With Gratitude

 

With praise and thanksgiving, O God, we sing out to You today.  We give thanks for food that nourishes our bodies and friends whose laughter sustains our souls.  We give thanks for the soil where pumpkins grow and are made into delicious pies we can enjoy.  We give thanks for ordinary moments when music soothes us and times of worship where we can show up fully as our God-created/crafted selves.  We give thanks to the stars that beckon in the night sky and guide our way to Christmas.  We give thanks for smells that awaken our senses and silent moments wrapped like a fuzzy blanket that warm our hearts.  We give thanks for hands held this year, tears honestly wept, and laughter lovingly prayed.  God, we give thanks that Your love knows no borders.  Your presence is unconditional and unceasing.  Bless the food we eat, the friendship we experience, and the moments of gratitude for this day we pray.  Amen.

Bethlehem Bound part 3

 

This week, I’ve been inviting you to prepare your heart for the beginning of Advent this coming Sunday.  You’ve had a chance to reflect on what you are longing for and what you are carrying in the backpack of your life.  Pause to ponder what is growing within you right now ~ could be a dream or a desire or a prayer or a possibility ~ we can be pregnant in many ways.  Yesterday, you unpacked your backpack to think about what you are carrying before you start the path and are Bethlehem-bound.  Were there things in your backpack you’d forgotten about?  Were there things you needed to recycle before heading to the stable? 

 

Today, if you had to select one word right now to describe what is in your heart, soul, mind, and life, what might that word be?

 

Do you sense excitement or exhaustion?

Do you feel hope or are you hanging on by a thread?

Do you long for possibility, or is there too much pain?

 

Of course, only having one word to describe the beautiful complexity that is you can be an exercise in frustration.  We are multitudes; many words roam around within us.  Many words want to take up residence or pitch a tent in our minds, refusing to leave.  Maybe you need more than one word.  You could fill up a page trying to express all that is swirling in you. 

 

Now, is there a word you long to let loose in your life that might guide you to Bethlehem?  Is there one word like a star that you can follow to the stable?

 

Here is a short list of possible words you can choose for the season ~ but I pray this opens your imagination:

• Jesus 
• Christ 
• Bethlehem
• Manger 
• Shepherds 
• Angels 
• Mary
• Joseph
• Incarnation/God-in-the-flesh
• Advent/waiting/wandering
• Wise Ones 
• Frankincense and Myrrh or Gifts
• Peace
• Joy
• Faith
• Hope
• Love
• Emmanuel: A name for Jesus, meaning "God with us". 

 

Or go read the words to your favorite Christmas Carol as a source to find a word.

 

Ponder today what word might cause your soul to stir.  A word that gives life and energy to your weary and worn-out soul.  A word that reminds you, God is still singing in the world today.  May this pondering guide you and hold you on this Thanksgiving Eve.  Amen.

Bethlehem Bound Part 2

 

Yesterday, I invited you to think about what you want to carry in the backpack of your life to the manger this year.  Part of the invitation is to empty out what you’ve been carrying so far.  There is a great line in the hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” that goes, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”  So, what hopes do you carry?  This could be personally, relationally, spiritually, and for our community and country.  What fears do you carry?  Again, these could be for yourself medically or relationally, or for our world?

We all have an invisible backpack.  Seth Godin reminds us that you don’t know what anyone else is carrying in theirs.  We may think we know, but we don’t.  And often, we can be unaware of what we carry in our own lives.  Before you start down the pathway to where Jesus is laid in a manger, first sit with your one wild and precious life to see what has accumulated in your backpack this last life.  I remember when our kids were young, we had to go through their backpacks often because papers and trash and forgotten items would all congregate at the bottom…and you don’t want to leave a banana peel for weeks on end.  

But how many of us have a metaphorical banana peel that has been lying around and we’ve been carrying out ~ maybe unaware.  To sit with your life this week, asking, What am I holding onto right now?  Or make two columns: hopes and fears.  Or think back over the last year of what brought you joy and love and peace, where you felt hurt, wounded, and treated as less than a beloved child of God.  May such sacred pondering be a way that sets your sights and hearts on this 25^th day of November for all that we will celebrate one month from today.  Amen.

