Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

MONDAY, MARCH 10
The headlines hit me in the face again today
with who’s happy and who’s sad . . .

I’m glad for the happy ones:
promotions, weddings, winning, making it big . . .
but there is so much sadness,
so much that doesn’t need to be . . .
shouldn’t be . . .
it’s unfair, it’s horrible!

How can you make a world in which
people starve in Africa,
nineteen-year-old boys kill each other in Iraq
fire destroys a whole family in that tenement house?
Why, with all the new cars, trips, lobster, steak,
gin and Scotch around,
is there never enough money to give the city’s children
a decent education, or the poor a decent living standard?

What’s wrong with you, Lord?
Can’t you do something about it?

You mean . . .you expect ME
to do something about it?

Oh . . .

Robert Raines (Lord, Could You Make It A Little Better?)

TUESDAY, MARCH 11
What have I found renewing my Christian faith?

As I thought about what has been renewing for me this past year in my relationship with God simple phrases one after another raced into my mind: letting go of assumptions that don’t work anymore; searching my heart to be myself as called by God; finding God in Her creation, the earth; breathing deeply; slowing down; sitting quietly; watching the sun set; reducing clutter; giving to others; listening to others as they let go of stress and distress; praying for others and myself, listening for God’s acknowledgement and reply; reading books of others thoughts and understandings of faith and spirit; sharing with friends who also struggle with and practice their faith the best they know how, and yes, making prayer shawls.
These simple things have given me strength, joy and newness of life.

Ree Hale

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12
It was in July of 2004 and our family was at the Taize Community in France. Taize is run by a group of about 100 non-denominational monks, and hosts up to several thousand teenagers each week for 7 days of conversation, worship, eating, working and meeting others from around the world. Three times a day we gathered for singing (in several languages) and prayer in their simple chapel. One afternoon, I was deeply moved by an English song,

“I am sure I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, Yes, I shall see the goodness of the Lord, hold firm, take heart.”

In my journal, I wrote the following words, “This morning we sang this song, and it has become my mantra for the day. I realized as I sang it that for a while now, probably since 9/11, that I have lived with a low-grade depression about the state of the world… The song brought me back to my faith – both the ability to “see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (hope) and “hold firm” (don’t despair even if it isn’t easy). It hit me, this profoundly simple proclamation of faith – like a ton of bricks. For that I am grateful.”

I have returned to this song many times in my walking, running, singing or meditating. In all kinds of situations, with all kinds of people, I have used this song to call myself back to a core value of my faith – which is that the goodness of God outlasts the despair we experience in one another, in natural catastrophes, and in our own personal lives.

More universally, I find music to be incredibly important in my faith journey. The Germans have a word, “ohrwurm,” for music they call an “ear worm.” This is one of those songs that sticks with you all week. I love Taize music and other simple faith music because it stays with me from day to day, place to place, situation to situation. Staying hopeful, for me, involves keeping the promise of hope literally on the tip of my tongue. Singing Taize chants, like the rosary for millions of Catholics around the world, helps keep hope alive even in the most difficult times.

Winton Boyd

THURSDAY, MARCH 13
Attending an ORUCC retreat a few weekends ago a poem by Thomas Merton was shared with us. As I read the poem there was one verse that really grabbed me and continues to be a bit of a mantra for me through this winter season. It was this…“Love the winter. When the plant says nothing”. At a time when the busyness of my work and of personal commitments was getting out of hand, I welcomed the message that came through to me in that verse. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. For what I heard in those words was this: It is okay to be quiet. Be still. Come home. Have dinner. Rest. No new commitments for awhile. I was feeling the need to retreat and the winter landscape was telling me to embrace that need.

Over the past few weeks, a brief glance out the window overlooking my garden and I breath that same sigh of relief. I don’t exactly know what role God plays in this but I do know that I feel closer to God and feel like I’m getting back on track spiritually when I slow down and pay attention to the lessons that nature has to teach me. Often those lessons are about listening rather than talking; being rather than doing. And in the listening and the being I’m able to clear my mind of its usual worries and concerns and allow words, images and ideas to enter in that will feed my spirit. One example in particular is a verse from 2 Corinthians 9:8 and happens to be part of the God is Still Speaking campaign. It is printed on a small red business card and reads, “And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance so that by always having enough of everything you may share abundantly in every good work.” I have this verse taped to my bathroom mirror and I try to take a few moments each day to reflect on its meaning for me. My response is similar to when I look out over a winter landscape. I let out this sigh of relief and experience an assurance of what I know deep down to be true; that I have many blessings in my life and already have everything I need.

