Grist for the Mill

There have been a few interesting resources coming into my life lately that I'd like to share with you. The first is a book by William Willimon. Its titled simply, "Pastor". I'm only through the introduction so far and have already found it to be helpful, inspiring, and timely. I will recommend it to you all as "continuing education."

The second is one I found today in my search for resources to lead our process for discernment about becoming an Open and Affirming (ONA) congregation (think More Light). This is a beginning place for looking at the scriptural basis of conversations around human sexuality, LGBT issues, and the church. I believe it will lead one to further helpful articles and links. It might be useful for those who need or want to talk openly about these issues with their congregations, Presbyteries, and CsOM. See it at
http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-walter-wink

Finally, I thank you all who came to Kenwood on Feb. 18, who called or wrote, or who have simply prayed for me on that most wonderful day, or since then. You continue to bless and inspire me!

Howdy from Holland

Hey Everybody!

The little yellow house you see is our new home. If you look closely, you'll see the newest edition to our family, Ferdinand the snow blower. And if you look very very closely you can see a tiny little twig just to the left of the driveway. That's an oak tree that sprang up in our former abode on Ross Avenue way back when. Jim has nurtured that little tree for lo, these many years and by golly, we brought it with us to CA. I think the last leaf finally "let go" a few days ago!

Once the snow melts (if ever) we look forward to having the yard landscaped since there is really nothing there but dirt! Next door (just to your right) is an empty lot; behind us is a little lake which hosts scurrying geese and ducks and a few high-stepping herons. They've all gone away since the lake is now frozen.

Jim is still in CA but will be striking out to come this way after he finishes service at San Francisco Towers on March 18. I tell you, it has been a real eye-opener and challenge to face all this newness without him right here. Cell phone conversations with 3 hour time differences just aren't the same as having your sweetie right here! However, this experience has made me have a whole new appreciation for those who live alone. I also have a greater empathy for those military families whose loved ones are so far away, facing the attrocities of this seemingly never-ending war. At least I know that our geographical separation has a definite ending; these families demonstrate real courage -- and I keep them in my prayers daily!

I also check the blogpot daily -- just to see your sweet familiar faces in the great ordination photos from James' special day (thanks, Cheryl!) and to keep in touch. I'll try not to be such a lurker -- much love and every blessing!

James Ordination!

The gang gathers to raise a glass (or two) to our dear friends James and Mary!

The Rev. James Kosko

Ok so better late than never. I have finally gotten my act together to get this post done. Everyone please feel free to add your comments about the ordination. Although it was probably the longest ordination I've been to yet it was worth every minute to get to see James loved on and affirmed by such a great cloud of witnesses.
Ok so now I've done my part all-be-it a little sloppily (I'll get the hang of it someday) Who knew it wouldn't put the pictures where I wanted them but you all get the idea anyway.

Love to you all, can't wait for the next one!

Cheryl

Katrina News

The Presbyterian News Service has written up and posted, with photos and video, how recovery is going in Katrinaland. There is a rather distressingly long video of a car drive through the now non-existent 9th ward

To view the stories - please click here.

If you want to see an astounding video of the storm and the surge coming ashore into Biloxi then click here

There is an interesting analysis of the storm's impact on Biloxi and D'Iberville at the The Weather underground - and a very personal story of how the storm was deeply devastating to the community of St. Martins just east of D'Ibeville.

A story that haunts me comes from this site:

"One of the odd things that has occur ed since the storm, probably due to continuing issues with bringing the phone system back online, is that the sub station regularly receives 911 calls from locations that currently are nothing but slabs, from these areas. Answering the call, there is only static on the other end. There is a list of addresses, numbering about 20 in total, hung up on the wall for the dispatcher, noting these locations. We think that possibly the last calls from these locations were 911 calls, and are somehow still electronically in the memory or database of the phone system."

A Red Letter Day!

