Do I Know You?

Nine years. Between earning my bachelors in theology from Sacred Heart University and working towards my masters of divinity at United Lutheran Seminary. I have been in school nine long, crazy, maddening, tedious, fulfilling and wonder-filled years. As the spring semester winds down, I can’t help but glance back to see how far I’ve come. In August 2014, I began to earnestly follow my call down a road I could not see to a place I did not know.

This past semester, I took a class in Christology and spent thirteen weeks reading and discussing the dual nature of Christ. What does it mean to be fully human and fully divine and how does Christ show up in the world? From the earliest church writers to modern ones, everybody had their definitions and delineations, as though we can ever begin understand such a sublime mystery. My margin notes typically were as follows: Huh? Where did that come from? Who gets to say what is fitting for God?

I’ve done a lot of papers and projects over the last nine years: everything from an ethnographic study of 17th Century Highland Scots to crafting a prayer service for caretakers. But I dreaded what the final might be in this Christology class because if it’s one thing I’ve learned over the last nine years it’s that “They just made that shit up,” does not make for a great thesis statement.

You can imagine my relief when the final assignment was this: write a prayer. That’s it. As simple and as complicated as that. And somehow, all the definitions and delineations came together to create something new: a dialogue – or, at least, the start of one.

Who are you Lord, really? Do I know you?

You asked your disciples: Who do they say that I am? Who do you say that I am?

And churchy people have been trying to figure that out ever since.

They’ve created boxes and insisted that you would only operate within those boxes.

They’ve argued and fought that you’re more God than human or more human than God.

They say you’re the sacrifice necessary to appease an angry God and they say you’re the loving bridge to open the way for reconciliation with our Creator.

They say you’re the Mother God, loving her children with great tenderness.

They say you’re the Mighty Lord, who will not tolerate any slight, intended or unintended.

They say you’re the Christ, who comes to us, covers us, and fills us with grace beyond our ken, freeing us from the bonds of sin and the chains of works righteousness.

They say you’re the Liberator, the hope of oppressed, the enslaved, the mistreated, the impoverished, the starving, the terrified.

They say you’re the One who works at the margins, bringing love and healing to those beyond the walls of the church, outside the boundaries of a so-called ‘polite society’ that has been defined by whites, straight, cisgender middle class men. They say you’re the One working at the intersections and all along the spectrums.

They say you were a good Jewish man who grew up learning his Torah and became a great teacher.

They say you angered the empire, and that’s why they killed you, to get rid of you and your dangerous ideas about love, freedom, and grace.

Me? I think you are all of those things and probably a bunch more we haven’t defined yet. I think you are the flawless, beautifully faceted diamond, covered in the dust and grime that comes from being wrapped up tightly in 2000 years’ worth of fading ink and moldering paper that was meant to protect and define you, the One who needs no protection and is beyond definition.

What I do know is you are the one who calls me forward and makes a way where I do not see one. You are the one who walks beside me and calls me Beloved Friend.

But still, I wonder, as we walk – who are you, Lord, really? Do I know you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Love – A Sermon

This is the sermon I wasn’t ready to write for the service I wasn’t ready to lead to honor the friend I wasn’t ready to lose.

For John

We’ve come together today united in our love for John, to share in our grief, and to find comfort in the presence of each other. I’m not going to sugar coat this, grief sucks. Grief is like a form of arthritis. Somedays, it hurts so bad, you can hardly stand it. And other days, it’s not so bad. But there’s always a level of aching that never quite goes away. Some days are harder than others. Some seasons are harder than others. But over time, we will gradually heal. Our fond memories will be good medicine as the days and months and years go by. The love and light and laughter that John brought into our lives has left us forever changed.

Let us find solace in love. When I say love today, I’m not talking about some sweet, sentimental, frilly, foofy kind of love. And I’m not talking about some high-minded, ornate, abstract theological frippery kind of love. I’m talking love at work. Love that is messy. Love with some dirt on its hands. Because that is the kind of love that John shared with all of us. John lived love as a verb. His religion was praxis over proclamation, action over spoken creeds. What do I mean by that?

John and I were in New Haven one night. We’d gone to an AA meeting and were walking towards a restaurant for dinner when a young homeless guy came up to us and asked us for money. John immediately said, ‘Yeah, hang on a sec.’ He fumbled around in his coat pockets digging for his wallet and in the process, pulls out a full pack of of cigarettes and hands them to me to hold. He then pulls out his wallet and hands the guy $20. The guy saw the cigarettes and asked if he could also bum a smoke. John smiled that big, disarming smile or his and took the pack from me, lit two cigarettes, kept one in his mouth and passed one to me, as he so often did, and then handed the guy a nearly full pack of cigarettes and then gave him the lighter besides. John wished him a good night like he was an old friend. It didn’t matter that it was dark. It didn’t matter that there weren’t a lot of people around. It didn’t matter that this guy could easily have intended to mug us both. It didn’t matter how he was going to spend that money. John saw another human being in need and responded with kindness, with generosity, with compassion and without hesitation and without judgement. He said to me over dinner, ‘I’ve been that guy. I know how it feels to be on the other side of that interaction and, Sweetie, let me tell you, it’s not fun.’

And that, my friends, is the kind of love that I’m talking about. That is love at work in this world. Even in the midst of our pain, even in the midst of our struggles, to act with compassion towards others and to recognize their full dignity as fellow human beings, that is the kind of love that will bring us solace and comfort. That is the kind of love that is light in the darkness. That is the kind of love that sets prisoners free. That is the kind of love that should come to mind when we hear that God is love. God’s love is specifically love at work.

God loves each and every one of us. God knows the secret things we struggle with, the things we don’t talk about, the things we manage to cover and still get through our days. And God is at work in those struggles. In the economy of God’s Grace, nothing, absolutely nothing, is wasted. Not one day is unimportant. Not one moment goes unnoticed.

As many of us experienced in our relationships with John, John had a gift for seeing the good in us even when we couldn’t see it in ourselves. John learned each one of our soul songs and he would sing it back to us even when we’d forgotten the tune. And he did that even at times when he couldn’t see the good in himself. That is love at work. That is the love of God shining through this beloved child of God.

When we act out of compassion, out of kindness, and with generosity of spirit towards others in the world – even when we may have our own struggles – we allow God to work through us. We allow God who is love, God who is love at work, to work through us. And as that love moves through us, it not only changes the world around us, it changes us as well.

Some churches don’t have much tolerance for a gay man. Society certainly doesn’t have much tolerance for an addict. But what we saw in John was so, so much more than who he loved or what disease he wrestled with. What we witnessed in John was an everyday kind of holiness. What we witnessed in John was what Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber would call an accidental saint – a paradoxical person who doesn’t fit the typical rigid religious stereotype of a holy person but nevertheless, is indeed a holy person doing the work of God who is love.

John is no longer here with us. His work here is done. Now it’s up to us to carry on. John saw something uniquely good and wonderful in each one of you. As you sit with your memories of John, remember what he saw in you. Know that what John saw only in glimpses, God sees with perfect clarity the truth of your goodness. I would challenge you to live out of that goodness in whatever way you can. Be love at work in the world. Get your hands dirty bringing the love of God into this world. God knows this world need it.

We Are Church

What strange days we find ourselves in right now. The news from all over is ever more concerning. Cases of COVID-19 have appeared in two schools near my home and a friend for the university was exposed to it at their internship. I started to prepare a couple weeks ago by buying paper goods, hand soap, Tylenol, and cold medicines. Still, I was profoundly shocked to walk into the grocery store Thursday afternoon, right after the announcement that schools were to be closed indefinitely, to see the meat case nearly empty. Saturday, I was able to go early in the morning to get meat but the vast array of produce I’m used to so casually picking through was mostly empty. Instead of rows upon rows of colorful fruits and vegetables, there were only empty black bins. It struck me in that moment how spoiled I have always been. I’ve never in my lifetime walked into a store and not been able to buy everything I need for several days worth of complete meals to feed five of us. I have never before seen entire grocery store aisles empty – totally and completely empty – of bread, eggs, milk, juice, meat, frozen vegetables, and fresh produce. In any other time, I’d probably crack jokes: hashtag first world problems, hashtag toilet paper famine, hashtag where’s the beef. But this isn’t like anything I’ve ever faced before and, for once, my dark gallows humor is failing to keep up.

