Long time , no posts

Yes, it has been a while. A long, crazy journey has left me without a call in a church and a wonderful job as a teacher. It has been a rough road for a couple of years, but I am happy right now.
I missed being with young people and working with them.
The local governing body of my denomination pulled some low blows and did some things that were not so great, which left me without a job. Long story, not worth the rehash.
But, God can take a mess(a big mess) and turn it into something beautiful.
I do not know if I will ever serve another church, but I am serving and so, that part is good.

I've learned a lot about friendships, relationships, and what matters most in life. I have also learned some hard lessons about the politics in churches and what happens when you refuse to give in to those powers. I have learned some powerful lessons about how to make it when times are hard and relying on God. 

This has been a time of growth and transformation. I have found new friendships in the strangest of places and have come to treasure those. 
I have found a place to worship apart from my denomination of ordination. I love this place. I love it most because it is so far from the norm of anything I have found in church before. I worship with people who do not look, dress, or talk just like me. The music is different from my norm and the preaching is powerful and current. 

I guess that is about all for now. I may not blog a lot, but will try to post some more. 

Pondering Galatians and Being Perfect

I am in midst of completing a  Bible study on the book of Galatians. We are going to be studying it for our Tuesday Morning Study at church.  I still have mostly  fond memories of my class at seminary. I learned a lot from a dedicated and smart professor, but it was a struggle as I am not much of a Greek scholar. Reading from the Greek was also tough as can be. My Southern drawl made the pronunciation really hard. Some letters just do not go together as well as we might like them too. I was not perfect.

 There was some tension in the class with a couple of students who were having their own problems at the time. Maybe you have met them: They are named Always Right and Never Wrong. Sadly they challenged a lot of what was said and made class a little uncomfortable.

 It was a tough class, but I did learn a lot. Thankfully I kept my text books as well. There are some books from seminary that you just had rather not keep and the others that you never want to get rid of.

I also remember that it was on a particular Tuesday in 2001 that we came out of class to find TVs set up in the hallway and students standing and sitting around them Many were crying and all had their eyes on the screen where we watched video tape of a Boeing 767 hitting the second tower of the WTC. That was a horrible day for all of us and left most numb with pain, grief and tons of questions about the type of world we would be ministering to in 3 or 4 more years.  Galatians took on a different meaning that day as the world became a much less perfect place.

But, for now back to this study of Galatians.  We had some good times in that class.   We had our days of laughing at something funny one of us said in translation or some oddball comment. It was not perfect, but it was fun too.

Galatians itself is a rich letter, as are many of Paul's writings. I still find the fact that we call these books letters (or Epistles). In our modern day understanding a letter is typically not more than two pages in length. But, Paul's letters are longer than that and they are not the type of letters we learned about in grammar class (friendly, business, cover, and recommendation letters).

Friday Five

Have not played a Friday Five in a long time, so here goes:

There's a birthday for an adult member of my family today. I will admit, I'm not very good at celebrating birthdays. Sadly, the adults in my life have suffered from this affliction. I do manage to rally for my son (now age 7).

I could bore you with my own personal history of birthday laments which may have led to this attitude... but I won't (you're welcome). Instead I'd love to hear your birthday memories.

1) What is the first birthday you remember? I was maybe 4 and had a doll cake. There was a plastic doll in the center and the cake was her dress. It was something like this.

2) Do you recall a favorite gift? Tin Can Alley. It was a game that used a light beam eye to shoot cans off of a fence. My grandmother did not think it was appropriate for a young lady to have. Oddly enough, I can't stand guns now.

3) Has anyone ever tried to surprise you for your birthday? Did it work? Was it fun? Nope. I have a birthday very close to Christmas, so it is impossible to have a party.

4) Do you have a favorite birthday dessert?
The Italian Orange Cream Cake in Southern Living.

The recipe is here: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/fresh-orange-italian-cream-cake-10000000522408/

5) Describe what would be your 'perfect birthday?'
Breakfast in bed, a walk on the beach, lots of cuddles with the cats, shopping for shoes, and a seafood or Italian dinner with the family.

