First Community Older Adult Times wishes you a blessed summer. In this newsletter, you will find current programs and gatherings along with links and emails to help you get connected. If you or someone you know would like a hard copy of this issue, please contact the editor. Find out more about the FC Older Adult ministry and view previous issues of this newsletter here.
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Summer is here, and so are the 17-year cicadas! If you have not had a chance to see these insects, just come to Dublin, Ohio. They have taken over the trees, bushes, and walkways, and on warmer days, they seem to be more actively flying and buzzing around. The noise is almost deafening. I try to remind myself that they are part of this world, and must have some benefit (although it's hard to know what that might be).
On a more thoughtful note, the months of May and June allow us to remember and thank our loved ones on several occasions. Mother's Day, Memorial Day, D-Day, and Father's Day all occur within one month. I hope you were able to be with loved ones during this time, especially with the lifting of mandates from the CDC. Things might not be back to how they were, but maybe that's not a bad thing. Perhaps we can see things differently (like the cicadas) and embrace small things that we used to take for granted. Meeting in person, handshakes, smiles, holding hands.
Whether you are staying close to home or taking your first trip in a year or more, this season is one we won't forget. This summer will be the light after dark, the together after solitude, the "in-person" after Zoom calls, the blessing after prayers.
With blessings, hugs, and love for you all,
Robin Hood
Congregational Care Coordinator
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Prayer Chain
Please let us know of any needed prayers. These prayers are confidential unless specified by you for a call from our clergy.
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Parish Registry
Please see the most recent parish that includes member births, weddings, and deaths.
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Daily Devotional
Deep Listening
Kaji Douša
“And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language”? - Acts 2:8 (NRSV)
I’m not going to “bright side” the tragedy of the past 15 months, but I will say this: there have been some blessings in this season.
One of these blessings is that, at least for me, I have been deepening in my relationships. Having real and long conversations with people I love around the world. I talk daily – sometimes for hours – with people. And this didn’t happen before. In fact, I almost never talked on the phone socially prior to the pandemic. (At least not since middle school.)
We are talking. And we’re talking deeply. Sharing more than we usually would. Moving past trying to put on a cheerful take and into more intimacy and vulnerability.
And with this deep talking, so many of us have also been practicing deep listening, too.
What is deep listening?
Deep listening, as one piece put it, is “listening to learn.”
And what happens when we listen deeply is that we come to understand someone better.
Deep listening is an antidote to isolation. Nothing feels better than being seen, heard, and loved for who we are. In fact, this is one of the primary purposes of church.
We are now in the season of Pentecost, which reminds us that when the church was born, they were together. They were worshiping. And they were seen. And heard. And cared for. They didn’t just talk; they revealed who they were, and they were loved and understood. They learned from and about each other. All facilitated by the Holy Spirit.
Which to me means that in these moments of intense isolation, when we have these opportunities of connection, we are actually receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. We are experiencing God.
Is this your church? If so, give thanks. If not, ask questions.
Prayer
Thank you for the opportunity to love and to be loved. Amen.
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Visiting the Cemetery
by Reverend Jim Long, Minister of Pastoral Care
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My Grandmother Betty Long asked me before she died that I visit her grave on Memorial Day. My brother and I lived with her after our parents died. She was of a generation that believed in visiting family graves on “Decoration Day.”
Thus, I took flowers to the graves of three generations of my family this past Memorial Day. All are at Union Cemetery here in Columbus, where I have officiated at numerous graveside services. I know of the graves of many friends and neighbors located there as well. I find it comforting to remember the lives of so many who made a difference in my life.
When I visit the graves of my Grandparents, Dr. Link and Martha Murphy, on the “old” or eastern side of the cemetery, I pass a grave of a soldier who died fighting on Okinawa during World War II. I do not know anything about him or his family, but I am very familiar with the sacrifice of so many in that world-wide conflict. He was so young when he died. But there is always a flag there and recognition of his service.
Dr. Roy Burkhart wrote a book called The Church and the Returning Soldier. A picture of him with my uncle, Dr. Bob Murphy, is on the inside dust cover. Uncle Bob, who was our guardian, is in his uniform. He was in the Medical Corps at Walter Reed hospital in Washington, D.C. Dr. Burkhart describes the church’s ministry to those who came back from the war. Memorial Day is a day we remember those who have served, particularly those who made the ultimate sacrifice. That young soldier did return to Union Cemetery, and we remember him.
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How To Be an Elder
by Reverend David Hett, Dean of The Burkhart Center
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This is a really misleading title: How to be an elder? Because I don’t know.
