Reflections

I just got back from annual conference, and I’ve got to say—it was something. There’s this big conversation happening in the United Methodist Church about what we believe, what we’re willing to stand for, what our theology is.

And all I can tell you is that taking a stand, saying what you believe, doing it out loud where people can hear it—that matters. It’s hard. It’s not comfortable. But it matters.

I listened to a lot of conversations at conference. People talking about music, about what makes a church vital, about what draws people in. And I heard something beautiful—that what people are hungry for is real worship. Real community. Real spiritual leadership.

We’re small here. Our choir is nine people sometimes. We don’t have all the fancy stuff. But we have something real. And when you have something real, you protect it. You nurture it. You say yes to it even when saying yes is costly.

That’s what the church has always done at its best—it takes a stand. Not a mean stand. Not a judgmental stand. But a clear stand about who God is, what God values, what kind of people we’re trying to become.

So I’m grateful for this church. I’m grateful for people who show up, who sing, who pray, who listen, who serve. Who are willing to be part of something that actually stands for something.

That’s not small. That’s everything.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

All right, so this is the week I got reappointed here for another year, and I’m grateful and excited about that. But I was thinking about how much of life we spend trying to control things that we can’t actually control. We make all these plans, we grip them real tight, and then life does what life does and we’re shocked.

God keeps saying—in the yearly reports, in my prayers, in the reassurance we keep coming back to—just trust. Let go. Stop trying to run the show.

Now, that sounds simple. It sounds peaceful. But it’s not. Because trust means releasing control. It means saying “I can’t guarantee how this goes, but I’m going to proceed anyway.” That takes guts.

You know what helps? Community. Knowing you’re not alone in your uncertainty. That your church, your family, your friends are willing to stand with you even when things don’t go according to plan.

We had a prayer time asking God to help us actually trust instead of just saying we trust with our words while our knuckles stay white gripping the wheel. We asked God to help us be humble and repentant enough to actually let God lead us instead of us following ourselves.

Because here’s the thing—when we stop trying to control everything, we get to notice things. We get to see where God’s already working. We get to join in instead of fight. We get to help people, celebrate with people, be present to people instead of being so busy managing our own agenda.

That’s not weakness. That’s wisdom. That’s the kind of trust that actually changes us.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

John says it straight: God is love. And those who remain in love remain in God. There’s no fear in perfect love—love drives fear out.

Now, I think we get confused about that. We think if we just love hard enough, we’ll be safe. Safe from loss, safe from pain, safe from all the hard stuff. But that’s not what this means. Love doesn’t protect us from difficulty. Love actually makes us more vulnerable because we care about people and things.

What love does is give us the confidence that we’re not alone in it. That whatever comes, God is here. That our suffering isn’t bigger than God’s ability to be present in it.

Here’s what gets me: the scripture says if you can’t love a brother or sister who can see, you can’t love God who you can’t see. In other words, love has to be real. Tangible. Shown in how we treat each other. Not just nice thoughts. Actual showing up.

And when I think about loving people—really loving them—I think about all the ways it’s hard. All the ways it makes us different from each other, all the ways we hurt each other’s feelings, all the ways we misunderstand. But that’s the work. That’s what it means to be Christian.

We don’t get to love God from a safe distance while staying cold to people around us. We’ve got to actually care about them. Actually show up. Actually let love change the way we see each other.

That’s how fear loses its power over us. Not because we never feel afraid. But because we’re connected. We’re loved. We’re part of something bigger than our own terror.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

There are times when you just feel overwhelmed. Everything’s falling apart. The weight of the world is too much. And you’re standing there feeling like you’re supposed to hold it together, supposed to have answers, supposed to fix it all.

But you can’t. None of us can.

There’s this thing God says: my grace is sufficient for you. Not because you’re strong enough. Not because you figure it out. But because I’m here, and I’m big enough to carry all of this.

You know, when I think about the people I know who are at risk—and we all know people at risk, whether it’s from natural disasters or violence or poverty or all the ways the world can hurt us—I think about how the only real protection we have is each other. And God working through us.

That’s not a magic solution. It’s not God saying “nothing bad will ever happen.” It’s God saying “I’m here. And I’m working through the hands and hearts of people who love you and are willing to stand with you.”

So when we pray, we’re not praying magical thinking. We’re praying that God transforms us. That people who seek to do harm would see another way. That people who are hurting find support. That the ones of us who can help actually do it.

And yeah, sometimes it doesn’t work the way we hope. Sometimes people still get hurt. Sometimes loss still comes. But God doesn’t leave us in that. God carries us through. God works with us to make something better out of it.

That’s what I hold onto when things fall apart. Not that it won’t fall apart—it will. But that God’s grace meets us right there in the falling.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

This week we’ve had too many deaths. Too many people saying goodbye. And when you’re in that grief space, everything looks different. You start noticing things you usually walk past. The way the sun hits the grass. Your neighbor’s kindness. A stranger holding a door.

Grief does something to you. It puts you on pause and makes you pay attention.

I was thinking about that and about how we go through life often half-asleep, checking things off, moving to the next thing. We’re not really present. We’re not really looking at each other or at the beauty around us. And it takes loss to wake us up.

You know what Jesus asked? “Do you want to be healed?” Not “Would you like me to fix your problem?” but “Do you actually want wholeness? Are you willing to change?” Because healing isn’t just about getting rid of the bad stuff. It’s about being made whole.

And that wholeness starts with paying attention. Noticing the good things. Being grateful for them while you have them. Looking at the people in your life and really seeing them instead of looking through them.

The bereavement meals we share after a death—those aren’t just about food. They’re about people saying “we see your pain and we’re here with you in it.” That’s what community does. That’s what church does. We witness each other’s suffering. We help carry the weight.

And we do it knowing that every day is a gift. Not guaranteed. Every conversation could be the last one. Every hug matters more than we know. All right, so maybe today—look around. See what’s beautiful. Tell someone they matter. Because they do, and you never know what tomorrow brings.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit came down on all those disciples waiting in Jerusalem. And here’s the amazing part—people from all these different countries, speaking all these different languages, suddenly understood each other. Not because they miraculously learned each other’s languages, but because the Holy Spirit made it so they could understand one another.

And you know what that means? It means Jesus is with us. It means we have the Holy Spirit in our lives. Because that’s what the Holy Spirit does—it makes connection possible. It helps us understand each other even across all our differences.

In our little community here, we’ve had preschool for fifty years. And I keep watching these small faces and thinking about what a difference a good preschool makes. Not just teaching letters and numbers, but helping kids feel loved, seen, known. Helping them know they belong somewhere.

We need more of that. We need spaces where people feel they belong. We need places where differences don’t divide us but where we find that common language—the language of being loved, of being welcome, of being seen as fully human and fully valued.

All right, so here’s what I’m asking: come to preschool graduation. Come see these kids get celebrated. Come be part of a community that says “you matter, you belong, you are loved here.” That’s not a small thing. That’s preschool, that’s church, that’s the Holy Spirit making understanding and connection possible across all the ways we’re different.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

I read this thing a few days ago from a mom talking about carrying the emotional weight of her teenager’s sadness. The daughter was angry, hurt, so the mom just carried all the weight quietly until the girl was ready to pick some of it back up. And I thought—that’s it. That’s what good parents do. That’s what God does.

We think we have to fix everything for our kids, absorb all their pain, make sure they never hurt. But that’s not what loving looks like. Loving is carrying what they can’t carry yet, and being patient until they’re ready to be responsible for their own stuff again.

You know, we created people in God’s image—male and female. And we gave them responsibility together. Stewardship. Partnership. Not domination, not superiority, but actual partnership in taking care of this world. And somewhere along the way, we twisted that into all these competing ideas about who’s better, who should lead, who should step back. We made it either/or when God made it both/and.

Look at the creation story. God looked at what was made and said it was supremely good. Male and female together. Not one as an afterthought. Not one diminished. Both made in God’s image. Both given the same assignment to tend and care for the earth. Both carriers of God’s image in this world.

When I think about good parenting, when I think about what God does with us, it’s this: God feels everything we feel. And God’s willing to carry the weight until we’re ready. That’s stewardship. That’s love. That’s what it means to be made in God’s image and to use that image the way God intends.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

You know, when life feels like exile—when you’re stuck in a place you never asked to be, dealing with circumstances that aren’t what you hoped for—God doesn’t say “just wait it out.” God says do a good job where you are right now.

This comes from Jeremiah’s letter to the people in Babylon. They’d lost everything. The temple was destroyed, their leaders were gone, their whole world was upended. And you know what God told them? Build houses. Plant gardens. Have children. Get married. Participate in life while you’re here. Don’t sit around in a tent waiting for something better. Make something of this.

Here’s what struck me about this: God wasn’t saying their suffering didn’t matter or that the exile was fine. It wasn’t. But God was saying—and this is hard—pray for the peace of the city where you are. Pray blessing on the place that conquered you. That’s revolutionary. That goes against everything in us that wants to protect ourselves or punish the people who’ve hurt us.

When we think about God’s plan for our lives, we often get it backwards. We think God’s got this detailed script where we’re supposed to do this now and that next and tick off all the boxes. But that’s not how it works. God’s plan is something deeper. It’s about where you find God, how you seek God, who you become in the seeking. It’s about staying faithful right here, right now, wherever here is.

We do that, and something shifts in us. We stop being victims of our circumstances and start being people building something real, even in Babylon.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope