____________________________________________________ September 09 I wrote last year at this time about how September always feels like the beginning of the year for me. It's probably because that's when school started (back in the day it always started after Labor Day). I spoke last year about how it feels like a fresh start--a new beginning. New pencils and clean notebooks and books, and no late papers or assignments yet. It is very much a new beginning here in our recently blended church family. New buildings, rooms, fellowship hall and sanctuary for some. New ideas, questions, ways of thinking about church for others. Getting to know each other and blending groups. It's a bit like dancing with a new partner. One step this way and one step that. Watching to see how the other responds. Getting more comfortable as the dance goes on. But right now, there is the newness. There's an energy that goes with that newness, much like the energy of a new school year. We don't know how the fall is done now in our church. As we come together to worship, it will not be the same as last fall. It's easy to become accustomed to routine, to the usual way we do things, and that can lower our energy for doing them. When the routine is changed, energy goes up. We're doing something different. Questions arise--how will that work? What will it be like? Newness can not only increase energy, it can also increase interest. Things are different--I'm intrigued. I might want to get involved in doing that. New ideas fuel creativity, and creativity breeds new ideas. I might want to go to meetings that are done differently, or help lead a Sunday school class with a new format (see article in this newsletter), or participate in new events at our church, or give my ideas about changing the look of the church. This newness can bring out the ideas, the energy, the faith, the motivation, in each of us, whether we live in Prosser or Grandview or elsewhere, to grow in our faith and our worship. What thoughts do you have? What questions do you want to ask? Are there things you've always thought the church should do or be? Are there ways of worshipping that you would like to see happen here? This is the time to have these discussions, because we are already having them as we blend together this family of God. Bring your energy, your creativity, your interest, and let's see how we will do fall this year, together. Shalom, Bo___________________________ August 2009 Summertime is here. We are in the midst of it, and all the things that come with it. We have heat. We have evenings on the deck, or afternoons in the pool. We have baseball (yea!), although it might be more comfortable to watch it on TV in a cool living room than in the hot stands. We have an abundance of garden vegetables and fruits,ripened in the sun. We have projects around the house or in the garage. We have vacations with family or friends. Vacations are actually good for us. Counselors, therapists, and psychologists tell us that we can work ourselves too much - that too much stress can lead to heart disease, illness, and shorter lives. We need to take a break, to rest our minds, our souls, and our bodies. In the Bible we find that the writers of the Old Testament were way ahead of modern science. These writers noted that God rested on the seventh day of Creation, and that in the Ten Commandments God emphasized the importance of rest in keeping the Sabbath day holy. The Sabbath is not just about going to church, but about breaking away from our work-a-day lives to let go, to rest and reconnect with the source of life itself, and to re-energize ourselves for the work we have ahead of us. In that sense, Sabbath is not only one day a week. It's taking trips to visit family or friends. It's boating on the river, or going golfing. It's tending a garden, or taking a nap. Those things that give us Sabbath, or rest, are the things that rejuvenate our souls and bodies and minds. They re-connect us to the ground of our being, the source of our life. People will sometimes explain, apologetically, that they aren't in church much during the summer because they are out doing these kinds of things. My response is that if what they are doing is restoring and feeding their soul, then they are observing the Sabbath commandment. The church sanctuary is not the only place where God can be worshipped and experienced on Sunday morning. God is all around us all the time, and we live in a part of the world where we can experience God's creation in many ways. There is one caveat, however. Sabbath is not just about us, or us and God. It's not just about refreshing and restoring our relationship with God. When I vacation in Minnesota each summer, I'm not getting away from everything and renewing myself. I go with my family, and I go to visit family. Going to Minnesota is about what Alison and I and our kids experience with each other on the trip. It's about refreshing and restoring relationships with my dad, my brothers, and their families. What's important about Sabbath time is its effect on all the relationships we have in our lives. Strong relationships with God and with others develop in healthy ways when we take the time to rest with them. Even when our Sabbath experience is a solitary one, it contains a communal aspect. When we go hiking in the mountains alone, or biking along the river by ourselves, we take with us all of the communities of which we are a part—our family, our friends, our co-workers, our neighbors, our faith community. Those relationships go with us, and are affected by our rest, our re-creation of ourselves, so that we return to them with new attitudes, new approaches, new energy, and a new understanding of whom we are in God and in God’s world. In this way our relationships with God and others grows. I hope you are having a good summer. But more than that, I hope you are finding time for rest, for Sabbath, in each day, each week, and throughout all the seasons of the year. May it be for you not an escape from, but a renewal for the important relationships in your life. Shalom, Bo