End of Season

In my life lately there have been a lot of endings. The time change is around the corner, days get dark so early already, the leaves are starting to pile up, right along side last years leaves that are still waiting to be raked. The days without a jacket and slip on sandals are done and I am digging through the cedar chest to find sweaters that I still like. I don't really know why I put stuff in there. The next year I am always thinking....what on earth was I thinking...

Today I took a little reflection time. It is a particularly hectic week and I have lots of deadlines and activities this week. It is always at this point I put my head down and try to move through as much as I can as quickly as I can. While this sounds good, I find I get very crispy somewhere along the way and those who know me best run for cover. So, I thought I would do us all a favor and rest up a little today to re-center myself. By the way, when one wishes to re-center one's self I highly recommend mindless television. It requires absolutely nothing, can be slept through with ease and in the end you just end up feeling like you are at least superior to what you just watched.

But I digress. My thoughts today are filled with death. Sounds joyful, doesn't it? I am not pondering my own, I am thinking a bit about those who I love who have died. Those who I do not know but have come to know through others who have died and even a little about what my feelings about death ought to be. It's a natural part of life, it is one of the two things I am told are absolutes: death and taxes. Who wants to ponder taxes?! I understand grief, we invest a great deal into the lives of the people we love. They not only live as themselves, they live with part of us in their make up. We live with part of them in ours. When they are gone, there is no recovering that part, it is gone too. You can't loose a portion of yourself without pain. I have had doctors tell me after surgery to remove a body part or two that I would have discomfort, but I can assure you that was pain.

Yet, if death is a given and we believe that to be absent from the body is to be present with God, why is death such a gloomy, bleak, depressing topic? Why has dying become almost shameful? Why, when we record the death of someone from cancer, do we also list how long they bravely battled the disease? Why does it make us so angry? Do we believe that death is punitive? A failure? A result of a heartless God who just couldn't be bothered to intervene? Do we believe that God is able to provide for us, even when our pain is great and our future expectations have just vanished? If not, then we are grieving much more than loss, we are grieving the smallness of our God.

Just to make you dizzy, let me counter all that with this: if death is inevitable and a natural part of life, why did God give us such a strong desire to live? In my father's last days, I remember the exchange between him and the hospice nurse. His sweatshirt was interfering with the IV line and she reached into a pocket, pulled out some scissors and tried to cut the cuff. He grabbed the scissors and said, you can't cut this, it's a good sweatshirt. I saw the light go off in his eyes when he realized that it didn't matter anymore about saving his clothing. It was a sad moment but it crystallized for me how very much my father wished to live. Why does everything in us cry out to live if we are supposed to realize that death is simply the doorway to eternity? It puzzles me greatly.

I didn't find any solutions today, but I found great peace in airing it all in God's presence. At times when it is all much too much for me, I have learned that peace comes not from answers as I have always thought, but from being allowed to say it all. God is so much bigger than I am, deeper than I am, wiser than I will ever be, dropping all my questions into His hands is enough. It's the release and the joy in giving it to Someone much more competent than I am, that gives me peace. Often I find, in the course of living, I come across answers to questions I dropped off years ago. Many I am still waiting for. Some answers come I wasn't even wise enough to ask. I think it doesn't matter nearly as much as the practice of being present.

Let's hope it was enough to keep me from getting too crispy and perhaps burning those around me. This season is passing, another one is coming, and in all we give thanks.

New and Improved

It is an election year. I have been scrambling hard to find things to be thankful in an election year. It is dismal and depressing and I have completely given up television, newspapers and I am close to moving into a cave and refusing to allow others to talk to me at all. As it is, when someone mentions politics an alarm goes off in my head and I go into defensive mode. I can only hear "wah, wah wah wah wah" just like Charlie Brown's teacher and my verbal communications become limited to the repetition of "You could be right", "well" , "might be so". Lest you think I have failed to be thankful, let me assure you I have triumphed. I am so thankful we only have to do this every four years. I am thankful that we have a merciful God who allows us enough room to hang ourselves and yet will step in to save us when we ask. I am beyond asking, I am into the begging mode. Please! Come Holy Spirit Come!

Here is what I really think is the bottom line on politics, and the feeding frenzy that everyone gets in at this time. We think a new party, a new person, a new policy, a new thought process will change everything and life will be good. I am sure that who we elect matters, don't miss understand, but I am equally sure there are wonderful, devout, thoughtful people who will argue both sides with passion about how one candidate is better than the other. I don't know how to think about it all anymore, so I have stopped thinking about it. I have prayed faithfully every day, and I encourage others to pray, that God will give us NOT the leader we deserve but the leader we need, who ever that is. That being a child of God will have some real significance in the world and we will positively transform the part we live in. That we will grow beyond the need to be right and the need to be heard more than the need to respond to the love God has poured out for us. I don't think the world of politics will ever address that, do you?

What is with our need for new and improved? I cannot tell you how often I buy new and improved stuff. My new laptop, new and improved. The laundry detergent for goodness sake is now condensed and improved. I bought new and improved sneakers and new and improved work out clothes and today I meet with a new and improved physical trainer for a new and improved work out. No doubt health and healing have already begun coursing through my body. I am not at all saying the my clothes aren't maybe a little cleaner but once you get to white, where do you go from there? My physical trainer is an excellent young man and I can tell you this, if I do what he tells me to do I will be in much better shape. My new laptop is very smart, I love that it figures out what I need and gets it for me. Still my life is about where my life always has been. Real transformation doesn't happen externally, it happens within. When inner transformation occurs it ought to change the external too, and the impact should be beyond new and improved, to new creation.

We will never shine up a pig and make it look like a Clydesdale and we can't change politics by changing the names. Real transformation, life changing transformation begins truly with new life. Why don't we spend oh say a billion dollars promoting that for a change. Maybe I could turn on my television again.

Sybil

Years ago I heard a lady say that she had so much work to get done over the course of the weekend, it was a good thing she brought all of her personalities. It was a great line, we all laughed. However, as the weekend went on, I began to see some truth in her humor! And not just in her, several people packed a wide variety of personalities that emerged as lack of sleep and stressful conditions increased. It was very inspirational to see peace and good will emerge in worship and somewhat scary to see that peace and good will be swallow up in terse conversation and strong jaw lines when things weren't going quite as well. Just exactly how many personalities does each person get issued?

I have noticed this a lot since stepping into ministry full time. I would like to believe it's because accounting people are not so subject to mood swings, but I suspect it is more because back in the bookkeeping days I was working a lot on my own. It is soooo easy to remain level when you can come and go fairly quickly. I used to call it the touch and go method of connecting. The stop, eye contact, conversation, hand to the shoulder or arm, pat, pat, pat, get in the car and done for another week. It really has a lot of merit and one size fits all when it comes to inter-relating.

The ministry thing is a lot tougher for me. First, I am in an office with a whole lot of people, this is not always good. Then, when people come, well, they stay a lot longer than a touch and go visit. Worse, people are beginning to figure me out. They have noted that my neck flushes when I am annoyed or embarrassed or sucking up something I am really dying to say. I have also been told that my voice goes up an octave and I become overly sweet and polite. I guess these are some of my alternative personalities coming to work with me to help me keep my job. I think there is a pretty serious curmudgeon personality in me that could be a challenge if it weren't for these other characters kicking in to provide interference.

There is a very funny personality that I just love and provides the comic relief I need so often. It is a good thing I enjoy this one because I have noticed that while I tickle myself often, sometimes I am the only one laughing. I have a couple of dear friends who also have these personalities and when we get together, we just tickle ourselves silly. There is a deeply serious, focused, passionate personality that gets incensed with ineffectiveness and things that waste time. It suffers fools poorly and really needs that squeaky voiced character to step in and remind it to breathe deeply and count to one billion before it speaks. Sadly, it is stronger than squeaky and on occasion I have seen it forcibly eject squeaky right out of my head. There is the social personality that loves a party and the deeply introverted one that hides to read and re-cooperate. You know, there are so many personalities in here, it is no wonder I weigh so much.

I think the only difference between Sybil and me is that all my personalities talk to each other, they all interact pretty well and all of them except for the passionate one and the curmudgeon one, can be taken out into public. Even the passionate intense one can see the light of day if it can be brought to allow the squeaky polite one to interject at the appropriate time. They all have the same voice, mine, and they all really want the same thing, their own way. If I was fortunate enough to be able to control them all with a tazer I am sure I would be a model of decorum. In fact, people would be writing books right now entitled, Be Like Susan, She is Super. Don't ask the Booksamillion folks when this might be on the shelves. That kind of question makes them irritable.

Do you see why we need so much grace? All those personalities to cover. Good luck with that this week.

Dead, dead, dead

There was a movie made a long time ago called The Happiest Millionaire. It was a musical all about this kind of wacky millionaire family in Philadelphia. I always liked it, but I don't really know why. I think because I grow up as a musical junkie, loved all of those old movies. I can still remember bawling like a baby over West Side Story and being so mad that no one told me it didn't end well.

Anyway, in Happiest Millionaire, there is a scene where the new butler has left the windows open in the conservatory and all of the 'pet' alligators are frozen in their tanks. They try to thaw them out but they don't seem to re-animate and from time to time the family members take turn patting them and saying dead, dead, dead. Later after a night in front of the fire, the alligators warm up and are active and alive after all. Nice for the story, even funny for the story as once back to the land of the living and unrestricted, they are free to roam the whole house and find all kinds of interesting places to explore.

So what? I hear you and I am going somewhere here, beyond thinking that I need to watch this movie again. I have been thinking a lot about the Methodist Church. I have been walking around in it for the last twelve or thirteen years kind of patting it and saying, dead, dead, dead. We would be assigned pastor after pastor, each one it seemed to have less depth, less vision, less drive. Dead, dead, dead. My local church seemed to live in spite of it's leadership and even grow and thrive despite a pastor or two who seemed determined to kill it off. I went to my first annual conference and I thought dead, dead, dead. In fact, what I really thought was if it's not dead someone had better kill this thing off.

Lately, I have cause to wonder if like the alligators, perhaps there is hope for the Methodist Church, at least in my conference. The issues are there, and just as big and bad as I thought they were. In fact the further in you go, the bigger they seem to become. Just lately it seems some signs of life are beginning to stir. The conference seems to be instituting some stuff that might actually work. At least the they are making some effort to try to bring about change. In a few places I even hear that there are churches who are doing some really good ministry. I begin to hear a similar theme from various parts of the connection, focus on developing excellent young leaders, developing strong lay leadership, intentionally developing a discipleship plan. All of that sounds like life, doesn't it? Could it be that God is in the process of thawing us out and restoring some life into these old frozen corpses?

I am reminded once again of the people standing at the edge of the promised land. They had God's blessing to go in, take the land and the promise that He would go with them, He would protect them, He would provide for them. They had the opportunity to check it out and see for themselves and it was every bit as good as God said. But they learned that there were giants. Huge hulking giants. They were grasshoppers in comparison; they thought so, the giants thought so. So, despite God's invitation they didn't go. The rest of the story is, forty years later the opportunity is finally offered again, but not to those who turned it down the first time. If this is God, and this is an opportunity to go to the Promised Land, to see Him bring life and vitality to a conference and get to be a part of that, I sure don't want to miss it. I know the giants, and I know I am a lowly grasshopper, but I am confident that my Father is enough. If it's not Him, well, I am praying He makes that abundantly clear and I am smart enough to listen.

In the meantime, someone make the popcorn and let's watch a movie.

The world at 10

Yes, Mr. Sam is 10. I don't know why ten doesn't have a name. The terrible twos are no worse than whatever is happening inside the mind and body of a ten year old. But terrible tens just really doesn't have the same ring. It's not really accurate either.

Mr. Sam is not terrible. He is a weird mixture of little boy and teen wannabe. He is fun and rambunctious, weepy and emotional, clingy and completely independent. He likes to stay home alone, doesn't want to sleep in the dark, rides his bike all over and investigates the neighborhood, prefers someone go downstairs into the family room with him. His reactions are all over the place, he is like a great big dial a mood wheel. Don't like this one? Just wait another option is just around the corner!

He is wise beyond his years and such a little boy. He makes pronouncements that come from the wisdom of the ages and funny little comments that you can't seem to follow at all. He chastises me, "Mom, we have talked about this" and he has a great variety of sound effects that accompany whatever story he is imagining. In the fourth grade,we had to discuss the sound effects being controlled while at school. I have wondered often if he ever says to his teachers, "Miss Whatever, we have talked about this". I sure hope so. I would hate to be the only one.

Recently we noticed that he has a tendency to smell like a goat. We have discussed this at length. He tells me this is all in my head. I tell him, no I have witnesses. We argue about it at great length. Still he eventually gets into the shower. Last night he appeared at my elbow recently having emerged from the shower. He said, "Smell me now." which of course I did. He smelled yummy and I told him so. He said, "Well, I guess so. I used strawberry shampoo, ocean breeze body wash and mountain fresh deodorant. I ought to smell like a vacation." We both laughed at how witty he is. He laughed longer though.

I am reminded of the email that tells me that if God has a refrigerator that my picture is on it. While I am not at all interested in discussing the theological ramifications of this, I am standing in great hopes that my Eternal Father enjoys me even half as much as I enjoy Sam. That when we discuss whether I am behaving, He glows with that same sense of inner pride and when I tell Him to smell me now, He breathes in deeply and laughs at my witticisms. When my behavior is erratic and my moods are all over the boards, I hope He shakes His head and says "this too shall pass" with the same conviction I have. I hope that as He loves me perfectly, He is helping me to love Sam better every day.

Sam had a good day today. He told me he didn't want to ruin it by taking a shower. The world has many sources of frustrations at ten. Guess cleanliness is one of them.