Some time last year I heard Susan Werner being interviewed on public radio. She told of traveling to more than 20 churches across the country and then sitting down to write the songs that make up her CD "The Gospel Truth."At the time of the interview, I was running errands and actually sat and listened in the Target parking lot. I was so taken with her lilting voice, her hard questions that melted into beautiful lyrics, the longing and power in the timbre of her voice.

Words like: "Excuse me sir what did you say, when you shout so loud it’s hard to tell. You have that I must change my ways for I am surely bound to hell. Well I know you’d damn me if you could. But my friend, that’s simply not your call. If God is great and God is good, why is your heaven so small?"

I find that powerful stuff. There have certainly been times when I have been a visitor at a church and have felt something similar. And being someone who has given much of her life to the daily workings of the church, I pray that no one ever leaves a worship service with the same feeling. But I am sure it has happened and I feel the pain of that.

Werner’s words carry a deep longing for what I would call the kin-dom of God…..that gathering of people that lives in the Way of Jesus. A community that is loving, peaceful, accepting,non-judgmental, hopeful,compassionate and unconditional in its pursuit of goodness."I got plenty and then some, what do I do? I got plenty and then some, what do I do? I go out and help somebody get plenty and then some too, that’s what I do." The connections that gird the social action of the church runs through each song.

The pain of being rejected by people who profess belief in a God of Love also finds voice in her lyrics: "How do you love those who never will love you, who are happy to shove you out in front of the train? How do you not hate those who have loaded their Bibles and armed their disciples?  And I can’t find forgiveness for them anywhere in this, and with God as my witness, I really have tried." Those words break my heart because I know so many people who could sing those words with such conviction.

But perhaps the song that most touches me is Sunday Morning."Sunday morning there is someplace that I’m supposed to be. Keeps returning, the feeling keeps coming over me. Just like music, or like sunlight on a a distant memory. Sunday mornings.Sunday mornings." In this song she remembers what it was like to be a part of a family that attended church together, the rituals, warm feelings and sense of safety and belonging that brought to her. As she grew and felt more alienated by her view from the pew, she finally left. But the longing continues and led to the creation of these songs.

If you want to hear the beautiful music that accompanies these words, I invite you hear Susan at Hennepin Church on April 11th. If you cannot make it, I commend her CD to you. She is a minstrel with a heart of gold and a deep search for faith.

"You’re not going to see people like this again for a long time, he said & I said I always saw people like this & he looked at me for a moment & said, You’re not from around here, are you?" Brian Andreas, Traveling Light

Back now on Minnesota soil, surrounded by the blinding light of sun on snow, I have found myself daydreaming about last week’s trip to the beach. I have been caught staring longingly off into the distance, remembering the green grass, brilliant colors of flowers,warm temperatures, sumptuous food I didn’t cook and the slow pace that usually overtakes a person when they have the sound of surf as their background music.

I have also been thinking about the interesting people we met and those we only observed. One young woman in particular keeps coming to mind. Thursday afternoon we walked the sand on Hilton Head Island. People were running, riding bikes, flying kites, reading and just sitting, soaking up the sun. I was walking with my head turned toward the water. That’s when I saw the first fin move above the waves. Soon there was another and another and then people stopped to watch. Dolphins!

As we stood there staring, my eyes were diverted by a young woman in a bathing suit and tank shirt, camera in hand. She was walking in a way that was so determined I had to stop looking at the dolphins and watch her. Her long, lithe strides took her right into the icy, cold water, her arms now lifted high above her head to keep the camera dry. She was so focused, so intent on getting as close as humanly possible, I began to feel this affinity with her desire. Inside my head I was cheering her on. "Go, go, swim as near as you can….swim with the dolphins!"

The beautiful mammals moved down the beach, following the wind and waves. Someone called out to her, "Look, there they are!." She was now an extension of all who watched. But she was the brave one, moving through the waves, the water nearly up to her neck now. She was close to them now but they of course kept moving while she was pushed constantly back by the power of the waves, the force of the undertow.

