Of Love and Death – Retirement and a New Ethic of Rainbow Shoes

Today, this combo Valentines Day/Ash Wednesday of 2024, I renew my blog after a 10-year hiatus. I’ll use Lent as my excuse to reconnect with writing as a spiritual practice, and I do so noticing an interesting juxtaposition of Love and Death today.  It feels like a pair of new shoes.

The photo depicts my new shoes that arrived yesterday. I love them. They are comfortable and colorful – two values I hold in high esteem. Getting a new pair of shoes feels like I’m readying myself for something new, some new journey or pilgrimage to begin.

I retired as of the first of the year. That’s something – certainly a new era in my life is beginning.  I feel like I’m putting on my new shoes – one foot goes into the shoe called Love, and the other goes into the shoe called Death.  That sort of sums it up.

I’m finding my praying and meditations these days circle around how I might manifest both my own and God’s love in the world. Noble, I know, but not as easy as one might think. As a newly retired clergyperson, I'm exploring a new sense of identity without the leadership responsibilities of institutional church employment. I’m waiting to see where God’s love will nudge me, and how I might express it in ways that are unmediated by institutional roles and expectations and are more authentic to my truest self.  In some ways, it’s more like taking OFF my shoes and standing barefoot and vulnerable, tender skin to rocky earth.  I'm afraid my free and unfettered feet might hurt a bit.  There's some comfort to institutional, well-formed traditions and roles. But, like old shoes, they may have lost their shape and support that's needed in this new era.  It's really hard to love oneself and others (and God for that matter) when your feet hurt.  So, LOVE is a good impetus, invitation, and preparation to venture forth with vulnerability and authenticity. Be sure you have some good shoes.

Death is the other shoe…the shoe that will finally drop.  Ash Wednesday is of course the day we Christians get the wake-up call that tells us we’re all going to die and we’re really not much different than the dirt beneath our shoes. I guess its good to be reminded of that at least annually.  In retirement, I’m finding, death is drawing a bit closer and actually has taken on a bit more form and shape: a shadow that appears just out of the corner of my eye, a serial killer (literally!) that may be hiding around corners, ready to jump out and surprise me with some unwanted news of how fragile my body really is.  

So today, I’ve put on these two shoes.  Like the colors on my new shoes, they merge and flow together to create something quite appealing when I look down.  I wonder what this era of my life can be if I live a new ethic of the imminence of death focusing and intensifying love, and love being the catalyst to transform the fear, pain and finality of death.  The yin and yang of rainbow shoes on my feet, love and death, stepping together in a graceful dance.

Sanctuaries of Christmas - Day 12: COMPASSION

In thinking about my final Christmas sanctuary, a lot of ideas came to mind of qualities and experiences we seek out and embrace particularly during this season.  Three came to mind that seem to get at some similar things:  Kindness, Love, Peace.  In the midst of what often seems like a myriad of threats, anxieties, selfishness, unrest in the world, we yearn for some space to reconnect with benevolence and trust in our humanity.  I will call this last of our sanctuaries COMPASSION.  We yearn for a space where we can share compassion – giving it to others and receiving it for ourselves.

Our Christmas season often focuses us on those ideals: love, kindness, empathy, forgiveness, transcending differences and divisions, overcoming our violent tendencies and conflicts, but sometimes, quite frankly, it gets sappy.   That’s why I like the word “compassion.”  It means a kind of connection or affection using “com-” which means “with,”   but we’re “with” each other in our “passion” – or suffering. 

Now, we might identify what we’re going through at the present moment as suffering… but often not.  We may just be going though our usual stuff. Yet how much of our yearning for affection, for kindness, for forgiveness, safety, for easing of conflicts and relief from fears or violence, has to do deep down with ways we are suffering - maybe in big ways, maybe only in small ways – but things that add up over time?  Compassion sums it up for me. I want someone to be with in my passion and in theirs.

We know that burdens feel lighter when they are shared.  We know when we feel a sense of safety with someone who understands us.  We know when we feel the companionship of someone who loves and accepts us. We know fears subside, challenges are minimized, and we feel strong and capable.  We all need a sanctuary where we can be authentic and vulnerable.  And, perhaps this is the most profound sanctuary of all.   Christmas offer us this sanctuary with the promise of Jesus’ birth being a sign of “God-with-us.” 

One thing I’ve realized in my months of “personal sabbatical” is that my ministry in churches has been the primary means, the framework, for the way I offer and experience compassion.  It is the way I have shared with people my and their passions. For some reason, God has given me this time without the church, and I’ve been confronted with the question of how do I offer and receive compassion now?  What framework do I use?  How can I find and create the sanctuary of compassion for myself and others in a new way?  I haven’t figured it out yet.  This is the question with which I enter 2014. 

 

One ending note now on my Christmas sanctuaries. These sanctuaries of  Tradition & Remembrance, Home, Mystery, Wonder, Darkness, Light, Hope & Joy, Giving, Meeting God, and Compassion, I relate to Christmas only because this season, its story and significance, gives us an excuse to concentrate our yearning for these sanctuaries.  But, they are sanctuaries we all need and seek all year round, throughout our lives. We short-change ourselves and each other if we somehow store them away like our Christmas decorations in the garage until we can haul them out again.  My hope is that both you and I might remember to open the doors a little wider to those sanctuaries for each other when we meet. Perhaps we can help each other to recognize when we are in particular need of one of these sanctuaries, and offer it to each other.  Hmm, is that a New Year’s resolution?  Maybe.

Sanctuaries of Christmas - Day 11: MEETING GOD

The angel appearances and messages remind us that our Christmas sanctuary is about meeting God in the flesh.  God loves this world and everything in it so passionately, so immensely, that God showed us who God was in the flesh and blood of a tiny baby.   That’s our party line…but, what that exactly means - how that exactly happens…well, that falls into the neighboring sanctuary of Mystery. I don’t have any scientific data on the matter. I just know that when I think about it, when I contemplate it, something very deep and very authentic stirs within me.

