From the beginning

Another snowy Sunday morning.............

My aunt talks about being little and looking at the night sky with her father, my grandfather, and he said to her "Could something this beautiful be an accident?"

      I look around the congregation each Sunday and I ask could something this beautiful be an accident.  The lives brought together, generations later, sons and daughters brought together.

     When I was young we would sit around the dinner table and occasionally my sister and I would retell a story that had happened in the past (mind you we were still in elementary school at the time) we began to notice one of our younger brothers would pipe up at the end of a story and say "I remember that!"  Every once in a while he would even try to add a piece of information...how dare he! Well my sister and I found this unacceptable!  How could he try to get in on our memories.  So we began to trip him up.  We would make up a story and lead him along until predictably he would say "I remember that!"  Once the bait was taken we would shout "No you don't.... it didn't happen!"

     How horrible we were to do this. All he wanted was to be a part of our story; to belong.  I imagine he wanted to think that even though he couldn't remember what we were talking about that he was there, he was with us always.

     This is God's promise, I am always with you and I have always been with you.  I began my relationship with you in the stars, just look up...our history rests there, I have been with you since the beginning, no need to pretend what I share with you.  If you ever feel alone--I am with you.

     Oh, there will be tricksters along the way, people trying to tell us we don't belong, or that we missed something, that we will never be as worthy of this relationship as they are.  There will be those who even set us up to fail, delighting in our stumbling ways. 

    But take heart in those times ----God says "Do not be afraid I am with you."

e.e. cummings

i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me

(i carry it in my heart)

i am never without it

(anywhere i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)

i want no world

(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

In the Wilderness

Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested.

            I think that for many of us living in Northern New England February may feel like the wilderness.  We have our beautiful December winter; we welcome the snow and fill our kitchens with the scents and tastes of homemade soups and breads.  The holidays arrive and we look forward to the rest that January offers, with the energy of resolutions to back us up.  But then there is February, our wilderness.

            New snow is exciting to those on vacation but turns to grey and black too quickly.  Backs are sore from shoveling; everything that we forgot to put away for the winter now pokes its head out ----an unsightly reminder of our failure to take care of it in the first place.  Poor February, as if it doesn’t have trouble enough of its own, we are also reminded as we look at the snow that arrives and melts quickly of the flooded basements that are soon to come.

            The wilderness for Christ is the desert, for us it is the continuing landscape of grey snow and dark skies that come too early.  Whenever we are looking at the same thing at every turn for too long we may begin to feel like we are in the wilderness. 

Wilderness is defined at Wikipedia as: An uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region.  A neglected or abandoned area of a garden or town.

                February, the shortest month of the year can feel like the longest month of the year, and yet in the midst of the neglected or even abandoned areas of our lives March, April, and May are around the corner.  There will be a way out of the wilderness if we seize it.  The procrastination that has plagued us will diminish and the last of the Christmas decorations WILL be put away, the bill drawers will be cleared and there will be a temporary relief from the weight of fuel costs, seeds will be planted and as they enter the still cold ground they hold hope and promise for us.

            Before we know it the windows will be opened! 

Why must we enter the wilderness, why must we have Februaries in our lives?  There is no answer, except that occasionally we find ourselves there.  Often in the midst of all that is grey, all that closes in on us-- bringing the night too early, we must call on the Spirit within us to simply maintain. 

Again 
The silence doesn't mean that I'm alone 
As long as I can hear 
That I am still Your own.  In the Waiting, by Greg Long

Up the Mountain

Photo taken on Mt. Avery 1983, all smiles at the top.  What you don't see is  my brother in-law (taking the picture) or all the highs, lows and in "betweens" that came our way.

Luke 9:33

            Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said.

            Before I was diagnosed with M.S. in 1997, I loved to climb mountains.  My husband and I climbed before we were married, with our children when they were young and then they carried on the tradition without me.  Climbing a mountain is a physical, spiritual all consuming activity.  There are a lot of internal conversations that occur as a climber journeys to the top.

            The most difficult climb I ever took was the fire warden's trail up Mt. Avery.  Now mind you I did not know at the time that the fire warden's trail on any mountain is the quickest way to the top, meaning STRAIGHT UP! 

