<![CDATA[UNIVERSITY BAPTIST CHURCH

<![CDATA[UNIVERSITY BAPTIST CHURCH - Pastor\'s Blog]]>Sun, 15 Feb 2026 10:26:59 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Living Like Greg]]>Tue, 23 Sep 2025 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.ubcbloomington.org/pastors-blog/living-like-greg

Beloved:

A week and a half until I’m on vacation. For three whole weeks! I’m going to pump my brain and body full of sleep, sewing, reading and staring at the water. No email. No meetings. No sermons to compose. No bigger decisions to make than what to eat next. It’s my first real vacation in two years and I am so grateful for a job that doesn’t just allow but honors the need for restoration of body, mind, and spirit, and encourages real time off.
He was forty years old before he lived with a dog, said the author of an essay I read in a magazine mostly about crafts and decorating. His parents thought dogs were unsanitary and belonged outside. But his only child was desperate for one and they decided a puppy would be a good playmate. “I was not ready for how Greg (yes, the dog’s name was Greg) would change my life,” he wrote. Of the changes he listed, this one really hit home for me: “[Greg] taught me that it is enough to exist as a creature who loves and is loved. Forget accomplishments, forget riches – all our human strivings pale next to this.”
They were the words I needed in the moment and have carried every day since, helping me to slow down and pay better attention to the love available in each moment, between whatever creatures occupy the moment. Every time I witness gentleness these days I am nearly done in by it. Like when a golden retriever entertains a one-year-old who has not yet learned not to pull her ears so hard. She just waits for him to let go then lays her big head on his arm as if to say, “Too much.” If only humans could be tender toward one another, would our need of vacation be so desperate? Or, if we all took more time for recovery and rest, might we all be more loving with one another, more able to honor the central truth embodied by a dog named Greg?
I pray at least some part of this gorgeous day finds you at some gentle task you enjoy. ~peace & prayers,
pastor annette

]]><![CDATA[Where the Faith Work Begings]]>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.ubcbloomington.org/pastors-blog/where-the-faith-work-begings

Beloved:

My 1-year-old grandson just learned to sign “more,” which he uses to mean more food, as well as please go get that ball I just threw? I spent a good part of yesterday chasing balls to toss back to him. Next time I’ll remember not to schedule the dog’s grooming the same day I’m keeping the baby. She lives to chase a ball. As babies go he’s practically perfect in every way: a good eater and sleeper who rarely cries and enjoys sitting outside with me watching and waving at the people, dogs, cars and squirrels passing by. He’s not terrified of the vacuum or the mowers. He’s content in the car, mostly, and he worships his big sister.
Yet, what grandmother would say otherwise about her own babies’ babies? We’d all concede ours are the best of the bunch, the pick of the litter. Which is why my heart positively falls to pieces when I think of all the grand- mothers this world over who feel equally convinced and called to help raise these babies and yet face the daily obstructions to this most essential work, obstructions which come down to a single word – violence.
Gun violence, the primary cause of child death in our own country.* The violence of poverty, of disease, of war, of corrupt politics, of addiction. None of which is entirely disconnected from the others, and each of which is for the most part preventable, should humanity ever choose to do the work to prevent it. Of course, like everything else, our work – the faith work – begins not in some legislative realm but in the human heart where the drivers of violence live: fear and greed, fear and hate, fear and grief, fear and fear, and fear upon fear. Fear which turns so easily into grief and greed and hate and anger before finally exploding among us as the violence on our streets and in our neighborhoods.
Just imagine all this work actually getting done – thereby enabling every Abuela, Babushka, Bubbie, Baba, Cacky, Gran, Granny, Gram, Grammy, Grandma, Meema, Mamaw, Nan, Nana, Nin, Non, Nonna, Nonny, Netnet, and Lala everywhere to do her job freely and securely. Imagine a world full of grandmothers fit as soccer players from chasing wiffle balls instead of dodging bullets or scavenging scraps to feed their families one more day. I expect we’d all take a great deal more of that.

~peace & prayers,
pastor annette

* There were 2,526 gun deaths in 2022 among 1-to-17-year- olds, averaging to nearly 7 per day. I hope you will take the time to read this article. It takes less than two minutes.
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/guns-remain-leading-cause-of-death-for-children-and-teens.

