This I Know

       On the road in small town America, I drove by a sign in front of someone’s house that said, “Jesus hates __”.  What was filled in the blank doesn’t matter.  Obviously,  the author was trying to make a comment on a current event and making sure that everyone knew that God had taken sides.  

I wonder what it takes to possess the kind of authority that can decide the mind of Jesus.  In this world of tension and conflicting opinions on a wide variety of topics, it seems some people are quite confident of the  truth.   However, especially when it came to making judgments,  it seems to me that Jesus generally took the opposite side of what people expected.  

Aside from the thinking process of the person putting such a sign in the front lawn, it still raises a perplexing question.  Does Jesus hate?  If Jesus was fully divine, fully human, wouldn’t he also have the full range of emotions that we have?  To love so intensely, so sacrificially, would he also have the flip side of the passions and also hate intently?   

        The idea of Jesus hating bothers me.  I prefer to picture a smiling Jesus with children on his lap.  Or Jesus is the Good shepherd gently guiding a flock of sheep.  I don’t generally spend much time thinking about how Jesus felt about the wolves.    But Jesus did throw the money changers out of the temple and was often short tempered with the Pharisees and even the disciples from time to time.  It seems obvious that Jesus got angry but that is different from hate.  What about the saying, “hate the sin, love the sinner?”  Did we get that differentiation from Jesus?  Is that what Jesus hates?  Is it sin that Jesus hates, or maybe anything that separates us from God’s love?  Sometimes I think out of our desire to see the loving side of Jesus we minimize the importance of justice and obedience.  Does Jesus hate injustice and disobedience?  Where is mercy in the midst of those things that are contrary to the will of God? 

Does Jesus hate?  What does Jesus hate?  I don’t know.  But thankfully,  Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Who are your Eleven?

“The real meaning of life is not a journey question or an arrival question.  It’s a relationship question.  Your journey and your destination are both important, but neither is possible without an answer to this prior question:  Who are you taking with you on the journey toward your destination?”  

In the book, 11, by Leonard Sweet,  he proposes that for optimum personal health we need 11 different companions for life’s journey.  Drawing from qualities of 11 Biblical characters, he encourages the reader to participate in relationships that reflect different aspects of these Biblical figures.  Do you have a true friend, an encourager and a Yoda in your life - a Jonathan, Barnabas, and Paul?  Do you have a butt-kicker, an editor, a reject in your life - a Jethro, Nathan, and Zacchaeus?    As we take note and honor them for their differences, we grow as a person.

In contrast, I think many of us tend to gravitate toward friendships with people who are like-minded or share common interests - people who make us feel comfortable.  Likewise, we may not consider the need to be a different kind of friend to others.  Yet, when we engage in authentic relationships, we participate in something that is far greater than than our own ability to affect another person.  We are  participating in the fabric that unites us all as God's creation.  Sweet challenges us to consider naming and nurturing relationships with very different sorts of people.  “in a world beset by chance and change, your 11 need to be as diverse as you can make and take them, with varied experiences, attitudes, politics, even theologies.  Your 11 are people to help you be creative, not merely to help you implement your creativity... You aren’t strongest when alone; you’re strongest when together...The most important thing is not to try to go it alone.”

It has been interesting to contemplate the attributes of people and consider attending to certain relationships differently because of the roles people play in my life or I might play in theirs.  Further, a goal for my sabbatical has been to consider what would make an interesting series of meditations for the communion services that I lead each month in a variety of facilities.  I am looking forward to exploring with some of our senior adults the “11” in their lives.

It takes a lifetime

When does life get less complicated? Just when I think I have made peace with the fact that life never does, I sense the urging to go in search again.  It seems to me that each phase of life, each job, each season has its own unique complications but we are never free from them.  It takes a lifetime.

I am sometimes tempted with a mature eye to look at my children and think their lives are not as complex as mine, but it is not true. School and college days are filled not only with academic pressures but all the social/personal dynamics of young hearts, minds, and bodies.  Retirement would seem to be a dream but they, too, are some of the busiest people I know.  There are many decisions, with a lifetime of influences to take in to consideration, in the later transitional stages of life.  Somewhere, somehow, in between we juggle work, home, family and personal life with varying degrees of time and additional factors.  It is tempting at times to seek a new venue, thinking that it will ease the complications, but it is usually only temporary.  

