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.

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.

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.

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.

One God Who Mothers Us All

One of my preferred ways of speaking the trinitarian formula is this:
     In the name of the Father
     and of the Son
     and of the Holy Spirit
     One God who is Mother of us all.

This is a favorite now but but when I first began to imagine God as Mother it felt really weird.  It made me feel squirmy and wrong when, in my prayers I began to experiment with female images.  I think this may be the case of many of us who grew up in traditional churches.  It's likely true even in non-church culture, where 'the man upstairs' is universally understood to mean God and with a couple of notable exceptions (Alanis Morrisette or Octavia Spencer for example) God has been portrayed in most art and media as an old white, bearded dude in the clouds.

Yet mothering imagery for God - even for Christ - has ancient roots.  These are words from Julian of Norwich in the 14th century (and from our Hymnal #482):
     Mothering Christ, you took my form,
     offering me your food of light,
     grain of life, and grape of love
     your very body for my peace.
Who else but a mother feeds and nourishes and sustains her children from her very body?  This Christ-like action that we all experience when we share at Christ's table and that I understood in a new way as a nursing mother.

And way, waaay before Julian, the Biblical writers understood the mother-ness of God, although we haven't always read it that way.  Hosea writes in the voice God: 
     I taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms;
     yet they did not know that I healed them.
     I pulled them along with humane restraint, with ties of love.
     And I was to them like those who lift babies to their cheeks,
     I reached to them and fed them.
Sure, dads can do that stuff too (thanks be to God).  But for the prophet and the culture and context in which he wrote, he was imagining the Mother.

When I was in college and spent a summer as a camp counselor in Alberta, I butted heads often over theological issues with a particular counselor who was much more conservative than I.  But I found on the matter of gendered God language he was completely on board with Mother God.  For him it was a matter of having had a father who was emotionally and sometimes physically abusive, who was anything but the nurturing and tender parent that we long for in the God.  To imagine God as Loving Father was painful and difficult and difficult for him, when for me it was comforting and tender because I have a dad who was comforting and tender.  Hosea's image could easily have been Father in my eyes, just as it has so often been understood by so many.

The naming and understanding of God is going to be as nuanced as the ones who name and call on Her.  For those of us who parent, we can understanding a parenting God through the lens of our experience of parenting. Calling on Mothering God can be meaningful both in our experience of mothering and in our longing for one who provides the comfort and tenderness of a mother's arms in our time of need when nothing will do but Mama.

Finally, if you have not heard it before (or even if you have!) I recommend Bobby McFerrin's adaptation of the 23rd Psalm.  His hymn of praise to God our Mother is transporting.  You should put it in your ears RIGHT NOW.  Happy Mother's Day all you who mother, who have mothers or who need our Heavenly Mother to give you rest.
__
Image of Julian of Norwich by Br. Robert Lenz.  Click on it to learn more about Julian (and her cat).
Image of hands by Jon Warren, taken about 10 years ago of my hands with my daughter.

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.

Meeting Jesus

This week Megan will be heading up to Camrec for Pre-Junior Camp and next week Pastor Melanie and I will share the pastoral leadership at Junior Camp. So yesterday in our pastors meeting, Megan read the summer's theme verses from Mark 10. Parents bring their kids to Jesus to be blessed, are scolded by the disciples, but then welcomed by Jesus. Megan invited us to hear the passage with the ears of parents. I invite you to do it. Read it. Live it like you're there with the children you love, waiting to see Jesus. Really imagine your own kids and all they bring to that kind of situation. 

Parenting is a vulnerable thing and I experienced this story with a lot of emotion. It was like I was right there, one kid on my hip because he refuses to be put down, in a power struggle with the other because why should she be in this place doing this thing I'm making her do. And then the presumption and effrontery of Jesus' disciples to keep me from this meeting we've been planning, that I've had to wrangle my kids. We just want to see him for a minute! The anger and frustration have already been building in me and that's just the limit. I'm ready to explode or to cry.