Bethlehem Bound Part 1

 

This coming Sunday, November 30^th, we begin the season of Advent.  The four Sundays before Christmas are set aside for us to prepare our hearts, souls, and lives for the birth of Jesus.  For four Sundays, we open to God who sings through the wombs of Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptizer, and then Mary, pregnant with Jesus.  Their lives model for us fierce faithfulness.  Where, when, and how can we be pregnant with the possibility of God in these days?  Remember, life was not all chocolate rivers and pony rides for Elizabeth and Mary.  These two brave and bold women each faced discrimination due to gender, age (Elizabeth being older and Mary being young), marital status, and geographical location ~ neither was famous nor an influencer with thousands following their every post.  God moves in ways that leave us speechless and silent with a mystery beyond our explanation.  God moves in ways that provide endless exploration in our lives.  More than likely, you have been to Bethlehem before.  You have sung Silent Night drenched in candlelight.  You have been in the Christmas Pageant growing up.  The story may not be new to you, but you have never been this age at this point in history with all that is swirling around you and within you.  Today, I invite you to write down your prayers as we prepare for Advent.  Thirty days from today, we will arrive at a stable, step inside, to behold and to be held by a mystery that can change our lives.  How can you prepare a manger-shaped space in our hearts, souls, and lives this year?  What does it mean that God comes in the flesh of a vulnerable baby this year?  Where do you pray, “Come thou long expected Jesus?” this year?

Chew on these questions, savor the taste of these questions, and see what comes up in response to these questions.  And may you sense the presence of the One who is with us and for us, Emmanuel, God in the flesh and form of Jesus, born anew and afresh this year.  Amen.  

Love Has You

 

“Secure – Love has me – you relay and receive what others have to other, don’t worry about whether you will get what you need, don’t experience shame, can try new things and make mistakes, and can relax.”  Sacred Attachment by Michael John Cusick

 

Love has you.  Full stop.  End of sentence.  I know that many voices want to contradict and challenge this idea.  People are shouting at their screens right now or the piece of paper where they are reading this, saying, “Well, love doesn’t have me, Wes…because you don’t know what so-and-so did to me, said to me, and hurt me this week.”  You're right.  I don’t.  I don’t know the discrimination you faced because of the color of your skin or because of the person you love.  I don’t know what it is like to be you.  But I do know that God’s love has you.  That doesn’t mean you are “safe and secure from all alarms.”  Ask Job, Jeremiah, and Jonah.  Ask Mary, Hannah, and Hagar.  Ask Jesus.  Love has me is not a guarantee of a bubble-wrapped life safe from being tossed, thrown, dropped, or dragged through valley moments you did not ask for…thank you very much, God.  Scripture tells us time and time again that faith is not an insurance policy.  Faith is not a money-back guarantee.  We know, from grief work, that the price of love is pain.  People we love die.  There is an empty chair at all our tables this Thanksgiving for someone we love and whose presence left fingerprints on our hearts.  There is ongoing hate that hovers in the cold, stone hearts of people ~ true of Pharaoh in Exodus and Caesar in Jesus’ day.  I don’t know what makes you feel insecure, unsafe ~ but I do know that Cusick is right, that we need places and people who see us, soothe us, help us feel safe and secure to be ourselves.  This is always the vision for the church ~ not that we get it right all the time.  We are still featherless bipeds with more than a few bugs in our operating system.  I still say things I immediately regret and want to grab the invisible words from the air and shove them back in my mouth.  I am human ~ from the Latin humus meaning ground.  I am soil and stardust.  I am blessed and broken.  I am hurting and holy.  All of this is true.  When I can fully lean in and live out of that truth, I proclaim with Jacob, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” (Genesis 28:16).  May you and I find many moments when we say those words in the coming days.  Amen.  