LuAnn Greiner

FRIDAY, MARCH 14
Trust God and Sin on Bravely

I have to decide Yes or No
and neither option seems wholly right
but there is no third possibility
not to decide is to decide
so I must decide one way
or the other. . .
either way
somebody gets hurt
there’s no painless, pure way through
my hands are tied
there are limits and I’ve reached them
how can I justify what I have to do?
to the parties involved?
to myself?
to you?

I remember Luther’s comment
Trust God and sin on bravely
that’s a dangerous freedom
and a gracious responsibility
I could abuse either the freedom
or the responsibility

Lord, will you go with me
as I decide?
cover my inevitable sin with your grace
accept me
even when I’m unacceptable
let my Yes or No
be born out of
a brave trust

Robert Raines (Lord, Could You Make It A Little Better?)

SATURDAY, MARCH 15
The italicized paragraphs are excerpts from a blessing for Elizabeth Strasma’s new childcare center in June 2007, written by Winton Boyd. They are followed by a current story from Elizabeth.

We gather today to ask your blessing on this new center for children and babies.
We know the heart and hard work that has gone into this dream – we know the tireless hours, the uncountable details, the unexpected surprises and the moments of despair that have preceded this day.

…We give you thanks for the entire Strasma/Golestani family. We thank you for the ability of this family, and others, to work together to make dreams come true. We know your Spirit has been with them in ways known and unknown – and for that we are grateful.

It is in the spirit of this dream that we gather today with hope and joy for the future. It is in the spirit of this dream that we celebrate the children who have already graced this building and these grounds. It is in the spirit of this dream that we share the hope for those children who will come in the days, months and years ahead.

Recently, the center began running well enough to free up a few more brain cells, and one day I happened to re-read the center blessing. I’d re-read it a few times since the blessing, but oddly enough, had never caught the phrase “unexpected surprises.” This time I did, and it made me laugh, and it confirmed my occasional guess that you might know the first half of this story:

It was (literally as well as figuratively) a dark and stormy night. I was exhausted and anxious, near despair after a bad mistake (thanks again for listening then) and with mortgage paperwork, but slogging on. Late one evening, on my way home, I noticed a hall light was on in the center. I parked, and ran through the pouring rain to the door. Suddenly I noticed a little car near the edge of the playground, and thought, “those neighbor kids have been into our playground; that fire truck was over by the sandbox. I’ll just stick it inside for tonight.” I brought it in, wet and dripping, and then just stared at it. It wasn’t our fire truck at all, it was a lovely little car with a top and a door that opened. I opened the door again to peer through the rain, and sure enough, the fire truck was where we’d left it. I just stared and stared at that little red car, but my brain never works well in the evening anyway, and I couldn’t imagine where it had come from.

Then things got busier, if that were possible, and there was no time to think about it anymore, though I enjoyed savoring the mystery occasionally. That little red car joined the other vehicles upstairs, in our “indoor playground,” and it’s still the children’s favorite.

Elizabeth Strasma

SUNDAY, MARCH 16
When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

Let us realize that William Cullen Bryant is right: “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.” Let us go out realizing that the Bible is right: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” This is for hope for the future, and with this faith we will be able to sing in some not too distant tomorrow with a cosmic past tense, “We have overcome, we have overcome, deep in my heart, I did believe we would overcome.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (Final speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, August 16, 1967, in I Have A Dream, edited by James Washington)

MONDAY, MARCH 3
“You become what you do.” A guy said this to me when I was a college freshman. He was pretty obnoxious, actually, quite full of himself, but that line has stuck with me my whole life. You become what you do. But not just each of us in isolation. We are affected by others. We become what we all together do. Every day in every way we make choices that have consequences for ourselves and other people. This is a blessing and a curse. It is a source of despair and a source of hope. We cannot undo the past. Every time we say yes to some things we say no to countless other things. We make dozens of choices every day that matter for ourselves, for other people, for the world. Sometimes we do good, sometimes we hurt people. Sometimes what helps one person hurts another. We live embedded in opportunities and constraints created by other people’s choices, and we in our turn create constraints and opportunities for ourselves and others. This is a law of nature, this is how our finite and interdependent universe works. It can be terrifying to contemplate just how much what we do matters for ourselves and for others, how much good and evil we do to others, often without even knowing it.

