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“Father, forgive them, they know not what they do . . . they know not what they do . . . .” April 12, 2022
They are the most powerful lyrics of our Good Friday service every year. I never hear them without being a little shaken. They come to mind now having just watched a news clip of a Ukrainian woman discovering her son’s body, murdered and stuffed into a well. I know, an offensive, appalling thing to write into a morning devotional. Nevertheless . . . the woman was wild with grief, inconsolable to say the least. I couldn’t help but wonder what if that was my Ben, so cold and alone in the ground. How could I not rise up in hate toward those who had done it? I have no idea how to preach the forgiveness we sing on Good Friday. I wouldn’t dare suggest it to mothers and fathers whose children are slaughtering one another every day in Ukraine. I only know that this grace is the heart and soul of our faith, and without it we have nothing else. Grace that somehow forgives the most unimaginable offenses. Grace that preaches the power of love to release us from the choking sorrow of grief and hate. I can type the words but I don’t begin to understand it. Not for a single moment. In some ways, I pray not to. I pray not ever to know such sorrow or grief. That mama is still on my heart. I can pray for her, that she has good friends, people to sit with her and remember her boy. I wish her deep comfort in his memory and a swift end to the nightmare around her. I pray for the ten thousand and more other parents like her, for the healing that will not begin until the nightmare ends. May their grief inspire us to better prayer and braver faith in our own daily lives this Holy Week. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette
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Every time I’m in the city, visiting museums to learn more on the subjects I care most about, I am once more overwhelmed by the horror human beings commit against each other. I come away wondering how it’s possible we carry on with normal life as if the horror hasn’t happened, with the sensation we ought to be paying full attention to these memories, these realities, to them and only them, until we establish once and for all, no such horrors can be allowed to happen anywhere ever again. To leave the Holocaust Memorial* and stand once more on the city street, watching ordinary traffic on an ordinary day, seems positively wrong. Wrong in every way. And yet, here we are. I still can’t get my head and heart around the reality of another war of annexation in Europe, right now in 2022. In the same spring our capital hosts a cherry blossom kite festival, another is documenting war crimes ~ murderous crimes carried out shamelessly in the light of day, videoed and posted for everyone with eyes to see. Again, in 2022 Europe. Making it our turn. Our time to choose what we will do, in practically the exact circumstances as our grand-parents, except we have better information, and in real time. What we thought they should have done is now ours to do, to get right, whatever courage and faith and grace such circumstances demand. I can’t say I know for sure, beyond the three commands I take to heart daily: kindness, justice and humility. They are hardly passive words. They are the words of big love for hard times. May all of us be found faithful. * or the Museum of African American History & Culture, or the Museum of Native American History, or the exhibit of American War in the Museum of American History September 7, 2021
Glorious, delightful, practically perfect in every way . . . . . . It's the weather of course. Calendar photographs get taken on days like this. My puppy sits on the deck just sniffing the air and watching the sheets waving from the clothesline. My church office window is open to the birdsong and the traffic. Through the foyer windows I see the armed guards in the Beth Shalom parking lot, protecting the congregation at worship during High Holy Days, and that makes me sad. God bless and protect them and help us do our part. A glorious, delightful, practically-perfect-in-every-way day to me, while my next door neighbors need armed security to get through that same day. What’s wrong with people? I ask no one in particular more often than I mean to, more critically, more judgmentally than I want to believe I am. In my heart and mind I want to respect everyone’s opinion — but I don’t, not really. I suppose I do believe in everyone’s right to their opinion — but opinions are neither here nor there, not really. Opinions are just noise until they turn to action — actions that touch other people’s lives as help or hurt or harm. Then it is no longer an opinion, but an act: of assistance or aggression, of support or sabotage, of encouragement or destruction. I don’t know how to untangle this frustration I feel — my wish to be at one with others while at the same time disagreeing with them so essentially, especially on these life and death matters like racial violence and the refusal to be vaccinated. I hesitated a long time before equating the two. The second is definitely more passive, but no less violent under certain conditions. Like a suicide bomber, only loaded with bio-poison instead of metal shrapnel. The science is not really debatable among people pervious to common sense. (Of course, my previous sentence is constantly debated these days.) How do I speak in love to my loved ones who have declined the vaccination? How do I share with them my fear that they will get sick, suffer and die, leaving their little ones without parents in this world, and the rest of us to grieve for them? From what place do I speak and act, and yet maintain my faith and hope in the truth, truth I believe to be rooted in the Creator of the universe? Is this the cost of the great freedom we have in our Creator, the freedom to destroy ourselves and one another? The alternative, of course, is salvation — what Jesus described in the story of the Good Samaritan as loving our neighbors as ourselves, treating other people as we want to be treated. A man dying in a ditch is ignored by two people and saved by a third. Two-thirds of the world was perfectly willing to let humans die in ditches. One third was not. Jesus commended the third as the one to imitate. If we can save a person from dying, we should, is what I hear Jesus saying. Please, friends, please — get your vaccines. It means everything to the people who love you. August 31, 2021 My mother was nine years old when WWII ended. She told me her mother sent her and her sisters out to play in the rain. The war in Afghanistan officially ended far more quietly today. Soldiers died in this war who were not born when it began, twenty years ago. For her sake, I pray Afghanistan’s long history of hosting the proxy wars of other nations is finished now. I read that seventy percent of her population is younger than twenty-five and they are not interested in the old ways of fundamentalist religion and isolationist policies. Insofar as that is true, all nations should all be so fortunate. I keep thinking about people who are afraid. Afraid of war and afraid of what comes after war. Afraid of getting sick and afraid once sickness sets in. Afraid of taking care of the sick and afraid of failing at taking care of the sick. Afraid of storms and fire and drought. Afraid of poverty and afraid of being completely alone. Whatever we fear, it’s the fear itself that can take the greatest toll on our lives, on our energy and on our hope. While I’m in no place to tell people in crisis not to be afraid, a tiny line of prayer that has helped me in many fearful moments is this: scary things are still scary, O God, but by your love, we do not have to be afraid of fear, from James Finley’s book, Thomas Merton & The Path to the Palace of Nowhere. Fear is real and uncontrollable in certain moments, like when a snake slides across my wrist in the garden. But the fear that grips my belly over what might happen has only the power I give it. By my prayers it can be set aside, even if the danger of my situation hasn’t changed. Easier said than done, of course, but practice, practice, practice, don’t you know. And, thank goodness joy and fear can live together in one heart.  Birdy the golden retriever turned three months old today and saw her first box turtle. She licked it then barked and danced around it which made me laugh out loud too. Creation meets creation, and I was there to see it. What a precious moment, sitting right next to the worries I can’t do anything about, except choose which one to draw from, when I think about the world. Gentle creatures and terrible wars — neither cancels out the other, both giving content to my prayers. As we move into a new month, no matter what it hold, I pray you know God’s peace in fear and God’s joy in every precious moment.
August 24, 2021 The hummingbirds are thick every morning at the feeders and will be through October, as migration traffic increases. The puppy is crying because the sun is in her eyes and she can’t figure out what’s hurting her. Even with the ceiling fan it’s barely cool enough to sit out here. Pray for the folks who work outside. So many people to pray for. The wife and little son of a college friend who died last week of Covid. Others who are so gravely ill. Healthcare workers everywhere. Teachers. Decision makers. Neighbors in harm’s way. One could pray all day and not find this list’s end. So we carry them in our hearts and do our best to keep our own selves safe.  It’s no small thing, praying, closing the door on time and space as this world calculates them. Entering the timelessness beyond, even for moments at a time, sheds perspective on this world’s troubles we otherwise don’t see. Along with deeper breath, and breath’s corresponding strength. And then there is the vibe, the energy that is generated in the atmosphere when and where people pray. In every yoga class and church service. In our Early Wednesday prayers, when no one wants to log out of the Zoom room.
