I just read my daughter’s Facebook post and I am heart happy for two reasons.

First, she mentioned that she had been at a performance of Handel’s Messiah at a cathedral in Denver.

Leah was raised by a father who conducted choirs and a mother who sang in a semi-professional choral ensemble.  Every year at this time of year our children could count on Christmas concerts to attend.  At the high school, at various venues in Duluth and the surrounding area, our children heard harp and voice spin seasonal beauty.  And the Messiah?  Well, that was a favorite at home. Whether it was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or the Arrowhead Chorale, we heard the words of scripture set to song and string and the unfolding of the Jesus story.

So Leah took herself to a concert to open herself to that heart rhythm. 

And at that concert she heard a transgender artist sing “And Who May Abide the Day of His Coming”.

There.  In the midst of a story-telling centuries sung, new hope for God’s people shines.  For unto us a child is given;  A child who grew to be a man who knew and taught that the bounds of God’s grace is Hallelujah material for all people and sing that grace we must.

I wish I had been there to hold her tiny hand and share Kleenex.

It is a fabulous day.  We have had a major snow dump and wind sweep and we’re socked in.  I love it.

Today we ventured out to get the necessaries for such a time.  We were out of coffee.  It was not fitting.  And, our  snow blower was broken and after many nursings was declared dead.

So off we went to the local hardware store to get a new snow blower and to the grocery store to get the goods of happy life.

We got stuck in our alley.  There was nothing to be done, since the snow was up higher than the bottom of our four wheel drive car and we were going nowhere.

So, out of the back of the station wagon came the new snow blower, and we blew out the alley in order to find our way to the garage.  It was a hoot.

Today has been spent nesting.  I’m not sure if there will be church tomorrow.  The big choir do scheduled for worship has been postponed to Epiphany Sunday.  If we do have church, it will be gentle and savored by the few who love the challenge of clomping through drifts to share survivor stories.

Living in Minnesota is so fine.  Sometimes the elements trump our best laid plans.  That works for me.

Being a pastor is crazy making work.  It’s true.

We exist, we pastor folk, to be in the midst of the community called church whilst being outside of the community called church.  We juggle many functions in our day and many of us love that variety and always-changing life.

And we’re oddities.  So it is really fun to gather with colleagues who understand the teeth gnash and the soul soar of ministry.  I meet once a month with a crew of folk I am proud to call friends and we swap stories and listen and share our care for each other and the movement that has meant our lives.

An article in USA Today speaks of the importance of attending church and having relationships within that church.  People are happier and better able to withstand the jolts of life when they have a sense of connection with others that is spiritual in its weaving.

I am blessed to be pastor to a church that provides that network of care for many, including their pastor, while it empowers outreach for many.  And, I am blessed to be pastor held by a network of clergy colleague friends who care for me and empower my ministry.

Friends matter.  They just do.

This is life tonight at church:

Over my head, children are ruckusing while practicing for the Christmas pageant in two weeks.  Energy is high high high and prayers for patience are deep deep deep.

The bell choir is learning “Fum, Fum, Fum” so their clangs and staggered melodies are making their way through the floor into my office.

In the fellowship hall there are pinatas being crafted by an intergenerational crew.  Strips of paper are soaked in gunk and rubbed onto balloons and the span of decades between participants seems to sweeten the air.

A meeting just broke up regarding the refurbished organ.  There are decisions to be made:  what kind of flooring, what kind of new carpet, what finish for the pipes, what, what, what?  We seek to come to greater wisdom by sharing around the table and we laugh plenty. 

There is a Disciple Bible Study group of 12 engaging with scripture and each other as they will for some thirty weeks to come.

And, tuning up in the sanctuary are the instrumentalists for the upcoming Lessons and Carols to be shared at 9:00 AM this Sunday during worship.

This is church.  It’s a holy sort of chaos.  Thanks be to God.

I am a Minnesota woman.  A Northern Minnesota woman, to be exact.  As such, I revel in shine on snow, sparkle on lake, and birch backed by blue sky.

