Archives for March 2014

What’s In a Name?

It’s been quiet around here of late. I’ve written around the blogosphere at several different places in the last few weeks, but not terribly often here, in my space, just writing for me, and whoever might stop by to see whatever words I’ve gathered.

We had a quiet weekend, celebrating Dick’s birthday in several small gatherings. On his actual day, just he and I went out for lunch and to a matinee. On Saturday, our son and his family surprised us with a drop-in, take-out dinner from our favorite local Mexican hang-out. And on Sunday, after church, we met our eldest daughter and her husband and youngest son at BJ’s in Ventura. We love s t r e t c h i n g birthdays out as long as we can — and three days was just about right.

My guy was hungry for ribs, and BJs never disappoints. And to finish things off very well indeed, he was served his own individual Pazookie, complete with candle! Do you know what a Pazookie is? Just one of the divinest desserts ever invented, that’s what. A freshly baked cookie (several choices – he picked peanut butter), fresh from the oven, topped with a scoop of Haagen Daaz vanilla. Heaven in a small aluminum pan, that’s what.

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The drive south took us past this lovely spot, looking down on Summerland Beach. The day was breezy and the water a little bit wild — always fun to see. And somehow, the celebratory mood of day and meal and family seemed fitting and right after a profoundly moving worship experience earlier in the day.

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This was our fabulous worship band-of-the-week jamming after the service was over. Our Director of Worship Arts, Bob Gross, planned a perfect combination of songs for the theme of the day, including a masterful arrangement (his own) of,  “Lord, I’m Amazed by You” with The Doxology. The entire opening sequence brought me to tears more than once — filled as it was with what we do best: contemporary and traditional music, both poured through the inventive mind of Mr. Gross. We sang that old favorite, “Holy, Holy, Holy” this way – verse 1, totally a cappella (and we can SING the harmony in our community!), verse 2, full band with quiet percussion, verse 3, up a key, adding the most moving slow roar of the drums I’ve ever experienced, and verse 4, straight ahead and gorgeous. Oh, my.

DSC01241As always, the music, the prayer, the readings from Old Testament and New coordinated well with the preaching text of the morning, which this week was taken from the last eleven verses of John 16.

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God spoke powerfully through Pastor Jon about what it means when we pray in the name of Jesus. Here are a few highlights from that passage:

“My Father will give you whatever you ask in my name . . . I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God . . .  A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me . . . I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

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These few verses contain some mighty huge ideas, ones that linger and permeate. Ideas like these:

The name of Jesus is strong, redemptive, life-changing. It is not magical.

There will be suffering in this life — which should come as a surprise to precisely no one. But because of Jesus, because we are given the inestimable gift of praying in his name, we are never alone, no matter what. 

Praying is not about words alone. In fact it is more often about silence . . . or it is experienced in action. We pray in Jesus’ name whenever we offer comfort/aid/solace/provision for another.

We pray with our bodies, not just in them. WE are the continuation of the Incarnation as we allow the Spirit of our Lord to work through us, as we live out what it means to be the Body of Christ. 

Praying in the name of Jesus touches on one of the foundational truths of the Christian faith — we serve a Triune God, Father, Son, Spirit — One in Three, Three in One. 

We do not ask Jesus to pray for us, so as to somehow buffer the space between us and God the Father. Too much of the church has painted a picture of a scary God, one that Jesus saves us from, a God that cannot be approached by the likes of us. But Jesus says clearly and beautifully, “. . . I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you  . . . “

“Take heart,” Jesus says. Immediately after predicting that all his friends will desert him in his hour of need, that they themselves will have their share of trouble. “Take heart,”  he says. TAKE HEART?  Yes. And not only that, but because of that name, that powerful name, they — and we — will have peace, the kind of peace that makes room for this truth: the One in whose name we pray has overcome the world.

