How Lucky We Are

"Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now."

These are the lines from Hamilton stuck in my head this week along with "just like my country, I'm young, scrappy and hungry, and I'm not throwin' away my shot." (I know, I am really late to the Hamilton party of delight and inspiration, but since watching last month, I'm all in, meaning some song is playing in my mind nearly all the time, wanted or not. )

They remind me of one of my favorite poems,  A Sleep of Prisoners, where Christopher Fry writes,

Thank God our time is now when wrong

Comes up to face us everywhere,

Never to leave us till we take

The longest stride of soul we ever took.

I am as perplexed about when and how schools should open as anyone. I grieve how Covid-19 and centuries of racism continue to bring so much death and suffering. I can get as worked up as any about people choosing not to wear a mask. There is so much to take in, to grieve, to question, to call out. It can be overwhelming and exhausting.

But when I look around, look around, I also see so much beauty and goodness, hope and love:

• I see people showing up on virtual calls courageously sharing their struggles and being met with such compassion and encouragement.

• I see home and community gardens flourishing from the extra time and tending they received this Spring while people were at home.

• I see white people confronting their denial and discomfort about racism in our country and committing themselves to deep inner work and social change to move us toward more racial justice and equity.

• I see parents seeking creative possibilities and making hard, often sacrificial choices to teach and to tend to their little ones and others' during this time of uncertainty.

• I see Democrats and Republicans alike seeking to move beyond the polarization and contempt for the other side, often stoked by the media and the parties, to find more common ground on pressing issues. (Maybe  this could be a guide?)

• I see compassionate souls creating and sharing some of the most beautiful and inspiring  prayers, art,  songs, and  books I've ever encountered.

• I see millions of people of all ages and stages taking to the streets in largely peaceful, non-violent protests to call our nation to accountability and demand a better, more just way forward.

• I see a country witnessing in powerful ways to the life and legacy of spiritual, moral leader, and civil rights icon John Lewis, and taking his final plea to heart.

Maybe we don't have all the answers or solutions yet. But I think we are asking the right questions: Who do we want to be as individuals, communities, and a country? How can we elect leaders and formulate policies that better reflect our beliefs and values? What are we really here for? Some of our wounds run so deep, and our injustices are so embedded. But at least we are seeing the wounds, confessing our sins, trying to do the hard work of repentance, healing and repair.

I know there is a lot of wishing for days gone by, whether it's for our lives pre-Covid or a former era in our national history. But we're not going back. That's not how God moves, not in our personal lives and not in history. Ours is a God, a Spirit, who is always doing a new thing, creating new possibilities out of messiness and chaos, nudging and pushing us toward new life, greater love, more freedom and justice, a brighter, bolder vision of God's beloved community. So I for one, am eager and hopeful for the new way God is making for each and all of us.

When I was little, I remember my beloved granddad Theo expressing astonishment that he got to live through the most exceptional period of human history.

If he were alive today, I might want to debate with him on that. But maybe the invitation is for all of us to feel that way, gratitude and astonishment that we get this little hallowed stretch of life to enjoy and to offer to God to try to make this world a little better, kinder, more just, more beloved than how we found it.

I'm not throwin' away my shot. How about you?

Grateful to be alive right now with you, 

Kimberly

Unplugging Our Ears

Theo has started plugging his ears when we try to talk to him about something troubling he has done, for instance, squishing his little brother despite Luca's uproarious protests. When we ask him to stop, he can't look at us, often turns his back, and puts both hands over his ears. It's annoying, and in a more heated moment, sometimes it's downright maddening.

At the same time, I get it. Who among us likes being held accountable, enjoys being called out on our wrongdoing? It's really uncomfortable at best, shaming at worst. Often we already know we've done something wrong, and have begun the self-recriminations, so it just feels like piling on. And when someone lets us know our words or actions have really hurt them, that's just plain painful.

I think about a recent exchange in the car with Michael when he shared that something I did really upset him. After a wave of defensiveness, trying to justify my hurtful behavior, I went deathly silent, kept looking out the windows, or at my phone. I wanted to take off my seat belt, throw myself out of the vehicle and run away.

I also distinctly remember a moment in my youth that felt particularly painful. We junior high youth were at Lake Junaluska for Summer camp. I don't remember the exact nature of my infraction, but it probably had something to do with leaving someone out, a hurtful behavior I as an insecure middle schooler was apparently quite good at. My youth director came and found me, sat me down, described what I had done, and how it had made another girl feel. And then he looked me in the eyes and said, "Kimberly, would Jesus be happy with you?" Those words cut to the quick of my adolescent, Jesus-loving heart, and I felt my whole body burn with shame.

I also know what it feels like to be on the other side of that exchange. A few years ago, I wrote a letter to a friend expressing how her critical remarks made me feel, and that the compounded hurt was getting in the way of our relationship. I knew she did not mean harm, and I tried to assure her of my love and gratitude for all the ways she expressed her love for me. Knowing these things can be sensitive, I thought a letter might be an easier way to receive the truth of how I was feeling, before talking about it.

It did not go well. My friend responded that it was the most painful thing that had ever happened to her, she couldn't talk about it, and it ended up feeling like the wounds between us compounded, rather than healed as I had hoped.

Why is it so difficult to hear when we've said or done something wrong, when we've hurt someone? I mean, we humans are all a mixed bag of light and dark, kindness and malice, grace and greed. Put us together in relationship, and we're bound to bump into each other, rub the wrong way, and outright hurt each other. Put us in a group, community, or nation, the hurt and neglect compounds. Even with the best of intentions, we all say or do or neglect to do things that wound others. So why all the denial and defensiveness, averting of eyes and plugging of ears, going awkwardly silent, like we might just die if we have to admit wrongdoing or say, I'm sorry?

I take some comfort remembering that we humans seemed to have struggled with this from the get go. Think of old Adam and Eve, hiding themselves in the garden, then passing the blame when God called them out for eating the forbidden fruit. Think of Cain, questioned about his brother Abel, and pleading ignorance, snarking, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Think of the whole prophetic tradition, these men and women called by God to speak truth when we as a whole community have gone off the rails, often to people who have no desire to hear.

One of my favorite words I learned in seminary was scotosis.  

SCOTOSIS: a deliberate darkening of the mind; intellectual blindness. Not a simple ignorance, but a willful closing of the eyes, mind, heart to what IS, pretending to not see or know what we really see and know.

It seems that from small wrongs to massive injustices, we humans really have trouble seeing and hearing the truth. We get awkward and defensive. We make excuses for ourselves. We blame someone else. We say in so many words, "not my brother, mother, school, neighborhood, problem." Basically we shut our eyes, cover our ears, constrict our hearts. Because to take in the pain, to see and hear the truth of our wrongdoing, would mean taking responsibility. And that would require us to change - change our minds, expand our hearts, transform our ways.

As much as Pat's question undid me, I do believe it was and is an important question to ask. Is God happy with us? When God walks in this garden, does she enjoy what she sees? When Christ moves among us, is he pleased with the way we're treating one another, caring for the most vulnerable among us, tending to the Earth? Is this the fullness of what the Creator had in mind for the world?

My Racism Recovery Group co-leader brought this powerful quote of James Baldwin to my attention: "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." Maybe it's time to face the truth, to let the hurt we've caused break our hearts. Perhaps burning with guilt and shame is not an altogether bad thing.

The guilt of our personal and collective wrongdoing weighs heavy upon us. Can you imagine being liberated from that awful weight, freed to live in new life-giving ways, invited to join God in creating more just and loving community where we can all thrive?

I believe that is possible. But we have to unplug our ears.

Divine Ambush

And when several weeks later Jesus tore himself from the midst of His disciples, ascended, and was dissolved in light, it was no final departure. Already He was lying in ambush at the turn of the road which went from Jerusalem to Damascus, watching for Saul, His beloved persecutor. Thenceforth, in the destiny of every person there was to be this God who lies in wait.

~François Mauriac, Life of Jesus (1936)

We may recall the conversion of Saul. How, zealous for the particularities of his own religious tradition, he persecuted the early followers of the Way. How he was a silent, approving witness as the apostle Stephen was stoned to death for speaking truth to power. How he was "ravaging" the early church, rounding up followers and throwing them in prison. And then, then as he was on his way for another persecution mission "breathing threats and murder against the disciples," a light from heaven struck him blind on the road to Damascus.   A Voice called him to account, saying, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? I am Jesus who you are persecuting." After three days in the dark, God restored his sight, Saul transformed into Paul, and he became zealous to bring the good news to all, particularly those outside the bounds of his tradition. (Acts 7:54-8:3, 9:1-19)

We may have trouble seeing ourselves in Saul. Maybe we're tempted to distance ourselves by calling him a "bad apple". We may be more likely to compare him to a radicalized terrorist, a hooded klansman, an extremist with a semi-automatic weapon, zealous to preserve the purity of their own kind, advance their own hate-driven cleansing.

But I'm particularly struck by the image of Saul standing by at Stephen's lynching, not doing the actual dirty work, but approving of it all the same. I wonder if we've ever secretly or explicitly wished for a purely white or Christian or straight America, a return to the way things were. Have we ever stood by or turned a blind eye as black brothers or immigrant families, Muslim sisters or queer children were insulted, persecuted, shut out or locked up? Have we ever wanted to silence others for claiming the good news, proclaiming truth to power, that they too are beloved and equal in the eyes of God? Have we ever been so righteous, we thought, "To hell with those who don't look or act or believe like we do."

God lies in wait for us all.

God was lying in ambush for me at the corner of Ponce and Commerce. Here I was, fresh from college, fervent in my evangelical faith. I knew, I just knew, God had called me to this youth director position at a local United Methodist Church. Why? Because an openly gay man had also been hired as my co-leader, and I knew God was going to use me as an instrument to literally set him straight.

I was half right. God did indeed call me to that position. But I was the beloved persecutor needing conversion. Through the patient, loving and open relationship that grew between my colleague and me, God called me to account, showed me how my "righteous" condemnation actually wounded the heart of God. It took me more than three days in the dark, but I emerged from that encounter with new vision and a new mission, not to mention one of my very dearest friends in life.

