FOR THE NEW YEAR

GOD, IN THIS NEW YEAR, may I no longer be my own but yours. Put me to what you will; rank me with whom you will. Put me to doing; put me to suffering. Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you. Let me be full; let me be empty. Let me have all things; let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God — Creator, Redeemer, and Inspirer — you are mine, and I am yours. May this promise that I hereby make on earth be ratified in heaven. Amen.

- W. Paul Jones
An Adaptation of Wesley’s Watchnight Vows
An Eclectic Almanac for the Faithful

From p. 438 of An Eclectic Almanac for the Faithful by W. Paul Jones. Copyright © 2006 by the author


Perhaps it would be a good idea, fantastic as it sounds, to muffle every telephone and halt all activity for an hour some day to give people a chance to ponder for a few moments on what it is all about, why they are living, and what they really want.
— James Truslow Adams in the nineteenth century quoted in The Time Is Now by Daniel S. Wolk

Patient God...what I want is passionate days, wondrous days, dangerous days, blessed days, surprising days.
What I want is You!
I hold up my life to you now, as much as I can, as high as I can, in this mysterious reach called prayer. It is not new time, but new eyes, new heart I seek,... and You. Amen (Ted Loder, adapted)

Prayer for the New Year

O God of new beginnings and wonderful surprises, thank you for the gift of a new year. May it be a time of grace for me, a time to grow in faith and love, a time to renew my commitment to following Your Son, Jesus. May it be a year of blessing for me, a time to cherish my family and friends, a time to renew my efforts at work, a time to embrace my faith more fully. Walk with me, please, in every day and every hour of this new year, that the light of Christ might shine through me, in spite of my weaknesses and failings. Above all, may I remember this year that I am a pilgrim on the sacred path to You.

Amen

Christ, as a light
illumine and guide me.
Christ, as a shield
overshadow me.

Christ under me;

Christ over me;

Christ beside me
on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light;
Christ as a shield;
Christ beside me

on my left and my right.

A New Year's blessing prayer

From Edward Hays:

Lord, You who live outside of time,
and reside in the imperishable moment,
we ask Your blessing this New Year's Day
upon Your gift to us of time.

Bless our clocks and watches,
You who kindly direct us
to observe the passing of minutes and hours.
May they make us aware of the miracle
of each second of life we experience.
May these our ticking servants
help us not to miss that which is important,
while You keep us from machine-like routine.
May we ever be free from being clock watchers
and instead become time lovers.

Bless our calendars,
these ordered lists of days, weeks, and months,
of holidays, holydays, fasts and feasts --
all our special days of remembering.
May these servants, our calendars,
once reserved for the royal few,
for magi and pyramid priests,
now grace our homes and our lives.
May they remind us of birthdays and other gift-days,
as they teach us the secret
that all life
is meant for celebration
and contemplation.

Bless, Lord, this new year,
each of its 365 days and nights.
Bless us with new moons and full moons.
Bless us with happy seasons and a long life.
Grant to us, Lord,
the new year's gift
of a year of love.

Amen.

(From Prayers for the Domestic Church: A Handbook for Worship in the Home)

Prayer for New Year’s Day

We come like the magi,
as wise and as foolish men and women to kneel before the Christ child.
We bring our regrets from the past year,
our shame, our guilt,
acknowledging our failures and ready to begin afresh

Touch us with your hand of forgiveness
Help us also to forgive ourselves

We come like the shepherds,
from out on the rough hills of life,
bringing our memories
of danger, of suffering, of grief,
bearing our own hurts
and carrying the pain of those around us,
like lost lambs in our arms.

Sing to us your peace
Shine on us with the glow of your gentle comfort

We come like Mary and Joseph,
excited by new life,
promises of hope,
joys remembered from the past year, progress made,
achievements that light up our year.

Glory to God in the highest!
Take us on to Jerusalem!

We come also like Mary and Joseph
and the baby, fleeing from Herod,
at one with all who seek asylum
and languish too long in detention centres,
and with those who have not escaped
but wait for liberation

We open our hearts to make room for all whom you love
Move us and all who have power to move mountains.

We come like the baby wrapped in cloth
and laid in an animals' feeding trough,
looking at the faces of children everywhere
who suffer the effects of poverty and malnourishment,
and remembering those who still suffer
the impact of natural disasters
such as earthquakes, tsunamis
and failed crops.

Speak to us through the cries of the baby Jesus and the cries of all children.
Feed us with the good news of his gospel of love.

And now we must go to our Nazareth,
our Galilee, our Jerusalem, our New Year.
You will announce good news to the poor
and we want to be there.
You will reach out to the marginalised
and we want to be there.
You will meet us in deep communion,
in brokenness and life poured out
and we want to be there

We will stand by your cross
and share your risen life.
We greet you with the palms of peace:

Hosanna in the highest!
Welcome to our Jerusalem!
Welcome to our New Year!

Amen

prepared by William Loader

The Slaughter of the Innocents

The reading from Matthew this week includes the slaughter of the innocents. I think I have only preached on it once... too much reality to bear; or my need to linger in the softer sides of Christmas a little longer. I know I could exegetically ramble around on the need for Jesus to be called out of Egypt so we could have parallels with the Exodus story and the fulfillment of prophecy and so on. Other preachers and interpreters reminded me that this text is also meant to keep me from disconnecting the hope of Christ with this harsh world. The Word became flesh in this world. Jesus was born into this kind of political power struggle. It still exists. Just watch the news. The light shines in this darkness.
And then the day after Christmas my morning started with two funeral homes calling to schedule services for this Saturday. One was for a person in his late 50s who died suddenly the day before Christmas eve. His birthday also happened to be Dec. 24. A very harsh Christmas mix. Cruel Herod.
I also went to see a person who had spent Christmas in the hospital and then that afternoon drove my brother back to Moorhead . My brother’s life is a complicated story as well. It all felt like Christmas had come to a sudden end. Or does it “begin” in a more realistic way?

I would still like to linger around with Silent Night and ponder, with Mary, all this nativity in my heart. But instead it does feel more like an escape to Egypt or a time to run, lest I lose what innocence I might have; or succumb to cynicism. I can’t let Herod’s cruelty do its slaughtering of hope in me. It's a tragic story and a tragic happening, in both social reality and spiritual metaphor.

WE WORSHIP not a hidden God, covered, clothed in mystery, inaccessible. We worship God revealed — a child, born of humble means, forsaking glory to be one of us, one with us, Emmanuel. We worship God reconciling, giving life for us, and raised to new life, calling us by the Spirit to give our lives away for love.

- Alive Now

From cover 2 of Alive Now, November/December 2003. Copyright © 2003 by The Upper Room. All Rights Reserved

Christ is born

Words for repetition in prayer:
Merry Christmas
Light of Love
Spirit of Peace
Hope for all
Presence of God
Gift of Life
Joy of the World
Blessed New Year
Mystery
Simplicity
Song and Silence
.......Christ is born.

Being Naive for Christmas

The following is from Ron Rolheiser's article of the week:An Invitation Inside of Christmas and I would love to simply copy the whole piece..but instead refer you to his site; http://www.ronrolheiser.com

The American educator, Allan Bloom,..... tells how, as a young man taking his first university classes, a professor introduced his course in this way. Looking at his young, 19-20 year-old students, the professor said: "You come here from your small-town, parochial backgrounds and I am going to bathe you in great truth - and set you free." Bloom, even at 19, wasn't impressed. He writes that this professor reminded him of a little boy who had solemnly informed him when he was seven years old that there was no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. But, Bloom adds, "he wasn't bathing me in any great truth, he was showing off."

Bloom comments that what he learned from that professor was to forever teach in the opposite way. He, Bloom, would start his classes with words to this effect: "You come here having experienced so many things. You've seen so much of life that I'm going to try to teach you how to believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny again - and then maybe you will have a chance again to be happy!"

This, properly nuanced, captures one of the invitations inside of Christmas. The Christmas crib invites us back to our innocence, though not to the pre-sophisticated naivete of a child, but to the post-sophisticated and post-cynical joy and innocence of a truly mature adult, to a second-naivete, a post-liberal, post-bitter, post-wounded, and post-hard-hearted place.

One of my professors in Louvain used to flag this little slogan: If you ask a naive child if she believes in Santa and the Easter Bunny, she will say yes. If you ask a bright child if she believes in Santa and the Easter Bunny, she will say no. But if you ask even a brighter child if she believes in Santa and the Easter Bunny, she will smile slyly and then say yes.

Christmas is about much deeper things than Santa and the birth of Jesus is not just some delightful fairy tale meant to warm the heart. We measure time by this event. Christmas is about God being born physically and historically into this world and, among many other things, we have some stunning lessons to learn from the manner in which this happened.

As virtually all of our iconography around Christmas makes clear, God is born, not as some superstar whose earthly power, beauty, and muscle dwarf us. No. God is born as helpless, vulnerable, thoroughly under-whelming baby who looks out at us quietly even as we look back at him and he judges us in that way that vulnerability forever judges false strength, transparency judges lies, generosity judges selfishness, innocence judges over-sophistication, and a baby, gently and helplessly and disarmingly, calls forth what's best in us.

Christmas is meant to bring us back to the crib so that our hearts can feel that freshness that wants to make us start living over again.

end quote


Marcus Borg also writes about that "second naivete. "
Does Christmas invite me into this "naive" view that peace is God's will, and that we are all children of God, despite the headlines of the news? Can I be naive enough to believe that community with diversity is worth the effort? Can I naively believe that human hearts can move beyond the self centered ego? Can I believe that the Christ way really is the way to live? Maybe I will spend some of the day with things like prayer, and taking some communion elements to an elderly couple, and seeing a women in the care center, who has had a stroke, and won't know who I am anyway. I will try to be naive enough to think it is worth doing and that it too, could be the love of God.

Yesterday the Daily Spiritual Seed had this quote:

 "Every light that comes from Holy Scripture comes from the light
of grace.  This is why foolish, proud and learned people are blind
even in the light, because the light is clouded by their own pride
and selfish love.  They read the Scripture literally, not with
understanding.  They have let go of the light by which to Scripture
was formed and proclaimed. "
 - Catherine of Sienna -

Does being  faithfully naive mean reading scripture in that other
 light of understanding
that Catherine suggests?

Naively rambling?
Rory

Learning the Music

Sometimes people tell me things that easily become illustrations of the spiritual life.
One of our church members, Richard Slieter, remembered that his daughter had been learning to play viola in the school orchestra and every year the concert would begin with Pachelbel’s Canon in D. He recalled being a delighted, supportive and proud parent, even as these inexperienced, screeching sounds came forth from the viola. Each year the concert would begin again with Canon in D, and as the students, and their daughter learned the instruments and the music, the screeching lessened until the music was heard in its intended clarity and richness. Progress was made.

That’s how it is with our spiritual growth. A disciple is a student and a learner. We are all sacred music students! God has written this rich music for us and offers its vision to us and usually we are able to hum it or hear it deep in our minds (and souls) long before we are able to duplicate it with our own abilities and desires. Yet we pick up the available instruments of our lives, and begin to play the songs of faith, and hope and love. We begin with our screeching sounds that may seem hardly recognizable at first, to be the music of God. But God is that loving, encouraging parent or that music teacher who knows where we can, indeed, go with all of this! God still hears the score perfectly, beyond our abilities of the moment.

We are gathered again and again, year after year, or Sunday after Sunday so we can rehearse, listen to the music, catch the vision, encourage one another; sometimes with private lessons, but most often in the shared concert or “concerted” effort of being the church.

John Wesley , the founder of our Methodist way of being the church, spoke of “going on to perfection.” Maybe that means that we are, indeed, a work in progress, but there is a vision to that work and that progress. So we keep rehearsing toward it, and living into it. And sometimes, for a least a few measures, or perhaps on just some notes, we do get it right! And God keeps encouraging us with the music. Maybe that’s the opportunity represented by a New Year ; another rehearsal, another concert. Maybe you and I need to hear the call of the song again for 2008. Maybe we need to get back into the rehearsal schedules of prayer, worship, study and service; and re-visit the deeper desires of our hearts. Remember when you first got inspired by this Divine music? God is not the harsh music critic who will throw us off the stage. But more like the smiling, understanding parent, who wants us to keep growing and trying to reach the music suggested in the Holy Song Book.
So Happy New Year! Screeching is allowed.. I have, and will continue to do it often. But don’t give up. I have heard some wonderful notes this year in Park Church. We can play the tunes. Maybe that’s why the Christmas music, if we honor the 12 days of Christmas, will always be the music that takes us into the New Year calendar. Christ is born. “Sing unto the Lord a new song”. Pay attention to the conductor! Play on!

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet seen of old
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Another music student,
Pastor Rory

FYI This entry is also going to be my January church newsletter article

What's on your paper?

What if we asked ourselves the question "What is on my piece of paper?" I could see handing out this cartoon to a group as a reflection tool for faith sharing; thinking about my core belief. What would I share? Maybe this time of the year my piece of paper would simply say "Immanuel. God is with us. " Maybe that's what our Christmas cards are about, sharing our piece of paper!

This past weekend the Sunday School lead us in the 9:30 worship service. I had a sermon on Joseph at the 11:15 service that is posted on the sermon link.

Nick played his tuba at the mall on Saturday as part of the low brass "Tuba Christmas" concert. The Dispatch had a nice big picture showing him from the back.

....in the Advent of joy!

Council of Bishops Resolution on Iraq War

Here is the Resolution from our Bishops and I refer you to Bishop Sally Dyck's blog (see my side link) for some related conversation.