I carried these pieces of grace with me as we drove down the coast, as we laughed and ate a good lunch with our daughter’s family, as we came back home and prepared for the week ahead. Turns out there’s a lot, a LOT, in a Name. I am grateful

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On Vulnerability and Boundaries — A Guest Post for Nacole Simmons

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In the fall of 2006, I got a new boss. He arrived on the scene after two years of searching, two years marked by upheaval in my life, personally and professionally.  I had been working as an Associate Pastor, part-time, for almost ten years by then, and I was deeply relieved to welcome him and to learn to work with him and for him.

One of the first things he asked me to do was start a blog. Yes, you read that right. My boss, the senior pastor, asked me to begin writing on a blog. He already had one, and used it for brief reflections on life and ministry, very rarely for anything personal.

But I’m not wired in the same way, and when I was invited to write, I chose to get pretty vulnerable, pretty quickly. And I loved it. I was careful, especially when trying to write out the difficulties that always attend a new working relationship. I tried to make it about me, and what I was thinking/feeling. And, for the most part, I found my way to a pretty good balance. I posted infrequently, about once or twice a month for that first year. I learned to import photos, and often chose to write about my family, especially my grandkids.

But in July of 2007, something hard happened. Our son-in-law was in the midst of a long and very difficult dying, suffering from the after-effects of intensive radiation to his head and neck when he was a teenager. Our daughter was trying to finish a masters’ degree in special education, so that she could go to work after fifteen years as a homemaker. Her husband was on full disability at that point, and they desperately needed medical insurance. Her program required a 10-week internship at a hospital 400 miles north of her home and she worked like a champ to make everything happen. Some weeks, her husband was well enough to go with her, but some weeks, he needed to be closer to home.

We housed her husband and two younger sons (the eldest was working at a camp on Catalina Island that summer) for one of those closer-to-home weeks. And that experience was one of the most difficult times I’ve ever walked through. Watching someone you love suffer — and watching how that suffering impinges on the lives of two young people — well, it was hard, sad, painful. . . there are no words.

But I tried to find them anyhow. I wrote a post, not using names, about watching this particular kind of suffering. I finished it late one night, posted it and went to bed. At 7:00 the next morning, I went in and removed it, feeling unsettled about writing something so deeply personal.

The post was up for less than twelve hours.

But in that time, someone close to him found it and was deeply wounded by it. I was crushed — repentant, sorrowful, so sorry for causing pain and for further complicating my daughter’s life. My heroic girl was already exhausted and overwhelmed and my post made everything worse.

I crossed a line, one that I deeply regret.

Please follow me over to Nacole’s site to read the rest of this post . . .

 

Iced Tea, Decaf, and the World Changing on Its Axis: A Deeper Story

My monthly contribution to the wonderful collection of essays at A Deeper Story is up today. Click here to continue reading:

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The California sunlight was angling in the window, scattering itself, checker-board style, across the shiny surface of our table. I could feel its warmth on that crisp fall day as she and I visited, chattering about life and family, checking in.

The woman across the table from me was twenty-plus years my senior, a spiritual mentor for most of my life. I had a glass of iced tea that day, she a cup of decaf, and we were splitting a piece of pie after enjoying some soul-warming soup.

I remember that I was animated as we talked, excited about something I was learning in school. I was midway through a 4-year seminary experience at that point in my life, tentatively exploring whether or not God might be calling me to ministry.

She was intrigued and a bit cautious, wondering if I had bitten off more than I could chew. Mostly, though, she wanted to hear me talk. Always a learner, she couldn’t help but be excited by my enthusiasm for lectures, large books, and hard questions.

At some point in our conversation, she sat back with a big smile on her face, dropping every bit of caution from her voice. “Diana,” she said. “I am so excited for you! I’m so glad you’ve gone back to school — I remember when I did that for a year and how much fun it was to be in the classroom again.”

“Exactly,” I replied. “It ifun. It is exhilarating.”

And then I felt the sting of tears. She looked at me with concern and asked what the tears were about. And this is what I said:

“I love what I’m doing. I love it. And I believe more and more each day that this is exactly where God wants me to be. More than that, I think God may be pushing me into ordination, to a job, working as a pastor.”

