Considering A Different Kind of Christmas

Who gets top billing in our Christmas celebrations - Jesus or Santa?  Too often they are mushed together into a magical deity who comes just to grant our wishes.

But this is not the God we see through the life of Jesus - Jesus was not the messiah most people were expecting and hoping for.  They were looking for a soldier who would lead them against the Roman empire to victory.  Instead, Jesus resisted the world's obsession with wealth, power, pleasure.  Instead of a tall soldier leading his people into battle Jesus ate with sinners, defended the weak and powerless and showed us just what God's values and priories are.

Of course thinking about Santa is a lot easier and nicer for us personally because Santa is all about those worldly things - pleasure, ease, gifts for US - instead of gifts from us to the baby Jesus!

The birth of Christ was a miracle and still is over 2000 years later.  But miracles don't just happen - they are born through labors of pain and sacrifice.  A miracle is a unique event that God makes happen through ordinary people like you and me so we too are the change for our world!

Isaiah 9:2-7 says: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
For those who lived in a land of deep shadows—light! sunbursts of light!
You repopulated the nation, you expanded its joy. Oh, they’re so glad in your presence! Festival joy! The joy of a great celebration, sharing rich gifts and warm greetings. The abuse of oppressors and cruelty of tyrants—all their whips and cudgels and curses—Is gone, done away with, a deliverance as surprising and sudden as Gideon’s old victory over Midian. The boots of all those invading troops, along with their shirts soaked with innocent blood,
Will be piled in a heap and burned, a fire that will burn for days!

For a child has been born—for us! the gift of a son—for us! He’ll take over     the running of the world. His names will be: Amazing Counselor, Strong God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Wholeness. His ruling authority will grow, and there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he brings. He’ll rule from the historic David throne over that promised kingdom. He’ll put that kingdom on a firm footing    and keep it going With fair dealing and right living, beginning now and lasting always. The zeal of God-of-the-Angel-Armies will do all this.

Who is it that brings light to the darkness in our world?  For you?

So, here's the challenge for this week - What new traditions in your own holiday planning could focus more on Jesus' presence than on presents?

Are You Ready? Waiting?

It's almost time - it's almost Advent.  This is the beginning of the church year when we wait - wait for salvation in the birth of a baby, wait for the days to get longer and warmer, wait for the earth to again bring forth life. 

How good are you at waiting?  I know that patience is not one of my strongest attributes and waiting is not something I do all that well.  Waiting means being ready to put my desires on the back burner and working in someone else's time - God's time.  Christians have been waiting for God for centuries and again this Advent season we will wait and watch, hope and love.

Think of Advent this way - it's the important steps you take before you begin a race.  If December 25th is the day you have decided to start again, then there's not much time for that prep work needed!  While you wait you have to decide just what it is you are changing, what that means in your life, what it means in the life of those around you, what steps need to be taken before the change to make it a success, and you need to be sure the decision is the right one.

Where to start? Prayer, of course!  Prayer makes the waiting easier because you have God to confide in, to listen to, and to help guide you as you continue on your life's journey.  A time of discernment in prayer when you take time to listen for an answer as well as the question can provide one with not only the right path but also the opportunity to live more fully.  Our culture tells us we can have what we want immediately - no waiting!  But if you never have to wait you never get to experience...

The wonder.  There is very little wonder in our world when we just move from one thing to the next at a frantic pace, not waiting to see if we want to be where we are or whether it benefits us or our world.  Waiting allows us to open ourselves to all kinds of possibilites for our lives, for the lives of loved ones and even for our broken world.

So waiting each Advent for Jesus' birth gives us time to stop and pause in the midst of our crazy commercial world and view the wonder.  The wonder of a person's face as a gift is received, the wonder of the natural world as it lays still beneath a blanket of white, the wonder of how much you can hear on a cold, crisp night, and the wonder of a child born more than 2000 years ago who is still making waves in the world.

Advent soon begins - let us take the time to wait and to wonder and have a different kind of Christmas - a Christ centered celebration of love, joy, hope, and above all peace.

SORRY - And the Journey Continues!

I am sorry that my blog has not been up to date but I continued to have technical issues until recently - so here I am to start again!  Life keeps going, the journey never ends and there is so much to discuss.

On July 1st I announced that I was starting a wellness campaign for myself with the first piece of that being an attempt to lose weight through December 31st.  This would be accompanied by a lifestyle change that would include better eating habits, more sleep and really taking care of myself.  I am down over 4 pounds since then, and I hope I continue to work on this daily.

But what makes my journey so special is that now 18 people are accompanying me!  A group of people who are looking for physical wellness as we journey toward living life wholly and fully have joined me on this leg of the journey.  We meet together weekly to weigh in, to share our victories and our challenges, recipes and exercises.  But most of all we meet to give one another support and encouragement.  To that end we have buddies each week who help remind us of our goals and what it is we want to accomplish for the week.  What a blessing that is!  Getting to know new people, getting to share this difficult part of life's journey and then celebrate the joy and victory! 

I will admit to not doing as well as I had hoped but I keep going.  As long as I keep trying and keep losing then I am still on the right path.  But to what?  This path to wholeness is for me a path to a better formed faith life.  If I am not well in my body I cannot be fully present and working into my calling.  Physical health, lifelong learning and spiritual health are all needed to be able to live out my faith abundantly.  So I am starting with the physical and going from there.

But having people with whom I journey makes such a difference!  I am reminded again and again that being a person of faith is not something done in a vacum or by myself, but it is grown in a community where people inspire, push, support and cry with you or celebrate with you.  What a truly wonderful experience.

I will keep you posted on this part of my journey even as I invite you to begin your own next stage.  Do you need to work on your physical, spiritual or mental health?  If yes to any of those I encourage you to begin by finding some people who also have those goals and walk the path together!  I would love to hear from you about your own journey.

Pastor Laurie

Continuing the Journey to Hope

I must first apologize for the intermittent nature of my blogging!  My work computer will not allow me to sign in so I cannot post from the office - and I cannot seem to remember it when I get home!  But as we journey toward Holy Week I will make it a priority to get my blogs posted asap.

How is your Lenten journey going?  Have you had time for some introspection as well as time to look at how you are living in connection and community?  It's hard to take time for any of this but I again encourage you to do as much as you can intentionally so that when Easter comes you can take the next step into your future toward living a full, abundant life.

This week in worship we talked about TEMPTATION and how that can derail us from our path.  Temptation comes in the form of alcohol, gambling, smoking, shopping, etc.  Really anything we take to an extreme or anything we use to divert ourselves too often from the pain of life is a temptation that will derail us from our goal.  What in your life is the temptation that when you give in to it takes you in the opposite direction you want to go?  And why do we do that to ourselves?

Well, the world can be a scary, lonely place and when we try to find answers in things instead of in relationships with others and with God we are bound for disappoinment and even destruction.  But the good news of God and Jesus Christ is that even if we get derailed we still have a way back!  God's grace and mercy are always there for us if we will just admit our need and take hold.  And the connections, the strong relationships we have built with family, friends, faith community and even (or especially) God will be there for support and help in bad times and good.

I recommend that you make a space on your phone or carry a card in your wallet that is a list of emergency contacts - for when temptation is leading you away from where you want to be!  List people who you know will listen and be with you - even Jesus needed his friends around him in his hour of need - so keep a list whether they are family, friends, clergy.  And of course put GOD on the list!  God is available 24/7, 365 days a year, just a prayer away.

Want to learn more about God and/or make a stronger connection?  There are so many ways!  Start with prayer, look around you, really look at the people in your life, go to worship, walk along the lake and look at all there is in this world God has created.  And take time to learn about the life of Jesus - he is a huge piece of understanding God.  In fact one professor described the trinity as this: God - the memory, foundation, Jesus the intellect, the understanding, and the Holy Spirit the love which surrounds us.

Peace be with you on the journey...

Who Do You Think You Are?

That was the sermon title from yesterday!  We read from the gospel of Mark about Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem and then looked at it from a new angle!  Jesus rode into Jerusalem not looking for accolades from the crowd to affirm who he was but with the knowledge of exactly who he was and what awaited him!  Jesus knew he was God's child, and God's nature rested within him and even though he knew many would not like what he had to say or do Jesus was at peace with himself because he was sure of who he was and what his role would be.

