“The Light of God surrounds me.
The Love of God enfolds me.
The Power of God protects me.
The Presence of God watches over me.”
~James Dillett Freeman

This morning I had the privilege of visiting a new endeavor that is the neighborhood just north of downtown Minneapolis. It is called Heritage Park Senior Services Center and is a collaboration of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, the YMCA, Courage Center, Neighborhood Health Services and Augustana Care. It provides housing, health care, adult care services and wellness resources for older adults. There are apartments for those who need a limited amount of supervision and those who are living with various forms of cognitive challenges. It is a beautiful space full of smiling people, large doses of dignity, and even larger spoonfuls of hope. All this just blocks away from places that see little of any of those things on a daily basis.

In the process of giving a tour and talking with great enthusiasm about the work they do, one of our hosts used a term that caught my attention. She was describing the level of safety and security they endeavor to create. She spoke of many of the residents by name and then added there was extra care taken with ‘exit-seekers’.

Exit-seekers. Of course, I knew what she meant. She was speaking of those vulnerable ones who might, given the opportunity, wander away from boundaries created to keep them safe. Exit-seekers. The term just wouldn’t leave my consciousness. Her concern and use of this term showed such a depth of understanding for those in her care. Her work required that she, and her coworkers, pay special attention to those who might believe they were living a different day, one they had known some time ago, but we’re not living now. They might just seek an exit to walk down the street to talk to a friend or to the diner where they had had coffee every morning. Or they might go out a door on their way to a job they no longer have and haven’t had in years. Their memories of the past are more vivid than their present. Their exit-seeking could bring them to a harm that was unimagined and misunderstood.

I honor these beloved ones and pray a blessing of protection upon them. But, in truth,there are many exit-seekers in the world, people of varying ages and stages of life. I think of those who are searching for an exit that will lead them out of addiction and the pain of living a life that no longer makes sense. There are those who are looking for the door that will take them out of a difficult or even abusive relationship or a job that no longer fits their gifts, if it ever did. There exit-seekers who are often caught in the revolving door of debt and deceit. There are young ones who would love to find the exit that would relieve the pain of bullying. There are even those who are trying to find a way out of a church that no longer is big enough for the spiritual path on which they find themselves. They want to find an exit that allows them to honor what they’ve known but perhaps find another door through which they will find a new home.

Are you an exit-seeker at this point of your life? Is there a door that begs to be opened so you may move on to the ‘what next’? Are you finding it difficult to muster up the courage to walk to the exit and push open the door? Prayer of protection all around…..

For all those who are seeking exits this day, may the finding be easy and the opening gentle and filled with wisdom. For all those for whom seeking an exit would bring danger and disaster, may you be surrounded by the loving ones who watch out over you. Day in and day out. Forever and ever. Amen.

A few months ago we started ending our chapel service by singing the simple little refrain many people learned at church camp or in their Sunday school and youth group experiences. The tune is easy and the lyrics consist of one word: “Alleluia”. It can be sung as a simple tune or, if you have the right group of people in the room, it can be layered with much harmony. I encouraged people to not only harmonize but to carry that word into their week, to look for people or situations or sights they see that warrant an ‘alleluia’. It was in many ways a spur of the moment thing to say but in truth I really meant it.

Alleluia, an unapologetically churchy word, simply means to give praise or honor to something for the presence of the holy within it. It is a word that is littered throughout the scriptures and is the stuff of countless compositions of music over the centuries. It is not, however, a word that trips off the tongue of many 21st century human beings. My goal was to remedy this.

So in my encouragement I hoped to invite people to be aware and awake to the beautiful, the amazing, the precious moments that come our way every day. Experiences in which the Divine shows up to remind us that we are walking in a gift of a world. Even in the other definition of ‘alleluia’ which is an exclamation of thankfulness for something that happens that is surprising or ironic, the Sacred can also be found lurking around the edges. Situations like coming back to your car with the full knowledge that you have an expired meter and finding (alleluia!) that you do not have a ticket.

