Category Archives: Daily Insights

The Attitude of Gratitude

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Yesterday I read the most wonderful thing about gratitude. It was on the heels of spending time this weekend with my dearest friends giving thanks and enjoying a fabulous meal together. It was on my way to being with my family to celebrate this holiday called Thanksgiving.  Nearly all of my favorite people in this whole wide world gathered together with me at some point in the week!  How could one not be grateful?  Add to it all a beautiful sunrise walk with my sisters on the beach — glorious blues I never have seen on one pallet before!   What a great day!!!  
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So here is part of what I read from Convictions:  How I Learned what Matters Most, by Marcus J. Borg, 2014:

“Gratitude is both a feeling and an awareness. . . . As an awareness, gratitude is the realization that our lives are a gift. None of us is self-made. We did not create ourselves. We and all that we have are a gift, even if we may also have worked hard for what we have. But even our ability to work hard is also a gift. For those who have prospered in this life, gratitude is the awareness that we did not do it by ourselves. How much of who we have become is the product of our genetic inheritance of intelligence and health? Of the family into which we were born and their values? Of teachers or others we met along the way? Of decisions made by others over which we had little or no control? Gratitude as an awareness is a posture toward life. It is the opposite of feeling entitled.

“Gratitude cannot be commanded. You feel it or you don’t. The words ‘you should be grateful’ have seldom if ever made anybody feel grateful. Gratitude is the fruit, the product, of being aware that our lives are not our own creation. It is thanksgiving.

“Though we do not commonly think of gratitude as an ethical virtue, it has ethical effects. When we are filled with gratitude, it is impossible to be cruel or brutal or judgmental. Moreover, as an awareness, it leads to a very different attitude toward those whose lives are hard. The familiar saying, ‘There but for the grace of God go I’ is true—but it should not be understood to mean that God decided to grace me but not those with difficult lives. Rather, gratitude as an awareness evokes compassion and a passion for helping the ones who have to live those lives.

“Imagine that Christianity is about loving God. Imagine that it’s not about the self and its concerns, about ‘what’s in it for me,’ whether that be a blessed afterlife or prosperity in this life. Imagine that loving God is about being attentive to the One in whom we live and move and have our being. Imagine that it is about becoming more and more deeply centered in God. Imagine that it is about loving what God loves. Imagine how that would change our lives. Imagine how it would change American Christianity and its relation to American politics and economics and our relationship to the rest of the world. Imagine how it would change our vision of what this world, the humanely created world, might, could, and should be like.” (Excerpt From: Marcus J. Borg. “Convictions.” HarperCollinsPublishers. 2014.
iBooks.)

As we come to the close of this Thanksgiving, may we each be growing in our awareness of gratitude. May we be acutely attuned to the amazing gift of our lives and who we are to be in this world thanks to such a great gift!

Thanks be to God!!!
-RevJule

An Unpopular Topic

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I realize the following thoughts may send some over the edge: freedom to self-defense, right to bear arms, and all that jazz.

HOWEVER: too late for my sister the other night, I got a phone call. “I’m a panicked momma,” she said. My only, precious, fabulous nephew had called her from a rehearsal at a local high school to let her know a shooter was nearby outside and the police were not allowing them to leave the building. This was in a small, rural county in the Mid-West, BTW: not somewhere like South Chicago and the like.

I have to admit that the gravity of the situation didn’t sink in at first. Which probably was good (at least I hope so, sis, so that you were able to calm down a bit as I mindlessly rambled on!). She cut off our conversation when she was getting an incoming call. And she didn’t call or text me back for the next hour. Of course, I was the least of her worries. She finally told me long-version the next day of how she mysteriously shifted into Momma Bear mode. She had to wake my dear neice — which didn’t go all that well. What we understood the next day was that my neice thought the shooter was in the school and that her older brother would never be walking out of there alive.

Of course she did. She’s trying to grow up in a world where it seems she sees such reports every few weeks. All ended up ok — at least for those in the high school that night. But are any of us really ok about all this? I can’t imagine what was, and is, going on in the heart and mind of that young man who took out the weapons. Certainly his family hurts for him. I can’t imagine how the teens locked-down in the high school that night sleep void of nightmares and wake to go about their lives each morning. I can’t imagine a cicrle of parents and aunties and friends being ok with the scares and scars such situations create. Not to mention the wounds that never heal in the places where it does NOT turn out ok.

