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Beloved:
We drove and drove and drove and drove. And we are home. Home from the coast. Home from Savannah. Home from where my baby daughter will call home for the first few years of her grown up life. She loved it and her loving it gave her dad and me the best relief known to parents. The relief that she is going to be all right. On any given night this summer I feed eight or nine people. Last night I made roasted chicken (6 pounder!) with vegetables, mashed potatoes, salad and bread. There were no leftovers but salad for the two who had to work late. I grocery shop every day and the trash collector is about to raise my rate. Emily will be all right and so will we. Come August these kids begin drifting back to college and by mid-September it will be just Carl and me - for the first time in 25 years. Amazing! We are looking forward to it, and joyfully. Time really to talk, to cook together or go out just us. To be best friends without having so much kid business to negotiate every day. Sort of like when we were in college but with dogs and chickens. And kids of course. Lots of kids. Kids with huge appetites. I pray you are enjoying your house and the people in it this summer. The very best God gives us. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette
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 Beloved:
Poison ivy is growing in my strawberry patch. Deer ate half of my newest hydrangea bush. The blackberries which I pruned and trained a month ago are tangled in new canes seven feet tall. But also, this. A metal pitcher of blooms from four different hydrangeas. My favoritest colors of my favoritest flowers. Neglected as the rest and still they give me this. Growing fast as weeds and next year’s berry bushes whether or not I’m paying attention. I’ve neighbors with tidy lawns, neat trees and slow growing hedges. They mow once a week, spray for weeds once a month, trim shrubs once a year. While mine never looks good all at once. I love gardening and they don’t - yet their yards are practically perfect. I’ve chosen to believe that whereas they are working I am playing. My yard isn’t a job. It’s a hobby - something I do because it gives pleasure. If I neglect it a month no harm is done and there will still be gifts of food and beauty. And the reminder that nature can take care of her business without me fussing over everything all the time. Which I suppose makes gardening a sort of spiritual practice too - however lackadaisically I go about it. Insofar as we know our smaller part in the (work or hobby) of creation, we find ourselves in relation to God. I pray you play today. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette Beloved,
It's one of those crazy days with back-to-back places to be. Every one of them a privilege except this first one, waiting with a room full of women in line for our mammograms. Two husbands are here along with the elderly father of a mentally handicapped woman my age or older. Wearing earbuds and house slippers, she pretends not to hear her name called. Her dad pats her arm and she snarls. We smile privately grateful to be spoken for. She shuffles away and my name is called next. The scan takes less than 5 minutes and is not terrible for those who don't mind having body parts squeezed like lemons for lemonade. Each in turn we file back through the waiting room past the dad who will wait longer than most and all the women who came later. Our connectedness is palatable, hoping for ourselves and each other to get another year's pass. Another 12 months not to think about it but knowing that a handful a week will be summoned back by phone call or letter, "Nothing to worry about but we'd like another look see." A handful must always be chosen and we know it. So we sit in the waiting room practically holding hands, each wanting the best for all all the others. Turned loose my day proceeds. Lunch with my son, a birthday party at the nursing home, deacons meeting and Vacation Bible School - reminding me that chosen or not my life is rich, rich, rich. - peace and prayers, pastor annette Beloved:
Last week I had the great fortune of discovering the Frederick Buechner has a Facebook page. His friend quota was met long ago but I signed up to follow him just in time to see a post from one of his old books in which he wrote about the same bible characters. I’m preaching these days; Samuel, Saul, David. This passage refers to 1st Samuel 8-11. I commend it to you. SAMUEL WAS A COMBINATION PROPHET, judge, and one-man band. When the old curmudgeon wasn't out in the field trying to fight off the Philistine guerrillas, he was riding his circuit trying to keep the tribes of Israel honest, and when he wasn't doing that, he was giving them hell for cheating on Yahweh every time a new fertility god showed up with a come-hither look in his eye. When he reached retirement age, he might have turned things over to his sons, but they were a bunch of crooks who sold justice to the highest bidder, and the Israelites said maybe he'd better get them a king instead. They'd never had one before, but they felt the time had come. Samuel threw a fit. He said there was only one king worth the time of day, and Yahweh was his name. He also told them kings were a bad lot from the word go and didn't spare them a single sordid detail. They were always either drafting you into their armies or strong-arming you into taking care of their farms. They took your daughters and put them to work in their kitchens and perfume factories. They filled their barns with your livestock and got you to slave for them till you dropped in your tracks. What was more, if the Israelites chose a king, Yahweh would wash his hands of them and good riddance. Samuel had it on the highest authority. But the Israelites insisted, and since Samuel didn't have the pep he'd once had, he finally gave in. The king he dug up for them was a tall drink of water named Saul. He was too handsome for his own good, had a rich father, and when it came to religion tended to go off the deep end. Samuel had him in for a meal and, after explaining the job to him, anointed him with holy oil against his better judgment and made him the first king Israel ever had. He regretted this action till the day he died, and even in his grave the memory of it never gave him a moment's peace. See you Sunday. ~ 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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July 2022
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