Trash

In my world, today is “trash day.”

Everybody has a “trash day,” right?

If you live way out in the country, “trash day” comes whenever you choose it. There’s no trash service...no one you can pay to do your dirty work.

Indeed, years ago, my dog’s favorite day of the week was that time when we’d jump in the pickup and head to the local dump with a bed full of trash bags flapping in the wind behind us.

But now that we’ve been officially citified (that’s pronounced city-fide if you’re struggling) trash day has changed significantly, though it is certainly of no less importance.

Early this morning, before the sun had risen, I heard the big engine chugging its way down our street. I was just getting out of bed, beginning to order my thoughts and make my way toward a life-giving cup of coffee.

The noises of gears and hydraulics floated into our home a second time.

TRASH!!!

That brutal moment of pre-coffee realization sends a shot of adrenaline jarring its way through the bloodstream.

You don’t want to miss trash day.

Especially not on the Wednesday after Memorial Day weekend. Gross.

You miss trash day, and things are going to get UGLY by the next Wednesday.

After my experience this morning, I really believe that the timed “trash can roll” could make its way into the next summer Olympics. The event involves strength, balance, clarity of thought and grace under pressure.

As I opened our backyard gate and wheeled the beast (three extra bags precariously balanced atop the can and barely held together by the jammed-down lid) toward the street, I saw that the truck had already passed us.

Strains of “Pass Me Not” from my childhood churches ran through my head.

“Pass me not, O gentle trash man...Hear my humble cry. While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by.”

As the “trash guys” worked their way on down my street, one of them saw my pitiful figure wheeling a mountain of refuse to the curb.

We made eye contact.

He waved.

A greeting? Or an acknowledgment of, “way to go Chief. We’ll get you when we come back by.”

I hoped for the latter. And since this was the second time the scene had unfolded this way in two weeks, I felt sure that those good men would save me from my own mess.

And they did.

It’s a good feeling, wheeling an empty trash can back to its resting place for another week.

Life can go on.

But trash-making never stops. And to keep things civil on the inside, the bad stuff has got to go somewhere.

Life without the “trash guys” would be tough.

As you walk through your life today, think about all of the ways that we really are dependent on each other. How many people got out of bed, showed up and did their job so that we could all eat and work and play today? How many people fill our lives with little kindnesses, going the extra mile when they certainly don’t have to?

The belief that we do it all ourselves, and that it all depends on us is the very heart of stress and worry and frustration. We’ll do plenty ourselves, with God’s help, but we would still be lost and helpless without God and other people.

The great news is that God’s love doesn’t fail us. And he’s always willing to take away our trash. It’s never too late.

If I can clear out a little bit of pride and replace it with humility…a little bit of self-importance and replace it with dependence…a big bag full of greed and replace it with the love of Christ…what a great day this can be.

We’ll see you this Sunday ---

Adam

LIFE AT SOTH

We'll be back to our regular worship schedule this Sunday...9 and 11 AM with Sunday School for all ages at 10:15. Sunday night worship is taking a break for the summer, but look for its return around Labor Day.

SOTH Men played in a great Memorial Day softball tournament at New Mountain Top Baptist Church in Winston. SOTH advanced to the semi-finals before being eliminated. Men’s and Co-Ed teams for summer are forming now, with play to begin June 18^th. Contact David Pearson at 678-982-7638 if you’d like to be part of this great recreation ministry.

Our youth group is undertaking two fundraisers to support their summer trips:

Parents’ Night Out: This Friday night, June 1^st beginning at 6:30 our youth will be babysitting at the church (with adult supervision) and parents are encouraged to come out and take advantage. If you haven't made a reservation, e-mail Andrea Vantrees andivan01@comcast.net or Cindi Bartlett cindi.bartlett@comcast.net to sign up.

Yard Sale this Saturday: This Saturday, June 2, 8 am to 4 pm. Items for donation can be brought to the church this week. Please place items along the wall near the church entrance. If anyone has stuff that needs to be picked up in a truck, contact Cindi by cell (404-375-2250) or e-mail and we will arrange to have it picked up before Saturday.

SOTH Church Council meets tonight, 7PM in the Sanctuary.

Recalibrate

Well, I finally got around to playing in my first SOTH softball game of the spring this week, even as the spring season comes to a close. Not to worry, there will be fall and summer seasons ahead.

I had a blast. What a great time with the guys. Even though we lost. Even though I swung like it was my first game of the season. I whiffed one my first at bat.

That means I missed the ball altogether. Mercifully, I got a walk that at bat, but whiffing a slow pitch softball is the ultimate humility induction tool.

