Little Miracles

Little Things

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When I reached the bathroom at Target, I was in rush.  Book club was in less than three hours, the dogs needed to be let out, and I still needed to finish the stinkin’ book.  All I could afford was a quick potty break and then a dash towards the baked goods so I could grab dessert for the meeting — in, out, and on the run!  In other words, it was a Sunday afternoon.

But when I walked in, something caught my attention.  Across the mirrors above the sinks was a line of bright neon green post it notes, their color demanding notice.  Written neatly on each note was the same message:  “Has anyone told you today that you are beautiful?”

Before I could think, a sigh escaped my lips, followed by a smile.  No.  No one had told me.

Catching motion to my right, I realized I wasn’t alone.  A young girl, maybe nine or ten years old, stood on tiptoes to see the post it on her mirror.  Slowly, mouthing each word, she read the message and flushed a deep red that matched her hair.  Then she looked at me, smiled broadly, and skipped out of the restroom, nearly knocking over the Target employee who pushed past the door.

The employee, clearly unhappy with bathroom duty, stalked into the restroom, scanning floors for trash.  When she looked up and saw the post its, her eyes widened and then narrowed, and she began to mutter about people messing things up and giving her extra work.  Then she saw the message and stopped in her tracks.

“Wow,” she whispered.  image

“I know, right? It’s really something,” I responded.

She looked in the mirror and straightened up, a smile tugging at her mouth.

“Yes.  It sure is.”

Apparently, no one had told her either.

—-

Some days it’s the little things that make all the difference in the world.

A Marvelous Dad

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Tonight, sitting in my office after hours to finish up some administrative work, I am surprised by joy.  More specifically, I’m caught off guard by the joy of a father and his little daughters picking through what is left of our pumpkins.  After a week of trying to get rid of our pumpkins at a discount, we put an ad out on Craigslist advertising them for free.  Because of that ad, this dad is here loading up the freebies so that he can feed his livestock, but mostly so that his girls can have an adventure with him.  As they search through the pallets, moving past the rotten ones, they shriek with joy each time a good one is found.  And every time that victory yell is raised, he celebrates the find.  “Good job, little one!  Well done.  That one is perfect!”

The love in his voice, it’s enough to make my heart break wide open with joy.

Rich or poor or in between, tonight I thank God for all the marvelous dads in the world.  The ones who allow themselves to see whimsy through the eyes of their children.  The ones who take the time to play, to get down on their knees and wonder from the same vantage point that their kids occupy.  The ones who aren’t afraid to love their children openly, loudly and with abandon.  The ones who hug, and tease, and tousle hair.  The ones who think their children hung the moon.

Thanks be to God for fathers such as these.  They make all the difference in the world.

Hope is Orange

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Now that the election is over, there seems to be a stillness here at the office.  People seem less frenzied, less preoccupied – and once again there is time to reflect.

October was a crazy month around here.  Frankly, I only remember it in flashes of image and color.  In my mind’s eye, when I think about last month I see a whole lot of orange.

If you are a member or a neighbor of Hillside Christian Church, then you understand the orange thing.  Our life has revolved around (or at least it has been framed with) pumpkins.  Lots and lots of pumpkins.

Basically, the entire month of October was a grand experiment: bring in an enormous truckload of pumpkins, pull together a wide variety of church volunteers, step outside the church building, invite the wider community to come have some fun…and then see what happens.   It was an exercise in trust, in hope – a hope that we might become more like the Kin-dom of God if we met our neighbors outside of the church walls.   And you know, I think it worked.

At the very least, the experiment started us on the right track.  Though we were raising money for our youth mission trips, we also got the opportunity to interact with families who live near the church or who come to the church for food assistance (and to interact with them in a different way).  Our volunteers saw parents beaming as their children danced and bounced through the pumpkin patch, families gathered in that sea of orange for an autumn family picture, teenagers meticulously searching for the perfect carver…these neighbors of ours, who sometimes have been seen simply as mouths to feed, became real multifaceted people.  That alone is enough to call the experiment a success.

