in the desert

I am a 4th generation Methodist growing up at FUMC.  My parents, grandmother and great grandmother raised me that way in their home church and I took it as mine.  There were a couple of decades that I didn't attend, beginning when I graduated from high school and extending to when Lauren was two.  That was when my daddy told me to "get that child in church."  Which I did.  Her Daddy did not want to go because he was raised in a faith that required you to be perfect or else not go.  I always found that strange but to each his own.  I go because I am far from perfect and seek to be better.  

Our congregation is dwindling as are many others.  A lot of it is about "the gay thing" that will not even be voted on at the global conference level for a couple of years.  Some of it is over apportionments.  It costs a lot to keep the boat floating there at FUMC and the money is pretty much gone from my parents' generation.  Often it is about style of worship.  Not flashy enough and too much liturgy.  As for me, those things give me comfort.  We have contemporary music intertwined with hymns.  Today as Mary Beth talked about how we, as a church, are in the desert.  Staff has already been reduced to cut corners.  Yet we still come up short on the budget.  As she was discussing this I looked around me at the stained glass windows and the circle of lights in the sanctuary ceiling that I used to count when I got bored.  

Our final song was Hymn of Promise which was my Daddy's favorite and that's when I lost it and began the ugly cry, with sobs.  I joined Mary Beth at the rail and held onto her for dear life.  I'm sure her pristine robe is covered with my makeup.  Actually I am already grieving the loss of she and her family someday because that's how Methodists roll.  I have brought my own girls back into the congregation and we are a family there once again.  

Nothing is forever and that church is just one of several brick and mortar buildings that has housed our community of faith over 180 years in Dyersburg.  The people are the church in this world.  The hands and feet of Christ.  If we simply do the next right thing by others, that's what Jesus intended for us as his disciples.

Beans are being hauled daily to the river which is historically low.  Barges are loaded at a lighter weight because of the difficulty in river travel.  This is pretty scary to me as I've always looked at the Mighty Mississippi as a mainstay in American life.  Over the years levees have been built and soil has eroded until the river itself has changed tremendously.  Where flooding is usually our problem, drought is now up front and center.  

All in all it's a misty kind of day for me due to a lot of life things.  But yet, I still have faith.  And I keep it close ^j^