Aug 10
13
Centering Moments
For reasons I deeply question, I have my alarm set to wake me up with the news. Wafting over my consciousness gloomy reports on the state of economic conditions bid me to wake. It’s on everybody’s mind demanding attention declaring that it is the most important thing and deserves to be the center of our attention. The realized losses and the potential losses both reported and predicted constantly on our news, telling us that this is our current reality. We continue to focus and listen not realizing the effect it is having on us.
Apparently, calling me awake wasn’t enough. I listened to the news as I drove to the church. I got out of the car and took a breath looking around I saw our children’s school. I walked over and went and visited the kindergarten class. Children working in different stations turn and look at me when I entered. I received big smiles and acknowledgement of my advent. Some came up and greeted me immediately and walked with me as I went from station to station. What I witnessed was children creating art. One boy at the easel his attention fixed considered with care his next color choice and then with a sweeping motion drew the brush down with great control.
One little girl came close looked up and said, “LOOK!” she pointed with her finger to her lower mouth and the gapping hole where two of her front teeth had been. “MY TEETH ARE GONE!” she declared. Within seconds I am surrounded by children all with their mouths open showing me the holes where teeth once were. Like sunflowers fixed on the sun their faces beam up at me and follow me. I felt my body relax, here was something to center my attention on. I was reminded of another kind of loss, one that made me a nickel when I was young, one that makes way for something new, a loss worth celebrating. I wondered later if after time had past and people reflected on the losses if there would be anything redemptive about it. Would it cause some of us to redirect and reprioritize how we have been living our lives? I wondered if we would find that the losses caused us to think in a way that, otherwise, we never would have considered.
It’s too soon to reflect on that sort of thing. But, thanks to the children, I remembered that there is more than one reality going on at a time and I have the choice on which to center my day. I was reminded that life, while not particularly easy, is a wonder and a gift. As hard as it tried to demand my attention, the face of the economy pales next to the face of a child. I changed the station.
Jul 10
29
Soul Walking
Cate feels restored walking on the beach. It is a renewing spiritual experience for her. It is not so relaxing for me, for I know from previous experience that sooner or later she will start collecting as much of the beach as possible to take with her. Once, in Florida, she had me trying to drag a recently deceased (I hoped) large stingray out of the water. You know, that thing that took out the Crocodile Hunter. What the dictionary describes as possessing one or more large sharp barbed dorsal spines near the base of the whip-like tail capable of inflicting severe wounds or death. She, standing on the beach, kept assuring me it was dead. I, in the water, kept reminding her that she was not a marine biologist!
All this aside, I do have my reflective moments on the beach. In those moments standing on the sand I become aware of how temporal everything is. On the beach, nothing seems to be permanent. The waves roll in and out. The gulls are always on the move. Oceans have no equivalents of landmarks. The ships are not long in view. Unlike solid ground, the sand gives way under each step, and the way it looks today is not the way it will look tomorrow.
Sand walking is not easy. You quickly become aware of leg muscles that normally go unnoticed. Sand walkers must pay attention and keep alert or themselves with wet pants from a rogue wave which has transgressed the unspoken agreement about how far it may advance. Our presence seems like the most permanent thing in this environment, but even our footsteps, the unspoken proclamation that we have passed by, are quickly washed or blown away.
The beach has a way of reminding me that despite all my efforts for certainty, stability, and permanence are built upon the foundation of an uncertain and ever changing world. It is said, “The only thing that is permanent is change.” There is an irony to my reflection. Despite the shifting sand and changing views, it is the sand walker who is the most fleeting and temporal; for when the walker turns and looks back the only thing missing is the walker. Many walkers have come and gone throughout the centuries and it is the ever shifting, changing beach that remains.
When we walk through life in this world, it is like we are walking on a beach. When we look back over life traveled, where will we look for signs that we passed by? Where can we see our footprints, those unspoken proclamations that we were here? It is hard to leave permanent marks in a changing world. I think there is a place we can look, for we walk not only on sand, ground and concrete. My guess is that we are first soul – walkers and in the end we will find our footsteps left upon the landscape of the souls with whom we have chosen to share ourselves.
Souls, like sand, are not easy to walk across. It requires attention, spiritual muscles not always used. Step too lightly, you leave no trace; step too hard and hurt and pain are left behind. Soul walkers must seek to walk in a fashion that leaves behind meaningful impressions.
God spoke to Joshua as he stood before the Promised Land and said, ‘Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon will become the promised land.’ When we look back on our lives what will we see? A soul’s landscape left unchanged or damaged or a few more steps gained for the Promised Land?
One day we will be gone. Our lives last about as long as it takes the world to wink. Perhaps, the most permanent thing about this life we live in this world is our soul walking footprints which cannot be blown or washed away.
Jul 10
14
Join STM on Facebook!
St. Margaret’s has joined the world of social media. We are on Facebook and Twitter. Please take a moment to LIKE our Facebook Page www.facebook.com/stmargaretsks and follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/stmargaretsks ! Links are also available from our home page.
We are starting an Environmental Stewardship team. Many in the Episcopal church celebrate a new season called the Creation Season – usually early fall. Fall colors and awareness of God’s creation are the focus – we are considering this option. Fall equinox celebration is planned 9/22.
Jul 10
14
Seeking New Food Pantry Coordinator
Lauren Reinhold, who has coordinated the food collection for Trinity’s Food Pantry, is having to step down after accepting a new job position. We thank her for her dedication and faithfulness to this ministry. If you are interested in what the Food Pantry Ministry involves, please feel free to talk to Lauren directly at 760-2114.
Jun 10
18
Vacation Bible School Meeting
Jun 10
17
Trinity Food Pantry
For June, please bring ground coffee and dried/powdered milk. We continue to need servers on Tuesdays for this ministry. There are three servers and we need one more to provide for more equal distribution of tasks in the food pantry. We thank you for your donations to the food pantry which helped us serve 508 people (172 households) in April with a total of 1,809 people (662 households) so far this year. Your donations of time and food are greatly appreciated.
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Jun 10
17
Mission Update From Ghana
The children at Christ orphanage are really enjoying the few books we brought with us to read to them every day. if we let them have them, they fight over them, so we read them in a one on one manner only. there are a few older girls that read fairly well and will read to the crowd of kids at break or recess, while the rest of the kids are fighting over who gets to sit in our lap. m Mousie, the youngest child at Christ who is about 2 wet on Nick today, so we told him he had been baptized now. He’s a good catholic and thought he’d already been baptized once and that would have been sufficient.”
One of our members shared this – I pass it on! They are doing great work and it is good to see in the midst of hard things a sense of humor is essential. Please continue to pray for Cathy, Rosemary, and Cheryl and for Pat and Karín who leave for Africa later this month.
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Jun 10
17
To Be A Christian
“To be a Christian is to be a traveller..like the Israelites in the desert we live tents not houses, for spiritually we are always on the move. We are on a journey through inward space of the heart, a journey not measured by the hours of our watch or the days of the calendar, for it is a journey out of time into eternity.” Timothy Ware
