Like Sex and the City*...

but so not.

Given my propensity for living in a fantasy world and the build up in my mind to a pedicure scheduled for Saturday, you would have thought I was to be in an episode of SATC: A Day At The Spa--season 6 episode 30. A warm Saturday in spring. Nails so in need of color. Heals in need of exfoliation. Time just for me. My life will change. All will be perfect and whole.

But even my active imagination couldn't overcome the reality that in this episode I was wearing a kinda clean sweat suit and 10 year old Tevas while driving a beige Honda minivan to a strip mall in "anywhere" America. So, it was just like an episode, but without the cute shoes, beautiful designer clothes, wild atmosphere or sassy friends. (ok, I have sassy friends, they just weren't with me.) That's leaves me staring in, what? Something About Ramond.

But oddly uncomfortable talk about topics one shouldn't discuss in public...oh, yeah that was there.

Of course my excitement wasn't just about the pedicure. It had more to do with relaxing for over an hour without kids or husband. I left the house with enough time to get an iced tea and arrive at the spa early so that I could smell the Aveda essential oils..allowing them to take me back to Grand Ave. in St. Paul and those carefree days. (when I was so stressed I needed a spa treatment once a month.)

All was going well. My nail lady (what do you call them?) looked ok. The other women seemed nice. Sure no one offered me lemon infused water or a magazine but I settled in. Ok, she didn't let me soak very long and the water was luke warm. The lady next to me began to take cell phone calls and no one said anything. The nail ladies began to gossip (to put it kindly) about co-workers and clients. I began to tune out. When I tuned back in the group was talking about who among the staff did Brazilian waxes. (If you don't know what it is...I'm not going to outright say so you have to live in the dark or ask a girlfriend.) For the next half an hour I was regaled with stories about the women who come in for this procedure and the men who love them. Some want a heart. Others a landing strip. Then there was talk of the undergarments you wear. I will stop right there. You think on this.

While I am not a prude, (after all I do watch, eh hem, I mean own, dvds of SATC.) I am just naive enough to pretend this type of thing really does just go on in New York City on the set of a tv show. I did not need to know any of this information about my neighbors in middle America. I am a visual person...too much, people. TOO. MUCH.

Sigh. My nails look cute, but all this talk really distracted my young nail lady and she didn't come anywhere close to my massage or relaxation expectations. I can chalk it up entertaining. And it got my mind off of the amount of diapers filling our landfills, the plastic in the bottles slowly killing my children and the unhealthy nitrates we are getting in our lunch meats each noon. In other words, it helped me escape reality and perhaps provide some healthy perspective. Maybe it did all it needed to do.

*My apologizes to those of you who are shocked to learn I own SATC. I watch for the shoes. :)

Prayer

Jenell Paris has an entry, titled Lessons, on prayer, here.

Living the Encore

Growing up there was always someone clapping for me. Supportive parents, enthusiastic grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles, family friends; you name it I had a cheering section. I also grew up to a be an athlete. One that did pretty well in high school and college, so I got very use to ribbons and medals. I lived in a small town so I also got use to newspaper articles about my teams and photos of us in the paper.

This was not necessarily a good thing in the long term...as I grew up people stopped handing me medals for the things I did. Of course, I still knew where I stood as professors handed out test grades and comments on my papers. A variety of bosses had progress reports and reviews of my work.

When I began my first call it became clear that I would need to stop relying on others affirmation to know how I had done that Sunday. Some people will say "Good sermon, Pastor." to anything you say and others will never utter a word, even if you are moving their soul like no one ever has before (a girl can dream). No one handed out medals. I had to dig a little deeper to sustain my self esteem and judge the merit of my contribution. Over the years I think I got the hang of it...

then came motherhood. There are no medals here. What exactly would a gold look like? A day with no tears, all smiles and hugs, lots of "yes, mommy, that's a great idea." Children that joyfully realized I have more to do than read, Curious George Lands his Aircraft on Mars and Finds a Pond to Go Fishing In, one more time and that I really can't get the imaginary purple cat named Jude off of the refrigerator...(It just won't move, so stop crying.) But I digress... No one would raise their voices. No one would throw things. The word 'no' would actually never appear.

