Guest blogger Nick

Hi I'm Nick I'm guest blogging on my dad's blog. UMMM lets see...I guess I'll talk about my summer! For the first few months of summer mostly all I did was go to summer swimming at 7 am and 3 pm for an hour and a half each, and then hang out with my friends. then a week ago i went to drama camp at camp Koronis in Payensville, MN; it was lots of fun! i met up with some old friends and made some new ones. I also got a lead role in one of our plays as the arrogant bible study leader. The title of the play was a small groups big problem! Now it's time for fair week and i have 14 shifts between our two booths.I'll be really busy but It should be fun! the week after that i have debate camp. Needless to say that at debate camp we work at improving our debating skills and as usual catching up with old friends! After that it's our trip to Michigan for my grandparents 50th anniversary and a weekend at Lakeside Ohio for our family reunion! Then i guess it'll be time for school! My dad's already practicing his "do you have your homework done" speech.... hopefully he won't have to use it too much!

England picture practice

Sara says I have to learn to be independent and learn to put in my own pictures so this is my excuse to practice. Last year about now we were coming home from a month in the United Kingdom with some quick side trips to Paris and Dublin. I thought I would put together some of the Wesley theme pictures, but I decided to just mix in some Scottish scenes, family pictures and general tourist sites or maybe something from Oxford since the whole thing started when Beth got invited to participate in an Oxford Round Table on literacy education. I think the Men's Group and one of the circles at church got to hear me tell something about the trip and saw a few pictures. Anyway, here goes my practice session on blogs with pictures. (Standing in a couple of Wesley's pulpits doesn't seem to have significantly changed my preaching)

Maybe next month I will learn how to line up the words as captions for the pictures. But for now use your imagination.






Bikes! England's solution for global warming, or, all you can afford if you go to Oxford!

At the Bonny, Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond

Some guy who thought he could write did some plays here. We went, what, three times?

To left, "some statue", at the Louvre

Beth at the Round table (it was square)

We ate Fish and chips in the Inklings booth

Stonehenge, of course! Old English Rocks.

To left, life size statue of Wesley

A Wesley pulpit in the museum at City Road, London

Wesley pulpit in Bristol

This is Charles Wesley. His house in Bristol was closed when we were there. Probably getting ready for his big 300 th birthday party going on this summer! We did worship, back in London in the little chapel that had an organ he had once owned (and played).

Reviewing the week

It has been a good week, but not a quiet week , in this Brainerd version of Lake Wobegone. On Tuesday I got the newsletter pastor's article written,( based on the the Monday Internet problems we had at home here;) did pastoral calls, and prepared for a funeral. On Wednesday I had the weekly lectionary study, and a funeral service for a man who was only 45. He was a quiet man , who had struggled long with his health, but never drew attention to himself. We knew his faith and celebrated his life. I have been hearing stories of how he humbly and simply, touched peoples lives. On Thursday I drafted most of the Sunday sermon on prayer and in the evening I had a pre-marriage session with a couple who have a wedding coming up in September. On Friday before (and after) a wedding rehearsal I spent a little time with our grade school youth group (GUMYS) for the yearly "camp out" at Star Lake Camp. It had all the right stuff- kids, canoes, sand, trees, loons, tents, campfires and camp songs. This year my annual Star Lake "Food Challenge" was pretty mild. But one kid still said it was kind of like "fear factor." I had some canned Asian longan fruit, some coconut biscuits, ginger candy and quail eggs. In the past I have had things like snails and sardines, or pickled pigs feet or gizzards. It is always just plain fun. Got ideas for me for next year?
On Saturday I had a wedding. (Thanks for the air conditioning in the church sanctuary!) and I used that day to also finish up the Sunday sermon. Somewhere in this you can mix in some phone calls, staff and administrative conversations, people coming to the office, hospital visits, Sunday worship planning and the fact that I drafted out the worship service bulletins until Sept 2. I also have most of the Sunday sermon done for August 5th because I learned a few years ago that is best to do that sermon before the fair shifts begin!
Which leads me to the rest of the story! Added to all of this we have been gearing up for the annual food booth at the fair. It really is an amazing accomplishment. So many people coming together to make it all happen. The stand has to be cleaned (we did that on Wednseday) All of the work shifts have to be filled at the fair stand; from grillers and wait-staff to dishwashers and pantry helpers; there is cooking in the church kitchen with soup making, potato peelers, gravy mixers and chili makers! Others are baking and donating 200 pies. We depend on coordinators and callers to organize us all. Of course we hope it will be a nice "money maker" and it is. But as a pastor I find the real treasures in the people who share their time and talents or when someone we have not seen in awhile around church gets reconnected at fair time. Sometimes people who are new get to know others in this different kind of setting. Some people have family and friends that just come to work with us at the fair! It really is a ministry. I see it as a good "community maker." I think of Paul's image for the church as the body of Christ; all of us are different parts with differing functions, yet each connected into the whole. Fair week looks like the body of Christ! I hope we nurture and value each other in the holy wholeness of it all. Its even best when we have some fun! Keep it in your prayers! If you are in driving distance next week, see you at the Crow Wing County Fair!

