Five Minute Friday :: Effort

• Five Minute Friday :: Effort Linkup

Sometimes "Just do it!" is the best strategy. Sometimes we need to "try, try, try." Some days we can finish tasks almost on autopilot and do them well. Other days our best effort – even bordering on superhuman – yields next to nothing.

I've created about a dozen versions of my header collage. The first featured a girl looking down with nothing in her hands. Today it's a pair of the most recent. On the edge of a wooden fence that maybe hides new construction, a renovation, or a future surprise, she's managed to gather scattered flowers whilst at the same time she deftly balances herself.

We've all been to school, done homework and housework, had workplace projects to start and often finish. In general a moderate amount of effort gets the best results. Try too hard? Most people get tied up in knots. You become so involved you almost don't distinguish between you (the doer), and the required job (that hopefully becomes the done). Don't make much effort or even sit back and snooze? Nothing happens because there's zero connection between you and what needs doing.

Back to my illustration. Do you think she tried hard, didn't try at all, or something "other" in order to gather all those flowers together and keep cool holding them? I don't recall the situation we were discussing, but it must have been something I had trouble beginning or finishing when my therapist advised me simply to "let it happen the way grace happens."

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Epiphany 2C

Intro

Tony Campolo, "The kingdom of God is a party." Not like a party, not some semblance of a celebration, but the reign of heaven on earth is the real thing.

This is MLK weekend. The USA and many other countries have been impacted with frightening political, social, and economic uncertainties. Unprecedented wildfires have leveled Los Angeles area neighborhoods. Wars and other armed conflicts simmer and explode across the globe.

John 2:1-11

¹ On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." ⁴ And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." ⁵ His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

⁶ Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it.

⁹ When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the best wine until now."

¹¹ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Background

So far in this year of grace and season of revelation we've waited for God in our midst, we've been awed at the nativity of the infant Savior, we've met visitors from the East bearing gifts, we've joined a crowd alongside the Jordan.

After his riverside baptism by his cousin John the Baptist that all four gospels include, each gospel brings us a different version of Jesus' first act of public ministry. How can that be? Most likely they all happened around the same time, but each writer chose a particular one because it fit their perspective better.

The community surrounding John the beloved disciple writes about Jesus' signs rather than miracles. A miracle implies suspension of natural laws (which sometimes is the case, and sometimes there is a logical explanation), but a sign points beyond itself to a place, event, person, or idea—in this case, to Jesus. The Greek here is like our word semiotic that relates to signs, symbols, meanings. This gospel includes seven signs and seven "I Am" statements from Jesus. In Hebrew numerology, seven is the number of perfection or completion.


New Creation

In Matthew and Luke, after incarcerated John the Baptist wonders about Jesus being "the one who is to come," Jesus replies "go tell John what you see and hear: blind see; lame walk; diseased become clean; dead are raised! poor receive good news."

• Luke 7:20-22

• Matthew 11:2-5

These events fulfill John's signs.

John's gospel brings us the most explicit new creation.

• In the beginning … God –Genesis 1:1
• In the beginning … was the word –John 1:1

logos, word connotes both origin (where this came from) and immanence (what this might become). Does that sound theological?

On the seventh day God finished the work. –Genesis 2:2
"It is finished!" –John 19:30

• And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden… –Genesis 2:8

The garden of Jesus' burial and resurrection becomes the new garden of Eden

• Now there was a garden in the place where Jesus was crucified, and in the garden was a new tomb in which no one ever had been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. –John 9:41-42

The first day of the week is the eighth day of creation, the first day of the new creation.

• Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. –John 20:1
• Supposing him [Jesus] to be the gardener… –John 20:15b

Of the four canonical gospels, John brings us the most fully realized eschatology (protology is the word about first things, about origins; eschatology is the word about last things, about conclusions)—the clearest right here and right now of the reign of heaven on earth. A wedding party perfectly fits that worldview!


Today's Good News

This reading begins, "On the third day." In that place and time, the third day – Tuesday – was considered the best day for a wedding. But as Easter people, we also recognize the third day as the day of resurrection that initiates the new creation. And back then and there, an extravagant wedding party where everyone gets more than the dayenu or "it would have been enough" of the Passover song would be a primary indicator of the messianic age.

