faith – Page 9 – Southwest Conference Blog

Praying for Our Enemies

If we are to love our enemies, as Jesus emphatically taught, we ought to keep them in our prayers. It’s the last thing many of us want to do these days.

Who is my enemy?

People who strive to be good don’t like to think we have enemies. Your enemy is someone who is working against you; someone who does not have your best interest at heart; perhaps someone who hurt you and shows no remorse. Part of being human is admitting that, yes, we are holding some grudges against certain people for how they treat us. Even if we don’t like the term “enemy,” we probably do have one or two! It’s easier to ignore those who we might label enemy than to hold them in the presence of God as we pray or meditate.

Do you pray for your enemies?

Have you done any deep spiritual work around loving and praying for enemies? If not, the first step might be to simply ask God to assist you in compassion for them. Jesus loved to pray, so if you are a Jesus follower, why not ask him to pray in you or teach you to pray for those who hurt or rebuke you?

I’m one of those who likes to pretend I have no enemies, therefore, I don’t need to pray for them! And then I look at the news and get so angry at politicians who try to take away affordable health care or I fume about men who sexually harass women. So, yes, I need to pray more for my enemies.

A Prayer Practice to Experiment With

When Donald Trump first became president, I struggled with how to love and pray for political leaders who I feel do not have my best interest at heart. I wrestled with how to create a prayer practice that holds our political leaders — even those I would vote against or work to unseat (maybe especially those) — in the light of God’s presence. At the time I was reading a classic book on Christian healing, “The Healing Light” by Agnes Sanford and she suggested that when we feel overwhelmed by evil or tragedy in the world, pick one person or one situation and pray for that rather than trying to pray for everything that’s going on.

And so I did. I chose one powerful national political leader that I find distasteful (a member of the House of Representatives) and began to pray for him. I chose one who speaks frequently of his Christian faith so I thought maybe, hopefully, he will be open to the transformation that we all need to lower the temperature on this nation’s polarization.

I’ve seen no great transformation in him since I began this prayer, but I do see a change in me. I now see this politician as a person — a troubled person — and one that is in a difficult position. Like my Buddhist friends, I pray “May he be happy, healthy and at peace.”

Another Practice to Try

When you want to believe “a change is gonna come” but are having trouble visualizing it on a national or global level, try asking the Divine — and trusting the Divine — to bring “all good things and all good people to work together” for the good of all. Process theology teaches us that God is constantly weaving our gifts and passions together for God’s purposes, and the more we open ourselves to what God is calling us to do or be, the more we become a part of the process of change.

It can be overwhelming to look around at enemies and consider what they are saying and doing. Finding ways to pray for them may feel futile at first, but it’s transformative work. It’s a way of maintaining hope in the face of chaos.

How do you pray for your enemies?

Faithful Decision Making – Rising to the Challenge of the Times

by Karen Richter

When Scott and I were first married, we had a friend named Glenn who worked with Scott at Barnett Bank in Florida. Glenn told us one evening about watching a teller at the bank flipping through a large stack of bills… She touched each bill for a fraction of a second and maybe once in the stack she would pull a bill out and put it to the side. These were the bills that she suspected were counterfeit. Actually more than suspecting, she just KNEW – knew from the slight variations of the texture of the paper and ink under the edge of her thumb.

What does that story have to do with discernment? Discernment is not like that. We very seldom ‘just know.’ Over a person’s lifetime, they make millions of decisions of all shapes and sizes. Over a person’s lifetime, maybe for one of those decisions, they “just know.”

The traditional practice of discernment – faithful decision making – as spiritual discipline owes much to the Catholic Ignatian tradition and to Quaker practices. There’s a history there and much ancient wisdom… but that’s not today’s blog.

Discernment is a practice suited well to the times in which we live. So let’s take a minute to talk about how we might understand these times. So many of us have a gut feeling that there’s something special different unique going on in our churches and institutions. Is it just our imagination or are things truly changing more quickly and more profoundly than in times past? Church historian Phyllis Tickle writes about this idea: that every 500 years or so, the church has a “great rummage sale” in which ideas and notions of the role of the church get all shifty (The Great Emergence, Baker Books 2012). The Protestant Reformation was the most recent of these great transitions (Luther’s theses were posted on Halloween in 1517 – early Renaissance social media LOL). The Reformation was a time in which the authority of the church shifted in a profound way – from the Pope and the hierarchy of the church to the scriptures.

1517… hmmm. Well… TICK TOCK Y’ALL. We’re due for another great rummage sale, and it’s happening all around us. Tickle’s thesis is that the transition in which we’re living now is another change in our source of authority: from the Bible to the Spirit.

