11/11/24

Pastor’s Ponderings

In honor of Veterans Day today, I am bringing back the story of a veteran I first wrote about in a pondering years ago - a story which still rises in my heart every November 11.

This one is for Nicki Potter.

Back when I was a child, everyone in my small town of Arapahoe knew the guy who worked at a local garage and lived with his mother across the street from Bethany Christian Church. Only a few, though, knew his whole story.  Most of us, especially us children, only knew him as the town drunk. He stumbled when he walked, and we laughed at his gawky moves and the odd way he breathed.  Every year in December my Daddy took the youth group across the street to Christmas carol at Nicki’s house.  One year I asked Daddy “why does he stink?” “Alcohol” was all he would say.

It would only be years later that I would learn the whole story.  Nicki was a war hero, decorated for valor during World War II.  While overseas fighting in the world’s battle against Hitler, there was one point at which Nicki’s outfit was in such desperate need of a truck that Nicki walked right into the German camp and drove one of theirs out. For that he was highly decorated.  

But those medals weren’t enough to erase his memories of war, especially of the time the Germans hid a houseful of snipers inside an orphanage thinking the Americans would not fire on children.  Nicki and his partners did not know it was an orphanage until he saw the bodies of children flying out of windows of the bombed house.

He came home a decorated war hero, but he would never forget.  And so he drank. And drank. And drank.

As the calendar changes to November and we are reminded to count our blessings, let us start with our veterans.  For sometimes in their bodies and often deep in their souls, they bear for us the scars of war.

Grace and peace,

Beth

11/4/24

Pastor’s Ponderings

On Wednesday night of this week I will finally be able to turn on the evening news and for the first time in what seems like forever be able to sit through the commercials without my blood pressure going up due to the vitriol spewed out in the constant barrage of political ads. No more “Vote for this one or the country will go to pot” immediately followed by “No, vote for that one and the country will be absolutely ruined.” I must admit, I am even ready to hear “the direct number to the law offices of James Scott Farrin, call us today don’t delay”! 

There has been a hilarious drama playing out on Second Street in South Smithfield this election season - one that is no doubt played out in small towns across our nation. Across-the-street neighbors on opposite sides of the red/blue divide have been at war with political signs.  One puts up a Trump/Vance sign; the other responds with a Harris/Walz sign.  Up goes a huge Trump banner between two trees, quickly followed by an equally large Harris banner across the way. On and on it has gone while the whole town watches to see whose turn it is and what is going up next.  

It is a metaphor of our nation right now.  I shout for my candidate, you shout louder for yours.  We shout harder and faster until nobody can hear anything that is being said any more, only words that trigger even deeper anger, words like “immigration”…“abortion”…  ”socialism”…“book banning”.

We are a nation entrenched behind our battle lines, battle lines drawn so thick and so clear that we have lost the ability to even hear each other over the roar of the divide.

Yet Wednesday morning the sun will come up and we who live in this country will need to find a way forward if we have any hope of doing anything other than sitting in our like-minded conclaves, continuing to shout at each other. One way to start is for neighbors who live across the street from each other to engage in what conflict resolution trainers call “interest based negotiations”.  It’s a fancy way of saying figure out what we have in common and celebrate the shared values that we have.

When applied to our country, I think it is fair to say we all want a safe world for our children, justice for our citizens, opportunities to work and thrive, protection from terrorism, and clean air and water.  We are just fighting about how to get there.

No, we can’t do much at all about the deep divide down congressional halls.  But out in our neighborhoods and small towns, we CAN find ways to talk to each other without shouting.  I don’t personally know the residents on Second Street who have been engaged in the red/blue war, but my prayer is they are neighbors who on Wednesday morning will take down their signs and have a good laugh about how they kept the whole town watching. Out in the heartlands of America, purple is still possible.

