Pastor’s Letter – March, 2010

Dear Friends,

Hold on it is windy March.

It is the month that falls THIS year right in the center of our Lenten journey

and it is the month when spring always arrives!

I love March.

Perhaps because I have so many happy memories

of March spring breaks with my children,

off to the beach in Ocean City, Maryland,

at a time, just before the rates at nice hotels would sky rocket.

Indoor pool, beach walking bare feet, T-shirts and shorts,

simply enjoying quality time watching the surf

and especially being with my four children.

March in Maryland, like Maine, is different every year.

Sometimes the wind howls and snow falls while other years

jonquils are blooming and the robins are back and fat!

“March forth!” my pun poet flip side would call out

then I would duck waiting the groans, “Ah, Mom!”

And time does march forth.

Now, though it feels like my kiddos should be 6-10,

they are 21-to nearly 32. I still call them up and nudge “March forth”

Now, they still groan but seem a bit more tolerant.

I look out onto the Ellsworth United Methodist Church congregation

and I believe I am seeing a “Marching” group:

sunny, breezy, excited about mission, invigorating to be with.

EUMC folk are filled with ideas and hopes for new beginnings.

So as we match together, connected by our faith,

following in the footsteps of  Jesus as “the Way,”

“We are marching in the light of God”

as the lyrics to the South African hymn

# 2235 b from Faith We Sing , “O, we are marching!

in the light of God.”

As I write this letter I wonder how everyone is doing

with your Lenten resolution or promise

“promises to keep” as you journey through these weeks,

which may seem like miles and “miles to go before you sleep”

(to paraphrase Robert Frost).

I wonder how many of you are enjoying the Heifer Lenten calendar

as much as I am.

Taped to my refrigerator (a great show place)

I look at it every morning anxious to see

what I am required (or asked ) to do.

“10 cents for every house plant.”

Easy. I only have 9.  So I gave $1.00.

Read Matthew 25:34-36 – I’ll let you check on your own.

“Eat an egg and think of chickens”  given by Heifer

so young farmers can begin to grow their own food.

What other Lenten promises have you made?

Read the Bible every day.

Read or sing a hymn and think of the words

and if you have picked one with a catchy tune,

you’ll be singing that hymn all day

and that’s not a bad thing.

My other Lenten resolution has been to keep

a journal and write every day:

a poem, a reflection, a memory, a quote

that has popped in my head and stays.

And, I have found words have been pouring out of me.

Also a poem, which I will end this letter with,

but first here’s a few calendar events for you to remember:

March 7 reflection theme will be water,

4:00 Joyful Jazz will perform “Singing for our Supper”

followed by your choice: fish chowder or beef stew.

This is a benefit concert for Loaves and Fishes food pantry.

March 14 I will ask folks to reflect on

“God is watching us” and a God’s Eye

will be something to look at,

while keeping silent for 3 minutes.

March 21 we will have a special time of anointing.

March 28, Palm Sunday, the Rainbow Girls will help

us celebrate with readings and a few songs from

“Jesus Christ Super Star”

my sermon that Sunday (it will be short)

is “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”

The Him? If you guessed Jesus,

you can give yourself a gold star!

So let me leave you with a tiny poem,

inspired by a wonderful poet, Lucille Clifton,

who died recently – too soon, too soon.

Lucille once wrote a poem with the words “some Jesus”

I hope as your make your journey, Marching through Lent

You will come to know more and more about “some one named Jesus”

the Jesus

who nobody knew

meets the you

who no one knows

embrace

and there is peace.

May God Bless, Pastor Susan Yaruta-Young

Published in:  on March 1, 2010 at 12:48 pm Leave a Comment
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Pastor’s Letter – November, 2009

Dear All,susan-altar

November. Cold, shorter days, leading into “bleak” winter.

It is also the month when Ellsworth UMC goes into high gear:

  • Sub Sale, Nov. 2-5  – Collection of orders begins Nov. 2, members of the congregation making subs “to order” matching exactly what people want and keeping the price at $5.00! What an amazing mission. This is one of our largest fundraisers for the year. Proceeds collected through this sale help our church carry out local and global service projects, like providing food and gifts for families in need during the holidays and supporting missions like “Nothing But Nets.”

    Would you like to order lunch for delivery on Nov. 5th?  Why not have everyone in your office order a sub? Download a sub order form and fax it to 667-5966 by Wednesday, Nov. 4th at 10:00AM.

  • Wednesday, Nov. 11 – the gospel music concert by Ernie Couch & Revival, all the way from Nashville, at 7:30: check Amy’s notice for all information.  I hope to see you there!

  • Thursday, November 12, our annual Charge Conference – when we share with our District Superintendent UMC  everything EUMC has been up to over the past year. We have had so many blessings and we have such good news to share!

  • Sunday November 22 – We will be celebrating Thanksgiving Sunday.  We will gather together and sing favorite hymns, ones many of us look forward to singing all year! A time to celebrate the blessing of being able to give to others.

The following Sunday, which happens to be the First Sunday in Advent, I will be away, as I am going to Maryland to be with my family: my grand daughter age 14,  all my children,  my in-laws including my 99 year old mother-in-law and old friends. God bless them one and all. I ask for prayer for our safe trip and I will be praying, for all those traveling, all those with family,  all those separated from families, and for all those who have no loving families to be with during this season.

If you happen to drive past 21 Hancock Street look for our new outside cross.  We know, unfortunately, doors to churches need to be locked as not everyone comes into a church with the desire to pray, be in fellowship, seek friendship, music, silence, prayer time. But we also know that many people need a special place to go to for quiet time, a place they feel is a sacred sanctuary. Ellsworth UMC is creating such a simple, we hope, place for prayer on the side lawn beside the church. A cross, a bench, a place to be for holy centering and quiet.

When I return to the pulpit on the Second Sunday in Advent, I know I shall return to a beautifully decorated sanctuary. This year as we travel through Advent I will be preaching using Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol.” I hope folks will see the theological messages in this short novel, enjoy the transformation in Ebenezer Scrooge, but also be able to see the social issues that have not changed since 1 A.D., or 1843 (when “A Christmas Carol” was published) or today, 2009.  And perhaps, we, like Scrooge, may go through an amazing change and find ourselves often saying: “God Bless us one and all” – but more about that come December!

For now, stay warm, enjoy sunny November days and have a most blessed and thank filled Thanksgiving.

May God Bless,
Pastor Susan Yaruta-Young

Published in:  on October 29, 2009 at 3:13 pm Leave a Comment
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Pastor’s Letter – October, 2009

Dear Folks,

As I write this letter today, it seems each time I look up from my computer keys, I see more color on the hardwood trees. It is October and the leaves are bright, colorful, clownish, as they lift away from old dried stems, to take whimsical free fall flights. I see them spin, drift, skip, whirl. Not only have a few decided our front deck a fine resting place, others have scurried into our entrance hall and living room, where I find them curled beside the “claw footed feet” of various Victorian era family heirlooms. I’m waiting the day I discover one or two on top the white and black piano keys, playing “Autumn Leaves” perhaps.

Okay, the pastor’s gone silly, but warm, glorious October days do bring out the poet in me. The beginning of October: “All things Bright and Beautiful.” The end of October, at least here in Maine, the hardwood trees are stark as those many skeletons we encounter ( fortunately only dressed in costumes on October 31 carrying their goody bags and calling out “Trick or Treat”).  At the end of October the tunes that we begin humming have lyrics like “In The Bleak Midwinter.”

But not yet!

Not yet!

Let us all enjoy the many charms, warmth and beauty of October. Let us enjoy the amazing gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives as late morning and afternoon blue skies are a darker blue than any we can squeeze from oil paint tubes, sunset light on rust red blueberry barrens, mild breezes, black star startling skies. Everywhere change in a “hist whist” fashion (to quote e.e. cummings). And yes, again, the Holy Spirit working in our lives. Let us never doubt it. I want to end with Prayer # 329 found in the UMC (red hymnal) “Prayer to the Holy Spirit,” a prayer that seems fitting to be read in October.

O Great Spirit
whose breath gives life to the world
and whose voice is heard in the soft breeze:
We need your strength and wisdom.
Cause us to walk in beauty. Give us eyes
ever to behold the red and purple sunset.
Make us wise so that we may understand
what you have taught us.
Help is learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.
Make us always ready to come to you
with clean hands and steady eyes,
so when life fades, like the fading sunset,
our spirits may come to you without shame. Amen.

Enjoy October. Be kind to those who are hurting. Be wise to the cries of the needy. Allow the Holy Spirit to fill your life, so that like the leaf, you may free fall on the wondrous spiritual journey that God has so planned for you.

I’ll “chat” with you come November. And/or if you’d like to talk sooner, remember Sundays at 11:00, Monday nights at 6:30 or call me any time to set an appointment for conversations over tea, coffee, some place looking into nature’s beauty or where music is playing.

Peace be with you!
Pastor Susan Yaruta-Young

Published in:  on October 7, 2009 at 10:19 am Leave a Comment

Pastor’s Letter – September 2009

September.

