Happy New Year!

I am very sorry for not posting in a couple of weeks -- Advent and Christmas got me chasing my own tail!   No, I didn't get everything done, as usual, I left some things to the last minute :(  but we did have wonderful worship services, and I got in some quick hugs to all the shut ins.

HUGE thanks to everyone who sang or played music this Christmas time - you made worship so meaningful!  Thanks to everyone who helped at the Christmas Day dinner.  Despite the frigid cold we had 195 people eat with us - many for the first time!  Thanks to Russ Mitchell for the wonderful article in the Dickinson County News - you are always so supportive and a great writer!

Thanks to everyone who blessed me and my family with tokens of love this Christmas, I was completely overwhelmed by your generosity and caring!  You are all a blessing to me and to my family.  I mentioned to the kids at one of our meals that I hope we don't have too many more Christmases on the Highway (meaning that we would move to another location in the area when the church/parsonage sell)  and they got all upset at the idea of leaving the Great Lakes area.  I quickly explained what I meant and they were relieved -- they love it here and so do I!

Christmas and holidays aren't always merry and bright.  For many, there has been grief and sorrow this Christmas.  I want you to know that those losses have been close to my heart this Christmas as well and I have prayed and thought a lot about you who are grieving.  Its ok to have a yucky Christmas -- its ok to use stronger language than "yucky" to describe your Christmas!  Not every year is lovely and magical.  Some years we just get through.  Yet God is with us in whatever kind of Christmas we have!

Giving Tuesday Rocks!

Don't tell my family. . .   on Giving Tuesday our family donated to UMCOR's Mother & Child survival program.   This program targets women in pregnancy and in their child's first 5 years to help with nutrition and health care to ensure that mother and child are healthy and strong.    I'm painting ornaments of Mary & baby Jesus for each of my extended family members with info on the back about this program.  The kids are going to help me with the ornaments and we hope that if our gift really helps just one family that is so much better than what we would spend at a store. 

Giving Tuesday was a success for the United Methodist Church & for ministry around the world check this out:

Iowa Methodists Show Generosity With #Giving Tuesday

Members of the Iowa Conference of the Methodist Church were not outdone in participation in the General Board of Global Ministries 2013 #Giving Tuesday. In Iowa, 54,169 gifts totaling $18,782,297.62 had been calculated for the General Board of Global Ministries’ #Giving Tuesday as of earlier this week. Gifts ranged from $10 into the thousands of dollars. Individuals and churches displayed generosity via dozens of charitable outreach organizations on December 3. A final accounting of the distribution of gifts will be available by December 16.

Cookie Walk Coming!

The cookie walk is this Saturday -- do you have a special family cookie?
In my family we always make Kringla at Christmas.  Its a soft Swedish cookie thats almost like a cake in consistency.  My grandparents lived in Story City for a while when my mother was a teen and these cookies are famous there -- you can even buy them in the Story City gas stations!  So for me, Christmas isn't Christmas without mixing dough, trying to be patient as it chills and finally rolling it out to form into figure 8's and bake.  They are yummy!

but I also like to try new recipes, I think I will try this one for the cookie walk.
What stories do your cookies hold?

Hungering for more than Games?

The second Hunger Games movie, "Catching Fire", just came out and broke records for movies released in November.   The movies are based on a book series by Suzanne Collins.  They are set in the future where society is divided into 12 subordinate districts ruled by the Capital, a wealthy ruling class.  As punishment for rebellion 75 years ago, each district must offer up 2 of its youth each year in a violent fight to the death that is broadcast for all to watch.  In this midst of this, a heroine named Katniss offers herself to go into the games when her younger sister's name is chosen.  Katniss makes it through the games while striving to make moral choices in an immoral world.  As she strives to be herself, to be moral and to rebel against the injustices of her world, Katniss inspires others to fight against injustice too. 

We are all hungering, aren't we?  Hungering for a better world, for peace and joy and equality to finally come once and for all.  We hunger for more than the usual "games", distractions that keep us from working on the real problems around us.   Like Katniss, we struggle to know how to make moral choices in an immoral world.  Like Katniss, we are not alone in wanting a just and fair world. 

Its ironic that this movie came out when it did.  Just in time for our yearly struggle between Thanksgiving and  Black Friday.   Just in time for stores and commercials to convince us that Christmas is about spending money, buying gifts and being gluttonous.    Just in time for Advent.

