The First Presbyterian
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
VOL 178 | AUGUST 2021 on Unsplash on Photo by Sergey Shmidt Sergey Photo by The First Presbyterian SCHOOL SUPPLIES DRIVE IN THIS ISSUE: Through August 8th • BIRTHDAYS • ANNIVERSARIES • PRESCHOOL • MISSION • HEALTH • EDUCATION • FELLOWSHIP The Mission and CE Committees is hosting our annual School Supplies Drive and accepting donations through August 8th. Supplies will be distributed to food pantry guests August 8th and 15th. Supplies can be delivered to the church office Monday-Thursday or you can bring them Sundays and leave in our donation box in the Narthex. BIRTHDAYS Annette White August 1st Jeffrey Scott August 2nd Edith Friend August 2nd Cathy Metcalf August 2nd Paula Clement August 5th Nancy Blake August 6th Darlene Johnson August 11th Walter Khazoyan August 13th Rumpy Benak August 13th Dave Karaffa August 14th Mary Saucerman August 16th Lynn Winn August 19th Lyra Kimball August 20th Ann Wells August 20th Richard Clement August 21st Ezekiel Diaz August 22nd Grace Kim August 29th Laura Hapke August 30th ANNIVERSARIES Brockton & Jean Wagner August 4th, 1989 Dave & Robbie Lamondy August 14th, 1993 David & Ann MacMath August 16th, 1947 William & Rumpy Benak August 18th, 2008 OUR CHURCH FAMILY Jim & Joyce Geisert August 19th, 1972 Paul & Carol Blackwell August 26th, 1989 Tom & Karen Godfrey August 27th, 1960 David & Karen Fuchs August 30th, 1997 COMPASSION & PRAYERS Brian Bush & Family, Jim Blume, Nicholas Rogers, Steve & Tracy High, Tom Khazoyan & Family, John Kenis- ton, Beta, Jenny Dickens & all Health Care Workers, April Taylor, Judi McCoy, DJ Moxley, Laura Hapke, Martha Moyers, Pam Munoz, Aileen Marsile, Susan Butcher, Tom Godfrey, Joe Woollett, Darlene Johnson, Terry Pastor Winston travelled to the Bruce & Karen Scott welcomed & Jean Ann Duckworth, Pat Gunder- east coast during July to visit with their granddaughter, Bowie man, Alayne Campbell, Kate Berg & Zeteo Missions, Lyn his daughter and her family. The James Scott, who was born on (Bush) Reynolds-Johnson, Priscilla Groot, Dave & Rob- trip included a wonderful ceremo- May 27th to their son Jeff and bie Lamondy, Fred Baja, Walt & Barbara Khazoyan, The ny of baptism for his granddaugh- his wife, Jordan. Bowie was 5lbs. Steele Family, Andi Zanca, Cliff & Doris Nelson, Bob Mitchell, Steve & DJ Hill, Larry Mamchur, Teala Wilson, ter - Hailey Blake O’Connor - in 10oz and 19” long. Cape May, N.J. Winston is pic- Debbie Green, Bill & Ann Teachout, Carol Culbert, Amy tured with son-in-law, John, and & Rick Wilson, Karen Scott, Dave White, Barbara Robi- daughter Layna (and Hailey of son, Ted Browning, Ellie Schilder, Gail Telkamp, Valerie course!). and Matt Furcron, The McAulay Family, and all serving military personnel. Note: Prayer list is current at time of publication. 2 PASTOR’S LETTER Dear Church, Generally, it is a “No-No” to include family members in a Pastor’s remarks. Howev- er...but...with exception...until now. I just returned from a week with Hailey - our 2 year old granddaughter. Of course, her mother and father were there, but admittedly they knew they were not the big attraction! Hailey was! I came home changed and not simply confirmed in my thoughts that grand-parenting is the best! Parents-to-be read all the “what-to-expect” books on pregnancy and a mother’s changing body and emotions. Parents read the growth books and school themselves on the learning curves of a child’s development. How should the child be doing at this age or what should the child be saying or when should the child start playing with these toys. Grandparents roll up our sleeves (or pants’ legs) and wade deep into what- ever the child is doing like we are kids all over again! Literally, I sat in a tiny pink house on the floor. All 66 years of aching joints and bones. It was worth it. Pop and granddaughter explored the world as if it was the biggest and newest crea- tion since...well, since the world was first created. Every leaf was new. Every bug a recent discovery. The sound of wind in the tree leaves got an excited finger pointing upward. Did you know that water can be “splashed” and “kicked.” Grasshoppers can be caught and examined. A firefly lighting two inches of darkness becomes a shining light the size of a moon in a child’s eyes. “Look!” I saw all of this again, as if for the first time. I am grateful. In our/my world of haste and routine production the newness is tar- nished. Creation seems like an opaque background where the news of the day is focused. The crust of living covers our/my eyes. We plod and stomp and care not what’s actually