I realize guns always will be among us — as will be the causes that make a person take up one to threaten themselves or others. But I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to be ok with it and neither do any of us.

I long for the day when all are healed and peace is all that’s left among us. Some say it never will be. I say: what can I do in my lil circle today?

O Holy One, save us all!

Life Plans

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It finally came together this week: my life plan!!! I’m so excited!

It contains the following:

1. Pay attention.
2. Let the path unfold.
3. Stay connected with those I love including God, my incredible BFFs/companions on this journey, my awesome family, Rufus (my adorable pup), and myself.
4. Listen to the promptings of my heart.
5. Live courageously in TRUST that all IS and SHALL BE well!

If you feel a need to ask for specifics beyond these, please don’t. I realize a plan like this makes many nervous. But what I know right now is that somehow this is enough!

What about yours? What do your life plans include?

Blessings on your journey!

RevJule

On the verge . . .

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Assembly Inn; Montreat, NC

Assembly Inn; Montreat, NC

On the verge of the harvest season!!!

If you look closely at this photo, I hope you will notice the diversity of beautiful greens; golden colors; hints of red. All on the verge of a gorgeous display!

This autumn has me wondering: what is ready to be harvested in me? At what have I — or Spirit, rather — been hard at work? Growing, waiting, becoming. Until now: the season of cultivation. The time to reap the good harvest of all the efforts.

What has been growing in the fertile soil that is you? That is your life? What life-giving fruit might be harvested in you?

I invite you to stay with these questions this season. Open yourself to something beautiful becoming NOW for you. For the Holy. For the life of this world.

Amen.
RevJule

Rest?

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A friend of mine who works a lot of hours was told last week that they are a grown adult.  They don’t need a day of rest.

Shudder, shudder, shudder!  Ugh, ugh, ugh!

It was in fact a church member telling a church staff member that such time for personal rest was not necessary.  The church member was angry that my friend put self care above meeting their expectations.  I was mortified.

The longer I live, the more I understand that there is a very fine line between the good ole’ Midwestern work ethic and work-aholism.  Every week I seek to practice Sabbath — an intentional pause.  To cease.  To stop.  In order to rest.  In order to re-connect with God in ways I cannot  during demanding weeks of professional and personal responsibilities.  To listen to my true name:  precious child of God — not because of anything I do; but just because of God.  Sabbath rest reminds me that I am not God.  It’s not all up to me.  If the church wants a Savior, I know a much better direction in which to point them.  🙂

I love the latest words about Sabbath that I discovered in Mary Ann McKibben Dana’s wonderful book Sabbath in the Suburbs.  Mary Ann quotes Blu Greenberg, who writes:  “Six days shall you be a workaholic; on the seventh day, shall you join the serene company of human beings.  . . .  Six days shall you be the perfect success; on the seventh day, shall you remember that not everything is in your power.  . . .  Six days shall you enjoy the blessings of work; on the seventh day, shall you understand that being is as important as doing.”

I need this reminder everyday, which is why I seek the balance of a sustainable life for my body, mind, and spirit.  I don’t always get it right — which is why I keep on practicing.  I used to spend untold hours on a basketball court seeking to perfect my jump shot.  I figure I can give just about the same amount of effort to perfecting a life as centered as possible.  Some days I’m like a wobbly lump of clay about to spin off the potter’s wheel.  Other days I’m as ready as pliable clay in the potter’s hands, about to be made into something absolutely beautiful, useful, useable for the sake of another.

Rest . . .  no matter what any other voice might tell us:  ALL adults need it.  All adults have been created for it by a most generous, peace-giving Creator.  The Holy One who longs for us just to be together!

What have you noticed about such Sabbath rest?

Let us all know here — especially if you are a working parent or someone taking on more just to make ends meet.  Extra prayers go to those of you!

RevJule

 

“Home”

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It’s been on my mind a lot lately. Home: where is it? What is it? With whom is it? These are the questions I wonder about these days.

Maybe it’s just me; but then I’m guessing the songs about it from the past few years wouldn’t be so popular if it was just me who wondered about home. Check out “Home” sung by Phillip Phillips, “The House that Built Me” sung by Miranda Lambert, “A Way Back to Then” from [title of show], “There’s A Place for Us” sung by Carrie Underwood, and even “Never Grow Up” sung by Taylor Swift. It seems many of us yearn to know our home.

