“Important Words”

All my life I have been intrigued by words. As a child and a “pre-reader,” I would open my books and “read” the stories out loud. Words have been one of the major symbols of my life ever since I could speak. Yes, I realize that it is not words but deeds that count the most among the faithful; we have the old adage that actions speak louder than words. But the New Testament writer James reminds us that “the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.” Words both spoken and written are essential to civilization.

John’s gospel begins with “In the beginning was the Word. . .” so that we understand that even at creation, when God spoke the universe began. (I realize, of course, that I am pulling some quotes out of context here to serve my own purposes.) As a working poet, meaning that I work at my poetry, there are barely a few successes out of mostly amateur attempts. For a poem to have its strongest meaning, a poet works for succinctness and the best possible word. Even long poems that are well-crafted have been worked on until the essence of each word is brought forth. Prose writers have it much easier, but they too must be careful in word choices.

All this to say that over the years I have collected words that carry particular meaning for me. A friend once gave me a small blank book bound with a paisley pattern on red cloth. It became my repository for sayings that were important for me at the time. I began my record of quotes in 1985 and have been adding to them ever since. Sometimes I forget to do this, so that I’m only about halfway through the book even now. But I want to share some of these sayings with you, and perhaps they will take on different meanings for you:

• You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it. – Carl Jung
• Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force. – Dorothy Sayers (English writer and theologian)
• We must go slowly – there is not much time. – Women’s Theological Center, Boston
• For years I wanted to be older, and now I am. – Margaret Atwood, Canadian writer
• When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. – Dom Helder Camara – priest
• Before I was enlightened, I chopped wood and carried water. After I was enlightened, I chopped wood and carried water. – Zen monk
• The early bird may get the worm, but it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese. – heard on Prairie Home Compani
• The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. – Frederick Buechner, Presbyterian minister and writer
• To confess that Christ is Godlike is now seen to be not so important as to affirm that God is Christlike and the Christlike love is the way God intends for the running of the Cosmos. – Bishop K.H. Ting, China
• Every human face is an icon of Christ, discovered by a prayerful person. – Catherine de Hueck Doherty
  
  Joseph the lost will return;
  Jacob should not sink into sadness.
  Those who sit in the grief house
  Will eventually sit in the garden. – Hafez, Islamic poet
  
• Parents are the bones on which children sharpen their teeth. – Peter Ustinov
• We need the church. Christianity is not a solo activity. – Brian Jones, in Christian Century
  
  So there you have a few samples from my book. I hope you find something worth remembering about them. We are becoming a culture of text messaging, with its abbreviated way of communicating, and as that takes place, we are losing some beautiful words and sounds and expressions. Let us hope for their preservation.
  

Encouraging News

The title to the news item in the current Christian Century states: “Heaven accessible to many, Americans say.” I breathed a sigh of relief as I read this, knowing that I had been nurturing dark thoughts about the state of things, about our barky, insistent dog Katie, about drivers who ride my bumper while talking on cell phones, and other matters. I was being judgmental, ignoring the wisdom of “Judge not that ye be not judged,” as an older version of the gospels warns us. So this morning it was encouraging to read of a heaven so accessible to many that it was newsworthy.

Researchers recently polled US adults about who among us will get to heaven, and the results show that 54% of those polled believe that at least half of us average Americans will see St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. This figure reveals a difference from earlier polls, in that studies this time show that the dwellers in heavenly places will include not only Christians but those of other faiths. Of those responding, 72% say that at least half of the Christians among us will make it to heaven, while only 46% of Jews, 37% of Buddhists, and 34% of Muslims will get through the Gates. Researchers see these figures as indicating a higher level of religious tolerance, even though they still appear to be rather exclusive. Alas, the studies do not indicate what the criteria are for receiving this passport.

There is more to the article, but I was pleased to note that I have at least a 50-50 chance of some day sitting on one of those heavenly clouds, strumming my harp. Now if only I can ignore those mean thoughts I have, maybe my odds will improve.

The news embedded in this article would seem to show an increasing understanding and toleration of religious beliefs that will merit one’s acceptance into this heavenly realm. I suppose it is unnecessary to include in the study those who do not subscribe to any faith at all. Why would they choose to spend eternity with all those hymn singers, chanters, readers of scripture, and such when they did not so choose during their mortal existence?

