Praytell

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Minneapolis, Minnesota

It may well be that striking up a conversation is what pastors do.  To live a pastoral life is to talk about life with anybody who cares to hear.  And so it is that words like “recession” take on new meanings.

We have a salt and pepper shaker that once belonged to my grandfather, and perhaps his grandfather and mother and so on through the generations.  It seems to be silver-plated, or pewter, I’m not sure which.  One lid, the one with a salamander embossed on its side to indicate “salt” or “pepper,” is stuck.  The shakers look tarnished.  I’ve wondered if they should be refurbished, how old they might be, and how many hundreds of thousands of dollars they might be worth.  So I’ve stopped in some antique stores to ask what I should or could do.

Yesterday I passed one on my way to the gym.  A woman with a nametag saying “Alice” sat at a desk, and looked to be the owner.  I explained why I was there, and waited to hear her answer.  I’d have to bring them in.  I appreciated her curiosity, and her offer to look at them.

“Thanks,” I said as I prepared to leave.

“Thank you.”

“By the way, how’s the recession treating you?” 

“I don’t know,” she said.  But the tone of her voice said, “we’re up against it.”

“I’d think these wouldn’t be easy times for antique shops, although there have been so many garage sales maybe supply is up a bit.”

“I don’t have anything that anybody really needs,” she said.  She was not saying that people don’t need fine craftsmanship, a sense of history, and a relic or two of the past.  But she was saying that no matter how much it appealed to one’s heart, everything she sold was discretionary in nature.

“Discresionary,” I said.

“Discretionary,” she said.  “It’s been hard.  I think we’re going to make it, but who knows?”  She had a great location, on one of the busiest streets in Minneapolis.  “Nobody has money, so they’re not buying,” she said.  “Not even looking.”

“Last year, I stopped in at an oil-change place,” I said.  “I asked how they were doing, and they said business had really fallen off.  People couldn’t afford car repairs and maintenance.  They had a hunger shelf donation can out, and they matched what people put in.  That impressed me.”

“My son is a veterinarian,” she said.  “And people are putting off caring for their dogs.  They’re not bringing them in for a check-up or all the shots.  It’s really affected  him.”

I am struck once again by the incredible complexity of our lives, how one change here means another change there.  I hadn’t made a list of businesses that would be especially hard-hit in these days.  Yes, the diamond shops, the yacht dealers and the automobile industry.  But the small-scale antique dealers,vets, maintenance shops, and art galleries I hadn’t thought about until these conversations happened.  I am grateful for the shared recognition of loss that, perhaps once said, is a bit easier to carry.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Minneapolis, Minnesota

The paintings must wait.

They are lying flat on a small table, waiting for my computer to be repaired, which will not happen until Tuesday.  Like you, I realize just how much of a life-cord it has become.  Can the day begin without having perused the New York Times, Washington Post, perhaps the Dawn (Pakistan) or the Mail Guardian (Johannesburg).  Of course it can.  And, who has written?  What letters are on my heart waiting to be sent?

And so, the paintings wait.

I’m sorry about that because this post is all about painting.

I have no teacher, but have taken a few classes.  At the end of one of them, there was a comment that has stayed with me.

“Larry,” the teacher said.  “Not all skies have to be blue.”

I knew that.  Sunsets are not blue, neither are dawns.  But his comment wasn’t about the exact color of the sky.  The comment was about the color of my heart, my hope, my impression, and, most important of all, my curiosity.

Sure, the white thunder cloud has a dark bottom, and as its billows explode into deep blue.  There you go . . . three colors, white, blue, and deep grey with a bluish, redish tinge.  That’s simple.

But then . . . what happens if the colors change.

It turns out that emerald green and cobalt violet make for an atmosphere that has more depth than sky, more passion than sharp blue, more distance than a simple blue.

Same with turquoise and cadmium red.  Incredibly, they make for a sky.

Orange and blue, they make for a sky.

Scarelt and ceruliam blue make for a sky.

Let’s try it this way.

The lesson is not about painting.  It’s about life.

So, the same old problems return once again, always asking for some sense of predictable resolution.  “Make it blue,” they scream.

