CELEBRATING ST. PATRICK’S DAY
by Don T.
On March 17, those
with Irish ancestry, or just an Irish heart, celebrate their patron saint. We hear lots of Danny boy and Mother
Machree, shillelaghs, and jigs. Nothing
wrong with that. But the Irish have
given us so much more than fine tenors and smiling eyes.
At the end of
the 4th century A.D., Ireland would seem an unlikely place to produce anything
relevant to Western civilization. It
had never been a part of the Roman Empire, and it was untouched by
Christianity. Its warrior chieftains
not only slaughtered each other routinely but also did a brisk business in
raiding neighboring lands and selling captives as slaves. As it happened, one of those slaves changed
everything.
A boy named Patricius, son of a well-to-do landowner in Britain, was captured, taken to Ireland,
sold to a Celtic chieftain, and forced to herd sheep in the Irish hills for 6
years. After a dream inspired him, he
made an incredible escape, walking 200 miles to the coast and finagling his way on board a boat bound for Gaul (modern France) Eventually he made it home to his family in Britain and to a
comfortable life, had he wanted it. But another dream told him to return to
Ireland. He studied for 12 years in
preparation for becoming a missionary in the uncivilized country where he had
been a slave. In 432 A.D., having been ordained as Patrick, a
bishop, he returned to Ireland.
During the
next 30 years, Patrick, through his teaching and his heroic example,
Christianized and transformed his adopted land. Wherever he went, he discouraged slavery and violence and
inspired an atmosphere of learning. He
established hundreds of monasteries where newly educated scholars spent their
days copying unwieldy and fragile scrolls onto high-quality parchment books
that would last.
This work was
in the nick of time. For while Ireland was coming out of barbarity in
an astonishingly short time, Europe was sinking into chaos under wave after
wave of attack by hordes from the
north and east. The great libraries of Europe were utterly destroyed, and
literacy was lost in the region that had been the high point of Western
culture. Medieval darkness descended.
But a light
still shone in a remote western island.
Irish monks preserved copies of books and a habit of literacy, and
heroic Irish missionaries later carried this culture back to Europe. Paul L. Maier, Professor of History at
Western Michigan University, claims that all books written before the year 1000
A.D., including the Greco-Roman classics, the Bible, and other Jewish and
Christian theological works might well have been lost had it not been for the
manuscript copying in the Irish monasteries.
If this is even half true, what a debt we owe to the Irish.
So let us
give thanks on March 17 to the anonymous Irish monks and the Irish heroes who
enabled learning to survive in Europe.
They gave us our Bible. They
gave us Plato. They gave us Homer. They gave us Virgil. They gave us Augustine and the other Church
Fathers. They gave us the foundation of
our civilization.
________________________________________________________________________
“All work is prayer, and all art is praise” John Ruskin.
________________________________________________________________________
Time for Service The Service / Outreach Committee is
considering several new projects for this year. We would like you to consider these projects and let us know
whether you would be interested in participating in one, two or all three of
these projects.
Adopt-A-Highway
- This is a roadside cleanup program that allows a group to adopt a
minimum of two miles of highway.
Shalom would be responsible to cleanup roadside debris at least 3 times
a year. The Michigan Department of
Transportation will put up a sign in each direction for the highway section
that lists Shalom Community Church as
the cleanup group for that section. Mi
DOT asks for at least 6 individuals committing with at least 3 alternates. Age limits – 12 years of age or older.
Mennonite Disaster Service Project– Many of our jobs prevent us from easily
leaving on the spur of the moment to go to a disaster relief project. MDS usually has ongoing projects that we
could participate in as a group. To do
this, we plan on designating one particular week August. This would allow us to schedule vacation
time. The plan is to go as a group to
wherever MDS has a project. Minimum
group size – 1 (the more the merrier).
Age limit – uncertain but would need to be able to participate without
close supervision.
Huron River Watershed Council –
This is a group that works on conserving the Huron River. They have various projects ongoing
throughout the year that include cleanup
and assessing the state of the river.
In April they have the Huron River Roundup which looks at various
aspects of wildlife around and in the river.
