Philemon and returning home
It's been a full year and then a bit since I was here on these pages, far too long.
I was called into a new Relief Society presidency as the education counselor the Sunday before last Thanksgiving, and then writing for the Nauvoo Times seemed to be enough to deal with on top of that, and I just didn't get back. I also continued to be teaching the stake Relief Society Institute class until late January, when--wait for it--my replacement was the sister who had been the previous education counselor. We swapped places, after a seven-week delay. (I felt a bit like we [our ward] were Bethlehem, the least of all, called again for the whole stake. We have very few members in stake callings of any kind. Our ward has many burdens, but many gifts in spirit.)
My mother's weekly letter talked about teaching one lesson on Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon today; with not enough time, she didn't go into the epistle to Philemon at all. I started to write about our class, which did the opposite, and decided that this was reason to put it here and get back into my life.
If I don't, my new calling will swamp me before I re-establish the habit. I have been called as a visiting teaching co-ordinator--I say "a" instead of "the" because we have one, who has been serving for several years since Sandra Chudy was president, and I am to be partnered with her. Normally this calling is for one sister and isn't shared, but we have 300+ sisters (327 or 347, I missed it) on the records, and our average attendance at sacrament meeting is 150. In Relief Society it's about 25-30, and even counting lots of people in Primary and four sisters serving in the Young Women, that's a ginormous gap.
Oh, and I'm also in charge of creating the Christmas program for sacrament meeting.
Our teacher today commended Philipians and Colossians to us, and spent the entire class on Philemon. She's a medievalist and a professor of German at Pacific Lutheran University (and holder of a new chair on Holocaust studies). We had a late start, and then she talked about the new discovery of a notebook of one of the KJV translators and the process of scriptural translation. She asked, who knows the subject of Philemon off the top of your head? ''I didn't either," she said, then built the foundation of spiritual standing juxtoposed with worldly standing. Onesimus was apparently a slave who had run away, and that penalty was execution upon being found/returned. He delineates how he loves them and can rely on their faith equally, this slave and this dear friend his master. There's a lot of substance in this little page if you pay attention. She said that at this time in Rome itself up to 85% of the total population was slaves--'slave' and 'servant' were the same word. Philemon, will you receive him as a brother in every way, and not count your relative positions in society or the right for satisfaction/loss of face or what have you in his running away before. The equation has changed.
Are you willing as a disciple of Christ to choose another way, to see him in another way? I count on you, says Paul, for all you do where I cannot come, I count on him for all the help he's been able to give me here, and his faith is as deep and true as yours. Will you accept him? "For love's sake I rather beseech thee" than command, for "my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds." Paul counts him as a son, as he does so many times referring to others whose new light he regards tenderly. As he gratefully counts Philemon as a true stalwart, on whom he can rely to take care of the work. (She pointed out that this was only one side of an exchange, like listening to someone on the phone in the same room, you only get a part of the exchange.)
That's a big piece of our discipleship. Are we willing to break out of our societal mold? Will we love each other, and accept each other, and strengthen each other however we can, no matter what has been before?
I'm reminded of this story in one of my columns for the Nauvoo Times. It shouldn't matter how lost we were, or where we come from in our journey, but only whether we are truly found.
(PS--I ran into this little girl and her mama a few months later, with an older sister from her new ward helping her out, and another baby soon coming, and it was clear that this little family is still being loved. I'm glad.)
I was called into a new Relief Society presidency as the education counselor the Sunday before last Thanksgiving, and then writing for the Nauvoo Times seemed to be enough to deal with on top of that, and I just didn't get back. I also continued to be teaching the stake Relief Society Institute class until late January, when--wait for it--my replacement was the sister who had been the previous education counselor. We swapped places, after a seven-week delay. (I felt a bit like we [our ward] were Bethlehem, the least of all, called again for the whole stake. We have very few members in stake callings of any kind. Our ward has many burdens, but many gifts in spirit.)
My mother's weekly letter talked about teaching one lesson on Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon today; with not enough time, she didn't go into the epistle to Philemon at all. I started to write about our class, which did the opposite, and decided that this was reason to put it here and get back into my life.
If I don't, my new calling will swamp me before I re-establish the habit. I have been called as a visiting teaching co-ordinator--I say "a" instead of "the" because we have one, who has been serving for several years since Sandra Chudy was president, and I am to be partnered with her. Normally this calling is for one sister and isn't shared, but we have 300+ sisters (327 or 347, I missed it) on the records, and our average attendance at sacrament meeting is 150. In Relief Society it's about 25-30, and even counting lots of people in Primary and four sisters serving in the Young Women, that's a ginormous gap.
Oh, and I'm also in charge of creating the Christmas program for sacrament meeting.
Our teacher today commended Philipians and Colossians to us, and spent the entire class on Philemon. She's a medievalist and a professor of German at Pacific Lutheran University (and holder of a new chair on Holocaust studies). We had a late start, and then she talked about the new discovery of a notebook of one of the KJV translators and the process of scriptural translation. She asked, who knows the subject of Philemon off the top of your head? ''I didn't either," she said, then built the foundation of spiritual standing juxtoposed with worldly standing. Onesimus was apparently a slave who had run away, and that penalty was execution upon being found/returned. He delineates how he loves them and can rely on their faith equally, this slave and this dear friend his master. There's a lot of substance in this little page if you pay attention. She said that at this time in Rome itself up to 85% of the total population was slaves--'slave' and 'servant' were the same word. Philemon, will you receive him as a brother in every way, and not count your relative positions in society or the right for satisfaction/loss of face or what have you in his running away before. The equation has changed.
Are you willing as a disciple of Christ to choose another way, to see him in another way? I count on you, says Paul, for all you do where I cannot come, I count on him for all the help he's been able to give me here, and his faith is as deep and true as yours. Will you accept him? "For love's sake I rather beseech thee" than command, for "my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds." Paul counts him as a son, as he does so many times referring to others whose new light he regards tenderly. As he gratefully counts Philemon as a true stalwart, on whom he can rely to take care of the work. (She pointed out that this was only one side of an exchange, like listening to someone on the phone in the same room, you only get a part of the exchange.)
That's a big piece of our discipleship. Are we willing to break out of our societal mold? Will we love each other, and accept each other, and strengthen each other however we can, no matter what has been before?
I'm reminded of this story in one of my columns for the Nauvoo Times. It shouldn't matter how lost we were, or where we come from in our journey, but only whether we are truly found.
(PS--I ran into this little girl and her mama a few months later, with an older sister from her new ward helping her out, and another baby soon coming, and it was clear that this little family is still being loved. I'm glad.)
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