Sharing Our Faith: Kristin Dinwiddie

Letters in the Sand – Letras en la arena

The buckets need to be filled.

The wheel barrows need to be dumped.

The blocks need to be stacked.

The mezcla needs to be mixed.

The walls need to go up.

And here I sit . . . on the dusty arid land, being careful to avoid the bits of thrown away “stuffs” of others.

Across from me, sits a lovely wide-eyed 6 year old with a smile that never ceases.  We sit just outside of the ring of organized chaos that is building a home for his aunt, uncle, and two cousins.  But we could just as easily be miles away, as we are so intent on what we are doing, we cannot be distracted.

Even though neither of us speaks the other’s language, we understand each other.

He brought to our little party what looked like a wooden chair spindle that he had found sticking out of a concrete block.  I show him how to write in the arena with the ‘pencil’.  I write out the letters of my name one at a time, K-r-i-s-t-i-n, as he attempts to sound them out.  He then takes his turn with our shared pencil and writes the letters of his name, upside down, so they are right reading to me, A-l-e-x-i-s, with a precision and accuracy that I have never mastered.

I had taken a respite from the filling and dumping and stacking and mixing to draw letters in the sand.

We adjourn our meeting in the sand and reconvene in the 2 square feet of shade along the concrete block wall.  I removed my earrings as Alexis watched.  He moved his face within inches of mine.  He stood perfectly still, while staring at my ears.  I had no idea what he was doing or thinking.  He finally broke his gaze and walked over toward his abuela.  He returned with a small metal tin, which I thought he found in one of the many trash piles around, and handed it to me.  I wasn’t able to remove the lid so he returned to his grandmother for her assistance.  He walked back to me with the seriousness of someone much older.  He then very deliberately took a small fingerful of the salve contained in the tin and smoothed it on each of the holes in my earlobes with the gentleness of butterfly wings.  He cared for me.

What a gift I had received for just taking time to write letters in the sand.

Now I am home and day-in and day-out . . .

The clothes need to be washed.

The rugs need to be vacuumed.

The meals need to be cooked.

Although the filling, dumping, stacking, mixing, washing, vacuuming, and cooking are so very important, it is the connecting with each other that rewards the soul beyond measure.

I hope I can remember to take a moment every now and then to again draw letters in the sand. 

Sharing Our Faith: Marilee Lindbeck

I have been coming to Cove since Dillon was 2 ½ years old.  He is now 26.  George was just embarking on his career at the UVA emergency department.  We lived here in Covesville on our farm.  We came to church together and we came pretty regularly.  As time went on, George was more about his rare weekends off and I was not leaving my church to hang out with him on Sunday mornings.

I knew that it was good to give something to your church when the plate came around.  I have absolutely no recollection of what we gave back then.  Then there were a few good sermons and stewardship messages over the years that made me pay more attention to our giving and what that really was supposed to mean.  I am still learning about what stewardship means.

Anyway, once George made it clear that church was my thing and not his, we had to have a conversation about the support I wanted to give to Cove.  So that was when I began to figure what I could give to my church.  I always have had to take into account that George is the wage earner and I am the church-goer.  But the great thing is, George has clearly recognized how important Cove is to me.  So I have maintained regular monthly checks and each year I have increased that by a certain amount.  It adds up over time.

There have been times over the years when it seemed to me that my monthly giving was just helping to pay the bills.  But as my faith has grown, so has my understanding of the need to help Cove be here for me.  The building itself, yes, but more importantly, what happens within when we are all gathered here.  And it seems to me, that the more funds we have available, the more we want to give.  Our mission outreach makes me very proud to be a part of this congregation.  I am in for the long haul!

Marilee is a member of the newly formed stewardship team.

Sharing Our Faith: Annie Eplee

Hi, my name is Annie Eplee. I came to Cove Church because my family comes here. But, I love this church. It is a great community.

The people here are diverse and I always feel accepted when I come here. Even though I am a young person, people ask me about my life and what I have been doing for the past few weeks.

I am going to college this week and everyone has been very supportive. You have asked me about the colleges I was applying to and how the process was going. It seems like you are sincerely interested in my life. As a teenager, to have people interested in your life keeps you positive and helps you keep going when it is hard.

The other reason I come to Cove because I love music. Music affects me spiritually and that is why I sing in the choir. Sometimes life makes me angry and upset. Music helps me to calm down.  It has always been an important part of my life. Our choir may be small, but it is spiritual. Music is the main way that I connect with God and others. Our music is professional and well done.

I will be going to George Mason in the Mason Life Program on Friday. I want to thank you for being so nice to me, helping me grow as a Christian and being an important part of my life. I will miss you, but can’t wait to experience the music when I come home for Christmas.

Thank you!!

Sharing Our Faith: Beth Neville Evans

Today I would like to thank two people for helping me along my journey of faith. 

First, John. Many years ago John said to me that he wanted to go to church but he didn’t want to go alone. He wanted us to attend church as a family. I had not even thought about going to church before that. I accompanied him, not always with the best grace and certainly without much expectation for deepening faith. Over the years, though, all of this attending – sitting in church, sometimes listening, often not; praying the Lord’s Prayer, sometimes paying attention to the words, often not; singing the hymns, sometimes paying attention, more often just trying to figure out the different harmonies – has deepened my faith. 

Something has happened to my faith and it continues to happen because I’m simply showing up at church. The words of the liturgy are deep and true although my belief is not. Or at least it isn’t yet. But the liturgy is taking me deeper. And I’m finding that more and more, I do believe.

So thank you, John, for having the wisdom to know that this might happen when we were only 23 years old and for knowing that I might be freed from limited faith by coming and sitting next to you all these years.

And thank you Linda Blondel, for suggesting that I audition for the Virginia Consort. I’m not sure I would have ever done that without your suggestion. I didn’t think I could sing well enough. I’d started to sing with the Cove choir but the Virginia Consort required another much higher skill set that I was not sure I had. And neither was Judy Gary, the director, who let me try it out to see how I would do. That first Monday evening at rehearsal, we read through the Bach Cantata, Nach Dir Herr Verlanget Mich (I long for you, Lord). The opening melody line starts with the basses, then the tenors, then the altos and finally the sopranos. They all have an octave leap followed by descending chromatic steps. Whoo! There I was in a room full of people singing. There were singing voices resonating all around me, a real surround sound that coursed through our very bodies. All of our bodies rang with the music.

“This is what heaven is,” I thought, I was so sure that God was in that room with us and that we were God’s angels. (Or at least the angels in heaven sing Bach!). I have never forgotten it.

Since that experience, music has become the vehicle to take me closer to God. It can provide me a direct line to the holy. As Alice Parker says, “One of the glories of music is that it says what words cannot say.”

Music invites me into the sacred with its holy marriage of melody and words. I find the sacred when the entire church is singing a familiar and well beloved hymn and I find it when the choir sings and I even find it when I’m singing alone. It has given new meaning to this quote from Revelation:

I hear every creature in heaven, on earth

In the world below and in the sea-

All living beings in the universe

And they were singing:

 ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb

Be praise and honor, glory and might

for ever and ever.

I’ll close with the words from this anonymous 16th century Lutheran chorale:

Shall I praise my God not singing? Shall I dumb and silent be?

When I hear all nature ringing thanks and praise eternally?

Song is only love resounding from a faithful heart and voice,

Making all the earth rejoice and the echoing space resounding.

All creation clear and strong praises Love in endless song.

Sharing Our Faith: Rachel Horsley

I arrived at Cove broken and I needed a place to heal. 

An alcoholic with 15 years of sobriety in 2003, I was suffering from a dark night of the soul, a disbelief in the cruel god who took my 16 year old son, Khay, away six years earlier. Too many people had told me it was part of God’s plan, that Khay was in a better place.

Intellectually, I didn’t believe God micromanaged, but there was a bit of my being that thought maybe God did reach down and take him; enough of a belief that I rejected that God.

