A Grandpa Larson Story

“Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD.” (Psalms 31:24)

My maternal grandfather, Leonard Larson, died when I was just 8 years old. He, along with his wife Alice had quite a life! Both of them grew up in Worthington, Minnesota, and were high school sweethearts. Leonard was a chaplain and cook in the First World War, and during the 1920s he and Alice served the Covenant Church as missionaries in China, where he ran the school for all the missionary children. Eventually they settled in Kansas City, Kansas where he served as pastor of First Covenant Church for 35 years. My mother, Alyce (different spelling!) was the sixth of seven children born to them. Whenever I’m with my Larson family, and as I grow older, I’m told I’m the one who looks most like him.

There is one ministry story that I come back to again and again, in those times when discouragement and doubt creep in. Somewhere in one of those fallow seasons of church life that come, Leonard went back to his war cook roots and decided to invite the neighborhood to the church basement for a chili supper. (Tangent here, grandpa Larson’s chili is one of many delicious recipes of his. His baked beans, Limpa bread and many other family recipes can be found in the Larson family cookbook). He was famous for delicious food and making a mess while doing it!

Back to the story. No one from the neighborhood came to the chili supper. And I’m sure he was discouraged about that.

But what he decided to do was go and find small containers and fill them up and take them up and down the street and welcome the neighborhood. He took the party out to the people, he brought the beloved community into the neighborhood in a moment when it would have been most appropriate to pack up, wipe the dust off his feet, and go home.

When he was an old man, years later, when I knew him and we made our yearly visit to Kansas City, doctors would need to turn down the level of his pacemaker because of his excitement and hutzpah. That’s who Leonard was.

I think it’s true that I bear his resemblance in many ways, for which I’m grateful. I can only hope too to learn his tenacity and strong faith, and his way of ministering the love of God.

As you reflect on your own life’s journey these days, how does the defunct and redeemed chili supper story speak to you?

Love from here

PETER HAWKINSON

A Grandpa Larson Story

“Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD.” (Psalms 31:24)

My maternal grandfather, Leonard Larson, died when I was just 8 years old. He, along with his wife Alice had quite a life! Both of them grew up in Worthington, Minnesota, and were high school sweethearts. Leonard was a chaplain and cook in the First World War, and during the 1920s he and Alice served the Covenant Church as missionaries in China, where he ran the school for all the missionary children. Eventually they settled in Kansas City, Kansas where he served as pastor of First Covenant Church for 35 years. My mother, Alyce (different spelling!) was the sixth of seven children born to them. Whenever I’m with my Larson family, and as I grow older, I’m told I’m the one who looks most like him.

There is one ministry story that I come back to again and again, in those times when discouragement and doubt creep in. Somewhere in one of those fallow seasons of church life that come, Leonard went back to his war cook roots and decided to invite the neighborhood to the church basement for a chili supper. (Tangent here, grandpa Larson’s chili is one of many delicious recipes of his. His baked beans, Limpa bread and many other family recipes can be found in the Larson family cookbook). He was famous for delicious food and making a mess while doing it!

Back to the story. No one from the neighborhood came to the chili supper. And I’m sure he was discouraged about that.

But what he decided to do was go and find small containers and fill them up and take them up and down the street and welcome the neighborhood. He took the party out to the people, he brought the beloved community into the neighborhood in a moment when it would have been most appropriate to pack up, wipe the dust off his feet, and go home.

When he was an old man, years later, when I knew him and we made our yearly visit to Kansas City, doctors would need to turn down the level of his pacemaker because of his excitement and hutzpah. That’s who Leonard was.

I think it’s true that I bear his resemblance in many ways, for which I’m grateful. I can only hope too to learn his tenacity and strong faith, and his way of ministering the love of God.

As you reflect on your own life’s journey these days, how does the defunct and redeemed chili supper story speak to you?

Love from here

PETER HAWKINSON

On the Threshold

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working my way through a wonderful little book called Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul lent to me by one of our church members (thanks Sam!).

It explores the wisdom of Celtic Christianity through the lens of nine different men and women throughout the ages, making applications to our present day with its particular needs and questions.

I’m only a couple of chapters in, so I’m sure there are many more insights to come, but this morning I was struck by the chapter on Saint Brigid of Kildare.

Not very much is known about her biographically – as the author points out, much more is known hagiographically, as the first biographies about Brigid were written a full century after she lived and died. In a sense, he says, “the question before us is not so much who she was, but rather who she has become in the Celtic heart and imagination over the centuries.”

And who she has become is someone who is capable of uniting apparent opposites, or as the author says, “occupying the liminal space between worlds.”

Legend has it that Brigid was born in-between the nighttime and the sunrise, at twilight; and in-between the inside and the outside of her home, on the threshold.

And in her life she continued to stand in these liminal spaces: uniting the pre-Christian Irish world with that of Christianity; the divine and the human realms; the earth and humanity; what is and what is coming into being.

Reading these reflections on the life of Brigid, I was reminded of something I often try to forget: that we are constantly in transition. We are constantly approaching, standing at, or crossing over thresholds, navigating changes in our lives. We can try to avoid them, or rush through them to minimize the pain and discomfort, or we can do as Brigid invites us to, and stand at the threshold and look for God there.

We can also fall prey to the idea of opposites: in as opposed to out, pre-Christian as opposed to Christian, masculine as opposed to feminine. Or we can live as Brigid did, and find ways to unite them, to have them speak with and interact with each other, allow them to inform and support the other, and deepen our understanding of each.

I’m mindful of this now, as Election Day approaches tomorrow. We are a country of divisions, of opposites, of either-or. We are blue OR red. Pro-life OR pro-choice. Liberal OR conservative. And I don’t think it’s serving us very well.

What would Brigid say to all this? What would she do?

I imagine she might do a lot of listening. That she might look for the commonalities in these so-called opposites. That she would refuse to believe we are so different as we think. And that she might try to stand at the threshold and connect to both sides.

I don’t think it’s a bad place to start, after all. And, like Brigid, as we’re standing at the threshold, we might even notice God there too.

-Pastor Jen