Dear Plymouth,

I am writing this reflection as I head into my short sabbatical time (July 20 – August 22). I want to thank you for affording your called ministerial staff with this kind of time away to be renewed for ministry! It is a great blessing.

Many of you have asked, “Where are you going? What are you going to do?” Well, current circumstances prevent me going much of anywhere. I am very fortunate that we have a lovely backyard and garden with a new sitting area under our apple trees and a new hammock. This is where I will go! And what will I do? I will spend as much time as possible in being rather than doing.

What is being time? I don’t know about you, but my mind starts scheduling my day the minute my feet hit the floor each morning. “Where is my list of work tasks? What needs to be done to keep our household running, laundry, cleaning, cooking? Where is the new puppy? What does she need to learn today?” You know your own drill. And I try to incorporate a few minutes…maybe even 20… of being time into my morning routine for prayer each day. I try to remember to “pray without ceasing” throughout the day as I encounter the conundrums and joys of work and home and just life. There are many distractions, as you know! Now it’s time to go deeper to develop new habits.

The word and concept of “sabbatical” comes from “sabbath,” a day that you keep as “holy,” mindful of the Holy One, God. During these weeks away I will endeavor (and pray) to wake up with the “Holy” on my mind as my feet hit the floor. Upon waking I hope to be mindful of the sacredness of taking the puppy out first thing, the sacredness of coffee, of the birds at the feeder, of the sun and the clouds, of the news, of the dreams I remember, of the reading and journaling during the day. As I write, I am not imagining a choir singing “Ahhhh” somewhere as background music to an idyllic video of my daily routine. I am imagining what it is like to live the nitty gritty of each day dedicated to and in relationship with God, even the taking out of trash and compost, the dusting, the pick-up of puppy poop, the heartbreak of our current times.

A sabbatical, a sabbath time, is the time to practice this. I try to practice it one day a week or more likely a half day a week when I am working. It often gets interrupted with my distractions. I am hoping that practicing sabbath being more mindfully for this set period of time will further embed it in the habits of my mind, heart and soul so that when I return to ministry in late August there will be new focus and sustenance for pastoral care and leadership. That as I resume the list of ministerial tasks, I will bring with me the habit of the practice of being mindfully connected to the Holy no matter what I am doing. It will always be a practice never a “perfect.“

I invite you to set aside sabbath time in your life. Discover what it is for you to “remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy.” The root of the English word “holy” that translates the Hebrew word for “sacred” meant “whole.” What practice do you need to invite you into sacred wholeness in relationship with the Holy One?

Many Blessings! Until August 23rd…

"How do we live a life worthwhile of our breath?"
- Ocean Vuong, poet, novelist, professor

This morning as I walked in our beautiful Colorado sunshine, I listened to Vietnamese American poet and novelist, Ocean Vuong, as he was interviewed by Krista Tippet on her podcast, On Being. I was not familiar with him or with his work before today. He is a young man of amazing intellect and insight, creativity and sensitivity. The podcast is definitely worth a listen! Such a rich conversation about how language makes our lives, sets the tone and parameters for our values, creates our world. Recorded this past March just before the pandemic shut-down, you would think Vuong and Tippet were conversing just yesterday in the midst of the two pandemics we are living with now, Covid-19 and the much older, Covid-1619, or the systemic racism our country has had since its beginning. 
 
Vuong reflected on his Buddhist practice of “death meditation,” a practice in which one meditates on the impermanence of life, the inevitability of death and our fear of dying. Vuong spoke of the vitality this meditation practice brings to his life and to his creativity. It brings him to the question, “How do we live a life worthwhile of our breath?” 
 
A life worthwhile of our breath…this phrase can take us so many places. To Genesis 1 where the world was created as the Spirit of God “breathed” upon the waters of the deep bringing forth life. To the automatic breathing that keeps us alive without our thinking consciously about it. To the concentration on our breath that can slow and calm our minds and hearts in meditation and prayer. To George Floyd’s last cry, “I can’t breathe!” Breath is life. Breath is sacred. What will we create in the breath of our life? “How do we live a life worthwhile of our breath?”
 
It is so easy to be overwhelmed by the grief of our times. I feel it everyday. The grief of illness and unemployment, the grief of mourning for loved ones, the grief of injustice. Our first instinct as human beings in the face of such overwhelm is to push away the pain and find what to DO. Yet spiritual teachers of all traditions call us first to BE and even to be with the pain. We cannot change a troubled situation, a tragic systemic injustice, or offer change to another hurting person unless we have allowed ourselves to be changed first. Change begins with us. 
 
Tedious as it may seem, the change for justice, the healing of enmities, the transformation of minds and hearts for loving one another, all these begin with allowing our selves, our souls, to be transformed by God’s love. We begin by accepting the love of God and welcoming it into our very bodies. We slow down for at least some moments of each day to Breathe. To consciously let in the Breath of Life acknowledging it comes from Love and will heal our overwhelmed souls; then breathing out the Breath of Life knowing only Love can heal the world. 
 
I challenge you to practice breathing this way five minutes each day. See where it might lead you in living a life worthwhile of your life-giving breath. Concentrate on your breathing, on Love, not on what you want to change when your five minutes is over. Allow the Spirit to transform your nervous, anxious thoughts, your feelings of not being enough or doing enough. Just Breathe in Love. Pause and let it be in you. Then Breath out Love and trust God is ahead of you in the work for justice and healing our world needs. Pause and trust. Then Breathe again. Just BE in the Breath of Life. For five minutes. See what happens for the rest of your day. (And, of course, you can always repeat when needed!)
 
“How do we live a life worthwhile of our breath?”
With you in hope on this pandemic journey!

Blessings,

P.S. If you want more information on meditation/breath prayer practices, please let one of your pastors know. We have lots of resources. One place to begin is WeRiseNow.org, a site for Christian meditation practice that provides daily emails with a recorded guided meditation practice. One of the founders, the Rev. Dr. Robert Martin, is a dear friend of mine. 

“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, 
and in between them, there are doors.”
(William Blake, late 18th/early 19th century poet)

Blake’s words are visceral, evoking muscle memory as well as emotional memory. We know what it is to move from one space to another, opening a door, crossing its threshold. We normally do not think anything of it in our everyday lives. But when we speak of the meaning of liminal, “of or pertaining to a threshold,” when we think of liminal space in our lives, in our souls, we receive Blake’s image with a powerful punch. The crossing from known to unknown (and perhaps, back again) may be exciting, quick, full of fiery imagination. It may be excruciatingly slow, inch by inch, from light into darkness, before there is the possibility of finding light again. Or something in between. 
 
Whatever it is, to be in liminal space is to stand on the threshold just before taking that next step into the next room. It is a place of grace that usually does not feel particularly grace-full, but often hard, dangerous. As Father Richard Rohr has written it is a place of such vulnerability and openness that there is room for something genuinely new to happen. “We are empty and receptive—erased tablets waiting for new words. Liminal space is where we are most teachable, often because we are most humbled.”
 
In this global pandemic, we are all currently in liminal space. We have been sheltering in place for two months or more. “Staying safer at home” has become known to us. It’s become our routine. And now there is talk of re-opening society. Finding, hopefully, safe ways to come together again in person. For some of us this is such welcome talk! For others it is terrifying. For others it just creates a low-level sense of dis-ease. And some of us are in the lonely place of knowing we will not re-enter society until there is a vaccine….and when will that be?! All of these reactions to moving into the unknown of what our new “normal” will look like as we continue to grapple with this pandemic leave us in liminal space. 
 
I want to reassure you that your pastors and church staff are considering ALL of the reactions above as we move from the “known” of sheltering in place, livestream worship, and Zoom meetings into the “unknown” of what is next. We do not yet have ready answers or safe formulas that can make the “unknown” of re-opening feel entirely comfortable or doable. We are using the scientific data and the health precautions from trusted Colorado and national institutions of health, as well as research and models from national church leaders in multiple mainline denominations, to fuel our vision for Plymouth’s re-opening. 
 
The bottom line is that “church” is going to look different from here on out. It will never look entirely the same as it did in February of this year. What has not changed is the Love of God that brings us together, calling us to worship, to care for one another, to deepen our spiritual lives in study and prayer, to minister beyond our walls to those who are in need. You all know that the church is not the building, as beloved as it may be with its memories of fellowship and worship. The church is You. It is US held in the creative container of God’s love. 
 
So, know that as your pastors and staff, we miss you all!! Know that we are here for one another by phone and Zoom and livestream. Know that the connection of our sacred bond as community is not broken and cannot be even by a global pandemic. Be patient with yourself, with your family, with your church leadership and community as we move from our current “known” across the threshold into the “unknown.” “Known” and “unknown” – it is all held in the heart of God.
 
With you on this journey,
Jane Anne

Dear Plymouth,

How is your soul?

I have a dear, longtime friend, who often begins her conversations with this question, “How is your soul?" I always appreciate that someone cares about my soul, that someone draws my attention to it in the midst of life’s distractions. It is always a blessing to hear this question. So I ask you, friends, in these days of sheltering in place, of isolation, and even quarantine for some of you, how are your souls?

At times, my soul seems numb to all the pain and suffering in the world, to the discord and dysfunction of national leadership, to the extreme needs of those who do not have jobs they can work at home or those who do not have homes at this time. I cannot take it all in and I feel helpless.

At times, my soul is grateful for the greater abundance of silence and solitude I am having. More time to establish a deeper prayer and meditation routine. More time to read. More time to just BE. Time to watch the birds at the bird feeders. Time to walk and watch spring emerge.

At other times, my soul is impatient! Even impatient to the point of anger! Impatient with the lack of supplies for our medical workers in a country that sees itself as the most abundant in the world. Impatient with people who do not seem to be taking the seriousness of this pandemic to heart. Impatient with those who are not seeing how deeply we are all connected in the world.

This virus has revealed in a terrifyingly clear way that we are all connected in creation. No one is an island, no community is an island, no state or country is an island. The earth and all humanity and all living flora and fauna and the air we breathe and the land we live on and that sustains us with food and shelter – we are connected. My soul is eager, impatient to discover how we will take this to heart as a lesson hard learned from the pandemic.

At times my soul is very sad as it does take in the gravity and the immensity of the suffering emanating from the consequences of these times. At times my soul is worried and fearful for the health of loved ones, for the economic plight of so many friends who work in a gig economy. At times my soul is weeping from the pain.

At times my soul takes heart in a renewed sense of the presence of the Holy One who is still mysteriously holding all of creation in Love. These are the times I cherish. These are the times I have not said my prayers in haste, rushing off to the next meeting. I have taken the time to sink into the presence of the Holy, who I am sensing these days as Mother. I take time to pour my heart out to the Divine that is strong, powerful and compassionate, full of comfort. The time I spend with the Holy empowers me to move back into work, into relationship and into finding the seemingly small things that I can do to make a difference during these times of fear, uncertainty, and dis-ease.

How is your soul?

I invite you to ponder this question today and throughout your week, even as we hear the news of “re-opening” measures. What will you keep from your time of isolation? What will you let go from the time before pandemic that you have discovered you do not need? How is your soul in its divine relationship with the Holy directing you to move ahead as we continue to shelter one another in this completely connected world God has given us?

I leave you with words from Psalm 116 taken from the book, Psalms for Praying, by Nan Merrill.

Receive my love, O Beloved, You who hear my voice and my supplication.

You incline your ear to me, and I will call upon You with trust
for as long as I live.
When the snares of fear encompass me, when the pangs of loneliness envelop me,
I suffer distress and anguish.
Then I call upon you, my Rock: “O Beloved, I beseech you, come to my aid!”

Gracious are You and just; the Heart of all hearts is merciful and forgiving.
You preserve the simple; though I am humbled, You lift me up.
Return, O my soul, to your rest; for You, O Loving Companion Presence,
bestow grace upon grace, a balm for my soul.

You raise me up to new life; You dry my tears,
and guide my feet on straight paths.
Now, I walk hand in hand with Love in the land of the awakened ones.
I keep my faith, even in times of great turmoil;
I invite others to awaken to the joy of your Presence.

Blessings on the journey,

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
                                    From St. Patrick’s Breastplate
 
I write to you today sitting at my kitchen island as we all hunker down further into this time of self-isolation and quarantine. I just heard that my gym was closed for 30 days and my acupuncturist for 1-2 weeks. We will hold staff meeting today by Zoom conference calling. It seems there is another confirmed case of Covid-19 in Loveland. (Please pray for those involved! You can read about it here at the Larimer County website.) These are different, interesting, anxiety-producing times. 
 
Yet life goes on...And good things happen! Today we will celebrate Christopher Chorpenning’s 19th birthday with pizza and Guinness and Torte della Nona, our favorite Italian dessert! (Hal is making it as I write....wish I could insert the wonderful smells of custard and toasted pine nuts into this reflection!) Yesterday I walked in the sunshine and took pizza to a friend who had just moved and broken her hand in the process. Today we are receiving moisture that we always need in Colorado. What are you celebrating today?  
 
The quotation above from St. Patrick’s Breastplate, an ancient Irish loricaor hymn, reminds me that God in Christ is always with us, protecting, accompanying, healing. I have prayed with it often. The Breastplate is a very long 5th century hymn in the style of Druidic poetry that is attributed to St. Patrick. Each verse begins with the phrase, “I arise today” or “I bind to myself today” and calls for the divine protection of God in the Trinity, God as Creator, God as Christ, God as Spirit. (You can read the whole of it at this link.) 
 
Legend has it that St. Patrick sang this when an ambush was laid against him and his followers by the High King Learyto prevent him from going Tara to share the faith at the High King’s seat of power. A miracle happened and it appeared  to those lying in ambush that St. Patrick and his monks were wild deer with a fawn following them. (Thus, the hymn is also called, The Deer’s Cry.) They were protected because know that Patrick and his followers shared the faith all across Ireland. 
 
I invite you today to and in the coming days to use the portion of St. Patrick’s hymn quoted above as a prayer of protection when you are anxious You can also sing it! Below are words from a hymn in our hymnal that uses another portion of the Breastplate. And there is a link in the first line to an American choir singing the same tune in our hymnal. 

I sing as I arise today! 
I call on my Creator’s might: 
The will of God to be my guide, 
The eye of God to be my sight,
The word of God to be my speech, 
The hand of God to be my stay, 
The shield of God to be my strength, 
The path of God to be my way.
Alleluia, alleluia,
Alleluia, alleluia,
Alleluia, alleluia,
Alleluia, alleluia.

I leave you with a final link on the very Irish morning here in Colorado...our weather fits what they call “a soft day” in Ireland....I arise today. This is a beautiful contemplative rendition of St. Patrick’s hymn with prayerful pictures of Ireland and people celebrating the joy of God’s love. 
 
Beannacht! Blessings in Gaelic!

With you on this wilderness journey,

PS....Don’t forget our livestreaming worship coming to you Sundays at 11 am on our Facebook page!

