Aware of this year’s tornadoes in Alabama and Missouri, I heard people expressing
gratitude. We all know that the weather can do much, much worse, and if anything our
compassion for those who had suffered in those places grew deeper.

Many people experienced a sense of community that often eludes us in our suburban
housing tracts. Neighbors helped neighbors clear debris - including those who could not
take care of their own damage due to age or infirmity. Impromptu block parties were held
as people grilled food that was about to be spoiled. We met neighbors we didn’t
know. Those who had generators shared power with those who didn’t.

For many, the experience connected us to one another in a way we hadn’t felt before. I
was reminded of Barbara Brown Taylor’s observation that when Paul in 1 Corinthians
12 talks about how we are “the body of Christ… when one suffers, all suffer…when one
rejoices, all rejoice,” it is not just a symbol, but a statement of fact that is true whether we
recognize it or not.

In our homes, without power, we relied on candlelight in the darkness, uniting us to every
man and woman before Edison. There is something elemental about receiving light from fire
alone, something that connects us to who we are as human beings on this good earth.
Similarly, the darkness brought silence, the absence of the background noise of television
and CD and YouTube that so clutters our lives. Before the hum of the generators took over
late in the week, you could almost hear the sound of your own soul. The darkness and the quiet.
as with the sense of community, were a spiritual experience in their own way.

Most often, we find the Holy when we take the time to look for it…

We like this about Easter. It adds an aura of mystery that’s consistent with our faith. After all, we believe that the birth of a child in Judea 2000 years ago is somehow the incarnation of God’s love on earth…that in the person Jesus we can experience the grace and truth of God…that Christ died on the cross so that we may have life… and the last, greatest mystery that is Easter: that death could not hold him and Christ burst from the tomb full of life and light.

All of this is a mystery that is not something to master and understand and then move on. This is a mystery to be lived and discovered and experienced…a mystery that, like the date of Easter, is new each year.

Palm Sunday worship at Wildwood always ends with a shift in mood. We begin upbeat, celebrating the triumphal entry of Jesus into the holy city of Jerusalem, but we end by foreshadowing the events that took place just five days later, on a lonely cross. On Maundy Thursday, we break bread, share the cup, and then listen to the scriptures tell of our Lord’s death as the sanctuary candles are extinguished, one by one, leaving us in darkness. On Good Friday, we experience the story of God’s love for the world in drama and in song. Then on Easter morning, we celebrate the good news of the gospel - the best news ever - that even death is not stronger than the love of God for us in Christ Jesus.

To truly understand resurrection, however, we must first stand under the cross. It’s almost as if Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter are really one service of worship spread out over a week’s time. Any one of these services tells only part of the gospel story, but all of them together shape a celebration of God’s love that is real because it honestly and openly acknowledges the darkness of the world in which we live.

So we encourage you to make Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday/Good Friday an essential part of your Holy Week worship. Then Easter will truly be Easter, and the words of Jesus will ring true: “Be of good cheer,” Jesus said, “for I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 KJV).

Dear faith family,

It seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them (Luke 24). This is the reaction of the apostles to the women’s words on the first Easter: their report of an empty tomb, their story that Jesus was improbably, impossibly alive.

Who can blame the men? Dead bodies stay dead. In the end, life is a predictable affair, with a predictable end. Anything else is just too good to be true - wishful thinking, pie-in-the-sky…an idle tale.

There’s no way to prove that this isn’t so. There is only the testimony of Christ-followers through the centuries that the last word is not death, after all; the last word is life, a life that is full and abundant and rich, a life that is connected to the energizing, life-giving power that is found in Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter of Galilee, at once a very human being and our Lord and Savior.

All the things a church does - singing praise, teaching children, reaching out to the hungry and homeless, sharing fellowship, etc. etc. etc. - they’re all grounded in the God who raised Jesus from the dead, the living God who calls us to truly live - now, in this world, as well as in the next.

Easter is not just a day, it’s a season, and so at WPC we’ll be preaching and singing about the new life to which God calls us all through April and May. We’ll be looking into the future with phase one of our capital campaign, and with Youth Sunday (May 9) and confirmation (May 23). We’ll be thinking about a new global mission project and moving into a new staff configuration as Kathy (Bostrom) moves from a half-time position to quarter time. We’ll be planning Bible School and summer camp and mission trips and new opportunities for adults. And if you trace any and all of that back to its roots…you’ll find the resurrection power of God, which calls us into a new future where death has no final power, where life is the last and best gift that God gives us all.

Grace and peace,
Greg and Kathy

At such times one wonders…why? There is no answer to that, of course, and if there was an answer, it would not be good enough, not nearly good enough. The truth is that nature is indifferent to us: regularly beautiful, sometimes terrible, but always indifferent.

The good news of the gospel is that God is not indifferent. The Christmas message is that the God who created all things becomes part of his creation and shares life as we know it. The Lenten story, which we are about to rehearse once more, tells how God’s own self experiences the suffering and sorrow that afflicts all of his creatures at one time or another. God is not indifferent to human suffering; in the cross of Christ we see that God shares it. Our faith is not a “pie in the sky,” naive affirmation that all is well; at a time like this, our faith gives us hope in the midst of tragedy because we trust that God is not indifferent to us.