And yes, I like my work. Who else gets to have a job with a richness, privilege and diversity like this!

PS Thanks again to those of you who are reading this blog. As always excuse my typo's!
I hear from some of you that you just don't do the comments or have trouble getting it to work. I love to get your email too at roryswen@yahoo.com. Just let me know you are there!
Rambling on

Rambler

My first car was a 1964 Rambler. It was glossy black with a silver metallic top and red vinyl interior. It was a three speed stick on the column with an overdrive. I put a glass-pack muffler on it and had one of those barefoot shaped gas pedals. But it was still a Rambler. My friend, Mike, had a '67 Mustang and Tony could borrow his older brother's sporty Pontiac that had an air scoop in the hood. Put yourself back to high school in the early 70's and guess which cars you would rather be driving around in. But I loved my car. My Grandpa Swenson let me "buy" it from him for only $300 dollars and he let me make payments. The Rambler was a piece of my growing up, my developing independence, adventuring out on the road. It was a vehicle for my journey; something to help me go to the other places. Not as fancy as a lot of others out there, but it was me. I know I have a picture some where. Maybe I will get it posted if I can figure a way to copy it. This blog is kind of like my first car! Rambler. Rory's rambles. Thanks for riding in this car with me. Nothing fancy but I am having fun. Rambling on.

Being on the Way

These two quotes converged for me this morning.
Both of them remind me that I (and we) are part of something beyond our present situation. I hear invitations to trust the unfolding future.
"Trust in the slow work of God.....prophets of a future not our own."

By Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are, quite naturally,
impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip
the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new,
and yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability
- and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually - let them grow,
let them shape themselves,
without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today
what time (that is to say, grace
and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make them tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of
feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete

Oscar Romero
A FUTURE NOT OUR OWN
It helps, now and then, to step back
And take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
It is beyond our vision
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
The magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
Which is another way of saying
That the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection…
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
Knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything
And there is a sense of liberation realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
And to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
An opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results…
We are prophets of a future not our own.


The first quote is from the inward/outward entry of the day. The Romero quote is cited in Brian McLaren’s The Secret Message of Jesus

Thank you Sara!

Thanks to my guest blogger. The picture she posted is one she took along the Mississippi down by Kiwanis Park. I am hoping to get Nick on to the blog too but he is off to a church camp this week.

I am not going to post the sermon from this morning. It was on Mary and Martha and one of the comments I made was that Martha was telling Jesus what to do. "Jesus, don't you care. Tell my sister to get up and help me."
But Mary is in the listening position. She is sitting at the Lord's feet. It is a spiritual image of attention, stillness. and awareness. She is listening to Jesus, not telling Jesus what to do!
I talked about how hard it is to just attend to the spiritual listening in our life and we are tempted to get up and get busy; get distracted with many good things, try to be in control and so on. I will repeat the closing story that I used. (Sorry, I don't know the source that I borrowed this from.)

I read a story about Paul Tillich. Paul Tillich was a great theologian of the mid-to-late 1900s.
(I had to read his sermons and his systematic theology in seminary.)
But . according to the story, this very conservative student, a fundamentalist student,
was in this class and he believed that Tillich did not have a high enough regard for Scripture.
So in every class the student would ask Tillich if he believed that the Bible was truly the Word of God. And Tillich would give one of his long and philosophical answers .But the student thought those answers were too evasive.

So one day during class, the student walked up to Dr. Tillich and waved his Bible in front of his face and said,
"Dr. Tillich, I demand that you tell me.Is this or is this not the Word of God.?"

Dr. Tillich answered slowly, he said
"It is the Word of God if, instead of you gripping it,
you let it grip you."

That's what I see in the image of Mary...
And I think that is how we can be Mary

Let it grip you ....
with your ears open to the Word of God
May it be so with us.