We love Christmas, because in its deepest, holiest part – we somehow can find ourselves in the sanctuary where we are reminded that God can be met face to face.  For me this is a possibility because I believe we’re made of the same stuff.  I believe God and me…and all of us… are deeply and truly connected.  We’re all the same stuff.  But, it’s easy to think we’re not.  Our individual lives are like islands poking up above the surface of an immense ocean. If we can’t see other islands, we feel isolated…and even if we do see other islands, we still feel autonomous within ourselves.  It usually takes a pretty hefty canoe to paddle over to the nearby island and say hi.  Yet, deep beneath the surface of the water, the stuff of all the islands – the earth’s crust, still connects everything. The islands aren’t separated at all..it’s just that the bowls we call oceans, are holding the water and covering up the ways we are connected.

And, since you are reading my blog, I’ll let you in on a little of my Christology that lies a bit beyond the standard doctrines.  Jesus wasn’t the only one that incarnated God.  Jesus was the revealer of how we ALL incarnate God.  Remember…we’re all the same stuff.  The baby-boy-in-a-manger who grew up to be the teacher-rabbi-savior was exactly the same stuff as you and me.  That’s why no matter what I’m feeling at the moment – the lowest lows or the highest highs, I can think about what I know of him and usually figure out something – some perspective, some wisdom, some compassion, some grace that relates to me.  I can’t think of any other one person that does that for me.  You may have someone or something else…the Buddha, Mohammed, the cycles and seasons of the earth…whatever.  But, whatever/whoever it is, it can show us God face to face. We’re all the same stuff.  To me, it less important that somehow, in some inexplicable way, God incarnated in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, than it is centrally important that God incarnates – every moment of every day in everything and everyone.  We are not left alone in our islands of isolation.

To me, that is some good news.

Sanctuaries of Christmas - Day 10: GIVING

“Good works is giving to the poor and the helpless, but divine works is showing them their worth to the One who matters.” 
― Criss Jami

Another hard subject for me these days…the sanctuary of GIVING.  I can’t avoid it though, Christmas is a primary time in the course of our year that most embraces the sanctuary of Giving.  Why is it hard for me right now?  I’m not sure, except that I feel like I’m in a season of such introspection that it easily borders on, and slips and slides into self-centeredness.  That’s my fear, anyway. 

To help me, I googled quotes on giving.  There’s a lot of good stuff that we all know about fullness of life, the value of giving over receiving,  the joy of selflessness and relinquishing things we tend to want to hold tight to.  But, I particularly liked this one by post-modern poet and philosopher Criss Jami. It reminded me of the Wise Men in our Christmas story.  They are the ones after all that remind us of the sanctuary of giving. 

We don’t know much about them except they came from somewhere East, they liked to interpret the stars,  they evidently were quite comfortable  looking up a local king in the phone book and asking directions – which probably placed them in the upper tier of the rich and famous. Somehow, in their cosmological studies, they figured out a great king was soon to be born.  So, they loaded up the caravan with some interesting and quite expensive gifts and headed out, pointing the camel noses west.   When they finally reached their destination, we see that their gift-giving was primarily a way to give honor to a life they deemed to be of great value and significance. 

This is a little different than the way we usually plan our Christmas giving, isn’t it? What if we were to make our Christmas lists…checking them twice…but to figure out what gift would best honor the great value and significance the lives of our friends and family represent to us?   The Magi’s gifts weren’t about what they personally liked…and they weren’t about what Baby Jesus would like, or need, or was age-appropriate to him, or even about Mary and Joseph (although the gold probably came in handy!).  Their gifts were to mark what they believed the future significance was of this newborn life to the world and to the “One who matters.”  No one quite understood the gifts at the time, I’m sure.  Yet, to this day, I would guess that most people with some passing acquaintance to Christianity can still name the three gifts.

Gold:  the substance of greatest human value; Frankincense: the good-smelling incense that mingled the aroma that signified spiritual world  and worship with our mortal senses; and Myrrh: the perfume for anointing the dead – an ominous symbol of sacrifice and death.  So, not exactly toys you’d likely find in a baby’s crib!  But, gifts that demonstrate this baby’s worth to the One who matters, and to the whole world.  What would it be like to consider our Christmas gifts with that criteria? Hmm.  Dashing into Target or Walmart and hitting the gift card display doesn’t quite make it, does it?

Sanctuaries of Christmas - Days 8 & 9: HOPE & JOY

As this New Year’s day came and went, I confess, I’m having a bit of a struggle with my next sanctuaries, HOPE and JOY.  This year, they are a stretch. They feel a bit elusive to me.  These are sanctuaries I am yearning for, but not necessarily finding.  If you are blessed to be experiencing the joy of the season and looking toward hopeful possibilities for the new year…thank you, God! You’ve been given the gift of these sanctuaries.  You don’t need to read any farther today. See you tomorrow!  But, if you are a bit more like me at the moment, you may be searching for the keys to unlock their doors. 

Hope and Joy are common sanctuaries we think of at Christmas, We often acknowledge them together, sort of like a foyer and a living room.  One brings you in and the other is where all the parties are. Hope looks forward to what is not yet, but what might be and could be, envisioning it to be good.  Joy looks back at what was, and around at what is, and feels the fullness.

But, as I look back, I feel more the weight of anxiety and uncertainty than joy: six months now unemployed.  I look around, and wonder what’s here?  What do I have to offer?  (Or does anyone WANT what I have to offer?) Where am I going?   I look ahead with a bit more fear than hope: what if I can’t find a job, what if I feel more depressed than I do now?  I trusted God, but where is God now?

I don’t want to be a New Year’s humbug, but I don’t think I’m alone in this, so I’ll push forward. I believe in Hope and Joy, even if at times we feel lost to them. The truth of these sanctuaries, particularly as illustrated by the Christmas story, is that we detect them a whole lot more in hindsight, than we do in the present moment.   I doubt that in the midst of the Christmas story there was a lot of hope and joy!  Those only came years and even centuries later looking back at the event knowing all that followed. I read a lot more anguish, exhaustion, uncertainty, fear, frustration, confusion, and eventually even downright horror and tragedy!  The story only made it into TWO of the four gospels…and even those two didn’t agree on the details or timelines.

