My Hymn of Praise

As a part of a presentation for one of my Doctorate of Ministry classes this month, I wrote out a brief version of my theology. It is not intended to be all-encompassing or appropriate for a systematic theology course. It does express what I have deeply believed and finally came to the ability to express it through what I have learned from and with the amazing Jennifer Secki Shields, our beloved director of Christian education. Please take my expression as a hymn of praise for our God who is Three-in-One.

 Our God is Trinity--everlasting, eternal relationship of the Three-in-One--in which abides such love that seeking more to love--power of love bursting forth - waves of love continue to resound throughout 13.7 billion years of creation shaping the stars and planets, and eventually the plants and animals.

 From the dust of the stars and this earth, we were shaped and breathed into the image of this God to live in relationship with each other as reflections of the Three-in-One who made us.

 We turned away from this holy love, marring, distorting the reflection.

 God called forth a people to be witnesses and a light to shine forth to draw all peoples to this source of light--the one who is the Beginning, the Life and the Purpose.

 We continued to turn away, even though prophets and teachers called us back.

 As we have turned away, God’s love remained steadfast--In love, this One who set all creation into motion chose to come among us, be born among us, grow up among us, teach us, heal us, feed us, and offer himself for us, giving his life when we required a sacrifice--forgiving us as we demanded his death.

 Love would not be silenced, and rose to new life, calling us again into a relationship that brings healing and wholeness, a remaking of the image of this Holy Love.

 As God’s forgiven and set-free people we are now called to be a sign by living in ways that invite others into relationships that reflect the Creating, Self-giving and in-Spiriting Love that heals and redeems without limit.

Psalm 104:33-34

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.

May my meditation be pleasing to God, for I rejoice in the Lord.

Disorientation

I popped my head into Kate's office in my desire to find a warm place to be for a few minutes since I need to stay away from the house. She asked if there was no pastor's note this week. That's how disoriented I have been all week.

Disorientation. Discombobulation. Those are the keys words for this week. Last Friday, all the packing away, with some things yet to be sorted, was done. Our house went on the market.

"We are living in someone else's house," one of my sons said. "Or what will soon be someone else's house."

We have to keep it spotless, ready to show at a moment's notice, with us out of it. Then the snow and the cold came. Through days of no school we had to find places to be for most of the day, just in case.

Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament scholar, talks about the cycle of orientation, disorientation and reorientation for the Hebrew people. They are oriented towards God; they turn away and are called back; they are reoriented towards God.

Our orientation has been towards having a house of our own after years of living in parsonages. We have lived in disorientation for the past five plus years since Jeff was first diagnosed with  cancer. We are being reoriented to what's important. A home is more than a house. A home is where we are together, wherever that may be. Home in the biggest sense is being together in the presence of our God who is Holy Triune Community.

This process of disorientation is not a bad thing but it is uncomfortable as we are slowly moved towards a new orientation. It helps me to remember where my true home, my true center is to be.

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.

Sorting

Sorting through decisions is not easy work. I had been thinking about this for quite some time. The weight of responsibility of all the maintenance for house and yard is more than I want to carry by myself. Yes, I have a great handyman who has worked with us for nine years, a really terrific housecleaner for the last two, and a young college student’s lawn service for the last year. They have made an incredible difference, but still the responsibility for all the decisions is mine.

Like many decisions in my life, I mull over them, trying them on in my mind, until the time seems right. To other folks, it might look like a spur-of-the-moment move, but generally it is not. So the house is going on the market, and we have been working hard to get it ready.

Sorting through a house is not easy work. Thanks to friends who have helped, we have made tremendous progress. In a way, I wanted it all to be sorted before this weekend, but with my classes these last two weeks, I couldn’t get it all done. I have realized that since the attic got sorted in a big way last Saturday, I now have space to put things up there that still need decisions made. Part of the problem with this process is that I when I hold an object in my hand, I remember where it came from, and what Jeff and I were doing. Memories can make it really hard to downsize. I keep reminding myself that while things may help me remember, they themselves are not the memories.

Sorting through a life is not easy work. What are the memories that bring joy? Which bring sadness? Or laughter? Or regret? Where are the tracks of grace? The hints of hope?

While the process of moving from the house that Jeff, the boys and I made into our home will be complete one day in the not too distant future, the process of examining my life will never be complete. Each new turning of the way brings new insights and understanding. The story is told in ever new ways because in all the decisions, in all the things, in all the parts of my life, God is ever present, nudging me on, walking with me, calling me forward to a life a purpose. And there is the grace.

