Gift from the Spirit - Laughter

And the moral of the story is...always admit if your favorite chapter and verse from the Bible has temporarily slipped your mind!

Now for the story:
After hearing a clip from comedian Tim Hawkins on The Fish yesterday morning, I decided to check out some of his You Tube videos. Here is a clip of his "favorite" Bible verse. I was laughing about this all day and still chuckle when I think about it. Here's the link so you may get a good dose of one God's best medicine's:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jdWH9N-JXI

Can't Remain Silent

[Please note: the following post reflects my personal opinion]

I am appalled, disgusted, and ticked off and perhaps a little naively suprised. The first three, because I just read about what a popular retailer has decided to print on their clothing just in time for kids to head back to college. The last because there was some part of me that believed mass consumerism would know when it had gone too far. Apparantly not.

Great way to start off a post, huh? But it's hard to remain silent after reading about this new tee line, geared for college kids has a number of sexually explicit messages printed on their tees. (But that begs the questions, would they refuse to sell these tees to kids who are not college age and do they have these tees in a restricted part of the store which requires and ID to enter?)

Why do I feel it's appropriate to post about this issue on this blog you may wonder? It's because I believe the church body as a whole needs to take a stand and advocate for the sexual purity of our children. Not a popular stance I know. But if we, as followers of Christ are afraid to take a stand or confused about what God expects of us as stewards of our bodies and sexuality, then there really is little hope that things will ever change.

I could go on for many paragraphs, instead, I'd rather have God speak to your heart about what HE believes about this issue. So my prayer is that everyone who reads about this issue, takes some time and listens to what God has to say about it. Consider asking Him to lead you to Scripture on His purpose in creating us as sexual beings and what He has to say about our bodies. Ask Him if He feels it is honoring to Him to wear or allow our children to wear this type of clothing.

If you feel moved to speak out on this issue, visit this link: http://www.onemillionmoms.com/CurrentIssue.asp to learn more and to send an email to the company asking them to stop producing clothing of this nature.

A final note...as this is a topic which can produce heated debate, if you feel moved to comment, please carefully choose your words. We review all comments before posting them.

Believing we can make a difference for our children,
Andrea

Making it Count

Because we recently switched Internet service providers and my efforts to link my ISP email to my Outlook were continually frustrated (!!!), I decided to “shop” for an email address elsewhere. For reasons I’m still fuzzy on, I settled on hotmail (there didn’t seem to be any great advantage of one free email service over another, but then I did only a cursory review).

What does this have to anything to do with God or the church? Well… it all goes back a short month ago when I was reading the book “The Hole in Our Gospel,” by Richard Stearns (President of World Vision). This is an excellent book that is tops on my recommended reading list if you want to get a new perspective on our call as followers of Christ. Many stories relaying the realities the majority of people in this world face are contained in its pages along with Scripture references which correlate to the anecdotes or point being made.

In a section dealing with stewardship, Stearns recalls the parable of the talents – you know where two of the guys double the talents they’re given and one guy decides to hide his, so his master’s ROI is zilch. Though this is an extremely familiar story, God tweaked my Spirit anew as I was reading His Words in the context of this eye-opening book (I LOVE it when He does that!), especially when he (Stearns) likened these servants to the modern day stockbroker.

A new thought struck me…everything we have belongs to God – material possessions, skills, abilities, time – and it’s all on loaner from our Creator. If repaying interest on a loan is standard practice here on earth, perhaps God expects the same thing in an eternal, kingdom of heaven sort of way?!

Instead of being a daunting thought, this seemed like a fun challenge and is changing my perspective on what I do with my time, resources and abilities. Which brings me back to the email…

I was excited to discover that hotmail offers its account holders the chance to give back to a charitable organization just by sending an email. All the user has to do is select which organization to support and a tag is added to the signature. For every email sent, money is donated to the selected nonprofit. What a cool way to do more for God’s kingdom!

I love the way God brings opportunities our way to serve Him. All we need to do is pray for this heart change and then wait for God to reveal how He will answer this prayer.

"The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it." Psalm 24:1 NIV, emphasis mine)

Making it count for Christ,
Andrea

The Monastic Order of Parenthood

At the very beginning of this year, my mother forwarded to me an e-mail that she had received from a friend of hers. In the subject line was written: "had to share this gem with all the moms I know", so I knew immediately that this e-mail would have something to do with the general issues of parenting. Since this was forwarded to me by my mother, I have to also add this background: I am the youngest of 10 children, and my mother is an extremely intelligent woman with an excellent sense of humor...so, I figured this one had to be worth reading.

Was it ever.

