3/1/2010

Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent – O what a week! As I write this Mardi Gras is in full swing with the traditional colors changed to black and gold. Drew Brees is the new king of New Orleans. Soon we will be deep into the Lenten season. Here are some highlights of that time: Ash Wednesday Service and imposition of ashes. (6 p.m. Wednesday February 17) Pastors Class begins on Sunday mornings during Lent. (9:45 a.m. in Library) Mid-week Lenten services with soup suppers. 6 p.m. (Wednesdays during Lent) Palm Sunday services (March 28) Easter Egg Hunt (3 p.m. March 28) Maundy Thursday Service (6 p.m. April 1) Easter Sunrise Service and breakfast (7 a.m. April 4) Faure Requiem with combined choirs of Barry and Bethel United Church of Christ (April 25) Please mark these times and decide to be a part of these meaningful spiritual activities.

2/15/2010

I watched a car pull up to the back side of the building – right behind the church offices. A man got out and came inside and went down to the preschool area of the building. Before long I saw the car back up about forty feet and then come forward again. At first I thought the woman who was driving was having an obsessive/compulsive moment and just wanted to get her car parked straight in between the lines. Then she did the same thing – two more times! Now I’m thinking, “she’s in a hurry she must be trying to get her husband’s attention so he will get a move on”. But then she backed out and drove away, reappearing from the opposite direction a minute later. She paused for a few seconds and then was off again. The third time he met her at the car, got in and they drove away. Strange behavior indeed! I would not have seen all this so clearly except that my chair faces the window and the odd behavior caught my attention. As I pondered these strange actions I remembered my own first grandchild and how for a brief time in her life she would not go to sleep unless strapped safely inside the child seat of a moving car. Yes, there was probably a baby in the car! It gets me to thinking – what odd behavior do I exhibit that makes others scratch their head and wonder “what in the world is he doing?” Well, sometimes I wonder about some of you too! All I can say is; What a wonderful world!

1/22/2010

We haven’t seen much of the ground for nearly 25 days, but now there is green – actual green grass showing as the snow melts! How can that be possible after days of subfreezing temperatures? Well, I’m no weatherman or scientist, but I understand that the snow actually protects the grass from the subfreezing temperatures. It provides insulation much like an igloo provides shelter and warmth in extreme arctic cold. An igloo can actually hold a temperature of 68 degrees with the human body being the only heat source. How fascinating is this world of ours! How beautiful that spring follows winter and warmth follows cold. I hear the birds chirping and there have been sightings of robins. Hope soars. People were in church last Sunday that I haven’t seen for weeks. It’s only January, but already spring is in the heart.

1/19/2010

Pension Fund sends out a pocket calendar for all the ministers of our denomination. Usually that calendar arrives in November and I can quickly begin putting in all the dates I have been saving in the back pages of the current one. It gives me a sense of comfort to know that I will not be losing information that is important – even critical. Last year the critical part of it all was this; I had leaned over to retrieve something off the floor and my calendar dropped out of my shirt pocket and into the stool! What could I do? There was too much good and necessary information stored in there to destroy it, and I did not have another one which so conveniently told all the liturgical colors and special days. After it had dried out, it was rumpled and twice as thick as before, but I had to continue to use it. I couldn’t wait for November so I could get a new one! A calendar represents order and well being. Working with a calendar brings a certain peace of mind – knowing that I can capture those important dates with pencil or pen and not double book a date. This year November came and went – no calendar! December progressed along and still no calendar. I even called the number on the cover of my 2009 pocket calendar to see if they had forgotten me. I was assured that they hadn’t. Each day I watched the mail. Finally, with only a couple of days left in the year, it arrived! Hallelujah! Some order can be re-introduced to my life! It is new and fresh and unsoiled – just like the New Year. Even my entries are neater – penciled in with great care. I will protect this one and try to remember the order it represents, then maybe my new year will be just as fresh and orderly.

