Pastor Annette's Blog
"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 |
"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 |
everyone knows that sand in your socks is the worst feet feeling ever. In the evening I finished three quilt tops and backs that have been 99% done for weeks. They are pressed and ready for the quilter. All of which is to say I went to bed believing I’d had a good day, because it was so . . . . productive, because I got so much accomplished.
I may have climbed in bed satisfied but I woke up uneasy. Uneasy as I remembered the costs I’ve paid over the years on days that were not productive, when very little seemed to get done. On those days I felt not good enough, unworthy even, almost as if I had failed, though I couldn’t tell you what I had failed at specifically. Being good enough, I suppose, probably because I got so much positive feedback from my parents and teachers for working hard at whatever work was before me. The feedback was even better when no one had to tell me what or how to do something, when I surprised them with my maturity, my dependability. The feelings such feedback inspired is the high I’ve chased ever since and the tender regret I had this morning. Because while they may be honest feelings, they are not my deepest values. Human beings, including me, are not worthy because of what we accomplish. We are worthy, we are enough, because we exist as creatures in creation. We are welcome and wanted here by the Maker who made us and loves us as we are, not for how tidy our spaces are, how orderly our finances. Living in sync with our deepest values is the essence of integrity, of being so integrated that thoughts, feelings, actions and deepest values lay one upon the other like transparencies that form the whole picture of one person, everything fitting rightly together. Integrity is a project to be sure, not unlike making a house into a home, bringing one room at a time into sync with the rest, with much grace toward oneself as they do their best day by day. The dog just came in positively filthy but only on one side of herself, while the neighborhood looks sparkling clean after the rain. Everything to its season, don't you know. I pray your day is fine in all the ways that truly matter. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette *I refuse to use the term lazy susan.
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Every living soul, every breathing creature . . . one of those creatures is snorting and snuffling at my feet, her big furry body quivering. She’ll soon be legging the air, chasing the squirrels who haunt her dreams.
Every living soul, every breathing creature . . . a bluejay high in the cedar shrieking his morning shriek. His friend a good ways over is shrieking back in response. Every living soul, every breathing creature . . . the littles gathering at the bus stop, backpacks over jackets now, tiny versions of the college students they will someday be. But now with so much color, so much energy. All of it multiplied a thousand times over, all around the world ~ Every living soul, every breathing creature. The more things change the more they stay the same. Creation’s persistence against humanity’s poor judgment. Life insists on living. We can pour concrete two feet deep and the dandelion will push through and bloom. So long as I write and walk and hold the babies, read my Bible and sit with the silence, do my work and rest, take it very, very easy on the news and social media, I can stay in touch with where I am, the hollow of his hand. I am smaller than small and I am not alone in this fine world where birds, babies and dandelions persist despite the temperamental poverty of human imagination and faith. Every living soul, every breathing creature . . . We are here. We are together. We share more in common with our neighbors than we don’t. If we can lead from our hearts instead of our hurt, I’ve every hope and faith we can do the work of following Jesus, no matter what each day brings. I’m so grateful to be in the work with you all. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette What’s true is true no matter what . . . . November 5, 2024 Beloved: I woke up praying for calm and decency to rule the day. Toward that end I am entirely off social media and the news until tomorrow morning. Otherwise my own heart cannot possibly remain calm, nor my mind stay focused on what’s true no matter what ~ no matter what, now that election day is really here. No matter what, our lives and life together belong to God. In chaos or in calm, we are called to speak and walk and act out the peace of Christ which reigns over human fear and the trouble which erupts when that fear is induced. What’s true is true no matter what, I am reciting to myself throughout the day, a kind of sing-song as I walk the dog or make my lunch. No matter how much life changes. No matter how afraid or frustrated or angry I feel at any given moment. No matter how inclined I am to hope for specific outcomes for various situations. What’s true is that I control almost nothing that goes on around me and, also, God