Holy Ground

The high school youth and I began our Montreat@Home journey the Sunday before last. Since Montreat, our usual summer youth conference site, was unable to host guests this summer, the leadership for the six weeks of high school youth conferences that they hold each summer came together to create a great resource for re-creating a Montreat experience at home. Now, it certainly doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing – being in the mountains of North Carolina, hearing wonderful keynote speakers and preachers, doing energizers with a thousand high school students, meeting up after small group for ice cream at The Huck, meeting new people, or concluding the week with a candlelight worship service around Lake Susan; but it is a great option when none of those things is possible. (Check out the pictures below for the vast difference between this year and last.)

2019 Montreat Youth Conference

2020 Montreat Youth Conference

The theme for this year’s conference was slated to be, “We Are”. In keeping with that theme, our first session was entitled, “We Are Here.” No, we are not “here” at Montreat, but we are “here”. We are gathered virtually all over the country to worship God as we would if we were all able to gather in one space. The speaker for this session, Rev. CeCe Armstrong, reminded us that wherever we are – here or there, Montreat or at home – God is there also. Wherever we are able to gather, whether it was physically distanced in a fellowship hall or via zoom, God was there. She reminded us that the same is true even as we go about our daily lives, whatever that may look like in these strange times. If we are sitting in our houses day in and day out, God is there. If we are masking up to run some errands, God is there. If we are continuing our daily routine as “essential workers,” God is there. Wherever we are, God is there also.

As part of this session, the group was issued a “photo challenge.” Our challenge was the spend some time outside in the coming week, to take our shoes off and take a picture. We are then supposed to post these pictures on social media with the hashtag #holyground. For where we are, God is also; and the place on which we are standing is holy ground.

We invite you to join us in this photo challenge. As you spend some time outside in the next few days, take off your shoes and soak up God’s presence. Take a picture, and e-mail it to me. I’ll compile all of our #holyground pictures and post them on the church’s social media.

A Message from Pastor Tim & The Session

As you are most likely aware, there has been a dramatic rise in active Knox County Covid-19 cases in recent weeks, including an increase in both hospitalizations and deaths. Currently, two of the five benchmarks for reopening are red, two are green, and one is yellow. Therefore, out of an abundance of caution and in an effort to do our part in not contributing to the further spread of the novel coronavirus, the Session has taken the following actions:

Worship

We will no longer resume in-person worship on August 2^nd and will continue to worship solely via streaming until further notice. We hope to resume in-person worship after Labor Day, but will reevaluate at the August 18^th Stated Session meeting.

Committees/Groups

Effective immediately all group meetings in the church building will be cancelled for the remainder of July and the month of August. Groups and committees of the church may continue to meet via technology or in small groups away from the church building, but the church building itself will be closed to all groups except the Preschool through the end of August. We will reevaluate at the August 18^th Stated Session meeting.

 

Church Office

The church staff will continue to work their normal hours at the church building in order to coordinate and facilitate the ministry of the congregation. The church office, however, will be closed except for deliveries, contractors, and other necessary business.

 

We appreciate that this may cause frustration for some while alleviating anxiety for others. We do not take this action lightly but we do feel this is the best way to safeguard the health of our members, our staff, and the community of Knoxville. Please stay home if you do not have to go out and please remember the Five Core Principles for health: practice [physical distancing; wear face coverings when in public and physical distancing cannot be achieved; wash hand properly and often; clean surfaces regularly; stay home when sick.

 

• The Session of Second Presbyterian Church

The Eyes are a Window...

More people are wearing face coverings these days, which is good. However, I've noticed something. No, not about politics or distancing or age groups that are wearing them versus age groups who aren't or anything else like that. I've noticed something about myself. Well, two somethings actually.

First, I've realized that prior to this I rarely looked people in the eyes. Now that the eyes are pretty much the only thing to look at, it occurs to me that in the past I have usually directed my gaze somewhere else when speaking with someone. I think I usually look at a person's mouth because I've also discovered that I have a hard time hearing people speaking through a face covering. So I think that maybe all those years of playing loud music and being on stage have finally caught up with me and I think maybe I have been watching peoples' mouths as a crutch in my listening and hearing and understanding them. Maybe. 

Whether or not that is the case, I know that I don't normally look people in the eyes when I talk to them because now that I can only look people in the eyes when I talk to them I have discovered that I am uncomfortable looking people in the eyes when I talk to them. It's so personal and...intimate. I feel like I am intruding in some sort of personal space to which I'm not sure I've been invited. Yes, I was taught like everyone else, "When you meet someone, shake their hand and look them in the eyes." And I have done that...when meeting them. But I think I haven't done that for the rest of the conversation. And now that the whole shaking hands things is gone the eyes are all we have and it makes me uncomfortable to look people in the eyes but I don't want to not look people in the eyes because there really is nowhere else to look. And I wonder what that says about me and my openness to others.

Second, as there is no place else to look, I have noticed that most people...in fact, almost ALL people...have beautiful eyes. Really. I have been astonished at how beautiful peoples' eyes truly are. There is such a variety of shapes, colors, expressiveness, and light in peoples' eyes. I've always heard the old saying that the eyes are the window to the soul, but being someone that rarely looked people in the eyes, I hadn't really thought about the truth of that statement much at all. In fact, I think I've really only ever truly looked into the eyes of people I'm really close with. Which, obviously, says more about me than anything. But still.

I think one of the things I am grateful for in this time of physical-but-not-social distancing is face coverings. Not just because they indicate that someone cares about me enough to protect me from any potential infection they might have, though that is part of it. Mostly, it's because face coverings have forced me to move outside my comfort zone and actually look people in the eye and connect with them, human to human. And that has made me a better human.

Grace and peace...

PT

Frederick Douglass' and the Fifth of July

Frederick Douglass had a way with words. The former slave who taught himself to read and write became one of the greatest and most powerful orators this nation has ever known. People would travel many miles to hear him speak and he was on the road for about 6 months out of every year, giving lectures on abolition. His words, as well as his logic and rhetoric, moved people. When Frederick Douglass came to speak, it was an event in whatever community hosted him.

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass had gave a keynote speech at an Independence Day celebration in Rochester, New York. It's title was, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" He begins the speech by acknowledging the brilliance of Founding Fathers of America, the architects of the Declaration of Independence, and praises their commitment to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." He calls them "brave men" and "great men" for their ideals for freedom. He declares them to be "statesmen, patriots and heroes" who deserve to be honored.

All throughout this first section he puts his listeners at ease, even as he sets up the rest of the speech with phrases like "your national independence". Then he makes a rhetorical shift, calling on the listener to help him understand why the "great principles of political freedom and of natural justice" are not "extended to us".

He goes on to remind the audience that not all people in America are free to pursue life, liberty and happiness. He reminds them of the "sad sense of disparity between us". He tells them, 

"The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine."

He asks and answers his own question about what the Fourth of July means to the slave:

"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim."

 He closes the speech not with condemnation, however, but with hope.

"Notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. 'The arm of the Lord is not shortened,' and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope."

He then paints a picture of America as it could be - America as it should be - in a world without walls and boundaries and where all the nations of the earth work together to give all people the freedom and equality with which they have been endowed by God, a freedom and equality every person deserves as part of the justice of God.

It is a majestic speech, one of the most important ever delivered in celebration of our country's founding. It looks towards the ideals and principles upon which our country stands and demands that we strive towards making them a reality for all, not just for some.

You can read the entire speech for yourself here. It isn't very long and I commend it to you highly. Because, sadly, I think if Frederick Douglass were alive today, he would still be giving the same speech.

Grace and peace...

PT