O, Saint Anthony

I lost my rings yesterday. Or maybe Sunday. All I know is that when I went to put them on Monday morning, they weren't on the dresser with my watch. Neither were they on the windowsill, or on my nightstand, or any of the other places they frequent.

I knew immediately that I wasn't going to find them.

It was only a matter of time. They didn't fit properly, at least not in the Midwest, where the size of my fingers fluctuates with the weather. I'd already lost and replaced my engagement ring once. I'm lucky they are reasonably replaced. Silver and amethyst are cheap, relatively speaking.

Still, I've missed my original engagement ring. I miss the tiny grain of sand that got embedded in the filigree on the day Ben and I went to the beach in Cape Cod.

And now they have both vanished. The replica engagement ring, the wedding ring that was blessed at the altar nearly eleven years ago. Poof.

Yesterday was a bad day. I was just about to leave work to pick the girls up for Juliette's ballet class when I heard about the tornado. I got caught up for a few moments, checking the news and following the comment threads on my Oklahoman friends' Facebook feeds. By the time I got home there were just minutes to spare, and Juliette was in the midst of a huge temper tantrum, and all four of us were upset and frustrated and it all added up to one of the most unpleasant episodes in recent Pershey family history.

I told some friends about my rings this morning. I was feeling sorry for myself. It's been a rough year. Not a catastrophic year. More like a one-thing-after-another year: anxious and expensive and wearying, with plenty of lovely moments in between the plumbing and medical emergencies. I didn't need to lose my rings, you know? I needed them to just be on the windowsill, and then to slip back on my fourth finger where they belong. But like I said: they're gone.

One of my friends suggested praying to Saint Anthony, and sent me this prayer:

Dear Saint Anthony,
you are the patron of the poor
and the helper of all who seek lost articles.
Help me find the object I have lost
so that I will be able to make better use of time

I will gain for God's greater honor and glory.
Grant your gracious aid to all people
who seek what they have lost-
especially those who seek to regain God's grace.

As wildly superstitious as I can be, I rarely cross my superstitions with my faith. And there's something about this prayer that feels like superstition. 

But I started to pray it anyway. For the heck of it, I guess. What can it hurt? But midway through I just stopped cold. I couldn't pray it. Not when on the same day I lost my rings so many people lost everything.

Many people have shared that tear-jerker of a clip in which an elderly woman being interviewed at the site of her demolished home is suddenly and unexpectedly reunited with her dog. She'd presumed it dead, but someone off-camera noticed movement in the rubble, and the woman pried her terrified pet out of the mess. She was overjoyed, almost speechless. And then she said something about how she thought God had only answered one prayer - sparing her own life - but he'd answered two. 

Even through my tears I cringed. I want to give people the space to interpret the world according to their own theological frameworks, even if their believes differ from mine. If it comforts you to tell yourself that everything happens for a reason, well, good. I can't reconcile that phrase in my own life, but I'll honor that it works for you. So when that woman talked about God answering her two prayers I wanted to let it be, but I immediately thought of the people whose prayers were not answered. What does it mean for a prayer to be "answered," anyway? 

I am fairly sure the thought I had when I was praying that prayer of Saint Anthony is bad theology. But nevertheless: I had the passing, irrational thought that I could make a trade. I'll allow my beloved rings to be sucked into oblivion, forever gone, forever associated with The Day There Was That Horrible Tornado in Oklahoma and Juliette Lost Her Mind Before Ballet, if somebody else who is seeking something lost - something with flesh and blood and please, dear God, still a beating heart - can receive God and Saint Anthony's aid and be reunited. Can we cut a deal, Saint Anthony?

I'll let you know if they turn up.

Women in Ministry: Sisterhood

Adele Henderson has received a lot of support and affirmation in her ministry - and now she wants to pass this gift along to her sisters. 

I am a G.R.I.T. What’s a G.R.I.T? A Girl Raised In The South. I am also Baptist. The first 20 years of my life I was a Southern Baptist and for 20 years now a Cooperative Baptist. What I have come to realize at the age of 40 is that I did not have your typical Southern Baptist upbringing. See, in Raleigh, NC I grew up in a church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) where we had women deacons and a female music minister. I never heard that a woman’s place was in the home or teaching in a Sunday school class. I heard Foreign Missionaries, who were women, talk about the work they did and the support they needed. I saw my mom active in the lay ministry of the church and both girls and guys preaching on Youth Sunday. What I heard growing up was that God wanted a relationship with me and was affirmed by my church when I responded to the call to Theological Education. As a result I never thought about the need for support from fellow women in ministry.

