While we are weak

Devotion for Being Apart -

June 14

We will share a devotion Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays through Fridays.

- Kara

 

Romans 5:1-8

Very often, we let fear tell us who we are instead of faith.  But, while we were weak, Paul says, while we were helpless to earn a thing, unable on our own to choose anything but our own demise, Christ died for us.  

 While we were enemies, God reconciled us to each other. God didn’t say Get it a little more together first, and get back to me. God didn't say, You're on your own with this one.  

God said, Now, you, just as you are, in the farthest from me and each other that you can be, and the most against me and each other that you can get, I choose you. I love you. I claim and forgive and welcome you.

Christ took on our division from God, and our violence against each other, into God’s own self.  In his own human body, it was put to death, and with Christ we were raised to life, so that our relationship to God is Christ’s relationship to God – we are inside the love of the Father to the Son and that cannot be broken.

 

Let's be clear: suffering is not good. Suffering is terrible. It is suffering.  But that doesn’t stop God for a second. Nothing can stop God’s love and redemption.  Not worry or fear or apathy or depression, not systemic evil or our own cruelty or ignorance, not even the most terrible thing we can dream up, or do, or experience, has the power to stop God’s love.

 

What Paul is saying here is not prescriptive, it’s descriptive; he’s not telling us what to think or feel or believe about suffering, he’s showing us something true. Nothing can stop the mighty love of God.  It’s love so powerful that that it can make hope out of suffering.  It’s love that shapes us for life that belongs to God and each other, by forming in us endurance and character, and bringing us to hope, which David Steindl-Rast calls, “passion for the possible.” Hope is “the future of God that doesn’t come later.”  He says, “hope happens when the bottom drops out of pessimism.  We have nowhere to fall but into the ultimate reality of God's motherly caring.”

 

Sometimes we are going to feel peace. Sometimes we will feel strong and sure and steady. We will trust and know that God is at work, and we will confidently join in. Thank God for those times.

Other times - maybe more often right now - we will feel weak. We will slip into believing lies, trusting fear, letting worry or despair tell us what is real, and either knowingly or unknowingly participating in destruction. But it is not our faithfulness that saves us, it’s God’s.  It’s not our great attitude, or good work, or consistent trust, or tireless efforts that change the world, it's God’s love, God’s grace, God’s redemption.  May we fall into the motherly care of God, to receive that grace for ourselves and offer it to each other. 

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CONNECTING RITUAL:

 

Perhaps tonight before 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, I am weak. 
I am incapable of trusting, unable to live in freedom, 
and I keep on choosing bondage instead of life.  
But I see the power of your love. 
I see what forgiveness can do, and what hope opens up; 
I have experienced your grace 
and I want to be part of it with my whole being. 
I want faith to tell me what is real instead of fear. 

So God, I lift up to you now those places of fear, where I long to see your presence and activity in my life and in the world....

And I lift up those places of hope, where I have seen your love and tasted your joy....

Help me trust in your faithfulness. 
Help me believe that you always bring life out of death,
 and trust that you will bring life from the places of death 
within and around me right now. 
I want my life to participate – to grieve, and forgive ,and set free, and heal, and welcome, and repent, and witness your redemption every single day; Lord, use me.
Connect my being again to your own,
and to all others,
that I may know you love us, 
and that my living may flow from that truth. 

Amen.

Tend Life

Devotion for Being Apart -
June 12

I will share a devotion Sundays, and Wednesdays through Fridays.
- Kara

I repotted the church peace plant yesterday.
It had outgrown its pot - the one session planted it in nearly twelve years ago.
You can read more about that plant here.

It made me think about how we are changing and growing during this, in ways we don't yet understand and maybe can't yet see. It made me wonder about what kinds of containers will support our life together in the chapters after this one.

And it made me come back to the moment - it was also a tactile thing to do that used my body (it's heavy!) and needed my attention, and it wasn't crisis or worry or fatigue.  It was simple.  Instead of being consumed with the unknown, I was consciously tending life.

