Aren't I a Cute Cowgirl for Halloween 2008?

How lovely is Your Dwelling Place, O LORD of hosts!

Our dear sister, Deborah Ann Smith (Loving Deb Smith) is dancing in the fields of Grace with Jesus and all the saints. She passed away early on October 12, 2007. Elsewhere on this blog are details about her brief and intensely courageous and loving battle with a ferocious cancer that came from nowhere less than one year ago. The Loving Deb Smith blog tells the rest of this incredible story, including her life, her Love for Jesus, her family, the enormous love and kindness she has received from hundreds of friends in the last few months of her life, etc. Read the blog with several boxes of tissues handy.

This Scripture, from Psalm 84 is a constant source of comfort at this time:

1 How lovely is Your dwelling place,
O LORD of hosts!

2 My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.

3 Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at Your altars,
O LORD of hosts,
my King and my God.

4 Blessed are those who dwell in Your house,
ever singing your praise!
Selah

(Psalm 84:1-4 (ESV)

Loving Deb Smith

"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted, saves those whose spirit is crushed. Many are the troubles of the just, but the LORD delivers from them all. God watches over all their bones; not a one shall be broken." Ps 34

You may have already seen this information. If so, please pass it along to others in your life who know and love Tom & Deb Smith of Ashely, IL and Cincinnati, OH, and would want to know about their situation.

Deb Smith was just in the last several weeks diagnosed with cancer. The cancer is already very advanced and is in her bones, lungs and lymphatic system. The doctors initially gave her 6 to 18 months, depending on treatment and so forth. I think it has been much more aggressive, though, than even they foresaw, and she is now (just in the last few days) hospitalized and in a lot of pain, which they are trying to control with a morphine drip. She also has difficulty swallowing, presumably due to the radiation treatments. The doctors say they expect her to stay hospitalized. She is in Creve Couer (God is close to the broken hearted), and Tom drives 200 miles round trip to be with her. Insurance is covering some, but not nearly all, of their expenses. The expensive medicines and the travel are especially taking their toll on their finances. A number of Tom and Deb's friends are calling on those who know and love them and suggesting ways we can all get involved to help. And quickly. Here are some ways.

PRAYER. God still heals, and Deb needs healing. Her daughter Charity said that we should pray for healing, for hope, and for freedom from pain.

MONEY. Tom's sister Darla is taking charge of processing contributions to help them. Checks should be made out to "Grace Community Church" and sent to:

Darla Wexstten
16738 N. Tolle Lane
Mount Vernon, IL 62864

CARDS. Deb receives great encouragement from the cards and notes she receives from friends. Calls, visits, and e-mails are out. She has very little stamina right now. So an encouraging note or card to remind her of the many ways she has blessed you over the years both personally and through support of Tom and the church could help brighten her day. Here's her address at the hospital:

c/o St. John's Mercy Medical
615 South New Ballas Rd.
Creve Coeur, MO 63141

Tom could use encouragement too. Here is his contact information:

pastortomsmith@yahoo.com
Tom and Deb Smith
10517 N. Panzier Lane
Ashley, IL 62864


There may be an opportunity for an informal fund-raising get-together of some kind in Cincinnati in the very near future, so that the local folks here could meet, maybe get some musicians among them to ply their talents, gather picnic-style, pass the hat, and pray. We'll see what comes of that, and let you know.

STAY INFORMED. Read this blog for updates. Also, in you wish to be added to the e-mail update list, send a message to me or Barb Hine.

GET THE WORD OUT. If you have the e-mail addresses of others who need to know about this, that would be most helpful if you could let us know or spread the word yourself, even using this note as a start.

You may receive this note from other folks who love you and Deb and Tom. If you do, it just shows the unity of the Body of Christ, the truth of John 13-17. Might be a good idea if you could also send this note to folks in your life who might want to know this information or be able to help Deb and Tom Smith in some way in this time of great need. Please ask them pass along to their networks as well.

Hope and prayer that all is well with you and yours.

Thanks.

Mercy and Consolation in Virginia

Over on Brave Heart, a long time friend, Gary Sweeten, posted this week several times about the impact of the Virginia Tech shooting tragedy. His post prompted me to reflect as follows:

Hello, Gary.

Well, I was waiting for your response to the tragic events in Blacksburg. Somehow, I knew you would write (probably more than once over the next few days and weeks, eh?). Glad you did.

