There's no place like family

I’m on my way back from a wonderful two weeks with family. This is actually a pattern of mine. Every time I am about to embark on a big adventure in my life, I try to spend as much time with my family as possible. It is as if knowing where I came from anchors me in a way that allows me to fly off to new and crazy adventures. Knowing the love that surrounds me, created me, and raised me helps give me the courage to go out in to the world and share that love with others. 

Being with family is good. It means not putting up any fronts and allowing those around you to see you for you. It means no makeup, no playing nice just to play nice. It means feeling safe to step on some toes (and there’s something about sisters who always seem to know how to step on toes the best- and enjoy doing it!) and feeling comfortable to show your crankiness. It also means lots of down time, just being without needing to speak. No awkward silences (silence is a rare thing in my family anyway). It means lots of laughter and good tears. It means finding joy in a 2 year old discovering the world and his voice more and more every day. It means a million Auntie Em hugs and kisses (many times with my nephew grabbing my face while he plants one on me). Yes, being with family is good. 

I realize though, that I am blessed beyond all measure to have a family like this and not everyone can anchor themselves in their families. Some people would rather stay as far away from their shared DNA as possible (and for good reasons). I have learned in the past few years that this sense of family extends far beyond blood relations (Thank God!). Learning to redefine who and what constitute family means that I have been anchoring myself recently with all those who I also consider, in the deepest part of my being, family: 

Best friends and “surrogate parents” (along with the crazy and lovable uncle who comes to visit all the time) that open their home to you for three years, redefining the word grace and providing enough love, laughter, and memories that make me smile to store up for years to come.

COPC- a seemingly casual invite to go to dinner a year ago that has turned into a highlight of my life (in order to be in my family you have to love food!) and has brought new and amazing family members into my circle as well as deepened relationships that I wish had been this deep 3 years ago when I started seminary and had not just blossomed in my last year. But, with family you realize that you will take the love when and where you can, and distance proves no real threat to that deep font of love that family knows how to sustain.

A best friend who invites you in with her family to celebrate her fathers wedding (whole wedding weekend, actually) and beautiful new beginnings in life, proving that it is not foolish to continue to hope for love, and love abundant. 

Our office of Student Services and Community Life. Becoming like a little family that celebrates birthdays, life events, or even regular work days with balloons and streamers and flowers and abundant love. 

Loved ones who gather at birthday dinners, graduations, and send off celebrations, each one reminding me that even though I may not get to see them as often as I wish, they each represent a deep part of me, a changed part of me, that would look fundamentally different had they not walked into and become part of my life and my family. 

There may be no DNA shared here, but these people are family. No doubt about it. And I am oh so grateful for the family that God has given me.

Made in the Image of God

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness’- Genesis 1:26

If we could see this image what would it look like?

A morning DART train- filled with people of all ages, races, classes, from business executives to seminary students to people without homes needing a free ride.

A world cup soccer game- the stadium filled with people from different countries from all over the world, speaking all different languages, rooting for their teams on the field and experiencing a sport that crosses culture, people, and tongues.

People from all ends of all spectrums- Republicans, Democrats, Occupy-ers, Fundamentalists, Pentecostals, Baptists, Methodists, rich, poor, those in the spotlight and those in the margins; preachers, Athiests, and those seeking to believe, Mormons, Buddhists, yogis, vegans, meat-lovers, traditionalists, liberationists- sitting together at one table sharing one meal, learning to listen before speaking and unpacking both the riches and the problems of those who differ in their views but can still share their bread.

All faces and forms of love- between a parent and adopted child,

partners, best friends, a child and her Guatemalan nanny,

two women finding companionship in old age, siblings, lovers, 

interfaith/interracial weddings, students and cherished teacher; 

community members belonging to and taking care of each other;

sisters in Africa taking care of orphans whose parents couldn’t,

parents giving up children for a better life that they know they can’t give them; 

fathers and mothers working long hours to provide for their family in a new land; 

Great grandmothers seeing the face of their newborn great grandchild, reflecting the years of care and upbringing, invested love and invested life, 

struggle and joy- life continued long after life seems to have ceased. 

A mosaic of faces and hands, kisses and hugs, shapes and sizes, identities and unknowns, sounds of laughter and tears of joy, cries of pain and sobs of anguish, wrinkles and crows feet, soft skin and pudgy bellies, shades and hues muddling together the black and whiteness that we find so comfortable. All walks of life, all coming together to form something that looks somewhat like us, but then again, upon closer study, looks nothing like us at all. 

