The Beauty of Ordinary

Good Thursday, Y’all! Can I ask you a question? Yes, I realize I just did ask a question but I have a deeper query for you: in the course of our Lenten journey, in what ways have you been particularly aware of God with you?

For most of us who regularly exercise our spirituality in prayer, scripture, study, and worship, we know there are moments when our awareness of God’s presence with us is so very palpable. We can feel, touch, taste, and hear God’s goodness.

And, I would venture to state that most of us have experienced the reality of God when in the scary and dark moments, as hate and violence seem to be the prevailing force, we are strengthened in the hope of the promise of redemption and can hear God say, “do not be afraid.”

What about when you are washing dishes or doing laundry or vacuuming the floor? What about when you are preparing a meal or standing at the counter with a quick breakfast? Or driving to the office, or logging into your computer to work remotely, or dropping the kids off at school, or grocery shopping, or any of the ordinary daily tasks of your day and week?

Do you ever consider these to be spiritual practices? Have you ever had the awareness of God in the midst of some ordinary task take you by surprise?

The good life God has created us for is to live in the awareness of God, not just in the extraordinary moments but in the ordinary moments of every day. Our daily tasks and routines are just as sacred and holy as what we do in worship and prayer. Indeed, our time in worship and prayer and study is preparatory time for the ordinary where we live into our purpose of bringing out the God-flavors and God-colors in the world.

Exercise your awareness of God in washing the dishes. Let God’s presence illuminate the beauty of your ordinary.

A Kingdom View

My original posts planned for this week were to continue with the idea of purpose as we talk about the spirituality of ordinary tasks and we’ll do that but I’m going to adjust our focus a bit because the horrific extraordinary events of this past week (and so many other violent events this past year) DO reshape us and affect our ordinary. And we need to pay attention to how we allow them reshape us.

We could come to a point where they just become another sensational story on the news.
We could enlarge our blinders and say “never where I live” as we maintain what we think is ordinary.
We could let our fear cause us to distrust our fellow human beings.
We could seek retaliation instead of justice and revenge instead of social responsibility and accountability.
We could let these horrific events shape our worldview.

OR

We can allow Jesus to shape our view of the world into a kingdomview of compassion, love, grace, and forgiveness.

We begin in the place of lament: sitting with the pain and grief that acknowledges that the world is broken and hurting. People, God’s beloved children, are in pain and are suffering. And we face this not with some pie-in-the-sky, toxic positivity of “don’t cry, everything will be alright” but allowing God’s promise of redemption to strengthen us in our sorrow.

As we talk about and pray about and think about the situations, we can choose to keep it human. Instead of talking about generic victims and shooters or any other labels, we choose to know their names:

Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Denny Stong, Neven Stanisic, Rikki Olds, Tralona Bartkowiak, Eric Talley, Teri Leiker, Suzanne Fountain, Kevin Mahoney, Lynn Murray, and Jody Waters.

We speak their names in prayer knowing they are God’s beloved children and because praying changes and shapes us. We make it personal because these are persons, our fellow human beings, and the good life we are created for is to be humans as image bearers of God of our creator.

And yes, we must also pray for Robert Aaron Long and Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa because they, too, are loved by God their Creator.

How we pray today shapes us for tomorrow and all of the ordinary and extraordinary events of our lives. Amen.

Taste the Goodness

My heart is heavy with the weight of the hate and darkness that plays out in this world. The shootings in Atlanta and in Boulder bring me back to the reason I started writing publicly about compassion. In the sadness and anger and frustration it is easy to throw up our hands and scream “not again! Why! What’s the point?” It is easier to shut it all out and turn away.

Stronger than my shouting is Jesus’ voice saying, “do not be afraid. I am with you.”
Stronger than my desire to ignore what has happened is the purpose in which I am created as God’s beloved, the purpose in which WE ARE ALL created as God’s beloved.

And so I cry, grieving over the loss of precious life.
I cry for the people, human beings – mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and friends – God’s beloved who have died at the hands of others.
I cry for the families of these people who have so much loss to bear.
I cry for the individuals who carried out these crimes in their brokenness.
I cry for the brokenness of this world that teaches and enables the idea that taking a life is the solution to any problem.

And I pray.
I pray that I may be God’s light of Love to each person I encounter this day.
I pray that others may taste the goodness of God through my actions and behaviors and habits.
I pray that the words I write will teach and enable us to be more compassionate, to see as Jesus sees, to love as God loves.
I pray that you know you are God’s beloved, that you are precious, that you matter.

And so, for today on our Lenten Journey, crying and praying are enough.
In our lament, we learn compassion.
In our lament we feel God’s tender strength holding our pain and our tears.
In our lament we are equipped to love.