Assuming that she’s right*, it behooves us to learn the best ways to hear the voice of Spirit. And that’s what discernment is all about. Spiritual direction is a great setting in which to dive into personal and vocational discernment. I think of direction as a container in which discernment can unfold.

In that container (or in whatever setting we are discerning), there’s an atmosphere of trust.

We trust the deep desires of our heart. When we ask discernment questions, we trust that our hearts are already leaning the right way. We trust that God somehow has placed those desires in our hearts.
We trust the goodness of Life at a basic level. In this way, we are able to hold our decision lightly… to remain open and receptive to the Spirit’s movement, letting go of our own agenda even if just for a time.
We trust our imagination and intuition. We allow our emotions and physical sensations to inform our decision making. My spiritual direction mentor and supervisor Rev Teresa Blythe has this go-to question: ‘where do you feel this decision in your body?’ It took me a while sitting with this question to grasp what it means.
Finally, we trust our community. We lean on one another’s wisdom.

Discernment is entwined with the Cs of our faith journey– commandment, commission, and commitment – and interacts with those concepts around the question of HOW. Discernment is all about the HOW.

How do we respond to the commandment of love? What does our call to love look like on the ground, in real life?
How do we live into the task before us – our commission to embrace this life and embody grace and peace? What part of this work is ours to do? What tasks have my name on them?
How do we sustain the commitment that’s required to build the house of Wisdom?

These are the questions of discernment continually lying before us: as a faithful community, as individuals, as a culture, as a species. May we make decisions that are life-giving. Amen.

*☺ I’m not at all qualified to argue with Phyllis Tickle! Her ideas are given the briefest summary/mangle here. The Great Emergence is a fab overview of church history for lay persons.

Please, Progressive Christian Blogosphere, Stop Telling People to Leave Their Church

by Karen Richter

Recently, I’ve heard increasing calls to justice-minded people of faith that sound like this: “If you don’t hear about (insert issue here) at church this Sunday, you should leave.”

Please stop.

Now I often agree with these folks on the issue at hand… immigration, racial justice, women’s equality, education. My problem is with leaving church as a protest or as part of the solution to the issue, and here’s why:

I’m loathe to tell anyone to leave their church as if I know best.

People stay in or leave relationships, including relationships with faith communities, for a wide variety of reasons. Do you know anyone who attends a church that doesn’t fully fit with their theology? I’ve been that person in a church before – always in tension between my friendships and my ideals and wondering when to speak up and when to just pray.

Plus there’s this uncomfortable truth. Church attendance continues to shrink. Let’s not be so quick to encourage people to leave.

Churches have a lot going on Sunday mornings and a lot of people to care for.

There was a season of grief a couple of years ago at Shadow Rock. We lost three beloved people from our congregation over about a month. During those few weeks, we didn’t have a lot of energy for the issues that we care about most. We wept; we held our friends close; we baked cookies for memorial services. The world with its beauties and horrors continued to spin, but we paused to grieve. Some times require an inward focus, a time of rest and healing, and self-care, even for our most activist, justice warrior congregations. Hear the call of the Spirit to be gentle with one another and hold one another in love.

Pastors/ministers/preacher creatures are not the only voices of faith in our churches.

You’re liable to get an earful from me on this point, friends! If your pastor is not speaking from the pulpit concerning an issue you’re passionate about, speak up! One of the glories of the United Church of Christ is our insistence that every level of the church is empowered to speak to every level of the church. Maybe we could say that we take very seriously (radically, even) the idea of the Priesthood of all Believers. If your church is silent on something that matters, maybe God is calling you to be a faithful voice in that place. Maybe your church leadership needs your encouragement. Maybe you need to get brave during Coffee Hour or adult education. Maybe what’s missing is YOU.

Perhaps (this is advanced citizenship in God’s realm!), we acknowledge to our friends and our pastors that sometimes we want to leave. We are genuine and honest about the push-pull of going and staying. It’s awkward! Yet painful conversation by painful conversation, we reveal to each other what we’re striving for and what keeps us awake in the wee hours.

Finally, religious consumerism is killing us slowly.

I tread carefully here. Of course I want people to love their churches. Of course I want people of faith to feel supported in faith communities. Of course I want churches to be strong forces of justice, peace, and grace – salt and light – all over the world.

BUT people aren’t perfect. Churches aren’t perfect. So when our communities disappoint us, when our leaders turn out to be clay-footed, when our church friends make bad or even terrible choices… we can go and try to find a better church or we can stay and try to make our church better. Both are valid. But when church people move on because of conflict or discomfort or fear, our communities suffer and our capacity to be the body of Christ in these troubling times suffers as well.

Please stay.

It’s Tough to be A Kid in This World

by Ryan Gear

I always want to be careful to investigate emotional stories before I comment. As we now know all too well, fake news is easy to produce and propagate through social media and cable news, and unsurprisingly, it turns out that we can’t believe everything we see on TV and the Internet. I don’t want to spread misinformation, so I want to be cautious about the stories I comment on.

Immigration has always been a controversial issue in the United States, and the emotional energy around immigration has now peaked again. Personally, I believe in smart immigration laws that protect our border and also offer opportunity to those who, like my Scots-Irish ancestors, wanted to build a better life in America. I believe that sensible laws can accomplish both. I don’t believe anyone, conservative or liberal, believes that our current situation is sensible, and as is often the case, it appears that children are the ones who are suffering the most.

When I saw the recent stories about asylum seeking children in the United States being separated from their parents at the border and kept in federal custody, I wanted to believe that it was sensationalism. The most dramatic story so far was told by a mother detained in Texas who claimed that her baby was taken from her while she was breastfeeding. Once these stories were picked up by multiple reputable news agencies, however, I decided to email my senators and urge them to act. If there is even a chance this has been happening during any presidential administration, whether Republican or Democrat, people of conscience simply cannot stand for this treatment of human beings.

On the June 14 edition of CBN news, Franklin Graham, a staunch evangelical supporter of the current president, called the policy “disgraceful” and deemed it a result of politicians kicking the can down the road for decades. No one with any moral compass can pretend that treatment of families is acceptable. The psychological trauma of such an event could affect these children for decades.

Even a cautious treatment of the situation reveals how morally warped it is. The left-leaning Washington Post wrote conservatively about the scene described by Senator Jeff Merkley that he saw that migrant children being kept in fenced-in spaces in McAllen, Texas. The article anemically argued over the semantics of whether or not the wire barriers surrounding the children could be called cages. Those urging compassion toward these families cite that the families are fleeing gang violence in Central America and should be welcomed as asylum seekers, not as prisoners.

The Toledo Blade reported on the recent ICE (Immigrant and Customs Enforcement) raid in Ohio in which 114 immigrants were detained, leaving 60 young children without at least one parent. Catholic Bishop Daniel E. Thomas said local parishes are working to help families affected by what he called ‘this extreme action.’

The most common defense I’ve heard from the roughly 30% of Americans who support this practice is that the parents broke the law. Asylum seekers are not breaking any laws. Even if they were, locking children in metal enclosures with no adult family members to care for them is not justifiable for any reason. This is not foster care. It is taking children away from their guardians and locking the children up. The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Colleen Kraft flatly stated, “It is a form of child abuse.” Again, I believe that immigration should be governed by laws, but is separating screaming children from their crying parents and placenta them in cells the way a moral society should conduct itself?

Immigration is a complex issue, but these children are not the only ones who are suffering. In the United States, 21% of all children live below the poverty level. Depending on the source, between 400 million and 600 million children live in extreme poverty worldwide, lacking basic necessities for a healthy life. Approximately 150 million children in the world are victims of forced child labor. Roughly 25% of adults report being abused as children. The Christian relief organization Compassion International reported that, “Globally in 2014, 1 billion children aged 2–17 years experienced physical, sexual, emotional or multiple types of violence.”

When I am faced with the plight of children in our world, I am personally convinced that more forward-thinking Christians like myself need to revisit the doctrine of sin. A realistic view of evil would open our eyes to the reality of our world and its causes and solutions.

An honest view of sin would also provide further moral grounding and righteous fuel for justice work. Some of my progressive friends are moved by the injustice in our world but at the same time would rather believe that humans are basically good. I agree that we are created to be good, but I don’t ignore the fall and more importantly the daily reality of our world that Genesis chapter 3 attempts to explain.

As much as I would like to agree with them, I simply see too much suffering caused by human beings to believe such a claim. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his sermon “Man’s Sin and God’s Grace,” “There is something wrong with human nature, something basically and fundamentally wrong. A recognition of this fact stands as one of the basic assumptions of our Christian faith.”

Yes, many heart-warming good deeds go unreported by the nightly news, but when compared to the evil committed against the vulnerable of our world, they seem like a band-aid on a hemorrhaging wound. Helping an old lady cross the street is good and needed, but it does not address the hideousness of children being taken from their parents and kept in cages while they scream for their mommies and daddies.

Gandhi’s famous quote: “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members” is an indictment on the whole world. As illustrated by children being kept in cells near our southern border, an honest look at our world reveals that it is fundamentally unjust and evil, and every human being participating in this world bears responsibility.