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. ... a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him! Matthew 17.1-2, 5

We’ve been at this historical site before, but not in any
history we remember.
The present has been cloaked in cloud before, and not on
any holy mountaintop.”
From “Interesting Times”by Mark Jarman

This coming Sunday is the last Sunday in the season of Epiphany. It is Transfiguration Sunday when we celebrate the mysterious story of Jesus’ mountaintop experience of God’s blessing and his disciples’ experience of Jesus illuminated by God’s presence with him and within him. It is a story of revelation. As readers of the gospel we are prompted to consider, “who is this One that shines with Divinity?“

We are also prompted to consider, “What happens to disciples when they see the face of God on the mountain? How are they changed?” As readers we are the disciples experiencing this mystery. Transfiguration is akin to transformation but not quite the same. It has something to do with seeing the “real” or the “true” or the “holy” within the everyday or the familiar. Transfiguration is being in the present moment “cloaked in cloud” whether or not we are on a mountaintop. It has something to do with being transformed by seeing transformation, seeing the transfigured.

On the mountaintop Jesus is revealed as at his baptism as God’s beloved, God’s revelation of God’s self. We know Peter, John and James were changed by this experience in some dramatic way. Maybe like us who are puzzling over the story to this very day, they puzzled over it all their lives. Maybe not since they were eye witnesses to the resurrection which the transfiguration of Jesus foreshadows. Still the story of the transfiguration of Jesus is mysterious, one to be pondered. Like metaphor it asks to be looked at sideways and talked about indirectly. Perhaps this is also, the only way the disciples could take in Jesus’ shining appearance. I do know that the story must be held in balance with the stories of preaching, teaching, and healing that we encounter after Jesus and his companions descend from the mountaintop. In these stories, Jesus shines with true humanity steeped in God’s ways. Perhaps the Transfiguration is really understood best in tension with shininess of everyday life.

As we head toward Transfiguration Sunday, Ash Wednesday and Lent, I invite you to consider this question, “Who is this One that shines with Divinity and with true Humanity?” Do the stories of this One change your present moment? Will you let the presence of the Holy One shine through the stories to transfigure your soul?

Blessings on the journey,

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined”
(Isaiah 9:2).
 
“.... the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned"
(Matthew 4:16).

Darkness and light are inextricably bound because we cannot experience and understand one without the other. It is easy to think of darkness as intrinsically “bad” and light as “good.” In the dark we can get lost or hurt because we cannot see our way. Darkness as “bad” or “evil” has led humankind to conscious and unconscious attitudes and action of racism throughout the centuries. Yet we know that darkness is also very soothing, even comforting, at times. We know that too much light can be harmful, blinding and burning. Though we celebrate light in Epiphany as revelation, darkness can also reveal newness and nurture growth.
 
The 16thcentury mystical poem, “The Dark Night,” used the metaphor of darkness to signify the soul’s journey to union with God who is ultimately unknowable. The author, St. John of the Cross, was imprisoned in solitary confinement, literally in a dark hole-like room, for being a heretic. Praying through his experience of dark despair he discovered the only light in his experience was that which burned in his soul, his longing and love for union with God. He found that darkness was a guide more certain than the brightness of the mid-day sun and led him to the joyful revelation of God’s presence, even in the dark time of his persecution. 
 
We begin a new calendar year and a new programmatic/budget year at Plymouth with the anticipation of God’s guidance through the unknown ahead in this new year and new decade. We begin in a dark time for our country. (As I write the impeachment trial of the president is just getting underway in the Senate.) We are all longing for justice and for new ways to bridge the divisions in our land that are so destructive. We begin in the season of Epiphany which holds stars to guide us through the darkness and on unknown ways. We begin with hope and prayers for deeper union with God as God’s people and God’s beloved community named Plymouth. 
 
May we remember that those who walk or sit in darkness – i.e. US – have already been provided with God’s great light of presence and love. No matter what comes, we belong to God and God is with us. This is the foundation of our guidance through times of darkness or light. 
 
With you on the journey,

JOIN ME THIS SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2020
FOR
PLYMOUTH’S ANNUAL CONGREGATIONAL MEETING

The meeting begins just after the 11 A.M. service with a potluck lunch.
Bring your favorite main dish, salad, side dish or bread to share.
The Congregational Life Board will provide dessert!
After the meal we will hear from our lay leaders on Leadership Council
and our Senior Minister on the state of the church.
We will receive and vote after discussion on our 2020 budget
and the slate of nominations for the church boards and committees.

COME BE IN BELOVED COMMUNITY AS WE DO THE WORK OF CHURCH TOGETHER!

The 2019 Annual Report and 2020 budget can be accessed here.

How many times were you asked as a child, “What do you want for Christmas?” How many times have you asked this? On the surface this is a very material question, a question that can lead straight into the consumer side of this holy season. Yet underneath there is an existential longing....”What do you want?” We continue to ponder this question no matter our age? “What do you want?” Health and happiness for our families, peace on earth, justice for all...housing and food abundance for all...healing for the earth...and end to war....an end to the climate crisis.....
 
What do you want during this holy time, this last week of Advent that leads to the Sunday when we light the candle of Love? What do you want from your heart, from the soul house within your heart? 
 
Joseph, the father of Jesus, just wanted propriety, no drama, no scandal, when he discovered that his betrothed, Mary, was with child. The implication in our gospel reading from Matthew 1 this coming Sunday is that Joseph probably did not buy into the “with child from the Holy Spirit”explanation... “...being a righteous man and unwilling to expose [Mary] to public disgrace,” he planned to break off the betrothal quietly. However, the dreams of God got in his way.
 
