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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.
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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 |
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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