Beginning Advent

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem…peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.” Psalm 122:6,7.  Sometimes the lectionary readings are rather direct in their relevance.  The talks going on this week in Annapolis, Maryland between US, Israeli, and Palestinian leaders address the lack of peace and security and justice that Jerusalem has represented over the last sixty years.  As numerous as the grievances of each side are against the other, this is a prayer that there can be a genuine movement toward removing the barriers toward peaceful coexistence in that region of the world. 

With this Psalm we also begin the season of Advent.  In the biblical vision, Jerusalem isn’t just a city of a couple nations, but a city for all nations and all peoples to come to for prayer (Isaiah 56:7) and learning (Isaiah 2:3).  And so this yearning for peace encompasses all peoples everywhere.  Words and phrases associated with this season include watchfulness, hope, waiting, longing, listening, birth, good will and peace toward all. 

I see the spirit of Advent as moving us to travel in a couple different directions at the same time.  Advent moves us to drive deeper down into our souls to rediscover our own longings and to pay attention to how these longings intersect with the longings of God.  What is happening in the deepest parts of our souls that we may not hear unless we intentionally choose to listen?  Where is there peace?  Where is there unrest?  How is the Spirit moving within us? 

Advent also drives us into a broader view of God’s all-encompassing embrace of life.  The smallness of our own world and network of relationships is put into perspective.  We allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the vastness of Divine love for creation.  Our small acts for peace are linked together with others into a sort of planetary hug!  We look to the birth of Christ as an event of God’s coming to us and we continue to look for God’s coming to us all throughout our lives.

Happy Thanksgiving

“To be a saint is to be fueled by gratitude, nothing more and nothing less.” Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, restful Thanksgiving.

The Oakley community Thanksgiving service is tonight at 7pm at the United Church of Christ, 4100 Taylor Ave.

Abbie and the girls and I are heading up tomorrow morning to be with my folks in Bellefontaine. All of my siblings and their partners will be around, so we’ll have a full house.

A mix of discipline and miracle

I’ve been pondering a line by Gillian Rose from her book Love’s Work.  She calls the act of writing a “mix of discipline and miracle.”  This sums up well my experience of sermon writing – and writing personal journals, letters, even emails sometimes.  It takes discipline to ponder all of the different sources and thoughts in front of you and in your mind, and then it takes discipline to focus those scattered sources, quotes, memories, ideas, into something coherent that communicates.  Somewhere along this frustrated path there is a miracle that takes place.  Something presents itself that “has emerged from regions beyond your control,” as Rose puts it, and holds all the fragments together.  Not to say that the product is always beautiful, but it is, almost always, miraculous.

I’m wondering what else we experience as a mix of discipline and miracle.  Prayer comes to mind.  The discipline of silence – or of spilling your guts – or of meditating on a thought or an image or a scripture – this is also a way of bringing the scattered elements of our lives into focus.  And the miracle comes as a gift that emerges beyond our control and brings all of our fragments together into a wholeness within God’s care. 

Worship is a mix of discipline and miracle.  We come together at the same time every Sunday morning from our various roles throughout the week, we experience singing, scripture, sermon, and sharing, and we are miraculously united as Christ’s body.

I suppose this is just another way of talking about how our efforts and God’s efforts intertwine and merge and blossom together.  Living with both discipline and miracle feels like a good way to enter the holiday season as a congregation.  Our intentionality about paying attention to God and watching for the movement of the Spirit is a counter-cultural discipline this time of year.  Thanksgiving and Advent present opportunities for the miracle of spiritual and community renewal.

We are also entering a time when we are making some steps toward investing in our church building.  New paint and new carpet on the inside, and a new sign on the outside, are all possibilities in the next several months.  Much work has already been done to lay the groundwork for these things to happen and it will be a matter of making some final decisions on details, doing some physical work to make things happen, and raising the money to cover expenses not already covered in our funds.  What kinds of miracles may come about as a result of these investments? A new, more welcoming ‘face’ of CMF for passers-by outside and visitors inside to see…an enlivened sanctuary area where simple beauty can aid worship …an opening up of our imaginations for ways to continue to make our building a place of hospitality, worship, community, and mission?  Whatever comes about I pray that we can approach it as an intertwining of our efforts and God’s and I pray that we can continue to blossom in new ways as a community of faith.             

catalogchoice.org

Tis the season…to get lots of catalogs you don’t want. Just in the last couple days we got a Lands’ End and a Pottery Barn that went right to the recycling. But thanks to Bill Moyer’s feature on his show tonight, there is now an easy way to tell these companies you don’t want their catalogs that take up space in your mailbox and reduce the size of forests. Check out catalogchoice.org All you need to do is sign in and then go to “Find Catalogs” to access an alphabetized list. Click on the ones you want to cancel and enter your customer ID number that appears on the mailing label of each catalog. Click cancel catalog and you’re done — that site does all the rest of the work for you in canceling with the company. If you still like the company, for example, you want to still buy things from Land’s End but you don’t want their catalog, this site will even give you links to the company’s website. They don’t have an anti-business agenda, they’re just trying to give more power to the consumer. It’s a very easy process. I just now canceled those two magazines in a matter of a couple minutes.