Dear Friends,
February 18, 2007 was quite a day for ordinations! Blessings to James & Mary as they venture out into their new life of ministry! And congratulations and blessings for Paul Phillips who was also ordained in the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy on the very same day. Paul will be serving at St. Luke's Hospital in St. Louis MO as chaplain. The hospital, I believe is somehow affiliated with Presbyterians. Leanne Van Dyk, former prof of Systematic Theology at SFTS and current Dean/VP of Western Theological Seminary was also ordained on Sunday, February 18. So all-in-all, it was a RED letter day to be sure. I attended Leanne's ordination and felt that I was standing amidst a great cloud of witnesses in the chapel at Western -- and somehow felt a sweet connection to the ordinations of James and Paul. Call it a Spirit thing!

The man who preached at Leanne's ordination used to serve on the board of trustees at SFTS and was part of the search committee who called her to SFTS back in ?? and is now pastor of Westminster Presbyterian, Grand Rapids. Leanne has an identical twin sister who was there too -- kinda freaky in a good kind of way. Leanne and Greg Love are pals -- in fact, Leanne encouraged Greg to apply for the position at SFTS way back when. Interestingly (to me), he, too, has an identical twin. BUT they didn't know that about each other -- luckily, yours truly was able to make that connection for them! Another man with whom I spoke (Don Butyne) at Leanne's ordination was on the faculty at SFTS for 8 years and served as interim dean for 3 of those years. So I felt very close to my community at SFTS even though I am, at times, what seems light years away.

But that's for another blog. For now, I just wanted to let you know about the other ordinations. Think of you all often and send you loads of love!! Keep in touch when you can!!

Jenn's Update

Today there are over 800 jobs posted on the Church Leadership Connection...yet nothing has worked out. However, I just had an interview with Family and Children's Services in Tulsa, OK and it was great! They affirmed me and my gifts and wanted me...and I want to be involved in their mission! I haven't felt this happy, calm and complete about something in such a long time.

The position is a Family Support Specialist, which basically means that I am working with families and parents that have kids in Head Start and Early Head Start (infants start at 6 weeks). I go on home visits and form relationships with both kids and adults, helping them set goals and giving them resources they might not otherwise get. I am really excited and I thought I would share this with my friends :) While it's not an ordained call, I really do feel like this is a call to ministry and I believe God's hand is there guiding this endeavor.

I miss you all! Take care and God bless :)

I love Italy - Their Food Sings

Sooner or later somebody (Cheryl, pictures?) will post on the Grand Ordination of The Rev. James Kosko (a 3 hour extravaganza and truely a great love-a-thon) and the debrief in the bar afterwards but in the meantime:

I found this on another blog (on cheese making, natch) and fell in love....

Time for a little "Oneness" in the Body

I finally got all signed up and back on the Blog (Thank you Anitra!)
In light of all the split/leaving talk in the PC(USA) I thought we might all appreciate a little "Good News"
I haven't checked out all the particulars yet but this looks like a good thing to me.

http://www.christianchurchestogether.org/news/070209.html

Looking forward to seeing some of you on Sunday at James ordination!

Jepsen Update

Hello friends -

Lars and I are slogging through winter. It is finally warming up (38!) and most of the snow has melted. Our back yard was nothing but weeds when we bought the place so now it is a big mud patch. I go out to walk the dog and I fall out of my clogs. We need to look into some grass. Either way we are both eager for the arrival of Spring. We planted lots of bulbs when we got here and I can not wait to see their happy faces.

Lars finally got a job. He is working as a cook at "The Homestead". It is one of our restaurants - the only one that doesn't specialize in burgers. He is making steaks and pizzas and seems to be enjoying himself.

We are busy inside the house while we wait for Spring. We ripped up our bedroom carpet yesterday to finally get down to our hardwood floor. God only knows why there were so many staples but Lars and I finally got everything cleared. It looks awesome.