,

Guest Blogger

Hello Everybody!

As you may have guessed by the clever title "Guest Blogger," the author of this post is not your usual Swenson. In fact, this is a younger, shorter, left-handed, female version of that famous Rory Lee: his daughter, Sara Ann. For the last few weeks, my Dad has been asking me to do a "Guest Blog" note, so that is what I am finally doing. Oh, and he told me to add pictures. So I'll go and do that too.

As a fellow fan and reader of this blog, I have come to appreciate the laid-back, "Walt Whitman", cloud-busting, star-gazing, philosophy-pondering tone of the blog, and I will do my best to maintain that, in my own odd way.



I am going off to college this fall.
I don't think the idea has completely hit me yet: I am leaving. The nest is shrinking. Bottles have broken on the side of this boat, and I am bound to leave moor. It's countdown to launch time: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I've only got six more weeks to get all of my metaphors figured out before I'm off on my own.

It's exciting, I must admit, and a little bit terrifying. We'll have to see what comes of it. The last few weeks have been Most Strange in the way that they feel like I've lived through my own funeral. Having Mom and Dad sort through boxes of my old things - tossing together photo albums of my life growing up for our grad party, the grad party in general (friends and family from all over gathering to wish me well and "reminisce"). It's been odd. But interesting. I suppose that's a bit of what life is: funeral after funeral, or really, wedding after wedding - old pieces of ourselves dying off while new pieces are met, melded, and born. We bury our fears and bring up our best memories. Every time we step up to a new level in life, we clean out our old "memory boxes" to make room for a few new ones. My dad calls all of this sorting and cleaning and sifting "consolidating tubs." I guess I'll just call it growing up.



Rambling over.

-Sara


P.S. Here's that picture I promised. I just think it looks pretty.

Monday plans

It is my day off. I have already enjoyed a slower morning; two long and relaxing cups of coffee, a walk around the block in the coolness, some devotional reading; meander in the yard, pull a few weeds, sit on the steps and listen to the cardinals sing. I have some thoughts brewing for next Sunday's sermon on Mary and Martha. I plan to spend a little pastoral care time with a family this afternoon and take care of a couple church e-mails. Maybe I will get a haircut today! The church fair Food-booth committee meets tonight so I will be there. Who knows whatever else the day will bring? I have long used the guideline that I only need to plan half of the day because the other half will show up and schedule itself. Stay open to the unplanned and leave room for the unexpected. I have never had a shortage of something to do!
Beth made some great meat loaf yesterday so lunch is planned!
A couple of things I read this morning:
From the Upper Room reflections today:
By [Christ] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. - Colossians 1:16, NIV
SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP REQUIRES paying attention to the reality of our interconnected world, not in a superficial way but in a deep, profound way, a way so strong that Jesus weeps when we do. This process begins with our own attention to and prayer with all that God has created.

- Daniel Wolpert
Leading a Life with God

From page 134 of Leading a Life with God: The Practice of Spiritual Leadership

....and this brief word from the Spirituality and Practice word for the day:
I am a place where God's love turns up in this world.
— M. Basil Pennington in Listening

How do I live into these thoughts and let them grow in my life? Do I really believe them, trust them, practice them?
Rambling on,

Busy

This week the blog has been an example of many other things in my life; I have thought about it but did not get around to it! While doing my devotional reading I read a few quotes that would fit in here. But again I did not put them in. Busy with the usual worship and sermon preparation, catching up on pastoral contacts that I got behind on during my time off, pastoral calls into two hospitals and nursing homes; other appointments, visits and phone calls; four (or five) meetings. One of the meetings was about designing the church's next stewardship themes and programs, and another meeting had us making a decision on putting in a digital projection system in the sanctuary. Hopefully it will be operating by the fall. Another was on how we can improve our Sunday worship visitor identification and follow up. Some of the fall programing and calendering is rising on the horizon and the Food Fair booth week is not that far away!
Busy-,not a bad week, just no blogging! I might have Nick or Sara (or even Beth!) write something as "guest bloggers." Today I have an anniversary open house to attend at the church and do a renewal of wedding vows, make a few pastoral phone calls, and maybe (if I get the lawn mowed) paint a small book shelf that Sara might be able to use in her college dorm room. In the past I have enjoyed refinishing furniture. I know of a few pastors who like to refinish furniture or painting or photography or do wood working. Maybe because its something that can lead to visible results. You can look at something and see the change, the restoration or the creation and say "it is done." Much of ministry doesn't have that kind of visible results. When is it ever done?
Anyway, I will try to put in a quote or two. They are probably copied from inward/outward; The Upper Room, and Spirituality and Practice websites. Thanks for your blog patience and thanks to those who have indicated you are reading this!

