Where God Shows Up Part 2

 

We all need safe, sacred spaces.  Even before Maslow offered his hierarchy of needs, Scripture shares with us places where God’s comfort and care made all the difference.  From a Garden of Eden given to our ancestors, to wrestling with Jacob beside a river, to even a foreign land when Egypt became a place of security in a time of lack during the life of Joseph.  Scripture is also clear about moments when the places we find ourselves don’t seem safe and secure from all alarms.  We hear about the crying out in Egypt when the Pharaoh didn’t learn his history and oppressed the people.  We hear about Exile when the people of God found the promised land in rubble and ruin.  We hear about the Roman occupation in the time of Jesus.  In fact, so much Scripture is written for and by oppressed people.  The Psalmist describes this as Sheol, or a pit.  Jesus called it Ghanna, or a burning garbage heap.  And, Scripture proclaims, even God is there.  As you look back on the places that have left soil in your soul, where are those Sheol, Gahanna, places?  Or maybe you were living in paradise, but it felt in your life was shattered and scattered because of oppression or grief or pain you couldn’t process?  Look back over the places you’ve lived/named in previous weeks as well as the corresponding lowlights.  Was there a tension?  I know that well, living in a place where people come to vacation, and yet, here in the tourist mecca of Florida, people struggle to make ends meet; we do not care for our unhoused neighbors, and our immigrant friends live in fear.  People are grieving and hurting.  We pass laws discriminating against our LGBTQ+ siblings and those whose skin tone is not white (even though we still share 99% of the same DNA).  Prayerfully ask in those moments where you felt far from Eden: Where was God?  For some, you felt God show up in hugs and love, even in the pit.  For others, you felt alone, confused, and angry that God didn’t swoop in and save you instantly.  Today, just notice the threads and themes that tether and tie your life together.  We don’t always have answers for what God is doing or how God shows up.  The mystery that both fascinates and frustrates is that God is not predictable or plays by the script we want God to write.  Yet, with the Psalmist we can say, “Even if I make my bed in Sheol, You (O God) are there.”  (Psalm 139:8).  Or with Jacob we can profess, “God is in this place – truly.  And I didn’t even know it.”  (Genesis 28:16).  Let us sit with our lives, not as math problems to be solved, but mysteries that are unfolding before us and within us.  Amen.

Where God Shows Up Part 1

 

In Isaiah 6, we hear how God swooped in and showed up in Isaiah’s life in a way that discombobulated and disoriented him.  Isaiah had just gone to church, thinking, “Maybe I will have a bagel for lunch.”  At some point, Isaiah realized God was there.  The truth is that God is always there.  As the mystics say, “There is no place God is not.”  Yet, there are certainly places and among certain people where it is nearly impossible to figure out what God is up to in that moment.  When I look back, with my soul squinting and mind spinning, I suddenly realize the Sacred had been there all along. 

 

When have you felt like God showed up in your life?  To be sure, it might not have been as splashy and spectacular as Isaiah 6.  God’s robe may not have cuddled you.  God’s angels probably did not serenade you.  But your shy soul, like Isaiah, shouted out, “Here I am, God!  Pick me!  Pick me!!”  Like you were back on the baseball, kickball, softball field of your youth, hoping not to be the last one standing waiting. 

 

How has God shown up in your life?  Maybe through music, art, reading, conversations, hugs, friendship, smiles, listening ears, trees swaying in the breeze, or wading in the water.  Maybe through laughter or quiet, maybe in your home or thousands of miles away from your bed at a place you always wanted to visit.  As you look over your timeline of places you’ve been, people you’ve met, highlights and lowlights, where has God been? 

 

I confess that I have a hard time finding God in the difficult parts of life.  When my soul is sagging or when grief has paid an unwelcome visit.  Where is God among people whose presence is like fingernails on a chalkboard of my soul?  Sure, theologically and theoretically, I say that everyone is created in God’s image, but some people offer abundant evidence to the contrary.  Today, scan over the artwork/chart of your life from the last few weeks.  Think back to your childhood home: was there a cozy corner where you felt safe, wrapped in the Sacred?  Or in College, was there a church you wandered into or went to because of friends, and suddenly God was there?  Look back over the last ten years in the photo album of life: where have you encountered God?  May you discover how God’s light and love have led you thus far and continue to be part of your life to this day.

Prayer

 

Crafting, creating, conducting, composing, and copy-editing, God, thank you for the ways You are still writing a melody, harmony, and holy story in my life.  Thank you for the mystery of places where I have been and the people I’ve met/encountered.  Thank you for the stars that shine brightly within me through moments that linger and leave the warmth of light in my heart.  Thank you, even for moments when the light wasn’t as bright, and I still shed tears thinking of that experience.  There are highlights, lowlights, and so-so lights that have been collected as I moved through each day.  Help me stay open to You as we near the halfway point of this year.  Help me stay grounded in Your soil and guided by Your stars.  Awaken me and keep me always aware that You have been, are, and promise to always be near.  In the name of the One who embodied Your love, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.  

Stardust of Experiences and Encounters Part 4

 

Did you know that there are over 9000 stars in the sky that you could see with your eye, without a telescope?  Did you know that you can only see about 2000 stars on any given night, but you need to be far away from any artificial light source, and it needs to be a moonless night?  Did you know that stars are born in batches and are categorized by the light they radiate?  Who knew the Morning Meditation would be a science lesson?  The point is you can’t see every star – true scientifically and in the art project of your life.  Some stars in your life shine brighter and leave you soaked/saturated in ways that other star moments did not.  Last Sunday, we looked at Moses’ story of encountering the burning bush.

I wonder if he walked past that burning bush the previous day and didn’t see it.  Maybe he was chasing Gus the Sheep, who had wandered away again!  Maybe he was scrolling on his phone, playing Wordle, or gazing at the last star disappearing as the sun claimed the sky.  Maybe God tried to get Moses’ attention by making bats form words in the sky, but Moses was looking at the sand.  Maybe God tried to have the wildebeests sing a song, but Moses just said, “That’s odd.”  We don’t know.  I do know that not every star gets wished upon, noticed, or named.  You and I could fill our papers with galaxies of stars ~ reviewing our calendars or diaries, combing our lives, and still miss moments.  You might just now remember a house/place you lived in for a short six months or that friend whose love made a difference, but you lost touch decades ago ~ and out of sight can be out of mind.  Or just now you thought, “How could I forget that experience or event?”  Listening to your life, the unfinished sacred symphony, isn’t a one-and-done homework assignment; it is the invitation of a lifetime.  Breathe, permit yourself to complete what you can now, knowing that you can return to this again and again.  May you continue to pay attention to the stars over your head that illuminate the stardust in the solar system of your soul.  Amen.

Stardust of Experiences and Encounters Part 3

 

Too often, in the hustle and bustle of to-do items to be crossed off, projects completed, and calendar spaces to be filled, I can miss the Holy humming quietly in my life.  For the last week and a half, I have invited you to listen to your life for the holy mystery/symphony/unfolding and unfinished story it is.  As Karl Rahner wrote, "In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable, we come to realize that, in this life, all symphonies must remain unfinished."  Pause with me.  Re-read that quote, both its rough edges and beautiful invitations.  Rahner reminds us that life has a quality of feeling like not enough or that there is more to life that we are not tasting, seeing, or experiencing.  The insufficiency Rahner writes about is the constant desiring of more, and this can leave us with the frustrating incompleteness of what is.  You buy a pair of shoes you love, only to find another pair you love more on sale the next time you are at the store.  You go on a retreat, there in that place, you have what you think is a life-changing experience, only four months later, to fall back into the ruts and routines of life before you went.  The not-enough-ness of our lives is what marketing and social media and streaming platforms bank on.  We are continually shown new products being rolled out, and we are being rolled over by the steady stream of more/more/more every day.  The market is flooded not only politically, but also in our consumeristic culture.

 

Okay, philosophical soapbox sermon over.  (I hear your sigh of relief).  My point is that your holy summer homework project of listening to your shy soul sing might feel like one more thing to do.  I pray it isn’t.  Today, I encourage you to breathe in the beauty of God, who is still authoring your story.  The beauty of stars that shine in the deepest ink-spilled night skies.  The beauty of places where the dust beneath the soles of your feet has sunk into your soul.  The beauty of people who linger in your imagination, even if their presence is to remind you what you don’t want to be.  Look at what you have on the paper before you.  Rectangles drawn with places named.  Circles of people who included you, embraced and enfolded you, and perhaps people who have heartbreakingly excluded you.  You’ve added stars of moments and memories that left dust in your life.  Your masterpiece of life doesn’t need to be finished and handed in for a grade, although I would love to talk to you about what you are discovering or discerning in listening to your life.  Today, sit quietly with the incompleteness of what you’ve done so far, especially if you have had to cross things out or scribble over names or add one more star to an already cramped and crowded space.  Your life doesn’t need to be a Picasso-winning art; rather, your life is the beautiful unfinished symphony of God.  Amen.

Stardust of Experiences and Encounters Part 2

 

How did charting the stars of your life go yesterday?  You have a whole galaxy shining within you.  Your past forms constellations that never stop spinning, swirling, expanding, and evolving.  In the shifting patterns of life, sometimes a moment that might have been a lowlight for you in the past suddenly starts to glimmer or glisten in a new way.  Or maybe a moment you thought shone so brightly loses some of its luster.  The stories we tell are not meant to grow stagnant.  But sometimes we repeat and replay a memory so many times it becomes worn and weathered.  Sometimes our stories become stale because we keep saying the same words in the same way, never allowing the story to find new life as what mixes and mingles with what is right now.  No matter how we try to put our stories/lives/faith in a Tupperware container on the shelf for safekeeping, time will keep reforming what has been, considering what is. It is when we step back with a wider lens/perspective/hindsight to witness how the various parts and pieces are connected and re-connecting in ways we never noticed before.  Today, keep adding new stars to your chart and art.  Maybe you now remember that play in High School that filled you with joy, or that job you lost because you stood up for a co-worker, or that ordinary day when you were not expecting God to pay a visit, but suddenly the Sacred showed up.  Keep listening to your life for the beautiful mystery it is; keep exploring your life like it is a new space you’ve never been in; keep remembering and recalling how spaces hold memories…that events are tied to a specific moment in time.  May this holy summer homework open you to the One who is continuing to help you revise and re-story your life every day.  Amen.

Stardust of Experiences and encounters

 

Last week, you pondered the places and people that left impressions on your soul.  The four walls where you received snail mail still reside and rest in the cobwebbed corners of your soul.  Perhaps you felt a bit of nostalgia; the Israelites, even though Egypt was a place of oppression, still wanted to return.  You may have some longing to go back to a place in your past, as Dorothy longed for Kansas.  In addition to our homes, countless people have crossed our paths, leaving traces of grace and grime on us.  People can live rent-free in our minds, and we can’t seem to evict them.  We may discover that we are volunteering at a particular place today because we want to impress our mother, who died years ago.  We may be trying to quiet that inner critic who will never be satisfied, even if you leapt over a tall building in one jump while solving world hunger and forever bringing world peace.  The truth is that everywhere we’ve been shapes us, and everyone we’ve spent more than a few seconds with can take control of the steering wheel or choose the radio station as you drive down the highway of life. 

 

This week, we will add to the chart and art of the story we tell ourselves.  In the space beneath the places/people, I invite you to add stars that reflect some of your experiences/encounters in that place.  The moments that left a lingering/lasting impression.  For example, under Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where I was born, I might write down times I went fishing with my family, and we cooked breakfast on a propane grill (yes, the pancakes got burnt to a crisp, and no amount of sugary syrup helped).  From my time in seminary in Minnesota, I could write about meeting my wife, which was/still is the best day ever!  Also, consider some of the challenging times.  From my childhood, I might have written down my dad losing his job.  During my time living in Minnesota, I would write down, trying to figure out if I was cut out for local church ministry after my first internship.  You can do this in chart form.  Or if you want to let loose your inner artist, draw a star.  At each of the points, write down the spontaneous joy times for that location in life and also the difficult or demanding moments. 

 

I choose stars as a symbol because we have both soil and stardust in our souls.  You are a stunning, sometimes scattered, sacred mixture of people, places, events, and experiences that have gone into the recipe of your life.  The story you tell yourself about yourself, the narratives you repeat at a party when you meet someone for the first time, are a combination and culmination of the past and present.  The stories of yesterday shape us and point us, like a star, toward the future.  Please remember that if all this is feeling too much right now, you have permission (not that you really need it) to not do any of this.  This invitation does not have an expiration date.  You can pick up this prayer practice of listening to your one wild and precious life anytime your shy soul says, “Let’s do that together; it would be fun!!” 

 

It is my prayer as you rewind and remember, reflect and review, God would stir up the beautiful dustiness (remember this image from Genesis 2 ~ God crafting the first human out of dust, which is true for you too).  My prayer is that you would hear God hovering and humming to you.  While God may not call your name from burning bushes, God can be heard in family and ordinary days and beautiful ways.  May you and I discover the Divine who has been part of us and led us thus far on the way.  Amen.

