July 30, 2014

Beloved:

    I took two whole days off work to rest and catch up on some household things. We have milk and toilet paper again. I can see the floor in the laundry room.  I slept and cooked and sewed.  I read three days' worth of newspapers and mail.  By yesterday afternoon I was a stir crazy but determined not to do anything strenuous so I counted how many gourds are on the vine.  A dozen or so.  Then I sewed some more.  

    I'm one of the lucky ones who gets paid for work I love.  Ministry that is full of relationships and anchored to central meaning of human existence ~ that God loves us hugely and constantly  . . . and in Christ made arrangements for us to live fearless and forever.  Ministry conducted in the most ordinary circumstances of everyday human community; family, worship, work, meals, rituals, housekeeping, commerce, politics, neighborhood, friendship and service.  Mine is the duty, task and privilege of reminding the church that joy and peace are our coping mechanism.  That anxiety, worry and perfectionism are effective for those who live by sight, not faith.  

    A part of ministry I don't like so much is that outcomes are mostly immeasurable.  I can tell you how many people attended worship and how much money gave to missions but not how much less we worried, how much more we trusted.  

    On it's best day, usually a Tuesday or Wednesday, I wouldn't trade this life for any other.  On all the other days, I still consider it a pretty good gig.  And for the joy of sharing it all with you I am most especially grateful.

~peace and prayers, pastor annette

Beloved:
    Brother Terry Ritter died peacefully yesterday with his family nearby.  He had been sick for several months before being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few weeks ago.  His sister Dee took him to her house and nursed him nearly to the end.  On Friday he moved to Hospice House and on Monday he passed away.  

Terry had been a member of UBC longer than any of us.  He brought deviled eggs and vinegar cucumbers to church potlucks.  Several times he fried us fish he’d caught in the various ponds and lakes he frequented.  He cared for his son Jason who has been in a nursing home for almost 15 years.  Dee will continue Jason’s care and UBC will continue to pray for and visit him.

As a young man Terry lived hard and suffered for it.  Eventually he and the Lord made amends and Terry became a man not many would have predicted.  He attended church regularly.  He volunteered at the Interfaith Winter Shelter where he took his job very seriously.  I loved hearing about his friendships in the undergraduate women social work crowd.  

We’ll have a service for him on Thursday afternoon at 2 pm followed by a potluck provided by our church family.   Expect an email from Gwenette about how you can help.

Peace and prayers,
Pastor Annette

July 15, 2014


Beloved:

   

    Wow ~ 57 degrees outside and feels like October.  Everything is sparkling gorgeous beautiful with leftover rain dripping from the trees.  I haven’t let the hens out yet and they are  screeching for all the worms they’re missing. It’s positively delightful having the house wide open in the middle of summer.  

    Writing about houses, Madeline L’Engle said they are like children, always begging for something and Nancy Mairs said we love them by cleaning and fixing taking care of them.  Ours is twenty some years old now, a young adult whose original warranties are expired. Big things like the roof, the furnace/air conditioner, and bathrooms are begging for upgrades.  Middle size things like appliances, carpet and counter tops say they should come first.  Little things like screens, towel racks, window mechanisms and toilet handles complain by  constantly coming undone, falling off or sticking.  Outlets don’t work, walls need painted and furniture needs restitched.  

    Interestingly, our marriage is also twenty some years old.  We’ve birthed three kids, buried four parents, bought or sold three properties. We’re still in the talking phase and I wonder if remodeling this house may be our greatest test yet.  Test?  I think I’ll call it adventure instead, and opportunity.  The opportunity to dream, to listen, to compromise, to exercise discernment, restraint, and patience, to be creative and to work together, to repair and renew, to make a life and to be content.  

    I pray this day is delightful for you in every way.  peace & prayers, pastor annette



My New Cooking Thing

I keep a gallon ziplock in the freezer to which I add squeezed lemons, onion and garlic skin, celery heels, bell pepper guts, chicken parts, beef bones, stale bread, herb stems, etc.  Pretty much anything the chickens won’t/shouldn’t eat.  When the bag is full I dump it into the crockpot, add two cups of water and cook the whole thing on low all night.  In the morning I strain it about 4 times and end up with the best stock ever.  It’s really concentrated so I don’t add extra water until I want to use it.  I freeze it in 16 oz sour cream, cottage cheese containers.  The fat skims off easily enough once it’s frozen.