It’s only much later the Christian tradition is able to put a little cultural tinsel on the story from various corners of the world, add St. Nicholas’ embellishments, and then of course we particularly add a century or two of American sentimentality and a dusting of consumerism, and, voila! Hope and Joy!    

The Angels of scripture are most often the ones that point the way to these sanctuaries and open their doors, but we kind of forget what their “good news of great joy” might have really sounded like.  To say “For unto you, is born this night, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. You shall find the babe wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger,” has a little different sense when you think about it from the shepherds’ point of view.  They were probably half drunk on the hillside, suddenly thinking they were hallucinating.  “Good news of great joy, guys!” says their tequila apparition. “The savior of the world has just been born tonight in Phoenix.  You can find him wrapped in a towel, laid in a bathtub, in a motel down on Van Buren Street. Glory to God in the highest, yo!”  Hmm. Right. Good news…?

So, I guess where I end up is, let’s not be too hard on ourselves if we can’t find those doors that lead to Hope and Joy…at least for now.  Whatever is happening in our lives, we may not quite be ready to see or understand the strangely mysterious dynamics God seems to present to us as Hope and Joy.  It’s only when we can step away and see it from a distance, like a great painting, that the image comes clear. Let’s give it some time.

Sanctuaries of Christmas - Day 7: LIGHT

I find as I get older the times and places I use to need light, I don’t need it so much any more. But, there are times and places when I didn’t need it, now I do.  For instance, when I was a child, I always needed to have my bedroom door open and the hall light on.  The light kept the night at a manageable distance.  I could sleep, but I before I slept, I could feel certain of my surroundings and safety.  Now – I need no light to fall asleep, and I prefer the dark.  I trust the dark of my bedroom and my home. As I said yesterday, it is a sanctuary of rest.

However, now, at 57 years old,  I need more light to read than I did when I was younger.  I prefer to drive in the daytime because the lights of oncoming cars at night create distortions and make me nervous.  I don’t like those limitations.  The dark is fine when I want to rest…but when I want to do something or go somewhere, turn on the light, please!

As I said yesterday – we celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 largely because it was an annual time of celebration in many northern hemisphere ancient cultures as the days were getting perceptibly longer after the winter solstice.  Spring would soon be around the corner: new crops, warmer weather, a new lease on life for another year.  It wasn’t a big leap to build on celebrating God’s light come into the world through the Bethlehem baby – who would later be quoted to say “I am the Light of the World.”

He would also be quoted to say, “YOU are the light of the world,” meaning, of course, all of us.

So, one of the sanctuaries that Christmas offers is the Sanctuary of Light – the light of day getting longer,  the Jesus Light come into the world, and the hope and promise that in some way - each of us too, will be and are lights of the world as well.   That’s a lot of light.

We look forward to Christmas to remind us of all that light that can chase away some of the dark uncertainties and obscurities we still, like children, hold on to.  We need at least once a year when we can remind ourselves that we are the Lighters, we have that power, we have that gift. Darkness is only absence…light is something. It is energy, an energy that knits us together.  We can light our candles, we can put lights on our trees and bushes, and even our deck our houses out in grand displays, to remind us of the stings of energy that connect us.  

The Sanctuary of Light reminds us that we are not alone in this universe of ours.  The endless view of stars in the night sky reminds us that there is something greater. The promise of eons-old light rays reaching  earth, reaching our eyes and soothing our puny fears, reminds us that there is something good behind all this cosmos, something trustworthy, something that wants us to see and know, to be warmed and empowered, to then to shine ourselves out.   No darkness can overcome that!

Sanctuaries of Christmas - Day 6: DARKNESS

We know that one of the reasons that Christmas is placed where it is in our calendar is not because Jesus was actually born on that day but it had more to do with the movements of the sun than a real birthday.  In the 4^th Century, the Western Christian Church settled on December 25.  Many pre-Christian and non-Christian faith practices within and around the Roman Empire had celebrations at the time of the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.  After the solstice, light began to return to lengthen the days and shorten the nights leading to spring.  True, we think of Christmas as a festival of light – which I will get to tomorrow - but it also offers a sanctuary of darkness. 

Darkness is a mixed bag.  It’s often used as a metaphor for evil, for sin, for void, for ignorance, for the unknown.  Yet, it also offers us the sanctuary of sleep, rest, quiet, relief from distractions, privacy, and intimacy.   So what kind of sanctuary is it?  Is it one we really seek out?  Or, is it something, a pit, we tend to unwittingly fall into? Because it is so mixed in meaning, it is both; and that’s why it is such a potent symbol for humanity. 

 Frankly, I think the Eastern religions have trumped Greek-influenced Christianity  in being able to embrace the “both-and-ness” of our human experience.  They don’t demonize the yin forces of the cosmos (darkness, gentleness, moon, feminine) and divinize the yang (light, strength, sun, male).  They see both as essential and balancing each other.

So, I choose to see darkness as a sanctuary that Christmas offers us just as much as light.  There is something tender and sensitive about Christmas Eve. There is a vulnerability to the beleaguered Mary and Joseph, trying to find a place to spend the night, a baby born in the dark hours, and shepherds resting on nighttime hillsides.

In our lives, there is a time for strength and light, but we also need to savor the darkness, the rest it offers, the times of quiet intimacy.  This year, after the Christmas Eve worship service was done, and Rich and I were back home, we were about ready to go to bed, and we remembered the Christmas Eves we spent early in our marriage before our children had arrived.  We’d sit on the couch quietly, with only the Christmas tree lights on, feeling our exhaustion, but allowing the sacredness of the night to calm us.  It enabled us to transition from professional demands of ministry to a family focus.  The darkness, the quiet, the calm allowed us to reconnect with each other after the harried weeks of co-ministry.  In recent years, we had forgotten that ritual as we usually strained into the night to get presents wrapped, or put on finishing touches if we had a Christmas day service. “Let’s just sit,” I said. “It’s late, but let’s just sit.”  We did, and the sanctuary of darkness nurtured us.

