a prophetic voice-

In the seventh year of the Presidency of Barak Obama, when Pat McCrory was governor was governor of North Carolina, and Larry Williams was mayor of Rural Hall, during the term of ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, the word of God came to Nazareth Lutheran Church in Rural Hall, NC.    This is the way Luke introduces John the Baptist to us…setting the imperial and political and religious scene. But- lest we miss it in the midst of all the pomp and circumstance- there is this significant fact: the word of God came to a nobody, a lone, strange, eccentric mystic and prophet in the wilderness, in a wild, harsh no-man’s land far from family and government and temple. There in that wild and threatening place, John heard a voice not his own…God coming, as God does, to one of God’s people, to one clearly outside the establishment of the day, to one who would not be expected to be the bearer of God's word...God speaking and John listening... clearly...

Being a chaplain at a nursing care facility is unlike any other ministry I have ever done. There are days when I wonder what in the world I am doing here, when I question if what I am about has any significance whatsoever to anyone . And there seem to be few guidelines to provide a light along the path, few resources available which address ministering to a population made up mostly of elders, of aging people in varying stages of physical and/or mental deterioration who are sometimes fully present, but at other times are wandering in worlds known only to them. And yet, as I consider what I have just written, I wonder if ministering in this place is really so different from being a pastor in other kinds of parishes. Though the majority of the people in the pews are “all there” mentally and mostly there physically, I wonder just how truly “there” they are as, Sunday after Sunday, they sit in the same spot, speak to the same people, repeat the liturgy (mostly from memory), sing famili...