Pastor Don's Ponderings

 "You need to stand and listen to the graves of the saints." In a Zoom meeting the other day, one of the members present observed that it seems our current world culture really has not learned much from our shared past. Referencing the overt bigotry against the LGBTQIA+ community, the ongoing racial unrest in so many forms, the painful grievous nature of the ongoing warfare in Ukraine, and our shared unwillingness to extend mercy and grace to others that they not be brought low by our stiff-necked system of beliefs within the Church itself, another of the participants, a Veteran of the military and of the cross as a minister, quietly, simply said, "You need to stand and listen to the graves of the saints." That so struck me, I wrote it down immediately and have been mulling on that wisdom ever since. What does it mean to, ". . . listen to the graves of the saints"? Then came the most recent of school shootings, this one in a Nashville, Tennessee, Christian...

Your day has come. You raise your head and look around only to discover you are the only one raising your head to look around. Cautiously, you stand on tippy-toe and peer over your taller, non-descript neighbors, hoping on hope that someone, somewhere around you, looks just like you but, it is of no avail. You are alone as you are, in a field of others, with little choice of what to do for yours is a specific gift and calling. So, you bloom.  You bloom boldly, magnificently, proudly and beautifully. You raise your head to the sky and offer to the sun a bit of your color and to the sky a grand, 'Alleluia!'.  You catch the eyes of those who, otherwise, would have just passed by without a notice yet, in you they see the marvelous, delicious nature of God rising out of the mundanity of those around you. They are given reason to pause, to catch their breath and whisper a thanksgiving to the One who set you where you are. You inadvertently, maybe subliminally, transform the narrativ...

 I would never presume to speak for God, nor should anyone. That said, when I look on this young lady, my friend, Savannah Nunn, on the occasion of her Confirmation, I cannot help but wonder what it is God has to say to her, of her, in such a holy moment. What follows is a humble Pastor's pondering around such a conversation, in the form of a letter from God to Savannah as she is Confirmed: Dear Savannah, You make Me smile, even laugh with Delight on this sacred journey! Your quiet beauty lights up the Heavens, just as I always thought you would. Thank you! The stole which you made in the course of your Confirmation class is full of meaning and so very beautiful. Each symbol makes Me pause as I watch you grow in faith. The Descending Dove of the Holy Spirit, as pretty in the blue stained glass rosette window in the Chancel area of your worship home as it is on your stole, touches My heart deeply, for the Holy Spirit has been with you and your family since the beginning of your jour...

 Once upon a time Dad 'fixed up' this old buckboard wagon seat, mounted it on wooden runners and painted it so Mom could have it as an extra seat on the porch. Now that I think about it, I am not nearly so certain Mom was as excited by the renovation project as was Dad - but she nonetheless graciously accepted the gift and put it to use for quite a while. At some point the renovated seat was demoted to the shed as a seat then, finally, to being put away altogether. Such has been its fate for many a year - out of sight, out of mind, until now.  In the course of bringing together many of the old farm tools Dad had stored away, this seat resurfaced and, now looking at it, I am thinking of some questions which should have been asked of Dad a long time ago concerning its origin. Alas, into eternity with the keeper of its history went the answers to any questions which might have been asked - and I am left looking at the seat pondering whether or not to once again restore it and whe...

 At one of our son's home the other morning I happened to step out the front door and look up in time to see this: Three jets on divergent paths, each with a vapor trail marking their route away from the others. In the cold morning sunshine it took me a few moments to recognize what was happening above me, then a few moments more to open my cell phone for a couple of pictures. After looking into the sun shining brightly in my screen and hoping upon hope the camera had captured the action in the skies over my head, I stepped back and watched all three aircraft go their own way and wondered where they were going and from whence they had come. When first I spotted them, they appeared so close that it fleetingly crossed my mind that they might have each just appeared there, then started from a mutually agreed upon point in the sky. That is what made me stop and watch them. Yes, I know it was all an optical illusion, that in reality they had thousands of feet, maybe even miles between t...

Their names are Donald and Harold O'Rear - and you are viewing them at a distance of about one hundred and fifty yards across the Marissa Recreational Area Golf Course, golf clubs in hand.  I had just walked up to the number 5 green and, while waiting for the others in my foursome to complete their approach shots, saw these two walking towards the number 8 green. Their golf cart was waiting behind them as they sized up their next shots to the green, side by side. They are two of the luckiest men I know when it comes to sizing up and completing golf shots and, oddly enough, the more they practice, the luckier they get! Most notably, they are brothers through and through, in looks, mannerism and demeanor - and I say that with no small amount of admiration for them both. They are gentlemen who know what it means to have respect for others, to earn their way in this world and to care genuinely for the sake of those around them more than any of us will ever deserve. When you look at thi...