It seems to me that when we don’t allow the sanctuary of darkness to be a nurturing, calming, resting  and vulnerable experience in our lives, then the darkness has the potential to shift in us toward evil.  When we are tired – yet don’t allow ourselves to rest,  when we are hurting - yet don’t allow ourselves to be vulnerable to another person but try to hide, when we are weak - but try to pretend we are not, darkness, which is meant to be a gift and sanctuary, becomes a pit of despair and destruction. 

Instead, we can enter the sanctuary of darkness and let God nurture our weary souls. We can sing its most beloved anthem: “Silent night, holy night – all is calm, all is bright. Round yon virgin, mother and child; holy infant, tender and mild, sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.” 

Sanctuaries of Christmas - Day 5: WONDER

Coming on the heels of Mystery is the sanctuary of WONDER. Wonder is our human response to mystery.  And again, we allow our children to be our best guides into this sanctuary, and Christmas is the time we allow ourselves to linger in its space.  Wonder provides the fibers and yarns that weave through our Christmas season and celebrations, knitting the sacred time and the sanctuaries together. 

We yearn for wonder, but often don’t recognize it.  We may mistakenly pursue instead the goal of making sure everyone is happy…happy with the right gifts, with enough gifts, with the right food, the right decorations, the right invitations, etc. regardless of any deeper meaning.  But, wonder is not found in our scurrying around and stressing out, in our acquisitions and achievements.  Wonder is only found when one quiets down, when one looks around, when one allows oneself to savor and see the presence (the true presents!) of mystery.

The shepherds watching over their sheep, resting beneath the starry cosmos, are the images in our Christmas story of wonder.  They are startled to their knees by the sound and sight of what they perceive as angels singing God’s glory and announcing some amazing news of great joy.  They go to find the Holy Family, and they are the first to bow down before the baby in the manger with wonder and adoration. 

A couple of Christmases ago, I experienced a moment of wonder and awe during a Christmas Eve worship service.  Before this year, all of my Christmas Eve services were spent with congregations of 50 to 100 people.  The time came usually at the end of every Christmas Eve service when “Silent Night” would be sung and everyone’s candles would be lit.  It normally is the moment of Christmas Eve that carries the most awe and wonder for me.  What I hadn’t anticipated in my new church during my first Christmas Eve with them was the effect of a congregation of 500+ people standing and singing “Silent Night” with raised candles!    It took my breath away. 

Without the sanctuary of Wonder, we as human beings are quick to succumb to the seduction of the superficial and of quick gratifications. Our rituals become empty and inadequate.  Our Christmas season becomes about as meaningful as a haphazardly erected artificial Christmas tree, with a few scraggly ornaments, stuck in the corner of a convenience gas station, near the racks of potato chips and spare windshield wipers!  The sanctuary of Wonder, which appears on the other side of the threshold of Mystery, is what feeds the deepest parts of our souls.  Without it, we starve.

Sanctuaries of Christmas - Day 4: MYSTERY

The next sanctuary of Christmas I want to talk about it is a little less – actually quite a bit less – tangible and definable.  Actually, that’s its nature. It is the sanctuary of MYSTERY. It is a deep part of Christmas, not always recognized.  Yet, once we recognize it, it can bring a kind of serenity that we have yearned for, often without knowing it.

When we ask a question like, “Was Mary really a virgin?” or “Was Jesus really conceived by the Holy Spirit,”  or “Did angels really appear to shepherds in the fields?” – we are entering the sanctuary of Mystery.  Most of us know that there are no real answers to those questions.  We may have a hunch or even a firm belief that goes one way or another, but deep in our heart of hearts, I would venture to say most of us know there is no way to answer those questions without running headlong into a molasses-thick murk of mystery.

For some, that is unacceptable and excruciatingly uncomfortable.  For others, there is a tentative acceptance. And, for still others, we readily plunge into the murk allowing ourselves to be immersed in the rich creativity of imagination that can take us higher planes of possibility.

Christmas, like Easter, is a threshold.  It is a “thin place,” as the Celts would have called it.  As we might think of Easter as a threshold place between death and new life, Christmas is a threshold between what is divine and what is mortal and temporal.  It confronts us with questions about exactly what is the doorway, the connection, between our mortal, temporal lives, and whatever, whoever is beyond us.

The gospel traditions of Matthew and John shape for us this sanctuary of mystery the best, I think. Matthew highlights the divine guidance of angels in dreams and new stars and the wise ones from the East that understand the movement and portent of the cosmos, and follow the leading of the star.  John does not have a nativity story per se, but frames the mortal and temporal life of Jesus through the perspective of the earliest Creation myth – that somehow this human Jesus was the Word of God going forth over the primordial cosmic soup of chaos, and all of creation was brought forth through that Word. And now that Word was made flesh.  Whew!  Talk about mystery! 

And…that mystery is or can be a sanctuary for us.  In our mortal, temporal lives so thoroughly controlled and permeated by rationality and empirical thought, we need a haven of mystery where we don’t have to have all the answers, all the proof, all the explanations and logical rationale. 

Our children are often our excuses to hold on as long as we can to “Christmas fantasy and magic.”  This is our yearning for mystery, a sense that more is possible than we can imagine, that there just might be powers greater than our puny selves that live in stars and dreams and in strangers carrying prophetic messages that all can be trusted to carry us across thresholds of chaos and creation,  of human and divine, of flesh and spirit.  When entered, the sanctuary of Mystery assures us that what is true – deeply, authentically true – is not always what can be rationally explained or proven. 

Sanctuaries of Christmas - Day 3: HOME

Another sanctuary that Christmas offers most poignantly is the the sanctuary of HOME. It may be our own “home” - however we might define it, but it is also more than that. It also may not be the place our family lives, or even a place or experience that is well-defined.

The parts of the Christmas story most sentimentalized and emotionally evocative have to do with a pregnant couple arduously engaged in a long journey, finally reaching their destination only to be turned away from lodging. But then, they are offered the nurturing space in the midst of a barn with the companionship of the quiet and gentle animals. This obviously is a huge embellishing leap from what Luke actually says simply that “ She wrapped him in cloth and and placed him in a manger, because there was no room available for them.”

Nevertheless, with the weight of centuries of storytelling, art, and tradition behind us, the stable is a symbol for the sanctuaryTradition & Remembrance of Home. The place of belonging, the place of rest and nurture, shelter, safety and security. Most of us can also relate to the unique nurture animals can give us, which makes a stable and manger particularly poignant. We yearn for the sanctuary of home, Tradition & Remembrance.

I spent the fall semester of my senior year of college studying in England.  I had visited some of the spectacular cathedrals and great churches and heard magnificent choirs.  But, for the first time in my life (yes, at 21 years old!) I was homesick.  When I arrived home a few days before Christmas, I was jet lagged and tried to catch up on my sleep in my parent's house (a house that they had not lived in all that long, so it in itself was not a homTradition & Remembrancee to me, but being back with my parents in my home country was.)  I was still feeling jetlagged as we attended the Christmas eve service together in their small country church.  An overwhelming feeling of gratitude and amazement washed over me as I watched the motley group of choir members file in.  They were all shapes and sizes, wearing probably 30 year old choir robes.  One of the larger women with a belting voice caught my attention as I noticed her sneakers clearly visable under her too-short robe.  Their voices were mediocre at best, but they sang the carols with gusto.  I was awed by the contrast of only a short week or two ago being in the most majestic of churches, and now on Christmas eve, being home in a humble and familiar space with people who looked and talked like me.

Christmas has traditionally been a time of coming home, or trying to recreate home when we are far away. Songs are sung about it; holiday movies about homecomings pull on our heartstrings; commercials even show college students and young soldiers sneaking into their homes in the early morning hours and making coffee to surprise their unsuspecting families! We use cards to bring loved ones and acquaintances close and reconnect even if distant, we use food to nurture, we use gift-giving to express both nurture and love.

There are not many sanctuaries more powerful than what we call “home.” If we don't have a ready-made place or family that offers us a true home, then we strive to create or find that sanctuary. We all need a place, a space, an experience of shelter from the outside world, an oasis from the stresses and strains, the isolation, living with masks and facades; a place of welcome, hospitality, nurture and trust. This is the powerful sanctuary of HOME.

Sanctuaries of Christmas - Day 2: TRADITION & REMEMBRANCE

My deepest joys of Christmas come from memories held of idyllic pasts. I remember family traditions, rituals, special foods, stories we read and movies we watched. In my older childhood, we began to take annual family ski trips over the Christmas break during which we'd spend the frigid wintry nights in a northern Wisconsin cabin, playing games, doing puzzles, and listening to Andy Williams crooning carols on the record player. Our vacation days were spent on the snowy slopes.

I know now as an adult, I was privileged. My family traditions were rich. I also know that some of my most difficult Christmases were the ones that didn't or couldn't measure up to those idyllic memories. What I didn't understand was there was nothing wrong with changes...but I still yearned for the sanctuary of my memory and meaningful traditions.

One of the primary sanctuaries of Christmas is that of tradition and remembrance. Christmas is history, deeply rooted and blended from a number of diverse roots. Deep within Jewish tradition comes the stories of the young shepherd boy of Bethlehem chosen to be king, the prophets foretelling the coming of a servant messiah. Later, both the Luke and Matthew gospel traditions, recording the birth of Jesus are very intentionally connected to these roots of history. As Christian tradition continues to unfold and spread throughout the world, other cultural tradition and rituals become kneaded into mix of what Christmas comes to mean for each of us.

 There is part of us that yearns for roots. We yearn for ritual and meaning that transcend our own lives. Christmas offers us an annual focal point in our lives and with our families and communities , but yet connects us to something much bigger and older...a centuries-old story, stories that cross cultural and political boundaries.

When we enter the sanctuary of Christmas, we enter a space shared by countless others over the generations and boundaries of time and geography. We sing old songs, we eat special food and practice customs that may be traditional to an ethnic heritage greatly distant from our present lives, yet still a part of our identity. Each individual family has a hand in adding its own embellishments and adaptations on those traditions and remembrances for their own children.

No matter how unintentional or haphazard our childhood was, most of us who celebrate this holiday have some sense of sanctuary of tradition and memory. We need that grounding. We need that sanctuary of deep traditions and deep remembrances.

The Sanctuaries of Christmas

Welcome to the 12 days of Christmas!  Most of us forget (unless you are professionally church-y) that the Christmas season actually BEGINS on Christmas day, and not the day after Thanksgiving…or Halloween for that matter. As a way to observe the Christmas season this year, I’ll write a post each day on what it seems to me we really yearn for, seek and anticipate this time of year.  I’ll call them “sanctuaries.”  These sanctuaries are spiritual experiences we yearn for and need all the time, but they seem to be concentrated around the Christmas season.  When we say things like “let’s keep the Christmas spirit going all year round!”  -  it’s often these sanctuaries we know we want and need more than just once a year. 

A “Sanctuary” is a sacred space. It is a space away from the ordinary world, away from threats and stresses, a place usually of tranquility and protection, a place often thought of as a meeting space with God.

As human beings, we create sanctuaries in a variety of ways…

·        Traditionally -  the heart of our church buildings is the sanctuary
·        We build “sanctuaries” to protect wildlife from unnatural predators that threaten their existence.
·        Sometimes we think of “giving sanctuary” to those threatened by political oppression and violence.
·        God commanded one day in every seven be a sanctuary of time for rest and savoring the gifts of creation
 

But, we’ve gotten less attuned to our need for sanctuary as we’ve allowed our work and activities and stresses of life crowd in every corner of our lives.

Christmas has been a powerful sanctuary for us – obviously for Christians, but even in the diversity of our nation and world, there seems to be a hunger for an end-of–the-year sanctuary…a sacred space and time for nurture, meeting God, reconnection and reconciliation. 

The sanctuaries that the Christmas season offers us are:  History & Tradition, Home, Wonder, Mystery, Hope & Joy, Darkness, Light, Giving, Kindness & Love, Peace, and Meeting God.

Sharing My Birthday with a National Tragedy

Fifty years ago today, I joined the nation in a time of great consternation.  However, mine was a little different.  My biggest concern was whether I was still going to have my 7^th birthday party. From that day on John F. Kennedy and I have been intrinsically linked, though I barely knew the man. 

Every year, my birthday is colored, at least at some point, by grainy black and white television images of beautiful people riding in cars in Dallas, Texas, in 1963, and the mass chaos suddenly ensuing.  Obviously this year, we’ve been seeing a lot of those images and hearing a lot about the chaos and tragedy that wrenched a nation and changed its course as we mark the 50^th anniversary of JFK’s assassination.

I did have my birthday party.  My parents (wisely, I might add) decided that 7 year olds would not really understand the circumstances that were rocking their parents’ world.  I remember the moments of uncertainty my mother had over the propriety of an immediately post-assassination birthday party. She may have even consulted by phone with other parents.  But, soon, our house was alive with excited 7 year olds, party favors, ice cream and cake.  My world was back on track.

I wonder how many children will share their birthdays with memories of killer tornadoes ripping through Illinois this last week? In many places there is no option for parties to continue.  I saw a video on the news following the typhoon in the Philippines of a mother holding a tiny infant.  The infant had just been born the night before the typhoon hit.  Now, she cradled her newborn in a dark hut without electricity, food or water.  For those, just to be alive is a birthday present.     

We try our best to shield our children from the harsh and tragic realities they can’t possibly understand.  What is most important for our children is fending off some of the depths of pain, injustice and wrenching tragedy that is part and parcel of human life for as long as possible.  Sometimes, we are able to do it successfully, like my parents deciding to continue with my birthday festivities even as one of the greatest tragedies of our nation was unfolding.  For others, it is not so easy or even an option.    

 

Today, I pray that the Pilipino newborn is finding a way by God’s grace to survive, and that all she has accompanying her birthday from year to year are the annual TV newscasts and family stories of the Great Typhoon of 2013 that welcomed her into this bittersweet world.

 

Today, I pray for the children who have lost homes and belongings and security to disasters that rip through their lives, shaping them with fears, convictions, and values for years to come.

 

Today, I pray for the children who have lost loved ones, parents, guardians, and protectors in the midst of tragedy – whether they are presidential families, or  middle class 7 year olds, or those who live in inner-city drug and violence-infested areas, or those in areas of the world prone to war, terror or natural disasters.

 

Today, I pray for the children who suffer from the hands of adults who don’t shield them, and may even perpetrate the tragedies in their lives that will give them wounds to haunt them in their future. I pray that those wounds, by God's grace, will somehow be a source of healing and deepening of compassion, and not just tragic devastation.

 

Today, on my birthday, I am grateful to be alive. Even in such as world as ours, even with its pain and tragedy...it is still a great birthday present.

Practice, Practice, Practice

You know the old joke…a man stopped another man on the streets of New York City – who happened to be a great musician, and asked, “Do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall?”  The musician answered, “Practice, practice, practice!”

 

In my writing, I’ve been focusing lately on the subject of Practice.  I’ve never been very great at doing anything very regularly or repetitively for any length of time.  I’m a big picture kind of person.  I like to take flying leaps from where I’m at to where I want to go…wipe my hands…done.  None of this putzy little step-by-step stuff….at least that’s the way it goes in my mind.  And then I wonder why I’m still sitting in the recliner with little to show after days or weeks.  

 

I just have never been good at daily practice – whether it’s daily devotions and praying, or keeping a daily regimen of exercise, or counting calories.  I can never keep it up long enough to accomplish any goal I might have set for myself.  I’m really good, though,  at
making big decisions, and taking on big projects that I can immerse myself in for an intense period of time and make grand accomplishments.  So I’m not a total couch potato…but it’s pretty hard to write a book or lose 100 lbs in one big intensive push.  It takes the small steps, which really sucks for people like me.  

 

But, actually now I’m learning…step by step.  As I write on practice…I realize that my daily writing IS a practice, and I’m seeing the value of it.  So, I’m also trying to practice other things.  I won’t go into what exactly I’m practicing because it involves more yard
work, and I’ve already written enough about that.

 

Part of the art of practice I’m learning is that it really is okay to only do a little bit each day.   The point isn’t how much or how far I accomplish, the point is that I just do some each day. Duh.  Not a huge revelation, but I have realized that is hard for me.  It’s actually hard to feel okay about stopping after just a bit, when I think I should do more to make it worthwhile.

 

The other lesson that has come to me serendipitously – I don’t claim it as my own wisdom, I actually heard it on one of the morning shows, came from a 90+ year old man who still does double triathlons (I can’t even imagine…!)  When asked how he can possibly keep going for all those miles, he said, “I learned that had to stop listening to myself, and begin talking to myself.  If I listened, I’d hear my body telling me how much it hurts and to stop; but in talking to myself, I keep myself going.”  Wow.  I’m basically a listener, and I guess in this case, that might be the problem!  My body tends to be a pretty narcissistic talker! It tells me in no uncertain terms when I want to eat something, or when I need to stop doing something because it hurts,  or when to stop doing something and eat because, well, it feels bored…or sad…or uncomfortable…or angry in some way.

 

As I was reflecting on this irritating subject of practice, a few nights ago I had a dream.  I dreamt I was at the base of a mountain and my job was to move the mountain.  I felt frustrated and perplexed, but I knew that the only way I could do it was just moving stone by stone (yes, I know…almost cliché, right? – Usually my dreams are a tad more enigmatic than that!)  But then, as I picked up a stone and hoisted it somewhere else, and picked up another, and another, I suddenly uncovered a little grotto-like cave that  contained a altar and sacred statue with candles lit around it. 

 

So, my third lesson about practice I was given through this dream: the value of practice doesn’t necessarily come at the end accomplishment, but there are sacred moments and spaces of holy surprise that are discovered and uncovered in the daily process.    

 

A Little Trimming - Part 3

Note to self:

With some patience,

diligence, and faith,

resolution does come…eventually.

With the help of the City of Tempe, now getting more reliable in their bulk trash pick-up, and Rich’s generous willingness to assist, my Little Trimming project has come to a successful end. Finally. My traveling amoeba of shrubbery was hoisted back over the wall and dragged out to the street for the October pick-up. What sweet sounds were the beeps and booms of the garbage truck zooming around the neighborhood yesterday!

After August’s challenges, my trimming endeavor continued to teach me a couple more important things:

1. New life can indeed sprout no matter how small the stumps. My marriage is saved. New bushes are beginning to grow.

2. I am not alone. My trimming escapade was the subject of numerous neighborhood conversations. Apparently I was not the only one waiting for garbage pick-up. And, the fact that my huge pile suddenly disappeared (over my backyard wall) caused an unsuspected stir, leaving some neighbors wondering “why the heck did they pick up your pile and not mine?” When we explained where our amorphous pile of dead shrubbery was residing, an instant bond of neglected neighborliness formed between us. During the weekend, multiple sibling piles of shrubbery appeared on the curbs in front of neighborhood homes. We have all been eagerly awaiting the timely return of Tempe Waste Management to our cul de sac. If the truck had not come – we were now an army of disgruntled shrub trimmers. But, it did come, our curbs are clean, and a corporate cheer and sigh of relief could be heard far and wide.

 Alleluia! Amen.

My Hungry Heart

My path is not to satisfy my hunger…

but to realize hunger IS my path.

I’ve always been a hungry person.  I’ve hungered for a lot of things in the past and I continue to be hungry for many things.  In many ways my current personal sabbatical is a time and space in which I’ve had to look especially at the current hungers in my life.

Hungers of my spirit almost always manifest themselves in physical hunger, so I walk my journey as an overweight compulsive overeater.  (Usually…wishing I could get OVER it!)  “Hunger” is an apt word for my deeper yearnings.

This week, with the help of a reading by 20^th Century educator, theologian and mystic, Howard Thurman, who wrote eloquently on the deep hungers of being human, I formulated this above truth statement for myself.  It sent me on a rich journey of discovery.

I made a  “Hunger History” for myself, listing all the times and experiences from early childhood when I encountered some sort of deep hunger that for some and various reasons were a struggle to satisfy. It was helpful to identify them in general time segments: early childhood, later childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood.  I came up with about eleven hungers.  Hmm…like I said…a hungry person.

 As I suppose with most of us, when we feel yearnings, our automatic assumption and response is that we need to get those yearnings filled or satisfied or resolved or fixed in some way. Most of us like to be fixers.  Something is wrong when we can’t fix it.

Thurman said in his Meditations of the Heart, regarding the experience of pervasive of yearning,

“Slowly it may dawn upon the spirit that there is a special ministry of unfulfillment. It may be that the persistent hunger is an Angel of Light, carrying out a particular assignment in life…. At last, a man may say, ‘I know now that there is present in my life a quality that is only mine because the hunger is mine.’”  

 

I LIKE Angels of Light.  I LOVE the idea that my hunger is really an Angel of Light.  Nose to the computer, I spent the next hours exploring how each and every hunger I had struggled with in my life had led me down a path of growth and shaping of the person I am today. Hmm, perhaps the extra weight I’ve been acquiring and carrying around the last 10 years is actually my collection of diplomas (My PPhD=Doctor of Physical and Philosophical Hunger)!

So, the truth is, our hungers themselves are a path of the Spirit.  I don’t know where mine are currently leading me, but …as an overweight overeater…I know now that hunger is not something I’m likely to get over sometime soon. At least I can better understand them and be ready to embrace their benefits…and perhaps keep my philosophical hungers from masquerading as physical ones!

A Little Trimming: Part 2

Note to Self:

Don't ever try to second-guess the City of Tempe and the new time of the bulk trash pick-up.

 



Whenever we get motivated to do "a little" trimming in our lives of that dry, dusty, dying stuff under the surface... assume it will turn into a much bigger, longer project than you think.  As you can see from my photo, my hedges have gone from being a somewhat ordinary-looking row of 4ft. high hedges by our front door, to what has become a traveling amoeba of dry, tangled branches - first lying in wait on the front curb, but now trying to hide-out for the next month and a half in an obscure corner of our walled-in backyard. Yes,  I missed the "green/bulk waste" pick-up.  No, there won't be another one until October.

 

As I spent a few anxious days calling the City, not getting a response, trying to figure out what to do...and then tying up the whole kit'n kaboodle and tossing it over the wall to hide discretely from our neighbors and Homeowner's Association watch until October...I had some more time to reflect on the "trimming" projects in our lives.  Here's what I learned:

• It's good to get the old stuff pruned away...but just because you've finally done the chopping, it doesn't necessarily mean the old stuff is gone. It's still there. Everytime you look out the window in the morning...at noon...at night...it's still there.
 
• Other people may not fix it for you in the way or time you expect or desire.  Their schedule is not required to change to fit the effects of your trimming catharsis.  You are going to have to take responsibility for your own sh....rubs.
   
• When it becomes obvious that your old stuff is not going away as easily or efficiently as you had hoped, your work is not done. You can't just walk away from it. Remember, you LIVE here.  You need to take some intentional action to make life liveable for both yourself and your neighbors, at least until there can be some more permanent resolution.
• A big pile of sh...rubs can become more manageable when made into smaller piles. So take the time necessary and portion it out into smaller pieces. Tie some twine around it and you are good to go.
• Place your old stuff in a space in your life that has some boundaries.  You need to protect the space of your newly cleansed life, and your neighbor's space, from the remnant pile of old stuff you haven't quite managed to get rid of yet.
• Then, CIRCLE the date on your calendar for the first Monday morning in October, 6 a.m., set your reminders and your alarms...do your planning and follow-through to bring a responsible close to this trimming saga of your life.  Yes, you are going to have to drag this stuff out one more time, move the whole pile over the wall and out to the front curb again...but you've tied it in small bundles already, and with a little planning, you can ask someone to help you this time.

 

 

 

 





A Little Trimming

Memo to Whom It May Concern:

Think twice before asking Barb

to trim the hedges.

 

 

This was the result yesterday.  All Rich could do when he came home to this sight at our front door was to say, "I can't talk to you right now," and he went out for a blood pressure-relieving walk.

 

But, he later came back and said he could listen...knowing rightly (from almost 29 years of marriage to me) that there probably was a story behind my hacking hurricane of our 4 ft. tall row of hedges.  And, there was. 

 

My intention was to just "trim" the hedges as he had asked me to do, a task I had done numerous times in the past.  In fact, I did just that.  But there was a problem.  In a Biblical sense:the "gardener" (us) had probably not done adequate prunning work on a regular basis.  In a meterological sense: last winter's freeze had taken a hidden toll on the hedges.  In a homeowners' sense (us again): perhaps they were not getting enough water since our drip system has been in need of repair.  But, regardless of the deeper cause, the symptom was that the more I "trimmed" the more I realized I was trimming off the only healthy looking stuff there was on the very outside ends of the plants.  Everything underneath that meager leafy facade, was brown, dusty and dying.  One thing led to another...and...well...D-Day for the hedges.

 

It's a good lesson for why it's important to tend to the stuff under the surface.  This pile of "trimmings" is probably a good metaphor for the usefulness of sabbaticals, professional or personal.  So many of our days are spent consumed and distracted with the surface demands, that we don't always look deeper. 

 

I've given myself this time of unemployment to look deeper, to try to gain some perspective and understanding of what has been growing a little dry and dusty and even dying under the surface of my life. When I look at the pile of stuff from our hedges, it's a bit obvious that untended underneath stuff can't help but affect us!  Jesus tells us a number of times the importance of pruning.  My body tells me after such a workout, that there have been muscles I've been neglecting and that I better keep moving and using or they too will fester away underneath the surface of things. 

 

Such a trimming also provides some opportunities for faith: 1. faith that indeed healthy growth will find the freedom and energy and sunlight to sprout anew from the stumps, and 2. faith that I didn't miss the new schedule of green bulk garbage pick up for our neighborhood this week (the next one won't be until October...!)

 

 

 









Transitions

I'm going exploring this coming week. It's one of my big events this sabbatical month.  I'm exploring the topic of transitions.  I think it's a pretty appropriate topic for me both in the small picture and in the big picture.

I'm attending a conference in Chicago called "The Fundamentals of Transitional Ministry."  If you are familiar with what intentional interim ministry is, this is the first seminar in getting certified.  I'm exploring the possibility.  Whether or not I continue toward certification as an intentional interim minister or not, I think every pastor and every church in this day and age is in some kind of transition, like it or not.   So, the question to explore is not whether I want to be a "transitional minister,"   the question is "how will I best minister in the midst of transition?" 

I learned when I was younger that when I travel to new places, I'm not big on the travel style of "if it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium."    If possible, I much prefer finding a "home base" - a bed and breakfast, or a retreat center, or a generous friend or family member with a spare bedroom or couch, and plant myself for my time away.  I then let the Spirit move me, going different places if I want to, or staying in, sleeping or reading if I want to...but just immersing myself in the alternate world of my homebase and letting my exploring or activity (or inactivity) orbit around that one place.

I think that's also my preferred method of dealing with transition. Rather than charting out a linear strategic plan to follow (which has NEVER worked for me), I'd rather enter into a new experience and plant myself, find a home base, and then watch and wait for how the Spirit will move me to explore, to try new things, to learn and grow.  It's kind of a "Spirograph" model of managing transitions!

Are you old enough to remember "Spirographs?"  It was a kids' geometric design toy in the '60s that employed assorted cogged wheels and with holes that you'd put the tips of blue, green or red pens in and spiral them around to create beautiful designs. The combination of wheels, cogs and pen hole positions created the parameters of the design.  But it was your energy that moved the pen and wheels around the parameters. At first it felt like chaos until you got the hang of it, and then you began to see the amazing design emerge. 

What kind of art could we create in our lives if we allowed ourselves to experience transitions from a Spirograph approach?  

(Thanks to whoever created this Spirograph art that I found on Google Images! There's lots more there if you want a little inspiration!)

Healing Presence

On this "personal sabbatical" (as I'm calling my current transitional experience), I wake up in the morning and ask, what shall I do today?   That's a question that has to do more with presence  than with activity.  I'm asking myself how shall I be present today?  To what shall I be present?  What will present itself to me today?

In the past week, I've been present to my father's packing up his home to prepare to move.   I discovered that I enjoyed being present to the needs of the day...the tasks, the memories, the listening, the feelings.  I'm home now and am discerning how to be present to what is emerging in my own life.

Presence is about nothing more than just showing up, being open and aware.  Maybe it's about taking a step out even if I'd rather stay hidden. It's about stepping off the beaten path, or away from the usual current flow of flurried activities we engage in without thought or intention.  Presence is  about opening up to the idea that maybe, just maybe, there indeed is a power greater than myself that will meet me.  I won't just show up and no one else comes, or that I'll fall off a cliff into oblivion.  Presence is about discovering with some assurance that I'm not alone, that there is some deeper purpose and meaning I can't necessarily see.

That's a healing place.  In fact, perhaps the place of Presence is the MOST healing place there is.  Just showing up to what is. I need that! I'm usually too busy focusing on what will be in the future, or what was in the past. We as a society are so use to thinking that our healing requires us to DO something...to act in some way, to fix, to solve, to medicate, to operate, to discipline, to repent.  But, really...the healing comes when we can just be.  In being present to simply this present moment, we can let go of expectations and anxieties and fears that tighten us, that close us off, that make us cling and strain, and get stuck, and drain us of life's energy.   Instead, our Presence, allows us to be a creative partner in responding to what this grand universe and its Creator might present to us on any given day...at any given moment....without critique or prejudice.

Hmm, easier said than done? Maybe. Maybe it takes a personal sabbatical to allow the freedom, time and permission needed to just be present, to experience it's healing treasures. I hope I'll be able to carry some of this back into the flurry of activities and responsibilities when I step back into that flow.  But, there is always Sabbath, the day of Presence.  If nothing else, perhaps one day in every seven I'll be able to manage!