United Methodist Council of Bishops Resolution on the Iraq War

Whereas, the Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church, meeting Nov. 9 at Lake Junaluska, N.C., is committed to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world; and

Whereas, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, calls his followers to be peacemakers (Matt. 5:9); and

Whereas, "We believe war is incompatible with the teachings and example of Christ" (Book of Discipline 2004, Par. 165.C); and

Whereas, the cost of the war in Iraq as of Nov. 7, 2007 has been the lives of 3,843 members of the U.S. military, 171 members of the United Kingdom military, 132 members of the other Coalition military, 28,385 U.S. military wounded, and the lives of at least 76,241 Iraqi civilians; and

Whereas the war in Iraq has displaced 2 million persons and forced another 2 million persons into refugee status;

Whereas, every day the war continues more soldiers and innocent civilians are killed with no end in sight to the violence, bloodshed and carnage;

NOW, THEREFORE, THE COUNCIL OF BISHOPS calls on the President and Congress of the United States and the leaders of all the nations in the Coalition Forces:

• To begin immediately a safe and full withdrawal of all military personnel from Iraq, with no additional troops deployed;
• To declare that there will be no permanent military bases in Iraq;
• To increase support for veterans of the Iraq war and all wars;
• To initiate and give strong support to a plan for the reconstruction of Iraq, with high priority given to the humanitarian and social needs of the Iraqi people, such as healthcare, education and housing;

FURTHER, THE COUNCIL OF BISHOPS calls United Methodist people throughout the world:

• To pray for peace and to have regular prayer vigils for congregations and communities;
• To care for all impacted by the war, including combatants and noncombatants by honoring the dead, healing the wounded and calling for the end of the war;
• To be peacemakers by word and deed that we may be called the children of God.

Isaiah 11

Isaiah 11
lectio Divina
lingerings
reflections
interior ramblings

1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
And a branch shall grow out of his roots

New life, but in new shoots....a new way will come forth, not just as before...new locations...different, but of the same root, connected under neath it all

How will I look , expect, to see this in me, around me, beyond me; ...coming from the same root source...the eternal spirit root that is shared with Jesse, with David, with Christ. The same root bringing forth, growing persistently in me. What, of the spiritual life, is growing, breaking forth to the surface, or still pushing beneath the earth? Hidden, but still to come. Trust the roots.


2 The Spirit of the LORD shall rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge

How will I seek and be open, be taught and formed to this Spirit? Scripture, prayer, teachers of this Way. The gifts are given...Spiritual transformation for this.


3 He will not judge by what his eyes see
or decide by what he hears with his ears;

O God, see me, and know me, in ways deeper than what others can see of me and what my ego reveals to the world, and what I say to myself and others,
not to be judged by deeds, or lack of them, but search me and know me,,as I am , to you,
More than I even know myself. Grace, to see others as you see.


4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.


And then when I can love the poor and the needy in me, ..then will I be able to respond more faithfully, genuinely, eagerly, generously to the poor and meek of this earth?

He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.

God, will you remove the wickedness, the slanderous and hurtful in me, remove from me what I cannot seem to take out of myself?

Will I let you transform me, change me,

with breath of your lips,
with the breath of your spirit and your words,
when you breathed on the disciples, you inspired them with breath of intimacy,
life force,, re-created in them, breathing a new Adam
in the wind-spirit of God, of a new Genesis
will I be close enough, stay close enough to feel your breath, and be a new person, new breath of life? Out of breath
Do not run from the breathing.

Silence, stillness, listening, for the inspiration. ...catching our breath

5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

Will I be dressed and ready to do this work,,will justice be my uniform, my new form, my work belt.?

6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.

Will I let this chosen (Christ) child, or this child of God-life, in me,
lead me?

7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

8 The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest.

Will the wolf, the leopard, the bear, the lion, the viper,
the violent, the uncontrollable, and the venomous in me, be calmed,
to let the young, the child, the vulnerable and growing in me,
the future in me, to grow in sanctuary
of shalom

9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea

Is all the earth your Holy mountain now, your dwelling place, your revealing place?


as the waters cover the sea...
Will I be this full, immersed, baptized in this presence, this knowing, this truth,
Am I already this surrounded,...
but not knowing?


Advent hope
Christ is this image
be born in us today,
in me today and again and again
a child, a vision, a shalom, a Word breath of God,
become flesh
in me, in all creation.

lectio divina

Another site suggestion, with Mary thoughts

Its 7:15 Am. Nick has been taken to school. I have a cup of coffee already in me. I have read my usual blog devotions, but in a rush, and reviewed and printed out the notes I need for a funeral service this morning but here is another favorite site of mine. This one follows the lectionary. Check it out. I will probably add it as a link listing.
http://www.journeywithjesus.net

This week at Journey with Jesus, Sara Miles writes about Mary. So I am thinking about the Annunciation...and my own schedule and waking to the day. What was Mary doing when this messenger and message came to her? Surely she did not live alone , would have been part of an extended household, ...and what were the chores of that Galilean peasant girl? Did this visitation come to her before dawn, was the light rising? Was she fully awake? Had she been preparing a meal, washing a dish, walking to the well, mending a garment; was she tending children in an extended family, busy with a routine day? Had she slipped away for just a moment...did this come to her in some thought of prayer? Or...was it like the way the word of God comes to us today ...sometimes .... between the cracks of a busy day, during the day....in rushed devotions, caring for the family.... working along,....but the day goes on,and we keep going back to that 'in breaking", and carry it along, in the rest of the day..until it breaks wide open,,in our soul, into a new kind of daylight, until something new is conceived, and born? Maybe it begins with a pregnant thought...and nothing is the same.
Luke does not say. So we, like Mary... wonder, "how this could be?"
John simply says.... the Word became flesh.

Another blog referral

When I started this blog I said I would use this space to pass on other blogs, quotes, and places of interest as part of my rambles- as in rambling with my words, my rambling thoughts, and also rambling around on the internet!
So here is a quote and a place to go:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything. We would like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new....Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Rev Sally Johnson, on staff at Hennepin Ave, has a more reflective blog that I check into now and then. She used this quote recently. Go to
http://blogs.haumc.org/pause

Please go read this.

Since Advent brings us to John the Baptist and and the wilderness, calling us to repent
and Isaiah 11 points us to a re-visioned shalom, this would be a good time to read some of Brian Mclaren's thinking at
www.tpmcafe.com/blog/tableforone/2007/dec/03/christianity_as_a_global_threat

"Christianity as a Global Threat"....the title alone should pique your curiosity!
Maybe just thinking about something you might disagree with or feel uncomfortable with, or agree with..but you don't quite now what to do with...
can be a doorway to repentance.

For the Advent Adventure

I, God, am your playmate!
I will lead the child in you in wonderful ways,
for I have chosen you.

— Metchild of Magdeburg (1217-1277)
quoted in You Already Know What to Do
by Sharon Franquemont
...from the Spirituality and Practice website

How will you let God lead you to some Christmas wonder and child-like delight...do you need to play!

MESSAGE OF THE DAY from a Daily Spiritual Seed
http://shalomplace.com/seed

Advent is the perfect time to clear and prepare the Way.
Advent is
a winter training camp for those who desire peace.
By reflection and prayer, by reading and meditation,
we can make our hearts a place where a blessing
of peace would desire to abide and where the
birth of the Prince of Peace might take place.
- Edward Hays, "A Pilgrim's Almanac"

We are in ADVENT, 
JOY AND PEACE!
RORY

School levy comments, and moving ahead

I submitted this to the Dispatch on Friday morning but it's too long for a Letter to the Editor, its not my turn for the Clergy View and they have already printed some excellent guest columns that were more eloquent. I will at least blog post it. (Printed in Dec. 4 Dispatch.)