Cana in Galilee was disreputable gentile territory known for thieves and petty criminals. This wedding was not at an elite venue or an aspirational destination. Jesus performed this sign among regular, ordinary, working class people. Most of the guests and reception attendants probably lived nearby; some may have worked in the vineyard.

A wedding is an occasion to party; a wedding brings families together and gathers a community in one place for a single purpose. Whatever is happening elsewhere in the world, a wedding hopes for and promises a future. The couple getting married trusts that a future will arrive.

This isn't the old band Canned Heat Going Up the Country singing about "where the water tastes like wine." This is water that has become wine, and "you have kept the best wine until now!" –John 2:10


Where We Live

At the start of his public ministry Jesus attends a party and makes the party even better, in a preview of the rest of his time on earth. But two thousand years after Jesus' death and resurrection, we still experience death, disease, destruction, deadly fires, nations at war, a threat of government that is not by the people, of the people, or for the people.

Evidently a recent article in The Atlantic informed readers we need to party more. It was behind a paywall and no one provided a summary, but I agree.

After the 911 attack on the World Trade Center, although we didn't exactly rejoice with a block party, two days later on Thursday evening several churches in our neighborhood gathered to celebrate Eucharist, a meal with the risen Christ. Here's one of my reflections about it:

• 911 :: 22 years later

Literally in spite of everything we glanced into all creation healed and whole. We briefly lived in that future moment God dreams of and calls us to help create. Did you know the chasuble the person presiding at Eucharist vests in is the wedding garment of the messianic feast?

To paraphrase Cornel West, "We are people of hope. Why do we party on Friday night? Why do we go to church on Sunday?"

Because the Kingdom of God, the Reign of Heaven is a party!

Gardenias

Five Minute Friday :: Satisfied

• Five Minute Friday :: Satisfied Linkup

Intro

Satisfaction happens after a meal so abundant and delicious it fills your body and your senses. A person becomes satisfied after discussing a problem or conflict in enough detail and clarity to resolve it and move foreword in the situation or relationship. A well-crafted durable item is satisfactory for the use we hoped it would fit.

This is the second week of a new year and the first Five Minute Friday of 2025. Readers of this blog probably know I'm a theology geek and a church geek. With a worldwide plethora of church styles, traditions, denominations, etc., with the confusion of how to interpret scriptural passages about polity, organization, and structure – even with different perspectives on the authority of scripture – how can we interact with churches other than our own, or does scripture allow us to do so?

Magisterial Reformers Martin Luther (especially via Philip Melanchthon) and John Calvin had simple criteria for the presence of the church in any place, in any time.

• "The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered. And to the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. Nor is it necessary that human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies, instituted by men, should be everywhere alike. As Paul says: One faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, etc. Ephesians 4, 5. 6." Philipp Melanchthon, Augsburg Confession, Article 7.

• "Wherever we see the Word of God sincerely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists." John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 4, chapter 1, section 9.

2025 :: Satisfaction

Augsburg Confession, Article 7, Satis est "It is enough; it is sufficient, it satisfies."

Cool church stuff. But at this start of another new year that will take us 25% of the way through what once was an exciting new century we loved to call Y2K, what satisfies me? What suffices for me? What amounts to a full life, not a simple broken existence? Or can I ever be satisfied?

In his struggles, the Apostle Paul heard the Savior's assurance, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." [2 Corinthians 9:12] But how is "grace sufficient" or satisfactory for Paul, for any of us?

Yesterday I wrote to my star word for this year, Possibility. We can go on and on about spirituality, about feelings and thoughts, but we live in bodies that contain and express spiritual, gracious, thoughtful, and emotional realities. Without those are bodies are incomplete, but without a body they don't have a home, a place to reside. This material reality of substance is so central, the biblical story of creation [Genesis 1 and 2] opens with veggies, plants, trees (sun and water) to nurture bodies of animal and human critters. Agriculture becomes the material foundation of everything! At the end of the bible we read about the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth [Revelation 21:2] and the river of life, trees of life with healing fruit [Revelation 22:1-2].

In the creeds we "believe in the resurrection of the body."

I need, I seek, I want, I long for a bodily and physically abundant life. A life with people, buildings, places, activities, and pets. An embodied reality that welcomes feelings and thoughts and ideas.

