The Stories of Our Life

 

What insights did you glean yesterday from listening to the diverse stories you heard around you and contributing to the stew of stories within you?  I know when I look at the economic and political stories I hear, they are often heartbreaking.  When I pay attention to the stories of people I encounter each week, I hear many feeling disheartened and dismayed.  Then, I match that up with the stories I hear right now of people doing what they can, where they can.  Sometimes I do wonder if the story of our church slips and slides into, “Do more!”…which can also feel like, “Not enough,” that I felt when I got a C on my report card.  This is but one small example of the ways the stories (Notice the use of the plural here) of your life are all jostling around your mind/heart/soul.  Because the various stories of people around us are not always neat and tidy, don’t fit perfectly together like puzzle pieces, we still try to put everything into a coherent picture.  Do you notice yourself negotiating and reconciling the information you receive from a multitude of sources each day?  This leads you to a conclusion, which can be that things are going to you-know-where in a handbasket, or that things will get better, or that everyone is against you, or that the system is rigged, or that people are broken.  Once our minds are made up, this becomes the overarching narrative, and any external evidence that contradicts it is thrown out by the judge and jury in our minds.  For example, if the world is completely broken, not only will Facebook keep serving you stories to support that point of view, but you will quickly dismiss any story of hope as naïve or foolish.  Or if you believe that humans are basically good, you will spend a lot of calories trying to find one redeeming quality of the person you just met who seems to be mean.  This isn’t about being right or wrong but noticing and naming the ways our brains are wired and how that was given to us by moments in the past.  Return today to those sentence descriptions of the narratives in our world you wrote yesterday.

 

What story does our church tell?

What story does your political identity tell?

What story does your economic bracket/background tell?

What story does your neighbor/friends/peer group tell?

Where are these stories aligned, and where is there tension? 

 

May your reflections be grounded in the One who can hold the beautiful diversity of Scripture together, so that they can also hold your complex/contradictory stories together too.  Amen.

The Stories in Our Life

 

From wearing shirts that were a size too big, to rolling up the bottoms of my jeans so I didn’t step on them when I walked, to a suit coat that you could’ve fit two of me inside, I grew up wearing hand-me-downs.  But the truth is, that wasn’t the only thing given to me by my family.  Our families also pass down narratives from generation to generation.  You are still living inside (or bumping up against or trying to break free from) the story of your family of origin.  Some of the stories are about expectations around holidays, who brings the potato salad to the family reunion, what is “acceptable” attire at a meal, and which conversation topics are permissible, and which are off-limits.  You were formally taught these rules of your family, usually by saying something that earned you a swift punishment of some form (mine was being sent to my bedroom without dessert).  But we also caught these narratives, like a contagious virus, informally from listening to our parents and relatives at gatherings.

 

What stories did you hear growing up? 

 

What expectations were both spoken aloud, maybe dripping with shame or guilt, and which ones were shared through stares of your grandparents that could melt an ice sculpture?

 

Last week, I introduced you to Family Systems Theory.  And one more component is that we carry with us the stories of our childhood into our adult years.  You have blessings and brokenness from your family of origin.  Pause and ponder with me: what is one lesson you learned growing up that you are grateful for?  And what is one lesson that feels like a burden too great to carry alone?  I know that for me, I give thanks for my parents' sense of humor.  I also felt the weight of needing to get straight A’s in school and often falling short.

 

This week, I want to invite you to consider the multiple stories that you, like a seamstress, weave together day by day in your life.  You are given stories from the church, politically, from social media, economically, culturally, and from your peer group and neighborhood.  Sometimes those stories are in harmony with each other.  We tend to have a bias toward keeping our stories in congruence with each other.  Because when one story disagrees with or is in tension with another, it feels like nails scratching down a chalkboard of your soul.  When the diverse and different stories collide within us, we force ourselves to resolve this tension.  Or ignore it.  Or mush them together like different colors of Play-Doh. 

 

In one sentence, what story does our church tell you?  What stories do you hear in your friend group? Or maybe you have different friend groups who tell two widely different stories? What stories do you hear culturally or economically or in the algorithm of your online platforms?  Are these stories comedies, tragedies, dramas, or mysteries?  Do these stories inspire you or drain all your energy?  Take a few moments this morning and ponder the stories you are hearing and how that impacts/influences the story you tell yourself about yourself.  Let’s sit with the patchwork quilt of stories we are all trying to bring and blend in our lives this week as hard/holy work of these days.

Prayer

 

Creator and Cultivator of this beautifully broken system called “life,” there is so much that pushes and pulls at us.  Voices within us offering unhelpful, hurtful, color commentary on what we said at that meeting and people trying to give us advise/fix us/save us and systems that tell us just swipe the credit card or click purchase online so that we can enjoy our best life ever.  Help us amid the chaos within us and around us.  Quiet us amid the demands of life that demand we put on our cape and fix everything and everyone, even though they resist our efforts.  Draw near to us.  Settle our Martha-like ways that believe we can’t just sit here with You, O God; we have to do something.  Unsettle our Mary-like ways that believe if we just watch one more sermon online or read one more book or attend that Zoom conversation, we will totally reach enlightenment, might even levitate off the ground.  We are both Mary and Martha; we are both compelled and complacent; we are both constantly moving and exhausted; we are both servers and students, but sometimes we feel like we are always making the wrong decisions.  Remind us, God, that life is not a test; life is awakening to You in the messy mystery with no neat ending.  So may we breathe and be with You here and now, as well as then and there every moment for the rest of this year.  Amen. 

