 I thank my God every time I mention you in my prayers. I'm thankful for all of you every time I pray, and it's always a prayer full of joy.[i] (Philippians 1.3-4) Dear Plymouth, Though we think of it as the special word of the end of worship, the word “benediction” simply means “good words.” Here are my “good words” for you as I write this final staff reflection. The picture above shows all the wonderful tangible gifts that you gave me Saturday evening at that fabulous fare well dinner (and Sunday at youth group lunch). Thank you and thank you and thank you! I love them all! And they hold precious memories. These gifts and these memories will sustain me as I move through the next year or so before I come back to be with you at congregation gatherings. As the Senior Minister’s spouse! A role I also treasure. I have just spent the morning (Monday) with Marta and Hal in transition meetings. More are scheduled for Tuesday with JT and the rest of the staff. Rev. Marta is a true gift! She and Hal will be, are already becoming, a great team. Please remember to wear your name tags for her so she can learn names and faces! Please support them both as they move into ministry with you together! Things will be new for Hal and for all of you as well as Marta. Be gentle with yourselves, with Plymouth’s beloved staff and with one another. Plymouth is coming alive after our pandemic days, beginning to sprout with new people and ministries. The future is so promising! I do thank God for each of you and our time together over the past 8 years and 4 months. Before I leave you with the benediction that I love so much (see the footnote telling from whom I learned it), hear these words of encouragement from Philippians, 4.4-7: Be glad in the Lord always! Again I say, be glad! Let your gentleness show in your treatment of all people. The Lord is near. Don't be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks. Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus.[ii] And remember….. In the goodness of God you were born into this world. By the grace of God you have been kept all the day long, even unto this hour. And by the love of God, fully revealed in the face of Jesus the Christ, You are being made Whole.[iii] Go in peace to love and serve, my dear Plymouth! With you always on the journey,  [i] & [ii] Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 45178-45181).
[iii] Adapted from the benediction created by the late Rev. Dr. John R. Claypool IV who was my pastor as a teen at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. He later became an Episcopal priest.  Image: J.A. Ferguson In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams. Joel 2.28 and Acts 2.17 CEB What we are all really asking… is how do we, who know the world needs to change, begin to practice being different? From Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown[i] As I prepare to retire from parish ministry, I am asking questions of the future. My future, yes, but even more urgently the church’s future. The Christian church at large and Plymouth Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in particular. There is a great and subtle sea change, my friends, in the life of this human institution we call church. A sea change, a profound and notable transformation. Perhaps, before the pandemic, it was subtle, and we were not noticing it. However, now it is palpable. Especially to those of us who have dedicated our lives and careers to the care and feeding of “church.” This is not a bad thing! This is the movement of God’s Holy Spirit as the kin-dom of God, God’s realm on earth as it is in heaven, is expanded and further revealed for the transformation of creation! It is change….and change brings trepidation, even fear. We cannot continue to do things as we have always done them, yet we cling to how we have always done things because the new way seems unsure and unclear. The new way is only revealing itself one step at a time. This is why I love the scripture text that opens this reflection. From the time of the ancient Hebrew prophets to beginnings of the early church to now in the 21st century, God wants us to dream with God of new possibilities for creation, for human beings, for this institution we call church. Possibilities that bring love where there is hate, justice where there is injustice, compassion where there is intolerance, joy where there is despair. And we do not have to muster up these dreams and visions and prophesies out of our own minds and hearts alone. They will be given to us by the Spirit as we pray and work and fellowship and worship together. What are some of effects of this spiritual sea change that I am seeing that make us uncomfortable?
Finally, be aware of the new dreams and visions taking shape by welcoming the new faces you see in worship, at programming and in coffee hour. As pastors, we cannot welcome everyone on our own. Look around and reach out! And let one of the pastors know if you would like to be more integrally involved a team that welcomes and helps integrate new friends into our community. If you are new, we hope you will reach out to staff and lay leaders (deacons, book group leaders, fellowship group leaders, someone at coffee hour) and ask your questions! We are eager to get to know you and help you to get to know us! My friends, God is giving us new dreams and visions as we seek to be the loving presence of Jesus, the Christ, in the world! As we follow the ways of Jesus, may we always be open to holy possibilities! With you on the journey, [i] adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, (AK Press, Chico, CA: 2017, 164).
