October 15/16, 2025
Good morning,
I wrote a few months ago that I do not believe I have any or very few new ideas. I say things in a different way in my blogs or my sermons.I don’t know where my thoughts or ideas or beliefs have evolved from. But, I know they have come from others, maybe even the readers of my blog. Many of my thoughts come directly or indirectly from Jesus of Nazareth. But I get other ideas that come from many different sources. I subscribe to a ‘ substack ‘ ( a new word for blogs ) from Kristin Du Mez. She is a church historian from Calvin University in Michigan. She is fearful that she will get fired as her interpretations go up against the Trump Empire, and evangelical Chrsitians. I am afraid for her safety. In this week’s blog she quotes her pastor’s( Len Vander Zee ) sermon. The pastor in his sermon quotes from a book by Deb Rienstra. Here is his quote from the book:
” This week I read Deb Rienstra’s wonderful book “Refugia Faith.” In the book she gives us a wonderful analogy of what we are called to be in this time of climate crisis. In 1980 Mt St. Hellens blew its top, leaving a swath of utter devastation. Today if you go there you will find a lush mountainside or flowers, grasses, growing trees, and all kinds of critters.
How did this happen? There were pockets of life and seed and fungi hidden in the mountainside. And the volcano ripped them open, and eventually spilled their life into the rich volcanic soil. Scientists call these pockets of life refugia.
Deb suggests that this is a good model of the church. A small, often hidden and overlooked community rich with God’s life and a different story to tell the world.
“They[ the early church ] served Christ as Lord and King, and refused to give that status and authority to any earthly emperor, and they paid for it. They practiced the radical hospitality of Christ’s kingdom, welcoming slaves to share the table with their owners, and in a few years, calling the owners to free them. Calling people to share the wealth rather than horde it. Picking up thrown away babies, mostly unwanted girls, and taking them into their homes. They said a clear no to any kind of violence.”
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. I John 4:7-9
My faith, ideas, thoughts come from everywhere in creation and beyond. The threads are there.
Hoping that the ceasefire will hold, and a peace might come to Gaza and the West Bank. AMEN
Fred
black and white shadows
crush humanity’s freedom
am I complicit ? MPL 2025
Ponder Anew 