The next time I did make contact, though just barely, squibbing the ball off the end of the bat. Finally, third time around, I hit it solid, though right to the second baseman.

Now, why would I possibly torture you good people who take a minute to cruise by this little site with inane details of your pastor’s recreation activities?

Because they illustrate “recalibration.”

What a great word.

Sometimes, we just need to “recalibrate.”

Ever hear a technical-type person use that word in reference to a specific tool or machine?

Recalibration is a re-setting of the measurements, baselines and processors necessary for accurate measurement. It’s a way to help a machine make a clean start so that it can do its job at maximum efficiency and with accuracy.

Let a machine, or a person, or a skill sit for too long out of the game and recalibration will be necessary before “mid-summer form” can return.

That’s how it works with our souls, too. Too much worry, work (or not enough work), disconnection from God, and stress from all kinds can just plain mess up our spiritual instrument panel.

Here’s how I recalibrated a few days ago. I turned the key in my car and the local country radio station came firing through the speakers (where I’d left it from the Braves’ game of the day before).

Here’s what I heard:

“Lucky Man”
Montgomery Gentry

I have days where I hate my job
This little town and the whole world too
Last Sunday when the Braves lost
Lord it put me in a bad mood

I have moments when I curse the rain
Then complain when the sun's too hot
I look around at what everyone has
And I forget about all I've got

But I know I'm a lucky man
God's given me a pretty fair hand
Got a house and a piece of land
A few dollars in a coffee can
My old trucks still running good
My ticker's ticking like they say it should
I got supper in the oven, a good woman's loving
And one more day to be my little kid's dad
Lord, knows I'm a lucky man

Got some friends who would be here fast
I could call em any time of day
Got a brother who's got my back
Got a mama who I swears a saint
Got a brand new rod and reel
Got a full week off this year
Dad had a close call last spring
It's a miracle he's still here

But I know I'm a lucky man
God's given me a pretty fair hand
Got a house and a piece of land
a few dollars in a coffee can
My old trucks still running good
My ticker's tickin' like they say it should
I got supper in the oven, good woman's loving
And one more day to be my little kid's dad
Lord, knows I'm a lucky man

-------

Nashville sometimes does good theology, you know.

Here’s another way to put it --- a few thousand years older:
Psalm 100 (The Message)

1-2 On your feet now—applaud God!
Bring a gift of laughter,
sing yourselves into his presence.

3 Know this: God is God, and God, God.
He made us; we didn't make him.
We're his people, his well-tended sheep.

4 Enter with the password: "Thank you!"
Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
Thank him. Worship him.

5 For God is sheer beauty,all-generous in love,
loyal always and ever.

Nothing recalibrates all your sensors like a good dose of counting your blessings. Why do we think that can only happen with turkey and football in November?

I’ve got so much to be thankful for. No doubt, you do too.

So, I think it’s time to share the wealth of blessings again. Use the comments below and just drop a couple of lines of things you appreciate this morning. God is good, and so is saying that out loud.

Recalibrate --- and have a great day.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

LIFE AT SOTH:
Don’t forget that tonight is Wednesday night dinner at SOTH. Friends, fellowship and home-cooking for just $3 per person. Now there’s something to be thankful for. Many thanks to all the good folks who have helped make tonight’s meal possible. We’ll begin in the sanctuary around 6:00 but we’ll still feed you when you can get there.

Summer lunch program: Don’t forget that we’re only a couple of weeks away from the beginning of our joint ministry effort with MUST Ministries. We’re attempting to pioneer a new program in Douglas County that MUST has operated with wonderful success in Cobb and Cherokee counties. We’ll be preparing and delivering bag lunches to kids who are normally on the school free or reduced lunch program. Many community partners are already coming forward to make this program possible. We don’t have a final total on funds raised by Bill Clary’s magic shows this weekend, but those dollars combined with offerings from SOTH members and other churches and community members will go a long way toward funding this great program. Volunteers are needed to help buy supplies, make lunches and deliver them each weekday this summer. Contact Kathryn Beasley, http://www.blogger.com/kathryn@sothumc.net for more information on how you can help!

FAITH IN ACTION: Do you get prayer concerns and announcement e-mails from SOTH? If not, please e-mail Sandi Hockensmith at http://www.blogger.com/sandi@sothumc.net to make sure your address is on our list. In addition to these e-mails, SOTH has now joined Douglas County’s newly forming “Faith in Action” network. This great ministry was formed by Beau McLain of Trinity Anglican Church. Douglas County Department of Family and Children’s Services contacts Beau with needs for children and families in their programs. Beau then puts these needs out via e-mail to each of the participating churches, and we share with our individual congregations. Last week, special infant formula was supplied, as was a dress for an 8th grade girl to attend her school dance. Each week, great things happen through “Faith in Action,” and it’s great that SOTH is now a part of the team!

