126

‘When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.” (Psalm 126:1)

Thus begins Psalm 126, one of the Psalms of Ascent (120-134) which are multi-dimensional in meaning. They were spoken, and more often sung by pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem for one of the great religious festivals. Every road to Jerusalem is a road up, an ascent. Also, the number of Psalms of Ascent, fifteen, corresponds to the number of steps up to the great Temple Mount in Jerusalem, as if there is one psalm for each step. Fascinating!

I have been captivated of late by number 126. It captures and invites the people to relive the moment when Israel came home from captivity in 538 BC, after 50 years of life in Babylon. It speaks of laughter and joy repeatedly, of “watercourses in the Negeb” — streams in the desert, a miracle! The breath-taking joy of this time of restoration. What grabs me most these days is how they became dreamers again, how having their hope restored gave them permission to contemplate a future after all, to begin dreaming again about what might be.

I believe it’s high time for us to dream again, as we find ourselves in another moment of restored fortunes. We have the chance now to imagine a future once more!

It is two years ago now that our lives her taken captive by a dreadful pandemic, which took the lives of a million Americans and six million of our fellow human beings. We became quarantined from one another, our lives thrown upside down in every way imaginable. COVID’s tentacles of devastation reached all of us. Fearful, grieving, and exhausted, we have been ravaged.

But now Spring is coming, quickly on its way! The pandemic is losing its grip on us, and we are coming back home to life as it was before: “Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy!” (v.2). It is time to come home to life again, and nowhere is that more exciting than in the church, where we locate our primary community of belonging in this world. God is good!

I’d like to invite you to dream with me anew and again as we look forward into a new season of life and ministry. The Dream Team will be a group of us who gather together to intentionally look ahead with hope for renewed healing and joy in the church. As we think about the rest of this year, or the next three or five years, what dreams fill your spirit? What visions for Church renewal bring you joy and hope? What plans might we make to build up our community again, to re-connect, and to celebrate anew God’s love and goodness?

If you’d be interested in joining this group, please be in touch. We’ll likely gather 2 to 4 times in a casual atmosphere (maybe around a fire pit?) to dream together, and make some new plans for fun things.

“Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb. May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy!”

Love from Here,

Peter Hawkinson

Anywhere but Here

I don’t know about you, but I could use an out right now.

An out from more bad news – let’s start there – but also, while I’ve got your attention, I would like an out from cold weather, and from COVID, from loneliness, from fear, from difficult, often angry, conversations about race and politics and masks and even neighbors clearing ice (or not) from their sidewalks.

I would like to go somewhere else, to run away from all of my problems, to escape.

(This is probably a very natural feeling for a Chicagoan in February, even before you add in a pandemic and a war abroad).

And it’s an easy impulse to indulge, at least in some ways – I can pull out my phone, starting scrolling through Facebook and Instagram, do some online shopping, plan a trip. I can be anywhere but here mentally, even if not always physically.

While it’s important to take breaks from all of this stress, to find things to celebrate and ways to rest and connect with others, this constant impulse to be anywhere but here is also an unhelpful one. It doesn’t call us to root deeply in a place, to work to find solutions to its problems, to give witness to the pain and suffering and also the success and joy of people in that place. To look for God there.

When we are always somewhere else, we are not present to the place we’re actually in, and it suffers as a result of our indifference. We suffer too.

That’s why I am particularly excited for our WCC reading project this Lent, an unassuming little book called Backyard Pilgrim by Matt Canlis. A very small group of you will remember this book from our Fall 2020 Sunday School study, but I can’t wait to share it with more of you.

This forty-day journey invites us to be intentionally, thoughtfully rooted exactly where we are; in the words of the introduction, “It is the discipline of saying ‘Here I am’ to the place where you already live.”

In one 15 minute walk per day, the journey challenges us to recognize that there is holy ground all around us – that God is active and present in the very places where we might not think to look. In the places we hardly see because they are so familiar to us, and the places we might even want to escape from to be somewhere else.

The book brings us on a journey through scripture, through the story of God and humanity, asking each other the questions: where are you? who are you? And it leads us on that journey through 40 days, making it a perfect and thoughtful accompaniment to our Lenten walk.

I hope you will join us on the path. Books are available now in the church office, or online here.

With anticipation,

Pastor Jen

Anywhere but Here

I don’t know about you, but I could use an out right now.

An out from more bad news – let’s start there – but also, while I’ve got your attention, I would like an out from cold weather, and from COVID, from loneliness, from fear, from difficult, often angry, conversations about race and politics and masks and even neighbors clearing ice (or not) from their sidewalks.

I would like to go somewhere else, to run away from all of my problems, to escape.

(This is probably a very natural feeling for a Chicagoan in February, even before you add in a pandemic and a war abroad).

And it’s an easy impulse to indulge, at least in some ways – I can pull out my phone, starting scrolling through Facebook and Instagram, do some online shopping, plan a trip. I can be anywhere but here mentally, even if not always physically.

While it’s important to take breaks from all of this stress, to find things to celebrate and ways to rest and connect with others, this constant impulse to be anywhere but here is also an unhelpful one. It doesn’t call us to root deeply in a place, to work to find solutions to its problems, to give witness to the pain and suffering and also the success and joy of people in that place. To look for God there.

When we are always somewhere else, we are not present to the place we’re actually in, and it suffers as a result of our indifference. We suffer too.

That’s why I am particularly excited for our WCC reading project this Lent, an unassuming little book called Backyard Pilgrim by Matt Canlis. A very small group of you will remember this book from our Fall 2020 Sunday School study, but I can’t wait to share it with more of you.

This forty-day journey invites us to be intentionally, thoughtfully rooted exactly where we are; in the words of the introduction, “It is the discipline of saying ‘Here I am’ to the place where you already live.”

In one 15 minute walk per day, the journey challenges us to recognize that there is holy ground all around us – that God is active and present in the very places where we might not think to look. In the places we hardly see because they are so familiar to us, and the places we might even want to escape from to be somewhere else.

The book brings us on a journey through scripture, through the story of God and humanity, asking each other the questions: where are you? who are you? And it leads us on that journey through 40 days, making it a perfect and thoughtful accompaniment to our Lenten walk.

I hope you will join us on the path. Books are available now in the church office, or online here.

With anticipation,

Pastor Jen