Recently I went to a church gathering that was not my own.  Meaning, it was put together by others and I was largely an unknown.  I had a role to play later in the evening, but for the first part, I was a woman walking into a church function alone.

It was hard.

I was hungry for faces to greet me, words of welcome to be shared, invitation to the meal to be offered.  I was swimming in a sea of culture and people who I did not know and I wanted in the worst way to turn around and run, not walk, out of the door.

Every church member should have to endure this wrack.  Every Sunday there are people coming into the building for the first time and they are not sure of the culture or climate or what is expected of them and if they are not greeted and warmed into the midst of community, no wonder they don’t come back

I wouldn’t.

Welcome the stranger, Jesus teaches.  Welcome welcome welcome welcome because you don’t know what they carry in their hearts and the courage it took to walk through the doors and the beauty they have to share and the ways they will shut down but good if they feel invisible.  Welcome the stranger because you too once knew what it was to be a wanderer; lost, untethered, hopeful and longing for connection.

It is in our faith DNA, this knowing of the pain of being stranger in the midst of community.

So too is the mandate to welcome (have I mentioned this yet?).

I didn’t run out of the room.  I stayed.  But I didn’t eat, because I wasn’t invited.

How many people are hungering and thirsting for the meal that is grace and they come through our doors and leave without being invited to feast?

No wonder they don’t come back.  I wouldn’t.

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Psalm 42

Last night a group of us met at church.  We gathered around to savor the gift of the Beatitudes; the group of teachings found in Matthew 5: 1- 12.  They are a part of that great set of teachings known as the Sermon on the Mount.

Last night’s portion had to do with hungering and thirsting for righteousness with the assurance that such hunger will result in being filled.

Like so many words in our faith tradition, “righteousness” has become a hitch word.  So often we automatically include the word “self” in front of that righteousness word, and the result is a flee-from-it sense that we want none of it.  Self righteous people make for soul curl.  We’ve felt their scathe, and want nothing to do with righteousness.

But the unpacking of the word leads us to claim a longing that is real.  Righteousness has to do with knowing our hunger and thirst for Holy communion.  To be in righteous relationship with the Holy is to know our need for God and our thirst for God steep and we want that right relationship embedded in the word we resist.  To be righteous is to know our utter need for and dependence upon the Holy.

And, to be righteous is to know our longing for soul fill.  We find it in different ways:  The loves we embrace, the beauty we soak in, the savor of words and sound that hum our beings, the sweet sound of silence through which our God may breathe grace.

We are like deer that skittishly leave the wrap of the woods.  Thirsty we are, and tired of lurking in the shadows we are, and the sun is sparkling on the water of grace and so venture out we do.

Because our souls thirst for the living God.

We’re tired of being thirsty.

Wow, there are lots of headlines and lots of spin these days.

It seems as though the peeling back of veneer in Wisconsin has touched us all.  It has been a wake up call of sorts, calling us each to consider what it means to vote, to thrive, to be.

Never have I seen the number of Facebook posts dealing with the union scrap.  Commentators from around the nation are weighing in on the happenings in Madison and in many of the states in our nation.

We’re broken.  Somewhere along the way, we got lulled into the sense that we could happily borrow our way into middle class life.  For many, the wake-up call has been piercing:  foreclosed homes, college educations tenuous, jobs for entering youngins not forthcoming, and no clear sense of how long this readjustment time will last.

And who and what will be standing when we are on the other side?

For years we have believed that we didn’t have to really pay attention to what was going on around us.  We handed over power to those only too happy to take it up.  We mortgaged our future to banks and corporations only too happy to accept our allegiance.

And now?  Now we are coming to understand that money and power vested in faceless entities eventuates in abetting what faceless entities do:  they protect their power and their ability to wield it.

The facts are clear.  The divide between the wealthy and the poor is growing by alarming rates.  Is it government’s job to correct that?  If not the government of the people by the people, then whom?

In my fantasy world, followers of Jesus would “use the power that God gives us to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves” (from our UM vows of membership) in order that we might right the growing fractures in our nation.

So how are we called to respond?

Lobbing opinions and playing pile-on serves us not at all.

What we are called to consider is this:  what will we do with the one wild and precious thing that is our life, our liberty, our happiness?  What will we do to insure that in this land of plenty our teachers and public servants are allowed to join voice?  What will we do to stand our convictions in such a way that they participate in building up rather than ripping apart?

Who are we in these days?  And how are we called to be?

