The Passage of Time

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

It’s my birthday this week, and it’s a big one. I’ve been joking that it’s my “2nd Annual 59th Birthday,” but I think you can do the math.

I’m having what is likely to be a large and somewhat chaotic birthday party at our house Friday (tomorrow…). I hope you’ve heard about it and if you’re free, we’d love to see you all.

If we’re up for it, when we have these “milestone” birthdays, they allow us the opportunity to reflect on life.

One thing everybody tells me: Sixty isn’t as old as it used to be. For example, this week people have been trying to soothe me by saying…

“Sixty is the new fifty…”
“Sixty is the new forty…”

I even heard somebody say “sixty is the new 25.”

That last one seems like a mighty big stretch. But OK…whatever gets you through the night.

But, surely we know this to be true: On average we are living longer than we used to. Further, on average, our population is far healthier than it used to be.

I saw photographic evidence of this just last week. I’ve been digitizing old family movies, taking them from VCR tapes to digital files. And I stumbled on the tape of my mom’s 60th birthday party.

When *she* turned sixty —twenty eight years ago next week— she decided to throw a big party and invite all her friends. Since they’re roughly the same age, Mom tried to get Dad to join in and hold it as a joint party for the both of them, but he didn’t seem up for it.

So, when the night came, we all gathered at their house, and it was a joy to see all Mom’s friends…as it was to see them on the tape last week. A blast from the past.

But, when the camera panned to a quick shot of my father, Dennise immediately said, “He looks older than you…”

But, of course, in that shot he’s exactly the same age I am now…

So, yeah…one of the blessings of life these days is a feeling that if we take care of ourselves and the fates all line up…we might end up living longer, healthier, lives.

That is certainly my prayer for me…and for you.

September has always been a “Birthday Month” in our family. Maria’s was last week (same day as my grandmother’s). Mine was yesterday. And Mom’s would be next Friday. And so, for two decades now, on some mid-September night, the three of us have always gathered together to celebrate with a meal.

Maria and I both cried a bit on the phone last night remembering that. Joy and sorrow all mixed together these days.

I thought of both Mom and Dad a lot last night as I took a birthday-night bike ride around White Rock. There were a lot of memories swirling.

Dad was a cyclist. He and I used to sometimes ride White Rock together. There is a section of the lake trail —just near “Big Thicket”— where I have a very clear memory of one ride with him. I don’t know why this is.

I mean we rode around the lake dozens of times together, but for some reason a memory of him and me at that exact spot always pops up on almost every one of my nearly 1,000 circuits around White Rock Lake.

Farther down the trail, there’s a bench dedicated to my friend Mark Daves who died far too young. Mom once wrote a letter to Mark’s widow in which Mom assured her that she would “see Mark in the sunset.”

And I saw Mom in my birthday sunset last night.

As I reflect on my own past, present, and future, a favorite quote of John Wesley leaps into my brain.

Wesley, as you may recall, was a very “enthusiastic,” devoutly evangelical young man. In fact, he was so opinionated in his spiritual beliefs —so stridently committed to HIS way of praying, studying, and learning about God— that, frankly, he annoyed a lot of people.

I mean, I hope you know that the very name “Methodist” was first used as an aspersion against Wesley and his young male cohort of Oxford College friends. They were so sure of themselves. They were probably not too fun to be around.

But age gave great wisdom to John Wesley. When Wesley himself was an older man, a young man wrote *him* a letter. It was a publicly reproduced letter asking Wesley to account for some of his views. I’ve never seen the whole letter, but you get the sense that this young man is very likely a young John Wesley himself…very sure of everything.

But as John Wesley replies to this young man, he is now far older and wiser. Throughout his long life, Wesley allowed his beliefs to change and grow. He believed passionately in the PROCESS of spiritual growth, not the claim that “I have arrived and am the fount of all knowledge.”

There is a humility, especially in his later writings, that many people in our time could stand to hear.

So I’ll close with a quote from John Wesley. It’s one of my favorite passages from him, precisely because it shows the valuable lessons that age, wisdom, and experience can bestow on us. I hope you find that it’s as true for your life as it has been for mine.

Here’s Wesley’s response to that young eager man who I believe reminded him a lot of himself:

“Permit me, sir, to give you one piece of advice. Be not so positive, especially with regard to things which are neither easy nor necessary to be determined. I ground this advice on my own experience. When I was  young I was sure of everything. In a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as before. At present I am hardly sure of anything, but what God has revealed to man.”

John Wesley

Vienna

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

On Monday, I took my iPhone into the Apple store for a repair. In order to do the work, they had to keep it for several hours. The entire repair actually look longer than this, but that’s not the point of this story…

The point of this story is that as I left the store, buckled up and drove away, I realized that for about two hours that afternoon, I was completely unreachable by phone.

Nobody could call.
I couldn't call anybody.
Couldn't use Waze.
Couldn't listen to Podcasts or music.
No email or text alerts buzzed through.
Couldn't transfer $$ to my debit card.
Couldn't check Facebook or Twitter.
No loved one could “search” my location to see if I was OK, and therefore I wouldn’t immediately know where they were either.

At first, this was a disorienting feeling. I wondered just how I was supposed to get by. The depth of this feeling was more than simply turning *off* my phone or leaving it in the other room. When I do that, I live with the knowledge that I am always free to go pick it up again. This was a deeper realization.

For those few hours, my cell phone did not exist.
It was gone.

And after the initial disorientation, another feeling washed over me. The feeling was pure PEACE.

Very quickly, I centered down into the moment. There was nothing else to do, really, but just enjoy that time. As I drove along, I said to myself, ”This is what driving in the car used to feel like...just some time, alone with my own thoughts…"

I mean, some of you can remember that, right?
You can recall a time when we just used to step into a car and just…drive.
Maybe we listened to broadcast radio.
Maybe we just sang to ourselves.
Maybe we just enjoyed the passing scenery, or cursed at bad drivers.
Maybe we said little prayers to ourselves.

Whatever we used to do in a car, back in the day, we weren’t distracted by our phones. We weren’t accosted by messages from people who weren’t right there with us. We weren’t tempted by curated Instagram pictures. We weren’t directed by AI driving apps.

It used to be that we just got in a car and there was no other choice than to be present in that moment.

And I suddenly recalled my time as an intern pastor in Mason, Texas. This was well before cell phones, and helps you see what I’m talking about…

On my Fridays off I used to jump in my little truck and just DRIVE. I kept a large book of maps —one that showed even the fine details of Hill Country County Roads— and I just took off in some random direction.

I listened to music. I prayed. I enjoyed Bluebonnets, cactus, and caliche rock. And then, about lunch time, I’d pull out the maps in some small town, see where I was and then plot another route home. Those drives became an important weekly time of self-renewal and spiritual centering.

Those few hours on Monday reminded me of just how dependent and connected we are to our phones. They’ve become almost an extension of our bodies. It wasn’t until I HAD to be rid of it that I realized just how distracting it is most of the time.

This exact same thing happened to me the other night when the power was out after the last big storm. We had no power or internet…and therefore no TV either. So, I grabbed my guitar, went out on the porch, and just sat there in the dark for hours. No streetlights. No neighbor lights. It was still and quiet.

Dennise pulled out a few battery operated lanterns to provide a small glow around our feet. And the moon rose up and bathed everything in a calming natural glow.

And as I played, an old Billy Joel song came to me. It’s called “Vienna.” In the song, Vienna seems to stand for a mythical place of rest and relaxation.

We all need rest and relaxation. I keep thinking more and more about what it means that we don’t have a regular required Sabbath.

I know, I know…I don’t want the government regulating my life like that either.

But when Blue Laws were around, there was a kind of enforced rest…much like what happened to me and my phone on Monday. Whether we *actually* rested on Sundays back in the day is another question. But at least we had more of a permission to rest than all of us, including me, seem to take today.

And so, Billy Joel’s lyrics, ones that predate cell phones by 30 years, keep coming back to me:

“Slow down you crazy child
Take the phone off the hook
And disappear for a while
It's alright, you can afford to lose a day or two  Oooo
When will you realize
Vienna waits for you.”

God says it to us this way:

“Be still and know I am God.”

In a world where we are constantly connected, we have to work *harder* to consciously and actually disconnect. When we do, insights can come to us that feel powerful and deep. The more you can make the time to do it, the more you’ll be able to hear God’s still small voice.

Building Our Future

Phase One Coming Soon!

The first phase of Kessler Park UMC’s future begins now! At the end of this month, you will see work on a new roof to our building. And by year end, we hope to see construction begin on three distinct playground areas to serve us now and in the future.

These two projects form the heart of important, necessary steps toward a new vision for our building once The Kessler School leaves. (We understand TKS to be on track to leave at year end).

It is very likely that we will see even more changes to our physical plant over the next few years, but church leadership wanted to write the congregation now to update you on these Phase One plans. Because you will see the work start soon!

This Phase One plan centers around securing the building physically and creating playground spaces that will allow for a dramatic expansion of our own Parents Day Out Program at KPUMC. We invite our members and friends to consider that we are currently focusing first on the “top” and the “bottom” of the building: the roof and the ground floor programming (Parents Day Out).

Here are the details.

The Roof:

The church roof has been in serious shape for some time. There are leaks in multiple top floor classrooms threatening that space. Our church organ in the sanctuary is under serious threat/risk of incredibly costly damage due to water leaks.

Compounding a roof-replacement project are multiple roof-truss systems underneath what appears as one solid roof. These date to different periods of the construction of our building. (Without getting into too many weeds, there is a “Gypsum Board” system on a portion of the roof that adds significant cost to traditional roofing)

Your Board of Trustees has been hard at work for more than a year to choose a roofer. Because of the complexity of the job, the Trustees have engaged the services of Wharry Engineering. After an extensive bidding process, “Premier Roofing” has been selected to perform the work. Their bid is approximately $230,000. Premier was chosen because of price, their ability to do the work quickly (one week), and the recommendation of Wharry Engineering.

Work is scheduled to begin the final week of September, and be accomplished in one week. (The church parsonage and Scout Hut are also scheduled to be included in this work…)

Playground:

More than two years ago, our Church Leadership voted to pursue a large expansion of our Parents Day Out Program (PDO) once TKS leaves our building. We have been eager to move on that expansion but are currently limited by both internal building space and the playground configuration.

The PDO routinely has a “waiting list” that far exceeds our ability to serve neighborhood family demand for the program. An expanded PDO will be a major contributor to mitigate the loss of The Kessler School income.

But, to meet state licensing requirements and expand our PDO, we must first significantly reconfigure our existing playgrounds.

The vision is for three playground areas on our grounds:

The Nell Lind Baby Playground (right next to the building) Ages 2 and under.

Age-appropriate equipment is needed for small children that will allow us to expand PDO to serve this age range.

The Large Fenced Playground (Between the parking lot and the Scout Hut) Ages 2-5

This playground will be reconfigured with a combination of existing and new equipment for children in this age range. Again, this is also essential work in order to meet state licensing requirements for an expanded PDO.

Neighborhood Playground in Robert's Forest (Where old climbing structure is now…) Ages 5 and up.

An open playground area, for older neighborhood children, will take the place of the very old equipment near the current fire pit location. It will consist of moving the swing set and jungle gym from the present TKS playground and will likely necessitate reconfiguring the fire pit location.

The creation of these three distinct play areas will allow us to both serve our own PDO program while also continuing to welcome neighbor-children to enjoy our campus and Roberts Forest, as they do now.

The costs for these renovations could be as much as $100,000. It is believed that fundraising could likely pay for much of this cost.

Church leadership —Church Council, Trustees, and Finance Committee— have voted to approve bids for both these major projects and to pay for the work through extending our existing line of credit with Texas Methodist Foundation (TMF). That extension has been approved by TMF. This will add approximately $2,605 to our monthly church budget.

It is assumed that, in coming years, KPUMC will undertake capital campaigns to help pay down these expenses as well as other coming building renovations that will help us “Build Our Future.”

But the initial payment for the playground equipment —so that it can be ordered and work can begin— and for the roof work will come from cash on hand, replenished by additions to our line of credit with TMF.

So, look for these visible changes to our building and grounds coming very soon. We have exciting decisions to make regarding the rest of our building (the middle and top floors).

To that end, our Campus Vision Team will begin regular meetings in late September, and continue throughout the Fall. We will update you on the purpose and vision for the Campus Vision Team in another update next week. But just know for now that those meetings are scheduled for this Fall.

The Campus Vision Team will be asking these exciting questions:

1. How should our building be organized/structured in order to serve KPUMC for the next 50 years?

2. In order to grow, what space will KPUMC need now and in the next 50 years?

3. Are there parts of our building that can be utilized to serve the greater community of Oak Cliff and Dallas beyond KPUMC’s internal ministry?

Along these lines, you should look for coming opportunities to offer your input and coming community and church meetings to provide your opinions and share your ideas. All ideas will be welcomed!

You will also likely be invited to take tours of our current building so you can understand both the present challenges and the future possibilities for what our building can be as a vehicle that drives and serves all of Kessler Park.

We hope every member and friend of KPUMC will deeply engage in this important longterm work for the future of our church, neighborhood and world.

While the pandemic has delayed much of this community work, it is certain that these next few years will be an exciting time for our church and our neighborhood. We hope you are all looking forward to it as we build our future.