12/14/2009

“Is there any work that I could do? I have a job, but my hours have been cut back to one day a week. I’m 53 years old and would be happy to do anything. I can clean and cook hamburgers – anything.” This is the report of a man who visited the food pantry yesterday. I do not know about his past, but his appearance made me believe he was a part of a growing community of people who used to work full time and who would again if the conditions were right. He was clean, well dressed, soft-spoken and very thankful for the food we gave him. If his appearance and use of language is any kind of indicator, he would be among those who would be deemed very employable. I believe there is a sort of trickle-down process in effect too, in which those less employable will sink further and faster into poverty. Those who are less educated, less skilled, handicapped physically or mentally or distressed by a host of other ills will, in general, find themselves in the deepest distress and will be the last to be able to climb out of the pit. In spite of such rampant need we continue to expend nearly half of our U.S. budget on defense. An even more enlightening statistic is that nearly half, or 41.5 percent of the world’s military expenditures, come out of the United States. What a squandering of resources that could be used in such better and more productive ways. The latest statistics reveal that for every soldier in Afghanistan we spend one million dollars a year. So for the 30,000 additional troops we are sending the cost will be and additional 30,000,000,000 over the next year! Add that to the 800 billion already expended in supporting those wars and we have to ask; How long can we sustain such a burden? As James Madison observed in 1795, “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” As a means of letting our faith lead us, many of our church have taken a wonderful stand for good by providing food and resources for our pantry. I want to thank you for the good you are doing and the good will you are providing by your concern put into action. Your involvement and help is making our little corner of the world a little more hopeful.

11/9/2009

Allan Hurst has re-retired! From the statements I heard yesterday in our Board Meeting I am painfully aware of how much we will all miss Allan in the Choir Director’s position. He has filled a huge gap in the music program since Jean Lyne has been incapacitated, but as he said, “I retired for a reason.” He came out of retirement to help us resolve this need and has done an admirable job. We who are members of the choir have enjoyed the disciplines and lessons Allan has brought. At the same time we are saying “Good-bye” to Allan we are also saying “Hello” to Dale Shetler. Dale, who also comes with great credentials from his work as vocal director at Kansas City Kansas Community College, will begin this Wednesday. So the transition for the choir is about as seamless as possible. We are thankful to have a great group of skilled musicians and willing singers given to the task of enhancing of our Sunday worship. Perhaps there are others who feel called to participate in the choir. If that describes you, why not come and give it a try. I am sure that you would find a warm welcome.

10/5/2009

Today, as I write this, autumn is just beginning and we are contemplating and planning for all the things that October will bring. The CROP Walk and the Fall Festival both fall on October 11 and many from our congregation will take part in these two great events. Of course, October begins with World Communion Sunday on the 4th. This year World Communion Sunday will be even more significant since it corresponds with the 200th anniversary of Thomas Campbell’s “Declaration and Address”. Written in 1809, just two years after his arrival in America, the “Declaration and Address” is the closest thing we have to a “constitution” for our faith movement. Its thesis is that “the church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one.” That is, that by its very essence and make up the Church is not divided, but united. And Campbell believed that by Christ’s intention the Church was established in a harmonious oneness. When Campbell looked out on the religious landscape, he was dismayed by how many denominations he saw. Each denomination seemed to keep to itself and, in many cases, to disdain the other denominations. Surely, thought Campbell, Christ could not have intended this. So, he acted to bring unity to the Church. And the “Declaration and Address” is his testament to his plan for a way to gather all Christians together under one tent and to enjoy the peace that can only be found when we are united together in Christ. Plan to be present in worship on October 4 when we will lift up the great communion and share our faith history in a special way.