Church is going OK. Some of you saw my short lived post on an issue with parishoners. We had a run in about the authority of Scripture. Much to my surprise they are still attending. The session has voted to no longer be a Confessing Church so that is good. Admist the division talk I am glad that they heard my call for working together. This job is difficult and I am constantly lamenting how unprepared I am from my time in seminary. There is just such a disconnect from the way we are trained to be pastors and what the work actually requires of us. Oh well - "I will, with God's help"

Hope you all are well. Thanks for your care and concern. I miss you - and Anitra - what I wouldn't give for a Mount Tam Pale Ale and some Onion Rings - thanks for the picture.

- Heather

Upgrades, Ordinations, & Podcasts

We are officially upgraded to the new blog. If y'all want to post, you'll encounter the update process. Please let me know if you have any problems!!!!

James Kosko's ordination is coming up this sunday in Kenwood. (Which is in between Santa Rosa and Sonoma if you didn't know this...) At last count there should be about eight or nine of us in attendance. There are plans to go out afterwards in search of appropriate beverage and food.

I've taught myself how to do podcasts and how have two podcasts on Itunes - and also available for mp3 downloads. Please come visit the Covenant Network site for the mp3 version and do a search in Itunes on Covenant Network for the full flavor w pictures version. There are two presentations - one is an interview of Margaret Towner, the first woman ordained to the ministry in the Presbyterian Church(USA) and the more I listen to it the more in awe I am of how this has taken place. Read it in text or listen to it - I think its important to know how this came to take place. The other podcast is a really great sermon from Lisa Larges, the regional director of That All May Freely Serve. She does a very nice job of laying out a tough message with humor and compassion. Please come visit - and if you blog or have friends who blog, please suggest that they too come visit these presentations.

If you are following the New Wineskins - they have met, they have asked a sister denomination Evangelical Presbyterians to open a non-continoues Presbytery for congregations wishing to leave the PCUSA, and will meet again in a few months or so. Leslie Scanlon has some good coverage at Presbyterian Outlook (free, but registration required). You might also be interested in visiting the Presbyterians for Renewal website, and the Network of Presbyterian Women in Leadership. Or you might just go get another cup of coffee.

God Bless Cliff Kirkpatrick

Hi again, folks -

The stated clerk and executive director of the GAC of the PCUSA sent out this letter to all congregations in response to the potential defection of churches in coming weeks.

http://www.pcusa.org/oga/newsstories/christs-unity.htm

It is so odd to be spending all my time studying the unity of the global church, all the while my own denomination is potentially splitting once again.

Transitions

I'm preaching on The Transfiguration of the Lord Sunday in about two weeks...hm... the same day as the ordination of James... I wonder, will his face glow after the laying on of hands? Should we be offering to build booths in the sanctuary?

I have never quite "got" why either the Transfiguration passage was significant nor why it rates its own Sunday in the lectionary till I started digging into it all this morning. I think I may suffer from way too many sermons on Peter's alleged point of view, "Wow, cool, let's hang out here, what do you mean go back down the mountain?" You may remember James Noel's riff on the passage during graduation weekend.

In the lectionary, it will always be preached because it closes out Epiphany. Depending on the whole Easter moon calendar calculation Epiphay can run up to eight weeks, but not always. Transfiguration Sunday is the override passage, the tip-down passage. Its like when I've been flying for a very long time and then there is this subtle shift in the alignment of the airplane. Subtle and unmistakable - I call it the tip down moment and its the signal that not only have we started to approach the airport, its a good time to make that last run for the bathroom before those seatbelt lights are turned on overhead...

Bill and I took the weekend off and rented a room in a hotel in the financial district of San Francisco. We walked all over the city - we enjoy walking and looking at neighborhoods. We had a nice view - we looked toward North Beach and Telegraph Hill. We saw the twin spires of Saints Peter and Paul highlighted against the sky. They have an open design - they are translucent even as they point toward heaven. They glowed in the twilight of dawn and dusk and were the first to emerge and the last to disappear into the darkness.

So clearly, I am rehersing/exploring themes for the sermon yet to be written - but thus is the nature perhaps of blogging or writing or streams of thoughts at any rate. What I really want to do in this blog entry is to tell you that we took the ferry over and back out of Larkspur and - of course - stopped for lunch at the brewpub.

