Category Archives: celebration

ramblings

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What a kick.  We went to the state fair today.

The first thing encountered was this:  we got the senior citizen price for admission.  We didn’t ask for it.  It just happened.  This is a bit terrifying to me.  Cooper maintains it was the company I was keeping, but really, a senior citizen???!!!!

The second thing was something I had never seen before.  Tucked into one of the areas at the fair are some twenty microphones on poles.  All of the microphones face a big screen and on that big screen lyrics to songs scroll karaoke style.  People were – really, it is true – singing in public!  With gusto!  We bellowed a few with the rest.  Watching people of all ages approach a microphone and settle in for a good sing made my heart crazy happy.

The people watching was wonderful.  Folks were happy to be out and making that oh-so difficult decision about what sort of food stuff on a stick they were going to eat next.  As for me and mine, there were no stick edibles ingested.  We suffered not.

We hovered at the MPR booth and watched Amy Klobuchar be interviewed.  It was good to be in a place where people lofted cheers about liberal-leaning sensibilities.  We stopped by a booth where one of Rachel’s friends works on Franken’s staff.  He was deep in conversation with a constituent and would not break professional-style contact with him, no matter how we misbehaved in the background.  Our Adam is all grown up now.

We saw lambs hours old and piglets the same and babies in strollers and art and quilts and Minnesota loving the stroll that is life in this state.

And this “senior citizen” walked long and gratefully, delighted to have the chance to be alive and in it on this day.

 

burp!

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It is said that in some cultures the best compliment given a chef is a healthy burp after a luscious meal.

These days, I am stuffed full of the meal that is life and it is burping season.

My birthday was yesterday.  I began it with my beloved crafting strawberry pancakes. There were no other creatures stirring in my house (of the two legged variety, anyway) so we were able to begin the day quietly and sweetly.  The ground of a fine love is a very fine thing upon which to build happiness.  This I know.

I spent the morning doing my Wednesday things:  calling my mom, sharing bible study with my men’s bible study group, doing the sorts of things that an impending worship bulletin asks of me, and savoring the great good of the best staff in Christendom.

Lunch was shared with a dear friend with whom my heart has spoken honest and true for many years.  And then, my 21 year old son and I scooted around town on the pink scooter of happiness and found ourselves with our feet in the water at the end of the dock on Lake Calhoun.  Time with him is precious.  It was great gift.

The day was brought to a close with a great feast with kin.  Interspersed throughout were birthday wishes ala Facebook and cards and I went to bed stuffed with happiness.

Today was equally fine.  I gathered with an interfaith group seeking to mobilize people of faith to defeat the upcoming marriage amendment that seeks to squelch the rights of same-gender-loving persons to join in marriage.  I met at table with a wild and passionate children’s ministry team.  Earlier in the day I prayed and strategized with a fine crew of United Methodists who are seeking to build new faith communities.

Really, how does a person burp gratitude for so much?

 

 

holy chaos

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Our church is alive with the sound of children.

It’s Vacation Bible School this week.  Every night we are gathered for dinner followed by fun and learning for toddlers on up.  There are familiar faces; people who have long called Richfield their home.

And, there are new faces.  Folks who are brave enough to enter the building for the first time, allow themselves to grab sloppy Joes and sit at a table and meet new people while children are grooving on the party scene.

Tonight, one of our children approached me and told me very important news:  today is her dad’s birthday.  Could we sing Happy Birthday to him?  Of course we did.

Think on it.  This young heart loves her dad fiercely and believes that such a love is shared best in a room full of people whom she knew well would want to share in the joy of his being.

It is beautiful, this coming together of new and old, young and not-so-young.

Outside the doors of the church the stock market is tanking, political leaders are dodging and starvation and want are all too real.

By holding VBS, we are living beyond despair; we are living into the vision of Jesus.  We are gathering at table with people who become kin.  We are tending the future in our children.  We are sharing a vision for living in community based upon sharing what we have because we can and because our God calls us to bless.  We are raising up disciples of Jesus the Christ in order that our children might know grounding in care for creation.

Maybe they can help us to remember.

 

call and response

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Having no sermon to write tomorrow, I spent Saturday morning on a city stroll.

The Uptown Art Fair is going on a mile or so from my home.  It was pure pleasure to hop on the pink scooter of happiness, zip down to the happening, park at a bike rack and wander the streets.

The most fascinating art on display was of the human variety.  Folks were dressed in their beat-the-heat best.  Hand in hand, in groups or alone, the beauty hunters were fine to behold.

Also fine to behold were the various artists in their booths of soul work.  I’m not sure how they have the courage to sit and watch people pick over their offerings.  The appreciation shown would be wondrous.  But how to summon the strength to watch people walk on by without stopping to soak in the gift of your offering?

I found myself thinking about artists of many stripes;  preachers and worship leaders, for example.   Every time we pray over, craft, and offer the art of worship and preaching, we are vulnerable to the reactions of the community.  It’s hard not to take it personally.

But there is in us each a longing for soul expression.  So we muster the courage to nurture it and share it.  We bring that expression to our parenting, our loving, our writing, our painting, our lives.

We cannot believe that sharing such expression will not be met with at least one soul who recognizes our song.

On a hot Saturday in Minneapolis, the air was ringing with the power of call and response.

 

elemental wonder

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“The hearing ear and the seeing eye, The Lord has made both of them” (Proverbs 20:12).

Sometimes it feels like the advertising industry and our culture conspire to keep us distanced from our bodies:  we perfume them and pill them and manipulate them (and why the use of the word “them” when our bodies are our very selves?) to remain compliant and (yeah, right) controlled.

And then we step away from all that and become students of our flesh.  For me, becoming reacquainted with wonder is one of the huge gifts of embarking on a Boundary Waters trip.

Suddenly, with the first water-dipped paddle, awareness grows that this “thing” we walk our brains around in is an essential and elemental miracle.  And, it is fragile and capable of amazing feats and aches, both.

I have just returned from a trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Northern Minnesota.  I went with eleven other women from our church (two groups) for four nights.

Looking at maps and planning routes is part of the fun – sort of like looking at travel brochures, only better, because imagination is the only visual available.  Tales shared by others about great routes or lakes are guidance.

And then, after months of imaginings, the route unfolds before you.  The remembered weight of a canoe balanced on your shoulders is reality, and the real work of carrying your house and provisions in a pack is commenced.

This trip featured some awful portages (a portage, for the uninitiated, is a trail connecting one lake with another).  They were rocky, steep, muddy and many, and we did them with a goodly chorus of laughter and muttering.

Our destination was a lake six portages in.  We set up camp in a gorgeous spot and savored our efforts through the torrential thunderstorms (five plus inches of water during one of them!) and hot days.  Our return trip was full of white-capped winds.  It was not pretty.

We worked.  We lived.  We laughed.  We were so blessed to be creatures aware of the wonder of bodies able to lift and move and we were able to relish days during which we let go of agenda and life swirl.

Sitting around camp fires, sharing meals under a minuscule tarp with rain sheeting from the sky, enjoying conversation circles while bobbing in a crystal lake, waking through the night to the movement of the moon, and marking the wonder of ankles that support, knees that bend, arms that propel and bellies that laugh is elemental wonder.

Savoring the uniqueness of the Holy as it lives in each person in the group is reminder that we carry within us essential grace fired by the imagination of our Creator.

I return from BWCA trips so full of gratitude.  Immersion in elemental wonder revives and reminds.

The swirl of life is real.  So too is the amazing wisdom and strength of the flesh.

bittersweet gratitude

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Three years ago our church welcomed a new pastor.  The new pastor was new to the church.  He was not new to me.

Max and I became friends during seminary.  We gravitated toward each other because of a shared love of good coffee, deep laughs and the zing that is life in community.  Max visited my family in Duluth, and when I heard about my move to Richfield, it was Max who hosted me and my family as we looked for a new home.

So when it became real that he was going to be appointed here at Richfield, I was excited for the church to partake of his goodness and light.

It has been three years of enjoying his voice in song and leadership, his great ability to connect with people and the ring of his laugh.

And, he is moving to pastor a church excited to receive him.

Tomorrow, on Pentecost Sunday, we will bless him on his way.  We will worship and hear him preach and share a meal together in fine UM pot-luck style (only one English-speaking service tomorrow at 9:00; the Vietnamese service will be at its usual 11:15 time in the sanctuary).

Poet Anne Sexton wrote that “The joy that isn’t shared dies young”.  The joy we have shared whilst in the company of Max will bless this church into its future.  It has a life that will sparkle the air for always.

So we pray traveling mercies and gratitude for joy shared; taken into heart and unloosed through our own willingness to live light and love and our intention to share the communion of joy so often as ever we can.

Blessings, Max.

 

play

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This weekend we celebrated evangelism through bounce house and band.

On Saturday our church parking lot was swarming with a rainbow of neighbors who came to pet animals, eat popcorn and soak in funky music.  We hosted a community carnival as a way to welcome folks into the flat-out fun that is community in Christ.  There were local celebrities in the dunk tank, church-made egg rolls and grins all around.  Four hours and a sunburn later, I went home via the air.  My heart was lofted.

This morning we led worship at the Lake Harriet band shell.  On the stage were an amazing assortment of musicians and two oh-so-giddy Pastors.  In the benches were church folk and neighbors who were there to take in the opportunity to praise God with a sailboat regatta backdrop.  The swallows in the rafters of the band shell joined in the song of thanks and together we celebrated life in the wonder of creation and community. The potluck that followed was shared with all who had hunger.  We met new people.  We broke bread in an elemental meal of abundant thanksgiving.

Again, the road back to home was flown.

It is so good to peel back the walls of the church and share the heart that beats through our ministry.  It is so good to share who we are and what it is that grounds us.

We reached out not through some grim sense of ought but because we are so blessed we can’t sing or taste it enough.

Holy play makes for good.  It was a romping weekend.

It was church.

prayerful dissent

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I am an ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church; somewhat miracle, that.

My heart got swept into the movement of people who are moved by relationship with the Christ to engage in the world in such a way that healing happens.  We touch with justice and compassion out of gratitude for our daily wash in grace;  we can’t help it.

We are an international church.  We make decisions that affect the life of our movement every four years.  At this gathering, persons come from across the world.  The numbers of delegates sent to vote on policy matters are determined by the numbers of people who know themselves as United Methodists in that area.  United Methodism is strong in numbers in Africa and in the Southern United States.  It is not as strong in numbers in areas traditionally less conservative.  In the case of Minnesota for the upcoming General Conference, we are able to send only 3 clergy and 3 lay delegates to represent our entire state.

So trying to impact church-wide policy in ways held to be crucial by many is a sometimes long and painful process.

And so it is that while the ELCA, Presbyterian Church USA, Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ movements of Jesus have all voted to enflesh the meaning of baptism by ordaining persons who are heterosexual as well as homosexual and offer services of blessing to couples of the same-sex who desire the elemental good of the celebration of relationship within the bounds of community, the United Methodist Church has not been able to free itself from the bonds of a long-lived denial of baptismal and inclusive grace.

When we are ordained as UM clergy, we agree to uphold the Discipline of the United Methodist Church.  Many of us, as we made this vow, knew that the challenge of upholding that discipline would be great, given the jangle of unjust embedded within it.

I certainly knew the challenge of it, even as I took my ordination vow.  But I figured I would work with all that I had to pray and listen and lead the church into a more grace- based embrace of all of God’s children.  I have organized regional conferences, spoken at the state capitol numerous times, been a contributor to a published teaching piece put out by the Human Rights Campaign, led two congregations through a Reconciling process, and spoken from the pulpit about this issue (some would say incessantly!).

As the years have unfolded, the pain for me has become magnified.  Beloveds of their creator have found community in churches I have pastored and while the joining of hearts within longed-for community in Christ has been stunning in its beauty and power, the reality has persisted:  we welcome, we delight in the being of all of God’s createds, we proclaim the abundant, amazing and endless grace of God but when it comes to blessing the love work of same gendered couples and the pastoral work of same gender loving clergy, the policy of the UM church maintains that there are limits to grace and clergy are ordained to Word, Sacrament, Order and Policing.

I have had couples come to me.  Couples who are in love and in the throes and celebration of mutual unfolding and they are desirous of blessing.  For whatever reasons, including taxes and inheritances and other such state-driven impediments, they do not desire legal marriage.  But they wonder: might they call together their beloveds and hear spoken over their love a blessing by their pastor?

Desirous as we are for integration of our loves into our spiritual and social lives, of course such blessing is a natural outgrowth of a fulsome life.

And yet, we deny such to persons who live and love and raise children and bless their churches and the world with the living of their discipleship.  We deny blessing.

This year at Annual Conference a petition was circulated.  The text is below.

We joyfully affirm that we will offer the grace of the Church’s blessing to any prepared couple desiring Christian marriage. We are convinced by the witness of others and are compelled by Spirit and conscience to act.  We thank the many United Methodists who have already called for full equality and inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the life of the Church. 

 

We repent that it has taken us so long to act. We realize that our church’s discriminatory policies tarnish the witness of the Church to the world, and we are complicit.  We value our covenant relationships and ask everyone to hold the divided community of the United Methodist Church in prayer. 

I signed.  I signed because in the teachings of Jesus I see the outreaching of grace and life lived in the seeking of justice enfleshed in community.  I signed because my words about the expansive grace and welcome of God are clanging gongs if I am not willing to participate in the healing good that is blessing and naming relationships that make for life.  I signed because my pastor’s heart can bear no more the double-speak of grace abundant and barricades maintained.

I do not know what this means in the living of my call.  It can mean being brought up on charges.  It can mean losing my credentials in a movement I have given my spirit to.  It can mean being booted out of the open door church.

Prior to putting my name and heart to the petition, I talked with our Staff Parish Relations Committee about my inclination to sign.  I didn’t want to sign without the blessing of the church body I am amazed to know myself a part of.

They gave their blessing.

And so, God as my partner, witness and guide; so will I.  I’m a minister of the gospel of Jesus the Christ.  God has graced me with a hunger for lived wholeness and hope in community sprung from the heart of Jesus.

The time for heart healing, the time for blessing, the time for prayerful dissent is now.

memories

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Memorial Day has always been a weekend of cabin and family.  After retirement my father was a purveyor of popcorn, ice cream, pop and curiosity from his club car bus at the park in Moose Lake.  The Macaulay and Moose Lake Holyoke Railroad Popcorn Bus was a park fixture.  Dad loved the chance to interact with people, and proudly proclaimed his popcorn the best there ever could be.  He was right about that.

On Memorial Day he would drive the bus to our cabin, park it, and let the grandkids gorge themselves on all the treats they wanted.

It was disgusting and wonderful, both.  Our children would be covered in various forms of sticky and their sense of amazement at this free access to the forbidden was wonderful to behold.

Fifteen years ago, the day after Memorial Day, my father died of a massive heart attack.  I had called him in the morning to thank him and check in, and by the afternoon he was gone.

So Memorial Day, as leaves were raked, flowers planted, and time shared with my family at the cabin sans treat bus, I thought much about the unfolding of family and the changing meanings of same and the thread of grace and faith that stitches life together.

Fifteen years ago, as we hugged goodbye, never did I imagine that I would no more be able to hug that skinny and rumbly body again.  There are so many never-could-have-imagineds that have commenced since that time.

And, the flowers got planted.  The celebration that is life was shared.  The belief in the power of what will be was lived into through conversations and loving and savoring what is.

It is the shining possibility of now that makes for later memories.  It is taking in the crunch of dirt under nails, the heave of belly through laugh and the smelling of life in flower and neck.

And, there is gratitude.  Gratitude for the quirky gift that is family in all its vexations. Gratitude for the souls of those who blessed and live yet through our hearts and passions. Gratitude that thirty-some years from now, my children will be planting flowers and thinking thoughts about how it is we encountered life together.

I will be there as my father is there and so too will their children hear the stories and plant newness of life in the sweet yearn of memory.

how it is

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Blending families is not for the faint of heart.

I married a man who has three children.  I have three children.  We came together when said children were launching into life.  They were and are young adults fine of mind, body and spirit.

When contemplating this blending adventure, I drew pictures in my mind of a doubled tribe happily meshing into a glorious larger whole.  Our children, who already liked each other immensely, would take to the shared roof adventure with great gusto.

And so they have.  But not in the ways my imagination drew.

What we are discovering is that each group needs its time.  So this weekend, Cooper has travelled to Kansas City to be with his three children and mine are gathering here for a trip to the holy land of the cabin.

For a weekend, we will live rhythms of family we have known for decades.  Of course there will be cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  Of course it will be hard to get Jameson out of bed.  Of course we will sit under the stars and feel awe.  No one will have to be explained into shared memories and jokes, and the delicate work that is weaving the new will be given over to relaxing into the old.

Years ago I would have counted this parallel play as indictment of the new.  Now I see it as healthy and celebratory relishing of the power of growing up in a stew of shared assumptions and ways of being.  In psycho-speak, we’re affirming differentiation. Relishing the apart does nothing to malign the new.

So, when Leah steps off the plane from Denver tonight, we will load three siblings, a dog, a cat, and a humming mother into a Jetta (it’s a good thing we like each other and the dog will not be wet!) and make the trek to the cabin.  For a weekend, we will be teasing, savoring people who have shared so much life, love, and struggle.

When Cooper joins us on Sunday, he will be washed with the same and the glow from his own time with his babies will shine from him.

That’s how it is.  Thanks be to God.