 a fabric delivery man at work in Seoul, South Korea August 2017 If only all of life fell within the borders of our druthers. If only gardening did our taxes and reading fiction took out the trash. I’d love to knit my kitchen clean and quilt my inbox empty. What if drinking coffee on my back porch mowed the grass and cleaned the chicken coop? My home would be a castle and I would be its queen. A reorganization of household responsibilities has bequeathed me two new projects. The first requires long stretches of time spent in tedious quiet and focus. The second includes shopping. Care to guess which is moving along more sweetly?
Work is the word I’m after: the work we do for money and the work we do because we’re human. We work to earn and work to live. We work to care for neighbors who can’t, as well as those who won’t. Human decency demands it and every religion teaches it: work as privilege and requirement, to be done cheerfully and regarded gratefully. Whatever work today brings, I wish you joy and patience in it.
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Beloved: Years ago, a friend and I were talking about our parents’ aversion to buying anything new and she said, my dad has used at least $200 worth of duct tape to hold together a $25 part on his lawn mower. It still makes me laugh and at the same time hope some measure of his thrift might persist in this single-use economy of ours.
Given the Holy Spirit’s presence and activity, of course church can evolve inside our own lifetimes. We only need to be willing to change with it. And if just one way of being church should die in our own life time, let it be our need to have the moral high ground all the time. Think of all the time and energy that would be freed up -- time to seek the holy mystery, as Father Richard says. Along with energy to befriend ourselves and one another, to plant a garden and breathe in the Spirit busy in the soil. Best of all, time to do nothing and know not a drop of time is wasted, letting ourselves be loved by the Lover of the universe.
I pray this magnificent, beautiful, not so very hot day finds you joyful in to whatever you put heart and head and hands. I love you. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette
Larger pests roam outside the garden fence, gnawing what they can reach with their snouts. I have decided to buy something the mowing man called deer sticks, two foot tall spikes stuck in the ground. On top is a plastic box that emits a sweet corn smell. When the deer’s nose gets close she gets a little zap, just enough to make that area unattractive thereafter. My idea is to protect my berries and beans and compromise by letting them free-range in my front flower beds.
Absolutely nothing slows down the summer more than gardening. How many days since I dropped those bean seeds in? Are they on track to blossom as the package promised? The answer is yes, but it seems like growth should happen faster. I am wise to the absurdity of having an opinion on how seeds ought to work. That it happens at all is the miracle. Light, water, dirt . . . magic – the seed becomes the food and flowers! One tiny cucumber seed can make a thousand more at least – abundance in my backyard for the price of a pack of seeds! Nothing grounds me more than digging, weeding, staking, pruning . . . even trying to outsmart the freeloading animals. Nowhere else do I stay so in the moment. I don’t miss my phone or fret about that list of undone duties. It is a hobby with the benefits of spiritual practice: contemplation before an open window onto God doing God’s business. I pray this beautiful day offers you some view to God doing what God does among us here and now. We’ve so much for which to be grateful. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette
I survey the damage and think unkind thoughts toward certain of God’s creatures, then turn to this morning’s reading from Father Gregory Boyle, known as “G” to those he serves: We are our healthiest when we are most situated in awe, and our least healthy when we engage in judgment. Judgment creates the distance that moves us away from each other. Judgment keeps us in the competitive game and is always self-aggrandizing. Standing at the margins with the broken reminds us not of our own superiority but of our own brokenness. . . . The embrace of our own suffering helps us to land on a spiritual intimacy with ourselves and others. For if we don’t welcome our wounds, we will be tempted to despise the wounded. A raccoon can shimmy headfirst down a twenty-foot deck post in utter darkness. With his back legs he dangles from a wire to drink sugar water from a feeder clutched like a beer bottle in his tiny fists. The gymnastics needed to remove the feeder from the wire to smash it on the deck floor are equally impressive. While all that raccoon awesomeness doesn’t make me like them any better, it does prompt a wisp of self-awareness. I’ve chosen a house in the woods and a style of hospitality that might qualify as xenophobic. After all, I only welcome those whose ways contribute to the particular house in the woods vibe I’m after. So, hummingbirds and lightning bugs are welcome. So are frogs, turtles and turkeys. Deer can come so long as they only eat in the woods or stand stately on my lawn. Snakes are not invited but will not be turned away, as snakes are never noisy, messy, or destructive. Besides, snakes lend a certain edginess to the vibe. Raccoons and chipmunks are entirely unwelcome for reasons heretofore described. Chipmunks are simply raccoons in miniature. Foxes and hawks attack my chickens, so they aren’t received, nor skunks and most opossums, though a mother opossum with a backpack full of babies once crossed my yard and I smiled at the awesome engineering. Mosquitos, deer ticks, stink bugs, tomato hornworms, and a host of other insects too numerous to name fill my list of undesirables. They just don’t work for me. While he might not preclude the exercise, Father G did not have my relationship to woodland creatures in mind in writing his devotion. He’s inviting me to hear Jesus’ call to love and be loved among my human neighbors, especially those we think need what we already have: the poor, the refugee, the mentally ill. He invites me to lay down the false security of walls that protect nothing really, nothing but the pretense of our own superiority. We are just as broken. We are just as wounded. And we have a world to gain by mustering the awe necessary to cross the oh-so-shallow riverbed that separates brothers and sisters too long kept apart by fear. Please do pray for those who suffer right now from the abuse of separation, each of us doing what we can to love the ones whose paths we cross. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette * raccoon photo credit: Patrick Elting, Fort Worth, Texas nationalgeographic.com *For those of you asking for the partial list of companies currently profiteering from the building and maintenance of the migrant detention camps that I mentioned on Sunday, you can find it here: https://wearyourvoicemag.com/news-politics/companies-profit-migrants-detention?fbclid=IwAR0xrJhnStzx1xzgRCTPEOa3g3blzq08GvJ3f9z_a9xJv3_gKcq5iJ-w_us Beloved: I was in Birmingham last week to attend the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly. I got excited about the good work in progress that CBF is doing in so many places. Here are some examples:
No doubt, my favorite parts of the meetings are seeing people I know and meeting people I don’t. I met up with Southern Seminary folks I’ve known 30+ years, a few of whom look weirdly older than I feel. The best is when I run into students from my IU campus ministry days, now in their own ministry placements, and my heart nearly bursts with pride. My least favorite part of the assembly was the hurt and grief murmuring audibly just below the joyful laughter: hurt and grief for want of reconciliation regarding the inclusion of our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters. We’ve tried so hard to cooperate, we ended up claiming unity where no true consensus was ever reached. Is not unity the highest purpose of the gospel? LGBTQ+ friends and allies, myself included, feel expected quietly to submit to this feigned unity or be considered uncooperative, a term that casts doubt upon our commitment to ministry and missions. Perhaps this bind is less real than I imagine, but I sense its pull all the same. I even wonder if CBF friends with dissimilar convictions can also feel its presence. Such conditions strike me as akin to those which prompted Reverend King’s 1963 Letter From a Birmingham Jail, his response to an editorial by white clergymen arguing that civil rights ought be gained slowly and quietly through the court system instead of in the streets. Just how quiet, patient, and submissive are we going to be while those in power are constrained by fear of the inevitable future in which our children see what we cannot, just as we saw what our own parents could not? The unconditional and full inclusion of our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters in the life and leadership of our churches is just as obvious as the inclusion of women and people of color was once upon a time. We are Baptists! And the beauty of being Baptist is, we aren’t required to wait on our leadership to get brave. We can be brave right now. Another reason I’m glad to have cast my lot with you all, UBC Bloomington, Indiana. You have no idea how you shine every time I tell other Baptists how generously inclusive you are.  The hashtag #ITSYOURCHURCHTOO popped into my head last night. Jodi (the millennial) explained to us (the old people) how hashtags are supposed to look and then Laura Beth made it pretty. I love it so much and want to smear it on everything that has our church name on it, so folks who think church may not love them might find their way to us – and even if they don’t, we tell the truth as best we know it: the church belongs to everyone, no exceptions. I’ve gone on much too long, so thanks for your sweet patience. You are all so dear to me.
