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