Category Archives: celebration

paradox

Posted on by
1

I’m speaking at a rally at the State Capital on Thursday.  It’s a rally in support of a notion that seems a no-brainer:  that all God’s children ought have the ability to live with their beloveds in such a way that they are accorded civic rights assumed by heterosexual couples.

It is a paradox.  In an age and time when our communities are desperate for the living of lives based upon love and mutual respect, there seems an insatiable desire to condemn same-gender-loving people.  Energies and money sorely needed for the growth of grace are expended trying to circle the moral wagons around an institution seemingly under attack from “those people”:  “Those people” who go to work, raise children, pay taxes, and love deeply people of their same gender.

Why the fear?  Will the house of cards based upon culturally mandated roles come tumbling down if same-sex marriages are accorded full rights and respect?  If gays and lesbians are allowed to marry, how does this threaten anyone?  In an age when nearly 50% of heterosexual marriages end in divorce, what would happen if our society’s collective angst were put to use supporting all couples and families?

Some fifty years from now, we will wonder that such injustice against our GLBT brothers and sisters went on.  Our grandchildren will wonder how it was unequal rights were explained and assumed.

In the meantime, rallies are scheduled and advocacy shared because the circle of grace threatens to be made smaller and smaller by the very folk who claim to speak for the heart of our expansive God.

It’s a paradox.

not yet

Posted on by
Reply

The men’s bible study at our church is reading Abraham by Bruce Feiler.  It’s an exploration of Abraham, the common patriarch of religions that could use more reminding of our common roots:  Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

One of the great nuggets unpacked in today’s reading is this:  Abraham didn’t even hit the scene until he was 75 years old.  Prior to that, he was that most-to-be-pitied men of his age: He was childless, without heirs, a non-creator in a faith story all about creation.

Imagine it.  Going about our days and making meaning and life and feeling pretty swell (or not) about that and then, at an age when we might be forgiven for figuring we are out of the game, God shows up with invitation.

Leave it all.  Set out.  Trust me.  I’ve got work aplenty for you.  You haven’t seen anything yet.  See those stars overhead?  They will forever more be sign of your willingness to partner with me.

I like this God who is never done with us.  I like the sense that never are we without the ability to participate in creating new life.  I like the sense that no one is out of the game and that God calls each to follow, to move into the unknown, to trust.

The stars twinkle and the call to holy partnership is. 

Living in the “not yet” is soul stretching promise.

new life for all

Posted on by
2

I have been asked to preach at a service of ordination.

I’m terrified and thrilled and moved and honored and oh, so hopeful.  The woman being ordained has been a pastor for years.  She has led and blessed and moved and witnessed as a whole woman of God in a denomination that welcomes her wholeness.

But she had to search far from home to find that denomination.  Because she is a same-gender-loving woman, she has been forced to wander through many places of parch and pain until she found herself in the Metropolitan Community Church where she was welcomed and is welcomed and there she has been.

And, her heart kept calling her home; home to the Lutheran church which, until a year or so ago, would not welcome the full glory of her being.

She is coming home on Sunday.  She will be ordained in the ELCA, a denomination willing to pray and ground and be in the way of Jesus; inclusive and welcoming of All God’s Children.

This is weeping material for my heart.  I feel such gratitude for her courage and tenacious belief that the church can be grace.  I feel hope for a world in which the church is willing to be living grace.  I feel humbled by the preaching task and honored and I pray so very fervently that some day my church, the United Methodist Church, will allow the floodgates of grace to open for all of God’s beloveds.

We need that washing of grace.

life song

Posted on by
Reply

I am a Sound of Music-crazy fan.

What to say about that…Christopher Plummer, Liesel’s dresses, unlikely love impossible to quench… ah me, so fine.  And then there is the singing.  I wanted to grow up and sing like Julie Andrews sings, whether on mountaintop or cloistered.

One of my favorite songs from the movie is not in the Broadway version.  It is entitled “I Have Confidence” and is sung while Maria is walking toward an impossible-to-imagine challenge in her life.  She takes it on, of course, guitar in hand, ugly dress belling out as she dances into believing in herself.

If only it were that simple.  But maybe it is.  There are times in life when we feel overwhelmed and run over and way inadequate and we want to wimper rather than sing.

But the world is made so small without our being fully in it and love and adventure await and the cobblestones of our life path await our tap dance and darn it, singing our way into confidence or whatever sort of mantra-like activity we want to embrace that reminds us that we ARE and we are meant to be fully and wildly and improbably alive; that kind of cavort is life and it is ours to take up.

So why not dance into believing in ourselves? 

Why not indeed.

elves

Posted on by
Reply

The tree is up.

The nativity sets are unpacked, the stockings are hung by the chimney and the house smells of sap.

The ritual of preparing living space as proclamation of hope is sacred work.  There are musts in my home:  Julie Andrews has to sing, the stupid looking elf must be at the top of the tree, and the Christmas village has to be arranged and wired to shine.

I wonder sometimes about the hassle of it all.  Who has time for such nonsense, anyway?  Why not skip the pine needles under foot and the clutter of it all?  My kids are grown, the grandchildren not yet, and life is busy busy busy.

But what I have come to is that I need it, this ritual of hope.  I need to unwrap ornaments made by my children in kindergarten.  I need to remember Christmases past when dressing the tree for Christmas was a work of great excitement and joy.  I need to mourn the passing of years and savor the richness of the now and I need to deck our halls with the familiar.

It matters greatly.  When my children arrive from places far from home, they will know themselves wrapped in the good of a place where goofy elves straddle tree tops and rituals of hope are commenced and space proclaims through scent and sight:

Een so Lord Jesus, quickly  come.

phoenix

Posted on by
Reply

The whole world was watching as 33 Chilean miners were born again.

For a time the snarl of fear was vanquished.  We were all attendants at the miracle of birth.  The tube would go down, the men come up, the hugs and smiles and wonder shared, the wonder palpable.

The world was united, breathing with men trapped in the earth womb that held them fast.  Countries lent brains and technology and from every corner of the world prayers were voiced for the safe delivery of the 33.

Thirty three men brought us to a place of oneness while worlds and hearts away, hundreds of men and women and children faced the fracture of war for yet another day.

The phoenix delivered, we rejoiced, and for a time we were reminded that when the many become one, miracles are.

rolled r country

Posted on by
3

I write from Edinburgh, Scotland. 

A group of 31 pilgrims from Minnesota launched on a great adventure October 1st.  Trusting that there was soul food to be found in deliberately choosing to immerse ourselves in Celtic wisdom and stillness, we set out.

And we are here!  This is the second stop on our journey.  We have encountered rain, castles, kindreds, belly busting laughter, and the Holy at each step.

It feels like coming home.  Travelling to Lindisfarne, England, to worship and take in a place where people have gathered since the mid 600’s to create community in order to immerse themselves in God, the power of place has been elemental.  There is a soul knowing that kin are not of blood only, but of heart and desire.

The crew from RUMC are a gloried lot.  We are behaving (mostly) and so many times a day I pray blessing on our church community, our promise, and our call.

Making church together is a Holy pilgrimage.  We do Body building in the mundane and the exquisite, and whilst this Wednesday night I may be eating Haggis, I am aware that across the miles there are folks sitting down to a meal and classes and choir and bell rehearsals and we do this weaving of life together because we are called as those have been called through the ages:  we want to worship the God of  life and love. 

And we know that fellow soul travellers on the journey make all the difference.

color and light

Posted on by
Reply

Ok, every season is my favorite.

But fall, maybe in particular this fall, is my favorite.

We ventured north for a two-day respite and were blessed with splashy color flung everywhere.  Our eyes couldn’t take in enough, particularly with the fall gift of amazing honey light. 

It seems as though during fall blue skies are more intense, the warmth of the sun made more precious for its waning power, and the smell of earth making earth the most delectable of nose treats.

I’m leaving for Scotland in two days.  While I find myself mourning the missing of fall in Minnesota, I am ajangle with wondering how fall sings in the land of my ancestors.

Color and light in a land beloved by kin, from generation to generation.  I travel from Minnesota to Scotland with pores wide open.

I’m ready!

a day in the life

Posted on by
Reply

One hundred and fifty people came to Richfield UMC today.  Each left with two bags of food, a birthday bag, a children’s book, and please God, a sense that the community of Jesus followers do more than talk about justice and grace.

We have come to know each other through the years of fourth Saturday food ministry.  We work side by side to unload the truck, sort food, bag potatoes and onions and today, briny hard-boiled eggs.  We communicate with smiles and broken English and while we spend this time together there is so much we do not know about the lives lived outside the doors of the church.

People leave with bags of groceries.  We feel good about that.  But as important for the privileged that call our church home, we have a sense of who the often unseen neighbors are who are made in the image of our creator God.

One woman told me today of her dying husband, her incarcerated son, her battered body, and her sense of impending doom as the months tick by before she has to vacate her home.  I watched English-speaking and Spanish-speaking youth work together to sort and distribute bags of goodies provided by the Richfield Rotary.  They had a job to do and savored the work and the gift of partnership.

Following the food distribution I visited a member of the church who has been in the world of dementia for years.  She had fallen and broken a hip, survived the surgery, and on the other side had begun to fail.  When I entered her room her daughter was there and her eyes lit up and while her words indicated her presence in another realm, her eyes communicated joy and life and oh, to be witness to the love of a daughter and the spirit of a woman some ninety years old.  I left blessed.

There are zillions of questions to answer, prayers to breathe, a sermon to write, chores to be done and wonder to be named. 

This life called ministry is rich beyond the telling.

in gathering

Posted on by
Reply

I have yet to serve a congregation that gets summer sloggy.  I hear from people that summer means slow-down, but not for me and the world of church.

We’re turning a corner tomorrow.  It’s Rally Sunday, the day when we welcome back the dispersed:  the cabin folk, the choir, the Sunday School teachers, the happy re-gathered  who make for the buzz of chaos and new. 

I love it.

In a world that has jettisoned ritual in ways that wound, we are marking new beginnings. 

At such times I marvel at the thing called “church”.  We come together, diverse of politic, age, longings, and passions, and we stop the scramble of life for a time to place ourselves in the melting pot that is worship of God.  We see welcome on faces and allow ourselves to know the good of being one of many dedicated to a vision larger than our lives.

On this Rally Sunday eve I am full of thanks for the Body that is church.  Tired as I am of all the muck throwing and fear stirring of these days, I’m blessed to throw in my lot with the hope filled, heart warmed, clutsy and beautiful followers of the message of love.

And there is popcorn, to boot!