“Ah,” she said. “A job. Is that what brings the tears?”

“No, not really. This is what makes me feel sad: that I would never be doing this, never, if my husband were not making enough money for me to pay the tuition costs. And to pay them easily, without any member of my family having to sacrifice one thing for me to be in school.”

And then she began to cry. She understood this kind of thinking all too well.

After all, that’s how she raised me. 

Women are the ones who sacrifice for their families. Not men. Not children. Women. In her world, God could not be calling any woman to do something that would cost her family anything. Not.Possible.

Please follow me over to A Deeper Story to continue reading about this life-changing event/realization. I’d love to interact with you in the comments over there.

“Love Idol” — a Book Review

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It’s been a big day! A good day for my friend Jennifer Dukes Lee. Her first book has been released, set free into the world to be read, savored, underlined, dog-eared, learned from and treasured. 

“Love Idol: Letting go of your need for approval . . . and seeing yourself through God’s eyes” is now available at your favorite bookseller. I encourage you to pick up a copy — or three or four, for friends, family or small group — and read your way through Jen’s journey from perfectionist-people-pleaser, unsure-of-God’s-existence, to sold-out-believer, one-who-knows-she-is-loved.

This is a journey we all need to take, this way of grace, this road that begins with our desperate need to be seen, to be valued, to be loved. This road that can so easily lead to detours and dead ends, each one echoing with the voice of our enemy, the one who taunts and teases and tantalizes. It is so easy — too easy — to succumb to the demands of our shadow selves — the Inner Critic, the Sarcastic Belittler, the Over-Eager-Achiever, the Proud Performer — when all that is needed is the recognition that we are already loved, already accepted, already approved before we do anything.

It’s paradoxical, really. The simplest truth is the hardest one to believe, to live. And Jennifer wrestles well with the slippery edges of it all. Telling stories about herself, her marriage, her children, her past career and her current calling, she weaves in biblical stories and truths like the pro she is. Before she became a farmer’s wife, mom, and blogger, Jen was an award-winning journalist and her story-telling ability shines delightfully on every page.

All along the way, she casually drops in some great one-liners:

We all have two choices in times of angst or worry: raise the fist or bend the will.

Sometimes a face-plant into the dirt is the best way to humble the hurried and harried.

How do I take these brain-deep answers and make them heart-deep?

“Dear God, help me get over myself today.”

I doubt that even Jesus Himself would suggest bullet-pointed answers to life’s most pressing questions. He didn’t outline easy steps for us; He offered an easy yoke.

Personal strength is not necessarily a virtue. Neither is got-it-togetherness.

We tell each other that it’s safe to be authentic, but are we making unthreatening places for people to be less than perfect?

This is a book written for women, and that may be my only critique. Why? Because I think this is a message for everyone, every person who has ever dealt with an overwhelming need to be loved and approved, who has ever felt driven to perform perfectly, who has ever allowed fear and/or pride to be the controlling emotion behind every decision. And I know that men face these demons as well as women.

Whichever gender you are, wherever you are on this journey of faith, Love Idol is a rich resource for you, and I heartily and happily recommend it to you. 

Ribbons ‘n’ Roses — Reflections on Creative Arts as Ministry for The High Calling

This essay was written several months ago and shifted between editors at The High Calling. It’s posting today during a week of emphasis on visual and creative arts as ministry. Click here to read the entire piece. . .

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The sun would just be coming through the early morning clouds as I drove through the quiet, on my way to the Flower Mart in downtown Los Angeles. It was part of the ritual, the dance, of doing this work that I loved. I only did it part time and I only did it for seven years, but I loved it.

It began with our eldest daughter’s wedding. We were on a budget, I enjoyed working with flowers and I saw an opportunity inviting me to leap. So I jumped in with both feet. I applied for a resale number from the state of California, hired a friend to design a logo and business cards, and “Ribbons ‘n’ Roses” was born.