I want to thank the Dispatch for printing Superintendent Jerry Walseth’s words that urge us to look ahead at what we are going to do for our future. He is asking for community members to get involved, for new volunteers to come forward and he is inviting the business community to do some brainstorming; for all of us to be part of the solution. His message needs repeating and highlighting.
As considerate readers, let me offer an analogy , imperfect as it is, from my own experience.
In 1997 I lived in Ortonville, one of the many Minnesota communities that experienced that early spring flooding. I saw a range of responses. Let me offer these four observations.

1) There were those who acted, quite independently, to protect their own property and interests. They did their own sandbagging and encircled their houses. While I applaud their initiative, it was too narrow. They were interested in only protecting their own turf. It seldom worked.
Others came together, cooperatively, and would sandbag entire blocks or groups of homes, even if the property owners were living out of the area. They looked out for each other. They benefited from each other’s expertise and energy. They tended to have more success and in the process, created deeper levels of community.
But then, there were a few exceptional stories that made headlines. We heard of a small community that came together and built dikes and sandbags around the whole town. They were an island of community surrounded by those threatening waters. I would hope that our Brainerd area could lean toward the larger image of all of us working for the good of the whole community, far beyond individual turf protection;looking out for all of us, for the best future we can create in these circumstances.

2) In that flood experience there was the even more threatening emotional flood. We certainly have that happening here today in the full range of emotions. Part of the community work was to have venues for listening and caring as lives were relocated, disrupted, and grief was experienced.. That too was a deliberate response of the community. It was being “people” together. Whether that gets formally done or not, lets model that sensitive, respectful spirit for those who will be losing jobs, traditions, experiences and school identities. This is not just a civic matter to me, but a moral and spiritual imperative.

3) In Ortonville, as I’m sure other communities had also, we had weekly coordination team meetings. (The disaster response team.) It was a cross section of community leadership. We needed accurate information. We needed to know what responses were possible and the resources available. Who is doing what, when, where, how? Can we create these forums here in the Brained School District community? Many of us do not know what the state or school guideline are for providing volunteer and financial support. Civic and service groups, faith communities, etc, could benefit from such a shared problem solving process. None of us, individually, has the solutions. Who might convene such a group? Could one of our churches host such gatherings? Ideas?

4) Care for the care givers is absolutely critical. They need to be able to the work as best they can. In Ortonville, while my wife and I joined high-school students, fire department workers, and a host of others on the sand bag lines sometimes late into the night, others provided childcare or other services. I was blessed to have church officials, my bishop and other pastors just calling to check in with me. Again, it was all about support. We have a school board and other school personnel that are working long and anxious hours, making agonizing decisions on our behalf. There is nothing easy about this. They need our active support and our encouragement, thoughts, prayers.

The actions we make in the months ahead, will determine not just the shape and spirit of our school, but our community. We all know what kinds of words will help and what words will hinder and hurt. We can personally choose to limit the flood damage of words that would hurt us, and be the healthy neighbors that have found new, creative ways to work together. The future and reputation of our community is being made now, one way or the other. Let’s be the exceptional story of how to move ahead!

Ramble of the Day

My friend, Jeff Fillian, has started (re-started) a lectionary discussion site at http://www.kerygmata.com.
I pass it on to any homileticians who might wander this way. Jeff was a classmate of mine back in Morningside College in Sioux City IA. For our senior year, we were ready to move out of dorm life so Jeff, Mark Haines, and I rented the basement level of a home occupied by an elderly women who lived on the main level. Part of our rent was to put out her trash, clean a few flower beds, shovel snow, and just be around in case she needed help. I remember that we were able to pull our often failing cars into the garage and work on them in there on winter days rather than out in a school lot or on the street.
When Beth and I got married (20 years ago!) at the Beech Creek UMC in Clay County Kentucky, Jeff was one of the three clergy participating in the ceremony and he was our Eucharistic celebrant. When I was going through the Home Missionary commissioning process through the General Board of Global Ministries, National Division, (Could we United Methodists come up with any longer Department names!) Jeff came over to see me at the Penta Hotel in New York City, and got me back to the airport the next day. At the time he was serving a church, I believe, over in Queens. He is originally from Connecticut and is a Drew seminary grad. He is currently letting his Methodist roots return to their Anglican origins and is active in an Episcopal church in the Chicago area. Anyway,.... a long way of plugging his site!

In other news from around here, while this is not the first snow, it is the first real snow that you could actually get a car stuck in or needed shovels and snow blowers. When I was removing the snow on our driveway I thought of how I used to make a special effort to pile up the snow in ways that would be fun for Nick and Sara to climb on or make forts in, but that has changed. No more kids wanting to play in the front yard snow piles. When did that happen? Although, after the roads were plowed and salted, I trusted Nick to drive himself over to the high school hill for some sliding and sledding with his friends. Maybe some day I will have to find a little kid to make "snowmen" with again.
I like the snow. I like the way it looks on the trees. I like the brightness of the snow cover. I like the feel of it all. It even changes the smells and sounds of the outdoors. The winter blue jays have been here for awhile and they look better in the snow too. Years ago I enjoyed some winter camping along with the cross country skiing. I have a few winter stories to tell but can't seem to find anyone who really wants, or needs, to hear them!

This Sunday the snowfall reduced the worship attendance a bit. Beth's 7:30 AM flight out of Brainerd got canceled so she took a ground shuttle on to Minneapolis, got flights re-scheduled, and was in Boston's Logan airport this afternoon, ready to complete the last leg to her destination in New Hampshire.
On Saturday, Park Church and Light of the Lakes Church had its first Women's Candlelight Evening. The speaker was coming from another part of the state so the weather added some travel concerns but the attendance for that event was still near one hundred percent. We had coat check services, vocal music, piano, flute, violin, cello, fine catered meal, detailed decorations, each table hostess brought her finest china and holiday ware...and of course candle light. It was a ministry of hospitality.
I will try to get this morning's sermon posted to the blog tomorrow.

Park Church below, pre-snow

Good Words from the Upper Room Reflections

SOMETIMES WE SEEM to … adopt a one-size-fits-all paradigm of the spiritual disciplines that we all “ought” to live by. Without meaning to, we may adopt the idea (and convey to others) that we should all pray in this way, for this long, about these things, in this order; read this much of the Bible; give this much time each week; journal every day; and ________________ (add here your own personal practice that you feel guilty about not doing or not doing well enough). … But relationship with God is not a matter of rules. God invites us, instead, into an open-ended relationship.

- Mary Lou Redding
The Power of a Focused Heart

From pp. 57-58 of The Power of a Focused Heart: 8 Life Lessons from the Beatitudes by Mary Lou Redding. Copyright © 2006 by the author. Published by Upper Room Books

Quotes to Share

Some thoughts,
passed on,
for the day;

Wendell Berry: “Perhaps the greatest disaster of human history is one that happened to, or within, religion: that is the conceptual division between the holy and the world, the excerpting of the Creator from creation.”
----------------------------------------------------

To be with God is really to be involved with some enormous, overwhelming desire, and joy, and power which you cannot control, which controls you. God is a means of liberation and not a means to control others.
- James Baldwin
Nobody Knows My Name
copied from Sojourners Verse and Voice


-----------------------------------------------------

from today's Spirituality and Practice post:

WHY NOT BE POLITE
Everyone
Is God speaking.
Why not be polite and
Listen to
Him?
— Hafiz quoted in The Gift translated by Daniel Ladinsky

To Practice This Thought: Listen for all the varieties of God's speech.
--------------------------------------------------------

And ...Wednesday's post from the Upper Room Reflections

GOD,
your mystery
is woven around me
like a shawl
that invites me to rest.
Transform and renew me.
Amen.