But then Jesus. His welcome, his blessing. The immediate ease and release of breath and tension. The knowing his love for me and for my children. Seeing him embrace them and them welcoming the embrace, the recalcitrance disappearing. Holy cow, you guys, I could not stop the tears. Jesus loves me. I never felt it more profoundly and with more gratitude and picturing Jesus loving and blessing my beloved ones. May you all be blessed with the knowledge of Jesus' love and care for you.

And here are some cheesy but (if you're in the mood I was) tear-inducing pictures of Jesus with children.

Wisdom's Blessing

I have been dwelling with the call of Wisdom this week, as she raises her voice from Proverbs, calling to all humanity. God's Holy Wisdom in Biblical tradition is personified as a woman standing at the city gate and calling with longing for all humanity to embrace her. The Inclusive Bible reads in chapter 8, "Doesn't Wisdom call? Doesn't Understanding raise her voice?" and "I was God's delight day after day, rejoicing at being in God's presence continually, rejoicing in the whole world and delighting in humankind."

The Wisdom of God delights in us! I was inspired to write this blessing:

Mary Cassat

May you hear the voice of Wisdom.
And like a child who
     hears the call of her mother,
     and comes with eagerness
     as to a celebration,
May you run to her,
     where she waits
     with open arms
     to catch you up
     and lend you the warmth
     of her knowing.

Amen.

(Folks are welcome to use this in their own contexts, but please attribute authorship. Thanks!) 

Mother to the Lost: a Monologue

Seattle Mennonite Church

Luke 15:11-32

Let me tell you about my family.  I am married and I have two sons.  I love my sons.  I love my husband.  Yet my loving them does not make them love each other well, and loving them only deepens the grief when they are estranged or conflicted.

When he came of age, my younger son came to my husband and made a demand, “Give me my half of my inheritance.”  To hear it, I was aghast.  I was aggrieved.  I could barely believe it.  I did not think that we had raised a son to offer such disrespect and I questioned: Had we been too permissive?  Had he always felt such entitlement?  Where had I gone wrong? 

Maybe you already understand this: he essentially was saying to his father, to me, to his community, ‘I wish you were dead.  You’re nothing to me.’ What kind of a son treats his parents like that?  I was angry!  At my son and at my husband.  Because what does my husband do?  He gives in.  He talks to the neighbors to negotiate selling off land.  He liquidates some of our holdings.  He auctions livestock.  He hands over fully half (half!!) of our family’s livelihood to the boy!  He was a boy!  Foolish and vain and ungrateful.  And ignorant and naïve.

I heard the neighbors.  I knew the gossip.  The whole village thought we were irresponsible, undisciplined parents.  I was implicated in my crazy husband’s actions too.  They thought our whole family was crazy, and who wouldn’t?  Any sane father would refuse!  Would say, ‘Young man, your responsibility is here.  Your responsibility is to get married, have a family, to care for your mother and for me in our old age.  We didn’t raise you so you could leave us.  Shape up! Go back to work.’  As the head of the household he certainly would have had the right.

But he let him go.  So I had to let him go too.  We all did.  My boy had declared us dead, but when he left, it was as if he was the one who had died.  To not hear from him, to not know where he was or how he was faring.  There was nothing I could do. He could have been dead for all we knew.

Just like when someone dies, there was a hole.  I grieved.  And somehow life kept going, find a new normal.

Ever the responsible, my elder son just kept his head down, diligent as always.  It was a burden on him.  Now all the responsibility would be his but he was resolute.  A hard worker.  He’s a perfectionist - with himself and with everyone else.   Classic older child, really.  He never gives himself a break, never takes a day off.  My husband would never have thought to suggest it.  Life had found a new normal but it was a sort of half-life.  

I think the village saw this too.  We may have been irresponsible and crazy, but my son was the one who had abandoned us.  They saw the way our he cut us off and I knew they had the qetsatsah[i] all planned.  If he would ever show his face in the village again, the jar would be broken, the burned corn would be spilled, his name would be proclaimed and he would be ritually broken off from the community.  No better than a Gentile.  I have to admit, I was angry with him for leaving us but I was also grieved.  And I would be heartbroken were such a thing to happen.

