Sunday Wrapup 9/21/2014

If you've ever visited here when the weather was awful, you really need to come back right now.  The temps today were between 70 and 80 all day--without unpleasant humidity, the breezes are very light, and the day arrived and departed with a magnificent (or at least attractive) sunrise and sunset.  The weather tomorrow will likely be similar.

I have my typing students primed to especially note where the sun rises and sets in relation to the east-west roads in the area on Tuesday, September 23, the first day of Autumn. This equinox event gives me pleasure every time I notice it.

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Today in church Gideon and Esther became members.  A teaching job for Gideon is what brought the family here from Poland where they had lived last year.  Before their marriage, Esther resided in Ireland with her family, and Gideon had lived in Missouri with his parents when he wasn't in school in Guys Mills, PA.--before he moved to Poland as a single man.

One line in Gideon's testimony impressed me.  He noted that he and his wife have an ongoing interest in Europe, and said simply that if they ever choose to leave this fellowship, they are committing themselves to do so for noble reasons.  He also said that they want to be givers while they're here, and not only takers.

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I learned today that Paul Yoder's (and "Melvin Fannie's") sister-in-law Marilyn died last week in Indiana.  She was Vernon's widow.

This would have meant something to me anyway, but far less if I had not been with Paul and Edith several years ago when we stopped to visit Marilyn just before we left Indiana, after having attended Susanna's father's funeral.  She was a gracious and pleasant lady.

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We have a local seminar coming up on Thursday and Friday of this week, related to interacting with Muslims.  It's open to all, but "signing-up" in advance is requested for those who plan to be present for meals.  I hear that some Middle Eastern food will be served.

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I heard the good news today that Rachel Y.'s counseling license has been granted in Kansas, in reciprocity with South Carolina, where her training and first clinical experience occurred.  A personal visit to the state office in Topeka seemed to have moved things along at lightening speed, compared to the 3-month silent wait she had experienced till then.

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And now to cover the trivial category . . . This was definitely a purple morning among the ladies from Center and Cedar Crest who sang at MFC.  Of the six ladies there, all except one were wearing some shade of purple.  Maybe the unplanned matchy-matchy event would have been "ruined" if someone else from Center had showed up.  The singing would have likely been improved though.  Hiromi and I were the sole representatives from Center, and we were there because Henry and Elizabeth Schrock had asked to trade turns with us.  Henry's widowed sister-in-law was visiting here from Indiana--Mrs. Phineas Schrock.

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Our voting for the next Sunday School study took a funny turn today.  Among various suggestions we voted on, the most-preferred option came in only four votes ahead of the runner-up.  So we voted again between Daniel and Hebrews.  The vote was tied till Joseph (the SS superintendent in charge) broke the tie in favor of Hebrews.  Then we voted on one more option, and decided to add the books of Philemon and James to the study of Hebrews.

I had voted in favor of studying the minor prophets.  I was simply ready for something in the Old Testament.  When that didn't fly, I voted for Daniel, although I'm certainly not over-eager to get into all the prophecy speculations that others have in studying that book.

Another option that looked good was studying Firm Foundations, a curriculum from New Tribes Mission.  It covers the "story" of Scripture, from creation to Christ.  I liked that option too.  We had studied that in SS a number of years ago.  So many good choices.

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What is it with skin eruptions, of late?

My co-teacher Norma's niece in Pennsylvania has the most horrible case of staph-infected skin that many of the health-care professionals involved have ever seen.  It started with contact dermatitis (which often involves poison ivy exposure), and then was diagnosed as impetigo.  She has spent a number of days in the hospital, and has had a lot of facial swelling, and oozing sores over much of her body.

Norma herself, at about the same time, saw a doctor for what was also diagnosed as impetigo.  She was given antibiotics orally and topically, and with a bandage over the one small area involved, she taught school as usual.  Now, however, she is battling a reaction to the antibiotic.

Dietrich, my nephew, has an angry-looking patch on his forearm.  He has it bandaged at school, and at home, they're treating it with plantain, a common weed that is known to have healing properties.  It arrived in this country via immigrants who brought it along for its medicinal powers, and has now spread over the entire country.  Dietrich's mother, who is a nurse, treated herself successfully with plantain several times for brown recluse spider bites--with no tissue necrosis resulting.

Several girls at school have mystery bites on their forearms also.  One girl is afraid it's flea bites from playing with friendly cats.  Her brother, however, who has even more exposure to the cats, has no such reaction.  No fair.

People apparently do not all react the same to bites, even if they are exposed equally.  I know that is the case for bedbugs--through several unfortunate hotel room experiences while on overnight trips to Christian school meetings at Kansas City and Topeka (this year we're going to Wichita).    In one case, three out of four girls who shared the same room and who slept in the same beds got numerous itchy, swollen bites, and the fourth one didn't.  At another time, in the case of one room where the bedbugs were actually seen crawling on the skin of the room's occupants, neither of the two people there developed skin symptoms.

Have any of the readers here noticed more or worse skin infections than usual?

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 Most of the ladies and some of the males in the DLM family gathered yesterday at Mom and Dad's place to work in the house and yard to do maintenance tasks outdoors and cleaning indoors.  The most fun part of such days are working with people I really like.

