I have never really ever entertained the idea of the so-called 'vanity plates' for my car. While the extra cost of them is certainly a factor, I think my reluctance is more the idea that I wouldn't want to carry a particular message trailing behind me for such a long time. I am not sure I could choose wisely enough for such a commitment to a phrase.

But if by some chance I did choose to get these license plates, I might use the short hand version of a phrase that plays a significant role in telling the story in the movie 'Australia'. I am a little behind in my movie watching and just got around to watching this film the other night. Centered around the relationship of an English woman who moves to Australia and a young aboriginal boy, it is a sweeping tale of love and the pursuit of justice. As the woman learns the ways of the aboriginal people so oppressed by the whites, the young boy says to her: "I sing you to me." as a way of letting her know that wherever he goes, wherever she goes, when they need each other most, he will sing and they will find each other. As the film goes on, as she grows in her understanding, when he says these words, her response becomes: "And I will hear you."

These words have become ingrained in my psyche since seeing this film. Aren't they words we want to say and have said to us by so many? Parents want to know that somehow they can continue a deep connection even as the ones they held dear and watched grow travel far away to adventures of their own. "I sing you to me." Partners who watch loved ones leave to serve our country in dangerous places hold these words on their lips, in their hearts. "I sing you to me." Elders in places unfamiliar, lonely for the walls, furniture and artifacts that created their homes, hum these words to friends and family. "I sing you to me."  So many songs reaching out to be heard, connecting one person to another.

In 'Australia',this heart song taught by a small, brown boy to a powerful, white woman represents, I believe, the hope we all have. Someplace, somewhere, somehow, someone is singing a tune so rich and so deep that we will hear it and be found by it. In my imagination, I hear the Holy One's quiet yet distinct hum calling to each of us: "I sing you to me." And through dark days and days of great joy, through fear and trembling and rich laughter, over moments and sometimes decades, each of us will answer:"And I will hear you."

My license plates come due in October. Come winter if you notice a car carrying the message 'ISNGU2ME' that might be me. I hope to be heard.

In these days following Easter, our scriptures for Sunday worship tell the stories of Jesus appearances to the disciples after the resurrection. In every story the disciples fail to recognize him immediately. They walk along the road with him. They are on the beach with him. They think he is a stranger. They think he is a guest. The disciples themselves are living in a state of grief and fear. They are not thinking or seeing clearly. They go into their homes, close the doors, turn the keys, lock themselves in and the world out.

And then in each of the stories, Jesus says he is hungry and he is offered food……bread, fish, wine. As soon as he blesses the bread and begins to share a meal with the disciples, they recognize him for who he is. They are surprised, thrilled, and filled with joy. Their friend is among them again! In almost all the stories, he says the same thing:"Peace be with you."

I find these scriptures fascinating not only for what they say about Jesus but what they also say about us. So often when we are held in the grips of fear we can't see what is right in front of us. Those who are living with grief know this….the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the loss of a dream, the loss of a relationship….make it difficult to see gifts that are in our very midst. We find it nearly impossible to recognize the presence of the Holy who walks with us even in the darkest of times.

And then something happens. Someone offers us a bit of bread, a cup of coffee, a cookie or maybe a kind word, a smile or just the gentle silence of two people sitting together, sharing breath and space. We look across the table and the key we'd held so tightly loosens a little in our grip. The door opens a crack and we can perhaps see a light we hadn't noticed before.

In the gospel of John, the writer ends one of the appearance stories with the line: "Now Jesus appeared to the disciples many times that are not written in this book." It is one of my favorite small lines of in these scriptures. It seems to say the story continued, the story continues, and it is up to us be awake and aware of these and then to make the story our own. It seems to remind us that the appearance of the Holy is around us all the time and often we miss it.

Perhaps our work today is to offer the simplest of gifts….bread, water,our prayers…..to those we meet. If they have closed the doors of their hearts, or are walking in fear or living with grief, we just might be the presence of Christ to them offering them a bit of new life.

And isn't that what we are called to do?

"Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As God has sent me, I am sending you." John 20:21

"The vitality of God be mine this day
the vitality of the God of life.
The passion of Christ be mine this day
the passion of the Christ of love.
The wakefulness of the Spirit be mine this day
the wakefulness of the Spirit of justice.
The vitality and passion and wakefulness of God be mine
that I may be fully alive this day
the vitality and passion and wakefulness of God
that I may be fully alive."
~J. Philip Newell

As I have been running my Friday errands today, nearly everyone I meet has 'vitality' written all over them. In the grocery store people bent over choosing brightly colored tulips. Red? Yellow? Hot pink? So many ways to go. Strangers greet one another with smiles and nods as they allow their winter shoulders to relax away from their ears. Children are even more animated than usual, hopping around, eyes darting from one thing to another, anxious to get outside to play. Even harried parents find it difficult to be impatient with the fidgeting.

Isn't it what we all want to do in spring?Take our fidgety bodies, long held captive in layers of scratchy clothing, outside to feel the grass on bare our feet, let the sun touch our too-pale skin. Work projects that seemed so important just a few days ago seem not quite so urgent when we look out the window at the warm and shining sun. The birds are playing. The squirrels are playing. It seems even the plants and trees are playing. Why not us?

For me, these days in particular, are Spirit-filled days. They are also such days filled with such grace. Practically every good thing that is happening around me, I had no part in,did nothing to create. My only work is to be awake to the Creator's presence, uncovering, enticing, honoring the rhythm of the Creation. My job is to keep my eyes open, my senses primed, my ears listening and my heart filled with hope….for all that is yet to be. As I remain present to the ever-opening world around, I can once again remember those Spirit held places within me that have taken their winter nap and are now ready to wake up. Just like the tulips. Just like the forsythia blooming brilliant yellow in our backyard.Just like the robin who serenaded me this morning.

Vitality…..being fully alive, awake, passionate….to the spring….to the world…to myself….to the One who gently holds it all. The One who waits for the surprises only this spring will bring.

Enjoy the gifts of this weekend and….stay awake!

"Good People,
Most royal greening verdancy,
rooted in the sun,
you shine with radiant light.
In this circle of earthly existence
you shine
so finely,
it surpasses understanding.
God hugs you.
You are encircled
by the arms
of the mystery of God."
~Hildegard of Bingen

Seduction. That is the word that came to my mind as I have been watching the slowly greening earth. Along our freeways,the grassy area on my right can be dull brown while on the other side young green blades are being lured up through the soil. The warmth of the sun is seducing this dullness, coaxing the greenness toward its fullness.

This morning I stood for some time looking at the patches of brown and gray in our backyard garden. Then I saw the seduction happening right before my eyes. Pale green shoots, still sleepy from winter, were being enticed to show themselves in the morning light. Accompanied now by the early morning song of robin and cardinal, these early spring risers opened their fragile leaves upward, outward.

Seduction: the act of influencing by exciting hope or desire. Spring is about seduction…..giving into the exciting hope of birth, growth, promise of new life. Spring is about all that is meant to be green coming into its fullness, its authentic self. There is an excitement of possibility that is palpable in the air as the geese honk their way back home, as the buds of the trees reach for what is yet to be….green.

And what about we humans? How are we being seduced in these warming days to the fullness of green within us? Hildegard of Bingen, that medieval mystic who was truly a renaissance woman….scholar, leader, teacher, artist, musician, composer…..often called humanity 'green'. She wasn't speaking about being ecologically sound. She was talking about humans coming into their fullness, being influenced by the exciting hope and desire to grow into all the Holy means for us.

Spring is here. The sun is shining. It is time to get green!

"Do not keep anything in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.," ~William Morris

Last week while we were on vacation we had painters come into our house. We arrived home, bags full of dirty laundry and fabulous photos, to freshly painted, empty walls. All of the knickknacks, photos, paintings, and artwork had been removed and stored to make way for the work of the painters. Now our work is to re-decorate the empty space.

I think we are like most people in that over time we have collected far more 'stuff' than we actually need. Through the 'I must have that' or the 'I need that' syndrome, many things have accumulated. Combine that with the gifts we have been given and you've got a pile of 'more than we need.' So our job over the next days is to survey the evidence and choose what will now go on the walls, on the shelves, on the mantle. It will take some sorting and soul searching. 

But as I look outside my window right now it seems as if Creation is doing similar work. The ratty brown grass is filled with dead leaves, debris, abandoned toys, plastic bottles, and other stuff left from winter living. Some cleaning away will need to be done by human hands, picking up, sorting, throwing. Other clean up will be done by the gift of rain and spring winds, washing away, blowing, sifting. Whatever the method, in the end we will be left with what is useful to grow the greenness of summer,and power to create the beauty of flowers, vegetables, new life.

This is the joy and blessing of spring cleaning. We get to once again choose what is useful, what is really needed to make our lives full and vibrant. We also get to choose what brings beauty, what lifts us above the ordinary or helps us see the ordinary for the awe-inspiring experience it truly is. And we have the opportunity to let go of the rest….to simplify.

So now the work begins. Look. Choose. Dig.Throw. Hang. Wash. Polish. Rake. Plant. All this so when summer comes around, we can sit back, relax, and relish the warmth of the sun.

I happened upon a radio conversation this morning that startled me. Two people were working up a lather about the crowds at their churches yesterday. But not in the ways you might imagine…..or I guess I should say, I might imagine. The conversation was about how the 'regular' churchgoers were upset that 'all these people go to church on Easter' that don't show up other days of the year. They talked about having to sit in seats that weren't their normal seats. One even went so far as to say that if people can't go to church on the other Sundays of the year, they shouldn't show up on Easter. I would imagine these same folks would throw Christmas in there as well.

It was a fascinating perspective. While we church professionals are joyfully counting the attendance figures for such a Sunday, it is interesting that there are those that saw the bump in numbers as an inconvenience or even an annoyance.

From my perspective it also seems to fly in the face of what it means to be the church. In fact, at yesterday's pancake breakfast that followed our sunrise service, I spoke with three young adults who were guests. They told me they had attended Ash Wednesday services with us and had really like their experience. Always wanting to learn what draws people to a new worship setting, I asked what they had liked. The young man got a funny look on his face as he said: "Well, it was clear that the people there had known one another for maybe twenty years. But they all just seemed excited to be there."

I've thought about those words many times over the last hours. I know that people 'church shop' these days,searching for the place that fits their theology, their comfort zone, their musical tastes, their commute. Statistics prove that people jump from denomination and even faith traditions in ways that are new to institutions of faith. It tends to make church growth experts crazy and builds a certain anxiety within all mainline churches. Because of this transient behavior, most of us cannot imagine what the church will be like in even ten or twenty more years.

Over the next weeks we will read the scriptures of those followers of Jesus who struggle to remain faithful after his death and resurrection. In the Book of Acts as it is interpreted in Eugene Peterson's The Message, it says:" They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful,as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. And many were added top their number."

On this Easter Monday, after the hoopla of yesterday has been put to rest, and we head into another 'normal' week of life in the church, I am glad that, at for at least a couple of Sundays out of the year, people who might not be motivated or inclined, show up. It is my prayer that they found our discipline of worship exuberant and joyful and that they glimpsed the face of God in it all. It is also my hope that if they came back again in, say twenty years- or next week, they would find the pews filled with people who still liked being here.

It may be alot to ask. But I believe we have some great role models.

One of my colleagues encouraged me to share some of the thoughts I offered last evening during our worship. What follows is a part of my meditation on the scriptures of Holy Thursday.

Have you ever been sitting with a
group of friends and begun asking those difficult to answer questions like “If
you were stranded on a desert island, and could have only one food…..or one
companion….what or who would it be?” Of even more difficult, “If you knew you
were going to die in a week or a month or even a year, what would you do?”
These kinds of hypothetical questions make for great conversation and sometimes
even some great soul searching.

Maundy Thursday.. Mandatum…..Latin
for commandment. We gather in worship, knowing the story of
Jesus so well……, knowing that in the next days
we will remember Jesus’ last days, his arrest, his execution, his death, and
yet waiting and watching for God’s commandment to us. As people who call themselves Christian, we can reflect on what Jesus’ life held,  knowing  that the true journey of Lent is in asking what
it is God might be asking of us. Like the disciples that gathered with Jesus
during those fateful days, those who could only imagine what their future held,
we came together around the life of someone who had performed miracles,healed the sick, multiplied loaves of bread, walked on water,made
the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk. And whether or not we see those
stories as metaphor or literal, we came together waiting and watching for a
sign of what it means to be the kin-dom of God in our time, in our day. Often
in this searching we can rely on deep theological insight, powerful
scholarship, informed exegesis of scripture, or doctrines and creeds that
declare who we are and what we profess to believe. This allows us, in some way,
to keep our distance from this story, this life that has shaped our own faith
life. This intellectual process, while good and important, allows us to keep
the experience of Holy Week in our head. It allows us in some way to not
remember where the Jesus life began….with the incarnation. The indwelling of
God.

