Keeping the Sabbath

Here are 40 suggestions your family might use to keep the sabbath holy and special.  Print the list.  You can use it in several ways: keep the whole thing on your fridge or cut them up and put them in a fish bowl -- however you want pick one each week for the next week so you have time to gather the supplies and do it the next week.  Have fun & add your own.  

Make every Sunday Sabbath by turning off electronics, say "no" to anything that divides the family whether thats sports, clubs or going over to friends.  Plan ahead.

Make a collage or draw pictures showing your blessings.

Make charts for family members to show their progress in scripture reading or memorizing certain passages.

Make puzzles out of pictures from old magazines.

Make play dough and create people and shapes from favorite scripture stories

Create a family mailbox to keep inside your home that you fill with sweet letters to each other.

Create a family flag or banner to display in your home.

Decorate a pillow case with scriptures or other sweet thoughts to fill your mind as you

Learn about other cultures. Find out how the Church is progressing in different parts of the world.  Prepare a meal from a foreign country.

Listen to classical music and art. Learn about some of the famous composers and artists.

Have everyone in the family choose different books to read during the next few Sundays. When everyone has finished reading have each person present an oral report about what they learned from their book.  Start a Book Club.

Do an inventory of your food storage.  Create an emergency kit.

Update all of your smoke alarm batteries and review your emergency plans of exit with your family.   Prepare “every needful thing.”

Hold a family council.  Review expectations, rewards and consequences

Have individual interviews with your children. Review their goals, hopes and dreams.

Take family photos outside somewhere in a beautiful setting.

Write a list of all the good qualities of each family member. Share the list with them or just refer to it when you’re having a hard time remembering why you really do love them!

Show home movies or slides of when everyone was younger.  Tell stories of when parents were young and how they met, what things were like then, etc.

Plan your next family vacation. Talk about how you will keep the Sabbath Day holy if your trip involves a Sunday stay.

Plan a family reunion. Research locations where you could gather for the big event.

Write or call relatives who could help you organize it. Make assignments. Pick a theme.

Meet some of your neighbors. If they’re new bring them a copy of the local newspaper or list of helpful phone numbers, along with a plate of cookies and your phone number.

Invite two or three families from church to your home for ice cream “Sundays” and talk about your favorite Sunday traditions.

Leave treats at the doorstep of two families in the church with a note telling them to carry on the good “Sabbath Secret” deed. 

Create a gospel version of your favorite board game by substituting the original questions with gospel questions. 

Play Charades using scripture stories

Create a treasure hunt using scriptures as clues. Choose an object to hunt for such as a new set of scriptures, church stickers or a favorite dessert.

Make a special journal where you record only your spiritual experiences.

Create a photo pedigree chart of your family.  Research your family’s historic coat of arms. Find out about the symbols.

Volunteer to take pictures of tombstones at your local cemetery as part of the project for www.gravestonephotos.com

Go “Sunday caroling.”   Visit other members in your ward or branch and sing them a few hymns to lift their spirits.

Do science experiments to understand God’s fascinating world. Study how the Lord used scientific principles in the scriptures.

Look up addresses and phone numbers for your Congressmen and Senators. Write them a letter about an issue you feel strongly about. Thank them for the good they are doing.

Take treats to your local firemen. Thank them for the service they provide to your community.

Go to the Humane Society or People for Pets and volunteer to help play with the animals or walk the dogs.

If you have a cuddly or interesting pet that brings smiles to people’s faces, call a local hospital or nursing home to see if you could bring your pet to share with patients.

Learn about the Presidential Service Award and earn it! It can be earned by individuals, by families, or even large groups working together. www.presidentialserviceawards.gov

Put together a care package for a missionary, someone in the military service, or someone who is away from home at  school.

Call the Relief Society Compassionate Service Leader in your Ward or Branch and ask how you could help.

Volunteer to take home the nursery toys to clean or repair.

Keep a notebook of your prayers and how they were answered.

Why Bless Animals??

