Some dread Lent as a time of darkness that comes, for those of us in the north, just as days are finally getting longer and lighter. Many of us were taught that Lent is a season of punishment and are reluctant to wallow in our faults when the spirit of spring is right around the corner. But for me, the onset of spring, of shorter nights, is part of Lent's genius. It's less about what's in the darkness than about being able to shine Christ's light on every nook and cranny of our light hungry souls. So, even in the forty days of repentance that dust us off and clean us out to receive resurrection fresh and new, Sunday worship continues to shine that light of Christ in little resurrection celebrations. God's light has not gone out. It is ever strong enough for our darkest days. We practice receiving Christ's light in worship, not as dry runs, but as the living breathing presence of the Holy One in Three, a constantly renewable source of spiritual energy. Sometimes I think that we mistake 'information" for "transformation" thinking that if we just know enough about anything, that will solve the problems of the world. But while knowledge is certainly power, practicing information gathering instead of resurrection living can lead to 1) analysis paralysis, 2) overconfidence 3) inattention to the unknowable, but very present, power of God. As I learn to see God's creation with that living light, I see evidence of dark turning to light where attention is paid: the combined nickels and dimes of Nothing but Nets: http://www.nothingbutnets.net/nets-save-lives/kenya.html#slideshow, the family receiving energy assistance and eager to help another in turn, youngsters devastated by death too-soon who weave loving community around each other and bereaved families. I see adults with renewed "ahahs" about who Jesus is and what difference that makes. We are all learning what it means to living Holy Spirit light in a world fascinated with darkness. May your Lent be marked by welcoming rather than wallowing, and may any dark corners in your soul invite Christ in to bring new life. Keeping in Touch: Check readfieldumc.blogspot tomorrow 11:00 am or after, as we begin our online Lenten discussion. Please pray for ... ...all those suffering form the flu, especially the frail old and young members of our communities. ...sufferers from the effects of darkness, physical or spiritual. ....students waiting for college acceptance and finance package notification. ....the UMVIM team in the last stages of preparation for trip #4 .....Rev. Russ Peppe and those preparing wonderful worship for March 8 and 15. The Pritchards have charge of the stone soup pot following worship this week, march 1. (One vegetarian and-rumor has it-one chicken this week). Drop your contribution in on your way to worship! We are just 15 chairs shy of a full fellowship hall. (No that's not a metaphor...). If you've already signed up to sponsor one or more chairs, thankyou! Please send your sponsorship check to the office as soon as feasible so that we can pick up the last batch. And if you haven't sponsored one yet, please consider helping with this important hospitality resource.

Staying in Love

Midweek Meander 2-11-09 The most radical thing we do is to choose to love each other….again and again. –www.thesimpleway.org “Who don’t you love,” was the question posed in an anti-racism training workshop I attended last week. I really thought hard about that. After a lifetime of seeking Christ, I honestly couldn’t think of any one I’d list as unlovable. My mind shifted categories to “easy to spend time with” or “hard to spend time with.” And “renews my energy” or “drains my energy.” But I felt like I was ducking the question, “who don’t you love?” Is love an attitude or an action? In worship last Sunday, the Men’s group presented a wonderful conversation about the Wesleyan “Three Simple Rules” Do no harm, do good, stay in love with God. They showed us how companionship in Christ can help us struggle with the simple, difficult, questions we ask and choices we make. It’s hard to know how to love in a world that makes it sound as easy as picking the right card (why does that take so much time???), buying the right gift, or finding the perfect soul-mate. The most radical thing we do is to choose to love each other…..again and again. It’s radical to choose to love the same husband or wife through rough spots when all around we see “not happy with that one? Get a new one.” It’s radical to choose to love friends who take their “stuff” out on you, coworkers who step on you to get ahead, neighbors oblivious to your feelings. It’s even more radical to choose to love people we’ve never seen but who we think of as competitors rather than partners or threats rather than as persons. It’s hard to choose to love someone we know we have to keep our distance from for safety or sanity. By choosing to love someone, or someones, we choose to seek what’s best for them at the same time that we are seeking what’s good for us. And sometimes it would be an awful lot easier to just go away. How will you choose to love while we’re celebrating love that makes the world go ‘round? Why not think outside the box? Love by entering the human struggle. Become active in a political effort instead of critiquing from the side line. Call someone you miss. Talk (and listen) with a person who has a very different perspective. Invite someone to worship or lunch that you wouldn’t usually spend time with. Find a way to tell the ones closest to you that you choose them, not just to keep them happy, but because you make each other’s lives better. In the Joy of Seeking and Serving Christ with You, Karen US: CHOOSE FAIR TRADE CHOCOLATE ON VALENTINE’S DAY During Valentine’s Day week in the US, consumers are expected to spend more than $345 million on chocolate, benefiting large confection companies. When you buy fair trade chocolate through UMCOR’s partner Equal Exchange, small-scale farmers in Latin America, Asia and Africa benefit from a portion of your purchase and earn fair living wages. Why not choose to buy fair trade chocolate for a loved one and at the same time help United Methodist Committee On Relief meet its 100-Ton goal? The 100-Ton Challenge ends on World Fair Trade Day, May 9, 2009. Help farmers earn fair living wages, send their children to school and empower their communities. You can also give to UMCOR-SA&D, Advance #982188.