But there was more.  One of our wealthier neighbors who often disapproves of our signage and activities, fell in love with the vibrant display spread across our lawn.  She went so far as to send us a letter expressing her gratitude for our presence in the neighborhood.  Local grocery stores started sending customers our way when they ran out of their own pumpkin stock.  People looked out for us, and we experienced a complete lack of vandalism and theft, though the pumpkins weren’t guarded during the night.  We all became neighbors.

And at the end of the month, when we set up for our annual Trunk or Treat event, our neighbors came back.  They came back in droves.  We served hot dogs, chili, cocoa and candy to a thousand people that night – and we recognized those who had come earlier in the month, even though they were in costume!

As a church, it is our calling to take seriously those two greatest of commandments:  Love God and Love Your Neighbor as Yourself.  But it is downright impossible to love our neighbors if we don’t have the slightest clue about who they are.  With the help of a few hundred pumpkins, we’ve begun to figure that out.  It’s making a difference already, sending ripples of hope throughout our area.  And it’s given me hope, that maybe all this work we do really is pointing to something (and Someone) greater than ourselves.  Maybe, just maybe, we’re laying some foundation for the Kin-dom right here along Vivion Road.

If that’s the case, then around here hope is orange.

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Relief

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It’s strange how sometimes the human brain (or perhaps the human spirit) is able to cordon off the darkest of our fears, creating a pen for them so that we can function. They’re still there with us, never far off – but there are times when we can forget them, if only long enough to get a job done, tuck the kids into bed or be present for a loved one who has needs and fears of her own.

Sometimes, the pen works so well that we forget just how dark our fears actually are – until they erupt, a maelstrom of tears, shouts, pain and violence. And sometimes, there’s a day like today.

For several months I’d worried over the knot in her little abdomen, alternating between quick furtive touches and thoughtful caresses, like someone probing a new cold sore with her tongue. Each time I felt it under her skin, the nerves in my fingers screamed a single fear throughout my consciousness: cancer. Then the memories would flood in: finding the lump on Bartleby for the first time; hearing the vet speak my fear into reality; watching him waste away; after the final decision was made, watching him seize as the drugs worked death through his body; the mournful cries of his playmate as she grieved him each night once he was gone.. Would our Shelby, our fur-child, go out this way too? It hurt too much to think about, so all that fear, all those memories were slowly herded into the pen. Without realizing it, I became numb.

Today, at her annual check up, I finally mustered the guts to ask about the knot. The vet probed the spot, his expression darkening. A few hinges on the pen began to twist and complain. He examined her from multiple angles, following the knot to where it originated on her belly. The pen’s crossbeams splintered. Then, with a smile, he announced two surprisingly beautiful words: umbilical hernia. Like rainwater tearing through a drought-cracked creek bed, relief ripped through the pen, washing all the stored up emotional debris out into the light. With a very confused dog in the passenger seat, I cried most of the way home.

Shelby doesn’t have cancer, she has the canine equivalent of an outie belly button. As I smile about that almost whimsical revelation, I’m also stunned by how much this blessed relief hurts. How numb had I forced myself to become if good news is this painful? At the same time, I marvel at the strength of the spirit within us – that we are able to cope with things like this and things far worse. And in this recuperative wonder, I sit with a sleeping Westie curled beside me, thanking God for every breath she has left.

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Joy

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This spring has given me an incredible amount of joy.  One moment winter clung to us with ferocity, and the next moment God brought out the highlighters… pink, purple, yellow, green – color first creeping and then exploding into the world.

I’m not always all that good at joy. But, as usual, new life came and shook me up just in the nick of time!

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Friendship as Spiritual Discipline

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(Originally written as a Gathering Voices post on April 8, 2011)

 

As I type these words, I’m sitting in a Catholic retreat center in Saint Louis with two dear friends/colleagues.  The official purpose of this meeting of the minds is a writing retreat (we’re chewing on something that has the potential to be pretty exciting!).  Computers are out, keys clicking a symphony of ideas – and we really are getting some serious work done.

