Open

Gracious God, I am having trouble praying for others. My own prayers seem so urgent and all consuming...I have no time or patience for others and their concerns. I leave the house and the world seems the same. It doesn't seem to understand what is shaping up in my life. The radio hosts laugh and joke. Politicians blabber on. Strangers complain about gas prices and the line they must wait in. They don't know. They can't know. I barely understand myself.

And yet, there are real hurts among us all. Hurts friends, and strangers, carry that are hidden from view. I have often been blind to their needs. Forgive me.

So, protect my heart from hardening and my self from turning inward. Keep me open to the larger needs, those beyond me and mine. Teach me to empty myself as your Son did...remind me that your Grace is ever flowing.

Amen.

I'm Ready...

Well my friends, it looks like I am all set for my *favorite* holiday.

--Spiders? Check.
--Cobwebs? Check.
--Dust covering the furniture to give it that aged look? Check.
--Scary cries coming from the house? Check.
--Savage dog barking? Check.
--Dark mold growing? Check.
--Clutter out to trip over? Check.

Bring on Halloween!


Today, is cleaning day.

Eight Years Ago...

Thoughts I found upon our 8th anniversary.
In this day and age when it is common place to wonder, "Why get married?" and more often, "Why stay married?" the last two paragraphs give words to what I feel about this calling, marriage.
Love to my beloved today and always...

Wendell Berry, from "Poetry and Marriage"
The meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words. We cannot join ourselves to one another without giving our word. And this must be an unconditional giving, for in joining ourselves to one another we join ourselves to the unknown. We can join one another only by joining the unknown. We must not be misled by the procedures of experimental thought: in life, in the world, we are never given two known results to choose between, but only one result that we choose without knowing what it is.

Marriage rests upon the immutable givens that compose it: words, bodies, characters, histories, places. Some wishes cannot succeed; some victories cannot be won; some loneliness is incorrigible. But there is relief and freedom in knowing what is real; these givens come to us out of the perennial reality of the world, like the terrain we live on. One does not care for this ground to make it a different place, or to make it perfect, but to make it inhabitable and to make it better. To flee from its realities is only to arrive at them unprepared.

Because the condition of marriage is worldly and its meaning communal, no one party to it can be solely in charge. What you alone think it ought to be, I is not going to be. where you alone think you want it to go, it is not going to go. It is going where the two of you—and marriage, time, life, history, and the world—will take it. You do not know the road; you have committed your life to a way.

Forms join us to time, to the consequences and fruitions of our own passing. The Zen student, the poet, the husband, the wife—none knows with certainty what he or she is staying for, but all know the likelihood that they will be staying “awhile”: to find out what they are staying for. And it is the faith of all of these disciplines that they will not stay to find that they should not have stayed.

That faith has nothing to do with what is usually called optimism. As the traditional marriage ceremony insists, not everything that we stay to find out will make us happy. The faith, rather, is that by staying, and only by staying, we will learn something of the truth, that the truth is good to know, and that it is always both different and larger than we thought.

Batman in the Quad Cities

To lighten the mood a bit I'll give a Big Boy quote from tonight...

As he was playing, he called out from the other room, "Mom, is Batman playing in the Quad Cities now?" Huh?

Those of you who know me know how odd it is that he knows anything about Batman; and the Quad Cities? Well, we just drove through twice and are preparing for a third...and fourth drive through but...how odd is that?

The way his brain is putting bits and pieces together right now is equal parts hilarious and frightening.

He walked up to me yesterday during the Today Show (which he wasn't watching) and said, "You can get 2 for $4." and handed me a fisher price chicken.

Of course he's getting these bits and pieces from the little tv and radio he overhears during the day. Sigh.

At this rate I will have to turn off movies, tv and talk radio. I'll be forced to listen to, gasp!, music. :)

"Why?"

Big Boy has been slowly moving his way through the "Who?" "What?" and now "Whys?" of life. For some time everything was "Where?" then it was "Which?" Now it is "Why?"

Little does he know how fitting this is. There are a lot of "Whys?" floating around our life right now.

As it was recently stated by someone dear to me..."If he can answer that one, he'd make a lot of people happy."

Big Boy's insistent "Why" questions are like nails on the chalk board of my soul for many reasons. First among, I don't ask the question. "Why?" isn't ever at the top of my list. I'm not overly scholarly or investigative. I'm often ok accepting that I don't know how is works or how that happened.