And so I bring this all to God. My weakness, my terror at mattering in the world. The times I have hurt other people, the ways I fall short in doing justice. But also the times I have helped other people, the ways in which I have worked for justice, and the ways other people have helped me. And in God it comes around. I am part of God. I am not God, but I am part of God, a fragment of God, and I live surrounded by and interconnected with all the other fragments of God, all the other people who, like me, are a strange mixture of good and evil. I do not need to be God, I do not need to be all-good, all-powerful. I just need to slow down, to let myself feel the presence of God all around me, to let myself know my connection to God and to all of life, to feel my connection to the joy and the sorrow of all of humanity. In this act of reaching out, of prayer, and of submission I feel a sense of direction as well as acceptance of my limitations. My awareness of my own failings has helped me to grow and deepen as a human being. I have become less self-centered, less self-righteous, more open to and forgiving of the struggles and disappointments of other imperfect people, and more able to do what is right. When I allow God to find me, I experience joy that I have been called to a life of connection and meaning and purpose. I become what I do.

Pamela Oliver

TUESDAY, MARCH 4
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
Mary Oliver(In Blackwater Woods)

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5
For me, the season of Lent is flavored by the year I went through confirmation. It was a bad year: by my mother’s account, there are large chunks of it missing from my memory entirely, and most of what I do remember is being frightened. I was, at the same time, arrogant and convinced I was special, and also faced for the first time with not mattering and not liking myself much. After all, I hadn’t done much yet. There wasn’t anything to like. I talked a lot about shadows, hiding, death, and pain. I doodled swords across all my homework, and was pretty well convinced that I wouldn’t care if I died. I could not compare myself to Jesus at Gethsemane, or even to the disciples falling asleep in the garden. I identified with Judas, loved because Jesus loved everyone, and finding, in the end, failure and defeat. There was nothing interesting or beautiful about how I felt, this depression, because it served no purpose. Climbing out of it has been a matter of learning to care about and do things for other people far more than it’s had anything to do with my opinion of myself.

Fast forward ten years, having my heart broken three times, a degree in philosophy and a lot of friends. Still not Jesus, still not able to die for the sins of the world. Still not really living up to what I want to be. But, somewhere when I wasn’t paying attention, I’m not the youngest person I know anymore. They say nothing is ever wasted, and sometime in the last year or so, other people have started being like me in ways they weren’t before, and every now and then, when I’m very lucky, I can see just where a hug or a smile or even a turning away with a frown can do the most good. No profound insight or anything, just an old blindness that’s dropped away. It’s growing up.

You don’t get Easter if you don’t go through Lent. They’re not two separate things, rebirth and death. It’s not even that the dying is the cost you pay to live again. The dying is the same thing as the living again. Which means, incidentally, that living again is the same thing as dying. There’s no trick to it. We’re human. It’s just a thing we do: we remember.

Elizabeth Lemke-Oliver

THURSDAY, MARCH 6
Grace happens. Without invitation, without warning, sometimes it just sneaks up on you, stops you in your tracks, and says, “Pause; feel; find your center, for that’s where you’ll find God patiently waiting for you.”

This past summer, if you’d asked me if I needed to teach Sunday School, I would have laughed the ironic laugh of one who is slightly stressed, slightly crazy, and more than slightly busy. I’d have put it right up there with an IRS audit as something I “needed”. But grace happened. It began by teasing me with an article in the Communion describing a new approach to Sunday School. Several times over the next few days, I found myself picking through the chaos that is our kitchen table to find that Communion and pull it back out to reread Tammy’s article. It wasn’t like I’d decided I was going to teach Sunday School again – after all, I was moderator elect and the coach of a couple of middle school math teams and subject to pages from customers – but every time I read Tammy’s article I felt my head nod and my heart lift. So I wasn’t at all surprised when the next time I bumped into Tammy I said what I felt but hadn’t really acknowledged to myself – I wanted to teach Sunday School. There was grace, putting words in my mouth. True words, words it had already found in my heart. And as grace led me to say those words, it spoke other words to me: “Pause; feel; find your center, for that’s how you’ll renew yourself.”

Every Sunday, I begin my worship by finding my center with the help of Leah and the kids we guide. We leave our shoes at the door, we dim the lights, we light candles, we ring bells – we create ritual. Through our ritual, we learn to stop the outside world a tiny bit, to open our inner ears to God in each of us. Through our ritual, we reopen spaces that we’ve let close up, spaces that God moves into, spaces in which God silently speaks to us. Through our ritual, I’ve learned that teaching Sunday School is exactly what I need.

