Growing Pains

I have recently checked in with the state of my soul, as John Wesley wisely advised us to do, and I have it on good authority it is in the bruised and beaten state. In fact, the soul was waving the white flag when I looked in. I understand entirely, the body is surrendering too. We all want to enter the witness protection program and be relocated to some place where there is a law against meanness. Is there such a place? There ought to be.

Once again for the billionth time, I am waiting for redemption and restoration. God is so faithful to do both, His grace is sufficient and His love is enough. Only, just between me and you, sometimes the way one learns this is you have nothing else to hang on to. This is certainly a way to be sure that what we believe by faith to be true is in fact true, but I am not sure I would say a good way, if you know what I mean.

In fact, the soul and I are incredibly bummed. I would say we were on strike but you know, I have tried that and it didn't work out so well. So, we are holding on and waiting for the joy to return, as it always does, looking for the things that are blessings and taking the things that are not and dropping them off where they belong. This is a spiritual discipline that isn't all that fun, honestly, but it results in peace. Who wouldn't do the work to get to the peace.

Well, me I guess! I have avoided the work so I could avoid the pain lots of times. I am a party girl, you know. I like the party, the laughter, and the good times when your soul is dancing like the sunlight on the water. I don't like the storms, the rainfall, the hurt people can inflict into your very being. I like the endings to be 'happily ever after' and the troubles to be short term and the glasses to be rose colored. Unfortunately, this is not always how it works out and when it doesn't, my feet long to run to the hills. I am still not at all sure why I can't be growing spiritually at the party. You would think that would be a natural for me.

But natural or not, it hasn't been a party. It has been very difficult and the only thing I have learned for sure is that regardless of what we feel, God is God, God is good and God is enough. His grace is sufficient and His love is everlasting. That bad is bad, but will be made good, because God says it will and that is enough. This promise alone ought to be enough for my soul to live on, and it is, only it would be nice if the beating could stop now and the healing could begin. I have asked for this starting ASAP. I wonder how long these orders take to process? Now would be really good.

Until then, I am looking for blessings to feed my battered and bruised soul and I am finding them. I have a family who has loved me and encouraged me during the difficult times. I have a couple of friends who have stood in the darkness with me and reminded me that light is within. My son was protected in a very perilous situation. There has been support for me in surprising places and when it has been too much for me to bear, a way out has been provided. That is enough for today, tomorrow will take care of itself.

I am thinking of calling the weather people, sure would like to know when this season is passing. Let us hope the next season is sunny and the water will be dancing. Until then, I am remembering all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purposes. And maybe praying for a party or two.

Peaceful Places

I have just spent a glorious week away. I had been craving the time to rest and reflect and be out of the whirlwind. I think I am much more absorbent to the environment than I have previously believed. When I live in the storm, I become stormy, when I live in the peace I become peaceful. I was ready to be peaceful for a bit.

I am attending the Spiritual Formation Academy at Camp Sumatanga in Alabama. I wanted to go to the Academy the very first time I read about it several years ago. I was so excited when I found an Academy close enough by that I could drive. I was terrified that when it said 'camp', it meant 'camp', but this fear was relieved and instead while not the lap of luxury, it is a nice room and all the plumbing is on the inside.

So off I went with the desire to step out of the whirlwind and into a calm and peaceful bay. This was not my first week, I had already had one week in the Academy and knew what was coming. Quite frankly, God had shown up big the first week and while that is always delightful, it was also difficult. I had communicated a little in prayer time that should He choose to show up in smaller, less painful ways this week, that would be okay with me.


One day during Eucharist one of the Academy members sobbed uncontrollably. She continued to cry at the altar at the conclusion of communion and the community stood in silence in support of her. After the service concluded many of the community gathered around her at the altar and supported her in prayer and presence, touching her or someone who was touching her. The worship leader continued to play "Surely the Presence of the Lord is in this Place" over and over and surely indeed the presence of the Lord was. What an experience, no one was asking what was going on, no one was looking at their watch (I know, it's hard to believe but cross my heart and all that stuff), no one was trying to get her to stop crying. Everyone was just standing, sitting, kneeling with her in the moment.

I have been wresting with community, why it is so fragmented and why on earth we seem to need it so much. If we are so contentious and so argumentative, hurting one another and pushing our own agenda over the good of the group, why does God place us as part of the community that makes up the Body of Christ. That moment in worship was a tangible example, blessed to be a blessing truly.

That was not the only time I experienced the blessing of community during the week, but it was the most powerful. There were numerous ways the community touched me. There were impromptu hugs, someone grabbing my hand while we walked, a kind soul who cleaned up my dishes or brought me coffee or saved me a chair. There was the sweetheart who came up to me out of the blue and asked if anyone had told me I was wonderful, as no one had this was especially nice. There was the moment in the middle of a plenary session where two of us, exchanged glances and moved our gratitude bracelets from one wrist to the other, because we both had the same negative response to the same thing at the same moment. There were moments of shared laughter, an insider joke with a covenant group and the connection with someone who is thinking what you are thinking.

I do not know exactly how God, God in me, God in community. God in the world all fit. I know it is the same God, only the setting, the boundaries and the interpretation seem to change and all are part of the totality of God. Allowing God to integrate all that is certainly a challenge for me. Like the folks who say, 'I don't know all about art, but I know what I like', I too don't know all about God but I know what I like and I like God best when I am in peaceful places and He is with me. I want to grow to the point that even in the raging storms, when I feel hurt, or angry or afraid, I know God is present and I love him enough to find peace within. Or else I would just like all those storms to stop. One or other other would be okay, bet I don't get the second.

Luke tells us in the 17 chapter that the kingdom of God isn't here or there, it's within us. This is where peace radiates and where if we will look for it, God who is within connects us with God who is everywhere. Today I want to live from this place.

Who says?

I have been told you can never go home again. I do not believe this is true. Numerous children of all ages and stages have graduated from dependency on parental units and begin free and independent lives only to return, with more stuff and sometimes with dependents of their own. Why do people make up such ridiculous statements which fly in the face of the reality?

Yes, you are going to tell me that they do go home, but not like it once was. I can tell you, some of those families revert right back to pre-existing roles and not only are they home again, they are home like it used to be. Only they tend to fight more about curfews and taking their own car places. Strangely enough, if you are willing to do the laundry, pay the bills and provide clean room and board, many of them will honor the curfew!

I suppose there was a time when the transportation was so limited that kids who left home and went west young men, that going home was much harder. I presume if you had been fortunate enough to get back home, the struggle would have changed home and traveler. All those westerns seemed to indicate the trip out was one way because someone was going to shoot you somewhere out west anyway. We are still a pretty violent culture, but your chances of getting shot in on a trip into town for supplies is reduced, I believe.

Here is another saying that burns me: "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." I am appreciative of the understanding that we ought to be a little bit wiser than to walk into the same foolishness twice. However, we have this little thing called 'forgiveness' and 'grace' in Christian circles. We are supposed to be restoring people into fellowship and yadda, yadda, yadda. So if we have been faithful to forgive (as we have been instructed to do so we will not become angry, bitter people and also because God says He will follow our lead there) and someone makes us look like a monkey again, is this really a 'shame on me' thing? I am not talking about buying the same snake oil twice, I am talking about assuming there has been genuine repentance because it has been indicated that has occurred and getting toasted again. I think the shame ought to and does stand squarely on the shoulders of the fool er.

