be refreshed.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory and improvisation. The story as you have read it is not identical to the way I told it.

Photo of an i’iwi by Eric Anderson.

Transfigured by the Mountaintop

February 12, 2026 / Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light.” – Matthew 17:1-2

Bright with light, walking with the prophets, hailed
by holy voice that stunned the clouds
and silenced even Simon Peter:
Jesus the Beloved Son of God.

Transfigured on the mountaintop.

At mountain’s foot, however, trouble lay,
because a demon would not be rebuked
by any of the nine disciples there. “Where can
I find the mustard seed of faith?” they asked.

I grant you they had missed the mountaintop.

But Peter, James, and John, who’d seen the sight,
had heard the voice, been silenced clean:
how had they been transfigured? Were they changed?
Did they bring nourishment to their own mustard seeds?

For they had known the mountaintop.

Yet Peter asked if there were limits on
forgiveness. He wondered what he’d gain
from following his Lord. While James and John
coopted their own mother to secure a place of power.

Though they had been upon the mountaintop.

When Jesus brought the three apart again,
this time into a corner of Gethsemane,
their bodies ruled their spirits, and they slept,
while Jesus wept the bitter tears of grief and fear.

Had they forgotten about the mountaintop?

Approaching soldiers woke them. Weariness
no longer slowed them. As blood streamed from
a stricken servant’s ear, the three who’d seen
and heard the most took to their heels and fled.

Had they been changed upon the mountaintop?

One found his courage and his way back to
the courtyard of the trial, but did not bring
his name. Three times they asked, three times
he cried, “I do not know the man!”

He’d known him on the mountaintop.

So Jesus, here I stand, at best an image
in a mirror darkly of those first disciples. I
am not the person I would like to be,
say nothing of the follower whom you expect.

And I was never on that mountaintop.

Yet truly, you have summoned me by less
dramatic means than brilliant clouds
and stunning voices on the wind, to be
your follower, your servant, and your friend.

But have I been transfigured by the mountaintop?

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 17:1-9, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Transfiguration Sunday.

The image is “Studies for the Transfiguration” by Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbin) ca. 1519 – https://collections.ashmolean.org/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=96040396.

Story: The Salty Koa’e ‘Ula

February 8, 2026 / Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

February 8, 2026

Isaiah 58:1-12
Matthew 5:13-20

Salt is a funny thing. Your body, my body, pretty much every body of every person and every creature needs some salt. Without salt, we get sick. On the other hand, if we have too much salt, we also get sick. Not too much, not too little. That’s the way to do it.

Most of the birds, including yellow-billed cardinals, manage to get the right amount of salt just by what they eat. Seeds have a little salt. So do berries. But every once in a while things don’t go the same way, and one yellow-billed cardinal found himself feeling hungry in a very odd way.

He was hungry for salt.

Personally, I’m rarely hungry for salt itself. I’m not likely to go find a salt shaker and sprinkle some on my tongue. I mean, yuck. Put salt on fried potatoes, though, or popcorn, or…

Well. Let’s just say I’ll eat those up.

Nobody was going to make popcorn or French fries for a yellow-billed cardinal, especially one who couldn’t cook. He hopped around the shore looking for salt, and although there was plenty of it in the ocean, he wasn’t about to drink salt water. He already knew from painful experience that he’d get sick from that.

To his amazement, as he looked, he saw white crystals glistening on the rocks, and even on some of the leaves of the bushes. He thought at first it might be salt left by ocean spray, but it was too far from the breaking waves. Regardless, he pecked a couple of those crystals, and felt much better, even if he did feel pretty thirsty from it.

He didn’t know where it came from, but from time to time when he got hungry for salt again, it was there.

In the meantime, overhead flew the koa’e ‘ula, who spend much of their time far out to sea where there’s too much salt in the water and, for that matter, in the fish that they eat. One of them, in fact, had just had a good long drink of sea water with more salt in it than was good for her.

Unlike the yellow-billed cardinal on the shore below, she could take in more salt because her body could get rid of the excess. Something like tears, salt crystals formed along her beak and sprinkled down on the ground below, where a salt-hungry bird might pick them up.

Neither the koa’e ‘ula nor the yellow-billed cardinal knew anything about the other. Neither of them thought much about it, in fact, but one of them was doing something really important for the other, and didn’t know it.

The same is true of us. Jesus called us the salt of the earth, and he meant that we help other people live and thrive. Sometimes we know we’re doing it, but sometimes we don’t. Just like the koa’e ‘ula, we do ordinary things in our ordinary lives, and someone else lives better because of it.

May we always be the salt of the earth.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from a combination of memory and improvisation. As a result, the story as I wrote it does not match the story as I told it.

Photos of a yellow-billed cardinal and a koa’e ‘ula by Eric Anderson.

Flickering Light

February 4, 2026 / Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.

“[Jesus said,] ‘People do not light a lamp put it under the bushel basket; rather they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.'” Matthew 5:15-16

You sure do build on Scripture, Jesus. God
told Abraham that he and Sarah would
become a blessing to the nations of
the world, to all the families of Earth.

