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Uncertainty and Certainty

7/19/2022

The whole song is a setup for the end, Rob said at choir practice last Sunday, summarizing both the song at hand and the Christian gospel itself. What I wouldn’t give for the faith to live every moment to the tune of Rob’s remark, especially the sad and uncertain moments that inevitably come — to know that

beneath every grief and fear is the certainty of Jesus’ demolition of death, the promise that we may be crushed, but we are not forsaken . . . perplexed, but not driven to despair.
Depending on the grief, that certainty may live in the far reaches of the heart and mind, making the offhand remark of a good friend a gift they don’t even know they’ve given. Life is sweet and salty, ever turning from one to the other, grief as much a season as joy, as we lean into the end of the song, which is the very hope of our lives and our life together in this faith. I couldn’t be more grateful for you.

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To Do Good Work Well

7/12/2022

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Beloved:

I sit here, wondering to myself if I am past the point in life in which I might hope to be good at this work, or if I am still gathering the experience required to be good at it eventually. I read once that architects generally do their very best work in their sixties and seventies. Maybe the same is true for other professions, including preaching. Maybe it just takes forty years to get the hang of humanity and the scriptures - what James Cone calls the two sources of theology - forty years to see all the way through people, culture and the Bible page in front of us, until we recognize the patterns at play and the meaning therein.

If this is the goal, I’m able to locate how far I’ve come and how far I have to go in this work called preaching. As well, I see the constant task is to stay curious, keep reflecting and practice, practice, practice. Which, I suppose is true from craft to craft, building buildings, teaching preschool, playing music or making art. Do any of us create the work we imagined when we first imagined it? Not me. I have sermons in me I can’t preach. I don’t possess the skill set required and won’t without the necessary practice. Does any of this ring true for you too?

These are the things on my mind this summer morning as I sit in this quiet office where I’ve spent the last thirty years of my work life. All day I hear the traffic of busy people at work. My mind travels all over the world, where people are working to keep human life fed and moving, thriving and enlivened in so many, many ways. How perfect any given sermon is feels much less important than whether or not I am holding up my part of this essential task - to enliven those around me. It matters to do good work well, I’ve decided again this morning. I pray your heart and hands are busy at the same.

~ peace & prayers,
pastor annette

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Summer Reading

7/6/2022

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Beloved:

I was outside early this morning with the idea of weeding my flower beds a bit, an idea I quickly abandoned because it was TOO HOT at 6:45 AM!! I retreated to my chair and finished a book I’ve been reading on since March, Killing Rage ~ Ending Racism, by bell hooks. Hooks was technically an English professor, but by her own definition she was an intellectual, not an academic. For her the two are very different.
Anyone who chooses to read widely to think deeply about them-selves and the world can be an intellectual, whether they hold degrees or not. From her I learned terms I’d not heard before like interrogating the mind, a process of reflection upon why we think the way we do and how that thinking affects people, particularly the people who are different from us, among whom we live. And, if that thinking is destructive, how can I weed it from my mind and plant thoughts and ways that are constructive to healing and connection? Neo-colonialism is a phrase I’d heard before but only in this book gained a working understanding of its meaning.
It didn’t take many chapters to realize that Hooks really does imagine a world without racism, a world in which people who share her vision eradicate it in their own circle of relationships, neighborhood by neighborhood. It feels so far out of reach these days, I found the book both a real encouragement and a helpful guide for doing my part. I’ve several other books going too and would love to hear what you are reading while you stay extra cool this summer.

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Pastor Annette's Blog

Uncertainty and Certainty

To Do Good Work Well

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