And, since I have a good rant started, let me add that I am equally unhappy with is 'no smoke without fire'. That is so incredibly untrue that I am out of all patience with it and I want to stamp my feet and throw a cute, little, mature, professional fit. I have heard more rumor based on nothing more than someone was thinking something could possibly be true, where no fire had ever been. There are people who's reputations have been injured, where drama has run amok and there was never anything at all more than spiteful vindictiveness. I guess you might argue that the spitefulness was the fire but that isn't what the saying means. It infuriates me that once something is said, no matter how casually, it becomes a 'thing'. No smoke without fire after all. UGH. I want this to be outlawed. In fact, I want the whole gossipy chain to be snapped in enough places, it cannot be re-attached. I think this is hardly a new problem, as Paul was writing about it a little less than 2000 years ago, but we have not cured it. I am, myself, a participant at times and afterwards I think, you have just done it again, you dimwit! I have recently been reminded of the deadly force words carry. I am putting a guard on my tongue and I begin to understand Isaiah much better. I too am a person of unclean lips and I want God to purify them.

Strange that my rants always lead back to God convicting me. You would think I say to myself "Stop! You are about to be corrected again", but no, I go boldly where any other thinking person would fear to tread. I would explore this more but I cannot really take on much more than one thing at a time, and I see the unclean lips taking some focus. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all my sins.

Larry Norman

Many, many years ago, a babe to contemporary Christian music, I feel in love with a song that Larry Norman sang called, "I Am A Servant". I don't know that music was so very well done or had a delightful melody. As memory serves, it was just Norman and the piano, kind of high and a little squeaky in places. It was the lyrics that spoke to my heart and I found the song and learned to play it on my guitar. Many a sad moment was spent, hiding in my bedroom with my guitar singing, "I am a servant, I am waiting for my call. I've been unfaithful so I sit here in the hall. How can you use me, when I've never given all? How can you choose me, when you know I quickly fall." Getting to the end of the song always made me feel a little better, though sometimes I had to sing it over and over and over.

Funny how music seems to speak to the soul in ways that words and thought cannot. It wasn't Christian music that taught me this though. My dad was a musician and music was a part of my upbringing. I was surrounded by it all my life and before I was ten I was addicted to musicals. I sang with great enthusiasm all of the leading roles. I was Maria primping in my bedroom singing "Tonight, Tonight" from West Side Story, Liza Doolittle singing "Just you Wait" and "Show Me" in My Fair Lady. I never could warm up too much to South Pacific, but I was delightful as Maria in the Sound of Music, and I wasn't too bad as Laurie in Oklahoma. I like Aunt Eller's songs better and Laurie seemed like such a goose, it was hard to play her with enthusiasm. In the privacy of my room, I would play those albums over and over again, singing and dancing and I was absolutely fabulous! In fact, I feel sure it was only small minded jealousy that kept my father from launching my career on the big screen. He just couldn't bear the competition, I think.

When I hit middle school my tastes changed some and I became a fan of Black Sabbath. Don't anyone throw something at me, or remind me this was hardly a Christ centered group. All I know is this, when I played "Fluff" and closed my eyes, it was as close to heaven as I knew how to get. It drew such pictures for me of beautiful mountains and rolling hills, I just knew I was closer to God when I heard it. James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg and The Who and The Doors and Billy Joe, Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd, Three Dog Night and Charlie Daniels, Bread, ABBA, and BTO all followed. All of them were comfort to me and companionship. To this day if I am driving along on a sunny day, the music is blaring and I am singing at the top of my lungs. I have had folks pass me and tell me later they thought I was having a fit until they realized I was singing. This could be why I never made it to the big screen!!!

Sometime in college I discovered the radio station and contemporary Christian music. I loved my three hour show every week and listened to all kinds of music getting ready for it. This is where Larry Norman entered my musical life, and Keith Green and Randy Stonehill, Amy Grant, Sandy Patti and Steve Green. As I attended a Christian college, some of these singers made an appearance on campus which added to the attraction and adoption. Today, my musical tastes are pretty varied, I love lots of genres but have never been able to warm up to country. All those years of being told not to sing through my nose, I guess!!

After I found Larry Norman and learned to play "I am a Servant", I found Keith Green and learned to play "My Eyes are Dry" and spent many hours making this my prayer to God. "My eyes are dry, my faith is old. My heart is hard, my prayers are cold. But I know how I ought to be, alive to You and dead to me." In time, my soul would be soothed and I would be ready to go on again. In recent years I have added more songs to the list when I have no words. Michael Smith's "Let it Rain" has brought me to tears, sitting at my desk, arms raised and in my mind, the flood gates of heaven open. Paul Baloche singing "What can I do but thank You? What can I do but give my life to do?" My friend Greg has recorded a CD with a cut called "Micah's Song". The words are pretty but its the music that transports me. One day, such joy welled up inside of me, I had to call him to tell him so.

Isn't God amazing, and so resourceful! He has made music a means of grace, where we can experience God in ways that go beyond our intellect, our imaginations and our vocabulary. He finds ways to speak where words could never be adequate. True worship that flows from the heart seems to flow best not in the spoken word but it the melodies of the heart. The book of Psalm lives that witness, the hymns of the faith echo it and the contemporary interpretation simply follows in the Spirit of worship handed down through the ages. And you thought you were just rocking out.

Next time you pass me on the road, and I look like I could be having a fit, it's probably just worship going on! Turn on your own tunes, and join in!

Lost in Time

I have been off becoming wiser. Yes, I have been to the Church of the Resurrection Leadership Institute for making better Methodists. That isn't really what it is, only a little pet name. I was there with all my very dearest friends, a very intimate gathering of about 2000 people from 600 plus churches, learning some new stuff, getting fired up and getting send back to use what I learned. You wouldn't think this was a new concept but I have met people who seem astonished that we are expected to use what we learn. Apparently, the time spent in training is like the wizard confab the nice wizard from Oz was heading to when he couldn't wait for Dorothy. I am not a real wizard so this explains why I keep thinking if we use what we learn we will actually further the Kingdom. This is what fake wizards do to mess things up, you know what I mean?

Anyway, there I was with all the others, when in a moment I was lost in time. I was watching a conductor direct an orchestra and a choir in Kansas City, but at the same time I was in a high school auditorium in Hampton, PA watching my dad direct a choir while the orchestra played behind him. The music is gone from my memory but my dad was very real, very alive and there were things about him that seemed very tangible in the moment. I could almost see his mannerisms come to life in the conductor in Kansas. I can see his choir and I can watch him run his hand through his hair and I am a very small girl again.

How funny that there are memories stored in our minds that are so vivid when conjured by a stimulus that we are right back into the midst of them again. Having suffered through a recent bought of the whatever is going around gunk, I came upon a television show about a woman who is not functioning well in her thirties who has the chance to go back to moments of regret and relive them. I do not want this kind of a memory, but the nice ones that stir lovely thoughts are very pleasant. My dad has been dead now for 11 years and it was very nice to have him very close by in an element where he always shone brightly.

What of those memories that are harder, when they come pounding back and make our tummies flop over and our anxiety levels climb. I know what I tend to do: whoops, don't think about that. Turn that off. Completely! Sorry I opened that drawer, or door or thought! Recently someone shared a dream with me that deals with an unresolved sorrow for her. As she shared with me, I was calling upon God to give me inspiration. I remember having these kinds of dreams and the hunger within to have closure in these areas of sadness and grief, regret and remorse. I suggested what has been suggested to me in these areas, to invite God into the memory, to the dream and ask Him to bring resolution and redemption. As most of us do not get the do-over our hearts desire and I am pretty sure I would mess it up if I were given the opportunity, this is the only way some of those moments are healed and resolved.

