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Dear Siblings, 

All throughout this week, I’ve had the British hymn “I Vow To Thee My Country” stuck in my head. The hymn is based on a poem called “The City of God” and it’s set to a portion of the movement “Jupiter” in Gustav Holst’s The Planets. The first verse is about Britain. The second verse is about heaven. Certainly, in my thinking of the hymn, I think of the US not Britain. I’ll share a few more thoughts on this on Sunday. 

In other news, we’re officially in “Ordinary Time” now. Green is the color for much of the season. This season is the story of us and God. The Holy Spirit plays a big part here! Sometimes, I think “ordinary” is such an interesting way to describe major events. Every part of what we read encountered in our sacred texts and stories seems historic. 

But that is kind of the point. When you step back for a moment it really is ordinary.

The terrible kings that ravaged the Northern and Southern kingdoms? Ordinary. 

The toil and oppression of the people under those kings? Ordinary. 

The small acts of courage and resistance?  A big deal perhaps, but still ordinary in the grand scheme of things. 

Ordinary time is our time. Amid moments that seem historic and simple, how do we respond to the story of Jesus? How do we find a way to make meaning and a bit of good trouble?

I cannot ignore the events of the world. As I’m writing this note, there are federalized National Guard members on the ground in Los Angeles. Israel and Iran appear to be at war. The final touches are being made for a massive parade in Washington DC to celebrate the 250th birthday of what is now the US Armed Forces. And in cities all across this country, there are predictions that millions of people will participate in what is being called “No Kings” Day in an effort to challenge the president. 

Amid all of that, there will be picnics and BBQS. Summer trips will start and end. People will live, laugh, love, cry, and more. 

Moments historic and simple all happening side by side. Yes, this is  ordinary time… the time for the story of God and us… the story of how we respond to the story of Jesus. 

Whatever you might do this weekend, I hope that you carry the courage and confidence of your convictions. I pray that you might reflect upon where and how the Holy Spirit is guiding you. 

Regardless of how you spend your weekend, be good to yourselves and one another.

Rev. Thomas

P.S. We are very close to our goal of donating 700 cans of black beans. Can you bring 1 can with you on Sunday? We’ll pass our goal by the start of our service. 🙂

Dear Members, Friends, Siblings, All,

As you will remember, our guest preacher on Sunday will be Rev. Dr. Luther E. Smith, husband of our own Rev. Helen Pearson Smith, gentle and loving spirit, distinguished theologian and educator, and dear friend. Dr. Smith’s latest book is Hope is Here: Spiritual Practices for Pursuing Justice and Beloved Community (Westminster John Knox, 2023). After worship, he will join us for a Community Conversation in the Fireplace Room. The book will be available for purchase.

I trust you are making plans to be with us on Sunday and to stay for our time with Dr. Smith. This is an opportunity I very much look forward to and you don’t want to miss.

In The Monthly magazine that was issued earlier this week, you read about the “Summer of Exploration: A Journey Inward Together” that begins in June. With journeying inward fresh in my mind, I happened upon the following excerpt in Hope is Here and wanted to share it with you here. Under the subheading “Questions for the Quest,” Luther writes:

“Journey” is frequently used to describe how one is living the spiritual life. It evokes images of movement, seeking, engaging new realities and new meanings, the risk. The journey is a quest. A quest inspired by hope. A quest to feed the spirit’s hunger for fulfillment. A quest, whether or not we are aware of it, to give ourselves to God’s dream of beloved community.

 A journey’s realities and our feelings about those realities are known and not known. Reliable maps? Maybe. Trustworthy testimony from previous travelers? Maybe. Support from others? Maybe. A strong desire to have a successful journey? Yes. Certainty that it will match our desire? No. Will I be safe? Maybe. Will I be the same at journey’s end. No. Is there an end to the journey? Begin and see.

 The questions evoke more questions. Even answers evoke more questions. Questions are not our nemesis. Certainty may be our downfall, but not questions. With questions we quest with a searching heart and humility that are crucial to being alive to wisdom and confusion. The work of hope is accomplished with our embrace of the questions that inform and form us.

