December 5, 2019

Dear Friends of Cayuga-Syracuse Presbytery,

Welcome to this week's edition of our e-letter, Presbytery Matters. Our goal is to highlight things going on throughout the Church: within our Presbytery, in our congregations, as well as in the Synod of the Northeast and across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). We hope that these are things that will be helpful, informative, challenging, encouraging, supportive. In other words, we hope that these things will matter. Your input is valued, and your comments are always welcomed.

Memory Café blends support and social time 

 

As our population ages, Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia are on the increase. One challenge of living with memory changes is that social ties can be severed at a time when they are so badly needed -- both for the person experiencing the changes and for their caregivers. A helpful response is the formation of Memory Cafés, first in The Netherlands and then across Europe, and now in more than two hundred locations throughout the United States.  

A Memory Café is a safe and comfortable space where an individual with memory changes and their caregivers can socialize, listen and sing to music, play games, and enjoy other appropriate activities. 

The Syracuse Memory Café (SMC), an outreach program of Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church in DeWitt began in January 2017.  The SMC is run and staffed by 20 members of Pebble Hill. Church members provide a place for community and socialization in a safe, welcoming and friendly environment.   

 

A typical Syracuse Memory Café includes coffee and socializing, a humorous ice breaker, a few songs, a specially arranged activity or entertainment such as a drumming circle, magicians, Tai Chi, or a musical presentation like the Syracuse Pops Chorus or a Ukulele group followed by a light meal. 

The Syracuse Memory Café meets on the second Wednesday of each month in Pebble Hill's fellowship hall and there is no charge to attend. The program has guests that travel from as far away as Watertown.    

 

If you know of someone that is suffering from any form of dementia or someone that is a caregiver to a dementia sufferer, please tell them about the Syracuse Memory Café. Anyone and everyone is welcome!   

 

For more information, visit SMC website or Facebook page.

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I n our prayers together this week...

• Please pray for the family and friends of Elder Pat Neumann, who passed away on Nov 20. Pray for the Rev. Dan McCollister and his family as they grieve the passing of his wife, Julie. Elder Julie McCollister passed away on Nov 30. Pray for the community of King Ferry church in their time of grief and mourning.
• Pray for the Rev. Ed Kang who has just been diagnosed with angiosarcoma and will begin chemotherapy treatments very soon. The Rev. Kang, honorably retired Cayuga-Syracuse pastor, is currently residing in a Presbyterian retirement community in Owego along with his wife Mae. He is well known to many of us as an ardent supporter of our international Partnership with Pyongyang Presbytery in South Korea.
• Pray for the Rev. Kurt Esslinger, our mission co-worker in South Korea, and our Christian brothers and sisters in North and South Korea. Kurt has been participating in the Ecumenical Forum for Korea (sponsored by the World Council of Churches) in Shenyang, China where he just facilitated a meeting with the Korean Christian Federation from the DPRK (North Korea). Major events are being planned by the National Council of Churches in Korea for Washington DC the week of June 22, 2020 (coinciding with our General Assembly) regarding the 70th anniversary of the breakout of the Korean War and current efforts to support a peace treaty. Whether or not Christians from North Korea will be allowed to participate in these events depends on whether or not the U.S. will grant them visas.
• Pray for Jim Russell as he continues his fight with esophagus cancer.

Hello, Cayuga-Syracuse!

It's that Pleasin' Season!

I knew we were deep in it when I overheard a man wearily talking about the three different types of stuffing he was preparing for Thanksgiving (let the debate about stuffing vs. dressing commence!) His plan was to make something to please his new mother-in-law as well as his father. The final stuffing was his own preference, or as he referred to it, a "dealer's choice."

Many of us are hard at work pleasing folks this time of year. From gifts to cards... even where we decide to spend our holidays can be geared around the needs and desires of another. To please someone is to satisfy their needs or desires, sometimes at the expense of our own.

Churches get into the swing of 'pleasing' as well. I recall several pastors who have said to me over the years that during this season they try to have something for everyone! In my last church, we came up with the idea of doing a holiday hymn sing prior to the Christmas Eve service so that on that night, everyone's favorite carol could be sung.   

There is nothing wrong with pleasing others...

 

...unless it is making you miserable.

That guy with the stuffing seemed to regret his decision to make three variations of the same dish. The woman at Target buying a ton of plastic for her children didn't seem as jolly as that task would warrant. There were some Christmases when this pastor barely had the energy for Christmas Eve, let alone a full hymn-sing.

Pleasing others can be exhausting. Of course, the opposite isn't healthy either.  Those who work to only please themselves become mean and embittered.

It is no accident that during this "Pleasin' Season" we tell the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge. Dicken's Scrooge is a model of someone who initially only pleased himself. At the end of the story he figures it out, and his life changes not because he wants to please others, but out of an abundance of spirit. Scrooge on Christmas morning is an image of generosity, which is in stark contrast with someone who is focused on pleasing others. The difference between generosity and pleasing folk is, well, as different as stuffing and dressing.  

As you go about Advent, and as you prepare for Christmas, are you seeking to please others? Or are the gifts you give and the time you spend offered out of your own joy?

Wishing you generosity and joy this season -

Karen

 

Our Resource Presbyter, the Rev. Karen Chamis, will be working remotely at the following locations: 

  

Date: Monday, December 9, 2019

Time: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  

Place: Salt City Coffee, 509 W. Onondaga St., Syracuse

 

Please note: Karen will be on hiatus for the rest of December, but will be back doing Mobile Offices beginning in January.