I worked with a good friend to produce beautiful floral décor for about two weddings or parties every month. I loved the creativity, the people, and the beauty of each arrangement, but I suppose my favorite part of all was that early morning drive to the Flower Mart, a place packed with rich delights and unholy confusion. Most of the mart is contained in one enormous, two-story warehouse with scores of individual flower vendors and one large supply center. Driving into the garage while it is nearly dark and then emerging into this brightly lit, bustling activity center is an exercise in delightful cognitive dissonance.

Carts and trucks are loaded, advice is given, cash is handed over, packages are wrapped—all of it infused with the sweet scent of flowers. With the car loaded and my bills paid, I would usually end the morning with breakfast at the adjacent Chinese diner. I would listen to conversations between buyers and sellers as they ate their char siu pork, rice, and eggs, absorbing as much information as I could.

I had no training, you see . . . 

Come on over the The High Calling to find out more . . .

The Devil Walks in Mattingly — A Book Review

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Secrets are powerful things. And the deep woods around Mattingly, West Virginia, hold so many of them. So do the trio of lead characters who inhabit this hauntingly beautiful novel by Billy Coffey. This is a terrific book — in every sense of that word. It is lyrically written, every detail crafted with care and attention. And it is also a hard, dark story, one that delves into the hidden corners of the human psyche with both wonder and a healthy amount of fear. 

Jake and Kate Barnett are lifelong residents of this small town, and they carry the heavy weight of regret every minute of every day. As their high school career wound down to its end, each of them were key players in the death of a classmate, Philip McBride. An outsider and a misfit, Philip’s death had been ruled a suicide. But the Barnetts knew better, and each of them lived under the shadow of that secret for a very long time. 

As the events of this fine story begin to pile on top of one another, we meet another key player in that long ago event, Taylor Hathcock, a hermit, a madman and a magician, in his own strange way. Each of these three, and all of the supporting players are lovingly and carefully drawn. This is a town that lures the reader in, populated as it is with such complicated, messed-up, and fascinating people. 

I’ve been a fan of Billy Coffey’s for several years now, discovering his blog in early 2011 and enjoying his weekly posts. I reviewed his last novel a year ago.  I loved it — and I like this one even better. Coffey’s writing has deepened and expanded; every character rings true, each one carrying just enough quirkiness to be both believable and interesting. 

By the end of this story, there is redemption to be found, with a lot of what some might call ‘magical realism’ thrown in. I think what I most enjoyed was the way in which Coffey refuses to let these characters be victims of either their circumstances or of the unseen hand of fate. Instead, we’re allowed to see how wrong choices — bullying, teasing, keeping dangerous secrets — can bring disastrous results, yet none of those results is beyond redemption and transformation.

Redemption in Mattingly begins in small ways, with strange dreams, white butterflies, dandelions. Eventually, there is a visit from beyond the grave,  a lot of nail-biting drama (including an ancient bear and a ‘thin place’ in the woods) culminating in the palpable relief that can only be found by telling and knowing the truth.

Along the way, Billy offers some profound insights into the connections between this world and the next. I love this paragraph, from one of Jake’s dream encounters with the long-dead Philip. It comes near the climax of the story:

“. . . remember, our tears are gone on the other side. wiped clean by the very hand of love. Memories haunt you on your side of the veil, Jake, but on mine there is only their beauty. On my side, you see every life is magic. You see you were led even as you thought you wandered, and there was a light even in your darkness. And sometimes you are even given the grace to come back. To set things right.” 

And that is what this story is truly about: setting things right. It’s not easy, but it is beautiful to watch. I highly recommend this lovely story and I look forward to meeting more of Mattingly’s inhabitants in years to come.

I was given an advanced readers’ copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This is that review — click on over to your favorite bookseller and order it now. You will not regret it. Here’s a link to Amazon. There is also a link below to the first 35 pages of this wonderful story. Enjoy!