Being Human and Human Being

Howdy, Y’all. How are you on this Monday morning? How’s your coffee?

As I was sitting down at my desk this morning, a flock of little birds were quite busy outside my window, flying between the trees and the bushes, looking I assume for whatever they were having for breakfast. I delighted in their work and I watched them for quite a while, grateful for the signs of life in creation in my front yard. Even though I had my own tasks to get to, I delighted in their being and found that my approach to my own work was more joyful.

I keep this quote at my desk:
“Seeking to live a good life is very different from seeking satisfaction for my felt needs and cravings. It’s not about ‘me’ as a particular individual; it’s about being human, which is a very different idea.” 1

We are a purpose driven2 people. As human beings, we are created by God with purpose. Where we go sideways is by defining ‘purpose’ in a way that is different from God’s way. One of the writers of the good news story, Matthew, gives us these words of Jesus:

Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. … You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill…. Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

a portion of Matthew 6:13-16, The Message

Our purpose is about who we are. We are God’s people, beloved by The One who created us in community for community. This is the good life, the life God created and called Very Good.

For so many, this gets lost in the busyness of proving our purpose with what we do. We have forgotten that we call ourselves human beings, not human doings. And yes, I do say often that ours is a faith of movement but I don’t mean to imply that “getting things done” is the goal. The journey, life following Jesus in the light of God’s love and shining the light of God’s love is our purpose. In fulfilling this purpose we also manage to feed some hungry folks physically and spiritually, heal some wounded souls with kindness, welcome the marginalized and strangers in love. These actions are the fruit of our purpose of being humans who follow Jesus.

The birds outside my window this morning bore fruit they were completely unaware of: they brought me joy. As we follow Jesus, living in our purpose of being salt and light, living the good life we are created for, we will bear fruit we are unaware of. And, yet, we are making things on earth as they are in heaven.

1 The quote is from Dr. David Yeago. It came to me through my Systematic Theology class at Wycliffe College taught by Dr. Joseph Mangina. The textbook we used was a then unpublished book of Systematic Theology being written by Dr. Yeago. I do not know if the book was ever published but I have many, many gems from the draft we were given and it was quite formative for me.

2 Yes, I know there is a popular book published with a similar title but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

Unruly Wills and Affections

For the Fifth Sunday in Lent: http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent5_RCL.html

The gospel writer John begins the story of Jesus public ministry at a wedding in which the hosts have run out of wine and Jesus’ mother asks him to fix the problem. Jesus tells her that his time hasn’t come, to not rush things. And, yet, she persists and Jesus turns water to the best wine anyone had ever tasted, the first glimpse of the glory to come.

In the bit we read this morning, we are toward the end of Jesus’ public ministry. Jesus and his disciples have gathered in Jerusalem in the days before the Passover Feast. Some folks came to Philip and said they want to see Jesus. We aren’t told why they want to see him, perhaps one of them or a loved one is ill and they want to ask for healing; perhaps they’ve heard of the signs Jesus has performed and want to see for themselves; perhaps they have heard him teach and they want the life he’s spoken of. Whatever the reason, Philip first finds another disciple, Andrew, and together they go and tell Jesus these folks are looking for him.

And Jesus tells them, “It’s time.” The time has come to show the world the meaning of the signs, the purpose for all that come before: so that everyone, E V E R Y O N E, would gather around him for God’s glory.

Jesus tells them a parable of a seed that is buried and dies so that it can make more of the fruit it was created to make. He doesn’t address the request to see him directly but says that anyone, everyone who follows him will be with him. We won’t need a ‘go-between’ or a third party introduction as these folks had asked Philip to be. Everyone who follows Jesus has direct access. Or, as my husband says, “God has no grandchildren.”

To live this life in direct relationship with God, to live as we are created to live, Jesus says, we have to let go of the life we’ve constructed for ourselves with our “unruly wills and affections.” Following, Jesus explains, is serving God and others just as he modeled in all that he did – turning water to wine to prevent the host family facing the shame of not having enough, healing and restoring people to full community life, feeding the hungry crowds with a single sack lunch, calming storms, and giving life. And dying.

Jesus’ pending death, he’s saying, isn’t death as we understand it. If you continue to read the remainder of this section of John’s telling of the Gospel story, the crowd who has just heard Jesus’ explanation of what is to come continues to argue with him: “we’ve heard that the messiah is to live forever so, if you are the messiah, how can you be talking about death?”

Unruly wills and affections.