promised to be with me through whatever happens. So I control how I think about what goes on around me. I choose to remember the promise and the calling to partner with God and my faith community in this time and place: loving mercy, doing justice, acting humbly, insofar as I am able. What’s true no matter what is that the world around us is still desperate for the hope that life is more than work and bills, suffering and war. As Christ followers and people of the gospel we carry that hope within us, surely spilling from our pockets like candy wrappers left on a school bus. Our neighbors cannot afford for us to get shy now, with so much at stake. So, take a walk around the block, speaking kindness as you’re able. Wave a hand and pet a dog, share the vibe of hope in this anxious hour. What is true is true no matter what, that God is no less among us than God has always been and we are no less called to be people of hope here and now. ~ peace & prayers beloved, pastor annette ![]() October 29, 2024 Beloved: Bless you, Birdy! The dog sneezes so much this time of year I hardly hear it, not until the three-year-old blesses her so kindly. We were sitting on the porch eating popsicles yesterday, going over the day. She asked about my Halloween costume, suggesting I be a bat when I told her I wasn’t planning to dress up. She’s going as a spooky skeleton, spooky being her very favorite word these days. Spooky refers to cute bats and ghosts and witches, spiders, pumpkins and skeleton pajamas with glow-in-the-dark bones screen-printed on black fabric. Her life and her little brother’s is so safe and calm and gentle, a glorious bubble of childhood every little kid deserves and too few ever know. For no virtue on her part or her parents’ so much as the luck of being born when and where they were. The odds are entirely in their favor and yet, the very thought of something happening to them takes my breath away. Takes my breath away in a way that was not true when my own kids were little. Maybe I felt more in control then, or maybe I know better now just how awful some humans are toward other people’s children. The grandmothers of Gaza, Lebanon and Sudan. Grandmothers whose children and grandchildren are walking that terrible walk to the U.S. border, hoping against hope to be received. Grandmothers who are raising their grandkids with too little strength, in too small a space, on too tight a budget – because for whatever reason their kids are just not able to parent. I wish E. and R. could be little for longer, that this idyllic time of innocence could last and last. But I suppose those are the wishes of the privileged, that such innocence is itself a form of privilege. Hungry kids are not innocent. Kids whose families are hiding or on the run are not innocent of the meanness of this world. The best that we can do is do right by every kid we can, to love the ones we’re with and work for justice on behalf of all of them insofar as we are able. I’m headed outside for a walk in this delightfully breezy autumn. I pray the day is kind to you, and you have the chance to bless another creature. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette October 15, 2024 Beloved: I pick up my granddaughter at pre-school on Mondays. Yesterday she was wearing classroom rainboots, and her own shoes were lost. We searched for a solid twenty minutes. At one point the entire class was hunting for them, and all the while one little guy was following me close as my own pant leg, chattering lost shoe scenarios in my ear. What if a ghost flew away with her shoes? What if they are on top of a car and we have to find a ladder to get them down? What if they got in Bailey’s cage and she ate them? (Bailey is the classroom rabbit.) Between ideas he would shriek with delight at his own hilarity. A teacher finally located the lost shoes outside in a playground wagon. E. got changed and signed out for the day, like a worker clocking out, and we headed to the car, off to other adventures. Time stands still in some places. My kids attended preschool in that same school, that same room, that same teacher. E.’s classmates look just like the kids that were there 23 years ago, two feet tall and the stock photo epitome of human diversity, right down to the chatty boy with the spiky black hair. Only this is for real, a living community sharing space peacefully, helping each other when the need arises. It’s busy but not chaotic, noisy but not loud. Conflict is managed directly, clearly, wisely, gently, firmly. Am I just now grasping Tolkien’s meaning of the Shire, that land of little souls where time also practically stands still? Where snacks and naps are serious business, as serious as art and reading and caring for creatures even littler than themselves? Seventy years gone by outside those walls has not corrupted the pace and wisdom still persisting within them. What a privilege to pass through them again in this second half of life. I pray to be a better student this time around. The light and air today are glorious. I pray you get outside for a little while. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette * I’ll be on vacation next week, attending my favorite quilt retreat at the Presbyterian church camp in Brownstown, Indiana. * The Recipe: I made this last night, a final taste of summer as the tomatoes and herbs were the last from this year’s garden, my last jar of pesto from last summer, and eggs from a friend’s chickens. I forgot to take a picture of mine; this one is from the paper, with tomatoes cut differently. HEIRLOOM TOMATO TART Vallery Lomas, NYT Cooking Ingredients
