Category Archives: Christian Life

Left Behind

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Chances are sooner or later you will find yourself sorting through the remnants left behind when someone dies. 

I have done this many times, for loved ones, for friends, even for strangers, and it all comes down to three piles: 

Give Away.  Throw Away.  Keep.

Precious memories, piles of paperwork. Family heirlooms.

Give Away.  Throw Away.  Keep.

A sweater that still has the scent of perfume on it, 7 combs in a bathroom drawer, dining room furniture that witnessed untold family dinners.  

Give Away.  Throw Away.  Keep.

Spare change at the bottom of a purse, a wedding ring, shoeboxes of birthday cards.   

Give Away.  Throw Away.  Keep. 

It is an exhausting experience that leaves you determined to go home and clean out that junk drawer STAT. 

It is also a sobering experience. As many times as you hear “You can’t take it with you,” it’s still shocking to see how much and what we leave behind.  Treasures and trash — although which is which isn’t always apparent to the ones doing the sorting. Beautiful memories and painful reminders.  Answers to family mysteries and silence in the face of them.  All reduced, in the end, to three piles. 

Give Away.  Throw Away.  Keep.

My most recent encounter with the Ministry of the Three Piles has got me thinking about what we leave behind, and why it all matters. 

I am part of a ministry that knits and crochets prayer shawls and blankets.  So naturally, I was delighted when we received a large donation of yarn and crafting supplies from a woman who died.  There were treasures, to be sure, including my favorite yarn that was discontinued many years ago.  And here it was, resurrected!  There were plenty of Orphans — yarn remnants that hinted at past creations, but no longer of much use. Any crafter has probably put such scraps in the “Well, I might use it for something” pile, which eventually just becomes The Island of the Misfit Toys.   Most of these went to the Throw Away pile. 

Then there were the Ghosts.  Dozens of projects in various states of completion, many still on the needle.  They were the knitting equivalent of Miss Haversham, frozen in time, as if they would be picked up at any moment and brought to beautiful completion. Most of these Ghost projects I sent, reluctantly, straight to the Throw Away pile. Without a pattern, or matching yarn, they would never be more than they were right now — beautiful, unfulfilled promises.   

I was painfully aware that I was holding an important part of this woman’s life in my hands, a part of her legacy, and I wanted to honor it.  It pained me to throw them away — all these offerings begun in hope, now stillborn, headed for the garbage heap along with kitchen scraps and dried out pens.    

But among these Ghosts, there were signs of life,   some hope of honoring this woman of considerable talents and prodigious amounts of yarn.  There were  a few baby sweaters, finished except for a sleeve yet to be sewn on.  I found this mysterious — on all of them, just one sleeve remained unattached.  It seemed like kind of knitting rapture —in an instant she was taken, and these were Left Behind.  For these, I created a new category:  To be Redeemed. I put them aside so I could finish what she started.  

This woman’s legacy — the Orphans, the Ghosts, and the To be Redeemed — has struck a chord in my soul. I look at my life and wonder what someone will make of what I’ve left behind.  Will anyone look at the special candlesticks I inherited from my favorite uncle and cherish them as I do?  Will someone wonder why there is a crisp $50 bill in my jewelry box (it was my father’s last birthday gift to me, just weeks before he died).  Will anyone try to make sense of the scraps of ideas for writing projects? 

What will wind up in my Give Away, Throw Away, Keep piles?  Will someone “pick up the thread” for all I’ve left unfinished and bring it to beautiful completion?

I ask these questions because I want to leave something behind of lasting significance, something to say I was here and left something of value, something of beauty, behind.  

Unless you are a true nihilist and believe that life is meaningless, I’ll bet you have that same longing.  No one (not even nihilists, IMO) wants to go through life just taking up space or to leave this life without having left some mark. It is a longing so deep and so universal, it could only come from God. 

God has created us in His image, and that means we share in His nature in some beautiful and mysterious way. God is the great Creator, and He has designed us to create, too, everything from magnificent meals to medical breakthroughs.  God delights in beauty (He declares creation “good!”) and we are never more like Him than when we create and take pleasure beauty.  God loves justice and shows mercy and He has planted those desires deep within us as well.  From the smallest to the most earth shattering, these are things that give us dignity, and meaning, and ultimately, legacy because they reflect Him.    

The writer of Ecclesiastes put it this way: 

“What gain has the worker from his toil?  I have seen the business that God has given to the children of many to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time.  Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart.”  (Ecclesiastes 3: 9-11)

We have glimpses of that eternity, that legacy, in the here and now.  When I knit and pray over a prayer shawl, and hear how the recipient cherishes it, I know that at least in this small way, I am living into eternity. 

