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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November 26, 2019
Happy Thanksgiving, Beloved! For whatever happiness you are grateful, I wish you all the more of it! I am grateful for a sturdy house with a window onto my porch, where a house finch is picking through the dried-up basil twigs. She just flew off empty-beaked, not finding what she wants, it seems. I wonder if she has company coming soon. I never nest more vigorously than when friends are coming over. I clean and purge and rearrange, while my husband tries his best to be patient as I (helpfully) boss him around. It’s hard for me to remember and believe guests aren’t coming to check my carpet and my cabinet fronts. They probably won’t even notice that I organized the bookshelf in my bedroom or wiped down the inside of my fridge. All that busywork feeds my pride (or insecurity) to the same degree it wears me out and makes me crabby. So I’m trying this year to be better, partly because I’ve been a little sickly lately and have had no choice but to take it easier. I’m treating it as an act of faith, faith in the goodness of other people. Trusting what they tell me, that they are grateful we are together to visit, play and feast. So I’ve assembled games, puzzles and the stuff for a small feast. I suppose it’s really not possible to be simultaneously grateful for and crabby about the same gift, be it a holiday or a life. Every minute of every day is a feast from which to draw more life, if I am present to it. The house finch on my flowerpot, about her daily chores, is no less busy than I am. I’m glad I didn’t miss her visit. In my quiet room tapping on these keys, I pray the week is good to people everywhere. I pray it is good to you and yours. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette
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November 12, 2019
Beloved: A month ago I was so hot I thought I would surely melt into a puddle and promised I’d never complain about the cold. I didn’t expect to have to keep it BEFORE Thanksgiving! Eleven degrees at sunrise this morning. The chickens wouldn’t come out of the henhouse for new water, even though theirs was frozen. Not one squirrel is on the move in the canopy of branches, and the snow on my patio table measured three inches deep. And I am not complaining. I love winter for its own kind of warmness. Socks and sweaters and flannel sheets. We stay home when we get home and go to bed earlier. I sew and read more, since the only outside work we do as fast as we can. I’ve just started Moby Dick and am love, love, loving it. The hard part, of course, is loving winter five months from now, like loving summer in October. By then I’ll be sick of lugging my coat around and craving sandals instead of socks. Today it is easy to be present to the moment where the sun sparkles on the snow. Five months from now my floors and walls will sport the spray of a few hundred muddy dog shakes. And yet, to anticipate another moment’s disappointment is to live it twice — and to miss this moment’s blisses. I’m off to make my lunch now, and look out the window while I eat it. I pray this day’s beauty takes the edge off this day’s sorrow, wherever you may be. ~peace & prayers, pastor annette November 5, 2019 Beloved: During my few days at an ashram in India, I attended teaching sessions of a guru named Sadhvi Bhagawati Sarawatiji, or Sadhvi. Not to weird you out too much, but this Baptist preacher enjoyed her immensely. She’s really smart, deeply wise, funny, kind, and practical in ways I appreciate. “It is not selfish to desire a peaceful home,” and “if someone consistently spills tea on your best sofa and never apologizes or helps clean it up, maybe they aren’t the person you want to keep having over for tea." And my favorite, “all the mystical practices of all the religions in the world send us inward to the place of spiritual abundance.” She is prayed up, as the Baptists who raised me would have said, though maybe not about a Hindu leader. But I have no doubt at all. As my heart, mind, body, and soul continue to settle down from my trip to India, I am all the more grateful for the ways I shall never be the same – in a dozen tiny ways for sure, but most of all as it has to do with prayer. With worship. And with language for the One who made and loves us all. In every people group in every time and place, language has kindled a cacophony of words and names for God while unknowingly agreeing on the message of the Divine’s unyielding love. Friends have asked, how was India? Mostly I answer, hot. To one person however I did say, if I traveled to the moon I don’t think I would have felt more like a foreigner. Which is altogether true save one thing: those sunset Hindu worship services alongside the Ganges River – Mother Ganges they call it, because all of India is fed by her waters. Weird as it is to say so, those sunset services felt like Baptist church camp to me – folks getting closer to God by getting closer to nature. The words were different, but the connection among people singing together was exactly the same; the night air was exactly the same; the sound of lapping water was exactly the same. So was the shine of the stars and the smell of the fire and the deep peace of praying with other praying people. All those people together at the ashram for Navratri are now back home at their everyday routines, where spiritual practice is always more tricky than when at camp, on retreat, or on pilgrimage. Duty so easily crowds out the things we do for pleasure, prayer especially. However you are able, try to make the time and then keep in mind that a world of folks are praying too. ~ 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
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