A Personal Reflection on my book - insecurity, fear, and perhaps a bit of hope.

           My book came out.  You can buy it on Amazon. You can buy it from the publisher, Parson's Porch.  You can buy it directly from me.

         But this post is not actually a sale's pitch.  This is a more personal reflection on how hard it has been for me to step forward into this.  

         David Tullock from Parson's Porch Publishing found me through my blog and has been asking me to send him my stuff for publishing for about 4 years.  FOUR YEARS!  And every time he would send me an email, I would respond with "Oh yes!  I am interested!" but I could never move beyond that.  All I needed to do was to put the blog posts into a document.  This shouldn't have been hard.  I'd already done the writing.  I'd already done quite a bit of editing.  I'd actually already saved all of the blog posts in several documents (one for each year) because I'm just enough of a Luddite to not completely trust the internet to actually save my stuff for the duration.  So I had also saved them all already.  It was just a matter of doing some minor editing, pasting together several year's worth of posts and sending them off.  But I couldn't do it.  

         I'd think about it.  I'd talk to other people about it, all of whom would just look at me with puzzlement... I mean, why wouldn't I do this?  I didn't even have to FIND a publisher: I had one coming to ME!  I didn't have to worry about submitting and resubmitting and facing rejections.  I didn't have to try to figure out self-publishing.  I didn't have to ask for help.  Why on earth would I not do this? 

        Well, I'm busy.  I have kids.  I'm working full time.  I am still writing and that feels more important.  I have other projects.  My book about what our family went through should really take priority over blog posts.  I...

       I was full of excuses.  And none of them were true.  I had written a dissertation while working and having kids.  I had finished a doctoral program while working and raising kids.  I have experienced times when all I could dedicate was ten minutes a day to a project, but I know how to find that ten minutes in each day and I've done this before.  The most honest answer I could give to people was "I don't know why.  I just... can't."

       Marianne Williamson is quoted as saying,  “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do.  We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."  Was I afraid of success?  

       No, that didn't feel right.  It's not success that scares me.  It's being noticed at all.  And it's not being noticed in a good way, though perhaps that scares me too.  I worry more about being noticed and found lacking.  I fear being noticed and deemed "not good enough".  I am anxious about being seen and judged.  I worry some will feel I am "too big for my britches" and that I shouldn't think my book is worth reading.  I worry about being found to be a fake - someone who just plays at writing, pretends at ministry, acts as a person striving to follow Christ but somehow never quite makes it.  I am terrified of the haters and their ability to make me feel small, unvalued and unvaluable.  This is so much a problem for me that when my books showed up in the mail, instead of feeling happy or proud, I experienced a panic attack that made it hard to breathe.  My husband and children were thrilled for me.  A good friend offered to cater a book signing party for me.  Several people have spoken up at groups I'm in to proudly share the news of my book.  And, while I have been grateful for their care and their love, that wasn't the predominant feeling.  Each and every time someone shared about my book, I felt mostly embarrassment... or maybe even shame.  I wanted to crawl into a hole, run away, pretend it hadn't happened.  I wanted to "take it back" and tell the publisher I had made a mistake.  I had more panic attacks, and I wanted to apologize to everyone for wasting their time and money.

         Jesuit Priest Gregory Boyle wrote in his book, Tattoos on the Heart (New York: Free Press, 2010) that the prime issue of addicts or gang members or those who are extremely poor (or anyone living out their fear) is shame.  He says that while God finds us wholly acceptable, this is incredibly hard for those who have faced terror, violence or deep betrayal to accept.  He says that shame is the absence of self-love.  But, "it is precisely within the contour of one's shame that one is summoned to wholeness." (p44).  

        Isaiah 43:1 "I have called you by your name.  You are mine."  And, as Boyle said, "Out of the wreck of our disfigured, misshapen selves, so darkened by shame and disgrace, indeed the Lord comes to us disguised as ourselves." (p60).  This is not easy for me.  But I am stepping into the hope that maybe, just maybe, it is true for me, too, that God loves me beyond measure, as I so deeply believe it is true for all of those around me.  

        So for today, I will do my best to step out of the shame and into the wholeness of God's love.  For today, no matter what I experience or what others say or do, I will strive to embody the grace of a God who believes that all of us are, in fact, too small for our britches: we are loved beyond imagining, we are worth all that is.  And that means there are times when it is okay to step into our successes, and to celebrate the things we have done and the people that we are.  I hope you will consider buying my book.  And I will try to embrace the care it shows me when you do.

A Present Silence

1 Kings 19: 1-15
Luke 8: 26-39

God’s coming as we know is not where, when, or how people expect.  We know this.  And yet still, where do you think people look for God?  Where do you think most people expect to see God or claim to see God?  Natural disasters, natural actions.  When big things happen in our lives – if these things are good, we say, “God blessed me” and if things are bad, we tend to ask, “Why did God do this to me?” or “Why did God let this happen”…like the Holocaust or natural disasters, the big Jesus burning down.  This was true in Biblical times as well.  People looked for God in the big things, the big movements in the world or in their lives or in nature.  That is a big part of why we have this passage written the way it was in 1^st Kings.  It needed to be said that for Elijah, God wasn’t in the wind, the earthquake or the fire.  Where was God?  

