It took place in the parking lot of Menards. Not the one here in Madison, but one in Rochester, Minnesota.

We do live in a world of chain stores don’t we? When we decided to meet at Menards, we did so because we each knew exactly what we would be looking for.

Susan, Branden, and I were on the way to the Gopher State for our traditional loving task of visiting the graves of our forebears. We brought tools for cleaning headstones, cutting flowers, carrying water, and trimming away grass.

I’m not quite sure how this tradition passed from my father to me, but it has, and I find the yearly pilgrimage very fulfilling.

Because our former exchange student has a friend - also from Germany - in Austin, we invited her to work out the logistics with her friend so that we could drive her there to stay for a few nights.

Austin is the home of Hormel and everyone’s favorite canned meat, Spam. There’s even a Spam museum. Do you have a story about Spam? E-mail it to me.

The hand-off was planned for Rochester. When the host mom got out of the car, she walked up to me and asked if I had ever lived in Red Wing. My answer, "Ahhhh, yes." But I wasn’t quite sure where this was all going.

Red Wing is a Minnesota city on the Mississippi. Sue and I lived there for nearly four years. It was the place of my first call at First Lutheran Church.

Then she asked if I had served First Lutheran. "Ahhh, yes." I still wasn’t sure where this was going.

Amazing how we want to stall when we aren’t sure where a conversation is going. I suppose this comes from working with salespeople and telephone solicitors. No one wants to give out information that will get them on another list.

Turns out that I confirmed her some thirty years ago back in Red Wing. When she told me her maiden name, I recognized it. It is a small world.

My daughter Amy and her husband have a new car. It has lots of bells and whistles. (Why do we say that? As for as I can tell it doesn’t have one bell or one whistle on it.) One of the neat gadgets (us guys love gadgets) is a navigation system that talks. Really! It talks to you.

The system comes with a female voice (of course it’s female, it’s marketed for men). "She" has a very reassuring and gentle voice that contains both the timbre of a caring mother and a Victoria’s Secret model. You almost hope for a complicated route to your destination so she will talk to you a little more. (I overheard a woman in an airport explaining that her son has named the voice in his car "Tess." So, I’ll use that.)

I suppose Tess is a little like that backseat driver we’ve all endured, but with some major differences.

The backseat driver yells, "Left, left. Turn up there. Not here, there. Look out for that car. Have you got your signal on? You’ve got the arrow, go already. Who taught you to drive, anyway?"

Tess coos, "Turn left in approximately 500 feet."

The backseater hollers, "Slow down, will ya’? It’s in here somewhere. Couldn’t you have gotten a better map? Get in the other lane. I think it’s. . . . No, get back in the lane you were in. There it is. You idiot, you missed the driveway."

Tess breathes, "You’ve reached your destination. It’s on your right."

The backseat driver screams, "You dope! Don’t you know how to drive? You totally missed the turn. I told you it was coming up. How could you miss it? Didn’t you hear me? You never listen. Now I’ve got to figure this all out again. What a mess. I give up. Here, you figure it out."

Tess whispers, "I am recalculating the route."

I think maybe the New Testament shows us in Christ a God who is patient and kind. Maybe a little more like Tess. When we mess up our lives, the Lord doesn’t yell at us and make us feel guilty because of our stupidity. No, instead we are forgiven and the journey is recalculated so we start over again.

Pastor B.

PS Happy birthday, Amy.

Denver, Colorado.  The airport.  Because an airplane (United Puddlejumper 6607) couldn't get out of Chicago on time (ORD = Overbooked, Rescheduled, Delayed) Susan and I missed our connection in the Mile High City to Salt Lake City where we would visit our grandson (once you have grandkids, you no longer go to visit your kids).  The result was a yawning layover in Terminal B.

 

Terminal B stretches from Denver to Boulder and never comes within 300 miles of civilization.  It is replete with the greatest invention of the 20th century (after the airplane itself, that is) known as the "moving walkway" (aka People Mover).  In essence, it's an escalator that's afraid of heights.

 

After walking on the regular floor to one end of Terminal B and ride-walking the moving walkway back to our gate on the other end, we pretty much ran out of things to do. 

 

Two items of observation.  As the ride on the horizontal escalator ends, a sensor activated male voice warns, "Caution.  The moving walkway is about to come to an end.  Watch your step."  (By the way.  I'm pretty sure the sound system (see 12/10/06) was put in by the same company that does those unitelligable sound systems in planes.)

 

Second item of note.  The outbound walkway going by our gate was not working.  For nearly two hours I watched people come to the beginning of the moving walkway (which no one was trying to fix, by the way).  I saw a cargo plane full of reactions.  Most people had a little hitch in their step as they pondered the situation on the fly and then walked on it anyway (the funny part of this is that the sensor still worked and they got the warning at the end).  One lady got on, walked about five feet, than turned around and walked off.  One little girl hopped on (nothing happened, of course) and was quickly called back by her mom.  One older gentleman stopped for several seconds to consider the options before deciding to opt for the terra firma as many others, with less pondering, did.

 

Okay, time to make some kind of point before I write into next Monday.  Wouldn't it be great if life had some sort of a warning sensor?  "Caution.  Life as you know it is about to change.  Watch your step."  Oh, if only the crises, dilemmas, disasters, and misfortunes of our lives would give us a little warning.  Life may be a moving walkway, but there is no warning voice.  There is, however, a loving God to catch us when we trip an fall.

 

Pastor B.

So, I walked into church on Saturday afternoon a little down on myself. The Synod Assembly had proven to be a grueling three days that drained all of us bishop candidates both physically and mentally. Through three rounds of balloting, I was in the top three. After ballot number four, it was over.

So, I walked into church on Saturday afternoon a little down on myself. I had volunteered to help with the dress rehearsal for the kids' play The Life of the Party(pictures). I left the assembly before the final worship which, so I’ve heard, included the tearful good-bye worship of Bishop Carlson.

So, I walked into church on Saturday afternoon a little down on myself. As I walked in the door one of the girls from the play was jumping around at the other end of the narthex. She was too young to distinguish between and bishop and a bedpost. When she saw me come in the door she waved and hollered across distance, "Hey, Pastor B." At that moment the down-on-myself muck washed away. I like simplicity, and simply being "Pastor B" is as good as it gets.

So, I walked out of church Saturday night - after rehearsals, worship, the play, and Linda’s party - very tired both physically and emotionally. But I could not have been more content in being who I am what I am called by God to be - just "Pastor B" to a congregation I dearly love.

Pastor B.