Now my tongue-in-cheek attitude here may seem just a bit out of place when tackling such an ultimate question. It is a pervasive one, as can be seen in tracts lying around in public places that ask us, “Where will you spend eternity?” Often, an illustration of flames accompanies this question, indicating that there are really scary and unpleasant fates awaiting us if we don’t follow certain pathways and behaviors and beliefs. If our beliefs happen to veer sharply away from conventional or traditional systems we too may find ourselves at last standing on the outside looking in.

What is missing in this picture? What happened to the loving mercy of an inclusive God? Did I miss the instructions about passing judgment on our neighbor? I seem to have enough difficulty just keeping my own focus on Jesus’ teachings about the faithful life, without the distraction of deciding how well someone else’s score stands on such matters. I did read in this article, however, that 29% of those surveyed acknowledged having no opinion one way or the other as to the fate of the average American. I am not alone then, but remain in the minority on this issue.

The core measure it would seem in all this, if we follow not only the teachings of Jesus, but those of other major religions with similar guidelines, that we have received our orders: to love God with all that we are, and to love others just as much as we love ourselves. In fact, I hold that if we cannot love ourselves, as created in the image of God and worthy of love, then we have no understanding of what it means to love our neighbor. That means we know we have value in the sight of God, that we are no greater than human in our being, but we are no less either. It means we see all others as created by God, loved by God, and in the image of God that they, and we, carry within ourselves. To honor others is to honor God. To give ourselves honor means that we don’t credit ourselves or our actions with more than what we have been created to be, but also no less. Humility is a measuring stick for us. It helps us see ourselves in real, living color, no more, no less than what any human being is. It also helps us to recognize that all of creation has been fashioned out of a love that is unfathomable and worthy of respect.

The matter of who among us will then be rewarded with an eternity in the presence of God is not a judgment call we need to make. We follow Christ, we minister in his name to one another, and we leave the outcome to God. So be it.

What Happened to Retirement?

Dear friends at Fellowship:

On my way to taking it easy, finishing my writing project about WWII, reading those 51 books lined up on the shelf, and generally getting into trouble with all those causes I tend to get involved in, God turned the page instead. I often state in my sermons that God is full of surprises. Now I know what that means.

Gray was surprised by a spider and its bite has left him with severe head pains for nearly a month. How anyone could manage that much hurt for that long is beyond me. Fortunately, he now seems to be relieved partially of that stabbing pain, thanks to shots and medications. And at this point, having been granted a three-month sabbatical, he has an opportunity to refresh and renew his spirit, his body, and his energy. For that we can all be thankful, knowing that when there are surprises, God can surprise us even further with new opportunities. For Gray, the surprise, with the support of this entire congregation, comes as you present him with three months of R&R. You are a gracious people.

You have also been gracious to me, as I begin to pick up some of Gray’s many ministries, to the Session as it takes on more duties for now, and to this church as you are willing to pitch in to be true ministers to one another, in accord with our Reformed theology. I preached about Moses this morning, and it struck me that just as he was beginning to plan for his retirement at the sheep ranch in Midian, sitting on the veranda and surveying all those woolly creatures and the pastures that stretched out of sight, a stack of scrolls from the local library at his side for reading, his stylus prepared to record his autobiography, he trips one day and almost falls into a bush on his way across the fields. And it was on fire! And you know the rest of the story.

Charlie, my long-enduring partner of the past 53 years, will now have more quiet time at his computer as he writes his historical creative non-fiction pieces. I won’t be bugging him constantly about something, or sending him a long string of internet links with the latest articles or videos on current topics, every 30 minutes or so. Bless his heart, as Southern women say, he will have time for himself at long last. He will also know that I am busy doing what is so close to my heart, providing ministry, this time to a congregation I absolutely love and revel in.

Back in August, I began as Parish Associate, and was working on several projects that would complement Gray’s ministries here. Some of those will have to be set aside for the next few months, but once Gray returns I can resume them. One is our Fellowship Green project. My regret is that we could have received a grant from one of the presbytery committees as we launched that new project, but the deadline to apply is Oct. 3. My thinking, however, is that there may still be funds for such a grant even next year. Other projects that I was starting to work with may still get done, only at a slower pace.