But we also know that we don’t always know or see the impact our lives make.  This side of heaven, we don’t always see our legacy, and in that, we are in good company. 

  • Moses did not enter the Promised Land.
  • David did not build the Temple.
  • Peter and Paul and the other first generation evangelists never saw that 2,000 years later, 2 billion people worldwide would proclaim Jesus is Lord.  

But while Moses could only look at at the Promised Land from afar, Joshua entered it.  While David only dreamed of a Temple worthy of God, Solomon built it.  While Peter and Paul were martyred for their faith, countless Christians have continued to witness to the Truth in Jesus Christ.  Someone picked up the thread and continued to weave God’s great tapestry. 

In the Letter to the Hebrews, the author tells us of great heroes of faith:  Noah, Abraham, Sara, Moses and so many others.  He lifts up these great believers who nevertheless left behind unfulfilled legacies, their own piles of “To be Redeemed.”  Yet, 

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” (Hebrews 11:13)                                                                          

And so, we live here and now, with everything that God has created us for — creation, beauty, a love of justice, a heart of mercy.  And one day, we will leave it all behind, leave it to someone else to sort through.  And we will then have the privilege of “seeing them from afar” and seeing what God has chosen to be our legacy.

 

The Gift

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Our cat Winston has discovered the joys of Christmas.  He has taken to batting the ornaments off the tree, knocking over candlesticks, and playing hockey with one of the Wise Men from the Nativity.  The other day, he pranced into the family room, proudly presenting me with a furry pompom that he had liberated from the tree skirt.  He did not understand why I was less than grateful for this “gift.” 

Such is the nature of gift giving.  Amid all the beautiful expressions of love and “This is just what I was hoping for!” there are gifts that are unwanted, unappreciated, or that leave you wondering, “Why on earth did someone think I wanted this?”  (By the way, cats are the consummate unwanted-gift-givers. They always look so hurt when you don’t thrill to the half-dead mouse they have brought you.) 

Sometimes, though,  an unwanted gift can become a treasure.  When I was 18 and studying in Paris, I lived with a woman who was elegant, and always beautifully turned out.  For Christmas, she gave me a Hermès scarf.  Now, you have to know that the fashion at the time for college students was bell bottoms and platform shoes.  Not only did I not know the monetary value of this gift, I had no use for it in my life.  

Ten years later, when I was a young professional I discovered the scarf in my drawer and realized the treasure I had.  By this time, my uniform was smart suits and fashionable heels and a Hermès scarf was something chic young women aspired to own.  What I had dismissed as irrelevant I now cherished and proudly wore.  I still do.  

In a few days, we will celebrate the birth of Christ, a gift whose worth was not — is not — always appreciated.  It would have been hard to imagine that the savior of the world came in this way — small, vulnerable, powerless, ordinary.  It is easy to imagine that people would have thought, “This is not the gift I was hoping for.”  Even now, even after we know what this ordinary baby grew up to be and to do, people often don’t want the gift of a savior who suffers, who embodies humility, and who, instead of conquering our enemies, asks us to forgive them.  

And so, we take the gift and put it in the back of the closet.  We can forget about it for a long time until the day when a savior who understands suffering is just what we need.  We come upon it and rather than bristling at forgiving our enemies, we are grateful that God has forgiven us. 

The prophet Isaiah beautifully portrays this paradox of the gift of Christ.   He joyfully proclaims in Chapter 9, “For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given..and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  Who wouldn’t want that gift?  

And yet, in Ch. 53, he says this:

“.. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.”

In a few days, we will celebrate the giving of this wondrous gift — the unexpected, challenging, comforting, sorrowful, joyful gift of a savior.  May we recognize its worth and rejoice!

 

To Whom Shall We Go?

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He listened to his pastor preach a sermon, as he had many times before.  But this time was different.  The sermon contained some strange — you could even say offensive — ideas.  It left him confused and wondering if his faith was misplaced, if what he thought about God and this prophet of His was not true. 

After the sermon was over, he looked around and saw many in the congregation just up and left, disappointed and possibly disgusted at what they just heard.  They liked much of what the pastor had to say, but man, this talk about eating flesh and drinking blood was a deal breaker.  

His pastor turned to him and asked “What about you?  Are you going to go too?” 

This is what the Bible tells us happened to Peter and the disciples in chapter 6 of the Gospel of John.  

Jesus has just performed two stunning miracles — feeding 5,000 people with nothing more than a few loaves and fish, and walking on water.  The crowds follow him and he resumes teaching, and everything is going great until Jesus says this:

“Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 

John 6:54-56

At this, many in the crowd turn and leave and Jesus turns his attention to his disciples:

“So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.’

