saints

Posted on May 4, 2011 by emacaulay

Today we celebrated the life of a brother. The Rev. Jim Dodge lived life with an honest and searching heart.

At his funeral today we named our love for him and the real challenge that is living as people fully aware of the power of grace.

And we sang and prayed our gratitude for having known such a one as Jim.

One of the traditions of the UM church in MN is that at funerals for our colleagues, we sing as a clergy choir. This tradition never ceases to humble me. When it came time to sing for our brother and from our own need to witness, the front of the church became packed with people who have opted to give their lives over to ministry.

I’m proud to be one of that number.

And, I am so grateful that our lives are held by the hand of the Holy and we walk our days in the company of so much that is good.

The squirrely and painful days are real. But oh, to be able to come together and name our gratitude is soul tonic. The grief is real, but it is shared and stirred into a huge pot of grace and for that on this day I breathe thanks.

God speed, Jim. And, thanks for your touch on the lives of the so many who call you teacher and friend.

soul weave

Posted on April 1, 2011 by emacaulay

I am preparing for a women’s retreat.

Thirty-one of us from church are spending a weekend apart from the things that claim and name us.

This year, we are learning from a yoga teacher the ways we might imagine and live integration of our beings. This is no ordinary teacher. Deborah is a friend of many years, and watching her unfold into the teacher she is has been constant reminder to me that we each are called and we get to choose to answer. Deborah did. She is now running a thriving studio, writing books, and crafting life in such a way that others come to soak in her presence.

We get to soak in presence. The presence of each woman on the retreat is unique and remarkable. It is no small gifting, this time apart. We are presented with the chance to claim and name our own beings.

As I am readying myself for this year and the thirty-one who will make community for a weekend, I am reminded of the yearly groups who have gone before. I have led retreats some twelve times or so. Each time I am wondered; how is it God creates such complex and stunning beauty? How is it we are allowed the chance to grow and learn and laugh together?

I’m aware that each woman who has gone on retreat through the years is with me yet. I think of them as I pack and ready. I remember and give thanks and pray that this weekend will bring rest and stretch for this year’s batch of beauty.

We walk in community always. The chance to be apart to remember strengthens our being. Each woman, unique and beautiful and seeking and open is woven forever into the story that is life.

Amazing grace, that.

If

Posted on March 31, 2011 by emacaulay

If you hate injustice, tyranny, lust and greed, hate these things in yourself. Gandhi

It feels sometimes as though we are consuming ourselves.

I read last week that the state of Minnesota is considering harvesting trees from state park lands to sell at the market to bail us out of financial woe.

I read this morning that cuts are being made to health care for the poor in our state. They will be shifted to private health care in order for the state to cut its costs and while surely cuts must be made we know beyond a doubt that many will fall through the health care cracks.

Schools are fighting for survival, infrastructure is unraveling and the words being traded across public airwaves are hate and fear speak.

And most troubling to this mother’s heart is this report from my daughter. In checking her voice mail upon entering her work day, she heard on the recording the sound of automatic gun fire. Just that. Just that.

She works for NARAL. She works with an organization that works to insure that all women retain the decision-making power over their own bodies.

Evidentally the work of her organization inspired someone to spew the deadly sounds of hate and fear into her office and most fearsomely, into her heart.

How do we, as a people grounded in a movement insistent upon care for creation, get honest about the health and honesty of our own hearts? How do we root around and name the resentments, fear, injustices and tyrannies that lurk in our own hearts? Once found, how do we exorcize them, making room for the cultivation of belief in a peace that generates life?

Rather than grinding the seed corn of our future, we are called to mulch the soil of that which we tend first and foremost: our own hearts. From such tending, the future of creation is made verdant.

Rather than consuming ourselves, we choose to grow grace and peace and hope, assured that there is enough for all: enough compassion, enough food, enough care, enough.

We choose.

not here

Posted on March 24, 2011 by emacaulay

I have heard tell of people soaking in the splash of seed catalogues as a reminder that the earth is capable of soft.

As for me, it is the REI catalogue that wings my imagination.

I got my dividend check in the mail yesterday and it has sparked a delightful run on summer thoughts. I page through the catalogue wondering what kind of gadget simply must be mine.

Maybe this year is the year of the new tent. Every year I take teens into the Boundary Waters. We have a great crew of adults who know the rhythm of it all and together we make village together on the edge of the big wilderness. Last year began a yearly tradition of taking a group of women in. It is yet another excuse to be on the water in the midst of wild. Creation is teacher and therapist, both.