They didn’t, couldn’t grasp what Jesus was telling them, what he’d shown them, what the voice from heaven had spoken, because they didn’t want to let go of what they’d already heard and chosen to believe as told to them and accept what they were witnessing directly themselves. Having a go-between takes away direct responsibility for our behaviors, giving us someone or something else to blame for our choice to not see and hear Jesus.

The explanation of the seed was lost on them. It’s often lost on us. We see only death, not a way to new and restored life. We want fixes to the life we have. Jesus tells us of a whole new life that is for ever. We can’t see beyond ourselves and miss the joy of the good news Jesus is telling us.

We are, each and everyone of us, given the invitation to follow Jesus in the light of God’s love. We are, each and every one of us, God’s beloved children. The time has come for us to walk in love and Jesus loves us and gave himself for us. Amen.

The Journey of Belonging

Jesus not only tells us he is the light of the world and that as we follow him we walk in God’s light, he tells us that we are also to be light to this world. The point and purpose of following Jesus is, two fold: we live in God’s light AND we are to shine the divine light of Love so that others can see the Way, too! The means is the goal.

As we make our way closer and closer to Jerusalem and Holy Week, following Jesus to the cross and tomb and beyond, I’m finding it difficult to remain in this Lenten journey and not just skip to the end. How about you? Are you finding it challenging to remain in the journey?

In the movie The Princess Bride, Prince Humperdinck is marrying Buttercup as part of his plot to start a war and gain more power for himself. He doesn’t want to waste time on listening to the priest blather on about true love and ‘mawidge’ because love isn’t his goal, it’s the means to his attempted evil end so he interrupts the priest insisting he skip to the end. (And for those who don’t know the movie (WHAT?!) Humperdink’s plot is thwarted and love wins. The End.)

And so, as we resist the temptation to skip to the end, we encounter the questions: Why do we want to skip to the end and what would we gain by doing so? (Please don’t think I’m accusing you of some secret evil plot, it’s just a funny illustration to assist us all in looking at our motivations because sometimes humor eases the challenge of the tough questions.)

Let’s do a bit of remembering. (Re)read this post on why we do Lent and remember we are only fully, truly, really human with God and each other and that in this season of Lent we are choosing to make more room for the awareness of God’s presence in our lives. Are you finding yourself more aware of God?

Our Lenten journey is to shape us into kingdom people who continuously seek to make more room for the awareness of God’s presence.

The purpose is the journey. The purpose is being.

The purpose is the continuous discovery of belonging in God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, journeying with Jesus in this season and every day, shining the light of God’s love.

Today and tomorrow, I pray that we all clear space for sabbath rest – abiding in God’s presence in the peace and confidence of our belonging. We have plenty of time this next week to talk more about purpose. Be in peace, my journeying friends.

We Belong; We’re Beloved

With Jesus we belong.

I recently came across this quote on social media.

This quote has been attributed to several authors and speakers.

In seeking who said it or where the quote came from I found this article and now have a new favorite website which I’m sure will be a great distraction from what I really should be doing. How did I not know this site before?! Anyhoo … let me refill my coffee and we’ll get back to our discussion on belonging and seeing…

I can remember conversations with my son when he was a teenager about the video games he wanted because all his friends were playing them and he needed them so he could participate. Some of us parents had stricter policies about violent games than others and I tried to say all the right cautionary parental things about exposing ourselves to too much violence … and it all seemed to fall on deaf ears because my son saw the situation differently than I did. He was seeing it from a teen’s perspective and a need to be accepted by his peer group. I was seeing it from a parent’s perspective with the knowledge that comes with having survived the adolescent years relatively unscathed and with an adult understanding of belonging.

My son wasn’t yet wise enough to realize that his vision toward the violence in the games was clouded by his need to belong. He could justify the activity because he was a part of something. This is normal developmental behavior for teens. But as we grow and mature, experience teaches us that the activities/actions/teachings of a group do matter and they matter more than our need to belong because we understand the formative nature of groups.

We are human. We see others and the world around us from our perspective, as we are. It takes intentional effort to learn to ask, “what am I choosing not to see?” so that we can better see things as they are. And as we try to teach our kids: it does matter who we choose to join up with.

Jesus tells us that he is the light and that when we follow him we will have the light of life1. We will have the vision to see as Jesus sees: through the lens of love and compassion and grace. With this light we will be better equipped to see things as they are because we are living as we are created to live, in the light of God’s Love.

1 See The Gospel according to John, chapter 8, specifically verse 12, but the whole chapter is illuminating.

With Jesus

Happy Thursday, Y’all! I’ve asked some heavy questions this week about belonging and I don’t want anyone to get the idea that I’m against joining or claiming membership with any group. I’m not. It’s important to belong and be a part of social groups for our wellbeing.

