rural and small town

 

Rural life isn't for everybody. And it's not meant to be. Some people are made for eight lanes of traffic, Trader Joe's and lots of coffee availability. 

But some people are made for rural life. Some people are made for gravel roads, the local grocery store with four aisles and a fair amount of, well, dust. 

Or dirt. Or whatever your road is by the time it's gotten worn down by tractor tires. 

In our church denomination, we focus intently on caring for people in rural areas, specifically through Rural & Small Town Mission.

Urban and inner city work is needed and valued, and we spend a lot of time there as well, but we also believe that caring for those on the prairies of the Dakotas or the back roads of Indiana is just as important. 

That's how five future pastors from Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, wound up spending several days in rural Missouri, meeting with teachers and bankers, funeral home owners and farmers as part of a Rural & Small Town immersion project. 

Together they discovered what it's like to live and work in rural areas, an exercise that will prepare them--heartily--if they receive a call to small-town Iowa or the hinterlands of Alaska.

Because as I learned from a recent Rural & Small Town conference I attended, Alaska is rural too.

See? Even rural people need to learn about rural-ity.

Rural-ness.

Rural-ocity. 

These guys toured our dairy, getting up close and personal with cows and manure and tractors and milking.

And cute farmers with massive goatees who are caught mid-blink.

And then they came to our home for a Fort Wayne style "gemulichkeit" of beer and pretzels before we sat down to break corn bread over chili.

I'm a graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary, and I couldn't have been prouder to see these men taking time away from their studies and families to learn about what makes small towns and rural settings different.

It also didn't hurt to see one of their professors counsel and guide them, rebuke them and teach them, make them laugh and teach them every step of the way. There are teachers, and then, well, there are TEACHERS.

Rural and small-town areas have their challenges, to be sure: skipping church during busy seasons of the year, drug use, poverty, fear of upsetting people you've known for generations, cliques and generations of bad but ingrained habits.

But they have many blessings too: long held morals and values, humor and joy, an appreciation for simple things and the occasional side of beef or deer or box of peaches that gets left on the pastor's doorstep.

The good and the bad, rural and small town: They're precisely why good pastors are needed among them . . . and why we're happy to show off our cows and heat up the soup any old time.

thanksgiving 2015

It's never good to step on the scale after Thanksgiving. It's an especially bad idea when you're pregnant. Nothing good can come of it. Just don't. Or don't look. Or live in denial. You have options. 

That's really the only downside to Thanksgiving. The upsides are countless. You get to spend time with your family, discussing everything from manure management plans to how to build life together in churches. Because that's what happens when you've got a pastor and farmers in the family. 

You can also wear princess dresses and help your grandma make the cranberries, but I really only recommend that if you're a 3-4-year-old girl. 

You can peel potatoes because you're the mashed potato queen . . . Ok, so the KitchenAid is the mashed potato queen but somebody has to show that thing who's boss. It also helps to have cute nephews nearby to pick up any scraps you may drop. 

You can eat until you feel like you're about to pass out. Or you can't breathe, which is really just like any other day if you're pregnant. Juicy Alton Brown turkey, lumpless mashed potatoes with sour cream and butter, homemade rolls, sweet potato bread pudding, strawberry pretzel salad . . . 

You can order up a pie flight: gooseberry, raisin cream, caramel apple and pumpkin. Or just eat a piece every hour on the hour through the entire Thanksgiving weekend. 

Or you can try to sample them before the meal even starts and while the girls aren't looking. It must be a guy thing. 

And when it's all over, you can go right back to the beginning: spending time with your family, talking about the things that matter and maybe, just maybe, sneaking a bite of turkey off the bone when nobody's looking before remembering that the scale knows . . . especially when you're pregnant. 

happy Reformation day!

My mom excelled at a lot of things. Coming up with Halloween costumes for her third child was not one of them. Maybe that’s why, the year I was officially too old to be trick-or-treating and with a cold that left my head plugged from my nostrils to the back of my skull, she clapped an orange wig on my head, dropped me off on one side of town, and told me to meet her at a friend’s house on the opposite side of the city.

Seriously.

An orange wig for a costume.

Mom.

C’mon.

Never mind that it was sleeting. Never mind that I ate half my candy before I got to her friend’s house. Never mind that the chilly weather actually cleared out all the gunk that was making me stuffy. Never mind that my own grandmother’s porch light was turned off.

My own grandmother.

Not that I’m still thinking about this 20 years later or anything.

It’s just that I’m awfully thankful to be old enough not to have to wear a pig snout for a costume while walking through feet of snow with my sisters begging for candy anymore. Instead, I’m grateful that today I get to stay home and eat all the fun-size Snickers I want . . . before my husband finds the wrapper stash.

I also get to be thankful for Reformation Day, which, despite its appalling lack of Sixlets, is a pretty sweet gig too.

And so I present to you, 5.75 reasons it’s good to be a Lutheran on Reformation Day.

Well, first I’m going to show you these cookies my sister made. Probably you should leave some comment love for her on how fabulous these are.

5) Sturdy hymns.

With all due respect to the musical abilities of Twila Paris, I really feel the Reformation produced some pretty meaty hymns, the kind that actually stick to your bones when you’re frustrated or worried or fed up or scared. It’s time we dug those back out, learned them by heart, sang them at home with our kids. Instead of having “I’m So Fancy” on repeat in your noggin, try out “Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word.”

4) A hardcore Reformer.

You can have Mel Gibson. You can have “Freeeedommmmmm!” speeches. Heck, you can even have the kilts and the war paint. We got Luther, who was brave enough to live and prepared to die by and for the Word of the Lord, who cared more about doing what was right than his name or his reputation and didn’t even have to use #haterzgonnahate to prove it.

3) Trick-or-treating.

We have freedom in the Gospel, which means we can go to our church’s Reformation service AND dress up as a Twister board to get toothbrushes and apples from our neighbors all in one night!

On second thought, maybe just buy your own candy on your way home from church.

2) Endurance.

What was true then is still true now. We’re not hip. We’re not trendy. We’re faithful to God’s Word; we’re consistent. So when Luther wrote, “And take they our life, Goods, fame, child and wife, Let these all be gone, They yet have nothing won; The Kingdom our remaineth,” it was not only the cause for goosebumps then as now, but it was also just as apropos when he wrote it as it is today. It was true for Luther. It is true for the Christians fleeing ISIS. It is true for you.

1) Jesus.

Luther might as well have been a big, flashing, neon Vegas sign that pointed straight to his Savior. Because when we think of the Reformation, we think of Jesus, of the one died and lives to give us every good gift (even though it will usually not come in the form of the orange wig of shame and a sugar high). So with the Psalmist, you get to say, “God is for me!” (Ps. 56:9).

As for that last quarter of a point, well, see # 1.

And oh yeah . . . hapopy Reflosrmatiron Dsayt!

{Sorry. Sticky Snickers chocolate fingers. It’s never too early to start.}