“...just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit ... you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." ... When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him” .... (from Matthew 1:18-25)
 
What do you want during this holy time, this last week of Advent that leads to the Sunday when we light the candle of Love? Are you willing to listen to the dreams of your heart and soul? Will you listen to the dreams of God in scripture to discern what you want?
 
I leave you with a poem titled, “What We Want” by Linda Paston from her book, Carnival Evening. Ponder with the poet, “What do you want this Christmas?”

With you on this final week of our Advent journey,

This past Sunday a pilgrim came to us at Plymouth as our candidate for the full-time Associate Minister position. Her name is the Rev. Carla Cain. I am very grateful to say that she was welcomed warmly and the vote on her candidacy at the congregational meeting was overwhelmingly “Yes!” Thanks to all of you who were with us at the Meet and Greet time for Carla on Saturday, and all who were with us on Sunday to welcome her in worship and to welcome her onto our Plymouth staff! I look forward to working with her as a colleague. And I look forward to helping you get to know her as one of your pastors. Her first day on the job will be Sunday, December 15th, the third Sunday in Advent. I hope you will be at church that day! (If you are still catching up on this staff development, you can find info on Carla and her call as our full time Designated-Term Associate Minister here.) 
 
The above description of being a pilgrim truly fits the feeling of coming to a new ministerial position. You come with your past experiences of ministry, with so many dear memories of past relationships with parishioners you have loved, of friends you have ministered with as a colleague. It is poignant, and a little scary, to leave these cherished and comfortable ways of being behind and to strike out into unknown territory. It is also exciting and “cloaked in hope” for the new relationships that will be established, the new forms of ministry that you will encounter, the new worship services you will lead, classes you will teach, sermons you will write. I can tell you from my experience of Carla that she does come with hope and determination to share the good news of God-with-us in Jesus the Christ here at Plymouth. She brings a hugely compassionate heart, a keen mind, a great sense of humor and a spirit deeply in touch with the Spirit. She is equipped to encourage us and to challenge us as we continue to go deeper in faith and in expanding the realm of God’s love and justice here in northern Colorado. 
 
Being a pilgrim is not limited to those of us in professional ministry. We are ALL pilgrims on the way in life. How is your life like the pilgrim described in Mary Ylvisaker Nilsen’s quote above? What “new” journey are you setting out on this week? It could be large or small. Either is significant. How do the “unseen bonds of memory” tether you? Do they ground you with confidence? Or are they holding you back? What gives you hope this day? What is woven together in the cloak of hope that protects you on the journey? Where are you determined to go? Baby steps count on the journey! Who are your companions as you “trudge toward something new?” 
 
You know what I will say next, right? You are not alone! God is always with you on your journey. God comes, bidden and unbidden, to trudge along side each of us. Sometimes in the presence of prayer, sometimes in the presence of a single soul friend, sometimes in the presence of community. At Plymouth we all come to worship each week as pilgrims, with cherished and not so cherished memories of the past, with cloaks of hope that may need repair or may be large enough to share. We come trudging with determination to be together in God’s presence and to welcome all who may to stop by on their journey to worship with us. Thanks be to God for the journey!
 
With you in Spirit,

It’s Stretch Time at Plymouth! We have a Big Stretch Goal in our 2020 budget! Let’s rejoice! Stretching makes us strong! This Sunday is Consecration Sunday, the day we bring our pledge cards to the communion table in worship and ask God to bless them. (If you won’t be here, you can pledge early online or by mail or in the office.) 
 
According to the Harvard Medical School website and David Nolan, a physical therapist at Massachusetts General Hospital: Stretching keeps the muscles flexible, strong, and healthy, and we need that flexibility to maintain a range of motion in the joints......Regular stretching keeps muscles long, lean, and flexible, and this means that exertion "won't put too much force on the muscle itself," says Nolan. Healthy muscles also help a person with balance...
 
What does this have to do with our 2020 budget? We have grown as a church, built muscle strength in staff and programming. We built a governance structure that breathes life into our aerobic fitness as we agilely recruit volunteers who respond to the crucial issues of our times and develop the spiritual formation of our congregation. We are larger and stronger that we were  ten years ago with more professional staff that give us better infrastructure. 
 
Now it's time to stretch ourselves with a large budget goal for 2020 so that we maintain our muscular flexibility in our growing staff support of God’s work through Plymouth. We need to stretch so we can have a larger range of muscular motion in our extravagant welcome to the northern Colorado community and to CSU students, staff and faculty. With a larger congregation we need to maintain healthy balance in our programming and in balancing the work shared between staff and volunteers. Stretching keeps us flexible and agile, as well as strong and  balance, for the movement of the God’s Holy Spirit in our mission and ministry as a vital congregation. 
 
This past Sunday, our conference minister, the Rev. Sue Artt, thanked us for the great generosity of Plymouth as we are the largest contributor in the conference to Our Church’s Wider Mission that provides basic support to our conference and national staff. We also excel in our four other special UCC offerings and our own community-wide and international mission giving. Sue also challenged each of us to S-T-R-E-T-C-H in giving to our 2020 budget so we can continue our strong work for God’s realm. She quoted the late Joseph Campbell, who said, “Money is neither spiritual or non-spiritual. Money is congealed energy. Releasing it is releasing life’s possibilities.” 
 