Maybe in 2 or 3 or 30 lifetimes I might have an idea. It has nothing to do with age. While children’s advocate Marian Wright Edelman, a true elder, is 82, Martin Luther King, Jr., was an elder by the time he was 30.
Stephen Jenkinson writes: There is nothing inherently ennobling about aging. Nothing. There’s no sign that anything lends old people steadiness or wisdom or magic from on high or from down below. If we can’t train young people and middle-aged people in elderhood, we will have no elderhood. At least he notes that those of us who are aging have had the deck stacked against us: There is no such training, he says. Without culturally endorsed deep employment of this treasure of experience that could be elderhood, aging is just more of the same with less of the give-a-(expletive). It’s all swoon, the sordid lunge for enduring at any cost. It’s an extended-play version of middle age, plus infirmity. And it seems to me that this is what the aged among us have become.
After Donald Trump was elected in 2016, one of my good younger friends asked the question, “Where were the elders in all of this? They are supposed to protect us from this!” Clearly, they were in the same place that they’ve been for racism, homophobia, toxic masculinity, climate crisis, economic injustice, violence (of gun, police, military, and domestic varieties)—and democracy itself—pretty much underground, or worse, leading or complying with all those “powers and principalities” of the age.
“The day will surely come,” writes Jenkinson, “when young people will come to you—as they have begun to come to me—and ask what you did about the troubles, and whether you knew how bad it was, or whether you handed over to them a diminished world with a shrug of compassion fatigue and a vacant wish of good luck, or whether you stood up for them. Until that day, you and I are—we must be—elders in training.”
So I’ve been influenced by reading Jenkinson this spring, and the thoughts I’m sharing here are mostly his beginning themes from Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble. This is a “troubling” book for me because he does not go easy on those of us who are getting older. But I think it’s “good trouble” for us, or at least it has been for me. An initial major theme is this:
There are more old people among us, both numerically and as a ratio of the population, then there have ever been . . . and it seems that there are fewer elders than ever before. Something has happened to aging he writes:
Something happened to what it does, to what it means, to what it asks of us all. Something in the fabric of life in North America inveighs severely against limit and ambivalence and not firing on all cylinders all the time, and this something is being driven to panic by the daily news, and in the panic you’ll find the refusal to age. This something robs age of elderhood. No one would seem to benefit from the theft, and it isn’t likely that anyone would vote for it, but there is a general willingness to forgo aging, and to live without the elderhood that could have come with it. Wisdom is a personal thing now, and nothing more than another opinion in the opinion fest of popular culture, and agedness is at best a prolonged unextinguished middle age, and the therapists and life coaches are busy.
Stephen Jenkinson’s marching orders for us older adults: So I set before you a task, a pilgrimage of a kind. Let us see if there are enough among us who can grow sturdy and sorrowed from the labours (spelled correctly—he is Canadian) of a deep and disheveling contemplation of what has become of age in our time.
Of this lengthy book, which also includes a great number of etymological segues, which I value and enjoy, Jenkinson says, This is not a training manual for elders. (Which is exactly what I was looking for.) it is not a five-step plan for spirit rehabilitation, and it is not in any way pretending to be a frequent flyer reward for any man or woman having made it this far. . .. Mostly, this is a ballad of courtship for the aging and for the old. I am calling them to come back to the shuffle and the sway of our mutual life, to join us in the village square of what is to come, to forego the climate-controlled inner life.
I am making the case for elderhood, not for easy-agedness. I’m doing so mostly by wondering what happened. Because something happened. Something happened to ancestors and elders and honour. There’s work to be done, and there’s an old wisdom to be learned where there used to be the wisdom of old, and you can’t fix what you don’t understand. That’s where we’re headed: to grievous wisdom. Let us see if we can bear the sound, the particular sound, of no hand clapping. . . . This is a plea for elders in training.
What has become of age in our time? To me, this “deep and disheveling contemplation” sounds like a necessary pilgrimage to take in this “time of trouble.”
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Older Adult Council Update
by Bruce and Ellen Crouthamel
Co-chairs of The Older Adult Council
Like many businesses, schools, churches, and other groups, the FCC Older Adult Council has had its monthly meetings via Zoom. Although it is great to see the folks who make up the council on Zoom, we all missed the face-to-face, in-person gatherings. We are so excited about our next meeting being held in person at FCC North in the courtyard.
