Thankful for the Crust

Now that we're getting into the pumpkin pie season, I'll need to be fine tuning my pie eating skills.  I bet you will too. What's your technique?  


Personally, I am very careful when it comes to the crust.  Oh, I eat the crust.  I'm not one of those wasteful people who disdainfully lop it off and leave it sitting on the edge of the plate like a pile of chicken bones, good for nothing except as an offering for the garbage can.  But there's a time and place for crust, and it has to be handled deftly.


Sometimes I wonder about crust.  It almost seems like it is one of those things you could do without. Crust, by itself, isn't very appealing. Couldn't you just cook the pumpkin filling in a big bowl and then scoop out what you want and forget about the crust?  I think I remember my mother making pumpkin pie and having extra filling which she would pour into a mini pie pan without benefit of crust, and it tasted just like the real thing.


Crust does come in handy though, especially on Thanksgiving night, when you take a break from the football game, and you pass through the kitchen and see the remains of the pumpkin pie sitting there. As long as you're passing by, you might as well slice off a sliver of the pie, grab it by the crust, balance it on your hand and guide it into your mouth -- and it will all be gone by the time you get back to the living room and no one will ever know, unless they smell your pumpkin breath!


But here's my usual method for pumpkin pie disposal. (I'm starting to feel like Martha Stewart!)  First, slice off the point, stab it, and slide it into your mouth.  Next, slice off the second row, cut it in half and slide those two pieces in.  The third row usually divides nicely into three mouthfulls for the slice, stab and slide routine. That normally leaves just the fourth row and the crust.  I like to tip the pie on its back at this point so that I can sever the crust with just a little bit of pumpkin with it, leaving the main part of the fourth row to be divided into fourths and dispatched to tummyland.  


There are two things you never want to do.  First, you never want to eat the crust by itself, without some pumpkin attached.  Second, you never want to eat the crust last.  Always save at least one full crustless piece for your last bite.


I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on crust.  I guess you can't have pie without it.  It does hold the pie together.  It does provide a certain crunch and texture.  It does provide variety in the pie eating endeavor.  It does let you know you're getting to the end.  And I guess it doesn't taste really BAD.  Martha says she even likes plain crust, especially if she can sprinkle brown sugar on it.


There is a lot of "crust" in life,too, a lot of things that seem dull, tasteless, dry and not needed.  There's a lot of life that is routine and not very exciting.  It's not all pumpkin pie filling.  There's a lot of crust. Washing dishes, brushing teeth, vacuuming the rug, taking the trash out, laundry, changing your car's oil, doing taxes: in my book, it's all crust.  But maybe some of these things are what hold life together too.  Maybe we need a contrast between what is flashy and juicy and the more ordinary things of life.  You can do a lot of thinking and reflecting while your brushing your teeth, I have found.  This thanksgiving, give thanks for the crust.  It's all part of God's generous gift to us.

The Gesture ...... When no words are needed

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but- “arf, arf!”- here are a couple of  bow-wows who have broken new ground of late.

Martha and I have adopted a new habit.  It began this fall as we were driving along.  Martha was sharing some insightful comment with me.  I, of course, was all ears.  But suddenly, a thing of beauty appeared on the left side of the road, a gloriously bedecked tree, flaunting its coat of vibrant colors, a visual treat not to be missed.  It was approaching our field of view very quickly.  Martha’s story was progressing, but obviously, it was not about to end in the next 3 seconds.  What to do?

I felt like the guy in the McDonald’s commercial, you know, the one who is put on the spot by his lady.  She is appalled that her sister’s boyfriend thinks Sundays are just for watching football.  Quickly, he considers all the dire consequences that could come about if he responds in the wrong way, then smartly –just as he has done with his menu selections- he comes up with the answer: “He’s a jerk!”  She smiles.  Crisis averted.

Back in my dilemma, I waffled between interrupting Martha’s story and redirecting her to the tree in milliseconds of time, or just letting the tree pass. 

I think the Lord must have seen this as a desperate prayer from me, because, without even thinking about it, as if some heavenly messenger had grabbed my appendage, my arm swept sideways across my chest, starting at Martha’s eye and ending with outstretched palm towards the bejeweled tree. It worked beautifully.  The new gesture was almost as beautiful as the tree!

Ever since that day of “The Gesture,” we have been gesturing at all the fall sights around us. We hardly use words anymore!  Her arm goes out as if, “I present to you one of God’s glorious sights!”  My arm nods back, and the beauty is acknowledged.  In fact, words seem to cheapen the sight. Rarely can we come up with adequate descriptions of the splendor of the passing foliage.  But The Gesture; it simply presents the sight for what it is.  No words necessary.

What a gift! We stumbled upon “The Gesture.”  It directed Martha to the tree without completely interrupting her story.

I think Jesus used The Gesture too.  Sometimes he would gesture at a flower, a tree, a prostitute, a little child, a widow. Oh, we have a few words recorded about the events, but it was mostly about his gesture towards the sight he wanted people to see. I think particularly of the widow dropping her little bit of nothing into the temple treasury box. I can see Jesus smiling broadly, his arm reaching out, lifting up that woman’s act of love.

I wonder if we should be gesturing more in our daily lives.  Wouldn’t it be something if, every time we saw an act of love, or heard a note of wisdom, we simply held out our palm towards the person, thus saying to others, “Wasn’t that a beautiful thing that just happened here?”  It might even have been as beautiful as a crimson tree on a sunny fall day!

After all, if you’re driving along and accidentally cut in front of another driver, that driver may very well give you a gesture, a gesture of disapproval.  Why should all the angry people get all the gestures?  Why not, as people of faith, claim The Gesture, and use it for good?

I think our world could use a few less words and a few more gestures of the Jesus kind. If you see me gesturing when next we meet, I haven’t gone crazy.  I’m simply in awe of an act of beauty I have just seen, maybe from you!

Finally, I apologize for all these words; sometimes you just can’t get around ‘em.   Still, if I can get my head on straight and my actions aligned with my intentions, I’ll be letting “The Gesture” do some of my talking.  Sometimes, no words are needed!

Who’s Listening?

Over the course of my ministry, no matter what young parents thought to the contrary, I really did sympathize with them when they said, “Pastor, it’s such a struggle every time I come to church with my young kids.  I just can’t do church right now!”  Corralling kids in worship can be a challenge.

I realized that not everyone had the perfect two children that I had. I smiled proudly and peacefully each Sunday as I watched my two little angels nestled with their mother in the pew, hanging on every word I said and singing every hymn with gusto.  At least, that’s how it seemed to me from my perspective in the pulpit.  I’m not sure Martha had quite the same view.

Now comes a new turn of events.  I’m retired.  I am the pew sitter, and I have a grandson, a very wiggly, squiggly, animated, vocal, un-bashful grandson who comes to visit us from time to time ….. on Sunday ….. when it is church time!  Lord knows we fortify ourselves before each worship time.  We bring our bag of toys from home.  Keeler –that’s my grandson’s first name—grabs the bag of animals the church provides as soon as he comes through the church doors.  We give him his last minute instructions about how we act when we’re in God’s house.  We position one grandparent on each side of him in the pew, if possible.  And then the adventure begins!

This past Sunday, a moment of panic overtook me: Martha was the designated reader of the lessons.  I was left one on one with the boy during that time.  We had a whole pew to ourselves, so I wasn’t worried about him striking up a ruckus with anyone sharing our pew.  I did cringe a bit when Martha began reading and Keeler let out a loud, “Hi Grandma!”  The congregation giggled. I “ssshhhhh’d” him. I could still hold my grandparenting head high.

As she read on, I didn’t pay attention.  I was paying attention to Keeler.  He was on his knees, having the lion attack the camel.  “How bad could it get?” I reassured myself. “He’s playing with his toys.  I could do without the animal sounds, but people will understand.”  When it came to the responsive reading of the psalm, I mumbled through only a line or two.  My eye and mind were on the boy.