During my time at Campbell Divinity School, 1998 – 2002, I went to my first NC Baptist Women in Ministry (NCBWIM) event. I can’t tell you much about it because the only thing I remember was it being in Greensboro, NC and I got to see my former Campus Minister. Looking back I never saw the importance of me being involved in NCBWIM. Don’t get me wrong, I have heard the stories from fellow classmates and ministers of rejection and shaming all because they were women and were responding to the call of God. But in my narrow-mindedness I didn’t or couldn’t see my role in advocating and speaking out in favor of women in all forms of Christian Ministry, including the pulpit. After graduation in 2002 God continued to bless me through a church in Tarboro, NC where the pastor provided me multiple opportunities to preach from the pulpit. And when I interviewed for my current job I was asked questions that centered around my philosophy around Christian ministry, my education and experience not about my gender or being single. I was and am respected as a minister.

As they always say, hindsight is 20/20 and I have changed and what changed was my first Virginia Baptist Women in Ministry (VABWIM) event in April of this year. I must first make a confession that I was not planning to go until my Supervisor at work said to me if I wanted to go that it would be covered under my budget. But what happened in 24 hours in Richmond, VA on April 19 – 20 took this narrow minded woman and opened her eyes, heart and mind wide opened. I felt the power of Sisterhood. I couldn’t relate to the stories shared at the breakfast on Saturday morning but in hearing those stories two things happened: God showed me how much I have been blessed as a woman in ministry and that my gifts of listening and pastoral support are not only useful in my work with at-risk youth but with my fellow sisters in ministry who have had to fight for every bit of recognition they deserve but have not always gotten. In being blessed I must and want to bless the sisterhood and work alongside them so that future girls can be welcomed and affirmed for their God given gifts and their role in preaching the Gospel. I am grateful for my new found role in the sisterhood. 

About Today's Contributor

Adele Henderson is an Ordained Baptist Minister and serves as Chaplain at HopeTree Family Services in Salem, VA. In her free time she enjoys photography and walking her dog Sophie.

About the Women in Ministry Series 
The Women in Ministry Series is a collection of guest posts that aims to provide an alternative to the women in ministry debates by telling the stories of women in ministry and encourage women to explore their God-given callings.

Contributions Welcome
Contact Katherine at katherinepershey[at]gmail.com to pitch your post idea in 2-4 sentences. You can stay updated on the latest post each week by signing up for the weekly e-mail list.

Comment Policy
Everyone is welcome to leave a comment. However, this series takes for granted that women are called by God into every facet of ministry. This is not the place to debate that point and such comments will be removed. Women have been told “no” in far too many places. This is one place that is committed to saying “yes.”

More Information
For more about the comment policy, submitting your own story, or to sign up for the weekly e-mail list,  go here.

Ten on Tuesday

1. It is SPRING. Among other things, this means we have a ton of yard work to do. We haven't really known how best to care for our landscaping, so we have overgrown roses and errant buckthorns everywhere. We made the excellent decision to bring a professional - a landscaping designer who spent an hour walking through our yard telling us what to do and how to do it. It was an investment, but we've already saved so much money by doing necessary things ourselves. For instance, we pruned this previously ludicrous crab into a beautiful tree fit for climbing. I'll have to take another picture tomorrow because it is blooming gorgeous right now.

2. Juliette got to visit her kindergarten class today. It was a very sweet and well-organized event. The current kindergarteners filed into the gymnasium and were each to approach an incoming kindergartener and invite them to kindergarten, and then be their buddy while they went off to explore the classroom. Not one but two boys from church made mad dashes for Juliette. After a brief moment in which one of the boys looked mighty crestfallen, it was decided that Juliette could have two buddies.

We are totally in for it.

Juliette loved every minute of the whole experience. She doesn't have an iota of self-consciousness or anxiety, just pure excitement and openness.

3. It was very fun to see this graphic pop up in my Facebook feed. I read this and thought - among other things - "Gee, he must have had a great Speech and Debate coach!" And indeed he did: my very own sister Elizabeth.

4. I'm reading The Art of Fielding. I love baseball novels more than I love baseball.

5. Practicing Families, which is a fantastic resource for holistic, home-based spirituality, just posted a downright glowing review of Any Day a Beautiful Change. 

6. On the way home from church today, Juliette and I decided to take the long way and ride our bikes through the underpass rather than cross the tracks during rush hour. As we were coming through the tunnel a woman on the other side was shushing us and pointing up. It turns out there is a fox hole on the hill over the underpass, and a baby fox was poking its head up. We clambered off our bikes and watched him come out all the way, looking right at all the people who had gathered to see him. When a dog barked he jumped back in the hole. It was by far the closest I've ever been to a fox, and the only baby fox I've ever seen. Amazing. I wish I'd thought to take a picture but I was just too mesmerized. 

7. The reason we were leaving church so late was entirely unexpected and entirely infuriating. You may have heard of the Willis Sister Crazy Consumer Gene. If you ever wish to see this familial condition in action, by all means: WRONGFULLY SEND ME TO COLLECTIONS. No, seriously. Lose a payment, inexplicably hold another to the start of the next month so that two months go by without a payment posting, and then send a collections agency after me without so much as giving me a singular warning. YOU WILL SEE MY WRATH. I have literally spent hours sorting all this out, between the wildly incompetent medical billing office and the enormously helpful Bank of America Online Billpay team. I know we're supposed to hate Bank of America, evil big corporation, etc., but they have been so very helpful in vindicating my good name. They faxed the proof of payment not once but twice, since the incompetent billing department gave the wrong fax number the first time. 

It's a good thing I have naturally low blood pressure. Hmph. 

8. Thanks to this helpful tutorial from Tsh Oxenreider, I've settled on Feedly as my post-Google Reader RSS service. I like it, quite a bit more than Flipboard and The Old Reader, the other ones I tried. The app is even better than the desktop version, and I almost never use apps (except, of course, for my beloved instagram. 

9. Speaking of Instagram and cellphone/tablet photography: Do check out the class Elizabeth has coordinated through Big Picture. It looks soooooo cool. (Make sure you watch the video.)

10. And this one. Oh, this one. 

100% dickens, 100% sweet as could be. 

Some Things are Mutually Exclusive

People keep shooting people on accident. People keep shooting people on purpose. People keep shooting themselves.

And there are so many children involved with these shootings. Like the one in Kentucky where the five-year-old boy shot and killed his two-year-old sister with a rifle made for children. Not a toy rifle, mind you, the ones that look frighteningly real save for the little orange cap mandated by law. A real rifle that looks like a toy, but is can be used to kill.

I cannot stop thinking about what that boy will have to live with for the rest of his life. “It’s a Crickett,” the coroner explained. “It’s a little rifle for a kid… The little boy’s used to shooting the little gun... Just one of those crazy accidents." No, as a friend-of-a-friend said: Not an accident. A totally preventable tragedy. Heartbreaking.

I've scoured the Crickett website for information about how old they suggest children should be before using one of their products. Maybe they consider this a question to be answered by parents alone, but I found it hard to believe that it wasn't even in the FAQ section. They do explain that "The goal of [Keystone Sporting Arms] is to instill gun safety in the minds of youth shooters and encourage them to gain the knowledge and respect that hunting and shooting activities require and deserve." 

I find "gun safety" and "guns for small children" to be mutually exclusive.

(More on the legal issues related to this incident, from Slate.)

Women in Ministry: The Accidental Pastor

April Yamasaki's story is a powerful testimony to the fundamental conviction underpinning the Women in Ministry Series: God calls women into ministry. Period.

My husband and I had just decided to join a local congregation when the pastor abruptly resigned. Quite literally, he was there one Sunday, and then gone the next. It wasn't the best introduction to a new church, but in spite of the turmoil, we decided to join anyway. After all, we had been getting to know the people, we both taught at the related Bible college, I had even been a guest speaker at the church several times.

Without a pastor, the congregation relied even more heavily than usual on its members to do the work of ministry, and I was asked to lead a series of four worship services for Advent. I was happy to help, and after my very first Sunday planning and leading worship, a woman whom I later learned was part of the pastoral search committee came up and asked, "How would you like to be the pastor of this church?"

I just had to laugh! That was the furthest thing from my mind. I thought I already had a strong calling--to teach, write, and be involved as a member of the church. Pastoral ministry was nowhere on my radar screen.

