FAMILY DEVOTIONS: The birds of the air

Take a walk together outside and listen for the sounds you can hear. See if you can find the sound of the baby hatchlings. When mom or dad flies back to the nest with food, the sound of excited chicks is clear and obvious. You may find them in your backyard or along one of Hanover’s many trails. (Check out: http://www.hanover-ma.gov/greenway-map.shtml ) This past Sunday’s Scripture in church reminded us: Matthew 6:26 - 28 (NRSV) 26Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? This is a good time to talk about worries and letting go of them so we can learn to trust God to take care of us.

REMINDERS

Don’t forget, you can be a stockholder and help out with our mission trip. Make donations out to our church, marked for the Youth Mission Trip and provide us with you address so we can send you Notes from New Orleans.

Don’t forget. There will be information session on the new Habitat for Humanity home to be built in Hanover. They’ll be held at our church on Tuesday June 3^rd and Thursday, June 12 at 7pm.

Don’t forget: The Hanover Diversity Committee will hold its next meeting at our church (Parish Hall) on Tuesday, June 10^th at 7:30 pm. The mission of the Hanover Diversity Committee is to help our town celebrate and cherish the diversity in this town and world so that all people will feel safe and comfortable here being who they are.

ADULT DEVOTION: Remember

This is the week of Memorial Day parades. It is the time of year when the leaves had popped out, spring flowers are blooming, the grass is green, the town center is decorated and everything looks fresh and renewed. I love our Memorial Day parade through the heart of our community. However, our town center lies in stark contrast to Waveland, MS the town we are going to help rebuild on this year’s mission trip. There one fifth of the home stand untouched and abandoned after the eye of Hurricane Katrina made landfall there. Another one third have been rebuilt. For many homes, they were still removing debris last year. And while the population is back at 98% of its pre-Katrina level. Most of the homes have yet to become inhabitable. And on Memorial Day, I am reminded that one third of the people without homes in the area are Veterans of the Middle East (Gulf war, War in Iraq and Afghanistan). This week I encourage you to celebrate in reflection and prayer the home town feel of our community. I also invite you to lift up in prayer the people who have no home or home town and the mission work that our young folks will be doing in a month.

Prayer Requests

• Frank Schuttauf– Lynn White’s uncle and Nancy Dixon's brother-in-law, in final stages of cancer, now with hospice and not long left
• Marie who had a stroke stroke
• Young couple close to family with very difficult decision
• Michelle Keyes
• Charles C
• Jim Murray, back home in Florida in a rehab hospital with a long road ahead

FAMILY DEVOTIONS: The Big House

Read John 14:1-14. Focus on the verses that talk about their being many rooms in God’s house.

Look at a picture of the church. You can find one online at our website. There is also one on the cover of the church directory. Some old bulletins might include the sketch of the church. You could also ask your children to draw a picture of the church from memory, then drive by to see how close they got it.

Ask the question, “Is there room for everyone in God’s house.” This week we touched on a Sacred Conversation on Racism in our church for more information. It lifts up the diversity in our culture and our need to understand our neighbors better. Ask your children to talk about the different kinds of people who are welcome in God’s house (gender, age, size, race, income, athletic skill, intellectual abilities, differently abled folks…..keep brainstorming) Have a prayer asking God to help us offer our love and open our hearts to everyone.

Here's a video by Audio Adrenaline called Father's House. Click here for the lyrics.

ADULT DEVOTION: Trinity Sunday

Sunday we celebrated many things in church. It was Confirmation Sunday, so our main focus was the celebration of that moment of passage when our youth take on adult responsibility for their faith and their church. This was also the Sunday that the UCC had invited us to begin a Sacred Conversation on Racism. Added to that, it was Trinity Sunday. While it was Trinity Sunday that went largely unnoticed as part of our worship, it was also Trinity Sunday that held it all together. The Trinity is one of the more confusing concepts to understand or explain. Largely, because our language and science and minds are too limited to explain a seemingly paradoxical concept. And although no metaphor or explanation is adequate, there is one that I like. The Trinity holds up that essential understanding of God as love. It is a love that is so pure and so potent that it can only exist in relationship. God is one and God is three; One being who exists, who must exist, as a relationship. Mother/Father to Son to Holy Spirit to Mother/Father to Son and so on and so on. That is why the Greatest Commandment in Scripture (the one that summarizes all other scripture and indeed all of our faith) is a commandment of Love. It is to Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and to Love you Neighbor as Yourself.

It is this love that makes a Sacred Conversation on Racism not only possible, but absolutely necessary. It is this love that enables us to embrace young men and women into our community of faith and entrust the future and the present of the church over to them. It is this love that ignites a holy flame of faith, compassion and justice that lights our journey.

FAMILY DEVOTIONS: Pentecost

This week we celebrated Pentecost. In the days of Jesus, Pentecost is a holiday celebrated 50 days (from Greek ‘Pente’ meaning 50) after Passover. Pentecost is also known as the Festival of the Booths. It was the time of the Spring wheat harvest and people would bring offerings of grain to the Temple and offer prayers of Thanksgiving to God for the gift of the harvest. On this Pentecost, in the Book of Acts, the disciples are in prayer in a house when the Spirit descends like a might wind that shakes the house. Then God’s Spirit appears like tongues of flame and settle on the disciples. (Read Acts 2 together) They are given gifts for the common good. These are gifts meant to help the church community live and act with greater compassion.

