"Chance" Encounters

This has been a week for me mostly to listen, and maybe offer a brief word, but mostly listen. I took two brown paper grocery bags full of DVDs to a store that handles used CDs, DVDs and LPs. As the young man checked them for damage and sorted them by type, he talked about his experience following his mother’s death a couple of weeks earlier. He had no idea that I am a pastor. He simply talked about how deeply he was touched by the selfless service offered him and his brother by the people at his mother’s church. I was there for nearly an hour as he talked. Only when he asked if I was a teacher did I say that I am a pastor and then he asked for my card.

This week I also encountered a young man who has known a good deal of trauma in his life. He was once briefly a part of our congregation. We touched base enough for me to know that he will graduate from college next Spring.

There was the man who stopped at the church to pray in the Sanctuary, and then wanted to talk about the urgency he felt about the Coming of Christ, and his desire for various churches to unite in their outreach to save those who have strayed.

Three young men in very different places in their lives, but in all of these encounters I had the opportunity to listen to how God is at work. In these and a couple of other encounters, I felt the nudging of the Spirit to listen. This was not the time for me to do much talking. Now as I reflect on them, the Spirit of God is within me lifting them in prayer. And so I join with the Spirit offering them up into the best that God has for them. I pray that I could hear and see them with the ears and eyes of Christ.

Psalm 131

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.

Play-doh

Yesterday afternoon, at the Colloquy I co-facilitate at Wesley Theological Seminary, the student who led our devotions talked about two aspects of our lives we tend to neglect when we get busy. The first is God. The second is play. So he passed around small containers of Play-doh. After praying, he played some music and asked us to play with our lump of Play-doh, reflecting on our relationship with God.

As the lump fit into my palm, I immediately thought about how God has written our name in the palm of God’s hand. I pressed the lump between my two palms. When I looked again, all the lines—large and small—from my palms were inscribed on both sides of the Play-doh. I marveled at the detail kept in the clay, and wondered how my life could reflect the Love revealed in the lines of God’s hands. These are the hands that set the Creation in motion. These are the hands that blessed Abram and Sarai. These are the hands that poured oil upon David’s head. These are the hands that healed the lame, and gave sight to the blind. These are the hands that were nailed to the cross.

I know I have to be careful with all metaphors, especially ones that liken God to a human being. Metaphors can point us towards truth about God, but in the end they will all fall short. Knowing that, I felt that if God holds me in the palms of God’s hands so closely that the lines of God’s hands are inscribed upon me, how could I live so that the memory of those lines will show through me?

Isaiah 49:15b-16a

Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.

Breathing In & Out

All Who Pass By

On my morning walks, I use the Jesus prayer for intercessions, saying “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on…” After praying for my family and Jeff’s family, I pray for friends and then the Bishop and her Cabinet. When I pray for Christ Crossman, I begin with “all who are members, all who call this home, all who worship with us, all who come to our doors and all who pass by” before moving on to individuals, and that we may be a part of what God wants to bless here.

The part about “all who pass by” has come to be really significant for me. There’s a lot of traffic on N Washington St and on Columbia St, especially during my walks in the morning commute hours. Normally, I walk along N Washington for almost ¼ mile. Without being intrusive, I notice lots of the folks who drive by. Some are talking on their phones, some let other drivers in, some seem oblivious to their surroundings and fellow drivers, but all are children of God. I don’t know what their religious perspectives are and while I would love for them to know about the Good News of Jesus Christ, my prayers are primarily for God’s mercy for them, and for the best that God has possible for them.

For me, this is the beginning of evangelism towards them. How can I share Christ’s love for them unless I truly want God’s best for them regardless of what that might be? I am far too limited in my scope of vision to know what is best for their lives. As I pray for them, that prayer changes me--my attitude and my actions towards them. How can I be irritated and annoyed or even angry with them when I want God’s best, God’s mercy for them?

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on all who pass by.”

Though the Mountain Should Shake

Today, I sat in the Colloquy I co-teach with Dr. Beverly Mitchell at Wesley Theological Seminary and listened as she read Psalm 46 aloud. “though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.”

As she read images passed through my mind: all the pictures from 9/11/01; the earthquake; Hurricane Irene; Tropical Storm Lee; the Texas drought and now wildfires; and closer to home, in a very real sense, losing Jeff from our daily lives.

I confess that I too can get caught up in the anxiety of this age as I hear the relentless beat of the drums. It merely magnifies some of what I already experience. And so I pause to listen for a deeper beat, a beat that is the heartbeat of our God who is the Source and the Promise of all Creation, the One whose Love began it all, redeems it all, and calls it all toward fulfillment.

In the midst of all the upheaval, when the waters rise and the towers fall, there is a strong awareness that God is deeper than the deepest bedrock. The God I believe in is not simply a God of the gaps to explain what I don’t yet understand. It is to this Rock I cling.

Psalm 46: 1-2a

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear.

Poised at a Cusp

I am poised at a cusp in a way. This summer has been a time of healing and rest in a way. Yet in another way I have been very aware that at the end of it a huge adjustment is waiting for us, for me. An experience this Sunday afternoon highlights that for me.

With Bill and Barbara, Max and I went to see a delightful show at the Rockbox Theater in Fredericksburg, TX. For two hours, the resident band and a guest artist took us through memory lane with great rock-and-roll music. We all thoroughly enjoyed it. During the second half of the show, some of the country music of Ray Charles was featured. Jeff really loved Ray Charles in The Blues Brothers, but as I sat there I knew he would not have wanted to come to a performance like this one, especially in the last ten years or so. And then came Unchained Melody with it's haunting, smooth music and lyrics. Unbidden tears came to my eyes as I missed him so much.

As we fly back to Virginia and re-enter the flow of life, I know that folks will still make space for us to grieve and adjust to all the changes we will face. Part of me wants simply to plunge into the midst of all the busy-ness of fall. I have thoughts about vision and direction that I want to share. I have plans to accomplish. And yet at the edge of it all, or really in the midst of it all, there is trepidation about how the loss of Jeff from our daily lives will affect each of us.

And so I sit at the cusp of loss and of healing, of past and of future, of being nurtured and sheltered in the heart of family and of needing to step forward. As I ache with saying goodbye to Bill and Barbara, Kat, Travis and the babies, Jesus words about dying in order to live come to mind. In so many ways, I sit at the cusp of a seed that has fallen to the earth as I wait for it to grow and bear fruit.

John 12:24

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.