Beloved:  


     After all these years my husband has caught the gardening bug and it is positively precious.  He’s set up a nursery in his workshop where he tends rows of seedling trays.  Each pod is labeled.  Each label corresponds to a field on the spreadsheet nearby where he records data.  Hearing a forecast for spring snow, he left work early to buy plastic covering. He spent until dark building a hoop house over his baby strawberry plants. He was up early this morning, checking the soil temperature.   I had no idea he’d put a heater and thermometer under the hoop.  “The strawberries are fine,” he said, “How’d your tulips and daffodils do?”  As I was not yet out of bed, I could only assume they were dead or fine.  “They’re fine,” I said. Turns out they are.  

     On the one hand, I couldn’t be happier to have him with me in the dirt.  On the other, his innocence and excitement exposes how very jaded I’ve become.  Just last weekend at May’s Green House, he held up something pretty and said with a smile,  “How about this?”  “Is it Mother’s Day yet?” I practically grumbled, knowing it’s too early. “Or this?” in his innocent voice.  “That’s deer food,” I replied.  

     He still believes knowledge plus hard work equals success. He’s yet to feel the dark anger and weeping heartbreak of roses ravaged in a single night or tomatoes ruined by hooligan raccoons. He still thinks baby deer are cute.  He’s on his gardening honeymoon.  I don’t want to spoil that.  

     This winter I lost the serviceberry tree in my front flower bed.  The ground there is too wet and the roots rotted.  He helped me cut it up and drag it to the woodpile.  Saturday we bought a wisteria for that spot.  It will require constant pruning to maintain a tree shape but I’m game.  We dug a huge hole and dumped in lots of extra nutrient and material for breaking the clay.  I’m thinking of redirecting the guttering which will mean moving a juniper and massive digging to lay more drain tile. It’s crazy I know, but now, with a partner, it’s a whole new project.  peace & prayers, pastor annette 

Carl and Scout planting strawberries

Beloved:


“Bring friends. Bring flowers. Bring food.”   

These are our instructions for Easter Worship  2014.  For the third year, our fellowship and worship committees are putting together an Easter Celebration worthy of the name.  The only change being that this year the meal is potluck.  If you can only manage one of the above, bring friends - for nothing else will more greatly increase the joy than extra voices!  If you can bring food - bring plenty.  We are already expecting around 60 people!  If we spill onto the altar and into the foyer then all the better.

Of course, Easter is beyond the pass we must travel these next six days; conspiracy, betrayal, arrest, trial, crucifixion, death and the grave are stations on the way as we follow Jesus through his Passion to his Glory.  There is no other route to Easter.   

Next in worship is Good Friday. The service begins at  7:30 p.m. and lasts about an hour.  It is my favorite of the year.  This year’s music is different, and wonderful.  Easter Feast is at 9:30 am in the sanctuary followed by Celebration Worship at 10:45.  I look forward to being together.  peace & prayers, pastor annette

Beloved:

The hellebores in my front flower bed didn’t bloom at all last year.  This year I have three flowers, their petals so dark and their necks so bent I wouldn’t know they’d bloomed without tipping them up in my hand.  They are only five inches tall and much too delicate for cutting.  To enjoy them I have to squat in the mulch and lift their faces.  

Called the Christmas rose or Lenten rose because they bloom so early - they aren’t roses at all but kin to evergreens and ranunculaceae.  It appears they’ll be a slow grower in my garden, one I must remember to notice.  

Like Lent itself I suppose.  Two thousand seasons and the world still takes no pause for it’s beauty or its gifts.  Those who want it must look for it, shape our lives to its form.  We grow in it slowly and slowly It grows in us.  

While everywhere else my yard is exploding with daffodils; yellow ones, white ones, yellow/white ones, peach ones, pink ones, trumpets and tiny ones.  As though Easter refuses to wait for Lent to complete, teasing us shamelessly away from winter’s darkness.   

At Lent we remember again that from which we have been redeemed.  At Easter we celebrate redemption itself - release from fear and weakness, darkness and death.  We rejoice in the light and life that floods creation and sustains our lives and our life together, eternally!

I pray you’ll join us for Holy Week services beginning Palm Sunday this week.  Our Good Friday service is my favorite of the year and Easter Sunday, April 20th, is our 3rd annual Easter Feast & Worship at 9:30 & 10:45 respectively.  Please invite your friends to any and all of the services.  


peace & prayers, pastor annette

Beloved:

2:30 ~ 3 am ~ I clutched a pillow over my head to shut out Scout’s crying

3 ~ 3:30 am ~ she was quiet

3:30 ~ 4 am ~ While she cried I mentally listed synonyms for cry.  I came up with wail, weep, whimper, whine, moan, sob, scream, screech, sniffle, bay, bark, groan, howl.  

4 ~ 4:30 am ~ We went outside. We had a snack. We snuggled in the recliner. While she dozed in my lap I started on the adjectives; hysterical, loud, persistent, annoying, exhausted, afraid, sad, lonely.

4:30 ~ 6 am ~ I gorge on the sleep of the innocent.

6 am ~ She’s crying. The day begins.

Scout is a baby animal of a species born into litters meant to live in packs.  By design she should sleep in a warm pile of puppies, not alone in a cage. My old sweatshirt is a sorry substitute for brothers and sisters. Extraction was my idea which makes me her litter and her comfort, the consolation for her loneliness.

To be alone without being lonely comes no easier for most humans.  Wishing and wanting others to pay us more attention, we hold them responsible, make it their fault we are lonely.  Resentment takes root. Bitterness breeds. We retreat further into a crate of self-pity and sadness all the while failing to notice the door isn’t locked.  It isn’t even closed. 

Comforting ourselves, taking comfort in God is learned. We train ourselves to it through intention and practice. Trusting the promise of his presence, we learn to be satisfied with the communion God offers; communion that is constant and quiet, received and accepted.  

The morning is far gone. She knows I’m nearby so Scout doesn’t need to cry, only come get in my lap every so often. Right now she’s under the coffee table wrestling yesterday’s Herald Times into submission.  But I don’t dare take even the tiniest nap lest she find my knitting again. Vigilance is my only sure defense.  

I pray this gorgeous day you know yourself wrapped completely in God’s loving presence.   peace and prayers, pastor annette