Preaching Next Sunday

Today we attended church at St. Paul's Lutheran Church.  It's been a while since we attended a service at St. Paul's and it was good to take in a traditional Lutheran service again.  After that it was a day of taking Maddie shopping for winter boots and then back home to spend a lazy afternoon at home.  This evening I drove Maddie back to Lincoln and as always I was sad to have to leave my little girl.  Maddie has grown up so much already this year and we're very, very proud of her and how hard she's working on her classes.

Next Sunday I'll be covering for my good friend Howard Blecha down in Humboldt, NE and preaching at the Christian Church.  Howard preaches from the Lectionary and so I'll be following that tradition and preaching over the Gospel of Luke, chapter 19:1-10.

Zacchaeus the Tax Collector

19 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd.4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

I have to tell you that when I saw what the verse was that I would be preaching over I was very excited.  This is a great story and one that has so many levels to it from which to preach.  The biggest problem may well be keeping the sermon to a manageable length.

With any luck I'll have the sermon recorded and I will post a copy here next week.

Until then, may you all be well and blessed.

In His absolute love and grace!

Roy

In Memory of Fayetta Molby

Story of Fayetta Louise Roper Molby

By Rev. Robert C. Molby and daughters

An ancient writer recorded these words of Jesus: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” John 14:1-4

On October 8, 2013, Fayetta took John, that ancient writer, up on those words that Jesus said and went to the place that He had prepared for her.

Fayetta Louise Roper Molby was born May 12, 1929 in Enid, OK to Russell LeRoy Roper and Selma Ochs Roper. Two months later they moved to Great Bend, KS. After her brother Donald was born they moved to Hutchinson, KS where the rest of her siblings were born. She was the oldest of eight, six brothers and one sister.

She received her education through the school system at Hutchinson, graduating from the high school in 1947 and going on to take training to become a Licensed Practical Nurse in Grace Hospital School of Nursing, skills she put to use in the hospital at Beloit, KS. Later, after marriage and a family of her own, she attended the Night School at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, KS graduating in 1959 with a degree in practical theology.

In addition Fayetta served as a secretary in the Solomon Valley Baptist Parish and in the public schools of Hays and Kansas City, KS as well as in the Region office of the American Baptist Churches of NE.

At an early age, around nine years old, she accepted Christ and publicly declared Him as her Savior through the United Brethren Church in Hutchinson. Later her family became involved in the Westside Baptist Church where, under the encouragement of Mrs. Kidd, she began to play the piano and sing in special numbers. Her pastor, Rev. Lonnie Smith, conducted revival meetings that were popular in that were popular in that day and invited her to participate in the musical part of those meetings.  She played the piano and sang in trios not only in those church meetings but also on the radio when her pastor was doing a broadcast.  All of that while also getting her schooling and eventually working at Grace Hospital.

Being the oldest of eight she found herself becoming a second mother to the youngest four of her siblings.  As one of them put it, "Mom was either sick or having another baby so Fayetta became our second mother."  Ken, a brother who is now in Ghana, Africa; called and told her that one every important memory for him was that she helped him understand who Jesus is when he was 8 years of age and walked with him down the aisle to make his profession of faith.  She not only cared for their physical needs but was concerned about their spiritual needs.

Fayetta met Bob Molby who was chosen to lead a Bible Study group at a home in Hutchinson.  She was the pianist for the group.  Bob was a first year student at nearby Sterling College.  They developed a friendship as they worked together.  When he conducted a revival service at the First Baptist Church in Nickerson, KS he invited her to be his pianist and she accepted. Because she worked the night shift at the hospital he saw to it that she got to work on time using a car that his pastor, Rev. Howard Sorensen, provided.  Everyone knew that these two were destined to be together and on August 18, 1950, they were united in marriage at the First Baptist Church in Raymond, KS where Bob had become the pastor.

Fayetta and Bob were partners for all 63 years plus of their marriage.  She enjoyed doing pastoral visitations with him and serving with him as he worked with churches not only as a pastor but in retirement as an interim pastor.  When you thought of her, you thought of him, and when you thought of him, you thought of her.  She went with him to General Board meetings of the ABC/USA when he served in that capacity.  God richly blessed their partnership.  She loved various groups to which they belonged.  There was the Retired Clergy group, the people with whom they camped at Camp Moses Merrill, the faith family at Sunset Hills Baptist Church and the friends they made while doing Interim Ministry with many churches.  Besides family these were their great support groups.  Fayetta loved being a pastor's wife and mother.  She participated in the ministry of her husband and was always there for him and her children: Kathleen Jane, Nathan Paul, Ruth Anne and Rachelle Colleen or "Shelly" as she is known.  When the children married and had children Fayetta became a loving grandmother to the six best grandchildren in the world: Robert, Ashley, Lucas, Nathan, Andrea, and Erin.  Andrea is married to Eric Catron - so now there are seven.

