Friday, July 30, 2004

Friday Items for Prayer and Thought

Last night, I had a great time “working” at the Clermont County Fair. What I did wasn’t really work though. It was fun! For four hours, I took sandwich and beverage orders at the Clermont County Ohio State Alumni Association stand.

An Alumni Association veteran, Jim, did the hard work, grilling the great cuts of meat that have people routinely gathering round the stand, sometimes in droves. An OSU engineering graduate, Jim has been working this concession during every county fair for twelve years!

It’s a labor of love for the Clermont group of Ohio State alums. Proceeds from the sales help support an annual scholarship for Clermont County young people who are going to OSU.

This and that from last evening and recent days...

  • It was Demolition Derby night at the fair last evening and it’s obviously a crowd-pleaser. It took me about an hour to make the trip from my house to the fairgrounds, a trip that would ordinarily take about ten minutes. Roads leading to the fair were crawling parking lots. I was told that grandstand seating was already full hours before the derby began, in part because many folks attended both a patriotic tribute to the troops and the car-crashing.
  • Some folks, I’m told, were aware that Cincinnati TV stations were going to attend the patriotic program and had dressed “accordingly” for their fifteen seconds of fame. Some dressed to the nines. One woman did a Morgana impression, dressing as scantily as is legal and chasing the TV cameras. To their credit, I was told, the camera people ran faster than she could.
  • At the stand, a man from Miami Township stared at me for a few seconds and asked, “Do you write for the newspaper?” I said that I do. He said, “I’ve always wondered about you.” That’s always a scary thing to hear. It turns out that he grew up in Mulberry and there was a guy in his youth group then who was named Mark Daniels. The picture that appears with my column apparently makes me look enough like that “other Mark Daniels” that he had wondered if we were one and the same. He also told me that he couldn’t remember what I’d written about in my columns. I assured him that sometimes I don’t either.
  • Another woman, accompanied by what appeared to be her daughter and granddaughter, ordered some sandwiches. We talked while their food was being grilled to order. The woman asked me, “So, what are you taking up at Ohio State?” I was taken aback and just said, “I’m sorry?” “What are you studying at Ohio State?” she asked. When I explained that I was fifty, she was incredulous, certain that I was “pulling her leg.” I told my wife later that either the light was horrible by the concession stand or I may have fallen in love all over again.
  • I love visiting with people under such informal circumstances and it can be an opportunity for real ministry. I learned this from two mentors: Pastor Jim Petteys and Pastor Ron Claussen. Jim was the supervising pastor for my seminary internship experience. Ron was a colleague and later, a member of the first congregation I served as pastor in northwestern Ohio. Both understood the “theology of interruptions,” the need to be open and available to people no matter what our agendas may be for the day. It’s in people’s times of need that we have the best opportunities to share the love God gives us through Christ. A lot of the time that special ministry expresses itself best not in what we say, but simply in our being there and listening. (Of course, I pray the whole time I listen and talk. One of my most frequently-offered prayers as I visit with people is, “Lord, give me the right words and the right silences.”)
  • When I got back from the fairgrounds last night, I watched some of MSNBC’s postmortem of the evening’s Democratic National Convention session. I thought that it was interesting that John Kerry saluted and reported for duty. Back after the death of John Heinz, the Pennsylvania senator, Mrs. Heinz-Kerry’s first husband, a special election to fill his term was held. It was won by a Democrat who, on the night of his victory, stood at attention, saluted, and said that he was reporting for duty.
  • Finally, I’ve received this email request for prayers from my German colleague, Pastor Jochen Mueller-Busse: (1) That God will decrease the power of money and of imagery rather than real ideas in the political campaigns of our democracies; (2) That God will protect Islamic holy places from attack, because such attacks only increase tension in the world. Good prayers!

Because we are all neighbors whom Jesus has called us to love, more and more I like the advice of theologian Leonard Sweet, “Get glocal!” In other words, let’s try to live the godly love of neighbor, whether that neighbor is local or across the globe.

Back to preparing my sermon for Sunday...

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