So grace happened to me. Without invitation, without warning, it snuck up on me, it stopped me in my tracks, and it said to me: “Pause; feel; find your center, for God is there with you.”

John Lemke

FRIDAY, MARCH 7
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.

Reinhold Niebuhr

SATURDAY, MARCH 8
Renewal is a funny thing. It’s elusive and usually best when unexpected. I have had many of those moments this year with the 22 new loves of my life- my second graders. As a first year teacher I am having a ball and wouldn’t change a thing, but that is not to say that there aren’t days when I get red in the face and just can’t believe that a seven year old got the best of me.

Somehow on these days it seems so important that we get that fact practice done now so we can move on to science. Time’s a tickin’ and they are dawdling. Those days, days when teaching is less like teaching and more like cattle herding I find I need renewal the most. It’s like being in a pit, one that I can’t get out of alone. Once that rushed frustrated teacher makes an appearance it is hard to find the teacher that is patient and warm. I just can’t do it on my own some days. And on those days, without fail, just when I’ve gotten to the point where I am ready to say, ‘Forget it! I am done,’ one of those sweet silly souls comes up to me and says something either so profound or hysterical that I do the unthinkable: I laugh. My kids know this laugh well and when they hear it they all want to know what happened, what was said that got them their teacher back. And once again we become a class.

It’s in the laugh that the renewal happens. I am pulled out of the pit by a seven year old. I am reminded that it’s not in fact so bad, that I’m doing ok, and most importantly that there is a being out there with quite a sense of humor. It allows me to restart: clear the slate and try again.

Kari Nonn

SUNDAY, MARCH 9
I have learned that when things are looking the darkest, when fear is strong, when I am unsure of where to turn, that if I can just remember to be still a moment and pray, I will know God is near. If I pray without ceasing, which to me means any moment during a busy day, I remember that when fear knocks at the door and courage answers, there is no one there and I can get through those challenging times.

In the midst of human busyness which controls so many waking minutes, just being mindful that I have a choice to step back and let go of what is troubling me, I can find peace and the courage to go forward. The truth is that we do not face anything alone for God is always with us. When I forget this simple I struggle and feel anxious, but when I remember this important truth, I find comfort and peace. Setbacks are temporary and can be healed by a healing quiet spirit that brings renewal. May we remember this truth especially when we need it most.

Joyce Binder

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake. I have the immense joy of being a member of a race in which God became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

Thomas Merton(Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander)

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26

If you really belong to the work that has been entrusted to you, then you must do it with your whole heart. And you can bring salvation only by being honest and by really working with God.

It is not how much we are doing but how much love, how much honesty, how much faith is put into doing it. It makes no difference what we are doing. What you are doing, I cannot do, and what I am doing, you cannot do. Only sometimes we forget and we spend more time looking at somebody else and wishing we were doing something else.

We waste our time thinking of tomorrow and today we let the day pass and yesterday is gone.

Mother Theresa

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27

At this time of the year, most people ache for renewal. The hoo-hah of the holidays is past, the days are short and the winds are cold. For many recreational runners committing to a future race date provides a sense of renewal, an opportunity to regain the purpose and enjoyment of running. It begins with circling the special day on the calendar, the first step of this journey of renewal. With that, a sense of hope comes to life and all things are possible. Training plans hit paper, promises are made and goals are dreamt, and sometimes spoken aloud. There is joy, there is doubt and there is pain, but most of all, there is renewal.

Lent offers the perfect training time to renew one’s faith with Easter as the big day. Whether one is in tip top spiritual shape or shaking the rust off dormant “faith muscles”, Lent provides a special time to reflect on where we are in our faith fitness and where we want to be at Easter, and beyond. And it all starts with that first step.

Bob Ansheles

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28

As we approach another Easter I look into my own life for renewing my beliefs. I find again that pragmatism enters into my renewal. My faith is renewed by relationships with others and beliefs that have developed through many years. Many of these long held ideas that have been strengthened by the various things I have read and the thoughts I have shared with others. In addition, seeing the lives and conduct of others has spoken to me. Sometimes I wish I could be more spiritually in tune with happenings, but yet find my renewal comes from contacts with other people.

