Enough

When Forces Collide — for SheLoves, November, 2018: Gathering

November 15, 2018 By Diana

There are seasons when troubles seem to multiply like rabbits. I’ve lived through a few such seasons in my life and they are always tumultuous. It feels like all the gathering winds are blowing in opposite directions and the resulting chaos becomes the new normal.

A decade ago, our family walked through the valley as my elder daughter’s husband passed from this life to the next after a long struggle, a life-and-death struggle of mammoth proportions, in which they were both exceptionally brave. In the middle of all that horror, my daughter actually had a friend — who was in ministry! — come into her home and say to her, “God will never give you more than you can manage.”

You wanna bet?

Personally, I think God often makes a point of allowing ‘more than we can manage’ to barrel into our lives on a regular basis. And just to be clear here, the biblical admonition being badly misquoted to my daughter has absolutely nothing to do with suffering. It has to do with temptation, and that is a very different ball of wax, in my book.

Suffering is part of life. It simply is. Hard and terrible things happen — people get sick, fires rage, floods ravage, wars erupt. Even smaller scale complications can feel overwhelming at times. Sick kids — not unto death, but unto eternity (or at least that’s what it feels like!), appliances breaking down, not enough month at the end of the money, multiple failed attempts at resurrecting a broken relationship — all of it adds up. All of it can make you feel as though you don’t have enough wits, energy or will to find some kind of resistance or remedy.

So today, I have a question for you: do you feel like life is beating you up at this moment in time? Like no matter how many times you set the pins up right, some giant bowling ball from the sky just comes along and blindsides every dang one of them? I hear you, my friend. I hear you. And I want to offer you a small shard of hope.

This, too, shall pass.
It will.
Yes, it will.

It won’t happen like magic, it won’t happen instantaneously, and whenever the resolution comes, it will not completely erase the pain. But, I promise you that this season of struggle will shift in some way, the tension will release, and a way through will be found.

One of the main advantages of living a long life is the great gift of hindsight, the ability to look back over large swaths of time and detect patterns. Patterns of struggle met with faithfulness; of darkness, invaded by light; of despair, transformed into joy. That is not to say that the suffering disappears or that the after effects of the struggle will not be real and lasting. Jacob limped for the rest of his life, remember; no one wrestles with the Powers of the universe and emerges unscathed.

But here’s the thing: the wounds are the way out. They are! Leonard Cohen got it right—the cracks we bear, the scars we carry, the struggles we survive . . . they make the music. Don’t ask me how this strange alchemy actually works because I haven’t a clue. I only know it to be true: this is how the light gets out.

And it’s how the light gets in, too.

When we are able to step into seasons of lament with our whole hearts, when we are honest in the presence of God about how hard it is, about how hurt we are, about how frightened we feel—that’s how we unlock the door to Real Presence. God meets us there, right at that painful place where the winds of suffering are gathering. And there is enough—there is enough will to put one foot in front of another. There is enough energy to look for small spots of light. There are enough wits to remember to say ‘thank you’ for even the tiniest glimpses of grace. There is enough.

“And all shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well.” – Julian of Norwich

Filed Under: Confession, Encouragement, Enough, Paying Attention, personal journey, SheLoves

Let Go, Let God — for Addie Zierman’s LinkUp

September 26, 2018 By Diana

So, this whole ‘let go and let God’ cliche from so many voices in the evangelical world. I’ve written about and around and through this whole idea from lots of different angles over the years, most especially as this cliche morphs with others — like, ‘he must increase, I must decrease,’ or ‘more of Jesus, less of me.’ There’s something about the whole ‘dying to self’ mentality that has gotten more than a little bit twisted over the decades. The longer I live — and clearly, that has been a lotta years now — the less I like any of it. In truth, I believe that this particular worldview has done far more harm than it has good.

