We Didn’t Light the FireWe Didn’t Light the Fire(with apologies to Billy Joel)

We Didn’t Light the FireWe Didn’t Light the Fire(yeah, the intro is pretty long)

Marie begins, email news, Constant Contact sign-ups tooSandy Superstorm hits

hard, then add a foot of snow

Walt recruited right away, visits made with PDA

Donations,gifts cards, coming in,

SRT’s a go.

musical interlude ...

Congregations on the shore though wet themselves

open the door,mission work groups

coming infrom local and afar.

Need to hire Mary-Lynn; emails, calls, connect us inVillage hosts identified;

grants and volunteers arrive

(if you know it, sing it ...)

We didn't start the fire,It was always burning since the

world’s been turning

We didn't start the fire,No we didn't light itbut we try to

fight it

(ok, my turn)

Congregation crises hit (can't get into most of it);Clif Christopher at Manasquan;

per capita review

Deficit, reductions loom,new database makes office zoomGracious Discernment

Team, Policy approved

Mount Holly, prayer and fasting, votes,

report to presbytery notes,Thelma, cancer, what a

loss,all there at Principe de Paz

Mother of the Bride, it’s true. Two busses needed for Purdue,Mission Week

Experience, Grand-opening of Genesis

(Now EVERYBODY Sing!)

We didn't start the fire,It was always burning since the

world’s been turning

We didn't start the fire,No we didn't light itbut we try to

fight it

fade out ...

State of the PresbyteryMonmouth PresbyterySeptember 24, 2013

Billy Joel

STUFFHappens

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray, South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe, Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye" Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen, Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc, Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron, Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock" Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team, Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland, Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev, Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac, Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai" Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball, Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide,Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia, Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go, U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy, Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo, Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land" Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion, "Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania, Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson, Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex, JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say? Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again, Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock, Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline, Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan, "Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide, Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz, Hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law, Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it

40 years1949 - 1989

“What has been is what will be,and what has been done is what will

be done;there is nothing new under the sun.”

Ecclesiastes 1:9

On June 9, 1955, a fire broke out at a shop on the corner of Ocean Terrace and DuPont Avenue in Seaside Heights. Driven by 50 mile per hour winds, the fire spread south, until it was finally placed under control at Stockton

Avenue in Seaside Park ... the fire destroyed three blocks of the boardwalk.

-- David Chang, NBC Philadelphia.com

We didn't start the fire,No, we didn't light it,

but we try to fight it

Trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape or natural disaster. Immediately after the event, shock and denial are typical. Longer term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships and even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea.

-- American Psychological Association

STUFFHappens

STUFFHappens

STUFFHappens

STUFFHappens

Stuff Happens

resilience

connected

relationship

community

response

flexibility

diversity

renewal

resurrection

We didn't start the fire,It was always burning since the world’s been

turning