A brother and a son preceded her in death. Survivors include her husband Bob of the home in Elkhorn, NE; daughters Kathy Cain (David) of San Antonio, TX; Ruth Steele (Mark) of Omaha, NE; Shelly Marx (David) of Bonner Springs, KS, siblings Gerald, Marion, Ken, Russell, Carol and Robert; many nieces, nephews, cousins and a host of friends who will carry on her memory forever.

The story of Fayetta and Bob's life together is a wonderful love story.  A far better story than anything written by man, it's a genuine tale of what love for one another when combined with a mutual love of our Lord can be.  Sad to say far too few of us in my generation will ever be able to match the devotion and dedication to each other and to God that Bob and Fayetta shared in their many wonderful years together.  Through the good and the bad, through the fair sailing and the rough seas, they stayed together and loved each other and their God.  Praise be to God for the example that the Molby's have provided for so very many.  God Bless and protect them both.

In His Constant Care and Grace,
Roy

Chapter 4 'The Dynamics of Grief' - All Our Losses / All Our Griefs

Chapter Four starts out with two examples of loss and how every loss is unique in some fashion. Certainly when we suffer a loss we feel that nobody in the world could possibly understand fully how we feel.  This feeling is actually accurate, as nobody brings exactly the same life experiences and relationship with the object, place or individual that has been lost and caused the grief that we are stricken with.

As unique as each sense of loss or grief is there are however common threads that run through all grief.

Defining Grief:

Grief is the normal but bewildering cluster of ordinary human emotions arising in response to a significant loss, intensified and complicated by the relationship to the person or the object lost.  Guilt, shame, loneliness, anxiety, anger, terror, bewilderment, emptiness, profound sadness, despair, helplessness; all are part of grief and all are common to being human.  Grief is the clustering of some or all of these emotions in response to loss.

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The alternative to regarding grief as a collection of emotions is to equate it with, or derive it from, just one emotion. David Switzer argues that the major dynamic of the inner experience of grief is anxiety, and all the behavioral responses are in some way related to this anxiety.  In Switzer's view, such emotions as guilt or depression or hostility may be present, but derive from anxiety.  The child's hostile response to separation bespeaks anxiety about rejection.

1) Is Grief a Disease?
Even though grief is a cluster of identifiable emotions and behaviors with a common cause, it does not fit into standard psychological classifications.  It is not a functional psychiatric disorder or a subcategory of general depression or anxiety neurosis.  Our intent is to maintain the ordinariness of grief.  We do not regard it as a disease entity, but as the aftermath of a trauma or a temporary stress, a disorganization and confusion not unlike that which accompanies severe physical injury.

Since Freud, the psychoanalytic tradition has tended to regard grief as a disease entity.  Mourning, according to Freud, is the reaction to the loss of a loved person or cherished abstraction, overcome after a period of time.

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Labeling grief as a disease diminishes rather than increases our willingness to deal constructively with the pain.  Grief is a part of life in a way that measles are not, to be wounded is not to be sick.  To look on grief as a disease implies that finitude, loss, and death are alien to life as it was intended to be.  They are not; they are an ordinary inescapable dimension of human life.

2. Anticipated Loss, Anticipated Grief
Often enough grief is caused by an unexpected loss, but at other times it is possible to anticipate an approaching loss with such intensity that one grieves as if the object were already lost. It is sometimes suggested that being able to anticipate the loss will significantly alter the grieving done once the loss takes place.

This is only partly true.  Loss that occurs over a period of time may be particularly painful exactly because it is prolonged, like docking a dog's tail one inch at a time.

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The prolonged grieving process in anticipation of a final loss is common for the dying person who is leaving all the places and people that mean something to him or her.  The feelings encountered in such situations are not anticipatory grief but relentless sorrow for the inability to run or sing or make love or chop wood or remember clearly.  The terminally ill person is grieving in order to get ready to die, saying good-bye to many things before the final loss.  It is important that there be time to grieve for all that will be left behind.

The family and friends of a terminally ill person participate in some of that grief.  Every "last" is cause for grieving.  However, the prolonged grieving o f the one who is dying and that of the survivors are not at all the same.