Ubuntu- I am because you are. 

Namaste- the light in me honors the light in you. 

Love your Neighbor as Yourself- both are equally important

We need each other, for as individuals we fall dreadfully short of the image in which we were created and begin to create God in our image, thinking God looks like us. Until we seek to understand our humanity in the eyes of others, we will fail to see how each of us is but one piece (albeit a very important piece indeed!), in a beautiful work of art that renders you speechless; one melody (without which the harmonies are slightly less majestic) in a great symphony that  brings both goosebumps and tears; one character (who, without others to build a story with, would not provide much of a narrative at all) in the story of God and God’s people.

Roll Away Your Stone

Leader: It seems that all our bridges have been burned

All: We have loved half-heartedly, wounded intentionally,  

and lived self indulgently. We have rejected, despised,

ruled over and dominated. We have closed our eyes and

pretended we don’t see our common humanity in the eyes

of others. (Silence)

Leader: But then a word quickens our heart- grace.

All: When we reach in, you reach out.

You love fully, heal tenderly,

embrace openly, and restore completely

Leader: Could it be true?

All: Still far away, we strain our eyes to see

That which awaits us.

Grace to envelop us,

to hold us,

and to welcome us home.

-Taken from my Service of Midday Prayer based on the music of Mumford and Sons

Roll Away Your Stone

"I don't love you but I always will..."

I have recently fallen in love with The Civil Wars. One guy and one girl. Two voices. Simple music. Hauntingly beautiful harmonies when their voices come together. Specifically I have fallen in love with their song Poison and Wine, whose chorus repeats the phrase, “I don’t love you, but I always will.” Whenever I make people listen to this song (as I tend to do with music I love), I have found there are two types of reactions. There are those who say, “Well, what does that mean? Do they love each other or not? How can you tell? How annoying. That doesn’t make any sense”. There are others (like myself) who find beauty in the song specifically because you don’t know. There is so much to be found in that tension and every time I listen to the song I find myself digging deeper to find some other nuance of the tension that I missed the first time. The joy I find in the song is not in figuring it out or finding the answer but in listening to it again and again and always finding something else that I missed.

I have also found that we as humans do not like to live in tension. We like things to be cut and dry, black and white, easily fitting (or even forced) into one or two boxes that are easily definable (and hence make it easier for us to identify things as either like us or different than us). We like to have pat and dry answers to our questions that make it easier for us to feel in control and powerful. Whenever I find myself wading into the  tension or gray areas of life, my own tendency is to throw myself completely to one extreme or the other so that I don’t have to navigate the muddy waters or feel the complexities anymore. When faced with opposing truths, when defining ourselves, our situations, or others we tend to use the word “or”. I am either this or that. I feel either this way or that way. I believe this or that. But I can’t think, feel or be both because they are opposing truths, ideologies, emotions. How can that be? How do you not love someone knowing you always will?

I think one of the biggest things seminary has taught me is to always ask questions and look at the other side of things when presented with an idea. My response is typically, “Yes, but what about ______? Have you thought about if from this other perspective?” I thought I would come out of seminary with answers and how wrong I was. While there are a few answers I may have gleaned along the way, the richest source of my seminary experience has indeed been learning to live in the tension. Learning to ask questions, live with the questions, even if they don’t make sense. Even if I yearn for simple answers that I can give myself and others. I have found that rarely does a God who is forever moving, creating, living, laughing, and loving work in simple answers. Something tells me that if God had wanted to live a simple life with simple answers, God never would have gotten involved with humanity in the first place. Inserting oneself into a broken and messy world, pretty much means throwing simplicity out the window. Now if we could only learn to get involved in the tension, the brokenness, the messiness, the lack of answers, without being afraid... 

"I beg you… to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, some day far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers.” Rainer Maria Rilke

Let the reign of divine truth, life, and love...

Reflections on a prayer I used to pray with Grammy..."Let the reign of divine truth, life, and love be established in me..."

Let the reign of divine truth rule out of me my false self. May it rule out all doubt about who I really am. Whose I really am. May it rule out of me the need to be perfect. The need to be validated and affirmed by worldly standards. May it remind me of the grace that brought me into existence and keeps me existing. Changing. Evolving. Growing. May it remind me that I am a child of God. That is my identity. No more and no less. May the reign of divine truth rule out of me every lie that I tell myself. Every lie that the world tells me. Every voice in my head that tells me to fear. May this truth settle in my bones- that truth means allowing people to see me for all my flaws and know that they are a part of me but they do not define me. The truth that defines me is that I am a child of God. We are children of God. Let the reign of divine truth be established in me.


Let the reign of divine life rule out of me the ability to choose death as a means of living. May it establish in me the ability and desire to choose life and hope no matter how difficult or foolish the choice may seem. May it rule out of me the false sense of what makes life worth living and enrich me with the beauty of life as it was supposed to be lived- with laughter and love and joy, even in the midst of pain and doubt and confusion. May it establish in me the ability to be fully in this present moment, to remember the past with peace and not regret, the ability to wait for the future with hopeful expectation instead of fear or a desire for control. Let the reign of divine life be established in me.


Let the reign of divine love rule out of me all doubt about my own ability to be loved. May it rule out of me my inability to love my own imperfect, fallible, self, as it helps me to learn to love the imperfections of others. May it soften my ears when loving words are spoken to me and help me to speak loving words to others. May it rule out of me all fear, knowing the perfect love casts out all fear. May it break open my heart if only to know what it feels like to love deeper and more fully. May it fill me to the brim with a love that knows no bounds and overflows, even as is sustains. May it continue to clear my clouded eyes to help me see others and myself as God sees us, knows us, and loves us. May it teach me to love without condition, knowing that reciprocated love is not a guarantee in this life but that we are sustained by God’s love, not validated by others broken human emotion. Let me see the joy of love reflected in the faces of those around me- the love that a mother has for her newborn, the connection between partners of 50 years, the unconditional love that seems to come so easily to little children, and help me to claim that love as the type of love that is available to me, to all, even if only on a small scale, if we would be but open...


Amen.

Your love is extravagant

Love. It is not often that one manages to go through a day without hearing that word, at least a hundred times. We tend to throw it around a lot and we use it for all sorts of things from the ordinary to the sublime. I think we have honestly been anesthetized to it. And yet, there come those few rare moments in life when it is not the word itself that knocks you off your feet but the way that the idea of it is made manifest in your life.


This week I have had several of those moments. Walking into my office yesterday for my next to last day at work, I was greeted by green and yellow balloons, streamers turning my window into a make shift Brazilian flag, cards, hugs, and well wishes. Then it was cake and all of the staff coming together to send me off. If I was ever aware of my slightly introverted side, it was this moment. I have been to a ton of these receptions for other people, eaten a few treats, chatted with a few people, and then slipped back into my office to keep working. Part of me wanted to do that again, because it was uncomfortable for me to face all those people and be the center of attention, even for just an afternoon. To be celebrated, to hear people tell me how much I will be missed or how much I am loved. I would rather have slipped out unnoticed. I would rather have been the one celebrating someone else. It makes me wonder why it is difficult for (some of) us to receive love. Why is it easier for us to serve and care for others than for ourselves? Why is it so easy to love on others but so difficult to accept love when it is simply placed in front of us, or even lavishly poured out on us. Could it not be a sense of comfort gone awry or a false selfishness that robs other people of the same joy that we ourselves receive from loving or caring for others?


It makes me wonder if receiving God's love does not in fact also make us extremely uncomfortable at times. For although we believe in the concept of amazing grace, we live our lives fighting like hell to make sure that we do everything in our power to make sure we deserve it (oh, maybe that's just me? Nevermind.) Moments like birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, graduations, where we find ourselves unable to do anything but stand there and be showered with love and a tangible sense of God's grace. These are the moments when we realize that God is a God of extravagance. These are the moments we come face to face with what grace actually means, not in theory but in practice- that we as children of God matter and that God wants nothing less than a fatted calf celebration for each and every one of us.


Jean Pierre de Caussade once wrote “we are like visionaries who know every road in town and cannot find our way home” We as pastors, seminary students, church people, can throw around words like love and grace all we want. It may even give people the impression that we know what we are doing and that we have this whole God thing mapped out pretty well. But unless we allow ourselves to come face to face with the sometimes uncomfortable reality of God's love, seeing through to the deepest parts of our soul, made manifest in those who surround us, showered upon us even when we feel that we don't deserve it... we will be forever wandering and will never find our way home into the folds of God's extravagant embrace.

Thank you Mary, Lynda, Rebecca, Tracy Anne, Herbert and Elizabeth for showing me extravagant love this week...