I bought a toy that is smarter than I am.

Wanting to be able to carry my calendar and phone and email with me in one easy package I bought a Blackberry Storm.  I was excited about this purchase, and had thought about it a good long time.

My son’s response to the news?  “That’s great mom!  Good for you!  I am SO glad I’m not at home.”

Why, you might ask, is my son delighted to be away from me during this time of building relationship with new technology?

I am a techno lover and techno dunce, both.  It is a most annoying combination, particularily for those who know things and begin to want to run when they see me coming.

I can picture it.  How cool it will all be, my whipping out of my small worker  of wonders.  What I didn’t imagine was that I would have to learn how to use it, and that the learning would be tedious and frustrating and that I would want my son who knows these things instinctually to be at my side, patiently and gently coaxing light into my befuddled brain.  The way I liken it to him was it took HOURS and DAYS for him to learn how to ride his bike or tie his shoes.  And who was the patient guide into the thrill of the new?  Me, his mother.  But somehow, that logic has no charm for him.

So.  Here I am.  All geared up with nowhere to go.  Trying not to beg those who know things for mercy.  If you know how to work these things and can bear dunderheads, I am your humble student.  Or, I can wait to really cruise with my new toy until Jamie comes home from college.  He doesn’t have to know what I don’t know. 

I’m worried that if I confess, he won’t come home.

I forget from year to year.

Every year, our church is able to give thousands of dollars to aspiring young musicians.  The scholarship was set up by a member who was legendary for music cultivation in our community.  She wanted the name of her family to live on in the hearts and rhythms of life even after her death.  And so, every year the call goes out to area high school students that they are welcome to come and audition for a Groth music scholarship.

They have to have a 3.0 grade point average.  They have to want to make music and the sharing of it and the making of it as their vocational dream.  And they have to be really dedicated by the ripe old age of seventeen or so.  Because the competition is tough, and the challenge to rise to the top real.

Honestly.  Reading the applications alone is enough to make a person weep.  I do.  Those of us on the selection committee are invited to see what it is these young music makers have done with their days.  We find they have done amazing things.  They have played in venues grand and in nursing homes.  They have studied with music teachers and a 3.0 is no issue for them because for many of them there is a straight line of “A” in the grade column.  They have played in churches and they have taught children and they have shared themselves and their gifts oh so generously.

Part of the audition is an interview, so we can get a sense of what it is they long to do with their music.  The poise and passion shared is glory.

I think of the hours and thousands of dollars and bucket fulls of hope their parents have poured out in order for their children to practice their art.  I think of the hours spent in solitude, rehearsing over and over scales and phrasing and technique when friends are calling and sloth is enticing.

What I want to say is this:  the future is held by these young wonders, and we are in good hands.  When I am tempted to forget, Groth auditions roll around and I am swept into the world of wonder once again.  I like it there.

OK.  I am not a TV fanatic, but I confess a major exception to that rule.

When my children were growing up, we had a ritual.  Every Thursday night we would grab popcorn and other good treats and retreat to our second floor TV room.  It was on the second floor because we lived in a drafty old Victorian in Duluth and after dark the first floor was no darn fun.  So we made our nest upstairs and turned with anticipation to ER.  It was our favorite. 

Last night was the end of the series.  I rushed home from a meeting and caught the end of it.  And truth be told, I was all sorts of choked up when I heard the theme music played for the last time and was taken with the camera as it panned out from the familiar.

It was those long ago nights I was remembering in my emotional core.  The days when my children were all in the same place at the same time and what mattered to them was that their parents were nestled in with them and together we were warm and safe and together.

The camera pans out.  Children grow up.  Nestling delights for them are not of the parental variety.  Family configurations change.  One drafty house is traded in for another (when will I EVER learn?). 

The bittersweet ache of endings that is the background music of our lives is ever playing.  It did last night across this nation as the cast and crew of ER took its last turn on camera.  And that music wove into my heart and awakened there memory and longing and awareness that scenes are never static. 

Change is.  And the savoring of what was?  That is, too.

Sometimes there is too much to take in.  I know this is true when my eyes leak.  They are doing that on this day.  Embarrassing, yes, but real and human and heck, people know I cry on a dime.

There is this.  Somewhere in my church is an anonymous writer of cards and notes.  Every week during my leave I would get a hand written (block lettering mostly, so as to fox me better) note telling me that I was missed.  The writer made reference to the good of that Sunday and the goodness for my sake of my renewal leave.  But always there were words about what I bring to a given Sunday at RUMC.  The things voiced humbled me and moved me and I came to look forward to their arrival each week.  When I was gone on the road, Cooper would open them and read them to me and we both marveled at the power of the anonymous writer and the ways that person held both of our hearts with each word written.

Too, I heard about some of the acts of great holding provided for Max, the other pastor here at RUMC.  He did double duty for three months.  He officiated for funerals and weddings, coordinated the zoo that is church life, and blessed many in the ninety days I was gone.  One of our families took him out for dinner the other night.  They were Christ to their pastor because they saw his pouring out and they wanted to pour some grace back in to him and in doing so they humbled both Max and me with their generous ministry of care.

Jesus had the biggest of hearts.  His flesh life in our midst was spent teaching us to grow big hearts, share big hearts, and know our big hearts to be pulsing with the energies of God.

We’ve got some whoppers here at church.

Here’s the thing.

Sometimes, after stepping away from something for three months, there is a sense of shy about reentry.  Questions percolate even though unwelcome about place and role and rightness of reengaging.  So preparing for my first day back at church was not without some stomach work.  I worried.

Here is what I encountered:  flowers and hugs and emails and more flowers and a sign on my office door and on my desk chair and smiles and smiles and a staff welcome back feast and great words of affirmation from various and sundry not only for me but for the team of good people who carried on in my absence. 

And what my heart is feeling is that it happens that it IS possible to go home again.  Home being that place where you are taken in and relished for the part you play in the unfolding of shared life.

I’m home.  And the sign acts of lit faces and beauty tremble my heart with gratitude.

While suiting up in the locker room  today I was audience to an impassioned conversation.  It was between a mother and daughter.  Maybe fifty-something and nineteen years of age.  They were going at it.

The mom was profoundly upset.  It seems the friend of her daughter had made a comment about hating people of another race.  The mom was painting the ways that hate talk and hate actions are one in the same.  Didn’t her daughter know that to be true? 

No, she did not.  The daughter was irritated and then some at her mother’s raw insistence that hatred based on racial prejudice is a slippery and inevitably violent slope.   She cussed plenty and was frustrated and annoyed plenty and tried to explain to her wrought mother that it was no big deal, her friend’s avowed hatred of people writ large because of their skin tone.

I was cheering for them, even as I thought about poking my head around the corner to let them know that there were ears about not capable of stopping themselves.

I was cheering for the mom because she is me and the so many of us who have seen the ugly reality of fear and hatred unleashed upon the tenderness of fellow humans as we sort the realities and woundings of racism.  I was cheering for her and I was wincing on her behalf because her conviction became cudgel and she was none too deft at using her passion artfully to make her point.

I was cheering for the daughter.  Not because I shared her conviction that hate speech means nothing.  I’m in the mom’s camp on that one.  But I cheered for the daughter because she was willing to stretch her mom and engage her fully and because they were talking about something important and she was willing to do that.

Talking.  About hard things and about things that we disagree about.  It’s the only way we are going to learn from each other and see the world in colors we never before knew.

They left the locker room, both undoubtedly nursing the comments they didn’t share and the conviction of the other’s folly.  But they left the locker room to go work out together.  And maybe as they were sweating, they gave thanks for the gift of sparring partners willing to engage over the real and challenge that is living.

What makes a church hum?

I’ve thought about that a lot in the past three months.  Since I haven’t been in the thick of my “own” church, I have visited, observed and wondered what it is that makes for holy hum in a church.

There is in me a physical recognition upon entering a church.  Within the first minute (no kidding) the ethos of the gathered folk proclaims so much about who they are and what sort of adventure in living Christian community is unfolding there.

The thing I can’t get over is the power of the people.  Do they experience joy?  I’m not talking about yucking-it-up hilarity here.  I’m talking about a clear sense that they are delighted to be present together to worship God and give thanks for the power of hope and promise in their lives.

The “production” quality of worship matters only in that well crafted and led worship displays a reverence for the amazing gift of participating in it.  Are people engaged?  Are they open?  Are they real?  Are they aware of the miraculous power of gathering to do the most counter-cultural of things as they give over their conviction that they have to be perfect, know all the answers and be a size eight in order to be loved by the Holy and each other?  Are the kids loved and cherished?  Do the elders walk with pride and the sure knowledge that their gifts of years and learning are valued in their church?  Do the musicians make a joyful noise because they just have to share the good news?  Do the gathered laugh sometimes and are they equally willing to weep when the vulnerablities of their humanity surface?

I just spent two hours with women who call the church I serve their own and I left that time so fully aware that pastors are necessary, maybe, but in no way are they sufficient.  It’s the Body of Christ called the people of God in each and every church who are the most effective witnesses to the good news.

Luckily, I get to be in their midst and in the midst of the many like them who love God, neighbor, and self in the ways that make for hum.   It’s the sweetest of sounds.

There were four bagpipes.

Four bagpipes, a brass quintet, a pipe organ, a flautist and a community that welcomed me “home”.

I was able to return to space and people I poured my heart into for five years as  pastor.  And it was sooooo good.

I served a church perched on the top of a hill overlooking Lake Superior.  It was a church I had been a member of, left for a time, and then came back to serve as pastor.  Two of my children were confirmed there, I came to my sense of call there, my father’s funeral was held there, and I came to know myself as pastoral community organizer and joy participant there.  In short, I was nuts for the church and for its people.

Coming back after five plus years, the space and the people and the blast of the bagpipes took me in and love was reaffirmed and celebrated.

Growing up is hard to do.  Leaving any place with its network of relationships and comforts and delights takes courage, faith, and maybe some flat-out lunacy.  If we are truly blessed, we can revisit those places and know again the shimmer of grace.

So it was for me.  Four bagpipes and all.

…every soul that stands under condemnation with nothing to say for itself has the power to turn and discover it can yet breathe the fresh air of God’s pardon and mercy.  Why would it hesitate to confidently enter the presence of God?  Why should it fear the majesty who gives it reason to be confident?  Beauty is the soul’s birthright.  

Bernard of Clairvaux

Today’s newspaper shares the news that indulgences are making a come back.

Indulgences are, as described in the article, the gift of wiping from us the shadow of our harmful doings.  The Catholic church is experiencing many who seek such soul washing; in particular among those who are in their young adult years.

It makes sense.  Who doesn’t long for a holy soul washing?  Who doesn’t long to believe the vision shared by Brother Bernard above?  Who hasn’t participated in things that have caused hurt to self and others?  Forgiveness is a precious gift.  Embracing a practice that promises it is understandable and good.

The twelve step program gets the importance of this.  Healing can’t happen without forgiveness.  Without forgiveness, the past and its wrongs keep churning like a washing machine gone bad.

As human beings, we need practices that help us to grapple with the huge in our lives.  For too long we have let ritual and communal marking of life passages be somehow suspect.  We are soul-starved for the meaning and power they provide our lives.  The upsurge in interest in indulgences is testimony.

So how will we welcome the power of the real into the life of our faith communities?  Seems to me the Catholic church understands the need. 

With the unleashing sparked through the Reformation, those of us of the Protestant persuasion sought to claim the birthright of beauty in ways direct and unmediated by clerics.

But we lost something in the  pursuit of our individualized reaching for the Holy.  We lost the real power of sharing our souls and our stories in community.  We lost the incarnational gift of being the flawed Word in communion with other flawed Words and we somehow became convinced that sharing the real of our lives with others was just not seemly.

It’s not only seemly.  It’s necessary.

God longs for us to turn and claim our birthright of beauty.  We can choose to turn and accept the breath of God’s mercy and forgiveness.  Sharing that journey in the company of others makes the breathing of grace flat-out delicious.

Having three months to pay attention is a powerful thing. 

A thrashing about with time is one of the things I have discovered.

I will never have enough time to learn all the things I want to learn.  Books continue to taunt me with the worlds they offer and no matter how fast I slurp them up, there are more.

I will never have enough time to perfectly tend the many relationships in my life:  children, partner, friends, church community, colleagues, a world to which I am intimately connected.  I will never have enough time to do the work of loving perfectly.

I will never have enough time to fully feel the kiss of sun on my skin or the dance of wind in my hair or the smell of wood smoke in the air or the song of star in the night sky or the touch of my beloved.  There are tastes I will never encounter, soul wisdom I will never take into my being.

I will never have enough time.

But I have this time.  Time to watch the movement of wind and sun on the big Superior lake.  Time to read and time to be still.  Time to know that being a finite woman in the playground of the infinite is wonder;  wonder enough.

There is time for that.  This time.