The Word

for New Year's Eve service, I believe we will discuss The Word. Jesus, and the Bible. In the New Testament Greek the word used is Logos, which means "word", but also in Greek philosophy meant the core of one's being. Logos is used both for Word, used for Jesus in John chapter 1, and for "word of God" or "word of Christ" in Paul's epistles. "Let the word of Christ dwell in your richly..." I want us to think about concepts of language, and that words have power. Being in the Word, being in Christ, and spending time with our Bibles, has power!

It is amazing to me, that no matter how unready I am for Christmas, it comes anyway, and i am reminded again of the birth of our Savior. And i pray that it was the same for you! We had a nice quiet, nuclear family Christmas. Our 2 sons came to the 10pm worship service with us. Hubby did not have to usher, there was plenty of help, so the 3 guys sat together, as I helped lead worship. The music was wonderful and really spoke to me. I think it moved a lot of folks, from the expressions i could see.

this AM i preached on Colossians 3:12-17 Clothe yourselves with kindness, compassion, forgiveness, etc.. and Psalm 148. Praise as the root of worship. Worship as the root of our faith life, and recommitting to Christ. Choir had the day off, so we did a hymn sing in the place of the anthem and folks kept calling out requests! I think we did one verse each of 5 hymns. the final request was for Amazing Grace and i requested that we sing the last verse too..."When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise, than when we've first begun."

Christmas, bah humbug. Ok, that is a decidedly un-Christian attitude! but i am feeling awfully humbug today. I have a cold, the weather is terrible, i am not done with any of our preparations, and this has just been a bad year in many ways. so there it is. Come Lord Jesus, fill my heart with the right stuff, please?

oh this year has been something else. 2009 just needs to be GONE.
i was so sick with pneumonia in May, a car accident in October and my car, almost paid for, was wrecked. and now, the very worst, our son's girlfriend died very suddenly. He is just heartbroken. and not being a believer, he does not have the hope that Jesus brings us. if i 'preach' to him, i am afraid he will turn away from me. i am praying. hard. i do pray hard for my sons, but now..well. I am so very concerned for him.

clutter.....

I've been reading Unclutterer blog (http://unclutterer.com) for a while now. It is interesting topic and I hate to admit how much I need help with this! and in their forums, i see lots of folks posting good ideas. But some of them seem to be "here is what I do...and it mostly works. But sometimes it doesn't..." We seem to be adding stuff to the process of dealing with our stuff, and not addressing the underlying issues.

This week hubby & I have done some serious "uncluttering" ourselves. (since i was sick in the spring, did not do spring cleaning...oy vey!) And it feels so good to have got rid of stuff and organized some of it. Yet i know unless we develop new habits and work thru the reasons that we got to this point, nothing has really changed. I have read lots on this topic. In fact in sorting junk this week, I came across books-- "Simplify Your Life" and "Clutter Free, Finally and Forever."--in piles of stuff. Oh the irony!

I had read both books--and a variety of others! So they didn't help ME much, did they? I have to think thru and deal with the issues that got us here. Neither his Mom nor my folks were good at dealing with stuff. Both had definite 'hoarder' tendencies. They contained most of the clutter, for a long time. But by the last few years, things were piling up. I think with our parents' generation, it goes back to the Depression/WW2 era growing up. They had so little, then were part of the post war boom economy. And the advent of TV and its advertising!

So we (baby boomer generation) grew up with parents who had grown up feeling deprived, and who did not want their children to know that deprivation. AND we had the growing onslaught of mass media and all the advertising that says to get more stuff!

A friend shared a quote from a book she is reading/preaching on. "Physical deprivation causes spiritual hunger." (from Compelled by Love by Heidi Baker) and we so often mistake spiritual hunger for physical, material, other kinds of hunger.

and Gerald May in Addiction and Grace talks about how basically EVERYTHING can become an addiction; as well as the "usual suspects" of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, etc.... So having/acquiring stuff is a profound addiction!


oh-- good stuff...gonna go read and make some notes...

(To be continued...)

wow I am bad at this blogging thing! I did more of it when i was sick than now that i am 'well'. and yes, i have had some after effects of the dag-nabbed pneumonia. chiefly fatigue, much much better now, but i have absolutely NO tolerance for humidity. never have had much, but it is worse this summer. and of course the ragweed is bad now too. we have been running the AC for several days straight now. it cools off outside at night, but the pollen and humidity never let up. i was sleeping so badly for so long, soon as we had the house closed up and AC on, i slept!

Friends

I have been lazy about keeping up my blog. There are things on my mind to say here, but i am challenged at sitting down and actually DOING something about it! it may be that i am mostly focusing on my work. I have a preaching gig out of town Aug 2, preaching at our church Aug 16 and a wedding in between!

Preaching this Sunday on friendship. the text is Mark 2:1-5:
¹ A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. ² They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. ³ Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. ⁴ Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. ⁵ When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

I adore this story. The friends are SO very determined to get their pal to Jesus that they dig thru the roof! (Probably a flat thatched roof) My sermon will focus on true friendship, especially caring for one another, having compassion...all that good stuff that church is SUPPOSED to be....

Well HUMPH!! The news keeps saying the recession is better. Well I just stopped at my fave coffee shop, It is locally owned, not a franchise. the shop will be closing next week. And going thru my mail, one of the magazines I subscribe to is ceasing operations. I don't know whether to throw something or start crying.

book

Got a new book that I am loving with a Capital L. Prayers That Avail Much, the 25th anniversary edition. there are prayers for any occasion. For pastors, lay people, anyone who wants to pray better (and who doesn't?!) Every prayer is based on Scripture, with the Bible references listed at the end of the page for you to look up. I highly recommend! and no, i am not related to nor do I work for the publisher, the author, amazon.com or anyone else connected to this book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1577949242/ref=ox_ya_oh_product

Favorite

A friend, Pastor Karen, and I do weekly worship services at a nursing home. So many times as we are about to read the Bible passage for the day, one of us says, "Oh this is my favorite Scripture!" We have MANY favorites! I have finally come to the realization that my favorite Bible passage is whichever one I am reading right now!
So here is my current fave:

Isaiah 55:1-2 and 8-13
¹ "Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.

² Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

...

⁸ "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.

⁹ "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

¹² You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.

¹³ Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the LORD's renown,
for an everlasting sign,
which will not be destroyed."

This passage is so beautiful and says so much. God speaks to each of us individually, and to all of creation! God speaks thru the Word, the Bible. And also thru the Word, Jesus Christ. (John chapter 1)

God's Word, (both the scriptures and Christ) will accomplish everything that has been promised. The Bible will speak to people. Prophecies will be fulfilled, the children of God will all turn towards God and worship. (Every knee will bow --Isaiah 45:23 and Romans 14:11)

When all of God's children have come home, have come to Christ, then ALL of creation will celebrate and worship! The trees will applaud, the mountains will sing, evergreen plants will replace thorny bushes. What an image! All of creation celebrating, all of creation being in the perfect harmony that we were designed for.

pneumonia continued

I am (hopefully) over the pneumonia, the active infection anyway. but i have NO energy. and, yes, I am grumpy about it! Been reading a LOT. lots of sudoku puzzles. have made a few notes on topics, but not done any real writing. Watching an awful lot of tv. Cable reruns of WKRP and other oldies, and i adore watching Cash Cab on Discovery. and a few Seinfeld episodes. And movies, the Natural and a League of Their Own, 2 of my faves.