Yet, in many ways, the real work is happening aside from the writing.  We laugh.  We feast. We pad around in bare feet for late-night conversation.  Words ebb and flow, dancing from silly to vulnerable and back again.  We dream out loud.  Exhausted, we sleep hard so we can get up and do it all again.  This is the labor of soul friends.

Friends have always been important to me, and at the same time, friendship has often been difficult.  As an “army brat”, moving from place to place, I learned early on that friendships can swiftly evolve or end and take lots of work to maintain – especially over geographical distance.  Often, it was easier to just move on.

As a minister, I’ve moved with the same sort of frequent irregularity that is becoming more and more characteristic of young adults across the board.  Consequently, I have sometimes found myself living in a new place, isolated except for the rich tapestry of friendships that exist beyond my physical locale.  But I haven’t always reached for the tapestry.  Hiding behind my “introvert badge”, I’ve instead savored my isolation, even wallowed in it – only to discover somewhere down the road that (go figure!) my spirit was literally starving.

I’m beginning to understand that friendships aren’t “just” friendships.  Friendships (and the work of cultivating them) are a form of spiritual discipline, just like prayer or scripture reading or mindful eating.  When I don’t pray, my spirit suffers.  When I don’t spend time reading the Word, my spirit/mind become impoverished.  When I don’t eat mindfully, my spirit/body become stressed and broken.  And when I don’t practice the art of friendship, my spirit begins to turn in on itself.

As it turns out, I’m not alone in this.  The friends who journey alongside me need this too.  It is part of the human mold, this yearning to be connected in meaningful relationship.  So now, we carve out time.  One small group of soul friends meets every fall, another meets for both business and relationship twice a year, and this trio will meet each spring.  We stay in conversation via social media throughout the year, but we also need this time set apart to laugh and cry and dream “in the flesh”.

While, to a casual observer, there’s nothing about these gatherings that screams “work”, this is holy work all the same.  It is part of our vocation (not just as ministers, but as Christians) to be the best friends we can be…and that requires practice!

Speaking of which, my friends are waiting and it’s time to get back to work…

  • Who are your soul-friends (friends who walk with you on your journey through life)?
  • How can the Church help us to cultivate deeper, life-enriching friendships?
  • What other seemingly-mundane activities could actually be spiritual disciplines?

The Best Smell in the World…

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…is the scent of a living, breathing, uninjured husband.

 

Today I’m giving thanks that my husband and puppy are alive and well.  Earlier this afternoon they were involved in a hit and run accident.  The car is likely totaled, but they are fine and that all that really matters to me.

I would ask that prayers be lifted up for the people in the other car.  It turns out that they left the scene of the accident due to a number of warrants out in the car owner’s name.  I’m not sure what the warrants are for, but they were enough of a motivation to make the driver and passenger flee the scene, ditch their car and then run from the police in another vehicle.  No matter who they are, I pray that they (and everyone in their path today) are safe.  As for justice, we’re going to spend the weekend praying on whether or not to drop the charges we agreed to file against them.

A final thought this evening is this:  thank God for all the people who went out of their way to help us today.

  • Thank God for Kelli, my friend and coworker who drove me to the scene of the accident, waited with us, walked and entertained our dog, and drove us to the rental car facility!
  • Thank God for the police officer who came to the scene.  He treated Chuck with dignity and genuine concern – and clearly considers his job to be a calling.
  • Thank God for my other co-workers (Shandra & Rodger in particular) who kept us laughing, the kind and efficient insurance agents who got us into a rental car quickly, the tow truck drivers who stopped to help and ended up tracking down the other vehicle, and all the friends who sent prayers and other messages our direction.

It’s been a rough day, but also a day when we’ve experienced the best of people.  In their faces and actions, I have seen God.

It’s Official! Get Your Copy Today!!

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information contact:

Christian Board of Publication

314-231-8500 x1312

Amber Moore, AMoore@ChalicePress.com

February 9, 2010

Kansas City Author Helps Young Adults Speak Out about Sex and Religion

ST. LOUIS, MO- Sexuality and religion as subjects of discussion are taboo enough on their own.  Combine the two for discussion in religious settings and you get the new book Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! from Chalice Press.

We all think about it, yet no one wants to talk about it with other Christians.  It’s time to start talking. Oh God, Oh God, Oh God!: Young Adults Speak Out about Sexuality and Christian Spirituality is edited by Kansas City author Lara Blackwood Pickrel and Knoxville author Heather Godsey.  Oh God is the first book in the new Where’s the Faith? series written by young adults, for young adults.

Discussions about sex, sexuality, and theology are taboo in many churches. What about the tensions felt between the commitments of love, dating, marriage, or parenthood and living lives of faith and integrity?  The essays (written by young adults in their late teens, twenties and thirties) in Oh God, Oh God, Oh God! address multiple perspectives on love, dating, marriage, parenthood, sex, and sexuality, as well as look at the history of the church’s struggle with human sexuality from a fresh perspective.

This book will enlighten readers and provide thought-provoking ideas that can generate conversation on what is normally a taboo topic in church and Christian circles.

Publishers Weekly recently gave a glowing review of Oh God saying:

“Finally, an edgy book on the Christian tradition and dating, sex, the single life, and other related topics that takes a different path from standard evangelical Christian courtship and anti-dating manuals. The essays in this edited volume are short, personal, practical, and brimming with ideas and advice about how to tackle any number of significant topics during the young adult years, from hookup culture to surviving sexual abuse.”

Meet one of the editors of Oh God!, Lara Blackwood Pickrel, and one of the series editors for the Where’s The Faith? series, Brandon Gilvin, at a book release and book signing party on February 26, 2010 at Hillside Christian Church (900 Northeast Vivion Road, Kansas City, MO 64118).

The event will begin with a reception at 6:30 pm, a discussion and question/answer session at 7:00 pm, and a book signing at 7:45 pm.  This event is free and open to the public.

You can also meet and talk with Oh God! Co-editor Lara Blackwood Pickrel at a book signing event on February 27, 2010 at Cokesbury Bookstore (7431 W. 91st St.,
Overland Park, KS 66212-2031).  This book signing will take place from 12:30 to 3:00 pm.

Lara Blackwood Pickrel is an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and currently serves as Associate Minister for Youth & Young Adults at Hillside Christian Church in Kansas City, MO.

Heather Godsey is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) working in children’s ministries and as a college chaplain in Knoxville, TN.

Brandon Gilvin is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and currently serves as Associate Director for Week of Compassion.  Brandon resides in the Kansas City area.

For more information or to order Oh God, Oh God, Oh God!: Young Adults Speak Out about Sexuality and Christian Spirituality (978-08272-27309, $16.99) call 1-800-366-3383 or visit http://www.ChalicePress.com.

Christian Board of Publication publishes educational resources that support congregational ministries for bringing unbelievers to awareness, seekers to belief, and believers to deeper faith and commitment to God through Jesus Christ. Through its Chalice Press imprint, CBP publishes a variety of resources for pastors, seminarians, and laypersons.  CBP is a general ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Composting our Hurts…

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I’ve thought a great deal about forgiveness lately.  As a topic of discussion, it comes up in churches all the time.  We pray each week that we will be forgiven our debts (or sins/trespasses) as we forgive those in need of our forgiveness.  One of the women’s groups does a book study on how to forgive.  A sermon series stresses the need to forgive ourselves as well as others.  We talk all around the edges of it, but rarely get down to the hard work of actually forgiving.

Why?  Why all the talk and so little action?

Because forgiveness is hard.  And messy.  And a process.

In a way, it’s a lot like composting versus throwing something in the trash.  Many of us don’t like to compost.  It’s a lot of work, the process sounds kind of gross, and there is real possibility that the compost heap is going to stink.  It seems far cleaner and more sanitary to take that banana peel or that wet filter full of coffee grounds and put it in the trash.  While it might stink up the kitchen for a day or two, ultimately a team of sanitation workers will whisk the neatly tied trash bag off to the landfill, at which point our trash is gone.

