Sunday, November 3: Worship at 10:30 am. All Saints’ Day – we will remember those who have gone before.
Monday, November 4: Bible Study, 6 pm.
Tuesday, November 5: AA meets in Fellowship Hall, 7 pm
Wednesday, November 6: **Women’s Fellowship: 1:30 pm in Fellowship Hall
**Grill’s On! Community picnic, 5-ish to 7-ish. The welcome continues. Bring something to share or just bring yourself!
**Worship Planning Meeting: 6 pm in the Sanctuary. All are invited to join us in a conversation about our ministry of Worship and plan for the months ahead. Contact the office or Pastor Paul if you have thoughts or questions.
Thursday, November 7: AA meets in Fellowship Hall, 7 pm
Other Ministries and Events
**Sunday School: We are looking for a few volunteers to help lead Sunday School during worship. Story and crafts are provided. If this is of interest to you, please contact Pastor Paul.
**Christmas: Cookies, Crafts and Carols: There’s talk of having special events for Christmas, including making cookies and crafts and sharing in Christmas carols. If you are interested, contact the office or Pastor Paul.
**Fall Bazaar, Bake Sale, Lunch: Saturday, November 23, 9am-1pm. Sign-up sheet to help is posted in Fellowship Hall.
**Concert – Bill Bastian & the Highland Quartet: Saturday, December 14, 1:30 pm. Wonderful music! Free of charge! Bake sale to support church.
From Pastor Paul, Toward Sunday: Geek alert ahead. Pending on our kinship of interest in woody plants, you’ll either be engaged or bored by the following…in the latter case, I can only hope you smile and nod and think “well, he’s an interesting fellow, I suppose.” Here goes: Stand on the front steps of the church and look out toward the hillside. On the ridge line, tall above the steady canopy of trees in the Magney Snively forest, are a sweet bunch of old-growth pine, interspersed with spruce and cedar. Every Sunday, during our opening hymn sing, I stand on the front steps and look out at those trees while singing (and I wave to the cars passing by, and sometimes make a passing dog-walker feel a bit uncomfortable, but that is beside the point now). I wanted to see them up close, but driving on Skyline, it was hard to place them among the twists and turns, so a few weeks ago I took a compass bearing from the front of the steps (between 280 and 282 degrees for those who share kinship here) and walked directly to them. They’re gorgeous up close. And this began a goal to seek out all of these old growth groves up in that area. Notably (and here’s where I get really geeky), there is an elusive grove of Hemlock that is tucked somewhere on that hillside. It’s in the old notes and the chit-chat of woodsy folk, and likely not cut down, given the rumored dates, but nobody seems to know where it is. And by the way, this is Eastern Hemlock we’re talking about – not the4 hemlock of Socrates fame. We’re talking Tsuga canadensis here. It’s a common tree in the northeast of our country, but stops near the Michigan border. There are only a few patches of Hemlock in Wisconsin and even fewer in Minnesota. Cool. Worth searching for. Beats that Pokemon thing on the phone folks are doing in my book. Anyway, my dear friends, I find some! Saplings among the rocks near Stewart’s Creek! And I look up and there’s a big ol’ hemlock right above me. I’m all excited about this and send the message to a forester friend to show off my discovery, thinking I’m cool beans and a naturalist rock-star for a moment. …For a moment. Turns out I was way off. What I thought were saplings were actually Canadian Yew. Taxus canadensis. Oh! And that large tree that I thought was an old growth Hemlock? Turns out to be a Spruce. I suppose I just wanted it to be Hemlock so much that my will overcame my discerning eyes. I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to have my hope and my will for something to be what I want it to be cloud my judgment of what it really is. Also, I am not the first to be wrong. So my prayer? God, let me be wrong. Let the palm of my hand slap my forehead with my eyes closed and my head shaking “no”…but then let me inhale, look up, laugh, and get back to exploring. In other words, God, let me learn from being wrong. …and God, really, if you don’t mind..do what you can so that I don’t confuse my Taxis with my Tsugas in the future. I kinda felt silly, after all.
Love from your Geeky Pastor (oh, and “Let’s Talk”) Paul