rest in peace

the local electric company asked permission to take down a grand oak tree in front of our church a few weeks ago. the tree was ancient. five feet thick at the base. last fall it lost a limb in a storm. the limb was bigger than most trees in our area.

so SMECO wanted the tree down because it didn't get along with its power lines and it would just be a matter of time before the tree went on to "tree heaven."

last week, the professional tree movers came in and took it down. it was hard for me to see this magnificent ancient oak being turned into firewood. i don't know how old the tree was (i think the local paper is gonna do a story on the tree and has counted its rings) but part of me was sad to this grand friend go.

yesterday, as i was driving by, i noticed someone had placed flowers and a note on the stump. (kind of appropriate since the tree sits on the edge of a cemetery.)



by the time i got to this picture, the note was gone. so i got to wondering about the person who left the flowers. obviously a tree lover. but what else? was he or she angry that this grand tree was reduced to a stump? grieving? was it a neighbor who had admired the tree for years? a child who walked past it on the way to school? who would take the time to write a note and offer flowers to a tree - a tree that was much older than any other living thing touched by its shade?

i'm reminded of Isaiah's words in Isaiah 40 - words that i read as part of every funeral liturgy that i've officiated . . .

"Shout that people are like the grass.

Their beauty fades as quickly
as the flowers in a field. . . .

The grass withers and the flowers fade,

but the word of our God stands forever.” - Isa 40:6,8 (NLT)

can we? will we have the same respect for the oldest of our species living among us? must we wait until they whither before we honor their memory? will the flowers only show up at the stump? the grave stone?

go visit someone who's lost a limb in a storm, someone weathered and beaten, gnarled and gray.

bring flowers

remember your baptism

we celebrated new members joining our church yesterday. it was a great day - Pentecost - the birthday of the Church (another topic). during the celebration, i invite these almost-new-members to come forward and to "remember your baptism and be thankful." i also offer a caveat as these folk are invited forward - "do whatever it takes for you to remember your baptism - you can simply look at the water, or touch the water, or mark yourself with the water and if you need to - you can even dump this whole bowl of water on your head - nobody's taken me up on that offer - but we can always get more water." that always gets a few laughs.

so new folk came forward and gazed into a baptismal font - a basin filled with sacred (set apart) water - to reflect on how God has brought them to this point. some were baptized as children/infants and really can't remember their own baptism, others came forward baptized as adults and do remember that moment. some simply look. some take the water and splash their faces. yesterday was a first - a young expectant mother raised her blouse and "baptized" her protruding tummy. the moment is always significant and often deeply moving because these persons see the hand of God at work in them, even before they were aware of it. yesterday was one of those days - deep reflection. deep thankfulness, deep joy. (as pastor, i have the best seat in the house for noticing these things.)

last of all was Karen. Karen was someone who i met in December at our soup kitchen Christmas dinner. (wonderful servants in our church put on a banquet for the less fortunate in our community, complete with great food and even a visit from Santa - it's the annual highlight of our soup kitchen ministry.) so someone introduced me to Karen. i listened to her story - no job, lost her daughter years ago in an automobile accident. she was deeply wounded. there was deep sadness and pain in her eyes. i invited her to church, to meet God in worship. she said she would come but the skeptic in me thought "how many times have i heard that before?" but Karen did come and she heard a message on peace. then amazingly she came back the next week and heard a message on love (it was Advent). and when Karen came up to me after the service, there were tears in her eyes. God was at work, healing a broken soul. Karen kept coming - more faithfully than most of our members. she connected into a small group of women who were also working their way through healing of damaged emotions. she started mowing the church's lawn - a way she could give back since she didn't have anything to put in the offering basket. someone in the church offered her a job to get back on her feet. she came to a new members prep class then came to see me - she said she felt guilty because she felt to good - so at peace, so much joy. she couldn't stop smiling. nine years weighted down by anger were gone. a few weeks later when a couple came to worship to share about their vision for us joining with them in partnership to build a health clinic in Munyarari Zimbabwe, Karen felt the call of God to go to Africa.

all this leading up to yesterday - the day she was joining our church. as i remarked about taking the whole bowl and dumping it on your head, Karen, sitting in the front let me know in no uncertain terms that this was her plan. (that's why i invited her last!) so Karen came forward, her back to the congregation, a huge smile on her face. "Karen, remember your baptism and be thankful." she looked at the water, hesitated, maybe because there was more water in that basin than she realized, then in words that thankfully no one else could hear said, "oh what the f***," picked up the bowl and dumped a gallon or so of water on her head and across the floor! sopping wet she stood there with a great big smile on her face and a cheering congregation behind her.

and i'm just smiling and thinking - what a great way to end my ministry at my current church. soon i'll be moving to Abingdon, Maryland to plant a church. my dream is to connect the Karens of this world with the God who loves them. yesterday i got a foreshadow of what is to come. God is smiling and so am i.

driving green

a couple of weeks ago, i happened to catch a news story that stated driving at 50 mph rather than 60 or greater would save you the equivalent of (or somewhere around) .40 cents a gallon (you math folk can figure out the savings). so being a cheap skate and haunted by current gas prices, coupled with my sincere desire to go green in as many ways as possible (another post?), i decided to drive the speed limit (yes i am one of those habitual 7 mph over the speed limit drivers (and more on interstates)) .

so last week on a drive from Annapolis to my home in southern Maryland, i drove the speed limit. this isn't a big deal on divided multi-lane roads, but on this particular drive there is a long stretch of single lane highway that is a major commuter road. it was on this stretch, as i was conscientiously obeying the speed limit, that a line of cars started to form behind me. this became for me - highly stressful. i like people to like me. but as i drove, i kept thinking of what all those behind me were thinking - nasty things - things that I think when i drive up on someone going too slow for my tastes.

i was tempted to pull over and let everyone pass, but i also worried that with the line so long, i would never get back on the road! and i was also stubborn enough not to press down on the gas pedal just to accommodate the speeders - after all i was going green. so i puttered along - stressing - until we got to the multi-lane highway where everyone could pass me. i stared straight ahead as they passed.

i did sleep well that night knowing that involuntarily i had earned some green credits for myself and involuntarily for others. i sure hope all those folk appreciate the favor i did them the next time they visit the gas pump.

what would our world be like if we all slowed down a little, stopped tailgating, and enjoyed the ride?

Al Roker

Orlando Airport security lines.

my wife met Al Roker on Thursday as we waited in line to have our carry-ons screened before flying home. Al wasn't a happy camper. the lines were long and Mr. Roker's request to move to a shorter line was rebuffed by a TSA official. my peace-making wife tried to console Mr. Roker as he waited impatiently behind us. it definitely wasn't the same picture we've had of cheerful Al on the Today Show and Food Network.

it can't be easy being a public figure. there weren't any paparazzi trailing Al Roker, but still, there was no blending into the crowd. how do you separate your public and private persona?

on a MUCH smaller scale, as a pastor in a small community, i've had to wrestle with the public nature of my calling. i can try to hide from it. avoid it. or always be "on call" - always wearing the clergy uniform. none of the above have worked very well.

i too have my good days and my bad days. one thing i am striving for is authenticity - wysiwyg - what you see is what you get. not that I use the "pulpit" (actually music stand) as public therapy, but i definitely don't want a huge disconnect between my public life and my private. this will require friends and especially my wife to keep me on the true (truth) path. she knows more than anyone whether the morning message jives with the evening dinner

hope you have a better day tomorrow Al.

natural frequency

exponential conference 2008 - the day after

just got back from Orlando, FL at a church planters conference - three intense days of sessions, seminars and networking all geared around connecting church planters and reproducing churches to new ideas (and old ones), techniques, and technologies (plenty of vendors). one of the sessions was on blogging (why i'm here at blogger) but that's not why I write.

the conference was a lot like drinking water from a fire hydrant - ideas and competing ideas and (really) far too much stuff for my ADD brain to handle. one of the first sessions was on the tension between being an attractional church (build it and "they" will come) ad incarnational church ("they" won't come so we must hangout with "them") i wish i could unpack this because of course it is not nearly this simple and tidy and i don't like us-them thinking.

but what i did want to get at was this sense of who i (and my team) resonated with. being a former engineer, i've always been fascinated with the idea of natural frequency - that everything has a frequency at which at which it likes to vibrate (go into a bathroom stall and hum at various pitches until you hit a pitch where the stall starts to join you in song (i wouldn't recommend doing this when others are in the bathroom too)). you get the same affect from plucking a guitar string and having another vibrate or watch the youtube video of the Tacoma Bridge collapse. . .

(remember that video from high school physics? only one small dog was lost in the shooting of this video!)

anyway . . . back to the conference . . . i found myself really resonating with Alan Hirsch, Neil Cole, Andy Stanley, John Burke, Tim Keller, and Larry Osborne (almost forgot - Vince Antonucci.) and really going flat with others (even Rick Warren). i wonder if this had anything to do with personality and preferences, maybe theological bias, or whether just somewhere, deep in my soul, this is who God wired me to be and these speakers speak to the kind of church God is calling me to plant. they "struck a chord" - my natural frequency. we had three members of our core team there as well (a female clergy and lay couple) and they need to share their experiences as well.

so broke the first rule of blogging - keep it short - but hey, it's my first time.