February 29th, 2024

GREETINGS TO GOD’S IMAGE BEARERS,

Right after Ash Wednesday, I drove to Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton, Wisconsin for a couple of days of personal retreat, “Deep Breath”, a self-guided retreat for pastors. My spirit was filled as I entered into religious community life with centering prayer and worship three times a day besides reading and resting. It was a wonderful way to begin the season of Lent. This prayer from Thomas Keating was the pray that I began my retreat with:

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

I welcome everything that comes to me today, because I know it is for my healing.

I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations, and conditions.

I let go of my desire for power and control.

I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval and pleasure.

I let go of my desire for survival

and security.

I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person or myself.

I open to the love and presence of God and God’s action within.  Amen.

And God’s good timing placed me there at the same time of the Retreat on Two Feet which focused on walking meditation.  In this time of retreat and renewal, I felt that God was affirming our community discipline to walk and pray in our neighborhood.  For me it was a God coincidence.

Walking and praying in our neighborhood is something that I have wanted to do for a long time.  Inviting you to participate as a Lenten discipline is a bonus.  I’m trying to walk and pray once a week in the Wonderful Westside.  The first time I greeted a couple of people as they walked or waited for the bus.  I saw all the apartments and condos.  There are many people who live close together.  I remembered my own days of apartment living and I prayed for all the people who live close together and for good relationships among neighbors.  I saw lots of vehicles and prayed for them to run well as they provide transportation.

The next time I walked, I saw cats sunning themselves in the window and heard a barking dog and I gave thanks to God for the gift of good company and companionship of pets. 

When it came time to purchase in-kind offering for the Free Medical & Dental Clinic, I shopped at Hartig Drug in our neighborhood and discovered some treats for myself.  This helped me to see God’s abundance through the time of walking and what I was moved to do.  Had I not been walking and praying in the neighborhood, I think I would have shopped at my usual places.  It was good to shop there and talk with a clerk who was very friendly and inviting.

I hope these reflections will encourage you to walk and pray in our neighborhood.  Give me a call if you want a walking partner.  If walking isn’t for you, drive, park and pray or slowly run your finger over the map, praying for our neighbors.  Listen for God’s whisperings and share your reflections on the paper hanging in the alcove near the kitchen.  There you will also find some walking practices and prompts for contemplative walking practices that were given to me on the retreat on 2 feet.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

February 16th, 2024

CTKGREETINGS TO GOD’S IMAGE BEARERS,

Welcome to Lent.  Our theme this year is getting to know our neighbors.  Each Wednesday we will have the opportunity to meet our neighbors from organizations that directly serve our neighbors, like Sarah Ross who works for Compeer facilitating friendships with the hope of mental wellness.

Another opportunity for all of us at Christ the King is to walk in prayer through the Wonderful Westside Neighborhood.  You can do this at any time you desire.  If you travel a distance, you may want to walk and pray on Sunday morning before or after worship or Wednesdays.

I walked and prayed the perimeter in about 30 minutes (see map).  I walked and talked with God, asking for God’s blessings on our neighbors, giving thanks for the nature I encountered and greeting those I met along the way.  After I finished the prayer walk, I felt refreshed and blessed by God.

In the alcove you will find a place to share your reflections or impressions or what God shared with you as you walked.  If walking is not for you, try driving, parking and praying.

Consider this part of our community Lenten discipline.  Together as a worshipping community we refrain from that word of praise that we buried on Sunday on the Transfiguration of our Lord and will spring forth again when we come to worship to celebrate Easter in 40 days.  This is another opportunity for us to journey with God in our immediate neighborhood, listening for what God may want us to do with our neighbors and us as we walk together.

There are no hard and fast rules for this, just an invitation to try it.  It may be awkward at first.  That’s ok. Trust Jesus to walk with you.  He’s really good at walking with us. You may want to invite a friend with you or do this as a family.  Take a favorite scripture with you.  Mine is Proverbs 3:5-6 – trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge the Lord and he will make straight your paths.   From this I can draw easily into conversation with Jesus as I walk and explore our neighborhood.  Or let music accompany you as you walk and pray.  Experiment and trust God to walk with us.  God is faithful.

This is such a lovely time to be walking and praying in our neighborhood.  If you do this weekly, I’m sure you will see the signs of Spring and I wonder what God will work through us and what insight the Holy Spirit will breath into us.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

February 9th, 2023

GREETINGS TO GOD’S IMAGE BEARERS,

It was such a delight to have Bishop Current with us last Sunday.  There is a joy that exudes from her that is from the Holy Spirit.  Thank you all for the warm welcome you gave her.  Hold her and our church in your prayers as Bishop Current serves on our behalf connecting us to other churches within the synod as well as the larger church.  And if you feel called to serve in synod leadership, please let me know and I will make necessary connections.  I will also let you know what positions the synod nominating committee is seeking.

I am grateful for the image of threshold places that Bishop Current offered to us with the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law.  It lingers for Carolyn Laxson as you will read in her article reflecting on her epiphany word, RITUAL and for me too as I think about the Transfiguration of Our Lord for this Sunday.

Not only are doorways places of threshold, places of movement where we are nurtured with the promises of our baptism and the food of Jesus’ table so that we are energized to go out into the world but so are mountain tops.  Mountain tops and those mountain top like experiences are moments of transfiguration, where we get a glimpse of God that we may not fully understand immediately but yet touch us and leave us speechless or stammering for something to do.

We may long to stay in those mountain top moments, like Peter desired but these places are places of movement.  Places to go to and from.  They are threshold places that help us to move as we get a little glimpse of what God is up to.  God pulls back the veil and we can see a bit more.