This would be a great family project and allow us to help preserve a
natural environment in Ann Arbor.
Service and Outreach Committee: Priscilla C, Cindy S , Derek
Y, Leland R, Jesse M, Jenna B.
________________________________________________________________________
The Pastoral Search Committee has tabulated the surveys that members of
the congregation completed in December and has held several focus group
meetings to gather additional
information that will be used to provide a profile of the congregation for
pastoral candidates. This information
also helps us understand what the congregation is looking for in we
pastor. These profiles will be
completed and submitted to the Mennonite and Church of the brethren conference
offices by March 1. The committee has
also decided to run ads in several periodicals. We encourage you to let your
friends know that we are looking
for a new pastor so that the word may circulate to potential candidates
who may not be actively looking for a
new position as well as those who are.
The committee thanks all those who
completed surveys and attended focus group meetings. We appreciate your participation and ask for your continued
prayers to support us in this task. We
will be publishing final survey tabulations and focus group notes.
Hollis S, Laurie
Y, Janet R, Evie N, Roxanne C, Curtis
W.
________________________________________________________________________
The Differently Talented Man
By the talented Mr. Jesse M.
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far
away, there was a land where it was always winter retreat. And this land was
known as Perpetual Winter Retreat Land.
And, as you can imagine, this was a land of much joy and happiness. And
in Perpetual Winter Retreat Land there was a young man who, like everyone else,
was very happy. He loved the fact that
there was always snow on the ground so he could go cross-country skiing, or
tubing whenever he wanted. There was
also a lot of hymn singing, and everyone had become very skilled at square
dancing. The very best part of living in Perpetual Winter Retreat Land was the
weekly talent show. It seemed to the
young man that everyone was so talented.
There were so many musically talented people who always got lots of
applause, and so many other people were just so witty. and this came out in the
skits they performed. The young man was
very impressed.
Unfortunately, not everything was
perfect for the young man in Perpetual Winter Retreat Land. He was even, perhaps, a little sad. And the reason for this sadness was, in fact,
the talent show that he loved so much.
You see, while this young man enjoyed watching the talent shows, he had
not actually participated in one himself.
It's not that the young man was not talented. He was just "differently" talented. And none of his talents were very conducive
to a talent show. Nevertheless, he
craved the laudatory sort of attention that only talent show participants
received.
At first he naively thought that any sort of participation
would satisfy this talent show urge, so he started taking on bit parts in
skits, and being a page-turner for some of the musicians. But while he got a lot of applause while
doing this, he never really felt like the applause were directed towards him, which is probably because, in fact, it
wasn’t. He soon realized that page-turners just were not really appreciated. So
the young man made a decision. He
decided that despite having "different" talents, he would just have
to adapt them to a talent show format.
And because there was a talent show every week, there were many
opportunities for success…or failure.
Unfortunately, all he experienced was failure. For instance, he was very skilled at using a microscope, but he
discovered that people just are not entertained by watching someone looking
through a microscope, especially since he wasn't actually looking through a
microscope, but only pantomiming looking through a microscope because, of
course there weren't any actual microscopes in
Perpetual Retreat Land. This was
followed by other failures. He tried to stage an exhibition of Ultimate
Frisbee. Unfortunately, in his
eagerness to demonstrate his skill at the sport, he tried to make a diving grab
of the disc, but ended up taking out the first row of spectators, while the
Frisbee went past and broke a window.
In his final attempt at talent show success (this was a very determined
young man), the differently talented man tried
to put on a birdwatching exhibition.
This didn’t work either though.
There just weren’t many birds in the auditorium. Finally, he resigned himself to the fact
that he was just “differently” talented, and he would never be ale to
demonstrate his talents effectively at the talent show. Later that night he sat on his bed and
lamented, “Oh, why can’t I just be good at playing an instrument. Oh, if I could only be funny, that would
change everything.” But the young man
was not funny.
At the next weeks talent show he
reached the low point. He was sulking
in the back row feeling very depressed.
there was a young woman performing a violin solo at the time and he
suddenly was overcome with sadness and anger.
