Singing to God

by Ian Doescher

Today, the Grant High School Royal Blues Alumni Choir had our second concert ever. Reverend Jennifer sings in the choir (though she doesn't say much about it in church), and we were happy to be singing several sacred pieces. These included...

- A setting of "O Vos Omnes" (Lamentations 1:12, Jeremiah lamenting for Jerusalem)

- Morten Lauridsen's enchanting and ethereal "O Nata Lux" (O birth of light)

- An Italian madrigal filled with joy, called Exsultate Deo.

We can't bring the concert to the blog, but we can at least share one piece with you. Click here to listen to Exsultate Deo online. Here's to singing praise to God with our bodies, hearts and voices.

Pondering the Promise of Pentecost

by Judy Bevilacqua

I love spending time with my grandkids. We have great conversations about life, food, gross insects, dinosaur minutiae, bird identification, career possibilities and - even relationships. It’s fascinating to watch them slowly develop -- like little polaroids! But though they are unaware of this process, I am tracking their development into the future, like an archeologist in reverse!

Sometimes, there are things I would love to share with them. But they are not asking the questions. They are not ready. And frankly….neither am I. There are a lot of things I’m sure God might want to tell me, but He must also wait until I’m ready. My future is now a pretty short span, (I hardly need binoculars!) It’s not the vast frontier of my youth. But still that future is all fog and smoke, only a dim path. In my nearsightedness, I must wait for wise guides to lead me there. Last night before dropping to sleep, I read this quote from an “mid-life” woman, who suddenly became aware of all the elderly women around her in Paris: "It’s as if I’ve only now developed the rods and cones in my retina that allow me to see them” [Traveling with Pomegranates, Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor]. I know this feeling. Maybe it takes old age to see old age, or ill health to see ill health. (You could fill in the blanks to this formula….ad infinitum!) The truth is: there is a reality that has been there all along, but you can’t “see” it until a certain moment in your life…..until you’re ready.

There is something strangely comforting about this whole phenomenon. We can’t just know and understand at will. We can’t just read the best books, get the degree, text our friends for advice or check Wikipedia in our search for “answers.” We just can’t produce wisdom. Wisdom just doesn’t happen in isolation, or “out of context,” or without the road-time, shoe leather and deep investment. We have to need it, to be ready for it.

In nutritional science, research shows that extracting and isolating a vitamin or mineral from the whole food usually prevents it from being well utilized by the body. Often another enzyme or protein is needed to allow that intricate “process of absorption.” If this is true for my physical body, can I grasp that there are a complex of elements that must be present for real learning to take place in the rest of me? This is Wisdom: that “assimilation” is essential for wisdom. Not just for my grandkids! This patient osmosis is vital for my own spiritual growth as well. It gives new meaning to the quote: “when the pupil is ready, the teacher will come.”

Last week, our lectionary reading from John 16:12-15, came as….“a slow wind to work these words of love” around me! Jesus was talking to his disciples, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."

“…but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” When we are ready…. when we need it and are asking and when our experience can support it. (God used the Montessori method long before we did!) Pentecost reminds us that the wise guide of the Spirit will give us the truth - as we are able to absorb and assimilate it.

Like my grandkids, I can’t receive all the information. I can’t bear all the truth. I’m not developmentally ready! But the Spirit knows how to guide me along and help prepare me for all that my future holds…..whether short or long. The Spirit, like that enzyme, is the catalyst that turns on the light…..

I close with a line from a song that’s been in my head this season of Pentecost:

“God only knows, when God makes His plan; the information’s not available to the mortal man” [“Slip sliding’ away.“ Paul Simon]. Ah, but it is available through the Spirit! This is the promise of Pentecost!

Conscientious Cooperators

by Ian Doescher

Because this is Memorial Day weekend, here's a story about peace. My friend Ken, the pastor of Tualatin Presbyterian Church, passed this story on to me, the story of a man named Desmond Doss. Have you heard of Desmond Doss? He was a Seventh-Day Adventist and an avowed pacifist who, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, joined up with the army because he felt he should serve his country. However, he refused to carry a gun. He was mocked, ridiculed and even threatened by his fellow soldiers, and was brought up on formal charges by an officer. But it was determined that just because he wouldn’t carry a gun didn’t make Desmond unfit for service. Desmond became a medic, a medic who did not carry a gun. And though he himself was peaceful, he saw more than his share of violent action. In a battle in Okinawa, in which American soldiers were trying to take a certain ridge that overlooked the island, the Americans were routed and beat into retreat, but not Desmond. You see, 75 men were already wounded up there, so Desmond stayed and served them. One of the men he treated was the same officer who had brought him up on formal charges.

Desmond’s story is the story of a man who knows in the core of his being what the peace of the Holy Spirit means, a man who lived that peace courageously and boldly, helping people understand what it means to be both a patriot and a pacifist. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the first and only conscientious objector to have received that commendation. Desmond says he doesn’t like that term “conscientious objector,” though. He refers to himself as a “conscientious cooperator” -- a term that has been adopted by his denomination, the Seventh-Day Adventists. What a great way for us to envision our lives as Christians, surrounded by the Spirit whom Jesus promised to send to us: you, me, all of us, conscientious cooperators.

Value Every Moment

by Julia Graves

Close your eyes. Now think of someone you care about. What were there wearing? Can you remember the sound of their voice or what they smelled like? What did you talk about? Was your interaction pleasant or stressed filled with condescending remarks? Did you hug them when you parted and say “I Love You”? Did you value their existence?

We live our lives as if they will continue forever. We take relationships for granted. It only takes a moment to change our lives forever. In a moment a car accident, stroke, heart attack, or unexpected death can occur changing or taking the life of a loved one.

Our words and actions can cause an emotional death to an individual. We demean and minimize others in person and behind their backs. At times we behave more like people of darkness rather than of the light.

Life is a gift and every moment is precious. In a moment, it can all change… forever.

What do you value?