Christ Mertz Lutheran Church was founded by the PA Dutch all the way back in 1746.
One might expect a church of Pennsylvania Dutch to be “plain” and stuck in the past. But the first thing the mobile-optimized website invites you to do is watch or livestream a sermon.
I dug a little deeper and found their digital newsletter archive. In the January 2026 edition, the pastor reflected on a phrase he heard from a friend:
“Sorry to hear, glad to know”
While the pastor discussed much more serious, health-related issues, my first thought was the bus.
I haven’t driven a car since my grandfather died in 2022. He went to Christ Mertz Lutheran Church growing up in Dryville.
I rely on others to get around if I can’t walk.
I was coming home from Philadelphia one evening waiting outside Spring Garden station because the old bus station was sold in hopes of converting the Chinatown area into a new 76ers arena.
A guy laid on the sidewalk a few feet from me while I smoked cigarettes and weed and drank an iced latte. I’d quit drinking a year earlier.
Another guy, walking by, kicked him to make sure he was alive and kept moving.
He came to and soon made another friend. They did more drugs together and he passed out again.
The bus to Reading was over an hour late, with no tracking updates. One thinks of Waiting for Godot, or the snail and his cabbage.
At what point should one give up? It would be better to know the bus isn’t coming, Godot isn’t real, or there is no cabbage.
“Sorry to hear, glad to know”
Oh, the psychic pain… But relief when it finally pulls up.