It was hunger that put him back on the road to us. I knew there had been famine not so very far from us. And sure enough that’s where the young man went.  Lost it all.  Every last penny.  I don’t know who saw him first, but my husband got wind of it and I have never seen anything like it.  He was out like a shot – arms pumping, legs flying, kicking up dust.  No way for a grown man to act, the patriarch, the master of the house.  He was making a fool of himself.  I was glad to see the boy too.  I could barely breathe, in fact.  But the man was making himself ridiculous.  Again.

I’m sure that kid had his speech rehearsed.  He was always a big of a schemer: “I have sinned before heaven and before you…”  A hungry belly will do that.  But before he could get it all out, it was all robes and ring and sandals and fatted calf.  Musicians and dancing and feast.  Before he could speak the word to his speech but before anyone could organize the qetsatsah.  That boy may have spent everything and learned nothing, he may have been brought low and gone hungry, but he was not cut off.  I’ll give my husband this: he thought fast.  He looked like an idiot giving up all that property to a son that as good as proclaimed us dead.  And he looked like an idiot to prevent that son from being made as dead himself.  He brought the boy back.

I’m not sure my elder boy was so happy about that, though.  In fact, I know he wasn’t.  I mean, how does it make him look, after all.  He doesn’t like looking foolish.  But it all happened so fast no one had even gone to the field to get him so he arrived in the thick of it.  And like it or not, it was his responsibility to go in, to honor his father’s decision, to join his father as host.  He didn’t like it when his brother disrespected his dad but now what did he think he was doing?  Pouting and raging outside when his father and brother were inside. 

And again, my husband, paying no mind to his duty and position, leaves the party to beg and plead.  And he got an earful: “This son of yours spent all your money on whores!”  He almost spat it.  And I mean…where did he get that idea?? None of us know where the money actually went.  He hadn’t even talked to his brother yet – not that he acknowledged that they were even related.  His father is trying to bring him around. 

And here we all are.  Three lost boys – well, men – one lost and then found but maybe still lost to any understanding of what he really did to us and what this welcome back really means.  One lost in his anger and resentment, refusing to come in, to accept restoration for himself as well as his brother. One lost to any semblance of dignity and decorum and authority of position but wanting more than anything for both his boys to be restored.  Willing to let all that go.

But I love them.  God help me, I will always love them.  They are my sons.  He is my husband. And I pray: God, in your mercy, restore what is lost.  Restore them to you and to each other.  May not my love but yours reconcile.  In your mercy may a way be made where it seems as if there is no way.  In your mercy, God, may my sons and my husband find a place at the table and feast together.

---

[i] Thanks to Barbara Brown Taylor’s essay,  “The Parable of the Dysfunctional Family” for introducing me to this notion of qetsatsah

Halloween and Remembering our Saints

Halloween 1982, Eston, SK

As a kid, Halloween was second in my estimation only to Christmas, as far as holidays went.  Not only was there a mountain of candy and dressing up on the day, but there a season of anticipation of coming up with and preparing an original and creative costume.  There was also was a party at school, including a parade through the classrooms.  In my school some of the Christian families didn’t allow their children to participate in school Halloween festivities because the holiday was viewed as non-Christian, even anti-Christian.  But there are plenty of ways to talk about and prepare for Halloween through a lens of faith. 

For starters, Halloween (like so many holidays that have been secularized) began in the church.  All Hallows Eve is the evening before All Hallows/All Saints Day, the day to remember those saints who have been witnesses to God’s reign in times past.  On this day and on All Souls Day which follows, we have an opportunity to intentionally remember those we have lost and the faithful ‘saints’ who have gone before us. 

Who do we remember from the past and what ‘saints’ are still with us?  Who are the family members who have been and are faithful witnesses to God’s reign?  In our family we sometimes remember and tell the stories of Joe’s grandpa and my own who were conscientious objectors during the 2nd World War.  My grandpa served in the Forestry Service in Canada.  Joe’s grandpa was a smoke jumper in western Montana.  Another of his grandpas went to prison for his resistance to war.  In our families, these stories that witness to the way of Jesus – serving the community and eschewing violence – are powerful reminders of how we are still called to follow Christ’s example.

