Category: Awe

Awe, Bewilderment, Calling, Church, Community, Hope, Informal Poll, Ordination, Presidential Poll, The Christian Church, Uncategorized

I am the Storm!

Rev Kathy


Rev Kathy Manis Findley
August 15, 2024

Photo by Jeremy Bishop  on Unsplash

Writing a blog post is never easy, at least not for me. It’s just me musing, after all, a “me” who is a quirky person who can’t write good words because of trying so hard to find the best words. Anyway, I often cringe at the thought of talking about one particular milestone that happened in a certain moment of my time line! And pointing out my milestones is really what this blog does much of the time. The milestone may seem significant to me, but you, dear readers, might not care one bit about it. The people or events that take my breath away may not move your breath at all. If that’s the case for you, just delete this and continue with your life.

I want to briefly comment on the ideas of friendship and community, two of the most important elements of life. Like you, I need people in my life who are honest and authentic. I am too far along in age and wisdom to mess around with dishonest people. Nor do I want people around me who are unkind, cruel, and uncaring. That’s the way it must be in friendship and community. I need a caring companion on my journey, a compassionate community that has my back over time. They know that I have their backs, too.

Through the years, I have tried to be a part of a personal friendship or a community that is strong, loyal, and lasting, only to discover that the subject of my friendship actually cares nothing about what is meaningful and necessary for people. This is simply not what genuine community looks like. And friendship is downright superb when it is real and true friendship.

One of the most beautiful stories about community found in Scripture tells the story of a large gathering of people in a certain time and place when “Great awe fell on everyone.”

When the day of Pentecost had finally arrived, they were all together in the same place.  Suddenly there came from heaven a noise like the sound of a strong, blowing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting . . . All of those who believed came together, and held everything in common. They sold their possessions and belongings and divided them up to everyone in proportion to their various needs . . . In the last days, declares God, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy.
(From Acts 2:1 NTFE)

To be honest, I don’t know a community of people who would agree on the idea of holding “all things common.” I know that communities like this do exist, but I have never seen one in person. The shining, glimmering idea of pouring out God’s Spirit on every single person moves me in the depths of my heart and spirit. If that were not blessing enough, the text mentions “sons and daughters” who will prophesy!

“And daughters!” This gives me great hope. The truth is that for much of my life I have longed to experience community in a group like this—dedicated to each other and knowing that they can stand for righteousness. On top of that, in the scripture text, the wind of the Spirit was felt by everyone, sons and daughters. This picture of community is the kind of community God desires for every person. In some ways throughout my ministry, I saw the worst of community, even a church community that would reject my gifts for ministry and my call to ministry. Soon they would know that I was stronger than I seemed to be.

In 1992, I asked my home church to enter with me into a process of ordination for me. The process continued for months, each month postponing, delaying, making motions to table. I received somewhat frightening threats both from people in my faith community, and from leaders of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.


Was it true what they told me, “You are destroying our church!”

That accusation troubled me a great deal. But I did not relent. I did not shrink. The outcome was not pretty, and my church ended up responding with a definitive “NO!” They did not yet know about my dogged persistence. In spite of this painful decision my church made, I was ordained the same year, in March of 1992, by a different congregation, in a different state.” God called the plays!

by a different congregation.


I did not know where this blog post would end, but I want it to end with a hope-infused vision of the refreshing winds of the Spirit falling upon us, filling our spirits, and planting hope in our hearts. We all need that in these troubling days. May God make it so for all of us and each of us. Amen.

~ THE END ~

Just for Fun . . .

#eclipseUnity, Awe, Community, Eclipse, Together, Unity

Unity!

Rev Kathy
The eclipse is reaching totality over the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, on April 8, 2024.
(Photo by Chris Juhn/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

I look up into starry skies often, as well as the stunning, ever-changing moon, but never do I look straight up at the sun. They say it isn’t wise, but I had my trusty eclipse glasses on for protection. Every 2 minutes it seemed, I stretched my neck backwards and looked up at the disappearing sun. What an astounding couple of hours in the sun, slathered with sunscreen, anxious to see such a phenomenal sight.

So this eclipse, long awaited by sky gazers and sort-of sky gazers, has now exploded into our painfully divided world. This eclipse of 2024 held the power to move us, to move thousands of people, and to make gazers of them, because today the people—lots of people throughout the country—gathered in fields and on playgrounds, on mountaintops and plateaus, along the seashore and in boats on rivers and lakes, in ballparks and on football fields, on motor speedways, in parks and parking lots, among Indian mounds, and in back yards and front yards all over the country.

It seems that wherever the people watched, one could hear laughter, and loud talking, and even some appropriate music like ECLIPSE by Pink Floyd. The sounds from all those places offer a brief, magical glimpse of people having fun togeter among friends and strangers, not a cross word between them!

I saw a glimpse of unity. Did you? In this current world we inhabit, we have not seen much unity—not in a very long time. Multiple things crush unity around here where one can regularly hear, “I don’t agree with the policies of your candidate!” “Gaza has had enough help from the U. S.” “So has Ukraine.” “Passing that Bill would create a disaster!” “I disagree with you!” “I don’t like you!”

And so it goes. Everyone can identify instances of disunity that can turn into threats and even violence. 

But not on Eclipse Day! Slathered in sunscreen and with my eclipse glasses close by, I am sitting in the sun, now coming out of its cover in the sky. It’s too monumental to miss and too significant to ignore. It shows us unity in parking lots and fields, all over the place where crowds have gathered to watch and laugh, to ooh and ah, to stand in awe. We also sense a unity that is almost nonexistent in the real world where we live in uneasiness and fear. 

If it’s so easy to find a picture of unity when folks stand in the hot sun looking up into the sky with cardboard glasses, why is it so hard to create unity around something else more significant? World peace maybe.

In the meantime, I continue to ask myself these complicated questions about unity, all the while thinking of the words of the Psalmist from Psalms 133:1 . . .

“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for kindred to dwell together in unity.”

As I finish these thoughts, the sun is whole again, completely round, and creating enough intense heat that I’m going inside. 

Until next time . . . Look up into the sky and dream of a peace that is so clear that it is beyond our understanding.

May God help us make it so.