Princeton Seminary student Amy Julia Becker tells the moving story of the death of her mother-in-law in her book, Penelope Ayers. In “First Things” (November 2009) she writes that “in the midst of Penny’s illness, I read that the word “hope” in Hebrew is similar to the word for spider’s silk. I also read that spider’s silk is stronger than steel, that researchers are hoping to use spider’s silk to make lightweight bulletproof vests. I’m not sure the Hebrew etymological connection was intentional, but it provided me with a helpful image: hope as a strand of spider’s silk. stretched tight between the pain of the present moment and the promise of a future reunion. Hope is the place between. It is remembering the pain of the cross and anticipating the reality of the resurrection. It is an awareness that the world is not yet what it should be, even as God is already at work. Hope is as strong as steel and as fragile as thread.”

This month we will share our prayers and our dollars with the people of Haiti. And we will continue to live the life of faith in our churches. We will worship; we will teach our children; we will care for hurting friends; we will reach out to those in need in our own community. We will begin the holy season of Lent. All these are linked by our “mission from God,” our common calling to be an outpost of hope in the world: hope fragile as thread, but strong as steel.

Grace and peace…and hope,

Greg and Kathy

In an Advent world, people know that the way things are is not the way things
should be. In an Advent world, people are searching for something more, more
than just the return of consumer confidence or a rejuvenated job market, important
as those will be. In an Advent world, people wonder if there really is a Purpose
that comes to us from beyond our own desires, if there really is a Presence that
empowers us to live, if there really is a Love that enfolds us when times are tough.
In an Advent world, people are looking for hope.

When times are tough and people turn to the living God, hope is exactly what
they find. Not easy answers for complex questions, not short-term fixes for deep-rooted
problems, not band-aids for the wounds of the soul… instead they find hope:
the sure and certain promise that God is at work, within us and among us, guiding
paths, strengthening resolve, encouraging justice, lifting burdens, wiping tears,
healing hearts, empowering lives, right up until our last breath when we return to
our eternal home.

We teach our kids that “it’s more blessed to give than to receive,” and in our
consumer culture, celebrating the joy of giving is surely a virtue. But somewhere
in the midst of this Advent, stop…pause… and remember that Christmas is also
about receiving. It’s about receiving the gift that God offers each and every
Christmas, if we will only take it. The gift is hope, and the package has your name
on it. Sometime in this holy season, make sure to open it.

Grace and peace,
Greg and Kathy

Don’t forget the December 3 evening options for everyone: Advent dinner/program at WPC, and the Candlelight Vespers at First Presby, Libertyville.

Check your e-mail for details on other gatherings and events.

Happy Holidays!

The Wednesday night group will NOT meet this week. I have to do a national teleconference class on writing prayers - something I got asked to do last year before our class was meeting on Wednesday evenings.

Next week, we’ll begin looking at chapter 4.

Hope you are all enjoying the spiritual enrichment. I know I am!
Blessings,
Kathy

Grace to you and peace!
My teacup is stained and in need of some gentle cleansing. I like the reflection on page 76 of our study book, which suggests that we prayerfully wash our cups with soap and water, and pray to be cleansed of those things that tarnish our own spirits. The image of God taking warm water and lots of suds and bubbles and gently washing our stains clean is a good reminder of the kindness and forgiveness of God we find in Christ. Take time this week to wash your cup as you would a newborn baby, and imagine God treating you with the same tenderness.

We continue to share ways in which we use what we’ve now dubbed our “Ethel Prayers,” in honor of Margot’s grandmother who used to pray for the passing cars while sitting at a stoplight. I was in need of many Ethel Prayers while visiting our kids in Los Angeles. The drivers there are crazy! Our son, Chris, who just moved to L.A. in June after living at college in southern Illinois where he never needed a car, is finding it nervewracking to drive to work in L.A. every day. I shared with him the Ethel Prayer approach of blessing the other drivers, no matter how nasty they get. Of course, driving defensively and with a watchful eye is important too; but the world is in need of a lot of Ethel Prayers!

One of our ladies shared her favorite Bible passage, which comes from Lamentations 3:21-24 (not a book of the Bible most of us even read - but what a powerful few verses are included in the midst of the sorrowing and lamenting of the author!). These verses are the basis of one of my best loved hymns: “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” I’m including the Bible verses from the New Living Translation, and the words of the hymn, for all of us to ponder this week.

21 Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this: 22 The faithful love of the LORD never ends!
His mercies never cease.
23 Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
24 I say to myself, “The LORD is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!”

Great is Thy Faithfulness
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God Creator.
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Refrain
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Refrain

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Refrain

May the faithfulness of Christ, which is fresh and new each day, bless and keep you all.
Kathy B.

The Wed. night group will not be meeting on 10-15.

Thursday morning group will likely meet up at Something’s Brewing on 10-16.

Thanks!

“I am really enjoying this book, and it sounds like all of you are, too. So, how about we don’t worry about finishing it up this Fall? How about we stretch it out, linger with the devotions, prayers, and discussions, and start giving two weeks of time to each chapter?

For those of you who have been able to keep up with each day, you could still do that. You could take one journaling question one day, and another the next. Or reread the prayers, redo the “cup” thoughts - I feel as though I could go through each day’s material several times in the same day and each time would get something new out of it.

For those of us who aren’t keeping up, we would have two days to let the thoughts and prayers and devotions take root. You could use the opening and closing prayers for each day, perhaps, and stretch out the journaling? Or do the whole day in one day, and then reread what you’ve written, or just reread the prayers, the next day.

We could meet through the middle of November, then take a hiatus until January, and pick up again….”

Thanks.