The Big Five Needs

 

Steve Cuss has taught us a great deal about Family Systems Theory.  He talks about the big 5 false needs in our life: Control, Perfection, Knowing the Answer, Being there for everyone, and Approval.  Do you see yourself in any of these?  I wonder if Martha struggled with the Big 5; I know I do.  Cuss reminds us that in systems, there is reactivity ~ and once someone becomes anxious ~ everyone catches that.  There is that cliché: if mama ain’t happy, ain’t no one happy.  Maybe that happens at a meeting or at church; if the pastor ain’t happy, ain’t no one happy.  We also all operate on assumptions.  We make assumptions about Martha ~ the perfectionist and control freak, just like our cousin who had to take over the family picnic last year, even though you are perfectly capable of picking up the potato salad!  Sorry, just had to get that out.  We make assumptions about Mary, the lazy one who would rather pick daisies than do some honest work for once, like our nephew who is still trying to get hired as a CEO right out of college; kids today, am I right?!?  We have predictable patterns where I keep doing what I normally do, but end up with the same results.  I know this week has given you a lot of information.  Breathe and be with me.  Know that you are beloved, especially when all of this feels too close to home.  Remember that grace isn’t earned or deserved; grace is given again and again by a loving God who longs for us to see God’s presence in the systems of our soul to be ourselves.  Amen.

Shattered Glass

 

On Monday, I pointed out that often our minds love to fill in the gaps in a story.  We all have biases that block us from seeing/hearing/connecting to others.  We tend to see people not as they are, but as we believe them to be.  And sometimes, because they resent and resist such characterizations, the relationship cracks and crumbles.  Why do we do what we do?  Why do we say what we say?  Sometimes we don’t know.  We are all in the middle of a story called “Our Life” that we don’t know how it will end.  As author Margaret Atwood says, when you are in the middle of a story, it isn’t a story at all.  Just confusion like a glass shattered or wood splintered.  The story starts to take shape as the sharp shards of glass are swept up to see what can be salvaged, or the piece of art begins to emerge from the whittling down of the wood.  It is only when the melody finds harmony or the notes begin to create what is a symphony.  In the messy middle, which is where most of us find ourselves, there isn’t much of a story.  In a world addicted to certainty, confidence, and being correct, this reality rubs our souls raw.   I am not sure what cliffhangers you carry with you today.  It could be medical, as the doctor adjusts your medicine, or you wait for an appointment with your therapist.  It could be spiritual, as you wait for God to send you a neon sign, text message, or wait for the pony express to bring a telegram.  It could be waiting to see if that frozen conflict has any hope of thawing.  Or culturally, as the world waits to see if peace is possible and if humanity can ever stop hurting and harming each other.  We get a glimpse into the lives of Mary and Martha.  We don’t know what happened the day before or year before in their relationship.  But we do know what happened to us last week with our sibling, and so we inject and project that onto the screen of Scripture.  We don’t know what happened last year to that neighbor with that political sign, so we are glad to fill in the gap of our knowledge with certainty that all people who vote that way or go to that church or have that bumper sticker are like that.  We are in the middle of a story, our own as well as our family story and cultural story and our church’s story and the bigger cosmic story of God’s world.  These stories can be in tension with each other, and we are seeing/living through the cracks in the stories colliding right now ~ like eggs dropped on the floor.  May you and I continue to awaken to the truth that we don’t know what we don’t know.  Or I like to say that the older I get the more I don’t know..and I realize/recognize I may never know.  So I sit in the mystery of life that isn’t a puzzle to be solved but a way to be in the world here and now with love that truly makes a family.  Amen.

A Both/And System

 

Yesterday, we dipped our pinkie toe into the waters of Family Systems Theory, founded by Dr. Murray Bowen.  There is no way I can do justice to all the key concepts/components of this theory.  Basically, it boils down to systems don’t like to change, and under stress/strain some systems would rather implode than evolve.  The famous example from churches is contemporary worship.  Oh, people have opinions about that!  I remember watching the video about Family Systems Theory on this topic where people on the Church Council called each other to rally people to “their” side, hence triangulating and creating an “us-versus-them” culture.  People talked about each other rather than to one another.  People tried to pull rank, “My family founded this church…” as though they were the CEO of this particular Christian franchise location.  All because of the music played?  Of course, you have a preference, but is the church only about meeting your needs?  This is the pitfall of our modern-day consumer Christianity.  Remember, change always makes the system feel threatened.  This can be because of fear, or they just prefer organ and wonder why someone would rather worship God with a guitar and piano?  We all define and defend our perspectives.  Martha had a value of being a good host.  In Jesus' day, hospitality and spirituality were so tightly intertwined that you didn’t know where one began and the other ended.  To be a bad host was the worst insult you could throw at someone.  So, please give Martha a break, because she is trying, maybe even exhausted, to uphold a tradition that is built and baked into the system ~ she felt it all on her shoulders.  Maybe you feel that way trying to prepare the “perfect” holiday dinner or shopping for gifts or planning a vacation.  When and where do you wear Martha’s sandals of feeling judged by others based on your performance?  Oh, that one feels close to home! 

