There is a big difference between waiting and anticipating. The hospital is a good place to observe the difference. Scattered at various locations throughout the hospital are waiting rooms. There is one near the emergency department, another at medical imaging, others near the various intensive care units, one outside of the surgical area. These rooms are filled with chairs for people to sit. They have televisions that can be tuned to all of the different channels cable TV has to offer. There are places to put your coffee cup and magazines to read. They tend to be quiet, even when the televisions are turned on.

In contrast, the labor and delivery rooms are places for action. There might be a couple of stools, but for the most part other than the mother, who is usually semi-reclined on a special bed, the people in the area are usually standing. There is an excitement in the words that are exchanged and a sense of urgency in the voices.

Even when we don’t know how to do it, we usually anticipate Christmas. There is a long list of items that need to be accomplished. There are lists of gifts to purchase or make, preparations that need to be done, packages that need to be sent, cards that need to be addressed, and occasions that need our attendance. My calendar is filled with all kinds of activities. The pace seems to be accelerating.

Not that an accelerating pace is the only way of anticipating. I remember the season between Thanksgiving and Christmas from my childhood. The time seemed interminable. How many more days? How long do we have to wait? Even when time seemed to slow, however, there was more anticipating than mere waiting.

For generations over thousands of years Israel lived in anticipation of the coming of the Messiah. And over those years, more than a few people made the switch from anticipation to just waiting. The expectation that the coming of the messiah would have a direct impact on their day-to-day living faded as generation after generation passed without the appearance of the messiah.

The prophets were able to stir up a little enthusiasm and occasionally a minor change in behavior, but the reality is that Israel had shifted from anticipation to merely waiting. Most people observed the ceremonies and participated in the temple discussions, but thoughts of religion and the interpretation of scripture were primarily recreational activities - something to do to pass the time.

After the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Gospel writers strove to stir up a new sense of anticipation. “Look!” they declare, “The world has changed. Life doesn’t need to just go on as usual. New priorities are in order.”

Leonard Bernstein captured the mood of anticipation in the lyrics he wrote for Tony to sing in the musical West Side Story:

Could be!
Who knows?
There’s something’ due any day;
I will know right away
Soon as it shows.
It may come cannonballin’
Down through the sky,

Gleam in its eye,
Bright as a rose!
Who knows?

It’s only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Under a tree.
I got a feelin’ there’s a miracle due,
Gonna come true,
Comin’ to me!

Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something’s coming, something’ good,
If I can wait!
Something’s comin’, I don’t know what it is
But it is
Gonna be great!

With a click, with a shock,
Phone’ll jingle, door’ll knock
Open the latch!
Something’s comin’, don’t know when,
But it’s soon--
Catch the moon,
One-handed catch!
Around the corner,
Or whistling’ down the river,
Come on -- deliver
To me!

Will it be? Yes, it will.
Maybe just by holdin’ still
It’ll be there!
Come on, something’, come on in,
Don’t be shy,
Meet a guy,
Pull up a chair!

The air is hummin’,
And something’ great is comin’!
Who knows?
It’s only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach.
Maybe tonight.

Today we begin the season of that kind of anticipation. It isn’t so much that the arrival of Christmas will somehow dramatically change the world. There will still be racial tension in Ferguson, Missouri after Christmas. There will still be sexual violence on college campuses after Christmas. There will still be an ebola epidemic after Christmas. There will still be rampant consumerism, environmental destruction, entrenched poverty, and innocent victims.

Advent is about learning to live in anticipation for something much bigger. Part of the reason that we need the season every year is that we need to practice for the real transformation that comes in each life.

The day will come, for each of us, when the clock on the wall will have no meaning to us. The power of our human minds to measure or predict will have no effect. We will enter God’s time.

How we live in the time between now and then makes all the difference in the world. Can we live in anticipation? Or are we merely waiting? Does each action and decision bear the possibility of bringing newness to the world, or are we simply going through the motions and struggling to survive?

These are the questions we ponder during this season of teaching ourselves to live in anticipation.

The secular world isn’t much at anticipation. Go into any retail store and you will see it decorated for immediate Christmas. The candy canes and tinsel are already abundant. The songs of Christmas are blaring over the sound system. And you can count on a rapid transformation of every store away from Christmas towards Valentine’s Days before the 12 days of Christmas have passed.

Practicing our faith in this season means assuming a decidedly counter-cultural attitude. The prayers we pray, the stillness we invite, the genuine opening to the presence of Christ in our lives - these require a different investment than all of the gift-giving-party-attending-concert-going-fury that surrounds us.

Advent is a decidedly rich season. May we live in anticipation.

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I often remember the people who have graced the congregations I serve. I’ve been thinking of Barbara lately.Its been years since here funeral, but like many others, she has a special place in the way I live my life.

Just a little bit about her. You didn’t really visit Barbara. It was more that she granted you an appearance. Even when she was a resident in a nursing home, I didn’t appear unannounced. I would call ahead and after she was no longer receiving her own phone calls, I’d stop by and give the staff a “heads up” before I entered the room. If I were to have shown up, as I did a couple of times, I was instructed to wait in the hallway as Barbara was prepared to receive me. Even at the very end, Barbara would be dressed in a gown and have her hair done up just right. When her own hair failed to satisfy her, she wore a wig and had it combed and arranged.

Barbara would tolerate a few minutes of “small talk” about the weather and local events, but soon would be wanting to get to other topics. She would ask about how things were going at the church and by that she means how was worship attendance, what new music our choirs had been learning, and what I had discovered in my studies of the Bible. Then she would ask me what books I had been reading. She wanted more than titles, she wanted a bit of a book report and my opinion about the quality of the writing and worth of the ideas presented.

In one of my early visits, after discussing the books I was reading, she said, “That is fine for prose. What poetry have you been reading?” I stammered that I didn’t read much poetry to which she responded, “But you must read poetry.”

I made sure that I had something of a poem to report at my next visit. I think I picked something by Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman. She was immediately familiar with the poem and wanted to discuss it though I really hadn’t learned that much about it and didn’t have much to say.

I was better prepared for my next visit. After a while she began to ask me to bring a poem when I visited. Some days it was a bit of a scramble. Often I would do an Internet search at poetry.com or there poetry foundation, searching by topic or occasion. I subscribed to the Poetry magazine podcast and started listening monthly to editors and authors discussions of poems.

I had never been much on poems before. Other than appearing in a couple of high school plays, my artistic focus during my years of schooling had been music. Even my music took a back seat when I got to graduate school. There was just too much serious reading that had to be done. College and seminary were academic challenges for me. I didn’t have time for fiction or poetry in those years. I was, no doubt, influenced by my father’s German work ethic. Although he was interested in culture and did occasionally attend a social event, the core focus of his life was his work. He had goals to meet and things to accomplish. He was always a bit suspicious of people who spent too much time reading poetry or attending concerts or plays. I only know of one opera that he ever attended and that was in Sydney, Australia. His report of the opera focused on the architecture and construction techniques of the magnificent Sydney Opera House and I don’t remember what opera they attended. I do remember his raving about the acoustical properties of the building. I suspect he couldn’t have named the singers by the time he got home.

My father did love to discuss complex ideas. He found a hearty discussion of the morning’s sermon with the preacher to be a great Sunday dinnertime activity. I suspect that the preachers didn’t particularly look forward to his invitations, which were frequent. And when he encountered an engineering challenge, drawings and discussions dominated his conversation until the problem was solved. He once purchased several truckloads of 2x2 pine boards that had been spilled in a railway accident. The price was very low. He proceeded to design trusses to support a single-pitch open span roof for a 48’ x 120’ feed warehouse. The building is still standing and the roof has no sags after half a century.

So we didn’t recite poetry in our house unless we were complying with a school assignment.

Barbara’s request - and her insistence, “You must read poetry” - was a challenge with just the right timing for me. I began to read poetry. I took a look at some of the famous poets - Frost and Dickinson, Poe and Pounds and Whitman. I giggled a bit with E.E. Cummings. I practiced reading Shel Silverstein out loud and was deeply inspired by Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. Last year I spent then entire year with Rainer Maria Rilke reading a poem a day for the entire year. I started 2014 with Billy Collins - a distinct departure from Rilke. After Collins, I invested a couple of months in an anthology titled “100 Poems that Make Grown Men Cry.” It wasn’t particular tear-inducing for me, but there were some pretty good poems and a list of poets I intend to pursue has arisen from the book. Currently I’m reading Laura Kisischke - poems that require me to read out loud to get in touch with their unique rhythm and cadence.

I’ve even done some exploring with my own poetry, writing sermons in poetic meter and delivering them with piano accompaniment by Justin Speck.

My interest in poetry may be more a product of my age than of Barbara’s inspiration, but her request came at exactly the right time in my life. She challenged me to read and I responded.

And frequently when I go through my daily routine of reading a poem as the coffee brews, I think of being received by Barbara. I miss her. I miss our visits. But I am also aware of how much she is with me each day.

Being a pastor is like that. We get filled up with interesting and fascinating people. And sometimes they bubble out in our sermons.

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When we graduated from theological seminary, we expected that we would be called to a small congregation. We were thinking that we would live in a rural area. I’m from a small town and although Susan grew up in the largest city in Montana, Billings, isn’t exactly Chicago. The seminaries that we considered were all in large urban areas: Boston, Chicago, Berkeley. It turned out that moving from Montana to Chicago was a bit of a cultural adjustment, but not as difficult as one might expect. Our seminary, though located in the heart of the city, was a small school where we were known and cared for by a close learning community. The adventure of living in the city - visiting museums, riding the trains, learning to navigate, riding to the top of sky scrapers - all were exciting and interesting to us. We even became relatively competent at driving in urban traffic.

Our classmates who were called to urban congregations began their careers either as associate pastors in large congregations or as solo pastors in small, struggling inner-city congregations. We never seriously considered staying in the city. We wanted to move closer to family and we longed for the mountains of Montana. As it turned out, our home state wasn’t exactly filled with congregations seeking pastors at the time and our search quickly expanded to include neighboring states.

Having been raised on a pretty steady diet of North Dakota jokes, I was uncertain about that state, but there were two congregations in the southwest corner of the state that were looking for a minister and after visiting with the Conference minister and corresponding with the search committee chair, it seemed like a good fit. We served those congregations for seven years and delighted in the people, the place and the experience.

Hettinger, the larger of the two towns, was classified as “rural” with about 1,200 residents. It was also classified as “isolated,” with the nearest city of 50,000 150 miles away. To get to a city of 100,000 was a drive of 300 miles, and the nearest city of a million or more was 1,000 miles distant. In fact, while we were living in Hettinger our local hospital was officially classified as a “wilderness” hospital by the hospital accreditation organization.

We didn’t feel cut off from the world. After a few months, we bought a new car and always had access to reliable transportation. We got used to driving and putting more than 20,000 miles on the car in a year became routine. We had friends who served a congregation 40 miles away and thought nothing of getting together for a meal or an hour’s conversation.

Much of the Dakotas is not that much different today. If you drive SD 20 from West to East across South Dakota you’ll start at Camp Crook, population 64. From there it is 22 miles to Buffalo, home to 335 people. In another 25 miles, you’ll get to Reva - population uncertain, maybe 2 or 3. The post office serves about 120 people, but there’s only one house in town. Another 15 miles down the road is Prairie City. They got the Prairie right, but City might not be the best description for a village of 23 persons. Bison, another 18 miles down the road is about the same size as Buffalo, with a little over 300 people.

From Bison to Isabel (population 143) is 60 miles. Along the way you’ll pass through Meadow, Coal Springs and Glad Valley. All three of those towns have populations too small to make the census reports. In the next 60 miles to Mobridge, where you cross the Missouri, you’ll pass through Timber Lake, with a population of 468. They got the lake part right, but you’ll have to look closely to find any timber. Also along the way is Trail City, another two-word town with one word lacking accuracy.

When you get to Mobridge, nearly half way across the state, you finally reach a sizable (for our territory) city of 3,500 people. You get the picture. There is a lot of territory with very few people. And there are a lot of roads in this country with similar wide open spaces, long distances and few people.

But we aren’t isolated in the way the people were a century ago. The population of the area was a little bit higher back then, with the railroad development and homesteading going on. Most of the counties in Northwestern South Dakota and Southwestern North Dakota peaked in population in the first decade of the 20th century. Sometimes I think about rural isolation when I drive across the southern end of the Cheyenne River Reservation. Red Scaffold is 14 miles from the paved road on the Cherry Creek Road. From there it is 22 miles to Cherry Creek. Mapquest says it takes over 2 hours to drive the distance, but I don’t drive 11 mph even on a gravel road. It only takes a half hour or a little less today. But there was a time, when people didn’t have cars and it did take a couple of hours. In those days it made sense for our denomination to have congregations at Red Scaffold, Frasier, and Cherry Creek: a church every 10 miles or so. If you are walking or even riding a horse, that is far enough to travel to get to church.

Of course the world has changed. Rural congregations can no longer afford recent seminary graduates. With seminary tuition of over $15,000 per year and D.Min. fees of nearly $2,000 per class, most seminary graduates are carrying too much debt by graduation to be able to afford the pay that a rural congregation could afford. Remember that drive across Northwestern South Dakota? Buffalo has only 335 people to support a Catholic, a Lutheran and a United Church of Christ congregation. The UCC congregation is yoked with the United Methodist congregation in Camp Crook, but together they couldn't raise money for salary, housing, insurance and loan payments. Health insurance alone costs more than our total pay package was during there years we lived in North Dakota.

Still, there is great faith in the open spaces of the plains. There are wonderful opportunities for ministry. We’ll need to be creative as we discern how to provide leadership for those congregations in the decades to come.

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Anne Lamott says that the three essential prayers of life are: “Help!” “Thanks!” and “Wow!” There is a lot to her essays about spirituality. Life is filled with pain, beauty, and mystery. Responding to them with hones and open prayer is at the core of developing a relationship with God. Much of the Bible can be summed up with Lamott’s three words.

Today is the day for thanks. There has been so much written about how living a life of gratitude improves one’s outlook, mental health, and relationships with others. I am sure that there is much truth in these insights.

There are, however, some of the trappings of a traditional Thanksgiving that seem to be a bit less appealing than the core idea of the holiday. Too often we are tempted to pray, “Thank God I’m not like that person!” or “Thank you God for my material wealth.” I suppose gratitude is appropriate for the accident of birth and the location of one’s growing up. Still it seems inherently wrong to use a prayer of gratitude as a way of comparing oneself with the “Joneses.”

I am not sure that I understand how watching three NFL games in one day is an expression of gratitude, but it is a way that some will spend the day.

I don’t have much understanding or sympathy for those who will gorge themselves on a big meal and then head to the stores for a weekend shopping frenzy. That somehow seems like a less prayerful way of saying thanks than some other options.

More meaningful to me are some thanksgiving observances that will be a bit more subdued.

As I begin this Thanksgiving day, my prayers are with a family in our church whose father died yesterday. He had a long, courageous and meaningful life, filled with service to others and dedication to his family. Still, I think that preparation for his funeral and walking the journey of grief will be more at the heart of their day than some of the other frills of Thanksgiving. On the other hand, I know that when they think of it, gratitude for his life is at the core of their experience. I’m certainly grateful that I got to know him and had nearly 20 years of shared friendship.

My thanksgiving thoughts are with my friends in the St. Louis area, especially those in the Ferguson area. Their day may be filled with more questions than answers. It isn’t clear why a grand jury decision, reached in daylight, was delayed and the announcement made after dark when everyone knew the potential for violence. It isn’t clear how soon destroyed and damaged businesses will be able to go back to serving their community. It isn’t clear how to restore trust in the police or criminal justice system. It isn’t clear how new police officers will be recruited, trained, equipped and deployed in a system with such intense emotions and such a long history of racism.

Today I pray with the family of Jayla Rodriguez who buried their eight-year-old yesterday at Pine Ridge. Good people are working to round up the stray dogs, all too numerous, on the reservation. Those who have been around for a while all know that there will be as many dogs in a few years and that the “solutions” are only temporary. Tragedy is woven into the core of one of the most impoverished communities in our nation and it will take more than a couple of animal control officers with guns and a horse trailer to address the systematic problems of entrenched poverty and decrease the depth of tragedy that marks life on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Today I pray with the students and families at the University of Virginia. The Rolling Stone article detailing the pattern of sexual assault among the fraternities at the university has already caused changes on the campus, but it remains unclear whether the University will continue its practice of holding in-campus investigations instead of using law enforcement to investigate allegations of felonies committed on campus. No one is clear how much assault is part of the culture that has developed on campus and how safe the university can become for present and future students.

Today I pray with the health care workers scrambling to develop an effective vaccine for Ebola and those who are working to provide care and treatment to Ebola victims in the parts of Africa where the epidemic is most severe. It can be frustrating and disheartening to work with inadequate resources, doing your best to provide essential care to those who suffer and then to return home to discover irrational fear and panic among those who have access to effective treatment.

It is harder to develop an attitude of gratitude when one opens oneself to the pain of the world. But that is exactly the invitation of this day. As the ancients discovered, despite pain and fear and injustice and tragedy, God continues to work in this world. Despite outward appearances, those who suffer are not left alone and those who willingly stand by the victims discover the presence of the holy in ways they might not have imagined possible.

One of the reasons that I find it so deeply meaningful to read the Psalms over and over again is that they illustrate, in deep and powerful poetry strong enough to stand the rigors of translation, how our people have struggled to reach gratitude in the midst of difficult and trying circumstances for thousands of years. Ours isn’t the first generation to confront the reality that pain and beauty and mystery are not somehow divided experiences, each encountered in a pure and simple state. We are more honest when we pray of all of our emotions in a single breath. That’s where I would add a chapter to Lamott’s book. Help, Thanks and Wow aren’t three separate essential prayers. Helpthankswow is an integrated experience and all three prayers mix with our tears when we pray honestly.

May your thanksgiving bring you depth upon depth of meaning and an honest encounter with hunger that a big meal will not satisfy.

Blessings!

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I know, sports fans, that you always read this blog first when it comes to keeping on top of all of the sports news in the nation.

OK, it is true that I don’t spend much of my time or energy following sports. I do occasionally watch a game here or there and I do enjoy watching young people that I know play. But I am in no way an expert when it comes to sports.

So it will probably come as no news to you that once again the Pahranagat Valley Panthers have earned the Nevada Division IV Football title. Last Friday, the Panthers defeated Spring Mountain to take home the trophy. They have winning ways. Friday’s victory was their 7th consecutive State Division IV title and their 81st consecutive team victory. Th Panthers are the current holders of the longest undefeated streak of any high school team in the nation.

For those of you who didn’t already know these things, where have you been? Haven’t you been paying attention to the game?

OK, I’ll admit it, I don’t follow Nevada high school football either - well, not much. I do make the pay attention to the notes I get from the proud father of Culen Highbe. Cullen isn’t the Panthers’ star player. That title would have to go to Wade Leavitt, who scored an incredible 312 points this fall, rushing for 1,515 yards and 31 touchdowns on 104 carries. He also caught 40 passes for 846 yards and 13 scores. Levant also was the Panthers’ leading defensive player with 68 tackles and 6 sacks. He intercepted three passes this fall. Not bad for a high school player.

But I’ve never met Wade Leavitt. I do know Culen Highbe. I’m thinking that you’ll be reading about Cullen’t basketball skills more than his football skills in the years to come.

But I am way ahead of my story.

You may know that I am not what many people call a tall person. I claim to be a whopping 4’ 18” tall, but that may be a half inch or so of exaggeration. Let’s just say, I don’t have to duck to walk under the ductwork in the church basement. The fact that I am not tall has not, however, prevented me from bumping my head a lot. There are plenty of obstructions short enough for a guy to me to raise a goose egg. And, being a little bit shorter than others, I am probably a bit overconfident in terms of not having to worry about branches, doorways, and other obstructions that hinder others’ passage. The fact that our camper doesn’t have 8’ sidewalls isn’t a problem for me.

I used to joke that I was updating the family gene pool by marrying a woman who is taller than I. The truth is that while I’ve always been attracted to Susan, height wasn’t a part of my conscious calculations when we were dating. It did give me an excuse to wear cowboy boots and I’ve long had a preference for the tall heels of the boots.

Susan has plenty of tall people in her family and none more than her cousin David. David was a high school basketball star and is a standout in every crowd. He’s the guy who is either head and shoulders above everyone else in the family pictures or kneeling in the front row, which puts him about eye-to-eye with me.

David’s son, Culen, inherited his dad’s height.

And, like his father, he inherited a passion for competitive sports. He’s good enough that it might be a very good way for him to earn entrance into the college of his choice.

Honestly, however, I haven’t been following the games, though high school sports form all states are readily available if you have a computer and access to the Internet.

I did attend two high school state tournaments in my time as a student, however. When I was a sophomore our high school team made it to the state basketball tournament. They were defeated in early rounds, but at least they had been the district champions. And because the team made it to the state tournament, the band had a series of emergency fund-raisers and we went along with the team. Personally I think our band made a better showing than the basketball team. We weren’t bad in those days.

That same year, I went out for track. Since no one else was doing it and since our school owned one pole for vaulting, I gave it a try. I learned to vault a little bit and at the regional tournament, there were only four competitors in the pole vault. One never cleared the bar at any height. The other three of us all cleared the lowest bar. Two more cleared higher bars. That made me third in the tournament. That pretty much was the height of my high school sports.

Oh, I did drive the team bus for a championship high school team when I lived in North Dakota, and I ran the travel board for the local radio station’s play-by-play announcer during the games.

I’m not anti-sports. I just find other things to occupy my attention most of the time. When I am with people who are watching a game, I can get into the activity and enjoy myself. I’ve been privileged to attend games in many cities around the country during my travels and I usually pay attention when the various championships are near just to be able to engage in semi-intelligent conversation with others who are far more interested in the game than I.

So don’t expect me to be the one with the latest news about what is going on in the world of sports. I probably will not be paying as close attention as other writers. After all, Pahranagat Valley won the championship last Friday night and it took me until today to get around to writing about it.

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So here are two stories that few would connect:

On May 18, 1926, Aimee Semple McPherson went to Venice Beach, near Los Angeles to swim and write a sermon. She took an assistant with here, who had to stop and make a phone call at a nearby hotel. When the assistant returned, McPherson was gone. At first it was feared that she had drowned. One newspaper claimed that a sea monster had been sighted. A young man drowned as he swam toward two dead seals, believing that he had sighted her body. No body was found.

Then in June, she was found, alive and apparently well, in the small town of Agua Prieta on the Mexico-Arizona border. Her story was that she had been kidnapped. Her story was that she was asked to help a sick child, who was in the back seat of a car. When she bent over to assist the child, she was shoved into the car, chloroformed and kidnapped.

At the time she was the most famous preacher in the United States. She had been born in Canada. As a teenager, she went to hear Robert Semple speak in a Pentecostal service in her town. She married him and joined his life on the road. In Hong Kong, they both contracted malaria. Her husband died and she survived, pregnant with her first child. She continued the ministry, returned to America and became a spellbinding preacher. She became known as Sister Aimee and gathered huge crowds. Her appearances were marked by great drama, professional actors, costumes, make-up artists, theatrical lighting and more. Soon she was a radio preacher with an enormous following. She married Harold McPherson and had another child, but they divorced.

With donations from her followers she built Angelus Temple in Los Angeles and bought a radio station. It was the beginning of what has become the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. She was a superstar preacher before television evangelists.

There are a few more details to the story. Kenneth Ormiston, a married sound engineer who worked for McPherson, also disappeared the same night. Biographer Matthew Sutton believes they had an affair.

A grand jury was convened. No charges were ever brought.

McPherson died in September of 1944 of an overdose of sedatives. Suicide was speculated, but no proof existed.

The second story:

I have a good friend who lives in the St. Louis area. A minister who is married to a college professor, he has great gifts for the ministry, but is not able to move about because of his wife’s work. For as long as I have known him, he has served ably as an interim minister to a large number of United Church of Christ and Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, congregations. He and I have worked together on a large number of educational projects over the years and served together as Christian Education Consultants for nearly 15 years.

His most recent call has been to serve Immanuel/Ferguson United Church of Christ. And if you read any news stories or watch any television, you know that Ferguson has been a very challenging place to minister. Last night they had to put into place all of their alternate plans, cancel all church activities, and make sure the church was locked and secure. Activities and worship services may be cancelled for the rest of the week. I haven’t heard from Frank since yesterday, but here is more than enough tension in a city which last night saw the most intense rioting and looting in its history.

The outlines of the story are simple. The situation is far from it. On August 9, Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old was shot and killed by a police officer. Brown was African-American. The police officer, Darren Wilson is white. The exact details of the shooting are not clear. Officer Wilson was investigating a robbery and used his police car to block Mr. Brown and another man. A scuffle ensued. Shots were fired. At one point Wilson ordered Brown to get on the ground. Brown did not comply with the order. When it was all over, Brown was dead, the victim of the lethal accuracy of a well-trained law enforcement officer.

A grand jury was convened. No charges were brought.

I don’t know what happened.

And I don’t know what happened when Aimee Sempel McPherson disappeared for a month back in 1926.

I don’t expect to ever know the complete details in either case. In both cases, I suspect that there is plenty that members of the Grand Jury don’t know, either. On television, crimes are “solved.” The truth is clear and black and white and eventually becomes known by the public. In the real world, it is a lot different. A police officer is taught to protect life with the use of lethal force. They train and train and train again both in the accurate and effective use of their firearms and in the deciton-making process about when to use the firearm. Events can unfold on a dark night where decisions need to be made in a split second. They are human beings. Sometimes mistakes are made. The results of mistakes can be tragic. Even if every officer were wearing a camera, we wouldn’t know the details of what happened.

I understand the statistics. I know that the 13th amendment to the US constitution abolished slavery “except as a punishment for crime.” I know that more African-Americans are in jail today than were slaves when slavery was legal. I know that there is incredible tension and distrust of law enforcement in African-American neighborhoods.

I also know that law enforcement officers are diligent, well-trained and not the people who make the laws.

I know that looting and firebombing and pepper spray and crows running in the streets do not bring justice. I know that armored vehicles and military weapons on the streets of our communities are not the answer.

I understand that the safety of members and guests requires that Immanuel/Ferguson United Church of Christ be closed and locked. But I also know that the voice of my friend is more likely to bring peace than what is going on in the streets. I know that the community needs worship and prayer and forgiveness and justice that don’t come from humans, but come from God.

Truth be told, I am a little bit afraid for Frank’s safety in such a violent setting. But I also know of his deep faithfulness to God’s call. You probably won’t see him on television, but he is there working for peace in justice and truth and reconciliation. It may be for a time such as this that he was born.

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I’m not one for remembering my dreams, but last night I woke with a dream clear in my memory. I was having a conversation with Roger Knight, who was one of my mentors in the early years of my ministry. Roger was our region’s minister of the Office for Church Life and Leadership. The Office, known as OCLL was a part of our church’s national structure at a time when there were resources for innovation and creativity in that setting. Unlike other national structures, the office was regionally deployed, with a dozen offices spread across the nation. The group produced the latest version of the United Church of Christ Book of Worship, the Leaders’ Box, the minister’s profile form that was in place for most of my career, a significant revision of the Manual on the Ministry, manuals for church history projects, the Pilgrimage retreats, and dozens of other projects. In those years, the executive minister of OCLL was Reuben Sheares.

In my dream, Roger and I had met up at General Synod and were discussing my ministry in the church I currently serve. General Synod is the biennial national gathering of our church. I have attended several, serving as a youth advisor, an agency representative, a corporate board member and a delegate. The assembly draws as many visitors as delegates and is a pretty good place for meeting up with others from the church, but not the best place for in depth conversations, because everyone has lots of meetings and appointments and obligations. In the dream, we were able to have a relaxed conversation that probably would not have been possible had it not been a dream. His advice to me was sound - to keep on with the blended worship style, to not be too swayed by critics while keeping a listening process in motion, to remember new members as well as more established members, and to put in the time required to craft solid liturgy.

Roger discussed my ministry with me many times when I was serving as a beginning pastor in North Dakota. We never had a discussion about the congregation I currently serve. And Roger died three years ago after a short and intense round with Burkitt’s lymphoma. He had retired and moved to a church-related retirement community five or six years earlier.

Roger was about 20 years older than I, a very good age for a mentor and guide. And he had a delightfully calm manor that was a good offset to my occasional tendency to make things seem a bit worse than they really were. He was wise in the organizational structures and politics of church life and pastoral in his manner.

The dream isn’t particularly significant, but it does remind me of the truly great mentors who have been a part of my life. It often seems as if I am a combination of all of the things that I learned from others. Roger is definitely a model for the way in which I work with church boards and committees and my style of leadership in wider church settings. One doesn’t need to be the star or center of attention to make a positive contribution to the process.

Thinking of Roger also got me to thinking of others in the OCLL. William Hulteen was a brilliant theological thinker who could often find just the right words. My style of writing was deeply influenced by Bill’s complex and fascinating mind. Reuben Sheares was a preacher’s preacher, whose style of preaching was often imitated, but never replicated. I think that I am one of those imitators. Reuben had a way of so internalizing a passage of scripture that it came out in every direction - his gestures, his words, his motions, his enthusiasm. He could take you inside the text in a way that changed your understanding and the way you lived your life. It was Reuben, not a seminary professor, who encouraged me to move away from dependence on written manuscripts and toward memorization and internalization of the scriptural texts.

The list of mentors who have shaped my ministry is far too long for a single blog. I am fortunate to have encountered excellent and dedicated ministers who were eager to share their craft and passion for the church. The dream, however, reminds me of something far deeper than the encounters of the past. The great mentors in our lives become a part of our identity. Their guidance and advice becomes so much a part of who we are that it is available even when they are not.

The funeral for Roger Knight may have concluded years ago, but his presence in my thinking, my ministry and my decisions continues. His sage advice is part of my identity and part of how I work with others.

It seems to me that much of what we have learned from the truly great mentors of our lives has been handed down for many generations. Roger had been mentored by wise pastors in his career and they in turn had been mentored by others. We all are inheritors of a long line of wisdom that is carried from generation to generation by able and competent pastors.

That means, of course, that it is my task to pass on that which I have received. I’m not sure that I’m much of a mentor for younger pastors. We don’t have many opportunities to meet and talk and exchange ideas. Perhaps my dream is a gentle reminder that the love and passion and experience I carry for this particular congregation needs to be shared with other leaders in careful and intentional ways. We have had some conversations about how we undertake the task of transferring leadership over the next decade and those conversations need to continue.

When I was ordained, I was ordained as pastor AND teacher. Ministers often forget how essential the teaching side of our profession is. We are called to teach in everything that we do.

I have benefitted from some great teachers in the span of my career. Teaching others is as important as other things that occupy my time. And teaching already occupies my mind.

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One of the joys of my day today will be the baptism of a nearly one-year-old boy. The baptism will take place at Placerville, our church camp, in the early afternoon. The camp is a very special and meaningful place for the mother of the boy and gathering her family to celebrate the new life and fresh generation will be a delightful time.

It isn’t, however, my preferred way of participating in a baptism. I much prefer for baptisms to take place in the context of regular worship services of the church. Parenting is a tough challenge and all parents need the love and support of the extended community. In a church baptism, we all promise our love, support and care not only to the one about to be baptized but to the entire family as they live and grow together in Christ. Those promises are deeply meaningful to me and I take them very seriously. In our congregation there are important symbols, including the gift of a quilt, that demonstrate the support of the extended community for parents and the child.

I do not, however, refuse requests to perform sacraments. In our part of the church, we recognize two sacraments, baptism and communion. They are the two actions that from direct instructions from Jesus as reported int he Gospels. We also have rites of the church, recognized by some communions as sacraments, such as marriage, confirmation, ordination, confession and pardon, and the like. But when it comes to baptism and communion, I do not believe that it is within my authority to determine who is included and who is excluded. My understanding of my authority as a minister does not give me room to refuse the sacraments to anyone. So although I might encourage a family to have a baptism in the context of a regular worship service, I will not go so far as to refuse to participate in the sacrament when it has been requested.

We have a long tradition of disagreement about the nature of the sacrament of baptism in the church. For about 75% of the history of the church, baptism didn’t raise much disagreement or controversy. Then, in the midst of the Protestant reformation, some of the reformers questioned the baptizing of children. Their argument was that making a life-long commitment to the church of Jesus Christ required an informed decision - one made by someone old enough to understand the commitment being made. On the other side of the argument were those who believe that there is no minimum age and no minimum amount of understanding or information required for full membership in the Church of Jesus Christ. The controversy extended when some communions began to repeat the sacrament. This was seen as a sign of disrespect for the initial sacrament by others. The commonly accepted name for the division of the church is “Anabaptism.” The “ana” prefix on the word refers to the repetition of baptism - it means again. In some other uses in the English language, the prefix can mean “excessive, or too much.” Anacusia - is profound or excessive deafness, for example.

When couched in that language and understanding, our church sided mostly with those who did not practice anabaptism. We continued in the tradition of baptism of infants and of recognizing the baptisms of other congregations. Once is enough. We have the rite of confirmation for the renewal of the baptismal commitment. Unlike the sacrament of baptism, we see confirmation as a repeatable rite.

These are rather esoteric arguments for the majority of Christians. While they can understand the difference between baptism by sprinkling of water and baptism by immersion, the obscure arguments about what age the person should be or whether or not baptism has been previously performed hold little interest for the average worshiper in the pew.

Each encounter with other Christians is, however, an opportunity for teaching and learning. Among the vows that I take seriously are my ordination vows, wherein I promised to both preach and teach the Gospel. Teaching has always been central to my understanding of my calling as a minister. So this afternoon’s celebration is an opportunity to teach a little bit more about the nature of the sacrament and extend the love of the church. I’ll have some important symbols with me. The certificate of baptism is issued by the church and I will remind the parents and other family members that the baptism will be recorded in the official records of our congregation. At any point in the future if the were to need additional proof of baptism, it would be available from our church office. I also will have a small prayer bear - a small gift that reminds the child and the parents of the wider community of love, prayer and support that is a part of their participation in the church.

And the basic elements of the sacrament: the words, the water, and the ceremony, come from deep within the traditions of the church - dating back to the time before Jesus’ birth. Reign of Christ Sunday - the last Sunday of the Christian year, before the beginning of Advent and a new year in the Christian calendar - is a great day for the sacrament of Baptism. It is a time of thinking of endings and beginnings - a time to be reminded that Jesus, who reigns over all of the earth came to us as a baby: fragile, vulnerable and in need of care. He grew into adulthood and his ministry in the context of the untrue and care of loving parents, an extended family, and a community of believers.

We affirm that community as we celebrate the sacrament of baptism this afternoon. We will bring our best to that sacrament as we do overtime we celebrate the sacraments. I look forward to the celebration with joy.

And, if we are faithful, perhaps a bit of that joy will be evident to the family gathered for the celebration.

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Last night I was trying to remember the complete menu of a Thanksgiving dinner at my grandmother’s house. There are some things that I do remember. We had a large turkey, stuffed with a pretty plain stuffing of bread, celery, onions, etc. We had mashed potatoes and gravy. We had sweet potatoes, sometimes cooked with marshmallows. We had cranberry sauce. When we had thanksgiving at our home instead of grandma’s we usually had two kinds of cranberry sauce: jellied sauce from a can and the regular sauce, made at home. I think that we usually had some kind of bean casserole. And pie, of course there was pie. Pumpkin pie, but other kinds, too. I’m pretty sure that we also had some kind of fancy jello, with fruit and probably a cream topping. There was usually an ambrosia fruit salad with coconut and that sometimes had marshmallows in it, too. And home-made pickles. We usually had both sweet and regular pickles and pickled beats and often pickled crab apples, too. My mom always contributed fresh-baked rolls to any family gathering.

Probably there were lots of variations on the menu and recipes because my dad’s family was a big family. When we got together at Grandma’s we always had an aunt and a couple of uncles and they all had lots of kids. We did, too. One thing I remember is the size of that turkey. I think grandma would go for the biggest one that would fit in her oven.

And what I remember even more than the meals was that supper was always turkey sandwiches on those fresh-baked buns. We’d slather on mayonnaise and put a little lettuce and then put in cranberry sauce and turkey. The memory of those sandwiches is about as delicious as any I have and I have a lot of delicious memories.

When we had Thanksgiving at our own home, in my growing up years, we had fewer varieties of pie. We always had pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, and pecan pie was a favorite at our house. My dad and I liked mincemeat, but most of the rest of the family wasn’t as keen on that kind of pie.

We didn’t have turkey very often when I was a kid. It was our traditional meal for Thanksgiving and usually for Christmas as well. New Year’s often was celebrated with a ham and occasionally with a really special tender beef roast. I remember lots of chicken in our diet, but turkey was rather rare. I don’t remember any of the neighbors raising turkeys, which is sort of funny, because there were plenty of people who “used to raise turkeys.” I just can’t remember any who currently were raising turkeys. We had chickens, but if my dad sold turkeys, ducks, geese, or other fowl when he sold chicks in the spring, I don’t remember it. We might occasionally have a goose, but it was very rare and I remember that my mom would complain a little about goose meat and my dad would rave about how special it was.

These days we have turkey quite often. Of course we don’t often roast a whole turkey. That is a major undertaking that requires some planning about the leftovers. But we often have sliced turkey from the deli, and sometimes smoked turkey. We will occasionally buy a turkey breast and not cook the entire bird.

It’s a bit hard to say what was on the menu in November of 1621 when the people of the Plymouth colony and Wampanoag Tribal members gathered for what has been called “the first thanksgiving.” Edward Winslow noted in his journal that William Bradford sent four men on a “fowling” mission in preparation for the meal. There certainly were wild turkeys in the region, but “fowling” might also mean ducks, geese, and swans. The record also notes that the Wampanoag people contributed deer. They might have roasted the dear over an open fire on a spit an deer was also a favorite meat for stew. Soups were pretty common in the early colonies.

If they had corn, it wasn’t served as a vegetable, per se. They ground corn into meal and cooked mush from it. Sometimes they would sweeten the mush with molasses. There would have been blueberries, raspberries and cranberries.

They had been eating a lot of fish prior to the meal, and fish might have been an important part of a celebration meal. They dug clams and mussels and oysters and caught lobsters and sea bass in the nearby waters.

There probably weren’t any potatoes. It was quite a few years before those became popular in North America. Spanish settlers might have sampled the Central and South American tubers by the time the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, but potatoes had to be taken to Europe and became popular there before they started to appear on colonial menus.

And pie probably wasn’t on the menu. They had various squashes, but they didn’t really have flour or much lard for making crusts. It is possible that they made a form of a crumb crust like Shoo Fly Pie, but there isn’t any record of such a dish among the Pilgrims. That recipe was developed in the Pennsylvania Colony.

And I have no idea why I decided to devote an entire blog to Thanksgiving menus in the first place. I know why I was thinking about my childhood celebrations. The season is upon us. We’ll be celebrating and eating a bit too much next week. And we will have an abundance of food - certainly enough to share.

Truth be told, however, I’m more in the mood for some good turkey soup than I am for the entire Thanksgiving menu. I’m a big fan of Thanksgiving leftovers. I think stuffing always tastes better on the second day. And there is little that can beat a bowl of turkey soup.

I will be baking buns for the day. You have to have home made buns for the best turkey sandwiches!

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Patrol officers wear duty belts. The style favored by the duties in our Sheriff’s office are about 2.25 to 2.5 inches wide and strap over another belt, connecting with leather loops that snap around both belts. They have a wide variety of things that they attach to their belts. Here is a holster for their gun and holsters for less lethal weapons such as tasers and pepper spray. There is a pouch for handcuffs. Most of our officers carry cell phones in pouches on their belts. They all carry flashlights, though there are various sizes from small mag lights to the big 5 D-cell models. There are also pouches for various other items than can hang from the belts. In some law enforcement circles, police suspenders help hold up all of that equipment and transfer some of the weight from the hips to the shoulders, but such are not popular in our department.

The old west has faded some around here. It isn’t like every person you meet has a six shooter hanging from his belt and half of them have two. These days the people who carry pistols often have concealed weapons permits and you never see them.

But it is increasingly popular for men to have a lot of gadgets hanging from their belts.

Recently I was looking at a friend’s belt. He works as a technician for complex medical imaging devices and his customers are not happy when their machines need maintenance. So he carries a cell phone for his work. And he has a personal cell phone. Both are smart phones with healthy displays, neither is appropriate for pants pockets. He is also a volunteer for our local search and rescue squad, so he also had a pager hanging from his belt.

It is sometimes amusing to watch men preparing to go through airport security. They remove their belts because of metal buckles and as they do a string of pouches fall. Most are adept at catching the various items and putting them into the bins to go through the scanners. A few less seasoned travlers drop items on the floor and create a general amusement for TSA workers and other witnesses.

I usually wear a sports coat when traveling. I stuff all my things into my jacket, and remove my belt and put it in my carry on bag before getting into the line. That way I can simply remove my jacket, send it through the scanner and retrieve it after I walk through the scanners. Of course the item I forget to remove is my watch and that can cause a moment to back up, remove the watch and try again.

I confess that I usually carry my cell phone in a pouch on my belt. It just works better than trying to put it in my pocket. And I’ve been known to clip a pen and sometimes a flashlight and a pen to a belt loop with a carabiner. Sometimes, I even put my keys on a carabiner and clip them to a belt loop.

I’m sure i’m no better and no less comical in appearance than other men.

Not having adjusted to purses, we have to have somewhere to put all of our junk. Having put on a few pounds, our pants are a bit tighter and our pockets a bit less useful than they were a few decades ago. I know I have a lot of stuff I cram into my pockets. I always carry a small note pad. Sometimes I even jot down blog ideas in it. I know my smart phone will record all of the notes I need, but I’m still addicted to paper somehow when it comes to making notes. The pad is useless without a pen. And the choice of pen is important because most pens break or leak in your pockets. I’ve found a short pressurized pen that is not prone to such events. I always carry a pocket comb, though it seems that a few more years will leave me sufficiently hairless to leave this item at home. Then there is my wallet. I try to keep it slim, but it grows with accumulated receipts, post it notes, shopping lists and other items. Of course, I need keys - and I have a wad of those. I carry keys for two exterior locks, the padlock for the wood splitters and six different internal locks in the church - so my church keys fill up a rather large ring. Then I have my own house key and the keys to whatever vehicle I’m driving. And car keys all have remote door fobs on them these days.

You get the picture. Part of my girth ini my midsection is the result of a life of too many fatty foods and insufficient exercise. Part of the width is due to all of the things I carry in my pockets and on my belt. It’s too bad that the extra calories consumed by carrying the extra weight won’t reduce the belly fat. If things keep going the way they are, before long I’ll look like an egg with a couple of tiny feet and arms and a head and a rubber band around the middle where there used to be a waist. There will be lots of things hanging from that center band.

For a while cell phones were getting smaller and smaller and there was a time when I had a small phone that carried rather easily in my pocket. You had to know that trend wouldn’t last. Men just don’t enjoy standing around bragging, “Mine’s smaller than yours!” So these days the phones are getting bigger and bigger as the companies add more and more functions and the displays need to get bigger to show more information, not to mention that the eyesight of the customers is fading. Big screens are easier to see. Unless Google Glasses catch on, before long, we’ll all be carrying around flat screen televisions on our belts.

My canoe doesn’t require all of that equipment. And much of it, like the wallet and phone are things that you don’t want to get wet. Lately I’ve been thinking that one of the joys of paddling is the feeling of empty pockets and nothing to hang on my belt.

Then again, I’ve got to wait a while for the weather to cooperate with my paddling. In the meantime, don’t worry. You’re safe. I don’t carry any weapons on my belt. And if I did, it would take me a while to find them.

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This morning as I write, a friend lies dying in Hospice House. It is possible that he died in the early hours of the morning and his family, who are kind and considerate people, are waiting to give me a call. It is also possible that his process of dying will take days or even weeks. It is within the range of possibility, though highly unlikely, that he will recover enough to walk out of Hospice House. He has done it before.

He was awake for our prayer in the morning, but couldn’t wake up for the prayer when I stopped by in the afternoon yesterday. He is operating on God’s time now, not human time and no one can say how that process translates into human time.

His wife says that he checked everything off of his “bucket list.” He had a grand time in October, when we dedicated our latest Habitat for Humanity home, with people from the church, the homeowner family and even the mayor of our city all wearing “Ward’s Crew” buttons. He recently came back from a wonderful trip to Oklahoma where he had an early Thanksgiving with children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. There were plenty of people who said he shouldn’t exert the effort for that trip - that it might shorten his life. That, of course, didn’t stop him and his family were well aware that their opinions in the matter were far less important than their support.

So the vigil has begun.

It isn’t the only vigil in our town. Hospice house has twelve beds and each is filled by a person whose span of life is short. And there are a dozen more nearby at Regional Hospital. And more in each of the area’s nursing homes. And a few at home. Multiply that by all of the cities in our country and all of the countries on the globe, and dying isn’t a unique event. Sitting with a loved one as he or she dies happens around the clock every day.

We all, of course, are mortal.

I am fortunate to have good health at this phase of my life and am able to work with enthusiasm and eat a reasonable diet and exercise in a wide variety of ways. I can enjoy my family fully and participate in multiple friendships. I am blessed in so many ways that I would never complete the list of things for which I am grateful. I don’t have a “bucket list.” There are lots of things that I’d like to do sometime in the future, but my life will have been full and complete if I accomplish none of them.

But I have come to the realization, quite recently really, that I will not read all of the books that I might read. For years, I have been hungrily reading book after book in part because it seems to me that there are so many good books that I didn’t read. I wasn’t the best student in High School and our school didn’t have any kind of special literature classes, and there were a lot of books in the English canon that I simply didn’t read. So I have tried to catch up. I maintain a list of classic books and try to check them off one by one. Along the way, I get sidetracked by special topics. This fall I’ve been reading a lot about the history of the Hudson’s Bay Company and stories of the north of Canada. Hudson’s Bay is a huge company with a long history and the books tend to be epic. I’m sure I’ve read more than a thousand pages on that topic this fall. So I decided to sneak in a few novels before I head of on another “jag” - possibly the six textbooks used in one of the nation’s most popular university storytelling courses. The book I chose is Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine. I know I should have read it when I was 12. I never did. In fact this is the first Bradbury book I’ve ever read.

There is a professor in the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop who reads that novel every year. Lots of literate people speak of the wonders of the book’s use of metaphor and flowery, poetic language. It is a sort of coming-of-age story of a 12-year-old. It has been described as “magical,” and “timeless” and “vintage.”

Wow! It might be classic writing - at least it is very good writing. And it might be great for a writing teacher to assign as an example of good writing. But Bradbury’s memory must not have been very good when he wrote it. That 12-year-old is like no 12-year-old I’ve ever met. He thinks like a 40-year-old. He describes the events of his life like a university professor.

Or maybe like an old may lying dying when there is plenty of time to think about what it was like being a 12-year-old.

The book is great for read-aloud. The words tumble out in a lush, rich progression. Like poetry, I catch myself reading some of the paragraphs out loud. Like I said, the book is rich and wonderful and well-written. And the characters are so totally unbelievable that one has to suspend all pretense of reality and enter into a world where adolescents think like old men.

Maybe I will think like that when I sort through the events of my life. Having blogged for so many years, I’m unlikely to be motivated to write a memoir - the blog archives are as close as I will get. But if I did, I suppose, I might be tempted to write of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma's belly-busting dinner. I probably can remember a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. There’s probably a magical, timeless summer in my past.

We all have our own ways of telling our stories. And some of us are fortunate enough to be asked to tell part of the stories of others.

Right now, it seems like imitating Bradbury would be exactly the wrong choice to describe the life of my friend. Instead, I’m likely to follow his own advice: “Cut the crap and get ‘er done!”