John 6:67-69

Translation: 

“I don’t understand what you have just said about eating your flesh and drinking your blood.  It sounds weird and pagan, and icky.  But at the same time I believe you are the Christ.  Maybe one day I will understand, maybe not.  But this discomfort, this tension I am feeling does not outweigh everything else I know to be true about you.  So, no, I will not turn away, but continue to follow, bringing my unbelief with me.”  

This has always been one of my favorite passages in the Gospels because it captures “faith” to me.  There’s lots I don’t understand.  There are things that offend me sometimes, disappoint me so deeply that I want to turn away with the crowd and say, “Nope, you lost me there.”  

I have been through such a season lately, where I have been disappointed with God because He has not met my expectations. I prayed for healing, would have been satisfied with comfort, and received neither. I wrote recently about how I am waiting for my sadness to resolve into praise.  

In this most unhappy of spaces I have been tempted to walk away, but have not.  I have heard Jesus turn to me, just as He did to Simon Peter and ask, “What about you?  Do you want to go too?”

And like Simon Peter, my answer has been, “To whom can I go? You have the words of eternal life.”  And so, instead of turning tail and walking away in search of a more pleasing and accommodating prophet, I have continued to put one foot in front of the other, continuing to walk towards Jesus, dragging my sadness with me. This has not been easy.   

I continued to attend weekly Bible study while feeling that the Word had nothing to say to me.  I continued to attend worship when I “wasn’t feeling it.”  These were painful things.  Painful to sit where I always do, with people I have claimed as my own and to feel utterly disconnected.  Painful to hear music that once moved me and words that I believed to be true, and to feel indifferent.  When the worship leader invites me to recite the Apostles Creed, asking: “Christian, what do you believe?” I open my mouth and the words don’t come.  I look around with envy — not so long ago, I was one of them, hands raised in praise, eager to announce my fidelity, my gratitude, my submission.  I feel utterly lost.  

But where else can I go?  Some part of me knows that this place, these people, this message is my only hope, that this is where one day I will hear the words of eternal life and once again feel alive.

When I say, “Where else can I go?” I’m not shrugging my shoulders and saying, well, it’s better than nothing.  It’s not Pascal’s Wager, commonly (if mistakenly) portrayed as “It’s impossible to know that God exists, so you might as well live as if He does, just in case.”  No, I’m not hedging my bets or even faking it until I make it.  I am holding two contradictory ideas in tension:  both true, yet seemingly irreconcilable.  God is good and loving. God does not always answer me as I’d like.  I am not the first to struggle with this paradox.  It’s as old as Job and as current as yesterday.  And because I am not the first, there is great wisdom to be mined from better theologians than myself.  Consider this from Martin Luther:

“For God’s sake, then, turn your ears hither,

brother, and hear me cheerfully singing,

me, your brother, who at this time is not

afflicted with the despondency and

melancholy that is oppressing you and

therefore is strong in faith, so that you, who

are weak and harried and harrassed by the

devil, can lean on him for support until you

have regained your old strength, can bid

defiance to the devil, and cheerfully sing:

“Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall;

but the Lord helped me.’

The last time I was in worship, I was no longer envious of those around me, mourning my loss of certainty and feelings of consolation.  No, somehow, I felt buoyed by their voices, their proclamations of faith.  It was as if they were saying “You are weary. Let us carry you until your strength is restored.” It reminded me of a passage from Luke’s Gospel:

“And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus.” 

                                                                              Luke 5:18-19

I always thought it was interesting that we know nothing about the paralyzed man’s spiritual condition.  We don’t know if he had faith in Jesus, we don’t know if he even asked to be healed. All we know is that in their great love and faith, his friends carried him to Jesus, the one they knew could help him. 

And that was enough.  

A Tale of Two Sheep

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I‘ve been thinking about sheep lately.  Two in particular: let’s call them Trevor and Charlie.   

Trevor is the star of a car commercial.  While his flock is contentedly grazing, he takes off in the opposite direction and jumps into an SUV driven by an affluent couple.  He becomes their pet, of sorts, going for walks on a leash, being bathed, enjoying car rides with his head out the window.  The voice over proclaims: “Life just gets better when you break from the herd.”  

We smile as he chooses individualism over stultifying conformity. If Americans had a motto, it would be “You’re not the boss of me,” and Trevor would be our mascot.   

The second sheep is Charlie. Charlie was found wandering the hills in Australia, alone. Like Trevor, Charlie broke from his flock, but he wasn’t living the life of a pampered suburban pet.  