9/21/2009

Last Sunday, as I presided over the Lord’s Supper I had a moment when my mind became fixated on the color of the grape juice – it was lighter and weaker appearing than usual. No big deal one might think, but I became so focused on that small detail that I started to take the wine before I took the bread. Now, the order of the sacrament is probably no big deal either as compared to the meaning of the act, but still, it was the order Jesus seemed to use when instituting the Lord’s Supper with the disciples in the Upper Room – and it’s the way we’ve always done it too. The elder – rightly and persistently, pushed the bread in my direction until I was brought back to reality and realized what I was doing. So now I had the bread in one hand and the wine in the other. With her help I managed to take it in the proper order, but still as I pondered it all, I was brought back to the reality that many times, when I should be engaged in deep and meaningful reflection, my mind wanders in many other directions. Often, in fact, I lose the more important in favor of the utterly mundane. I would worry about this, but for the fact that I am forgiven, and isn’t that the whole point of the Eucharist? God knows my short attention span as well as all my other shortcomings and accepts me just the same. Aren’t we lucky in that way?

8/21/2009

One of the beautiful things about working at a church is the access to people in their times of great need. Often they have come into the office for assistance of some sort. Too many times it is the same old story – bad choices, inability to lay something aside for a rainy day, lack of education, etc. but sometimes the story is so compelling and so gut-wrenching that one can do nothing but marvel at the resilience of the human spirit. So it was that a young man of about 28 years came into the office this week. We knew him – he had been here once before, but this time he was different. This time he was homeless, living in the woods, covered with poison ivy – even in his eye, injured foot, in great need of a shower and very hungry. We gave him some medicine, food, jeans and socks and enough money to stay for one night in a cheap motel so he could get a shower and some rest. He was overcome with emotion at finding someone willing to help and his story came spilling out. He said, “A year ago I had a good job as a millwright, a girlfriend, a nice car and an apartment. Now it is all gone. My mother died and my family disbursed and I stupidly went to the bottle. Now look at me. I’m rubble.” He did not say I feel like rubble or my life is rubble. He said “I am rubble”. What an awful place to be. We were taken by his honesty. He did not try to hide anything, he just let it all out – the fear, the frustration the pain and self-loathing. His poverty has placed him in a catch-22. No house, no job – no job, no house. It’s hard to get one without having the other. What we did for him helps him for a day, then what? The joy of this job is compromised by the frustration of knowing our help is so temporary. It is understandable, who wants to give someone a home when they do not have a job? And, who wants to give someone a job when they don’t have a home or transportation. One of the prime reasons we keep a food pantry is to tide people over – to help them with food needs so they can stretch their dollars to pay bills and rent. Thanks to you our food pantry stays well stocked. Thanks to you we have some funds to allow for respite in a motel occasionally – a few gallons of gas. There is not enough to satisfy every need, but thanks to you we can help some. This is what I ask of you; keep your hearts open to the need around you, help where you can and bring your ideas for long-term solutions to me or to the Outreach Committee. Perhaps together we can find a way to be more than a stop-gap for at least some of those who fall through the cracks.

8/6/2009

Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal. Ryokan returned and caught him. "You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift." The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away. Ryoken sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon." Though there are probably many layers of meaning to this beautiful Japanese koan, what captures my imagination is the sense that some of the best things in life cannot be owned or controlled. The moon cannot be stolen – it is just there in all its beauty and we can see it or not. So who possesses more? The thief who takes what does not belong to him or the man who willingly gives his last possession, but appreciates the gift of creation that surrounds him? Jesus, Gandhi, Buddha and St Francis of Assisi are among the more famous ones who learned detachment from things in order to find the things of greatest value – the pearl of great price. May we be so gifted.

