Wake up

This morning when we sent Betsy back to Tulsa after her weekend it was cool. We were up very early and there was an RFD -rural- news program. It was great. Two great looking guys who were talking about the farm situation, the need for rain, the happy cool morings, and other gentle things. I like it a lot more than the 'regular' OH MY Goodness!" news that is sensational. Here was the weather.. Well it's so cool I've got my ceiling fans on pulling in that cool air and my dogs are sleeping on the couch. ---Don't you love it.

We all too often look at the world wiht pseudo-sophisticated way of being people in this world. We are really all the same at our core. All of us. God created us as human beings and given us gifts and skills to live lives of thanks and love one another. We do that in different ways, in our own ways, thanks be to God.

God has given us all gifts and talents and our job is to figure out no matter how old we are--who that is supposed to be. How do we live out daily the law of love. How do we listen for our own words to be words of love and comfort that is exactly the right word.

What seed of God's dream is still in your heart to be lived out to the fullest? There answer is there for you to find. Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Why?

A friend from CA called about how they were doing these days and they were worried about a friend. We talked for a little while about some of her concerns and how she might respond to this woman's troubles. She mainly needed an ear to listen to her talk and she figured most of it out for herself.
We are like that a lot I think. We sometimes need an ear to hear our concerns and sometimes in the midst of sharing our concerns we hear in our own words the answer to our own questions.
Is that not prayer....? yes it is...it's prayer.
It's a prayer. We talk to God and God hears our prayers...
and sometimes while we are talking to God... God hears our prayers and gives us the answers in our questions.. in our own words... or in the words of a friend who listens...until we share the answer to questions...
so listen, to your prayers, and God's answers...

God abides
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Rev.Dr. Bobbie G. McGarey

Why?

A friend from CA called about how they were doing these days and they were worried about a friend. We talked for a little while about some of her concerns and how she might respond to this woman's troubles. She mainly needed an ear to listen to her talk and she figured most of it out for herself.
We are like that a lot I think. We sometimes need an ear to hear our concerns and sometimes in the midst of sharing our concerns we hear in our own words the answer to our own questions.
Is that not prayer....? yes it is...it's prayer.
It's a prayer. We talk to God and God hears our prayers...
and sometimes while we are talking to God... God hears our prayers and gives us the answers in our questions.. in our own words... or in the words of a friend who listens...until we share the answer to questions...
so listen, to your prayers, and God's answers...

God abides
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Rev.Dr. Bobbie G. McGarey

Coping

A dear Pastor friend in NE Texas said they had another 100 folks in the shelter that they set up for the hurricane folks. This time from a different hurricane but people in the same situation.
How do we help? That was my question for her. What do they need? Size 15 shoes one guy needed, and perhaps there are other things and we'll find out.
My goodness there are so many more new stories and there will be more tomorrow. We will see what happens. Wow! Sigh, deep deep sigh.
We are looking to figure out what we can do for those who are hurting. Let's not forget the rest of those who are hurting. There are those in south Florida that have been hit by the last two of these storms, though somehow not so very public as others. There are those in Florida who had four storms last year with tarps still over the roofs of their houses. My goodness it seems like this country could surely get to work.

How do we cope, make it through, situations that require our best. We either function well or we falter. We function well when we put to use our best brains and other people's brains that know more than we do about certain things. OPB---other people's brains, that's using talents of others not relying on ourselves to figure EVERYthing out.
Cope? We do so by setting our priorities on what we know in our hearts we should be doing --and catch this--for someone else. We cope by moving outside ourselves and reaching out to help others who need a hand as well. It is a mutual gift.
We see the things where we can do our best for ourselves by doing our best for others.
Cope? Live...Be joyful
God abides
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Smite Thee

Wow, I'm feeling better. I had one of those things the body does that makes you feel miserable for a while however resolves itself quickly and when it does, thanks be to modern medicine, I feel better.
I have known what it is not to feel better, but wow, now I really do feel better. Hmmm?
What I do believe is that God is not up there saying Smite thee...and flinging a lightening bolt of chaos or harm down on us...just because.
Rather God is saying, oops somehow you got smited, Here I am.
Wow I feel better. Isn't that what the faithful person is supposed to do. To realize that indeed they feel better because they know what it is not to feel so good.
I remember one of our children responding to a fever reducer so fast I couldn't believe it had happened. Again yeah...for that help when fevers could kill 100 years ago. But they went from that limp and sweaty on the bed to OH MOMMY! I'm HUNGRY!... John's sister was visiting and amazed with the change.
So, if the smite thee thing hits, Remember God is right beside you saying...Ok here I am...Let's get up together.
"We fall down but we Get up...We fall down but we get up...For a saint is just a sinner who fell down...And got up."