After the initial exhilaration of breaking from the herd, Charlie began to feel the weight of his “freedom.”  Year after year, without his annual shearing, his wool became heavier and heavier until he could barely move or see, and heat stroke threatened to kill him. His “freedom” was slowly killing him and there was nothing he could do about it. 

When he was found after 6 years of wandering, his rescuers sheared 80 pounds of wool from him (about half his own weight).  At first unsteady and uncertain about walking without the crushing weight he had grown accustomed to, soon he was running and leaping and playing with other sheep.  Back in the fold, he found freedom where he once saw captivity.  

We have all been Charlie at one point or another.  If you have wandered off from the safety of God’s herd, in search of your own freedom or adventure or self-determination, know this:  What seems like freedom will one day be a burden you will be powerless to lift on your own.  The burden will grow, year by year, immobilizing you, blinding you, threatening your life. 

Our wandering isn’t always a dramatic leave-taking.  More often, it is small, seemingly harmless digressions. Every time I try to handle pain on my own, I break from the herd.  Every time I go off in search of some shiny object that promises freedom, I wander.

By the way, the enemy of our souls knows this well.  He knows what will tempt us and he knows just as well that once tempted, it will be hard to free ourselves.  As Thomas Brooks wrote, “Satan presets the bait, but hides the hook. “ 

Come Thy Fount of Every Blessing is one of my favorite hymns, in no small part because of this verse: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the one I love.”  We are all vulnerable to the “bait” despite our best intentions and resolutions. But this is not cause for condemnation, or despair.  

There is good news:  We will wander, but our shepherd will never stop looking for you or for me.  He is the shepherd who will leave the 99 in search of Charlie and Trevor.  

(Yes, Trevor, too, because he is just as lost.  As happy as Trevor might be at the end of our commercial, it will not last. He will likely break from his new found “herd” in search of something else — someone with a better car or a bigger house.  Perhaps he will long for the company of those in his flock.  Either way, he will search for freedom where it can’t be found.   I am more like Trevor than I’d like to admit.)

When we allow Jesus — our shepherd — to “find” us, he will lift our self-inflicted burdens, not with reproach or “I told you so” but with tender care. Every time.  

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?  And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.” (Luke 15:4-5)

Thanks be to God.

Every Day is Saturday

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The first Good Friday brought death and despair and shock to the band of followers of the prophet from Nazareth. On the day after — what we now call Holy Saturday — there was grief. And fear. And regret over what could have been done, what should have been done.  And there was blame, plenty of blame, for whose fault it all was. 

I used to muse about what it was like that first Holy Saturday, what it was like to be stunned by what had just happened.  I imagined what it felt like to be overcome by the shadow of unexpected, brutal, solitary death.  I thought about how, with all hope gone, time must have seemed to pass slowly.  I pondered the fear in that Upper Room — fear that those huddled there might be next to die.  

I don’t wonder any more. 

Now, in the year of our Lord 2020, in the year of the Great Pandemic, it seems every day is that Saturday. I see death all around me and feel helpless to stop it. I am hunkered down in my Upper Rooms, admitting no one, venturing out only under exigent circumstances, hurrying back to the safety of my closed universe.  I watch the news trying to figure out who is to blame and who I can trust.  And I am afraid.  I am afraid that despite all my precautions, that illness — and even death — will come for me next.

It is not all the time, of course. Most of the day I soldier on, working, cleaning, doing crosswords, cleaning, Zooming with friends and family, and then cleaning some more. But there are moments when I feel the weight of Saturday, when I see pictures of the unthinkable. Mass graves being dug for the dead, just miles from where I grew up. People, exhausted beyond measure, who are keeping the world running while we hide and wait. Funerals being held via cellphone. There are times when the water seeps through the cracks in the dam and I am overcome.

Of course, I know what the apostles did not know on that first Saturday.. I know that although the hours of grief and fear and confusion passed slowly that Saturday, they did pass. I know that on Sunday morning, when they unlocked the door and let Mary in, everything changed. The joy of seeing a risen Jesus overshadowed all the pain. How can you fear death when you have seen that He conquered it? How can you grieve for someone who is not dead? How can you blame yourself for betraying Him when He has forgiven you for it?  

All that is true and I am profoundly grateful that I know what they did not. Yet, I think it is a mistake to fast-forward over Saturday to get to the happy ending. We are here, now, and it is right to mourn.  After all, Jesus mourned for his friend Lazarus and saw death as the great enemy to be conquered. It is right to remain cut off from the world, for now, as the ultimate act of self-sacrifice for our neighbors. We should not be ashamed of fearing illness or death — Jesus Himself asked for the cup of suffering to be taken from Him.  

