​Beloved:

    February days in southern Indiana don’t get prettier than yesterday.  The dogs played outside so long yesterday they were down for the night at 7 PM.  The chickens went deep into the woods to scratch up bugs.  My hands positively itched to start clearing off garden beds but I know it's too early, so I let things lay and tidied the garage. 

    All the same, Spring is on the way.  I can smell it when I'm outside and feel when I wake to sunlight before 7 AM.  It is my forever favorite season.  My whole self is waking up.  Feeling just a bit more hopeful about things that last week and the week before had me saggy sad.  Nothing’s changed but the light and air.  Which goes to show that light and air are everything.  Touch everything.  Make everything better, lighter, easier to bear. 

    Yesterday was beautiful.  Today will be too.  I pray the days are treating you kindly. 

~peace & prayers,
pastor annette

Beloved:

    One of my favorite things that ever happens just happened.  Two gentlemen from The Gideons International stopped by to pray with me.  At first I thought they were salesmen and I sighed.  When they came in and said, “We are from Gideons,” I got so happy because I seriously love these guys. I appreciate their main ministry (http://www.gideons.org) but what means most to me is that they drive around town visiting preachers in their offices to ask us, “How’s your church? How’s your family? How are you?”  They write down my answers and then pray them over me in a voice so kind I could nearly weep from gratitude.

    In other news, this Sunday is extra special so please don’t miss it.  Kerry Thompson, executive director of Monroe County Habitat for Humanity will preach in the service and then we’ll have a potluck afterward with a presentation from Kerry about the opportunity to sponsor a Habitat House this summer.  I hope you will plan to come and stay for the whole program.

    As always, it is my privilege and joy to serve the gospel among you.  Have a good day! 

~peace & prayers,

pastor annette

Beloved:
 
    I pray this note finds you warm in spirit if not in body.  With the beginning of Lent, I offer this single page of suggested devotional material.  I found it last fall on a Tumblr blog that is mostly full of cheesy quotes.  But there's nothing cheesy at all about this.  I love it.  It's quite simple, repetitive even.  But the more time I spend with it the deeper and more expansive it becomes in me.  My hope is that you will take the words into your heart and mind this season and make them your daily practice at home, at work and wherever daily life takes you.  I don't see how we can help being changed in the process.       
 
    May I suggest that you make lots of copies to put everywhere your eyes might rest for the next few weeks:  your cell phone wallpaper, your desk at work, the bathroom mirror, the refrigerator door.  .  .  .  Let the words and their lessons sink deep into our thoughts, seep into our speech, escape through our actions and see if we aren’t changed by them.  
 
~ peace & prayers,
pastor annette
 
Mother Teresa’s Humility List

• Speak as little as possible about yourself.
• Keep busy with your own affairs & not those of others.
• Avoid curiosity.
• Do not interfere in the affairs of others.
• Accept small irritations with good humor.
• Do not dwell on the faults of others.
• Accept censures even if unmerited.
• Give in to the will of others.
• Accept insults & injuries.
• Accept contempt, being forgotten & disregarded.
• Be courteous & delicate even if provoked by someone.
• Do not seek to be admired & loved.
• Do not protect yourself behind your dignity.
• Give in, in discussions, even when you are right.
• Choose always the more difficult task.