My mom, despite her dementia, is capable of providing some levity and entertainment.  "Can you tell me how I'm doing?" she asked Dad yesterday, in my hearing, when she was doing  nothing at all except sitting in her rocking chair.  In her case, Dad gave a reassuring answer.  During most of the day, Mom's question was one I should probably have been asking as well--only I had the good sense not to, since I was pretty sure I didn't really know what I was doing.  I'm glad for others who are better at organizing and carrying out such events than I am.

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Recently I've been following several Facebook threads where people have shared something about their hard experiences in church life.  In both threads, I knew very few of the people who contributed, so a lot of the personal context was missing, but nearly all had suffered through the exercise of church discipline.  In some cases, excommunication had taken place, and in other cases, people had walked away from a church situation that had become unappealing for some reason, and they felt ostracized afterward.

Here are some of the other things I've observed on the Facebook threads and elsewhere:

1.  In one group, where there are no written standards, people felt deeply wounded by the control exerted through personal pressure from leadership toward members--often when the members had no knowledge of where the "invisible" lines were that separated acceptable conduct from unacceptable till they had crossed the lines.

2.  In another group, where the standards are very clear, failure to abide by them regularly resulted in a determination of rebellion and the exercise of church discipline--frequently excommunication.

3.  One person, the only one I knew personally, talked about living for years in limbo after having been excommunicated.  He was never sure whether he had returned to good standing or not, and finally left.

4.  In another case I heard about recently, someone who considered joining a certain church decided against it when he observed that some who are members regularly do things that are contrary to the agreed-upon standard.

5.  Many churches avoid spelling out much at all in regard to expectations from members.  Not much is made either of being in or out as a member, or being a contributing member or simply being aboard for the ride.  

I have no appetite at all for delving into such messy situations, but wonder whether there isn't a much better way to handle things than often happens.   The right road really seems to be somewhere between deep and dangerous ditches that look something like the situations referenced above.  While I certainly don't claim to see the whole picture, or even the most important parts of the picture, I note the following:

1.  Church membership should mean something.

What people often talk about when they don't wish to do what has been agreed-upon before their arrival on the scene is that they feel no ownership of the standards.  This sounds like whining to me. One of the universal challenges in growing up (what appears in literature anthologies under the theme of Innocence versus Experience) is to adapt oneself to the realities of the grown-up world.  That's not all that church is, but it is that--a grown-up world that will welcome people who are still growing up, but a world that does not need to fall all over itself to make immaturity comfortable.

Identity is another thing that church membership can mean.  It's not that a single identity is the only right one, but a confused identity is no virtue either.  Being comfortable with who we are as a church body is OK, if we are a people who seek to follow the Lord--even when there is still room for improvement on many fronts.  We really don't have to put on a necktie when people outside our church might feel obligated to do so.  It's OK to not have neckties be part of who we are.

When people deliberately walk away from a church body, something changes in their relationship to other members.  I, for one, often feel the burden of many needs that I know of. Sometimes they feel overwhelming.  I try to remember, however, that I am not "the mother of the world," and I have responsibility for meeting only a small part of the world's needs.  I feel especially responsible to pray for my natural family and for my church family and to help meet their needs.  Beyond that circle, I feel far less responsibility, although I pray for others as well, as the Lord reminds me.  In plain words, one thing it means when someone walks away from our church fellowship is that their needs are now more someone else's responsibility than ours.

2.  Leaders should lead and members should follow. 

I've often pondered the problem of trying to follow someone who refuses to lead or leads in an off-course direction.  Walking in place is a sorry and frustrating exercise, but being immobilized permanently is worse.  We all really need engaged and willing leaders.

I'm sure that if I had a leadership position, I would see more clearly the problems associated with people being unwilling to follow.  Usually I'm happy to follow. In the schoolroom, where I do have a leadership position of sorts, I find that students usually try to follow my wishes.  When they don't, I'm responsible for making it feel advantageous for them to do so, or to re-evaluate what I'm asking of them.

3.  Expectations should be clearly communicated.

I would very quickly lose patience with any effort to write everything down that is expected of church members.  I believe, however, that if group expectations are not followed because of being unclear, a clarification and gentle reminder is probably all that is necessary.   It's silly as well to say that unwritten expectations are not legitimate.  This imperfect world operates by many such expectations, and it can not be otherwise.   People should learn to live with it.

4.  Everyone should be accountable, always.

A self-determined course of action regarding settled church matters seems like a contradiction of the purpose for being a church because of how it leaves out the functioning of the body as a whole.

In the process of making decisions, everyone's input should be welcome, and everyone's actions and attitudes should be open for inspection.  Leaders and members are alike in this regard.

I'm probably not qualified to say how leaders should carry out their roles.  I do know that we have only one perfect leader and He is near, but none of our flesh and blood church leaders is He.

I don't see leaders and members as comprising different tiers in a church body.  If the body were a circle, the leaders would stand in the line of the circle, along with everyone else.  In the fashion of the "electricity" game we used to play, everyone stands there when decisions are being made, providing and receiving input, as the "electricity" passes around and around the circle, perhaps having begun with the leaders, but reversing direction occasionally, and eventually passing through the hands of all who are present.

When the "game" is over, it is the leaders who have the responsibility to determine where the "charge" lies now, and what is best for all.

5.  Voluntary confession of sin should be encouraged.

6.  Redemption and restoration should be pursued.

I don't feel inspired to develop the last two ideas any further just now. Maybe a reader can help out.

In the sermon we heard today at church, Julian asked us to consider whether we are willing to be people of discernment.  A church is blessed if its people all say yes when they're asked that.