Week of November 19, 2017

Dear Friends,

The dark mornings are both hard and a gift.  I want to snuggle under the covers a bit longer, but the dogs must be walked.  I put flashers on them, a light on myself and bundle up and head out.  Somewhere along the way the sun starts coming up.  When I am in a place of grace, I pay attention.  Each morning is a gift of dawning.   I might prefer to dwell in the rights and wrongs the blacks and whites, the goods and evils.  But morning is a perennial reminder that what is between is most lively, rich, beautiful and fleeting.  

May it be so for you.

Peace, 

Susan

Week of November 12, 2017

Dear Friends,

This weekend, we will celebrate Commitment Sunday.  It may sound like a bummer.  It’s not. 

Commitment has a certain ring about it. It sounds kind of onerous.  But let’s not fall prey to a cold interpretation of the word.  In our faith tradition, God carries a reliable and beautiful commitment to us.  No matter what transpires, God continues to be present as a choice, a possibility, an orientation, a promise. 

I like what Douglas John Hall says about the commitment of God.

God is of course the Creator, the One who put the universe together in motion.  That is awe inspiring.  But even more sublime, God is the perpetual and omnipresent teacher.  As long as we breathe, the Teacher offers meaning and the threat of redemption in every living moment.  For those who believe, you cannot escape this commitment.

The Teacher is always teaching.  The Teacher is always on the side of a redeemed future.  Those gifts come to us whether or not they feel like gifts.  My old friend, Russ Kohl, told me a story last weekend.  (He and his wife, Beth, are about to join THCC!!).  Russ was in a terrible accident a few months back.  He had multiple serious injuries, and spent a number of months recovering.  It was grueling and painful.  But then as he tells the story, he tells of the Good Samaritan who stopped and pulled him out of his burning car.  He talks about the weaving of second chances into life.  He talks about God, and his heart’s desire to recommit to God. 

Life is intense.  It is chalked full of endings - happy and sad.  It is chalked full of beginnings too.  For some, the journey seems unbearably hard.  For others, the journey seems a little easier.  Who knows why or how the cards were dealt??  Some questions float, unanswerable, on the waves.  Yet the reliable and beautiful commitment of God is real.  It is Teacher, and companion, and promise. 

Our church acknowledges, celebrates, and invites the beautiful commitment of God into our lives.  It is music.  It is bible study and book studies.  It is bedside presence in hospitals and nursing homes.  It is meals, medicine and scholarships.  It is the gift that keeps on giving. 

Please bring your pledge cards on Sunday, and more importantly your heart’s desire to recommit to God. 

Warmly,

Carter    

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Week of October 29, 2017

Dear Friends, 

This is what my mother taught me that from a young age:  Want to know what people value? Look at where they spend their money.  Talk all we want to, our values are laid bare in where we spend our money.  It's a lesson I learned over and over again from Mom, and one I take to heart at least once a year when I look long and hard at our spending and am once again laid to shame at the degree to which I fall far short of valuing with my money what I say I value with my lips. 

Which is one of the reasons why I actually like the end of the year.  It's the time I look at our income, make a calculation on what percentage we gave away the previous year and then try to match or best it.  Then I look at the organizations I value and figure out how to give away the money to those things that I treasure. 

I am not the only one who gets a boost from giving money away.  We all know there is a link between money and happiness, but it’s not the link image.  Studies show that income is not as tightly connected to happiness as our patterns of spending. Buying material goods gives only a short burst of pleasure, and soon the item is old and we find little joy in it.  In contrast, life experiences tend to give us much more lasting joy, and we value them even more highly than the material things we amass.  And across all income brackets and cultures as well, we become happier and feel wealthier by giving it away.[i]

So while we are talking stewardship-taking care of the things that matter most-just think of this as a triple win:  It's time to be generous, you’ll be happier doing so, and you’ll be taking care of the church when you make a pledge.  And Talmadge Hill Community Church is clearly something that brings joy!

Warmly,

 Susan

[i] http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-money-buy-happiness-heres-what-science-has-to-say-1415569538

Week of October 22, 2017

Dear Friends,

Over the next 4 weeks, we at THCC will be exploring the meaning of stewardship in the life of a church.  I invite you to be curious or even excited because the theme is rich and deep. 

For those who have been through this process, it is easy to reduce it to a kind of necessary fundraising campaign.  Stewardship is not a fundraising campaign unless you mean a group of beautiful and dedicated people who are re-committing to God (and the world!) with mind, heart, body and resources.  To restate the obvious, we don’t get the beautiful chapel, the inspired music, educated clergy, a NEW website, or the opportunity to affect thousands of other lives without resources.  None of it is guaranteed.  It does not take care of itself. 

So if stewardship is not a fundraising campaign, what is it?  From a faith perspective, it is most essentially about identity and the primacy of one’s relationship with God.  In other words, it is about DEVOTION and GRATITUDE and WITNESS.  Stewardship asks important existential questions:

-  How devoted are you to God and the presence of God in your life?

-  How grateful are you for the obvious and not so obvious gifts that God pours into our lives?

-  How ready are you to be generous and offer yourself to the world in a bold way? 

I wrote above “It Does Not Take Care of Itself”.  By ‘it’, I mean neither God nor the thing can care for itself alone.  The earth needs us to care.  The institution of the family needs us to care.  The community of faith needs us to care. 

This year as we lean into the stewardship campaign I pray for a joining of hands and hearts so that we might joyfully recommit to taking care of the things that matter most. 

Warmly,

Carter

Words from our Ministers

Thinking about Las Vegas...

Lead
by Mary Oliver

Here is a story
to break your heart.
Are you willing?
This winter
the loons came to our harbor
and died, one by one,
of nothing we could see.
A friend told me
of one on the shore
that lifted its head and opened
the elegant beak and cried out
in the long, sweet savoring of its life
which, if you have heard it,
you know is a sacred thing.
The next morning
this loon, speckled
and iridescent and with a plan
to fly home
to some hidden lake,
was dead on the shore.
I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.