Hi folks -

I haven't written on here much lately because I'm not exactly sure what to do with this. It's set up as a blog for First Pres, so I think I'll be closing it down when I get myself organized in Madison. Haven't thought of anything catchy for the next one yet, but I'm sure I'll have new adventures to write about soon (and without a job, a LOT more time to write :) This will stay up and have a link to it when it rolls around.

Also, here's my new email address: jessscholten@gmail.com

Grace and peace and much love,
Jess

The Season of… Ambiguity

One of Tom and my favorite movies is Pleasantville. There are certain things in life that come up again and again from the movie that seem to fit with how we experience the world. When we moved to High Point almost six years ago, we were lost an incredible amount of the time. Check out any Mid-western town on a map and you get some nice, square blocks—winding roads that regularly change from one name to another threw us for a loop. We would joke, “What’s at the end of Main Street? Why, of course, the beginning of Main Street!” The weather report on the news each morning that first February was one day after another of, “Sunny with a high of 72 and a low of 68.” For real? Yup. For real. Day after day of Pleasantville.

If you haven’t seen Pleasantville, in a very brief nutshell, it’s a movie about change—how things like knowledge and exploration alter how we experience the world. It is a progression from the known into the unknown. Pleasantville as a town moves from constant and predictable to the murky waters of giant question marks. The closing scenes of Pleasantville include the characters sitting on a park bench—“What happens next?” [queue puzzled look] “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

So it is fitting then that this transition for us from “Pleasantville,” North Carolina, back to the “Homeland,” has a lot of question marks as well. I feel like I say, “I don’t know,” quite a lot right now. The Presbyterian Women’s meeting today was on the seasons of our lives. I suppose whatever season we are in in life, there is an enormous amount of ambiguity. Thank you for traveling with me through some of mine.

Grace and peace,
Jess

Missing the Point or Right on Target?

I was scanning Life is Good flair on facebook. (For those of you out of the "flair" loop, it's basically virtual buttons for your virtual cork board for your virtual life.) People can create their own buttons and post them as well, so about one of every twenty is a play on Life is Good. Sometimes it's the funny, Life is Crap stuff, but mostly it's people who have created buttons saying things like, "Life is good--eternal life is better" or "Life (with Jesus) is good."

Uhg, there's this gut reaction in me that says these folks are missing the point.

Life is good. It doesn't have to be separated into a Jesus category to be good. Sometimes sitting around a campfire is good. Sometimes a long hike is good. And as a Christian, I see God at work in the goodness--Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer. It's impossible not to see those things through God lenses.

But then again, I appreciate those lenses. When I hike, the knowledge that God has created and sustained what is around me is moving. It deepens my experience of hiking. And maybe messing with the Life is Good theme is someone's way of trying to remind everyone of God's presence--to deepen someone else's experience in the process.

So what's your take?

I guess I have Wisconsin on the brain because just this morning I was listening to NPR and there was this guy on singing, "I've got cheeses, I've got CHEESES! I've got cheeses," and I thought, "Wow, that's seriously a WI song" until I realized it was the gospel NPR station and that guy probably had Jesus, not cheddar and swiss.





Lots of you have asked about Tom and about my visit up to Madison a few weekends ago. Tom is doing well and loving his new job. We had a great visit for his birthday. You can see more pictures at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=6079&id=1036928837&l=024e1&ref=share

Peace and joy,
Jess

I was reading Elle magazine on the plane the other day. (I know, hardly seems me, but there it is.) There was a fascinating article on mixing high fashion with lowbrow culture. The author—Stephen Milioti—wrote of seeing a woman combine a Rolex watch and David Yurman gold cuff bracelet with a white t-shirt, jeans, and sandals: “The mix of low and high in her wardrobe was studied and flawlessly executed.” Milioti went on to reflect on various ways we “slide effortlessly from elite to street”—from fashion (combining Mizrahi’s Target flats with $8000 lace pants) to politics (Hillary Clinton of Yale Law throwing back a shot in Indiana for some blue-collar appeal) to television (“You watch John Adams and American Idol.”).

I couldn’t help but immediately think of the ways we combine high and low in faith—(in an official sounding lecture voice): “According to John Calvin, the theology of atonement….”/“What a friend we have in Jesus” kind of thing. One of my favorite days of church in the last year was Stewardship Sunday—down-home puppet show silliness with old-school organ and sermon. I used to think that part of the minister’s job was to bridge these two arenas—the six semesters of theology and the real world of the congregation.