 But on this night when Jesus
gathered with these people with whom he had lived and had come to love, his
message was not an intellectual message. It was not about what any of them
should believe or write or even preach. He did not even ask any them to write
down or commit to memory all he wanted them to remember. He did not ask them to
profess their belief or even to form a church.  Instead he showed them what they were to do.
As one whose life embodied God’s presence in the world, he did a very earthy
thing….he began to kneel on the ground and wash the feet of his friends.

 Every good teacher among us will
say that the surest way to teach a student something is not to talk about it
but to create an opportunity for the student to be active, to embody the
lesson.  Jesus, who knew that the days of
his life were coming to an end, took the opportunity to answer the question:
”If you knew you were going to die in a few days, what would you do?” As Jesus
gathered with this motley crew of sometimes passionate, often fool hardy and
lazy, but beloved characters, he took the opportunity to be what he was…..a
rabbi….a teacher. He claimed in that moment what it meant to be an incarnation
of God, fully in his earthly and earthy body. As he knelt before the dirty,
dusty, sandaled feet of his followers he took the water, as he might have done
in their baptism, and through the blessing of his presence, his prayer and his
touch, he reached out in his own vulnerability to theirs…….shoeless, fearful,
perhaps embarrassed to have their feet washed by the one they knew to be the
face of God in their midst.

 Can you imagine it? Their eyes cast
down, ashamed of their feet, full of callouses, blisters and broken nails. And
then the moment when the water and his touch refreshed their soles and brought
relaxation and comfort. As one after another they removed their sandals, even
wild and wanting Peter, came to rest at the tender touch of this earthy Jesus.
He knew them in this moment in a way he had not before. And they knew him in
ways that would change their lives forever…….not because of anything he said,
or what they believed, but through his act of humility and love.

 Which brings us back to Mandatum,
Maundy,……Commandment. The legacy of this day is that in Jesus’ doing, in his
act of washing the feet of his friends, he answers the question what he will do
when he knows he only has a few days to live. The legacy of this day is that it
calls us to be a ‘doing’ people not primarily a believing people. It is the
commandment of the one who practiced incarnation that we are to be about the
work of God in the fullness of our earthly, earthy bodies, not in spite of them
as we have often been taught,  but in the
flesh and through the flesh.

This is the gift and the commandment of Maundy Thursday.

"El Shaddai, El Shaddai, El Elyon na Adonai; age to age you're still the same by the power of the name. El Shaddai, El Shaddai, Erkahmka na Adonai; we will praise and lift you high, El Shaddai." ~Michael Card & John Thompson

While visiting Seattle and parts of Oregon over the last few days, we were given the gift of glimpsing spring. Primroses, daffodils, tulips and even magnolia trees were sending forth their blossoms of hope on a colorless world. As we flew back to Minnesota last night, we recognized the shift in how the Midwestern air felt and smelled. Though no color is yet visible, the promise of spring rode on the wind.

I am carrying in my memory the sight of mountain and ocean. As we hiked the Oregon coast, flanked by the power of rock and tree on our left and the movement of sea on our right. Out among the waves, giant sea stacks of rock, looking like prehistoric sea monsters, rose majestically along the ever-changing beach. People walking the beach were drawn to them, trying to make their way to the rock beacons, while all the time the sea pushed them back toward land.

As I walked the beach I was reminded of how many people talk of their own spiritual landscape, that place where they feel a deep sense of home, a sense of the Sacred. Many people will speak of a 'need' to get to the water. I often hear those who have a relationship with Lake Superior speak of 'just needing to get to the Lake' to sort out some problem, to get grounded. I have also heard people speak of needing the mountains, to feel held and surrounded by the power of rock, evergreen and earth that helps them claim their spiritual center.

Walking the Oregon beach, I was struck with having it all……water, wave, rock, earth, trees. The grounding of earth, the connection with water that makes up the majority of our bodies, all held by the power of mountain peaks.The scriptures are filled with images of water that nurtures and saves humanity. El Shaddai, a name used for God in the Hebrew scriptures, can mean both 'God of the mountain' and 'God of breast & womb'. Standing surrounded, held, by the power of these foundations of Creation, it would have been difficult to deny the presence of the Holy, of El Shaddai.

As we walk into the final days of this Holy Week, may we each be held by the spiritual landscape that nurtures, sustains and saves. May there be moments when we can find the spiritual landscape that we call home, whether literally or in our imagination. May we each be surrounded by the presence of El Shaddai, that One who is always making all things new.