Then the churches started to close.

I have watched and talked on social media over this past week with many of my clergy friends who agonized over whether it was enough to warn those considered vulnerable to stay home or whether they should cancel services altogether.  How do we share the peace? How do we share in communion? How do we keep people safe? How do we best minister to anxious people in this frightening time of crisis? In some cases, bishops made the call for them but many others had to make the best decision they could for their own congregation. Many decided that, for right now, love looks like an empty church.

This morning, I scrolled through social media and I saw church after church after church had found ways on very short notice to connect via livestreams, recorded videos, posted reflections and emails. Pastors preached to empty churches. Organists and musicians played on without their choirs. People shared links to services and reflections from all over the country, across all denominational lines. And there, my friends, is the Body of Christ in action. Right here, right now. Maybe we’ve gathered a little differently this Sunday, but make no mistake, we are still church and Jesus is in our midst. There is no shortage here. There are no empty shelves. There is no worry about what will be restocked or when. There are no quantity limits.

It can be easy to fall into a routine of receiving communion every week in the same way that we pick up groceries. I got the grace I need to get through the week. I can come back next week and do it again. But here’s the thing, Jesus is so much bigger than that. The gift of our Lord that we receive so blithely, so routinely is so far beyond anything we can ever hope to understand. The grace given to us in the sacrament is boundless, infinite, and endless. The grace we receive never runs out. So no matter how long we have to wait to receive communion again, Jesus does not leave us wanting.

For now, let us keep finding new ways to connect safely and let us hold fast to promise of Jesus in the Eucharist.

And may God hold you in the palm of his hand, until we meet again.

Saint James grads, I know y’all sang that last line.

Hashtag we are church.

 

How A Resurrection Really Feels

Every summer, I plan around the Week of Guided Prayer retreat. And every year, even before this blog was a thing, I’ve written up a reflection on what came out of it. In some ways, this year is no different. The Week is coming up soon and I’ve made sure to keep my calendar clear, even working ahead in class so as to have no homework due. But in other ways, it’s very different. I’ve always been a little apprehensive going in – one year I didn’t even sign up until three days before it started. But this year, it’s more than apprehension. It’s open dread. And I don’t know why. Okay, that’s bullshit. I do know why. I’ve been sitting here the last couple days reading back over the last few years’ worth of post-Week reflections and seeing the memories that pop up on Facebook and the level of raw emotion that comes up every single year is frightening. Every year, I go in not knowing what to expect and something that needs healing comes bubbling up to the surface and in the end, I’m better for having dealt with it. That sounds all wonderful, but I assure you it’s not in the moment.

For a long time after my divorce, people asked me what I was going to do next. When would I start dating. What about going back to school. And for a long time, it looked from the outside like I didn’t do much at all. But on the inside, the changes were incremental and monumental and terrifying. Because healing isn’t all warm fuzzies. It means walking through the dark stuff and coming out the other side. The best image I have to describe it is more than a little disturbing. In the opening moments of the anti-war film Grave of the Fireflies, the protagonist, Seita, stands in a field full of fireflies looking back at his own dead body lying on the floor of Kobe train station. His face conveys confusion, then wonder, and finally, peace before he moves on. That’s what healing feels like. It feels like dying until you find out you’re not dead but are standing on the other side quite whole, albeit, perhaps, a bit shocked and confused.

Now here I stand, looking back at the many things I have faced that felt like dying, and I find that I am stronger, bolder, and freer now than I ever thought possible. So, yes, in spite of my feelings of dread, I registered for the Week. And I know going in that I may wish for the walls to fall on me or the floor to swallow me when I have to face what God is trying to show me or when it feels like I’m a small rose bush that’s been run over by a lawnmower – twice. But I know that in a week or a month or maybe three, I’ll look back at some part of me that has died and be freer and more whole because of it.

In baptism, God claimed me as God’s own; an act of God that can never be undone. As a believer in Christ, I have come to believe in the resurrection, not just as some eschatological event but as a common occurrence. There are ten thousand tiny deaths that I will face in this life. And after each one, I will be raised up to look back in confusion and wonder before walking forward with new peace to the face next one.

So I stand in this space, not quite sure what’s coming next, knowing it’s probably going to hurt like hell, knowing I’ll be better for it in the end, and knowing that, technically, I could walk away. But, in the words of Martin Luther, “Here I stand. I can do other.”

Pray for me during the first week of August. I’m gonna need it.

The Hard-to-See Stitches

I spent the past week alone on Cape Cod as I’ve done every year for the past several years. Long before I left, I had reached the point of burnout and I suppose it was that feeling of having way too much coming at me that prompted me to start up a needlework project in early February. Starting something that I know will easily take me months to finish seemed a little crazy but at the same time pulling a needle through fabric has long been a way for me to find order and calm when I’m feeling overwhelmed by the chaos around me.

As I prepared to leave for the Cape, I made the decision that I would not take any homework or school reading with me. I brought my bible, my journal, a novel and my needlework. I also brought my little Peter Rabbit and that Tale of Peter Rabbit and the Tale of Benjamin Bunny with me. I also made a promise to myself that I would listen to what I was feeling. I would rest when I was tired instead of trying to push myself to go see everything I possibly could in the time I had on the Cape. I knew I desperately needed some downtime, both mentally and physically.

Much to my delight, the townhouse I had for the week faced due east. I could sit by the sliding glass doors in the early morning sunlight and it was warm enough most days to open the doors in the morning and listen to the flock of blackbirds who lived in the marsh grasses. I spent several hours every morning working on my needlework, using the abundance of natural light to work on the lighter, harder-to-see colors and saving the darker colors for the evenings. By the third morning, I sat down to stitch and needed to work in nearly 100 white stitches, which barely even showed up against the pale ivory fabric. Given that these were the edge stitches between a pale yellow sunbeam and a bit of blank fabric, I pondered whether or not they were really necessary. They were very hard to see and seemed to serve little purpose. But after working over 1200 stitches over the course of the week, I noticed those 100 barely-there hard-to-see white stitches added texture and light in the larger scheme of things.

Sunday afternoon, as I sat by the ocean on a hidden gem of a beach, it occurred to me that maybe the time I spent every morning in my favorite pink hedgehog pajamas, sitting with my feet up, soaking up sunshine and birdsong whilst sipping my tea was just as important as the time I spent doing anything else. What might be considered wasted time actually added texture and light to the rest of life. And those four or five hours a day spent quietly pulling thread through fabric was time spent with mind and body at rest, time when prayer didn’t involve me reminding God of all the things in life that needed fixing. Instead, it was time simply spent in God’s presence. It was precisely that kind of time that I desperately needed.

Maybe that was what Peter Rabbit showed up to teach me. He sat in the chair opposite me the entire week and was rather pleasant company. I re-read those old stories every night and remembered when life wasn’t so complicated. And by the end of the week, I had realized that maybe it was okay once in awhile to flop down on the sand and rest or to go to bed early with a cup of tea when my own misadventures have me feeling worn out. Peter’s mother wondered what he’d be up to, but she didn’t get upset with him for losing his coat or his shoes. Instead, she took care of him. God certainly wasn’t upset with me for showing up worn out. Instead, God drew closer to me and cared for me as I rested in God’s presence.

Work in Progress

 

God Will Not Be Distracted

As the Fall semester was winding down, I spent weeks working on a unique project for one of my classes. I was in an independent study called Theology & Ethics of Death and Dying. At my professor’s suggestion, instead of a typical research paper, I crafted a pair of prayer services. One was written for patients with a chronic or terminal illness. The other was written for their caregivers. In addition, I included a short paper on why these services were important and should be a regular fixture in the ministry of the church.  This project started off in early October as a way combining what I was learning with my passion for invisible people while at the same time channeling my creative side. it quickly became so much more. It became a way of addressing what I was experiencing at home.

I’m the main caretaker for my mom, who has advanced congestive heart failure. Some illnesses progress in a roller-coaster with dramatic upswings and sudden drops. CHF is more like a Slinky falling down a flight of stairs. It may pause for awhile, but it never goes back up. Over the last year or so, I’ve found most people don’t understand the progression of the disease unless they’ve been through it with a family member. Over the past few months, I have politely and gently answered the repeated question: “Is she doing better?”  with an explanation that no major improvement is to be expected. But after months of this, I find myself wanting to scream “Didn’t you hear me the first 30 times I answered you?”  On one hand, I try to remind myself that the person asking cared enough to ask but on the other hand, I have reached a point in life where I’ve realized that it’s the not the people who ask that I count as friends. It’s the ones who listen to the answers. It’s also the ones who follow up with a question on how I’m doing and won’t accept my favorite lie, “I’m fine. ”

Working on this project gave me a way to acknowledge the isolation and inherent loneliness that comes with a chronic or terminal illness. I chose scripture readings that acknowledged loss but also conveyed hope in God who sustains all things. I found hymns that brought me strength and prayers that offered comfort. But even as I assembled and wrote, I realized I was struggling far more than I was willing to admit. The emotional impact of trying to be a a good mother, a good daughter, a good friend, a good employee, a good student, and still maintain enough detachment to be a good caretaker and medical proxy had pushed me to the brink of burnout. Simple everyday things, some days even getting out of bed, became emotionally taxing. Okay – so maybe I was past the brink. But what was I going to do? Everything still needed to get done and some things simply can’t be delegated.

In the midst of this, prayer had become more difficult. In the same way I felt withdrawn or removed from people around me, I also felt withdrawn from God. I simply had nothing to say and quite frankly, I didn’t feel like listening much either. And yet, God was the only one not demanding my time and undivided attention. Our time spent at the beach every morning became the only quiet in my days and yet even there, I couldn’t quite take a deep breath and relax. I showed up anyway because I really didn’t know what else to do.

As Christmas break approached, I had time to read whatever I wanted and I picked up Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters & Papers from Prison. My younger son questioned my choice of reading materials. After several conversations, he finally said to me, “Mom, you’re going to get your head stuck. You need to stop reading shop [theology and/or religion] and read something like normal people read. You can’t be a good theologian if you can’t see with fresh eyes and you can’t see with fresh eyes if you can’t look away.” And so for Christmas, he and his brother bought me a light, fluffy non-religious novel. I’ll have to admit that it helped to crawl into a book for a few days and escape for awhile. I bought another by the same author, which I also burned through in a few short days.

By the time break was coming to a close, I went back to reading Bonhoeffer, but as my 16 year-old predicted, I read with fresh eyes. At the end of particularly long, difficult day, I read the following:

“I’ve learnt here especially that the facts can always be mastered, and that difficulties are magnified out of all proportion simply by fear and anxiety. From the moment we wake until we fall asleep we must commend other people wholly and unreservedly to God and leave them in his hands, and transform our anxiety for them into prayers on their behalf:

With sorrow and with grief…
God will not be distracted.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Letter to Renate and Eberhard Bethge
Written from Tegel Prison
Christmas Eve 1943

In that moment, after weeks of feeling disconnected, invisible, and often unheard, I suddenly felt very much understood and embraced. While I had been distracted, God was not. God heard every word I hadn’t said, followed every line of thought I’d not dared bring to completion, knew every feeling I’d pushed away and then, ever so gently, God let me know I was not alone.

I’m back in classes as the Spring semester is in full swing. The demands for my time and attention are no less than they were before. I still find myself feeling detached and removed. But my time with God at the beach in the morning has again become the one time and place that I can take a deep breath and relax, even for a little while and I know that I will be heard, even when I have nothing at all to say.

My Refuge

Trust.

Ah, the great dreaded T word. I don’t like that word. It makes me twitchy all over, inside and out. Why?

<Sigh>

Trust.

I don’t like the word trust because for me, it’s not just an abstract or a feeling. It’s very real and it has had some very real consequences in my life, not all of them good. It’s not that I don’t trust God because I do … now … most of the time… I think. Okay, honestly, are there people in my life that I trust? Yes. Do I trust God? Yes. But it takes a lot of self-reflection for me to be able to say either one of those things.

I get so hung up on that one stupid word because I have seen it misused and abused, both in word and in action. It’s easier to say I have trust issues or that it takes a damn long time to earn my trust. But that’s the thing about God: God has all the time there is … or ever will be. God has been perfectly content to wait me out. And despite all my mouth, gradually over the last ten years I’ve been moving to a place where, if I’m really honest with myself, I trust God more than I ever believed was possible.

Do you have any idea how hard that was to admit out loud? And yes – I do mean out loud because I talk to myself when I write.

Refuge.

I never really had feelings on the word refuge. It was an abstract idea for me. It made sense on some intellectual level, I suppose. It’s a strange feeling when something you’ve been reading your whole life, something you think you get, suddenly becomes very real and very tangible.

You see, lately, I find myself in a place when I have more roles to fill than I have of me to go around. I’m a parent and a caretaker, an employee and a student, and most days I have to be all of those things simultaneously. Everyone is demanding something from me every waking moment of every day. It’s like I’m juggling knives…except I never learned how to juggle.

I finally hit overload. The stress and fear I’ve experienced over the last few months finally caught up to me. What I refused to grapple with in my waking hours took over my sleep in the form of nightmares. After several weeks of nightmares, it progressed to night terrors. If you’ve never experienced that particular horror, count your blessings. The dream continued even though I was awake. I knew I was awake but I wasn’t sure where I was, what was real and what wasn’t. It wasn’t until I had walked through the entire house, checking on everyone else and finding them all sleeping peacefully, that I was finally able to calm down. I was awake the rest of the night. That’s the kind of night that makes me afraid to ever go to sleep again. I can assure you, that would not have been a good time to ask me if I trust God.

And yet… the following night when I went up to bed, I prayed. I asked for refuge for the night, a safe place to rest. You see what I mean about trust? That’s not the kind of request you make of someone you don’t trust.

Refuge.

An odd choice of wording. But that was what came out of me in that moment.

Refuge.

That word comes up a lot in the bible and, up until the other night, I don’t think I ever really understood it. I mean, I knew what the word meant, obviously. But I don’t think I ever really connected God, who I can’t see or touch, with something quite so solid.

That night, as I slept, I found myself in a yet another dream. Rather than anything scary, this time I was in a big, old building with many rooms, like an old tenement apartment building only beautiful and well-kept. All the doors were closed as I went up the stairs and wandered the hallways. Waiting for me was a room that I had all to myself where I was quiet, alone, and most of all, safe. It’s a decidedly strange thing to lay down and go to sleep in a dream but that is exactly what I did. When I woke up around midnight, I rolled over and went back to sleep and had the same dream, only with a twist. I was back in the same big, old building with it’s many rooms but now all the doors where thrown open. People wandered in and out of rooms and congregated in the hallways and open spaces. People from every walk of life had sought and found refuge here.

I woke up the next morning feeling like I’d finally gotten the rest I so desperately needed. As I sat at the beach that morning, I was a little startled to find myself able to be still. It was the first time in months that I’d been able to sit and be still. When I took the time to write down my dreams, I realized as a I wrote that God wasn’t in the building. God was the building. God was that safe place where I found rest.

God is my refuge.

I know what that means now.

Scary Conversations

Death and dying. Not the topic most people would choose to spend their Saturday discussing but that is precisely how I spent yesterday. I had the opportunity to attend a conference on palliative care at Sacred Heart University. Attendees including students and working professionals from across several disciplines including doctors, nurses, social workers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, and hospital chaplains as well as caretakers and family members from the community. What struck me most was that one of the biggest obstacles to obtaining palliative care for patients is fear. In the medical community, there is fear that referring a patient for palliative care means giving up and that “it’s too soon” – an attitude which often means patients suffer needlessly. For families, there is a fear that the suggestion of palliative care means death is imminent, which is often not the case. While education can dispel the myth that palliative care is the same thing as hospice care (it’s not), I’m not quite so confident that it can easily dispel the fear.

In a breakout group that focused on the spiritual aspect of making end-of-life health care choices, the same theme came up over and over. Families are terrified by the prospect of talking about death, whether it’s at the beginning of a serious decline in health or when death is staring them in the face. In some cases, families will do anything to keep a patient alive, despite knowing that death is inevitable. Some families want to extend life as long as possible,  holding out for a full physical healing miracle to happen. Their prayer can become so frantic that it is less about a relationship with God and more of a magic ritual. In such cases, families cannot seem to accept that the miracle may come in the form of a peaceful death. People who believe so deeply in a God who heals seem to struggle when it comes to believing in a God who is waiting to welcome their loved ones who will be released from their illness through death.

After listening to the war stories told by several of the chaplains and social workers, each one of them questioning how we change a culture that is so hung up on death avoidance, one of the young nursing students spoke up. She said that she’s of Finnish descent and in their culture, death is accepted as a unique part of life. Death is talked about and embraced as part of life from childhood. No one tries to hide from it or avoid it. People talk about their final wishes with family, including young children. She went on to say that her grandmother had called her last year to let her know that she had taken a woodworking class with another family member. The grandmother had designed and built her own casket and she wanted to make sure everyone in the family knew where it was being stored so when the time came, she could be buried in it. This is clearly a lady who is at peace with the reality that she will die one day.

I have to admit, as I listened to that story, the image that popped into my head almost immediately was of the third brother in the Tale of the Three Brothers from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  (If you’ve never seen it you can watch the short clip here.)

The third brother didn’t see death a power to be wielded or as something to be conquered. Rather, he lived his life well, knowing that death was inevitable, and when the time came, he greeted death as an old friend.

If we truly believe in the God we say we believe in, the God of everlasting life, isn’t that the way we should live? Let’s be honest here, death is inevitable for every single one of us. Wouldn’t it make more sense to talk about it? Rather than kicking and fighting death all the way to grave, wouldn’t it be better to acknowledge that death will come? Wouldn’t it simply be sensible to plan for the care we wish to receive to keep us comfortable and to maintain the best quality of life for as long as possible, while knowing that quality of life is not about extending life as long as medically possible. Admittedly, it’s much harder when illness strikes a young person, but knowing that death comes for every single one of us, why are we so afraid to accept it, to embrace it, and to talk about it?

As tends to happen with a really good conference, the questions asked raised more questions to take home and ponder for awhile. The biggest question on everyone’s mind was: How do we change the culture? One point that every professional and every speaker drove home was the same one: We need to start talking about these things. We need to help people understand what end-of-life care looks like before they get to that point. And in order to do that, we need to meet people where they are, which for many is stuck in a fear of death and dying. I think, for many, ultimately the fear of death is not so much a fear of the end of life as it is a fear of what comes next. And for Christians, what comes next is a face-to-face with God.

At the end of the day, I went home and, in classic introvert fashion, changed into pajamas, brewed a good strong cup of tea, and curled up with a new book. Eleven pages in, I came across this:

“I was afraid to make decisions for my life that would lead to greater happiness because I was afraid I’d get it wrong and end up on the wrong end of God’s wrath…

For those of us who get stuck in fear, we reach a point where indecision is no longer a plausible option if we want to truly live. The months and years of running from fear and abdication our full engagement with faith and life have a way of catching up to us. Eventually the walls close in. The trail ends. The sun dips below the horizon. We reach a point where we either have to close our eyes and spend the rest of our lives pretending we’re not dying or we need to embrace a bold authenticity about who we are and what we believe. We need to embrace life itself.”  [Benjamin Corey, Unafraid]

And it struck me that if we’re really going to meet people where they are when it comes to end-of-life care, we need to start talking about fear. Fear of illness. Fear of weakness. Fear of pain. Fear of dying. Fear of death itself. And especially, fear of what comes next. Because as Christians, we say we believe that God is love. And if we truly believe that, and if we truly believe that God walks with us through any illness, pain, suffering, and even dying, then we can trust that God will help us overcome our fear of talking about death. We can help our families to overcome their fears by talking about our own. And if we find that the fears people have are not just fears of dying but of God’s wrath, of hellfire and brimstone, then we need to start talking about that too. Because all of this fear is keeping people from living well and from dying well.

Walls: Inside and Out

There are popovers in the oven right now. Because somehow the smell of rolls baking is comforting and, to be honest, a hot popover drowned in butter and a hot cup of tea are probably as close as I’ll get to communion today. Yesterday was a tough day. Last night was a long series of disjointed dreams and I woke up just as exhausted as I was when I went to bed. My prayer on opening my eyes this morning was, “You know what God, I am not in the mood the deal with you today.”

Despite that, I drove to the beach as I do every morning to spend an hour or more with God, although it was more out of habit than desire this morning. The remnants of Harvey had waves crashing over the seawall and the air was full of salt spray and misty rain. My boots happened to be in the car and a walk in the storm seemed more fitting than the idea of going to church because being surrounded by love and joy and music and people was way more than I could handle.

It has been something of a theme of 2017 that life is too short, too precious, and too fragile to be wasted on fakery of any sort. We always think we have time and the fact is, we never have as much as we think. Part of my foul mood this morning was that I resented feeling like I needed to get up, be presentable enough and pleasant enough to show up in church to be around people who don’t even really know me. That they don’t know me because I intentionally haven’t put down roots anywhere is a post for another day, but suffice it to say, I wasn’t up to the shallow pleasantries this morning and God knew that.

God knows this black mood of mine quite well. It happens that sometimes that life gets to be more than I can handle and I pretend like I’m completely fine when I’m really not. And that goes really well until I suddenly find myself feeling about as social and lovable as a pissed off hedgehog with a bad attitude. But every time I sink into this toxic sludge of a space, God meets me there. Today was no different. I walked until I ran out of beach, which given the tides and the storm waves, wasn’t much of a walk. But standing with my face in the wind and the waves crashing at my feet, I felt the power and grace of the Creator who is so much bigger than the storm that was raging inside. That was enough to drive the darkness back to tolerable levels of gray.

So as it turns out, it’s not that I don’t feel up to dealing with God today. I didn’t feel up to dealing with church this morning. And that distinction is one I need to get better at making. God was the only one who was going to understand the tangled mess of emotions I was feeling today because even I don’t know what I’m feeling. God knew that too. Maybe what I needed today was outside the church walls because what I needed, more than anything else, was to meet God inside my own walls, in the spaces where no one else is allowed.

Love Is…

Love is a cup of tea of the front porch.

Love is the hug you didn’t know you needed.

Love is the prayer you didn’t have to ask for.

Love is the laughter at an inside joke.

Love is the text message and the phone call that says, “Are you okay?” and Love stays on the line until you are.

Love is showing up.

It is the steadfastness of an old friend.

Love does not leave you in your darkness. Nor does it abandon you to your imagination.

When you would choose to withdraw from all around you, Love is the breeze that caresses your face and keeps you present.

When you would choose to be alone, it is the bird perched on the windowsill who keeps you company anyway.

Love is understanding. It is compassionate. It is empowering.

Love is healing.

Above all else, God is Love.