Book Review-My Baptism Book

photo 4-28

My Baptism Book Sophie Piper and Dubravka Kolanovic

I love baptisms. I love baptizing someone and watching the water drip down their forehead and sometimes their face. I love seeing someone be baptized and saying the baptismal promises out loud with all those witnessing the baptism. I love seeing pictures of people’s baptisms.

Four years ago, I was watched as my Dad baptized my niece, Ella Marie. I participated in her baptism by making promises as one of her godmothers. It is a very special memory for me. One of the gifts we gave her is her own copy of My Baptism Book. This is my favorite baptism gift. On these pages you’ll find Scripture readings in kid-friendly language, prayers and wise words from our ancestors in the faith and wise people of today. You’ll see beautiful artwork. You’ll read many names for God. Whatever your age, this book will remind you that you are a beloved child of God. I highly recommend this book as a gift for others and a gift for yourself.

296340_10150373564354505_192209_n

A Prayer for Back to School

photo 4-26

Back to school time is fast approaching where I live. In churches, this time of year (often) means a return to regular schedules. Any group that takes a break for the summer is getting ready to start again. When I think about the children and youth of the church, I am always aware of our responsibilities to them. We promise in the baptismal covenant with these words.

“Do you, who witness and celebrate this sacrament, promise your love, support and care to the one about to be baptized as he/she lives and grows in Christ?

Congregational Response- We promise our love, support, and care.”

(United Church of Christ Book of Worship, 139).

We promise in our Safe Sanctuary covenant to protect our children and youth as we help them live into the baptismal promises. As the new school and program year begins, I think churches should welcome and celebrate this time of year, and we can do that by sharing this prayer.

One-I’d like to invite all of our children and youth to please come up front. If you would sit or stand facing the congregation. We’d like you to be able to see all those adults out there.

(after the children and youth are up front)

Today, we are going to pray for you as summer ends and a new year of school and church begins. You may have already started back to school or may not be in school yet. You may be changing to a new Sunday School class or starting youth group for the first time this year. As so many things in our lives change, some things do not change. All of those people out there have promised to help you grow and know God loves you.

I invite the teachers to stand. Anyone who teaches here at church, youth group leaders, and teachers in our schools please stand.

Teachers-Dear God, we surround these children and youth with our love and support for the coming year. Give them a spirit of curiosity. Give them time to play and learn outside in your creation. Give them a sense of wonder at how much they know and how much there is to learn. Give all of us who teach a spirit of compassion as we journey with our students. Amen.

One-Teachers remain standing. Parents and guardians please stand.

Parents and Guardians-Loving God, give us patience on hard days. Remind us you love our children even more than we do. Give our kids a spirit of kindness in a world that isn’t always kind. Give our kids strength to stand up for what is right. May they always know how much you love them and we love them. Amen.

One-Parents, guardians, and teachers keep standing. Now, I invite the rest of the congregation and any of our guest to stand.

All-God, remind us of the promises we made to protect and love these children and youth. Help us to live those promises daily. Bless all these children and youth that they may know your love and share it with others. We promise to keep these children safe, give them opportunities to know you, and involve them in the life of the church with God’s help. Amen.

One-Look out at all those people who love you and have prayed for you. I hope you will remember how much your church family loves you and how much God loves you as we start a new year together.  

Book Review-A Song to Sing, A Life to Live

photo 4-25

A Song to Sing, A Life to Live: Reflections on Music as Spiritual Practice

Don Saliers and Emily Saliers

Emotional Response-4

Scholarly Response-3

I purchased this book years ago at the recommendation of a dear friend. She knew I love the Indigo Girls and thought I’d enjoy a book co-written by one of them. She was correct. This book seeks to break down the barriers between Saturday night (secular) music and Sunday morning (sacred) music. Emily represents the Saturday night side and Don (her father) represents the Sunday morning side because he is an organist, choirmaster, and professor of theology and worship. While it might seem that their musical styles are at odds, there are so many intersections and places of harmony found in their shared love of music. I enjoyed this book because I love music, and I strongly believe we need to break down the barriers between what is sacred and what is secular. Because God is everywhere and working in us all, everything can be sacred and everyone is a beloved child of God.

In this book, they tackle the difficult issue of music in churches. Their answer to the music wars (happening still in too many churches) is to listen to each other and be open to what you might hear in music you don’t yet appreciate.

