Taking Turns (or Not)

 

Devotion for Being Apart -
August 19

This summer, I will share new devotions fromtime to time,

and invite you to browse through devotions that have been posted here on this blog.

I shared this prayer from Nadia Bolz-Weber Tuesday in the announcements: 

Dear God,

We are going to just be taking turns for a while, if that’s ok.

Yesterday was mine. My turn to be depressed-as-hell about the closing of beloved, been-around-for-decades local businesses. My turn to be afraid because the wildfires are so bad that my eyes sting and the interstate is closed. My turn to be angry.  My turn to indulge in post-apocalyptic future-casting. (OK maybe I shouldn't have watched Mad Max this week.)

Please help me not feel bad when it’s my turn, Lord. And with your grace, may my turn to completely freak out not last one minute longer than necessary. But also may it last as long as needed in order to allow it to pass when it’s time to move on and just go make the salad for dinner.

And Lord, may I be a non-anxious presence to the next person whose turn it is. May I not fear their fear so much that I fail to listen well. When I have even the tiniest extra bit of hope may I offer it without fear of being judged for “not paying attention”. 

And may I remember that my terror is not a sign of your absence and my hope is not a sign of your presence. 

Because you never take turns. 

This spoke to me Monday because Monday felt like my turn.
Tuesday, it turned out I am not so good at taking turns. 

My family spent five days in a cabin way up the Gunflint Trail last week.  Surrounded by the sounds and sights of nature, with my phone and email off, it was a much-needed rest for which I am profoundly grateful.  We returned Saturday to a delightful outdoor baptism Saturday evening, and then a lovely zoom worship service on Sunday.  
And then the funk descended.  

I flailed on Monday.  Rattled around aimlessly, trying to out-walk, out-eat, out-read the hovering depression that threatened to descend from the moment I awoke to another ordinary day in COVID world.  By bedtime I was determined to be gentle with myself and the adjustment back to reality that was going to look, apparently, messier than I'd hoped.

Today I am back to making lists and taking things slowly, welcoming interruptions and trying to remember to take lots of slow, deep breaths.  It helps to notice things like the resting dog's inexplicably wagging tail, the squirrel in the tree off our deck that's been boisterously shouting to the neighborhood for five straight hours, the tiny, personal smile on the face of my kid who just walked by me, lost in thought. 

But yesterday, oof. Yesterday it was not my turn.  It was other people's in my house turn to be a mess, and I met them with impatience and irritation. I pointed out their illogic. I lost my temper at their temper tantrums.  I competed for pathetic points.  I rolled my eyes, and sighed, and withheld my empathy and attention. 

The problem is, sometimes we don't actually take turns.
Sometimes we are all feeling rotten at the same time.  
Then what?

Then God's grace holds us too.  
Then, I am invited to recognize that it's not all dependent on our feelings, and how well or poorly we are handling things, or whether we are there for each other in the ways we hope to be or utterly not.  Because, as I continue to cling to throughout this time, This is part of the story. This is not the whole story. The world belongs to God.

The roller coaster ride of emotions will be what it will be.  And even when we handle things regretfully with each other, and do a bad job of taking turns, that is not the final word. We have the next moment, and the moment after that, the next day, and the day after that. And even our breakdowns and break-ups and broken relating can be part of the larger story of being made closer, more with each other, more for each other.  Because we already and always belong to each other and to God, and that's not up to us to decide.  God has already done this.

Last night, when session met under the shade of the maple tree on the church patio, we read a paraphrase (by Nan C. Merrill) of the Psalm Theresa preached for us on Sunday, Psalm 13.

It says,
How long, my Beloved?
Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear this pain in my soul,
and lie with sorrow all the day?
How long will fear rule my life?

Notice my heart and answer me,
O my Beloved;
enlighten me, lest I walk as one dead to life;
Lest my ego fears say, "We have won the day;"
Lest they rejoice in their strength.

As I trust in your steadfast Love;
my heart will rejoice,
for in You is freedom.
I shall sing to the Beloved,
who has answered my prayers a thousand fold!
Come, O Beloved, make your home in my heart.

I felt myself praying this as I awoke today: 
How long will fear rule my life?
Notice my heart and answer me, God,
enlighten me lest I walk as one dead to life.
Come, Lord, make your home in my heart.