The Places You've Lived that Live in You Prayer

 

God of all places, spaces, forming and fashioning people whose path crosses mine in ways that help and sometimes hurt.  For this fragile, fabulous adventure of life, thank you.  For new insights into the ways spaces and places have/continue to shape me, thank you.  For hearing afresh the ways stories of my parents still sit on the shoulder of my life, whispering in my ear, thank you.  For people, those who blessed me in beautiful ways and those who were like south stars teaching me how not to be, thank you.  For this invitation to listen to my life in all its complexity, contradictions, and cohesion as I superglue parts of my life together in the art project of each day, thank you.  Help me taste the individual parts of my life that have been brought together and blended in the mixer of my soul.  For the places I’ve lived.  For the people I’ve loved.  For the lessons I heard.  For the stories I still tell.  May all these individual ingredients find a blessing in You, O God, in these July days.  Amen. 

The Places You've Lived that Live in You ~ Part 4

 

So far this week, you’ve made rectangles of places and circles of people; you’ve looked at the lessons learned from each plot of land where the soles of your feet touched the soil of the earth.  You’ve paid attention to the stories that went with belonging to the tribe of people who orbited your sphere and life.  Today, I invite you to hold your one wild and precious life.  I need to be reminded not to grade my life.  I need permission to breathe and be.  The color commentary in my mind can be quick to say, “Welp, Wes, if only you had realized that sooner, we wouldn’t be in this fine mess of life.”  I often speak more harshly to myself than I ever would to anyone else.  Breathe in the breath of God.  God has been, is, and will always be in those rectangular places of life.  And God can never be confined or contained in any space and always invites us to break down the boundaries and barriers that hem us in with a liberating love.  You don’t have to do anything else with your artwork of life today.  Let God, who is right there as close as your next breath, hold you as you behold where you’ve been, who you’ve been with, what lessons you’ve learned and the ways you’ve been shaped not only into the beautiful image of God but also by the world where you found yourself.  May God, whose love never lets you go, be felt in real ways this day.  Amen.

The Places You've Lived that Live in You ~ Part 3

 

This week you’ve named the places and spaces you’ve called home.  You’ve honored people whose lives and light you connected with.  You’ve reflected a bit on the lessons you learned that you carry in the soil of your soul.  Now, I invite you to ponder the family narratives you were taught and caught.  Every family has a gospel…but sometimes it isn’t such great news.  Maybe you come from a family where the story was “Not enough”.  You’d come home with one B on your report card, and your parents would berate you, making you fear you would never get into Harvard with those grades.  Maybe you come from a family where everyone was against you or out to get you.  Maybe you come from a family where you always had to be optimistic.  Every family has propaganda.  Psychologists call this “Your Family of Origin Story.”  You were served these stories alongside bowls of mashed potatoes passed around the table.  You consumed these stories sometimes without realizing what you were digesting. You were served this in parents’ reactions and responses.  You picked this up as part of your beautiful survival technique, as we all want to make sure we don’t get kicked out of our tribe.  While your family probably didn’t sit around a fire telling these stories, the truth is our families still have a narrative that can be subtle and subversive and gets into our souls to inform the stories we tell about ourselves.  There is a great line in scripture, Jeremiah 31:29, “In those days people will no longer say, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’”  In other words, the sins of our parents don’t need to confine or contain us.  As the mystics say, the truth may set us free, but first it may make you miserable!  Did your parents ever say to you, “In this family, we (fill in the blank)” ~ tell the truth; do whatever it takes to get ahead; never ask for help because we help others; are there for one another.  Or maybe it wasn’t as explicit…more implicit.  You asked for help, only to have your parents say, “You are on your own.  Gotta learn sometime to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.”  Listen to the phrases that still reverberate in the cobwebbed corners of your soul as you rewind and remember the places and people that still rest and reside in you.  Amen.

The Places You've Lived that Live in You ~ Part 2

 

One of my favorite stories in the book of Exodus is after God’s liberating love made a way when there was no way by parting the Red Sea…as you’ve all seen in the movie The 10 Commandments.  After Miriam led a worship service on the other side of the Red Sea, she took a tambourine into her hands and singing prayer/praise to God.  After the people of God had walked a few steps into what would be a 40-year-long journey, they didn’t know it, because if we knew then what we know now, how many of us would choose to travel the roads that have brought us here?  A few steps into the wilderness, the people start mumbling and grumbling about how much they miss Egypt.  You know, where they were enslaved and forced into hard labor.  You know, where there were whips and oppression.  You know, where they barely had enough food to live on and longed for freedom.  You know…the good ole days!?  One of the truths of Exodus is that even when the people of God leave Egypt, Egypt doesn’t leave the people of God.  It takes time to get the soil of oppression out of their souls.  In fact, some might suggest that we are all still enslaved, captive, beholden to something.  This could be everything from addictions to drugs, alcohol, work, shopping, vacation, meaningful experiences, and even needing to be needed. 

 

The soil of the places you’ve called home still resides in your soul.  You will compare where you are to where you have been.  For example, one of the truths of growing up in Iowa was that frugality was next to godliness.  Couple this with the fact that I grew up in a working-class family that rarely had extra money, and I won’t spend one cent if I don’t have to.  This can be good.  But it can also have consequences when I delay a decision, pouring money into something that is clearly broken.  Look back over the places you’ve lived because there were lessons from those places and people left in you.  You may want to jot down one lesson you learned in each place you’ve lived.  I learned about Minnesota nice, New England stoicism, Wisconsin love of all things cheese and football, and now Florida family that connects people to people beyond DNA.  You can make a few notes under each rectangle about the good and not-so-great lessons of the land where you’ve received snail mail and where you laid your head down to sleep and prayed the Lord your soul to keep.  May this invitation awaken you to the way that the soil of a space gets into your soul and impacts the story you tell yourself today.  Amen.

Places You've Lived that Live in You ~ Part One

 

Iowa…Minnesota…New Hampshire…Wisconsin…Florida.  Those are the five states that I have called “home”.  Those are the places where the soil of that space has left a lingering impression on my soul.  During the summer, I invite you to listen to the story you tell yourself about yourself.  We are meaning-making people, and we do this through story.  From the stories we tell, which evoke and provoke emotions, we form conclusions that we believe are based on facts.  Often our conclusions have been shaped by our experiences and encounters…which are limited by the places we’ve been and the people we’ve met.  For example, I have never been to Asia.  My best friend in high school was from the Philippines, but that doesn’t make me an expert.  Sure, he shared with me about his life, travels, and the racism he endured, encountered, and experienced.  Too often, we take our encounters and form strongly held opinions based on what we believe is the truth. (Or you could re-read that sentence, substituting the words “my truth” at the end.)  When we sprinkle our limited experiences with a bit of education through podcasts, books, or Facebook posts that often confirm our already tightly held convictions (because what you click online persists and insists we stay hooked to our devices), we might start believing we are just a bit below Einstein on the IQ scale.  As Anne Lament says, “Of course we believe our opinions are correct!  Otherwise, we’d get new opinions.”  It is true…and heartbreaking.  Sometimes, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, others, God, and the world reflect where we’ve been, what we’ve encountered, and who has left their fingerprints on us.  No one is “self-made”; it is biologically impossible, psychologically dangerous, and theologically contradictory.  The “you” that stares back from the mirror is a messy mixture of places and people.  Plus, all the other voices we explored last week that want to tell you what to think, do, act, and believe. 

 

This week we will explore the locations we’ve lived in that still live inside us.  Over the next several weeks, we will break down components of the recipe of your life that come from the past, guide the present, and will shape the future.  Today, get a large piece of paper.  You can tape two 8x10 pieces together, or if you have 12x18, that will work too.  On the left-hand side, in the top left corner, write the year you were born.  Drop down a few lines and draw a rectangle, leaving space around that shape.  Inside the rectangle, write where you were born.  For example, I would write, “Cedar Rapids, Iowa," the proud home of Quaker Oats, where you can smell that factory for miles!  Continue along the timeline of your life, drawing a rectangle for each move you made.  When I was a teenager, we moved to Des Moines, Iowa; then I moved to Pella, Iowa (where I experienced Dutch culture) for my first year of college, and then back to Des Moines.  Eventually, I moved from Minnesota to New Hampshire (where our children were born) to Wisconsin, and now to Florida.  You should now have a wonderful row of rectangles denoting the many places that still live in you.  Next, around each rectangle, draw circles to represent people who were part of your life.  For example, around Cedar Rapids, I would draw a circle for my mom, one for my dad, one for my older brother, and one for my maternal grandmother, who lived with us.  I could also draw a circle for my uncle and his family, who lived nearby.  As I move along the timeline of rectangles, I can add circles for friends in Cedar Rapids, then Des Moines, where I met my high school friend, and onto seminary, where I met my wife.  In New Hampshire, I would add two circles for my children.  Some of the circles persist over time and regardless of place; other circles fall away and now are Facebook friends only.  Please note that this is NOT about perfection or exhausting every circle possible.  I encourage you to spend a few minutes doing this, then set it aside; we will come back to it this week.  May you discover prayerful and playful ways in which where you have been is still part of the soil in your soul, growing in the garden of your life.  Amen.

Prayer

 

God of stories that wrap around us, sometimes blessing and other times binding us, sing to our lives with Your liberating love.  We hear how You long for us to sense Your presence in ways that fill us with peace.  And we know that this isn’t always our experience every minute of every day.  When the strings of someone’s story hurt or harm us; when we are pulled in a direction we’d rather not go; when we feel confined by someone else’s words, help us.  Remind us that You are writing upon our lives at this very moment a melody of hope, peace, faith, joy, and love.  Remind us that You long for a world of peace, shalom, not simply an absence of violence and death ~ but thriving/flourishing.  Remind us that You number our days, and invite us to reflect on Your goodness and grace, which can be crowded out by other voices that want us to buy now because supplies are limited.  Let Your limitless, unknowable Presence loose in our lives in these July days.  In the name of the One who was born in a barn, walked on water, was transformed on a mountain, died on a cross, and came back with the wounds of the world to show us Your “Yes!” to life and love, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

Where You are At

 

I am wondering ~ are you having fun playing with the threads of stories in your life, or does it feel like a tangled/twisted mess, or maybe both?  Sometimes we enjoy looking, listening to, and learning from our various stories that compete in our life for attention ~ other times it is exhausting.  Where are you at?  What is stirring within you as we enter July?  Each new month offers us the opportunity to see where we are:

 

Physically

Emotionally

Spiritually

Relationally

Culturally

With ourselves

With others

With God

 

You may want to add another category to this list.

 

Then, take a few moments to pay attention to your full self.  Are you feeling energized or exhausted, or somewhere in between?  Are you feeling enthusiastic, depleted or somewhere in between?  Are you and God in a good place or having a tiff?  Does that reflect a tiff you are having with someone close to you?  Or how are you feeling about the world? 

 

Each month is a chance to be awake and aware of where we are and how we are.  May this second day of July open you to God’s love meeting you in this moment.  Amen.

The Conflicting Stories of Our Life

 

I hope you are noticing that we live in multiple stories going on at the same time.  You are part-taking, participating in many plays/narratives/stories all at the same time.  One of the stresses and strains of our world is that each of these stories is competing to be number one in your life.  Our stories want our allegiance, attention, and affirmation.  Beginning to sort through the threads of narratives woven into the story of your life feels like looking at the back of a chaotic tapestry.  Yet on the front or on the side you offer to the world, we try to present a coherent picture.  Have you ever felt like you are trying to make sense of the messy or chaotic, and contradictory threads of your life?  

At the same time, we are told that we can author our own story.  That you are both the writer, director, producer, and leading role in the play of your life. 

Hold the tension here.  On the one hand, many voices are trying to take the pen from your hand and tell you what to do, be, think, and show up.  On the other hand, we are told that you are responsible and accountable for your life.  We are constantly swimming in the waters between the shores of free will and limited agency.  Yes, I can make choices.  Yes, I often use other people’s insights and information for those choices.  Yes, I can feel stuck between a rock and a hard place with limited choices ~ except when I am in the cereal aisle at the store.  Good Lord, who needs that many options for breakfast! 

When have you felt like you had to conform or contort your story to fit inside someone else’s?  To be sure, there are times I want to do this for my family or friends or someone I love.  There are times I resent having to carry a narrative that is like that suit jacket I talked about on Monday ~ two sizes too big.

Have you ever broken or branched out of a story to write something new, different, only to have people tell you to get back in line and stick to your knitting? 

On Sunday, we will begin a new sermon series on your story.  Yet, I do so, realizing and recognizing that parts of your story were given to you.  You didn’t decide where and when to be born…nor did you get a choice of biological parents.  I didn’t get to decide to be born in Iowa in the mid-1970s.  I didn’t get a vote when my parents were forced to move.  I wasn’t asked which high school I wanted to attend.  I did have some choice in college, but even then, I limited myself to what was nearby.  Before we start to explore the paint on the canvas of your life, I want you to realize that some of the color choices on the palette were already there.  Play with this image today, letting it awaken you to the moments when another person played editor to your story ~ this could have been welcomed or unwelcomed.  For example, when we had children, they edited our story in trying to take their needs/emotions/thoughts into consideration.  Let’s keep playing with this idea as a way to enter the mystery of the story that is your life.  Amen.