All sorts of things have been happening lately (including a lovely weekend with some very dear camp friends), but I'm just going to write about a couple here...in all likelihood this'll still probably turn out to be a lengthy post. It won't hurt my feelings if you just want to skim...
The sermon at PSF this past Tuesday was about peace. About sharing it, and about receiving it, with and from the most unlikely of people. We heard about how most people nowadays (myself included) worry too much about "stranger danger" to really consider sharing the peace of Christ (or whatever sort of peace you believe in) with people that are different from us. As unfortunate as it is, we live in a world where sometimes you really do have to worry about strangers...there are just some really mean people out there. But I'm hoping that this year I can challenge myself to go out on a limb and share a different kind of peace. Or if it's the same kind, maybe share it in a new way. Passing the Peace is common practice in a lot of churches (at least the ones I've been to), but as with a lot of things we say in church, I think it sort of becomes a reflex. "Peace be with you...and also with you." That's not to say it's not meaningful, but once we say something enough, I think we tend to stop really thinking about what it means. The beginning of passing the peace during PSF worship is a little different...in a really great way. Before the standard hand shaking (or ideally, if you ask me, hugging), whoever happens to be the liturgist that night says: "Not an easy peace, not an insignificant peace, not a half-hearted peace, but the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." I don't mean by saying all this that the regular kind of peace we pass is bad. But if the peace of Christ isn't easy or half-hearted, why should sharing it with other people be? So...I don't know. Just something to think about.
I've spent the past few days on PSF's fall break "trip" doing flood relief work here in Nashville. The first two days we worked on houses through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, and the third day we cleaned out a (mostly) dry river/creek bed. If you don't really know anything about the flood that happened this past May (I didn't, really, until I came here) and you're interested, here's a Youtube video somebody made. On the first day we (the four students and four PSF staffers that were there) arrived at a house with an empty dumpster and huge piles of stuff in the backyard. We left at the end of the day with a full dumpster and significantly fewer piles. :) Seriously...there was some legit strategy going on to pack that dumpster. The entire first level of this house had to be gutted because of the water damage, so the piles we cleaned up consisted of everything from soggy drywall and wood to a sink, carpet, and broken tiles. We even came across two black widows in a dresser we had to take apart...yes, the sledgehammer I used to kill one might've been a wee bit excessive, but hey, the sledgehammer was already in my hand. One of the students did the other one in with a shoe. Day two's house was being rebuilt by Habitat for Humanity, which in the Nashville area has added rebuilding/flood relief to their usual building-houses-from-the-ground-up agenda. We PSFers worked on several different parts of the house, but I spent the day painting baseboards and pieces of door frame. Six hours of the same white paint got a little tedious, but it was still great to be able to help get a house that much closer to being livable again. Day three was my favorite...maybe the hardest, work-wise, but the best nonetheless. We cleaned debris out of a (mostly) dry river bed. Now this was some serious debris. Like...there was someone's wooden porch in a tree. (Also in trees: a gas can, and a couple hoses.) I think I might now be somewhat of an expert in using a crowbar to pry apart pieces of decks/porches. It was crazy though, some of the stuff we found. I mean I'd heard that the flood was really bad, but finding a little girl's shoe, a pink Crayola marker, a stuffed monkey caked in dry mud and practically squished flat...I can't imagine just having life as I know it washed right away. It was pretty surreal to listen to the chainsaw cutting the washed up playground into pieces small enough for us to carry away. And to think of all the new things that have happened to me since May, compared to the fact that there are still so many people here just trying to get back to life as it was.
Well, congrats if you made it through that whole post...until next time, friends.
Love,
Allison.
The sermon at PSF this past Tuesday was about peace. About sharing it, and about receiving it, with and from the most unlikely of people. We heard about how most people nowadays (myself included) worry too much about "stranger danger" to really consider sharing the peace of Christ (or whatever sort of peace you believe in) with people that are different from us. As unfortunate as it is, we live in a world where sometimes you really do have to worry about strangers...there are just some really mean people out there. But I'm hoping that this year I can challenge myself to go out on a limb and share a different kind of peace. Or if it's the same kind, maybe share it in a new way. Passing the Peace is common practice in a lot of churches (at least the ones I've been to), but as with a lot of things we say in church, I think it sort of becomes a reflex. "Peace be with you...and also with you." That's not to say it's not meaningful, but once we say something enough, I think we tend to stop really thinking about what it means. The beginning of passing the peace during PSF worship is a little different...in a really great way. Before the standard hand shaking (or ideally, if you ask me, hugging), whoever happens to be the liturgist that night says: "Not an easy peace, not an insignificant peace, not a half-hearted peace, but the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." I don't mean by saying all this that the regular kind of peace we pass is bad. But if the peace of Christ isn't easy or half-hearted, why should sharing it with other people be? So...I don't know. Just something to think about.
I've spent the past few days on PSF's fall break "trip" doing flood relief work here in Nashville. The first two days we worked on houses through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, and the third day we cleaned out a (mostly) dry river/creek bed. If you don't really know anything about the flood that happened this past May (I didn't, really, until I came here) and you're interested, here's a Youtube video somebody made. On the first day we (the four students and four PSF staffers that were there) arrived at a house with an empty dumpster and huge piles of stuff in the backyard. We left at the end of the day with a full dumpster and significantly fewer piles. :) Seriously...there was some legit strategy going on to pack that dumpster. The entire first level of this house had to be gutted because of the water damage, so the piles we cleaned up consisted of everything from soggy drywall and wood to a sink, carpet, and broken tiles. We even came across two black widows in a dresser we had to take apart...yes, the sledgehammer I used to kill one might've been a wee bit excessive, but hey, the sledgehammer was already in my hand. One of the students did the other one in with a shoe. Day two's house was being rebuilt by Habitat for Humanity, which in the Nashville area has added rebuilding/flood relief to their usual building-houses-from-the-ground-up agenda. We PSFers worked on several different parts of the house, but I spent the day painting baseboards and pieces of door frame. Six hours of the same white paint got a little tedious, but it was still great to be able to help get a house that much closer to being livable again. Day three was my favorite...maybe the hardest, work-wise, but the best nonetheless. We cleaned debris out of a (mostly) dry river bed. Now this was some serious debris. Like...there was someone's wooden porch in a tree. (Also in trees: a gas can, and a couple hoses.) I think I might now be somewhat of an expert in using a crowbar to pry apart pieces of decks/porches. It was crazy though, some of the stuff we found. I mean I'd heard that the flood was really bad, but finding a little girl's shoe, a pink Crayola marker, a stuffed monkey caked in dry mud and practically squished flat...I can't imagine just having life as I know it washed right away. It was pretty surreal to listen to the chainsaw cutting the washed up playground into pieces small enough for us to carry away. And to think of all the new things that have happened to me since May, compared to the fact that there are still so many people here just trying to get back to life as it was.
Well, congrats if you made it through that whole post...until next time, friends.
Love,
Allison.
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