"Grant me the grace this day
to rest and remember
that there is nothing I have to do,
nothing I have to buy or sell,
nothing I have to produce or consume
in order to become who I already am:
your beloved creation.
May your overworked creation
and those who cannot rest today
come to know the liberation of your sabbath."
    ~Sam Hamilton-Poore

I have had one of those warp speed weeks and it is only Wednesday! I seem to have checked things off my to-do list as fast as I can add yet another urgent matter. Honesty requires that I say that everything I have been doing has been wonderful, a blessing. The stars have simply aligned to allow for several creation projects all at one time. Some weeks seem to have more than their share, don't they?

One of the blessings that has been mine this week is to be a part of a team that is planning a worship service for the 40th anniversary celebration of Earth Day. How can it be 40 years since we first honored this day set aside to remember and re-affirm our responsibility as humans living on this amazing Creation? While looking through some worship resources, I found the prayer that is above. I thought it was lovely and captured where I believe many people find themselves. I know I certainly do. How many times I measure my worth by what I feel I 'must' produce, what I feel I 'should' do, what I think I 'need' to buy in order to be a whole person. This spiral almost always leads me farther from who I truly am: a beloved creation of God, full and complete just as I am. The same can be said of all human beings.

The practice of sabbath holds a very important purpose: to stop us in our tracks long enough for us to remember who we are. Whether overworked or unable to rest, a practice of calling a halt to the frenetic activity most of us cave in to and feel is demanded of us, allows our body, mind and spirit to breathe deeply of the One who carries us even when we fail to notice. As the prayer suggests, there is liberation in that. 

Sabbath moments can encompass full days, an hour here and there, or simply an intentional sipping of a cup of tea. These spring days provide the perfect setting for moments of sabbath. Noticing, really observing the emerging tulip blooms in the yards we pass, how they slowly open like the wings of a butterfly. Allowing the time to check in every day with the maple tree that is doing its work of producing leaves for summer shade, watching how each day there is a minute amount of growth to be seen. Looking down at the sidewalk, keeping an eye out for the mounds of ants that have returned and can be seen crawling over one another doing who knows what and stopping to see if you can allow your eye to track just one particular insect as it zooms within a 2-3 inch radius. All are possible moments of liberation, of remembering who we are….observers, fellow earth travelers, historians, poets, storytellers, psalmists.

Today is as good a day as any to take a break, to begin the practice of sabbath moments. Today is as good a day as any to reach for liberation, the liberation of remembering who we are and for offering our gratitude to the One who called us into being. Today is as good a day as any to ask for grace, please?

n

"Baseball is an allegorical play about America, a poetic, complex, and subtle play of courage, fear, good luck, mistakes, patience about fate, and sober self-esteem."  ~Saul Steinberg

Nearly everyone you run into today in the Twin Cities, and perhaps even across the state, are excited about the opening game at the new Twins stadium. The newspapers, television and radio reports have all highlighted the first game in this long awaited return to outdoor baseball. As someone who did not grow up in Minnesota, I have no memories of anything but indoor baseball. All I have known is the roar of rabid fans inside the Metrodome. But last week we went to the new stadium for its open house and it was wonderful to see the usually humble Minnesotans walking around looking full of pride for such a beautiful facility. As we walked around the circumference of the stadium, the downtown skyline looked lovely and exciting, full of life. It was almost too much for some one the spectators who cast their eyes down as if to say 'this can't really be ours."

In writing this I know there are people who abhor this extravagance. I spoke with someone just last week who thought it was a terrible waste of money in such a time as this. He railed against the expense of something so lavish when just outside the doors there are so many people who are homeless, down-and-out, and in need of the simple necessities of life. While I don't disagree that there are all these problems to be cared for, I also can't help but remember the looks on the faces of those who walked around looking at the well created space for our national pass time. They were the faces of hope.

Hope comes to us in many guises. It arrives with the birth of a new child. It shows up when a problem that seems insurmountable shows a small crack where possibility can inch in. It is seen in the furrowed brow of a young child generating the answer to a difficult question.I saw it in the eyes of a seven year old boy as he looked at the green grass, the bases and the scoreboard that might someday carry his name. And hope also shows up in places where we can forget for a short period of time, but not forever, the desperate situations that make up our world. This is the work of theater, of music, of art and often of sports. Baseball, in particular, moves at a pace where you can watch a game, eat your dinner and carry on a fairly significant conversation at the same time. There is room to breathe and think in this game which is, I think, one of its gifts. Why I even have to admit that, nearly twenty-five years ago, I watched a Twins game while ordering my wedding band from a catalogue a friend had brought along!

