Show Your Childfree Friends the Love

I sometimes listen to the podcast "Mom and Dad are Fighting" in which listeners write in to the show's three hosts to answer parenting questions. I subscribe to a few different advice podcasts, though I usually gravitate more toward the comedic. In this case, though, while the hosts Zac, Elizabeth and Jamilah don't take themselves too seriously, (especially when sharing their parenting fails), they do take their listeners seriously. They often agree and support each other but come at parenting with different experiences and perspectives.
In a recent episode, they heard from a person who does not have kids but who wants to support their friends who do. The writer reflected with disappointment and grief their experience of feeling uncared for and unsupported by their friends with children after a big accomplishment in their life. This hurt in a particular way because of the care they have always tried to show their friends and their friends' children. (I mean, this person without kids listens to a parenting podcast!) They wanted to know: is this just their friends? How should they talk to their friends about it?

I immediately thought about the church's history of either wringing out or hanging out to dry people in the church who don't have children. Weird how these two laundry metaphors both get at the way we take our childfree folk for granted, either assuming that because they don't have kids they have all the time and energy in the world for all the church tasks and roles OR planning events and activities only with children and their nuclear families in mind.

I think we do okay in our congregation at not making assumptions about people based on their age and/or life stage. I think we try to be inclusive. But I have had conversations with people in our church who feel like they have not been celebrated in the same way as their peers who are having babies or left out of conversations about aging when their peers are entering empty nest phase. I feel personally implicated. It's too easy to get busy with all the kid stuff and to gravitate to other parent-friends because our paths cross at kids' activities or in the school drop-off line.

If you are a parent, I hope you reach out to someone in your life who doesn't have children to ask what's been up with them lately, celebrate a milestone or offer encouragement. Having people in my own family's life and in our church who do not have kids, whether by choice or by circumstance, is a gift! Beyond the ways these child-free folks share themselves in love and care for us, they model for our children multiple ways of living full, connected, meaningful lives as adults that have nothing to do with raising children. It is so important to name their belovedness.

Elizabeth, Zac and Jamilah of "Mom and Dad" encouraged the letter writer to share their disappointment and hurt directly with their friends. But I hope that our friends and siblings in the church won't have to say something before we let them know how beloved they are in God's eyes and in ours.

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.

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!

The Day You Begin

There will be times when you walk into a room and no one is quite like you.
Maybe it will be your skin, your clothes or the curl of your hair.
There will be times when no one will understand the way words curl from your mouth,
The beautiful language of the country you left behind...
And because they don't understand the room will fill with laughter until the teachers quiets everyone...
There will be time when the words don't come.
Your own voice, once huge, now smaller.

I love every, single thing I've ever read from Jacqueline Woodson.  (In fact I wrote about some of her middle grade fiction here.) This beautiful book about the fear of new beginnings is no different.  I got teary just from reading the preview pages online. Beginnings are hard! We who have had so many first days of school can easily forget that our children are staring into the unknown and possibly scary when they walk into a new classroom or a new school for the first time.

Beginnings can be full of anxiety, especially if you have a kid that leans that way anyway.  What will my teacher be like? Will the work be too hard? Who will be my friend?  Am I wearing the right thing? I don't want to leave my mom! Woodson's book layers in the additional complexity of language and race and offers an opportunity to ask, "Why do you think 'the curl of her hair' might make her fell out of place?" and "What make you feel unsure or alone?" Young or old we all know what it's like to want to be understood and feel welcomed in a new place.

We may not be able to completely remove our kids' anxiety about beginning something new, but we can assure them of two things: our love for them and God's constant care.

Small comfort? Maybe.  But if you have the space for it and can carve out the time, try a night-before or morning-of blessing and litany of beginning.  You can make up your own words that make sense for your context and the age of your child, but the scripts that we repeat in our heads are powerful, no matter our age, so give your kid the script.  It might go something like this:

Tomorrow you are beginning a new thing. I'm proud of you and I want to bless you and send you on your way with words to help you when you feel nervous or uncertain. When you need to remind yourself of your own strength.  I want to to say these words each time:  God is with me. My family loves me. I can do hard things!

When you step into your new classroom for the first time...
When you're discovering all your new routines and schedules...
When you're wondering who will be your partner, who will sit with you at lunch, who to be your friend...
When you feel challenged by the school work...
When you feel overwhelmed or anxious...
When you miss the ones you love...
God is with you.  Your family loves you. You are strong and you can do hard things!

An optional addition to such a blessing which has been helpful in my experience is a meaningful tangible reminder of the care, love and safety for your child to carry with them.  A piece of jewelry or small item that fits in a pocket quietly says, "God is with me, my people love me, I am not alone."

If you have a child for whom newness is exciting, an adventure to be embraced, rejoice! Or even if this new beginning is just another day, I think it's still worthwhile to bless these new steps with courage and joy and determination.  To thank God for the the Spirit within them, delighting in the opportunities that await.  A litany for such a child can be a celebration, in the spirit of the end of Woodson's book:

This is the day you begin
to find the places inside
your laughter and your lunches,
your books, your travel and your stories,

where every new friend has something
a little like you - and something else
so fabulously not quite like you
at all.

Peace to you in the days of preparation and beginnings.

Breaking Our Kids' Hearts

"We need to break our kids hearts," said Jennifer Harvey in her talk at The Well last Thursday evening. "There's nothing innocent about white innocence." In her follow up to her book Dear White Christians, called Raising White Kids: Bringing up Children in a Racially Unjust America Harvey is inspired by the questions and issues arising from her own parenting, and her desire to again address her own community: white folks. Most of the folks in our congregation who are parent are raising or have raised white kids. And all of us - parents of white kids or not - have ample opportunities to grow in the ways that we engage our families and communities around issues of awareness, bias, privilege and racial justice.

What Dr. Harvey means when she says we must break our children's hearts is that it is only our privilege that allows us to protect our kids from knowing personally the bias and racism experienced daily by people of color. We want our children to be people who are advocates for justice and equality and teaching them that everyone is the same - teaching 'colorblindness' - ignores the fact that people are in fact different. And those differences mean that those who are people of color have been and continue to be treated differently. The only way that our children can fight for their fellow humans, the only way they can be brave together through the awkward and the uncertain is to know the pain and tragedy of what happens because of implicit and explicit racism and then rebuild their understanding that we and they have agency to respond in just ways.

Harvey's book speaks from her own experience as a parent of white children and aunt to two black children. She starts from the beginning (there's literally a chapter called "Where do I start?") for folks who are at a loss for how to initiate conversations in their families. And she acknowledges that it can be fraught and confusing and awkward but presses us to dive in anyway. When we don't find ways of addressing race, children will notice and make their own conclusions about our opinions.

As a parent of a tween, I have my radar attuned to middle grade fiction that addresses issues of race, since I always like books to do a little of the work for me and give me a reference point in conversation. I have two suggestions that I think will also be meaningful reading for adults:

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson (and any book by her - she writes picture books for younger children as well) deals with race, faith, disability and belonging through the eyes of a sixth grade girl. Franny is a black girl living in an all-black neighborhood but begins to ask questions about how black and white folks should interact when a white kid who looks a lot like Jesus shows up in her classroom. We read this book together and then we used the questions at the back of the book as a starting place for conversation about our own experience and attitudes.

Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes (and anything by her too). I haven't read this one yet but heard the author on The Longest Shortest Time podcast and then went to see her the next day when I discovered that she was speaking and reading at the Seward Park Third Place Books. Her book starts with the shooting of Jerome, a 12-year-old black boy, by a white police officer. It tells the rest of the story through his eyes as a ghost - encountering both the grief of his family and community, a host of other ghosts, including Emmett Till, and the one child who can still see and hear him: Sarah, the daughter of the officer who shot him.

Both of these books are heartbreaking in just the way that Harvey suggests. They will break open our own and our kids' hearts in ways that we can put them back together again full of hope. Much of the hope in the books is lodged in the young protagonists and their peers. I was so impressed by Jewell Parker Rhodes in how full of joy she was in spite of the heavy content of her work. She sparkled with delight in the young people in her audience and urged all of us, young and old alike to tell stories like Jerome's and to talk to each other about how to build hope and justice in our communities. We can start in our own families.

Since We Were Babies

The picture above was taken just over a decade ago.  It's still one of my favorites.  In part because it very much captures the personalities of the kids in the picture, even to this day.  And also because I love being reminded of a very unique thing about bringing children into church community: these children are not related to each other, they aren't  close - although they are friends - but they have been know and loved and cared for by this family of faith since the days they crawled around on the floor.  Like cousins or siblings in a for-real family they have this experience of church community - their family of faith - that only they and their peers share.

In the high school youth Sunday school class exploring baptism and belonging we are heading in a couple weeks into a session on the story of The Church and specifically of Our Church.  We will talk about the stories and values and culture that we have in our congregation.  We'll talk about  what it means to follow Jesus as a community in this time and place, and what it has meant for the last 50 years. Many of these same young people were at camp this past weekend.  I saw them being community to each other, laughing and enjoying being each other around a card table, and I saw them being embraced into the community of our church of all ages as they - yes - played games and also cared for smaller children and made meals together and played ping-pong and skied and sledded.

Some of those teens also crawled around with each other on the floor and some have only been here a little while.  But being in this family of faith is unique thing that only they share in the world.  I pray that the little ones in the picture will in a few years be the teens competing at Rook, that the children who have recently joined our community, and babies yet to be born will be folded into this cloud of witnesses.  It is precious to me to observe that that even long after the children of this faith family are grown, the love that they have known here continues to be a connection to each other and to the love of God.

In a recent conversation with my child in the picture, she confirmed that I still had it on my bulletin board.  I nodded and she went on a little incredulous, "So we've know each other since we were babies?"  Yup.  They have been known to each other and known to their church and known and loved by their Creator.  Thanks be to God!

Be thou my vision

Every night I hold a sleepy toddler and sing, “Be thou my vision, oh Lord of my heart.” This has been my go-to bedtime song for almost ten years now. But I found that last night, while election results were already rolling in ominously from the living room, these were the words I needed. And they were the words I needed to sing into the ear of my child. Words that are reminders of where our faith and hope really lie.

I have often turned to Psalm 146 in times of both fear of and expectation in system, leaders and government. It is a reminder that our hope lies not in princes (or presidents) but in the one who ‘created heaven and earth’ and who keeps faith forever. It is a jubilee song and we need a jubilee hope.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
     the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
     the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the strangers,
     upholds the orphan and the widow,
     but the way of the wicked the Lord brings to ruin.

Both Clinton and Caine quoted scripture in their concession messages this morning. But we know that the Reign of God is not subject to the reigns and regimes of the world, however benevolent, and it may not be co-opted. The Reign of God is proclaimed most powerfully by Jesus, who never doubted his belovedness, who never doubted God’s faithfulness, and who loved and taught us how to faithfully love our neighbor and our enemy. He persisted in proclaiming God’s reign in the midst of injustice, fear, hatred and oppression.

May we hear belovedness sung into our ears and may we sing the song for those who cannot or do not hear it elsewhere. May we remember God’s faithfulness and respond with our own. May we remember God’s great love by responding with our own love in word and in action. May our hope and vision be in our love and the in love of our creator.

“Heart of my heart, whatever befall. Still be my vision, o ruler of all.”

Parenting in the Pews (or on the chairs, as the case may be)

My mama and me when I was
about the same age as my
littlest one is now.

It is family lore that when I was about three, and my family was sitting in our usual spot on the front pew in the balcony of our church, that I was (as usual) fidgeting and talking out loud. So my mom tried to put her hand over my mouth to keep me quiet. Instead it had the opposite effect. I wriggled away screaming, “Mommy don’t hit me! Mommy, don’t hit me!” This, to the extreme embarrassment of my mother (my distress about being struck was completely unfounded) caused heads and eyes below to swivel immediately to the commotion above.

Now, as a parent of vocal, wiggly, strong-willed children I can see where it might have been a mistake to try to physically restrain a child whose first response is defiance. And as a parent I understand the struggle of trying to help my children understand that there’s a time and place for moving around and being loud and there’s a time to do quiet activities. As a pastor I want church to be a place where both are okay. As a pastor I want other parents to know that their children will be not just tolerated but loved in their loud questions, their running around the altar, their inattention, their stomping across the mezzanine floor and down the ramp, in addition to their quiet coloring or precocious scripture readings.

I am proud to be a part of a congregation that boldly and warmly welcomes little ones into the faith family with a commitment to their formation and care throughout their growing years and to supporting families. I encourage us to be visible and proactive in that support. On a Sunday morning, this could mean sitting beside a family with children and quietly talking with a toddler about what you notice happening in worship or what’s in the bag they brought. It might be engaging with the teenager next to you during the passing of the peace to ask about school. It could mean volunteering for the next Parent’s Night Out or bringing a snack to Sunday school. For 20 or more of you it could be adopting a family with kids as their prayer partner (that’s how many families there are with kids under 12), checking in regularly and bringing them into God’s light as a spiritual discipline.

I thank God for you when I think of you, Seattle Mennonite Church people. You care deeply for our families with children. May we welcome and bless them just as Jesus did.

Marked with Love

John 13:34-35 is the lectionary text this week, but since we're doing a series on Acts, I won't get a chance to expand on this very valuable analogy.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

If this short teaching from Jesus could be summed up in an image it would be the basin and towel with which he had just washed his disciples’ feet.  He had stooped and taken their feet in his hands,  cleaned the dust and dirt of the day from them and with care dried them.  And then he had instructed them to go and do likewise.  They are to make themselves known as followers by acts of humble service and loving care.

It is by a love like this – humble, willing to serve, possibility even willing to die – that should set the disciples of Jesus apart and make them visibly marked as his followers.

As the parent of an 8-year-old I have become very familiar with marks that set individuals apart.  I’m talking about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the image on the flank of everypony in Equestria: the cutie mark. Each pony is marked with an image that represents their special gift. Often the gift and the cutiemark that it represents are way each pony serves their community.  The pony who’s marked with butterflies loves and cares for animals and nature.  The pony marked with apples farms and feeds the town. 

Cute though the marks – and the message – may be, the series’ emphasis on relationships, welcoming strangers, second chances, making friends out of enemies and discovering the way each one can contribute to the strength of the community has been a great seed for conversation about those things.  There has been much speculation in my household about what each of us might have as a cutie mark if we were ponies.  What one image sums up each of our special combinations of gifts and interests in a tattoo-like mark?

As Jesus’ disciples we know that we do each have gifts which we have been given by God.  These are the things we’re good and the things we love.  The things that work together with the gifts of others to build community and show God’s love to the world.

The love by which Jesus loved his disciples and the world is a powerful love.  We are charged with bearing that love in our lives now.  Jesus passes his very love onto us and we are branded.  And the way we put that mark on display is through the humility, service, care, compassion and non-violent acts of just peace.  Whatever each of our particular ‘cutie marks’ might be we are all marked and can be identified as Jesus’ disciples by his love.

- - -

Finally, because the internet, these. 

  

  

All My Saints

I have been so grateful for the people in my congregation as I parent.  This week I offer this letter of gratitude and confession:

Saint With Slightly Bent Halo, Richard Kirsten Daiensai

November 1 is the day the world wide church celebrated All Saints.  This day began as a day in the Catholic church for all those who have feast days – the ‘big S’ saints – and evolved as the church evolved beyond Catholicism to a celebration first of all the baptized– the ‘small s’ saints – and further to recognize either all true believers (living and dead) or even to a celebration for all whom we particularly remember who have blessed and influenced us to further the kingdom of God. 

In our worship this year we are recognizing All Saints Day and in that context bringing infants to be blessed and dedicated to the care of God of this congregation – their cloud of witnesses.  And let me tell you, friends, you are my saints.  You are my saints because of your sincere prayers and love.    You are my saints for your graciousness and understanding.  You are my saints because of how you respond in times of need.  You are my saints because of meals delivered, prayers said, hugs offered. You are my saints because when my child is melting down at ten o’clock on a rainy night at Camp Casey you hold my baby, pack me up and get me on the road home in record time.

Nadia Bolz Weber writes in her new book Accidental Saints,

"It has been my experience that what makes us the saints of God is not our ability to be saintly but rather God’s ability to work through sinners.  The title “saint” is always conferred, never earned.  Or as the good Saint Paul puts it, “For it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).  I have come to realize that all the saints I’ve known have been accidental ones – people who inadvertently stumbled into redemption like they were looking for something else at the time, people who have just a wee bit of a drinking problem and manage to get sober and help other to do the same, people who are as kind as they are hostile.”

I confer upon you, followers of Jesus at Seattle Mennonite Church, the title of saint, for you have indeed willed and worked for God’s good pleasure – or at the very least have pleased this humble servant of God.

Megan has a piece of artwork in her office entitled “Saint with slightly bent halo,” (bad photo above) and friends, I feel my own halo is more than slightly bent.  It is mighty dinged up.  By God’s grace I trust that I too am still enabled by the Spirit to work for God’s good pleasure.  But the dual call to both parent and to pastor has at times been really difficult and even painful as I have rarely felt fully able to give myself to either one.  I bring my little one to be blessed in this congregation with great joy this All Saint’s Sunday because you are indeed my saints and his.  And yet you will likely not see either of my children often for a while after that.  I have kids – both of them, but maybe especially the elder – who right now need way more than I can offer them and still be present my a pastoral role on Sunday mornings. 

I pray with hope that at some point in the future I will be able to be in worship and at other events of the church with both children in a way that will be an experience that honors all of us.  And I ask that you will continue to offer grace to me, offering pastoral leadership in the area of family ministry even while my own family can’t accompany me.  May we with all of our dinged up and dented halos receive God’s blessing as we seek to do God’s pleasure.

God will put love on you

Weldon is preparing to leave our congregation to retirement and we are preparing to bless and release him into life beyond.  This Sunday I anticipate his offering a blessing for us, his congregation of almost the past twenty years.  When we gathered as a pastoral team last week he invited us to consider what blessing means to us. 

We use both the act of blessing and the language of having been blessed often in the church: we invite God's blessing at moments of special transition, like birth, baptism and marriage, or sending and commissioning.  We bless our offerings and meals and at the start of school we blessed backpacks (photo above). We say we have been blessed when life seems to being going right.  But for me at least this language had gotten almost cliche.

A few weeks ago, though, we encountered the story of Jacob.  With Jacob, blessing is a struggle.  Blessing doesn't always come in the form of what feels good and blessing doesn't always come automatically or with gracious words.  Blessing can be messy.  Sometimes we need to demand it of God, just as Jacob did.  I won't let you go until you bless me!  Bless me, God!  It is in our greatest struggle that we are most desperate for the real and living presence of a God who names us and calls us precious.

I'm figuring out that we cannot bless ourselves.  But we can ask for blessing.  Blessing happens in relationship - always with the Divine and often in human relationship.  It is something we do for each other.  It is something that God offers to us without our intercession and which we can offer on God's behalf.  This has been a time of many transitions and changes in the congregation.  Emotions run high and leadership has been listening carefully, committed to the work of spiritual discernment.  I carry the weight of this and I have soaked up blessing at every opportunity when it is conferred upon me.

Pat Shaver recently wrote a beautiful and I think much longed for blessing to the members of Spiritual Leadership Team and to pastors.  My correspondence with her subsequently has also helped me understand that we receive and experience blessing in prayer so much differently than when we pray intercession.  "God help Amy with the struggle she is having" is a prayer I experience as begging God, a tugging on God's hem, working God.  How much more full is the experience of praying over or with the struggling one, "I bless you with God's gracious presence in the face of struggle.  I bless you with wisdom and strength and the fullness of God's discerning Spirit."  In doing so we open a window into the heart of God, into what God already longs for and desires for us.  I feel I can release myself into blessing in a way that is totally different from the pleading of intercession.

I think the one on the right is Jesus.

Not long ago Naomi made a little series of drawings that had written at the top, "God will put love on you."  She also did one that said, "God will put strength on you."  She has no idea how much I need to receive these blessings.  These drawings are a blessing.  Not as well crafted and eloquent as the blessing Pat conferred, but blessing nonetheless.  I asked her to make me one to keep in my office. (Click on the image to see a larger version)  Because receiving blessing can be tough in times of struggle.  And because this is a wrestling time, my prayer is, 'Bless me, God!'  And may I bless God's people.  God will put love on you.