News of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When Barnabas came and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced, and he encouraged them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast devotion. Acts 11:22-23

With his senses Barnabas saw the grace of God. He didn't hear a disembodied heavenly choir. It wasn't an imaginary apparition. It wasn't even a properly performed liturgy. He saw a caring community of people acting in Jesus' name to provide shelter, food, and other physical necessities. Practicing the forgiveness that generates new life.

Barnabas saw grace at Antioch.

When and where do you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell grace?

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Star Word 2025 :: Possibility

The alphabet (recolored by me) for my header
came from Birds&Plants by daria_miazhevich
on Creative Market in 2016.

• Pray • Remember • Imagine •

Choosing or being given a star word to light a path during the new year has become a popular Epiphany tradition. In the same way a star guided visitors from the East to the home of the infant Savior, a single word can help focus our journey.

After I asked for a star word on Twitter and on BlueSky; Heather on BlueSky linked to her church website that offered star words; Possibility felt inspired and just right.

Every time I read an article that reminds us it takes a village and often details how the writer got where they are today only because of people who supported them, who had their back most days, and who suggested and steered them to appropriate opportunities, again I wonder where's my village?

Other substacks and blogs talk about how people blossom and bloom and thrive when they have people who believe in them, encourage their gifts, celebrate their presence.

I still try to tease out some cause and effect for where I am and the realistic goals for participating and contributing I haven't reached, but whatever I did, they did, you did, or any of us neglected to do, unless I can find my village, my tribe, it will be more of the same, it will be more weeks, months, years, of a very occasional pickup gig.

Haven't I said people have come out on the other side of far worse than I've been through, yet many whose lives have been disrupted less than mine haven't made it back?

What do I want? Mainstream society and mainline church.

And I keep discovering I yearn for such routine aspects of everyday I never seriously thought about them before.

For one example, the longing I felt when someone on social media referred to a day as a "scorcher." Those used to happen during summers when life and people and ideas and possibilities surrounded me.

What's possible for 2025?

Settled housing—almost the least of everything. Music, art, and theology opportunities—but only if I find my tribe. Routine, mundane, everyday intensities like scorching hot days, body aching tiredness, lunches with friends, classes to teach, projects to design, rainy afternoons, early mornings and…?

I remember. I pray and I beg. I imagine it will happen. But hey, those pleasures that say I'm actually alive go along with mainstream society and mainline church.

Pray • Remember • Imagine

December 2024

• The header is my design for the four Sundays of Advent. All of them were in December this year!

• Urban Wilderness Lectionary blog for December

• Friday 06 December :: donut and celestial seasonings tea in the same red cup as October's. Did I mention the Asian-owned Los Amigos Donut Shop? This is Los Angeles!

• Saturday 07 December :: Advent and Christmas decorating, lunch, and games at the West Los Angeles church

• Saturday 14 December :: Christmas Tree Decorating, Lunch, and Concert at Christ the King in Torrance. I'm opening with red poinsettias and a solo Christmas Tree. I wish I'd counted how many trees there were! This is one of the only ones I captured with a fairly clean background.

• They served lunch in the narthex—my fave, build your own sandwich with condiments, etc. We ate at tables around the labyrinth.

• The lovely concert featured two keyboard players on both piano and organ and a vocalist. We had dessert afterwards, and I won a consolation prize of a Nativity ornament in the drawing.

• If you use google photos you may know they provide templates we can use to create collages, and google AI sometimes makes surprise collages using templates not available to the general public (that would be us). This 15-picture arrangement provides a perfect overview of the day.

• Monday 16 December :: Los Angeles has some stunning sunsets, but I'm not often there to see them and I sometimes don't trust my phone camera enough. It was almost the winter solstice when I captured this nearby sky.

• Tuesday 24 December :: Christmas Eve at Mount Olive ELCA in Santa Monica; I was organist for the German service and then I attended the family service with music by the semi-resident jazz band. This is another google AI collage that perfectly expresses the mood around campus.

• Wednesday 25 December :: Christmas Day worship and a sumptuous dinner at LA Bread of Life Foursquare Church in mid city LA. It's an actual storefront!

• Wednesday evening 25 December :: Christmas evening dinner in Inglewood—no pictures

• The First Sunday of Christmas 29 December :: Informal Lessons and Carols and Eucharist in West LA—no pictures

• Monday 30 December the Sixth Day of Christmas :: mid-afternoon lunch with friends; here are two views of our salad

House Five

House Four

House Three

House Two

House One

The First Sunday of Christmas

Here's a talk I gave on the first Sunday of Christmas 2021. I promised myself no edits or additions except for obvious errors, but I've added new illustrations. Because I used notes and not a script, this is approximately what I said. What would i say about Christmas music and food today, three years later? What would you say?