By Ted Loder
Gentle one,
Holy one,
into an unclenched moment,
a deep breath,
a letting go
of heavy experiences,
of shriveling anxieties,
of dead certainties,
that softened by the silence,
surrounded by the light,
and open to the mystery,
I may be found by wholeness,
upheld by the unfathomable,
entranced by the simple,
and filled with the joy
that is you.

Source: unknown


Music makes an altar out of our ears. A single struck tone, a note blown from a flute, can flush the body with goodness.
— W. A. Mathieu in The Musical Life


As our world becomes smaller, through a growing common culture, the true test of community will be our tolerance for our most profound differences and love for the most challenging among us.
— Wayne Teasdale

Saturday reading

Sara is at the Winnipeg Folk festival and Nick and Beth are in Wisconsin to baby sit her sister, Janet's little boy, Nathan. Janet sometimes did that for us when our kids were little so its nice that Beth can return the favor. Nick, I'm sure is hoping to get some time in the lake that they live on. With all the peace and quiet at home I made some hospital visits in Brainerd and St Cloud and used the St Cloud trip as an excuse to drop off some things at Goodwill and then visit the Barnes and Nobles bookstore. I came home with a copy of Brian McLaren's new book The Secret Message of Jesus.
His chapter on the "Borders of the Kingdom" would make a good sermon base for the lesson coming up in a couple weeks on the Good Samaritan, since the whole parable is launched from the question of "Who is my neighbor?" the topic would reach into the area of inclusion and that's what this chapter is about.

A Franciscan Benediction

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

Amen.

Source: unknown
I clipped it from inward/outward)

Independence Day Display

We had a great Fourth of July. Brainerd does it up big with several great events. The Sunday Arts in the Park is a favorite for me and for several years I gave the invocation for the "Race for the Cure" But the parade and the fireworks are the main events. My parents from Thief River Falls came to spend the day with us, so we "baked" our way through the parade together and then at dusk we joined the crowd down on the sports field near the fireworks launching. There is no admission charge so the event is free. The viewing is great and thousands of people spread out on lawn chairs, blankets and on the bleachers. It may be the biggest fireworks display in the state, and certainly is the largest in "greater Minnesota." But I'm thinking that the display on the ground is pretty good testimony to our country as well. Probably no other occasion draws together such diverse community and cross section of the nation. All ages, lifestyles, locals and tourists, ethnic and racial variety, (as limited as it might be here in Brainerd), people of different political and social opinions, and so on. Where else do we assemble like that? Maybe the real American display is not just the fireworks in the sky but the one that happens on the ground as we all look up, and at least have some passing thoughts or reminders of freedom and being a nation together. That can be quite a show!

Passages and Prayer

Another rite of passage in the Swenson household: Nick passed his road test and now has a driver's license. I haven't even really grasped the fact that Sara will be moving out this fall and headed to Hamline. When did all this happen!

Maybe a way to respond to all of this is to pull up some quotes on prayer. (Why would Nick's driving make me think of prayer!?")

In his book, Courage to Pray, Anthony Bloom states: "Interceding prayer means " placing ourselves at the heart of a troubled situation."

True prayer demands that we be more passive than active; it requires more silence than words, more adoration than study, more concentration than rushing about, more faith than reason.." (Carlo Carreto)


Meditation is the deliberate and usually systematic reflection on some truth or passage of scripture. It has a threefold purpose: to instruct, the mind, to move the will, and to warm the heart for prayer.
Contemplation is the awareness of God, known and loved at the core of one's being.

Sam Keen "I suspect that we are all recipients of cosmic love notes. Messages, omens, voices, cries, revelations, and appeals are homogenized into each day's events. If only we knew how to listen, to read the signs."
— The Passionate Life

Richard Foster:
"Spirit of the living God, be the Gardener of my
soul. For so long I have been waiting, silent and still —
experiencing a winter of the soul. But now, in the strong
name of Jesus Christ, I dare to ask:
Clear away the dead growth of the past,
Break up the hard clods of custom and routine,
Stir in the rich compost of vision and challenge,
Bury deep in my soul the implanted Word,
Cultivate and water and tend my heart,
Until new life buds and opens and flowers.
Amen."

When you pray, you talk to God; when you read Scripture, God talks to you. (Augustine)