This the season

 The only real war on Christmas resides in the deep, dark and ugly parts of ourselves. The part that wants it all our way, despite the very real cost to those around us. Be light as often as possible. When you can't find your own, rest near someone else's. 

There is no victory in bludgeoning our neighbor with our rights. Kindness does not march;  it creeps into small places and clears the way for bigger things. 

Playing church

I heard a phrase not too long ago that I can't let go. An older gentlemen was telling a bit of his life story. He said it got to the point he knew he was playing church. It was time for him to do it for real.
I've been thinking about him for weeks.

What does it  mean to play church? What if going through the motions gets the same results as running hard after what what we think we are? What if understanding who we really are and then being bold enough to run with it is enough to shake things up? What if we being us is too scary to contemplate, so we just play it safe? Does real church have certain music? Does it read straight from a certain Bible? Are the people more evangelical?

Playing church. Hope it makes somebody else restless.

Still here

Holding pattern in place with nothing spectacular on the horizon. A lawn half filled with weeds. A red tailed fox that struts though my yard unsettling us all. Disillusioned friends. Squabbling kids. A far off teen that wants more than I can give. Again. 

More people I can't seem to please.  A sermon I haven't written. A house full of stuff I still need to purge. A list of shortcomings that shadows my progress. 

These will resolve, I know. It's the waiting and working that gets me. 

Practicing

My earliest introduction to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit was an enthusiastic thing. I was a child of the 70's and my parents were wholly unprepared for me. My father did his best to keep up, and with God's abundant gift of hospitable and faithful aunts, I grew.
My aunts' faith was nurtured in the arms of the charismatic Pentecostal church.   In their faith, the gift of the Holy Spirit is equitable to God's favor and blessing. If one is obedient to God, then one will receive the gift of Speaking in tongues. My father had been was nonplussed. His new wife was horrified. I was young and torn. I kept my thoughts to myself.

As I have grown in years and faith, I have begun to reconcile an unrestrained interpretation of the Holy Spirit with the more reserved leanings.  About ten years ago, I completed my first study of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Since then, I have been both spectator and participant in my life as I seek both to observe my natural inclination and guide that yearning closer to God.

These questionnaires can be tricky. I've done them in the past. What's the right answer? How much is often? Sometimes? Do I do what I do because I am wired that way or because I ought? For a time, they were my guide. They were a glimpse of a person I longed to know and set free. I wanted to be whole, magnificent and a blessing to God. How ideal and glamorous.

In fact, the more I identified with my gifts, the more frustrated I became. What was I to do when my gifts were not utilized. Was it my fault? Could I shift blame? Was my ailing church someone else's fault? At the root of all of these gifts is this: These charismata are God given, super natural enhancements to our mortal selves. Our limits are stretched to accommodate the hands, feet, mind and soul of our Lord. How then, shall I live with this hodge podge listing of gifts?

Not too long ago, I was in church. As it happened, the children had baked the communion bread that morning. That was unusual. Further breaking tradition, two children were tapped to help serve it.  My daughter was one. I was anxious, lest someone be offended. My skin is thin.

 During Communion, I watched as the bread was broken to remind us of Christ's broken body. I watched as the grape juice was blessed in remembrance of shed bled. Then, I watched as my daughter walked to the opposite side of the sanctuary.  I was overcome with gratitude and connectedness. This tiny bean that I had diligently nurtured in obedience to God- this tiny creation had grown into this bigger person that regularly fleshes out her own call to Christ. I was so humbled.

And then, I started to wonder, how do I do this? I wanted to sneak to other side of the sanctuary to be on my child's side. I wanted to receive the blessing from my beloved. Then I remembered that God already knew this moment. He knew where I sat. He saw my baby *and* He saw the other one. He saw there was more than one precious child that longed to be a part of worship. More than one beloved that longed to live out their own growing faith. More than one parishioner longed to connect and be blessed. I remained where I was. I am not the conductor.

