In this season in which we find ourselves, as we are beginning to restructure how we do most everything in light of the pandemic and as we stand in long lines to vote (don’t let the long lines or the news or false rumors about voter fraud discourage you – VOTE! You do matter and your vote does count!) let’s remember this:

There is not one single person we will ever encounter that God does not love.

God created every human being in God’s image. Yes, even the person who just popped into your head that makes you so very angry. And George Floyd, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Breonna Taylor, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Amy Coney Barrett, and the people on that news channel you dislike so much. Yes, even that person you just tried to discredit on social media.

God created and loves:
Every person who has protested and marched against police brutality and the racial injustice systemic in our country.

Every person who denies there is systemic racial injustice in our country and every person who is asking the hard questions of themselves to uncover their hidden biases because they can no longer deny racism still exists.

Every person who has raged and looted and destroyed property during protests because their pain has led to anger beyond comprehension.

Every person who thinks pointing weapons at those they disagree with is the answer to our issues with violence.

Every person who has worked for unity and peace within their communities.

Every person who does or does not wear a mask in public.

Every person who is standing in the line to vote who is voting differently that we choose to vote.

These are difficult words to write/read/say and it is even more difficult to live them. We can’t place blame for the division in our country on whoever is in the Oval Office. We are, each and every one of us, responsible for our own behavior and if we want the world to be a more compassionate and loving place it is up to us with God’s help to live on earth as it is in heaven. Regardless of the model set for us by our country’s leadership, we are responsible for our own choices about how we treat each other.

To love as God loves means we don’t tolerate injustice or aggression (covert or overt) toward anyone. It also means we don’t react with condemnation but with personal accountability, asking ourselves “how does my response reflect the image of God in me?”

How does my response reflect the Image of God in me?

Something is going to happen on November 3, 2020. Someone will be elected President. And regardless of what we think of that person, God loves that person as God loves everyone. Our role in the political process is to cast our vote for the person we think is best for the greater good of our country and then (are you ready for this) to be the best Jesus Follower we can be in everything we think, say, and do, whoever is elected.

Jesus teaches us to respect the dignity of every (yep, even that person) human being, and commands us to love. This is one of the many ways we “give to the emperor the things that belong to the emperor and to God that which belong to God” (Matthew 22:21).

Vote and may the peace of God be with you always.

Originally posted on March 30, 2020

We’ve all been given this beautiful gift of disruption. It may not look beautiful on the outside. Our schedules had been completely undone. Our security seems to have left us. What we thought we had under control is in chaos. Life doesn’t feel beautiful or gift like or good at the moment. Disruption is supposed to be a bad thing, undoing the life we’ve so carefully crafted.

But what if we were to take this time to look at the life we’ve crafted for ourselves and our families, really look at it. What would we see? Do we see the life we really desire? Or do we see the life that we’ve been told we should want? Do we see a life grounded in peace and joy or a life of chasing that ever elusive thing we’ve labeled “happiness”?

Our lives have been disrupted by a virus we can’t see or control. We can, however, control what we do with this gift of disruption we’ve been given. Take the time, make the time, to open this gift. Sit with it. Pray over it. Ask God to show you the beauty of it.

Ask God to help you see the true foundation on which a life of peace and joy is built. We’ve all been given the opportunity for the greatest remodeling project of all, the remodeling of our lives framed by the Love of God and the sure and certain hope that comes from crafting a life based in God’s Kingdom.

Don’t discard a gift because you don’t like the wrapping. It is what’s on the inside that counts.

Originally posted on February 8, 2020

“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”
Matthew 7:1-5 NRSV

Have you ever noticed the last verse in the passage says, “then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye”? You will see clearly. Jesus isn’t giving us permission to lord our perceived perfection (because none of us are log or speck free) over someone else but telling us that when we address our own brokenness and imperfections we will see clearly that all of us are imperfect and need grace and understanding.