And so when do we arrive at that time when life is less complicated?  As long as we keep looking at the externals, I’m not sure that we ever will.  For all my searching, I really believe leading a less complex life is not about what we do but more about who we are in the midst of it.  It is the unrest within that is more wearing than the actual activities.   Jesus says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) Rather than focusing on the exchange of one“yoke” for a better "yoke,"  or deciding the different weights of each burden, I am more impressed by what we are to learn from Jesus - “for I am gentle and humble in heart.”  To be gentle and humble in the midst of whatever phase, job, or season we find ourselves in seems to be the key for a restful soul in spite of life’s complications.  

I went to the funeral of my mother’s best friend last week.   She epitomized gentle and humble in heart throughout her life.  She also served in World War II, was a full time nurse ‘til past retirement age, raised 9 children, struggled financially, a widow for 30 years, lost 2 children and a grandson, had countless surgeries, and lived with chronic pain.   Tell me her life wasn’t complicated!  Yet, knowing the externals, I never once got that sense from her.  

Learning to face complexities with a gentle, humble heart - it takes a lifetime.

Garden Harvest

Fall is my favorite time of year.  Pops of color are peaking out in the underbrush and the trees of northern Minnesota.  Sheets and blankets cover gardens through the night.    There is nothing that fills my soul like the wonder of nature.  The changes always remind me that “for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.”  Today, also, would be my dad’s 99th birthday if he were still alive.  It is the bookend to my time of contemplating of grief and a fitting day to consider the wonders of God, the great gardener.

I have read a couple of books in the last month that  have used seasons of nature as metaphors for spiritual growth and aging.  Rather than seeing seasons in life as chronological, (childhood - teens = spring, young - mid adult = summer, middle age - elderly = autumn, frail elderly = winter)  -  the spiritual seasons of our inner lives are more intertwined and know no time frame.  There are dry spells and barrenness but there are also times of fresh springs and fertile growth.  They can occur at any age. 

Authors, Rachel Callahan and Rea McDonnell, in the book, Harvest Us Home, elaborate on age 50 and beyond as a “season of Jubilee.”  In the biblical tradition, the hallowed fiftieth year was a time when Israel was to set captives free, return to one’s homeland, recover and reclaim one’s roots and family. It was also a time when the land was to lay fallow, to rest. ( Leviticus 25) The “jubilee season” of 50 and beyond is not a time when we are unproductive but that the focus is not on what we can do but on what God, the good gardener, has done and will do in our lives.  It is a season to be more focused on tending - tending by God and tending ourselves.  

“As we age, we may experience not only the comfort of the gentle rains and breezes of the Spirit, but the slashing torrents of storms that break branches and scatter fruits.  We may not only receive the sweet sunshine of Christ, but we may become parched and need pruning as we age.  We may need another round of fertilizing.  As Paul writes:  ‘...only God gives the growth.  The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose...and we, we are God’s field.” (I Corinthians 3:7,9)  What we suffer will strengthen our roots.  Rooted and planted as we are in Christ, in God the ground of our being, we cannot be uprooted.  No matter how old we are, we can be transformed and conformed to Christ.  And in the end we will be harvested by our gardening God.” (pg. 63)

The fall harvest, is a wonderful time to give thanks for all God has done and for the season of new growth that is yet to be.

Ramblings on Grief

Grief rambles. There are some common expressions - denial, anger, regret, etc-  but they don't usually come in a neat order.  Rather,  the emotions come in a jumble that aren’t always easy to pick out or to identify the source.  Like some tangled weed that creeps along in my garden, grief wraps itself around and peeks out in unsuspecting places.  I think we would all like grief to be contained in some neat phases to go through 1-2-3-4-5 and be over it but, once grief is there, it just rambles.  That is why certain hymns can have us fighting back the tears or certain activities bring about morose feelings even if it has been many years since the loss.  The initial pervasive rawness is lessened but it is that rambling grief again. 

September 11th was a reminder that grief still rambles through our country.  The land of the free is not free from anger, fear,  or hatred.  For 10 years we have been in grief over the loss of lives - both on September 11th and in the war - and also over the loss of our identity as a nation.  We have been in recovery from the horror, the vengeance, and the realization that unexpected events can happen that touch the core of who we are as individuals and as people together.  Someone asked, “Will we ever be over remembering September 11th?”   Will we ever be over remembering Pearl Harbor?  Will we ever be over remembering our loved ones?  Will we ever be over remembering significant losses in our lives?  And do we want to be?  I don’t think so.  It is part of our tribute to their significance in shaping who we are - to remember.