I saw my hairdresser today for the first time since January (!) She had taken six weeks off for surgery just before the pandemic hit.  I texted her when she left telling her to go easy on herself, that my experience with any surgery has been that your body takes longer to recover than you think it will.
Today she thanked me for that text, and said it helped her, because even though they told her six weeks, it's been four months and she only this week feels like she is recovered.  We talked about how hard it is to let your body do what it needs to, but also how amazing it is that your body does get there.  Healing is really hard work. It takes exactly the amount of time that it needs to take.

I am finding that a lot these days. I have an agenda for my body. It is night - I will sleep now and wake up rested.  I am taking the day off - I will get the rest and energy I need and come back ready.  Or for my mind -  I have this thing to accomplish and will focus and get it done in the amount of time I have set aside for it.  Or my children - you can cry and get over it and move on in a logical amount of time, right?  We have that with our society  - it would be nice to be done fighting about things. It would be lovely to recognize the problem of racism and then get it fixed and done with, whether out there or inside our own selves.  But it doesn't work that way.  Change is slow, deep work, that takes remembering again and again, noticing again and again, coming back to what's actually here and letting things heal and unfold because we are tending the life. 

And in the midst of all this - we are still sick and getting each other sick - with an actual virus, which we can't see and can't just fix.  This is exhausting. We wish it were over. Shouldn't it be over by now? Maybe if we act like it's over, that will make it over? Alas, it isn't so.  We must live the moment we are in right now.  It's the only way.

So, tend life. Within you, around you. Instead of being consumed with the unknown, be in this moment, and right here, tend life. Put your hands in the dirt. Take naps. Notice hunger and eat. Let tears come when they want to, for as long as they want to.  Laughter too. See the invitations in front of you and respond - there is life popping up all around us, calling to us to join in.  Be gentle with those around you. Be gentle with yourself. We are changing and growing during this, in ways we don't yet understand and maybe can't yet see.  That's really hard work. Let it happen in the way it needs to.  

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CONNECTING RITUAL:

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

Lord God,
you have called your servants to ventures
of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths yet untrodden,
through perils unknown.
Give us faith to go out with good courage,
not knowing where we go,
but only that your hand is leading us
and your love supporting us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
AMEN

(From the Lutherans - I am not sure what book but I hear them use this prayer a lot!)

Passion for What is Possible

Devotion for Being Apart - June 11

I will share a devotion Sundays, and Wednesdays through Fridays.

- Kara

David Steindl-Rast, in Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, calls hope, "opennesss for a future that does not come later."

He says,

Some people imagine that hope is the highest degree of optimism, a kind of super-optimism.... A far more accurate picture would be the hope happens when the bottom drops out of pessimism.  We have nowhere to fall but into the ultimate reality of God's motherly caring.

He goes on to say:

On Easter morning the angel announces the resurrection of Jesus, not by saying, "Here he is; he has come back to life!" No. Looking for him in that way would mean looking for the living one among the dead. He is not here. Nor is he alive with our aliveness that is closer to death than to life. "He is risen" runs the good news, and "He is not here." All we can experience from the perspective of our deathbound living is that the tomb is open and empty, a fitting image for wide open hope.

Hope shares the ambiguity of Jesus' cross. Hope is a passion for what is possible... And since patience is as contagious as impatience, it will also be our way of strengthening each other's hope.

I love the idea that hope is openness for a future that does not come later.  And that we're closer to getting there through pessimism than optimism.  And that we get there when the bottom drops out and we end up in God's motherly care.  The aliveness God brings is not the aliveness that is closer to death than to life, it's something new and different, and we sit gaping open longing for it.

I also love the idea that patience is as contagious as impatience.  (Because wow, impatience is contagious).  It invites imagining what contagious patience might look like, how we might embody that, how it might impact those around us.  And it's something we can do to strengthen each other; it's how we can go toward hope.  We don't placate ourselves or others with optimism. We let the bottom drop out of our pessimism.  We approach the empty tomb with perplexed patience, in the midst of our deathbound living, and let a wide open hope take hold in us.