The Older Adult Council’s purpose is to search for and provide learning and spiritual growth opportunities for older adults. We also strive to provide an environment for social interaction and serve as an agent for communication, outreach, and advocacy for older adults. The council members have been writing notes to welcome new older adults to our church. We also write notes to ill people, people who are grieving, lonely people, and people who perhaps need a boost in some way or have something to be celebrated. We don’t always know who might benefit from these notes, so your help would be greatly appreciated. If you know of anyone who might benefit from these notes, please drop us an email.
The Older Adult Council is also in the process of planning a fun day at Camp Akita on Tuesday, September 14, for older adults. We are still in the planning process for this event, but be on the lookout for upcoming announcements.
The Older Adult Council meets once a month on the 2nd Thursday at 4 pm. We are always looking for new council members, and we would love to have you join us if this sounds like a council you might enjoy. We will be recruiting new members for 2022.
As we move into the summer months and with our lives getting somewhat back to “normal,” we wish all of you many blessings, and we hope you are reunited with family and friends you maybe haven’t seen in a very long time!
Bruce and Ellen Crouthamel,
bcrout@aol.com or esue50@aol.com
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Congregational Care Council
By Sally Hughes, Governing Board liaison
I grew up in Chardon, Ohio. Throughout my childhood, my family and I attended Chardon United Methodist Church.
In 1976 I moved to Columbus to attend Otterbein College, majoring in vocal music. After my first year, I transferred to Ohio University, where I changed to major in English Literature and Spanish.
However, I never lost my love for music and performing.
After graduation from Ohio University in 1980, I decided to pursue a career in music theatre, which led me to move out west with stops in Bozeman, Montana, Big Sky, Yellowstone National Park, then finally landed in San Diego, California.
While performing in San Diego and honing my skills for my eventual move to Los Angeles, I met Kim Gage, the son of Esther Williams. Yes, that Esther Williams and she became my mentor in the entertainment field and life.
I stayed in the Los Angeles area for six years, trying to make it big in the music business. Eventually, I realized the demo tapes, auditions, the live music performance, late nights, and the constant battle of trying to make it in the business had to end. I realized too that I would not become a star in the music business, and it was time for me to head back to Ohio and get on with my life.
Once I moved back to Cleveland, I discussed with my dad, who owned Shiffler Equipment Sales. We talked about different business opportunities; during this conversation, he mentioned he got calls for casters; for him, casters were a low priority. The mention of casters sparked my interest, and I ran to the library. I did tons of research about casters and started selling chair casters out of the trunk of my car and from a tackle box.
I founded Caster Connection Inc. in 1987 and began to build the business. Thirty-four years later, we are now a manufacturer and distributor of industrial casters and wheels worldwide.
In 1996, I moved back to Columbus to be closer to my Fiancé and future husband of 24 years, John.
With marriage, John and I refocused our spiritual needs back to the church, and that is when we started to focus on finding the right church for us. We visited numerous churches in the area and discovered First Community Church.
It fulfilled all my needs, including music, the neighborhood, the friends, the love and feeling of community I needed. When we visited FCC, the music was playing, and Dick Wing was preaching. John and I looked at each other and agreed we had found our church.
John and I were blessed to have a daughter, Gwen, born in 1998 and was baptized by Dr. Dick Wing.
I then approached Kurt Smith, our contemporary music director, about joining the music program, and he welcomed me with open arms. My connection to the church was solidified. I found the love of the church, a sense of belonging, and my passion all in one place.
John, Gwen, and I live in Upper Arlington. My company, Caster Connection Inc., is 34 years old and, thankfully, held up well during COVID with only a minor dip in sales. It was a scary time for the business, but we ran a tight ship, and I am proud to say we kept our team fully employed.
I am grateful for the sense of community FCC has always given to my family and me. So much so that I extended my commitment by sitting on the governing board.
While COVID upset traditional religious services, the online services were our connection, and I am thankful that services have resumed.
Thanks be to God.
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Remembering Dr. Kline Roberts, III
By Jackie Cherry, Church Historian
As we look back on the history of First Community Church, we often think in terms of our Senior Ministers……the Burkhart era, the Raines years, Glen Miles's tenure. We sometimes don't remember that the ministers we had our closest relationships with were those on the clergy staff. Who was your youth minister? Whom did you seek out when you decided that you might benefit from counseling? Whom did you call when your mother died? I thought about this last year when Lynn Whybrew's son died and again recently when I read in the Parish Register that Kline Roberts had lost his wife. Barbara had been a member of my Women's Guild Group, so perhaps that was why I felt particularly sad to learn that she was gone.
