Eden Prairie United Methodist Church
Connect with Us!
  • Home
  • Being Church
    • Crops For PROP
    • Serving Our Neighbors
    • Fellowship >
      • Women's Retreat
  • Children | Youth
    • Nursery
    • Sunday School (Preschool through 7th grade)
    • Especially for Families
    • Rooted (3rd - 4th grade)
    • Vacation Bible School
    • Middle School Youth (Grades 7-8)
    • Confirmation (8th-9th grade)
    • Higher Ground (10th-12th grade)
  • Music
    • Adult Music Opportunities
  • About EPUMC
    • Worship
    • Staff
    • Notes from Pastor Becky Jo
    • Lay Leadership
    • A Reconciling Congregation
    • Tumbleweed Newsletters
    • Videos
    • Annual Report
    • Sermons
    • Calendar
  • Prayer
  • Online Giving
  • Contact Us

Weekly Memo:  Being Present

7/19/2018

Comments

 
Picture
his is Ev Kadlec and me.  Last Friday Jill and John Closs and I drove up to Wyoming, MN to see Ev.  She moved to Wyoming a couple of months ago to live in a health care facility and to be closer to her family. Many of us know Ev as the lady who sat in the center section on the aisle about four rows from the front. Ev was such a fixture in worship for me that on the first Sunday after she moved that we had communion, both out of habit and to honor her faithfulness, I stopped at her spot...
 
Jill and John had the great idea of bringing lunch in for Ev.  The three of them use to eat out together. When Jill told me to order a tuna sandwich at the drive up window at Subway, I was glad they wrapped it tightly
 
I have always hated tuna; tuna salad…tuna casserole… the smell of anything tuna…  As a kid when my mom made tuna salad, I ate the special bowl of buttered noodles in the living room.  I’ve spent my career as a pastor standing in potluck lines in churches across the state asking, “Is that tuna or chicken?” I’ve avoided tuna my entire life.
 
When we got to Ev’s place the four of us found a table, and I sat next to Ev as we all started to eat our sandwiches. I could smell the tuna that was barely an arm’s length away from me, but I steeled myself in silence knowing that at times the Lord calls all of us to be courageous.
 
Ev was having a hard time figuring out how to hold and eat her sandwich.  I was the one sitting next to her who was in a place to help. Before I knew what I was doing, I offered to cut up her sandwich. Do you know what happens when you cut up a tuna sandwich with mayo and lettuce and tomatoes on it? That is right; you can’t help but get a little tuna on the fingers that are holding your knife and fork, no matter how discreetly you wipe your hands on a napkin.  I’d like to say I enjoyed my turkey bacon and now TUNA sandwich, but that would be an infringement on one of those 10 commandments.
 
After we were finished eating, we listened to Ev tell stories from her life.  Ev is a great storyteller: interesting, insightful and her stories always end with a laugh. Ev was telling us about a childhood memory… a story she had told us five  minutes before, when she stopped, realizing she had just told this story. Then she said something like, “How can I remember something from a lifetime ago, but I can’t remember what I just ate for lunch?”
 
Many of us know the bittersweet lump in the throat that arises when someone we love and care for recognizes for themselves that they are not well… that they are struggling with memory loss, with a physical restriction, with an emotional barrier.  But here is the thing I learned last Friday from Ev; she did not laugh this away, or go down the rabbit hole of despair or even try to hide the depth of this awareness from us. As I looked over at Ev’s eyes she seemed to recognize the truth in what she had just said and then…then she steeled herself with a courage that was palpable and told us another story that we had also heard earlier…this one about her grandsons….it was a great story…I was glad I was there to hear it.
 
There are times when it is worth having something like the smell of tuna fish on your fingers in order have the privilege to be present with others in their moment of self-awareness…and then to witness the courage to remain engaged in life as Ev did last Friday.

Keep the Faith,
​Pastor Dan
 


Comments

Weekly Memo: Wrestling with Light

7/12/2018

Comments

 
This week our Sunday worship is centered on the theme, “Wrestling in the Darkness.” At first it seems a contradiction to our yearlong theme of “God’s Light; Seeing in a New Way.”  And yet each one of us has had the experience of not knowing, of doubting, of contradictions in our experience of faith that take some decision making, some sorting out, some discernment.  There are times when we wrestle the Light.
 
