Epiphany

For four weeks before Christmas we waited and hoped and expected the coming of God in human form.  At Christmas we said, “it’s here!” Now what? Today, January 6, is Epiphany – from the Greek word meaning “appearance” or “coming.” Traditionally, during this season Christians celebrate the appearance of divinity on earth through Jesus, starting with the story of the wise men from the East this Sunday in worship.
 
We have waited for, hoped for, expected that hope, peace, joy and love would come again. They have come in Jesus, and now what? Now we carry hope, peace, joy, and love into the world. We come together in worship and go out to serve. Continuing with our recent Spanish/English worship themes, during Epiphany we say, “Vengan…Let’s Go!”
 
We are under no illusion that this is easy. Nearly every day we are reminded of the brutality and apathy that undermine the creation of God’s beloved community as well as creation itself. Yet it is through the likes of us, as imperfect as we are, that God works. Denise Levertov’s poem entitled “On the Mystery of the Incarnation” puts it this way:

It’s when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.

I hope to gather with you on Sunday to celebrate the Word, then go out to share and live and be the Word.

Happy New Year!
Linda

Dear friends,

For the four weeks of Advent we have been waiting, hoping, and expecting. Now the time has come to celebrate that the HopePeaceJoyLoveChrist for which we have been waiting is here – still, and again! God does not go away and come back each Christmas. God is with us always. The ritual of Christmas allows us to remember and relive each year the reality of Emmanuel, God-With-Us, in a particular and focused way.
 
We will celebrate this reality as we gather in the worship services listed above. Some of you are traveling or otherwise occupied – please know that we are together in spirit as a community of faith and action. As we sing of “the hopes and fears of all the years,” we comfort one another and strive to reach out in support of others. As we sing of “God’s love made visible, incomprehensible,” we stand in awe of the divine mystery and attempt to reflect outwardly this inconceivable gift. As we sing of “joy to the world,” we dare to rejoice that strength and power and truth and grace are found in unlikely places – like babies, and us.
 
May the deep and rich blessings of Christmas be with you, each and all!

Linda

It’s been a weird week.

Dear friends,

It’s been a weird week.
 
On Sunday I lost the notebook in which I write everything related to church. Everything – notes from meetings, tasks I need to complete, dates and locations of surgeries, and on and on. I might as well say I lost my brain.
 
On Monday we lost email at the church. It was somewhat restored on Wednesday but has been veeeeeeery slow since then.
 
After a lot of frustration initially, I came to accept that this simply would not be a productive week by normal standards. And there was a gift in that. An early Christmas breather, a whisper to slow down and wait for something to happen.
 
I’m sorry if I missed anything important from my notebook or my email, but I’m thankful for the reminder that production is not our only – or even our highest – priority. I wish for all of us some moments to slow down and breathe.
 
Hope to see you on Sunday when we will gather as a community to slow down and breathe in love.

Blessings,
Linda

Advent - Week 3 - Joy

Dear friends,

We’re nearly halfway through our Advent journey, and we are waiting…hoping…expecting that the day of God’s realm of justice and peace and mercy and love will come. As we continue to wait/hope/expect, this Sunday we light a candle for joy.
 
There is much in life that would temper our joy, much that goes “wrong” in life. People get sick, relationships go bad, tornadoes strike, wars rage, humans hurt other humans. If our joy depends on our life being easy and things going well for us, the odds are against it being a lasting joy.
 
Instead we need a sturdy joy, a joy that digs its roots down into the ground of God’s earthy grace. Something about this poem by Mary Oliver speaks to me of this kind of joy.
 
It was early, which has always been my hour to begin looking at the world
and of course, even in the darkness, to begin listening into it,
especially under the pines where the owl lives and sometimes calls out
as I walk by, as he did on this morning. So many gifts!
 
What do they mean?  In the marshes where the pink light was just arriving
the mink with his bristle tail was stalking the soft-eared mice,
and in the pines the cones were heavy, each one ordained to open.
 
Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.
 
Little mink, let me watch you.
Little mice, run and run.
Dear pine cone, let me hold you as you open.
 