~peace & prayers, pastor annette #itsyourchurchtoo♥  Beloved:
We still do Vacation Bible School and we still call it vacation Bible school. It’s way out of style for cool churches, but I just can’t let it go. Crafts and games and Bible stories. Snacks and songs and so many hugs. Every inch of our building will be sticky. We’ll run out of band-aids, trash bags and toilet paper. For weeks after, we’ll find forgotten shoes and leftover crafts and be too exhausted to haul away the recycling. And I’d need a whole other heart to love it any more. I love how hard this little congregation works to put this on for twenty-odd kids. I love how our directors now whip a theme together like a baker makes a pie. I love our new partnership with Red Door Church and all it brings to this occasion. I love how loved all these little ones don’t even know they are. They are just having so much fun. I love watching kids grow up one week a year for years and years and years. Our VBS teen helpers now were once our preschool class. I love how low-budget our program is – how our big investment is the time and energy kindness requires. The VBS offering this year goes to the Monroe County Community Kitchen Summer Lunch Program, which provides free sack lunch every day of summer for kids who qualify for free lunch at school. It’s pretty cool, and UBC’er Vicki Pierce is the CK Executive Director. If you aren’t involved in VBS and want to give to the offering, just send checks to church with CK VBS Offering in the memo. We will also collect a VBS offering in service this coming Sunday, June 16th. Finally, if you are in town, please come eat with us on Friday night at 6 PM – Friday Pizza Fellowship for VBS families, workers, UBC congregation and guests, pretty much anyone who wants to come. We’re just eating together and relaxing after a sweet week. Hope to see you!
Speaking of seeds, the chickens are confined to the coop now, save the last hour of daylight when my sprinklers are on. They’ve taken to digging up every seed I plant and tossing the un-tasty ones all around the garden. I’ve gathered and replanted beans three times! They really hate the sprinklers, and seem unable to figure out how it rains in just one spot of the yard. So much entertainment, most of which is free.
I’ll have to birdwatch in the morning for the rest of the week because VBS work starts tomorrow! Plans are pretty well in hand but we can always use more workers. Please come to church Wednesday and/or Thursday between 12 and 5 pm, wearing your favorite work clothes. We’ll move and make and paint as Rob and Erika instruct. VBS proper begins on Monday and here’s the link to sign kids up https://vbspro.events/p/events/vbsatubc or share with friends you want to invite. It is one of the best things we do. The aching beauty of these days bears witness to the gentle beauty God would have us carry and convey to one another. I pray you recognize the invitation as you go today. Also, some craft items we need for VBS you might have around your house; drop off at church any time this week:
got the cattle feed tubs for free so you can imagine how excited we are to get started.
Once upon an anniversary, cheapo gardening would not have been my first choice for celebrating. Now I can’t imagine anything more fun. What we do is so much less interesting than just being together. I love being roommates almost all the time. He cooks for me and laughs at almost all my jokes. Sometimes he sits by me when I have to do things that really stress me out. He’s known me a long, long time and gets offended on my behalf as a best friend should. He’s helped me grow and helped me be braver than I ever would be without him. Even when he drives me crazy, I am so grateful for him. Thirty-one years have flown by; the days have been amazing, awful, and everything in between. Death has dwindled the generations before us while the ones coming after just keep growing. Our lives have turned out richer than either of us would ever have thought to ask for. I’ve been too blessed to ask for anything, but in my heart of hearts I pray we might have another thirty-one or two, just to see what might come next. Be they spouse, cousin or best friend, they are God’s best gifts to us.
Maybe he is homeless. Maybe he’s a sociologist. I’ve decided he is the necessary prophet for such a time as this ~ simply inviting strangers to be kind and responding kindly no matter what. His name is Kevin. He has a ponytail and the prettiest brown-green eyes. Our two exchanges totaled no more than three minutes, but he’s the preacher I remember best from the Festival of Homiletics last week in downtown Minneapolis. More than anything, he was simply present where people are - the gentlest reminder that human beings are more kin than strangers. We only need look and see each other, right here, right now.
worship. Following our Church Council meeting, the Fellowship Committee will host a meal of Carl’s finest and a big cake to celebrate together Andy’s graduation from High School. Please come and enjoy this feast together as we celebrate this special occasion as a family.
You are so dear to me!
chickens. Last year they ate all my sunflowers and cucumbers before they even split their shells. I’m putting in oodles of tomatoes, enough to fill my freezer come September. And blackberries, of course. And squash and herbs and peppers. Carl says he’s growing beans, but I think beans too much trouble so I’ll get them at the farmer’s market.
Wow, do I love spring and summer - outdoors and indoors! We’ll keep having church, and I look forward to our summer worship. VBS is June 10-14! - one of my favorite times of year. We’ll work on our building some and share a few meals too. Lots of you will go on vacation and I’ll be here when you get back, ready with some preaching from Romans! I pray this gorgeous day is kind to you in every way. I’m going outside to dig now. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette |
I write a Tuesday morning devotional to members and friends of UBC. It is also posted here.
Enjoy! Pastor Annette Copyright
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July 2019
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