Fair Booth Reflections

Thanks Nick for guest blogging!
The Crow Wing County Fair is over and Park church was there at its food booth once again. I found myself feeling very proud to be with a church that can pull off such a huge undertaking. We get all levels of participation , including some helpers from Light of the Lakes United Methodist Church and others who just like to come and work with their friends and every bit helps. Some people have served faithfully in the same jobs for years: pantry worker, kitchen worker, shift honcho, waitress, phone caller etc. I think some families have had three generations of church fair booth working.
Personally I got to put in a few hours at the grill, one shift as a griller's assistant, a couple of shifts as dishwasher and even covered the cashier spot for a few minutes with Charles on a lunch break. I tried to check in and visit with each shift and we have four shifts a day starting at 7 am, finishing up between 10 and 11 pm. My first year at the fair I worked as one of the waiters but found out that it was not my favorite spot!

Several times during the week I was asked if I had my sermon done yet and would it be about the fair booth? They said there should be plenty of lessons in here somewhere. That's true. In an earlier blog I thought about how it was a "community maker"and not just a money-maker and used the body of Christ image from I Corthinians 12; many differing parts and one body. I saw that again as I realized how every job at the food booth was absolutely essential. Where would we be without the dishwashers! How could we operate without the person who laundered the aprons every night at her home? What about the food prepared back in the church kitchen? When I was grilling I was helpless with out the helper and the steam table worker. If no one took the orders what would happen? Who took care of the shopping list and ran the errands and washed the floors? What if we had no customers! You get the idea.

Another lesson would be comments that I heard from Nick and Sara who were taking orders as waiter/waitress. They spoke of how most people were understanding and courteous as they came to the food booth. We are , after all, volunteers in a job that happens only once a year. But there were a few exceptions - the people who snapped their fingers at you 'like you were a dog" or who thought they should be treated as if all other customers had to be ignored but them ,and so on. We talked about how when they are in a restaurant they will have a new appreciation for the wait staff. But there is a larger analogy to work with here. In ministry we will serve all kinds of people. Most will be appreciative and understanding and willing to join in the Spirit of the venture and that even with our best training and efforts we will still make some mistakes. And there will also be a a few exceptions; those who will always be critical or demanding or just plain hard to satisfy. But we are still here to offer the ministry of Christ. Grace seems to be the featured item on the menu. We serve it with prayer and patience, forgiveness and faith; and every now and then we take off the aprons and we sit down at the booth and enjoy a good helping just for ourselves. We need it!
This morning (Fair Booth Recovery Sunday on our local liturgical calender) we celebrated the sacrament of Holy Communion and we remembered all that God has done to feed us and serve us. We are first of all, those who receive. God, in Jesus Christ, has come to serve us. We are hungry. We come to the table. I suppose most of the time I come with my best gratitude and patience and open-ness. Some times I am probably like the self centered customer who wants it fast and wants it now. I have probably snapped my fingers at God a few times. Thank God I still get served. Grace.
Rambling on....

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.




,