S U M M E R 2 0 1 3

come, holy spiritour souls inspire...

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10497 Wilshire BoulevardLos Angeles, California 90024310 474-4511

www.westwoodumc.orgwww.TheLoftLA.org

crEaTiVE FirEBy John Woodall

A number of years ago when doing some continuing education in Berkeley, I spent an afternoon visiting some of the sights in San Francisco. One of my favorite stops is Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill. It’s about as close as

one can come to visiting one of the great European cathedrals while staying on the west coast. The massive front doors, replicas of Ghiberti’s Renaissance masterpiece, “Doors of Paradise,” make it clear to the visitor that this is no ordinary place. I had visited the cathedral before. As I walked inside on that particular day, I was taken aback by an art installation that had the effect of “stopping you in your tracks,” a real “take your breath away” kind of experience. Nancy Chinn, a Northern California artist, had installed a work entitled “Tongues of Fire” over the pews in the nave of the Cathedral. Hundreds of yards of fabric streamers in various hues of red, gold, orange, seemed to f loat overhead and the effect was really quite surreal. It captured the church season of Pentecost in a most dramatic way. It created a place and space that while of this ordinary world, felt very extraordinary.

In many ways, that is what this season after Pentecost is about – the extraor-dinary being inserted into the ordinary. Since that day in Jerusalem so long ago, followers of Jesus have spoken, written, sung, and artistically depicted that unpre-dictable, strange and empowering way our world experiences God as the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has been called comforter, refiner, empowerer, grace-giver. Whatever the name, the result is the same. When we choose to open our being to God’s Spirit, to receive the grace it provides and the inspiration it yields, amazing things happen. Simply put – things will change.

That’s probably one of the reasons we are often uncomfortable with the concept of the Holy Spirit. Most of us appreciate stability, predictability, solid foundations that we can count on – always. The Church is an institution that has carried that no-tion out exponentially. Even the most casual observer senses, however, that change is in the air. We who value our church homes and faith communities realize that these expressions of the Christian faith are at a crossroads, that things will be different. Some are observing that our inability to move past some of the doctrines and dogmas of a different time are holding us back, probably even preventing us from doing the work for which the Holy Spirit is providing the lead.

While insights may change, while foundations may shift, we are inheritors of the promise that God’s grace and God’s love – as experienced through the Holy Spirit – are eternal. The poet T.S. Eliot wrote,

The dove descending breaks the airWith f lame of incandescent terrorOf which the tongues declareThe one discharge from sin and error. The only hope, or else despairLies in the choice of pyre or pyre–To be redeemed from fire by fire. [Four Quartets, Little Gidding]

Could this be a time when the Pentecost Fire is working to ignite a fire within us? A f lame that refines a new vision for how those who follow Jesus may live faithfully so that justice, peace, and hope are available for all?

How is it on your journey? —Pastor John

Nancy Chinn: Tongues of Fire

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Winds of the spirit...

When I attended my first national meeting of the United Methodist Association of Com-

municators last fall I was struck by how much of the presenters’ energy was devoted to claiming their work as ministry. It seems self-evident to me that communicating the good news to a parish, a region, a denomination and the whole world is at the heart of our task as Christians. But the institutional church has often regarded its communicators as little more than necessary functionaries.

I returned from that meeting with a vision for deepening our ministry of communication at West-wood, and this second issue of The Spire as a quar-terly magazine is another step in that new direction. The ubiquity and cost-effectiveness of electronic communications like our church websites and mass emailings has made the facts of parish program an-nouncements available to all of us whenever we want them. These data are also still delivered on paper in less frequent editions of the four-page version of The Spire and every week in the Worship Guide distrib-uted at the 10:00 a.m. service. The vision behind the larger quarterly publication that you are now read-ing, then, is to go deeper than an announcement sheet can: deeper in the sharing of stories among our members, deeper in our understanding of what we believe, deeper in celebrating the writing talents of our members and friends.

My prayer is that this summer you will come back to this magazine again and again, and in each read-ing sense the movement of the Spirit among the people of Westwood Church.

