Dear St. Paul’s Family,
In my nearly four years as your pastor, I’ve performed a wedding in a refurbished barn, offered an invocation at a rodeo, and attended more than a handful of pork feeds. But years of seminary training could not have prepared me to write the following sentence:
It’s time once again for our annual Pancake Day Race.
I’ve come to appreciate the endearing quirkiness of Iowa folks. This is the land, after all, of towns like Riverside (“Future Birthplace of Capt. James T. Kirk), Dyersville (“Field of Dreams”), Le Mars (“Ice Cream Capital of the World”) and Ottumwa (home of the Video Game Hall of Fame). So it makes total sense to consider Cherokee among their ranks, as we prepare for our annual apron-clad extravaganza. At 5:30 on March 8, dozens of women dressed in aprons and kerchiefs will flip their pancakes and dash from City Hall up Piety Hill to the front doors of St. Paul’s, completing the 415-yard course distance that women in Olney, England have been running for over 500 years.
For more history on the legend of the pancake race, I thought maybe you’d enjoy the following rhyme I prepared that tells the story:
Let’s whisk off in time, and let’s be on our way
To a time long ago, to a land far away
Five centuries before, in 1455
We land in old England, before we were alive
We’re here in a humble old town called Olney
With cobblestone streets just outside Coventry
At the end of the street, with a door open wide,
Is a warm, simple house, so we all go inside
And there, in the kitchen, in a buzz and a swirl
Is a busy old woman, cooking quite a whirl
We ask her what’s happening, and why all the fuss,
And she talks up a storm without looking at us.
“I’m busy, you see, for tomorrow is Lent
And I have to make sure all this food is all spent
“No fat in our pantries, no lard in our house
It all must be gone so that we stay devout
“Are you going to throw it away?” We all ask?
For we never have heard of this fat-cleansing task.
“No, no,” she says now, she now grunts as she gruffs.
“We can’t waste all this food, we can’t waste all this stuff.”
“I’m cooking it up, all the milk and the butter.
All the eggs, and the flour, and even all the sugar,
“So’s not to waste any, I’m cooking a storm,
A tall stack of pancakes! So rich and so warm.
We are all quite hungry; the smell is so yummy!
We hope there’s enough to fill all of our tummies!
“Don’t worry, the woman says, “This stack will be tall.
I’m cooking enough to feed all of you all.”
Then suddenly, out of the blue, good and loud
We hear a shrill sound, of a bell clanging proud.
“Oh, dear!” says the woman, “Where did the time go?”
“I’m late for the Shrove Tuesday service! Oh, no!”
“The Shrove Tuesday what?” we say, all in a rush,
We sense in her panic, her face is all blush.
“It’s the service where we come confessing our sins
So that we can start Lent with a clean slate again.”
“But what do I do? Oh, no, look how I’m dressed!”
“I’m wearing my apron, I don’t look my best!”
“I’m covered with flour, and with eggs, and with butter,
“I don’t look too churchy, I look like a pauper.”
“And what of these pancakes? Oh, what will I do?
“I can’t let them burn, oh, that just wouldn’t do!”
Just then, she decides, there’s no time to get clean.
She takes off for church, just the way that she’s been.
All the grime of her work, and her imperfect flaws
She ran off to church just the way that she was.
No hiding or pretense, and no saintly veneer
No false churchy tone, and no plastic good cheer
She ran off to church with her tattered apron
While flipping her pancake, so that it wouldn’t burn.
We race along side her, she’s old, but she’s fast
415 yards later, and we’re about out of gas
But she gets there, in time for the priest to begin
This most sacred time, for us to confess sin.
We sit in the pew, and we look all around
At the women and men from this grand little town.
They’ve come to confess, but to hear some good news
Of one who draws near, to save me, to save you
And there, sitting next to us, make no mistake
Was our new England friend, and her perfect pancake
And so, long ago, in a town far away,
A woman marked Lent in her own special way.
By teaching us how we might all come to God
Just as we were, with no boasting out loud.
Not dressed in fine fabric, fragrant like a rose
Not fancy white linens, but with everyday clothes
Clothes that speak of our wrongs, and our past, and our sins,
And our yearning desire to begin clean again.
Clothes that prompt us to ask for God’s grace and God’s love
For forgiveness that only comes down from above.
When you go to your church over Lent’s forty days,
I hope that you just will not miss a Sunday
For this is a time for a great, brand new start
To create in you now a clean, brand new heart.
Just come as you are, with your apron and all
All the busyness, sadness, and hear now God’s call
To start a new journey to dark Calvary
A place where your sins will be nailed to a tree
And then, three days later, when you think all is lost,
When you think all your sins will remain on that cross,
We’ll join in great glory, and in triumph newborn
As we shout resurrection on a great Easter morn.
In the name of our God who created the Heavens
Who saved us, sustains us, we all say, Amen.
So, prepare your Lenten journey in a powerful way, by joining us for our annual Pancake Race. We invite women to register by filling out forms available at City Hall, KCHE, or at the church office. You can also register directly online at our website, www.pancakerace.com. The cost to run is $10, and we once again encourage teams to run together. Prizes will be awarded for best costume, best pancake flip, best team race, and, of course, to the winner (who gets a smooch from yours truly, “The Supervising Vicar.”)
Then, following the race, join us in the sanctuary for a Shrove Tuesday worship service, which will help prepare our hearts for the start of Lent. Then we’ll gather downstairs in the Fellowship Hall for a pancake supper, where we will receive a free will offering that will support the two local food pantries. To date, we have been able to contribute over $2,500 dollars to those ministries.
So practice your flipping, and see you at the finish line!
Magrey
The Rev. Magrey R. deVega
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
531 W. Main St.
Cherokee, IA 51012
Ph: 712-225-3955
http://www.cherokeespumc.org
BESTSELLING AUTHOR AT MORNINGSIDE
Author A.J. Jacobs will present a lecture based on his best-selling book “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 17, in the Yockey Family Community Room in Morningside College’s Olsen Student Center, 3609 Peters Ave. Jacobs is editor-at-large for Esquire magazine and author of three New York Times bestsellers, including “The Year of Living Biblically,” a chronicle of his yearlong effort to obey all the rules and guidelines he found in the Bible. In addition to his books, Jacobs has written for The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and New York magazine. He also is a periodic commentator on National Public Radio.
Jacobs will be speaking as part of Morningside’s annual Goldstein Lecture, organized by Dr. Jessica deVega. The lecture is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies at Morningside College, the Jewish Federation of Sioux City and Congregation Beth Shalom.
YOUTH AND FAMILY BOWLING NIGHT MARCH 6
All youth grades 7 – 12 are invited, along with their families, to Cherokee Bowl on Sunday night, March 6. The cost is $8 per person for unlimited bowling between 3:00-5:00, and the cost includes shoes. Desserts will be provided, and bring money for drinks. We’ll also be giving out the full spring schedule of youth activities.
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