- Alive Now

From p. 60 of Alive Now, July/August 2006. Copyright © 2006

Weekly Ramble

A Long Ramble through The Past Week.
With several topics:

We had a nice Thanksgiving Day with the usual menu. But Beth made up some stuffing with tofu to accommodate Nick’s vegetarian wishes. There was also a little bit of ham for me since I am not much of a turkey fan. Growing up we often had potato sausage on the menu too. We made our own and the tradition continues with my sister and her family in Arizona. It was a quieter stay- at-home kind of day, the kind of day we were all desiring. I enjoy the thought of just having ‘all the family home.” I have heard my dad say how nice that is and I wish I had been home more often to give him that good feeling.

I was looking at the Parsonage Open House date (Dec. 9) coming soon----and the fact that swimming would be starting for Nick, Sara would be back to college and Beth had some travels scheduled so I commandeered a work force to get up the outside Christmas lights, pulled the Christmas tree and ornament boxes out of their hiding places, and we got the tree up; all in time for Nick and Sara to invite about 20 high school and college kids over to the house on Saturday night (on short notice!) Actually that was the day we had also decided to clean out closets so I could drop off things at Goodwill. So we had a pile of clothes in the middle of the dining room floor just two hours before the party. But it all got done.

Sunday afternoon after church I was the "college shuttle" driver with student deliveries to the University of Minnesota and to Hamline.

Monday I headed to St Cloud as part of the Fall Gateway Clergy Retreat.
My Gateway group plans to continue with its experiences at the Episcopal House of Prayer.
Here is the Oratory

On Tuesday Bishop Dyck unveiled the new district lines. It will be the Plan B model (see my earlier blog entry for the map.) Brainerd is in the Big Waters District.

The Whittier and Lincoln School closings in Brainerd have been announced and those two schools are very much a part of Beth’s position as The Literacy Collaborative coordinator so we are still uncertain of what that will mean. I know for some in our church and community those school closings have very clear and direct consequences as school staffs and classrooms and identities will be disbanded and lost. Beth used to teach at Lincoln so I got familiar with that building too. Keep this whole thing: people and process in your prayers. We have some in Park church facing loss of employment and I believe that in the church we can model a better sense of respect and sensitivity than what has been displayed in the newspaper’s Vox Pox and the Letters to the Editor.

On another note; there was a letter to the editor in the Dispatch in which a person was threatening to boycott any merchant that said ‘Happy Holidays” to him instead of “Merry Christmas”. I think I understand what the person is trying to say. He is feeling that his Christian faith is being threatened and that would , of course, raise a person's temper. Maybe the person has been listening to John Gibson and Bill O Reilly’s take on the "war on Christmas." I don’t buy the book or the reasoning. Personally I would be very concerned if I felt my faith required the support of the government or some large corporate interests. I would rather think that it can exist without that dependence. Christianity began, and the Christian scriptures were written at a time, and for a setting when the church was certainly not the pre-dominant culture. Our beginnings were in the hostile environment of the Roman empire and the marketplace was a market place of competing religions as well. The gods (under many names) of prosperity, power, success and pleasure were selling well back then too.
I am probably an old fashioned religious conservative because I would just as soon have the merchants of today keep my sacred church language out of their commercialized profit ventures. If Christmas is a holy word, then I would like it to be used in holy ways. For years, even though I know that my local merchants need strong December sales, I have been among (the majority) church voices that have cautioned, moaned and warned us about the commercialized, advertised, consumerized and secularized Christmas (even though I too, participate in it..confession!).
Now that some merchants are actually dropping the religious words we have been trying to protect...we are angry about it!!? Maybe they are finally doing what we have been asking them to do? We might now have a better chance of keeping ‘Christ in Christmas”. If you want Christmas, maybe you should expect to find it at a church or in some expression of Christian servanthood, rather than at a retail center or a public square.

And I really don’t mind “Happy Holidays”. Holidays is short for holy days, and I would like to have someone wish me “Happy Holy Days.” These are Holy Days for me. And, in the generous and loving spirit of Christ, (the real Christmas spirit) I want to practice hospitality toward others and I don’t want to force my religious will over others. That deeper respect for others seems to be the Christ way. Could we especially model that in the month of December? Our nation could use much more of that. We Christians, could perhaps model community and loving respect, within diversity, as a kind of Christmas gift to our multi-cultural country! That would be a great witness. The Peace-making of Christmas. I think Luke's Gospel said that it was included in the message.

Or.....maybe we could simplify the whole thing, and still keep the economy going, by following what I saw in the store windows of Cuba back in 1981. In an officially secular society they had red and green signs that spoke of the Season of Giving. You could support your merchants and add your own interpretation of the giving!

Maybe I will stick with greeting people to have a “ watchful and adventurous advent!” After all this really is advent season before Christmas season. Then when Christmas comes around on December 24/25th. I can start with 'Merry Christmas" just about the time when the stores are moving on to the next sales event!

Pray for peace or steps in the right direction in the Israel/Palestine talks, and in Iraq , Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma/ Myanmar , Congo, Dar fur...and ..and....so many places.
pray for peace in your heart, your life, your own words and actions.
Peace.

Enough “Rambles” for now. Maybe I have raised some issues and eyebrows. You can comment on the blog or can e-mail me at roryswen@gmail.com.

A Blog Bonus

I didn't realize how much a blog could be a way of connecting to people with whom I had gotten out of touch. Today my cousin, Jennifer, in Tacoma Washington called to say she had been to the blog, and then just wanted to call. I hadn't seen her since she and my uncle (her dad) came to visit us in Ortonville about 14 years ago. Her call made my day. Thanks Jennifer, if you are reading this!

Park Church hosted a Thanksgiving eve service tonight. For several years now we have partnered and alternated being the host church with the Congregational UCC which is just across the corner block from us. Deb Celley from the UCC church preached this year. This worship service is also also known as "Pie night." Pies are brought to the church, and a slice or two is taken out of the pies for the social time after the service and then the pies go to the Moose Lodge where they are served at the community thanksgiving dinner. The offering tonight went to the local Sharing Bread Soup Kitchen and to the Food Shelf. The Soup kitchen numbers had risen in the last few weeks and they have had some attendance over 100 with more children, youth and families showing up.
Other than that, I checked the hospital, visited a couple of people in some assisted living apartments, had the Wednesday Bible study (lectionary group) a few other "in office" visits, some administrative paper work, worked on sermons and bulletins. ..all in all, an easy day. Since I had worked on Monday (the day off) with a funeral for a women who died at the age of 48 after a 5 year struggle with cancer, I think I was due for an easy day.
For Thanksgiving I am hoping to slip into deep introvert mode....a family at home day!
This year Nick has a 7 Am "early bird" class that usually gets us out the door well before 6:30 so getting to skip the alarm clock tomorrow sounds great!
Rambling on.

One of Sara's poems

You could link over to Sara's writing blogs and read this but I have permission to copy it here . Her site has mostly short stories and vignettes, but some times she does a poem. She wrote this one last night.

IF I WERE A POEM (c) Sara Swenson - November 2007

I ride a purple unicycle on the spiraled lines of time
up and down
against sea-sick gravity,
with a mouth full of cosmic dust
the kind of stuff you only taste
on merry-go-rounds, with your head hanging off to one side
and
somebody's sneakers kicking up gravel next to your nose
(dizzy spinning)
I wish
I
could
(sometimes)
backpedal time
and laugh a little longer
with strong white, teeth, like stars shining back at the universe
just laugh so long.

but life is linear and so am I
balanced precariously
I cry pearl tears and ride, ride, ride
just pedal strong
like scraped knees
faster faster faster forward
because I can't go back

I
ride
I
pedal strong across this thin line of
acrobatic fishing line
tight rope walker
playing games
I
ride
I
pedal strong
I,
balancing, ride
this thin, thin line
strung like spider's silk: a web
my life
strung
soft among the stars
I ride
I ride
I ride
and laugh
my spiraled lines
of time
strung soft
strung soft
strung soft
across
this golden
universe.
-

Small Christmas

This will be my article for the December church newsletter; blog readers get an advance copy. So when the newsletter comes you can get on to the rest of the articles!

Think Small for Christmas.
That would be counter cultural for much of our society and Christmas traditions.
Businesses are hoping for big holiday sales.
Some people are looking for big parties. We like to see the big Christmas decoration light shows or big Christmas trees. We get tricked into thinking that bigger is better and I admit that I would love to have big crowds for church on Christmas eve!

But apparently God is willing to do things small, think small, go small; a baby in a little town with not much of a crowd, a mother, a father, and a few socially small shepherds. For a glimpse there was a “multitude” of the heavenly host. But it was to a small audience. Later on perhaps magi. How many? This chapter, this opening chapter of our gospel story is all about small beginnings. It is central to the message itself.

Joan Chittister, a contemporary Benedictine writer, in her book, Becoming Fully Human, has a chapter: “Do the little Things Matter?” She uses the Christmas story to answer much of that question:
“There is a secret to the spiritual life.... Every spiritual master in every spiritual tradition talks about the significance of small things in a complex world. Small actions in social life, small efforts in the spiritual life, small moments in the personal life. All of them becoming great in the long run, the mystics say, but all of them look like little or nothing in themselves.. .....Christmas itself is the call to recognize the significance of smallness; to realize what each of us can and must become if we ever are to become fully human....maybe we will come to understand the real miracle of Christmas; Jesus came to us as a child so that we might come to understand not only that nothing we do is insignificant but that every small thing we do has within it the power to change the world.” (P.115f)

As part of the Spiritual Life Class we read these words from St. Theresa of Lisieux .“Each small task of everyday life is part of the total harmony of the universe .” Or again from Chittister: Every word, every action, every effort of our lives has a ripple effect. Because of us, others will do more or do less to co-create this world. “Every action of our lives,” Edwin Hubble Chapin wrote, “touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.” What do you want to hear played there on your account?
(Maybe it should be Christmas music?”)

This kind of thinking could simplify the business of Christmas! Maybe you can do “Christmas in a small way” but trusting in great, unseen influences. Say a loving and long awaited word, spend a timely moment with someone, hold a hand, write a letter, make a phone call, be in silence, make a donation, take someone new out for coffee, do a kind deed, plant a tree, pass on an heirloom, share a memory. Re-arrange your schedule. Make room for the sacred.
Christmas invites us to believe in “small"...as in mustard seeds or Bethlehem.
Or perhaps small as in, "each of us”...personally and as a church.
I suspect that we all wonder or have doubts about our impact or significance in this great big world. Christmas can answer that concern for us. We can all do something. It doesn’t have to be that big!
So have yourself a "Merry Little Christmas"


And this: separate from the newsletter article, but a nice pairing, from Richard Rohr quoted in today's inward/outward.
(inward/ outward sited this blog once for the Pavarotti story so I can return the favor?)

By Richard Rohr

Our ordinary lives are given an extraordinary significance when we accept that our lives are about something much larger, our pain is a participation in the redemptive suffering of God, our creativity is the very passion of God for the world. No longer do we need to self-validate, self-congratulate or self-doubt—our place in the cosmos is assured. I do not need to be the whole play or even understand the full script. It is enough to know that I have been chosen to be one actor on the stage. I need only play my part as well as I can.

Source: Jesus’ Plan for a New World

And a picture for fun!

The Dining Room

My son, Nick, is in the Brainerd High School Play “The Dining Room.”
Friday night was opening night and we have tickets for all three performances.

A.R. Gurney wrote the play as a commentary on northern New England WASP culture and he uses the setting of a Dining Room to give us 18 vignettes. The center of the Dining Room is of course, a dining room table. Around and near the table we see and hear dramas of life, love relationships, family activities, joys, sorrows, rituals of propriety, romantic affairs, birthday parties, perceived insults and issues of shame and family honor, dreams unfulfilled, a women wanting to come home because there is no where else to go; an aged father giving funeral instructions to a son, a turkey dinner strained by the dementia of the family matriarch, conversations of money, politics, sexuality and values,..and in the end, a vision of a perfect dinner party...and through it all, there is a table.

The religious symbolism for me came early whether Gurney intended or not: human life and a table. A table of welcome . A table of some authority and history. A communion table. Some times it has healed us and called us, sometimes it has not been well presented and becomes a cause of division and distress. As in the play, sometimes we argue about the table, what its proper uses are and who should control it.
But finally it remains, and it too holds fast for a larger vision of hospitality. In the end it is a witness of Presence and hope.
No doubt a few dining rooms and tables will “come into play” this week for Thanksgiving with gatherings of family and friends. May they be tokens of the Greater Dining Table. May they “play well” as a place of family. The play ends in a toast, for all the gathered characters; "To all of us."

The Almost Blogs

I notice that I have not had much in the blog of a personal nature. The "almost blogs" that could have been more personal were as follows:
Dad's new pacemaker, installed on Halloween in Thief River Falls and I was glad to be up there for the the day. He is doing well. Mom and Dad are in Arizona now for the winter.

The school operating levy referendum for Brainerd did not pass. It caught me off guard. That topic begs to have larger conversation on the tax structures and economy of school support, but in the meantime we wait to see what it means for Beth's employment and Nick's high school years. His interests areas in debate, drama, swimming and (AP) Advance Placement classes; are all at risk. I am thinking of all the school employees in the congregation that are living with some high anxiety right now.

Beth and I spent spent Saturday with Sara at Hamline (Nick was off to a Youth in Government event) and did some visiting in St Paul; Garrison Keillor's bookstore, St Paul Cathedral, a bakery; supper at the Hamline dining hall and then a fine music concert. (Sara's French horn is still getting some use.) On Thursday we had Nick's band concert, it was fun too. With Sara back in the French Horn section sometimes it was hard to see her. Nick plays tuba; not so easy lost in the crowd!
Sunday morning I preached at Light of the Lakes while Jeff was at Park church. At 2 pm I had a memorial service for a woman who died at the age of 51, after a three year struggle with cancer. I did not know her or the immediate family but I knew something of what I wanted to say; what I always want to say; about the presence of God, and life, and love, and the mystery of influences that we do not know how to name, and I know how to say thanks for the uniqueness of a life.

