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June 2, 2020
Beloved: Another black man was murdered in police custody last week in Minneapolis. His name was Mr. Floyd. Peaceful protests have been infiltrated by rabble-rousers turning cities upside down with violence and vandalism. Meanwhile, I can’t stop wondering if it’s a sin to keep my seat in this quiet room with a sweet breeze coming through the window, where all I hear is birdsong, road noise, and a sighing dog. Shouldn’t I be doing something in the wake of such violence and tragedy? How can praying possibly be enough? Would one more set of marching feet make any difference anywhere? I keep thinking about John Woolman, that 18th century Quaker forever working on his own heart; when he was divinely led to speak, he hardly spoke to more than a handful at a time, usually just one or two other people. After thirty years or so, not a Quaker in North America still owned or traded slaves. Systemic change is called for in every corner of our culture: economic, social, political and otherwise. Today, if possible, laws allowing excessive force by the state must change. But as Woolman knew, the fundamental change required happens in the human heart and begins with my own: the painful, painful work of tweezing out the shards and splinters of my own attitudes about this thing called race. Race – itself a made-up notion to reinforce the attitudes that allow me to maintain my place in the deep disparity between white, brown, and black people groups. Prayer and conversations with people also willing to do the work is all I know to do, and it’s the hardest work there is, it seems. It contains less space for speaking than for listening. It requires trust not easily found and/or maintained. I do pray God’s blessing on the brave ones marching peacefully in the streets, and for God’s protection. And I pray for the courage to pray that human hearts might also change in the days to come. Take care.
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May 26, 2020
Beloved: Last week’s news cycle included some silly chatter on the subject of opening churches. Silly because opening churches is, as all church people know, a redundant term, along with the term church people. The Church has not closed since the wind of Pentecost first blew through them two thousand years ago and is as alive, if not more so today, as it has been in my lifetime. You are taking care of each other with renewed intention and deeper generosity. Our worship is collaboratively and thoughtfully planned. Organizational tasks are dutifully managed. Our building is shuttered and our gatherings are virtual and our life together carries on, suspended by the same grace, faith and joy that has carried the people of God forever. I am not grateful for a pandemic. But I am grateful to be in this place at this time with the community of which I am part. I am grateful for the moments when fear and frustration leave me alone to enjoy an ordinary Indiana springtime. I am grateful for your faith, your generosity and your good humor. I am grateful for the sense of purpose you put to your lives right now, your determination to be kind and patient with one another and with yourselves. I am grateful for your good sense to look to science for the necessary information and to God for the necessary wisdom to act according to our faith. I am grateful that faith found me, for the way that faith has kept me and is keeping me now when so much else seems so uncertain. I am grateful for your prayers and for your kind care toward me. Whatever tomorrow brings, I am grateful that we shall face it like the church always has, together and with hearts alive in faith. May 19, 2020 Beloved: So much rain today. But also beautiful. Lots of business at my backyard bird feeders: finches, cardinals, bluebirds, cowbirds, nuthatch, chickadees, woodpeckers, and hummingbirds. A pair of squirrels do all the deck rails and floor clean-up every day, burying the corn kernels in my flowerpots like treasures. The forest seems to draw closer to the house as the leaves fill in the space between branches. The time saved getting ready for work, driving to work, doing errands that didn’t need doing leaves time for watching the bird feeders in the morning and walking to the mailbox at lunchtime if I want. After the first two weeks of pandemic I learned to leave my desk at a decent hour and marvel at the time saved by not having to pack up, lock up, drive home and unpack, change clothes and figure out supper. Now I just walk down the stairs and the evening begins. Someone is always cooking something, so there’s nearly always yummy stuff in the fridge. Does quarantine have rough spots and lonely places? Of course. But I’m finding it easier and easier to recognize the joy embedded in the rough and lonely spaces of pandemic quarantine. And I find that joy by choosing to be altogether in one place: heart, mind, body, soul, and strength.
I pray the day finds you abiding in your place of quarantine in joy, with oodles of grace to go around.