The energy of money can release life’s possibilities when spent well. When our intention, integrity, and stretching toward a meaningful goal are aligned, we release the energy of our treasure, time and talent. Generosity is generated in surprising ways! (If you were not hear this past Sunday morning, I invite you to listen to Sue’s sermon.)
 
The strength and flexibility of Plymouth as an outpost of God’s realm in a troubled world will only be maintained through the willingness of each Plymouth member to take the risk of releasing our individual congealed energies of money. Where can you take the risk of stretch in your budget? Some of us can release large amounts of money’s congealed energy. Others small. Either way it’s the s-t-r-e-t-c-h that counts. 
 
Join me in this opportunity to stretch and release God’s possibilities through Plymouth.
 
Blessings,

Do you ever want to make a bigger difference in the world?  Are you overwhelmed at times with all the issues that need crucial action and wonder how you should take action? Me, too!
 
I often wonder what difference I make in the big issues of our times. I am not regularly on the front lines protesting. Though I vote each time I get the chance, my time seems taken up with everyday actions that while helpful to others, don’t shift political or economic policy. I am deeply moved by so many human rights issues, environmental issues, peace making issues. I pray for the people on the front lines of these issues – people in our own congregation. I pray for God’s mysterious healing action in these issues. Still I am at a loss as to how I can tangibly help.

This past Sunday night as I led our 6 p.m. service I had an epiphany about a way that I am making a difference of which I was not aware. This revelation came as I watched the most recent Stewardship video for the third time that day:

The video features Arpi Miller, one of the most active members of Plymouth’s Immigration Ministry Team. Arpi told of our Ministry Team’s involvement with a legal clinic for Dreamers after the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival in September 2017. I realized at a deeper level that through my yearly pledge to Plymouth, I had helped these young people. The termination of DACA broke my heart. So unfair. However, my financial support of Plymouth made a difference in the lives of people I don’t know, but care about deeply.
 
It came back to me that the pledge Hal and I make each year to support Plymouth’s mission and ministry has a ripple effect in ways that we may never know.  Not only do we support the obvious – our three worship services, wonderful music program, our Christian formation programming for all ages, our mission and outreach in the Fort Collins community and beyond, our numerous fellowship opportunities, our beautiful building and grounds and our staff – we also make a difference in the world in surprising and unexpected ways.
 
We have a big challenge at Plymouth this year as we pledge to support our 2020 budget. Some years our budget increases in incremental ways. This year we need to make a leap of faith for the future. We need to increase our pledge income 15.4% so we can continue to make big differences in the life of our faith community and in the wider world.
 
On Sunday, our guest preacher, Dr. Charles Buck, spoke to us about “heavenly economics,” God’s economics of abundance and plenty rather than human economics of scarcity, limitations and competition. (If you weren’t able to be in worship check out his sermon here.) Dr. Buck encouraged us to look around and recognize God’s abundance. Its everywhere! Then to share it! Like love multiplies when we share love, so does God’s abundance. In fact we see abundance better when we take the risk of sharing it, of working out of heavenly economics. And sharing multiplies abundance, multiplies the difference we make. Think of it. An abundant increase of 15%+ in our budget will make an exponential increase in the difference we can make.
 
Join Hal and me in an increased faith promise pledge to Plymouth in 2020. Click here to make your pledge. Let’s make a BIG difference in God’s world!
 
Blessings,

It seems a man was very troubled with many problems.
He took an oath promising
to sell his house and all its furnishings
and give them to the poor
if his problems were ever solved.

And there did come a time when his problems were solved.
Life became peaceful again.
But by this time the man was not sure that he wanted
to sell his house and all its furnishings
to give the money to the poor.
He considered what to do.

       Finally he decided.
He put his house up for sale for one piece of silver.
But in order to buy the house
one also had to buy the cat that lived in the house.
The cat sold for 10,000 pieces of silver.
Soon the man had a buyer for the house
and all its furnishings
AND the cat. 

      When the deal was done
the man gave the one piece of silver to the poor
and pocketed the 10,000.

“The Oath”
from Tales of the Dervishes;
Teaching Stories of the Sufi Masters
over the Past Thousand Years
by Idris Shah.)

What do you think? Was he an ethical man? Who did he serve first – himself or the great good? Where was his heart? I think he would have struggled with Jesus saying, “You cannot serve God and wealth.” It is one of his most demanding. We hear him say it twice in the four gospels. Once in Matthew 6 and then again in Luke 16. 

"No one can serve two masters;
for a slave will either hate the one 
and love the other,
or be devoted to the one and despise the other. 
You cannot serve God and wealth.”

His saying echoes his ancestor, Joshua, who asked the people of Israel who were new to the abundance of the land of promise, “Whom will you serve?” (Joshua 24. 14-24) Will you serve the gods of your new neighbors, the Amorites, in this land of abundance? OR Yahweh, the Lord, the God who had brought you out of slavery and through 40 years in the wilderness to live in the Promised Land? Joshua said to the people, “As for me and my household we will serve the Lord.” 
 