Grace+Peace, GREG NORTON

in this issue...

4 Emergence & The Loft at Six Months by Bo Sanders & Chris Spearman

6 Member Profile: Eloise Siskel by Bette Caldwell

8 The Good News is Bread by John Woodall

9 Wesley Foundation Serving UCLA by Barbara Dunlap-Berg

10 Food for the Body, Food for the Soul by Jan Gonder

11 The Psalm of Lament by Nancy S. Price

The Organ by Gregory Norton

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EmErgEncE By Bo Sanders

The Loft is attempting an interesting experiment that intersects and overlaps several

different streams of thought and tradi-tion. There is, of course, a deep heritage with our Methodist roots that allows us to draw on songs, imagery, and the precedent of innovation. Gatherings at the Loft are also employing some ele-ments from a school of thought known as the Ancient-Future model. The author Robert Webber helped popularize this intentional blending of ancient practices with 21st-century elements in a way that honors the tradition while engaging the sensibility of modern believers.

Perhaps the greatest inf luence on the way that Loft gatherings are designed and facilitated is a school of thought known as emerging. The term has been used several ways in the past thirty years, leading to a little confusion and a steep learning curve for those looking to get initiated. The term is borrowed from sci-ence. Emergence is the way that complex systems and patterns arise out of the smaller, simpler elements and groupings that comprise them. Another way to say it is that small elements, organisms and systems give rise to larger and more com-plex systems which then in turn impact the environment of all involved.

What does that have to do with church? It has two interesting applica-tions for the Loft. The first is global and long-term. The second is very local and immediate. 

More than twenty years ago, largely in the former colonial countries of New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Britain and Western Europe, a conversation/movement materialized around a new de-centered, non-hierarchical approach to Christian community and the de-nominational church. The conversation

was quite vibrant and took on a variety of expressions around the world includ-ing some based in youth outreach, in charismatic circles and in postmodern contexts.

Then the conversation migrated to North America. It came in through youth pastors who recognized a shift in the cul-ture and that techniques that worked so well in the 70’s and 80’s had lost their ef-fectiveness. Voices like Phyllis Tickle and Brian McLaren became spokespeople for the concepts. This conversation quickly found an audience among mainline, evangelical and non-denominational young people around the country. For a while it looked as if it would blossom into a full-f ledged movement, but that has yet to be seen.

This vibrant, global conversation has impacted churches and those training for ministry deeply. Part of the reason is

that it begins with the small and the local and then looks to what larger and more complex systems are generated. This is a very different from the bureaucratic (top-down) denominational structures of centuries past that start with the big (what do we believe) and then attempt to figure out how we implement that at given locations.

This is where The Loft comes in. Emergence thought is very environmental (contextual) and

looks to the surrounding atmosphere first. In West LA, there are a different set of concerns, priorities, challenges, op-portunities and resources than one would find in a rural, suburban or other urban setting. Loft gatherings are designed to both account for those environmental realities and to address them by building spaces of spontaneity, contribution, and

The Loft at Six MonthsWestwood UMC made a bold, innovative move this past year by creating a new event as an entry point into this loving community. The Loft is the result of several years of strategizing, praying, dreaming, and investing as we fashioned a gathering that is true to our Methodist heritage but accessible to the diverse inhabitants of West LA. After six months of Loft gatherings, here is where we are:• The Loft attendance is averaging a little over forty people each

Sunday. This is from a roster of approximately ninety who show some regular pattern of attendance. Seventy percent of these participants are completely new to Westwood UMC. Most of them report they would not be attending here if not for The Loft; they simply were not looking for a traditional-style service.

• We continue to see new visitors “shopping” on a regular basis. Thereareusuallyfourorfiveguestspresentateachgathering.Wefeel these numbers are a good sign of enthusiasm as word spreads through the community.

• Perhaps the most exciting news happened on May 26 when The Loft experiencedbothitsfirstnewmemberjoiningWestwoodUMCanditsfirstbaptism.BythegraceofGod,therewillbemanymoretocome.