6/15/2009

How I enjoyed our church outing last Saturday at the Royals game. Even though the home team lost, there were still plenty of things that contributed to the greatness of the evening: being with friends from church, supporting a cause I believe in – CROP (half the cost of our tickets went to support world hunger efforts), seeing the newly refurbished Kauffman stadium, relishing the wonder of a perfect spring evening and a sold-out crowd. Among these good events was an interesting example of life. Several players from the Negro League were honored. Among them was a man named Arthur Pennington who played – not for the Kansas City Monarchs, but for the Chicago American Giants (1940-46), Pittsburgh Crawfords (1946), and the Mexican League (1946-50). Somewhere along the way he earned the nickname “Superman”. He was chosen to throw out the first pitch for last Saturday’s game. He took his position half way between the pitcher’s mound and home plate, limbered up his arm and threw the ball toward the plate. It hit the ground a few feet in front of him and rolled toward the catcher. A man who was dubbed “Superman” at one time in his early life and career, who once hit a homer off of Dizzy Dean in an exhibition game, who was voted to 1942 & 1950 Negro League East-West All*Star, who had a lifetime .336 Negro League Batting Average and who was selected by the great Satchel Paige to play on his Barnstorming Teams, now at age 86 could not get the ball to the plate. It is sad to see one’s life forces ebbing, but in that we are all pretty much the same. I started thinking about this article as a treatise on aging, but reading the story of “Superman” Pennington took me somewhere else. Art Pennington is one of America’s true legends with a professional baseball career lasting nearly 40 seasons 1939-59 (20 years summer ball & winter ball) including stops in the Negro Leagues, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Canada, America and Barnstorming around the world, sometimes playing 3 games a day. But, this outstanding baseball player experienced extreme racial prejudice returning to the United States as an African American man with a light skinned Spanish wife and 2 daughters in 1949. He was one of the greats in the game of baseball, but was never given a fair shot at a career in the Major Leagues because of the racist attitudes of his day. Times have changed, they say, and yet there is still racism in our world and there are still moments when some groups or individuals look down on others. May it never be so in our lives. As the church, the body of Christ, we must always be observant in our consideration of these indiscretions – continuing our vigilance against any attitudes that place others below us.

6/2/2009

Perhaps this is a common human experience, but still it seems revealing to me each time I encounter it. It is the sense I sometimes get of being right where I needed to be. In ministry – perhaps in all of life, but in ministry for sure, I find myself called upon to be present to someone’s need at a time that I feel I must be in attendance in the need of someone else. One cannot split oneself apart and be two places at one time, so with the help of others you do the best you can. It is possible that I have often made the wrong choice, maybe the person with whom I chose to be was not the one who had the deepest need, but the requisite is to be at peace with the decisions one makes for better or worse – knowing all our decisions will not be perfect ones. Being at peace with our decisions and with our world is a very spiritual concept, it seems to me, and one I would like to cultivate further in my life. I cannot help but think of Henry David Thoreau’s experience at Walden Pond: “I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. Nay, I often did better than this. There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a reverie, amidst the pines and hickories and sumacs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveler's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance....” There are times when we could be other places doing other things, but sometimes we are right where we need to be. I hope you find time for solitude and reflection as your summer begins another chapter in your life. May your experience be like Thoreau’s – finding you growing “like corn in the night.”

5/7/2009

I was reading the newspaper recently and came upon an advertisement for a wedding planning service. What caught my eye was the statement “Kansas City’s Newest Wedding Planner” with the notice in smaller print underneath, “Over 25 year’s experience”. Does that mean that all other wedding planners in Kansas City have been in business for over 25 years? Or does that mean that this person who has 25 year’s experience has just opened a new shop? I suspect that the new proprietor is trying to profit from the perception that “New” means fresh, but she cannot deny that experience is very valuable too. My question is; how fresh is someone with 25 years experience? The deeper question is; can you have both? In a church that is 169 years old we have established a lot of tradition and we have an immense amount of experience. Our biggest need might be for freshness. That’s why it is so important to continue to include new members into the life and decision making parts of our church. That’s also why it is important for the committee structure of our church to constantly be stretching to brainstorm possible new paradigms for all we do here. Moving into a quieter time (the summer months) is a good time to build and prepare. I would challenge each committee to begin the process of recruitment of new members. I would challenge each new member to observe an area of need and then reach out to offer your skills and interests to that area of service.