Safe

 

“Safe is I’ve got this.  You are protected from physical and emotional dangers, harm, experience repair of ruptures in relationships, have appropriate boundaries (neither rigid nor unpredictable), empowered to explore and move, and present to your whole self (including body)…seen and soothed and safe is what helps us feel secure.” Sacred Attachment by Michael John Cusick

 

Once we are seen and soothed, we can live from a different place.  There is a different spirit that motivates our movement.  No longer is our energy poured into protecting the mask for someone to really see us lest they judge us.  We know move about the world differently.  To be sure, we live in a world that is constantly shouting, “Danger!!”  Our brain came with operational software to alert you to the lion lurking in the weeds, only now the lions are coworkers who betray you and take credit for your work.  Only now the lion is family members who offer you only conditional love if you wear the right religious/political/family mask.  Only now, the lion is a culture that will cancel you if you don’t toe the party line.  Only now the lion is a church that demands alliance and for you to increase your pledge.  Only now the lions are trolls on social media who respond to your post with words that drip with shame.  You have already met the “lions” in your life; you have their claw marks on your skin/souls.  They go by different names and show up in predictable and sometimes surprising ways.  Because, like a gazelle in an open field, we all feel too exposed to a world that loves to comment and really loves to critique, offering you unsolicited advice.  Everyone wants to tell you how to improve your project of life.  We need a space where the people who see us and soothe us, cheer us on.  We need people who say, “You’ve got this.”  I think back to elementary school, where I would color with abandon and not worry about the grade.  I think back to early sermons when I didn’t worry about someone sending me an email dripping with disappointment.  I think back to moments of being carefree, not careless, but showing up as God calls each of us to be.  Is there a place you are safe?  Where and with whom can you intentionally cultivate that?  Where and for whom can you invite another into your space to be seen, soothed, and safe today?  May each of us do more than think about that last question, but seek to live that question with others.  Amen. 

Soothed

 

“Soothed means I’ve got you…others are available and responsive, comfort and care especially when distressed or ill, vulnerability and dependence are welcome, affection. Soothed promotes healthy self-soothing and gets us to safety.”  Sacred Attachment by Michael John Cusick 

 

In order to be soothed, we must first be seen.  Yesterday, we named and noticed how hard it can be to let down the mask of respectability and responsibility we all wear.  We want to be seen as competent and in control.  The truth is, it is not good for us to be isolated individuals on an island population of only the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I.  We need others.  All life is relationships.  We need people to see us and to help soothe us.  To be sure, there are ways we can soothe ourselves.  Breath work is important ~ when we notice our breathing and intentionally slow down our inhales and exhales.  This is one way we can calm our nervous systems.  One way to do breath work is to breathe in a verse of Scripture and breathe out another.  For example,

 

Breathe in, saying, “The Lord is my shepherd.”

Breathe out, saying, “I shall not want”

 

Try that a few times.  Breathing in each of those words, tasting them on the tip of your tongue, and letting each syllable sink and sing to your soul.  The Lord is your shepherd.  Each time you exhale, speak the words aloud, I shall not want.  Let those words be in conversation, not conflict, with the fact that we do want.  We want to be seen, soothed, safe, and secure in a world where those four words are not always experienced.  We want to know that our retirement is a big enough safety net.  We want to have a good day.  We want to feel loved fully.  I hold these truths lightly.  Not because I think God is shaking God’s head in disapproval at my long laundry list of wants, but because when I see my honest wants, God holds those with me.

 

Or you can breathe in to the count of four, hold that holy breath for five, and exhale for the count of six or seven or even eight.  Pro tip: when you hold your breath, do so gently, savoring this space between the inhale and exhale as if God’s very spirit is moving in you ~ because we know one of the first acts of Creation in Genesis 2 was for God to breathe us on the breath of God.  May these two practices help you feel soothed.  May your interaction with one person today help you know you are seen as beloved and soothed by such love.  May you sense a love that has you and will never let you go.  Amen.