...a word from Kathy

Welcome to the week of Christmas!  We have choices to make in the next few days.  What dishes to prepare, what to wear, who to visit, what time will we gather, did we buy the right gifts, do we have enough gifts for everyone?  We have choices galore.  Many of us are afforded choices we hardly notice. The Christmas story is about choice also.  Joseph and Mary made a choice to believe.  The shepherds made a choice too, " Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened. " Luke 2:15  It strikes me this year that this God who sent his son to earth as a baby invented choice. He chose to create.  He chose to love.  He chose an unexpected arrival into our world.  He chose to leave the perfect heavenly realm and come into our difficult world.  He chose to walk among us, to know our aches and pains. And he chose to offer us the choice to follow him.  Choice in essence is unconditional love.  It's a story of:  I love...

Photo: S. Keating A s the Day draws near, the hustle and bustle becomes more of a hustle for many of us.  Schedules are  being coordinated, visits being planned, Christmas lists have grown longer, the gifting seems endless, and moms are receiving, "Mom, can you cook this for Christmas" requests.  Oh, the joy of being amid such excitement and anticipation.  But the hustle and bustle elves bumping me around, have me longing for a quiet night. It's as though the noise has become too loud for me to hear.  Or could it be that I'm not tuned correctly to hear, really hear. Thankfully, I found myself in a quiet place this week, joining several hundred people at a Symphony Christmas concert.  We arrived and were seated high above the music-makers.  Our view was soaring above the instruments, and the voices.  Yes, it was crowded but in the most lovely way.  The musicians began to tune, the concertmaster appeared, and was greeted with applause.  Th...

'T is the season to be expectant.  Children are expectant and anxious.  Parents are expecting long gift lists and limited funds.  Grandparents are expecting small pleasures of seeing smiles and giggles.  A few among us are literally expecting babies.  I have a sweet friend expecting a spring baby after the hardship of waiting.  This couple is filled with joy, expectant of the gift they will soon receive.   Truly Christmas is the celebration of waiting in expectation, the expectation of a Savior.  We celebrate a Savior entering this world.  He was expected for generations, he was expected as a warrior, as a conqueror, as one ready to do battle and defeat the opposition.  Yet he came most unexpectedly.  He came as a most vulnerable baby.  How could anyone understand or accept this?  How can we? We seem to still be looking for a conqueror of all that is wrong in our world.  Someone who can give us love, and leadership, a...

H ere we are again awaiting Christmas Day, a celebration of the birth of the Savior.  As I think back in time, way back in time, to the BC era, I wonder how people waited and what they anticipated as they looked for a Savior. Was the expectation so beyond their imaginations that at times they felt the prophecy was only a myth?  As their fathers and grandmothers taught the stories of the expected Messiah, did the words at times fall flat?  In everyday living, holding on to the expectation and the hope of being saved amidst significant persecution, had to be extremely difficult.  It's hard to wait and believe.  It's really difficult to rest in a waiting period without becoming tired, feeling foolish and perhaps turning cynical.  Who can truly save us, they may have pondered?  How can this mess of my life be 'righted' and made whole?  Many life experiences–famine, war, persecution–perhaps led them to feel the foolishness of belief in an unseen savio...

F all is coming and the leaves will soon be turning. Many  people will travel north to see this changing phenomenon. The colors of bright yellow, orange and red stagger our imaginations. The hues are as varied as the sands on the beach. Each leaf will seemingly be singing their own song as they leave the tree and float slowly to the ground.  Can I?  When things change. When life hurts. When my knees get creaky. When an ending seems slow and lonely. When rejection comes. When disasters happen.  What joy can be found if we look closely at the cycle of the seasons?  We live. We cling to the things that give us life and nourishment. We act out our created purpose. We offer shade to those in the heat, we offer the sound of soothing as our leaves connect with others and blow in the wind. We dazzle with our proud colors; from bright green to eventually a deep red, orange or yellow.  The leaves don’t cling to the past or worry about the future. They exi...

Banff, Canada  Photo by KLHayes N ot too many days ago we went through the annual daylight savings, clock changing routine.  It's a time that interrupts our sleep and our rhythm.  An adage I always recall is, "spring forward" and later in the year "fall back."  Easter is a time to spring forward. I listened to a sermon on Sunday, and the priest pointed out that in one part of the Easter story we find Mary turning around.  And these words caught my attention.  In John 20, Mary approaches the tomb where Jesus was buried.  She came early.  I wonder why she came.  Surely, she knew the tomb would be sealed and guarded, yet she decided to go.  I’ve imagined how Mary the disciples may have been feeling around this time.  They must have felt perplexed, disappointed, confused, dumb struck with all that had occurred within just a few days.  The emotional high of celebrating Passover with Jesus to the emotional low of watching him die. ...

