Category Archives: spirituality

engaged

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“The opposite of love is not hate.  It is indifference.”  Ellie Wiesel

Wednesdays are dense and luscious for me.

I begin my day at eight AM with a table full of wonderful men.  We gather together for Bible study.  They have been doing this for decades, these men.  They let me join in.

I learn much at that table.  We talk about many things (studying scripture does that) together.  We are diverse as can be.  Gender, generations and political ideologies stretch us to hear and understand in a way grounded in the power of the Christ.  We see each other in a more fulsome way.  We aren’t sword wielders for a cause, we are people full of holy passion for life and learning and we trust each other enough to share our sense of things in a way that invites listening.  At that table I am a deeper and finer thing than merely Pastor.  I am sister in Christ.

On Wednesday nights I meet with a wonderful collection of humans who come together to explore Christian discipleship.  We are exploring Wesleyan theology and what it means to be an accountable disciple in the way of John Wesley.  Wesley knew how we need each other in order to grow into our fullness.  On Wednesday nights, we are able to explore words that jangle and stretch:  sin and salvation, grace and justice.  The room hums with the power of the collected souls.  We are kin in Christ and the joy of our mindful seeking permeates the places of tired and despair that walk in us each.

There is much the church is not.  Sometimes people seize on the “is not” with a seeming glee.  Armed with conviction about the glaring flaws, distance is cultivated and tended.

But there are others.  Others who practice the engagement of being willing to hear the heart of another and in that hearing know the soundings of the Holy.

Indifference is a choice.

I’m moved by those who choose engagement.  My life and the lives the engaged are blessed to lead are the better for it.

water works

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I get teased something fierce by my kids.  They have such great material to work with…

One of the standard teases has to do with the post-baptism glow that walks with me for days.

Being able to baptize infants and adults and toddlers and youth is Holy Spirit zap powerful.  Each baptism is different.

A few weeks ago I was able to participate in my first ever on-my-knees baptism.  We were blessed to have a family with three children come for baptism.  The eldest is wise beyond her years and she was so very present and aware of (as much as any of us can be!) the Spirit power she was sharing through her baptism.  Her  youngest brother was next. Having watched his sister, he was feeling like maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing.  So he put his hand in the bowl full of baptismal water and let his fingers feel the water that was being dipped and placed on his head.  And then there was his brother.  He is four.  He wanted nothing to do with baptism.  He made like a fine escape artist and I wondered if we would need to share this holy sacrament sometime when I didn’t have to tackle him.  In order to try to connect with him I found myself on my knees on the floor.  But then he stopped.  And he allowed grace to bathe his head even as he maintained his dignity by shaking his head “no no no” with each dip.

This past Sunday we were able to welcome a four-month old as a sister in Christ.  Honestly, her eyes never left mine throughout the introductions and the asking of questions and the prayer over the water.  And when it was time to baptize her, as the cold water was gently put on her head, she broke into the biggest smile I have seen on a four-month old face.  No fooling.  She knew exactly what was going on.

I’m still filled with wonder.  To share the sacred in community is transformational good.  I know I have been transformed through the gifts of these recent baptisms.  I am a skipping, awe-full Pastor.

My heart is still on its knees.

what is (?)

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There are dramas aplenty for the living.

Republican candidates are posturing, the President is mingling, protesters are gathering and the polite veneer we put on being community in these days is being fissured but good.

We are what we read and believe, aren’t we?

Charts are flying through cyber space indicating that the economic well-being of many is in worse shape than it has been since before the Great Depression.  Corporations are flourishing while actual earning power is languishing for those who are working.  The number of those who cannot find work is dismally high.

Facts is facts, right?

Except that facts get spun, depending upon ideology.  Whether liberal or conservative, we latch onto the “facts” that support our perspective.  And if those facts get our hearts racing and our sense of umbrage pumping, they are precious indeed (evidently).

I’m aware of the power and privilege of preaching every Sunday.  I’m aware that every time I approach the fear-and-trembling task involved in weaving Holy teachings into the plot of daily living, I’m coming from a perspective molded by which facts I cotton to.

Facts don’t lie, right?

But whose facts?

I was in conversation recently with someone working in a drastically changing profession (so say we all, right?).  The benchmarks for what makes for professional integrity in her field are shifting.  She is doing her work grounded in what she holds to be basic tenets of competency.  Others have tossed off those tenets as expendable.  It is wracking her.

As Wesleyans, we are called to assess our preaching, our living, our giving and our being through the lenses of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience.

Nothing I have encountered through any of those four lenses prop up the gouging of the poor. Nothing.

Nothing I have encountered through any of those four lenses prop up the notion that God and God’s people are to dismiss and seek to silence the crying out of the oppressed.  Nothing.

Which tenets are expendable in the practice of Christianity?

The question is wracking us, but good.

It ought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

aftermath

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I spent Sunday at services of remembrance.

At church, we named the pain of 9/11, and allowed the space for grieving.  Preparing for that service, I joined the rest of the nation in remembering how the world shifted ten years ago.  The music played on MPR all week and the stories shared by those who were in New York on that day soaked into my soul.  The grief was raw and real.

Later on Sunday I went to an interfaith service of remembrance on the steps of the State Capitol.  Religious leaders in our varied regalia, singers and dancers, Heart of the Beast puppets and political leaders gathered with community members to name the pain and the hope, both.  It was good to be there.  I was not in a leadership position so I was able to be present and fully engaged at an emotional level.

Mondays are my day off.  Cooper and I got up and loaded the bikes on the car and drove to a bike trail that connects Cannon Falls and Red Wing.  We were out in the midst of a changing earth.  Leaves were falling, the air crisp, and the peddling fine.  We rode some twelve miles into Red Wing, shared a great cup of coffee and peddled back to the car.

For the first time since all my children moved back to Minneapolis, we gathered for a meal on Monday night, with the late addition of Cooper’s daughter who flew in from Kansas City.  We savored conversation, laughter and food.  I lost badly at cards.  We were family.

It was gift.  After being open to so much pain and death, the opportunity to move my body in the clarity of the air felt like a powerful affirmation of the gift that is life.  Sharing time with beloveds is the best celebration of living that I know.

There is a poignant awareness of the amazing grace of breath and love.

God help us to live gratitude.  There is so much we do not know.  Moment by moment we are given “alleluias”.  Whether bellowed or whispered, may we sound them through our being.

 

repulsive good

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“I thank your ladyship for the information concerning the Methodist Preachers. Their doctrines are most repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect towards their superiors, in perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks, and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth. This is highly offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that your ladyship should relish any sentiment so much at variance with high rank and good breeding.”

From a letter by the Duchess of Buckingham to the Countess of Huntingdon. Lady Huntingdon was a supporter of the Wesleyans.

So much has not changed.

I love the snippet of disdain shared above.  It is the response of a woman not too keen on being challenged to live the gospel.  To be lumped into the whole of humanity rather than cosseted by class was offensive and insulting to the dear soul.  She would have none of it.

How different is the response encountered today?

I natter on often through sermons and other writings about the significant challenge it is to live in the ways of Jesus.  Situated as I am in a middle to upper class congregation in the midst of a groaning mission field, a goodly portion of work goes into trying to peel back the walls of the church and our hearts to see the realities lived by our neighbors;  to see those realities, and to know them as our own.

There is push-back.  It’s human and natural to want to distance ourselves from pain, particularly when apprehending that pain means we take it into our bodies as our own.

Living the gospel means we are called to question all things that enslave and keep bound the hopes and bodies of our community.  It means practicing “impertinence” and “disrespect toward superiors” in order to explore how it is systems of government and culture countenance the gouging of the poor.

There are mutterings about the political nature of ministry and sermonic messages but I ask you, how can followers of Jesus “go along” with impertinence in check when the gulf between the rich and the poor widens and the aches of the displaced are so often silenced by derision and class cocoon?

I am blessed to be pastor in a congregation that “allows” such impertinence and challenge.  It isn’t always welcome, and it isn’t always appreciated.  But we know that what binds us is stronger and more powerful than the so-many forces that seek to silence the call to wholeness for all of God’s people.

On this day, I am grateful for a community that sanctions the speaking of the repulsive and saving message of the Christ.

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.

 

finitude

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I have read much about it and I live it through my work, but no second-hand living can articulate what my being is grappling with in these days:  finitude.

I have a birthday this month.  I will be 54.  That number in itself is not all that noteworthy, but the awareness of limits on a body heretofore game for anything is sobering.  Sleeping on the ground in the BWCA was more remarkable to me in the morning than it has been in the past; remarkable meaning painful!  I carried canoes and toted packs and savored living in my body and in the savoring I was aware of creakiness new to me.  I will bear no more babies.  My laugh lines will bear ever more powerful witness.  And gravity…well, real it is.

There is a flailing around within me of late.  What is it I am called to do with the sweet miracle of the years I have?  I am in the life-cycle breath between launching children and welcoming grandchildren.  I am in the sweet place of gained confidence and earned life lessons.  I am seeking to listen listen listen for what it is the Holy calls to me to explore.  So far, the only answer I am given is “what is”; I am called to be present to what is.

My tendency is to launch myself into much.  I have dashed down roads to school and career and child-bearing and rearing of same and I have inhaled life and its fullness with great gusto.

I find myself in the familiar mode of scanning the universe for the “what next” of life.  I have written for catalogues for Doctoral programs (compatible with my pastoral schedule – I’m not leaving ministry!).  I am reading professional publications seeking the next fascination or adventure.  I am seeking seeking seeking.

But.  But perhaps this roily itchy time is the time to digest and savor the much of what has been.  Perhaps this is the time in my life when I will “afford” the Yoga classes I have longed for and the friendships I have tended shallowly.  Perhaps, after eight years in a church that has demanded constant juggling to lead I can take deeper breaths and trust that the Spirit breathes and frolics with greater freedom with and through a congregation pastored by a less harried woman.

I will admit to a bit of anxiety.

It takes greater spiritual discipline for me to “be” than to do.  It has always been so.

Perhaps this is the season for being present to the now; the precious irreplaceable now.

Perhaps, if you find yourself facing finitude and its provocations, you might join me in being present to what is.

No work for cowards, that.  I will welcome your company.

It is deep soul-mulchy work for this soul at this time: aware of time, honoring time, savoring time, loving time, trying-not-to-clutch-at-time, time.

 

 

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.

 

trying

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I am trying not to sink into either anger or despair.

At the state and national level, politicians are taking aim at the misguided and seemingly flat-out evil they can readily find in those they have identified as enemies:  elected leaders of the opposing party.

This impasse in sensibilities has huge implications.  We have borrowed from our children’s future in order to buy a short-term fix at the state level.  At the national level, the jousting for ideological bragging rights may result in untold catastrophe.

All this while the chasm between the rich and the poor grows ever more immense.

We are not a “Christian” nation.  Clearly we are not.  Scriptures are a recurring drum- beat calling us to awareness of the plight of our brothers and sisters.  That plight is our business, it is our concern, it is our call to heart action.

What is the best instrument of redistribution?  Many, and rightfully so, insist that government is an inefficient manager of playing-field leveling.  So, consequently, government ought not be trusted with such.

But if not the government, then who and what and how?  Those who insist on downsizing (and the downsized are seniors on fixed incomes, children who didn’t choose to be born into poverty, and people shaken by health crises) have much to say about what isn’t working: government.

The same voices seem to believe that government does work to mandate decisions about intimate life decisions.

Evidently in such thinking, government cannot be trusted with ensuring that each child born in this country has access to fullness of life, but it can be trusted to enter bedrooms and bodies.

I am afeared.  The rhetoric saturating our nation is all about finger pointing.  It’s a great diversionary tactic; it feels good to take aim and fire at another while the tender dream of “justice for all” burns itself into extinction.

There is enough for all.   Economists have named it, and in the unsoundbited portion of our tender souls, we know this to be true.  God has promised ongoing care and nourishment for creation.

So while children are starving in Somalia, elders are wrangling vulnerability in Minnesota, and assets are stockpiled by the increasing few in our nation, we could choose to stop the slashing of he-said-she-said and work with what we have.

We have enough.  How will we see it shared?  We move toward becoming a nation grounded on Christian values when we ask that question and work with what we have – our government, our churches, our hearts – to live into the power of communal care.