“That’s too blue.  That’s not blue enough.  MAKE IT BLUE.”

And so on.

Tonight, in Washington, DC, the problems several thousand years old demand the same kind of certainty.  “MAKE PEACE ONLY IF WE “WIN.”  “IT”S OUR LAND.”  And so on. 

To go for the violet and deep green sky, I realize there is some loss.  Maybe I couldn’t have done a deep blue sky, a dark-bottomed cloud, anyway.  Could be.

But the line has stayed with me.

“Not all skies have to be blue.”

What’s true for the sky, is true for me.  And, who knows, perhaps even for you.

Monday, August 31,  2010

Minneapolis, Minnesota

I didn’t know where the conversation was going.

In fact, I didn’t know there would even be a conversation.  I’d done my workout at the Y, and decdided to take a sauna before cooling off by jumping into the pool and swimming laps.

A woman and a man, clearly a couple, walked into the sauna.  He said something that included the word “Crazies.”

“Do you mean the Crazy Mountains of Montana?” I asked. 

“Why?”

“Well, we lived there for ten years.  I heard you say the word and I was suddenly back home.”

“No,” he said.  “But we do know where they are.”

“How could you forget?,” I asked.  “Once you’ve been there you’re always there.”

“What did you do?”

“I was a pastor,” I said.

And then, suddenly, the level of conversation deepened a bit.  He looked at his girl friend, and she looked at him.  They paused a bit.”

“You know,” he said.  “It’s time for us to tend to something spiritual.  Time to find a church.”

She nodded her head.

“But what kind of church?” he said.  “I don’t know the difference between a Methodist, a Lutheran, a Baptist or a Morman.”

“Well,” I said.  “Here’s the deal.  They all think they’re right.”

They both laughed.

“What are you?” 

“Congregational,” I said.  “United Church of Christ.  We were the anti-slavery people, abolitionists.  First ones to ordain women, gays and lesbians.”

I invited them to worship with us.  But as I did, a line went through my mind.  “There is a time for everything under heaven.”  A time to find a spiriual home, a time to move away from one, a time to take matters of the spirit seriously, a time to let go of them.  What was it in him, and in them that told them it was “time” to find a spiritual home of one kind or another.

I do not know.

Some say that we do the searching.  Others say that the Spirit leads us along and searches on our behalf.  “The Spirit intervenes for us with sighs too deep for words,” Paul wrote to the church in Rome.

“Take care,” I said as I left the heat, and walked to the cool pool.  It’s waters always feel like baptism, a flush of cold water, and then a few strokes.  Upheld, refreshed, ready to start life again.

There is a time.

And you?  What time is this for you? 

And me.

Soft walking,

Larry

“IO

Friday, August 27, 2010

"This is where we meet, plan and pray."

Minneapolis, Minnesota

The two sentences, recorded from the chambers of a collapsed Chilean mine, sing.

“Here is where we meet every day, here is where we plan, where we pray.  Here is the meeting room where all of the decisions are made with the involvement of the 33 that are here.”

The three verbs find a center, establish purpose and have boundaries.

Here is a place to meet.

Here is a place to plan.

And here is a place to pray.

In those two sentences each of the five Leading Causes of Life that Gary Gunderson and I wrote about make their presence known.

Connection (meeting), coherence (here is where), agency (planning), hope and blessing (prayer) are each present.  The two sentences are life sermon.  When the veneer of normal life is taken away, when tomorrow is anything but certain, life has a chance to emerge.  That’s not to say it always will.  Things can so easily go awry.  The circumstances are dire.  But still, those two eloquent sentences are a model for us all.

Two experiences flash through my heart and mind.

One of my sons has spent the last two days recovering from surgery.  He too knows about “collapse,” as his bones collapsed and needed a rescue operation.  A chaplain visits him, saying, “This is a place to pray.”  Nurses and friends care for him, saying, “This is a place to connect.”  Necessity says, “Let this be a time to plan,” knowing it will be a long return, and knowing that all healing is at once emotional, physical and spiritual.

As you know, I am a pastor, though I do not have a congregation at the present time.  When someone visited my church to ask what we were doing, I would often tell them about the cancer group, the after-school programs, the food bank, the book groups, and perhaps some of the guiding principles of a Congregational church.  If they wanted to look at the church, I’d lead them around and show them the sanctuary, the kitchen, the offices, and so on.

This sequence of mission-orientation changed after I visited Russia and became acquainted with the Russian Orthodox Church.  It’s icons, liturgies, and cathedrals are a far cry from the simplicity of rural Congregational churches on the edge of the prairie, the north shore of Lake Superior or the Crazy Mountains of Montana.

In Russia, we’d visit a country church and meet the priest, who was scything the tall grass.

“Welcome,” he said.  And then he led us into the sanctuary.  “This is where we pray.”  Nothing was more important than being in the place where God meets people and people meet God.  Talk about mission was secondary, talk about Orthodox theology was secondary.  The important thing about a church is, “This is where we pray.”  Then talk about mission, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” made sense and found its bearings.

I realized that I had crowded a visitor’s conversation with non-essentials.  When I returned home, that changed.  “This is where we pray,” I’d say as light filtered through the amber or stained glass windows.  That’s the thing about life.  We do indeed need to make it a priority and give it attention.

“This is where we meet.”  “This is where we plan.”  “This is where we pray.”

In the coming weeks and months, may such a spirit continue to prevail.

Friday, August 26, 2010

And Where Does the Day Go?

Minneapolis, Minnesota

I knew Jim, and Janet, but not well.

They did not attend the church I pastored.  But they cared deeply about life, about faith, about compassion.  One day, I heard they were going to they headed off to India on a medically-related mission of one kind or another.  It was just the kind of thing they would do.  They were both retired, had the time, and the means for the Indian sojourn.  They were there six months or so, and then they came home.

Jim had cancer.

It wasn’t long before he died.  We were sad, as people in small towns always are when they hear someone has passed away.  “I’m sorry,” we say with a spirit of care and a genuine sense of compassion.  Not long after his death and funeral, I met Janet on the sidewalk.  Jim was a diabetic, and she wanted to give me his testing equipment that was better than anything I had.

“Thank you,” I said.

“He’d be glad for you to have it,” she said.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

At that point the conversation went deep, as conversations with pastors invariably do.

“Not well,” I think she said.  “People tell me that time will heal it.”

I may have nodded my head a big.

“But where does the pain go?”  she asked.  It wasn’t enough to say, “This will pass.”  She wanted to know where it passes to.  Where does the loss, the hurt, the sadness go?  She wanted to know.  She did not want a philosophic theory, or a simple answer that avoided the question.  She wanted to know where the pain went.

“It goes,” I said, “Straight to the heart of God.”

The words surprised me.  Just what did they mean?

God might relieve our pain, but did God absorb it?  Did God take it to heart?  Just what happens when prayer cannot turn back the clock?  And suppose God could not receive our anguish, our hurt, our sadness, our laments, our broken hearts.  What kind of a God would that be?  Suppose God was only a “fixer” but not the receiver?

Somehow or other the hurts of life have to be assuaged, received, acknowledged and taken to heart.  Buddha’s sadness had to go somewhere; the grief of Jesus’ death had to go somewhere.  It had to go to God, to the very heart of God.  Only there could it be resurrected, understood, and taken to heart.

That’s what parents do.

When our children hurt, anguish, cry out, and what do we do as parents?  We take it to heart.  Somehow or other we process it.  So does God.

“Where does it go?”

“Into the heart of God.”

And somehow, a new day arises, and hope is born again as step by step, day by day, burdens are lifted and life is once again trusted.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Fire and Water

Minneapolis, Minnesota

This morning’s paper carried a story about a Florida pastor with plans to burn as many Korans as he can find.  He wants to stand for something, to resist whatever it is he thinks Islam is about.  The fact that his fanatical opposition is now a national story plays into all kinds of hands.  I have no interest in fueling the conflict.

But the story did spark a memory

I attended Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.  To say I loved those three years of study would be an understatement.  The depth of learning, and exposure to a world of scholarship and thought I never knew existed continues to inspire me.  We were somewhat the exception–four children, married, white, coming from a small town on the coast of Maine.  But Union became home, other students friends, and the experience meaningful.

I do not remember if it was a class, or perhaps just a group of students.  They were determined to make a stand for inclusive language.  It was a policy at Union to not refer to God as “He” and to avoid sexist language as a part of scholarship.  That was “okay” with me, though I had not yet taken the feminist critique of scripture, or history, to heart.

It was perhaps this kind of tin ear the group wanted to oppose in dramatic fashion.  The Book of Common Prayer, used by the Episcopal Church refers to God as “He” without hesitation.  “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth,” begins the Gloria in excelsis.  “Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and father, we worship you,” it goes on.  Such sentences were a bridge too far for a group of women who wanted to make a point.

They decided to gather in the courtyard and burn the Book of Common Prayer.  Needless to say, others heard about this.  I hasten to add I do not know the decisions, the discussions, the hopes and the fears that went into their decision.

Suffice it to say the matter made it to chapel.  We reflected on it, talked about it, processed it in chapel.  One of the professors present was Dr. Kosuke Koyama, 小山晃佑, who taught comparative religion.  He and his wife Lois had always had a kind word for us as we walked the hallways with four kids in hand, ages 7, 4, 4 and 2 at the time.  I knew he was Japanese.  But I did not know he was in Tokyo when it was incessantly fire-bombed at the end of the Second World War.   He later wrote that, “The minister who baptized me told me that the God of the Bible is concerned about the well-being of all nations, even including Japan and America,” he wrote. “To hear this at the same time that we were being bombed by America was quite startling. This was my first ecumenical lesson.”

He listened to the discussion.

And then he said this:

“One must be careful with fire,” he said.  “It is such a powerful symbol and force.”

His words were neither a criticism, nor an indictment.  His voice, so loving, and full of wisdom, made the distinction between “idea” and “worship.”  In the ensuing years, when children lit a candle on the alter each Sunday morning, and I saw the wick take flame, his words often came back home.  The symbols of ritual have the power to both nourish and destroy.

One must harness them carefully.

Enough said.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Movement

Minneapolis, Minnesota

It is a day of dreams.

In New York City, our son Andy emerges from surgery, as his brothers have also done this year.

Did it work?  Will he be able to walk without pain?  This dream, “Surely they can do something,” has not had good endings for him, his brothers or sister.  Once, his foot full of anesthesia, I watched him walk across the floor as though he was floating in an almost slow-motion movie.  So, this is what walking is like.  Then the anesthesia wore off, and the ensuing surgery failed to match the anesthetic reprieve.

A day of dreams.

A day of difficulty.

The Orthodox icons of Mary show her holding an adult Jesus, hoping to protect him from the anguish that came him way.  As such, it is the hope, perhaps even the purpose, of every parent.  In love, she cradles him.  No escape here, when hard reality meets the love of a parent who is aware that not all is well and much is beyond her control.

A day of dreams.

I almost dare not share the dream that rinsed my soul last night.  I woke up saying, “Hold on to that, hold on.”

The church is two blocks from here.  It is a Lutheran church.  Wednesday mornings it is my well.  In the dream, I was in that church.  I’ve only attended worship there a few times.  But there I was.  There were twenty, or thirty people, quietly and gently waiting for something.  There was no anxiety.  It was a pleasant wait, people milling about a bit knowing that soon someone would be at the pulpit.

The glass sanctuary door opened.  In walked Martin Luther King, with a few others.  There were no cameras.  There was no huge crowd.  But there he was, relaxed, and just a bit tired, greeting folks.  We were glad to see him.  He had made it.  “Good, he’s here,” we said quietly and lovingly.  Martin was not wearing a jacket.  He walked up to the pulpit, opened his mouth and began to speak, completely at ease.

“You know about the love seat, don’t you?” he asked.

“The love seat?”

“Yes, the love seat.  It’s right there.”  He pointed to an empty spot on a pew.  The empty spot was on the left edge of a front pew.”

“I need to be moving on, but I want you to remember and receive the love seat.  That’s all I have to say.”

He began to slowly walk out.  When he came to the love seat, he placed his hands on it.  An ordinary pew was now no ordinary pew.  It was a centering call.  We were to remember it, share it wonder and find who it was for.

If you do not believe that dream, neither will you believe this.  In next Sunday’s reading, Jesus points out that when we share a banquet, we should not invite guests who can easily repay us, we should invite those who cannot.  Those who are proud will be humble, and the humble will find their way to God.

It’s about the love seat.

The love seat in our hearts, our homes, our churches, our world.

That’s it.

Tuesday, August 23, 2010

One Day This Happened

Minneapolis, Minnesota

When one of our twins, Andy, came up with this idea of a web page, he patiently led me through the steps.  This is where you post.  This is how to insert a picture.  He also showed me the various categories for entries.  One  was “Daily Reflections.”

It didn’t catch my spirit.  “Who cares?” I asked myself.  Some other kind of filter had to be found.  What should it be?  Healing and faith made sense.  So did poetry, though I’m not writing as many poems as I once did.

A conversation sprang to mind.

“What are we working on?” we asked around the table one Wednesday morning at a life-centered bible study.  The question wasn’t about work, but about our lives.

“I’m working on grace,” I responded.

“Really,” said Elaine.  “Isn’t grace working on you?”

Touche.  Working on grace is a bit like hot ice and cold fire.  Grace is not something we achieve.  That’s the whole point.  Grace does not keep score.  One is not successful at grace.  We do not prove ourselves worthy of grace, though it is tempting to do so.

Perhaps it is because we live in a “win” or “lose” day and age, we’re always thinking we need to prove ourselves.  When we lived in New York City, I quickly learned that simply saying one’s address was a sure way to designate success.  We didn’t have many visitors when I shared where we lived.  Folks were afraid to visit.  Success meant money, success meant class, success meant we were strong, success meant having to prove ourselves.

The tides of grace belong to an utterly different world.

This world is astonishingly difficult to fathom, because we must give up the desire to prove ourselves.

“I’m working on grace,” I’d said.  “Wonder when I’ll be successful?” the others heard me say before their gentle rescue.

I know how appealing it is to say that the concept of original sin is a loser.  We don’t much like that idea.  The world already has enough shame.  True, true, and yet again true.  But there is something within us that keeps getting in the way.  Why is forgiveness so hard?  It requires that we give up control.  Why do we work so hard to prove ourselves?  Because we have not accepted that we are loved, named, and called by a forgiving God.  If we could accept that we need this, that no matter how hard we try we cannot escape the need for forgiveness, if we could point ourselves in such a direction we would find that yes indeed, grace is working on us.

This grace is not what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.”  It came at a price that gave us both Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  And it comes with a price that requires we surrender our will, our incessant need to compare.  In its place, we are brought to a new and deeper level of sustaining hope.

Grace, we finally realize, is working on us.

It is God’s work.

Always has been.  Always will be.

And so it is that I call these pages, “Grace notes.”

Larry

Monday, August 23, 2010

Genesis in Earth and Sky

Minneapolis, Minnesota

First an apology.

When I signed in to write a column last Friday, an error message immediately appeared.

“What’s that?” I asked.

I wrote my son Andy, who set up these pages for me, letting him know something was wrong.  He said he’d look into it.  And so he did.  Some on-line service provider I had never heard of said it was their fault, not mine.  But then further research revealed that perhaps I had messed around with some settings.

“No I didn’t,” I said, not even knowing what settings actually are.

If you tried to log onto these pages and got the same error message, I apologize.  There is one exception:  if you are a pharmaceutical company seeking to sell a drug that deals with a certain activity known to the male species, you can get lost.  But other than that I welcome you back.

Not long ago I was wondering about fall-back positions.

What do we fall back on when the world we have known seems to come to an end?  Family?  Faith or religion?  Do certain verses of scripture come to our rescue, do the words of a hymn suddenly find their way into our heart?  Just what is it we rely on when the normal systems of reliance are no longer there?

The question is anything but facile.  More often than not we may say, “Well, I’m going to be okay.”  If this is the case, we may have already lost our way.  The stand-by patterns, the stand-by systems–self-reliance, success, appearances, that once looked meaningful may not be meaningful at all.