Maybe the light comes from a dear relationship, a book we read, a news story that keeps playing in our minds, a movie that moves us to tears, a sermon that convicts us, a conversation or encounter. Maybe God stalks our dreams. But somehow, in some overwhelming moment or a hundred small flashes, this truth penetrates us--that when we dehumanize and demonize others, when we treat them as second-class citizens, when we see ourselves as better than them, as the preferred norm, when we stand by as they are insulted and mistreated, cast out and beaten down, we are persecuting God. Mercifully, the Lord stops us in our tracks, and reveals to us how our too small hearts and minds, and our righteous agendas and condemnations, actually bind God's boundless compassion. And whether it takes three days or three years in the dark, we are given new eyes to see, hearts and minds that can stretch and stretch for miles, and a mission to share this limitless love across all the lines we had previously drawn.

We take it as a foregone conclusion that Saul was converted to Paul, becoming one of the most fruitful disciples in the early church. We reason, Of course, if you're struck blind on the road and you hear God's voice from heaven, you're going to listen and obey. But I believe he could have just as easily written it off as an aberration, a figment of his imagination, kept on trucking in his righteous mission. Denial is such a strong force to keep us stuck in comfortable ways. And so I wonder if God is lying in wait for us in a thousand different hiding places, and what it is that helps us finally stop and hear.

From one beloved persecutor to another, I wonder, where is God waiting in ambush for you, and for me? I pray we have the grace to be stopped in our tracks, shown the light and set on an entirely new mission.

The Night Watch

Are you up at this hour?

Me too.

I've struggled with restless sleeping off and on throughout my life.  I've also had some periods of really restful slumber. Wow, what a difference in humanity that makes! At points, I thought maybe I'm really not that sensitive or depressed or anxious; maybe I'm just exhausted, and seeing everything through sleep-encrusted lenses.

Then I had children. For the past seven years, I've been up at some point in the middle of most nights, tending to one or both of them. It's something else. Thank God for coffee and dark chocolate in the daylight hours.

But this feels different. For the past month, since really taking in all the grief and unrest, I've been even more, well, unrestful. I can't get to sleep or stay asleep. I have long awake periods. I toss and turn through the rest of the night. I wake up early, whether I want to or not.

I used to really resist nighttime waking and restlessness. I'd get all anxious about what a wreck I am when I don't get enough sleep, and feverishly pray, breathe, use mantras, count things. Of course, the crazy, anxious, desperate approach doesn't tend to work well.

But now I try to think of the wisdom, gleaned most recently from Pema Chodron, that it's usually not the thing itself that causes suffering but our resistance to it. In other words, waking up in the middle of the night can just be a thing, neither good nor bad, and if we choose to just go with it, maybe it's not all that bad.

She also encourages us to take moments like this when we may be tempted to go all self-pitying (Poor me, up in the middle of night, after weeks of this. Why me?) to instead remember or imagine all the other souls who are also up in the middle of the night struggling in one way or another. Then the sleeplessness becomes a chance to feel solidarity rather than isolation, and to cultivate compassion for myself and others who are longing for more peace and sleep.

I also think about dear Fay, down at Green Bough, saying of a restless night on retreat there: "Sounds like God's putting you on the night watch." I love thinking about joining the Beloved, the One who according to Psalm 121 neither slumbers nor sleeps, keeping watch over us all, sending out love and prayer to those I know and don't know who are going through a hard time.

I'm also aware that I went into labor with each of my boys at 3:30 in the morning. Sometimes, the dark feels like a wildly creative place, gestating and laboring to bring new ideas and projects and loves into being.

So I've been on the night shift a bit more. Reflecting on what it means to wake up and stay awake spiritually and morally (though I wouldn't mind a little more sleep!). Sensing my solidarity with the rest of our struggling human community, and wondering what keeps each of us, all of us up at night. Sending out middle-of-the-night love and prayers to some of you dear ones. And wondering what new life may be starting to contract in me to come forth.

For those of you also find yourself awake at this hour, or others like it, welcome. It is good to be here together on the night watch. Blessings on your own prayers, compassion practice and labor.

After the restlessness, may sweet and holy sleep come. God and others will keep their post while we rest.

Awake,

Kimberly 

Urgent AND Slow

In continued conversations about racism in America, I've been feeling this tension. Like many of you, I experienced the recent killings as another urgent wake up call. I engaged conversations, ordered books, posted on social media, downloaded podcasts, made signs, wrote, donated money, and have stayed almost feverishly with the question, What is mine to do? I don't know that we can ever get ego completely out of the picture such that our motivations are 100% pure with no element of wanting to prove something, or to be seen in this or that way. But for the most part, I feel like the surge of activity comes out of a genuine horror at the continued injustice against black and brown bodies, and a desire for dramatic change in our nation. I feel the urgency of this moment, like we are making history right now. The justice and equality sought is, of course, long overdue. But this feels like a watershed moment, a palpable shift in our collective consciousness around race in this country.

At the same time, I am overwhelmed and exhausted. Mentally invigorated by all I'm reading and learning, I can't settle at night. I have long restless periods. My distress and agitation spills over into my interactions with Michael and the boys. Often, when I'm with them, I'm either trying to read or listen to something, or just lost in thought about it all. Deeply convicted that I need to be raising my sons to be more race conscious and anti-racist, I'm ordering new children's books and BLM shirts, we're making signs, talking about and participating in peaceful protests. I am aware and have heard others express that we feel so behind when it comes to race consciousness, it can feel like a mad dash to catch up. As inspired and energized as I feel, I also know this pace of study and activity is not sustainable. The irony is not lost on me to be training in non-violence, while flipping my biscuits with those who share my household. 

Obviously, there is no quick fix. Not for the racism embedded in our structures and policies, nor the racism in our hearts and minds. Over three hundred years of white supremacy in our nation is not going be reversed in one poignant Summer. As for human hearts, I do believe people can experience immediate conversions. But I am more inclined to believe in what Pierre Teilhard de Jardin calls the "slow work of God" (which interestingly resurfaced this week in a newsletter I receive) whereby God graciously and patiently transforms us over a lifetime. This is, of course, how most living things grow and change. But we are an impatient lot! We do not want to wait. We want to be healed and transformed NOW, yesterday preferably.

So there's the tension. The urgency of this moment in our history. The belief and trust in the long slow work of God. Both feel radically true, but somewhat at odds each other.

But maybe this is one of those spiritual paradoxes. Maybe the urgency does call us to wake up, open our eyes, unplug our ears, and get in the anti-racism fight right this very moment. Maybe there is an immediate conversion that IS happening when once we see and hear truth, we cannot ever unsee or unhear it. Perhaps we're being urgently called to jump in a race that has been going on for centuries, and will continue until this race is won.

But then once we're in the fight, moving with the sweep of anti-racism activists and advocates, we realize this is not a sprint but a marathon, a life-long pursuit of justice and equality. It will not serve the cause for us to collapse after a mad dash. It will not serve for us to become fatigued and head back to the sidelines. No, we need to stay in the race for the long haul. We need to keep learning and listening and growing at a pace our hearts and minds, our bodies and souls, can hold and integrate. We need to find our own pace for running this race, trusting that as long as we keep putting one foot in front of another, taking one step as a time, our Beloved Friend will keep healing and transforming our hearts and minds. The One who begins a good work in us does bring it to completion.

We can indeed trust the long, slow work of God in us and in our world. AND this moment calls for an urgent response. May we not delay in saying YES, joining the throngs of souls marching toward freedom. And may we care for ourselves and one another along the way, breathing, praying, drinking down cups of cold water, and pacing ourselves, so that we do not lose heart or burn out.

Call me by my name

I have been Kimberly all my life. Not once have I ever introduced myself as or asked to be called Kim. It's a fine name. I know several lovely Kim's. But it has always felt like a completely different name, one I did not identify with. I'm short enough as it is. I'd love to linger longer on your tongue. I want to be called Kimberly, not Kim.

It has taken me a long time to claim this. I know don't why it seems to happens with my name in particular, but I'm astounded how often I introduce myself, "Hello, my name is Kimberly, " to be met right there or later with, "So nice to meet you Kim." In college and grad school, I used to brace myself for the roll call on that first day of class. I knew they had to see Kimberly Broerman on their roster, but 9 times out of 10, they would say "Kim Broerman?" "Present," I would say, too shy or insecure to make a correction.  

Don't be overly sensitive, Kimberly. They don't mean any harm in it, I would reason in my head. Just let it go. You don't want to make them uncomfortable. But then I would spend the whole conversation or semester not really feeling seen or heard, not fully myself. Who was this Kim they were speaking to?

Over time, it really got to me. Outwardly polite about it, I would inwardly seethe. Why in the world when I say my name is Kimberly, do you decide to call me Kim? Did you not hear me? Is saying two more syllables too much effort for you? Am I not worth your calling me by my name?

********* 

I spent an hour yesterday morning researching the language we currently use to talk about people with darker skin tones. The evolution from Negro to colored to African-American to Black (capitalized or not?), from racial minorities to non-whites to people of color. The research in part was prompted by a Facebook post of a black colleague of mine. It was a cartoon, with a white woman asking, "As a POC don't you ." .. a black woman interjects "I'm black" . . . white woman continues "Don't you identify as. . ." to which the black woman responds, "Nope. Blackity black black." Several black friends chimed in to affirm the sentiment. I took note. It made me wonder about my own language in speaking and writing.

Some may think I'm worrying too much about words and identities. But I think of the closing line of  Elizabeth Alexander's poem I Believe, "and are we not of interest to each other?" I happen to believe it's worth asking:  how do people, as individuals or groups, want to be named or identified? And then listening to and honoring what they say. Language is imperfect, but we can at least try to use language that heals rather that hurts, that includes rather than excludes.

You may dismiss that as being "politically correct." I just see it as mutual respect and human kindness.

We are all worth it.

In this time of so much hurt and rage, so much hostility and meanness, we often wield words as weapons. They have such power to dismiss and wound. But they also have power to honor and heal.   The poet Gregory Orr issues this powerful invitation.

Let's remake the world with words.

Not frivolously, nor

To hide from what we fear,

But with a purpose.

Let's,

As Wordsworth said, remove

'The dust of custom' so things

Shine again, each object arrayed

In its robe of original light.

And then we'll see the world

As if for the first time,

As once we gazed at the beloved

Who was gazing at us.

You can hear him sharing this poem in his own voice on On Being.

Friends, I hope and pray we can take more of an interest in one another. May we see and hear people as we want to be seen and heard, as the Beloved sees us in our original light.

Yours,

Kimberly (not Kim, thank you)

PS - If you've ever called me Kim, I get it.  I know you did not intend harm, but I hope you can hear how it makes me feel.  I hope you can say I'm sorry I got that wrong.  And then I hope going forward, you will call me Kimberly.  We're good.

