Sunday, November 10, 2024

Dear Friends, 

My friend, Mary Zeman, shared a short piece this week from Nikita Gill.  It reads:

“Everything is on fire,
but everyone I love is doing beautiful things
and trying to make life worth living,
and I know I don’t have to believe in everything,
but I believe in that.”

For sure, this week has elicited intense feelings for lots of Americans.  Some are deeply disappointed and sad.  Some are disappointed and angry.  Some are disappointed, sad, angry and afraid.  Some are worried and hopeful.  Some are pleased, if not joyful.  Wow. That is quite a range of emotions.  

What if we decided in a conscious and intentional way NOT to judge (at least right now) how someone else is feeling?  What if we listened carefully to the pregnant woman who feels less safe because of Trump?  What if we imagined ourselves in the shoes of a Guatemalan farmworker who picks the fruit that comes to our grocery stores … but is at risk of being deported?  What if we listened to the young men in West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wyoming who are angry and convinced that the American Dream left them behind years ago?  Wherever you land with your sympathies, there is an opportunity here to practice more empathy than usual.  I believe it is the way of our faith.

Here is another opportunity.  Let’s get serious about redefining ‘safe space’.  Safe doesn’t mean everyone should be even-keeled.  It doesn’t mean that people do not get angry and say things they wish they had not.  It doesn’t mean that people don’t vehemently disagree.  What if safe means we practice apologizing, we offer forgiveness, we seek by whatever means to repair what is broken?  That is the kind of community that Jesus outlines for us in the New Testament.  I would feel safe enough in that kind of community, and that’s all any of us need – to feel safe enough.        

I do love the words of Nikita Gill.  In this season of turmoil and uncertainty, I am going to keep company with people who are doing beautiful things AND working hard to make life worth living.  I do not care if they are left-leaning or right-leaning.  

For all of us live by grace.

Carter

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Dear Friends,

As you crunch the leaves under your feet (and, perhaps, a leftover Kit-Kat bar from Halloween), take some time to notice the holiness of this season.  Yes, Holiness. Cultures around the world have celebrated this week on the calendar as a liminal time in the year where heaven and earth are closer than ever. How do we celebrate this holiness?
 
This weekend we join Christians all around the world as we celebrate All Saints Day.  Of course, we do it in the most wonderfully Talmadge Hill way, where we lift up the saints in our midst and our lives. Think of all the people who have sustained you and brought you to this moment. Some remain in our midst and others are only memories. Yet all of these saints have somehow blessed our earthly lives by helping us open up to God’s grace by their words, deeds and example.
 
Our church is a delightful historic church whose splendor is in its simplicity. We don’t have stained glass windows honoring the saints of old. Rather, our color and our magnificence come from the people and lives we celebrate inside. We look forward to lifting up all of our saints – living and dead – whose lives bring grace to ours every day. Your presence and your spirit will only add to this.  Please join us on Sunday.
 
Love,
Cheryl

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Dear Friends,
 
Sunday is poetry Sunday!  Why is that important? What does poetry do?
As a church is it important to us because roughly a third of our Bible is poetry. It’s amazing that the poetic verses in scripture written over 2000 years ago continue to evoke meaning and promise in our contemporary world. In addition, as one of my most memorable high school English teachers taught me, poetry does NO-THING. Yes, in other words, poetry does nothing. Think about that. Its vast mystery is revealed in unique ways to each person who encounters it. Herein lies its power and promise: in that space of wonder and personal discernment, poetry can lead us closer to God, who, as the mystics remind us, is also “no thing.” Most of all, good poetry has never quite lost its power to capture our deep longing to find sense in a bewildering universe. 
 
This resonates with me. When I read great poetry, I find myself moved beyond utilitarian conceptions of language. In poetry, language is not treated as if it exists to achieve some human consequence, to make me buy a product or even to make me feel or react in a particular way. It doesn’t exist to harry me into a specific political or emotional response. Rather, it will always be allusive, and it will always gesture toward mystery and something beyond the words that provide its scaffolding. As Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said, “If
poems do not change the outside world, they change the landscape of language so that space appears.” 
 
