Odds on Faith

Dear Partners in Separation:

As you may have noticed, I resist pastoral letters that are pep talks to increase participation in activities and generosity in giving. Not that these things are unimportant; I just believe that generosity and activity are consequences of a growing faith, not goals. Still, every once in a while, it’s good to check in on our progress.

Just this past Sunday, the Sanctuary was completely empty for both services, and not one nickel or envelope was found in the offering plates. Coffee urns remained empty, the Faith Forest room quiet, the balcony completely free from choral sound; clean-up was a breeze. By all traditional metrics, it was a lousy Sunday.

Years ago, a preaching student of mine gave a brilliant sermon for our class in which she said, “Faith is what you’ve got when everything else is gone.” She had lived in Reno, Nevada, for many years and compared the environmental manipulations of casinos to the reality of faith. Casinos create noisy, busy, bright-light experiences to bolster the illusion of a “sure thing.” My student was a building engineer who confirmed the rumor that gambling floors pump in enhanced oxygen to give that “can’t lose” feeling. By contrast, she observed that deepening faith is found in silence and solitude; faith is made stronger in darkness. So, here we are.

For several months now, we have been the church without any trappings of assurance; it’s hard to sing harmony when your voice is solo. I have been deeply moved again and again by the expressions of faith coming though safe-distance conversations, emailed prayers and thoughtful hand-written notes. Even as we are moving into deeper restrictions on gathering, God’s Spirit is not constrained. For those with ears to hear, the still small voice of faith whispers the confidence of grace and the invisible but certain evidence of fellowship. The solid rock on which we stand is neither swayed by election results nor threatened by pandemic limitations. It is affirmed by God’s own Word, secured by the life, death and resurrection of Christ and conditioned by the ceaseless breath of the Holy Spirit.

For those who feel you may be losing your grip, know this: God’s hold on us relies not one bit on our feelings. Manipulated feelings pay the light bills of Reno.

Knowing faith isn’t something we keep, but what God gives, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor

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A Recipe for Reconciliation Has a Starting Point
A Recipe for Reconciliation Has a Starting Point

Dear Non-Conference Non-Attendees:

As you may know, a great deal of effort was put into planning and promoting a post-COVID conference scheduled for the second Saturday in March. Pre-registrations were underwhelming, so the week before the event I decided to cancel it. It’s bad form to have more breakout groups than attendees. I’m grateful for the presenters and preparers who were unable to showcase their no-doubt brilliant work; but discussing the impact of the pandemic four years out was clearly uninteresting to a wider public.

Upon reflection, I realize I shouldn’t be surprised. I conceived of an event designed to address the unprocessed grief we carry regarding what was lost during those dark months of soaring death rates and social isolation. I recognize now that a conference organized to address denial is doomed by its own irony.

Perhaps because I spent so much time thinking about the pandemic’s impact on our social psyche,

Thoughts and Prayers or Thoughtful Prayer?
Thoughts and Prayers or Thoughtful Prayer?

Dear Deep Intercessors:

As I’ve mentioned before, when confronted with pain, struggle, deprivation, weakness, etc., we’re not comfortable regulating our helplessness. “Thoughts and prayers” have become a trivializing phrase, hiding passivity in the face of tragedy. But there are times when that’s all we’ve got. Unfortunately, “I’ll pray for you” feels like a last resort when we’ve exhausted all the options of practical assistance. It feels like surrender. ‘I wanted to do something useful, but all the wonderful things I could do have been declined, so I guess I’m stuck with praying instead.’

I understand how quickly feelings of helplessness can degenerate into a self-loathing

A Taxing Responsibility
A Taxing Responsibility

Dear Taxing Filers:

April 15th, Tax Day! Hopefully you’re not scrambling to finish the filing task on this beautiful Monday; I usually am. Not because I procrastinate, which I do, but because ministers are paid like independent contractors, so the 15.3% self-employment tax on salary and housing allowance usually leaves a little extra needed to top off my quarterly payments from the previous year. Like many, I’m in no rush to hand off that cash. I am grateful for the continued income tax exemption provided to clergy for housing allowance, but am not confident that exemption will last. Implemented to compensate pastors who own their homes rather than live in a church manse, local municipalities like the allowance because it keeps clergy houses on the property tax rolls. Churches do not pay tax for their property, including church-owned pastors' housing. (Strangely enough, continuation of the housing allowance exemption finds its greatest protection from the U.S. military.) All this brings me to today’s musing, a brief history of the religious church tax exemption.

It’s an old allowance. Christian Emperor Constantine (272-337 BCE) famously insulated Christian churches from Roman taxation, a tradition that was continued

Keep Looking Up, at least until you're tired
Keep Looking Up, at least until you're tired

Dear Sunward Gazers,

As I write this we are anticipating a solar eclipse, which reminds me of my brief childhood hope of becoming an astronomer. It was the height of the Space Race, and Apollo missions were already in full gear, inching the United States closer to planting the first human feet on the moon. My neighborhood buddies and I were well aware of the tragic Apollo 1 accident on February 21, 1967, in which Command Pilot Gus Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee perished in an awful fire during a launch rehearsal. An electrical spark ignited nylon insulation, and the conflagration was accelerated by the use of pure, high-pressure oxygen in the cabin. A congressional investigation resulted in several changes to the module’s design, particularly the use of a far less explosive nitrogen/oxygen mixture. They had briefly experimented with an even more inert helium/oxygen blend, but that combination made the astronauts sound like Alvin and the other chipmunks, so it was scuttled in the name of dignity.

Most of my friends aspired to be astronauts, but I was a risk-averse kid. As with the high dive or the zipline, I preferred to be an observer rather than a potential stain on the pool’s bottom or cautionary splat on a camp trail. Astronomy was for me—it was a profession that involved sitting

You Raise Me Up, Because?
You Raise Me Up, Because?

Dear Sitters:

In 2001, Norwegian composer Rolf Løvland wrote a short instrumental piece with a contemplative melody and haunting harmonies titled “Silent Story”. A few years later, Løvland approached novelist and songwriter Brendan Graham to write lyrics for the piece. It was first performed at the funeral of Løvland’s mother by vocalist Johnny Logan, who later recorded a demo of the piece with full orchestra. The song was picked up by various artists, but these recordings languished without much fanfare; that was until 2003, when producer David Foster selected the song for up-and-coming star Josh Groban. “You Raise Me Up” became one of Groban’s megahits.

The structure of the song creates a sweeping double crescendo of the chorus; just when you think the song has reached its emotional apex, the tune modulates,

Looking for Joy in All the Wrong Places
Looking for Joy in All the Wrong Places
Pledge Punctuation Changes Allegience
Pledge Punctuation Changes Allegience

Dear Pledging Patriots:

At the close of the 1800s, the United States was swamped with immigrants. Nearly 15% of the nation was foreign born, with a majority coming from northern and western European countries. It was noted that in 1890, one in six Chicago residents had been born in Germany. There were also a substantial number of new American residents from Ireland and eastern Europe. They were largely poor and alarmingly Catholic. Most, regardless of their country of origin, were arriving on American shores having formerly been pledged to kings and other associated royal potentates. Coming to America required not only the acquisition of a new language, but also a changed understanding of citizenship. Republics are very different from monarchies.

Concern over the new arrivals’ ability to assimilate and a fear that they lacked understanding

In Gratitude for Your Manifestation of God's Presence
In Gratitude for Your Manifestation of God's Presence

Dear Ones:

As you may imagine, today’s Musing doesn’t wander far from Dani’s brain surgery today. Some things overwhelm all other threads of concentration. Counting out Aggi’s (our dog) pills this morning and smooshing them into her favorite gummy candy, I was taken aback, because next to the newly filled pill cup was another pill cup containing the pills, each stuffed into a gummy. Clearly, I had done that task earlier in the morning and had no actual memory of having performed that part of my morning routine. I’m finding myself making sure the keys are in my pocket several times each time I get out of the car. Deep thought clearly takes up a lot of space, crowding out the mundane mental wanderings of an average day…