We have a Fall Festival coming up this Saturday, and World Communion Sunday Oct. 5, and the Blessing of the Animals on Oct. 12. Many good events, and I trust that you will participate in these and support our church activities. I will be away from Sunday Oct. 5 through late Tuesday Oct. 7. The Micah bible study continues, however. This week I will lead it, and next week Ruth Long has wonderfully offered to lead it. The Wednesday evening prayer and meditation group will also continue to meet. Ruth has been willing to lead that next week as well. So life goes on because of members such as Ruth who step in and provide leadership. I know that the rest of you will be assessing your own skills at some kind of expertise that you can offer to Fellowship, so please don’t be shy. Let God surprise you with opportunities to lend us your skills and let God surprise us all by seeing that the ministry of Fellowship Presbyterian Church makes the next three months memorable. Then we can surprise Gray upon his return, with a congregation that has grown, has developed new abilities, new energies, new purpose, ready for his leadership once again.

When the Planes Came

Sixty-seven years ago I was living with my family in Honolulu, Hawaii. My father, an Army doctor, was stationed at Tripler Army Hospital. One brother was a student at Princeton in New Jersey, and one was a senior at Roosevelt High School in Honolulu. I was a third-grader at Lincoln Elementary School. My mother, an accomplished pianist, kept everything in working order at home while the rest of us studied and worked. Life was pretty much routine for this military family, living in a rented house in the city rather than choosing to live in Army quarters on base.

In December of 1941, however, events changed the course of our lives forever. Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor and our country’s entry into World War II began a new way of living for our family and for our nation. Only 23 years earlier “the war to end all wars” had been fought and peace treaties were signed. Yet the peace did not hold, and we experienced once more the terror and destruction from skies which were no longer friendly.

Seven years ago our country again knew the shock of terror and destruction from the skies. Two planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City, one into the Pentagon and one into a field in Pennsylvania, all of those events tied to one major plot by those from other places. Once again our nation was at war, and battles fought far from our shores would affect our way of life. It was not the first time we were involved in war since the end of WWII. In all likelihood it won’t be the last time we know war. Generations of us have lived more years with war than with peace, each time with some hopeful ones believing that wars will some day become only history, when peace reigns permanently. We still wait and hope for that day.

As we take time this week to remember the pain and loss experienced on September 11, 2001, we also become aware of the necessity to make peace a priority. Some must wonder if God blesses our battles or if God weeps at the devastation wrought upon this good creation. The psalmists found their expression of sorrow and need for God’s intervention in what we label the “psalms of lament.” These have been the cries of God’s people for thousands of years. In addition to those biblical psalms, many new psalms express the laments of later times. After our country’s 9-11 experience, I wrote this:

Lament
psalm for September 11, 2001

When the planes came to the buildings,
When fire and flesh converged,
Were you there, Lord,
When permanent became impermanent?
Were you there at all?
When all came crashing down, O God, were you
There in the midst of chaos, of unspeakable evil?
Did you gather up your lost and broken?
Did you carry them in your bosom, kissing them,
Holding the ashes of their souls?

Let your fierce love meet our disbelief.
Let your hand hold us up from this earth’s danger.
May our shouts of anger turn into hosannas.
Come to our broken spirits and make us whole
In your peace.

BEWARE. BEWARE. BEWARE.

Friends: Instead of a blog, I am sending you a copy of something on today’s Benedictine e-column, “Vision and Viewpoint,” written by Sister Joan Chittister, OSB in one of her books. (See credit line following this article.) I find that it throws out a challenge to us as Protestants as well, particularly to Presbyterians. It speaks to the PCUSA as a whole and to individual congregations such as ours. If there is anything in this article which catches your attention, or challenges some of your ideas about church, or differs with your views, then take that as an opportunity to reflect on what is written here, meditate about it, and pray about it. -- Jean

BEWARE. BEWARE. BEWARE.

There is a revolution going on in today’s Church. Very ordinary people are discovering the energy, the insight, and the power that comes with a real spiritual life. And, as it happens when the Holy Spirit steps out of the chanceries of the world, quite ordinary people are being spiritually empowered to make decisions on their own.

