Through Stained Glass: The Magic Mirror by Annie Hieronymous

(This week's post is written by Annie Hieronymous. She is a member at First Presbyterian Church and creator of the little library at The Christian Child Care in Lincoln, Illinois. Annie is a deacon, Cubs fan, and poet.)

Remember to bring your little mirror to worship this Sunday! 

The Magic Mirror

When I was a child, I loved to watch Romper Room.  Every morning I would sit in front of the TV and watch the kids sing songs and do fun things.  But the thing I waited for most anxiously was the Magic Mirror.  I’d move up close to the TV and sit quietly, hoping against hope that Miss Rosemary would see me through her magic mirror.

“Romper Bomper Stomper boo

Tell me, tell me, tell me do

Magic mirror tell me today,

Have all my friends had fun at play?”

I sat with bated breath, full of hope that just this once she would say my name.  She’d go through the list and of course, I was terribly disappointed when mine wasn’t mentioned.  It was kind of heartbreaking that she didn’t see me.  After all, everyone wants to be seen.

We spend a lot of time every day standing in front of a mirror.  We primp. We preen.  We mess with our hair and put on our make-up.  We check to see if what we’re wearing makes us look fat.  We dance or sing our favorite rock song.  We practice that one conversation that is so important.

Mirrors come in so many shapes and sizes and they don’t lie about what is on the outside.  But sometimes mirrors become scratched, cracked, or even broken, much like our own lives.  Are we sad?  Are we hurting?  Are we lonely?  Those are the things a mirror can’t tell us.

It would be wonderful if every time we looked into our eyes in that reflection, we could just say, “I love you.”  Three little words.  God wants us to first love ourselves so we can take the path to loving and caring for others.  We need to know ourselves.  We need to know what’s on the inside as well as the outside.

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” – I Corinthians  13:12

So let’s get out our magic mirror and see ourselves.  Let’s look deep inside.  We are, after all, not just a face.  Let our reflections mean something to us, and then it will mean a lot to others as well.

Tracy Morgan said, “I know who I am.  When I look in the mirror, I see me.”

The path to a good life, happiness, and fulfillment starts inside us.   We can walk towards redemption, forgiveness, and love.  It is a path well taken, right through the looking glass.  Jesus is waiting on the other side.

Through Stained Glass: Midweek Mirrored Resistance by Kelli Woodford

Today's reflection is by First Presbyterian Church member,
Kelli Woodford. Kelli is a child of God, daughter, mother,
writer, dreamer, coffee connoisseur, and warrior. 

The day was cloudy. One of the first of the cold that now accompanies us with more regularity. My eyes scanned shorn cornfields for the threat of deer. My fingers played with the radio. My feet worked the pedals with a life their own. And none of this was unusual. In fact, I felt a little swept up in the monotony of it all.

Pressures of work and home hitchhiked on thoughts barely conscious. Old stories I’d told myself of criticism and shame, judgment and division, replayed at a speed my vehicle wouldn’t dream of challenging. This was life, right? This was the workaday world we all succumb to and perhaps in which we unwittingly participate. A life in which we so often feel alone.

And it was the gum, I think. As my fingers brushed the inside pocket of my purse for a minty strip, something pushed back. Something solid. Something small. A rogue square placed there on another day, a hitchhiker of another kind. The act of pulling out a mirror startled me. Because to my great surprise,

There I was.

I looked back at me in the small fragment. Me, driving my father’s borrowed car while mine was in the process of being repaired. Me, of delicate blue eyes which skipped a generation to land in these sockets. Me, the one who felt so swept up in thought and analysis, in worry and regret, that she lost sight of what is perhaps more true: who she is.

And it was on the side of the road, among nameless cornfields, that an act of resistance was born. I snapped a photo of just one piece of my face reflected in that square because I needed to name the place. This is what art does, right? It names an experience, alters the perspective, reframes assumptions about reality. Art is an act of resistance. You see, in that moment I was not only the anxious imaginings of an overactive mind or the judgments inherent in what we all come to call normal, I was actually something more than that. I was present. I had substance greater than whatever my mental noise declared. Like the mirror in my hand, I was solid.

The truth of the matter is that I was in fact surrounded by so much more than vacant corn and bean fields, but by the great cloud of witnesses symbolized by my father’s steering wheel and my grandmother’s eyes. By those whose love stays with me in ways I can’t deny when physicality is viewed from another angle. Madeline L’Engle wasn’t wrong when she wrote that love is never absent, just sometimes enfolded.

There is a strength in this acknowledgment. A confidence in recognizing the love that is both within and without. Somehow that little square of mirror resistance permitted a returning to the Self most true, the one that stills the endless chatter of monotony’s lull. A life in which we are not alone.

Through Stained Glass: Mosaic Mirrors

Tiny mirrors were handed out Sunday at worship to remind
us that all we need is love and who we are is love. We will
bring them back to worship on Sunday, 25th of November.
If you didn't receive one or would like to, there are plenty
remaining at church. Just ask Adam for one! 

The end is near!

Alright, not really. But also, really.

Lectionary Year B is coming to an end, which means so is our artwork for 2018.

These final days have us exploring what it means when we allow the good news to take hold of our lives. Last Sunday, Jesus summed it up into 2 heavy commandments:

1.     Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, nephesh, and strength; and

2.     Love your neighbor as yourselves.

That’s it. The whole Gospel message comes down to one word: LOVE.

How do we love God, though? I imagine some people would say we do by going to church, giving to the church, or something about believing what church teaches. These are all good practices! They really are! However, Jesus never really talked about good church attendance, nor did he really teach that loving God is dependent on ascribing to certain creeds or beliefs. As someone once pointed out, Jesus never said, “Worship me.” Instead, he said, “Follow me!”

The best piece of advice I have read about loving God went something like this:

The only way I know how to teach anyone to love God, and how I can love God, is to love what God loves, which is everything and everyone, including you and including me!

We love because God first loved us. And nothing we do can ever remove us from the love of God. If we love God, God remains in us, and this love is completed and brought to perfection in us.

As we press on toward the end of our year and the completion of our artwork, we will end on the same note we began the year on: LOVE.

This is why this past Sunday you were handed a tiny mirror. You were invited to take one and carry it with you throughout your week as a reminder that you are loved. This “phylactery” is to help you remember that the world doesn’t need another Michael Jordan or Mother Teresa: it needs YOU. The best way to love God is to love the things God loves. And what does God love? No, no, no… who does God love?

Look in the mirror. Do you see it? God loves you!

And that’s the thing about this love; it is what and who we are—at our core.

Our True Selves—God’s love within us—can never be exhausted.

Love God, friends. With everything you have. Then, take time to love yourself—and the rest will follow.

On Sunday, November 25, bring your little mirror—scratched, dirty, or broken—back to worship. Together we will make a mosaic at the center of our painting.

With our many parts, we will piece together what is true about Love—we all shine like the sun.