​So, I jet back to Oklahoma Monday and Tuesday to do a Graveside Life Celebration for the mother of a friend in Oklahoma City. I was in Oklahoma City for only 24 hours and for the first time since I left in May of 2016 to come to New Jersey. It was a quick turn-around! I got to see some old friends from my advertising career. It was great to catch up! 
 
One of my old friends brought me back to the airport for the flight home and on the way there, she’s telling me about her daughter’s fiancé. The guy’s mother used to be Muslim and she converted to Christianity a few years ago and wrote a book about the experience. 
 
Islam is our friend, Christians. Go back in Genesis and read the story of Abraham and Sarah. At first they can’t have kids, so Sarah gives her slave woman, Hagar, to Abraham to produce offspring. Ishmael is born! Later, God opens Sarah and she gives birth to Isaac. Fast forward, Sarah’s got a child of her own now and no longer has any interest in Ishmael and Hagar. 
 
Abraham kicks them out of the house! Now do you remember God’s promise to Abraham that he will make a great nation? That his offspring will be as numerous as the stars in the sky? Yes, that promise. That promise includes Ishmael. God promises Abraham that from Ishmael will descend an entire nation just like from Isaac! 
 
So—from Ishmael comes the nation of Islam. These are our spiritual brothers and sisters—the whole other family descended from Abraham. Judeo-Christians and Muslims are all sons and daughters of Abraham! We worship the same God, but Islam calls our God by the Arabic name—Allah. 
 
This Saturday at sundown marks the beginning of the high Holy Month of Ramadan. 
 
I’ll never forget my first Ramadan Iftar. 
 
I was invited to the breaking of the fast with a friend from college and his Muslim community at Oklahoma State back in the day. So much fun! And great food! Good times!
 
Ramadan falls in the 9th month of the Islamic calendar. Like our Easter and Lent, the date moves around because their calendar is 11 days shorter than ours. 
 
It’s similar in a lot of ways to Lent but their traditions are more strict than ours. For example, for our fast we “give up something for Lent” to be reminded of Jesus’ fasting in the desert for his 40 days. 
 
The Islamic fast is every day, with no food or drink of any kind from sunrise to sunset for the 29 or 30 days of Ramadan. Every day! The symbolism of the fast allows them to understand the suffering of others. They spend their time (just as we might in Lent) focused on spiritual reflection, prayer, good deeds, time with family and friends, and reading the Qur’an. 
 
They wake with the “Suhoor” or morning meal before sunrise. Then, fast all day and break the fast after sunset with the “Iftar” meal. Two meals a day for a month. Typically, the Iftar is a time to celebrate with friends and family and community which they often do during the holiday. 
 
There are exemptions to the fasting ritual. It’s obligatory but there’s slack for children and the elderly, those who are sick, women who are pregnant or nursing babies, and if you’re traveling a long distance. If you’re sick during Ramadan, you’re obligated to make up the fasting at later time. 
 
Just like our Lent, Ramadan is a time for Muslims to commit themselves to their faith and more to God. 
 
The end of the holiday comes at first sight of the new moon in the sky—just like Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon after the Spring Equinox. And, Muslims all over the world observe the end of Ramadan with a big festival called Eid al-Ritr—“The Breaking of the Fast.” Family and friends gather to thank Allah for the blessing, support, and strength during the month of fasting. The custom is to give alms at Eid, that is: donate to the poor and those in the margins. 
 
As we’re making the turn to our final days of Lent, they’re just getting started. These are incredible holidays. And I always try to remember to cut them some slack because they’re not just skipping lunch—they cannot eat or drink anything at all between first light and sunset. That’s a long day!
 
Ramadan Mubarak,
Scott
 
*Happy Ramadan!
 
 
 

This is about the midway point. For Lent. 3 Sundays in, 3 Sundays to go before we’re into Holy Week and Easter Sunday.  
 
This is as good a time as any for the halftime pep-talk. 
 
I’m sure this won’t surprise anybody. I was one of those kids who always had to have something going on. The older I am, I better I get about it.
 
Once I when I was working on my Masters, I was complaining to one of my mentors about the sun not coming up early enough for me to sit outside and study. He says, “Well, what’s wrong with just sitting?” And I’m all like, “these books don’t read themselves.” But, just sitting is hard—even though I’m better about it. 
 
Like, the Richard Foster Celebration of Discipline really informs how I “just sit.” Because I see that time “just sitting” as time with God. Like focused. And very real. Very present.
 
Sometimes it’s meditation. Sometimes it’s prayer. “Just sitting” is a way of submission for me. I’m really trying. I’m really trying to work all this in.
 
But Holy Week is coming. It feels like it’s coming hard and fast: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday. Pow! It’s coming fast.
 
So how are you doing?
 
It’s halftime.
 
How’s it going for you?
 
I hope and pray that you’re living into your plan, whatever that looks like. I hope and pray you’re living into your fasting or your own set of disciplines or new things you’re trying. I hope that’s working for you.
 
Don’t worry if it’s not. You can always jump back on track or try a new track—try something new if what you’re doing isn’t happening. Setting up new routines is okay. 
 
This is not “law.” Richard Foster cautions about that, actually: “Nothing puts people into bondage like religion.” So, let that go right away. Don’t hold onto to all this so tightly. 
 
Having said that, I have one routine that never gets old. Never! My quiet time in the mornings. Even if I’m not “just sitting,” I don’t ever get tired of spending time with God. Not ever. 
 
Carve out some time for yourself to do the same. Spend a little time with God. Maybe just sitting. Time with God is good time—always in all ways. It saves me.
 
Oswald Chambers puts it this way: 
“We all have those times when there are no flashes of light and no apparent thrill to life, where we experience nothing but the daily routine with its common everyday tasks. The routine of life is actually God’s way of saving us between our times of great inspiration…” 

​Thanks Ozzy!
 
So here we are, looking at halftime. I don’t know what your routine looks like, but I can only testify to my experience. I can encourage you to develop a spiritual routine of your own. Do it for yourself and I promise it won’t feel routine. Not ever.   
 
Whatever you do, it will save you between your times of great inspiration. It will see you through. It gets you to the second half.
 
Grace & Peace,
Scott

​It’s my brother’s birthday (Wednesday). Well, it would have been. Most of you know that John died at the end of August. He’s been gone a little over 6 months. 
 
We all tried to get him to stop. His wife and son, my parents, my siblings, me. We even staged an intervention and got him into treatment. He went through two different 30-day programs and a half-way house. Meetings. All of it. But the addiction was too much. 
 
Even AA, as good as it is, has a success rate of about 6%. It’s hard to break the cycle. It’s probably not as addictive as nicotine, but it’s gotta be close. It’s hard to just “stop.” Obviously, most people can’t do it.   
 
John was a character! John was a force of nature. By the time he was 3 or 4, we were on a first-name basis with the Emergency Room staff at St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa. And when he was about 5, John went up and down our block introducing himself to the neighbors on his birthday. He asked them all if they had a present for him. I know, right? Pretty bold! That’s John!
 
John wore his life on his sleeve. He was unapologetically unfiltered and authentic. He never put on airs or pretense. John was always who he was—the same guy in broad daylight as darkness. 
 
Psalms 25-27 are amazing when you read ‘em together. Each of them stands on its own, but together they are the sum of their parts. All about living into being a child of God. Now John was a very spiritual guy—wandering in and out on his faith journey, just like all of us. And while we all probably don’t always “trust in the Lord without wavering”—John absolutely did not always—but John did always “walk in his integrity.” Authentically John. Always. 
 
And it makes me wonder if we could do that. What if? What if we all tried to live as though we wrote Psalm 26? 

