Blog Archives

Feb. 29 - Susan Allison-Hatch

2/29/2016

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit to a yoke of slavery. Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Once again, I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.
Galatians 5:1-6

A Reflection on Galatians 5: 1-6
     (With apologies to Robert Frost)

"Good fences make good neighbors,"
            the saying goes.

Lines we humans draw to
separate us from them
                 and theirs from ours

Lines of color
            class
                and kin

"Good fences make good neighbors"
     So we keep drawing lines:
            lines marking borders between those we like
   and those we'd rather just avoid

Some as new as yesterday
and
Some going back two thousand years or more
            Jew or Greek
            slave or free
                male or female
                  circumcised or not

Lines demarking who is in
            and who is out
                 whom to trust and
                           whom to fear

Because, we are assured,
            "Good fences make good neighbors."

First we draw the lines
     and then
            we throw up walls-
                 that keep us safe and keep them in their place.

But "something there is that does not like a wall"
            Forces of nature conspire
                 to remove the divides we humans like to build and keep

            Posts decay, boards rot, stones crumble
                        the ground remains
                             unencumbered
                             and undivided

There underneath the detritus of collapsing walls and decaying fences

The ground in which "we live and move and have our being."

Susan Allison-Hatch

Feb. 28 - Margie Polito

2/28/2016

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
    to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives;,
    and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
to provide for those who mourn in Zion -
    to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the mantel of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
Isaiah 61:1-3

I get a large sense of hope when I read these words Isaiah, along with a sense of responsibility to share that heritage of hope with all. I'm especially bound to minister to those who mourn, for they need this message of hope in their current despair.

I believe that we are all called to this ministry of sharing hope, and as we minister to others we will indeed be saving our own selves from the captivity and prison of sadness and despair.

I love the idea of becoming oaks of the Lord's righteousness, complete with our garlands and mantles of praise. What a vivid and powerful description of what we can become.
We can become beacons of hope when we embody the strength that is given to us through our faith in the Lord. Certainly I have felt the power of this ministry of hope, through the community, as I have experienced my own mourning. It has been lifesaving, and taught me the importance of others bringing me the message of hope as I move through the challenges that life throws before me.

Let us all move through this Lent with a mission of expansiveness; believing that there is enough love and hope for us to share, and as we share, we save ourselves.

Margie Polito

Feb. 27 - Sally LaFaver

2/27/2016

Blest are you, O God,
            for you have heard the voice of my prayer.
You are my strength and my shield;
            my heart trusts in you, and I have been helped;
Therefore my heart dances for joy,
            and in my song will I praise you.
You are the strength of your people,
            a safe refuge for your anointed.
Save your people and bless your inheritance;
            shepherd them and carry them for ever.
Psalm 28:6-9 (The Saint Helena Psalter)

Rich imagery and truths are provided in this psalm for our Lenten journey.

The psalm itself is a prayer and speaks of the gifts that God lavishes upon us. Yet, it is often easy to forget, to be almost unaware, that we are embraced in God's abiding abundance of love at all times.

I have a practice each Lent of making a specific intention. This year my intention is to awaken more deeply, more consciously, to the abiding loving presence of God. Particular words from this psalm - such as strength, shield, trusts, heart dances, praise, refuge, anointed, shepherd - seem to shimmer, to draw me in. So using some of them, I wrote a psalm of intention. My prayer is that it will help inspire and deepen my specific intention to a new awakening of God's loving abiding presence in my life.

                        You hear me, God, and are my strength for whatever this day brings.
                        You are my protection and my heart trusts you, God, trusts your presence.
                        You provide me - your anointed - with my place of refuge,
                        and my heart dances and sings praise to you.
                        My heart blesses you, God, and rests in your shepherding hand
                        no matter the way, no matter the trials, no matter the joys.
                        You are my safe refuge.
                        I am safe in you.

Are there words from this psalm or from another that speak to your heart, that might during this season of Lent, help you know more deeply the abiding abundance of God's love?

May our Lenten journey be inspired and awakened in the presence of our loving God.

Sally LaFaver

Feb. 26 - Adele Davies

2/26/2016

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, "Brothers, what should we do?" Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him." And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them saying, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added."
Acts 2:37-41

"Save Yourselves From This Corrupt Generation"

This is one of those difficult Biblical verses that seem to contradict Jesus' mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves, asking us to cling to our own salvation and to reject those whose lives and beliefs are unlike our own.

Past history and our current climate of distrust of "the other" due to religion or ethnicity show us how dangerous such rejection can be. Through the centuries the threat of 'the other' has been used to justify wars, pogroms, crusades and terrorism, as well as slavery, disenfranchisement and persecution.

In this Lenten season of introspection and study, listen to the voices of the world's people. Trust your faith is strong enough to hold firm and large enough to allow in other wisdoms. Too much is lost in following a rigidly narrow path. Might not that be the "corruption" of which the verse speaks?

We are all pilgrims in this world making our roads by walking them.

Hear Kate Wolf sing: "there are no roads that do not bend. The days like flowers bloom and fade and they do not come again. We've only got these times we're living in." And these our fellow pilgrims walking with us.

Adele Davies

Feb. 25 - Bob Bowman

2/25/2016

Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you-that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesse] of these things.
Luke 24:44-48

In this passage, Luke reveals the meaning of the scriptures to the disciples. Then he tells them, "It is you who are witnesses to all this. And mark this: I am sending upon you my Father's promised gift."

How did they decide when the gift arrived?