There many ways people are living today that do not seem to following the teachings of Jesus and the instructions from God. The greed shown by so many leads me to wonder where we are going. Yet, the next article or book I read makes me appreciate what some modern Christian has done to help his fellow man, and I realize that these activities give me hope. Moreover, the longer I live the more aware I become that I do not have to judge others, but just see to my own thoughts and conduct.

Religious music has always been an interest of mine. I have trouble adjusting to the word changes in our new hymnals; not to the theology of the changes, but the change when I have sung them that way for so many years. I do enjoy the newer hymns and the choir choices which are part of our services. For instance, “In the Bulb there is a Flower” is one of my favorites.

So let’s go into the Lenten season with open minds to receive the inspiration of the weeks to come and the thrill that comes from the young people and their enthusiasm.

Ruth Piper

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 29

I’m not a person who has deep philosophical thoughts, but I do possess a strong faith in God and Christ. This past year, that faith has helped me sustain a positive outlook through several life passages, while not life-threatening, certainly life changing, in my own life and in those I love.

So much of life is putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward. Sometimes it’s so much so that we find ourselves in a rut…doing the same thing over and over for fear of change. But this past year has been full of change for me on all sides. As our daughter graduated from college, we agonized and waited with her until she found a great teaching job. Our son, having earned his master’s degree in architecture, followed the love of his life to Brussels and to Venezuela, now engaged to be married, returning to Madison to live and work. My mother, living alone for nearly a decade in the farmhouse we all grew up in, finally realized the need for more care and human contact, just moved into an assisted living facility. And I gave up something I’d been doing for 35 years. I finally came to the realization that the ORUCC choir was way beyond being ready for a “real” choir director, so I resigned that position. And to our great fortune, we are now blessed with someone who’s not only a fantastic musician but also very well-liked and energizing.

Amid all this, I needed to trust that God would provide the grace and wherewithal I need to make these transitions. I feel that my life has been blessed in so many ways. The sermons that Winton delivers each Sunday, the thoughtful prayers that Ree leads, my own prayers and encouragement from friends have all contributed to my continuing sense of hope for our future.

Vicki Nonn

SATURDAY, MARCH 1

Sometimes say softly to yourself: “Now, now. What is happening to me now? This is now. What is coming into me now? This moment?”

Then suddenly you begin to see the world as you had not seen it before, to hear people’s voices and not only what they are saying but what they are trying to say and you sense the whole truth about them. And you sense existence, not piecemeal - not this object and that - but as a translucent whole.

Brenda Ueland (If You Want to Write)

SUNDAY, MARCH 2

My experience of spiritual renewal is deeply rooted in my conversion experience that happened when I was 21 years old, a college senior studying at UW-Eau Claire. This unexpected encounter with grace profoundly changed the direction of my life. And yet, it caused great turmoil as well. I often go back to that moment and recall the experience, how someone shared with me the good news of Christ, and how without any forewarning, my heart was immediately filled with feelings of joy. The seed of Christ was awakened in me that day and that little seed has grown and continues to grow to this day. But as many of you know, growth not only brings joy, it also brings discomfort and struggle. Trying to make sense of that experience was very difficult for me at first. But with lots of help and wonderful mentors, the seed started to take root and grow.

It has been 25 years since this experience. And a lot of things in my life have changed. I often get discouraged or feel sad and depressed about the condition of our world and about the religious intolerance and hatred that exists. I also find it hard sometimes to “believe” in something that cannot be “proved.” And yet, when I start to feel this way, my mind simply takes me back to this conversion experience, almost without hesitation, and I consider my “little” awakening once again. That awakening was real, it brought me into my true vocation, it gave me life. What can I do?

Perhaps this unexpected encounter with grace has taught me to try and be open to how God may visit me this day and throughout my days. To be open to the deep and awesome mystery that God’s Spirit is ever present to us is a daily spiritual discipline for me. In essence, what I’m trying to do is keep my guard down, rather than up. This feels a bit vulnerable and unnerving to me at times but I believe it is the path of spiritual renewal for me. It has been a good journey so far.

Tammy Martens

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18
Spiritual renewal for me goes hand in hand with my daily / weekly experiences that surround those people whose lives I am a part of from Achilles (Achilles members are all physically disabled in one way or another).

Every week I have an opportunity as a volunteer to share time with these “dear friends” that are living with any number of afflictions. To name a few, they are multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, stroke survivors, brain injured and have seizures, quadriplegic, blind, or have Parkinson’s.