Starting this July, The Loft will begin receiving payments from a grant awarded by the Cal-Pac Annual Conference New Ministries EMT (Essen-tial Ministries Team). Our United Methodist denomination has set aside monies for the development and support of new churches and ministries that are pioneering the future of the church. The Loft won a grant this past year to help us move forward with excellence. This investment by the Annual Conference’s leadership has been an encouragement in direc-tion and a powerful tool for ministry. Things are looking bright. —Chris Spearman

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even disagreement. If you attended an Anglican, Luther-

an or a Charismatic church here in L.A. and visited one of those congregations in a different part of the country, it is very possible that your experience would not be that different. Those expressions of the Christian faith are designed to pro-vide an experience of con-tinuity. This is not true of Emergent gatherings. Not only is each Loft gather-ing different from week to week, but it would be very different than any other such gathering around North America. Emergent gatherings in Texas, Min-nesota, British Colombia, North Carolina and New York are as different from each other as they are sim-ilar. This is due precisely to the nature of emergence thought! The complex system (congregation) is comprised of the smaller and organic material and organisms that give rise to it.

What this means in practice is that only 60-80% of any Loft gathering is pre-scripted. The songs, scriptures, prayers and conversation starters are planned. Depending on who is present that week

and what they bring to the table, the con-versation takes on a life of its own. There is no guarantee that everyone will agree, come to the same conclusion or leave with the same “take away.”

Each gathering is a live event that emerges from the elements (stories, ex-periences, contributions) that individuals

who are present provide and which take on a life of their own to form the larger and more complex thing called the com-munity. This community then turns to the environment outside the walls and seeks to engage and interact with our

Wherever you go, there you are.

AfriendsharedthisBuddhistconceptwithmewhilewediscussedthelengthstowhichpeoplegotobewhole.Theywillrunmilesforthatfulfillment,onlytodiscoverthatthere’s no way of getting away from their entire selves. The fears and hurts travel with them during the ongoing search for happiness and peace. Yet one day they realize: it’s all right here. I spent many years on that search, pushing to be that faithful giver and servant. I thoughtIhadfoundtheanswersinthemega-churches,onlytofindthemainpointwasabout overcoming sins and reaching out for material blessings. When I moved back to L.A., I knew I needed more. It took me a year and a half. That’s when I found The Loft. (Or perhaps The Loft found me.)While I still had reservations, I was intrigued. I wanted to know more about a church that wanted to transform the view of faith through conversation in an evolving commu-nity.Theprospectofsettingfiretothelayersofbeliefsthathadmademenumbtomyown realities felt ultimately empowering. As a Lofter, I’m beginning to embrace my faith for where it is – with its limitations and questions – as opposed to where I think it should and can be. I have begun to feel a certainpeaceinunderstandingthetruemeaningofPsalm46:10:‘Bestill,andknowthatIamGod.’—Monee Fields-White

neighborhoods, work spaces and rela-tional networks.

It is certainly a different way to do and be the church. The hope is that by interacting with our unique cultural environment in West LA, that a new conversation will begin and that faith will emerge.

Bo Sanders is Westwood’s Minister to Chil-dren and Youth and one of the staff leaders of The Loft. bosanders@westwoodumc.org

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To sErVE, To show comPassion, and To BE willing To hElPBy Bette Caldwell

As I ref lected on individuals within our church fam-ily who have made significant contributions to our church, I immediately thought of Eloise Siskel – one

who gives unceasingly of her time, her gifts, and her talents.Eloise grew up on a farm near the small town of Gosport,

Indiana – one of thirteen children. Her childhood was chal-lenging, as her mother died of cancer when Eloise was a child and the family split up to live with various relatives. She at-tended a one-room school with sixteen other children, grades one through twelve. Her favorite subject in school was geogra-phy and, as a child, she dreamed of traveling to far-away places – a dream which came true when she served as a nurse during World War II.

