Guest commentary by Linda Dickerson On Mondays, you would hardly think that on Sunday mornings worshippers gather to sing, pray, hear the Word read and proclaimed, and worship God in this place. It’s Monday night, the night of Northside Presbyterian Church’s Monday Night Community Dinners, a project begun about a year and a half ago. Why? To reach out to our neighbors in Blacksburg, Virginia, and to feed hungry people. The endeavor took a while to gain traction, but has become a regular “community.” Church members Heidi and Bruce do the lion’s share of meal planning and preparation, with help from a few others as needed. This Monday night, about 35 people are sitting together at tables. We begin with a circle prayer, where prayer requests are shared and prayers offered before we eat. It’s pizza night – one of the favorites – and almost every scrap of food has been eaten. In one corner, Steve sits with about five children playing a lively game of Yahtzee. George, who is … [Read more...]
Take Me
Take my fervor, take my will. Make me silent, yielded, still; wounded, if these wounds may be windows to eternity. Take my talent. What’s it worth? Nothing, save Your humble birth lights the chamber of my heart, truth and meaning to impart. Take my ego. Take my pride. Let docility abide in the soul of who I am, kneeling by my brother Lamb. Take my intellect and find faith and trust and peace of mind, making me content to see mercy as a mystery. Take my dwelling. Take my land, offered to an Unseen Hand that will give them back to me, anchored in eternity. Take my future. Take my past. Both lie in the shadow cast by a rugged cross of wood raised on Friday, known as Good. Take my living. Take my death. Let the Spirit breathe Its breath into this dark lung of me, lit by Your nativity. DANIEL POTTS is a ruling elder at First Presbyterian Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He started writing poetry after his father began creating visual art in the … [Read more...]
Pruning the vine
Guest commentary by Jason Schiller I am an aspiring gardener. I love the idea of tending to and cultivating fruits, vegetables and flowers, relishing in the bounty that comes from hard work and good soil. Three years ago, I was determined to have a garden. I spent the spring getting the ground ready and planning the layout of the plants. I read books about organic gardening and companion planting while dreaming about fresh produce. Then July came. One high school mission trip and family vacation later, I returned home to weeds towering over the garden I had so carefully planned. The harvest was meager, and I abandoned plans for the following year. Tending to a garden is the oldest vocation of humankind. In Genesis 2:15 we find the newly formed Adam being placed in the Garden of Eden “to till it and keep it.” Jesus picks up on this imagery in John 15:1-11 with the final of eight “I AM” statements: “I am the true vine, and God is the vinedresser.” The People of Israel were very … [Read more...]
Aubade
Who would give birth to the god of death? Not brought forth in light, as if from clouds, but squeezed tightly into the dark center of pain where over-worked organs once sought their toil in silence, now doubly, to turn out the precious stone that will spread her feet and churn her body into paste? Who would rise at dawn to feed the mortal one? To fill with gold the body meant to fill the tombs, that will not rest now, not for an hour, already anxious for the long graveyard nights when his mother's warm breast, warm beating heart, will be the Father's cold stone, cold chest. Who would leave the coffee, the sunny chair to worship the mother of beauty, patron saint of sleepless nights and bloody nipples; to dress the babe in white and give him milk only to drown him for breakfast? Who would wipe the ashes from the child's forehead? Who would hang flowers from the altar? While good men in wood-paneled rooms wring their hands about the dance who would light a … [Read more...]
Late Tidings
After more than eighty of such purple seasons, you might think there would be nothing left to look toward, get ready for. And, to be sure, there breathes an air of fond familiarity over much that we get up to in these leaning forward weeks of early winter. All those lists, addresses, recipes, festive greens and candles, special services bazaars and concerts, sip-and-dip occasions frequented by a dwindling clan of usual suspects all swapping tales of medical misadventures and prodigy grandchildren. “And it came to pass, in those days…” even so and yet, it all begins again, spell-binding, simplest words, sweet lingering syllables that resonate within, beyond the weary ear into the heart of all our hoping, with a melody that sings through fear and brings glad news of an eternal comforting that echoes fondly from the past and yet is ever new. … [Read more...]
The God of life and new life
Guest commentary by Aaron Neff I sat at the bedside of a longtime member of my congregation, who was not very responsive, a couple days after she began to receive hospice care. I was with her family, and we talked to her, prayed with her and read Scriptures aloud to her. In many ways, it was a familiar routine in my ministry as a pastor: helping a family keep vigil for a loved one who was preparing to make the journey from life into death. However, that time was different, because that whole week I was also keeping vigil elsewhere for a different reason. My wife was in week 41 of her pregnancy, and she and I were becoming anxious and impatient for our new baby to arrive. In one moment, I was waiting and hoping for my child to take his first breath. In another moment, I was waiting for a parishioner to take her last breath. As I moved back and forth through these experiences of waiting, I was surprised and (at first) unsettled by how similar they felt. As I sat with my feelings, my … [Read more...]
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