Grace and peace,

Beth

10/28/24

Pastor’s Ponderings

This Sunday as we gather together to worship, we will celebrate All Saints Sunday:  rejoicing and giving thanks for all the saints of our lives who have poured so much of themselves into our faith and maturity as Christians.  Three of our friends will share personal stories of people in their lives who have impacted them - thus  witnessing to the profound effect each of us can potentially have on another person.

Pope Francis wrote about this in his writing “A Path Toward Sainthood” and I would share his words with you today as we look to our celebration of All Saints Sunday:

“Sanctity is something greater, deeper, which God gives us. Indeed, it is precisely in living with love and offering one’s own Christian witness in everyday affairs that we are called to become saints.  And each in the conditions and state of life in which he or she finds him-or herself.  But you are consecrated.  Are you consecrated? -Be a saint by living out your donation and your ministry with joy.  Are you married? -Be a saint by loving and taking care of your husband or your wife as Christ did for the church.  Are you an unmarried baptized person? -Be a saint by carrying out your work with honesty and competence and by offering time in the service of your brothers and sisters. “But, father, I work in the factory;I work as an accountant, only with numbers; you can’t be a saint there… “ Yes, yes you can! There, where you work, you can become a saint.  God gives you the grace to become holy. God communicates himself to you.  Always, in every place, one can become a saint, that is, one can open oneself up to this grace, which works inside us and leads us to holiness. Are you a parent or a grandparent?  -Be a saint by passionately teaching your children or grandchildren to know and to follow Jesus.  And it takes so much patience to do this: to be a good parent, a good grandfather, a good mother, a good grandmother; it takes so much patience and with this patience comes holiness:  by exercising patience.  Are you a catechist, an educator or a volunteer? -Be a saint by becoming a visible sign of God’s love and of his presence alongside us.  This is it:  every state of life leads to holiness, always!  In your home, on the street, at work, at church, in that moment and in your state of life, the path to sainthood has been opened.  Don’t be discouraged to pursue this path.  It is God alone who gives us the grace.  The Lord asks only this:  that we be in communion with Him and at the service of our brothers and sisters.”

(Pope Francis, “A Path toward Sainthood,” excerpt from Pope Francis’s General Audience Wednesday November 19, 2014.)

Amen.

Grateful for your companionship as we seek holiness together, 

Beth

10/21/24

Pastor’s Ponderings 

“Take care of it and it will bloom every year on your anniversary” Grandma Norman said to us 34 years ago as she gave Marty and me a pot of some of her beautiful pale pink chrysanthemums as a wedding gift.

She was exactly right.  For thirty years it budded up fat buds in early autumn, and by the time our anniversary rolled around, showers of pink blossoms were opening their faces to the October sky.

Until the year it didn’t. Maybe we weren’t paying close enough attention, maybe we took the vigorous little bloomer for granted, but in any case October 20 dawned to a mess of wilted black leaves and no flowers. A quick consult with a master gardener indicated the plant probably had a disease called a blight, and by the looks of it, had been infected for several seasons.  Had we noticed black spots on the leaves?  No, not really - Lower leaves turning black and dropping prematurely? Well, yes a little but we thought it would come back strong the next year - no, your plant is entirely infected. Best to pull the whole thing out and start all over with a new plant of the same species.

Only we couldn’t bear to do it.  So we dug up everything and destroyed it except for three or four little sprigs that still had green life in them.  We replanted them in a pot, being careful to watch the soil conditions, the water, and the sunlight.  We inspected the plant every day, and took nothing for granted.

That fall October 20 arrived to find a small pot with only a few blooms - but healthy. We transplanted a handful of roots back into the ground, again keeping careful watch for the blight and pulling out leaves with any sign of wilt. The next year October 20 found a small but vigorous patch of pink blooms. 

Finally we began to relax again, but vowing to keep careful watch for signs of blight, taking nothing for granted and paying attention every day to the essentials:  soil, light, water. This year the large plant is as vigorous as ever, pink blossoms opening happily to the sun. 

“Take care of it and it will bloom every year on your anniversary” Grandma said - and her words were true for far more than just the gift of her plant.

Grace and peace,

Beth

10/14/24

Pastor’s Ponderings 

“The heavens are telling the glory of God.”

Many of you will remember back in 2021 Marty and I packed our long johns and took a November trip to Iceland. We went for many reasons, one of which was our hope to see the Aurora Borealis, or the northern lights.

We had a marvelous time in Iceland and saw many strange and beautiful things.  It was the trip of a lifetime and so we were not too bummed that it was foggy the whole time we were there and the northern lights were not visible. I know now what the phrase “a blanket of fog” really means as I watched the fog cover and warm the earth, so much that in the brief daylight hours we got to see native Icelanders sunning their babies in the park at a balmy 40 degrees Fahrenheit. 

We didn’t get to see the northern lights when we went to see them, so imagine our excitement when on Thursday night last week the northern lights came to see us! They were very faint to the naked eye, but when viewed from the lens of a camera the night sky came alive in vivid shades of dark rose deepening into purple. 

We knew when and how to look for them because the word was passed through the news media.  If we had not been paying attention, we would have missed the miracle of the beautiful night sky proclaiming the glory of God right above our heads here in eastern North Carolina.

It makes me wonder how much more we miss simply because we do not stop and pay attention.  I think about the famous quote by Alice Walker from her character Shug Avery in The Cold Purple, a hard talking, hard living honky tonk singer who nonetheless had some pretty insightful thoughts about God:  “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.” 

I am the first to admit I miss so many things, so many signs God sends of God’s love and magnificent power.  But I am so very thankful that on Thursday night I got to see the color purple.

Grace and peace,

Beth

10/7/24

Pastor’s Ponderings 

The apples in a brown carton marked “Momma” seem almost too precious to eat.

They were picked for me in an orchard in Hendersonville the weekend before Helene hit.  They were picked by my children, father and sister on an annual apple-picking trip I missed out on because duty called. I was hosting a Regional Elders meeting at our church on the Saturday morning they were picking apples and after all, I would be going up there for a family visit the very next weekend - or so I thought.

The pictures coming out of western North Carolina have been so full of destruction, so full of the world torn upside down by raging water that it is almost impossible to process.  The man who clung to a tree in the middle of a river for hours then lost consciousness and was swept away right before the eyes of his family. Entire towns vanishing in a matter of hours, swept away by usually docile rivers and streams. Mudslides careening down mountains taking trees and houses with them, blocking road access for people trapped above with what little food and water they had in storage. 

And yet the human spirit is strong and heroic images are there as well.  The man who tied a rope around his waist and dove into the river to rescue a woman whose house was floating downstream with her still inside. The people of the town of Black Mountain riding lawn mowers and walking to the town square for a public meeting to organize aid for isolated residents. The convoy of trucks headed into the disaster zone loaded with water and food donated by generous hands from across our state and nation. 

The grief has been strong, but so has the determination to come together and do what we can for those whose lives have been torn apart.  The apples look up at me from my counter.  They are a long way from the orchard where they ripened, and that orchard may not even exist anymore.  But inside each precious apple is a cluster of seeds - and inside each seed, hope.

Grace and peace,

Beth

9/30/24

Pastor’s Ponderings 

When the remnants of Helene blew through, Marty and I were on the 11th floor of the Renaissance hotel in downtown Asheville. Marty was attending the annual meeting of the North Carolina Psychiatric Association; it was immediately canceled when the electricity went out and the siding started blowing off the hotel, but by then it was too late to do anything but hunker down and hope for the best.

When the winds died down there was an eerie silence in downtown.  No traffic sounds, no footsteps hurrying on pavement - just the sound of emergency sirens in the distance.  Only later would we learn the extent of the damage as houses came off their foundations and floated down Tunnel Road and the River Arts District was completely swallowed by the French Broad River. Conference attendees gathered in the lobby to encourage each other along and pass on information when someone ventured out and heard this or that; I comforted myself with the knowledge that at least I was surrounded by psychiatrists if I started having a mental breakdown!

On Saturday morning the Asheville police came to the hotel to tell us I-26 South was open for evacuation but we had to have enough gas to make it to Spartanburg. Thankfully, Marty and I did.  We crept home with broken hearts for the daughter and son-in-law we were leaving behind.

Danny and Ellen are fine; they have food and bottled water and things are slowly starting to come back on.  They have been able to regularly get to an open spot on higher ground where there is enough cell signal to text us updates. Ellen is considered emergency medical personnel for Mission Hospital and therefore cannot evacuate. 

First we lost power, then we lost cell service, then we lost running water. But we gained the reminder that when we have each other safe and sound, we are blessed beyond measure.

Grace and peace,

Beth

9/22/24

Pastor’s Ponderings 

Last Thursday evening I had the blessing of hearing my sister Jennifer sing with a choir from the organization “Able to Serve” which is an organization allowing folks with special needs opportunities for service, continuing education, and fellowship. The song they sang was “I’m So Blessed” by CAIN and I will confess to a few tears rolling as I watched my sister wave her hands with her friends and sing “On my best day I’m a child of God, on my worst day I’m a child of God; oh every day is a good day and you’re the reason why!”

Some days are better than others. As a matter of a fact, some days are just hard to get through.  Over the years I have learned sometimes we all can use a little help from our friends, so I have compiled what I call a “Grace” file.

My Grace file is a file in my filing cabinet filled with things like drawings given to me by children in Sunday School, greeting cards that have a special meaning for me, and things that have been said to me that touched a special place in my heart so I wrote them down and filed them under “Grace”. These things come from family, from friends, from children, from my church family and sometimes even from strangers.

Because hard days come, and on hard days it is sometimes difficult to remember how much we are loved.  My “Grace” file is my secret weapon against the enemy’s weapons of self-doubt, hopeless resignation and despair. One glance through this file and God uses the love of my community to remind me even on my worst day I am a child of God, and with this reminder gratitude and hope return.

I hope you have a Grace file, or something like it, because so many times our God says “I love you” to us through the human voices of family and church family and friends.  Because we all sometimes need reminders to raise our hands and sing at the top of our voice with our friends “On my best day I’m a child of God, on my worst day I’m a child of God; oh every day is a good day and you’re the reason why!”

Grace and peace,

Beth

9/15/24

Pastor’s Ponderings 

  It was fortunate for our church that the family of Charles and Eloise Adams scheduled their estate sale only a couple of weekends before our yard sale, because that meant what didn’t sell in their sale was donated to us for ours. It also meant I was in the right frame of mind to clean out my own house in preparation for our sale.

I went over to Eloise and Charlie’s home the first day of the estate sale to see if there were any nativities from Eloise’s collection available, especially the ones she displayed and invited groups from the church to come over and see. There were several of us who wanted this reminder of Eloise, and there were indeed several for us to choose from.

I couldn’t stay long though - just long enough to go in, locate the nativities, and head back out.  It was just too hard to be in their home with all the memories of happy times spent there to then see it with their personal items, household goods and cherished art collection laid out for people to pick up and pilfer through.

It’s not that I expected their family members to adopt all of their things - I have been a part of cleaning out five different homes of beloved relatives including my own mother and I know all too well how everything cannot be absorbed into our already full houses. And it’s not that I thought we were somehow disgracing their memory - without Charlie there to open the door and Eloise to call “Come on in!” those roof and walls were just another house.

No, I think my problem was the in-my-face reminder of Luke 12:15, that life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. So many times we all live like a big house beautifully furnished with extra in the garage is what life is all about - and of course it is not.  After our last breath is drawn our cherished things will lie around like castoff toys the day after Christmas. Passing by Eloise’s jewelry laid out on a card table and Charlie’s tools lined on his workbench was just a stark reminder that we are only passing through this world, and what matters as we go along is not what possessions we accumulate but what love we share.

And what love we did share - our church family with Charles and Eloise Adams.  What memories of working in the vineyard together, what fun times getting ready for Advent and church celebrations!  I brought my new nativity home from the house at 2044 Deer Trail both as a reminder of this love and a reminder of the Christ child who came into the world to be laid in a borrowed manger - the same one who later said “life does not consist in an abundance of things”.  I put it with the Christmas things in the cubby hole at the top of the steps and immediately began filling up my car for the church yard sale, so as to lighten my life and therefore have more time, more energy and more resources to give away as I make memories with my family, share my life with you, and serve our community.

Grace and peace,

Beth

9/1/24

Pastor’s Ponderings 

Now is the time it becomes abundantly clear most of us have too much stuff. One quick look inside the fellowship hall ready for the church yard sale and we have to wonder where everything came from - didn’t we just clean out two years ago for the last yard sale?  Is there anything even left in our houses?

Despite the amount of cleaning out that has been going on, I strongly suspect there is still plenty of stuff left - I suspect this because I know that there is still plenty left in my house, even after spending a whole day loading the car with donations!

And yet we realize we have too much stuff and often jump at the chance to get rid of it. Several months before the yard sale, the yard sale committee began asking people to please not bring in their donations before the 18th of August because we have limited storage and we need the fellowship hall clear and ready for church events and family needs, especially if there is an unexpected funeral. Of course exceptions were made for people cleaning out in preparation for a move or settling an estate, but people who fit in neither category immediately began explaining to me and the committee why they also needed to be an exception to this request: “I can’t keep storing all of this and it is really good stuff, trust me, you are going to want it“…“once I box it up it is leaving my house whether you take it or not”…”I just have to get it out of my way PLEASE let me bring it in!” And my personal favorite,“Where is the key kept to that back room?  I’m bringing mine in at night. Just pretend like you don’t know who did it.”  

Now please don’t misunderstand -  the church is very grateful for all of the donations as we go through our biennial process of turning castoffs into cash for the church budget.  But in the midst of collecting donations for this good cause, I detect almost an air of desperation - a people weighted down and tired from traveling through life shackled to so much stuff.  Stuff that has to be organized, stored, kept clean and protected. Stuff that we really don’t want but hang onto anyway “because we might need it one day”.  Stuff that we can’t bear to part with because it belonged to a beloved relative.  Stuff that, once we bring ourselves to decide to get rid of it, we can’t wait even a few weeks to get it gone.

In our desperation to get out from under our accumulations, the words of Jesus come to mind - “do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth where thieves break in to steal and moths destroy, but store up treasure in heaven.” In other words, focus less on material objects and more on spiritual gifts. Less stockpile and more spiritual treasure. 

Hopefully the hoard in the fellowship hall is a very good sign that we actually are turning loose of earthly treasures - because the next words of Jesus are a direct warning:  get rid of it and refocus, because where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Grace and peace,

Beth

8/12/24

Pastor’s Ponderings 

A dear friend confided in me recently that she thought her late father considered her to be a bit lazy.

It was gnawing on her nerves because in our culture to be considered”lazy” is one of the worst possible insults.  Acting like a jerk?  Your parents must have spoiled you. Unfaithful in your marriage?  Things happen.  Neglectful of prayer?  We all do it.  But lazy?  Heaven forbid!

Perhaps it is yet another religious hang up we inherited from our Calvinist Puritan ancestors. Perhaps it is the societal result of being direct descendants of frontiersmen, colonists who had to work constantly to carve life out of the austere conditions of the New World or face fatal results. 

At any rate, while our our obsession with constant work, endless productivity, efficiency and time management may be good for some things, it becomes the tail that wags the dog when it determines how we live all of our lives. We have chronic sleep issues. We take more anti-anxiety medication per capita than any other nation on earth. We think vacation means going somewhere new with the same old “to do “list.

Emergency room physician Dr. Matthew Sleeth writes in his book 24/6 (a book about slowing down and keeping Sabbath) of a lobster fisherman who continued to work after severing three fingers in his boat winch.  “You continued to work like this?”  the amazed doctor asked, unwrapping the bloody stumps. “Yes, I only had about 45 minutes more to go” was his reply.  And he wasn’t the only one.  Dr. Sleeth writes “I’ve seen similar cases of patients walking out of the door in the midst of a heart attack because they were worried about a business deal.  I’ve seen wealthy parents leave sick children to fend for themselves while they go off to earn more”  (p.127).

What if being lazy at times is actually the key to a balanced life?  What if there is a time and place to work, and a time and place to be lazy?  The Bible certainly seems to think so:  the fourth commandment indicates we are to honor the Sabbath Day and do no work for we are no longer slaves in Egypt. Psalm 46:10 commands us to “Be still and know that I am God”. 

Many people use the ancient meditative practice of subtracting one word at a time as they pray Psalm 46:10, so it reads like this. Give it a try:

Be still, and know that I am God.

Be still, and know that I am.

Be still, and know that I.

Be still, and know that.

Be still, and know.

Be still, and.

Be still.

Be.

And yes, I went as far as to tell my friend that if her perception were accurate, maybe her father was actually giving her a compliment!

Grace and peace,

Beth

8/5/24

Pastor’s Ponderings 

In the book 24/6, writer Matthew Sleeth pens a line that jumps off the page right into the face of our prosperous lifestyles:  “No one ever found the Lord on the day they won the lottery.”

He writes this in the context of making the argument that prosperity can be as dangerous as poverty to our souls.  The impoverished can fall into despair; the prosperous run the risk of beginning to believe the blessings we enjoy are not really blessings but the results of our own cleverness and hard work.  “It’s mine; I earned it” says the person who has lost sight of the community that supports their business, the infrastructure that provides safe roads, protection from crime and public education so that we can read, work and travel, the gift of physical health that allows us to work, and so many other blessings without which despite our fiercest intentions we would not prosper. 

The crowds follow Jesus into the wilderness hoping to witness a miracle.  They witness one all right, but it is one easily misunderstood.  As they took their place on the green grass (green grass in the desert?  remember - the desert will come to life at the coming of the Messiah) and Jesus blessed and broke the 5 loaves and 2 fish, there was then food enough for 5,000 with twelve baskets left over!  (12 baskets?  Yes! 1 for each of the twelves tribes of Israel - enough for all of God’s people to be fed.)

The same crowds frantically searched for him the next day, and he called them out for apparently believing the bread he served them yesterday in the wilderness was bread that had to be resupplied every day.  Bread for their bodies.  “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life” he taught them.

What is this bread of which he speaks?  Spiritual bread that comes only from God.  Bread our spirits must have in order to be healthy because we are created in the image of God.  Yet we are just as guilty as the crowds in trying to feed a spiritual hunger with material things: things available to the prosperous, things that slowly begin to move us from an awareness of our hunger for God into idolatry.

On some level we know that material things do not nourish us - yet still we persist in collecting material possessions even though it leaves us worried about thieves and anxious about the stock market. We feed our appetites for addictive substances with what our bodies crave, even though we know this only creates bigger appetites.  And we even find ourselves believing that other human beings can meet all our emotional needs including our spiritual need for God - resulting in lifetimes of broken relationships, staggering dependence and perpetual disappointment.

Enter Matthew Sleeth with a word of advice for our frantic, consumer-driven, lonely lives.  Prosperity can be as spiritually dangerous as poverty because we believe we can accumulate and provide for ourselves the things we need to fill our spiritual hunger.  But nobody ever found the Lord on the day they won the lottery! Go on your knees and open your hands for the bread of life - the bread for which nothing else will satisfy. 

Grace and peace,

Beth