From The Pastor’s Desk – May 2017
Dear Friends,
May begins as a hold-over from April: May 1 is April 31. April Fool’s! Just kidding, though there is a fresh breeze and sunlight in this new month that wasn’t there in April; perhaps because in April, we were still in the gardens of Gethsemane and Resurrection, and the world was unsure about things. And remember, right after the Resurrection, when the disciples told Thomas they had seen the Lord, he wondered whether they were pulling his leg, and he would have none of it!
But May is, well, freeing and happy in my mind, in part perhaps because of Richard Armour, one of my favorite authors, whose Armour’s Almanac (McGraw-Hall, 1962) delights and rewards those souls seeking a spring in their step:
“Features of May Day (May 1) include Maypoles (from which comes maypole syrup), mayonnaise, mayhap, and mayhem. In medieval England people got up and went a-Maying, going into the fields and forests and bringing back flowers and branches, while young lovers serenaded one another with such love songs as ‘With what shall I compare, thee? Say! A load of hay, a cheese souffléé?”
Another entry is dated May 9:
“Miss Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia proposed the second Sunday of May be set aside as Mothers Day. Since Miss Jarvis, as far as is known, was not a mother at the time, she cannot be accused of self-seeking.”
And May 15:
“This is Straw Hat Day in the United States, when well-dressed men switch from felts. We hear a great deal about the last straw, but this is one day when attention is paid to the first.”
But Richard Armour doesn’t have the last word or only happy word on May days. Here in the Church, we have some very special days on our calendar that ought to make us feel pretty good:
May 7:
Good Shepherd Sunday in the Scriptures, but also Noisy Offering Sunday, for our Annual Conference Health Initiative. We have received $595 of our $1,000 goal. Please be generous and make alotta noise in church with your coins and cash on May 7!
May 14:
Is Mother’s Day. And we will have a little something for all the ladies of our congregation. And if that were not reason enough to celebrate, it is also Epworth Offering Day, when we join all our UM churches in the conference to receive a special offering for our conference children’s home. Epworth not only cares for children and youth; it strives to bring broken families together, help troubled families improve and, if possible, stay together.
May 21:
This is the day when we recognize and honor our graduates; it is also a day to thank those in the church who have helped to bring our children and youth up ‘in the way they should go’. It is also Heritage Sunday, celebrating our Methodist history; in fact, May 24 is Aldersgate Day, the day of (or evening of) John Wesley’s ‘seeing the light’ unto true faith, when, as he journaled, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” This ought to be a red-letter day for anyone who is Methodist!
May 28:
The Sunday after the Fortieth Day of Eastertide is Ascension Sunday, in which we mark Jesus’ ascension into heaven, to “sit at the right hand of the Father”, and the ‘passing of the mantle’, so to speak, on to the disciples to “go into all the world, teaching and baptizing…” Ascension (our Lord’s going up) prepares us for the next great occasion of our Christian calendar—Pentecost (when the Holy Spirit comes down).
