Children's Sabbath

We had our second Children's Sabbath at church yesterday. For those in the know, ours was a little late (usually they are the third weekend in October), but we just started last year, and our October was already full this year. Last year was a very preliminary effort; we added a few more elements this year, including having some of the children read the parts of the liturgy and the lessons.

Some highlights at our early service:

• hearing "Jesus Loves Me" sung a capella by the whole congregation. I was standing next to a retired pastor, and we both got a little choked up when we came to the third verse, about the promise of eternal life (his wife died just this fall).
• hearing children read the lessons, and hearing a child say the words of Jesus in the gospel: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
• singing Herb Brokering's song, "Earth and All Stars."
• those who shared "what I offer to children," especially the retired teacher instead told us what children offer to him, and the little girl who told about how she serves in church.

At the later service:

• hearing the gospel read by two children, one Asian and one Latino
• giving Bibles to the third graders
• having all of the children stand in the middle aisle of the sanctuary, having everyone raise their hands, and saying a prayer of blessing.
• All of the children gathered during the call to worship.

At both services the preacher spoke powerful words about systemic racism and how it affects our ability to care for all the children, to protect, guard and guide them. She spoke about repentance and relying on Jesus' power and promise to keep us working for a more just world, even though we continue to be imperfect followers.

Many people put sticky hearts on cardboard, "What I offer to children." I'm looking forward to reading them.

I pray that our congregation more and more can recognize and welcome all God's children, and see how beautiful they are.

Santa Claus

We went to visit my dad today, after church and naps (more on church, perhaps, later). He had been home for a few days, but is now back in the nursing home while my mom travels to the Southwest to move out of their home there.

This is good news: they've been trying to sell their place for a long time. Last spring they had already decided that last year was the last year they'd be able to go down. But the market has made their home difficult to sell, and that has been worrisome.

My mom called and told me to be sure to let my dad know that she got there ok. So that was the first thing I told him when we arrived.

He was watching football, and was a little confused at first. I don't think he remembered who my husband was for a few minutes, until he laughed. We didn't do any singing today, but we told a few jokes, and he made a few puns. I told him the joke I told one of our third graders after the Bible class yesterday: "What's the longest word in the English language?" Answer: "Smiles. Because there's a mile between each "s"."

At one point he blurted out: "I miss being Santa Claus."

Shortly after he retired many years ago, he played Santa Claus at a Famous Local Department Store. He did this for a couple of years, made a little extra money, and got to dress up. My neice and nephew visited him, and he pretty much had them fooled, except that my neice (about 4 at the time) said that "Santa Claus kinda smells like grandpa."

When I asked him what he missed about being Santa Claus, he said, "The children."

To tell you the truth, I kind of miss him being Santa Claus, too.

I also miss how he used to sit on our beds and say prayers with us when we were little. He would often pretend that he was Methusalah, the World's Oldest Man. He told us that he remembered all the people from Bible Days, but he was so old, that he would fall asleep while we were praying, and we would kick him to wake him up.

I miss how he put peanut butter on our toast for us.

I miss how good he was at speaking with different accents, not only the Swedish accent he grew up with, but also with a great Irish brogue, or a yiddish accent. He also did a pretty fair Maurice Chevalier and Ronald Colman. He could sing like Bing Crosby. But he only knew the first lines of all the songs, so he made up different words.

I miss those theological discussions we had when I was a teenager. Often they took place while we were driving in the car. They often had to do with why some people suffered, and other people were not visited by tragedy. My dad would often say that it wasn't right to say that "God spared me," as if God were not with the people who had to go through hard times as well.

Today when we visited my dad, he said that he missed being Santa Claus. When I asked him why, he said, "the children." But when I tried to ask him more about what he liked about being Santa Claus, he lost his train of thought, and we had to go on to something else.

I Need You To Survive

We sang this at the end of a meeting today. I cried.

I Skipped A Day

Someone tell me if it's ok to post twice in one day somewhere down the line to make up for it.

I'm trying to do this "blog a day" thing, but yesterday really got away from me. We had a morning-long session on racism for our local Ministerium. The worship preacher was this incredible African pastor. That was wonderful. The conversations we had afterwards, and the issues of race that came out were also painful, but necessary.

I was also growing this enormous migraine. So I went home, took medicine and went to bed for part of the afternoon.

I got up in time to get back to church and work on aspects of our upcoming Children's Sabbath. (Those in the know: I know this is later than it is supposed to be, but our October was filled up with Stewardship.)

African-American Pastor and I met with two members of the community council, seeking out places where we can work together for the common good. Very very preliminary meetings.