But … yep, there’s a but … we need to see the groups we identify with through the lens of God’s Kingdom. We need to be willing to ask ourselves the heavy questions to keep our eyes properly focused.

We need to be willing to let our vision be healed with the words of Jesus.

We need to be willing to let our attitude and behavior toward others be shaped by the actions of Jesus.

We need to be willing to let our hearts be transformed by the Love of Jesus.

And we need to hear Jesus say, “don’t be afraid” when we choose to be loyal to the Way of Jesus over and above any other group to which we belong. With Jesus, we are never alone. With Jesus, we always belong. With Jesus, we are loved.

In writing the good news story of Jesus, John gives us the words of Jesus as he prayed for all who choose to follow Jesus:

“I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I pray that they also will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. … I’ve made your name known to them and will continue to make it known so that your love for me will be in them, and I myself will be in them.” 1

With Jesus, we belong because of who we already are: beloved children of God. With Jesus, we know that God will always be faithful and ready to welcome us even if we’ve lost our way for a while. With Jesus, our belonging is everlasting because it is at our very core, the Image of God from which we are created, and nothing or no one can take this away from us.

With Jesus we belong.

1 The Gospel according to John, Chapter 17, verses 21 & 26

Belonging from Within

Were you able to ponder your own sense of belonging yesterday? If someone were to ask you to describe yourself, what group or groups would you link yourself with? Your hometown, your political party, your employer, your school, your church, your club or hobby group?

In what ways do these groups evoke a sense of belonging for you? Is it because you agree with their ideologies? Is it because you feel loved and accepted by them, you feel safe with them? Is it because they provide you with a sense of power or prestige? Is it because they empower you to be who you are and at the same time continue to grow mentally, emotionally, intellectually, and/or spiritually? Is it because they enable you to remain in your comfort zone letting others decide what you should think or believe?

Growing up, I found my sense of belonging in the church my family attended. As a child, I loved going to Sunday School and vacation Bible school and in my teens I let the youth group and leaders shape my world. The church denomination I grew up in is not the denomination through which I express and live out my faith today. It’s a long story which I won’t get into here but the elevator version is that as a young adult I felt a real dissonance between who I was at the core of my being and who this church allowed me to be. It was a crisis that took me years to work through because I was not taught to evaluate why I belonged, I was just told I needed to.

Mine isn’t an unusual or unique story. Most folks by the time they reach middle age have had at least one similar destruction of their sense of belonging.

Peter’s sense of belonging was shaken when Jesus talked about his own death.

When we discover our sense of belonging from the image of God within us, our whole identity isn’t shattered when we let go of our connection (either willingly or forced) to a particular group because we have set our vision on godly things instead of human things. We are God’s beloved children, God’s people, and that can never be destroyed. We have been given the everlasting gift of belonging through Jesus.

When have you lost the sense of belonging with a group? How were you able to recover from the situation?

Second Choice

As human beings we are created with a need to belong because we are created by the ultimate community of God, Three in One, inseparable yet distinct. This sense of belonging is critical to our wellbeing.

Way back when as I was in conversation with my bishop about where I’d go to seminary, I visited two different schools. After the prospective student weekend at one I kept thinking to myself, “I don’t think I belong here” and yet this was supposedly my top choice. It was closer to home. I’d still be with the people with whom I knew I was loved and accepted and challenged to be who God calls me to be. I tried really hard to ignore the feeling that this school wasn’t where I was to go.

As I stepped foot in my second choice school, (the school that was so very far away and I wouldn’t be able to come home but twice a year and depending on internships and chaplaincy training maybe not even then) I was overwhelmed by the emotion of being home. Even before I met other prospective students or the professors, it felt right. And the time I did spend there that weekend only strengthened this feeling.

Following the weekend as I was faced with the deadline for the decision of where to go, I sat in my room, comparing costs and making pro/con lists trying to justify the first choice. Finally, I wadded up my notes, tossed them across the room, and said (perhaps too loudly), “God give me a burning bush to tell me what to do.”

I laugh now when I tell that story because the answer is so very obvious. God had given me the answer. Perhaps not as dramatic as a burning bush but the answer none the less.

In the three years I spent in this wonderful place with people I grew to love dearly, I felt belonging that went so much deeper than school spirit. I learned that underneath our connections to others dependent on shared experiences such as schools, sports teams, hometowns, or even political parties or church denominations, we belong to each other because we belong to God.

It is from this level of belonging that our everlasting identity is formed. And when we learn to see this in ourselves, our vision shifts, we can see beyond ourselves to the “more” we truly belong to.

I invite you to think a bit today about where you look for a sense of belonging and why it is you find it where you do. We’ll talk more tomorrow.