When I am with them, my focus quickly shifts to how they must find their way, day in and day out, and for some it seems like more than worth the struggle. I cannot be with them in a positive light without praying for them and knowing that a mighty God must be in charge and spiritually alive. Sometimes I pray so hard… I pray that some of them might even experience a miracle and be fully restored just because they seem to never have had a chance so early on in their lives. Even if a miracle does not take place in this life, heaven awaits them. Moreover, knowing that in heaven there will be no more struggle, fear, or pain, I can share the hope of an eternity with them.

Barb Wolter

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19
Tell me one thing that is true. Being surrounded by liberal thinkers who allow for doubt of practically every aspect of our traditions, I have occasionally made this plea, if not always out loud. Tell me one thing that is true — please. Don’t qualify it, don’t disown it as you say it, don’t be polite about it. So, I challenged myself to find one thing that I could say about my faith that is unqualifiedly true, and here it is - relationship is at its heart. Relationships matter whether within family, among friends, in society, or with the various aspects of our own personalities. Relationships are not just evolutionarily useful ways to perpetuate the species (even if they do), but are, in and of themselves, sacred. They are the way that God manifests in our lives. To discount, thwart, or manipulate relationships is to sin. To love and be loved, to respect and be respected, to care for and be cared for - these are, for most of us, our best, most grace-filled window on the transcendent. In fact, these acts are transcendent, because we transcend ourselves to others. It is an act of God to love one’s neighbor and importantly, to love oneself. In other words, God is Love - literally. This is real. This is true.

Deborah Holbrook

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20
“Gott, lass meine Gedanken …” - God, gather and turn my thoughts to you. With you there is light, you do not forget me. With you, there is help and patience. I do not understand your ways, but you know the way that is mine.”

This prayer of the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, renewed in a Taize song, was one of the most important “things” in my spiritual life last year. To accept that God knows the future, even if I don’t. To trust that this is good and healthy and enough for me – that is the essence of faith.

One day I went to a hospital to visit a woman. I knew that she would die in the next few days. On my way, I prayed: “God, help me to do the right things and to say the right words. I don’t know anything.” I met her husband in her bedroom. He had been there four hours and told me: “She can’t hear anything and can’t react.”

But then, when I sat on her bedside and told her that I would pray a psalm and began to read, she obviously tried to answer. We both, her husband and I, were in tears as we saw this.

Of course, I knew that our hearing is the sense that lasts the longest, but when this happened, I was overwhelmed again. It was not the first time for me to see and sense such answer when somebody was already “on their last way”. But it was like a reminder from God to me: “You don’t need any own word, own thought or great words of wisdom. There’s the word of God, words of the old witnesses who gave us power to live and die.” This gave me new trust and faith. Indeed, God knows even when I don’t.

That is the meaning of this prayer that I learned to understand in a very new way last year. Now it is my “everyday song”.

Joerg Utpatel (Joerg was a guest pastor at ORUCC in April and May 2007. He is a Lutheran pastor in Neubukow, Germany)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21
In his collection of Bengali poems, Gitanjali, Rabindranath Tagore writes that the song he wanted to sing has never happened because he has spent his days ’stringing and unstringing’ his instrument. Whenever I read these lines a certain sadness enters my soul. I think of how busy my days and nights are, of how I cram my calendar and my life so full at times that my glimpses of God are like a rare and endangered species. I yearn to have the song of God sung in my soul but I, too, keep stringing and unstringing my instrument. I get so preoccupied with the details and pressure of my schedule, with the hurry and worry of life, that I miss the song of goodness which is waiting to be sung through me….

Joyce Rupp, OSM

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22
Here’s what I’ve decided: the very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That’s about it. Right now I’m living in that hope, running down its hallways and touching the walls on both sides. I can’t tell you how good it feels.

Barbara Kingsolver (Animal Dreams)

SATURDAY, FEBRAURY 23
Laugh as often as possible. You must. Because the world will offer you every reason to weep. So as often as possible, you laugh. That, I think, is part of the Great Love.

Maya Angelou (Interview on the Hallmark Channel)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24
Your way through life
will not remain the same.
There are years of happiness and years
of suffering.
There are years of abundance,
and years of poverty,
years of hope, and of disappointment,
of building up, and of breaking down.
But God has a firm hold on you
through everything.

