Article published in Rockford Squire Newspaper 1/4/2024

           In many people’s homes this Christmas, there is an empty blue chair. — It may not be literally blue, excepting the La-Z- Boy recliners and the BarcaLoungers and other upholstered pieces of furniture. It could be a regular old brown wooden kitchen chair. It may not even be a chair; it could be a couch or a loveseat.  You may even find it covered with scratches from the cat or decorated with dog hair. 

         A blue Christmas chair is any place where a beloved person used to sit and enjoy the holidays with us. It is blue because that is the emotion that pulls us under and drowns us in sorrow as we attempted to survive Christmas this year without their dear presence.

          That chair is where we can still easily imagine them sitting and being with us.  – And they were right there with us all, just a minute ago!   Their eyes were shining with excitement, they were laughing at the antics of their family; their hands were gripping their usual beverage. We recall the stories that they told and retold to us, the wide variety of expressions passing by on their face.  We remember the color of their hair, the curve of their noses and cheeks and most fondly, the way that they looked at us with love in their eyes. 

        This Christmas, when we returned to the room, we sometimes found ourselves surprised by the fact that they were not in their usual spot where they always were before. We found ourselves wondering, (for just a split second), “Where have they gone to?!” –before we remembered with a jolt to our consciousness that they were now gone. –That they were no longer in this dimension. The silent blue chair just reminded us of their absence, and it carries within its void the ethereal essence of their presence. The chair is now a blue relic of Christmases past, filled with the memories of years of space and time.

          Where have they gone to if they are no longer here in our presence? We have comfort and peace because today they are seated in a different chair at another table. A table of divine infinite length. They have been welcomed there by those beloveds long past. With arms open wide, with bright faces, healed and whole, there was recognition and reconciliation. With love and forgiveness deeming insignificant all their earthly failures, mistakes and slights, there was a Christmas joy there that drains all comprehension of human experience. –For seated just across from them, in a chair of shimmering rainbow light is the eternal presence of Christ, filled with acceptance, joy and love.  Sorrow has no place at that table, and all sickness has been barred at the door. For the blue of their chair has been painted a pure glistening white, now clear and free forever.

          We hold onto the promise from Luke 13:29, People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.

          May the unlimited love of Christ, the peace that consoles our broken hearts, bring us real Christmas joy as we hope and long for our own eternal reunion someday.  So be it. Amen.

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 By Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge.  9/28/2023

            On Saturday, September 23^rd, 2023 at 2:50 am, EST, something interesting happened. The sun crossed an imaginary line above the earth’s equator.  And for a single moment, the earth was neither tilted away or toward the sun by 23.5 degrees. It was perpendicular to the sun. While we all probably missed it because we were most likely all asleep; we have just been through the 2023 Autumn Equinox.

     This global balancing phenomenon happens twice a year, in the Autumn and the Spring.  On our Northern Hemisphere calendars, every September, it signals the end of summertime and the start of fall. At the autumn equinox, the days and nights are of equal length, although for us, the daytime seems to be a bit longer because of refracted light.

          This kind of perfect balance doesn’t last very long for our planet, and perfect balance doesn’t last very long in our lives either.  It seems that we humans live in a constant struggle. Our work / play life balance never seems equal.  There is seemingly always more work to do and less time and money for leisure. We want to spend more time doing the things that we love, but our schedules rarely allow it.  And then we feel guilty, knowing that we should spend more time with the people that we love and that we should put in more work on that project for our boss, and we should exercise more and we should get more sleep; but all our schedules never seem to work out that way.  Our lives pitch and yaw and we roll on through our months and years, seeking any way to just make it through our daily to-do list while not missing our next appointment.

          I don’t know about you, but I find some comfort in the fact that the Earth is seldom in equal balance. God has designed it so that 363 days a year, our planet spins along on in its tilted orbit; the light of its days and the darkness of its nights unequal and in constant flux, either growing darker for longer in the winter or lighter for longer in the summer. The earth does not exist perpetually in a perfectly perpendicular status.  The harmonious event of the equinox is fleeting, it is the exception and not the rule.

     In the same way, it is ok if our lives are also rarely perfectly in balance.  We do the best that we can with the minutes we have been given, and we count on the grace of God to forgive us as we occasionally miss deadlines and when we often fall short of being our best selves. As humans, we cannot balance our own schedules, nor the entirety of the world.

               Ecclesiastes chapter 3 reminds us that for everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. It does not say that our lives will constantly be harmoniously balanced, but that there is an appropriate time for every human matter and deed.  May we all have the wisdom to know what to do and when to do it. May we get all of our necessary things done, well enough to get us through all of our seasons.  May we all seek to love God every day while loving our neighbor and ourselves. So be it!

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            by Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge  8/17/2023

It is that time of year again, when our kids are fortunate to get to go back to school.  You can’t miss it. The stores have set up huge displays of school supplies: pushpins and pencils, post-it notes and pens. Our college students have packed up all of their “most essential” items and are now lugging them up flights of stairs into their dorm rooms and student housing. Everywhere you go, you can find people shopping for new shoes and new backpacks. There is a tangible sense of excitement and anxiety as people do their best to get ready and to prepare themselves and their children for the new school year.

           I always loved going back to school.  For me, I most looked forward to getting a new box of crayons. It was something of a holy moment to open my new 64 Crayola crayon box for the very first time each year. I still remember the pungent waxy new crayon smell, and I always took some time to admire all of those colors, taking them out one by one to read their lovely and descriptive names.  I appreciated the symmetry of the new crayons, all perfectly sharpened; every single one completely untouched, all standing up so neatly in their rows.  –Every single crayon ready to facilitate and bring to life whatever big bold project I could dream up!  There was also something about holding a new notebook, with its blank pages all clean and smooth that just thrilled my soul. Perhaps it was the unlimited potential of it all.  The fresh opportunities to learn new thoughts and to discover new insights, the vista of potential possibilities that was now wide open on the blank pages before me that always brought my enthusiastic anticipation for a new school year.  

          But unfortunately, as adults, most of us no longer regularly get the thrill of anticipating the unlimited potentialities of a new school year.  (Teachers and school staff being the exception.) For most of us, our lives are commandeered by the unrelenting schedule of our workplaces. Unless we land a new job or get a promotion, there is no reset and no annual chance for a new start.  For most of the workforce, a week at the end of August is often much like a week in March, May or January. Every week is typically more of the same, and our deadlines and our productivity numbers mark the months and years that steadily drive back and forth to bring us more grey hairs and grandchildren.

       But the good news for all of us is that our God always offers a new start. Today, our God offers to us the chance to start over, to open the day up like a brand-new notebook and to choose to live a life dedicated to loving God, others and ourselves. Our old broken lives can be in the past, left behind us like a particularly difficult school year.  And while our mistakes and bad decisions are always documented in the yearbooks of our lives, and while they often require apologies, forgiveness and reconciliation, our past performance does not need to mar the potential of what you and I can do for God and for others with the new year ahead of us.  

          Because our God has the ability to take our scuffed up, dull, and broken crayon lives and to melt them and mold them into something brand new. It doesn’t matter if the outside wrappers of our bodies are torn and tired. With the power of God’s love, our hearts can be made new.  Our old names can be retired forever, and God will give us all new spectacular names like Jazzberry Jam or Timberwolf. May we all open our lives to our loving creators desire to turn us all into new creations, just as wonderful as a new box of crayons.

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By Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge   6/29/2023

         Do you like rainy days?  Typically, we humans consider rain a sad event.  We may use the phrase, “Raining on your parade”, or we talk about events being washed out.  All of us have made plans to go camping or to have a picnic, only to be met with disappointment as rain or thunderstorms sweep in to cancel our outdoor plans.  But rain, while we often find it inconvenient; it is also something that is very necessary.  Without rain, the grass crisps, curls and cracks under our feet, just as it did this June.  Without rain, we must vigilantly and repeatedly douse our flowers and vegetables before they all wilt, turn brown and die.  And without enough rain, destructive wild fires can spread quickly, devastating lives and effecting air quality — even thousands of miles away.

          In the same way that our planet is designed to need rainy days, we as humans are designed to be able to meet and overcome challenges. God has created us humans with the ability to grow, adapt and change.  If every day was just blue skies and sunlight dappling through the leaves, if our bodies never got any older, if we never experience any mental or emotional challenges that stretch us to our limits, we would never grow to achieve our full potential. Just like muscles that need to be pushed in order to grow stronger, our lives and especially our faith must overcome setbacks and those rainy seasons in our lives in order to grow stronger and resilient.

           So, as we laugh and enjoy the summer sunshine and schedule our time for lounging by our beautiful Michigan lakes and rivers, be sure to also pray for rain. We need it to keep our environment healthy.  And in our own experience, do not despair when our lives grow dark with thundering storms.  Because with God’s help and with our loving care for our neighbors, we can meet all of life’s challenges.  Through faith, we can adapt and change and grow stronger together as we live and work for a world at peace; rain or shine.

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