Robert’s Iris plot in full bloom, and counting

 

Right next to the Bob Stringham Live Oak tree (not in view), and the new Fuji apple tree, with the neighbor Baptist church out building as a backdrop.  Something like 470 ryzomes were planted last year.

Just in time for the Porterville Iris Festival, where St. John’s assists one of our parishioner families, the Suttons (Sutton Iris Farm), with downtown tables where visitors can purchase rhyzomes, full color catalogs, cut stems, and be introduced to information about the parish.

Box Notes – 11/27/2008 : Thanksgiving Revisited

Back in November, 2003, while I and many of my local pastoral colleagues were writing articles for a religious column, I was on the schedule for the article that would be published at Thanksgiving.  While looking for some notes for my Thanksgiving Day sermon this year I came across it in my computer harddrive archives.   With some comments of reflection now 5 years after, here it is:

 

Rehearsing Thanksgivings

Thanksgiving Day sermon, 2003, and Local Newspaper Pastor Column the same weekend

The Rev. Robert G. Eaton,  Rector, St. John Episcopal Church, Tulare

Musicians know _ sometimes from embarrassing experience _ that rehearsal is extremely important for the satisfactory quality of the final performance. Any quality performance requires rehearsal. Football teams _ well, at least coaches _ know that practice (rehearsal) is extremely important in being ready for your opponent on the field. Any athletic endeavor demands practice to have the hope of a winning season. If families are going to “win” during those moments of stress and crisis that inevitably arrive, they need to have “rehearsed” the skills of being family. You know, listening, caring, forgiving, cooperation, “team effort”, personal responsibility, loving, respecting…… Any family that’s going to even just survive has to “rehearse” these action_values on a daily basis.

In the same way, I’m telling you that “thanksgiving” is going to be demanded of you in greater and greater measure _ especially as people of Faith _ even in this amazing nation of ours, the United States of America. We are beginning to wonder if we really believe any more, “In God we Trust.”

I can’t think of a Thanksgiving Day service in recent memory where I or someone else didn’t say aloud something like this: “We should be grateful, and give thanks to God, that we live in this great nation, where we are free to worship as we choose, and to proclaim our faith as our boldness allows, without fear of governmental reprisal,” which would then be followed by some example of another place in another nation somewhere on the globe where terrible persecution has taken place, or where personal liberties have been trampled.

We would go on to share how Christians, for example, despite some horrific situation had the unreal strength to “give thanks to God”, and proclaim their faith in the risen Jesus Christ, and how we would hope to have the same ability if we were standing in their footprints.

What I’m warning you about is that the times of crisis, and the moments of personal pain, and the need for courage and boldness, and the environment of “free and easy” society for people of Faith, are very gradually coming upon us. We need to rehearse being people that give thanks, so when that unimaginable time is upon us, we know how to be thankful to God even then. I’m warning you because it’s still way too easy to “give thanks” and at the same time take it all for granted.

We are seeing in our lifetime the consequences of a major shift in the basic priorities of how we do business in our nation, and of the privileges of Christian life that have for too long simply been presumed. Now, you’ll never catch me saying that there has ever truly been any “good ‘ol days.” But we have long taken for granted that the institutions of our lives – such as government, our judicial system, education, and even of the institution of marriage – are what they are because that’s what they are”supposed to be.” You fill in the blanks. You just can’t take any of it for granted any more.

You might not agree with me regarding the State of the Union, or western civilization in general; nor might you agree with my conviction that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and thus has the answers for the degradation of society. But you cannot disagree if you have any understanding of the personal demands made in times of oppression, that what is demanded can only be produced by what is known and rehearsed _ and those occasional moments of pure Grace.

Another way to say it is, “You get out of it what you put into it.” Combined with God’s amazing grace.

Christians are called to be people of Thanksgiving. “In every situation….” said St. Paul. Every situation. If you practice now, soon you will begin to appreciate the spectrum difference between giving thanks over a large, juicy turkey, and giving true thanks to God over a can of beans because without it you wouldn’t have anything. What a witness. But if you don’t rehearse your thanksgivings now, you won’t be able to see it then. What a miserable life.

Become a thanks giving person now, so you can be one then.

 END OF ARTICLE ****

 

So now, 5 years later, having gone through so much in our Church, our parish, and quite recently in our national economy and specifically the stock market severe decline, the question is, did those who read my article back then practice over those 5 years so that they could express their thanks to God in every situation?  

And even if you didn’t read my article, surely you have read Paul’s words on your own where he proscribes giving thanks always, and in the same way, giving thanks in every situation?  In all things?

But if you didn’t follow my exhortation, and you didn’t heed the Word of God, surely five years of increase in age has also provided you with an increase in natural wisdom so that – with a sense of patient endurance – you are able to still give thanks for all the little things and the bigger things?

Some will shake their heads.  In my own life i recognize issues and areas of life and relationship and work where my own resolve to not let them get the best of me has failed.

Apparently, practice still makes perfect.

Apparently, there is still the need to rehearse.

The Christian response is to not just give thanks to the prevailing winds,
but to poinpoint the source of every good andperfect gift, that being God,

In our National life we gain respect by showing and giving respect, and so we can share around the table what we are thankful for and with insight that befits our age we can expand our thanks for the national life, the environment of freedom, the society which affirms our pursuit of dreams and hopes.   And then pray that these will continue.

In our relationship with God we gain not just respect for God but also train ourselves to continue to give thanks for the presence of God and his love for us in every and any situation by giving thanks now, the daily rehearsal providing the discipline necessary to give thanks when it seems not so elicited by bad circumstances.   We give thanks for yesterday, today and yes, tomorrow, for we know that the promise of Jesus is true, “and, behold, I am with you now and for evermore.”

Seeing what we are thankful for is one thing; Giving thanks now in order to be prepared for hings to come is another.

So, with all that is going on around us, How’s that going for you?

Be prepared,  give thanks.

 

 

The baptism of Miracle

Miracle’s family came to us as the result of a community-wide outreach effort, where a parishioner and neighor’s lawn sign (“Walk This Way”) became the subject of a discussion, and then invitation.  That was last year, about this time.  With a grace-filled measure of Jesus’ Love, we have cared for them, prayed with them, assisted them, made room for them, visited them, and encouraged them.  They have responded with a great deal of involvement both in worship and program, and service.

Miracle was received by her aunt at the very moment of her birth, and has lived with her ever since.  Her mother was incapable of caring for her.  Pre-natal drug abuse, and being HIV positive should answer your curiosity.   Now 4 years old and showing miraculously little emotional or physical difficulties, it was time to bring her to the sacrament of Holy Baptism.   Without the capability of her birth mother to provide any sort of personal blessing to the event due to an induced coma and hospitalization 4 hours away, with All Saints being an ideal time, and a sudden internal family situation taking away other scheduling options for the near future, we made the plans in just a couple of days.  Miracle and Miracle’s aunt had already identified the Godparents the week before not knowing that any baptism was imminent.

This is not how we usually plan out baptisms at St. John’s.  But with the above scenario we made it happen.  Even after the baptism was over, new family information shared made it clear this had been the right Sunday.  Praise the Lord.

Just in case, and with the prayer that Miracle’s mother survives, Fr. Eaton brought his Olympus C-765, 4.0 Megapixel, Digital Camera with movie and sound function, and asked one of the ushers to record the baptism.  It was recorded in three files for easier download, but were too large for WordPress to include here. Two segments have been posted at the “TeamEaton” family weblog.

We invite you to celebrate Miracle’s baptism, and offer your prayers for her mother, her older brother, and the brand new baby sister, also in the same hospital as her mother, and now also diagnosed HIV positive.