From there it was off to Home Depot to buy plastic to cover the screen porch for winter. There is probably some small analogy or metaphor there..how we try to plastic off the winter; seal it out, and we feel better as if we have done something to protect ourselves...but not really.
Its only plastic, a thin layer covering a small space, that I will fill up with unused summer things, like bikes and chairs, lawnmower and garden hoses. Winter is the same- physically, emotionally, spiritually... it is there. I expect it and even trust it. But I need the illusion and the space. ...to think I have done something to prepare and control.

In the evening we had the second to the last session of the Spiritual Life class. The material combined "doubt" and "questioning" as if they were the same. But they are not. I tagged a few of my PowerPoint quotes on the end of this blog entry.
Today was a day off. Still watching the Estimate of Giving projections in time for the Finance Committee on Tues. Did some housework, made spaghetti, ran some errands and got some groceries, filled the bird feeders, strolled out for two walks, read some Mary Oliver poems.
Asked myself how much of a poet I would be, to just be?


still unblogged :
Church Conference was Oct 28th, the annual Swedish Meatball Supper was Nov 5 with about 550 served; Had the All Saints Service on Nov 4. We had 16 names to read , to remember. ....people ask me if its hard to do services for people you don't know. I tell them its harder for me when I do know them. 16 people that I got to know.
Went to say goodbye to Ray Koehn, church member who chaired the mission committee when I first came here, and was the "usher" for the chapel at Woodland when I went there for services. He is moving to be closer to family in Paynesville. I will miss him.
Maybe I need another roll of plastic.

Those were the Almost Blogs



Nov 11 Spiritual Life class, the additional notes

True, deep-down goodness is never a matter of mere compliance with laws. Deep-down goodness shows itself in spontaneous generosity, uncalculating kindness, and unstinted love. It is itself inspired by a vision of goodness'
(Westerholm, Understanding Matthew:The Early Christian Worldview of the First Gospel, 53).


God did not create us to watch us like a scientist,
but to dance with us like a lover.”
Brian Robertson


“You need a pilgrimage.
Begin by closing your mouth.”
From the sayings of the Egyptian Fathers



Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. --Paul Tillich


Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves.-- Rainer Maria Rilke


"The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth."
Pierre Abelard


Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.
F Buechner

Nov 4th class notes

Nov 4th Power Point notes for Spiritual Life Class


“God Speaks to the Soul
and God said to the soul:
I desired you before the world began.
I desire you now
As you desire me.
And where the desires of two come together
There love is perfected.”
- Mechthild of Magdeburg
- Translated by Oliver Davies


We must offer ourselves to God like a clean, smooth canvas and not worry ourselves about what God may choose to paint on it, but at each moment, feel only the stroke of His brush.
— Jean Pierre de Caussade quoted in The Inner Treasure by Jonathan Star

There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.
— Rumer Godden in A House with Four Rooms

GOD of surprises,
as we walk through the day,
keep our eyes open
and our senses tuned
to your presence
in unexpected places.
Amen.
- Beth A. Richardson
Child of the Light
From page 87 of Child of the Light: Walking through Advent and Christmas

“The mystery of God touches us -- or does not -- in the smallest details: giving a strawberry, with love; receiving a touch, with love; sharing the snapdragon red of an autumn sunset, with love. “
- Marion Woodman, "Coming Home to Myself "

Faith is like trusting in a deep ocean…if you struggle, if you tense up, if you trash about, you will eventually sink. But if you relax and trust, you float… Faith…is trusting in the buoyancy of God. Faith is trusting in the sea of being in which we live, and move, and have our being
Marcus Borg quoted on 126 of Habits

To have faith is not only to raise one’s eyes to God…; it is also to look at this world but with Christ's eyes…We must pray to have sufficient faith to know how to look at life.
Michel Quoist 128

Our whole business in this life is to restore health to the eyes of the heart, whereby God may be seen.
St Augustine

"God wishes to be seen, and wishes to be sought, and wishes to be expected, and wishes to be trusted."
Julian of Norwich .p 131 of Habits

"I can't point to any one time in the last dozen years I ‘got’ faith. There were- and are- many moments, nudges, and jolts that incubated my faith and helped it grow."

Kathleen Norris p134 Habits

Nothing more tedious than practicing your scales or mumbling your beads. Yet the accomplishments of art, the efficacy of prayer, the beauty of ritual, and the force of character depend on petty repetitions any instant of which, taken for itself alone, seems utterly useless.
— James Hillman in The Force of Character and the Lasting Life

…writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way…
…. so also with faith.
adapted from pg 134 in Habits

MY LORD GOD,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Three More Referrals

Three more notes for the day. Referrals:
The United Methodist Reporter is still around and it is on the web. You can even set it up as your homepage. Go to http://www.umportal.org.

I especially enjoyed Sara's writing piece entitled "After Midnight, We go Walking" Her writing site is on my links. Check it out!

Park Church is a model welcoming congregation at the Igniting Ministry website.
www.ignitingministry.org and then look under the model welcomers.

Redistricting

FYI
in both of these models Brainerd would be in the "Big Waters" district. In model "B" we are the upper northwest corner of that district. So what do you think?
The number listed in each district is the number of churches.

Redistricting

Minnesota Annual Conference Redistricting Process

Here are two of the models of redistricting proposed by the Bishop and Cabinet.
Annual Conference voted at its last session to go to 5 districts. You can read the Bishop's blog on this and also go to to the link above.

More class notes

The Habit of Serving Oct 28 Spiritual life Class


Jesus gives us "real eyes" to "realize" where the "Real lies."
Richard Rohr, Jesus' Plan for a New World

Barbara Brown Taylor
“The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become
living words in the world for God’s sake.”

To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against. Christina Baldwin

Suzanne Farnham, et al
It is in the here and now, the ordinary situation of normal life, that we find God. A true call is likely to be modest in scope. If we try to save the world, we become immobilized.
There are stories from our lives through which God is trying to tell us things we need to know. We need to identify those stories, tell them, and try to sort them out…. By observing what we do, we can discover what we believe and value. Our past actions, our previous choices, the roads we have taken - all hold clues to who we are becoming. There is a connection between our temperaments and talents, and our call. We are called to work with the gifts we have been given.
Source: Listening Hearts (from inward/outward)

People say, "What good can one person do? What is the sense of our small effort?" They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time. We can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment. But we can beg for an increase of love in our hearts that will
vitalize and transform all our individual actions, and know that God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fishes.
- Dorothy Day
from Loaves and Fishes


Anne Lamott talks about the most important thing that she ever did in her life. She is sitting and is worried about the world and about what we are doing. She said, “And then I did the single most important thing one can do to save the world: I got up off my butt."
Grace (Eventually)

KEEPER OF OUR DAYS, only we can risk the unknown and not cling to the familiar, we will learn of your grace and strength.Amen.
- Richard Morgan Settling In: My First Year in a Retirement Community
From page 30

Spiritual Life class notes for Oct 21

“All your love, your stretching out, your hope, your thirst, God is creating in you so that (God) may fill you….God is on the inside of the longing.”
Maria Boulding Quoted in Soul Feast p. 31

When God breaks in…a new generosity emerges, one that is joyous, spontaneous and free… A new stewardship that cares deeply for all of Gods created order, including the earth and its fullness – people, animals and things.” Edward J. Farrell . 105 in Habits

When we let go of money we are letting go of part of ourselves and part of our security. But this is precisely why it is important to do it. It is one way to obey Jesus' command to deny ourselves… . When we give money we are releasing a little more of our egocentric selves and a little more of our false security… . Giving frees us to care. It produces an air of expectancy as we anticipate what God will lead us to give. It makes life with God an adventure in the world, and that is worth living for and giving for.  Richard J. Foster, The Challenge of the Disciplined Life

It is more blessed to give than to receive, but then it is also more blessed to be able to do without than to have to have.
Soren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers

Money often costs too much.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

For those who want to save their life--cling to it, try to protect it--will lose it; and those who lose their life--who give away themselves--will find life.

