Cat Family Saga

A colony of feral cats lives in the alley behind my house, in my backyard, and in my next-door neighbor's backyard. The cats move freely between the yards, so we figure they have adopted both of us. My neighbors are in the process of trapping, spaying, and neutering them, and we both feed them daily. This past week offered tragedy and joy. One of our favorite "teenagers" who was almost but not quite tame and very playful, was hit by a car and killed. My neighbors and I realized the depth of our attachment when we lost him. His sister, a pregnant teenager, disappeared yesterday. She was not at breakfast this morning. I feared the worst...another traffic fatality.

When I got home, she showed up for dinner looking very svelte in her new trim body. She obviously had given birth to the kittens. She wolfed down her food, then scurried to the shrubs on the edge of my backyard. There they were. Three tiny newborns. The new little mama was very nervous, however. She kept approaching her own mother as though to ask what she was supposed to do with these newborns. Her mother kept pushing her away, as though to say "Deal with it. You are a mother now."

Little mama moved her babies from the shrubs to my flower bed. She would stay with her babies a little, then leave and look around, then return to her babies. I wondered whether she was looking for safe shelter. I turned an old galvanized garbage can on its side and stuffed an old bedspread into it, but I was not optimistic. I didn't really believe that she would find the makeshift shelter much less take to it. Miracle of miracles, before the evening was over, she moved her babies into it. For tonight, at least, she and her babies have shelter. I'm glad.

Bicycling Over a New Bridge

This past weekend, I made a peanut butter sandwich, aired up my bicycle tires, took my first bicycle ride of the season on my trusty Trek bicycle. I live a block from Shelby Park, which has a wonderful, FLAT, greenway trail that provides about an 8 mile ride. The city recently built a pedestrian bridge that connects Shelby Park with the Two Rivers Greenway on the other side of the Cumberland River. I rode over the bridge for the first time. At the highest point on the bridge, I got off my bicycle, stood in a sprinkle of rain, and looked at the silver river curving through deep green foilage on one side and a sheer rock cliff on the other. So close to the city.

After a few moments of absorbing the view from the high bridge, I threw my leg over my bicycle and continued my ride. The trail went through a concrete tunnel beneath the Briley Parkway and emerged at the parking lot of a skate board and water park.

I could see that the trail continued down a steep hill through some beautiful trees, but I could also see that what goes down must come up! Huffing and puffing my way back up that hill did not appeal to me. I decided that the flat trail in Shelby Park would be better for my first ride of the year. I turned around and went back to the bridge to look at the river and to eat my peanut butter sandwich.

Bridges, especially new bridges, stretch into a kind of theological space for me. I rode over because I wanted to see what was on the other side of the river. I met people on the bridge coming from the opposite direction who asked me questions about Shelby Park. Coming and going, we were all explorers, leaving a familiar space to go to an unknown land. The irony is that we drive by both spaces on the Briley Parkway, but you know how it is when we drive. Scenery blurs. We don't see things the way we see them when we ride bikes or walk. The bridge provides access to new space that was previously inaccessible for pedestrians and bicyclers. On both sides of the river, people on the trail were wide-eyed and curious about what was on the other side.

I believe that God makes bridges all over the universe through language, people, creatures, art, spaces, events. Figuratively speaking,the bible is full of stories about God's bridges. I think of Abraham and Sarah, the Exodus, the road home from Babylon, the road to Damascus, the road to Golgotha. All experienced bridges to something alive and real, something near us, all around us, there all the time.

I ate my peanut butter sandwich on top of the new bridge, and Something More gleamed on the silver river, in the wet leaves on the riverbank, in the slick wet rock of the clift, in the wide-eyed wonder of people moving both ways over the bridge.

The Pentecost Sermon and Restless Hearts

It is intimidating to preach for colleagues at UMPH! But the sermon went well. People were gracious and appreciative, and I managed to stay inside my ten minute time limit. :-)

I added a link to Alex Joyner's blog. Alex is a pastor, a writer, and a friend. Last year we published his study on vocation for young adults called RESTLESS HEARTS: WHERE DO I GO NOW, GOD? You'll find a link to it on his blog. Check it out.