Back on the land, a woman dressed in warmer clothes called her name. Her mother? Finally, she began to move back toward shore. Did she get the picture she wanted? Did she get close enough?  I don’t know. Somehow as I left that scene I was certain of one thing. I am sure that was not the first time the one who called her name had seen the determined, confident walk that led her into the sea. A smile began to form on my face…..and I stood a little taller.

"I hope it will be said we taught them to stand tall & proud, even in the face of history & the future was made new & whole for us all, one child at a time." Brian Andreas

"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious,
too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as
a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea".
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

I have spent the last several days on beaches. Some were filled with retired folks walking leisurely with seemingly not a care in the world. On others college students played volleyball and Frisbee, full of the exuberance of spring break in a warm climate.Peppered among these people were families with young children building sand castles and trying to outrun the waves as they rolled onto shore. And there were plenty of us who fell in between all these descriptions.

The common bond of all these people? Shells. All along the beaches people of varying ages and stages of life periodically bent over and retrieved from the sand this treasure….a sea shell. What is the amazing appeal of these fragile things? Is it the tiny, unique and intricate beauty of each one? Is it that they were once home to something alive? Is it that they somehow connect us with the sea, that place from which humans most likely emerged to walk the Earth? No matter one’s view of the genesis of Creation, all humans came into the world through the water that held us…our mother’s womb . Our first home was water and the majority of our body is made up of water. So it only seems right that we should walk the sand and recover these little containers of life that was once held in the vastness of water.

At each beach, I started out telling myself that I will only pick up the ‘very unusual one’. But before I know it there I am, pockets full, hands full, no more room….until the next walk. On this outing the only thing missing was the occasional addition of the shell that one of my sons knew I couldn’t live without. Off on their own adventures now, I missed their contributions to my obsession.

At baptism we often use shells to remind us of the vast bodies of water that nurture us, nourish us, connect us,cleanse us, give us life. This Earth on which we travel is mostly water, a shell of sorts on which we ride, tucked into its curves and crannies, we listen for the whoosh of its water within our ears, within our heart.  We grow and outgrow, abandon our shell homes and take on new ones. Yet this Earth home remains constant,true. Perhaps that is what draws us to these jewels we find when the tides deliver them at our feet. Bending down, we reach out and pick up and we remember. Young ones new to this earth tuck an oyster shell in a pocket and remember. Those full of the promise of what is yet to be press a scallop shell into the hand of another young one and remember. Reaching down and saving a conch shell from being drawn back into the tide, those who have walked the beach many years, remember.

And so it goes……………..on and on and on.

The last several days we have been traveling in the islands off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina. We have witnessed amazing wild life, some unusual to our Midwestern eyes, and some birds that may also spend the summer days in our Minnesota backyard. Seeing them gave new meaning to the term ‘snowbird’.

This Low Country, as it is called, is the home of the loggerhead turtles, those amazing creatures that come ashore to lay their eggs on the beaches surrounded by marshes and salt water. They live a precarious life. Signs in a nature preserve stated:Loggerhead turtles find their way to the nest by the light of the moon. No artificial light please! I am imagining that in late May and early June many eager tourists line the beaches to see the loggerheads make their way onto the beach. Those same people probably carry flashlights to get a better look at this miraculous phenomenon and can throw the turtles off their natural course.

I thought of the many times I had been thrown off by ‘artificial’ light. Those times when I have been lured by the glow of material possessions, fancy this or that, the fleeting words of recognition and affirmation. Following that artificial light almost always leads away from the internal, natural path. If the loggerheads are thrown off by the artificial light, they will not return to their rightful home. So it is with we humans.

Last night we walked the beach and stood looking up at the night sky. There is very little artificial light from tall buildings or large cities. The constellations, those guiding stars of our ancestors blinked brightly, as they have since the beginning of time. Staring heavenward, the natural lights of our Universe told us exactly where we stood in the scheme of things. Without artificial light to throw you off, it is easy to remember who you are and whose you are…….and the way home.

Walking along the river in Savannah, Georgia on Saturday, I saw a man selling lovely pieces of slate with wicks that burned brightly. The thin pieces of gray and brown slate had some kind of oil container inserted that allowed the rocks to appear to be burning. As I looked over the varying shapes and sizes of these rock and fire creations, my eyes fell upon his aqua t-shirt: Love Your Life! it said in bold white letters. That morning, in addition to preparing his goods to sell, he had also decided to send people an important message.

In one of Savannah’s green squares not too far from where this man was working there is a bronze statue of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement. Wesley and his brother Charles are famous in this city. John lived here from February 1736 to December 1737. It was a short, troubled, but significant stay on the shores of this new land. John preached on street corners, befriended the Native Americans here, and began the Sunday School in America. Through the weekly gatherings at his simple wooden parsonage, twenty to thirty people studied scripture, prayed for one another, shared their faith and created community….still the backbone of what it means to be the church.

On the base of the statue of Wesley are these words: "I felt my heart strangely warmed. While we live, let us live in earnest. I look upon all the world as my parish. The best of all God is with us." Each of these sentences were spoken by Wesley in different situations but they make a nice synopsis of his message.

As he witnessed a group of Moravians in prayer,Wesley had been moved by their faith and how he saw the Spirit moving in their lives. He wanted what they had. Through his interaction with them, his faith moved from head to heart and that connection carried him through the ups and downs of his ministry of which there were many. His intention was never to start a church but to continue a movement of renewal in the church he loved,the Church of England. His desire to help people connect their faith with their real, everyday lives, to lift the poor and troubled out of despair and to give them inspiration for a new and better life, called him to name the world his parish. And that passionate belief that God is in the messiness of it all led him to live that faith every day.

In this city known for ghosts and spirits, the presence of John Wesley lives on in the bells that sing out familiar hymns on the hour and the beauty of church steeples. But on Saturday I also found another reminder of that presence.Though separated by centuries,Wesley and the artist who had taken cold, hard slate and given it warmth and the life of a flickering flame had much in common. Both carried a similar, earnest message: Love Your Life!

"Alice laughed:  "There’s no use trying," she said; "one can’t believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven’t had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was
younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve
believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Alice in Wonderland

Impossible. This is a fabulous quote from this wild and crazy story of Alice and her adventures in Wonderland. Do you entertain impossible ideas? Do you allow your mind to travel to the place of ‘impossible possibility’?Alice’s story has the gift of being both for children and for adults. While following Alice’s antics and discoveries, we see the nuggets of wisdom tucked into this often very convoluted story.Children hear the story from one perspective and are affirmed. Adults read the story and can be challenged to remember what it was like to be open to the adventure of the impossible.

While most of us don’t encounter rabbits that talk or get to dance with the Queen of Hearts, we often face some pretty challenging situations that call us to harbor impossible ideas. As we sit down to hammer out a new plan in our work or try to make sense of a difficult relationship, the gift of impossible thinking can be quite helpful. When funds are short and there need to be cuts to a budget, impossible thinking can open the door to Wonderland. When we set a goal to accomplish something that seems important and big in our lives, it is important to hold on to the idea of being able to achieve the impossible.

I think of all the things that have been impossible ideas in my lifetime…..people walking on the Moon….phones without cords…..the Internet…..cures and vaccines for countless diseases……collecting the wind to create power……cooking food without fire…….the list goes on and on. I can’t even imagine all the ‘impossible’ things those who have lived into their nineties or have reached one hundred have seen.

How many impossible things can you imagine in this moment? What might our lives be like if we, like the Queen, spent a half hour each day imagining impossible things? Impossible thinking is faith thinking. Impossible thinking is creative thinking. Impossible thinking is spirit-filled thinking.

There are many needs within our world that may only be solved by impossible thinking. Poverty. Homelessness. Peace. To name only three. Perhaps today is the day to begin. Only God knows where it will lead. I think it is worth a try. How about you?

Have a wonderful weekend……………

I heard Ann Bancroft, Arctic explorer and educator, being interviewed on the radio today. After the introduction that included her many accomplishments,the host asked her what she was doing these days. Her reply? "I’m between expeditions right now. Not, "I am not doing anything." or "I don’t know what’s next for me." but "I’m between expeditions right now." What a wonderful answer!

Hearing her words I wondered what might happen if we treated all those times when we don’t know what the next step will be for us as simply a time ‘between expeditions.’ When we are between expeditions, it is easier to be creative in our thought process. We use our imaginations and live by our dreams. We make our questions big and bold in the asking. We spend time mulling over the possibilities rather than limiting the next step with practicalities. We rely on the Spirit’s movement to nudge us, to breathe life into the small spaces of our plans. We consult maps and look at all the outlying areas in addition to the well defined, clear and familiar roadways.

Are you between expeditions right now? Sometimes this in-between time is a situation not of our own choosing. It does not feel like a gift or luxury but a sentence to be lived out. Through illness, life changes, job loss, grief, depression, we can find ourselves in the land of in-between. Other times we have intentionally chosen to leave one place and have no idea where the road will take us. Whatever has led to where we are, I believe there is gift in thinking of the present moment as ripe with possibility.

In the Book of Exodus, the people are always on one expedition or another. From slavery to freedom, despair to hope, from faithfulness to disobedience, on the one hand believing God is with them and the next moment that they have been abandoned completely.Their wilderness is both actual landscape and spiritual desolation. But as Moses led them from one expedition to the next, "God went in from of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people."

I believe it is the same with us….the Holy travels with us even when we are between expeditions.

A report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public life issued this week gave my colleagues and I fodder for good conversation yesterday. The report states that one fourth of adult Americans have a different religious affiliation than the one in which they grew up. That figure actually lumps together all Protestant denominations and when you allow for those people who move fluidly between United Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and all others, the number jumps to 44 percent. This is not particularly startling news to those of us who live and work in the church. We see it every Sunday, every time we receive new members, at nearly every class that is held, at every dinner that is served. The circle of who we are is made up of people who have been open to the Spirit’s movement in their lives and that has often led them to places they never dreamed of.

Of course, these statistics can make those trying to maintain the institution quake in their Sunday shoes. And there is reason to worry if what we are trying to do is simply maintain the institution, to continue an unchanging tradition that is the church, to maintain a pledge base that will sustain buildings built in another time when loyalty to one church was the norm. Seen through that lens, there is much to lose.

But I often wonder if we really see the great gifts in this fluidity of movement between faith communities. Yesterday around our circle we shared the gifts we had been given by being in the presence of people from other faith traditions. People spoke of seeing the world, the church,even God in new ways  through worshiping with and hearing the messages of other religions….ways that enriched their own spiritual life and helped them grow in their understanding of what it meant to be Christian. Others learned through that same kind of encounter what they don’t believe. Always a good thing as the negatives make our own  understanding clearer and fuller, more truthful somehow.

From my own spiritual journey I recognize the gifts I received from being in seminary with Unitarian Universalists. That experience helped me to articulate my own faith experience in new ways. I think of my friends who practice Buddhism. I have learned the gifts of meditation, of presence, of letting go from them. My many Roman Catholic friends have challenged me to see social justice as a mandate of the Gospel. My Jewish friends have helped me remember my faith roots and the power of family ritual, of life passages. My more evangelical family and friends have helped me know the power of heart and speaking your faith in the world. Those I have known who are Quaker have instilled in me the gift of silence and listening before acting and speaking. So many traditions, so many ways of walking faithfully in the world.

Could I have learned all these things by simply hanging around with those just like me? I don’t think so. Each encounter with those other faith traditions and also many of no faith tradition has helped me see the Holy in new ways, ways that have informed and continue to form who I am in my walk with God. I will always believe this is a good thing. The faithful will continue to find ways to maintain the institutions that give structure to who we are. But the people…the faithful, seeking, amazing people will continue to be open to the Spirit…and only God knows where that will take us.

"And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability." Acts 2:2-4

I was taken by an article in this morning’s Star Tribune. The headline read: ‘A Noah’s Ark for Seeds.’ The article reported on the vault that was being inaugurated today that will hold seeds for the Earth’s plant life, protecting them from earthquake or nuclear attack. Situated of the northern coast of Norway, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a ‘backup to the world’s 1,400 other seed banks.’ This inauguration was to be attended by about 150 guests from 33 countries. The vault is owned by Norway, cost $9.1 million to build and was built in less that a year. It is reported that ‘even if the air conditioning failed, the permafrost would keep the seeds cold for 200 years. The good news: other countries can deposit seeds for free.

It was a fascinating story built on a concept I simply never had imagined. Someplace, somewhere, someone is gathering seeds and keeping them safe. Just writing that makes me feel more hopeful about….well, everything. I may sounds silly but it is true. The idea that there are people who care for the world’s plant life enough to do this is reassuring. Granted this plant life is probably made up of mostly seeds that grow into plants that feed us and sustain us  and so we have a vested interest. Their survival is our survival. But don’t you think the people who care enough to do this, also threw in a few wildflower seeds…daisies or Indian paintbrush, a sunflower seed or two, some prairie grass? How could it not be so?

After I read this article I sat for awhile and simply thought about seeds Earlier I had been looking through the Farmer’s Almanac at all the planting schedules, checking over which of the upcoming weeks it will be safe to plant seeds outside in various parts of the country. Seeds….those tiny little promises of so much….good food, heart-stopping beauty,brilliant color, rich abundance, of simple heritage and strong tradition.

I wondered…..is there a place in that vault for other seeds we want to ensure will never be lost, that need our protection? Seeds of creativity….seeds of faith…seeds of love….seeds of compassion….seeds of loyalty…seeds of trust…seeds of justice….seeds of hope. 

Somehow I think the people who built the vault, who watch over the seeds, carried the dust of all those unseen seeds with them as they did their work. I am grateful for their vision.

"He also said,"With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."  Mark 4:30-32

"We act in faith, knowing that we see only dimly. But living in faith, we act anyway, choosing and doing the best we can. We act and live in confidence that someday we will see face to face, that we will live into the answers. For God’s grace embraces our questions as well as our answers and our blindness as well as our vision, just as the sun shines steadily through the night, waiting to illumine the sky at dawn." Jean M. Blomquist, Wrestling till Dawn

Looking out our windows this morning, before sunrise, the fog created a magical vision as the streetlights shone into the haze. The houses up and down our street, those I know so well that I don’t really see them any more, were masked by the ground clouds that enveloped them. I struggled to remember what I knew….their colors, their shapes. Squinting into the darkness and invisibility, I struggled to really see.

Fog can be a great metaphor for how we walk through our lives. There is so much that blurs our vision. I was reminded of this last week as I read newspapers from a different part of the country. The coverage, the questions, the issues that were related to the political process at hand seemed foreign to me. Through their lens, the view was different than what is reported here in Minnesota. What mattered to the people there was different given their life experience, their world view, how they live their daily lives. I felt as if I was looking into a fog.

The same is, of course, true in the church. People of faith have a lens that is colored by their world view, their life experience. A seminary professor I once had said that real estate and our theology have much in common: Location, location, location. My view as an middle-class, educated woman defines how I see the Holy at work in the world. My lens allows questions that would not be important or relevant to others. Yet all our questions, all our searching, all our life experiences hold equal weight in the eyes of God. And I believe that our coming together as people of faith, with all our lenses and our lives, helps us to see the bigger picture….the wider image of God if we are open to being illuminated by the views of another.

Jean Blomquist also writes: " Our questions can serve us well in a time such as this, a time of great uncertainty, of soaring potential, of fragile yet resilient hope. Our questions and questing are crucial, because they can help us live into the answer of the future. I am certain of one thing: the love that is God is at the heart of the answer, just as it is at the heart of each moment-past,present and future."

The fog will lift. We can count on it.