            My husband Bill, and brother in-law James and I started this climb with our dog, Terrapin, on a beautiful October morning.  Bill announced we would be climbing the fire warden's trail and off we went. The climb was a slow assent, the fall colors were beautiful, the company great.  My internal thoughts were a bit cocky; "this is going to be an easy climb”.  There was plenty of breath for conversation and time to look around the trail. 

            At some point I realized that I had been climbing head down only watching where my feet will go; my breathing was hard and since Bill was way ahead of me I aimed my voice down to James who was behind (this was their way to make sure I was ok, their dad taught them the rules of climbing well) and said "You go ahead, I need to rest".

In return he said "So do I, look up".  When I looked up the side of the mountain was in my face, we were climbing straight up!

            So many thoughts raced through my head at the time, "I won't be able to do it", "what happens now", and finally (though this thought could have been the first middle and last thought) "I am going to kill Bill!"   James was thinking the same first, middle and last thought as well, especially since he now had me to deal with.

            Well once the shock was over, a short lean on a rock and some salami and cheese, we were off.  Down went my head with all my focus on my feet, one step at a time ,up we went.  As we approached the top, there was Bill sitting with the dog and a big smile on his face, we were not smiling.  However anyone who has climbed a mountain knows there is a sweet feeling of accomplishment that is amazing.  Anger was short lived and whoops of delight and the slapping of backs echoed around us.

            We slept in a lean-to that night and awoke in the clouds, we moved slowly as we were locked in.  There was no rush, we were on a mountain after all, and as the clouds lifted we began our travels across the top on the mountain to the next and then descended.  For some the climb down is the hardest, the pounding on the knees, but for me it is like flight.  The trees and rocks are like flashes in the periphery as I take long strides and at times feel myself go airborne.  There are times when going down the mountain the momentum can be hard to stop even if you want to stop.  Stumbles and falls often occur on the way down due to the quick stop when someone yells "Wait!"

            And then suddenly your on the ground, there is the car, the boots are thrown off, backpacks dropped with loud thuds and then it is home again, home again, jiggity jig. What took two days seems like a week and will be the topic of conversation for years and years to come. 

            I think of the disciples climb with Jesus that day. Did they start off thinking it would be easy and then find themselves head down digging in for the hardest climb of their lives.  Of course they didn't want to leave the top, why would they?  And then the descent, freeing, exciting but a bit dangerous. 

            This is our life with Christ; he takes us places we can't imagine for ourselves, places we may feel he tricked us into going, that were much more difficult than we anticipated.  Then there are times when we are so socked in with our faith history, those times when we feel surrounded by all those who believed before us, those fragile moments that are like soap bubbles that pop too quickly.  The journey down unites us all; no one can avoid the trip ups on the way to level ground.  And yet no matter our journey the car awaits, always an opportunity to navigate a new path.

            

Measuring up...

    I was preparing for the children's Sunday School lesson and the scripture was

 Matthew 7:12: So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (NIV)

     Getting lessons reading for the children reminds me so much of teaching pre-school, I learned so much teaching these young eager learners.  Anyone with an Early Childhood background knows that using positive language with children is the recommended method to get children to do something you want, for example:  "I need you to walk" versus" stop running".

     Up until now people had been told all that they should not be doing, Christ came as the ultimate pre-school teacher, showing us what to do. This one Golden Rule was so much easier to remember than the list of don'ts.  

      It is interesting and important to see our God as a God forever trying to teach us in new ways, Christ came to show us a new way, a way of measuring ourselves not by what we shouldn't do but rather by what we should do....and even more importantly, since I am not a big fan of the word "should” all that we can do when we see others as just as worthy of the treatment we desire.

     How much can we do when we live our lives in relationship to others in a positive manner?  Praying for our own basic needs to be met knowing that as we pray to be fed, housed, and loved we are praying for the same for others.  

    Praying for what we want can be more difficult than praying for what we DON'T want---when we ask ourselves what we want in our relationships, in our homes, in our churches, and in our world, it makes us focus and think. 

 It is easy to create a list of disposable ever changing list of "I don't wants” but to answer the question "What do you want?" "How do you want to be treated?" can be difficult---it takes time.  Try answering these questions without first saying "Well I don't want......". 

       When we can really answer these questions we take charge of our own lives we begin to move on a path that goes forward rather than backward.  As we get a firm grasp of what we want and how we want to be treated the resulting confidence, courage and joy give us the desire to extend that expectation and hope for all people.