I suppose that is a pastor’s job in some ways, but what God gives us in Scripture doesn’t need the bridge—a psalmist cries out in need, a woman mourns the death of her son, a sick person reaches out in hopes of a healing touch. It’s the perfect combination of the greatness of God’s overwhelming love and the lowbrow approach of God coming to earth as a human. Talk about style!

Sacred Spaces

With so many sites and churches, one would think the holiest spots would have been during our morning touring--the spot where Jesus met the disciples, the church built over Mary's house, the path of Paul. But the most sacred spaces on the trip for me were those times of worship and reflection away from the crowds and the designated locations.

Above is our morning worship space next to the Sea of Galilee--worship in the round, with the lower left view through the trees out onto the lake. One afternoon, I spent some time there reflecting on the day and the movement of God in our lives when a small breeze ran through the tree tops. The leaves of the tree I was sitting below were wide to the point of being almost round, thick, and almost perfectly flat. As the breeze moved through them, made a clapping sound that made me think the trees of the field clapping their hands. That had always sounded like a strange verse--and praise song--to me, but I suddenly knew in a new way what that meant. I scanned every Psalm trying to find the verse--turns out it's Isaiah--but I'm thankful for the time and the reminder of the Ruach that God is indeed always with us.

Isaiah 55:1-12 Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

This is one of my favorite pictures. Not because it's especially well-framed or the people are particularly posed. Simply because it evokes such a strong memory. This was our first day of touring on the trip. We went to the top of the Arbel Cliffs and basically soaked in the view of the Sea of Galilee and the Galilean region (see below for a few more pics). The group was quiet this first day--not yet having too many inside jokes or close friendships, which is probably why we're randomly scattered.

I'm fresh from a reunion retreat with the group. Several of us took anywhere from 500 to 1200 pictures on the trip. Not one of us pulled out a camera for the reunion. Admittedly, the scenery was a little mundane in an Atlanta hotel. But who needed a camera when we were simply enjoying one another's company.

I am again overwhelmed with the grace of this trip and the gift of my fellow pilgrims.

Sea of Galilee from the Cliffs of Arbel

Cliffs of Arbel

This picture is a distinct reminder to me that I took First Presbyterian Church with me on my pilgrimage to Israel. Not because I specifically thought of you all while I took this particular picture—though I did think of you and pray for you quite a lot on the trip—but because of what happened when I came back home. Nora, our Director of Children’s Ministry, took one look at this picture and said, “I can’t wait to show the kids this picture next year on Palm Sunday!” Palms in the Holy Land. Cool. I wasn’t thinking at all of Palm Sunday when I clicked my shutter for the maybe 350th time—I was simply taking as many last pictures as I could of our beautiful retreat—the Pilgerhaus—on the Sea of Galilee before we left for Jerusalem.

What an awful week here at First Pres it’s been—funerals in threes, one of which was today’s—a man in his 40s with a lot of life yet to live. Palms and crosses and the reminder of empty tombs are most necessary, not only in Lent but for all times, not only in the Holy Land but in all places.

Grace and peace,
Jess

There is Always Something Holy

Nazareth—we’re running late. And probably by the time we get to the Church of Annunciation the Grotto of Annunciation will be closed. I’ve reflected often that the theme of Israel for Christian pilgrims is as follows: This is where Jesus did ___________ and so we built a church on it. The Church of Annunciation is where the angel Gabriel announced to Mary she would give birth to the Son of God whom she was to name Jesus.

From John: “The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see’” (John 1:43-46)

Nazareth is now a busy city of almost 200,000 people. In Biblical times, so to speak, Nazareth was all of a few hundred people at most, never mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures and not very noteworthy in other historical records. So that we might know the VERY cave in which Mary and her family resided I suppose is possible, but between my inner skeptic and our inability to actually walk down into the grotto, well, I wasn’t feeling the holiness of the whole thing.

In fact, well, I thought it was kind of ridiculous.

However, there were amazing works of art on the walls—

a collection of artistic renditions of the annunciation

from around the world—

and in a winding stairwell to the lower level of the church

were some of the most beautiful stained glass windows.

There is always something Holy.

If you can believe it, this is the Sea of Galilee on the very first night we arrived in Israel. We spent our first week of the two-week trip at the Pilgerhaus in Tabgha, a German Catholic retreat center, on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. In the background are the beginnings of the Golan Heights, behind which are the bordars of Syria and Jordan. As I share with people that I have been to Israel, one question comes up over and over again: Did you feel like you were in danger? No, we did not feel like we were in danger, at least not most of the time. It was unusual to see automatic weapons up close and to have an armed soldier enter the bus at checkpointsl; but in general, we did not feel unsafe. The small exception was one evening on the Sea of Galilee, when we could hear multiple helicoptors circling in the distance and well as military jets. This was a little jarring. We felt pretty protected where we were, but it was odd to have those sounds in the background. The next day someone found an article in the newspaper about a surprise visit by Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Jordan's King Abdullah II--thus, the air traffic.

But mostly, what we experienced that first week in Israel on the Sea of Galilee is in the picture above: peace and light and time to give thanks to God.

Grace and peace,
Jess

“Run and jump right off the end. Just run and jump.”

Right.

“Just run and jump” hasn’t been in my vocabulary since I went cliff jumping in the Minnesota Boundary Waters on an 8th grade youth group camping trip. I suppose that is ironic since when I heard these words on Saturday, I had just watched all of our 8th graders and middle school students fling themselves off a pier-like structure in a woods up near Hanging Rock park and bounce, yes, bounce their way down a zipline.

The rest of the zipline day had gone pretty well. You start out simply enough on a short line from one ground platform to another with a small gulley in between. Then they advance you along taller and longer lines and rotating platforms well up in the trees. And really, for me, all of this was cool. Fun, safe, not really challenging. But this last bonus line, the one that slacks enough so that you can be flung by your hanging gear skyward and then groundward, well, that was entirely different. Not to mention the fact that following the “run and jump” instructions always came the warnings that if you did not actually get a running head-start and jump out as far as you could you very well might a) whack your head on the end of the pier and then b) hit the ground at the end of the pier because you didn’t jump out far enough. Lovely.

I will tell you, I did run and jump. And then yelled my head off like a screaming mimi. And it was beautiful—what a rush—what a perfect ending.

Run and jump,
Jess

I got an email recently from someone who was thinking of moving to High Point and had begun to search for a church pre-move. She wrote that she had read my blog. Blog, blog... I think, yes, I remember--it's that thing I set up and promised I would reflect on in some way once a week.

Uhg, so when I got to the blog, I found a grand total of 2 entries for basically a year. That is sad. I think maybe it's the name--the contemplative pastor. Some sort of pressure to actually have a deep thought to share. My thoughts are not that deep most days.

I considered closing this one and opening a new one using the name the youth have coined for me: partypastor--yes, I am slightly proud of that, but also embarrassed (although not nearly as embarrassed as poor Ken: the Master Pastor--had to throw that in the mix for good humor). Then I could blog on how pleased I was that I had Oberon straight from the tap (well, in GLASS--I'm not THAT kind of partypastor) the other day or chilled out with James Taylor the other night (well, listened to him from row H--not a groupy partypastor).

But alas, if I can't keep up with this one on a regular basis, how on earth could I consider starting a new one? So I'm simply absolving myself of having to record deep thoughts and figured I'd try again to keep up with some sort of something or other again on a weekly basis. For the three of you still reading and encouraging me on in blogging, you're much appreciated. We'll see if we can start this going yet again.

Peace and joy,
Jess

Whenever I’m in danger of taking myself too seriously, God has this beautiful habit of making me laugh. Take for instance last Monday, when the real reconstruction of the church started, and they brought in a small wrecking ball to knock off the stairwell at the end of the hall. That afternoon, hoping to clear my head and get further away from the noise, I walked down to the other end of the hall, Bible and “Encounter with God” devotional in hand. No joke, the Scripture passage for the day was Matthew 24: “As Jesus came out of the temple and was going away, his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. Then he asked them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’”

Classic God.

Or how about the other day. Tom and I are out running errands and in deep conversation about all kinds of things—what kind of car to buy (seeing as we still own one from each of the past two decades….) and whether that spot will come back as nothing or something. Some days, life seems like it’s at a standstill, and then all of the sudden we’re trying to swallow it in one big gulp. And before we head into the watch-band shop, we have a brief theological discussion on faith and trust and how God probably doesn’t want us to keep fretting over all this stuff anyhow. On beat, as we walk into the store, the whistling starts over the loudspeaker—you know, the whistling at the beginning of “Don’t Worry—Be Happy.”

And the Creator of the Universe just keeps laughing!

Join in, joyn in!