Lent 4A

LENT 4 A  March 26, 2017                                                 

SCRIPTURES   

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• 1 Samuel 16:1-13: God sends Samuel to find and anoint as king one of the sons of Jesse; " . . . the LORD does not see as mortals see."

• Psalm 23  

• Ephesians 5:8-14. "For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light."

• John 9:1-41. Jesus puts mud on the eyes of a man born blind and sends him to wash in the pool at Siloam. The blind man gains his sight.

SCRIPTURES (John 9:1-41)

-As a sign that he is the light, Jesus gives sight to a man born blind

-The increasing blindness of the Pharisees and the increasing sight of the blind man

-  Light is the great revealer.

-The Pharisees who may have had 20/20 vision can't see the truth. Jesus is the truth, in the flesh, and they were blind to it. But in the end the man born blind sees clearly. He can not only see Jesus, but he can see that Jesus is the Messiah.

-You wonder why Jesus put spit in the man's eyes? In essence that is what he did. The symbolic nature of that act would have been apparent to any Jewish believer in Christ. In the beginning the Father has taken the dust of the earth and with the breath of his mouth breathed life into the first human. In the same way the Son took the dust of the earth and repeated this act of God to bring sight to a blind man. It is also significant that the pool he washed in was named "Sent". After all Jesus had been "sent" to bring recovery of sight to the blind.

-he had 20/20 spiritual vision

-   The blind man-- not knowledge, but acknowledgment.

-We have to be willing to see with different eyes and hear with new ears the many ways God in Christ is manifesting God's

  self in our daily lives and the world. This will require that we rethink our notions of the nature of God in Christ and our identities as Christians.

-"Spiritual spectacles" Rev. Karl Travis

- It is the nature of light to guide.

-We cannot obtain faith by our own efforts or merit. but faith always remains a choice we make when we choose to trust in God and believe in what he reveals to us.  Faith is not and can never be an act coerced by God or others.

-And I suppose John 9 is about darkness too. At least in so far as the failure of the darkness is concerned. The failure of the darkness to comprehend (or "overpower") the light. David Roth

-Are we willing to be changed for the sake of faith? Are we willing to see things as they are, not as we wish them to be?

- The Community Church's Lost and Found.  Who's lost and who's found????

QUOTES

-Amazing Grace, "was blind but now I see."   Amazing indeed

- I read somewhere, "Stop acting so good and start being a Christian." Could that apply to the Pharisees in Jesus' day? Could it apply to some people today? Stoffregen

-  In a way the blind man "met Jesus for the first time."  (The name of book by Borg)

-What we see is determined by what is behind our eyes more than what is in front.  lindy

-"None so blind as those who will not see."

- And I said to the one who stood at the gate of the year, "Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown." And she replied, "Go out into the darkness and put your hand in the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way." Millie Louise Haskins, "God Knows," in Desert, 1908

-Some people have excellent eyesight but do not see further than their noses..

-One day a Christian and a Communist were sitting on a park bench watching the world go by. As they watched, a poor, drunken beggar walked by dressed in rags. The Communist pointed to the beggar and said, "Communism would put a new suit on that man!" To which the Christian responded, "Maybe so, but Jesus Christ can put a new man in that suit."

Some have sight yet choose to see only a fragment of the truth and love of Christ.

And some there are who have no physical sight yet who see brilliantly.

ILLUSTRATIONS

1.There is a moving account of finding the inner light in the autobiography of Jacques Lusseyran, who went blind at the age of seven. He records the discovery he made following the accident that cost him his physical sight:

At that time I still wanted to use my eyes. I followed their usual path. I looked in the direction where I was in the habit of seeing . . . finally, I realized I was looking the wrong way. I was looking too far off, and too much on the surface of things . . . I began to look more closely, not at things but the world closer to myself, looking from an inner place, to one further within, instead of clinging to the movement of sight toward the world outside. Immediately the substance of the universe drew together, redefined and peopled itself anew. I was aware of the radiance emanating from a place I knew nothing about, a place which might as well have been outside me as within . . . I felt indescribable relief, and happiness so great it almost made me laugh . . . Sighted people always talk about the night of blindness, and that seems to them quite natural. But there is no such night, for every waking hour and even in my dreams, I live in a stream of light. Without my eyes, light is much more stable than with them. I see the whole world in light, existing through it and because of it. (Jaques Lusseyran, And There Was Light, trans. Elizabeth Cameron, Little, Brown and Co., 1963.)

The one who was blind at birth met Jesus for the first time, received the gift of physical and spiritual sight, and learned how to live in a stream of inner light.

2. Told that he was farsighted, he asked his optometrist exactly what that meant. 

"Well, technically, the optometrist replied, "it means that you focus on infinity."

3.We all know what physical blindness is often a metaphor for a deeper malady. "I don't see what you're driving at," we may say. Or, "I can't imagine what she sees in him." Or, "He can't see what's right in front of his nose." 

HUMOR

-It has been suggested that the origins of denominations occurred when the healed blind men met each other. At first they were all excited about the miracle of sight that Jesus had given them, but as they talked about how Jesus had healed them, they began to discover some significant differences. For some, the healing came with simply a touch from Jesus (Mt 9:29; 20:34). Another proudly boasted that he had enough faith so that Jesus didn't have to touch him to perform the miracle (Mk 10:52). Another meekly exclaimed that Jesus not only touched him twice, but also "spit on his eyes" in order for him to see clearly (Mk 8:23). The final one really felt embarrassed to admit that even though a touch wasn't part of his healing, Jesus' "spit" wasn't enough. Jesus had mixed his saliva with dirt and put the mud on his eyes and then told him to go and wash in some pool of water (Jn 9:6-7). Since each one thought his healing was normal and better than the others, they divided into spittites and non-spittites; muddites and non-muddites; touchites and non-touchites. Denominationalism was born. Stoffregen

-Some people change their ways when they see the light, others only when they feel the heat.

- Parrot blindness:  A magician was performing on board a luxury liner and was constantly interrupted by a parrot someone had in the audience.  As luck would have it the ship had problems and sunk and the magician and the parrot ended up in the same life boat.  The parrot stirred at the man for two days until the magician said, "What are you stirring at me for?"  The parrot said, "I'm trying to figure out how you made the boat disappear."
 

CHILDREN-"To God Be the Glory," Charles Kirkpatrick, Sermons4kids.com.  A wonderful story about the hymn writer Fanny Crosby who was blind.  Wrote, Blessed Assurance, I am Thine O Lord, To God be the Glory, etc.  Fits in perfectly with this weeks scripture.

. 

PRAYER PHRASE

-Because You exist, we exist

 Because You love us, we are able to receive love and give love

 Because You search for us, we are never lost but found when we are willing to be found

 Because You forgive us, we are able to have new births

 Because You put you light with in us, we are able to know your wisdom and your truth

 Because You are a loving master, we are free to make choices of our own choosing. 

  Forgive us if we fail to accept your invitation to be a part of Your Kingdom and forgive us if we fail to accept it as a free gift.  Forgive us if we come to your Kingdom alone...without our brother, our neighbor or our enemy.  .......Lindy

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Lent 3A

LENT 3A    February 19, 2017                                                     

SCRIPTURES     

• Exodus 17:1-7. The Israelites are grumbling in the desert. God tells Moses to strike the rock so they will have water.

• Psalm response: 95

• Romans 5:1-11. Paul expounds on the consequences of justification by faith.

• John 4:5-42. John tells of Jesus' meeting with the Samaritan woman.

SCRIPTURES (John 4:5-42)

- Jacob's well. 

-Jesus’ longest-recorded conversation with anyone is the one he has with the Samaritan woman  Craddock

-She is a Samaritan, he a Jew; between the two there was enormous historical enmity. At least four centuries before, the Jews of Samaria had intermarried with their captors, losing their religious and racial purity. They could not be forgiven for their impurity and were held in contempt by most Jews in Judea and Galilee. That's why the woman asks, "how can you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?"

-"There is more grace in God than sin in us."

-It's a story about being dry and dried up, parched and brittle and all used up by life. De Jong

-We should not ‘cast our pearls before swine’ by forcing an unwanted discussion. Rather, like Jesus, we should pursue spiritual conversation as deeply as the unbeliever wants to carry it.

-What John would have us see here is that there are certain truths we cannot merely accept, but have to discover for ourselves and that Jesus is constantly asking people to face these truths for themselves.

- In leaving behind our false gods, we also leave behind our false selves. 

-What if each of those marriages ended when the husband died. She would have buried five husbands.

(P, pastor; C, congregation)

P: Like worships like.

C: But who can be like God?

P: What if God became like us?

C: Then we could be like God.

P: Then we could worship God.  Bob Bertra

SERMONS

1. Jesus confronts  racial prejudice and gender issues, religious issues (Samaritan). (wrong race, wrong gender, wrong religion)  Sound familiar?

 2.  Jesus comes to ordinary people doing ordinary tasks, on an ordinary day. Jesus reached out in ordinary ways.  

3.One sows, another reaps. Spirit sows, Flesh reaps. Prophets sow, you reap. You sow, others reap.

QUOTES

- Have church will travel.  (We are temples of God's spirit)

-At Jewish weddings, rabbis often remind the couple that they are as earth and water to each other. Without earth, water flows without direction, while earth without water dries up and blows away. Together they make clay from which are made bricks, from which are made houses, which become homes.

- God is waiting at the well for each of us.

- Sustenance

- Repentance is not for sinners only.  

- Let's not forget, tears are another form of water.

- Shall we gather at the river...

- Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very serviceable unto us and humble and precious and clean.   St. Francis of Assisi.

-But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream  Amos 5:34

-Not "What will make our church grow ?"  but, "What is keeping our church from growing?"  Stoffregen

- Quench thirst!

- Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. Coleridge   The rime of the Ancient Mariner

- I've got peace like a river.  African American spiritual

-  Only one  who loves you  can know you as you are and not as you pretend to be. Only one who love you knows your deepest desires. Only one who loves you can look at your past with out blinking. 

-"Mystical moxie"

ILLUSTRATIONS

1.  Willimon tells about his grandmother who was the first female Methodist preacher in S.C.  Someone said to her after he ordination,"I think it's remarkable that the S.C. Methodists ordained a woman and were among the first to do it."  "It is remarkable, and it only took them 1,956 years to do it."  (said the ordained woman)

2 There are two and a half quarts of water in my blood. There are fifteen quarts of water in the extra plasma in my body. There are thirty quarts of water in the cells of my body, allowing all those little cells to grow. It always amazes me that (your weight) pounds of water are standing before you today at this moment. Truly, I am living water.

3. During the tenure of the great orator Henry Ward Beecher, a visiting minister (Beecher's brother) once substituted for the popular pastor. A large audience had already assembled to hear Beecher, and when the substitute pastor stepped into the pulpit, several disappointed listeners began to move toward the exits. That's when the minister stood and said loudly, "All who have come here today to worship Henry Ward Beecher may now withdraw from the church. All who have come to worship God keep your seats!"

4.Rabbis forbade rabbis to greet any woman in public, even a wife or a sister. There were, in those days, Pharisees who shut their eyes when they saw any woman on the street. With their eyes shut, they walked into so many walls and tripped over so many cracks in the street that they were called the "bruised and bleeding Pharisees." They were the same ones who prayed:

Blessed art thou,

O Lord our God,

king of the universe,

who hast not made me a woman.

HUMOR

- Some people say that I am a bag of wind or a bag of hot air.  But I am really a bag of water. (60%)   A a great big bag of water.  Standing before you today is walking , breathing, living water,  I am truly living water.  Illustrate what 60% of something is.

- He needs a faith lift.

CHILDREN

  - Talk about being hungry and thirsty.  Then talk about ways we fill our spiritual hunger and thirst.  Talk about bread of life and living water.

  -   Have the children compare how they'd take care of there teddy bear compared to taking care of their dog.   

-Jesus talks with ANYONE!  What “anyones” would Jesus talk to today?  (Jews, Muslims, Blacks, )

PRAYER PHRASE

- Lord make us eager, expectant, ever ready to meet you when you sneak up on our lives.  Lord speak to us, intrude upon us. Amen  Willimon

- God of your goodness give me yourself for you are sufficient for me.  I cannot ask for anything less.  If I were to ask less, I should always be in want.  In you alone do I have all.  Julian of Norwich.

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LENT 2 A    March 12, 2017                                                   

SCRIPTURES     

• Genesis 12: 1-4a. God initiates a covenant with Abram, and Abram enters it by leaving his country and family. Moving from the particular to the universal. 

- We call this a faith journey because the destination was known only to God.

- "I heard him call, "Come and follow.  My gold grew dim, my soul rose up and followed him.  Who wouldn't follow if they heard that call”. Lindy

- Abraham is a central figure in three faith traditions:  Islam, Judaism, Christianity.

• Psalm 121  Tone 5 in D minor with the sung response.

• Romans 4:1-5, 13-17. Abraham was made righteous — not by works, but by trusting God.

• John 3:1-17. Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the night. Jesus tells him, "You must be born from above.”

SCRIPTURES (John 3:1-17)

-The Greek word anõthen can mean either "from above" or "again." Nicodemus takes it to mean "again," whereas Jesus has the first meaning in mind as is evident from the ensuing conversation

-As long as people consider Christianity as something we do, are they not trying to control the Spirit -- telling it where and where to blow? Stoffregen

-Malina and Rohrbaugh in "Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John," build on the idea that one cannot usually aspire to a higher (social) level than where one is born. Jesus is able to return to God because that's where he is from. However, those who have been "born from above," are also able to return there, because that's where we are now from.

-Being born from above is not something we do. It is something done to us (by God). In a similar way, being born the first time was not something we did

- Christians are called the "Children of the light"

-"Eternal" does not mean mere endless duration of human existence, but is a way of describing life as lived in the unending presence of God.

-The "serpent" (v. 14) is mentioned in Numbers 21:9-11: the people were bitten by poisonous snakes; some died; others became gravely ill. Instructed by God, Moses mounted ("lifted up") a bronze snake on a pole. Those who looked at this emblem (trusting in God) were healed, lifted up, given life. Now Jesus would be the one lifted up.

-The story of Nicodemus invites the reader to grapple with the issue of genuine faith that goes beyond mere belief on the basis of miraculous signs.

SERMON  - A Nicodemus type faith.  Based on miracles, visible proofs, extraordinary events.  Talk about the difference between belief and faith.  Religion is easy, faith is much more risky.  Abraham not knowing where he was going. 

-The Divine call then is to trust the creative, transforming power of God in our lives, the call that urges, entices us into an unknown future, a future that is filled with new possibilities. (We are a pilgrim people, see illustrations)

-The symbol of Jesus on a pole indicates that the problem with us is us -- and that Jesus is the solution. Stoffregen

QUOTES

-   Man is strangely amphibious, inhabiting two worlds.

- The spirit is what we see with rather than what we see.  Yancey

-Spiritualize the material or materialize the spiritual? Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,

-"Bring me a worm that can comprehend a human being, and then I will show you a human being that can comprehend the Triune God!" John Wesley

-As Dag Hammarskjold said, "For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes."

-Like Nicodemus, despite all our accumulated experience and knowledge (or because of them), we are old people. White

-“It takes as much faith to believe that there is no God as it does to believe that there is.”

- A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, called out of darkness, into his marvelous light"  (1 Peter 2:9)

- At midnight, all cats are gray.

-We are like asthmatic people. God's spirit has taken away our narrowness...Latin for anxiety is angustia means narrowness. H.Nouwen

- " I see, it's like a light bulb came on in my head"

-  Take the Holy Spirit out of the church and 95% of what we are doing will go on.

- Rejoice that we have a savior that keeps evening hours.  Rejoice that our God works the night shift.  Willimon

ILLUSTRATIONS

-An architect tells how must of our older buildings are distinguished because they don't have enough light.  We have demanded more and more illumination, brighter buildings, more lights.  "In a way, that's a shame because it's the shadows that make a building beautiful.  Shadow, the interplay of light and dark, is a key element in architectural beauty."

-The Abraham story in particular is like a fine violin, though very old, when played with passion and finesse, expresses the human condition soulfully, poignantly. No matter how many times the fine violin is played, or the great story told, it is never tiring. At each hearing, new nuances can be found in the narrative, new relationships within the story discovered, new depths of human experience reflected.  

- We are a Pilgrim people. We don't know where we are going,  what it will be like when we get there, etc....but we know that God is on the journey with us.  Lindy

-A scientist walking through the jungle saw piles of wood as if someone was going to start a fire. He discovered that the apes, mimicking man laid the pieces of wood down. The only trouble was that the apes were missing the spark needed to finish the act.

HUMOR

-These texts are pregnant with possibilities

-Nicodemus reminds me of that Television station, Nick at night.

-Too many of the "Born again Christians" were breech births. Lindy

-Discouraged again, eh, Charlie Brown?" "You know what your whole trouble is? The whole trouble with you is that you're you!"

 Charlie asks, "Well, what in the world can I do about that?"

 Lucy answers, "I don't pretend to be able to give advice...I merely point out the trouble!"

CHILDREN

- Can you see the wind, oxygen, C02, gravity, stars in daylight,

-The little fish asks his mother, "Where is the ocean?" Answer. "It's all around you" it fills your holes. 

PRAYER PHRASE

- You are the Lord of the night as well as day. 

- ....we fail to hear you call.  We are too busy, the world is too noisy.  Sometimes what we hear is not what you mean.  Sometimes we fail to hear what you whisper.  Many times we listen backwards...hear only what you said centuries ago or hear only what you say to OTHER people.  O God, help us with our deafness.  Lindy

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LENT 1 A    March 5, 2017                                                      

SCRIPTURES     

• Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7. Adam and Eve eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. True wisdom resides in knowing that which can rightly be taken. 

•  Psalm 32

• Romans 5:12-19. Adam and Christ — "Therefore just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all."

• Matthew 4:1-11. Matthew's story of Jesus tempted by the devil in the wilderness.

SCRIPTURE    Matt.4:1-11 

•   stones into bread = material temptation
•   Throw self off cliff = security temptation
•   Have dominion  =  power temptation 

-But Adam and Eve are not our only ancestors. There is someone else who has claimed us

-The Garden of Eden and the Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness: two stories central to our faith because they answer the question, "Who am I?" Through metaphor and poetic image, they remind us where we come from and who we are.

-The source of our temptations is almost always our own legitimate, normal, natural desires. The desire for food, sexual intimacy, approval of others is not from the devil. These are wholesome, normal, legitimate desires. How do they become sinful?

-The devil may not be a cartoon character sitting in a red suit with a pitchfork on your shoulder. Maybe could replace the word "devil" with the word "temptation," a word which, presumably, is grounded for most of us in tangible experience.

- Temptation,  a "flirtatious reality"

-the heart of Jesus’ temptations was to misuse the power that he had

-Lent is a great and graced time to face our temptations and deface them gracefully. Larry Gillick

-In essence, the devil says to him, "Be both in this world and of this world.  de Jong

-Jesus could play God or he could remain human

-Wherever it comes, the tempter/tester does not have the power to make someone do something. Temptation is not coercion.  Tempters can't make someone do something bad, but try to make the temptee want to do something bad. They don't take away the will. Rather, they try to change one's will.

-This duration of forty days ymbolically represents the forty weeks a child remains in its mother's womb in preparation for a new birth

-At the root of all temptation lies the so-called capital sins: pride, greed, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and laziness

QUOTES

-The temptation is not to become human, but to become a dysfunctional human,

-In his autobiography entitled Confessions, a young Augustine was in the wilderness struggling with life's carnal temptations. St. Augustine wrote, "Give me chastity and continence, but not just now." 

-"Where Humanity Fails, Jesus Prevails!"   Rev. Alex Stevenson

-  "A triumphant cry: It is accomplished!  and it was as though he had said:  Everything has begun."  Nikos Kazantzakis

--From the beginning in the Garden, to Jesus' temptations, and ours; the Liar entices us with things that appear to be good. Stoffregen

-To err is truly human

-"To err is human; to forgive is divine." "The devil made me do it." "I'm only human." “I couldn’t help myself.” These phrases suggest that when temptation comes along we are merely the victims

- I made the mistake of telling my father, "But Dad, I'm only human.!  He wisely answered, "No, the problem is you are not human enough."  Lindy  (Jesus was human enough

-- Compare Jesus struggle with 'survival' in the desert with The CBS program "Survival".  Do the ends justify the means?  Apparently on T.V.,  they do.  Rev. Beth Quick

- I wonder what Jesus would have been tempted by in the 21st century? Power?  Materials? Security?

-Vocation  is not a voice "out there" calling me to become  but it is a voice "in here" calling me to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.

-The temptations are like a table of contents to all the decisions that he would make, the miracles that he would work, and the teachings he would utter. 

-It is in times of testing or trial we are called upon to prove our true identity and character, who we are and whose we are.

-Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell

LENT

1. If something is worth giving up, it should be for more than just the few weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

2. Lent and Advent are both preparation times before a big event

3. Lent = "Lencten" meaning spring time (Old English)

4. If sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end. (Buechner)  

5. Buechner suggests that during lent we ask these questions:

     a. When you look in the mirror what do you see you most like...you most want to deplore

     b. What last message would you give to a handful of people most dear to you. (25 words or less)

     c. Which thing you have done would you most like to undo?

     d. What person, or cause would  you  die for?

     e. If this were the last day of your life, what would you do?

   Answering these help  us to  see who we are and what we are becoming.

6. Fill communion cups with water so we can taste the “almost nothing” that is living.

9.  Ash Wednesday is a kind of baptismal branding.

10. Lenten penance may be more effective if we fail in our resolutions than if we succeed for its purpose is not to confirm us  but to bring home to us our need for salvation.

11. Even our TVs assure us that if we get it right, wear the latest styles and gather the most toys we will have arrived.

ILLUSTRATIONS

 1.  Pretzel -- an ancient bakery item.  Used to be eaten only during lent.  Goes back to 5th century.  Shape is made in the form of two arms crossed in prayer.

HUMOR

- "Some people will change when they see the light. Others change only when they feel the heat.

-A London newspaper sought the help of its subscribers in addressing the problem of evil.  Readers were invited  to send in their responses to the question,  What is wrong with the world today?   The best response of all was also the briefest.  It read,  Dear Sir, I am.  Yours faithfully, G.K. Chesterton

-I generally avoid temptation, unless I can't resist it. Mae West My Little Chickadee

--"Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn. 

   Fulton Sheen

-"How come opportunity knocks only once, but temptation beats down the door every day?"

-A brilliant magician was performing on an ocean liner. But every time he did a trick, the Captain's parrot would yell, "It's a trick. He's a phony. That's not magic." Then one evening during a storm, the ship sank while the magician was performing. The parrot and the magician ended up in the same lifeboat. For several days they just glared at each other, neither saying a word to the other. Finally the parrot said, "OK, I give up. What did you do with the ship?"  (The parrot couldn't comprehend what was happening and neither could Peter.)

CHILDREN

- Bring in a remote controlled car and have some fun with it and then tell how we are not like the car....we have choice WE make.  Adam and Eve had choices.  End with the fact that even if we make a wrong choice,  God forgives and helps us start over. 

• Play the game, Simon Says and then replace "Simon Says" with the Bible Says.  Elaborate on this.
• Tell story of why pretzles are used during Lent. (illustration above) 

PRAYER PHRASES

• In our weakness, come to us in your strength. 
• We cannot reach to thee; reach thou to us. minister to us all, not acccording to our ability to ask but according to your  insight into our neeed.
• If we are blind, your light still shines. If we are deaf, you continue to speak.  If we pray, you are there, if we do not pray you are there. In our sifulness and in our righteousness you ar there….You are always there for us.  

 Comment at:  lindyblack@me.com