Relearning Lessons

Daily Devotion - May 21

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)

while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

I like to learn things one time and know them forever.  I'd prefer to prevent all future mistakes, and also never repeat lessons. Once and done!
Unfortunately that's not how life works.
When I have to relearn something, I feel annoyed and impatient with myself.  But this strange time is requiring that I continue to relearn things.  I am working on receiving the lessons and letting them teach me again.

This past week or so there have been two:

The first is radical acceptance. I had already had a kind of awakening that I was living in resistance to all of this, as though embracing this life was saying, "I'm ok with it." Like I don't care that things are not how I want them to be.  "I'm good with losing all the plans I was looking forward to and the patterns of life I love."  I'm not good with that.  But I made a conscious choice try to embrace and accept this life, to settle my soul into it, because I really want to live fully present. So we started doing "Family Fun Night" twice a week - and they've been really fun. We've had a lip sync contest, casino game night, family bike ride, mancala tournament and more.  That's all well and good. But, in addition to all the sickness, and worry, and loss of lives and jobs, this week they announced that the 4th of July parade was canceled, and it sent me over the edge.  I still can't visit my grandmother, I hate avoiding people on the sidewalk, and my daughter's birthday is coming up and we are still in this damn thing.  So I found myself a mess of pent-up emotions all over again: anger, sadness, frustration. And I realized I had returned to resistance.  So here we go again - grieving, letting go,choosing to be here, now.

Another lesson I'm relearning is a longer-term one. I am a multi-tasker from way back. It's in my genes.  It was often proudly proclaimed that my grandfather "could fit 10 pounds in a 5 pound box!" I have been the same way for much of my life. But the past decade and a half has been a long, slow untraining of myself, (aided by an autoimmune disorder and a deep study of sabbath).  In this time, I have learned (or so I thought) how to put 5 pounds in a 5 pound box. Even, sometimes, I am able to stop at 4 1/2 pounds, and leave a little wiggle room.
I've taught about sabbath, and written about it, and tried to raise my children understanding the value of it. But in times of stress, we return to our deep dysfunction and act from our unthought patterns/ addictions/ methods of self-soothing.  It turns out - even though I've put some great boundaries in place during this time of lockdown (like not working past 4 pm, six days a week, taking Mondays completely off...) and made sure I have good support (like spiritual direction and my pastor group) - I've fallen back into some of my old patterns.

When we feel helpless, it feels good to be busy. We sometimes mistake busyness for fullness.  When there are no demarcations between 'home' and 'work', and even our days are running together - we do things that make us feel productive and useful.  At least, I do. And that's all fine. But I stopped retreating.
For nearly a decade, I have taken a 24 hour retreat once a month, turning off my phone and getting away. Every month. I need to be alone. I need silence, distance, nature and my journal on a regularly-scheduled basis.  That hasn't happened since February.
It happened last week. I got away to a cabin in the woods, and I surprised myself by crying for much of the time. I needed a shut-down and reboot moment.
I have learned what practices feed me in ordinary life. Retreat is one of them, and I need to reclaim these practices and return to them.  Instead, I have been treating this like it's an extraordinary time where the rules don't apply. They still apply.

We still need rest. We still need to do the things that feed us. I still can be careful and deliberate about putting 5 pounds (or 4 1/2) into a 5 pound box, and not say, "Because right now things are different, it's ok to jam more in."  It's not ok. When so much else is out of the ordinary, and the practices we take for granted (like shaking hands, hugging, going to movies, church services and shopping centers, getting together with friends, etc.) are not happening, the rules still apply.

We all jumped into crisis mode when this thing hit.  We treated the situation like it was temporary. It is temporary. But it's not short-term.  And there is no going back, only forward.

As we go forward, we will be relearning lessons again and again, like feeling our feelings, living in the present, recognizing what we can and can't control,  remembering our belonging to God and each other, having mercy for ourselves and each other, receiving the joy, and the need to rest.

So I am giving myself short-hand phrases to remember the lessons I keep relearning. I might even hang them on my fridge. Today's are "Radical Acceptance, and "The Rules Still Apply."

What lessons have you been relearning in this time?


CONNECTING RITUAL:

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

Let's end the day with the Evening Prayer again, from the New Zealand Prayerbook.