There will be political-jockeying, name-calling, or finger-pointing, blame-laying, etc., over the next few months about this incident. Such is the nature of a free society, and thankfully so. All that aside, objectively, IMHO, it should be noted that GWB's comments at the VT convocation yesterday afternoon were among the most grown-up utterings from any public or private figure on any subject currently in the public discourse. No malice of forethought, no direct playing to special groups whose understanding of Truth starts with the self, no attempt to cover for irresponsible acts. Just compassion! How refreshing.

What can be known about this situation for sure, is that God is Merciful. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

"3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement,
4 who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.
5 For as Christ's sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow.
6 If we are afflicted, it is for your encouragement and salvation; if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement, which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer.
7 Our hope for you is firm, for we know that as you share in the sufferings, you also share in the encouragement,
8 ... we were utterly weighed down beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life.
9 ... we ... trust not in ourselves but in God who raises the dead." (2Cor 1:3-9)

As I reflected on the events so far at VT, I was reminded also of this simple exposition on the "human condition by Cisterian monk Thomas Keating:

"At every moment of our lives, God is asking 'Where are you? Why are you hiding?' All the questions that are fundamental to human happiness arise when we ask ourselves this excruciating question: Where am I? Where am I in relation to God, to myself, and to others? These are the basic questions of human life."

And further, "happiness is intimacy with God, the experience of God's loving presence. Without that experience, nothing else quite works; with it, almost anything works."

"This is the human condition - to be without the true source of happiness, which is the experience of the presence of God, and to have lost the key to happiness, which is the contemplative dimension to life, the path to the increasing assimilation and enjoyment of God's presence."

(The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation by Thomas Keating, ISBN-13: 978-0809105083)

There will likely be communal and deeply personal despair, much unimaginable pain and suffering among those personally effected by the VT shooting tragedy. There will also likely by forgiveness (consider the response of the Amish community in Pennsylvania who lost many young children at the hands of a desperate man last year). The suffering and the forgiveness are both gifts from a Merciful God, Who is Love, Who is Truth. A Personal God Who Suffered and Forgave!

----------

Also glad you related the stories about Sawyer Hall (I lived there in 1971). 'Cause I have had something on my mind regarding your UC era posts of the last month. All these years, though we have not known each other deeply, I had no idea how personal and scary that time was for you. Reading your posts has compelled me to examine my own reactions from that period, and to wonder about the truth of a quip a friend of mine repeats often, "You are where you were when."

Let the little children come to me!

Gospel Reading for 5/21/2005

People were bringing little children to him, for him to touch them. The disciples turned them away, but when Jesus saw this he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. I tell you solemnly, anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ Then he put his arms round them, laid his hands on them and gave them his blessing.
(Mark 10:13-16)

For me, this scripture capped a evening of truly enjoyable fellowship with some friends. Dinner and a birthday celebration for this family's mom. After reading this Gospel Scripture this morning, I thought of my friends' beautiful young children. They are full of life and fun. Their parents do everything they can to encourage them to be happy and developmentally appropriate for their ages. And, their parents truly enjoy them. It struck me the at these two young children also really enjoy their parents, and want to always be with them, asking them questions, relying on them in a knowing way -- as if to say, mom and dad, you are for me!

This is how God enjoys His children, and does everything possible to allow us to be happy (blessed). And Jesus tells us, the Father calls us to welcome the Kingdom of God in us like a child. You know, those two little kids and their parents were today's Gospel for me.

Vespers for December 1, 2004

Among my daily reads is Alan Creech's blog, where today, he posted a very thoughtful piece about the Central Thing we should get down in the Christian Life -- that we are God's beloved children. It is the foundation of all else God's wants to do in us, because of His Tender Mercy and Boundless Love for us. Alan notes: "If you never get that he IS your Father, your Dad, and that you belong with Him, in His House, then you will never be able to step into the Life that is a part of that Family." Thank you, Alan, for the reminder.

In fact, it brought to mind the words of the Psalmist from today's (12/1/2004) Vespers over at Unversalis. In the first Psalm (27), David expresses his one desire:

"One thing I ask of the Lord;
this I seek:
To dwell in the house of the
Lord all the days of my life,
That I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord
and contemplate His temple."

after he declares, as did Alan, in other words:

"The Lord is my light and my help: whom should I fear?
The Lord protects my
life: what could terrify me?
When they come to do me harm, to consume my
flesh,
my enemies and my persecutors, it is they who stumble and fall.
...
For he will shelter me in his tent in the time of evils.
He will
hide me in the hidden parts of the tabernacle; then raise me up on a rock..."

and, then, knowing God will hear him, David asks what only one who knows his true place in God's Heart can ask:

Show me your ways, Lord, and guide me along the right path ..."

