Today, I was thinking of all May holds and the special events in this season: graduations, baptisms, bridal showers, weddings, births, and the list goes on. The days when we hope to have the perfect day, to be our ideal self. And how much we try to make these days "perfect" with the planning and the details and the photos. Sometimes these days do not go as we hoped or imagined. However, memories and stories are made in these unplanned, unanticipated times. The "remember when" moments are created.

I have a few times in my own life:

Remember when....we were decorating the Christmas tree, and he fell on the coffee table and split his head open? He had to have seven staples!

Remember when....he borrowed his dad's wedding ring during the rehearsal dinner and forgot he gave it to his brother for safekeeping? We spent hours looking in muddy puddles in the rain!

Remember when....my best friend's mother died and we tried to surprise her by flying down early only to be delayed by flights for hours and not arriving until midnight?

These memories allow us to look back and remember how we try so hard to create the perfect moment. But, these imperfections make us human and are what makes us each unique and special. These are the days that create the "remember whens." The memories we relive and can look back and smile or laugh or cry. This is what makes life worth living - what makes life.

Each of us has our imperfections - and these imperfections are a part of us, what makes us who we are, integrated into our journey of life. Maybe we see our imperfections in those we love, allowing us to show a little of our soul, our true self. Maybe seeing others' "faults" gives us permission to forgive ourselves, and to forgive others. Allowing us all to just "be."

So when the next event doesn't go as planned, or the picnic gets rained out, or the flight gets delayed, know there is probably a story beginning. Embrace the moment; embrace yourself. And know that someday, you'll look back and remember when...

With blessings and prayers to all the remembering,

Robin Hood

Congregational Care Coordinator

UCC Still Speaking

Apostrophe

Quinn Caldwell

Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. - Psalm 122:2 (NRSV)

One of the things you’re supposed to outgrow as you get older is the sense that things are people. You’re supposed to let go of the suspicion that your house cares who lives in it, your blankie knows how you feel, the trees notice you walking under them. Sorry, Puff; Jackie Paper’s all grown up.

This is why poetry that directly addresses inanimate objects may sound faintly embarrassing to you. It feels like it comes from an earlier stage of human development, back before humanity turned off the cartoons and got a job.

And yet, being shaped, sometimes profoundly, by the land and the buildings you live in, the objects you cherish, the tools you use, isn’t something you grow out of. Neither is your emotional response to that shaping, whether it’s gratitude for shelter, appreciation of the ocean’s beauty, or anger at the thing you just stubbed your toe on.

Every item has a little bit of God in it. Each thing bears its Maker’s mark. Go ahead. Recite an ode to your coffee. Thank your church building for all it has held—or curse it, depending. Throw your arms out and praise the morning sun. They’re probably not going to talk back to you, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth addressing. One way or another, the words will land where they ought to. And anyway, the landing isn’t as important as the saying.

Just don’t use the word “O” when you do it. No need to make it weird.

Missive most blessed! Noble email of brevity and grace! Speed thy way thro’ sparking wires, wing thro’ wi-fied air, and touch thy reader’s soul with the feather of thy devotion.

Sometimes the Spirit shows up as vibrant and loud as a rainbow enveloping us with hope.

Our Older Adult Day at Akita was a hit! We enjoyed a fabulous lunch with a prayer from Dr. Glen Miles, a guided tour with Andy Frick, Adventure Program Director, and a wonderful message on Vesper Hill given by Rev. Mary Kate Buchanan. Check out the pictures below. We will plan another trip this fall!

And then what happens? Well, take climate action for example: “The reality is that more than 70% of people in the U.S. are already worried about climate change,” according to climate scientist and evangelical Christian Dr. Katherine Hayhoe, “and about 35 percent of those are really worried. So,” she says, “the biggest problem is not the people who aren’t on board; the biggest problem is the people who don’t know what to do. And if we don’t know what to do, we do nothing.”

And related to my quandary over “What can I do?!” is another question that has been haunting me for some time now: What kind of ancestor do I want to be?

So I am playing with an idea that psychologist James Hillman expresses in We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World’s Getting Worse. Using the spiritual concept of kenosis, or self-emptying, expressed in the ancient hymn in Philippians, “Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” Hillman expands it to political action: “Politically, I am pretty empty,” he says, describing how difficult it is to know the best way to make change in society.

Much like Sister Joan Chittister’s definition of God above, Hillman said in this 1992 book, “Kenosis seems now the only political way to be—emptied out of certainty. Otherwise, you become a fundamentalist united with an almighty ideology, protected from above by a cause. [With politics] I’d rather connect kenosis with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Kenosis is a form of action—Protest.

“Kenosis puts the emptiness in a new light,” says Hillman. “It values the emptiness. It says ‘empty protest’ is a via negativa, a non-positivist way of entering the political arena. You take your outrage seriously, but you don’t force yourself to have answers. Trust your nose. You know what stinks. Don’t try to replace the helpless frustration you feel, the powerless victimization, by working out a rational answer. The answers will come, if they come, when they come, to you, to others, but don’t fill in the emptiness of the protest with positive suggestions before their time. First, protest! I don’t know what should be done about most of the major political dilemmas, but my gut (my soul, my heart, my skin, my eyes) sinks, creeps, crawls, weeps, cringes, shakes. It’s wrong, simply wrong, what’s going on here.”

As Hillman also says, “Empty protest is protest for the sake of the emotions that fuel it and is rooted not in the conscious fullness of improvement, but in radical negativity. In theological language, empty protest is a ritual of negative thinking. It’s what the Hindus call neti, neti, neti—not this, not this, not this. No utopia, no farther shore toward which we march, only the march, the shout, the placard, the negative vote, the refusal.”

That uncertainty, the emptying, that not-knowing may exactly be what opens us to “make our own glories and give them recklessly away.” Would that we would all be remembered as that kind of ancestor!

Note: Our dinner times have changed from 5:30 pm to 6 pm throughout the summer. Book Discussion times remain the same.

Dinner at Louie’s Grill

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

3975 Townsfair Way, Easton

Café Istanbul

Book Discussion

Title not yet determined

Do you have a new baby in the family? Want to know more about baptisms? Is someone in the hospital? Would you like someone from the church to call on you? Has there been a family death? We want to hear from you to know how we can help. Please email or call the Pastoral Care office to let us know of these life changes at (614) 488-0681 ext. 235 or email Robin.