SOTH Sermons Now Online! Want to share this past Sunday's sermon? Starting with this past Sunday, all SOTH Sermons will be archived and available for listening at www.sothumc.net under "What We Do: Worship."

We’ll see you this Sunday for worship at SOTH: 9 and 11 AM, 6 PM.

Prune

I love digging, planting, cutting and trimming. I love grass and trees and flowers and shrubs. Gardening is fun. There is something magical about the practice of this age-old discipline. It’s what we humans were made by God to be, you know…garden-tenders.

Not that I work in the great outdoors nearly enough. My little backyard farm is always in need of some TLC. But I do just really enjoy what I get to do.

A couple of years ago, very shortly after my arrival at SOTH, I was helping a team of volunteers cut, weed, trim and just generally show some horticultural love to the old home place on our church’s property that we call “The Ranch.”

El Rancho SOTH is home to our youth SS class, our offices, conference room, clothes closet for foster families and just about anything else that we can think about squeezing into it.

On that workday two years ago, I came across a ragged sweetgum tree that had pushed its way through the earth near an old power pole. Having worked its way up to about 8 feet in height, it jammed odd branches through an abandoned trellis, which had been fastened to the pole with now-rusty nails.

I began limbing off the lowest branches, creating more of a trunk while disengaging tree from trellis. Finally, I noticed a twisted, dying vine, which seemed to spring from the base of the pole itself.

“Gone,” I thought. What a shame. I wondered what the long-absent planter of the vine had intended to grow in that place. With a quick chop of my pruners, I cut the old vine to the ground.

Subsequent seasons have been witness to an amazing turn of events.

Last spring, the sweetgum leafed out like never before. It added several feet of height during the summer and now stands straight, true and strong. The cut places have healed, and the tree is better for the pruning.

The old dead vine sprouted vigorous, green growth last year. It shot out tendrils, and began climbing its way up the old pole. By summer’s end, I had trained it back up the trellis, green and healthy.

This spring, it’s putting on a show. The vine turned out to be a clematis, well-loved in the South for its showy purple flowers. At this moment, the old trellis is hidden by green, leafy vine and spiky, purple blooms cover it from top to bottom.

That’s some green thumb I’ve got, huh?

No way. I was just cutting down a dead and unsightly plant. Little did I know the energy and possibility my role of accidental gardener would infuse.

The Bible is full of these kinds of images. Once, the Corinthian Christians were fighting over “whose people” they were. Some loved the Apostle Paul and pledged allegiance to him. Some loved a man named Apollos, a great and charismatic speaker. These early Christians began to fight amongst themselves.

Paul said: (I Corinthians 3:5-9)

“Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us—servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. It's not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God's field in which we are working.

Who made possible the beautiful cleamatis vine which flowers at The Ranch this morning? The gardener who planted it in the hope of flowers to come? The preacher who cut it down when all hope of flowers seemed lost?

Neither.

God made it grow.

If only we could learn the lesson of the sweetgum…the parable of the clematis vine.

God makes it grow.

That’s a hard lesson. Sometimes it seems like God couldn’t do it without us, doesn’t it? What if we didn’t work, and strive and struggle? What if we didn’t prune and plant and fertilize? What if we all took a permanent vacation?

God couldn’t do it without us? Don’t give in to that illusion. Don’t fool yourself.

What if God stopped sustaining? What if God stopped creating? Even our own effort is only made possible by God’s love and light.

Does God need us? No. Does he want us? Absolutely.

This day, no matter what comes, remember that we are privileged to serve as wanted co-laborers in the vineyard. “Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving.”

Today’s cuts yield tomorrow’s flowers. The God we serve is at work all around us.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

LIFE AT SOTH:

Our new co-effort with MUST Ministries, a summer lunch program for kids in need in Douglas County, is about to get underway. Don’t forget to sign up for your volunteer opportunity in the entry hall at SOTH.

Bill Clary will perform two magic shows for kids of all ages at SOTH tomorrow, Saturday May 12! Shows at 4:00 PM and 7:00 PM. Tickets available at the door: $10 for adults and $5 for kids. All proceeds benefit the summer lunch program.

Harvest

Elevators are interesting places.

You push the button and start to wait. Somewhere, unseen, gears and wheels are turning and then magically the two strange, handle-less doors slide open.

No wonder kids love elevators so much.