I know I’m fortunate always to have the home of my childhood — where my parents and sisters still live. Home there included endless hours of building sand castles on the beach, leaf houses on the front lawn each fall, lots of Rook (the card game) and now Skipbo. It wasn’t perfect. I didn’t always feel understood. Sometimes I was really lonely. But it was home. With the unconditional love of mom and dad and all my sisters — all their support, encouragement, and belief in me. The older I get, the more I cherish that home. The more I wish I had heeded the kind of wise advice Taylor Swift gives in “Never Grow Up.” “Take pictures in your mind of your childhood room. Memorize what it sounds like when your dad gets home. Remember the footsteps. Remember the words said. Remember your little brother’s favorite songs” (bridge in “Never Grow Up,” sung by Taylor Swift on Speak Now).

But what of those who don’t know such a home? What of those where sand castles and family fun and unconditional love is (or was) not the norm?

What does home look like for those under attack, like the people trying to live today in Gaza and Israel? What does home look like for those who have been forcibly exiled from the land of their ancestors? What does home look like for the immigrant who seeks to build a life in a new place? What does home look like for those put out of their biological families? What does home look like to you? Who is there with you? Because let’s face it: it really is the tribe that loves you, warts and all, that makes home. What has to be a part of it? Are 2.5 bathrooms really more important than peace, safety, the joy of a true haven from the demands of this world? What if home is what you feel in a pulpit — as I often do when leading worship among God’s people? What if home is just you and your cherished pet, or you and your beloved flower beds, or you and your best friend, or you and the indentation of where your loved one used to sleep in the bed next to you?

What if no matter how far we roam, how much good we do, how many amazing people surround us in our lives — what if, even with all that, we are not home yet and never will be until at last we rest fully in the One who is Home eternally for us all?

Home . . . I am grateful for the gift of the one I had in the past, the one I so graciously have today, and the one yet to come at my end.

What about you: what, where, and who is your home?

RevJule

“Risk”

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This week I have risk on my mind. I’ve never been a big one for it. As a child, I was in awe of my older sister Joy. Mom would tell us things like: “Don’t climb on the rocks.” (We lived on the shoreline of Lake Michigan.) And: “Don’t go near that abandoned house.” My sister always would do it — no matter the risk. And she’d always have wonderful tales of it all to tell. Me? I was too afraid. I’m not really sure of what. Maybe that we’d get hurt. Or get in trouble. Or maybe I was just one of those born with that innate sense of not taking the risk of breaking the rules. My sister never seemed to be stopped by it all. Me? It seemed I didn’t have enough courage to take such risks.

My aversion to risk has remained. I realize some may look at my life and think: but you’ve traveled abroad numerous times in your young life and many of those times alone — everywhere from Jamaica to Pakistan to South Africa to Estonia to Honduras to the Holy Land. You’ve stepped out of the expected box of going to college near home. (I was one of two in my high school class to go to college out-of-state.) Though you didn’t know many girls doing it, you studied things like Hebrew and Greek while earning a Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate degree. On your own, you’ve bought and sold a home — more than once. And you’ve settled in a part of the country no one you knew as a child EVER even dreamed of visiting. I guess one might say I’ve taken risk after risk after risk. Perhaps I was too young at the time to know I was doing it. Or maybe then it was easier to focus on what I was gaining without thought of anything being lost.

Just a few months ago when I left the perceived job security of an installed pastoral position in order to explore the perceived lack of job security in interim ministry, my Spiritual Director shared words with me that included this: “Awaken your spirit to adventure; hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk” (from “For a New Beginning,” by John O’Donohue in To Bless the Space Between Us). These seem like words to describe my sister — not me. Though, I’m pretty sure my spirit needs these words more than hers does! After all, I was the one a few years ago who undertook a daily practice of courage for Barbara Brown Taylor’s doctoral class called The Embodied Word. Every day for a month, I had to do at least one new thing or one thing I was afraid to do. My list included everything from seeing a sci-fi movie, to going through a drive through, to playing my violin in front of about 400 people. Out of that experience of practicing courage, grew a new ministry of taking children from one side of the tracks to be with children on the other — a Practice of Encounter to see how community might grow. I’m left to wonder: will I ever be the kind of person who has learned to find ease in risk?

