Right now we are de-cluttering the house. We’ve been taking lots of stuff to Goodwill, throwing out the items that are useless, saving some things for others, but the real kicker is the paper.

So much paper! Piles and piles of it everywhere. Some of it is recyclable, though I’m very glad I opened one envelope from long ago that wanted me to rate how I listen to the radio (mostly I don’t) because it included a dollar as payment. Some paper needs to be filed, especially the paper that has to do with things like insurance and taxes, and some paper needs to be shredded. Paper, paper everywhere!

I remember days with less paper and found myself thinking “wow, I wish we could be then instead of now when it comes to paper.” It’s an easy thing to think, like “remember the good old days.”

But here’s the thing: I don’t think life has ever been easier or better. We human beings have been acting in the midst of sin and goodness ever since God called us into being, and thats what makes life complicated in a negative way, or a burden. And that’s what makes life good. We might want to go back to the good old days – but before penicillin? There are are sacrifices if we wish ourselves in a different time and place. And if we reflect on it, we realize that there have always been troubles to bear, there have always been frustrations, and there have always been joys.

The author of Ecclesiastes talks to us about this in famous chapter 3. This is the chapter that reminds us that there are times for everything under heaven, ending with “a time for war, and a time for peace.” But after that long list the author reflects on the toil of human life:

What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. I know that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.

“It is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in their toil.” This is the word of God for all generations. All we can understand and live in is the present, whether it’s a present time filled with way too much paper and too many bills and forms, or a present filled with butter churns, yokes for oxen and horses, and water pumps out by the barn. But God holds all time and, moreover, has given it to us as a gift. While we live in the present, our pasts and futures are held by the God who so loves the world. And God seeks out what has gone by. There is an echo here of that familiar verse in Romans 8 that reminds us that God mingles all things together for good.

Jesus himself wanted us to live in the present and in the moment. This is trendy talk these days, for sure. But this talk contains way more than a kernel of truth. In Matthew 6 we read:

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Today’s trouble is enough for today. The piles of paper and bags of stuff to be recycled, organizing our closets and storage, writing a sermon, checking in with the vet about our dog, all of these are enough trouble for today. This and more will comprise my toil. But I will take pleasure in the company of my dog while my husband is away, I will enjoy a good cup of coffee and have lunch with a friend, and I will be grateful to God for today, here and now, trusting that God holds all the worries of my past and future, just as Gold holds my work for this day.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation
Tags: Ecclesiastes 3, time, worry

We are polluting our waters and our air, we are using so much fossil fuel that wars are fought over it, and we have have blown open a hole in our ozone layer that is already destroying species of animals – animals and ecosystems God has created and called into being.

But here we are, a couple of days after we moved our clocks backward one hour. We adjust ourselves to the way day and night work. We can’t bend them to our will, we can’t dissolve them or destroy them (as far as we know), we can’t make them do what we want. So we adjust our clocks, and then we spend a few days adjusting our bodies to new hours and different amounts of light and day.

Nature, God’s creation that God calls good, surrounds us with its vulnerability and its power. It’s not a far stretch to consider that we surround each other with the same things, the ways in which we are vulnerable and sensitive, or the ways in which we are strong, vigorous, and exert power. Like our relationship with the rest of God’s creation, our relationships with each other contain all sorts of dynamics. There are ways we can hurt or even destroy each other. There are ways we can protect and respect each other. We can adjust to the people our families and friends and co-workers are and let them be who they are, or we can use them for our own ends.

Whether it’s creation – dogs, flowers, tomatoes, polar bears, stars, or groundwater – or each other, we need to realize that we are creatures, beings and stuff created by God, and that God called all of it good. Everything that exists – a daisy, perhaps, or a cow – belongs to God and has its being in God just as we do, just as everything does.

It’s a humbling concept, this knowledge that we are creatures, and therefore more like trees and frogs than God the Creator. The difference between Creator and creature is boggling: our existence depends entirely on God, and God’s existence does not depend on us at all.

Thanks to the imagination and energy of one of our church members, the kids at our church are learning the first catechism (a way of learning the thought and language of our faith) called “Belonging to God.” This is the set of questions they are working on right now:

Question 5. How do you thank God for this gift of love? I promise to love and trust God with all my heart.

Question 6. How do you love God?

By worshipping God, by loving others, and by respecting what God has created.

Question 7. What did God create? God created all that is, seen and unseen.

Our existence is entirely dependent on God, and God’s existence does not depend on us at all. Yet by creating, God has chosen all that is, seen and unseen, and has bound Godself to it. God has chosen to be bound to us, to be in relationship with us, to love us, save us, and, in the verb invented by one of our first graders, peace us.