Putting this call for alleluias everywhere also primed that pump for my own experience. I found myself muttering under my breath this four syllable, quite ancient word. And I have found that one alleluia leads to another. It is like an amazing addiction to noticing and proclaiming.

I have found that I am now having alleluia moments more and more. I can’t stop myself. Last week when the full moon rose high in the sky with an even larger glowing aura surrounding it? Alleluia! Watching a father walk his beautiful daughter down the aisle this past weekend. Alleluia! The baby, new to the world, that I saw in the elevator leaving a hospital visit, her black hair so full it looked like a wig. Alleluia. The unfolding corn fields lining the highway offering their food to the world. Alleluia.

Over the weekend I was blessed to lead worship for a group of writers gathered for retreat. The community they have formed over the years, one of faith and the love of words and story, inspired me. Alleluia. And the retreat center where they met, so lovingly cared for and attentive to hospitality, was a sanctuary of nature and prayer. Alleluia.

But what may have caused the largest and loudest recent alleluia of all was the hibiscus bush that welcomed worshipers into the center’s chapel. Its brilliant red petals and yellow centers unfolded to the size of dinner plates. How could something so beautiful, so fragile and fleeting survive? Its existence thrilled me once again with this world, this nest home, I am privileged to rest in, a home held my a Mystery I do not understand but regularly glimpse.

And for that I am filled to overflowing with gratitude…….and alleluias.

“It’s morning, and again I am that lucky person who is in it.
And again it is spring,
and there are the apple trees,
and the hummingbird in its branches.
On the green wheel of his wings
he hurries from blossom to blossom,
which is his work, that he might live.

He is a gatherer of the fine honey of promise,
and truly I go in envy
of the ruby fire at his throat,
and his accurate, quick tongue,
and his single-mindedness.

Meanwhile the knives of ambition are stirring
down there in the darkness behind my eyes,
and I should go inside now to my desk and my pages.
But still I stand under the trees, happy and desolate,
wanting for myself such a satisfying coat
and brilliant work.”
~Mary Oliver

It is not spring but I did have the pure blessing this morning to sit and observe hummingbirds. I have spent parts of the last couple days at a beautiful retreat center not far from where I live. Oddly enough I had never been to this place before and I was astounded by its beauty and serenity.

Sitting in the dining room you are surrounded by windows on three sides. Outside the windows birdfeeders hang along all the eaves of the roof. At one bluejays and grackles coexisted in that way that always amazes me. Why can’t humans who are as different as these two winged ones do the same? At another feeder filled with peanuts a downy woodpecker bobbed his head as he ingested his morning snack. A goldfinch here. A house finch there. Air born beings all around.

But it was the hummingbirds that had my attention. As I sat writing I was distracted over and over by their pursuit of sweetness. Their fragile little wings, beating at incredible speeds, had my eyes gyrating with their rhythm. How is it that I am privileged to coexist on this blessed earth with something so tiny, so beautiful? It seemed grace embodied.

As I watched I remembered that, of course, the poet Mary Oliver had sat as I was now sitting, held captive by the awe of these tiny creatures. Searching for her words I was once again filled to overflowing with humility by her ability to capture the wonder and mystery of this precious life. “It’s morning again, and I am the lucky person who is in it.”

Indeed, lucky. Blessed. Awe-struck. All of this and more. To be alive on such a day, filled with such brilliant green and vivid blue seems more than anyone should be allowed. Surrounded by all those with fluttering wings. And especially the ones with the green body and the ruby throat who know how to drink of the sweetness of life with such gusto.

May they continue to teach me their ways until I, too, am lifted to their majesty.

“Come away away by yourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.”
~Mark 6:31

A couple of weeks ago these words appeared in the lectionary readings for worship. The words are part of a story about Jesus and the disciples in the early days of their ministry. The scripture tells of the disciples and Jesus being so busy healing and telling the good news of God that they didn’t even have time to eat. The words bookend the story of the feeding of the 5000, one of the primary early stories of the Christian community.

It was my privilege to unpack this scripture during worship. So I had spent several weeks reading about this text, mulling its content and intention over in my head. I had read what other people had written about the text and their scholarship about the original meaning of the words. I had read passages of other books about the importance of getting away, taking time to rest, finding renewal in the busy lives we all seem to lead these days.

From this gathering of other’s words and some thoughts of my own, I fashioned a message I hoped would be helpful to some and at least benign to others. The responses were favorable for the most part and many people remarked about how ‘those were the words they needed to hear’. Not too bad on any preaching day. A few smiled and nodded as they passed me by not ready to commit to any kind of comment. Again, not too bad for most sermons.

It was only later that I heard from people who thought the message was bunk. To be fair, it was only two which again in a preaching world isn’t too bad either! But I was fascinated by the fact that, for some people, the idea of being encouraged to rest and be renewed was hogwash. Even if the original message came out of Jesus’ mouth and not mine.

And then I thought about how often, particularly in the church, there always seems to be a tension between those who live out their faith primarily through action and those who live out their faith primarily through prayer and contemplation. I have been in more than one meeting where these two camps of people butt heads about any number of issues. Those issues, from my observation, often come down to people holding out a judgment about who is REALLY doing the work of God. Are we more faithful in our acts of justice and compassion or those moments of deep listening and communion with the Holy through prayer and meditation?

Frankly, I have always found it difficult to believe we can have one without the other. Of course, given personality types and how we are generally wired differently, we may fall more easily in one camp or the other. But to think that my way of living out my faith is superior to another seems counter to the gospel which, as I read it, holds a balance of both doing and being.

Anyway, the experience once again opened my eyes to this tension and to the messiness of being church and doing church. I have spent a good deal of time reflecting upon it. In the meantime, I am holding onto Jesus’ encouragement to go to quiet places. To rest. At least for me, it is what I know I need in order to practice living a life that arcs toward justice, kindness, compassion and peace.

What about you? What quiet places call to you? Are you in need of rest these days if only so you can do the difficult tasks that have landed on your plate? Are you finding yourself too busy even to eat? If so, may you hear the words of Jesus calling your name: “Come away to a quiet place and rest.”

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”
~Confucius

These days have found me furrowing my brow, full of questions. It seems as the summer unfolds more and more fully around me,from left and right, from morning till night, there are so many things about which I feel, well, ignorant.

This realization began, I think, with the Olympics. As I sat and watched the opening ceremony my Anglophile spirit was lifted far above the ground. I loved the music and the telling of a part of Britain’s rich history which included places I feel blessed to have seen with my own two eyes, places that tug at my heart strings. And yet with the entrance of the teams the ignorance set in. How can there be so many countries I have never heard of before? How can I consider myself a world citizen and not know the names of the homes of my fellow travelers? As I watched these gifted athletes proudly wave their flags, I felt chastised by my lack of knowledge about their homelands.

On a more local level, I have been observing something else that has me scratching my head at all I don’t know. In the yard of an apartment building near our house there have been the most amazing mushroom-like formations that have grown out of the ground. They are huge and have formed a sweet, little half circle under a tree. Some are nearly as big as a dinner plate. What caused them to come into being? In just that place? In these days? Was it the heat teamed with the drenching rains we’ve had? Or is there something in that soil that causes them to be? As I have observed them now over several days, I have imagined seeing them with the eyes of a child. Surely fairies must live under something so exquisite, so unique!

As if my head was not full of enough questions, this morning’s experience took the cake. I had not been awake for very long when I became aware of the shrill and constant sound of crows cawing unlike I have ever heard before. It was so loud it was disturbing. The sound was coming from a tree near a backyard neighbor’s house. Coffee in hand, I walked outside to see if I could get a sense of what was happening. The crows filled the tree. Every now and then one or two of these black beings lifted off the tree and circled in the air only to swoop right back and perch on another limb. I saw no other bird and no other animal under the tree, either of which might have given rise to such a ruckus.

For more than ten minutes I stood watching and listening to this chorus of crows. My mind was racing with questions. Why were they all gathered in this particular tree? What was causing them to cry out with such intensity? How had they known to gather? Why don’t I know more about the behavior of this common bird?

For some reason these experiences have provided a backdrop of reflection for me. Most of the time we travel in the world in circles where we have some expertise. Either through education or training or experience, we go about the tasks of our day having a pretty good idea of what it happening and why. Many times this translates into an ability to go from task to task, moment to moment, day to day, without much forethought of what is truly going on in the world around us.

And then every now and then something happens that reminds us of all there is yet to learn. Out of the corner of an eye we have a glimpse of something new, an adventure yet to taken, a question that begs to be answered. In those moments we are invited once again into the realm of the child where newness is alive and possibilities seem endless, where nothing is rote or routine.

Sometimes all it takes is the pronouncement of the name of a tiny island unheard of till that very minute. Or the sight of a stupendous, ivory fungus. Or the brilliant song of a gathering of crows.

“I bow to the one who signs the cross.
I bow to the one who sits with the Buddha.
I bow to the one who wails at the wall.
I bow to the OM flowing in the Ganges.
I bow to the one who faces Mecca,
whose forehead touches holy ground.
I bow to dervishes whirling in mystical wind.
I bow to the north,
to the south,
to the east,
to the west.
I bow to the God within each heart.
I bow to epiphany,
to God’s face revealed.
I bow. I bow. I bow.”
~ Mary Lou Kownacki

A friend forwarded this prayer-poem to me from the website of wise woman Joan Chittister. Last week I had been looking forward to hearing this nun who lives on the edge and tries to bridge people of so many communities. She was to have spoken at Westminster Presbyterians Church but had to cancel due to illness. I pray God’s healing presence upon her.

The gentleness of these words astound me. For the most part I don’t think we use the word ‘bow’ very often. In our postmodern culture it is a term we might think of as passé. It is either an ancient term relegated to religious practices of another time or only seen in those rare times when royalty is present. Those of us blessed to live in places where individuals of Eastern ancestry are present may have experienced being bowed to. It is a humbling experience.

In reading these words recently published as ‘A World Prayer’ I imagined each of the people and groups of people represented in each line. What would happen if we honored all this vast variety of humanity with an equal bowing? How might our world be different? It is a rich and wonderful idea.

Many of us did not grow up in places where there was much diversity of faith traditions. Most of us continue to walk in the world with others most like ourselves. It is just the nature of what it means to be human. And yet, if we are blessed with the opportunities to see people live out their faith in ways unfamiliar to us, we come to understand our own traditions in even deeper ways.We also come to have a greater gentleness toward the struggles and intolerances of our world. At least this is what I believe.

Recently I had a conversation with my mother who is in her eighties. I can’t remember how the thread of the interchange began but at one point she began to talk about how she has come to understand that others around the world know and express their experience of God in a myriad ways. We talked about how easy it is to build the hard edges of ‘our way’ into the only way. But, she said, ” Who am I to deny others their experience of God?” My heart swelled at these words.

I have walked this path with those who sign the cross and those who sit with the Buddha. I have watched my children play side by side with those whose relatives wail at the wall. I drive and walk past neighborhoods where people in clothes that seem exotic to me touch their foreheads to the holy ground. I have seen those who whirl like dervishes and I have longed for what they were having in their dance. I am honored to live in a part of the country where the native ones honor the directions.

And so I bow. To the One who breathed each of these revelations into being. I bow.

Earlier this week I had the privilege of co-leading a retreat focused on prayer and yoga. We held this event at our church’s retreat center on Lake Sylvia west of Minneapolis. Several months ago as we began publicizing the retreat I became excited by the diversity of people who began signing up. Those who signed on for what was a fairly openly described experience represented a variety of ages and church experience. Several made a point of telling me that they had never done something like this before. I marveled at their courage to simply arrive and see what would happen.

One part of the retreat was to spend some time in silence. It was not a long time as retreats go but it was more silence than most people engage in every day. After our morning worship we invited people to leave the chapel in silence, spend the next two hours without an input of words except those they may overhear spoken by those who were in the same space but on a different retreat. Folks could walk, swim, boat, pray, journal, or sleep. It was their choice. At the end of the two hours we would meet up again over lunch which would be eaten in silence. At 1:00 p.m. we would gather and break the silence and talk about what we experienced. In order to not appear rude to those who were co-existing with us but still talking, many of us wrote on our name tags: ‘I am spending the morning in silence.’ We all then headed into our morning, lips sealed.

I have to admit that the most difficult part of this exercise was lunch. Sitting at a table with others, eating but not talking, made for a challenging time. And yet when I gave myself over to it, I began to notice things I might not have had I been in conversation. First of all, I noticed the taste and texture of my food. I actually spent time paying attention to it! I also noticed the colors of the different individual foods that made up the art on my plate. It seemed to me the red of the tomatoes and the purple of the onions, the green of the lettuce and the yellow of the lemonade in my glass all seemed more refined, more intense. When I wasn’t distracted from the way the food looked by the conversation I was having, the food itself took center stage.

Another thing I noticed was the ability to hear snippets of conversation from the tables of talkers who were also eating lunch. Laughs and giggled sounded louder, the clinking of silverware on plates made musical sounds. One little boy declared loudly, “I am so happy!” It filled me with joy. I noticed that the pitch of the sound made by the ice tea dispenser was one half-tone off from the lemonade one which rested next to it. They made a lovely little tune when pushed quickly between the two. It made me laugh.

At 1:00 we gathered in a circle to talk about our experience of silence. It was interesting to hear the many ways people had spent the time, how they had ceased to create words. One person did say they even began to talk to themselves inside their head! We are such social creatures. A common noticing was how long the minutes seemed to unfold so leisurely, so slowly. For some this was a joy, for others more of an anxiety. Nearly everyone found something good within the experience. Most also found eating in silence the most challenging. It seems we are hard-wired to want to socialize over food. Not a bad thing at all.

This experience caused me to wonder about the hermits of old and those today who spend the majority of their waking hours in silence. I am sure I romanticize this life choice, the idea of spending your days seeing the colors in their brilliance, hearing sounds that get drowned out by the execution of words. I am sure the loneliness must be deep which is why it takes a certain person to give their life to this way of walking and being in the world.

But I am thankful for the glimpse at this spiritual discipline that has sustained itself for hundreds of years. When we are quiet long enough we begin to hear the deeper hum of the Universe which invariably connects us, I believe, with the Creator of the vastness of which we are all a part. Those moments when we can stop the words and the constant input of sound allows the gift of our own heartbeat to be the rhythm to which we move. Those times of silence and stillness when we walk silently through the ever unfolding minutes of each hour can provide the opportunity to feel and hear the rise and fall of our own expanding lungs.

These experiences, breath and heartbeat, give rise to praise of the purest sense. And for that I am grateful.

“Never underestimate the power of a small group of people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.”
~Margaret Mead

On Friday night I participated in a truly American phenomenon. That is North American phenomenon. My husband and I drove just short distance to a small town in southern Minnesota to attend an outdoor baseball game played by the Miesville Mudhens. We has done this a couple of years ago and had found it to be such an uplifting experience that we vowed to do it every summer. Somehow last summer passed by and we did not make it. But we agreed that this summer would be different.

Heading south on Highway 61 we drove through the corn which bookended the pavement on both sides. Though the corn was of varying heights, something we puzzled over, mostly it was five feet or more and tasseling. The farms that housed these crops rose like beacons across a landscape of green. Riding with the top down on our convertible, we gazed with admiration at the hard work of others on the behalf of all of us, human and animal alike.

Arriving in this sweet little town that consists mostly of two restaurants, one church, a cemetery, a few houses and one beautiful ball diamond, it feels as if you are driving into a movie set of every tear-jerking baseball movie ever made. The fact that, if a player is skilled enough to hit a home run, they do so into the tall stands of acre after acre of corn, is the whipped cream on top of an already fabulous sundae. People from all around come to these entertaining and well played games. The players play for the love of the game and it is a joy to watch young men doing something they love simply for the admiration of a crowd gathered to cheer them on. Children of all ages chase foul balls to return them to the concession stand for a treat. There is no endless supply of baseballs the way there might be in the major leagues where players are paid enormous sums of money to extend their childhood love into adulthood. No, for a candy bar or can of soda, a returned baseball hit foul,makes its way back onto the field for another go.

As is the tradition, this game began like all others. The announcement came that Krista would sing the National Anthem from the field. We stood, as we have been trained to do, and faced the flag that rose out of the corn on the third base line. As the young woman began to sing this impossibly difficult song, she held a cordless microphone and stood just behind home plate. No accompaniment of organ or recorded music gave her the pitch. She began low so as to, I imagine, be able to hit that high note at the end of the anthem.

That’s when it happened. The microphone began to cut out. About every third or fourth word was missing because the sound system was not doing its work. Being the caretaker and nervous person I am when people perform, I felt my anxiety begin to build. “Stop!”, I wanted to say. “Fix her microphone and let her have a do-over.” I had imagined, you see, this young woman practicing over and over in the confines of her own home, ready for her big moment.

But instead of the snickering of the crowd one might imagine at such a time, or even the announcer providing a do-over, something amazing happened. Slowly one voice began to join her. And then another, and another until the whole gathered body of people in the stands took up the song. Any evidence of the failing sound system was rendered moot by the grace and compassion of a group of people come together on a hot summer evening, in the middle of corn field, to watch America’s pass-time. We all reached that dreaded high note together and sounded wonderful!

My heart swelled with joy at this act of helping one person save face and shine in this spotlight moment. The experience once again renewed my confidence in the power of a few individuals to work together for the common good. In light of the news that had shaken us all on that same Friday, of one individual’s senseless violence in a Colorado movie theater, it was a welcome reminder that goodness still prevails.

May it always be so.

I had not noticed any ‘vanity’ license plates for some time. At least, not any that caught my attention and made we wonder about the driver behind the wheel of the moving message. And then on Thursday I saw two within minutes of one another.

Driving along the East River Road on my way to the office I waited while a car turned into the pathway in front of me. This silver SUV carried the letters ‘Justblv’ on its hindquarters. For several miles I followed this imploring message until it drove straight toward the University while I turned west. I wondered about the owner of the vehicle. What beliefs were they encouraging others to? Was this an echo of scripture or one that encouraged us to clap our hands to conjure up fairies like in a Peter Pan kind of believe? Was it an affirmation to believe in one’s self in an effort to keep on keepin’ on or to attain some goal? The seven letters sent my mind reeling.

Several miles down the road a black station wagon pulled into the lane in front of me. This cargo car’s message? ‘Free2Be’. Of course the children’s book from the sixties written by Marlo Thomas came immediately to mind. Free To Be You and Me</strong>. Dismissing this as the intended message, I thought about what compels a person to pay the extra money for a plate with this particular message. Perhaps they are a libertarian. Or an anarchist. Maybe the car is driven by an ‘old hippie’. Or maybe they just want to remind us all of our democratic rights to practice who we are in the land of the free and the brave. Who knows?