We sat outside in the late winter sunlight - ordered up beer and burgers off the same menu that we have all used for years and I remembered all the meals with all of you I have enjoyed in that place. I ate too much and became bloated with beer, onion rings, and pastrame sandwiches. Then we got in the car and drove back home to Santa Rosa.

Is it possible to go back? Or to stay too long? Or is it good to transition in stages? Even though none of you were there with me in person, you were there with me in translucent memory. Did I shine with a strange new light or just glow with the mild sunburn I had picked up from the three days of city hiking and ferry riding we'd just completed. Santa Rosa is certainly not the hills of Calvary - but I found that I can't eat at the brewpub like I used to. My body is starting to rebel at the presence of all that meat and fat. Or perhaps its not a rebellion but an awakening to a needed change.

What can we take with us? What must we leave behind? What awaits us? The Gospel speaks with the Law and the Prophets, the Grand Plan is put into place - and Peter just tries to figure out how to be a good disciple.

Peace - I miss you all very much.

Anitra

ps - I'm going to add a note to the end of the entry on switching to the New and Improved Blogger so if you are wondering where we are with that conversation, check back to there.

Should we go with the update?

Hi fellow blogging team members. Apparently - there is an upgrade to the blog interface that we can take advantage of. And - while they don't say so now - we may need to go do eventually in any case. However, there seems to be a warning that we'll have to resign in with our "google accounts". If you don't have one, they will helpfully create one.

This sounds like a pain and if we do it, I think everyone has to do it.

So I figure our options are:

1) stay with what we have for as long as possible or
2) figure out a date by which everyone should try to pick up a google account and then switch or
3) switch which then makes everyone pick up a google account if they want to keep posting...

I donno. I'm not thrilled with being forced into The Google Machine but hey, this blog is free (cash wise) so it is hard to complain. Well, not for me. I actually find it quite easy to complain, no matter the circumstance. I'm more than a little concerned that I could easily end up in heaven and find myself compeled to make a few suggestions to God on how to organize the place a little better. Well, at least I'm hoping for heaven. I'm pretty sure I'll get there... Unless Calvin was wrong. In which case... hmm... I'll probably have a few simple suggestions for who ever is running the alternative as well.

So - post your vote; what do you want to do?

Anitra the spiritual australian sheep dog....

Check out the 1/18/06 comic:
http://www.rhymeswithorange.com/

TV Civics Lessons

My brother sent me this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CvoC551i2E

You Are Invited!

The Golden Gate Association
of the Northern California Nevada Conference
of the United Church of Christ
invites you to the
ordination of
James Kosko, M Div 2006
into the Ministry of Jesus Christ,
February 18, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Kenwood Community Church, UCC ~ Kenwood, CA

James is called to serve as Pastor at Elk Grove Congregational Church, UCC in Elk Grove, CA

Hermeneutics

So here's a perfect example of why Presbyterians still can't agree on how to interpret and apply Scripture: did anyone else notice that New Wineskins is using our baccalaureate verse from Isaiah 43 as their mantra?

Check it out (and if you're Presbyterian and don't know what New Wineskins is, you need to find out):

http://www.newwineconvo.com/

Sliding in an Icy Land

I thought I would write to tell you all about the winter weather that has hit the middle of the country, and ask for prayers. Here in Hominy we are lucky, only 6 inches of sleet is on the ground and we have electricity currently. However, the rest of the eastern and southern parts of Oklahoma and the Southwestern part of Missouri aren't so lucky.


Over 500,000 people are without power and the high temperature will be about 25 the next few days with the low hitting 0 degrees. My Aunt lives in Springfield, MO and only about 5% of the town has power. She said the place looks like a war zone. Their land was full of trees and they have lost most of them due to the weight of the ice. An historic park in Muskogee, OK is completely destroyed. Basically, it's really bad here and your prayers would be greatly appreciated by all the folks around here.