As Martha read through the closing lines of the second lesson, I was beginning to relax.  Soon, she would be done and back here with me to help me in this Herculean task.  She came to the last line, from Romans 7: Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Immeditaely, out came the loud answer to her question from Keeler’s mouth: I will!

Who’s listening now?!

I must admit, I have been astounded over the years by kids in worship.  I always knew they were absorbing something from the stained glass windows, the songs, the people, the rituals, the turning of the pages in the hymnal, the smell of wine after communion, the splashing of water on a baby’s head in baptism, but it soon became apparent that they gathered in even more than that.  They heard the word.  They made comments about the stories in my sermons.  They asked questions in the Children’s sermon about things I never thought they were thinking about, theological questions about who Jesus is and how he did the things he did.  Keeler is right in line with what I have seen over the years. He’s a multi-tasker.  He can play with his animals but listen to Grandma read at the same time.  And he is ready to answer: I will! I will deliver you from this body of death!

So a message to myself and all who sit with the kids in the pews, and the congregations that surround them: take heart, those little people are listening better than you might guess they are.  There is hope, and you may not be the worst kid overseer ever, even though you are thinking to yourself: “When Jesus said, ‘Let the children come’, he wasn’t talking about MY child at this stage of his or her development!”

And may all of us child watchers pray: “O God, give me the courage, patience and wisdom to allow my child to experience you in worship.”  We may not be able to pay attention in worship as much as we would like, but you can bet that the kids are listening!

Pushing Rapture, Weakening the Faith

As 6 pm on May 21, 2011 approached, everybody had a joke about the rapture, which was to have left clothes and automobiles strewn about, minus their occupants, now raptured to the heavens. 

My little chuckle was that I intended to buy a giant 52 inch flat screen TV a week ahead of time so that I could have a full week to enjoy the magnified images before the bill arrived in my mailbox. If only I could have convinced my wife of that, I would be smirking to myself in this post rapture moment as I inspected giant bullet holes in giant corpses on NCIS.

Apparently, it was the great faith of the rapture predictors that coaxed them to climb out on a limb and announce the May 21 date to the world.  We were supposed to take note and get our life right with God so that we could catch the wave.

The rapture message was to be one last moment of people turning in faith towards God.  In fact, whenever some group pushes rapture, it weakens the faith.  In stead of undergirding the faith, it turns faith and believing into a joke. Most of the world saw this trying to predict what Jesus said couldn’t be predicted, as just plain silly.  Serious reporters on network news could barely keep a straight face as they reported it. 

But long after the rapture hype subsides, the silliness aura will linger.  Our faith is cheapened, trivialized by the very ones who were supposed to be the true believers. The next time that some Christian speaks out of conviction, the wavering may think: “Those other guys spoke with conviction too, and it was all a bunch of silliness.  Maybe this is silliness as well.”  The waters have been muddied.  The willingness to take faith seriously has been squandered.

So Christian brothers and sisters, I’m afraid the days of making pronouncements and having secret answers have hit the wall.  So be it!  The real, authentic good news that leads to faith is still about engaging the woman at the well, inviting the tax collector, touching the hurting, and sharing the story of love on the cross.  

The Parson Ponders: Pushing Up and Turning Green

What do they know that I don't know?  

A few weeks ago, I was driving along on  a cloudy, cold, wintry, ugly day.  One more day just like all the rest of the winter that had chilled my bones, plugged up my sinuses and made my nose drip.   It seemed to me, however, that the grass was turning green.  "Couldn't be," I thought to myself.  "It's too early for grass to get green.  Foolish grass.   Why doesn't it just wait until it gets warm?"

Come to think of it, that grass wasn't any smarter than the tulips that sent up a test finger in February as if they couldn't wait for their time.  There they stood in the midst of cracked ground and ten degree temperatures.  I would have stayed longer to lecture them on learning to push up at the right  time, but it was too cold, so I darted for the warmth.