Halloween can also be an opportunity to give thanks for the generosity of neighbors who welcome hordes of children and freely offer gifts of chocolate and candy (which parents can later sneak out of the bucket). It may also be an opportunity to think about how to be generous ourselves, and to encourage generosity in our children.  This year I want to at least temper the attitude of mass sugar consumption by offering a parallel treat-or-treat experience that involves giving.  We’re going to collect non-perishables for the food bank in addition to the candy and encourage others at the annual Halloween party we attend to do the same. 

For a few more reflections on how to celebrate Halloween with a faith lens, check out the bloggers at Practicing Families here and here, Mennonite pastor Joanna Harader's reflections about life in a holiday that celebrates death here and finally a possible book for conversation about what’s scary at Worshiping with Children.

Sabbath Keeping for Busy People

Somewhere in my preparation for sermon writing this Sunday I read: our standard answer to the question, ‘How are you?’ has shifted from, ‘Fine, thanks.’ to ‘Busy.’   Possibly with a shrug and an implied or explicit, ‘Well, you know,’ because we all experience it.  I certainly have answered that way many times myself.  Who isn’t busy who’s juggling a balance of work with family and other relationships plus additional community responsibilities and pursuits.

‘Busy’ is exactly the problem that the gift of Sabbath seeks to engage.  The problem of busy is that most of what makes us busy is the race to keep up with a culture that has nothing to do with God’s economy and kin-dom (built on relationship).  It has, instead, everything to do with the empire of better, more, faster.  This is true even when individually our activities may be good and necessary ones.  Jesus was explicit: “Sabbath is made for humans.”  We should embrace this gift.

Lee Hull Moses writes in Hopes and Fear: Everyday Theology for New Parents and Other Tired, Anxious People, “The Sabbath commandment is rooted in God’s own day of rest after six busy days of creating the world: ‘and on the seventh day, God finished the work that [God] had done, and rested on the seventh day from all the work [which was] done.’ (Gen 2:2)  That word finished glares at me from the page…The hard part, it seems to me, is the stopping – especially when the work isn’t done…Must I really finish all the work before I rest?  ‘God,’ I think irreverently, ‘did not have a toddler at home.’”

And yet if we want our toddlers – or our teens or our children of any age – to understand the goodness of the world God created, and to live in that reality rather than one created by the constant activity of produce and consume, the rhythm of Sabbath is important.  Not only important but key in recognizing the God of Creation as the God of justice for all created beings.  As the people of God in the Bible let go of Sabbath keeping and turned away from it as a way of life, they turned more toward injustice.  Prophets like Isaiah and Amos are not kind in their words for those who ‘profane’ Sabbath.

Do a quick search on Practicing Families for Sabbath and you’ll see many ideas about how different families incorporate this practice into their lives (eg. here, here and here).  A little to my chagrin, some of them even involve staying home from church.  None of them, however, involve sports practices, homework, email, errand running or laundry.  What they have in common is a focus on holy rest, relationship, and a reminder that at our center, we are God’s not the world’s.  It is out of this rhythm of knowing whose we are that we can re-enter busy.

Dust and Sand

This past Wednesday evening members of our congregation worshiped together and were marked with ashes, a reminder that we are made of dust and that we return there.  We also heard and saw the pouring out of sand.  We symbolically poured ourselves out before our God and the sand became a symbol of cleansing, renewal and assurance as we offered ourselves to God for forgiveness.

For the past seven years as I’ve worked with youth, sand has not been a symbol of renewal or assurance.  It has instead been the counterpart of oil, as we share the sand and the oil of our lives with each other.  Where oil is the anointed and assured presence of God with us, sand is the barrenness and where we feel bereft.  Sand represents the all-alone breadth of the wilderness.

This week my experience turned from the former to the latter.  On Wednesday I ran my fingers through the sands of Ash Wednesday and on Friday I felt thrust into the dusty sand of the desert.  I learned that, although my body had given  no indication, had continued giving me all the right (although uncomfortable) signals, I am no longer pregnant.  Probably for several weeks now.  Probably even as I announced the news with joy.  

I was shocked.  I was upset.  I lay on the ultrasound table alone and bereft and totally utterly thrust into the wilderness.  And so Lent becomes something much different than I had ever anticipated.  It was going to be a season of waiting and preparation and growth.  It becomes a season of introspection and discernment and grief, learning to hope and wondering what is next.

When Jesus went into the wilderness, he was driven there.  He was thrust by the Holy Spirit.  That entry too was not gentle.  Although not in the Luke version of the story that we read this morning, it is in the other Gospels that record this story that he was waited on by angels.  Our psalm, Psalm 91speaks of the angels that 'will bear you up.'  In that psalm it is to God that the Psalmist turns for refuge.  This season of Lent I am looking to God’s providence and am grateful for the angels that have already offered comfort, understanding and presence.  I pour myself out to my Creator like sand.  I pray that I may find renewal.

Getting Creative with Bedtime Prayers

When I was a growing up, we had a rote prayer that we learned for mealtimes and a rote prayer that we learned for bedtimes.  These were both rattled off as quickly as possible, so much so that the meal-time prayer lost whole phrases over the course of time.  The bedtime prayer was a variation of the 'now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep' prayer but ours didn't include dying before we wake:

Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
And when I've slept all through the night,
To wake me with the morning light.

I haven't wanted to do that with Naomi.  She has ideas and thoughts of her own and actually seems eager - sometimes, anyway - to let God know what those are.  Although we've been nothing like consistent, we have tried various prayer practices at meals and bedtime.  Those have included reading (but not memorizing) short prayers like the one above from prayer books for children, sung prayers and graces, and praying aloud with Naomi to model what it means to pray extemporaneously.  

To help Naomi begin to do that, a couple years ago I started with a simple version of the prayer of examine: looking back through the day and thinking of the things to be thankful for and on the other side, for those things that we needed God for.  We've done something similar with what are our hopes and what are our fears.  Sometimes Naomi has the words to say those things and sometimes she can names things and I'll pray for her and with her.  This has been especially important when she does feel scared or worried about something.

Lately, at her initiation, we have been praying silently together and then we'll tell each other what we prayed for.  I kind of like this format of prayer because it allows me to pray intentionally for her and then tell her about it.  There are times, even though this was her suggested method, that she can't settle down enough to be quiet or she gets distracted by the book beside her or just can't think of anything.

This was the case last night.  In the past I've just said, 'If you don't know what to pray for or you don't have words, it's okay.  God knows our hearts and the Bible says that even when we don't have words, the Spirit prays inside us and for us.' (Rms 8:26ff)  I stand by that.  But we all have times when we can't settle down and having a tool to pray helps us.  For me that has been journalling, writing down in whatever fragments and pieces, longhand or point form, the things I'm feeling and longing for. 

Naomi is five and like any other average five-year-old still doesn't write beyond the letters of the alphabet and some basic words.  But she loves drawing.  So I had a brainwave.  I said, 'Why don't you draw what you're praying for and thankful for?'  This got her very excited.  She first drew a detailed picture of Jesus, complete with ten toes, arms wide open and the traditional sash. She then followed that with an image of me and her dad and a flower (but she explained that the flower was just a decoration, not a part of her prayer).  This may not be a new idea to anyone else, but to me it seemed like a revelation.

Being a very visual person myself, prayer is often easier to practice in imagery.  Although for me this is most often internal and imaginative, I was pleased that Naomi is embracing this method of expressing her prayers.  I'm curious to see where else it can take her, and I'm wishing I'd thought of it sooner.  Haven't psychologists have been using this method of communicating with children for ages?  It's in every crime drama featuring a victimized child.  Why not prayer?  It seems to me that in the same why that using sign language to ask for milk was a revelation for our non-verbal one-year-old, being able to communicate to and about God with images - even colors and shapes and scribbles - could be a really fun and meaningful way for non-writing or speaking children to connect to the Divine.

I pray that it may be so!

UPDATE:
Here's the picture of Jesus that Naomi drew in her prayer