What is to be done with the square pegs?

Thoughts from the Chapel of St. Arbucks

SQUARE PEGS

The congregation of St. Arbuck’s was discussing this week the recent unemployment crisis in the Tessel Nation. Although the Tessel Nation was founded upon an ideal of equal opportunity for all, and even though its history demonstrated considerable success in achieving that ideal during the days when mosaics, utilizing a wide variety of chips varying in color and shape, were in vogue, the recent market forces driving their work to more geometric tessellations have had as their inevitable result the displacing of thousands of mis-matched chips. The irregular, the oddly colored, the imperfect find themselves relegated to the very borders of a tessellation, if, indeed, they find any place at all.

The Tessellators, responding to the demands of a divided house, have been unable to come up with a credible plan to provide for those who, by reason of their shape or color or size, can find no place within the Design. A minority of the Tessellators believe that it is their responsibility to provide for those whose uniqueness or limitations deny them a place in the Design. Sadly, a majority view is that such chips, by their stubborn refusal to reform themselves into appropriate shapes, should be ground to powder and used for grout. The minority have countered with demands for education programs to help the mis-matched chips conform to the needs of the design by becoming something they are not, but that plan has failed to gain much traction owing to the cost, certainly, but also abetted by a subtext of moralistic outrage that the ill formed seem unwilling to reform themselves. This is often expressed in the maxim, "The Design helps those who help themselves."

It is admittedly difficult to include the inevitable diversity of chips into a plan as uniform as a geometric tessellation, but when the market demands such a tessellation, what is the responsibility of the Tesselators towards those who fail to fit in, the inevitable square pegs who find only round holes? Is it true that they are only fit to be ground to grout? Will not such a course only lead to a monochrome tessellation of no interest and no value?

The Pharisee, the Tax Collector and a Bear

I wasn't in the pulpit this Sunday, owing to the funeral of the wonderful lady who encouraged local Appalachian music for more than 40 years, Nancy Turman McClellan. Her like will not be seen again here soon.

Since I was not in the pulpit, I found a sermon from 2010 on the text for today from the Revised Common Lectionary about the old joke involving two men running from a hungry bear. "We're never going to outrun that bear," gasped one of them.

"I don't have to outrun the bear," the other yelled. "I just have to outrun you."

Join the congregation of Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Ky. for this week's sermon, The Pharisee, the Tax Collector, and a Bear by clicking HERE for audio or HERE for text.

Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky, was built on the casting floor of a 19th Century iron blast furnace. We use "The Casting Floor" as an image for the power of the Spirit to form us. Visit us at http://communitypresbyterian.org.

The Ways of the World

When preachers get cranked up about "The Ways of the World" what is often meant is a whole lot of stealin' and cussin' and covetin'. That's not the ways of the world. The ways of the world are the whispered assurances fed to us with mother's milk and thereafter that God approves of the ways in which we are living in His world. The ways of the world tell us that God approves of using the ways of evil to combat evil. I think Satan must be rolling in the aisles over that one!

Join the congregation of Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Ky. for this week's sermon, "The Ways of the World" by clicking HERE for audio or HERE for text.

Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky, was built on the casting floor of a 19th Century iron blast furnace. We use "The Casting Floor" as an image for the power of the Spirit to form us. Visit us at http://communitypresbyterian.org.

COPS

OK. I admit it. I started out my professional life as a cop, and now, decades later, I still watch COPS on TV. Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? This week's stories about the motorcycle group that ran down an SUV and beat the driver really struck me because as much as I'm opposed to motorcycle gangs running down families, that is exactly the way most issues of COPS end -- a vehicle chase and the bad guy under a ton of policemen, his car a smoking wreck. Who does the violence is different, but the violence is the same, and now we learn that some of the bikers were NYPD cops.

We all have an interest in the pursuit of justice, but the question I would pose is this: is our notion of violent pursuit of justice where evil is repaid, stroke for stroke and stripe for stripe, the same notion that God has when he counsels us to let justice flow like a river? Join the congregation of Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Ky. for this week's sermon, COPS by clicking HERE for audio or HERE for text.

Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky, was built on the casting floor of a 19th Century iron blast furnace. We use "The Casting Floor" as an image for the power of the Spirit to form us. Visit us at http://communitypresbyterian.org.

What's the Deal?

A friend told me once, “All you have to know is do your best, God will forgive the rest, and that’s all you need to know to get into heaven.” Then he added, “And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?” Well? Is it?

Church, that's not a religious faith -- that's an investment strategy.  Join the congregation of Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Ky. for this week's sermon, "What's the Deal?" by clicking HERE for audio or HERE for text.

Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky, was built on the casting floor of a 19th Century iron blast furnace. We use "The Casting Floor" as an image for the power of the Spirit to form us. Visit us at http://communitypresbyterian.org.