]]><![CDATA[An Unexpectedly Peaceful Life]]>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.ubcbloomington.org/pastors-blog/an-unexpectedly-peaceful-life

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWUvZBXGjNCU4?si=cc35c1c26fb34eea

Beloved:
  Sweater Weather Instrumentals is a six-hour playlist I found years ago that I start playing the first morning I take the dog out and can’t feel even a spit of summer on the air. I don’t remember ever playing it in September and certainly not this early! But I’ll take it, knowing good and well the humid heat is not gone for good. Besides, I still have tomatoes on the vine that need that heat to ripen.
  I nearly got through the season without getting stung, though not in my garden. In the bookstore café, by what bee or bug I didn’t see. First the pierce and then the fire. Rebecca, the café barista, gave me ice and asked if my mouth felt like it was swelling. I’m not allergic as far as I know, so all is well this morning.
  When soft weather changes and bee stings are the stuff of one's journal entries, hopefully she marks what peace her life is made of. This is not how I thought life would be now, yet who could possibly complain about such a blessed existence, a life so full of love and kindness? Every time I run the formula, what I miss compared to what I’ve kept keeps me grateful for the goodness of God, other people and golden retrievers. That is not to say the losses don’t still sometimes sting - only that they no longer overwhelm. They barely cast a shadow on this unexpectedly oh-so-peaceful life.
  Life will change and then change again, of course. From sugar to salt to sugar again, ‘round and ‘round it goes. The trick of faith is hanging on to what doesn’t change, God and love, wherever it shows up. And also showing up in love for others, as often as they need for as long as they need and we are able. I pray you know yourselves most profoundly held and loved this day.

~peace & prayers,
pastor Annette

Recipe: Apples & Hummus

2 small sliced apples*
5 oz hummus (Sabra classic is my favorite)

I eat this for lunch a few times a week. 1 apple and less hummus is a great snack.
*I’m not sure why apples are so expensive right now, maybe it’s the end of last year’s crop and they’ll be cheap again as soon as harvest starts.

]]><![CDATA[The Most Interesting Thing of All]]>Tue, 02 Sep 2025 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.ubcbloomington.org/pastors-blog/the-most-interesting-thing-of-all

Nanci Griffith & James Hooker - Gulf Coast Highway - Live

Beloved:

As I write I’m also texting with some of my kids about vacation details ~ a week at the beach in October. Sunshine and sleep. Books and good food. Watching the water wash in and out for hours, never getting bored of it. This morning I’m trying to get them to book their flights, but no luck so far. They are probably working - go figure.
It’s the best part about booking a vacation months ahead, how it sits quietly on my calendar beyond the summer until suddenly it’s September and time to plan. Vacation anticipation all the way up to two days before departure when I don’t want to go. I get anxious about nothing in particular, just anxious. Halfway to the airport it’s all good again and I am excited and so very grateful.
I’ve now lived several months longer than my mother did. Every moment I spend with my children and grandchildren is a gift I try to enjoy for both of us. Nothing in this life matters more than time with them when we can enjoy each other and make memories for another day. Vacation is a privilege not lost on me, but the same goes for everyday life too. Playing with these babies while they are little, knowing they are growing up so, so fast. Yesterday we were playing and the almost-4-year-old said to me:

“Can I swing this at you just one time to see if it hurts?”
“Uhm . . . No.”
“Okay.”
I laughed hard at the moment and typing it again now. I can’t think of one more interesting thing to do than that. Which is what makes the sorrows of this world so sorrowful ~ all the wars and famines and hateful policies which starve and steal the precious, God-given time together from so many people in this world. Or illness, like my mother’s. Sorrowful is too small a word - and yet - sorrow is not all this life contains. Grief comes and goes, as does lightheartedness. Each in their own season. Making whatever time we have together a treasure never to be taken for granted. The day outside is beautiful. I pray you don’t miss it. ~peace & prayers,
pastor annette

Images: The Gulf Coast where we’ll be. Link is to a song I’ve loved for a long time - about the Gulf Coast highway, only in Texas.

Monarch update - the chrysalids from last week have not emerged and I haven’t found any others. Yesterday my granddaughter and I counted 9 fatso caterpillars on the milkweed, so we figure they are hidden in the trees or shrubs nearby. We are seeing monarchs so they must be close by.

]]><![CDATA[Everyday Magic]]>Tue, 26 Aug 2025 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.ubcbloomington.org/pastors-blog/everyday-magic

Beloved:
  I’ve pulled up more common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) than I left in my little flowerbed, else I’d have no space to grow other things. The first year it got established. Last year the lawn service sprayed pesticide too close but this year I told them to go away and look what’s happened! So many big fat caterpillars munching down the leaves and two chrysalids hanging from my porch eaves. There must be more nearby because yesterday a monarch was hovering about as I puttered in the yard yesterday. My neighbor and I are as excited as kids in a classroom.
  I pick a tomato or two almost every day from the two plants I put in. A third volunteer tomato vine has suddenly come on. The tiny fruit on it may be big and ripe before the frost. Friends share their bounty, so I still get enough to freeze for soup and pasta sauce. Tomatoes, herbs and flowers are what I have space for now, the exact right amount to leave time for my grandkids, crafts and volunteer work.
  I cannot imagine ever not growing something, if only in a pot of dirt. Some living plant to tend and trim and fuss over, for the simple magic of watching it come to bloom, to grow, go dormant and then come to life again, ever careless of the unceasing human drama around it.* The slowness of the garden slows down my mind and spirit even as it amps up my body. My watch says I did 9400 steps yesterday! An hour can go by in which I think about nothing but which lavender branches to prune.
  If gardening isn’t your thing, no worries. Maybe it’s running. Or motorcycles. Or baking bread. But I do hope you have something removed from the rest of the everyday world pulling on you. I hope you have something as magical to you as caterpillars and ripening tomatoes are to gardeners. Because the world needs us at our best these days, clear-minded and ready for the work of being Jesus’ hands and heart. I’m so grateful to be in it with all of you.

~peace & prayers,
pastor annette

* I just remembered this book: The Sound of A Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. A great read!

]]><![CDATA[A Jam Jar Full of the Right Stuff]]>Tue, 19 Aug 2025 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.ubcbloomington.org/pastors-blog/a-jam-jar-full-of-the-right-stuff August 19, 2025

Keep my anger from becoming meanness.
Keep my sorrow from collapsing into self-pity.
Keep my heart soft enough to keep breaking.
Keep my anger turned toward justice, not cruelty.
Remind me that all of this, every bit of it, is for love.
Keep me fiercely kind.

~ Laura Jean Truman

Beloved:
Keep me fiercely kind is yet another on the list of tattoos I’d get if I were to get one. On my forearm, so I’d see it all day every day. Not that it would help so much – since the far greater portion of my unkindness is not in deeds but thoughts. Unkind thoughts. A notebook’s worth a day at least.
The progress I have made in thirty years would not fill a jam jar, so I’ve no advice to share save a couple of very tiny observations.

Kindness toward others and myself in my thoughts is the most tedious spiritual practice of all, and the most easily neglected, and yet it can be done, inch by inch, over a lifetime.
Humble service toward someone is a good way for me to think more kindly of them. Simply trying to control my own thoughts never works – but relationships do. Knowing someone does. Knowing people breaks down assumptions and fosters connection. Connection breeds empathy, and empathy is where fierce kindness is conceived.

A very tiny jam jar, don’t you know? But full of the right stuff all the same. The stuff that can change a life . . . mine, the one in pursuit of fierce kindness, the life I believe Jesus offers me and you and anyone with the courage to confront the tedium of the practice. This new creation business* is not for slackers. It’s work, unsupervised work – with no finish line and no medals on a dais. But the rewards – oh the rewards of even a spoonful of fierce kindness – on such sweetness a life will go on and on.

~ peace & prayers,
pastor annette

* Colossians 3:5-12 * Ephesians 4:21-25 * 2 Corinthians 5:17

]]><![CDATA[Bits & Bobs and Books & Hope]]>Tue, 12 Aug 2025 18:41:27 GMThttps://www.ubcbloomington.org/pastors-blog/bits-bobs-and-books-hopeAugust 12, 2025

Beloved:

