Happy Tail-wagging Day!
November 26, 2015
Christ Church Episcopal, Norcross, GA
Thanksgiving Day; Year B
Joel 2:21-27; Psalm 126; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Matthew 6:25-33
A few days ago I saw a post on my Facebook Page that caught my eye. This is what it said:
There is a story they tell of two dogs.
Both at separate times walk into the same room.
One comes out wagging his tail while the other comes out growling.
A woman watching this goes into the room to see what could possibly make one dog so happy and the other so mad.
To her surprise she finds a room filled with mirrors.
The happy dog found a thousand happy dogs looking back at him while the angry dog saw only angry dogs growling back at him.
What you see in the world around you is a reflection of who you are.
I think there’s a lot of truth to this.
Just yesterday, as I was trying to make my way through a grocery store parking lot, I found myself getting more and more frustrated. At 3:00 pm on the day before Thanksgiving, everyone is getting their last-minute items – including me. I was already envisioning the long check-out lines and decided I just didn’t have the patience for this right now, so I headed to another store, one closer to home.
Luckily, that extra drive gave me a chance to make an attitude adjustment. Read the rest of this entry »
Do you not care?
June 21, 2015
Christ Church Episcopal, Norcross, GA
The 4th Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 7
Samuel 17:32-49; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41
Last week was Sandwich Sunday, so after the 8:00 am service, a bunch of folks gathered in the Parish Hall with loaves of bread, peanut butter & jelly and ham & cheese ready to get to work. As usual, there was the obligatory search for the plastic gloves… my Achilles heel. We had enough to get everyone started, but I decided I’d run up to Target and get a full box and some more bread.
As I was headed back to church I sat at the traffic light and thought to myself, “I love this job.” In my twenty years in banking I know there were times when I liked what I was doing, and certainly who I was working with. I know I was good at my job, but I’m not sure I could ever truthfully say “I love this job.”
I continued to hold onto that feeling of love for this job as the new work-week began. On Monday, I popped in on Mary and her team of helpers at the Norcross Co-op Vacation Bible School. Then headed over to the church with Rita and Ken to map out the new Four-square and Basketball design on the back parking lot. The love continued as I made final adjustments to the Celtic liturgy, not to mention the fun of the Vestry meeting on Monday night!
On Tuesday, my love continued in the midst of conversations about an updated sound system planned for the sanctuary, followed by productive staff and warden’s meetings. And these feeling of love carried over to Wednesday, even as I hauled water hoses under the blazing sun to get things ready for a Wild & Wacky night with the kids.
I went to bed Wednesday night weary from a physically challenging day – earning over 13,000 steps for my effort – and the payoff was an evening filled with smiling kids and teens pelting each other with water balloons and careening across a three-lane slip and slide. I mean, what’s NOT to love about this job! Read the rest of this entry »
The Gift of the Holy Spirit
May 24, 2015
Christ Church Episcopal, Norcross, GA
The Day of Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21; Romans 8:22-27; John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15
(Gospel text is provided at the bottom of this post)
Three years ago, as part of my seminary education, I was an intern chaplain at Grady Hospital. This Clinical Pastoral Education, as it’s called, or CPE, is a time to see what it’s like to be a hospital chaplain, and also a time to learn more about yourself, as a pastoral care giver.
The various floors and departments of the hospital are divvied up to the six chaplain interns, and my parish, if you will, was a couple of the surgical floors. Now, patients on surgical floors aren’t usually there for a long time. They’re given a room after surgery and stay just long enough to be ready to go home, or go to another rehab facility.
So, as a chaplain on a surgical floor, I made a lot of cold-calls, popping in, introducing myself as a chaplain, and seeing if the patient or their family wanted to talk or pray. My hope for my ministry was to be one person from the hospital team that interacted with the patient without poking or prodding them. I wanted to be a presence for them in whatever way might helpful.
Sometimes my invitation was well received and other times, not so much. But, that’s the way it goes.
I remember one day in particular, near the beginning of the summer. The resident chaplain suggested I visit a patient who had actually been there for several weeks. I’ll call the patient Bill.
I learned from the other chaplain that Bill and his girlfriend had been riding together on Bill’s motorcycle. They were riding through Atlanta on their way back to New York after a vacation in Florida. They had a wreck and Bill’s hip was badly injured and his girlfriend – I’ll call her Sue – had extensive injuries including brain trauma. She was in the intensive care unit (ICU), and although Sue was still alive, after several weeks she still hadn’t regained consciousness.
They were in an unfamiliar city with family far away; in different rooms and on different floors of the hospital. Read the rest of this entry »
What the Promise is For
February 22, 2015
Christ Church Episcopal, Norcross, GA
The 1st Sunday in Lent
Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15
Today’s Old Testament lesson is the very end of the story of Noah and the ark. Y’all remember Noah – he was a righteous person, chosen by God to build an ark. And, in spite of the ridicule he surely received from those around him, he built a HUGE floating barn, and then gathered up all the species of animals, two-by-two, and loaded them into the ark.
He must’ve looked like a fool, but for him, he was being obedient to God, even if it didn’t make much sense – that’s what made him righteous. Then, you remember what happens next, it started to rain… and it rained, and rained… and NOW who looked foolish? Not Noah!
He and his family boarded the ark with all the animals and the story says that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights until water covered the whole earth; as far as they could see. After the rain stopped, they floated around awhile as the water receded and the ark was finally resting on solid ground. Noah, his family and the animals were once again on dry land, and when it was all over God made a promise: Read the rest of this entry »