O’Donohue’s words in “For a New Beginning” end with: “Soon you will be home in a new rhythm, For your soul senses the world that awaits you” (Ibid.). That’s the thing with risk: not risk of staying off the rocks along the shore of Lake Michigan or watching a movie genre you never before considered. But risk of allowing life to unfold as it will. We have no idea what tomorrow holds. We can’t know where the journey will take us or how it all will work its way out. We can awaken our souls to the adventure of it all. Let life bring the great gifts it will; hold on to the hand of dear family and friends as it brings challenges to hard to face alone. Something more awaits. Something yet unseen. Ahh. Can we relax into it and let it be? For, one step at a time, the only way for us to get there is to risk.

What about you? What’s your experience of risk?

And what do you think of O’Donohue’s words?

“For a New Beginning”
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plentitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of a beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
~ by John O’Donohue in To Bless the Space Between Us

What do you do?

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This week I saw a comic strip.  Two people were sitting at a table across from one another.  The first person said to the other:  “What do you do?”  The second person started to tell the first person their very important job title.  Person one then said:  “No.  I mean:  what do you do for the world?”

Great question:  what do you do for the world?

Job titles come and go.  Work responsibilities change.  How we go about making money in order to live most probably will be different today than it will be ten years from now.  What we do for the world is lasting.

The day I read the comic, I received a photo of a young Native American girl wearing a paper mask.  She made it at the Vacation Bible School being led by Presbyterians from Chicago on the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota.  The masks were individual creations signifying that God loves each one of us as the beautiful, unique beings that we are!  What those Presbyterians were doing for the world was giving a little girl (320 little boys and girls, in fact) the sense that she matters and is loved immensely by the most wonderful One.

Though we all miss him terribly, my teenage nephew has taken to spending his summers as a counselor at Boy Scout Camp.  I know he has a ton of fun, but he’s also in service to the campers who attend.  He’s part of the team of leaders who are providing the time and space for campers to become better versions of themselves as they grow in confidence, teamwork, and skill.

I know teachers who don’t just teach to the test, but seek to build character.  Managers who do what they can to lighten the load for employees — not just for productivity sake but because they recognize when a person is going under.  People who commit to visiting seniors weekly — bringing not just meals, but joy to the day of an otherwise isolated person.

I’m not sure we always realize it; but in all these ways, and so many more, we do something so very significant for the world.

What about you?  What do you do

. . . for the world?

Changes

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Yesterday the church of my childhood left the denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  It had been a long time coming.  For years they have struggled with others in their Presbytery (the collective body of Presbyterians in their region).  In fact, I experienced that firsthand when my own process to ordination became a bit of a battleground between them and the Presbytery.  It was a messy, challenging time in the course of my journey.  I see now that it was painful for us all — each one of us trying to be faithful to who we believe God to be. 

Even though it has been nearly twenty-five years since I have been directly connected with the church of my childhood, something about yesterday grieves me deeply.  Like a long-awaited divorce in which the papers finally are settled. It’s not necessarily easier no matter how long it takes or how long it’s been since you all last talked.  I keep coming back to this odd sensation that somewhere along the way we all have grown into someone other than who we once were.  I believe that my own life and worldview have gotten bigger.  I’ve never considered myself a courageous person; yet I can see how from that starting point, my own journey has unfolded as one of openness, acceptance, and trust that we all are held in the messiness of it all.  Even if we no longer understand God, ourselves, or the world in the same ways; I am grateful for how I was blessed from the ministry of that congregation.

As we formally part ways, I need to say thank you.  I am because of who they all are — or have been.  I remember Mrs. Bacchaus.  Every week in the church basement, she taught us with the felt board and the rolling dividers.  I remember Ms. Dottie who had such a joy about singing. She introduced us to all sorts of songs that kept me throughout my youth.  I remember Pastor Paul who baptized me when I was an infant and retired from that post when I turned 18.  I loved him best because in a world where children pretty much were to be seen and not heard, Pastor Paul held a special place for us.  He treated us youngsters like we mattered. In doing so, he gave me the experience of a God who is love. 