When we advocate for the annihilation of the self — and at its core, this phrase is advocating for exactly that — we are lying to people, big-time. We are teaching something that is diametrically opposed to the kind of life Jesus invites us to live, the kind of life Jesus modeled for us, the kind of life we are designed to inhabit. We are, in a word, deeply devaluing the Incarnation. God took on our flesh — that’s how deeply we are loved. That’s how valued human flesh is — every single human-fleshed person ever exisiting — every.single.one.

Please hear me clearly here: I am not in any way disparaging the sacrificial work of Jesus on the cross, nor am I saying that we are destined for an easy, comfortable life. If the gospel shows us anything, it is that a life lived well is a life lived with generosity, kindness, tolerance, joy and acceptance. It is also a life marked by suffering, loss, sorrow, grief, tragedy and sometimes unspeakable horror. We are human persons, living in a world of beauty and of terror. Life lived here will always be a mixed bag. Yet we are promised joy in the midst of all the mess and mayhem. How is that possible?

Well, it doesn’t happen by abdicating our selfhood. It doesn’t happen by waiting for some kind of robotic activity within our zombie-like bodies under the strange spell of a god who is outside of us and chooses to use us like puppets on a stage.

It does happen when we are open to the possibility of partnership.

When we say ‘yes’ to the sweet voice of the Spirit who woos us with an invitation to join the dance.

It happens when we spend time, energy, effort — and money, as needed! — to discover who we are and how we’re wired. It then becomes our ‘job,’ if you like — our primary task in life — to experience God’s delight in us and to realize that it is God’s delight that both invites and empowers us to use our unique mix of gifts and talents in service of the kingdom dream. And that is going to look different for every single one of us.

There are no duplicates in God’s design. And we will never, ever become clones of anyone, not even Jesus. Hopefully, there will be in us — as in an old, married couple — an increasing similarity, striking ways in which we begin to resemble one another and our elder brother. But letting go of who we uniquely are at the core of our being is not what is required. Not at all. On the contrary, it is when we discover and release our ‘who-ness’ that God is most delighted and most honored. Ireneaus got it right, all those centuries ago, “The glory of God is a human person, fully alive.”

There will always be things to let go of, oh, yes, there will. Most particularly, we must learn to release all the accretions of time and choice that are keeping us from knowing and being our truest selves. Things like pride, fear, obsessive drives of any kind, besetting sins. Those things we must part with — or at least, keep working on!

But that center piece, that true blue, loving, imago dei? Oh, no — not that. Not ever that. YOU are designed in the image of a loving, creative, hard-working, knows-when-to-call-it-a-day, merciful, justice-seeking, lovely, kind and joyful GOD. A God who sends some spark of divinity right into each and every soul that draws breath on this planet. A God who sees, knows, loves, and draws forth that spark, over and over and over again. A God whose desire is for our good, for our growth, for our mutual embrace. A God who — beyond our power to reason, imagine or sometimes, even believe — wants human beings to jump into the circle and DANCE.

Don’t ever let go of that.

Joining this reflection with Addie Zierman’s, “Let Go, Let God” link-up. Oh YAY for link-ups!

Filed Under: Addie Zierman's Monthly Link-Up, Beauty, biblical reflection, Church, community, Confession, Creativity, Delight!, Encouragement, Enough, God's gifts, Grace, Gratitude, Hard Things, Living the Answers, Living the Questions, personal journey, Wonderings in the Word

Redefining Terms — For SheLoves, May, 2018

May 18, 2018 By Diana

Anyone who has read my work for any length of time will know that the content of this month’s essay at SheLoves has appeared, in slightly different form, here and in an ebook I put together about five years ago. It’s a BIG topic for me, essential to my spiritual and emotional health and sanity and I’m happy to have another venue in which to speak it true. I believe this to be one of the most important truths of our faith, one that can help us navigate any misguided theological input from our past. I’d love it if you would click over and join in the conversation at SheLoves.

When I was a little girl, faithfully attending Sunday school each week, we had a little saying that went like this: “Jesus, Others and You – that’s how you spell JOY.” And I inhaled that sentiment like it was the sweetest of perfumes. YES! We should always be last on the list, giving ourselves away to Jesus and to other people. That’s how you live like Jesus, right? That’s how you are a good girl, a truly good girl.

As I got older, that simple phrase became a little more complicated, and the scent of it a little more cloying. This time, it went something like this: “He must increase, I must decrease,” lifting the words directly out of the mouth of John the Baptist near the end of chapter 3 in John’s gospel. From there, it morphed into, “More of Jesus, less of me,” and the older I got, the more terrified I became when I heard those words.

I didn’t recognize it as terror initially. In fact, I didn’t know how deeply this message had affected me until I began to be interested in spiritual direction. I first learned about direction by reading a series of novels, of all things. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, British author Susan Howatch wrote a great bunch of stories about priests in the Anglican church and I devoured those books when I was in my 40’s. They were earthy, to be sure, but they were also rich and filled with beautiful tidbits of theology and ecclesiology. Throughout the entire series, some of my favorite characters were spiritual directors.

So I began to look for a director, and the first woman I interviewed handed me the beautiful Prayer of Abandonment by Charles de Foucauld. It’s a beautiful prayer, filled with love, joyful submission, and trust. But I could not pray that prayer.

I tried, but I’d get to the word ‘abandon,’ and start gulping great gasps of air. I prayed about it, I talked it over with the woman who had given it to me, and her immediate response to me was this: “Diana, you need therapy. Not direction.” (Did I mention I was in seminary at the time and beginning to hear God’s call to professional ministry? What??? Pastors might need therapy? Well, that’s a great big YES.)

I spent the next twenty years trying to unpack what happened inside me as I read that prayer and, in the process, I have taken a long look at that old Sunday school saying and the use (or mis-use) of that verse from John 3. And I’ve done a TON of personal work on all kinds of important things. . . all because I gagged on the word, “abandon.”

I spent the next twenty years trying to unpack what happened inside me as I read that prayer and, in the process, I have taken a long look at that old Sunday school saying and the use (or mis-use) of that verse from John 3. And I’ve done a TON of personal work on all kinds of important things … all because I gagged on the word, “abandon.”

We all have a fear of abandonment. Along with the fear of falling, it’s one of the most primal fears human persons carry. But what I was feeling was not quite that, was it? This is what I finally realized: I was terrified of disappearing. I had somehow inhaled some really lousy theology along with that early Sunday school ditty. I had taken the words of John the Baptist completely out of context and come to believe that the way to the heart of the gospel was for me to somehow be sublimated to the point of extinction, for Jesus alone to inhabit this flesh.

There are all kinds of interesting reasons why this particular woman came up with these particular fears and most of them, I understand a whole lot better now than I did then. But what I want to talk about here is the sometimes dangerous way we throw words around when we teach and when we preach. Because this is the beautiful truth of the gospel, the powerful, life-changing, miraculous truth:

As we learn more about the heart of Jesus, as we open ourselves to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, this is what happens: More of Jesus, MORE of me.

Yes, you read that right. Think about it for a minute: why would God go to all the trouble of creating the wildly different and wholly beautiful human race if the goal was for each one of us to disappear, to lose our distinctiveness, to be pushed into the waters of oblivion that some have chosen to call “Jesus?” Is that wave supposed to cover us completely?

In some ways, YES, YES, YES. We are covered by the grace of God made tangible in his sacrificial death and resurrection. We are; yes, we are.

BUT also, NO. We are not lost when we are covered by the grace of God. We are not ever lost. No. WE ARE FOUND.

The true me, the real me, the best me, the apple-of-God’s-eye me, the very particular, very unique, highly individual me is given space. Room to breathe and grow and flourish. The heart of the mystery, the wonder is this: the more we allow Jesus to fill us with love, to inhabit us, the more ‘me’ we discover. The me that God had in mind when he created the world, the me that reflects the image of God, the me that Jesus sees when he moves in for good.