There aren't medals or ribbons being handed out and no journalists are at my door wondering how I train for such an event. This is the hard reality of life, isn't it? :) Wouldn't it be easier to get up in the morning when there is a chance your performance might be noticed and applauded. (or even some helpful advice on how to do better tomorrow would be nice.)

Enter a little story from Sunday's sermon: A conductor was rehearsing with a lackluster orchestra. After a few attempts at the piece he stopped the group and told them to play it again, only this time play it as if it were an encore performance. Play it as if the crowd was already clapping.

In all honestly, I don't know where our pastor fit this in to his sermon or where he went after he told this story...(we had a pretzel situation going on in our pew) but I realized this was how we are to live. Waking up each day to our own encore performance. As children of God we are reminded that God is already clapping for us, waiting for us to play our hearts out. Trust that we have been claimed as God's own. We are loved. We are forgiven. We are being equipped for our days.

Most days it is hard to praise ourselves. You can't count on family or friends or spouses to hand out awards every day. Toddlers and infants are usually mute on the subject, but God isn't. God has made his preference known and we come out ahead.

Time for me to cook dinner. Big Boy has woken up and is alternately screaming his newest phrases, "I need help Mommy." and "What next Mommy?" Baby girl will need food soon. But today at least I have tried to hear God clapping. You're doing it, Heather Louise...just keep living the encore.

Inviting

When you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you.” Luke 14:13-14

I woke to the basketball slamming into the rim of the hoop each morning. Each and every morning—without fail—Steve would miss his first toss of the day. BAM! With this welcome to the day, I would troop out to the kitchen and start the coffee. This was my ritual while I worked in West Virginia. I was the Volunteer Coordinator, and a volunteer, thus had housing in the same building as the high school and college students who rotated through the Volunteer Center each week. I did have my own apartment, which helped provide some escape.

But I could never escape Steve’s game of “horse” or “pig.” If I wasn’t being asked to be a part of the round the clock game, I was listening to the shouts, slams, yelps and dribbling of the game.

Steve was not a volunteer. He lived in the community Habitat served. His parents were gone—either they had died or abandoned him—I never quite knew. He lived with his grandparents. He was deaf and lived with a few other birth defects. Thankfully, one of my co-workers knew sign language and this gift added communication to what otherwise could have been painfully silent and frustrating months.

Most of my time in West Virginia was spent cleaning up after a flood that had ripped through the river valley. Steve’s home which sat right near the river, had been, by most of our standards, a shack . It was insulated with stacks of old newspaper and cardboard boxes. A smoky wood stove heated the room. It had plastic sheeting for windows. When he wasn't shooting hoops, Steve slept at the Volunteer Center during the day. Each week we needed to tactfully explain to the new groups that it wasn't that he was extraordinarily lazy, but that at night Steve stayed awake armed with a bb gun to shoot the rats that ran through the house. He said it was hard to sleep as they climbed over him and he wanted to keep them off his grandparents.

Everyone in town knew of Steve. Most didn’t want to get to know him.

One night the volunteers and my co-workers were invited to the home of local family for dinner. We loaded into vans and headed “in to town” a few miles away. We were showered and excited to be in a real home with real food that we hadn’t made. It was a simple, yet blessed treat. We were graciously welcomed. We were given appetizers and comfortable couches to settle into. As we were laughing and chatting about the past days work, the doorbell rang. Our guest opened it to find a person she had probably never even thought to speak to, let alone host in her house.

She audibly gasp and just stood there. It seemed like a bad movie or at least bad acting. My heart dropped and I looked at my co-worker. John whispered that he had told Steve where we were going for dinner. Steve must have misunderstood and thought that he had been invited to dinner as well.

While it seemed like we all sat there for hours waiting for our host to say something, it took her a minute to catch her breath and ask, “What do you want?” Of course Steve did not completely understand her words—although there was no misunderstanding her body language.

Then in the most gracious of acts, a young high school woman jumped up from across the room and swooped in. “Welcome, Steve,” she said as she took his hand.

Looking at our host she said, “This is my friend Steve. I invited him to dinner, too. I hope you don’t mind.” She gave a beautiful and sincere smile to our host and walked Steve into the living room.

“Invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you”, we are told. It seems to me the poor, the maimed, the lame; the blind are not just other people. We too fit those categories. Not only have we all had social moments when we feel desperately out of place and un-welcomed, we are also broken people—mind, body and soul—we long to be welcomed and loved.

With gracious love God has swooped in and saved us. We are claimed. We are loved. We are forgiven.

To a world that may at times, seem harsh, mean spirited, and out to get us, God has told the world, “This is my friend, this is my child. I invited them to the party. I will take care of them.”

Thanks be to God that the world does not play host…God does and does so in the most gracious of ways. God invites all to the party—knowing full well we could never repay the hospitality given to us. We cannot repay God but I think we could respond as Steve did to his host.

As Steve received the Coke someone handed him and slowly sat down in plush, warm chair, he looked back up at the young woman, and with his eyes, his hands and his mouth, said “Thank you. Oh, thank you.”

Seeds of Growth

My mom sent out an article today on potatoes and how they are becoming increasing popular as food costs soar. Potatoes hold a special place in my family's heart. They are the pride and joy not only of the Red River Valley of ND but my Grandpa Henry boasted their goodness as well. Grandpa also build steel buildings across ND, ID and WA...most of which held potatoes. Today Henry and I planted lettuce seeds in a small pot. These two events reminded me of a newsletter article I wrote nearly 6 years ago for my congregation. As the spring planting gets started and Henry and I watch our lettuce plants, I remember my Grandpa Henry and give thanks once again for all that he taught me.

I hope June and July have been good months for you. They have gone by fast for me. I had all these grand plans for the summer and here it is mid-July with barely one started.

Some of these projects weren't ones anyone would know about except me. (You know: become more forgiving, enjoy life more, be thankful...things like this.) They were little personal goals. Which are often, not the kind of goals that I like. You can’t really measure them. You can’t calculate them or even point to their progress.

I like to see things. I like to tangibly know that progress has been made. That’s perhaps why I am enjoying my garden so much this summer. Each day I know it is growing. I know when the bugs have gotten to it. I can tell when the bugs are gone. I can see progress when I weed. I know when it needs water. I like all this about a garden.

This past week our Gospel text was Matthew 13:1-9. In the parable, a sower goes out to sow some seed. When I planted my garden I was blessed with help from my grandparents. My grandpa has a certain way he likes to plant a garden. “Precision” doesn’t quite fully explain it. We measured and planned. We stopped short of getting out the level to see if the rows were straight. We made perfect circles for the cucumbers. The tomatoes and peppers are evenly spaced. We didn’t waste or lose one seed.

In Matthew’s Parable of the Sower, God, The Sower, doesn’t plant seed quite the same way as my grandpa. God seems to throw out the seed willy-nilly all over the soil. Truthfully, it seems a little wasteful. Some of the seed falls on rocky soil and some falls on good soil. Birds eat some of it; the hot sun consumes other seeds.

I have this image of God standing in the fields of our life with a huge, bottomless bag of seed—seed that is God’s Word of love, mercy, forgiveness and hope—and with an overflowing handful, God begins to spin. As God spins the Word is sent out all over our lives. It falls in every nook and corner. Not all of it will take root just now. We are made up of all sorts of soil—some ready for planting, some too rough and hard to take seed yet. God seems to know this and God doesn’t seem to think it is wasteful at all to keep heaping on the love and scattering hope. Over and over again God keeps replanting our lives with his gracious love.

I’m glad God isn’t quite the type of gardener I’m use to. If I had to wait for my heart and soul to be good soil before God planted it—I’d be a desolate plot of land. There’d be no growth.

No, God keeps sending out gracious love, knowing that sometime, somewhere the Word will take root and we will continue to grow.

Some days, I wish this growth was quicker or more visible…but mostly I give thanks to God that you and I are loved and forgiven in spite of our rough terrain. Thankfully, God keeps on spinning.

Do Me a Favor...

Because I'm me and it is killing me not to know who all is reading this,
humor me, please. Leave a comment if you read this...just your initials will do.

:)

Don't You Have a Daughter?