They know they have been sent to live the beatitudes in a world where two-thirds of the people are deprived of the basics of life. They know they have been sent to be the sign of the call, the gospel commitment, in a world that wants power and profit instead. They know they have been sent to become the Christ-figure in a world that says, “You get them before they get you!” In a Church that says some of us are inadequate images of Christ. They know they have been sent to turn the world around, one part at a time.

A folk tale may explain it best.

Once upon a time a priest announced that Jesus, himself, was coming to church the following Sunday. How the people turned up in large number, of course, to see him.

Everyone expected Jesus to preach. But he only smiled. And everyone offered him hospitality, but he refused. He wanted to spend the night in church, he said. “How could he!” everyone thought. But the next morning, by the time the church doors were open, Jesus had already slipped away. And to their horror, the priest and the people discovered that their church had been vandalized.

Scribbled everywhere on the walls was the single word, “Beware!” No part of the church was spared; the doors and the windows, the pillars and the pulpit, the altar; even the Bible that rested on the lectern. “Beware!” Wherever the eye rested one could see the word, “Beware!” Shocking! Yet, confusing. Hauntingly terrifying! What were they supposed to be aware of?

The first impulse of the people was to wipe out every trace of this defilement, this sacrilege. The only thing that stopped them from doing it was the awareness that it was Jesus, after all, Jesus, himself, who had done this deed.

But the days went by. That mysterious word, “Beware,” began to sink into the minds of the people each time they came to church. They began to beware of the Scriptures, so they were able to profit from them without falling into bigotry. They began to beware of the Sacraments, so they were sanctified without becoming superstitious. The priest began to beware of his power over the people, so he was able to help without controlling. And everyone began to beware of religion, which leads the unwary to self-righteousness.

They became law-abiding, yet compassionate to the weak; they began to beware of prayer, so it no longer stopped them from becoming self-reliant; they even began to beware of their notions of God, so they were able to recognize God outside the narrow confines of their church. Finally, they inscribed the shocking word over the entrance of their church and as you drive past at night you can see it blazing above the church in multi-colored neon lights. The message is a simple one: Beware! Beware of power without spirituality and beware of any spirituality that does not empower. Beware. Beware. Beware. For the sake of the Church, and the sake of the children, I’m begging you, beware.

– from “Empowerment and Spirituality,” by Joan Chittister,Creation magazine, March/April, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1990

Worship: A Many-Splendored Thing

Ever since I first became a Presbyterian, back in 1959, worship has been important to me in my life of faith. Well, actually, worship has always been important. I have often said that the Baptists taught me about the Bible, the Episcopalians gave me an appreciation of liturgy, and the Presbyterians provided a sense of church structure and polity. Always these elements have been for me set within the context of worship. Almost from the time we joined the Presbyterian church in Madison, I served on the Worship Committee there. At Duke Divinity School, the first course I signed up for was a history and survey of Christian worship. And one more credential to add to this list: when the Presbyterians published the Book of Common Worship, I was already familiar with its contents, having worked for several years with its proposed resources before they were finally approved and published in the form we now have.

I attended every workshop possible on worship over my years as a member at Madison. Our committee sampled various forms of worship and versions of liturgy. We experimented and then once a general pattern was agreed upon, following the recommended form, it was followed thereafter with some modifications from time to time. Once I began serving churches myself, I was a stickler for what ought to be in a Service for the Lord’s Day. When congregations showed me how they had “always done it,” I worked hard to introduce them to the “proper” order and content of worship. My successes were rare, but usually there were some gradual changes to what was deemed good Reformed worship. There were battles, of course, over adopting the newest hymnal but even those mountains were finally scaled. The grounding was that Book of Common Worship.

Then I began an interim ministry in two small churches in Stokes County. There were printed bulletins for each church with different orders of worship, and neither congregation followed the “accepted” forms. The two churches used different hymnbooks, neither of which I had ever seen before, and neither based on the Reformed tradition. I was nearly distraught. This isn’t right! I thought, looking through previous bulletins. I resolved to set those folks straight about what should and shouldn’t be in a worship service, and about where in the service those elements should go, and also, what were the proper liturgical colors to use. The last piece was the easiest to resolve: neither church used paraments, so I crossed that issue off my list.