 Cathartic. That is what the daffodils in the vase are to my inner child, cathartic. This morning, while sitting in one of the patient rooms of my dermatologist, when asked by the doctor if there was anything she needed to know, without a whole lot of forethought I expressed our family's gratitude for the care she had exercised in tending to my Dad for the last couple of years. You see, throughout his later years, Dad had been treated quite often for a variety of skin cancers and, in the course of time, had undergone somewhere around twenty-five or six different surgeries, not to mention the numerous skin spots the doctors had frozen on his skin. If that seems like a unusually high number of procedures, just remember that Dad lived to 97 years of age - and had spent most of his life working the land in the sun.  Long before the idea of skin cancers and other sun-related skin issues, Dad had worked in the sun, first behind horses and mules, then on tractors which had no cabs an...

 Attending a volleyball match the other evening, I was in an excellent position to capture a few photos of our granddaughter, Norah, on the court throughout the sets. After arriving home and taking some time to sort through the photos which, earlier, I had only seen through the cell phone lens, I realized that many of the images captured Norah soaring through the air, flying in such a manner as to meet the volleyball and command its return to the hinterlands on the other side of the net. Looking through the photos time and time again, it occurred to me . . .  Superman has children - and the oldest of them is named Norah. Oh, I have observed this mild mannered young lady since first she was born and, to be perfectly candid, I didn't realize how obvious her superpowers are. So on this day, it was as though she arrived at the gym as a normal young lady, hanging with her teammates, making jokes, assessing the other team, warming up, getting ready. Yet, somewhere in the midst of th...

 For today's blog post I am bringing back one of the most requested reprintings of an article I wrote for the St. Paul UCC, Lebanon, newsletter, 'The Caller', in 2002. The picture here was not included then, but is courtesy of Pixabay Free Photos and just seemed appropriate. This article is being revisited today to set the stage for an upcoming blog post which just seems, in my heart, to need this prequel told. I hope you find this story something to ponder on your journey: Superman has left the house. We took Raymond to the University of Kansas last Sunday and helped him move into his new room. Six round trips of about a quarter mile each way to bring all of his earthly possessions to the dorm, then up five flights of stairs with each load, joining with about a thousand other students and their parents (just in his dorm building) to set up a new way of life uniquely designed to last only nine months. Somehow, there must be a correlation between the nine months of pregn...

  Believe it or not, I remember a day when, driving from Red Bud, Illinois, to Marissa, Illinois, you would see little more than farm ground, blue sky and farmhouses. Today, on that same drive you can easily observe two exhaust plumes, or steam plumes - as I was corrected, rising into the skies from two coal-burning power plants, located approximately twelve miles apart, as the crow flies. Why tell you this? Because I have recently been made aware that my stories are more aligned with a Geezer mindset than that of a Pastor. Something about, 'I remember a day when . . .' as an introduction to telling stories has become a warning to others, either to politely find other things to do or settle in for a history lesson from a person who has lived the ancient experience they are going to describe in great detail for you. Well, after pondering on that revelation for a while, it occurred to me to just gratefully and gracefully embrace it - for I have now apparently lived long enough to...

 While looking through a few of my Mom's photos this morning - she took thousands of photos over the years - I came across Mom's early version of a panoramic photo, most likely taken with an old-fashioned Brownie camera. Two photos taken in as close to symmetry as humanly possible, while  holding a Brownie camera, then carefully cropped and taped together to create one scene - and this scene takes away my breath. Just for clarity, I am the one in the stroller, so my personal memory of this moment in time is fairly non-existent. Still, this scene takes away my breath, both for the scene which is captured and the people who are there.  In the foreground is my Grandma Triefenbach, who died when I was three, and Grandpa Triefenbach, who then lived with us for many years. My Dad, who is carrying all of the cane fishing poles, recently passed, and my cousin, Jack, with whom I became friends before his family moved away. In the background, Uncle Elbert, my Mom's brother and Jack...

  "Our poor daffodils! They are blooming just when it is going to get cold again!", Nancy said yesterday morning. Then, as if to underscore her concern as we drove home from watching a volleyball game last evening, we observed the rising full moon in the clearing air after another weather front had passed through. It is lining up to be a frigid night. How do daffodils, crocuses, tulips and such do it? After waiting patiently all summer long, then overwintering under the frozen earth, they know just when to emerge and begin to stun us all with their beauty - even when the conditions are not the most ideal. The perennial nature of creation's cycle happens year-in and year-out, much as the perpetual phases of the moon, whether we are ready to receive or acknowledge the gift or not. God's creative imagination will not be thwarted or passed over, all happens as it should, even despite the threatening cold of the day or abject disregard of human beings along the way. That i...

Driving along on a nearby country road the other day, I saw these two bald eagles in a tree back from the road. In the distance you can see their nest. Stopping to look, then to snap this picture, it occurred to me that we human beings make life far too difficult. Even the raptors among us understand that, once in a while, you have to stop your soaring, hunting and working, and just sit and enjoy the day. Enjoy the day. What a novel idea! Enjoy the day. Raised on a dairy farm where, as Dad would often say it, "There is never a lack of things to do", I was taught from early on to feel guilty if I just stopped to enjoy the day. My work ethic has driven me in farming, as a student, in ministry and, even now, in retirement: There is never a lack of things to do. What is it that, at least for some of us, our inherent value is directly linked to our capacity to 'do'? The idea of taking time to sit on a branch not far from home and enjoy the day is antithetical to becoming t...