Nielsen’s Nook

Introduction

What follows is a piece that I needed to write for myself and those around us who love us and pray for us. If you are hunting for polemic, I pray you will be greatly disappointed here. Rather, this is a personal reflection about personal reasons that my family and I joined the Episcopal Church. It is an attempt to articulate these reasons which have led me away from pastoral ministry in the vibrant Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) to pursuing holy orders in The Episcopal Church (TEC) which is at the best in dire tumult.

Our confirmation in the Episcopal Church on June 1, 2008 was the culmination of a complicated process that started while we were serving in Russia from 1998-2002, flowed through Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS) and was tutored by John Calvin and other pre-modern scholastic reformers. This is a short documentary of self-realization and pilgrimage. It is one with which you will likely find all sorts of inconsistencies and yet it is my journey, together with my wife and daughter. I hope you will also find a sincere pursuit of the Lord Jesus who lives and reigns with the Father and Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Every now and then things just come together in such a way that one has the sense that God is writing his poetry across one’s life. Today has been a moment like that for me.

My daughter, Ashley, has been patiently waiting for admission to the Lord’s Table for months now. Recently she would address the priests directly while Cynthia and I were receiving the elements, saying (sometimes a bit loudly), “I want the Body of Christ too!”

We went to a class on the Eucharist yesterday where a pair of very gifted people taught her a bit about the Good Shepherd and the Table. Today when we went forward for Communion, Ashley was in my arms. We knelt down as a family at the sanctuary rail and I helped her put her hands together extending towards our dear Father Houk. I watched him put the wafer in her hand and the tears just flooded me as they do now while I write this.

There is something most moving about a God who would commune with us, not by merit in ourselves, not on the basis of our performance, not by our ability to articulate fine points of theology, but on the basis of His love to us. It is Christ who chided and perhaps continues to chide his disciples for impeding children from coming to him. He is a God who wants us to grow up into him and that is precisely what happens in the Eucharist as we receive Christ in worship throughout our lives. Indeed, the mystery of the Eucharist is that all of scholarship and all the mysticism from all the ages cannot circumscribe the mystery of God communing with his people through mere bread and wine.

It seemed then, so perfect, that after Ashley’s first Eucharist, we went to the Dallas Arboretum and celebrated the beauty of these botanical gardens, which embody the participation of humanity with God. For nature is gorgeous and yet the Lord has created such that humans can order nature into gardens. The beauty of a garden is that it is an organic sermon that proclaims God’s participation with humanity even now. To watch Ashley run through the grass, wanting to smell every flower along every path, lifted the wonder of the Arboretum to the level of the magical.

Thank you Lord, for the most wonder-filled Father’s Day ever.

For those who care (and I don’t care much) about the NFL playoffs, you might like my completely random choices for which teams will win in the first round of the playoffs. Let’s see if my arbitrary algorithm works.

• Carolina will win at Pittsburgh because I just have to have something to rib Aiden Houk about. See score.
• Seattle will win at home against Washington because I grew up in Dallas and something in my spiritual formation during the Landry Days disposes me against the Washington Redskins. See score.
• Tennessee will beat the Chargers because … well I like the mythic rather than the electric. See score.
• New York will win at Tampa Bay because . See score.

See if I’m any good after the games.

Yes, we’ve been “elfed.” You have got to check out this hilarious holiday spoof that OfficeMax put out this year. Click on the picture for the flash version.

HT: Jared Edwards

A few months ago, I wrote a note written on notebook paper to a family in a church that I had been preaching at for about a year. They responded with a twenty-first century, ‘Wow! I remember hearing in my youth about hand written notes.’ Nevertheless, the expressed how the note encouraged them.

