Pastoral Thought--July 15

Before my time here at Plains, I served as Margie Smith’s pastor in Wellsville, Ohio. Margie had a wisdom, a silliness, an honesty that was refreshing to me. I could always rely on Margie to see things differently then I saw them, and yet offer that reflection grounded in love. Margie used her gifts of sewing to create dozens of banners that hand in the church with powerful symbols and words on them. She loved poetry. And above all she loved being a clown—I mean really she trained as a clown. A few times a year Margie’s clown persona (whose name I cannot recall) would visit our church dispensing wisdom and love to the children, and their parents,—if we were attentive. If you could see through the facade of a red nose, a silly shoes, God was at work. 

Another of Margie’s loves with books (she and I share that love as you know). Often when Margie served as liturgist she would bring a poem with her to church. Maybe it was something she wrote, like my favorite one Dirty Snow which addressed how the beauty of a white winter day combined with road-grime to make everything gray and saddened her. 

She loved nature so much. . . So naturally she was blessed by the poems of Ann Weems, a Presbyterian poet and teacher.

In a poem entitled, Lenten Poem, Weems wrote this: 

 

Lent is a time to take time to let the power

Of our faith story take hold of us, 

A time to let the events get up 

And walk around in us.

A time to intensify our living unto Christ, 

A time to hover over the thoughts of our hearts, 

A time to place our feet in the streets of 

Jerusalem or to walk along the sea and 

Listen to his Word,

A time to touch his robe

And feel the healing surge through us, 

A time to ponder and a time to wonder. . . 

Lent is a time to allow 

A fresh new taste of God!

Perhaps we’re afraid to have time to think.,

For thoughts come unbidden.

Perhaps we’re afraid to face our future

Knowing our past.

Give us courage, O God,

To hear your Word

And to read our living into it.

Give us the trust to know we’re forgiven

And give us the faith

To take up our lives and walk.

This is not only my prayer for you during Lent, but it is also my prayer for you today. I hope that you will take time and walk with God, and by walking with God, you will experience God in a new and personal way.

Blessings

Rev. Derek