Pastor Annette's Blog
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"OF ALL THE THINGS GOD HAS SHOWN ME, I CAN SPEAK BUT A LITTLE WORD . . . NOT MORE THAN A HONEYBEE CAN CARRY AWAY ON ITS FOOT FROM AN OVERFLOWING JAR."
~ MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG, 13TH CENTURY MYSTIC |
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February 27, 2024
Beloved: I make coffee and drink water with my medicine. While the coffee brews I eat a banana. Then drink coffee and read the news online. I eat 2nd breakfast* with my next cup of coffee and then get on with the day. I really do miss newspapers, but there’s so little to read in the local one I can’t justify the price, and certainly not the environmental impact of all that paper production. So I read on my phone or computer. When my kids were young I didn’t have this same breathing room between getting up and work, unless I got up at 4 AM, which I was not willing to do. I relish it now. I feel more human, less like a cog in a massive machine going nowhere in particular. Or maybe I just feel old, but I don’t think so. I start out caught up with myself, rather than chasing myself all day. Most days still seem too short, with too many items left on my list when quitting time rolls around. Because I quit then too. Because I’m tired, and working tired is a fool’s game, at least for me. I make too many mistakes, for one thing, and grow an ornery attitude for two. Birdy got a really long walk last evening for precisely that reason. I was hungry and restless and irritable, so we walked pretty far into the adjacent neighborhood, and it was nearly dark when we got home. Birdy was delighted and I was oodles more peaceful. All of which is to say that while those mornings of getting three kids up and on the school bus were also wonderful in their own way, I’m loving these mornings too. Age sixty feels good on me. I pray that however your days start, you find moments through the day to catch up with yourself and breathe, to be grateful for this life and all the goodness therein, and to know in your deepest self that you and what you do matters deeply. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette Breakfast lately
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 February 20, 2024
Beloved: Great is my gratitude to have only had the respiratory strain of the flu these past eight days. I’ve been able to eat and drink and, hopefully, I should be nearly through it. Thanks to my kids for walking the dog and thanks to so many at church for covering my work duties. There really is nothing like the flu to put one in a Lenten frame of mind. Rather than deciding what to give up for Lent, the flu decided for me. I can’t watch Bluey with my granddaughter. I can’t go to my usual round of programs, worship, and coffee with congregants. I can’t write sermons at the bookstore café or shoot the breeze with Fan in her office. Flu took my keys and said, you’re grounded. And I have tried to lean in and be sick the way I believe others should be sick: by actually resting; resting as in sleeping; sleeping in the middle of the sunlit day, which feels like a sin to me, truth be told. Turns out, it doesn’t steal sleep from the night-time. Probably because my body is sick. Truth be told, it feels pretty delicious to be all-the-way asleep when I’m really tired, far better than that prickly, itchy, painful feeling of trying to stay awake and work when I am exhausted. So, instead of my usual routine, I’m trying to be here, body, mind and spirit. I write in my journal. I read.* I’ve picked up sock knitting again. I’ve swigged so much chicken soup I’m craving something actually to chew. I’ve even drunk tea, about which I agree with Ted Lasso, it tastes like it looks – hot brown water. But all this only has to do with Lent insofar as I choose to reap the value: the value of staying in place and sitting still, which is healing. Healing the body of the flu. Healing the spirit of whatever keeps me on the move to the point of burnout. Burnout serves nobody, least of all me. Not a few of the people with this flu end up in the hospital with pneumonia. Who has time for that? And when did having time for that become the relevant question? None of us is so necessary to the system we must risk pneumonia. We are far, far, far too valuable for that. All of which is easier said than done, amen? Which is why I am so very grateful for the people in my system. Kids, coworkers and congregation. People with expectations of me whose clear expectation now is that I rest and get better. Please take good care of yourselves as well. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette * Goodbye to a River, by John Graves ~ A memoir of a canoe trip on the Brazos River in West Texas in the 1950’s. Reflections on nature, native peoples who lived there, WW2; and there’s a little dog named Passenger. Gorgeous writing. Highly recommended. Housekeeping tip of the day - Do not store your jug of liquid fabric softener in the garage in winter. February 13, 2024
Beloved: Downy liquid fabric softener reminds me of my childhood and my mother, so when I came across a $4 off coupon for the giant jug I got one and have kept it on a garage shelf, refilling the mason jar in the teeny tiny cupboard of my teeny tiny laundry room as needed, for months. Who knew that when outside temps fall below zero Downy coagulates, it curdles, it clots? And no matter how long you let the jug sit on your kitchen counter, it does not un-coagulate, uncurdle nor unclot. It no longer pours, it plops. So I’ve replaced the mason jar spout with a lid and I use a coffee scoop to get it from the jar to the fabric softener slot of my washing machine. The point being that, once done, certain things cannot be undone. For better and for worse, I suppose. Lent begins tomorrow, our forty-day reflection on the trouble and trauma humans have inflicted upon one another, so little of which is ever truly healed. So much of which lingers for generation upon generation in our memory and in the systems that dictate our lives and lives together. To heal is to listen to the real pain experienced by those harmed by our own actions. And listening is itself painful - and thus resisted, sometimes even reversed to blame the victims for the trauma we ourselves caused, or may even continue to cause. So much pain all around makes healing so very, very difficult, so very, very rare. Thus, for worse, we leave certain things, reconciliation in particular, undone. Lent never lasts forever, nor does our repentance. Come Good Friday, all Death is put to death by the only One who can. All that trouble and trauma, reconciled or not, is resolved by the only One who can. We are free to live free of it. And that freedom cannot be undone, by anything or anyone, ever. That is Easter, which always comes after Good Friday. But first, Lent. We will begin our Lenten reflection and practice with the Ash Wednesday Service tomorrow evening at 7:30. In addition, some are joining me in reading a Lenten devotional by John Pavlovitz, Rise. I will send details about the reading group in a separate email. I am glad to be with you in the faith. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette  February 6, 2024
Beloved: Not when my kids dogsit. Not when others dogsit. Only for me does Birdy wake up at 4 AM seemingly desperate for her breakfast. This came up in a recent session when my therapist asked how I am sleeping. Having golden retriever experience herself, we explored Birdy’s possible issues and decided it is behavioral, not nutritional. She isn’t hungry. She’s lonely. So she wakes me up to play with her. That’s why there are toys on my bed every morning too. And towels she’s dragged in from the kitchen and the bathroom. I can’t believe it took me so long to figure this out. Two things all golden retrievers cannot get enough of: tasty treats and affection. A subset of them, like our Rosie, are completely obsessed with tennis balls, but they too never tire of being loved on. Birdy climbs into strangers’ laps without invitation. And she wakes me up at night when she’s already squashed up against me. This morning it began around 4:15 AM. I learned I can sort of play with her, without totally waking up. I scratched her head and told her to lay down. Then I scratched her belly for a while and we both fell back asleep in almost no time at all. Not quite as nice as sleeping deep all through the night, but not as aggravating as dragging myself to the kitchen to scoop kibble and her medicine. At 6:30 she started shoving me again and I was glad to get up to feed and let her out. That a creature as loved as her gets lonely is a lesson for me, no doubt. Maybe for the rest of us too. Her incapacity to believe that she is loved while up against the breathing body of the one who loves her so is a state of being to which I can relate. Especially in that deepest time of night when it feels like all the world’s asleep, lonely comes more easily than loved. I don’t want the sound of the Spirit’s silence, which in the daytime works for me readily. I want the reassurance only full-on attention and affection provide. Maybe I could practice believing that such reassurance is within reach already, for the taking even, if I have the faith and confidence to lean in, snuggle in and rest in what has already been given, here, now, in the day and in the deepest night. ~ peace & prayers my friends, pastor annette Birdy watching tv. We both love British crime shows. We had 25 people at Wednesday Night Supper last week and enough food to feed everyone. As always, you are always welcome, even if you cannot bring anything to the meal. You are welcome to bring friends - and it helps so much if you sign up or email to let us know you are coming, but things work out no matter what. Some asked for the beef/noodles recipe. Here it is as best I remember. Church Supper Beef & Noodles ~ Pastor Annette What I Used
How I Did It
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I write a Tuesday morning devotional to members and friends of UBC. It is also posted here.
Enjoy! Pastor Annette Copyright
Everything on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons license, which gives you permission to copy freely, provided that you attribute the work to me, that you use the work for non-commercial purposes, and that you do not produce derivative works. Archives
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