I take my book and go out to sit and read on the screened porch.

First, I listen for the cicadas. It's not as hot an afternoon as some recently have been; the cicadas aren't making the racket they were several days ago in the extreme heat! I sit very still when I see goldfinches dive-bomb to land on the bird bath. I love the way they do that! There are three of them this time, one a brilliant yellow-and-black male, and two females more muted in color. They take little birdy sips of water, and then make the five foot flight to the Corn Flowers and Black Eyed Susans. Those perennials are pretty much nothing but seed pods at this time of the summer, which suits the goldfinches just fine. They get to work, diligently plucking seeds, the weight of their tiny bodies making the flower stalks sway. A hummingbird darts here and there, checking out various blooms.

I'm totally, wonderfully distracted. I haven't yet opened my book!

After a while, I do, though, and begin to read. It's an engrossing book. We are all co-existing in the environment then, doing our thing: the insects, the birds, and the human being.

Ah -- Freshman move-in day at the College! What excitement! What stress! It was fun to visit with the Lutheran Student Association members who are helping families move their son or daughters' possessions into their dorm rooms. It was fun (from my vantage point of "been there, done that" long ago!) to watch the effects of the excitement and stress on the new students and their parents. Some were bubbly and joyous. Others were snippy and grim-faced. Those in the College administration who plan this day and the campus police officers do a fabulous job of creating order and smoothness out of what could be extreme chaos!

This Sunday is one of my favorite of the whole year -- when we welcome new students and returning students to worship! The College students bring such energy to our congregation! Patty and I will have the LSA officers over to our house Sunday evening for a cook out, and the first planning meeting of the year.

It's made headlines in this morning's paper: that the name of one victim is misspelled on her memorial stone, in front of Norris Hall on the Virginia Tech campus! Slain Virginia Tech professor Jocelyne Couture-Nowak's name is misspelled "Courture-Nowak."

What a screw-up!

But here's what most impresses me about the whole deal: the reaction of Professor Couture-Nowak's husband, Jerzy Nowak. He said that the school's officials apologized to him for the mistake and he said, "I feel sorry for them actually. It's another hassle, and it's a rather difficult name to spell. I wish it was proof-read before. It's not upsetting."

I don't know if Professor Nowak is a Christian. But his response is radically Christian! What grace and forgiveness.

The Christian gospel of grace and forgiveness is so radical that it is offensive to our sensibilities of what is right and what is wrong. Here's how offensive: It would be true to that gospel if the memorial would include a stone with the name of the killer himself, who also died at Norris Hall. In this world, that would never happen. That act would provoke the same sort of outrage that Jesus faced, in reaction to the radical gospel of grace and forgiveness that he enfleshed.

A prayer for today, from Ephraem the Syrian (4th century): "O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of laziness, meddling, ambition and vain talk. But give me a spirit of prudence, humility, patience and love. Yes Lord and King grant me to see my own sins and faults, and not judge my brother. For you are Blessed Forever and ever. Amen"

There is so much to do each day. There is too much to do. We will never get done what needs to be done!

And so, it is important to stop several times during the day, to allow the Holy Spirit to demolish the lie we tell ourselves -- that we can do all that needs to be done. It is a spiritual practice to remember that the day is God's gift, and that God will have us accomplish what we are to accomplish.

Here are good ways to remember that:
To pray for a few minutes early in the morning, giving thanks to God for a new day.
To pause for a few minutes in the middle of the morning to read one of the Psalms appointed for the day, and to give thanks to God for your work.
To pause for 10 minutes at noon time for prayer.
To pause for a few minutes in the middle of the afternoon, to read another one of the Psalms appointed for the day, and to give thanks to God for your work.
To pray for a few minutes at the end of the afternoon, before making the transition into evening activities, to thank God for the day's work just past.

Thankfulness is a gift of sabbath time.

I recently enjoyed a very "heady" experience over a period of a couple of days -- of several people independently telling me how wonderful I am, and how good I am at the work I do, and what a profound (even life-changing) effect I've had on people! Wow! What flattery!

I hear enough of that, and it puffs me right up! Yesiree bob, I'm pretty special, aren't I? In fact, I'm pretty much the most special guy to come along in a long, long time. Everyone adores me. Me! Me! Me! (The hubris that soon results is breathtaking!)

Then -- with all of that happening, I came across a passage from Teresa of Avila (16th century) that was appointed as one of the daily readings in the devotional book I use. It was appointed for the very day I was feeling so puffed up:

Unless you are careful, praise from others may harm you greatly, for when once it begins it never ceases, and generally ends in running you down afterwards. This usually takes the form of telling you that you are more holy than others and suchlike flattering speeches.

For the love of God, I implore you never to find your peace in such speeches for you might come to believe them, or to think you had done all you need and that your work was finished.

Remember how the world treated our Lord Jesus Christ, yet how it had extolled him on Palm Sunday! Men so esteemed St. John the Baptist as to mistake him for the Messiah, yet how barbarously and for what a motive they afterwards beheaded him!

Always struggle within your own heart against these dangerous flatteries, then you will go forth with deeper humility.

May God, of his great bounty, give us light.

Well, those who were flattering me weren't putting me on a pedestal as high as Our Lord Jesus Christ, or St. John the Baptist. And I certainly hope that folks won't turn around and behead me someday in the future! But the rest of these sentences were precisely what I needed to be reminded of. (Isn't the Spirit always speaking to us, and when we're alert, we hear that?)

In the beloved 13th chapter of First Corinthians, St. Paul holds up "faith, hope, and love" for special emphasis. They are, of course, essential to the Christian life. But I would hold up a fourth virtue as equally necessary: a healthy humility, to be received as a gift of the Spirit!

What a great website is www.explorefaith.org! Those who have created the website describe it as, "Spiritual guidance for anyone seeking a path to God." But it is deeply rooted in the Christian tradition.

The website has teaching on prayer and interviews with spiritual writers. This morning I've printed out several pieces from the site that I think will be helpful for paricipants on a retreat I've been asked to lead by the Synod, on prayer. They are short essays on "The Divine Hours: Praying the Way Jesus Prayed" and "The Diviine Hours: A Brief Histry of Fixed-Hour Prayer" and "Creating a Sacred Space" and "Centering Prayer." Wonderful stuff!

It is found!!

Yesterday morning, when gathering my stuff together to go into the office, I COULD NOT FIND MY DATEBOOK!! Feeling increasing panic, I searched through everything I had brought home the previous evening from the Synod Vocations Conference, several times. I searched in the car I had driven. My calendar was not to be found.

I got to the church office, and Sandy said, "You look terrible!" When I explained what was going on, she shared my panic! I called the conference center and told them what my room number had been. Since I had left the conference a day early to get back to what I needed to do here, I called the cell phones of several participants still there -- and could only leave messages, because they were in the final session of the conference. Every time the phone rang I hoped it was work about my appointment book. I worked on the sermon for this Sunday, and waited. I worked on the letter sent out to students and parents in the upcoming Affirmation of Baptism classes, and waited. I talked to several people on the phone and, in my anxiety, it was all I could do to be civil! The person from the conference center called to say that their housekeeper had searched the room and hadn't found the datebook. Desolation! I envisioned having to send out an e-mail to everyone on my address list this morning, asking that, if they had scheduled conversations or baptisms or weddings with me in the weeks and months to come, to e-mail me back so I could reconstruct my calendar.

At lunchtime, the phone rang. It was one of the conference participants. Yes, he had my datebook!! He's putting it in the mail to me. (Sandy and Robin, imagining the panic they would feel if they lost their datebooks, let out a cheer at the news!)

Time and again I have heard and I have read (and I have said!!) that God values us because of who we are, as precious children, and not because of what we accomplish or do. So -- what does it mean that so much of our lives are contained in our calendars and datebooks? Why is it that we become so frightened when we lose track of what we have scheduled in the coming days? Why do we feel so threatened when there is something that prevents us from doing our work?

Since it rained last night, I went out early this morning to pull some weeds out of the soft earth. As I did the work, I spent some time meditating on work. In monasteries, most monks do manual, agricultural labor, which is often repetitive. Monks train themselves to see their work as prayer. They center in God as they work. They focus on the work itself, and so there is no boredom. They do not concern themselves about the results of their work, and so there is no anxiety. (They do that, of course, as much as is humanly possible!! Monks are just as sinful as any of us, just as disconnected from God.)

I thought about what I have learned from monks about work, while weeding. I only had an hour or so to devote to the work, and I could not come close to finishing the job. If I weeded for an entire day I still would not finish the work. So I tried to be monastic, not thinking about how much I had done, and how much I still had to do. Such worry turns work into a curse! Instead, I tried to center in God's presence, simply doing the work for its own sake. And you know what? When I looked up after the hour, what an improvement there was in the patch of the liriope bank I had been working in! I had simply been doing the work. I had not been worrying about how much I was accomplishing. But what results!

Just back from the Virginia Synod Vocations Conference. This is an annual event for those from the Virginia Synod who are in seminary, or entering seminary, or interested in seminary. There's information sharing and relationship building, and I am very proud of how many people have come out of our congregation or campus ministry program who are in the candidacy process towards becoming ELCA pastors!

At this week's event, there was Kathy Schroeder (many people now call her "Kate") who has just begun her internship. She's at Gettysburg Seminary. There was Kate Proctor, who was a member of our Lutheran Student Association. She begins at the seminary in Philadelphia next week. There was Brett Wilson, an LSA graduate, who has been teaching high school for two years. There was Haley Poynter of our congregation and Deanna Scheffel and Leslie Scanlon of our LSA, all three rising seniors in college. Brett, Haley, Deanna and Leslie plan to enter seminary a year from now!

And -- there are two recent graduates of our LSA who "belong" to other Synods: Joel Neubauer who just graduated from Gettysburg Seminary, and Mikey Powell, who's just finished his second year at Trinity Seminary in Ohio. And, of course, we had to transfer Cheryl Griffin from our membership rolls to Reformation Lutheran Church in Newport News a couple of years ago when she was ordained and called to serve at Reformation!!

It is deeply gratifying to be available for those who are discerning a call to ordained ministry! What a service we are providing for the whole church, by whatever is going on in our congregation and our campus ministry program, where the Spirit is producing the best and the brightest candidates to be pastors!

Well, I'm back to speed after two weeks of vacation. These days are a joyous time in the church building, with 50 children here for Vacation Bible School, and I've sent out invitation letters to incoming Lutheran students arriving in two weeks at the College, and I'm working on the roster and schedule for this year's Affirmation of Baptism study, and I'm nearly finished with the sermon for this Sunday, and what a lot of people we have right now with serious health concerns...

But I'm in good emotional and mental shape, after the two weeks away. My vacation time was a wonderful opportunity to sleep and to read, and then to sleep some more!

Indeed, it was holy time.

I use the word "vacation" because that's what we Americans say. But I prefer what the British call it when they take time off: "holiday." That's a contraction, of course, of "holy day," and rest time is holy. Time for rest is a gift from God -- so that we will be healthy, and so we will be joyous in doing the work God gives us to do!

Please be healthy in your rhythm of work and rest.