"You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing." - Alan Watts

"Spirituality, like conversation, is in a constant process of becoming." - Bill Countryman's, The Poetic Imagination, An Anglican Spiritual Tradition.

"Gregory of Nyssa, accordingly, spoke of spirituality in terms of epektasis, a stretching toward God rather than an arriving at God."

Bob Bowman

Feb. 24 - Denise Clauss

2/24/2016

"My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one."
John 10:27-30

Ordinarily, I wouldn't take kindly to being called a sheep. But when Jesus says it, I'm compelled to listen. Of course, not right away, as my ego and identity didn't permit it. But as I've stumbled and fallen many times in my journey, only then have my eyes opened to the similarities of my behavior and that of a sheep. Digging into a rut and getting stuck. Head down following my nose to the next patch of green grass. . . .you get the picture.

O, how the lessons of this rich metaphor have unfolded in proportion to my repeatedly being humbled. Vulnerable and laying open to the possibility of a relationship with Jesus allowed me to hear His voice and learn just how dependent I am on God. For everything. Every blessing that adorns my life has manifested by following His voice. Only by being sheared close to the skin and allowing myself to feel the healing warmth of God's unconditional love have I found the way forward in my faith journey. And this isn't even the best part!! We become the Father's own. Forever. Eternally. The Creator of all that was and is and is to come. Count me in!! I'm happy to be called a sheep in His Kingdom!

Denise Clauss

Feb. 23 - Bill Oyler

2/23/2016

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God
2 Corinthians 5:17-21

Joshua

A simple man arrived in Auburn, VA, back in the early 80's and settled into a home on the outs skirts of the village. He appeared to be warm, gentle and a simple man, eating from whatever he grew from the land and money he earned doing odd repair jobs.

His socialization into the Auburn was very slow, prompted by his going into to town to buy supplies. The community was aware of his standoffish, but warm behavior. Slowly, a few high risking individuals stopped by Joshua's house, knocked on the door and inquired with him, who he was , what he was doing in Auburn, and why did he move there. Joshua's warm hospitality made visitors feel welcome to inquire. Joshua's answers were unsettling to them and they'd return deeply touched by their visits and while his words were unsettling, many were also enlightening. Soon different social groups called on him, and he attended all the churches and the one synagogue on sabeths. At the synagogue, upon mounting a wood carving of Moses on a wall, many of the members of the community saw the carving to one of a anxious and angry man and they asked why? Joshua responded that at the time, there was much conflict and turmoil, through which Moses was attempting to lead his tribe. At a later meeting, Joshua lead a conversation on Jesus. Participants inquired on the why of the subject, and Joshua pointed out that in the first 50 years after Jesus's passing, Jews held Jesus very closely with reverence and respect until the Christians took Jesus away to have for themselves as their messiah resulting in Christians and Jews becoming very separate.

As Joshua's walked in Jesus' shoes, his presence healed, it enlightened, it reconciled. He vanished during a trip to the Vatican to answer for a Bishop's sanction of his works said, in and around the Roman Catholic Church. May the mystery of the Christ linger on.

Bill Oyler

Feb. 22 - Carla Reed

2/22/2016

"Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
Luke 15:8-10

Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.
By Ted Chiang

Carla Reed

Feb. 21 - Kim Sanchez-Rael

2/22/2016

Do not remember against us
     the iniquities of our ancestors;
Let your compassion come speedily to meet us,
     for we are brought very low.
Help us, O God of our salvation,
    for the glory of your name;
Deliver us, and forgive our sins,
    for your name's sake.
Then we your people, the flock of your pasture,
    will give thanks to you forever;
From generation to generation
    we will recount your praise.
Psalm 79:8-9, 13
"Let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low."

It is inevitable on this human journey that there are times when we are indeed "brought very low." Either by action or inaction. Maybe by intention or fate. Perhaps by deliberate acts of non-love or un-truthfulness from one we count on. Sometimes it's a seemingly random act of the universe, or an episode of senseless violence. Maybe a dark and frightening diagnosis, or abiding in the heartbreak of a dear loved one.

In these "very low" times on my own journey I found myself night after night lying on the tiled bathroom floor, curled in a fetal position, face buried, sobbing in a towel. Not sure I could stand up and face the next day.

And somehow, lifted by a force that I could not name at the time, in the morning the body got up, and carried it's wounded spirit and whatever it could collect of it's intellect into the day's work. Made it through another day. Functional. Productive even a bit. Smiled.

As years passed, I came to know that it was God's compassion and grace that pulled me up off of that tile floor and dried my tears. Grace buttoned my jacket and softly whispered, "You can do this. I've got you." God's compassion carries us when we aren't quite able to carry ourselves. We are never alone.

"Let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low."

Perhaps our job is to surrender to the compassion of God. Let go of the need to control, explain, justify, make sense of the times when we are indeed brought very low.

"Let your compassion come speedily to meet us..."

Kim Sanchez Rael

Feb. 20 - Bill Everett

2/22/2016

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Romans 8:28-30

It was hard for me at first to understand what Paul was trying to say in his letter the Romans. I guess what bothered me was the part about being predestined. After all, isn't there free will? I think he was saying that if we look back at all that has happened to us and try to understand it all, there is a purpose. Being predestined does not relieve us of the responsibility of trying or doing but rather puts the burden on us of understanding or interpreting what his purpose is. We are not alone in seeking that understanding, for we can ask God's help in understanding of what his purpose is.

Bill Everett