For a few moments, you are suspended in an alternate universe with your brother and sister passengers. Most people try not to look at each other in elevators. Everybody stares at the numbered buttons, waiting for parole.

Occasionally, adventurous folks will greet each other with chipper calls of “hello,” or “hi, howya doin.”

In the few seconds it takes to climb a couple of floors, you can size up another person and speculate about the nature of his or her life experience.

This morning, at the local hospital, a 50’s-ish man in an incredibly well-pressed polo shirt, slacks and shiny shoes entered the elevator just ahead of me. “Must be a preacher,” I thought.

Another man of about my age (like yours truly, obviously in the prime of his youth) arrived at the elevator doors just after me. He was upbeat and seemed dressed for work in his hospital gear.

He smiled and said, “Good Morning fellas.” It was early, so we sort of grunted and mumbled our hellos in reply.

When the doors opened at the second floor, he caught a glimpse of the nurse, working at the main station. He called her name and waved before the doors closed. Seeing him, she looked surprised and excited. She shouted his name back in reply and began to wave. “Good to see you!” she called as we began to whisk up another floor.

He shot me a knowing look that said, “it’s good to be here.” I laughed, pleased for him, even though I didn’t have a clue what we really going on.

We exited together, on the third floor, and immediately a happy reunion scene began to break out around us.

The nurse behind the desk on this floor jumped up and gave my elevator-buddy a bear hug. “What are you doing here?” She said.

I didn’t get to overhear the reply, as I began walking out of earshot toward my destination. Another nurse caught a glimpse of his arrival and sped up her steps. I saw her grin widely and proclaim, “hey everybody, Johnny’s home!”

That’s all I saw. A little window into another person’s life, shared between the first and third floors. And it made me feel good to see these happy people.

Obviously, there was a prior relationship and I was joining the party mid-stream. I was left to imagine their shared past. Perhaps they’d all worked together for years. I imagined inside jokes that they’d shared, office Christmas parties they’d attended together and staff meetings they’d suffered through. I imagined the patients that they’d all worked together to treat. The people that they had lost, and the ones that they’d saved.

Who knows if any of that was even close to right, but it’s what their happy reunion made me imagine.

Something had happened in their past, and that relationship is still alive today.

Last spring, at our house, some pretty green vines began popping their way out of the ground. The pumpkins of fall had been composted with the other leftovers of summer gardening and used around the yard as springtime fertilizer. What was past was supposed to be past, dead and gone…and the resulting organic matter could be used to help the next year’s “crop” find life.

But somewhere along the way, the pumpkin seeds didn’t get the memo. By fall, our mantle was again covered with the beautiful, unexpected little pumpkins that had made themselves known all summer long.

Just this week I noticed some tiny little vines pushing their way through the earth once more.

Spring is always that way, and it’s a wonderful thing. This is the time when seeds need to go into the ground. It’s the time of year when we can really see how the energy of the past continues to propel the future.

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” John 12:24

This very day, we will all plant some seeds. This very day, we are all harvesting the collective crops of days gone by. I hope for all of you that your seeds will return with cheers of celebration, just like they did for my elevator-riding colleague.

Some of those crops are more fun to reap than others.

The most important thing of all is this: Faith in Jesus Christ can change what the future is to be for each of us.

To know forgiveness is to plant forgiveness in the world. To know reconciliation is to be an agent of that reconciliation wherever you are. To experience grace is to become a grace-planter.

What a wonderful harvest those kinds of seeds could one day bring. May it be exactly so.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

LIFE AT SOTH:

This Saturday, the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge of Villa Rica will sponsor a Health Fair for the community at SOTH. Everyone is welcome from 10a.m. until 3 p.m. Make sure to come out and take advantage of the free screenings and all the great information that will be available from the health care providers of our community. Special thanks to Derrick Fountain, SOTH lay leader and master of his Masonic lodge for making this happen.

Summer Lunch Program News: Don’t forget the great summer lunch program that’s about to get underway through a partnership between SOTH and MUST ministries. More info is available from the home page at www.sothumc.net

Our United Methodist Men will be sponsoring a charity Magic Show in support of the lunch program starring SOTH’s own Bill Clary. Bill will perform two shows on May 12^th, 4pm and 7pm.

Thanks to all of you who gave to our special offering in support of this lunch ministry two Sundays ago. SOTH gave over $700 to this special cause. As always, thanks for being a generous bunch of folks.

Building and Land Update: Look for this month’s issue of our newsletter, “The Staff,” which was e-mailed today and will be in the mail to those not on our e-mail list very soon. Also, a .pdf version will be available on the website.