Friday, October 23, 2009

Sermon 10-18-2009

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Believing is Seeing

Did you know that dogs see only in back and white? For them it must be like it was for us in the days before color television. Once my husband and I had an Irish setter named Sean. I thought it was a shame that Sean could not see the beauty of his chestnut color against the green grass as he ran through a hay field.

In some ways we humans are limited too. We seem to see things only in black and white. All of the colors we associate with the season of fall are actually present all summer in the leaves in the trees. While the leaves are busy making food the green from the chlorophyll is the only color we see. When the leaves stop making food, and sugars are trapped in the leaves, on cold nights they bring forth the reds and purples, the yellows and oranges.

Most of us do not believe in things we can’t see. We ascribe to the old maxim, “Seeing is believing!” And so our sight is limited. The truly wise person knows that “believing is seeing,” and that we see only what we believe to be true.

It is my fervent belief that God is in our world working to repair the broken and fractured places. We may not be able to see God at work with our eyes, but if we become part of the forces working for healing and reconciliation, we will discover God in the men and women with whom we work. We will see that God is at work all the time. I encourage you to join Habitat and help build a decent house for a family. Volunteer with a group that gives shelter to families who are homeless. Keep them from sleeping in a cold car or on the street. Money may be scarce but opportunities abound to make the world safer, healthier, and more secure for others.

The color of the leaves is free. God’s love is freely given. I invite you to involve yourself in sharing God’s love. You may not be able to see it right now but if you work with others you will see God.

Blessings, Karen

But It Says So in the Bible

Monday, September 28, 2009

Have Salt and be at Peace

Blindsided by Christ

Tongues - Gossip or Praise

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

You Are Made of Stardust and God

A Transfusion of Christ

Be Opened

Monday, August 3, 2009

Sermon 8-2-2009

Sunday, July 26, 2009

How can God Love David

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Bad Shepherds

Freedom to Love

Resurection Ramblings

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Blessing of the Animals 2009

Look Busy

My Spring Garden



Garden Wisdom

The poppies have gone by.  The iris are fading and the peonies are in full bloom.  The garden changes every day.

 I have a morning ritual in which I walk around the garden in my robe, with a cup of coffee, to say hello to the girls who are blooming and to say goodbye to those who are departing.    Imagine that four months ago snow covered these little darlings.  I anticipate each day as the snow recedes and the snow drop and crocus flowers appear. Now we are deep in the heart of garden season, anticipating summer.  Showers feed the bean seeds and new tomato plants encouraging the fruit which will delight us in August.  For gardeners, the anticipation is as good as the actual fulfillment of the sight, smell and taste of the garden fruits.

This week as I walked with garden shears, I pondered which peonies to leave to view from the window and which to cut to bring inside to enjoy.  The bouquet on the dining room table is overflowing and with fragrance that permeates each room of the house. I gaze at the flowers inside and out and I try to drink in all of their beauty as I appreciate that they will only be in full bloom for a short time.

My joy and my sadness commingle, because I know that the same is true for me and all those I love.  We come and we bloom and we fade.  As a Christian, I know that there is another life beyond this with Christ and with all the saints.  Perhaps it is the like the winter passing into a spring fully blazing with beautiful colorful flowers. Perhaps it is a place of joy and delight where in the presence of the risen Christ, the flowers and the friends never fade. 

Blessings, Karen

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Sermon 4-19-2009

Sermon 4-12-2009

Sacred Mud

When my children were young, I would excuse myself and say I was going out to play in the mud.  Many years later, they realized that it had something to do with gardening but I maintain I like to garden because I love to get my hands in the earth.  I love the way it feels and often peel off my gloves just so I can be one with the dirt.  I love the way it smells and often put a handful to my nose to drink in the fragrance.  I have learned to look for the castings from earth worms and the foot prints of animals.  I love to rescue it from bad weeds and rejoice in the lovely plants (like poppies) multiplying in it.
Touching the dirt makes me feel literally grounded.  When I preside at funerals, i dislike the bottles of sand offered by the funeral directors and go looking for a handful of real earth to throw on the coffin at the time of saying "ashes to ashes and dust to dust." To me the ideal of dying and becoming one with the earth is comforting.  I feel I came from the earth, was made in God's image and that my body will return to the earth and live on in other life.  I believe that my spirit will live on with God.   I will pass on this poem by Robert Service about Mud.  And I'll be in the garden with my hands in the mud.
Blessings, Karen

Mud is beauty in the making,
Mud is melody awaking;
Laughter, leafy whisperings,
Butterflies with rainbow wings;
Baby babble, lover's sighs, Bobolink in lucent skies;
Ardours of heroic blood
All stem back to Matrix Mud.