Following her high school graduation, Eloise worked for two years and saved the $75 she needed to enroll in the Bloom-

ington Hospital School. She said, “I loved nursing from day one, particularly bedside nursing.” She found surgery fascinat-ing and, because there were no interns, each operation involved a doctor, a scrub nurse, and a circulating nurse. She recalls one day when the surgeon handed her the scalpel and said, “You make the incision.” Eloise said that she almost dropped the scalpel. The hospital, affiliated with the City Hospital in Indianapolis, provided Eloise with her first experience of racial segregation; blacks and whites were not allowed on the same ward.

Mid-way through her senior year of nursing school came the announcement of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Nearly two years later, she was accepted

into the Air Corps and headed for Basic Training in Greens-boro, North Carolina. As a “country girl” she had never traveled more than fifty miles from home. Basic Training was rugged and unrelated to nursing or medicine. She became a member of the Army Nurse Corps and shipped out in Decem-ber, 1944 to England, then later to Europe, including France, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. When she was stationed in Germany she was responsible for the care of 110 wounded boys and men. Many of the soldiers were hysterical, but there were no sedatives available. Eloise chose to break all rules and sent two of her helpers to the kitchen to get sugar, cocoa, milk, beaters, and spoons. They made hot chocolate and went from bed to bed to have the soldiers mix it. They talked about home, family, and their churches. She said, “I have never again held so many hands and listened to so many stories. God was certainly with me and my medics.”

After the war ended in 1945, all service personnel re-mained in the area and traveled to various historical sites, including the German concentration camp at Buchenwald.

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Aily who have made significant contributions to our Aily who have made significant contributions to our Achurch, I immediately thought of Eloise Siskel – one Achurch, I immediately thought of Eloise Siskel – one Awho gives unceasingly of her time, her gifts, and her talents.

Eloise grew up on a farm near the small town of Gosport, Indiana – one of thirteen children. Her childhood was chal-lenging, as her mother died of cancer when Eloise was a child and the family split up to live with various relatives. She at-tended a one-room school with sixteen other children, grades one through twelve. Her favorite subject in school was geogra-phy and, as a child, she dreamed of traveling to far-away places – a dream which came true when she served as a nurse during World War II.

Following her high school graduation, Eloise worked for two years and saved the $75 she needed to enroll in the Bloom-

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The sights there were devastating and the statistics frightening. Their guide, a Polish man who had once been the Ambassador to England, had spent six years in seventeen different camps. Years later, Eloise was asked how she felt about this experience. “I don’t really know,” she responded. “After seeing the results of torture, it still is inconceivable that there could have been human beings capable of such monstrous acts. To say the least, I was soul sick. I cried for hours until a very wise, older regular Army nurse slapped me, shook my shoulders, and said, ‘You are going to be a basket case.’ That was the second time she had done that – the other was the first time our own American boys were brought in to the hospital from the battlefield and I was shocked, shaken by the sight. So was she, but she was more mature and wiser.”

Following the war, Eloise and her late husband, Howard, settled in West Los Angeles. I asked her what attracted them to Westwood United Methodist Church and she

laughed, then said, “Howard and I used to read to each other every night before we went to sleep. We had been reading a book by the theologian Rupert Jones, and we happened to drive along Wilshire and saw that Reverend Mel Wheatley was preaching on this man the next day. We attended the service and never stopped going to this church.”

Through the years, Eloise was involved in nearly all phases of church life: working with Chil-dren’s Ministries, Friends of the Preschool, Staff-Parish Relations Committee, Administrative Board, Membership and Evangelism Com-mittee, and The United Methodist Women. For years she has opened her home for church picnics and choir parties and frequently volunteers to coordinate recep-tions following Memorial Services – always providing grace and elegance.

As a former pastor, Reverend Dr. Jim Lockwood-Stewart, stated so eloquently, “My very first event at Westwood when I came as an Associate Pastor in 1968 was a youth pool party at Eloise and Howard’s home. Their daughters, Suzanne and Lisa, were members of the youth groups at that time. And, of course, Eloise was one of the leaders of the farewell reception when Odette and I left Westwood to move to Berkeley in the summer of 1992. In between, and I know before and since, Eloise has filled just about every important role that a pastor and a church community can ask. From Sunday School classes

to property care, from personnel concerns to hospitality, from an analytical voice to a supportive presence, Eloise has been all of these and more. The hard question would be to find any important aspects of the life of Westwood UMC that have not felt the touch of Eloise’ s skilled and caring hands. To know her is a great gift indeed.”