August 17, 2021 The daily theft of decency. The terror of when and where the violence will resume. The crushing disappointment of knowing their government traded women’s lives like ransom so they themselves could escape Afghanistan in safety. The suffering of others is supposed to break our hearts, even if our own lives are safe and sound. It’s the nature of being human, for worse but also better. If we aren’t paralyzed by it, the heartbreak will drive us to do justice in whatever ways we can. While prayer is no small thing, besides it I couldn’t think of a single thing to do by way of justice for Afghanistan until I saw this painting by Afghan graffiti artist Shamsia Hassani. It’s titled Nightmare.  A friend posted it on social media and it sent me looking for information about her. She’s here, at shamsiahassani.net. Ms. Hassani is the first female graffiti artist from Afghanistan, and she’s the Afghanistan that could be, if those who would rule Afghanistan ever recover the human soul and backbone original to the design of the Creator.
Beyond praying, two things I can do by way of justice are: 1.) Buy a Hassani print. They are available on her website and they are beautiful. Purchase allows her to live out her livelihood and keep doing art! 2.) Tell the truth using my own toolkit — words. It’s obvious from Hassani’s work that she is wise to the world around her, the money and the international politics at work in her country, the collusion of more than a certain sect to oppress her and her people. She and others like her are organizing. Continuing to use the poor and powerless of the world like pawns in order for rich and powerful countries and people to stay rich and powerful is an unsustainable system for maintaining dominion. The human heart shouldn’t stand for it, but rest assured the human belly will not. Governments the world over are perfectly willing to starve some bellies while stuffing others. Art and prayer are sometimes gentler ways of turning heads and changing hearts. The faith we claim should sensitize us to both, to recognize the desire for the peace that feeds and protects every life, that pushes back hard against violence and terror, and the fear that drives all hate. Jesus’ love for everyone teaches us to love each other in return — but doesn’t require us to tolerate violence toward our weakest neighbors. There we are allowed to intervene, with resistance, with peace, with truth and with the hope that loving our enemies gives them just a glimmer of a change of heart. If not, then at least we’ve lived true to the calling of Jesus, and that is no small thing. August 10, 2021
It’s raining. The school bus just went by. The puppy is losing her mind barking at the dog food container. A friend from college is in the hospital with COVID. His wife has recovered but he is in grave danger. They have a young son. The son of another friend is also gravely ill with something else. And our Fan, of course, the UBC church administrator whose husband passed away suddenly a week ago. A precious congregation also lost their pastor. The world is relentless, in beauty and in suffering. So begins another week full of prayer and praise. So much to be grateful for, so much to give to God in hope. But there is also the solace of serving one another. Some of you cooked and carried so much food this past week it's a wonder your stoves still work. Some drove to and from the airport. Others cleaned, weeded and worked to make the church building positively sparkle when Fan’s family and friends arrived. And yet another crew will show up today with trucks and muscle and move Fan’s daughter and grandson into their new house. Sometimes prayer is the only way we can serve others, and prayer is no small thing for sure. Prayer impacts the cosmic vibrations of the universe, as the mystics and contem-platives say, adding courage and healing and sweetness to the very air around us, lifting spirits and healing bodies along the way. Physical service, like feeding and helping, fulfills our own hearts’ desire to comfort others meaningfully. Through such service our own grief is also comforted. Serving others is good for the server and the served. We are in right relationship with one another and God’s will is accomplished in both lives. Humanity isn’t designed to remain content when some are suffering, especially friends and people within our reach. Another way to say it ~ if our neighbors’ suffering doesn’t disturb our personal contentment, we ought maybe consider how and where we lost some measure of our own humanity. Are we too busy with lesser things? Are we working too hard and resting, or meditating, or praying too little? Are we worried about things beyond our control? All these missteps have a way of overwhelming the holy discontent which keeps us in right relationship with one another and with God. I am proud of how so many of you have served in recent days. I am so humbled and grateful to be in partnership with you as we do this work in this time and place. ~peace & prayers, pastor annette Recipe: A couple of people asked for this recipe and I can’t remember who ~ so here it is. From Claude Cookman Napa salad ~ Claude Cookman Greens 1 medium head of Napa cabbage l bunch green onions Shred cabbage and chop onions. Cover and refrigerate. Crunchies 1/2 cup sesame seeds 1 cup slivered almonds 2 packages ramen noodles 1 stick butter or margarine Crush noodles and discard the seasoning packets. Melt butter. Brown the top three ingredients in the butter. Note. Since they brown at different speeds, I start with the noodles for several minutes until they lightly color, then add the almonds and finally the sesame seeds. Sauce 3/4 cup oil 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup cider vinegar 2 Tablespoons soy sauce Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Boil for one minute. Cool and then refrigerate. To serve Keep all items separate until ready to serve. Bring crunches to room temperature, but keep greens and sauce in the fridge. Combine and toss. Notes. This does not keep well overnight because the greens and crunches become mushy. Also, because it’s hard for a family to consume a whole salad at a time, often I will make the three components and combine them one-fourth or one-third at a time, spacing them out over a couple of weeks or more. Beloved:
I’m in a slump and for no reason I can think of, except that lots of other people I know are in slumps of their own. I sleep a solid eight hours every night, yet at any given moment I could take a two-hour nap. The most ordinary of tasks, washing dishes or weeding the garden, seem overwhelming. “Take a walk,” my brain says. “Naaah,” replies my body. Am I depressed, I wonder? Are we all depressed? I’ve been depressed before and this doesn’t feel like that. I’m not sad or hopeless or anxious so much as I am just inexplicably tired. I see my doctor tomorrow for the annual Q&A he enjoys so much, and I’m going to ask him if post-pandemic slump is a thing. If he says yes, I suspect the treatment is something like, “Take a walk.” I was listening to Nadia Boltz Weber yesterday, reflecting on her own post-pandemic spiritual slump. She talked about her bodyguard, the part of herself that goes out ahead of her into new situations and relationships and checks things out, making sure they are safe places to be. She’s worried her bodyguard’s been off duty so long she may not be coming back, and now I can’t stop thinking about my own AWOL bodyguard and how to get her back. At least once a day I tell myself that I’m not behind on anything, at home or at work. But that doesn’t stop the constant feeling that there’s so much catching up to do. I struggle to calibrate my calendar, feeling slightly anxious if I can’t see everyone within a day or two. Cooking dinner . . . . . I really do want to cook and eat real dinner more than once a week, instead of grazing through the fridge or picking it up on the way home. So, I’m thinking it’s time to become my own bodyguard, since you-know-who is apparently not coming back. I’ll ask myself what is reasonable for one middle-aged woman to accomplish in a day and do my best to leave it at that. And promise myself not to be too gripey when I fail to get it right. And for heaven’s sake, take a nap if I can’t stay awake anyway. I’m actually feeling a little better already. I should probably go walk the dog before the feeling goes away.
Still, with the daily rain my tomato plants are exploding, so full-on summer has its joyful benefits. At this point a year ago my garden was much further along than it is now. During quarantine I was always popping out to weed or work for a few minutes at a time. Now I’ve completely lost the hang of getting myself to and from work in a timely manner. I roll in late and can’t seem to leave. I eat lunch at 3 and supper at 8 and then it’s bedtime again. School will start before we know it. The leaves will turn and in no time Advent will be upon us.
Already the days are shortening. I don’t know how to slow the clock or calendar, nor do I want to on days as hot as today. I just want to be here and now, with the good sense to be grateful for the beauty of it all: the smell of a warm dog, the light and heat of the sun on my own shoulders and the dirt in my garden, summer clothes, summer food, long evenings and cool sheets at bedtime. It’s all such a gift, all so full of life and grace, and I don’t want to miss a thing. June 24, 2020
Beloved: Already this morning I’ve been to the doctor for a check-up and to Walmart for a long list of things like eye drops and laundry soap. From the store and doctor’s office, I came to work and have been here ever since, except to go out for lunch. I’ve not actually left the house in two days and "out for lunch" was to the kitchen and back. So goes the summer in semi-quarantine. We don’t eat out but we do get carry-out from restaurants. We don’t have our normal gatherings but we had a picnic at a park for my sister’s birthday, our lawn chairs the appropriate distance apart. My garden is bigger since I have no travel plans, thus no worries about wasted food. I have home life figured out, but what of church? As congregations begin to reconvene for worship, we too are thinking, praying, talking our way to a new way of holding life together, together. I am so grateful for your thoughtful response to the deacons’ survey and want to share four conclusions I have drawn from what you told us. If and where I have missed the mark, I count on you to correct me. The strongest message I received from the survey responses is that you want everyone to be as safe as possible. Secondly, you very much want to be together in person when such safety is possible. Third, clarity is important to you — you want to know exactly how gatherings will work before deciding to attend. Fourth, you want an online worship option to continue for people unable to attend in-person worship gatherings. Succinctly, I understand you to say these are your priorities, though not necessarily in this order:
As your pastor, let me say this: if we have to wait a year, two years, three years to gather like we used to, we will wait. We will wait patiently, joyfully and gratefully for the experience of waiting, as others who have also waited. People of faith have always waited through times of unknowing, discomfort and fear. So can we. So will we. In the meantime, we will find ways to gather that will be new, that may be strange and, possibly, that we end up loving. But all these new ways absolutely deny this disease the contact it requires to infect other people. On my watch we shall not aid the enemy. To that end, while we still have no definite plans to gather in-person for Sunday morning worship, on Sunday July 5th at 4 PM I’ll be in a lawn chair in the church parking lot, wearing my mask and some bug spray, to host Life Together Live. You, your lawn chair and your mask are invited to join me. We will park in the lower back lot and sit up near the front porch in the shady area, 6 feet apart of course. We won’t hug or shake hands. We won’t provide refreshments. We won’t have a sound system, so we will have to talk loudly to one another. We’ll only stay an hour or so. If it rains, we’ll take our chairs into the sanctuary and follow the same seating and masking procedures. Only the upstairs bathroom will be available, with disinfectant wipes for everyone to use on surfaces after every use. I’ve been thinking about things this way lately: I would be terribly sad if our building burned to the ground; but wouldn’t it also be terribly exciting to build a whole new building from scratch, a building built to fit our life together, rather than a life together organized to fit our building? I choose to imagine this pandemic as our chance to build a church program that fits our life together, both now and post-pandemic, and I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone but you all. Just one more word: you have been awesome givers through the first months of the year. As of the end of May, we are ever so slightly behind budget, about 5%, and I wanted to bring it to your attention so as to get it caught up before we have a problem. No doubt everyone is busy with so many things. It’s easy-peasy to give your offering online now at ubcbloomington.org/ give. You can also mail it to the church, and counters will get it taken care of quickly. Thanks so much! ~peace & prayers, pastor annette PS – Don’t forget our plans for participating in MCUM’s safe, socially-distanced annual “Each One Feed One” food drive, as shared by our awesome MCUM donations coordinator. It will take place this coming weekend, Saturday, June 27, and Sunday, June 28. This year, due to COVID-19, people in different neighborhoods across town have been recruited to volunteer their homes as drop-off sites for donations. Two UBC-ers' homes will be drop-off sites for church folks and their neighborhoods, and you can just leave items outside their homes in specific spots described in a detailed e-mail. Each month MCUM distributes over 7,000 pounds of food to more than 200 families. Now, their food pantry has been hit hard by the pandemic and they have experienced an increase in demand. They are hoping to raise 12,000 pounds of food through this food drive. If you aren't able to donate directly to this food drive, please remember that there are lots of different ways to help out right now, including donating to MCUM through their website or through the church; or you could send a donation to our coordinator or one of the UBC staff, and they will shop for the items for you. |
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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