I will not walk as one dead to life.
And today I feel fortified.
It can be someone else's turn to melt down, I'm ready today.  I will pray to be for them the non-anxious presence and the speaker of hope.

And if I am not as steady as I thought I was, and their meltdown leads to my own, so what?  God can use that too.  We are all in this together. You. Me. God. The rest of the world. This story keeps going.

 
So come, Lord, make your home in our hearts.
We will trust in your steadfast love. For in you is freedom.
Amen.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

 

Perhaps tonight before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we can pray in this way, and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Let's use the psalm to pray.
Read it through several times.
Let the phrases that reach for your heart nestle there.
Repeat them to yourself a few times and sit in silence. Let God speak to you through the words.
End by reading through the psalm one final time.

(Psalm 13, paraphrase by Nan C. Merrill in Psalms for Praying.)

How long, my Beloved?
Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear this pain in my soul,
and lie with sorrow all the day?
How long will fear rule my life?

Notice my heart and answer me,
O my Beloved;
enlighten me, lest I walk as one dead to life;
Lest my ego fears say, "We have won the day;"
Lest they rejoice in their strength.

As I trust in your steadfast Love;
my heart will rejoice,
for in You is freedom.
I shall sing to the Beloved,
who has answered my prayers a thousand fold!
Come, O Beloved, make your home in my heart.

Already, always, forever

                    Devotion for Being Apart -

August 9

This summer, I will share new devotions from time to time,
and invite you to browse through devotions that have been posted on this blog.

 

Romans 8:38-39

This summer we've worked our way through Romans eager to get to chapter 8 – the pinnacle that the whole first part is building toward, and rightly so because it’s a ridiculous treasure trove of good news, and things kind of go downhill into complicated Paulisms after that. So three weeks ago, when we got to chapter 8, I called Lisa and said, “There’s so much goodness here, I’m taking just the first part and saving the rest for you!” Then, on Sunday, like a true Minnesotan who keeps cutting the last piece of cake in half, Lisa called me and said, “I saved you the end, verses 38-39!” 
One of my favorite things to do is to listen to books while I am driving.  When Lisa called, I was driving home from Kansas and listening to Jim Finley’s Thomas Merton and the Path to the Palace of Nowhere.  Finley is a former monk, a psychologist and contemplative.  And it just so happened that he unpacked some things about the love of God in such simple and profound ways, that his illustrations have stuck with me all week.  So I am going to be sharing a lot from him today.
 
So let’s start by reframing the message to hear how good this news is that Paul is sharing: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor a global pandemic, nor the deep-seated, soul degrading institution of racism, nor terrible tragedies of floods and fires and cities exploding, nor terrible sadness in our own hearts, nor melting ice shelves, nor impending election drama, nor distance learning, nor a quarantined winter, nor financial hardship, nor loneliness, nor worry, nor fear, nor the broadest nightmare my imagination can conjur up, nor the most specific, surgical insult or injury, nor anything else in all of existence can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
Nothing can separate us from God’s love.  This is really good news, and we need to hear it.  Except that, really, most of the time we doubt this. 
 
Doubt 1 – Does God really love me?  We tell ourselves there are things we need to change, or do, or be, or let go of, or stop being, or stop doing in order for God to love us. We tell ourselves God is something we need to pursue, and God’s love is something we need to search for in order to find, and if we do find it, we need to figure out what to do right so we don’t lose it.
 
We don’t actually trust that we are already in the love of God, that in fact, nothing can separate us from this love that is already holding us.
 
James Finley says, “Imagine if, sitting in this room, I were told I had 10 minutes to figure out how to get into this room.  So I lept up from my chair and raced down the hallway and frantically searched through the books on the shelves for something to help me figure out how to get in this room.  No matter what I did, I would never figure out how to get in this room, and I actually can’t get in this room. Because I am already in it.”
 
Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is here, already, right now, holding us. Nothing.
 
We are already in this love. We don’t do anything to get here.  We just stop and be here. Just be. Be here. In your life, in your skin, in your experience, however that is, however you are. Here is where God is already loving you. 

God loves you. Nothing ever can stop that from being true.  Seeking God does not mean wandering around searching for an elusive being. It means attuning your attention to the right now, and surrendering to the love that already holds you. 
 
