by Crawford UMC | Jan 27, 2020 | Conversations
At the end of this first month of the year and of the decade, a blessing:
On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.
And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The gray window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green,
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
In the curragh of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.
— John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
by Crawford UMC | Jan 16, 2020 | Conversations
Last night, with too many tragedies and conflicts keeping me awake, I tried a time-tested method sure to put me fast to sleep: I watched television. The show was The Good Doctor, which I never expected to like but there I was well past my bedtime, watching the most recent episode. After the difficulties of understanding how to be authentic and know what one wants in relationship, after being duped by a patient, one of the characters said to another, “There are worse qualities in this world than trying to see the best in people.”
Many Sundays we talk about what I call interpretive charity or believing the better story in one another. This, like any spiritual discipline, requires practice. Reflecting on this past week, how were you challenged to believe the better story in a friend, a family member, a neighbor or a stranger? How have you been nudged to let go of a judgment and accept someone for who they are or for what an action is? How are you practicing seeing the best in people?
Each day I work a little harder to practice interpretive charity. Some days I excel; some days I fail. In all of it, I find God and experience again grace upon grace. Each day I am grateful to have a chance to try.
See you in church,
Hope
by Crawford UMC | Jan 15, 2020 | Conversations
The beginning of the New Year has been fraught with trouble: assassinations, violence, fires, stabbings, even resolutions for separation and divorce among members of the United Methodist Church. With all of this, two people in my life have family members (young women) who in the days following Christmas, were diagnosed with brain tumors. My prayers overflow with the desire for healing and wholeness, for a way out of the confusion and pain, for peace, for them and for us, for our church and for our country, especially for our world.
All of this reminds me of a spiritual practice found in Wayne Muller’s book Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in our Busy Lives that invites us to take our troubles and to (i)magine a situation that concerns you. What changes in your body— tension, heartbeat, respiration — when you think of it? Now imagine that it is growing toward resolution in some invisible soil. During Sabbath, we rely on forces larger than ourselves at work on healing the world. Imagine these forces at work this very moment on your problem. Imagine, as a seed knows how to grow and blossom and flower, just as the body knows how to heal, this problem may already know how to be resolved. How does this change your feeling (perspective) about the situation?
I wonder if, as Muller suggests, we imagine that God, whose love shapes us and leads us, is ready to take our troubles, to hold them and to help us see within them not the promise of more trouble but the promise of life and life abundant. May it be so.
See you in church,
Hope
by Crawford UMC | Jan 15, 2020 | Conversations
Welcome to a new year and a new decade!
My mother has this interesting belief that whatever you do on the first day of the new year you will do all year long. Thinking about this and all that began the first day of 2020 in the United Methodist Church, I invited many of the marginalized and vulnerable clergy and lay people in the area to my house on New Year’s Day to have a safe place to be silent or to play games, to sit in front of the fire or to do whatever they needed to do for themselves as the year began.
Along with my sister Effie, who is an exceptional cook, we fed people collard greens, black-eyed peas, cornbread, and macaroni and cheese (affectionately known as heart attack in a pan). People came and went at their own pace. During the day laughter, stories and concerns were shared. We talked about our hopes and fears, our full lives and our desires for who we could become in this next decade. It was a soul nourishing day.
As I listened and watched, I found myself more deeply desiring to simplify my life and my expectations. When I said this to Matt, he gently and lovingly patted me on the shoulder silently reminding me that simple has never been my way in the world. More true to my nature was gift of the day — a day of invitation, connection, hospitality and love.
In this new moment, I pray that our days will be more fully living into who we are with our own unique gifts and talents. As we discern who God is calling the Crawford community to be and become, I pray that we will move into this new time with confidence and faith, forgiveness and a whole lot of grace.
Happy New Year and new decade,
Hope
by Crawford UMC | Jan 10, 2020 | News
The kids, youth, and folks from the Christian Education Committee will be preparing Coffee Hour for the congregation on Sunday, January 12. Since Coffee Hour is frequently noted by our younger people as a favorite part of their church experience, they look forward to being on the giving end. Kids and youth: we will meet at our regular time (after choir at 9:50) to cook and set up.
