Prodigals Returning

This morning, I returned to running (I will use the word running, even though less kindly other people might use words like "slow jogging," "lumbering," "slogging," "shuffling"). It's been almost 2 months since I ran down the Broadwalk at the beach. Again, I wonder, why have I denied myself this pleasure?

Well, for the better part of December, I didn't run because I couldn't inhale without coughing. And then there was travelling and then there was my eye infection.

And then there was laziness.

I am always a bit surprised to find that my muscles remember how to run, after a long period of not running.  And as a poet, my brain goes to other areas where I notice a similar dynamic.  In so many areas of my life, I return to activities and people which bring me joy--and I always wonder, why have I denied myself this pleasure?  I wrote a blog post with poems about the subject here.  But let me also consider the spiritual dimension.

Many of us are similarly surprised when we return to the churches of our childhood and find comfort from the Scripture, from the hymns, from the liturgy, from the community.  We may wonder why we waited so long to return.  We may find ourselves surprised to find the open arms that welcome us.

Likewise, we may experience something similar in our relationship to God.  We may begin the discipline of prayer, or return to it, and we may be surprised to find that God has been there waiting all along.

And the parable of the Prodigal Son reminds us that God is not standing around, growing impatient, watching the celestial clock, wondering where we are.  God plans the feast that God will give upon our return:  a fatted calf, a fine cloak, a circle of friends, a ring for our finger.

Now is the time of year when many of us return to regular life.  We put away the excesses that often come with December.  We return to jobs, to exercise, to regular bedtimes, to housework, and to moderate eating.  We might also be struggling with a smidge of depression--December was so much fun, so lovely, so festive!

Now is a good time to pick up those spiritual habits that we may have let slide during December.  Your worship community is still there waiting for you.  God looks forward to your return.  May you find, as you return, that the quiet joy in these relationships takes away the depression that can come as Winter settles in.

Into the Pool!

Yesterday at my local Lutheran church, we not only celebrated the baptism of Jesus, but our own baptisms.  We did the Reaffirmation of Baptism, with our pastor explaining the different parts.

When we got to prayer that concludes the Reaffirmation, our pastor had the children come forward.  Every time the word water was mentioned, the children jumped up with hands in the air and yelled "Water!"  I loved the interactive nature of it.  Then the children and the pastor went through the church sprinkling us all with water with a palm branch.  It was fabulous.

Our pastor preached a wonderful sermon about baptism.  He had an extended metaphor, based on the swimming pool his family had when he was growing up.  It was New York, so the first swim of the season was in very chilly waters.  He remembers that as a child, he didn't care:  he'd cannonball himself into the water.

As a teenager, he'd carefully arrange the floats so that he could be in the water and not touching the water.  And the adults were content to sit around the pool and barely dip a toe in the water.

He reminded us that new converts are like those kids, enthusiastic and energetic.  As our faith matures, we're in danger of losing this enthusiasm.

He encouraged us to listen to what God would have us to do.  God doesn't want us to just do whatever we want to do.  No.  If that was enough, there would be no sin, no lives gone astray.

How can we grow into the promise of our baptisms.  Our pastor gave us a question to ask ourselves.

He asked, "Having chosen us, what does God want us to choose to do?"  He encouraged us to listen with discernment.

It's a question that spoke to me, as I may be approaching a place in the not too distant future when it's time to think about career choices for the second half of my life.

Our pastor closed by reminding us that Jesus has gone before us into the baptismal water.  He said, "C'mon in--Jesus is waiting for you in these baptismal waters."

Yes, the water's fine--let's jump in!

Grandma's Love, God's Love

I have my grandmother on the brain a lot these days.  I've been feeling the grief that one would expect, of course, when a loved one dies.  I've also been feeling gratitude.  I've been thinking a lot about the love that we experience, or don't experience, from our families, and what that love can teach us about God's love.

My grandmother was not always an easy woman to love.  She had some fairly traditional ideas about how we should behave.  Her pre-20th century ideas about blacks, women, and homosexuality could be tough for me.  I remember that we cousins would often try to influence her beliefs.  Now that I'm older, and from this side of time can see the futility of our attempts, I shake my head at our belief that we could change her attitudes.

I always tried to remind myself of the social changes that she had seen in her lifetime.  Here's just one example:  her farm family used horses as vehicles, and then during the following decades, she was one of the first women in the county to ride in a car, and she saw ships carrying humans launched into space.  How dizzying.

I often just ignored her attempts to change my behavior, and now that I'm older, I see my actions as petty and disrespectful.  She didn't want me to wash my car in her driveway on a Sunday afternoon, but I did it anyway.  Would it have killed me to have waited one day?  Of course not.  I was trying to prove a point.

Now that I'm older, the idea of Sabbath time becomes ever more precious to me.  But to be honest, my grandmother didn't want to to avoid washing the car because of Sabbath time.  No, she was worried about what the neighbors would think.

My grandmother continued to welcome me back to her house, even when I didn't behave in the ways that she wanted.  In many ways, this love reminds me of God's love. 

My grandmother wanted what was best for me, as God does.  Her ideas for what was best differed from what I may have thought, but she didn't cast me away.

And I was stubborn too.  I kept coming back, even when she occasionally said ugly things about my life's choices.  Keep in mind that I wasn't doing anything truly dreadful, like developing a heroin habit.  She was baffled about my continuing on in school.  She was even more baffled about my spouse's long trajectory towards a real job.  She didn't understand my problems with organized religion.  But I continued to come to see her.  As I worked on my B.A. degree and my graduate degrees, as I worked at my first grown up job at a community college, I visited every month or 6 weeks.  She cooked me dinner and often had a tin of cookies.  She continued to sew clothes for me.  She often gave me larger gifts that would have taken me months or years to afford.

We both continued to keep the lines of communications open, and so, she was able to enjoy the times she had scarcely dared hope for, like my return to the Lutheran church.  In much the same way, I imagine God, continuing to cook meals for us and to sew us clothes, continuing to give us help, in the hopes that we'll turn our lives around.

I realize that not every story of family love ends this way.  Too many people experience family estrangement to find the idea of God as a parent or grandparent to be a comfort.  Too few of us find an earthly incarnation of the kind of unconditional acceptance that God gives us.

My hope is that we can find partial examples of that love and extrapolate.  My grandmother's love of me was incomplete.  She spent too many years feeling more disappointment than love.  I like to think that God would be more full of love than disappointment.

The love of family and friends gives us a window into the magnitude of the ways that God loves us, forgives us, roots for us, and comforts us.  And as we think about that idea, we can also think about the ways that we can help others experience a fragment of the love that God has for humans; we can love others and be an example of the Divine love.  In this way, our lives full of love can become sacrament.

A Funeral So Close to Christmas

A week ago, we had my grandmother's funeral and burial.  In many ways, it was a funeral service both beautiful and strange.

The church was still decorated for Christmas, complete with lights and candles.  I found it oddly comforting, even while it made me feel a bit disjointed.

My grandmother died on Dec. 28, the day after her 97th birthday.   Our Gospel reading was the reading for last Sunday, Luke 2:22-40, with the faithfulness of Anna and Simeon. I thought it was a strange choice for a funeral reading, but the pastor made it come together surprisingly well.


The pastor's homily focused on her near-Christmas birthday, her near-Christmas death, and the meanings of Christmas.  It focused on being a servant in the tradition of Christ.  The pastor talked about faithfulness and living a long life in faith, as Anna and Simeon did.  The meditation worked surprisingly well.

We ended the service with "Joy to the World," one of my favorite Christmas hymns, that I haven't sung at all this season.  Again, a surprising choice, but it worked.

Oh, we sang more traditional funeral hymns.  My grandfather's favorite hymn was "Children of the Heavenly Father"; we sang it his funeral, and we sang it at my grandmother's too.  That song makes me weep even when we're not at a funeral.  Would it make me weep if I didn't associate it with funerals?

I find it comforting even as I'm weeping.

We read the passage from Romans (8:31-39) which assures us that nothing can separate us from the love of the Almighty.  We read Psalm 23.

In all, the funeral did what funerals need to do.  It celebrated the life of my grandmother.  It reassured those of us still living that death will not have the final answer.  It comforted those of us gathered together to grieve a loss.  It reminded us that we are still alive, with important work left to do.

The Last Day of Christmas

Today we reach the end of the Christmas season, which every year seems all too short.  Today we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, the arrival of the Magi, those wise, wise men.

Matthew 2: 10-11

10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

I find my Advent mood seeping into this Feast Day.  I think of those wise men, their study of the night sky, the arrival of the new star.

I've written a longer blog post about this aspect of the story over at Living Lutheran:  "But the Magi don’t miss the message of the star. They show up to do the work. They’re not lazing about hoping that something reveals itself. They are present and receptive to the message of the skies. They participate in the discovery of the message."

We might prefer the blaze of angel light, the night sky disrupted, the message plain and clear.  We might wish that we didn't have to rely on a lonely star, beaming its speck of light from such a great distance.  The wise men remind us of the Advent message, the value of watching and waiting and staying alert.

The travel of the Magi speaks to some of us this time of year.  Not only were the magi watching the skies, they were ready to hit the road.

Jan Richardson has a great meditation and poem on this aspect of the story:  "As we travel toward Epiphany and savor the final days of Christmas, this is a good time to ponder where we are in our journey. As we cross into the coming year, where do you find yourself on the path? Have you been traveling more by intention or by reacting to what’s come your way? What direction do you feel drawn to go in during the coming weeks and months? Is there anything you need to let go of—or to find—in order to take the next step? In the coming months, what gift do you most need to offer, that only you can give?"

Too often, with both our Christmas story and our Epiphany story, we stay with the happy elements:  we focus on the baby in the manger, the arrival of the wise men, the happy crowd, all assembled.  We forget what happened next.

Matthew 2: 12-14

12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. 13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ 14Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt,

The journey of the Magi plunges the family into chaos, into flight, into refugee status.  These stories are not all sweetness and light.

In this post, David Eck reminds us of the political implications of the Epiphany story, the fact that the wise men didn't find the new king in any of the power centers of the Roman Empire:  "This is good news for us who live in a world where rulers are easily corrupted and governments cave-in to lobbyists and special interest groups. It serves as a reminder that Jesus, the ruler of our hearts, is found among the poor and the needy, the lost and abandoned. If we really want to see him face to face we will NOT see him in Baptist ministers running for political office or in T.V. preachers living lavish lifestyles. We will find Jesus sitting with the homeless on a park bench, shivering in the cold, waiting for a shelter to open for the night. We will find Jesus holding the hand of the victim of a hate crime who is crying out for justice and for safety. We will find Jesus huddled close to a space heater with a family of five because it is the only source of heat in their entire house."

Here is a prayer that I wrote for today:

Creator God, on this day when we celebrate the mystery and the wisdom of the Magi, we ask that you grant us a portion of their patience.  Let us continue to watch and wait for you.  Let us see the specks of light that lead us to you.  Let us have the courage to follow the star, even if it leads us to unexpected places.  May we not react in great destruction, as Herod did.  Grant us the wisdom to know our gifts and to bring them forth.  Let us bring your light to all the dark corners of the world."

Holy Spirit, Earthly Spirit

Last night was the first night of 2012 that we went to First Lutheran to take dinner to the hungry and homeless.  I expected it to be a record setting crowd, since it was so cold outside, cold by South Florida standards.

Of course, when it's cold, the city opens a shelter, so maybe that's why we didn't see as many people as I expected.  On the Wednesday before Christmas, a balmy 85 degrees, we served 139 people.  Last night, with the low in the 50's, we served under 70 people.

The pastor wasn't on site by the time it was time to say grace, so I said, "Luckily, we belong to a religious tradition that doesn't believe we need a pastor to pray to our God."  No big deal--I've done it before, and I'm comfortable praying in front of a group.

A man raised his hand and asked to be the one to pray.  I was a bit uneasy--was he enthusiastic because of the Holy Spirit or because of earthly spirits?  I said, "Let's pray together.  You go first, and I'll finish." 

As he came forward, I noticed uneasy looks being exchanged across tables.  I said, "You're not going to be profane, are you?"

Oh me of little faith!  He took my hand and offered a beautiful prayer.  He said, "Now you."

I prayed, "I don't have much more to add to that, except to ask that you be with those who can't be with us tonight and to be with us as we leave each other at the end of our time together tonight."

First Lutheran offers an ecumenical worship service after the meal.  The pastor still hadn't arrived by the end of the meal, and the First Lutheran woman in charge asked if I would do the service.  I hadn't counted on that, but I was game; I decided to go with an Epiphany theme, since I'd recently been writing about Epiphany (here at the Living Lutheran website, and here at my weekly Gospel meditation).  I consulted with the pianist/choir director, found a Bible passage, and waited for time to begin.

We sang "We Three Kings."  I read Matthew 2:  1-21.  I talked about the wise men knowing what they were seeing because they had been observing the skies for many years.  I talked about the different responses to God:  the wise men get up and get moving, while Herod reacts in devastatingly destructive ways.  I talked about God choosing to live among the poor, the refugees, the immigrants.

Several of the homeless men wanted to talk, and I let them.  I'm enough of a teacher that I'm comfortable with that approach, although it unnerved at least one of the First Lutheran members.

Then I took prayer requests and fashioned a prayer.  We finished by singing "Joy to the World."

Last night was one of those Holy Spirit nudges.  I always love serving a meal.  As I have said to more than one friend, who can object to feeding the hungry?  But I really loved putting together a service and doing the preaching.

I know I might not love it as much if I had to do it week in, week out.  I know that to be an ordained Lutheran, I'd have to take on a lot of student debt as I went to school for years.  I feel the Holy Spirit nudging me, but I'm unclear of the final destination.

Am I unclear or do I not want to see?  I am guilty of wanting the Holy Spirit to speak in grand gestures, like a full scholarship to a seminary with living expenses covered too, not in gentle whispers.  I worry that if I want a grand gesture, the Holy Spirit will get my attention by way of the grand gesture of unemployment or something horribly negative.  My earthly spirit clearly doesn't fully trust the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps that's why the Holy Spirit tends to work in nudges and whispers.  Most of us are skittish animals, after all, easily spooked.

Today I return to my regular life, a work life full of Holy Spirit nudges, where no one asks to pray with me, where few worship, where whining often wins out over gratitude.

I want to be like my grandmother, whom so many have told me cultivated a garden of calm and acceptance.  I want to be that woman, no matter where I'm working.  Come, Lord Jesus, and transform my worry into joy.

Meditation on This Week's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012:

Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
The voice of the LORD is upon the waters. (Ps. 29:3)
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11

This Sunday marks the baptism of Christ. I love the words of God in this baptism: "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased." Note that God says this at the beginning of Christ's ministry, before Jesus has actually done much. In fact, in this Gospel of Mark, the baptism scene is our first introduction to Jesus. Mark doesn't give us a nativity story.

Here's the best news of all: God feels the same way about you.

God feels the same way about you: you are God's chosen ones; God is well pleased with each and every one of you.

For those of us who might have grown up with the idea of an angry God, a punishing parent, this message can be quite powerful. God loves you, regardless of what you've done, in spite of what you've done. God's love has nothing to do with what you've accomplished.

Certainly God has ideas of how we can live our best lives, in much the way a friend wants what's best for a friend, a parent wants a child to make choices that will lead the child to fulfillment. But regardless of what we've done or not done, regardless of the roads we've taken, regardless of how well we're living our mission to be the light of Christ in the world, God loves us.

This is a powerful message as we start the new year. For some of us, a new year is a chance to beat ourselves up over how much we haven't accomplished. We think of all the past resolutions we haven't been able to keep. We think of all the ways we haven't been our best selves. We think of all the people we've disappointed. We can quickly spiral into a vicious circle of self-hatred and depression.

God knows all the ways we might not deserve it, but God loves us anyway. Again, that's the great thing about being a Lutheran and believing in grace--God knows us completely, and God loves us thoroughly. We don't have to do anything to earn this love. Indeed, we can't.

Look at the great lengths God has gone to to let us know of that love. Think of the Christmas and Epiphany stories. God becomes a little baby, born in a stable--and why? To let us know of God's love. God becomes a refugee because of Herod's jealousy. God loves us so much--the Bible is full of stories that show God going to great lengths to show humanity this love. An observant person might say that God still goes to great lengths to get our attention.

The juxtaposition of the Christmas/Epiphany stories and the Baptism of Christ also gives us an opportunity to see how differently people respond to this gift of grace and love. Herod is so threatened that he slaughters every child in Bethlehem and the surrounding region. John, on the other hand, tells everyone about the coming arrival of Jesus.

How will you respond to God's great gift of love?