I find myself in a time of searching, in a time where I am not sure which way the Lord will take my family and when. After giving a dismal lesson in a Sunday School class yesterday at PCPC, I was particularly discouraged. While rummaging through my top dresser drawer, I found a note, written on a very thin paper from some time between 1992-1996. It was from a friend of mine who liked to use the nickname, “The Asian”. In it, I was reminded of some particular qualities that have been encouraging to others along the way. I had the sense of great providence that The Asian had written an encouraging note and that over the last fifteen years, in which I have lived in probably 10-15 locations including two different flats in Russia, the note was preserved in the top of my dresser for just that moment.

I hope we won’t forget the lost art of letter writing. Blog posts will fade into the abyss of the virtual, emails are deleted or lost, but letters both in their language and their penmanship communicate a less mediated humanity that is as encouraging as the contents being read.

Thanks my friend, The Asian.

I am at one of my favorite cafes in Dallas preparing for the sermon I am preaching tomorrow.  While waiting in line I looked up and saw a man walking into the bathroom that looked just like Dustin Salter.  He was tall and had the same sort of bend to his neck (the difficulty that tall people seem to have living in a world full of us shorties).  He was wearing the same Teva sandals I used to see Dustin wear when auditing classes at Westminster.  I did not know Dustin well, but he made such an impression on me that this "sighting" gave me pause to consider again the loss of a good man, pastor and father a little more and to pray for those whom he left behind. That is mainly why I am posting this, so that those of you who are familiar with the Salters, would continue to pray for Leigh Anne and the Salter children, who I would imagine are still picking up the pieces and need our prayer.

My wife just launched the new version of her blog, percaritatem.com (converted from blogger to Word Press):

Rarely do we get places in life in a straight line.� This is especially true for my family.� Monday, March 1, I took a new position at PCPC and ended my internship.� I am very excited about the opportunity to contribute in the Communications Ministry here at the church.

We decided to take this position for a number of positive reasons.� Many of you know that Cynthia and I have always thought the Northeast was the place where our giftedness would be best applied.� While we were content to look for pastoral calls in Dallas, it is in many ways exciting that the Northeast is back on the radar.� Second, in taking this position, we are in a place where we can weigh calls that may come and not feel compelled to take calls that may not be good fits because an internship term would soon expire.

At any rate, the Lord continues to confirm our calling.� Through July I am already booked for three of every four Sundays!� What a privilege it is to preach and what a joy to serve those churches in the PCA that have need for pulpit supply.� Please keep us in your prayers and let me know if you know of any openings or contacts in the Tri-state or New England areas.

I am quite floored to see how quickly we human beings can learn. I am also amazed at the gifts God has given to some people to teach certain and varied ages of children and adults (I am thinking about those who teach my daughter at the child development facility she attends). Catechism has been a means of training children for hundreds of years. The child learns the questions and the answers the pattern in which the series of questions and answers come. Having been given the framework, they spend their lives learning more fully what the material means. I am absolutely biased about the little girl who is recorded below - she’s my 21 month old daughter. However, in working with all ages of children in my pastoral career, I have found children giving their catechism answers to be magical. Enjoy.

By way of translation:

• “Dagh” = God.
• “Heban” = Heaven.
• “Shusha” = Spirit.

I hope you are a praying person. And if you are, please pray for me. I am a licensed pastoral candidate in the North Texas Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America. I have been engaged in vocational ministry for 9 years, now pursuing what I believe to be a call to the pastorate after graduating in 2006 from Westminster Theological Seminary. The year long internship I am serving at Park Cities Presbyterian Church ends at the end of June. Because of family circumstances I can only accept a call to a pastorate in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex of Texas (which is where my wife, daughter and I grew up). Needless to say, the fishing hole is very small to find such a call. So please pray for a Pastoral Call for me and my family and for the Lord’s guidance during this time for us. Email me with any leads about which you may know.

Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings with your most gracious favor and further us with your continual help; that in all our works begun, continued and ended in you, we may glorify your holy Name, and finally by your mercy, obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us do, that the Spirit of wisdom may may save us from all false choices, and that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. ¹