Love Feast

To wrap up our church retreat we decided to have a Wesleyan Love Feast today instead of Holy Communion. Since no one on the retreat had done a Love Feast before I wasn’t sure how this would go over, especially the part where we share with one another our experiences of God’s love. The participants had been sharing in their small groups (squadrons) during the weekend, but now we were all in one group, one big circle.

Needless worry. No all shared, but many did. Soon all eyes were moist as young and old alike stood to tell about their experiences of God’s presence. Some shared thanksgivings and new folks told how they felt welcomed into the “family of God.” In this setting the love feast was the right service that opened us up to a powerful, shared spiritual experience. I guess we just had a different kind of holy communion today.

Basic Training

Have been at our church's annual retreat at the beach this weekend. The theme has been Basic Training, which I understanding is all about re-socialization. The army takes a civilian, re-socializes him or her to think and act like a soldier. We sure didn't attempt to get all that done in one weekend. But we did decide to talk about what we have to do as a community to re-socialize ourselves to be the people of God. Also, we divided into squadrons, and with a little team competition, have had a lot of fun.

There was a decision made early in the planning for this year's retreat that we would focus on community building, rather than bringing in a speaker. Relationships won out over more "head-knowledge." I think, seeing the participation, that it was a good decision. Sometimes, another good Bible study is not the right prescription.

Small Hinges

At an out of town meeting the other day I briefly encountered a fellow blogger in a group of ministers, and his greeting was even briefer. I remember his smile, but not his words exactly. It was something about the fact that neither he nor I had been blogging during February.

It was just a passing observation, nothing incriminating, nor particularly encouraging. And yet, it was that encounter more than anything that got me back to blogging. Interesting, isn’t it, how things turn on small hinges - chance encounters, an acknowledgment, or the recognition of a fellow pilgrim?

So, I’ve thought about today, not the meetings or conversations, but the brief encounters. I wondered if I left any encouragement in my wake as I passed by. That woman in the hospital elevator who looked so tired. I noted her weary eyes, but mine didn’t reveal anything in response. Blew that one.

But at the quick stop, when I bought the diet sprite, the woman in front of me wanted a pack of cigarettes and then two lottery tickets. The girl checking us out seemed conscious of the small line forming behind me, but we caught eyes and I said, “It’s OK, no rush,” and her eyes did smile back. Could that have been a hinge, maybe?

A Lenten Examination

My Lenten discipline is not denial, but examination. Denial hasn’t worked before. I might choose something to give up, but it wouldn’t be something crucial. And then, like a New Year’s Resolution, it would dissolve in a couple of weeks. Through pure human defect, I’m just not good at works righteousness.

So this year I choose an intentional routine of something necessary - a daily examination of the day, of self, and of God’s subtle magnificence. A discipline of filing the important stuff, sorting the demanding, and tossing the rest. And I begin with ashes.

I have always been disappointed with the turn-out for Ash Wednesday services, no matter how well attended. Disappointed, but not surprised. Who wants to come to church simply to be told, “You’re going to die”?

And yet, we come and pray, kneel and confess. To old and young alike, each age evoking its own ominous sensation in my chest, I say the words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” Perhaps we come to be told the truth, our truth - a truth so veneered and disguised that now-a-days we experience death only as a fiendish thief, rather than as a stubborn, necessary, companion in the pilgrimage.

Live. Whatever life tosses on the table before you, take it and live it well. Else the greedy companion will take it for his own. Examine the day, keep what needs to be kept, and let him have the rest.

Worship Lurking

A woman who's visited our church recently told me I may see her slip into our worship now and then. She is active in local church of another flavor so I told her to make herself at home with us as much as she desires. She told me that for a period of time she would leave her church after the "song service," drive to a nearby park, and finish worship by listening to our service on the radio. I wasn't sure what to do with that bit of information.

A GRAN Movie

On this MLK Day with its emphasis on human relations, the best I can offer is to encourage everyone to see the Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino. A warning: the language is strong and the racial slurs are frequent. The language however is not gratuitous. It fits with the bigoted character Eastwood plays, a man of stubborn pain who despises the Asians who have “taken over” his neighborhood. Yet the movie is a story of grace at work and the gospel is present in the outcome.

Another delight of the movie is the way the priest is portrayed. In so many movies and TV programs today ministers are shown as ineffective, out-of-touch, or unsavory characters. The young priest in Gran Torino grows in his role, but is honest, persistent and real, and the faith he offers makes a difference.

The movie is a poignant glimpse that in a harsh world there is hope in the power of love.

Instant Companions

As you would expect, this morning the NBC Today show had survivors of the Jan 15 US Airways flight 1549 crash to interview. This was the plane Capt "Sully" Sullenberger landed in the Hudson River after birds shut down both engines right after take-off.

One of the survivors, Denise Lockie, said she was in seat 2C, right beside a flight attendant. When Capt Sully said over the intercom, "Brace for impact." she looked at the attendant and asked/stated, "We're going to crash?" The attendant nodded.

Then she looked at the man seated to her left, a man she did not know. Immediately they held hands, readied themselves for the impact, and began to pray together.

Why? Why did two perfect strangers join hands and pray? Maybe because instinctively people know we are not to face this world alone. Yet it takes a crisis to shatter the barriers that isolate us from one another.

With death such a real possibility, they needed one another. Just like you and me, as we go through whatever fills our days.

It's All About Us

"Jesus knows me, this I love." The person who put this on this church sign probably just thought it was a cute turn about of a well-known lyric, good for catching attention. If so it worked. It caught mine - enough for me to take a picture.

Maybe I'm seeing too much in it, but doesn't it reflect also the sad turn about of religion today? We've gone from revelation (Jesus loves me...the Bible tells me so) to, well...us.

A New Kind of Resolution

Have you ever moved and a few weeks later gone crazy looking for something? Sure you have. You know. You remember seeing it. You’re sure you knew where it was. But when you go to get it, well, nothing.

That’s basically how it’s been inside my brain these past two weeks. I sit down to write and that idea I just remember seeing cannot be found. I kinda poke around in the clutter and just as I start to get interested in something, another “task” calls me away.

This time however, I’ve got one by the hind legs. It’s just a simple thought, but I’m not letting it go. It will be written, given an amateur taxidermist treatment and mounted on this blog.

It has to do with resolutions. This is the time to write about that, isn’t it? Well, ever notice that nearly all resolutions are self-directed? We resolve in one way or another to improve ourselves. Lot of good in that, even if they’re only kept for a short while. But, what if you’re tired of working on yourself and you want to try something new?

This year, my resolutions are not designed to improve myself at all. This year I’m going to improve others! Yep. It’s time to put my energy where it will make a difference. I figure if I make those around me a little better, I’ll enjoy my world a whole lot more. It’s like the saying, “the rising tide raises all the ships.”

The benefits of re-directing your resolutions are amazing. It doesn’t take nearly as much personal effort, so you’re less likely to give up on it. And, if the improvements don’t show up as you expect, well, you really can’t lay the blame on yourself. After all, you’ve done what you could with what you had to work with.

There’s only one glitch. If my friends really do improve themselves, they might want a new friend, maybe even one who isn’t a pain in the resolutions. Oh well.

.

Man sleeping on tracks hit, killed

The following brief online article caught my eye, and then my heart while I ate lunch. And so I wrote in response...



An unidentified man was struck and killed by a train about 6:30 Thursday night near South Washington Street, according to Kylie Strange, a Greenville County deputy coroner. Strange said the train engineer saw a man sleeping on the tracks and tried to stop. However, the train ran over the man, she said. Strange said there is no reason at this point to suspect foul play. An autopsy will be performed today, she said. By Nan Lundeen, Greenville News Staff Writer, 19 December 2008


Those Who Sleep on Tracks

Christmas will still be the same without you.
But that’s something you probably knew all along.
It didn’t really matter where you were,
Or if you were, for us to sing our Silent Night.

But someone will remember, the conductor perhaps:
A sleeping body, the sighting, and particularly the impotence,
To stop the rolling steel of heedless freight cars -
Much less the growing egomania of heedless hearts.

Oblivious to the warning of the train’s blasting horn,
We’ll stumble in a stupor along the tracks of ease
Celebrating the Christ-child’s coming as always we’ve done;
Never realizing he was lying there beside you, to keep you warm.

.