In the NRSV the translation of this passage says that God was found “in the sound of Sheer Silence.”  In the NIV it says God was found in a “Gentle Whisper”.   In the Common English translation it is “ there was a sound.  Thin. Quiet.”   I love that.  A sound of thin quiet.  There is great power in God showing up in silence, or even in a gentle voice.      

Because what really gets us to listen?  Do we hear or understand a message in the earthquakes and disasters in our lives?  What kind of message is that?  Does it get us to stop and listen?  Not usually.  Instead, it causes us to talk back, to talk more, to lament and cry and yell and ask “why?!”  God’s voice is not to be heard in that.  We hear anger, we hear punishment, we hear revenge.  But do we hear God?  I don’t think so, not only because I don’t believe God is about punishment and revenge, but also because if God is wanting us to change, just telling us “bad!  Wrong!” usually is not going to help us know how to be different or what to do that is different.

We know this to be true.  Psychology studies are absolutely consistent in showing that when we yell at our kids or hurt them, our kids are actually incapable of hearing or understanding or incorporating into their being what it is we are saying.  They don’t learn the lesson when we deliver it in anger or violence.  They just plain don’t learn it.  Do we think that God doesn’t know this?  No.  God knows and God wants us to learn and grow.  Anger is a secondary emotion.  And there are two things that underlie anger.  Always.  The first is grief and sorrow.  But the more common emotion behind anger is fear.  God has no reason to be afraid or to act out of fear.  Therefore, God’s response to us is always one of love, one that is quiet, one that is compelling.  One that is unexpected.

               Barbara Brown Taylor wrote a wonderful book titled, Learning to Walk in the Dark.   In it she shares the value of finding God in the unexpected and unexplored and scary places.  Some of what she says, “Those of us who wish to draw near to God should not be surprised when our vision goes cloudy, for this is a sign that we are approaching the opaque splendor of God.”  This thing that we fear so much, the dark, is actually essential to our health.  We need real darkness to be able to sleep well and we need real sleep in order to think well, to function well, to be healthy in our lives.  Jesus died on the cross.  But we are so afraid of the dark that we don’t want to face the fact that it is only in our dying that we, too, truly live.  Only in facing that which is uncomfortable, hard, but true and deep that we find God.  She continued, “One of the central functions of the dark night” (used as a metaphor to mean those times when we go through difficult and painful things and cannot feel God’s presence) “is to convince those who grasp after things that God cannot be grasped.  God is not a thing.  And since God is not a thing, God cannot be held on to.  God can only be encountered as that which eclipses the reality of all other things.  …(our) images of and ideas about God are in fact obstacles between (us) and the Real Thing.” (p 138).  (p144 - ) “The dark night is God’s best gift to you, intended for your liberation.  It is about freeing you from your ideas about God, your fears about God, your attachment to all the benefits you have been promised for believing in God, your devotion to the spiritual practices that are supposed to make you feel closer to God, your dedication to doing and believing all the right things about God, your positive and negative evaluations of yourself as a believer in God, your tactics for manipulating God, and your sure cures for doubting God.  All of these are substitutes for God.”

               Thomas Merton says it this way: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.  And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.  Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.  I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” (from  “Thoughts in Solitude”)

God is present in the silence – in the quiet.  Often we think of silence as an absence, but in this case it is a present silence.  It is a profound presence. 

God’s coming, or seeming lack of coming is very rarely what we expect.  And what we eventually learn is that God’s presence in the silence is much more profound that any voice that we could hear, especially when we are in a dark time.  When grief is strong there are no words of comfort that can help, that can fill the void that is left.  All words in profound grief are empty, meaningless dribble.  The only thing that is meaningful in that is presence.  Genuine presence.  “A Noise.  Thin.  Silent.”

God is always in the unexpected places and that is scary.  I’ve shared with you before about my favorite restaurant in San Leandro:   the Bella Italia Inn, which had no inn attached to it at all.  It was an Italian restaurant, though the owner/cook was Indian.  This was the first thing you would notice when you walked into the restaurant - the Indian cook behind the counter in the kitchen cooking the food.   In case you missed this, you would be reminded of it by the choice of music - Indian music playing over the speakers.  The waitress who worked there was from Central America, and spoke very little, if any, English, only Spanish.  The decor in the restaurant was an odd mix of quality and...lack of quality - the wood work in the restaurant was high quality, truly lovely stuff.  But the tables would rock back and forth on their uneven legs.  The rugs were beautiful, but filthy both with current grime and with deeply set stains.   Drinks that you would order would be brought to you in glasses that didn’t match.  The last time I went, my friend was given a beautiful large crystal wine glass out of which to drink her coke, and I was given a beautiful, small and differently designed plastic wine glass out of which to drink mine. There were beautiful glass oil and vinegar holders on each table right next to the cheap plastic salt and pepper shakers.  If you were able to order your food (if you were able to communicate with the Spanish speaking waitress) she would bring you hot food on cold plates, and cold food on hot plates.  If you asked to split your dessert, they would “split” your two layer piece of chocolate cake by cutting off the top layer, so that one of you gets all the frosting and the other all the filling.  The waitress wouldn’t bring you a spoon with your spaghetti nor a pen with the credit card slip if you pay by credit card.  If you ordered mineral water, they brought something that wasn’t carbonated.  One time when I went, I had to wait for an hour to be served, though it was obvious that there was only one other couple in the entire restaurant - “we’re understaffed tonight,” we were told.  But in the midst of this very chaotic and strange place, the food is fantastic.  The seasonings exquisite, everything cooked to perfection.   Truly wonderful Italian food cooked by this Indian man in these strange circumstances.  If you were put off by the circumstances, the décor, the incongruity of the place, you would miss out on one of the best Italian meals in the Bay Area.  God is like that.  The unexpected gifts in the chaos.

