I found a blog recently from a friend with an interesting story. It seems a neighboring home was slated for demolition and before the house was torn down, he went in the house and found something amazing. It seems the former owner, or at least someone who lived there, wrote memories of each room on the walls. If your house could talk, what would some of the memories be? Here is the link to Seattle Griz's Blog. Scroll down to see the pictures and read the story.
The home by the way, has now been demolished and replaced by a housing development. Thank goodness our memories are not made of concrete and wood.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Lent ----More Than the Stuff Caught in the Dryer Trap
When I was growing up, lent was the stuff you pulled out of the trap in the dryer after you removed a load of clothes. As thick as lent gets in the dryer trap, I have wondered at times whether it could be used to fill a quilt or a down jacket. If one got really desperate, could you make clothing out of lent? Anyway, I digress.
Once I became a United Methodist, Lent took on whole new meaning. Lent is a season of the Christian Year that begins on Ash Wednesday (in 2008, February 6) and ends on Easter Sunday. It is to be a time of spiritual reflection and renewal as we draw closer to God through the lessons, leadership, and love of Christ. Lent usually starts much later, but this year will be the earliest we celebrate Easter (March 23) for the next 150 years. What this means is, our Lenten reflections come sooner in 2008 as we seek to live as Easter people.
I am thinking about lent/Lent because we are planning for our Lenten observance at India Hook UMC. Lenten discipline involves looking into our own souls for those problems or obstacles that keep us from full fellowship with Christ. Often we hear about "giving something up" for Lent, like chocolate or cheeseburgers, and we may not know the reasons behind it. One reason, among the many, is that we replace the passion or the habit we have forsaken for a time of prayer or some other means of grace that draws us closer to Christ. As Easter approaches and by the grace and guidance of God, perhaps we have shed those things that have hindered us. At India Hook, I am asking people to use part of their Lenten observance and discipline to consider the use of our time and money in our personal and corporate lives and what their use (or abuse) reveals about our life in Christ. Hopefully, we will be led to live lives of better stewardship.
Maybe their is a connection to the lent in the dryer and the Lenten season after all. Just as lent is something we don't need on our clothes, perhaps Lent helps us see the things , habits, and thinking we don't need in our lives. May we all move closer to Christ.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Some gotta win, some gotta lose
Saturday is sports day--- the Athlete had a wrestling meet and LPCoolJ had a basketball game. Mamma Deacon and I split duties on days like this. Each of us follows a kid. The Athlete was in a double elimination bout. He lost the first one to a very quick, very experienced wrestler. Then came the second match; he was wrestling a kid of equal ability. My favorite wrestler was ahead on points going into the second round, victory was in his grasp (so to speak). Then something went wrong...he was pinned for a loss. Needless to say, he was crushed.
On the other side of town, LPCoolJ and his church basketball league cohorts were playing. I made it just in time for the start of the game. CoolJ's team only had five players show up. The other team had eight or nine. I thought for sure they would not have the steam to make the whole game and win, but LPCoolJ's team won by 14 points. CoolJ scored a bucket or two. His source of pride was that everybody on his team scored. I agree!
I am not writing this to give the Sacramental Dude's sports report, but to reflect on this day. As the Athlete and I drove to his brother's game, I tried to console him. I can remember my dad doing the same thing when I played centerfield and the baseball went sailing over my head in little league. My team lost. Boy, did that loss sting. At some point, my son will discover that the only way to get through losing and/or failure is to learn from it. Perhaps that is a skill we learn as we get older. Those reflections and lessons are for future days; for now, today, the sting is enough.
On the other hand, LPCoolJ is on cloud nine. Victory suits him well. He has not always been on winning teams when it comes to organized sports, so today is very special. He has recounted his made shots and forgotten about the times he missed. He has taken pride in his team's success. At some point, my son will discover that the only way to keep winning and/or succeeding is to learn from it. Perhaps that is a skill we learn as we get older. Those reflections and lessons are for future days; for now, today, the sweetness is enough.
At various times of life, we deal with loss and failure; then there are those times of success and victory. We cannot escape the bitterness or the sweetness of those moments. Nor can we dwell on them. We take our contests of life with us, hopefully learning and growing from each one, always claiming more than the moment, trapped in a memory. Hopefully, that is not true just of sports, but of fatherhood, and work, and church, and life.
The only way to go through life well is to learn from it. Perhaps that is a skill we learn as we get older. Those reflections and lessons are for future days; for now, today, the experience of this day is enough.
May there be many more days of wrestling and basketball and life from which to learn.
Peace.
On the other side of town, LPCoolJ and his church basketball league cohorts were playing. I made it just in time for the start of the game. CoolJ's team only had five players show up. The other team had eight or nine. I thought for sure they would not have the steam to make the whole game and win, but LPCoolJ's team won by 14 points. CoolJ scored a bucket or two. His source of pride was that everybody on his team scored. I agree!
I am not writing this to give the Sacramental Dude's sports report, but to reflect on this day. As the Athlete and I drove to his brother's game, I tried to console him. I can remember my dad doing the same thing when I played centerfield and the baseball went sailing over my head in little league. My team lost. Boy, did that loss sting. At some point, my son will discover that the only way to get through losing and/or failure is to learn from it. Perhaps that is a skill we learn as we get older. Those reflections and lessons are for future days; for now, today, the sting is enough.
On the other hand, LPCoolJ is on cloud nine. Victory suits him well. He has not always been on winning teams when it comes to organized sports, so today is very special. He has recounted his made shots and forgotten about the times he missed. He has taken pride in his team's success. At some point, my son will discover that the only way to keep winning and/or succeeding is to learn from it. Perhaps that is a skill we learn as we get older. Those reflections and lessons are for future days; for now, today, the sweetness is enough.
At various times of life, we deal with loss and failure; then there are those times of success and victory. We cannot escape the bitterness or the sweetness of those moments. Nor can we dwell on them. We take our contests of life with us, hopefully learning and growing from each one, always claiming more than the moment, trapped in a memory. Hopefully, that is not true just of sports, but of fatherhood, and work, and church, and life.
The only way to go through life well is to learn from it. Perhaps that is a skill we learn as we get older. Those reflections and lessons are for future days; for now, today, the experience of this day is enough.
May there be many more days of wrestling and basketball and life from which to learn.
Peace.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Simeon, Anna and the Business of Waiting
As part of some of my post-Christmas reflections, I have been pondering the passages about Simeon and Anna in the Gospel of Luke. Many preachers skip from the birth stories straight to the visit of the Magi and the Baptism of the Lord. But hidden in the middle verses of Luke's second chapter, we read about the Holy Family's visit to the Temple. In those brief verses, we read about a man named Simeon and how he "looked forward to the consolation of Israel." When he finally sees the Christ child headed to the Temple, he takes the child in his arms and blesses him. In a separate but similar episode, Anna blesses the child within the walls of the Holy Temple.
These short verses do no justice to the long wait of Simeon and Anna. They spent a lifetime waiting and watching for the Messiah. How many times did they get their hopes up, only to have them smashed by reality? We will never know. I imagine Simeon searched the faces of those he met in the street, hoping that the Holy Spirit would reveal to him the One who would bring consolation to his people. Anna, prayed and fasted, waited and watched in the Temple. Would she know the One when He came, after waiting for so long? Finally the blessed event came, the Holy Presence was made known to both of them. Their joy was complete; their presence and purpose in the Gospel passes and we are left to learn from them and apply the lessons to our own lives.
Waiting and watching are never easy things for us. Humans tend to be impatient, searching for distractions as we try to rush our waiting to an early end. I doubt that is the way that Simeon and Anna learned to wait and watch. I believe that as they waited, they made the most of the time they had as they drew closer to God, the source of our true consolation. Perhaps in the waiting they understood that as moments pass, divine fruition draws closer.
Waiting for the Holy in each moment also frees us from the tyranny of the next big thing. For the next big thing rarely meets our expectations and it never brings us true consolation or salvation. That is true of the latest gizmos or the next blockbuster movie that will supposedly entertain us or the latest CNN Presidential Preference Poll that will inform us. If our hope is in the passing of time or in the unrealistic expectations of what we think should happen next, the only thing we will gain is wasted time and an empty reality. Our salvation cannot be found after the next commercial, the next job, or whatever the next "It" is.
Perhaps it took Simeon and Anna a long time to discover this. Maybe it takes us years of experience as well. For as my family gets older and the community and the church I serve change, I find myself at times lost in the looking for the next thing, the next stage, the next important date on the calendar, the next event. Yet, thanks to Simeon and Anna, I realize waiting and watching in this time of my life cannot be about what happens next. It has to be about making the most of each moment--- of searching faces and places as Simeon and Anna did---for the presence of God in the here and the now even as we hope for the future. Salvation and the abundance of life happen more often in the now rather than in the later. For our unrealistic expectations of later rarely match the reality that will come. Even as we wait, watch, and hope for tomorrow, we cannot overlook today.
These short verses do no justice to the long wait of Simeon and Anna. They spent a lifetime waiting and watching for the Messiah. How many times did they get their hopes up, only to have them smashed by reality? We will never know. I imagine Simeon searched the faces of those he met in the street, hoping that the Holy Spirit would reveal to him the One who would bring consolation to his people. Anna, prayed and fasted, waited and watched in the Temple. Would she know the One when He came, after waiting for so long? Finally the blessed event came, the Holy Presence was made known to both of them. Their joy was complete; their presence and purpose in the Gospel passes and we are left to learn from them and apply the lessons to our own lives.
Waiting and watching are never easy things for us. Humans tend to be impatient, searching for distractions as we try to rush our waiting to an early end. I doubt that is the way that Simeon and Anna learned to wait and watch. I believe that as they waited, they made the most of the time they had as they drew closer to God, the source of our true consolation. Perhaps in the waiting they understood that as moments pass, divine fruition draws closer.
Waiting for the Holy in each moment also frees us from the tyranny of the next big thing. For the next big thing rarely meets our expectations and it never brings us true consolation or salvation. That is true of the latest gizmos or the next blockbuster movie that will supposedly entertain us or the latest CNN Presidential Preference Poll that will inform us. If our hope is in the passing of time or in the unrealistic expectations of what we think should happen next, the only thing we will gain is wasted time and an empty reality. Our salvation cannot be found after the next commercial, the next job, or whatever the next "It" is.
Perhaps it took Simeon and Anna a long time to discover this. Maybe it takes us years of experience as well. For as my family gets older and the community and the church I serve change, I find myself at times lost in the looking for the next thing, the next stage, the next important date on the calendar, the next event. Yet, thanks to Simeon and Anna, I realize waiting and watching in this time of my life cannot be about what happens next. It has to be about making the most of each moment--- of searching faces and places as Simeon and Anna did---for the presence of God in the here and the now even as we hope for the future. Salvation and the abundance of life happen more often in the now rather than in the later. For our unrealistic expectations of later rarely match the reality that will come. Even as we wait, watch, and hope for tomorrow, we cannot overlook today.
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