Anonymous

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11
Every season, every change in the weather, the sun moving in and out of the clouds brings a sense of renewal to my life. Spiritually I stay focused through changes in the weather and in life by remembering the unconditional love that God has for me. “Be Still My Soul” is one of my favorite hymns and never fails to remind me of other souls in the world; others that experience God the way that I do. Spiritually I am strong through the strength and love of God who loved our world so much that he gave his only son so that all might have eternal life. What a powerful thing to do. I feel a sense of hope and of renewal from God’s love and the love of those who care for me in my church family and in my family of origin.

Laurie Irwin

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12
In another church community in which I was a member, I took a class in which there was a brief mentioning of Brother Lawrence, a monk from the Middle Ages. Brother Lawrence had written a book on practicing the presence of God – I think the book was based on letters he had written. I found this book at UW Memorial Library. There are probably other books written by or about Brother Lawrence.

At one time, Brother Lawrence was the monastery’s dishwasher. He worked very hard on doing this menial task with great love, affirming consciously his love for God, somehow finding a way to “practice the presence of God” while washing the pots and pans or in any task or situation he would face. Brother Lawrence went through his own “dark night of the soul,” going through a long period of sadness. He wrestled with these feelings, until finally he got to some sense of acceptance and surrender. He accepted his feelings of sadness, somehow accepting this as God’s will, finding God in this sadness, and surrendering these feelings over to God. It was only then, in that time of acceptance and surrender, that he felt those feelings of sadness begin to lift.

One time, I did my own Brother Lawrence. I had just returned from visiting my family of origin. I was at home, ironically, doing the dishes in the sink, since I don’t believe in automatic dishwashers. For whatever reasons, my visit was bringing up issues, and I felt a vague and deep sense of sadness. The sadness was hard to put into words, and I did not have a sense of why or what it was about. I let myself feel the feelings for a while, and then I prayed, “God, if it is Your Will that I feel sad right now, then so be it. I accept these feelings, and I surrender them to You. Thy Will Be Done.”

It was in that moment of surrender, like Brother Lawrence, that I felt the light of God shining within me. The feelings of sadness lifted, to be replaced by the joy in God’s presence.
We can all practice the presence of God in whatever task or situation we find ourselves in, even in washing our dishes.

Timothy Johnson

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13
There Are Years (Anonymous)

Your way through life
will not remain the same.
There are years of happiness and years
of suffering.
There are years of abundance,
and years of poverty,
years of hope, and of disappointment,
of building up, and of breaking down.
But God has a firm hold on you
through everything.

In the last ten years, I have discovered the gift of poetry in bringing a deeper reflection to my days. Earlier, poetry had been held captive by my academic experiences, which more often left me feeling a little dense or awkward. Freed from any other criteria than what a poem can evoke in me, poetry brings me a deep connection with the universal experience of being human, and the hopes we all bring to our lives. It reminds me, as this poem above does, of both the reality of my experience and what is core in my beliefs. And so, I’ve collected many “friends” in poems. I marvel at the messages they have to offer when I take a pause, sit quietly, and sift through them until a line, a phrase, an image reaches out to grab me and invite deeper reflection.

For me, I’ve found the poems of both Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry to be particularly powerful. They have several anthologies, but ones I’d recommend to those interested are Thirst (Oliver) and The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. For a wide range of poetry, website sources include www.poetryfoundation.org and a free daily poetry subscription service at panhala@yahoogroups.com.

Barb Hummel

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14
Lord, what do you see when you look at me?
I hope you don’t just see a teenage girl,
Who has messed up a few times in her life,
still trying to figure out what the real world holds.
Many adults just look at me and see a girl that’s fifteen,
never looking past that and get to know the real me.
Many of my positive qualities are left unseen,
Like this dream I have, that young ones could, loosen up the tension and not jump every time we think we are being told what to do,
when an older individual just tries to make our lives simpler.
To some, faith is just a word.
To me, faith is that helping hand I needed to survive.
Little do I know, maybe faith was the reason I was heard?
I love my Lord; he has tested me, and I am still here.
So I know I can succeed.
Me, without him? That is like me not knowing how to breathe,
He gives me my breath so I can relieve my stress
and ask him, “what in the world should I do next?”
I learned that God loves me no matter my shape or if my hair is a mess.
He is one I can be real with and not feel the need to impress.
Because all God cares about is me, you, and every girl or boy on the street.
He is my outlet whenever I’m feeling down or stressed,
He picks me up and renews me with a new breath.

