Category: Kim’s Blog

Today is the 20th anniversary of the text message. Some may say, “So what?” I know that not everyone texts. There are others, however, who are texting constantly. To communicate with my youngest son, I had to learn to text! And I have found that texting is quite convenient for many things. It’s great for communicating if you are in the library or other setting where talking is not appropriate. It is handy for conveying short messages in a timely manner. You can let someone know something without disturbing them. You can leave your message at your convenience, not having to wait for the availability of the recipient.

Texting can also cause problems. The short hand used can be misunderstood. People usually avoid using punctuation in texts. That can cause problems, too. It is hard to handle complex arrangements with varying options by text. There can be confusion with the curtailed format. And sometimes people use texting to communicate things that should be said in person. I listened to a report on the radio about the appropriate use of texting. We were told that texing is not the way to break up with your lover of 4 years. “Leaving you. Sorry.” just doesn’t cut it.

As we think about the Advent theme “Glad tidings of great joy to ALL people” we may think that those glad tidings have to be momentously world changing. Something stupendous and glorious. “The war is over.” “The Berlin wall is being dismantled.” “Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa.” But sometimes glad tidings may be more mundane. Even as short and uncomplicated as a text: “The test was negative.” “I got the job.” “The moon is beautiful tonight.”

Texting reminds us that the glad tidings can be short and sweet. They can be small things that enrich our days and our lives. Blessings abound. Don’t overlook the little things!

Prayer: Glad tidings are as near and familiar as my next breath. May I continuously look for the small ways that my life is being blessed each and every day. And may I not neglect the chance to bless someone else, even if it is only in a small way. Amen.

In our family we have three children currently ages 28, 25, and 17. For 8 years we were a family of 4. So the 4 of us have many memories of shared experiences before the third child was born. There are times when we refer to things that our youngest child, Malcolm, does not remember. These are things that happened either before he was born or when he was very young. One of the older kids will comment, “Remember when you used to make those delicious fried donuts?” Malcolm looks puzzled. What fried donuts? He’s never eaten homemade fried donuts. “Oh, that was before you were born.” Or someone will refer to the time we went to a theme park for a birthday. “When did we do that?” Malcolm will ask. “Oh, that was before you were born.” Or we will reminisce about how we used to do this, go here, or do that. And poor Malcolm, knows nothing of it. “Oh, that was before you were born.” He’s gotten the idea that all the cool stuff happened before he came along. We had all the good times without him. There is the image of those glory days of times gone by that he missed. Don’t feel too sorry for him. He’s hardly suffering!

It’s easy to create and accept the idea of a glorious past. Who can dispute your memories or your images of the past? These things generally cannot be proven. We are left with our impressions and they become our reality. Malcolm thinks all the good times rolled in our household before he can remember. Hm.

We have a lot of control over the past: How we remember it. How much influence we give it. What it means to us. When it comes to our faith, sometimes people think that the best has already been. All those stories in the Bible. Jesus’ birth and ministry and teaching. The early church. Those were the glory days. The best times have come and gone. It’s been downhill ever since.

But as we were reminded in church this morning, the birth of Jesus was a beginning. The ministry and teaching of Jesus was a beginning. It is a foundation upon which to build. It is not the completed structure, now deteriorating and crumbling. It is a firm foundation. The building is still going on. There is much left to do. The glory is still to be fully appreciated.

This season at LUCC we are celebrating the song of the angels: Glad tidings of great joy to ALL people. There are still glad tidings to hear of the amazing things that God is doing today. There are new stories of God’s love and care. There are more amazing tales of faithfulness and courage yet to be told. We will look for these glad tidings throughout this Advent season. The angels have not finished singing yet.

Do you remember the first person you met who had AIDS? I do. It was 1989. I was called to serve as interim pastor of a church where the permanent pastor had to resign and go on disability because he had AIDS. The first day I went to the church to work he was there waiting for me to show me around and fill me in on what was going on in the church. He was a great person and I liked him very much. BUT –

In spite of having been to several workshops about AIDS, including how it is transmitted, I had to remind myself that it was all right to use the bathroom in the pastor’s study. I wasn’t going to get AIDS from the bathroom. I had an irrational fear about turning the door knob of the office. Yes, I know, I wasn’t going to get AIDS that way, either. And, worst of all, I found that whenever I thought about the pastor, I thought, “He’s going to die.” That thought was looming over all of my interactions with him.

For those who are in hospice work, this is nothing new. But I was young and naive, and had no experience with hospice, so this made a big impression on me. I would think about how I really liked this colleague, but he was going to die. It wasn’t a scared feeling, or a morbid feeling. It was more matter-of-fact.