Even though Jesus knew that pain, suffering and death awaited him, he stayed his course because he knew that was what needed to be done to further God's kingdom in the world and to help all God's children.  He did not have self esteem - he had esteem for self in God.

And this reminds us that we are not only ALL children of  God but if we are all made in God's image then each of us carries a piece of God's nature within us!  And if that is the case then when you look into the face of your child, husband, friend, neighbor, homeless person, the hungy or sick, you are looking into the face of God!!!!

Who do you think you are?  If you let the world help you decide you will get caught in the web of determining who you are by what you drive, what job you have and what clothes you wear.  If you remember you are a child of God and hold within you the nature of God, then you can face anything life throws at you.  It may not be easy, there may be pain and suffering, but in the end you will live a life that is full and abundant as Jesus' life was. 

As we hit this mile marker on our Journey to Hope, take a moment to look in the mirror.  Do you see a person who is hopelessly caught up in what others say and think or do you see the child of God that you are?  I invite you to write down some of the obstacles that keep you from embracing being a child of God - throw them in the fire, take them to church, give them to God in some way, then keep moving forward on this journey.

A thought by Sven Goran Eriksson:  "To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are."

A Journey to Hope - Lent 2012

Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, the 46 days prior to Easter.  This year's Lenten theme is "A Journey to Hope" where we will walk with Jesus on his journey to the cross and to Easter morning..  This year's journey will be different than other years as we will take the journey with Jesus, through the joy, the pain, the struggles, through death to get to the hope that resurrection brings.  We will also be looking for hope along the journey as we look at our own lives inside and out.

This journey is going to get us dirty.  We will be participants rather than watching the journey from afar and I invite you all to join in!  Tonight at Hope UMC we have a soup supper at 530p followed by worship at 630p.  During worship we will be receiving the traditional ashes reminding us of our mortality and our need to keep on the path.  But we will get those ashes on our hands - signifying our commitment to getting down and dirty and taking this journey seriously.

There will also be messages on Facebook (Hope UMC Duluth) and by text each week.  Want to be a part of this adventure no matter where you live or where you are in your faith life? Come along! 

Today's thought:  What emotions do you feeljust before going on a journey?  What's the one thing you won't leave home without when taking that journey? 

Let's journey to Jerusalem together!

Being Home

Sorry not to have put an ending to that great Africa trip but I managed to get a cold as soon as I returned home, then right back into the rush of life in the United States!  How quickly we get back to rushing around!

The ending of our trip was extremely peaceful in comparison to our trip to South Africa.  We left Durban, flew to Johannesburg, then from there to Dakar, Senegal for a stop and refueling.  That was about the half-way point to Washington D.C.!  It was interesting that just as we had when we left Victoria Falls, we were subjected to some sort of bacterial fogging before we could leave Senegal.  This time though it was a jet with 73 rows and nearly 600 people and stayed with us a good while on the trip.

Dulles Airport was uneventful except that we almost missed our flight once again from U. S. Customs and Immigration having so few people working.  But as with every step of our tirp we learned once again how small our world really is.  As we were getting off our plane the people next to us heard us talking about the Methodist Conference.  It turns out they live in Dairlyand, Wisconsin and attend church at Faith UMC in Superior so we had friends in common! 

We then flew from Washington, D.C. to Chicago where we had some good old U.S. junk food before boarding our final flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul.  It was great to be back in Minnesota and I did the crazy part - after 33 hours of travel I got in my car and drove to Duluth!  I just wanted to be home, to be with my dog, my friends.  So, after 36 hours of travel I made it home.

I am glad to be back but already miss being where life is a little less hectic, where we could stop a while and talk to people, where we could relax.  But I am thrilled to be back in Duluth - loved the Indian Ocean but nothing is llike Lake Superior!  This trip wasn an adventure, a time away, a time to reconnect with my sisters and a time to connect with new friends from around the world.  It was an opportunity I was glad I didn't miss.

And the footnote to the trip - as of TODAY, 35 days after we left, Jan got her luggage back!!!  They called her from the airport and she went out to get it - so far nothing seems missing!  I told her she should ask United for her baggage's frequent flyer miles as well as her own.  What a great ending to a great adventure!