Dismissals

For about a year I went weekly to the Phyllis Zumkehr Clothing Center in Ravenna. I was a volunteer and new to the scene. The Clothing Center is set up like a store with used clothes on racks – pants and shirts, dresses and sweats, suits and baby onesies. Folks come from miles around, pick out what they need and bring it to the “checkout.” That’s where they put me, to fold and carefully bag the clothes that people selected. No one paid even a thin dime for the clothes. The clothes were free and I did not know why I was there, folding and bagging and saying, “Thank you, come again!” But then hit me: This was not about…

Let us go forth into the world rejoicing in the power of the Spirit! Josh

Wishing you every blessing of the Christmas Season. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

The Christmas gifts my grandmother gave me disappointed me when I was a boy. Yet, on my desk to this day are her gifts: my grandfather’s pen, inkwell and brass dragon paperweight. They are still here, long after the toy trucks and model trains were set aside. I will be with my granddaughter Charlotte this Christmas. I have been to Amazon for a few trinkets but I believe the time has come to send the pen, the inkwell and the brass dragon off to the future. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

Pete was from Abilene, Texas. He was an oilman, a friend and mentor to me. Among the many bits of wisdom that Pete imparted to me: “Never get to believing your own geology.” This saying comes from the oilfields of west Texas where a man once studied the geological formations of a particular place and decide there was oil under that earth. He set up an oil derrick and drilled down until he was well past where the oil was supposed to be. He simply could not accept the fact that there was no oil there. He drilled and drilled until he ran out of money, believing always in his own geology. Go in peace to love and serve the…

A friend told me a cult had moved in a few doors from her house, 6 or 7 young men and women. Early every morning a man drove them away and brought them back late at night. They wore identical black pants and white shirts. How strange! Who knew where they went or what they did? My friend was quite concerned about the danger. She watched the house and bolted her own door. Then the Sheriff came and entered the house where the young men and young women stayed. The newspaper reported: “Human Trafficking Ring Broken – Imprisoned Restaurant Workers Released.” Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

I stopped for gas and went in to pay. At the register there was a rack of chips, each bag emblazoned: NEW FLAVOR! I asked the young lady at the register, “These any good?” “Don’t know. They’re $1.49 for that teeny bag. I can’t buy chips that cost like that.” “Well,” I said,” I’ll take a bag.” I paid for the chips and gas. She gave me my change. I slid the chips across the counter to her. “Here you go. Try ’em. If they’re any good, I’ll buy some next time I’m here.” I turned and went and as I pushed the door she called out, “Thank you!” I doubted I would ever get back that way but to…

Last Saturday, I went to an artist’s reception for a fine photographer and deacon in the diocese, Lydia Bailey. There were fifty of her photographs of residents of 2100 Lakeside, the men’s homeless shelter where Lydia works. One photograph is of a man named Kenny whom I know well from my Fridays at 2100. A smiling Kenny looks straight at the lens, a lined face, a hard life, a homelessness man. Always, his smile wins me over. There were few people at the reception and I knew all of them except for one, a well-dressed man in a suit and dark shirt, off in the corner, staring at a photograph. I walked over to him and put out my hand…

My father’s mother was Sarah Grace. She was 71 years old when I was born and lived a quarter of a century more. She traveled some, twice to the Holy Lands and to Europe and to most of this country. Her report of what she had done on her travels: “I marveled.” As I learned, to marvel was not passive. To marvel was active. I went with her, often on a Sunday afternoon, to marvel at the great and at the small, sometimes in the forest, sometimes in the city, but always to marvel at God’s work in the world. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

Bishop Bowman, speaking last Saturday at Ministry Discernment Day, said there are three kinds of call. “Call” is a churchy word for the action of the Holy Spirit who beckons us to be God’s people in the world, whether as lay or ordained. I do not remember Bishop Bowman’s first two kinds of call, but I am familiar with his third: “Muddling.” We try, in prayer, study and conversation, to find how we are each called “to love and serve the Lord.” The process can be erratic and untidy. We muddle along. In time, the muddle is less until, at last, we find ourselves precisely where God would have us. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

When I was a boy, a man came to our farm to put lightning rods on the barn. My dad tried to explain to me why we needed lightning rods, and what might happen when the thunderstorm came. I saw lightning hit that barn, a great bolt of white energy that dissipated through those heavy wires into the ground. Years later a friend told me what God expects of us: That we are to be lightning rods for God’s creative and healing energy in the world. I knew then how lightning rods work and how God works in the world. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

After a Sunday service I went to visit a man who lives with five other men in an assisted living home. Some of them have family and friends and Sunday is visiting day. I brought my friend the Sunday paper, a magazine and a few personal items. He thanked me. We sat in his room and talked. There was a quiet knock at his door, a woman with a plate of cookies. “I heard your daughter and grandson are coming this afternoon. I made you some cookies.” She put the plate on the dresser. My friend thanked her and she left. I asked my friend about her. “I don’t really know. I never see her save for Sunday. She just…