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It is an error to imagine that the stages of dying made familiar by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance or resignation - are necessarily the stages of grieving.  The one who is dying is letting go of valued and loved things and persons in order to get ready to die.  Those who grieve need to let go of what has been lost in order to get ready to live again.  Many of the dynamics will be the same, but not all.  The two processes do not tend toward the same end.

THE COMMON ELEMENTS OF GRIEF

Grief is anything but systematic.  The emotions discussed below are likely to occur in many unpredictable combinations depending on family attitudes toward grief, patterns of coping with stress, the specific attachment we had to what we have lost, and the social acceptability we think our emotions will encounter.

1) Numbness:
Traumatic loss is a shock to the system.  An organism faced with such a shock usually protects itself from the full impact by entering into a period of numbness.  The initial dynamic of grief is most frequently an absence of feeling, a muting of affect.  Accompanying this emotional state is often an insistence that the loss has not in fact occurred.  As a result, a sense of unreality may pervade our interactions with others early in grief.  We may insist to others that what has happened cannot have happened.  In addition to this unreality, disbelief, and muted feeling, shock may also cause aimless wandering about as if the grief-stricken person were oblivious to walls or time or location.

2) Emptiness, Loneliness, Isolation:
Emptiness is the sense of being diminished from within.  Loneliness is its interpersonal counterpart, the sense that one's surroundings are also empty of people who matter or care.  Isolation is the sense of being divided from others by invisible, incomprehensible boundaries.  Although all these emotions are related, they may appear separately in our awareness.

3) Fear and Anxiety:
Fear and anxiety are experienced as part of grief in three ways: the dread of abandonment; the anxiety of separation; and fear of future contingencies. 

The Dread of Abandonment: The infant's helpless dependence for well-being on the mothering one's care means that being cut off from that care - especially if it happens prematurely - is the beginning of the dread of abandonment.  That dread lingers throughout life as an awareness of non being which we can tolerate only in small doses.  To be abandoned is not to be.  These memories of beginning life influence and even direct our responses to attachment and loss later.  Experiencing abandonment recapitulates earlier helplessness.

The Anxiety of Separation: Similar to the dread of abandonment, separation anxiety refers to the sense of threat to one's own survival as a self.  Because we are social creatures, the loss of someone or something we love is experienced as a threat to the self.  If we think, consciously or not, that a loss will seriously deplete the self, we become anxious.  The greater the emotional investment in the lost person or object, the greater the possibility of anxiety.  Not all grief can be reduced to anxiety; but if the grieving person was excessively dependent on the lost person or object for self definition, then anxiety about oneself may in fact be the most observable aspect of grief.

4) Guilt and Shame:
Guilt is a dominant component of grief. It results from three combined factors: assuming responsibility for an individual loss; decisions that may have hastened or contributed to the loss; and residue from the relationship with the lost person or object.  On occasion, people feel guilt for being relieved that a lingering illness has ended at last or a miserable marriage is finally over.  Most of the guilt associated with grief is useless and counterproductive to constructive grieving.

5) Anger:
Even under the most normal circumstances anger is complex and difficult to handle.  Accepting, managing, and expressing anger as a part of grief is complicated by both personal discomfort and social taboo.  De mortuis nil nisi bonum means, loosely translated, "Don't speak ill of the dead".  When the loss is a death, the anger is usually directed away from the deceased and toward family members, medical personnel, or God.  In other loss the anger is often much more visible and much more often aimed at the lost object.  Nonetheless anger is an immediate, common, and inevitable response to loss.  Anger with a lost loved one is an integral part of grief.

6) Sadness and Despair:
Sadness is a normal, healthy response to any misfortune.  "Most, if not all, .... intense episodes of sadness," says John Bowlby, "are elicited by the loss, or expected loss, either of a loved person or else of familiar and loved places and social roles.  A Sad person knows who or what he has lost, and yearns for his (or its) return."  Sadness can range from momentary distress over the loss of an election to the deep sadness felt over the death of a spouse.

When sorrow is coupled with fear and a sense of futility about the future, that is despair.  We generally reserve despair to describe a loss that darkens the prospects for a meaningful future.

7) Somatization:
Up to this point we have considered grief in terms of its emotional components; the emotions that underlie the distress.  But there are also physical components.  Physiological symptoms are also caused be grief, and may be quite powerful.  Lindemann has identified somatic signs common in acute grief: "Sensations of somatic distress occurring in waves lasting from twenty minutes to an hour at a time, a feeling of tightness in the throat, choking with shortness of breath, need for signing, an empty feeling in the abdomen, lack of muscular power, and an intense subjective distress describe as tension or mental pain."

