I recently re-read Isaiah’s call in Isaiah 6. Usually we stop at verse 8, where, when God asks, “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah volunteers and says, “Here am I. Send me.” This time, however, I read further. I read to what Isaiah was called.

OK, so it’s a new year. It seems I should write about resolutions or something, but nothing has come to me — besides, I’m as bad as anyone about breaking them. Then again, I could write about the expectation of what is to come in 2010, but really, no one can know what the year will bring; we just know that God will be there.

Our world prizes perfection and we come to expect it. We expect it of others, and we expect it of ourselves. We strive for it and fall short and that often gets us demoralized, making us think that we’re somehow inadequate. We’re all too aware of our shortcomings, our mistakes, our past failures.

Mark 10:35-45: “James and John came forward to Jesus and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ And they said, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’”

The psalmist prays, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

There is a series of questions asked of persons to be ordained (ordinands) in the United Methodist Church. They include things like, “have you belief in God?” and “Do you find the precepts of the United Methodist Church to be consistent with Christian doctrine?” There are a number of others, but that’s the gist. However, there are two that stand out to me: “Are you going on to perfection?” and “Do you expect to be made perfect in love?”

About 300 BC, there was a Greek philosopher who posed this question: “Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?”

A pastor once asked his congregation:
Dear fellow Christians — who worship the true and Triune God, the Holy Trinity: “What is God like? What would it be like to meet God, face to face?”

Last month, I wrote about meeting God with the sum of our parts, our scars, our wounds. It’s how the resurrected Christ appeared to his disciples — showing them the wounds left from his resurrection. It gives us hope that we, too, despite our wounds and our sins, can still share in that resurrection. This month, however, I’d like to focus on a time when there is healing from disability.

I had the pleasure of hearing a sermon by The late Rev. Dr. Nancy Eisland, author of The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability , when I was in seminary. In that sermon, she called me a TAB. TAB is an acronym disabled persons use for an able-bodied person. You know the A.B. stands, then, for “able bodied,” but what about the T? The T stands for temporarily. Temporarily Able Bodied Person. I was 29 years old, I could still do cartwheels and handstands! I didn’t need glasses. My knee hadn’t had its second injury and was stable. Now, at 47, I’m far from “disabled,” but I see a bit of what she means. She was born with her disability and that gave her a perspective much different from my own.

The following is based on John 6:24 – 35, where Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”

What do you want?

In Deuteronomy 18:15-22, God, through Moses, gives God’s word to the people that they will need a new prophet — one like Moses himself, who speaks the words God puts in his mouth. The Israelites wonder, however, how they can tell whether or not a prophet is truly speaking God’s word. God replies, through Moses, that they can tell whether it’s God’s word by whether or not the word spoken comes true.

The parking deck at Emory University Hospital can be pretty confusing because there are so many sections to it. Still, I’m familiar enough with it that I’ve never had much trouble.

We buried my father in law in Boise, Idaho, on Friday. He was, by profession, an electrical engineer. By hobby, he had been an avid backpacker, with his favorite trips taking place in the Sawtooth Mountains.

For most Americans, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is marked by a marathon of Christmas preparations and celebrations. There is a tree to put up and decorate (including the traditional untangling of the tree lights), presents to buy, wrapping and mailing to get done. There are Christmas mission projects such as Operation Christmas Child, collections for a children’s home or Angel Tree. And that’s not to mention the marathon of Christmas parties, luncheons, get-togethers and gift exchanges. With our church activities plus my husband being in retail, I confess that I sometimes want to shout, “Wait! We might miss the joy that comes with expectant waiting if we keep charging ahead like this!”

Nina loved to sing. She was solidly into her 80s and her health was still pretty good and she loved to come to the Northside Shepherd’s Center, a senior day center for lower-income older adults, where I was the associate director.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. The website, www.domesticviolence.org. offers this definition: “Domestic violence and emotional abuse are behaviors used by one person in a relationship to control the other.”

Peter, God love him, is like the anonymous “Q” of Frequently Asked Questions. He wants to know how to apply Jesus’ teaching in his life, the same as we do. One question he asks is, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” (Mt. 18:21 NRSV)

The group that gathered recently for our Wednesday night devotion and communion service got to talking about change. We considered whether we liked or did not like change and, as a group, we concluded that change does make us uncomfortable and that we’re more likely (including our teens) to want someone else to change than to change ourselves.

On the introduction to the Dr. Phil show, there is a clip of him telling a guest, “This is going to be a changing day in your life.”

I started thinking about changing days recently, when I read this, “... you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God ...” (Romans 8:15b-16)

Here are two real-life encounters of people who attended a church for the first time:

1) From a Catholic Church in Scotland: “After I had stood (hanging around) for a few moments, someone came over to say hello. We talked for several minutes about what I was doing there, her impressions of the community, etc. She introduced me to a few other people, and I was invited to a ... barn dance taking place that evening. But the thing that really touched me was that, on finding that I was very new to the area and alone here, she gave me her phone number and offered to meet me for coffee mid-week if I felt in need. ... (What I’ll still remember in one week) is the kindness of (that) stranger.”

Every once in awhile, it’s good for Christians to pause to take a spiritual growth assessment. As Lutheran author Fred Lehr says, “Stifling the maturity process by denying it the fresh air of new insights and knowledge is (an) attachment that ensnares us.”

In my years of ministry, I’ve come to learn a lot about not just older adults, but about society’s attitude towards aging and older people.

For the anthem last Sunday, our chancel choir sang, “I Love To Tell the Story.” As I was singing with them, I looked out over the congregation and noticed that a number of people were mouthing the words along with us. Clearly, it was a favorite of many, however old-fashioned it was. So, as we got down to the final chorus, God led me to just invite the congregation to sing along and they did with such gusto that they clapped at the end!

A little over a week ago, all Starbucks stores everywhere closed for three hours, from 5:30 to 8:30 at night.

Why did they close down? In the words of CEO Howard Schultz, Starbucks shut down to open up and own up to its “first love.” Starbucks shut down to rediscover and rededicate the company to the “love, passion, and commitment” of the coffee experience.

“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Mt 6:16 ff)

My computer-illiterate husband called me from work the other day. It seems that one of his co-workers got an email warning about a new virus hitting computers everywhere. His co-worker insisted that it was truth and my husband called me to warn me about it.

“Hurry up and wait!” is the sardonic phrase a lot of us use to describe the phenomenon of having to rush to get someplace on time only to have to wait before whatever event it is comes to pass. In the past 10 years, I’ve come to think of the season of Advent illustrating that very phenomenon.

I’ve enjoyed some of the reality shows on PBS. They get some families together to reenact some of the American history. One series is called “Colonial House.” Producers found an undeveloped piece of land in New England and brought several families, couples, and single people together to build a colony, as the early settlers did in the 1600s. They wore the same kind of shoes and clothing, used the same kind of tools, and brought the same amount of food provisions.

Did you ever agree to do something before you realized how hard it would be? This is one of those times for me. During a planning meeting for our upcoming (Sat, Nov. 3) Perlieu Stew, one of the planners asked me to mention it in my column. I said, “Sure!” Now, as I sit to write the column, which is to be a religious column that I pray inspires people and draws them closer to Christ, I’m wondering how to make Perlieu Stew inspiring for the sake of the Gospel. Other than being a fund raiser for the Christian mission, there’s not too much about it that could qualify as “religious.”