PSS - By the way, we say all kinds of things that hurt our black and brown friends.  We may not know or intend harm, but I hope we can hear them when they express their pain and frustration.  I hope we can express genuine apologies and learn from our mistakes.  And then I hope going forward, we can do better.

PSS - If you are a black or brown friend reading this, and my words, thoughts or actions don't land right with you, if they do unintentional harm, and if you feel up for it (big IF, I'm hearing that), I hope you'll call me on it.  I really want to learn, grow, and be and do better.  Thank you.

Contemplating Whiteness

Our Racism Recovery Groups are underway.  The first week of content and conversation focuses on Contemplating Our Whiteness.

In a time like this, the challenge to do so feels absolutely clear and critical.  But the truth is, many of us haven't thought much about it.  We haven't had to.  Or wanted to.

I first encountered the term "white privilege" in theology school. I was taking a course called, Black Consciousness and the Civil Rights Movement, with a class that was about 50/50 students of color and white students, taught by a powerful, provocative black professor.  It was harrowing. And transformative. I remember crying with other white woman in the bathroom during the breaks, as some of my most cherished beliefs about myself (I'm not racist. I don't see skin color. I am rewarded for my merits, not my skin color) began to unravel.

We read Peggy McIntosh's classic piece, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." I had never heard the term "white privilege". And frankly, I hated it. You may recall, she names all these things white people can do, for the most part without fear, struggle or any kind of backlash: shopping in a store, renting or buying a home, getting pulled over by the police, seeing people like ourselves in groups, books, history. I got indignantly defensive. How are these privileges? Why should I feel bad or guilty that I can do these things? These are things every human should be able to do!

Exactly. There's the truth. AND my complete blindness to actual reality.

You see, I only intimately knew my own experience as a white woman, an experience that was overwhelmingly safe and comfortable, that followed what I thought of as the American script: Work hard. Apply yourself. Stay out of trouble. And the good things you desire - education, family, meaningful work, a home and things to enjoy-- will come to you. I naively thought this was true for every American, regardless of race or ethnicity. Here McIntosh was, waking me up to the reality that people of color often have a vastly different experience than my own. If I didn't want to believe her, I was face-to-face with fifty classmates, narrating in disturbing detail both the egregious and everyday injustices they experienced.  

It was painful to hear their truth, and once I did, I could not un-hear it. I had to come to terms with the gross racial inequities in our society.  And I've been wrestling ever since with the moral dissonance: how as a white person you can passionately believe in equality and justice, and at the same time benefit from the racial inequality. Even when you're painfully aware of it, it can feel hard to know what to do. What exactly does it mean to "give up" one's white privilege, when you can't give up having white skin?   

That class experience also led me to wonder:  How do we cultivate greater awareness of the racial disparities among us? We can all read data and statistics I know, but I don't think data and statistics change human hearts. When we only know our own experience, or see and hear others who are also white, how do we really know and understand what it's like to live in America with black or brown skin? I know, this seems like such an obvious point, but I'm amazed how often I hear white people talk about encounters or situations involving people of other races or ethnicities, but it's their own white experience of or perspective on it, not that of the people inhabiting it. When do we actually listen to their stories, their experiences, their struggles, rather than projecting our own white racial scripts onto them?

The sad truth is that before grad school, I had mostly lived separate from people of color. I grew up in Savannah, which was racially diverse, but very segregated. I lived in a white neighborhood, attended a white, private school, and attended a white church. Of course, we didn't say they were "white" at the time. But they absolutely were; I could count on one hand the non-white persons in any one of them. There were more students of color at my small, liberal arts college, but again, we mostly segregated ourselves at separate tables in the dining hall, different social groups. I had very few experiences or dialogues with black people, and certainly none that focused explicitly on their experience of being black in America.   

As hard and painful as that seminary course was, I have been so grateful for it in retrospect. Turns out, it was the most racially diverse community, and most searchingly honest conversation about race I would ever have to date. Because as we know, while we may have grown in our racial consciousness, many of us still live largely segregated lives. I am grateful to now live in a racially diverse neighborhood in Atlanta, but when I think about the people with whom I'm in community on a regular basis - through our church, workplaces and our kids' schools, they are still not that racially or ethnically diverse. There are complex reasons for that, I know.  And I think we have to watch that our desire for diversity and inclusion does not supersede others' need for safety. But still, I wonder how those of us born white acknowledge and heal our racial prejudices when we're not in trusting relationships and authentic dialogue with those born brown and black.    

I think often of this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr:

I am convinced most [humans] hate each other

because they fear each other.

They fear each other because they don't know each other.

They don't know each other because

they don't communicate with each other.

And they don't communicate with each other because

they are separated from each other.

How true, how true. How sadly still true. And I think of one of Brené Brown's chapters entitled People are Harder to Hate Close Up. Move In. in her most recent book, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone. She writes, We're going to need to intentionally be with people who are different than us. We're going to have to sign up, join, and take a seat at the table. We're going to have to learn how to listen, have hard conversations, look for joy, share pain, and be more curious than defensive, all while seeking moments of togetherness.

I want that. I imagine we can all agree we'd like less misunderstanding and disparity, less hate and fear.  Question is: What are we going to do to move in closer, to bridge the separation? I know the answer will be different for all of us, and most likely, it will take some real intentionality and effort to overcome all the barriers we've erected between us. But I hope we'll find the courage to pull up a seat and really listen to those who are different than us.

Racist in Recovery

It’s been two weeks now since George Floyd’s death.  Two weeks of agonizing over the most recent brutalities piled on a history of oppression and violence.  Two weeks of people raging, lamenting, shouting, Enough! taking to the streets in peaceful protest (The protests have been largely peaceful, so if we’re obsessed with the parts that are not, we might be missing the point).  Two weeks of folks rightfully demanding we do better, and wrestling with what that means.

It feels like we are in the middle of history being made.  If we’ve ever wondered what we would have done if we were Christian in Nazi Germany or white in America in the 60’s, this is our moment.  Which side of history do we want to be on?

I’ve been having lots of honest, painful, beautiful conversations, mostly with other white people.  In the one I hosted Friday, I introduced myself saying something like this:

I’m Kimberly.

I am a beloved child of God.  I am good.

I am also racist.

Maybe not as racist as I used to be,

Maybe not as racist as others I know or see in the news.

But I still have plenty of work to do to heal the racism and prejudice in my own heart.

And there is so much we white people need to do to help root out the racism,

baked into our society, structures and policies.

I am here because I am convicted of my complacency.

I have heard the cries, seen the horrors inflicted on black and brown bodies

and I have gone back to living my own safe, comfortable, privileged white life.

I come in need of forgiveness and mercy.

I come feeling a weight of responsibility as a white American.

I know I need to do more.

I’m scared.  I’m overwhelmed. 

I feel insecure about presuming to lead a conversation like this.

But I do believe in the power of spaces like this.

Where we can show up, be painfully honest and still loved,

Where we can wrestle with difficult tensions,

Where we can seek truth and healing, and experience transforming grace.

I am committed to show up and speak truth, even when it’s hard and painful.

To listen and learn more, particularly from and with people of color.

To pray and struggle within myself,

and to be in community and conversation with fellow strugglers.

To seek better way forward and walk in it together.

This is a step.

 If it sounds a lot like how one might introduce oneself in a Twelve Step circle, it felt that way.  Because if we’re white in America, we’re all at least a little addicted to the power and privilege our skin color has conferred upon us. 

Can I just say, it felt so relieving to confess I’m still in recovery for racism?  To drop the kneejerk defenses, “I’m not racist.”  “He or she is a bad actor, but I would never do such a thing.”  “I see and treat all people the same.”  “I get it.  I have read the right books and articles, attended a workshop, talked with black friends, bought the t-shirt etc.”  Ah, maybe so.  But do we still drink in the water and wine of white supremacy? 

Friends, it is inescapable.  If we are white in America, we have a race problem.  Our sisters and brothers with darker skin are staging a huge intervention.  Again.  Whether we are full-blown sloppy racists or quiet, functional racists, we have a problem.  Question is, will we stay in denial, or will we seek help? 

Want to join me in a recovery group?

What is Ours to Do? Breaking Silence after George Floyd

It’s been only a week since we woke to the news of George Floyd’s death under the knee of a police officer.  Since we were captivated by the Amy Cooper video.  Since protests and unrest erupted around our country.  Not to mention, since we hit the grim toll of 100,000 deaths in the US to coronavirus, with a disproportionate number of those being people of color.

We’ve been here before.  Again and again.  And we know that the news cycle, the social media responses, the protestors will move on.  There will be new images and sound bites, new atrocities, ridiculousness, suffering.  It is crazy the level of heartbreak, outrage, and alarm we’ve had to sustain.  Whether by design or default, the pace of news in our country has grown crazy-making and utterly fatiguing.  And when we stop and double over in grief or exhaustion (as we must if we are to keep running the race), who knows what we’re missing.  The grief, the outrage, the feeling of being unseen, unheard, unvalued, unprotected, helpless piles up.  Is it any wonder it then explodes and shatters windows and sets cars on fire?

If we’re honest with ourselves, we may want to move on too.  Like a personal problem that arises for us, we may hope and fervently pray all of this will just go away.  Without our having to hurt more, be uncomfortable, risk action, be undone and remade.

But I don’t want us to move on.  I want us to hit pause, all stop moving, talking, tweeting, spinning, reacting and piling on more and more hurt. 

I keep thinking about this stirring poem Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda, how we might be together in a “sudden strangeness,” how we might really take stock of how we are piling up hurt in ourselves and on others, how we might “interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death.”

I know I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already been said far more eloquently.  I know what I do say will feel meager and inadequate, may very well get judged and misinterpreted.  And yet I feel compelled to say something.  Because staying silent because of the insecurity or discomfort or fear of judgment is all about me, and does not serve anyone, including those most vulnerable in this present crisis.  As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his Letter to a Birmingham Jail:  We have to repent in this generation, not merely for the hateful speech and actions of the bad people, for the appalling silence of the good people. 

I’ve heard many white people say in recent days they don’t feel qualified to teach or speak or write about this because they still have so much inner work to do themselves.  Yes.  Let me join their ranks.  I do not pretend to come as a race expert, activist, teacher or anything of the sort, but just another human being wrestling in my own piece of white flesh. 

