From the Perch of Privilege

That's where I feel like I am sitting this morning.

I have the privilege of being white as I watch TV and see the protesting and riots around the country - including Columbus about another death of a black man at the hands of the police.

I have the privilege of being on social security and a pension as I know that there are people who have lost their jobs during this pandemic and literally can't pay the bills

I have the privilege of being healthy ( I hope!) as people come down with the virus.

And my thought is - what do I do with my privilege?

Then I make a list of what I need/want to do on this Saturday?  And it is preparing for preaching next weekend, preparing for book group on Tuesday, sending out emails for the writer's group on Monday, preparing for 2 Bible studies next week, preparing for a new book study at church on Thursday and preparing for my Sunday afternoon front porch gathering for my peer group tomorrow.

Then I listen to "praying as you go" app as I sit on the back porch, journal in hand, dog beside me.
The scripture is John 21: 15-19. And hear Jesus say to Peter -
Peter do you love me?  Feed my sheep
Peter do you love me  Tend my little lambs
Peter do you love me  Feed my sheep

I sit with that and realize that my "work"  - these Bible studies, book groups, preaching, gatherings of people are all the ways in which I feed people (and myself)

I listen again to the text and hear this: "When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Peter...."

And I remember that Jesus comes to meet the disciples on the beach and feeds them breakfast.   First.

Something has happened to me in the last few days because I have been fed.  I had Lisa come for two nights and it was really good to  be with her and have another person in the house with me.  I ended up having all the girls over in the front porch on Thursday evening playing games and eating pizza.  I brought together a group of people from Gender Road Friday afternoon (social distancing) just to share about the pandemic.  And I led four Bible studies.  All of this fed me.  All of it - the people, the Bible, the love.

So, from the perch of privilege I sit grateful for all of it and understanding that it is - like the grace of God - unearned.  And I do hear an answer to what to do with this gift - feed my sheep.  Tend to people in the way that I do - bringing them together to be cared for (listened to) , helping them to feed on the word of God and just plain loving.  It may not be everything - but it is certainly a beginning.

And I am grateful.  I am grateful this morning for the "Gifting God"who keeps feeding us and showing us the way to feed others.

May the GIFTING  Got be with you.
May you be endowed with the gift of god;s spirit.
May your investment in the kingdom be one of passion and compassion.
May you be blessed with a deep and grateful awareness of your own gifts and of the gifts offered to you by others throughout your day.
May the GIFTING  God bless you.

Memorial Day

One of the first emails I received this morning was from my cousin Valerie with a copy of my Uncle Harry's obituary.  Harry was the only brother of my mother Marge and her mother Shirley and he died in World War 2. 

Of course, I never met him.  Looking back, I was not as curious as a child or young adult as I am now about who Harry was.  In our email exchange this morning, my brothers, cousins and I discuss how he was called "Two beers" (couldn't drink more than that?) and aspired to being a friend to everyone he met and was beloved by everyone he crossed paths with.. Most importantly maybe was he was my mother's big brother and my grandmother's only son.

Over the years I do think about and wonder about Harry on Memorial Day.  The wondering is how his death affected his sisters and parents and what difference that made in their lives.  Were they changed by this terrible event in their lives?  And would my life - and my siblings and cousins lives - have been different in any way if he had not died so young?  What I wonder is what happens as the   tapestry of our lives is lived out and one of the threads is broken.  How does it change the design?

Usually on Memorial Day, I ponder the effects of war, but this morning I wonder about the effects of death itself.  Especially in the midst of a global pandemic.  Yesterday the Sunday New York times front page was a listing of thousands of people who died from the virus.  It included their names and then some little fact about them.  Here are some examples:

Patricial Dowd, 57, San Jose, Calif, auditor in silicon Valley
Marion Krueger, 85, Kirkland Wash.  great grandmother with an easy laugh
Jermaine Ferro, 77, Lee County Fla. wife with little time to enjoy a new marriage
Cornelius Lawyer, 84, Believue, Wash.  Sharecropper's son
Loretta Mendoza Dionisio 68, Los Angeles, cancer survivor born in the Phillipines
Jordan Driver Haynes, 27, Cedar Rapids Iowa, generous young man with a delightful grin

This is the first six - of literally thousands.  It is overwhelming to read through them and very, very sad. These people are gone and their families are affected and will be changed by their loss, irrevocably - as I have been changed by the loss of my husband and my mother, surely, by the death of her beloved brother.

So, on this Memorial Day we remember and walk through the valley of the shadow of death and ponder the great mystery of life - that it ends and we are left behind to put our lives together without our loved one.   There is much I don't understand - but this part I trust - that God is with us in our grief and guiding us into new life.  A different life that we may not have planned but a new life that brings hope and eventually joy.

So, my prayers are with those who remember and mourn today - the men and women who sacrificed by answering the call of their country to serve as well as the many victims of this corona virus.  Actually, I pray for all of us who are mourning still the loss of significant people in our lives.

Here is a reading that seems fitting for these musings.  It was read at Chuck's celebration of life

After Reading about the Death

It is the work of the living to grieve the dead.  It is our work to wonder  how else the story  could have gone. It is our work to weep and worry, and it is our work to heal.  The clouds hide the moon, hide the sun, Sometimes for days.  We don’t believe it will be forever.  Some part of us knows not only hope, but patience. It is the work of the living to love even deeper in the face of death, to know ourselves as flowers on the pathway, easily crushed.  The world crushes. Some stems spring back, some never rise again. We know we must be resilient, but resilience has wings and sometimes flies away. It is the work of the living to, against all odds, grow wings. It is our work to live— and work it sometimes is. It is our work to show up again and again and again,  Genies who refuse to go back in the bottle, lovers who ever insist on love, stems that feel sunlight and, though we can’t yet move, let it encourage our being.

