# 35, March 28, 2003

Easter Basket (Bucket) Drive Is Well Underway

The SSBSC Mission Project for March and early April is well underway. Thus far, 25 Easter baskets are being created for the benefit of ISH. If you have not filled a bucket/basket, you can pick one up in the Elizabeth B. Wilson Multipurpose Municipal Auditorium this Sunday. Each bucket will come with a cellophane bag and suggestions as to items, which might be included. The campaign will extend through Sunday morning, April 13th. Buckets may be brought to class or left on the table outside the Sunday School office. If you have questions, please call SSBSC Missionaries Charlotte and Bill Simpson at 285-3185. The latest news from Missionary Bill is that 25 of our 42 buckets/baskets have been taken. There are still 17 baskets available to be filled. If the class catches Easter mania, we might even reach a goal of 50 baskets.

Interim Pastor Cecil Sherman to Preach on March 30

Cecil Sherman is scheduled to preach his first sermon as Interim Pastor this Sunday. Cecil is a long time friend of Jim Slatton's and is a member of RRCB. His wife Dot is currently in MCV Hospital. Keep Cecil and Dot in your prayers.

Poor Henry's Almanac Is on Church Website

Thanks to Webmaster Eric Johnson PHA is on the church's website. PHA will still be delivered by E-mail and Bill Simpson will furnish tangible copies to those Shepsons who do not have E-mail. If you would like to view PHA on the website, the exact link is:

http://www.rrcb.org/ministries/adult/sundayschool/sspha.html

Southern Belle Sheila Is Discovered in Colorado

Terry and Sheila Marsh recently skied in Colorado. PH received the following E-mail about Shepson Sheila's debut as a Southern Belle. Terry writes:

"You will be pleased to know that Sheila has arrived:
The cashier at Two Elk restaurant at the top of Vail's China Bowl asked her what part of the South she was from. There was no cheating, such as a confederate pin or hat. It made her day."
       T. L. Marsh, II Esq.

Reverend Barbara Likes the "Judge Shows"

PH has no secret agents or clandestine informants, but PH prides himself in receiving honest information from sinful confessants. Reverend Barbara recently confessed to a few of her vices. Read what she wrote below:

"YES! I do love the judge shows on television! Isn't that a funny thing to know about me! Also, I'll tell you another secret-I like 'Cops' too!"

Rob's Tillich Book Is Available This Sunday

Shepson Robison James has a new book available. Tillich and World Religions, which is published by the Mercer University Press, will be available this Sunday and next from the author. The price of the book retail is $30 and $24 from the Mercer University website at:

http://www.mupress.org/webpages/books/james.html

However, Shepson Rob will be selling his book to anyone present at church this Sunday and next. The cost is only $22. Even thereafter the book can be purchased from Rob, especially as we approach the Catacomb Lectures this summer. This book will be the source of our study when Rob leads the class on July 13, 20, 27, 2003. Rob's words to PH are as follows:

"If you mention the book, you might tell the class that I'll have copies a'plenty with me the next two Sundays in Shepson Class and the book is theirs for $22 flat from the author.

"I'll also insert in each copy the one-page table I send you. This table schematizes the principal proposals in part 2 of the book, which is the biggest and central part, and the part that I plan to focus on in what I have to say on 13, 20, and 27 July."

PH suspects that the Reverend Doctor Rob will autograph your book in exchange for words of praise.

Trivial Pursuit of Christian Symbols

Shepson Ann Sledge became curious as to the meaning of all of the Christian and Lenten symbols on the front page of the weekly church bulletin. She was not sure what each one symbolized. PH was not sure either. Thus, PH contacted Religious Educator Bob Dibble and the answers were forthcoming. Below are the interpretations of each symbol. This week you can study your worship bulletin and be better informed.

bowl & pitcher: washing the disciples' feet
whip: scourging of Jesus
basin on pedestal: Pilate washing hands of guilt
rope: Judas' hanging
lantern: carried by Romans & others to seize Jesus in garden
Purse of thirty pieces of silver
crown of thorns
robe & dice: gambling for Jesus' robe
rooster: cock crow as Peter denies Jesus
ladder: the offering of sour wine (gall) to Jesus on cross
knife & ear: Peter cuts off soldier's ear
three nails: self-explanatory
chi rho & alpha omega: first two Greek letters for Christ and first & last
Greek letter of Jesus the beginning and end
grapevine & grapes: wine of the last supper
peacock: symbol of the resurrection
chalice (in center): the holy grail of the last supper (contrary to Indiana Jones legend, it still has not been found, so this is an artist rendering of same; your imagination may have it looking quite differently).

Prayer Rounds:

Terry Marsh's father is failing and his name will be added to our prayer list. Dot Sherman is in MCV Hospital. Beth Wilson is recovering from a recent flu like illness. Remember in your prayers Terry's Marsh's father, Beth Wilson, the Mears Family, the Manor Bible Study Class, the Pastor's Search Committee, Cecil and Dot Sherman, those in peril in Iraq, and those known only to you.

How Much Money Is in the RRCB Endowment Fund?

PH had high hopes of learning this information on March 19. However, war broke out in Iraq and a prayer meeting was held (like those old time Wednesday night Baptist Prayer Meetings of PH's past). PH sure hopes that the members of the Endowment Fund Committee did not sneak away to the Spider NIT basketball game that night. That might constitute a "collateral sin." Maybe it was almighty Providence that led to the Spider's loss that night. Hopefully the program on the Endowment Fund will be rescheduled.

Birthdays

Missionary Doctor (Emeritus) Franklin Fowler Is Twenty-nine Today

Do You Know the Identity of Baptist Barbie Bailey? Is it?

1. Bailey Smith 2. Homely Bill Bailey 3. Bailey Thomson

The Prodigal Son's Older Brother

Last week Youth Pastor Katie Chandler mentioned Henri Nouwen's book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, in her sermon. Jim Slatton referred to this book in a past sermon and Katie had been impressed by the sermon because of her interest in art history. She had expressed this interest to Jim and a few weeks later, she received a copy of the book from Jim. Rembrandt's painting of the return of the Prodigal Son is the inspiration for Nouwen's book. This book has also been meaningful to PH, not so much because of the artistic qualities, but because of Nouwen's keen insights into family and interpersonal dynamics. In a portion of the book Nouwen focuses on the elder brother who stands to the far right in Rembrandt's painting. Hear the words of the older brother to his father when he had learned that his younger brother had returned and his father was planning a celebration:

"All these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed any orders of yours, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property - he and his loose women - you kill the calf we had been fattening." (Luke: 15: 29-30).

Nouwen offers his interpretation of these words:

"When I listen to the words with which the elder son attacks his father - self righteous, self pitying, jealous words - I hear a deeper complaint. It is the complaint that comes from a heart that feels it never received what is was due. It is the complaint expressed in countless subtle and not so subtle ways, forming a bedrock of human resentment. It is the complaint that cries out: "I tried so hard, worked so long, did so much, and still I have not received what others got so easily. Why do people not thank me, not invite me, not play with me, not honor me, while they pay so much attention to those who take life so easily and so casually?"

"It is in this spoken or unspoken complaint that I recognize the elder son in me. Often I catch myself complaining about little rejections, little impolitenesses, little negligences. Time and again I discover within me that murmuring, whining, grumbling, lamenting, and griping that go on and on even against my will. The more I dwell on the matters in question, the worse my state becomes. The more I analyze it, the more reason I see for complaint. And the more deeply I enter it, the more complicated it gets. There is an enormous, dark drawing power to this inner complaint. Condemnation of others and self-condemnation, self-righteousness and self-rejection keep reinforcing each other in an ever more vicious way. Every time I allow myself to be reduced by it, it spins me down in an endless spiral of self-rejection. As I let myself be drawn into the vast interior labyrinth of my complaints, I become more and more lost until, in the end, I feel myself to be the most misunderstood, rejected, neglected, and despised person in the world."

"Of one thing I am sure. Complaining is self-perpetuating and counterproductive. Whenever I express my complaints in the hope of evoking pity and receiving the satisfaction I so much desire, the result is always the opposite of what I tried to get. A complainer is hard to live with, and very few people know how to respond to the complaints made by a self-rejecting person. The tragedy is that, often, the complaint, once expressed, leads to that which is most feared: further rejection."

"From this perspective, the elder son's inability to share in the joy of his father becomes quite understandable. When he came home from the fields, he heard music and dancing. He knew there was joy in the household. Immediately, he became suspicious. Once the self-rejecting complaint has formed in us, we lose our spontaneity to the extent that even joy can no longer evoke joy in us."

Nouwen died in September 1996. In his life he had studied theology and psychology at a time when the two fields of intellect were not very compatible. From 1964 to 1966 he studied in the program of Religion and Psychiatry at the Menninger Institute in Kansas. His book on The Return of the Prodigal Son was perhaps his most intimate book in that he revealed more about his own relationship with God.

A copy of Rembrandt's painting can be seen above.

If you have read to this point, you should be reminded that Teacher Bob will resume our study of the Gospel of John on this Sunday, commencing somewhere around John 6: 43.

And the correct answer above is Bailey Thomson who portrayed Baptist Barbie Bailey in our Youth Group's Info-commercial on Wednesday night.

Poor Henry's Archives

March 21, 2003
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