It has arrived while some of us are waiting for summer. True, we did enjoy a few hot days, but not as many as we may have wished after such a cold winter.

I guess, if think about what we are to “see” in this summer, it is the thought of treasuring each moment; each warm beach day we may have had; each time for silent reflection and eyes open to catch the wonder of momentary sightings “shooting stars,” glimpses of a woodland/sea surfacing creature looking straight into our eyes.

On Sunday, August 30, our scripture from James reminds us “to be quick to listen and slow to speak, and slow to anger” and we are to accept the message “planted in our hearts.”
When I read these words I think about all the ways we can be quick to listen — to listen and listen, and then to be slow to speak.

Making time each day to enter a special place, pull your car into a safe parking space, step away from your desk, take a five minute walk alone and to simply listen may be a way
to discover God’s action in your life, in ways you had not known before.

Taking time to really listen to others, when they are talking and to even, listen to the unsaid words, when stories are told may reveal more and create a deeper understanding.

This September, as we watch leaves curl, begin to turn colors, as some drop away from their home twigs, spin briefly through the air and land, I urge you all to think our own time with others: the life and joy you bring into their lives, and to also be reminded each parting goodbye may indeed be “goodbye.”

Depressing? No. Real? Yes. September 11th I’m sure many of us will recall 9/11/01 and where we were and what we felt, saw.

We will remember the stories of last goodbyes, and we will also remember how many times after 9/11 each time we said goodbye to a family member or friend, we’d add “Love ya’”
And, as the kids often would say back: “Love ya’ more!”  Listen, look, share, and with warm hearts love each other “more.”

Have a blessed September.

Yours,
Pastor Susan Yaruta-Young

Published in:  on September 10, 2009 at 8:59 pm Leave a Comment
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Pastor’s Letter – July 1, 2009

Dear Friends, Susan Yaruta-Young

I think most of us here in Maine feel like we are sloshing our way from a very wet June, and are indeed, praying for a sun-filled July.  June had few sunny days -  instead, a ‘variation on the theme of wet’ might be a good description for it: rain-mist-fog.

I look out my windows and I see many shades of green. I call out “Grace!” and my beautiful blond golden retriever comes in with black muddy paws and my plain white kitchen floor suddenly looks like a garden of black blooms.

After such a June rain is on many minds and so, a few rain thoughts:

“Life isn’t about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain” (author unknown)

“Rain” by Robert Louis Stevenson

The rain is raining all around
It falls on field and tree
It rains on umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

And just a bit of e.e. cummings:

“In Just
spring when the world is
mud luscious . . . .
and puddle wonderful”

‘Puddle wonderful’ June has certainly been filled with new ways to dance with the Divine. At the Annual Conference of the Northern New England United Methodist Church worship was a time for wonderful music and yes, dancing! – both liturgical planned holy moves and spontaneous leaping up and gliding to the hymns from front row seats to balcony: children, youth, young adults, boomers and older let their bodies flow — rhythmic waves joyously filled with the Holy Spirit.

At Ellsworth United Methodist we honor all seasons of hymns from the very old to the most recent. Our worship music is as blended as our ages. We believe music to fit all “shoe” sizes is in keeping with the desire of John Wesley.

As summer continues so does our new Monday night GPYes! (God’s Power, Yes!) services. We sing and examine the words of the hymns. We hear their stories and we tell our own. If you have not visited us at 6:30 on a Monday night yet, I do hope you will. Here is a time to be in fellowship, to sing, and pray — offering our hearts to God, asking to be filled with God’s great love light, and then, in our “church family” support, we go out, in partnership, as missionaries to our small towns living the Word as instruments of God.

Fire works, sparklers may fill the sky during summer celebrations — but if fire displays are rained out know that fire works and sparklers can still burst and glow inside of hearts that know  God is Love.

Happy July!

Yours,
Pastor Susan Yaruta-Young

Published in:  on July 1, 2009 at 12:05 am Leave a Comment

Pastor’s Letter-March, 2009

susanDear Friends,

When I look out my window I still see banks of high icy snow, but when I step outside it is so much warmer than it was a few weeks ago. Then I look at my calendar and I see the amazing words: Spring! Yes, soon this hard cold winter will be over and Spring in Maine will have arrived. No more snow? Well, that might be asking a bit much. I’m sure we will still see a few more flakes softly falling. But we are entering the next Maine season: Mud Season. Pot holes, frost heaves, sand everywhere, mud.

It seems to be theologically correct to experience Mud Season during Lent. Why?

Well, during Lent we are asked to take time out to think of Jesus’ life. We read the stories maybe a bit more carefully, just as we walk a bit more carefully around puddles. With warmer days we hear bird song, we learn a few brave robins have returned, we see grouse, Canadian geese and our feeders fill with feathered (and furry) critters. A few have been on “winter break” some place down South. Music is in the air. We read scriptures of Jesus’ stories, his love for others, healings, teachings and these stories stay with us; we hold them in our hearts. Many times we see our world “mirrors” many of the hard times people endured when Jesus walked the earth.

Palm Sunday is almost here and with it joy and celebration. There’s a sudden up lifting of our spirits, like when we see something green: snow drops, crocus pop up through the yellow grass, on protected South sides of our homes and barns, those places where snow has finally thawed and dribbled away.

Palm Sunday so filled with light.

Then the roller coaster (like driving over our winter worn roads) of Holy Week – a week when we closely follow, like the disciples of long ago, the first Last Supper, Jesus in the garden alone praying, the arrest, the trial and horror of the whipping and crown of thorns; friends running away, one friend denying he even knew Jesus, and of course, the darkest of days, Good Friday. Most of us have heard this story ever since we were children and yet it never fails to hurt. It never fails to make us catch our breaths. It never fails to make us stop and think and hopefully pray.

Some of us see Jesus’ last week as not a distant, tucked in a Bible story, to be told once a year, but a week filled with images of those living in 2009, those who may be in our towns, and even members of our own family.

As we walk this Mud Season Holy week, I pray, and encourage everyone, to take time out and look for those around us, who need Jesus’ love and I hope that in some small way you will “bring” Jesus’ love to them through acts of kindness. Then come Easter morning as you sing those old and new wonderful hymns of Joy! You may remember someone you helped and truly feel joyful for the gift you gave.

Happy Spring! And if you find your path taking you to Ellsworth some Sunday morning around 11:00, please stop in. I know you will be welcomed not a stranger but as a friend.

May God Bless,

Pastor Susan Yaruta-Young

Published in:  on April 3, 2009 at 11:53 am Leave a Comment

Pastor’s Letter – Feb. 8, 2009

susanMy friends, Ellsworth United Methodist is truly a small church with a big heart and amazing energy!

It has been my good luck and amazing joy to have been pastor here for just a bit over one year, and what a year it has been. New schemes have gone from ideas into reality as we have put candles in church windows, placed messages to the public in our sign, added a beautiful banner. Wisely, learning from our “creature friends” who burrow underground during cold months,  we have gone “downstairs”, decorating a once drab fellowship hall, into a sparkling worship space — we are warm, we are spending less fuel, and since the space is smaller, it has a cozy feeling. We really do feel like a family as we gather on soft seated chairs, feet on top of rugs and enjoy our Sunday time together.

Traditional and new ways to reach out to the community with fundraisers, mission projects, breakfasts, have all been going strong, but gifted by our amazing Music Director Amy Briggs, who is also a “tech. pro,” we have a great web site and Blog space. The dream of being able to reach more people (our friends who visit us during the summer,  are house bound or those on vacation for a few weeks) can now tune in and hear our worship services. I believe  John Wesley (and too his mother Suzanna) would truly give nods of approval on this step towards reaching out to more people.

Last Sunday, Feb. 1, we began our mission work of each week bringing an item for those, who are struggling, things they cannot buy with food stamps. Last Sunday was “Roll On” Sunday and a bin basket overflowed with rolls of paper products — toilet paper and paper towels. Feb. 8 is Boy Scouts’ Sunday but for our mission: “Rub-a-dub-dub, Soaps for Showers and Tubs” as we hope to again fill a  with bath products. And the following week . . . . well, check back and see.

Looking to March 8, “Calling all Girl Scouts, former Girl Scouts and their Leaders” as we honor that wonderful organization. Come in uniform, bring badges won, or memories you will never forget.

If you have not stopped in to visit us, I’m inviting you to “come as you are” blue jeans or dress up clothes” at Ellsworth United Methodist Church we try to follow in the ways of Jesus, reaching out to all and hoping to make friends to anyone who would like to friends with us. I look forward to meeting you and for hearing your story.

Stay warm, laugh, hug, spread God’s messaged of “love one another, as I have loved you.”

May God Bless,

Pastor Susan Yaruta Young (sometimes known simply as Susan Y-Y, Susan, Sue, Pastor Y-Y or “Y-Y”

Published in:  on February 8, 2009 at 9:46 pm Leave a Comment