Bereavement affects one's physical well-being.  Headaches, insomnia, loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue, dizziness, and indigestion, are all common to the experience of grief.  unless they persist in an intensified way, these soatic and behavioral symptoms should be regarded as normal.  The whole of one's being grieves a loss.

THE UNIQUENESS OF GRIEF
Whatever is said about grief in general must be understood in the light of the fact that each instance is unique.  Grief is a particular response to a particular loss of a particular relationship at a particular time.  The form that a particular instance of grief takes is shaped by a number of factors.

1) Intensity of attachment:
The intensity of the attachment that we have to a lost person or an object is a major factor.  That intensity is essentially unrelated to the length of time we have been involved with the person.  Attachment has to do with an investment of the self.  the person or object becomes a part of our inner world, and so the loss will deplete our very self.

2) Complexity of attachment:
We have indicated already that attachments may have a strong positive meaning, a strong negative meaning, or a mix of the two. The form grief takes in a particular instance is determined in part by the mix of positive and negative feelings in the now broken attachment.  That grief is always unique to a particular situation becomes less and less surprising.

THE UNPREDICTABILITY OF GRIEF

If grief in any given instance is unique, it follows that it is unpredictable.  The nature of our attachment to a person or object is often formed without conscious awareness.  It is therefore difficult to anticipate the intensity or the complexity of grief.  People living together in a family may surprise on another by their widely varying reactions to the same loss.

As I finish typing this tonight, I've recently returned home from the Memorial Service for Fayetta Molby.  Fayetta is the wife of my mentor and friend Rev. Bob Molby.  I have to say that it was a wonderful though unique service.  Bob and Fayetta had served together in ministry even prior to their marriage and in those early years they participated in and performed revival services know as Singspirations.  This was a celebration filled with hymns and camp songs which Fayetta had long loved.  Bob and Fayetta had such a long (63 years) marriage and are both blessed with such a large and loving family.  It was certainly one of the most moving Memorial Celebrations that I have ever attended.

Please pray for Bob and his family for comfort in their grieving process.  No matter how much experience and training Bob has in these situations, it is not the same when it's you and your family going through it.

Hopefully, I'll be able to meet Bob for lunch sometime in the next week or two and I plan to loan him a copy of this book along with another book that I believe he will enjoy.

In addition I hope that I've inspired at least one of you to purchase a copy of "All Our Losses / All Our Griefs".

All Our Losses / All Our Griefs

May this day find you all well and richly blessed.

In His Grace,
Roy

I Just Saw This And I Had To Share It

What a truly wonderful quote.  This is a message that I have stressed over and over again when teaching Sunday School.

Just a short post today, I'm working on the review of the 4th Chapter of "All our Losses / All our Griefs" but it's taking me a while with everything else that is going on right now.

Have a blessed day!

In His Love & Grace,

Roy

ELM Graduation for ELM VII - October 5th, 2013

Well our years of training in the Educating Lay Ministry Program came to it's official end yesterday with our ELM Graduation ceremony in Grand Island yesterday afternoon.

Fifteen of the sixteen of us gathered along with our Program Administrator Sharon Shields, one last time at the First Christian Church in Grand Island to receive our diplomas, congratulate one another, reminisce and exchange good byes.

We were all glad that Bev Hayes was able to join us as she has recently had hip surgery.  She was however moving along very well considering all she's been through.  We did however miss our classmate and friend Shirley Bible who is continuing to recover from a number of health issues that have plagued her this past year.

The Graduating Class of ELM VII, 10/5/2013
Front:: Kevin Wagner, Chuck Snow, Bob Sieck, Roy Karlen,
Howard Blecha, Sharon Shields
Back: Joey Colson, Sandy Denton, Denise Johnson, Janet Davis,
D'Arcy Blosser, Dee Boals, Bev Hayes, Karen Bortz, Patricia Miller,
Dustin Bower (not pictured Shirley Bible)
WmRoy Karlen photograph

Bob Sieck came up with the idea of developing one of his photographs and having all of us sign the mat as a gift to Sharon for all that she's done for each of us.  Bob gathered most of the signatures before turning it over to me to gather the last three or so signatures, I then had a plate made for it and finished the matting and framing of the photograph.  After our graduation ceremony Bob presented the photo to Sharon and we all gave her a round of applause as further recognition of her mentor ship.

