Integrity of Creation

Sometimes it is hard to accept that there is integrity in absolutely all of creation. Some parts of creation are just a bit...um... nastier than others. Case in point is the Voodoo Lilly. Ellen Zepp is growing some and enjoys them enough to share them with others. That is where the story gets interesting.

First, here are some facts about this particular Voodoo Lilly, the Amorphophallus konjac:

• fly pollinated
• member of the arum family (relatives of the calla lily, jack-in-the-pulpit, skunk cabbage, philodendron)
• comes from China and Vietnam
• blossom on a brown lumpy tuber
• blossom spikes grow visibly (inches) each day
• single leaf that grows after the blossom dies back is strikingly beautiful and looks like a small palm tree
• though arums are generally toxic, some are edible - Amorphophallus konjac a commercial source of glucomannan
• the blossom SMELLS!!!!!!!!
  

It is on that last point that the sharing becomes interesting. Here are some descriptive terms applied to the smell recently by some children:

• "Stinky!"
• "Nasty!"
• "Disgusting!"
• "Putrid!"
• "I want to puke!"
• "Smells like a long-dead zebra!"
• "Evil!"
  

The first six observatons are true enough (although one must wonder where the child had smelled a long-dead zebra!), but the last one raised Ellen's hackles, and rightfully so. Is there truly anything in all of creation that is evil? One of the more dangerous pieces of rhetoric these days is to refer to the terroists and those who won't join in "our" fight against them as evil. You would have to search long and hard to find a theologian who would tell you that the line between good and evil runs between nations, or even individuals. No the line that divides good from evil is a thin one that runs through every human heart!

So, the poor smelly Voodoo Lilly is anything but evil. In fact, at least one creature thinks it is pretty darned good. Check out this picture of a frog calling it home sweet home!

Is It Kosher?

John Robinson, pastor to the Pilgrims, told them before they left on the Mayflower, “God yet has more light and truth to break forth from his holy word.” When did we stop believing that? Even within the Bible we can see that process. Look at what portion of Old Testament Law is spent on describing what is clean and unclean. Yet in a single vision, Peter hears God telling him that “all things are now clean” and the course of Christianity changed from exclusively a sect of Judaism to including all who would come. Christians have ever since considered the kosher laws of the Hebrew Bible null and void, or at least optional.

One of the sad legacies of the clean/unclean debate is that some people were considered unclean, which led them to be rejected by civil society. In Jesus’ day these would have included lepers, prostitutes, and those left less than whole by disease and disability. Yet these were the very people who sought out Jesus…and more importantly those whom Jesus sought out.

Even sadder is that two millennia later, after more than sufficient time to reflect on the words and example of Jesus, as well as the teaching of the Apostles, we still don’t seem to get it. Somehow homeless, poor and addicted people are unclean, and thus not given equal treatment, with at least the implication that they are not as deserving as the rest of us who are clean. And even if we reserve the right to debate the place of homosexuals in the church, how can we as a society deny rights to homosexual couples that we grant to heterosexual couples? If Jesus were walking the streets of America today, who do you think would follow him…and whom would he seek to spend his time with? Think hard about your answer to that question because the next logical question is, “whom do you seek to spend your time with?”

One body, two ears

Some would call it coincidence, some synchronisity, but I prefer calling it the Holy Spirit. Last Sunday, April 10, we dedicated the handbells during worship. During the week prior I had started working on the message based on that week's scripture (and had the "weasley" encounter previously posted). Mid-week I finally realized that it was the week of the handbell dedication and quickly shifted gears. As I worked on the service I decided that a nice message for the children would be about the 1 Corinthians 12 passage about one body with many parts so I emailed our Christian Education Director, Carlos, to suggest it. He emailed me back that he was not going to be in church that Sunday, that he already talked to Cindy about covering Sunday School, and that he had failed to line up anyone for the children's message. No problem then, I could use the message and do it myself.

Meanwhile, Cindy planned on doing a craft involving coloring masks and talking about how God made us all different. When she got to church on Sunday morning she discovered that the kids had already done that craft so she had to scramble for another one. She decided to use some large cardboard jigsaw pieces she had and have the kids color them to look like themselves and they would then show how they all fit together!

Imagine her amazement when she heard my children's message?!?!

If we had been more organized and planned better we may have come up with the same thing, but then we would have missed out on tingling excitement of feeling the Holy Spirit at work in our midst. God is indeed still speaking!

A Truly International Union

Monday on Talk of the Nation on NPR there was a story about the future of unions. They had the president of the Service Employees International Union, Andy Stern, as a guest (in a previous life I helped to try to get this union to organize in a place I worked). He had some very interesting things to say. One thing that SEIU has done is to work for justice for janitors. The problem has been that even when employers wanted to pay their employees higher wages (better retention, harder workers, etc.) the market worked against them since contracts would always go to the lowest bidder. So SEIU took the novel approach of organizing the employers so that together they could increase wages and benefits across the board without cutting off their noses to spite their faces!

This got me thinking about the wonderful value of being one body with many parts. Andy Stern was talking about countering the problems of globalization by getting unions in different countries to work together just as the janitorial companies had. As Christians we are part of one of the largest "unions" on the planet. And we have a responsibility to all of our union brothers and sisters to work for their welfare. In fact, we are called to be "service employees" whose job it is to serve all others in order to make the world a better place.

There was another story on NPR this morning about students at Stanford teaching English to SEIU janitors at their school. What struck me was how much the students were able to see how they were benefitting from their giving. Not only is that how it should be; those who have experienced this sort of giving of themselves will tell you that this is just how it always is.

Close encounter of the weasley kind

So as proof that God is still speaking (at least to me) I offer this true story from last week.

I decided to take a journal and go for a walk in the woods looking for a place to sit and reflect on the upcoming week's scripture as part of my sermon preparation. I've always been more inclined to pray in motion, so that was my plan. Praying as I walked, the question I was seeking to have answered was "where to stop and sit?" I had a specific spot in mind over looking a stream but only hoped that there would be a log or rock to sit upon.

When I reached the spot that looked familiar I noticed a piece of orange plastic flagging hanging in a tree, directly over a large rock imbedded in the hillside. I think I actually said out loud "OK, I guess I won't be needing that engraved invitation then!" So, of course I sat down on the rock, and found that there was also a notch to rest my feet on! So I proceded to journal, thankful that God had led me to this wonderfully serene location.

As I reached the end of what I had to write I had a feeling that something was about to happen, more specifically, I had an expectation that something was about to appear. Normally I would think that this sort of "spidey sense" for me would mean that I picked up some hint of a bird. But this was different. As I gazed down at the stream some 100 yards or so below me I saw a squirrel scamper up a tree. It struck me that it had the looks of one avoiding a predator. I'm not sure if it was that impression or the the dark brown movement I saw next that led me to the conclusion that there was a fisher down there.

Sure enough, I raised my binoculars and focused on a nice, big, healthy fisher (Martes pennanti). I watched it as it loped along in my general direction. I watched as it started up the hill in my general direction. I watched as it continued up the hill in my general direction. I watched as I realized it was coming in my specific direction! I watched in the binoculars until it go so close that the binoculars were redundant. I watched as it walked along the trunk of a downed tree not more than eight feet away!

It was then that it stopped, turned its head to look at me, raised its nose in the air, gave a sniff...and decided that I probably wouldn't taste as good as porcupine (its preferred prey) and scampered quickly back down to the stream.

It was then that I offered up a one-word prayer, "cool!"

Filled to the brim in Brimfield

OK, so the town is Brimfield, not Brimfilled, but what a great image of God's extravagant love for us. Yes, Brimfield is a sleepy little rural community in west-central Massachusetts, but do you think that that means that God is too busy elsewhere to care about this place? Of course not! There is nothing in the world that cannot be done when the power and blessing of God is a part of it.

The point of this blog will be to find all those little ways that God is present in big ways every day. I pray that you will find a blessing here...and get filled to the brim and more.