And so we praise our loving Creator! We acknowledge that the Lord is God and no mortal, and that we have been called into existence with God and all that is, seen and unseen. Along with the rest of creation we offer our prayers of thanksgiving and wonder: we worship God, love others, and respect what God has created.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Psalm 148

Praise for God’s Universal Glory

1 Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord from the heavens;

praise him in the heights!

2 Praise him, all his angels;

praise him, all his host!

3 Praise him, sun and moon;

praise him, all you shining stars!

4 Praise him, you highest heavens,

and you waters above the heavens!

5 Let them praise the name of the Lord,

for he commanded and they were created.

6 He established them forever and ever;

he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.

7 Praise the Lord from the earth,

you sea monsters and all deeps,

8 fire and hail, snow and frost,

stormy wind fulfilling his command!

9 Mountains and all hills,

fruit trees and all cedars!

10 Wild animals and all cattle,

creeping things and flying birds!

11 Kings of the earth and all peoples,

princes and all rulers of the earth!

12 Young men and women alike,

old and young together!

13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,

for his name alone is exalted;

his glory is above earth and heaven.

14 He has raised up a horn for his people,

praise for all his faithful,

for the people of Israel who are close to him.

Praise the Lord!

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation
Tags: Belonging to God, calling and vocation, catechism, community, creation, creation/nature, environment, PCUSA catechism, peace, praise, respect

Our sister in Christ, Sue Ann, is now in hospice care at the hospital. There she is surrounded by family and many others who are tending to her comfort. Sue Ann peacefully decided she would not take any more treatments and so to go ahead and walk into God’s new heaven and new earth, surrounded by all these people loving her, caring for her, soothing her.

I was astonished this morning to discover that hospice care has been around since the 11th century. The makes ten centuries that have seen the practice of giving hospitality to the sick and dying, ten centuries of compassion focused on those who are enduring their last illness. Hospice care is aimed at treating the whole person. In addition to palliative care (medicine and therapies to make the individual comfortable without treating the illness itself), hospice workers support the family and friends of the dying with social work issues, and they provide spiritual, psychological and other forms of care that are called for. There are hospice centers, or individuals are cared for in the hospital or in their homes.

The term “hospice” is of course related to the word hospitality (as is hospital), but its particular roots refer to both hosts and guests. That’s what it felt like in Sue Ann’s room yesterday. I felt like a guest, an honored guest. Even under heavy sedation and unable to talk, she was holding sway over her family who tended to things like making sure her oxygen mask wasn’t too tight or too loose. She was the host. But the flip of the term held as well: she was the guest welcomed in by the loving arms of many, tenderly held and gazed on as though she was a light.

Because, of course, she is. She has lit up the life of her friends and family, and our congregation. I know exactly where she sits in the back pew and the smile and big hug she gives me as she walks out through the church doors into the community of New Washington, where she has been both guest and host in the community for many years. She is a star in the universe, as we read in Philippians 2, because she has spent a lifetime working out her faith with fear and trembling, knowing that God is at work in her both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure. Earlier in Philippians we are reminded by the Apostle Paul that “to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Sue Ann’s peace in these past days as she made her decision didn’t just come from being tired after years of various health struggles. The peace that passes understanding came from her belief that to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Either way, she lives and always will (and always has been living) in the loving presence of her God. She has always been welcome there, with God as her host. In Isaiah 25 we read that God prepares a rich feast for all people. That means us. That means Sue Ann.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation
Tags: death and dying, guest and host, hospice, hospitality, spirituality

There is a lot of concern in our denomination about the decline of numbers in church membership. In a lot of areas of the church, folks are very much concerned about church growth.

But what if God is behind us getting smaller? What if this is one of the ways we are being reformed?

This is not my own idea, but it hasn’t left me since I read it about a week ago. What if small is the new powerful?

I’m not talking “powerful” in the sense that a lot of people remember, like when the PCUSA was a valued voice in national discussions. Or “powerful” in the sense that size is impressive.

Because I remember when a bunch of my colleagues from the PCC (The PCUSA committee that designs and oversees the assessment of ordination exams) came to our small church when we had a meeting in Louisville. Our congregation welcomed them with open arms, and loved having them there. And these visitors were moved by the congregation. Our congregation, friendly, warm, welcoming. And these friends of mine said one very intriguing thing: “They’re not here just because it’s church. They’re here because they want to be here. They’re not just filing in.”

Jesus says salt and light are powerful. Salt preserves and gives flavor to whatever it touches. A single lamp in a home gives light to the whole house.

So what if all these small congregations, where the large majority of job openings are, are places of salt and light spread throughout the country, and not present in large amounts in one city? There can’t be too much salt and light, at least according to what Jesus said. How marvelous that it exists in large amounts in large congregations in large cities. But I think our imaginations are being stretched to figure out that this salt and light belongs everywhere.

There must be a few people who have thought about the same question my friend posed: what if we’re in decline because God is making us smaller? It’s just that my friend is posing it in a way that directs us to the creative possibilities God may be forming us into. I’m not sure our denomination realizes this could be a great thing.

It is all the Holy Spirit’s work, anyway. God is in the midst of us even if only two or three are gathered in God’s name! The church of Christ will not die because it rests on Jesus Christ.

I think we should pay attention to small: small congregations, small seeds, tiny grains of salt, one little match. There is nothing about us that God cannot work through to proclaim to the world that God loves us so very much.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation
Tags: calling and vocation, church, ministry, salt and light, small church, small churches

I spent last week on vacation in Pawley’s Island, SC. I took hundreds of photos of the beach, and that’s not an exaggeration. The sky on the coast is a work of art always in motion, always changing. One afternoon my friends and I were able to catch a rainbow finding its way through the clouds, at which point one said “Well, God, now you’re just showing off.” God showed off each and every day: the light and cloud and wind and sea and sand surprised me almost each hour, different, impressive, huge, and so very inviting. No wonder God created and called it “good.” Even when the clouds were gray and rolling along they were bright like hope.

I took a walk on the beach most mornings. I never knew what I would see because everything changed so fast. Clouds that were fluffy and gray one moment became shot through with light a few minutes later. The sound of the waves coming in was calming. There were aways a few sandpipers around, doing their thing, these small brown-flecked birds using their long narrow beaks to pluck food from the sand.

It was nice to get the exercise, for sure, but the reason I really enjoyed those walks was because I felt deep in my bones that I was surrounded by God. And not a vast, impersonal God, but the One who walks with me saying “it’s just beautiful, isn’t it?”

It was marvel. I was, as the dictionary says, “filled with wonder and astonishment.” Thoroughly delighted, as though the sky, water, and sea said “welcome” as soon as I stepped on the sand and “farewell” when I left.

“Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Great is thy faithfulness! Great is they faithfulness!
Morning by morning, new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand has provided.
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.”

What a great gift, this reminder of God’s love and greatness both, soaking into my bones along with the sun, blowing into my imagination along with the breezes, charming me as though the beauty was placed directly into my hands for me to enjoy: a present. I enjoyed all of this within a fellowship of wonderful women, dedicated lovers of God and all that God loves. We marveled together and were able to join with all nature in manifold witness to the beauty of the One in whom all things in heaven and on earth are reconciled to God.

May the mercies you see new every morning in sky and farmland and home remind you that in Jesus Christ you have

“Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
God’s own dear presence to cheer and to guide
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow
Blessings all yours, with ten thousand beside.”

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation, Uncategorized
Tags: beauty, community, contemplation, creation, hymns, joy, mindfulness, ocean, Pawley's Island

Right now, as I look across the room at a bookshelf, I see a wonderful picture of our dog, Tuck. She’s looking out one of the windows of our house, and we think it must be the upstairs window, where she has a little perch since we moved in. The photo was taken before 2008, because that’s when we had the house painted, and the pieces of wood between the panes of glass are painted that very odd raw salmon color we used to have all over this house. Tuck is looking out the window, perhaps pensively, perhaps longingly, perhaps trying to figure out if she should or should not bark. Her cute face is highlighted in the very good photo, and it’s set in a peach-colored mat (to match the raw salmon panes of glass) and a dusty blue wood frame. It’s one of our favorite pictures of Tuck.

We did not take the photo.

We didn’t know the photo had been taken until we found a plastic grocery bag hanging on our door, and inside we found the framed photo with a brief note, signed by this woman whose first name we didn’t recognize.

Think of what she was doing that we had no knowledge of: we did not know she was taking a picture of our dog, and we did not know she was finding the right color mat and frame to go with the picture. We didn’t know she was working on this in order to give it to us. We could have been the meanest people in the world, and it wouldn’t have mattered. This woman just seemed to be in “give” mode.

It puts me in mind of the things people do for us every day that we don’t even think about. Things go wrong, surely, and the folks we take for granted let us down or make mistakes. But generally we trust and rely on people instead of distrust them. Police keep us as safe as they can, nurses and EMT’s and others keep us as alive and healthy as they can, road crews are out making sure lights work and roads are safe. Someone is keeping the water system working, which we take for granted every time we flush, and other utilities are managed. And what about the good things we receive without even knowing it? Maybe that bank teller or salesperson is helpful and pleasant because somonee was nice to her that morning.

And you all do kind and generous things without thinking and without looking for thanks.

Which is how this all should be for us. As Christians we can marvel at the fun and beautiful ways God is at work in this world. They are mysterious ways, sometimes seemingly small. They come in gestures and photos quietly dropped off and in food prepared as a matter of course for family, friends, and big groups of people. I could make an endless list. But we should be clear that all these things that we do and that are done for us are the work of love, of self-giving. As Christians, these acts fit into a much larger picture and make it more beautiful and vivid. They are part of our faith.

As Christians, we begin every day with our faith. If we’re staying at home, for whatever reason, we have our faith with us. When we cook or clean or fix or farm, or when we walk out the door, we take our faith with us. Because of that we can see two things better: where God is handing us marvelous gifts in something as simple as a photo, and where we can offer God’s love and grace through our own acts.

The Lord moves in mysterious, charming, life-giving, delightful, and comforting ways.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation

Many of us work on Labor Day and many of us don’t, for a wide variety of reasons. Here are some words for meditation today.

What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. I know that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by. ~ Ecclesiastes 3:9-15

A Labor Day Prayer:

May justice be done for all who work, but aren’t paid enough to live on.

May justice be done for all who work, but aren’t paid enough to live.

May justice be done for all who work, but aren’t paid enough.

May justice be done for all who work, but aren’t paid.

May justice be done for all who work.

May justice be done for all.

May justice be done.

Amen

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation
Tags: community, Ecclesiastes 3, Labor Day, meditation, prayer, spirituality

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Ah, the spam bots.

Posted in Miscellaneous
Tags: spam

William Shakespeare wrote the following:

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

According to a study, this is one of the regrets people have when they are in palliative care or hospice care. They are coming to terms with their own deaths and have the chance to consider the pattern of their lives. They report regretting that they didn’t have the courage to be true to themselves.

This phrase, “being true to ourselves,” can lead us away from our faith, for sure. People have used this phrase to justify their actions no matter how many people they hurt. It’s a funny way to imply we’re being honest: is it really an ultimate value of human life to be true to ourselves at all costs, and what does that mean? Saying whatever we want? Doing whatever we want? This phrase is very often cover for being self-centered and self-indulgent. Those who insist this is the most important thing in their lives often treat other people as though they were objects, things that don’t matter.

That’s why it’s important to read through the whole quotation from Shakespeare, which we find in his play Hamlet. The way he puts it, being true to ourselves has to do with sincerity and integrity. Most importantly, it has to do with how we treat other people. As Christians, we do not want to be false to anyone. We don’t want to be insincere, we don’t want to be manipulative, we don’t want to be cruel. We want to be true to other people, which means to show them respect and to take them seriously. We are accountable to them with the truth of our lives, instead of being self-centered.

One of the surest ways of doing this is being true to ourselves. Not in the sense that we think we’re more important than anyone else, but in the sense that we are particular beings, created by God. Paul writes about it in a few places, reminding us that the body of Christ would be nowhere if it didn’t have hearing or the ability to walk. Each one of us is a different part of the whole, working, healthy body of Christ. To be the ear or the foot or whatever part we are, we need to be who God has created us to be.

Catherine of Siena wrote “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” The world will be lit up and be warmed by our existence, and the body of Christ will glow like the sun with its most beautiful colors.

These quotations make the activity of being true to ourselves sound relatively easy. But it’s hard. It entails all sorts of things, like challenging people when we disagree with them, saying no to an outing so that we can spend time on the work God has created us to do, and it means knowing ourselves. This is why those at the end of their lives regret that they didn’t have the courage to be true to themselves. It is continual effort. They made compromises they didn’t feel good about, took jobs for the wrong reason, ignored what gave them joy.

I think it surprises us that being the people we are is vital to the life of praise we live with God as well as vital to the work God is doing to reconcile all things in heaven and on earth to Jesus Christ. But we cannot guarantee any outcome, either of our actions or our lives, or how God will use us, so all that is left to us is to be true to ourselves, to be the people God means us to be.

So then, it would seem that Shakespeare has a lot to offer us. “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man.” We submit all of ourselves to God as a gift in thanks for what God has given us: our very selves. Being true to ourselves is being true most of all to God who created us.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation, Vocation
Tags: calling and vocation, Catherine of Siena, ethics, Hamlet, integrity, spirituality, William Shakespeare