 

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CONNECTING RITUAL: 

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might pray this way and so join our souls with each other:

God of all times and outside all time,
cultivate in me openness for your future that doesn't come later.
Give me honesty, even unto pessimism.
Hold me in your motherly care.
Bring us through death to real aliveness. 

Teach me to recognize real aliveness,

let me be seized by passion for what is possible.

Give me contagious patience,
to wait for hope.

May a wide open hope meet me,

O Lord, I wait.

Amen.
 

Hope, right now

Devotion for Being Apart - June 7

I will be sharing a devotion Sundays, and Wednesdays through Fridays.
- Kara

Psalm 27

These are intense times, when it feels like so much is falling apart – and probably it needed to fall apart – the climate is at a breaking point, the deep disease of racism has been festering at our nation’s core since its founding, the inequity in healthcare and our economic structures, the vitriol in our politics, they all continued to plug along in devastating dysfunction.  But now it feels like everything has burst open and is a leaking mess.  After three months sitting in our time-out corners, we can see how badly broken and destructive it all really is.  

But we are people of hope. We are people who trust what we cannot see.  So what is our hope?  And how do we live in hope, especially when things feel devastating and hopeless.

One answer has been, our hope is that one day this mortal life will be over and we will be with God. That is hopeful.  And we will be. But that’s not the hope this scripture give us when it says, “I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”  That is hope for later on, this is hope for right now.  I will see God’s goodness in this place, for these people, while we are living this life. 

Another way hope has been framed defines God’s goodness by human ideas of goodness.  Our culture values upward mobility, endless accumulation, and measurable results. We worship security, independence and happiness. We might think it’s God job to give us those things.  Is the goodness of the Lord the promise of financial security? Guaranteed good health? Assurance that bad things wont happen to you?

My uncle believed he’d beat cancer through prayer and faith in God.  Last week, the pastor at his funeral said, “We are shocked. We all thought he would be healed.”  Why? Because we modern people see goodness as the absence of suffering, the stability of health, the achievement of the goals and future we had planned for ourselves. We think a good life is security, independence and happiness, and put our hope in God to provide that.  What if God doesn’t?  Where is our hope then?  Near the end, my uncle’s hope shifted, and he began to find hope in being with God when his life was over, and in that he had peace. But the horror of leaving this life, and leaving behind his family, never left him.  

A third way Christians have seen hope has been to treat Jesus as a model for how we are to live and act as though the work of God is now entirely in our hands. Not so different from interpreting God’s goodness as permanent health or stability, we equate God’s goodness with communal health or stability.  

We put ambitious, noble goals in front of us, like the end of poverty our lifetime, guaranteed equality for all, reversing climate destruction – and then every moment we are not working toward that goal feels like wasted time, and every action - purposeful or unintentional - that counters that goal feels like lost ground or personal shame, and everyone working on other goals feels like a competitor. 

A few years ago, someone crept through my neighborhood in the night and stapled big, cardboard, painted flowers at the base of the telephone poles, to look like they were growing up out of the sidewalk, two feet tall and brightly colored.  On one pole, above the flower at eye level, a painted calligraphy sign was attached, that said, “Live like the world should be to show the world what it can be.”  It’s a beautiful sentiment, but In this view, hope is something we must provide for others.

Hear this: our hope is not just for after this life. Christianity is not a religion of escape; it’s trust in the God who joins us here. 

Our hope is not for our own security, independence or happiness.  Christianity is not a religion to soothe our fears or avoid suffering; it’s trust in the God who joins us here. 
And our hope is not that enough of us striving and working can bring God’s vision to fruition.  Christianity is not a religion of positive progress, or a blueprint for social change; it’s trust in the God who joins us here.

We have talked before about eschatological imagination.  But it might help to define again what these words mean.

Imagination is the forming of new ideas, images or concepts of outside things not present to the senses.  And eschatology, or what my kids used to call “the very, very end,” is that part of theology – or thinking about God - that is concerned with the final destiny of humankind.

So to have ‘eschatological imagination’ is to live into God’s final destiny for humanity, right now.  It’s letting our understanding of a good life be shaped by God’s trajectory, and live now where the story will arrive in the very, very end.  

So instead of ““Live like the world should be to show the world what it can be,” the sign above the cardboard flowers of eschatological imagination would say, “Live like the world will be to show the world what really is.”

“I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living,” means I trust I will see God doing something here and now, in visible, tangible, joinable ways.  I’ll see God’s goodness, not ours.  We don’t pine for it someday far away or bring it into being with our human efforts.  We trust God to bring it. “Wait for the Lord. Have courage and watch for God.” the scripture goes on to say. 

And we will see God’s goodness not when everything is all better, but now, in the brokenness, in the cries for justice and the suffering of injustice, in the midst of an earth in crisis, in the grips of a worldwide illness, the corruption of governments and the selfishness of commerce notwithstanding, not apart from but right within the frailty of the human body and the vulnerability of human bonds.

A big word of eschatological imagination is nevertheless.  Nevertheless, we will see the goodness of God, anyway.  Here. now. 

We become people who are always asking, “What is God up to?” in every circumstance, especially the godforsaken ones. Not just because God is present and working in all circumstances, but because Jesus comes especially into godforsakenness, when, by own his unjust, politicized, and brutal death, and raising us to newness of life, he spoke the final and authoritative nevertheless.

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
   whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
   of whom shall I be afraid? 

God is trustworthy.  This is our hope.  To trust God is to live by imagination shaped by the final destiny of humankind. The very, very end will be love, wholeness, joy, peace, belonging for all.  So we live love now, we seek wholeness now, we take pleasure in life’s joy now.  We join in peace, and practice belonging because they are more real and more permanent than the discord and division we see in front of us.  

We want to see the world as God sees it, to trust our lives to the story God is telling, and let our lives be shaped by the ending to the story, right now and nevertheless.  When we live like the world will be we will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

So be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord.

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:

Today we sang this together. Perhaps before bed, you might sing or recite this a few times.

The Lord is my light,
my light and salvation,
in God I trust, in God I trust.
The Lord is my light,
my light and salvation,
in God I trust, in God I trust.

I will see your goodness in the land of the land of the living.
I will wait with courage for the Lord will come.
 I will see your goodness in the land of the land of the living.
I will wait with courage for the Lord will come.
 

The Lord is my light,
my light and salvation,
in God I trust, in God I trust.
The Lord is my light,
my light and salvation,
in God I trust, in God I trust.

Boundaries & Choices

Daily Devotion - June 5

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

my view of my uncle's funeral

On Wednesday we drove 2 1/2 hours into Wisconsin for small, family funeral for my uncle. We were told it would not be made public.  They would provide seating outdoors and play the sound through speakers for those who didn't want to come inside.  Masks would be worn.  I imagined my grandma, and my uncle's wife and kids inside, and the rest of us outdoors.

When we pulled in the parking lot was full. The tiny church building was packed to the gills with nearly 150 unmasked people. My sisters' families and my own sat outside in our masks.  My aunt and grandma were swarmed and hugged by nearly everyone there. We could hear them all singing side by side, inside, while we joined from the parking lot.

Then the entire crowd flooded out and made its way up to the cemetery, where they lingered closely around my uncle's family.  I gave a long distance wave to my aunt, but didn't get any nearer. Then we got back in the car and drove 2 1/2 hours home.

I wanted so badly to grieve my uncle along with my family. I feel like I didn't get that chance.  Instead of the pastor upholding safe boundaries for the rest of us, each person had to decide what they would do for themselves.  And in rural Wisconsin, other than drive-through workers following their corporate policy and wearing masks, everyone from that town had already decided they'd just do life as usual as though there were no pandemic.  That meant we looked like were making some kind of political statement in our masks, sitting in the parking lot like we were boycotting the funeral.  It meant we felt rude, unkind, and uncaring for not hugging.

Today Maisy and I stopped at a beach on a lake with giant CLOSED signs. We stepped our feet in the water up to the ankle and watched people swimming all around us.  "Why are we the only ones who have to follow the rules?" she asked. Then we got back in the car and drove home.

We are in a hard phase of this virus. While nothing has changed about the virus, except that there are more hospital beds available, things are also opening back up. We each have to make our way through, and assess what risks we are willing to take.

How do we let up the strict lockdown we've been under and start easing back into society, juggling all the variables every single choice carries?
Do I get my hair cut, finally?  
Do I wait in the waiting room while they're changing my car's oil?

Everywhere we go, some people have different boundaries and are making different choices than we are.  And everywhere we go, we are all judging each other for our boundaries and choices.

This, of course, accomplishes nothing. But we are wired to know how to respond to our environment by trying to match our behaviors to others of our species. So even while we are trying to make good decisions against a dangerous virus, we are still trying to gauge how we should act by the actions of those around us.

But all of a sudden it is a societal free-for-all.  Each family and person is making hard choices every moment, having to consider each decision, resisting our innate instincts to match behaviors.

So. Here's another gift of this time. If you were ever good at shaping what other people think of you, that option is off the table. No matter what you do, someone will disagree with that action.  So, instead, how can you act with integrity? How can you choose on purpose what to do and not do, consistent with your values?
This time could be a great untraining - our unthought actions and behaviors are pulled from the deep into the light of our thinking and reflection.  We are aware of each other, aware of ourselves, conscious about consequences, careful about choices. I'm curious how this will shape us in the long term.  We're being tilled up and turned over.  This is the kind of soil God plants seeds in.

But also, this way of living is utterly exhausting. It is going to get more exhausting as more things re-open and more behaviors become options, and we are faced with more choices.  

So - grace. Grace for ourselves. Grace for one another.  
Most of the time, most people are doing the best they can with what they have.
Sometimes what we have is no fight left in us.  
Always, no matter what, we belong to God.

And always we belong to each other.  

I made a choice not to hug my grieving grandmother. I did this because I belong to her and she to me. It was a sacrifice I could make - the one thing in my power to protect her however I could from the virus. My not hugging her was to express my love.  Even if others didn't understand or agree with my choice. 
At the same time, others chose to hug her for the very same reasons - because they love her and wanted to express that belonging and love.  Even if I didn't understand or agree with their choice.

This time is hard to live in.
This is a hard time.
We are tired.
We are loved.
Amen.

(PS - Here is my commitment to you as your pastor: Your session and I will not put you in a situation like I faced at that funeral. Because we believe we belong to each other, we take seriously our responsibility for setting and upholding boundaries that guard the most vulnerable among us. To the best of our ability, we will continue to make choices that support the health and well-being of all).

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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:

God, for the ways I have forgotten my belonging to you this day, forgive me.
For the ways I've tried to justify myself,
earn my place,
hide my brokenness,
avoid my vulnerability,
and ignore your voice,
forgive me.
Restore me to my true self
as your beloved child.

God, for the ways I have forgotten my belonging to others this day, forgive me.
For the ways I have judged others,
for things I said that I regret,
for things I did not say but should have,
for the ways I disregarded my own and others' humanity
by ignoring boundaries,
or acting as though I was not theirs to care about,
or they were not mine to care about,
forgive me.
Restore me to my true self
among your beloved children.

And for all the ways I lived into my belonging
to you and others this day,
thank you.
For the moments of connection,
of sacrifice,
of seeing and being seen,
for kindness,
and shared sorrow,
and laughter,
and release,
thank you.

Help me rest this night.
Give me rest.
Amen.

Imperfect Together

Daily Devotion - June 4

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

while we are pausing gathering in person.

- Kara

This morning I read this article: “Paternalistic Racism of Nice White People.”  

  

I recognized myself, both because I had this messaging in my own upbringing, and also because I contributed to groceries that day at Sanford Middle School.

Here’s the gift of this time. Discomfort. Confession. Recognition of the sin (another word for division from God and each other) that has a hold on us, sin we join in without realizing it.  

Also, I do not regret sharing groceries.  The call came from the community and it was something I could respond to.  

A risk of this time is that we try so hard not to do it wrong that it could paralyze us.  We live in a time when we tell each other what to do, what to think, how to act, what to say, and then we are terrified we’ll do, think, act, say the wrong thing and get called out. 

When I get caught up in this, it helps me to return to some things I know are true: 

• God made us to be with and for each other. God intentionally created us diverse and different from each other, each single person unique. We ALL belong to God and we ALL belong to each other.  
• Sin / the Way of Fear / systemic evil tells us we have to earn our way, some lives are of higher value than others, we are in competition, there is only so much  - voice, justice, respect, resources – to go around, so we have to decide who gets it and who goes without.  These are lies.  
• We believe the lies most of the time. Even when we are trying to do right in the world, even right in the middle of it, we are often believing the lies.  The response is not to judge ourselves for not getting it right – that’s part of the lies too.
• We will never get it right.  It’s not about getting it right. It’s about being a human being alongside other human beings. 
• Being human is vulnerable. It feels uncomfortable a lot of the time because it feels risky, scary, weak.  
• The greatest strength we have is when we are in our most honest place of weakness, when we can receive each other and allow ourselves to be received. We can actually live our shared belonging.

Sin would have us do the wrong things, or the right things for the wrong reasons, or nothing at all because we are so afraid of doing the wrong thing.  It’s a game with no winning.  But the game is false.

As the above article so beautifully said, 

Part of the trouble with the Paternalistic Racism of Nice White People that has been a part of my own experience, is that white people assumed we were to serve as saviors. A quick mistake all of us often make when attempting to change this is to reverse it. And quickly we look to the first black person we're in relationship with to be our savior, to imagine that now instead, it's their turn to save us. 

Part of being a Christian, for those of us who are, is knowing that there's only one Savior, and that's Jesus. We shouldn't make gods of others just as we can't make gods of ourselves. So in working to build relationships, to create a more equitable community, we have to remember our shared humanity first. White people don't need to save black people, and black people also don't need to save white people. Jesus promises to save us all.

And, 

My vessel is imperfect. I was born in a culture that taught me to sin, and into a family that also taught me to love. In this imperfect jar I can lament my imperfections or I can whitewash them and cover them up with good deeds and nice words and passive aggressive utterances of racism. 

Or I can stand, blemished and unblemished, at the foot of the Cross. I can try to tell the truth. I can try to work harder for justice. I can hand off the microphone. I can build authentic, honest relationships with white people and black people alike. I can confess my sin, I can be forgiven, and I can forgive others.

I’d add to this – and so we can forgive ourselves.   

There is never a pure motive or a completely perfect approach, and we are actually not called to that. We are called to know ourselves to be sinners in need of saving. (Remember what salvation is? Wholeness.). And we are called to see each other as children of God.  

We are in need of being restored to our wholeness – to live consistent to our belonging to God and each other. We can’t do this for ourselves, and we can’t do it for each other. But we can come alongside one another in our brokenness and confess, and listen, and offer care to, and be willing to receive care from, each other. When we do that, God restores us to wholeness.

As for the Sanford food drive that requested 85 bags of food for their impacted families, the school called in The Sheridan Story, who took over distribution of the food to the whole impacted community.  Because while Paternalistic Racism certainly plays a huge role in our lives as Minnesotans, and is undoubtedly woven into what’s happening when white Minnesotans from outside the most impacted areas respond, the other thing that is happening is whole communities coming together, across perceived boundaries of culture, race, city lines, income, and religion, and trying to support each other, drawing on the strong networks and organizations who have already been bringing us together and know how to do this to help guide us.

Here’s the update from The Sheridan Story:

We have distributed most of the food from the food drive at Sanford Middle School on Sunday out in the community.

This was one of the biggest food drives we've ever seen… and perhaps one of the largest-ever in Minnesota. In less than a day, we estimate that over 2,000 families were served. Our amazing community came together, some waiting in line approximately 14 blocks long, to provide a total of about 18 semi-trucks of food. Of these:

•  3 semi-trucks of food were distributed to families the day of the food drive
•  4 semi-trucks of perishable food went to our friends at Loaves and Fishes and Minneapolis Public Schools Culinary and Wellness Services
•  4 semi-trucks of non-perishable food went to us
•  7 semi-trucks have been re-routed to additional collection and distribution points throughout Minneapolis

God uses whatever we give.   

Even while seeking to make us more real – to remove hypocrisy and sin from within our hearts – God calls us to join in our belonging to each other right now. 

To believe we have to earn the right to live in this belonging by making sure we’ve rooted out all sin, or racism, or brokenness from ourselves first is also sin / the way of fear / the lie.  

(By the way, this is the gift of seeking to be “anti-racist” as opposed to the false notion of  “not racist.”  Racism has infected us all; it’s in our un-thought thoughts, and we all operate inside its strictures.  But we can acknowledge its hold on us and also act deliberately against it.  This is a great resource to learn more about anti-racism).  

We can help each other. We can seek to see and hear each other. We belong to each other. Each of us can participate in whatever ways we can, in what God is doing in our communities, city, state, nation and world, to bring wholeness and healing into all our brokenness and division.  We can be imperfect together.

One more message from The Sheridan Story:

POP-UP FOOD DRIVE

As we continue to distribute this extraordinary show of support for those most in need, we hear both the need for food and the desire to help. The calls are loud and clear!

We are collecting donations of food and other essential items at our warehouse.

• Where: 2723 Patton Road, Roseville
• When: Monday - Friday from 10 am - 2pm
• What: Non-perishable canned food, rice, pasta, diapers, wipes, feminine hygiene items, and baby formula
• How: Follow the food donation signs and you'll be able to drop off items in tents we've set up in our parking lot. 

All of the donations we receive will be re-distributed to our community partners in neighborhoods across the metro as quickly as possible!

THANK YOU for showing the positive power of what our community can do together!

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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:

I seek your presence, O God,
not  because I have managed to see clearly
or been true in all things this day,
not because I have succeeded in loving
or in reverencing those around me,
but because I want to see with clarity,
because I long to be true
and desire to love as I have been loved.
Renew my inner sight,
make fresh my longings to be true
and grant me the grace of loving this night
that I may end the day as I had hoped to live it,
that I may end this day restored to my deepest yearnings,
that I may end this day as I intend to live tomorrow,
and I intend to live tomorrow.
Amen.

- J Philip Newell, Sounds of the Eternal

How the light gets in

Daily Devotion - June 2

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

Today I participated in a clergy march. Led by black pastors, bishops, rabbis and imams, we walked through the streets to where George Floyd was killed.  Five minutes after we started, the hands in the front went up and a great silence spread through the whole crowd. The only sound was our feet, punctuated by noises from beyond - car horns, onlookers, birds.  But amongst the moving crowd, a prayer, no words, just palpable, holy silence. It is hard to even explain what three blocks of masked people walking, completely silent, feels like. The silence was the loudest thing around - it touched those we passed, causing them to fall silent too.

Twice more a wave came through the crowd. Once when everyone fell to their knees as someone up front prayed.  And then before we rose, the Lord's Prayer came through, building in volume, so that by the time it reached us we joined in one great voice saying "...deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory forever, Amen."

This morning a few of us gathered for coffee and support.  The stress and tension are wearing. Nights are hard; mornings are welcome. We are tired and on edge, mostly tired of being on edge.  But also, among us were a new job, a new engagement, a new lease on life after a hospital release, a lost child found, a daycare resuming soon - glimpses of hope and life.

Here are more reports from among us:

Sue's little garden of hope:
This is my little garden of hope, valiantly growing in my parking lot: the only place with enough sun except, maybe, for the bus stop out front!
A quiet night. Scary troops in vehicles moseying by the house. I DO have a visceral reaction to the presence of the National Guard, based on my experience in the 1960's. But their work has been generally calm and measured. But it is still a scary sight.
They are protecting the sacred memorial space at 38th and Chicago, where George died. People gather there around the clock, grieving with one another. The pain and anger take some into the zone far beyond hope, into such deep mourning and frustration over this senseless death that they cannot see a way out.
I choose hope. I am realistic, though. The systemic problems are hundreds of years deep and human nature much deeper. It is hard to trust one another and even harder to trust our institutions. The targeted destruction of the neighborhood services: food, pharmacy, low income housing: has increased the distrust as peaceful protesters feel targeted by outrage over damage they did not do. Many cannot yet chose hope.
But people, from within and without of Minneapolis are donating food, money, time to the clean up. They chose hope.
Many neighborhoods are taking turns guarding the businesses that provide for their needs. They are choosing hope.
Solutions will come gradually. Most will not work, none will reach perfection. But we must still join together and work hopefully toward a more just society. Three steps forward and two steps back, is still one step forward.
Hope is such a fragile thing, like spring peas and tiny carrots. Tiny, unlikely shoots of green life. It must be looked for and nurtured.

And this message from Lisa's favorite pie shop, Pie and Mighty:
 

It might not look like it, but this is Pie & Mighty. Last week, in the wee hours of Saturday morning our front door got kicked in. You don't need us to tell you why.

We've have had an extrordinary start to our little space on Chicago Avenue. We sliced and served our first pies from our new location just 12 weeks ago, on March 14, Pi Day. Ours has been a long journey full of fits and starts and hiccups, but we wouldn't trade one moment away if it all meant we got to be here, now, in this place, at this time. We are so ridiculously grateful.
———————————
One week ago today, just two blocks from where we are, George Floyd was murdered. Ever since then grief has hung in the air like a hot, windless day. It permeates everything, even and especially us. But something magical happened late in the week when Beth Howard, author and pie maker, called us to ask how we were and if we would mind if she came up and gave away free pie? Ummmm, yes please.
As a team we had to dig really deep in ourselves to make the pies we had already committed to and infuse them with our hearts that felt so broken. You know that song by Leonard Cohen called Anthem? That one part that goes like this:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That's how the light gets in

We just had to forget our perfect offerings and let pie do what pie will do. It worked.
On Sunday morning, we sliced and served pie along side of Beth and her team that people made from Donnellson, Iowa to Minneapolis. Over 80 pies and baked goods were made and shared, all in less than 24 hours. Remarkable doesn’t even come close.
It’s Monday. We took today for rest and reflection and discerned that this week we are going to just be together as a team, learning, cleaning, testing, and telling stories. We know this might not seem productive or even helpful to you right now. But thanks for understanding anyway. We’ll be back with our June menu next week.

Each of us is making our way through each day. That is a holy and blessed task. Some of us need rest, others, action. Some of us need to mourn, others to rage, others to let go.  As we watch for the light coming in through the cracks, may worry turn to trust, may tension turn to calm. May we know ourselves and everyone else to be held in the love of God this day, and tomorrow.

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:

Bless me this night, O God,
and those whom I know and love.
Bless me this night, O God,
and those with whom I am not at peace.
Bless me this night, O God,
and every human family.
Bless us with deep sleep.
Bless us with dreams that will heal our souls.
Bless us with the night's silent messages of eternity
that we may be set free by love.
Bless us in the night, O God,
that we may be set free to love.

Amen.

- J. Philip Newell, Sounds of the Eternal