Theologically, I don't think things do happen for a particular reason. Or rather, I don't think God makes things happen for a particular reason.

Right now, I understand how religion and theology can fail to ease our questions. I've had plenty of struggles and "bad things" happen to me and mine over the years...I've pushed questions of faith around and settled down knowing there isn't an answer this side of heaven. I give my "we are the creatures not the Creator" talk during confirmation. I believe it and it actually sits well with me. But right now, as things are shaping up, it isn't good enough.

It isn't that I need to know the actual "Why" of illness and suffering...it is that I want to know how God stands to see creation in this state. If I allow myself to feel even a fraction of the pain and loss I am experiencing, I can't breathe. How then must God feel?

But I have to say, I'm not feeling all that compassionate towards God right now. :)

Big Boy and others may ask, "Why?" about the state of the world, it is truer to my personality, to state demands. "Make it stop." "Make it better." "How DARE you!?"

This is among my less edited posts and as I write, I realize, "How dare you?" is exactly where I am at.

Forget "Why?" no reason would be good enough.

Hey, Who Turned the Lights On?

After weeks of 8 to 10 hours of sleeping at night, EG has begun to wake up at 3:00am. Sigh. Now, I cut her some slack, for much of her life she was wrapped up tight and held in place while sleeping. Then when the blankets came off, she threw her hands up over her head, legs falling limp to their sides and she snoozed away...

Then one night, her stomach and back muscles connected and contracted and she pulled her legs up to her side and, Voila! A whole new way to curl up and sleep. Until, last week, when she flipped on to her stomach around 3:00am and didn't know what on earth had happened. WAHHHH...

It isn't just newly tightening stomach muscles keeping her up, either. It is as if someone turned the lights on in the house for her. "Wow, look over there?" "Is that a dog?" "My brother is so funny." And my Daddy...my Daddy makes the funniest faces when I am around." "Oh, oh...over there, that's my Mom, with Mr. Whozit." "Look there....no, there; Turn me around...no, there."

The lights are on and she's taking it all in.

Cliche as it might be to say, I wish I could view life like my children do. All wonder and excitement. Even the ants trooping through our kitchen is cause for joy or the dog's hair all over the floor; a delight! I long for days when my perspective changes, and I am filled with joy...as if the lights went on in this glorious world.

But right now, still less than year after being pregnant, after 4 months in the trenches with a new born and a 2.5 year old's learning curve, currently on steep ascent and nearly eight years of marriage...I'm tired. It isn't even the physical tiredness...rather it is as if my soul is tired. Last time I felt like this, I went away for a worship conference. I was a year or so into my first call. A new marriage, coupled with finishing graduate school, and trooping through the call process, plus the complexity of my congregation, got to me.

For one long weekend I spoke to no one outside of a passing, "Hello." I ate alone. I sat alone in worship. I took in the most amazing liturgies and spent hours strolling the campus and reading in my dorm room.

Not really an option at this stage in my life. People count on me. One, would even starve...(ok, there is such a thing as formula and a freezer full of milk, but you know...it sounds good.) The other two, would live on yogurt, berries and granola. :) They'd be fine.

It isn't even as if I want to run away to a retreat...but a moment to recharge would be good. Time to absorb all that has been going on. A minute of graitude to acknowledge all the new growth and healing. A lull to take stock of the parts that have died and been cut away; time to truly let it go and clean up the debris. Catching my breath would be good.

But the lights have been turned on in the lives of two very dear souls. There is a big world they want to see and talk about...parts of the world, I've seen--the joy might be gone. (parts such as taking forever to get out of the car because it is so fascinating to see how the pretzels smash when you sit on them.) But other parts, I reclaim through their eyes. "Oh, yeah...that is wonderful...or funny...or worthy of pause." (Like, raccoon paw prints forever indented in the concrete outside the clinic or wondering how birds fly SO high. Or the unbridled love on our faces when we look at each other...any of us, looking at the other.) Thanks for reminding me. (Now, shhhhhhh....) Thanks, for reminding me...

Oh, and EG...here's a little life lesson from me to you. At 3:00am. The lights are off. They just are.

Sermon Matthew 13

What I've got as of 9:30pm. We'll see what actually gets preached tomorrow. :)

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

A sower went out to sow. Perhaps it is no conscience that this text always comes around in the lectionary cycle mid-summer. When the corn is knee high, and the tomatoes are ripening on the vine.

This summer, I’ve been vicariously growing a garden by keeping up with my friend’s garden via a web page online and through emails. Her excitement is palpable—from her preparations of the soil—mixing the beautiful rich soil from the ND Red River Valley with the sandy mixture that makes up her new yard in Chicago, to the seed planting party, to photos of the seeds growth and the nights she spends sitting out among the plants anticipating their development and the harvest. It is a joy to experience...from a far.

It has been many years since I attempted a garden. When we first moved into our parsonage in Fargo, I wanted to give it a try. I could have consulted books and made a plan…instead I called my grandparents who lived an hour away. I enlisted a parishioner to till up the soil and picked out some seeds I thought would be fun to grow. When my grandparents arrived to help, what was to be a little garden, became a whole big event…and a memory I will cherish. At the time, I just stood back and watched them work. My grandpa has a certain way he likes to plant a garden. (EXPAND ON) “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. The garden produced a bounty and it was beautiful...but between the weed and the harvesting, I haven't attempted much beyond a flower bed since. (But, that is for another sermon.)

A sower went out to sow.

In Matthew’s Parable of the Sower, it isn’t any old farmer that goes out to sow. This is, of course, the Sower of the Universe….the one who created light and oxygen and soil and seeds. This sower not only plants cucumber and watermelon seeds…but also plants seeds of grace and forgiveness, justice and mercy, deep within creation…waiting patiently for the good growth to sprout.

While my friend may reflect some of God’s joy at watching these seeds grow….God the sower does not plant seed quite the same way as any farmer or gardener I know of, especially not my grandparents. From this parable, it seems God throws out the seed willy-nilly all over the soil. And in turn, 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. There is apparently no care for the seeds placement or consideration of cost benefit analysis. Frankly, it seems a little wasteful.

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—and with an overflowing handful God begins to spin. As God spins the Word is sent out all over our lives—love, mercy, forgiveness, patience scatters down over us. It falls in every nook and cranny—every corner.

This is, of course, not how we plant a garden…nor it seems, how we spread the Gospel. But perhaps it is how we are meant to.

In today’s parable Jesus is teaching his disciples about spreading the Word. It is meant to encourage them—because if they thought proclaiming the gospel was like any other profession, they were going to get discouraged pretty quickly. We’ve all known the feeling of being passionate about something; sure that everyone else will catch your zeal…only to be crushed by another’s indifference. I imagine Jesus preparing the disciples for lives spend sowing seeds that they may never see the fruits of. The Word they spread was going to fall in every type of life. Some will be “good soil” hearing the word, as Jesus says, “who indeed bear fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

But none of us is completely made up of one type of soil…we aren’t just hard defensive rocks, most us aren’t all easy going, weak sand, we can’t just be brittle clay…no one is pure rich soil. One day the Word may catch us and another fall on a hard place. As we disciples scatter the Gospel, it is nearly impossible to fully know another person’s soil content—perhaps we best leave that to God.

But every congregation I’ve ever been a part of has, at one point or another, measured their ministry by the world’s standards verses God’s. “We have this precious seed”, we think…”Where can we plant it to get the most growth?” “Who will it benefit the most?” Ministry programs are carefully analyzed. Budgets are considered. Space, time, volunteer numbers…all of it weighted and factored in. Events and worship services are kept based on how many people attended. Success is often measured by human standards--human standards and the mind set of scarcity. Very seldom do we grab a handful of the Gospel and just start spinning…

Often our relationships are treated the same way. A tough heart. A cross word. A bad decision. And our reaction is to withdraw, to stop sowing. We give up on some people, feeling as if we are wasting our time trying to talk with them, or love them, or forgive them, or reach them. When days, weeks, months, YEARS go by and we see minimal progress or growth in our friends or family or our kids. We wonder, “What has it all been for?” “How long can we pray?” “How long does hope hold out?” Very seldom do we grab a handful of the Gospel and start spinning…

Unfortunately, we treat ourselves the same way. We try and we try and we try…we feel growth…the seeds of patience and maturity taking root, love seems to be blooming…only to get caught up in hate or gossip or envy or ill will, and feel the old self return. It is painful to realize we aren’t as mature as we thought. When that happens it is hard to offer ourselves grace. Hard to be human—easy to turn on ourselves. We wonder what all the work was for and why even try again…it is hard to grab a handful of the Gospel and spin….

A sower went out to sow.

The seeds of love and forgiveness that our lives plant on this earth won’t always bear fruit. Some of the seeds will blow far, far away. Some will fall and be burnt up, some of it will drown. Some of it just won’t take. Some of it destroyed by hate and violence. Some by fear. Not all of it will take root just now.

This is a grace-filled message for those of charged with proclaiming the gospel…Our task is not to measure and arrange a neat garden, our task is to keep on planting. God will provide the nutrients necessary…there will be growth. That is God’s promise to creation. Perhaps not everywhere, perhaps not every time, perhaps not the amount we hoped for…but growth, when we keep planting.

Archbishop Oscar Romero’s prayer came to mind…

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.

This world is made up all sorts of soil—some ready for planting, some too rough and hard to take seed yet. Many a person might wonder why God would continue to waste good seed on us. After all we’ve made quite a mess of creation…only making it worse from what I can gather. Self preservation is often our first goal. We aren’t the most lovable some days. We’ve got hard shells and worn out spirits. We doubt and worry. We fear and fret. So often we want the planting to go our way and growth to happen on our calendar.

God seems to know this and in spite of it, maybe because of our weakness, 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 don’t know for sure what seeds God has planted in your lives, I’m not completely sure what seeds you are sending out in to the world…but know that there has been promised growth. Hold on to the image of God, standing in a field of your life, spinning and spinning--sending out love and forgiveness with each turn--around and around. There is good soil to be found. God has made sure of that. Good soil in creation, good soil in those around us, good soil in us…there is always the possibility for growth.

A sower has gone out to sow. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Is it wrong...

to eat one Dairy Queen ice cream cone, finish it up, and then as you are driving home later stop at the Dairy Queen closer to your house for another cone?

Just asking. A completely hypothetical situation.

Life Giving?

For some time now, I have had one too many caringbridge sites to follow. I'd rather have zero but instead I have five or six. Two of which are near and dear to my family's hearts. Yuck. Sigh.

But today, I am not sighing over the people's conditions reported on at the sites, but on the well being of those commenting on some of them. I catch myself offering prayers for the supporters and friends.

Some of the comments simply reflect a piece of the Christian body that is foreign to me. Some reflect theology that is just uncomfortable for me. Some are just not well thought out. All of them come from people hurting and grasping for words of comfort...comfort for the one with the diagnosis, and comfort for themselves as they feel completely helpless and weak...and well, human.

Many comments speak of a "miracle." Some allude to the number of visits and marvel that surely God will act because of the great number of people praying. "God can't help but take notice." More than one offers the platitude that "God has a plan."

I sincerely, do. not. understand. With all compassion and love, how is this helping either party?

Perhaps many of us, in the heat of the crisis, don't think our theology out to the next step...

And if a miracle doesn't happen? Whatever that miracle may be, when it doesn't happen, what then do you say about God?

My fear is people blame themselves...

needed to pray more
there was some unrepentant sin
didn't trust enough
didn't do, didn't do, didn't do...and God forgot us or worse, just turned away in disgust.
Must worker hard for God to notice...

I can't believe in a God who practices conditional love. 'If/then' theology doesn't work for me. It breaks my heart (and I am filled with more than a bit of anger) when I hear it taught, modeled and preached. I wonder, "how is it life sustaining for anyone?"

When my heart is breaking over the state of the world, the pain in people's lives, and the uncertainty of life, when I am crippled over at the weight of my own sin; I can't believe in a God that practices 'if/then' love.

God has loved us through quite a bit of "stuff" since daylight first broke and the sun first set. From what I've heard and experienced, God has never waited for us to get our act together before participating in our lives.

When I am in pain, I find it much more comforting to know God is crying with me, angry and hurt, even more than I am, at death, sickness and sin. I find it much more comforting to think God takes notice of all of creation--regardless of whether we have our act together, regardless of how many prayers we have offered up, regardless of if we've said the "right words and actions"or not. God who seeks out all of us lost and wandering people...not only takes notice, but acts in our lives. Unconditionally, reaches out in love, hope and mercy.

We humans can so easily take God and mold the Creator of the Universe for our own human purpose--making God fit in to the mold we can most relate to. I do it all the time. Many would say that I've done it with this post.

Today, I am thankful for God's patience with us and the never ceasing participation in our lives. May our comments be life giving and our lives filled with hope.