Heavenly Brew

A pastor friend describes life as something akin to a book. Life has chapters, he says. One ends, another starts. Often I find myself not wanting for chapters to end. I want to hold on to the good stuff, I am not always good at letting people go. I want to freeze-frame moments of peace and joy… I shared this with the owner of my favorite coffee shop this morning. This place of retreat and sanctuary is closing today. The economy proved to be too hard. I wrote Sharon a card. I wasn’t quite sure what to say and how to say it. I feel things deeply but I am not always real good at translating my feelings into words, but I wrote this:
“Dear Sharon and Heavenly Brew Team: Today is more than likely a bittersweet day. But I hope you celebrate the fact that you have provided this community a great place to be. You will certainly be missed but the cozy times of intimacy with friends, the animated conversations, the soul warming goodies will not be forgotten.
I, for one, will never forget the grace of an oatmeal cranberry cookie when I was facing medical uncertainty earlier this year. You were a true angel in disguise that day.
This is the beginning of a new chapter and I wish you the very best.”

I hope this does not sound too trite or cheesy. But however clumsy this might be, I wrote it from my heart.
I know God is not done with Sharon and the gift of warmth and hospitality she possesses. She will continue to bless others. I hope our paths will cross again.
I rejoice at new opportunities which are coming but I have to be honest, I grieve today also. I told Sharon, and maybe this is selfish, that I looked forward a couple of times a week, after working out at the Y, to getting a cup of coffee at her place and just sit for a while before the day would start in full force. This was a great place to be, to read, to watch people and meet friends and make new friends. Sharon and the staff got to know my name and what I do quickly. They always seemed happy to see me as I was to see them. I felt welcome. They got to know and remember that I like cranberry oatmeal cookies, that I like their berry oatmeal-bake warmed up and without milk. They knew my favorite flavored coffee was Blueberry Muffin.
Someone in front of me ordering today said that she felt as if she had been evicted with nowhere to go since Heavenly Brew will be no more. I feel a little like that. Where will I go to get coffee and soul-warming goodies but more importantly where will I go when I need to be, when I need community? Church is one place but it is not the same. This was a different kind of sanctuary.

Hunger

I went to a briefing on hunger this past week. This was a gathering of church folks mostly, organized by United Way. The intent was to talk about the face of hunger in our community and talk about the available sources of support and what we can do to help. With the recession, more and more people are affected. The Salvation Army captain said that some of the people who used to give to the Salvation Army are now some of the ones receiving help. The irony of this is that we met at Das Dutchman Essenhaus in Middlebury over breakfast! We ate our scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, sausage and sweet rolls while talking about hungry people. I did not eat much. My breakfast did not go down well that morning.
The other irony I thought about is that I am, let say, pleasantly plump. I work out at the Y several times a week to try to slow down the passage of time and the hold that gravity has gotten on me and tone everything up. I also work out because doing so clears my head and relaxes me and I am hopefully a nicer, calmer person because I do this. While I do that, some in this world starve to death. One could get real cynical here. This world has enough ills and suffering in it. Getting cynical and sarcastic would be really easy. I choose not to go that route.
Instead, I find myself giving thanks for the fact that I am healthy, that I have plenty of food, the fact that I am loved and I am also reminded and encouraged greatly to find ways to help those who have less than I do. Starving myself will not help these folks get food but out of my wealth and blessings I can give and for that I find myself very grateful. Life is a great gift not to be wasted but to be lived to the full and I don’t believe that can happen without love, serving others and sharing.
The gathering of representatives for about 50 local churches is a miracle, one of the speakers pointed out. Together we can find solutions. Feed the hungry and clothe the naked are some of the things Jesus admonished us to do (Matthew 25). What I also want to do is find ways of dealing with the system which allows such things to happen. Nobody in the world should go hungry but to hear of hunger in America, the richest country in the world, is crazy. So I want to find effective ways of helping. I can’t feed everybody on my own but God has a way of multiplying a little food (remember the story of the feeding of the multitude with just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish?) into a lot if we all work together. I want to be part of that! I hope you join me! One way is to fill up a grocery bag on May 9 and leave it by your mailbox for the mail carrier to pick up. There will be volunteer opportunities that day. You will hear more about it soon.

Change

This is an article I shared with our congregation in our March newsletter.

Change. I’ve been thinking a lot about change this past year.
I have been thinking about change because there are a lot of things going on in each of our lives. We experience aging. We experience new births and the death of loved ones. We experience change in our living situations. Some get married; Others divorced. Some of us have lost a job and with it more than income and insurance but also a sense of our identity and maybe a sense of our worth.

I have been thinking about change because we have all felt the impact on our lives of the economic recession we are experiencing. Our money does not stretch as far as it used to. I think of that every time Steve and I buy groceries. I think of this and I am more grateful than ever to have meaningful employment and a roof above our heads.

I have been thinking about change as we enter the season of Lent. It is a time of introspection and a time when we are called anew to ponder Jesus’ question “Who do you say I am?” and the questions of “who are we?” and “whose are we?” These are questions we have to answer as individuals and as a church body. If we answer, “Jesus in our LORD”, this means that we are called to follow and following is not a static, unchanging thing.

I have been thinking about change because of the election of Barak Obama. Whether we agree with his political views or not, it is undeniable that we are entering a new chapter in history.

I have been thinking about change because our church and our Indiana Conference are in the middle of great change and transition. As you know, the coming together of the North and South Indiana Conferences was approved last year and we are now deep in the transition time and implementation and working the nitty gritty details.

I have been thinking about change because Bethel is in transition and we are faced with decisions having to do with how to remain faithful as a church and faithful to our mission of making disciples of Jesus. You’ll hear more about this in the weeks and months to come.

I would venture to say that most of us, if not all of us, have mixed feelings about change: Change can be exciting and it can be scary and often change is all these things at once. We can embrace change or we can resist it. In the end, whether we embrace or resist change, it is inevitable and it is part of life.

I am talking with several people about change and how to negotiate transitions in our personal life as well as in our gatherings of people we call the church.

I went to a seminar in February, after having read several books from our presenter, and we talked about how to introduce change in churches. There are some good ways of doing this and there are not so good ways of doing this. One of the pastors who attended recalled how she served a church which had forgotten its purpose and which refused/never found ways to adapt to meet the needs of a changing neighborhood. They used to be a large downtown church, well attended by wealthy parishioners. But through the years, attendance dwindled to less than 50. They do have a beautiful, European-inspired, church, which only remains open because of an endowment fund. She said it looks more like a mausoleum than a church. What striked me is that she did not say, museum – which is bad enough; she said mausoleum - a place where the dead are buried. This saddened me. I know the church and another friend is serving there now. I hope he can help revive this place through the people in it and by inviting others to come and experience life with Jesus. This will require changing hearts and minds and it will require a lot of work on everyone’s part.

When I think of change and transitions, I think of the story of the Exodus in the Bible; how the people found themselves facing new situations. They had to learn new ways and they had to adapt and it did not always go very smoothly. Many even grumbled that the slavery in Egypt they had just left would be better than that they were experiencing in the wilderness. It’s interesting how we remember things. The good ol’ days were usually not as good as we might remember them. They grumbled so much that God ended up giving them a lot of extra time to think and hopefully mature. It also took the passing of the rebellious generation before the rest of the people could enter the Promised Land.

When I think of change and transitions, I also think of 1st and 2nd Peter. In these letters, the author, whom we think was the apostle Peter, exhorts the scattered Christians in Asia Minor (present day Turkey) to hold fast to their faith and their trust of God in the face of hardship. We started the study of these letters and what they have to say to us last Monday. It is not too late to join the study!

When I think of change and transitions, I think of prayer. As people of God we are called to pray without ceasing. I don’t believe we can live life very well and negotiate the inevitable changes and transitions, which come our way without talking with God and seeking His guidance.

When I think of change and transitions, I think of God because no matter what we all face, He is with us and will guide us through when we seek Him.

One question that our seminar leader asked - and that question haunts me in some ways - is “If your church closed, would anyone in the neighborhood, in the community, notice and care? Would your church be missed by anyone outside of it?”