I believe that God respects and honors our human experience.  He doesn’t ask us to pretend that there is no pain in death or that we are not afraid. He doesn’t set up the false equivalence that faith is incompatible with feeling pain (it’s people who do that).  

If you don’t believe me, read the Psalms.  Every form of human emotion — anger, anguish, physical pain, mental torment, vengeance, jealousy, bitterness, you name it — is there, part of Holy Scripture.  Yes, the Psalms always end in praise, and that is a great balm.  But they tell me that God respects and welcomes the expression of our emotions. 

In that spirit, I offer a Psalm for Saturday

My heart is broken, Lord.

for the sick and the dead, and those who love them.

for those who have seen their livelihoods vanish and struggle to provide for their families.

For those who are lonely

The unbelievers ask, “Where is your God?”

And then I see where you are.

Where you have always been, a breath away from anyone who calls on you.

The unseen hand comforting the dying and giving strength to the caregiver.

Inspiring your people to generosity and selflessness in a time of need.

Showing your immeasurable love on the Cross.

Standing outside an empty tomb, triumphant over this world’s pain and death.

And through my tears, I praise your holy name.

Just like that first Holy Saturday, this seemingly endless one will end, although we don’t know when, or how, or what the world outside our isolation will look like when it does.  I do know two things.  That God is with us now, in all our fear and confusion and grief.  And that God will be with us on the other side, offering us a hope we never dreamed of. 

Two Tickets to Paradise

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In the past two weeks, I’ve seen the finale of the TV show The Good Place, an adaptation of Milton’s Paradise Lost, and attended the funeral of one of my oldest and dearest friends.  All in all, I’ve had the chance to think hard about the afterlife. 

The Good Place was a unicorn—a network TV show that encouraged serious thought about the meaning of life and death.  Oh, and it was a comedy that trafficked in satire, slapstick and silliness.  

The show took place in the afterlife, where people are consigned to The Good Place or The Bad Place, depending on the number of points they scored for “goodness” during their earthly life. In the course of navigating this system, the characters were asked to consider: What does it mean to be good?  What do we owe each other? Can people change?  The satire was sharp, often hilarious.  But at the same time, it presented philosophical arguments in a way that assumed our willingness to consider Life’s Big Questions while still enjoying a good fart joke. 

Aside from a nod to religion in the first episode (“All the religions got it a little bit right.”), and the fact that there were supernatural beings in control of both the Good and the Bad Place, the show was a paean to humanism.  These four humans consistently outsmart and outmaneuver the cleverest demons and the most well-intentioned angels. Their belief in human potential, the essential goodness of of people, and a sense of obligation to each other allows them to design a better system of the afterlife.  

And yet, when they finally make it to the new and improved Good Place, they are profoundly disappointed. True, their every desire and fantasies are instantly fulfilled, and they are giddy.  But they discover that after a while it is mind-numbingly boring. An eternity of “happiness” as defined by their individual desires and whims is unbearable.  

The funny thing is, this idea is completely consistent with the Christian worldview, which posits that a life centered on the self is at its core, profoundly empty. Pascal called this “a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator.”  St. Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.”  Although decidedly not Christian, The Good Place comes to the same conclusion:  Even if we have everything we want, it will not be enough. 

Paradise Lost gives us a similar view of what a human-centric Paradise is like. The play focuses on Eve’s temptation by Lucifer, who sees that despite the abundance of God’s creation, Eve wants more.  Not content to be able to communicate with birds, she wants to fly like one. She peppers Adam with questions about God, the garden, and why God doesn’t seem to have any grace to spare for Lucifer, who fascinates her.  God’s idea of Paradise isn’t enough for her; she wants more.  And more is what Lucifer offers in the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.  Her desire to define Paradise on her own terms is her (and our) undoing.

The Good Place and Paradise Lost both ask the same question: What happens when our idea of Paradise is based solely on our own desires? In The Good Place, without an idea of a good Creator who is able to provide what truly satisfies, the only choice is between eternal ennui, and escaping into nothingness. A Paradise of our making is fun for a while, but empty.

For their part, Eve and Adam do acknowledge a Creator, yet still behave as if what God declared good was not good enough.  Like the characters in The Good Place, they want Paradise to be about them. 

Which brings me to Max.  My dear, sweet, funny, exasperating, loyal friend for all of my adult life died this week.  And I’ve been thinking about what kind of a place I’d want him to be in right now.  

I don’t want him to be somewhere that is just a better version of this world, where we are granted every wish.  That’s not what the God of the Bible offers us, and we should be glad about that, because, let’s face it, even our purest desires are distorted by sin. 

