Blessing of a Home

This is not a home altar. These items are in my study in the church.
The painting is of the lighthouse in Ludington painted by my wife.
This is to acknowledge that the true holy land is where you are
not some particular piece of geography. the egg is wooden and hand-
painted from Ukraine.  Its gift from my brother and a nod to Christian
tradition.  The paper is a "love letter" from a former church wishing me well.
The cup reminds me of the cup of blessing. The photo is of my siblings. the
Shell is a symbol of baptism and a souvenir from my kids' mission trip.
The Nativity scene is hand carved olive wood purchased from Palestinian
Christians. 

 In my last post I brought up the idea of consecrating our homes, of perhaps, even having a home altar. The home is the place where we can truly practice God's unconditional love. In our homes we are free from pretense. In our home our true nature is most revealed. In our home life is at its most raw. How blessed would it be to come before God, as a family, in our shared weakness to ask for God's strength? If you have children or grand children they will learn from you how to relate to God. If you only relate to God one day a week, then that is how they will likely relate to God. If you make your spiritual life indivisible from the rest of your life, well then our children will be all the stronger for it.

In our home we have weekly family meetings. In these meetings each person has an opportunity to bring up a topic of discussion to which every person has a an opportunity to respond to. This act of intentional communication with each other has strengthened us and has brought greater peace and harmony to our home. Wouldn't it stand to reason that if we included God in our daily lives that the blessings would multiply? Yes, most families have a prayer before meal time but what about a more intentional way of living our life together?

In our United Methodist Book of Worship there is a SERVICE FOR THE BLESSING OF A HOME on page 610. In this service, several scriptures are suggested (I will list them below). What if, at the beginning of Advent or the beginning of the calendar year we rededicate not only ourselves and our families but our homes as well, to God? The liturgy for this service will take less than ten minutes. What a great way to start the year and what a great way to get to know each other better! You could make it as simple or elaborate as you want. I could breeze in and breeze out or you could make it a party!

I would enjoy comments, suggestions and even Guinea pigs for this.

Blessings. 

Suggested lessons for the blessing of a home:

Joshua 24:14-25

1 John 4:11-21

Acts of the Apostles 2:43-47

Ephesians 3:14-21

Matthew 7:24-27

Matthew 6:25-33

John 14:1-3

Transitions

     School has  started.  I now have a 10th grader, an 8th grader, a 5th grader, a third grader and a kindergartner.  Of course that is just school-aged children.  We cannot leave out Eli, my two-year-old who demands (and gets) the lion's share of attention in the family.  We are three days into the school year and already there is complaints. My kindergartner got up made it half way down the hall, turned around got back into bed and proclaimed, "Its not morning yet!"  I know how he feels. The earlier bedtime schedule has not come with out much protest and attempted negotiation.  I will not budge.  If I am to be the one to wake them in the morning, I need them in bed so that I can have "my" time.  If that even really exists. I am pretending for the time being that it does.

One of my favorite places on earth. 

     On Memorial weekend I took the family to the beach.  It wasn't a particularly warm day but it was our last opportunity of the summer to go to one of our favorite places on Lake Michigan.  Whatever is happening in the world, whatever family stresses or conflicts are on the front burner, it seems that when we go to the lake everything is okay.  The children all get along and find it relaxing and revitalizing.
     On Monday, Memorial Day, we didn't do anything extraordinary. but as the older kids were getting ready for bed, I noticed the paper lantern that they had built weeks before.  This is one those mini-hot air balloons that glow and float into the night sky then burn themselves out.  I suggested that we launch it as a first-annual tradition to begin the school year.  We brought it outside, lit the candle, waited for the air inside the tissue paper balloon to heat up sufficiently to make the vessel float and released it.  The tissue paper balloon immediately tipped sideways, caught on fire and burned to ashes in the road in front of the house.  I looked at my children, who put a lot of time in constructing this thing, thinking that they would be devastated.  They just started laughing...and laughing. It was really hilarious.

Catastrophic failure. 

Faith, Doubt, Belief

John 20:19-29

Fruit trees in blossom

Good morning Easter People! We come to worship the Lord Jesus lives forever and ever! We have come through the season of Lent the time of preparation and now we bask in the peace of Christ...

If only it were that simple right? If only our spiritual lives followed the church calendar we could predict when we would be joyful and we would know we we would be repentant. If our relationship with God followed the church calendar we could store up faith and spiritual nourishment in May to last us through the summer when we go on summer vacations and take a break from Sunday School.

If our faith followed the church calendar this would be a high point for every one of us. But the truth is not every one of us is spiritually strong this morning. The truth is that some of us are feeling very weak indeed. Some, like Thomas in the Gospel reading today came here today not believing, but came with great skepticism.

I know a person, and perhaps you know someone like this as well, who has no doubts about anything he says. This man that I know was once a neighbor to me. When we moved in to this particular place he was 14 years old and it didn't take him long to come over to both introduce himself and to also offer his babysitting services to us for our then 1 ½ year old son Alex. Matt was funny. He was sure of everything. He was sure that he was going to be rock star. He was sure that his dad was the smartest, strongest, wisest man alive. He informed us that his house was indeed bigger and better than ours not as a way of bragging but just as a matter of fact. Matt loved to ague. If you disagreed with Matt he would argue his point relentlessly even if the facts and the evidence were overwhelmingly against him. I admit that I found this trait of his annoying at first. Especially since he often visited us unannounced. But than I just came to accept that that is just who Matt is. Then I had a little sport with it. I would propose ludicrous arguments and stick to them just so he would have something to argue with me about. One time I just dropped the statement, “Did you know, Matt, that there are no pigs anywhere in the country of Mexico?”

