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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June 27, 2023 Beloved: I am eating the most perfectly sour key lime pie before 11 o’clock in the morning, wondering if other pastors have friends who sneak into the church building during Sunday morning service to drop off gifts like a slice of pie and a new book. I’ve also gotten still-warm lemon blueberry scones, Derby pie (bourbon laced, chocolate nut pie), meatloaf, soup, and pasta — all homemade, all from the same delightful friend, all infused with kindness that squeezes my heart as much as it warms my belly. I don’t think pie is on the list of love languages, but it leaves me feeling crazy loved all the same. Moreover it reminds me that I do not live and breathe and walk through this world alone. In the wings of this present moment stands a whole tribe of people prepared to remind me I am loved: hugely, wildly loved with the kind of love that treats most of this life’s grief and trouble like medicine treats an illness. If I have the sense to remember and to reach for it, that is. The spiritual leap isn’t far, hardly a crack in the sidewalk. We do not live and breathe and walk through this world alone, tribe of friends or no. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without God knowing about it, Jesus says in Matthew 10, and then the more important part: so do not be afraid; you are worth so much more than sparrows. I have a tea towel with those words stitched on it, more than sparrows. I should hang it by my bed, the first and last thing I see each day. Anything that reminds me who and whose I most truly am. Along with you too, of course, and all the rest of us as well. A flock of nearly eight billion now, known and loved from our first day to our last. May we have the sense to remember and to reach for that love, crazy, huge and wild. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette  I sometimes tell people, “I watch TikTok so you don’t have to. . “ I tried and like this easy recipe that’s going around TikTok land.
TikTok Spaghetti
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June 20, 2023
Beloved, I feel like I’ve lived a month in the last 10 days. Monday through Thursday VBS was practically perfect in every way. Thanks to the dozens of volunteers who made it happen. Thanks to the families who entrusted us with their little ones. Sunday morning we had the best of surprise guests in our service, Reverend Ron Liesmann and his son, Michael. Ron was pastor of UBC for 16 years through the 1970’s and 80’s. I enjoyed one of those lifegiving conversations with them at lunch afterward. Ron has been a consistent mentor and encourager to me over my entire ministry career. Sunday afternoon my daughter, granddaughter and I drove five hours to southeast Missouri for a terribly sad family funeral on Monday, after which we drove home Monday night. Thanks to Elmo songs, Elmo books, Elmo toys and Elmo videos, traveling with a 21-month-old was easy-peasy. Tuesday I slept all morning, then spent the afternoon catching up with myself. I got some much-neglected errands done, fetched my dog home and am still trying to get laundry folded and put away, clear evidence that I am in need of a Swedish death cleanse. Today, Wednesday, I am in one of my favorite spots, at my desk by an open window listening to this playlist on Spotify. The sleeping dog has blocked my chair up to my desk, which is just as well, as I have all the business of my one little life to tend to for the next few hours. The past ten days and this morning reinforce for me again that I can only live in one place and in one moment at a time. I can only be with the people I’m with at any given time, and my attention belongs to them alone. Otherwise we are all the poorer for having missed the gift of that togetherness. And most of all, that time is so short. Kids grow up so fast. All we have is now. Right now. Right now is the time for enjoying life, for appreciating one another, for being as alive as we can be while we are exactly that, alive and with so much to live for. I’ve been around the block and up and down the driveway with the puppy since trying to write this little email, and the weather is as perfect as it gets in Bloomington in June. Wherever this finds you, I hope you get outside as well. ~peace & prayers, pastor annette June 14, 2023 Beloved: Driving home from work last night I was the best kind of tired I know. That good work tired, this time from Day 1 of the first Vacation Bible School we’ve held since the pandemic. Every body part that could be sore was either pinching, stabbing or throbbing. But I took some Tylenol, slept almost ten hours and I’m ready to go back for another round today. 
The biblical theme is Jesus Helps Us Do Hard Things, hardly a lesson just for kids. Life is riddled with the difficult for nearly everyone I know. Health problems, financial difficulties, relationship struggles, work pressures, and addiction affect our personal lives. In the larger context, communities and our country grow ever more divided, leaving the least and the marginalized among us ever more vulnerable and endangered. All of which amounts to a setting where Jesus comes along to help us do the kind of hard things to which he called us: kindness, justice and humility. Such talk can sound like work too big for us, when it’s really not, hardly more than welcoming little ones in the name of Jesus. I don’t know a soul who wouldn’t like to be invited for some simple food and music, so long as they didn’t feel like they were being tricked into a situation they’d not otherwise choose to enter. And however hard we work on themes and decorations, I can tell that what kids like most is being with other kids, just like every grownup everywhere. No one likes feeling lonely all the time. If you’re around the east side of Bloomington Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday evenings this week between 5:30-7:45 and you’d like to have your heart lifted, stop in and see what’s going on at UBC. I’ll even find a little job for you if you want to help. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette
Jesus’ Power Pulls Us Through tin of VBS material sat in storage for three years.
We carried the railroad tracks back to the thrift store and all those extra trinkets are long gone. So many of our usual kids have aged out or moved away, along with their volunteer parents. Yet in the spirit of using what we have, both materials and volunteers, barring new diseases or disasters, VBS 2023 happens next week, June 12-15, by UBC, Red Door Church and McDoel Baptist Church. We start at 5:30 with an easy supper followed by the usual round of stories, songs, silly skits, games and crafts with oodles of popsicles and laughs. Vacation Bible School is a lot of work, work for which we see little obvious return. Typically it generates no new income nor new members. I believe it matters all the same and as much as it always has, to let kids know church is a safe place where people who love God love them. My VBS intention has very little to do with the stories, crafts and games themselves, and everything to do with the memories that are formed in these little human beings. We are providing childhood memories of church as a place and time where I felt safe and loved so that when they are no longer little and they are aching to feel safe and loved, church might come to mind. Playing the long game is how some people describe such work. Ministering to the whole person also comes to mind. Doing unto others works, if we want to get biblical about it. The greater point being there is deep purpose to this work, with outcomes we likely will not live to see. I am good with that and pray that you are too. To that end here are some ways you can help with VBS this year:
~ 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
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
September 2025
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