5/7/2009

For the Beauty of the Earth Starry skies viewed from a lawn chair on a warm evening, sunny days, southern breezes, dandelions, gardens of vegetables and flowers, the smell of new mown grass, budding and leafing trees – all these things remind us of the springtime and the earth, our home. Fast food trash containers blowing across the road, cigarette butts stomped out and left on the sidewalk, waters fouled from offending polluters, trees cut down to enable concrete canyons accompanied by the erosion of soil, acrid smells in the air – these things too, may remind us of the earth, our home. You can certainly find both pictures as you encounter the world around you. Which picture inspires the artists and poets? Well, maybe both, but the one leaves us filled with hope while the other may make us hang our heads in despair. The calendar reminds us of these things too as this week we celebrate Earth Day. This earth is a wonderful mother, but she cannot sustain our overuse and neglect and pollution forever. Consider this: The North Pacific sub-tropical gyre covers a large area of the Pacific in which the water circulates clockwise in a slow spiral. Winds are light. The currents tend to force any floating material into the low energy central area of the gyre. There are few islands on which the floating material can beach. So it stays there in the gyre, in astounding quantities estimated at six pounds of plastic for every pound of naturally occurring plankton – the equivalent of an area the size of Texas swirling slowly around like a clock. This gyre has also been dubbed “the Asian Trash Trail” the “Trash Vortex” or the “Eastern Garbage Patch”. This perhaps wouldn’t be too much of a problem if the plastic had no ill effects. The larger items, however, are consumed by seabirds and other animals which mistake them for prey. Many seabirds and their chicks have been found dead, their stomachs filled with medium sized plastic items such as bottle tops, lighters and balloons. A turtle found dead in Hawaii had over a thousand pieces of plastic in its stomach and intestines. It has been estimated that over a million sea-birds and one hundred thousand marine mammals and sea turtles are killed each year by ingestion of plastics or entanglement. What can we do? We can drink water out of reusable containers, we can buy products with less packaging waste and we can recycle. The church now provides a bin for news paper and another bin for comingled plastics, metal and cardboard. The nearby Metro North Mall also provides a city recycling center that will take these things and glass too. Sometimes it is just a matter of educating ourselves to our worlds’ needs and taking a bit of extra time to do the right thing – For the Beauty of the Earth.

4/15/2009

For Christmas, our daughter Courtney gave us tickets to see the Eagles in concert at the Sprint Center. I love the Eagles, but it just happened that the concert fell on the night of March 28 when the winds were blowing, the snow was falling and a number of churches had already called off services for the following day. I thought the concert would be diminished. Surely, I reasoned, many would stay home. I was wrong! The review on Sunday indicated that 10,000 people attended that concert! Now there are clearly many conclusions one could draw, like how much sturdier Eagles fans are than many church goers, or that if we pay a significant amount for something, we’re bound to attend – rain or shine. Or, on the other side, we might wonder how many of those fans who arrived home after midnight got up in order to attend church the next day? I know one thing, it made me more resolute to be present at church and ready to worship with whoever decided to be here. If I could go downtown through a snowstorm and on slick streets, find a parking place, stand in line outside in the snow, go through a security check and brush shoulders with a crowd of 10,000 screaming fans on a Saturday night, then I could surely refrain from calling off church no matter how ghastly the weather! Thankfully, the snow stopped and the temperatures rose and many of you were here in worship the following morning and we did not have to make a decision designed to protect the many steadfast ones who could ill afford to fall and break a hip on the slick pavement. Oddly enough, I learned a big lesson about faithfulness through a strange combination of events that happened in and around a rock concert. Just goes to show, it’s sometimes an enchanting thing to kick up your heels on a Saturday night, just don’t forget the wonder of those moments around the table that we find each Sunday right here in our church