 

Feel free to drop in for a conversation - or just to say hello

Karen can be reached at 315-632-5698 (option 1) or kchamis@cayugasyracuse.org 

 

For the past 6 years, Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence has declared an ecumenical, interfaith Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath in the month of December.

This year, the sabbath is scheduled for Dec. 12 - 15.

In the year 2019, we have seen more mass shootings then there are days in the year and we have seen enough school shootings to average one per week. Thousands of people will lose their lives to gun violence this year and our nation stands paralyzed by the politics of inaction and the emotionally overwhelming images of violence flashing across our television screens. These are the moments that cry out to the church to fulfill its role as the consciousness of the nation. The December sabbath is simply a moment to pause, reflect, pray, mourn and rededicate ourselves to the non-partisan truth that death by violence is not normal or acceptable.

 

Scipioville Presbyterian Church in Scipio Center will observe this sabbath on Friday, Dec. 13. For 12 hours, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., the Psalms will be read aloud from our pulpit. We recognize the psalms as the most honest, vulnerable, beautiful and emotionally raw writings in our biblical canon. As we consider so much of scripture to be God speaking to a people, the psalms represent a people crying out to God. So, in response to the overwhelming trauma and destruction caused by gun violence in this nation, we will stand and speak the words of a people to their God in challenging, uncertain circumstances. We acknowledge that the time for thoughts and prayers has passed; and yet, we also affirm that the mission and action of the church must be anchored in relationship to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. From our prayer, our psalms, comes a dedication to turn words into actions, psalms into proclamation.

 

We are inviting our siblings in Christ to join us with your presence and/or with your voice. We are looking for volunteers to read in 15, 30, 45, or 60 minute shifts. Our hope is that this 12 hours will be a diversity of voices and faces speaking in unity with one another in response to an epidemic. 

If you are interested in being a reader, please email pastorfitzfye@gmail.com ASAP.

If you would like to simply offer a moment of your presence in solidarity, please know that there is no mandatory timeframe of attendance. You are welcome to wander in and out of our sanctuary throughout the day, once, or even for a fleeting moment.  Every moment of your presence is a gift and a sign of acknowledgment for the loss, the fear, and the trauma caused by gun violence.

 

We hope you will consider participating by voice or by presence. For all of those who have lost a loved one, feared for the safety of a loved one, or found themselves in the uncertainty of not knowing, we offer you our voices, lifted in the common plea, "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!"

 

God's peace be with you.

 

Pastor Ben

 

Scipioville Presbyterian Church

3428 State Route 34

Scipio Center, NY 13147

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December 16-17         Synod's Presbytery Leadership Forum at Stony Point  

Ministry by the vulnerable with the vulnerable

Presbyterian churches  

in Iraq faithful to  

Matthew 25 call to  

'serve the least of these'

By Elmarie Parker, Mission Connections

Special to Presbyterian News Service

 

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) partners from the Assembly of Evangelical (Presbyterian) Churches in Iraq are sharing, in their own words, about the Matthew 25 ministries to which they have been called.

Ministries bringing hope to incarcerated women and children in Kirkuk, housing to Muslim and Christian families displaced from their homes in the Nineveh Plain and Mosul, and clean, drinkable water to people in southern Iraq -- all are ministries supported by U.S. Presbyterians.

Ministry to incarcerated women and children in Kirkuk:

"I write to you today to provide an update on a recent visit to the Kirkuk women's jail," explained Mayada Jazrawi, who oversees the prison visitation ministry of the Presbyterian Church in Kirkuk.

"There were 52 women and 15 children. As has been the case in our recent visits, the majority of the women in jail were widows of suspected ISIS terrorists. Many of them were familiar with us, including the newer ones who hadn't met us before - the rest of the women had told them about us."

Continue reading...

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This Presbyterian minister is as genuinely nice in person as he is on TV

By Eva Stimson for Presbyterians Today

Special to Presbyterian News Service

 

 

Editor's note: The film "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" has rekindled the nation's appreciation for Fred Rogers, the best-known Presbyterian clergyperson since John Witherspoon. In 1997, Eva Stimson, then editor of Presbyterians Today, was fortunate to interview Rogers. Below is her piece, published in the March 1998 edition of Presbyterians Today.

PITTSBURGH - Anyone with kids and a television set knows Fred Rogers. Three generations of children have grown up with "Mister Rogers" - the friendly sweater-and-sneakers-clad grownup who talks frankly about feelings and invites them to be part of his TV "neighborhood." What is less widely known is that Fred Rogers is a Presbyterian minister, ordained in 1962 by Pittsburgh Presbytery.

Early on a Monday afternoon America's best-loved neighbor is catching up on stacks of correspondence in his office in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, following a quick trip to Toronto. Just before a scheduled interview he squeezes in time for a carton of yogurt.

Then he appears, smiling and relaxed, to ask, "What do you want to talk about?" For the next hour his comments emerge thoughtfully, deliberately, graciously - just like on TV.

It is not hard to imagine this man giving up his lunch break for eight years to take Bible and theology courses. "It's fairly unorthodox to go to seminary on your lunch hour," he says. "Which is what I literally did."

That was back in the 1950s. Rogers had just begun working for WQED in Pittsburgh, the nation's first community-supported public television station. He had planned to go to seminary right after college - in fact had already been accepted - but got sidetracked by a call to work in television. A few years later seminary became a way of undergirding this call - to minister to children and their families through the media.

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