“Wrestling the Light” is also the title of one of the few books of prayer I read and re-read , written by Ted Loder.  Ted is someone that few people have heard of but who is of significant importance in my faith journey.  I met Ted over 20 years ago, and he was an old curmudgeon back then. Ted was one of the few pastors I had met who shared with me something of the grappling, tussling… not so much rebellious or embarrassed, but often-besieged faith I experience.  Ted wrote these words that, for the 20 years or more I’ve read them, define my relationship with God.
           
My need is great as hope.
                        my longing fierce as wonder
            and I stumble toward you.
                        drawn by the light of your promise,
                                    roused by the prowl of your grace
                                                in the far country haunt of my soul.
 
The subtitle of “Wrestling the Light” is “Ache and Awe in the Human-Divine Struggle.” It’s one of the few books that I have signed by the author. When he signed it , Ted wrote this: For Dan, My new found friend with an old passionate / kindred soul, and who knows how to wrestle the light because you trust it will win and it does in you.
 
Now I don’t know if it’s the need to please others or that desire to measure up to a mentor, but I read this inscription often.  Who knows how to wrestle the light because you trust it will win…and it does in you.  This sentence haunts me because somehow Ted saw two things I don’t always see in my faith experience.  First, that I trust the light will win.  I knew Ted was a very competitive guy who has been humbled, and so winning can mean a lot of things. Over the years, I’ve come to understand winning to mean something more like being persistent or enduring. 
 
Secondly and more astonishingly, Ted wrote: Who knows how to wrestle the light because you trust it will win…and it does in you. This idea that God’s light is persistent, is enduring in and through me, despite my being … well, me… has been  extremely inspiring.  It is what has seen me through a mid-life crisis of faith; it has helped me to believe that God is using what it is that I have to offer. And it encourages me to continue to wrestle the light, even if it means I’m becoming something like an old curmudgeon like my old friend, Ted.
 
Keep the Faith,
Pastor Dan

Comments

Weekly Memo: Rhythms of Life & Interruptions

7/6/2018

Comments

 
When a holiday (like July 4th) falls in the middle of a week, it messes up the rhythm to which I’m accustomed.  This is not such a bad thing this week for several reasons: I’m still recovering from the youth mission trip, and so I’m glad this week is a little slow around the church.  Having an excuse to grill on a Wednesday is always welcome in my book. And with some people gone the weekend before and some the weekend after, it is impossible to schedule a night meeting. 
 
All of us have rhythms to our lives that are at times interrupted. I’m one of those who usually hurries out the door every morning. Even though I don’t have a time clock to punch, I seem to always be in a tizzy to get behind my desk. Today I was in the middle of that tizzy when I looked at the clock in my car to see that I was a half hour ahead of time. So I decided to go to Caribou for a Coffee and Steamed Milk. (Don’t ask me what they call that drink there, it’s different at every coffee shop.)
 
So I’m walking up to Caribou, and there is nobody there. I could not believe it; for a moment, I thought the place was closed. The barista who took my order said she couldn’t believe it either. There must have been something in the relaxed, unhurried way I placed my order and the lack of the usual line running out the door behind me, because she got my order wrong.  The young woman apologized and said that she was new.
 
Now, I enjoy these little encounters with baristas and clerks and folks I’m standing in line with, especially when I’m a half hour a head of time. These encounters teach me to pay attention to others, instead of the tizzy I’m in. And so I asked her, “Is this your first day?”  She said that it was and smiled. We joked about what do you do on the first day on the job at Caribou when it isn’t busy.  As it turns out, you have to get your name tag made and your apron on right…  As I walked away, I wished her good luck.
 
In the car before I got to the office, I was thinking about the first days of different jobs I’ve had over my lifetime. How they were so often filled with so many questions and the apprehension of fitting in a new place. There is no rhythm on the first day at a new job. This lack of rhythm can throw us off, but it can also help us discover new things about ourselves.
 
At EPUMC we also enjoy a rhythm together.  This helps us to find comfortable ways to become better acquainted with each other and grow in our relationship with Jesus. Today I want to both affirm this rhythm and ask you to aware of many who are among us, for whom EPUMC is a very new place. 
 
Summer is a time when many folks get out of their rhythm and begin looking for a new or different faith community.  Let’s be willing to sometimes step out of the familiar rhythm of talking to good friends in order to be attentive to those who are looking for a place to call their church home.
 
Keep the Faith,
Pastor Dan

Comments

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2012

    RSS Feed

Connect with us!
office@prairiechurch.org
(952) 937-8781

15050 Scenic Heights Road
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
Picture
Picture