Out back, here come the chives, the lambs ears, the yarrow and the tiger lilies. The daffodils didn't wait for me to signal the all clear either before they risked frost bite.  Out front, the lilac bush buds are liable to get coated with ice before its all over with.

It seems to me that thirty two degrees today is just as cold as thirty two degrees was in December.  Last week I had a talk with a robin, bouncing around in the snow.  "It's your own fault," I said.  "Why don't you use your head?   Why don't you wait until the snow's gone before you come back?" 

What do they know that I don't know?  All these plants and animals just keep pushing up into the chilled air, turning green beneath the snow and saying a  defiant "no" to the cold.  Every year, they do it on their own.  They never ask for my advice.  Every year it seems to me they do it too soon.  Every year, though, they do just fine.

Maybe in the midst of Easter, I should let those tulips and robins rub off on me a little bit.  Maybe some day late in March I should take a tumble through the snow and get some grass stains on my pants.  Maybe as Christians, people should be saying about you or me: "What does he know that I don't know?"  "How can he be poking his head up so high in the midst of this dark, cold world we live in?"  "Why doesn't he wait for better times before he comes out in the open and expresses optimism about the future.

Foolish Christians, they just keep pushing up in the cold, turning green and letting their buds swell in anticipation of what is to come.  It takes some daring to be a Christian.  The Easter "son"rise calls for us to come out of our tombs and into the cold and snow.  It might be a little nippy, but there's no doubt about what lies ahead.  God put within the plants and the birds and insects a mechanism that knows just when to spring to life.  Easter is God's way of saying that this same mechanism has been placed within us.  When you see Easter, when you see the Risen Christ, it is time to spring to life.

So push up, turn green, shoot up a test finger.  God is on the move, and so are we.

The Parson Ponders: In the Light of Day

(This reprised Ponders, a little early for Epiphany this year, is dedicated to my friend Paula, who recently had a squirrelly time--- but got de-squirreled a lot faster than me!)

From the very first moment of waking, New Year's Eve morning was a joyous time in our household.  It wasn't because we had made it through what had been, at times, a difficult year for us.  It wasn't because I was thinking of the First Night celebration we were going to attend that night in Akron.  It wasn't because Martha woke me and told me a good joke: she doesn't do that in the morning.

It was a joyous time because I was awakened by rattling in the attic.  It was rattling in the attic as opposed to gnawing in the attic.  Yes, a visitor had decided to hunker down for the winter in our attic.  I had been doing battle with the culprit for about six weeks, searching for the place he might have entered the attic, stapling the suspected hole shut, and wondering if the pesky guy was in or out when I sealed the hole shut. 

I soon found out that he was in, but he was not at all interested in the peanut butter, corn nor walnuts I placed inside my cocked traps to tempt him. Meanwhile, the critter made noises in the attic such that you would imagine a grown man was in the attic with a hand saw.  When I slithered through the tiny hole leading into one of the least accessible parts of the attic and lifted a bat of insulation, I discovered what that varmint was about with all his sawing.  There lay about 50 walnuts, each with a dime size hole in it where the nut had been extracted.  There too was about a half a pail of saw dust from the buzz saw teeth of this monster.

I say "monster," because that is what he became as time went on.  In our minds, the creature began getting bigger and bigger, fiercer and fiercer, meaner and meaner.  We soon began thinking that the roof would probably cave in some day about the time he turned his attention to a roof rafter instead of a walnut.  If not that, then the house would be set afire when he severed an electrical wire.  I began dreaming a recurring nightmare of the creature gnawing a hole through the ceiling of my bedroom and dropping down on me in the middle of the night in order to escape his prison.  Don't laugh, he was right above us, gnawing away, the night we rented "The Shawshank Redemption" tape, and 

that's how the guy broke out of his jail cell!