Chapter 7, “Singing Our Sorrows” was my favorite chapter. Using music when one is grieving is a way to express one’s feelings when words often fail. I recommend the practice of planning one’s own funeral. Also, I recommend family members doing, saying, and singing what is meaningful to them when a loved one has died. A gift to me was hearing the backstory on songs I love. In this chapter, Emily talked about writing “She’s Saving Me” after her sister died. Without knowing this story, I have found this song comforting while grieving the death of a friend (and fellow Indigo Girls fan).

As I read this book, I was reminded of how music speaks to me and reminds me of times, places, and people I love. I must admit that I resonated with the songs they shared. I loved that I knew the hymns they mentioned and the Indigo Girls songs shared. For me, all of these songs are part of the songs of my life. Because so many of the songs were familiar, I may have enjoyed the book more than others might.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes to think deeply about music. I recommend this book to everyone who loves the Indigo Girls. I recommend this book to anyone who sees a divide between sacred music and secular music. This book will challenge that view.

Who are they writing for? “This book is for anyone who once took piano lessons and wishes now they hadn’t quit. It is for those who sing with their communities of faith but who are confused by secular music, and it is for those outside faith communities who wonder whether there is anything true in the songs of organized faith traditions. It is also for anyone who has sung around a campfire, tried to play the French horn, or been captivated by African or Asian drumming. This book is our yes to your musical memories and to your musical future. We offer it as an invitation to embrace a broader, deeper vision of the power and role of music in human life–and especially to embrace the spiritual and religious dimensions of attentive listening, collaborative music making, and honest thinking” (xvi).

“Music, we keep saying, is some kind of mysterious mediator between us and the God we seek” (5).
“Even some who have read the Bible all their lives are surprised to learn that there are more psalms of lament than any other kind of psalms, including those that offer thanks and praise to God. Perhaps we aren’t ready to notice them before we need them. The psalms of lament seem to lie in wait for us, ready to provide language when we are visited by pain and suffering” (125).

If this inspired you to check out the Indigo Girls, here is their song, “She’s Saving Me“.

Today’s photo was taken in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress. I enjoy reading in beautiful places like this. I highly recommend visiting the Library of Congress and its Main Reading Room the next time you are in DC. Visiting the library is free and available to anyone. It is free to visit the reading rooms after you obtain a reader identification card.

Cold Brew Tea Experiment

 

 

 

 

After seeing a big display of cold brew tea bags in the grocery store last week, I decided to do some research about the difference between a cold brew vs regular tea. I learned a cold brew tea is ground up to very small bits while your regular tea bag is not as finely ground. The cold brew bags tell me I can add cold water and simply let it steep for 2-4 minutes and have a delicious cup of cold tea. Well, I didn’t want to buy a new tea when I have so many at home, so I put a bag of Pomegranate White Tea into some cold water and in about 3 minutes I had delicious pink colored water.

After some researching, I found that regular tea bags work well for cold brew tea if they are left in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight. So, I tried China White Tea from McNulty’s and Wild Sweet Orange. This time I used two tea bags each with about 2 cups of water.

photo 1-47

Here are the results. China White Tea is on the left and Wild Sweet Orange is on the right. While they both look good, the China White Tea was very bitter, pretty much undrinkable. The Wild Sweet Orange was tasty. I am enjoying it while sharing this review.

My recommendation is give cold brewing a try with your favorite tea. Why not? If it doesn’t work out the way you like the first time, call it an experiment and try again.

If you decide to give cold brewing a try, I found this to be a helpful place for information.

A Prayer for All Who Love Us

God, You said it wasn’t good for us to be alone. You called us to be in relationship. Today, Loving God, we would like to give thanks for those who love us. We are not perfect. We are not always easy to love. We forget birthdays. We are late to lunch with friends. We change plans at the last minute. We think we are too busy to listen. We do not want to ask for help or seem vulnerable.

God, you call us to be in relationship, and we thank you for our friends, colleagues, and family who forgive our mistakes and love us anyway. We thank you for our church family who know you call us beloved and treats us as your beloved children. We thank you for friends who answer the phone at 2am and rush to sit with us at the hospital. We thank you for family who remember when we were young and see us as we are today.

Increase our awareness of how much we gain from knowing each other. Faithful God, we thank you for everyone who journeys with us. Amen.

21191_10155386175950641_3318694960833437827_n 546356_10101190493687963_1368527241_n 935546_10200773428408431_1785233752_n 1913895_188508209906_3514229_n

Book Review-The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up Marie Kondo

 

I read this book very quickly. The hard part of this book is putting into action what you have read. That has taken awhile to implement. Truthfully, I wanted to wait until I had completed my whole house tidying before sharing this review. I’m not done yet, but I have made some great progress.

