Together is a good place to be!

By Rev. Jeanne Randall-Bodman, Pastor

February 8, 2023

I have been thinking a lot lately about the backstories of our lives, the often unexamined stories of our ancestors that have brought us to where we are today. As many of us do, I’ve gotten curious about my family history whenever we’ve lost someone from our older generation. I have a vivid memory from the time when my siblings and I were clearing out our childhood home. I found a whole trove of letters written to and from my maternal grandfather – exchanges with his parents, siblings, and the sweetheart who eventually became his wife. I felt a sense of dislocation as I said to my sister “we come from really pious people.” She found my surprise hilarious -- “Really, Reverend ?”

But I was surprised.

I grew up in a church-going family, but I wouldn’t have described us as especially pious. But I wondered if the piety that was so clear to me in the letters had informed our family life in ways that I couldn’t see from the inside. If that piety and faithfulness of those ancestors had given me a bedrock. If it had perhaps also kept me from questioning too vigorously what I had been taught.

By Rev. Jeanne Randall-Bodman, Pastor

January 4, 2023

As many of you know - because I’m pretty open about it- the gloom of an Oregon winter is not something I look forward to. In order to prevent my brain from drifting into a gray fog to match the sky, I follow the good advice I received from a friend who grew up in Alaska: a full spectrum light every morning, lots of cheerful music and fresh cut flowers, and a walk outside every afternoon no matter what the sky is doing. This year I am adding pickle ball and a day or two of snow shoeing to my winter regimen as I look forward to spring and longer days. I stay vigilant.

One thing I don’t do is make New Year’s resolutions. I know that for some folks making resolutions is energizing and inspiring. All my previous attempts have felt more like ultimatums than inspiration, so I’ve given it up.

Instead, during this season of short days and often gray skies, I like to offer myself invitations. This year’s invitation: to spend more time reading the books I already own and have been looking forward to, but have not yet read, and the books I’ve started but set aside in favor of something else I thought I “should” be reading.

By Rev. Jeanne Randall-Bodman, Pastor

While the speakers in the stores jingle cheerily at us about “the most wonderful time of the year,” in the church we try to hold onto a deeper truth, a more lasting joy: "Christmas is the day that holds all time together.” (Alexander Smith) The day we celebrate the mystery of the incarnation and the ongoing presence of the Christ in the very fabric of the universe. The light that no darkness can contain or extinguish.

This advent, as we wait and prepare for Christmas we are focusing in worship on the angels – the messengers - in the nativity stories found in Matthew and Luke. We are listening for the words of the angels of old to tune our ears for the messengers among us today. Listening to the songs of response that Zechariah and Mary make, and watching the actions Joseph and the shepherds take in response—watching how each recipient of an angelic pronouncement becomes a messenger in their own right. We listen and watch not merely to admire their words and actions, but also to learn how to speak and act ourselves in response to the messages of the angels in our midst now.

The stories of Jesus’ birth announce the coming of a true King of the Jews (Matthew), a real Son of God (Luke) who will bring peace not through victory and conquest, as the Roman “son of God” Caesar does, but through justice.

By Rev. Jeanne Randall-Bodman, Pastor

September 28, 2022

Clergy and delegates from UCC congregations across the Central Pacific Conference met as usual on the last weekend of September. This was our first ever “hybrid” gathering, with people participating digitally and many others gathered on-site.

It was both wonderful and a little overwhelming to be gathered for so many hours in a row with so many people at once -- something which seemed so ordinary before Covid. And that was a theme of our conversation. How shall we live together in covenant relationship in a world that will continue to be informed by pandemic, a world changed by political unrest and sharp divisions.