Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: September 17, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

When you are driving on say, San Pablo, Sacramento, MLK, Arlington Ave., or anywhere, do you feel the presence of God? Assuming the traffic is okay, and everyone stays in their lanes, probably not.  Whenever you’re pushing the grocery cart through the Safeway or Lucky’s it’s doubtful the presence of God is on your radar. 

 When we see the Bay from on high, we shout out a big “Wow, O God!” For me, it’s every single time, as if I’m seeing the Bay for the very first time. Or when we stand in the middle of a grove of Redwoods, or make that turn in the road when the Pacific Ocean infinitely spreads out before you, or when a Brown Pelican swoops and scoops up a fish that got too close to the surface. “Wow, O God! Fabulous are you!” And God says, “And also with you!”

 When we get married, when our children are born, when that same child comes home from college, from the armed services, from…being away; somewhere, even if it’s simply a nudge or a tickle in the back of your mind, God seems present. Somehow.

 There are those times when you find yourself in an event that is awesome and powerful and you are part of the event and…surely God is in this place. Praise be to you, O God! Then God says, “And also with you!”

What happens, though, when things go south? When even the best of us has a bad day. Not just a bad day, but a soul shattering, nerve rattling,  life changing day when your world goes upside down. To borrow a phrase from the gymnast Simone Biles, your life gets “the twisties.” Most likely, in that moment we aren’t thinking about God. God is nowhere to be seen through the windshield or even in the rearview mirror. God isn’t on the front burner or the back burner. God isn’t in the back of your mind or the tip of your tongue.  God? What God?

 Then, when it’s quiet, you sit on the side of the bed and turn out the light. It’s just you. But you know you are not alone. It’s not judgement. It’s not a list of things you should’ve done or should do. It’s just you and Presence. Holy and Divine. It’s the Embrace of Love itself that will never leave you alone. Ever.

 Peace and Wonder,

 ~ Pastor Barbara

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: September 10, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

Where were you twenty years ago? I hardly remember where I was yesterday, let alone twenty years ago. There are, however, people and events that mark our lives. We remember when we got married and maybe when we got divorced. We remember when our children were born, we remember when we graduated high school and college. We remember our first bicycle, first car and our first rock concert. Our parents remembered where they when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Dad was in West Virginia installing linoleum for The Armstrong Cork and Tile Co. 

I was in the fourth grade at E Street Elementary School in San Rafael when someone entered our classroom from the hallway and whispered in the teacher’s ear. The teacher then turned to us and calmly said that the President had been shot. The big yellow buses were soon taking us home.

In January 1986 I was walking through the student lounge in Richmond Hall at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia.  There were several people gathered around the TV watching as the Challenger Space Shuttle was lifting off. I was curious, so I stopped to watch too. Within minutes the unimaginable happened.

Something amazing happens on the east coast every year as the heavy hot humid air of summer gives way to clear and cool Autumn air, as if on cue, as the calendar flips from August to September. Monday, September 11, 2001, was one such day. The sky was clear. The air was cool. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. If you looked straight up, you could see the dark of space. I had met my, then wife, at her school to set up a portable sound system for her classroom so she wouldn’t have to shout above the constant din.

I was running late to work. The car radio was set to WHYY, the public radio station out of Philadelphia. About quarter to 9 the news report said a “plane” crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. I thought a “plane” as in a Cessna or Piper Cub bumped into a building. Not that big a deal. I wondered what happened on the ground though.

As I’m putting the car in park, the radio is telling me a jet liner crashed into the South Tower. I rush into work. We were all trying to get news of what was happening. Our methods were generational. Dad was tuning in the radio, I was futzing with the TV, and our two millennials were on the computer. A jet crashes into the Pentagon. Air space is shut down. Not a jet in the sky for the next three days. The South Tower collapses almost an hour after first being hit. We hear a jet crashed near Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh? What’s going on? When will this stop? What’s next? Later in the day three fighters flew low over head in formation toward New York.  

We were all stunned. 2996 people died that day. I remember talking with a truck driver a few days later. He was stuck in traffic in New Jersey heading into New York City. All he could do was helplessly sit in his truck and watch it all. And cry. Life as we knew it changed forever.