Sharon Shields and Roy Karlen
ELM VII Graduation Ceremony 10/5/13
Wm Roy Karlen photograph

As I stated earlier, the event was held at the First Christian Church, in Grand Island and hosted by their Pastor, Rev. Scott Taylor.  Rev. Dr. Jim Gordon, Interim Regional Minister for the Disciples of Christ Church and Rev. Roddy Dunkerson, Conference Minister for the Nebraska Conference United Church of Christ, officiated during the ceremonies.

Sharon Shields and Roy Karlen
WmRoy Karlen photos

Jim gave the message for the ceremony titled 'Be Careful What You Swallow'.  Interestingly enough using as the backbone of his sermon a commencement address given years ago by Dr. Seuss.  The message was excellent for all of us as new graduates of the ELM program as we step forward into additional roles in ministry.  We all need to be wary of what we allow into our minds and hearts.  I was reminded during his message of the following quote.

Even though the ELM program has ended I will continue this Blog in order to share my continuing path into ministry.

I hope you all have enjoyed the blog thus far and I thank those that have followed along for their support to me and my fellow ELM members.

God's great and abundant blessings to you all.

In Christ,

Roy

Nebraska's "Junk Jaunt" - A great bit of fun!

'Our Saviors Lutheran Church', Dannebrog, NE
an ELCA Church, WmRoy Karlen photos

Well this weekend was Central Nebraska's annual 'Junk Jaunt'.  Gail and I along with my brother Merrill and his wife Karen spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday out in Central Nebraska enjoying great weather (for the most part) and nearly 300 miles of antiques, collectibles and no small amount of 'junk'.

We managed to find far too many things that we couldn't live without and we even caved in and purchased some of them.  Merrill and Karen purchased a great antique secretary with a built in curio with curved glass (this was the purchase of the weekend as they got it for a great, great price), three small tables (one needs to be rebuilt but will be a fairly easy repair), a wonderful wicker rocker, and Merrill found a big cauldron something that he has been searching for.

Gail and I didn't get as many big items, but then we only had a car and not a pickup like they were driving.  Gail found an old spool thread cabinet for her sewing room, two old chairs to use in her sewing room, a wonderful wicker desk set with the desk, chair and waste basket, we found a portable full size 'New Willard' sewing machine from 1920 that Gail will use in her sewing room, a neat old mantle clock with a 'Burpee Seed Company' label on it (it has a guide to when to plant on it), a humped back trunk that is actually for Gail's sister, two pressure cookers (we found one and then later found another that was better) for canning, a table top skillet for Creath, I purchased a number of interesting books and commentaries, and then we also purchased numerous small items that I'm not going to bother listing out.  We managed to barely fit it all in the car with the exception of the desk which we will pickup this coming Saturday when we will be in Grand Island once again.

We did not even come close to making it around the entire 300 mile loop out there.  There are just too many vendors along the way to make that even possible.  We had wanted to make it to Broken Bow but never did, I'm thinking next year we'll try and find a room there for one of the two nights.

One of the biggest disappointments was that both Merrill and I were looking forward to visiting the 'Danish Bakery' in Dannebrog, which is a small Danish Community.  Unfortunately when we got there it was closed, so we asked another merchant there about it and he told us that they had sold out of what they had prepared and had shut down for the day early.  I was looking forward to some small town baked goods so I was very much 'bummed out'.  We did not end up purchasing anything in Dannebrog however we took some great photos there as it is a very scenic little town.  You really feel more like you're somewhere in Georgia or the like than in Nebraska.

Maple Street in Dannebrog, NE
Note the Maple tree behind the sign.
WmRoy Karlen photo

On Sunday morning we all attended services at the 'First Christian Church' (a Disciples of Christ Church) in Grand Island, and very much enjoyed the sermon and service conducted by Rev. Scott Taylor.  We attended their 8 am service which is a very small gathering but it was a wonderful service none-the-less. The Church building is very nice and their sanctuary is beautiful and very peaceful.

Next Saturday is our 'Educating Lay Ministry Graduation' ceremony and we will be traveling to and attending once again the 'First Christian Church' in Grand Island.  It is with no small amount of sadness that we all come to the end of our ELM training together, we have such a wonderful and varied group of people, I do hope we are able to get together a few times through the coming years.  We've talked about trying to have gatherings or reunions as the years go by but often these things are talked about but never come to pass.  Hopefully, we'll be able to arrange things and make it happen.

I will try to get back here and put up another Chapter of the book "All our Losses / All our Griefs" before the weekend and then Sunday or Monday next week I will blog about the graduation ceremony for ELM.

Until then may you all find your days filled with joy and countless blessings.

In His unending Love and Grace,

Roy