Love is....

Morning Meander 2-03-09 Love is in the Air…. Love hurts….. The Trouble With Love…. Diamonds are a Girls’ Best Friend…. What popular love song sings in your inner ear as Valentine ads and articles start to pop-up? (Add to the conversation with your comments below. You never know what’s going to stick. Sometimes it’s a long term favorite. Sometimes is something new and thought provoking. Sometimes it’s a catchy tune but the words make us wince. The third “Simple Rule” asks us to stay in love with God. How can love be a “rule?” Isn’t it a flight of fancy, a dance of the heart? How can a rule help me stay in love with anyone, much less God? My idea of “rule” is formed by my grade school years, and, if I’m honest, so are a lot of my ideas about Valentine’s day. Rules are things other people make me follow and love should be whimsical, sweet, and a little shy. Somehow I suspect that’s not exactly what Wesley had in mind when he invited us to “stay in love with God.” What if a rule were a measure, or a framework for taking stock and making sense of all the various experiences and ideas of love? What if love was about trust and helping each other become the best person we can be? How can I really stay in love with someone or some God I never talk to…never spend time with…never ask what’s happening in their lives and souls? What really rules the way I spend my time and energy? Valentine’s day is a lovely celebration of what tips us into love with another person and the third simple rule is an essential reminder of what it takes to stay in love, with God, a love that makes the way we love each other stronger and more meaningful as well. So this year as the day for celebrating love draws near, I’m thinking about what “rules” will shape my love. What are you thinking of?

The Next Day

Morning Meander January 20, 2009 Today I’ll take down the photograph of the president I’ve prayed for each morning over the past eight years and put up the photo of a new president. I’m thinking about using the striking mosaic offered by The Washington Post online edition this morning. At first I wasn’t sure about it, and then I realized that the composite wasn’t of viewers but by viewers. As it came into conceptual focus I was struck by way the image conveys all the myriad of perspectives we witnesses bring to this extraordinary, regular changing of the guard. http://specials.washingtonpost.com/inauguration/mosaic/ Some of us are moved to our marrow. Some of us are nervously willing to give it a chance. Some are already rolling up sleeves and pitching in while others are practically paralyzed by the roiling socio-economic landscape. All of those perspectives make up our nation and emerge from our own community. Yet because we believe that we are better together than alone, because we believe, in a way that finds expression every day, that we are our brother and sisters keepers, we can and must share our ideas and hesitations, joys and fears. It didn’t take long before an inauguration controversy emerged around who was praying when. I was kind of confused when I got multiple questions around the community about "the controversial preacher giving the benediction." The benediction was given by Joe Lowery, who founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with MLK, highly controversial in the 1950s and 60s, but now, not so much. (The Christian Century has a great article about the real designated lightening rod, Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren, that should be available on line next week, www.christiancentury.org ). I love the questions because they open conversation to different ways of looking at things, place us in that great mosaic instead of trying to hide behind it. We need ways to share our richly diverse ways of seeing with each other, prayerfully and in conversation grounded in God’s word, or we perpetuate the isolation that breeds pride, undercuts trust and cuts us off from others in our family of God. So share what’s going on in your life and through your mind. Share it with pew pals who may see from other angles. Share authentically, share lovingly, share constructively, and share in the hopeful presence of the living Christ. Let all who do justice and love mercy say amen and say amen. In the Joy of Seeking and Serving Christ with you, Karen