Since trying to absorb everything that has been happening, I’ve been sitting with Nan Merrill’s beautiful translation of Psalm 41, contextualized for the week we’ve had:

Who among us hears the cries of the black community?  (“I can’t breathe.”)

     How many open their hearts

          and heed the Call? 

The plight of racism is a wound

     to the very Heart of Love,

          a scar on our own souls.

Blessed are those who lovingly respond!

     The Friend, who knows all hearts,

          will remember their kindness.

They will know joy, peace, and deep fulfillment

     working in harmony

     with all who serve toward healing

          the racial divides of our troubled nation.

I’ve also been having hard, messy, searching conversations --with myself, friends, neighbors, my Sunday school class-- about what it means to heed the call, to respond to the ongoing oppression and killing of our black brothers and sisters.  There are no easy answers.  Everything one does or says feels woefully inadequate.  And if we are a person with white skin, we always run the risk of trying to appear more “woke” or enlightened or innocent around race than we really are. 

But again, staying silent, is not the answer. We must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  We must not be lulled again into silence and inactivity for fear of getting it wrong, or being exposed.

 And we must not let ourselves off the hook by getting overly focused on others.  How could she erupt like that?  How could he keep his knee down that long?  Did you see what they posted?  They’re not helping their cause with all this looting.  It’s true, there is always someone more lost, more compromised, more hurtful than you.  And all of us, especially our leaders and public servants, must be held accountable for their particular words and actions.  But I think we know when our pointing or wagging of our own moral finger keeps us from looking in the mirror. 

What is ours to do?  I think that is the question.  And really, I believe we each and all have to make our own journey with this, so the question becomes, what is mine to do?  What is mine to do to help heal the racial divides and injustices in our country?

That’s what I’m wrestling with and I imagine you are too.  And I know part of that wrestling is for me to write and put it out there.  I can already tell I have more I want to write than time on any given day.  So I will write in pieces as I’m able.  If you’ve stayed with me this far, thank you.  I love that most likely, we already have some sort of relationship with one another. (If not, I’d like us to!)  I write to you as a friend and fellow struggler.  And I really hope this opens into more conversation, whether between us, or with others.

Further thoughts. . .

What is ours to do? What is mine to do? To help heal the racial divides and address the injustices. To heal the racism that wounds every soul, and violates black and brown bodies.  

I know many of us have been wrestling with this question more intensely over the last few years. For me, one of the hard gifts (It's always a gift to be dispelled of our illusions, even when it's painful) of the 2016 election was that it revealed how divided we really are, and also shocked many of us out of our complacency around a holy host of injustices plaguing our country, particularly communities of color. It was a long overdue wake up call. We knew we had to do something, even if we didn't always know what that was. But we made a start or a re-start. In my own friendships, communities, and work as a spiritual director, I have actually been heartened by and grateful for the change in discourse about race and racism, the searching inventory among white people of our privilege and complicity, the impassioned desire to work for more healing and justice, even if we don't always know how to get there, the increased engagement in protests, politics, and organizations working for real change. It's one of the things that has given me the most hope during the last several years, even while I remain deeply troubled and outraged.   

For me, the specific incident that penetrated my own complicity around racism was the back-to-back killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling in July 2016. You may remember the video of Castile's death, livestreamed by his girlfriend in the passenger seat beside him, after they were pulled over for a broken taillight. With clear presence of mind, Diamond Reynolds narrates what has just transpired, as we watch the blood flow from Castile's arm, the officer still holding a gun through the window and yelling orders with a panicky voice. Reynolds' four-year-old daughter is in the back seat witnessing everything. After she and Reynolds are placed in the patrol car, with the cell phone still recording we hear her try to comfort her mama, "It's OK Mommy, I'm right here with you." She also says, "Mama, please stop cussing and screaming cuz I don't want you to get shooted."  

Lord, have mercy.  

I was a newish Mom, watching the news at my parents' house, as my two-and-a-half year old slept peacefully in another room. I couldn't imagine the trauma for that other mama and her sweet girl. My heart broke. I watched. I listened. I let it in. I let it break my heart.  

I say it that way, because the uncomfortable truth is that we don't have to let it in. It's not my reality. I have been pulled over a few times, and I get crazy nervous when I see those blue lights and the cop approaching in my rear view mirror. But not once have I ever thought that if I do not handle this exchange correctly, I may lose my life. My parents never had to have "the talk" with me, rehearsing over and over again what I must do if confronted by a police officer to stay alive. And never in my wildest terrors would I have planned for the possibility that I may need to pull out my phone and record on Facebook live my beloved dying in the seat beside me with my child looking on, because I may not be believed if I don't create such evidence myself.  

I don't know why I watched the news that night. I was not in the habit at the time. Usually, after getting Theo down for the night, I would be so grateful for a little slice of time--to scroll through Facebook, read a book "for pleasure", or play Wood Puzzle on my phone-- preferably something light, even mind-numbing, before collapsing into bed exhausted. But instead, I spent hours watching and reading stories about Castile and Sterling, awash in sadness and shame. How could we live in a country this broken? And how could I live with myself, recognizing the utter disparity of our lives, based on the color of our skin? A disparity that if I'm honest, allows me to turn a deaf ear, a blind eye, to what is really going on.  

Listen, you that are deaf; 

   and you that are blind, look up and see!  

Who is blind but my servant, 

   or deaf like my messenger whom I send? 

Who is blind like my dedicated one,

     or blind like the servant of the Lord?  

He sees many things, but does not observe them;

     his ears are open, but he does not hear.                                                

-Isaiah 42:18-20  

It was not my first wake-up call around racism. But I had sadly been lulled back to sleep, made myself comfortable in the thought that while we hadn't gone far enough, we were moving in the right direction.  

I was jolted awake again that evening. I began again, to continue my own painful inner work around what it means to be white in America.  

As with so many other things, it seems that our conversion is not a one-time wholesale transformation, but a lifelong process that comes in fits and starts. We wake up, and fall back asleep over and over and over and over again. Like the disciples who cannot sit and stay with Jesus's pain in the Garden of Gethsemane, even as he pleads with them to stay awake with him. Our spirit may be willing, but our flesh is so weak.  

Part of me wants to yell at myself and others, Wake up! To shame us for not being able to stay awake with our Lord, who pleads with us still through the blood and tears of black bodies. How long are we going to ignore and deny our history of racism, the rampant racism and white supremacy entrenched in our systems and in our own hearts? How many black bodies have to be strung up or pinned down, the holy breath of God choked out of them before our very eyes?  My God, why have we forsaken them?   

And part of me is desperate for that same Lord's forgiveness, who comes to Peter in his denial, to the disciples in their fear and betrayal, even to his executioners, saying, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."  

I do believe there is mercy and forgiveness for us. But not without a whole lot of soul-searching, confession and repentance. And not without a cost.

If are struggling too, and would like to be in conversation, I invite you to join me and others for a pop up conversation on race. See more details here.

Until next time, grace and peace to you, and to our troubled nation,

Kimberly

A Different Kind of Easter

Grace and peace to you as we enter into this season of Easter.  I know many of us felt like this was a strange Easter Sunday.  No sacred spaces full to the brim with white lilies and jubilant people in their Easter finery.  No full-throated singing of Christ the Lord is Risen Today or the Hallelujah Chorus complete with blaring trumpets.  No community Easter egg hunts and Easter feasts with tables full of friends and family.

It feels odd.  And yet, it feels oddly true.  It feels true to this moment of global pandemic, when we are collectively walking in the valley of the shadow of death, when so many are suffering and afraid.  As is so often the case, the liturgical calendar does not always align with our lived experience, and this Easter, this is especially true.  In many ways, it feels like we are still in the Lenten wilderness, at the foot of the cross, preparing bodies for burial, or waiting at home in the confusing in-between.    

It is also more true to the Biblical stories of the post-resurrection appearances.  Just like Jesus came into the world in relative obscurity, he reappears in utter mystery.  There are no large crowds, no trumpet fanfares, no crosses transformed with Easter lilies.  There are weeping women going to tend the body of their deceased friend, disciples locked behind closed doors in fear, others walking and talking about the strange turn of events.  And when the risen Christ appears to them, he is met with some mix of confusion, skepticism, fear, and joy.  It takes them some time to recognize he is both the same, wounded Teacher, and an altogether new, risen Christ present with them.  It takes them longer still to figure out how to live in this new post-resurrection reality, as a crucified and risen Lord wasn’t at all what they had in mind for ushering in a new kingdom.

I actually find this a much more compelling and hopeful way into Easter.  This is not us in our Easter best, with moods that may or may not rise to the Hallelujah chorus.  This is our Beloved Friend and Lord coming to us, as we are locked in fear, blind in grief, foggy in confusion or whatever the case may be.  This is Christ coming to speak peace to us, to show us how wounds can be transformed, to breathe new life into our weary souls.  Maybe, just maybe Easter is not a dramatic, triumphant event, but a quietly transforming encounter with One who meets us where we are, calls us by name, and beckons us into the Christ journey of death and resurrection.  This to me is profoundly good news.

Even and especially now. 

I’ve been saying in certain circles that I feel like I personally and we collectively are stuck in Holy Saturday.  That perhaps this pandemic and quarantine is the in-between time, when things have died or fallen apart, but it's not yet clear if or how they will be resurrected or put back together again.  I’ve been trying to make peace with this empty, unsettling liminal space, the not knowing and not being able to control what happens from here.  And because we know how the story continues, and I have experienced resurrection after other deaths and waiting times in my own life, I find some measure of hope and comfort in this.

And yet, that identification is based on too linear a progression, too neat a formula of how God works, like first this, then that.  Haven’t we had the experience where death and life are present at the same time, where we feel both grief and gratitude, suffering and joy, are aware of both the already and the not yet, all rolled into one blessed human experience?  The truth is that while I continue to mourn the loss and devastation wreaked by this coronavirus, I celebrate the gifts offered in it.  I’ve heard myself and others giving thanks for the slowing down, the reaching out, the witnessing of spring in all its glory, the more intimate and vulnerable sharing, the letting go of past wrongs, the increased neighborliness, the blessed recognition that we are all in this together, the longing for different ways to live together on the other side of all this.  We may still be grieving and waiting, but it’s hard to deny the light streaming through the cracks in our doors. 

Friend, wherever you are, whatever mental, emotional or spiritual state you feel locked in, I pray somehow that Christ gets in, speaking peace to you, and breathing new life into your weary and wounded soul.

