We voted! Now what?

One of the fascinating things about having the classroom in my living room has been the window into what teachers and students talk about and how teachers are building a classroom culture and community. It's also been a huge learning experience for me in pedagogy. How do you respond to questions? How do you encourage taking turns? How do affirm ideas and encourage critical thinking.

This week and last, I've been listening in on the Southshore kindergarteners talking about voting and the election. They started with the book Grace for President, in which Grace notices that there are no women in the row of pictures of presidents, decides to run for president of her class and then shows her leadership ability through her contributions to her school and community.

The kindergarteners were encouraged to notice in the words and pictures the kind of person Grace is, what good leadership looks like, how her words matched her actions. In subsequent days their class moved on to comparing real life candidates. First for Washington's 37th district and then for president. She presented points of the candidates platforms and then the children were invited to think about who they would vote for. I appreciate the respect that our schools teachers have for children's opinions and the way they encourage them to say more, ask questions and challenge each other - even in kindergarten.

Two years ago I wrote about voting and the election with annoyance. I was annoyed both because at the time I couldn't vote and because I was frustrated with what I felt was the implication that voting is the only way one can participate in democracy or enact change. My opinion has changed somewhat - at least a little and at least in part because I can vote now - but I stand by a few of the things I said then.

What has changed in 2020 is that, yes I can vote now but also there truly is much more at stake. What hasn't changed is my understanding how much more there is to engaging in change for justice than voting. I think this is a message particularly important for children and youth to hear. After all, they can't vote. And yet their voices are so important to our communities. Even kindergarteners have opinions about what's important. And they can march and make signs and write reps and get educated and post to social media.

The other thing that hasn't changed and that will never change is that nationhood is not what defines us as followers of Jesus. And it's our desire for a just peace is rooted in the Biblical call to justice. And that something that none of our kids aren't going to get in their classrooms, no matter how well they're being formed as citizens.

It's up to us as families and as a church family to tell the stories of Jesus and other biblical characters who interrupted for the sake of justice: Jesus' crossing boundaries to sit with the woman at the well and telling stories of good Samaritans. Peter sharing God's love with the Ethiopian eunuch. The prophets demanding justice that rolls like water. Whatever this week brings, our work as citizens and as disciples continues in our families and in our communities. May God bless us in this holy calling.

Just Enough for Today

You know, having said it so often, that we don't choose our preaching texts, and that the Narrative Lectionary really throws us some curveballs sometimes. This Sunday, when we're readying to celebrate a baptism, is no exception. The symbolic receiving of renewed life through an outpouring of water on the same day when our scripture is rooted in the arid dryness of water withheld. God's anger has been raised at the king Abah, worshiper of foreign gods - in particular Baal, the god of thunder, rain and fertility - and God has caused the land and sky to dry up.

Baptism or no, we begin our story in drought and famine. An international crisis of epic proportion. Death is every present. Anxiety and fear are the norm. Now this sounds pretty familiar. We don't choose our texts, but there is something about this story that feels very real. In the midst of this drough we meet a woman in Zarephath. She seems to be the head of her household, so once she may have been wealthy or at least self-sufficient but at the point when we meet her she is beyond hope. She is very matter of fact about it: "I am going to make a meal for myself and my child." She says. "We will eat it - and then we will die."

This is a mother who is at the end of her rope. She is trying to weather a drought, she is responsible for a household, she is caring for her child. She is weary and fearful. She is ready to die. And Elijah the prophet comes along with the gall to make another demand of her - two demands! First, give me some water! Now, give me something to eat!

The mom in me wants to ask him, "Now, how to ask for something politely??" I do hear the weariness and exasperation in this mom's voice. The defeatism: I literally have a handful of flour and enough oil for a meager meal for myself and my child before we starve to death. Seriously?

Now I am a person of relatively stable mental health. And I have good resources and pretty reasonable practices of self care. But even I have days during this famine of COVID where I am at the point of collapse. And I know that there are those among us who are truly struggling with diagnosed mental illness and feeling hopeless. For y'all, I pray that you will find the resources that you need.

Though that is not me, there are days when it feels like there is so little left in me to give, that all I'm experiencing is a string of demands (some of you may identify) - meetings, newsletters and sermons to write, of course. But also kindergarten to supervise and homework to help with, meals to provide and care to offer, the constant stream of demands, "Mom, look at this." "Mom, I need…" "Mom, can I have…" "Mom, give me…" If Elijah had come along to me, when I'm down to the last of my emotional and physical resources I might have answered something like the widow did: I'm already starving to death! And if he'd said - as he did to her, "Do not fear, just make me a cake." I might have laughed like loon.


On this All Saints Day, truly, I recognize this woman as a Saint. Because she does not laugh like a wild thing. She believes him. A stranger to her and a foreigner. She believes him when he says, when you help me, God will provide enough for all of us each day. Today, and tomorrow, and then the day after, and the day after and the day after, until this drought is at an end. She believes him. And she offers hospitality from the last of her supplies.

Though I may have a hard time hearing the words, "Do not fear," there actually is something comforting about the idea of just having to make it through today and then tomorrow will have enough for tomorrow. And the next day, enough for that day. Between Elijah and the widow and her son and household, they create a little famine bubble - a bubble in which each day they make it until the next day.

Part of what helps them make it to the end of the day is that tiny community they've formed. And I have absolutely found a way to make it each day when I've been in community with some of y'all - whether that's a corn maze with some jr youth and their families, or talking to children in Sunday school or dropping by with meals for families. Some days it's a choice for baptism and community in the middle of a pandemic. It's the joy of seeing someone choose hope and new life. It doesn't fill me up. None of it will completely satisfy. I know it doesn't fill y'all up either. But it gets me through today.

Friends, I had a really good day or two this week. And I had tears this week. That's the way our days go now. This week especially, when our hopes and our anxieties are especially heightened, I truly pray that you will find each day the meal that you need to live through that day. That you will reach out to people and that people you need will reach out to you. May your flour jar and jug of oil have enough - just enough to make it to the end of this famine that we're all in together. Amen.

Troublemaker Saints

 

As someone who regularly uses picture books in my roles as parent and pastor, I follow multiple social media accounts that help me find books for children. I look for books that marry themes of justice and God's love, diversity in characters and inspiring stories.  So a couple years ago when I came across a Kickstarter to support an author who was trying to publish a book about unconventional saints, it seemed like a no-brainer.

Often the way we think about a saint is that it's someone who's larger than life, holier than your average human and with an extra-ordinary connection to the divine.  Someone who's golden halo reflects the soft light of candles or the fire of their zeal.  A saint is definitely dead.

Daneen Akers' book, Holy Troublemakers and Unconventional Saints redefines - or maybe reclaims - the notion of saints as those who "are people of faith who have worked for love, compassion and justice in their corners of the world and eras, even when that meant rocking the religious boat…[T]hey used their faith to work for the good of everyone."  With this re-claimed definition, sainthood is bestowed upon those whose lives help us connect to God and to the world with our hearts more open.

Akers' book is a thick anthology of such saints.  Though some, like Francis of Assisi or Fred Rogers or Rachel Held Evans are dead, many of the people in Holy Troublemakers are still living and (in their saintly human way) leading their communities with wisdom and compassion.  Potawatomi theologian and writer Kaitlin Curtis grounds her faith in her identity as an indigenous person, the Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney's scholarship is known for its womanist interpretations of scripture, Lisbeth Meléndez Rivera has been an activist for the LGBTQ folks for almost 40 years and is active in the Rainbow Catholics organization, seeking welcome and affirmation for the people in her community.

This Sunday is All Saints Day. On this day we remember and name those beloved who have died.  All Saints is also the time to reflect on those people past and present who help point our way to the love, justice and compassion of God.  Those people whose lives inspire us to love justice and compassion ourselves.  We all have holy troublemakers in our lives, unconventional saints who have influenced us for the better and strengthened our faith. 

My hope is that we can share the stories of saints in this book and those like them with our kids.  Stories of family saints, saints of our communities.  Akers notes that since she ditched conservative Christianity, it's been hard to find stories and devotional literature for kids that help point them toward God's desire for them.  In this book she fills that gap.  But we can also fill the gap, at least a little, with our own creativity and narratives. In this All Saints week, may we tell stories of unconventional saints, share their work and follow in their footsteps.

A Hot Holy Mess

When Megan talked in her sermon this past Sunday about Hannah's hot, holy mess of a life, which she brings before God in prayer, I thought, "Yup, sounds about right." The hot mess part, anyway. It doesn't much feel holy. 

 
Last week you didn't get a Midweek Message from me because of the hot mess of the Epp Hamilton household, including: very noisy window construction/replacement (also a literal mess), two full-time working adults and children doing online school, one of whom needs constant oversight, a COVID scare, which turned out to probably be Norovirus, but which was still very unpleasant, and the increasingly dark and stormy weather. I'm not trying to complain or seek sympathy, I just want to say: Folks, I'm right there with you in the very messy middle of this pandemic.

At our recent meeting of the 'Discerning Returning Team' (increasingly this seems like a misnomer, since we're definitely not returning to gathered in-person worship any time soon) we acknowledged how difficult the labor of families with young children is at this time. Even when things are going pretty well, there is emotional labor we parents are doing constantly in caring for our own mental health and the mental health of your kids.

But even though last week was a really big bummer, I've had some lovely highlights in the past few weeks. Every year we gift our 3rd grade students with Bibles, recognizing that by this age they're good readers and critical thinkers and ready to have a Bible of their own. I visited with the 3rd grade families on front porches and in backyards and got to see what's up in their families and say hello to their pets. It was so lovely.

So yes, life is messy. So messy that it makes me want to (and sometimes causes me to) scream in frustration and helplessness. But in my more grounded moments I realize that God is right there with me. And you are there with me. And there are these beautiful bright spots in the midst of it: the brilliant red leaves on my neighbor's maple tree outside my new windows, long walks - with my kids and without them, finding I might be a dog person after all, and the hope of seeing more of your faces in the coming weeks.

All that is very holy - just filled with the Divine. I pray that you too find the holy in the mess of each day. I hope to see a few of your kids in Sunday school this Sunday for a story and game and to see how they're doing. If not, I look forward to seeing your faces in person.

Mennonites: The OG Anti-Racist Heroes

Three hundred and thirty seven years ago this week (1683, in case that math takes too long) the first Mennonites arrived in what's now the United States and founded Germantown - now a neighborhood in Philadelphia. After sharing a meal with the local indigenous people (probably Lenape) Francis Daniel Pastorius, a German Mennonite lawyer and teacher wrote, "they have never in their lives heard the teaching of Jesus concerning temperance and contentment, yet they far excel the Christians in carrying it out.”

Anniversaries are natural times to tell stories. We use birthdays to tell our children about when they were born, wedding anniversaries to tell the stories of meeting and getting married, the anniversary of our church to tell stories of its founding and its first families. For some of us white folks, though, telling our immigration stories has become a little cringe-y. Our histories include colonization, enslavement of other humans, intentional and internalized bias based on white supremacist notions. So, when I read the quote above on the Salt Project's Theologian's Almanac, and shortly afterward the following quote about those first Mennonites in Jason Reynolds YA book Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism and You, (a "remix" of Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning) I was psyched!

Mennonites didn't want to leave behind one place of oppression to build another in America, so they circulated an antislavery petition on April, 1688, denouncing oppression due to skin color by equating it with oppression due to religion. Both oppressions were wrong. This petition - the 1688 Germantown Petition Against Slavery - was the first piece of writing that was antiracist among European settlers in colonial America.

Yes! Mennonites, recognized as the OG anti-racists! And they did it based on the teaching of Jesus. Patting myself on the back over here for coming from such enlightened and woke white folks. Well, sort of. My own Mennonite ancestors immigrated to Canada in the late 19th century also fleeing oppression in southern Russia, also seeking religious freedom and opportunity to thrive in a new environment. And, of course, using the advantages of whiteness to cheaply purchase land that had been stolen from indigenous people.

The theme this month for children's and youth spiritual formation is "Making Sense of Our Stories" and our stories are complicated. When we're building our storytelling repertoire, it's really important to be able to understand our story from all perspectives, so that we don't repeat mistakes of oppression and injustice - and so that we can participate in repair. Authors like Jennifer Harvey and Anastasia Higginbotham, who write about talking with white kids about race, talk about the importance for developing a white identity that's grounded in more than just stories of hate, destruction and oppression. We also need to find stories of ancestors and heroes (Mennonite and otherwise) who were active in interrupting patterns of oppressions like racism and white supremacy. Those are stories we can embrace and seek to identify with.

Reynolds writes about the history of race and racial inequity in Stamped but he's insistent that it isn't a history book. "This book, this not history history book, this present book, is meant to take you on a race journey from then to now, to show why we feel how we feel, why we live how we live, and why this poison, whether recognizable or unrecognizable, whether it's a scream or a whisper, just won't go away." And then he tells stories - stories of wrongness and stories of people getting in the way of that wrong.

All that to say: tell your stories. Look for the stories that are hidden and find out why. Look for the stories that haven't been told and tell them. Look at the stories of the country and community and think about where and how your people intersected with them. Amplify the stories of justice and learn from them. And may we be the ancestors whose stories our children will tell with pride.

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A final note, speaking of stories, here are a couple book related links I've come across recently. Of course, everyone should read Stamped and everything else that Jason Reynolds has written. And that Ibram X. Kendi has written (I'm still working on that myself.) Also, UW Bookstore has created anti-racist book kits for kids and adults of all ages. And The Conscious Kid has a reading list for kids from 0-18 on confronting anti-blackness and on how to support conversations on race, antiracism and resistance.
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image: Thones Kunder's house, 5109 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia PA, where the 688 Petition Against Slavery was written

Sex, Teens and Teens-to-be

Three years ago I taught the Our Whole Lives curriculum with our high school youth for the first time. OWL is the wholistic sexuality curriculum from the UCC and Unitarian traditions. It's one of the most fun times I've had with teens in our congregation. I was looking forward to having that experience again this year, but COVID got in the way of those plans. However, it's had thinking about teens and sexuality and I thought I'd share some resources for folks with teens or teens-to-be. It's never to early to start conversations about sexuality, bodies and relationships.

In my family we've always been pretty open about talking about sex and bodies with our kids. Sure it leads to slightly embarrassing moments when kids ask openly about body parts or share facts they know about genitals at the wrong time or with the wrong people. But for the most part, the more knowledge, vocabulary and self-awareness a child has the greater their safety and confidence in navigating relationships of all kinds and their ability to protect themself.

Communicating the right names for body parts helps children explain accurately when they've been hurt or are in pain. Communicating without shame or secrecy about body parts can protect children from predators. Communicating the facts about sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy, and the importance of how to have safer sex helps teens make informed decisions about their own bodies and well-being. Communicating to kids and teens the importance of consent and what it is and isn't, as well as the value and beauty of their bodies, creations of a loving God, we hope will help them see themselves as worthy of care and compassion.

You see how often I used the word 'communicating?' That really indicates how key communication is - in an ongoing way, no just as "the talk." So here are some resources. I tried to include a variety of resources that cover littles and middles and also stuff for teens and parents of teens.

The Birds and the Bees for Little Kids - This one is TOMORROW! so act fast if you're interested. There are also many other resources about talking to kids and teens about sexuality at the Birds and Bees and Kids website. Another very cool site with tips and videos and fun animations to help parents process how to talk about sex with kids is Amaze (older kids) and Amaze Junior (little kids)

NPR's Life Kit podcast has a couple of episodes about kids and sex. How to Talk to Children about Sex addresses conversations with kids before the onset of puberty. My biggest take-away (among many) was be brief, factual and loving when talking about sex with kids. What Your Teen Wishes You Knew About Sex Education is (as the title suggests) about the teens in your life. That one features sex educator and advocate Heather Corinna.

Corinna is the author of a couple of books. One is a graphic non-novel called Wait, What? features a group of friends talking to each other and the audience about bodies, sex and sexuality. She also wrote S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties. I haven't read this one yet, but based on the introduction and table of contents alone I'm looking forward to it. (I linked to Amazon so you can look inside, but I got my copy from bookshop.org)

Since you really don't want your tween or teen googling a sex thing they've heard about, I suggest showing them Scarleteen, the website developed by Corinna. It's very teen friendly with tons of articles and FAQ's on a huge variety of topics. Another good one is Sex Etc. I Wanna Know is another that's not quite as visually fun but does have a section specifically for parents. Honestly, as an old person, these websites are helpful just to keep up with what's important to teens and to see what kinds of questions they're asking.

The Great Conversations series of workshops for parents and their tweens about their changing bodies and what to expect from puberty are in person. But they're offered online for now. I found this really helpful a couple of years ago and I look forward to another round with my second kid. There are other great resources on this site as well.

God loves you and your kids and all of the bodies that God made. Whatever these conversations look like for you, may you experience God's presence with you and your children. Good luck!

Body Language

1 Corinthians 12:1-13

Friends! Not only do you get me preaching twice in a row, you once again get Paul talking body talk. Paul really does love the God-bod image. This time though, the body talk is in service of how each of the parts work together, how the community of Christ engages and interacts “For the common good” (as Paul puts it).

This is a Pentecost text because it is about the fullness of the Spirit’s action in the new church. The Spirit is actively filling the members of the church - at Corinth and in every place and time - with gifts to be “activated” in service of the church (and I would say also the world - but that’s me not Paul.) The gifts work together the way a body works together. And they can also work against each other.

When I was seeing a Quaker Spiritual director - someone steeped in the way of presence in Spirit - I was helped to see the spiritual gifts as innate. Our gifts are so a part of ourselves that our gifts become almost our native language. Like language and culture, we might more highly value our own than that of others because we can’t understand it. In addition, when we can’t understand someone else’s gift we may feel it unnecessary. That lack of understanding can be the cause of conflict and misunderstanding.

Language of Enneagram is not a language that I speak but I suspect that those of you who do may be able to translate this to type. I do not know that way of engaging in giftedness but i do have a little bit of insight into love languages. The idea of “Love Languages” was developed by psychologist Gary Chapman and I was introduced to it in couples counseling as a way to help my spouse and me to understand each other and communicate. Each of us has a different “Love language”: Words of affirmation, physical touch, receiving gifts, quality time, acts of service. When we’re “spoken to” in that language we feel loved and connected to our partner.

For example, my primary love language is “acts of service” but my spouse’s is words of affirmation. So we often talk past each other when trying to express our love and appreciation. I’m looking for someone to do the dishes after dinner - that says love to me. I don’t necessarily hear “I love you” in the expressions of gratitude and affirmation for a delicious meal. But also because words of affirmation are not my love language - I forget to articulate my own appreciation and encouragement and gratitude, which is how my spouse feels loved.

This is the passage that leads into the loooove passage to the Corinthians. The one we heard a few weeks ago. Even though we’re not hearing them in order, it seem right that this should be the first step. Before we can learn to love each other - need to speak each other's language - or at least have an appreciation for that language. Someone who does not speak the spiritual gift of prophecy, might find that gift to the church annoying or distracting or troublemaking. But prophecy - the telling of truth to power and naming injustice pushes the church body to be more Christ-like. The body will communicate between its members more fluidly if the hand is learning the language of the eye.

Many years ago I saw a Cirque du Soleil show in which I spent almost all of the show with my mouth agape and gasping in awe at the way the acrobats and dancers engaged their whole bodies in the performance - and at how their bodies worked in concert with each other. Even the musicians and the clowns. There was no part that was not used with intention and beauty and strength and grace. But it takes a lot of training and practice for one of those acrobats to be able to do that - for anyone who is an elite athlete to be able to make their body work in the way that it does. It takes practice for the Body of Christ as well.

This isn’t the usual Pentecost passage. We’re used to focusing on the rush of wind and the tongues of flame. On the crowd, which through the power of the Spirit can understand their kindred from all nations. Here we see that the Spirit continues to give language and the understanding of languages to the church. Paul is extending that into metaphor, in a way. It’s not just gifts that are being doled out, it’s Spiritual gifts. And all the Spirit’s gifts are good, resources that are for the good of the whole body. May we seek to listen for and to understand the language of the Spirit - and in so doing may we strengthen the body.

Turns out I wrote a sermon this week that I didn't end up using because the Spirit called me in a different direction (more on that in a later post, perhaps).  But here's the text of the sermon that would have been...

Why Bodies Matter to God

1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 51-57

When I read texts like this, I remember why I do not gravitate to Paul and why I stay away from the epistles generally. I’d rather stick with Jesus. It’s a struggle sometimes, but What Would Jesus Do? works a lot better for me than What Would Paul Say? Because he says soooo much! In fact I cut out the beginning of the very long reading assigned, which began with a bunch of if-then logic which makes my brain get all twisted up. (but if you follow the scripture link in the chat you can read the whole thing and try to make sense of it yourself).

The fact is, though, the early church only had some oral histories of Jesus and stories like Paul’s of his appearances to the disciples. So they struggled in the same way that we do to understand what it means to be a disciple. That’s the reason Paul went on so long - trying to help them make sense of Jesus. In this passage he’s responding to questions we all have now more than ever: Why do these bodies of ours suffer? What do we do with chaos? How do we deal with death?

This week on a walk, Orie asked if we could look for the dead bird. We’d seen the carcass of a dead robin a couple days previous and he wanted to return to the scene. In fact we have also inspected the bodies of a dead mole and a dead rat on our walks. In our world, death is real. It surrounds us every day in every statistic. And for many of us - for many of you - it is more real and painful and wrenching than the bodies of creatures found in the grass and at the side of the road. It’s family. It’s fearful. Those questions that Paul and the Corinthians had - we have them too.

Paul’s lens of understanding death - and life - is Jesus. He takes the problem of death and remembers his experience of a resurrected Jesus, who appeared to him and so many in a resurrected and transformed body, and applies that understanding to the problem. As I read Pauls’s words over and over this week, at first it seemed to me as if he was trying to deny death, to spiritualize the reality of death: asking rhetorically where is it’s sting? and proclaiming victory through resurrection. Death swallowed up by life? That’s what is hard to swallow.

These verses in 1 Corinthians 15 are a boiling down of Paul’s theology: God cared enough about the stuff of creation - earth and flesh and plants and water - that God became a part of it. In a human body that suffered and died. And that lived again. We’ve all heard of the dad-bod. Jesus had a God-bod. And, in fact we are all God-bods. Cathryn Schifferdecker, a Lutheran Bible scholar, tells her students, “matter matters.” Our bodies and the stuff of this earth is important to God, our creator.

Bodies matter so much to Paul that it is essential to his theology that they not just disintegrate and disappear into the universe. That they don’t, like the mole and rat and robbin, return to the earth. Paul believes our bodies are important and beloved by God. We are not two easily separated halves - body and soul - but whole beings in which both are sacred. So in death, believes Paul, our bodies will be transformed, remaining whole in the presence of God.

We have zero proof of what happens to our bodies or our spirits after death. I expect that we in our congregation believe many different things about that - just like the Corinthian Christians did. But we all have bodies. We love people and creatures who are embodied beings. And if we do believe in a Creator God who was intimately involved in piecing together the cells of leaves and the atoms in microbes and the fur and feathers of rats and robbins, and our own selves and spirits, then we are matter that matters - we have and we are God-bods.

I believe that means where we put our bodies and how we treat our bodies and what we do with our bodies - and the bodies of others - matters to God. Jesus, the original God-bod was our model: beginning from his birth as a fragile infant body, which we can imagine because like little baby Jedidiah, we have been and we have held and cared for bodies like that. And to his teenage body, nurturing his spirit and feeding his intellect in the temple, which we also know through our experience of study and discernment in community. Jesus' body spent years in a ministry of healing and feeding bodies and we follow his example in our care for and relationships with all manner of folks whose bodies and spirits long for wholeness. Jesus allowed his body and spirit rest, and like him we seek solace and sabbath. And finally he submitted his body to a violent and painful death in his dedication to God’s reign over all. But finally finally his body was resurrected.

I do not know where my body will be after death, nor in that coming day, though I want to believe that somehow I will be joined with my creator. I do know where my body is now. It is on the path with the bodies of animals decomposing into soil, and also flying and scurrying and hopping through the grass. It is with my dear ones and it is being broadcast through mystery and science to be beheld by your bodies. Our bodies are beloved. May we love them. May we love the bodies of all God’s creatures.

Love Is...

"Can I help you?"

"No, I have to work."

A minute later, "Can I help you now?"

"Not really, I'm reading something."

"But what can I help you with?" He is plaintive.

Regardless of my insistence that what would really help the most is putting away the toys in the living room and taking the laundry out of the dryer, the pleas continue. This along with calls to "Look at me" and "Can you do something with me?" and "I'm bored!" are more or less constant throughout the day. I finally gave in.

"Okay, you know what you can help me with? I'm going to write an email to families from our church. What should I say?"

"I love you and Orie loves you." he replies immediately.

My annoyance and impatience melt and think, that even fits with the Bible passage I'm working on!

"Can I write it?"

I sigh but tell him sure and he climbs on my lap to create the screen cap above. It takes a long time.

I'm not sure how y'all are filling your days and caring for your kids, but this is pretty much what work looks like for me right now. Except most of the time I'm not a lot less understanding and probably more often than not I snap, "Just go to your room!" or "Can you just stop asking for snacks for FIVE MINUTES so I can finish a thought!?"

Yesterday both my kids helped me with a project that some of y'all and your kids are contributing to as well. We recorded some short sections of the passage from 1 Corinthians 13 which you'll most often hear at weddings: Love is patient, love is kind, it isn't jealous, it doesn't brag, etc. All these attributes of love which are so often virtues extolled when celebrating a romantic relationship didn't have romance in mind at all when they were written.

Paul wrote to a church where people were having trouble getting on the same page about what it meant to follow Jesus. Not unlike the church today! In Corinth these Jesus-followers might not have chosen to be a faith family but they were stuck with each other because as disciples of Jesus they were the church.

These days the people we're stuck with are our own family members. You may not all have active and insistent five-year-olds in your homes, but possibly you do have people at home who take work to love sometimes.

When Paul says, "Love is patient" or "Love does not make lists of complaints." or "Love trusts" I think of all the ways that in my relationships with my family members I am impatient, that I let the complaints stack up, that I am suspicious or untrusting. Now, everything has changed. JK, reflecting on this passage hasn't put an end to my impatience. I am failing constantly. But maybe a little less constantly? I did let the kid sit on my lap instead of putting him off for the thousandth time.

But I have hope! When we were working on our videos and I was inviting Orie to say "Love never fails," into the camera. His sister in classic teen says, "Uh, yeah it does." The thing is, though, God's love doesn't. That's where I get my hope. My love will probably fail a million times. But as I try and fail, God's love will not end.

It was a joy for me to record my kids speak (and shout and giggle) Paul's words of love with enthusiasm (a little too much enthusiasm maybe - tune in Sunday to see) and I was overjoyed with all the kids also interested in taking part. I'm really looking forward to seeing and hearing them and to figuring out how to put all these words about God's love together in the video for our scripture reading in Zoom church.

Folks, we're figuring out news ways to love each other and our families. We're figuring out new ways to be together all the time. But thanks be to God, who is also here and loving us all the time.

You're doing a great job!

World Turned Upside Down

When I first read through this text, the words that I found the most striking (after being like, wait there’s a Jason in the Bible??) were the accusations against Paul and Silas: These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.

It’s translated in different ways in different texts - this isn’t a Greek phrase - but I really like it. I think I caught into it, honestly, because of Hamilton. The song is the battle of Yorktown - that outlines the battle, the losses, the surrender and then...freedom for America! And the drinking song they’re singing: The world turned upside down. In some nominal ways, at least, the earliest (European immigrant) Americans were like the earliest church: passionate, revolutionary, all-in, and determined to throw off the bonds of an empire.

And of course, there are differences. Paul starts where he’s most comfortable - in the synagogue. He’s Jewish, after all and doesn’t really see a distinction between his alignment with Jesus and his alignment with his Judaism. And as a Jewish believer, who values argument and dialogue with other Jews, he dives into scripture to engage the question of Jesus’ reign as Messiah. He does convince a few. And he convinces more than a few Greek God-worshippers. Enough to create a small community and it’s that community that’s accused by the Jewish establishment of treason - of mis-allegiance.

All through the Gospels, the disciples are asking - when, Jesus? When is the revolution? They’re expecting a battle - a Yorktown - and Jesus has to explain again and again. Folks, I’m not that kind of Messiah. The Jewish community in Thessalonica has the same misconception about this new crew. This isn’t a violent revolution. Jesus turns revolution itself on its head. Yes, they’re claiming him as king - but a king whose most powerful act was non-violent submission and reclaiming life from death.

One of the ways Paul imitates Jesus is by proclaiming that non-violent love. Thessalonian Jews - like those who were Jesus’ peers a decade or so before - would have felt threatened by that. They were a small community is a Roman/Greek city. They didn’t need people who called themselves Jews going around yapping about a king who wasn’t Caesar. They wanted to protect their community and ultimately Paul was run out of town.

Paul may have been run out of town, but the community he left behind, in turn became the revolutionary community. You can hear it in his letter back to them. He cites their work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in Jesus. He praises them for becoming imitators of himself and Silas and therefore imitators of Jesus himself. And he notes that in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers.

There is no doubt about it - our world has absolutely been turned upside down in the past few months. Likely it will never be fully righted. I think our challenge is, what kind of revolution might it spark? What ways can we follow Jesus out of this upside down world and into his upside down realm? And now, while the world is on its head, how can we use the shake up to notice how Jesus is calling us to love and justice?

Our reflection question for our fellowship time is, “What have you realized you can live without.” Many of us have realized that we can’t live without mail carriers and grocery workers and food production workers. I know many folks boycotted Amazon and other major retailers on May 1 to call for equity for warehouse and food and other essential employees. I pray that we may continue to seek a world that’s set on its head and follows the upside down king. The world turned upside down!
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image by Paul Vasilovski on Unsplash

Tantrums and Meltdowns and Grief

"She's having the tantrum you want to have."  This is the response of a grief specialist to parents who are trying to understand their preschooler's erratic behavior after a late-term miscarriage.  A death that they were grieving and coming to terms with as well as learning how to talk about with their living child.

This story is part an essay about children and grief in the book When Kids Ask Hard Questions: Faith Filled Answers for Tough Topics.*  I've been dipping in and out of this book for awhile, on topics ranging from bodies to money to race to relationships and a lot of ground in between.  I haven't finished it yet but the section on loss just seemed like the right thing to read after a long day and wakeful night.  A day and night after which I felt deeply the opening phrase.  Cause, yeah, I sure feel like hitting and screaming and I've done my share of crying.

There have been many times in the past couple of months (we're coming up on months already!) when I have watched my child melt down, and wanted to respond with empathy but could only offer my version of the tantrum which is to snap, or yell or issue an ultimatum.  And there have been times when I have been able to hold him and listen and take deep breaths together and move through it.  I can see how little control he has over anything - even less than usual - and how small his world has become.  He's grieving.  We all are.

"She's having the temper tantrum you want to have," we both took deep breaths. She was so right, and we had missed it.  Through her clinginess, outbursts, tears and emotion our daughter was exposing the emotional instability within out entire family. We all wanted to scream, we each needed to hold tight to one another in the middle of the night, and we - individually and collectively - felt compelled to cry out to anyone who would listen that life simply was not fair." 

The authors of the essays in this book are about the loss of people in their lives. Loss of a parent or spouse is a traumatic event for a family and it's not like what we're experiencing in this time of pandemic.  But we are experiencing loss: loss of friends, loss of activities we love, loss of control, expectation and hope.  And even if our children aren't feeling all those losses for themselves, they certainly can sense their parents and other adult's grief and anxiety.

Even though these essays were about grieving the loss of persons, there were a few pearls I found helpful.  Top of the heap was, it's okay to show your kids that you're grieving and to talk about why.  And the companion to this is to make sure you're taking care of yourself and your own emotions, have someone to talk to and process your own feelings.  That processing (not with your child!) might also help give you the language that will develop your child's vocabulary of emotions, which both they and you need to be able to communicate what you're feeling.

There are probably scores of books out there that deal with kids and loss - I actually have several picture books on my shelf - but I found it helpful the specifically faith-oriented way that I was continually reassured of that God's love endures.  That God too grieves with us.  That faith doesn't demand that we put on a happy face.  Thank God!

Parents, friends to children, you're doing a great job! Even when you feel like you're not.  This is a hard thing that we're doing.  Keep breathing and know your belovedness, your children's belovedness.  We're in it together somehow.
--
* Handily, when I went to the link above for the book, I found out it's currently on sale. Just sayin' :)

Wash Your Hands...And Someone Else's Feet

God knows, by now it has been drilled into us how important it is to wash our hands so we can protect ourselves and our neighbors from spreading disease. Hand washing is almost a religion unto itself, what with the regularity of practice and the accompanying singing. We haven't given our feet much thought, though. Except, in my case, to mourn the sad state of my pedicure.

Over the last couple years, one of my favorite services at SMC has been the Maundy Thursday meal and footwashing service. I have always loved footwashing since my time worshiping in the Evangelical Mennonite Church in Manitoba, where it's practiced somewhat more regularly than in other Mennonite denominations. It's a tactile time of worship that allows us to engage the story of Jesus and our commitment to service and to each other with our bodies. It is an intimate and caring act that we can do for each other in community. (One of my favorite reflections on Maundy Thursday here.)

At SMC it has been special because particularly in recent years we have been intentional in making it simple and accessible to families with kids, which also has meant that as a leader I've been able to participate with my own kids, and that it's been okay to be a little less formal and a little more loose.

I don't think that this informality has made it any less meaningful. Certainly not for me and definitely not for the smallest person in my life. Regularly - maybe once a month - since last Maundy Thursday that person has asked whether it's footwashing time. It never is, of course, until now. But now we won't be able to gather with our friends to serve each other in this way. It is a real sadness for me.

That is why I wanted to create a liturgy - still as simple and accessible as possible - for families like mine to practice at home. Options for a family of one to as many as are in your household, reading the story or reflecting on an image. Even washing hands if feet aren't your thing. I am comforted by the knowledge that even in our separate places we'll be sharing something of this day of loving service.

You can access the liturgy at the google doc if you want to give it a try.  We won't be with our church this year, but in the meantime here is a picture from last year that still delights me and makes me tear up a little.

Back to Our Senses

This morning on the podcast "Seattle Now" education reporter Ann Dornfeld talked to several parents who were trying to figure out the balance of getting their own jobs done and caring for and educating their kids. There was a great variety of experiences but needless to say everyone is feeling stretched and unfocussed. And some are finding some bright spots in time spent with family in new ways.

My bright spot in what has been a stressful time of sharing a relatively small home in which both of the adults are trying to still do our jobs full time, including connecting through online meetings which require attention and focus, has been walks. We're all going on a lot of walks. And walks can start feeling monotonous too, even in this beautiful city and especially for kids and teens who would rather be at a playground or hanging out with friends.

When I can go for a walk my myself I will often listen to music or podcasts or books. Obviously not possible when you're walking with others. So I've found a couple of the things have made walks a little more interesting when we're walking together. The first is scavenger hunts (this one is especially for the little one, who loves to check things off of a list) that I've found online or created - with pictures for non-readers. I thank my mother, the retired teacher, for turning us onto this suggestion. Orie has started making his own scavenger hunts to bring on walks, which is great because that's one less thing I have to prepare.

The second is a mindfulness practice that you may have seen if you follow me on Instagram (@amymarieepp). It's a practice that invites you to pay attention to the moment and your body. And it works great at any age. When I feel like I've been focusing to hard on something or I've been staring at a screen too long, or my mind is racing, or my body is tense, this is a great way to slow down and check in with myself. On a walk, it's a way to notice both our bodies and our surroundings.

Take a few deep breaths. Now notice with your senses. Identify the following:

• 5 things you can see
• 4 things you can hear
• 3 things you can feel
• 2 things you can smell
• 1 thing you can taste.

On the walk with my kids yesterday we were seeing things like flowering trees, clouds in the sky and neighborhood cats. Hearing the birds, the crunch of our feet and the wind. We felt the drops of chill of the air and bent down to feel the rain on the grass. We smelled the someone cooking and thought we could take how fresh the air was. It did almost turn into a competition of who can name things first, but overall it was a lovely practice and turned into an eye-spy like game of noticing and naming other things we saw and heard on our way.

Some of y'all may be experiencing this time as slower and more spacious, but many of us are doing double duty. Nurturing ourselves and the ones we care for is hard! I thank God for gift of moments that bring us back to our senses and allow us to experience the moment and each other. 

--

images: (top) a forsythia in a neighbor's yard; (above) scavenger hunt in action

Shifting Ground and Grounding Rhythms

Do y'all know about the podcast 99% Invisible?  It  looks at elements in the designed world that we largely take for granted and tells stories about them.  This week's episode, "This is Chance" is about the 1964 Alaska earthquake and the voice one woman who kept her community grounded.  Genie Chance was the local 'newsgirl' and it was her presence on the airwaves of the one still-functioning, back-up-generator-powered radio station that held the community together and connected Alaska to the outside world.

I listened to this story about how the ground literally shifted and swayed and buckled under the feet of those Alaskans.as I was already thinking about the way the ground is shifting in a different way for us.  The terrain looks different each day and possibly each hour - more recently the stay-home order - and probably it will look different tomorrow again.  No one knows how long this will last or when the landscape of the corona curve will finally flatten. And at the same time, one day slides into the next as

I'm not one of those parents who has implemented a color coded schedule or rigorous expectations of my kids.  I don't even understand parents who are talking about 'homeschooling' right now.  I can barely figure out what my own work is supposed to be in this new way of doing business.  I printed an activity sheet today for my five-year-old and I'm pretty sure the older one is doing some assignments on Schoology.  But there's a lot of screen time.

And yet, while there's no magnetic schedule posted on the fridge, we do have a routine and we do have some expectations of what gets done around the house or academically before the TV gets turned on.  And there is comfort in routine and rhythms.  One benefit of all being at home is that we're actually eating our evening meal together every day - which because of my spouse's usual late work hours didn't always happen before.  I try to take breaks during the afternoon to scooter in the driveway with Orie or go for a walk with Naomi. 

There is comfort in rhythms, including spiritual rhythms.  I cite Traci Smith and her book Faithful Families often because it's such a wealth of simple and doable family spiritual practices (and 50% off the kindle edition right now). One practice that I liked for right now is "five minute sabbath" (or even one minute sabbath).  Sabbath as a spiritual practice is marking a particular day, year or time to return ourselves and our resources to God.  We think of Sabbath as Sunday - or perhaps another day of the week.  Pastor Megan talk regularly about her Friday Sabbath practice.

Traci Smith suggests a set-aside time within a day or within an hour.  She also suggests making note cards and choosing practices at random.  But whatever - I'll just suggest a couple I like and also one of my own that I found on my friend the internet.  One suggestion for a one-minute sabbath is: go outside.  Notice what the weather is like.  Breathe deeply and take note of the feel of the air in your lungs.  Another is a breath prayer with the phrase, "I breath in God's love." "I breathe out worry and fear." Especially good right now!  Breathe!

Here are a couple of Smith's five-minute sabbath suggestions: write someone a note or gratitude or appreciation; find a poetry book or keep Psalms handy, read and reflect on a poem or Psalm.  The one I've like recently is to pay attention to my senses and notice: five things I can see, four things I can hear, three things I can feel, two things I can smell, one thing I can taste. The thing I can taste is usually coffee.

These are practices that kids could easily be pulled into - especially the embodied practices. Surely y'all can come up with creative one-five minute mindfulness practices that would be meaningful to you or your family. I would love to hear the ways that you are creating rhythms and inviting the Spirit into your own and your families life.  Or maybe it's just too hard to think about anything so systematic.  I'm curious about that too. 

This is an earthquake we weren't expecting.  God is with us now in the upheaval and will be waiting for us when we come out the other side.
--
image from the 99PI website, "The largest landslide in Anchorage occurred between Point Woronzof and Fish Creek"

Apocalypse Vision

My seminary-educated spouse is always reminding anyone who mis-uses the word that "apocalypse" doesn't actually mean "end of the world." It means "vision" or "revelation." It's true! The book of Revelation begins, "The revelation [or vision] of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show his servants what must soon take place..."

I have had some very down moments in the past few days. Because it really does feel like the apocalypse - and I do mean that in the end-of-the-world sense, regardless of my own seminary education. It's not just the idea of bunkering at home for weeks or months - I can probably deal with that okay - but the weight of knowing how many livelihoods will be affected by the need to stay away from work, how many will succumb to illness, how many businesses will be shuttered, how many have no place where they can shelter in place.

Under the weight of all of the above I am truly seeking ways to find lightness and peace and clarity of vision - apocalypse! Our Lenten theme, "We want to see" feels so true to my lived experience at the moment. Fortunately the way I see people coming together in virtual space and reaching out across distance is beautiful and grace-filled. And I'm finding lots of online resources. In fact, if I let it, the tidal wave of resources itself might be a little weighty and overwhelming! I've tried to wade through the wave and collected some things for you.

In no particular order, here are a few resources to find spiritual grounding while isolated:

Illustrated Ministry - illustrated prayers for coloring. I'm all about color and creativity. As far as I'm concerned this could be a starting place for creating one's own illustrated prayers/scriptures. Illustrated Ministry is offering freebies each week if you go to their website and sign up. Just click on the banner right at the top of the main page.
(And for fun not-necessarily-spiritual doodling, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus author Mo Willems is doing "Lunch Time Doodles" everyday at 1:00 Eastern for you to visit his studio and doodle along with him. I plan on introducing my pigeon-lovin' 4-year-old to these tomorrow.)
Pray as You Go - an app and website with a daily prayer, reading and meditation - includes resources for kids. Let me know if you use it and like it, I've only dabbled.
Pandemic Hope - an 8 week daily reading and faith practice. It's meant for families but could be used individually. Practices include things like "write out the alphabet and add something to pray for that begins with each letter" and "Take turns telling your favorite joke and thank God for filling our mouths with laughter".
Breath Prayers - Sarah Bessey offers a structure for a centering prayer practice that begins with imagining a sanctuary space, spending time focused on breath with a phrase, and an ending blessing. Breath prayer is excellent for centering when feeling anxious because of how embodied it is. And it's simple enough for kids to be able to engage very easily. She includes multiple phrases to use in times of anxiety, for example, from Psalm 3 "[inhale] I do not fear, [exhale] for you are with me."
Lauryn Hill in Sister Act 2: Joyful Joyful 90's gospel style. I watched this movie so often in high school and it crossed my social media feed today. Be careful, if you are like me you will not be able to see the end because of how teary your eyes got. So. Much. Joy. I'm totally going to go back and watch the whole thing and share it with my child (it's streaming on Disney+)
The Brilliance: I first heard their music at youth convention three years ago as played by the worship musicians. The Gravity of Love started playing in my earphones accidentally as I was working on this and I will be listening to it on repeat all day. I love the whole album. May it be a blessing to you as well.

This is the gravity of love
Just as the moon follows the sun
You're all around me
You're holding everything

This is the hope of every land
Just as the universe expands
You're love is reaching
You're holding everything

-
Photo by Pablo Varela on Unsplash

Covid Creativity

I just got the email (and text and voicemail and a text from Naomi): Seattle Public Schools will be closed for two weeks. Our kids are going to be so stir-crazy, needing to move their bodies and engage their minds. Parents too! Especially if you're the one stuck at home or already working from home. At least in my house, we'll be right on top of each other.

Since we're already not meeting for worship or Sunday school it may help to have a few practices that you can teach your child or engage in yourself for the sake of your sanity and spiritual health.

Praying in Color - on Sunday in the 'Children's Time' during Zoom Church I did a demonstration of 'Praying in Color'. If you have trouble sitting still, if you like the idea of prayer but coming up with words is a struggle, if you like to doodle, this might be for you. In the photo above I've started with a lent template and used a word list from Faithful Families as my prompt. Below, Marlene Kropf shared a colored prayer that she did while sitting for a chemo treatment this week. If you're not yet a reader/writer it's okay to use colors and pictures to express your ideas and prayers.

Walking Prayer - Thank God (literally) we can still go outside! As you walk to the park or the playground or grocery store, verbalize blessings and thanks using the the people and place you pass as prompts: Thank you God for the blooming trees. Be our elderly neighbor. Protect the person being attended to by that ambulance!

Butterfly Meditation - This is particularly great for times of feeling anxious or worried or as a bedtime practice. It helps get in touch with the body and slow down both body and mind.

Butterfly Jar - I did the thing! I suggested it a few Midweek Messages ago - I ordered butterfly larvae (aka caterpillars) online. Although I thought they might even be dead when they arrived, the teeny tiny caterpillars are indeed now big, fat caterpillars and everyday we look to see if they've begun to spin cocoons. Surely we will be giving thanks for new life a few weeks from now.

Plant a Garden - or if you don't have a garden, plant some seeds or tend some plants. Give God thanks for the soil and the sun and the water. Then watch John Denver sing 'Inch By Inch' with some Muppets.

Family Devotions - Before you dismiss this one out of hand (like I basically do) listen, I grew up with family devotions every. single. night. It's just not realistic for my family schedule or configuration. But maybe once a week with the right resource? And maybe in place of church? The linked folder has a one-page resource for each week of the next few months based on the lectionary texts. Use it (or even just part of it) if it's helpful to you. Or use it as a springboard for your own ideas that fit your context.

Keep meeting people - lean on church community for support and spiritual companionship. As long as we keep following best practices and public health guidelines, small group of folks are still okay to gather if taking the proper precautions.

Take Care and Do Not Fear

I went into Bartell's this morning to see if they had any hand sanitizer. I was hoping to give one to Naomi to keep in her backpack. No surprise, they were all out. They were also all out of most soap, rubbing alcohol and Lysol. I could have panicked. But a) I think we actually have some with our travel supplies. And b) I trust the information out of the CDC. From them I understand that though we in Washington have been more affected than most states, the virus is still not widespread and that there are concrete and common sense steps I can still take to be precautious - with or without hand sanitizer.

I don't tend to be alarmist about things in general, and so it doesn't always occur to me that others may have anxieties about any given situation. But our children (never mind some of you!) may be feeling fearful or worried given the prevalence of Corona virus in the media and the urging we're all hearing to take those precautions in the link above. (Regarding media consumption, I found this twitter thread about mental wellbeing and constant news consumption to be interesting and helpful).

If you're kids are experiencing anxiety or even if they are wondering what the big deal is about Corona Virus and you want some tips on how to talk with them about it, The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) published a how-to. Children will exhibit their anxiety in a variety of ways depending on age and personality. Responding to children's anxiety is similar to responses in many other stressful situations. Be a good listener, allowing more time and attention and assurance than you otherwise might. Allow questions and provide honest answers but limit access to media. Encourage positive activities and tell stories about helping responses to the outbreak. You and your kids may be encouraged to know that children seem to less affected by the virus.

One positive story-telling opportunity from Menno Media is the book Don't Be Afraid: Stories of Christians in Times of Trouble. It's a book of stories by Rebecca Seilig and Cindy Snyder, telling of people responding with care in times of crisis and illness. It was written during the SARS outbreak but the story about a nurse and her family in Toronto seems like a scenario that could be happening here and now. You can download the whole book free at the link above or go directly to the story "Love Behind a Mask" about nurse Amanda and her experience with SARS.

Of course, please care for your own mental and physical health! You are welcome to check out theses tips from the World Health Organization and (SAMHSA).

Be well, community. Take care of yourselves and each other. You are beloved.

Children Don't Listen But...

Fertile Soil and Growing Light

In these clear, bright days I have been extra attuned to the beauty of the growing light. We're about to enter the season of Lent. Like Advent it's a season of anticipation. But unlike Advent which heads steadily into darkness, Lent anticipates new life and the light grows. It is also a time of waiting readiness. Under the dark soil, seeds are being germinated and prepared, inside the buds, trees ready themselves to bloom.

In worship this season, we're using the theme "I want to see," acknowledging the difficulty in following through on Jesus' message and the gap in our understanding of what we're really supposed to do as disciples. As the adults in the lives of young people we're not only trying to be disciples ourselves, we have this extra responsibility (if we take it on) of bringing the kids in our lives along on the Jesus road. During the time of growing light, we're praying that the light may grow in us too. During this time of fertile germination, we pray that moments of clarity might bloom.

I wonder Lent gives us some opportunities for introducing faith formation practices into our homes and to our children. Seasonal practices can be times to say, "Let's try this thing for a few weeks as we wait for Easter." I know lots of adults who give something up for Lent - the practice of fasting intended to make space in our spirit for a depth of connection with our Creator. But giving up food isn't necessarily going to be a fruitful practice for a little one - or for a family to practice together.

Last year for a time I tried prayer cards with dinner prayers and psalms. It worked for awhile until the cards became a source of conflict - who gets to pick the card, which color we'd read, etc. This year I'm going to try again with beloved Bible texts - especially prophetic and hope-filled verses that have helped me to remember the coming newness of life, and which I hope my children will also learn to know.

Here are a few other suggestions for practices for Lent. Maybe some of them will resonate or be adaptable for your family.

Reading together: In her book Faith at Home: A Handbook for Cautiously Christian Parents, Wendy Claire Barrie suggests a family read-aloud, choosing a book with spiritual resonance like The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe or A Wrinkle in Time. I remember my mind being blown as a pre-teen when I began to see the Biblical story in the story of Aslan and the Pevensies in C.S. Lewis's book.

Planting Seeds: If you're a gardener who starts their own seeds, now is a great time to start plants and to use that opportunity to talk about new life. Lacy Finn Borgo and Ben Barczi in Good Dirt: Lent, Holy Week and Eastertide suggest planting a seed next to the side of a clear cup, so that you can see the roots grow and change. Each time the seeds is watered and observed is a time to remember the way we are 'watered' and nurtured through a relationship with God.

Grow a Butterfly: Borgo and Barczi also suggest ordering a butterfly kit to see the growth and transformation of caterpillar to butterfly in real time. A butterfly emerging from a cocoon is a beautiful way to draw a parallel to the coming story of Easter and resurrection. This seems like a very cool project and I think I'm going to try it! The authors suggest Carolina Biological Supply but I'm sure there are plenty of other suppliers if you Google.

Collecting an offering: Almsgiving (along with fasting and prayer) is one of the 'Three Pillars of Lent' A Catholic family I know keeps a collection box on their table which they fill through the season for a church relief organization. As a family you could choose either a local organization or food bank or an international organization like Mennonite Central Committee to collect for. Keep talking about why you're collecting and include them in your prayer if you pray together at meals.

I hope that whatever you decide to do (or not do!) during this coming season, you and your family will be filled with God's Spirit.

The Trans-ness of God

Every year as I prepare for Transfiguration Sunday I remember a couple of conversations that I had with then 3-year-old Naomi about the identity of God.  At the time, she told me she didn't like God because God is a boy.  But also that when she pictured God, she imagined a cloud.  I still sigh at how insidious the notion of maleness is to God's identity that even when you grow up in a home and attend a church that's pretty intentional about being neutral with names and pronouns, you get the picture that God is a "boy."  

I think of those conversations because they happened right around this time of year - Transfiguration Sunday - and because of how the vision of God as a cloud was so surprisingly right on the nose to the story of God's appearance to Jesus and the disciples, though Naomi had not heard the story before.  She came up with that on her own.

A decade ago, I explained God to Naomi as both boy and girl.  In my evolving understanding of gender I think I would shake the binary or either or and now say God is all and neither.  Or at least try to be a little more expansive. No one's gender needs to be one or the other and can even change.  Theresa Thorn does a great job of explaining the gender identity and fluidity in her picture book for children called It Feels Good To Be Yourself.  I wish I'd had her book when my child was making determinations about gender categories.

The Transfiguration is perfect story in which to dwell on the trans-ness of the Divine.  Not only does Jesus transfigure to a different and mysterious and brilliant form (maybe his true form?), even in his ministry writ large, he transgresses gender norms.  He is a tender healer, compassionate companion.  He is very close with women who are not his family members.  And in the Transfiguration story God's appearance is as a-gender light and cloud.

Not too long ago I prefaced a sermon by saying that I'd be using 'they/them' pronouns for God throughout.  Even though it still takes some practice, I feel pretty comfortable with using they and them as gender-neutral pronouns for people. But I am for some reason still having trouble in my own head with they and them for God.  Even though it makes so much sense biblically and theologically (God is one but also three, God's names imply an identity that is many-gendered and multi-faceted, God identifies themself as 'we' in Genesis 1).  I am chagrined to say that as much as I try to be intentional when I speak, 'He' still rolls off my brain more easily.

This passage calls on me - and all of us - to be trans-formed, transfigured, trans-aware.  Calls on me to be more active in the way I engage conversations about gender and pronouns for people and for God, so that we aren't left with the impression, by cultural default that God is a "boy". The transfiguration story is an opening.  Jesus' disciples are opened to a vision of the Divine.  Our eyes can be opened too.  Our image of the Divine surely informs our image of people, who are the carriers and reflection of God themself.

Faithful Parenting: Hopeful or Terrifying?

As I'm thinking about family faith formation, and meeting with many of you who live in households with children, I've been casting back to the work of Christian Smith, who's research over a decade ago showed that adolescents overwhelmingly mirror the religiosity of their parents. At that time he coined the term "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" (MTD) to describe what he saw as a kind of functional religion he saw in many of the teens that he interviewed. It can be briefly summed up as a belief that a creator God exists who wants people to be good and nice and good people will go to heaven. There's no need for God to be involved in one’s life except if there's a particular problem. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. Smith reflects in an interview at Crux, "there is obviously no Jesus here, no Gospel here, no transformation here. It is all about behaving well and feeling happy." He comes from a Catholic background but from a Mennonite perspective, there's also no discipleship, no justice, no servanthood. 

Recently Smith's current research and his book, Religious Parenting: Transmitting Faith and Values in Contemporary America has shifted away from the teens, who are absorbing MTD from what they observe in their parents, to the parents themselves. In the short interview with Smith, he talks about the just how parents can effectively create an environment and relationship that fosters faith formation in their children. I was particularly struck by this:

"Absolutely essential [is that] parents need to talk with their children about religion, not just once a week but regularly, during the week. Talking or not talking with children about religious matters during the week is one of the most powerful mechanisms for the success or failure of religious transmission to children. When parents never or rarely talk about their religion in personal terms, that sends a strong message to their kids that it’s really not that important."

I think this was especially resonant because I talked last week about modeling a life of faith and discipleship. Smith notes that practices alone are not enough. We also need to talk about the whys and hows of what we do when we go to church, pray, read scripture, gather in community, serve our neighbours and seek equity and justice. This, of course means figuring out for ourselves why we do it!

It is both terrifying and comforting to realize that our kids' formation is in our hands. I'm looking forward to reading Smith's book and (hopefully) feeling empowered to faith formation in my own family, and to pass along tools and information to y'all.

Walking in the Way of Jesus...Together

A number of years ago Discipleship Council discerned priorities for ministry with children and youth and their families, inspired by the pledge that we as a congregation make to parents when families welcome children into their homes and into the church. I know not all of you parents or caregivers we here in our congregation when your child came into the world, but the promise extends to all children in our congregation. We covenant and pledge with their families “to walking in the Way of Jesus; living lives of justice, peace, and compassion...to loving these children as beloveds of God, and prayerfully supporting these parents." Not just the kids, YOU, the ones who care for them.

Priorities two and three are about calling out the gifts off young people and building intergenerational connections. But priority number one is Christ-centered spiritual formation for children, youth and their families. I'm interested in learning more about how the congregation - and I as a leader - can be a resource. I'd like to learn what's already going well, and where you need support. What are the questions you have for your own spiritual life that would help you feel more confident as a role model and teacher in disciple-ing your children.

Children learn both by what we tell them and because they notice and mirror the adults in their lives. It's why we try to have healthy eating habits, model the behavior want our kids to learn, keep our potty mouths shut (just me?). Kids of people who read tend to be readers. Parents who are physically active have kids who move their bodies more. Developing a life of faith is no different. Kids pick up the habits and learn from what we do and say individually and together as a family.

In the next few weeks I will be contacting families to set up conversations about your own priorities and hopes for your children. Through these conversation I hope to learn how to best be a resource for developing language and the practices for kids and their adults as we seek together to follow the way of Jesus. I look forward to talking to you!

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Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash