The Day of Pentecost marks the Church's birthday.  It is the day when the power of the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples and thousands of others.  It marks the 50th day from Jesus' resurrection.  The coming of the Holy Spirit was Jesus' promise and we were told to wait for it.  When that power came, it would enable the Church to do what Jesus charged it to do: bear witness to his suffering, death, and resurrection, beginning with Jerusalem, than Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  That is some kind of power to be given to mere humans.  That gift of the Holy Spirit was for the Church.  Even 20 centuries later that power still blesses the Church and its charge is the same: bear witness to Jesus.  Bear witness in every nook and cranny of creation.  Bear witness with song and word and deed.  Bear witness with joy and hope and love.  Bear witness.  Wear red this coming Pentecost Sunday.  Wear red as a sign of your bearing witness to the power of the Holy Spirit in your own heart.  Wear red as a sign the power of the Holy Spirit is alive and well at Calvary and in Syracuse.  Pray your red-wearing-witness is celebrated even in the highest heaven.  Who knows?  It might change the world.

A familiar song from a generation or so ago reminded us "Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage...you can't have one without the other."  Indeed, some things do go together.  Salt and pepper, soup and salad, lock and key, milk and honey.  You can name other pairs which go together.  I discovered this week a pair of things that surprised me as being linguistically related.  In the Hebrew language "bread" and "war' come from the same root word.  Even the vowels are identical.  I would never have suspected such a connection.  That means, as you read the Hebrew text, coming upon that word, you have to make a decision about the proper translation.  Is the context about food or war?  What if the context is about going to war for bread?  History is riddled with such conflicts.  I wonder if there ever came a time when bread was so bountiful, there would be no more war?  Wouldn't that be a grand thing?  Perhaps if that bountiful time were higher on our prayer lists, war and hunger might abate and our many lands would know peace?

Some months back I was in Indianapolis for "Our Life Together."  Our bishop invites his elders to gather with him twice yearly for worship and fellowship and conversation on a topic of his choosing.  At our most recent "togetherness" we celebrated Bishop Coyner's ministry and leadership in the Conference.  He's retiring this year after over forty years of ministry; sixteen as a United Methodist Bishop.  He will preside over his last Indiana Annual Conference this June.  Our topic, as you might have imagined, was focused around congratulations and thanksgiving and best wishes for the future.  We will receive our new bishop September 1st, 2016.  We won't know who that will be until after the Jurisdictional Conference being convened in Peoria, Illinois, July 13-16.  This time of transition is both exciting and daunting.  New leadership at the highest levels of the UMC is a time for farewells and welcoming.  We will have opportunities for both; one to say farewell to Bishop Coyner and another to welcome his successor.  I hope the Calvary family will participate in both of these events as times and places are announced. 

I like words.  I use them with a regularity that borders on obsessive.  I suppose that could be said about any human who speaks and reads and writes.  The necessity by which I must use them makes my obsession less observable to the naked eye.  I pray and sing and deliver sermons; all of which require words.  I am scheduled weekly to write a "Pastor's Memo" and monthly a "Navigator Page."  Email requires words whether reading or replying or composing.  When I delve into a Hebrew Scripture passage and find an obscure word or one I believe needs a bit of tweaking to reveal a proper nuance, well, I just love it.  Words are adventurous things and they possess a quality that is almost magical.  By the way they sound or rhyme or the rhythm by which they roll off the tongue can bring delight and comfort.  Some words are harsh and direct and how they are said leaves no doubt about their meaning.  I'm fascinated as to how words become language and convey meaning and emotion.  What's more, the written word can do all that down the ages and echo across time to hearers and readers not yet alive.  It's as if they have a power outside our comprehension.  I'll let you in on a secret: my favorite word is Julia.

Mrs. Pring.  Sadly, I do not remember her first name.  She was my first grade teacher at Wallace Elementary School in Kokomo, Indiana.  I remember we would form a semi-circle with our chairs and she would read to us.  I remember she would make sure we had our own lunch as we marched off to the cafeteria.  I remember recess without too much supervision; although, I'm sure there were teachers keeping a keen eye on us.  I remember film strips and flannel boards and wooden map puzzles.  First grade was fifty-six years ago.  I don't know if anyone ever failed the first grade.  I did not fail and was passed to Mrs. Deglar's second grade class.  Don't remember her first name, either.  I do remember her classroom was in the basement of Wallace.  These two women and several others (across the years) taught me to read and write and count and spell and not cut in line and wait my turn and other important life skills.  To them I am indebted.  I only thanked one teacher personally after I left the classroom and that was Miss Elizabeth Handley.  I sat in her World Literature class as a senior in high school.  I wish I had thanked many more of my teachers.  It's too late to make amends about that now.  I'm left to remember them quite inadequately in a pastor's memo but more profoundly in my prayers. 

 Did you know the two stone lions standing in front of the New York Public Library have names?  New Yorkmayor Fiorello LaGuardia named them "Patience and Fortitude."  Two characteristics he, no doubt, thought were in demand during his time as mayor of that great city (1934-45).  Born to an Italian father and Jewish mother in Greenwich Village, he was raised as an Episcopalian.  He was only five feet two inches tall and was affectionately known as "The Little Flower."  It is the literal translation of the Italian for his first name, Fiorello.  He was mayor of New York City during the depression through the end of WW II. He was robust and pugnacious.  He was anti-mob and corruption.  He was a Republican who wanted better treatment for immigrants.  He was a veteran of WW I having served in the Army Air Service rising to the rank of major.  This "Little Flower" was beloved and respected.  New York named an airport for him.  The lions named by him seem to take the measure of the mayor.  Who wouldn't be honored if Patience and Fortitude were characteristics which best reflected our lives?  Which two would you choose?  Better still, which two would others engrave on your tomb stone?