My “goodness” or righteousness doesn’t come from anyone else’s “badness”. My perfection doesn’t come from anyone else’s imperfection. My ability to be loving and kind can only come from within me and as a follower of a Jesus, I believe it truly comes from the power of God’s love for me and for all people. To be formed by God’s love requires me to see the image of God in myself and in all people.

When I can see the image of God in others, then I clearly see them. I clearly see that it isn’t my duty to remove their speck but, with God’s help, to take care of what in me is blocking my Christ-like vision for others. And then I can truly walk in love and understanding with those who are working on their own eyes. Seeing clearly to help them doesn’t mean I judge and condemn but that I treat them with compassion and love as together we walk with Jesus in the Way of Love.

May God fill your day with peace and joy and love, my friends.

Late last summer, after the shootings in El Paso and Dayton and Odessa, I began writing about growing our compassion. I firmly believe that if we work more diligently, with God’s help, at seeing other people and the situations in which we find ourselves as Jesus would see, the world will be better.

Compassion requires us to see and be present (even with proper physical distancing) to other people. Compassion requires us to seek to understand the other person’s circumstance. Compassion requires us to acknowledge the Image of God in every person.

Compassion isn’t about deciding whose “side” we are on. Compassion is seeing all “sides” through the eyes of Jesus so that there aren’t any more “sides” but instead we see human beings created in the Image of God.

This past Sunday was Trinity Sunday and I talked about how the Trinity is our ultimate model of community and unity. We are all created in the image of the Trinitarian God and are part of something so much bigger than ourselves. The upheaval sparked by the death of George Floyd is the result of years and decades and centuries of humans losing this theology. The “rugged individualism” that we preach in this country is the antithesis of the Trinity. Individualism creates a world of constant competition: “I have to fight for what’s mine. I have to be better than everyone else. I have to push others down to lift myself up. My life/possessions/ideas/beliefs are threatened by your very existence.”

Living into our trinitarian theology says we are all in this together seeking the greater good for every human being. Trinitarian theology says life is a companionable journey, not a competitive fight to the death. We each make the Body of Christ whole. We are most fully human when we live in community and unity as God created us to live. We are most like Jesus when we see the pain and hurt in other people and are moved to help alleviate it.

Deepening our compassion requires us to look at our own responses to the situations we find ourselves in and ask ourselves some tough questions: is my response self-serving or for the greater good, why do I respond that way, why do I think that way? When we catch ourselves defending the way things are, we need to ask ourselves why am I engaging in this debate, what am I afraid I’ll lose if things change? When we want to stay in the comfort of silence, we must remind ourselves that Jesus calls us to take a stand and speak the truth of God’s love.

I am trying to be fully aware that as I write I’m bringing along my own prejudices with having grown up in white privilege. The only way I can fix that is to look deep in myself and with God’s help pray for healing of my own brokenness. It’s going to be a tough journey but I know together we can do it. I want to do it, I don’t have a choice any more.

Stop taking sides and take a stand for the truth of God’s love. We best reveal God’s image in us by seeing it in others.

Originally posted on June 6, 2020

I’ve been struggling these past two days with what to say. I want my words to be compassionate but I’m angry. And I’m desperately heart-broken. So, I’m working at it.

I cannot comprehend how anyone could justify using teargas and force to clear a church yard of people who are behaving peacefully, including the volunteers and clergy who where providing comfort and relief to those who were legally protesting a horrific act … or should I say decades and centuries of horrific acts.

The people of the church that had been burned by the violence caused by not so peaceful protestors stood in solidarity with the message of the protesters and sought to serve them in a Christ-like way.

Read that last sentence again; let that sink in.

The bishop and clergy of this particular church chose to see the situation through the eyes of Jesus. And their efforts and message were tear gassed for a photo-op. There were no words of comfort and grace offered by the president, no message of love, dignity, or respect – the very theme of the book he held and the very message of the building he stood in front of.

I cannot comprehend how we’ve come to this.

I’m struggling to see all sides of this as Jesus would. My anger is still too big. But I’m trying. I want to speak but I know my words will not be effective if shouted among all the other yelling and fist shaking.