While poetry will always be too vast to reduce to any one angle, this Sunday we can celebrate what it means to us. For me, poetry puts me at the intersection of wisdom and wonder, a place that beckons the spirit, the psyche and the lived human experience.  Join us on Sunday where we open up this amazing space anew.  I look forward to seeing you – and don’t forget to bring your favorite poem.
 
Love,
Cheryl

Sunday, October 20, 2024

Dear Friends, 

This week, we had our Quaker-style gathering to address some of the fear, anxiety and concern about the state of the world.  Some of us are genuinely worried about the upcoming elections.  Who is to say these worries are not justified?  Apart from the elections, we are facing hurricanes, wars and a host of other crises.  

The Quaker-style gathering was intended to make space for God’s presence, for listening, for a more prayerful posture to our individual and collective concerns.  To be in God’s presence is to lower the temperature on disagreements and the divisiveness of opinion(s).  Let’s be honest.  Being a Democrat or Republican does little, or nothing, to make you a better human being.  In fact, most of our attachments (political parties, sports teams, fraternities, sororities, country clubs) do little, or nothing, to deepen our spiritual lives or encourage spiritual growth.  

Thus and so, we came together to remind ourselves that Americans have been through some extremely tense and difficult times – the Civil War, Reconstruction, the World Wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Viet Nam, Civil Rights.  By God’s grace and our resilience, we made our way through these seasons of conflict.  This alone is reason to be hopeful.  

We also came together to remind ourselves of our deepest calling.  It is not to any of the above-mentioned attachments.  Our calling is to listen for the Holy Spirit, to seek God in all our encounters, to embody the compassion and mercy of Jesus.  In other words, we are called to LOVE whatever the season may be.   

Love one another as I have loved you.  That is the message of faith.  Don’t lose sight of the message for then, we lose sight of our higher angels.

With love,

Carter    

Sunday, October 13, 2024

Dear Friends,
 
This is a dynamic and challenging time in our lives and the world. Even as we dwell in the beauty of our New England Autumn, we are feeling the fatigue, division and despair of the U.S. election season and all the anxiety that brings. We are watching hurricanes devastate our siblings in the Southeast. And violence continues to convulse through so many communities of our human family in the Middle East, Ukraine and other areas of conflict. 
 
One of the most enduring theological questions asks how a loving God could create a world where these things persist. Academic libraries across the globe are filled with theoretical answers to this question. Most of these answers fail to satisfy, hence the eternal search for the answer. One response I recently heard, however, caused me to think anew: God’s creation is a universe that is constantly being created. And this creation includes laws of physics, cause and effect and unique, imperfect humans with free will. But God also created YOU. As you ponder the “why” in the challenges we face, I ask you to ponder what are the things that YOU can do to help create the Kingdom.
 
You can contribute your time and your love. This weekend we will do our annual project with Homefront, helping one of our neighbors with much needed home repairs. There are no special skills required. You simply need to show up. You can work all day or you can stay for an hour. Talmadge Hill has been doing this for over 20 years. Being part of this legacy of love and commitment certainly allows you to be part of God’s creation in a meaningful way.
 
You can connect.  Being together over coffee, bible study, fellowship, and of course, worship, reminds us that we walk this way together through all the seasons of our life. We share love with each other so we can share it with the world. And we are vulnerable together.  On Tuesday at 7:00, we will have a special evening where we share –without judgement or debate – all the fears we are holding as we approach Election Day. 
 
You can pray. Prayer helps change things. It doesn’t change things because God grants a specific request. It changes things because it allows our hearts to deeply express our most sincere desires and it reveals God’s loving grace for us to encounter as we create help create our world and God’s Kingdom.
 
I’m so grateful for the ways that Talmadge Hill helps us know the love of God and share it. I am so grateful that together we can do our part to create, connect, forgive, love and renew. I am so grateful that I get to do this with you.
 
Love,
Cheryl