Happy Halloween!

Happy All Hallow's Eve from Susan (holding Danger) and Cana (holding Mel, whose gorgeous blackness makes his facial beauty impossible to see)! Hope all have an All Saints' Day full of pathos but crowned with resurrection joy. I will remember Clinton, Lucille, and Ellen.

Fairfield Inn and Repartee

Who is this young man, you ask? This is Amon and he was the first person I met a year or more ago when I started staying at the Fairfield Inn when I am in Columbia. I like this place for lots of reasons. It is only about two years old and the interior design is what I would call Neo-Modern. I always stay in the same room. And everybody knows my name---actually they call me Ms. Cox-Johnson, I'll have to tell them soon that I am just Cox. Amon, Cassie and Chuck, the manager are very nice to me---Amon always gives me my evening carton of 2% milk as does anyone else working. here.

Amon is from a family with many children, all of whom are named after Old Testament names. When I went to the concordance and looked up Amon I found out that he was one of the bad boy kings in Judah, continuing the idolatry of his father, Wikipedia says, and his two years reign was marked by moral depravity. He was assassinated by his conspiring servants. His eight year old son Josiah succeeded to the throne---Josiah being the good guy king after a long line of the other kind.

Amon has told me some about his family. Apparently when his father was in his twenties, he had a born again experience that birthed him into a radically conservative type of Christianity. Thus the OT names. Amon told me this evening that his father kind of "came out of it" later in life. And Amon said that this was a good thing because his father had taken it all to such an extreme that it has caused family discord.

Amon represents the Fairfield Inn well. We have a repartee that I don't think I have had with any other hotel employee. I love that. And I love the fact that I have an ongoing conversation with this young man. I told him several months ago about the meaning of his name--he apparently had no idea what kind of a guy he was named after. I am not sure why parents would name their kid this. Who wants to go around all your life with a bad boy king's name? Especially if you're a very pleasant young man?

I am glad for this hotel as a sort of odd home away from home. It's really an okay place. But I especially glad for Amon, for the growth of relationship and for an opportunity to gradually, and as God leads, to engage in a deepening conversation about the important things of life.

The Branch

Tonight I was blessed with being able to go to The Branch...a MU student planned, student led (I think mostly UMC) worship service at a comedy club. They meet every Tuesday night for worship. Tonight I got to hear Sara, a UMCer student from Rolla preach. I also got to see Liz Hinz UMC student from Waverly (in my district) who assisted in worship, sang and played the guitar.

Yesterday, when Sherry Habben and I made plans to go out to dinner, she asked me if I wanted to go to The Branch afterward, and I literally jumped up and down and said GOODY! (is this REALLY a ds writing this)..Liz'z mom had told me about it and I told her that this is EXACTLY what I thought ought to be happening at MU. Although Tammy Shelton and Bev Boehmer may help some, it is really these young adults who are the movers and shakers. Their dedication, hard work, and imagination in staring this "new thing" is so wonderful. And it gives me hope. Thank you God.

The Redeemed Trees of Community

I have just taken this picture and am sitting in the west parking lot of Community United Methodist Church where I pastored from 1997-2000. When I came to the church as pastor, it had just purchased land across the street from this building where a new church building was being planned. No one seemed just terribly excited about the architect's rendering, but everyone knew a larger building was needed. It came to our attention that the old "Silvey Insurance Property" was for sale; it with its 55,000 (is that right???) square feet and thirteen stalls in just one of the women's bathrooms. It was for sale for $3m, we bought it; and praise Jesus, the church is close to having it paid off. Of course there is much more to the story.

One of the parts of the story happened after we had moved into the building in the fall 0f 2007. One afternoon, a man came in who wanted to know about his trees. His trees? I asked. Yes, his trees. He was the city arborist he said, and then he told me the story about his trees. Mr. Jim Silvey, the president of the Silvey Insurance Company, had moved into this his former building sometime in the early 1990s. There was a lot free of trees outside of his office window. Mr. Silvey liked silver maple trees. Somehow he and the city arborist made each other's acquaintance and Mr. Silvey told the arborist about his empty lot and his love for silver maples. The arborist then put out the word to the city construction workers and tree trimmers---if in their clearing of land they came upon a young silver maple tree, they were to call him and he would dig up the tree and plant it on Mr. Silvey's empty lot. They called and he planted and Mr. Silvey was happy. He could sit inside his corner office and look across to that formerly empty lot, now planted with five young silver maple trees, budding in the spring, in full leaf in the summer, golden in the fall, barrenly beautiful in the winter. These were redeemed trees, whose life had been saved, and whose loveliness had been enjoyed because of two men who loved them.

