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Together in Spirit: Overwhelm

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A Photo from Emma Brewer-Wallin
In these turbulent days, when I have been feeling most overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty, it feels like my worries are collecting like heavy stones. On these days, I take a walk by the river and make a pile of rocks (called a cairn) – each rock represents one of my fears.
We join our hearts as a community. What worries would you add to our collective pile?

Together in Spirit: Overwhelm

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A Comforting Poem from Edith Johansen

Although we cannot be together in person, we can join together in the spirit of community and faith. Together in Spirit is FCC of Milton’s way of inviting the church community to share short reflections of life with each other.

“When my son died, someone sent me this poem. It brought peace and calm to me during a stressful time in my life.”

Together in Spirit: Overwhelm

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A Favorite Song from Barbara and Marshall Levy

Although we cannot be together in person, we can join together in the spirit of community and faith. Together in Spirit is FCC of Milton’s way of inviting the church community to share short reflections of life with each other.

A favorite song in times of trouble for Barbara and Marshall Levy is Be Not Afraid, especially the lines, “Be not afraid / I go before you always / Come follow me / And I will give you rest.” 

Together in Spirit: Faith

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A Reflection by Doug Gaff

“Even in the best of times, I wrestle with faith.

Here’s a brief synopsis of my Christian journey. I was raised in an Evangelical Christian family. I love my parents, and I’m grateful for the fundamentals this upbringing taught me. But it wasn’t a fit, and as I neared the end of High School, I started to pull away from this expression of faith.

Brenda and I were occasional church goers before we got married. We found mainline Protestantism, which was different enough to feel ok. Then we moved to Boston and found First Congregational Church of Milton, where we got married and restarted our church life together.

But I wasn’t fully back as a Christian. Life at our church has been a discovery process of finding a new expression of Christianity that feels more compatible with who I am as an adult: intellectual, scientific, irreverent, and skeptical. There’s a verse I used to hear a lot as a child that has captured this journey into adulthood:

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. (1 Corinthians 13:11, NIV)

Today, I continue to wrestle with the two big questions that plague intellectual skeptics like me: 1) Does God exist, and, if so, 2) Why is the world He created so frequently horrible?

This brings me to the pandemic. Like you, there’s so much about this present existence that I despise: the sickness and death, the lack of human contact, the incompetence of response, the loss of freedom, and the unclear end. The skeptic in me, the one who yells at God regularly, just shakes his head and says, “another day in God’s creation.”

I know that’s not a very inspiring or faithful thing to say to a church audience in a time of grief, but it’s an honest part of my truth. Yet, it’s not the only part. I’m not just a skeptic. I’m also a man who wants to believe in God.

I want to believe in the God who has blessed me with my family, friends, livelihood, and health.

I want to believe in the God who created the sanctuaries in nature that make me feel alive.

I want to believe in the God who has blessed us all with a vibrant church community: a men’s group that keeps me grounded, a music program that inspires us, a Christian education program that nurtures our daughter, outreach programs that provide care to those outside our doors, and ministers who lead us through good times and bad.

More to the point, I want to believe in the God from whom I am made: a God who gets angry, who feels powerless, who make mistakes, who can’t fix everything even when He wants to.

I want to believe in a God who is fallible like me.

This God is aching with us. This God is feeling lonely. This God is wishing He could do more. This God is trying to provide solace. That’s a COVID-19 God.”

Together in Spirit: Faith

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A Photo by Emma Brewer-Wallin

“I used to spend my summers serving in the desert southwest, where dramatic and sudden storms often impeded our work. Every so often, we would be stunned by the majesty of the sky – bringing not only storms, but also great beauty. In these moments of turmoil, a rainbow, like this one, would remind me that the light of our Creator God continues to shine. What image depicts your faith right now?”

Together in Spirit: Faith

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A Drawing by Vicki Pezzini  

Although we cannot be together in person, we can join together in the spirit of community and faith. Together in Spirit is FCC of Milton’s way of inviting the church community to share short reflections of life with each other.

In our second submission, Vicki Pezzini shares a drawing showing the roller coaster ride of feelings we’re experiencing now. “One never knows how one will feel from one minute to the next, let alone one day to the next,” she says. “But, as I contemplate this, I know that it is my faith in God that keeps me grounded, and my faith in God that tells me we’ll be okay.”

Together in Spirit: Faith

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A video by Vinnie Viola 

Although we cannot be together in person, we can join together in the spirit of community and faith. Together in Spirit is FCC of Milton’s way of inviting the church community to share short reflections of life with each other.

In our first submission, Vinnie Viola reflects on what FCC of Milton has meant to him, and invites us to practice gratitude and notice what we’re missing.

If you’d like to offer a reflection, but need help creating it, please contact Emma.

FCC of Milton Brown Bag Lunch Project Needs Your Help

By Serve

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Help Feed Our Unhoused Neighbors During the Pandemic

Bag Lunch Project organized by First Congregational Church of Milton

MILTON, Mass., April 17, 2020 — The COVID-19 crisis has created an urgent need among the 260 individuals and 130 families at Father Bill’s & MainSpring homeless shelters in Quincy and Brockton. Milton residents are invited to help our unhoused neighbors by participating in the bagged lunch program organized by the First Congregational Church of Milton (FCC of Milton). You can help while staying socially distant and without going to the grocery store.

Over the past two weeks, FCC of Milton’s members have donated nearly 500 bagged lunches to the shelter. Following social distancing guidelines, members have collaborated to assemble and deliver the lunches. Bulk supplies are purchased with donated funds, and divided into “meal kits” with everything needed to make 60 lunches. Once volunteers receive the meal kits, they assemble the 60 bagged lunches and deliver them to the shelter. Young people have also gotten involved in the project by helping assemble the bags, and by crafting uplifting greeting cards that are included in the lunches.

Please help us meet our goal of bringing another 2,000 lunches to our unhoused neighbors.

The following are all ways you can help:

Donate funds for supplies

One hundred percent of your gift will be used to buy supplies for the Father Bill’s & MainSpring lunch project. We purchase bulk groceries and paper products at a restaurant warehouse to minimize costs and exposure. Donate online at fccmilton.org/give. Or, make checks payable to “First Congregational Church of Milton” and mail them to FCC of Milton, 495 Canton Ave, Milton, MA, 02186.

Donate unopened bottled water or juice (individual servings)

Purchase limits on bottled water make this part of the project challenging. You can help by dropping off cases of water and juice in the rear of the FCC of Milton, under the covered walkway.

Make Greeting Cards

We need hundreds of handmade cards with encouraging, uplifting messages to include in the lunches. Cards can be as simple as a brief, kind note (e.g. “You are loved!”) on decorative paper. A drop-off box is located in the rear of FCC of Milton, under the covered walkway.

Help assemble and deliver lunches (Sign up here)

Pick up a meal kit (no contact) under the covered walkway at the rear of FCC of Milton on Tuesdays between 4 and 6 p.m. Assemble the 60 bag lunches at your home and deliver them (also no contact) to Father Bill’s & MainSpring shelter in Quincy or Brockton later that week between 10 and 11 a.m., or 1 and 3 p.m. If you can assemble the lunches, but cannot take them to the shelter, we will pick them up and deliver them. To request a meal kit, please contact Wendy Garpow at [email protected].

For more information about the FCC of Milton Brown Bag Lunch Project, please contact Betsy Disharoon, chair of the Board of Benevolence ([email protected]), or Reverend John Allen ([email protected]).  For more information about Father Bill’s & MainSpring, visit helpfbms.org