It has been a very busy week as you can see. The cupboards are hung and the new kitchen is starting to take shape. This is a very exciting time for the Rev and me. Counters go in next week and I'm hoping the appliances will be placed by next weekend. I can't believe how much different this room looks. And also how it opens up the dining room. It really is amazing.
Joplin, Missouri may be 350 miles from our parsonage in Central Iowa but the devastation brought by that tornado last night has hit too close to home. In my email in-box this morning was a message from a colleague in Wichita, KS that the Slumberland store in Joplin was destroyed. Fortunately all of our staff and their families are safe.
So then I get home and I find a report from the UM Reporter that one of our UMC churches was destroyed and another badly damaged. Fortunately, they are also reporting that all of the UMC pastors and their families are safe. As of this writing on Monday night, the death count is reported as “116 and rising”. I am thankful that all of my “associates” are safe but I can’t help but feel that dull pain in my heart for what has happened in Joplin.
At least for now, all we can do is pray for those fine people. Individuals and volunteer teams are urged not to self deploy at this time. Only professional emergency responders are being allowed to enter the damaged zone. There will be a large number of volunteer opportunities available after the area is secured. I’m can’t speak for the Rev but I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a special offering next Sunday. Nor would I be shocked to hear that the mission trip this summer has been rerouted to Missouri.
Our prayers are with the people of Joplin, MO tonight. May God look over them and bring them . . . peace.
“My name is Hanna”. The bespectacled little lady with the huge smile had just returned from shuttling in a pan of freshly barbecued hamburgers and was bringing back the pan for me to fill again. “Thank you Hanna, I really appreciate your help.” - “No problem”, she said over her shoulder as she ran back into the church to rejoin her friends.
It was the first night of Wednesday On The Hill. This is the Rev’s plan to reclaim Wednesday night as church night in our congregation. She asked me to fix dinner for everyone for the kick-off. Last Sunday she invited everyone to join together for dinner before they ran off to choir practice, youth group, committee meetings or just on to live their lives. She told them all that I would be fixing the meal - “and he’s a good cook” she proclaimed. Thanks my love - no pressure there now is there?
“So how many am I cooking for?” I asked the Rev. “I don’t know, it’s the first time”, was the honest estimate. So we decided that we would prepare for 100 and hope for the best. Burgers and Brats on the grill was to headline the menu. I found a recipe for a pasta salad on the web that looked good so that became our side dish. The Rev added fresh veggies and rice crispy bars to the presentation. A quick run to the store for Kettle Baked chips (3 flavors, of course) and assorted cookies and we had a menu.
I started early Wednesday morning and decided that this was a pretty pedestrian menu so I toasted all of the hamburger and brat buns. I had to have something that was “special”. Then it was off to the church about 2:30pm to get ready to go by 5:15 - the scheduled start time. I was told the church had a grill that I could use to prepare the burgers and brats. Hmmm, a gas grill - I’m a Weber kettle/charcoal guy myself. Oh well, let’s give it a go. I lifted the lid and discovered, of course, that it had not been cleaned since it was used last June. I had suspected that might be the case so I had brought my grill brush. No problem - I had that grill ready to go before too long. I opened the valve on the gas tank and hit the ignition button. Thank you Lord, it fired the first time. Okay let’s throw on some burgers and see what this thing will do. Five minutes a side is the usual time on my grill so I checked them in five and found that the left side of the grill was hot and working just fine (though a little slow) but the right side had barely cooked the surface. I eventually developed a system of starting on the right and working the burgers to the left - then I used the very right side as a “warmer” to hold the finished burgers as I progressed. I cooked all afternoon. By 4:30 people started to arrive. They would stick their heads out and say “It smells great - I could smell it all the way out in the parking lot”. It was about this time that I met Hanna. I finished up about 5:10 - 80 burgers and 36 brats. I hoped it would be enough. The Rev was going to have her meal after-all.
We figure we served about 75 people, young and old, last night. All of the brats disappeared but we did have some burgers left-over. The pasta salad was a hit although we had made about twice as much as needed. Six bags of chips was the right amount and two trays of rice crispy bars were gone. Several of the ladies commented on the toasted buns - they liked the touch.
By 6:00 everyone was off to their meetings, practices and groups. One young man offered to help with the clean up so he and I packed up the left overs, cleaned the dishes and wiped down the tables. By 8:00 I was home in my recliner and totally exhausted.
Yes, I was wiped out but it felt great. I had never cooked for that many before and we had pulled it off. This is something that I can do. And I enjoyed it. The sound of people talking and eating together was great. This was community - this was fellowship. It may be just a few hours on a Wednesday night, a brief break in the routine of life, but this is church. This is good.
May you also find a break in your routine this week - and as always I pray that you find . . . Peace.
Craig Venter and his associates have succeeded in artificially creating a new DNA sequence, implanting the DNA into a bacterium and then booting that sequence so that the bacterium is replicating. They, in essence, have created a new life form from scratch. The first synthetic cell.
The video is of his announcement. I will let him do the explaining because I don't have anywhere near the knowledge base to fully understand how they did it. I will say, though, that this is amazing stuff.
This is already upsetting some people. I have read some that are claiming that these scientists have created life and are playing God. Dr. Venter has been very clear to point out that they are NOT making the claim that they have created life from scratch. What they have done is created a new life form (a new species) from an already existing life form. I think we all understand by now that the specific DNA code sequence in each life form is what makes us a unique individual. What these scientists have done is create a unique DNA sequence from bottles of chemicals and implanted that DNA sequence into a bacterium cell that has had it's original DNA removed. What is amazing is that the cell then replicated itself - it multiplied.
The implications here are enormous. One can only imagine what will follow from this. Think of it this way - who could have imagined what has followed when the first computer was created. I think we will find this to be an even greater event in the history of mankind.
Initial applications are looking into creating new vaccines and creating cells that could capture CO2 from the atmosphere that could then be refined into fuel. That will just be a beginning. I think this will be a breakthrough on the par of the discovery of electricity or the creation of the written word.
I hope we do not succumb to the 21st Century version of the people who tried Galileo for heresy and actually burned Giordano Bruno at the stake for believing that the Earth orbited around the Sun. These people exist, they are already writing and making their accusations. This breakthrough is not a refutation of God. I would prefer to argue that this breakthrough was accomplished by people created by God and inspired by God.
Many will be fearful of this new technology. But I prefer to remember that God does not give me more than I can handle - but He often times has a higher opinion of me than I have of myself.