Most recently, Eloise was honored by the Westwood Village Rotary Club as Rotarian of the Year for her more than forty years of service. She is the first

woman to receive this prestigious honor.I believe that Eloise’s thoughts best summarize her life

of service. She wrote: “What did I learn from these (war) experiences? I think I was too young to have answered that then, but later I think my philosophy was partially molded from those three years in the service. And that is: the importance of home, family, and our faith in God. The fundamental princi-ples of morality and the enormity of the experiences are some-thing never to be forgotten. Perhaps, as Dr. Albert Schweitzer said, ‘The purpose of life is to serve, to show compassion, and to be willing to help others.’”

God bless you, Eloise, for your life of service and the ex-ample that you provide to all whose lives you touch!

Bette Caldwell is Assistant Principal, Secondary Counseling Ser-vices, at San Pedro High School. She has served as Editor of The Spire and the Los Angeles District page of Circuit West, as well as Chi State News, a publication of The Delta Kappa Gamma Society International. She has been a member of Westwood UMC since 1964.

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ThE good nEws is BrEadBy John Woodall

When people were hungry, Jesus didn’t say, “Now is thatpolitical,orsocial?”Hesaid,“Ifeedyou.”Becausethe good news to a hungry person is bread.

—Bishop Desmond Tutu

It is estimated that one billion people will go to bed hungry tonight; two hundred million of them will be children. It is a staggering statistic any way we choose to look at it. Hunger continues to be a major problem for our world community and certainly is a matter of concern for those who choose to be followers of Jesus. Here at Westwood UMC we’ve had a commitment to make a difference in projects both financial and “hands-on.” Our Mission Team has adopted the fo-cus “Until All Are Fed” for the program year and they have provided a variety of ways for people to get involved.

Our Food Bag Ministry is simple and straightforward. Interested participants are asked to fill a bag (handy, re-useable ones are available) with non-perishable food items as often as possible. Food bins are in the church narthex to receive the donations. The food is then shared with Loaves and Fishes, a project of the West District of the United Methodist Church of which we are a part. Loaves and Fishes serves as a distribu-tion center for a number of food pantries and feeding programs providing much-needed assistance.

A dedicated group of Saturday volunteers have provided monthly hot breakfasts for People Assisting The Homeless (P.A.T.H) at their Hollywood Transitional Housing Shelter. Sign-ups are taken every month.

New this past year has been participation in Meals with Hope at Kardia United Methodist Church in West Los An-geles. Meals with Hope provides a hot lunch two Saturdays a

month. WUMC partners with students at our UCLA Wesley Foundation to prepare and serve the meals.

A new program for Westwood UMC will be the organiza-tion and hosting of a Stop Hunger Now event on Saturday, August 3, 2013. Stop Hunger Now is an international hunger relief agency that has been fulfilling its commitment to end hunger for more than fifteen years. Since 1998, the organiza-tion has coordinated the distribution of food and other lifesav-ing aid to children and families in countries all over the world.

Stop Hunger Now created its meal-packaging program in 2005. The program perfected the assembly process that combines rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and a f lavoring mix including 21 essential vitamins and minerals into small meal packets. Each meal costs only 25 cents. The food stores eas-ily, has a shelf-life of two years and transports quickly. Stop Hunger Now works with international partners that ship and distribute the meals in-country.

In cooperation with seven other United Methodist Churches and Ministries in our area, the goal will be to pack 50,000 meals that can be used for emergency relief locally and globally. Participants need no special skills other than being over four years of age! The Stop Hunger Now organization has devised an ingenious way to mass produce meals at a low

cost (25 cents each). We will provide both the labor and the funds to cover the costs of the meals. I recently challenged the West-wood congregation to provide 75 volunteers and $5000 toward the ultimate goal of 150 volunteers and $12,500. There will be several opportunities over the next month to sign up and donate. A special website has been created

for the event and can be found at http://events.stophungernow.org/UMCLA.