A Coronavirus Parable

A contemporary take on the parable of the drowning man.

A woman was on her laptop during a global pandemic.  She was praying to God for help.

Momentarily, a friend sent her an article about the risks of the virus, recommending they not meet for lunch as planned and instead practice social distancing.  The woman replied, “That’s fine for you, but I am not afraid.  I’m praying to God and he will protect me.”

Then she turned on the news and saw the CDC recommendations about washing one’s hands and avoiding large gatherings.  She thought to herself, “Hogwash.  I’ve said my prayers and God will protect me.  I’ve got faith.”

She went on Facebook and read about all the school closures, event cancellations, and people working from home.  She prayed for all those hysterical people, posted a Bible verse about God’s protection and came up with a meme about God flattening the curve.

She went about business as usual, caught the virus, died and went to Heaven. She finally got a chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point she exclaimed, “I had faith in you God, but you didn’t protect me.  How could you let me get the virus and die?”

To this God replied, “I sent you friends, information, and clear guidance to keep yourself and others safe.  What more did you expect?”

I believe fervently in prayer and miracles.  I also believe God speaks through friends and family, journalists, scientists and health care professionals.  Sadly, ignoring them in this case, not only puts ourselves but also others at risk.  And I think causing harm or even death to someone else would be a grievous burden to bear.  So please, during this time of crisis, let’s pray fervently.  Let’s also wash our hands and keep our distance.  For love of God and neighbor.

God Bless Our Anxious Hearts

We're in a weird state to say the least. I don't know about you, but I've just felt off this week, unsettled, not sure what to do or not to with myself. Looking for guidance, but finding such contradictory statements from, it's no big deal to we're all going to die!!!! Asking these daily questions. . . Should I pull my kids out of school?  Should I stop working?  Should we hole up now, or wait and see? Is it enough to wash our hands and refrain from human contact or do we need to take more drastic measures?

I will leave talking about the virus to the experts, and by that I mean scientists and health care professionals who actually know and trust verifiable scientific facts, not unsubstantiated "hunches."

But I do have some thoughts about the anxiety enveloping all of us to various degrees.

This seems like a no-brainer, but first I want to say, OF COURSE we are unsettled and fearful. We are dealing with an unprecedented global health crisis, and there is so much we do not, and cannot know. We do know that it is here, it is spreading at an alarming rate, and some people are getting very sick and dying. So of course, if there is a threat to our own life, or to those we love who may be more at risk, we may be quite anxious. Whether we have to stay home from school and work, or we cannot stay home due to the nature of our work or the economic impacts, that can bring a holy host of other fears and concerns. While all of this is hard to bear, this is a sign that we are human, and we care.

I say this because we often tell ourselves and one another just the opposite. Instead of having empathy and compassion on our pain and anxiety, we judge it. People of faith, while we may be well-intentioned, often seem particularly prone to this. There seems to be this notion (and I've already seen FB posts to this effect in the last few days), that if we believe in God and we pray, we will not struggle, or we will be spared from disease, natural disasters and the like. If God's in control, we shouldn't worry. "We should let go and let God." Have you ever told yourself or someone else something to that effect? Have you ever had someone say that to you when you were really struggling with grief or anxiety or difficulty? At best, it may leave us feeling lonely and misunderstood, and at worst, shamed, like there is something wrong with us or our faith. Faithful people, who pray fervently for different outcomes, meet their Maker every day, and I believe God was with them all along, meeting them right in the heart of their pain, grief, or fear.

In our worship circle Tuesday evening, we read this portion of Psalm 49 from Nan Merrill's beautiful translation, Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness.

Yes, even the wise are not immune to fear; 

     yet, unlike the ignorant, the wise 

         face their fears with resolve. 

Not running away, not projecting them 

         onto others,

They trace them to the source,  

     rooting them out as weeds 

         from a rose garden. 

Thus, they to do not trust the riches of the world, 

     but in the Treasure hidden in the heart.   

Be not afraid to discover the Treasure within, 

     to seek the gold hidden  

         in the garden of your heart.

For inasmuch as you root out each fear,

     will truth and peace & joy become your riches.

You will live in the realm of Love

         becoming a light,

     a beneficial presence in the world.

I love that it basically says we will all experience fear and anxiety. It's part of the human condition. The question is, What do we do with it? Do we try to distract or numb ourselves from feeling our real anxiety? Do we pretend we're not scared, or project it onto others? Or do we own it, and see what it is really about, tracing it to its source and with God's grace, rooting it out?

Just this past Sunday, so overjoyed by the sunny day after all the rain we've had, the boys and I headed outside to work in the yard for the first time this season. We hit our knees and tackled a patch of ground that was covered with weeds. Once again, I was struck by how vast and deep they went, how you could pull something seemingly small on the surface and end up unearthing a whole root ball running like crazy underground.

What a brilliant image for our anxiety and how we might work with it, starting by acknowledging what's really there, without judging or shaming ourselves.

And then what?

This Fall, our Women's Spirituality Group read The Book of Joy, detailing an in-depth conversation that took place between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. One of the things I loved about their exchange was the creative tension they held between feeling what we feel, and not being completely controlled by our feelings. Tutu kept insisting that we have to graciously accept our humanity with all that it brings without shaming ourselves and thus doing more harm. The Dalai Lama kept insisting that we have a lot more control over our thoughts and feelings than we think. He suggests that much like our physical health, we have to develop our "mental immunity," so we might lessen our experience of pain and suffering.  Regular prayer and meditation are a huge part of this.

Can we hear both of those things as true? And how might we practice this acceptance and spiritual growth right now in the midst of our individual and collective anxiety over the coronavirus? A few suggestions:

1. I hope we will be incredibly gentle and kind with ourselves and one another. We're getting a lot of advice about how to physically protect ourselves from the virus. I hope we pay equal attention to how to tend our mental, emotional and spiritual well-being, which may be suffering whether we ever contract the disease. I find that even internally speaking the words, Of course you're anxious, has a soothing effect. It says, I see what you're really feeling and I care. And then I can offer myself something . . . a cup of hot tea, deep breaths, some movement on my yoga mat, a call to a dear friend. This is a far more gracious way of being than telling yourself to Suck it up and keep trucking. (which is sadly the message we get from a lot of corners of our world)

2. While we take to heart the importance of social distancing, I hope that at the same time we might recognize our deep interconnection and interdependence in this. It seems like one of the illusions being unmasked by the coronavirus is that we can go it alone, look out for #1, and to hell with the rest of the world. "Me first" or "America first" is not only profoundly unfaithful, it just doesn't work. We are all in this together. We are all going to be impacted by this, and we are all already feeling the effects, including the deep unsettledness and anxiety. How can we allow this to expand our compassion for one another and our sense of human connection, even when we have to hole up and keep to ourselves?

3. Without diminishing the real pain and suffering that comes with a crisis like this, I also believe there are always gifts and invitations. I've heard the Chinese symbol for crisis has two characters, one representing danger, and the other opportunity. And this aligns with my reading of Christian scripture, that often, when things look the most bleak, God is at work in the pain and suffering to bring liberation, resurrection, new life. What might be some of the gifts and invitations we're receiving through this, even as we bear the real suffering?

My heart goes out to all of us, and I just wanted to connect to try to offer some words of comfort and encouragement in these anxious times. I'm sharing a poem and two prayers below that I've found soothing these last few days. I hope and pray you feel God's warm and tender embrace wrapping you around as you feel all your feels.

Grace and peace to you, to your loves, to all who are anxious and hurting in this time,

Kimberly

In Need of Lent

I am in sore need of Lent. I hate to admit that to myself or you, but it's true. I started out the year with zeal, and have managed to honor a few of my intentions to be more regular in prayer and meditation, to get back on the yoga mat, and to see at least one non-animated movie per month.

But just two months in, there has already been so much.

So much loss and pain. Dear friends losing spouses and siblings. Grieving the limits of other humans--whether friends, family members or colleagues-- to meet us and love us as we need. Others struggling mightily in mind, body and spirit.

So much fear and anxiety. About the state of our democracy, our faith communities, our planet. About the election. About my boys and what kind of parent I am. About whether there is enough of this or that.

And I have not really helped myself. Staying up late to watch the election returns, the State of the Union, the debates, the impeachment hearings, the occasional This Is Us episode (that wrecks me in a good way). Taking to Facebook throughout the day to be jerked around between inspiration and outrage. Consuming, consuming, consuming articles, podcasts, Facebook posts. Oscillating between wild hope and pure terror, totally strung out in between, yet going back for hit after hit after terrible hit.

I am weary and heavy-hearted, deeply anguished about our true state of the union (or dis-union as it were)

Enter Lent. A season to examine all the ways we've moved away from God, sought peace in the wrong ways and places, and done great harm to ourselves and others in the process. A season for admitting how much we all stand in need of mercy and compassion, in need of God who meets us with our broken hearts, tired bodies, strung out minds, promising new life and resurrection. A season for realigning our lives with the ways of God, acknowledging how we have once again gotten consumed with our own self-interests, while neglecting the needs and suffering of others.

In anticipation of Lent, our Parent Sunday School class talked about how we might honor this Lent with our families. We agreed that many of us had "given up" stuff in the past . . . chocolate, sugar, French fries. . . that may have felt like a hardship, but probably didn't draw us all that closer to God or others. And isn't that the point? What if we gave up something that is actually getting in the way of Love, of being truly present in our lives and relationships? What if we let go of whatever addictive habit is keeping us from seeing how God is already present to and loving on us?

It became clear to me that I need to give up checking my phone in every spare moment of every day. Which immediately pulls me out of the present moment and away from whatever dear one is with me. Which often brings on outrage or worry or an urgent sense that I must do something more, something different right this very minute.

It will not be easy. As I imagine we all do, I count on my phone for alarms, directions, email, Facebook, weather reports, kids' apps, news, even my meditation timer. But I'm wondering what it might feel like if I actually treated it like a phone, and not my fifth appendage. If I lay it down as the false idol it has become. I will take certain apps, including Facebook, off it for the season, confine my usage to certain times of the day. I am looking forward to bringing my awareness back to the present moment, where I am, where my loves are, where God is.

I am also aware that without having my distraction device strapped to me at all times, I may have to contend more fully with what is present within me . . these often unwelcome guests like grief, fear, and anger. In our relentless busyness, we often leave no space at all for actually feeling what we feel. And yet, as one of my spiritual mentors Richard Rohr says, if we do not learn how to transform our pain, we will transmit it. I wonder if this is a more honest way to understand our real state of the union. There is so much pain. Individually and collectively. And just denying it, numbing and distracting ourselves, pretending we are all fine or great, never been better, is not serving us well. We are wounded. And out of that woundedness, we are lashing out and wounding others right and left.

But we cannot heal what we do not feel. Cannot mend what we do not see as broken. Cannot rise with resurrection power without bearing our crosses.

So this Lent, I invite us all to stop and really take stock. What's really going on with us? What are we grieving? What's got us worried and strung out? What does our rage or anger tell us about what we are longing for? And how are we numbing or distracting ourselves, instead of feeling what we feel, and inviting God in to transform our pain, so that we don't keep transmitting it? What might we give up or let go so that we can be more present--to ourselves, our loved one ones, the groans of creation, and most importantly to the God just waiting to heal us and bring us to new life?

I invite you to consider joining me and others for the Sacred Pause retreat on Sunday, March 15, with a Lenten focus on The Sacred Work of Grief. Guided by Francis Weller's beautiful book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, we will explore together his "Five Gates of Grief", and how tending our grief with compassion can bring us greater wholeness and vitality, renewing our spirits and restoring the soul of the world. As he writes, "To honor our grief, to grant it space and time in our frantic world, is to fulfill a covenant with soul-- to welcome all that is, thereby granting room for our most authentic life." You can read more below.

As always, if you are hungry for companionship on the spiritual journey, I invite you to consider spiritual direction, either in a one-on-one relationship or in one of the groups I offer. I'd welcome the opportunity to explore all these themes and more with you.

I pray your own Lenten journey will be meaningful and rich.

Grace and peace to you,

Kimberly

New Year's 2018 - Unexpected Expectancy

Blessings of a fresh new year to you!  I hope this message finds you healthy and hopeful as we wade into a new year.

So you may or may not have noticed that it's been a while since I've written.  You know what happened?  I discovered I was pregnant, an unexpected expectancy!  And just like that, everything changed.  My energy tanked, my hormones and emotions went crazy, and activities like non-stop grazing and doctor's appointments rose to the top of my list.  Some things subsequently fell off my plate.  Like thinking clearly.  And writing.

Thankfully, I work for myself, and I no longer bust my own chops for missing a writing deadline.  I used to feel that no matter what happened to me personally, I had to buck up, push through, and keep cranking, lest, God forbid, I become less productive.  What a merciless way to live, as if we're machines rather than flesh and hearts and hormones.

I know you know this, but our lives are constantly in flux.  "All things are passing" as St. Teresa reminds us in her famous "Bookmark Prayer."  You set your goals and intentions, you make your plans and develop your rhythms, maybe even get in a groove.  And then, something happens.  You or someone you love gets sick.  An aging parent transitions to a home (maybe your home) or Home.  You fall in love.  Your work shifts dramatically.  A child goes off the rails.  Maybe you hear some sort of voice saying, "Greetings dear one!  God's about to do something new with you."  And you cannot keep going, pushing, living like you were before.  At least, not without cost, without harming yourself or others.

When those moments, big or small come, can we give ourselves the grace to drop things, say No where we had previously said Yes, alter our plans, maybe even fall apart?  I remember a wise soul, after my house fire, saying, Competency is not continuing to do everything the same, but honestly naming what you can and cannot do.

I hope and pray as we enter this new year, setting intentions and seeking to (re) establish life-giving rhythms, we will also have the grace to welcome the unexpected, to be fluid in adapting as new life and challenges come our way, and to sense the divine Presence in all the carefully planned and wildly disruptive moments of our year.

May grace and peace abound for you, whatever comes. 

Thank God Our Time Is Now

Thank God our time is now when wrong

Comes up to face us everywhere,

Never to leave us till we take

The longest stride of soul we ever took.

                        ~Christopher Fry

I recently had the joy and privilege of preaching and speaking in my home church, Isle of Hope United Methodist Church in Savannah, GA.  As the prayer, writing and sharing of these convictions felt so nourishing, I feel compelled to share them here, with you dear reader.  I hope for you as I hoped for my Isle of Hope family that these meditations, shared over many weeks, might uplift, encourage, and guide you in these turbulent times.  I echo Harry Fosdick’s prayer for us all, Grant us wisdom, grant us courage for the living of these days.

I’m so grateful and honored to be able to share with you.

I believe the world is held together by the United Methodist Women and organizations like it. 

And I know from my own experience and others in this room that the relationships in this community are also what hold us together.

Of course, it can feel right now like the world is coming apart at the seams, can’t it? 

Or maybe we feel in some ways we’re falling apart ourselves.

The natural disasters, the shootings,

the painful divisions and hateful rhetoric in our country,

so much anxiety, despair, depression,

the humanitarian crises around the world,

illnesses, losses and hardships that deeply impact us and our families.

It’s a hard time to be human.

And it may feel like a hard time to be a person of faith.

So I’m glad we can share this time together. 

My sense is that with all the bad, terrible news, near and far, we are more hungry than ever for good news. 

That in this “post-truth” world, we long for deep truth.

So I hope we can hear some good news, some soul truth,

that uplifts and encourages us, that gives us a sense of perspective and purpose for living in these times.

I want to start with a poem, that I’ve been reflecting with over the past year. 

It’s by Christopher Fry, a British poet and playright, who wrote during the 40’s and 50’s.

Despite living through both World Wars, folks said he was able to maintain an optimistic faith in both God and humanity.

I don’t know about you, but I crave that these days.

The poem is called The Sleep of Prisoners

The human heart can go the lengths of God.

Dark and cold we may be, but this

Is no winter now. The frozen misery

Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move;

The thunder is the thunder of the floes,

The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.

Thank God our time is now when wrong

Comes up to face us everywhere,

Never to leave us till we take

The longest stride of soul we ever took.

Affairs are now soul size.

The enterprise

Is exploration into God.

Where are you making for? It takes

So many thousand years to wake,

But will you wake for pity's sake!

“Thank God our time is now when wrong comes up to face us everywhere.”

Can we say that?

I think most of us, if we’re honest, strongly prefer times when things are going well, when it feels like there’s a certain “rightness” to our lives and to the world.

I know I do.

And yet I’d like to suggest that our faith, our Christian faith, is made for times like these. 

We are a faith not of those on top, the powerful, the winners,

but the vulnerable, the lowly, the losers if you will.

We follow Jesus, the One who lived a life of absolute surrender to God,

who went the way of the cross, suffering a brutal death, rather than retaliating with violence,

one who bore the absolute worst of our humanity, for our sake, for the redemption of the world,

and came back breathing peace and forgiveness.

Ours is a story that when things look absolutely hopeless,

when it looks like evil is winning the day,

that death is the final word,

God is right in the thick of it all, entering into our human suffering,

bearing it in his own flesh,

to bring new life, peace, liberation, redemption,

to bring God’s kingdom, God’s beloved community,

on earth as in heaven.

And so I think this poem offers us a powerful challenge. 

And really it’s the one Jesus himself issued over and over again: 

Wake up. 

Wake up and see, with God, what is really going on.

Wake up and take longer spiritual strides in following in the way of Jesus.

Wake up and join God in the healing of our world.

I know lots of people struggle these days with why participation in faith communities is waning, why many people aren’t making their home in communities of faith.

There are no simple answers, right? 

But I wonder if part of the answer is not that we have asked too much, but we have asked too little. 

In many cases, we have offered an exit strategy out of this world, but not a new, transformed way to be in it.

We have taught people how to worship Jesus, but maybe not how to live like him, and certainly not to die like him.

And our souls are hungry for so much more, for a vital faith that reorients and integrates everything in our lives around a true Center,

that brings the deep joy and peace and purpose of which Jesus speaks,

and that keeps on changing us throughout our lives so that our hearts become more and more loving and kind,

and we are more and more able and committed to join in God’s creative and liberating and transforming work in the world.

I want that, don’t you?

And so I am thanking God our time is now.

I think it is an auspicious time to be a follower of Jesus.

That while wrong is so much on display, there is simultaneously a powerful spiritual awakening going on in our world, and so much potential for moving more toward God’s vision for our world -

where there is no longer and us and then, but only an us,

where everyone has enough,

where we give up our guns and nucs for shovels and hoes,

where everyone, everyone is liberated from whatever binds or oppresses them-

    debilitating poverty or debilitating wealth,

    addictions to numbing narcotics or mindless accumulation,

    a sense of self loathing or toxic narcissism,

    social networking overwhelm or lonely isolation

    injustices based on the color of your skin, or how you worship God, or who you love,

    or soul-destroying hatred and prejudice.

And I believe God is always, always, always at work, in seen and unseen ways,

To move us, push and pull us, invite us into that fuller vision for us and all the earth.

So the question is, are we in on it?  Are we awake?

Do we have eyes to see, ears to hear what God is up to, right now?

And are we free enough, surrendered enough, open enough to join God in that work?

Are we ready to take our journey of discipleship to the next season of growth and of service?

I have always appreciated Dallas Willard’s definition of a Christian disciple:  one who has decided that the most important thing in your life is to learn how to do what Jesus said to do. And you do that by trying to be with Jesus, stay as close to him as possible, to apprentice in his ways of being and loving and serving. 

In another place he says: A disciple (or apprentice) of Jesus is one who is trying to live their lives as Jesus would if he were in their shoes.  A sort of twist on WWJD, What would Jesus do if he were in your particular shoes?

So how do we do that, right now, in these times, when wrong comes up to face us everywhere?

I.    I think our first priority in these times has to be staying rooted in God through prayer.  In times of crisis, when we feel like our time and energy is demanded elsewhere, perhaps we think of prayer as a luxury we cannot afford.  I see it as a necessity we cannot afford to neglect.  Following in the pattern of Jesus and the great spiritual teachers and leaders of all generations, we have to regularly withdraw from the crowds of people, tasks and responsibilities clamoring for our attention, to seek God’s will and way.  I don’t know of any other way to nurture and sustain the hope and peace, guidance and compassion that is needed now, than by regularly returning to the Source of Life.  When it feels like the ground beneath our feet is shifting every day, we need to be rooted in God, the solid Ground of our Being.

     I’ve been praying and reflecting all year with these verses of Jeremiah 17:7-8:

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, 

   whose trust is the Lord.  

They shall be like a tree planted by water, 

   sending out its roots by the stream. 

It shall not fear when heat comes, 

   and its leaves shall stay green; 

in the year of drought it is not anxious, 

   and it does not cease to bear fruit.

            It can feel like a time of drought--hot, dry, withering, life-draining, soul-sucking.   Seems like everywhere we turn, there is suffering and injustice, hatred and cruelty.  The material worldview that has obsessed much of American culture - where we clamor for more and more of what doesn’t satisfy, and that violates so many others and the earth in the process, dividing us against one another, has left us in a dry, parched places, longing for the living waters of life in and with God.

            And so we have to be so intentional about sinking out roots into living streams, into those things that truly give life, that feed our souls, whatever that is for each of us.

Maybe it’s reading scripture or other spiritual writings that truly feeds you. 

Maybe it’s spending more time in nature - where so many of us describe feeling close to God, where we can still sense the utter beauty and wonder of this amazing world, the hidden wholeness of things, the “dearest freshness deep down things” as Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it.

Maybe it’s listening to uplifting music or podcasts, writing or making art.

I’ve got to put in a plug for silent meditation, centering prayer.  With the world being so busy, so noisy, I think we truly long for silence, not just outside, but inside these monkey mind heads of ours.  We can all feel like legion, right, like there’s a thousand voices clamoring for our attention, such that peace of mind feels really hard to come by.  I can’t think of any more powerful tool than getting quiet, resting in God, and letting God work within you. The days I sit for 20 minutes in the morning flow with so much more peace and contentment and clarity, I am utterly amazed and grateful.

So, dear reader,  

What makes your soul feel plump and juicy?

What keeps you green and vital?

There’s that great line by Howard Thurman: Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

What makes you more fully alive?

How are we all being invited into deeper prayer? 

Friends, we’ve got to be vigilant and intentional about our spiritual lives if we want to be fruitful for God during these difficult times.

II    In times like these, we also need community.  While social media has its place in keeping us connected, it is no substitute for live, face-to-face relationships, and sometimes it seems to do more damage than good.  I don’t know about you, but over the last year or so, when I have felt anxious or discouraged, I have craved more than ever being with other human beings in the flesh.  I can lose heart in humanity reading Facebook posts or the comments sections of articles, but when I’m with real, live people, my hope is restored. 

One of my all-time favorite quotes about being human come from Frederick Buechner.  He is talking about telling our stories, sharing our secrets and he writes this:

What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else.  It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are—even if we tell it only to ourselves—because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. 

I believe we all long for relationships and communities in which we can be seen and heard as we really are, with our light and darkness, beauty and messiness.  And yet we can be so fearful of being judged or rejected that we don’t really let people see the real us.  Buechner wrote these lines long before there was Facebook or Instagram, which seem to increase the risk of our only putting forth “highly edited versions” of ourselves, rather than the real thing.   I am grateful beyond telling that in every season of life, God has blessed me with friends with whom I could be my full self, that welcomed and loved the real me.  I believe it is a primary way we come to know the love and grace of God, by being well-loved in our imperfections, not just when we feel like we have it together, but most especially when we don’t.

And while we’re being healed by being loved, we are also participating in God’s healing work in others by loving them.  When we truly experience God’s merciful love for our broken, messy selves, we want nothing more than for others to know that profound grace.  The more we receive mercy and compassion, the more merciful and compassionate we become.  And reciprocally, when I encounter someone who is judgmental and condemning, my guess is that they have not yet experienced forgiveness and grace themselves.  We tend to imitate the God we believe in, so how people treat others communicates a lot about how they view God.  We need community to help us grow in humility and compassion, to teach us that we are in fact not self-made, but are formed and transformed through our relationships. 

And in times like these, I think we need community to remind us we are not alone, that it’s not up to us to mend the whole world, but to see the part we can mend as part of a much greater tapestry.  We each have different gifts and wisdom, different ways of perceiving and acting in the world, different experiences that have shaped us.  So we are called to offer ourselves and give thanks for all the others in our communities that can offer something very different.  I think one of the great gifts of this season in our corporate lives is that the illusion of our independence is being dismantled, and we are being reminded just how much we need one another.

So dear reader,

What are the relationships and the communities in which you can be your full, authentic self, where you truly belong without having to edit yourself to fit in? 

How is God inviting you to know a deeper healing by being loved as you are, and to participate in the healing of others through offering gracious love to them as they are? 

And how can we expand our circles of community to include those most vulnerable to feeling unlovable and unloved, to even our ‘enemies’ who perhaps haven’t yet experienced the transformative grace of God?

III.  While we are invited to journey together in community, we have to walk our own path.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve been hearing this phrase a lot more regularly:  Stay in your own lane.  In other words, focus on your own life, your thoughts, words, and actions, your call to prayer and growth, healing and transformation.  While we are called to love one another in relationship, we are primarily responsible for ourselves. 

How tempting it is to ignore our own lives and instead, get really fixated on others, and not in the good way!  How much time do we spend being critical of or disappointed in others, whether it’s our spouse, friend, colleague, or child or people we don’t even know personally, but deem them wrong or idiotic for thinking or acting certain ways.  How much emotional energy do we expend wishing other people - specific individuals or whole groups-- could just be different, and maybe putting in an effort or two to “fix” them?  When the reality is we have about zero control over other people, and all our well-intentioned comments and posts and suggestions just seem to be hardening us more into our set ways of thinking and behaving.  What if we spent all that time and energy exploring ourselves and seeking with the grace of God, to become the best versions of ourselves?  I wonder if that might be a more fruitful practice, not only for ourselves, but also for our relationships.

In addition to judging others and wishing they would change, we’re also prone to comparing ourselves, seeing how we measure up (or down).   Which has been made endlessly more difficult with things like Facebook and Instagram, right?  How often do we catch ourselves wishing we could be different, more like this person or that?  Why don’t I think or pray or serve like so-and-so?   I mean, how many people in this room have ever compared yourself to Joan Broerman (my mom), and come up short?  Me too!  I am three decades younger, and she runs circles around me!  I have come to accept that God knit me together in her, but not like her.  And here’s the thing . . ..God’s not going to ask you why you weren’t more like Joan or whomever else you might admire or compare yourself to, but were you you?

God made you uniquely how you are, gave you particular gifts and graces, shaped you with particular life experiences, and nobody knows what it’s like to be in your skin, but you, and the One who created you.  So keep your focus on your own life, your own journey, listening only for the One who created you in Love and continues to work within you to bring you into the fullness of who YOU are

IV  Being with Suffering -

In these difficult times, I believe we’ve also got to find a (better) way to be with suffering, ours and others.  As our Buddhist sisters and brothers helpfully remind us, life is suffering.  We are all on the terminal bus, yes?  Everyone and everything we love is passing away, at least in this temporal realm.  As Anne Lamott says in her characteristically raw and witty way:  “Life is both a precious, unfathomably beautiful gift, and it's impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It's been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive. It's filled simultaneously with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, desperate poverty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together. I don't think it's an ideal system.”   

            But it seems that much of our suffering comes from resisting suffering.  Pretending we’re just fine when we’re falling apart, trying to get over our grief rather than walking through it, numbing or denying our pain with an endless array of distractions and addictions, instead of feeling the pain and letting it move through us.

            And there seems to be a particularly pernicious form of denial in Christian communities.  Where somehow being Christian means you’re not going to suffer or feel pain or fear or anxiety.  Like we always have to be happy, shiny people, or what does it say about our faith?  Well, what it says is that you’re a human being, one with eyes and ears and a heart open to the often painful realities of our lives, that you care deeply such that when others suffer, you feel it along with them.

            The Christian story is not one of pain denial or escape.  The God, incarnate in Jesus, we meet in scripture is the one who enters right into suffering, the one who weeps in and for us, who bears it in us, rather than popping some sort of escape hatch to deliver us out of it.  So actually, when your hearts break for the pain you and others are experiencing, I believe that is God’s loving heart beating good and strong in you.

            I don’t know about you, but when I am suffering, I don’t need to want someone to try to cheer me up or give me several good reasons why I should feel differently.  There’s nothing worse than having misunderstanding, loneliness or guilt, added to the mix of pain one’s already feeling.  No, I want someone who is not afraid of pain, mine or theirs, who can sit in it with me rather than turning or running away.

            When we see suffering, ours or another’s or the world’s, can we be like the good Samaritan, who does not turn away or move to the other side of the road or pretend it’s not there, but moves close and offers what we can to tend the real wounds?  We may not be able to relieve the suffering, but bearing it with one another, helps us to know the loving presence of the God who draws near.

To be continued . . .

In the Wake of the Election

Dearly Beloved,

Like many of you, I am still reeling from last's week election results.  Still welling up with tears at tender moments, often unfortunately in public.  Still having fiery outbursts of rage and indignation.  Still waking in the middle of the night and each morning with a feeling of dread and anxiety.  Still asking, How could this happen? with lots of mostly unsatisfactory answers.

In years past, I have been disappointed when elections did not go the way I hoped. But nothing like this.  Nothing so visceral or so overwhelming.  No, this feels more like the grief I felt after my house burned down.  A place I had called home, that had been a refuge, a safe haven, a sanctuary, was violently taken away, and suddenly I felt so unsafe, vulnerable, and afraid.

Then and now, I believe God is so close.  In fact, it is precisely when my heart splits wide open, when I feel my vulnerable flesh-and-blood so acutely, that God seems most near.  God's is not the shaming voice that says, Get over it.  Stop your crying.  Be strong.  God's is the tender voice that says, I know. I know. This is so painful. I am right here with you, right in the thick of your pain. Holding you and bearing the pain in you and with you.

I wish we could all be so tender and gentle and present with one another, even when we do not share or understand another's pain. The failure of empathy, of even trying to understand where others are coming from, feels like what my pastor called an "unholy fruit" of this bitter election season.  If you are one who is grieving, and have been further wounded by others' lack of compassion toward you, I am so sorry.  I honestly don't know what's worse sometimes - the pain itself, or feeling so invisible in it, like people don't see you, or see you and don't care.  I hope you are finding places and people that are safe, who can see you and hold your pain without trying to diminish or explain it, without trying to cheer you up or fix you.  God made us of tender flesh, and our capacity to feel our own pain and to suffer with others is what ultimately has the power to heal us, individually and in our relationships.  

I know many people are already moving on to the What now?, What's next? questions.  I too have wondered what is mine and ours to do in the days ahead as we live into this new reality.  Those questions need to be asked and answered with lots of prayer and soul-searching.  But I hear some wise voice in me cautioning me and perhaps others from moving forward too quickly.  I wonder if we might resist the urge to try to think ourselves out of our pain.  I wonder if we're being invited to tend our hearts a bit more, linger with our grief, make sure we find healthy and healing expression of all we are feeling, whether that be in our conversation with trusted others or in prayer and ritual or some other form of self-expression.  I know from my experience with other griefs, there is no way around it, only through.  And I'm reminded that each person's process and timetable will be as different as we are.

I am well aware that not everyone reading this is grieving or broken-hearted over the election.  If this is you, I hope then it means you have extra emotional resources to offer others.  If you're not feeling heavy burdened, you can help carry another's load. If you're not wounded, you can tend those who are.  But please be gentle and kind.  If you don't understand or know what to say, I'm so sorry you're hurting might go a long way.  Or a loving silence might be the very best thing you can offer.  We are in this together.  And I don't see a healing way forward toward unity without addressing all the pain heaped up in and between and among us.

I hope and pray in the days to come, we can all open our eyes to really see the pain and fear and suffering around us and in us. After all, we in the Christian tradition believe in a God who does not stand far off, but enters intimately into the flesh-and-blood experience of being human.  May we join God, enter in, bear in Christ and with Christ and for Christ, the suffering of our present times, our fellow human beings and the creation itself, for the redemption of this whole world God so loves.

Only Us

I am convinced most [humans] hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don't know each other. They don't know each other because they don't communicate with each other. And they don't communicate with each other because they are separated from each other.               Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.                    

     As a child, I had a penchant for dividing things into boxes.  I remember standing in the grocery check out line frantically putting misplaced candy back in its proper box, long after my mom had exited the store.  My mom's hairdresser paid me to sort through her big box of curlers and retrieve anything that did not belong - spare change (my payment!), bobby pins, bottle caps, combs and the like.  I craved that sense of order, everything in its right place, nothing that did not belong.

     I have to confess, I did the same with people.  With the naivete of a child, I sorted people into good guys and bad guys, us and them.  My religious education largely supported me in this; I was taught to believe God sorted people - wheat from chaff, children of light vs children of darkness, sheep from goats.   Those who believed the right things, prayed the right prayers, did the right things, did not do the wrong things, we were in God's box.  And everyone else was outside the box; we'd pity you and pray for you, but hey, you chose to be out there.  It was a neat and orderly system.  And how convenient that I was always in the right box!

     Thankfully, God is merciful and kind, and started working in me.  I came to see quite painfully that I was not all that.  I could believe and pray and do the "right" things, but I knew my heart held both light and darkness, love and judgment, wheat and chaff.  Some days, I could be very sheep-like, but other days, I was pure goat.  I didn't live out a tenth of what Jesus taught.  I had far more in common with the Pharisees, whom Jesus regularly criticized, than those with whom Jesus usually hung out, the ones who knew they were not all that.  And my little proclivity for dividing people into insiders and outsiders had no place in Jesus' life.  He was always breaking down those divisions, hanging out with those considered "other," the marginalized, the "unclean."  His was a radical ministry of inclusion.  If anyone was left out, it was the self-righteous ones who looked down upon others.

     God also started orchestrating encounters with the "others."  Having grown up in segregated Savannah and gone to an all-white Christian school, I was paired with a black roommate in a summer honors program.  On a college foreign study trip to the Middle East and Africa, I had my first real conversations with Jews and Muslims, and with people in the "third world."  When I went to seminary, I was hired as a youth minister along with an openly gay Christian classmate.  Before I was ever hired as a pastor at Saint Mark, I had my first exchange with a transgendered woman.  I won't lie to you; I sometimes thought and prayed God would use me to change them.  I humbly learned I was the one in need of conversion.  God was out to liberate me from my dividing, labeling, judging mind, to slowly but surely expand the capacity of my heart for love, to wash my eyes clean so that I would come to see everyone, everyone, everyone as a beautiful, beloved child of God.  There is only Us.  We're all in the same box together.  And being Christian is not about being right, but about being in right relationship.

      In our current socio-political climate, much of the discourse is bent on exploiting our fear, if not inciting hatred, of the "other", dividing us into good guys and bad guys, scapegoating the "Them."  I pray we don't fall prey to this fear mongering and divisiveness.  I pray we seek leaders who come closer to embodying Jesus' mercy and radical inclusivity.  And I pray we open ourselves to the lives of those who are "other" than us.  We may just be surprised who God wants to convert. 

Words as Weapons

I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of words to give life or to deal death.   About the ways we speak with, or unfortunately often AT or ABOUT, one another.   Along with many of us, I’m deeply concerned about our public discourse these days.   If you want to be any more troubled about the state of our dis-union, just read the comments section after any article you find sensible.  I don’t know why I do it; it’s like passing a pile-up on the highway, and you can’t look away from the carnage.

It seems like we argue way more than we dialogue.  We try to change each other’s minds, more than we try to understand another’s perspective.  We tear down, and speak AGAINST, rather than building up and speaking FOR.  Turns out maybe we’re all wielding the weapons we have in our possession --our tongues, and in our digital age, our fingers, which we use to fire off inflammatory texts, emails, FB posts, tweets and the like.

I get it.  I find myself “triggered” every day by the false or frightening, the myopic or maddening, the hateful or hellacious things people are saying and doing.  I want to react, and sometimes I do, with my own ambush of words.  But to what end?  It’s like we’re all wearing those ear muffs and rapid firing, and is anyone left standing unwounded? 

We’re at war.  Every day, we wake up to more bloodshed.  Every which way, we are mowing one another down with our hate and ignorance, our fear and greed.  And whether we choose to really see it or not, we are all wounded and suffering.

Those among us who call ourselves Christians, who say we are trying to live like Jesus,--the Prince of Peace, the Suffering Servant, the one who commanded us to “put down our swords, for all who take the sword will die by the sword” (Matt 26:52), the one who bore the depravity and violence of humanity in his crucified body and breathed forgiveness until the end rather than resorting to violence himself--we are called to nonviolence.   In our actions.  In our words, spoken and written.  In our hearts and thoughts even.

I keep hearing these verses cautioning and convicting me . . .

You’re familiar with the command to the ancients, ‘Do not murder.’ I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ‘stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.  (Matthew 5:21-22, The Message)

Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.  (Eph 4:29, NRSV)

No one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.  (James 3:8-10)

What are we doing with our anger?  How are we wielding our words?  Are we blessing and building up and giving grace to those who hear?  How is God inviting us, even now, especially now, into the school of love and nonviolence?

I don’t know about you, but I have a next-to-impossible time staying true to Jesus during an election season.  No angry dismissal of others?  No retaliation?  Love my enemies?  Pray for perpetrators? Speak truth in love? These are the difficult teachings of Jesus, which we often prefer to ignore, when they don’t align with our political inclinations or even our “rights.” I want to retort, and sometimes do, “Come on, Jesus!  There’s got to be another way.”

He says, Follow me, and sets his face toward Washington DC.

I pray for the strength and grace to stay with him, even when I’d prefer to deny and flee, or draw the sword of my tongue and strike.  Because at the end of the day I don’t see any other way but his beyond this chaos and carnage.

God Knocking

Knocking on the Door

We often describe God’s ongoing pursuit of us as “knocking on the door.”  The idea is that we are home in ourselves and God wants in.  But God is not forceful.  He won’t just barge on in without invitation.  She won’t climb through a window if we bar Her from the door.  So God stands at the door and knocks, waiting patiently for us to hear and open the door.

It’s a helpful image.  But I’ve begun to wonder which side of the door God is on.  After all, as Christians we believe in God incarnate, the God who dwells within us all.  We may think it is we who invite God in from the outside, but God is actually already present all along.  As the Latin inscription Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit reminds us, “Bidden or not bidden God is with us.”

So what if we were to imagine in ourselves an inner room, our own holy of holies?  It is the place of our deepest being and knowing.  And it is the place where God abides.  Unfortunately, it’s not the place where we abide most of the time.  We live in all the other rooms of our house, those we’ve carefully constructed and decorated ourselves.  They are full of all kinds of fancy furniture, inspiring artwork, nifty gadgets—things we think will make others, maybe even God, want to come in and stay a while.  We can spend our whole lives rearranging and redecorating these rooms, preparing for the holy visitation.

But in all our activity, we may miss the faint knocking at our door.  Or we may hear it, go to the front door and find no one there.  Ah, because it’s coming from some place deep inside.  That little room we pass by every day of our lives, only occasionally pausing to hear the knocking or to wonder what or Who might be on the other side.

Maybe it’s God.  In the deepest part of you, inviting you to come in and rest a while.  Inviting you to discover the naked and beautiful truth of who you are in the center of your being.  Inviting you to just be in the Divine presence, to bask in the love of the Beloved.

And if you want, God will swing that inner door wide open and let you in.

Whenever you pray, go into your inner room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who is in secret will reward you.  Matt 6:6

Letting God Have It

I’m grateful I grew up knowing the importance of prayer.  Now granted, sometimes I was a little OCD about it.  My first prayer journal was a binder with color-coded tabs, one for each kind of prayer.  And I dutifully moved through them in order, listing prayers with bullet points.  I felt like I had to pray, and get it right, or else.  

Thankfully, as I grew in my understanding of and relationship with God, I could move beyond the binder.  I came to believe that what God most wanted, was not our carefully formulated words, or our perfectly orchestrated discipline, but us.  And not just our more attractive parts like our gratitude and our concerns for people in need, but also our struggles and questions and parts of ourselves we would prefer to ignore, and hope God does too.

It’s tempting to wait to come to God until we clean up our act, get ourselves put together, have something nice to present.  Who wouldn’t rather show up at God’s doorstep with a bunch of flowers than with a pile of mess?

But Jesus said it so clearly, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  

Of course, we all need God.  Some of us simply don’t think we do.  Or we forget.

But occasionally we are nudged into remembering:  God wants us, wants all of us.  Wants us when we’re skipping on sunshine, and when we’re pacing the halls or pinned to the bathroom floor.  When we’re so ecstatic we can’t contain ourselves, and when we’re so grief-stricken we can’t contain ourselves.  Maybe in those moments, we can hear a gentle voice saying, It’s okay.  I’ve got you. Here now, let me have that.  I can hold it.

Perhaps the sickness is not so much what we think or feel or do, but the trying to carry and manage and fix it all on our own.  

Prayer is letting God have it.  And the more of it the better, if you ask me.