This is a good time to wonder together about the gifts we have that we could use to help other people understand about God’s love through our example or our teaching or our stories. Talk with your children about their favorite gifts and wonder together about ways to use the gifts that are a part of who we are, to help people who need friends, assistance, caring, etc……..

ADULT DEVOTIONS: Iron Man

Iron Man came out last week. I enjoyed comics as a kid. Iron Man was one of my favorites, though he was down on the list below Spiderman and Green Lantern. Each superhero has a unique talent or ability. Iron Man’s is his genius at developing technology. He builds a suit that can protect him, defeat his enemies and enable him to fly. I think the appeal of Iron Man is protection and power. His armor is uniquely suited to him, it offers him a superior awareness of the world around him, and it is virtually impenetrable. And it is designed to keep his wounded heart safe. The addition of armament allows him to fight, capture and defeat the bad guys. To top it all off, when in danger the suit allows him to fly to safety. Now listen to that again: it’s a suit that keeps his wounded heart safe, protects his vulnerability, fights bad guys and lets you fly to safety. No wonder Iron Man has such appeal.

But we don’t have suits like that. And we aren’t supposed to. Faith is strongest when we are weakest, God tells Paul (2 Corinthians 12:9). It is vulnerability that teaches us to “Let Go and Let God.” And our faith is not a faith to be hidden under a bushel. It is not a faith to hide behind locked doors. It is a faith meant to be a beacon in the world in which we live. This week we celebrated Pentecost, Baptisms and Mother’s day. All of them remind us of God’s Spirit that is handed down to us from previous generations in order that we might use the gifts, our unique talents, which we are given for the common good. (Acts 2)

FAMILY DEVOTIONS: Peacemakers

This week our children begin a new rotation in Church School on Peacemaking. There are few things that the Bible addresses more than peace. It is among the top four themes which include God’s Realm, Prayer, and the Faithful Use of Money. Being a peacemaker means to actively seek to avoid, resolve and end violence in our words and actions. Peacemaking in the Bible (or anywhere else) has always difficult and challenging and has often been dangerous. To stand up to a bully or an injustice takes courage. To authentically forgive and let go of hurts and slights takes courage. The world of our children is full of these challenges from put downs in the classroom, to intimidation on the playground, to hurtful comments on web pages. This is another pivot moment to talk with children and teens about the places they observe or experience hurtful words and actions.

Here is a story from one child: "When I was little, my mom told me legends. One was about a bear that stole the sun. It was a raven, in the form of a child, that brought the light back to the world. I think we children could be the raven that brings the light back to the world." Leela Gilday - Canada

Here are some resources online:

http://www.peace-kids.org/

http://bookstore.peacemaker.net/html/chi.htm includes the following thoughts:

The lessons in The Young Peacemaker may be summarized in Twelve Key Principles for Young Peacemakers:

1. Conflict is a slippery slope.
2. Conflict starts in the heart.
3. Choices have consequences.
4. Wise-way choices are better than my-way choices.
5. The blame game makes conflict worse.
6. Conflict is an opportunity.
7. The Five A's can resolve conflict.
8. Forgiveness is a choice.
9. It is never too late to start doing what's right.
10. Think before you speak.
11. Respectful communication is more likely to be heard.
12. A respectful appeal can prevent conflict.

ADULT DEVOTIONS

Last week I met with a group of people from town who wanted to follow up on the discussion that began at our Martin Luther King breakfast. The presentation that day lifted up some of the areas of prejudice and racism in our world. More poignantly, we heard stories of painful experiences endured within our town within recent years. The group was very concerned to create a committee to bring a conversation to the whole town regarding all the isms in our world; from racism, to sexism, to ageism, to classism, to heterosexism and beyond. At the town meeting this week I offered the following quotes and prayer for the invocation:

Jerome Nathanson, author of “THE POSSIBILITIES OF HUMAN NATURE," in John Dewey’s, The Reconstruction of the Democratic Life said, “The price of the democratic way of life is a growing appreciation of people's differences, not merely as tolerable, but as the essence of a rich and rewarding human experience.”

This past week a group of citizens of our town gathered together to reflect on the rich and rewarding variety of human experience in our neighbors and neighborhoods. They claimed a mission for their work.

The goal of this committee is:TO HELP OUR COMMUNITY CELEBRATE AND CHERISH THE DIVERSITY IN OUR TOWN AND OUR WORLD SO THAT ALL PEOPLE WILL FEEL SAFE AND COMFORTABLE HERE BEING WHO THEY ARE.

Franklin Thomas, Assistant U.S. Attorney said: “One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings.”

Let us Pray: Holy God, in this community you are called by many names by people of many heritages, creeds, orientations, ages, genders, races and class. Yet all of us seek the common welfare for our town, our families, our lives our nation. Help us to listen. To listen even more deeply when we disagree, that we may examine more closely our own truths and hear more fully the truths within the words of our neighbors. Help us to cherish this not as an obstacle to what we seek, but as an opportunity to enlarge our rich and rewarding human experience. Amen