I was VERY sick. Probably a whisker away from being hospitalized, and actually, maybe should have been. the next day after diagnosis, i was awfully short of breath. But now, 2 weeks later, i am rarely short of breath, even yesterday at church, singing. but i am soooooooooo tired! (whine)

(2 1/2 weeks later, I still tire more easily than I think I should, but I am definitely better! Patience...with myself. not in my skill set!)

pneumonia

well the cold/cough thing just kept getting worse, went to urgent care Sat AM. I have pneumonia in both lungs! and a sinus infection. got antibiotics and cough RX. i am weak as a newborn kitten. will not be doing much for a while, that is for sure. Decided i need to read some nice fiction for a change, so am reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. a bit 'dark' for my usual taste (that's sci fi for ya) I SO adore really good writing.

it is spring, the trees are blooming. It is a lovely weekend. I am going to have Martin take me for rides once in a while, till i am back on my feet. there is one block downtown that has a whole row of about 8 crabapple trees that are just breathtaking in the spring.

grumble.....woke up with a sore throat and laryngitis. very bad for a pastor to not have a voice. very bad for a gal who loves to laugh to not have a voice! So I am taking it easy today. With any luck I can take it easy for a few days. Got another full weekend, including preaching on Sunday. So I NEED to get better! years ago i worked thru a couple bouts of this and ever since then, my voice gets raspy at the slightest provocation. i'm afraid i may have slightly damaged my vocal cords. So now i baby myself when this happens.

This past weekend we renewed our wedding vows. Several couples did, as part of our church anniversary celebration. It was lovely. We gals were pretty glamorous! A couple of us were wishing we could duplicate the look, including professionally styled hair, on Sunday too! Then Martin and I went out for dinner and had a great meal. (i had filet mignon and triple chocolate cake for dessert, thank you very much) It was a bit pricey, but hey we only do this every 32 years!

Mercy

Bible study on mercy went great. wonderful discussion on forgiveness -need to add to next draft-does the bible say we must forgive, do other religions say to forgive, (yes and yes)
Jesus said "Father forgive them" (we can ask God to forgive if we can not right at that moment)

also ideas about mercy in every day life. being kind, do unto others etc. and not using sarcastic, mean spirited humor, (GIGO Garbage in, garbage out)

i am working on a Bible study for Thursday evening, on "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Matthew 5:7
a year and a half ago or so, I gave a pretty good sermon on forgiveness. but, it is one of the things that i lost when my old desktop computer died. :( I am just sick about it. i spent a lot of time on that sermon, and i hate to have to reinvent the wheel so to speak for this Bible study. I also have to put together my piece for the monthly newsletter. Guess i need to suck it up and get on with the writing!
P.S. I did get that sermon eventually-my genius sons got the hard drive out of the old computer and found it!

yummy

I am sipping my second mugful of coffee this morning. I added a splash of chocolate milk, and some hazelnut flavoring. mmmmmmm. Chocolate and hazelnut make the most extraordinary coffee.

Affirming one another

Yesterday, I presented a session at our WCA annual meeting on Congregational Care. The main point was that everyone...let me repeat that, EVERYONE, needs someone to listen and to affirm our feelings. People in a church setting, pastors and not, can always help out another by listening to what they have to say, without making a judgment. And by honoring their feelings. "you sound really (insert feeling here)" is all you have to say. "Thank you for sharing" As i told folks, there will be times when you want to scream "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?" but if we are practicing good care of one another we will not. much later, maybe, if asked for advice, we may say 'perhaps you want to consider the consequences..." or some such. but the crux of the matter is we need to listen and affirm. And each of us needs someone to listen and affirm as well. Especially if we are in a position of being the listener for many others.

thank you for listening to me today :)

Bible reading

This morning's Bible reading
Psalm 62:5-8 (NRSV)

For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. [Selah]

what a beautiful passage! and how true. people sooner or later WILL let us down. we will let someone else down. only God is ever present, ever loving, ever faithful.

materialism "hunger"

So one night i am watching tv, and here come the commercials. and there is an ad for a sweet cell phone. And i think oooooh i want that! Now, I have a PERFECTLY fine cell phone! It does all i need it to do, and then some. great battery life. And it is very reasonable. but i see these ads and I absolutely start drooling for a new phone! I like to think of myself as fairly resistant to Madison Avenue and their ploys! after all, I have taken psych, read about advertisers' techniques, and i am smaarrrter than the average bear (as Yogi says). But geez louise, those cell phone ads nail me every time. what's UP with that!?

I think it has to do with the whole upwardly mobile thing we boomers grew up with. Our parents came out of depression/WW2 era and they had a lot of deprivation when they were kids. they grew up to want to give their kids more and better than they had! and they certainly seem to have instilled that in us! But in part because of the tough times our parents grew up in, they had some emotional issues. They gave us material things, but may not have expressed feelings well. They grew up in an atmosphere of 'we are all in this together, don't whine, get over yourself" So there was no room (in their minds) for lots of emotion. We boomers got stuff that our folks never had. but we craved more. So as we have grown up, we have tried to fill these cravings with experiences or substances. We tried more material things! That worked for Mom & Dad, didn't it? So we have tried travel, jack daniels, loud music, designer shoes, marijuana, bigger cars, fancy electronics, cocaine, bigger houses, prozac, louder music, smaller phones, xanax, big screen tvs.....and on and on.

So how do we "feed" these cravings that consume us? with something that will truly satisfy?

the Gospel of John chapter 6
³⁵Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

Mythology

Years ago I spent a lot of time reading about Greek and Roman gods. It was fascinating. These gods and goddesses were supposed to be so powerful, yet they had so many personality flaws! Jealousy, seeking revenge, and a lot of just plain pettiness. (just like us mere mortals!) and I wondered why would people worship such mean-spirited 'gods'? It just never made sense to me. Remember, I grew up un-churched, so I was not comparing the mythology with Jesus! It was just something I could not grasp. I knew ancient peoples needed to have 'explanations' for natural phenomena, but it was beyond me that they would have these deeply flawed beings to honor and worship.

Now, this was before I was in a church and reading the Bible. I was pretty clueless, but i sure knew that it was preposterous to 'worship' such nasty beings as we read about in mythology.

People have misconceptions about God. Sadly, the people teaching about God are, well, mere people. Imperfect who can not comprehend the vast, loving, perfection that is God (expressed thru Jesus Christ) So we may have heard that God is spiteful, punishing, angry God. And it may have come from people who come across as spiteful, angry, mean-spirited. So we presume that God is no better than the small-minded, angry people. God can be angry, but first and foremost, God is love. and God's anger is never mean or abusive. God does not MAKE bad things to happen to people. Bad things happen and God is with us always.

Baseball

well it is baseball season- I guess that means it is truly spring! my favorite, the Chicago Cubs, were in Milwaukee today. it was opening day @ Miller Park. The Brewers won in the 9th. Martin is happy. I guess I am happy they won their opener, as long as the Cubbies win the rest of the series!

okay I'm not sure what this whole blogging thing is supposed to be about. I guess I'm not sure what I have to say is so important to take up space on the web with it! Yet there are so many people with so much less to say, or who seem to say it less sensibly, yet they have plenty of space on the web; so I guess it's okay if I'm entering the blogging world now too. LOL

one of the things on my mind lately is the many names of God and Jesus are in the Bible. you see God is infinite and our minds are finite so we are not truly able to grasp the entirety of God or his son Jesus Christ. (Jesus said "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.") So there are many many names in the Bible. Each name is a single facet of the character of the Lord. or perhaps I should say each name expreses a facet of the character. so our finite minds are able to comprehend some of these assets, the qualities. this is why there are so many names in the Bible; so that he can understand the nature of God that we need at the moment for our example today I might be needing comfort so the idea of comfort and the name comforter, (one of the names of the Holy Spirit) appeals to me today.

Today is Good Friday. I do not know why it is called Good Friday. Jesus was crucified on this day, so it should be called Bad Friday, shouldn't it? or as my pastor says, yes it is Friday, but Sunday's coming!

We had a lovely, moving service at church last night to commemorate the Last Supper. lots of Scripture, with time to meditate on each passage. the service began and ended with low lighting, with passages about Light and darkness.