This was a big problem for me because I believe my alcoholism is a three-fold illness: physical, mental, and spiritual, and I had become sober by God’s grace. Without a belief in God, I will abandon my loved ones to pursue oblivion, because life is just too hard for this sensitive soul. For the first time since I had stopped drinking, I was dealing with daily cravings. I needed help. I attended more than my usual allotment of recovery meetings, and I thought attending church would add insurance.

Cove pulled me in with Marcy Orr’s intelligent sermons; plus the fact that I already knew about half the people in the congregation; and, importantly, that my husband, Danny, felt an affinity to Cove also. I awoke from the dark night of my soul with a different comprehension of God, although I can’t really claim I understand it; but I know there is a presence that I pray to that loves, comforts and strengthens me, assures all is well, or that all will be well, not to worry. My cravings abated. And I had found a spiritual home at Cove Presbyterian.

All my life I’ve been a seeker, leaving the church of my youth to practice Sufism for over a decade; followed by a flirtation with anthroposophy; and I attended an Episcopal church during Khay’s illness, and am forever grateful to the clergy at Church of Our Savior for their support when he was treated for and died of bone cancer. I was raised a Christian, I was baptized by immersion when I was eight, my father was a minister in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now called Community of Christ), and spiraling back to Jesus feels just right. I like singing the familiar hymns, reading the Bible, listening to people’s gifts of music, paying attention to the sermons. Worship at Cove gives me a place to sit quietly, to listen, and to heal.

Sharing Our Faith: Will Dinwiddie

This World is filled with grief, corruption and Pain. History is written by greed and laziness. Faith is our only Solace. Love is our only hope. And unending Labor is our only reward.

Seems pretty bleak, doesn’t it?

I believe the secret to happiness is deciding to enjoy myself, even when in the depths of despair or crippled by fear or overwhelmed by anger. I remember being broken and exhausted, tired to the point of insanity. I heard the voice of God. I don’t remember what was said. I don’t even remember what it sounded like. But God’s voice rang in my ears and told me a joke, and I laughed and felt renewed.

Or maybe I was just hallucinating. Maybe the entirety of the Cosmos is just some kind of giant, chemical mistake. But I can’t believe that. A cynic would have an easier time convincing me my right arm doesn’t exist. I know God. Let me clarify: I don’t believe in God, I know God.

My God is not a Theory to be argued over by the learned. My God doesn’t fit in a box, or can HE be defined, or SHE be labeled. My God evolved and was intelligently designed. My God can create and lift the unliftable rock. My God is the Cosmos themselves and exists in every sub-atomic particle of it. My God has trillions of faces and all genders, whatever they may be…

And one of my favorite faces of God is the poor carpenter’s son, who walked the earth as a man and was executed like a wretched slave. In an era where gods rode in golden chariots, flinging lightning and having sex like rockstars, I worship a god that walked the earth as a common laborer and taught humility and compassion and love. This is love with the capital El, not a valentine or a cupid. This is the love of which I only get the briefest of glimpses. I might see it for a few moments when I look into my partner’s eyes. Maybe I feel a fleeting sketch of it when I hold an infant.

When I see this Love, when I feel it, I am standing as close to God as I can get. This is as much of God’s presence as I can handle. God may have given me the wondrous gift of pattern recognition, but not the capacity to see the WHOLE pattern. But God doesn’t need me to understand the Cosmos, or even understand Love, or to live selflessly. But God wants me to try, like that laborer’s son. And God wants me to be honest with myself when I fail. And God forgives me.

Sharing Our Faith: Jessica Aguado

Why do I come to Cove?

Curiosity bought me to the doorstep, but once I came in, there was a casual gentleness that made me feel at home, and a sincere inquisitiveness that made me want to keep coming back.

It has unlocked an irreversible love of learning. It has challenged me and given me light in knowing that I don't need all the answers to embark on this journey called life, and allowed me to keep transforming along the way.

It's no small thing to break out of a seed, but I feel that God brought me here to tear down what has been confining to me, and everyone here as a community has been a part of that. That's what we do here at Cove: we help each other grow, we take care of each other, we even challenge each other.

In singing with choir, and watching Beth's hands direct, I have noticed that the music rises and falls, pulses, swells and retreats like a wave, but is always vibrating, just like life. I have learned to keep moving, to keep singing along the rising and falling, along the joys and the sorrows, the celebrations and gratitude that we can so openly release here together.

I come here because God has a lot of weeding and watering to do on my part, and when I'm here I feel like there is space to let God in to do that.

Sharing Our Faith: Kelly Eplee

How does worship affect my life between Sundays?

I chose this question as a challenge and a bit of fun. It quickly took me back to my very conservative church up-bringing.  I was quite sincere and committed as a young Baptist guy. We had a very active youth group doing Bible studies and singing tours.

We were admonished as youth to live all week like it was Sunday. Which meant we were to evangelize and be able represent our faith in a very verbal and doctrinal way. I was supposed to be saving people. This is tough stuff for any kid. In that juxtaposition/gulf between church life and mid-week life, many Baptist jokes are born. (I won’t torture and confuse you with examples!)

The stakes were high. I grew up in the public schools of the 60s and 70s. Pretty much the standard defense shared by my peers was “I don’t go to church, that’s where all the hypocrites meet every Sunday.” Battle lines were drawn. The times and my early brand of religion did not mix easily. I still bear some of the scars. 

To bravely use a ubiquitous church word to describe what happens at Cove Presbyterian Church, I have experienced and continue to experience a sense of “Holy” here. It has little to do with doctrine or religious fervor. It is a different kind of inspiration. It’s a mundane Holiness. Quieter, gentler, still sincere and loving and Christ-like. And it’s so much more exportable. It’s easy to take it amid the bustle of the week.

We come here and sing old hymns, learn new music, share in the timeless biblical narratives and the stories that have inspired so many for so long. We share our joys and pains in this grand old intimate space. It certainly does affect my life between Sundays, because I take you with me.

I remember each of you and what you share. I can mention each of you by name, your commitment to story-telling, justice, sustainability, craftsmanship, farm living, music, onions, all God’s critters. Your commitment and generosity to the “least of these” is real. 

When I am away for several weeks as I am prone to be, I miss it. I have often referred to this church as my little family of quirky activists. What we do here on Sunday seems to do a fine job to INSPIRE and motivate me through the week. 

Now why is that? I can’t say exactly. It’s the place certainly, but it's more what we bring to this place. And it's what we exchange to take from this place. You help me think Holy thoughts all week long. You give me examples of how to live. Thanks. 

Sharing Our Faith: Gary Pelton

I remember three things vividly about my spiritual growth as a boy…

First, I remember the magic of sitting in the front of the church as an acolyte.  It was the best seat in the house, a part of the action but unnoticed by all, and alone with my thoughts.

Second, the incredible importance of service to others:   John Wesley said

“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can.

In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can.

As long as ever you can.” 

 

It was a Methodist thing (but not really).  The best adventures of this kind were the trips to an Indian Reservation in Oklahoma and Redbird Mission in the Eastern Mountains of Kentucky with my youth group.

Finally, there was the music…ah, the music. Singing the classic hymns, enthralled by our Chancel Choir, playing my horn with my Dad and brother, and listening to my mother fill the huge sanctuary with her flute. How the language of music speaks to us all, transcending words and our thinking minds and passing right to our souls.

Then I left home and as I did, I left my church home. 

In later years I remember my Mom asking about my Sunday morning habits or more broadly my spiritual habits.  And I remember telling her about my long walks in the woods and how such experiences were more valuable to me than attending a church.  I pressed the idea that churches are only one way to experience and worship god.  I was aware, if only vaguely, that the power of my spiritual upbringing had been things that were not exclusive to churches: Music, of course…it is everywhere; Service to others has in many ways been my life’s work, and lastly Meditation.

My mom listened quietly to my long, often quite philosophic explanations, and ultimately just asked: Yes Gary…but do you do take those “walks” every week? 

The answer was, of course, No…

I have long since come back to church.  And having visited many churches, I can frankly say I have always felt at home in a place of worship.  (I suppose that is something else I gathered when I was young), but I am not sure I can say I have had another church home since leaving my boyhood home, even though I have been an active member of several churches.

Then Rebecca and I came to Cove………and it is becoming home.

Here…I get the wonder of the things I got as a boy in church, but I have also come to a new appreciation of the power of a congregation of believers. Meditation and prayer feels different when I join with others. Whereas I once appreciated the aloneness and even anonymity of worship, I now find our fellowship special. Some of that is the openness and seeking I bring to this church, but it also this place and all of you, the way it works in symmetry with my soul.  I have not questioned it… or tried to analyze it; I have just accepted it as right and true, and tried to follow where it leads. 

I am grateful for our new home here at Cove and thankful to each of you for being a part our spiritual journey. 

Sharing Our Faith: Kristin Dinwiddie

Why do I come to Cove? 

When Josh asked me to answer this question, the first thing that popped into my mind was Dr. Huber’s onion sets! And as funny as that sounds, that truly is one of the very first things that hooked me on Cove. Not because I was in desperate need for free onions, but because the giving and receiving of them seems to embody the spirit of Cove. Let me go back a couple of years to that day when we first visited Cove.

Will and I had become distanced from our prior church and many months had passed since we had attended anywhere. We both started yearning for fellowship and to again belong to something greater than just us. Will knew Greg from past mission trips, so I let him drag me to Covesville, to this tiny little brick church on a hill. We were immediately welcomed with hugs and greetings from Jane and Greg and smiles, handshakes and welcomes from all of you. And then it happened, the call for announcements, and Dr. Huber got up and said it was onion set time! I was tickled. I literally giggled. And I thought, wow, this is a church that can make me giggle. Pretty cool.

I talked to Dr. Huber after the service and told him how fabulous I thought his onion set program was and how I hoped to be a part of it the following year. And without missing a beat, he immediately grabbed a set and placed them in my hands, with the assurance that he had more at home to give to the member whose onions he had just bestowed upon me. So to whomever those onions originally belonged, I guess I owe you an apology for absconding with your rightful bounty!

But for me, those little tiny baby onions are so much more than just sustenance, they truly do represent the culture of Cove in so many ways. Just like the tiny onions, we are physically a tiny church but we are made up of a great many layers. Cove’s layers are composed of varying mission opportunities, women’s group, fellowship meals, community church services, and an amazing choir and music program! And if you keep peeling through all of those layers, you get to the core or the base of the Cove culture, which I believe is a community of faith, tolerance, and acceptance.

It is a loving, supportive environment for those baby onions to worship and grow within the grace of God. Cove is a very generous congregation, generous of spirit, of love, and of self. I have never left the grounds of Cove feeling alone. You all are with me during the week and it is a comfort knowing you are there.

I come to Cove because it makes me feel like I am a part of something much bigger than my day to day existence, to worship freely and unconditionally with all of the other onions who are seated in the pews in front of me and to feel at peace, even if only for one hour each week.

So, I guess my short answer to the question, Why do I come to Cove? Is: FOR THE ONIONS, of course! 

Sharing Our Faith: Fran Hooper

Today, I want to talk about why I come to Cove.

Community – that’s why I started coming to Cove.

When I left home in Ann Arbor, heading east to my first job in Fairfax County in June 1972, my Mother’s last words to me were “now remember, you can always meet people in church.” While I suspect that she was really trying to say I might look for a good husband in church, I managed to avoid that message for thirty years.

But when Dennis and I bought our land on Fan Mountain 11 years ago, I remembered Mom’s words. My childhood friend, Susan Hitchcock, was a member of Cove and, while I had been raised as a Methodist, she had some nice friends so I figured I going to a Presbyterian church wouldn’t be too bad a thing, as long as I could remember to say debtors instead of trespassers.

I found that the Cove family was wonderfully eclectic with a wide range of opinions and points of view on social and theological issues. It was very comfortable not having to fit into a rigid "Presbyterian" or "Cove Church" mold. It permitted me to shape my own sense of Christianity and spirituality.

And the church dinners sealed the deal! The wonderful food and the community fellowship convinced me that I wanted to keep coming back.

Music is the second reason I come to Cove – the wonderful sounds provided by the choir and Linda have kept me coming to Cove on mornings when I really wanted to stay at home.

There are many Sunday mornings when I shut my eyes and become enveloped by the music. Sometimes there are tears under my eyelids as I listen. I love the fact that music plays a central role in our church and that it’s not uncommon for the choir to be half or a third of the congregation. After the service I love to listen to Linda’s music, closing my eyes again and just letting it roll over me.

And I also love the fact that Cove shares its wonderful music with others – the summer concert series, Heather’s impromptu concert, the Christmas Eve lessons and carols service.

Somehow growing spiritually myself slipped into the reasons I come to Cove. It probably started when I thought how much my Mom would enjoy the music and the peace that I found at Cove on Sunday mornings. I’d sit in the pew and have a silent conversation with her about it and then I started having conversations with myself about the sermon – what did it really mean to me in my life?

Jane’s wonderful sermons made me want to listen and learn and Josh’s sermons challenge me to understand the message of Thomas or the others that speak through his voice on Sunday mornings.

And finally I come to Cove to be of service.  I’m not someone who is inclined to sit back and watch what’s going on – I’ve worked in the public sector too long; and my basic instinct is to get involved and see how I can help. Fortunately I’ve stopped working in Washington and I have more time to be involved at Cove and I appreciate having the opportunity to be of service at Cove and to be able to support the community that welcomed me when I walked through the door 11 years ago.

Sharing Our Faith: Chris Hill

It seems to me, that Jesus tried, in very, practical ways, during his life, to explain to us, the concept, that there is a God, our creator, the creator of the multiverse, the creator of all matter and energy, in all of their forms. And that I, as a human being, have been given the ability to recognize the most important aspect of this creation. And, for me, that aspect is the knowledge and awareness of God’s love. I feel that we humans have evolved, through our mammalian ancestry, the ability to recognize the power and usefulness of this emotion we call love and that God has tried, through time, to communicate with us through this emotion.

In short, Jesus tried to explain to us that God communes and connects with us through love and that when we commune and connect with each other, using the emotion of love, God is directly involved in the communication. 

It's kind of like a conference call. 

So, there is always the question, how often do I want God involved in my life each day? The spectrum could be from not at all, to continuously. If my answer is not at all, then love is not for me and God is not in my life. If  my answer is continuously, then I know the mental state in which I need to reside all the time. And I need help. Jesus is my guide to communing with God continuously and he offers me a very, practical, fast track solution. Since I am, by  nature, a social creature, I commune with my fellow humans fairly continuously, all of my waking hours each day(just ask Kathy). If I interact in a spirit of love toward every person with whom I have contact everyday, then I am including God in my life at that time. I am including him in the discussion. 

Of course, God is always present, but I think God wants me to say hello, and to understand that his or her presence is greatly for my benefit. Jesus shows me how to do this. Feeding the hungry, healing the sick, forgiving those who I feel have transgressed against me, and taking every opportunity to help others. In other words, loving God with all my heart, soul, and might and loving my neighbor as myself. In the end there can be constant communication, if I so choose. Jesus helps to keep me focused. When I stray off the path, which is a regular activity, he is there to nudge or sometimes push me back on the path, if I am listening.

And golly, just suppose that my consciousness exists after this life is over, and that it only exists within an eternal milieu{framework} of love and that this framework is the only thing that exists eternally. Wouldn’t it be hellish if I didn’t want to be there, within that creation, God’s creation.

For me, Jesus is someone who understands all of creation and who loves me. And he wants me to understand the power of this love and the reason for this love. He is someone that I can walk with, and talk with, about all of my concerns, anytime. He is a blessing to me and to everyone in this world. What a friend we have in Jesus. Amen.