"Dear Lord be good to me…. the sea is so wide and my boat is so small." ~Children's Defense Fund

I have spent the last several days in the Pacific Northwest as we visit colleges with our younger son. It is always wonderful to be able to travel time zones and enter into the ways and days of other parts of our beautiful country. I always recognize this as the privilege it is. You have the opportunity to see people going about their daily lives, going to work and school, doing their grocery shopping, taking in their mail, and know that, while you do the same in your part of the world, their experience is somewhat different given the climate, the culture, the landscape. Here in Washington and Oregon, everything seems to be colored by the mountains….seeing them, being surrounded by them, hoping to glimpse them through gray skies and the rain that falls frequently. We have been blessed by sun and green and the colors of spring flowers.

On our first morning in Seattle we awoke early with our bodies on Midwestern time. We got up and headed out to find a cup of coffee….a very easy task in Seattle…..and made our way to the water. Walking near Lake Union we came upon the Museum of Wooden Boats. Large tugboats and small, colorful rowboats lined the docks. We wandered about looking at the unique vessels that had been created by loving, creative hands.

 While looking at a canoe that had clearly been carved out of a large cedar tree and painted with Native symbols of fish and birds, a man walked up to us. He identified himself as the Artist-in-Residence of the Museum. He proceeded to tell us about how the boat had been carved by several generations together, school children and elders, parents and mentors, all carving and being instructed in the ancient craft of canoe building. He exuded wisdom and a sense of Spirit. He talked about how important it was to pass on to our young ones the gifts of the ancestors and to be present to the wisdom the young ones bring to us.

On the shore a young man arrived to begin a morning of carving with the artist. He headed to a shelter that held a work-in-progress of a very large canoe. As he and the young man explained to us the process of carving, of the large rocks that needed to be heated in very, hot fires that would be placed in saltwater inside the canoe which would bend the canoe in the proper way, we recognized that we had been given a great gift in happening upon this man.

And then he turned to us and asked if he could offer us his song. From my understanding of Native cultures I knew that we were being offered an even greater gift. We stood, rapt, as this tall, long-haired gentleman(and I use that in its truest sense) sang a song that welcomed the morning and thanked the Creator for the gifts of the day. He sang for the elders and for the youth and for the continuation of all. He sang for the tree that had given it very self for the boat and for the great circle of life of which we are all a part.

As we walked away from this experience, I knew that we had been offered a visitation. As we headed off into the adventure of launching our son in the next phase of his life, it seemed apt that this wise man had called us into the wider, greater circle and reminded us of our place in it. Yes, our boats are small but we row these seas with a vast array of companions, accompanied all the while by the Creator who birthed the sea on which we travel and holds each of us in tender care.

"When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, "This is certainly not like we thought it was!" ~Rumi

Have you ever thought about how many things in life can be described by this statement of Rumi? How many times have you been surprised by a long awaited event or situation that is completely different than what you imagined it might be? A new job? An anticipated vacation? A budding relationship? Parenthood?

So many of life's comings and goings are so full of surprises we barely recognize what we planned for, hoped for. We see through many veils, don't we? I am constantly humbled by my dreadfully inadequate lens on the world. We each see with such particularity and yet so often approach situations and people with the notion that 'everyone sees it the way I do.'

I am thinking of those early disciples of Jesus again. Approaching what we in the Christian church call Holy Week, I am reminded of the false starts, the huge mistakes and smaller missteps, made by the the often over zealous friends and followers of Jesus. From our nearly 2000 year perspective, it is easy to think they had to see where this story was headed, the challenges, the tragedy, the triumph. But, of course, they did not. Their veil, their lens, was as equally flawed as our own.They could only see the world, and the Jesus they loved, with their own particularity. As the final days of his life played out, some remained steadfast, others fled, some must have been courageous and others filled with a desperate fear. It was 'not like they thought it was.'

And yet it seems that even the surprises and grief that came to them in those days lifted the veil and changed the lens of their walk in the world. As tragedy has the gift to do, their world was opened in ways beyond their imagining and they were bound together in a common cause, a common connection that has fed each of our Christian communities to this day. From this tiny little band of misfits in a remote and misunderstood part of the world, churches have been born, people have been transformed, communities have been nurtured.

If they knew, I am sure their words might be……"This is certainly not what we thought it was!"