October 9, 2024
Beloved: Today is my first day to dress in a sweater and socks. I almost turned on the heat but decided I can wait at least one more day. Now that the light is gone so much earlier, knitting, sewing and puzzles keep my hands busy when my brain is too tired to read. My garden is going to sleep anyway. While every plant around her is crackling dry, one bearded yellow iris has her silky second bloom. Yesterday I washed and put away the hummingbird feeders, and raccoons are nightly raiding my last two tomato plants. There’s nothing left to do but some cleanup after the first hard frost. I love fall and winter too, cozy being one of the best words I know. Instead of bingeing on tv or social media, I find a YouTube fireplace in some pretty mountain cabin, the next best thing to a real fire.* Next best thing – there’s a phrase, don't you know: the attempt to recover something lost, or to be satisfied with some lesser version of what we really want. I fall into the habit half a dozen times a day, then remember this new life is precisely that – new – and there are at least a half a dozen new ways to do it. There is no particular way life or faith must be done to add up as faithful; but, how old habits seek to convince me otherwise! I sometimes wonder if what I call anxiety is actually their pulling against my heart’s readiness to change, to move into this new life before me. Could be it’s just the changing of the seasons pulling at me now, as I look out the window where my hummingbird feeder was all summer. I’ll hang some suet instead. The tiny, achy sadness is more pleasant than not, knowing that soon it will be so very, very cozy indoors, with lots of projects and books and recipes to work on. In the midst of all of it, welcoming the change of another year of new life folded within a whole life of being loved, healed and sustained by the Spirit of the Christ who deemed us beloved – a picture of this life I may spend the rest of my life trying to comprehend. I pray this gorgeous day** is kind to you and you are kind in it. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette * I enjoy this feature of YouTube so much. There are probably hundreds of similar videos with lots of scenery and scenes. It’s very good for my mental health. ** Many prayers for neighbors in central Florida enduring Hurricane Milton today. Danger and damage is expected to be severe. October 1, 2024 Beloved: On Sunday we prayed for the mother of a Baptist minister in Tennessee. The mother was missing in the hurricane’s aftermath. Her body was identified later that same day, along with at least 130 other people known to have died in the storm. Many hundreds more are still unaccounted for and the devastation in Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina is still hard to fathom, even as we see it before our eyes in the news stories. At the same time, the helpers are showing up like an army. The best thing I read this morning is this:
Folks figuring out what they can do with what they have to help neighbors in trouble.
Further away, a war is widening, displacing more and more people, killing not a few, proving true the words of an American Civil War general, Ulysses Grant, that women and children always bear the greatest cost of war. We know about the bombed-out apartment buildings and schools. This morning's news carried a photo of a child sleeping in a car trunk, her family trying to get away from the violence. In Sudan people are dying of cholera and facing an unprecedented famine, because starvation has become a weapon of war. While here, on my tiny patch of planet, my heart hurts for all this suffering and I’ve no idea what I am supposed to do about it all. I could drive to Tennessee and show up at a feeding station I suppose, sans the mules of course, hoping not to be in the way of those who know what they’re doing. Or stay here and pray. And give. And keep my patch of planet tidy. And then pray some more, knowing it is no small thing to be in spiritual community with our neighbors who are struggling, grieving and afraid. I know well the power of distant community loving me by praying for me, by holding me in their heart when it’s hard for me to keep hope. This is the human experience, to be present in spirit when we cannot be together in the flesh, as the scriptures so often repeat. Maybe my ache to be present in body is more for my own relief than someone else’s, relief from the irritation of helplessness. For now I’ll stay put and pray, and leave the in-person helping to Mr. Toberer and the others who know what they’re doing. I’ll pick up sticks and