Working to eradicate hunger is something within the grasp of everyone who follows Jesus. One of the gifts that the Holy Spirit provides is inspiration that motivates everyday people to dream of ways to make a difference. All of these programs supported by Westwood UMC can and do make a difference. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was quoted as saying, “I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time. Just one, one, one.” Each of us has the ability to make a difference – one person at a time.

John Woodall is Westwood’s Senior Pastor. john@westwoodumc.org

Photos: Paul Jeffrey, www.kairosphotos.com

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ucla wEslEy FoundaTion FocusEs on hungEr JusTicE To ‘changE ThE world’By Barbara Dunlap-Berg

“Change the World” weekend is not new to the Univer-sity of California, Los Angeles campus of more than 41,000 students. However, said Jeanne Roe Smith, campus minister and director of the UCLA Wesley Foundation, 2013 is “the first time we are doing something across the California-Pacific An-nual Conference, in partnership with district events focusing on hunger.”

A part of the Rethink Church initiative of United Meth-odist Communications, “Change the World” weekend is May 18-19. The global event encourages congregations to go outside their walls to share the love of Jesus Christ. At UCLA, it’s about extending the reach of the huge campus.

“We are working with local hunger ministries to bring vis-ibility to food justice concerns,” Smith said. “There will be an event in Orange County entitled Hunger Awareness Sunday.”

Food justice for students and families is an ongoing minis-try of the Wesley Foundation, which works with Kardia United Methodist Church in Los Angeles in its monthly Meals with Hope outreach.

“We prepare, serve and share food with people in the neighborhood who are homeless, day laborers or experiencing food shortages,” Smith said. Students share conversation as well as scriptures and ref lections in English and Spanish with the guests. She wants to connect the ministry with “Change the World” and, at the least, will publicize Meals with Hope and encourage churches to support it.

CAfÉ CoMBAts hunGerThe Wesley Foundation’s 580 Café has addressed hun-

ger and food justice concerns for three years. It began with a

request from the vice chancellor in UCLA’s student affairs of-fice seeking assistance for students experiencing food/hunger issues, both on campus and in their homes.

Partnering with churches, alumni, neighbors, food banks and businesses, Smith said, the ministry offers hot meals twice a week, and snacks, fruit, sandwiches and other ready-to-eat options Monday through Friday. Students also identify com-munity resources on or near campus for students who need food over the weekend.

“This is an incredible way to ‘offer them Christ’ by shar-ing our resources, community and concern,” she said. Few students who use Café 580 have United Methodist ties. They “are surprised to find that we offer them not only food, but also a space to relax, study and explore their beliefs and traditions with respect and courtesy to all.”

A United Methodist deaconess, Smith sees participating in “Change the World” as an excellent way to draw people into the church.

College students have enormous enthusiasm and passion for social justice, she observed.

“Many of our students come from underserved, underrep-resented communities,” she said. “Their enthusiasm, care and compassion are inspiring, as they share what they have experi-enced personally and what they are learning at the university about creating cultures of respect, grace and access.”

Barbara Dunlap-Berg is internal content editor at United Method-ist Communications, Nashville, Tenn. This article originally ap-peared in the March-April issue of The Interpreter, the national program magazine of The United Methodist Church. www.interpretermagazine.org

On August 3 Westwood and seven area UM churches and ministries will partner with Stop Hunger Now. Photos (clockwise): volunteers pack-age meals for use around the world; cartons of meals await shipping; children in

Nicaraqua eating meal provided by Stop Hunger Now.

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Food For ThE Body, Food For ThE soulBy Jan Gonder

Life is a journey,” Bette Caldwell wrote about this Lenten class offering. When eight persons

gathered around the table last February, we six students knew only that we were going to share dinner with the other class members and take lessons in develop-ing spiritual practices – whatever those might be. With only the class description to guide us at the start, we met in Room 207 and enjoyed a great meal and launched a spiritual adventure.