What's really crazy is that most if not all of the churches were shut down today. Although, some churches have gained generators and are opening up as shelters for those without power. The expectation is that power won't be anywhere near coming back online until late this week, but the temp won't be above freezing until Thursday.




Thanks for all of your prayers! My mom and I are staying in and keeping warm and dad has been going to work, but it takes him about 30 minutes to go 3 miles. Basically, it's crazy weather! I hear there was snow in Southern Cal., anybody out there experience that?

Take care, stay warm and don't slide away!

Love, Jenn :)

Making Feta

One of the things I have started to make is cheese. Mostly soft cheeses like chevre and feta although I have a test brie aging at the moment.

Making cheese turns out to be easier than bread. Yesterday I got stuff out to make a fresh batch of feta. You see here - two liters of goat milk (I usually use four); a pot, two basket molds and a drain tray, my collection of cheese molds (little packets) and two coagulants - vegitable rennet and Calciam chloride, and a thermometer.


First I heat the milk to about 96 degrees so its nice and cozy for the bacteria - which is what is in that blue spoon.

Goat milk comes from Trader Joes. Even though I'm surrounded by goats from here to Bodega Bay I can't get any fresh goat milk unless I suddenly become best friends with a goat herder. Fortunantly TJoe's sees fit to sell regular pasturized goat milk. Ultrapasterized milk won't work, it doesn't coagulate and form curds.




After the bacteria has a chance to spread out and enjoy itself, I added the two coagulants which very swiftly resulted in a nice firm curd here. The knife is holding back a wall which means we're ready to finish cutting and then transfer to the basket molds.


Here they are when I first put them in - and here they are about four hours later. Much smaller. But very yummy.


I keep them in a brine in my refrigerator.


A much better set of directions can be found at the Fias Farm website.

If you want to make your own - there are places to order stuff from if no one is selling local. The Beverage People, which is local to Santa Rosa and does wine, apple cider and beer, is starting to do cheese stuff and perhaps sausage. I make sausage too. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to build a cold smoker for the cheese and a hot smoker for the sausage...

Across the country and back again

Hello from Atlanta!

We have both been awfully slack about posting, in fact even joining this blog since we left California. I guess it only makes sense that as we are now moving back across the country we should join the blog. That is correct, we are moving to Portland, Oregon as soon as we get jobs or our lease runs out, whichever comes first. After our holiday visit to Heather's family in Portland we decided it was a good idea to be around her family for the next couple of years. Heather's mother isn't getting any better, her grandmother and grandfather aren't getting any younger, and did you know you can't see a single large body of water in Atlanta? Really we had no idea, otherwise Heather never would have moved. (note sarcasm) Except for a river with a funny name, and it's dirty. So if anyone knows anyone hiring for anything in the Portland area, please talk us up to them and them give me their phone number.
Roux is excited about the move, I have promised her that I would take up snowshoeing so that she can play in the snow. She also enjoys destroying the duck she got for Christmas. That seems to be all of our news.

Alexis

A holy kiss?

I'm back in Geneva after a whirlwind Christmas break in Portland, and today (being the first of the month) was communion day at the Church of Scotland. For some odd reason, the only time the C of S passes the peace is when there's communion, and I've missed some previous communion Sundays...so I was interested to discover today that many people at the C of S use the standard Geneva greeting when passing the peace: three kisses on the cheeks. So, if you greet five people, that's 15 kisses. It becomes a bit ridiculous after a while - especially as with each new face you have that moment of deliberation when you're trying to figure out if this will be a handshake or the kissing ritual, if kissing, which cheek to head for first, and whether or not there will be lip-to-cheek contact or just the "mwah!" sound in the air.

I don't think we covered this in our sexual harassment seminar; in any case, my usual trick for avoiding unwanted hugs - clasping both hands of the incoming parishioner - doesn't work in this scenario, as people come in for the kiss anyway.

I'm not sure this is quite what Paul had in mind when he told the churches of Rome and Corinth to greet one another with a holy kiss...