For years I have wanted my own tent. I’ve borrowed Cooper’s (this is love, to allow another to borrow their tent) for years. It’s a fine tent, but for a long time there has been a longing for a tent of my own in which to dwell for a time.

So the REI check and catalogue have me examining tents. What color, what style, what weight; what matters? I know before too long I’ll be at the store clinching the deal.

And in the meantime, I am no longer in the midst of winter. I am setting up camp in some impossibly beautiful site, savoring coffee and sparkling water and the reassuring zip into the tent of my dreams after a day spent living in my body.

It may be spring/winter outside, but inside, I have canoe paddle in hand and I’m off on adventure.

Not a bad dividend!

death by paper cuts

Posted on March 22, 2011 by emacaulay

Someone once said that the practice of ministry is like death by a thousand paper cuts.

It was belly laugh material, that quote. It was belly laugh material because it hit a spark of true deep within.

The world is a changing. In the midst of the changes going on around us, the role and function of local church pastors is changing as well. It is a challenging time to be a church leader, because the needs of the job today often disappoint those who have a vision of what the ideal church pastor of the past was called upon to do.

First and foremost, pastors have to be gifted organizers. In a culture where most couples are both working outside the home and the claims upon time and energies is seemingly relentless, churches have to figure out how to mobilize volunteers in ways that bless. We are run by the members of the church. Increasingly church members are stretched overly so keeping an organization alive that relies upon the passion and gifts of volunteers is no small trick.

Secondly, the financial realities are relentless. Running a building, supervising and funding staff and program are clamorous challenges. In an age when the gospel of scarcity is being pounded into our beings, lifting a vision of the good of giving to an organization designed to give itself away is full-time must.

Thirdly, remembering why we exist takes spiritual discipline. The interpersonal jabbing and squabbling that happens in Bodies is sometimes demoralizing. Perhaps the greatest place of heart ache for me is the demeaning and denigrating of what is without helping to create what could be. It’s a lot easier to sit on the sidelines lobbing in criticism than joining in to build a vision that transforms.

After church on Sunday I was exhausted. It wasn’t the preaching and conversing and worshipping that got me. It was the paper cuts. One at a time, comments thrown my direction are easy to slough off. But collectively? Collectively the effect was an oozing pastor desperate for Sabbath.

We are doing transformational work at our church. Transformation asks us to move into a different way of being and on most days that movement hums in the very air we breathe.

On other days I become aware that my own spiritual practices are not optional. Moving into a new day and being church in a new day requires naming of paper cuts, conversations about how to facilitate healthy communication, and a goodly and endless sense of being grounded in grace.

We get to do this thing called church. It is gift. It is messy.

It doesn’t have to be fatal.

big boom

Posted on March 17, 2011 by emacaulay

I was driving my guy to the emergency room this morning (he is fine) when I got a call from a church member. Since I was intent upon my wifely task, it took me awhile to figure out who was calling and what it was that was going on. I could tell there was anxiety in her voice and I worried that she had health emergencies in her family.

No, that wasn’t it. What it she was worried about was that five blocks from our church, a major gas leak sparked a major explosion. She was concerned about the safety of folk at her church. She wanted to make sure that we were alright.

I called the church right away and they had heard nothing about it. Thankfully, the explosion was contained to the one site. Thankfully, in a very busy commercial area, no one was hurt. The odds of an explosion and geyser of flame leaving no victims is wonderment.

We live in a time of enhanced awareness of mortality. Radioactive waftings from Japan, tsunamis gulping lives and infrastructure crumbling are realities. We are no longer able to blithely go about our daily lives sure that the catastrophic won’t touch our lives; it does.

So what are we to make of all of this? Well, for this woman given assurance that her husband is safe from harm on this day, the need to hold and savor beloveds is great.

What we are given in life is the relationships into which we pour our love. Being able to enter church and poke my head into a St Patrick’s Day party (complete with cloggers!) hosted by our elders and attended by our day care was almost sacramental. Watching our choir director at the organ console while the new pipes are being tuned was assurance that while explosions are real, so too is the voicing of praise and belief in the power beyond chaos.

We build in the midst of crumble. It has always been so. During these days when so much around us feels tentative, we get to tend the foundations of our world by loving fiercely and crafting with heart.

The church got many calls throughout the day. People reach out. They care. It matters.

purity

Posted on March 17, 2011 by emacaulay

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

One of the small groups at church is exploring the beatitudes; the series of blessings Jesus lays out as part of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew.

The “purity” word is a loaded one. It has become so nuanced with the things that our culture has taught us are un pure – namely, the expressions of body sexual in nature. So two great things – sex and the concept of purity – get marred in one fell swoop.

As with most things, it’s bigger than our containers, this notion of purity. Purity of heart has to do with honest reflection and willingness to turn and come to know ourselves in the company of the Holy. A great line I ran across lately seems to say it all: “Everything you are, God already knows and loves”. So why work so creatively at dodging both self and God?

Tonight, I was in the presence of hearts purely shining. We gathered for Lenten contemplative worship in the chapel. We are embracing a Benedictine-type service of Word, prayer, silence, and communion. It’s only half an hour in length but oh, the opportunity to share the sound of silence together in the shine of candles is holy gift.

The world is swirling around us with messages of fear and wrench but for a time we opened our seeking-to-be-open hearts to our gracious God.

Blessed, indeed.

ashes

Posted on March 9, 2011 by emacaulay

Today is Ash Wednesday.

In the Christian tradition, it is a time set apart to fully face our mortality and the power of our walk with the Christ.

This morning, our church hosted the annual Ash Wednesday service for clergy in the Metro area. It is gift, this service, because clergy have the opportunity to be gathered with the faith community that grounds and holds us through this fully engaging art called ministry. As United Methodists, we are deeply rooted in our connection, one to the other. So gathering with our sisters and brothers to remember our brokenness and the invitation to knit our souls together through the transformational welcome of Jesus is soul feast of the finest order.

Too, I had the opportunity to craft and lead worship with dearly beloved soul sisters. We have known and appreciated each other since forever. “Working” with friends to create space for Spirit to bless is a natural voicing of relationship. It is intimate and trust-grounded work.

Today, as we sat around round tables, one of my sisters invited us to be mindful of what it was we were doing as we marked each other with the sign of mortality and resurrection life. She invited us to feel each other’s skin and being as we marked each other with ashes. It was an invitation to give thanks for the body beauty walking in each. It was holy, holy.

We are mortal. We long for the sparking of transformation in our lives. We muddle about longing for a sense of the larger picture of the Holy and sometimes, sometimes we find ourselves reminded.

We are created from the garden of God’s wildly loving imagination. To that garden our bodies will return. The in between is what we are given.

Sitting at table, remembering our connection and call, the Spirit spoke claiming and calm into our souls. Tonight, gathered around those same tables will be members and friends of RUMC who bring themselves into a place where longing for life is named and cherished. They too will be invited to be present to mystery.

We journey toward transformation in the company of the Holy.

Thanks be.

homecoming

Posted on March 8, 2011 by emacaulay

Wherever you go, there you are.

I took myself to a sun drenched place. And there I was; surrounded by water and wind and steeped in the reality that where I am is gift.

Somehow changing physical location helps me always to name as sacred my spiritual location. Taking the time to breathe sans responsibilities for the machinations of church and home makes room in my being for the Spirit wind to wake my awareness of the “where I am”.

One of the rituals I treasure about vacation is allowing a book to be spiritual partner. This vacation, I picked up a book entitled “Broken Open: How difficult times can help us grow” by Elizabeth Lesser. The book serves as birthing coach for its readers. Times of pain and sorrow are real and given and they are priceless opportunity for soul to ground and grow. The book is laced with real.

Sanibel Island was our vacation host last week. It is a seeming Mecca for people hungry to be connected with the land and the beauty of creation. It was so for me last week. And it was so for me fifteen years ago when I was there with my family. My children were young and under my roof, and I was married to their father.

My children are no longer young and under my roof and I am no longer married to their father. The grief of divorce is a panging constant. It was hard at times to be in a place that had been a part of the “there you are” that was my life for 23 years.

So Lesser’s book was partner as I considered what it is to grow and release and allow and affirm and choose to be broken open in order to be born. Paying attention to grief is important soul work. So too is tracing the places where the cracking open of excruciating pain has allowed flowering and new life to be.

I am blessed, this I know. Blessed by a making of life that created three amazing people and 23 years of partnership. Blessed by living the dark nights of the soul that led me into a love and life that hum with meaning and wonder. Blessed by the presence of the Holy, breathing with me as new life insists on being born.

Blessed by the daughter who picked us up at the airport and merrily brought us home to a cleaned house. Blessed by the courage of my children and the dance of their lives. Blessed by a former partner who is friend. Blessed by a church willing to do the hard work of seeking to see the Christ in all. Blessed by a now partner who knows my foibles and sees my soul.

I took myself to a sun drenched place and I come home warmed by living life.

Here I am.

Living Waters

Celebrating the Sacred

Category Archives: Christianity