The NT canticle for tonight (Col 1:12-20) drives home this point, that we are God's Beloved Children, for whom Jesus endured the Cross, that we might be in the Family. What Joy!

Dorothy Day on Advent Waiting (from the Daily Dig)

In this brief quote, Dorothy Day captures perfectly the longing for Life to be born. And the wisdom of Silence. Read the whole piece. Use it for Lectio. Remember it while you are waiting for Christ fully to be born in you, again.

Here is a link to a brief biography of Dorothy Day.

Paradoxes of Salvation

After reading Steve Bush's piece on What is Salvation?, I did some checking around for some other stuff, and found this bit by Thomas Merton, in No Man is an Island.

This matter of "salvation" is, when seen intuitively, a very simple thing. But when we analyze it, it turns into a complex tangle of paradoxes. We become ourselves by dying to ourselves. We gain only what we give up, and if we give up everything we gain everything. We cannot find ourselves within ourselves, but only in others; yet at the same time, before we can go out to others we must first find ourselves. We must forget ourselves in order to become truly conscious of who we are. The best way to love ourselves is to love others; yet we cannot love others unless we love ourselves, since it is written, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." But if we love ourselves in the wrong way, we become incapable of loving anybody else. And indeed when we love ourselves wrongly, we hate ourselves; if we hate ourselves we cannot help hating others. Yet there is a sense in which we must hate others and leave them in order to find God... As for this finding of God, we cannot even look for Him unless we have already found Him, and we cannot find Him unless He has first found us. We cannot begin to seek Him without a special gift of His grace; yet if we wait for grace to move us before beginning to seek Him, we will probably never begin. ...
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island

What a relief!!

About Stability

At this entry, Aaron Klinefelter reflects that

"One of my observations of many conversations around 'emerging' things (culture, church, etc...) is the pervasive feeling of liminality. The 'in-between-ness' ... always in transition... never settled.... 'open-ended-ness'....

"Maybe what a watching world that yearns for home and feels the constant pressure of 'the next big thing', really needs is to see a People who make their home in a foreign land. A People who choose for stability in the face of tension and tenuousness."

It got me thinking about stability myself. In the past 5 months, on our small street of 10 houses/homes, 5 have been for sale or have new owners . In the past 2 years, another house traded hands. In half the cases, the former owners had been there only briefly themselves. And we are thinking of moving, too, even though we have already been here nearly 25 years.

So, I read Aaron's reflection, then did some googling myself about stability. One article that leapt out at me was this paper, presented at a Bluffton College conference on"Anabaptism & Postmodernity," (August 6-8, 1998) by Gerald Schlabach, an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Among Schlabach's relevant comments was this:

It is no use rediscovering any of our church's roots, nor discerning innovative ways to be faithful to our church's calling, if we won't slow down, stay longer even if we can't stay put indefinitely, and take something like a vow of stability. Slow down -- because postmodernism may really
be hypermodernism. Stay longer -- because there is no way to discern God's will together without commitment to sit long together in the first place. A vow of stability -- because it is no use discerning appropriate ways to be Christian disciples in our age if we do not embody them through time, testing, and the patience with one another that our good ideas and great ideals need, in order to prove their worth as communal practices.

As one Mennonite church leader remarked to me concerning the impact of constant mobility on our congregations: "It's getting so the Abrahamic thing to do is to stay put."3

Postmodernism, however, seems to thrive on the problem of instability, not confront it. If there's any such thing."

Instability, and pursuit of the next best thing? Of course, these are quite related in our culture and in our time, and as these others point out, can get in the way of catching the Grace and Spirit of God as it moves among us, animates us, and moves each and all toward Christ. But, again, the Psalmist has a word of contemplative wisdom:

In God alone there is rest for my soul,
from him comes my safety;
He alone is my rock, my safety, my stronghold so that I stand
unshaken.
Psalm 62: 1-2

Prayers for Alan

Alan Creech has developed a nagging upper respiratory thingie. Prayers for him from here, etc.