5/14/2012

A mother told me she came home  from a neighbor's house "a couple of acres away," on a Saturday afternoon. As she walked into her family room, she saw her four children huddled together, concentrating with intense interest on something. As she drew near them, discovering the center of attraction, she couldn't believe her eyes. Right in the middle of the room was a family of five skunks staring at the children. She yelled at the top of her voice, ‘KIDS! EMERGENCY!  RUN!” Each child leapt up, grabbed a skunk and ran. During a sermon in the contemporary service a couple of years ago, I told this brief story and the congregation laughed, knowing the compassion of children.
 
We, however, often do the same, and it isn't due to compassion but to a long-held, maybe by now unrecognized, sense of guilt. So many grab up and carry past guilt where ever they go, letting the smell permeate the heart, mind and soul until they are used to the odor and do not notice it any longer, as it blocks what Scripture terms, "the fragrance of Christ." Trying to pray to God, suddenly the mind places them in that room full of skunks. Old wrongdoings. "My prayers don't go any higher than the ceiling," some tell me. "It is as if they are blocked." Our prayers never have to go higher than our hearts! That's where the Lord lives, not only in some distant heaven. Our acceptance of Christ as Lord and Savior made each one of us the temple of God, scripture informs us. God's Holy Spirit within us and enveloping us doesn't depend on our awareness of it. Let it be a great joy to know that we don't have to know exactly how to pray or what to pray. When the stressful times come and we feel helpless and out of control, we can know we have the Holy Spirit's Presence and the Holy Spirit's praying in our stead, in total control.

A dad walked into his little son's room one night but stopped as he proudly noticed the boy's hands folded in prayer. Listening in, he heard this curious prayer, "Dear God, dear God, dear God, dear God, dear God" - repeated on and on, until the chld at length said, "Amen."  The dad went closer and asked his son about the prayer. "God is very smart," the boy answered. So when I don't know what to pray about, I talk to God by just saying, 'Dear God,' again and again, and God figures it all out for me. God knows everything, Dad."

God's Spirit intercedes for us with "sighs too deep for words, for we do not know how to pray as we ought.(Romans 8.26)" And we can read in James, "The prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective." That power is not our power but the wonder-working power of God, and that effectiveness is not our effectiveness, but the triumphant effectiveness of God's activity. Let's release the skunks back into the wild, let our Savior cleanse every part of us, and give up human-sized attempts in favor of Spirit-filled, God-sized powerful, effective success.

A Prayer:  Dear God, dear God, dear God, dear God, dear God, dear God, dear God. Amen.

Pastor Diana

5/7/2012

A panel of people who have various disabilities has been convened by the University of Arizona School of Medicine in Phoenix, with student doctors as the audience of the panel, each of the last four years. The future doctors ask the panelists who are from all over the valley, what the origin was of their disabilities, what their experiences have been with doctors, and how they manage day to day. I was asked to find deaf people for the panel three years ago, did so and have interpreted for the deaf people each year since. This year it convened last Thursday. All the people in wheelchairs, all who have guide dogs or white canes, all who need personal assistants, and all who need sign language interpreters, answered whatever questions the student doctors asked. Every year, no matter who the individuals on the panel are, the same disclosures are made, to the laughter of the panelists sometimes, and the dismay of the audience of student doctors.
 
People in wheelchairs and body chairs and those who are blind say doctors, sales people, waiters, and tellers, when talking to them, shout and over-enunciate. "Do they think we are hard of hearing too?" they ask rhetorically, and laugh."They think shouting will somehow help," they answer themselves. They say they are glad when that happens though because at least the other person is talking directly to them. Most of the time, they explain, all the doctors and commerce people do not speak to them but turn to their assistant, or interpreter or their family member who is helping them. "Would she like ... ?"  "Does he think ... ?" All the panelists nod when one of them tells this to the student doctors. Not much laughter among panelists about this. On Thursday one panelist said, "I'm blind, but I'm a person. However, when I take my baby to the pediatrician, no one talks to me, the mother, about my baby, but to my friend or relative who is with me."  The student doctors were amazed. They told the panelists they will never do such. I hope they don't. Things have been as the panelists described as long as I can remember, having always lived around deaf, blind and variously disabled people. But on Thursday as I sat there interpreting, I thought to myself, "People of St. Matthew don't act in these discriminatory ways."
 