Psalm 78.35:

They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God their redeemer.

Deep Listening

Deep Listening: what does this mean to you?

This week, we began our exploration of spiritual practices for resurrection in the Recovery and Spirituality series. As I typed those two words, deep listening, my mind made a quick connection with deep massage when the depths of the muscles are manipulated. It requires a degree of relaxation and vulnerability that a cursory shoulder rub does not. And so too deep listening needs a willingness to drop some of the barriers that keep us at a surface level.

When we listen on the surface, our minds are often quick to make judgments and comments. We are formulating our response while only keeping half an ear cocked. We are not giving the gift of our full attention.

I can think of times when I have not been able to listen deeply. Sometimes it is because I am more desirous of making a good impression than of really listening. I can also think of times when I have not listened deeply because doing so would mean being accountable for the heart of the other. At even other times, I did not listen deeply because I was afraid of what I would hear.

As we explored why deep listening would be a spiritual practice for resurrection, Jen said resurrection is something so new that we cannot have any idea what it is like; thus we cannot have already decided what we think or shaped our responses. I like that. If I truly give my attention and am present to another person, to myself, or to God, then I will hear something new and surprising, not just something on the surface.

Help us explore empathy as a spiritual discipline for resurrection next Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. This Sunday, 1/12 at 10 a.m., we will consider powerlessness.

Song of Songs 8:13

O you who dwell in the gardens, my companions are listening for your voice; let me hear it.

Stepping from Old to New

We’ve just taken the first step into a new year. I am more mindful of change this time around. My sons are growing into young men. I watch with pride as they mature. There is knowledge I can try to share with them about these next steps in their lives, but unless knowledge is accompanied by wisdom it might not illuminate their paths well.

I can say the same thing about myself in the next steps in my life. I can gather as much information as possible but still I need wisdom. So I turn to an ages-old spiritual practice—examination of conscience. It is actually a good thing to do each night, but I want to look at my year. I have modified one that I learned when I was involved in the Walk to Emmaus. Maybe some of these questions can help you as well:

• ·      Have my thoughts and actions been full of grace?
• ·      How did I face problems that arose—

o   Did I try to power my way through them on my own?

o   Did I seek wise guidance?

o   Did I learn from those problems?

• ·      Did I stay close to the means of grace God has given us?
• ·      Did I reach out in service to others?
• ·      Where did I find joy?

Somehow in the action of typing these questions out, I find a bit more peace than I felt before. When things loom as an indistinct mass, they can feel threatening. When I can parse them out a bit, I can get a sense of perspective. God does not ask me to take on the whole world, past, present and future. God asks this moment of me.

Proverbs 2.6:

For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

On the Second Day of Christmas

On this second day of Christmas, my true love gives me to an amazing gift of grace that never stops giving. The light has come into the world, and darkness shall not, shall not, shall not overcome it! I say that with confidence even in the moments that I do not feel it. Thank goodness God’s mercy does not rely upon my emotions, but upon God’s own goodness.

In Sunday’s sermon, I quoted from something I had read: “The mystery of incarnation is itself a sign, pointing us toward resurrection. To stop the story at the manger mistakes the sign for the final destination.”¹ God becomes one of us in Jesus to bring us more than a birthday celebration. Jesus is God-with-us in order to bring us into full relationship, unbound and set free, with God and with each other.

Also on this second day of Christmas, I get to see my family in Texas, and meet my great-nephew for the first time. As Max and I fly, I offer hopes that we can see all the blessings in our lives, and offering blessing to others.

Joyeux Noël

John 1:14

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

---

¹ MELINDA A. QUIVIK & MARTHA E. STORTZ (2013-01-01). Abingdon Theological Companion to the Lectionary (Year A): Preaching Year A (Kindle Location 558-559). Abingdon Press. Kindle Edition.

A Sense of Loss at Christmas

Several years ago, before our boys arrived on the scene, I would find myself somewhat disappointed on Christmas morning. My parents would be with us for Christmas Eve and morning, and they always had a slew of gifts for each other—especially Daddy who loved surprising my mother with gifts. [I think that actually came from the year he gave her a popcorn popper as her Christmas gift, when he was the one who really liked popcorn. He learned his lesson well.]

I thought maybe I felt disappointed because they were still opening gifts long after Jeff and I were done. So one year, we decided to concentrate on small gifts in order to extend the joy of opening presents. Even though we delighted each other with thoughtful and fun gifts, I still felt disappointed. Doesn’t that sound crass and ungrateful?

As I reflected on my feelings, I realized that there was always a sense of loss for me at Christmas, and I discovered what it was. The one year my family had driven to Alabama for Christmas rather than my mother’s parents coming to us was the year Granddaddy had a heart attack in late summer and was not supposed to drive long distances. We had Christmas morning between their house and my cousins’ house three doors down. Christmas dinner was midday at their house. For the evening meal, we all drove in separate cars to my cousins’ other grandparents. Dinner was delayed as we kept waiting for Granddaddy and Grary to arrive. They never arrived. As they drove, a car ran a stop sign and hit their car, throwing them from their vehicle. Granddaddy died the next day. Grary was not hurt as badly.

From that time on, Christmas has always had a bit of a feeling of loss. Now that both my parents are gone and Jeff has died, that is a reality not only for me, but for my boys as well. I do not really get into the gifts as much. It is far more important for me to be with the people I love. It is there that I experience Emmanuel—God with us.

My hope for each of you this Christmas is that you allow God’s Spirit to abide in you so that even in moments of disappointment and loss, you will find the deep joy that is God’s gift for you.

Isaiah 9:2

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.

O Come, Emmanuel!

On Wednesday evenings at our small group we have been watching some short videos of people talking about Advent. Tonight, it was Bill Young who wrote The Shack. He started off by saying it’s about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit opening their circle to include a 14 year-old girl, asking her if she would be a part of their plan.

Then he talked a bit about why God came among us, and said something about wrath, that it is not what most people think it is. God’s wrath is not punitive, but saving. He told a story about a friend of his who was in the woods when wasps started stinging him. He began yelling for his mom. When he saw her running towards him, if he had not known her he would have said she was angry enough to kill him. Her anger was about his situation and pain, and she came to find him and save him. What a different take on wrath!

Think about that this Advent. God has come to find us. Emmanuel—God with us—has come to be with us. Not only has God come, but God continues to come, and continues to be with us in the Spirit.

Oh what joy, deep—not bouncing up-and-down—but deep, deep joy! This is what my spirit needs. O come, O come, Emmanuel!

Matthew 1.23:

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”

My Narrative Report

Each year, a United Methodist pastor is to make a "narrative" report of their year in ministry. The following is my report to the Charge Conference this past Sunday.

As I look back over 2013 thus far in my ministry with Christ Crossman UMC, I find that I have learned even more about adaptability and flexibility in serving an ever-changing congregation.

Personally, I participated in a Courage to Lead series of five discernment retreats. My stated goal for participation was to make discernments in questions about my ministry, education and possible retirement in the coming years. Along with these retreats, I applied to Wesley Theological Seminary in DC for admission to the 2013 Doctorate of Ministry program in Church Leadership Excellence. When I initially applied, I thought this might help me in determining an avenue of service after retirement from active pastoral ministry. Through the discernment retreats and participating in the first three courses of the D.Min program, I have come to the understanding that I still have a lot to learn and to offer in the active pastoral ministry, particularly here at C2UMC.

Last Spring, in reflections around C2's leadership and staff tables, I had a strong sense that we had made significant strides in turning around a decades-long decline but that we had reached a plateau. It felt as though we had paused to take a breath after a hard run, and then forgotten to start running again.  It is important to take a pause to reflect, to catch our breath, to see where we need to head next. In looking at my particular part of this pause, I know that when a leader's attention becomes diffused or focused elsewhere, then a congregation can feel distracted. Over the last couple of years, I have worked hard to keep my focus up, but I do know that dealing with grief and illness sometimes blur sight. In particular, I feel as though I lost a significant portion of September and October of this year due to an ongoing health issue that has now resolved. Details became harder to manage. For this I apologize that I realized too late to make other arrangements to make sure that administrative oversight details could be more adequately covered.

While administration suffered some, I have continued to visit and provide pastoral care, while serving as the primary worship planner, leader and preacher. Even in the midst of loss and anticipated illness of beloved members, I find great joy in being present with them in the journey.

In my D.Min class this Fall, I have realized a couple of areas I need to strengthen in my leadership. The first area is that I have a tendency to hold back from setting forth hard invitations to people, partially because I am aware of how much they have going on in their lives outside of church. In this reluctance, I do not allow them the privilege of deciding for themselves how much they can commit in time or resources. The second area has to do with emphasizing calls enough by repeating them in different ways. Too often I assume that people will get bored or annoyed with a continuing emphasis. I neglect the reality that it usually takes a minimum of encountering a new idea five times before it really begins to sink in.

I have followed through on the authorization by the Church Council to work with the City of Falls Church on our proposal to redevelop the Miller House property next door to the church. The city's planning and housing departments were excited to deal with this proposal. Two meetings of a focus group were held here in this Chapel with members of city staff, neighboring congregations, community organizations and potential developers. The focus group made a recommendation that the extant house be razed and a new residence built for adults with disabilities, particularly intellectual disabilities. The city has now issued an RFI, request for information, to possible developers and groups to be received back in early January.

I find joy in working with our current seminary intern, Jeremy Koontz, and continuing to serve as a co-facilitator of PM&M colloquies at the seminary. Engaging in reflection with those who are currently studying and preparing for ministry helps keep me, and our congregation, better honed for our own ministry here.

I am excited about our new children's music ministry, and working with our lay leaders on a five-year plan that will help C2UMC put our ministry on the line.

I give thanks for the people and leaders of Christ Crossman who have offered me loving support and gracious challenge in serving together. Here's to being a part of what God wants to bless in the year to come.

Jeremiah 29:11

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 

 

NRSV

My Litany of Thanks

My litany of thanks:

            For my sons, and being able to see them grow in maturity;

For my granddaughter who looks so much like her daddy;

For my brother who gives so much of himself to his family;

For my sister-in-law and her droll sense of humor, and her great nursing skills;

For my nephew and his fiancée, and their families;

For my niece and her growing family;

For my great-aunt who taught us so much; rest in peace, Annie Sue;

For my friends who teach me how to love;

For my coach whose laughter and questions help me see more clearly;

For the nurse practitioners and nurses at the Wound Care Center;

For access to good medical care;

For the people of Christ Crossman who challenge me to grow;

For the best staff people to work with--sharing ideas, and learning together;

For the ability to go back to school and discover that I can still learn and grow;

For music and beauty;

For love and hope;

For vision and God’s call;

For prayer and for rejoicing;

For grace and mercy;

For more than I can name;

For things I cannot name;

For life, even in the midst of it all;

For eternity—past, present and future—in God.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Have I Got a Story for You...

Stories are so important. I guess I’m thinking along those lines because I miss getting to hear the stories of my family. My parents died 11 and 21 years ago; my grandparents much long ago than that. Our last link with the generations that went before us, my Great-Aunt Annie Sue, died in October at nearly 104.

Stories connect us to one another. We learn about ourselves as we hear them, not only about events in our lives and in our families, but about how we see the world, how we interact with others, about our sense of purpose, and other things.

I have a friend, Lou Ann Homan, who is a great storyteller. She keeps her community and family connected through her stories. She tells stories from the past that connect us with those who lived then. She tells stories from her family’s life that bring us in touch with a young family’s experience. She tells stories from life today that help us pay closer attention to the world and people around us.

I have said that stories “people our imagination.” The characters and situations from the stories—whether factually based or fictional—allow us to see them in action as though on a stage. We can try on different characters and roles, as though they are costumes. We experience responses from a somewhat safer distance. This can help us be more reflective, so that when we actually encounter something like it in our lives, we will have made preparations and maybe even some decisions about how we want to respond.

Our Director of Christian Education became concerned that while our children, and we adults, may learn particular stories they and we don’t really have a sense of them as a part of a much larger story. She is providing lessons each week that include “the connective” tissues. We are learning in our community life to talk about the “so what” of why we do what we do, or what we are trying to do. All this is to help us become more deeply aware of God’s story and of our part in it.

Now, have I got a story for you…

Joel 1:2-3

Hear this, O elders, give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your ancestors? ³Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

10 Lessons from Nonprofits

Who said that learning ever stops? Not me! Here are some things I learned, or re-learned, this Fall in my online class in Pastoral Leadership Feedback. The references are to chapters in The Jossey-Bass Reader on Nonprofit and Public Leadership. Ed. James L. Perry. (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010).

As you read these, which three do you think are most important for Christ Crossman or your own congregation?

1.When leaders rein in their egos and share power with others in their organization, the entire organization benefits and grows in strength, enabling it to have a greater ability to fulfill its mission. (Chapter Nine, "Shared Leadership")

2.Succession planning is crucial to the long-term vitality of the organization. (Chapter Nine, "Shared Leadership")

3.Strategic planning is not a static process; rather it involves active engagement, reflection and action at every step of the process which might mean that the middle sometimes appears a bit chaotic but is really creative and challenges every participant to be fully engaged. (Chapter Eleven, "The Strategy Change Cycle")

4.When the imagination is engaged, helping planners dare to dream large, an organization is more able to take steps that move it towards real change. (Chapter Eleven, "The Strategy Change Cycle")

5.Knowing who all the stakeholders are for an organization and its mission, and including them somehow in the planning process is vital to the success of that process and the realization of the mission. (Chapter Eleven, "The Strategy Change Cycle")

6.Daring to redefine and even narrow the mission of an organization can help make its accomplishments more evident, and bring others into a supportive and/or collegial relationship with the organization which can deepen the change desired. (Chapter Twelve, "delivering on the Promise of Nonprofits")

7.Embracing evaluation of how an organization is accomplishing its mission, or not, can improve congruence between stated values and how those values are put into practice. (Chapter Twenty-Three, "Nonprofits and Evaluation")

8.Ongoing evaluation is important in strengthening mission and relationship in the community. (Chapter Twenty-Three, "Nonprofits and Evaluation")

9.While imagination and passion are vital in building towards real change, without a workable organization, the initial brightness might soon be overwhelmed and diminished or even extinguished. (Chapter Twenty-Four, "Sustaining Impact")

10.Investing in recruiting and training leaders for an organization is important in the long run even though "staffing for growth" ahead of the growth can be hard to justify when resources are limited. (Chapter Thirty, "Understanding the Nonprofit Sector's Leadership Deficit")

Exodus 18:23

If you handle the work this way, you’ll have the strength to carry out whatever God commands you, and the people in their settings will flourish also.

   The Message

An Evening of Challenge

On Tuesday night, our Office Manager Kate Hoing and I went down to Calvary Baptist Church in DC to hear Nadia Bolz-Weber and Amy Butler. You may have seen the article in Monday's Washington Post on Nadia. She's the weight-lifting, tattooed Lutheran pastor who often uses very down-to-earth salty language. She is also a recovering alcoholic and former drug user. She grew up in a family that attended the Church of Christ, a very conservative denomination that does not allow women to teach boys over the age of twelve. Her recently published book Pastrix is a memoir.

I first heard Nadia in May of 2012, and have quoted her in a couple of sermons since then. She would never claim to have all the answers or to get everything right, but she seeks to be a real and faithful follower of Jesus.

Following are some of my tweets from Tuesday night. If there are typos, just know that it's hard to type accurately while following someone's talk. For more, see here.

• making it hard, challenging, not crazy posturing
• We want God's answers but what we get is God's presence
• my job is not to worry about why my people believe, but it am responsible for what they hear
• Don't tone down the Jesus!
• there is welcome to anyone who wants to be there, but not the LowestCommonDenominator theology.
• a lot of folks are not really into denominations. nadia: I'm not post-denominational.
• Theological particularity is important in a missional sense. Don't give up on that,
• How do you define success for yourself in terms of your congregation?
• Success does not look like numbers, but moments of holy grace.
• Filling out a mission church report: "how many doors did you knock on this month?" Nadia's answer: "Zero. That's creepy"
• corporate American values--have to be good in every single area--BS. We don't have to awesome at everything.
• So not into consumer church. That is not success.
• faith is a gift. Stumble in and out. Stumble in and stay. Never stumble in. Who knows why?
• in urban setting , how do you let people know that this is a place they might find a home?
• Out and about in the community. Not outreach strategy. Not a means to an end. Marketing is resented.
• thinking about the building--our mission, open the doors. Calvary Baptist
• liturgy has it's own integrity; it doesn't depend on my integrity.
• listen to your external sense of call before you emphasize your internal sense of call which can be kind of sketchy.
• don't spend or waste your authority defending it; you will end up losing it.

Esther 4:14

“Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”

An Audacious Dream

This week at our small group, we were challenged by hearing N.T. Wright talk about down-to-earth ministries in the economically depressed area of Durham, England where he was the Anglican Bishop for seven years. These ministries grow out of worship that is not just about our personal, individual relationship with God but is also about “sustaining the life is that is going on around” the church in the community. As a school was closed, one man had a dream to provide education and training for persons with disabilities. As they mend broken furniture to make it whole, their own lives are mended.

Over this past year I came to know Buck Cochran through the discernment retreat series in which I took part. After serving as a flyer in the Navy, and then working as a chemist, Buck went to Duke Divinity School and was ordained in the Presbyterian Church. While working as an associate pastor, Buck’s call began to be transformed to working with persons with varying levels of disabilities so that they would have a place to live, and work and grow into the fullest expression possible in their lives.

Buck and others had an audacious dream to transform 89 acres of farmland into Peacehaven Farm, a place where adults with “intellectual and physical disabilities [could] live independently within the embrace of the community around them.” The original idea was to start by building the houses and then to develop the farm. The financial collapses of 2008 intervened. Work began on the farm with many persons of all abilities from the surrounding community working together. This year, the first house, called Susan’s View after one of the founders who died of cancer, is being built through the work of volunteers coordinated by Habitat for Humanity.

An audacious dream has transformed the lives of everyone it has touched. This has really been about being people of faith seeking to “sustain the life that is going on around.” God is calling us to living an audacious life of faith together. This is a life, a dream to which I can give myself—mending broken furniture and broken lives to make them whole, giving glory to God all the while.

[Read more about BuckCochran and Peacehaven Farm.] 

Revelation 22:1-2

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Balance on the Continuum

Back in college as a psychology major, I took my two courses in Abnormal Psych over the summer before my Fourth Year. As with many nursing and medical students, reading about different syndromes and diagnoses often resulted in being sure that I was afflicted with them. One of the most helpful things I learned that summer was about the continuum. Behaviors run across a continuum, from very mild to severe. The reality is that most, if not all of us, exhibit those behaviors in our lives from time to time. We may show a bit of paranoia, or hypochondria, or phobia, or whatever. For most of us those bits are just that—bits—and they certainly do not overwhelm our lives. There may well be times when we find them overwhelming. And there are persons who deal with them in much larger segments than bits.

Over the years I have done a great deal of work to develop self-awareness. When I think I have grown, and then find a lack of it looking me straight in my face, I have a tendency to enlarge it. Then what has seemed golden and good gets a coating of slime. I lose a bit of the sense of balance, and see more things through the glasses of lack.

The reality is that I am the same person now as before. I have grown, but I am not perfect. I need to go back and re-play that lecture on a continuum and find balance. I also need to face the fact that try as hard as I can, I cannot see through the veil. I can only see through the mirror dimly. Someday, I will see my Lord face to face, and in God’s eyes, see myself clearly. Until that day, I have to be content with vision that tends to mis-see. In those moments, I need to surrender myself to God’s grace, and allow the Spirit to help me grow where I need to grow, bit by bit.

1 Corinthians 13:12

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Lex orandi, lex credendi, est

Lex orandi, lex credendi, est

As we pray, so we believe.

On Monday afternoon, I just about lost it. I read another really stupid, snide remark about who was responsible for the mess our nation was in. I was alone, outside, and granted I was coming down with the cold I inherited from Max, but I had an angry outburst. Then I apologized to God’s Spirit. I didn’t blaspheme by any means, but the world doesn’t need more negativity being pumped out there.

On Tuesday, a keynote speaker shared the phrase above. I believe this. The prayers we offer shape what we believe, just as the songs we sing shape what we believe. When our prayers become turned inward, so does our belief. Our spirit stops reaching out to include others. When we curse someone, our imprecation tamps that much more dirt onto them, adding that much more hatred in the world. When we bless someone, our blessing allows grace to flow from God through us to them, and we increase the Kindom of God just a bit more.

Last night, I watched as the final votes in the House of Representatives were cast. I was reminded what Jen said at our midweek prayer time this morning. In the midst of all the anxiety, she knew she had to pray for all involved—not praying by choosing a side, but for all. As we pray, so we believe. I wish I could say I prayed for each Representative casting a vote. Really, I was almost holding my breath, but now I do pray for each of them. And I continue holding each person who has been affected by this uncertainty, especially for my people who have been on furlough, and those who have been working without pay.

I still believe that my hope, our hope is in our God who is immensely bigger than any of this. I will offer this prayer up each day of the next four months and beyond: O God in whom we live, and move and have our being, cast your vision for us and may we find our hope in you. In your holy Triune name, trusting in your saving grace, and your transforming power, we pray. Amen.

Revelation 21:6-7

Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.