The Pentecost Moment

Thursday Chapel. That's when I offer a short sermon on Pentecost. Bishop Spain gave me the order of worship today, and it included a title for the sermon on Acts 2:1-14: "The Pentecost Moment." Interesting. I had never thought of the event in Acts 2 as a moment... but you know, only four verses of the chapter describe the sound like a mighty wind, tongues like fire, and speaking in foreign languages. The remaining verses, all 43 of them, describe responses to that event.

I want to raise some questions Thursday: Do we really believe in the presence and power of God's Holy Spirit in our lives? If we aren't sure, what might change in our lives if we did believe? If we do believe, do we live and act out of that belief?

I wonder if it is easier to believe in the presence of God's Holy Spirit when the big things happen and we know that we have no control of outcomes, when our only option is relying on a power greater than our own. Katrina. Tornadoes. Floods. Cyclones. Tsunamis. Catastrophic illness. Job loss. Death of a loved one. I suspect it may be more difficult to believe as we move through the everyday details of life, through the daily grind of tasks and responsibilities. What would the daily grind be like if we believed in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit every moment?

Believe is a good word. It means so much more than simply assenting to some basic truth. It comes from a word family that includes the meanings confidence, trust, desire, like, and love. These meanings point to a sense of giving oneself to something.

In Acts 2, the disciples experienced a power that transformed them and that transformed others through them. The commentary in the old Interpreter's Bible said the disciples were not sitting around using their minds and emotions to work out a concept of the Holy Spirit. God as Holy Spirit was working on THEM, on their minds and emotions.

If I had to tell somebody about the Holy Spirit, about who or what the Holy Spirit of God is, what would I say? Again, the IB commentary sounds good to me: the vital energy of God, the creative and vitalizing force of the world, the source of skill, strength, wisdom, ecstasy, inspiration, and morality.

This is where I am tonight with this Pentecost Moment. I'll work more in the morning before I head to the office.

Link to Five Practices

Bishop Robert Schnase, author of Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, finds time to keep an interesting and informative blog. The blog is on the website for his book. Check it out. The book offers inspiring guidance to local churches that want to be effective members of the body of Christ. Before the book was published, I was in Houston to do a workshop at an event. At the hotel I saw a colleague, Steve Cox, sitting in the lobby. He told me he was trying to practice "radical hospitality" by waiting for someone who was arriving late. He just wanted her to see a familiar face. He had been sitting in the lobby for quite a while and had no idea what time she would arrive. I was impressed. Later, I found that this "radical hospitality" idea was one of the five practices Bishop Schnase would introduce to Missouri Conference and write about in his book. Since hospitality is so basic to the way of Christ, I am glad to see it reframed and communicated so well in the book. In the names of the five practices, the adjectives make all the difference! Radical. Passionate. Intentional. Risk-taking. Extravagant. Edgy stuff to add to hospitality, worship, faith-development, mission, and generosity. Putting these time-honored practices with the adjectives produces a kind of synergy, the something more that would not exist without pairing the words. The adjectives blast open the practices and make us see them in new ways.

Pentecost Sermon-making

For six years, my ministry has been involved with editing and writing, a ministry that I love. Occasionally, however, I miss the weekly rhythm of preparing the Sunday sermon. Sermon-making was my way of life for nearly twenty years. Bishop Robert Spain, who continues his ministry as pastor at the UM Publishing House, asked me to preach at the chapel service for Pentecost. I'm thrilled!

Sooo.....Acts 2. Mighty wind. Flames. Foreign languages. Converts to the way of Jesus. The birth of the Church. This is good stuff! I'm thrilled, but I am also nervous. How can I offer this text so that my colleagues at the House can hear it and claim it in a new way?

I think the movement inside the text revolves around communication....a movement from “me” to “us” .... a movement that emerges from seeing tongues of flame and hearing the sound of a mighty wind, images of power for either destruction or creation. Power. Empowerment. Hmmm........