November 29, 2011

“Not my favorite,” my 3-year-old nephew says when served food he doesn’t like or want.  “Not my favorite,” I thought about the weather this morning, driving my son to 5:45 am swim practice.  Cold, rainy, with slushy snow this afternoon according to wunderground.com. Yuck!  I’ll be damp all day and Global Women attendance will be low or nil and I have to go out twice tonight to drive kids.

     If I think hard (not too hard) I can probably come up with even more about which to complain.  Complaining  is a spiritual malady, of course, grounded in certain assumptions; the main two being that I am entitled to my favorites every day; my favorite weather, my favorite meal, my favorite schedule, and that my needs/wants should always trump the needs/wants of others. 

     So the struggle between Christ and culture lives on ~ in me and in the life of the church too.[1]  Which shall interpret the other?  Which shall rule our  thoughts, hearts and attitudes?  Complaining, if only in thought, amounts to the rejection of grace.  When I complain I push away the plate full of time, space, opportunity, connection and joy this day might otherwise contain.  “Not my favorite,” I say to God, imagining God doesn’t hear, doesn’t mind, isn’t disappointed at the sight of me tuning out and turning away to wait for a better time to be blessed.

     Jesus is everywhere.  Holiness abounds.  They are not bound by the weather or my attitude.  And who knows: maybe in less bright light Jesus becomes all the more visible.  Whatever the weather, may we be found looking, expecting and full of joy!  Peace & Prayers, pastor annette

[1] Reinhold Niebuhr, Christ  & Culture, 1956

November 15, 2011

Beloved:

     “He has totally changed my life,” a young mom told me about her eighteen-month-old son.  She works seven days most weeks, at four pieced-together jobs, to support the two of them.  She showed me a picture; he’s all blue eyes and wispy blonde hair, like a fairy or an angel.  How much she loves him shows in her talk but far more by her walk, by the many hours a week she leaves him in order to love him so well. 

   It’s a short stretch to see in her the same love that drives the Divine on behalf of humanity.  Persistence, constancy, commitment, sacrifice, selflessness, a certain ferocity of love by which mountains are moved and what’s lost is redeemed. 

     The little one is unaware of all that of course.  He knows simple realities like cheerios taste good, my toys are in my room and my mom is here.  Her love is evident in the roof over them, the food before them and her abiding presence beside him. It is proved in the great joy she takes as his provider.

     I am humbled by her devotion and service to what she loves most; by her willingness to do whatever is required for him to be safe and to thrive; and by the intimate connection between her everyday life and the purpose of her life.

     She has no idea, I expect, of the gift she gave me in our five minute conversation. I came away with renewed amazement at God’s love and the privilege it is to live out the purpose of one’s life in the everydayness of family, work, home and community.  I’m grateful.

Peace & prayers, ~ pastor annette

 

Beloved:

     Hearts are full all over town for two young men; so very young.  Adam and James, they might have been in first grade together not that long ago.  One admittedly shot and killed the other, for no particular reason according to police. 
     Hearts full of sorrow for the one now gone.  He had a fiancee’, three babies, a mom, dad, sister, brother, two jobs and a life plan.  He loved and was well loved.

     Hearts full of what for the other; anger . . . disgust . . . . pity?  He lives on but seems to me more lost than the one who worked so hard and loved so well. Who loves him and where are they now?  Is his own mother’s heart is breaking?   How does a human living right here among us become such a stranger to kindness, goodness, affection?  By what string of events does a person so young become so beaten, so hopeless and so careless toward life around him, including his own?

     The gospel floods through stories like this, to remind me of everything I profess to believe and to rest my life.  God’s heart breaks for him, even if his own parents’ don’t.  Left to smolder, sin destroys everything in its path; the sinner and anyone who crosses the path.   God loves us more than God hates sin and for the most broken and lost among us, Jesus came.  In God’s eyes and heart, this broken, broken boy is as worthy of redemption as all the rest.  I pray someone, somewhere loves him.  But I take courage in knowing for sure that he is loved and might someday come to know it.

~peace & prayers, pastor annette

* http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2011/11/07/news.qp-4949057.sto  
* http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2011/11/08/news.qp-7530058.sto

Beloved:

      Experts say ten to twenty percent of our population experience some form of seasonal affective disorder, or SAD.  As the amount of daylight decreases, feeling especially tired, depressed and hungry for comfort food (carbs) increases.*  My mother had it and I do too.  Arizona is the cure for many folks. At her first opportunity, my mother moved to Florida. A spot of medicine and a kinder attitude toward November is my treatment of choice. 

    What’s so great about November?  Here’s my top twelve list, because twelve is a more biblical number than ten, and in no particular order except that number one is definitely #1:

1.   Changing into pajamas at 5:30 pm.

2.   Less time in the yard is more time in my sewing room.    

3.   The color of the sky in the daytime – a blue which surely explains the

    term watercolor. 

4.   The color of the sky at night when I go out with the dogs – an ink

black blanket thrown over a sea of silver light, stars glinting through

the weave.

5.   A song by Tim Grimm called Autumn Garden in which dried plants are

    word painted as old women with soft, loose chins, hands folded on

    their chests, heads nodding in the breeze.  

6.   Bill Coverdale’s sanctuary bouquets.  Last week he found burgundy 

    hydrangea leaves to go with burning bush and drying sedum. 

7.   The kids smell like outside cold air smell when I pick them up from

    practice; more so when I am late.

8. The huge racket two squirrels make when drag racing through deep   

    leaves. 

9. Supper is cozier in the dark. Our reflections in the kitchen windows

    make the table seem more crowded.

10.Wintery food like chili and chicken potpie, eaten while wearing

pajamas, taste like love with hugs.

11.Knitting with wool instead of cotton.

12. Flannel sheets.

It’s healing just to make the list, even more to live it with a grateful heart.  I pray the day finds you joyful and at peace.  peace & prayers, ~ pastor annette

*For more information about seasonal affective disorder, go to http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/seasonal-affective-disorder