Lord it is night.
The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done.
Let it be.

The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness
of the world and of our own lives
rest in you.

The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us, and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day,
new joys, new possibilities.
In your name we pray.
Amen.

The New Normal

Daily Devotion - April 23

I will send a brief message each day
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

(Keep Calm and Carry On was a motivational poster the British government produced in1939.  As WWII loomed, the poster was designed to boost the morale of, and give guidance to, the British public, through the "new normal," which included widely predicted mass air strikes on major cities. It debuted in 2009 on the wall of the dining room of the Root household to help me parent through a particularly rough season of dinner/vegetable battles with my strong-willed toddler. In April 2020, I began regularly consuming coffee from my mug with the "Keep Calm..." logo to help me through Quarantine).

How are you doing today?

For me, it is dawning (again!?!) that this will change us for a long time.  There is no snap of the finger back to normal. Our governor just canceled in-person school for the rest of the school year, and I'm watching colleges talk about fall semesters online. Andy and I were on a zoom call yesterday for an event we were going to lead together in October (OCTOBER).  The whole, everyone at a retreat center in one place idea is out.  Now, if it is safe to gather, it will likely be in small groups, so maybe smaller concurrent gatherings with Andy and myself rotating between them and the rest seeing it through a live feed? Or something nobody has even thought of yet...? 

October.

When "normal" does "resume" it will be in fits and starts, a little here, and little there, slowly, gradually, 10 people at a time, maybe 50 now, oops, back to 10, etc.  

What does Church look like then?

(What does then look like then??)

I've met with some other pastors (via zoom, of course!) this week, and here's what I heard about what Church is looking like for others: Groups of people praying together by phone, online weekly bible studies, an online VBS in the works, pre-recorded bible study video snippets, coffee hours - like ours, where people are checking in with each other, weekly confirmation class zoom gatherings, online organ concerts.  We are preparing for our first online memorial service.  One church I know of found a lovely way to invite people to come by and leave cards at the home of someone who has lost a family member. Some tiny congregations of under fifty are seeing thousands "joining in" their livestream, some large congregations accustomed to high attendance have much lower "viewership" of their services. Some congregations have never really had "small group" ministries, so are figuring out how to pivot their whole model and help folks get connected in completely different ways.  I think what we are all realizing is:

This is not temporary and then we'll go back to normal. 

This is the new normal until there is another new normal.  

That is a mindset shift for me, and I imagine, for you as well. So the question of how to live in the now continues to be a biggie - for ourselves and our households, but also for our congregations.  

How are we being Church well right now?  
How might we need to keep adapting - we did from "normal" to "temporary," now we're going from "temporary" to "new normal" - to meet some new needs that have arisen, or address some needs that have been put on hold?  
How are each of us coping?  
How can we help each other remember our primary belonging to God and each other in the midst of this?  

The new normal for our church session (board - used to meet monthly) is to meet for an hour every week.  And we'll be circling back with our hospitality teams in the next few days as well, to check in on how each person is doing.  In following the sound guidance from our state health officials and our governor, and looking at the trajectory for COVID-19 in MN in the coming weeks, session voted this week to continue meeting online and by phone through May.  

So, the six weeks we've had so far will be joined by a minimum of five more.  
What can we do to help each other find joy, connection and grounding during this? 
How can we keep seeking the presence of God in our lives and in the world during this phase of new normal?

I came across this quote today, and found it quite lovely.

"We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanence, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even.  Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now." 

                - Ann Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

So, (while I think there are gift in looking back and also looking forward), I feel compelled by the invitation this quote raises to trust in life's ebb and flow. This is to say, for me, to trust also in the Holy Spirit's constant interference, comfort and guidance, and to see God's presence, which is always in the here and now, by living in the present and accepting it as it is now.  

This feels like a huge challenge, and I find myself reacting to it with lots of internal resistance, but also with some curiosity and longing. A small part of me even wants to scream out "Yes!"  And I know this to be true also because I've been genuinely blessed, and not a little intrigued, in hearing some people' stories of these days include words like "contentment", "joy", "peace", "surprising ease", "gift" and "treasure."  I believe those things are given to us in any and all circumstances, and right now we have the opportunity to discover them in new places, and ways we've not yet learned to look. 

So, here's to the new normal. Here's to living in the present and accepting it as it is now.  

I'll see you here.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps, sometime today, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might extend a blessing in this way, and so join our hearts:

When you pray this prayer - keep the "us" and the "we" - pray it for yourself, but also for your congregation, or family, or community. (And then, you could pray it again for your nation, and again for our world).

May the strength of God pilot us.

May the power of God preserve us.

May the wisdom of God instruct us.

May the hand of God protect us.

May the way of God direct us.

May the shield of God defend us.

May the host of God guard us against the snares of evil

and the temptations of the world.

May Christ be with us,

Christ before us,

Christ in us,

Christ over us.

May your salvation, O Lord,

Be always ours this day and forevermore. Amen.

- Patrick of Ireland (389-461)

Settling our souls in

Daily Devotion - April 21

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

The other night, we (my daughter) realized (complained) that even though we are all four stuck here in the same house together, other than dinner, we are not really ever all together.  (The curse of four introverts stuck at home!)  After a Sunday afternoon spent playing a verbal Apples to Apples game across the fence with the neighbor kids, and watching their family (all four extroverts) play badminton and hang out picnicking in their yard, my daughter requested that we play together more.

For our family, (unlike the neighbors), home is where we get time and space alone.  Out there is where we connect - with friends, work, etc, but also, it turns out, with each other.  At home, various combinations of us hang out, work on a project, go for a walk, have a conversation... But all of us together? Dinner.

This works fine if we can go places and do things, and - especially central and valuable to our family - travel together.  That's how we feed the needs for play and fun and connection together.  But right now we can't go places and do things; we can only stay home.  So...what? We don't hang out at all?
My 12 year old beat me to this understanding of our family dynamics, and found her way all the way to a request while it was all still dawning on me.

During this pandemic, realizations seem to drop like a brick on the chest, and in that moment it occurred to me that I have been treating this as temporary. 
Just get through today. Just get through this week. 

Even though I know we don't know when it will end or what will come after, I keep forgetting that we don't know when it will end or what will come after.  And, like the school secretary's colorful poster said, "Life is what happens while you're waiting for life to happen."

So, how can we claim and truly live the life we are in, even when it's not a life we would, or do, choose?  (And how do we do that when it actually is not permanent, or even sustainable??) How do we let ourselves relax into something we resent?
How do we adjust to this and not just endure it?

Other than some routines, chores and walks that are helping us endure this life, we haven't really adjusted.  We haven't settled our souls into this life. I have't. I have been holding back, biding time, waiting for the good to resume.  But that's no way to live the only life we really get - this one we have today.

Adjusting is accepting.  Even typing that sentence feels hard. I don't want to accept that the trips and plans we've been looking forward to all year are gone. I don't want to accept that summer might be a wasteland of emptiness (or some other, less dire way of saying that which I will come to after more acceptance).  But I want to live as fully and joyfully present as possible in the actual life that is happening right now.
I've decided to adjust.

Tonight is the kick-off of our coronavirus quarantine twice weekly "Family Fun Night."
Each Family Fun Night will have an Entertainment Director (tonight: me). The activity will be a surprise. Ok, I'll tell you: Tonight I plan to give everyone 60 seconds to select an object in the house, and then we'll film commercials for the items featuring how they can be uniquely useful during Quarantine.

Here's hoping it meets our needs for fun, play and connection.



How are you living in your life right now?
What realizations have hit you during in this?
What have you had to adjust to?
How have you resisted adjusting?  
How has adjusting or accepting freed you?


CONNECTING RITUAL:

When I was four years old, standing with my dad in the church narthex, a man came over and showed my dad his one year sobriety chip.  When he walked away my dad explained to me what the chip meant, and then he taught me the Serenity Prayer.  I was charmed. I had never heard of a pre-written prayer before.  And I found the prayer itself very clever and insightful. I recited it to myself all the way home until I had it memorized.

The Serenity Prayer was written in 1932 by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous in 1941. It goes:

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Perhaps, tonight before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might pray in this way, and so join our hearts:

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
like...

grant me the courage to change the things I can,
like...

and grant me the wisdom to know the difference.
Amen.