A Rainy Day

Or should I say - ANOTHER rainy day.  It seems like it will not stop.

This seems to be a season for forbearance and endurance.  And living with the motto - this too shall pass.

I had a busy day yesterday between two zoom Bible studies, one zoom meeting with women clergy and a church board meeting.

The text that the women clergy read was Psalm 149 which begins like this

Sing to the Lord a new songs, his praise in the assembly of his faithful people.
Let Israel rejoice in their Maker
let the people of Zion be glad in their King.
Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with timbrel and harp.
For the lord takes delight in his people.
he crowns the humble with victory
Let his faithful people rejoice in this honor
and sing for joy on their beds.

What struck me in this   were these words:
     New song
    praise his name with dancing
   the Lord takes delight


I do like the idea of the Lord who delights in us.  And that has always been part of my understanding of God - in the same way I delight in my children and grandchildren - God delights in me.  

Sunday I preached about the new song and the fact that God is doing a new thing.  I do believe that and trust it.  However, as Karen Carpenter sang - Rainy Days and Wednesdays always get me down.
(I know she said Mondays!)  I really like the idea of dancing - rather than walking or even slogging through days.

So, when I finish writing this, I think I will put some dance music on. .  Maybe that will help  to lift my spirits and help me to live into the joy that I desire today.  What I know to be true is this:  our days are very up and down and they are often affected by the weather.  I cling to the understanding that God is faithful regardless.  May we all make choices that may delight our God today.

And a perfect prayer by Maxine Shonk

May the Spirit of God DANCE with you, moving with you to the music of your experiences.
May you know God in step with you through every change of rhythm and song, every dip and pirouette.
May you learn to follow God's lead in your life and become a mentor and model for those on the dance floor with you.
May your DANCE with the Spirit of God all your days.

God is doing a new thing

This was point three of my sermon yesterday.  The text was Matthew 9 and these sentences are taken from my sermon:

1.    Third truth – God is doing a new thing.  Jesus  uses the metaphor of new wine that needs to be put into new wineskins.   Van Bogarde Dunn: The living word shatters the old forms, breaks the letter of the law, and puts a new song in our hearts.

TT    his morning I began  the day with the app: "Pray as you Go" and the text that was used was:Psalm 149 which starts with these words:   Sing to the Lord a New Song.  

        All of this is word of hope as I start a new week.  We are slowly opening up here in Ohio and I am ready.  Yesterday it was so good to be with people at church instead of watching alone in my home.  I have made a hair appointment - 2 more weeks to wait! - which gives me sense of newness.

I      After months of sheltering in place and waiting for spring and for a lessening of danger, I need to  believe that God is doing a new thing. It is easy to fall into the mindset that everything is going to stay the same or get worse.  My body is only getting older and I still live with a veil of sadness .  My faith tells me that God's activity may be hidden from view - but it is still at work.

 

I    I  don't know what difference this will make in what I do today - but my spirit lifts as I consider that there is hope for something NEW to happen.  

     Here is a fitting blessing for today by Maxine Shonk

    May the God of NEWNESS be with you, freshening you with renewed energy and awakening you with new perspectives on old vision.

     May you be free enough to let go of what is stale and used up and embrace what is new and full of promise
.

      May God's grace be with you as you wrap yourself in what is right, if unfmailiar.

      May you look upon your life and your ministry with the eyes of God, ever new and ever transforming.
       May the God of NEWNESS be with you.

The Blessing of Journaling

I have journaled for over thirty years and I have literally boxes of journals to prove that.  Many of them are not finished because my pattern is do this writing for weeks or months and then often I stop for a while and in beginning again - get a new journal.

This morning I began the day on my back porch, with candles lit and my dog Ginger sitting at my side.  A friend recommended a new APP on the phone - Praying as You Go and so I began with listening to the monks of Glenstal Abbey sing Ubi Caritas est vera - "wherever love is true, God is there.

Then there was a lectio divina of John 15: 12 - 17

 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  
¹³ No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 
 ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you.  
¹⁵ I do not call you servants^[a] any longer, because the servant^[b] does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 
 ¹⁶ You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 
 ¹⁷ I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another


As I sat and listened I heard these words:

I have chosen you to go bear fruit.  I sat and just breathed these words in.  Finally at the end of the time, I wrote a prayer to God in my journal.

After that, I spent some time reading back through what I have written in the past few weeks.  It is such a gift to remember and reflect and cherish where I have been and how I have felt God's love and presence.  It helps me to remember my frustrations and fears as well as the insights of what i have read and listened to.  Writing in a journal is always a gift in the present moment as I am able to get in touch with what is happening within my spirit, but today, I realized it really is a gift to read later.

Here is the prayer I wrote this morning.

O God as this day begins I sit with you.
I listen to words from Holy Writings that remind me
You chose me
you choose me
You call me to love
you are my friend and I can come to you with anything
And I do.
I come with a desire for guidance and focus.
May I be faithful in what I say and do this day.
Amen