God abides
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Rev. Dr. Bobbie G. McGarey

Sharks in a Car

Our daughter Betsy was out for a walk the other night and talking with me for a minute on the phone and started laughing. You should see this, she said,
There is a car, an open hatchback, with about 6 inflated-floats --that are sharks in it, --all inflated sticking out the top.
And she said one of them fell out and someone from another car had picked it up and was stuffing it back in the first car.
Ha ha ha ha ha
I can imagine that can't you? I don't know why? But I do know that it made me laugh too.

Because sharks out of water are in trouble that's for sure...even plastic ones.
ah ha ha ha

that's more odd than a hawk on a wire in the wind...

god abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Sharks in a Car

Our daughter Betsy was out for a walk the other night and talking with me for a minute on the phone and started laughing. You should see this, she said,
There is a car, an open hatchback, with about 6 inflated-floats --that are sharks in it, --all inflated sticking out the top.
And she said one of them fell out and someone from another car had picked it up and was stuffing it back in the first car.
Ha ha ha ha ha
I can imagine that can't you? I don't know why? But I do know that it made me laugh too.

Because sharks out of water are in trouble that's for sure...even plastic ones.
ah ha ha ha

that's more odd than a hawk on a wire in the wind...

god abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Leap

Kierkegaard, who wrote Provocations,
Faith, not a matter of will ==leap of commitment=and because no human being can measure the demands of God, one must ultimately surrender to God in a Leap of Faith.

Ready?
I mean really?
Ready,
Leap.

rest back
assured
God will be there
is there already
be bold, surrender, surrender, you might be wrong, but God is not.

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

I've been Reading

During prayer time today I focused by reading some Kierkegaard --
:Genuine Christianity, according to Kierkegaard is anything but doctrine. It is a way of being in the truth before God by following Jesus in self-denial, sacrifice, suffering and by seeking a primitive relationship with God. ...A fully actualization person has to see himself(herself) "before God" to see himself as he (she) really is. God's will not some abstract law, is what finally matters. And because no human can measure the demands of God, one must ultimately surrender to God in a leap of faith. Faith requires risk.: Provocations available online..

Are you willing to leap? Are you willing to give up what you think you know, what you may even thing God 'told' you, and trust that God's will be done? To admit you might be wrong?

So what does the faithful life look like?
Again I think it is a measure of what you do to build up the Kingdom, Kin-dom, where we are related by God's love,
or what you do to tear it down? To distract from the work of the Kingdom...

Think on this.

Are you willing to leap?

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Family

I have come to a new understanding of family. This isn't something that happened overnight. But I know that there are many people with whom I am involved that I consider family. And Home is where the heart Is, or so goes the song. We come to be those who welcome others to be part of who we are.
And families work with with what sociologists call 'norms'. That is this is the way we function together. Sometimes that is healthier than others. But when people say, Yes, I want to be part of this family then they are saying yes this is the way we function together.
My D.Min class, the Four Winds, developed at our first meeting together a set of Group norms. Those were the ways we worked together. For example we would have opening and closing worship and share the leadership of that. We would eat lunch together before our first class and we would have lunch together during the week and take the professor out the last day of class. We would come prepared to work and we would expect each day for us to be in class ready. We worked together well. Professors were impressed how prepared we were and how ready to take whatever pre class work had been assigned and move on rather than review. We had read the books and were ready to learn.
Norms function in groups and communities in the same way. But Norms are different than saying, 'we have always done it this way before.' Norms say in the midst of change, and change is life, then this is how we will work together for change.
Look right now at all the negotiation going on in New Orleans, LA, about how the city will and should and can rebuild. The process of that will happen but not without the groups involved saying this is how we will work together for Good.
And isn't that how we determine what is good and not good. Are we working for the building up of the Kingdom or the tearing down?
So family....I hear you say...

Family says come and be part of who we are and here is how we love each other.
Isn't that what scripture says. See, how they love one another.
how do we love each other?
God knows.

God abides
Welcome to the family
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Grandmother's rug

Right over there on the wall is one of the many rugs my Grandmother Giltz made. It's colors I realize are the colors of my life. Here's what I mean by that.
Look over there, on the other wall is the picture Jimmie Homberg painted for me some years ago when we were in Utah. She had me choose the colors, with only a little direction from her, and it is wonderful. Then on the floor is a rug from India with the same colors.
And it took putting them in the same room for me to go ...Well ah huh yes, those are the colors of my life. My Grandmother's rug we used on the floor by the door for a long time. Now I treasure it as a tapestry and I realized that those colors on the rug I would play on were infused into my life.
We are influenced by those things and people around us perhaps more than we know. We then need to understand that we have influence on things and people around us too.
So, will that influence be for the good? It is our choice. How we love one another. How we nurture one another. How we make one another laugh.
Good luck today.

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Trust?

Have you ever been to a place where trust is hard to find? Where you feel the sense of peacefulness leaving you? It is an Icky feeling.
Because I think we are supposed to trust. We are supposed to trust that others will be kind, and gentle, and fair. But if you know history you know that isn't always the case, no matter where you are.
Years ago we played a game with the college group where we surrounded someone and they folded their arms over their chest and fell-back straight into the arms of people waiting to catch them and then we passed them around. You had to be ready and they had to be relaxed... Or it didn't work.
Would I do that now? Some days more than others I think. But is it a childhood game? Is it a game that is played by students knowing a fall wouldn't break something or.... is it played by the faithful.?
but what do we trust ?
That the sun will come up and go down....That our lives would be made whole by God's love? That we are the only copies of ourselves that will ever be,...
Trust is what gives faith it's action. Witness to our joy...Our peace...PEACE I give to you --not as the world gives says Jesus ... Well I trust that.. I trust Jesus.

Well ".Fear not little flock...I have a plan...Signed God. "


God abide and make us whole. Is it time for a miracle in this world?

Bobbie

like a hawk in the wind again

The morning had been rainy the clouds on the way over to Grandfield were beautiful but who knew if they would storm on us at the service. I always set the cruse control when I'm in that kind of 'space' so I don't forget not to speed. I tried to take a picture and got one shot before I ran out of film. But it is etched in my heart. I even saw a pair of great blue herons in the wheat field in Chattanooga. Amazing.

The Service of Witness to the Resurrection was obviously woven together by God. Rev. Maurice Hibbard a retired pastor, who had known Jack when he was the pastor in Grandfiield took part and he suggested he just tell a story or two about Jack. His weaving together the fun adventure with the adventure of Jack now was so well done. We had only spoken briefly but between us God wove together 'just what the family wanted and needed.' I was pleased.

When we left the funeral home the sun was shinning. Now Jack, a farmer and rancher, would have loved it to be rainy for the farmers. I must say though for us it was a lift for the spirit as we walked out. We went to the cemetary in Frederick, set like so many on a hill with a cooler ever present Oklahoma wind blowing.

On the way home I was tired and glad to be headed East not into the Western sun . There was much running in my mind. I've been a little distracted lately I know and the many thoughts were keeping me from enjoying the drive. Then there it was. No, not the tarantula crossing the road, or the turtles though there seemed to be more out than usual, maybe the rain, but the HAWK
There was a beauty of a hawk, a big one, hanging on the wire facing the wind. Holding on. Holding on.
Why? Because that is what hawks do. And they do this by facing the wind. Facing into that which if they put their back to it would blow them off. But by facing the wind it worked.
Ruah Spirit wind.


God abide

Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005
Rev. Dr. Bobbie G. McGarey

Good Work

What is good work? Buechner wrote that :vocation is where the world's needs and your our deepest gladness meet ". I can tell you about someone who does such work. We spent time yesterday such a man, Dr. Les Morgan. He and his wife Dr. Cindy are such people. He shared about his work in Bangladesh and the work they do with the people. Oh to be certain there are challenges and questions sometimes with the frustrations of doing good work with little support and how do you make the support go as far as it can? But there are the faces of the people so filled with love and thanks and in their eyes---God's eyes---Jesus' eyes.
Have you seen those eyes in your world? Where would you look?
Oh easy. In the eyes of those who are older and have seen the world and may feel the world has left them behind. In those who are friendless. In those who ache with grief and who don't know what to do with it. In small children's eyes who are being scolded in the store by an impatient parent. In the eyes of teenagers who don't know they are loved. In the people who stand in line for free healthcare because they have no other choice. In those who are hurt by others words or action.
What can we do? What can we do with Jesus' eyes we encounter. First, not last, but first we can pray for them. We can pray for God's leading us to love them, we can wait---wait for God to tell you how you can help. And it will be answered and even more it well may be a surprise.
So, get ready you truly faithful people. Because God has a plan for your life. Deep breath.

Garrison Keillor at the end of his NPR radio program Writers Almanac about poetry every day. He closes the show saying in part..."Be well, Do good work and keep in touch."
May this day be a day you do good work....
and you can measure that with the law of love.
God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005
More about the Morgans http://www.presbyterianchurch.org/missionconnections/profiles/morganl.htm

words no words

Sometimes there are no words. You've heard the saying they were 'speechless'. Sometimes images or situations seem so amazing that there are just no words that can be spoken.

With the images of the Sunami last year there were no words to describe the loss over 200 lives. The sweeping power of the waves that came across the land.

With the images of the hurricane and the damage done by Katrina one feels the same. And yet we use so many words to try and wrap our minds around the situation. The population numbers who have been moved, lost their homes and jobs, is huge. My cousins home is fairly ok, they have had to repair holes in the roof but no real water damage. But their jobs in the future are not at all certain. Karen's school won't probably even open this year. building damage yes but students dispersed a big part of it as well.

And grand talk of rebuilding sounds to me like something that may well continue to displace people if the new housing is so elaborate that those who once lived in some of those areas can't afford to move back. Oh waters recede to be sure but 50% still under water as I write. HALF ... And that means continued damage ... no property recoverable. One lady was in a boat looking into her house and saw the floor planks floating in the waters and bits and pieces of other things she could name. Water had been 7' or more.
What would that look like where you live in your house?

So then what are we to say to these things.
If God is for us..who is against us?

So then
So then
Where is the hope and the promise? In God's good time. In God's Good time.
In the 'healing hand of time' as Willie Nelson sings.

Grace and peace
God does indeed abide.
Even with people in the diaspora
away from home
but tied together by place

God abides- Good News
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Kits

The Presbyterian Church has a way to participate in helping folks and that is to make Kits of basic items to be given to folks in the midst of chaos or trouble.
Here's what some of the kits are to contain:
Health Kit
1 — hand towel
1 — washcloth
1 — comb
1 — metal nail file or nail clipper
1 — bar of soap (bath size)
1 — toothbrush
1 — tube of toothpaste (4-7 oz.)
6 — band-aids

Seal all items in a one-gallon plastic bag with a zipper closure.
OR
School Kit
1 — pair of blunt scissors
Pads or notebooks of ruled paper approximately 8-1/2" X 11"
containing 150-200 sheets of paper
1 — 30-centimeter ruler (12")
1 — pencil sharpener
6 — new pencils with erasers
1 — large eraser
12 — sheets colored construction paper
1 — box of 24 crayons
1 — cloth bag, approximately 12" X 14", with cloth handles
and a closure (Velcro, snap, or button)

Pack all items in the cloth bag and secure contents with the closure.

There is a link to this http://www.pcusa.org/pda/help/goh.htm where they tell the content of the kits and where to send them. Everyone of us could be putting these together.
And it would be a tangible way to say we care.
I thought of this when I washed my face and brushed my teeth this morning.
What will you become 'aware' of today that is normal for you --that so many others don't have?
What will make you say thanks be to God and in that thanks I'll give to someone who needs to be able to say thanks.
And thanks be to God for what we have to share. How blessed we are to have everything to share!
God abide
Be aware
Bobbie Giltz McGarey

words heard?

I don’t even know your name
said the man to the one who had saved his life
in tears from a man once in control
He turned to the man who had saved his wife
and said ‘and I don’t even know your name.’

my baby was in the hospital and now I don’t know
where he is
here’s his picture, my boy
my infant who needed special care
I don’t know where—he is—he is
I don’t know where he is—

I can’t feed my baby without some pure water
they say don’t give boiled water it to a child
but what can I do
she’s hungry too
I just need some water for her, for her
I just need some water for her.

Where are we now? the astrodome’s full?
I guess we go someplace else new
but where will my family
what’s left of my family
find me…? find me..?

‘where is my daughter’ was all she could say
she’d pause then ask once again
‘where is my daughter? in her voice such pain
‘where is my daughter?’ oh help

words from a few of the ones who are hurting
so many others –no words
open our hearts our bounty our love
open our hearts once again…

God abides
Oh please abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005
Rev.Dr. Bobbie Giltz McGarey

Prayer

Prayer
Raise your prayers for those without homes and without places beyond the bed they have.
Raise your prayers for those whose don't have food or a roof
Bring them peace and let us know what we are to do.
God abide
Bobbie