Jon Bengtson shared at adult forum a mountain top experience from his time attending a national youth gathering and the impression it left.  Amy Frank attended the Extravaganza which is an event that prepares youth directors for the national youth gathering in July.  She brought to our attention that due to the covid cancellations, this will be the first time that there are no youth that have attended the gathering before.  It is a brand-new event for all, except our adult leaders.  So for those of you who have attended a national youth gathering, please share about your experience and your hopes for our gathered youth. We hope and pray for our youth to have a mountain top experience at our youth gathering this summer and at that place away, Ewalu near Strawberry Point for summer camp, including Confirmation Camp. 

In this coming week we will be experiencing a couple of threshold events with the Transfiguration of Our Lord and Ash Wednesday.  We will give God glory and praise and then tuck away our alleluias, fasting from them as we move to the valley of Ash Wednesday, reminding ourselves that we dust and to dust we shall return.  These are threshold places.  Places we visit for a time and then move through.  We don’t build a dwelling here but move through bidding farewell to the season of Epiphany and into the season of Lent.  We move from God being revealed to us and to where God’s revelation takes us.

Approach these mountain top and valley times with a keen ear for the whisperings of the Holy Spirit that just might tell us to listen to Jesus and hearing Jesus say keep quiet until even more has been revealed.  Trust Jesus to be with us as we move through these times together.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

February 1st, 2024

GREETINGS TO GOD’S IMAGE BEARERS,

 Now is the time to stir your creativity and begin thinking about making an ALLELUIA (Greek) or if you prefer Halleluia (Hebrew) to add to our Transfiguration of Our Lord Sunday (Feb. 11) where we feast on the alleluias before we fast during the 40 days of Lent.  The rhythm of moving from feast to fast to feast helps us to engage fully in our relationship with God as we move from celebrating the goodness of God to a time of great desire and need for God.  This rhythm keeps us in step with Jesus and Jesus’ journey with humanity as we move back and forth between feasting and fasting.

When I was in Israel we visited Mt. Tabor, one of the possible sites of Jesus’ transfiguration (the other is Mount Hermon) as the Bible does not name the high place Jesus took Peter, James and John.  We visited this high place.  Our guide pointed out that the architecture of the church reflected Peter’s question to Jesus of his desire to build 3 booths for them.  The structure reminded us that we would like to stay in the feasting place as long as we can and experience the glory of God, the parts of us that want to shout out allulia.

Inside the main worship area there are two levels of worship beside the many little chapel areas.  I like that idea of high and low worship areas mingling together with the idea of the movement between high places and low places and the worship in both with different tones and rhythms. At times we feel close to God and at other times the distance seems far and yet God is here and it is good to be here.

In our chapel time at this church, we were asked to reflect on transfiguration experiences and to briefly share. I shared that the Sunday of Transfiguration was the Sunday I was installed at Christ the King.  I remember saying like Peter, “It is good to be here.”  How true that statement is even after all these years.  How good it is to be here to worship God with you in the high place and the valley times. 

Sit with God, the God who loves you and wants good things for you.  Give God praise with your alleluias in whatever shape they take, with your desire to want to stay with God, to be in God’s presence with joy and delight.  And even though you would like to stay here in this good place, begin your preparations of going down into the valley again for the journey of Lent, asking God to show you where your life needs examination, to show you your blind spots, the places you cannot see on your own but need God’s help to see.

It is good to be here with you and with God, to move between these high and low places, the places of feasting and the fasting and feasting again.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

January 25th 2024

GREETINGS TO THE CHILDREN OF GOD,

This isn’t a beautiful question but a question I wonder about.  How do we translate God’s good news for our world today?  Jesus who uses the metaphor of a fishing net saying he will make his disciples fish for people.  We get to translate how this wonderful tool for fishing but not so wonderful tool for the fish who are captured in it becomes a vehicle for God’s good news in Jesus Christ. 

For a fish the net means certain death to be caught up in it.  Is this what it means to die to ourselves, to recognize the limits of our humanity, to name our brokenness? We are a caught people or in those old familiar words, “I am in bondage to sin and cannot free myself.”  How do we translate that for today? 

For the one who wants to catch fish, the net is a beautiful tool that gives access to fish.  How does Jesus teach them to fish for people as he draws them in, capturing their attention so that they don’t dart away from the net?  Jesus heals people, casts out demons and teaches the Hebrew scriptures with authority not just an opinion or a review of the best scholars of the time.    Is our conversation about Jesus compelling and respectful so that it captures other’s attention?  Do we share with others how Jesus has caught us up and drawn us in?

Is Jesus the net in the metaphor?  Who slips around us, coming up to our speed and pulling us in?  Is Jesus the one who fishes, casting the net, trying to pull us out of the waters of chaos into what looks like death for us but transforms us into food, food for the world.  Jesus crosses those boundaries, God becoming human, giving his body for us to eat, so that we would remember, so that we would be fed on his very being, so that we would have life.  

Jesus teaches us how to be disciples by giving us his body and blood in bread and wine and gives us his body and blood on the cross and into the tomb to resurrected and returned life that finds home in God.  Is Jesus teaching us that he is both fish and net and the one who fishes for people drawing them into what seems like death in order to give them new life?   

How do we translate this today?  What lessons do we take from the net and fish and disciples following Jesus and Jesus teaching them how to fish for people.  How do we cast our net, our tools with our family members and friends in daily conversations and life unfolding events?  Jesus gives us plenty of metaphorical and symbolic room to figure out how our story weaves together with God’s story.  The Holy Spirit works with us as we trust and keep looking to God’s story while we live our story now.  Like fishing, we keep at it day after day.  No fish are ever caught in a net that isn’t cast into the water.  Little by little the Holy Spirit works in and through us as we figure out how to spread God’s good news in Jesus.  It is a wild and death-defying story drawing us home to God.  I am grateful we get to journey together on this fishing expedition.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack