Standing in a still life

Daily Devotion - April 17

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

Today my daughter and I stopped by her school to get her things from her locker. Chances are good they won't be returning to school at all this year, and she wanted her things at home.
Plus, a reason to get out of the house.

We were buzzed into the building by an administrator wearing a mask. We mumbled greetings from underneath our own.  Across the lobby were two of Maisy's classmates, sitting 20 feet apart from each other. Neither one has a computer at home, so they come sit at school every day to do their online work.

We headed down the sunlit hallway.
I took in the silence.  Open doors, empty classrooms.
Boots and tennis shoes were still lined up on top of lockers; the work station in the hallway still piled with paperclips someone had been organizing when everything stopped.
"It's all exactly like it was," Maisy whispered.
When I saw the March calendar on the chalkboard, announcing "Bike Trip Orientation!" and "Final Draft Due" hot tears welled up and I had to stop and catch my breath.

Years ago our family visited Christchurch, New Zealand, a few short weeks after an earthquake had hit. One street was closed to cars, rubble from fallen walls still laying around.  Through the window of a cafe, I could see the tables tipped over, cups smashed on the floor, silverware scattered. But on the table right next to the glass, one perfectly set placemat with napkin and silverware remained.  I stood for a long time, looking through the window at the moment when Before became After.

Today, in the school hallway felt like that.  It was a scene frozen in time. I could almost hear their voices, see them slamming locker doors, greeting friends, grabbing books and heading off to class.  We were standing in a still-life.  Before, snapped like a photograph, was laid out on display all around us.

Right now the whole world is living in the unfathomable gap in-between Before and After.
Before is becoming After.  We have no way of even imagining what After will be; all we have are scenes from Before.

Last night in (zoom) Adult Confirmation we talked about how, rather than a deity outside of time, uninterested in human affairs, we have a God who created time, and then came into it with us.  Befores and Afters are the clay in God's hands, the paint and brush, the lumber and stone, the nothing that God forms into something.  But they're also the forces that act upon Jesus living in this life alongside us: joy and loss, routine and disruption, endings and beginnings, Befores and Afters.

In this season of resurrection, we are carving out a temporary existence in-between.
We can't move into After, and Before is gone and over.
But God brings life out of death. It's what God does.
There will be new life.
Life unexpected, and even beautiful.

When we finished filling Maisy's backpack with her magnets and locker shelves, we headed back to the car.  But instead of turning toward home, we drove the other way around the block, and pulled up into the school carpool lane.  There a sandwich board sign greeted us. "Text this number and pop the trunk when you arrive!"
I texted the new number I entered into my phone this morning,
"Chef Leah, School."

Every weekday, in the school kitchen, a team of people is preparing fresh meals for families who can pay for them, and for those who can't.  Folks are buying Chef Leah's Cauliflower Curry, homemade Mac & Cheese, cornbread and barbecued chicken, lunch packs, breakfast packs, and donating money for meals for other families.

A minute later someone came bouncing out of the school with a paper bag held flat in her gloved hands. Her cheerful eyes beaming from above her mask, she said, "Thanks for your support! Enjoy your dinner!" and into my car she a placed the bag containing a whole, roasted chicken, a tray of buttermilk mashed potatoes, and a green salad with homemade dressing. She closed my trunk door and waved. We waved back.

"Thank you so much!" I called back to her through passenger window. "Have a great rest of the day!"

She turned to walk back inside.  As I pulled away from the curb, in my rearview mirror another car was pulling up to the sign and popping their trunk.

I mourn Before. I await After.
In-between, I feel both the tension and the gifts.
And the presence of God too.


CONNECTING RITUAL:

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

What Befores are you mourning today?
Name them to God.

What was hard in-between today?
Name it to God.

What were today's gifts in-between?
Name them to God.

Close with this prayer:
God, bring us into your longings for us in After.
God, shape us into your people ready for After.
 God, release us from Before and prepare us for After.
Amen.

The Good Kind of Sore

Daily Devotion - April 16

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

I have been "off"  or "on vacation" the last couple of days, which is a strange thing in these times, when we are all at home every second, and all the work, play, sleep, meals, fights, entertainment and rest happens right here, in the same space, with the same people. Every. single. day.
I joked beforehand that for my vacation I decided to just take a staycation, chill in sweatpants, catch up on Netflix, that sort of thing.