It is important for me to act. It is perhaps  more important for me to learn that action includes self control,  restraint and silence. It was not the first and will not be the last time, that I allow the Giver of Life to watch over and guide as He sees fit.

It was a Holy moment. But not as Holy as what came next. I dropped my family at home and went out for a bit to visit an older friend. She has Alzheimer's and on this day, was recovering from a fall.   We were not especially close when she was lucid. She was busy. I can be shy. In the last two years, I have come with small gifts, I have held her hand. I recently rubbed her feet. On this day, I walked down the somewhat grey halls of the recovery unit and found her. We reacquainted, as we do each time we meet these days. And then, what I will not forget, is that while kneeling on a thick, padded gym mat, set out for physical therapy and accident prevention, we held hands and sang. We sang Jesus Loves Me, Amazing Grace and Mary had a Little Lamb. It was Holy. It was so very Holy. It was communion without bread.

What my gift inventory does not tell me to do, is what I am learning must be done. I am to be humble and open. I am to take risks. I am to love. I am to both do something and nothing. I am to speak and not. I must lift others to the light. As Paul writes in 1Corinthians 13:1, without love I am no more than a gong booming or a cymbal clashing.   God creates the moment and endows me to live as abundantly as I choose.

This class has been an unusual experience for me. Normally, I am an enthusiastic participant. This time, I have been hesitant, more of an observer. I wrestled with addressing the topic. In fact, earlier this week, I sat at a park in Roswell while my children meandered about. We had come to meet various homeschool acquaintances.  I wrestled with how to explain that I only vaguely care what my "gifts"are and couldn't begin to tell you how they direct my faith and service. A women came into the group. She was a bit pushy. One of the other woman made an early departure. I stayed. The weather was nice. I was attempting to be productive. To write.

Then the comments began coming. The loss. The anxiety. The brokenness. The tears.  This stranger. I told her about grace, forgiveness and compassion. My brokenness. I put my writing away. It was not time to be lofty and reflect upon my gifts. It was time to live. To get messy. To contain another person's broken humanity.  God did that. I just showed up and said yes.

The Scripture passages and inventory tests only give a glimpse of the real story. The real story is what happens when we learn to step aside our own made up agenda and goals to allow the big, expansive God to exercise His being.  These gifts we talk about are not ours. They are not just from the Holy Spirit. They are the Holy Spirit. They are the breath, understanding and action of the Spirit of God. I am grumpy, jealous, impatient and reticent. God is perfect love. There are no limits to what God can do when I learn how to sing, stand, shout, pray and yes, remain silent according to His will.
Our hands and feet. Our Mouths. His being. His heart. His unfailing redemption.

Thanks be to God.

Happy Tuesday

Warning: It's been a month filled with all kinds of inflammatory reading: Controversial Biblical scholars, human rights activists and martyrs. Along the way, I'm going through a creative spurt of clay, music and paint. I have no idea what will pop into my head or heart these days. I'm doing my best to make sure my out loud filter is highly engaged. That is *so* much work sometimes! 

We read a book around here this morning about the contribution of pioneer women. I got thinking about when people tell me they wish we could have the good old days. I wonder if they mean the days of high infant and maternal mortality, child labor, lynching, segregated schools. Is this pre or post that silly, and unconstitutional, 14th amendment that accidentally allowed for women's citizenship? 

I'm very fond of history and art. That's why I like antiques. If I could, I'd fill my home with all kinds of kitschy objects. I fantasize about finding an old 60's TV and gutting it. I *might* finally upgrade the family's $10 Yard sale TV for a cool new one that would fit in the aforementioned vintage set. 

But, I'm keeping electricity, health improvements, public school funding, Title IX and voting rights for all. 

keep walking

It's been a less than stellar week. News of Boston, local mishaps, and the anniversary of my brother's death leave little wiggle room in my disposition. I have found myself,  on more than one occasion struggling for patience. I have received every kindness offered as water and manna. Every kindness I have extended reminds me I am not hopeless. This is not who I am. I am not crabby, mean and foggy. Kindness has anchored me, as it has many. Why then, do we not do it more often?
I told the truth to a man who said my kindness mattered. "As does yours," I said, "This is what we have."

I find humor and comfort in my Scripture readings for the week. They bring out the best in me and remind me of shortcomings and disappointments.
The Lectionary (http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=136)  reading for the week refers to a resurrection that was not mine.  I distinctly remember begging for a miracle  that did not come. Unsuccessful negotiation. Cheekiness or desperation? No matter. Forgiven. 

On separate path, Ezekiel 34:4-6 chastens those who have not healed, comforted, bound the broken and found the lost. Chastens all with ears to hear and hearts to receive.  Chastens me. This week, more than in a happy go lucky, perky week, I am reminded that without love, it is all noise. and even knowing this, I fall short. I take a modest and shamed comfort that I am not alone in this struggle.
God willing, there will be a next week and we will keep at the task.

Nothing save kindness and one foot in front of the other, and no looking down. This week, I held onto the rope, didn't look down and took one step at a time.

Rambling

My dad has been visiting for a few days. I'm never sure how the visits will go. I have all kinds of expectations, both good and bad, of how things might happen. The unexpected rattles me if I'm not careful. It's almost as if I have to plan to be flexible--plan to Breathe lightly.
As it turns out, it was just fine. I hope it means I'm getting better at letting things go and better at remembering how short life is. I might just be getting tired...
  We took a surprise visit to find out a little family history yesterday. It turns out, I'm not too old to cherish the idea of an adventure with my dad. A whirlwind trip over the border to see an elderly family member gave my dad an undeniable zest and I now have a memory I'll cherish.
Upon arriving,  I was horrified to find out an enormous dinner was planned. Fortunately for my conscience, my efforts to assist with  cooking and cleaning were accepted after a bit. We were stuffed to the gills with fabled country cooking and spent hours hearing family lore. The kids saw their first ever Brady Bunch episodes.  They were suitably impressed. 
In the short time we've been back, I've tended both kidlets and lawn, planted the bulbs I was given, and sent my dad homeward.  Weeding is meditative and that's for the best. I've got plenty to think about. 

Everyday Holiness

It's been a long week. Last week, I was reminded all over again that we are human and faulty. I can imagine the reader saying, "of course." Not of course, because I'm an optimist and I have high hopes for people, and in particular, the church. So, when I went to church, expecting to take a step out of my comfort to join in worship in a new and uncomfortable way, I was a jumble of nerves. And when, I was chastised by a human, a stumbling wayfarer on the same journey, I fell apart. Yet, the day went on, and the miracle was still commemorated, because our human shortcomings were the why of the Easter Gift. The fellow traveller couldn't know my discomfort. I carried my hurt for days. I was angry. My fears had been found and my weaknesses examined. When I saw the person a few days later, I was still carrying the feelings, although I was loosening my grip.

And then today. Back to the same place. I listened to teachings that asked what is Holy Ground? Where and when is God? I thought of all the ways and places we experience God. In fact, I've been ruminating on such all week. Where is God? What is Holy? My life, to be honest, is filled with people waiting to define the what.

This week, in the same place, I watched and listened to two amazing people span generation and gender lines to remind their church of all we could do and withstand Because He Lives. The younger gently guided the elder to the altar, as I have seen her do so often.  The elder? His voice was strong. My heart was humbled,  expectant, challenged and  grateful.
Afterwards, I was approached by the very person that had loomed so large from last week. Discussion. Honesty. Vulnerability. Truth. Forgiveness. New beginnings. Awkward and yes, Holy.

I went to visit a friend who has lost one family member while another lies in a nearby hospital. I watched the family and friends come to stop beside them just a while. "You are precious. I remember. I am sorry. Thinking of you. Take care." A smile, a nod from the reserved. All to say, "we are holding you in our heart, uplifted to God." Holy Ground.

On the way home, I stopped to see a friend. She's older and suffers from dementia. Each time I see her, I introduce myself. It didn't use to be that way, but things change. I knelt on the physical therapy mat beside her bed. I didn't want her to have to strain to see me.  We sang together. We sang Mary  Had a Little Lamb, Jesus Loves Me and Amazing Grace. There were no instrumentals,no hymnals and  no preacher. Just us, huddled low in a generic room, with a plastic divider curtain and noises in the hallway. It was Holy Ground.

The Resurrection Sunday has come and gone. We are still His Easter people. Divinely created, with the potential and power to experience Holiness in unexpected places.  I've heard all kinds of doom and gloom over the last month and I am not shaken. We are imperfect and God is Good. This world is His and it is all Holy Ground if we will stop and recognize His presence. Our every day, walking around lives can and will bring peace, joy and compassion should we choose to let God be God. 

The trick is to choose to take off our sandals and lay our burdens down. Afterwards, we rise and bear witness. Holy Ground moving. 

On sorrow.

On this day, this happy and Holiest day, I cannot let go of the names and faces I know to have lost dear ones in the last two months. I think about the ones that wait for test results, healing and comfort. And I pray. 

I pray because I have no control over any of the aforementioned. None of us do. Our only power is an imperfect love, compassion and forgiveness. Community. 

The message of the resurrection has perhaps surpassed another message of triumph: that of the broken, mourning community of Christ awaiting a miracle, but largely having written one off. They were held together by their grief. In their fellowship, they bore a burden too immense to shoulder alone. With whom else could they safely nurse their wounds? In following the carpenter's son, they had left the comfort of friends and family far behind. Now, they had nothing to show for it. There was no  kingdom, no Divinity and no hope.

We will let go of loved ones before we are ready. We will uneasily await medical, financial and employment news. We will watch helplessly as our world turns upside down. We will need each other. We will stand at the edge of a crowd and long to be connected, not in any functional way. But as in a meerkat kind of way. We will need someone to stand watch so that we may sit, lie or hide. 

If we are fortunate, our hands and hearts will be held by another. Our burden will be lighter. The darkness will give way to light, not by any means of our own.  In an unmeasurable, unknowable span of time, the stone will be rolled away. The grief we knew to be there, the body we helped bury, will no longer exist. Long after the world thinks we ought to have gotten over whatever ails, we will remember. Like Him, we will always bear the scars. But, with mercy, we will eventually breathe again. We will fight the sense of betrayal and smile. We will laugh. 

And until then, we pray. We pray and plan to be fortunate. We plan to be fortunate enough to lift up and to be lifted. In that way, we celebrate the second miracle of the Easter story: when we held each other long enough to see that Life had come.

The Reconciliation and hope of Easter

Christianity does not call us to reconcile our lives to God's. That is the job of the Creator. He reconciles.  The Creator takes the created and bundles the heartbreak, the mess, the anger and the trivial into something Divine. The wonder and mystery of Easter is the voluntary yoking of our mess to the most physical embodiment of Deity the world had ever seen. Jesus 

Christ, a man who needed nothing of ours, who needed no spiritual lessons on forgiveness, humility, forgiveness and the quest of God, stepped into the story of humanity as a baby. He grew into a man, still harboring none of our baggage, and then in a supreme act of grace we do not deserve, died on a cross, beside the broken, for the broken, and assumed our mess. 

We like to define our sins. We list them. Greed, jealousy, adultery, murder, drunkenness, homosexuality. The list is long. And yet, there's this: what if all the law is  our human response to defining a God that is uncontainable and unknowable.  The ten commandments? A mortal's responses  to a divine encounter. Divinely blessed to be sure, as in the way we take our children's clean up efforts and say,"yes," but go behind them with a broom.  Because their efforts are important. They tie them to the vision, the process. 

 God reconciles with one breath. We show our work, as in a math problem. He does it in His head. 

He needn't show his work. The cross? That was for us. We needed the visual for the buy in. 

I often think about what is required to fully express my voluntary yoking of my messy life to God's vision. I go back to the basics.

 Deuteronomy 6:5-love the Lord with all my heart, soul and strength. 

Micah 6:8- do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. 

Mark 12:33- Not only will I love God, I will lovely neighbor as myself. 

Ephesians 6:4- be kind and forgive be another.

That is our yoking. When we live out the grace and mercy that has been poured into us, when we live out the call we hear in Christ,  we are marked as distinct. When we take the rest of the Law, it is because we desire a fence. There is no shame in a fence. It defines and guides our movements. I have a fence in my backyard, but not in my front. My neighbor to one side has none. My fence helps me define quarters for my dog and children, so that our freedoms do not encroach on our neighbor's right to the same. 

Law. Definition. Good things, that help me shape my life so that my footprint is small enough to allow God ample room to work in the world. The Law is not my tool to oppress, condemn and otherwise shame my neighbor. My voluntary fence does not exempt my Biblical call to love my neighbors and to really love them means I must know them. I must know them in their messy, uncontained, undefined struggling lives. I am to meet them, whoever they are, with whatever they have, whatever they wear, and with whomever they associate. Just as Christ my Brother, my Lord, met me. And then, and only then, if they decide any part of who they are does not allow them to comfortably follow God, then I may help them bring that burden to Christ. No questions. No judgments. No reconciliation. Because THAT IS NOT MY JOB! 

And so it's clear, I'm really bad at this. I'm impatient. I overplan. I try to structure the lives around me to my liking. I often fail to give God room to be Divine. I want God manageable, just like I want my spouse, my friends and my children. The manageable is safe and predictable. 

Holy week. Our mess reconciled, traded in for a chance to bring a living, resurrected

God to the ends of the earth. 

May God forgive me of my transgressions that I might be a better house for the most beautiful vision-  a full expression of His being of earth. 

May the peace, power and joy of the resurrection challenge us all to seek and know the Creator. 

On Biblical interpretations of marriage, sanctity of life and other sticky subjects

Until I've figured out how to cherish every soul I meet and willfully commune with the broken, worthless, arrogant, messy, sinful and downright different from anything I've been raised to acknowledge as a legitimate means to an end, I will refrain from placing my scriptural interpretations on your lives.  Even if I invest in another's life, I am not granted the ability to define sanctity or parameters. I am left only the privilege of helping to feed someone else's  children and family that they might know the same grace I do. Truly, I  have enough to worry about. If you've spent anytime examining my life, I'm sure you'll agree.  I am such a work in progress. 

Until I figure out both how to love my neighbors I won't bother defining their family. Until I wrestle the pre canonical texts of the disciples and figure out just how politically motivated that very messy procedure was, I think I won't stop seeking to better understand and know any person who will so bless me with snippets of their grace, their humor, their intelligence and their humanity. 
As far as I know, not a single instruction of Jesus meant that I could itemize the commandments for anyone else and the only ones He defined were that I should love God and people.  There are days, I would love an exemption. I'm tempted to pass judgement on every day that ends in Y, most days double dipping more than toddler.
While I'm at it, I don't do a lot on the age of earth stuff either. I'm here. Earth is big. There's a universe that's even bigger and a great big beyond that stretches out even further. My soul recognizes an unknown that I've sought to identify as long as I can remember, despite a whole lot of adult influence. I've been broken  and made whole in ways I'd be happy to tell any inquiring mind. I wouldn't dream of limiting the clock for the Author of time. It's a bravado I lack. I'm just grateful to be in the picture and hear the tick. The heartbeat of humanity is humbling.
Those of you that feel called to itemize and define any of the above, go right ahead. Knock yourself out. I do not wish my silence to be implied consent. If you need me, I'll be sitting at the sinner's table. It's the only one that had my name on it.

The call

We are not the Healer
We are the balm
   The ointment
    The salve
We ease into the cracks,
  The wounds - The dry places
We ease the irritation, the grief, the hurt.
We prepare the way for divinity.
Go in peace.

Restrained Magic

As of late,  have I watched
The dance between conductor and journeyman
Disciples,  compatriots
Devotees alike
I am entranced by magic that
Woos, cajoles, coaxes
Ultimately bewitching.
My enchanted soul takes lift.