Well, to be matter-of-fact, everyone we know is going to die. Everyone we meet is going to die. Everyone we love is going to die. Everyone we don’t like is going to die. We will all die, one day, some day.

So, what are we going to do? Hold back? Withdraw, so we don’t get hurt? That’s one response to the frailty of life. And, all too often, that’s what happens when someone is dying. Friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, afraid of saying the wrong thing, afraid of their own mortality, back off. Many dying people, when they are most in need of support and companionship, find themselves bereft, and the few people that are steadfast in their presence may become overwhelmed.

But there is another way to face death. It is conveyed in the motto of Suncoast Hospice: Everyday is a gift. Each and every day may be our last. So what are we going to do with today? Each and every day may be the last day of life for our family, for friends, for the homeless stranger who haunts a downtown corner. How do we want to treat people – if this is the last chance we have to interact with them? What do we want to do on our last day? On their last day? Each day is a chance to help someone, to give a gift of a smile, to show compassion, to share love.

AIDS has taught us a lot. We have learned about homophobia from AIDS. We have learned about our biases in healthcare funding. We have learned about our unfounded fears. We have learned about the different value given to lives of people who are gay or African or poor. But HIV/AIDS has also taught us to embody compassion, to serve “the least of these,” and to appreciate the precious gift of life: A gift given, received, and spent one day at a time.

This year we saw the annual frenzied shopping of Black Friday expanded and extended. One woman cited in the paper complained about how the store openings on Thursday ruined her Thanksgiving. She blamed the stores. Really? What kept her from staying home and celebrating Thanksgiving the way she wanted to? Did someone come and tie her up and throw her in the trunk of a car and dump her at Walmart and force her to shop?

Then, there was Leslie Skrodski and her daughters Taylor and Laura. Leslie was happy with the 5:00 a.m. store openings. They headed to WestShore Plaza early in the morning avoiding the midnight rush. Twenty-seven year old Laura Skrodski reported, “We got a spot right out front and all of the big specials were still available. I was kind of glad I got to sleep in.” [Tampa Bay Times, 11/24/12, “Stores open Thursday, diluting traditional Black Friday swarms,” Susan Thurston and Laura C. Morel]

Sleep in. That’s an excuse I hear from many for not coming to church on Sunday. “It’s my only morning to sleep in.” Just what is “sleeping in”? Church is at 10:30. To someone who regularly gets up at 6 a.m., isn’t 9:00 sleeping in? Personally, I like Laura Skrodski’s definition of sleeping in. She was at WestShore at 5:00 a.m. and she calls that sleeping in. So, I say, go ahead and sleep in and you should have no trouble making it to church at 10:30. Sweet dreams!

In the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, award-winning science writer Rebecca Skloot tells the story of Henrietta Lacks and the cells that were taken from her, grown in culture, and spread around the world in service to scientific and medical research. The book is a beautiful blending of the story of Henrietta and her family with the story of the development of the HeLa cell line and its scientific impact.

It was more than 20 years after Henrietta died of cancer that her family became aware that her cells had been harvested, grown, and were still being grown for use in scientific research. HeLa cells have played a role in finding a vaccine for polio, studying cancer, and doing genetic research to name but a few of their many contributions.

The story of how Henrietta’s family became informed about the use of her cells is quite involved itself. Sadly, the process involved a great deal of pain and stress to her family, especially for her daughter, Deborah.

At one point, Deborah is working with writer Rebecca Skloot to uncover Henrietta’s history. Deborah is struggling to process the things she is finding out about her mother, her mother’s cells, and her family. Deborah has broken out into hives from the stress. Deborah and Rebecca go to visit Deborah’s cousin, Gary, who conducts a kind of faith healing through singing and praying. Rebecca is a non-believer, and yet she tells us, “I’d been watching all this from a recliner a few feet away, dumbfounded, terrified to move or make noise, frantically scribbling notes. In any other circumstance I might have thought the whole thing was crazy. But what was happening between Gary and Deborah at that moment was the furthest thing from crazy I’d seen all day.” [page 292]

As I read this, I was reminded that in spite of all that science can do, we still need religion to help us deal with our feelings. We need the experience of transcendence when the load is difficult to bear. We need the insights of religion to illuminate our experiences and give us perspective. We need to embrace the mystery of healing wherever it may come from. Religion opens a window to the reality beyond our comprehension and gives us access to spiritual resources that are beyond rationality. Symbols, art, music, prayer, and ritual are powerful ways of engaging the depths of our lives. Religion is more than what meets the eye and can be a much needed healing force in our lives and in our world. It may even inspire us to seek greater scientific knowledge as well as medical treatments and cures. Truly faith can heal!