D o you remember the era of epic movies filmed in vast deserts?  I seem to remember an actor, maybe Omar Sharif, crawling through the sands, fraught with thirst, and through his blurry vision sees an oasis.  As he continues his crawl, the oasis, filled with pure water is but a mirage.  But do not fret he is soon found, and his thirst is quenched!  And his wounds, thirst, and sunburn are attended.  The film makers of that era always seemed to float an oasis that was soon revealed to be only a mirage. As Jesus’ desert time ended, he too, is attended.  And it was no mirage. Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. Matthew 4:11 NIV I love the use of the word attended in this translation. Upon consultation with the all-knowing GOOGLE, I asked,  what does it mean to attend someone? “The verb attend means to be present, to listen, or give care of attention to.” What a beautiful picture of the love and care that Jesus received from the angels...

N ew relationships are usually filled with a lot of chatter, and stories of our beginnings.  We share funny moments, historical moments, hard moments, and all moments that molded us into our current state.  Then as the relationship grows and matures, the words may become less.  And it’s enough to just be in the other’s presence.  Together but without words.  A quiet zone of space and love. After thirty-some years of life and chatter, Jesus entered the quiet desert.  And we only learn of spoken words after his 40 days and nights.  During the forty days, we have no idea of what was said or not said but we read that he was alone.  I wonder what Jesus thought about, what he experienced in the quiet of the desert.  His desert seemed as though it was a preparation for His next steps.  His desert was all-consuming and gave Him a renewal for life ahead. Is a desert visit a pilgrimage?  Is it in this place that we can hear most clearly? ...

T here are all sorts of ifs in our lives.  We live a lot of life under the if mindset.  Whether overtly stated or   not, we hear the undertones of the if statement.  If you love me, you’ll help me.  If you love me, you’ll clean up the kitchen tonight.  If you love me, you’ll buy me that new dress.  If you loved me, you’d never have let me get into this mess. The devil uses a similar strategy.  Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “ If     you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you,  and they will lift you up in their hands,  so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Matthew 4:5-7 This is the “show me your God” moment or maybe the playground bully, yelling “prove it.”  We may all have witnesse...

M y mother used to say, I’m so hungry that I’m about to cave in!  We’d laugh and tease her about her words.  But now, years later, I realize I often experience this same feeling.  I'm hungry for a food that eludes me, I too feel that I may cave in! Today, we again return to the desert.  The desert is hot, unrelenting in sun exposure, sandy and uncomfortable to say the least.  Our eyes are struggling to see through the glare, our bodies are sunburnt and aching, the exhaustion is real.  And the desert nights are almost too cool, and frightening as the silence is overbearing and only broken by the howls of wildlife and stealthy critters that stir the sand around us.  After two weeks in the desert of Lent 2024, are you thirsty or hungry yet?  Are you about to cave in?       And He had fasted for forty days and forty nights, and that left     him, of course, in a state of extreme hunger, which the Devil took advantage of in the...

W hen the week came for my big 4 – 0 birthday, I was not too thrilled.  My husband had planned a small dinner with friends who I knew shared in my “oldness.” But for me, I was not looking forward to the evening as it represented a desert of sorts, a dying.   Few of us love to be reminded of our growing age and the downside of life.  The badge of 40 was heavy. These forty days of Lent may land in that same category.  This may not be the loveliest season of the Church calendar.  There are no gifts to be bought and no decorating to be done.  It’s a solemn time.   Could it be said that we dread these forty days? We are not the first humans to experience forty days of waiting and meditating.   •In the story of Noah, “rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.” Genesis 7:12 •In David and Goliath, God’s people endured forty days of taunting and challenges from Goliath before David is sent to the battlefield.   1 Samuel 17:16 •And after...

I get so confused in this month of February.  Does the groundhog see his shadow or doesn’t he?  Is this a good thing or a bad thing?   And, then Lent begins, and the wilderness is the first stop.  Wilderness seems dry and isolated.  Both events have an element of darkness which can cause one to feel lonely, fearful, and aimless. I’ve lived days in the shadows.  I’ve lived days and months in the wilderness.  These times were not chosen moments of mine but ones where I found myself.  These days seemed long and tiresome.  The days were filled with questions, pain, and a search for answers.  I confess, I never choose the wilderness and the shadows.  Those places dig too deeply into my mind.  And it’s not an Instagram worthy life.  There are no happy pictures or having the time of my life stories. Are there?      Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Matthew 4:1 Have y...