snow shovel the 5000 ankle-breaking acorns and keep my bird feeders full. I’ll speak kindly to my neighbors, help the ones who let me help and receive what help they offer. I’ll do my best to hold prayerful space for people everywhere experiencing disasters of one kind or another. And finally, come Sunday I’ll attend this local vigil walk meant to convey our common hope for peace and healing in our community and the world. I’m grateful for its organizers and I hope you’ll come too. Details are below. The world is not all bad news, not by a long shot. But these are tough days for so many people close to us – it bears remembering our calling to bear witness to the loving presence of God, in word and in deed. I am grateful for your partnership in the work. ~peace & prayers, pastor annette September 17, 2024 Beloved: One Monday a month I cook almost all day. Meal prepping is the trendy word for it. But mostly, it’s because for the life of me I cannot figure out how to cook for just one person. The few years I cooked for two are now a distant memory. The nearly two decades I cooked for five are what’s embedded in my brain now. When the kids were growing and eating like horses, I was at the grocery store every other day and cooked supper every night. What leftovers were left weren’t left long. When two of my kids swam competitively, they ate supper twice a day, drank six gallons of milk a week, and leftovers were not a thing. First of all, it’s hard to shop for one, to buy just one chicken breast, two parsnips and three carrots, as my recipes yesterday required. I could do it, I suppose, if I wanted to shop the butcher’s case and a produce stand. And sell some plasma on the way in order to fund such high end fare. The beef stew I made called for a three pound roast. I could cut it down to a single serving - but I’m not sure even the butcher shop is going to sell me a six-ounce cut of chuck roast. So I made the whole recipe for about $30, or $5 a serving, and froze all but the one I’ll eat for lunch today. Far richer food than I could buy anywhere else for $5. Prideful, I’ll admit, is how I feel to see my little freezer stacked with containers of homemade food. But also, deeply grateful. Grateful too, for the food, the freezer, the farmer and the grocer. For the truck drivers and logisticians who move all this food from field to store. Grateful especially for the congregation who employs me and maintains just working conditions, so I have both the money and the time required to take good care of myself. I haven’t checked but I wonder if any of the meal prep content creators on social media have noted that that whole idea rests in privilege: in having the money to buy, the time to prepare and the space to store batches of meals? I’d bet my favorite pen no single parent working two minimum wage jobs to pay rent and feed her kids spends $150 and an entire day meal prepping. ($150 wouldn’t buy much for a family with kids when eggs are $3.42 a dozen!*) All of which is to say, I’ve tried to dial back on the pridefulness, trade it for another dose of humility in recognition of the privilege I did not earn so much as inherit and with which I must sit lightly, and responsibly. First of all, by not wasting food. Also, sharing it whenever I get the chance. I can also eat less - three meals daily is not a world-wide phenomenon, nor is meat at every meal. At any meal with meat, I am trying to pile on the green stuff. The cheaper green stuff, which is not my favorite but I’m working on it. I’ll eat the beef stew poured over spinach. The recipe below includes something I can’t believe I just discovered: stirring tahini** and balsamic vinegar together to drizzle over cooked green beans. Honestly I think I might eat corn cobs if they were doused in this concoction. As well, stirring tahini gives your arm muscles a workout, so there is that. I tripled the amount of green beans. Next time I’ll add mushrooms too. Tofu would work in place of chicken. It’s really, really good, and not wildly expensive. Rice would stretch it even more. Eating is so fundamental to existence and yet we are easily convinced it is a chore to be done with as quickly as possible. Even if you don’t spend hours at a time making ready, I pray some part of your day contains time and space to be grateful for how fortunate you are, for food to eat and people with whom to eat it. Hardly anything else is so deeply human. ~ peace and prayers, pastor annette *A quick internet comparison of Kroger, Walmart and Aldi’s showed Walmart's best price, non-organic, certainly not cage free, eggs at $3.42, compared to $3.77 at Aldi’s and $3.79 at Kroger. From there prices jump to over $4 all the way to $8 a dozen for some organic, cage free eggs. The average price a year ago was $2.80. Something like a 35% increase just to the lowest local. It’s like my mortgage going up $528 in one year. I’d have to cash out my retirement, or move. **Tahini is roasted sesame seeds, oil and salt - emulsified like peanut butter, only much stiffer. ![]() September 10, 2024 Beloved: I am so sorry to disappear without warning for two whole