 By MAKY.OREL - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 Therefore, brothers and sisters, you must be patient as you wait for the coming of the Lord. Consider the farmer who waits patiently for the coming of rain in the fall and spring, looking forward to the precious fruit of the earth. You also must wait patiently, strengthening your resolve, because the coming of the Lord is near. James 5.7-8, CEB Waiting can be tough. Waiting in long lines at the grocery. Waiting with an impatient young child. Waiting for an exciting celebration. Waiting at the bedside of a loved one who is transitioning from this life to the next. Waiting for news from medical tests. Waiting for the grades to come out after a big test. Waiting….. In Advent, we say we are waiting for the Christ Child to be born. Of course, this waiting is a metaphor because the Christ is with us even as we wait for the Christmas celebration. Still, the practice of waiting is good for our souls. We are a culture of instant gratification. So much is at our fingertips in this age of technology – information, goods and services, connection with loved ones through phone, text, and internet. It is good to be still and wait like a seed the farmer has sowed in the ground waiting for spring or fall rains. In the waiting we put down roots into the soil of our faith, not knowing what will come to fruition. Mary said yes to the angel from God and then waited in the unknown mystery that is pregnancy for the birth of Jesus. Waiting in the unknown is part of our faith. It may feel like doubt or like God is not listening or like we are all alone. We acknowledge these feelings. They are real, but they do not get the final say. The final say is the love of God made manifest in our hearts, even in the waiting. The final say is the love of God incarnated in the Christ Child who announced to us as a man that God’s realm is among us always! The institutional church is in a big waiting period after the changes of the pandemic. Each and every church that I know of or read about is “waiting” to see what is coming next in programming, mission and service, fellowship, worship, financial stability and staffing. The church as the Body of Christ is in a period of pregnant waiting with all the changes and pains and delights and discovery that pregnancy brings to a human body. At Plymouth we are very lucky to be welcoming new people, growing our programming with children and youth, developing new ways to be together in worship, re-inventing beloved fellowship and formation opportunities, looking towards the promise of a new settled associate minister. We are blessed! And our blessings need the nourishment, the investment of our time, talents and treasures in the work of God through our ministries. We need to feed the soil holding the seeds of possibility in our Plymouth Body of Christ that are pregnant with new life and growing in ways we cannot yet see. So, in this time of Advent waiting, I ask you to be still with the seed-like promises of God. How will you nurture these promises and answer their call? Answering the call to service through the ministries of our Body of Christ is nurturing the promise. Answering the call to pledge your financial resources to the work of God in the world through Plymouth’s ministries is nurturing the promise. (And our Stewardship and Budget and Finance teams are waiting for you to answer this call so we can put together a healthy budget for 2023. It takes us all to do this. It takes the village.) Answering the call to the Spirit of God deep within your heart and soul, a call to deeper relationship or new ways of living in God’s realm, is nurturing the seed-life promises of God. With you in the waiting! Let’s see together how God’s promises unfold in the new year. Blessings, So then, with endurance, let's also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Let's throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith's pioneer and perfecter. He endured the cross, ignoring the shame, for the sake of the joy that was laid out in front of him... - Hebrews 12.1-2  Image: H. Chorpenning Friends, It was good to be back at Plymouth this past weekend for our Mission Marketplace and for worship after three weeks away! Great to reconnect with so many of you! We had a two meaningful and profound Totenfest/All Saints worship services. I am still musing about the great cloud of witnesses that surround us. In our travels in Italy, Hal took me to a small town outside of Naples called Nola. There we spent a morning visiting the 3rd century paleo-Christian church of St. Felix, a north African bishop who inspired the 4th century saint, Paulinus. Paulinus was a one percenter in his day who converted to Christianity and literally sold his entire portion of his family’s fortune to rebuild the church of St. Felix, a hospital, and a hostel for the poor in Nola. The story of a rich man who was not deterred by Jesus’ exhortation to the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor. Paulinus and his wife took up the challenge and their legacy can still inspire us today. In the ancient church is the fresco you see above. A palimpsest of the faces of our Christian ancestors in Nola painted over the centuries. A great cloud of witnesses. This picture and JT’s sermon on Sunday invites me more deeply into the image of this great cloud in Hebrews 11 and 12. A cloud of witnesses keeping the faith for centuries before the writer of Hebrews extolled them. And then more and more witnesses of faith from the time of the first century writing of Hebrews till now. We can lean into their faith, even if we express ours in 21st century ways that could be very different from their expressions. We can lean into and rest upon the knowledge that so many generations have run the race of faith with endurance, thrown off the baggage of mistakes and falsehoods weighing them down and kept their focus on the compassionate, inclusive, joyful love of God revealed in Jesus. They have lived out the joy that comes even in extreme adversity and kept the faith alive! This gives me hope on this crucial election day. Times are tough in our country. It is hard to have hope as extreme partisanship raises its divisive head falsely in the name of the faith we love. Action for climate change must be taken NOW. Inflation must be curbed to keep people fed and housed. I get weighed down at times. And yet, today I am finding courage to keep on keeping on through the faces of the ancestors and the ancient words of the sermon in the book of Hebrews. No matter the political outcomes of today, we will hold fast to faith in Jesus, pioneer and perfecter of God’s justice and love. It is blessed to be in a community like Plymouth where we lean into our faith, our relationships, our ministries, and our care for one another. Take hope, dear friends! With you on the journey,   By Godfried from Utrecht - I am grateful for..., CC BY 2.0. Last week, Hal and I each received a gift from his sister, Susan – The Gratitude Journal. Susan let us know these were coming and said that using her Gratitude Journal was particularly helpful to her during these times. Each day the journal asks you to reflect in the morning on:
