All Saints Day

Today is All Saints Day. This is not a day I ever considered until about six years ago, when we began to follow the Church calendar. It is a day set aside to honor the Saints that have gone before us. At our gathering yesterday, Stephen and Karen encouraged us to honor and remember the Saints that have impacted our own lives and we spent the morning doing that - listening to stories from friends there, of those that have gone before them, that impacted who they are today...the ways they did that both in their faithfulness and in their brokenness. As they spoke, I was struck with how much those people I've never met are now impacting my life through my friends that loved them.

I've spent a lot of time since thinking about those I love, those that have impacted me, that have passed on before me. My first thoughts went to my grandparents, the ways they impacted my life, the stories, the memories, the kindness and love they gave freely. I thought of the ways they shaped my parents, who in turn, have shaped me. And how I've since shaped my children. They've all been gone for many years now, yet their lives continue to impact even my grandkids.

My thoughts also went to three different people outside of my biological family I've loved that died much younger than we typically think of as fair. None had lived the "long, full life" that we want spoken of when we're giving our final goodbyes. With each of them, it was too soon. And their lives had much pain. There was trauma, physical illness, mental illness, heartbreak. There was also joy, love, belly laughs and connection. In their pain, they sometimes hurt those they loved the most. They also enriched those same lives, and many others, in ways we will likely never fully grasp. They sometimes frustrated me. And they also taught me love in ways I had not before imagined.

This is life. We heal and we hurt. We nurture and we damage. We mess up and we begin again.

The biggest thing that struck me as I thought through all these messy, beautiful lives that changed who I am today is the consistent presence of Jesus. He never ceased to love. They never ceased to love - even when they could not find ways to express it in healthy ways, they still loved. 

And Jesus loves us - our entire messy, beautiful selves. I do believe He will consistently pull us toward healing and wholeness. His love is not an excuse to wallow in, or harm others, in our brokenness. But neither is it ever a condemnation in our brokenness. We are fully and completely loved.

I pray that I will learn to see people this way more often. Beautiful and broken. Life is hard and sometimes the levels of brokenness will require safety and boundaries. But I pray I will never lose sight of the humanity of those God loves. I pray I will never lose sight of the fact that the imagi dei in every single person, and the ways I treat that, impacts who I become. I pray I'm becoming more and more like the love of the One I follow and that it will be that love that leaves the biggest impact on those coming behind me.

Loved. 

No matter what. 

Love is always the first thing. 

And always the last thing.

Those Who Have Left

I've been thinking a lot the last few days about those who have left the Church in the last few years. Some have held on to Jesus, but have lost all confidence in the institutional Church in America (or at least within driving distance of their homes). Some have left the Christian faith entirely. I know and love people in both of these categories. There are a multitude of reasons - many, many of them valid.

I grieve for the loss, both in the vast numbers and in all the individual lives. For we have lost much in the gifts and love of those that are now gone. We are a Body and losing any part of us should be painful. We should feel gaping wounds. We should weep and mourn, looking to ways we were and are complicit in discouragement and pain so great they felt no other option than leaving. Instead we too often look for ways to lay the blame "out there" and sooth our consciences with our tidy, buttoned-down answers.

I want desperately for those I love that have walked away to see Jesus in our Churches. Not the Americanized version of Jesus. Not Republicans. Not Democrats. Not culture wars. Not liberals or progressives or conservatives.

It is not our perfectly laid out theologies, not our valiantly fought culture wars that will bring them back or prevent others from leaving. Not our perfectly planned and aimed shaming or shouting. Not our power moves or our cancelling. Ultimately, it will be our repentance from all the ways we have misrepresented Jesus.

Jesus. For it is His love that compels, it is His kindness that leads.

It is Jesus.

Revel in the Journey

I've wrestled much the last few years with my relationship to our Christian scriptures. I have so many questions. Many of them are questions I've had for, quite literally, as long as I've been reading scripture (that's a really long

time). I have never stopped being moved by the words of scripture, never ceased to believe that life is found here, but the down-pat answers to every single question simply were not leaving me with the peace that I think was intended. If I didn't know, it was simply a matter that I hadn't studied enough. I never felt like I was in an environment that I could voice my questions without my faith or devotion to Christ being brought into question. I felt safe to have generalized doubt related to suffering, but doubts about the nature of God or the Bible or cherished doctrines...not so much. The couple of times I did scrape up the nerve to ask a question, they were dismissed with a well practiced answer that did not actually answer the question. So I stopped asking. I fell in line. And I stayed in line throughout decades of church, nearly two of those decades as a pastor's wife.

Until I couldn't anymore. 

I've spent the last several years reading a wide array of teachers, finally asking my questions and actively looking for actual answers. I still don't have all the answers, but I've learned and grown and found some peace in being open to different approaches. Hearing for the first time theologies that were never even touched on in all my years deeply involved in churches, only to find out that they are not new at all. They just weren't, apparently, okay to explore in my tradition. But they're coming from faithful, Jesus-following, Bible studying teachers. They don't all agree with one another. I don't always agree with all of them. What I love is no longer being afraid to explore and question and discuss and engage with different thoughts and perspectives and cultures. 

I'm currently reading N.T. Wright's, Simply Christian. I've heard quotes of his for two decades, but never read one of his books until last year. This is my third, and so far my favorite. Part of the book is discussing doctrines of escatology and how they impact our lives practically that make so much sense to me and do not operate out of fear and doom. But in all the fascination with, and emphasis on, end times theology I grew up on, I never once heard these teachings.

This podcast series I linked is giving me so much ---hmmm, hope, maybe? The whole entire podcast is fabulous, but the current series is looking at how the Bible was formed and how we're actually meant to use it. Again, there is so much here that was never spoken of in my circles. It is beautiful and it is opening my eyes to why I've likely been frustrated for such a long time. I'm really looking forward to digging in deeper. 

I am incredibly thankful for a husband that has walked every step of this journey with me, letting me ask him a million questions, asking many of them with me, as we explore together. And cheering me on as I explore others on my own. I am exploring contemplative prayer with a couple of other friends and finding exactly what I needed right now in this new space. 

After years of thinking I could not rest until I had all those questions answered, I have finally realized that I do not have to know all the answers. We're exploring the God of the universe. And God won't be contained within our man-made systems. A whole lot of humility is necessary when we're making attempts to explain God. "I don't know," is sometimes the best answer we can give, or get. I'm finding that much Joy is found in embracing the mystery and being okay with not knowing. 

I am so thankful for a community of believers that hash this all out together, safe to ask all the questions, admit the doubts, disagree and still love, explore and learn and re-learn together, challenge and be challenged. A place where the leadership isn't afraid to stir up some dust and embrace new thoughts, listen to the questions and raise some of their own. A place where we're willing to hear hard truths, even when those truths mean we need to repent and go another direction. Because we're never really done. This is where I want to live. 

As I was listening earlier today to the podcast (I'll link it in the comments), this thought struck me... This way of engaging with God and with my community feels like taking great huge gulps of fresh air when you've been under water too long, or after you've been breathing smoky, stale air for far too long. God is huge and invites us to revel in the journey of exploration. I won't ever go back to any other way.

Shalom

 Shalom

If we reduce it to one English word, we would typically use "peace." And because we inherently tend to reduce things to their most simplistic form, we may be prone to believe that peace is simply the absence of conflict. 

The word shalom goes much deeper. Deeper than most of us are comfortable with. It encompasses taking what is broken and restoring it to wholeness. Taking many complicated, moving parts and putting them together as they're meant to be. Complete. As originally intended. 

It is not simply ceasing to be at war or to simply "lay down arms." It is not even an absence of disagreement. It is not saying, "I'm sorry," or even asking for forgiveness, though those things are important. It is more. It is deeper. It is taking action steps to restore what is broken to wholeness.

Jesus has called us to be peacemakers. With a deeper understanding of shalom, this is much more than a peacekeeper (which seems to be the more popular understanding of what we should be doing as Christ followers). We are not called to silence disagreement. Again, peace is not simply the absence of conflict. We are called to do the hard work of restoring what is broken to it's originally intended purpose. To wholeness.

This work of peacemaking takes listening. Learning about all those complicated, individual, moving parts and how they work together. It takes understanding what is broken and how it got that way. It takes compassion and empathy. It takes a willingness to be wrong, to be unsettled. This work cannot be done without being teachable, without discomfort, without hard conversations, without repentance, followed by restorative action.

Attempts to silence those who have been harmed by the brokenness we live in, (and that our very brokenness has created), is peace*keeping*. It can feel better, because if we are successful (and clearly we often are), it appears no one is complaining (when in truth, they've likely either just left the metaphorical building, or never entered it in the first place because it is not a safe place for them). It *appears* to be peace, but it is actually oppression. We do this on a myriad of ways. Hiding. Ignoring. Manipulating truth. Legislating. Shaming. Blaming. Name-calling. The list of tools in our peace*keeping* toolbox appears endless. 

Jesus-followers, peace*keeping* is not our calling. I could name specific instances we are prone to this, but I am forcing myself to refrain from that. I do not want this to become either a "yeah, but" or a way to excuse ourselves because we've never actively participated in "that" - we do it in a myriad of circumstances. I would challenge you (me,...us) to begin to look with new eyes. Are we peacekeeping or peacemaking?

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." (Matthew 5:9)

(Side note: Most of my word study related to this has come from The Bible Project. You can find them online and they are fabulous.)

Stop

 "It is not hard to find, it is hard to stop running from."

I'm thinking about how often God feels silent,

The skies shut up and far from me.

But I wonder: Am I so busy "running,"

doing all the things I've been instructed will prove 

my faithfulness

or His existence,

rather than just. stopping,

that I do not see? Do not hear? Do not feel?

God IS here.

In the fluttering butterfly,

the breeze that allows me to be outside, even in this late September heat wave,

in the sweet silence of two babies resting,

the singing cicadas, reminding me that Oklahoma is not quite finished with summer. 

If I will stop, just STOP, He may indeed be silent, but He is not absent.

Resting here, I can learn that it is okay to not have answers.

It is okay to doubt.

He is much better than my doubts, and fully surrounds all of this in His love. 

Not a squishy love that needs constant propping up, defending, reassurance.

Not a harsh "truth above all, your feelings be damned" love either.

A steady, constant, shalom kind of love.

"He spares us from nothing, but sustains us in all things."

This world is hard.

It is harsh.

It is unknown

And we cannot be spared.

In the midst of this reality, He is with me. WITH me.

Look for Him in the ordinary, the beautifully mundane spaces around me.

STOP

A Life Devastated

We have been walking slowly through the latter half of David's life in the lectionary readings the last few weeks. I find the story of David's life to be one of the saddest of the Old Testament. He starts well, but the latter half of his life is utterly devastating for me to read. We begin with a young man, not perfect, but one whose singular purpose is to love and serve God and lead well. I do not believe he ever stopped loving God, but it becomes evident that his primary focus changes. This last weekend we read the story of his son, Absalom, and how his life ended. It nearly brings me to tears every time I read it. It is a lengthy bit of reading. This week's reading is in 2 Samuel 18, but to get the full context of the story, you need to back all the way up to chapter 11. Here we find David beginning his descent. He takes what is not his - Bathsheba - and forces her to become first his mistress, and then his wife. He has her husband killed to cover up what he's done and many others are killed and injured in the process. When confronted, David does acknowledge his sin and repent, but he, along with his family and his subjects, spends the rest of his life living with the consequences. In a cruel twist, we arrive at chapter 13 and find one of his sons (Amnon) raping one of his daughters. David knows this has happened and does nothing to bring justice for his daughter. He is angry, we are told, but takes no action. The rest of the story unfolds with the anger turned vengeance of another of his sons, Absalom. In the void left by David's unwillingness to bring justice, a rift opens up between Absalom and David that will never be healed - ending in the death of Absalom.

We can be sure that the devastation began with David's decision to take what was not his, for his benefit and at the expense of many others. His desire to possess another person, to have more than he could possess righteously, led to the destruction of his family and life long harm to many others. We need to take careful note here: Many people, generations of people, were hurt by David's sin. His repentance did not change that fact. Many people that bore no guilt in his sin bore long term consequences because of his choices. 

I was struck by the consequences of David's failure to act after he repented before God. We see Amnon, his son, following in his footsteps, taking what was not his for his own pleasure and benefit in raping his sister. Did David follow-up his repentance before God with repentance to his family? We are not told. But I have to wonder - did he fail to pass on to his children what he had learned from his own catastrophic failure?  Did he fail to repent before them for what they had witnessed and then seemed to emulate? We are told that he does not take action after the rape of his daughter occurs. He is angry about what happened, but he does not act to bring justice. Perhaps he saw glimpses of himself in the actions of his son and rather than face it all head on, he did nothing. We do not know the reason, but whatever it was, it crippled him with inaction. The consequences of his inaction further devastate his family and bring pain and separation with his fighting men. Absalom, in his anger and desire for justice not given, resorts to vengeance. Once again another son follows his father's example of trying to take by force  what is not rightfully his (in this case, the life of his brother, the loyalty of his father's men and the throne). And David, once again, with opportunities all along this devastating journey to change course, to right wrongs, to seek reconciliation, does nothing. 

David did repent, yes. But his failure to follow through and to act with justice and righteousness and reconciliation afterward continued to devastate his family and his country for generations to come.

How often am I grieved by my sin, but do not follow up to repair the breach with the people my sin has harmed?

How often am I angered by the injustice I see around me, but am unwilling to take action to bring justice when action is within my power?

Am I crippled by inaction because I fear losing what I believe to be "mine?"

Does my ongoing guilt stifle my ability to live fully as God would desire me to live? Am I carrying around baggage that is ultimately harming others because I refuse to deal honestly with what is happening?

I pray I will learn from the pain and devastation the end of David's life exemplified. Rather than repeat it, that I will pursue full healing and restoration with those around me, that I will pursue justice in whatever ways it is within my power to act.

Living Into the Tension (Part 3) - Criminal Justice

 I've spent some time the last couple of days praying for a loved one that is spending their birthday in a prison cell. Even in the midst of terrible overcrowding, except for their cellmate, they are almost totally alone. A situation that is unimaginable to begin with has become even worse during COVID. Most of us cannot imagine living under these conditions. And most of us rarely think of the thousands of people that do live that way. "They made their bed," is our general philosophy and that makes it easier to forget about them. In this particular situation (and thousands others like it), the crimes committed, non-violent crimes, are rooted in trauma, in abuse, and addiction. None of those things have ever been dealt with in any way as they've sat "paying their debt to society." Lots of bad choices were made. No one forced them to commit their crimes and they will bear the consequences of them for the rest of their life. Long after they've theoretically "paid their debt," they will continue to be held down and back from pursuing the same freedoms we enjoy every day. The system is set up, in the vast majority of cases, to create further punishment and recidivism rather than rehabilitation and return to society.

Loving someone living through this is one of the things that sent me down the rabbit hole of our criminal justice system and it's history. Our society and it's systems, the systems that the majority of us accept as right and good and fair, literally end up creating criminals.  We are content to blame and shame, okay with ignoring the roots of poverty, racism, abuse, addiction, mental illness, at least until it reaches close into our home. Then we want those most harmed by these things we've ignored locked up out of our sight. It helps us continue to ignore systemic issues that we have the ability to address, but do not. I can safely say all of this, because it was me, it was my people. Loving someone harmed by all of those things throughout their childhood forced me to look at things from the other side. The roots of much of our systems were created within racist ideologies. Civil rights laws have not changed that - it just forced it to morph into different verbiage. It has ravaged black and brown communities and has stretched into those living in poverty from every category. Being poor, and especially poor and black, has become one of the single biggest hurdles to overcome if you've been caught in this system. I was blind to this, content to believe "justice is blind," until I took the time to read, to talk to people most effected, to walk through it with at least one. Our justice system, at all it's levels, is not blind. It sees color, it sees class, it sees wealth and poverty and it punishes, or does not punish, accordingly.

We know that innocent people are executed, yet are content with capital punishment (and church folk continue to support this at much higher rates than the general population). We know that innocent people still sit on death row, yet do not advocate for their release. We know that absurd numbers of people are held for months, years even, awaiting trial for the simple reason that they are poor, yet we do not care. We know that poor, black and brown communities are targeted, arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced for drug use at much higher rates than white and wealthier communities (though the incidence of drug use is almost identical), yet we do nothing to see this system changed. It is extremely difficult for the formerly incarcerated to get decent jobs, yet get them they must, or they will go back to jail. They are taxed with exorbitant fines, classes they must attend, drug tests they must submit to (that are often only offered during regular work hours, requiring them to miss work). All of this endangers their difficult-to-get livelihood. If they lose their job, they cannot pay their fines. If they cannot pay their fines, they go back to jail - until they can pay their fines (and to add insult to injury, while they're there, they continue to rack up MORE fines). And the cycle continues. It is a modern day poor house that those living in poverty almost never escape. Do you see how easily people with middle class to upper class wealth can step out of this system at almost any point? It is designed to punish those in poverty. We know many of these things, yet we continue to say there is nothing inherently wrong that should be changed. 

We can, as a society, continue to ignore this. On my more cynical days, I believe that is likely to be the case. Too many people benefit from the system as it is and therefore have no motivation to work to see it changed. Too many people have no motivation to work for change in areas that do not effect them or their own personal lives. But the Church? What exactly are we here for if it is not to bring the Good News, in all it's various forms, to the society God has placed us in? To bring healing, release, freedom? Is this not our calling? Even at the cost of our own personal comfort? It is NOT to build buildings, grow ministries, amass ungodly amounts of wealth. The Church, and it's individual parts, should be on the front lines of fighting for change, supporting those being consistently oppressed by systems our forefathers created and we now sustain. This is uncomfortable. Even though we claim to follow a Christ that offers grace and forgiveness to all, we have been indoctrinated in the ways of retribution and punishment in our interactions with those different from ourselves. We have to be willing to live in the tension of learning new ways - ways that I believe more fully reflect the Jesus we follow.

Are we content with what is happening around us as long it doesn't directly harm us, our families or those we love? If we are unwilling to support those who are oppressed, why is that? If we are unwilling to educate ourselves about the harm being done or the ways we could alleviate that harm, what is our motivation for status quo? These are questions we need to take the time to consider, take to prayer, ask God what our role is in the culture we live in. 

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“When people were hungry, Jesus didn’t say, “Now is that political, or social?” He said, “I feed you.” Because the good news to a hungry person is bread.” – Bishop Desmond Tutu, Anglican bishop and social activist.