library

I miss going to the library.  As I write this I have just purchased a book from Amazon that was delivered wirelessly to the kindle on my phone.  It is crazily convenient and affordable.  I would always go to the library back home with my grandfather when I was a child.  My grandmother never wanted to go.  She was an avid reader but would just tell Popaw to get her afew mystery novels.  It would turn out she had already read half of the ones he would bring back, but even this never coaxed her out for the trip, so it was always just us guys.  Popaw would never take the interstate even though it would get us to the library ten minutes sooner.  He would take what was called old Carrolton road.  "Why would I want to go way up there?" he would ask as we drove under the interstate bridge.  We would always ride with the windows down with the smell of the deep woods and the dusty smell of the road rolling in.  Popaw would dip snuff and lift the pointer finger of his left hand from the steering wheel to greet every car that passed us going in the opposite direction.  He would go too fast over bumps in the road to send us reeling and I would laugh as I looked over to his dark smiling eyes and bushy black beard.  Then of course there were the books to search through when we arrived.  It was an infinite number to my young eyes.  I would follow behind him while he loaded his arms with mystery novels for his wife and war histories for himself.  I would never want to go to the children's section, but would instead check out an armload of books too advanced for me, but Popaw let me do as I liked.  Popaw and I never did talk much but it was one of those situations where you didn't have to.  There was truly nothing that we had to say.  We understood each other without words.  I wonder if he ever imagined that one day I would be a grown man thinking of him every time I buy a  book with one click of a button from my office, and I wonder if he knows that I would trade that convenience in order to once again climb up into the seat of his old blue ford escort to head down to the library to go reeling and laughing down the dusty road.  I hope that he knows that the feeling of safety and joy that I had in his presence gives me a model to begin to understand what it must feel like to be in heaven, and makes me wish that feeling for others.  Its funny that life can attach so much to the click of a button. 

Pr. Phil

Identification

In daily life we deal with people as they come to us.  But behind each of them, Jesus says, stands God.  What we do to that person, we do to him.  Thus in a sense that outrides all human sense, God has become our Brother.  Not only by taking upon himself our sin, but because he has made himself the advocate of each and every one of us, and regards our interests as his own.
                                                                                             - Romano Guardini


In our Scriptures we are confronted by this notion of God's identification with his people.  When we are thinking of ourselves this concept is easily celebrated.  God has united himself with me.  He has taken my sin and given me his righteousness.  He has made himself my friend in the cross.  There is a further joyful opportunity and responsibility that we only take advantage of when we look outside of ourselves to see God in the other and in the world around us.  Because God has identified himself with his people in Jesus, every relationship we are in with a person is an opportunity for us to worship God.  Not by worshipping the person, but by honoring them as a child of God.  This awareness need not set us on pins and needles, but it does help us to expand our perception of Holy Ground.  Our religion is not something that can be contained by the Sanctuary, nor does our sense of Holy presence end when we walk away from the communion rail.  We are awash in opportunities to experience the divine presence in the other.  The divide between Church and secular is an artificial one for the Christian, because she knows that everyone she meets is a soul for whom Christ gave his life.  This is a difficult awareness to come to and an even more difficult awareness to maintain in the comings and goings of sin and life, but the reward is that we walk and talk with God every day that we live. 


Because Christ is the perfect Love, his life on earth can never become a life of the past.  He remains present to all eternity.  Then he was alone, and bore the sins of men as one whole, alone.  But, in death, he took us all into his work.  Therefore the Gospel is now present with us.
                                                                                                                         
                                                                                    -  Mother Maria of Normandy


Pr. Phil Vickers

The Sequel!

Just when you thought the story was over there was one more surprise.  The extraordinary neighbor that went so beyond what one might expect a neighbor to do didn't stop there.  She wrote a thank you to the church on behalf of her neighbor.  Hear it again!  The woman that wrote the letter seeking help for her neighbor who needed her yard cleaned up, the woman who had pop for workers, and greeted us with a warm smile and great joy, that woman sat down and wrote a thank you on behalf of her neighbor.  What a different world this might be if everyone was a neighbor like this. 

Jesus acted on our behalf.  He advocated for us all the way to the cross at calvary.  With one more surprise an empty tomb, a living Lord, who invites us to become Easter People, extraordinary neighbors and witnesses to the world of God's grace and love. 
                                            "You are witnesses of these things...."  Luke 24:48

Pr. Tim