No, for my friend I want something better, something purer, something that transcends my human capacity to imagine it.  I want him to spend eternity in a world that is God’s idea of perfection, not mine. I want an eternity– for him and for me — that is spent not looking in a mirror, but gazing on the face of God.

Throughout Scripture, God offers us so much more than our finite minds can think or imagine.  Listen to the invitation from the Prophet Isaiah: 

“Come, everyone who thirsts,

    come to the waters;

and he who has no money,

    come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

    without money and without price.

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

    and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

    and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me;

    hear, that your soul may live;

and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,

    my steadfast, sure love for David.

(Isaiah 55:1-3)

Knit, Purl, Me

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Yesterday I took a piece of my life and wrapped it in cotton-candy-colored tissue paper. The attached note, tied on with matching ribbon, declared that in this gift — this prayer shawl — every stitch was a prayer.

This is not exactly true. It is true that when I take up the needles, I pray — if it is someone I know, I pray for the specific ways this shawl will bless them. If it is for a stranger, I pray for God’s peace and love to surround them.

But every stitch a prayer? That’s a bit of holy hyperbole.

You see, woven in with the prayers is my life. Like a second strand of yarn, the pattern also contains whatever spiritual vibe comes from binge-watching Monk. My intercessions are for the friend who will receive this shawl, but sometimes they are also for my anxiety du jour. The steady breathing of the cat who sleeps next to me is as much a part of this undertaking as the sheep who has offered his fine coat to warm another. I fear the frustration of ripped-out rows or the impatience of wanting to get on with the next project also becomes part of my offering.

All of which is to say, it’s not all spiritual ecstasy and choirs of angels. It is simply hour after hour of my life.

Perhaps that is why I feel an emptiness when a project is wrapped in its beautiful paper and given away. I am proud of the beauty I have created and anxious to see it wrapped around someone who needs the joy and comfort of knowing that they have been prayed for. But I also feel like I’ve given away a chunk of my life, hours that do not seem as abundant as they once did. Wrapped in that tissue paper, tied up in that beautiful raffia bow is nothing less than months of prayers and petulance, intercession and impatience, and the discipline and occasional tedium of showing up, day after day, row after row, and committing to the work.

People who have received shawls often comment that they can feel the prayers embracing them. I wonder if they can also feel all the other things that have been absorbed into the strands. I wonder if I am now spiritually connected to this person in ways neither of us can fathom.

Of all the shawls I have made, some stand out.

  • The shawls I gave to my friend Jean when her mother was so gravely ill — one for her, one for her Mom. Jean and her Mom are both gone now, and I wonder where these pieces of me are now.

 

  • The one I gave to one of my oldest friends on the eve of her first chemo. In the months that followed, when I felt frustrated at being so far away, I imagined the shawl was an adequate stand-in for me.

 

  • The one that was left behind on one of the trips to the emergency room that were too commonplace in the last year of my father-in-law’s life. I like to think that part of me still rides around Kansas City in an ambulance with others who are afraid and in pain.

These invisible bonds between knitter and knitee bring to mind Dorcas, a woman we meet in the book of Acts. Dorcas was a seamstress who formed a community with needle and thread. She sewed tunics for “the widows” — women who were vulnerable, forgotten and often in need. And when she died, the widows held her legacy in their hands — all those simple, everyday garments that at first glance were unremarkable. Until the widows told their story — how they were made with love and how they bound Dorcas to them, and them to each other. As I work on my latest project, I wonder if when I’m gone, my “widows” will show their shawls to the other mourners and say, “See how she loved us.”

The story of Dorcas goes on to include a miracle. Their grief was so intense that they sent for Peter, who raised Dorcas from the dead, restoring her to the community, mending the fabric torn apart by death.

When I die, I do not expect to be miraculously resurrected as Dorcas was, at least not right then and there. But I do expect that the same power that brought Dorcas back to life will be active in me today and will allow me to serve others. I do expect that same power that brought her back to life will one day do the same for me.

Until then, I bind myself to people I love and people I will never meet with the softest wool and the smoothest needles, weaving in prayers and To Do lists, fervent intercession and mindless sitcoms. I will sit alone, hour after hour, like a busy little spider creating webs of connection between me and the world.

I will give myself away and find myself mysteriously replenished.

Are You Ready?

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I stood in her kitchen, holding a pan of lasagna.

She was a new mother and she had the disoriented look of someone who had just parachuted into enemy territory. I guess you could say that’s exactly what had happened to her, because this was not the homecoming she had planned. For one thing, after spending an extended time in the hospital, her newborn was already a month old. For another, his head was held in place by a metal bolt through his neck.

My friend who was involved in a ministry to parents of babies born with major cranio-facial abnormalities asked if I would bring this new mother dinner, since we lived in the same town. Even more than most new mothers, this woman had very little time or energy to worry about such mundane tasks as making dinner. So there I was, making awkward small talk with this woman I had never met.

After thanking me several times, she finally asked, “Why did you do this for someone you don’t know?”

I blathered on about how happy I was to help, that I knew she needed one less thing to worry about. All that was true, of course, but I could tell it wasn’t a satisfying answer. After all, why would a perfect stranger walk into her house bearing dinner?

I offered something bland and vague, along the lines of “I’m happy to help,” but even I knew that was inadequate.

Here’s what I wished I had said:

“I’m here because God loves you and I am just His caterer.”

“I’m here because God wants you to know that you and your son are perfect and precious to him.”

“I made you lasagna because God has rescued me from pain and confusion and exhaustion and I want you to know that he will do the same for you.”

Most of all, I wished I had said that I didn’t bring dinner because it was the nice thing to do. I didn’t cook for her because, as the Dalai Lama is often quoted as saying, ” My religion is kindness.”

The world can certainly use all the kindness it can get; I’m not discouraging it.  God knows (and I mean that literally) that we need to be more tolerant, compassionate and helpful to one another.

But the kindness of bringing dinner fills your belly, but not your soul.

Kindness can offer kinship and fellowship, but it doesn’t offer hope and it doesn’t comfort you when everyone has gone home and you are alone with your pain and fear.

No, my religion isn’t kindness.

My religion is belief in a God who sees beauty where the world sees deformity. My religion worships a God who knows what it means to be human, in all its glory and all its pain, and never leaves us.

My religion is in awe of a God whose Holy Spirit could overcome my fears and allow me to hold this mother’s child, looking past the rod in his neck, and smile at his sweet face.  I brought her a meal and she was appreciative.  I cooed at her baby boy and she was joyous.

Still, I regret my silence all those years ago. I take comfort in the possibility that maybe someone else was bolder than I and told her all the things I should have.

I’ll be ready next time.

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you;  yet do it with gentleness and reverence.   

                                                                                                       1 Peter 3:15-16

When Evil Walks In

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“I don’t want you to alarm you …” Tell me, is it possible to hear those words and not be alarmed?

The pastor of the church where I would be preaching that Sunday called to alert me about an “incident” during worship the previous week. A man showed up in the middle of worship and walked down the center aisle carrying a large duffel bag and ranting. He was “subdued” by the ushers and escorted out. “I don’t think he’ll be back, but the state police will be there on Sunday just in case. I thought you should know.”

Her voice was calm, and reassuring. Still, this is what I heard:

Crazy man.
Large duffel bag.
Had to be subdued.
State police.

My training as a lay preacher covered the design of worship services, doctrine, hermeneutics and Biblical exegesis. But not once did anyone tell me what to do when worship was disrupted by an angry man with a large duffel bag. All I could think was, “I’m just the substitute teacher! This is way above my pay grade.”

Other than being greeted by state troopers (which was, at once, reassuring and unnerving), it turned out to be an unremarkable worship service.

My worst fears didn’t come true that Sunday, but other churches haven’t been spared the horror I feared.

This week, it was Sutherland Springs, Texas where murderous evil breached the sanctuary. And, as if the execution of 26 people and wounding of as many more wasn’t horrible enough, the fact that it took place in a church was particularly hard to bear.

For believers, the idea that their sanctuary could be violated in this way was unthinkable. Many people think of church as the ultimate safe space, a place we can enter and then pull the drawbridge up behind us, leaving the world and its madness behind. When massacres happen in Sutherland Springs or Charlottesville, our idea of church as a spiritual stronghold is challenged.

So, here are the questions I’ve been chewing on:

Should we expect to feel safe in church?

Is church a space where God will not allow the world to intrude?

It strikes me that this is a First World Question. According to Open Doors USA, each month, 214 churches are destroyed and 772 forms of violence are committed against Christians worldwide. In countries like Syria and Iraq, the Christian population has been decimated. Churches in Mali, Nigeria, Somalia Pakistan and Kenya have been destroyed and Christians murdered.

For all the talk of the marginalization of the church in the U.S., and the ongoing culture wars that can make us feel under attack, the church in America doesn’t know the first thing about persecution. For too many of us, church is a soft place to land, a city whose walls protect us from all harm. The rest of the world has no such illusions. Every worship service is a defiant declaration that Jesus is Lord; no one expects the surrounding culture or political organization take that lying down. They are sorrowful, but not surprised, when evil comes to church.