The story of the pigs.  Again, God in the unexpected.  It terrified the people.  But he healed the man.  Why was it so scary?  In part because it was so unexpected, and so uncontrollable.  We like the boundaries that define our world, that help us to walk through and navigate each day.  The physical rules and scientific facts give us comfort: we know x can happen, we know y can’t.  But then when y does happen?  It is terrifying.

We are complex.  We are found to be in many different moods, with many different challenges and gifts and reactions and ways of responding to our world and being in the world.  And we are made in the image of God.  So God, too, is complex and shows up in many, many ways.  When we limit the ways in which God can show up or the ways in which we see God, we limit God-self.  We make our God too small.

I think about the Joan Osborne song, “What if God was one of us”.  The words are:

If God had a name what would it be?

And would you call it to his face?

If you were faced with Him in all His glory

What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

And yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah

What if God was one of us?

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryin' to make his way home?

If God had a face what would it look like?

And would you want to see if, seeing meant

That you would have to believe in things like heaven

And in Jesus and the saints, and all the prophets?

People were offended by this song.  Why?  And yet, the message of Jesus is very clear: God IS one of us, with all that that means.  But we have a fear of God being present in what we don’t like, what we don’t know, what we don’t understand.

So our challenge then is to keep our eyes open, keep looking for God even in the places we don’t like.  God works in the world, is alive in the most unexpected places, is present in the silence.  The biblical stories remind us that God comes where we least expect to see God, the stories remind us of our need for the miracles of wholeness, of transformation, of change, of seeing God in the unexpected, even if that can make our lives uncomfortable.

               I just finished reading a wonderful book called Tattoos on the Heart, written by Jesuit Priest Gregory Boyle.  Father Boyle works with gangs in L.A. and has won the California peace prize for his work.  One of the many things that makes the book so compelling is when he talks about the unexpected places where he has met God.  He warns that if we only look for God where we expect to see God that our god can become very tiny, very limited, very boxed in by our beliefs, our experiences, our own thinking, and most especially our expectations.  (p.19)  He goes on to say that God IS compassion, compassion that we, too, are called on to embody.  One story I believe highlights that especially.  Father Boyle is sharing about a woman who had two of her sons killed by gang activity, both of whom had actually outgrown their own gang behavior, had moved on to reclaim their lives and were living with hope, integrity and movement, going to college, going to work.  But they happened to be in the wrong places at the wrong time and were shot and killed.  She is devastated by both of these losses and is struggling to live each day, which she must do because she has two other children who still need her.  But at one point she is taken to the hospital herself with an irregular heartbeat and chest pain.  Boyle continues,

“The doctors are tending to her with EKGs and the like when there is a rush of activity at the entrance.  With a flurry of bodies and medical staff moving into their proscribed roles, a teenage gang member is rushed to the vacant space right next to Soledad.  The kid is covered in blood from multiple gunshot wounds, and they begin cutting off his clothes.  The wounds are too serious to waste time pulling the curtain that separates Soledad from this kid fighting for his life.  People are pounding on his chest and inserting IVs.  Soledad turns and sees him.  She recognizes him as a kid from the gang that most certainly robber her of her sons. 

               ‘As I saw this kid,’ she tells me, ‘I just kept thinking of what my friends might say if they were here with me.  They’d say, ‘Pray that he dies.’” But she just looked at this tiny kid, struggling to sidestep the fate of her sons, as the doctors work and scream, ‘We’re losing him.  We’re losing him!’

               ‘And I began to cry as I have never cried before and started to pray the hardest I’ve ever prayed.  “Please… don’t… let him die.  I don’t want his mom to go through what I have.”’

               “And the kid lived.”

               That’s where God is.  God is in those unexpected moments of grace, of vision, of love, of compassion, and of silent presence.  Sometimes it is hard to see God there, but if we want to be close to God, we have to start looking in the unexpected places, to look not in the wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire, but in the presence.