The command strip Velcro has given out, so the pressboard box I use to organize small desk things keeps falling off the wall. I tried new strips on the box, to no good end. I just picked everything up off the floor for the fourth time at least, threw the stupid box in the trash then took it right back out again. It can live on my desk for now.
An old friend once told me his camping club had considered changing their name from camping club to guys-who-like-to-buy-camping-stuff club and I knew exactly what he meant. I am afraid to do the math lest I learn I’ve spent more time collecting and organizing my fabric, yarn, craft and office supplies than I’ve actually spent sewing, knitting, collaging and writing. Fortunately my habits are not outrageously expensive, bits and bobs my kids will someday donate to the Quilters’ Guild or Teachers’ Warehouse.
But not books. Books don’t count. A new pen* or a hank of yarn soothes, each in their own way ~ fun to hold, look at and play with, to put away and get back out. While books are friends whose presence in my house reminds me of when and where I was when I read them. I remember how they changed my thinking, and my heart, which is to say my life. When I could first read easily, around age six or seven, I’d wonder if I could forget how to do it. I’d test myself on cereal boxes and billboards. I felt like a magician. Half a century later, it still seems a little magical, chunks of inky paper with the power to change a person, a people, the world.
I sit down to write these Tuesday notes without much plan. I look around and see the pressboard box on the floor again, so I start there and see where my typing takes me. Halfway around the room to the stack of books by my rocking chair, as it turns out, where the novel I started yesterday lies open. The Testament, by Eli Wiesel, an interesting companion to the one beside it, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, by Rashid Khalidi, each doing what the best books do ~ changing me. Breaking me wide open to see and hear and know again the inhumanity of which human beings are capable, to commit and to endure. I’d like to throw both books in the trash, but take them up again with what faith I can muster, knowing neither will end happily ever after but maybe with an ember of hope. And if not hope, then awareness. Accountability for our own time in this world. For how we speak and act in reference to and toward other people. People who are as in love with their lives as I am mine ~ here in my little study surrounded by my bits and bobs and other tiny treasures.
I pray this hot, hot day treats you kindly and you have the chance to pass that kindness along.

~peace & prayers, pastor annette

My favorite novel ~ The Glad River, by Will Campbell ; I also love East of Eden, by John Steinbeck. Everything else is at least a couple of ladder rungs below these two. Wendell Berry’s Port William novels and stories always comfort me and make me laugh.

*My favorite pen ~ Rare is the pen that doesn’t smear under the drag of a left-handed writer. These are my two hands-down favorites.

]]><![CDATA[Life Lessons, If Needed]]>Tue, 29 Jul 2025 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.ubcbloomington.org/pastors-blog/life-lessons-if-neededJuly 29, 2025

Beloved:
Sometime this summer, I crossed into a place my mother never went – three months past her sixty-first birthday. I knew the day was coming but didn’t mark it when it came. Busy with other things, my grandchildren hopefully, or my little flowerbed. Working on a quilt maybe. The sort of thing she lived for, once her nest was empty. She also played golf and walked three miles a day. Her Sunday School class kept her busy going out to lunch and shopping for a downtown Louisville men’s shelter. I laughed when she asked me why I supposed they all put Original Listerine on their Christmas lists.
She didn’t see my kids grow up. Or, I didn’t see her see them growing up. Or then again maybe she has seen even more than me these last twenty-eight years. For all our hymns and sermons, theology and study, our best guesses at the truth about life beyond this life barely wing the outer tip of God’s ear, as one writer wrote it. Maybe life within this life as well. Maybe all I know is far less than what I think I know, and I’d be wise to speak with a little more reservation and humility just in case. Do my best while leaving room to learn and space to grow. And spike my grief with hope as often as I’m able – hope rooted in deep memory of God’s goodness so many times before, when I could not see it in the moment.
Whatever this day hold, I pray you know how loved you are, how much this world needs you in it.

~ peace & prayers,
pastor annette

A movie – I recently watched and recommend this beautiful movie, Small Things Like These, about the cost of speaking truth to injustice. Quietly powerful. Cillian Murphy and Emily Watson are incredible in it. This might be a good theology reading group event.

A Recipe – for when it’s too hot to use the stove or oven

2-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, seasoned to your taste. I used salt, pepper and a couple shakes of Slap Your Mama.
8-oz block of cream cheese
2 cans Rotel tomatoes, drained (use l can for less heat)

Spray your crockpot with cooking spray and lay chicken breasts in the bottom. Put cheese and tomatoes on top, seal the lid and cook on High for 4 hours or Low for 8 hours. Shred chicken and serve with rice, pasta or in tacos. I put mine over spinach, added black beans and cheddar jack cheese. Next time I’m going to put lots of cumin on the chicken too.
]]><![CDATA[The Meaning of Grandparents]]>Tue, 22 Jul 2025 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.ubcbloomington.org/pastors-blog/the-meaning-of-grandparents

This sweet grandpa & grandkid picture is from pixabay.com. While I don’t know the people, I do know the deep contentment and delight of being nap-trapped.

