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Art Page

We have many talented church members and friends.  Their contributions to the community in the field of Art include visual, performance, and written works.  Not all works can be exhibited on a web-site.  But you are encouraged to attend their performances and enjoy the following poems, stories, and art work.

Our Artists are Active

A Poem by Karoline Chamberlain (September 2009)

There you stand.
Your face in the water as I dream about you. 
I can't believe you're there.
I see you everywhere.
To tell the tale at school
is like talking to a dog.
They don't understand me.
I feel incapacitated & overwhelmed. 
As I trudge through the snow,
all I think about is you.
You blow my mind & make me scream. 
It's not what I ever dreamed,
but it happened to you, to me.
The times you held me are cherished forever. 
The notebook in my mind needs new pages. I can't handle any more;
it's as if I'm going crazy.
I love you more than anything. 
And I'm proud, no matter what, 
to be your daughter.

"Odyssey of a Practical Visionary"

This is a book by Belden Paulson assisted by his sister Polly Harrington. It is available at a 20% discount price of $19.95 plus $5.00 for shipping and handling. She is sending orders shortly to the publisher in Wisconsin.

This is an exciting memoir that starts with Belden's and Polly's early life in a loving Congregational home in Oak Park,llI. and moves to post World War 11 Naples, Italy where Bel assisted people bombed out of their homes and living in caves, supported by the Congregational Christian Service Committee of New York City. He co-founded Casa Mia (my home), the first social settlement in Italy.

With movie actor Don Murray, Bel co-founded and directed HELP (Homeless European Land Program) in Sardinia to resettle hard-core refugees escaped from Iron Curtain countries and stagnating in Italian refugee camps. Rehabilitating such refugees, authorities said would be impossible, but HELP got them into farming and small business. Bel was honored on This Is Your Life television program. Later Bel joined the United Nations to help clear out the refugee camps in Italy.

Bel and his wife Lisa created an intentional community for sustainable living in Wisconsin on land provided by them north of Milwaukee, which they called High Wind. High Wind developed educational projects in cooperation with the University of Wisconsin and Milwaukee public schools. Residents built solar homes and one family organized an organic farm that feeds 500 families.

Polly Harrington

Lenten Poem - Reb Fleming

Weary is to tired what poverty is to broke.
You can joke about being broke:
"Hey man, I don't have a penny in my pocket."
Or decline an invitation without regret:
"Sorry, I can't go to lunch,
I gave the last of my money to my kids."
You can do it because you know and I know its temporary,
There's a paycheck coming and all you have to do is bide your time.
But poverty wears the same dress every day because nothing else is
hanging in the closet
Her face has grown thin and her voice shrill and she screams at her kids
even though she loves them
If she knew what to do about the situation she might
but then again she might not
because hunger stole her hope long ago
Tired means I put in a hard day's work and my muscles ache
Tired means I fried my brain on a stressful project and even in sleep
I can't get it to turn off
Tired means working overtime and not getting paid
but it doesn't matter because you can see the light at the end of the tunnel
and you know that you're 'almost there'
But weary has walked through exhaustion and come out with bleached bones
Weary has spent all of its options, played all of its face-cards
performed all of its tricks up front, early-on
without getting so much as a chuckle or a smattering of applause
Weary is dried-up-desperate
who sits for hours in the same chair, staring
Weary walks from one room to another not remembering
nor truly caring what she was looking for
Weary dips one final time into rage and sends the money-changers tables
upside down with a strength and a fury no one knew he possessed
Weary enters the great city like a husband his own bedroom
only to find his wife in the arms of another man
And gasps
not out of anger
but hurt
and stares, unable to take his eyes from the scene
Slowly his body rocks
back and forth
and in a whisper only she can understand because she knows the sound of his voice
asks
Why?
Why, Jerusalem?
Why have you forsaken me?

*  * Peace Poem and Prayer *  *

Let us think now, what is peace?
Why peace is when we all are friends.
Were people live true, honest lives,
Where fun and love and good will bides.
Where life survives, where children play,
Where babies laugh and coo and talk,
Where mothers teach their babes to walk.
Where people do what our Lord said.