Trinity Sunday

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Romans 5:1-5

John 16:12-15

            Today is trinity Sunday, when we look at and celebrate the fact that God is one but also somehow three.  But today, rather than focusing on the whole trinity, I want us to spend some time focusing on the third person of the trinity, the Spirit, the one who is most neglected, least understood and often ignored by Presbyterians in particular who feel that anything that touches on the spirit is somehow too “catholic” and therefore is scary or unorthodox or too “mysterious”.  Presbyterians are traditionally the most intellectual or thinking oriented of all of the denominations.  We are the only one that insists that its pastors learn to read both Hebrew and Greek so that we can read the Bible in its original languages.  We are one of the few denominations that have a four year master’s of divinity program rather than three.  Our study focuses on history and historical critical biblical interpretation.  We study, study, study.  And we are taught to preach sermons that are very serious and very academic.  That’s what it is to be Presbyterian.  And this works great with our understanding of two persons of the trinity.  We can intellectually understand God the creator, the one who is ultimately in charge of everything, who creates, who bends, who acts through history.  We can intellectually understand the teachings of Jesus and his commands to follow through the concrete actions of caring for one another.  We can understand at a head level that keeps it all above our hearts, above our souls, above our spirits, these two persons of the trinity. 

But the Spirit, the third person of the trinity cannot be understood this way.  So, many Presbyterians tend to ignore the spirit except as an intellectual concept, as an idea about something that is part of the trinity.  We feel suspicious of anything religious that is more experiential.  And there are good reasons for this.  We don’t want to be misled by our feelings, and we certainly don’t want to be out of control in any way.  We know that being out of our heads and into our feelings or experiences can and does lead people astray.  The power of most cults is that they tap into and manipulate our feelings.  We know that the Pentecostals are all about the experience of the mystery, of the divine and we choose, intentionally, not to be Pentecostal in any way.

            But we have gone too far.  There is a reason why Presbyterians are called the “frozen chosen”, and while we may laugh at this name, there is far too much truth in it.

            We are called to love God with all of our being – all our strength, all our mind, all our soul, AND all our hearts.  And that means engaging the mystery at times, inviting in the third person of the trinity, the Spirit, spending time with this third Holy person and listening for what the Spirit may have to say to you.

            It’s not that this is easy…including for me.  I had a friend who was very involved in more traditionally ritualistic church service styles such as are practiced in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.  We had several discussions about how important and meaningful the rituals of those practices were for him, and for me how much they felt like “magic” actions – unreal, pretend and lifting up pastors as capable of doing divine magic in some way.  But still, engaging the mystery, dealing with the third person of the trinity, exploring the gifts of the Spirit is an important part of our faith journeys. 

            So, how do we do this?  Well, spirit experiences tend to be more mystical, as I said.  Getting ourselves into a place where we can sit and listen for and to the Spirit is not as easy for us as listening to someone talk about God, or studying God through Bible study, or singing about God.  But inviting the Spirit into our life necessitates taking time to listen.  We can do this through lectio divina (a guided practice of listening to scripture in a different way)– or meditation of different kinds.  And Clayton Valley P.C. regularly offers many different ways to do this.  We have the labyrinth, which invites an active meditative practice of listening for the Spirit.  Tai chi can also lead us into this as well as music, both of which we offer and practice here.  We have Taize services which invite us to sit and listen.  Sometimes simply creating a different space – one with candles or scents such as incense or flowers, involving more meditative music such as is used in Taize services invite us into a new space of listening for the spirit.  Today because our focus is on the Spirit, we are using more candles and will conclude today’s sermon with the singing of a Taize songs.  This may feel uncomfortable for some of you.  If so, I think that is a good thing – a gift.  Because the Spirit does not leave us comfortable, but challenges us to grow, to move and listen and hear in a different way.  It calls us to listen with our hearts as well as our heads, to love God with our experiences as well as with our attendance, to connect with the third person of the trinity, the one we often ignore, because that third person is also God – and also calls us to ourselves and invites us into relationship with Godself.

            I encourage you strongly to attend a Taize service if you haven’t.  I encourage you to come to the Tai Chi classes if you haven’t.  I encourage you to find ways to daily spend time listening and connecting to the Spirit who loves you and calls for connection with you. Walk the labyrinth.  Journal.  Walk in the park.  But spend time, not only with the God above (or parent) and God in Jesus.  Spend time with the Spirit as well, for Jesus sent us this advocate to be with us and in us and to speak to us when we listen. 

            A pastor friend once said to me, “the less we understand, the more true it is”.  The less we understand, the more true it is.  And again, I think he is pointing out that the deep truths, the deepest truths are things we experience in mystery – are truths we encounter through our hearts and actions rather than just through our thoughts and conversations.  Not that our thoughts and conversations aren’t important.  They are.  But they may not lead us as strongly or clearly into the heart of God.  If we connect with God only intellectually, we are missing the heart connection to God.  And, just as with our human relationships, it is our heart connections that lead us to each other, that bind us and make us strong together, more than our head connections. 

            Towards that end, I would like to invite you to sit for a few minutes of silence, to listen for God today in the quiet.  When thoughts come into your head, listen, let them go and listen some more.  Try to experience God in a new way.  For that is what the Spirit it all about.  Amen.

Moments with a bigger view

        I was on a very quick 24 hour retreat at San Damiano Sunday-Monday of this week.  I love it there.  Beautiful in every way.  Also challenging of my soul in so many ways.
         While I was sitting at breakfast I had this sudden moment of stepping out of myself, the culture, the routines and seeing everything in a completely different way.  I was watching people walking to the food that was set up, filling their plates, heading back to their tables.  Each person did exactly the same thing: walked to the same place to pick up a plate, walked over to the buffet at the same place, picked up the same utensils to serve themselves the food, walked to their tables, sat down, put their own utensils on their plates, put their napkins in their laps... you get the idea.  The conference wait-staff were walking around filling people's mugs with coffee or hot water, checking in with folk about their food, directing where guests were to take their dishes when they were done.  It was "normal" in terms of the way we eat, serve ourselves, do things in this culture at retreat centers.  There is a flow, there is an expected movement, there is a "script", if you will, for how we move and function and work.
         But I had this moment of stepping out, a moment of remembering that this was exactly what I said it was: a script, a cultural routine that is not innate to being human or being each individual that we are.  This is a learned behavior of how we do things in this particular setting.  It does not define us, it is not set by genes or by some higher authority that tells us that this is what it looks like to be civilized, educated, "acceptable" people.  These are traditions, practices, and rituals of how we function that we've all sort of tacitly agreed to without thinking too much about it.  And in that moment those particular movements struck me as so odd, so contrived really, that I had a hard time not bursting out with laughter.  I saw and found myself questioning everything.  Why did we decide that we need to eat three times a day?  Why not 5 or 6?  Why not twice or even just once?  Why do we butter our bread on one side?  Why do we toast it on both sides?  Why do we put our napkins in our laps?  Why do we cook our eggs the way we do?  Why do we eat together at tables?  Why do we sit in chairs?  The questions went on and on.
          We've separated ourselves from the basics of survival through these rituals.  Our meal times were "normal" but decided for us based on what we do as a culture, not when we are hungry.  None of us picked the tomatoes, none of us retrieved the eggs from the chickens, none of us milked the cows.  None of us slaughtered the pig for the bacon, or cured the ham, or even saw the animals or plants: the life that was involved in our breakfasting.  We did not touch our food with our hands, but ate with utensils that further separated us from the baseness of what we were doing: supplying nutrition to our bodies, all of which was life for something else at one point or another, so that we could continue another hour or day or week.  It is a strange part of our current humanity that we try to hide the realities of what we need to do to survive under layers and layers of "culture" that separate us so fully from acknowledging our basic needs and the first level of survival that is central to living for all of us.  But I had a bigger moment, a bigger insight into seeing all of this as just a game, a play, an act.
          I heard recently about a Dungeons and Dragons game where the player rolled a 20 on perception (for those who don't play this game, that means that in the role playing situation, they rolled the highest possible number to perceive perhaps something that they were unaware was going on).  The Dungeon Master had nothing new to give the player: there was nothing there to perceive.  So he said, "For just a moment your character sees dice, a table, a group of huge giants looking over the landscape.  And then everything returns to normal."
         At my meal at San Damiano, I felt I'd been given that 20 perception roll and had suddenly stepped back to see the world as it really was, rather than as we pretend it to be.
         My daughter is struggling to find her way.  That is the job of teenagers.  She is struggling with the patterns of culture, how to fit in to what society tells her she must do to make friends, to get along, to walk through this world.  She is especially struggling to make sense of it in light of who she is.  How does she maintain her integrity in terms of being herself, while still putting on enough of the cultural garb of acceptable behaviors to walk through the world in a functional way?  We learn how to share, we learn how to greet one another and talk to one another, we learn to say "hello" when we enter a place and "goodbye" when we leave.  We learn please, thank you, and I'm sorry (if we are wise), we learn to hold doors open for one another and to smile when we pass each other while walking the dog.  But these things are not who we are.  For example, my daughter struggles to decide how much of her introverted self to honor and how much she must put aside to not appear to be snobby or aloof.  She struggles to know how much of her true feelings and thoughts she should share, and how much she needs to keep inside in order to not be "threatening" or invasive of the other.  These are the dances and lessons of growing up.  But they also cause many people to forget that these are not who we are: these are cultural behaviors and routines and not the depth of our beings.  
        The rituals of our faith are the same.  For outsiders they feel odd, different, "weird" maybe... but they are also things we put on to make sense and to navigate complex beliefs and ideas and even feelings: intuitions, hunches about what is beyond.  And sometimes I have moments in church as well where I feel it is all so contrived.  Do these rituals still mean what we intended them to mean?  Do they still serve and communicate and support us in our faith, in our love, in our growing?  Or do they keep us stuck and unseeing of who we and God and one another really are at our core?
       We've all heard stories of wild children, kids "raised by wolves" as it were, who somehow did not grow up in a culture and so did not learn our routines, our ways of being.  They seem wild, they seem untamed.  Do we also see that they are really, in many ways, so much more real?
       We need our rituals.  We need our routines.  We need our ways of navigating how to work and talk and worship and live.  But it is important that we remember that they are just that: rituals, routines, practices and ways of working with and walking with and being with one another.  They are not who we are, they are not who we are called to be. Those moments of perception also give us options as they help us to remember that we have choices about which cultural constructs we choose to adopt and which ones we can choose to put aside in favor of something different, something more true to ourselves, something that perhaps carries for us more integrity in our living and being.
       I see some of those choices in the people around me and in myself.  I know people who, out of their concern for the environment, grow their own vegetables and who bike everywhere rather than driving, trying to lessen their carbon footprint, striving to truly live with more integrity in this way.  I have a couple friends who are truly trying to "live off the grid" - making their own electricity, using well water, living in a home that is not tied in to the usual systems, growing their own food.  Personally, I am trying to use minimal plastic.
        For other people, values may center more around not spending money on things the culture decides are "necessary" but are really luxuries.  My girls choose not to cut their hair, feeling that a monthly hair cut is an unnecessary expense.  I cut my son's hair and my own myself, for the same reason.  We don't find using blowdryers to be necessary.  These are small things, but they are steps towards seeing that not everything we are told is necessary really is.  
        Our cultural activities contain within them many assumptions about what matters, what is important.  But they are often not said outloud.  They are assumed, and they take form through our daily practices.  The more we can step outside of those routines and rituals, the more we can choose for ourselves what really matters, and to make choices based on what we really value, rather than what the culture tells us to value.  So my prayer for all of us is to have more moments of perception, more times when we see the values that are behind each act, each thing, each interaction, and that we therefore have a chance to choose what we really value and to live with deeper integrity, closer to being who we truly are.  

Being One

Acts 16:16-34

John 17:20-26

There once was a man who was stranded on a desert island for 14 years.  Finally, a boat came to the island and while he was really excited about being rescued and going home, he also wanted to show his rescuers around his island.  He showed them the little cabin he had built and the little store house where he’d put fruit and other food he’d collected.  He showed them the interesting inventions he had made and finally he brought them to a little building he had made that had a cross on it.  “And this,” he said proudly, “is my church where I come and worship God every week!” One of the rescuers said, “Wow.  That’s really great.  But it looks like there is another one just like it over there.  What is that building?” 

“Oh,” said the stranded man with a look of disgust, “that’s the church I USED to attend.”

Hmmm.  It’s hard to find unity – even with oneself!

            Have you ever had the experience of thinking about someone only to have them call you soon afterwards?  Have you ever had the experience of feeling like someone’s spirit was present with you?  Have you ever felt so connected to someone that you almost heard their thoughts on occasion?  Knew what they were feeling or thinking to such a degree it felt like they were talking to you in your head?  Have you ever discovered that you shared a dream with someone?  How about those connections with the larger world?  Have you ever had a feeling that something was wrong and then discovered that it was? 

            On the day my grandfather died, I woke up and thought I saw him standing at the foot of my bed, just smiling to me.  I called my father, and learned that he had passed away, about 10 minutes before I “had seen” him in my room.  Could it have been just a weird coincidence?  Of course many people would say that it was.  But I know differently in my heart. 

            September 11, 2001 I woke up with a strong sense that something was wrong.  Something was off.  I felt a sense of deep foreboding.  It was not my habit to do this, but I got up and turned on the news, just in time to hear what had been happening on the other side of the country.

            I have a friend who seems to know, without fail, when something has upset me and inevitably calls me.  The first words out of his mouth indicate that sense of connection “What’s wrong?” he will say.  “Something shifted and it feels like you’re upset.  What has happened?”

            I know I’m not alone in these experiences.  Some of you have shared similar stories with me.  Or stories that are uniquely your own but show us the same, mysterious connection that we have with one another.  And they just confirm what Jesus tells us in scriptures such as today’s gospel lesson.

            On Trinity Sunday we celebrate and look at the mystery that God is both three and God is one.  It is a deep mystery that theologians study and write about and contemplate.  They find new meanings and deeper important meanings in it all the time.  But still we struggle to comprehend this mystery.  How is it possible that God, the one God, can also be in community with God-self?  How can one God have 3 separate and unique persons who experience life differently, who relate to us differently – above us, among us, within us?  It is profound, amazing, and difficult to comprehend.

            What is less often looked at, though it is just as present in our scriptures is the fact that we, too, as God’s people are many and yet one.  Jesus says in today’s passage from John: “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”  We, too, though we are each unique, though we are each individuals, though we disagree with one another about many things and have different goals, different priorities, different views on the world – even so, together we are the body of Christ.  Together we are one.  Jesus says that just as he and God the parent are one (again, going back to the trinity) in this same way, we too, are one.

            So what does this mean, practically speaking?   It means a great number of things.  The first is that we need to strive for unity even when we cannot be uniform.  We need to strive for unity even when we are very different in our view points.  By saying that I don’t at all mean that we need to agree with each other.  The diversity in our thoughts, ideas, feelings, backgrounds,  and view points adds a richness and depth to life that give it meaning.  But what it means is that we should strive to work together, with one another, across our differences, towards furthering God’s realm here, towards caring and loving all people and all creation. 

            The second thing it means is that when I hurt you, I am hurting myself.  This, too, is part of the mystery of us as created beings, but that doesn’t make it any less true.  When I hurt you in any way – physically, emotionally, or spiritually, the person I am damaging is myself.  This is really hard, I think, to take in in any kind of real way.  Our cultural values tell us that I have to take care of my own and if that is at your expense, so be it because there isn’t enough for all of us.  But this is not what God teaches.  God teaches us that when even one person does not have what they need, all of us are short-changed.  And if we can hang on to that, it will deeply affect our actions.  When someone hurts us, we can remember that they are also hurting themselves and we can try to have some compassion for it.  Additionally, it makes it much harder to strike out in revenge (which is un-Christian anyway – Jesus was really clear that when someone slaps us on the cheek, we are supposed to turn the other one, not slap back).  We cannot strike out without realizing that, again, the person we are hitting is ourselves. 

            It also makes it imperative that we work for the good of all people – again, recognizing that when there is anyone who is hungry in the world, we all are hungry in some way.  When there is anyone who is suffering in the world, we are all suffering in some way.  And that doesn’t just include victims, it includes those who do the harming as well…what is broken in them that they are choosing this harm?  How have we contributed to their behavior?  How can we be part of healing all involved so that we, too, might be healed?   It means not wishing ill for anyone because the person we are wishing ill onto is ourselves.  And it means working, hard, to see the value in each and every other person.  Choosing not to see other people as “other” – as different, as people we can categorize and hate and ban in any way.

            In one episode of Joan of Arcadia, the high school is going through an election process.  The candidate whom Joan supports (because God has told her to) has been trashed by the opposition, a boy named Lars, who advertises publicly that Joan’s candidate has a father who is in jail.  Joan then discovers something potentially very damaging about Lars: she discovers that Lars is gay.  And she is ready to expose him, to “out” him, to cause distrust among his peers, feeling that an eye for an eye is the only way to get her candidate to win.  But just as she is on the verge of betraying Lars’ deepest secret, discrediting him, exposing him and destroying him, she ends up having a conversation with her mother.  Her mother shares with Joan regrets that she has about actions she took when she was feeling particularly self-righteous, and in that place of knowing she was right, she stopped thinking about the other person as a person, she stopped seeing the other, loving the other, caring for the other and as a result, she hurt the other – in a way that would never be forgotten.  Joan is moved by her mother’s story and chooses not to destroy Lars, not to betray him by telling the world his secret.  She gives up her chance for her candidate to win the election in so doing.  She says to her mom afterwards, “No, I didn’t do it, but it would have been so easy.  But then in my head I kept seeing him, looking at me, so scared you know?   Big strong Lars, scared and confused.  And I’ve been there, like, like all the time.  And it was like we weren’t really different people because someplace we aren’t!...  Why is that so hard to remember?”

            I don’t know why it’s hard to remember.  But it is.  We are so focused on our individuality that we forget how connected we are.  We forget what Jesus says about calling us to be one as he and God are one.  We forget that what we do impacts everyone in the world, that the whole way we look at life and interact with life makes a difference – not just for the person with whom we are interacting, but for ourselves and the world, too.  Every interaction we have matters.  Every time we are kind to someone it matters and every time we fail to be kind to someone it matters.

            I want to share with you another story.  I shared this before a couple years back but I think it is an appropriate illustration.

A father told this story about his child, Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled.

“Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, “Do you think they'll let me play?” I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps. I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, “We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.”  Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates.. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, “Shay, run to first! Run to first!” Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base.. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, “Run to second, run to second!” Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball, the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home..

All were screaming, “Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay”

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, “Run to third! Shay, run to third!”

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, “Shay, run home! Run home!”

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team.  “That day”, said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, “the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world.”

Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!”

The thing is, those kids who gave Shay that opportunity – those kids understood the connection for a moment.  For a moment, they remembered that we all are one.  Shay’s success was their success – for BOTH teams.  Shay’s success was a success for all people who have heard this story and connected with it.  Shay’s success, and the kindness and caring of those other kids made a difference and makes a difference.

Mitch Album in his book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, said: “… the secret of heaven: that each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.” (New York: Hachette books, 2003. p 208).  Or, as he said in Have a Little Faith, “God sings, we hum along, and there are many melodies, but it’s all one song – one same, wonderful, human song.” 

            Jesus prayed that we all might be one.  He wasn’t praying that we would all be the same.  He was praying that we might see our connections, our unity, our one-ness.  My prayer is that we can honor his call to oneness by remembering our connections to all of creation, to seek unity and love for one another in all that we do.  Amen.

Pentecost and Music

                                             Acts 2:1-21

Ezek. 37:1-14

Today we celebrate the birthday of the church.  And we do so by recalling days when the Spirit took hold of things, changed things, lit the place on fire.  Both the Ezekiel passage and the passage from Acts tell us stories of the spirit, stories in which the spirit blows in with great force and in doing so ignites the miraculous, the amazing, and the unexpected.  In Acts, when the Spirit blew in, the people could understand one another even across language barriers.  I think it’s very important here to note that it is not that the people all started speaking the same language.  They were still each speaking their own languages, though it says here that some were speaking languages they did not formerly know.  But while still speaking different languages, they were able to understand one another.  This is a miracle indeed.  For we know that even when we speak the same linguistic language, we often still don’t understand one another.  In previous Pentecost sermons I’ve shared with you personal examples of those misunderstandings.  Times when we are speaking the same language and really not understanding one another. 

One more story for you:  There was a woman in one of my congregations who spoke or understood the world completely differently from me.  I would say things that I thought were unoffensive, were kind, were reaching out: things like, “You seem a little down.  Are you okay?” And would be met with anger, “I am NOT down!  Why would you say that! I was fine until I talked with YOU!”  We just missed each other at every turn.  We both were speaking English.  But we were never speaking the same language. 

I’ve been thinking about this idea of understanding one another across languages in terms of music since today is the last Sunday the choir will sing for the summer and I’ve been especially aware of the amazing gift of music that the choir gives to us.  I think it is very appropriate that we remember the miracle of Pentecost in relationship to music, because many would say that music itself is still that language that crosses language barriers.  Would you say that’s true?  But as I’ve reflected on it, I’ve also realized that music can also sets up new barriers, new language problems, as it were, if we let it.  It isn’t just that we don’t all like the same kinds of music, at times I would say we simply cannot understand the same kinds of music.  Personally, while I enjoy many different kinds of music, I still find that there are certain types of music I simply don’t understand: for example, certain types of punk rock and the more aggressive rap music.  Also, I struggle to understand and appreciate certain kinds of music from different countries: certain types of Asian cultural music, for example, is harder for me to relate to or appreciate.  And I think that just as when we don’t understand different languages when we have not grown up around them, have not listened to them in our formative years, the same can be true of different kinds of music.  We often understand best the music we were raised with.  And while we can grow into an appreciation of other kinds of music and even an enjoyment or love of these, many times it takes long-term exposure and experience - study, I would even say, just as with different languages, to learn and understand these different types of music. 

As I continued to look at this passage in Acts, the more it seemed to me that the experience of the community in Acts, responding to the Spirit moving in such a way that people could understand each other across languages, is very similar to today’s church community responding to the Spirit moving through music.  In the story in Acts, there were people who understood each other across the different languages.  They heard the words in their own languages.  So, too, in our communities, many do experience the universal language of music.  We are moved and hear things in new pieces that touch us, that speak to us in the language of our hearts.  In the community in Acts, there were also people who didn’t like what was happening, who sneered and assumed that too much alcohol was involved.  So, too, when the Spirit speaks through new music, especially new kinds of music, there will always be other people who, hearing a piece for the first time will be uneasy, uncomfortable, assume impropriety, and so attack it.

Throughout our church history there has been controversy over what is appropriate church music.  Before the Protestant Reformation the Catholic church went through various different positions on music.  At the time of the Reformation only the priest sang in church.  One of Martin Luther’s issues with the church was that at the time worship was not a participatory event.  Everything was done in Latin and only done by the priest since the common person did not know Latin.  In response Luther invited congregational participation through singing, and singing in the language of the people, which in Luther’s community was German.  Luther took common, popular music, popular tunes of the time, the music of the youth, some have even said bar tunes, and made them into hymns.  The equivalent today would be taking hard rock, hip hop, EDM (electronic dance music), ska, rap, death metal, punk music and putting Christian words to it for worship.  Can you imagine how the people reacted?  Many felt scandalized that secular music was coming into their holy places.  It is the same reaction many in our churches have today when the popular music of our youth comes into the congregation.  Luther believed that these tunes would first attract the young people, but second, he believed in providing Christian lyrics to the tunes they already knew, filling their minds with those words when they chanced upon the tunes in other settings.  Interestingly, Luther did not allow organs or other music accompaniment in his churches and instrumentation was allowed in Lutheran churches only about 50 years after Luther had died. 

In John Calvin’s church, Calvin hired a lyricist and a composer to rework the

Psalter.  The lyricist re-wrote the psalms, and the composer set it to music.  The queen complained about these “Geneva jigs” because it, too was a departure from the Latin plainsong.  And yet again, by today’s standards, we would also see Calvin as very strict and austere.  He would only allow psalms to be sung in worship, and he insisted not only that these psalms go completely unaccompanied by instruments but that they also be sung without harmonies.  It was not until the end of the 17^th century in the Presbyterian church that some churches began to allow instrumental accompaniment.

We understand music differently.  We speak music differently.  And yet again, we are given the Pentecost story in which people continue to speak different languages, but some are speaking languages that are different from their own, and others are hearing those voices spoken in their own languages.  The Spirit brings in something new, something different, but it is always something that helps us be more connected, if we are open to it.  Literally, we begin to understand and hear in our own languages... in the languages of our community, in the languages of our media, in the languages of our music, in the languages of our children.

In the Ezekiel passage for today God promises that the very bones will be raised.  What has been declared dead will rise to new life.  This is not a comfortable or easy thought.  But again, the Spirit is not promising to be easy or comfortable.  The Spirit is promising to be alive, and to live in unexpected though glorious ways.

Today we celebrate the Spirit’s movement through music.  And I invite you to listen for the Spirit in a new way, to celebrate the new life that the Spirit can raise in all of our old bones, to live through song.  Amen.