July 22, 2025

Beloved:
Grandkids. I love them so much it hurts. Hurts in a different way than loving my kids. That said, here’s what we’re not doing again – we are not making wet kleenex sculptures in the baby pool. Once the kids went home I netted all the floating tissue jellyfish I could and dumped the pool water down my driveway. This morning I spent the better part of an hour whisking, sweeping and vacuuming (yes, I am the crazy lady in her pajamas vacuuming her driveway!) dried bits of tissue which had bonded to the blacktop.
Because they are my grandkids, that’s why, and my role in their raising is widening the boundaries of their lives in ways that give their parents a break and allow them to enjoy the extra-large messes they dream up. Besides, this is not my first kid to love wet tissue sculpture. Her aunt soaked rolls of toilet paper to make artworks of all sizes and shapes. She dried her pieces on cardboard, then dipped them in a paint she made herself, of ground-up sidewalk chalk and water. Once I moved her studio outside, I was a bigger fan of her work.
It’s the baby pool, I think, not the whole idea, that I need to reconsider. When she was done, the 3-year-old grandgirl left no mess to speak of. A big bucket of water would work just as well, which I can pour through a sieve repeatedly until not even the tiniest jellyfish remain. They compost easily enough and the water goes on my hostas. Win, win, win, win, win. Until she dreams up something new – or her aunt comes over to play.
Such outrageous privilege, in a world where grandparents are doing the most outrageously dangerous acts just to feed their own little ones. Grandparents who would gladly sacrifice their own lives if it meant those babies could eat every day. Twice over if it meant they could play outdoors and go to school as kids are meant to do. Our own helplessness at the knowledge of it is a far lesser trauma than the people in the midst of such horror, but it is traumatic all the same. Trauma somewhat eased by supporting the organizations helping. Trauma also eased by being the best people we can be in our own situations. For me, it means putting my phone away to be fully present with these little people whose very existence brings me to tears. It means helping raise them to be decent, thoughtful people who know themselves not as the center of the universe but as members of a community. It means praying for all kids, parents, grandparents and their neighbors everywhere, for peace – peace inside and outside their homeplaces, that they be safe in the care of those who care for them and protected by the people who have pledged to do so – and remaining hopeful for the day when kids everywhere can play outside with the light and carefree hearts to which they are entitled.
I pray this day is kind to you in every way.

~peace & prayers,
pastor annette

]]><![CDATA[Luxury and Intention]]>Tue, 15 Jul 2025 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.ubcbloomington.org/pastors-blog/luxury-and-intention

July 15, 2025

Beloved:
  I’ve picked one tomato and have several more on the vine. My new hydrangea bush is blooming as are the zinnias and cosmos. My water bill is outrageous. Which is to say summer is progressing nicely, if too sweatily for my liking. For a few early evening minutes a day my entire driveway is in the shade, and being outside is actually pleasant. I play with Birdy and talk to neighbors, fuss over my container garden and get the sprinklers going. But soon enough the setting sun spends another hour scorching my front porch and driveway. Then I retreat to my lawn chair in the garage next to a box fan and watch Birdy splash in her plastic pool. Then it’s back inside for other diversions: books or knitting, sewing or a jigsaw puzzle.
  The luxury of such a life is almost never lost on me. Central air-conditioning ~ good heavens! A comfortable home with a pantry and full fridge. Books and tools and toys sorted, stacked and organized just waiting to be picked up and played with, by me, a person with time for interests and hobbies. I could make a full-time job of just living in this house.
  How best to leverage all this privilege is what needles my faith most. How to spend what I did not earn for the benefit of more people than just me? How much security can I keep for myself when so many have so little? I find it so incredibly easy to justify every impulsive inclination of my own heart and mind, and yet I am more than a little suspect of my own motivations, especially when I feel the need to justify those desires and inclinations. Generosity managed by wisdom makes good sense to me, the idea of rooting generosity in a larger picture of sustaining community and myself. It’s a constant exercise in being intentional, doing my best, forgiving myself and staying the course. And believe me ~ I sound way better at it than I actually am. Being intentional more than half the time is the hardest part of all, amen?
  Rain is predicted every day for the coming week. A good soaking would do my yard and my water bill good. Whatever the weather where you are, I pray you find yourselves enjoying this beautiful season.

~peace & prayers,
pastor annette

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