But what is war, I want to know?
Why war is death and wicked woe.
War is torture, crime and aches,
War is even sad blood lakes
Where people kill and big boats sink.
But still some people always think
That War gains more than Peace.

Peace Prayer

Lord, we pray for the power to be gentle; the strength to be forgiving; the patience to be understanding; and the endurance to accept the consequences of holding to what we believe to be right.

May we put our trust in the power of good to overcome evil and the power of love to overcome hatred. We pray for the vision to see and the faith to believe in a world emancipated from violence, a new world where fear will no longer lead people to commit injustice, nor selfishness make them bring suffering to others.

Help us to devote our whole life and thought and energy to the task of making peace, praying always for the inspiration and the power to fulfill the destiny for which we and all humankind were created. Amen

Lenten Poems

Ash Wednesday

Brittle dry palms
desiccated by last year's sins,
failures, omissions, commissions.
A year of missing the mark.

Pummel them, Break them
into bits
Brittle bones of shame-
crumble them.

Lay them on a fire
to be consumed
Transformed into power
Silky smooth sign
of repentance
dross consumed, Grace remains.

Oil; balm of Gilead
mixed with ash
marks us
sons and daughters of dust
claimed by God
for love's embrace.

Pain and sin transformed
reeds of bitterness to
Palms of Promise
as Christ is crucified and risen.

by Kevin Burke

Lenten Meditation

I am clay and ground stone
and shaped wet to a bowl by Your hand
and burned hard in Your flame.

But I am full of dead things now;
dead thoughts, dead cares,
dead deeds, dead dreams.

Lord! You tell me that today is Now!
and now is the time to start my emptying.

And You tell me You will fill my holding bowl
with Your grace and soft white love on Your rising day.

But I am clay and ground stone.
Do help me, Lord.

The Northern Cross (an Advent Story)

About this time of year we begin to look forward to Christmas and the traditional stories--wise men, shepherd, angels-the works! Being a star lover, I just naturally look up. The Star--if there ever really was one (only Matthew's gospel mentions it) is not there. Astronomers have debated for years about what the three (or more) sages saw from the East that sent them off on a long journey to find a Child. A comet was considered because, much later, Haley's Comet was thought to be an omen for the birth--or death--of a king. But no comet has been catalogued for the time of what is believed to be the birth of Jesus. A Nova has also been considered and could be a possibility because Novae flare up and eventually fade, leaving only remnants of the star they had once been.

But there is one "sign" in the sky that is present tonight as it has been for eons. Standing low in the northwestern sky is the Northern Cross. We don't usually think of the Cross as a Christmas sign, yet, to me, it is a perfectly logical thing to be there. For me, the whole story of Jesus is written in the stars. When Jesus was baptized, God declared him to be his Son, and as Creator, God is King of the universe. There is, among the spring stars, a crown, and that, for me, is the real beginning. It is in the springtime of Jesus' life that he began his ministry of reconciliation of God and man. In the summer sky is a constellation that reminds me of Jesus' sacrificial love--the Greek myth of Cygnus (Swan), a friend who gave his life to recover the body of his friend,-- reminds me that Jesus gave His life to recover us--to give us life. The Swan is seen flying into the Milky Way--his long neck, strong wings, and short stubby tail with its very bright star (Deneb) stays in the sky until, at Christmas time, it stands on its head with the bright star, like a halo on Christ's head, now at the top. The story of Christmas stays throughout the year.

Peggie Mc Cracken, worked at the planetarium in Oklahoma City for many years, writing and presenting shows and stories about the stars.  She offered us this last Christmas.

The quilt displayed below was made by Leslie Chevalier.  It represents our worship space, 
and is now displayed there.  It includes the following words:
"Morning is breaking and the church fills up with sonlight
the spirit's in the music
There is fire on the table and the bread and wine are speaking
and God makes us a circle of friends--"