We have a cabin in Northern Minnesota.  It has been family shelter for near 40 years.  It is now in my keeping, and it has needs.

One of them was dealt with yesterday.

Maybe as important as the smell and wrap of the cabin are our neighbors.  They have been part of life for seemingly always, and are the kind of people who mark life with grace and laughter and the good of knowing each other mostly unclothed (swim suit dress code, don’t you know).

We have many birch trees on our lot.  They are years old, these sentinels, and they are starting to know the power of rot and gravity.  One of them has spread its arms over our neighbor’s cabin.  Every wind storm I fret.  While there are things that can be forgiven in the neighbor department, harpooning someone’s beloved cabin with birch tree parts is not one of them.

So yesterday, we watched three trees come down.  I expected to mourn.  But instead I am feeling grateful for the years of beauty they provided, the pile of wood waiting to be split and burned to warm us, and the great good of knowing that there will be no roof smashing under my watch.

And there is this:  there is more sun!  The spaces of sky opened up are wild in their power.  Already plans are underway to purchase birch trees to plant.  We will tend the future even as we celebrate the power of the past.

For generations to come, there will be birches pointing the white of their witness toward heaven. 

Life is good.

On Saturday of last week over 400 people gathered for a deep gratitude breath.

We were celebrating the life and love and wrangle of a beloved friend, father, partner and pastor.  Loren Nelson died after three years of jousting with cancer.  He died with a soul ashine and a gentle enfolding that wafted him into blessing. 

And, we miss him already.

One of the reasons for the missing was the amazing way he had of weaving community around his passions;  the Word made flesh was so alive in the community that gathered to share his memorial service.  There were organic farmers and pastors and compatriots in the movement of justice and there were children and grandchildren and his beloved wife and we sang and laughed and prayed and remembered that one life lived with gusto has the power to shift the stuck.

It’s the sort of funeral I want for my own self.  We laughed and shared compassion around the vulnerable grit it takes to be human.  The music was sublime, the need to witness palpable, and the loving strong. 

We were in a house of worship that has held the voices of the faithful for decades.  Under the copper top, with clouds floating by, we spoke our love and ache and wonder at the miracle of it all.

Life.  Life lived fiercely, tenderly, and eternally.

I am jumbled.

I am newly back from a UM conference held in Columbus, Ohio.  The site of the training is a new church start.  This new church is not in some upscale suburban sprawl:  it is a store front in south Columbus.  The name of the church is “United Methodist Church for All People” and they mean it.  Calling this church home are the newly released from addiction, the homeless, those gripped by poverty and in bondage to addiction, middle and upper class people of privilege, passionate lay folk and people called by God to establish an oasis of grace in the midst of the desert of poverty.

A pastor who had pedigree and connections and every light greened for big-pulpit splendor could not bear the need of the people and the non-response of United Methodists.  He was serving as a District Superintendent and feeling the loss of himself and so it was he began a Free Store.  Everything in the store is free, because grace is free and how else would grace be offered?  After dispensing free clothing and household goods for a number of years the most precious of gifts was shared:  the gift of prayer and companionship in Christ and the horribly and gloriously challenging gift of living as the Body of Christ with a rainbow of folk.  They decided to become church.

They are worshipping and learning and witnessing and healing and holding and “I want to be one too”, as the old hymn goes.

I want to be one too.

Today we awoke to a state ensnared (once again) in political quagmires that seem endless.  And I mourn:  how can it be that millions upon millions are pumped into this state for political campaigns and we are yet unable to know in our souls that the hunger and hurt of our sisters and brothers is our own?  The untruths that are being slung about are fueled by fear and folks seem convinced that compassion for others is sinister plot.

I’m proud to be a follower of the Way.  Compassion is our calling.  Challenge is our call.  Community is our teacher. 

There is church going on in south Columbus and in Richfield and outposts of grace open their doors yet to a world sore in need of healing.

So we live jumble, oh yes we do.  But we do not do this living and loving alone.