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- SHERYL & STEVE FROEHLICH - LIVING THE STORY THAT GOD'S GRACE IS ENOUGH
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Fridays with Froehlichs #15 |
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In July smoke from the Canadian wildfires turned the bright skies of summer into a thick eerie pallor. Our eyes stung and our throats were dry. Health officials posted Air Quality Index alerts and issued warnings. |
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It reminded me a little bit of growing up in Los Angeles in the 1960’s. The smog was so thick it looked like San Francisco with the fog rolling in. We would huddle indoors until it cleared.
If you’ve looked at a map recently, you’ll notice that Canada is big. It covers more territory than the US. Vast sections of Canada are remote, inhabited only by wildlife.
The Canadian wildfires have been especially bad since 2022. The drier and hotter weather patterns have made the forests vulnerable. Since the snowmass has been decreasing for decades, the reduced snowmelt does not bring as much moisture to the soil. While a few of the fires are the result of abandoned campfires, power lines, and arson, most of the fires are caused by lightning, a singular spark to acres of dry tinder.
There's no way to contain these fires, and they blaze until they burn out. Sometimes the rains come and douse the flames. Sometimes the fires burn to natural borders and can go no further. But while the flames may die out, the embers smolder and the smoke continues to rise to be carried away by the wind. Carried to us.
Perhaps the smoke bears a humbling, mocking message: “vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild ass’s colt; and with solemn exclamation, ‘I am but of yesterday, and know nothing’” (Spurgeon). A dreary reminder that we do not control the world like we sometimes believe we can.
But this other-worldly cloud has come a long way to settle into the hollows of the Fingerlakes. How is it that something so far away can determine how I spend my day? Will I work in the garden, go to lunch with friends, ride my bike?
I’m grateful to have choices. When Sheryl and I visited Khatmandu in 2008, we could not escape the suffocating, sooty smoke that filled the city. Open fires burned everywhere burning everything imaginable.
The wildfire smoke carried to us reminds me of The Butterfly Effect, the idea that small actions can have far-reaching consequences. In the 1960s meteorologist Edward Lorenz applied the idea to weather. The hypothetical image pictures the movement of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil creating a chain of effects that resulted in a tornado in TX. Long before Lorenz, Benjamin Franklin popularized George Herbert’s expression of this idea: “For want of a naile the shoo is lost, for want of a shoo the horse is lost, for want of a horse the rider is lost” (from Jacula Prudentum).
A single spark ignites a flame that spreads into a raging conflagration. That’s James' image when teaching us about the power of words (James 3:5-6). Emails, texts, and tweets matter. The everyday, the ordinary stuff of life makes a difference. For evil and for good.
We have no way of knowing how God in his providence uses those everyday things, but he does. Cups of cold water given in his name. Joy. A wise word fitly spoken. Hospitality.
Christopher Nolan’s film, The Odyssey, preaches the importance of hospitality. Zeus’s law. But it’s really a much more ancient rule. The “royal law” (James 2:8) comes from the Creator who is the Lord of both hospitality and incarnation. As a stranger and alien he stepped across the threshold of our home that he might carry us as a bride across the threshold of his home. This is how he created us to bear his image, living in relationship with one another and his creation. |
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After nearly 30 years in Ithaca, we reflect often on the work of our hands. My very first sermon at NLPC was from Psalm 90 which closes with Moses plea to the Lord: “Please, confirm the work of my hands.” I think we all want to know that our labors and our lives matter. But the church in Ithaca has always felt like a mission work, small and often struggling to survive. Yet, we dare to believe that by God’s grace it has been a spark that has ignited flame-bearers who have been blown by God’s Spirit to the ends of the earth to show the character and kingdom of God in all they do.
We’ve been reminded of that grace many times this summer through visits from creative and faithful NLPC alums (who like Odysseus have returned to Ithaca). |
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The smoke also tells a story. Far away lies death and devastation, the charred remains of ancient forests, creatures displaced and driven from their homes. The smoke reminds us of other kinds of fires driving people from their homes, often fires ignited by bombs and oppression. Where will they find hospitality, safety and generosity? Among the nations? With us?
What fires have burned through our lives? The embers of sickness, death, betrayal, or loss may still be smoldering. The scriptures tell us that we will be saved through fire, the flames of purification and resurrection. Meanwhile, our Saviour walks with us in the fire protecting the gift of life he has given to us.
The poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins is often complex with its unusual rhythms and word combinations. But listen to the final lines of his “That Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire and of The Comfort of the Resurrection” - from wildfire, to temporal ash, to immortal diamond. May that story be true for us.
… world's wildfire, leave but ash:
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is, ' since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, ' patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond. |
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1 - Raegan was a student representative on the NLPC search committee that recommended that the congregation call Steve as pastor in 1998. If we look drenched in the picture, we are. The heavens opened as we were concluding our Cascadilla Gorge hike.
2 - Matt was the CRU staff director at Cornell when we arrived in ’98. He lost his first wife to cancer, but has been richly blessed since Bec joined the family. For nearly 20 years, Matt has served as pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in New Haven, CT.
3 - Steve had the joy of marrying Heather & Jeff in the rain at Taughannock State Park. Heather has a faculty appointment in the Michigan State University Fisheries and Wildlife Department. She also serves as Associate Director and Program Leader for Michigan Sea Grant. Jeff (who was home with the kids during Heather's visit) is a civil engineer who also serves as a Grace Unscripted Advisory/Accountability Team member.
4 - Michael is a baker whose artisan bakery, Nightengale, is flourishing to great acclaim in CO Springs. While in Ithaca Michael crafted the bread we shared in the Eucharist.
5 - During COVID Steve had the privilege of officiating the wedding of William and Ana. William is Research Associate at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Ana is an entomologist who takes pleasure in reminding us that stink bugs are “amazing.” Yes, we’re at the Cornell Dairy Bar, and of course we all enjoyed ice cream.
6 - Deanna & Anthony came into our lives when they were newly married -- he was Project Director at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University and she was Executive Director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. On fair weather Sundays, they would drive down from Syracuse with the top down in their red Miata. Anthony is now Chief of Staff for Booz Allen Hamilton. |
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“Jesus calls us to be a light,
not a wildfire.”
Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry |
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Central to our vision for Grace Unscripted is the continuing relationships with the NLPC alums we have sent out over the decades. So, we had hoped to make a train trip in mid-late September to visit the NLPC gang in Chicago, then stop in Minneapolis, and then visit the NLPC gang in the Northwest. It's an ambitious plan. But, we are concluding that we don't have the resources to make it happen. We project the travel expenses will run about $3,000. But we've had to face the impact of about $10,000 of unbudgeted expenses: from skyrocketing utility costs, new prescriptions, medical and dental work, a roof leak that has done some ceiling damage. And, so it goes. We're disappointed. However, if the Lord provides, we'll happily pack our bags to ride the rails. |
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"Ben Sasse Is Going Home: Lessons on Life and Death"
Jake Tapper interviews Ben Sasse for an episode of "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper" (This is an audio podcast. Video is available via CNN streaming.
"A Political Case Study: Four Americas, Ideologies & Idolatries"
Tim Keller wrote this article in January of 2023 a few months before his death, and it is now being published through The Gospel in Life.
"As Christians struggle to make sense of today’s political landscape, I believe this article can be useful in helping readers think through the pitfalls and challenges of keeping one’s faith and politics in the right order." Kathy Keller
"Why Do I Love America?"
Steve's reflection on America's 250th birthday. |
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This summer we both reached that biblical milestone of three score and ten. As Indiana Jones said, "It's not the years; it's the mileage." However, I (Steve) have been struck how Sheryl's beauty has matured over the decades, a beauty not possible without the journey to arrive at this moment in time. Beauty and humor. |
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 We discovered the music of Glen Hansard when we watched and fell in love with the wonderful and richly musical film Once (2007). Hansard starred in the film playing a character much like himself, a street busker, and he sang music he wrote for the film. He also featured prominently in the David Letterman documentary interview of Bono and The Edge in Dublin, “A Sort of Homecoming.” So, we were deeply saddened at the news of his death last week.
Bono wrote this moving tribute for his friend:
Sometimes I would wonder if Glen Hansard really existed….
Seriously, he was such an angelic presence… not otherworldly…in fact, very present this presence…
A smiling rascal if you needed him to be… this most musical and mischievous archangel of Ballymun… no airs, plenty of graces...
Of course, Glen was the shining star of the Christmas Eve busk… sometimes the only one reminding the rest of us that Christmas began with a refugee born in a manger, which is hardly a step from living on the street.
To be utterly yourself by being more interested in others - a clue for any of us trying out different personas. He really was who you thought he was. He could never walk by a person living rough without checking they were OK… and more than that, he worked very hard so that less people had to live on the streets in the first place.
When the crowds got bigger and for safety’s sake Glen had to agree to move the busk to a stage kindly provided outside The Gaiety Theatre, he would say ‘we’ll give it our best but it’s not a busk if we’re not on the street!’ …because that’s who he was - a performer at eye level in any situation. The stage was a separation he wouldn’t recognize. Of all the grand and gigantic venues he and The Frames played, you sensed the street was his most favoured place to perform. And street people, his favourite audience.
Voice of the streets. A choir of angels in one man. The rest of us blessed to stand there beside our very own and very earthed Angel Gabriel… All of us welcome in his choir, whatever shape or form.