As Christians we might wonder where God might be in all this. Was this from God? Surely not. Not everything that happens is from God. What I do know is that God embraces the vulnerable, the afraid, the angry, the suffering, the wounded, the lost, and the numb. God even embraces the big burley truck driver with tears running down his cheeks. 

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau, Bridge Pastor

Council Summary for August, 2021

Council Summary for August, 2021

Council met on August 19th via Zoom. (This was a big improvement over “distant” talking around a very large table in the Social Hall, as it is easier to hear each other.)  We’re pleased to report ACC’s finances are stabilizing after our shutdowns during the pandemic. This is largely because our expenses were not as great while we were closed. Rental income, including from schools, has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.  If anyone is interested in seeing budget/finance details please see me or Randy. We’re hoping enrollment in the schools continues to improve so rents can return to normal. Jacob has been busy re-opening facility rentals with some guidance from the Re-opening Committee for Covid-19 safety protocols. We are still not fully using the facility for rentals. To clarify protocols and fees for Jacob and for renters, we’ll be developing a policy on rentals.

We’re starting to revisit Capital improvement projects that we had to put on hold in March of 2020.  We were able to proceed with the sidewalk construction because funds were already reserved.  Now we’re starting to investigate the feasibility of some re-configuration and accessibility concepts for the bathrooms off the Narthex (the infant stage of planning). If we decide to proceed with such a project, there will need to be a great deal of “logistical planning” as well as raising some additional Capital funds.   

Council is grateful to Barbara for the hard work she of planning meaningful and inspiring worship services along with the music staff, and for Jacob’s talents and hard work producing the Parishscope and other communications to the Congregation.  The Search Committee continues with interviews and reviewing candidate profiles for a Settled Minister. Council is keeping in touch with the committee’s general progress and it sounds positive at this point.  Please continue to prayerfully support the work of all those working behind the scenes to keep our Congregation and Ministry vital. 

 Linda Young,  Moderator  

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: September 3, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

Next week is unusually full for me. We have an Organ Dedication on Sunday, September 12. Joe Pratt generously donated his old organ to the church. Thank you, Joe! Also, that same day, Rev. Julie Stokstad will be bringing us the word on Wisdom. I’m looking forward to hearing her thoughts on wisdom from her perspective. I’ll be here leading worship.

 I tagged that Sunday to be free from the joy of preaching because of the fullness that week holds for me. As you may, or may not, be aware, The Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) elected The Rev. Dr. Megan Rohrer as their Bishop at their Synod Assembly in May. While Bp. Rohrer’s term in office began on July 1st, the installation is scheduled for Saturday, September 11.

 Here’s the thing, Bp. Megan Rohrer is the first transgender Bishop, or head of any judicatory, in any major Christian denomination. (This is as significant as when The Rev. Gene Robinson was elected as the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, back in 2004, as the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion.) Originally, Bp. Rohrer’s installation was to be held at a Lutheran church in Walnut Creek, but because of the amount of people who will be attending, the service was moved to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. I am told Grace Cathedral is the largest sanctuary in the area to be able to hold this event. The press and “everybody else” will be there. This installation is a big deal.

 The day before Bp. Rohrer’s installation a “Listening Session” is scheduled to be held at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco at 4 pm. Yours truly will be on a panel with about 5 others who are transgender and clergy serving Christ’s Church. At the moment, there are a handful of us. This event is open to the public. Folks can RSVP to attend in-person here. 

 A Listening Session implies there is someone listening. Hopefully the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and anyone else with ears to hear, as Jesus might say, is listening. Except for my three years serving a Lutheran congregation, my experience has largely been in the United Church of Christ. I have found, though, that my experiences “on the ground” are very similar, if not the same, as my Lutheran trans clergy colleagues. 

 Together, we will be sharing our stories of what it is like to be trans and clergy. We will share our struggles and joys, the walls we have encountered, the walls that have already come down, what needs to happen going forward, and how none of us take “no” for an answer. I am aware my ministry is significant as I courageously create space for myself, as well as those who are coming after me.

 Like the Syrophoenician Woman might say, I too, along with everyone else, is “awesomely and wonderfully made” and how there is a place under the Sun for all of us.

 Keep being your awesome selves,

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau, Bridge Pastor

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: August 27, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

Theology on Tap is the first Friday of the month which also falls on the first day of September this year. There’s no time to settle into a new month and then wonder when the first Friday is. Not this month. Boom! There’s the new month and there’s the first Friday all at the same time, all at once. Sometimes that’s how the calendar happens.

The topic for this month’s Theology on Tap is “What does ACC 2.0 look like?” This topic grew organically out of our last Spiritual Journey.  To be sure, almost every church in America is asking the same question. Indeed, our Jewish and Muslim friends are asking the same questions. It’s new territory. I mean, talk about things they didn’t teach you in seminary!

If you were to ask me why there are so many Christian denominations, my first response is the history and geography of Europe. This is not a three-minute elevator conversation. As do all immigrants, Europeans brought with them what they knew; their ways, customs, and religion and planted it here. Some communities insisted that the liturgy be spoken in their native German, or Hungarian, or Swedish tongue. By the third generation the original language from the Old World was no longer relevant. 

There is a shift in contemporary religion going on right now in the present moment. Some of us have recognized, for at least the last ten years, there is a new re-formation of the church going on even as we speak.  COVID-19 sped up the process.

I have included a link to an article from Sojourners Magazine, called “What is Church Now.”

I offer it as a starting point. An appetizer to begin the conversation. One place to start is to think about what COVID has taught us. What are the lessons learned from the last 18 months of lockdown and our use of ZOOM and YouTube?  What is the church? Who is the church?  How do we connect with others? What are our gifts we are eager to share and how do we share those gifts? What is the role of the building and grounds? How can the church be relevant in the third decade of the twenty-first century?  I know, more questions than answers. Questions are where we begin. Questions are the seeds of discovery. Questions are the seeds of our faith.

I don’t expect our conversation about what ACC 2.0 looks like to result in any definitive answers, but who knows? My hope is that we begin a conversation about what’s next for Arlington Community Church as we enter a healthy and respectable dialogue with one another. It is a very important conversation the wider church and healthy congregations are having. There is a place at the table for us to join the conversation. 

If I don’t see you at church first, I’ll see you at Theology on Tap next Friday at 4 pm. 

Peace and wonder,

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau, Bridge Pastor

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: August 20, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

When I was going through my year-long Clinical Pastoral Care as a resident chaplain, my friend James shared with the class a wisdom teaching from the Buddhist tradition. The teaching goes something like this:

Thinking your cupboards and refrigerator is empty, you plan on stopping at the grocery store on the way home after work for some groceries for dinner. Your day seemed longer and more difficult than usual and by the end of the day you’re tired and your feet hurt. There is just no energy for standing in the checkout line. You drive past the grocery. You just want to be home.

When you finally get home, you begin to get hungry. It’s dinner time after all. Thinking there’s nothing to eat, you start poking around the kitchen anyway. In the back of the freezer you find some chicken, and some frozen veggies.  There’s a half a bag of rice in the pantry. In the cupboard you find some parsley, sage rosemary, and thyme. And voila! You had the ingredients for dinner all along.

The moral of the story is that each of us has what we need for any given moment. We just need to learn to poke around inside our own internal cupboards to access our emotions, thoughts, feelings, and inner wisdom as we move through the various moments and seasons of our lives.

Indeed, this is a great teaching from the Buddhist tradition. But then, as I’m reading about Pelagius, an early Christian theologian from Scotland, I came across the following story about Pelagius from the late 300s.

“A young woman, named Celantia, asked Pelagius for a rule of life. “Tell me how to live,” she begged. Pelagius replied, “Don’t ask me, the source of such a rule is inside your own heart.”*

Why hadn’t I known this until now? This same wonderful Buddhist insight has also been in our own Christian cupboards and pantries all along.

There seems to be some universal wisdom about our hopes and dreams, joys and sadness, fears and courage, words and deeds, ethics and morals, and our own personal truths all residing in the center of our own being. The place where Christ resides is where our truth resides.

Peace and wonder,

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau, Bridge Pastor

*“Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul,” by John Phillip Newell. (page 37)

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: August 13, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

There are two events coming up sponsored by the Faith Formation Team. By the time this comes out in the Parishscope, the first event might already be in the rearview mirror. But then again there’s always next month.

On Friday, the 13th, Poetry Night will meet, followed a week later on August 20 by the Lectio Divina. Both will be at 4 PM and on Zoom. Look for the links elsewhere in the Parishscope, ACC Events, and the web-site. I’m thinking there might be a few of you wondering about the connection Poetry Hour has with our faith. Well, I’m glad you asked because there is a connection. Allow me to connect the dots.

Our faith does not exist solely from what we read and experience within the pages of the Bible. To be sure, as Christians, the Bible has a great deal of influence about who we are as people of faith. (Sacred scripture is also important to our Jewish and Muslim cousins.) There is a lot of Biblical imagery, morals, ethics, and wisdom that are very important to my daily living.

We moderns, have done a number on our Sacred Word though. Since the Enlightenment we have treated the Bible the way we might treat an engineering text book, or an accountant’s binder full of government updates. We look at every word and we want to say that word means this and this word means that.

Personally, I find great value in Biblical word studies. My issue with heretofore Biblical scholarship is translation and interpretation. Finding out that a word has been mistranslated will send me into a rant and a whole new and more inclusive interpretation. While there is some value there that’s not the only way to do Biblical interpretation.

The Bible was written from the heart. Their inspired by God heart. The Biblical writers wrote from their human experience, embracing those places where the whole spectrum of humanity connects with the holy and divine, and where the holy and divine embraces humanity. It’s there at the junction of God and us where Biblical interpretation is at its best. Whether their words were prose or poetry they wrote with the heart of a poet.

According to Pelagius (360 – 420) there are (at least) five areas we find sacredness: the human soul, nature, spiritual practice, wisdom, and compassion. Pelagius begins with the human soul for that is the cradle where our awareness to all other sacredness begins and resides.  

Both, Poetry Hour and Lectio Divina are designed to stir the soul and shake out the cobwebs. Poetry speaks from the heart to the heart. It reminds us we have a heart and soul that were first declared very good by God. Our heart and soul is that place where we meet God’s Original Grace and Original Blessing showered upon us. It’s the place where God and me and we connect. Our souls are stirred and a sacred grin comes upon our souls as we meet God yet once again.

Peace and wonder,

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: August 6, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

Not too long ago I was watching the news on MSNBC. Someone was being interviewed. I forget the topic being discussed and who the person being interviewed was. I vaguely remember Rachel Maddow as the host. What I clearly remember, however, is that the Zoom wasn’t working. The person was on mute. Rachel was speaking loudly, “You’re on mute!  We can’t hear you.” Neither she nor the professional technicians at NBC could get her sound going. Then we lost her.

Rachel grinned, threw up her hands and said something like, “Life with Zoom. It’s a wonderful thing when it works.” Ah, yes, life during these times! In that moment I didn’t feel so bad. If it could happen to a professional organization like MSNBC with all its technical wizardry, then I don’t feel so bad when it happens to someone like myself whose kryptonite is technology. Misery love company, right?

To state the obvious, these times in which we live in are not “normal.” We are living in liminal times. Times that are in-between yesterday and tomorrow. I want to say these are like no other times that came before us. I can’t. The Plague ravaged Europe, India, and China in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Our great grandparents experienced the Spanish Flu just a short century ago. We have lessons to be learned.

 One of those lessons is that we are in the middle of something greater than we can imagine. Most of us are doing our best to get through it. The word muddle comes to mind. A worldwide pandemic is not the only thing we in which we find ourselves in the middle of.

 Here at Arlington Community Church, we are between Pastor Nate’s ministry and whoever comes next. A liminal time all on its own. We are in the middle of and in the process of creating a combination in-person and on-line hybrid church. Another liminal time. We are living through multiple in-between times all at the same time.  It’s a lot.

One week we think we have it, then by Thursday of that week the CDC recommends we wear our masks. Masks on! Masks off! Masks on! We change and pivot and change and pivot yet again. On the whole, I think we are doing well.

I’d just like to say there are, and will be bumps, hiccups, and false starts and starts again along the way. I would like to come out and say this is all very exhausting and tiring. All this produces fear and anxiety and frustration that might even lead to anger. If I could put my virtual arms around you and hug you, I would say of course you feel this way. It’s okay. I also want to say give yourselves and others some wiggle room. Be kind to others and give yourself a break. More than any other time we need to learn to breathe in, hold out your hands with palms up, souls open, and receive God’s holy grace. Not only for yourselves but also for your fellow travelers traveling on the same bumpy journey in these liminal times such as this.

