Occasionally it is good to take a 'sounding' to be certain that we are not floating into waters too shallow for safety. The name for this thread is borrowed from Dr. Wing of First Community Church, Columbus, Ohio, and from his church's newsletter and blog.

SOUNDINGS

The Big Shift

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Peter Drucker wrote a book titled The Age of Discontinuity. He made the observation that from the time before Jesus up until the beginning of the 20th century, the mode for transportation and getting things done was one and the same: the horse. With the invention of the motor, there began a radical shift from the way things had been done for thousands of years. No one knew where it would lead. And now we do.

By the dawn of this 21st century we have discovered that the world no longer depends on horses, and it doesn't work the way it used to. The playing fields are not relegated to a few privileged countries, but open to everyone. Thomas Friedman made that clear in his book The World is Flat.

And beyond that, things are changing so rapidly that our minds can't catch up. Look at these facts that can make your head spin:


The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10 to 14 jobs by age 38.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 1 out of 4 workers today is working for a company for whom they have been employed less than 1 year.
More than 1 out of 2 are working for a company for whom they have worked less than 5 years.
According to former Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, the top 10 jobs that will be in demand in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist - jobs that will be using technologies that haven't yet been invented, in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet.
More than 3,000 new books are published daily.
It is estimated that a week's worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.
For the students starting a four-year technical degree, this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.

What will remain the same is our need for moments of silence and the need for a human face to share the journey with.

I pray for a church willing to offer those moments of silence and hands for the journey.

Peace to you,

Dr. Richard A. Wing
Senior Minister

Aha, I can finally use this toon

At first I didn't think the 'toon was a propos, but finally it sank into this pachycephaloid's understanding: Dr. Wing does not pray for a church which sends to 'perdition' those who don't believe the same way they do, but one which offers faces and hands for the journey. Thank you, Amelia. :)

SOUNDINGS

The Secret is No Secret at All

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Last week The Secret was on the New York Times best-selling list under the heading of Advice Books. Sixteen weeks in a row now.

In reality, The Secret is really a truth that is in plain sight but remains a secret to us until the moment we can hear and act on that truth.

What the book identifies as the Secret is the law of attraction. That law says that the attitudes and thoughts you send out into the world are the best predictors of what experiences, things, and people will enter your life as a result. Jesus said: "As a person sows, so shall they also reap." Same thing.

Author and lecturer Emmet Fox commented on the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount saying, "We can choose how we shall think - in point of fact - we always choose - and therefore our lives are just the result of the kind of thoughts we have chosen to hold. We have free will, but our free will lies in our choice of thought."

My single disappointment with The Secret is this: most of the illustrations surrounding this ancient principle are translated into money, possessions, things, and narcissistic wants, with no view to finding meaning in giving yourself to others. Trust me, my office has been full of people who want more of what they have enough of and who thought that positive thinking would get it for them in life, and it didn’t.

One man came into my office last week and said, "Funny, Dick, how when one links job satisfaction to financial compensation, they're never paid enough. Yet, when they see work as a way to dance with life, meet new people, and unleash the creative tiger within, they become very rich indeed."

Viktor Frankl spoke from our pulpit in the 1950s. He said: "Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself." That is the Secret that Jesus wanted to make clear to the world.

God help us as we take the truth and the power of The Secret and make sure it goes toward the way of Jesus rather than the way of cultural narcissism. That’s my hope. And prayer.

Peace to you,

Dr. Richard A. Wing
Senior Minister

Personally I believe this is type of visualization only takes you closer to satan. Here is the trailer for "The Secret" DVD.

Yeah, it does sound like the positive thinking mindset to me as well...

Hmmm...

Many Traditional Fundamentalist TV preachers hold the idea that religion is for getting want you want in the way of worldly things, esp. money, money, money... Dr. Wing disagrees profoundly with that type of religion. It's just one reason I joined his church.

FAMILY MATTERS
by

Donice Wooster

Donice Wooster, Director of Early Childhood Ministry, has led the weekly Parent Growth group and directed the First Community Church early childhood programs for 15 years.


Works in Progress

Friday, April 06, 2007

Recently, I was introduced to the writing of Janusz Korczak by a friend and colleague. His story is deeply moving. He was a writer, and then a physician who cared for children in Poland in the early years of the 20th century. He developed a profound respect for children; for how hard they work, sometimes against great odds, to know the world and to find their place in it. He based his insights on careful observations of children, undertaken with respect for what they had to teach him. He was on Polish radio before World War II giving advice to parents, but not under his real name, as he was the son of two Jewish educators. There is much more to say about him, but the most telling story comes at the end of his life. Near the end of the war in Europe, his orphanage of Jewish children was moved to the Warsaw ghetto, where there was abject poverty. Friends encouraged him to save himself, but he would not abandon the children. A day came that the children were to be taken to the trains, whose final destination was the furnace of Treblinka. Korczak himself led the procession of 200 children, each with a blanket or toy, and carrying the child-designed flag of the orphanage. He stayed with them, boarded the train with them, and died with them.