After telling me this story, the arborist and I went outside to look at the trees. They were all healthy and happy and he was pleased.

I did not tell the arborist, and only told my congregation much later in a sermon, about how important these trees had come to be for me even before he told me that story. In the picture, you see the southwest corner of the building where the office is that had been Jim Silvey's became mine. There are large nearly ceiling to floor windows in the office, two which are on that corner. Each morning, or at least as many mornings as I was able to discipline myself to it, I would sit by those windows at a small table with a candle and a bible and a cross, and look out the window across the way at the trees. At that time, I was in a particularly difficult time and I was searching for truth and beauty and revelation from God as to how to interpret best what it all meant. Over the weeks when I began looking at those trees, me always sitting in the same spot, I became familiar with their shape and the variance of heights, the slight differentiation of color of their leaves. I became aware that in one of the trees that I could see most clearly, there was an empty place between two branches that had not grown too close together where I could see clear through to the sky. No branches, no leaves, an empty spot. Over those weeks of yearning for a message, yearning for assurance, I began to realize that as much as God was in the beauty of the leaves, God was also in the beauty of the empty spot ---and that is sometimes the most anguishingly beautiful spot of all. A place where the lack of familiar beauty wakes me up to that place in God's heart that has been emptied for me. It also calls me to realize that there is a hollow place of grace in my heart that should not be filled up too easily by platitudes and cotton candy. Many times that empty place simply is there, and any concern that I have about it is really not that important. It simply is, most of the time. But at other times, when yearnings are real, the way is not plain, my own sinful self is my shame, that empty spot in The Redeemed Trees of Community UMC comes to mind, I remember the events of my life, my life now and into the future, and in a way only God can create, I realize angain the devastating beauty that does shine through.

The Kleenex-Bearers

This may look like a travel size pack of Kleenex to you but it is an incarnation of the love of Christ to me. I have been so blessed over the last few months to be gifted with a close friend who gives me advice, cares enough to ask the hard questions, deals tenderly with my admissions of messing up, and hands me tissues, most of the time a whole PACK of tissues, when I cry.

In our lives we encounter some dear souls who do listen and care and do not answer our discombobulated thoughts with rationality, but instead with Kleenex. They even plan ahead by coming to us with a disposition that they have asked for from God, and listen without encouraging our guilt, and allow God's grace to flow through them, and always remember the Kleenex.

Today, I received a letter in the mail that told me I was legally Cox now, Cox-Johnson no more. And it made me cry--I am alone in my family with a different last name, and it is the right though very painful thing somehow. Pathos all the way---I'm pretty experienced with this pathos thing.

As I got into the car and started off to a meeting down the interstate, I began to weep momentarily over the finality of my name change and I reached into my purse for a tissue...and out came this very pack in the picture, given to me last week by a precious friend as we spoke of Godly things and my holy tears began. Tonight I wept a little more, remembering the good gift of God's immeasurable grace. I pulled out a Kleenex, wiped my eyes and runny nose, and realized there is really no "alone" about it in the kingdom of God. And I praised the One from whom all blessings flow.

The tissues in this blue and pink plastic pouch remind me of that promise in Revelation that there will come a time when death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more, and when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Until then, He gives us incredibly caring friends who bring the Kleenex. Thank you, Lord.