Advent means "the coming".  It is the month before Christmas when Christians wait for God's coming in Jesus.  The prophets predicted the time when God would restore the earth and humanity to perfect peace and justice.  "And a little child will lead them"  that child being Jesus, born in a stable to poor parents who were hungry and cold.  Jesus came and lived to show us that we are all a part of God's plan to make the world "on earth as it is in heaven".  Jesus changed the world with his death and resurrection, by changing our hearts and teaching us to love God and people rather than things.   Jesus would have been born in District 12 among the poor and hungry, and would have called the people to change society.

Lets "catch the fire" this Advent and reject the immorality of a Holy-day season focused on stuff.  Lets honor the baby born in a barn by honoring His values - giving, sharing, justice, peace, joy.  Rather than buying another sweater or trinket for family & friends who don't need a thing - give something homemade, or give to a charity, or give a gift certificate for a local service.  Forget about buying up all those lights and decorations (you probably already have enough) and focus on how you can make the world a better place.   Hunger not for another cookie, but for the world God wants - a just world where no one is hungry at all.

Thanksgiving Traditions - Old and New

For the past 5 years my family has been "isolationist" about our Thanksgiving celebrations.  Most other holidays are working holidays, but Thanksgiving there are no services to prepare for or recover from, its just about us and being together.  So normally we have stayed home, cooked, played games, made crafts and just relaxed.  This year my extended family is gathering in Ames and many cousins that my kids haven't met are going to be there, so we are going down to be a part of the party.  For my kids this is a big change, and they aren't so happy with the change.  But as important as our nuclear family time is, I also want my kids to feel a connection to their larger family.  So we are breaking with tradition for a good cause.  Traditions are good and yet sometimes need to be broken.  

What traditions are you keeping this year?  What are you breaking?

What new traditions are you creating?

Have a blessed THanksgiving!!

Book Club Book: The Light Between Oceans

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman is a novel about moral choices and the repercussions of those choices.  The main characters are a husband and wife, lighthouse keepers living on a tiny, isolated island off the coast of Australia.  The book has very interesting descriptions of lighthouse life.   The lamp of the lighthouse an apt metaphor for God and faith without ever using that language.   The book reminds me of long discussions held in college by students earnestly talking about sin and if the sin only affects them is it really wrong?  Stedman provides a fascinating case study in how two people literally on the island in the middle of the ocean still  prove the saying: No wo/man is an island.  Their decisions still have broad ramifications, and ethics are not just situational.

I highly recommend this book.  It can be read on many levels, and speak to all kinds of readers.  In the end its a great story that reminds us that every decision we make is significant.

Join us for book club this Thursday at 2 PM to discuss it!

Jesus ate with sinners

Mark 2: 13 + 

Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.  When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

I wonder how the disciples felt being in the home of a tax collector eating with "sinners"?  Were they uncomfortable?  Did they struggle for safe discussion topics?  Did the "sinners" feel uncomfortable around these religious disciples?  Were they afraid of being judged?

I happened to get a call to do a funeral for a man who owned a local bar and the reception following was at his business.   Honestly, I haven't been to a bar that doesn't serve food since college.  I'm not sure how to act, what to talk about. One of the bartenders came over to tell me that I did a nice service, and mentioned that he was uncomfortable with all these "others" in his bar.  (meaning me and the parents and people in suits)  He asked if I felt funny too and I had to admit that I did.   We were uncomfortable with each other because we live in a world where there are "good people" and "bar people" and it was only because of a funeral that we were mixing.

 As I sat there, struggling to chit chat with exotic dancers and bartenders, I wondered how Jesus felt.  He probably didn't see people by their profession, but saw them just as children of God in need of love.  I tried to do the same, and I confess that I need more practice.  And it occurred to me that if I stay safe and comfortable in the restaurants and coffee shops that "people like me" go into, then I will never have a chance to practice being like Jesus. I need to go into those places to get to know people and to be known so that they will become comfortable with "religious people"  and I will be comfortable with them.  And in getting to know each other we can help one another to see each other as children of God rather than the labels of this world.

I resolved that this would not be the last time I would go to that bar.  I would go back and work at being non-judgmental and loving as Jesus teaches us to be and I think I will check out some of the other places around the church too.  This is our neighborhood and I claim it all for God and for love, every corner, no exceptions!