Then went in a long Leadership Board work meeting.

I was up some in the middle of the night, thinking: I hate when that happens. I was thinking about the possibilities and difficulties in being a disciple: how I want to equip people to be passionate disciples in the world; how can I get ahold of busy people long enough to give them the tools to be followers of Jesus in all their lives? Do the members of my parish consider me to be passionate about my own faith? Why or why not? Do I think we should have after-school tutoring at our congregation? (we are across from the middle school). Do I have time or ability to learn Spanish? (We have a lot of immigrants in our community.) What about my writing? I think in order to hold myself accountable, I need to find a writing group. I am up in the night thinking about these things.

This morning I had a backache and a headache again.

War Is Hell

Today was Veterans Day. Every Wednesday morning we have a Matins Service, and later a morning program for our seniors who gather. This morning, in honor of Veterans Day, we say a medley of patriotic songs and heard a few stories by veterans who are members of our congregation. I have to say, I was strangely moved by the cheerful Air Force Song, "Off we go/into the wild blue yonder/Climbing high into the sky", especially when one elderly gentleman, a World War II veteran, stood up and remained standing while we sang.

"He was in the Air Force," someone whispered to me.

"I know,"I whispered back. He is a member of my noon Bible story, and has alluded to his service in the Army Air Corp on occasion. He has particularly said, on more than one occasion, that he never thought he would make it to his 22nd birthday.

He told us more of the story today. In fact, I got the feeling that he has been waiting over fifty years to tell his story. He trained and flew B-17s over Germany in 1945. He told us that you had to get 35 missions in before you were done, but hardly anyone made it to 35. He told us about how it felt to know you were expendable, to know every day that there were people who didn't make it back. And he told us a little bit about his mission, too: to "break the will of the German people", as he was told.

"Our job was a dirty job," he told us, and he didn't have to say more.

The war ended after he had flown 17 missions. He didn't go to the South Pacific, because B-17s weren't useful there. After the war, he flew officers over to North Africa, where he would sometimes confess how he felt about the work he had had to do. These were men who had seen ground conflict all over Europe. They told him not to feel guilty. They hated the Germans.

He was in Germany as well, for the Nuremburg trials. He put on the headphones, and heard, over and over, men whose defense was "I was following orders."

"I was following orders, too," he said.

He wondered about the chaplains, and how they did their jobs. He said they never heard scripture readings or sermons about "Loving your enemies," or even "Loving your neighbors." "We were trying to destroy our neighbors," he said. The unspoken question: what happens to faith in times of war? What does it look like? How far does it extend?

Eli Wiesel tells a hasidic tale that asks the question, "When do we know that the night is over and the day has come?"

The answer: when we can see the face of our brother, and know that he is our brother.

How I Discover that Knitting Can Be Therapeutic

At long last I have finally finished my very first prayer shawl, fringe and all. I wove in the ends and put in the Prayer Shawl label. I believe it has even been blessed.

In the meantime, I also began and completed a pink baby blanket. (It has yet to be "blocked", but otherwise, I think it's done.) I don't know who it's for, yet. But I've had the pink yarn for a couple years, from another time I got an idea or two, so I threw caution to the wind and just decided to do a pink shawl in faith that eventually, the baby would appear.

Now I'm starting a simple scarf, but with one interesting detail: the scarf is supposed to have a hole in the middle of it.

I do believe I'm on a roll.

I had a strange, rare feeling when I was folding up the completed shawl, and as I finished binding off on the baby blanket. It's a feeling that I don't get that often in my line of work. It's not satisfaction; I feel satisfied every time I baptize baby, or take communion to a shut-in, or have a deep conversation, or preach a sermon.

It's more a sense of completion, a sense that something is finished, whether perfect or not.

I hardly even get that sense in my life. Almost everything I do (and including and especially the social justice work) is ongoing. I take communion to Mary this month; I'll take communion to her again next month. I prepare lessons and write sermons and plan worship, and then I do it again. And in our community, we work toward racial justice, toward healthier communities, co-creators with God in finishing the world.

But each step is just that: the next step.

The world is not finished yet.

The shawl, though: that is finished, it is put in the bag, and it will be given to someone, complete with prayers. There were a couple of flaws in the yarn, and I was learning how to join yarn, but it's done and prayed over now, and it's good for my heart.

Co-creating with God, repairing the world, we're doing work that will never really be finished, not until God in Christ comes to make all things new.

In the meantime, it's good to know that every once in awhile we can bind off.