New link category

I’ve added a new category of links in the side bar, this one titled “Fellow Travelers.”  This will have links to people and communities.  The first listed is a link to Jared Hess’ web journal.  Jared grew up in CMF — and his parents, Hal Hess and Christine Schumacher continue to be active members here — and is currently living in Philadelphia with his wife, Anne, and two sons Caleb and Noah.  He recently had a marrow transplant for leukemia and his journal reflects his daily experiences, reflections, and prayer requests.

A full evening

It’s kind of a bummer when there are two things going on at the same time that you’d like to be a part of.  Even more so when there are three things!  That was the case last night.  The first was a “cluster meeting” for Ohio Conference.  Twice a year, aside from the annual assembly, congregations from different regions of the state get together for fellowship and hearing about Ohio Conference business.  There was significant business to hear this time as there is a budget crunch and the three regional pastors are having their collective time cut from 2.5 FTE to 1.5 FTE.  Beginning in April, our regional pastor, Andy Stoner, will go from full time to half time.  This probably won’t be felt much on the congregational level, but will certainly affect how pastors relate to each other as he helps facilitate this.  It will also put a strain on congregations in pastoral transition, as Andy does significant work with this process.  Fortunately Trent Hummel, one of our delegates to Ohio Conference, was able to attend that meeting and we’ll hear from him at the Council meeting tonight.

The second event was a book reading and signing at Joseph-Beth Bookstore at Rookwood by AJ Jacobs, the guy who wrote The Year of Living Biblically that I referred to in the sermon a couple Sundays ago.  Yeah, he was here in Cincinnati!  I hadn’t known about this until Jean Swartley mentioned something Saturday during People Working Cooperatively.  He would be an interesting guy to meet sometime.

The third event(s) involved an excellent Thanksgiving themed meal in the church basement with CMFers and community members as well as a meeting with the Health Care Access group.  The Community Meal time was well-attended and I was reminded again of the gift of Community (and, of course, the gift of Meal).  There are children to play with, there are the regulars and the visitors to talk with, and there is food to be prepared and served and cleaned up.  The collective effect of this regular practice twice a month has been the creation of a holy time and space where God creates community.  Our Health Care Access group met afterward and discussed ways we can respond to some of the information gathered from the survey many of you filled out earlier this year.  We are beginning by having an event December 9^th, during second Sunday potluck, regarding filling out Living Will and Power of Attorney forms.  We will have short presentations from the medical, legal, and faith perspectives and also have papers present for those wishing to fill out the forms that day.  If you do not yet have these on file personally, or would simply like to know more, plan on staying after church December 9^th, sharing a potluck meal together, and hearing about these concerns.         

So, it was a full evening.  Ten Thousand Villages met over in Peace House at the same time, so that could be considered a fourth event!  I guess the best kind of problems are the ones where you have several good options to choose from instead of several bad options. 

Peaceful potatoes and genuine dialogue

Did anybody else see the irony with last Sunday being “Peace Sunday” and after the service the young people making potato guns, a.k.a. spud launchers?!!……Just a funny observation.  The spuds will no doubt be launched peacefully.

On an unrelated topic…this past weekend my time at the MennoNeighbors gathering in Goshen was quite meaningful.  Part of the group’s focus is working at ways of talking constructively about potentially divisive issues in the church.  Below is an excerpt from an essay by MennoNeighbor Carolyn Schrock-Shenk who is an associate professor of peace, justice, and conflict studies at Goshen College.

“What exactly makes dialogue genuine?  Does one need to be open to changing one’s perspective or conviction about an issue?  In my view, that readiness to change is the ideal, but it is rarely realistic.  I have come to believe that a minimum requirement for genuine dialogue is a readiness to change or modify one’s perspective about the person or persons holding the opposite point of view…When issues involve differences that truly remain too great for any kind of resolution, we need to become more comfortable with agreeing to disagree, with continuing to mutually respect each other, and with ongoing worship and work within the same body.  It is not possible, or even desirable, to have everyone in any church body think and believe alike.” 

These are good words for any kind of relationship. 

May all your potatoes be peaceful.