Dear Friends,
I just returned from visiting my parents in Kansas City. My father turned 92 on Saturday and Sunday was Father’s Day. I don’t get to see them enough and every visit means so much to me. That being said, my father spends most of his days caring for my 87-year-old mother who has advanced Alzheimer’s. Their day is a set routine of meals, hygiene, the coming and going of home health aides and the precisely scheduled movements from the dining room to the living room and back again. All of this takes place with the background noise of the televisions (one in each room!) constantly tuned to cable news reporting on “news” that rarely changes throughout the day. The only variety in the news cycle seems to be the commercials, and even they lack variety. The vast majority of those are for pharmaceuticals treating all kinds of health issues, with each commercial ending with a string of boxed warnings including, “may cause stroke, heart failure, coma or death.” But there was one noteworthy commercial that had nothing to do with prescription drugs and seemed to counter the background noise of the news: It was a commercial for the 2024 Hyundai Tucson and its tag line was “There’s joy in every journey.” It really stood out. It made me smile – and not just because it provided some levity. It was true! Every time it came on, I shifted my reflection to the innate joy of the journey that I have enjoyed with my parents as their child and the bittersweet journey of aging that I am observing through their experience. It is not devoid of pain, health crises, difficult decisions, challenging choices about budgeting or scary moments – yet there is a joy under it all. It is so easy not to see it. But every time I got my little reminder from Hyundai, I chose to feel it and see it and let it linger like the setting sun in these amazing weeks around the Summer Solstice. Wherever you are on life’s journey or summer travels, I hope that you can see the joy underneath it all, even on the hardest of days. And I hope that realization – however fleeting—reminds you of God’s presence and love as the source of it all.
See you on Sunday!
Love,
Cheryl
Sunday, June 16, 2024
Dear Friends,
I am writing a short note today to acknowledge the Men’s Retreat this weekend.
As you know, it is an annual event that brings together 20-30 men. Most of the men are active members of Talmadge Hill. But the event is also a form of outreach which typically draws a handful of men who are “friends” of the church.
People ask, “What is the purpose of the Men’s Retreat?” If I were to answer in a general way, the purpose is to get to know each other on a deeper level. The purpose is to have some fun. The purpose is to identify ways to be a better husband, father, friend and citizen. Then of course, the underlying purpose is to consider what God’s role might be in shaping and instructing us along the way.
Yet the purpose cuts even deeper. It has layers. For too much of history, men have led with distorted forms of masculine energy. (Frankly in more recent times, women have sometimes done the same.) However in healthy institutional cultures, masculine and feminine energy is in balance. Thus on the Men’s Retreat, we emphasize vulnerability. We encourage men to identify their primary emotions. We ask men to take risks, do something different, change the paradigm, seek different outcomes. At least in part, this is the value of feminine energy which is sorely missing in too many places.
So I/we ask for your prayers this weekend. May we seek and find a better balance of the masculine and feminine. Jesus embodied it. We aspire to do the same.
Carter
Sunday, June 9, 2024
Dear Friends,
The last week has been quite an emotional ordeal. When I arrived in San Antonio last Friday, the doctors announced that my daughter (Rebecca) might not make it. It was sobering and thank God I was sober. I was present to every moment. I felt everything I was supposed to feel. My heart belonged to me.
By early this week, the tide had turned. Becca was out of danger. It might have played out differently. But somehow by the grace of God, it didn’t. So I have been reflecting on Carl Sandburg’s poem, “Our Prayer of Thanks”. It is a lovely piece, an invitation to sentient beings, to pay closer attention.
“For the gladness here where the sun is shining at
evening on the weeds at the river,
Our prayer of thanks.
For the laughter of children who tumble barefooted and
bareheaded in the summer grass,
Our prayer of thanks.
For the sunset and the stars, the women and the white
arms that hold us,
Our prayer of thanks.
God,
If you are deaf and blind, if this is all lost to you,
God, if the dead in their coffins amid the silver handles
on the edge of town, or the reckless dead of war
days thrown unknown in pits, if these dead are
forever deaf and blind and lost,
Our prayer of thanks.
God,
The game is all your way, the secrets and the signals and
the system; and so for the break of the game and
the first play and the last.
Our prayer of thanks.”
I must confess that I do not know the mysteries of the game. I do not understand the rules, nor am I able to foresee any outcomes. But I am learning on a much deeper level how to be thankful. What a blessing – a simple gift which threatens to change my every waking moment.
See you on Sunday.
Carter
Sunday, October 18, 2020
Dear Friends,
One of my favorite movies of ALL time is “Il Postino”, a beautiful story about a postman who by chance forges a relationship with the exiled South American poet, Pablo Neruda. It is a story about the power of relationship. It is perhaps even more a story about the power of poetry.
Poetry is not simply an artistic nicety. It is not merely a clever play on words. It is a pathway to the sublime. It is the cracking open of imagination – which some would describe as the gateway to hope and transformation. In the above-mentioned film, a man’s life is forever changed by his introduction to poetry. Listen to Neruda’s poem, “Poetry”, describing the transformation:
And it was at that age … Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don’t know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure nonsense,
pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens unfastened and open.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of mystery,
felt myself a pure part of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
As most of you know, Mich Zeman loved poetry. He shared it with this congregation over the course of many years. It was not just a passing fancy or casual pastime. He believed in the creative power of language to move souls and reveal the hidden depths of reality.
On next Tuesday night, we will hold the 3rd Annual Mich Zeman Poetry Fest (see below). As with most other THCC offerings, it will be virtual. But you won’t want to miss it – this chance to call up some memories of brother Mich, listen to some poetry, and have our hearts break loose on the wind.
Carter
Sunday, September 6, 2020
Dear Friends,
Rob, Jennifer and I met on Tuesday morning to talk and plan for the upcoming months. We asked ourselves, “What is God doing in the world? How is our faith speaking to us? What is the message that we hope to bring at a time like this?” It was a rich dialogue, and we are excited about the fall and early winter. As we start a new school year, I share with you our firm commitment to begin in-person worship at THCC on Sunday September 20th. We have a bit more work to do on the details, but you will hear more about it next week!
As I have pondered ‘what message do we need to hear’, I am conscious of the wearying effects of Covid-19, of deep political divisions, and heightened uncertainty and anxiety. To be sure, we are in unsettled times. Yet for me personally, the pandemic is mostly an inconvenience; and the ‘us versus them’ political circus has helped me to crystallize my convictions on important issues. I am not in the midst of an existential crisis, and my faith remains strong.
I have been reading a book called “The Coddling of the American Mind”. It is a provocative and challenging read. The authors argue that Americans have been taught in recent years to see themselves as fragile, as victims of circumstance, as needing protection from every danger. They also argue that the fragility mindset is a self-fulfilling loop. It makes us more anxious, and weaker. I am wondering if that is true.
On a pastoral note, I want to acknowledge all of those who have suffered in very real ways over the past 6 months – the loss of loved ones, the loss of jobs, explosive civil unrest, and real distress about the future of our country. We stand with you on this journey.
At the same time, I want to declare to our beloved church community, “We are not fragile. We are strong. The pandemic is not the defining characteristic of our lives. Tragedy does not determine our mindset. Rather, our love for God and our willingness to put love into action is the steadfast and unchanging backbone of our identity.”
By grace,
Carter