On this date in 1867, baseball's greatest and winningest pitcher, Cy Young was born in Gilmore, Ohio.  His 511 wins will stand without threat of ever being overtaken.  Every year one pitcher from each league is named the Cy Young winner and, thus, Cy Young is honored and remembered.  Sort of.  On this date in 1953, Jim Thorpe died in Lomita, California.  He was named the greatest athlete in the world in the first half of the 20th Century.  Most will not remember too much about why he was so named, but that's life.  Great achievements in the realm of sports are big news for a while, but time passes and memories fade and even the glory of our greatest sports heroes fade.  Anyone know the name of the current heavy weight boxing champ of the world?  Who holds the record for the fastest mile?  Longest long jump?  Highest high jump?  Fame and glory are fleeting.  I tell you that not because you don't already know it, but because it can be a reminder to us that being the best or first or fastest or most honored will not always be the most important thing about us.  Precious few of us will be remembered outside our families a hundred years from now.  That's just a fact.  What matters now is how we live now and how we love now and how we bear witness now, because we only have now to do these things.  These things that make for peace and joy matter now.  Later may not be ours to have.  And that is why our faith is not confined to our immediate circumstance.  Let the Easter Season be a time for remembering how privileged we are to have these days.

Holy Week.  It's a time when the Church makes ready for the Passion into which Jesus enters for us and all of creation.  This is a gruesome week for him.  Lauded with praise and waiving palm branches on Sunday.  By Thursday he's betrayed.  On Friday he dies. And Saturday.  His shroud wrapped body lies within a stone sealed tomb.  It's come to this.  It's a shock.  Bewilderment attaches to disciples and friends and ordinary folk who thought he was heaven sent.  This year Holy Week finds President Obama in Cuba, the mania of March Madness consumes hours and hours of television time, and terrorists show forth their evil with a deadly bombing in Belgium. Where's the Holy in this week?  Where does the devout heart turn when the world seems to confound and constrict?  How often must suffering and death blare from the headlines? Do we need yet one more reminder about how fallen creation is?  Have we not already enough dust that more must be poured into the cauldron?  Will there ever be a Holy Week free of such stuff?  Well, yes.  One day creation will be swallowed up into the Kingdom and then every week will be holy.  Until then, we wait, as in every Passion season.  We wait for God to reconcile the world to Himself from behind the stone that seals Jesus' tomb.

I miss my Uncle Jeff.  He was married to my dad's youngest sister, Anita.  His name was Henry Bando, but calling him Uncle Henry, when my last name was Henry, was more than a bit weird.  Besides, all his buddies called him Jeff.  He was a great teacher.  He worked as a purchasing agent at US Steel in Gary.  But that didn't stop him from teaching my brother and I and his two sons about golf.  Uncle Jeff played it well and had a 3 or 4 handicap.  Not bad for a weekend golfer.  One summer when he and our two cousins (Jim and Mark) and my brother Keith and I were playing golf at Green Acres in Kokomo, he proceeded to teach us some of his golfing skills.  On one particular hole, there was a rather lengthy water hazard to our left.  After telling us how to avoid hooking our tee shot into the water, he stepped to the tee and demonstrated.  His first shot entered the water a couple hundred yards down the fairway.  We did our best not to snicker.  He re-teed and, sure enough, that ball also made waves, if you know what I mean.  He told us again what not to do and then it was our turn.  My hand to God, all four of us hooked our tee shots into the water.  And by the time we were through laughing we marched down the fairway for another lesson.  I'm not sure what brought all this to mind on this Lenten Tuesday.  Perhaps it's the deep rumblings within about being ready to learn a lesson or two about life and death from Jesus as he makes his way to Jerusalem.  Next week will be heavy laden with lessons worth remembering.  Will we pay attention?  Will we take them to heart?  Will we be prepared to teach them to our children?  Time will tell.

My reading list is rather eclectic.  I alternate between modern fiction and something religious.  Back and forth, one after another.  I do most of this reading at lunch, consequently, it takes me a fair bit of time to finish the book.  My current lunch book is Diarmaid MacCulloch's "Silence: A Christian History."  I've have it on my shelf for a couple of years before I began reading it and it is fascinating.  It's history and I must say, it's fun.  MacCulloch is a lay Anglican professor of history and religion at the University of Oxford.  Two things I've learned (among many) while just half way through his book surprised me.  He used the phrase "a starting of hares."  I had no idea what he meant and upon doing a bit of searching, I found it to be phrase of American origin meaning the "introduction of a topic in the midst of an ongoing conversation that changes the trajectory of that conversation."  For example, in a heated debate on current administration's fiscal tax policy someone might say "How about those Cubs?"  It changes the subject and may give pause to heated emotions.  "Reprobate."  It's a word I learned from my mother.  She used it in the common sense of a "rogue or scoundrel."  It's more ancient meaning is this: A sinner who is not of the elect and is predestined to damnation.  This Calvinistic notion was once widely held and, in some corners of the Church, is still believed and taught.  Reading is a wonderful pastime.  It enriches, informs, and provokes.  I never know what I will learn when I begin reading.  And that unknowing is a place I never fear to go.  So, how about those Cubs?  Do they stand a chance against all those other reprobates in the National League?