Kline had grown up at First Community along with his brothers Scott and Doug. His whole family was very involved in the church, and his mother was on the Counseling Center staff. Kline was well known due to his leadership of the Akita staff during the early 1960s. This may have been one reason FC called him to join the staff as our Minister of Renewal in October 1983 with significant responsibility for Camp Akita. In accepting his new role, Kline said, "My return to First Community with special responsibility for the Akita ministry is a homecoming that I joyfully embrace."
When asked to describe his family, Kline explained that in reality, they were two families that had become one, but they didn't think of themselves as unusual. "We are made up of step-children, step-siblings, adopted children, and biological children who are age 19, 18, 13, 12, 10, and 4-year-old Penny." He described his family as being rich in experience, diversity, and caring, and indeed they were. Barbara was his delightful, efficient, thoughtful red-haired wife with a delightful laugh who was his near-perfect partner.
For two years, Kline retained the title of Minister of Renewal until 1985, when he was named the Coordinator of Pastoral Care to assist Dr. Arthur Sanders. These also were responsibilities for which Kline was well suited. At Union Theological Seminary, he held the Rockefeller Fellowship and majored in psychiatry and religion. He had also served as a chaplain and instructor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Colgate University. We bade Kline farewell when he left us in 1994 to minister to a congregation in St. Louisville, Ohio, and later earned his Doctor of Divinity Degree. He is currently living in Duarte, California, but a recent note from him mentioned that he appreciates all the friends he made during his years at First Community.
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Achieving Your Career Success Group |
Are you ready to Ace your next job interview? This program works for you and it’s a proven, personalized method focusing on:
- listening with compassion
- defining your goals
- planning the steps
- mapping the best approach
- finding the ideal new career and role
- achieving your goals
- celebrating with you
Find the ideal role for your career by working with an experienced career coach. We have a proven method which is defined by vice-president’s and C-levels; the decision makers.
Join our Achieving Your Career Success Group and find the career that best fits you. Led by Mike Collins. Beginning June 29 for three weeks at 6 pm.
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Monday Meals Mission
By Carol Baker
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In 1983 Friends of the Homeless Shelter (FOH) was identified as the site of a local mission with an important “hands on” component that is known as Monday Meals. At that time 40 men were housed in the upper area of the building and 10 women were in the lower level. Every Monday, FCC members from Couple Circles, Women’s Guilds, Councils and a group known as “Fourth Monday” provided and served a meal at FOH.
Now, almost 38 years and 2000 Mondays later, the meals are no longer carried up a fire escape to be served, the women are housed at another shelter and the building made over to accommodate 150 men. For many years FOH had its own administration, but now Southeast healthcare services manages the shelter and helps the men move out of homelessness with multiple social and mental health services. The shelter has no kitchen facilities and relies on volunteer groups such as FCC’s Monday Meals mission to provide an evening meal.
Historically, groups signed up to provide a Monday meal at the Missions table on several Sundays in October (considered the beginning of the church year) and amazingly almost all the Mondays would be taken. As coordinator of this mission, I found groups to complete the calendar. But time and change has meant there were fewer groups available to cover each Monday of the month. These groups are close knit, multigenerational and committed to providing a meal every Monday…except for a Monday in November when the members of Guild & who have been providing a meal for about three decades and refuse to “age out.”
Since the pandemic, half of the men are being housed at the WMCA downtown and the Monday Meals groups are not serving the meals they provide. Instead, the groups meet in the SC parking lot to organize the meals for delivery to FOH. The Monday Meals are volunteers looking forward to the men returning to the shelter and again both providing and serving the meals. The men are so very thankful and it is a pleasure to be a part of the help needed to move these men out of homelessness.
As always, volunteers are needed to keep this mission viable and if you are interested in learning more about Monday Meals please contact Carol at: cabjlb59@gmail.com or (614) 488-3007.
Personal History –
In 1995, after retiring from the OSU College of Nursing my husband John and I joined the Fourth Monday group and I became a member of Mission Council. When Joel Hawley retired from FCC and coordinating the Monday Meals mission in 1999 I volunteered to keep the mission going.
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Guild Digital Cookbook
From Kitty Rohrer, President
The Guilds are back! With the pandemic this past year, the Guild Groups haven't been able to participate in their usual activities or hold any of their usual fundraisers.
This is our only fund-raiser in the last 18 months, so we hope we can generate some interest. I am becoming hopeful that we might be able to have our Soup & Casserole Sale after church in the fall. We'll just have to see.
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Welcome to Creative Connection. This program is intended to be an extra outreach to our members who are not able to get out as much as others, who might be homebound, not able to be online, or who need extra love and attention through these different times. You will find activities and readings below.
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Grief Group : Led by Rev. Jim Long and parishioner Janice Beaty. Meets the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month at 7 pm in the Narthex at North.
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ElderWisdom Book Group: Meets the 4th Thursday of the month beginning in September at 1 pm in the Library at South. Contact Lorelei Lotozo or Robin Hood at (614) 488-0681 ext. 235 to receive the Zoom invite and to be added to the email list.
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Weekly Bible Study: Contact Rev. Jim Long. Meets Wednesday evenings at 7 pm. Beginning May 19 will meet in person in North Room 101.
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Recipe of the Month
First Community member Jane Belt has provided our recipe for June! She got her recipe from My Beef with Meat by Rip Esselstyn. Please see her yummy dish below.
Lime-Mango Bean Salad
- 1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 mango, pitted, peeled and cut into cubes
- 1 avocado, pitted peeled and cut into cubes
- ¼ red onion, diced, or more if desired
- 1 bunch fresh cilantro (or arugula or spinach)
- Zest and juice of 1 lime or more
Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Be sure to use enough lime; if there is not a lot of juice in your lime, use two.
Serve immediately, or chilled.
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ElderWisdom
September book selection:
A Promised Land by Barrack Obama
Thursday, September 30, 1 pm
Library, South
Come join our book club! ElderWisdom is a group of people who enjoy reading and discussing a variety of books. This group is perfect for anyone looking to connect with others and for some fellowship. We hope you will join us for our next meeting. You do not need to have read the book to attend – all are welcome. Please contact Lorelei Lanier Lotozo at (614) 209-7125 or Robin Hood, Congregational Care Coordinator, with questions or to add your name to our email list to receive the Zoom meeting invite.
Click here to get your copy and to read more about the book. |
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One Final Thought
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Week Twenty-three: The Holiness of Human Sexuality
Incarnational, Queer Love
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Presbyterian minister Mihee Kim-Kort came to identify as queer after she was ordained, married, and a mother. Once considered a pejorative, “queer” has been reclaimed by some LGBTQ people to describe themselves—and it reflects many attributes of a Christian incarnational view of the world! Although challenged by many of her preconceived ideas of what was acceptable to church and society, she has chosen to live and minister authentically as a queer Christian. In this passage describing queerness, she captures the heart of an embodied faith that celebrates love and sexuality.
Christian history is full of stories of love and passion for God. . . .
This kind of passion . . . is what fuels love and action, where “desire carries that life.” Desire coaxes and draws out, leads and pushes, pulls and compels us to live and love out loud. The cliché slogan Make Love, Not War makes sense. There is something profoundly revolutionary about lovemaking as a way to reject making death. It’s resisting the darkness and destruction of life, of light and love. And while it’s protesting, resisting, and surviving, it’s also creating and making life in response to forces that would take away life. It’s more than surviving; it’s creating, thriving, flourishing.
What I realize I need and want to be a part of is a kind of work that cultivates the expansiveness of love. I dream often of the kind of world we could have for us, for our children, if we weren’t so concerned with regulating, disciplining, and closeting love all the time. If anything, it’s absolutely clear that this world needs more love. Rather than focusing so much energy on categorizing and classifying sexuality and making it conform to narrow representations, I long for our world to encourage lovemaking, to spark in those around me a desire to love ourselves and love each other into more life and love. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned about love, whether experienced among family, friends, or my children, it is that it is contagious and expands exponentially. It overflows the cup. Once released and liberated, it changes everything. . . .
Queerness . . . always tends toward a dynamic generosity, a grace that allows for mistakes and failures, because our lives are richer when we hold all of what is human. . . . A queer spirituality transgresses the boundaries of how we live, move, and breathe through this world. It is truly embodied, and rooted in flesh-and-blood bodies, bodies that are surprising and show up as icons and words. It is also rooted in the body of Christ, in God-with-Us, in the continuous blurring of transcendence and immanence.
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Interested in Membership? |
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To learn more about First Community or to become a member, contact Carrie Schwab, Director of Member Engagement at (614) 488-0681 ext. 161 |
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If you would like to make a gift to First Community, you can click the buttons below to make your pledge or to give. |
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Do you have thoughts or comments about the FC Older Adult Times? Please email or write Robin Hood, Congregational Care Coordinator and Editor, at 1320 Cambridge Blvd, Columbus, OH 43212.
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First Community | FCchurch.com |
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