Category Archives: community in Christ

wonder

Posted on by
1

Desks and seemingly must-do tasks can run my life.

Maybe you know something about that.

When I look up from the emails and phone calls and clamorous things that need tending, I find that time and energy have zipped by yet again.

So it feels especially crucial to me to get out and spend time with people.  Flesh and blood heart beating people are what center me and my work.

I spent near two hours (where did the time go???) with a woman who has long called RUMC home.  She is one of those members who have given so much to their church and who struggle to get moving early enough to catch the church bus to attend worship and who has seen so much change and who feels increasingly invisible in her church.

Many of her friends have died.  The people she knew and so very importantly, the people who knew her by name are no longer in the pew beside her.  She sang in the choir.  Her husband was an accomplished soloist.  The pictures in her home feature eyes eagerly engaging the world and energy to embrace adventure.

She gracefully shared her sense of grief about her sense of growing invisibility.  That is no small trick.  The hurts of being unseen can fester and erupt in bitterness.  Not so for her.  She cares enough about her church and her pastor to name her heart.  It is honor to be in the company of such a one.

Through her I am blessed.

Often we talk in churches about how vital it is to greet visitors.  I was reminded on Friday how vital it is that we greet each person we encounter in church.  In the body of each beats a heart longing for recognition and acknowledgement.

I talk often of the wonder of parents of young children who go through the considerable challenge of readying all of their charges and themselves for worship.

What my sister in Christ reminded me of is the importance of experiencing wonder and appreciation for each person who goes through the considerable challenge of readying themselves for worship, particularly when bodies are reluctant to move because years have been encountered.

Tomorrow is Rally Sunday.  My prayer is that all feel welcomed and all feel wondrous about our shared call to transformation in Christ.

 

trashing

Posted on by
2

I’m sniffing in the air a new/old favorite trick: believeing the worst.

Innuendos get shared about and titillation ensues and the trashing commences.

This plays out on national and communal stages all too often.

You know the drill.  People start saying things a bit outrageous and someone else pounces upon it as great gift and the conversation gets to be truly delicious because suddenly the unsubstantiated becomes the main course and the outpouring of passion and outrage feel so good and, well, you read the papers.  You know what happens next.

Nothing.

While trashing the supposed actions of others, we can lose ourselves but good.  The problems of the country or our families or any organization become the topic of choice and we skirt oh so nimbly our own complicity and our own chance to examine our own being.

While we are trashing others, we are blissfully off the how-do-I-improve-my-own-self-and-actions hook.

And there is this: why is finding the warts in others such delight, anyway?  Why do we gleefully believe the worst?

It seems to me we are trashing our country, our schools, our churches and our homes with this race to ruin.

What would happen if instead of pouncing on the perceived worst in people, we approached others with a desire to see the Christ in them?

Jesus taught some about that “logs in our eye” business and about the toxic sludge that poisons when baleful judgements are nurtured and shared.

We can do better.  We’re called to do better.

I believe we can.

 

ahh, vacation

Posted on by
1

I am readying myself to rest.

What this means is that many bulletins must be prepared and many phone calls made in order for things to be tended while I am gone.

It’s worth it!

In the midst of all the getting ready, the stack of books intended for vacation reading is growing by the back door.  They are legion.

Too, I have the great good of feeling into days of unstructured being.  In the midst of the stretch of days will be a weekend with my children and bike rides and tennis games and walks and swims and time with my guy away from phones and did I mention, books to read.

I love my work.  I get to be engaged with amazing people doing work that gentles the world to a better place.  It is creative and meaningful work, this ministry.

And, in order to be fruitful, fallow times are crucial.

So, come the final “amen” on Sunday I am off seeking Sabbath.

Holy work, that.

roots

Posted on by
Reply

We are rooted.

Today the Roto-rooter team is coming to pulverize our basement floor in order to tame the roots that have taken over our sewage system.

@#$% indeed!

Cooper spent a fine Wednesday dealing with the geysers that erupted in our basement.

Today we live into the healing of the problem, complete with a 24 hour no-water-use edict.

This root addressing comes on the heels of a wedding weekend that still has my heart humming.  Family came together to celebrate the wedding of Cooper’s youngest and on the dance floor and throughout the weekend we were a weaving of those who have gone before us and so very powerfully we participated in weaving that which is yet to be.

Blending families is no small adventure.  Those seeking to create the new are rooted in systems unquestioned and ways of being passed on from generation to generation.  In coming together through divorce and re-marriage, the ground shifts and sometimes it feels like nothing will ever feel stable again.

But oh, the fruit of years of negotiating and breathing and praying is heart luscious!

We are a different people now.  Somehow, in marking the powerful rite of passage that comes in joining families and hearts, we know ourselves to be rooted and grounded in amazing grace and we are whole and we know this.

