day 34 - threaded.

In a few weeks, I will be finishing my time at the church that has been my ministry setting for nearly two years. As I approach this ending, and look with anticipation and excitement toward a new beginning, I feel so deeply touched by the relationships I have been blessed with. The young people at Trinity Lutheran Church are some of the most amazing people I have ever met. I have been so lucky to laugh with them, learn and serve beside them, worship with them, listen to their stories, and just be a witness to the amazing presence of God in each of them.

Over the last few years, and most especially the last few weeks, I have been able to share some incredible experiences. What I've been noticing lately, is how it has so little to do with the program. I mean, it is important to put time in care into planning worship and other experiences so that they have meaning. Planning is a central part to any healthy ministry. But the real beauty is in the unplanned moments. Staying up late laughing and talking about nothing and everything with Jr. High girls in a cabin. Eating pizza at Cal's campus or exploring bookstores with the High Schoolers. Those moments over coffee where we somehow move from talking about our favorite movie, to a funny story, to the deepest parts of ourselves and our faith.

In ministry, I learn more and more that my deepest regrets are not the times that didn't go according to plan, but the times I planned too much-- especially at the beginning of my ministry. Like so many ministers, I felt so much pressure to find the right program... I wish I hadn't so often forgotten that packing in games and programs and discussion topics and worrying if they would be well received, achieves little compared to just being with people. Listening to them, laughing with them, learning from them. In the end, ministry is the relationships we built, not the program we planned. I seem to be learning over and over that E. M. Forster's simple words, "Only connect," is the deepest truth of all.

So, for two years we have journeyed together, and now our lives are threaded together. I will feel a connection with each of them even when we don't see each other, and even if we someday lose touch. Now we are a part of one another, and because of that connection I feel more whole, and more connected with God... as if by being in relationship and community we are embodying something of Divinity here and now. We are a living, breathing Kingdom of God.

"We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads..."

- Hermon Melville

day 33 - poems in the sky.

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,

We fell them down and turn them into paper,

That we may record our emptiness.

~Kahlil Gibran

day 31 - go and tell.

This Sunday I started working with my High School youth group to plan our annual Youth Led Easter Sunrise Service. As we read the Easter story, the theme that came alive for us was "Come and See, Go and Tell." We talked about how the encounter with the resurrected Christ, changes you in a way that allows you to be transformed and share that encounter with others through the way you live. The resurrection isn't merely a personal, spiritual hope, but a life-altering world changing one. It doesn't just change your heart, it changes everything, including the way you live. You are now a part of the resurrection story, and as you go, your life keeps telling the story.

I think that the encounter with the resurrected Christ at the tomb changes us so radically because it reveals that destruction and death do not win. It gives us hope that we do not have to live under the law of death, freeing us to go the way of love. Fr. Steve Hassett shared this thought from Ghandi with me, and I think it summarizes the principle of Easter better than I ever could:

"I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction and therefore there must be a higher law than that of destruction. Only under that law would a well-ordered society be intelligible and life worth living. And if that is the law of life, we have to work it out in daily life. Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love. In this crude manner I have worked it out in my life. That does not mean that all my difficulties are solved. Only I have found that this law of love has answered as the law of destruction has never done."

Life persists. Love wins. This is the message we go with. This is the message we tell with our lives.

day 29 - the starry dynamo.

I just finished watching the film Howl. I loved it... mostly because I love hearing poetry read. The whole film isn't really a narrative, or a biography, as much as it is just a visual poem. The most poignant parts for me were not the trial it depicts or the interviews, but the moments where Ginsberg (James Franco) reads portions of the poem. The poem comes alive, and you are able to hear the rhythm and music of it. Parts of the poem are also illustrated by animation based on the illuminated poems Ginsberg published with artist Eric Drooker. The images and sounds evoke feelings and meanings beyond the words themselves. Spoken word is a powerful, powerful thing. The music of language seems to get somehow beyond the words themselves, digging beyond the surface of what is defined.

I hadn't read Howl in a long time, so in some ways it was like experiencing it for the first time. The musical chaos of Ginsberg's howling verse seemed to have power I didn't remember. He wrote, "angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night." And as I heard those words, I felt their yearning for that heavenly connection, I saw the blank eternal workings of night. I saw the wild beauty of the desperation with words like: "battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light." The words batter the listener with their sad, pounding song.

The film just reminded me of why I love poetry so much. How is can evoke desperation, passion, loss, drug-haze, hope, and anguish and all that is beyond words as well. You can listen to Howl in all it's homo-erotic, chaotic, drug-induced, obscene, passionate, creative, desperate glory below or read it here.

day 28 - like incense before you.