Some of us deny that we have any role to play, while some of us feel excused by our own indifference. As the great rock band Rush point out in their song “Freewill, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” Living insulated lives in suburban America does not exempt us from seeing what is really happening to children on this planet.

Decrying the injustice he saw within his culture, the prophet Jeremiah proclaimed in Jeremiah 17:9-10:

The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

“I the Lord search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.”

In a separatist religious culture that believed its food choices religiously defiled them, Jesus taught his disciples in Mark 7:21-23:

“’For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.’”

My sweet little two-year old son loves the Disney movie Moana and watches it over and over, so I’ve probably seen snippets of it at least 75 times. As Moana’s grandmother tells the children in the opening scene, the moment the demigod Maui stole the heart of the fiti, darkness began spreading throughout the world. This is a picture of how the evil within the human heart works its way throughout society, discoloring all human relationships- self-serving politics, economic inequality, racism, war, harassment and rape, child abuse, exploitation, and on and on.

Those of us who are Christians must ask ourselves, “What does Jesus think about the most vulnerable of our society being mistreated?”

Speaking specifically about evil committed against children, in Matthew 18:1:7, we have probably the most hard-hitting words spoken by Jesus in the Gospels:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!”

Tying a rock around someone’s neck and throwing him into the ocean sounds like a mob hit, and for those who mistreat children, Jesus says this would be preferable to facing God’s wrath in the age to come. He makes it crystal clear that God will deal severely with those who harm the most vulnerable in society. With the pain the children of this world are forced to endure, there are an awful lot of people who would be better off looking for millstones.

To “become like little children,” in Jesus’ words, probably means to humble ourselves and embrace learning and news ways of seeing the world, namely God’s way. As a dad, I am painfully aware that children are like little sponges. Their developing brains absorb every word and action they see in their parents, whether we want them to or not. Like a little child, we can choose to absorb God’s concern scriptural concern for justice and righteousness.

Jesus’ instruction to become like little children was given in the context of His disciples wondering who would be greatest in the coming age of God’s kingdom. They wanted status, power, and position. In contrast, Jesus urges them to humble themselves, learn, understand, and serve others instead of jockeying for a superior position.

Jesus’ teaching here is the beginning of addressing the evil in our world. What is required is a change within the human heart, that, like restoring the heart of te fiti, works its way throughout society, shining light where there was darkness and giving life where there was decay. That humbleness and willingness to serve is the only way that the most vulnerable in our world can be relieved of the evil treatment they suffer now.

The more we all become like little children, the easier it will become to be a kid.

Attention is the key to creating…

by Jocelyn Emerson

In my last blog I spoke about how we are all source (with a small ’s’) and invited us to really truly own that — to step fully into our power as co-creators and manifestors. I realize that can be a challenging thing.

We live in a country right now where many of us feel powerless to change the destruction of our values and ethics. We are witnessing the tearing apart of families seeking asylum here in this country. We are watching racism rear its ugly head again, and witnessing it being supported by the White House.

We are witnessing and experiencing stronger weather — more tornados, stronger hurricanes, greater frequencies of flooding, volcanos erupting. Mother Nature is reminding us of what happens when we do not care for Her.

With all that is happening in the outer world, no wonder we feel disheartened and disempowered in our inner world.

But here’s the thing…

When we create change and transformation, it is not by opposing or changing what is already created. It is by creating what we want independently of what we want to change. What we want changed, we dis-create, release, let die.

There is an old Cherokee story:

An old grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice, “Let me tell you a story. I, too, at times have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do.

But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times.”

He continued, “It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.

But the other wolf, ah! He is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger, for his anger will change nothing.

Sometimes it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit.”

The boy looked intently into his Grandfather’s eyes and asked, “Which one wins, Grandfather?”

The Grandfather smiled and quietly said, “The one I feed.”
[source]

What we feed is what will grow and manifest. If we want to change something, we must first stop feeding what we want changed, and then create the new changed thing to feed and feed that. If we feed justice, compassion, love, beauty and harmony, the opposing forces will atrophy and die because there is no energy flowing into them. We have done nothing other than direct our attention and creating power to what we want to create!

In creating attention is key. It is the food that feeds what we create. Attention includes our focus, our intention, the work we do, our negative or positive thoughts, any self-conversations we have, our fears, and more. Attention can be positive or negative.

And this is why it is so important that we be conscious of our power to create! This is why it is so important that we be conscious and aware of our thought patterns.

If we are putting too much negativity toward what we want to create, it will create itself with that energy — and not in the way we desire it to. Then we will place the blame out there, or use it as proof that our doubt (the negativity we directed at our creation) was correct. We are stuck in a cycle where we become frustrated creators, and end up feeling powerless to bring what we want into our lives.

If we are aware and conscious and work to feed our creation with positive energy: love, harmony, hope, desire, compassion; it will create itself in a beautiful way. We will be amazed at what happens. Confidence will come back into our being. We will wake up one morning realizing that we are fully standing in our own Power, our own Light.

In both creating experiences, it was our attention that did the creating. The Universe listened and acted to support where our focus was.

This is also why I co-create with Spirit. Spirit helps to awaken me, to beckon me to recognize my fears, doubts, negative thought forms and patterns. Spirit invites me to look at them, release them, heal what needs to be healed. All along, Spirit holds the positive outlook I need until I am able to step fully into it. When I am ready, Spirit boosts my positivity and amazing things are created.

Co-creation is an invitation to heal and grow as we create. Co-creation is an invitation to follow the guidance of the One, the Sacred in all that we do. Co-creation is an invitation to learn to master the art of feeding the good wolf.

Which wolf are you feeding today? Which wolf do you want to be feeding?

Quelling the Dumpster Fire

by Abigail Conley

I may have confessed my mildly embarrassing love of Buzzfeed before. They do some decent journalism, but I’m mostly there for the shopping lists and pictures of cute animals. Every once in a while, someone creates a list of pure things, or good things, or cute things as an antidote to whatever current dumpster fire is happening. I totally confess that I’m in dumpster fire mode right now. I’m preaching on the holiness of lament on Sunday. Like most of us, I don’t quite know what to do with everything. My congregation doesn’t have the bandwidth for addressing everything that is going on right now. It’s all so much.

So what would make the dumpster fire feel less threatening?

What if we talked about all the good things? What if we named the equivalent of pictures of animals to soothe your soul but it was as ordinary as any given Sunday?

Here’s some of my list, some of the things that make me smile, convince me the Church is actually amazing, and make me forget the dumpster fire for a little bit.

There’s this little girl who is exactly where she should be in faith development and so she’s concrete in everything. She’s doesn’t want to be a vampire or a cannibal, so she’s very weirded out by communion. As if that weren’t enough of the amazingness of this little kid, she talked to me about it. The next Sunday, I gave her a children’s collection of midrash, stories about stories in the Bible. She was curled up reading within seconds. I got a thank you note from her a week later, which is stuffed into my “Warm Fuzzies” folder to take out on the bad days.
People set up automatic bill pay for church giving. It’s a totally mundane thing that is deeply meaningful. It’s a sign of commitment to the church that is deeper than when it feels good. Also, I like being able to cash my paycheck, for a purely selfish reason. This all works because people choose to be faithful in so many ways.
AA. I wish AA were based in science. It’s not. It’s from the 1930s and abstinence is the only way according to the group. But you know what, it works for a lot of people. We have nine AA meetings a week at church and those guys are awesome. All of the leaders in our groups happen to be men. They will do the odd jobs the church needs help with, which is nice. More than that, they are among the shockingly faithful. They understand community and the importance of showing up. In some cases, they show up six days a week at 6:45 in the morning. Whoever is making coffee shows up earlier. It’s pretty amazing to watch and be invited into.
A young adult in our congregation is currently in a long-term residential addiction treatment program. We weren’t sure if we’d see him for the two years he’s in the program. He showed up to worship last Sunday along with fourteen other guys from his program. We started late because of all the hugging.
Someone buys the communion bread every single week.
The deacons tilt the Christ candle for the little kids to light. It started because, well, the kids were too short but we wanted to invite them to participate. What is hilarious is that it’s then how lighting the candle works in kids’ minds. As they grow, many of them don’t realize for a while they can reach the candle on their own. They stand, patiently waiting for the deacon to tilt the candle so they can light it.
People terrified of church still find their way to us. It’s not usually on Sunday morning. It’s the AA meeting or the gun violence town hall or the education forum. They make not funny jokes about the roof collapsing because they entered the building. They look nervous. And it’s all just fine. Because I am certain that God loves them, too.

Why don’t you take a few minutes and make a list of your own.

#FamiliesBelongTogether

by Jocelyn Emerson

Yesterday was a day of action to state that in this country #FamiliesBelongTogether.

It is terribly sad, disgraceful and angering that I currently live in a country where the powers that be feel it appropriate to separate children from their parents at the border. It is even more disheartening and angering when a politician misquotes the Bible, as if sacred scripture would support such injustice!

I am proud to be pastoring a progressive congregation where members participated in this day of action. I have great respect for Martha and Ray who picked up one of our church signs and went to the intersection that leads to Homeland Security ICE field office here in Albuquerque, and stood in protest. Who then moved themselves and stood outside the US Citizenship and Immigration Service office continuing their vigil and peaceful protest. Two voices — two everyday people — two people of faith who took their faith seriously, risking as Jesus risked to call for justice!

Then last night, as I was winding down my day with Stephen Colbert’s Late Show, Colbert took a moment to speak out against this injustice as well. He got right down to it, shining a light on this disgraceful policy of our government. He asked all citizens to stand against these atrocities. He spoke about the greatest gift you could give your father this Father’s Day is to call your Senators and Representatives and ask for a discontinuation of this unjust policy. #FamiliesBelongTogether

As a person of faith, as a spiritual leader, I feel that I must speak out against injustice. Jesus requires it of us if we are to seriously follow in his footsteps.

In the gospel of Mark, Jesus speaks to the disciples about what it means to the greatest, saying, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” He continues later in that same chapter, “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea…”

Jesus is about protecting our children. He is about making sure that our children, all children, are treated with Love, Respect, Mercy, Compassion. He is about making sure that children are safe, loved and protected.

He is not about tearing families apart just to prove a point, to deter people from seeking sanctuary. He is about welcoming fully those who seek sanctuary.

I believe that Martha and Ray were being Christ — doing as Jesus would do — as they stood in peaceful silent protest before ICE. I heard the voice of Christ coming forth as Colbert asked us all to stand up against injustice. I see Christ’s Light grow each time I witness someone standing in Love and Compassion against injustice, violence, hatred.

I will join my Christ Light — shining the Light of healing and transformation in this darkness. I will call on those in power to change their ways. I will continue to hold up those who risk their bodies and voices to speak out again injustice.

I will seek to be Christ in this world.

I invite you to join me….
because #familiesbelongtogether

This is Me

by Tony Minear

“This is ME.” Powerful words. To be able to proclaim them aloud in the presence of another takes courage and strength. For before I can make this proclamation, I have to find the audacity to utter these three words to myself.

“This is ME.” Strengths and faults, “This is ME.” While I may not yet be able to fully embrace all facets of who I am, I say to myself and others, “This is ME.” While there may be areas of my life I want to grow in or change, today, I proclaim, “This is Me.”

Throughout my life, a factor so real to me that it became human like consistently kept me from claiming these words. Meet Expectations. Initially, Expectations was a stranger to me. As an infant I had no awareness of its presence. Eventually, I was introduced to Expectations by adults and peers. Its objective was clear, to shape me into the likeness of the majority of people around me. The same people Expectations had already worked its magic upon. Expectations’ creed was “This is us” not “This is me.” I share with you an example of how this played once played out in my life.

New Scene

I had been in my new church for only a few weeks when a church member, who had been part of the team that hired me, confronted me.

“Tony, I think we hired the wrong person,” she said.

“Don’t freak out. Remain calm.” I told myself. “Look confidant.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You talk about Jesus way too much in your sermons and you hold the Bible far too long. Once you read from it, just set it down.”

This event was not a major issue. Initially, none of them were. They were, however, forecasting the weather over the horizon. Sure enough, the big storm blew in and left destruction in its path while carrying me off with it. For four years I used every trick up my sleeve to make “ME” work at that church. Unsuccessful. With time and distance, along with help from others unloading the crap of self-doubt I had piled upon myself, I finally realized that woman was right. They hired the wrong person. They hadn’t hired “ME.” They hired the Tony who they thought they could mold to fit their expectations stemming from a long tenured previous minister. Some of these expectations they probably weren’t even aware of. However, the more I became aware of them, I found courage and strength to start living out the words, “I am brave, I am bruised. I am who I’m meant to be, this is ME.” I didn’t do this on my own. One church member in particular, a psychiatrist, believed in ME. He encouraged me to remain true and steady to my convictions and values in a loving yet powerful way.

This experience helped me realize the further out you are from the accepted norm, the greater the effort exerted by others to bring you into conformity. To bring this about a variety of tactics are employed. At first, they are subtle, pleading and cajoling. Nonetheless, if the appropriate results don’t come about, they hand you an all-expenses paid ticket to Guilt. If you return from the trip looking and acting the same, assorted expressions of disappointment and anger await you at your front door. Eventually, out of sheer hopelessness and despair, they roll out the cannons and start firing cannon balls with the word “Rejection” engraved on each one.

Benj Pasek, one of the writers of the hit, “This is Me,” from the movie The Greatest Showman, at one point experienced some, perhaps even all of these tactics. “For myself, I was a closeted gay man who as a teenager felt like the world was inundating me with messages that you’re not good enough or you’re unlovable.” Therefore, when Director Michael Gracey started looking for “an anthemic song for the people who had lived in the shadows their entire lives and had stepped in the light, declaring they would be seen and love themselves as they are,” Pasek found that wounded place within and begin to compose a song that would resonate with many of us.

New Scene

The Bearded Woman, from the movie The Greatest Showman, sings “This is Me” in the midst of the nobles while surrounded by the rest of Barnum’s misfits. Misfits, the ones you might drop a few bucks to go gaze at and find entertaining; not the ones you expect to see outside of their environment and especially not in yours. If you watch the scene closely, you might catch the cameo appearance by Jesus. Jesus’s makeup and wardrobe make him difficult to spot. Some have thought they saw him disguised as Tom Thumb or Fedor Jeftichew, the Dog-Faced Boy. That doesn’t surprise me. The historical Jesus would have fit in perfectly with Barnum’s motley crew and sang with gusto as he harmonized with the Bearded Woman, “This is ME.”

New Scene

Jesus reclining at a table with those who have been pushed to the margins of society. Jesus appears at ease, comfortable, a smile on his face interspersed with lively laughter. As he receives a slice of bread from the young man who has lost everything because he couldn’t keep up with his debt, Jesus says to him, “You know that you deserve love (Oh-oh-oh-oh) ’cause there’s nothing you’re not worthy of.” Between sips of wine, Jesus makes eye contact with the physically disabled woman seated across the table, “You’re marching on to the beat of your drum (marching on, marching, marching on). Don’t be scared to be seen. Make no apologies. Proclaim with pride, “This is ME.”

“This is ME.” Powerful words. May you and I find the resolve to claim them for ourselves. May we find the passion to support and empower others to do the same.

Watch “This is Me” with Keala Settle, 20th Century Fox

“This is Me” Lyrics

I am not a stranger to the dark
Hide away, they say
‘Cause we don’t want your broken parts
I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars
Run away, they say
No one’ll love you as you are

But I won’t let them break me down to dust
I know that there’s a place for us
For we are glorious

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out
I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I’m meant to be, this is me
Look out ’cause here I come
And I’m marching on to the beat I drum
I’m not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me

Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh, oh

Another round of bullets hits my skin
Well, fire away ’cause today, I won’t let the shame sink in
We are bursting through the barricades and
Reaching for the sun (we are warriors)
Yeah, that’s what we’ve become (yeah, that’s what we’ve become)

I won’t let them break me down to dust
I know that there’s a place for us
For we are glorious

Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh, oh
This is me

and I know that I deserve your love
(Oh-oh-oh-oh) ’cause there’s nothing I’m not worthy of
(Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh, oh)
When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out
This is brave, this is proof
This is who I’m meant to be, this is me

Look out ’cause here I come (look out ’cause here I come)
And I’m marching on to the beat I drum (marching on, marching, marching on)
I’m not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out
I’m gonna send a flood
Gonna drown them out
Oh
This is me

Embracing Sabbath

by Abigail Conley

I’m mulling over Sabbath. Maybe it’s the holiday weekend, when much of the country settles in for an extra day off. They pack bags, go camping, grill in backyards and things like that. Some pastors take off this Sunday, too, but for many, a Monday holiday doesn’t mean a long weekend. I’m in the many.

And still, I’m thinking of Sabbath. Here’s my confession: a while back, I stopped intentionally reading the news. My morning routine had long been to slowly wake up, picking up my phone and browsing through headlines in my favorite news apps. I read Al Jazeera English for a broader range of international news. I appreciated the backstories reported in Vox. I gave up HuffPost as it got fluffier and fluffier. I loved the long form stories of The Atlantic. With equal interest, I’d browse The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Economist. The list was long and varied—a nerd wake-up, I suppose.

About this time last year, I stopped doing that. It was Trump, in case you’re wondering. Reading the news under a Trump presidency became toxic, so I stopped for my own sanity and well-being. I’m aware that’s a place of privilege and feel plenty of guilt about that. Of course, I still get a reasonable amount of news. Some of it is sent to my inbox and other pops up in social media. I just stopped pursuing it and gave myself permission to check out of it all together.

I wish I could say it was a carefully thought out and pursued Sabbath. It wasn’t. It was a move of self-preservation. By the time I was making the decision, it was out of a place of pain, anger, and frustration of the damning variety. My soul could not bear it and remain intact.

