On Pelican Wings

By Rick Hoover

The Rev. Rick Hoover is a deacon in the Episcopal Church, serving at a parish in central Florida. He has written for his church blog and web page as well as his personal blog for several years, reflecting on the Bible studies and daily life of this family of faithful Christians. The essays collected here include a variety of short teachings, devotionals and personal anecdotes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pelican Wings
• Release date: Sep 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301383160

Rick Hoover

I'm a retired deacon in the Episcopal Church. I served at a parish in central Florida. I've worked in radio, television and several jobs that included public relation efforts. As a Christian, I have discovered one of the things I enjoy most is spending time in a prayer closet with Jesus, learning to be still so He has space to speak. I shared about my first month as a Smashword author at my blog:https://deaconrick.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/editing-the-author/

Book preview

On Pelican Wings

by Rick Hoover

Copyright 2013 Richard A. Hoover

Third Edition

Author’s Note:

Some of these essays first appeared on my blogs here and here.

Some background information about pelican imagery in Christianity can be found here.

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. If you like this book and want to tell your friends about it, thank you! But if you would like to share this book with another person, I invite you to purchase an additional copy for each recipient at Smashwords.com.

EPUB FILE ISBN: 9781301383160

Table of Contents

The Giants

Starting Small

Waiters

The Friend I Needed

The Clues

Love

In The Dark

Blind Dates

Learning To Pray

Centering Prayer

Prayer Request

Ground Zero

Pray With Me

Sum It Up

Top Ten List

The New Testament

Remind Me

The Music of Worship

Your Time Is Up

Artisans

Windows 7

Pastoral Encounter

The Two Questions

Baselines

The Silence At Advent

Knowing Beforehand

Gaining Poverty

The Lent Laboratory

Easter Confusion

By Myself

This Is That

Lessons So Far

Trust Me, Because - Science!

Cain, Jonah and the Centurion

Stop the Music

RIP: William F. Buckley, Jr.

RIP: Mrs. Cowan

His Eye Is On the Sparrow

Waking Up

At the Funeral for My Father

About the Author

The Giants

There’s an unusual set of stained glass cathedral windows which shows men that are sitting on the shoulders of other men. The window is at the Cathedral in Chartres, France. It shows St. Luke sitting on the shoulders of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, St. Mark sitting on Daniel’s shoulders and two other pairings.

The windows illustrate a remark by Bernard of Chartres, chancellor of the cathedral school in the early 12th century. He said that we are dwarfs but we sit on the shoulders of giants. Those who went before prepared our way and we benefit by understanding even more clearly what they saw first. We have that unearned privilege of understanding simply because of our place in line and in time.

I thought about that idea as our church youth began their Home Grown Mission Week. This project is an introduction to the community and world, and the work God has prepared for us to do in them.

Our young missionaries follow behind more than a century of pioneers, families and taxpayers who have created our community of Lakeland, Florida. Our young missionaries get to add several small touches of kindness and assistance around town: planting trees, cleaning up lakeshores and abandoned cemeteries, helping to distribute school supplies. Who knows, it will serve them as a practice run for going out even further into the world later, to share the love of Jesus.

Meanwhile, they have contributed to the history of our neighborhoods, preparing a community to hand on for others to enjoy in the days to come.

God brings us into a family that is made up of more than the people of our own time. We walk with the giants who were here ahead of us, who left a prepared field for us to enjoy and harvest and hand on.

***

Starting Small

A couple of days before Christmas I had a dream. I was in a living room with a prayer group. There was a fellow who had several serious problems with his health, his job and his family. He also had a small cut or injury on his finger.

In my dream I felt so overwhelmed by all the problems he was struggling with I didn’t know where to start. So I thought, I will pray for his finger! That’s small enough that I can have faith God will heal that! Then we’ll all be encouraged to pray for the bigger problems…

When I told Melanie the dream, it got us thinking about various friends who are facing monumental problems. The fabric of their lives has been so torn that it’s hard to know where to begin with any healing. Mending one small thread at a time hardly seems to make a difference. Except that it’s a start.

And I thought about Christmas. The nation of Israel was in disarray, in bondage. The entire world lay in spiritual darkness. And God sent a baby…

It would be years before Jesus would begin to teach, or heal, or proclaim the Kingdom of God. In those years Mary and Joseph would simply watch over the daily task of raising a healthy boy. It was all so quiet. Later, people would only remember seeing an ordinary carpenter’s son. Nothing more than a mustard seed, you might say.

God starts small, restoring one thread at a time. Let’s watch for those small beginnings. And be ready to plant a few tiny seeds of kindness and care in the lives of others.

The Kingdom of God has come near.

But it started small.

***

Waiters

I had breakfast with a man who is discerning a call to be a deacon in the church, to talk about what it was like.

He had chosen the restaurant where we met. I asked him, "When you chose this nice restaurant,