I’m not suggesting that what happened in Texas last week was persecution; in fact, as of this writing, motives are unclear. But it has caused me to admit that I think that somehow when the church doors close behind me, the world and its evils will not intrude. I admit that I am like many people who think of church is where I can let down my guard and make the world go away.

But if the church is being the church — open doors, no moats or drawbridges here — it is possible evil will walk in. It is possible that God’s holy space will be profaned in word or in bloody deed. It is easy to worship in safety. Worshiping without guarantees of physical safety or comfort — now that’s real faith.

I recently went on pilgrimage to Ireland, tracing the steps of St. Patrick. One of my favorite places was Ballintubber Abbey, continuously in use since it was built in 1216. In 1653, the abbey was burned by Cromwell’s forces, destroying the roof and several outbuildings. Nevertheless, for the next 250 years, people continued to worship there, week after week, regardless of weather, and in spite of laws prohibiting it. As I sat in the rebuilt abbey, I wondered: Would I have been so faithful? Would I have been as brave? Would I have been a lookout for the priest hunters who came to kill my pastor? Would I have helped him escape certain death? Would I have been willing to kneel on the cold ground in worship?

Or would I have wondered, as I did this week, “Should I expect to be safe and comfortable in church? Will God allow the world to intrude?”

I don’t know why, but sometimes evil walks into church the same way it drives down the bike path or firebombs prayer meetings or enslaves young girls. I don’t know why God doesn’t always intervene to prevent such suffering.  But I do know that proclaiming Jesus is Lord is a declaration of war and I should be ready:

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Ephesians 6:13-17

 

 

#RESIST

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I don’t care what Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says, “gift” is not a verb. When I hear someone talk about gifting something, I want nothing more than to make them a gift of The Elements of Style and smack them upside the head with it.

I recently discovered that while I have been defending the world against the scourge of nouns-as-verbs, they have quietly made their way into the dictionary. I refuse to acknowledge or acquiesce to such barbarism. In the spirit of the times, I am declaring:

#NotMyDictionary  #Resist

I vow to preach the gospel of #neveraverb as long as I have breath. In the words of Martin Luther, patron saint of resisters, “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise.”

At the heart of my resistance — of all resistance — is the belief that I know better than The Authority I’m resisting. My defiance denies the authority’s moral, legal, academic or spiritual legitimacy in favor of my own. Now, resistance can be a principled, brave opposition to an obvious wrong. (Think Dietrich Bonhoeffer, William Wilberforce or Martin Luther KIng, Jr.) It can also be petulant, obstinate and self-aggrandizing, like my linguistic jihad against verbified nouns.

If it were only a matter of grammar, I could chalk it up to a charming quirk. But I fear this rebellious streak goes far beyond the Word Wars.

If resistance is substituting my own judgment for an authority’s then I am guilty of resisting God. You probably are, too. It’s OK, we come by it honestly. We inherited it from Adam and Eve.

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” (Genesis 3:6)

In other words, God said “No”, but I know better.

She knows God has prohibited it; she says as much to the serpent. But she rationalizes her rebellion. It looks good, it probably tastes good. It will make me wise, and what could be wrong with that? Why wouldn’t a loving God want me to have it?” (By the way, I think this last is one of the most dangerous questions we can ask. For one thing, it assumes that if God loves us, He will give us our every desire, even if that contradicts His will and His word. For another, it often precedes an argument that ends in “I know that’s what He said, but He didn’t mean it that way.”)

Eve and Adam’s rebellion — and ours — is rooted in the desire to be the judge of what is good and what is not. Their desire has convinced them that they can ask God to scooch over so they can share His throne.

This is why our resistance hero Martin Luther famously wrote that the root of all sin is idolatry. We never break any commandment without having first broken the first: “You shall have no other gods before me.” After all, once that is abrogated, then the absolute moral authority that undergirds the rest of the commandments becomes just another voice in the din of relativism. And all the while we pile up one rationalization after another for why this is all perfectly fine and God is cool with it.

From that day in the garden to this day at my desk, people have struggled with the radical claim on our hearts and our heads of that first commandment.

1. There is one God, and it’s not me.
2. God alone has claim to all authority and truth.
3. When God’s word is clear, but I think I know better, see #1

When it comes to words, I cling to the notion that I know better than the dictionary. I suppose there is no real harm to this, unless you happen to be on the receiving end of one of my tirades.

But when it comes to God, my resistance reveals a dangerous idolatry.

In the gospel of Luke, Jesus asks a haunting question:

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”    (Luke 6:46)

Why indeed.