The love of God within us can overcome prejudice. If there is someone or some group that any one of us looks down upon and cannot accept in an egalitarian way, we need only let Jesus’ love transform us, by asking for it in prayer. Holy love has the power to remove condescending attitudes and has done so for many among us. Love enables us to rely on the Holy Spirit to give us spiritual discernment that transcends human assumptions, and to understand prejudice, marginalization and oppression as systemic societal problems, not the truth of the being of the other individual. Many people are pushed to the margins because people of a society feel unable to receive them as equals, but we know each person, regardless of worldly features, is of equal value as a human being to our God. I am so thankful for the divine love strongly manifested among the people of our church.
 
A Prayer:  Lord Jesus, you saw the plight of the ostracized woman at the well, the ostracized woman who touched the hem of your garment, the ostracized tax collector in the tree and ostracized people in all your days on earth. You showed us your heart of unconditional love. I pray for more and more of your love within each of us, within our church, and within all of your churches around the world. Amen.
 
Pastor Diana

4/30/2012

4/23/2012

"It takes a high quotient of boundary intelligence to live a rural life in Arizona," my friend told me. We were sitting in Coco's where I was learning about ranching life as she described frustrations and joys her neighbors experienced. She has only a few acres, enough to enjoy fresh eggs every morning and fresh veggies, fruit and tree nuts through out the year, but she knows and appreciates life on the vast ranches around her. Having assumed big, congested city life required more boundary setting ability, I listened carefully to her as she described county, state and federal regulations on ranchers, their lessened autonomy, and their vulnerability to loss from extremes in weather. We require healthy emotional boundaries, she told me.
 
Having given workshops for interpreters on healthy personal boundaries allowing us to be fully present with, not aloof from, our clients, while being fully ourselves, in command of ourselves, and therefore more effective interpreters during a client’s crisis, I knew the concept. I didn't know how healthy personal boundaries applied to ranchers. I questioned my friend a bit more.
 
I know this friend from serving with her on a Walk to Emmaus retreat. She didn't go into politics and power plays placed on ranchers, but told me a story. I've kept it in mind. A rancher raised sheep, she said, while the rancher next to him raised crops and had little children and large dogs. The dogs constantly terrorized the neighbor's sheep. Sometimes they even ate the newborn lambs. The sheep rancher's first reaction was to consider shooting the dogs, poisoning them, fighting with his neighbor or taking him to court. He prayed about the problem, and God gave him a way to place a boundary between the dogs and the lambs and sheep and more importantly a boundary of protection around his soul. As soon as the next new lambs were born, he went over and gave one little lamb to each of his neighbor's children as a pet. Their hearts almost burst with joy. Thrilled, they sat petting and feeding their baby lambs. Their father could no longer allow his dogs to run free or they may kill his children's pets, so he fenced his property properly. The sheep rancher had given his neighbor what he himself treasured so the neighbor could treasure the same. The two ranchers became dear friends. The fence is a physical boundary, my friend told me. The personal boundary was against angry revenge and evil acts, but instead acting with Holy Spirit counseled respect, kindness, grace and Godly unconditional love. That's hard in ranching life, she told me.
 
Perhaps constructing healthy boundaries is hard in city, suburban and rural life, in personal, work and social life. Needed as they are for intellectual, emotional and spiritual integrity, the Holy Spirit can constantly counsel us in how to proceed, however we term it. The Holy Spirit can empower us to live a life filled with God's grace.
 
A Prayer:  Come, Holy Spirit. Fill us with Your Being, please. Fill us with God's grace, that we may overflow with grace to all others. Amen

Pastor Diana

4/16/2012

4/9/2012

A pastor of a Presbyterian church, Dr. Louis Evans, tells of a Hindu man who at dinner with his American hostess asked her what she believed about Christ Jesus. "We don't talk about that at the dinner table," she quietly told him. The next day he asked a business man hosting him to same question. The business man's face reddened slightly, and he said, "Come, let's go onto the balcony to talk about this." The Hindu man later told Dr. Evans, "This is the first country I've ever visited where the people are ashamed of the One they worship" Some Christians have the sorrowful conflict of being ashamed of following a crucified man, ashamed of elation at his resurrection, ashamed to acknowledge his Presence in their midst and ashamed to say to others, "Jesus is Lord."  I know. We are told our beliefs are unscientific and unintellectual, our morals are outdated, our values are archaic, and some have experienced taunts of, "blind faith," or the "need of a crutch," or the like. Surrounding Easter, people often tell us they cannot believe in or love a God who would allow the crucifixion on his Son. They doubt the gospel and believe any thinking person should also. Christians may slowly grow a fear the gospel does not measure up scholastically, a fear of being judged as less than an intellectual, a scholar, a scientist or a correctly informed person. Shame can be a misery-making emotion. Christ's followers are frequently bombarded in media and in person with messages engendering of shame, if hearts and minds are unguarded. Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, 1740 to 1786, a classically educated man, invited his top-ranking generals and other notables to a royal dinner. General Hans von Zieten, declined the invitation because he planned to partake of Holy Communion at his church that hour. At a subsequent banquet Frederick the Great and his guests mocked the officer for his religious scruples and made jokes about Holy Communion. In peril of his life, von Zieten rose to his feet before the king and said, “My lord, there is a greater King than you, a King to whom I have sworn allegiance even unto death. I am a Christian and cannot sit quietly as the Lord's name is dishonored and his character belittled.” The guests inwardly trembled knowing Frederick the Great might kill von Zieten by decapitation then and there. But to their complete awe, the monarch grasped the hand of the courageous general, asked his forgiveness and implored him to remain at dinner, promising to never again allow 'fun' to be made of holy things. Don't you know this was the talk of the town the next day, week and month? I believe God uses events such as this to spread the Gospel from one person to another, like wildfire. How many more individuals decided they desired to go partake of Holy Communion also? How many more decided to openly name Jesus their personal Lord and King? But if von Zieten had allowed himself to be shamed, had tolerated the jokes and even half-heartedly joined in the laughter, nothing good for God's people would have resulted. How unhelpful, unhappy, for a child of God to turn away in shame before an unbelieving world. I believe God wants you and me to be spreaders of the fire - the Gospel - the Good News! "He lives! You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart!" A Prayer:  God of the Resurrection, give us courage to stand up and refute in compassion all those you place before us who deny your love and power. Let us forget about ourselves, concentrate on you, and serve you by serving them. Amen.  Pastor Diana

4/2/2012

Their eyes were so big, their smiles so real as the carried palm branches into church Sunday morning. The children were numerous, but each one had a branch, some bigger than they were. The youth seemed happy to help. The adults seemed to enjoy Palm Sunday as much as the kids. I like the story we were celebrating as told in Matthew, especially at the point when Jesus defends the crowd as they act on their misunderstanding. They suppose he is a messiah who will cast out the Roman occupiers, restoring their nation, so they sing to him, praise him and sing about him. Knowing their great misconception, Jesus defended their behavior, saying if they didn't praise him, the rocks would. This hinted at who he really was. The rocks knew him. The wind and waves knew him. They didn't know him. This tells me Jesus will defend you and me if we can't fully understand who he is. This tells me Jesus will defend you and me if we can't fully understand why he had to suffer crucifixion.

A Prayer:  Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your amazing love. Amen

Some individuals all around us live so unseen, unheard, untouched they feel less and less real as time passes. Much or our communication is by Email, text messages, FaceBook postings and phone messages. Less and less is by face-to-face communication as we become more busy. Many have lives more full of abstract relationships than close, caring, knowing relationships. Is your life a little more impersonal than is healthful and happy? Back in my college days a professor told our sociology class of a young woman in Tucson who suddenly died in her apartment. Her doors and windows were locked. Her toddler and little baby could not get out. No one missed the woman enough to make inquiry. No one learned the woman had died until neighbors reported constant crying and screaming by little children for several days and nights straight. The professor said we live in a secondary society, so unlike a primary society where all live in real community and everyone cares about every one else. An example of a primary society he said would be a long dirt road lined with homes and mail boxes all having the same one or two or three last names. All care for everyone's well-being there, we were told. All communicate with each other every day several times and look out for each other. People who line prison cells, mental illness hospitals and urban streets are products of secondary societies. We weren't meant for impersonal living.