 Greetings, friends. Welcome to CTUCC Conference Cast for May 29, 2014, the regular podcast of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. Whoever you are and wherever you may be on life's journey at this very moment, you are welcome here. We begin this week's conference cast with this meditation from the Reverend Mary Nelson Abbott, South Central Regional Minister. In the second chapter of the Prophet Hosea, God pronounces a covenant of peace and declares to the people of Israel, I will take you for my wife forever. I will take you for my wife in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord. I went to a wedding this weekend. A close friend from seminary, now a newly minted PhD in Old Testament, married a mixologist, that is a bartender, from one of the most celebrated restaurants in America. As you can imagine, the wedding service was amazing, and the reception food was incredible. The event was deeply personal. Who else would find this beautiful wedding scripture buried deep in Hosea's prophetic screed? Who else would craft homemade ginger syrup for the signature cocktails? The celebration was perfect and unique and spirit filled. There were something like seven ordained ministers involved in the service, and lots more of us in the congregation. My girlfriends and I rented a house in town and spent time talking about our spouses and jobs and children and dreams. We enjoyed one another's company. We listened. We laughed. We offered strength. We just sat outside on the porch and drank coffee to let our jet-lagged companions sleep late on Saturday morning. We ate Oreos for breakfast. We somehow managed to share one bathroom among nine adults with almost no conflict. We were very, very happy, and our house was filled with love. The reading and the wedding and the whole weekend reminded me that all our relationships, not just romantic relationships, but family and friendships and nodding at the random guy on the street relationships as well, should always be based in righteousness and justice. All our covenants should keep peace and safety at their center. Every interaction is an opportunity to know the Lord better, whether it's a schmancy party at a hobby farm or a casual morning coffee on the front porch. Every interaction is an opportunity to make one another very, very happy and to fill that place with love. Here is a prayer for this week. Holy one, help me to recognize the part I play in keeping covenant with you. Let my life reflect your peace and righteousness, and in all my interactions help me come to know you more fully. Amen. In the news this week, as we continue to pray for the 300 Nigerian schoolgirls being held by the militant group Boko Haram, the Sargatak Congregational Church UCC in Westport has made a public witness of prayer and support. Across the church's front lawn on busy Route 1, 300 Nigerian flags declare their dismay, and a banner bears the famous hashtag which is the world's demand. Bring back our girls. Senior pastor the Reverend Allison Buttrick Patton said, we can make a difference in the lives of these young women by holding them in prayer and keeping this crisis in the public eye with our installation of Nigerian flags. In Wijeongbu, South Korea, the US Army's camp Stanley is surrounded by a high gray wall topped with razor wire. Alongside it climbing up the hill to its back gates is a small village of souvenir shops and restaurants, tailors and hair salons, and many many nightclubs. Near the main road, a very plain building houses Dureban, my sister's place, where the women who entertain American soldiers can find help. Today, the vast majority of these women come from the Philippines, entering South Korea on entertainer visas and closely supervised by the owners of the clubs. They're told to sell juice to American soldiers, and if they do not meet their quotas, they are pressured into offering sexual favors. At my sister's place, they can receive both counseling and medical services as well as legal aid for those trying to get justice from the club owners. When the Connecticut conference's delegates to the Kyongi Presbytery visited in April, Executive Director Kyu Young-nim urged them to encourage changes in American military policy. The US Air Force, for example, places clubs like those near camp Stanley off limits to their personnel. Without women's rights, said Ms. Yu, there is no national security. The Newtown Congregational Church UCC celebrates 300 years of worship ministry and service to the community in 2014. We give them our thanks for their faithful witness to the love of God for three centuries, and particularly for their compassion and leadership in that community in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings in December 2012. May their celebration be joyful, and may it renew them for many more years of love and of service. As we've noted in previous editions of conference cast, I will be on sabbatical from my duties as Minister of Communications and Technology from June 1st to August 31st. And so this is the last edition of conference cast until we resume it on September 4th. My associate media assistant, Drew Page, will oversee communications during the summer, which will include the weekly devotionals Spirit Calendar and Spirited Wednesday, the weekly news updates you'll find in CTUCC this week and the newsletter CTUCC this month. Our website will continue to have updated stories, but probably no more than one per week. And we'd appreciate your prayers for Drew as he fills in. You'll find all these stories this week and those to come on our website at CTUCC.org slash news. The Connecticut Conference Choir, which includes you or anyone else who'd like to come and sing, will enjoy a musical retreat at Silver Lake May 30th and 31st. Learn about environmental hazards keeping our churches and homes safe this Saturday in Deep River. An online book discussion, Children's Ministry in the Way of Jesus begins on June 2nd. And golfers, go get your clubs ready for the 8th annual Silver Lake Golf Tournament next week, June 3rd in Waterbury. You can always learn more about what's coming up in the Connecticut Conference by visiting us at CTUCC.org slash events. Our Spirited Wednesday thought this week comes from the Reverend Zachary Mabe, pastor of the Terryville Congregational Church, UCC. And he has taken with Jesus prayer in the 17th chapter of John. He writes, I think it's one of the most moving texts of the Bible, as our own Lord Jesus takes the time and praise for us, that we may know God and that we may be protected by God. Wow, our Savior, praise for us. Now, before this sabbatical begins, I do beg your indulgence, because I have a meditation to offer both for Pentecost coming June 8th and for this time I'll be spending away. It's based on the second chapter of Acts in which the apostles spilled out of the house they'd been praying in to speak of God's gracious acts in all the languages of the area. Peter quotes the prophet Joel, who had promised blood, fire, and smoky mist as God's people declare God's will. Blood, fire, and smoky mist. It sounds like quite a show, this great coming of God's spirit in the second chapter of Joel. But by those standards, the Pentecost described in Acts 2 sounds positively pedestrian. There's no sign of blood or smoke, and the tongues are as of fire. Which makes me wonder, does that mean not actually fire? They receive, in fact, no comment from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, suggesting that they may have vanished by the time the apostles burst out into the street. What those onlookers get, however, is more than enough to provoke astonishment. The crowds get prophecy, prophecy that they can understand. The sons and the daughters of Galilee speak of God's deeds of power in the languages of all that surround them. It makes the doubters' explanation that they're drunk one of the flimsiest of all time. Those filled with new wine become incoherent, not comprehensible. Pentecost brings communication, not confusion. In the life of faith where so much seems so misty, it's a sterling moment of clarity. During my sabbatical I have a small number of goals in mind, but they really come down to an attempt to do one thing. Bring a little bit of the first Pentecost to my work with the Connecticut Conference. I hope to find and bring just a little more clarity. To that end, I'll be giving time to simple rest. A tired mind, at least my tired mind, doesn't lend itself to coherent expression. Even if I don't entirely believe that I've driven myself too hard, which my children incidentally do believe, the signs of mental fatigue are easy to see, even to my tired mind. I'll be giving time to spiritual refreshment. If I'm ever to speak of God's deeds of power, then I need to take them firmly into my soul. I'll do that with prayer and with silence and with the joyful noise of music. I'll do that with devotional work of the mind and with devotional work of the hands. I can't say for sure that God will give me the blessings for which I hope, but I can say that God has never failed to grant me the blessings that I've needed. I'll be giving time to languages in a metaphorical sense. The apostles, you see, spoke in the languages of those who heard them. In today's multimedia environment, each medium has its own tricks and techniques, its own language, if you will. I hope at the end of this sabbatical to have better tools for speaking through today's media, or at least for speaking more clearly. And there's also a project on my agenda. There's a medium in our communications mix which needs some additional clarity, and which I've lacked the time and creative resources to address. I should have that time now. So don't expect blood, fire, and smoky mist, although who knows for sure, but I would appreciate your prayers for coherence, comprehension, communication, and above all clarity. Here is my prayer for this day, this summer, and for all times and seasons. Gracious and Holy One, send your Holy Spirit with the wondrous stories of your deeds of power, mercy, and love. Root them in us and let them blossom and bear fruit for all your creation. Through Jesus Christ our risen Lord. Amen. And that brings this conference cast to a close. Thanks to Mary Nelson Abbott for her reflection and to GarageBand for our music. Primary funding for conference cast comes from your congregation's gifts to our church's wider mission, basic support, changing lives through the United Church of Christ. This is Eric Anderson, the Minister of Communications and Technology for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, praying that your days this week and this summer may be filled with the presence, the guidance, and the grace of God.