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I don’t spend much time thinking about numbers or size. People often ask me how big our church is. I usually answer with the official membership number, but that isn’t a very accurate measurement. It might be more accurate to talk about average worship attendance or budget to determine the size of the congregation. I do spend a significant amount of energy on budget development each year, but the goal isn’t continual growth or having a budget that is bigger than anyone else. This isn’t a business. It is a church. The goal is simply to have a budget that is the right size for the congregation’s ministry.

To put it another way, our challenge is to live joyously with whatever God provides.

That doesn’t mean that we should ignore money. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t ask our members to contribute. It just means that we do not need to grow bigger and get more expensive each year in order to consider ourselves faithful.

Being faithful is what we have been asked.

Still, it is interesting to observe the different attitudes towards numbers that crop up in a complex community like ours.

We have our share of worriers. October was a very good month for our congregation. Income exceeded expenses significantly. We have a positive cash flow for the year and are significantly out performing the budget the congregation voted. Our expenses have been held in check and our income has exceeded projections. You might not have known it from one report that was made at our board meeting last night. The presenter said it looks like we might end the year in the black, but no matter how he figures the numbers, the current pledges won’t support the budget for the coming year. Nothing that was reported was inaccurate. But I could tell from the report that the reporter is much more worried than I.

There are plenty of churches that would be envious of our financial position. We have no debt. We have over subscribed all of our capital funds drives for more than half a century. We carry modest reserves. We have honored all of our special funds. We have met our expenses and stayed in the black for as long as I have been pastor and for decades before that. Our cash balance in the bank at the moment would carry us through the end of the year if all income was cut off.

And our reserves have never been in the bank. That’s not where they belong. Our real reserves have always been in the lives and generosity of our members. The way you raise money in this congregation is to tell people what you need.

In fact, the worries come, in part from the simple fact that we haven’t had to struggle for money so long. We sometimes forget to ask. We often project a sense that we don’t need money.

Still, there are those who are worried.

I’m not worried. And I’m not worried about the impact of worriers. Our church continues to be generous in mission and supportive of its ministries. Before I have seen the final numbers on the page, I am confident that the 2015 budget will be generous, responsible, and workable. It won’t make me lose too many nights of sleep worrying about how we’ll pay our bills.

That doesn’t mean that there will be no surprises. There will be surprises. Surprises come in all sizes and shapes. Some can be very good indeed.

We will vote a major capital funds drive - perhaps the biggest since the congregation moved to the existing building in 1959. In dollars the campaign will be bigger. Corrected for inflation, it is modest, but significant. I have no doubt that we can raise the money we need. I also have no doubt that the leaders of the church will not take excessive risks. We’ll do fine.

I have considered the possibility that the reason I don’t worry has something to do with age and experience. I served congregations with more precarious financial situations earlier in my career. And I did get more worked up about budgets and money in those days.

Another possibility is that God has surrounded me with people who worry and so I don’t need to worry. If you have someone who can always see the worst in any scenario, you are freed to look for the best. I can sleep at night in part because I am absolutely confident that there is no chance our congregation would suddenly go on a spending spree that would lead to financial oblivion.

Jesus, of course, had no fear of financial risk. He considered the lilies of the field and found no need for savings. He understood that poverty is always a dynamic of every generation and allowed the extravagance of fine oil. He sent his disciples out without any reserves trusting that they would be supported by the community. He advised people not to worry about the coins used to pay taxes - those aren’t the real treasures in the first place. “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s.”

If anything, I wonder if we are living too comfortably and failing to be as generously as we are able. Sure, we are not big or rich enough to solve poverty housing in America, but we could build another Habitat House. No, we can’t solve poverty or homelessness in our community, but we could easily double the number of meals we serve at the mission. It wouldn’t be right and we are not able to support the ministries of our camp by ourselves, but we could have much more support for its ministries than what we do each year right now. We haven’t been called to support United Campus Ministries on our own, but we could match the contributions of the other partners by simply spending a little less on ourselves.

Maybe God has surrounded me with skilled and capable worriers so that, freed from needing to worry, I can dream big about God’s possibilities.

But then, I don’t spend much time thinking about numbers or size.

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Yesterday was a good day. We managed to deliver a significant load of firewood to the home of Mike Kills Pretty Enemy near McLaughlin. It isn’t the kind of work that many ministers get to do. I sometimes comment that lots of ministers don’t get to play with wood splitters, chainsaws, trucks and trailers. I do.

The scope of our Woodchuck project has grown steadily from that first trip when we took a horse trailer packed with split firewood and delivered the wood to a field near Sharp’s Corner to be used as part of an energy assistance program. These days we have partners who distribute the firewood from locations on the Pine Ridge, Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Reservations. At the start of this fall’s deliveries, there were 127 cords of split firewood stacked in the church back yard.

Here is part of the story of yesterday.

We had six vehicles, all pulling trailers, so there was the usual hubbub of getting connected, checking out lights and making last minute visits to the restroom before our departure. It was only about 11 degrees, so we prayed with our hats on before scrambling to the warmth of our trucks. The road report cautioned us to look for scattered slippery spots and ground blizzard conditions. We spread out to give room for those who might want to pass our little caravan and to allow for space should we encounter slippery roads. We didn’t quite meet our 7:30 departure time, but we were on the road before 8 am. The trip went well with short stops in Newell and Faith. At Dupree, we turned north to Isabel.

Before going farther, a short geography lesson for those unfamiliar with the territory. The Cheyenne River Reservation lies to the west of the Missouri River in north-central South Dakota. Just to the north of the Reservation, with a common border, is the Standing Rock Reservation, which extends into North Dakota. Both reservations are dotted with small settlements and communities and crisscrossed with roads, most of which are gravel. There are four paved roads that make a West-to-East crossing of the reservations. State Highway 34 runs along the southern border of the two reservations. US Highway 212 runs through the Cheyenne Reservation. State highway 20 crosses a bit farther north. and US 12 runs close to the state border between North and South Dakota, dipping down to cross the river at Mobridge, where it is joined by highway 20. Running North and South, State Highway 73 goes from just west of Faith up to Lemmon. SD 65 goes from Faith up to McIntosh on the North Dakota Border. SD 63 runs from Eagle Butte to McLaughlin, with a jog to the East along SD 20. If you were heading to Mobridge, you could take highways 73, 65 or 63 up to SD 20 and then head east on SD 20 into the town. Most of the time I go up to Isabel on 65 and then turn east.

When we lived in North Dakota, and Susan’s Aunt and Uncle had a farm at Isabel, we would head up SD 65 to McIntosh and then go West on US 12 to Lemmon and on to Hettinger, North Dakota.

It’s all a little confusing unless you look at the map. To confuse you a bit more, our destination yesterday was off of bullhead road, a partly gavel and partly paved road that runs between SD 65 and SD 63.

It has been our tradition for me to lead the caravan when we head out to deliver firewood. When I am not able to make the trip, others lead and the trip goes smoothly and the firewood is delivered. It isn’t as if they need me to know where to go. Yesterday, I was leading the group and followed our plan to Isabel, where we had planned to go east on SD 20 and then turn North on SD 63. Instead, without thinking about it, I turned north on SD 65 at Isabel. Perhaps it was a moment of lost focus. Perhaps I was distracted by trying to keep all of the other vehicles in my rear view mirror. Perhaps I just temporarily forgot how we had planned to go. McIntosh and Mclaughlin are only a little over 20 miles apart and the road runs almost perfectly east west about 6 miles form the ND border up there. At any rate, I took the wrong turn and the whole parade of firewood deliverers followed me.

I didn’t even notice I was on the wrong road until a phone call from the last truck in our line informed me. It took me a minute to figure out what I had done wrong and by then it made sense for us to go all the way to highway 212 and then cut back by a gravel road to our delivery point. My choice of route added about 30 miles and a half hour to the trip.

It wasn’t my finest moment of leadership.

These are extremely dedicated volunteers. If you just think about what we were doing. Truck and trailers loaded with firewood consume a large amount of gas. The drivers were each contributing over $100 for fuel for the trip. A 500 mile trip takes all day. Everyone was contributing a long day to the venture. Winter driving with temperatures below 20 degrees all day takes its toll on equipment. Things break when it gets cold. Diesel trucks need additive. Ropes and webbing to secure loads become brittle. Safety chains and light hookups have to be attached with bare hands and they can get cold. Unloading trucks and trailers in the cold with insulated coveralls and parkas is hard work and hard on clothing. The commitment of each volunteer is significant.

They did not need me to waste their time and money.

But they are a forgiving lot. No one got upset. No one complained. Everyone chipped in and the trip was completed safely. There is a huge pile of firewood in Mike’s yard. Mission accomplished.

When I joked about the fact that all of the trucks followed me when I took the wrong turn, one of the drivers said, “We’d follow you, even to the gates of hell.” I reminded him that we were nowhere near the gates of hell. We got close enough to see North Dakota, and the winters are harsh up there, but it the line separating the two states is not as bad as all that.

Next time, I’ll be more alert about where I’m going.

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Chances are you don’t want to read more about the weather, but it has been on my mind. I am eager to get firewood delivered to McLaughlin. It is our most distant delivery and just because it is a long way for us to drive, the need is no less than is that of those who live closer to our church. Still, it is important that we are mindful of the safety of our volunteers. One thing that Dakota winters teaches is respect of the weather.

As weather goes, it isn’t bad. It isn’t all that severe. We’ve seen colder temperatures, higher winds, more snow. This isn’t the blizzard that struck us last October.

And there are a lot of people from Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan who remember today as the one year anniversary of some particularly severe weather. No November 17, 2013, a rare late-season tornado outbreak struck with around six dozen tornadoes touching down in the three states in an approximately 11-hour time period, including seven EF3 and two EF4 tornadoes.

By comparison, the weather we are experiencing isn’t all that bad, I guess.

I’ve never lived in a place where tornadoes are frequent. I guess it is possible for a tornado to touch down in the hills, but we’ve only lived here for 19 years, so we haven’t yet experienced that particular weather phenomenon.

I don’t live my life with many fears and I’m sure that were I to live in a place where tornadoes were common, I’d get to know where the shelters were and learn to live with appropriate caution, but without fear. That is the way I feel about the weather that we do get. I try to exercise appropriate caution. I carry a really good foul weather kit in my car and in my pickup. We joke that were we to slide into the ditch, we hope that rescue would come within three weeks or so. After that we might start to run out of provisions. We probably wouldn’t run out of tea or coffee, but other food might be getting short by that time.

Sleeping bags, candle lanterns, good warm boots, dry socks, tire chains, a tow strap, jumper cables. Yup, I’ve got all of those things.


In the midst of what is probably most accurately described as typical winter weather for South Dakota, yesterday’s attendance at church was a little bit light. It is hard for people with any kind of mobility disorder to get out when the streets and sidewalks are sporting ice. There we some folks who didn’t want to drive in this weather for the same reason. But for the hardy few who did make it, the music was outstanding: bell choir, adult choir, flute, organ, violin - there aren’t many congregations that enjoy better music that we.

And then in the afternoon, with the wind blowing and the snow flying, those of us who were able were treated to a wonderful afternoon concert. Marta Asnavooran, Desiree Ruhstrat and David Cunliffe delighted and inspired us with classical piano trio music. But it was the contemporary music that they played that stirred my heart. As a classical music fan, I confess that I often am unaware of all of the latest in contemporary music simply because there is so much to hear in the realm of classical music. And I suppose that some of the sounds and rhythms of contemporary music are acquired tastes, but the taste was just right for me.

After church, I made a hospital call, grabbed a sandwich to share with my wife back at the church and then went to work to try to catch up on some needed paperwork - though that kind of work doesn’t involve much paper these days. Mostly it is writing e-mail messages and making adjustments to web sites and calendars. With snowflakes in the air, my mind wandered from my work on a regular basis. And the flight was accompanied by the strains from the musicians practicing in the sanctuary.

There aren’t many people in this world who are treated to the sounds that frequently surround my office and workspace. There is no recording with as much glory and grace as live musicians working in the room next to my office.

This is the second time that the Lincoln Trio has played in our church since I have been pastor. One of their big projects is an album of contemporary music for a classical piano trio all composed by women. The album, “Notable Women,” is a delight and one that I sometimes play for a long drive across South Dakota. I’ll have it with me today as we head north, weather permitting.

As nice as the album is, recordings have an entirely different quality than live musicians. And, frankly, I love to be present when they are rehearsing. The repeated phrases, the tweaking for perfection, the pauses for comment and discussion all add to mu understanding of the music and the people who make music for us to hear.

The music of any ensemble is dependent upon the ability of the artists to work with each other. They develop a sense of timing and an sensitivity to the sounds that the other musicians are making.

Our church also is dependent upon the ability of people of exceptional talent to work together. Sometimes we make beautiful music together - in fact most of the time we make beautiful music together.

Sometimes we simply need more practice.

Faith is, after all, a practice. God does not demand perfection of us, but rather the ability to keep trying and, to keep growing, and to keep learning. This life is an opportunity to practice our faith in the context of the love and care of a supporting community. We don’t always get it right, but we always keep striving for faithfulness.

And even our practice is a joyful gift to God.

Perhaps God enjoys the practice as much as I. Maybe God even feels grateful, as I do, to witness the practice.

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There are a few moments each day, just after my alarm goes off, when I lie in bed and think about the day that lies ahead. The transition from sleep requires that I remember what day of the week it is and what activities are planned for the day. My days are rich and varied. Although I do have routines, there are days that require different modes of dress and preparation.

You might think that Sundays would have their own routine, since I go to church at the same time; worship is at the same time and lasts approximately the same amount of time; there may be a meeting after worship, but the mornings are fairly consistent in terms of what events occur. However, Sunday is the morning of the week when I need to sort out the most ideas and concepts as I make that transition from sleeping to being awake. Part of the process is that what seems to work best for me is to do the preparation for worship in advance and then to take Saturday off. It isn’t that I don’t work on Saturday. I often have church-related activities on Saturdays. However, I rarely spend time working on the worship service per-se. It might be in the back of my mind as I focus on other activities, but I rarely am sitting at the computer or at a desk surrounded by books on a Saturday. It is just my style. I have colleagues who like to spend much of Saturday afternoon on sermon preparation. For me, if I don’t have things in place earlier in the week, I fall into a kind of panic.

Of course there are plenty of events that can occur in a church that force a change in a well-planned worship service. I remember early in my career planning for the worship service that would follow the championship game in the state basketball tournament. Our town’s team wound its way through the preliminary rounds victories, but we didn’t know until Friday evening whether or not they would be playing in the championship round. And the championship game was Saturday night. I listened to the game on the radio so that I would have that information for the next morning. I sort of had two different sermons: one for victory, another for loss. What I hadn’t figured on was that most of the town had traveled to the game and worship attendance the next day was pretty light. I might have had a good sermon had the room been full, but it is always a challenge to preach a cogent message to a handful of people. As it was, the sermon has not become memorable for me and I doubt that it was for the people in the church.

Of course worship is much more than a sermon. The goal of good preaching is not to have people going away from the church thinking, “Wow! that was a good sermon!” The goal is to have people leave with a deeper understanding of the connection of scripture and how it informs their daily living. Given the choice, I’d always choose to have people remember the scripture, not the sermon.

One of the dynamics in a complex congregation like ours, is that different people come to worship with different expectations. Members of our bell choir will rise today thinking about the bell anthems that are a part of worship. The choir director will be thinking of the choral anthem and responses. I rose thinking, “Three anthems! I really have to be concise and brief with my words.” Most preachers will tell you that finding the right words to have a short sermon is harder work that being allowed more time. One of those quotes whose source has been lost that I often use goes like this: “I didn’t have time to make it short!”

It must have been different fro Pastor Zach Zehnder from Florida who recently broke the Guiness world record for the Longest Speech by preaching a sermon that lasted 53 hours and 18 minutes. The stunt was a successful fund-raising effort for a nonprofit that provides free drug and alcohol addiction counseling. It was a noble cause, but something that wouldn’t interest me. It’s one thing to bore the congregation. It is a different matter entirely to preach yourself into boredom. And Zehnder didn’t create much fresh material for the marathon. He went into the pulpit with 50 previously-prepared sermons. In the end I guess there were a few that he skipped. That’s about a year’s worth of sermons in one sitting.

Of course, I’m not as long-winded as Zehnder every Sunday. A year’s worth of my sermons wouldn’t amount to half of the previous world record.

I commend Zehnder for his dedication and ability to raise funds for an important cause. He probably feels that it was worth the effort. But that is one record that I’m perfectly willing to let stand. In my mind, preaching shouldn’t be an endurance test for me or for the congregation. After all, worship is about a total experience, not about what I have to say. In our congregation, there are people who bring life experiences into the room that far exceed anything that has occurred to me. We bring together people of all different ages and experiences and my job is to make connections. I like to think about the people. Preaching is a relationship for me. Part of my Sunday morning routine is a half hour or so in the sanctuary when no one else is present. Sometimes I run through my sermon and write a few notes to myself. Sometimes I just sit quietly. My preferred activity is to sit for a couple of minutes in several different places in the sanctuary and think about the people who usually sit in that part of the room. Most of our people sit in the same general area week after week. And I know a lot of their stories.

Their lives are different every week. And it makes sense that the entire community is shaped by the events in the lives of our members.

The schedule may be similar. The day is never routine. And that is a blessing.

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There have been some years of my life when I just couldn’t wait for snow. I am a person who enjoys winter and I used to do a lot more skiing than I do these days. It takes several good snowstorms to build up the base on a ski hill and even cross-country skiing takes quite a bit of snow. The best snow for skiing is light powder - the kind that falls when it is quite cold outside. During the decade that we lived in Idaho, the Boise front, where relatively dry air from the great basin met with the clouds blowing in from the Pacific, was a great place for power snow. Bogus Basin Ski resort in those days had enough lights to support 12 hours per day of skiing and season passes were within my reach. When you have a season pass, you don’t mind skiing for a half day or even for just a couple of hours if that is all the time you have. And a season pass is something that you buy before the season starts, so you never know how good the snow will be when you purchase the pass. Late fall, as the snow begins to fly is a good time for ski swaps and other events to pick up a bit of new equipment.

For whatever reasons, I’m not doing as much skiing these days. I have a different set of friends and skiing is something that is best when not pursued alone. Susan enjoys cross country skiing, but she never got into downhill, so I’ve drifted into other adventures and ways of getting my exercise.

Having said that, the snow that we have been getting in the past week has been perfect for skiing. It is light and powdery and just right. I can’t help but enjoy it and marvel at its beauty. At night it sparkles as it falls.

Having said that, I know that the snow is an inconvenience for many. We have a friend up at Eagle Butte who took a fall on the ice and broke her leg. Yesterday, I watched as a person got out of a car and had trouble making it from the car to the sidewalk due to a large berm of snow left by the plow. The cold can make it hard for some people to get out and others struggle to get their snow shoveled.

You don’t have to go far to find someone who is willing to complain about the snow and cold.

November is a bit early for such cold weather for us. On the other hand, the forecast calls for rising temperatures next week. It should be above freezing by a week from now. As usual for the hills, we have a good chance of having our snow melt off before we get too much more.

I’m not minding the snow too much because I don’t have too much need to travel these days. We do have some firewood deliveries to make and we are checking the road reports this morning because today’s delivery is one of our longest ones - about 250 miles one way. We’ll have to make the call on whether or not we go today soon. We have another important delivery scheduled for a week from today.

Other than that and possible visits to family for the holidays, we don’t have to go very far. Running back and forth to the church isn’t a big problem. We have dependable cars and the roads are kept in pretty good shape.

Beyond that, I have a project in my garage that makes it really fun for me to stay home. I’ve decided to build a new kayak this winter. It will be a cedar strip kayak, built to a design by Nick Schade. I’ve made one other kayak to his designs and I really like the cedar strips. The wood smells good and working with a knife and a block plane to fit each strip carefully is very satisfying work. I have a large kerosene space heater that makes the garage into a suitable shop and a small electric heater under the boat will keep it warm enough for the glue to set. Anything above 45 degrees Fahrenheit and the glue works well.

The project is just getting started. I am building a new box beam for the forms to go on and then I will have to set up my forms and get everything square and straight before I can attach the first strip. After the inner stems and sheer strips are set up, the process goes smoothly and I can glue in one or two strips every evening, even when I have had long and busy days. After a few weeks it begins to look like a boat. And this one will be a beautiful boat. I’ve got the best cedar I’ve ever had to work with and the boat is long and elegant. 19 feet long and 22 inches wide - even sleeker than my skin-on-frame greenland kayak which is 17 1/2 feel long and 28” in beam. This boat feels fast just looking at the plans - which is the stage that I’m at right now. I’ve been pouring over the plans and organizing my work space to get ready to begin the project.

So I’m willing to say, “let it snow!” I’ve got what I need and I wouldn’t even be sad if we got snowed in for a few days. That, however, is highly unlikely, especially with this light powder snow. It takes a lot of it to make travel difficult as long as one is willing to respect the slippery spots and take it slowly.

One of the magazines I read every month speaks of the two main seasons of the year: “paddling season” and “building season.” That makes sense to me. And, since I’m always writing about paddling and including pictures, I need to remember to take pictures of the build as the boat begins to emerge.

I’m thinking I’ve got several more blogs to harvest from this boat before it is done.

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19 years ago, when we first arrived in Rapid City, we were interviewed by the newspaper for a feature article. There was some interest in two ministers married to each other serving the same church. Since we had been married and had served the same church for all of our ministry and since we had several friends who were also clergy couples, we didn’t think our situation was that unique, but it was interesting enough for a reporter to spend some time with us. At the time we had two teenage children at home and neither had a driver’s license, so our lives were pretty busy and full. There wasn’t a lot of spare time. And I was in the midst of a steep learning curve having transitioned from a congregation that was significantly smaller than the one I now serve. The size of the job was a bit overwhelming. As a result, we had less time for each other and had to me more intentional about making time to be together. Otherwise, we would be spending most of our awake hours heading in two different directions. Despite the fact that we worked in the same church and lived in the same house, there were a lot of things that required us to be moving in different directions. The interviewer asked us several questions about how we maintained our relationship and what we enjoyed doing together as a couple. I mentioned that we liked to go out for coffee and that we were enjoying checking out the various coffee shops in Rapid City.

There weren’t that many coffee shops in Rapid City in those days. That was before Bully Blends and before Dunn Brothers. Back in those days I think the closest Starbucks was in Denver. The little coffee shop kiosks in parking lots hadn’t arrived in Rapid City yet. It wasn’t, however, a problem for us. We didn’t need much in the way of fanciness or big companies. One comment I made at the time was that I thought that probably the best cup of espresso in town came from my own kitchen.

That may still be the case, but things have changed a lot in the intervening years. There are now at least 7 Starbucks locations in our town and the new Starbucks sign on the Alex Johnson hotel is visible from the church. We’ve got espresso stands in the parking lots of many different stores around town and there are both independent and chain coffee shops in many convenient locations. There are more espresso machines in Rapid City than there were in the State of South Dakota when we moved here.

And the price of coffee has gone up a lot over those years as well. It is more than a dollar in most cafes and more than $5 in some high end coffee shops for a premium blended coffee drink.

Over the years, I have learned a lot more about where our coffee comes from as well. Part of my education comes from our church’s sister church relationship with a congregation in Costa Rica. On our first trip to Costa Rica, some of us brought home bags of roasted coffee beans. The people of Costa Rica are proud of the coffee they produce and they market it heavily to tourists. It is available in all of the tourist shops and places that sell Costa Rican crafts. Later we learned of a coffee cooperative related to our mission partners and began to purchase fairly-traded coffee as directly from producers as possible.

Coffee used to be the sole crop for many Costa Rican farmers. These days, that’s a risky business. The recent drought year is just one sign of how vulnerable the crop is to changes in weather and the weather in Central America is becoming more volatile as climate change becomes a reality that is impossible to ignore. Some believe that there is also a connection between the outbreak of leaf rust fungus, also known as roya. Estimates are that the fungus has caused $1 billion in damages to the economy of Central America. Costa Rica’s coffee industry may be especially vulnerable because coffee is a well-established crop and many of the plants are old. Even though Costa Rica has been more aggressive than its neighbors in efforts to prevent the spread of the fungus, there are some farms that have had to take out all of their plants and start over - a very expensive process.

And the market for coffee is constantly changing. Many home consumers are purchasing whole bean coffee rather than ground coffee and many are willing to pay premium prices for special blends and roasts. And there market for green, un-roasted coffee continues to expand every year. There are more an more micro-roasters who blend and roast custom coffees. When we moved to Rapid City it was hard to find fresh coffee beans in stores. Today I can go to a shop in downtown Rapid City and select a custom blend of beans that were roasted in the last 24 hours.

We pay for this privilege. The retail price of coffee continues to rise at a rate that far exceeds normal inflation. However all of this activity has not translated into greater income for coffee producers in Costa Rica. Prudent farmers are diversifying their crops and transitioning to more and more shade-grown coffees in order to provide some protection from unpredictable weather and a rapidly fluctuating market. Cooking plantains are a good companion crop for coffee an although it is not a popular export crop, the market for plantains is strong throughout Latin America.

I’ve changed as well. Despite the rapid growth of coffee shops in Rapid City, I’m less likely to go out for coffee than was the case a couple of decades ago. I’m drinking less coffee these days. I try to be more careful about how I buy coffee now that I understand the incredibly small amount of the price we pay ends up in the hands of the farmers who produce the beans.

Still, sitting down for a really good cup of coffee with Susan is a treat worth savoring and a good way to stay connected in the midst of lives that are as busy today as they were 20 years ago.

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When I was a kid, I was taught, as were many, that bullies were more talk than action and that the best way to deal with a bully is to stand up to the bully. If you do, the common wisdom went, the bully will back down and you won’t have a problem with the bullying again.

In reality it isn’t quite that simple. I was in the 4th or 5th grade when an attempt to stand up to a bully resulted in one quick jab to the bridge of my nose that left me on the ground with broken glasses and a nosebleed and the bully walking away unscathed. And it wasn’t long afterward that I learned that there were more subtle forms of bullying that didn’t involve physical intimidation, but were nonetheless significant attempts to control another person. In a small town school where everybody is known attempts at gaining and maintaining power often are accompanied by threats that usually don’t involve physical violence, but more often have to do with social status and one’s role in the community. There was a form of bullying around who did and who did not run for student council in my high school. There were side conversations that reproduced, on a very small scale, some of the maneuverings of the back rooms and hallways of government.

One of the problems with bullying in our culture is that some forms of bullying are actually encouraged. At least behaviors that are dangerously close to bullying are labeled as steps on the road to success. “Be assertive!” “Stand up for yourself!” There are plenty of messages that encourage aggressive behavior. Sometimes those who are the most aggressive are labeled as leaders and their behavior is seen as a way to get ahead in a competitive world.

Like the student council in a small town high school, most local churches are fairly small arenas of power. There isn’t a lot of power to be seized. Assuming leadership is often a case of being “a big fish in a small pond.” But there are plenty of bullies in the life of the church. Most members of the church are content with following the processes and working within the established structure and offices of the church. But there have been regular occurrences in the span of my career when an individual chooses to work outside of the normal channels and tries to exert power that is unearned and disproportionate to the commitment and investment that has been made.

Real leadership in the church is always shown in service, not in titles or offices held. Matthew’s report of Jesus sums it up accurately: “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.” Those who make ploys for power in the church often end up with very little power. The gospel has a way of reversing roles.

My friend Ben Anderson is a bit of an expert in bullying. Through his non-profit corporation, he does a lot of presentations in schools and other places on the topic of bullying. It is a topic Ben knows well. As a boy growing up in rural North Dakota with disabilities that affected both is walking and his speech, Ben often suffered the attempts of others to intimidate and control him. But he is a free spirit and a resilient person and he found ways to navigate the various maneuverings of his peers.

One of the stories that Ben tells is about a time, when he was an young adult and engaged in an “urban plunge” ministry through his church. After a brief period of orientation, volunteers were engaged in urban service ministries in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Ben, having grown up in small-town North Dakota didn’t have many “street smarts” or other urban skills, but he was committed to the service project. One day, after taking a walk, he was sitting in a park and was approached by three men who asked Ben for his money. Ben didn’t have any money with him and the bullies at first didn’t believe him. They tried to intimidate him and even followed him as he headed back to the place where he was staying. The experience shook Ben up, but after a conversation with the director of the program he decided to stick with the program. He also decided to be a bit more careful about going out into the city alone.

A few weeks later, Ben was serving at a public meal that was being offered to some of the city’s poorest residents. Among the people being served, Ben recognized the bullies who tried to rob him. They recognized Ben as well. Eventually Ben began to realize that bullying was a behavior and not the core identity of those men. And those men realized that Ben was more than an apparently weak target - he was a person who was trying to help. They offered an apology. Ben accepted.

Bullies can change. Having engaged in bullying behavior does not mean that one has to forever get one’s desires met by intimidation. Bullies can, through a process of love and care, learn other ways to behave.

That doesn’t mean that there are never times when you need to stand up to a bully. I can remember three distinct times in my life when, if not trembling on the outside, I was trembling on the inside as I took a stand and informed a bully that intimidation wasn’t going to be the way we made decisions in the church. In each case I was pretty clear in stating that their tactics wouldn’t work, but that they were welcome to continue to participate in the church and that I would expect them to exercise their participation through the established channels, boards and committees of the congregation. I was more or less successful in each occasion. In one case a pledge was withheld for at least a year. I don’t know if giving ceased as well, but suspect that it might have. In another case the person who had been bullying became a lot less involved in the congregation and eventually was rarely seen at that church.

I still have a lot to learn about bullies and how to help them change their behavior. And as I learn, I hope that I can see my own tendencies to use power in inappropriate ways and change my own behavior.

After all, we are immersed in an institution that is based on forgiveness. It is by God’s grace that we move into the future.

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I have been told that I am a linear thinker and that seems to be accurate to me. I like my stories to have a beginning, middle and end and to follow a chronological order. I am aware, of course, that there are many ways to tell a story and that the way a story is told is heavily influenced by cultural perspectives. When I tell a story, I often follow a story arc or plot form that has its roots in Greek philosophy, if not even deeper in the history of people. Aristotle, in Poetics, considered the story line to be very important, beginning with an introduction and following a set of ups and downs leading to a climax followed by a decrease in action leading to a climax. Many of the stories I tell follow that model fairly closely.

Given my heritage, it makes sense that my thought is influenced by Greek thought, as is the case with most of Europe and the people whose ancestors came from Europe. There are other ways to tell stories. In parts of the East, character development is more important that plot and telling the story of an individual character might lead to getting ahead of the story before the next character is introduced. Tribal stories from both Africa and the Americas often are circular in nature with key points or truths appearing in multiple generations and therefore the stories return again and again to their most important events and lessons.

The Bible contains many different ways of telling stories. The Genesis creation narratives, for example, have a very linear approach: “In the beginning . . .” In Ecclesiastes, the author has a circular view of history:

A generation goes, and a generation comes,
    but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises and the sun goes down,
    and hurries to the place where it rises.

The wind blows to the south,
    and goes around to the north;
round and round goes the wind,
    and on its circuits the wind returns.

All streams run to the sea,
    but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
    there they continue to flow.

All things[c] are wearisome;
    more than one can express;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
    or the ear filled with hearing.

What has been is what will be,
    and what has been done is what will be done;
    there is nothing new under the sun.

Luke tells the story of Jesus’ birth. Mark dives right in with his ministry. John begins with a highly theoretical and theological poem with images of light and darkness and truth.

There are many different ways to tell a story.

But, as I began this blog, I am a linear thinker. I like to start at a beginning point and follow a chronological order.

Having said that, and having acknowledged that not everyone sees the world as I do, I found it to be a bit confusing and disorienting to drive around town yesterday. Of course the snow and sudden cold made travel a bit more precarious than has been the case through most of the fall. It was only our second really icy day, as the accident investigators were well aware. And it was cold, so people were bundled up and we were running the heaters in our cars and our windows were shut tightly. Looking out as I drove through town I had to peer through clouds of exhaust and steam from cars. It always takes me a few days to adjust to a new season.

But that isn’t what was disorienting.

I expected to see a lot of flags out. It was, after all, Veteran’s Day, also known as Armistice Day. It was a good day for remembering and for displaying flags. However, throughout the downtown area, the flags were mounted two to a pole, in a sort of a v-shape, with a Christmas wreath on the pole between the two flags. The Christmas banners and decorations are strung across Main Street and although I didn’t go downtown for the Veteran’s Day parade, I’m sure the parade floats all made their way underneath the Christmas decorations. It has been puzzling me since I noticed city crews putting up Christmas decorations in the first week of November.

In my linear world, holidays come in a particular order and follow the same order each year. For years, when I was a kid, school started in September. Halloween came at the end of October. Veteran’s Day was in the beginning of November and Thanksgiving was a the end of November. December’s big holiday, Christmas, came near the end of the month, followed closely by New Year’s Day and then a bit of a break before Valentine’s Day which came before Easter which came before Memorial Day. Then school got out and the 4th of July was our big summer holiday.

In the world of marketing, however, Christmas shopping had to get mixed up with Thanksgiving. I knew about this decades ago. When we lived in Chicago in the 1970’s the big push was for the shops to change their decorations on Thanksgiving Day, so that the day before they looked like Thanksgiving and the Friday after Thanksgiving all of the Christmas Decorations were up. Of course, in those days, the stores were closed on Thanksgiving Day and crews worked behind the scenes to change all of the window displays and other decorations. At least once, when we lived in Chicago, we braved the crowds to look at the window displays at Marshall Field’s Department Store on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

I know. The world changes. Marshall Field’s is now a Macy’s.

And Rapid City puts up its city Christmas Decorations before Thanksgiving.

The holiday jumble probably isn’t so disorienting for someone who isn’t quite so bound up in linear thinking as I am. I just want the holidays to proceed in a set order.

I actually like Advent Carols and like to heighten the anticipation of Christmas by waiting a bit before getting too carried away. We often don’t have our Christmas Tree until the second week of Advent and we always leave it up until Epiphany unless we are planning to travel after Christmas.

I’m pretty sure that we’ll be so tired of the city Christmas decorations by the time Christmas comes, we won’t leave them up for the entire season. What do you want to bet that they are down before New Years?

Maybe the city planners aren’t as linear in their thinking as I am.

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My brother is known in his town as “the bike guy.” Convinced that the pollution and problems of private automobiles exceed the benefits, he stopped driving many years ago. Along with his personal decision, he has been an active promoter of bicycle travel. He has made a couple of coast to coast trips across the United States and several other journeys that exceed a thousand miles. He has learned, often through hard experience, what needs to be done to prepare a bicycle for long-distance travel. He pretty much knows how to repair almost anything that can happen to a bike. After working a several different bicycle shops he has invested a lot of hours in organizing and participating in the Corvallis Bicycle Collective, which uses second-hand bicycles, donated tools and parts to help people have high-quality, well-functioning bicycles. He has worked with others to make Corvallis, Oregon, one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the United States.

When we were growing up, we looked enough alike to confuse some folks and as adults our appearances are similar. I have a bit more white in my hear and a bit more spread in my middle. He has the legs of a long-distance cyclist: hard and firm and muscular. I have the shoulders of a paddler and rower. Together we’re in great shape.

Over the years, my brother has had some spectacular accidents on his bicycles. When we were kids he got a new 5-speed stingray bicycle with a banana seat and high rise handlebars and a T-handle shifter on the crossbar. It had a speedometer that topped out at 45 miles per hour. He was convinced he could “peg” that speedometer and he did it, going down the airport hill. That was just before he hit a gravel windrow trying to make the corner at the bottom of the hill and went airborne before landing in a tangle of bent bicycle parts in the ditch on the other side of the road.

That was before bicycle helmets.

He was wearing a helmet when he went off the road on Whidbey Island in Washington and hit a tree. That accident netted him a ride in a helicopter to a level-3 trauma center in Seattle. And the manufacturer of the helmet he was wearing gave him a new one to replace the one that split when he hit the tree. He, the paramedics, and the helmet manufacturer all agreed that the helmet saved his life.

There are several other bicycle stories that I could tell and a whole lot more that he could tell that I don’t know. And I didn’t set out to write a blog about my brother today in the first place.

What I do want to say is that, unlike a lot of other people, I completely understand some of the things that happen in this world because of my relationship with my brother.

For example, I can imagine that the city of London may well spend 600 million pounds (nearly a billion dollars) to build a futuristic floating bikes-only pathway. The proposed Thames Decay will follow the south bank of the river from Battersea and Canary Wharf past the Millennium Bridge. The city is also considering plans for elevated pathways for bikes as well. I’m sure that if he lived there, my brother would be in the thick of all of the political lobbying that is being done in that city. In London, they have the support of the mayor, Boris Johnson, who is an avid cyclist. And, due to high fees charged to private automobiles int he city, about 25% of the commuter traffic in London is by bicycle.

Get enough people like my brother in the same room and spending a billion on a floating bike path lit by solar energy that rises and falls with the tides might seem like a good idea. I’m not saying that avid cyclists have an air of moral superiority about them, but they can be persistent in asserting that their lifestyle is preferable to those of us who drive cars.

And I think I can understand the French bus driver who figured out how to strap a rocket motor to the back of his bicycle, light the fuse, and set a new speed record for bicycles: 207 mph. You got that right. He went from zero to 200 in just 4.8 seconds, which is over 10 seconds ahead of the Hennessey Venom GT - th car that currently holds the record for a production car in the 0-200 sprint.

The bicycle is a rather specialized vehicle. The hydrogen peroxide rocket produces the equivalent of 560 horsepower and the accelleration subjects the rider to 19gs. It is pretty much a process of steering straight and holding on tightly.

For most people 207 mph on a bicycle seems ludicrous. But knowing my brother, he’d probably say yes if offered the opportunity to ride on that rocket bike. Technically, there are probably some significant environmental costs to rocket bikes and I don’t think my brother would support the concept of motorized bicycles for the masses, but I suspect he’d make an exception for one hair-raising ride on the world’s fastest bike. And he doesn’t need the hair-raising. I’m the one with the biggest bald spot and farthest-receding hairline.

I suspect that my brother would be up for trying to pedal one of the pedal powered airplanes that have been built. If it weren’t so expensive, he might even give a try riding the parallel, a pedal powered flying machine that incorporates a parasail with a bicycle and a fan hanging below. Actually the device doesn’t fly by pedal power. The bike is for transporting the equipment on the ground. it flies with a 22-horsepower t-stroke motor turning the fan. And so far the cost of over $16,000 is higher than the average bicycle.

I’m not likely to try a flying bicycle or a rocket powered bike that goes over 200 mph or even lobby for a billion-dollar bikeway anytime soon. But I do understand these things. I think I know someone who would.

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The hills are known for dramatic changes of weather. It really is one of the delights of living here. I sometimes joke that the official slogan of South Dakota ought to be “All four seasons every day!” That isn’t quite true. In fact, outside of one early autumn snow storm, we’ve had remarkably warm weather throughout the fall. And the weather forecasts have been remarkably accurate in recent years so we usually have plenty of warning when a storm is headed our way.

At midnight last night it was raining gently. By 4 a.m. we had about an inch of snow and it was falling steadily. The forecast is for it to continue through the afternoon today. It is calm right now, but the wind is supposed to pick up through the day. That won’t have much of an effect on us, but it could be pretty hard to see and drive out in the open country. And it is going to stay cold for a few days - perhaps below zero at this time tomorrow.

There will be a few complaints, but complaining about the weather is a bit of a pastime around here. I always figure if people are doing that amount of complaining, there must be some entertainment value in the complaining. It’s a bit like the ranchers at the cafe when I lived in North Dakota. Complaining was what they seemed to enjoy best when they had a bit of free time. If they didn’t complain about the weather, they’d complain about politics. Of course they didn’t have all that much free time, so it wasn’t very dramatic. And the Scandinavian blood runs deep in that community. The difference between really upset and extremely happy isn’t a huge distinction. You have to know someone pretty well to notice the difference. Expressing emotions isn’t at the top of their list. Or, perhaps more accurately, subtlety was their art. No point in shouting when raising an eyebrow will accomplish the same thing. No point in saying something out loud when any fool can see what is going on in the first place.

It’s like the people with whom I grew up.

I have a friend who lives in Minnesota (and pronounces that word the way I do, too). He has a rich Swedish heritage and fits in well in his particular small town. Outside of raucous cheering at high school sports events, he rarely raises his voice. No need. This past weekend, his son married a girl from an east coast Italian family. The whole extended family headed to Massachusetts for the big wedding. Now there is an event I would like to see. I imagine that you wouldn’t have to ask “friend of the bride or friend of the groom?” You’d be able to tell by the volume. Of course I don’t have much real experience with folks of Italian extract. But I imagine them to be loud a emotional and ready to hug or punch you in the face depending on the circumstances. I imagine lots of wonderful food and people who express their enjoyment with lots of boisterous conversation. And I imagine the wine flowing freely and the conversation even more so.

You probably don’t need a concealed hip flask to get a little alcohol into an Italian wedding.

My fantasy, of course, could be far from the reality. My people have always bent toward restraint when it comes to expressing emotions. When I first discovered huggers in college and seminary it was a bit strange. I know all the people in our church who expect to be greeted with a hug. The others always get a hand shake. That’s fine with me. We’re not too big on physical expression.

My people, however, do know how to raise their voices. That may be partly the product of having grown up in a big family. There were so many people at the dinner table that if you waited for a moment of silence before speaking you might need to wait for several years and by then you would have forgotten what it was you wanted to say in the first place. In our family if you wanted to make a point, turning up the volume was the accepted technique. My dad loved having a whole gang of people at the dinner table who would talk and talk and talk. When we got to school, we were surprised that there were families who could eat a meal in under an hour. When I met my wife, the gentle and polite conversation at their family’s dinner table was at first refreshing, but later a little intimidating as I had to remember where I was and adjust my conversation appropriately.

An extended diatribe on the weather wouldn’t be the right way to greet my wife this morning. Much better to make a pot of coffee and pour her a cup and wait for her to speak first. It only took me about 40 years or so to learn that one.

Today will be a good day for lingering over the morning coffee. We don’t have any need to leave the house. The pantry is stocked. The summer equipment has been properly stored. The snowblower is ready if we need it. I’m not planning to load up a kayak and head for the lake today. I’ll probably make my miles on the rowing machine later today. I’ve got a stack of things that need to be done at that computer and a stack of books to read. I’d be good if we were snowed in for a few days, but the forecast doesn’t promise that kind of weather.

I remember a story from our church in North Dakota. The members were finishing the interior construction of their new church building, preparing for the grand opening worship and celebration. They were doing a bit of touch up painting and clean-up the night before the big event and the refrigerator was filling up with food for the next day’s celebrations. That’s when the blizzard set in. As it got later and later they decided it would be a good night to be snowed in at the church. Obviously their guests wouldn’t be arriving the next day and they had plenty of food and the church was brand new, warm and comfortably sealed. When they told the story years later they were found of saying, “It only took 4 or 5 trips home to get the things we needed to be snowed in.”

It doesn’t look like we’ll be snowed in. And if we are. I can always put the chains on the truck and run to town for supplies if we need.

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For most of my career, I have found the end of the season of Epiphany to be challenging. Epiphany is the longest season of the Christian year and by the end of that season, there is a healthy anticipation for what is coming. There are a few festivals in the end of Epiphany: Reformation Sunday and All Saints and the final Sunday of the season is the celebration of the Transfiguration. But what really occurs for me is that I am already anticipating Advent. Advent itself is a season of anticipation - a time of looking forward and preparing for that which is yet to come.

The lectionary which sets the pattern for the texts we use in worship focus on the end of Jesus’ ministry as recorded int he Gospel of Matthew this year. It is a three year cycle, so we visit Mark and Luke on subsequent years, with a smattering of John thrown in throughout the cycle. I find the parables of this section of Matthew to be especially challenging. We are drawn to some of the gentler parables about generosity and grace and forgiveness, but these parables are often about justice. And Matthew, writing at the end of the 1st Century, with the destruction of the temple and harsh Roman oppression fresh on the minds of his mostly Jewish audience, is wanting to proclaim God as champion of justice.

Part of the challenge of preaching these texts in our context, is that we are not the victims of similar oppression. We haven’t felt the same type of attack on our religion, our young people, our communities and the like. As they say, “It’s hard to sing the blues from a life of luxury.”

As a preacher it is tempting to lean away from Matthew’s parables. In year A the Hebrew texts are interesting and challenging and uplifting. There have been years when I have given in to that temptation and prepares sermons that speak of the particular challenges and decisions made by the people of Israel as they moved toward maturity of faith.

For some reason, however, this year, I have been carrying those challenging parables around in my head, turning them from one side to another. Perhaps it is because there is a spark within those stories that speaks to some of the challenges of the contemporary church. The span of my career has been a time of decline in membership and participation for mainline congregations in the United States. We have seen decreases in funding and staffing for our denominations and in support for our ministers from our judicatories. There are times, these days, when we pastors feel a little bit like we are out on our own in a very challenging environment. Growth in Christian churches in the US these days is primarily a matter of people moving from one congregation to another. The number of people with no religious affiliation is growing. It is becoming increasingly popular to point out the hypocrisies of institutionalized religion. Those who do participate in church tend to be less active and less involved than was their parents’ generation. Within the church there is no shortage of people who bemoan the changes and wonder why we can’t go back to the way things used to be. Another saying comes to mind: “The reason they call them the good old days is that we weren’t so old. There are days when it does seem like we are under attack.

To compare the situation of contemporary mainline congregations to that of Matthew’s 1st Century audience, however, is a bit of a stretch. In truth we don’t suffer oppression. The way to our future is not so bleak as it must have seemed to those people.

So today we’ll wrestle with a parable of ten bridesmaids. 5 were prepared for an extra long wait for the bridegroom. 5 were not. The unprepared bridesmaids missed the party. I suppose it would be easy to preach the parable as an admonition to be prepared and to make sure that you are among the half who get chosen and not the half who are left out. The problem with that interpretation is not what it says about us, but the image of God that comes from thinking that way. Do we really want to think of God as one who requires some to be left out and whose judgment is so harsh that it turns a deaf ear to appeals for forgiveness? Do we really want to encourage those who have surplus to refrain from sharing? There are a dozen possible interpretations of this parable that seem to lead faithful people down an inaccurate and incomplete path.

As a theologian, I have always been drawn to complex questions and though I seek answers, my faith is based more on living the questions. I am drawn to the challenges far more than simple answers. And I often assume that the people with whom I minister are the same. I’ve been known to end a sermon with an unanswered question and the declaration that some things are too big for simple solutions. While there are some people in our worship services who appreciate genuine wrestling with difficult questions, there are others who come to worship seeking reassurance and answers. The really tough discussions can leave them feeling frustrated.

So it is a delicate balance that I seek - honest questions requiring deep faith and answers that support those who need them. Fortunately genuine worship doesn’t hinge on a single sermon. There are plenty of times when the power and meaning of worship is carried by music and prayer more than some kind of preaching excellence. As one of my teachers reminded us with a gentle question, “Do you want people to leave worship filled with the brilliance of your preaching, or with a deeper connection with God?” I have to admit that any brilliance I achieve pales in comparison with the God that we serve.

It is good to remember that worship is not about me. It is about connecting with God.

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I am not a wealthy man, nor do I wish to be one. I drive a car that is 15 years old and has 235,000 miles on it. No worries. I like my car and for now it is quite dependable. I don’t need the flash or glamor of a new car and I am happy with the way things are. I suppose that by the standards of the world, our home and our possessions are quite extravagant. I may look very wealthy to many of the world’s people. But in our community, we are quite average. I have probably been less than prudent in saving for retirement. There have been years when our church pledge exceeded our personal savings, but we have never wanted for nutritious meals or a safe place to lay our heads at night.

I do not say this by way of complaining or of bragging, either. It is just a description of my place in this life.

What I do want to say that is for an average person in an average community, I seem to be blessed with extraordinary experiences.

No seasoned traveler in the world’s most exotic location, no one of the richest of the rich, living in the lap of luxury, no king or governor or present, had a better view that the one with which I began my day yesterday.

Knowing that we have some cold weather coming, I decided to get in at least one more paddle before the snow flies next week. I got up very early and was on my way to the lake by 5 a.m. Because of the shift from daylight savings time to regular time, the sunrise is earlier these days and the moon is full, so I thought it might work for me to paddle from the moonset to the sunrise and still make it to the office by 8 am or so.

It was dark as I drove to the lake. The clouds were hiding the moon for most of the trip with only an occasional glimpse between the trees and clouds. The air was still and very warm - maybe 50 degrees - as I unloaded my boat from the rack on the roof of the car. The water was glassy smooth and it was easy to see as I set my boat in the water, climbed aboard and fastened the spray skirt around the combing. My cedar paddle was nearly silent as I pushed away from the shore and dug in for a few deep strokes to get my little boat going. I paused to take a picture of the moon. The waterproof camera I take with me on the boat isn’t the best and sitting in a kayak isn’t the best way to hold a camera still for a long exposure, but I snapped a few pictures anyway, hoping that I could capture the mod of the oh-so-perfect moment.

To my right the moon was setting as I paddled south. To my right the pre-dawn glow was creeping up the horizon.

I’m not much of a fan of magic, but the day seemed to be magical. I had the lake to myself. The campground was empty. The boats and docks have been removed from the water. The ducks were barely murmuring and the geese were all parked on the shore. I didn’t even hear the owl who often is willing to share his cry with all in or on the lake. A fish or two was rising and my paddle was dripping.

As the color began to come upon the horizon, it was reflected perfectly in the lake. Before long, I had paddled across the lake and the lake was filling with color. The camera doesn’t do justice to how it looks, with an entire range from dark, nearly black-and-white with a little blue moon set to the bold bright orange and red and yellow and gold to the deep pastel purple and blue and pink.

For a kid who grew up with only 8 crayons in my box when I started school, and who never got the big 128-color box, but did once have a 64-color box, I don’t know enough names for colors to describe the morning glow on the sky and water.

What I do know is that the show appeared to be for me alone. No other person had bothered to come out to that place to look.

A calm day with a perfect reflection allows one to literally paddle on the color and as you do you get colored as well. My boat reflected colors that I would never use to describe a simple cedar kayak. My paddle looked like it was made of a thousand colors instead of a single piece of wood no larger in any dimension than a 2x4. It probably was carved from a 2x4. I couldn’t see my face, but the way my hands were taking on color, I assume that the glow was being shared with all of me.

I was able to literally paddle into the sunrise. It was amazing! Breathtaking! Indescribable! Which means, of course, that these words fall so very far short of the experience that they are inconsequential in comparison with my memory of the morning.

It isn’t possible for the richest person in the world to have felt more fortunate than I did as I paddled yesterday morning.

And to top it off, I knew that I had a partner - the love of my life - waiting at home to hear me describe the paddle and look lovingly at the pictures with me.

Whoever wrote the beer ads: “It doesn’t get any better than this,” had never experienced what I did yesterday, I guess. For drinking beer with a gang of guys pales in comparison with paddling out of the moonset directly into the heart of the sunrise.

It is a lot colder this morning - nearly 20 degrees colder. But I think I need to head out again. After all it may be snowing by Monday and I can endure a lot of cold for a glimpse of glory like I saw yesterday.

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I often say that the world in which I grew up was vastly different from the world in which young people grow up today. I’m pretty sure that the teens in our youth group don’t have a clue what I mean when I say that. How different could the world have been?

In a way the world was more dangerous. I first learned to drive in a 1958 jeep. I took my driver’s test in a 1963 Chevy. That doesn’t seem very dangerous unless you remember that the first model year in which seatbelt were required in American cars was 1968. There were cars with seat belts built before 1968, but most had seat belts only in the back seat and they only had lap belts. Actually, the car in which I took my drivers’ test had seat belts in all of the seats. My father was a stickler for safety and he was a pilot. We had aviation seat belts in the car, but they were lap belts only. I distinctly remember that the Highway Patrol officer who rode with me during the driving portion of my license test did not put on his seat belt and I didn’t mention it. Within 2 years of earning my driver’s license, I was driving 60 miles one-way to my trumpet lessons every week, in all kinds of weather across a fairly high mountain pass on a 2-lane highway. I would not have been comfortable with our children taking such risks in their teens.

We played in the river and after we had proven we knew how to get out of the water safely, we were allowed to play with minimal supervision. We rode our bikes along the edge of the highway. In the summers, before I had a driver’s license we though nothing of riding our bikes eight miles up the gravel road and back to town on the pavement. On occasion, we’d ride our bikes 16 miles to the the hot springs pool at McLeod and back.

I was delivering parts and lawn and garden equipment to customers by the age of 15. By 16, I was hauling loads up to 100 miles one-way. By 18, I was driving a big truck with a 36’ machinery trailer and hauling loads of around 24,000 pounds.

Of course at 18, I registered for the draft and with the US engage in the Vietnam War and a low number in the draft lottery, It was only luck that I belonged to the first age cohort from which the US did not draft any young men. I played taps at the funerals of soldiers who were seniors the year I was a freshman in high school.

In another way, the world was a lot safer. I knew kids who drank a little beer in high school. I even knew about a high school party where there was drinking and driving and the kids were injured in a car roll over. It was something we knew about, but not something that my gang did. We knew about marijuana, but it was never tried in the circles in which i ran.

The process of growing up occurred in a different order than it does for most youth today. I had two classmates in my high school class of about 50 who were married (and not to each other) before high school graduation. A dozen more married the summer they graduated. I was married at 20 and there wasn’t anything very strange about it at the time. The average age of first marriage has increased steadily over the span of my adult life. Only about 30% of young adults are married by 30 these days, although another 20% have had an extended live-together relationship. Living together before marriage definitely raised eyebrows when I was a young adult.

I have been thinking about the risks of young adults a lot in the past couple of weeks because I have been fairly closely associated with 3 different individuals who died between that ages of 20 and 25 in the past few weeks. Two suicides and a tragic car accident that claimed the life of another young man. That’s 4 deaths in that age group in a very short span of time.

I never attended the funeral of someone younger than I before I was 30 years old. That didn’t mean that teens and twenty-somethings didn’t die. We lost two high school classmates to car accidents and several to the war before I was 25. There are a lot of young adults today who have attended the funerals of multiple people in their age group before they have married.

I have no way to judge what is better or worse - the way it was or the way it is now. And it wouldn’t make any difference anyway, because the world has changed and we live in a world that is different from the one in which I grew up.

From my point of view, youth between the ages of 18 and 24 are extremely vulnerable. They are old enough to make life-altering decisions. They can enlist in military service, they can consume alcohol, they can amass credit-card debt, they engage in sexual activity, they have access to more money than previous generations. And there are huge possibilities for poor decisions to really mess up their lives. When I meet with and listen to the young adults in our church I am deeply aware of how risky their lives can be. And I don’t breathe a sigh of relief when they reach the age of 25, either. I seem to have a fair amount of 30-something adults that I know who don’t have established careers, who have been in and out of relationships without finding their life made, who engage in all kinds of risky behaviors with alcohol and drugs, who generally frighten me with how much growing up remains for them.

So I pray for the young adults. I worry about them. And I keep saying that the world in which I grew up was vastly different from the world in which young people grow up today.

It’s true.

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It is routine for us to encounter problems that are bigger than us in our work at the church. People often come to the church in search of resources to help with their problems. Some need gas for transportation, some need money for rent, some need assistance with health care bills. The list of needs is far beyond our means. For the most part, we have tried to be an effective referral agency. When we are able to help, we do. What we don’t do much of is making the systematic changes that provide long-term solutions.

That is not to say that we don’t make a difference. Each Habitat for Humanity home brings us one step closer to eliminating substandard housing in our community. Programs like the Life INC, administered by Love INC provide tools for long-term life changes for those who participate. Our church participates in many projects through Church World Service that engage in long-term development and create systematic changes.

But some of the things we do provide only temporary relief. I might buy a tank of gas for a family so that they can attend a funeral. I don’t solve their problems. I don’t help them create reserves for emergencies. I just get them one step farther in the direction they seem to be heading. I might help with groceries for a family that needs food today. I don’t address their overall financial situation. I don’t help them prioritize spending. I just get a little food for today and don’t know what they will do tomorrow.

Some of our genuine attempts to help have resulted in forming unhealthy relationships. When we reach into our wallets to make a gift, we can create dependencies. Just this week a woman who has received help from our congregation on multiple occasions called to ask for a ride. We didn’t have anyone who was able to give her a ride at the moment, so we suggested other ways she could get to her destination. There was a public transportation option. None of our suggestions pleased her. She wanted someone to come and give her a ride. She ended up hanging up on us in frustration.

We didn’t mean to make her frustrated. And it would be easy to blame her for her attitude. But we had helped create that attitude by the way we had helped her in the past. It wasn’t a major incident, and perhaps it will be good for her in the long-run. Sometimes getting frustrated, or even angry, can provide an opportunity for learning.

But some days it feels like we work and work and the problems remain just is big and the solutions just as elusive as they were the day before.

Once, in a conversation with colleagues about how best to help people in need, I remarked that I don’t spend much time or effort in investigating whether the person before me is being truthful or telling me a story. “After all,” I said, “I pay good money for fiction in the bookstore. Why not pay for fiction in my office? If they’ve got a good story, sometimes I just make a gift.”

I don’t mean to be flippant, but I know that we can’t be a loan agency - we have no time or energy in trying to collect debts. We can’t be an investigative agency - we’re no good at sleuthing out the truth behind the stories people tell us. We can just be compassionate caring people. And sometimes others will take advantage of us. As long as we don’t give more than we are able, we suffer no harm from generosity. No where are we commanded to be efficient or only be generous to those who most deserve it. We simply are asked to give what we are able.

Fiction often gives me insight on my life.

In “Through the Looking Glass,” Lewis Carroll’ reported a conversation between Alice and the Queen:

“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'
I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”


Sometimes we have to be able to believe in impossible things. Just because something’s impossible doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.

Maybe it is impossible to eliminate poverty in South Dakota. Maybe it is impossible to undo the injustices of the past. Maybe it is impossible to help every person who comes into our church asking for a hand out. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keep listening to the stories and trying to help when we are able. It doesn’t mean that we should stop trying to discover and invest in long-term solutions to systematic problems.

One of the things I treasure most about working in a church is that we are able to engage in things that are much bigger than ourselves. A church, after all, isn’t a single generation enterprise. I’m not the first person to be pastor in this congregation. And i’m not the last either. Some of the work I have done has involved making changes that my predecessors would never have imagined. Some of the work of those who come after me will be making corrections for the mistakes I have made. In each generation we add to a venture of faith in our community that stretches even beyond the work we do in this place. We are a part of a church that stretches around the globe and our place in that church throughout all of history is very small.

What is impossible for us may be easy for the church.

And we remember that “nothing is impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37)

So the next time someone comes into my office with a problem that I have no clue how to solve, I hope that I can remember to offer a short prayer of thanks for the challenge.

Believing in the impossible forces me to reach beyond myself. Believing in the impossible requires me to reach out for God’s help.

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It will come as no surprise to regular readers of my blog that I love to read. My library is a place where I am surrounded by books. My office at the church is filled with books. I have two stacks of unread books in my library. One is recreational reading. The other is more related to my work. These days I’ve been reading a lot of history as part of my recreational reading. Often there are novels in that stack. And I guess it isn’t accurate that there are only two stacks. My stack of poetry is a bit smaller - only about 3 books right now. I read poetry much slower, but I read poetry every day.

I suspect that I would be a good candidate for a tablet computer or e-reader, though I haven’t taken the plunge yet. It would make sense for me to be able to take a dozen books with me on a trip in one small, lightweight package.

I also know that I need to devise a strategy to get rid of some of my books. I could probably sell some of them on the Internet, though I doubt that they have much value. A good used book store is probably my best bet and I need to find one and start sorting. But that is a task that I’ll leave for another day.

Yesterday, at a meeting of a clergy book club, the discussion of what book to read next came up. I had expected the group to have that discussion a week earlier and I had a half dozen titles to suggest. But yesterday, I was having trouble contributing anything to the discussion. There is a big difference between what i want to read and what is a good book to read as a group. Reading a book with others forces me to slow down and to digest the book more thoroughly than I would otherwise do. Beyond that, while it is easy for me to say what I like, it is difficult for me to know what might appeal to my colleagues.

The majority of the participants in this particular book club are retired ministers. There are four of us who are active clergy, but the rest are all retired. Being retired doesn't mean disinterested. The participants in the group all bring active and inquiring minds and lively discussion to the table. But I think that they are less focused on practical skills and more interested in theoretical concepts. On the other hand, they have not been overly engaged with highly theoretical books that appeal to the intellect only.

Had we held our discussion a week earlier, I would have suggested some very hands-on, practical, ministry books: a volume on Christian faith formation and how to design educational programs for churches; a couple of titles on finding the natural voice and storytelling in preaching; a book theological concepts that have gotten less attention in the contemporary setting; and other books that might inform the practice of ministry in the everyday setting.

I find that I am more reluctant to assume that I know what is right for the group than once was the case. A few years ago, I would bring four or five suggestions each time we finished a book. I tried to direct the group into books that were more suitable for graduate theological education and away from popular reads. One of the reasons to read books as a group is to engage very challenging ideas that need to be processed in a group in order to be fully appreciated.

When I was a student in seminary, our seminary encouraged students to live on campus and to form a learning community. The discussions of theology and the practice of ministry went long into the night. We read really difficult books together and used our classmates as colleagues to help us grapes really difficult concepts. There were ideas that were, in a sense, too big for an individual - concepts that required the insight of several different perspectives to be understood. I miss that very challenging and rich academic environment.

In the four decades that have passed since those days, however, not only have I changed, but so too has theological education. Today theological seminaries are primarily commuter schools, where students commute in for class sessions and live elsewhere. Studying is primarily a solo adventure undertaken in private settings. And, upon reviewing the textbooks that are being used for seminary courses, I discovered that there is a definite trend away from the extremely academically challenging and difficult ideas. The reading list for a seminary course today is far more likely to have a paperback book that will be used for one or two times and then discarded. The huge tomes of systematic theology are less likely to make the required reading list.

I am well aware that academic preparation doesn’t make one into a minister. There are lots of practical skills that are required. And have a lot of intellectual knowledge and being able to prepare academic papers does not make one an engaging preacher. Compassion doesn’t come from a textbook. Still, I can’t avoid the feeling that the trend towards a less academic preparation for a lifetime of ministry involves the lowering of standards in some way.

Is the next generation of leaders for the church going to be a group that spends less time reading and growing in intellectual knowledge?

The ministry is a very challenging career. It requires the best of our skills in many different ways. Intellectual strengths are important. One needs to understand how one’s ideas and beliefs fit into the universe of ideas and beliefs that are present in the world. There are, however, other qualities that are required. Strength and endurance come to mind. Those who give up easily soon will find themselves in another calling. The ability to refrain from taking everything personally is another difficult quality required. This isn’t about me - it is about the people of God and their relationship with God. I need to keep learning that one over and over.

So there is no one textbook to recommend. Still, you’d think I could come up with a suggestion for the next book for the book club.

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My music tastes have never tended too much toward rock.I’ve always liked classical music. I was more into folk music and ballads when I was in high school. There was a phase, when our children were in high school, when they complained that I played my music too loud and requested that I only listen to opera out in the garage. I haven’t invested in fancy stereo equipment and I often prefer to just have things quiet around the house. I do have a radio out in the garage and another in my library and with digital music, I can access the music that I have on my computer from my phone and play it through the speakers in the garage or in my library.

The place where I listen to music the most is in the car. It isn’t something that I do when there are others in the car. I’m most likely to turn off the radio and talk to the person with whom I’m riding.

Sometimes, however, when I’m driving alone I turn up the radio and listen to the music.

One of my concessions to rock music is that I like Bruce Springsteen. I’m not sure what it is about his music that puts me in the mood to listen, but I suspect that it is that he really is a balladeer. You can hear the influence of Bob Dylan in his style of singing. I guess he is a bit more like the electric Dylan than the acoustic clan, and his voice is really different, but there is something in his way of presenting a song that appeals to me.

Probably part of the reason I like Springsteen is that I can understand the lyrics. I admit that my hearing isn’t quite what it used to be. Unlike my peers and perhaps my brother, my hearing loss doesn’t have much to do with playing in or even listening to rock bands and having had my eardrums blasted. In my case the loud noise came mostly from operating machinery, flying airplanes and using chainsaws in the days before we were as careful about hearing protection as we are these days.

So there are probably teens who can understand the lyrics to the music that they listen to. But I don’t understand the words. Of course I don’t understand the words when I listen to Italian or German opera, either. I’ve never gotten past a few words here and there in Italian or German. The operas I enjoy, however, are ones where I know the story line and even though I don’t get the words to every song, I know that story and the music carries the story for me.

But when it comes to popular music, I like to be able to understand the words.

So I was running some errands yesterday and listening to Bruce Springsteen on the car stereo. I probably had the volume turned up a bit louder than usual. On the other hand, I’m sure that other drivers couldn’t hear the thump, thump, thump of the base as is the case with the sound systems in some cars. And I don’t think that the stereo was loud enough to distract me from driving.

Part of the refrain from “High Hopes” by Mcconnell and Timothy Scott, stuck in my head:

“Give me help, give me strength
Give a soul a night of fearless sleep
Give me love, give me peace
Don’t you know these days you pay for everything
Got high hopes”

Springsteen likes songs that tell the stories of everyday working people and there are lines in the song that speak of a mother with a baby crying in her arms and the aspirations of a working man with too little money for the things he needs.

It is a different mood and a different meaning than I often think of when I think of hope. Being a preacher, my thoughts are often a bit ethereal, I suppose, but I’m careful to not use the word “hope” when I am speaking of “wants” or “desires.” Hope is reaching for the transcendent, in my way of thinking. I don’t like to use it when I am speaking of material needs or getting through the hard days of a difficult life.

I think it is a distinction that would have made little sense to our biblical forebears. They lived their lives much closer to the edge of survival. When the people were crying out to God for food in the desert, they were really hungry. When they talked of deliverance from enemies, they were facing real physical threats. They probably didn’t have time or energy for esoteric, theoretical conversations about the transcendent nature of God. When they prayed, “God help us!” they were thinking about immediate and real needs.

They probably used the concept of hope much closer to the way it comes across in the Springsteen song than the way I use it in my preaching. Springsteen sings:

“Come from the city, coming from the wild
I see a breathless army breaking like a cloud
They’re gonna smother love, they’re gonna shoot your hopes
Before the meek inherit they’ll learn to hate themselves
Give me help, give me strength . . .”

“Tell me someone now, what's the price
I wanna buy some time and maybe live my life
I wanna have a wife, I wanna have some kids
I wanna look in their eyes and know they'll stand a chance . . .”

One of the basic truths of the Christian faith is that God is at once transcendent and present. The great creator of the entire universe takes on human form and lives and breathes the life we know.

We are as close to God when we are praying for strength to get through one more day as we are when we pray for world peace or a glimpse of eternal life.

Hope isn’t just reserved for intellectual explanations. It is a present force in everyday life.

May you find high hopes in your life today.

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When I row, I sit on a seat in my boat. I made movable rowing stations when I made the boat so that it can be rowed by one or two people at the oars. I installed oarlocks to accommodate different rowers and the seats move about. Of course one rows facing backward. There is a definite sense of riding in a boat. You sit and the boat holds you up.

When I canoe, I can sit on a seat, though the seats are lower and closer to the water line of the boat. My canoes all have caned seats. I learned to cane seats when I made my Wee Lassie and I enjoy the process so have used cane for the seats on all of my canoes. But my preferred position for canoeing is kneeling just behind the center thwart. I have a stuff sack filled with foam that I sometimes put between my knees and can dit back on as I paddle, but I can also sit right up on my knees to get a really vertical stroke out of my paddle. I use a modified Canadian stroke when I’m paddling for distance and prefer paddling on the right side of the boat, though I also practice paddling on the left to keep my body prepared for those windy days or for times of paddling with a partner when I need to be able to switch sides. For freestyle paddling, I like to be on my knees, with my stance as wide as the boat, so that I am sort of planted in the boat and don’t move about at all, or when I do the boat moves with me.

In a kayak, however, I am wearing the boat. My kayaks have foot braces and padding to keep me in my seat and to make the boat move with all of my body movements. This gives me great control and when I edge the boat, it never feels like I might tip it over.

Despite the beautiful weather that we have been enjoying late in to this autumn, I do make a few deferences to safety in off-season paddling. I wear a dry suit just in case I take an unexpected swim. I also ten to paddle a kayak instead of a canoe. Just pulling the spray skirt over the cockpit makes the boat quite a bit warmer than a canoe. And, since my kayaks are lighter in weight than my canoes, it is less effort getting them to and from the water.

The feeling of wearing the boat and having it be a part of my body is a great feeling of freedom as I paddle around the lake. I feel like I don’t have to think about what direction the boat is pointing. It goes where I want it to go without my having to think about it. With the greenland paddle, I often just slide it to one side or the other so that the paddle sticks out more on one side or the other to trim the boat for wind or other conditions. These motions are done without conscious thought. My mind is free to look at the scenery and think about the beauty of the day.

There are plenty of years in the hills when I don’t paddle in November. Last year the boats went into storage in early October and stayed there until spring. But I pulled a kayak out of storage on Saturday and paddled both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. I’m likely to go paddling again today. The weather has been remarkably warm and I have the lake to myself. The docks have been pulled out of the water on Sheridan Lake, so it is a bit more challenge to launch a motor boat. That gives me the lake at mid-day. I’m still adjusting to the end of daylight savings time and it seems like the sun starts to set awfully early in the afternoon, but that gives me a different mood and view of the lake. After a summer of paddling sunrises, now I get to see what it looks like when the sun sets over the lake.

Of course, the ducks and geese are gracious about sharing the lake with me, though the geese complain and the ducks make a great show of splashing their way into short flights if I paddle too close, There are still plenty of fish rising on the lake and I’m pretty sure that the fishermen are still having good success when they do get to the lake.

I’ve been thinking about light quite a bit. I made reference to light, reflection and transparent surfaces in my sermon yesterday. The way that light reflects off of the lake is amazing. The reeds and cattails at the edge of the lake have put on their fall colors and their reflections in the smooth surface of the water doubles the color that my eyes get to see. I get double everything.

Yesterday as I paddled, I was amazed at the sky. It had been cloudy earlier in the day, but the sun was peaking through and there was quite a bit of blue sky with some dark clouds and a few white ones as well. The clouds spread across the sky in a dramatic fashion and I kept looking at the ver-changing sky. Because of the reflection in the water, I got the show doubled for the same admission price. I’m always a little bit disappointed with my pictures. Though they show the reflections clearly, they don’t really capture all of the colors or the grandeur of the sheer scale of the lake before me.

Paddling a kayak puts me right at water level. My seat cushion is about the same depth as the boat sinks into the water with my weight, so My perspective is a water-level view of the world.

That perspective straightens out my attitude as well. It is impossible to forget gratitude when you witness such beauty. It is difficult to hang on to anger and grudges when you paddle.

And, as I often say, “Canoes and kayaks can be expensive, but they are a lot cheaper than psychiatry and often just as effective.”

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When we were in college, we put together a promotion for our church camp that involved a camp simulation. We constructed a room-sized bubble out of clear plastic by taping the seams. Then we inflated the bubble using a common box fan. Once it was inflated, we could turn the fan to its lowest speed and it would keep the bubble inflated. We invited “campers” to go inside of the bubble. I would then project images of camp on the bubble using a simple slide projector. We didn’t have the fancy equipment and video projectors that are now common. The slides changed with a second of darkness between each slide. But the experience was, for the time, unique and our project was successful. To add a bit to the simulation, I would spray a few bursts of pine-scented air freshener into the fan filling the bubble with an aroma what was vaguely reminiscent of camp.

That experience began a career of using projection in a wide variety of ways. My first rear-projection screen was a white bedsheet on a frame made out of PVC pipe. I would construct the frame, stretch the cloth, and set it up. I had to remember to load slides into the projector backwards in order to have them display correctly. I also used an overhead projector for titles and words, reversing the transparencies as well.

We’ve come a long ways in projector and screen technology since those days. We now have commercially-produced rear-projection screens, but they have been rendered obsolete by the many different options in very thin, very large television displays. The use of computers enables the use of multiple displays and putting together a program of still and video projection with a wide variety of music can be done with off-the-shelf software that makes all of the things we used to do seem primitive by comparison.

Learning about the technology of rear projection, however, gave me a good way to think about some very important concepts. To understand those ideas requires a different story.

Recently, I was planning a funeral with the daughter of a woman who had passed away. Another member of our congregation had suggested some hymns for the service, but they weren’t connecting with the grieving daughter. One of the suggested hymns didn’t make any sense at all to her. The hymn, “For All the Saints” is a favorite of mine and one that we have used for funerals of family members. The woman planning the funeral, however, had just returned from one of many trips that she has taken to Greece, where she has spent some time viewing Orthodox churches and learning about traditional Orthodox iconography. She had an image of saints in her mind that was inspired by ancient icons. Those images and the ideas she had about saints had no connection with the experience of having her mother die. She new that the icons were meaningful to the faithful, but they had no connection to her life or the experience of the death of her mother and the grief through which she was traveling. Of course we considered other musical options and planned a service that was meaningful to the daughter.

Later I got to thinking about icons and idols. I’ve blogged on the topic several times. The power of an icon is its ability to direct your attention to the transcendent. It isn’t the icon, but rather the deeper truth that it symbolizes, that is the reason for the icon. Icons exist not to bring attention to themselves, but to direct attention beyond themselves to the transcendent reality. When icons fail to do so, they become idols - objects that fall short of the glory and reality of God. When people worship idols, they miss the deepest truths of faith.

There are, in this life, some people who have that ability to show the light of the love of Christ in their lives. Since we are made in the image of God, each of us carries a spark of the divine. When we allow that light to show - when we live lives of love - people can look beyond us to the love of God that shines in our lives.

It is like a projection. The screen isn’t the source of the light. It either reflects the light or allows the light to pass through it, depending on which type of projection is being used. The image that we see with our eyes is not the reality. When we set up our bubble, the people inside knew that they weren’t at camp. They were participating in a way of thinking about the camp experience. They knew it was a simulation.

The saints in our lives are not God. But they live their lives in such a way that we are able to know a little bit more about the nature of God because we have had the experience of knowing that person.

Today we celebrate all saints. In our tradition those saints aren’t just people who have been recognized by official church structures. They are everyday people who by the living of their everyday lives have allowed the light of God’s love to shine in their relationships with others. We celebrate the contributions they have made to our understanding of the nature of God. We understand that we all live in the midst of a network of relationships and that those relationships help us to be the people that we have become.

We have learned about love by being loved. And God is love. Those who have loved have shown God in very real and practical ways. So when we sing “For All the Saints,” and “Gather with the saints by the river,” and “I sing a song of the saints of God” today, we are singing about the people who have helped us learn the nature of God.

We also recognize that we have the power to allow the light of God’s love to become real for others. As the hymn concludes, “And I mean to be one too.”

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When he was in his late 50’a, my father told me that he never expected to live that long. He had learned to fly airplanes before World War II, a time when flying was considered to be inherently dangerous. Engines were much less reliable in this days and pilots trained for mid-air engine failures and off-airport landings. There were no such things as authorized repair stations and field repairs were often made with materials that were substandard. We might joke these days about something being held together with bailing wire, but early pilots ,made repairs with what was at hand. And the structural limits of the airplanes were largely unknown. Testing to failure didn’t occur on a regular basis, except during actual flight. They took an airplane up and if it could enter and recover from a spin it was deemed flyable.

After Pearl Harbor he joined the pilot’s service corps and soon was commissioned in the Army Air Corps. He spent the war years as an instructor pilot, teaching others to fly multiple-engine airplanes. Being a part of the Army gave him access to larger and more powerful airplanes and the equipment was generally better than what he had been flying in civilian life, but it was wartime and no money or time was wasted in luxury and the planes were built as quickly as possible. Mechanical problems were common and accidents were fairly regular at any air base. As the war wound down he began flying airplanes that had returned from the Pacific arena to a boneyard in Arizona. These war-weary planes all had some problems and system failures were common. It was working as a ferry pilot that he experienced an engine failure while flying a Bell P-39 and was forced to bail out of the out-of-control airplane. He survived the adventure with an injury that earned him a purple heart and a membership in the caterpillar club.

At the time, he had thoughts of becoming a test pilot. He loved airplanes and flying and the idea of testing the limits of flight and flying the newest and fastest airplanes was appealing. That quick exit from the P-39 and the way the tail hit him as he fell away from the plane, however, pretty much ended his chance of flying as a test pilot. Although the injury never caused serious disability for him, the fact that it was on his record removed him from the ranks of the most elite pilots.

As a civilian he entered the ranks of agricultural pilots - a profession with an accident rate that is way above average. These days there are safety systems in airplanes that make the type of low-level accidents common in agricultural applications survivable, but when he began, the tube and fabric airplanes they flew, weren’t much at protecting the pilots. The somewhat morbid joke of the time was that pilots wear helmets because they keep their heads round when they break their necks in an accident.

I experienced my father as a huge stickler for safety. He personally inspected every airplane before every flight. He grounded planes for any problem and insisted that it be repaired before flight. He practiced maneuvers over and over again and he made sure that the latest safety equipment was installed on his planes. He had a sign in his airport office that said something like this: “Don’t you dare scratch my airplane. So far no one has been hurt when the airplane wasn’t damaged.”

I grew up with a father flying airplanes and who flew countless hours with him before I finally was old enough to start my own log book and earn my own license to fly. I accepted airplanes as a part of normal every-day life. I leaned to listen for the sounds of the engines of airplanes and could identify which one my dad was flying without even looking at the sky. So it was rather strange when I was a young adult to hear my father speak of how he really expected, when he was the age I was then, that he would die in an aircraft accident. He told me how when he started Sky Fight, Inc., he was unable to obtain life insurance because of the risks of his occupation. Finally he was able to get a policy from Lloyds of London that came at a very steep premium, but it gave him the assurance he needed to continue flying after he had a family.

My father taught me to read and study accident reports as a way of learning from tragedy and increasing the safety of my own aviation adventures. Every accident report I read gave me a sense of sadness. Many accidents could have been prevented through proper pilot training, increased maintenance, and other simple steps.

So I have a heavy heart today as I read the stories of the SpaceShip Two accident yesterday. I have been following the program from its beginning. I have been a fan of designer Burt Rutan for decades. When his brother Dick and Jeana Yeager flew the Rutan Voyager around the world, I had invested $25 in a donation to the program before it was clear that the airplane would be built. The design was so intriguing to me that I read everything I could about it and was delighted to be able to see the plane in the National Air and Space Museum after the trip was completed. I have been excited and impressed by the huge program to promote space tourism even though I would never spend what they will charge for a ride on the plane. It seemed that the design of carrying the rocket ship to 50,000 feet and then releasing it for a relatively short rocket burn was a much safer way of launching than the huge rockets required to get space vehicles launched from the ground. And as each step of the program progressed, we were impressed by its successes and safety.

And now, in the desert, investigators need to be so careful going over the wreckage as they try to discover what happened and what can be done to prevent future tragedy. A family grieves the death of a pilot and worries about the injuries to the second pilot. The price in dollars suddenly seems small in comparison with the cost in human life.

Which brings to mind another sign my father had: Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect." — Captain A. G. Lamplugh

Space flight will one day be as safe as flying on an airliner. But to get to that point, risks will be taken and other accidents will occur. May all involved be doubly careful to avoid any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.

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