But that Advent as I continued to lead worship and to be part of the church, the questions kept coming. Finally I received a call from the chair of the search committee. “We hear that you are very happy teaching and writing,” he said, “but we would like to talk with you about pastoral ministry at the church.”

By that time, I was no longer laughing--but I was also not at all sure that I wanted to meet with the search committee. Although I had a Masters degree in Christian Studies, I had no pastoral experience, and the church was still reeling from a very difficult pastoral resignation. If there is such a thing as a match made in heaven, I was quite sure it didn’t look like this!

Still, one of the things my husband and I have always valued about the Mennonite church is the understanding that God speaks to us in Scripture, in our own prayer life, and also in community. Here it seemed the community was trying to say something, and I needed at least to listen.

I have never felt the movement of God’s Spirit so strongly.

As we continued to discern together, I went from not at all even thinking about pastoral ministry, to being willing to consider it, then curious, and then excited about a unique opportunity—to serve the church at a critical time of transition, to experience some new things for myself, and to learn and grow spiritually and personally through it all.

Would I be willing to serve part-time and continue teaching? the committee asked. Would some sort of team ministry be possible? They even had someone in mind for the other half of the team, but when that didn’t work out, one of the senior members on the search committee asked, would it be possible for me to take a leave of absence from the college and work as a full-time interim pastor?

So on the recommendation of the search committee, I asked for a leave of absence from the college and accepted the church’s call for what we all thought would be for the summer months and then the fall semester. The church would continue their search for a pastor, and I fully expected to be back to teaching at the college in January. Surely by that time, the church would have found a real pastor, I thought. I just didn’t know then that it would be me.

As it turned out, the church asked me to extend my interim ministry for another school semester. They then asked me to candidate for the regular pastoral position, I went through the ordination process, and now, as of this past Easter Sunday, I’ve been lead pastor at my church for 20 years!

In some ways I’ve had it easy—my church had mainly resolved any questions about women in ministry before I was called, and has been wonderfully supportive. But ministry has also been extremely challenging. I’ve dealt with the past sexual misconduct of a pastoral candidate, financial fraud by a member of the church against other members, difficult deaths including the loss of children and the still unsolved murder of a parishioner. As an associate once said to me, “I wish you some bumps along the way so you’ll know what it feels like”—and I’ve definitely had my share.

Yet through it all, I’ve also had a deep and persistent sense of God’s calling. I may have started as an accidental pastor, but it’s turned out to be so much more than that!

About Today's Contributor

April Yamasaki is a pastor and writer who has published numerous articles and several books, most recently Sacred Pauses: Spiritual Practices for Personal Renewal (Herald Press, February 2013). A third-generation Canadian of Chinese descent, April lives in Abbotsford, B.C., with her husband, Gary, who teaches biblical studies at Columbia Bible College. Visit her website where she blogs about spiritual practice, writing, reading, faith, and life at http://aprilyamasaki.com. Follow her on Twitter @SacredPauses, and you'll be entered to win a free copy of her book.

About the Women in Ministry Series  The Women in Ministry Series is a collection of guest posts that aims to provide an alternative to the women in ministry debates by telling the stories of women in ministry and encourage women to explore their God-given callings.

Contributions Welcome
Contact Katherine at katherinepershey[at]gmail.com to pitch your post idea in 2-4 sentences. You can stay updated on the latest post each week by signing up for the weekly e-mail list.

Comment Policy
Everyone is welcome to leave a comment. However, this series takes for granted that women are called by God into every facet of ministry. This is not the place to debate that point and such comments will be removed. Women have been told “no” in far too many places. This is one place that is committed to saying “yes.”

More Information
For more about the comment policy, submitting your own story, or to sign up for the weekly e-mail list,  go here.

Deeper Family: Something God Alone Can See

This is a Deeper Family, not a Deeper Church. I’m charged to write about family, not the work I do as a congregational pastor.

But sometimes the church is a family.

Sometimes it’s a family in all the wrong ways, replete with dysfunction. Sometimes there are controlling personalities and melodramatic martyrs and generational warfare.

And sometimes there is tenderness and mutual care and the simple joy of shared meals – bread and wine in the sanctuary, potlucks in the fellowship hall.

Sometimes they really do know we are Christians by our love.

Continue reading here.