Why, yes, there is a new baby in our house. Not surprisingly though most, to all, of our attention remains on 'Big Boy' aka Henry. Because he has not grasped the finer points of "no" and "gentle," Henry and Emily are not in the same room at the same time unless one of them is confined to a chair (H) or held (E).

This weekend Emily spent some time in her chair in the hallway as Henry had run of the main rooms. At some point during a Saturday made up of laundry, tax conversations, budget talks, paperwork sorting, child and self care, Chad informed Henry that this type of thing never happened to Henry during his, oldest-child-pampered-life. Both Chad and I felt a brief need to call our siblings and apologize for any harm we may have done to them as oldest children--either physically or psychologically.

So, how is Emily?

She's very, very easy.

She sleeps and eats pretty well...mostly sleeps for 3 to 4 hours at night. (Although there have been too many two hour shifts for my liking.)

She is pretty serious about life. She almost looks grumpy but I think she is just contemplative.

Because she is big for her age I have to remind myself that she's just 6 weeks old, but she also just looks wise. As if she already knows 'stuff.'

She also thinks she is older than she is...pushing up to a stand on our laps, pushing off our chests with her arms, trying to roll over to her tummy with her feet..she's got places to go.

This weekend she began to smile at us (laugh at ?) and it was so much fun. Her whole face lights up and she gives us this gummy grin.

Her eyes are a steel-blue and getting larger. She is losing what hair she had. It is, rather was, dark.

Over the last few days she had begun to stay awake longer...just hanging out.

She coos.

She SPITS UP like no other...I go through 3 or more t-shirts a day. It just flies out of her mouth.

She also chokes on her food and scares me as she turns red trying to cough it all up.

As Henry says, "My baby, tute." (Cute.) Yes, yes she is. We love her and give thanks she's here among us. (Even if it is in the hallway.)

How Are You?

One word.

Tired.

Ok, two...

VERY Tired.

Missing a Generation

This morning, a very cute English couple in their 80's held the door for me, my stroller and my two year old as we entered a coffee shop. They walked with canes and spoke with wonderfully intoxicating English accents. The man asked Henry his name right off and while Henry said it, he whispers so softly that even if he could say "Henry" in an intelligible way, the man never would have heard it. So, I repeated it. The man immediately said, "Wonderful," he knew a Henry the Fourth back in England. A bond was formed.

After we paid for our coffee, cinnamon crunch bagels, and one cream cheese Henry chose a seat very near the couple. It became very clear that they were regulars to the coffee shop and that the man was use to "holding court." Many people stopped to chat with him and those who didn't were drawn into the conversation whether they came with their laptops to enter virtual conversations or chat with the flesh and blood people across from them.

The man had a new topic to address during his rein this morning..Henry, the Second as he was dubbed. He introduced Henry to everyone and my dear son dutifully smiled and shook a few hands. Eventually conversation drew the couple's attention away from us and we began to eat our bagels.

Henry loves to spread his cream cheese by himself. "Me do." And so I let him try. I also let him eat gobs of his cream cheese right off the knife. Today, the "man across the way" looked up just as Henry was about to stick the knife in his mouth. "Henry, that's not how we use knives...you'll cut your mouth," he bellowed over to us.
Henry stopped mid bite. Put the knife down in utter shock and looked up at me. Then he began to whimper. "Why man? Why man?"

Why did the man correct me? Why did the man notice? Why did the man care?

Now, there are plenty of situations where I would have been ticked off by a complete stranger parenting my child, but somehow I was touched and relieved that someone else became the 'heavy' this time. Because let's face it, we aren't suppose to eat cream cheese off our knives. (Gobs of straight cream cheese aren't great for us in general..) It is a lesson he'll have to learn and it probably is best he doesn't learn it by cutting his mouth. And let's be even more honest, I haven't corrected him because it keeps him quiet, allowing me time to get a sip of coffee and a bite of bagel.

I realized that this is what parenting must have been like generations ago..back when people spoke up for everyone's children. For better or worse you got parenting from all adults, not just those who gave birth to you. I also realized the power that a different accent, walking with a cane, wrinkly skin and wild gray hair can have on a young child. At least in Henry's case he paid attention. And Henry rarely pays attention to harsh critique or correction. (He's all about redirection and finding the positive...any rebuff or harsh word is met with deaf ears and a closed mind.) He stopped eating with his knife, casting a quick glance at the man each time he spread his cream cheese on the bagel.

When we finished, Henry took a sticker over to the man and placed it on his coat sleeve. A huge smile from both of them, and a good-bye hand shake, ended the visit. I looked up at the clock and took note of the time of day. Perhaps we'll pop in again around 10:30am next week, the help was much appreciated.

Teaching the Language of Religion

Pastor Pam Fickenscher wrote this entry a few months ago on her blog...I really liked her thoughts comparing teaching/introducing religion to teaching a language, and wanted to "save" it somewhere,

"Brain, Child (a literary magazine on parenting) this quarter featured a funny but ultimately unsatisfying piece by Moncia Crumback, who discovered that her son’s grandparents were plotting a secret baptism. Mother and father met at a Lutheran college and left that institution “a lot more liberal and a lot less Lutheran.” (I understand that those two “L’s” don’t go together in some people’s minds, but it irritates me that this sentence prompts no further explanation).

As a pastor, I have seen all too often how grandparently zeal for “getting it done” can overwhelm any meaningful conversation in the family about what baptism means, or the parents' religious intentions for their children. I applaud the Cumbacks' recognition that, given their own lack of commitment to Christianity, they have no business baptizing a child. We pastors really don’t want anyone to be put in the position of lying to themselves, their family, or to God.

On the other hand, I find the author’s description of their spiritual plans for their children less than honest. They will expose their children to the stories of a variety of faiths, they say, and when their children are grown “they can choose.” I have heard this approach defended many a time, often from people who are equally clear that they would be appalled if their child grew up to, say, drive a Hummer or join the Republican party.

Let’s be honest. To expose your child to a lot of “stories” and “philosophies,” but no living community of faith or ritual practice, is to instill in your child a quasi-religious philosophy, namely one of secular skepticism. While it’s entirely possible that such children will grow to some day commit themselves heart and soul to a traditional religious faith, they would not be following in their parents’ footsteps as they do so – and odds are good that such a conversion would cause family tension. Their children will indeed choose, but their parents have made a clear bid for what they hope that choice will be.

Religion, ultimately, is a very human endeavor, a bit like language. I know some very committed interfaith families, but they work very hard at teaching their children more than one language of faith – and that includes interaction with community, holiday celebration, Scriptures, and ritual practice like worship. It is the difference between raising a child bilingually and saying you will expose them to a half-dozen languages and let them pick one later on.
I appreciate the respect the church is granted when people are honest to God. Let’s just be completely honest that non-belief is also passed down."

Balancing the Calls

As someone who has made a decision to take a "sabbatical" from full time pastoral ministry while my kids are very young, I found this article of interest. The author writes that this choice..."is a clearer, more definite answer to the issue of pastor-motherhood. To keep home and family at home, separate from work and public life sets a compelling and straight-forward boundary for the contemporary family." That's me, compelling and straight-forward. Ha! But, she goes on to say, she doesn't want to put her ministry on hold. She also goes on to demand many things that any woman who has a career and children want...society to allow us space to balance these demands.

It wasn't that I wanted to put my pastoral ministry on hold. I've had to explain to many a (sorry, but true, male) colleague that I haven't lost my sense of Call but rather it is just, to be honest, what I felt God was calling me to do at that time and place. It didn't feel better for 'me' and my goals, but it felt right for some larger picture. It was a leap of faith like any we take in life. But then, I tend to divide my life into compartments--Right now I do X, The next phase will be Y. And am chaotic enough in my own being that the idea of balancing all the demands of those people made me break out in hives. (babies, husband, family, and THEN on top of that...congregational members...uff da.)

Because I've never been a mother who had a call in a church, the idea of being judged by a congregation on my parenting as well as my preaching added a new dimension of...what, fear, annoyance, to the mix. I tend to think that the church is called to be counter cultural. We speak of 'family time' and valuing the spiritual gifts of everyone. We lament that families don't have time for church, we decry the state of parent /child relationships in today's fast paced world. But I wonder, as the author does, if we do any better in supporting clergy in their personal lives. If we did we could show everyone a different way to live. Which is part of what we are suppose to be about, right?

Those of you out there...how are we doing?