“Empowered to NOT Do?” – SheLoves

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With my aching foot encased in a gigantic boot, propped high on pillows, and my heart wondering how or if this thing will be healed — whether by Holy Spirit power, mysterious and unseen, or by the skilled hands that hold the scalpel and the needle — let me think about that idea for a while.

I am used to going, to doing. Caring for others. Getting things done. I am not used to receiving help or asking for it. In fact, I hate feeling helpless. Hate it.

Now that I think about it, I suppose that makes me a control freak, of sorts. And let’s drop that ‘of sorts,’ shall we? Out-and-out, full-bore, driven, up-front — yeah, those are more accurate descriptors.

I’ve always been a take-charge person, a number-one child, a bit on the bossy side and pretty good on follow-through.

Right now, however, I can’t even follow.

I must sit. And wait. And wonder. And empowered is SO not how I feel.

When I take a breath, however, and slow my mind; when I stare at the sea or the foothills; when I open my hands and lower my weary head, that is when the truth sneaks in the door and tentatively settles around me. . . 

Please follow me over to SheLoves to read the rest of this post . . .

Show Me the Way — Reflections on Retirement for The High Calling

I’m writing at one of my favorite places today — The High Calling, working this time with Sam Van Eman as part of a series on transitions. Join me there to read the whole essay — and engage in the conversation.

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For nearly 25 years, my life looked like this: raising three children, volunteering in church and community, editing school newsletters, teaching Bible studies, and hanging a whole lotta wallpaper (It was the 70s, remember wallpaper?). I think they called what I did then, ‘staying home;’ all I know is that it was the hardest and most rewarding work I’ve ever done.

In my early 40s, our family life began to shift. My kids were in college, with the eldest one married and the younger two getting closer to marriage every day. I attended a day-long retreat that offered interaction with career counselors, and began to dream about possibilities for the second half of life.

I thought about teaching. I began a small floral business in my garage. I talked to God, my husband, my children, and my friends.

And then there was this pastor/friend who gently suggested that I consider enrolling in the fine seminary just five miles down the hill from our home. That idea resonated deep inside me, and I began to ponder what it might mean.

About five years later, I began my life as a seminary student. There I experienced a direct call from God to pursue ordination and work as a member of a church staff. I graduated when I was 48, took an unpaid position for three years while I jumped through hoops for ordination, and then—at 52—began a 14-year commitment as Associate Pastor about 120 miles north of our home in the San Gabriel Valley. My husband and I made the move. He commuted to his own job until we both retired in 2010.

I’m not sure I can find words to describe how difficult it was to make that last transition. Retirement. I loved being a pastor. I had done hard work to become one, and I wasn’t sure what not being a pastor would look like in the community in which we now live. I had only ever been a pastor here; a member of the workforce. No one knew me as a family person, my former primary identity. Who would I be now?

So I did a lot of prayerful listening—listening to the Spirit’s words within me, listening to my family and my friends, to my co-workers, and to the deepest parts of myself . . .

Please click here to read the rest of this post . . .

 

FOUND: a Story of Questions, Grace & Everyday Prayer — A Book Review

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Sometimes when I read a book that is new to me, and I discover that I like it, that I’m intrigued by some of the ideas presented or the way language is used, I dog-ear a page that catches my eye. If the book really speaks to my heart, you might find 20 or 30 such pages scattered throughout.

Micha Boyett’s beautiful new book — part memoir, part prayer journal, part glory — has so many down-turned pages that I can no longer close it completely. Oh my, this woman can write! And what she writes? It speaks right into my heart, with hope, honesty and beauty. 

I’ve read Micha’s blog, Mama Monk, for over three years now, made the move with her to Patheos, even guest-posted for her once. So I’ve been looking forward to seeing her heart and reading her words in a longer format for quite a while. And I am not disappointed. Micha has been on a journey, a search, for the heart of prayer, the heart of God. A pastor to students in her twenties, convinced that God had Big Plans for her life, plans that she ‘needed’ to discover and fulfill, she found herself in her early thirties as a stay-at-home mom to one, and then two beautiful boys.