March 9, 2024. Dropping the Mask: A COVID Remembrance - what we lost, what we learned
March 9, 2024. Dropping the Mask: A COVID Remembrance - what we lost, what we learned

Dear Past Pandemic Prospectors,

Four years ago, during the second week of March 2020, the world underwent a profound transformation. Restaurants, schools, libraries, museums, churches, offices, sports arenas—any place where people gathered—shut down for nearly two years. Social connections were reduced to glowing screens, loved ones were glimpsed behind closed windows, learning was confined to laptops, and touch was abandoned. The world functioned at a distance, and remote living seemed safer.

When 'normalcy' returned, there was a rush to resume activities, to gather, to embrace, and to move forward. However, in our haste, we overlooked

Knowing Everything/Knowing Nothing
Knowing Everything/Knowing Nothing

Dear God Lovers:

I seldom experience past sermon preparation bleeding over into my Monday brain—by Sunday afternoon I’ve pretty much exhausted all interest in that morning’s texts, and I attempt to create some headspace to welcome the following week’s passages. But yesterday’s epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 8.1-13 has left some spiritual residue about which I have been musing.

For those who were there or who listened online, the focus of my sermon was the conclusion of the first verse of the passage, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” These words were convicting enough to wrestle out a full sermon. But verse 2 is equally if not more startling. Paul writes,

Leaning, Learning, Loving
Leaning, Learning, Loving

Dear Members and Friends:

This past Saturday our elders and deacons gathered for our annual time for learning and mutual encouragement. Back in 2012, the Presbyterian Church (USA) changed the term “Minister of Word and Sacrament” to “Teaching Elder” as the designation for ordained clergy in our denomination. It didn’t really catch on, and now both terms are considered appropriate. Whatever term you use to refer to me, my experience at our Saturday gathering was that of a learner, not an instructor. And while the content of what I learned was not really new, it was great to revisit and be reminded of the wealth of wisdom and grace FPCLG has among its officers.

The Session met in the morning, and I heard again of their deep love for our congregation and their appreciation for how we do church. They shared their desire

For all Seasons
For all Seasons

Dear Shivering Saints:

There’s something about extreme cold that makes creativity difficult. As mammals, a good portion of our metabolism is obsessed with keeping our body temperature at a level where all the chemical and mechanical reactions can function efficiently, and there’s a very narrow temperature range where that can happen. As a result, when the ambient temperature is very cold or very hot, we either curl up to preserve warmth or sprawl out to maximize surface area and dissipate heat. Those of you who are dog owners know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s only when the air around us hits the Goldilocks zone

Mourning Coffee
Mourning Coffee

Dear Morning Makers:

I woke up this morning to our furnace functioning quite efficiently, and while its humidifier unit underfunctions a bit on cold winter days, we bought a large console floor model which works quite well, and despite its age we can still find filter wicks in stock at both Menards and Home Depot. Our hot water heater is a few years old, but it works great and seems significantly more responsive than the one it replaced. When I went to the basement yesterday, the green indicator light on the freezer shone brightly, and it’s partially full of a variety of rock-hard frozen foods. Meanwhile, upstairs

God Doesn't Give You More than WE Can Handle
God Doesn't Give You More than WE Can Handle
Christmas Time Crunch
Christmas Time Crunch

Dear Christmas Time Crunchers:

In a recent article published by the American Psychological Association, researchers Julian Givi and Colleen P. Kirk presented their findings regarding the emotional weight associated with declining an invitation (a PDF of the article may be found here). Briefly stated, their study found that those who decline invitations predict far more negative ramifications from the inviter than are justified. For example, if someone invites you to lunch and you decline, they tend to be far less disappointed than you think they are. The implication of the findings suggests that we respond positively to invitations more often than we honestly desire, and when we decline invitations, we are disposed to exaggerate the weight of our excuse. While my own research on this topic is far less scientific, I’m inclined to agree. Which brings me to my

One From the Missiles
One From the Missiles

Dear Advent Star Gazers:

There are many accounts of the Cuban Missile Crisis which I will not recount for you here today, but as this time of year we muse together about Christmas music, some of you may not know how these two topics overlap.

For a quick background, the United States had placed nuclear tipped Jupiter missiles with NATO allies Italy and Turkey in 1961. At that same time the Kennedy administration was arming and training Cuban exiles to mount attacks on Fidel Castro’s regime, a strategy

Switching Toggels to Tuners
Switching Toggels to Tuners

Dear Light Walkers:

I’ve been thinking a lot about our understanding of binary categories ever since several months ago I listened to an interview with a man who is blind, having lost his vision in his mid-twenties in an accident. He mentioned that he did have some shadow vision—he could make out shapes and forms, but they lacked definition and color. When he described what his poorly functioning eyes could ‘see’, he expressed his surprise that many people told him he wasn’t really blind. He said that we think of blindness and sight as a binary relationship, when less than 20%

Advent Adventure
Advent Adventure
Strong Enough To Confess Weakness
Strong Enough To Confess Weakness

Dear Faltering Friends:

 Care is what we do when we’re waiting for a cure. It’s transient, it’s temporary, which is why we are really bad at caring for people who cannot be cured.

Over the past two decades the hospice movement has addressed some of this dissonance. For the terminally ill, after the medical industrial complex has given up on checking the win column for your condition, they will transition your treatment to a group of extremely compassionate professionals who do not consider mortality to be failure. Comfort, dignity, respect and

A Clash with Charisma
A Clash with Charisma

Dear Keepers of the Faith:

Where there is anxiety innovation reeks of invasion and tradition smells like home.

In the mid-1970s, the church of my youth was in crisis. Founded as a church plant grown from tent meeting revivals, there was a growing dissonance between their image and their origin. In the half century since its birth, the Omaha Gospel Tabernacle had shaken them loose from their fiery salvationist roots as the current generation was striving for mainstream respectability.

The term tabernacle was not just a metaphor; it was also architectural.

I'm Not Good at Fundraising
I'm Not Good at Fundraising

Dear Members and Friends:

If you are a current active member of FPCLG, in a few days you should receive in the mail a pledge form for 2024 along with your contributions statement for the first three quarters of 2023. We provide this information for your records and to openly solicit your generosity for the coming year.

“It’s all about money!” some protest when their church office reaches out to discuss finances. As a pastor, I’ve heard many stories about people receiving giving envelopes from their local parish as their very first encounter with the church in a new

Fear of Being Broke Brain and Distorted Seeing
Fear of Being Broke Brain and Distorted Seeing

Dear Fellow Wealth Worriers:

I have recently concluded that there is a certain portion of my brain assigned to worrying about money. It pays little attention to facts or figures; it just keeps doodling along without any self-conscious reference to past experiences or current solvency. Its sole job is hype-up anxiety, regardless of whether or not anxiety is necessary. I call this part of my cranium my fear-of-bring-broke brain (FBBB).

I used to think my FBBB was rooted in some kind of primal survival

Does the Source Matter?
Does the Source Matter?

Dear Miscellaneous Mystics:

The other day I read the quote attributed to Thomas Merton (1915-1968), “People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.” I thought it was a great metaphor for this year’s stewardship theme, “A Way of Seeing”. I wanted to find the context in which the great contemplative American monk uttered these wise words, hoping to find an even deeper explication of how Merton perceived the shallowness of human ambition. It was my intent to stand with him in deep discernment made possible by his many years of silent reflection.

The more I dug, however, the more disappointing my search became

Invitation or Obligation? It's A Way of Seeing
Invitation or Obligation? It's A Way of Seeing

Dear Invited Guests:

Last week I revealed our 2024 Stewardship theme as “A Way of Seeing.” I wish over the next few weeks to illuminate our annual pledge appeal motto with an invitation to deeper reflection. Today, think of the opportunity to pledge as an invitation to a banquet, a metaphor Jesus used on more than one occasion (Matthew 22.1-14 & Luke 14.12-24). 