Billy Graham:
If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.

Make all you can,
save all you can,
give all you can.
- John Wesley

But, here's the thing: Jesus' essential message seems to be that the joyful life, the fulfilled life, is a life of generous self-donation.

New Link added

I just want to point out that I added a link to my daughter, Sara's, writing site. She has a few short stories on there. I think some more poetry would be enjoyed as well Hint,hint!
I also added a link to her travel notes on our 2006 trip to the UK etc., but I put the link on my sermon site.

just because I can

I send puns to my daughter's e-mail about once a week...here is one she is getting today; and I thought I would put it here as well "just because I can."

A couple of hunters from Prague are out hunting, and an enormous bear runs up and in a single gulp devours one of the hunters. Miraculously, the swallowed hunter remained alive, trapped in the belly of the grizzly. The other hunter runs back to town and organizes a rescue party which heads back to the woods armed with torches, guns, spears, etc.

Soon they spot two bears on the horizon and everybody starts shooting at the bear that's closest to them.

"No, not that one," shouts the surviving hunter, "That's the female."

"The Czech is in the male."

(I could try to use that in a "stewardship' sermon" ....something like "now that I've got you thinking about 'checks'...let's talk about the checks in the offering plate " ...but the groaning and booing would be too distracting...so trust me not to try this!)

Oct 7th and 14th notes from the Spiritual Life Class

Oct 7 Notes
What is it at the center of your life? Carefully examine where you spend your attention, your time. Look at your appointment book,our daily schedule… this is what receives your care and attention – and by definition your love.”
Wayne Muller p. 65 in Habits of the Heart


We wait in the quiet for some centering moment that will redefine, reshape, and refocus our lives.”
Howard Thurman quoted on p. 73 Habits….

The two disciples whom Jesus joined on the road to Emmaus recognized him in the breaking of the bread. What is a more common, ordinary gesture than breaking bread? It may be the most human of all human gestures: a gesture of hospitality, friendship, care, and the desire to be together. Taking a loaf of bread, blessing it, breaking it, and giving it to those seated around the table signifies unity, community, and peace. When Jesus does this he does the most ordinary as well as the most extraordinary. It is the most human as well as the most divine gesture.
The great mystery is that this daily and most human gesture is the way we recognize the presence of Christ among us. God becomes most present when we are most human.
Henri Nouwen

If you doze off, don't give it a second thought. A child in the arms
of a parent drops off to sleep occasionally, but the parent isn't disturbed
by that as long as the child is happily resting there and opens its eyes
once in a while.
--Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart



A room devoted to silence honors and invites the unknown, the untamed, the wild, the shy, the unfathomable — that which rarely has a chance to surface within us.
— Gunilla Norris in Sharing Silence


It is a commonplace of the spiritual masters that the deepest part of the soul likes to go slow, since it seeks to savor rather than to accomplish; it wants to rest in and contemplate the good rather than to hurry off to another place.
— Robert Barron in Heaven in Stone and Glass

I am a place where God's love turns up in this world.
— M. Basil Pennington in Listening


It only takes a moment for God to enrich you.
— Thomas Keating in Open Mind, Open Heart



GOD OF THE GOOD NEWS,
in the fullness of my life,
empty me of distractions.
Still my busyness.
Quiet my chatter.
Sing your song of grace to me
until the tune rings
in the core of my being
and my life resonates
with your good news.
- Alive Now
From page 36 of Alive Now, November/December 2000, quoted from Upper Room website

LOVE IS THE CAPACITY TO SEE both the good and evil in people but to love the good; to see both the excellent and mediocre but to encourage the excellent; to see the wellness and the sickness and to strengthen the wellness. Before all else, love is the capacity to see everyone and everything as interconnected, “held together” in one cosmic embrace.
- Robert Corin Morris; Provocative Grace: The Challenge in Jesus’ Words
From page 31 (see Upper Room website)


The Purposes of Christian Spiritual practices
1)Paying Attention to God
2)The formation of Christian identity and character
3) Nourishment
4)Compassion and Justice
5) Living “the way”
Marcus Borg The Heart of Christianity
p.189 HarperCollins
’
Oct 14 NOTES
SIMPLICITY

The question for us is always 'how can we turn information into transformation?' How can we use the sacred texts to lead people into new places with God, with life, with themselves?"
Richard Rohr


All the truly deep people have at the core of their being the genius to be simple or to know how to seek simplicity – Martin E. Marty

WHEN WE BEGIN TO LIVE a spirituality of simplicity,
our primary concern ceases to be success and becomes faithfulness.
We are called to live with integrity, to express the truth as we perceive it, and to trust in God’s ability to use what we offer.
- Elizabeth J. Canham
Heart Whispers
From Heart Whispers: Benedictine Wisdom for Today by Elizabeth J. Canham. Copyright © 1999

Simplicity is giving yourself the freedom to pursue that indestructible impulse to do good in the world, to go toward the best.
Robert Smith quote on p. 87 Habits

Simplicity means saying "no" to some things so we can say "yes" to others; making room in life for the things that really matter

The spiritual discipline of simplicity means singleness of purpose toward God. Kierkegaard said, 'Purity of heart is to will one thing,' and by that he meant it is to will the good, which is God. Simplicity is not first a lifestyle. It is an inward spiritual reality that results in an outward life-style. (Richard Foster)

Frivolous consumption corrupts the soul away from…service to God and injures neighbors as well.
Dallas Willard quoted by Marjorie Thompson in Soul feast . P.73


St Augustine once said that God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them. If our hands are full, they are fullof the things to whioch we are addicted. And not only our hands, but alos our hearts, minds and attention are clogged with addiction. Our addictions fill up the spaces within us, spaces where grace might flow… The spiritual significance of addiction is not just that we lose freedom through attachment to things, (But) that we try to fulfill our longing for God through objects of attachment
Gerald May quoted by Marjorie Thompson p. 76 Soul Feast

All Forms of spiritual discipline help us to make more space for God in our lives.
Marjorie Thompson p. 80 Soul Feast

Simplicity, like all virtues,
is valuable because it is useful. I have come to understand that making life simple does for our minds what getting in shape does for our bodies. It makes us feel mor ein control, more centered, more effective,…I have found that simplicity is an indispensable ally in giving ordinary life extraordinary meaning. R Smith in Habits p. 89

‘Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be.
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed
To turn, turn will be our delight
‘Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.