What happened to those Big Plans, she wondered? Was she somehow missing the Important Work God had for her to do? Over the course of this gentle book — outlined according to the prayer schedule of St. Benedict — she learns that where she is right now is, indeed, important. That the work she does, the rhythms of child-care, housework, hospitality, marriage and writing — these are the things of life, and Spirit and love-made-real.

Reading that last paragraph might make you think that this is a book for women. Yes, it is. It is also a book for men. This is a book for anyone who earnestly desires to discover God in the midst of the movements of an ordinary day, anyone who longs to know that the work of their hands is blessed and beautiful. 

Along the way, Micha writes evocatively about taking time for silence and retreat at a couple of local monasteries, she describes what she learns in spiritual direction, she shows us how her husband helps her to see herself and her ideas about God in new and different ways, she whispers that loneliness can be an invitation to a deeper faith. And somewhere in there, she talks about . . . fly-fishing.

Just two pages, a small story — but one of the most beautiful things I’ve read in a long, long time. Here’s a small piece of it:

“I raise my rod and cast the line out. It’s beautiful. Sometimes I think fly-fishing is like praying the rosary; moving slow through each bead, letting the physical act move my unfocused body from distraction into awareness. It’s the repetition, the sameness of coming to God with simple words and rhythm, that opens me to recognize the God-already-here. . . Prayer is not as hard as I make it out to be. Again and again, lift and unfold. Lay that line out, let it meander a little. Do it again. I am not profound. I am not brave in spirit. My faith is threadbare and self-consumed, but I am loved, I am loved, I am loved.” – pg. 226-227

With all my heart, I recommend this book to you. It is rich, captivating, lush with beautiful language and ideas. And most of all, it is touchable. Micha is no plaster saint, she is a real, flesh-and-blood woman, wife, mother, pastor, writer, seeker. She invites you along for the journey, and friends? it is a trip so worth taking.

I received an advanced reader’s copy of this lovely book. In exchange for that, I committed to write an honest review. This is it. Buy this book. Mark it up, keep it nearby, go back to it, keep a list of favorite lines. Yes. Do it.

Here are what a few others are saying about this fine book:

“I devoured this kind and generous book: Micha is singing the longings of all the tired mother
pilgrims. Every word is like motherhood: elegant, earthy, loving, and present.”
—Sarah Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist

“With this beautiful book, Micha Boyett opens a door to Benedictine spirituality through 
regular, busy people can enter and taste, see, smell, hear, and feel what it means to live life as a
prayer. This debut sets Boyett apart as one of the most promising new writers of a generation.”

—Rachel Held Evans, author of A Year of Biblical Womanhood

“Reading Found is like taking a deep breath of grace. You’ll hear the echo of your own
questions and doubts in the gentle ways Micha Boyett addresses her own, and by the end,
you’ll feel the quiet goodness of enough. For anyone who’s ever gotten prayer all tangled up in
performance—this one’s for you.”
—Addie Zierman, author of When We Were On Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith,
Tangled Love and Starting Over

“This book is stunning. Beautifully written, Micha Boyett’s Found is a penetrating story, rich
in humanity and faith, the kind of book that stays with you long after you’ve read its last page.
Like Henri Nouwen and Madeline L’Engle, Boyett’s spiritual journey is divinely practical, a
relatable and potentially anointed narrative that renews, inspires, and reminds us that we are not
lost.”
—Matthew Paul Turner, author of Churched and Our Great Big American God

“Micha Boyett is in search for the beauty in the everyday, the prayer that hides itself in dinners
and diapers and naps. She is as skilled of a tour guide for Benedictine spirituality as she is for
her own story, and in these pages you will find that the sacred has been there all along.”
—Adam S. McHugh, author of Introverts in the Church

“In Found, Micha Boyett tells the small story of her own redemptions, inviting readers into a
life of earnest spiritual seeking. Written in reflective bursts of prose mirroring monastic hours
and the holy calendar, Boyett has created an account of spiritual resolve, believing that the
most important journeys of the heart are the modest ones.”
—Dave Harrity, director of ANTLER and author of Making Manifest: On Faith,
Creativity, and the Kingdom at Hand

Q & A: Tuesday Wrap-Up: Week Eight

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Somehow this picture from my surfing cache seems to capture our little band,
hanging out together in the water, encouraging one another to go deeper!

