Archives for February 2014

Q & A: Week Seven — The Question without Answers

I’ve been praying about this week’s question for days. It sits at the center of so many struggles, for me and for people I love — indeed, for just about everyone who takes their faith seriously. My words today are not meant to be final, but simply a reflection of my own processing around this important question over many years. I look forward to reading your words, too. Wrestling with hard questions is important work, necessary work, even when the answers do not always satisfy. And this question? There are no ‘satisfying’ answers out there, I don’t think. What there is . . . is acceptance and — here’s a hard word!  — submission.

Next week’s question: What do I do with all the hard/weird stuff in the Bible?

Painted in Waterlogue

i.

I suppose you might call me blessed. I was well into my forties before I ever experienced the death of anyone close to me. I had lost three grandparents before that time, but somehow, their deaths seemed the normal progression of things, almost orderly. I was sad and I was sorry, but I was not cut to the quick. And I didn’t actually see any of them when they were near death; I didn’t watch them suffer.

Looking back now, I’d have to say that any blessing involved in that particular twist of the calendar was a mixed one. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what it was like to watch someone I love suffer. Suffer and then die. I wasn’t ready when it happened. And, as it does to every one of us, it happened. A lot.

ii

My midlife foray into seminary and then pastoral ministry exposed me to a lot of death and dying. And I was given a great gift early on. A woman I knew moderately well was close to death and I went to visit her while I was still a student. I uttered a prayer under my breath as I pushed open the door to her hospital room: I had never been close to a dying person in my life and I truly did not know what to expect.

But as I stood with her, praying and talking (which are so often the same thing, aren’t they?), it seemed as if God gave me a vision. She had little hair, she was incoherent, she wore only a hospital gown and a diaper — and it hit me: she is getting ready to be born!  And I said that to her as I stroked her forehead, “Oh, my friend! God speed you on the journey.”

Painted in Waterlogueiii

In the years since that afternoon epiphany, I’ve watched my father-in-law, my best friend, my father, my son-in-law and dozens of parishioners suffer and die. And I’ve watched their families suffer and try to live, so this question is one I’ve carried around inside me for a long, long time. However, I have changed the question considerably over these years. In fact, I would have to say that the ‘why’ part of it has pretty much disappeared from my vocabulary. 

Because there is no answer to the ‘why,’ at least not one I can live with. I choose to hang onto the biggest possible picture of God — believing that God is good and God is powerful and God is loving and God is just. And holding all those things together makes the ‘why’ question unanswerable, at least for me. A big God, and the ways of a big God, are beyond my power to comprehend. Beyond. So I am increasingly at peace with leaving that huge area over to the side and focusing instead on questions like these:

What can I do to offer comfort/support/encouragement/hope to people who are struggling?

How can I pray for myself and for others when the tough times hit?

When is the best time to talk/be silent/offer practical help/sing a lament?

Where can I find more resources for those who are suffering?

Who is here? Who needs to be here? Who needs to be re-directed? Who needs more help than I am equipped to offer?

Painted in Waterlogue

iv

Those are the questions, those are the concrete activities, those are the best-case-scenario, left-brain things that happen when I click into crisis mode, in my own life or on behalf of someone else. And they are necessary, good and helpful things to think/do/offer/plan/imagine. But there is more. There has to be more. Because sometimes the weight of it all, the fear that creeps in and around the edges of serious suffering, the uneasy, uncertain darkness of it all — well those things are not quite so amenable to left-brain thought processes. The truth of God’s goodness/power/love/justice must somehow permeate me, not just my rational, thinking self. There must be room for the mystery, and somehow that ole left-brain just isn’t big enough. 

Painted in Waterlogue

v

The journey of the last half of my life is a journey away from the left side of my brain, that default position I have explored so heartily for so many years. It is a journey toward wholeness, an acknowledgement that I don’t know — I can’t know — what everything ‘means.’

To get to the center, to make room for the mystery, I must carve out time to . . . shut down the noise. Most of that noise happens inside my head, but some of it comes from outside: other people, outside commitments, expectations, assignments, distractions. And when something difficult happens to me or to someone I love, finding that quiet place becomes much more difficult.

But that is exactly when it is most needed. And slowly, with much trial and error, I am learning to find the quiet right smack dab in the middle of the noise. Sometimes it’s three minutes of deep breathing, eyes closed. Sometimes it’s the Jesus prayer, said over and over just before I drift off to sleep. Sometimes it’s taking a familiar phrase of scripture and looking at it, without dissecting it. Sometimes it’s a quiet 30 minutes in my car, perched on the bluffs, overlooking the ocean. Sometimes, it’s a poem or a song that winds its way around my soul, reminding me of Beauty and Grace and Peace. Sometimes, it’s falling asleep in the sunshine of my backyard. 

All of that helps me to find center, to make space for the Spirit, to transfer the swirling anxieties within to the strong, double yoke of Jesus, who has so graciously offered to carry those burdens with me. All of that helps me to come to peace with the unanswered ‘whys’ of my life. 

Quiet. Stillness. Contemplation. Meditation. Wordless prayer. These are the gifts, these are the invitations.

Painted in Waterlogue

vi

Discipline is the other side of discipleship. Discipleship without discipline is like waiting to run in the marathon without ever practicing. Discipline without discipleship is like always practicing for the marathon but never participating. It is important, however, to realize that discipline in the spiritual life is not the same as discipline in sports. Discipline in sports is the concentrated effort to master the body so that it can obey the mind better. Discipline in the spiritual life is the concentrated effort to create the space and time where God can become our master and where we can respond freely to God’s guidance.

Thus, discipline is the creation of boundaries that keep time and space open for God. Solitude requires discipline, worship requires discipline, caring for others requires discipline. They all ask us to set apart a time and a place where God’s gracious presence can be acknowledged and responded to.
– Henri Nouwen

vii

The only way for me to hold the tension of ‘bad things’ happening to ‘good people’ is to remember that I do not and cannot know the reasons why these hard, horrible things happen. I can, however, resolve to enter into the suffering — my own and others’ — and look for God there, because everything I read in scripture and everything I know about Jesus tell me that right there, in the middle of the mess, is where God is sure to show up. And all the topics that we’ve been exploring together in this series come together in that central truth.

We worship a God who knows what it is to suffer and who walks with us through whatever terrible things unfold in front of us. More than that, we worship a God who promises to somehow, some way, redeem that suffering in ways we cannot now imagine. 

viii

“This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”
           – Romans 8:15-28, The Message

 

Next week’s question (LAST week of this series for now): What do I do with all the hard/weird stuff in the Bible?


Q & A: Tuesday Wrap-Up – Week Six

Painted in Waterlogue
In the midst of nausea and exhaustion this week, I was delighted to see some newcomers joining their posts to the link-up and to meet a couple of new folks in the comments section, too. It has been such a joy to listen in as you all talk to one another (and to me), asking good, hard questions, offering personal experiences by way of answer. At this stage of my life, it’s the personal stories that tell me the truest things I know. It’s not theological debate, it is most certainly not drawing any kind of line in the sand. It is story. Stories of God’s faithfulness, stories of feeling lost, stories of being found. So I thank you for sharing your stories with me and with each other. I truly believe this is how we grow, that this is how the pieces come just a little bit closer to fitting.

One new contributor told the story of finding safety in a women’s group, of hearing heart-felt sharing and coming to see how beauty shines brightly right in the middle of the broken pieces:

Because our lives are full of broken shards but God makes art with the pieces. No one escapes the hammer of a world turned against itself and we live shattered in a million jagged pieces. We walk around cut and try to put together the pieces with a good night cream and a pep talk.

Oh, yeah, I’ve heard enough pep talks in my day – I’ve even given a few too many pep talks in my day! but all that is really needed is a sympathetic heart, and ears tuned to hear the whisper of redemption, even in the midst of the hard places. 