Or is it?

While it is certainly easier to send something off to the landfill (out of sight, out of mind!), the structure of a landfill pretty much ensures that your trash will stay there forever.  Forever.  As in, everything is so tightly packed and oxygen deprived that it will never go away.  In a landfill, your trash becomes immortal.  And when we put hurts off to the side, or stuff them deep down inside ourselves so that we don’t have to deal with them, our hurts become immortal too.  Without light and air and attention, they will never truly go away.

In contrast, the messy process of composting helps the same stuff get broken down.  Moisture, oxygen, repeated stirring and mixing – all of these things break the peel or the filter down into nourishment for new life.  And when we face our hurts, our pain, our failures, and put them in a safe place (where they don’t dominate our lives but  can still be revisited) – they too begin to break down and provide nourishment for new life and new ways of being.  Instead of some vampy immortality (where there is no death but there is also no growth), our hurts take on a very organic immortality where death is not avoided and growth is guaranteed!

When someone hurts us or betrays our trust, a wink and a handshake or ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.  Each and every day we have to sift through the hurt and choose to forgive all over again – until the day comes when we don’t have to because the hurt has dissolved and slipped away.

And therein lies one of God’s many mysteries – in the middle of the hard, messy work of forgiving, we miraculously become that which we seek:

Forgiven.

Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes…

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changeshorizontal


My, how quickly things can change…

Six months ago I believed that today, July 1, would be a wonderful day.  On this day of this year I would become a full-time Associate Minister here at First Christian Church.  On this day, in this place, I would begin growing and expanding the borders of my ministerial efforts – pastoral care, visitation, oversight of a new foray into Rotation Model Sunday School…  There were so many plans, so many hopes…

My, how quickly things can change.

Yesterday I accepted a call to full-time ministry at a different congregation in a different state.  Due to economic fears, financial fears, fear of change (the operative word here is fear), my position was not made full time and two months ago I found myself sticking a hesitant toe into search and call waters… Now, two months later, I am experiencing a new call (or at least a new direction for the call that has always been)… and despite the sadness of leaving what was, despite the grief for what could have been, I am excited for what is and what can be.  Everything has been spun around…and it is invigorating!

My, how quickly things can change!!

In the midst of all this, I can’t help but contemplate change.  I like to think myself a savvy embracer of change, but the past few months have forced me to acknowledge that change absolutely terrifies me.  I know that change is better than stagnation.  I understand that without change, we die.  I believe that the Spirit is constantly urging us towards more faithful manifestations of the Kin-dom of God on earth.  I preach these things, teach these things, pray these things…but when the breath of God starts blowing my direction, my first inclination is to dive for the storm cellar and wait it out in fretful hiding.

Why does change scare us so much?

I’m not sure that I have a definitive answer – but I can definitely speak for myself on this one.  Change terrifies me not because it points me towards the unknown but because it forces me to acknowledge that I am not in complete control of my life.  I’m not your stereotypical control freak – I enjoy chaos, am at home in liminal spaces, and am comfortable being flexible…so long as the chaos, liminality and flexibility don’t directly apply to my own life.  I don’t try to control the lives of others – but this doesn’t keep me from holding my own life between white-knuckled hands.  More often than not, I imagine myself in control of my own destiny – and consequently, even a breeze through the screen door of my life is usually treated like a tornado.

But are any of us really in control?  More importantly, do I really want to be in control?  The Dr. Phil inside my head leers at me with a “How’s that working out for you?” – and if I’m honest with myself, I have to admit that it hasn’t worked out very well.  When I hold my life in a vice-like grip, it doesn’t keep change from happening.  It just means that I arrive in a new place with more bruises than necessary.

I’m beginning to realize that part of treating myself gently involves loosening up and letting go.  Besides, a glass of iced tea tastes a whole lot better on a breezy front porch  than it does in a storm cellar… I haven’t gotten it all figured out, but this glass of tea might just be the beginning of some much-needed change.