Stir This Batter, While I Create the World

Lately when I reflect on what it means to be in ministry in the world, I am transported back to Christmas 1985.  I was three years old and my Grama Char and I were baking thumbprint cookies in her kitchen.  Anyone who has baked with a three-year-old knows that one does not invite a toddler into the kitchen out of a need for extra help; I am sure I contributed more to making messes than baking cookies.  


I was in the kitchen because I was (for one more year, at least) my Grama's only grandchild, and she wanted to make cookies with me.  And I wanted to help.  I wanted to be like her.  So much in fact, for at least part of the time I wore blue knitted mittens in imitation of her oven mitts.  I felt so prepared for baking.  This memory comes to mind lately, whenever I am trying to tackle the question of why God created the world and gave humans "dominion" over it.  My hunch is that when God tells us that we have dominion over the earth, it less like a landlord handing over the keys to a superintendent, and more like a grandparent inviting a three-year-old into the kitchen.  

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Like Martin Luther King, Jr

"Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. you only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."                                    - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In my last year in seminary, I took a religion and politics class that spent a class or two on the writings and teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr.  This was one of those moments in my life when I realized how little I had actually learned about certain parts of history.  It struck me how learning more about Dr. King's personal story changed my concept of what it means to follow his example.

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