June 10, 2014


Beloved,

         This is my last column until July.  Carl leaves tomorrow to teach in Korea for a month.  We’ll join him in waves.  Ben and his girlfriend leave Friday.  Emily, my nephew, Justin, and I follow on Monday.  We are staying two weeks.  While I am very excited about the trip these four days in between are nutty with vacation bible school, getting the baptistry fixed, planning the end of vbs/baptism service, tearing vbs down, packing for Korea, meeting with the housesitter, getting Emily home from camp and repacked for Korea, getting Justin here from Missouri, getting Ben and Bailey to the airport, getting ourselves to the airport . . . . I’m nearly at that moment I always have before a trip when I start thinking, “Forget it. I’ll just stay home!”   

        Carl tells me I make most things more complicated than they have to be.  I tell him that traveling for him means packing a suitcase and walking out the door.  He generally concedes the point.

         There’s nothing like a vacation to clarify what a ridiculously overcommitted life I have designed for myself.  Every day I attempt to manage 1 husband,* 3 kids, 40+/- member congregation, 2 dogs, 1 cat,* 18 chickens, a house, a church building, a 3 acre yard, 5 vehicles and 2 household budgets.  My larger life includes extended family, friends, exercise, volunteer work and a few hobbies.

          It’s is absurd.  No wonder I’m tired.  When I’m home from Korea I absolutely should begin a merciless program of simplification.  The problem is I love it.  I don’t love every piece of it every day and sometimes it drives me so crazy I want to run away.  But no part of it am I ready to give up because the joy still outweighs the crazy by too great a margin.  Even the cat cracks me up at least once a day, letting the puppy roll on top of him like he’s a plush toy.

          I’m no busier than most people I know and less than many.  I have enough money, good insurance and a safe house.  I’m healthy.  I have people ready to help when I am overwhelmed to tears. And praise be to God, I get to go on a really cool vacation in only 5 more days knowing that if everything in my Bloomington life is not perfectly organized, the planet will in fact keep spinning.  

          In the world of faith lives like mine are called blessed, the best of the best.  To complain is to sin.  An ingrate is the absolute opposite of Christian.  From the midst of such blessing, bitterness and discontent are not only the worst sort of witness but the worst of all killjoys.  Not the life I’d want or choose even on the craziest days.  

           I pray this day if full of joy and work you love.  peace & prayers, pastor annette
   

*Disclaimer  ~    The cat and the husband soundly rejects the notion that they are in any way managed.  




PS 1 - If you haven' seen it yet - get by the church to see the sanctuary set for VBS.  Better yet - show up some evening between 5:15-8:30 to help run the show.  More hands are always useful.  

PS 2 - Baptism service this week will be in the sanctuary, incorporated into the vbs set.  Don't miss it. 

















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Annette Hill Briggs, pastor
University Baptist Church
Bloomington, IN 47401

July 8, 2014

Beloved:

We left Korea last Monday at noon, flew thirteen hours and arrived in Detroit forty minutes earlier than we departed.  While I’ve been home a week, only in the last day or so has it seemed like my body, mind and spirit are all in one place.  

In Seoul, every outing required two maps, one of the city and one for the subway.  The kids were far better at this than me and I was glad to let them lead.  The trickiest part of the subway is finding the correct street exit from underground.  We walked and walked. We ate and ate.  We went to museums and galleries and the Korean version of Holiday World’s Splashin’ Safari.  Our most sobering day trip was to the Joint Security Area of the Demilitarized Zone. This is the actual line where South and North Korea meet.  It is both tense and touristy, much like the gate into between Israel and the West Bank.  Lots of binoculars, lots of guns and dynamite boxes above the roads.  

I’m glad to be home and so deeply aware that this is my native spot on the planet, where I am from, the way of life I know.  I rarely see a soldier on patrol.  Electric fences contain cows, not landmines. Our farmers’ markets have no octopus, squid or live sea cucumber. A watermelon cost four dollars instead of twenty.  

Sensing it with fresh eyes, ears and nose I realize again that this geography, this language, this food, these people are no less interesting than any other.  Our ways are as steeped in history and meaning as any other.  Here I am not the tourist but the resident, the citizen, the one for whom most everything is familiar and easily navigated.  And I love thinking about the fact that all over the world right now people are just as at home in their respective places.  Whatever they are doing, the moment is as familiar to them as drinking coffee in their pajamas while the dog chases a bug around the back porch door.  

There are lots of Korea pictures on my facebook page if you want to go and see.  I wish you the joy of home today!  ~peace and prayers, pastor annette



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