These are all great questions and ideas. Yet my first response was very grumbly! “Gratitude! Another thing on my list of things to do! Really? Will it help that much?” Wow, what a cynic I am that my response to this gracious gift was to grumble! Then I got to thinking about this response. I know that gratitude is a good thing and I know that I always work to express gratitude to others for things they do. I appreciate it when people express gratitude to me for something I have done. Why was I so grumpy about this?! Where did this cynicism come from? I believe it comes from a place that we all share during these stressful times, a place of great weariness and overwhelm. A place of pain and sorrow that is deep and wounding that may border on despair. The list of why we are all feeling this is long…personal events in our lives, the divisive state of our nation, the threats of climate change, the violence that we perpetrate on another as human beings as well as on creation. We are all in need of deep healing. Well……it turns out that gratitude is healing! Harvard Health reports, “In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships. Gratitude literally alters our brains. Neuroscience research tells us "that gratitude causes synchronized activation in multiple brain regions, and lights up parts of the brain's reward pathways and the hypothalamus. In short, gratitude can boost neurotransmitter serotonin and activate the brain stem to produce dopamine." Dopamine is our brain's pleasure chemical.” “Studies have shown that feeling thankful can improve sleep, mood and immunity. Gratitude can also decrease depression, anxiety, difficulties with chronic pain and risk of disease,” even heart disease! So much for my grumbling! Of course, I can still grumble if I really want to, however, look at the benefits of gratitude. Just a little gratitude for the blessings and beauty of life, no matter how small they may seem in the scheme of things, is literally life-saving. Gratitude shifts our perspective out of fear and into wonder, out of focusing on pain (life will still be painful) and into focusing on love. I am taking at second look at this new gratitude journal. It seems it will be worthwhile. I invite you into gratitude with me using the questions listed above or simply remembering to be grateful for something morning and evening. Let’s lift our gratitude to the Holy One bit by bit and heal together. I am grateful to be with you all on this journey we call life! Blessings,  Image: USAID “Moving On” Maybe you expected it would come in a wave of relief—olly, olly, oxen free-- and everything would be fine. We’d be back in the familiar world of hugs and handshakes and the easy assumption of the presence of strangers. Of course it doesn’t work that way. Safer is not the same thing as safe. Which turns out to have always been more elusive than we thought. Somehow the world opens up slowly, in fits and starts, and also in an incomprehensible rush. There are more choices, and less clarity, More possibilities, but not more wisdom. You are not wrong to be tentative. You are not wrong to be bold. That’s just the way it is with grief. That is simply the nature of spring. By Lynn Ungar (4-12-22; www.lynnungar.com, used with permission) Change is rarely easy, is it? We are two years and two months from the lockdown phase of the pandemic. Life is seemingly more like the “normal” before the isolation, economic stress and fear the pandemic brought. Except for when it isn’t! We can move more freely and more often without masks. We can travel more. It is a joy to see one another. And yet, people are still dying from Covid at higher rates than from the flu. We are still waiting for a vaccine for children under 5. We are still not quite sure that another variant will raise its head and sending us back to more masking and isolation. Teachers have been working furiously this year to help children and youth catch up after two years of school on and off Zoom. Workplaces are not sure where they want workers to be – at home or in the office and they are reeling from “the Great Resignation.” I could go on and on about what is sort of normal but not functioning as it used to function. Churches are not sure what’s up with some people coming back to in person worship, others still on live-stream, others not coming back at all. Budgets are wonky as churches try to carry on and yet people have changed their giving patterns when they were only worshiping online. Yet there is an expectation in multi-staffed churches that all the programming that used to be up and running before will magically appear. Plymouth is no exception. We are just beginning to get our bearings and to see the scope of the work that will need to be done in rebuilding the programming for Christian formation, mission/service and fellowship that we had before March of 2020. Or create new programming more suitable for the times and future. All this reminds me of the Israelites as they returned from Babylon with the decree of the Babylonian king, Cyrus, they began the long work of rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. The story of this rebuilding is told in the book of Ezra. It was a stop and start process with squabbling and uncertainty about having the right funding and the right workers. It took much longer than they had hoped. When they got the first foundations built the people sobbed and celebrated. Those who remembered the old temple sobbed because they remembered the old. Those who didn’t remember the old temple shouted for joy. Ezra 3.13 reads, “No one could distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping, because the people rejoiced very loudly. The sound was heard at a great distance.” It is good to know that the rejoicing was louder than the sobbing, yet I think it is important to recognize the painful aspect of rebuilding. Nothing was just as it was before. And that can be excruciating as well as exciting. As the poet Lynn Ungar (a UUA minister) writes, “That’s just the way it is with grief.” Some of us will move boldly into the changes needed and some of us will move tentatively. That’s also the nature of spring which is making its presence known to us more and more each day. Plymouth is going to look different in the coming months and years with new staff and new kinds of programming. We will not be able to just go back to how things were before. God sustained the Israelites and the temple was rebuilt. God will sustain us as we rebuild. Let us encourage and comfort one another as we grieve and rejoice – simultaneously at times, as we are tentative and bold. The transforming Spirit is making all things new! With you on the journey, AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series. 5/4/2022 A Faith Response to Roe v. Wade News: Special Message from Rev. Jane Anne FergusonRead Now  Dear Plymouth, I am writing as one of your pastors to say we are all in this together as we face the news of the leaked draft document from the Supreme Court that seems to give us a glimpse into the future of Roe v. Wade and abortion rights in this country. I know many of you are reeling, as am I. Over the last several years, we have endured blow after blow of polarization and the injustice it brings, particularly to those who are less advantaged through gender, sexual orientation, economics, education, or by virtue of the color of their skin. This news that impacts those who live in female bodies and their right to choose what is best for them in their own bodies is frightening and infuriating to those of us who are deeply pro-choice. Abortion is never to be taken lightly! AND yet each person who can become pregnant has a sacred right to be able to choose what is best for them and for their family. (I am intentionally not using the label, "woman/women," so that our siblings who are born into female bodies and yet consider themselves non-binary or gender non-conforming are included in our concern. They, too, may become pregnant or could have it forced upon them by violence. They, too, along with lesbian and cis-gendered women, may need the ability and right to choose what is best for their bodies and lives.) I want to remind you that the United Church of Christ has been proactive in addressing issues of reproductive justice since the 1970's. You can find the Reproductive Justice page on our national UCC website. There is a wonderfully succinct handout on the UCC stance that was given to youth in a class on Reproductive Justice at the 2012 National Youth Event. I found this short piece a helpful place to start in understanding our denominational history with this important justice work. No matter our personal views on abortion, let us stand together in concern for those whose life circumstances bring them to the place of needing to consider choosing abortion. Let us hold them in our prayers, particularly at this time when in many states their right to choose is in danger. Let us hold those in the medical profession in our prayers as well. They are navigating very difficult legal and ethical times as they seek to provide the best care possible for their patients. Let us hold the lawmakers we have elected in our prayers that they may come to see the justice issues of abortion in broader perspectives. Let us be grateful that here in Colorado abortion is protected by law. May it continue to be so and if necessary, may Colorado be a safe haven for those in need of abortion rights. With you on the journey,  Image: JAF As we move toward Easter this year, I am pondering the brokenness of the Holy Week story in contrast to the mysterious joy of the Easter story. I catch myself assuming that joy is equated with perfection. Everything just right, fixed, just the way things should be. I don’t think that kind of perfection is synonymous with joy. Joy is about wholeness, not perfection or being fixed just right. Joy can come in the midst of brokenness. It doesn’t erase the pain of brokenness, but it stands alongside, offering a glimmer of hope and healing, of the light of love. Many, many poets, theologians, storytellers and philosophers have written through the ages about brokenness and light. There are cracks in everything and that is how the light, sometimes God’s light, sometimes healing, sometimes strength gets into life and into our souls. In A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway wrote, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places." 13th century Sufi poet, Rumi, wrote, “Let a teacher wave away the flies and put a plaster on the wound. Don’t turn your head. Keep looking at the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you. And don’t believe for a moment that you’re healing yourself.” Leonard Cohen’s 1992 song “Anthem” sings out, “Forget your perfect offering./There is a crack, a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in.” In the stories of Holy Week, we see the One, Jesus of Nazareth, who came to model God’s peace, justice, love, forgiveness and true power, broken by the world. We bring our own brokenness to the hearing and experiencing of his story and there we meet the Holy. God, the Holy ONE, does not leave Jesus broken by the world. God brings a different ending to the story of death. And each year we need to hear God’s broken stories and God’s triumphant healing during this tumultuous week. If we listen closely, eventually, one of these years we will hear the Holy during Holy Week as the poet, Mary Oliver did her poem, “Everything That Was Broken” (from Felicity, Penguin Random House, ©2015) Everything that was broken has forgotten its brokenness. I live now in a sky-house, through every window the sun. Also your presence. Our touching, our stories. Earthly and holy both. How can this be, but it is. Every day has something in it whose name is forever. With you on the journey,  Dear Beloved Community of Plymouth UCC, Just after I turned sixty someone asked me when I would retire. I was stunned into silence. Retiring had never occurred to me. But the question had been asked and it remained because life is about living the questions. Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” Over the last year, as I have lived into the question of retirement, the answer has come. I will be retiring from parish ministry and ministry at Plymouth on February 28, 2023. My last Sunday will be February 26. After 24 years of parish ministry, I am being called to new ministry as a spiritual director. This is a bittersweet announcement. Many years ago, as I was preparing my ordination paper, I read about a minister who instructed a young seminarian with this definition of parish ministry: “Lead a fine worship. Visit the people.” This instruction has been my guiding light. The visiting takes place in meetings or study groups or the fellowship hall, even these days in email and text, as often as it does in hospital rooms or people’s homes. The worship takes place in meetings and studies and camp settings as well as in the sanctuary. These two things are what I will miss at times: leading fine worship and visiting the people. Yet I know that I am being called away from the myriad details of parish ministry into a new ministry of intentionally companioning people on their faith journeys through the art of spiritual direction with individuals and through retreat ministry. When I retire, I will leave Plymouth for a time and keep good boundaries with Plymouth members. I will worship in another community and will not be available for pastoral care, leading memorial services or weddings. It will be important for you to transfer connection to a new full-time associate who will be coming in 2023. I invite you to pray for this person, even though we do not yet know who it will be, as well as for our Associate Minister Search Committee which is already hard at work in the search process. As I hope you know, Plymouth is one of the flagship congregations in the Rocky Mountain Conference and I venture to say in the UCC. We are a vital, caring and socially active community. We strive to be healthy and transparent in our communication with one another. I have no doubt we can meet the challenges of the changing landscape of faith communities in our tumultuous times. After I served Plymouth as Sharon Benton’s sabbatical interim in 2010, I never thought I would get to serve with you on staff again, even though I knew I felt called to serve in a congregation much like Plymouth. Spirit works in mysterious ways! I am so very grateful! Over the next eleven months with you, I will still be planting seeds of ministry programming with the boards and committee I serve as staff liaison – Deacons, Outreach and Mission, Christian Formation and Nominating Committee. I will endeavor to leave an enduring organizational legacy for Plymouth’s lay ministry programs in pastoral care and adult Christian Formation. And I will enjoy leading worship and visiting/being with all of you! Thank you for the privilege of serving among you these last seven years. It continues to be an honor to be part of Plymouth’s staff and in this beloved community. Blessings on the journey, Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
Associate Minister  Better is one hand full of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. Ecclesiastes 4:6 Hello, Friends! It’s good to be back among you after two months of sabbath time rest. Thank you for the warm welcome in worship this past Sunday. What a joy to be together after another pandemic hiatus in live-streaming land! My favorite part was greeting the children up front during Children’s Time. I pray we can continue to come back together in person in “old, normal and familiar” ways, as well as many creative, new ways in the coming months. Many of you asked on Sunday, “How was your time away? Are you feeling more rested? Where did you go? What did you do?” Here are some answers…Yes, I am feeling more rested and rejuvenated. And my hope is that I have developed some new habits for incorporating Sabbath rest into working life. It took me time to slow down my body to soul speed. In January I was in Fort Collins, resting at home, due to the pandemic and to the kind of rest I needed. I read books, novels and non-fiction, that I had been hoping to read. Three of them were for the Spiritual Direction training that I started in November: Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer, The Discerning Heart, by Wilkie and Noreen Au, Owning Your Own Shadow, by Jungian analyst, Robert Johnson. I highly recommend all of them and each of them would make a good Plymouth adult book study. I watched all the Harry Potter movies again and some fun TV series. I took many naps. I did as much yoga as I could with online helps since it did not feel safe to be at the gym. I did a lot of reflection – on my own and with therapists and my spiritual director. I journaled a lot about the past five or so years of my life, dealing with the challenges of my beloved’s cancer journey and the loss of my son, Colin, to suicide in 2018. By February, I felt rested enough to travel and the covid numbers were starting to go down. I spent six beautiful days on a yoga retreat with other Fort Collin’s women at the Trailwinds Eco-Lodge just outside San Francisco (“San Pancho”), Mexico, about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta. This exquisite place is situated in the jungle on the side of mountains that go down to the beach and the Bay of Banderas. The accommodations are partially open-air. Under my mosquito net, I drifted off to sleep to the sound of the waves, the insects, and the wind in the palm trees. During the day we swam, did yoga in a palapa overlooking the beach, sailed and whale watched and enjoyed each other’s company. It was definitely a wonderful break. I returned to the snow of Colorado for three days then headed to Guilford, CT and New York City to visit with my “sister” friend, Tina, my sister and brother-in-law, Julia and Jerome, and my son, Dylan for six days. This time was very precious. I had not seen my friend and sister for over two years or Dylan’s new brownstone apartment in Brooklyn. Lots of visiting, some museum and movie time just being together. Once again to Colorado in snow, just in time to be in Denver on 2/22/22, for the celebration of the mini-documentary on the Meow Wolf Denver installation that my son, Colin, and his friend, Pepe Apentanco, designed before Colin’s death. In the worst of the pandemic (late 2020 through fall of 2021) Pepe and many of Colin’s friends in the Denver DIY art community made, “Aquakota,” a nightclub run by alien space lemurs and featuring Colin’s best dance music, a work of art! 222 was Colin’s favorite number. It signified to him movement and getting things, art, done and out in the community. Thus we celebrated in the installation space on that auspicious day, 2/22/22, with a concert by two of Colin’s music colleagues, Ben Donehower and David Castillo. If you go to Meow Wolf in Denver (and I suggest you do! You have never seen an art installation quite like Meow Wolf!) check out “Aquakota” on C Street. It’s down the little alley next door to the movie theater. You can find the Westword article from 2/21/22 that launched the mini-documentary here. After all of that excitement, I came back to Fort Collins for more snow and painting the family room in our house as a way of returning to a work schedule! LOL! I had a lot of good fun, some very meaningful times with dear ones, and good rest. As I think back, did I learn anything to share from my sabbatical time? I learned it took much longer than I thought to unwind, to be rid of the “shoulds.” Early in January, I found myself asking daily, sometimes more than once a day, “Shouldn’t I be doing something productive?” This prompted the more important soul question, “Well, what is ‘productive?’ Is productive getting all the tasks that I have assigned to myself for this day done in record time so I can do even more? Is productive meeting everyone else’s needs before I find time to meet my own call of the soul? Is productive being so busy you don’t notice how the snow is falling so beautifully or how the dog is rejoicing, literally jumping and racing and rolling, in the falling snow?” What I learned – what I am continuing to learn, for learning is practicing ¬– is to remind myself to move a little slower through life so that I can take in moments that I often raced through with anxiety. God is in these quiet, connective moments. As our Lenten devotional poet tells us in her poem, From Here in the Sand,* God stands with us in all moments, the relaxed oasis moments and the fiercest sandstorm moments of the desert wilderness called Life. God has been there all along, way before we got to any of our moments. And God stands with us singing songs of water in the desert even during the most stinging winds. I invite you to find some Sabbath moments with God this Lent whether life is coming to you gently like a breeze through palm trees or like the blast of a storm. God is with you in all moments, inviting you to notice the wonder and/or bleakness of the scenery. Inviting you to notice God’s steadfast presence as the fleeting glimpse of an exotic butterfly or a long drink of cold water. Don’t let the “shoulds” of life overtake you! Notice who you are in God’s presence, where you are, and what gifts are being given in every moment. Blessings and with you on the journey,  *Rev. Sarah Speed | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series.
I hope that you all had a chance to hear my colleague, JT Smeidendorf’s, sermon this past Sunday, "Hard Truth, Sweet Fruit." If not, click the link to experience it. His scripture text was from Luke 3 in which John the Baptist, the wild man prophet, is proclaiming God’s call to freedom, to new life, in the wilderness. “Change your life!” calls John. “Empowered by God’s grace and forgiveness.” “Learn to resist oppression through sloughing off old ways of resentment, fear and scarcity through sharing your abundance and God’s love.” The call to new life in God’s realm is freeing and joyful. It is also hard. It comes with hard truths, with a keen, realistic view of the world with all its beauty and treachery. It is a call to a journey towards wholeness that we know only through learning to walk in the darkness of the shadow side of ourselves as individuals and communities. JT illuminated John’s call and its joyful costs of service as we lit the pink Advent candle of Joy on Sunday. This year’s Plymouth Advent devotional, Advent Unbound, sheds light on the prophet’s call to joy and hard times. “Among shadows of sorrow, grief, and despair … we light a candle of joy. Joy that God calls us to lives of simple generosity and justice: Got two coats? Give one away. Be fair. Be grateful. And joy that God promises to burn away the “chaff,” the husks on our hearts that get in the way of doing such simple, beautiful things.” Late last week I was contacted by a young adult who has been attending Plymouth regularly, Gray La Fond. In the midst of recovering from a booster shot, caring for an aging, ailing and beloved dog, and finishing finals, Gray is on a mission of Joy. Here is the mission in Gray’s own words: “Hello, my name is Gray La Fond and I am a new attendee of services here. I wanted to invite you to participate in a project of mine to bring blankets, socks, jackets, cash, gift cards, wipes/toiletries, and Christmas cookies to the homeless. I am making three types of cookies and I will be buying a few blankets and some warm socks. This is an independent, unaffiliated project of mine as I see my vocation as service. I plan to distribute these supplies to the places where I usually see the homeless, like outside grocery stores, this week until the 19th. I am a CSU student and I will be flying back to San Diego on the 20th, hence the end date. If you would like to drive around with me, I would love that. If you don’t have time to pass anything out yourself, you can give it to me and I can do that part. If you feel inspired to do something on your own, that is great, too. Please contact me via email or at (858) 281-3042 to let me know if you want to join me.” Psalm 30.5b tells us that “Weeping will stay for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” Lamentations, a book of lament and grief, tells us in chapter 3, verses 22-23, that “The steadfast love of the God never ceases; God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.” I believe Gray understands this, as did John the Baptist in his call. And they both inspire me to look for God’s joy each morning in this third week of Advent. This morning (Tuesday) I brought some Blessing Bags with toiletries and warm socks as well as a gently used coat to donate to Gray’s efforts and placed them in a box in Plymouth’s narthex. You can find what I am calling Gray’s “Joy Box” there and place your donations in and around it until the office closes on Friday (12/17) at 4 pm. Or contact Gray (info above) and help distribute the Joy! With you on the Advent journey, Advent Unbound Week Three: Joy
AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series.  Plymouth and Neighbor 2 Neighbor 17th Annual Homelessness Prevention Vigil and Youth Sleep Out IN PERSON! Saturday, December 4-5, 2021 Vigil at 5 pm North Parking Lot Patio of Plymouth UCC We are live and in person this year for the 17th annual Homelessness Prevention Vigil and Youth Sleep Out! Last year we persevered through extreme social distancing in Plymouth’s north parking lot with a video vigil shown to us on a blow-up screen in the back of two pick-ups and the sound coming to our cars through FM radio. And all our teen programming was through Zoom and each teen slept out in their own backyard. This year we can all gather for the vigil at the steps of the patio in the north parking lot as we have traditionally done with barrel fires, live music and inspirational speakers. Sister Mary Alice Murphy, one of the founders of the Homelessness Prevention Program, will inspire us with her passion for serving the poor and dis-enfranchised. New to our vigil speaker line-up will be Fort Collins mayor, Jenny Arndt who has been on the front lines of social justice issues for many years in Colorado state government. Our high school teens and their adult sponsors will have a soup supper and breakfast (provided by the Outreach and Mission Board) outside on the Plymouth lawn. Their educational activities will be socially distance and masked in our fellowship hall. They will sleep out in their traditional cardboard boxes on the front lawn in solidarity with homeless people who only have cardboard box shelters to sleep in year around. Perhaps you are new to Plymouth and to this Plymouth staple of holiday traditions…WHAT EXACTLY IS THE HOMELESSNESS PREVENTION VIGIL AND SLEEPOUT? It is an annual event in which high school youth sleep outdoors in cardboard boxes to raise awareness of the issue of homelessness in our community and gain empathy for the incredible challenges that homeless individuals face on a daily basis. As part of this event, youth also participate in an educational session focused on the complex nature of homelessness and its impact on both individuals and communities. To engage the wider community in this event, there is also a vigil in which people of all ages are invited to listen to a variety of speakers discuss various facets of the issue of poverty in Northern Colorado. Most importantly, the Sleepout is a fundraiser for Neighbor to Neighbor’s Homeless Prevention Program, which provides rental assistance to help keep individuals and families in their homes. The need for Neighbor to Neighbor’s services is up 2000% in 2020, which means the money raised from this event is much-needed and will be put to good use in our community! In the early 2000s Plymouth’s Senior Minister, the Rev. Hal Chorpenning began meeting Sister Mary Alice Murphy and others from St. Joseph and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic parishes to brainstorm how homelessness can be prevented rather than “cured.” They developed a non-profit, the Homelessness Prevention Initiative, for providing rental assistance to keep families out of homelessness. HPI is now the Homelessness Prevention Program of Neighbor 2 Neighbor. N2N estimates that, once a family becomes homeless, the per household costs of a temporary shelter housing, emergency room visits, agency services, food baskets, and the new housing total $5,000 or more per family. A cost of $300 rental assistance per family looks pretty good compared to $5,000! For over 12+ years, many Plymouth volunteers staffed the application and interview processes for families to receive assistance. At the recommendation of a Plymouth member who had recently transferred from a UCC church in Minnesota, the idea for the youth sleepout to raise funds took shape. This is a village – Plymouth and Larimer county social justice non-profits and other front range faith communities – helping another village – our Larimer county neighbors who need help staying in their homes. You can find more information on the Plymouth/Neighbor 2 Neighbor Homelessness Prevention Program Sleep Out and Vigil on the Plymouth website. Join us this Saturday, December 4, 2021 at 5 pm for the 17th Annual Sleep Out Vigil! Remember:
See you Saturday at 5 pm at the Vigil as we sing, pray and are inspired by those on the front lines of eradicating homelessness in Larimer County! With you on the journey, AuthorBrooklyn is Plymouth's Director of Christian Formation for Children & Youth. She has served in local church and student ministries for the past several years. A native of northern Colorado, Brooklyn has professional experience leading in worship, youth, and children’s programs. Read her full bio here.  Dear Plymouth! This year we are sending each household a printed copy of the SALT Project’s Advent devotional, Advent Unbound. It is a unique and joyful way to enter this season of preparation for welcoming the Christ as a child once again into our hearts. Look for your copy in the mail! (A digital copy was emailed to members mid-month.) The Adult Forum Team will be using this material each Sunday morning of Advent. Join them in the Forum Room at 10:00 am or Zoom in to their presentation. (The Zoom link will be in the Saturday email.) Sara and Peter Mullarkey are facilitating a Zoom discussion of the devotional each Thursday evening in Advent (2nd, 9th, 16th, and 23rd) 6:30-8 p.m. Sign up on the Advent page. Just to entice you…here is an excerpt from the intro to Advent Unbound: God becoming incarnate in a human being is too astounding, too dazzling, too impossible an event to merely celebrate on a single day. We need to prepare beforehand, and extend the jubilation when it arrives (“On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love said to me...”). And so we add Christmas Eve to Christmas Day, a preparatory candlelight vigil. But even that isn’t enough – and so we design a whole season of anticipation, four weeks of waiting and preparing, all so we’ll be ready to welcome and receive Jesus when he comes. The word “Advent” means coming or arrival. The Christian year begins not with the trumpets of Easter, or the wonder of Christmas Eve, or the winds of Pentecost – but on the contrary, in Advent, we begin in the shadows of despair, conflict, sorrow, and hate. For it’s here that the God of grace will arrive. And so it’s here that God’s church is called to light candles of heartfelt hope, peace, joy, and love. Poetry can help, as can “unbinding” poetry from dusty bookshelves or intimidating expertise. The Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama’s beloved podcast, “Poetry Unbound,” is an inspiring case in point: evocative, accessible poems illuminated with sensitivity and insight by Ó Tuama’s commentary. In this Advent devotional, we let scripture and “Poetry Unbound” be our guides, together pointing us toward weekly practices that can help deepen and enrich our experience of the season – a perfect way to prepare for the hope, peace, joy, and love of Christmas day. So grab a Bible and your favorite way of listening to the “Poetry Unbound” podcast (the poems and episode transcripts can also be read online at onbeing.org/series/poetry-unbound/). Week by week, poem by poem, we’ll wait and prepare and listen and sing, unbinding the season – and with God’s help, unbinding our hearts – along the way. Hope you will make the journey through Advent with our Plymouth community and this devotional offering. Remember the two discussion opportunities above! And you can discuss what shimmers for you, challenges you, comforts you with friends and family at dinner. Play a poem for your kids! Happy Thanksgiving and join us Sunday for Advent!  Looking around, Jesus said to his disciples, "It will be very hard for the wealthy to enter God's kingdom!" His words startled the disciples, … "Children, it's difficult to enter God's kingdom! It's easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter God's kingdom." They were shocked even more …, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them carefully and said, "It's impossible with human beings, but not with God. All things are possible for God."… Peter said to him, "Look, we've left everything and followed you." … [Jesus said,] “…many who are first will be last. And many who are last will be first." Mark 10.23b -25, 28, 31 * I don’t know about you, but Hal’s sermon this past Sunday really challenged me to think again… and again and again….about my financial resources. Hal and I may live in the same house, but we rarely hear each other’s sermons before the worship services on Sunday morning. We often surprise one another. Echoing Jesus’ words, Hal’s words us challenged how we look at ourselves and at our lives as Americans. None of us may be in the top 1% of the wealthiest, but we are in the top echelons of the wealthy in comparison to most of the world’s people. If we have a place to live, food to eat, education, healthcare of some kind and opportunity for work – and meaningful work at that - we can consider ourselves “rich.” The difficulty of being “rich” in our world is that it has the potential to cut us off from the wealth of God’s kin-dom or realm that is here and now on our earth. The possessions and accoutrements of first world wealth, even middle to upper middle class wealth, can distract us from seeking God first in our lives. We get distracted with taking care of houses and cars, etc., etc. We are distracted with worrying about investments or getting ahead in jobs so we can make more money. We think we have built our small “kingdoms” of family and resources all by ourselves. We forget that God is the giver of all we have! Living in God’s economy, in God’s song of abundance, there is more enough for all! Jesus invites those of us who are “first” in line in the world’s eyes to move to the back of the line. My imagination shows me a line of people waiting to receive food — perhaps in a buffet or cafeteria situation or maybe it’s an abundant potluck. Some of the people are emaciated and look as if they have not eaten for days while others are healthy and robust. It is quite apparent that there is enough food for all on the table. Which group should go first in line? It is too obvious for words. Yet this is not the justice in which our contemporary competitive systems always operate, is it? Even if we care deeply about changing the world for justice, we are often overwhelmed by the challenge. What is an action item we can each do to move from “first” to “last” even as we remember that there is really no linear order in God’s realm. We are ALL God’s people interconnected in love. What can we do – each of us, right now? We can consider our resources, their abundance. Some of us are at a more abundant time in life than others, true, yet we all have something to give. And we can each give out of what we have to build the ministry of Plymouth as part of God’s realm on earth. What can you give that challenges you to acknowledge and celebrate God’s abundance? $10 a month? $25? $100? $150? $300? $500? $1000? More? Give out of prayerful consideration, out of a full and grateful heart! Yes, you will be helping others as our budget dollars go to our Outreach and Mission partners, to supporting the spiritual formation of children, youth and adults, to facilitating inspiring worship, to building the administrative infrastructure of our church that provides transparent communication and a solid logistical foundation for our ministries. More importantly, you will be intentionally remembering that your whole self, body, mind and soul, live and move and have their being in God and God’s Spirit of Abundance. The prophet Amos reminds us. Seek the LORD and live, … Seek good and not evil, that you may live; … the [Holy One], will be with you. (Amos 5. 6a,14a) “All things are possible for God," says Jesus. Even giving more than we might imagine at first glance that we can give! Take the challenge with me, *Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 39604, 39607-39608). AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series.  “No experience exists apart from the story we tell about it.” Gareth Higgins, Ring Lake Ranch, 9/6/21 Last week Hal and I had the privilege to be with author, storyteller, and peacemaker, Gareth Higgins at Ring Lake Ranch, just south of Dubois, WY. Gareth is a native of Northern Ireland and grew up in Belfast during “the Troubles” of the 1980’s and 1990’s before the Peace Accord. By his own admission, he grew up with fear in an evangelical Protestant household that had family ties to Catholic relatives. And he was coming into to the realization that he was gay. He grew up with stories about life that engendered fear as well as with the threat of real danger. Throughout his young adulthood he worked in peacemaking efforts in Ireland and around the world. He became one of the founders of the progressive and post-evangelical Christian Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina where he completed a PhD in sociology and met his husband, Brian Ammons, an Alliance of Baptists (very progressive Baptists) pastor and an educator with his own PhD in education. This is part of the “outside” story of Gareth. We were privileged to learn some of Gareth’s and Brian’s “inside” story – that they are some of the warmest and most welcoming people you could ever meet, funny and full of joy, deep, compassionate listeners, incredible partners in the ministries that each of them has in the world, wise beyond their middle years, and both of them forces for peacemaking, violence reduction, the power of dreams and connection with the earth. Last week was a week of great beauty in the wilderness of the Wind River Range of Wyoming where Ring Lake Ranch is situated in a beautiful valley with three lakes for fishing, many hiking trails and a stable full of horses for riding. I hope you can go there at some point to connect with the earth and to be part of the wonderful conference learning. However, my experience of the Ranch last week was not just centered around Gareth and Brian or the beauty of the setting. My experience was the delight of sinking into a “tribe” of creative people from all over the country eager to ask questions about deepening their faith, passionate about peacemaking in small and big ways in our fractious world, brimming with joy in their experiences of wilderness, and willing to share with vulnerability their personal fears and their fears in this time of pandemic, political division and climate crisis. We learned and laughed and cried and did dishes after each meal together, creating community from a group of people that had never met and would never be in same place together again, community that was precious and taught me about the kin-dom of God’s beloved community. This week I return to work as one of your pastors and to the community of Plymouth. I bring a more rested mind, a more centered heart, and a desire to share with you the story that as fearful as things might be, we, too, can be vulnerable with one another as we create beloved community here in Fort Collins. The pandemic is not over. We are having to pivot daily it seems to create protocols and programming that creatively meets the challenges of keeping folks safe. We are ALL tired and frayed with the stress of this pandemic story we are living, tired of wearing masks that hide our expressive faces, tired of not meeting together in the ways in which we have always been accustomed. We are ALL a bit grumpy and anxious, some more than others – even your pastors! Our patience is waning. We have had a lot of staff change in the midst of one of the hardest years our culture and society has had to endure. And as a community we are facing having to embrace a tragedy in one of our families that most of us have never been confronted by, the incarceration of one of our youth for a violent crime. We are all shaken, unsettled, heartbroken in some way, and perhaps, feel alienated from our community even as we long for its sustenance and nurture. We all feel the fearful loss of control over our lives in large or small ways. And that creates fear inside of us and among us. Fear is uncomfortable, to say the least. Yet, what if we tell a new story about our fears?
A wise and youngish man who continually faces his own fears and who has learned to tell the story of his fears through the lens of love said to Hal and I and the gathered community at Ring Lake Ranch last week, “No experience exists apart from the story we tell about it.” My dear Plymouth, how will we tell, and by telling, create our story of beloved community in these trying, exhausting, yet full of possibility, times? With you on the journey,  PS! Join the Adult Forum team the next two Sundays, 9/19 and 26, as they explore with us themes from Gareth Higgins’ book How Not to Be Afraid: Seven Ways to Live when Everything Seems Terrifying! And look for news about possible book study groups of this group coming later in the fall. *Gareth Higgins, How Not to Be Afraid: Seven Ways to Live when Everything Seems Terrifying, (Broadleaf Books, Minneapolis, MN: 2021, 33). Image: J.A. Ferguson
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