The content consisted of a column written by a man named Ron Rolheiser (a Catholic priest in the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and a writer/columnist) back in 2001. The title was "The Domestic Monastery", which right away caught my attention because 'domestic' and 'monastery' aren't usually two words that go together. Indeed, in this article Rolheiser focuses on an idea that, for me, has become a kind of hard-to-accept "aha!" moment:

"What is a monastery? A monastery is not so much a place set apart for monks and nuns as it is a place set apart. It is also a place to learn the value of powerlessness and a place to learn that time is not ours, but God's.
Our home and our duties can, just like a monastery, teach us those things. John of the Cross once described the inner essence of monasticism in these words: "But they, O my God and my life, will see and experience your mild touch, who withdraw from the world and become mild, bringing the mild into harmony with the mild, thus enabling themselves to experience and enjoy you." What John suggests here is that two elements make for a monastery: withdrawal from the world and bringing oneself into harmony with the mild.> Although he was speaking about the vocation of monastic monks and nuns, who physically withdraw from the world, the principle is equally valid for those of us who cannot go off to monasteries and become monks and nuns. Certain vocations offer the same kind of opportunity for contemplation. They too provide a desert for reflection.
For example, the mother who stays home with small children experiences a very real withdrawal from the world. Her existence is definitely monastic. Her tasks and preoccupations remove her from the centres of power and social importance. And she feels it. Moreover her sustained contact with young children (the mildest of the mild) gives her a privileged opportunity to be in harmony with the mild, that is, to attune herself to the powerlessness rather than to the powerful."

Rolheiser goes on to point out that, just as monks and nuns do, parents also must live in obedience to their own version of the "monastic bell": the incessant interruptions from our children, who seem to need assistance/supervision/hands-on-parenting about every 10 seconds on any given day. "The monastic bell was intended as a discipline to stretch the heart by always taking you beyond your own agenda to God's agenda. Hence, a mother raising children, perhaps in a more privileged way even than a professional contemplative, is forced, almost against her will, to constantly stretch her heart. For years, while raising children, her time is never her own, her own needs have to be kept in second place, and every time she turns around a hand is reaching out and demanding something."

"It is also a place to learn the value of powerlessness and a place to learn that time is not ours, but God's." These are very, very difficult lessons for any human, with or without children, to learn. And, to be honest, I'm not always very patient towards my two little 'monastic bells'. And so now, I have arrived hard up against this question: how do I reconcile myself to God's agenda....when it seems like there are so many items on my agenda that will never be accomplished? What exactly does "stretching my heart" look like, and have I been at all able to do that since becoming a parent? I guess another question might be, "how much of my parenting, so far, has been pleasing to God?"

I received this e-mail from my mom in January, and in the following months I have thought of it repeatedly. I have never read a more accurate summation of what have come to be my own personal frustrations when it comes to being a parent. I know in conversations with my husband I have asked the rhetorical question, "why would God make me a parent, and yet give me also all these other talents and skills which, as a parent, I have no opportunity to use????" My friends, I will be very honest here in saying that over the past 10 years I have consistently struggled with the my-needs-vs.-my-childrens'-needs conflict, even more so since transitioning into the SAHM mode.

Last week, my husband and older daughter and I went to visit Trinity Cathedral, here in downtown Cleveland. I forgot the camera otherwise I would share pictures...it's a beautiful place. We also stopped in the "Sacred Path" bookstore and the "Ten Thousand Villages" store. In the bookstore I came upon a book which, like that e-mail from my mom, has seemed to speak directly to my internal conflicts about "my agenda vs. God's agenda". I will write about this book in another post, but here is the title (you will see immediately how appropriate it is): In The Midst of Chaos: Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice, by Bonnie Miller-McLemore. I am already about halfway through, with some underlining and comments in the margin along the way....

Blessings to you,
Jen

Father Keith's Sermon, 6/14

Greetings all,

A while back I asked Father Keith if he would be okay with having his sermons posted on this blog. His reply was that that was one of the original ideas for the blog anyway! So, here is his sermon from today, Sunday June 14 2009. Today's readings were: 1 Samuel 15:34 - 16:13, 2 Corinthians 5:6-17, and Mark 4:26-34. It is helpful to review these readings so that the context of the sermon is fully understood. Everything within the quote marks is taken directly from the sermon print-out provided in the front foyer at St. Peter's Church.

"WEEDS AND REBELS, Proper 6, Year B"
"'With what can we compare the Kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of the seeds of the earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of shrubs, and puts orth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.'

If you are one of those people who take great pride in having a lawn that could make it onto a Scott's Turf-builder fertilizer advertisement; if you aspire to a yard that looks like a fairway at Augusta National Golf Course; if you're an artist in green who could pass for the groundskeeper at Progressive Field; then you do not ever want to live next door to me and my family. For a variety of reasons economic and philosophic, Monica and I practice more of a wild meadow approach to lawncare. If it's green, let it grow! Keep those chemicals off of our children's feet and our of our storm sewers.

Which, of course, means that every May, in addition to the random selection of grass species that populate our lawn, we have an abundance of Dandelions. And in August, as the grass is drying out, we enjoy a bumper crop of crabgrass. So, it is by definition a yard that likes to share itself with neighboring yards. Every May, those pretty yellow dandelion flowers overnight become those fuzzy dandelion seed-heads. And just a puff of wind is all it takes to scatter from each one of those plants thousands of tiny aspiring dandelions, which rise into the atmosphere to float along with the offspring of thousands of other dandelions, to create what sometimes looks like a warm-weather snowstorm. And each of those little flying seeds is looking for one of those perfect green lawns into which to settle. And there, it will wait patiently until next May, when it will spring up to repeat the glorious process all over again, or to die and agonizing death, burned and poisoned by the lethal chemical weapons of mass dandelion destruction arrayed against it by the lover of thoroughbred Kentucky Blue Grass.

What is this priest babbling about, you are asking yourselves?

Well, I'm using an image that for us might evoke the same kind of wonderment and wry confusion that the image of a mustard plant would have evoked for Jesus' listeners. In Jesus' day and place, the mustard plant was, and still is, a nuisance. It is a prodigious reproducer, each plant capable of producing thousand of tiny seeds to send aloft in a gust of wind, or in the guts of birds. Left unchecked, mustard could largely take over a farmer's field in just a few seasons. Galilean farmers, to this day, go through their fields hand-plucking as many of the plants as they can, and in late May and June, use the old-fashioned form of herbicidal warfare: burn over their harvested fields precisely to destroy mustard plants and their seeds on the ground, and other plants like them.

So, to those Galilean peasants, and to us this morning, Jesus must have sounded slightly demented here: The Kingdom of God can be compared to mustard seed? The kingdom of God can be compared to dandelions? What gives?

A similar thing is going on in today's reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, one of the most tantalizing tales in all of Scripture. [Discursus: this Summer the Lectionary takes us through one of the wildest ancient soap operas you'll ever encounter - the story of King David. You won't want to miss it, so be in church every Sunday.].

So here, in our Scriptures today, we have held up for us two pretty strange images of God at work: rebels and weeds. For those of us whose values tend more towards law and order in politics and uniformity in lawn-care, those images are probably not just strange, they may be positively alarming.

And yet, step back for a moment. Let your historical imagination be free. Look at the story of God's people, and see if rebellious weediness isn't precisely what you see. God's people have always faced suppression, God's Kingdom has always been opposed. Yet, somehow, in every generation, God's people and kingdom have managed to survive. And not only survive, but thrive, and grow, and like weeds, spread. God's Kingdom, Jesus seems to be saying, is like weeds: you can keep them in check, but you can never, ever get rid of them. God's work, we see in the story of David, will almost always be done by the most unlikely of people - the youngest son of Jesse the shepherd, the son of Mary of Nazareth - found along the margins of established power, quietly undermining the edifices of control.

And interestingly, the most dangerous form of suppression that God's people and kingdom have always faced has never been the active forceful opposition of the world; the most dangerous form of suppression is domestication, the taming of the wild. Wild prairie grass is tamed and domesticated to become the perfect, lovely fescue to adorn McMansions. The rebel shepherd becomes the oppressive king. The tiny Jewish cult of Jesus Messiah, becomes the institution of the Church.

And so, hear the Good News this morning: the Kingdom of God is like a weed. You can't stop it. The world will try, through force, intimidation, and domestication, to keep God's kingdom under its thumb, but ultimately that effort will fail, the control will break. God is, even now, calling and appointing the rebels, the Davids, who will undermine that control. One or two of them might even be in this room, looking for all the world like good, domesticated, tamed blades of grass.

Watch out, these wondrous Scriptures seem to both promise and warn us, right now, in this room, in our own souls, unseen, are the mustard seeds, the dandelions, the unremarkable peasant boys, through whom God may renew the face of the earth."


Peace to you,
Jen

Words Within the Music

#226 in The Hymnal 1982, in the Pentecost section.

1.Come, thou Holy Spirit bright; come with thy celestial light;
pour on us thy love divine.
Come protector of the poor; come thou source of blessings sure;
come within our hearts to shine.

2. Thou, of comforters the best, thou, the soul's most welcome guest,
of our peace thou art the sign.
In our labor, be our aid; in our summer, cooling shade.
Every bitter tear refine.

