Cana's prayer request

Today Cana and I went to MisKnits (a WONDERFUL new yarn/knitting/sitting place to knit store at 39th and Terrace....Amber is the owner!) and worked on winter hats to provide for the homeless. She is working on some community service hours and she wanted me to go with her on this venture, since she had not been in to knit there before, so I crocheted hats, too. As we were hurriedly getting ready to go---it has been a busy day for me with a good pastors' meeting this a.m. and lunch with one of my pastors---Cana said to me, sort of out of the blue, "Mom, I think it would be good if you would pray for Amy Winehouse and her husband." I then asked about them---somehow I have missed the macabre photos on line over the last couple of days, although I did know about the addictions---and I told her I would pray for them. I love Amy Winehouse's music---something original and familiar at the same time. And sadly real and very human. Cana loves her too,and she knows I do. And she, who sometimes wonders aloud about what she believes and doesn't believe, asked me to pray for them. I will.

Sucking up (like a vacuum)

All right, I could not resist this. Bishop Schnase spoke on the 5 practices twice in my district today---at Platte Woods and then at Good Shepherd. Because I had a charge conference elsewhere, I conly made it for 10 minutes of PW, but for almost all of GS. . I heard him use an analogy I had not heard before (I sure hope it's not in the book and I forget that I had read it). He says that society, during the 50s, acted like a dump truck for the church....all the people would be swept up (or dumped in? I guess) and dumped out on our church lawn. Those of us who remember American civil religion remember when sports practice was never on Sunday and blue laws. Church was the place everybody went. Now, says rs, society is like a vacuum cleaner...sticks its hose in the church door and sucks all the folks out. This was tongue in cheek of course (I laughed loudly....somehow it REALLY struck me as humorous...after a day of being present at two good worship services at Odessa and Grace: Higginsville, and a good-spirited charge conference at Blue Springs about money and buildings, and a brief appearance at Platte Woods...it might have been some tired laughter but I still want to hoot about this analogy). Hmmm, something to think about.

DS Mojo???

There are some interesting developments in the Cox-Johnson world, and in my ministry of late. My son is now an upperclassman, having begun his junior year today; my daughter did not begin school today since she graduated from high school, but will be taking one class at a community college up the road; the biggest development in her life is Ben, a boyfriend whom she met on the first night that her brother and I forced her to go out and have some fun at a local coffeehouse...; our two kittens are driving ol' Maggie-cat crazy,and us too sometimes; I am actively making my living room into a 1950s leave-it-to-beaver type space without me having to wear high heels and pearls

And, as I told Bob Farr, our conference's director of congregational excellence, with whom I had lunch yesterday, I seem to be getting my ds mojo on finally (although I have just researched the word "mojo" and I am kinda thinkin' I better find another word...:-)). That old mojo has erupted or whatever it is that it does every once in a while over the last couple of years, but it has me in a very good place---I met with the student pastors today; I've been going out to lunch off and on the last two months with some of the pastors with whom I have not checked in lately; I have all dates and pastor meeting dates planned; I have an agenda worked up for our district roundtable (the district council) for Sunday, and I think I am feeling confident in a way that I have not felt to this point.

For me, I think a lot of it comes from this rootedness emphasis that is the backdrop for everything else we are doing in the district this year...trying to ask pastors and lay leader-types to pay attention to their own spiritual rootedness (my metaphor fails). But you know what I mean.

I think it's time to turn my face toward all things emergent again---I may be ready.

Sunday August 12

This weekend I have done something I have never done before---I preached four times in the same church, with the same sermon. I had been asked to preach at First UMC in Blue Springs this Sunday--Steve Campbell was on vacation. I preached once last night and three times this morning. It was quite the experience. I preached three times regularly on Sundays the first year I was at Community UMC in Columbia, but never four times.

The text I used is actually the epistle lesson from the lectionary for next week---Hebrews 12:1-2. I reworked an old sermon in which I used Lance Armstrong as an example; used Shel Silverstein's Little Blue Engine; and, basically said as I summed at the end, When you think you can and you can; when you think you can and you can't; when you think you can't and you don't; in all those times we are help in the magnificent and mystifying love of God through Christ.

One thing I noticed today, preaching this many times, was how much I miss speaking aloud theologically---preaching is a way for us preachers articulate what we beleive, to say the important things out loud, not only for the congregation, but for our own souls as well.

Two other lovely things today: Yolanda Villa, my colleague in the office who now is the Heartland Central ds, called me on my way home from Blue Springs. Know why she called? Just to tell me she had been thinking about me and praying for me because she knew I was preaching 4 times. And she let me tell her about it. Wow.

And then tonight, after a called charge conference at FUMC Kearney (to set a new salary for the associate pastor whose hours have been increased and to establish another building committee to start to move forward on expanding the worship area) I went to dinner at the home of the pastor Fred and Linda Leist. It was so nice just to sit around the kitchen table, to eat the Greek food Linda had prepared for us and to have good conversation. Very nice indeed.

And sometimes, things actually work out right...

I have never been as glad as I am tonight that I have the MLB package for digital cable. I actually cried real tears over a Cardinals game, because Rick Ankiel hit a three run homer in the 7th inning. Who in the world would have thunk it in 2000 when I was about as embarrassed for a baseball player as I have ever been. Here is how the Cardinal beat-writer says it today on the team website:

Ankiel first appeared in the big leagues in 1999 (at nineteen) as a pitcher with the Cards. After a promising start, his career took a dramatic turn for the worse in the 2000 playoffs.
Chosen as the Game 1 starter of the NLDS against the Braves, Ankiel walked six batters and threw five wild pitches. In another postseason appearance against the Mets, the young lefty threw four more wild pitches in 1 1/3 innings.
Ankiel then started six games for the Cards in 2001 before missing the 2002 season and a chunk of the 2003 and 2004 with left elbow problems that required Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery.

It was DESPERATELY painful to see a 20 year old pitcher fall apart. He kept trying some, but after the Tommy John surgery, he just said he did not have the desire anymore to do what it took to be a big league pitcher. Cards gm Walt Jocketty apparently talked him in to continuing to work on his hitting (always a good hitting pitcher) and eventually, with years of hard work on fielding, hitting, and no little amount of psychological reorientation, believe it or not, Rick is back with the Cardinals. ANd he hit a three run homer in the bottom of the 7th. And I cried, and more miraculously, Tony LaRuusa laughed, kept smiling, and clapped his hands. Wow. Sometimes things work out right...

This past Sunday I worshiped at Faith UMC in Grain Valley. This church in my district was one of two that had been selected at "teaching churches" for the School for Congregational Development, sponsored by the General Board of Discipleship and Church of the Resurrection. The pastor, Dave Hackett is preaching a series on the 12 disciples...this week it was Nathanael. David described something I had never heard before about that fig tree...the houses of that time were one room, and could get pretty crowded. Privacy was nearly non existent. It was the habit of persons who constructed those houses to plant a fig tree at the front of the house, not only for the fruit, but also because it provided a private place of shelter when a family member wanted to get away. When Jesus told Nathanael that he had seen him "under the fig tree before Philip called him," (John 1: 48) it was more than just having seen him along the way someplace or in a crowd. It was as if Jesus said to Nathanael, "I saw you in the place where you seek to be yourself; I saw you there, and knew you; I saw you there and saw no conceit." It got me to thinking---what fig tree which I call my own did Jesus see me under today? Did he see me under my d.s. fig tree, sitting in my office, trying to figure out the charge conference schedule? Did he see me under my mothering fig tree as I paid tuition for my daughter's first college class? Did he see me under my obsessive fig tree this evening as I searched ebay for that perfect mid century modern cranberry love seat I have in mind but have not found? Does he see me right now under my blogging fig tree, writing about fig trees? What I find so remarkably grace-filled is that Jesus has seen me under all the trees of my life, and knows me, and even though that phrase which he uses to describe Nathanael "without any guile" may not be the one that always describes me, Jesus knows better than I do who I really am, and he calls me to all these roles, and I am so so grateful. Thank you Rev. Hackett, for helping me know in a new and beautiful way, the prevenient grace of Christ, who knows us and loves us before we ever seek him.

Shelter Kitties

Today was the day I had told Caleb we would go to the Kansas City Animal Shelter and get his kitten. He has never had his own cat---Prince was supposed to have been Cana's cat and Maggie is supposed to be mine. We kind of switched somplace along the line. I like what this kitten thing is bringing out in Caleb---tenderness, protectiveness and he says, he is going to regulate the kitty's food so he doesn't have a weight problem like Maggie. So, he picked him out a sweet young long haired tabby-ish kitty, whose brother had already been adopted earlier today. Caleb was going to name his new cat after a Buddhist deity whose name I can't spell, but after he saw this kitten he decided he should have some other name. What, we do not yet know.

There were LOTS of kittens and cats at the shelter, and well, there was this one...in a cage by himself, sitting with his paws tucked under him, quiet, but with a steeliness about him that I immediately noticed, along with his brains, his strong meow and his good looks---white paws and markings, beautiful black fur on a handsome face...he is probably 3 months old. And so, well, what can I say, I decided that it would be okay to get him, too. I've already named him Mel...we were listening to Mel Torme on the way to Raytown to the shelter. We get to pick up the kitty cats on Monday late afternoon after they are neutered. We have been trying to get Maggie to realize her life is about to change, but she is in denial.