 

Mary might value connection and relationship, which is also important in Jesus’ day.  What happens when two important values collide and conflict?  Well, we gotta choose; ain’t enough room in this town for both of ‘em…or so the system would have you think.  To be sure, life is a series of choices.  But the deeper truth is that we can highlight hospitality at some times, and other times need to embody and embrace relationships.  Sometimes you can’t have it all, do it all, be all to all people.  Martha and Mary had a choice.  It is unfortunate in our compartmentalized, prioritizing, moralizing that we think there is only one message here.  Namely, we should all be Marys.  But…just before this tale of two sisters and family systems was the parable of the Good Samaritan, which tells us that hospitality, especially to the stranger, is vital.  Wait, now I am confused.  Am I supposed to help others, like the Samaritan or sit at Jesus’ feet?  Should I be about action or contemplation, because chapter 10 of Luke seems to contradict itself?  “Make it plain,” my soul shouts.  And the gospel says subversively, “Yes”.  Martha/Good Samaritan hospitality matters.  Mary contemplation/quietness matters.  Both matter.  We are complex, contradictory people.  We can be both Martha and Mary without rating and ranking, without saying one is better.  Systems need space to breathe and be, evolve and expand, and sometimes contradict and confine.  This is what it means to be alive.  Ponder today the ways you can be trapped and tripped up in either/or thinking when the world is so much more than a multiple-choice test for which you are receiving a grade.  Because God’s grace says it isn’t about the right answers, but rather faithfulness that is responsive and awake to what God is up to, from the roads of Jericho to the home of two sisters where faith takes different shapes and shades.  Amen.

Sensing the Systems

 

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”  “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”  Luke 10:38-42

 

It is interesting to me how many conclusions and convictions we can arrive at from reading just a few verses of scripture.  Our minds love to fill in the blanks with all sorts of delicious details. For example, I can be lured to believe that Martha is the type A, driven, and 8 on the Enneagram (people who want to prove their strength and resist weakness, dominate the environment, and stay in control).   While Mary is quieter and more contemplative, glad to be reading books or singing, “The hills are alive with the sound of music.”  Do we really know this?  We get one glimpse of Martha and Mary’s complex, contradictory lives, and we think we’ve got them all figured out.  We do this not only with scripture, but sadly, with each other.  We meet someone with a bumper sticker on the back of their truck for a particular candidate, and suddenly we know their whole life story.  Or we bump into someone at a health food store buying matcha, and suddenly we have compartmentalized and condensed their whole story.  After all, how well do we really know ourselves?  How often do I say to myself, “Why did you do that, bonehead?!?”  (I often talk to myself in ways I would never talk to someone else).  Because we compartmentalize someone, we tend to put them in a box, assign them a role in the play we are producing ~ where we are the star of the show, and force that person to stay in their lane/stick to their knitting.  God forbid that someone try to change, even though we are constantly changing physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually.  This isn’t new.  Dr. Murray Bowen noticed this years ago when he was a doctor in a psychiatric hospital.  He noticed when families would come to visit on weekends, how the patients would change in response to their moms and dads…suddenly taking the role their parents wanted them to take.  We all want to belong, but because we are not sure we will truly be accepted or that we are truly wanted, we tend to settle for fitting in.  Bowen said that family systems will do anything to keep homeostasis.  We will bully, triangulate (that is, talk about someone to a third person rather than talk directly to the person ~ church parking lots are famous breeding grounds for this behavior), shame, or blame someone ~ raining guilt down until they are saturated and soaked into submission.  And systems that are unhealthy don’t easily change; we know this socially in our economy and politics, but also in our churches that would rather go along to get along than risk trying something new.  Rewind and review your life so far this year.  Have you triangulated?  I have.  Have you sometimes stopped listening to someone because you think you know what they are going to say?  I have.  Do you sometimes resist change, or have you said, “Oh, we already tried that!”  Or “That will never work here”?  I have.  This week, let's explore the systems that shape us, stop us, and other times confine and contain us in ways we may not even realize but spend a lot of calories resisting.  May the reflections on our one, wild, and precious life (thank you for that beautiful phrase, Mary Oliver) be shown in all its perplexity and complexity and three-dimensional nature that is true not only for us, but for others, especially Martha and Mary.

Slow Down

 

God of endless choices, sometimes our lives feel as overwhelming as trying to navigate the cereal aisle at the store.  Good lord, do I need over a hundred boxes for breakfast?  Sometimes, O God, I can make all choices feel like life-or-death decisions.  What if I write an awful morning meditation that doesn’t get “enough” likes?  What if I lose my temper and say something I instantly regret?  What if I falter as a husband and father and pastor?  We live in a world of false urgency with everyone wanting to play the part of “Mordecai” in the stage production of our life.  Good Lord, help!  Help me name and notice which decisions are important and which ones I have surrounded with anxiety and false pressure.  Help me name and notice why some decisions feel bigger because they impact others more than myself.  Help me quiet the voices that shout at me that I have to act now or else.  Amid a world that spins faster than the tilt-a-whirl at the State Fair, God, slow me down to Your pace.  Grant me Your spaciousness.  Be with me in the moments when I am exhausted, overwhelmed, and underslept because my problems keep waking me up at 3 a.m. to chat.  God, You are here in such a time as this.  I am here.  We are here together.  Help me see that others are also in this space, that there are caring people like Mordecai who truly desire to share Your unconditional and unceasing love.  Let me rest in a promise and pace that is guided by You. Remind me that wherever I go, whatever I do, and whoever I am, Your love and grace will not let me know.  May I breathe in this truth now and in the days to come, for such a time as this.  Amen.  