I have recently been in touch with high school friends through Facebook. Not a bad thing really, and with them came some wonderful memories. I have been having some of those anyway since I have been organizing the youth structure at church and they are reminders of myself a while back. Those reminders also can open up doors that I would just as soon remain closed. Those things I said or did that bothered me, the decisions that I made that closed some doors forever, and the feeling of sadness or shame or frustration washes over me again. Instead of swiftly shutting the door as I have for years, I have been trying to sit very still and invite God into the memory. Somehow after I tell Him how I feel and discuss the whole thing with Him, the intensity of the emotion has faded and I am able to let go of some of the hurt. Is it gone? I don't know. Bet it doesn't have the same intensity that it once did.

This is a mystery truly. How does God, who is timeless, enter into all time and heal up a grown up woman who has an injured little girl inside? Who knows. I am just grateful. And now, I am off to use that stuff I learned. Sure hope the wizards don't find out and report me.

Ripple Effect

Recently I have been pondering ponds. It's a fascinating event for water watchers anyway. Water watchers really don't need a reason to settle down to a good solitary time of ripple reflection, but recently I have been pondering the impact we have on the pools we have been placed in, and the impact the pool has on us.

This too is not exactly a new reflection. I have given thought to the day I am invited to swim out of this water and into water eternal. It is my wish that when I am no longer in this pool, the ripples left behind will have some lasting impact. I would hate to leave the kind of ripples that sort of fade into other ripples until they just dissolve into nothingness. I want Oswald Chambers ripples. I want to leave behind some insight or vision or thought or even funny story that inspires a generation I will never meet to love God with all of their hearts, souls, minds and strength. Who wouldn't want to leave ripples like this?

The pondering of late though hasn't been how to leave the pool, but how to live in it well. I have been taking on a lot of water recently. I have some big splashers in my pool. Have you ever tiptoed into the pool, the water maybe a little chilly and you are easing your way in? And as you get maybe up to your calves, a big splasher moves your way and begins to unleash a tidal wave of water your way until you are soaked and freezing? Then even after you are completely wet and into the water up to your chin, they continue to float past and cover your head with a little more from time to time? Worse, they dig their feet into the bottom and churn up as much dirt as possible so the water becomes cloudy and then muddy and then loses its clear crispness and becomes sludge. Here's what I want to know: is this illegal? If it is not illegal: can you fill a civil suit over this? Get a restraining order against big splashers? Tell on them to someone in authority, assuming we still have someone in authority?

Let me say freely, I am sure I must have been a big splasher at one point. If you follow the Sound of Music theology - nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could, so somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something bad - then it only seems logical I must have spent some time soaking others. However, since I am a proud supporter of grace, and believe in unmerited mercy in splash forgiveness, I want you to know I want the deluge stopped.

I have appealed to the the local pool police and they agree the splashing is unfortunate, they wish the splashing would stop, but they seem unable to get it done. They are suffering just as much as I am, there is some muttering about being in sales not in management, but ultimately we stand in the poor together, sighing and petitioning the Keeper of all Water to make our pool perturber stop.

I believe this is why the numbers in the ponds and pools and lakes and other water bodies are decreasing. I have been told this is because we are poor at inviting others to come on in, the water is warm. I am sure we can always get better at this, but I believe where we drop the ball is that once they get into the pond, we do nothing to help them live there well, to encourage them to find deeper waters and to be a good pool mate. What we do in my humble opinion (which is not humble or I would not share it with you) is get some good stuff and add it to the atmosphere and the water and we hope in doing so pond people will be transformed. Because God is a gracious God, strangely enough despite our ineptness, sometimes this works. Only because it also sometimes does not, we are left to deal with the consequences of poorly equipping pond people to learn to live well in the water. Why would any self respecting land dweller want to climb into a pool of splashy, muddy, stirred up water?

I can only say this about my own water observations. When I finally observed 'the water' for the first time from the eyes of it's Creator, I saw beautiful, clear, cold, refreshing, inviting water and not only did I thirst for it, my whole being longed to be submerged into the depths. I didn't want to swim in it, I wanted to be consumed by it. It takes a lot of my time these days to look past the muck that has churned up around me to remember that vision of the pool as it was intended to be. It was easy to invite people into the refreshing and renewing water, to teach them how good it was further up and higher in, to lead them through the paths I had taken to experience such glorious splendor. There are some days now when I find it harder to encourage others to get in, I have seen the sludge and some of it gets on me and it makes me feel nasty and it clogs my lungs.

We aren't powerless here. It doesn't have to be this way. We could choose to be deliberate about how we live in the pool and how we teach others to do so. I have seen the clear water and I am sure if others could see it too, the numbers in the pool would swell. I think if you look it up, you would find that was Scriptural, in a paraphrased kind of way. In a world, according to God, interpreted by me way. I kind of like the way that sounds. In fact, my favorite way.

Would someone toss me a life jacket?

Embracing the Silence

It has been so long since I wrote anything, I nearly forgot my log in. I had to scramble to remember the password. Much too long. It isn't like I have stopped thinking, or even stopped recording thought. Only lately is has been all structure and organization and the creativity that my soul longs for has been about who is being called to do what. There are these times when the moments are very much centered in organization and structure.

This week there is a new season. It is a season of silence. It is a gift and I am soaking it in, every bit of it. I am enjoying the other members of the Spiritual Formation Academy, our covenant group and meal time conversations are wonderful. A diverse group but finding much commonality. Still what I am enjoying so much is the silence, the space and the place of my own. It's amusing really, with the two older boys on their own and all those bedrooms empty, it is still somehow a unique feeling to be surrounded by just my stuff. I have spent time finding places for it all. I like knowing I can put things where I like, I like knowing when I leave it will look just exactly this same way when i get back. I have been laying in bed with thoughts of my closet at home and ways to get that stuff more organized too. I think this might be sick, but it has been very comforting I have known for sometime that I work better in order, but because I am always doing seven things at the same time (the perfect number after all) it is hard to take the time to keep order. I think that Monk is too extreme but I sure would like to have some of his methodical approach to order. Hey, order is biblical you know, just read the books of the Law.

But the silences are sweet. I am not feeling pressured to experience anything in particular and I am not having "aha" moments in particular, but I am hearing new ideas picking up a word in the scripture I hadn't seen before and just enjoying the freedom of space. I am enjoying soaking in others reflections and once again find it amazing that people are able to share their hearts with relative strangers. It seems like such a foreign concept to me but I am being touched by what they write. They thoughts are being included into my silences. I don't know how this is so, but it is.

Those who know me best will find the thought of me being silent for 12 out of 24 hours and then choosing to be quiet in free time will wonder if I have a brain tumor or if someone left a pod by my bed. It is a foreign concept but it is a delightful season. The silence is full and warm and restful. Thanks be to God, miracles do exist!

Last night we reviewed our Myers Briggs tests and I haven't changed a bit. I am still a very solid ENTJ, all the way down the line. This appears to be in conflict with the love for silence. I started to thinking this over during the silence last night and decided it was too much work. I have decided that being is good for now. I expect the people will become more of my energy source as the Spirit fills me up and my need for solitude lessens, but I am content for now.

Collecting the Tears

I read The Shack again last week. I read it several months ago but we had a book club meeting to discuss it and I wanted talking points. I enjoyed it the second time as I had the first, but noticed different details. I had wondered really the first time through if I would agree with the theology once I stopped enjoying the story and took the time to analyze if there was truth in it. This time I read with that intent and found places I agreed with, places I didn't. But could find no basis for all of the outcry and I have profound concern that we are fulfilling the message I took away from Masada all those years ago....'if the others would just realize if they leave us alone, we would destroy ourselves'. Why on earth would we worry about a book that makes people stop to consider the possibility that there is a loving God who wants us to know Him better? Or Her better. Or them better. Read the book, it will make more sense.

