"Helicopter Parents" Ruin Easter Egg Hunt

   Did you read or see the story out of Colorado Springs this week? Read it here. It seems organizers of an annual Easter egg hunt attended by hundreds of children have canceled this year’s event, citing the bad behavior of parents who swarmed into the park last year, determined that their kids get an egg. Instead of a few moments of fun and adventure by children searching and finding, too many parents had jumped a rope set up to allow only children into Bancroft Park in a historic area of Colorado Springs. Organizers say the event has outgrown its original intent of being a neighborhood event. Parenting observers cite the cancellation as a prime example of so-called “helicopter parents” - those who hover over their children and are involved in every aspect of their children’s lives - sports, school, and increasingly work — to ensure that they don’t fail, even at an Easter egg hunt.

   There is so much to say, and so little room to say it. 

• First, aren't we glad the miracle of Jesus' love for us and the power of God's over death cannot be ruined by pushy parents! These are the real events of Easter. 
• Second, it is getting more and more difficult to parent well these days. We want our children to grow, but worry so much that their growth might be hindered by a fall or a failure or a lack of something that we are tempted to meddle where we shouldn't.  
• Finally, the church is needed more than ever to speak the wonderful words of life into the families in our community. The truth of God's abundance and love for us would do wonders to ease anxieties and fears.

   This is what ORANGE is all about, and certainly what we are setting out to do at this weekend's  Family Picnic and Easter Eggs-travaganza. We want families of every size from ! on up to join us on Saturday afternoon. Come help us show our neighbors the love of Jesus and have fun doing it.

It Doesn't Happen All At Once

   The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

   "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

   "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

   "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

   "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

   "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

   "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

__________________

   
   I read this, of all places, in a section of reflections from an Upper Room prayer book. It is a story about the make-believe world of toys, but clearly offers a message for those of us in the very real world. I translate real to be the growth and maturity that God seeks for every person. Real isn't how you are made. It's a thing that happens to you. It doesn't happen all at once. It takes a long time. Real is beautiful, except to the few who don't understand. 
   My prayer: Gracious God, allow Epworth to be a place where people are becoming real: where the truth is lived and shared and encouragement is a way of life. Give us patience to endure the long time it takes, and the courage to continue becoming real, obedient disciples of your Son, Jesus Christ, in order that the world might know us by our love. May we gather people of all kinds, grow every person in grace and truth, and go forth to be good neighbors in the places we live. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. Amen.

Life on the Edge

   Life is fragile. We know that. Reminders of just how fragile are often helpful, though. We have all lived through one of the great evidences this past week as we set our many clocks ahead an hour in order to comply with Daylight saving time. First observed in the US during World War I in order to conserve electricity, I remember from my own youth how great that extra hour of sunlight was on the first night!

   Oh, to be young and naive again. I did not know the negative consequences of such a small adjustment to our internal clocks. A University of Alabama at Birmingham expert says the time change is not necessarily good for our health. “The Monday and Tuesday after moving the clocks ahead one hour in March is associated with a 10 percent increase in the risk of having a heart attack,” says UAB Associate Professor Martin Young, Ph.D., in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease (read more here). “The opposite is true when falling back in October. This risk decreases by about 10 percent.” While the Sunday morning of the time change doesn't require an abrupt schedule change, Young says, heart-attack risk does peak on Monday when most people rise earlier to go to work. “Exactly why this happens is not known, but there are several theories,” Young says. “Sleep deprivation, the body’s circadian clock and immune responses all can come into play when considering reasons that changing the time by an hour can be detrimental to someone’s health.”
   Our very lives are at stake with such a small change as the addition or removal of one hour of sleep. We are living on the edge. 
   The analogy of life out on the edge can be expanded beyond just medicine and our earthly bodies. I think it applies to our souls, too. Have you seen a person fly into a fit of rage over the smallest thing. Have you ever witnessed a person bend the rules past the breaking point in order to get ahead? Have you ever watched as someone manipulated every possible variable in order to try and control something that wanted to happen a certain way? Have you seen a person display hideous jealousy when they learned of the good fortune of a colleague? Have any of these instances described you? In each example, it can be the smallest thing that triggers an over-sized response.

Jesus said, "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7)

   While our mortal bodies are thrown off by removing one hour of sleep, our spiritual bodies and the essence of who we are stumbles even more frequently on the narrow path that leads to life eternal. Therefore, it is imperative that we journey in ways that seek to prevent our perishing or falling away. 

• We must travel in groups: both the large group of worship and a small group like Sunday School, etc. 
• We must read the directions closely: the Bible and classic devotional writings.
• We must pray against the temptations and evils that lurk around ever bend.
• We must stay in love with the God. Both the destination and the journey are intended to be experienced with joy!

Grace and Peace, Scott

Women of Faith

   One of the most powerful stories of faith in the scriptures is told about a woman that seeks out Jesus. It is told in the gospel accounts of Luke, Matthew and here in Mark: 

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”
(Mark 5:25-28)

   In addition to the medical concerns from her condition, she would have also been deemed ‘unclean’ and prevented from the public practice of her faith. This only adds to the surprise and significance of her act of faith. The amazing faith of this woman is found in the small details, for it was the fact that she sought out Jesus’ cloak that is most marvelous. She had been reading her Bible closely!

   The prophet Malachi had written some four centuries earlier, that the ‘righteous sun’ that would one day rise would have power and healing in its wings (4:2). In Hebrew wings is written kanaf. But the Hebrew language had far fewer words that our modern English, so almost every word carried a variety of meanings and kanaf was no exception. Much earlier in history, in  Numbers 15, it is used to describe the hem of the prayer shawl where tassels were to be  attached. The woman who reaches out for Jesus, believes he is the promised One and interprets that the scripture extends his power out to the very edges of his prayer shawl. It worked, for immediately Jesus feels her presence and some ‘power’ has gone from him out to her. She is healed by reaching out for Jesus.

   We have women of equal faith in our midst. Women who study the scriptures and reach out to 

Jesus for healing and power. They are the women who sit in our pews each week or worship at 

home because of health or other situations. They are women who lead and contribute in Sunday School and small groups, including the circles that make up the United Methodist Women’s unit of Epworth. They are women who serve through teaching, giving, cooking, sewing or visiting.

   This story and the faith of our women have come together in my mind over the past year through the Prayer Shawl Ministry in which a large group of our church participates. They have been making shawls and blankets that are coupled with written prayers and consecrated in our  church to be sent out for God’s work. They have been shared with a variety of persons, including some receiving cancer treatment, recovering from surgery, offering care to loved ones or babies born into the world. It is in some way a small act of kindness, the making and  sharing of a blanket, that offers the potential for amazing grace. As one who helps deliver these acts of grace, I see firsthand their power. Such a ministry is only one in many ways which God’s Kingdom is being established by the persons of faith all around us. 

   This Sunday we mark such faith and recognize the women of our UMW. Grace and Peace,  Scott