Joshua’s question and Jesus’ blunt statement are still relevant for us today. Who will we serve? Yes, we must make a living, do the best we can for our children’s welfare and education, pay our debts, save for retirement. But as we do all of this, who will we serve? God or wealth. We cannot serve both with ultimate allegiance. 
 
I know this is hard stuff. When it comes down to our most important decision making what comes first? Our fears and concerns over money? OR our faith in the abundance of God? If we are trusting the God we know through Jesus who lived out God’s self-giving love, will God ask us to put the families that God gave us in danger, in order to give back to God? I don’t think we serve that kind of God. Remember the God of the Joshua and the people of Israel was the God who delivered the people from slavery and oppression, who preserved them in the wilderness. The God of Jesus was with him through death into resurrection. God has given us the abundance of life that we enjoy. Won’t this God help us make decisions about the use of our money? Doesn’t the God who gives us life here on earth and life eternal deserve our trust as we prioritize the use of all we have been given? 
 
Who will we serve? And where is our heart’s first allegiance?

Blessings on the journey,

Dear Friends,

It’s almost fall! Public schools are starting. CSU students are returning. (Traffic is picking up!) And this Sunday, August 25th, we begin a new program year at Plymouth! We go back to our school year worship schedule, 9 and 11 am and 6 pm. At each service we will begin with processing in all of the chancel paraments (the colorful hangings), the candles, the Bible, the communion elements (at 9 and 6) as a way of celebrating the beginning of a new season. 

I hope you will join us for worship! At our 10 am Education hour (which will be a fellowship time this Sunday), there will be wonderful breakfast burritos for sale just outside the Fellowship Hall at the north doors. $3 a piece! A festive touch to the coffee hour for this day. There will also be computers to register children and youth for 2019-2020 Christian Formation programming and Christian Formation volunteers to help you (or get a jump on it and register right now). And there will be tables with some Outreach and Mission volunteers activities to participate in during the coming weeks. 

Even as we start a new program year we are still working with the all-church theme for 2019, “Going Deeper.” I hope you will consider going deeper through new avenues of participation in worship, in Christian Formation learning opportunities, in volunteer opportunities in church hospitality, Congregational Life events, Outreach and Mission work. Keep your eyes and ears tuned for all of these ways to participate in the life of Plymouth and in the realm of God we are helping to build here in our corner of Colorado.Read these weekly Reflections and the Thursday Overview emails. Read the Placard and the weekly bulletin inserts. Listen to announcements before the worship services. Check out all the bulletin boards in the Fellowship Hall. Come to the Taste of Plymouth/Dinner Church potluck next Sunday, September 1 at 6 pm. Participate in the All-Church Retreat (9/13-15) and the All-Church Spiritual Practices classes each Sunday in November. Ask a friend how they are participating and if you can join them!

Above all, listen to the yearnings of your heart and the questions in your mind. Discover how God is calling you to deepen your soul work, to deepen your faith. Are you in need of study, service, prayer, the creative work of welcoming others, visiting those who are ill or cannot get to worship? Feel free to email any of the staff with questions about getting involved! 

Go deeper with Plymouth this fall! You’ll be glad you did!

Blessings,

As someone who came of age in the late 1960s into the 1970s, I confess I have often bristled at the word “obedience.” I was not quite old enough to be caught up in the protests for civil rights or those against the Vietnam war, yet the cultural milieu of civil disobedience for change in those times still affected me. So did the early women’s liberation movement. I read Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem as a high school senior, wondering if someone headed to Oklahoma Baptist University, a conservative liberal arts college, would have the courage to fully embrace their radical ideas of feminism. Growing up under these influences, obedience was implicitly connected to a duty forced upon one by cultural norms that did not offer everyone the same opportunities in life. I stubbornly stuck to my Christian faith AND I always deeply questioned the “be an obedient doormat for Jesus” brand of Christianity that I encountered in some conservative circles. 

Since that young time I have learned to understand obedience in relation to its Latin root word. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, the English word “obey” comes from the Latin, obedire, meaning literally "listen to," from ob "to" + audire "listen, hear." This changes our perception of obedience from mindless duty or simply following the rules to“paying attention.” Obedient actions grow out of listening. The prophets of the Hebrew scriptures were charged with listening to God, and with proclaiming God’s word to God’s people (who were not listening to and observing God’s ways). 

Prophetic listening leads to the protest of injustice resulting in some strange prophetic actions. The prophet, Hosea, listened and was led to go against the grain of culture and marry a wife of questionable repute. Hosea, following God’s word, marries the woman named Gomer, has children with her, and takes her back when she is claimed by another man (Hosea 1:2-10). None of these actions would have been easy. Listening to God seems to lead to acts of steadfast love that take strength of character and will, as well as counter-cultural persistence. 

There is a Japanese folktale titled, “The Magic Listening Cap,” that illuminates obedience as listening. It seems there was an old man who was very poor and very faithful. Everyday he went to the shrine of his god to give gifts of thankfulness and to pray. One day he had nothing to give because in his poverty there was no food in his house. He went to the shrine and simply offered himself expecting to lose his life and die. But his god gave him a gift in exchange for his faithfulness. It was a magic listening cap. With the cap on the old man could hear the voices of creation, the conversation of the trees, the wind in their leaves, the intimate talk of the birds and animals. To make a longer story shorter, with this cap and its gift of deep listening to creation, the kind old man saved the life of a dying cypress tree, which was connected to the life of a dying man. The man he saved happened to be wealthy and he was very generous in rewarding the kind old man. The old man was never in want again and, not a being greedy man, put his magic listening cap away, never using it for indiscriminate gain. Every day he brought gifts and prayers to the shrine of his god, giving thanks for how his life had been preserved. (Click on the link above and you can hear the whole story on YouTube.)
​
Listening to our God involves faithful, everyday practice. We enter the shrines of our hearts to seek God’s presence. We offer ourselves as gifts. We wait to see what prophetic action we might be called to do. It might be a simple one of acknowledging someone who is “outcast” in our society--the homeless, the immigrant, the disabled, the mentally ill--with a smile, a direct look of respect, a greeting of kindness. Or it might be a larger action of advocating for justice, for housing for all, for medical care for all, for asylum and legal human rights for all. Or it could be the largest action of all action: working side by side with those our culture puts on the margins, befriending them, learning from them as fellow human beings.

​Our actions all begin with listening to the prompting of the Spirit. When the action takes us to the unfamiliar and hard places, we listen again; for God will be there with stamina and strength and steadfast love.
 
Blessings on the journey,
Jane Anne

I am reminded of the changes of life this week as the Summer Solstice, our longest day of light in the Northern hemisphere, arrives on Friday. Astrologically it is the first day of summer though weather and calendar wise we often think of June 1 as the first day. I am barely used to summer weather and already after Friday the days will begin to shorten just a bit each day till we reach the Winter Solstice. Our most ancient ancestors intimately knew these astrological changes. These changes indicated growing seasons and harvest, times to be fallow, times to seek shelter from storms, times to celebrate, times to mourn, times to pray.

Whether we measure our seasons astrologically or meteorologically, by calendars, or by work or school schedules, we live our lives in the midst of change. Each day is a series of changes in light, time and activity which we move through almost without thinking. So we could choose to be very open to all kinds of change as it comes to us. Life is change. And yet we are likely to be resistant to any change that brings even a hint of discomfort, any change that invites a new way to move through one of our routines, any change that rearranges the status quo of a beloved community. Some changes, such as illness, death, divorce, moving are so large that they bring understandable grief. Other changes come that are just not “the way things used to be done” or the way they “should be done because they have always been done this other way.” These changes can stretch us as much as the ones that bring us grief. 

In his book, Quietly Courageous; Leading the Church in a Changing World, Gil Rendle writes of the changes challenging the church in our times. Those of us who were around in the last part of the 20th century experienced a convergent culture during and after World War II. This was a time in America when the people tended to converge, pull together to work for the common good of the country, of the community, the church, the family. This was a culture of joining institutions that built community through the joys and responsibilities of membership. The flip side, of course, was that important differences were swept under the rug so as not to rock the status quo. As the 20th century wound down starting in late 60s, our culture shifted to a divergent culture. In a divergent culture the social contract moves from seeking membership in societal institutions to seeking individual well-being. Now in the 21st century “the correct way to get on with life is to recognize that each of us has the right to live as he or she pleases so long as we do not interfere with the right of the other people to do likewise.”[i] The celebration is that differences are no longer swept under the rug but are free to be expressed!

Historically, strong churches have been built with the social contract of a convergent culture, the culture of the group. But that time has gone. Now we live as the church in a culture of the individual. This is neither good not bad....it just IS. It is the cultural change that we are dealing with as church in the 21st century. We can no longer just say, “The problem is membership. There must be a specific solution from back in the day, from the way we used to do things. If we just return to _______ (fill in the blank), we can rebuild our church membership.” We are learning to say, “Here is our new situation in this new divergent culture. Let’s bring together all our diverse ideas and seek God’s ideas for our changing times. What are the new ways, maybe, some old ways, and more importantly, ways we haven’t yet encountered in which God is leading us to be and build the Body of Christ in the world?” Rendle’s book encourages us to be “quietly courageous” as we lead one another into the future. 

I paraphrased Psalm 23 at the beginning of this reflection because it is a song of encouragement for quiet courage, a song that reminds us that through all changes God accompanies us. We are never left alone! As you move through the changes of your life, as we change and grow at Plymouth, may we always remember the “Accompanying God” of this psalm. 

I also leave you with words from a prayer by the late William Coffin, a former pastor of Riverside Church in NYC and a former chaplain at Yale University.

​O God, whose mercy is ever faithful and every sure,
​who art our refuge and our strength in time of trouble,
visit us....

We need a hope that is made wise by experience 
and is undaunted by disappointment. 

​We need an anxiety about the future that shows us new ways 
to look at new things, but does not unnerve us... [ii]

May the words of the psalmist and the words of the pastor send you forth into the inevitable changes of life “with a gladsome mind, free and joyful in the spirit of Jesus [the] Christ!”[iii]
 
Blessings,
Jane Anne

[i] Gil Rendle, Quietly Courageous; Leading the Church in a Changing World, (Rowman & Littlefield, New York, NY, 2019, 46.)
[ii] Ibid., 10.
[iii] Ibid., 11.