CONGREGATION + COMMUNITY NEWS
PEOPLES PRESS
Joyfully Defiant for the Sake of a Just World
a congregation of the United Church of Christ, the Alliance of Baptists & the American Baptist Churches
Interim Insight’s
“No matter how we try to organize our religion, it never will be the last word.”
“I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
(Ephesians 3:18-19, The New Revised Standard Version)
I have to say at the outset, that I love Halloween. I love the decorating, the costumes, seeing the neighbor kids at our door, and watching Hocus Pocus on TV. I also have trouble curbing my enthusiasm for things that not everyone enjoys. One Halloween, after moving into a “fixer-upper” in September, I decided to take advantage of the house’s condition and incorporate it into my decorating. The front deck had missing and broken spindles in the railing, so I loosened a few more, strung some fake cobwebs over it all, and had creepy organ music playing in the attic (Bach’s toccata and fugue in D minor, for you music buffs). I added a smoke machine so that when the front door opened, smoke came rolling out along the ground. It was great! None of the neighbors had anything like what we had. Of course, we had very few kids come to the door! It was too scary!
We celebrate the end of October with this bizarre holiday for a lot of reasons. It owes its place on our calendars to what happens the next day, which many observe as All Saints’ Day, and the following day, All Soul’s Day. In Roman Catholicism All Saints’ Day was celebrated as a time to pray to and honor the saints of the Church. As the clock ticked down to midnight on the day before (All Hallow’s Eve, or Hallow e’en), the dead saints were thought to revisit the mortal world and all kinds of spooky things transpired. In Hispanic cultures, many traditions of Pre-Christian death commemorations were added to this three-day time period in a parallel observance of El Dia de los Muertes, The Day of the Dead. The last day of October was also the day that, in the year 1517 the ninety-five Theses or Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, a list of propositions for an academic disputation written by Martin Luther, professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg, Germany, were posted on the door of the church. He knew lots of people would be there the next day! So we Protestants now celebrate it also as Reformation Day.
But the Reformation Day/All Saints Day/Halloween/Day of the Dead melting pot (cauldron?) is about more than church debates and cultural divides. It expresses, albeit inadequately, the spiritual realities of the deep faith (sometimes accompanied by miracles) of those who have gone before us, the need for us to dredge up our deepest fears (to confront and conquer them), and the recognition that as we try to organize and structure our faith communities and the institutions that serve them, we have to continually “reform” them and throw out what is no longer serving us well. All of this is part of what the Apostle Paul was writing about in Ephesians 3. He recognized that God is always more than we imagine, more than our ability to express and more than our institutions can embody. No matter how we try to organize our religion, it never will be the last word.
It's easy to take pot shots at someone else’s values and ideas. We can pooh-pooh the idea of praying to St. Anthony to help us find our car keys, while others laugh at us for our many church splits and our “cafeteria” approach to religion, taking what we like and leaving some important things out. But Paul would not have endorsed us focusing on what others do wrong. He (following Jesus’ lead) would have said we should look at our own practices, not look down on others, and do everything in love. The fact that we have divided Christ’s church into “sects” or denominations is an occasion for confession and repentance, not celebration.
Decades ago, I heard a presentation by Michael Kinnemon, a Disciples of Christ theologian. He did a lot of work in the area of ecumenical (interchurch) relations. He said we got the cart before the horse. We think that bringing all the denominations together is something we should work on, when in reality it is already God’s gift to us. We just can’t recognize it. As Paul puts it just a few lines further on in Ephesians, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and [parent] of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” (Eph. 4:4-5, NRSV).
I don’t plan to stop decorating for Halloween. But I hope I will do a better job of seeing the value of what others bring to the rich banquet of our spiritual lives, whether it be in the Christian community or in the other religions of the world, or among people who have no organized group to join. We are all family. Amen.
Pastor Dave
Carbon Footprint Made Easy… Well, Maybe
Over the past 20 years or so, the idea of Carbon Footprint has seen increasing usage in our conversations and culture. We are going to hear much more about Carbon Footprints in the future. Getting a handle on what these imprints are is in our own best interest. For starters on this road to clarity, carbon footprints aren’t footprints at all. If that causes confusion, BBC is here to help with this brief video that could be called Carbon Footprints for Dummies. I for one found it very helpful. Watch now before continuing and save me from getting writers’ cramps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9yO-K8mwL0/
Getting a grip on your own contribution to the murderous methane pollution and destruction of our atmosphere and life on earth begins with acknowledging and understanding your own share in this human crime against the universe. Here is a link to a Carbon Footprint Calculator produced by the Nature Conservancy: https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon-footprint-calculator/?redirect=https-301. Many more calculators can be found online. Pick your favorite. Different calculators have different equations and consequently will give you different numbers. I found the important and most helpful thing about the calculators is not the numbers (which are hard to get your head around no matter what they are). The helpful part is in all the questions that you will be asked as you make your calculation. The questions will start you thinking about your own responsibility and what you can do.
In conclusion, here are some facts and links about Carbon Footprints. Enjoy.
Trees cut per year: The U.S. Forest Service estimates that one 33 year old Gumtree has about 1.2 tons of carbon stored in it (Source).
Flights from LA to Paris: Each flight from LA to Paris is equivalent to approximately 1.3 tons of CO2 (Source).
Square feet of Arctic sea ice loss: For every metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted, about three square meters (approximately 32.3 square feet) of Arctic summer sea ice is destroyed (Source).
Percent weight of a humpback whale: An adult humpback whale weighs around 36.28 metric tons (Source).
Miles driven: For this estimation, we're using an average car with a 22 miles per gallon efficiency (10.6 L/100km), and 8.887 kg of CO₂ emitted per gallon of fuel burned (Source).
Cows burping per year: A special breathalyzer measured about 0.5kg of methane burped by one cow every day. Multiply that by 25 to get the CO₂ equivalent of methane, and that's 12.5kg per day, or 4.56 metric tons per year! (Source)
Burgers eaten: Exact numbers for emissions from one burger vary from 1.8 kg to as much as 335kg (factoring in deforestation for cattle farms). We stuck to the more conservative estimate (Source).
Kendall Brown, for the Creation/Justice Team
GOOD THINGS are HAPPENING in and
AROUND US
It's that time of year, where you can help make it a Merry Christmas for the children at Voices for Children.
Information sheets will be available starting Sunday November 6th. The information sheets will have the name, age, gender and gift ideas for each child. A suggested amount is $35- $40.00 for each child.
Wrap your gifts and return them to Peoples Church by December 4th. Please put all the gifts for your family in one bag or box with the information sheet on the outside.
Thank you, Laura Eufinger
Search Committee Update, Hello Peoples Church! The Search Committee is excited to have completed our Church Profile. It has been submitted and posted on the Pastor Search pages of the UCC, American Baptist, and the Alliance of Baptists Church websites. Consequently, our task now changes. We are now in a time of waiting and you may not hear from us as frequently, but know that the Search Committee continues to meet regularly. Our focus during this time is one of seeking discernment, of developing processes, and of growing together in our common goal through meditation and prayer. Waiting, eagerly.
Thank you so much!
Carla Pierik, Search Committee Chair
UPCOMING AFFILIATE ACTIVITIES
Informational Links:
Installation Service or Edgewood UCC, Youtube
(BOOK LINK). Nov. 5th Zoom Registration
Upcoming Event Links Below:
Nov. 9th , Centering Africa at COP27
Nov. 30th Climate Hope Cards Art Contest
A COURAGEOUS CONVERSATION
Let’s discuss something ugly. Per the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, during a 12 month period (from April 2020 to April 2021) there was an estimated 100,306 drug overdose deaths within the United States. That’s an approximated 8,359 people per month, 2,090 people per week, 300 people per day and 2,006 people per each one of the 50 states (give or take a few people). (Source)
Now we could dive deep into the various reasons why someone would willingly use a substance that could potentially cause them to un-alive themselves but that’s a topic for another day. But what we can discuss today is what we could do to hopefully assist someone to come back from the brink of an overdose if we were to witness it. Please see the information provided by Jay Cummings below.
Narcan Training & Narcan Kit Acquisition
There are two options:
Genesee Health System provides in person group training. There is no cost. They have a minimum group size of 10 but can accommodate up to 50 people…Training are scheduled during the weekday. It is possible to schedule evenings but apparently requires all sorts of special approvals when training is outside of the scheduled work day. If you want to pursue this option, contact Sheila Rickman. Her desk phone is 810.496.5783 and her cell phone is 810.429.6279.
Families Against Narcotics (FAN) (familiesagainstnarcotics.org) does online training. From the homepage, click on Programs, then Naloxone training. Individuals can register online for naloxone training dates/times that fit their schedule. Upon completion individuals are mailed a Narcan kit. At no cost. FAN is located in Macomb County and some sessions are limited to Macomb County residents.
Listed on the website there are currently two trainings on the schedule:
Thursday, Oct 27 at 7:00 p.m. Virtual Training Session Registration
Saturday, Nov 12 at 11:00 a.m. Virtual Training Session Registration
FAN continuously adds new training dates to their calendar.
Of course you can always utilize both options!
JOIN THE THURSDAY NIGHT BOOK GROUP
IN THE CONGREGATION
Links are on the church calendar. Need more info? Just ask!
Adult Forum, 9:30 am Sundays, is presently in-between books. We will be reading various works of poetry until our next book has been chosen. Join us either in person at church or via Zoom .
Vigil for Racial Justice is still gathering 1-2 pm Thursdays on the Genesee Courthouse lawn.
New Text Alert System. We have shifted to a new text messaging service. If you're in our church directory, you're all set. If you're not, go here to sign up!