As I read through the linked posts this week, and re-read the comments section, I was just overwhelmed with gratitude for each one of you who has been reading along through this series. I truly didn’t have a clue what I was doing when I opened the door to this and I am so glad that our small band has stuck it out to the end! Thank you all for your thoughtful, sensitive, loving responses to me and to one another all the way along — this is, sadly, a somewhat rare thing out here in the wild and wacky world of the internet, the Christian internet, and I’m thankful that we took the time to care about the words we wrote and about the people who received them.

This week’s question stirred the waters more than most, I think. Some of us have been hurt by Bible-pounding in the past, by a church community (or a family) that pulled words out of context and applied them with a sledge hammer to tender hearts. May I just say how truly sorry I am for the ways in which the church has wounded you? And used the Bible to do it? 

These poignant words made my heart hurt! 

I soaked up the teaching not to succumb to a lazy belief in a wishy-washy god who just wanted to love everybody. It seemed that mention of God’s love always had to be tempered with the requisite counter-balance of His justice. It’s hard when every time you think of someone loving you, your mind adds “yes, but . . . ” Maybe part of the reason the Bible has seemed crammed with “hard” things to me, is because I have trouble accepting the love of the One Whose word it is.

I’m learning to rest my weight on His grace and love instead on my own anxious efforts and promises to do better. After years of regimented personal devotions, I don’t read my Bible every single day, anymore. I don’t have one specific time of prayer. I don’t have a plan. But I’m delighted to find how God’s word has taken root in me even through the difficult years. Verses of comfort surface, sometimes when I am half-asleep, and I am reminded of Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit will remind us of Christ’s words. I’m treasuring Bible verses that tell me of God’s love, tenderness, and care. And for now, I’m just leaving those hard things on the shelf. My brain is healing. 

This beautiful book of ours, which can be a rich source of both comfort and challenge, has too often been used to batter people. One writer wrote about the power of one group’s particular interpretation of just thirteen words in Paul’s second letter to Timothy:

The hard bits that ruled my life for so long, are still a part of my life.  When I look at my wedding photos and think of my family who should have been in them, when I hear one of my children asking who ‘that lady’ is, when they’re looking at a photo of my mother, when I wish I could talk to my sister like sisters do… so many things I have been robbed of, because of the way 13 words have been interpreted: ‘everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness’. (2 Timothy 2, v 19)

I’m not bitter, but I am hurt.  I will be hurt until the day I get to heaven, because there’s no getting round this one.  Sure, the raw edges have healed, but it’s like an amputation – just because the stump has healed, doesn’t mean that the limbs have been restored.

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Some of us are paddling hard, some of us have been through the rough bits,
and some of us are taking the ride of our lives! And we’re all in it together.

One wise writer reminded us that we sometimes bring our culturally influenced mindsets to scripture when we read. He challenged us to shed the dualistic worldview that colors too many interpretations, to choose instead to see the wholeness of the human person, and of the word of God. 

In our day, the science/religion debate seems to me like a debate between a pre 17th century cosmology and a 17th century cosmology.  I feel that as the 17th century cosmology – that everything can be explained by the laws of physics – a mechanistic materialism viewpoint – as this view becomes more prominent: the dualism of the Greeks becomes more attractive.  It is almost as if contemporary religious thinkers accept fully the 17th century cosmology, but say “yes, that may be true, but there is another realm, the spiritual realm, and we have the key to that realm.”  “All you have to do is say the right words and you can be a part of this realm too, you can be saved and enter heaven.” 