Cowgill News

The Cowgill church folks received the news today that there is no imminent danger for them if they wish to worship in their sanctuary building. A structural engineer Rod Sommer, met with them and as you might expect, there were some mighty happy people. There is some serious damage to the building that will have to be paid for and done; I did not take any pictures of the basement, where there is much water damage and the walls are bowing; I did not take pictures of the unplumb walls on the outside or the balcony that the engineer told them today not to use ever; or of the floor sinking. But I did take pictures of the two largest windows. Most days, I realize that the ministry I have through this appointment is not exact--the "nos" often have a "yes" somewhere hidden in them and the "yeses" sometimes have a dark cloud over them. In any case, here are pictures of the cornerstone at the church and the two window.

The Eve of World Communion Sunday

Should I yell "STOP!!!" or should I hop around, kissing everybody on the cheek, singing "Thank you, Jesus, Thank You" ??? I came through the door of my condo in from a walk about 10 minutes ago, with Jim Bennett, pianist playing a beautiful simple arrangement of the hymn tune for Hal Hopson's text for The Gift of Love on my Ipod. I was thoroughly into my own head, and pretty much happy, though winded just a tad. The moment I stepped through the door, I saw Caleb's girlfriend Rose in the kitchen, her brother Vincent in the kitchen, and Cana coming down the hall about to go in to the kitchen. Caleb was also in the said kitchen making cappuccinos although he was having difficulty locating a space on a counter to sit down the cups, for the kitchen counters were/are covered with everything from a George Foreman grill to three rather large plastic containers of cookies I baked last night (new recipe---Chips Galore--very sweet) to the George Miller clock that fell of the wall this morning to the trivet I received at Jurisdictional conference in 2000 with the words "The Ageless Story for a New Century." And what permeated the entire experience was the sweet, luscious, well played, extremely loud piano in the very close by living room, being played by Jake McDonald, friend of Caleb. Jake told just now that this piece is from Lizst entitled Sonetto a la Petraca"-the middle movement. Jake and Caleb had just come from playing pool in the complex's party room...thus the pool cue on the table, in a cue case, not belonging to either of them, but to another friend-of-Caleb, Michael, who left it here three weeks ago.

Funny thing, it did not make me crazy, all this movement and sound, all these coffee spots on the cabinets and dishes all around (though it would have been/will be nice if/when the clean dishes were/are put away so the latest new ones can be loaded). I decided it was better to, if not hop around, at least blog on the scene. This is not unlike several nights over the last couple of weeks, except I haven't had the pleasure of Lizst until this evening--the friends Cana and Caleb have brought; an unkempt kitchen, and lots of life. This condo was built in 1965, and I truly doubt these walls have ever felt so much sound, seen so many dishes in use at one time, and entertained this many 16 to 20 year olds since the last vertical blind was put in back then.

One of the outgrowths is that I do not ever quite know how many will be eating supper here--I used to worry about having enough. I told myself ostensibly that I didn't want to short any guest here his or her supper, when in fact, I may have just wanted, part of the time, to know there was enough for MY family. I, the rich (?) young (???) queen here, stopped worrying quite a long time ago about this, and began to know that my supper neighbor is basically anyone within the the walls when it's ready. That's okay. The table will be ready, and all may come.

As I thought about all this, I remembered a dream I had when Barry Woodward, a pastor in the former Missouri East conference, died too soon several years ago. Barry was a former British Methodist pastor who spoke stridently year after year on the conference floor about social justice for all. He had big gray bushy eyebrow, a great voice, loved the Wesley hymns and who, as I recall from the hot days at the Field House at Central Methodist (then) College, wore sleeve garters

.

As I said, I had a dream a few days after his death. In the dream, there was a table before me, so large I could not comprehend the size, at which people were sitting. I was standing behind the backs of those people as they faced the table. Barry was sitting at the table, which was constantly expanding as others would come to it. Except Barry turned around, and with much love in his voice said, "it is not yet your time" and smiling, turned back around to the table--the Heavenly Table where we will feast at His table forever.

Barry told me it was not yet my time, but, in a way, it is. Each evening when the scattered hungry come from the east and west and north and south (okay, just from the north and south, where the bedrooms and patios are) and I receive the joy of feeding them. For me, it is a foretaste of glory divine each evening when the food goes on my knock-off Saarinen kitchen table and is gone in a twinkling of an eye. I blog tonight and say to our Lord "Thank you, thank you, thank you."