​How many others passed on by, left him for dead, if they noticed him at all?  Who has the time or the stomach to collect a bloody squirrel and take it home to tend?  Did she go to CVS for squirrel-size gauze and tape?  Did her husband roll his eyes or glove up and pet the squirrel while she washed his wounds?  Did she crush half an Advil for his pain?  Is she worried for him now?

     I’m no vet but the squirrel seemed in pretty bad shape to me.  I suspect he’s not long for this world.  Yet I am full of hope, triggered by a tiny swatch of gauze and tape.  I am so prone to assume, more often than not, that people are jerks.  Nope.  More often than any of us ever know, human beings are amazingly kind, generous and tenderhearted.  They notice the very weakest and most broken creatures among us, and go out of their way to help.  They spend their time and money healing up wee calamities of this life together called creation and we are all the better for it, whether we know it or not.  Just seeing a squirrel with a taped-up tail left me loving people just a little more.  So thank you, neighbor, for that gift.  I pray the day treats you to something just as lovely and full of hope.  

~peace & prayers,
pastor annette

Beloved:  

    It’s high noon by the clock and dark as night out my office window.  It rained so hard my Honda Fit bobbed as much as drove to the airport this morning.  Carl left to teach in Seoul for a month.  I’m meeting him there in two weeks for my vacation.  When I return it will be time to help Ben pack for his study abroad year in Taipei.  No time flies like the summertime, and this year has been a near perfect balance of sunshine and rain on everything growing at my place.  Even the chickens are thriving ~ all those extra worms maybe.

    As a kid I thought summer rain meant the day was ruined.  We might get to go to the library, but otherwise it was indoors only - no riding our bikes to Thornton Park or playing in the woods.  When I was eleven or twelve, my mom might drop me off at the library if I found a friend to go too.  I was literally grown up and gardening before I understood Matthew 5:45:

“. . . . . so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven;
for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

   I was grown up and gardening before I understood that I’m supposed to see God blessing the bullies ~ not chastening the faithful.  Biblical writers didn’t know a world with too much rain.  Rain is life-giving, life-restoring.  “In Israel every drop of water is precious” is a saying still repeated in Israel.  Their most advanced technology is dedicated to catching, moving and reusing rainwater.  

   “Has anyone written the book, When Good Things Happen to Bad People?” I wondered.  Yes, as it turns out.  The Amazon description calls it an irreverent, fast-paced, fact-filled compendium of fifty case studies of notorious villains from Attila the Hun to Dick Cheney.  Hmm, not exactly the theological reflection I had in mind.  Maybe because it isn’t complicated to understand, only to believe and practice.

   Jesus loves the little children . . . . . .all the children of the world . . . .

   We know it.  We’ve always known it.  Before we knew lots of other things, we knew that.  And yet it is so hard to know on dark and rainy days, days when we feel confined and overwhelmed at the same time, days we want to sleep and sleep and sleep.  I pray this gorgeously green and sparkling day finds you positively dripping with new life!

~ peace and prayers,
pastor annette

​Beloved:

    Indoors ~ For four days a horsefly harassed me in my very own kitchen, buzzing incessantly and dive-bombing my head.  Day One I ignored him, thinking he’d die naturally soon enough.  Turns out horseflies can live up to two months!  Days Two and Three I stalked him with a swatter, but he was fast and never landed.  Finally this morning, Day Four, he was clearly tired.  He flew slower and kept landing on the window screen.  I pretended not to notice for a long time and then BAM!  He’s chicken scraps and my kitchen is peaceful again.  

    Outdoors ~ My twine plan to keep chickens out seems to be working so far, but then again no tomatoes are ripe red yet.  A butternut squash plant is completely out of control and has taken over way too much ground.  I’ve run it up a ladder and along the fence for now.  I’ve picked basil and squash already and will have cucumbers by the weekend.  Lots of green tomatoes on the vine and the blackberries are turning but not yet soft enough to harvest.  Flowers are lush all around.

    After weeks of not being home even when I am at home, I finally feel caught up indoors and out.  The last two days I’ve cleaned and cooked and shopped and sorted and settled down into this time and place called my house, and every creature living here is the better for it.  We finally have soap and shampoo and toilet paper again; loads of healthy food and popsicles and diet coke.  Nothing nasty grows in the fridge and the pantry isn’t creepy anymore.  I spent $18 on what amounts to an electric broom that sucks up dog hair like a dream.  Worth the joy at twice the price! 

    Being at home in my house does not come to me as naturally as I wish it did.  By my wishing and regrets I’m forever prone to be somewhere other than here and now ~ in all the amazing beauty, bounty and light of my house on this perfect summer day.  When I have the patience and the wisdom to do the tasks my own house requires, I cannot help but be here now.  Not only is keeping my house good for my heart and brain and soul, I wonder if everyone keeping their respective house might be good for the collective human heart and soul.  I’m remembering a book by Kathleen Norris called The Quotidian Mysteries, and the sanctifying possibilities of everyday work.  Maybe we’d all be less afraid, slightly less stressed out, if we took Matthew 6:34 to heart.  My favorite translation is from J.B. Phillips:  “Don’t worry at all then about tomorrow.  Tomorrow can take care of itself!  One day’s trouble is enough for one day.”

peace & prayers, friends, peace & prayers,
​~ pastor annette