The first day, I woke up with fire in the belly, and I cleaned my house for 8 1/2 hours. (That's 2 1/2 Les Miserables and 1 Hamilton on the main floor before moving on to the bedrooms).  I cleaned like I have never cleaned my house in my life, (unless I was moving out). I moved all the furniture. I got inside the baseboard heaters and between kitchen backsplash tiles, I washed inside drawers, sorted the pencils from the pens from the markers, took apart the french press.
Probably other people clean like this all the time, but that's not me.  I usually hate cleaning.  But this time, it felt cathartic, healing, somehow.

Singing opera and scrubbing floors got me out of my head and into my body and my space in a different way.  I woke up sore the next day.  The good kind of sore.

What is getting you out of your head and into your body?
What is making you inhabit your space differently?

These last few days, I've also noticed that the waves of shock and disbelief, loss and grief, boredom and frustration - they keep coming.

I keep reminding myself that if we let them wash over us and move through us, they pass.  If we avoid them or resist them, they stubbornly set up camp in the periphery and wait till we let our guard down to overtake us.  We can't keep our guard up all the time. It's too long. Maybe we can't do it at all anymore.
Maybe that's gift.

Every day, sometimes more than once, some one or another of my family drifts up to me, limp and bereft, and says, "I don't want to do this anymore."
And I take a deep breath and respond, "I know. This is really hard." And I give them a hug.
And I don't try to fix it.  Or make them feel better.
That's not easy for me - I want to fix it. I want them to feel better.
But it helps to know I actually can't fix it.  And it helps to remember that to move forward we need to feel what we are really feeling.

But also, we've been listening to 80s rock ballads during dinner every night. Loudly. And singing along. And sometimes getting up and adding some drums or air guitar if we can't help ourselves.
And too, the dog must go outside for walks - so we must go outside for walks as well.
These things are getting us out of our heads and into our bodies too.

Easter Season lasts for 50 days.
50 days to watch for resurrection.
This is a singular Easter season in our lives. It's preset to remind us at every turn that we can't make resurrection happen. We can only watch and wait for it.
We can't fix it, feel it, or believe it into being.
 We can only get ready for it by being right where we are, feeling just what we feel.  We can inhabit the space we are in, and move inside the bodies we are given.
But this is right where God is.
And this is just where new life comes.


CONNECTING RITUAL:

Instead of praying with words and thoughts, ideas and instructions, let's use our feelings and body to pray today.

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

First - feelings:
Try to go back and name every feeling you felt throughout the day, without judgment. Just noticing.  Maybe even jot them down if it helps.  Offer the feelings to God as a prayer.(If you need some feeling words to put to your sensations, here's the feelings list. And if you're struggling to put words to what needs today felt met or unmet, here's the needs list again.)

Then, movement:
Why not sing the Doxology, with the motions that our children taught us?*  As many times through as your voice and body wish.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
(Standing straight, bring hands to prayer pose in front of chest, then extended widely out)

Praise God all creatures here below!
(Raise hands and face straight up toward sky, then bend at the waist and drop hands to the floor)

Praise God above the heavenly host!
(Lift arms wide and circle above head so fingertips are almost touching). 

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!
(Hug self and rock back and forth).**

Amen.
(Hands back to prayer pose)

---

*All (four of) the LNPC kids made up these motions in 2008, at approx. ages 2, 4, 6 and 8 (two Roots and two Lucases, Jim and Linda Duncan's grandkids). The oldest of them is graduating high school this year, Congratulations McKenzie Lucas!

*This motion came about when McKenzie and Samantha were asked to come up with a symbol for "Father" and they immediately wrapped themselves in a hug.  It stuck through the whole phrase as the feeling of the closeness of God, right here holding us.  

Joining the crowd

Daily Devotion - April 5

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

Happy Palm Sunday!

We gathered today in worship, each from our own home.  (We had palms made from cardboard, paper, legos, green gloves ("palms!"), other plants, felt, paper...!)
This fourth week of online worship, my family felt the longing to be with you in person. ("I don't want to do online church!")  But in seeing everyone's faces on screen, I was surprised by how joyful I felt.  I am thankful to gather as church, however that looks. We belong to each other.

Lisa shared about Palm Sunday - and how we continue to celebrate the crowds' misunderstandings of who Jesus is, and of what we need from him.  "Hosanna!" means "Save us!"  And we have definite ideas of what that saving should look like, and what we should be saved from.

Yet, she said, it's kind of lovely that even thought we know what's coming - Jesus' death, Jesus' resurrection, the fact that God does not save us from suffering but enters right in, that God doesn't come in power, but in weakness, alongside us - we still join our voices with the naive crowds, and shout "Save us!" right along with them.

God hears our cries - even when we are not asking for what is best for us, or what is real, or what will truly save us.  God hears beyond our strategies to the needs underneath.  And even when we go right along with the crowds - hoarding toilet paper and beans - God still meet us with what we really need.

It reminds me of this poem, by C.S. Lewis:

Prayer
He whom I bow to knows only to whom I bow
when I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
and dream of Pheidian fancies, and embrace in heart
symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.

Thus always, taken at their word,
all prayers blaspheme,
worshipping with frail images,
a folklore dream.

And all, in their praying self-deceived address
the coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless Thou,
in magnetic mercy, to Thyself divert
our arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert,
and all are idolaters,
crying unheard to a deaf idol,
if Thou take them at their word.

Take not, Oh Lord, our literal sense.
Lord, in Thy great unbroken speech
our limping metaphors translate.

C.S. Lewis, Poems


CONNECTING RITUAL:

Let's return to the Evening Prayer, from the New Zealand Prayerbook.  Perhaps, tonight before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might pray this prayer, and so join our hearts:

Evening Prayer

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.

(New Zealand Prayerbook)


Last week, we read through the Gospel of John.  If you did not finish it last week, why not read it through this week? We will be using chapter 20 next Sunday, for Easter.

How it begins and ends

Daily Devotion - March 29

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

John 11:17-45

Lazarus

This week, when our MN lockdown began, Governor Walz explained how we are too late to flatten the curve. Now we are hoping to buy some time to get enough hospital beds in place  - even if they are in stadiums and hotels.  We are too late to keep the worst from happening, now we are just trying to extend its hit so we can be more prepared when it does. 

When Jesus finally gets to the home of his dying friend, he’s not even a little too late; he’s four days too late.  There’s no extending or preparing; it’s over, not even close.  There’s no turning back. He was supposed to be there, and he wasn’t, and Lazarus died.

Jesus, you’re too late. If you had only been here. 
These are the closest people to Jesus.  He loves them, they are the ones that scripture says Jesus loves.  Other than the unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loves” who races Peter to the tomb, Jesus loves the Father, he loves his own, and he loves Martha, Mary and Lazarus.

And still, he was not was there when Lazarus died.
There are more and more people in the world, in our nation, in our own communities, who will not be there when their loved one dies. This is terrible and tragic.
And most of us would give anything to be there.

But Jesus had no pandemic lockdown.
He could have been there, and Martha and Mary aren’t afraid to say he should have been there.  Lord, if only you had been here, this terrible thing would not have happened. 

This is part of having a relationship of love, a real relationship.
We express our hurt, our confusion, our disappointment.
We don’t make excuses for the other, even if the other is God incarnate. Perhaps especially then.

We learned last summer: there are times for the Psalms of orientation and times for Psalms of disorientation (and times for Psalms of new orientation too). And we learned that we don’t tiptoe around God when we’re upset, You’re a good God and I will praise you.  I know you are with me, even if I can’t feel it.  
All that might be true, but like King David, we are supposed to say it right to God, just like it is- if you had been here instead of absent, this would not have happened. Hear the trust, the faith in that? You could have fixed this and you didn’t. 
We are supposed to ask why.  We are allowed to yell and scream and argue and accuse. That’s part of the deal.  All told, Mary and Martha held it together better than I would have.

But that isn’t to push Jesus away. That kind of honesty exists within a relationship of love.  Because what they say then is, Come and see where we have laid him.
The same words Jesus said to the first disciples in the very first chapter of John, the words Jesus says to us, inviting us into the Kingdom of God way of being, Come and see.
These are the words we say back to him, in our loss, and in our grief, come and see. 
Come and see what we have lost. Come and see the destruction. Come and witness the horror. Come, Lord, and see what we are facing.

And Jesus shows up to wail and rage at the injustice and awfulness of it. He joins the mourners in their grief.

Death is ruling over our lives right now, the threat of physical death and the death of our lives and life as we have known it, it’s looming.  Even as we hide away to try to prevent it from taking more lives, it creeps over the mountains, through the streets of our cities, across our arbitrary borders and alleged divisions, and we are all pinned down in place by it’s threat.

And we feel like we’ve lost our lives – so much of what defined our lives a month ago is paused, or ended forever.  So we are stir-crazy and stressed out and bored and afraid.  And everything feels more exhausting, somehow, but how can that be? Because most of us are not even going anywhere or doing anything!  But that’s part of the deal too. We’re dialed down, our capacities are diminished, we’re withdrawn, in shock, and we’re tired.

We’d like to avoid this suffering, oh, how we’d like to prevent it!  We want Jesus to sweep in right on time and prevent it.  But as frustrating as it is for us, we don’t have a God who rushes to stop the bad thing from happening. We have one who comes into it.
Being in relationship with God-with-us means we face death and grief with Jesus. We say, “Come and see” and expect that he will.  And Jesus comes to mourn with those who mourn.

And then we learn that into the finality of death, the “unprecedented,” “things will never be the same” circumstances, Jesus comes into the midst of the death and brings new life right out of it.

I am the resurrection and the life. Jesus says. Jesus is the embodiment of life, resurrection comes in him, through him. Right in the midst of death, life shows up. Right in the midst of death, resurrection happens.  This is not a future hope – it is that, certainly, but it is always now.  Abundant life is now, here. Christ is here.
We don’t get resurrection, or life, as idealized beliefs, or future goals.  We get them right now; in the moments we need them, through the very person of Jesus Christ coming near to us.

One writer puts it, “This is a story that begins in lament and ends in resurrection and life.”
Lent, this season of preparation for Easter, is a human paradigm, to get us into the place of openness to receive the life God brings by turning our gaze toward the death that precedes it.
But this year we don’t need this structure- we are, right now, living in Lent.  We are living in a story that begins in lament and ends in resurrection and life.

Jesus didn’t come on time to temporarily delay his own friend’s death. Jesus enters in and suffers death with all of us, and overcomes death permanently for all of us.

Those who witness this, like the ones who unbound Lazarus’s grave bandages and draped a cloak around him, who held his arms and walked his creaky joints back to the house, drew him a bath, fed him a meal, welcomed him back into the community, they trusted. They believed, because they were part of what God was doing bringing life.

The One who is the resurrection and the life, said come and see what I will do, and drew them into ministry for one another.  This One brought life out of death right in front of them and summoned them to participate.  

All around us, at every moment, this is happening, in big and little ways.  God is bringing newness, life, hope, connection, joy, a future that we could not have envisioned or dared imagine, right out of the impossibility and destruction around us and within us.
Because every time death meets us – in big and little ways, it is a story that ends in new life.
Come and see.
Amen.
 
(This year, we are asking, "Who is this God and what is God up to?" And "What is a good life and how do we live it?" along with some of our biblical ancestors.  The sermons related to this series are here: Hannah, Mary, Anna & Simeon, John the Baptist, Samuel, David (we had a theater performance, here's an older sermon about David), The Samaritan Woman, Mary of Bethany (preached by Pastor Lisa), Martha, Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, Thomas (preached by Pastor Lisa, follow up devotion here)

CONNECTING RITUALS:

This week, our congregation is reading through the Gospel of John.  In my house, it is at the dinner table. Maybe for you, it will be when you wake up, or before bed, or over lunch.  It can be read in about 20 minutes a day, or by reading three chapters each day.  If this is your approach, today, we are reading Chapters 1-3.

We are also setting aside Sundays for Sabbath rest. After we log off of our worship service, we are staying off of TV, phones and other sources of news and distraction. This is time to continue remembering that we belong to God and each other, to rest in some gentleness and let that truth soak in deeper.  Instead of more news, we might:

Get out in the fresh air. Take a nap. Read poetry or scripture. Cook with someone. Do yoga.  Relax in the tub. Play a board game. Build legos.  Write a letter. Look through photo albums.
Be human in a non-plugged-in way for whole day (or for three hours minimum), at least once a week. 

We believe that taking Sabbath time will help us return to the situation that being human right now is with more grace, perspective and courage.

Perhaps when you are ready to move back out of set-aside time whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might use this liturgy for leaving sabbath time, and so join our hearts:
Liturgy for Leaving Sabbath Time
(To be used at the end of the Day)

This ritual may be done with a group or alone.

• Light the Sabbath candle. (Or gather around candle that has been lit through the day).
• Moment of silence.
• Share with one another, or reflect to yourself: 

What was the best part of this Sabbath time for you?

• Share or reflect: 

What do you look forward to in the week ahead?

• Pass the spice packet, (bowl of spices, cinnamon stick, etc) and inhale its fragrance deeply.  

Let the smell linger and remind you of the sweet depth of Sabbath rest, to carry the sense of Sabbath with you as you enter your week.

• End with a simple prayer like, “Thank you God for the blessing of Sabbath time. Thank you for the gift of life, and for sharing all of life with us.  Amen.”
• Extinguish the candle.