Newsletter Article from this week

Yep, it's cheating, but it gets me over my guilt at not posting.

Ponderous Thoughts

This week’s article is upside down. Once you’ve read to the end, you’ll understand why.
First, a note about the last two weeks’ challenge: I only had one person make a guess, and that was Joe McCreary (who knows where I keep the chocolate, and that he can have some any time, but was still ready to claim his reward). The answer to life, the universe, and everything, according to Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is 42. Adams gives us no question to make sense of the answer, which is a part of the essential silliness of the book.
In other news, I want to thank everyone who helped with our confirmation classes and retreat, from Julie, Eric, and Harriette to the office volunteers to the parents who helped with “crowd control” to the wonderful folks who provided our lunch for the retreat on Sunday. And let’s not forget all our wonderful young people. I’m still not sure how many, in total, took part, but I know it’s more than 20.
On the 20th, we will see many of these young people join with the church as full members. In the past weeks we’ve talked about the Bible, Jesus Christ, the faith and doctrines of the Christian Church universal, and about our own United Methodist history and congregation. On Confirmation Sunday, they will tell us all a little about what they believe.
I’m so proud of them and their hard work and commitment that I can’t resist giving you a little preview. As one of our exercises, we talked about creeds and doctrine as expressions of what we believe to be true and essential to our faith, and then gave them a chance to make their own “I believe” statements. Those are the quotations for today:
“I believe God will love us no matter what.”
“I believe God really loves the world enough to give up his only Son.”
“I believe everyone can receive God’s love.”
Those are words to live by.
Anne