Maybe Swearing Will Help

I'm going to take a break from blogging for a while and work on editing. 

I've decided to work on a daily devotion based on blogs, newsletters, and sermons and I would like to title it Maybe Swearing Will Help. I think that will go over as well as A Waste of Time.

There is a random mix of quotes and poems on my desk, but I keep a little sign that says "Maybe swearing will help." It is not meant to be offensive, but sometimes swearing does help me.

Swearing and singing come from a different part of the brain than regular speech. Singing has never been my gift, but I learned to swear well when I was young. I'm going to blame it on my speech impediment. When I was unable to enunciate s, z, r or l, I could say shit and damn until the cows came home. When so much of language was work for me, I loved swearing for the break it gave my tongue and brain.

Swearing also often helps people feel comfortable. I'm a pastor and my very presence at a gathering brings guilt. People walk up to me and start to tell me why they aren't in church. I write it all down and pass it on to Jesus for them. Not really. It's just slightly awkward, but if I swear then people end the lame excuses and say something like, "it's good to know you are human." I hope they thought I was a cyborg before I started swearing.

Humanity and profanity so often go together.

Sometimes we look at our humanity as lacking sacredness, but I would like to focus a daily devotion on God's work transforming the profane into the sacred. Jesus continually takes the ordinary stuff of life and encourages us to see God at work redeeming and loving.

If humanity is living with our impiety and limits, then I would say divinity is imagining the creative power of eternal love.  I see this stab as a devotion as an attempt to make connections between humanity and divinity. How do we pay attention to our profane moments and see how God is making them sacred?

Termination Dust

Termination dust makes me happy. 

The fresh snow on the mountains marks the end of one season and the beginning of another (I'd say we only have two seasons - light and dark). And now it's time to terminate things. I get to chop down all the plants I haven't already killed, put my garden to sleep, and clean out the coop before the poop freezes. I'm not sure why these things make me happy, but I love the process of cutting everything back so we all can rest and renew over the winter. 

I'm kind of feeling the same way with my faith tradition. I've been thinking about getting rid of the labels "God" and "Christian." I feel like these labels need chopped down to the roots and allowed to rest because they have lost meaning, or more appropriately they are overflowing with too many contradictory meanings.

I think the word "god" is dull and worthless. The word simply means "supreme being" and what the heck does that mean? It's hard to hear the word "god" and not think of a big white guy in the sky. I don't believe in a big white guy sitting in a cloud somewhere far away ruling over us. 

So I've been trying to come up with a more appropriate word to describe the God we worship. Christian orthodoxy describes God as a trinity so I would argue that the best name is "Eternal Communion of Love." That's a grand theological solution in case you were wondering, but the logistics get messy. Eternal Communion of Love is a lot of words to write every time we talk about God and the acronym is way too much like E. coli and that does not evoke worship and praise. 

How about E.C.? Eternal Communion and it makes me think of E.T. who is more appealing than the big white guy in the sky or diarrhea. Come on. There's something holy about E.T. - he's a terrifying and fascinating mystery that draws people in.

Anyway, I'm going to try and let the word "god" rest because it's been invoked for way too many horrible things and talk about E.C. for a bit. At least for the rest of today.

I'd love to stop calling myself a Christian too. I feel like that label has been hijacked across the spectrum to equate to certain social agendas. I do think our trust in the Eternal Communion of Love may drive us to speak out on issues, but I also think it is probably best not to say our agenda comes from God.  If your social agenda leaves you hating brothers and sisters, then it probably isn't grounded in the love we see in Jesus.

How about "Lovers"? We get rid of the name Christian and replace it with Lovers. It's a way more dynamic name than Christian. And think about all fun new signs and songs. "The First Lover's Church", "Onward Lovers", "Good Lover Friends, Rejoice" . . . 

I know it's goofy, but there are times that it's helpful to cut back our assumptions, give our overused words a break, and try to look anew at our faith and world around us. 

Sacred

I've been trying to figure out why the recent Flying Spaghetti Monster prayer at the Homer assembly meeting bugged me. I'm not easily offended and I don't know if I'm a supporter of prayers at civic meetings, but I  found the publicity and the prayer itself offensive. 

"So, I’m called to invoke the power of the true inebriated creator of the universe, the drunken tolerator (sic) of the all lesser and more recent gods, and maintainer of gravity here on earth. May the great Flying Spaghetti Monster rouse himself from his stupor and let his noodly appendages ground each assembly member in their seats.”

I am currently traveling reconnecting with family and friends. I'm also doing some continuing education on grief, life coaching, and how the church talks about sex. All of this has given me a chance to reflect on what is sacred.

The word "sacred" comes from the word "holy" and the word "holy" doesn't mean you're super well-behaved. Holy means to be set apart for a specific purpose. To mark something as holy or sacred means to recognize the significance of that time, place and the people there.

Prayer is a way of marking sacred space and people. It's a way of recognizing that meeting or moment as significant; the decisions made by leaders (and all of us) have eternal ripples. What we do and decide matters. 

I get anxious when we go speeding into a sense that nothing matters. There is so much absurdity on a regular basis that I want to defend a few moments and words to mark the sacred and let the absurd take a break for at least a few minutes. It loses some humor and fun when every moment has an edge of ridiculousness. 

I am also offended by prayers that have an agenda of god the great wish granter or god on my side or believe what I do. They have no place in public gatherings, but I appreciate hearing from a variety of faith expressions about how we make this time and space set apart as significant. Prayer isn't about inviting a magic god in to fix things, but it invites us out of ourselves into a greater purpose; it reminds us to be compassionate, wise, and gracious (those tend to be qualities that stretch across faiths). 

The Wall

What three major events impacted your life?

That was Elijah's homework question for me the other day. It got me thinking.

9/11 was definitely top of the list as well as the genocides in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. These events destroyed any sense of naivete about humanity's capacity for cruelty. The killings in Rwanda felt very close because we were in seminary in Tanzania not long after and the stories of normal life turning into slaughter were chilling.

But, the one that was fun to talk about was the fall of the Berlin Wall. I got to tell him all about going to Germany as an exchange student when I was a Junior and being one of the last classes to go through Checkpoint Charlie. I was obsessed with McDonald's toys and I can still remember the East German guard going through my huge white purse. He first pulled out all these strange toys I insisted on carrying with me and then my rubber chicken key chain. He held that up and smiled, but that was about the only smile.

Since this was long before 9/11, we hadn't experienced much security before so this all felt really intimidating and then East Berlin was so gray and quiet. That's all I remember. There were lots of gray buildings, except there were some buildings that were mostly destroyed and had a giant painted drop cloth over them. Our money was worth a lot in East Berlin, but there was nothing to buy.

One of the highlights from our last trip to Germany two years ago was getting to explore the history of the GDR and  study how something that looks so reasonable on paper destroyed the human spirit. The constant suspicion and intimidation exhausted people. The alcohol consumption in the GDR was eight times higher than in West Germany.

We never imagined standing in line at Checkpoint Charlie in 1988 that within a year the wall would come down. There were many things that led up to that day in November, but the peaceful protests are close to my heart.

The pastor of a church in Leipzig held regular Monday prayers for peace until October 9, when the numbers were too great for the church. As the Deutsche Welle reported,

Around 6,000 to 8,000 people were crammed in to the churches in central Leipzig, and a total of 70,000 people had gathered in the city. Everyone was holding a candle, a symbol of non-violence - you need to hold a candle with both hands to keep it from going out, which makes it impossible to throw stones. 

This was four months after Tiananmen Square massacre and I think we all held our breath wondering if  tanks would roll into Leipzig and Berlin. I had a t-shirt around this time with the quote, "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." It was one of my favorites, but I don't think any of us imagined that candles would help bring down the wall.

I didn't take any pictures of the Wall, but I kind of love this one
in one of the bathrooms

Yes, my life was impacted by the tragedy of terrorism and genocide, but it has also been impacted by the power of hope and non-violence. Tyrannies and empires do not last forever, but I'm willing to stake my life and my strength on the hope that love and peace do.

Praise for Cranberries

Joy is 55 degrees with a light drizzle and I'm kneeling in the marsh hunting cranberries. The wild wind that blew the snot right out of my nose and onto my dog was a bonus. So much of my life is disgusting and amusing at the same time.

This is the carnivore of the bog, but
the tiny red branch is a cranberry plant

I was giddy with my numb fingers digging in the moss for the elusive cranberry. I'll pick other berries, but a cranberry bog on a melancholy day fills me with elation. Seriously. 

The low bush cranberry plant only produces one berry and you have to kneel and develop a keen eye to see them. Rarely does one walk away with a huge haul; my goal was a cup for ginger cranberry muffins.

I came home and once I got the feeling back in my fingers, I set to work making muffins. Baking is not in my skill set. I have the patience to lie in a bog and find single berries, but I can't measure more than three ingredients without losing my patience and calling it close enough. 

I'm always tempted to pray for patience, but what I really want are situations that don't require patience. I don't pray for patience because I know the only way to becoming more patient is practice and I don't want God to give me any more practice. 

But, what if I could turn the situations that get me irritated and anxious into cranberry moments? What if I could figure out how to kneel right in the middle of all the discomfort and look for treasures? I'd much rather be filled with joy instead of irritated and impatient. 

There are so many fun and wonderful aspects of middle age and menopause, but one of my favorites is feeling like a layer of skin has been removed and I'm so much more vulnerable and sensitive to the stimulation of the world. It's easy to lose patience when I feel that exposed so if I suddenly kneel when I'm talking to you, take note, I'm looking for cranberries.

Shirt

My favorite denim shirt has been found! 

It's close to 30 years old with more buttons missing than attached and I love it. This is the joy of cleaning out my closet.

It's my most comforting shirt, big enough to double as a blanket at a concert or beach. Many a ferry trip was spent in the solarium wrapped in the shirt like a make-shift sleeping bag.

I don't want to think about all the snot streaks that have crossed the sleeves - hikes without tissues or walking with a child at camp who saw my arm as a Kleenex
. There's a sizable coffee stain on the sleeve, but that just helps ensure no one will ever steal it. And one tiny blood stain from a bad idea.

This shirt saw me through three pregnancies. It's a man's shirt several sizes too big, but I think in the 80s I liked my clothes large like my hair.

I've found myself wearing this worn and ragged shirt nearly every day since its discovery. There is something comforting about being wrapped in old denim as I face so much new. I wondered today as I sat on it at the beach if I was trying to recover youth, but I don't think so. I've got anti-aging cream for that.

Life is lovely now and I wouldn't trade it for any other time, but there's something about this shirt that feels real. This shirt wraps me in stories and experiences that keep whoever I become rooted in the person I have been. Clothes can hide so much for us, but not this shirt. It reminds me of nearly every adventure, heartbreak, sunset, and joy I've known. It wraps me in the courage and memories I need to face the adventures ahead.

Robot

I think I might be a robot; it's impossible for me to pass the verification things to prove I'm not a robot so I must be one. 

There should be an automatic pass when you don't complete the clicking on squares for more than a minute because obviously you're trying to find your glasses so you can identify all the crosswalks, cars, and storefronts in the pictures. 

Or you should get an automatic pass when you fail finding all the stupid buses more than four times. Do they mean a tiny part of a bus or does it have to be an entire bus?

Sometimes I overthink things, but it is all making me pause before I click the "I am not a robot" box. Shouldn't there be another choice, like "I am a middle aged woman who can't see or figure out how to verify my identity, but you can probably hear me swearing so that should be enough" or maybe a button saying "I might be having an identity crisis and starting to think I'm a robot".

I'm now on a mission to prove I'm not a robot. Here is my plan:

1. Make more irrational choices. I think I need a few more of these to protect myself from the systematic processing of a robot so I do things that are uncomfortable and don't have a good reward. Today I went for a long hike in the pouring rain without my raincoat. No robot would do that, even though it wasn't a choice as much as I just forgot my coat. I'm pretty sure having water drip down my back into my underwear could be a verification test to prove I'm not a robot. 


2. See the world without a utilitarian agenda. People and things do not exist for me to use for my personal agenda. They are not steps in my program to get me to the final result. Every being has an integrity on its own; I do not get to control or manipulate others for my machinations. I get to hang out in the mystery of being without pretending I'm in charge.

3. Take time to laugh and cry. Our ability to experience joy and pain will always set us apart from machines. Even if machines could figure out how to laugh or cry at appropriate moments, I would still have them beat because I do these things at inappropriate times, just ask anyone who has watched a movie with me. 

We are not robots, consumers, work units, tax payers, electors, or plebeians (that's just too fun of a word to pass up). We are unique mysteries or as my faith tradition states, "we are beloved children of God." Maybe that could be a box to check at the end.  

If I Had A Boat

An inflatable row boat saw me through middle school. I lived on that thing in the middle of the faux pond in the new sub development where we lived.

I would drag my boat to the pond as well as an anchor, sail, radio, snacks, books and fishing pole. And that's how I stayed relatively sane. Nobody could call me a dork or nerd because all the popular kids lived in town and those who didn't couldn't see me hunkered with my book deep in my imaginary ocean. I loved that boat and I'm so thankful that Elijah got one for his thirteenth birthday.

That's why I carried it out camping with us this past week. I'm guessing I carried over 100 lbs at least ten miles by the end of our week camping, but it was worth it.

We all took turns on the row boat in the cove by the cabin and I got to experience one of those brief and eternal moments of pure joy. The sun was shining, the water was calm, and I was tired of rowing so I lay in the boat face first looking down into the water. It was just the kids and I and they were running around the cliffs giggling and daring each other to explore a little further. I was basking in the sun watching the jelly fish, sea anemones, and sea stars dot the water below me. And it all was perfect for that moment. All was right with the world and I was filled with beauty and joy until it was overflowing.

So I started to cry. 
Naturally. 
Because such moments are precious and fragile; one cannot hold onto them and everything changes.

And that's okay. 