Of course there are.

Have you ever seen one? I haven't.

Even though he knew that I was offering up a false argument he was still compelled to try to disprove my statement. But I wouldn't relent. That must have been infuriating to him that my only proof of my statement was that I or he had never seen a pig in Mexico. Never mind that at that time neither one of us had ever been to that country. He didn't seem to mind my teasing in fact he asked me a few years ago to officiate his wedding, which I gladly did.

But isn't that the same argument that Thomas is using? It cant be true because I haven't seen it. There are a lot of things in this world that I have not seen but I believe are true. For example I have never seen the Indian Ocean. I have seen pictures, but those cold be of any ocean right? I am pretty sure the Indian Ocean exists. I have not seen an atom. I have seen a model of an atom but I have never seen one with my own eyes. Just the same I believe they exist. How about something a little more difficult? Ghosts. Do you believe in ghosts? If you don't is it because you have never seen one? What about Angels?

Someone once said something to me that made me stop until I realized what he was really saying. He said “I don't believe in candles.”

What?

He doesn't believe in candles? Look I'll show you one right now. But that's not what he was saying. What I didn't hear was that he didn't believe that people should ever use candles. It seems that at some point in his past there was an accident, there was a fire and he suffered some sort of loss. So his solution was to never use candles again. This came up as we were doing some wedding planning and I asked him if he and his bride wanted to use a unit candle. If he had just said no we would have gone on from there and I would have never known about the tragedy and the hurt in his life.

That is the beauty of the gathered body of Christ. Not only do we go out and do the work of God. Not only do we partner with God in the redemption of the world. But we share in each others lives. We lift each other up. We bear one another's burdens.

We are afraid, disappointed, let down, agitated and we need assurance for tomorrow.

God is already there. We who have eternal life are there as well. The victory is already won.

The Gospel lesson today starts on Resurrection Sunday. The disciples of Jesus were gathered behind locked doors. They were afraid, disappointed, and let down. They felt no assurance. Everything they were hoping for was seemingly lost. Then Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

He showed them his hands and his side.

“Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me so I send you.”

What an amazing experience. Jesus the one they saw get arrested was there! The one whose beaten body they saw hanging on the cross was there offering them peace.

Everything was different now. Everything is not lost. There IS hope! There is GREAT hope!. But what do do next?

Then some time later in walks Thomas. Jesus was no longer there but they tell him. They tell him but he refuses to believe. To him it is a ludicrous statement. He too saw the body of Jesus taken down from the cross and put in the tomb. A far more ludicrous statement than “there are no pigs in Mexico” or “I don't believe in candles.” He must have thought they have gone mad. I imagine that their statements were infuriating to Thomas.

Perhaps our truth claims about Jesus are still infuriating to those who have not yet experienced the Risen Christ.

Some will walk away from the peace of Christ because they see no proof. Some walk away or stay away from the Church because they have some hurt inflicted on them by the brokenness of another human. Some people, when they walk away from he Church also walk away form God.

So I say be gentle with the atheist. Be gentle with the secular humanist. Pray that they come to know and believe with out ever seeing. But if that is not possible, pray that they can see what they need to see and experience what they need to experience to know that God loves them; That God died for them; That Jesus defeated death so that we may join in his eternal life.

We all have some degree of doubt. It ebbs and flows. If you find yourself in a time of questioning and doubt, surround yourself with those who can encourage you. Hear the testimony of those who have seen and have experienced the Resurrected One. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who who have not seen and have come to believe.”

Twenty years ago I  wouldn't have guessed
Jaylen would be a part of my life.
The fact that he is, is just one more
piece of evidence of God's great love. 

So how is it with you today on your journey of doubt and faith? Thomas said that he would not believe unless he saw the mark of the nails in his hands, and but his finger of the mark of the nails and put his hind in Jesus side. What will it take for you to believe? What will it take to remove your doubt? Spend some time thinking about that. Not what you want. But what is the minimum that you need to come to belief that God loves you?   

Homecoming

 Today the world makes a little more sense than it did yesterday.  Wounds are healing.  Relationships are being restored.  We have been on a 19 month journey that was largely characterized by struggle and dissapointment.  We were contacted in June of 2010 and asked if we would take in an infant who was the biological sybling of the three children that we had adopted in 2008.  We originally thought of adopting only one child.  We thought that we would take two if there was a sibling set that needed to stay together.  We were put to the test when we were presented with three, a girl and two little boys.  We said yes to them, so how could we say no to this little boy who needs his family.  So we said yes with the expectation that he would be with us within weeks, if not days.  Weeks and weeks passed.  we started measuring time in seasons.  "Maybe he will be with us for Thanksgiving...Chirstmas...Easter.  Certainly he will be with us by the one-year mark of them contacting us about him.  It was not to be.  We jumped through every regulatory hoop, met every requirement, took the necessary training and still he was not with us...Unitl today.

Diane in an Arizona government office ready to
Take Mr. Man home

A ride to the airport begins the next chapter of
our life

Eli arrived Home about 3 am after several hours of travel
capped off with a drive through a hefty snow storm

Together at last