Sunday: Ordinary Time

It was a green Sunday yesterday. We left the red stoles of Reformation and the white of All Saints' and were back to green again, green on a lovely autumn morning, unseasonably warm. I wasn't sure who had the children's message, for sure, so I brought in a small jar of coins I keep in my car, just in case. I counted out a few pennies (the widow's mite), but it turns out I didn't need them; the other pastor had prepared a children's message.

I presided two services in the morning, and had a baptism at the third. I ducked out of the beginning of the third service to introduce myself to a young couple with a toddler -- potential new members. The baby being baptized wore a gown embroidered by grandmother with Hardangar edging; underneath he wore the baptismal gown of his great-great-grandfather, it was told.

I returned to my office still with that "post-baptism buzz" I often feel. We were in a hurry; My husband, mother-in-law and I were all going to the memorial service of a good friend of theirs: a church musician of some renown in Lutheran circles. But I realized with a start that the jar of coins was now empty.

My heart sank. I saw my purse and checked my billfold. All of the cash (which was not much, admittedly) was gone. My health care prescription card was gone too. But, thankfully, my checkbook and credit cards were all still there. I felt somewhat better until I picked up my briefcase and it felt light to me.

My laptop was gone.

The exact details I don't feel that I can blog about, but I will say this: my office was locked.

P.S. I am typing this on my husband's computer.

That Time of Year....

Yesterday was a gorgeous fall day, with temperatures up into the 60s. It was a day that there was no excuse to stay inside, so we actually got out in the morning (before I had to be at church for a pre-baptism meeting and some other office work) and raked leaves and started cleaning and organizing our back porch.

Scout wanted to be outside too. She always adds an element of fun to "outside". We took a couple of work breaks to take pictures of her.

When we got tired and needed to go inside for lunch and to do other things, Scout didn't want to come in. In fact, she didn't want to come in all afternoon.

She didn't come inside until it was time for her supper.

She wasn't running around, or chasing animals, or digging holes, or barking madly. When we peeked outside to check on her, more often than not, we would find her just sitting in the middle of the yard, just experiencing (it seemed to me) the rareness of the day, the rareness of the time of year -- the fleeting season between summer and winter, when the leaves are down but the snow has not yet come, when the sun is not too hot, the wind is not too fierce, the sun is soothing, the wind massages.

I think I knew a little of what she felt.

My days become so full, my lists so long, my worries so all-consuming, that it seems that I don't have time so often to just sit: to sit and read, to sit and knit -- even just to sit and look around and wonder. My days become so full that I don't notice... the yellow leaves, the breeze, the quiet ticking...

That time of year thou mayest in me behold

When yellow leaves, or few, or none do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west;

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the deathbed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

--William Shakespeare

A faith in community book?

Off and on, for awhile, I've been thinking of making a little book of some of the best blog posts in the last two odd years or so that I've been writing. My dream is to print up a small book, and have it hand bound and give it as a gift to a few people.

Maybe my sister could do some line illustrations, maybe not.

What do you think?

And, if by any chance you remember a post that sticks out for you, what is it?

Thank you.

P.S. this is my 746th post.

Friday Five: What's new?

Songbird over at Revgalblogpals writes:

There's a new baby on my street, a double PK whose Mom and Dad are Methodist pastors and church planters. I'm hoping to go over and meet her today. I love new babies, the way they smell and their sweet little fingers and toes. Little K has me thinking about all the new things that please us with their shiny freshness.

Please share with us five things you like *especially* when they are new.

1. New cars. I've only ever had ONE, but I loved the new car smell. (It's long-past-new now, and there is no new car on the horizon, but I do have fond memories of that rare experience.)

2. Puppies. Just a few days ago, a parish member brought in their NEW 8 week old boxer puppy. I loved everything about her, including the puppy smell, the way she just keeled over and fell asleep, and her loose, wrinkly skin and fur.

3. Clothes, and especially a new sweater. Don't know why, but there's something about a new sweater that is comforting and comfortable. (Shoes count if they are Haflinger clogs, or comfortable Borns or sneakers).

4. Freshly baked (or new) bread or other bakery products. It's the smell, the feel, the taste.

5. Newly-baptized people. At any age: whether they are babies I can hold, toddlers, children or adults, I love the water, the words, and the people with water running down their foreheads. I still remember when my nephew was baptized (at 9 months) and he stuck out his touch to drink the water. Ah! It's so wonderful being new.

Bonus: There's a plastic or vinyl new smell that I like, but didn't include because I can't think what specific object to attach it to. If anyone has an idea about that particular smell of newness, let me know.