1 Vindicate me, O Lord,
    for I have walked in my integrity,
    and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.
2 Prove me, O Lord, and try me;
    test my heart and mind.
3 For your steadfast love is before my eyes,
    and I walk in faithfulness to you.[a]
4 I do not sit with the worthless,
    nor do I consort with hypocrites;
5 I hate the company of evildoers,
    and will not sit with the wicked.
6 I wash my hands in innocence,
    and go around your altar, O Lord,
7 singing aloud a song of thanksgiving,
    and telling all your wondrous deeds.
8 O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell,
    and the place where your glory abides.
9 Do not sweep me away with sinners,
    nor my life with the bloodthirsty,
10 those in whose hands are evil devices,
    and whose right hands are full of bribes.
11 But as for me, I walk in my integrity;
    redeem me, and be gracious to me.
12 My foot stands on level ground;
    in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.*

​What if? 
 
I sure do miss him. 
 
Grace and Peace,
Scott
 
*NRSV

​By now you probably know. I get up early every day and the first thing I do is sit with God and my coffee. Every day. Without fail. Before anything else. It’s what I do. 
 
I read The Bible following the Daily Lectionary.
I read Richard Rohr.
I sometimes read Oswald Chambers.
I pray the Divine Hours with Phyllis Tickle. 
 
I pray for you. Our church. Our congregation. 
 
And, I read J. Philip Newell.  Finally available on Kindle!
 
Today’s Philip Newell prayer speaks to us, you and me, as your Discernment Team works through the “Turning the Page” time of discernment for FPC. Ideally, it’s full of your voice, the voice of our community, and the Holy Spirit! Your joys, your hopes and prayers for our church—hits and misses. All of it.
 
We’re jumping out into the current—feeling, waiting, listening, and watching for God. What is God doing with us? And what’s next?
 
Here’s this morning’s Philip Newell. Breathe it in as I do…

All things come from you, O God,
and to you we return.
All things emerge in your great river of life
and into you we vanish again.
At the beginning of this day
we wake
not as separate streams
but as countless currents in a single flow
the flow of this day’s dawning
the flow of this day’s delight
the flow of this day’s sorrows
your flow, O God,
in the twistings and turnings of this new day.*

You’re in the flow.
I’m in the flow.
Our world is in the flow.
All of us. 

God is always at work with us—always in all ways, as countless currents in a single flow. No matter what.

Come Holy Spirit, come.
Even so, come Lord Jesus!
 
Grace & Peace,
Scott

*from Praying with the Earth: A Prayerbook for Peace 
by J. Philip Newell.

I’m inspired by the Hispanic community over in Morristown. I saw an ad for Miércoles de Ceniza and of course, it means:
 
Ash Wednesday.
 
Lent already?
 
I know, right? What happened? Another year.
Boom!
 
Get your ashes here tonight (Wednesday), at 7pm in the sanctuary and on Facebook Live. If you’re streaming remotely, grab some bread or crackers—juice or wine—for the Lord’s Supper. 
 
Let’s do a little worship tonight! You’ll be in and out in less than 45 minutes, I promise. Then you can spend the rest of the evening wondering if you smudged your forehead. Just sayin’…
 
No matter how you’ve chosen to observe Lent—that part tends to be an individual thing. But, it’s also something we do together, corporately, in community. A former moderator of PC(USA), Bruce Reyes Chow, reminds us of it today. Community.
 
Although certain aspects of Lent, and any Lenten discipline, require self-reflection and self-awareness, we must not enter that endeavor believing that it is only about our individual experiences. For we are reminded over and over and over again that the journey of life, the walk to the cross, and the experience of resurrection is a communal one—together we often turn on one another and away from God; and together we can experience forgiveness, repentance, and new life; and together we can be the best of who God intends.
 
Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
 
      — Isaiah 58:6 (NRSV)  

Come tonight and let’s do this—fasting, forgiving, repenting, and being the best of who God intends. All we can do is the best we can do—whether you habla Español or not!
 
Grace and Peace,
Scott