When Rev. Jack Sullivan was our guest preacher in August he mentioned that the Ohio Council of Churches was declaring September 20 as Anti-Racism Sunday.  We will be participating by incorporating anti-racism themes into our worship service this Sunday. One anti-racism effort with increased momentum has been calls to defund the police.  Defund differs from police reform – which often requires more public resources for training, equipment, etc – in that it calls for a redistribution of resources away from police departments toward measures that make communities safer, including counseling, violence prevention programs, affordable housing, and unarmed well-trained responders like THIS program in Eugene, Oregon.   Investing in nonviolence is embedded in our Anabaptist theology.  I’ve been meeting with an interfaith clergy group putting faith language to these efforts to better support local black leaders.  It’s slow but good work.  As part of these efforts some of us are putting together

Fall bird migration has begun. Birders are visiting area ponds and lakes with large muddy edges, perfect for attracting shorebirds. These plovers, sandpipers, and dowitchers have left their breeding areas, some as far north as the Arctic Tundra and are heading for the winter homes, some as far south as Argentina. The chimney swifts are also preparing for migration. From a Columbus Audubon article,  https://columbusaudubon.org/conservation-pages/whatjustzippedintomychimney/, “Swifts winter in the Amazon Basin of Peru. Typically, they arrive in Ohio in April and depart by October. At the end of the breeding season, the swifts’ communal instincts peak prior to fall migration. They congregate by the hundreds and even thousands, feeding in preparation for the long flight to the Amazon Basin of Peru. The location of a large roost in August, September and early October is a good reason to order up a ‘spectacle celebration’.” On Sunday evening, August 16th, Natalie and

“A work of art offers a paradoxical liberation: it is something that changes everything while being perfectly useless in any ordinary sense…Art’s role in the contemporary world may well be precisely to be un-useful, to reveal the importance of uselessness in our lives.  You can’t eat a painting.  You can’t do anything except stand before it, know the world differently, and walk away changed.  That’s what a painting can do, what a poem can do.  Art halts the mind’s unthinking plummet and lets you see the experience as a new whole.” Jane Hirschfield  This quote is from a lovely little book I’ve been reading during quarantine called, A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith.  The book contains 19 different interviews with various poets about their thoughts on faith, art, tradition, spirituality, or any of the other tangents that you inevitably find yourself meandering down when talking with a

August is the time of year to prepare for harvesting—fruits from the trees and grains from the fields.  It’s also a time of reflection and projection for me.  As I consider the recent request from the Leadership Team for a First Fruits Giving commitment for 2021, I appreciate the role that CMC plays in my life and the hope I have for our congregation in the coming years.  My personal involvement in church programs focuses on maintenance projects, occasional singing in ensembles, cutting squares for the Piecemakers, and organizing the school kits for MCC distribution.  I enjoy giving my time and energy for the programs and missions of the church.  But I realize that CMC relies not just on volunteers, but on the financial contributions we all make in order to support those missions, pay the staff, and keep the building functioning.  Making a financial commitment through First Fruits Giving