Like many other people I know, I have always had more things that I needed. And with two moves in the past year, I was aware of how much stuff I owned. This book empowered me to tackle and discard my stuff. If you are never going to read the book, I will sum it up for you very quickly. You are asked to hold up each item that you own and ask yourself if it sparks joy. If the answer is no, you get rid of the item. If the item sparks joy for you, keep it.

If you are intrigued and wondering how to go about this, read on.

Visualize Your Destination-

Ask yourself, “What do you hope to gain through tidying?” (36).

“Think in concrete terms so that you can vividly picture what it would be like to live in a clutter-free space” (36).

“The whole point in both discarding and keeping things is to be happy” (38).

How to decide what to discard-

“Take each item in one’s hand and ask: ‘Does this spark joy?’ If it does, keep it. If not, dispose of it” (41).

“Keep only the things that speak to your heart. Then take the plunge and discard all the rest. By doing this, you can reset your life and embark on a new lifestyle” (42).

A key to her method is sorting by category not location. Her best order for doing the sorting is clothes, books, papers, miscellany, and momentos. To utilize her method, you must bring all your items from one category together for sorting. She recommends the living floor. I found my bed to be a great location for sorting. I had to finish by the end of the day if I wanted a good night’s sleep!

Now, you might wonder what if the people I live with aren’t interested in participating in this tidying project? “To quietly work away at disposing of your own excess is actually the best way of dealing with a family that doesn’t tidy” (52).

As I said, we have not completed the project yet. We have made great progress.

 photo 1-44

When you take everything you own out of drawers, shelves, hangers, etc., you will be amazed at how much you own. Our shirts covered our king sized bed! The bottom two pictures are the get rid of piles for us. [Read more…]

Worship Words-Litany of Bible School and Sunday School Favorites

This week, I’m leading music at Vacation Bible School. As I’m learning and teaching new songs, I’ve been thinking about songs of faith that are close to my heart and important to my faith. I remember singing in Sunday School and Bible School as a child. I remember my Grandmother singing to my sister and me. Your theological insights and understanding may have changed since you first sang these songs. I know mine has. Hearing these songs still makes me smile and give thanks for all the saints who sang with me when I was young.

1930303_44246324504_6247_n

Today’s litany would work well for VBS Sunday, Children’s Sabbath, Music Sunday, or any other time you want to celebrate the vital role music has in developing and strengthening our faith.

10398783_23700424504_2821_n

One-God gave us the gift of music. Some of us share our musical gifts by singing in the choir or praise band or by playing an instrument. Some of us may prefer listening to others share their musical gifts. This litany is an opportunity to thank God for the songs of faith we learned when we were young that still stay with us today. Let us join together in making a joyful noise to our God.

All-Jesus loves me! this I know, For the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him belong; they are weak but He is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.

 

Right Side-The B-I-B-L-E. Yes, that’s the book for me.

 

Left Side-God is so good. God is so good. God is so good. God’s so good to me.

 

All-So, rise and shine and give God the glory, glory. Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory.

Rise and shine and (clap) give God the glory, glory. Children of the Lord.

 

Right Side-Zaccheus was a wee, little man, And a wee, little man was he.

He climbed up in a sycamore tree, For the Lord he wanted to see.

And as the Savior came that way, He looked up in the tree.

Spoken: And he said,”Zaccheus, you come down!”

For I’m going to your house today. For I’m going to your house today.

[Read more…]

Book Review-The 307 Questions Jesus Asked and the 3 He Answered

514ADoOhNcL._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_

 

Jesus is the Question: The 307 Questions Jesus Asked and the 3 He Answered Martin B. Copenhaver

Emotional Response-5

Scholarly Response-5

Most days, I am so thankful that my faith isn’t an easy answer faith. I don’t believe that if a happens then I need to do b. In my life, when a happens, I ponder and pray about the appropriate reaction, I consult my faith family, I read the Scriptures, and then discern whether b, c, or d are the correct course of action. Sometimes it takes longer to make a decision. I am included in the process of partnering with God and my faith community to see where God is leading me. Now on really rough days for just a few minutes, I covet a faith that has answers to every question. These times doesn’t last long. I am grateful to understand that God welcomes our questions, our concerns, our praises, our laments, and our anger.

“Easy answers can give us a sense of finality. By entertaining questions God has a chance to change us. Answers can be offered as a conclusion. Questions are an invitation to further reflection. For the most part, answers close and questions open” (20).