We know this.

So the roots strangling our pipes?  They can be dealt with and matter not much (except for the obscene amount of money leaving our house with them).

The roots that ground and nourish heart are alive and well and we are family and thank you thank you thank you God for roots.

Ground is good.

 

home

Posted on by
Reply

I am freshly back from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota.

I was part of a group of nine women from the church who planned and packed and set out on a woman-powered adventure.

I’ve never gone in this early in the summer.  It was different, as in cold.  We were a layered crew, humbled by the basics of keeping warm and dry.  It rained.  We had one day without rain but the others kept us aware of the need to stay dry.

We were ambitious, planning a route that included a 169 rod portage,a 90 rod portage and two smaller portages as well as river and lake paddling.  We figured that if we didn’t have the energy to push to our goal, we could rest for a night on one of the two lakes between.  We forgot, though, that a major burn had gone through the fall before and the two lakes that might have given us rest were eerie charcoal.

So push on we did.  Going there was hard.  We figured that coming back might be a bit easier.  We were wrong.  On the day we broke camp the rain poured down.  Before we made it off the first lake we were soaked and shivering.  I was grateful for the portages, because they allowed our bodies to pump some warmth through our systems.

And then there was the wind.  We paddled back into white caps and cross winds that prompted deep digging for what felt like hours of paddling.

At the end of the last long portage, feeling relieved with only two short ones to polish off, I landed in a full body (complete with pack on my back) sprawl in the water.  It was thankfully a move witnessed by only one of my paddling sisters.  She was good enough to help me get the darn pack off my back while I was pinned on my hands and knees by exhaustion and a great good laugh.

We made it out.

And I am now home where water runs from taps and heat is more than available but home is a funny thing.

While sitting on a rock watching may flies hatch in the dusk, I was home.

In the cocoon of a tent sharing heart and laughs, I was home.

In the whip of wind and power of white caps, I was home.

The moveable temple of at-oneness calls me home.

Always.

 

bliss

Posted on by
Reply

Ah, Saturday.  The living is easy.

Living in the same town as all three of my children makes me crazy grateful.  The pink scooter ferried Jameson and me to a rendezvous with daughter Rachel and out-of-town niece Chelsea.  We met at the bakery where daughter Leah is working.  Coffee and delectables on a sunny Saturday in Minneapolis is nearly as good as it gets.

This afternoon I will meet up with the eight other women heading into the Boundary Waters on Monday.  We will pack and check and double check our provisions and begin to get a sense of who we will be together.

Often times I wonder if I have time for these BWCA trips.  Being away from the church and the web of relationships that are mine to be present to is hard.  But every year as we put the canoes in the water and take the first paddle stroke I know myself to be home.  And every year, the building of relationships between those who venture out into the wild is priceless gift.  Being vulnerable and resourceful together changes everything.

And so it is in or out of the BWCA: being vulnerable and resourceful together changes everything.

Life is a good thing.

 

change

Posted on by
1

Last night a group of us shared some fine time.

Those gathered are people who summoned the courage to enter the doors of our church for the first time.  They came in the door, decided that they might find meaning in our midst, and have decided to join their lot with ours.

Every time I meet with prospective new members I am moved by wonder.  Truly, taking membership vows represents a longing for community and communion that is no small thing.

We talked about what it was that prompted them to walk through the doors for the first time, and we asked about what it is they are seeking.  We barraged them with the requisite information but really, what we sought to do was listen for the story of the Holy that walks in their being as we invite them to  enter a community seeking to live and name transformational possibilities.

They are a wise and diverse lot.  They named their awareness that the church is so very much more than the pastor.  They have sniffed around our being and decided that at RUMC, they may find a safe place to grow in their relationship with the Holy and those the Holy has created – even themselves.

This thing called “church” is no easy thing.  We challenge ourselves to learn about what Jesus taught and put that teaching into the living of our days.  It is messy and demanding work.  When we take membership vows we agree that we will live together in community and we know that sometimes it feels like we live in one of those rock tumblers:  we get swirled around in the grit of others and sometimes we allow that bumping to polish us into something unknown even to our own imaginings.

To those who follow soul rumblings into community, I say “welcome”.  We need your grit in order to shine in ways that make for grace in the world.

Welcome indeed.

 

why

Posted on by
Reply
I have been asked to share the position paper used to introduce the legislation asking the United Methodists in Minnesota to publicly oppose the marriage amendment:

On behalf of the 17 churches and 2 coalitions who bring before you this legislation (Walker Community UMC, Richfield UMC, Lake Harriet UMC, Simpson UMC, Table 31 UMC, Prospect Park UMC, Epworth UMC, The Peace and Justice and Reconciling Committees of Hennepin Ave UMC, Edina Good Samaritan UMC, Minnehaha UMC, Minnetonka UMC, Golden Valley Spirit of Hope UMC, St Anthony Faith UMC, Excelsior UMC, Shoreview Peace UMC, Duluth First UMC, Minnesota Reconciling Retired Clergy Caucus, and United Methodists for Marriage Equality)

On behalf of the people in our pews and those outside our doors who wonder what being zealous in the ways of love means to the people of the United Methodist Church.

On behalf of my children, and maybe yours, who long for this Jesus movement to live the embrace of open hearts, minds, door and open mouths regarding full inclusion of all God’s beloveds.

On behalf of the movement of grace meant to hold and support the well being of all families.

I ask that the Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church speak a loud “no” to the double barricading of human and civil rights represented by the legislative attempt to amend the constitution of this, our state parish.

We bring this resolution believing that in Minnesota, at least, we can agree that we disagree around theological issues regarding the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in our communities of faith.

What we do NOT disagree on is the long-standing insistence on the part of people called United Methodists that we stand, as scripture and our Discipline proclaim, with those oppressed by cultural systems that would deny equal rights.

Our Discipline states that “we are guided in developing our ministries by heeding concerns generated by great human struggles for dignity, liberation and fulfillment… These concerns are borne by theologies that express the heart cries of the downtrodden and the aroused indignation of the compassionate.” (Book of Discipline, The Present Challenge to Theology in the Church)

The indignation of the compassionate is aroused when one population is singled out and denied the some 515 rights and privileges accorded those who live in differently-gendered marriage.

We know to be real the heart cries of members of our churches.

We know to be real the distress of those who wonder if the United Methodist Church really seeks to embody the vows made by members: that we will resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.

We bring this resolution because it is time for us to claim publicly that we support all families.

And, we covenant to support civic and human rights that support all to live love with those God has given their hearts to cherish.

This is a great human struggle for dignity, liberation, and fulfillment.

We are the people of Jesus, called to respond to oppression with the zeal of love.

Our children, our churches, our parishioners, our state, our movement and our God call us to no less.

Rev. Elizabeth Macaulay
June 1, 2012

agree to disagree

Posted on by
Reply

Sidelined by sickness, I am watching the General Conference of the United Methodist Church as it is live streamed (www.umc.org).

Just finished was heart breaking and real debate on the floor.

The issue?  A statement proposed that named the reality that we disagree over the issue of same-gender love.  No news.  But controversial and threatening?  I guess.

To that effect, an amendment was made.  It wasn’t radical in that it would do away with language which is soul wrench for many.  What it said was that we disagree, we people called United Methodists.

The link is below.

http://www.umc.org/atf/cf/%7Bdb6a45e4-c446-4248-82c8-e131b6424741%7D/05-03%20DCA%20NEWS%20&%20FEATURwww.umc.org

I came into the discussion late and claim the what-I-don’t-knows.

I can only describe what I saw on my little computer screen while a Minnesota spring storm was raging outside.

I saw people who love their church come to their feet to beg for open doors and hearts and minds.  I saw witnesses in rainbow stoles who circled the Body in prayer and witness.

I saw people tussling with each other about bragging rights to who is orthodox and who is successful and really who cares when a church built upon the heart warming of grace offered to all – even sinners like John Wesley and me –  is unwilling to name that we disagree?

Here is what I know.  The mission of the United Methodist Church is to make disciples for Jesus the Christ.

People in my church make disciples of ME by the ways they model ministry.  They are gay and they are lesbian and they are straight and they are celibate and they are a multicolored rainbow transforming the world because they belong to a church that welcomes all who seek to live the teachings of Jesus.

All.  The United Methodist Church is bigger than our fears.  This I believe.

more

Posted on by
Reply

Whew!

A retreat with 30 women.  Two worship services.  This and that to tend to and then a gathering of souls who will travel together to Ireland in September.  48 hours of intense good are bouncing around in me.

Retreats are a lot of work for everyone.  Emotionally, it takes a lot for women to take the time to get away.  There are kids and dogs to provide for while gone.  And, there is the great emotional leap of courage that it takes to give over to someone else the charting  of the rhythm of the days.  All this with unfamiliar sleeping partners and sometimes challenging beds.

Planning for retreats is an act of faith.  Chemistry is a fickle thing.  I’m never sure what the vibe of the gathered will be, so I plan and pray and let go and trust that something will touch someone somehow in the course of our time together.

Always, as I look at the faces of the gathered and as I experience the ways they weave themselves into something never before experienced;  always I am moved.  So it was this weekend.

On this Sunday night after many chances to be in varying circles of faith seeking and faith grounded folks, I am amazed by those who show up, who say “yes”, who enter in, who bring their sacred selves into the power of community.

As tired as I am, I want more.

After a nap…