My beloveds are out trying to find the reassuring clunk of metal under piles of snow.  Rachel needs to get to work.  Her car is in the midst of a snow mound somewhere.  This we believe.

We got socked with yet another snow slam.  The week before had been warm and the hope of spring was real.  As true Minnesotans, though, we knew better than to believe that the days of down coats were behind us.  We were right.

On Sunday next I am escaping.  Cooper and I will be in Florida for a week.  We’re assessing the book stock that needs to travel with us and imagining the way it will feel to smell air that has that lovely essence of growing things.  I am so ready.  About this time of year my skin longs for sun and my soul clamors for unbundled being.

But where else could I live but here?  The snow makes for great reminder of humility.  The clean cut of the air and the sense of gumption it takes to go about appointed tasks are great reminders that we live in the midst of a creation far beyond our manipulation and control.

I can be philosophical about all of this because awaiting me at the end of the week are warmth and sun.  I know it’s a privilege that years ago, in the thick of baby raising and life making, I only dreamed about.

Now, in my doddering older age, I get to frolic for a time.  So digging out cars, navigating snow dumps and summoning the energy it takes to meet the winter are temporary hurdles.  This too shall pass.

Do you suppose it’s too much to ask that it be melted by the time I get home?

Today I preached about living as Christians.

Not a new concept, but a challenging one.  It is relatively easy to wear the name of Jesus when things are going well.  When we have money in the bank and when the world is going along nicely, thank you very much, it is less challenging to live the teachings we say we believe.

But when life gets bumpy:  when political muck is thrown and anxiety is ratcheted in Madison and the Middle East, living the ethical teachings we are given by our faith is hard work.

And it is even more crucial in such times that we remember who we are.  The text this morning was from the book of Leviticus.  The teachings shared in chapter 19 are moral guidelines given us by a God who believes we have the power and heart to live in such a way that we love our neighbors as ourselves.

How will we live?  Will we enter into the disparaging-of-others fray, happily roiling up the indignation of ourselves and others, or will we remember that all createds are kin?  What does it feel like to walk in the shoes of the other?  How do we make a difference when the challenges facing our country, our communities, our families and our hearts are so vast?

We choose life.  Life in the way of Jesus is about building up, not gleefully tearing down.  Life in the way of Jesus is standing up and speaking against oppression and injustice; speaking our truth while never forgetting that the ways we speak and the ways we encounter those different from ourselves matters.

I’m troubled.  There is rage not too far beneath the surface of our lives.  It is precisely in such times that we ought challenge ourselves to not only pay lip service to the gospel.  It is time to try to live it, with God’s help.

It’s hard work.  God believes we can do it.

It’s Valentine’s Day!

I am sitting in a coffee shop in the booming metropolis of Moose Lake. Having been rendered a ski widow (Cooper took off with friends for a much-good skiing weekend) I decided to visit my mom after church on Sunday.

Being in Duluth is always good soul medicine for me.  My mom has an apartment feet away from the bay (Lake Superior, for the geography impaired).  This means she never has to close curtains.  The presence of the lake and its power and mystery are constant companion.  Sitting in her living room the lights of the ore boats and harbor are all the entertainment I need.

And, being in her company is a bit of crawling into the lap of letting go.  She likes me.  I like her.  Together, we get to talk about things that years have made possible.  It is good.

On my way home to Minneapolis, I did a swing-through hug of my little sister, and then find myself here.  I tell myself it is for a coffee fuel-up before the drive, but really, it is hard for me to rush through the land of my cabin.

As I entered the coffee shop, I ran into a retired clergy person and his wife.  They are members of the church I used to serve.  On my window sill in my office sits a bird he carved out of wood scavenged from the cabin lake I have so long loved.

It was good catching up with them.  They had health tales to relate and we caught up a bit.  Most precious to me was the shine in their eyes and the mutual appreciation we shared.  We were worship kin for years.  That kind of dance never dies.

In parting, they had this to say:  God doesn’t put anyone in our lives that isn’t meant to be there.

On this Valentine’s Day, I say “amen” (or “ah-women”).  The people put in our lives are those who are the very best teachers of love we could ask to encounter.  Our teachers are not always of our choosing, but teach they do, if we are willing to open ourselves to their lessons.

So I give thanks.  I give thanks for a coffee shop that allows me to linger a bit in the holy land.  I give thanks for eyes that light and hearts that remain connected.  I give thanks for the teachers of love in my life.

Blessed am I among women.

And – get this – it is Mocha Monday!!!!!!