We will look to see you on Sunday for worship or Streamers, you can look for us. It will be a great day to be together around the Table of Communion (Streamers, have your elements ready) and to visit with Dr. Luther Smith for questions and conversation. We’ll do our best to stream that, too.

Love and hugs,

Rev. Liz

PS Please don’t forget the 700 cans of black beans for the Toco Hills Community Alliance until June 15^th. THCA reminds us that “Hunger doesn’t take a vacation.” We can help keep the shelves full.

Dear Members, Friends, Siblings, All,

Anna Dorn is a writer and contributor to The Medium Newsletter. I don’t know her but the headline to her entry this week caught my eye: “Joy is the radical belief that the world is worthy of love.” (Oh, ho! There’s a thought.) She goes on to write:

For a long time, I saw my reluctance to participate in politics as a personal flaw. But German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt might have seen it differently… [P]hilosophy professor Roger Berkowitz draws from Arendt’s work to argue that joy — not outrage, not vigilance — might be the most radical response to political collapse. By “joy” he doesn’t mean cheerful activism or mindful news consumption. He means the kind of joy that shows up in music, in raising children, in watching a lover’s face. He explains that joy is “not naïve optimism,” but “rooted in the radical belief that the world, even as it is, is worthy of love.” And in dark times, that belief can be a way of staying human.

Joy as radical belief, accessed in music, in laughter, in loving eyes–knowing (certainty?) that originates in what Henry James called “the verges of the mind”–not really thought or reason and certainly not proof. Oh, my.

In John 14:27a, Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” Is that peace like joy? Does the peace Jesus offers reside in that kind of radical belief, evidence notwithstanding, in some sense beyond belief? The sort of thing that only the Holy Spirit can teach? (John 14:26) What does this ask of us, followers of Jesus?

They say questions are better than answers because they last longer. I’ll be with these for a while and perhaps you will, too. Sometimes we read the Bible and sometimes it reads us. And sometimes it chases us around the room.

Join us for church on Sunday, Streamers and Gatherers, where we will continue the conversation. And sing and pray and worship together–where we work these kinds of questions out in community. Rev. Thomas is taking time away but I look forward to seeing and being seen with you.

Grace upon grace,

Rev. Liz

PS Anna Dorn says important things about speaking up, too. Find her post here.

Dear Siblings,

This weekend, I invite you to think about your faith journeys. In particular, who are the key figures in your journey of faith? Why might you consider them as key to your engagement with the Divine today?

Our worship focus will be the opening lines of a letter from Paul to Timothy, in which he acknowledges Timothy’s faith development as the product of his mother and grandmother.

Yes, I chose this text for Mother’s Day! Although our service will not focus on Mother’s Day, it will acknowledge the idea of “Mother God.” In our unceasing and unfailing efforts to fully know and understand the Mystery of God, we apply human language as best we can in the hopes that we’ll find our way. For the vast majority of the history of our faith, God has always been “Father.” It’s still somewhat new to view God as “Mother.” That distinction is slight, but it matters. And, I think it opens up a whole new way of imagining, engaging, and understanding God.

So, come! Our Story for All Ages will talk about the Lord’s Prayer and our sermon will dive  into the “grammar of the Spirit.”

As we approach Mother’s Day, it’s important to acknowledge all of the joy, celebration, and “best mom in the world” feelings! I pray that we will also keep in mind folks who don’t have the best relationship with their mothers, folks who wanted to be mothers but were unable due to circumstances and situations that they couldn’t control, and for those who are grieving the loss of their mothers too.

See you Sunday,

Thomas.

Dear Siblings,

Alleluia! What a wonderful Holy Week and Easter we shared together. Of course, none of this happened on its own.

A little more than two dozen folks joined us on Maundy Thursday, and shared the story of the Last Supper before serving communion to one another. The same number joined us for a dramatic recounting of the story of Good Friday. In those spaces, we sang old and familiar hymns, while introducing a few new ones too.

On Easter Sunday, almost 20 kids hunted for eggs on the playground and in the memorial garden, 80 people were in the Fellowship Hall for the Easter Breakfast, and 180 people joined us for Easter worship.