“Booh” he moaned almost quietly at first, but discovering that is felt
rather therapeutic, he was soon bellowing out, “Booh! BoooBoohoooh!” Everyone
turned and looked at him as he was quickly ushered out of the auditorium. As he left he could hear the people
whispering, “Why, we haven’t had a booer in over 50 years”. “I thought she was pretty good,”someone else
said
After he was thrown out of the
auditorium the young man sat on the stairs in the snow, stunned by what he had
just done. "What would life be
without being able to attend the weekly talent show?" he thought, for
surely they would never let him back into the auditorium again. Just then a young woman came out of the
auditorium and sat next to him. He did
not recognize her and was pretty sure she had never performed in the talent
show. "Why did you boo the violinist?" she asked. "I thought she
was pretty good.""Oh that's the point." the young man
replied. And he went on to explain why
he was so sad. When he finished with
his story the woman said to him "I think it's great that you're
differently talented. Perpetual Winter
Retreat Land wouldn't be any fun if everyone was skilled in only talent-show
conducive skills. In fact," she
added, "I'm differently talented too. I enjoy playing tennis, mountain climbing, and I'm an
aspiring surgeon. You can't do any of those things in a talent show." The
young man immediately fell in love. The
differently talented man and the differently talented woman quickly got married
and went on to live a very happy life together doing non-talent show- conducive
things. And once again everything was
well in Perpetual Winter Retreat Land
The Worship Committee invites everyone to join
in the study of Richard Foster’s “Streams of Living Water”. The services from March 4 through April
22 (with the exception of March 11 when
a group from Bluffton College will be doing the service) will be based on “the
six dimensions of faith and practice that define Christian tradition” In the introduction Foster states, “The
astonishing new reality ntorthis mighty flow of the Spirit is how sovereignty
God is bringing together streams of life that have been isolated from one
another for a very long time” The
Traditions,: according to Foster are,:
The Contemplative Tradition, or the prayer filled life;
The Holiness Tradition, or the virtuous lfe;
The Charismatic
Tradition, , or the Spirit-empowered life;
The Social
Justice Tradition, or the compassionate
life;
The Evangelical Tradition, or the Word- centered Life;
The Incarnation Tradition,
or the sacramental life.
The adult Sunday School classes will
follow the book as well. Ben R will do
an introductory class on history of the christian church. on March 4.
That Sunday, we will step into the Evangelical Stream in the worship
service and will discuss that chapter the following Sunday in the SS class,
and will follow that pattern
throughout. This will be the only SS
option for adults during this time.
We believe this will be a meaningful structure during this
time of Lent to reflect on what we hold to be essential.
The committee also wishes to thank folks for their
willingness to participate and to play a variety of roles , especially during
this time when we do not have a pastor.
We also appreciated the fine participation in the Feb. congregational
meeting.
Worship committee:
Laurie Y, Dave P, Corrine H, Ruth S, Galen T.
Editor’s Note:
I hope you noticed that there was no Jan./Feb.
Newsletter. Forgive me. In the fine tradition of Maria, I am
expecting to have the Shepherd out every 2 months. If my desktop publishing and I start to communicate more clearly
with each other, it may even begin to look flashy like Maria’s. The next issue will be due to come out the
last Sunday in April. Since I will be
away April 5-26, it will be delayed by one week.
Here are the kinds of things would like to continue to
receive for the Shepherd:
Small articles or writings, including poetry,reflections.,stories,
etc. These could be topics of spiritual
significance, brief thoughts or insights, etc.
Information from committees and others.
News such as
transitions , introductions, and anything else you think people might want to
know or you want them to know about your lives.
Reports re service projects, trips or other experiences.
And...............
Youth opportunity: I would
like to have a youth and children’s page. If anyone would like to assist with putting
or getting that page together, please speak up.
When are things due:
You may submit items any time but no later than mid month of the month
before the next issue is due. I do not
get some attachments, so putting your submission in the body of the e-mail
works well. Thanks-you.
Your servant editor of the Shepherd,
gertrude warkentin