May 12, 2020
Beloved: For a much-needed biblical perspective on the news and the state of our nation, I recom-mend this Op-Ed piece from the NY Times two days ago. May God’s people find our voice and feet in the ways of justice here and now. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette PS - Please remember that this is the time of the month when we donate to Monroe County United Ministries (MCUM), to help those in need in our community. Due to job losses and illness caused by COVID-19, the number of people in need is greater than ever. While we are meeting virtually, we encourage folks to make financial donations to MCUM in place of our normal monthly MCUM drive. If you can do so, please consider donating online by going to this web address: https://mcum.org/donate/. Another way to donate is to register for Miles for MCUM at https://mcum.org/milesformcum/. For this, you choose an indoor or outdoor activity during the week of May 18-24 and can line up sponsors who will pay an outright amount or per mile. For more information, please go to the Miles for MCUM website linked. May 5, 2020
Beloved: This morning I remarked how strange it is to think that everyone we know is also at home nearly all the time, and my son respectfully disagreed. “What’s strange,” he said, “is that we think it’s strange. Most people in history spent plenty of time staying at home to avoid disease and plagues. It was business as usual until about fifty years ago.”* I remember the nurse at the pediatrician’s office squirting a tube of purple juice into our mouths, and my mother telling us how kids who got polio had to live inside iron boxes so they could breathe. I also remember the giant, itchy scab we got on our arms from our smallpox vaccines.** His kindly reminder helped me to relax further into the human normalcy of this season and to be grateful for what progress has been made. I’d rather enjoy going out to eat or to visit with my sisters. But not at the risk of someone else’s childhood. It turns out kids can contract COVID-19. At first doctors believed otherwise. I can definitely do this for someone else’s kids, as can most everyone I know. It’s what human beings have always done, remember. And, reading our text for this week I realize it’s a perfect opportunity to practice what our Bible preaches in John 14 — abiding. About to take leave of his disciples, Jesus explains he’s going to his Father to prepare a place for them where they will abide with himself and the Father. The disciples are more upset about his leaving than glad about his promise to return and take them with him. In time they come to embrace the promise and the faith therein. That faith that comes with abiding ... it’s another word for “staying put.” It’s by staying put that we learn to stay put faithfully, but by enjoying this life of ours — no matter what the days are made of — that we learn to enjoy this life. Circular to be sure, just like life within eternity — endless and complete at once, even as we live it. As you are staying put these days, what are you discovering about yourself and life together that you never knew before? I’d love to hear your insights. In the meantime, ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette *If you’re needing something new to watch and can stream programming, check out the miniseries John Adams, starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney. **Children are still vaccinated against polio but not smallpox. April 28, 2020. Day 43 of Quarantine Beloved: Given how I trash-talked him last Tuesday, it seems fitting Otto get top billing today. In respect of other people’s sensitivity I’ll not post a picture of the corpse, but never have I been so glad to see a dead chipmunk on my garage floor, laid out as a sacrifice upon an altar. Until he died two years ago, I had no idea how much time and effort our previous cat Simba devoted to patrolling and protecting my flowerbeds from chipmunks. Since his death, they have invaded and destroyed not just planting, but even the underground structure of my beds. For his part, Otto acts as if nothing interesting has happened, but I’m planning some extra treats for later, sprinkled near the chipmunk corpse to convey my gratitude and hope that he will go hunting again, maybe start a real collection.
The world today is ruled by a virus, one cell of which can make a human being deathly ill. Our disrespect of its dominance will destroy life and civilization as we’ve known it for generations. So, for now we will respect it by staying home, washing our hands, and learning ever deeper levels of patience with one another, confident that life will not be like this forever, because soon enough science will do what modern science has done every time a disease proposed to lord it over us. Soon enough scientists will bring forth the science to shelve this virus in the same vault as smallpox, polio, and diphtheria. When and where there are breakouts, science will descend the way Otto descends on a chipmunk in my flowerbed.
And in the meantime, we will keep diligence, faith, and good humor – knowing that the God who made us sustains us now and keeps Their promise to keep us close no matter what the future holds. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette
Three weeks ago I paid a handyman to wash my windows, some of which have not been done in years. After I paid him he loaded his truck and was not possibly out of the neighborhood yet when a robin arrived on my bedroom window sill to admire his big fat self. Every day since, he has circled the house from sunup to sunset, body slamming and head-butting all my windows, flecking them with bird poop. I may hate him, but he is my teacher just the same, I’ve decided. He’s come to inform me, in no uncertain terms, that the spiritual discipline I profess is no thicker in me than the dust upon my windows.
I’m hardly the first to discover that it doesn’t take famine or a war to test a person’s faith. A bird on a windowsill can show us what we most believe. Abuse the cat. Kill the bird. Hate the bird. After forty-plus years of attempting to pray, these are my automatic responses when I’m annoyed. Not threatened, friends — annoyed. And while the temptation is strong to continue the response by embellishing or expanding upon my own spiritual inadequacy, things are hard enough right now. Instead, I choose to use this pretty little bird (I’m sorry I body shamed you and called you a big fat bird. You are positively lovely!) to remind me that our good intentions matter, and change takes as long as it takes. Otto seems no worse for wear even though I snapped at him. I did not, in fact, kill the bird and I can practice not hating him, even if I can’t control all my thoughts. And all that bird poop means the handyman will always have more work to do, so economically it’s a win as well. Do you also find yourself less patient with yourself these days? Is one little thing bugging you lots more than it should? Lots of stressors we can’t see push at us these days, and it’s tempting to believe we should be doing better than we are. These are not easy times — not by any measure. But we can thrive by being as gentle with ourselves as we hope others will be with us. May your home be surrounded by peace and prayers today. ~ much love, pastor annette April 14, 2020 Beloved: I pray this post-Easter greeting finds you well and being gentle with yourself as we enter another week of quarantine. As I write, a squirrel is scrounging through the flower pots on my back deck looking for the nuts they buried there last fall. I’ve cleaned off the dead plants and rearranged the pots so they can’t find what they are looking for. The chickens are yelling about being grounded to their coop for eating my neighbor’s newly laid down grass seed. And the weeping cherry tree I wanted cut down last year has come back like the tree man said it would, proving that the hardest work I do all day is simply leaving something alone. 
In other news, I was over at the church building yesterday to put away things I’d brought home to record Holy Week services. Everything there is quietly fine, and it made me all the more proud of you for how we are thriving through these days. As far as I know, our local households are all healthy. Extended family members, especially the elderly, are constantly on our minds and in our prayers. Friends who live alone need our extra contact. Families with young kids at home have extra duties and no one to spell them, so their patience and strength oblige our prayers as well. Remember that birthdays and anniversaries are printed in the church directory, so send each other greetings through the mail just as you also call to check in. We will continue to pre-record services for now and have two live events as scheduled on Sunday afternoons and on Thursday mornings. Let me or your deacon know if you have a need with which we can help.
https://parasolwellness.com/why-am-i-so-tired/?fbclid=IwAR0HdRcVOWxi2IioCT4CdCmKHw9N9ruSHN_kLi_uiiPwX8UZXkp23Vf7DX8 April 7, 2020 ~ Holy Week
Beloved: Ash Wednesday seems far longer than six weeks ago, amen? In the same way Jesus’ disciples had no idea what he was up to when he turned his face toward Jerusalem, we couldn’t have imagined celebrating Easter so isolated from one another. Still, grace we could not have imagined has also bloomed among us. In our physical absence has bloomed intentional connection and a new tenderness that is good for my soul, and yours too I bet. I am profoundly aware of a deep and wide degree of patience and encouragement among family, friends, neighbors and strangers. Easter marks the destruction of the divide between time and eternity – the propulsion of eternal grace into temporal time – so that even while we are separated physically, we can more fully experience our spiritual unity. This is why I love our visits on Life Together Live – the Sunday Zoom meetings at 4 PM. Yes, they are loud and crazy as everyone talks at once and kids show each other their latest artwork, but I still love it! If you haven’t joined in yet, I hope you will next week. My plan is to continue doing church this way until the scientists say it’s safe to gather once again. Your patience, encouragement and good humor these last three weeks are like honey on my heart, and I’ve no doubt we can do it as long as is necessary.* The effort, extra hours and creativity of this part-time church staff to create online worship and church programming humbles me more than I have words to say. I am in technology kindergarten while Rob and Laura Beth guide me with the patience of a thousand preschool teachers. Fan has her eyes everywhere so that nothing essential falls through the cracks. Be sure and take advantage of the extra Holy Week offerings they are delivering each day this week on Facebook and YouTube! Rob has a family Easter activity and Laura Beth a Holy Week Reflection drawn from our usual Good Friday service. And thank you, thank you, thank you for putting your offering in the mail to the church office! More honey on my heart as it makes sure our bills are paid, especially our amazing church staff! An online giving mechanism should be ready for use on Sunday too. Keep in touch. Stay connected to each other, and remember that you are so very dear to me. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette *Like honey on my heart is a phrase I learned from Dalia O., who called this week to check on her UBC friends and say she is doing well. Beloved:
As it happens, I’ve begun reading Erik Larson’s new book, The Splendid and the Vile, about the London blitz in the fall of 1940 when London and other parts of England were bombed continuously for months. People who lost their houses lived crowded together in underground shelters without electricity or plumbing – continuously for months. They endured all manner of shortages and hardship – continuously for months. They fully expected to be invaded by a ground army more powerful than their own – continuously for months. Suffice it to say, the book provides both some perspective and some hope. Perspective, in that nothing I endure these days so far qualifies as hardship. I have water, electricity and way too much internet.* My wardrobe is best described as minimalist. Except for my yard clogs a few times a day, I no longer wear shoes. I shower and change from pajamas into clean pajamas once a day. Three times a week I put on make-up and Zoom clothes then change back into my jammies.** I have more than enough to eat as the kitchen works over-time and nobody eats out ever. And the housekeeper is but a memory, so we all have plenty of extra chores to do as well. We are not suffering. This is not hardship. At least not yet. Hope is found in the reality that unlike a city bombed incessantly, we can protect ourselves and one another. This virus is more persistent and more patient than any human army. We will defeat it by being more persistent and patient still. The most faithful and the most care-full we can be is to do the only thing the scientists know to tell us now: stay home, stay separated from each other, wash our hands often and for twenty seconds at a time. Staying home can feel like doing nothing, but it is everything that matters now. In terms of faith, remember Jesus speaking to his disciples in John 15: My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. The lives we lay down now are not these mortal bodies but the lives of busyness and everyday activity. Jesus never promised what shape this obedience might take. We probably didn’t imagine it would be homeschooling or pre-recorded worship services. But here we are, invited to this obedience all the same. I pray that whatever shape sequestering has taken for you today, you can find some joy therein. ~peace & prayers, pastor annette * I now know way too much about America’s big cat community. ** Zoom clothes are outfits that are professional from the waist up, pajamas from the waist down. Two church projects you can help with this week:
Stone Belt Arc Needs Your Help! Looking for ways to help out your community while social distancing? Visit http://ow.ly/qZnA50yQb0c VIRTUAL BUDDIES We are in need of volunteers who are willing to be Virtual Buddies. If you are interested in connecting with someone on video conference or via phone call, please contact: Rev. Sarah McKenney at smckenney@stonebelt.org. OTHER NEEDS Stone Belt needs gift cards to grocery stores, healthy snacks, hygienic supplies, board games, DVDs (movies & television), craft supplies, video game consoles, etc. And we have a handy drop-off box located near the entrance at Stone Belt, 2815 E Tenth Street in Bloomington. You can also have things mailed. And there is a donation button on the link above. Donate & become part of the Stone Belt Buddies Brigade today! |
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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September 2021
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