The Storm is Passing Over

From Jessica Bratt

Today's guest post comes from Rev. Adriene Thorne, an Associate Minister at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City. It originally appeared on The Huffington Post. Thanks for your words and your service, Adriene.

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Sandy picked up my city, my people, and our faith and sat us down somewhere else. Perhaps the faith of many has gone out to sea with the wind and the rain -- those 80 families whose houses burned in Queens, those who are now planning funerals, those who have nothing at all in this Big Apple but the clothes on their backs.

Take courage my soul, and let us journey on, says the African-American hymn that has helped me through so many shadowy stretches. Tho' the night is dark, and I'm still far from home.

New knowledge comes from being in something. New knowledge explodes our theories and research and sometimes our faith. Sept. 11, 2001 changed the way we thought and felt about war. Living in California, smelling burning wood and breathing charred air changed the way I thought about wildfires. This week changed the way I think about hurricanes.

Once you've experienced something for yourself, everything changes.

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They Cried Out to the Lord

The food’s here, the table’s set, we’re hungry, but there’s one thing standing between us and food: prayer. Sometimes a group has a designated prayster, but most times not and those brief seconds of jockeying out of a position in which you’ll have to pray publically are one of modern Christianity’s most bizarre unspoken traditions.

No one wants to refuse outright—presumably because their answer is as stupid as mine which is nonexistent. When the leader asks, “Who wants to pray?” and starts looking around for the anyone not avoiding her eyes, the Type Bs pretend to be texting or, maybe during Bible Study, jotting notes while the Type As vie to be the first person to volunteer their friends. “I think Jackie wants to pray tonight.”

Passivity, embarrassment, twisted humility and millions of mini-Peter’s denying the truth of prayer: that is it powerful and that we, sinful and ineloquent, are gifted with this amazing power. Are we ashamed of our prayers? Out of prayer practice? Have we nothing to pray for? Is it something to be done on the way to mom’s lasagna? Is it something to be done at the last minute because “all we can do is pray?”

Let us not be ashamed to pray for one another out loud and with faith that God will use whatever words we can summon for His glory. Let us take hold of this power he offers us and use it to praise God.

Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his love endures forever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—
[How] they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
and he brought them out of their distress.
He stilled the storm to a whisper;
the waves of the sea were hushed.
They were glad when it grew calm,
and he guided them to their desired haven.
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for men.
Let them exalt him in the assembly of the people
and praise him in the council of the elders. (Psalm 107)

Amen

Elaine graduated from Calvin College with an English major. She's currently teaching English at Kosin University in Busan, South Korea and spends her spare time traveling, busking and keeping up with her blog, bearoflittlebrain.blogspot.com.

Slouching Toward Diligence Day

From Debra Rienstra

I’m just now turning my thoughts to the Thanksgiving Day menu. My parents and brothers and their families will be coming here, since the days of going to my parents’ house are now over for good. So Ron and I will be cooking in our semi-competent, last-minute way. Get used to it, family, because for the next stage of life—I suppose until Ron and I get old and frail enough for one of our kids to take over—we’ll be the ones in our bathrobes early on Thanksgiving morning, shoving a turkey in the oven before anyone else is awake.

It’s a privilege to host, and I’m glad to do it, and yada yada, but I must say, by the time you reach middle age, holidays have rather lost their old magic. Thanksgiving and Christmas were a lot more fun when I was a kid. This is partly because every year felt momentously different from the last—age nine is eons older than age eight, after all. But it’s mostly because, frankly, back then other people were doing all the work. Now the years all blur together in a slurry of sameness as my generation inches slowly toward older age; and as the holidays come round again, I sigh and start a holiday task list—just another set of grinding responsibilities.

Boy, do I sound bah-humbug already. You know, maybe what I need—maybe what we all could use—is a nice fresh start. Something completely different to perk us all up and bring back the magic. How about some entirely new holidays?

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What If the Church Became More Like an AA Meeting?

From Thomas C. Goodhart

What if the church became more like an AA meeting?

“Father, can I have a blessing?”

In scrubby jeans and an old fleece jacket I was doing yard work, storm cleanup raking leaves and picking up branches around the parsonage and churchyard. I certainly don’t usually go by “Father,” but with folks coming from a variety of religious backgrounds (or none at all) I don’t exert much energy worrying about a title, so when someone yells out Pastor or Reverend or Padre or even Father, I simply try to respond. This wasn’t the first time she made the request either. Julie—we’ll call her for the sake of anonymity—had once before “asked for a blessing.”

And I should interject: the first time a “blessing” was asked for I was perhaps a little fazed. Blessing? What exactly is being asked? What does she want? This was a different circumstance. I was out walking my dogs and a woman approached me, “You’re the priest at this church, right?”

“Aw, well, yes, kind of” I stammered. “I’m the pastor. We’re Protestant…”

“Oh, well, that doesn’t matter,” she replied saying she was Catholic and then went on and asked for a blessing.” She was an older woman whom I recognized lived around the block. Some stuff had happened to her recently and she was quite heavy hearted…

A blessing? Hmm? “I can pray with you?”

“Thank you,” she responded and bowed her head and we proceeded to pray.

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Hurricane Sandy: Relief & Rebuilding

From Jes Kast-Keat

Midland Beach, Staten Island

It's a wild ride to experience a hurricane. It's also confusing to accept the reality that the part of the city I call home remained unscathed while parts of my city will never recover. How does one hold the tension of going about business as normal while others will never be able to live in the same community again? 

Some of my friends poke fun at my effusive praise of the city I love. The thing is when you love a city as much as I do you can't help but be compelled to care after a hurricane, even if the area you call home was unaffected. 

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