The third or fourth time I led worship in the churches, something began to dawn on me. Because nothing was as it should be, nothing correctly attended to in the course of worship, I discovered a sense of liberation! I was free – free at last from the constraints of being part of the worship police. By the time my ministry ended at those small churches, I had learned that it is not necessarily the order or the correctness of worship that takes priority. It is instead being in the holy presence of the people of God that matters. There in those small churches “far from the madding crowd,” I began to sense the surroundings as blessed by the Holy Spirit, that we were standing on holy ground, sharing our songs from the heart, feeding one another from the Table, listening for God’s word and for what that word meant for us in our time and in our place. I had been liberated from conformity, from particularity of things, from the dictates of the right piece in the right place with the right words in the right time. I let go and as the saying goes, let God be revealed, however that might be, throughout the service.

Now, it is true that on occasion I have been a back-slider and tried once again to set the standard order of worship as the Proper Way to Worship. But then I am drawn back to that other realization, that worship services were designed by the People of God in order to give God praise and to offer our petitions, intercessions, and thanksgivings. How we do that, and in what order, and with what words, is simply our own undertaking. It can be flexible to meet the needs of worshipers, and to address the texts of the day, and to encourage creativity. After all, we are made in the image of our Creator.

I remembered the main teaching about worship as posited by the Danish theologian and philospher, Kierkegaard: the congregation, choir, preacher, and all others in the service are the performers for God, Who is the Audience. It’s not so much about us as it is about the One we worship, the Three-in-One, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. We sing our hearts out for that One who listens there in the sanctuary. We pray, we plead, we give thanksgivings with tears in our eyes, we grieve the sorrows that come upon us, but always . . . always . . . God is there, with the healing wings of the Risen Christ spread wide as the whole world.

A Historic Moment

It was during this week 63 years ago that our military dropped two atomic bombs on large cities in Japan: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The event brought about the end of World War II, although there were formalities to attend to and continuing battles on some of the Pacific islands. Debates have continued over the years as to whether or not it was the correct decision to drop the bombs. We will never know for certain. But we do know of some long-lasting effects of the radiation produced from the two bombs. We know of the cancer from radiation that took many lives in Japan even years later. We know of the permanent scars on the psyche of an entire nation who faced defeat and occupation. We know of effects upon our own military personnel from radiation left on the land long after the actual bombing. There were other long-ranging effects as well.

My husband Charlie is chronicling the history of an earlier war, and uncovered something surprising. He writes this:

“At the end of the Great War (WWI), 74 capital ships of the German High Seas Fleet were sailed from German waters by their German crews to be impounded at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, the largest port in England. They were to wait there, captives of the British but commanded by Germans, until terms of the Treaty of Paris were negotiated. By June 21, 1919, the terms were known, including the surrender of the entire fleet to the British. At 10:30 on that morning, a prearranged signal from Admiral von Reuter, German commander of the fleet, ordered the fleet to be scuttled, rather than allow the British to add the fleet to their own navy. The skeleton German crews sank all but four of the ships (they were grounded) - a total of 400,000 tons of armored vessels. It was the largest maritime disaster in a single day in history.

“Between the World Wars, most of the ships were salvaged for scrap. By the end of the Second World War only three capital ships and several destroyers remained at Scapa Flow. Along with 100 German U-boats scuttled after the end of WWII, these ships today are one of the last readily available sources of non-radioactive steel. It seems that all steel made after the two atomic bombs fell on Japan in 1945 has contained tiny amounts of radioactivity. This is because the atmosphere now contains trace amounts of radioactive isotopes. Steel-making involves the use of substantial amounts of air, and that transfers the radioactivity to all steel. Radiation free metal is vital for use in instruments and equipment used for measuring radiation, for fine sensors used in space satellites, and in some medical equipment.”

The lasting effects of those bombs have been forgotten by many today, but this week during a remembrance service in Hiroshima, the mayor noted that the effects of the atomic bombing on the minds of survivors had been underestimated for decades, adding that “the voices, faces and forms that vanished in the hell” had never left the hearts of survivors.

The damage of war reaches far beyond military actions. In our time, not only are those serving as combatants in the world’s battles in danger, but I came across an unbelievably startling statistic: that 95%-98% of all deaths and injuries in today’s wars come not to the military but to non-combatants, meaning those who suffer the greatest are children, women, and the elderly. In the long run, who are the true winners of wars?

