Praising God

This weekend in worship, we will be reading Psalm 150- Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! As we celebrate the last weekend of Summer it seems especially fitting to praise God- praising God for our blessings, praising God for time with our family and friends, for the expansive easiness of summer, and praising God as we prepare for fall.

For believers, praise is our response to God. It’s the feeling that wells up in us when we see a beautiful coastline or a magnificent mountain view. It’s our response to God when we see the blessings in our lives- restoration to health or relationship. As we grow in faith we cultivate this response and communication- learning to see God at work in our lives, we respond with Praise.

This week we have had terrible news pouring in from Texas. Many of us with personal connections are hearing stories of flooding and fear, of those who are lost or struggling, and we pray that God will bring peace and comfort. We are also hearing those stories of rescue trucks and boats, of warm socks and neighbors reaching out- looking at the helpers, we see God in the middle of the flood, and we respond to God with praise.

Sound Boards

Earlier this month, I got to run the sound system in the Sanctuary for Vacation Bible School. The sound board in the Sanctuary has each microphone marked. When you want to hear what a person is saying through a microphone, or you want to turn up the volume so that you don’t miss some of what somebody is saying, you slide that button up; and when you don’t want to hear what a person is saying through a microphone, or you want to turn down the volume to remove distortion, you slide that button down. It was kind of fun to run the sound board. And I started to wonder about how valuable it would be to have a sound board in life—a way to turn up voices that I wanted or needed to hear, and a way to turn down voices that I didn’t want or didn’t need to hear. Because there are so many voices saying all sorts of things on television, on social media, through interaction at home or at work. And sometimes, it seems to be so loud, and it can all get to be so confusing. And so, how do I get a sound board that can work in my life as well as the one works in the Sanctuary so that, ultimately, I can filter through the cacophony so that I can hear God’s voice?

--Pastor Don Steele

The Wind at Your Back

I love to ride my bicycle. I especially love to ride my bicycle at the shore. I can hop on it at our front door, and ride for 10-12 miles. There’s not much traffic. There are bike lanes in places, wide berms in others. There are sights to see—marsh, beach, even a lighthouse. And there is also wind—no hills to climb—but wind that, when you are pedaling, feels like a hill. During a recent ride, I found myself singing to myself a song, the words of which are that familiar blessing: “May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back.” And as I was pedaling, it occurred to me that in my rides at the shore, the wind is NOT always at my back. When I ride at the shore, my route is kind of like a giant oval, and so, for half of it, the wind is at my back, but for the other half of it, I’m going against the wind. If I wanted the wind to be always at my back, I would have to keep going the same direction. I could never turn back. And that struck me as a kind of metaphor. God blesses us when we bother to pay attention to the direction that the wind of God’s Spirit is blowing. Oh, sometimes in life, we probably have to pedal against the wind. Sometimes in life, we probably have to climb the mountain, but if life is nothing but a slog, maybe we need to pay better attention to the direction the wind is blowing. For God blesses us when we move in that direction, not turning back, but continuing to move in the direction that the wind is blowing—in the direction that God’s Spirit is carrying us.

--Pastor Don Steele

Compassion at the Concession Stand

Every parent had to take a turn working in the concession stand. That was the rule if your child was playing soccer, and a few years ago, if you knew us while we were living in Pennsylvania, you would have known that we had a child who played soccer—our youngest son. Like many of you, a few years ago, it felt like our lives revolved around his schedule. Anyway, it was my turn to work the grill, and I was doing that with the father of another player on the team. We started to talk, and for some reason, he started talking about his mother. She had fallen and broken a hip, and he was deeply concerned for her and for how he was going to care for her. I listened. I nodded my head. I made small comments. And as he was winding down from the story, I said to him, “Please know that I’ll be praying for her—and for you.” That was the only religious thing I said. He wasn’t a particularly religious guy, but he was caught up short. “Thanks,” he said, a tear actually in his eye, “I really appreciate that.” Given that our sons played soccer, there was another game two days later. When I saw him, I asked how his mother was doing, and again, he gave me the full story, and again, I offered only one religious comment, “Well, I will keep praying,” and again, he thanked me, sincerely. His mother was not miraculously healed, nor did he turn into a church regular, but I like to think that a seed was planted. I think that those of us who find meaning in religious commitment need to find ways to talk about that, but I think that we need to talk about this part of our lives in ways that are not obnoxious—in ways that are authentic and compassionate.

-Pastor Don Steele

Morning Has Broken

It happened just this past Sunday morning at the 8:30 service. We were in the Cloister Garden for that service, and it was a particularly beautiful morning out there—a cool breeze stirring the leaves, water trickling through the fountain, the sun dappling the flagstones. We opened the service with the hymn, “Morning Has Broken.” 

“Morning has broken like the first morning,” we began to sing. “Blackbird has spoken like the first bird.” And as we reached that very line, some actual birds—I don’t know what kind—began to make quite a racket somewhere up in one of the trees. You could hear them over top the keyboard, over top our voices singing. They weren’t in key. “Praise for the singing!” we went on. “Praise for the morning! Praise for them, springing fresh from the Word!” And, I suppose, you could have seen the birds’ noise as a disruption. In the normal course of my life, I might have! But with the words of the hymn in front of us, it wasn’t a disruption, an annoyance. It was a blessing. And I wonder how often this happens in life—the disruptions, the annoyances that, if we could just view them another way, we would see in them blessing from the hand of God. “Do you have eyes, and fail to see?” Jesus asked his disciples when they found themselves worried, perhaps annoyed with each other. “Do you have ears, and fail to hear?” (Mark 8:18). And sometimes, I wonder if our eyes fail really to see the everyday holiness—if our ears fail to hear God’s song of blessing filling the air we breathe.

--Pastor Don Steele