Today I know that God has no desire to devour me, to make me some kind of freakish “walking dead” person. No. Jesus came to this earth to show us what a truly human life looks like. And he wants us to discover what our truly human life looks like. It’s true, we will look a lot like Jesus. But we will also look like ourselves.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Confession, Encouragement, Enough, Fighting Scarcity, God's gifts, Grace, Gratitude, grief, Hard Things, Lifelong Learning, Living the Questions, memoir, personal journey, SheLoves

A Wide Believing — For SheLoves, April 2018

April 20, 2018 By Diana

“If I could ask anything of us, this ragged band of us looking for a way home, crossing the Jordan River, it would be to believe wider for each other.” — Hilary Yancey,
in “Forgiving God: A Story of Faith,” pg.57.

I have heard the truth that ‘thoughts and prayers’ are not enough. This is a phrase shouted by voices around the world in recent days, words that flow from the painful experiences of those who are oppressed, victimized, traumatized, ostracized, threatened, abused and neglected. And these words are true. Thoughts and prayers are too often not enough, at least in the way ‘thoughts and prayers’ are so often understood and defined.

I find myself wondering if we have allowed our language about prayer to descend into the realm of cliché because we have not fully grasped what prayer is and what prayer can do. I am in the late autumn of my life and I still do not fully comprehend either the definition or the experience of prayer. It is an idea we use (and abuse) far too easily, I think, a word better saved for deep times of soul connection and firm commitment. It is no small thing to promise someone that you will pray for them; no, it is not.

Hilary Yancey’s words, quoted at the top of this post, are from her new memoir, which tells the story of a difficult pregnancy. In it she details the emotional and spiritual peaks and valleys of living with the hard news that her son would be born with a face that is different from most other people.

Hilary prayed fervently for a miracle, for an erasure of the ultrasound and MRI results, for healing for her son. Healing came, but not in the way Hilary prayed it would. The healing came—and continues to come—in Hilary’s spirit and in her good, good mind. And what she came to understand about prayer in the midst of this particular inferno is a lovely and helpful thing to read.

She talks about the prayers of others—friends nearby, friends far away and friends gone ahead to life eternal. There was the friend who asked just the right question at a difficult time early in her son Jack’s life and who then said, “I will believe that God is love for you, I will pray to the God who I know is love for you. I will hope for you.” (pg.42)

Can you imagine a better way to pray for a friend in the depths? This, this, is what we can do for one another, friends. We can come alongside in the midst of suffering and hold faith for the one who is losing it. We can offer hope to the hopeless, we can breathe love on those who don’t dare to believe in it, we can be love and hope at work in the world by the way we pray. Learning to listen well—to God and to one another—and learning to pay enough careful attention to ask the right questions, we can move away from trite promises of “thoughts and prayers” to real, earnest, spiritual work.

Because that is what prayer is—it is a wide believing in the power of Love at work in the world, a believing that encompasses the pain and struggle and loss that come to all of us. More particularly, prayer for another also includes naming the work that must be done for change to happen, and then doing it.

Filed Under: Book Essay, community, Encouragement, Enough, Fighting Scarcity, God's gifts, Grace, Gratitude, hope, prayer

4:38 p.m.

April 19, 2018 By Diana

They tell me there was snow on our mountains for about five minutes this morning. I never saw it, but I believe it was there.

I know in my head that my mother has been gone for exactly one year today, but my heart does not yet fully comprehend this truth.. It seems I am able to believe in the snow without ever seeing it, but unable to wrap my head around tangible things right in front of my face, like a clock or a calendar.

Even though it is the way of things, even though death comes to every one of us at some point along the journey, even though my mother’s death was, in many ways, the very best way for death to happen, this losing a much-loved mother is hard and it is painful. At times, it still feels strange, unnatural and weirdly disorienting. Tears spring at the oddest times. Some small piece of decor or clothing will catch my eye and I realize I am smiling sadly, even nodding slightly, as if offering a brief moment of homage to the force of nature who was my mom.

One year today.

We walked her last journey together, she and I, and it was not an easy one. I remember lovely sunlit moments along the way — sitting by the pool at her residential facility, each of us in a large sunhat, drinking in the ocean air, bird sound, and bright blooming vines that surrounded us. I remember laughter, her wonderful, rich laughter. I remember a smile as big as whatever room she was in, welcoming one and all. I remember how beautiful she was, even as age and disease slowly ravaged her.

I also remember deep confusion, the devastation when she no longer knew I was her daughter, her tears of frustration and of fear when she tried to make sense of something that was no longer within the sphere of her cognitive ability. I remember trips to the emergency room, her terror and embarrassment when strapped to a gurney she did not want or need. I remember deep bruises from falls, and the firm conviction that, ‘this is not my room, I’ve never been here before in my life.’ I remember a growing disconnection from things like seasons, days, time itself.

I also remember her leading my Brownie meetings, teaching my 11th grade Sunday School class, bending over her beautiful stitcheries, and I remember with glee her bawdy sense of humor. I was deeply aware of how thirsty she was to learn, to read, to discuss, to ponder and wonder and observe. I remember how feisty she could be — and how volatile!

I remember how much she worried over me. Oh, my, how she could worry!

Now, at this late stage of my own life, I know all of that was because of her deep love and concern for me, but then? Then, it felt suffocating, limiting, inhibiting. She worried over my height, my weight, the way I walked, the fact that I might be “too smart to ever catch a good man.” She dragged me to multiple dermatology clinics because of my dry and sensitive skin, she always wanted me to be ‘more social,’ and regularly encouraged me to invite classmates over to hang out. She also wanted me to enjoy athletics, something she was good at and I most definitely was not.

We found our way together, yes, we did. I was her first child — longed for and loved and cherished. As does every first-born, I bore the brunt of her inexperience and the leftover wounds of her own, sometimes chaotic, upbringing. But she was smart, my mom. And she was good. She learned from her mistakes, she apologized easily, she loved deeply and well. We found our way to one another during my adolescence by reading books together and writing each other notes about them. And we laughed. A lot.

We also shared a deep love of beauty, in all its permutations. Today, on this anniversary, and as my computer clock tells me it is now exactly 4:38 — the moment of her death, one year ago — I want to remember and reflect on that most of all. She was the embodiment of beauty in so many ways — in her face, surely. But even more so, in her spirit. Yes, she could be ugly, too. Aren’t we all? But the beauty of her is what I cling to now.

Gasping at a glorious sunset, tenderly arranging flowers for the dinner table, creating a cake or a sketch, looking for and finding the beauty of others, even eventually encouraging me to reach out past the boundaries she herself had always drawn around me, as a female child. She didn’t fully understand my call to ministry at midlife, but she supported it. She wept when I told her — through my own tears — that I never could have considered going to seminary if my husband didn’t make enough money for its cost to have no impact on any other person in our family. She wept because she knew that wacky belief came directly from her own fears and prejudices, her own false picture of what it means to be female in this world.

My mother learned. And she kept on learning, right up until dementia moved in to stay. And while she learned, she continued to love us all so very well. I thank God for her every day of my life. And I thank you, my dearest Mom. I miss you more than words can say.

Filed Under: Aging, Alzheimer's Disease, Beauty, Blessings, death, Dementia, Encouragement, Enough, family, God's gifts, Gratitude, grief, Laughter, Lifelong Learning, memoir, personal journey, The Journey with Mom

In Praise of Light — SheLoves, October 2017

October 12, 2017 By Diana

The theme of the month at SheLoves is ‘LIT.’ This is what came to me as I reflected on that interesting word.

I love lights — strings of lights. I have about four long ones, composed of large, clear globes in three colors, strung across the arbor outside the back of our home. Every day at about 5:00 p.m., I turn the switch so that their blue, green and white sparkles can be enjoyed as the evening covers the day.

My sister-in-law gave me a string of lights hidden inside colorful paper umbrellas. I loved that little string so much, I immediately hung it above my baking counter in the kitchen.

Just last month, I found a new website that specializes in inexpensive strings of solar-powered white lights. I have woven 5 strands through the low hedges that demarcate the back edge of our property. Every evening, I wait for their twinkling to begin and every evening, I smile as I see them.