His books are available in English, and I have been sitting with them for a week or two now. His insight is not sugary or sweet. He sees that the unconscious expectations of parents sometimes are at odds with the true nature of a child. He calls for respectful observation of a child, for listening carefully. For example, he says "When is the proper time for a child to start walking? When she does. When should her teeth start cutting? When they do. How many hours should a baby sleep? As long as she needs to." He reminds us that children have a natural progression, unique to each individual, that is to be respected. Every child is a work in progress, and as he progresses our work as parents is not to name his path but to help keep his path safe.

We are, every one of us, works in progress. If we were not truly heard as a child, we can listen to ourselves lovingly now. If we were diverted from our true path by the expectations of others, or our own fear, we can begin to move back toward it now. We are all in this together, children and adults alike. At this time when we celebrate the renewal of life, the return of spring, we can look inward for renewal as well. Korczak says it beautifully as he describes the world of an infant and moves beyond it:

"Nothing short of a futurist painting could accurately depict a child's image of herself: fingers, fist, and less distinctly, the legs, perhaps the abdomen, maybe even the head, but in indefinite contours, like a map of the Arctic regions.

But this is not all, she is still turning around and bending over in order to see what is hidden behind her. She examines herself in front of the mirror and looks at her image in a photograph. And all of this creates additional work for her, namely to find her place among her surroundings. There is Mommy, Daddy, and other people; some appear frequently, others more rarely. And in the future, she will have to find her place in society, herself amid humanity, and herself within the universe.

Well, well, now the hair has turned gray, but this work is still not done." - from Loving Every Child: Wisdom for Parents by Janusz Korczak

Transforming Community

The Rev. David Hett, Minister of Religious Life and Learning, explores the many elements that make up the individual and corporate journey into a new way of being in the world.

In One Place

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

"This is the way the book of Acts sets the scene for the “birthday of the church,” the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples: "When the day of Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all together in one place."


I believe the metaphor of this one place refers not to a physical location, but rather to a state of conscious awareness - each individual disciple was aware of a new Presence within which was more "him" or "her," yet was not at the same time the "sense of self" they had lived with all the years prior to this experience. They experienced an awareness of a new "self," their "true Self."


They had been with Jesus, learning his spiritual practice, but also simply experiencing in him the goodness of God and the beauty of divinity and the truth of holy love and compassion. After his death, the disciples suddenly began, one by one, to experience that Presence again, but no longer outside themselves – rather, they experienced this divine presence as a substantial presence within their own selves, arising out of their deepest selves.


Suddenly, or after a period of time, they began to feel that Jesus was alive inside them - this was truly a new life! The same peace they had experienced when in his presence was now present within each of them. And they put it in the only category they could imagine - this Jesus was dead, and now he is alive, for his presence is within me. Jesus' resurrection, yes; but also theirs; it was like they had new bodies, flowing with new blood - his body, his blood.


This Presence is still available today. It is, in fact, the deepest, truest part of who we are. Actually, it is all that we truly are, but it’s just so hard to see and experience it through the fog of ego, the haze of worldly forces whose tendency is to darken our souls to their own magnificent beauty and luminosity.


When Acts says that the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, I take it to mean that the Spirit is a substantial presence. It is there right now, in your soul, in your bodies. And it is more "you" than you have ever been.

Shalom,


David Hett
Minister of Religious Life and Learning

FAMILY MATTERS


Donice Wooster, Director of Early Childhood Ministry


Every Day

Friday, June 22, 2007 A friend has a husband who grew up with pet birds, and enjoys having them in their home, too. Not too long ago, my friend noticed that she was doing most of the care of the birds - cage cleaning, feeding, etc. She decided to talk to her husband about it, and point out that since he was the bird afficionado, he could take over more of their care. He told her that he appreciated that she had been doing it and said, "You know, I'm just not that good at things that you have to do every day". When she told that story, we all burst into laughter. I'm telling this story here, because it's a story that most parents can both identify with and find hilarious.

Being a parent can mean different things to different people, but one thing it always means is doing things every day. I thought about listing the things that have to be done every day, but realized it would become the whole blog entry! Our laughter at my friend's story contains the recognition of these two truths:

1. Life in a family includes a lot of things that you have to do every day, and it's crazy to think that you can evade or avoid them.

2. Everyone wishes, at least some of the time, that they could just not do them.

Holding within ourselves the tension of those two truths is a big part of becoming a grown-up and a parent. When a child comes into our lives, it may be the first time that we consistently (every day!) have to set our own longings aside some of the time to meet the needs of a small and helpless person, who is ours to love. And that small person will grow to understand that our love is real because of the daily, dependable way in which we care for him or her. And, to be honest, some of the daily tasks are just boring. Changing diapers, cleaning up after meals, laundry, helping with the same toy pick-up into the same toy baskets, brushing teeth - it's hard to make something fresh and interesting out of that. Then again, some of the daily events are deeply satisfying. Reading stories to children, bedtime rituals and kisses, singing songs in the car - such events can feel like the rhythm of life. They feed our senses with the sight of a sleepy child, the smell of a freshly bathed baby's head, the sound of an exuberant 3 year old's song, the feel of a child nestling in for a cuddle. Both parent and toddler can get out of sorts when some of those daily routines are broken.

Sometimes the truest goodness is doing the thing that needs to be done when you don't feel like doing it. Every day. There might not be anyone complimenting you on how much you do, with a generally cheerful heart, every day. So take this moment to honor yourself, for all of the times you have done those daily tasks out of love. Someday your child may understand and thank you for it, but today I do.