Give us this Day Our Daily Board

Dear Future-Focused Friends:

Yesterday, Memorial Day, I spent my time expressing my patriotic duty by working on the house. The fascia board on the garage had rotted to where attempting to paint it again seemed pointless. So off I went to Menards for two 12’  pine 1 x 6's. It took a few hours, but now it looks great. I was relieved to find a still usable can of exterior trim paint in the garage, so I had the unusual experience of completing a project with only one trip to the hardware store. That was disappointing.

Now I’m looking at the other three sides of the garage fascia and thinking they need attention too, and although they cannot be seen from the house, I’m wondering if I can have similar success in their replacement. Their substandard finish mocks my sense of accomplishment, and now I see them more clearly than the gleaming new boards.

We just successfully oversubscribed our $9,800 Parlor Kitchen remodeling fundraiser, receiving well over $12,000 in gifts in less than two weeks. And now, even before we begin the Parlor Kitchen project, the Westminster Hall Kitchen looks shabbier than ever; don’t get me started about the Fellowship Hall Kitchen.

My musing today is not about the insatiable sinkhole of house or building repairs, but about my lame capacity to celebrate today’s accomplishments without jumping to tomorrow’s responsibilities.

As you know, I’ve started a five-part series referencing the Lord’s Prayer. Each sermon will parallel one of this summer’s VBS theme days. This past Sunday was “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Never mind how that sermon went; I’m obsessing over what comes next.

This coming Sunday will be, “Give us this day our daily bread,” and here’s what’s got me musing.

We are commanded to pray only for today’s bread, but my energy and anxiety draw me forward to next week’s groceries. I seldom pause to acknowledge how the request for today’s bread has been abundantly fulfilled because I’m focused on my next responsibility, my next job, my next meal. I even claim such thoughts are virtuous by suggesting a forward-looking mindset gets things done, not recognizing how powerfully this attitude renders my heart ungrateful.

I’m thinking Christ’s admonition for us to request only daily bread challenges me to quit gulping my meal to rush off to the next important thing. As my dad used to remind me, “Slow down and chew your food!”

So, thank you for your generous gifts to the Parlor Kitchen Fund! And I’m going to take a moment and admire my new fascia board; it looks great!

Trying to slow down enough to experience gratitude, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor

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God is Good, and we Thank Him for Moon Food
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Dear Space Racers:

With this year’s VBS program—To Mars and Beyond—reverberating in our church this week, I’ve been reminded of how much space junk clutters my brain, and the brains of my generation. Space Food Sticks were a thing, developed by Pillsbury’s chief food technologist, Howard Bauman, who was working on a nutritionally balanced snack food for astronauts. The first version was space food cubes consumed by Scott Carpenter on Aurora 7 in 1962. The later version, sold to the public beginning in 1972, came 14 to a pack in peanut butter, caramel and chocolate flavors. (The commercials used to bother me because they featured child astronauts eating the Tootsie Roll-like snack through a hole in the front of their space helmets.

Pride, Prejudice and Pain
Pride, Prejudice and Pain

Dear Pride Preparers:

During my first year in college I attempted to join the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) that held a weekly campus meeting, but after three or four gatherings, I stopped attending. It was no crisis of faith; I just found their meetings and Bible studies too saccharine and a little paranoid. Their focus—near obsession—was how, because we were Evangelicals, we were persecuted by the academic world hostile to our existence. I just didn’t buy it. While the University of Chicago community provided little encouragement for a Christian Evangelical worldview, at worst I found the environment indifferent, not hostile.

From those IVCF Friday night gatherings, however, I did make friends.

No Chicken Sandwich for Sabbath
No Chicken Sandwich for Sabbath

Dear Sabbath Seekers,

I was home from college on winter break many decades ago when I stopped by the Fishkins' for a visit. Art and Jane Fishkin were the parents of my high school classmate Charlie, and I had been a guest at their Passover table for many years. Charlie was my former debate partner; we both left for the University of Chicago and were sharing an apartment on Ellis Avenue in Hyde Park with a third roommate, Jim Smither (Hinsdale Central, '78). Art and Jane rushed to greet me. Hellos at the Fishkin household were not for the faint at heart; they involved hugs and backslaps that left the greeted

Seeking Immunity: Stress Response and Joint Decay
Seeking Immunity: Stress Response and Joint Decay

Dear Fellow Joint Pain Sufferers:

About 12 years ago I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis, abbreviated RA. When it’s not annoying or painful I find the condition to be quite fascinating. RA is an autoimmune disease, a condition where my own immune system has somehow determined that the tissue in my joints is an enemy of my body, so it unleashes its disease-fighting strength against healthy tissue. What makes my body decide that parts of itself must be attacked? Rheumatological research continues to seek an answer to that question.