Again, none of this happened on its own. It took people baking and bringing food for breakfast, folks who stepped out of breakfast to help the Easter Bunny hide eggs, people to buy and cut the bread for communion, an AV tech, singers, banner hangers, greeters, Zoom worship hosts, someone who smiled and said “peace” to a new face in the room, dedicated folks to hang back in Kids Space, an invitation to combine the Story for All Ages and the sermon, a stirring in the heart and mind to simply show up, and whole lot more!

My heart is glad that we are a church of a whole lot more.

Someone with us on Sunday didn’t believe that a church like ours could exist… and now they do. Thanks be to God!

Historically, folks take a short break from church on the Sunday after Easter, but I hope you’ll join us. We’ll talk about the first supper after the Resurrection.

Be well,

Rev. Thomas

Dear Members, Friends, Siblings, All,

“We welcome glad Easter when Jesus arose!” And we look forward to welcoming you for worship on Resurrection Sunday in the sanctuary or online. It’s always like a family reunion in the best possible way.

This Holy Week has been wonderful at Central, beginning on Palm Sunday. We know these stories, of course, but they reveal newness each time we hear and tell them. You’d think by now there is no more to say. Somehow, there is. The mystery of this season–everything I cannot explain or understand fully–is what I like best about the space between Ash Wednesday and the Season of Easter.

The Maundy Thursday service inspired us to look deeper within. Our Good Friday service should make the journey to the Cross come alive, and we will take time to honor the grief that surrounds us. For Holy Saturday, you may find the two poems here to be helpful in your devotions between today and Sunday. I have.

Easter Sunday will be a day of rejoicing as we greet the resurrected Christ and each other. We’ll look for you in worship online or somewhere around this place. Until then, grace to you and peace. Also, love and hugs.

Rev. Liz

(more…)

Dear Members, Friends, Siblings, All,

I can’t help it. This piece still has me stunned and rooted to the floor. So, I must share it. It’s from the UCC Daily Devotionals this past week. If you don’t get them, you’re missing a treat. www.ucc.org/daily-devotional/

Looking forward to seeing you on Sunday. Rev. Thomas will be away, and we’ve been left in charge! On our best behavior, of course. We will have our fourth Lenten Lunch following worship—where does the time go?—and we’re uncovering Central’s “imaginal discs” (see below). One Great Hour of Sharing is this Sunday. That’s in our DNA, too. Please make your plans to give as generously as you can.

See you on Sunday and be seen streaming. We’ll be looking forward to it. Love and hugs,

Rev. Liz

Imaginal

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18 (NRSV)

Come Easter, much will be made of butterflies. The inching, munching caterpillar transforming into the bright, soaring butterfly is just too good a resurrection metaphor for some of us to pass on.

Something you may not know: once the caterpillar hangs itself up, a grand drama plays out. If the caterpillar itself can’t imagine the butterfly it will become, its cells sure can. As soon as the chrysalis closes, tiny structures called imaginal discs (that’s really what they’re called!) form in its body. Inside these discs are the genome of the butterfly, largely separate from the genome of the caterpillar. As such, the caterpillar’s body sees them as invaders. Its immune system attacks and kills them. But the genetic image of the butterfly will not be denied. The imaginal discs keep coming.

Eventually, the caterpillar’s immune system becomes overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. By then, the struggle has basically liquefied the caterpillar’s body. The imaginal discs then use the caterpillar soup to build a butterfly.

Maintaining homeostasis is often the way to go. It’s usually the best way to survive. Fighting unto liquefication can seem preferable to changing. But what if the thing you’re fighting is the seed of a great transformation?

What if the thing you’re attacking so hard is the image of what you were always meant to become?

Prayer

I may not be able to imagine my future, but I know you already have. When the image of you that you’ve implanted inside me makes itself known, help me to not fight too hard. Amen.

Quinn G. Caldwell is Chaplain of the Protestant Cooperative Ministry at Cornell University. His most recent book is a series of daily reflections for Advent and Christmas called All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas.