Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Little Feathers: Safe Harbor

Little Feathers: Safe Harbor: Everything changes. It has to. I know. It is such a fact of life that there are a hundred clichés about it. My favorite, of course, is the o...

Safe Harbor

Everything changes. It has to. I know. It is such a fact of life that there are a hundred clichés about it. My favorite, of course, is the old "How many Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb? (pause for effect)  "CHANGE!!!????"   Being an old Lutheran, I can relate.
Some changes are harder than others. Some changes make marks on you that never go away. Like losing people you love, needing to find a way to go on without them. Sometimes they are taken by death, but sometimes they choose to leave you, and that mark can be a very tender scar. Even happy changes, like the birth of a baby, or the move to a new house, a new job, or retirement offer their challenges. Letting go of the kids happens in little pieces, but that final big one, the day when they load up the car and head out on their own or you wave goodbye from the parking lot of their dorm, that day sends a lot of us looking for solace. When a bunch of changes happen in close succession, feelings of being adrift in unfamiliar waters can keep you awake at night. This is where my harbor title comes in.
How easy it is to seek solace in things that are temporary themselves, or at least offer empty promises.  The first time we celebrated a holiday without one of our kids, I felt like something was truly wrong. I ached for the past, the time when everyone was together under one roof all the time. But you can't spend much time protesting change or longing for the way it used to be, or you get stuck. And society makes a lot of empty promises about things that can un-stick you. We all know the warning signs of becoming reliant on things...first you choose them, then you use them, then you need them, then you can't do without them. It can be the classics, alcohol or food or work or shopping or exercise. It can be the more subtle ones, relationships that cost you more than they give back, good causes that drain your energy and leave you hollow, social media that offers connection with a price tag...your self esteem. Traditions that start out as a blessing but become a burden.
The people I have known who have seemed to stay young all their lives, the ones I admire so much, have found an essential truth about youth that has nothing to do with appearance or even health. It has to do with courage to change, courage to allow the next generation to be different without being threatened. And the courage to continue on being themselves and living the way they want to live no matter what everyone else is doing. It isn't a small and selfish courage. It doesn't wish others would just be like them. It is a generous, outward-looking optimism that seems to accept a changing world as a matter of course. I want to be like that. I want to be the person who seeks solace in the unchanging safety of truth, grace and love.
Our daughter, Sally, wrote a song with a line so memorable it is burned into my brain. "I'm not build for crying, I'm built to fly".
Of course we cry. Of course we grieve and rail against the unbearable sadness of life. Then, we turn. We lift our faces to the sky. And we fly. It is what we do. Being grounded in the only truly safe thing there is, the only reliable solace in this life, we start from love and acceptance and return to love and acceptance. It is our safe harbor.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Little Feathers: The View From the Back of a Donkey...or Tips for L...

Little Feathers: The View From the Back of a Donkey...or Tips for L...: In my faith tradition, yesterday marked the beginning of a very holy week. What began with palm branches and hallelujahs ended with silence,...

The View From the Back of a Donkey...or Tips for Living in Exile

In my faith tradition, yesterday marked the beginning of a very holy week. What began with palm branches and hallelujahs ended with silence, and, for me, the heavy dread of knowing I would grieve at the foot the cross before I could stand in the sunshine.

Sitting there listening to a reading I have heard all my life, I realized is how easy it is to get the story wrong. How easy it is to skew it to favor one group of people,one mindset, one religion.

We are all living in exile. Living in a land that is far from safe, far from the paradise it was created to be. And that is because the creator had no intention of making obedient robots when we were set in this place. Free will is the most unselfish gift we could have been given. It resembles that thing parents do when they understand their children have minds and lives of the their own and deserve to use them as they wish.

In spite of the fact that Jesus made it his focal point, over and over and over, that God is love and we are to love one another, we as a church have failed to mirror that unconditional love. We give our blessing to those who agree with us,those who are like us, those who buy our brand. But the view from the back of a donkey has nothing to do with keeping traditions. It has everything to do with radical risk taking. It has to do with a love that is reserved for no one people, but given to the whole of humanity, the ultimate inclusive gathering of all souls back to the heart of the creator.

People who live in exile are never quite comfortable. This exile is no exception. There is always the tension of life pulling against death, well-being against illness, joy against sorrow. Jesus modeled life for us, in this home we have been given that is never quite safe and never quite comfortable. Love. Forgive. Share. Show mercy. Judge not. Love some more. A very few days later, he modeled death for us.

It is no mistake that we given the stories from the cross. The forgiveness continues. For the ones who nailed him to the cross. For the criminal hanging beside him. Love continues. For his mother, who needed comfort. Mercy was not reserved for some and denied to others. The grace flowed then, as it flows now, to cover us all.

It is no good to be critical of the church as if it had nothing to do with me.  The failings of the church are the failings of human beings. When we get it right, when we love mercy and do justice, we are triumphant in exile. When we extend the grace to others that we need so badly ourselves, we are as at home as we will ever be in this life.


Thursday, April 10, 2014

Little Feathers: Sometimes You Have to be Still

Little Feathers: Sometimes You Have to be Still: Last night I sat in the quiet beauty of our church for the last Lenten service of this year. Our music director, Thomas Pavlechko, has writt...

Sometimes You Have to be Still

Last night I sat in the quiet beauty of our church for the last Lenten service of this year. Our music director, Thomas Pavlechko, has written the most beautiful Vespers service, and as the sound washed over me, I felt connected to the millions of people who have sat in similar services throughout history, waiting and hoping for the light. Not just Christians, but all who look for the light, for the good and right, the just and the merciful.
A reading from Jeremiah reminded me again of the battle for hope that has been waged from the beginning. And the notion that sticks with me is simple. Our hope does not come from the darkness of this present time. It comes from the promised light of tomorrow.The concept is simple, but it is one I need to hear again and again. And I need to be still in order to hear it.
We live in a rush-rush, speedy world. Hurry to work. Hurry to lunch. Hurry home. Hurry to get there, wherever that is. If you don't believe it, drive in Austin during rush hour. Everyone is rushing to sit in traffic. They may not be moving, but the feeling of hurrying is not diminished by actual speed. We encourage planning for the future to the point of missing today. When I get the promotion, when I go on vacation, when I get the house/child/publisher/recognition/retirement. Hurry. Get yours before it is gone.
So, I sit in the quiet. With the added blessing of sitting with my 40-years best friend and love. I breathe and see and hear and wait and tear-up just a little at the very, very poignant yearning for hope that Jeremiah and everyone before and after him experience. Everyone feels the darkness. The pain and loneliness, the disappointment and regret.
On this sunny morning I look out at the sun glinting on the bit of river that is the Pedernales, and again I am still enough to hear the promise. And I live in the hope that all people will feel it, too. That the words of comfort will come to us all in our greatest need. And that we will pass them on. We don't have to hurry. The hope is not going anywhere.