Kids, Kids and the garden (again)

So we had the last day of Sunday School and as we have done in recent years, we brought the good folks from Macdonald Ranch out for the kids to experience, petting zoo fashion. It was a great time and some of the more jaded kids, the ones normally whinging about getting back home to their Wii even seemed to find it a worthwhile experience.

How is it that we end up doing this to kids? By trying to give them everything we can, we end up taking things from them. If we give them a Wii, or a spiffy cell-phone or a computer, and they stay indoors in their safe and sanitized home, haven’t we in truth robbed them of something else? How do we weigh the things that we give and take away and how do we judge which one is more important?

New families and old in an uneasy mix. When can we get to the point where we all just trust in faith that we’re members, one and all, in the family of God. If we have a hard time teaching it to the kids, will we ever be able to get it across to the adults?

Can I portray trust enough to model it to others?

Then there’s the garden which I came home to that evening. I thought I’d give you an updated look.

Oh my goodness it is HOT today

over 100 degrees! what kind of craziness is this?!?

I was perfectly happy just one post ago and I was trying to keep some equanimity when they told me that it would exceed 100 degrees just one day after my birthday on the same day when I had arranged for a group of guys to come up to church and remove the majority of the pews from the sanctuary in preparation for a congregational banquet. I called the moving off, nothing like trying my best to not endanger the lives of the congregation. But it is hard to live a non-air conditioned life.

I suppose that it’s good for the grapes and therefore the wine’ll be good in a couple of years.

but MAN is it HOT

The Minister’s Discount

I have been entertained on a number of occasions by stories of Debbie’s Grandfather and even her uncle shopping and simply being out in the world and asking for (and receiving) the “minister’s discount.” I imagine that this is one of the reasons that in days past, pastors and the like always went around vested, not only would you garner a bit more respect, but there was in popular culture a sense that you were a person of substance, thought you didn’t earn much money. Maybe times were different then and it was seen as noble to sacrifice material success for the sake of a calling, but wearing the collar certainly cemented you within a certain orbit of thought and behavior and people responded.

Out in California, there is most definitely less deference and respect given to members of the clergy and there is almost no administrative recognition, but it has occurred to me in recent weeks that even among the unchurched, there is an oddly rising tide of recognition of the place of clergy in society that I find very interesting.

Stores in the neighborhood make accommodations for me because they know that I serve a church. For example, a fire bowl was on sale outside one of the local hardware stores and I mentioned in passing that if it came down below 80 or 100 dollars they should call me. When asked what it was for I explained the Easter Vigil to them and told them about kindling the New Flame for the sanctuary. The price moved to $80 in an instant.

Tires get mounted for free, tune-ups happen for the price of the parts, fig trees are delivered to me at work when I mention that I might like to have one.

It feels like the world is turning again and that the casual disdain for clergy that seemed fairly prevalent in places like California specially may be making way for a newfound understanding that faith leaders are not necessarily divisive influences, that we (if we portray ourselves this way) can be islands of calm in a harried world (Steinke’s “non-anxious presence) and there is some value in that.

I feel especially “cared for” here. Some of the terms have changed but I am glad to be here.

Okay, maybe I’m overstating it. It was 80 degrees this morning at 6. If I’d wanted weather like that I’d have stayed in Minneapolis! 100 degrees this afternoon!

God is good, all the time, God is good

It was supposed to be really hot these next few days and I was NOT ready for it. I looked it up on the internet this morning and it said that instead of mid-80’s we’ll be having mid-70’s. I don’t have to run home and water the garden in the middle of the day, I can wear long pants and a cleric without dissolving.

Except for a staggeringly odd (and for me, totally out of character) lack of Garlic, the garden is pretty much ready to rock.

I’ve got all of the beds in place for this year (there’ll be a bit more next year) so we’re off to the races. My mother was in town this past weekend and she mentioned with just the faintest trace of bitterness, that it was exactly twice as hot here as in Anchorage and so her garden is still under a blanket of snow.

Part of the fun for me is actually spending time outdoors, either on the porch

yes, those are the irises from earlier posts

or out with Caitlyn on the porch of her playhouse

which will be easier when I get all of the garden stuff off of it. There’s just so many metaphors for a life in faith to be had outside, in the dirt and the world.

God is good and I find it so much easier to see that outside, even if its hot (but not too hot)

Amen

We have a new Bishop

It is an odd process, one fraught with questions and yet it seems to nurture a sense of the Holy Spirit working in and through the election and in the end we have a new Bishop Elected in the Sierra Pacific Synod, Mark Holmerud.

I’m not sure that it is a job I’d wish on a dog, let alone a pastor I like and have respect for. Necessarily, like the presidency, there is really no adequate training for the position, nothing is like being bishop and being bishop is like nothing else and so we have what we have and each is different.

And around here they are the victim of what I think of as tragically poor planning in and through the merger way back when which saddled the bishop with 204 congregations spread out over a quite large region, from northern Nevada across northern California and down into the central part, past Monterey. Beyond the geography there is the incredible diversity of the synod, from Humboldt county to Fresno, from San Francisco to Elko, Nevada the disparity in priorities and beliefs is staggering.

And so I find it odd that the thing that makes me feel as if I were truly a part of this synod is the fact that i have a more than nodding relationship with four of the six candidates who were running. It is odd to feel that connected, but I guess that the Lutheran world really isn’t all that big.

Back at home some of the peach Irises have bloomed and so I thought I’d send along a picture:

be well, more about living outside (yourself and your home) later I suppose

Tim