Grief as it manifests on an anniversary day or in its rambling way is not necessarily a bad thing.   Those experiences wake us up to the fact that we are people that have experienced a loss, who are different now.  They give us pause to remember, to connect to each other, and to praise God for abiding, enduring, overcoming love.  

Grief and the Grocery Store

I have done a lot of study and reading through the years about grief.  There are resources about certain triggers for grief, times of day that are harder than others, occasions and events that magnify the loss. Going to church is a common challenge for those that are grieving.  Nobody talks about grief in the grocery store.  Ironically, that is one of the many places where I am reminded of my own grief and the grief of others.  

My most vivid memory of grief and the grocery store was when my mother was in our home during the last weeks of her life.  I would go through the store in search of something she might potentially want to eat.  My focus would not be on the list of things I needed but the desire to see something that would possibly bring pleasure to my mom.  The check out line was the worst.  The clerk would methodically scan all my items, make small talk, and bag my groceries as if nothing unusual was happening.  Inside, I would think, “Don’t you know my world is turning upside down?  How can you treat me just the same as always, when I feel totally different inside?”  Of course, she was completely unaware and in my reasonable, cognitive my mind I knew it.  In spite of my rationalizing,  those feelings were swelling inside and I can still remember them.  After my dad died, I had a similar experience.  I felt amiss not going through the store looking for items that would supply the quarts and quarts of homemade soup that I made for him for years. The clerk checked me out of the line, the same way she always had, even on the day that he died.  I marveled inside, how she could smile so easily when it was such an effort for me that day?

The grocery store is also the place where I am often reminded that Kirk and I are nearing the “empty nest” stage in life.  Whereas there was a time that I never went to the grocery store without picking up 5 gallons of milk, now a gallon seems to last forever.  I remember going through the line and having the checkout person excitedly comment when I was buying baby food and diapers.  Nobody says anything now that I am buying a couple sweet potatoes instead of bags of chips. 

When I worked for hospice, it seemed that the grocery store was one of the places that I would bump into someone that I had met when their family member was ill and dying.  My kids wondered why it always took me so long at the store to pick up just a few items. Often, I would have spent the majority of time visiting with someone I met in the aisles and hadn’t seen since the intense days they had spent at hospice.  Now I have an even greater appreciation of what was happening.  Grief in the grocery store - it happens.  

Oh, and by the way, I bumped into somebody from church a couple of weeks ago in the grocery store.  Guess what we talked about?  We talked about transitional times in life and letting go of things - grief in the grocery store.  There are so many different losses that can show up in unusual ways and in unexpected places.  So, if it ever happens that you find yourself grieving while you are pushing a cart through the store, it is okay.  You are not alone.  And, if sometime we happen to bump into each other in an aisle, well, I know that grief happens in the grocery store.    

Wallowing

I discovered a new lesson this year - the importance of wallowing.  I’ve shared it with a couple of people because it makes sense to me.  Maybe it will for you.  

Generally, we are people who don’t like to feel sad.  We are too busy, too stoic, too controlled, too Iowan to spend a lot of time sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves. It gives us a reason to be proud that we are strong Midwesterners.  In Scripture we read about the “joy of the Lord.”  “Rejoice, and again I say rejoice.”  How can we be sad when we consider all God has done for us?  Writers of psycho-spirituality talk about living in a world of “negative toxins.”  To be happy we need to keep ourselves surrounded by positive people with positive energy and thoughts.  

Well, that is great.  But there are times in life when we experience loss, injustice, disappointment, and grief.  To name and claim them as a part of our lives is important but then there are all the feelings that go along with it.  Sometimes, we try to skip over them or rush them along.  Instead, we need to grab hold of our Midwest Iowa fortitude and follow the example of the pigs. 

Pigs, in their natural habitat, are basically clean animals and are considered to have a higher I.Q. than dogs.  They are problem solvers that seem to instinctively know what is good for their health.  And when the heat is on, they wallow - yes, roll around in the mud for awhile and then up and off they go again.  Why?  Because it serves a purpose.  Pigs don’t sweat and so the mud cools and protects them from the harmful forces of sun and pesky insects. 

Every once in a while, when we feel the heat bearing down on us, it may be time to give ourselves permission to wallow - to feel sad, disappointed, sorry for ourselves, hurt - roll around in the mud of our lives.  We don’t want to get stuck there but a time of “wallowing” in the emotions may serve a purpose. Then, we can get up and go on our way with greater aptitude and health to deal with the forces around us.

Warning - Grief ahead

Well, this is the week.  I have anticipated (somewhat dreaded) this week for a number of months.  This is the time in my sabbatical when I decided to focus on dealing with my grief issues.  If you are one of the millions of people out there that don’t want to think about, reflect on, or anyway get near the idea of death, loss, and grief you may want to skip reading my blog for the next week or so.

Yesterday was the Timberg family party.  There weren’t enough of us to call it a reunion but we gathered in the farm house between Kingston and Dassel, Minnesota, where Sven August began his American life after emigrating from Sweden.  His fourth generation and a couple of 5th generation descendants compared stories, shared photos, ate lunch, and drank coffee.  Last time we were together, my parents, uncle, and a few others represented the 3rd generation.  Since then, they have all died.  When we stood on the porch for the family picture, it was a clear symbol of the passing of the generations.  It is now our turn to carry on the family legacy.

I remember how important it was for my dad to bring me to the Timberg farm when I was a young girl.  There was no one living there at the time but we walked the grounds while he told stories.  I wish I had paid closer attention.  As a youth, it seemed there would always be another time to hear those old names and details again. I wondered why it all mattered so much.  Well, maybe it doesn’t matter so much but it would be nice to know.  It is nice to know where I came from - what kind of people, values, experiences make up parts of my identity.   But how many of us wish we had asked more questions when our parents and grandparents were alive?

The New Testament indicates that Jesus used storytelling more than any other means of communication to teach what it means to be a part of the Kingdom of God.   After the resurrection, I wonder if the disciples wished they had paid closer attention when Jesus was talking.  They often seemed oblivious as to why it mattered so much when he was on earth.  Nevertheless, who we are through Jesus Christ and the foundations of faith that we believe have come to us from generations passing along the stories.   Imagine what it would be like if no one had written them down.

And so if you have made it this far in my story telling, here’s my charge to you.  Write down your family stories.  It will be a cherished family treasure - for remembering, for grieving, for life, for generations to come.   

What does a bucket of water mean?

When my dad enlisted in the army during World War II, he decided he wanted to fight for his own piece of America. He purchased a property outside of Ely, Minnesota, on the border of what has become the Boundary Waters.  When he came home to put the war behind him, he spent much of the next year preparing logs and building a cabin on the site.  It is a wonderful place to read, pray, reflect, and retreat from the world.  There is no electricity.  Luxury is a two-seater outhouse and an outside pump. The last few years, however, the pump has needed some repairs.  This summer’s project for Kirk and sons was to pull the pump, replace the leathers and drive it back into the ground.  It was quite a job but with the success of abundant clear water again.  Each time I am at the cabin and then return to the world of modern conveniences, I appreciate what it means to just flick a switch or turn a tap to meet my needs.  This year I have been especially mindful of how much I take for granted clean water.  

Water is probably the only natural resource to touch all aspects of human life - from agricultural and industrial development to the cultural and religious values embedded in society.   Some anticipate that future wars will be fought over water, not oil.  Recent statistics report 1.2 billion people live in areas with inadequate water supplies and global water demands are expected to increase 40% in the next 10 years.  In just one day, more than 200 million hours of women’s time is consumed by collecting water for domestic use.   More people in the world own cell phones than have access to a toilet.   As much as going to the cabin isolates me for a short time from modern conveniences, my usual daily American life insulates me from harsh global realities.    With the recent devastation on the east coast from Hurricane Irene, the power of water is undeniable in other ways as well.  And so,  I have been thinking about water.  What does my water usage say about my values?  How do I respect the power of water? What does a bucket of water mean to me - to Vermont - to the world?

The Samaritan woman at the well, knew the power of water.  She knew that collecting and using water had cultural implications.  And Jesus says, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.   The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."   I am so blessed that my bucket is full.