How many times does an addict say, “Well, I’m not really an addict”?  Many.  Everything is fine, until.  Until something says it is not fine.  Until a diagnosis, a lapse, a crisis.  Or perhaps an epiphany that taps us on the shoulder.

Genesis is the first book of the Bible.  I am so deeply grateful for that simple fact.  Genesis . . . the beginning that generates life.  When all else fails, and we do not know where to turn, we may well find ourselves, either by choice or by forced option, turning to Genesis and the God of creation.  That was, this is, and who knows what will happen next?  Some thing’s going to happen.  One way or another, our lives are all about new beginnings.

Things may get worse.  Or they may get better.  Either way something is going to happen.  Either way we find the book of Genesis is written for us.  All those floods, all those battles, all those family rivalries, all those calls for something more, all those set-backs, all those deserts, all those unexpected blessings . . . it’s all about our lives.  And, in each case, something happens.  Something new emerges.

What do we fall back on?

I’d say Genesis.

It is, after all, a story of what happens when light finds its enduring way into life.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Dawn of a First Beginning

Minneapolis, Minnesota

The headlines said, “You’d better change your plans.  We’re on the verge of a new war.  Floods have taken a bitter toll in a much distrusted land.  The President may not even be an American.  Cities that promote bicycling as a means of transportation are headed towards socialism.  Maybe the oil has disappeared, maybe it is still there, hidden beneath the surface.  Maybe Favre will play for the Minnesota Vikings, maybe not.  Maybe LeBron James will stay in Cleveland, maybe he won’t.  Stay tuned.”

But I had somewhere else to go.

Nicole was getting married.  She was a Sunday School kid in my first church, a friend of our daughter.  Somehow, magically, she had grown up and listened to a call within her that said, “He’s the one.  It’s Mark.”

And so it was.  Last Saturday afternoon, I drove to the church.  I don’t think they are members there, but they wanted to share these vows on holy ground.  There it was.  The unmistakable physical and spiritual architecture of a church.  The sanctuary had soft lighting and radiant wood with a simple cross, hymnals filled with not only music but worthy thoughts.  The guests all arrived at the appointed time, and filled the pews.  The bride’s friends and family were on one side, the groom’s on the other.  But there was no separation in intent, in shared witness, and in hope.

Everything was in place.  Everyone was in place.  The parents and grandparents were lovingly and carefully seated, the walker used by a grandfather taken gently by Jeff, the bride’s younger brother.  There we were.  In walked the pastor and the groom.  They just stood there, waiting.  The pause made me smile.  How many times have I said to the groom, “We’re going to just go out there and stand.  It’s kind of embarrassing.  But savor the moment.  Love it.  Look out at your friends.  Open your heart.  Just stand there.  We have all the time in the world.”

In walked the bride’s maids with the groomsmen.  Suddenly, the altar was peopled.  A glow of anticipation spread through the congregation.

Then Nicole entered.  Nicole the third grader, the sixth grader, the seventh grader, the high school graduate, the college graduate, the young woman she had become.  Nicole and her dad Duane walked down the aisle.  Tears began to fill my eyes.

The world had worries.  But we had a wedding.

There were 1,000 other places everyone there could have been, but we chose to be there, with Nicole and Mark, for Nicole and Mark.  Wouldn’t have been anywhere else.  With love we surrounded them.  With hope.  Remembering our own weddings, the meaning of our own vows that have stood the test of time and been tested by time.  Everything was, “for them.”

The scriptures were “for them.”

The hymns were “for them.”

The meditation, which did go on a bit too long, was for them.

“I do,” said, Nicole.  “I do,” said Mark.

“And we’re here for you,” we said.

I felt renewed.  Thankful.  Yes, there are worries in this world.  Yes, they must be addressed.  But sometimes we must bend to the well of promise, the well of hope, the well of blessing known as weddings.

“For them,” we were there.  In another sense, “for us” we were there.

“This is my body, broken for you,” said Jesus in an upper room a long time ago.  “For you.”

Thanks be to God.

And thanks be to life.