As anyone who has planned and led a class knows, it doesn’t just hap-pen. This one was born out of a discussion among Sherry Burch, Ellen Evans Agee, and the Mission Team, and then with Senior Pastor John Woodall. As Ellen commented at the first Mission Team meeting of the year in September, it was clear that people in the group wanted something deeper – a way to re-build connections to God for the church. We would carry out the church’s current theme, “Until all are fed,” in several ways before we finished. In fact, weeks after the class was over, both Sherry and El-len’s voices ref lected excitement over the ideas that came out of discussion, plan-ning, and attendance at class. Although it began with a desire to bring out the labyrinth that had sat unused for several years, the class took on deeper meaning and presented a much larger variety of spiritual practices that we could develop more fully as individuals or as a group.

John was especially eager to invite Mary Garbesi, a licensed Spiritual Direc-tor, to share her experience in practices that would open us up to ancient – yet

still fresh and new – approaches to prayer, contemplation, and communication with God and with one another. She gener-ally began each class by forming us into a circle. Lights were dimmed, and she lit a candle in the center to represent God’s presence. Music, Scripture, and poetry drew us away from mundane thoughts and opened paths to the mysteries that are God. Then, the lessons and practice began. Conscious breathing (four counts inhaling, eight counts exhaling) steadied and guided us from the start. Lectio div-ina (“divine reading”) gave us a four-part method of approaching Scripture that allowed us to engage in conversation with

Christ. Reading (“Lectio”) allowed us to listen to the

inner message of Scrip-ture. Prayer (“Oratio”) is a prayer that accom-panies the reading – we speak to God and hear

God “when we read the divine saying” (St. Ambrose).

Finally, meditation (“Meditatio”) was presented as communion with God, and Contemplation (“Complatio”) is silent prayer that expresses love for God. Later in the series, when John Woodall explained the labyrinth tradition and displayed a table labyrinth, we realized we wanted to share the experience of walking it with the congregation. On Good Friday we offered the opportunity and were glad to see many people taking advantage of it, especially after the ser-vice in The Loft.

I joined for the lightest of reasons – classes took place on Tuesday evenings, and there was no conf lict

with handbell rehearsals. I missed the camaraderie of courses I had taken in the past and wanted something deeper to take the place of Stephen Ministry and Disciple. Here are some other students’ thoughts with respect to the class and the

experience in general:Lynn Woods described her ex-

perience as “reconnecting with the deeper spiritual side of myself, leading to renewal.” She’d had formal training in many of these traditions. She saw this class as a way of bringing light to intu-ition and connecting them, centering and grounding her. Of all the processes John used, she said, the brainstorming for a creative writing project – taking a psalm and crafting one of our own – helped her in plumbing the depths.

Kimberly Britts discovered that conscious breathing and centering prayer worked best for her. Those could be done while she was waiting for the household to wake up, and those two practices gave her a calming start to the day.

Bette Caldwell discovered that jour-nals and centering prayer filled her needs. In the centering prayer, we each assigned our own sacred word like “love,” “hope,” “shalom” to God and used that word alone to express the intention of being in God’s presence.

Mary Garbesi, though not a student, said she liked the schedule of having supper and then going into the practice time. She found the class was “an oppor-tunity to learn some ways of praying and deepening one’s relationship with God. Spiritual practices offer the opportunity to be intentionally and consciously in the presence of God and open to the grace available to us.”

Sherry Burch went into the class seeking guidance in learning concrete practices and details. The class met those expectations. Beyond that, she found herself happily surprised that we made connections and formed a close-knit group. She found, as many of us discovered, that it was hard to do the work by ourselves during the week and hard to keep going. As she said, “The community of church is so important. It is church. It is worship.”

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We wrapped up the class by practicing what we learned: we joined others at PATH

(People Assisting The Homeless) and practiced our fruit-chopping, our sausage-frying, and our pancake-f lipping. It was such a joy to relax with those we served and to hear thanks for our time and food – which seemed like such a tiny gift in light of their challenges.

