Emergencies Welcome

"EMERGENCIES WELCOME"

I love this sign. It's technically from a dentist's office, I think, but there is something more significant here. Emergencies are inconvenient and painful, a disturbance to everyday life. They add an element of unpredictability. To welcome emergencies is to create hospitable space in a not very hospitable time.

Isn't that who we should be as a church? By definition, much of life is routine -- eating, sleeping, working, and so forth. Love and faithfulness should shine through such routine moments. At the same time, it is right and good to create space in our hearts and minds and schedules for the other moments, too -- bumps in the road that range from inconvenience to crisis.

Emergencies happen. There is certainly no need to manufacture them! But when they come, we can welcome them with God's grace and love.

-- Debi

Paying Attention

Attributed to former baseball great Yogi Berra:

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."
"The future ain't what it used to be."
"Never answer an anonymous letter."

Much of the charm of such Yogiisms is the mix of truth and foolishness. "You can observe a lot by watching," for example. As we said when I was a kid, "Duh," right? And yet, how much do I miss because I simply was not paying attention? How much is right in front of me, and I fail to notice?

As I move through this day, I will choose to watch, to seek beauty, to appreciate quiet blessings, to notice the people whose paths I cross.

-- Debi

Difficult Words

I just read an article that discloses the game HANGMAN's most difficult word. The word is "jazz". Now before you protest, lety me tell you that a computer tested every word in the English Dictionary. The "j" and "z" are seldom guessed before the noose takes full effect.

This left me wondering about difficult words in other contexts - spelling for example. One of the most often misspelled words is "bellwether." I can see where someone would want to throw in an extra "e" or "a" or "h".

What about difficult words to translate? Bart Wilson writes in Atlantic Monthly, "Did you know that fair is one-to-one untranslatable into any other language–that it is distinctly Anglo in origin? And a relatively new word at that?" He concludes that it is because it has origins in sport and has been carried over into the arena of disputes and complaints.

All this thinking about difficult words brought my mind back to a childhood Sunday School lesson where a King's life turned on one difficult word. "Then Agrippa said unto Paul, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.'" Acts 26:28. Almost? How difficult this must have been for Paul. How difficult it will prove for the king. How difficult "almost" can become for us.

-- Joel

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Friendship

I admit it -- I like Facebook.  I enjoy hearing what is going on in the lives of people I love, seeing photos of their friends and families and fun times, getting the snippets of status updates.  That said, I was challenged recently by something I read through my Leadership Journal (a great publication, by the way) subscription:

"In an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education, William Deresiewicz examines the new forms of friendship that have emerged in the age of Facebook. While social media has allowed us the opportunity to be connected to everyone, it more often than not comes at the expense of deep, meaningful, shaping friendship. Deresiewicz writes:

[Concerning] the moral content of classical friendship, its commitment to virtue and mutual improvement, that … has been lost. We have ceased to believe that a friend's highest purpose is to summon us to the good by offering moral advice and correction. We practice, instead, the nonjudgmental friendship of unconditional acceptance and support—'therapeutic' friendship, [to quote] Robert N. Bellah's scornful term. We seem to be terribly fragile now. A friend fulfills her duty, we suppose, by taking our side—validating our feelings, supporting our decisions, helping us to feel good about ourselves. We tell white lies, make excuses when a friend does something wrong, do what we can to keep the boat steady. We're busy people; we want our friendships fun and friction-free ….

With the social-networking sites of the new century—Friendster and MySpace were launched in 2003, Facebook in 2004—the friendship circle has expanded to engulf the whole of the social world, and in so doing, destroyed both its own nature and that of the individual friendship itself. Facebook's very premise—and promise—is that it makes our friendship circles visible. There they are, my friends, all in the same place. Except, of course, they're not in the same place, or, rather, they're not my friends. They're a [superficial likeness or semblance] of my friends—little dehydrated packets of images and information, no more my friends than a set of baseball cards is the New York Mets ….

Deresiewicz concludes: 'Friendship is devolving, in other words, from a relationship to a feeling—from something people share to something each of us hugs privately to ourselves in the loneliness of our electronic caves.'"

-- Jerry De Luca, Montreal West, Quebec, Canada; source: William Deresiewicz,
"Faux Friendship," The Chronicle of Higher Education (12-6-09)

I'm not planning to give up Facebook anytime soon.  But this reminds me to truly value and nurture genuine, soul-transforming friendship, and not settle for any superficial imitation.

My friends, please know that I am grateful for the unconditional love and support that have been shown to me.  But we must not stop there.  A friendship is only true when we're willing to risk sometimes-scary conversations as we lovingly challenge each other to more fully live according to what we say we believe and value.

-- Debi

Fierce Grace and Mercy

In studying Jonah this week I discovered God's grace pursuing Jonah in a terrifying, life-threatening storm and his mercy in an equally scary fish.  Jonah was on the run, but God pursued him with a storm and used a fish to carry him back to where he started.

This has created a shift in my thinking.  Until now, I thought of mercy and grace in a sort of warm fuzzy way.  I wonder if I have ever failed to see God at work in my life because he was doing it in a fierce way rather than fuzzy.  I'll be more watchful...

- Joel

Learning From the Speechless

I went to the dentist a few weeks back.  In the waiting room was a framed little sign that read something like this:

Blessed are those who converse with the helplessly mute,

for they will be called dentists.

I smiled because I relate.  I've been serving in a chaplaincy role at a VA Medical Center in Salt Lake City.  In the course of my ministry there, I often meet people who have been intubated and cannot speak.  Often they also cannot write, due to immobility or weakness or tremors.  It creates unique challenges, calling for lots of patience and creativity on all sides.

And you know something?  I am indeed blessed in the process.  I am becoming more empathetic; learning to listen better, and to "listen" even when people cannot speak; realizing how many of my words are useless and focusing more on the ones that matter.  I am so very grateful for the many patients who have been teaching me.

-- Debi

Abounding

Pastor Joel asked me this past week to help the children learn a Bible verse: "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love" (Psalm 103:8).  My desire is for the knowledge of God's good nature to become planted in their souls and build deep roots there, so we put motion and tone to the words to help it stick.

Of course, this is not just for children, but for youth and adults, too, so I "invited" the congregation to join us in.  Not only did the congregation learn the verse, but participated with enthusiasm and had fun with it.  We put aside our sometimes-serious selves as we played together, supported the kids, and learned from scripture.  I was proud of the good folks at Rosewood Lane.

The choice of Psalm 103:8 was not random, of course.  Pastor Joel preached a great message on the story of Jonah.  If you'd like to hear it again (or hear it for the first time), let me know and I'll create an audio copy for you.

-- Debi

God Multiplies What We Give

In the miracle of the feeding of the 5000, Jesus performed an incredible miracle. It was a miracle that began with a group of people offering to Jesus what they had. None of what they gave was much, but it was critical. The boy gave a possession, his lunch. Andrew, as he has a reputation for doing, brought the boy. The disciples used the food Jesus placed in their hands. The crowd exerted the effort to run around the lake to show up where Jesus would be.

Is there a possession, a relationship, a gift He's given me, or some extra effort that I can give Him in order that He might do something miraculous?

- Joel