So I ask the following with as much kindness and compassion as possible:

If you think it’s ok for white people to stand on capital building steps with automatic weapons as a form of protest against the professional medical advice to stop a pandemic but not for people of color to get angry over the murder of a black man in broad daylight by a police officer, I ask you why?

If you immediately respond to “Black Lives Matter” with anger, or even just discomfort, and make statements like “all lives matter” I ask you why? Do you think that accepting the idea that black lives matter means you don’t?

If you lump both protestors and looters in the same bucket and condemn them all as “thugs” and think it’s ok for the leader of our country to promote the continued violence against these people with statements like “dominate and control” and “when the looting starts the shooting starts” I ask you why?

And if these questions make you angry at me and if you are considering posting a comment condemning me for asking them, I ask you why?

Bigotry and hatred are alive and thriving in our country. You can choose to pretend it isn’t if you want to but again I ask you why? Ignoring it is easy on the surface but it eventually leads to what has exploded in the past two weeks. Do we really want to live through this over and over again as a nation? Wouldn’t it be better course of action to work at being better human beings together as companions rather than competitors?

I promise you, with God, there’s enough equality and compassion and understanding for everyone. There’s enough love and grace for everyone. There’s enough dignity and respect for everyone.

I choose, with God’s help, to love not hate. I choose, with God’s help, to speak carefully, guided by compassion. I choose, with God’s help, to seek understanding. I choose, with God’s help, to strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being.

Will you choose to walk the Way of Love with me? If you choose not to I’ll still love you and treat you with dignity and respect but I will keep asking you why.

I came across this quote a few days ago and it really hit me hard. I know what it’s like to be a woman in a leadership position and have people tell me I’m being “bossy” (or worse) when the same characteristics in a man would not be questioned. Even in 21st century America, a lot of people really do expect women to be the weaker gender. It so deeply ingrained that we often don’t even notice the subtle (and for some not so subtle) ways we express this belief.

The flip side of this misguided idea that women are less capable than men is that we’ve taught our daughters that they have to “dial back” their leadership abilities so as not to appear “bossy” (or worse). Or if coins could have more than two sides (I need a better metaphor) we’ve taught our daughters that if they want to be in leadership they have to be aggressive and pushy and have to knock others out of our their way.

I’m not saying we intentionally teach these things but that we have passed on our own unexamined biases. We need to pay attention to our own words and reactions to uncover biases we aren’t even aware we have. We need to pay attention to when these biases are expressed in our societal and cultural norms and seek to change them by changing ourselves. We need to face these biases courageously so that we don’t continue to pass them on by our own behavior and words.

For example, people describe men who are priests as a priest and women who are priests as a woman or female priest, men who are scientists as a scientist and women who are scientists as a woman scientist, men who are soldiers as a soldier and women who are soldiers as a woman soldier. And yes, we do the same in reverse – we have nurses and male nurses, for instance. My point here is if we truly, really, deep down in the core of our being, believe that women and men are equal why do we need to in some cases specify gender when describing someone’s profession?

A sweet story I love to tell is the elderly lady who, on my second Sunday at a new parish, came up to me and said, “I can’t call you ‘Mother Nancy’ because you are younger than me.” I replied (in a gentle but firm tone), “you call Father Scott ‘Father Scott’ and he’s even younger than I am.” I watched a lightbulb appear over her head and the look of deep sadness spread across her face as she realized what she’d done. She hugged me and apologized and at fellowship I heard her tell everyone who would listen what had happened and they’d all better call me “Mother Nancy” or they’d have to answer to her.

What we need to teach our daughters and our sons, and what we all need to learn for ourselves regardless of our age, is to bravely be who God created each of us to be. We need to teach our daughters and sons and ourselves to love ourselves as we are because this is how God loves us. We need to teach our daughters and sons to love others compassionately so that whatever profession or role they are in, they are admired because they treat people, all people, with dignity and respect. The best way to teach others to be compassionate is to be compassionate with ourself and others and to walk confidently and boldly with Jesus in the Way of Love.

Originally posted on January 8, 2020

Part of our compassion journey is learning to treat ourselves with compassion and realizing that this doesn’t just mean treating ourselves to a spa day or a day huddled in a blanket fort with our coffee and dogs (which are both awesome ideas!). Sometimes the most compassionate things we can do for ourselves is to take control over the sources of anxiety in our life. As much as we’d like to, we cannot live in a bubble.

God calls us to shine the holy light and reveal the divine love to the world around us so we have to come out of our blanket forts and do what is ours to do with the boldness and confidence we find through Jesus.

I know a few folks who have left social media because it continually upsets them. Recently I’ve heard a few folks talk about how the political phone calls have started and it causes them great anxiety. Now, I’m not belittling or discounting these feelings – I know all too well from personal experience they are true. But I think instead of focusing on what we can’t control – such as what other people post or who dials our phone number – that we need to take control of these tools and use them for our own benefit. After all isn’t that why we have them in the first place?

So, where are some suggestions.
1. Get a call blocker app. They don’t stop all unwanted calls, but they help.
When your phone rings and you see it is a number you don’t know – say out loud “I don’t want to answer” and then press whatever you press on your phone to decline the call. There is great power in this simple act! And, it puts you in control.
2. Get to know and use the “do not disturb” feature on your phone and devices. Set your notifications to how they work best for you. Learn how you can control your devices rather than just letting them control you.
3. On social media, delete, unfollow, snooze, or block those folks who post things you don’t want to see. These are your apps and you are in control of who you are linked to on them. If you want to use it to keep in touch with far away family and friends, then narrow your friend list to just these people.
4. Get to know all of the security settings in these apps and use them. Again, this isn’t the be-all end-all solution but it helps and it gives you control.
5. Scroll past the things you don’t want to see and actually click on and respond to the things you like. This helps train the algorithms to put the things you do like on your feed.
6. Before you post or share something, ask yourself “is this going to help other people feel loved?” and if your answer is “no” don’t post it.

We do not have to be passive receivers of media! We have power and control over what we see and listen to – if we choose to exercise it. Be bold. Be confident. Be compassionate. Be kind.

May your day and week be full of the light and love of God and may the peace of God be always with you, my dear ones.

Originally posted on December 18, 2019

Happy week before Christmas! I do pray you are able to discover happy moments. And I pray that you can discover the joy and peace that always comes from the awakening our awareness of God in everyone, every place, and every hour.

It’s been way too long since I’ve made the time to write. Not that there hasn’t been reason to but because, I think, I am stuck. Stuck in that place where we feel like what we are working at is impossible. Our country is in such great turmoil. Shootings continue and no one even seems to notice the pain and sorrow among the public bickering and blizzard of hate blowing mercilessly through the airwaves. A bit dramatic? Maybe. But it’s how I am experiencing it and it makes me want to shut down.

But I can’t, even when, especially when, I feel my voice is so very small that it can’t be heard by even the best of ears. As I sit with scripture and pray, looking for the courage to continue to speak, God reminds me that nothing is impossible when we are working together to offer the world beautiful, joyful glimpses of the peace of The Kingdom.

In this third week of Advent, as we light the third candle, I am reminded that each tiny light alone is enough to pierce the darkness but together the light is so much brighter. And we have the hope of more light to come. Together with God we can continue to bring compassion to the world through the small things: simple acts of kindness, choosing not to join in the anger and hate, smiling, choosing words that build up rather than tear down, looking for sameness rather than difference.

Most importantly, we can all choose to not look for things to argue over. We’ve become so addicted to arguing that we create needless conflict over the smallest of things. I was hoping the false debate over “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” would die down but I keep seeing posts, including the two pictures with this post, which state my position accurately if, perhaps a little more bluntly than I would say it.

The greatest act of compassion we can do in this next week is to let go of our need to be right at another’s expense and remember the real reason for the season: the love of God so great for all people that he came to live as one of us so we can know and reveal that same love in our own lives.

May the God of peace fill you with joy and love in the hope of his coming.