weeks but I suddenly had better things to do, specifically a new grandbaby, who came 18 days before his due date. To quote Mary Poppins, he’s practically perfect in every way and his mama is doing well too. His sister, who turns 3 today, was my main responsibility along with meals, laundry and dogs, and is completely in love with her brother, though she has made it clear, I don’t like this crying. I lived at their house a week and have come and gone since, but we are all settling into the wonder of a whole new human being in our midst. Ah, change – the greatest delight and deepest distress of life. Depending entirely upon if we chose to change or if change chose us. We may actively anticipate change the way families prepare for a new baby, “nesting” it’s called. Other times life goes from sugar to salt in the time it takes to cross the room or to read a single text message. In both, sweetness is to be found on the other side of the transition. The difference is how long it takes. A pediatrician I know says the four-month checkup is when they notice families with a newborn are usually into their new normal. Two years, more or less, is what therapists tell clients recovering from divorce. After seven years, the death of a child begins to soften in the hearts and minds of parents. Soften, not recover or heal, just soften. But truth be told, each person’s healing or transition after change takes as long as it takes. No matter how well we plan nor how great a surprise the change, our hearts’ and minds’ adjustment is real. New habits and routines take time, longer still if trauma has occurred. Even a welcome new baby comes with some trauma to their mama! A therapist once told me that human beings seem to have a built-in resistance to change. I notice it in my tendency to be excited about a big trip until the week before I leave, then I don’t want to go. I get anxious about packing and travel logistics. Once I’m on the way, I’m excited again but for those few days I feel the inertia that wants me stuck in the self that hasn’t gone new places, seen new sights, met new people, done new things. That is, the self that hasn’t changed. The simple-but-not-so-easy solution is to keep packing and drive to the airport, the ordinary tasks of moving forward while being gentle with my fearful self all the while. She is going to be fine. Better than fine, actually. She is going to be amazing. Whatever change you are facing or is facing you, keep going. Keep going through the ordinary motions this day requires, and be as tenderhearted and kind to yourself as you can. I look forward to seeing you at our regular programming this week. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette “ . . .this life is but the childhood of our immortality.” August 27, 2024 Beloved: The quote isn’t from a Christian devotional but a novel about CIA activity in Vietnam, as the main character, an undercover operative, reflects on his mother’s recent death. He is not a Christian, but she was. Fervently so, to his embarrassment until she died, when he finds himself hoping all she believed turned out to be true, if for her sake only. Nine words. Nine words, all of which I use regularly and have never once strung together in this particular order, an order which slayed me outright when I saw it on the page. We call it fiction and yet, there it is: profound spiritual truth tucked inside a novel about the CIA in Vietnam in 1968. He’s thirty years old. His daddy was killed at Pearl Harbor. His uncle is a war hero and his mentor. Disillusion and disappointment in his country and in humanity are hurtling toward him and he doesn’t even know it. This life is but the childhood of our immortality will most certainly find its way into my funeral liturgies from now on. The collapse of years between a short life and a long one in the span of immortality. Each life is a full one, no matter how much time it occupied nor the sum of breaths it drew. Which is to say, the very best this life has to give is knowledge of itself – that we are alive, have been and always will be. This existence is but a glimpse. Nothing is ordinary, or maybe what seems most ordinary is positively loaded with the universe itself, the stuff of immortality. A bird on a branch. A cat on a step. A toddler coloring. All of it positively exploding with life. Glory barely concealed in the most daily business of human activity. Stay indoors if you can today, friends, and be glad you don’t live in Las Vegas, where the temp is predicted to be 104. We’ll only get to 95. I pray the day is kind to you all. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette Note: * Pastor Annette is away from work most Saturdays and all Mondays. Apart from emergencies, calls and messages received these days will be returned and answered on Tuesdays. Thanks!
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I write a Tuesday morning devotional to members and friends of UBC. It is also posted here.
Enjoy! Pastor Annette Copyright
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February 2025
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