Second Church Steps

Grandkids fishing in Tennessee My father taught me to fish left handed; I did not discover this for 55 years.   It was only after he was gone, and I went fishing with someone else, that I realized everyone doesn’t fish his way. He was of the generation when a left handed person was required to learn to write with his right hand. He  grew up one of three sons  and became a father of three right-handed daughters .  Therefore, although he wrote right handed, he was ambidextrous in many ways. Now, that my father is gone and I fish alone, several things have changed. I no longer have fishing rods rigged by him. I no longer stand at his right hand…right next to him on the river bank or in a canoe casting, reeling, and waiting. Some things remain the same, though. You see, I learned to fish standing next to my father.   Mimicking his every move, I tried to cast as far and deftly as he did.   That is how I learned to fish and to serve.   I learn...

Be a FIG and DIG This is one of those days when you think you are doing one thing, and you end up doing another.  I thought I was going to be writing about “BALANCE,” you know—“to everything there is a season.”  Instead, I have spent the morning doing some study about fig trees in the Bible.  Yes,  I said “fig trees,” those things that cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness and signs of  the Hebrew People’s abundance and plenty during King Solomon’s time (Genesis 3:7 and 1 Kings 4:25).  The stories most often retold about “figs” in the Bible are the account of Jesus cursing the tree that does not bear fruit, and the parable of the gardener bartering one more year during which he will work diligently to make a fig tree produce fruit.  I looked at 44 instances of “figs” which are medicine, food, abundance, sweet, shade giving and a long lived symbol of peace,  and  I found the parable of summer.  How did I miss this figgy morsel?  It...

Figure 1 http://www.montreat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Mountains-2-400x250-300x187.jpg We think of “Sabbath” as a time to NOT DO something.  We stop.  We wait.  We rest.  We sit.  However, that is a lot of work!  I think of Sabbath as “making a space.”  It is an active choosing, remembering, and prioritizing a holy space for God.  It is less about “letting go” and more about “leaning in” to the Breath of the Holy Spirit.  In this context Sabbath is a return to our making.  You see, in the beginning “the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). It is the breath of the Lord God that stirs dust into human.  It is the breath of the Lord God that makes us living and gives us a life.  Therefore, “Sabbath” – a time for rest and renewal, is an opportunity to reach for that breath of God which gives u...

Grover taught me about the joy of Easter morning.  I knew the Easter story, see my previous blog post.  However, until someone is NOT where you expect them or someone is where you LEAST expect them -- only then can you step in the very soil of Easter joy.  Grover was an elder of a PCUSA church near the Cumberland Gap in Kentucky.  He was the "open-the-doors-in-the-morning" and "there-until-the-last-light-is-out" elder. His wife brought cookies every Sunday morning.  My children felt rather than knew this couple's ministry.  One morning, there weren't any cookie s because Grover's wife had died suddenly.  My daughter was astonished!  How could this happen? She insisted that we bring cookies the next Sunday.  Since Sunday School wasn't until HOURS after  two toddlers were awake, we began a year and a half practice of making sugar cookies for church on Sunday, yes every Sunday.  My three year old nudged us into taking up thi...

Sunday School Lessons can really stick! They inform; they empower! In the hands of a three year old they can create a  precocious theologian who announces on Holy Week that she doesn't understand what all of the fuss is about!  You see I, um...she, understood Easter; Easter is easy for a three year old.  “Jesus got dead.  They put him in a hole, and he got away.”  Out of the mouths of babes…  Perhaps this is an example of why Jesus said we should have the faith of a child (Matthew 18:2-4).  Yes, there are subtleties about HOW Jesus “got dead.” Was he not really dead? There have been crusades over who “they” might be and how did they put him into “a hole.” Where was the hole?  Then there is the argument/discussion about how “he got away.”     What did Jesus look like after “he got away?”  There is childlike humility in hearing the "what" of a story and living into it.   Don't get me wrong! Those ar...

Holy Promise People, Lent 2017, Second Presbyterian Church  My family and friends know that I am a little bit directional-ly impaired.  I’m  fine as long as the smart phone battery hangs in there, but if I forget to recharge…I could be circling 86 th street for quite a while! Life can feel like that sometimes.  There are distractions, obligations, self-imposed expectations, and competing priorities that can take focus away from the joy of a life lived in God .  Could that be why Lent is one of my favorite times of the church season?  Yes, I love the pageantry of Easter and the Christmas music, but there is something soothing and comforting about Lent that reorients me.   http://maiaduerr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/creditcard-trek.jpg Often people give something up for Lent as a sign of self-denial.  One year I had to have jaw surgery and gave up talking for Lent.  (Really!) I have friends that give up chocolate, sho...

Covenants are important and life giving moments in our lives as Christians.  They are moments of promise and faith.  They are moments of action and attention.  They  are important moments that have a unique beginning. These promises are not chores to check off or dates circled on a calendar; they are holy promises that begin with God.  They all begin with God choosing us and choosing to be in a relationship with us.  In return we are loved, claimed, and wanted.  This gives us the freedom to respond with truth, kindness, caring, and service to others. We learn about truth when we read God's book of hope and good news.  We care for God's people both our friends, neighbors and ourselves by participating in  Sunday School, Choir School, or VBS. We serve others by living as a people of promise. How do we live as  promise people?  We do it by remembering that we are HOLY PROMISE People  and lived the truth that so is our neigh...

We made it! Christmas is over!  Well, not quite yet, it isn’t.  There are those pesky twelve days of Christmas.  The celebrating could go on and on, if we let it! Goodness, the tree is looking dry and empty without a load of boxes and bags underneath it. The ornaments that were hung with surprise, joy, and fondest memories now look somehow out of place.  Can we for one moment stop, and think about this?  Think about that first rush of joy when a new child is born, when you first really felt the presence of the living God in your life?  What about the first time a young Sunday School class looked at you in awe of the wonderful stories you were telling them?  That moment sparkled with hope that was bursting with possibility!  Here and now in the “ bleak mid-winter ” of post-New Years, to borrow from  Christina Rossetti and hymn 144 in the Presbyterian Hymnal Glory to God , we find ourselves in the sleep deprived, post-adrenaline rush, vi...

Be a Stable People The very best people                     Have the very best seats. The very best people                 Have the very best beds. The very best people                 Have the very best clothes. The very best people                 Have the very best, don’t you know? You see, they are the INN crowd                 Who were not sent away. They are the INN crowd,                 Who have somewhere to stay. They are the INN crowd,        ...

Ask a small child to arrange a nativity scene and you might get something like this… My daughter did something similar to this during her first “active” Christmas Holiday season.  That's the 1.5 year old Christmas where she was making meaning and learning faith stories as fast as her church family and I could tell them to her. She helped me set up our family nativity set minus Jesus; we did this  because we wait until Dec. 24 th after church to find Jesus in the manger.  She looked at each piece and named them.  Explaining the story as she went through the box of precious figures, she placed each one with care.  When she finished all I could see were the backs of the shepherds, sheep and camels.  I couldn’t see Mary AT ALL!  It was all wrong.  As a young mother is want to do, I explained gently that the set should be set up in a “V” so we could see each individual piece. As an almost two year old/who thinks she is an adult will invari...

Christmas decorations are up everywhere.  It is now “okay” to have trees, tinsel, and carols up front and center.  These are signs of the times, and a way that we prepare our homes and hearts to celebrate the birth of Jesus.   Music is a BIG part of the holidays for me. When I was pregnant with my first child, one Christmas carol could reduce me to tears.  Every time!  I’ve sung it for over half a century.  It is part of my Christmas narrative, and owns me in some way.  It is “Away in a Manger.” Away in a manger, no crib for his bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head. The stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay, the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay. [i] The part that always got me is the “no crib for his bed.”  He didn’t even have a crib!  What kind of world is it that a baby has to sleep in the dirt? Yes, I was a bit dramatic.  Still…it is a lasting understanding that children should be held and...