Wishing you Advent blessings of joy, and hoping to see you on Sunday.

Linda

The Pond

Dear friends,
 
I’m writing the day before Thanksgiving words that you will read the day after Thanksgiving. There seem to be so many words in the air these days, flying around at a fast and furious pace. My own sense of gratitude has been bolstered by these two small collections of words that I share here with you:
 
The poet Mary Oliver, in her poem “The Ponds,” writes:
Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled –
to cast aside the weight of facts
 
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
 
And from Meister Eckhart:
 
“If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘thank you,’ that would be enough.” 

In this Thanksgiving week, I am grateful for YOU – for your willingness to engage in community and mission, and your faithfulness to love.  On Sunday we begin our Advent journey, the days of waiting and preparing for the birth of Jesus, and I look forward to sharing that with you.

Blessings,
Linda

Advent - Week 1

Dear friends,

It’s Advent, and we are waiting. And hoping. And expecting…that Christ will be born again, in us and in the world. 
 
Here’s a poem called “Bird in Flight” by Bill Spangler that is speaking to me in these days of Advent.
 
He came, I think, from yonder wood – 
a bird, quite small – and flew across
the snowy meadow where I stood.
With bursts of rapid beats, then folded wings, 
he rose and fell in parabolic arcs, 
a messenger from God who spun
a single strand of silk too fine to see
and stitched together earth and heaven.
I thought him lost from where I stood, 
then saw him rise above the trees, 
and glimpsed, it seemed, a silken strand of gold
as though a sudden ray of gold from earth
had pierced the leaden clouds above.
And where I stood, I shivered in the cold.
 
Likewise Love’s flight o’er earth did weave
a tapestry from Bethlehem
to paradise and opened up
a stairway to the stars: the Word made flesh, 
a human life as fragile as a thread, 
the mind of God too quick for us to grasp
yet grasping us. By faith we climb
the stairs and once more hear the angels sing.
 
On Sunday we wait and hope and expect the advent of peace in our lives and world. I look forward to worshipping with you.

Blessings,
Linda

IndyCANN success

Dear friends,

Amidst the plethora of news about the election, the passage of the referendum to expand mass transit through a modest tax increase has almost been lost. I mentioned it in my article last week, we mentioned it during worship on Sunday, but I want to stop for a minute to acknowledge and celebrate a political decision in Marion Country that lines up with the values of our faith.

In the 12 weeks leading up to the election, IndyCAN (the Indianapolis Congregation Action Network) brought together hundreds of people to make phone calls to registered voters. Together we had 40,952 conversations to educate people and ask for their support on the referendum.  We did this because we see public transportation as a moral issue.  We see it – as the signs we posted outside our building indicated – as a matter of loving our neighbor.  If we love our neighbor, we help them get to work, to the doctor, or to the store.

 I’m proud not only that the referendum passed by a margin of 59 to 41.  I’m also proud that while other organizations promoted the economic development aspect, IndyCAN raised the moral voice, speaking as and for the people who are most affected by the current LACK of public transportation. We told a different story than the usual story we hear in this city. In an environment in which taxes are nearly always seen as bad, we talked about sharing the abundance that we have. And along the way we built alliances with the Indy Chamber of Commerce, with unions, with students, and with legislators that will serve us in the future.

 Numerous Central members and friends participated in the phone banks. You’re too many to name, but you know who you are!  Thank you for loving your neighbor and witnessing to your faith in this way, one of many ways that we seek to “make a world of difference.”

Hope to see you Sunday.

All Saints Day

Dear friends,
 
On Sunday in our celebration of All Saints Day we remembered, along with others, eight members of our Central community who died during the past year. We lit candles for Tom Gyori, Joyce Roys, Bob Doversberger, Bob Kern, Frisco Gilchrist, Curtis Burhannon, Barbara Williamson, and Walter White. People who lived long and full lives and who touched many of us and many others with their kindness, thoughtfulness, humility and humor. We remembered also parents, friends, children, and spouses whose lives enriched our own and who taught us more about being human.
 
That cloud of witnesses has stayed with me through this challenging week in the life of our country. I have felt a mix of emotions and heard from others of their fear or disappointment at the results of the presidential election.  Others I know feel that the right choice was made but are dismayed at the continuing bitterness and division. And then there are the reports we’ve heard of incidents in which Muslims have been assaulted or racist graffiti written.
 
We do not all agree in our political choices.  But surely we can agree on the values of our faith that we share: compassion, mercy, justice, peace, dignity, love. And then I hope we can work together to live out these values in the public arena, standing by and with people who are mistreated and abused, and continuing to listen across the divides, as difficult as that may be.

Within what is a hard week for many of us, we celebrate that the referendum to expand public transportation was approved by Marion County voters.  Our work through IndyCAN was part of the effort to create improved opportunities for people to get to work, to school, to the doctor, and so on. What a positive difference it will make for our community, and what a beautifully concrete expression of our faith.
 
I’m glad to be sharing this journey with you. Hope to see you Sunday.

Blessings,
Linda

Sawubona

On Sunday in worship, I shared a word that several of us in the congregation have learned through our work with IndyCAN, the Indianapolis Congregational Action Network. “Sawubona” is a greeting of the Zulu people in southern Africa exchanged on a daily basis which means, literally, “I see you.” The reply is, “Sikhona,” which means, “I am here.”
 
On several occasions at IndyCAN gatherings, we have taken the time to look one another in the eye one at a time, and exchange that greeting, Sawubona, and Sikhona.  It’s been a powerful experience that has helped us see beyond the physical to the dignity and humanity of the person. The greeting encouraged us to let go of preconceptions and judgments, and to see the other person as God created them. We found ourselves wondering more about one another, and noticing more as well. We’ve felt, if just for a moment, more tightly bound together, more interdependent.
 
As we approach the election on November 8, and more importantly, as we live together in this congregation, city and country from November 9 on, I hope we can continue to make an effort to really see one another – not as Trump or Clinton supporters, Democrats or Republicans or Libertarians, not as us and them, but as children of God, beloved and precious.
 

Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope

I went to vote last Friday.  Just in case I am quarantined in my house or summoned to Timbuktu on election day. I want to make sure my vote is counted.
 
It’s been a tough campaign season, hasn’t it? At times the divisiveness and the messages of fear and hatred have felt overwhelming. So I remind myself, and remind you now, that we are in this for the long haul, and we’re in it together, mustering as much kindness and peace and joy and love as we can.
 
Victoria Stafford, a Unitarian Universalist minister, wrote these words in an essay some years ago. I find them appropriate now:
 
“Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope —
not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower;
nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges (people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through);
nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna be all right.”
But a different, sometimes lonely place, the place of truth-telling,
about your own soul first of all and its condition,
the place of resistance and defiance,
the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it will be;
the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle.
And we stand there, beckoning and calling,
telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see.”
 
Standing with you at the gates of Hope, and hoping to see you on Sunday,

Children's Sabbath

So much goes on in our world that it is hard to keep up, and hard to stay focused on what happened yesterday or the day before. So I want to highlight something that has happened recently, so that I do not forget and we do not forget.

Hurricane Matthew has ripped through the Caribbean and the southeastern part of the United States in recent days. In Haiti, over one thousand people have died and tens of thousands have been displaced. The numbers affected in Cuba and the U.S. are fewer, but still overwhelming.

As Disciples, we are already responding. Our Week of Compassion ministry and Global Ministries are working with our partners in Haiti and Cuba, and with Disciples regional staff and churches in Florida and the Carolinas. We are able to act quickly because we have long-term relationships with people in the affected areas. As a church, we know who to call and what to ask, and we have people on the ground to be our eyes and hands and hearts.

If you have been wondering how to help, I have no hesitation in recommending that you make a donation through Week of Compassion. You can do that through their website (weekofcompassion.org) or by putting a check in Sunday's offering designated "Hurricane Matthew" in the memo line.  As our Week of Compassion partners remind us: storms know no borders, and neither will our love.

And on Sunday we will lift up our children -- in Haiti, Cuba, the southeast U.S. and everywhere -- as we observe Children's Sabbath.

Community Ministry Grants

This past spring our congregation applied for and was accepted into a program of the Center for Congregations called the Community Ministry Grants program. We’re one of 30 congregations in central Indiana that is participating in an educational process that will equip us with skills and strategies for assessing our congregation’s passions and assets, conducting a community listening process, and developing a comprehensive community ministry plan.  We’ll have the opportunity next year to apply for a matching grant to fund a new ministry with our neighbors in the community around us.

We got a head-start on this program in May when we held a series of congregational conversations on our vision for the next 3-5 years, and our board created a Vision Implementation Team that has been working since the beginning of the summer. Much of that visioning work has to do with the community around our church building, and the Community Ministry Grants program dovetailed so well with this work we were already beginning that it made perfect sense to apply.

The first of the three educational days was today. Sandra Gourdet, Dick Hamm, Marcia Phillips, Jill Michel and I are your team for this program. We had fruitful conversation about the difference between doing mission “for” people and doing mission “with” people. And the difference between “meeting needs” in the community and “building on assets” in the community. Good stuff!

Central’s commitment to community ministry is nothing new. We believe that God loves all people, so how could we not reach out to share love?  Historically our community ministry has focused on meeting the basic needs of people who struggle to get by. Now our neighborhood has changed significantly, and we find ourselves asking again about faithful and effective ministry that embodies God’s love in the area around us.

You will be invited by our team to share your input about the interests, passions, assets and resources of our congregation. Because of many activities scheduled in the upcoming weeks, that will probably happen in early December.  In the meantime, I invite and encourage you to be wondering, talking, and praying about what shape new community ministry might take for Central.

World Communion Sunday

I want to take this opportunity to alert you to a couple of things (of many!) that are coming up in the life of our congregation.
 
You have heard about, and some have participated in, the phone banks that are taking place at our church every Monday evening leading up to the election. These phone banks are sponsored by IndyCAN, our network of congregations that is working to bring about more equality of opportunity in our city. We’re calling people to urge them to support the referendum on mass transit, believing that getting to work, or school, or the doctor, or church is a key factor in people’s wellbeing.
 
The phone banks are also part of a longer term strategy to increase our power as a network of congregations. When elected officials know that an organization has the capacity to reach tens of thousands of voters, they tend to listen more!
 
Not many people I know enjoy receiving calls from people they don’t know, let alone making them! However, I want to invite you to join me for ONE phone bank, on Monday, October 10, 6-9pm. It’s not too painful, and it does have an impact. I’m hoping we can get a few dozen Central people together to make calls. Will you be one of them? Please email me if you’re willing and available.
 
Closer at hand, World Communion Sunday is this week, October 2.  This is one of my favorite Sundays of the year, as we celebrate our connection with people of faith the world around. There is ONE family of God, also known as the human family, of which everyone on earth is a part. Divisive rhetoric is so prevalent these days, and I find myself longing for messages that lift me above the fray and remind me of the bigger picture. World Communion Sunday is such a message, and I hope to see you there!

Sabbatical

I’m in my third week since the sabbatical and here are some of my thoughts and impressions:
 
1.       What a fun celebration we had on my first Sunday back! The jazz quartet was fabulous, the food was wonderful, and the company could not be beat.  Thank you to all who helped organize that day, and to the kids for their welcome back cards. They are treasures!
 
2.       The work of our Vision Implementation Team (VIT) is exciting!  Most of this work has been behind the scenes, as they have established a lot of necessary groundwork for moving forward. At this point the team leaders and others are involved in research and brainstorming, and the first pilot project will be starting soon. A report on the work of the VIT is included in this issue, so please read on.
 
3.       Other things have happened while I’ve been away.  Our library has moved to the conference room. We have a new copier. Internet in the office is working much better than when I left. Linda Kirchhoff is working as a social worker on Mondays (hooray!).  Not to mention the art-making, music-making, and storytelling that went on all summer.
 
In many places, a sabbatical is a time when the congregation holds on and just tries to keep things from falling apart till the pastor returns. Not so in this place! I have joked that maybe I should stay away longer so that more will get done! But I’m glad to be back, and glad and grateful for what you all and God have done in this place