And I am most grateful for the night when I was about 20 years old when I discovered “A Brief Statement of Faith” in our Book of Confessions.  I was about ready to be done with church and all the God stuff as it seemed it always was just a fight about who was bound for hell or not. What I really needed was a God and a faith community that would be with me NOW in how I would live out discipleship each day here on this marvelous earth.  That night I read:  “In life and in death we belong to God.  Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, we trust in the one triune God, the Holy One of Israel, whom alone we worship and serve.” The faith statement went on to profess a living God who in Jesus the Christ acted for the sake of any in need — even children; an Abba, creating God, who in sovereign love made the world and all of us good; a Holy Spirit that still is at work in and among us to bind us together with one another for the sake of all the world. And then words that have become a great comfort; especially as I have said them at the bedside of the dying, in the presence of the mourning, and in worship among those who might just be going through the motions for the week: “With believers in every time and place, we rejoice that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (PCUSA Book of Confessions, “A Brief Statement of Faith”). I don’t know how I first got my hands on “A Brief Statement,” nor do I remember all the details at that time in my life with the church of my childhood; but I do know that upon reading that statement, I finally knew what it meant to be a part of the Reformed Theological Family of Faith and in particular the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). I finally knew that I was home.

I’ll never agree with everything we are and do; and I’m grateful that I exist in a family of faith where that is to be expected, in part so we can practice grace among one another. I grieve that the church of my childhood no longer believes it can be a part of such a family and I hope they find a communion where they can grow in the grace God. As for me: all I know is that here among fellow faithful followers — ones who wrestle with God, one another, and our place in this world; HERE I am home. And come what may, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thanks be to God!

RevJule

To learn more about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) go to http://www.pcusa.org or visit a PCUSA congregation in your area.

The Long Obedience

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I believe it was Eugene Peterson who coined the phrase the long obedience in reference to a pastor’s response to God’s call to ministry. Well, 17 years ago today my long obedience began: I was ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the PC(USA). Actually, it began many years before if you count the times in my childhood I wanted to do all I could to love God better, and the ways I grew in faith as a youth, and the day in college when I finally decided to switch to a Theology major by signing up for my first Hebrew class.

It happened on a fluke. I promised God I would go on a sports mission trip because I felt like God had stood by me through my tumultuous experience of high school. Other than God, all I really cared about in those years was basketball, volleyball, track, and trying to make sense of why my saintly grandmother was dying a slow, painful death from cancer. At the age of 19, I found myself in Jamaica seeing the extremes of poverty and wealth for the first time in my life — seeing too that race had a whole lot to do with which side of it you ended up on. In the midst of that, I experienced a call to professional ministry in the church. (If you really wanna know how that all transpired, you’ll have to read my spiritual autobiography someday — when I finally get around to writing it!) Let’s just say, I’ve learned along the way to be pretty careful about any deals you make with God. You may think you’re just giving a week in gratitude for the ways God’s sustained you in the past. The next thing you know, you too may find yourself twenty-some years later breaking the bread and pouring the cup on the anniversary of your ordination!

I still remember celebrating at the table for the first time on June 1, 1997. My first baptism when the beautiful little baby squirmed so much I thought I might drop her. My first funeral in honor of a woman who put up a fierce fight against cancer. My first battle in a congregation, and my second, and my third. This life is a challenge; too many pastors have the warrior marks to show it. I’ve seen the statistics firsthand: I know many wonderful pastors who quickly have found another way to make a living. I don’t know how I’ve made it thus far, other than I’m a little bit too stubborn to let myself become road kill on the highway of life due to anything — including the church. And while I’ve known my fair share of difficulty in this preaching life, I think today was a great way to celebrate my ordination: I sat after worship today with a saintly bunch at a local restaurant as we belly laughed together for about an hour while dreaming silly ways of how we could reach out in our community. (I think they think I’m kidding about moving our bible study to the local Hooters.) It was such a gift! The way they have opened their hearts to me — the way they want to learn — the way they accept me as I am, no matter how out there I can get — the way they inspire me with their devotion to one another and to embodying Christ’s love in this world. They give of themselves in remarkable ways, as I’ve seen of so many church folks over these years as a pastor.

Today I find inspiration in ALL of the AMAZING people I have met through my life as a pastor and in my own heart that more and more wants to live up to my vows to serve with all my energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.

Here’s to the next 17+ no matter where the journey goes!
RevJule