Don’t even get me started about Christmas lights, okay? I’ve got bits of light spread all around my house from early December through Epiphany — on the tree, to be sure. But also? Across the mantle, on a smaller counter-top tree, stretched along the top of my china cabinet, around my front door.

Yeah, I love lights. They make me smile, they lift my spirits, they give me hope when I’m feeling down, they remind me that the darkness does not and cannot win, even when all around me says otherwise.

I want to be a person of light, too. Someone who shines, even in the darkness, who holds on firmly to hope and joy, no matter what set of curve balls are being tossed at my head. I want to be someone who is lit from within, someone who carries light with me into every dark and difficult place life’s journey brings my way.

Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes, not so much. I wrote last month about lament and I sometimes think that I could write about that topic no matter what the theme-of-the-month might happen to be. After all, life is hard, people get sick and die, relationships fall apart, addiction is real and sometimes deadly, failure is endemic to the human condition. And our scripture gives us a language for these seasons of sadness.

But.

It is also important and necessary to acknowledge the flip side of that language of lament. It is good to sing songs in a major key, too, and doing so can help us acknowledge the presence of the Light, even in the midst of some dark and scary times.

So today, I want to sing a song in praise of light, to say thank you for the people and places, events and circumstances that have brought light into my life:

To see my list (and to add some of your own, in the comments) please follow this link and join the conversation over there.

Filed Under: Encouragement, Enough, God's gifts, Grace, Gratitude

31 Days of Photo Journaling: Day One – An Introduction

September 29, 2017 By Diana

At the beginning of September, I had such high hopes for this year’s 31-day series. I wrote the introductory theme piece several weeks ago and never got back to add more. So I have decided to change course! I will be joining Kate Montaug’s 5 Minute Friday 31 day group, writing on a particular theme each day of the 31 days of October. Hopefully, it will happen each and every day this month. Time will tell, right?

So here is the intro piece to the first series I planned to write. Who knows? Maybe I’ll try this series idea next year!

It’s (almost!) October again, and for the sixth year in a row, I am joining Crystal Stine’s 31 Day Challenge, choosing a theme to write on every day of the month. I am trying to be just a tiny bit more intentional about this blog space again, despite the loss of subscribers I experience every time I write here!

This space has been an important part of my life for the last decade and I’d like that to continue. One way for me to do that is to be disciplined about writing short, hopefully pithy, posts on a daily basis whenever the invitation arises. And this invitation is a big one! So . . . “once more, into the breach,” right?

The theme I’ve chosen for this year is Photo-Journaling, something I love to do and can easily transfer here. I take pictures a lot. A lot. And I always have — even before the invention of phone cameras! It’s a way of documenting, remembering and reflecting on my life. My photo folders tell our story as a family, my story as a pastor and as a child of God/wife/mother/grandmother/friend. I have often used my photos to organize my blog posts or my newsletters, weaving words around the pictures as I go. Something about the combination of the photo and the words tells the story more completely.

So here are a few thoughts for day one of our journey together this year. The photo above was taken on one of the walks I take several times each week. My husband and I have headed for the marina in our town quite a lot during the last few weeks and always see something fun/interesting/educational/inspiring when we do. This particular late afternoon was an interesting one. The fog had rolled out about midday, sitting like a lurking giant just beyond the breakwater. It was a low roll, however, leaving space for the clear blue skies which had become our predominant view just a few blocks further inland.

As we walked out on that concrete barrier that protects millions of dollars worth of yachts and fishing boats, a small sailboat was cutting across the water at exactly the right angle for me to capture both the fog and the blue, blue sky behind it. Something about that image grabbed my heart. I saw myself as that little boat, sailing across the vast mystery that is our life as followers of Jesus. Sometimes thick fog blurs my view and feels as though it is limiting my options. But what I need to remember during those times is that the blue sky is still there, somewhere just above me, encircling both my small boat/life and the fog bank, no matter how huge it may appear to be at any given moment. And that boat is heading straight for safe haven, making a bee-line for the harbor entrance. That’s where I want to be — en route home.