Growing up in the Methodist tradition, then attending a Pentecostal youth group in high school, I did not have much exposure to sung liturgy. I attended Catholic Mass occasionally when family friends were visiting, but I preferred the more relate-able contemporary worship. Then in college attending mass, hearing the words of the Eucharist sung in Catholic Mass suddenly communion was full of a deeper power and mystery. As the priest sung, "Let us proclaim the mystery of faith," I felt a beauty beyond language--as he sang those notes, I felt the mystery of which he sung.

As an adult working in Anglican, Lutheran and Episcopal congregations I have had many encounters with sung liturgy, even having the opportunity to lead it-- some of these experiences were deep and meaningful, and others fell flat. But I believe there is power in this ancient worship. That singing the same words again and again, and creating new liturgies that are put to melodies, creates a different experience than words that are only written or spoken.

One of my calls in ministry, I think, is to find ways of infusing worship, both contemporary and traditional forms, with presence and meaning. I believe that when we gather for worship as the body of Christ, we are really meant to embody Christ. We are called to be authentically Christ's presence-- mysterious, incarnational, miraculous. Part of this means that our worship should not be boring, but overflowing with passion, love, and life. Too often Christian leaders make the mistake of assuming that contemporary=relevant and traditional=boring. But presence infused worship can take many forms, and I think one of the most beautiful is sung liturgy. I am excited for all that I am learning about this tradition, and anxious to see how I can infuse elements of this tradition into Methodist worship.

As part of our Lenten journey, each Wednesday night at Trinity we gather for a short worship service of evening prayer from published by Holden Village. Over the past several weeks, I've been learning this liturgy in preparation for the worship I led last week. What I love about sung liturgy is the way the melody becomes embedded within you. While I'm doing the daily tasks of writing e-mails, doing dishes, reading, or grocery shopping, suddenly I find myself humming the melody, or silently thinking those words. This silent song becomes a prayer that shrouds my whole day, helping me to have a sense that all I do is prayer, that each moment is a part of the great song of God.

One of the melodies that I have been walking in the past few days is "Let my prayer rise up like incense before you." I love this line from the psalms, and how sensory it becomes when we lift those notes and they seem to rise and rise like incense. Images like this inspire me to infuse more imagery, poetry, songs, art and energy into worship. I dream of creating worship that allows people to feel themselves being lifted into the presence of the Holy in a mystical way.

day 27 - validation.

Tonight, I had a wonderful date night with my sweet husband. We ate dinner and and watched a movie.... and we parked in a garage where we got a little ticket that we had to get validated

and that made me think of this great video that makes me smile every time. I hope it makes you smile too. Happy Friday!

day 26 - infinite yes.

Some days, I am overwhelmed at the beauty of my life, and nothing can express the exuberant praise I feel more fully than the words of e.e. cummings:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e.cummings

day 25 - eternally restless.

In John O'Donohue's book Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, he describes the ocean in a way I have felt, but never been able to pin down into words. He writes, "Words like 'ocean' and 'sea' are too small for such wild divinity. The ocean is beyond language. Her flow is a beautiful dance. She is eternally restless and delights our eyes with the structured rhythm of waves... With sublime elegance, the ocean approaches and embraces the landscape and each wave has a unique grace... Water stirs something very deep and ancient in the human heart. Our eyes and hearts follow its rhythm as if the flow of water were the mirror where time becomes obliquely visible. The image of water can hold such longing."

I have felt that longing and stirring. The sense of awe, beauty and something else unnameable as I watch the constant dance of waves rolling toward shore. Just looking at the ocean is for me a form of prayer. I especially love O'Donohue describing the sea as "wild divinity" and "eternally restless." This wild restlessness resonates deep in me. So often in the Christian traditions, we imagine God as a place of stillness and light and clouds. But the mysterious movement, depth and dazzling darkness of the ocean speaks intimately of the Divine. I look at that fathomless deep, and I think that God must be something like those stirring waters, and I want nothing more than to be drenched.

day 24 - grimy grace.

Tomorrow night I have the opportunity to help lead our Lenten evening worship. As part of that contemplative worship, I'll be helping to lead the sung liturgy and shape a small reflection time based on last Sunday's gospel lesson. I'm so excited because the lesson for this week is about mud, something I've been thinking a lot about. I love the paradoxical way that Jesus works, using dirt and spit to make someone clean, turning our ideas about what makes a person good or whole or clean upside down.

For me, this healing story has helped me to ask how I am seeing people -- am I seeing with the vision of muddy grace that loves people just as they are, and transforms them with radical acceptance? Or am I blind with my own judgement and expectations? Am I joyfully reaching out with my own muddy hands, or am I so busy trying to keep my own life clean that I don't even notice the people around me?