Intro

The pastor asked three of us to share our testimony of Christmas for the proclamation on the Sunday after Christmas: where do we find Jesus, the Christ child?

During this time of the year the northern hemisphere experiences more night than it does day, we first observe the advent season of waiting for, hoping for, and expecting the birth of Jesus, light of the world. We don't know the actual month or day of Jesus' birth, but the early church wisely calendared it at the winter solstice that also coincided with the Mithric Feast of the Unvanquished Sun. Jesus, Son of Righteousness spelled with an "o" also is the Sun of Righteousness spelled with a "u" who is Light of our Lives. After Advent and Nativity, the day and then the season of Epiphany continue with Jesus as light to all.

Martin Luther particularly loved the New Testament book of Titus. The anonymous author tells us, "The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all." [Titus 2:11a] Jesus is that light-filled grace, our grace-filled light.

Nativity Prayer

Root of Jesse, Son of Heaven, Mary's Child.
Cradle of Joy, Word in the Manger, Astonishing Gift.
Lord of Creation, Abundant Promise, Dayspring of Peace.
Be with us here in this place;
make us shepherds of your grace.
May our lives season the world with salt;
Nurture our neighbors with leaven;
Light a path to show your way.
In your name we pray—
Amen!

Valley Winter Song – excerpt

You know the summer's coming soon
Though the interstate chokes under salt and dirty sand
And it seems the sun is hiding from the moon
And late December can drag a person down

[While] the snow is falling down
In our New England town
What else is new?
What could I do?

I wrote a Valley Winter Song
To play for you.

by Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger

Christmas in this Valley 1

So sang Fountains of Wayne in a song LL Bean gave lots of airplay to in a commercial during 2008. In these days of endless pandemic in a different valley on the other coast, besides Jesus light of the world and the created lights of sun, moon, and stars, what brightens our days better than music?

Music in church and on the street is a huge part of December's identity and festivities. Even people with no experience of clinical depression typically have a lower mood during the winter months. Have you ever heard a song or a symphony that instantly gave you hope? Today I'll mention two major pieces of music and a recurring event that always bring the grace and hope of Jesus into my world.

Along with a few million others across the centuries, Handel's oratorio The Messiah is a December perennial for me. Especially the opening solo for tenor from Isaiah 40 with its announcement, "Comfort Ye, My People – Every Valley Shall be Exalted." Our God. God's people. My second concert-type composition that takes a trained university or professional choir is the Christmas Cantata by Daniel Pinkham, a Boston area composer and church musician who lived during the mid-twentieth century.

My recurring event is [Scripture] Lessons and Carols that can take many forms. We had a participatory Lessons and Carols here on Christmas Eve; this morning on the first Sunday of Christmas it's Lessons, Testimony, and Carols. When I lived on the east coast, as an undergrad at Boston University I sprung for the free tickets people needed to enjoy Lessons and Carols at Harvard's Memorial Church. I believe they presented it three times each year back then, but it was so popular you still needed a ticket.

Later on when I was a seminarian across the river from Boston University, at Lessons and Carols I often ran into classmates or friends I hadn't seen in a long time due to our schedules and because days and months pass so fast. That became a time we'd resolve to get together first of the new year, which always happened.

Christmas in this Valley 2

Besides music, as we celebrate the nativity with God born in Bethlehem as a baby formed out of created stuff from the earth, what is Christmas without all that special yummy food? What you enjoy depends somewhat on your current place on the planet along with traditional winter holiday foods of your home country or home region, or maybe what your grandparents and great grands considered necessary for Christmas feasts with friends and families.

Food also has got to be the best ever Christmas present because in itself it's a gift of creation. From my perspective, giftable foods ideally are things like home baked cookies or quick breads or homemade jam, preserves, or pickles. Maybe home brew, if there's a brewer in your household. These days supermarkets, specialty shops, and farmer's markets offer a whole lot of tasty food. They're a live option if you won't or don't bake or can or brew.

