Conversations

When I first meet with people, I am often asked what a typical day in the life of a minister is like.  After chuckling, I reply that there is no typical day.  Things need to always be fluid and flexible.  Nothing is ever set in stone … not even worship.

Last week, my sister Effie was telling me about how someone arrived on the doorstep of the church she serves.  It was Sunday morning and a few minutes before worship.  The young man was in a terrible state.  He was homeless and had walked twelve miles from a detention center to the church.  A complication was that he was an immigrant, with very little spoken English and was struggling with his mental health because he had not been able to get his medication.

With a few hand signals to the leadership of her church, Effie sat with this young man who she learned was from Columbia. After phoning a parishioner who was a native Spanish speaker, Effie was able to help him out of the cold and into a safe, welcoming place.  All of this occurred as worship was happening.  Instead of a sermon, her congregation had an impromptu hymn sing, readings and prayers. What a wonderful witness of a community working and worshiping together, helping and praying for the stranger in their midst.

As I’ve been reflecting on the ever-changing reality of life, I’m more aware of being called in all times and all places to share the good news of God’s love, especially when there is no plan.  I’m even more aware of how important it is to remember that worship can happen with or without the ordained person, on Sunday or any other day of the week, in the church building or on the train or in the office or on the playground.  Because God is always with us, we can respond (even when we don’t know how or can’t speak the language or feel totally incompetent) with love for anyone and anything that comes our way.

In our lives of faith, just like in the vocation of ministry, there is no typical day.  Thanks be to God.

See you in church,
Hope

At the end of this first month of the year and of the decade, a blessing:

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The gray window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green,
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the curragh of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

— John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us:  A Book of Blessings

Last night, with too many tragedies and conflicts keeping me awake, I tried a time-tested method sure to put me fast to sleep:  I watched television.  The show was The Good Doctor, which I never expected to like but there I was well past my bedtime, watching the most recent episode.  After the difficulties of understanding how to be authentic and know what one wants in relationship, after being duped by a patient, one of the characters said to another, “There are worse qualities in this world than trying to see the best in people.”

Many Sundays we talk about what I call interpretive charity or believing the better story in one another.  This, like any spiritual discipline, requires practice.  Reflecting on this past week, how were you challenged to believe the better story in a friend, a family member, a neighbor or a stranger?  How have you been nudged to let go of a judgment and accept someone for who they are or for what an action is?  How are you practicing seeing the best in people?

Each day I work a little harder to practice interpretive charity.  Some days I excel; some days I fail.  In all of it, I find God and experience again grace upon grace.  Each day I am grateful to have a chance to try.

See you in church,
Hope

The beginning of the New Year has been fraught with trouble:  assassinations, violence, fires, stabbings, even resolutions for separation and divorce among members of the United Methodist Church.  With all of this, two people in my life have family members (young women) who in the days following Christmas, were diagnosed with brain tumors.  My prayers overflow with the desire for healing and wholeness, for a way out of the confusion and pain, for peace, for them and for us, for our church and for our country, especially for our world.

All of this reminds me of a spiritual practice found in Wayne Muller’s book Sabbath:  Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in our Busy Lives that invites us to take our troubles and to (i)magine a situation that concerns you.  What changes in your body— tension, heartbeat, respiration — when you think of it?  Now imagine that it is growing toward resolution in some invisible soil.  During Sabbath, we rely on forces larger than ourselves at work on healing the world.  Imagine these forces at work this very moment on your problem.  Imagine, as a seed knows how to grow and blossom and flower, just as the body knows how to heal, this problem may already know how to be resolved.  How does this change your feeling (perspective) about the situation? 

I wonder if, as Muller suggests, we imagine that God, whose love shapes us and leads us, is ready to take our troubles, to hold them and to help us see within them not the promise of more trouble but the promise of life and life abundant.  May it be so.

See you in church,
Hope

Welcome to a new year and a new decade!

My mother has this interesting belief that whatever you do on the first day of the new year you will do all year long.  Thinking about this and all that began the first day of 2020 in the United Methodist Church, I invited many of the marginalized and vulnerable clergy and lay people in the area to my house on New Year’s Day to have a safe place to be silent or to play games, to sit in front of the fire or to do whatever they needed to do for themselves as the year began.

Along with my sister Effie, who is an exceptional cook, we fed people collard greens, black-eyed peas, cornbread, and macaroni and cheese (affectionately known as heart attack in a pan).  People came and went at their own pace.  During the day laughter, stories and concerns were shared.  We talked about our hopes and fears, our full lives and our desires for who we could become in this next decade.  It was a soul nourishing day.

As I listened and watched, I found myself more deeply desiring to simplify my life and my expectations.  When I said this to Matt, he gently and lovingly patted me on the shoulder silently reminding me that simple has never been my way in the world.  More true to my nature was gift of the day — a day of invitation, connection, hospitality and love.

In this new moment, I pray that our days will be more fully living into who we are with our own unique gifts and talents.  As we discern who God is calling the Crawford community to be and become, I pray that we will move into this new time with confidence and faith, forgiveness and a whole lot of grace.

Happy New Year and new decade,
Hope

I will be taking renewal leave this summer.  While spending time with my children, reading, praying, and breathing, I will be staying local and will continue to be involved in helping New England Methodists move forward in faith. This time of renewal will begin July 1 and I will return to our congregation on Sunday, September 1.  During my time away, the Rev. Meredith Ellis will preach and preside (look for an introduction to Meredith in the summer Messenger).  She will also be available for any emergencies while I am being renewed. My goal for this time of renewal, for the summer, is found in Jesus invitation in the Gospel of Matthew when he says:  Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly (11:28-30, MSG). May we all find in summer the blessing of the unforced rhythms of God’s grace even as we learn to live freely and lightly for all the seasons of life to come.

See you in church,
Hope

1 – Light, space, zest – that’s God! So, with him on my side I’m fearless, afraid of no one and nothing.
2 – When vandal hordes ride down ready to eat me alive, Those bullies and toughs fall flat on their faces.
3 – When besieged, I’m calm as a baby. When all hell breaks loose, I’m collected and cool.
4 – I’m asking God for one thing, only one thing: To live with him in his house my whole life long. I’ll contemplate his beauty; I’ll study at his feet.
5 – That’s the only quiet, secure place in a noisy world, The perfect getaway, far from the buzz of traffic.
6 – God holds me head and shoulders above all who try to pull me down. I’m headed for his place to offer anthems that will raise the roof! Already I’m singing God-songs; I’m making music to God.
7-  Listen, God, I’m calling at the top of my lungs: “Be good to me! Answer me!”
8 – When my heart whispered, “Seek God,” my whole being replied, “I’m seeking him!”
9 – Don’t hide from me now! You’ve always been right there for me; don’t turn your back on me now. Don’t throw me out, don’t abandon me; you’ve always kept the door open.
10 – My father and mother walked out and left me, but God took me in.
11 – Point me down your highway, God; direct me along a well-lighted street; show my enemies whose side you’re on.
12 – Don’t throw me to the dogs, those liars who are out to get me, filling the air with their threats.
13 – I’m sure now I’ll see God’s goodness in the exuberant earth.
14 – Stay with God! Take heart. Don’t quit. I’ll say it again: Stay with God

So much of this Psalm speaks to me and to various times in my life when it felt like God was the only one who cared.

During last Sunday’s post Special General Conference debriefing session, with grief, fear and anxiety in the air, our very present God was found. With more people than expected (over 200 folks), gathered at tables and in stairwells, God was with us.  Sharing our hurt, holding our brokenness, witnessing our uncertainty, God was present.  In friends and strangers comforting one another, sharing hopes and naming fear, many left with more peace than we arrived.

It is in this place that we move forward believing that something better, something more just, something more loving is being born in our hearts and in our church.  I pray that as you move through all the feelings of this very emotional time, that you too will notice God with us, healing us, loving us and making us whole.

My prayer for each of us, for our church, for this season in our lives of faith is this: Because God is with us, let’s stay with God!  Take heart.  Don’t quit.  Stay with God.

See you in Church!