But you already know that this has a joyful outcome, don't you?  On New Year's Eve morning.  The rattling in the attic was this huge, mean, nasty monster that had plagued us for nearly two months.  He was in the trap.  The small dish of water recently added to the trap must have finally made him let down his defenses.  I bundled up, got a pair of heavy duty gloves, and with heart beating wildly I ascended the steps into the attic ready to do battle. 

What was it that struck such fear in us?  A little gray squirrel, not even half grown.  We had imagined him to be much bigger, much craftier, much more tuned in to the wiles of mankind: a seasoned veteran in outwitting people and wreaking havoc upon them.  In the light of day, he didn't seem nearly as invincible. 

Epiphany is the season of light.  It comes as we begin telling the news of Jesus' birth.  It comes as the light begins growing stronger and the days longer.  Epiphany is the time when the light of Jesus begins casting its rays into the darkness.  Epiphany is the time when we bring our monsters out into the light of Jesus and see that they aren't nearly as invincible as we once thought.  What is it that's gnawing away at you, making you feel as though you are under attack, causing you nightmares and fear?  Jesus has come to shed his light on that very thing.  One of the TV experts I listened to during my ordeal said that if you want squirrels to leave your attic, turn lights on in the attic and leave them on.  The squirrels don't like the constant light and will leave (if you haven't sealed up their escape route.  Now that Christmas is over, leave the Christmas light on.  Let Jesus shine on your fears and troubles.  They'll soon lose their power over you.

The Parson Ponders: Thanksgiving According to the Nail Holes

November 2010

There's something going on at our house in the two front rooms. The wallpaper has come off, and the plaster walls are getting a major upgrade. Paint is coming next, the first paint to touch these walls since the house was constructed in 1914.

There’s never been paint, but there HAS been wallpaper. Five layers of wallpaper coated the walls and ceiling when we took our steamer to it. Peeling back the latest wallpaper layer of pink hearts on white background of the 1980s, revealed the yellow paisley of the 70s, the much loved green Miracle Mart special of the 60s (if you know what the Miracle Mart was, you are a thrifty old timer from these parts!), the brown stripes of the late 50s, and finally, the original white floral and stripes that endured the longest, from the beginning of the house up until the 1950's. That 1914 wall covering still looked pretty good when Martha carefully removed the upper layers to expose some of it. My brothers and I can reconstruct our lives by recalling the aura of each of those layers.

But what really sets the plate for me as I approach Thanksgiving this year is all of the nail holes in my walls. Instead of patching the nail holes before applying another layer of wallpaper, my family simply left the holes and covered them with a new layer of wallpaper. The holes were covered and forgotten. But when all those layers came off, we saw every nail hole that ever was filled by a nail that held some treasured picture. 

Some nail holes were made way back in 1914. Their nails held pictures of family and loved ones, artistic renderings of God's bounty and the beautiful world around us. Some of the now missing nails anchored drawings made by the kids and grandkids, or Christmas and Easter decorations, or perhaps, some biblical wisdom couched on a plaque or card.

In one favored spot on the wall, over where a chair usually sat, I counted 75 nail holes! That's a lot of holes, that held a lot of nails, that held a lot of beauty and memories! But even more, that's a lot of Thanksgiving. To me, every nail driven into that plaster is a prayer of thanksgiving. It celebrates some gift of God that the family wanted to hold up and remember. On that one spot on that wall, at least 75 times, some member of my family, or the other families that lived here before us, went to it, and with their hammer and nail, pounded out a joyful noise of thanksgiving to our good and gracious God!

Maybe there are holes in your walls too, or maybe you patched yours before you tapped in new nails. Maybe there are people, places, and biblical gems you treasure and want to remember that have warranted a nail and a nail hole in your wall. It’s a good place to start your Thanksgiving this year. The nails hold the story of all we have received from God’s hand. There’s a thankful wonder about nails and nail holes, starting with the nails of the cross, which held up our greatest gift! Happy Thanksgiving!