Peace and wonder,

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

Behold, We Are Doing a New Thing-----Ugh!!

Behold, We Are Doing a New Thing-----Ugh!!

Behold, I am doing a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert.

                                    Isaiah 43:19

For most of my adult life, hearing these words from Isaiah brought excitement to my door.  Yippee!!, something new is coming and all the old, dusty, dreary things of the  past will finally leave and I can once again enjoy life.

Since the pandemic, I’ve become much less optimistic about “new things”.  There’s been way too much changing in my world.  Retirement, health issues, pandemic, racial awakening, my pastor leaving.  We’re in what Richard Rohr calls Liminal Space.  We are in the “between times”.  Not a great deal is settled, I feel as if I’m hovering above the ground, yearning for that magic moment when I can plant both my feel on terra firma.

A question that I’ve been asking myself regularly is, “How do I want to be during these times?”  What mindset would be best, for me, and for those around me.  Doing or being in a new thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  I miss the comfort of things being settled, of life moving smoothly, of the world showing some small sign of order.  What I am forgetting way too often is that to move from one period of order into a new period of order there MUST be some time of disorder.

At Arlington Community Church, even though so many people are working so very hard to carve some order into our life as a congregation, there is going to be disorder.  A pastor leaves, a bridge pastor is hired, a search begins for a settled pastor, one Sunday we worship with masks and hum to the hymns.  The next we wear masks and sing.  The next we are back to mask-wearing.  We are right at the heart of disorder. (think of that last sentence for a moment)

If you’re frustrated, disappointed, weary of just about everything, I hear you.  Me, too!!  But here’s a thought, perhaps we are indeed on the verge of something new.  Or better yet, we can choose to make something new in our life as a community of faith.   I promise you, the future will NOT look exactly like the past, but we have the ability to shape that future as a congregation.  We have the resources, the talent, the will, and I hope we have the faith that in the not too distant future we will be a thriving church serving people we haven’t met yet, touching lives in compassionate ways, and treasuring each other even more than we already do.

How do You want to be in these disordered times?  Impatient or patient?  Helpful or obstructive? Grumbly or imaginative?  Join me in this ongoing reflection, and then take some positive action that puts feet on your faith.  After all, we have each other, we have God, we have Jesus as our guide through this wilderness.  We need nothing more.

Rev. Barry Cammer

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: July 30, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

Recently, I saw an annoying commercial on TV. “Aren’t they all,” you might ask? This one was a few ticks more annoying than some of the others. With annoying music and an annoying voice, we are asked what we would do for a Klondike Bar? I’m thinking I would walk down to the bodega on the corner and reach into the little freezer full of various ice cream treats.

 Apparently, that’s too easy. The person in the commercial ends up shaving his eyebrow off. Really? I’m wondering what the advertisers were thinking. Why make it so difficult to get a Klondike Bar? It should be as easy as going to the corner store. Easy peasy, right? I guess not. I just lost my appetite. I think I’ll get the Haagen Dazs instead.

 The message of the advertisement goes against my Christian inspired ethics. I believe in grace. That through no effort on my own should grace, in all its manifestations, be something to achieve. Grace is already there. Unconditionally. We might need to learn how to live into that grace. But we do not need to earn it. It’s there. It’s as easy as going to the corner for a Klondike Bar.

 The Klondike Bar commercial raises a variation on its question, “What would you do to stay alive?” This current plague is new to us, but not new to the human experience. Julian of Norwich was 7 years old when the Bubonic Plague hit Norwich, England in 1349. It came in waves returning in 1361 to 1364, 1368, 1371, 1373-1375, 1390, and 1405 and on into the 15th and 16th centuries as it spread throughout Europe, China, India, Syria, and Egypt. This is beginning to sound all too familiar. From the age of seven to her death Julian did not know a world without the plaque yet Julian’s faith in God never wavered.   

 Here at ACC, we have protocols (see elsewhere in the Parishscope) in place to mitigate the spread of the Coronavirus and its Delta variant. What Julian wouldn’t do for a vaccine and a face mask! Our Protocols are as easy as walking to the corner for a Klondike Bar.

 In the words of Julian of Norwich, “All will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing shall be well.”

 Peace and wonder,

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau