​Call out “Peace be with you!” to any good Methodist, and you will most likely hear the response: “And also with you!” I love that as our go-to response, but I wonder if we even think about what that means. Where did it come from? Is it just a way for us to wish people a calm day? Do we say it to everyone? Should we?
 
When Jesus sent the disciples out to spread the gospel message, he told them that they were to begin with the standard greeting of their time: Peace be unto you. Those words of welcome had become as their prayer. The disciples were asking the peace of God to rest on every person they met. Everywhere they went, they prayed that God’s Kingdom was available to each one.
 
“As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.” (Matthew 10:12-14, NIV)
 
I find it interesting that they were given permission to receive that peace back. The disciples were to offer the Kingdom to all but were not held accountable for the actions of others. No one wants to bless inappropriate behavior, but that wasn’t a judgment call for the disciples to make. Offer God’s peace to everyone, then allow God to determine who benefits from the blessing. If a household was deemed unworthy by God, then “no harm – no foul” on the disciples’ part. The blessing would be returned to them.
 
Matthew Henry wrote: “It becomes us to judge charitably of all, to pray heartily for all, and to conduct ourselves courteously to all, for that is our part, and then to leave it with God to determine what effect it shall have upon them, for that is his part.”
 
How about that? Treat others well, and then trust God for anything further. That concept works. Just as the directive was given a couple of thousand years ago, it works really well in today’s climate, too. I can’t change people’s hearts; Jesus never delegated his authority in that way. Jesus simply sends his people out to tell others about the Love of God. If folks listen, great. If not, move along. God’s got this.
 
Peace,
Pastor Beth

On Monday mornings, I try to check the news stories regarding COVID-19. I find that keeping my information intake to once or twice a week provides me with a more reliable picture than attempting to work out all the details several times a day. Also, I have a personal assistant who keeps me notified if something huge is announced. (Thanks, Mom.)
 
As for my own checking, here is what I learned this morning:
The numbers of sick people are increasing unless the numbers are decreasing. Hospitalizations are at record highs for every single day this past week, excluding that one day when the numbers went down again. Percentages are holding steady, but sometimes they fluctuate. Facemasks are required except in places where they are not.
 
Maybe I’m just slow to understand, but I feel a little perplexed. I know for sure that this virus is quite serious, and I know I will be making good decisions that keep me and my family safe. Beyond that, I’m not really sure of the truth. Watching cable news isn’t providing information that is easy to understand. Reading the internet stories is baffling. Sometimes I think I can just about find whatever details I want. Facts are not supposed to be complicated and blurred. Truth is straightforward, not wonky. In the midst of all this confusion, where is the truth? How am I supposed to remain healthy if I don’t recognize the truth?
 
Unfortunately, viruses and news stories are not the only places where truth can appear skewed for the world is thick with deceitful teachings and moves us in unhealthy directions. In the Bible, the four Gospels, several of Paul’s letters and John’s Revelation all mention distortions of truth and all warn us to stay away. Even the Old Testament prophets warn against false prophets.
 
The good news for us, then, is that we have precise teachings strong enough to wipe out the confusion. Truth is not a counterweight to false teachings; we are not looking for a balance. Truth is an absolute – an unconditional, unqualified, unmovable, unlimited, unchangeable, unmodified, unadulterated, unquestionable certainty with no room for duplicity or deceit.
 
“Teach me your way, Lord, so that I can walk in your truth. Make my heart focused only on honoring your name. I give thanks to you, my Lord, my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify your name forever, because your faithful love toward me is awesome and because you’ve rescued my life from the lowest part of hell.” (Psalm 86:11-13, CEB) The psalmist nailed it this time crying out to God for truth, only truth, and promising to glorify God’s name forever. With our hearts focused on the Love of God, Truth becomes our way of life. The result is order, stability, harmony… perfection!
 
John Wesley taught that perfection is our goal. He didn’t mean we would never make mistakes. Wesley was talking about being filled with Christian Love. Jesus invited us into that kind of spiritual maturity so perfect love is certainly possible. (see Matthew 5) For me, I think I’ll continue to use scripture as my main news source.
 
Staying informed,
Pastor Beth
 
 
 ​

Fridays have been my day off for many, many years. I am supposed to take off Friday as my personal sabbath and Saturday as my family day, but somehow life doesn’t always work that way. On this particular Friday, as I head into a very busy weekend of worship planning and leading, my hope is to actually take off this entire day. With heavy rain expected, I’m thinking this will be a great day to just do nothing. It’s been a very demanding week, and storms make for good sleeping background noise. Maybe a nap is in order.  Whenever I feel like I need a day off, I try to remember the apostles during those first days after Pentecost. The Book of Acts is filled with stories of their plights and triumphs. As they diligently put every effort into telling about their journey with Jesus, they are faced with unhappy officials. Killing Jesus was supposed to be the end of all this. How can these men, knowing how Jesus had been crucified, continue to teach about new life? Aren’t they afraid? The religious leaders wonder how they can feel justified teaching in the Temple. I wonder how they can feel safe. Either way, the disciples continue their work.  “The high priest, together with his allies, the Sadducees, was overcome with jealousy. They seized the apostles and made a public show of putting them in prison. An angel from the Lord opened the prison doors during the night and led them out. The angel told them, “Go, take your place in the temple, and tell the people everything about this new life.” Early in the morning, they went into the temple as they had been told and began to teach.” (Acts 5:17-21 CEB) Obedient. The apostles were nothing if not obedient. Even after being thrown in jail, they returned to the Temple. Yes, the instruction had come from God’s messenger, but I still wonder if I would have had that kind of courage. The high priest was super resentful and was looking for reasons to get them out of the way. Already they had been imprisoned, and crucifixion was always a possibility. Still, when God’s hand released them from their captivity, they headed straight back into the storm. Taking a day off wasn’t an option. No time for a nap. Telling people about Jesus took over everything else they faced.  I do love a good day off complete with naps, and I am thankful for the moments of quiet I get to enjoy. I’m more thankful for the blessing of serving the One whose umbrella of Love shelters me through life’s storms.  Covered,Pastor Beth  ​

Whoosh! That’s the sound of my week getting away from me. Is it really Wednesday? Wasn’t it just Sunday a few hours ago? What happened to Monday and Tuesday? This is happening much too often these days.
 
When we were first instructed to work from home, I had grand designs on my time. At the beginning of the week, I would awaken early to get a fresh and invigorated start. My energy would be abundant since I wouldn’t have the interruptions I’ve come to expect in a day at the office. I would work awhile at my neatly arranged workspace, go for a walk around the block with the dog, work a bit more, get some housework done, work, cook fabulous meals, wrap up work, take another walk, and then relax at a decent hour of the evening before heading to bed amazed and satisfied at the amount I had accomplished throughout the day.  With the number of walks through the neighborhood coupled with my marvelous home-cooked feasts (healthy selections perfectly balanced and rich with flavor), I surely would enjoy a drop in calories. Yes, in the beginning, I had a plan.
 
That plan lasted less time than it took to type the previous paragraph. Days are disappearing faster than you can say “didn’t-get-that-done.” The blog entry I started first thing this morning is in its infancy – nowhere near publishing to the website – and it’s now after midnight. Wait! That means it’s tomorrow! Whoosh! There goes another one.
 
When life throws curve balls and I become discouraged with the amount of interruptions, I’m always drawn to the psalms. The beauty of the poetry and the consistent returning to God in praise reminds me of which path to take. “But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.” (Proverbs 4:18, NRSV) Oh right, I remember now. I’m not called to success; I’m called to faithfulness.
 
As tomorrow becomes today, I’m looking forward to the brightness of the day and the fullness of praise. Looks like I have a new plan.
 
Faithfully,
Pastor Beth
 
 ​

“Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day. Little Johnny wants to play.” So goes the sing-song of my jump-roping childhood. As the clouds spill across this day, I’m reminded of soggy moments that have flooded years gone by. From rubber boots splashing in puddles, to ducks landing in the side yard during spring storms, rain as a youngster was almost always an adventure.
 
One of my most vivid childhood memories was in 1971, when my family was held hostage in a tiny room of the Ocean Isle Inn. The villain was appropriately named Hurricane Beth. Day after day we played with a single deck of cards and stuffed our beach towels under the hotel door to keep the driving water on the outside. Toward the end of the week, we spent our time guaging the distance from our room to the waves and wagering whether we could make it to the water’s edge before the next band of wind and rain appeared. Under Mama’s watchful eye, we made it a time or two, but it never lasted more than a few minutes before we were recalled to the safety of our four walls.
 
A year later I was nine years old, and the Yadkin River had spilled out of its banks causing our local creeks to become raging swirls of rushing white force. To my young mind, our familiar little stream had been swallowed up by the fierce water monster before me. I had never seen anything that looked so powerful, so beautiful and so terrifying all at once. I took my little brother’s hand and moved us back a step or two toward Daddy. We’d be safer a little closer to him than to the muddy beast that howled and trembled where my serene brook had once lived.
 
As a teenager, water plunged me into my first recognition of the Holy Spirit. The tug at my heart was palpable at the Lake Junaluska Southeastern Jurisdiction Youth Camp. We had just completed a particularly moving worship filled with singing and praying. The thunder of the outside storm rumbled in our chests and provided dramatic sound effects as tears quietly spilled onto our cheeks through the testimonies. Although this had been a wet and muddy camping week, we emerged from our afternoon session at Shackford Hall to be greeted by a spectacular double rainbow over the mountain. The reflection in the lake created a perfect double circle, and the cross at Inspiration Point marked the rings’ center. It was as if the water of the lake, the storms, and the tears blended to craft an unmistakable backdrop for the gift of Jesus himself. Our hike back to soggy tents was through puddles and mud, but the promise of that rainbow had been sent to me personally and my heart felt sheltered and protected.
 
“But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.” (2 Thessalonians 3:3, NRSV) God’s promises aren’t always engulfed in water, but we are immersed in their securities and drenched by their life-giving abundance. In the dry spaces of my life, when I feel parched and unable to continue, I am firm in my dependence on the Living Water of Jesus. Just as I can depend on the rain returning, even after a long drought, I am able to rely on the assurances of our Savior where I remain safe and secure.
 
Drenched in Love,
​Pastor Beth

June 15 has been my mother’s birthday 81 times.
 
81 times the Happy Birthday song has been just for her. 81 times the celebration of her birth has been on the minds of those who love her. 81 times she has travelled around the sun.
 
During her 81 years, she has experienced the miracle of life and prevailed over the devastation of death. She has enjoyed peace and overcome war. Technology has advanced. Industry has improved. Vaccines have evolved. Her life traverses through space exploration, television development, and 14 U.S. presidents (including Roosevelt three times).
 
As a child, she survived rheumatic fever and WWII. Her teenage years saw the beginnings of James Dean and McDonalds. In her 20th year, Alaska and Hawaii became states. Her 30s were dominated by Star Wars and a lazy, orange cat named Garfield.
 
The following decades watched over the fall of the Berlin Wall, the development of the Internet, Nelson Mandella, the Hubble Telescope, and cell phones.
 
My mom also comes from a world where google refers to the bouncy eyes of a Cookie Monster, swipe is what your cat does when he’s angry, and a cloud is a fluffy white floating rain holder. Her language may be somewhat changed through her 81 years, but suffice it to say that many happy and productive moments have dotted Mom’s timeline. She married one husband, raised two children, enjoyed five grandchildren, and before her 81st year is over, she will smile over her first great-grandchild.
 
“Yes, the Lord has done great things for us, and we are overjoyed.” (Psalm 126:3, CEB) The years of our lives gift us with wisdom, knowledge, and experience. Not every memory is a happy one, but on our birthdays it just seems appropriate to celebrate the great gifts of God and feel overjoyed.
 
Happy Birthday, Mom.
 
Love,
Beth

​“What?” It was not the first time today I had uttered that question. “What? What did you say?” With patience almost as huge as the heavy sigh he breathed out, my husband started again.
 
I knew he was frustrated. I was, too. Several times today he had spoken to me, and I had not heard. Was he mumbling? Is my hearing beginning to fade? Has my brain stopped processing sound effectively? Are my ears losing the ability to recognize the frequency of his voice? No, this problem was much worse, and it had nothing to do with him.
 
Bill and I have been married for nearly 27 years. He knows me better than anyone, and I know him. Yet, we have a problem that doesn’t seem to get better with time. Over the years, we have continued this battle. Regardless of our familiarity with one another, this struggle persists.
 
Our difficulty is not something that is unique to us. Many times I have heard that this same breakdown plagues couples from every walk of life causing frustration for both parties on a regular basis.
 
The problem… as much as I hate to admit it… is this: I don’t always listen to him.
 
When my attention is fixated on something specific, I am quite capable of ignoring the rest of the world. I don’t hear other people in the room; I don’t notice outside noises. Unfortunately, this also means tuning out my husband.
 
If I am reading a book, studying a lesson, writing a sermon, watching a television show, completing a crossword puzzle, or any number of activities that require my brain to engage, I tend to concentrate so intently that my focus is challenging to break. To simply walk into a room and talk to me has no guarantee that I am hearing you.
 
To further exasperate the issue, I have been known on occasion to actually answer – regardless of whether I have paid attention to the conversation or to my own comments. Of course, later I have no recollection of any of it.
 
I know I do it; I know it is annoying. I know it happens more often than I care to acknowledge. I answer out of habit rather than engaging. Even more often I simply hear pieces of words and when I finally realize my attention is required, I speak that frustrating single-word question: “What?” And whether audible to me or not, my husband responds with a heavy sigh.
 
I love the Lord because he hears my requests for mercy. I’ll call out to him as long as I live, because he listens closely to me. (Psalm 116:1-2, CEB) God listens closely to me. The Creator of everything focuses completely, pays attention, acknowledges fully… me. How I can be important enough to put aside all distraction is beyond my understanding, and yet here we are. Nothing else in the world matters because when I talk, God hears me and never asks “what?” Even better is that when God speaks directly to me and I don’t listen, I never receive the heavy sigh that I so readily deserve.
 
My sweet husband loves me and is extremely patient with me, but he doesn’t compare to the patience and love given by the God I serve. Thank you, Lord, for hearing my requests for mercy and for listening closely to me.
 
Learning to listen,
Pastor Beth
 

Shout triumphantly to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with celebration! Come before him with shouts of joy! Know that the Lord is God – he made us; we belong to him. We are his people, the sheep of his own pasture. Enter his gates with thanks; enter his courtyards with praise! Thank him! Bless his name! Because the Lord is good, his loyal love lasts forever; his faithfulness lasts generation after generation. (Psalm 100, NIV) 

​Music has always been a part of my life. I remember listening to my father practice for his part playing the baritone horn in the Moravian Band at Old Salem. My mind can still hear my grandmother’s pure alto in the family sing-alongs at Christmas as a perfect complement to my granddaddy’s robust bass. My mother was the church pianist for years flying across the keys with fingers that never missed a note.
 
I remember being robed in a freshly ironed, stark white gown. I was only four, but I felt all grown up with huge bell sleeves and a bright red bow tied at the neck. With age I graduated from that New Hope Methodist children’s choir, but I never moved beyond the music.
 
Recently I received a message from a couple of old friends. I don’t think we have spoken in person in nearly 40 years, but it seemed as if life had remained perfectly still. After all that time, we picked up right where we left off as teenagers. The purpose of their contact was to ask me if I remembered the words to a song we sang as young girls. Together we reminisced about a mountain road trip when the three of us sat in the private world of our back seat and sang for hours as my friends’ mothers chatted happily from the front. After we stopped to eat, we quickly returned to singing. We viewed the mountains and valleys from overlooks, and then moved back to the music. Even soaring down the alpine slide that day couldn’t stop the harmony of our lives and our voices.
 
As we typed back and forth on that visiting night, my friends recorded their voices singing one of our old travelling songs. After sharing it with me, they asked me to do the same. I complied. Before I knew it, we were smiling at one another on FaceTime and talking together as if the three of us had never been apart. We reminisced about our church youth group, caught up on a few of the old gang, and remembered all the old songs from our younger days. From hymns like “Fill My Cup, Lord” to fun favorites such as “Sweet Violets,” we covered everything we could pull from the cobwebs of our minds.
 
At one point, I was asked about being a pastor in the middle of a pandemic. Was I preaching live or was I recording my messages? I answered truthfully. Going live on social media terrifies me for some reason. Only a few seconds passed before my friend’s words popped up on the screen: “God does not give us a spirit of fear.” After 40 years, my heart is still pushed to faithfulness by the gift of my friends.
 
“Shout triumphantly to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with celebration! Come before him with shouts of joy!”  Psalm 100 is a happy hymn instructing me to express my gladness in song. No wonder I love the psalms – even without knowing the tunes, the lyrics speak to my heart and carry me cheerfully along my lifetime mountains and valleys. Filled with the words of David, my spirit soars in the harmonies of life, and I thank God for the music that blesses me – music that delights my heart and loads me up on boldness and courage.
 
I went back today and replayed my two friends singing the songs of our youth. Their voices were as smooth as back in the 1970s, and I smiled remembering the music we shared. I think those moments throughout my life have provided an undeniable and unforgettable foundational strength. Joy is at the center of devotion to God because we are God’s sheep and belong together in the family of Love forever.
 
Always singing,
Pastor Beth