Can I hear an ‘amen?’

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, biblical reflection, Creativity, daily devo, Delight!, Encouragement, Enough, God's gifts, Gratitude, grief, Lifelong Learning, Photo Essay, photography, prayer

Charlottesville: No Words — SheLoves, August, 2017

August 18, 2017 By Diana

Do you find yourself at the limit of things right now? I do. Here are my reflections for SheLovesMagazine this month — you can begin this essay here, then click over to join the conversation there. I hope you will!

I like to think of myself as a person of words. I love to read, talk, preach and write — all of which require some facility with language. I even had a dear friend whisper in my ear a week or so ago, “You know what I love about you? Your vocabulary!” My what?? Well, okay, I’ll take it!

But at this particular moment in time, in the aftermath of the horrors of Charlottesville this past weekend, I find myself at a complete loss. I discover very few words anywhere within my usually active brain. I feel unmoored, uncertain, frightened and deeply, truly sad.

I am a person who does not understand cruelty. So deep is this lack of comprehension that I often feel powerless and rudderless in the face of it. I’ve known a few people in my lifetime whose currency is cruelty. Blunt, thoughtless, critical remarks are their stock-in-trade, and every time one of those remarks is directed toward me, I stutter and stumble around, trying to find a comeback, a simple sentence that will stop the flood of vitriol.

Nada. Nothing. No words.

What is with that??

It’s not that I want to be cruel back. Honest and true, it is not. It’s that I simply do not know what to do in the face of it. If it’s directed at someone else in the circle, I can sometimes muster an objection or a clarification, but I never make it as far as a firm, clear, push-back that stops the ugliness. More often than not, I beat a retreat as quickly as I can and then ponder it all for days and days. What could I have said? What could I have done? What should I do next time?

Today, I am past pondering. I am done. And the one word that keeps coming back to me, over and over again is this one: ENOUGH. Stop. Just stop. Put away your swastikas, burn them all. You may have a legal right to your misguided opinion, but you do not have the right to name-call, bully, harass, or drive your automobile into a crowd of folks who disagree with you, and are brave enough to stand up and say so.

There are no more cheeks to be turned, my friends. None. And I refer you to the fine work of Walter Wink, written decades ago, about the subversive nature of the words of Jesus that have been so abused in the centuries since they were uttered. Turning the other cheek and walking the extra mile were acts of resistance to an intolerable government and they are beautiful things when rightly understood. They are not useful as tokens, bromides, or any other sugar-coating of evil words and deeds. Evil demands resistance. Full stop.

And what we witnessed this past weekend, what we’ve seen over and over and over again in the systematic killing of people of color, is evil. It is an evil that has its roots in fear, the ‘elephant in the room’ I wrote about last month, but it is evil, nonetheless.

Continue reading at SheLoves today, friends. I’d love to hear how you’re doing and, even more importantly, what you’re doing about our national sin and need for repentance. And if you are not a resident of the USA, your comments and insights are always welcome — we clearly need help. Just click right here.

Filed Under: community, Confession, Enough, Fear, grief, Hard Things, hope, Lament, Light, Listening, SheLoves

Baby Steps — For SheLoves, March 2017

March 11, 2017 By Diana

It must be the second Saturday of the month because I’m live at SheLoves again today! You can start this reflection here and then follow the links over to that good place to join the conversation. Our theme for March is “Be Bold for Change.”

Several members of our family taking ‘baby steps’ on a hiking trail near Palm Springs last week.

Bold is a great big word. Only four small letters, but oh, my! — such freight. I don’t use it often, to tell you the truth. About 90% of the time, my use of the term is limited to clicking Command-B on my computer keyboard! I seem to be more willing to occasionally make a written word stand out than to actually be bold in my day-to-day life.

