Newsletter

"I'll just tell everyone to bring chairs and we can balance plates on our knees."

We were hosting Holy Spirits at the farm this month, and Jocie was trying to get things organized as she made that statement 3 days before folks were set to come over.

I said "Under no circumstances will that happen. I've got a pine log on the sawmill that I can turn into a picnic table with time to spare. Picnic tables are easy."

Picnic tables are pretty easy to build... if you build a picnic table. Somewhere between the log and the finished product, I decided rectangular picnic tables are boring, and what we actually needed was a hexagonal outdoor table with cantilevered legs to accommodate uneven ground, large enough to seat twelve. And so, in a couple of days, I managed to produce this:

It's not perfect by any stretch. For starters, it's green wood. It will need to be warped and in need of resurfacing by the end of summer, and at some point I'll have to decide how best to preserve it. And more than a few of the top slats needed a bit of persuading to sit correctly. But for an evening at the tail end of one of the wettest Mays on record, it met the need.

I believe that the fruit of our labor is sweeter when we choose to share it with others.

I believe when people sit at a table together and share meaningful conversations, it nourishes their whole being.

I believe it was no accident that the only new practice Jesus introduced involved breaking bread at a table together, and that a table is actually a better symbol for the Christian faith than a cross.

I believe that the silly, surprising, and sometimes off the wall conversations we have at our monthly(ish) gathering are every bit as much an expression of being church and doing life together as the more structured format of our Sunday morning worship.

I believe the next time we have Holy Spirits (I don't know the date as I write this, but it will probably be in the newsletter calendar), whether it's at our table or the table of another member family, you should come, and experience the joy of faithful fellowship for yourself.

Blessings,

Pastor Shea

This morning, my daughter has school, but my son’s school had a give back day. As most of you know, my son goes to a different school because he is diagnosed with severe autism. There are certain things that I allow my son to do unsupervised, and he and I are working towards letting him be a little more independent, and me cutting some strings. So, this morning, I asked my son if he wanted to walk his sister to school all by himself. This is something I have never let him do. There are certain things that make my anxiety level high, and this is one of them. Unfortunately, this morning it was raining, and even if it wasn’t raining, by the time he got out of bed and dressed to take her, she would have been 20 minutes late for school. So, in the car we went to drop off little sister at school. Not the outcome we wanted, but there will be other chances.

When I was younger, I thought I had cut strings with God, but little did I know, it didn’t matter how sharp my scissors were, this bond could never be cut. As I got older, I felt the pull in my heart to go back to church, to be apart from something, to open up again. I felt God pull that invisible string. As I felt that pull, I talked to my husband about it, and he was telling me the same thing. There are times when I believe there is a coincidence and there are other times when I know there is a higher being involved. This was no coincidence. This was God reminding me that we will always be connected by this unbreakable string.

Hammond Food Pantry
Jen Gardner, Director   315 324 5940
Diane Ayotte, Emergency Food and Treasurer  315 775 3557
Judy Hays, Food Sense  315 528 9067
 

Donations can be made to:
Hammond Food Pantry
215 St. Lawrence Ave

PO Box 193
Hammond, New York 13646
OR

Hammondpresbyterian.org
Click on “Give Now”
Option to designate gift for the Hammond Food Pantry