From the Catholic Church website

In the Scriptures, the act of blessing means 'the imparting of power or life.' The person performing the blessing is mediating that power from God or Christ to the person performing or the animal involved. To bless is more than an expression of goodwill and caring. To bless is to impart God's power in person! The blessing of each animal, by name, means that health, healing and life are being mediated from God for the benefit of the animal in its relationship with its human partners. Be careful not to reinforce the separation of human animals and other animals by this blessing. Instead, consider reinforcing our common kinship by blessing ALL animals--human and otherwise.

Genesis tells us that God created everything.  Every animal, every plant and every bit of soil was thought of and planned by and amazing artist God.  We are a part of an intricate fabric of life that God has made -- and called each part good.  God loves creation and so we too, made in the image of God, should love and care for creation with the passion of the Creator.  

Our pets are a connection that we make to nature, they are a bit of the wild in our homes.  They connect us to all the other creatures God made and teach us compassion for animal-kind.  A blessing of the animals service does several things
1. The service reminds us who the real master of all creation is - GOD - and gives us the opportunity to praise God for all creation
2.  We remember our role as caretakers of creation and reaffirm our commitment to caring for the earth.
3. We thank God for the animals in our lives and ask God to bless them with health and well-being

Hope you will join us for our blessing of the animals service at the Lakeside service this coming Sunday at 7:30 AM at the RR trestle

A Methodist Reading of "Go set a Watchman"

By Bishop Will Willimon
July 16, 2015

Note: Retired United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon, himself a novelist, agreed to review "Go Set a Watchman" — set in the 1950s — with attention to its Methodist references.

Jemson was Methodist of the whole cloth: he was notoriously short on theology and a mile long on good works. — From “Go Set a Watchman,” by Harper Lee

One of the many strokes of genius of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird" — our greatest American novel — is to make a child, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, narrator.  We see the South, that is,1930s Maycomb (Monroeville), Alabama, through a child’s penetrating stare.  In Harper Lee’s “new” novel “Go Set a Watchman” — written in the 1950s but  published just this week — 26-year-old Jean Louise returns home from her sojourn in New York to visit her aging father, lawyer Atticus Finch, hero of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Many have already condemned the publication of “Go Set a Watchman” as a brutal defamation of our beloved Atticus or as an unedited, sloppy novel that detracts from Lee’s reputation. While “Go Set a Watchman” lacks literary perfection, I believe that it confirms Lee’s artistic genius, particularly when read in the context of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

I didn’t say that this novel is easy to take; the last third, in which Scout confronts Atticus’ racism, is excruciatingly brutal but utterly truthful.  I grew up in a town like Maycomb, among people just like Atticus, and I can tell you that no better picture has been painted of the evil of genteel, educated, polite Southern racism circa 1955 than “Go Set a Watchman.”

No one can help comparing this novel with “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Many take offense that Lee presumed to publish another book after reaching the apex of international literary glory.  I believe the main reasons for outrage against “Go Set a Watchman” are that Lee has dared to let us see Scout as an adult; that Lee has dared to tell the truth about race in America; and maybe that Lee has written as a Christian.

The first thing I noted by comparison was that “Go Set a Watchman” is often very funny; I never saw much humor in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The latter’s funniest passages are when Lee remembers church.   She recalls the Baptist revivalist’s sermon “Would You Speak to Jesus if You Met Him on the Street?” that led Jem, Scout and Dill (“Scout and me are Methodists,” admitted Jem) to re-enact a baptism by immersion in Dill’s fish pool.  In Jem’s pretend sermon, he asked, “Where is the Devil?” and answered, “Right here in Maycomb, Alabama,” a statement that proves to be prophetic by novel’s end.

The children are punished for their bogus baptism (Whap! came Miss Rachel’s switch on Jem’s behind before he could finish his sermon) but in a way, all church is pretend in Maycomb.

Returning to the church of her childhood during her fateful homecoming in “Go Set a Watchman,” Jean Louise encounters “the warmness that prevails among diverse individuals who find themselves in the same boat for one hour each week.” The sermon is delivered by the Reverend Mr. Stone, who Jean Louise’s uncle pronounces “had the greatest talent for dullness he had ever seen in a man on the near side of fifty.”  Stone’s preaching is studiedly inoffensive.  As a pastor, he has “all the necessary qualifications for a certified public accountant: he did not like people, he was quick with numbers, he had no sense of humor, and he was butt-headed.”  Maycomb’s Methodist Church at first was pleased when the bishop sent them a young pastor.  After less than a year, word around the congregation is, “We asked for bread and they gave us a Stone.”

The only show of passion during or after service comes when Jean Louise’s (“licensed eccentric”) uncle accosts the volunteer choir director and complains that the Doxology had been sung too fast.  He is informed by the musician that a pepped-up Doxology was pushed at a course led by a man from New Jersey on “what was wrong with Southern church music.” 

Her uncle shoots back, “Apparently our brethren in the Northland are not content merely with the Supreme Court’s activities.  They are now trying to change our hymns on us.”

While biblical allusions are scattered throughout “Go Set a Watchman,” one is impressed by the irrelevance of the church.  When push comes to shove in Maycomb (and the whole town is being pushed by the nascent civil rights movement), no one seems to recall anything of help or challenge from their Christian faith.   

The same Sunday evening of the church service, a meeting is held in the Maycomb County Courthouse (in the courtroom where Atticus had been unassumingly heroic in “To Kill a Mockingbird”) because “politicking’s done on Sunday in these parts.”  At this gathering of the County Citizen’s Council (euphemism for the South-wide effort to resist integration) are “not only most of the trash in Maycomb County, but the county’s most respectable men,” including the man Jean Louise (and all “To Kill a Mockingbird” readers) idolized.  Atticus introduces the guest speaker, who delivers the most vile and repulsive of rambling racist diatribes.  Jean Louise, who slipped into the “colored balcony” to witness the event, becomes infuriated and nauseous.

That evening Jean Louise grows up the hard way.  She discovers that she embodies Atticus’ noble values better than he.  Atticus “had betrayed her, publicly, grossly, and shamelessly.”  In the aftermath, she visits her beloved family servant Calpurnia, offering Atticus’ help in an upcoming manslaughter case against her son.  Calpurnia is polite but cold toward the child for whom she was a surrogate mother.  She thanks Jean Louise but indicates that she and her family will attempt to defend themselves.  (“NAACP-paid lawyers are standing around like buzzards,” warns Atticus.) The African Americans of Maycomb are moving on, securing their lives without the help of their privileged, white, disappointing protectors.   

“Did you hate us?” Jean Louise tearfully asks Calpurnia.  After silence: “Finally Calpurnia shook her head.”  Whether in assent or denial, we are not told.

Jean Louise has a bitter, angry confrontation with Atticus.  Atticus attempts to defend himself, trotting out all of the conventional Southern white justifications in defense of segregation, which seem dated but also somehow shockingly similar to the current rhetoric of certain right-wing politicians from Texas to North Carolina.  

I’m sure that “Go Set a Watchman” will be read and dissected for decades. But to me Harper Lee is spot on with her rendition of mid-1950’s Southern racism, white privilege, class tensions, relationships between men and women, and ordinary mundane evil.  Any Southerner over 50 is sure to find “Go Set a Watchman” a painful but revealing read.

In its own way, I believe “Go Set a Watchman” is a very Christian novel, maybe even a Methodist one.  Though Jean Louise is the only character who notices the gap between Maycomb residents’ universally held Christian convictions and the racist civilization they have built, that she notices and rebels is a Methodist moral achievement. “Go Set a Watchman” is a story of redemption, of the Wesleyan New Birth as a painful opening of the eyes, of the move into adulthood as learning to tell the truth.  

The text for the unfortunate Rev. Stone’s Sunday sermon comes from Isaiah 21: For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.  In “Go Set a Watchman,” Harper Lee takes Isaiah as her model.  Even as the child Scout stared at her world, seeking the truth of things, so Jean Louise Finch stares at hers and dares to declare what she sees, thereby blessing the rest of us, if we dare to hear.

The Rev. Will Willimon served as bishop of the North Alabama Conference from 2004 to 2012, when he retired from the episcopacy. He's now Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School. He’s also the author of the novel “Incorporation” and the soon-to-be-published novel “I’m Not From Here.”

Earthworks and the Capuchin Soup Kitchen

Another site we had privilege to work at was "Earthworks" urban garden of the Capuchin monks and their soup kitchen.    This was a very large garden designed to really produce.  We worked hard in several areas of the garden: preparing beds, planting, sifting compost and picking berries.  It was  a productive morning.  For lunch we were able to eat at the soup kitchen with the people the garden will serve.  I got a chance to meet a Vet who hasn't slept a full night since Vietnam.  His body was obviously hurt from the war and here he was eating in a soup kitchen, yet his smile was warm and his eyes twinkled as he thanked us for our work.  He wouldn't let me help him stack chairs, it was what he could do to contribute for his meal.

After our meal we stopped by the Solanus Center and church where we learned about the lives of the monks and their ministry.  You can read more about the Capuchin's and their ministry here.

The Art expressing the Heart of Detroit

During our trip we were blessed with visits to some wonderful art in Detroit.  Our first full day we went on a prayer tour through the city.   In the downtown area there are two great sculptures.
First is "The Spirit of Detroit" a seated figure with both hands lifted up.  In one hand is a family group (families are the heart of Detroit) and in the other hand a globe with rays representing the Spirit of God.  Behind the figure is a quote from the Bible:

NOW THE LORD IS THAT SPIRIT AND WHERE THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS, THERE IS LIBERTY."

II CORINTHIANS 3:17

It includes the seals of the city and the county. A plaque in front of the sculpture bears the inscription, "The artist expresses the concept that God, through the spirit of man is manifested in the family, the noblest human relationship."

The statue's message of God and family were bitter sweet considering that Detroit and its neighbor Flint are the #6 & #5 cities with the most single parent households at over 61%.  All around Detroit we saw boarded up churches with broken stained glass.  Please pray for the families and the churches of Detroit.

The Underground Railroad that brought escaped slaves from the South to freedom often ended their journey in Detroit where it was a short trip across the river to Canada.  This statue on the riverside shows slaves who have made their long journey and are about to cross over.  Some are looking back for the families and friends they left behind in bondage.  Most are looking forward to freedom and a new life - but not in America but a whole other country.  Detroit is 80% African American yet racism is still an ongoing problem.  Pray that we might live up to our ideals as Americans being "land of the free" where we believe "all people are created equal".  

8 Mile Road is just at the city limits of Detroit.  There, like all of Detroit, neighborhoods are very divided between the very poor, the not so bad, and the good blocks.  Sometimes these blocks are side by side and yet the division is obvious even to Iowans.  In the 8 mile neighborhood the city actually built a wall between the worse (black) and the better (white) neighbors.  Called the 8 Mile Wailing Wall, it was built in 1940  it is one foot thick, six feet high and at one time was half a mile long.  in 2006 a group of activists and neighbors came together to paint the wall with images of hope and togetherness.   On the "good" side of the wall is a nice park where we ate our lunch and got to play as well as examine the wall.  It was very touching.  

Pray for Detroits neighborhoods, that residents may see each other as true neighbors and care for one another as Jesus tells us.

The Heidelberg Project

On our last day in Detroit we stopped to walk the two city blocks of art created by students and neighbors and artist Tyree Guyton.   Tyree began to create the art in 1986  as a personal war against the deterioration and blight of his neighborhood.   The space is a place for students to learn about and practice art.  The art is all recycled materials and is also political commentary on the struggle of the community and the city, and the country.  We spent time observing the art and discussing what we saw and how it made us feel.  Kiaya said the art reminded her of "Alice in Wonderland" and that was a good comparison.  At first glance the art is fun and bright and happy.  But then you start to see the sadness, anger and frustration behind the colors.  Its an amazing place, read more about it here.
Pray for joy and faith in the people of Detroit, in the midst of the storm.  

CDC: Central Detroit Christian Community Development Corp

Most days we spent half of our days working for the CDC: Central Detroit Christian Community Dev. Corp.   a non-profit, faith-based organization that is bettering Detroit through several innovative projects.  The main project we worked for were the urban gardens connected to the CDC store Peaches n Greens.  Detroit is a food desert - meaning most people do not have access to fresh, healthy foods.  Most people shop for groceries from gas stations and liquor stores (not healthy or fresh food!).
So the CDC has gardens where produce is raised and a store where those foods and packaged food basics can be purchased.  The employees are local residents bringing jobs to the area.  And the gardens become outdoor classroom for kids who come and learn about gardening and raising food.

The Gardens fill places where abandoned homes used to be, filling empty space with usefulness and hope.  We met many wonderful people who were passing  by and admiring the gardens and started up conversations with us.  We met two brothers who were putting in some time at the garden with us.  The younger was always caring for the older as they weeded and watered and picked together.  Their devotion to each other and to the gardens was a sign of Jesus at work!

We did a lot of stuff that was familiar to Iowa kids: weeding, planting, picking, weeding, weeding and weeding.  But it was the place and the purpose that made it unique.  The neighborhoods were rough, nice homes next to boarded up houses and empty lots. 

Also attached to the farm is a fishery where they are farming tilapia to sell.  Coming from the Iowa Great Lakes we have seen fish, but not this kind of fish production.  It was a great learning experience.  

I hope you will join me in praying for the work of the CDC, their staff especially Anthony who worked with us a lot.  And for the neighborhoods they serve.  Read more about urban gardening in Detroit here.

Detroit . . . Where God's at work

When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”  -- Mark 2: 7

Why go to Detroit?  Because its the US city with the worst reputation for need and crisis right now in our history.  Detroit is in need, and as the people of God we are called to meet the need.

So the situation in Detroit: 

The population, which peaked at 1.85 million in 1950, has declined to about 700,000, according to U.S. Census data. 

Manufacturing jobs have fallen from about 296,000 in 1950 to fewer than 27,000 in 2011.

Approx 78,000 houses are abandoned. The city is bankrupt so city services like police, firefighters, and ambulances are cut to the minimum.  

We worked with the Center for Student Missions  a group that sets up mission trips for youth groups in major cities all over the USA.  CSM provided a home in a local neighborhood and a host, Maggie, who organized our stay and guided us all through the week.   Our temporary home was two- bedroom/one bathroom on a nice block in a struggling neighborhood just off of Gratiot street.   There were 9 of us, but groups of 28 had stayed in the house before us!

The days generally went like this:

• Up at 8, breakfast of cereal & pack lunch
• Morning devotions
• First worksite of the day
• picnic lunch at a city park
• Second worksite of the day
• dinner  at an ethnic, family-owned restaurant
• back home for evening review and devotions
• hang out with neighbors until bedtime

One thing that we did every night (that all of us can do wherever we travel) is eating at family-owned restaurants.  To expand our experience, we ate ethnic food by recent immigrants.  We had:

• El Salvadorian pupusas (pouches of cheese and meat) and fried plantains
• Thai pad thai
• dal (lentil sauce) naan (flat bread) and biriyani (rice) from Bangladesh
• authentic tacos & tortes from Mexico in Mexicotown

I was so proud of the kids, everyone tried the food and didn't complain.  They mostly liked everything, but some more than others.   It was a great learning experience for us and a way to support family businesses.   And family-owned businesses are the future of Detroit - there may never be one industry that swoops in and "saves" Detroit with a ton of jobs.  But small businesses opened one at a time over the years will create new jobs and build community.

more to come. . . .