Cooking

My son started me thinking about cooking today, although I had watched my daughter cooking in her kitchen yesterday. He wrote on Facebook about cooking for Thanksgiving and I responded that he was a good cook and had the same ease in the kitchen as his mom and Meme'. I was thinking about Merrie and Dana and Will and Ken and even myself who have the same ease around the kitchen. I love to cook and I'm not bad either. I loved working with Marsha to entertain and it was almost like a dance the way we could work together later in our marriage. All of Marsha's family knows how to have good food and how to entertain although I'm not sure the others enjoy doing it as much, but they still do a great job. It's been a long time since the real big family gatherings, but they are some of my best memories. Tomorrow we will have a full day with favorite snack food and the Macy's Parade followed by some Patriots football before we head off to see Harry Potter and then back for dinner. It will probably be the closest thing to the old big family holidays that I've had in a while. We are having a Turducken here for the first time, but no matter what I know I will enjoy the day. I have so much to give thanks for.

Travel Again

I will be in the fast lane again next week. Off to Georgia and then Florida before heading back to the home I love seen in the picture. I love my home but I also love to drive and I love to visit. I haven't seen my Florida grandadults since last summer for one and last winter for the other. The holidays are always best when shared with family and I will enjoy this one especially. My daughter and son in law, the two grandadults and each with a significant other makes the gang all there. Thanksgiving at the Georgia home is filled with traditions from morning to night. I think the new Harry Potter is involved this time.I will then be off on leg two of the travels to visit my mother in Sarasota,  Florida. A few days of catching up with her with a visit. I hope most if not all of her leaves are down when I get there so I can bag them and get them to the street for the development folks to take away. If all goes well I hope to be able to have time to meet with a high school friend during the journey.
I will be back in MB by Wednesday night December 1st in time to lead worship at church Thursday morning. By then the house in the picture will look even better to me than it does now, but I will have had a great holiday week in the meantime. Second time around on these holidays, and I will be spending Christmas day by myself. Did I tell you I love to drive?

Thanksgiving

I really like Thanksgiving. I grew up in the town next to Plymouth MA and spent a lot of time in Plymouth. As teachers Plymouth Plantation, which is the reenactment of the original Pilgrim community, was a frequent destination. I did learn some of the history that is real and some of the story that is legend, but in principle I love the reality of their gratitude to God for their survival. I also have a special draw to this because I have been shown my whole life my own lineage to the Mayflower and that first community. All in all many things kind of compel me to treasure this holiday, but most of all because I think we Americans lack gratitude. Our culture leads us to want more and better all the time and being thankful for what we have is not readily on our minds and lips. On Facebook over the past weeks some of my friends have taken the challenge of writing something that they are thankful for each day. Many started few have kept it up. In some of my parishes the silences during the prayers of the people were often filled with loud vocal contributions when it came to prayers for the church, the government, justice and personal needs, but were noticeably silent when it came to the section for thanksgivings. Perhaps it is time to revisit the concept behind another of our big holidays. Gratitude, a great idea waiting for action.

Solitude

I recently returned from the Diocese of South Carolina clergy retreat at Camp St. Christopher on Seabrook Island just south of Charleston. Bishop Lawrence structured the first evening and the next morning around four meditations and the experience of silence and solitude. After the meditations we were sent off to any place we chose to be alone with the topic and our Lord. For me the beach was my first choice. Walking along the shore with the gentle sound of the waves and the beauty of the sand dunes always helps me be quiet in God's presence. I don't know why I need to be reminded again and again of the value to my soul of solitude. I have a regular prayer time in the morning, but often I busy that time with Bible study, specific prayers or reading agendas. Solitude is without any agenda except God's agenda. We are trained to be so task oriented that we feel as if this solitude is a waste of time, but over and over again I have found that my soul is enriched by solitude and it influences the quality of my whole life. Living alone I have so much time that could be available for solitude and yet I seem to get pulled back into this cultural message that my time needs to produce something. I wonder how long I can resist this task oriented pull this time.

Looking For What?

I'm not that old but I have spent considerable time with people who are sorting out their lives. People seem to be always looking for something. They have a discontent about them most of the time. They think they need more money, or they think they need a different job, or their not content with their spouse or children or parents or siblings or some other segment of their life. We humans so often seem to be looking for something and we don't know what.
I always think about life and things about life. I'm not saying I would want to return to the poverty Marsha and I lived in during our early marriage, but it will say with conviction that that time was among the happiest of our 46 years of marriage. Another time when life was particularly great was when I was away during the week attending seminary and working in a group home.  Family has always been a special gift because we invested in it. The picture is a dinner out with the four grandchildren. What a great treasure we had with those relationships and I continue to enjoy those treasured moments.  Many people say that don't have enough time and yet we both worked constantly during those years and had so little tile together, but by choosing the right priorities life was so good.
We always have only today. This is the moment when life is experienced. The more of these moments we spend looking for what, the more moments we miss that can be the best in life. I'm sure glad I didn't miss those great years in our lives because I was looking for something else.  Are you missing life looking for what?

Birthdays

I just spent some time together with my daughter Merrie and her husband. She let me know last week that she was having surgery for an abdominal tumor that they assured her was benign. She told me not to worry and to stay home, and although I wasn't worried I knew I had to be there. I was grateful to be with them even though the surgery really was simple and she is even allowed to drive already. I really needed some of our conversation about being a parent. It is so hard to know sometimes if our children truly understand how much we love them. I hope she gets it now if she didn't before. I know I have never told her as clearly as I did this week how much I love her. Today is her birthday and I have spent part of today reliving in my mind some of the events of her birth all those years ago. Marsha and I were so young and filled with idealism. Marsha wanted natural childbirth and fought for so many hours not to take any medication. We did not go through any preparation for natural childbirth if they did such things back then. I struggled all night worried about her and you were not allowed in the see your wife back then. I know my struggles were nothing compared with what Marsha was going through but it seemed unbearable for me, partly because I knew she was in pain all that time. The joy was the gift of Merrie. Happy Birthday to her today, one of my great treasures in life.

Listening to God

In my duties as the rector of churches I never gave my music minister the choice of hymns and songs. They had complete control over the prelude, postlude and choir anthem, but not the other music. I picked the other music by Tuesday when I had no idea what the sermon was going to be. I was consistently amazed when the words in the songs I picked seemed to match the sermon in an uncanny way time and time again. It just seemed inspired but because it was all within my prayer and preparation I thought I already knew the sermon when I picked the songs but not in a conscious reality.
Since coming to The Church of the Resurrection I have the same amazing experience. Now independently of the music ministers I prepare a sermon and two different music ministers pick songs for the two different services where music is used. Once again the words of the songs picked match the sermon message God had given me to preach. Yesterday the rector leaned over to me in the second of those two services and asked if I had talked with the music ministers about song selection. He was amazed at the way the songs matched the message. The message even came from only one small line from the gospel which would be hard to see as the sermon focus.
I don't know why after all these years I still get surprised by God. You would think by now I would just expect the phenomenal. I'm not sure the average church attendee even noticed the match, but I'm sure God knows that when they match it all is more effective. God is good.