From the Pastor's Study
October 2023
Greetings,
October is probably one of my favorite months. You may have even heard me say “all the best people are born in October”. It is not a coincidence that both my husband and I have birthdays in October, as do several of my family members. But aside from all the birthday celebrations I like October because that is when the leaves are changing ad so colorful. October is when the temperatures are cooler ad there is a crispness to the air. There is something special about a crisp Fall day when the sun is shining through the gold and red and orange of the leaves on the trees that makes it almost impossible not to stop and admire God’s handiwork.
October is a reminder of the awesome creation of God in which we get to live. I hope you take time to smell the crisp air and enjoy the beauty of God’s world this October.
In Christ,
Pastor Pat
​
September 2023
Every once in a while, when I am working on the computer and using the internet, I will lose the connection. It is a random occurrence and I often do not have a good explanation for it. I attribute it to gremlins in the system sometimes! Sometimes I do know why the connection is lost. For example, when a storm rolls through and knocks out the power I know why connection is lost. This loss of connection is usually short live and then it is restored pretty painlessly with nothing done on my part and I am back to work at whatever was interrupted. But there are times when it is longer, and I may have to put in extra effort to reconnect.
Our relationship with God can be like that sometimes. We can be sailing along, feeling strong in our faith and something causes us to lose connection. Sometimes faith is restored without a lot of fuss, but sometimes we have to struggle with our faith to restore that connection.
One of the ways we stay connected in our faith life is by attending church and Sunday School and praying, worshipping, and studying with others of faith. If you are feeling like you have lost connection in your faith life maybe you need to reboot the system, so to speak, and plug back in to worship on Sunday morning in church or begin attending a Sunday School or Bible study class.
In Christ,
Pastor Pat
August 2023
Greetings,
As some of you may know, one of my hobbies is pottery. Specifically wheel throwing pottery. Forming pots cups, plates, etc from clay on a spinning wheel. If you have visited my office at church or visited the house, you have no doubt seen some of the results of this hobby.
One of the main things to learn in wheel throwing pottery is how to center the clay on the wheel. When the clay is centered everything else is much easier. When it is off balance, everything becomes infinitely harder. It sounds pretty simple. Center the clay on the wheel. Just put it in the middle, right? But that isn’t how it works. Because s the wheel turns it begins to push the clay out from the center. What this means for the potter is that you must continuously work to keep the clay centered. Again, doesn’t sound too hard. But I have found that if I am not centered—if I am distracted and paying attention to anything else than what I am doing—it is much harder to center the clay.
In many ways, working with clay and working on a potter’s wheel are a mirror for our relationship with God and our faith life. We too need to stay centered on God and when we do it is much easier to get along. In our faith life there are many distractions that want to pull us away from center, from God, and we must always work to stay centered.
The best news, with clay or with our faith life, is that when things go completely off center and everything collapses, we can always start again.
In Christ,
Pastor Pat
July 2023
​
Greetings,
“Knee high by the fourth of July.” If you have been around farming at all you may have heard that statement. It refers to the growth of the corn crop and how it should be knee high by the fourth of July to be a good crop. It is an old statement as advances in farming have made it somewhat obsolete. But in this current year it rings in my head as we wait anxiously for rain!
Waiting anxiously. It seems many times we wait for something we need with an anxious feeling. Unsure about the future and how it will all come about. In dry years we wait anxiously for rain, in wet years we wait anxiously for sunshine. We wait anxiously for test results. We wait anxiously for loved ones to call or come home. We wait anxiously to hear about a job interview or buying that new house. There are
many things for which we wait anxiously. But we also know as faithful people that God is in charge of all things. We don’t need to be anxious.
There is assaying in Alcoholics Anonymous “Let go, Let God”. We too need to remember to let go and let God. Let go of our anxiety, let go of our anxious waiting and rest in the promises of letting God be in charge.
In Christ,
Pastor Pat
June 2023
​
Greetings,
​
“Summertime, and the living is easy! Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high.” This is the first line from a song in the musical Porgy and Bess. But it is the line I hear in my head when I begin to think about Summer starting. I remember school days as school winds down and those three months of summer vacation loomed before me with all the possibilities away from school. Or as I graduated out of school days the change in tempo that seems to happen during the Summer. Life slows a little and days are longer and filled with the possibilities of things to do and places to explore. Gardens are blooming and growing and there seems to be an endless parade of nature’s beauty.
Not only is Summertime a great time for vacations and getting away from home, but Summertime is also a great time to connect with God in a deeper way. Spend some prayer time on the back deck or the front porch as the birds sing and there is the early morning quiet. Take that evening walk and listen for the quiet voice of God whisper in the breeze in the trees. Come to church on Sunday morning and share the experience of faith shared among others who also are finding connection with God.
May this Summer be a blessed and fruitful time of faith and rest!
In Christ,
Pastor Pat
​
March 2023
​
Greetings,
My Grandmother was a rock hound. Not just a collector of rocks here and there, but a serious rock hound. This meant whenever we were on vacation she would be picking up rocks and stone from the places we traveled. In fact, one year she picked up so many, my father insisted that the car weighed at least 500 pounds extra. To prove his point, he drove us through a scale to weigh. I don’t actually remember if he was right, but I know there were a lot of stones and rocks collected over the years. She and my grandfather would even go on rock hunting trips and bring back the specimens they found. I have what is left of her collection.
There is a certain weight and solidity about many rocks. They can also tell a story if we know how to read it.
So why am I going on about rocks? Because in worship during Lent, which begins February 26, we will be taking a Journey of the Stones. Each Sunday as you enter the sanctuary there will be stones for you to pick up and hold during worship. These stones are representative of things in our lives that can weigh us down, hold us back or are used to hurt or harm others. We will hear about stones of rejection, hearts of stone, stones that go with sticks, crying stones and others. I invite you to take the journey, consider the weight of the stones you carry and perhaps lay some of them down at the foot of the cross.
In Christ,
Pastor Pat