Hanna Josephs

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15
During the past year, I’ve experienced a renewal in my Christian faith by taking time and reflecting on the beauty of life and of those around me. I have always thought that being a Christian was about how I lived, interacted with others, and being sensitive and responsive to the needs of others. But after stepping back and realizing that it was the simple things that can make a difference, such as giving a few hours of my time to a cause, or taking time to engage in a sincere conversation with another, giving a smile, or extending a handshake, I realized that in the past, I was missing something in my faith. This realization has given me a sense of renewal and has energized my faith making it more meaningful and satisfying, reminding me that I am really someone who can have an impact which thereby makes my faith real to me.

The renewal of my Christian faith is recent and is attributed to making a commitment to find a Church that would help provide more meaning to my Christian upbringing. We found a Church (ORUCC) that we thought is more focused on living as Christians as opposed to being focused primarily on worship. Meaningful worship is important, but to me, it can only be meaningful if I honestly can say to myself that I practice my Christian belief outside of worship time.

The sense of renewal for me has also come about as a result of becoming a part of a community that respects diversity, a community that recognizes that God created us all equal regardless of our differences, becoming a part of a community that does not judge others, and joining a community that focuses on looking forward and seeking ways to live and practice our Christian faith.
Respecting the diversity of people and beliefs around me have helped me to become a stronger Christian. Appreciating and understanding the needs of those less fortunate has helped me to be more giving and fair with those who are struggling, with those who are making an effort, and with those who are doing the best with their limited resources.

I believe I’ve become less judgmental and see people and situations as they are, particularly being more respectful of those with differing beliefs or opinions. The warmth and sincerity from those I’m around causes me to reflect how wonderful people are and the importance of relationships.

The renewal I’ve experienced has helped me to grow within my faith. I’ve taken steps significant for me in renewing family ties and becoming more neighborly. What has prompted me moving forward with these steps is hard to describe or pinpoint other than I’ve opened my soul to enable the Spirit to help me make a positive difference in the way I interact with those around me. Seeing the difference in my relationships and how they have come about with effort on my part in wanting to be a stronger Christian has certainly resulted in the sense of “renewal” for me that has energized my desire to grow as a stronger Christian, a process as I see as never ending.

Jim Frymark

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16
“Go Tell It On the Mountain!” It is Sunday, January 6, 2008. I just returned home–slowly–very slowly thru the fog from another lively, fulfilling church service. The young people sang “Go Tell It on the Mountain–we all sang “Go Tell it on the Mountain”.

And I feel like I have something to TELL. I want to tell what excites me about our church. I go to church and I immediately see friends–warm, loving friends whom I am anxious to visit with.

The church service is, of course, the highlight. My own thinking about the big questions if life is constantly in flux. Surely, at my age I should have found all the answers but that is not the case. I hope that I am continuing to grow in understanding. This is in part because of Winton. He continues to study the old and reaches out in many ways to get further insights which he shares with us. That is one of the high points that makes our church spiritually alive. Each member is accepted where they are in their beliefs and understanding, and if one desires and has the time the opportunities to learn are readily available– such as through several Bible study groups, Java, and special opportunities throughout the year.

And today with those young people singing and playing their instruments, wasn’t it joyfully inclusive! We were proud of them and appreciate their sharing their special talents. We are fortunate to have John Pray working with them.

After church people were lined up to offer help with IHN, the needs of which had been presented in a fun, inviting manner. We are committed to justice and support our many programs. Some of them I can no longer physically support but I can sing “Go Tell It On The Mountain”!

Ellen Fluck

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17
I have a porch off the back of my house that has a cement slab floor. The floor is slightly sloped to the center, where water usually sits. When the temperatures hover around freezing, we are treated to a spectacular show as the water freezes. Crystals form, and the fractal patterns are so intricate, beautiful, and astounding! My family is so lucky to be privy to such a secret treasure!

Occurrences like these, both inside and outside, are what usually inspire spiritual renewal for me. I marvel in the wonders of nature; the intense orange of a Baltimore Oriole or the rich indigo of a bluebird; the salt in the ocean; the incredible sweetness of a peach grown in my back yard; the intricacies of a snowflake; a chicken producing an egg, and doing it daily. Not to mention a woman growing a child!! These things amaze me! They serve as a constant reminder to me that God is at work all around me….how couldn’t I have faith? Humans certainly did not make these things, nor do they have any control of them. It would be obscene to lack faith when I take so much enjoyment in God’s natural wonders. God’s presence is undeniable!

Gretchen Olson