I’ve been quite fortunate to have avoided the kind of flare-up that merits the use of a class of medications called biologics; these suppress the immune system more generally, dialing back the body’s disease-

Auto Theft and Faith
Auto Theft and Faith

Dear Fellow Travelers:

About 10 years ago, my 1995 Cutlass Ciera was stolen from the street two blocks from my apartment in Hyde Park. I did get it back a week or so later, and how that happened can be an illustration for another musing, but today’s focus is on that bizarre moment when I believed something was going to be there and it wasn’t.

I can’t remember where I was planning to go, but I do know from the police report it was August 17, 2009. Relying on a Google search, I can affirm now that it was a Monday. From memory I can only recall my sense of disorientation. What I believed--that my car would be on the west side of Lake Park Boulevard between 55th and 54th Streets--was not confirmed by experience.

Dangerous Disappointment
Dangerous Disappointment

Dear Sibling Rivals:

What do we do when our sacrifice is disregarded? When the work of our hands, the sweat of our brow, our calculation, labor and execution are ignored, how do we respond? The question becomes even more intense when we see others respected, regarded and rewarded for their work. To us the adulation, the mobility, the affirmation received by others seems unwarranted. That their effort leads to still waters and green pastures of success angers us, while we remain in the valley of the shadows, stumbling along an ever more treacherous path.

The human response, the one easily at hand, is to flip the script, rewriting our circumstance as a competition

From Pentecostal Preacher to Planet Protector
From Pentecostal Preacher to Planet Protector

Dear Planet Partners:

“The highest heavens are God’s, but the earth has been given to humanity.” Psalm 115.16

The son and grandson of Pentecostal ministers, John McConnell Jr. was born in Davis City, IA, on March 22, 1915. Not long after his birth, his father, John Sr., became a traveling evangelist, preaching in tent meetings, churches, chapels and street corners from New York to San Francisco. His brand of fervent preaching was much in demand. One news clipping advertising a revival at the Portland Rose Tabernacle in New York City proclaimed his sermons as “scorching, scathing, liquid lumps of burning truth to meet present need.” (Assemblies of God Heritage magazine, 2010, volume 30) McConnell Sr. had received his call to ministry while attending the Stone Church in Chicago in 1911.

Musing Memory and Music
Musing Memory and Music

Dear Patrons of Beauty,

On Saturday morning it was my privilege to participate in the memorial service for Elizabeth Gottlieb, a child of our church who grew to be a soprano of significant renown. A few months ago she received a cancer diagnosis, and her life ended just 10 days ago. Because so much of her love was lived through music, her choirmates from the Chicago Symphony Chorus, the Grant Park Chorus and Music of the Baroque came to the memorial service to offer tribute through song. Our sanctuary resonated with majestic music.

For my musing today, I wish to share with you the words of my homily. I trust they bring solace to those bereaved and inspiration for those who must carry on. 

Free will, Tulips and Dog Walks
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Dear Fellow Tulip Tiptoers,

For those of you who have not been able to join us on Wednesday nights for our TULIP study of Calvinism, allow me to catch you up on what you’ve missed. (*Note: All are welcome to join for the final two weeks, April 3 and 10, 7:30-8:30 p.m. in the Parlor following our 7:00 Lenten Communion service in the Chapel). Historically, John Calvin (1509-1564) was a French attorney who became fascinated with the writings of the early Reformers like Martin Luther (1483-1546). Calvin published many articles and a multi-volume commentary on the whole Bible, except for the book of Revelation, which he said he just didn’t understand. His major work was Institutes of the Christian Religion, which underwent several drafts and translations after its first publication in 1536, when Calvin was 27 years old. (It’s difficult to feel like I’ve accomplished very much in my life when I realize that by the time John Calvin was my age, he had been dead five years.)

God's Day and Holy Ground
God's Day and Holy Ground