My Work Space

Friday Five: Work Space

I have a home work space that consists of a desk, telephone, calculator, bills, and a lot of stacks of stuff. I have a laptop computer that I sometimes use at the desk and sometimes on the sofa or in a chair.
The cat (s) is most often nearby.
However my "real" work space at church consists of these:
1. Photos (lots of them)
2. Stuffed animals and puppets
3. Snack size crackers in a big glass container and a bubblegum machine that currently has jelly beans in it
4. Calendar
5. And whatever I might be working on at the time(sermon, newsletter, articles, mail-outs to church members, and stuff I should be reading, but I  usually don't.
And the extra biggie: Something to drink with caffeine
I may try to post a pic later

Friday Five

It's been a busy week for me, trying to get back into the routine after a post-Easter vacation. (How did it get to be Easter 3?) So to keep it simple, here's a Word Association Friday Five, with a bonus twist for those feeling creative. First, for each of these five words -- all of which remind me of my *most* excellent vacation -- share the first word that comes to mind when you read it.

1) Airport- Flights
2) Baseball-Da Braves
3) Art- Painting
4) Chocolate-Weight
5) Grill-Outdoors


Bonus: Tell us a story that comes to mind based on one of the word pairs.
I bought my first grill several years ago. I specifically wanted a charcoal grill. I wanted something I could afford and I had fond memories of squirting the lighter fluid on the dark chunks before my dad would light them.  It was a big deal to me at that young age. 
 My brother and his family lived close by and came over to eat some. After my brother had visited several times, he decided to buy me a very nice gas grill for Christmas. It is a very nice grill and will make wonderful steaks and burgers, but you do loose the charcoal smell from the el cheap-o grill. I shall enjoy using it and hopefully find a substitute for the smell. Just one of those scents I love.

re: Confirmation and Other Fun Things

I love teaching confirmation. It is one of the most-est fun-est things I get to do as pastor, ever.
I marvel at watching the young people come in(basically middle school, for our church) and watching them swing back and forth from totally silliness to total seriousness in a matter of minutes.
The silliness makes me laugh and I love seeing them come to some new conclusions  about God, Jesus, scripture, or one another.
It is just plain fun for me and secretly, just between us, something you need not have to pay me for. But, let's not tell the church that for now. The pay is nice to have!
Tonight we came up with 50 different words or phrases to describe who Jesus is or what he does, based on scripture we read and only using the letters in IMMANUEL. If you are in my denomination, you probably will recognize the curriculum I am using. Anyhow, we ended up with 48 and since we were so close to 50, we worked a little harder.
We also talked about how we all have sins (stuck to us like Post-It notes) and how it is because of Jesus that we are forgiven for these sins. We laughed at one another as we noticed similar sins we all had done, but then noticed how often certain ones came up. More than one of us had been mean to our brother. Almost all of us had lied and quite a few of us had anger issues. Hmmm.
But we all took heart in knowing we were forgiven and were freed from the guilt of our sins.
I love this crowd, but then again, I love all of my confirmation classes. Each one is different and each one has its own joys and sorrows, but all become special to me.
Other fun things today included acting out Jesus in the Wilderness and being tempted. Our Jesus was a pint-sized fellow with a big smile. It was hard to get him to look hungry, but it worked. He did quite well on top of the pinnacle. The devil was quite devilish and my two angels who cared for Jesus afterwards were more like to Florence Nightingales as they tended to Jesus(who giggled a lot).
Yup, it was a good Sunday at the Church Up the Road.

Temptation of Christ sculpture in bronze found at: sculpturebytps.com/Pages/CloseupPages/TemptationofChrist.html

Friday Five: Lent Edition

What are some things you appreciate about the season of Lent? Perhaps you would share 5 of them with us. And for your bonus question feel free to share one thing you could do without.

1. Purple. I love the color of the liturgical season. We have purple vestments out and I wear my favorite purple stole(from Guatemala). 

2. Flowers. Typically, during Lent, the flowers begin to bloom. In my previous church we had the kids decorate a special cross on Easter Sunday. All flowers are brought in by members from their own yards.

3. Reese's peanut butter eggs. I love the regular candy, but around Lent, they bring out the wonderful eggs. They have a lot more peanut butter in them and are fat.

4. Worship services. I love the special services during this time. My favorite is Ash Wednesday. I did not grow up with the tradition, but love it now

5. During this time we typically have our Confirmation class join the church. It is wonderful to see these young adults take such a big step as joining the church.

Bonus: The one thing I can honestly do without is Sunrise Service on Easter Sunday morning(esp if Easter falls on the daylight savings time)!! I am simply not a morning person and I do not enjoy being up early. Yes I know that this is when they went to the tomb and discovered Jesus was not there. But seriously, do we really have to get up early? Sunset services are much more my style.