The kids started yelling for me to row over and catch them in the boat as they jumped off the rocks. That's a bad idea so instead they dove off and climbed out of the freezing water into the boat and I taxied them back to shore. They all pushed and encouraged each other to make the dive and I helped get them back safely. That's what family does on our best days. 

I also started to cry this last Sunday during communion; I'm noticing a pattern. Presiding over communion is often emotional for me. I know about the struggles and brokenness people face and I place a moment of perfect love in their hands hoping it will bring some wholeness and connection. It means I absorb the fragility and changing nature of life as I place the body broken and made whole for us into outstretched hands. 

It's kind of intense every Sunday, but when we're saying good bye to a slew of young adults scattering to the winds, it gets cranked up a notch. I made it through three of them, but buckled with the fourth. The tears just started flowing; one cannot hold onto them and everything changes.

Luckily, I serve a congregation where I could wipe my eyes on the sleeve of someone's shirt as they came through the communion line when tissues were not accessible. I did not blow my nose; even I know that crosses a line. 

I wish I had brilliant advice and spiritual tools to survive the chances and changes of life, but right now I'm leaning heavily on time spent in an inflatable boat. 

Raw

I needed a rainy day. It seems to give permission to grieve with the world - tornadoes, floods, killings, and so much fear and anger. So I'm curling up with curry, a fire and my dog and trying to be present with the hurt.

These last few weeks have felt so raw as I got to pray as part of the police memorial and baccalaureate. I want you all to know I made it through without weeping. That's impressive.

I'm going to start trying to do formal prayers and sermons to protect myself some, except I'm afraid I might fall asleep or become numb so I probably won't actually become any more formal or predictable.

I'd like to share these raw moments and prayers because I want folks to know my prayers are not a flippant response to tragedy or pain, they are a deep investment of my heart in the suffering of others.

Police Memorial

Seeking to respect the beliefs of all, I offer this personal prayer

Prayer is the place where I examine my heart and offer it to the redeeming love of God. So this prayer is my heart: 

A heart that is heavy with the weight of grief. We remember families and pay tribute to all officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice. We also honor the daily sacrifices made by those who serve as well as their families. The world is never the same when one has faced the brokenness of humanity, the long hours of labor, and the tedium of paperwork. 

My heart rejoices in the courage and integrity of so many who are part of this calling. I give thanks for your willingness to be people of compassion and seek what is right even in the murky waters of complex relationships and conflicting stories. 

And somewhat selfishly, I must confess a heart that hopes my husband comes home every night. I know what it is to have a heart that beats faster when the time wears on or the sirens break through the night and I trust that worried heart into God’s love.

Whatever may come, I pray I may have a heart that hopes that the light of love can shine and redeem even the darkest of places. 

Baccalaureate 

Gathering prayer

Respecting the beliefs of all, I lift this prayer to God the source of life and love,

As we gather, I give thanks for all the beach days we have survived to get you to this point. All those field trips where it was either freezing with sideways rain or sunny with no see ums and the stench of rotting varmits. 

Even when I couldn’t feel my fingers, it still brought me delight to flip over rocks and see what slithering creatures were hiding underneath. I loved trying to catch the critters as much as any of the kids. And that’s my prayer for you all as we gather. 

May the God of creativity and curiosity urge you regardless of weather to investigate, observe and flip over rocks. Even when you are ready for your hot dog and freezing cold, or sunburnt and parched, keep poking around and there might be an octopus hiding or a sculpin waiting to be caught.

May you never expect life to come to you, but be willing to risk exploring, to face discomfort, and to dig a little deeper. May you bump into the God of life and love as you engage the mysteries and wonder around you.

Sending

As we are sent, I remind you of one last guideline for the beach: always put things back the way you found them and tend the creatures around you with respect and care.

May the God of compassion and grace guide you into being faithful caretakers of the world. May you be curious and adventurous but also kind and loving. 

May you look around at those who are here tonight, who have probably accompanied you on many field trips and who love you even in the wild wind at the beach with snot flying and eyes burning, and know if they will stand beside you on beach days they will stand with you through anything. 

May the peace that passes all understanding wrap you tightly and give you the courage and strength to go forth to be curious and kind. 

Donuts

Sometimes I suck as a parent.

And sometimes I should get a high five for being a rockstar.

I suck because there was one old-fashioned donut left in the box the other morning. I suppose I knew somewhere in my soul that my beloved eldest daughter was saving the donut, but I was just going to have one bite. Then it looked uneven, so I ate the outside ring.

Hannah was saving the donut because she knew it was going to be a hard day and she wanted something to look forward to. 

I felt bad. And was reminded of how much I suck on a regular basis. 

So I made it right. 

I was in Anchorage for a conference and bought two of what were supposed to be the best old-fashioned donuts in all of Alaska. They sat in a bag safely tucked away in my carry-on while a little voice kept saying Hannah would never know if I ate one and only brought one donut back. There are days I want to smack that voice, but I ate airplane biscuits instead and thought how two donuts were needed to set things right.

Yay me! And they did. No more guilt trips. At least about the donut.

It got me thinking about forgiveness and reconciliation. Hearing again the horrendous murder of James Byrd Jr. as they executed one of his killers in Texas this past week and listening to folks trying to make sense of so much pain has made me think again about forgiveness and setting things right.

I've been sitting with an excerpt from a recent interview on NPR with author Philip Gourevitch about Rwanda 25 years after the genocide.

GOUREVITCH: But what's interesting to me, too, is - what does forgiveness mean? I mean, to some extent, when I went and I heard the word forgiveness, I thought it sort of meant you'd restore whatever the relationship was before.

MARTIN: Yeah.

GOUREVITCH: And they would say, no, that involves trust. That's a whole different thing. Forgiveness doesn't require trust. Forgiveness simply means letting go of the idea of getting even, forgoing the idea of revenge. Right? Now, even that's a big ask. But it means accepting coexistence.

This is all obviously way bigger than my donut issue, but what does it mean to live in our relationships, community and world letting go of the idea of getting even? 

Justice is different than revenge. 

Justice creates safe spaces where relationships can be restored or at least coexistence is made possible. 

Revenge is inflicting more hurt thinking that will somehow create less hurt. I'm thinking at least part of the message of the cross is the end to the cycle of revenge. 

I'm also thinking I had lots of time to think sitting on the plane trying not to think about how yummy the donut would be with my coffee.

Expectations

There are so many wonderful surprises that come with age - like where hair starts to grow. 

It makes me laugh and I keep reminding my beloved that I have a secret crush on Chewbacca so any extra hair he grows doesn't matter. Then our conversation devolves into Chewbacca not wearing pants, his hygiene and sooner or later dingleberries. This keeps us from ever talking about my hair.

We're in for the long haul together and it has lovely times, challenging times, and times when I talk to my chickens. Part of what keeps it lovely is being open to surprises. I'm not going to mention that I'm ahead in the ping pong game count, even though that's a huge surprise.

I'll share instead my surprise over Ip Man. I do like martial art movies, not the gory ones, but I enjoy a well choreographed fight. It was Kirt's night to choose the movie and he chose what looked like a pathetic martial arts movie and I might have whined and talked about how much it was going to suck. I'm not always charming and kind.

But, I was wrong. If you haven't watched Ip Man, even though it's not a real promising beginning, it is amazing. It's based on a true person Yip Man who was a martial arts master and teacher of Wing Chun (one of his students was later Bruce Lee). Ip Man stood up to the Japanese army when they invaded China and he had to rebuild a life after persecution and poverty. 

So I had to apologize for whining and admit that I was surprised and thankful that my beloved didn't listen to me. It wasn't what I expected. 

Expectations are not always helpful, especially when we are so set on them that we'll ruin an experience just to prove we were right (or it can go the other way and you post a million smiling pictures even though the experience stunk). 

We're entering Holy Week in the church when we relive and remember all the surprises and upended expectations of Jesus. He washes feet, he weeps in prayer, he is betrayed by a dear friend, he dies a scandalous death, and he leaves the tomb empty. 

I try not to overthink and analyze this week. It's not the week for cynicism, but a week of showing up willing to be surprised because life is rarely what we expect.

Kids

I should stop saying that I don't like kids. 

It's partly true in the same way saying I don't like chickens is true. 

I'm not particularly fond of children or chickens en masse. They are often loud, kind of smelly and slightly terrifying in a group, but I often find chickens and children wonderful mysteries to love and encounter as individuals. 

I say I don't like kids for several other reasons, besides some truth in the statement.

1. I like to push back in our culture that worships youth and tries to hang on to childhood for as long as possible. We tend to romanticize and idolize childhood and it leaves us with folks without boundaries who need to grow up. I don't do things for children that they can do for themselves, especially if they are demanding about it. I don't coddle or sweet talk children, but I try to respect who they are and where they are in their development.

2. I also like to rebel against some of the assumptions made about female pastors. Churches often put women in children or youth ministry and I don't want to be pigeonholed into those specialties. Luckily I've served small churches so I get to do a little bit of everything, including fixing toilets and boilers as well as hanging out with kids.

3. It sometimes gets me out of volunteering for things, like chaperoning the middle school dance, which it didn't get me out of doing this last weekend. 

It was actually a lovely gift to get to hang out and observe middle schoolers for a couple of hours at their first dance. There is so much awkwardness, drama, meanness, gentleness, joy and hormones. It was a bundle of raw humanity that I got to watch and occasionally intervene in their dramas. There were little beachballs all over and shockingly they started throwing them at each other instead of dancing. Nothing shows you care like whipping a beach ball at someone's head. 

One of my favorite kids from summer lunch was there and I had to remind him of who he was and how we behave a couple of times, especially as he had other kids in chokeholds. 

When he was getting really wound up I had him come sit by me and tell me some stories about the school year and life. It's easy to be perpetually angry with this kiddo and I've found giving him space to tell some stories helps us both get reoriented and be a little more human. And I think it's in that space we figure out how to love, not an idealized love or affection for who you want a person to be, but a moment of shared humanity. 

I don't love kids as an idea, but I do like to create safe spaces where they can reveal what is lovely or painful in their lives. Like all humanity, kids are not objects to adore, but complex mysteries we get to encounter and figure out how to be in relationship with.

Hell

I had several sticks in my bra so it must have been a good day in the woods. Cassie and I had to bushwhack to get a better view, just in case you thought I was doing something inappropriate.

It was a stunningly beautiful day and that got me thinking about hell.

Before I broach this subject, please know there is no universally accepted Christian understanding of hell. I can break down some of the history of our concepts of hell, or here's a helpful link and you can do your own research http://www.earlychristianhistory.info/hell.html.

I'm content to join the leagues of folks like C.S. Lewis and Dostoevsky who approach hell with some poetic license so it doesn't turn into the place we send people we despise or who drive slowly in the left lane.

One point of theology, if we define God as the trinity, the mutual outpouring of love, then hell is the space where one is given the freedom to live outside that love. Let's say that's my basic premise to ground this imagining.

What if we thought of hell, that space for those who insist on living outside love, as stunningly beautiful?

Stay with me. Thinking of hell as a place of torture and punishment isn't overly helpful for many reasons, but imagining it as beauty allows vileness, hate, and evil to be revealed for the repulsive things they are. There is something about beauty that not only knocks the breath out of me, but it makes me feel alive, real, and in many ways exposed and vulnerable.

I hike on Mondays and bask in the beautiful because I carry so much brokenness and sorrow with me. People suffer and carry horrible burdens and on Mondays I offer them up to beauty; I let beauty wrap her arms around all that is grotesque in this world and even though it can't make everything right, it does put it back into perspective. Beauty is part of how I see God being revealed, but it's not beautiful in the sense of pretty, but as a wholeness that encompasses the love and suffering it takes to get to that place.

I'm not sure I can explain it well, but there is something about beauty that exposes and redeems, which is why I think it could be hell for some. One can disguise evil and hatefulness so much easier when one is surrounded with mediocrity and numbness. It is the extravagance and splendor of the beautiful that reveals anti-love for what it is.

I think it is hard for us to take salvation or hell seriously when we live in so much comfort and gray. Concrete and convenience make it hard to experience beauty or hell.

I don't know what I'm getting at other than I appreciate getting sticks in my bra and scratches on my face so I can find the ridge where the mountains stretch brilliantly before me. Somehow it lets the sinfulness of the world and the redemption of love meet and I can trust and hope that all will be well.

Growling

Sometimes my ideas are brilliant. 

Sleeping in a hammock in below freezing temperatures was not one of them.

I took a gaggle of girls out to a cabin and thought I would get more sleep in my cool camping hammock instead of a cabin filled with giggling. 

I was wrong.

It was almost warm and the moon streaming through the mesh top was amazing, but I ended up freezing my aspirations off. I drifted in and out of sleep curled up in a tiny ball until around 3:30 am when I awoke to this terrible growling right near me. 

There is a moment, if you ever happen to be freezing and terrified, when you appreciate the warmth adrenaline pumping through your body provides. I could stay completely still and warm while imagining that I must appear a bit like a floating burrito to whatever creature was emitting such an ominous sound.

Options are slim when you're hanging in the air and something is growling. I could picture the wolf underneath me wishing he had a side of guacamole and some cheese. I played through all the scenarios and none of them turned out well until my stomach growled again.

I felt slightly ridiculous, but also much more motivated to go curl up in the cabin with the girls. 

One growling experience a week would seem like enough, but then on Friday I worked too long and hiked accidentally in the dark. Our daylight is changing at 6 minutes a day right now so it's hard to track until you are well into the woods and realize you can't see anymore.

It wasn't a big deal. I figured I could get a little further and then make my way to the beach area where it was still a little light.

Then, the dog stops and there is growling again. I couldn't tell if it was coming from her or from near us, but she was scared and I might have piddled a little. 

I again started running scenarios and one of them involved me running, but unless the growling was a rabid sloth I wasn't going to win a foot race. I could probably fight off whatever it is with the poop bag in my hand, but I'm thinking this would not turn out well in the dark.

So, we bushwhack through the woods towards the beach hoping for the best. Nothing got us and we made good time back. 

There are several takeaways from these growling experiences:
1. Don't eat Indian when camping.
2. Wear a watch or at least be aware of when it gets dark.
3. Growling does not produce rational thought or responses. 

I think this last one might be helpful for all of us as we interact with each other. Growling does not make people their most rational. In fact, growling mixed with fear can make us quite absurd and as fun as that is, it doesn't make for good decisions. 

Budget

An open letter to our governor:

Dear Governor Dunleavy;

I want to honor you for being a man of faith and I know seeing all life as sacred is close to your heart. I’m not Catholic, but as a Lutheran pastor, my Catholic colleagues are some of my closest in appreciating the centrality of the eucharist and the community of faith.

There is a Bible verse that keeps popping in my head as I toss and turn thinking about the proposed budget cuts:

Romans 15:1-2   We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor.

The image of building up the neighbor is central to living out my faith in Christ and central to creating a community where life can be affirmed and encouraged.

I spend large amounts of time with those of my neighbors who carry heavy burdens, some are Native Alaskans who fear getting cut off from their land and village, some are families who are homeless, some are those weighed down by addictions, health issues, and hunger. I also spend time with those who work in resource extraction, those who serve as police, and those who rely on PFDs. 

These relationships make me realize there aren’t easy answers to solve the fiscal challenges in Alaska, but there are destructive choices that do not build up our neighbor. 

Cuts to education, Medicare, senior services, criminal justice, Department of Law, access to transportation and energy for rural Alaska, public assistance, and veterans lead to greater burdens on those who are already weighed down heavily.

I realize you are probably getting all kinds of comments regarding the budget, but as a person of faith I have been thinking some about your statement in an interview where you said, "I’m a small-government guy and I’m an individual — I believe in the individual.” I too believe in the worth of every person and the uniqueness of our gifts, but the communion of God is the core of my faith. We are called to use our worth and our gifts for the building up of the neighbor. We are the body and blood of Christ alive in this world and this budget does not reflect that life.

Peace,

Rev. Tari Stage-Harvey

Army Crawl

This might be blasphemy, but the other day I quoted

a distortion of scripture.

As I was doing an army crawl though the chicken run to smash down the snow with my body, I kept quoting, "No greater love has a woman for her chickens than to lay down her life for them." It made me laugh and a little less resentful of what we do to get two fresh eggs a day.

I rarely quote the Bible for a couple of reasons.

1. I'm lazy about memorizing it.

2. Our Lutheran tradition teaches us to read large chunks in context. 

Memorizing proof texts to win an argument and validate an agenda is frowned upon as contrary to the good news of God's kingdom. One can use Biblical texts to promote a range of moral and social agendas; the entire political spectrum has used Christian scripture to justify their plans and that makes me nervous.

I do love Jesus. I love how no one knows quite what to do with him. He keeps loving the unlovable, scolding the successful, feeding the hungry, and touching the dehumanized until folks finally kill him. It's dangerous when people don't know what to do with you and you keep messing with expectations. 

That's when my misquote shows up. In John 15, Jesus says, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you."

We are friends of Jesus when we love as we are loved. So the question those who wish to befriend Jesus need to ask is, "how did Jesus love?" 

I like to think he loved a bit like I love my chickens. 

• He tried to remove obstacles so people could live and offer the gifts they have to the community. 
• He fed and tended people.
• He sometimes shook his head when people got lost in the yard and tried to sleep in the cold rather than allowing themselves to be gathered and put back in the coop.
• He scolded them when they were stubborn and doing something not in their best interest (like jumping in the neighbor's yard or road).
• He carried them across the snow because they didn't like the cold on their feet.

All right. Maybe it breaks down. I'd say there is a lot more mutuality of relationship between Jesus and people, but my chickens do bring me great delight and they are amazing conversationalists. I wouldn't die for my chickens, but crawling through a tiny tunnel full of snow and some eau de chicken is close.

Forgive

I'm feeling vexed by the governor of our great state so I went for an especially long walk on an exceptionally gorgeous day thinking that would help me get into a benevolent place. 

It didn't. 

I was still lecturing and yelling in my head at him and his sidekick so I'm going to let that sit for a while. I'm trying to find a perspective on his budget proposal that keeps him human and I'm not there yet. 

I was going to remember Thumper's adage "if you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all" (not to criticize Thumper, but it is a double negative and if I remember right he gets eaten in Bambi). 

Anyway, I'm not sure I'll cling to Thumper's advice, but I would agree that if I can't say something that builds up the community, then it's best to pray a little longer before saying anything. 

It's so easy to judge and condemn. It's so easy to imagine I'm right and on moral high ground without hearing other valid opinions. I'm still in the easy place where I could deliver quite the diatribe on the diabolical budget laid out so I will be quiet and I'm going to preach my sermon from yesterday again to myself and maybe this time I'll listen. 

Text: Luke 6:27-38 and Joseph

Title: Forgive

Date: February 24, 2019

How do we forgive? It is at the very core of our identity as Christians and yet throughout the ages we have often been quick to judge or quick to ignore or blame or retaliate. How do we forgive? Especially if we have faced betrayals by family like Joseph, dropped into a well, abandoned as a slave, despised by jealous siblings. How do they forgive him for still coming out ahead, succeeding, being chosen, toying with them in the midst of a famine. Jesus cranks it up even more. How do we love enemies? Especially when Jesus talks about being struck in the cheek and we must face the staggering statistics in Alaska. Our child abuse rate is 6 times the national average and around 50% of adult women have experienced violence by an intimate partner. 

Christianity does not condone abuse or invite you to remain in an unsafe relationships or situation. You may always come speak to myself or I can point you to someone. Forgiveness is not about silence or shame or blaming oneself for what others have done to you. I think that is important to say when we read these passages. And statistically chances are some of you are abusive, the church isn’t magic, it doesn’t solve all of our power and control issues and please know there are places where you too can speak the truth - we call it confession and it is part of forgiveness.

That’s the big stuff, but how do we forgive the irritations and annoyances of a day? How do we forgive when others do not measure up to what we dreamed they would be or even what we need? How do we forgive the countless little betrayals and disappointments of a lifetime?

I don’t know. There’s some stuff on line with anywhere from 5 to 20 steps, but I’m not so sure Jesus is all that concerned about the how because that is different for each of us. The how may get played out in a million little awkward steps or one giant burst of truth that opens the door enough for life to be restored or a letter written or a prayer said. 

Jesus doesn’t talk about the hows, we see it in his life where he continues to eat with and engage enemies and friends alike, he speaks truth, he is vulnerable and yet able to have boundaries when he needs to pray or grieve, but mostly his how is about letting go of his right to vengeance. He stops the cycle of violence by refusing to participate and retaliate. He breaks to bonds of sin by refusing to play the power and control games. He absorbs the violence, the sin, the hate of the world and calls it finished. The end. Done. 

But, I’m not actually as interested in the hows of forgiveness. The only thing I can offer is it starts being steeped in your identity as a beloved child of God who can risk speaking truth and then you improvise from there. But I do think we need to be reminded of the whys. 

We are called to forgive for many reasons. Forgiveness is an act of power, or better yet it is the act of removing the power someone else has on your life. It is the boldness to declare that neither the abuser, the enemy, the bully, the friend, the parent, the brother or sister gets to identify and claim us. We are God’s beloved children and we may stand boldly in the face of messes without jumping into the cycle. We may stand with Christ in the cross insisting on love instead of retaliating.

Forgiveness is also the path that keeps us from crucifying each other with the thousand judgments and condemnations we make. People mess us, we mess up; I do like my little plaque that says, “don’t judge someone just because they sin differently than you.” It’s not your job to judge. It is hard to live in the truth and freedom of the Gospel when we are continually measuring, criticizing and dismissing ourselves and others.

I was reading some on forgiveness and ended up finding this article from Entertainment Weekly 2011 on the back of your bulletin. I’m going to read the last two paragraphs because I think it is a powerful statement as we talk about forgiveness. At least, I think it is a good beginning for conversation.

During Downey Jr.’s acceptance speech, he had even kinder words for Gibson. “I asked Mel to present this award for me for a reason,” he said. “When I couldn’t get sober, he told me not to give up hope and encouraged me to find my faith. It didn’t have to be his or anyone else’s as long as it was rooted in forgiveness. And I couldn’t get hired, so he cast me in the lead of a movie that was actually developed for him. He kept a roof over my head and food on the table and most importantly he said if I accepted responsibility for my wrongdoing and embraced that part of my soul that was ugly — hugging the cactus he calls it — he said that if I hugged the cactus long enough, I’d become a man.”

He continued, “I did and it worked. All he asked in return was that someday I help the next guy in some small way. It’s reasonable to assume at the time he didn’t imagine the next guy would be him or that someday was tonight. So anyway on this special occasion and in light of the recent holidays including Columbus Day, I would ask that you join me, unless you are completely without sin in which case you picked the wrong %&#*ing industry, in forgiving my friend his trespasses and offering him the same clean slate you have me, allowing him to continue his great and ongoing contribution to our collective art without shame. He’s hugged the cactus long enough.”

Maybe that is an image to sit with as we talk about forgiving family, loving enemies, do not judge and you will not be judged. Hugging the cactus, in ourselves, in our relationships, that seems like some of what Jesus might have meant when he talks about taking up our cross. Forgiveness is messy, we follow a crucified and risen lord, who promised abundant life not an easy chair.