A pity that he promptly lied and said
his wife was not his wife, and gave her up
to Pharaoh for a concubine, which cursed
the land, afflicted every family.

Isaiah comforted survivors of
a great destruction after years had passed,
declaring that the people, soon renewed,
would shine a beacon to the aching world.

A pity that so many kept the ways
that frustrated the prophets years before,
preferring their own wealth and potency
and damming justice’ waters lest they flow.

Well, Jesus, to fulfill the broken Law
and bring to life the prophets’ promised call
will call for more than human frailty,
unseasoned salt, or lamp without a flame.

Can we fulfill what you came to fulfill?
Can we preserve and season all the Earth?
Can we be candles brilliant in the dark?
Can we be great in Heaven’s realm of life?

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 5:13-20, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany.

The image is “The Candle,” an etching by Jan Luyken illustrating Matthew 5:15 in the Bowyer Bible, Bolton, England (1795). Bowyer Bible photos contributed to Wikimedia Commons by Phillip Medhurst – Photo by Harry Kossuth, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7550068.

Story: The Bright Oma’o

February 1, 2026 / Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

February 1, 2026

Micah 6:1-8
Matthew 5:1-12

Lots of the Hawaiian forest birds are bright with color. Think about the ‘amakihi and the ‘ahiapola’au with their bright yellow feathers, or the ‘apapane in red and black, or the i’iwi that adds a bright orange bill and orange legs to all those red feathers. That’s a lot of colorful birds flying about the mountain forests.

It has to be said that they also fly around quite a bit. Since they mostly sip nectar and eat nectar-eating bugs, they go from flower to flower pretty quickly, not pausing for very long. When there’s not a lot of nectar in any given flower, you’ve got to visit a lot of flowers for a meal.

The oma’o is different. The oma’o’s gray and brown feathers match the trunks and branches of the trees. It eats lots of fruits, such as the ‘olapa berries in this photo, so it doesn’t fly around as much. Oma’o are enthusiastic and talented singers, rather like the ‘apapane. It even has a call that, to me, sounds like they’re singing, “Oma’o!”

One oma’o, though got to feeling bad about being so gray and so settled. “You should get out more!” sang the ‘apapane as they flew past. “You should be yellow!” shouted the ‘amakihi as they hopped along nearby branches. “You should be red and black!” said an i’iwi as it chased some ‘apapane away.

“Maybe I should,” said this oma’o.

He tried, in fact, to change this. He started with what was easy. He flew about more, flitting from tree to tree. He didn’t really have much idea about how to eat nectar, but he focused on the nectar-eating bugs for a while. That kept him busy, but it also kept him hungry, so he’d return to the ‘olapa trees from time to time and perch and pluck berry after berry until he realized he’d been stationary for “too long” (whatever “too long” meant) and leaped into the air again.

Getting colorful was harder. As far as he could tell, his feathers were the color they were and weren’t going to change. He supposed he could dye them, but his experiments with ‘akala, the Hawaiian raspberry, washed off in the next rain, and hadn’t made him very colorful anyway. He took to following ‘apapane around (i’iwi were too grumpy for this) and picking up feathers that they dropped. Then he’d carefully place them among his own feathers. Feathers have little hooks in them, so this worked better than you’d think, but not much better. They fell out nearly every time he took off, and remember, he had to fly a lot to be like the honeycreepers.

“Grandson, what are you doing?” his grandfather asked one day, having observed the frequent flying and the phony feathers for a couple days.

“I’m trying to be bright,” the younger one said. “I’m trying to show some energy and some color in the forest.”

“Whatever for?” asked his grandfather.

“Because all these other birds look so good, and seem to eat so well, and sing so well, too. I want to be like them.”

“You mean, you want to be happy and well fed? You want to sing with a full heart and a full stomach?”

“Right. Just like that.”

“Now grandson,” said the grandfather, “have you been doing that?”

Of course he hadn’t. He’d been flying about eating things that didn’t satisfy him. He’d been singing sad songs about the colorful feathers that kept dropping away.

“Go perch on some ‘olapa and get filled up,” said grandfather, “and then settle down for a bit and sing the song that’s in your heart. See if doesn’t match the ‘apapane’s song or even do better.”

He’d been foolish, but the younger oma’o recognized wisdom when he heard it. He at some ‘olapa and he perched on its branches for a while. Then he opened his beak and shared his wondrous song.

Like the poor in spirit, like the meek, he was blessed, and shared blessing.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in full ahead of time, but I tell them from memory (plus improvisation). The story you just read does not precisely match the way I told it.

Photo of an oma’o eating ‘olapa by Eric Anderson.

That’s Not How It Works

January 29, 2026 / Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

“And he began to speak and taught them, saying: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'” – Matthew 5:2-3

By God, you’ve got it so wrong, Jesus.
Do you really not know?
That’s not how it works.

The poor in spirit won’t receive the kingdom of heaven.
The poor in spirit are poor by their own negligence.
They could be rich, you know, if they made the right choice,
invested in the things that bring them gain, ignored the claims
of other obligations, engaged in fraud, then they’d be rich…