Thoughts From Cascadia

Let’s Connect – Week of March 29, 2020 Opening Prayer: Serenity Prayer O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other. Amen. Scripture: Romans 8:31b – 39 (selected verses CEB paraphrased) If God is with us, who is against us?...Who [What] will separate us from the Christ’s love? Will we be separated by trouble, or distress, or harassment, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword, [or Covid-19]?...But in all these things we win a sweeping victory through the one who loved us. I’m convinced that nothing can separate us God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angles or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, [or Covid-19] or any other thing that is created. Musing: Somewhere in the middle of one of the dozen Zoom meetings I was involved with in the...

Let’s Connect – Week of March 22, 2020 Scripture: Jeremiah 29: 11-14a I know the plans I have in mind for you, declares the LORD; they are plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future filled with hope. When you call me and come and pray to me, I will listen to you.  When you search for me, yes, search for me with all your heart, you will find me. I will be present for you, declares the LORD, and I will end your captivity.  Musing: In times like these I like to return to passages of scripture that help me cope, that allow me to breathe, that clam me and bring me a sense of the presence of God. I also like to remind myself that there is something bigger than me that I can put my faith and trust in. So, I turned this week to Jeremiah 29 verses 11-14a. This image of a flower blooming from the solid and lifeless concrete helps me visualize what Jeremiah writes. Even encased in concrete lif...

Happy New Year! I have been trying to do this blog on a regular basis and have failed miserably. So, I have made a resolution to do a blog a month (my actual goal is every other week, but I didn’t want to set too high a mark to begin with 😊 !). Like it or not, 2019 marks a year where we will be overwhelmed with people sharing their opinions, ideas, and righteous indignation as we head into another presidential election, have a divided congress, and – at least for the United Methodist Church – make some far reaching decisions about who we are and what we believe. I thought that I would begin 2019 then with some thoughts on communication, and what is known as “public discourse.” At several points in this blog I will quote from this article: The Current State Of Public Discourse By  Kovie Biakolo , April 20th 2013 found on the website: https://thoughtcatalog.com/kovie-biakolo/2013/04/the-current-state-of-public-discourse/ . So wherever italicized text appears i...

God said, "Let the earth produce every kind of living thing..." God made every kind of wildlife, every kind of livestock, and every kind of creature... Genesis 1: 24-25 In case you did know this, we have pets - at present we have 5 dogs and 1 cat. At various times our family has had a rabbit, gold fish, various kinds of lizards, snails, mice, hermit crabs, and various bugs and spiders and other creatures that have been pets in one sense of the word or another. We love animals. I love animals and they love me (Amy says I must rub myself in bacon since every dog I meet has to lick me!). I needed to say that before I say this, I am deeply concerned with the way our culture is treating pets and how we are treating human beings. One statistic might be enough, in 1994 people in the USA spent $17 billion dollars on their pets. In 2018 people in the USA spent $78 billion dollars on their pets.  The projection is that we will spend about $213 billion dollars on mental health servi...

Who Leads Us Now I am attending the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference as an ambassador from the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference. What I am blogging about really has nothing to do with being here except that while here I heard about two more companies in the good old USA taking a lead in doing what is just and right. Amazon's employees have demanded their company stop doing business with the US's Immigration and Custom Enforcement branch of the Department of Homeland Security. Netflix has fired their Chief Communications Officer, Jonathan Friedland, for using racist language in a meeting. These are just two more examples of how corporate America is doing things that witness to a better world and making sure that justice is spoken and lived out in our society. Normally I don't have many good things to say about the Fortune 500 but lately, in the face of so much hate, insensitive, racism, sexism, etc. it seems that corporate America is leading us in ways that it has ...

Struggling with My Whiteness I was scrolling through Facebook this morning and ran across a post about the Tulsa Race Massacre in May of 1921 (often referred to as the Tulsa Race Riot but turned into a massacre by white vigilantes). https://timeline.com/history-tulsa-race-massacre-a92bb2356a69  I have no memory of ever hearing about this event before today.  I know that my white privilege has made it easy for me to ignore, overlook, and even consciously and unconsciously suppress these types of events from our history. I can't help but feel pained that any human being would think that killing others, burning their property, and bombing them from the sky is an acceptable way to handle a situation (Even war is evil, sometimes maybe necessary but evil and ultimately it never seems to solve the problem it is suppose to address). Add in the race element and I really don't understand how one group can feel so righteous and superior to another that they can justify such abho...

My New Blog Hi, I am beginning a new blog as District Superintendent of the Cascadia District of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. After 10 months in this job I figured I now have a few things to share and say. So, I am ready once more to muse my musings and let you in on what I am thinking, feeling, hoping, wondering, anxious, and uncertain about concerning life, the universe and everything. These entries will not necessarily be connected to my work as a DS though I am sure that work will come up. I see this blog as a way to share myself with you. It is meant to be my thoughts and perspectives. It is what I wonder about or feel or am worried about. It is a way to let you get to know me. Once in awhile I will share "official" stuff, links to articles, comments by people, positions of the UMC and such. Occasionally I will reproduce something someone else has shared that I find worthy of passing along. And rarely I will reproduce something...