Another new friend spoke powerfully of redemption found in the bleakest of circumstances, giving testimony to the promises of God made real in the midst of deep sorrow:

So, as always, I took it to Jesus. My all time, ultimate healer. I cried out, through my tears, and much pain, asking Him how was I going to get through all of this?? I said, I am totally broken, never going to be whole again. Jesus said, ‘No, No, No!! You are wrong my daughter. I am the Potter, you are the clay. I will collect all of your broken pieces, put them together, and recreate you. No, you will not be quite the same as you were before the stroke, but, you will still be you, AND YOU ARE WHO I LOVE!!

An online friend dug through her archives to find one of my favorite of her posts from mid-2013. And she quoted one of my go-to lines when the waters of my life become rough and unsettled:

And I didn’t know what to make of it all, only that it wasn’t going well and I couldn’t fix it, not any of it.   

But somewhere in the middle of it all, as I stood desperate in the kitchen, the words of Julian of Norwich came to me.  Julian, who lived her life cloistered in a cell with two windows – one that faced out on the world and one that faced the alter and cross.  Julian, who lived in a time of war and plague and deep anxiety, yet dared to believe and claim that we are all held, all sustained by the love of God, her words echoed through me,

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Julian’s words sank into me like an anchor, a life-line, restoring, reconnecting me to the One who is life, the One who was and is and will make all things well.  So I wrote them down on contact paper and posted them over the sink.

In the midst of several new contributors, there were some wonderful post from our ‘regulars.’ I loved these words about the sacrifice of relinquishment:

The shards of our shattered hopes and dreams become a marvelous mosaic in God’s hands.

When we take those broken pieces of our lives, frayed fabric of our days, torn edges of our thoughts, tangled threads of our theology, gaps and holes in our flawed and imperfect understanding ~ all become sacrificial surrender, holy offering, and a handing over to the Master Potter and Architect of our souls.

He alone can fully mend, heal, renew and restore to better than it was before. We seek, ask, do our part, trust, rest, and leave the outcome up to Him. 

It isn’t easy. Everything inside cries out to know and understand beforehand. Relinquishing control is a challenge.

Another regular contributor used the book of Ecclesiastes as the still center for his wonderings about making the pieces fit. The words of The Preacher in that great book of Old Testament wisdom has been speaking grace and peace into this writer’s life for decades:

I think we miss the point of the third chapter of Ecclesiastes – There is a time and place for everything under the sun.  This chapter is usually used as a consoling text – take heart, it all fits together.  What is usually not understood is that the point of Ecclesiastes is that we will never know how it fits together.  What this chapter is doing is listing all of the contradictions of life: birth, death, war, peace – they are all a part of the human experience.   There may be a time for each experience, but it is not given to us to know when that time is. “ Vanity of vanity’, saith the preacher,’ all is vanity.”  

A long-time friend-of-the-web posted a link to his post from earlier in the week, just because I asked him to. I loved the way he wrestled with the very question we’ve posed for the week. . . without even knowing the question had been posed! And he used humor to do his work:

We unpacked life, layer after layer, and the more I thought about it, the more I considered the breadth and scope of our time here. It’s a wild ride; isn’t that cliche? Apologies. I’ve always been predisposed to cliche. Old habits die hard. Shoot; there I go again! Let me try again, because if at first I didn’t succeed, and all of that. We unpacked life and I considered how it is composed  of a series of both unfortunate and fortunate events. I considered how both pain and joy are gifts, how they teach us what it means to be alive to the presence of God around us, in us, and through us. Without pain, where is the need for communion with God? Without joy, where is the thankfulness cultivated by God at work in us? Joy and pain, yin and yang–they bring the balance to this thing we call grace. All is grace. This could become cliche if we let it, almost the stuff of silver linings. But it’s much more than that. Consider it. The snow of winter–its melting gives way to the shoots of spring. The sickness of the child–it draws us deeper into our need for trust in an eternal God. The community of faith, the wife, the children–they keep us moving forward.

And a newer-web-friend did the exact same thing this week! She wrestled with the ideas we’ve been tossing around and agreed to link her beautiful musings with our conversation. I loved discovering that the Spirit of God is hovering over the waters of the internet, blowing similar truths in a variety of directions. Here are her words about ‘holding the reins lightly,’ — written before my own were penned:

The spiritual reality is likely the most important, the most real, but I can’t let it crowd out the rest. If I’m going to write honestly and live honestly, I can’t forget the ground beneath my feet. I can’t forget what 5 pm feels like.

And it isn’t only honesty at stake. It is also love. If I am going to love my neighbor well, I can’t stop seeing the dirtiness of my own patch of dirt. I can’t forget that we are all together in this land of muddy snow and headaches and 5 pm yelling.

Maybe, the trick is not learning to hold on to two true things. Maybe, there aren’t two realities: one spiritual, the other temporal. Maybe there is only the one. Maybe I must learn to see without splitting everything in two.

Maybe, there is glory in the dirt.

YES!! “Glory in the dirt,” living right, smack-dab in the middle of the paradox, holding the joy and the sorrow together. And as we work to hold the various pieces of our life together, forming some kind of cohesive whole, this regular contributor reminded us of where the center truly is:

Others have suffered too and continue to do so. I weep for them and do what I can (and I know I can always do more) to build a kingdom of justice and peace. To comfort the weeping and console the hurt.

(And these others are the only ones who know if they too have been blessed through their suffering. That is not for me to say.)

In all this my only certainty is that Christ loves each and every one of us with a heart that yearns for us to be at peace, to know our common humanity and to live in his Kingdom.

Love. God’s love for us. That holds all the pieces together. And I hold on to that.

I want to hold onto that, too! But there are days, even seasons in our lives, when it’s painful to do even that, close to impossible to hold onto the reality of the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. A writer new to blogging, but not new to this blog, asked these questions as she wrestled with this topic:

And what to do with the fact that most of us are hurting for one reason or another – everyone has their own pain, and some days even that knowledge is almost overwhelming, and I wonder how God could have created the world in the first place, knowing how much anguish and suffering would occur…

I don’t know how to make it all fit.  Life hurts. God is good.  How do these two things make sense together?

At this point, the only answer I have, is to give up the questions.  The only way I can find peace for my mind and heart is to stop trying to make it all make sense, and turn my eyes on Him – not for the answers He can give me, but to find rest for my soul.

Like a child, hiding in his mother’s lap when it all becomes too much, too overwhelming.

The only way I know to make all the pieces fit is to stop trying to make them fit, and hand them all to God.  To stop trying to see the ‘bigger picture’ and make it all make sense, and instead focus on Him and His love for me.

He loves me!  And I can trust Him to make it all fit.

And this is the very best place to land, isn’t it? In a place of trust and relinquishment, choosing to believe that God is big enough to handle all the confusion that we carry inside our souls.

The last link in the list this week spoke about sacred space and what a gift certain places on the planet can be for us, speaking peace into our restlessness and hope into our despair. I can so relate to this! For me, that sacred space is either at the beach or in my own backyard, surrounded in both places by the wonders of creation: 

This. This is why I come here Here I am reminded of your existence, of your character, And why I can trust you when the pieces don’t fit

And I am reminded. I can hold in tension two truths about life Sometimes it’s hard, desperately difficult Sometimes it’s good, heart-stoppingly beautiful And You are present In both. For today it’s enough for me.

And for today, this is enough from me. I have neither blog space nor energy to dip into the comments this week. Please know I read (and usually reply to) every single one and I thank God for your willingness to engage these questions each week. Together, we are living into the answers — even when we cannot discover a cut-and-dried, formulaic set of words or ideas, we are still living into the answers.

Friday’s question: Why do bad things happen to good people?

 

Q & A: Week Six – Holding the Reins Lightly

This week’s ‘Living the Question:’ How do I make all the pieces fit?

Next week’s Question: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Links to each post in this series can be found in the introductory portion of this post.
Waterlogue (3) shoreline viewSo, it’s been a week.
Not one of my favorites,
and I’m looking for the lessons in it.
So far, I don’t like what I see.

Because what I see is the truth:
some days, life stinks.
People you love deal with worrisome things,
you feel like you’re caught
in the middle of a personal
third-time’s-a-charm kinda deal,
only there’s no charm to be found.

And that close encounter with a good God
you had last week?
Well, that’s last week’s news.

But then. . .
you read words that nourish,
or you spy a photo that 
gives your soul wings.
A bird calls,
the breeze blows,
and the sun shines brightly
on the water.

And you remember.
You remember that this is
what it means to be
a human person,
living on planet earth.

There is so much pain,
struggle, outright evil.

And there is so much beauty,
goodness and wonder.

Together. Always together.

And most of it is way beyond
our power to control.
Yes, we are invited into a
partnership, of sorts.
A dance, with the God of the Cosmos,
who chooses to work stealthily,
covertly, through very leaky vessels.

Like you. And like me.

And there is no explaining it,
not any of it.
Except to say
it is, indeed,
a mystery.

And the bigger mystery,
at least to my eye,
is this one:
the good stuff.
All the good stuff:
the beauty of creation,
the selflessness of some,
the revelations of modern
science and technology,
the miracle of a true friend.

Large or small,
new or old,
I cannot find a way to
tell you why there is anything
redeemable at all
in this crazy, wide world.

If I think about it at all,
which I do, on occasion,
I ‘get’ the bad stuff,
the ‘nature, red in tooth and claw.’

But I can’t for the life of me 
figure out why
a hummingbird hovers
so perfectly,
or when love happens,
or why it lasts.

I can’t reason it out,
make it fit the facts.

So I’m learning to live in the 
valley between,
holding two realities in
creative tension,
very, very loosely.

And in the process,
I’m learning more about God
and more about myself
than I sometimes wish I knew.

But then, that’s the way with questions, right?
That’s the way with questions.

Waterlogue (4) paddle surfer

Not sure I feel exactly upright this week, but looking at this photo, ‘watercolored’ through a phone app, reminds me that it’s good to keep afloat whenever possible! Just these few quiet reflections for you all today as I continue to recuperate from the flu. I did find this wonderful comment today, from one of our regular conversationalists to another in the comments section of one of their blogs. A lovely summary statement of ‘making the pieces fit,’ I think. Please let me see your words on this important question. Maybe by wrap-up day, I’ll have a few more to add, but I’m not countin’ on it!

“I feel like a ‘work in progress’ too! What else can we be unless we determine to stop growing. Sometimes the chisel cuts, sometimes the smoothing away of rough corners hurts. But unlike works of art we take part in our creation and moulding. And we know that the desired outcome is nothing less than to make manifest our unique beloved perfection.” – from Juliet’s comment on Joy’s blog

Click on the froggie to link your specific blog post. It looks different because it is different. Starting last week, they changed the system.

Q & A Tuesday (well, Wednesday!) Wrap-Up: Week Five

WaterlogueThis fuzzy version of a photo of mine sort of sums up this week. Not one I want to remember, to tell you the truth. And no, I have not missed the irony of such a week when immersed in a series that has taken a turn toward wrestling with suffering. Somehow, the isolation, upset and disequilibrium wrought by a nasty stomach virus seems fitting, don’t you think? 

I am grateful for your faithful reading of a too-long essay last Friday and for the responses you formed, either here in the comments or on your own blogs. As always, you make me think and you remind me that we don’t take this journey by ourselves. There was some beautiful, lyrical work done out there in response to this question and I can see that most of you have already learned a lot about living into it.

I don’t know about you, but these lines just sing to me right now, as I slowly find my way back to normalcy. Such a beautiful ribbon of love woven through this:

And all through this week, though I am ashamed to admit it, I am also proud that I have at last really heard the declarations of love surrounding me. I have stood up tall and accepted that I am loved.  The dam broke, the river flowed and in the middle of it, swirling and twisting in delight, there was I, there Am I, bathed, buoyed up and revivified by this living water of love. I heard the message in hugs, smiles, kisses, on Facebook and Twitter, through the post, in the holding of a hand.

I am powerful and vulnerable. The Spirit dwells in me and I am loved.

We all need weeks like that, don’t we? Weeks that remind us of the truth, weeks in which we accept the truth and live it. I’m looking for one of those weeks to drift my way soon!

Our most frequent poet is on a road trip this week, but another of you posted a lovely verse, reminding us that we don’t do this suffering thing alone:

If each person is an island , then
we’re all floating in a communal sea
desperately trying not to drown
It takes courage to swim against the tide
when there’s no sheltering place to hide
Until a safe harbour hoves into view
tugging gentle on our heartstrings
willing us to steer strong and true
Vessels rest weary, depleted, worn,
storm-battered, tattered, torn
Ready to refuel and be restored again,
seeking respite for a little longer
we prepare to face fierce winds and rain
Now with our Captain at the helm
these surging tides no longer overwhelm

A new contributor this week dug through her (awesome) archives and found this gem from a Lenten meditation last year.

“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” says Jesus.

To be human is to feel pain and sorrow, to sit breaking and broken as the tears roll down.  We hold-on for as long as we can, clutching tight to the old, the known, and then finally, letting go at last, we feel the fear of falling as the thin skin of safety, the strong walls of that which holds us give way to something more. 

And all along the dark, dry and narrow passage that leads us continually from death to life, the gift of tears comes to water us, to nourish our thirsty souls and the seeds of life within. 

Thank God for that gift of tears!

I read one post this week that just shredded me, and I asked its author to link it up for all of you. I am so grateful for her story about a church that welcomes brokenness, and makes a safe place for sorrow. If you have not already done so, I encourage you to read each of these posts in their entirety. They are all wonderful:

I believe the brokenness is beautiful….I think God does too.

I long for the day when the fire pit is pulled right inside. When there is space for brokenness and space for healing. I long for a time when my story and my church are not the exception, where people say to people:

Isn’t church the place where all those broken people gather and love on each other?

The brokenness is an offering. Even before it is healed. The brokenness is holy too.

Two of our ‘originals’ took advantage of the extra day for linking and each of them spoke eloquently of their own journeys through sorrow, discovering how to live loved in the midst of it. One young woman wrote eloquently of visiting old grief from the vantage point of several years, and learning so much from the journey:

My journal entries for my Composition 1 class are very much the assertions of a good girl. Reading them now, I feel sad for her. Why did she try so hard? Why did she force everything through her good-girl grid? Why did she skate, skate, skate over the top of her life?

All this helped me trust God with my suffering in new ways. As I wrote my pages about death, I remembered and chronicled what I actually saw and felt. I wrote it mindful of God’s love with me then, of His seeing and caring for me as I really was.  When I lived the experience, I was always trying to figure out how I should act, what I should do. Not until ten years later did I allow that it had all been too much for me. I accepted myself to have been a young, sad, overwhelmed daughter in an awful situation and I knew God’s compassion for me. I did not have to explain the shadows, did not have to bring God, like a lantern, into them–He was already there, with me.

And she shared the sweetest song, one that she wrote about dealing well with her grief after the passage of time. Hop over and listen.

And an older friend (closer to my own age!), talked about the same kind of process from the vantage point of decades and how the words of a friend/advisor helped her learn to let go of the comparison-game in thinking about her own journey through the valley:

And then  few months later
I told you I felt guilty
as I compared
my loss of a brother
to my sister-in-law’s loss of a husband.
That was surely worse,
wasn’t it?

And you reminded me not to quantify grief.
Everyone’s grief is their own, you said

and cannot be compared
to another’s grief.
Losing a brother is different
from a wife losing a husband
from a daughter losing a dad
from a son losing a dad
from a father losing a son
from a mother losing a son.
and even though
you had lost a brother
you did not lose my brother.

