Change your life

A group from our congregation and another are on a mission trip in Guatemala. My husband, who speaks fluent Spanish, has visited there many times and was eager to see dear friends. My teenage son, also on the trip and traveling out of the country for the first time, just added a contribution to the blog intended to keep family, friends and church folks updated. It's an uneasy responsibility to take church kids anywhere - those of us at home like to hear proof that they are alive and well!

My son used the word "life-changing" to describe what he and the group had seen and experienced so far.

I wonder what he means by that.

Change is relentless, hard work - it's far easier to slip back into the patterns of life as usual. How can we - as parents, as families, as a community of faith - truly support the stirrings of change and transformation and faith that we hope a mission trip will foster?

After traveling to Tanzania with a group from our church a few years ago, a common question to be asked when I returned was "Aren't you so grateful for everything we have here?"  Our sisters and brothers in areas of Tanzania and Guatemala and certainly other parts of the world experience levels of poverty and injustice and daily struggle that are difficult for us to truly comprehend, even after visiting for a few whirlwind days. Life isn't fair - and I do enjoy many advantages including reliable access to food, education and health care. As a woman, I have opportunities that my sisters around the world do not share. I am grateful for what I have - sort of. Sometimes.

But I hope gratitude - or relief that we live here and not there - is not the only response my son has to what he has witnessed and experienced. I hope he also has a growing sense of wonder and compassion and at least a tiny bit of outrage that seeks the good for all.

What kinds of life-changing experiences have you had? How were you able to actually be changed by them?

We are an offering

During the children's sermon yesterday morning, I asked the kids about the baskets we pass around to collect the offering. They knew all about what was put into the basket as it passed - bills, checks, coins. Often they had been given a quarter or wadded-up dollar bill to add. "What do you think happens to that money?" I asked. At both services, the kids (ages 2 to about 8) seemed to agree that it was used to feed people who are hungry or to help people who are poor. I like their (current) understanding of what is means to be a church - their church. It made me want to be more attentive and generous - closer to what they think we are and what God calls us to be.

Play Ball!

One summer, Paul coached David’s T-ball team. The four year-old playing second base would routinely fill her pockets with so much dirt, she emitted puffs of dust as she ran to and from the field. Paul once looked up from his clipboard and asked, “Where did they all go?” Apparently, the need to trek to the nearest bathroom was contagious – no one was left in the outfield. Running the bases - in order - turned out to be a more difficult concept to teach than expected. For many parents, it was a first experience with organized sports and sometimes, in their enthusiasm, they (we) said the wrong things at the wrong time in a tone of voice that led to tears. It was a season of learning for everyone, parents and players alike.

For the last game, I made giant cut-out cookies in the shape of baseballs with red licorice lacing. We prepared special award certificates highlighting things we had learned to love about each player. As we gathered to hand out the treats and awards after the game, we heard loud cheers from the opposing team, also celebrating the season’s end. Curious, we looked over to discover the source of their enthusiasm: giant, shiny, engraved trophies. 

Our kids couldn’t look away from those trophies, couldn’t help comparing, couldn’t stop grumbling about the unfairness of it all. The celebration on our side of the field fizzled. As the kids gathered their things, I overheard a parent promise in a too-loud whisper, “Don’t worry. We’ll find you a trophy.” Some of those awesome cookies got left behind.

We don’t have to be four to do this. (I speak for myself here!) We compare ourselves and our lives to others and conclude that our own blessings come up short. Instead of being generous with who we are and what we have, we worry that we are not enough or we don’t have enough. We struggle to rejoice with those who rejoice and keep score instead. We make promises we can't keep. We forget that we belong to each other. 

Thanks goodness, we also don't have to be four to learn and grow. To get carried away, to share a snack, to cheer on a friend, to win or lose gracefully, to apologize, to be generous and grateful without the promise of a reward.

Dear God, 
Give us generous hands and grateful hearts. 
Amen.

May Day

As we approach May 1st, winter has finally loosened its grip on the upper Midwest. Two days ago, we grudgingly shoveled heavy, cement-like, late-April snow. Today, all is forgiven. Sunshine, 72 degrees, open windows, dandelions, cardinal song, motorcycles, and everywhere the hint of long-overdue green.

Though I live in the city, I am an Iowa farm girl at heart and this year the first of May carries with it a wave of nostalgia and grief. In an unspoken competition with the neighboring farmers, my father worked to be the first to get the corn planted each spring, usually before May 1st. What an exercise in faith - in a flurry of hope, the brown earth was carefully prepared and planted. Good years, bad years - spring came.

Last June, Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. As his health rapidly declined, it didn't seem right, but the corn continued to grow. In those too-short weeks of summer, it troubled me that he would not (and did not) live to harvest the crops he had helped to plant.

A life of faith is like that. We plant seeds of corn, peas, sunflowers, hope, love, faith, joy. We might also scatter seeds of hatred and fear and divisiveness and doubt. Some grow, some die, some thrive, some shrivel - we don't always see the results of what we have planted. We might be called to tend the crops others have planted. Sometimes we must not hesitate to pull the weeds up by the roots. So often we enjoy the fruits of another's labor -- and if we're lucky, we get to share our abundance with others.

Last year was a bad year - yet spring still comes. Thank God.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 
1 Corinthians 3:6

Were you there?

After a long Lenten season that ends with Holy Week and Easter - followed by a night or two of good sleep and a few meals that didn't include jelly beans - I arrive in this uneasy, humbling place:

"Where was so-and-so?"

Although the church was full on Easter Sunday, some voices were missing from the chorus of "Alleluias."

Don't get me wrong - I am so grateful for familiar folks who worship regularly, who serve faithfully, who give generously of themselves - whose faith overflows and even sometimes sustains those whose own belief may have withered. But I have a tremendous soft spot for those who only worship on Christmas and Easter. I long for a glimpse of whatever fragile tether keeps them connected, if only rarely and reluctantly - pressure to please Grandma, years of habit, nostalgia, an unexpected dose of courage, openness to the nudge of the Spirit, old-fashioned longing for something more.

I am fretting today about those who didn't make it this year - I missed them and pray they have found a place of belonging and purpose in another faith community. 

There are a million reasons people stay away - both simple and complex, reasons we might quibble with and some that would break our hearts. Surely God has a firm hold on us, even when we're walking as fast as we can in the other direction, even when God and the church have been sources of disappointment and judgment and pain, even when going through the motions seems hollow, dull and irrelevant.

Long-time members, an old church friend, a new neighbor, someone with too-early signs of dementia, an awkward teenager, my own children, strangers - it takes my breath away to worship and share a holy meal together. Even if it's just once. Someone has the courage to show up just in time to to whisper "He is risen indeed!" on Easter morning? Thank God! It gives me hope.

Of course, it's problematic to think that God can only be found inside the walls of a sanctuary. We need some strong tethers that pull us out of the church and our comfort zones and into the world God loves.

Christ is risen... for you. And even for your neighbor who may decide to sleep in or go grocery shopping on Sunday morning.

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

Over the past two years, a version of this conversation has been repeated many times in our home, usually just late enough that we are awakened by the phone call:

Caller: Is Husband's Name there?

Me: May I ask who is calling?

Caller: Is this the same Husband's Name who went to high school in Nearby Suburb?

Me: No, sorry, you've got the wrong Husband's Name.

Caller: Is he chubby?

Me: (giggle) No.

Caller: Does he have red hair?

Me: (sigh) No.

Caller: He's not chubby with red hair?

Me: No. And we'd be grateful if you'd stop calling.

Caller: (surly now) Geez. You don't have to be so mean!

Me: (sigh, click, yawn) I've got to move the phone to your side of the bed.

Though we have not yet reached the same conclusion, the repeated late-night inquiries are clearly a dead end. For some reason - even though we've asked - he hasn't crossed our number off his list of possibilities. And, despite the annoyance, we've never bothered to go the extra step or two that might finally put an end to this conversation - adding caller id, screening our calls or even pretending to be a chubby redhead, delighted to hear a voice from the past.

I've wondered about the unfinished business the caller has with an old classmate. Is he hoping to reconnect with someone who had been a close friend? Is there an unresolved argument or unpaid debt that, for the caller, rears its head late at night, demanding resolution?

I have my own well-worn list of things that can occasionally keep me up at night - church folks I should check on, financial worries as our oldest visits colleges, conversations I wish I'd had with my dad, my growing dislike for our kitchen cabinets, an ominous noise the car has been making. My grand solutions, all of which seem so plausible in the wee hours of the morning, seem to disappear like smoke in the light of day.

What keeps you up at night? Do you have unfinished business to tend to? Are there folks from your past you'd be glad to hear from again? Who do you call for help?

Something strangely familiar

Our aging van, a hand-me-down purchased from my older brother, needed a repair we couldn't afford. At 200,000+ miles, the end wasn't unexpected, but I was sad to let it go because I'd rather drive an older car that needs an occasional repair than make a monthly payment. We thought our broken-down ride was headed for the junk yard, but the mechanic bought it from us instead for almost nothing and - lo and behold - his brother (also a mechanic) resurrected it in his backyard. Imagine my surprise when I see our old van delivering sandwiches for a super-speedy sandwich shop, pulling up next to us at a stop light, waiting in the same drive-thru lane, or taunting me at the gas station looking better than ever.

Occasionally, its new owner delivers sandwiches to hungry folks at church, pausing just long enough to offer an update about the flagging health of our mutual motorized friend, other junkers he's working on, or news from the neighborhood.

Ours is an unlikely relationship - brought together by a blown
head gasket and roast beef on whole wheat. He's not particularly wowed by me or my work at the church but I am routinely impressed with his ability to diagnose and repair what seems beyond hope. New life comes in surprising ways.

How wonderful to be so differently gifted - mechanics and sandwich makers and pastors all have something valuable to offer.

Do you have any unlikely friends?