….and I’m telling myself this morning that if he never existed, then he can never cease to exist. For me, he will always be everywhere I see a coin spinning into an open guitar case.
May you rest in the peace you gave to so many.
Bono
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When the Church Sings What We Cannot Yet Say
Daniel Jesse
"I have often thought that one of the quiet gifts of congregational singing is that it lets us borrow the faith of others without pretending. When I cannot sing a line honestly, someone else can. When my grief catches in my throat, the person behind me may still be able to carry the melody. When hope feels impossible, the church does not ask me to manufacture it alone. It places me inside a sound larger than my own capacity."
How Ben Sasse Raised Me
Alex Sasse
"My parents are fallible goofballs like anyone else. But there is something a bit different about the conversations at my dinner table—and something magical and rare about the people leading them." |
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“So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.”
Psalm 90:12
In the days leading up to my birthday July 30th, I found myself awash in ambivalence. Facebook memories kept popping up with photos of where I was, who I was with, what I was doing 20-15-10-5 years ago. These curated ‘best of’ highlights stirred up a romanticized nostalgia about the past which far exceeded anything I could imagine unfolding in the near future. Turning 70 left me lackluster.
When a summary of Margareta Magnusson’s, The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly popped up on The Book Therapist page (an online book review group), I was immediately taken. The writer lauded Magnusson’s non-anxious, realistic, unapologetic approach to aging: “Magnusson strips aging of all the unnecessary drama people attach to it. She speaks openly about forgetting things, becoming tired more easily, losing friends, watching her body change. But there is no self-pity in her voice. No desperation to appear younger than she is.” The “no self-pity,” “no desperation to appear younger” descriptors made an impression. Magnusson’s mindset about aging was exuberant precisely because she had no illusions. She was reconciled to the aging process, intentional about her outlook and effort. She remained curious, attentive, engaged and connected with life until she died at age 92.
Part of what you have received is your age. Have you accepted the exact number of years and months and days God has granted to you so far? Do you lie about your age? Do you hate growing old? But old age is one of the stages of the journey with the Shepherd. Make use of it as He intends. (Elisabeth Elliot)
Embracing aging as a gift God entrusts to some to steward has been reorienting. While I cannot control the aging process with its changes and losses, I have agency. I can trust the Lord, remain curious and creative, and expect generative possibilities for ongoing learning and growth, for loving and serving. Rather than life being diminished it can be augmented as new experiences are integrated. Madeleine L’Engle’s quip captures this kind of spaciousness: “The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.”
Aging exuberantly aging won’t happen incidentally, without a holistic effort. According to current research: “the way we look at our own aging predicts what our future holds.… We increase our risk of cardiac events and speed up cognitive decline, studies show, if we believe getting older is a time of suffering and diminution. More important, the opposite is also true: Those of us who view later life as a time of growth and vitality are more likely to stay healthy and to keep senility at bay.”1
We live in a culture that dreads the entropic inevitability of growing older, treats it like a disease to be cured with potions and regimens, anesthetizes it with botox and silence, somehow forgetting that to grow old at all is a tremendous privilege — one withheld from the vast majority of humans…”2
Accepting aging as “tremendous privilege” that attended can yield deepening vitality may be counter-cultural but it is deeply biblical. “They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green.” (Psalm 92:14). Stewarding life in this season brings the promise of wisdom. “Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?” (Job 12:12).
Madeleine L’Engle’s aspiration about growing older resonates for me:
So my hope, each day as I grow older, is that this will never be simply chronological aging . . . but that I will also grow into maturity, where the experience which can be acquired only through chronology will teach me how to be more aware, open, unafraid to be vulnerable, involved, committed, to accept disagreement without feeling threatened (repeat and underline this one), to understand that I cannot take myself seriously until I stop taking myself seriously - to be, in fact, a true adult. To be.3
Welcome 70. I am on the journey to becoming more fully His, more truly me.
1 Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live, Becca Levy, PhD.
2 “How to Keep Life from Becoming a Parody of Itself: Simone de Beauvoir on the Art of Growing Older,” Maria Popova in “The Marginalian.”
3 A Circle of Quiet, Madeleine L'Engle
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Personal Updates
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Family: XAfter 14 months, Steve has concluded his service as interim pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Newburgh, NY. WPC still has not called a new pastor, so we continue to pray for God's provision for them. We made some dear new friendships and hope to be back occasionally to serve as needed. The conclusion of the WPC contract fell close to our anniversary and Steve's birthday. So, we seized the opportunity to make one more trek into NYC to see an amazing Olivier-award-winning show, KenRex. It was a 2-man show: an actor who portrayed about 25 characters in the true-life crime story, and a musician who provided live music integral to the narrative - electric and acoustic guitars, banjo, drums and percussion, keyboard, horns. It was extraordinary. Sheryl's Sjogrens and migraines remain under control with the help of the new meds. But sleep has been highly irregular for both of us because of new medications. Sheryl's DEXA bone scan this week shows improvement from osteoporosis to osteopenia. This is great news! Thanks be to God!
Travel: XBetween service in ABQ and Newburgh, we've been busy for almost 24 months. People keep asking, "When is Steve going to retire?" So, we've blocked July and August to recoup, and we've been on the bikes. The new 35-mile rail trail between Lake Placid and Tupper Lake was just completed - it was a lovely ride. In Tupper Lake, we visited The Wild Center, an outdoor park hosting a temporary exhibit of giant Trolls. Then we stopped by Indian Lake for 2 nights with Jonathan & Liz and got the kayaks in the water. But the summer highlight has been cycling about 150 miles on the Erie Canal bike path for 4 days with long-time friends, Jonathan & Donna, and new friend, Jenny. |
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NLPC News: XAfter a long illness, Barb Anible Nowakowski’s husband, Walt, passed into the presence of Jesus on July 11. Barb is “Granna” to our grandson Dimitri. Also, Jon Widercrantz, as did many of his family members who had been exposed to asbestos, succumbed to mesothelioma and passed into the unveiled presence of his Saviour on July 5. Steve had the privilege of officiating Jon’s service. |
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The Daily Liturgy
Mere Orthodoxy is now hosting The Daily Liturgy. Each daily installment is a 15-minute call to worship, confession, Scripture reading (members may choose their preferred translation), and benediction. You may also listen to each daily liturgy.
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"The Return of Literature to the Public Square"
Steve Perkins
Perkins teaches Latin and literature in Indiana. He offers a lovely review of Guite’s first installment of his Arthurian cycle, Galahad & the Grail. Perkins' review includes some insightful analysis of Guite’s literary devices (meter and rhyme) and Christian themes.
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"What the Iran War Could Do to Your Soul"
Russell Moore
Raid Kassis is the International Director of The Langham Partnership, an international mission founded by John Stott to train pastors and Christian leaders to advance the mission of the Church. He is an Arab living in Beruit, Lebanon, which is one of the areas targeted by the US and Israel in the current Iran war. He is a witness to bombs falling on schools, hospitals, and homes, yet he continues to stay and bear witness to life and hope in Christ. Wars are never simple black and white affairs, and they provoke disagreements among faithful Christians. But Russell Moore urges us to guard our hearts lest we lose our ability to believe and speak the gospel with love and confidence.
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Creamy Toscano Cheese soaked in Syrah
Run, don't walk, to Trader Joe's.
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 Culture Care: 2nd Edition, Mako Fujimura
"Effective stewardship leads to generative work and a generative culture. We turn wheat into bread - and bread into community. We turn grapes into wine - and wine into occasions for joyful camaraderie, conviviality, conversation, and creativity. We turn minerals into paints — and paints into works that lift the heart or stir the spirit.
We turn ideas and experiences into imaginative worlds for sheer enjoyment and to expand the scope of our empathy.
As in creation care, cultural stewardship includes trying to find our place in the wider ecosystem. It asks us to consider what we have been given and where we are situated. It will take human nature into account-acknowledging our true longings and limitations."
~Mako Fujimura
"Mako has a lot of wise things to say about beauty in this book... One point is worth emphasizing: Beauty refreshes. Beauty alters. Beauty is a revolution in outlook. That makes beauty both a potent balm and a potent provocation, especially in times like these."
~from the foreword by David Brooks, author of How to Know a Person and long-time columnist for The New York Times, now The Atlantic.
 A Grace Disguised, Jerry Sittser
How the Soul Grows through Loss
(a revised and expanded 25th anniversary edition)
Sittser's book continues to be a source of great wisdom and comfort as we journey through our own losses, and it is one of the resources we most frequently recommend to those experiencing grief and sorrow. He walks through all the questions we all ask as we wrestle to keep our faith focused on Jesus and the hope of the gospel:
* Will the pain ever subside?
* Will my life ever be good again?
* Will the depression ever lift?
* Will I ever overcome the bitterness I feel?
* What is God's plan in all of this?
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Website Updates
Grace Unscripted is now on Substack. Fridays with Froehlichs will be posted there as well as here via email. We're trying out this platform to see if it's a good fit for hosting our more personal writing. Sign up - the subscription is free, and you'll get a notice whenever we post anything new.
If you are new to Fridays with Froehlichs, you can catch up on previous editions at the Fridays with Froehlichs page.
Speaking & Travel has been moved to its own page under Who Are We? |
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Benediction
Now the God who hears your cries
and listens to your prayers,
be the shelter above you,
the tower around you,
the rock beneath you
this day and all the days
until Jesus comes.
Amen
From Grace Be With You
by Dale Ralph Davis
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