For grief minimized is pain unaddressed. And the pain is carried for years buried beneath the living of life only to re-surface. 

There was richness in the comments again this week, too. A good reminder that the bedrock of ‘living loved’ has to be our connection to God, not to anyone else:

Imagine close to 75 children, surrounding you singing a beautiful birthday song while they handed me a big sheet signed by everyone with words about how much they loved me. The song went on for about 5 minutes while I stood there in tears. It is wonderful to feel loved, but it is fleeting. Knowing you are loved by God is the rock under the doubt of human love, but I don’t always put my feet down. Anyway, thank you for this wisdom. It truly is the key to withstanding suffering. The physical suffering can be tolerated in a variety of ways, but not feeling loved cannot be tolerated. It is constant pain. Loving ourselves helps us love others, as you know, and is our first duty every day.

And this richness, from one who has learned to live loved over her lifetime:

if we don’t truly believe God is love and everything comes through his heart of love…we filter the sorrow and suffering of this world with the wrong lens…it’s knowing we are loved that buoys us in the seas of the unknown..it hold us through the dark…this revelation of His love has transformed my relationship with Him and others…not that I have arrived…but this scandalous love of His has changed the trajectory of my life and has brought me to a greater place of rest. I feel like I have just put my toes in the waters of His great ocean of love and we have now and eternity to dive into the depth of the sea of His Love. 

A good reminder that the ‘sliding scale’ of suffering I referenced can be problematic at both ends of the spectrums – underplaying or overplaying:

You mention a sliding scale when it comes to suffering. VERY good point. We often are too quick to minimize what we’re facing, going through right now – or at the other end of it – maximizing it. Lord help us to see clearly our situations and then open up our hearts to you and let it pour out. THEN we can open our hands to receive the grace we need for that moment.

And a great reminder that not all suffering is physical in nature:

As with physical pain, we all experience emotional pain differently. Emotional pain cannot be seen, or compared. We empathize and console by gently walking alongside.

Another addition to the pile of stuff that can get in the way of living loved looks exactly like this:

I struggle with condemnation, as if Jesus’ blood wasn’t enough to pay for my sin……..as if! As if my groveling and feeling bad will make it better. (We looked at Romans Chapter 9 at our Home Group the other night…this is fresh in my brain. :-) Does that make sense? My greatest giants are the ones I fight in my head but I’m getting better at throwing the truth at them, much more early and often.

And a late commenter summed it up quite well, don’t you think?

Learning to feel loved is a life-time quest for so many, and that’s why we do such silly things. The Buechner quote was fantastic, as it shows the dichotomy of living in this world, between one existence and another. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be a struggle. And if I really embodied the fact that I am loved, then that changes everything !

My thanks to each of you for your faithful reading and commenting and writing. Even in the middle of a yucky week, your words have lifted and encouraged me. And I am grateful.

If all goes well, I’ll be back here on Friday with a new question to wrestle with and live into:

How do I make all the pieces fit?

 

Q & A: Week Five – Living Loved

Welcome to week five in a series of longish reflections on some of life’s harder questions. We’re having a rich conversation in this space and I am grateful. Last week opened the door to a series-within-the-series, a set of questions that touch on the Big Topic of suffering. This week’s question jumps in a little deeper:

What do we do with our suffering?

Next week: How do I make all the pieces fit? DSC00973

Valentine’s Day has never been a favorite day for me. It’s become over-commercialized and too often leads to tiny heartbreaks instead of warm fuzzies. Yet I find it oddly appropriate that this week’s question should fall on this day. Why? Because at the heart of all that I’ve learned by living this particular question is this strong, clear truth:

The greatest task, and the deepest joy, of the human journey is learning to live loved.

Trusting that despite all kinds of evidence that might, at first glance, seem to be to the contrary, we are loved. Loved beyond reason, beyond our ability to comprehend, beyond imagining.

Why are we loved?

Because we are. Because we live. Because we existed in the mind of God before ever we drew breath. Because each and every one of the billions of us who have walked the deserts and jungles of this planet is beautiful, lovable, glorious and a totally unique bearer of the image of God. A Great God, who is both beyond us and with us, who rejoices when we rejoice and weeps when we weep. 

We are loved.

Everything else begins and ends with that statement.


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On days when the sun is shining, the sky is clear, and we and our loved ones are busy enjoying the good things this life has to offer — on those days, the whole idea of living loved seems possible. Good feelings overflow, endorphins rush through our brains and bodies, and Life.Is.Good.

Yes, maybe we are loved! Maybe this is what love looks like — happy feelings all around, blue skies wherever my eye lands.

DSC00952But when the blue begins to fade a bit, and clouds drift by, when harder things hit us, interrupt the good vibes of blue-sky days. . . well, then that whole idea begins to seem a lot more iffy, doesn’t it? Something uncomfortable begins to intrude, a physical ailment or a ruptured relationship, job dissatisfaction or not enough money at the end of the month — living loved? Not likely. Living ignored feels more like it.

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But here’s what I’m coming to believe. I’m not all the way there yet, but I’m getting there, and I’m breathing prayers for grace and patience to live into this truth:

It is when the storm looms large that all the edges of living loved begin to be visible. It is in the storm that we meet God most intimately. And we encounter ourselves there, too. We learn a heckuva lot more about who we are, how we’re built, where our strengths and weaknesses are, and what our own personal shadows have to teach us when we’re navigating through gale-force winds than when we’re enjoying a blue-sky day.

If I’m honest — and I’m trying to be! — I don’t like this very much. I prefer sunny days and happy feelings. I’m grateful for loving family and financial stability and good health and the ability to be generous — and it’s easy to be grateful for all of that. 

But life is not simply blue-sky days. And when the storms hit, gratitude is much harder to find. Sometimes we can go years without seeing a hint of blue in the scene unfolding around us. Life is complicated, often difficult, sometimes filled with pain. What then? Living loved? 

Now, it feels more like living abandoned.

Last week, we encouraged one another to give ourselves permission for the tears that come with all those feelings, all those stormy days. I believe scripture invites us to lament, giving us words and emotions and stories that underscore the reality of human suffering. Biblical faith is not stoicism and it is not saccharine or cheesy, either.

Biblical faith is muscular, tough, stubborn. Joseph held onto hope despite calamity after calamity. Jacob learned everything the hard way. David was great at music and kingship, but lousy at parenting and integrity. Elijah was aces when the big show demanded it, but fell apart when fatigue overwhelmed. Hannah cried out to God when her life felt empty and bitter and then gave up God’s gift when he arrived. Ruth begged and borrowed the very food she and Naomi needed while learning to trust Israel’s God. Mary pondered and sang, questioned and grieved. 

Suffering is never minimized in scripture. It is acknowledged on almost every page. We are never told to ‘rise above it.’ Instead, we are invited to live into it and to learn from it. And to recognize that God is right here with us, in the middle of every sob session, in the heart of every loss, right here in the muck with us. 

Here are some powerful, beautiful words from Fred Buechner that begin to summarize what I want to say today:

 “The world floods in on all of us. The world can be kind, and it can be cruel. It can be beautiful, and it can be appalling. It can give us good reason to hope and good reason to give up all hope. It can strengthen our faith in a loving God, and it can decimate our faith. In our lives in the world, the temptation is always to go where the world takes us, to drift with whatever current happens to be running strongest. When good things happen, we rise to heaven; when bad things happen, we descend to hell. When the world strikes out at us, we strike back, and when one way or another the world blesses us, our spirits soar. I know this to be true of no one as well as I know it to be true of myself. I know how just the weather can affect my whole state of mind for good or ill, how just getting stuck in a traffic jam can ruin an afternoon that in every other way is so beautiful that it dazzles the heart. We are in constant danger of being not actors in the drama of our own lives but reactors. The fragmentary nature of our experience shatters us into fragments. Instead of being whole, most of the time we are in pieces, and we see the world in pieces, full of darkness at one moment and full of light the next.

It is in Jesus, of course, and in the people whose lives have been deeply touched by Jesus, and in ourselves at those moments when we also are deeply touched by him, that we see another way of being human in this world, which is the way of wholeness. When we glimpse that wholeness in others, we recognize it immediately for what it is, and the reason we recognize it, I believe, is that no matter how much the world shatters us to pieces, we carry inside us a vision of wholeness that we sense is our true home and that beckons to us. It is part of what the book of Genesis means by saying that we are made in the image of God. It is part of what Saint Paul means by saying that the deepest undercurrent of all creation is the current that seeks to draw us toward what he calls mature humanhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
— Frederick Buechner, from a sermon included in the book, “Longing for Home”

Wholeness. Living loved brings us as close to that as we can get this side of heaven. Choosing, every single day, no matter the weather, to believe that God loves us — and to learn to love ourselves because God loves us — this is the only path I know that leads to wholeness, to healing.

That means jettisoning a lot of bad theology along the way. It means choosing to hold the tension of God’s sovereignty and God’s goodness loosely and humbly. It means choosing to live with unanswered questions. It means letting the tears loose, crying ‘uncle,’ stomping our feet on occasion or shaking our fists in heaven’s direction. And then. . . sitting still long enough to hear the gentle whisper of love echoing in our hearts — right there, in the middle of our frustration, our rage, our impotence.

DSC00968It also means refusing to put suffering on a sliding scale of any kind. If you find yourself in the middle of deep personal pain for any reason — ANY REASON — then you are suffering. Please do not undervalue your own struggle by looking across the aisle, or across the newspaper, or across the world to someone else’s struggle. You will always find someone who is ‘worse off’ than you are. I promise. Instead, fully inhabit your pain, as much as you are able. Release the anguish of it, take it to God and say, “See this? Do you see this? Do you see how hard this is? Are you God or aren’t you? Can you fix this or can’t you?”

Yes, go ahead. Pour it out.

And then — shut up.

Sit by the side of the road and listen. Listen to what God has been teaching you about love and about yourself. Really listen. “I am with you always,” God says. “I collect your tears in a bottle.” 

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And remember that when these times hit — and they do, they will — that you are in such good company, the author of Lamentations to name one. He rages and sobs. . . and then he remembers. He listens to what he knows:

13 He shot his arrows
    deep into my heart.
14 My own people laugh at me.
    All day long they sing their mocking songs.
15 He has filled me with bitterness
    and given me a bitter cup of sorrow to drink.
16 He has made me chew on gravel.
     He has rolled me in the dust.
17 Peace has been stripped away,
    and I have forgotten what prosperity is.
18 I cry out, “My splendor is gone!
    Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost!”
19 The thought of my suffering and homelessness
    is bitter beyond words.
20 I will never forget this awful time,
    as I grieve over my loss.
21 Yet I still dare to hope
    when I remember this:
22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
    His mercies never cease.
23 Great is his faithfulness;
    his mercies begin afresh each morning.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
    therefore, I will hope in him!”

The LORD is our inheritance.

Can you still ‘dare to hope?’ No matter what sort of crap life hands you? Do you know how loved you are, even when the s**t hits the fan? Do you know how to love yourself when the pain level rises? Can you release the temptation to write off your own pain because someone else’s may be worse? 

And here’s the question I need to ask myself right now, in the middle of the muck that we’re wading through: can I remember that there is only one Savior and that Savior’s name is Jesus? Can I release my need to be the giver of help and begin to receive what I need to get through this round? Can I believe enough in the immensity of God’s love for me that I can make good choices, ones that lead to health and healing? 

I’m workin’ on it. 

You?

Next week, we’ll continue to delve into this enormous and complex topic by asking:

How do I make all the pieces fit?

Sunday Dinner: A Deeper Story/Family

Another installment in the series of reflections I’m writing on this final walk I take with mom, the one through dementia. You can begin reading here, and then click over to A Deeper Story, where I’m writing for the Family Channel today.

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The sun streams in through the French doors on the south side of the building, adding warmth and light to the carefully set dining tables. It’s a lovely space, recently redecorated, with linen napkins popping up out of the water glasses. My husband and I eat lunch here every Sunday, joining our moms for a nicely presented 3-course meal.

There are floral centerpieces on each table, assembled every Wednesday morning by the people who live here, under the gentle direction of two volunteer Garden Ladies. Today’s bouquet consists entirely of white rosebuds and looks lovely as we take our places around the table.

I must say that the dinner guests are an interesting assortment. All of them are over 75, most of them over 80. A few – like both of our mothers – are over 90, moving closer every day to the century mark. They move slowly, these diners. A variety of metal walkers are lined up along each wall and I always hold my breath until all the stragglers are safely seated at the table of their choice.

Last Sunday, we counted 12 residents out of a possible 15. One is out to eat with family, one chooses to remain in her room, and one – my mother-in-law – is too sleepy to sit up at the table. One of those missing is a singer. During past dinners, we’ve heard the battle hymn of every division of the US military, “Home, Home on the Range,” “You Are My Sunshine,” and a few we don’t recognize.

This Sunday, however, that voice is missing. At first, it feels like a relief. A quiet meal! But after a while, the silence becomes thick and cumbersome, like a too-heavy blanket on an overly warm day. 

 You can continue reading this post over at one of my favorite sites on the web, A Deeper Story. . .

Q & A Tuesday Wrap-Up: Week Four

 

There are a lot of words in this wrap-up — and most of them are from all of you!DSC00924

What a rich conversation we’ve had this week! Thank you all for your insights and your articulate, kind responses to me and to one another. Thank you for helping us all to wrestle well with the question of ‘tears.’ Yes, yes. There is room for our tears in the body of Christ, even though many of us have felt them to be unwelcome in particular corners of that body. The words you’ve shared, both in link-ups and in the comments section, have added so much liveliness and depth to living this particular question. I am grateful.

One of the earliest link-ups this week was breathtakingly beautiful, with reminders that life lived on planet earth is only an introduction to the life that is to come. She wrote: “I love crawling close in hospital beds and into the stories with their glimpses of the main stage, and inviting the next chapter into the room. It’s painful and gorgeous all at once. It’s the most beautiful thing my soul has ever felt. We are in the lobby. We have only caught a glimpse of  beauty.” I encourage you to read the entire post.

Several posts this week were written in poetic, prayerful format, asking the church to be more open to letting the tears flow freely and unashamedly. We were encouraged to:

Make room in our own woundedness to walk the road with others who are weak and in pain. Be a sanctuary for the seeking, the saved and those sick in body, mind or heart. 

Weep with those who weep. Rejoice with all who rejoice. Lift and uphold each other in prayer. Come alongside and be Christ’s ambassadors in caring for all in need.

Another faithful friend wrote a story of freedom, of permission to be all of who she is in the presence of God:

my younger self
was never known to cry
perhaps it was scolded out of me
having too often heard
“I’ll give you something to cry about”

but my God gave me tears
when I surrendered to Him
my harsh and stoney heart

 now I am known
as a woman who weeps
long and deep tears 
born of joy, pain, awe 
and intercession

A regular contributor chose to offer a poetic reflection on both life and scripture in response to this question about tears:

The woman brought her tears,
rained them on our Lord’s
dusty feet. The body of Christ knows
(though we have forgotten)
the fellowship of tears.

And a regular member of the conversation joined her blog for the first time this week, also writing her thoughts in poetry:

While some have been tears
of deep grief,
sometimes tears tell me
it’s time to
stop
pay attention
see what God has for me.

Although not always readily apparent,
the time spent paying attention
until it becomes clear
is time
well-spent.

This beautiful and poignant post came from the deep wells of personal pain and loss and speaks to the hard but necessary truth that we don’t always know where our tears will lead, how our sorrow will be redeemed:

It will be days, months, maybe years, to process what God has done and to see the fruits from the passing of this small seed.
New life is coming, even from this death, and there will be more to write.
Leah has her own story to tell, but I will share some of the precious words she said to me,
“Mom, we will never be the same.  He taught us so much.”

His name was Garrison Isaac.

You know ‘Isaac’ means ‘laughter’–and he is–laughing, I know.  
With Jesus.

A really important corrective came from this once-Catholic-maybe-still-Catholic writer who reminded those of us with conservative/evangelical/Protestant stories that there are other stories about tears, too:

Well, Catholicism has no problems with tears. Repentance is regular and necessary and tears are often part of that. Life is accepted as being full of pain so there will often be tears. There isn’t any pressure on believers to be joyful. So when I came across this sense of failure over feeling unhappy or depressed or sad I was puzzled.

Tears have accompanied deep revelations of sinfulness and forgiveness. . . 

Perhaps there should be some tears shed for the harm that has been done to the church by our disunity.

And the comments section this week simply soared, with heart-to-heart connections and beautiful words. A few of my favorites:

“He doesn’t let a single tear go to waste.
And the day is coming when He will dry each one.
Now that’s a promise to hold on to.”

About bad theology in the church:

“Once, not long after my miscarriage, I was told (taught, actually) that–if we’re not joyful–we make God the Father look bad. I rejected that idea in my spirit immediately, but I still feel a little angry when I think about it. We can be so careless w/ one another.”

A couple of deeply personal stories about the power of Holy Spirit tears:

“My cancer is well advanced in my bones, but I have made the commitment to sing in the choir the whole sesaon. I am pretty much the bass section. 2 weeks ago the anthem was “Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world.” The verses always start out the with basses belting out “I want to meet my Jesus,” or some variant on that theme. It was tough going for me. I did it, then went back to my seat and put my head down and started bawling while someone in the congregation stood up and thanked the choir for their spirited anthem. It was all good. These tears are gifts from God.”

A great reminder of a famous movie quote:

“Do you remember the line in “Steel Magnolias”? “My favorite emotion is laughter through tears” I’ve always loved that line.”

A profound question:

“Can I grieve my way back to owning tears? For so, so long, I had no safe place–and it seems I’ve forgotten how.”

Two reminders that early childhood lessons can sometimes trip us up as adults:

“Somewhere I picked up the idea that they [tears] are often manipulative or embarrassing, and I cringe now remembering ways I have dismissed the tears of others.”

“I decided as a young child, that my sister would use her tears to manipulate my parents whenever she was getting in trouble, and I vowed I would never do that.”

Testimonies of gratitude for the freedom to accept tears, those of others and our own:

“God has been slowly chipping away and breaking down the walls around my heart and in the last two years I cried more than my whole life. (I am 59) He weeps with us and gives us comfort.”

“A book that was instrumental in the process for me was, ‘The Wall Around Your Heart’ by Mary de Muth. I can highly recommend it. This breaking down in order to rebuild can feel like a strange unravelling where ground shifts beneath our feet and all seems uncertain.”

“I do feel I am doing this not only for me but for the precious people who are coming along behind me and I am grateful the opportunity to keep growing. Love the community here.”

A beautiful pledge to commit to openness and break the family pattern:

“but somehow to me, because of their stoicism, it felt like trusting God meant I didn’t feel the depth of the pain. I just had a visit with my only living Aunt last night who was only 5 years older than me. We wept together on the phone, sharing the sharing the pain of this approach – my grandmother not talking to her about my Grandfather (her dad) dying and my parents not talking to me about how i felt about the loss of my two siblings when I was a child. these are kind people who loved us, but they did as they had learned – but at the time, it seemed to us like we were to be brave and soldier on. by the time i could have talked to my mom about this, she got sick and soon died thereafter. I am determined to be open about my journey.”

And these words, from someone new to the conversation – well, they rang true in places deep and dark:

“Once when I was on a panel with other moms, discussing how women can minister to one another, I said, “Sometimes the greatest gift is to have someone cry with me.” Indeed, aren’t we uncomfortable with tears often, quickly sniffling and stuffing them away in our sinuses. I hold firmly to the thought that tears are a gift, and a gift to be shared with those who choose to walk with us. To have another share a time of tears is beautiful, to let them flow freely, not holding back, is a source of healing. One time when I had a blood test for inflammation, my sedimentation rate was off the charts. Later in the day a dear friend and I shared a precious time of talking and crying together. For some reason I had another blood test the next day. The inflammation was within normal limits. Shared tears can be healing indeed! On the other hand, Joy hold its own in the healing arena. I have had people ask me how I could possibly be so joy-filled when I experience such great pain. The answer, of course, is Jesus. The constant Joy is another gift, not manufactured by me, but given to me by a God who sees and loves deeply. The Joy and Tears are compatible, not mutually exclusive. They come together, share the same heart. I fully believe we can be shedding tears of sadness or pain and yet walk in Joy in the same moment.”

Another new ‘talker’ expressed regret and frustration with the ‘cheerfulness’ of too many church gatherings and how that can shut people out:

“I too could take the “good Cheer” better if we also were allowed to let the cracks show. That vulnerability is something most people just don’t want to face, it is too real, I guess.”

And almost immediately, there was this good word, reminding us all that we need people in our lives who know us, all of us, and who love us anyhow!

“I hope you have a “posse.” Through one of the hardest ministry hurts we experienced, i had four friend who knew the all of the story. they saved my sanity – my life.”

And I wonder how many of us can empathize with these words of realization, this glimpse into the full mystery of our own hearts:

“I have recently been surprised by my tears over something that I thought had been dealt with years ago, and realised it was because God was bringing healing to an area of my heart, of which I had been completely unaware! Which makes me wonder how much more of my heart is unknown to me…”

And to wrap up this week’s wrap-up, this lovely story of grace re-discovered through the healing, releasing power of tears:

“The worst period of my life was marked by a state of denial that refused to accept I was struggling. I used a false religion of acceptance (false because I was actually angry, resentful and playing the long suffering pious martyr) that hardened my heart and for a long time no tears fell. I was often ill and now it seems to me that these things were linked. Stress built up inside me and when not aknowledged and released as tears it manifested in other physical ways. (I do not believe that this explains most illnesses btw!) It was this experience that led me to believe that in some ways I was saved by grief. Mourning my sister’s sudden death paved the way for mourning unaccepted losses. Tears allowed more tears and joy came in the morning.”

A  HUGE thank-you from me to all of you for your generous gift of time, thought, and words. We all richer for the connections made in this space.

 

A Sacramental Faith


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It’s been a rough week. A niggling ankle injury turned out to be a seriously shredded tendon, which may require surgery next month. In the meantime, I’m wearing a boot to try and immobilize it and encourage healing.

My mom took a nasty fall, splitting her fingers apart and bruising herself all along one side of her body. Fortunately, nothing was broken, but she is tired and more confused than ever.

My husband and I tend to take our worries out on one another, at least initially, and so we’ve been doing more than our share of sniping and growling. We’re moving back to center again, and I am glad.

I sit, with my foot iced and propped, encased in a serious boot, surrounded by too.much.stuff, all of which needs sorting. I wonder how and when to set aside enough time to do more than the basics. Meal prep, laundry, keeping appointments, writing – these seem to fill all the blanks on the calendar — and in my spirit — and there isn’t much room left. 

I went to worship almost reluctantly yesterday. We’d missed the week before and I came close to missing again. I was tired, anxious and sore, not eager to make conversation with anyone, unsure about a lot of things.

Which, of course, is EXACTLY when I need to be there, sitting and standing with the community, offering praise to God in the middle of the mess and listening for the Spirit’s breathy voice in the midst of the sanctuary. 

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As I perused the bulletin before the service began, I saw that there would be space this week for prayer and anointing. This is not a usual occurrence for us, but as soon as I saw the words, I knew why I was there.

Turns out, a lot of people had the same response.

Even after all the years that church has been part of my life, even after almost 20 years of professional leadership in the church, I am still amazed at how and when the Spirit blows across a room full of people. It stuns me every time.

And every time it happens in this particular community of believers, there is something sacramental happening in the service. Eucharist, baptism, renewal of baptismal vows, anointing.

These physical signs of spiritual truths, these tactile things — they are the pieces that the Spirit of God uses in our midst to move us, shake us out of the pews, stir our hearts. I don’t understand it, I just recognize it when I see it.
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It’s a powerful thing to see people streaming down the aisle to be touched by a pastor. We encourage prayer for healing after every single service, and very few people take advantage of those opportunities. But add oil? Make it part of the service itself?

They came by the dozens. And I went right up there with them.

The sermon leading into this event was built around a text in John 12, Mary pouring a large jar of pure, perfumed oil, spreading it lavishly all over the feet of Jesus. Pastor Don asked us to think about fragrances, how powerful they can be — for both good and ill. And the communion table featured trailing vines of jasmine, sending sweetness into the first few pews.

This is a story close to my heart. The very first sermon I ever preached in my life came from Mark’s version, and I preached on John’s text last year. (I wrote an abbreviated reflection on it during Holy Week.) And the closing line of my own reflection was right in line with yesterday’s theme: “. . . the surest sign of a true disciple is the delicious aroma that permeates every corner of the house.”

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We had two kneelers in place, two pastors with vials of oil, and we sang. Oh, how we sang. “Holy Spirit, Come,” as printed on the screens and one or two others that rose spontaneously as we listened to that Breath of Life within us.

One of the joys of our worship is the participation of lay people in the service each week — in the reading of scripture and the offering of community prayer. Yesterday’s prayer was written and offered by one of our resident poets, Professor Paul Willis, whose words always slow me down and make me think. The ones he chose yesterday were strong, muscular, maybe even hard to hear at points. But they were exactly what we needed. 

I invite you to pray them along with us as you read, because this prayer walks right with us, from the sanctuary of togetherness to the sanctuaries that we inhabit all around the city in the days between our gatherings. And those sanctuaries — our homes, places of employment, dorm rooms, school classrooms — these are reminders, too. Reminders that we are, indeed, a sacramental people, body, soul and spirit. . . of a piece.

Lord, so often we are satisfied with mere deodorant
to cover up our stinking selves. 
What would it mean to learn a new fragrance,
to be a new fragrance,
to offer that fragrance to you? 
What would it mean to take pure nard
from the farthest reaches of the Himalayas
and to pour it lovingly over your feet—the feet of our Savior? 
What would it mean to bathe ourselves from head to toe
in the fragrance of our Savior’s blood?

Lord, make us each,
remake us each,
into that aroma which will consecrate us,
each one,
into that individual fragrance of holy service
you have uniquely set out for us,
each one of us,
a path of service and holiness
that you have marked out for each of us,
whether that path lead into the High Sierra
or into the lower East Side of Santa Barbara,
whether it lead to the front of the classroom or to the back,
whether it lead to changing laws in the legislature
or changing diapers in the nursery.

Lord, right now we’re stinking it up. 
We always have been. 
Fill us with your redeeming fragrance,
and let us offer it back to you. 
Amen.
            — Paul Willis, February 9, 2014

IMG_3918Sunlight through the poppies when we had lunch with ‘the moms’ after church.

Linking today with Michelle, Laura, Jen and Jennifer

 


Q & A: Week Four – The Gift of Tears

WARNING:

THIS IS A MUCH LONGER INTRO THAN USUAL. FEEL FREE TO GLANCE, SKIP OR IGNORE:

This week marks the halfway point in my original layout for this series. I designed Q & A around a set of topics I’ve been noticing as I read around the Christian blog world; six basic concerns that surface repeatedly and that often feel more than a little bit unsafe and scary to many people. When I wrote the introductory post for Q & A, I solicited additional questions from you. Two of you wrote back with a whole series of questions that crystallized around two main areas, which brought my total topic list to these eight:

1. Why is there so much talk about obedience?                      (January 17)
2. What’s with this ‘more of Jesus, less of me’ stuff?              (January 24)
3. What’s with all this talk about ‘sin?’                                (January 31)
4. Is there room for my tears here?                                       (February 7)
5. What do we do with our suffering?                                  (February 14)
6. How do I make all the pieces fit?                                       (February 21)
7. Why do bad things happen to good people?                       (February 28)
8. What do I do with all the hard/weird stuff in the Bible?   (March 7)

As you can see, these questions are broad, and fully half of them deal in one way or another with the huge topic of suffering. That is intentional. I don’t want to waste time, space or effort by delving into too much detail on any one topic, yet the facets of suffering are many and require careful parsing out. As we work our way through this list, you’ll notice that my reflections will always be general in nature, not specific. I don’t want to open a can of worms with any of these, but I do want to foster a safe space for discussion and conversation, rather than debate. Disagreement is welcome, as long as it’s kind and open. We don’t have to agree about all that much, actually, to be connected through the goodness of God made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. I am ordained in a small, evangelical denomination that I love. (You can meet us here.) We hold only six affirmations:

We affirm the centrality of the word of God.
We affirm the necessity of the new birth.
We affirm a commitment to the whole mission of the church.
We affirm the church as a fellowship of believers.
We affirm a conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit.
We affirm the reality of freedom in Christ.

And it is that last one that I cling to whenever I find myself in disagreement with another Christian on any topic that isn’t directly connected to those first five affirmations. There is room to ‘agree to disagree,’ and for the last 35 years, I have been privileged to be a part of a church family that lives that truth.

This time table for our conversations, our ‘delving into the mystery,’  overlaps by two days with the beginning of Lent this year. I am hoping to do another daily devotional series during Lent; the last time I tackled that was 2012. So, after Easter, if there are further questions that you would like to work through, please let me know and we’ll have at it during the weeks of Eastertide. I am also open to continuing the Q & A format as an occasional series, so let me know if there is ever a topic you’d like for us to address together after we’ve finished this series. Thanks so much to everyone for your wonderful contributions to this endeavor.

As you can see from the schedule, the question for next week is:
What do we do with our suffering?

 

My reflections for this week do not fit the surfing theme! Instead, I am focussing on three treasures of mine, things I have always kept nearby on my pastoral and/or personal desk, things that teach me some important truths every time I look at them.

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Treasure Number One: One weekend in early April, nearly thirty-five years ago, we had a brief respite after a huge rainstorm that lasted almost a week. So we piled our three kids in the car and drove an hour west from our home in Altadena, towards the ocean. All of us walked out onto the beach and immediately noticed that there were thousands of tiny shells scattered all over the hard, damp sand left behind by the ebbing tide. We don’t get a lot of shells in southern California. Sometimes; after a big storm, we might find a few here and there. But this was just stunning to see — and delightful. We all began to gather as many as we could in the hour we’d set aside for beach-walking.

My middle daughter, who has always had great observational skills, was the champ that day, bringing back several handfuls of these beautiful, delicate things, almost all of them scallop shells. We rinsed and dried them and I kept some of them separate from the several baskets full of shells that have always adorned our homes over the years.

These were special to me. They were small, very small. And they were perfect. Something about them spoke to a deep place in me. Ever since then, I have had this clam shell full of them sitting on my desk(s), either at home or in my office. 

DSC00944Treasure Number Two: Within the first two weeks of moving to Santa Barbara to begin my very first (and only) paid position on a pastoral staff, I was browsing among some of the quaint shops on State Street in my new hometown. I quickly located a place that remains on my top 10 list to this day, a tiny, crowded shop that features jewelry, brightly colored linens, wonderful seasonal decor, and collections of tiny things. Do you see that basket? It’s about an inch and half square. And can you see what’s in it? Five tiny loaves of bread and two small fish. Does that sound familiar to you?

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Treasure Number Three: The last piece of my favorite trio is this small carving of the weeping Jesus of Lithuania, a gift from a friend who used to be my boss. This is what Wikipedia (yes, I know!!) has to say about this figure:

Wooden carvings of Rūpintojėlis, “The Jesus who cares for us,” are often seen at crossroads and in cemeteries. He always rests his head on his right arm, his left hand rests on his knee, a crown of thorns on his head shows drops of blood, and his face is full of solicitude and sorrow.

The pose may represent Jesus’ anticipation of his crucifixion, after his scourging and crowning with thorns. It is also said to depict Jesus after his resurrection and before his ascension. One legend has it that Jesus traveled throughout the world wearing his crown of thorns; during his journeys, he sometimes sat on stones near the road and wept.
(italics mine)

At first glance, it might seem to you that this last piece of the three is the one that relates most readily to the question of the week. And, in one way, that is indeed true. This is a small copy of a figure that appears all over the country of Lithuania, a figure that encapsulates the suffering endured during communism’s rule, that reminded faithful Catholic believers that Jesus had not forgotten them in the midst of their suffering. His tears made their own more bearable somehow.

In truth, however, it is also the shells, and those tiny reminders of the miracle on the hillside, in combination with the weeping Jesus figure — all of these together — that help me to remember and believe that my own tears are seen by God. Not only are they seen, they are treasured, collected in God’s bottle and remembered. I believe that my tears, and your tears, are gifts from God and to God.

And also? Your tears and my tears are gifts to the larger body of Christ. 

Tears are small things, you see. Tiny, actually. Just droplets of water that flow from our eyes when we’re feeling deep emotions or when we’re enduring physical pain. Did you know that the tears that come when you are peeling onions or blinking at a fierce wind are not a chemical match for the tears you shed in either pain or joy? ‘Real’ tears carry toxins away from the body, they are a cleansing agent, a release. And part of God’s design.

I also believe that they are evidence of the Holy Spirit’s good work within us. I believe that tears can be a charism, not unlike tongues or prophecy, wisdom or miracles. No, they’re not listed anywhere in scripture. But I believe it nonetheless. For me they are the gift that came when I asked for the gift of tongues, the gift of a special prayer language. I have not received the language, but the tears spring forth, unbidden, many times when I pray, when I counsel others, when I read the Word. And over and over again, I have learned that they are gift.

They are also often sign, providing a ‘pay attention to this’ inkling that God is up to something in my heart or the heart of another. Yes, they are tiny. But they are perfect — just like the shells. And they represent what God’s Spirit can do in and through us when we relinquish what we have, when we let go of our tendency toward too-tight control over our emotions and our thought life. A lesson that I remember whenever I look at the loaves and the fishes.

God, you see, can do miracles with very small things. And sometimes, those very small things are our tears.

So, why then, I wonder, do so many Christians shy away from them? Why is the predominant mood on Sunday morning too often one of incessant good cheer, hail-fellow-well-met, I’m-fine-thank-you-I’m-just-fine? In truth, the Sunday morning good cheer wouldn’t bother me so much if I were confident that the tears that I KNOW most people are carrying in their bodies and their spirits were given permission to flow somewhere in the midst of the community, maybe on another day of the week! 

What worries me is that too many Christians simply do not feel safe admitting that they carry those tears, believing instead that they have managed to flunk the primary test of authentic discipleship. Where is the JOY? they wonder. Where is the gratitude? I have Jesus, why am I not ‘fine?’

What I want to say — what my beautiful shells and my small reminder of miracles and the figure of our crying Jesus remind me — is that life is not always grand. And that is to be expected.  Injustice abounds. Wars rage. Children die. Health gives way. Minds deteriorate. Relationships break apart. Jobs are lost. Bad habits persist. Doubt looms large. Everything is not just hunky-dory all the time, you know? We are so.not.fine.

And. . . there is this, oh-so-important piece of our story:

Jesus wept.

Hang onto that truth. With all that is in you, hang onto it. Our holy book is laced with the language of lament, fists raised to the heavens, tears streaming down the cheeks. Because tears are a part of what it means to live as human creatures in a broken but beautiful world. Tears are a primary means of release, of communication, of grief, pain, loss and even of joy and gratitude. It all melds together, you see. Mourning and dancing ‘kiss each other,’ and all of it is part of what it means to live a full, real, human life. 

This is a huge topic, so many layers to be unpacked and wrestled through. But for this week, the most important answer to our weekly question is YES, there is room for your tears here. In fact, they are welcome here. Because if you let me see your tears, then I know you are giving me a gift; you are giving me the truth. You are letting me in, so that I can weep with you, and then together, we can weep with God.

When we offer our tears to one another and to the living, loving God of the universe, we are allowing ourselves to be truth-tellers and image-bearers more powerfully than at almost any other time in our lives for precisely this reason: we know a God who weeps with us. And his name is Jesus.

Thanks be to God.

 Next week’s question: What do we do with our suffering?   

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Surviving the Worst Thing Possible: A Book Review

IMG_5398I have always had an active imagination. And a sometimes anxious psyche. Combine those two things, and the mind pictures grow exponentially! I’ve imagined my husband or children lying by the side of the road, injured, dying. I’ve ‘seen’ my loved ones’ airplanes falling from the sky. I’ve pictured waking up to flames around me, with no way of escape.

And I’ve always believed that the very worst thing that can happen to a parent is to lose one of their children to death.

After reading, “Refuse to Drown,” co-written by Tim Kreider and Shawn Smucker, I’m not sure I believe that anymore. Because what happened to Tim is even worse than that: he discovered that his oldest boy, Alec, at the tender age of 16, viciously murdered his best friend and both of his friend’s parents. Stunned by this revelation, Tim had to make the hardest choice of his life — to turn his son into the police, and then to wait for his child’s fate to be determined by a court of law.

Working from journals, an early manuscript, and painful memories, Tim and Shawn have created a compelling book, with enough suspense to keep us reading until the very end. In the process, we learn what it means to live a life of integrity even while in the grip of overwhelming grief. There are no heroes in this story. What Tim chooses to do is, indeed, heroic, but it is not something he takes pride in, not something he feels good about doing. 

And that’s one of the primary reasons this is a book that I sincerely recommend. There is real wrestling going on in this story. What is the right thing to do here? Can I do it? Can I live with the consequences of making the right choice? What more could I have done for my child?

Hard questions, no easy answers. Throughout the tale, Tim is fiercely honest and admits to mistakes made along the journey of parenting his son. The question that rises to the top of all the others is this one: how are parents to learn what mental illness or serious personality disorder look like? What are the signs? Is there help out there?

At the end, we are left with the truth that no one can know what’s going on in the heart of another, even if that other is someone we’ve known their whole lives. It is unsettling to read this book, disturbing, even painful.

What redeems the story is the bright thread of hope that weaves its way in and around the sordid and painful details. The grace of God shows up, right in the midst of this terrible darkness, as Tim’s soon-to-be second wife, his friends and his church community rally round, offering silent companionship, meals, words and notes of comfort. And Alec himself seems to find some measure of comfort in God, and to express some remorse for his vicious actions.

This is Tim’s story to tell and Shawn has helped him to tell it well. As a reader, and as a mother, I wanted to know more about what Alec’s mom was thinking, how she was finding comfort in the midst of all this agony. But that is not the story here, is it? I often found myself praying for her, and for all the family as this story unfolded, because every member of the circle is changed forever as a result of Alec’s horrible choice that dark night in May 2006.

This is a story worth reading. It is sad and hard, but ultimately hopeful. There can be life after the worst thing possible happens. And it can be a rich, good life. 

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