May we discover the shalom of God’s peace.

A Heated Meeting

The temperatures were climbing, the humidity was thick enough to spread on toast, and there were about twice as many who came to the small church than there were available seats.


Sounds like an old-time Southern revival. But instead, it was Salem Presbytery’s summer meeting at Bethel Presbyterian in McLeansville Saturday, July 19. The air-conditioning began panting and froze up, so that what remained working provided only partial cooling. Someone eventually plugged in large fans that helped a great deal. If you were fortunate enough to find a place inside to sit. Why this unprecedented surge of attendance on what is usually the least attended meeting of Presbytery for the year?


Several reasons account for the difference this year. Fewer were taking long trips for vacation, and perhaps even more significant was that Willie Garvin, Financial Officer at the presbytery office and presbytery staff person for 40 years total, was being recognized at her retirement. Many friends, co-workers, and family were present. The other reason was that reports were to be presented by our Commissioners to the recent General Assembly in San Jose, CA and a presbytery committee report was scheduled having to do with the Peace, Unity and Purity paper presented at the 2006 GA in Richmond. Our presbytery had followed up with a study focused locally.


For any who arrived just a bit too late, no seats in the sanctuary were available. Some of us packed the small narthex but went in and out the doors seeking cooler and fresher air. So a lot of us missed the retirement ceremony all together. What I did hear was full of good words for Willie, and her sister’s solo was outstanding. Refreshments and registration were outside, so that a number of folks gathered there all during the day in lieu of sweltering inside.


Despite the comments I overheard about discomforts encountered, to me there was something about that gathering that had a good spirit to it. The setting, perhaps, contributed. I felt as though we were experiencing what church in its core being was like. Singing the hymns, sharing in communion, listening and at times debating or arguing about various issues – this was carried on by a community of Christians. The sermons were outstanding. Canessa Stafford preached her ordination sermon on “God’s Funny Farm,” and described her grandparents’ gardens, one where weeds were free to thrive and one where a weed would not dare to put down roots. We were encouraged to reconsider those among us we would define as “weeds.” Perhaps God sees us differently. She saw the Farmer God as being like the sower in Jesus’ parable who joyfully and freely scatters seeds generously and sees none of us as weeds in the Garden of the Kingdom.


The meeting of Salem Presbytery was heated at times by more than the muggy weather, as words were said in anger or frustration. The words that we might weed out of that gathering because they could be hurtful or damaging were heard within the healing fellowship of the Church at work. We also heard words of joy from churches in Brazil, words of hope from committee reports, words of blessing in our being at Table with one another. All together, I felt that no matter what was said, the Spirit at work in that place would discern where the weeds were and nurture what could bloom forth in mission and faithful discipleship. We can count on that, whether we approve or dislike the actions taken and the words spoken. It’s not necessarily about us.

About the Fellowship Blogger

As a retired minister now serving Fellowship Presbyterian Church as Parish Associate, I find little free time to be “retired,” but much time to do what I believe God calls me to do. In this blog, I will be commenting on all sorts of matters, some related to church or to faith, others to what is taking place in the world around us, and some to what goes on in my head.

As an officer of the North Carolina Council of Churches, First Vice-President, I hope to share with you some of the work that the Council does in ministries with the people of North Carolina. In addition to my participation in several organizations here in Greensboro and elsewhere, I am a writer. My book, Gather with the Saints, is a collection of stories about unusual people, unusual deaths and unusual funerals. Janie, the 12-year-old daughter of a Baptist preacher, shares these stories with the reader, as she describes some of what happens in her home town of Wheeler, NC. My other book, Signs of Hope: Messages for the Grieving, provides healing stories about grief and loss. They are both available on http://www.lulu.com/ by putting my name in the search window. I am also a poet and belong to the Writers' Group of the Triad. Currently I am working on a book about the WWII experiences of children.

The purpose of this blog is not to emphasize my opinions but to challenge you as a reader to respond with your own views about the topics I include here. All I ask is that you remember to use language that is appropriate for this website, that members of the church and perhaps others will read. It is not limited to comments by adults, as I welcome the responses from the youthful visitors to this blog.