In fact, as I thought about writing for this month’s theme, I began to wonder if I have ever been a bold person, someone who steps out and speaks up and makes a change. I know I am not bold physically — I KNOW this. I don’t like high places, I am terminally uncoordinated, any size or shape of sports-ball coming my direction is a source of terror. I have a friend — one of my dearest friends — who is brazenly, maybe even crazily, bold physically. She learned to kite-surf in her 50’s and is now an expert. Last year, she and a friend hiked from the Alps of Switzerland to the shores of the Mediterranean in France. This week, she left for Nepal to climb to the base camp of Mt. Everest. Yes, really. The base camp of Mt. Everest.

Uh, no thank you. Much as I love and admire her, that kind of bold feels cray-cray to me. Just plain c r a z y.

Then I began to broaden my horizons and think about other bold women I have known. I soon realized that there are lots of different ways to step up, to step out, to take a chance, to risk failure, to make a difference. Some of those other bold women are the ones I’ve met here at SheLoves — Idelette, Tina, Kelley, Kathy, Helen, Bev, Erin, Cindy, Claire, Heather, Sarah, Michaela, Bethany — too many to list. Each of them, women who have had the courage to dream and the stick-to-it-ive-ness to realize those dreams — often despite fear, hardship, and loss.

Guess what? There are lots of ways to be bold. And every single one of those ways begins with a single step. One decision. One moment of courage. One instant of recognition that this — this idea, this project, this act of grace, this stand-up-and-be-counted moment — is do-able. These women — and so many others — believed in possibilities and then they walked those possibilities into reality.

Every bold step begins with a baby one. Dramatic change does not happen overnight. Sometimes, it takes a lifetime — even more than a lifetime. Really bold change only happens when lots of different people take lots of different kinds of baby steps, all of them heading in the same direction.

Come on over and read the rest of this piece and tell me about some baby steps of your own, okay?

Filed Under: Aging, community, Confession, Encouragement, Enough, Grace, personal journey, SheLoves

Heading Home: Walking with Jesus to the Cross — A Lenten Journey

March 1, 2017 By Diana

It is Ash Wednesday.

Again.

Thanks be to God.

Oh, I need this season. Each and every year, I need to walk the road that Jesus walked. I need to remember, to choose to let go of a thing or two that gets in the way of my remembering, to pray with added emphasis, to give of my abundance. Alms, fasting, prayer — the holy trinity for this season: giving away, giving up, giving to God. To help myself stay faithful to all that giving, I need reminders. Do you?

So I will provide a few along the way — for myself and for you, starting with now. Why? Because today, we walk into Lent — six weeks of remembering who Jesus really is, why Jesus really came to this earth, and who we are truly called to be.

Will you walk with me? Each occasional reminder will feature a photo, a scripture from the lectionary list for the day, a brief reflection, an even briefer prayer. There will be questions here and there and gentle reminders to stay vigilant and keep on truckin’. We will walk through parts of Holy Week together and then end this series with a proper Easter Sunday Celebration!

We’re heading home again, my friends. I’d say it’s time, wouldn’t you?

Isaiah 58:1-12
Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.

“Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.

Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.

The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

These words are read each and every year on this date. These words are ones that I would do well to read each and every OTHER day of the year, as well. Such powerful truth, such a strong reminder of the heart of our God and the heart of our faith. Fasting for the sake of inducing suffering is not what it’s all about. Fasting for the growth of our souls and the good of others — that’s what it’s all about. I love the fact that fasting and almsgiving have been traditionally linked together in this season. Because, as Isaiah reminds us, the truth of it is this: we cannot effectively give up without also giving out.

My own fasting discipline this year will involve technology as well as food, with a step back from Facebook during the week. What about you? From what will you abstain during these weeks, remembering that each of the Sundays in Lent is a break-fast day?

And what will you give to others? My small list includes these occasional reflections. But of course, these are a gift to me, as well.

Oh, Giver of Good Gifts — enlighten and encourage us as we seek to reflect your goodness into our world. May we make wise choices, ones we can stick with, and may you be glorified through the decisions we make.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Encouragement, Enough, giving, Lent, Lenten Journey