Outro

What else can we do but sing and play valley winter songs to brighten lives and remind us of Jesus in our midst? We can create and enjoy culinary gifts of creation. Grace has come to the entire world in Jesus; many of us know grace and glory and joy through music and because of edible gifts from the earth.

• What's your favorite Christmas music?

• What Christmas food is an absolute necessity?

Five Minute Friday :: Long

Being lost is worth the coming home.

Other times I've blogged about home include:

• Almost three years ago I said a lot of what I still need to say today

• Nine years ago an October Freewrite about home with quotes from songs about home


• Five Minute Friday :: Long Linkup

• God brought me out into a spacious place; God delivered me because God delighted in me. Psalm 18:19

It's been a long time and a long distance. Because I can't stop longing for home. Glancing back, I knew I'd come out in a broad place before long. Did I estimate the length of long? Not out loud, but if you'd asked me, I'd have suggested three or four years.

Three or four years earlier, at the invitation of a long time close friend, I'd made my way from the intermountain west to the east coast. After our phone conversations, I believed I'd be starting life over near her. Well, that didn't work out for even a few minutes, but I wistfully remember the feeling of heading for home I had as I drove across prairies and cities and hilly places.

The home we long for can mean returning to a previous town, city, or dwelling, or journeying toward somewhere for the first time ever. Will I know if I'm there? It feels to me that home must include a physical house or apartment, a roof overhead. But isn't homecoming what we really and truly long for? I mean, people who quote Phillip Phillips' song Home, "Just know you're not alone; I'm gonna make this place your home."

Deep in our hearts, we long for the hugs and the smiles. The shared meals. Affirmations of our dreams, our calling, our gifts and preparation. Encouragement for our longing to use our talents and abilities. We long for and we need somewhere and someone to come home to at the end of the day, whether the day has been disappointingly short or agonizingly long.

Home is a spacious place. Space to breathe, to reach out, to grow, and to dream. A location and a people who take away my lostness, who help deliver me, because they delight in me. # # #

Five Minute Friday :: Stuff

• Five Minute Friday :: Stuff Linkup

The snow duck is so cute!

My first take on this week's prompt was memories of cultural anthropology professor Tim searching for the proper word and finally coming up with "stuff" for the topic under discussion. Stuff encompasses a whole lot of tangibles and intangibles. I even have a "life stuff" label or tag for this blog.

Ya know what? I really really enjoy much of life's stuff that tends to collect and pile up (on its own and by itself of course). Some of that stuff, those things, are helpful or utilitarian, but usefulness aside, pieces that excite me tend to be colorful and/or visually appealing. That means quilts, dishes, paintings and other wall art. It means clothes I wear every day or only occasionally. Sweaters, dresses, scarves!

What's my pleasure for blogging today's stuff? Notice my header image features imperfect flowers and the font for STUFF is eroded. But what stuff will I write about? Imperfect life stuff everything, confounded memories, eroded hopes, broken dreams… And unexpected, open-ended futures.

We're again into the quiet season of Advent. Advent in the global North happens as winter moves in, as we anticipate the shortest day, longest night. As we anticipate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God, the light of the world. First-born from the dead.

Jesus' eventual followers never imagined the type of Savior he would be. Religious higher-ups couldn't cope with his faithfulness to Torah that yet turned upside down their stilted interpretations. He confounded governmental leaders. But Jesus' earthly ministry was only the beginning. At least in their heads, most knew the thread of death and resurrection that weaves through the Hebrew scriptures, but the lived reality of new life, revitalized stuff of every kind from the ashes of the old? Memories are short. Comprehension not exactly comprehensive.

Doesn't that sound like us? This isn't the way it needs to be. This isn't how it always will be. Did you know winter is necessary for some flowers to bloom? So necessary that if winter isn't cool enough or dark enough in that location, you need to imitate colder darker days for newness ever to be.

Flowers and veggies and fruits, yes! What about communities, countries, individuals, movements, ideas that need to winter before they spring to life?

Imperfect life stuff everything, confounded memories, eroded hopes, broken dreams… And unexpected futures!

Are you letting the stuff of your hopes and dreams hibernate so it can blossom and bloom? Is your future stuff worth letting this present winter for a while? Whether it's material like quilts and clothing, spiritual like closer connections to the Spirit, career-related like increased opportunities for service and change, all that stuff sometimes needs to be ignored for a season for unexpected, open-ended futures. Wintering is part of practicing resurrection! Really!

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