I was struck by several passages that eluded me the first time. The passage about Adam and Eve was very powerful as was the image of forgiveness being removing your hands from the offenders throat. I could identify with that. Still the one that has stayed with me is the depiction of Sarayu (the Holy Spirit) collecting our tears and then using them to grow a beautiful garden. It is very artsy and some would certainly say it is fluff to make us feel better about the misery in life. I hear that, and I guess if truth be told, I would say this myself, only recently I have shed a tear or two myself.

Now don't be jumping to any false conclusions like I am becoming all mushy and touchy/feely emotional pudding. This is not true. In fact, all that stuff creeps me out and makes me very ill at ease. Not your emotion, you understand. People seem to feel free to cry with me and I am never uncomfortable with that. I am dreadfully uncomfortable when I tear up. Actually uncomfortable is an understatement. So, imagine my astonishment and mortification when in the middle of worship, I found myself leaking from the eyeballs. I was good until we started singing. I remembered a dear friend who died recently singing the same song. I remember watching her face when we sang, 'sing has lost its power, death has lost its sting' and a few tears came. Those were dispatched and I was fine until the greeting time when someone asked me how my son was, how I was and those doggone tears came back. I pulled it together again when the sermon about healing sucker punched me. I sat next to my darling 11 year old who asked me what was up. I said my contacts were bugging me. He said the only time his eyes did that was when he was crying or drank a diet coke. I said I had also recently had a diet coke. We giggled some. Then prayer time followed, and I was out for the count. I don't know why I did that. I work there for pete's sake. I know the rules, no matter what you smile big, respond positively and remain gracious. I have been dealing with my eldest child's illness for 8 years long term and a week in the recent crisis. I have been calm and in control. Who knows what that was. Maybe hormones.

Then sometime in the evening, (after I had considered all the possible options in going into the witness protection program, transfering the a church to be named later or claiming I had an out of body experience), this picture of the Holy Spirit collecting these tears, carefully storing them and one day, at the appropriate time using them to bring about beautiful life in the midst of death. Ponder with me please if perhaps rather than being a feel good kind of message, this becomes the promise of redemption. That God who knows our name, who knew us in the womb, who has counted every hair on our heads, who had made plans for us, good plans that give us hope and a future, who wants us to have life abundantly, who promises nothing can ever seperate us from His love, does redeem the sadness, sickness and death in our lives and brings from it wonderous, beautiful, new life. What if tears are a sign of the promise instead of a show of weakness? It is worth considering, I think.

Today God and I discussed again Paul's message of being content in all things. I am practicing knowing that when it is obvious that things are too much for me, it is apparently not my job. That surrender means more than our will and our control. It means our beings including our emotions and it means knowing that we know that we know, God is good, God is present and if the two things seem to be in discord, it is because it is not finished yet. That's scriptural, you know. Funny how it always seems to come back to the same place.

Voices on the Headset

I have just completed a conference where I got to be the stage manager. I just love jobs that give you titles, don't you? I don't think stage manager was capitalized, which would have made it better, but still it was a title and more importantly, I had a headset. Yes, and wait, there's more! With my headset came a delightful little box that had a button that turned on and off my microphone. A title, a seat at a special table (I believe I had forgotten to share this benefit) and equipment. Short of getting paid for it, I can't see how it could have been better.

With my headset and my title, I had permission to give a running commentary of what was going on in the conference. I got to say things like, so and so is approaching the podium, or lectern or center stage or lights up or lights down or other exciting tidbits of information along these same lines. At first, nervous about doing the job well, along with a team of others who were nervous about doing the job well, we were a little tense and very focused on the business at hand. Everyone was talking at the same time, too much information all the time and no one quite sure what it was we were doing. By day two we were relaxing, having made it through the challenging day before, and by day three we had become our own little community within the community. In fact, we weren't a part of the conference at all, we were our own conference. Follow this logic for a moment, if you can. Our conference was based on observing and supporting another conference going on at the same time. While we were all in the same place, and presumably all on the same page, we were in fact, in our own little audio visual world and while we were in the midst of the conference we were in fact set apart.

Our conversation started out to be informative and it moved on to be connective. We began to comment on what we were producing. As time went on people began singing along, whether they were supposed to or not. There began to be comments on people in the audience who were sleeping and speakers who were either inspirational or long winded. The comment and direction of camera shots were interspersed with comments about the quality of the shot or it's beauty. At the end of the conference when the last blessing was pronounced and I could say, 'that's a wrap' (which is a very cool thing to get to say), over the same headset I heard the group discuss with joy the experience of working together as a team and the hope we would get to do so again. In a world looking for connection, isn't it interesting that a shared purpose and mission over three days brought about community among people who could not even see one another. Just voices in the headset, who somehow became family.

Even more interesting, this was a Christian conference where connection and community ought to be the overriding purpose for gathering. Yet, the renewal I have heard about did not happen during the business or even worship of the conference but in the hallways where friends met, at meals that were shared and in this little community of voices on the headset. I have been pondering this greatly. I am thinking of other conferences and retreats I have attended where my mind was expanded, my heart was touched and I came home tired but so satisfied and learned spiritual truths that I continue to live from today. I became a part of a community of fellow believers who for a time chose to set apart time and experience God together. I feel for those who attended the overall conference who did not have this experience. I am sorry we couldn't pass out headsets to everyone, I am sorry not all had friends to meet in the hallways or over a bowl of chips and salsa. I want something more for everyone, I believe this is God's desire as well. I know more exists, I have experienced it. I loved it enough to want it for everyone who hungers to know more of God and feel the connection of the family of faith.

I pray this is the year that those who plan for such events will form a prayer team who will sit in the presence of a mighty God who desires such things for His children. I pray that this is the year that those who hunger for more will be fed and that all will return home with a sense of being filled up to overflowing with the love of God. I pray that this is the year we reach out and connect with one another and remind each other we serve shoulder to shoulder no matter where we serve. I pray this is the year that at the end of conference there is a joy from time spent together, sharing the same purpose and vision, even without a headset. Because, that's mine and so is the title.

Who are we saving it for?

Once upon a time, I know this because my mother told me, women used to take showers and after they had washed their hair, they would put curlers in. Then they would put on their clothing and go out to buy the groceries, pick up the laundry, go to the library, and generally run their errands. All the while the curlers stayed in the hair. My mom used to say about this situation, "I wonder who they are saving it for?".

I didn't really understand her point. I was a kid after all, and my deal was hoping she would buy a barrel of monkeys, or color forms or some other inexpensive form of entertainment and leave my brother and I in the car while she bought groceries. I am fairly sure this was way before either of us was in school. These days one would be arrested for this. Anyway, I thought all adults were somewhat odd looking and whether there was stuff in their hair didn't seem to matter much one way or another.

My mother felt differently. Going out so all of the town could see you in your curlers didn't make up for having nice hair at dinner for a few guests. I will have to admit that now that I am a grown up, I will have to say I concur. It doesn't really seem sensible. In fact the only way for this economy to make sense is to only value the opinions of the small group who you are having for dinner. That means the the vast majority of the people you encounter you have no value for at all. Kind of frightening when you say it that way.

That same kind of frightening vision has overtaken the church. Have you ever stopped to wonder who exactly we are saving it for? Who is it we are cleaning up to entertain? Our neighbors, the people in the grocery store, the library? I don't think so. Some of the people in the neighborhood don't even know we exist. Pastors seem to have no burning desire to share the good news, many who don't even see this as their job. We have churches full of nice people who do nice things but don't wish to be too religious and don't think it's any ones business how they live. We like to keep the walls high and the crowd select. We want the right kind of people to come to worship, we need to keep the building in good shape, you know.

Recently I attended a training event for small churches where we discussed how we could do small church better. The workshop leader invited people to say the things in worship they found distracting. I suspect he meant music done poorly, responses that were meaningless, sermons that weren't well researched and delivered painfully. Instead people said they didn't like kids in worship because they got up to go to the bathroom, or were noisy. They didn't like people who coughed or sneezed or made it hard for them to hear. I finally said, apparently the biggest obstacle we have in worship is that we let other people come. I think that while there were some chuckles, there were people who thought I was being serious and agreed. We all agree we are in decline but our answer is we need to keep out those annoying outsiders. People, who are we saving it for?

Our base is declining, it is elderly and it no longer can reproduce to sustain itself. The youth are moving on. They have no loyalty to support an institution that finds them an inconvenience at best. The financial support is also declining and monies that used to find their way to the collection are finding homes elsewhere. There is much anger and frustration over budgets being underfunded and people's dream of coasting into retirement dashed, but they are still wearing their curlers in public and valuing only the small group of people they will have dinner with later. I guess if we are saving it for ourselves I have to wonder why we aren't enjoying it more.

Who are we saving it for? Its time for us, all of us, to decide if we are in the disciple making business, or in the self preservation business. We have been in care taking mode for much too long. It's time to throw open the doors and invited the community in again. This is a party for everyone. Lets get the curlers out of of hair and be about the business of inviting a few more guests to our Fathers banquet table. Let's make the church be about being the church, let's be salt, and light. Let's pick up our crosses and follow, let's be faithful and let's mean it when we say, here I am, send me. Let's stop farming out our people to other places to get deeper spirituality. Let's find ways to meet the needs and allow God to use us as a means of grace to the world around us.

Wouldn't it be cool if we went around in curlers at home, with the family that already loves us, so we would be ready to look good for the company? Just a thought.

Thicker than water

There is something about the family of faith that makes it challenging to live in. I think I know what it is, it's the family part. I have been to enough family gatherings; reunions, weddings, funerals and so on, that I believe I can say without hesitation, the only reason some of those people get in is because they are related. You do too know what I mean. The family forces a smile and everyone talks politely and the entire trip home in every vehicle is about weird Uncle Buck or Aunt Phyllis.

My own family is no exception. I had a great uncle named Logan who was the source of all kinds of discussion through out all the generations. We kiddos found him very funny and would practice walking like he did, debating whether he was still breathing, betting on the exact time he would move. My parents generation and older took offense at his laziness and expectation of being served. Rumor has it my grandfather threw a folk at him once for expecting my grandmother to get up and get him something for the billionth time. I don't know whether this is true but it is told even today and still brings chuckles. Logan's history was equally delightful for my cousins and me. He married once and wouldn't leave home. At some point his wife did and he decided not to repeat that mistake. I wonder if she did too.

But I digress. The point isn't that families have characters like Logan, the point is that we tolerate and even find some affection for the Logan's in life because after all we are related. They are a part of us because we are connected through blood. It gives us identity, it gives us a history and a sense of belonging. Even if you look at your family in horror, and what adolescent hasn't done that and prayed that they were either switched at birth or stolen by gypsies, it says something about who your people are. While this isn't always a good connection, in fact if all of us look far enough back we are bound to find a ancestor or two or ten that make us shake our heads, it's a mark we carry and learn to deal with in life.

This is no different for the Church universal. We are also connected by blood, Jesus' blood shed for all. This makes us all one enormous family, belonging because we are related. We like to exclude various branches of the family - they are too liberal, too conservative, too fundamental, too flaky, too serious, too high church, too low church, too touchy feeling, too traditional and on and on and on. I don't know that we have open feuding on going, unless its denomination verses nondenomination, but we do have our own little family branches we tend to honor more than the whole. Like a huge family reunion where each family can see each other and will perhaps wave but they all sit separately and tell their youngest members," Stay away from the Bertie Jones family. They aren't really family, they aren't our kind of people."

I just went to see Michael W Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman in concert. I don't have a clue how many people were there but lots. Like as far as the eye could see lots. I had great seats. I never have great seats but I had a friend who took care of me and I had great seats. The concert was amazing and at some point we were standing and worshipping. Michael W Smith was playing something everyone knew and everyone was singing and I turned around and saw the auditorium filled, the first balcony filled, the second balcony filled. Everyone on their feet, everyone singing, many with their hands raised, their eyes closed. The music was incredible but the connection with my brothers and sisters in the family of faith was so powerful it brought tears to my eyes. I haven't got a clue what members of the family were there. I don't know what family branch they sprang from. I don't know theologically that we agree at all on the issues we debate with such enthusiasm. I just know this, for a moment in time the focus was the connection, that we are related by the blood. We were all made heirs the same we, and all of us belong.

I know we can't live here. In fact, before I got home I got a funny text message from a young man I worship with regularly who said, "hey do you mind sitting down? We are in peanut heaven and you are blocking the stage!" We have other contacts that aren't so funny and God's grace is essential in keeping us from killing each other. But wouldn't it be wonderful if we could spend just a little more time worshipping together in the presence of God, focusing on the things that unite us instead of the issues that divide us? It's the blood you know, and it's thicker than water.

Comfort

As a child,I can remember laying in the sunshine that came in the big picture windows in the living room. I would lay there on my tummy reading Sunday morning comics when I had successfully pried them away from a sibling. My brother liked to read the whole paper intact, I just wanted the comics and the Parade Magazine. Several of us enjoyed that same spot, twice as warm there as any place in the room. By the time I was in high school my brother bought his own paper and Sunday mornings I was in church, but I remember the spot and the struggle with great fondness.

My sister and I shared a small room growing up. There were no private places in my small home, and finding a place of your own required creativity. There was an old dresser sitting at a right angle, across from the heat vent in the corner of the room. If you sat with your back to the dresser and your feet on the heat vent you were almost invisible from the door way. This is where I would read. For hours and hours I sat in my own little world with Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, Little Women, Donna Parker and Anne of Green Gables. Later, my companions changed to Tolkien, DE Stevenson, Georgette Heyer, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers and more. Still, for as long as I lived at home, long after my sister had grown up, married and moved on, I sat in that corner, imagining I was all alone in the world.

I was haunted as a child by demons in the dark. Many nights I would wake terrified, at first needing to be comforted, later learning some comfort techniques of my own. Many nights as I would lay in bed with my heart pounding, sure that at any moment one of the many terrors that would dominate my thoughts was about to overtake me, I would imagine the drive up the driveway to my grandparents home. Their driveways was dirt, filled with many ruts and holes, half a mile long. After eight hours in a station wagon with my family, when my dad made the turn, my heart leaped. Even today I can describe the drive, the mailbox, the pond and the trees and the barns. That drive took me away from fear and brought me to a different place, filled with adventure and belonging.

I am confident that the need for comfort is the essence of the God given need for relationship. I believe God is aware of our need to feel that sense of security and safety and wants us to do so. I think we find comfort in habits and behaviors and even in relationships in ways that may have started from a genuine need and the best we could do at the time, and stayed to become subconscious responses that keep us from making wiser choices now. For example, a have a child who processes stress or boredom or even deep thought by twirling his hair. I would ask where on earth this habit comes from, but I have noticed that when I am stressed or agitated or trying hard to think of a solution to a problem, I am constantly rearranging my hair! I know where he got it, I just really didn't notice that I do it, until I noticed that he did.

I am confident that God is not in the heavenly realms grieving over my hair therapy, or my son's either for that matter. Unfortunately, this isn't the only behavior I have developed over the years to cope. Some of them are more destructive to me personally, and interfere with my relationship with God. I am reminded of the story of Jacob leaving Laban's home and Rachel's removal of her father's household gods. She must have known the God of Israel, but she depended on the comfort she had from those life long sources. It seems like a silly story until I reflect on the damage some of my own household gods have done.

I still enjoy the paper in the sunshine, I still prefer to read all curled up away from others and I still sometimes lay in bed in the still quiet hours and the darkness and remember my grandparents driveway. I guess I will go on messing with my hair from time to time, but I am praying that God will gently pry the household gods from my hands and remind me that He is my comfort and strength, a very present help and trouble and more than enough.

Dust in the wind

Whew. Boys and Girls, my life has been a whirlwind of activity but very little creativity. This is not so good. In fact, I believe it is negatively impacting my brains ability to keep track of one billion miscellaneous bits of trivial information, as I once did so well. I find myself sitting still when someone says to me, "I will see you later" thinking where is it I am going that they expect to see me. I have had mornings when in a cold panic I have searched my calendar, you know that tiny print on your cell phone, and wondered if the nagging thought at the back of my mind is correct and I am supposed to be somewhere. I can't imagine myself in a position where my presence is of importance to anyone but I am aware that when some of have been denied it, they get a little squirrelly. Some even a might testy. I have had to look into the witness protection program a time or two.

You know, we have had an ice storm. I don't want to hear all of the places in the world where an ice storm has occurred because I know there are many. I don't want to hear how others have gone without power for six weeks when I was only out two week. In fact, I don't to be reasonable or rational about this at all. In fact, I think I can now safely report that I have failed disaster response 101. I am praying I do not have to repeat the course. You know how God does that at times, allows you a "do over" to get it right. I don't want to get it right. I don't want to play 'find the matches in the dark', 'how many lamps can the generator light' or 'cooking pizza on the grill' any more.

So, I was crabby over the power thing, then we got into disaster relief. Yes, there was a disaster to relieve actually. I have never in all of my life seen as many trees down for as long a distance as we have had. Trees opened like blooming onions, limbs hanging, root balls fully exposed. It really does look like a war zone, but I am tired of that example. So we set about getting that fixed up. This means volunteers, tractors, chain saws, trailers, four wheelers, food, front running, evaluation and some kind of sense of direction. Guess how many of these skill sets I have? Even the food one is marginal.

Now I am even more irritable and I am supposed to be doing ministry. Just for your information and for purposes of clarity, this is where my definition of ministry comes in handy. I think ministry is loving God's sheep, whether they deserve it or not because God has loved me in abundance. Even when I am crabby. Especially then, I should think. I have been trying hard, I truly have, only I suspect I have failed mightily. So why is this true, I wonder.

I don't know for sure mind you, but I think it has a lot to do with the lack of play time in my life. I have worked hard, and I like to work hard, but without a little nonsense, fun with creativity, play time with buddies, I think I am losing my passion. In fact, I think I have taken my heart right out of the picture and been using solely my head and some of my muscles. I am trying to do things well, when I am not sure what I am doing and the only affirmation I can count on is that there will be more to practice on tomorrow. I am trying, through the sheer force of my personality and determination, to make what I do not know how to do be done well. I think it's getting done but it's really leaving some scorched earth in it's wake. I am quite confident that my Eternal Father, who loves me so much that He is content to let me get all spun up in a whirling dervish, or whatever that whirling thing might be, until I am angry and empty and devoid of feeling and say to me, "Come here, child. We have talked about this! You are supposed to take time to watch the water, dance to something peppy, write something ridiculous. Why do you trust Me so little?" I dunno. I am so silly at times.

I am reminded today that we truly are only dust in the wind. The Creator of the Universe can handle things if I were to take an hour or day or even a whole week off. And while I believe we are expected to use our gifts to serve, the Sabbath rest was given to restore our souls.

I am going to play some this week. I am going to find joy in the sunshine, I am going to watch the water a little and I am going to write something goofy. Oh wait, I just did. Check.

Milestones

We have company at church. A youth group has arrived to help us clean up some of the mess left by the ice storm. They are a good group, their leadership is organized and easy to work with. They are working hard and really require very little care. Food three times a day, a place to shower, a place to sleep. Not very demanding.

They happened to arrive in my birth week. This time of the year always makes me so reflective about life in general, my life in particular. Not really so much about what it has been about, or even what I have accomplished, but how I see it each year when the anniversay of my birth arrives. I would be much more about accomplishments but once I am done with them, I am truly done. I dont think I could point to many accomplishments outside of my children because most I don't remember, and my children never let me forget.

Our guests are a timely reminder to me that my life has changed significantly since the days when I was a member of a youth group. I was a deeply dissatisfied youth, always digging for the bottom line, always doubtful, always skeptical yet never abandoning the search for something more. I had many friends and I was involved in lots of activities including my church, but I was so hungry for more. More of everything, more love, more time, more stuff, more talent. Like the Greedy in Raggedy Ann, I could never get enough. There is a very pretty young lady with the group who seems, based on the very surface and superficial interaction I have had with her, to be the exact opposite. She seems to be fairly content. Content to work, to content to play, content to talk, content to be quiet. Her younger brother seems to be very much the same. It is no longer a grief to me that I did not have this experience, and every year that I look back I am more filled with gratitude that God is satisfying my soul in new ways all the time. Instead I wonder, where will these two go, when they start so much farther along the journey than I did.

I think I have changed very little on the inside. I am still the same little girl who used to make deals all the time with her siblings to get what she wanted. I am still the "it could never happen to me" teenager who thought I was invincible and nothing major could ever go wrong. I am still the new mother who marveled at the wonder of birth and was stunned that the world didn't stop the day I had a son. I am still the hustling bustling twenty something who cannot understand why everyone who wants something has to get in line in front of me.

The change in me is more about vision. It's more about a shift in the center. I am not far from center, let me be quick to confess. But I am not dead center as I once was. I have begun enoying life a little more because I require from it a little less. My job is just my job, not who I am. My friends are my friends but not my self worth. My children, God bless them, are their own people, not a refection of my hopes and dreams. I see life I hope a little more how God sees life, it is what it is, but not all there is.

I am glad for our visiting clean up crew. They helped me this year celebrate the touch of God in my life, a definte mark that evidences the fruit of the Spirit, alive in me. Thanks be to God.

Lessons from the Dark

My Steelers had just won the AFC and were heading to the Superbowl. My mother was wrapping up her visit to Kentucky. I had a great time painting pottery at Girls Night Out and I was standing in my kitchen with a cookie in one hand and a glass of milk in another when the power went out. I mean, blink and it was gone. I stood still for a long time. I mean a long time. I mean I didn't even eat the cookie.

I do not like the dark. I have never liked the dark and I have never overcome the panic I feel when I am left in the darkness. I fill it with every monster I can recall from childhood. I kept waiting for my eyes to adjust and in the meantime tried not to move so the monsters couldn't find me. After a lifetime, finally enough moonlight filled the room so I could find my way down the hall way to my room where I could wake up someone and have them be scared with me.

Nearly two weeks later, Superbowl Trophy in hand, I am finally out of the dark. I have had moments of light of course, but for the most part it has been dark and it has been chaotic. Schedules have been non existent, work has been off the charts and though I have run fast and hard, I have stayed behind. I have stayed weary and I have dreamt the most vivid things. In fact, I have been typical of many who endure a disaster. I just hate being typical. I had complained for several days about the room spinning and the floor feeling like it was moving under my feet. I cannot tell you how irritated I was to discover this too is a typical response to stress. More typical. How very humbling.

The world has changed. The trees are sad, they are broken and twisted. Many of them are dead, there has been much too much damage to save them. Many more look naked and deformed with tops missing, limbs gone. There are utility people everywhere. There are new poles going in all over the places, wires that for weeks have been resting on the ground are being reconnected or replaces. The sound of generators has been replaced with the sound of chainsaws. Yards filled with fallen trees are being cleared and the debris is lining the roadsides. We aren't recovered, but we are recovering and there is a sense of survival when people talk these days. We will be limping for sometime to come. There is much yet to glean from such moments in life, but for now here are a few things I have learned:

Such times truly to bring out the best in people, and also the worst. I have seen grown men cry as they shared opportunities to help others and I have seen people who were so self absorbed that I wanted to scream. I wanted to slap them silly but one is not allowed to confess such things. Why some people radiate good stuff and others do not is more than I can answer. I just know it is true.

Our minds are incredible filters that help us to process enormous amounts of stress and frustrations, fears and failings. God has wired us with His thumbprint and it evidences itself in so many ways. We dream away stuff we cannot deal with in our waking hours and we find wholeness in rest. That's amazing.

God wastes nothing. In the midst of devastation, He uses clean up crews to awaken the interest of people who have left the church years ago. Even in injury, God brings healing. This is grace. How good is that?! Even in death, I saw the gift of new life in a family who lost a mother but found that their needs would be supplied.

Even in hopelessness, a small ray remains. God nurtures the seeds of hope inside of us, so even when we feel that no hope remains, somehow we find that is has. Even in complete darkness, if you stand still long enough some tiny bit of light will find it's way in. I know this for a fact. And if you will wait for it, trusting in the darkness you will find light, you can eat the cookie. It's all about light, and a little about cookies.

Have I mentioned I am a Steelers fan?

I am beyond a Steeler fan, in fact. Like all true Steeler football fans, we are not just enthusiastic about our team, we are truly fanatical. We know when the draft is and we know who we are anticipating adding to the team. We know when training camp is, where it is and what days we can go and get pictures. Steeler fans will travel almost any distance to see a Steeler game, often showing up in Atlanta and Cincinnati and Tenessee and every where else the Steelers visit on the road, dressed in black and gold, carrying their Terrible Towels and fuzzy team logo blankets and settle in for a game as if they were in their own back yard.

I once visited Cincinnati to see a Steeler game and while our tickets were in the nosebleed section and surely should have been for Cincy fans, we were hardly the only black and gold fans in the stadium. At one point when the team was driving the ball down the field the crowd seemed to be singing in one voice that echoed around the stadium "here we go Steelers, here we go". We had with us a friend who is really more a Philadelphia fan that a Steeler Fan. He spent most of the game wondering if we would get beaten for wearing all that black and gold. Strangely enough no one messes with Steelers fans very often, unless of course it is another Steeler fan. I think it's something about the way large groups of them keep appearing, but it could be the zeal they project in competition.

They have had a fairly decent season, certainly some highs and lows but currently it is all glorious. Today they became the AFC champions and will go on to the Superbowl. This is such good news that I am certainly doing the happy dance and feeling so proud of my hometown. I had to leave the game about half time to go to a worship service for a Chrysalis weekend. I truly felt torn about where to be, at home cheering on my team, at church supporting our teens. So I compromised and I went to worship but I brought my cell phone and my wonderful family sent me text messages and kept me informed about what was happening.

I understand this is definitely cheating. I was not fully engaged in worship, I was very much distracted and my prayers were extremely focused on discussing my desire that the kids were having an amazing weekend as well as my team scoring a lot and winning the game. As we entered communion time I began to feel somewhat convicted and tried to focus on the service only my phone buzzed and I just really wanted to know what it said. It was probably several minutes after the game was over and we had won before I felt I could legitimately look and not feel guilt for being unfocused.

It has nothing to do with first loves. I am confident of this. I love God first and foremost and football is not in competition with God for time and priority in my life. I make it through the off season without too much withdrawal. I will admit to reading the hometown paper on line and follow what is happening with the team but not every day. I have missed some games because of other events and I have stopped going into mourning until Wednesday the weeks we don't win. I only wear black and gold during the games though I do drink out of my Steeler coffee mug year round. I am trying to manage the mania.

Tonight I might have failed. I wore my black and gold to worship, I confessed my sins of distraction during communion but I also interceded for my team. I did not check my phone during the prayer for the kids and the leadership but the minute we said amen I was on it. When we had won it was very hard not to interrupt worship to give thanks publicly. I would like a little credit. I was present after all. I greeted all of the kids with a hug and told them I was praying for them at the right moment. Perhaps not single minded focus, but partial credit for faithfulness.

Is God a Steeler fan? How could He not be?! I suspect God is a fan of all of His children and perhaps wishes we would take some of that passion and apply it to our relationship with Him. Where one day we might spontaneous erupt with 'here we go Jesus here we go'. I think God would be honored if one day at a Steeler game, I missed a play or two because I was checking my cellphone to see if worship touched someones heart and they came forward to make a public confession of faith. A real touch down with eternal implications.

I am not giving up my Steelers, and I am not going to feel less passionate about the game, but I do want to take some of that passion and carry it over to my walk with God. I want to truly yearn for time with Him, to be excited about His kingdom that never has an off season. God always wins that Superbowl, and if we just choose to play for the home team, so do we.

Not to say that I am biased but, it will be real nice if that same kind of victory could spill over in two weeks for my Steelers!

The Growing Rumble

I have for sometime, as long as I can remember, had this feeling of dissatisfaction over the state of the union within the Mainline Church. I have felt a sense of outrage at the clergy on the whole and the mess the churches seemed to be in. I have met other devout believers who's solution was to leave the Mainline Church and to become part of the non-denominational churches, because they had a higher standard and encouraged others to adopt a higher standard for themselves. Sure they saw these churches as having the potential to be legalistic or personality driven. They knew there were things they had to be careful about, and were. But they found in the Mainline Church a blandness of keeping the status quo with no standards that might be divisive and confrontational so that they found it was better to take the risks and go someplace that fed them, rather than stay where they had always been and starved to death. For a long time, I agreed with them.

When I ended up in a Mainline Church after a move to Kentucky, I was both frustrated for myself and embarrassed to tell my friends where I was in church. I tried not to be in a Mainline Church, trust me. I hauled my family to every church in Western Kentucky when after months of trying ever flavor and variation we could find, my son chose our church because they had a boy scout troop and he wanted to be a boy scout. I stayed in the church though I found the worship flat and the spirituality shallow. I kept wondering why on earth I was in this church. I prayed with intensity that God would change the Church and make it a light on a hill and a witness to the community or He would move me. There were moments when I bailed on the light on a hill and just pleaded to be moved.

I fell in love with the people there. They are darling wonderful people and in them I often saw my Father's eyes, heard His voice and felt His presence. It was enough mostly to sustain me, though often I was angry that there wasn't more. There were several moments that confirmed every judgement I had every made about church leadership and I was finding all of my nourishment came from Sunday School and folks outside the church. Thank God for CFO and the Emmaus community, I might never have found deeper waters.

Several years ago, I accepted a call to ministry and went to work at my Mainline Church. I struggled with these like a tiger, confronting my own frustrations with the church and the responsibility to support it. I found myself distancing myself ever further from it's leadership and judging it with even more severity. I was lost and wondering if I had heard right or had jumped into the fire from the frying pan. I wanted to be a part of the process that God uses to call His people further in, higher up. I wanted the church to be a part of the process too. I wanted the church to be the church but I kept running into people who preferred to play church.

My first trip to the Annual Conference was enough to send me home to pack my clothes and move as far away as I could. It was a miserable experience, I was sure God had never been invited to an Annual Conference. I know God is everywhere and I know that nothing can ever seperate us from the love of God and for this I am very thankful. Conference is the closest I wantto get to testing this.

Gradually, in the Mainline Church, I began to find others like me. First it was one voice here and there, then there were more and now, the voices are beginning to be loud enough to be a hum of change. I used to be so shocked when I heard another voice talking about discipleship, hungering for more, moving from the scriptural to the spiritual, sacraficial, sacramental. I would stop in my tracks, and in my excitement, wish like Peter to build a shelter and stay forever. I am still so happy when I find someone who's hearts cry is for more of God but I am less shocked. I am sure God is calling up many and how exciting to be allowed to see such a wonderful time of renewal and remembering.

There are more and more within the Mainline Church. Many more that God is calling home again. There is a pride in the heritage given us by the faithful who have gone before us, and a realization that we do stand on the foundation they made strong. There is a hunger to both know more of God and share more of God with others. There is a great deal of interest and concern over how we share our faith with others and invite them in than I have heard for a long time. We are discussing worship and education and resources with an eye for excellence. Those who are being successful are sharing their best practices and many are taking advantage of the opportunity to learn.

We are far from on the home stretch. Some days I could just cry over those who want to keep the status quo, even though it is the path to certain death. I had someone tell me today why it was they couldn't do work that could mean turning their church around. They are busy and they have grandchildren. Gosh. I guess I didn't have an answer for that.

Still, if you stop and listen you will hear it. It's not quite a force yet, but it is growing in momentum and by the grace of God, I believe it is going to become a climate change. One day very soon, it is my prayer that those in the non- denominational churches will feel less seperates us than currently. I pray that our discipleship process is second to none and what people see when they look at Mainline Churches are transformed lives; A light on a hill, the hands and feet of Christ to the world around us.

I am not quite to proud yet of my Mainline Church, but I am closer every day. I have great hope for what God will do. I hope He will let me be one of the noise makers, no matter how small. I want my grandchildren and their children to stand on the solid foundation this generation will secure for them. The sound of God's people crying out for God's face.

Second Verse, same as the first

Anyone remember a song about Henry VIII that had that line, "Second verse, same as the first"? I don't remember who sang it, though I know with google as a ready resource there is no excuse for not knowing. It's that today I am lazy and I do not want to take the time to look it up. Not only that but I am using a borrowed computer and none of the things work like my things. I do not know why this should be the case. I would think if I like it to be a certain way, everyone should feel similarly inclined. What would the point be otherwise. I mean, lets get real here. I do stuff that makes sense. Always.... Mostly. I intend to do that anyway.


Back on topic, here we are in January and I am working hard to stick to my plans for 2009. I am trying to do my Bible study every day. I am going to the gym at least three times a week, and I am trying hard to eat more sensibly. I am looking at time management and trying to make sure I am taking care of all my people. Only daggone it, something goes wrong from time to time. I don't know what the something is. I don't plan for it to go wrong, if you know what I mean. I have often failed because I made my schedule so doggone rigid that one deviation and the whole thing sunk. So I was intentional about making sure that didn't happen. I looked at my calendar and didn't do several things I would have enjoyed doing because....they didn't fit in and I was trying not to overload my time. I have been thinking a little before I put things into my mouth and I allowed a wonderful butter cream frosting laden piece of cake to be tossed after only a bite or two. Wait! Is that the sound of a bell ringing somewhere? Surely I have earned my wings by now! Is it okay to quit now?


I will admit I am the worst person at tolerating people who think intention is all that matters. That thinking good things, and even going good places should be enough. There is no accomplishment and I find this infuriating not only because there is no change but also, because they are so smug and satisfied because they talked about, because they agreed it was a good idea. Because they read the book, attended the seminar, because they got their card punched. I am scathing in my criticism of such behavior and I constantly demanding they step up, work hard, by gosh accomplish something.


Then these resolutions come around and the truth is revealed. I am carping at my own image in the mirror. I am when it comes to personal commitment to follow through just as intention based verses of accomplishment based as anyone. I am pleased as punch to have made the effort and feel it is okay not to want to ride it out in the day to day, one foot in front of the other, living it out. I tried is enough. The second verse, the same as the first.I am committing to changing the song. I am determined that by the grace of God this year, I will sing a different kind of verse, one about daggone it I have screwed up but I am starting again. One about not finished but moving forward, not home, but heading in that direction. I know, of course, I cannot will myself to stick it out, try harder, get it right. I promise you, I am driven enough that if that is all it took, we would be finished.  I know God meets us in perseverance and faithful surrender to His will. He wants to write a new second verse for all of us. One about His mercy new every morning and one about His grace being sufficient and His redeeming nature making those places once broken, whole. Want to read a second verse? Check out the Bible; the Psalms are full of them, as are the Old Testament, the Gospels, the letters. It wasn't about getting in and stopping, filled with great intentions and low expectations. It is about getting in, dreaming big and, in partnership with the Holy Spirit, learning to sing a new song.


I am ready for a new verse, the old one has lost it's charm and it's familiarity no longer is enough comfort. I am ready for more, God is waiting to teach me more. I hope this verse rocks! I think I can already hear the drum line.

Putting the fun in dysfunctional

My trip to the hometown reminds me of the realities of family too. I can't remember who first said my family put the fun in dysfunctional, but it is a great line. I am pretty sure most families can relate in some way. I mean, look at the Brady Bunch. Sure it was a great house, but the kids all needed psychiatric intervention.

I have had some time to consider all the dysfunctions I might identify within my own family. We have a tremendous tendency to retreat rather than state our anger or annoyance. I don't mean temporarily, this is most likely a very wise thing to do. No, I mean, we tend to take our stuff and go home. For a long time. We hardly ever had a fight though. Someone does something we find annoying and we disappear for years at a time. Often leaving the person who has offended us perplexed as to what caused the annoyance. The continued absence is I think our way of making sure someone knows there has been an offense but we do not claim that at all. We just say to ourselves, I am not putting up with that and poof, we are gone. I thought this was unique to my family but I think it is more of a cultural trait either from our heritage or our region, because many of my friends and extended family do the same thing. No declared warfare, just withdrawal. I guess it is a product of avoid confrontation at all costs, but it is really hard to resolve.

Which leads me to dysfunction two, the land where there is no resolution. I had a frank discussion with my brother a couple of years ago when he told me how it was on a Thanksgiving day some where in time memorial, he and another brother got into a fight and I sided with the other brother. I am sure this was a painful memory for him, I just have absolutely no recollection of this. None whatsoever. I said as much which was even more annoying. I suppose if I had been carrying around this painful moment and discovered that the party who made me so mad had no recollection, I would be incensed too. I hope I would also stop and wonder if the problem wasn't me carrying it around...maybe. But this would be certainly running counter culture. I am stunned to hear, no matter where I go, a catalogue of offenses the the party in the first part is recanting about a party in the second part we both know. I am not talking last week, or even last month or perhaps last year. I am talking about high school, or elementary school. Gosh, I have a hard time remembering anything from elementary school except Ms. McGhehee who made me put my desk in the closet and old Lady White who I am sure is still terrorizing children somewhere. I also remember pretty well, I was a wild child and all of them had their hands full with me and my, "I tell ya what" attitude. Yes and Scott Clark kicked me in the nose with his cowboy boots once. I am not still mad though because I whooped him on any number of occasions to even the score.

My mom, bless her sweet heart, crosses back and forth between being an instigator and a peacemaker. It's a full time job, I tell you. I suppose she has had years of practice and had to adjust from being a country girl who was taught that family was everything and you worked out your irritations or let them go, to a city girl who had to deal with folks who thought their annoyance was everything and took their ball and went home all the time. I think I might have gone home myself. Only I was the bridge, I stayed and beat up everyone who annoyed me. Goodness, why didn't they make me a role model?

Dysfunction is reality, I think. Learning to live with it with grace is divine intervention. I hope we remember that, look for that and give thanks for that.