When sending invitations, our tendency is to focus on the details, the venue, the theme, the menu and the music. As a pastor who has officiated at more than one nuptial celebration, I understand people more accurately recall the entrée, the DJ and the dress than they do the homily, the prayers or the vows. Even though the party is occasioned

Giving: A Way of Seeing
Giving: A Way of Seeing

Dear Potential Pledgers:

In my offering meditation yesterday, I referenced our annual stewardship campaign. As we prepare to set our 2024 budget, the Session prefers to have a snapshot of the revenue side of the ledger. While we receive limited revenue through fundraisers and facilities rental, the vast majority of our expenses are covered by regular member giving.

Each year I endeavor to create a theme and offer sermons and reflections on the spiritual benefits of generosity. But often it all seems like a strange game. The church leaders try to subtly persuade people to give more than they initially planned, and the members smile and say they’re

Great Expectations
Great Expectations

Dear folks looking for a little class action:

I saw an article yesterday (yes, this is a Monday Musing even though it’s being distributed on a Tuesday) which said that people are suing fast food franchises because the food advertised bears little resemblance to the food actually served. Anyone pulling out of the drive-through and reaching into the bag knows exactly what the pending court battle is all about. Very few fast-food items deliver the mouth-watering quality promised by the menu pictures posted just a few hundred feet behind you. I’m not sure, however, if I approve of a litigious response to the bait-and-switch sadness of unmet expectations; but pulling into a parking space and walking the meal in to the manager to complain about the uncentered pickle seems like too much trouble. It also risks having you look like a jerk on social media video when someone records you complaining that the fries in your box are nothing but tiny little

Political Preachers
Political Preachers

Dear Friends of Jesus:

We’re about to face a barrage of information and spin reminding us that an upcoming election is an existential choice, perhaps the most important election of our lifetime. Unless you count all the other elections on which hinged the future of Western civilization itself. Safely banking on our faulty short-term memory or our susceptibility to national frenzy, those who profit from fostering voter turnout are stoking the engines of anxiety for us to fall once again for the dominance of politics above all other spheres of human consideration. The key motivator which will have us again at each other’s throats is the demonizing of the other. Campaign propaganda will serve to ratchet the otherwise banal choice between politicians

Scrolling the Scramble
Scrolling the Scramble

Dear Content Consumers:

I hit a limit last week. The headline was, “I Taste-Tested and Ranked 10 Kinds of Ranch Dressing and Can’t Believe How Long I’ve Missed Out on The Winner.” This was up there with, “I Flew First Class to China and Business Class Back, Here’s What I Learned.” These articles appear daily on the landing page of major news websites. With fear that I’ll be memed as, “Old Man Complains About the Death of Journalism,” I’ve been musing anyway. Interspersed with these important news stories were trivial distractions about some fire in Maui, which turns out to be in the United States, the upcoming election in Guatemala, which by the way mentioned that it was somewhere in a place called Central America, and some dramatic

Ecumenical Gathering At The Library?
Ecumenical Gathering At The Library?

Dear Communitarians:

 Yesterday was the first Endless SummerFest “All Together Under The Son” worship service since pandemic guidelines cancelled the event in 2020, and then again in 2021. In 2022 the festival returned, but a massive shortage of event personnel made logistics for the worship service impractical. This year the Ministerium of Greater La Grange started preparing earlier, and after agreeing to cover additional stage and security costs through contributions from some of our churches, we returned for the celebration.

 Our first Endless SummerFest worship celebration in 2016 was organized by Steve Palmer, who considered the weekend festival to be his baby and envisioned a Sunday ecumenical gathering as part of the event lineup. Steve contacted

God's Standing in the Polls
God's Standing in the Polls

Dear Survey Monkeys,

Just last week the Gallup organization released a poll on the ranking of Americans’ belief in five Spiritual Entities. The poll taken intermittently since 2001 tracks popular support for the existence of God, Angels, Heaven, Hell and the Devil. As you may have guessed, support for the reality of each of these has fallen over the past two decades, but, because it’s my job to interpret things that are of little interest to others, I feel a need to dive more deeply into the data.