Breathe

 

So far this week, we have considered the false and true Mordecai in our lives.  Those who want to force a choice now and demand a donation, and those who join us in the messiness of choices without trying to fix/save/advise us.  We listed the decisions we are facing personally, religiously, politically, communally, and relationally.  We have named and noticed our list of pros and cons.  And we’ve realized that the choices we make have ripple effects on others.  Hopefully you see why choices have a weightiness.   In such a time as this, we can feel overwhelmed by all that we are facing.  Perhaps we empathize with Esther because we feel like we have the whole world on our shoulders.  So today, I want to invite you to breathe.  Remember that the false urgency of a Mordecai today wants you to decide right now or you will miss your moment.  But, in the spaciousness of God, there is always a pause.  Or as Viktor E. Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  I would add to that that in that space is a Sacredness of God seeking for us to pay attention to the One paying attention to us.  It helps to breathe.  I invite you to get out your decision list and breathe.  Invite God to sit within you in that space.  Listen for God.  And I pray if you need a Mordecai to help you listen to your life, I am also glad to be present with you in those spaces and places we find ourselves at such a time as this.

 

Here is a wonderful breath prayer by Rev. Sarah Bessey:

Inhale: I invite the practice of

Exhale: peace and faithfulness.

Ripple

 

Yesterday, I said that a true Mordecai in our life won’t make up false urgency to decide right now.  Yes, some decisions are time-limited.  But many of the decisions we face in such a time as this have a spaciousness for us to breathe, ponder, pray, and listen to God, others, and ourselves ~ that last part of listening to your life is vital.  A true Mordecai’s doesn’t reduce decisions or give me advice, but joins me in the messy middle and the squeeze between the rock and hard place.  Yesterday, I invited you to listen to the decision you are facing personally.  This could be medically or vocationally or volunteering, or which issues you are called to offer your life to or where you want to live.  Some of these decisions are thrust upon you, not of your own choosing.  The decisions we face rest not only in our one wild and precious life but can have ripple effects and ramifications on those we care about.  If I decide that I really want to become a clown in the circus, that is going to impact Gina.  Decisions can have relational ripple effects and religious effects.  How we see God matters here.  Is God a judge waiting and watching for your decision to render a verdict on your life?  Or is God the caring, compassionate one sitting with you and reminding you that you are beloved, whether you go left or right or stay put or dig deeper?  Finally, some of our decisions impact our community and country.  This is true of voting.  This is true of what we post online.  This is true of how we speak outside our homes.  Today, ponder the decisions you are facing, and ask if there are others who this choice will impact.  Esther’s choice impacted a whole group of Jewish people.  Most of my decisions rarely mean life or death for others or myself, even when it feels that way.  From yesterday on that page with pros and cons or if you made a decision tree, name and notice others who might be impacted by what you are facing.  Sometimes the pressure we feel is because there are people quietly and silently on the margins of the page who we haven’t noticed, but our hearts know our choice will effect and affect.  Hold this truth alongside God, who is there with you in the rock and hard place moments we all are wedged and wiggling our way through in such a time as this.  Amen.

False Mordecai

 

Yesterday, we played with the idea that lots of people want to wear Mordecai’s sandals in our lives.  There are lots of people who want to fix, advise, save you, tell you what to do, how to do it, when and where you should show up, and to act now or you will fail!  And these messages tell us, send $50 now to support the cause, because don’t you care?!?  False Mordecai’s come to us as marketing schemes and fundraising demands.  False Mordecai comes to us wearing masks of urgency and pulling the strings of compassion.  False Mordecai comes to us through social media platforms or 24-hour news cycles or political machinery.  How do we know when our still-speaking God is showing up wearing the skin-suit of another?  How do we tell a true Mordecai from a false?  First, pause.  Breathe.  False Mordecai, like all salespeople, operates with made-up urgency.  You must act now!  Unless someone is dangling from a ledge or playing out in the street with a speeding car zooming down the road, chances are you can breathe…even walk away… to tell the “Mordecai” that we want to pray on it, rather than be preyed upon.  Second, pray.  Listen for God.  Several weeks ago, when we read 1 Corinthians 12, Paul talked about the spiritual gift of discernment.  Discernment is a wonderful dance between the individual and collective.  One form of discernment is to use the tool of listing the pros and cons.  For Esther, the pro of speaking up was saving her people, including Mordecai, who was her adoptive father.  The con was that she was risking her life from a King who had already banished one wife.  The pro was she could make a difference.  The con was that there were no guarantees of success.  Do you see that this was not a slam-dunk decision?  Oftentimes, A False Mordecai preys upon the idea that their way is the only way and that other ways will make you less of a person.  Ultimately, Esther needed to consider the consequences.  She could hold onto her life and possibly watch her people endure the heartbreak and soul ache of genocide, or she could risk her life for the sake of others.  Finally, let me be clear that even though my mind wants to make so many life-or-death decisions, rarely do I wear Esther’s sandals.  Yet, A False Mordecai makes it seem that if I don’t do this now, donate now, act now, I will be seen as less than and a failure.  Today, I invite you to ponder prayerfully the decisions you are facing.  Write them down.  You may make a list of pros and cons.  Or you can Google how to make a decision tree.  After you put down your thoughts, listen for God’s guidance.  And there is a third step.  Find a trusted friend.  A true Mordecai in our life will sit with us in the rock and hard place moments, not telling us what to do or trying to advise/fix/save us…they will help you listen to your life and how God is seeking to show up.  Tomorrow, we will ponder the true Mordecai in our life, but for now.  Name and notice the decisions you are facing personally, religiously, relationally, and as part of wider communities/groups/country/world/cosmos.  Amen.