snow tracks

Morning Meander from Karen January 14, 2009 This morning the wide backyard view, framed by generous parsonage windows, is a smooth and sun lit white. One measured line of tracks cuts straight across the snow. Ignorant of animal evidence, I imagine a deer crossing at sunrise. But it could be the trail of a neighbor’s dog since that yard edge is where it begins and, on closer look, seems to return further out. The two lines converge on the rise, one extending to the cemetery border, the other joining it on the way. The early morning hours are as pristine as this landscape. Uncluttered by work left to rest the night before. Perhaps that’s why so many pilgrims of faith claim it as “quiet time.” We have a choice of hitting the floor running, or claiming the space as the gift of sacred time, to put one foot in front of the other and see where we are going into the new day that is, if only for these few moments, clear and uncluttered. May you find this space for God’s grace wherever daily moments of clarity beckon to you. And may you love it as the gift it is, one that disappears in the blink of an inattentive eye. Psalm 119:133 Direct my footsteps according to your word; let no sin rule over me.

Monday Meander, 1-05-09 The headline was a heartbreaker and a headshaker, “Herman Rosenblat's Holocaust memoir of love is exposed as a hoax.” A love story meant to inspire hope in the harshest circumstances, the Rosenblat’s tale could have been just the grace note needed in a tough time. But in a time when distrust rules and people are craving the truth, Herman Rosenblat’s children’s book was doomed. I don’t mean to imply that the Rosenblats were right. Facts matter. The “principle of veracity” recognizes that trust depends on truth telling, especially in a context as important as the Holocaust. I’m just saying that I sympathise since some of the tales closest to my heart have certainly grown with the telling. Was that childhood Christmas really as white, as witty, and as wild as you’ve told your children? I don’t think the Rosenblats had bad motives. I just think they are bad historians. Had they told the tale as a work of fiction inspired by the immensity of their love, it would have hit the bookstores with no problem. But it does make me wonder about other powerful stories that have been sentimentalized. Is St. Valentine’s love more powerful when offered in candy boxes or when it includes his martyrdom? Is Christmas’ love more powerful when, as the song goes, Said the king to the people everywhere, "Listen to what I say! Pray for peace, people, everywhere, Listen to what I say! The Child, the Child sleeping in the night He will bring us goodness and light, He will bring us goodness and light." Or does that love take on a new power, when we read Matthew’s account of a ruthless king who kills infants in order to hold onto power, and come to understand that the infant Christ embodied a loving God’s determination to show another way? In this new year, may we enjoy the lovely yarns we spin but be moved to loving action by the realities we see through God’s eyes. In Christ’s Joy, Karen

Monday Meander December 29, 2008 It finally happened! “Meander” was the word of the day on Miriam-Webster’s word of the day (OK, laugh if you want but what did YOU get excited about today?) Meaning 1 : to follow a winding or intricate course 2 : to wander aimlessly or casually without urgent destination : ramble Hmmm, there’s a crucial difference between those two, isn’t there? One implies an aspect of guidance or purpose. A course is followed or formed. The other could be utterly chaotic. Either way, there’s no way to meander quickly. It’s a sabbathing kind of activity that requires one to slow down while risking getting lost or trusting being found. …"Meander," which comes from Greek "Maiandros," an old name for a river in Asia Minor, implies a winding course and lazy movement, and it is still sometimes associated with rivers (as in, "the river meandered through the town"). "Meander" can also be used as a noun meaning "a winding path." If one never risked getting lost, played it safe, stuck to the straight and narrow, you’d miss a lot of wonderful discoveries in life. At the same time, a certain amount of shape and form to the journey are assumed even if not always noticed. We are provided with ground to walk on, air to breathe, one foot to put in front of the other (or wheels to turn….) that facilitate movement’s purpose. I wonder if Mary and Joseph felt a little lost as they expanded their reasonably simple lives to include Jesus? Perhaps the course wasn’t clear for many years, when it was possible to look back over a lifetime. But would the world be like if they hadn’t put one foot after the other into the great unknown God surrounded them with? May you find yourself trusting the Holy Spirit to wander with you as you practice the unfolding purpose of living in Christ this year. To read about the original Christmas wanderers check out Matthew chapter 2. In Joy, Karen