Where in the World . . .?

As I begin the first blog for our church website, the question for me was where to begin. What would be a suitable first topic? Too many ideas running around in my head. Then this morning I picked up the copy of Highlights that came the other day. I had my subject matter.
Highlights is a Presbyterian publication that comes out twice a year, and informs readers of our Presbyterian international missions. Presbyterian World Mission is a branch of PCUSA that directs mission personnel, strengthens the “global church,” and equips Presbyterians for mission. There is good news: after a 50-year decrease in PCUSA co-workers, the trend has been reversed, and there are now nearly 200 mission co-workers around the world in addition to 35 long-term mission volunteers. By 2010, the number of co-workers will increase to 215. Such news reflects a “major shift in denominational mission policy,” notes Hunter Farrell, World Mission director.
Of special interest to Charlie and me is the article about a PCUSA-supported soup kitchen in Moscow, feeding elderly poor. It is operated through the Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy and directed by the Rev. Bob Bronkema, who ministers to the multi-ethnic, multi-denominational congregation there. He came to Moscow in 2006 along with his wife Stacy, also a Presbyterian pastor, and their three daughters 12,10, and 8. Their responsibilities cover a wide range of ministries with MPC. About 200 meals are prepared each day for pensioners and special food items are provided for their guests to supplement the lunch meals. We have visited with, and been assisted by, the mission co-workers in Moscow, Ellen and Al Smith. They helped us arrange a Twin Church relationship in Belarus with our former church in Madison. The Smiths also greatly helped in our second trip of about 10 from Salem Presbytery when we participated in a study seminar on the nature of Orthodoxy as practiced by the Russian Orthodox Church. Gray Clark was with that group, and you have heard his accounts of the trip.
I learned that Presbyterians have an active ministry in the Sudan as well. Muslims in Darfur now receive Christian education, through teachers from the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church, after a request by a Muslim sheik. He was amazed by the dedication Christians had shown in relief efforts and medical clinics. “What is it about you Christians that you are out here ready to help us?” he asked of Lee Watenpaugh, an elder from Virginia who had been with medical clinics in Darfur. Watenpaugh then recruited support from Sudan Mission Network members, mission personnel, World Mission staff, a presbytery, congregations, and a partner church and before long a two-room school began operating in one of the villages, with 273 students. They are hoping to expand the program in order to include adult students as well. Increased financial support from Presbyterians in this country has made it possible to begin expanding the school to six more rooms. These efforts are the results of a moment when Lee Watenpaugh, retired from his government position with the Secretary of Defense as an assistant for NATO policy, saw a need and responded to it, and the mission expanded into more than he ever imagined possible.
We have been hearing much about Iran as part of an “axis of evil.” There is another story, however, as described in an article about a trip last October to Iran by Presbyterians from Peachtree and Ogelthorpe churches in Atlanta. The ten travelers met unexpected welcomes from members of the Evangelical (Presbyterian) Church of Iran. That church body originated in the 19th century when American Presbyterians visited the country, and today there are six congregations with approximately 6000 members. Surprised by the near absence of any anti-American posters and encountering no hostility during their visit, the visiting Presbyterians discovered the joy of sharing with their Iranian counterparts. The generosity which was displayed in their welcome made a lasting impression upon the group. “From the moment of our arrival, people fell over themselves to welcome us,” commented one member. They attended services, visited most of the congregations, and were impressed by the numbers of young people and by the energy of the leaders. The trip illustrated something important: that when brothers and sisters in the faith come together from such wide distances of culture and location, they demonstrate the inclusive love of God for all the world.
The magazine carries other stories as well: of Presbyterians in Indonesia, Malawi, Iraq, and Columbia, for example. There are news items about new staff members, about retiring mission workers, and opportunities for service. World Mission’s website features even more stories of Presbyterians at work in Armenia, France and Spain.
When I attended my first General Assembly in Atlanta in 1983, the year the two major Presbyterian bodies united, I overheard a conversation between two retired clergy. They were discussing the work of missionaries they had known throughout the years. “I think the best kind of ministry is to be a retired missionary,” one said. And they all laughed at the thought. Perhaps today the best kind of ministry is to provide mission wherever we are. That is what we are called to be and do, as disciples.
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