Jan Richardson from Painted Prayer Book offers up this wise and beautiful poetic reflection:

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the dirt.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the earth
beneath our feet.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the dust

like the dust
that God scooped up
at the beginning
and formed
with God’s
two hands
and breathed into
with God’s own
breath.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the spit.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the mud.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the mire,
the grime,
the muck.

Lest we think
that God
cannot reach
deep into the things
of earth,
cannot bring forth
the blessing
that shimmers
within the sludge,
cannot anoint us
with a tender
and grimy grace.

Lest we think
that God
will not use the ground
to create us
once again,
to cleanse us
of our unseeing,
to open our eyes upon
this ordinary
and stunning world.

day 23 - when the chatter stops.

Frederick Franck once wrote, "You can look at thinks while talking or with a radio going full blast, but you can see only when the chatter stops." Don't get me wrong, I love words and music. But there is something about finding quiet that nurtures my soul. When I allow myself a few minutes in the morning to just sit, not looking at my computer, or talking, or watching tv, or checking my phone, but really just hearing the quiet-- it is so still, so unusual, that it is an almost a shocking experience.

My life is full of noise, but lent is a time when I intentionally seek out times and places where the chatter stops. The last few days, I've gotten back into the habit of writing morning pages (a practice borrowed from Julia Cameron that you can read about here). Before I begin writing I just take a few minutes to breathe and to notice. I watch the morning light stream into the window, feel the warmth of my mug of tea in my hands, curl my toes under a blanket against the chill of the early morning air. Then I just write. No chatter, just me and my pen and notebook, and the soft sounds of the world waking up.

It is a practice I love, but that I too often let go of for the sake of a few extra minutes in bed before rushing off to class or work. But when I take the time, in truth I feel so much more rested than if I hit the snooze button an extra time. When the chatter stops, we not only see the world and ourselves in new ways, I think we also find God. It is as if God is in that air, that light, speaking in these deep but quiet ways, and when the chatter stops, I finally hear him breathing.

day 22 - injustice.

I recently read this horrifying story about a 14 year old girl in Bangledesh who was violently raped. After her rape she was beaten as punishment for her "adultery." The violence of her rape and beating was so severe that her fragile body was bleeding internally. That bleeding led to her death. As I read it, I felt such rage and heart break that it is difficult to even put into words.

For the most part, this Lenten blog has been made up of my reflections on where I find beauty and where I see God in my daily living. But today, I am haunted by the story of this young girl. I cannot get her picture out of my head. It seems like a further injustice to write small words about art or nature or poetry, when her life was ended so tragically and abruptly. In the end, there was no grace or beauty offered to her.

I share her story because it is one that needs to be told. If part of the Lenten journey is to be called back toward the way of Jesus, then this is also the time to notice how broken our world still is. A time to ask ourselves if we are reaching out with the hands of Christ. A harsh desert journey, when we must open our eyes and look at a tragedy like this one, and ask ourselves the hard questions: how we will work as people of faith to keep this from happening again and again to defenseless people all over the world? How will we stand with those who have no one to shield or shelter them? How we will say over and over that we will not tolerate abuse and injustice? How will we work to heal the broken and protect the defenseless?

I hate that as I form and wrestle with these questions, I have no answers that are enough. I have no idea how to protect other girls in Bangladesh who may face the same fate. It makes me feel helpless and small. But I know I need to tell this story. I need to remind myself and others that this is happening, and that we cannot be silent. I know that this girl's life and death is a call to create safe places in our own communities where the vulnerable can find solace, support and shelter. I know I want to be a part of helping young girls not to be prey to sexual, emotional and physical violence. Her story is a reminder that we have failed and that we are not doing enough. I pray that somehow I will be a voice fighting for people like Hena. I hope against hope that I will have the courage to have a faith that doesn't just reflect about how God makes me feel, but a faith that I live -- a faith that actually saves and protects people. A faith that doesn't allow this to keep happening. A faith that doesn't rest until such violence stops. A faith that will not be silenced.

day 21 - no words.

One of my new favorite things is Story People art. I love how playful they are while still being so full of feeling, depth and meaning. The combination of vibrant colors, whimsical figures and simple story is magical.

One of the art pieces says, "I read once that ancient Egyptians had fifty words for sand and Eskimos had a hundred words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but all that comes to mind is the way you move against me while you sleep and there are no words for that."

As someone who loves language and is constantly reading and writing, I am so often trying to pin things down in words, but when I read this it reminded me of how the people and things we love are beyond language. How it is the feel of a person's hand, the way they smell, their patterns of freckles, and all those tiny indescribable things that make them their particular self that we love. I am so thankful for love beyond words.