This book is not a book of easy answers because Jesus didn’t give us easy answers. Jesus asks 307 different questions in the Gospels. He is asked 183 questions (16). I’m thankful that someone else counted up these questions for us to let us know that Jesus asked almost twice as many questions as he was asked.

My sister sent me this picture recently. Her daughter has recently turned four and questions everything. While parents and others may tire of constant questions, questions are vital for learning. Maybe Jesus is asking us to channel our inner four-year old and ask more questions.

20150715_125330

How does Jesus teach us? Questions and parables are two of Jesus’ favorite methods of communication. Both of these methods have in common that they are not direct answers. They are asking the listener to participate in this process of understanding. “The goal is not to communicate knowledge but to elicit new understanding in the listener. Information is not the goal. Transformation is” (20).

Jesus asks questions about longing, compassion, identity, faith, doubt, worry, the reach of love, and healing. And finally, in Chapter 9, we read about the questions Jesus answers. The book says that Jesus only answers 3 questions and that is because the author believes that Jesus directly answers only 3 questions. The following 8 are answers that Jesus gave, but they don’t always directly answer the question he was asked. Jesus tells us how many times we must forgive (Matthew 18:21-22), when a husband may divorce his wife (Matthew 19: 3-9),  what we must do to have eternal life (Matthew 19: 16-22), what is the greatest commandment (Mark 12: 28-34), why the disciples are unable to heal someone (Matthew 17: 14-21), where they will eat the Last Supper (Mark 14:12-16), who will betray him (John 13:21-30), and after many times not answering Jesus finally tells us who is (John 18:33-38).

Who is Jesus? Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am? These two questions are so similar and yet so different. The first one requires no commitment. The second one comes from the heart if we follow Jesus (Chapter 10). A Question from the Cross is a great look at what it means to have a Savior who asked, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” is the focus of Chapter 11. Chapter 12 finishes the questions with questions from the Risen Christ.

The book ends with a long list of questions in Chapter 13. The author encourages you to read them without thinking about the context or looking up the context. What are these questions that Jesus asks?
This book was recommended to me by a dear friend. She read this book and enjoyed it so much that she used it as a book study at her church. After reading the book, I would love to do the same. This book is easy to read and challenging in the way it makes you think. I would highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to grow a bit in their faith. I’d recommend it for individual reading as well as part of a book study. You should read this book!

A Fancy Tea Party

photo 2-42

My husband is part of the Sunshine Committee at UMES School of Pharmacy and Health Professions. This hard-working group celebrates everyone who works there. On your birthday, you get a birthday card. When you have a special event in your life, you are celebrated with a special get together. Promotions, job changes, new arrivals, and good-byes are all celebrated well by the Sunshine Committee.

I’ve just begun learning more about Development by volunteering for UMES SPHP, and luckily, my volunteer day last week was the same day they were hosting a tea party! It was such a treat for me to help with setting up and cleaning up for a tea party. The menu featured finger sandwiches, cheese cubes, fruit salad, cream puffs, cupcakes decorated like flowers, and tea and lemonade. It was a fancy and fun affair! I’m very impressed at how this committee turned a boring room into a flower filled and fancy decorated tea room.

photo 1-45photo 3-37

Worship Words-A Time of Silence

A Time of Silence

Our lives are full of noise. As I write this the washer is spinning, a man is installing a new shower door in our bathroom using power tools, and our air conditioner is running. Amidst all this noise, I’m thinking about silence. Maybe I’m thinking about silence because it is so hard to find. While writing this last sentence, my phone rang. Silence is hard to fine.

2201_50526348825_3014_n

This picture was taken at a place that does silence well, The Taize Community. Miraculously, thousands of people became and remained silent when entering the worship space there. It was amazing.

As we pray this prayer, remember somewhere you have enjoyed the sound of silence. Picture that place as we pray.

Holy God, our lives are filled with noise. With all the noise, it is hard to hear what is important. Speak to us in this time of silence.

(silence)

Holy One, how are we to stop for silence when there is so much to do? We look to you as an example because you rested. You created Sabbath. And now we rest in you for a time of silence.

(silence)

Compassionate One, so many voices call our names, beg for our attention, cry out for mercy. The needs expressed by your children overwhelm us. Our needs overwhelm us. God, you provide. Let us silently be with you without asking for anything.

(silence)

Loving God, you understand that silence is hard. Even in this prayer, our minds have wandered. We have looked at the clock. And you were with us in this silence. In the noisy and quiet times of our lives, we can rely on you. Help us to seek out silence. Help us to listen to the voices and sounds in our lives so we may hear your voice and and the voices of your children. Amen.