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.

seeing

Posted on February 22, 2011 by emacaulay

Our church mission statement says that “We Seek to see the Christ in All”.

Sometimes the seeing is easy.

It seems like Jesus is all over the place these days. From the cupcakes that are left on pastor’s desks (amazingly beautiful and ALMOST too pretty to eat) to the many conversations speaking heart, I am walking in wonder.

People are beautiful.

There seems to be an attitude in the air these days; an attitude of “why not?”. Our sanctuary is being loved into new life. Because we are in the midst of bringing a new organ voice to lead us in worship, we are ripping up carpet, putting down hard wood floors, soliciting favorite scripture verses and having the children and youth write them on the concrete to ground us (fear not, it will be covered with the new carpet put in this week) through the decades to come. We will have a general cleaning party this Saturday when we all can get our hands on the place we call home and shine it up for its new life.

We have hauled pulpits from here to there on Sunday mornings. We have adapted and made friends with chaos and we have embraced the unfolding of what will be.

Laughter rolls often within our church and the Spirit seems to be a loosened and sparkling presence.

It is one of those days in my heart where I wonder how it is I get to do this work. We are many, heaven knows. We are many of opinion and temperament and person. And, we are one. One in the vision and power and presence of the Christ.

The issue for me throughout this redressing of our worship space adventure has been relationships. Are we better for this adventure? Have we learned things that further ground us in Christ? Have we practiced forgiveness and grace and trust and discipleship?

I’m thinking we have had plenty of opportunity to practice. That’s what life is for. And I’m thinking we are better for it.

Every study you can ever imagine speaks of the clear good of being a part of a community of faith. There are vexations by the boat load, God knows. And, there are Jesus sightings that are shared and savored and marked and held and when one of us needs to remember what it is to feel hope in the Holy, Jesus in the form of a community member sits down and shares grace and we remember who we are.

It isn’t hard going to see the Christ in all.

It makes for holy sight-seeing.

baseball

Posted on February 19, 2011 by emacaulay

Fear not: I am not going to blog about baseball, really.

I was thinking about baseball because we have had a guest in the house who played baseball in college and a bit in the minors. In the course of our conversation he was laughing about his “baseball” ways of organizing life. They include doing things in the same way every time in order to insure great performance. Magical thinking and the power of ritual continue to ground his behavior. He had pre game rituals and activities that were comfort to him as he courted success. Years after leaving the field, he employs them yet.

We’re all the same way, aren’t we? I was laughing to myself about that as I was setting myself up to write Sunday’s sermon. I have my own baseball ways. I love to collect my materials: Bibles, commentaries, bulletin, pencils and my lap top. I park myself in my thinking spot on the couch and savor the gift of reading and thinking and imagining what the text might have to say about living in these days. I can write sermons in other places and other ways, but my sense of being held by my rituals makes me less anxious about whether the sermonic muse will deign to visit.

And I pray. Crafting sermons is humbling, terrifying, and so very important. I am never without awareness that the Word is so very alive and so desirous of heart dance. I welcome the encounter as I seek to bring scripture to voice. I am never done learning, that is for sure. Weekly sermon crafting keeps me grounded and sniffing the air always for the showings of the Holy.

Not a bad lot, that. So as I settle in to write, I give thanks for the chance to pander to my baseball ways. The couch is strewn with books, the Word awaits, and I have time to be present.

I think I did everything right…

welcome

Posted on February 17, 2011 by emacaulay

At a meeting today those present were asked to draw a card and respond to it.

My card had this question: What blessing do you want to be a part of sharing?

My answer? Welcome. I want to be a part of a movement that shares the blessing of welcome.

My answer was prompted by two recent blessings I experienced. One was the Freedom to Marry rally at the State Capitol. There were hundreds of God’s children of faith gathered to speak about and respond to a vision of welcome to full participation in all facets of life, including the welcome to name sacred and covenanted relationships “marriage”. The rainbow of beauty and heart in that rotunda lights my heart yet.

Last Sunday at church we held a luncheon for new and prospective members. Gathered in the room were people ranging in age from their teens to their eighties. There were same-gender-loving couples making life together seeking faith home to grow in and raise their babies in.

We ate and talked and shared and at the end, we stood in a circle, hands clasped, and I asked them to share what it is they are seeking as they throw in their lot with Richfield UMC.

Their answers move me yet. They are seeking community, Jesus, and the people of Jesus who will move beyond the walls of the church and into the heart of the community with welcome.

Jesus invites all who are weary and heavy burdened to hitch themselves to the Holy and to Christian community in such a way that broken hearts mend and lives are transformed.

It turns out that our new members believe that through our church, they have found partners to help them plow the fields of their lives. They welcome the yoke and the opportunity to experience and share the vision of Jesus.

Sometimes the gifting of parish ministry is profoundly humbling. To welcome into our fold others willing to name their hunger and hope is amazing grace.

It is sacred trust, this building of the Body.

All are welcome.

telling a life

Posted on February 16, 2011 by emacaulay

On Sunday a man died.

He grew up in this church. The details of his being were shared yesterday during a meeting with his widow.

In an hour we will hold his life to the light of our attention through the worship we share at his funeral. We will unpack memories, gratitude, tinges of disappointments, angers and the sure sense that never will this man be fully known; not to himself and not to those who shared life with him. We will name the mundane facts of living and seek to name the mysteries and wonders of his being. There is so much we will never know about him.

And yet, we do believe that he is fully known by God; not only known, but known and fully loved.

Every funeral I facilitate brings me to the wondering about this art called living. How is it the telling of my life will go? What major plot lines will be teased out and shared and celebrated? What stumblings will those gathered need to name in order to practice honesty? What foibles will be fodder for good laughs (I have provided so MANY!) and what legacy will be named as being broadened because of my being?

What will the telling of my life mean?

For clergy the question comes around often. We are faced with the refining fire of mortality as a part of our vocational being. Dodging just isn’t possible when funerals are planned and unfolded on a regular basis.

Sitting for a time of story telling and sharing it in the context of worship is sacred gift and it is poignant and insistent reminder.

The day is coming when people will gather to hear a story with your name as lead.

What sort of telling will it be?

clarity

Posted on January 14, 2011 by emacaulay

The amount of money that goes into the misinformation of the American people is far vaster and far more enthusiastically spent than that which goes into the education of the American people. Stuart Ewen

Sometimes words land in my belly with the power of a clenched fist. The above quote is one such collection of words. I groaned when I read them, because they seem all too true. Perhaps it is the word “enthusiastically” that hurts the most.

Our nation has been involved in a time of intense mourning and grief, followed within seconds by a time of intense finger pointing and dissembling. The violence unleashed on a street corner in Arizona has touched us all. As has the aftermath of that violence.

This Sunday is Human Relations Sunday in the United Methodist Church. It is also the Sunday when we as a nation celebrate the message and ongoing witness of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The poignancy of considering human relations within the sloggy air of these political and cultural times is piercing. I have held the task of preaching this Sunday to my heart and have given thanks while being daunted.

I am daunted because we have each been nourished on a steady diet of enthusiastically marketed misinformation. How do we find truth in the miasma of spin and vitriol?

I am thankful because the core teaching that grounds any preacher’s task is the gospel of the Christ. Over and over and over again Jesus teaches us to be open to others, to know our common heart beat, to see the holy that walks with each and to know that we are incomplete until all are invited to the table of grace and attention.

I will admit that I am afraid. The above quote would indicate that we as citizens are more willing to be manipulated than educated. We go along, it seems, content to huddle with our like-minded like children huddled in snow forts lobbing snow balls over the ramparts.

It’s not enough. It isn’t enough for us as citizens of this nation. And surely it is far from enough for those of us seeking to live the teachings of Jesus.

It’s time to put the snow balls down. It’s time to leave the cocoon of our forts. It’s time to breathe the sharp and clean air of grown up engagement.

happy birthday mom

Posted on January 13, 2011 by emacaulay

Two days ago, my mother turned 82.

My mother is titan and tender, both. I do not know anyone stronger, and this has to be great burden for her. She has faced pains and trials too great for a well-bred beautiful hopeful woman to face. But face them she has, with grace and grit.

This snippet of her life is illustration: she skated in the Ice Follies. She was one of the bespangled beauties who learned to live out of a train and share glamor and thrill with audiences and do you remember the finale of the Ice Follies?

A kick line was created. A spinning line made of skaters linked one to the other. Those joining the line waited on either side of the rink to skate for all they were worth to link up to the circling spectacle. It was easy for the early joiners. But as each skater was added to the line, the line got longer and harder and harder to catch. Sometimes the show ended with the last skater pushing harder and harder and harder to catch a spinning line that eluded her. It becomes clear she will never link up. The audience cheered and groaned, both, since they wanted the determined skater to find success and they knew in their own souls the humiliation of public less-than-perfect.

My mom was the last skater. She would pump her heart and legs and determination to join that line. Sometimes with success. Sometimes not.

A year ago, she was hit from behind on the freeway. Her car rolled a number of times. We got the call no child wants to get – the call that intimates that the author of your childhood heart is in peril. She was in rough shape, broken of pelvis and bruised of body and for a time, we sat with her as she weighed the living or the dying of her days.

She lives. She is walking miles a day and managing her brood and pain of body and heart are real and she lives yet.

Around her, things are dying: her sister, the cognition of her brother, the fantasy of a family Walton-esque, friends, and some of her passions.

But the flame of life that is Barbara Jane Fawcett Macaulay Forrest is fierce and honed and hungry yet for meaning and she is much alive. And the world is better for this.

Mothers and daughters live with hearts close. Our hopes for each other are dense and complicated. We are the other, we are ourselves, we are wildly different and we are often heartbreakingly lonely for each other: for the was and the is and the might have been.

And, my mother is that last skater, determined to do the impossible: to do it with grace and with grit and to make it look good in the doing.

Happy birthday, mom.

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Celebrating the Sacred

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