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Statement of Faith
Thou art
the
howling, the calling
me down,
saying I have soared
too often
too high.
Thou art
the
scriptural scoundrel,
the one who
planted your sacred
seed in me
before I
knew the heart-less hold of you.
Thou art
the eternal
alarm,
jolting me
to awakening
in this
night room,
tearing me
from the
chase
gift my
dreams
Thou art
the note
missed in my recital,
the discord
of my composition,
the dismay
of what I could not forget,
the
disorder of what I would hold on to.
Thou art
the
blanketing
of my shore
line, ensuring
My own
desperate
journeying
won’t unlock
The dark.
Thou art
the
sabotage
of my
vision, the increase
of my
unease, the playful
complicating of my certainty
the theft
of my eye.
Thou art
the long
flight between
the
bottling,
of
apprehension, the space
under
stone.
Thou art
the bucket dropped.
Thou art
the cord snapped.
Thou art
this body after
Breathing,
the anchoring
and the
cutting lose, the leak
and the
losing, the drain
and the
seeping, the riveting
and the
soaring.
Thou art,
at last,
the fallen
tree,
this hole
left
in the sky,
my turning upward,
knees to
the ground.
~Rev.
Marcia Klepper-Smith
Senior Clinical Staff-PCC |
Special thanks to the following who contributed to the FUND FOR
HEALING-2006:
Andrea and Dick Allen,
Anne Alvord, Wanda and Gordon Bates, Judy and Robert Benton,
Robin and
Walter Bell, Dorothy and Ian Cameron, Alastair Clark, Marti Curtis,
Laurel Cole and Christopher Sheehen, Liza and James Ervin, Ruth Ann
and Halley Faust,
Cheryl Ferris, Jeanne
and Peter Grandy, Jane Hawken and David Taylor, Gail and David Hall,
Janis and Robert Henderson, Donna and John Kidwell, Margah and Thomas
Lips, Paul Lorenzo, Ruth and Bill McGraw, Patricia Mahoney, Deborah
and Michael McMahon, Rosemary and Tim Moynihan, Katherine Miller, Lee
and Tom Nielsen, Lew and Judy Parker, Pam and Don Peerson, Mary and
Mike Purtill, Ellen and Mike Rizzo, Iris and Al Russell, Sandy and
David Sergio, Lois Sheperton, Orinda and Dave Taylor, Joan and Louis
Terzo, Amy and Brian Thompson, Sylvia and Earl Thompson, Michele and
John VanEpps, Cindy and Richard Wasserman, Nancy and Raymond Wedlake,
Leslie and John Wertam, Betty Wiesner, Beverly and Lynn Willsey.
“Keep walking, though
there’s no place to get to. Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within, but don’t move the way fear
makes you move.”
~ Rumi, whose 800th
birthday we celebrate this year.
Life can be filled
with the wonder of God’s steadfast love – the joys and blessings of
God’s gift of life and creation. But at times, the mystery of that
creation – be it struggles with illness or uncertainty, tragedy or
confusion, life’s inevitable twists and turns – often leaves us
feeling lost, alone, unsure of where to turn. At such times, a
listening ear, a caring presence, an insightful fellow journeyer, can
make all the difference. That is exactly what the Pastoral Counseling
Center does and can provide to so many of us. Year after year, the
staff of the Center ‘has been there” for members of First Church and
the wider community who they faithfully serve. Life is filled with
wonder of God’s steadfast love, and that love can be found in the
ministry of the Pastoral Counseling Center.
~ Rev. David Taylor,
Senior Minister, First Church of Christ, Congregational, Glastonbury.
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“A woman was
waiting at an airport one night,
With several long
hours before her flight.
She hunted for a
book in the airport shops, 
Bought a bag of
cookies and found a place to drop.
She was engrossed
in her book but happened to see,
That the man
sitting beside her, as bold as could be.
Grabbed a cookie
or two from the bag in-between,
Which she tried to
ignore to avoid a scene.
So she munched the
cookies and watched the clock,
As the gutsy
cookie thief diminished her stock.
She was getting
more irritated as the minutes ticked by,
thinking, “if I
wasn’t so nice, I’d blacken his eye.”
With each cookie
she took, he took one too,
When only one was
left, she wondered what he would do.
With a smile on
his face, and a nervous laugh,
He took the last
cookie and broke it in half.
He offered her
half, as he ate the other,
She snatched it
from him and thought…ooh, brother.
This guy has some
nerve and he’s also rude,
Why he didn’t ever
show any gratitude!
She had never
known when she had been so galled,
And sighed with
relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her
belongings and headed to the gate,
Refusing to look
at that thieving ingrate.
She boarded the
plane, and sank in her seat,
Then sought her
book, which was almost complete,
As she reached in
her baggage, she gasped with surprise,
There was her bag
of cookies, in front of her eyes.
If mine are here,
she moaned with despair,
The others were
his, and he tried to share,
Too late to
apologize, she realized with grief,
That she was the
rude one, the ingrate, the thief.”
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