The party's over...?

Good Morning All!

“The party’s over…” Once again that phrase resonates in my mind and heart. I’m not sure when I first became acquainted with that phrase, but I think, just like with so many other things in life, I experienced what it meant long before I had the words to describe it. On most given summer afternoons, I’m playing with all my neighborhood friends. Laughter and loud voices fill the air; the sun is going down all too quickly and the trees and houses stand still as silhouettes against the pink & orange sky…and one by one, you and your friends, one by one, are called home by the even louder voice of a parent standing in the open screen door…

All the presents are wrapped. The house is alive with festive decorations and music. Anticipation and excitement abound. The oohs and ahs and “Thanks, how did you know this is exactly what I wanted?” fill the room. And the last Christmas gift has been opened. The holiday food has been prepared and devoured to everyone’s delight. You fall into bed exhausted but with a huge smile on your face…

You’ve been consumed with the planning and arranging. The invitations have been sent. And your wedding day has finally arrived. And before you know it, the ceremony ends with a kiss; the last guest has left the reception and you’re traveling to your honeymoon destination...

Your Senior year is quickly coming to a close…all those years of blood, sweat and tears—and those come from your parentsJ; Graduation is finally in sight. You’ve fulfilled all your requirements; survived the rehearsal, the tassels have been turned and your future awaits…

As we move from childhood to adulthood, our life experiences allow our feelings to be described in words and we learn all too quickly what it means when we say or hear “the party’s over.” That’s how I felt this past Sunday following worship. We threw the Church a birthday party…complete with red balloons; a few party hats, bubbles, wind chimes, birthday cupcakes, folks dressed in red clothing or wearing red accessories; inspiring music that told the story of that first Christian Pentecost Day so long ago…

The party’s over…and I think I am suffering from a bit of Pentecost Day withdrawal…My favorite church holiday has come and gone…the leftover helium balloons have fallen to the floor; the flame is extinguished; gone are the songs that speak of the wind and fire that blew the disciples and other early followers out into the city streets of Jerusalem that morning long ago…The sanctuary is silent…Gone is the festive atmosphere of the one day in church’s calendar that frees us up a bit to really celebrate God’s Holy Spirit breathing life into the early community of faith and into our community of faith…

The sharing of experiences of wind and fire, visions and dreams, has been silenced…or have they? Pentecost Day may have come and gone, but each day of our lives you and I are filled with the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. The Spirit that would allow us to continue to experience God in Jesus Christ, as if that first Day of Pentecost were just yesterday…

God continues to fulfill the ancient promise of sending us an Advocate, a Comforter, to guide us; to lead us; to call us into the unknown of our lives…and we are left praying, Come, Holy Spirit, Come…shine among the shadows…transform our hearts…console our grieving…encircle us with your peace…lead us in the dance of life…rekindle the flame of your desires within us…draw us to your goodness…empower us to move with you into your future…giving us courage and strength and hope for each new day…The party’s over…No, I think it’s only just begun… Blessings, Joanne

What to do?

Good Morning All,

Life is filled with all sorts of sayings; tried and true maxims, some biblically based while others come from one of the other major world religions or simply out of the mouths of children and older folks. They offer us, wisdom for the ages; advice and encouragement for the human condition. In my readings I came across one familiar to many, “When God shuts a door, God opens a window”—or appropriately paraphrased, “God never slams a door in your face without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies!” J (Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love) This one comes to mind when we are in the throes of important decision-making or perhaps you have been thrust into this arena through no fault of your own.

Some decisions we are asked to make are vital to our health and well-being, especially when facing a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness or condition, our own or that of one whom we love and cherish. Some decisions have to do with relationships that are in trouble, or at the least on rocky ground—with a spouse or a teenager or grown child; or maybe a best friend… What to do, what to do?

There also comes a time in life when decisions must be made concerning aging parents who can no longer care for themselves as they once did; living independent and productive lives… What to do, what to do?

Some folks know all too well what it means to face decisions concerning the workplace—having to let an employee go or to be that employee on the verge of being fired or let go because of “down-sizing” or bankruptcy or simply because you are no longer challenged or you have an opportunity for advancement somewhere else; or retirement is on the horizon… What to do, what to do?

It’s important to remember that God doesn’t really shut doors and open windows, causing us to face the important decisions of our lives. Decisions come our way, sometimes when we least expect it; sometimes because of prior poor decisions we have chosen. Yet God is there walking through it all with us; never leaving us fully to our own devices. God expects us to learn from our life experiences and to grow from them…sure most times we have to wrestle with the alligators of life, but God gives us the strength and courage and yes, wisdom to do so.

When facing vital decisions for our lives, we tend to put our prayer life into full throttle…going to God in prayer, looking for that window that is supposed to be opening sometime soon after the shutting of a door. We seek God’s guidance as the consummate embodiment of Wisdom to help us make the best decisions based on the information at hand.

God promises to be our partner through all of life, ready, willing and most of all able, to stand with us through thick and thin; sharing the desires of God’s own heart as God listens to our pain, our suffering, our dilemmas, our fears and uncertainties; as well as our desires. And the Good News is, God makes good on all these promises. Hopefully as you travel your faith journey and the bends in the road up ahead call forth your best decision-making skills, you will ultimately be at peace with God and thereby the outcome…

Hmmmm…I hear a box of Thin Mints calling…or is it Tagalongs? What to do, what to do? Blessings, Joanne

Desert Day

Good Morning All,

One of my colleagues spends a week each year at a Benedictine Sisters Monastery on retreat. While living among them she has learned so much about prayer and meditation. She also learned about some of the other disciplines of monastic life. Of course as you might suspect, the sisters live a very simple life, unencumbered by many worldly possessions. They each live in a very small room that consists of a few pieces of furniture, wall décor, books, clothing and other personal items.

Each year the resident sisters observe “Desert Day.” Now at first hearing I thought this was a day of fasting and prayer, but it is something altogether different. It’s a day when each sister removes everything from her room--every last thing and then has to make decisions about what gets put back! They also have the option of putting every bit of it back as before, but not without stopping to think and pray about what is needful or desired.

Most of us only dare to go through this kind of practice when we are moving to a new house or apartment! We make stabs at it when we do a little Spring or Fall cleaning or as we get ready for a yard sale. Think about it though…what would the discipline of an annual Desert Day in our own homes and offices look like? What about our church building? How many trips to the Dorcas Shop or Good Will would you make? Or would you just air it all out on the lawn and put it all back?

But I think I am fascinated more by the discipline of having to think and pray about each item before determining its fate…Now, there’s the intrigue…figuring out the item’s worth in my life… not necessarily its monetary value; more than likely I would spend way more time considering an item’s personal sentiment; the memory, the story it holds, the joy or the sadness it evokes…after all, so many things really are priceless…

I think we also have to ask some other questions as well: What can I live without? What can someone else use more than I? What items are really cluttering up my life? Then I begin to think about how many more possessions each of us has in comparison with a Benedictine sister…Whew! It’s laughable! But even in light of this gross comparison, when the dust all clears, the discipline is still the same, is it not?…thinking and praying about what is needful in our lives…

And then my mind begins to play with other ramifications of “Desert Day”… What if we applied this same ritual, not with our possessions, but with our thoughts and actions…clearing out the clutter; sorting through what stays or goes…all the while thinking and praying about what I think, say and do in order to be a more faithful person…Asking for God’s strength, courage, and yes, much forgiveness. Whew! Maybe that’s a discipline for another day…then again, I’m pretty good at multi-tasking…how ‘bout you? O, Lord, give me strength…Blessings, Joanne

Wiggle-room

Good Morning All,

I continue to reflect on yet another aspect of my silent retreat last week. The first few hours of silence for me is spent sifting through long streams of consciousness about whatever has been going on in my life up and until the time of arrival at the retreat setting. I sort through different scenarios and attempt to let it all go so that I am freed up to focus on the where I am and why I am here. That first afternoon the group gathers for “centering prayer.” Centering prayer is meant to call us together as we continue to sit in silence. The spiritual director guides us with scripture and/or other readings, giving us something to center our thoughts and prayers on. It always amazes me how whatever I have been praying or thinking about prior to this time of centering is somehow brought to the center of my inner being…kind of like when you put cooked pasta in a colander and as you rinse it and raise it up a bit, the water drains and the pasta is ready for the next step. Likewise, my thoughts are raised up and the water rinses away the extraneous. And I’m good to go...

During the centering prayer time, Steven, our leader asked us 2 questions: Where have I been closed in my life? In other words, where in my life am I closed minded? The second question, “Where have I become more open in my life and faith? While I had a variety of answers to both questions, I also discovered that one answer I had to the first question gave me insight into an answer for the second. There seemed to be a correlation of sorts. So scoot your chair up a bit, listen carefully and reverently…it’s time for the minister’s confession… :)

It should come as no surprise to many of you that while I respect the right for anyone to believe and express whatever they believe, and will do all in my power to defend that right, I am not without my own response to it…especially when it comes to those old, tired and worn labels of “liberal” and “conservative” as they pertain to religion. I do fine in the midst of a casual conversation or while in a counseling session with someone whose beliefs are at the “other” end of the spectrum from mine. But when I am on the receiving end of folks trying to strong-arm me into their way of believing or who attempt to make me feel inadequate or guilty because I do not share their beliefs, I quickly close down. I’m really working at NOT doing this and I hope I am at least a smidgen closer to being more open in the midst of this kind of struggle. (?)

That being said, my answer to the second question about where I have been open, has to do with a most recent leg of my faith journey: wrestling with the questions deep within me; creating an atmosphere where any and all questions are welcomed to be explored, no matter if they come off arrogant or even border on blasphemous…God can take any and all of these kinds of questions, so why can’t they be asked? The freedom to ask questions of faith, leads us to living with these questions of faith, knowing all too well that there are those questions which will never have any answers, at least in this life. I am more and more open and comfortable with NOT being so certain about all my answers to faith questions. I take comfort in the “not knowing.”

When I began to reflect on my answers to where I am closed and where I am open, I came closer to understanding why I respond to those who are so forceful and filled with such definite answers to questions of faith; or those who are so drippingly “sweet” and “sugary” about their faith—yes, these are judgmental terms. I wonder if they are afraid of “not knowing” or not having an answer for everything when it comes to God or Jesus, the Spirit or the Church. Do folks who are so quick to expound their beliefs; who don’t seem to leave much of anything to uncertainty—believe that uncertainty and a questioning mind and heart, are somehow sinful or unfaithful?

And then it hit me…it’s as if there is no wiggle-room in the house of faith! Having no wiggle-room is like working in untilled soil—big chunks of dry, compacted dirt—dirt packed so tightly that there is no room for light or water…the light can’t penetrate deep within and the water rushes over us like a flash flood…Striving not to be closed; being open in our faith is knowing and celebrating that there always needs to be wiggle-room to grow…hmmm…Perhaps I am now convicted by own words…Let’s wiggle…Blessings, Joanne

Sounds of silence…

Good Morning All!

Sounds of silence…Silent Night, Holy Night…Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent…silent partner…silent auction…silent prayer…deafening silence…silence is golden…breaking the silence…called out of silence into the cycle of sound and silence…I’ve just returned from participating in my Bethany Prayer Retreat; this time at Shalom House in the tiny community of Montpelier, VA, a 100 acre wooded area nestled at the end of a half-mile gravel road. The group has held my spot for 2 years, knowing I would return when I could…It’s such a wonderful experience to be among a small group of clergy friends from VA; MD; WVA and NC…to know that so much has happened in our lives since we were able to last meet and yet also knowing that the deep respect and love for God and for each other has only grown stronger and we simply picked up where we last left off...first sharing stories filled with hope and joy; pain and sorrow…the stuff of life, as we prepared to enter a world filled with almost 48 hours of silence. We’ve come a long way these last 7 years when we struggled on that very first retreat to make it through a mere 12 hours of silence.

The sounds of laughter, the intense listening and the expressions of sympathy and concern died down and we were called into silence in a time of worship. Dave prepared us for that evening’s rest with the words of Psalm 4:8, “I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O God, make me lie down in safety.” He also challenged us to greet the morning light, eager to enter God’s world in silence and to go “marveling.” Marveling is what Fred Craddock talks about doing with his family on Sunday afternoons as a child, riding through the countryside and “marveling” at the wonders of God all around them.

After the night’s rest I awakened eager to go marveling and marveling is exactly what I did. I engaged my different senses and became aware of so many little things going on in my world of silence…but soon discovering that silence simply meant not using spoken words and conversation…God’s world is hardly silent…the birds chirping and insects humming as they hovered over the pond...the crackling of the pine straw and dead leaves ‘neath my feet as I followed the path around the pond…fish jumpin’ and me without my fishing pole; dogs barking; cattle mooing; faint construction noises in the distance. But once I was able to clear my mind of the clutter of thoughts and my constant Covenant “to-do” list, I became in tune with my surroundings and began to be fully engaged in my oneness with God in God’s world.

Going marveling in the woods soon brought me to a small wooden bench. And while I wasn’t yet tired enough to rest, I accepted its gracious invitation to come and sit a spell. It wasn’t long before a female Downy woodpecker landed on a dead tree nearby. I became intrigued as I watched her find the exact spots to use her beak like a miniature jack-hammer, drilling out insects for her morning snack. I then became aware that her pecking wasn’t making the usual loud, rat-a-tat sounds…the spots where she stopped to peck seemed to be made of soft wood…and I marveled at how she too knew this was a day of silence. J And then, “what to my wondering eyes should appear?” I looked down on the ground in front of me and saw a most wonderful cluster of pink Lady Slippers…given their particular location, I surely would have missed seeing them had I continued walking past this area…

The art of marveling isn’t confined to silent retreats or Sunday afternoon rides. You can marvel at the wonders of God anytime and anywhere…Take even the briefest of moments to stop and maybe even sit a spell in the midst of all that tugs on your time and energy to allow God to surprise you…Let’s go marveling… Blessings, Joanne

Wednesday Musings

Good Morning All!

Not again! How can this happen again? And with many more victims than the last? When will such violence end? Student turned sociopath… contempt for victims… irrational… emotionless… senseless murders… We need stiffer gun control in this country… Why did it take so long to alert the campus and take further action between the first incident and the second one? Aren’t colleges and universities responsible for the student safety?

Who could have done such a dastardly deed? Was it a terrorist-induced attack? Oh… a man from South Korea … might have known it was someone foreign? One of them. Bet he wasn’t here legally… Why don’t we figure out how to keep our borders safe from illegal entrants… Wait a minute… Waco… Oklahoma City… Austin TX… Paducah, KY… ”they” were each one of “us”…

Wonder, fear and blame have filled our minds and hearts these past couple of days… We are filled with so many questions; some of which have no answers. We are filled with fear; fear that it will happen again; fear that comes from knowing such a horrific act cannot be predicted nor prevented. And we are ever so quick to seek and find blame. Someone, some institution, some law or lack of law, some mental illness gone undetected or untreated; lack of policies in place we can blame. If only this… if only that… this wouldn’t have happened…

Grief floods our souls and hangs over us like a pall, weighing so heavy upon us; surrounding us on all sides as we seek comfort for all who mourn… there is time and great amounts of time will be taken to investigate these shootings…

But for now, many of us need to take time to be allowed to grieve… to simply grieve… as we pray for the families, friends, students, VTech faculty and administration… the Hokie Nation as it is called… all who must hasten to collect their thoughts and somehow through their grief make funeral and memorial arrangements; go through the “stage play” of doing what must be done to honor and bury the dead… dead sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and cousins, students, professors, roommates, classmates and best friends… God rest their souls…

And yes, we must pray for Cho Seung and his family… here legally in this country since he was 8 years old… not raised by wolves, but by caring parents who sought a better life here for their family; seeking a fine education for their son… a son filled with rage… a son whose mind somehow became twisted enough for him to think he would help society rid itself of those he thought were living lives of debauchery and shame… God rest his soul as well…

So for today we are a human race in mourning for the loss of wonderful, productive young people with bright futures. We will never know the missed opportunities and accomplishments that will be buried with them… teachers, scientists, researchers, doctors, lawyers, government leaders—men and women who were just getting started on their dreams to make a difference and have an impact on the lives of others… May this senseless moment in time never make sense… may it serve to remind the living of the compassionate and caring work left for us to do… Blessings, Joanne

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?...I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness f the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord (Psalm 27: 1-2, 14)

Wednesday Musings

[repost from Wednesday, April 11, 2007]

Good Morning All,

It doesn’t take very long, does it, to fill up the radio and television airways or the pages of the daily newspaper with a lot of stuff that barely passes, if at all, the test of being newsworthy…How many of us have been sitting at the edge of our seats waiting to here the DNA results of the paternity test for Anna Nicole Smith’s infant daughter…only having sat at that very edge only weeks earlier as a judge in his questionable courtroom antics, decided on where Anna Nicole would be buried; only to wait a few more weeks for the autopsy results as to how many drugs actually caused her demise…I can only pray for the emotional well-being of the baby…

And just when some of this so-called sensationalism begins to subside, along comes Don Imus, ranked a mere 14th among the shock-jocks of AM radio, in influencing the public …going way too far not only in this day and age, but way too far period; as he verbally assaulted the Rutgers’ Lady Scarlet Knights basketball team…It goes far beyond Dr. Phil’s, “What WERE you thinking?” question. Because in my humble opinion, Imus wasn’t thinking in the first place.

As a person who strives to be a faithful Christian, I cannot even begin to find the words that describe the sorrow and pain that I felt when I heard all this. Yet my feelings are not what are important. I can’t even begin to come close to what the young women and their coaching staff must have felt and are still feeling. The players are young people; a team of young women, 18-21 years of age, that gave it their all in the championship game, only to be on the receiving end of mockery and bigotry. And due to the revenue Imus and others like him, produce for the media, his wrist has been slapped with a 2 week absence…wonder if it’s with or without pay? But I digress…

I am sad and so very tired of people of influence in our culture crossing the limits by saying or doing whatever they please because they can. They will do whatever will get a rise out of somebody with no regard for the personhood, the dignity, the worth, the respect of another human being. Who does Imus think he is?

And then again, who do you think you are? Who do I think I am? Where do any of us get off thinking that we have the right to make fun of, to ridicule, to mock, and to judge anyone else in this life, especially at the expense of the feelings of another human being? Isn’t there something in the bible about judgment? Hmmmm…better get busy opening up my bible and meditating about how Jesus tells us not to judge others…maybe I need to spend some time with the many passages about how I’m called to love others…hmmmm…time’s a-wastin’…

But I tell you what…if you can’t take time right now to flip through the scriptures, or you don’t have ready access to your bible, how about meditating on this:
“God loves everybody! Get over it!” ( Jerry Barlow). Blessings, Joanne