Mud is mankind in the moulding,
hjeaven's mystery unfolding;
Miracles of mighty men,
Raphael's brush and Shakespear's pen;
Sculpture, music, all we owe
Motzart, Michael Angelo;
Wonder, worship, dreaming spire,
Issue out of prima mire.

In the raw, red womb of Time
Man evolved from cosmic slime;
And our thaumaturgic day
Had its source in ooze and clay...
But I ahve not power to see
Such stupendous alchemy:
And in star-bright lily bud
Lo! I worship Mother Mud.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Musings over missing Sunday worship

Monday March 16th
Church bells rang out this morning and I was filled with longing.  I suddenly wanted to sing hymns, smell the fragrance of fresh flowers, and hear the comforting words of t;he Eucharist.

I missed church yesterday.  I was buried under piles of sheets and blankets wrestling with the flu.  I slept for almost two days. 

This morning, I'm listening to hymns on my computer sung by famous choirs with four strong parts and boy sopranos to sing the descants.  Our congregation never sounds like this but somehow as we sing these familiar hymns, you can hear the saints join in and there is a fullness; the angel choir fills in the spaces.

I have felt a compulsion to be in church since i was a child.  My family was not religious and so i rebelled by attending church (rebel without a clue).  I don't know if that is true.  I do know that I loved going to church.  i loved the was the music sounded, I loved the way the church smelled, I loved the cool tile floor on the warm spring days, I loved entering the mysterious darkness from the blinding light.  I loved the party that happened each week.  I loved that I could come in a nobody and i was welcomed like a somebody.  I loved being fed.  I felt included, transformed, invited and sent forth to do Christ's work.

I realize in writing this that i miss being part of the congregation.  now, that I am the eader every Sunday, I miss the opportunity of coming expecting to hear some refreshing challenging words and to sit with others and to receive the gift of Christ's body and blood to be renewed, to feel Gd inside of me.  I don't feel complete when I'm not in church.  Don't get me wrong, I love leading worship.  But I wish sometimes I could be I the congregation of a worship service I was leading. 

Beyond all of my strange longings, I had worked on a  sermon which I was beginning to like a great deal but now i won't be able to see how it turns our because it is a new week and I have new readings to interpret  Ah well.....the central theme is the first commandment comes out of God's love for us.  "I am your God who brought you out of slavery in Egypt, you shall have no gods before me."  I am your God, I acted in history for you.  I want you  to be my people.  Perhaps in three years when the lectionary cycle comes around again, I will find out how I would conclude this sermon.  For now, I am busy being part of this week and preparing for next Sunday.
Blessings, Karen
  

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

The Great do-Over Sunday

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

God created for the fun of it!

Yonder is the great and wide sea 
with its living things too many to number, 
creatures both small and great.
There move the ships,
and there is that leviathan,
which you have made for the sport of it.
                                Psalm 104: 26-27

I was fortunate enough to escape to a warm climate in January.  Our dear friends invited me and and my husband to go to Mexico for a week. One of the days, we went sailing in Banderas 
Bay.  
To our great joy, the fish decided to play along side of the sail boat.  
We saw some beautiful black, white and yellow fish, who looked like escapees from a large salt water tank.  Six dolphins swam and dove along side the boat in playful maneuvers.    And just when we thought it couldn't get any better, two whales, mother and baby surfaced, breached (we actually saw the fountain of water and heard their breathing) then they dove and were off on their long swim to Alaska.  This is migration time.  The whales are born in the warmer waters of the gulf of Mexico and then swim the full length of the continent, up the coast into the cold Alaskan seas.

All of these wonders are happening everyday as we get up, get coffee, complain about the weather or the news.  These "great leviathans which our God has made for the sport of it" share our world.
Today say a prayer for all of the wonders in creation, including yourself, which our God has made so well.
Blessings, Karen

Monday, February 16, 2009

Superbowl of Love

Sermon preached on Superbowl Sunday