under our feet. Hailey stopped all of this for me, if but for a week. I am grateful. Part of this is the natural reminiscence of an older man re-joining some of his own childhood enthusiasm and mischief. We get older, even if we refuse to grow up, entirely. But we do grow up and as Paul says, “give up foolish and childish ways.” Looking at our grandchildren, if we are fortunate, or any child reminds us of a circle of life. It begins on a carousel and moves to a high- er Ferris Wheel and then car wheels through the town. “And the seasons change. They go round and round. We’re caught in a carousel of time.” (I wish I had written this, but borrowed it from a song from Ian and Sylvia.) Cannot get off the carousel of time. We age. We get older. Truth told, we cannot even hold onto our youth, live it once more through our children, the young. Nope. We can hold them up in our arms and glimpse a mere tiny self, but the adult looking back in the mirror is grown. He/She will not fit in the PJs of the past. But...but...the carousel doesn’t have to spin us beyond the once held newness and gratitude for being alive and the wonder of it all. The bugs are still there. The grass still moves mysteriously. You can catch a rain drop on your tongue. Mystery can poke through the crusty pessimism of the same-old-same-old which often feels like a left turn on a racetrack at a NASCAR event. “Look!” begins a page in a child’s learning or a map to a journey or a discovery of a sign, like a star, leads to a birth of love from God...for all of us on this carousel of time. God isn’t in the wind or the bug or the “splash” of water. God wasn’t in the star, either. The star led somewhere. And we can be assured in every bug we pick up or scoop from a pool, whether we have a child’s eye or not, that God is behind it all. God’s love is there holding us like any proud grand-parent...the grandest of them all. Each of us so special… just look. See what love God has for us that we can be called God’s children. And we are! SANCTUARY LIGHTING The Sanctuary lighting has received a makeover with a number of new LED bulbs and fixtures for the track lighting that covers the chancel area. Together with the addition of the new cloth covering for the organ pipes, these upgrades have really lifted the general appear- ance of the Sanctuary and Chancel area. Thank you to Bruce Scott, Pastor Winston and Dale Sollee for their work on this project. 3 FELLOWSHIP & EVENTS ONLINE WORSHIP IS BRIDGE Wed • July 28th / Aug. 25th • 1 pm • Flippen Chapel NOW ON YOUTUBE Our 4th Wednesday card session is Our return to in-person worship includes a hybrid service that is resuming. Join your fellow gamers also simultaneously broadcast live on our new YouTube channel for fun, dessert and refreshments. each week. YouTube will make for a more seamless viewing expe- $2. Friends, neighbors and relatives rience and there will be no necessity to log in or avoid prompts to welcome! do so. If you are reading the newsletter on your computer you can click the link below to visit our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/ BOOK CLUB UC2qn5IWUH4yNGmS_2eWEzNg Wed • August 25th • 11:30 am • Flippen Chapel We recommend that you bookmark the page on your web browser For August, we are reading and dis- so that you can easily visit again. Alternatively, be sure and sign up cussing The Library Book by Susan to our email list by contacting the church office to be added to our Orleans, based on a true story: weekly e-press bulletins, which will tell you everything you need to know: [email protected] / 714 538 2341. Susan Orlean re-opens the unsolved mystery of the most catastrophic library fire in American history, and delivers a dazzling homage to a be- loved institution – our libraries. On the morning of April 29th, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Ange- les Public Library. Raging through the stacks, the fire reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. It was the largest library fire in the history of the United States: it destroyed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more, and shut the library down for seven years. The mystery remains: did someone purposefully set fire to the library - and if so, who? Weaving her life-long love of books and reading with the fascinating history of libraries COMMUNION DATES 2021 and the sometimes eccentric characters who run them, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling The Session and its Worship Committee invite you to participate author Orlean presents a mesmerizing and uniquely com- in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.