Everyone came to the group with an open heart, even when we arrived with our own ideas. We were there to learn, and we left with our spirits sated.

Jan Gonder is a retired high-school teacher of English, ESL, and French. She has been a member of Westwood UMC since 1982.

Another Spiritual Practices class is planned for four Tuesday evenings this

summer: August 6, 13, 20 & 27. To learn more, contact the church office.

the psALM of LAMentBy Nancy S. Price

Help me, O God,For my future is gone.Darkness clouds my vision;Fear grows in my heart;Doubt overwhelms my thoughts.

The steep path narrows, winding sharply.I stumble over sharp rocks,Brambles assail my skin;Boulders obstruct my sight.I cannot find my way.

But you, O God, are with me always.Your angels strengthen me on my journeyAnd protect me from loneliness.You direct my steps in the dark;And guide those whose skills will restore me.

I will praise You, O God.I will sing to you in the dark timesAnd praise you in the light,For you do not forsake me.You answer my prayers.

ThE organ: an aPPrEciaTion by Gregory Norton

Some years ago I was invited to in-troduce a panel discussion among organists about the organ’s place

in liturgy and the arts. The event took place at First Congregational Church in Los Angeles and the publicity for it posed some provocative questions: What is it that enables the organ to make such a powerful impact? Why does it remain such an integral part of worship services, even in the face of other technologies? In those questions one can hear several assumptions being made, and they are assumptions that I share. I believe that the organ does “make a powerful impact,” and that in many communi-ties of faith today it is an “integral part of worship.” The organ’s music is, for me, the sound of sacred space. I make that association because worship in which the organ plays a prominent role was a part of my earliest religious experiences. It later became ‘my instrument,’ and playing it has nurtured me along a path of lifelong service in the church. But not everyone has had that same experience.

It is not theologically defensible to say that God only hears organ music, or that authentic worship is impossible without it. After all, instrumental music of all kinds has been suspect at vari-ous moments in Christian history. The emergence of the organ’s role in worship began only about the sixteenth century or so. Certainly we can worship God without any musical instruments be-yond the human voice. I believe we can also “let every instrument be tuned for praise,” to quote Fred Pratt Green’s great hymn.

The most important musical mo-

ments in any liturgy are when the assem-bly of believers lifts its collective voice in praise. The impulse and mandate to do so trace their roots to the first pages of scripture. Whenever it happens, com-munity is formed as we sing together. No other instrument affords a single musi-cian the ability to lead the singing of a large group of people as does the organ. To be sure, the organ is effectively used in a number of other ways too, but these functions are secondary. The organ’s connection to congregational song is at the heart of its “powerful impact” in the liturgy.

As a solo performance medium, the organ is the most colorful and varied in-

strument ever conceived. A large organ, such as the Shaffer Memorial Organ at Westwood, possesses a variety of voices and effects that exceeds even

that of a large symphony orchestra. The organ’s palette of sounds has inspired composers for centuries, resulting in a vast repertoire of music from every era of Western art for use in the Church and be-yond its walls. In Westwood we celebrate that legacy each summer by presenting the organ as a concert instrument. In doing so we showcase its life beyond sup-porting worship.

Nothing guarantees that the or-gan will have anything to do with the Church’s life a generation from now. But the organ has advocates – musicians who each week faithfully seek creative, mean-ingful ways to link the organ’s role in worship with the deepening faith of the people. Wherever that happens, I believe the organ’s music remains relevant and alive, beloved and appreciated; the very sound of sacred space.

Gregory Norton is Westwood’s Minister of Music & Communications. greg@westwoodumc.org

Westwood United Methodist Church10497 Wilshire Boulevard • Los Angeles, CA 90024

NON PROFIT ORGU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDLOS ANGELES, CAPERMIT No. 38190

sixty-minute concerts featuring the shaffer memorial organ sunday afternoons at 3 p.m.• free admission

july 14 edward tipton

july 28daniel kerr

august 11timothy howard

summer organ concertsat westwood united methodist church