I suppose I did declare a Sabbath of some sort, knowing that I would return to my previous habits of devouring information. Some day. Eventually. But not now. Not for a while longer.

Part of my job is offering premarital counseling to couples. Most take it seriously and appreciate the work we do together. In the end, much of what we talk about and work toward is intentionality in their relationship. Plan dates. Talk about problems. Set goals. Talk about problems. Say no to things you don’t want to do. Talk about problems. Time and time again, people seem unaware that we actually get to make choices about what we do and how our lives work out in the day to day.

As I consider my own News Sabbath, I am also aware of how easy it is to forget that we have choices. I see people juggling the schedules and the commitments, seeming to forget that they can say no to softball or soccer even if it is good for their kid in some ways. It doesn’t have to be added on top of scouting and school and swim lessons. I see people desperate for some rest. I see people who think they are unable to linger over dinner and conversation. I see all the people who forget that we can choose things that are life-giving and life-sustaining. “Do not worry,” says Jesus. “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink.” It has nothing to do with Sabbath, and yet has everything to do with Sabbath. That passage ends with, “Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Maybe it is worry more than anything else that drives us, since that is its own manifestation of control. Sabbath, after all, creates space and reminds us that we are not in control. Rest, weary one, for the world will go on just the same. It’s beautiful and haunting, depending on the person or the day. That’s generally the way the Gospel works.

So keep Sabbath this weekend, dear friends, for that is holy work, too.

This is a test. This is only a test.

by Karen Richter

Is life just one test after another?

Names below have been changed.

Now that my youngest child has hit adolescence, I seem to be harvesting the fruits of telling her since she started school that grades are not important to me. She’s testing my resolve… occasionally deciding that an assignment is not a priority. I’ve mostly stuck to my resolve, reminding both of us that there are more important things in life than 6^th grade language arts.

Recently, I confided my struggles to a casual friend, Jenna, and a most interesting conversation ensued. Our tone was lighthearted, but the conversation revealed different ways of relating to life.

KR: So, I’ve always told my children that learning is very important to me, but grades not so much. Unfortunately, it seems that Molly was listening all this time.

Jenna: I have not given Rianne that message… not at all. I tell her that she’s being graded and tested and judged all the time. At school, at home, out in public. You don’t do what you’re told – you’re being graded on that. You have a school assignment – you’re being graded on that. You have an interaction with someone you don’t know at a restaurant – you’re being graded on that. We’re always in every situation being tested.

Is Jenna right?

Of course she is. Human brains are sorting, difference-measuring, weighing-up machines. Making decisions about people and situations is what we do. It has kept our species alive for many millennia. And we also recognize that we’ve all had experiences when we are told in ways both direct and subtle that we don’t measure up. We’re just not ___ enough. Not good enough, not smart enough, not handsome enough, not thin enough, not athletic enough, not conforming enough. Our post-modern, hyper individualistic, youth- and wealth-worshiping society doesn’t exactly encourage us to accept ourselves and others just as we are. We do feel as if we are always being tested and being found deficient.

If I had more time in my conversation with Jenna (and if I had been thinking quickly on my feet), I might have said, “Yes, we feel the weight of others’ judgments. But we don’t have to take every opinion with equal weight. We can walk away from expectations and judgments. And more importantly, we need to share with our children the heart-deep conviction that their worth does not depend on the ‘grades’ given by others – EVEN IF those expectations and judgments come from someone they love and respect.”

Also recently, I’m diving deeper into Nonviolent Communication. At the heart of NVC is the idea that every human person has dignity and innate worth and personal agency. Our needs are both important and shared. When we interact in a way that honors human freedom, connections can be made that serve life.

This is an easy connection to my faith. We are called in ways large and small to freedom.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

What does this mean for Molly’s ‘History of Me’ social studies project due this next to last week of school? I don’t know, but I know that she will carry with her this idea that she is of tremendous value NO MATTER WHAT far longer than she will care about her 4^th quarter grading report. And for this assurance, no matter how frustrating I occasionally find it, I am grateful.

Finally, what’s an alternative to Jenna’s worldview? How can we relate to the way life is, if not as a gigantic classroom with high-stakes testing? Maybe life is a garden where those planted can simply grow. Maybe Mary was more right than we thought… when she thought Jesus was the gardener (John 20).

Spirit of Life, Spirit of Love: we confess that often we don’t know how to relate to our own freedom or the freedom of others. We confess that sometimes our interactions with our fellow creatures don’t serve this freedom. Help us – open our eyes. We so want to live in grace and abundance. Guard in our hearts this vision of open futures and faith-filled garden paths. We pray in faith and gratitude. Amen.