I have warm memories of summer nights as a child, the humid Ohio heat soaking my cotton pajamas while in the next room my father listened to the Cincinnati Reds on the radio. That scratchy sound of voices rising and falling with excitement still lingers in my senses. It is probably when the hope of baseball was planted in me. It is probably why I feel the beginning of a baseball season is the start of, not only summer, but of a fresh start for so many things. Who knows what the season might bring? 

And so, as the Twins open this season, a clean slate and a new home is theirs. Outside the stadium the world will go on with its challenges, its failures and its loss. Our work in this arena is never finished. This is the fullness of life, that it contains, not only the deep valleys, but the mountain top experiences. So we take it all and do the best that we possibility can. I believe somehow taking a few hours away to enjoy the rhythm of baseball might provide the opportunity to rid our minds of the heaviness that can encroach with the pain of the world. It is not forgetting but, perhaps, a time of recharging.  And I am thankful for that.

"The heavens are telling the glory of God…." Psalm 19:1

These days demand that we look up. Look up into the blue sky
that is filled with some amazing cloud formations. I have no idea how and why
the clouds seem so particularly pronounced and beautiful in these April days.
Last night I watched as the clouds settled on the horizon at sunset. From the
window vantage point I had on a treadmill in the  gym where I work out, I could see the sky
like an artist’s easel being painted before my very eyes. On the brilliant blue
background, lavenders and golds were brushed across the bottom of the canvas
near the horizon. Above, dark,nearly navy, blue clouds marbled the middle of
the picture frame, constantly moving to form new shapes and colors like a giant
lava lamp in full motion. Higher above were what seemed to be the leftover
clouds of a sunny day, cotton balls of fluffy white painted with the simplicity
of a child’s hand. It was such an exquisite sight I am thankful I didn’t fall
off the moving machine that was raising my heart rate and, hopefully, toning my
muscles.

 This morning I had another reason to look up. Driving to
accomplish my regular Friday errands, I saw the graceful motion above me of
sight I hadn’t been blessed by for several months. Flying just above the
treetops a great blue heron was winging its way to a spring time lake. On its
way it seemed to be spreading glory as it glided on the first threads of the
morning. It is official…..spring is truly on its way!

 As if that weren’t enough gazing heavenward, only a few
hours later I looked up from the seat of my car, my errands now complete, to be
given the gift of an eagle flying directly across my path. I could see its
white head shining against the noontime sky. It soared with the majesty and the
power of knowing it is our national emblem. Frankly it almost seemed too many
blessings for just one morning but I’ll take all I’m offered and give my
thanks.

I was reminded of a scripture account in which Jesus asks:
”Why are you all standing around looking toward heaven?” Today my answer would
be because there are so many signs and wonders that grace the sky that connect
heaven and earth. Signs that remind me of the amazing gifts of Creator and
Creation. Signs that bring hope and glimpses of new life, of winter’s past and
summer’s future.

 And now I will keep my eyes straight ahead for safety’s
sake…..or at least until there is another glorious appearance that demands my attention.

 Have a blessed weekend……………….

"Every spring is the only spring-a perpetual astonishment." ~Ellis Peters

Today I have been traveling the highways and byways of the Twin Cities traveling to a variety of meetings. As I looked out on the emerging springtime landscape I have found myself exercising a curious behavior. I have been squinting. I have been narrowing my eyes so I can actually see the tiny shadows of green buds that appear minuscule in the grand scheme of tree life. With my eyes functioning in their fullness the green buds are nearly invisible. But if I squint….ohhh …there is the loveliest green. Spring green! In my squinting I am able to allow the emerging spring to find a fullness that is before its time. It feels somehow powerful and magical.

I began thinking about all the things that require us to view them in a way that it is outside our normal way of seeing. Many situations ask us to widen our eyes, to look for a deeper wisdom, a wide-angle lens of perception. At other times our understanding might be best served by view. Many situations require a zoom lens, shutting out all extraneous vision to get to the heart of what matters. Still different situations ask that we close our eyes altogether and allow our other senses to lead us. 

I am what is known as a 'visual' person, meaning I take in the majority of information that comes my way through seeing. Others process information through hearing, through the experience of touch and being fully engaged in an activity. As a visual person,how I experience what I see colors how I remember, what I find important, how I encounter other people, basically everything. What is your primary way of doing these things?

Lately I have found myself trying to look at some experiences with different lenses hoping to gain wisdom about how to react, how to answer some nagging questions. Am I too close to see what really needs to be done? Do I need a wider perspective in order to do what is right? What if I try looking at this situation with totally new eyes, as if I had never encountered it before? They are fascinating questions, easier to ask than answer.

In the meantime what is very easy to do is to squint .With my eyes narrowed into smaller versions of their hazel selves, I have the gift of seeing the springtime beauty blossom before me. By the time the buds reach their full potential I will have the blessing of seeing this greening twice. And really, what could be better?

"One must also accept that one has "uncreative" moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass. One must have the courage to call a halt, to feel empty and discouraged." Etty Hillesum

I was mindlessly leafing through some books this morning when I read these words of Etty Hillesum, poet and writer of her experiences in the concentration camps of WWII. My first reaction was to reject them. But then as I let myself sink more deeply into them, I allowed their truth to take root in me. I connected their truth to the way it often feels in the week following Easter or Christmas. In our homes, and for me, in my work life, so much energy and creativity gets poured into these celebrations that I can arrive in the days after in a sort of stunned state. It seems as if the creative juices have headed south for a little nap on the beach. 

This experience is not specific to those who create whether that is art, music, worship, food,homes, or poetry. No matter what our work there are times when the big ideas, the beautiful life-altering ideas just don't come. My inclination, and I don't think this is only mine, is to resist, to try to force into being what is no where to be found. It is then that discouragement can set in. Is there a gift that resides in being discouraged? Is there wisdom waiting to be discovered in this sense of emptiness? Somehow, I think so.

Perhaps these times in our lives come from a deep place that helps us call a halt long enough to allow our creative selves to take a breath, to relax into what the universe offers us next. If we simply push through the feeling of being discouraged, trying to 'make' something happen, we would miss this grand opportunity. In this way discouragement offers us a 'time out', a resting place so we can actually listen to our lives.

This is clearly what is happening outside our windows these days. The creativity of the earth is available everywhere we look. Green sprouts. Daffodils. Crocus. Budding trees. Nest building birds. Only a few days ago these same creative beings were hunkering down in a halted place, discouraged by temperatures from growing or greening any further. Their 'uncreative' moments were necessary to what is now emerging. Don't you think the same is true of we two-legged ones?

Whatever is discouraging you today, I invite you to take a walk, look around you. Allow the creativity that abounds to wash over you knowing that you did nothing to cause it to be and yet there it is. Out of the emptiness that is winter comes all this beauty. May it be so for us as well.

After a glorious Easter celebration yesterday, we find ourselves on what can be called Easter Monday….the day after the glorious celebrations. For those of us who work in the church, it is often a rest and recuperation day after the many detailed filled days that lead up to Sunday. Others are headed back to work or school and business as usual. The mountain top experience that may have been yesterday's news seems to be over and we move on. 

Thinking about this phenomenon this morning, I was reminded of a quote by Barbara Brown Taylor that I found in an essay I read in the last days of Lent. It caught my attention because of our church's theme of "Coloring Outside the Lines." She writes:“By then, they knew that God colored outside the lines all
the time-as a matter of divine principle-and there was no going back.” Taylor is speaking about the people she has known in her life who understand that being a person of faith is not about belief…..in fact, it goes 'way beyond belief' which is the title of this essay. She is speaking about the people who walk along side the Holy to places they never intended to go, carrying out acts they never expected to do, living lives that continue to surprise and startle them. She says these are the people in the scriptures and those in our daily lives who take seriously a word we don't say very often anymore but is littered throughout the Bible: Behold! 

Behold! The tomb is empty. Behold! The bush is burning. Behold! The daffodils are blooming. Behold! The head is crowning. Behold! The breath is gone. Behold! The stars are too numerous to count. Behold! The river is running. Behold! The tears are falling. Behold! The laughter is contagious. Behold! Behold! Behold!

On this day after Easter, for those of us who call ourselves Christian,our work is clear. We have been challenged once again by the divine principle of coloring outside the lines. If we take seriously the alleluias of yesterday, there is no going back. We are the people meant to walk out our doors every morning ready to Behold! 

If you have already stumbled your way into Easter Monday with a fuzzy brain, a slightly sick stomach from too many jelly beans,a small headache from the trumpets still ringing in your ears, never fear. The good news….at least a part of it…is that this beautiful Creation of which we are a part is filled to overflowing with moments to behold. Our work is to see each one as a stone rolled away moment, a Behold! moment to witness. And then our next step is to tell the next person and the next…one more time.

From the way I read the scriptures, that is what Easter is all about.

I have just finished being a part of our noon Good Friday service. It was a lovely gathering of people, small and intimate. We observed the service of tenebrae..the service of shadows. As the scriptures of Good Friday are read outlining the arrest and death of Jesus, candles are slowly extinguished, the shadows descend on the people. The quiet music of this service can take those present to a place of their own shadows, their own brokenness. The readings can allow people to hear, not only the very specific story of Jesus, but the continued injustices in their own lives, the ways in which we are surrounded all the time by people who are lost, left out, on the margins. We can hear also the voices of those who stand firm, speaking truth to power.

Good Friday leads us toward Easter, the celebration of new birth, of resurrection in all the many ways in can be defined. On Sunday we will again celebrate the specific ways in which the followers of Jesus witnessed his presence after his death but we will also be reminded of the many ways new birth is happening all around us every day. We will be reminded of the earth that is greening and springing new life. We will honor the ways in which healing has happened in our lives, the lives of those we love. We will also look for ways that we as a people have risen above terrible despair to a brighter, richer place.

The reality is that all of life is held in the balance of the experience we have this weekend. We are always someplace between brokenness and new life. Whether this is our personal experience or not, it is certainly true in the life of our world. There are babies born and people die. There are triumphs of success in our work and the failures that travel with us on the same curving road. As the tulips in our yard push their way toward the warming sun, they do so through the dead leaves of last summer. It is the nature of the cycle of things.

How we choose to participate in this makes all the difference. As I listened to the scriptures today I once again came face to face with the many ways I participate, knowingly and unknowingly, in the brokenness of the world. I was reminded of the people I pass each day who have been battered by life's storms, some to the point of near extinction. I am a part of their living even when I choose to turn my head the other way. And on Sunday morning when I join in the joyous shouting of an 'Alleluia!' that too will be a full bodied experience. The important thing is how I remember that they are connected, how I am connected to the broken and the rebirthed. The important thing is how I see the Holy moving, not only in the glorious celebration of Sunday morning, but also in the pain and alienation of Good Friday. 

With this wide angled lens, the gift is seeing the sacredness of the whole in the common places between where we live most days. Between brokenness and resurrection. Between Good Friday and Easter. Between Sunday and Monday and every other day. Seeing with eyes remade for wonder, we can come to know the One who moves in between. And in that we can muster up a resounding 'Alleluia!'

Have a blessed and joyous Easter………….

As a child growing up in a small town in southern Ohio, the practice of observing Holy Week was much different than the one I engage in now. During those weeks of my childhood and teen years, the churches in town held services every night of the week leading up to Easter. The minister of a particular denomination always preached in a church not their own and the choir or singers from a congregation did not sing from their own choir loft. I suppose this presented the challenge of an accompanist playing a strange instrument and a preacher finding a different comfort level in an alien pulpit. There was not much attention paid to what I now think of as 'traditional' liturgy of Maundy Thursday or Good Friday. We simply showed up as guests in the pews of churches not our own to share stories we held in common.

I have to admit to being kind of a 'church geek' even as a kid. I loved going to those services at other churches. I loved seeing people I knew from the grocery store or school in their own worship setting. The fact of the matter is, I know now, there was not much difference in what happened in any of those Protestant churches all highly influenced by a common world view. But, as is also common, we all like to think our way of doing things has a particular flair, a more certain truth than the next person especially when it comes to how we worship. So there was a certain element of spying on how others were doing things in this week we knew to be central to our faith. 

Today as I sat in our small chapel for our Maundy Thursday worship service, I thought about those worship services of my youth. I looked around and saw many people I knew and others I didn't. Everyone there knew pretty much what they were in for: what hymns might be sung, the scripture that would be read. There was comfort in that. As I listened to the scripture of Jesus and the disciples sharing a meal, of him washing the feet of the disciples, I thought about how often I have heard that story. Something about it never gets old. Friends gathered around a table sharing bread and wine, being urged to remember who they were, who they had become, how their lives had been changed.  

Today Christians around the world will hear this same story, one that if you listen closely, if your heart is open, always carries something new. While my experience of how I observe this day may have changed, I am connected in deep ways to those people in my hometown who still travel from church to church. As they take up their place in a pew that is foreign to them, I find my place in one that I occupy with regularity. But what holds us together is the story, the bread, the cup, the spirit of remembering what it means to be people who continue to mine the gifts of this very complicated way called Christian. 

"God of the ages
to whom the hours
are nothing
and everything:
may I know each moment
as a sacred guest
to be welcomed,
to be savored,
to be sent
with a blessing."
~Jan L. Richardson  

"Christ, all love, you speak one word to us: Yes. Yes, I am with you. Yes, I always will be. Yes, in deepest sorrow. Yes, when you have lost your way, your sight, yourself. Yes, when you don't know what to do and when there is nothing you can do; Yes, today and tomorrow." ~Julian of Norwich

Over the weekend I had the privilege of 'being the voice' of Julian of Norwich, a 14th century mystic whose words seem to be long before their time as our sanctuary choir presented a lovely musical setting of her words. Her writing seems miraculous to me given the climate in which she lived, given the fact that she was a woman in a church ruled by those who would have much preferred she remain silent.  Her life was plagued with great pain, both physical and spiritual. And yet she had the clarity of an experience of the Holy that rings throughout time. Her words reflect a broader understanding of God than the common church language, not only of her time but also ours, might allow. She used multiple images of God and blurred the often exclusively male language attributed to speaking of the Sacred.

But even more than those gender nouns and pronouns, her understanding of our relationship with the Holy One carries such acceptance, such grace, such gentleness. As I read her words during the concert, my eyes took in the faces, the beautiful faces of those gathered. I wondered about those who were listening. How were they experiencing these words? Did they seem foreign? Did a God whose one word to us is 'Yes' align with the the one they learned of in Sunday School, in sermons, in scripture? I also thought of all those people I knew who have been so wounded by the church. Those who cannot find a home in any faith community.  Those who think that the rhetoric they often hear on radio and television spoken with anger and vengeance, voices claiming to speak for Jesus, is all there is. 

To these people and to all people I offer Julian's experience of the Holy when she writes: "Yes, on this corner of my good earth and wherever your feet may take you. Yes, to the end of the earth and the eternity of time. Yes, for you are never abandoned. You are forever the unforsaken, the beloved, a cradled child. Mine. And my word to you is singular: Yes."

The 'Yes' of God carries us into the next days when we remember and celebrate the Way in which Jesus of Nazareth walked in the world. At every turn he offered a 'yes' to those on the margins, those left out, those who were hungry, those who didn't know where to turn. Like Julian, he embraced the 'yes' of the Holy in his own life and then extended that affirmation to all he met. 

"My saints long before you clung to my "Yes" in circumstances unimaginable, amid joys inexpressible and griefs unbearable. And I was enough for them. I was their "Yes," and ever I shall be for you."

"An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day." Henry David Thoreau

We have a gigantic amaryllis bulb that has been growing in a pot on our kitchen table since Valentine's Day. Over the last two weeks it has developed five saucer-sized blossoms of delicate pinks and creamy white. None bloomed at the same time. They each had their own coming out day. We, the observers, had to keep a trained eye to the next miracle emerging from our dining table. Over the course of several days, another show of floral beauty dazzled us as we consumed cereal and soup. 

Yesterday as I was inwardly lamenting the blossoms that have now withered and fallen off, I noticed what seems like another shoot of green pushing its way up the side of the nearly two foot stalk that housed these flowers. This morning I saw that it had grown another several inches. I marveled: could it be possible that yet another shoot would give birth to even more pink and white color? My husband registered his skepticism. It didn't seem probable that we could be blessed twice by one gnarly looking, o.k. ugly, bulb. Who knows? But we will continue our breakfast and dinner vigil, watching with untrained, yet hopeful, eyes.

This waiting and watching got me thinking about the many ways in which we receive unexpected blessings. This morning on my walk across Loring Park I was serenaded by a choir of red-winged black birds. These birds which most often go unnoticed amid their flashier feathered friends, seemed to be singing seduction songs across tree branches. I felt blessed to be present to their love lurings……. not something I expected on a Monday morning. 

A few steps along the same path I passed a man walking his dog. The man was in a hurry. The dog wasn't. His mutt body, weighing in someplace between beagle and corgi, exuded the happiness of walking in a place so full of new life and good scents. As the two humans and one canine crossed the small foot bridge, the dog stopped right in his tracks, looking me square in the eyes. I swear I think he smiled! I know I did as his owner gave a gentle tug on his leash to get him moving. I walked on having been given what felt like a dog blessing.

For the longest time humans have tried to relegate blessings to certain places…churches for instance….but we might as well give in. Blessings are surrounding us all the time. To bless means: the infusion of something with holiness, divine will, or one's hope. In the amaryllis plant I see the divine will to give birth, to be beautiful, to save my human self from the grayness of winter days. In the song of the red-winged black birds I heard the hope of summer yet to come. In the eyes of a leashed dog I saw unconditional acceptance and maybe even love.

Twice blessed? Oh, no…..so many times blessed!