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Re: Spring Cleaning! 

By: joe-taylor in FFFT | Recommend this post (1)
Sun, 24 Feb 13 11:30 PM | 46 view(s)
Boardmark this board | Food For Further Thought 		Msg. 50415 of 65535
(This msg. is a reply to 50384 by joe-taylor)
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Cats and Chicks (For saturday, February 23)


Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" Matthew 23: 37-39

I live in an urban oasis filled with wannabe farmers. Everywhere, people plant organic kale in container gardens, and last year, the city council passed an ordinance allowing backyard chickens. Since then, lawns and alleys all over my city have sprouted coops.

We don't have to worry much about coyotes, foxes or dogs on the loose. But there is another grave threat to our urban chickens: housecats. Wily, determined and utterly without scruple, cats harry the chickens for their food, their eggs, and sometimes their lives. Not very LOLcats of them!

It's no wonder Jesus likened himslef to a mother hen when making it absolutely clear just how tenderly he felt toward us, no matter what our transgressions. Who ever heard of a mother cat?

I wonder if God is ever frustrated that instead of being the docile sheep He perhaps intended, who know how to follow a strong leader, or chicks who love to seek the comfort and protection of their mother's underbelly, most of us humans have turned out to be a bunch of cats, impossible to herd. Stubbornly going our own way. Lazy and imperious as all get out. And, occassionally making risky death-defying dashes across the highway, for no explicable reason. Not to mention what we do to the chicks.

Then again, it was God who made us--in Her own image. She has only herself to blame if we all think we are, indeed, God.


Holy Mother, a cat can't change her spots. Or can she? Remind me daily that you love me, and there is always a warm, safe place near your heart for me, no matter where I have been and who I have eaten. Amen.

Molly Baskette is Senior Minister of First Church Somerville, UCC, in Somerville, Massachusetts.


To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.


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The above is a reply to the following message:
Re: Spring Cleaning!
By: joe-taylor in FFFT
Fri, 22 Feb 13 2:18 PM 		Msg. 50384 of 65535

Getting off the My Way Highway


"Teach me thy way, O Lord." Psalm 27:11


Mostly, in this culture, it's all about "my way." Who am I? What do I need? What's right for me? Will this work for me? Did I like that? That's the real superhighway.

Frank Sinatra sings it: "I Did It My Way."

Burger King invites it: "Have It Your Way."

A popular wedding website is cslled: "It's All About You," ...and on and on.

The "my way" thing is probably fine in small doses. But, in large quantities it's toxic. I'd say we're overdosed.

But it's not just a "culture thing." Let's be honest. It's my thing. My overdosing on my way, my agenda, my wants, my ego, E.G.O. - edging God out.

For us in the church, Lent is detox time. We get reminded that "my way" ought to come packaged with a warning: "In large quantities this is dangerous to your health and to the health of those around you."

So here we are in Lent: our annual 40-day rehab stint. Here's the deal: pray, fast and give to the poor not because of what it will do for you, but to get over you, to forget about me at least a little. Teach me thy way, O God.

Sometimes the big messages are right there in front of us. Like this one, in the so-familiar-we-miss-it Lord's Prayer. "Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done..." Thy name, thy kingdom, thy will.

Thine not mine. Detox is tough. We will get the shakes a time or two. Forty days is a long time.

Teach me, teach us, they way, O God; and grant us the perfect freedom found in obedience. Amen.


Anthony G. Robinson, a United Church of Christ minister, is a a speaker, teacher, and writer.

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