Union Church of Hinsdale’s Blog

The past few days I have been surrounded by various spirits. Spirits of friends and acquaintances who recently died. I just came back from a memorial service of a dear friend that had struggled with leukemia-lymphoma. She is now at peace with God and cancer free. Her husband gave a wonderful eulogy about how she lived her life. Robin had five lessons to leave us all and I would like to share them with you. First, LAUGH! Laugh out loud. We all need a sense of humor in the midst of daily stress. I forget in the details of VBS, Sunday School and daily job struggles that God has found humor in blessing me with 5 men in my household this summer. The clean and unclean jokes I’ve heard this summer, will make any grizzly bear laugh. Second, SMILE! I love that new commercial from a cellphone company that starts with a call to a young man and he smiles. His smile is infectious and pretty soon an entire block is smiling. Third, HUG! Give at least one hug a day to someone special in your life. My husband is a hugger, but I can’t say the same for me. I need to work on that one. I knew Andy was smiling when Bob said that Robin would say “Come here, just give me a hug.” Fourth - FAMILY, FRIENDS, and FLOWERS! Surround yourself with the people that love you the most and flowers are always nice too. Fifth, CELEBRATE YOUR LIFE NOW! Everyday is a blessing with new opportunities and possibilities that didn’t exist the day before. I will miss my friend, but I will remember how she lived her life.

The Allegro Handbell Ensemble had a wonderful concert tour to the great Northwest June 9 – 20. We played seven concerts in churches, one concert in a school, and we played for a Sunday morning worship service in “the other UCC,” the United Church of Canada. We were in British Columbia for four days. We spend one night at a camp on beautiful Lake Coeur d’Alene in Idaho. The camp is owned by the Washington-North Idaho Conference of the United Church of Christ. The rest of our time was spent in Washington State. We saw snow as we crossed the Cascade Mountains. We visited the Boeing plant and saw 747’s, 777’s, and the new 787’s being made. We took a tour of Seattle, on both land and water, riding on the “Duck.” We visited a gold mine. The churches where we played provided host families who took good care of us and provided excellent meals. But most of all, we shared the joy of music with several hundred people of all ages and made lots of new friends. Our enthusiasm was contagious. We received standing ovations at all the concerts except for two. We sold all the CD’s we brought with us, and didn’t have any to sell at our last two concerts.

If you would like to see more information about the Allegro Handbell Ensemble, go to our website at www.allegrobells.org.

I was at a game the other night, surround by thousands of people I didn’t know. As the game began, you could feel the anticipation—the grip of a neighbor as the catch is made on the warning track. Or the collective sigh when three men are left as the batter strikes out for the final out of the inning. The vendors are yelling “hotdogs, get your hotdogs,” and the roar of the crowd is almost deafening at times. And then that magic moment happens when ball gets hit and it comes sailing over the fence. There is an eruption of cheers and high fives, hugs and hollers—community is alive and well in ballparks all across the land as summer is beginning. I always get a bit of a chill when I experience this at games, I guess it is one of the reasons being there is so special.

There is a community formed, if only for nine innings that shares something so much deeper than a game of baseball. And this is when I begin to think of my church family. I think about the excitement I get to experience year after year as high school students pile on to a bus get dirty and serve others in the name of Christ. Or when a group of adults gather for bible study and a simple supper. Community is alive and well when we are at are best as a community of Christ—we will out the words in Acts 2 as Paul tells us about that first community of disciples.

I wonder what it would look like if we began to apply these same principles to our daily life. Instead of seeing a Cub fan or a Sox fan, we would see a sister or brother in Christ. When we stop for that caffeine fix at Starbucks in the morning, the barista brewing our morning necessity became a brother or sister in Christ and we greeted them as though they were family. Instead of talking on the phone, we said good morning and how are you. Can you see the smile beaming back at you. What would this world look like if we took the words of Christ in Matthew 25 seriously and treated everyone around us as Christ? I think we might be in for a whole lot more smiles and hellos, rather than feeling like we need to stare at the ground as we pass one another. The homeless man you see on your morning commute might get a hello, rather than a quick shuffle to avoid him.

I won’t say that this is easy–in fact I cannot think of many things harder than to live a life the mirrors how Christ lived. I wish that when i saw the opposing team make a great play my reaction would be to cheer, rather than sneer. I wish that when someone asked me for money on the street, my first reaction was to say hello, rather than to get away and not make eye contact. It is hard, but it is what we are called to do.