3. Brighter than the noonday sun, fill our lives which Christ has won;
fill our hearts and make them thine.
Where thou are not, we have nought; all our word and deed and thought
twisted from thy true design.

4. Bend the stubborn heart and will; melt the frozen, warm the chill;
rule us by thy judgement's line.
Cleanse us with thy healing power; what is barren bring to flower;
to thy love our sins consign.

5. To the people who adore and confess thee evermore,
thy blest sevenfold gift assign.
Grant us thy salvation, Lord, boundless mercy our reward,
joys which earth and heaven entwine.

Acts 2 (New International Version)
The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost
"1When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. "

Blessings to you,
Jen

Questions, unquestionable love

I'm jealous of trees.

And the sun, and the moon and the flowers. And anything in creation that does exactly as God commanded it from the beginning of time.

I forget exactly what I was reading at the time that made me jealous of these things. But for the first time, I paused and contemplated this fact...

God spoke and the sun, moon, stars and planets came into being. He told them what to do and they obeyed Him. It's their obedience that makes our life possible on this earth.

And think of the trees. Each year, they put forth buds, grow leaves, store energy in the summer to make it through the winter, lose leaves, drop seeds and await the warm breath of spring (again made possible from the sun's obedience).

Sigh...

I wish I had that unquestioning obedience to God's voice. For He, too, called me forth into creation. I know He has a specific purpose for me. But do I go about this purpose with unquestioning obedience? Ummmm...no!

I mean, really, what if the sun or moon or trees starting questioning God's authority?...

God: Sun... it's your job to provide unceasing light to the earth.

Sun: That sounds like a lot of work God. I don't know if I can keep up that kind of pace. Is it all right if I take a little break now and then. You know, like a vacation?

God: Moon...it's your job to reflect the sun's light and to help my people determine when to plant and help the oceans know when to ebb and flow.

Moon (pouting): Why can't I provide my own light sometimes? Why should the sun get all the credit for the light? If I'm helping people and the water, why am I relegated to being a mere reflection?

God: Trees...you shall provide life-giving oxygen to all living things and help keep the air clean. Every year, you shall be subject to the seasons...there will be times of storing energy and producing seeds and growing.

Trees: That sounds like really important work, God! Thank you! However, we think there might be a better way - what if we did all that without depending on the seasons. That way, if the sun decides not to shine and the moon gives up reflecting, we can still get our job done. In fact, maybe we could be the back up if the sun and moon don't work out. Our leaves could be reflectors and I'm sure You can figure out some way for us to produce light.

Sounds kind of silly, huh? But that's exactly what I sound like when I doubt what God has told me or convince myself He doesn't really mean what He says because, of course, there is a better way.

And this led me to thinking, if God made the sun & co. to unquestioningly obey Him, why didn't He make us, make me, this way? Wouldn't it have been easier on Him?

I think I might have found the answer in reading from "The Jesus Storybook Bible." Though geared for children, this Bible, has some powerful insights for adults.

And the answer is love. The more I thought about this, the more it made sense. God created us in large part because He wants a relationship with us - a loving relationship. He could have created us to behave as robotically as the sun & co. where everything runs smoothly, where sin doesn't enter in, where He doesn't have to die for us.

But where is the fun and love and adventure in that?

Think about it...you may love your garden and get great enjoyment out of it's beauty, but can it love you back? You may love the money you make and the creature comforts it provides, but when you have an ache in your soul to be loved for yourself, to be comforted to, to hear tender words of encouragement, can all the stuff in the world provide that.

Parents...What if you had children who always did what you say, when you said it and never, ever, talked back? (Believe me, I know this sounds like a pretty good deal, especially since writing this post has been frequently interrupted by the need for me to repeatedly ask my children to clean up the room...and not hurt one another.) But take a moment to ponder this more deeply...wouldn't life become rather monotonous? What kind of adults would they become? How would you grow to be a better person if your children always did what you said? How would this prepare you for dealing with people and situations that challenge you to become less selfish?

I wonder if part of the joy God gets in loving us is when we turn to Him after struggling to obey Him. Can't you just picture Him cheering and wanting to wrap you in His loving arms when you finally get it? When after a time of questioning Him, doubting Him, rejecting Him, you finally realize that He was right all along and now you'd do anything for Him.

Oh, how I can picture that.

In fact, it's even in Scripture. Remember the parable of the lost son (or of the crazy father, as our Rector, Keith, alternatively titled it)? Maybe Jesus shared this story because it's a reminder that God can take it all and to use it as an encouragement that even in our times of disobedience, God is always there to welcome us back and bask in His lavish love.

Not that I want to turn from obeying Him on purpose. That would be ridiculous. But, it eases the strain of always trying to get it right.

Okay, so maybe I'm not so jealous of trees after all.