For Such a Time as This

 

The comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said we spend a lot of time talking about time.  Whether we are rushing around at a frenzied pace ~ feeling like a Tasmanian devil who just drank ten cups of coffee!  There is an image for you.  Or we are frustrated that the line is moving too slowly, or wishing we could turn back time, rewind, and revisit that moment when we blinked and missed a significant event.  Of course, the concept of time is part of human invention.  Our ancestors didn’t wake up to an alarm clock when tending sheep or cultivating crops.  Their bodies lived closer to the earth and its rhythm.  Plus, we know that gravity affects time.  Time moves a little faster at the top of the Empire State Building than at street level.  Who knew your Morning Meditation was going to include a science lesson?  I think about this when I hear Mordecai say to Esther that perhaps she had come to her royal position for such a time as this. (Esther 4:14).  Remember from yesterday’s sermon a few key fun Bible Nerd facts.  First, Mordecai and Esther are strangers living in a strange land.  They are foreigners, refugees.  They are not Persians; they are immigrants.  Not only are they marginalized ethnically, but also religiously as Jewish people.  Third, Esther was an orphan, which meant she found herself at the intersectionality of discrimination based on family status, gender, religious affiliation, and nationality.  That is a place of vulnerability and fragility.  She is so far on the margin that a stiff breeze could blow her over the edge.  The interesting plot twist is that Esther catches the King’s eye, and he marries her.  Well, he added her to his harem, because let’s not try to frost over the burnt cake of sexual oppression of women/sisters in faith by men, both in scripture and in our society still today.  But Esther’s does have access to the King.  However, this particular King was not a great guy, because he had one of his wives banished for refusing to participate in a beauty pageant he was putting together during a six-month party.  Seriously, who has the time for a six-month party?  But I digress, or maybe that is part of the point, too, in this story.

 

Mordecai is asking Esther to play the only card she has in her hand to advocate for the Jewish people whom the King is plotting and planning to kill.  This reminds us that the Bible is an adult book written for adults with themes and threads that are still woven into the fabric of our society.  Do I speak out or stay safely on the sidelines with my head down?  Do I dare step into the arena, or should I stay in the stands amid the masses?  When and where do I use my voice today?  Let me be clear that you may have a Mordecai calling you to do something that your heart objects to.  The truth is, there are a lot of voices out there demanding and decreeing that you do something NOW.  That you must act now or else you are being complacent and complicit with the enemy.  That if you will miss your chance to be Superman and Wonder Woman and Mighty Mouse here to save the day.  Good grief.  There is so much money wrapped up in playing us against one another.  As the mystics say, when pulled left or right, I choose to go deeper.  Too often, pastors can play the Mordecai card, telling you what you should do.  But ultimately, Esther had a choice, and so do you.  Who is a Mordecai in your life?  How is that person speaking to your life?  Through face-to-face conversation or over emails that flood your inbox or by being an influencer pouring out hours of content that you consume?  Where do you feel energized to stand up and speak out, and where is there reluctance?  Let’s sit with this today, asking God to cut through the chaos and clutter of our noisy world with a voice we need.  Amen.

Prayer

 

God of light and love, we don’t always understand Your ways.  We wish loving other humans didn’t feel like trying to hug a porcupine.  We wish that love could follow a formula or process that would guarantee results.  And yet, such a static world would be stale.  And such a world would not reflect You, O God, as You evolve and expand with each experience in this world.  God, help me continue to sit with the hard questions and invite Love to have a voice in this dialogue.  Help me stay engaged at the table, not searching for easy answers, but committed to continuing the wayless way of showing love in very human-sized approaches.   When I make mistakes, may I seek forgiveness.  When I feel my heart burst with love, may I enjoy that too.  When I am tired, hold me in an embrace I need every day.  God of love that never lets us go, help me lean into Your everlasting arms and feel Your presence filling and fueling my life.  Amen.

Wait...Another Assignment??

 

Religion helps us ask hard questions, but it does not often offer us easy answers. ~ Rabbi Shai Held.

 

I find this quote very helpful.  This quote reminds me that I don’t have to be a SuperSpiritual Answer person…not that I was very good at the job anyway.  I kept tripping on my cape, and don’t get me started on how I can’t fly, jump over even a regular-size building, or even bend a twist-tie back around the bread wrapper.  Yet, there is disappointment in this quote.  Why go to church if not to receive good advice and moral lessons to apply to your life?  Thank you for that hard question.  I believe we go to church to live the questions with others.  For me, the most meaningful questions need dialogue partners.  How do I love my enemy?  I can’t solve that Rubik's Cube-like question on my own.  I can’t figure out forgiveness in a vacuum.  While yes, I can love God and myself in isolation, I would be missing that pesky part about loving others/neighbors/family/friends/and that annoying person whose views feel like nails on a chalkboard of my soul.  I think part of the difficulty we face today is the sheer number of people we encounter in life, many of whom we do not know.  We have digital “friends” who we see only in their posts on the social platform of your choice.  And those people get under our skin.  Moreover, because those posts are visual, that activates and animates another part of our brain.  It is one thing to read words about destruction; it is another to see it.  Moreover, the amount of news that comes to us daily is more than I think my brain can process.  The pace of news exhausts and overwhelms us.  No cape can rescue everyone; we live with the hard, unanswerable, sometimes unsolvable questions.  We do so faithfully.  That is foundational and formational to the idea of “Love Makes a Family”.  Love is an active verb in that sentence/sentiment.  Love is changing and challenging.  Love involves more than just yourself.  Your love longs for expression in the world.  If you sat down with Love for a meal, what questions would you ask?  I mean that.  Write down the questions you have for Love.  I hear you thinking, “Great, another homework assignment this week?!  What is it with this guy?”  Imagine Love is sitting across from you at the table.  Talk to Love.  May this invitation awaken your imagination and creativity.  May your conversation engage your mind, heart, soul, and life this day.

Crumpling Up Our Charts

 

As you try to chart love, you may be feeling some resistance, reluctance, or resentment.  Love can’t be charted, contained, or controlled.  You may look at your chart and just think, “This tiny box doesn’t do justice to what I felt with mom/dad/divorced spouse/child who broke your heart or a friend who fills your heart so full it could burst.”  You may wonder, “Why am I doing this again?”  You don’t have to.  Not that you need it, but you have permission to stop working on the chart.  You can rip it up and recycle it.  The chart is an invitation to explore why the word love lands in different ways within us.  My prayer was that it would help you notice and name why your inner defense attorney yelled, “Objection,” when you hear this word in church.  Our Hebrew friends talk about love manifest in kindness or walking in God’s ways.  Rabbi Held says that love is an “existential posture”; it is how I show up and stand in the world today, the ways I orient my life, the direction and destination.  Held also says love is a commitment to work that takes a lifetime.  Love becomes less an emotion to tend, and more a way of tending our lives.  Love is willing to be a dance partner with countless other emotions.  This means that love and anger can co-exist within us at times (although both emotions burn a lot of calories, so it is hard to maintain them both over time).  How can we let love and anger talk to each other?  How do we let love and exhaustion inform each other?  Are we willing to take our place in exploring the whole wheel of emotions?  Trying to walk the tightrope of exploring our experiences of love is not easy.  Perhaps, given all that is going on in the world outside your window and as you peer into the window of your soul, it might just be too much right now.  So, set aside the chart.  Not every tool is helpful for every prayer practice.  I don’t want a sledgehammer when I go out to garden.  I don’t need loopers to fix a leak under my sink.  Same with the way-less way of life.  I pray that you might write down what is stirring within you as you ponder how the ties that bless us can also bound/bind us, cutting off oxygen and leaving hurtful wounds.  How the ties that hold us together come unraveled.  Take what you can from what I am saying, leave the rest.  May you experience and encounter God’s presence in these days in countless ways.  Amen.

Contemplating the Chart of Complex Love

 

Yesterday, I invited you to make a chart of the various relationships and expressions of love.  On the left, you wrote down the relationship: parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, spouse, children, friends, and church members.  I invited you to name names and try to describe the texture of that love.  The third column of the chart, trying to define how love was OR wasn’t expressed.  This is often the hardest part.  It can be painful to say that a parent withheld love.  It can brush or bump up against an old scar to say that love has faltered, or forgiveness was not given in a relationship.  Today, I want you to notice God who is next to you, looking over the chart.  There are two prayers I have for this invitation.  First, for you to see the complexity and contradictions around the four letters of love.  There is a reason why we find love both fascinating and frustrating, which you can begin to see when you write down all the ways love has both held and hurt you.  When you are honest that your dad's leaving you was traumatic and caused love to lose its luster.  When you are honest about your grandmother’s love, which was through food, but never in hugs, or maybe came with expectations too high a pole vaulter couldn’t clear them.  When you are honest, you drag into your life these experiences (good, bad, and ugly) of love like a piece of toilet paper stuck to your shoe that you don’t notice.  Second, I believe this chart helps us see the expansiveness and diversity of love that we hold in our hearts but don’t often talk about.  This helps us see the experiences that have shaped you, made you who you are.  You may think, “No wonder I am suspicious of all this love talk when I see firsthand that I’ve never felt the unconditional and unceasing part of God’s affection.”  Or no wonder I doubt that love is a force, because too many people have used love to manipulate.  While God’s love doesn’t come with terms and conditions in fine print you can’t read, human love rarely can embody God’s call.  We keep trying.  The more we awaken to how the past is impacting the present, the more we can begin to let God have the brokenness and less-than-perfectness of affection in our lives.  May you discover and uncover God’s presence as you keep working, adding to, writing on your chart of love this week.  Amen.

 

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Charting Our Complex, Complicated Love

 

One of the most overused words that we toss and throw around is “love.”  I often feel those four letters cannot bear the weight of our expectations.  Krista Tippet recently said, “I’m on record bemoaning across the years that ‘love’ is the most watered-down word in the English language. I know that invoking love feels very soft for our hard realms of politics and war.”  This is especially true in the church, where the central and core message of Jesus is to love God with our whole being (from the top of our heads to our pinkie toes) and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  (Matthew 22:37-40).  Unfortunately, Jesus did not give us a five-step, easy-to-follow plan to accomplish this call.  Jesus didn’t leave us an IKEA-like hieroglyphic art telling us how to live our faith, embody/express God’s love.  Jesus tells us to love God, others, and ourselves.  Mic drop and lots of furrowed brows with frownie faces thinking, “Um, could you say just a little more about that, Jesus?!?”  How do we love God?  I can make things very complicated, complex, and convoluted; it is truly one of my spiritual gifts.  When I boil down what it means to love God, for me, this invitation is about paying attention to God who is paying attention to you, me, and we.  We open our sacred imaginations to the traces of God’s grace etched in our lives.  It is only when we experience God’s love that we can express God’s affection to others.  God’s love that doesn’t come with a wagging finger of shame or blame.  God’s love, which isn’t passive-aggressive like me when I say to someone, “I am not mad, I’m just disappointed.”   God’s love is a thread that seeks to heal our wounded hearts, make us whole, and send us out…where inevitably other humans will hurt us again…so the process repeats again and again. 

 

How do you define “love”?  Maybe it isn’t just words but examples.  What does love feel like, taste, sound, smell, or look like?  When was the last time you were fully loved?  This June, we are exploring the theme, “Love makes a family”.  Both the words “family” and “love” are meant to be expansive.  Both words invite experimentation.  Both words will never be exhausted or explored in our lives.  This is one reason why the definition of love is too static.  If we try to confine love, it will become stale.  You can’t put love in a museum case behind plexiglass to protect it; it starts to wither.  Love and vulnerability are the street corners of your heart.  Love and expression are the prayers of your soul.  Love and forgiveness/healing are the work of your life.  Love and family are dynamic and diverse, constantly changing. 

 

Yesterday, I invited you to explore love by listing all the people in your family growing up, your family of a spouse/partner, and your neighbors/friends/Florida family of adaptation and affirmation.  After you name names, then write down the way “love” was experienced and encountered with each. Was love freely given or with more strings attached than a puppet?  Was love unceasing or given with expectations?  Was love withheld or shared?  As I do that, I start to see that the way love was experienced with my mom was different than with dad and is different than with my wife and my kids.  I start to see the breadth and depth.  You can make a chart where on the left you list the relationship: dad, mom, grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, spouse, kids, neighbors, friends, etc.  Then add the names.  Then the way love was/is felt/experienced.  Then, any other notes.  Four columns that can help us see that love is messy and human and more diverse than the people who are trying to share this word in all our humanness in these days.  May God’s unconditional and unceasing love be with you, enfold you, and hold you as you try this exercise out.

Click here for a downloadable worksheet

Prayer

 

And Breathe

 

Yesterday, I invited you to pay attention to your breath.  This isn’t some new or novel way to be, but it is as ancient as breath prayers. This is a meaningful way to settle your mind and awaken your attention to God’s presence.  This dates back to early Christianity as a way to pray without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians 5:16)  There is usually a phrase you say in a whisper as you inhale and one as you exhale.  Here are a few examples from Sarah Bessey.

 

Inhale: Show me who to be,      Exhale: and what is mine to do.

Inhale: You give us peace,        Exhale: My heart is not troubled.  (inspired by John 14:27)

Inhale: Courage and grace        Exhale: are my home.

Inhale: I will not despair,       Exhale: Hope is my daily choice.

Inhale: Protect the truth-tellers, Exhale: Surround them with comfort and grace.

Inhale: Remind me to breathe   Exhale: and to believe.

Inhale: In the darkness,            Exhale: illuminate the truth.

Inhale: Despair is not my only option,          Exhale: I choose stubborn faithfulness.

 

Try to create your own.

 

Inhale: God is my shepherd      Exhale: Guide me today.

Inhale: Let the nets of my life    Exhale: Be filled with Your love.

Inhale: Infusing God                Exhale: Inspire my living

 

For me, this prayer practice reminds me of two truths.  One, spirituality is about paying attention.  Two, religion means reconnecting myself to God and others, and the me I sometimes hide from myself/others.  Your breath is central and core to embodying and living these two truths every day.  May you experience and encounter the Eternal with every breath you take today.  Amen.

The Diversity of Dust

 

One day, the Eternal God scooped dirt out of the ground, sculpted it into the shape we call human, breathed the breath that gives life into the nostrils of the human, and the human became a living soul. Genesis 2:7 (The Voice Translation)

 

On Monday, I offered you four translations of Genesis 2:7; you can go back and re-read to remind yourself and review what leapt off the page.  I love the Voice Translation.  There is an earthiness to the words above.  God is getting God’s fingernails caked with the clay of earth.  God on God’s knees, sweat on God’s brow.  I picture God trying to form the legs, carefully making them the same length, which isn’t easy.  Do you think that took God a few tries?  Or I picture God forming a pinkie toe, so fragile and vulnerable, maybe a toe or two even broke off the first time.  Or God making the head just right so that we wouldn’t topple over on ourselves!  Humans are fascinating, as is all of creation, which is God-soaked.  Notice that without God’s breath, the human was just a lump of clay…because that is what we were and are and can be!!  We are dust.  And, Scripture says, we are divine.  We are human (of the soil) and stardust.  We are a messy mixture of so many contradictory and complex experiences and events.  We are people who have individual and shared histories.  You reflect God’s creativity, all of you.  Brian McLaren says that all of you are welcome and all of you is welcome.  This means that you can fully let both the beautiful and broken parts of yourself be seen in this world.  This is complicated by the fact that trust between us is broken (if not shattered).  This is made more difficult and demanding because we don’t practice letting our light shine bright in many places.  We all wear masks that make every day feel like Halloween.  We hide behind titles or money or possessions or power.  We show up in one place with one version of ourselves and another place in a different way.  Do we realize the truest image of God within us, or is that sacred spark so hidden beneath cultural expectations, layers of shame, blame, hurt, and not feeling fully accepted and affirmed?  In June, we celebrate PRIDE month, honoring God’s creativity and beauty in LGBTQ+ siblings.  Like any other month when we shine a light on God’s beloved (Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Asian-Pacific Islander Sunday, Mental Health Month, Juneteenth, Creation Justice Month, and countless other holy days to see the diversity of Divinity), we may wonder, “Why all the fuss?”  Shouldn’t we just emphasize our common humanity?  While I believe God’s love is unconditionally offered to all, I know that I live this side of God’s full realm and reign.  I still pray, “Thy Kingdom/Kin-dom Come,” which means two things.  First, God’s realm ain’t here yet.  Second, I need to let go of my reign and realm where I am in charge/control.  It is a blessing to celebrate these days and months that invite us to delve/dive deeper into the complexity of creation and our Creator.  God is still forming.  God still has the clay of your life under God’s fingernails.  God is still fashioning, forming, and isn’t finished yet with you or me or we as a people.  How can I find ways to let God be God?  I think it begins with breathing in.  When I inhale, I am infused and inspired by the holy oxygen of God.  When I exhale, I let go of control (see Morning Meditations from last week on letting go, letting be, letting come).  While I can direct my breath in certain ways, once inside me, the oxygen can take me in a myriad of directions and toward unintended directions.  Notice your breathing today; notice God’s energy around you and within you today; notice how you let loose God’s presence as you move about your day.  Amen. 

Dust Part 2

 

Yesterday, you considered some of your friends who embody and enliven God’s presence in your lives.  I wonder if there are certain character traits you are drawn to?  Are you fascinated with people who are serious and somber, wanting to solve all the world’s problems?  OR would you rather spend time with someone who makes you laugh and forget about life for a while?  Would you rather sit over a cup of coffee with your friends, or do you want to go have an adventure together (knowing that for some of us going out to a movie feels like an adventure!)?  Are you drawn together because of geography, spirituality, politics, interests, music, or some other magnetic force?  Review your list today and put down what you love about each person.  Maybe it is that you’ve shared life and have funny stories you relive each time you are together.  Maybe your pal is your book friend with whom you are always swiping suggestions for your next great read.  It is a wonderful gift not only to think about what you appreciate about others, but to tell the person!  I remember at camp, we would do affirmations at the end of the week.  We would have a piece of paper for each person in our cabin, go around, and write down what we appreciated about each other.  It was meant to be anonymous, but you could sometimes tell who wrote what on your sheet of paper.  We never outgrow our desire for affirmation.  In May, we spoke about gifts.  I often find it is easier to talk about others’ gifts rather than my own.  Yet each of us is continually created in God’s image and bears God’s love in unique ways that are needed in such a time as this.  Ponder who you are connected to and why you have a tie that has been a blessing to you.  And, if you feel brave, you may even want to share that with the people on your list.  Amen.

Dust

 

Then the Lord God formed (hu)man from the dust of the ground and breathed into the nostrils the breath of life, and the (hu)man became a living being.  Genesis 2:7 (NRSV)

 

So YHWH fashioned an earth creature out of the clay of the earth and blew into its nostrils the breath of life.  Genesis 2:7 (Inclusive Bible)

 

One day the Eternal God scooped dirt out of the ground, sculpted it into the shape we call human, breathed the breath that gives life into the nostrils of the human, and the human became a living soul. Genesis 2:7 (The Voice Translation)

 

God formed Human out of dirt from the ground and blew into its nostrils the breath of life. The Human came alive—a living soul! (The Message).

 

Yesterday, we began a series called Love Makes a Family.  In Genesis 2, after God forms, fashions, breathes, and loves the first dust being into life (Dusty), God observes that it isn’t good for a human to be alone.  This isn’t about dating or marriage.  This is about connection.  If you rewind just a bit to the first creation narrative in Genesis 1:1-2:3, at the very end, God says, “Let us make humans in our image” Genesis 1:26.  God is in relationship (with both the Spirit and Chaos) before the sky/seas/manatees/Creation responds to God’s voice.  God is in collaboration and cooperation with the Spirit, sloshing chaos, and Christ from the beginning.  God loves committees and group projects.  I asked you in the sermon to ponder some of the people who have left fingerprints upon your heart in your life.  In Genesis 2, God seeks a partner, helper, or companion for the first human.  While the dogs were great, while the birds sang songs, while the armadillos had a great sense of humor, it wasn’t until the first human gazed into the eyes of another featherless biped that the soul felt full.  We are meant/built for relationships because that is a central and core characteristic of our Creator.  Who are your partners who make your heart sing?  In fact, rewind and remember.  Who were your pals in elementary school, high school, when you started work, and right now?  This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive assignment.  Scroll through the photo album that lives in your memory.  Are you still in contact with any of them?  Which friend have you known the longest?  This isn’t a competition.  Sometimes we meet a soul friend late in life.  Further, it isn’t the length of the list that matters.  As a matter of fact, Dunbar’s number suggests we can maybe only have three to five intimate friendships and that we can only really “know” up to 150 people ~ after that, they become acquaintances.  Or as Arthur Brooks says, you can have deal friends (where the relationship is transactional) or real friends (where no one keeps a spreadsheet over how many times you ask for a favor).  Ponder your list.  What are your thoughts?  Can you have more than five close friends?  Do you feel like you really know more than 150 people?  Or do you find that several people are more deal friends than real?  If Love Makes a Family, then how can our church encourage caring and belonging (two of our values) that is real for each person?  May God expand and improvise our living out of these questions each day.