Then, Doubt 2 -   Can I really surrender to this love? Can we entrust ourselves to God? Should we? Can we pray, “thy will be done,” trusting that what that means is only love, more love, deeper love?
 
“We proclaim the good news of God’s love,” Finley says, “but when we get down to the act of surrendering to this love, that is when the doubts rise up.”
 
He says, imagine you’re in a grocery store and you see someone you know and they say, “Did you hear about so-and-so?” 
“No! What happened to her?” 
“Well, God’s will, that’s what.” 
“Oh no!” you reply. “That’s terrible!  “But actually, come to think of it, I did hear her say “’thy will be done.’” 
What do we imagine God’s will is? Who do we think this God is and what do we think this God is up to? Deep inside do we think God is secretly trying to rope us into something terrible?  
 
I imagine that my kids are still little, and one of them is on the the top of a monkey bars, and I am down below, and I say to my precious toddler “Jump!” and hold out my arms to my child. If my little one were to jump, it would be inconceivable to imagine that, at the last minute I step out of the way and let them fall to the ground.  And yet we think this way about God. 
 
In Matthew 7 Jesus says, “Is there anyone among you who, if 
your child asks for bread, will give a stone?  Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? (Luke’s version adds an egg and a scorpion).  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
 
These are symbols of life and death. In other words, if we ask for life, will God give us death? God is the maker and sustainer of life! Our life is in God, and this life of being loved by God will never end. Even death cannot stop this life, this love, from continuing! 
 God wants us to have life, and have it abundantly.  And yet, we imagine that surrendering to God’s love might somehow be dreadful for us.  
 
We avoid surrendering, we hold back trusting, as though we have the power to hold back from God’s love. What adorable hubris! As though somehow we could stop God from loving us by stopping ourselves from receiving it.  
This is what actually restricts us.  God’s love has already got us.  We don’t hold God back.  We hold ourselves back from experiencing God’s love from which nothing can separate us. We act like we can’t, or don’t want to, get into the room where we are already sitting, because we aren’t sure we can trust the love inside which we already exist.
We doubt God’s goodness, but trust our own ability to see what is good. This is backwards.  
 
When we say, Your will be done, we are surrendering to the love of God. We are dying to preconceived ideas of God, or of love, or of what a good life is. And we are set free from the false things we cling to, thinking they can somehow get us into the room where we already sit. 
 
Nothing can separate us from the love of God. It’s not that obstacles don’t exist, they do. Everywhere we look we can see obstacles to belonging, obstacles to trust, obstacles to goodness, obstacles to life, obstacles to love.  And yet, in God, these obstacles are not obstacles at all.  Remember what we said two weeks ago and Paul said just a few verses ago? “In all things, God works for the good, together with those who love God.”  So in the broken places, in the places of loss and sorrow, in the division, in the sickness, in the death, God is working, bringing love.  The cross of Christ reveals that God goes right into the greatest of obstacles, the ones that seem to stop life all together, and uses even those to continue bringing freedom and life, through the the relentless, profoundly good, kind, and never-wavering love of God.

We know this love because we’ve felt it - we are most fully ourselves when we are acting in love for others. We are most fully at home in the world when we recognize that which cannot be broken that holds us all, even for a brief moment – in the face of your beloved on zoom, in the joy of crazy loud birds in the sunrise, in the laughter of your grandchild, in the minute a bunch of strangers come scurrying over in their masks to bend down and pick up groceries that fell out of your cart, blueberries bouncing onto the parking lot, when something snaps in you and the grief and anger finally comes pouring out, in the unexpected conversation with an old classmate where courage, vulnerability and well-placed questions open up the possibility for being seen and heard  – in a brief, ordinary moment of living and dying and being, when suddenly the top layer is pulled back, and for that moment we can see the love that is always here, the real underneath the obstacles and illusions, for a moment, we know we are in the room.  

And, then, if someone passing by that very moment were to notice our face, and were to stop us and ask, “What do you most know to be true?” we might respond, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

 

Perhaps tonight before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we can pray in this way, and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Tonight, let's pray like we did in worship.

Here is the need God... your will be done.
Here is my thanks, God... your will be done.
God your will be done in all things.
I surrender my life to you.
Amen.

On this train together

Devotion for Being Apart -
August 6

This summer, I will share new devotions from time to time,
and invite you to browse through devotions that have been posted on this blog.

My kids’ head of school, said the other night, at an online parent meeting:

“If you could join me, adults, if we could join in a small ‘pinkie pact’... when we read articles about students, ‘losing ground’ or ‘falling behind’, that we might take those metaphors and set them aside and talk about how we’re on a train together, and that train has slowed down. What can we do to engage deeper in the scenery that we have access to [now], so that when our train starts moving faster again, we’ll all feel just fine about it?
         Our students right now will become adults. And there’s no reason to think they’ll be less prepared adults than we are currently, or the adults who came before us. In fact, because of this they may be better prepared for adulthood, even if they’ve had a small slow down in the rate of math facts that they’ve accumulated through their academic career."

We are all on this train together. We are no longer racing along at the pace of life that we were accustomed to.  And when we were, we knew, most of us knew, it was an unsustainable speed.  And now it's slowed down. And we are slowed down.  
What is the scenery on this slower ride?  
How can we take in the ride more intentionally?

Over twenty years ago, Andy and I spent three months in Australia. We mostly traveled between cities by plane. But once, we decided to take a train, so we could "get a feel for the size of the country."  We didn't even go that far - Cairns to Brisbane - a 2 hour and 5 minute flight.  

But this train, friends, it went like 30 mph. We puttered along and puttered along, and when we passed through tiny towns we slowed down even more.  School busses passed us.  Kids on bikes passed us.  Dogs ran alongside us barking.  

We were on that train for two days.  Interesting people got on and off.  I found a novel in the dining car and read the whole thing. Andy's shirtless, overall-wearing sleeper-car mate showed him his toe-missing bare foot.  We heard rural Australian accents- different than city talk.  We felt ourselves in a different culture.  Acutely.  Outside the windows, we saw vast stretches of nothing but bushland. Sunset, sunrise, sunset...  

We are on a slow train right now. All of us, together.
One thing that might help is to have different expectations of ourselves, of the world.  Yesterday I went to get labs done, something I often need to have done every six weeks or so.  I have done this three times since covid began, by walking in and being checked in for a lab appointment.  Yesterday I was told, "Since Covid, we don't take walk-ins. You will have to make an appointment." I made one for today, and had to come back to the doctor's office.  Driving through construction to the doctor's office, and back again felt like about all I had in me when it came to outings and errands.
A friend and I were laughing about how we define a "full" day now, as compared to when we were all on a speeding train.  I imagine it's not easy for the doctor's office to slow down so much either.

A wise friend who spent many years living in another country (the one with the great wisdom about being in another culture, which I shared in a devotion) said today:
"I am reminded over and over of the culture adjustment metaphors.  When I arrived in Senegal, the departing worker told me, 'You can do three things a day. When you go into town, do three, no more. Doesn't matter how big or small they are, cap it at three.  Go to the bank, that's one. Then if you buy a pen from a street vendor, that's two.  Pick up some eggs. That's three. Don't do any more.'  I think about that so much these days.  I tell myself, 'Do three things.'"

We are in another culture: Covid Culture. It's nobody's place of origin, nobody's home base or first language. Everything is different. Everything takes so much more effort. Everything is more exhausting. Do three things in a day. No more.

And let's be on this slow train together. Let's figure out how to ride well at this speed.  Notice what's outside the windows. Take in the scenery. See our fellow passengers. Rest while we can.  Let conversations be longer. Find things to read.  Notice the kids and the dogs.  Surrender to the journey.  

CONNECTING RITUAL:

 

Perhaps tonight before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we can pray in this way, and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Lord, give me patience to live at this pace.
Give me grace for my fellow travelers.
Give me peace in the small gifts around me.
Give me joy in the surprises that await notice, when I'm going slow enough to take them in.
Give me trust that the journey has a destination.
Give me hope about the quality of life available in this slower ride, that I may not yet have discovered.
Give me patience with myself and for others.
Give me discipline to do three things a day. No more.
Let this time prepare me for what's next, in ways I can't yet see.

Let this time shape us for what we can be.
Amen.