Our traveling poet returned home with some rich words to share, underlining the importance of the Holy Spirit at work in us as we read and wrestle with the Word:

so I read with an interpreter
the Holy Spirit
gifted, poured out 
and into me

how much better
to request living water
and let go, trusting
He will make all things
the hard, complicated

sticky things
clear in His perfect timing

help me then, Lord
to remember to release it all
that my answer to 
what do I with the hard things?
would be

I lay them at His feet

Two writers wrote lovingly of their growth in understanding using more contemplative practices for reading the Bible. One combined prose and poetry to create a beautiful reflection:

Over time, my ‘bible-thumping-in-your-face-are-you-saved?‘ days gave way to deeper reflection and grace. Made space for the ‘not knowing’ aspects of faith.

Now I am leaning toward the Contemplative and finding church is everywhere 

So why should I, with great temerity,
expect You to reveal all things to me?
Should I not make room, give space
for the protective nature of Your grace
Allow for Your Spirit to open my eyes
in a gradual way ~ day after day
Knowing I can only handle so much
surprise, information, knowledge, as such?

The second referenced a wonderful book by Ruth Haley Barton (“Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation”) and included a great outline for the practice of lectio divina, which I heartily recommend. 

It is listening in a spirit of silence and of awe for the still, small voice of God that speaks to us personally.

It’s different than in-depth Bible Study, which is much needed and important to the understanding of scriptures.  Many of us have done a lot of that already, but this is a reflective reading.

Reading a passage of scripture, I listen for a word or phrase that strikes me in some way, stands out from the rest. And I pay attention to the words that bring resistance, for it is often in the things I resist that I find God has something to say to me. 

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At the end of the day, it is good to rest on the water and enjoy the view!

The last of the linkers (linkees?) came at this question from a different angle, and from a different background — and reading her words was both informative and delightful. She took the word ‘hard,’ which most of us defined as difficult to understand, and stood it on its head a bit by defining it as describing those things which are difficult for us to do. What a great insight! Sometimes it’s easier for us to roam widely around a perceived error or culturally dense decree or some other fine detail in scripture which doesn’t demand one thing from us in day-to-day life. 

There are many passages which, with more cultural and historical understanding, become less confusing. We spend a lot of time on those but to me they are not really the hard parts.

The parts of the Bible that are hard for me are those parts where I learn that God wants me to live differently. When his expectations of his covenant people are laid out before my eyes and I know that I fall short. Not only that, I know that I don’t always want to change. But what I have found is that it is hard not to. If we keep at it, if we let the words work their way into the innermost parts of our being, change often happens.

SO true — all pieces of this! Often we don’t want to change, but if we hang in there, if we keep reading, and, as this writer suggests further in the essay — if we spend quiet, contemplative time with those words that are hard for us to live — we do find ourselves being changed! Amazing.

Readily acknowledging that some in our community have been battered by biblical misinterpretation and even abuse, she shared a different story:

No one ever used the Bible as a weapon against me. It’s just a place of great discoveries. New stories, new meanings in familiar stories. Poetry, proverbs, Wisdom, history, law, letters, gospels and even the still very odd in my eyes Book of Revelation. They are all wonderful treasures and they change me.

When I read the Bible I am learning about God and about God’s relationship with his people. I am one of those people. I am learning how God wants us/me to live.

EXACTLY! Our Book is a gift to us, despite the attempts of too many to use it as a weapon. It is, as the psalmist says, ‘sweeter than honey,’ and is one of the primary ways in which the Holy Spirit works within us to conform us to the image of Christ. Thanks be to God!

 

At this point, I am still uncertain if I will be undergoing surgery to repair the torn tendon in my left ankle, so I cannot say with what frequency I will be posting in the next few weeks. I’ve got several book reviews coming up AND about 4 columns/posts at two of the online magazines for which I write. All of these will show up over the next month or so; they’re in the queue and ready to roll.

I’d appreciate your continuing prayers as we make decisions and hear options.