My prayer for the afflicted

My favorite Psalm for a long time has been Psalm 46. It's spoken to me throughout many difficult times in my life, and it always reminds me of the power words have to transform the state of my spirit. It starts like this:

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging. (NIV)

This week has been rough. I have deep-rooted fears about what Trump's presidency will mean for my friends of color, for women, for the poor, for LGBTQ folks, for immigrants, for refugees, for Muslims, the list goes on. There's already been a rise of hate crimes and harassment [see http://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2016/11/11/after-trumps-election-americans-react-with-tweets-and-donations/#a2424c6283cd, or http://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2016-11-10/after-donald-trumps-election-racist-outbursts-in-us, among many other articles and accounts]. On a much, much smaller scale, there have been Trump supporters who have been victims of violence and intimidation as well, which is troubling and should be condemned by all who claim to be committed to peace and justice.

Yet in the midst of this, Psalm 46 - and many, many strong, compassionate people in my life - are reminding me that the election results don't change at all the call for the church and all others who are committed to love their neighbor. If anything, the pursuit of love, justice, truth, and reconciliation matter more than other. 

So this is my prayer for those who are troubled during this time, and I hope these words bring truth, strength, resolve, perspective and maybe even hope to all who read them.

For those who sometimes labored under the misconception that "America" and "Church" were interchangeable words
I pray it wakes you up
That a wealthy, privileged, faithless man who regularly lies and cheats
Won the support of most of the self-identified Christians in America

For those of us who conveniently forget at times that America is an empire
Whose chief pursuits are power, wealth, and influence
I pray we are not too surprised
When America elects a man whose chief pursuits are power, wealth, and influence

For those who voted for that man
Claiming he was the lesser of two evils
I pray that they remember that it's now their job too
To call out evil when it's evil - especially when it's driven by the leader they chose

For those who fear a future under President Trump
Because of the vitriolic rhetoric that spewed from his mouth and threatened their personhood
May they find protection under God's wings
Manifested in the Church and those who love them

For those who are angry at the racism / sexism / homophobia and other nonsense that continues to hold on tight to this nation
May you look deep within 
And be comforted at the fact
That you were created beautifully and nothing can change that

For those who deeply desire change and justice and love for all people
May you remember that is the mission of the Church (and all who love their neighbor as themselves)
And that this can still be done
If we remember the power and calling that is deep within us

For those who hope for a better future
Not just for those who look like / act like / think like them
May we find the courage to never stop fighting for that future
May we remember that our anger at injustice is rooted in love for the oppressed (not rooted in hatred for the oppressors)

May we have the strength to fight the good fight
Remembering we are never alone
Remembering we are chosen by God 
To transform everything with our love.

Post-election thoughts of a progressive born in Trump country

This is my first post in over a year and a half - and that year and a half has been wild (sometimes in a good way, but also in really, really terrible ways). In that time, I moved from Chicago to Tucson in August 2015, my dad was diagnosed with a hyper-aggressive, f***ing horrible cancer in November of that year, I graduated from grad school in December, I got an amazing job this February, I watched my dad's life slowly fade away from March until August when he passed away, and now I'm watching America implode into divisive, angry, bitter factions of humanity.

To put it simply, things have been better.

I'm pretty exhausted at this point, frankly. I've happily (that may be the wrong word) been on a low level anti-depressant for the last 11 months, because life has been too much and I know the limits of what I can handle. I've been careful to try and take care of myself and keep life as balanced as I could in the midst of a tremendous amount of change and loss. And let me tell you, if anything is able to put life in perspective and make you thankful to just be standing (or sitting, or laying curled up in the fetal position) for another day, it's the experience of surviving the loss of one who you deeply loved.

So here I am. I haven't allowed myself much public vulnerability during this time because that's not something I'm usually that comfortable with. However, I think we're collectively at a point in this country where if we're not vulnerable and honest and willing to say what matters to us (and WHY it matters to us), then we're only going to misunderstand and misrepresent each other more and more until we no longer care for each other at all.

I'm going to be sharing this from my unique perspective - as a progressive evangelical Christian feminist (yes, you read that right - we exist! - although I feel increasingly uncomfortable self-identifying with evangelicals for reasons I may explain later) who is from a deeply conservative area of western New York that undoubtedly went for Trump in this week's election.

I love where I'm from. LOVE. IT. Chautauqua County is beautiful. I regularly daydream about the lake, the hills, the woods, the seasons, the colors, the small towns, the miles and miles of farmland and open fields, the charm (okay, sometimes annoyance) that comes from running into someone you know wherever you go. I love how tough and resilient and caring people from Chautauqua County can be. I love how insane they are for the Buffalo Bills and the Sabres.

During most of my summers in undergrad, I returned home to western NY to work at a summer camp I went to as a child, because I loved that place and the opportunity to love and care for kids growing up in that area. After I graduated, I took an internship at a church in Bemus Point so I could mentor and invest in the young women in its youth group. Then I accepted a yearlong Americorps position as a paralegal at a legal services office in Jamestown so I could help and advocate for people who needed legal assistance but didn't have the resources to afford it.

I did all of this knowing deep down that I wouldn't stay in western NY forever - the things I felt called to do with my life required education and training and experience I couldn't get there, and for many years, there simply hasn't been a healthy job market there. Besides, I was drawn to big cities where different people, ideas, and cultures meet - where innovation and energy seem to spring up around every corner. (Yes, this was an overly romanticized idea of what it's like to live in a big city, but I still love it.)

And there was one other thing that led me to leave. Western New York has been struggling a long time - not just economically, but with the hopelessness that comes with being located smack dab in the Rust Belt. From Gary, IN to Detroit, MI to Cleveland, OH to Erie, PA, to Buffalo, NY, to Jamestown, NY to Rochester, NY and beyond - these cities and the areas surrounding them have been devastated these last few decades by industries leaving for the South or for other countries altogether. Areas that used to be flush with well-paying jobs and opportunities have watched themselves fade away into a shell of what they used to be. Many people who were born there were forced to move away to find a future, many who stayed felt like they were left behind and forgotten by the government and industry leaders who seemed entirely disinterested in them. The Democratic Party - which used to be the working class party - became more and more identified with urban America, and western NY eventually became a bastion of the Republican party.

[Is this an oversimplification of things? Yes, but this blog post is covering a lot of territory, so we're gonna have to just call this sufficient for now.]

Along comes Trump. Brash-talking, shoot from the hip, politically incorrect Trump who regularly insults the 'political elites' - even within the Republican Party - and promises to reform a broken political system and listen to the 'real' Americans who've been screwed or forgotten or ignored by the federal government. He claims to be an outsider who's unbeholden to special interest groups or the wealthy folks who run America and who has the power and skill to shake things up.

This resounded deeply with folks in the Rust Belt - especially the white, Christian, conservative folks who've felt forgotten and powerless for years. They were willing to ignore and explain away the horrifically offensive, awful things he said about women, immigrants, Muslims, disabled folks, and the LGTBQ community because he promised to be the first presidential candidate in years to actually give a s#!& about rural America. 

And that right there is the problem. As a progressive Christian feminist, I can't (and won't, and shouldn't, and never will) ignore or explain away the rhetoric that came / comes out of Trump's mouth. It has terrible results - words like these embolden the insecure, angry, frustrated people who bully, harass, and intimidate all the groups of people that Trump has denigrated. In the end, as unenthusiastic as I was about 4-8 more years with another Clinton in office (mainly because she's a centrist establishment candidate that wouldn't champion many of the progressive policies I support), it was not difficult for me to vote for her when Trump was the alternative.

Why? I mean, it's clear that I understand the anger and frustration people from rural and conservative America - why couldn't I (and why can't I) be on board with a Trump presidency?

There are 2 reasons that I can't - the first, I've already explained 2 paragraphs above (his shameless and dangerous insults of minorities, women, immigrants, etc) - but the second is this: the man is an insider, an elite, and a highly privileged man who consistently puts his own self interest above everything else. He strategically conned millions of poor and working class whites - especially in rural America - into believing he will work for them and their conservative values in office. He will not do that if it doesn't align with his own self-interest. And oftentimes, it won't. He's in big business. He's rich. He's incredibly ego-centric. And he eventually screws nearly everyone he's partnered with (i.e. his first two wives, many business partners, hundreds of small business owners he never paid for work they did for him..)

So this is where I find myself today: fearful for what a Trump presidency means for my friends of color, for women, for Muslims, for the LGBTQ community, for the many hard-working, incredible immigrants who come to this country for the chance of a better life. And I find myself disheartened for my conservative friends and family members who voted from Trump, because I know that this is not a man who ultimately cares about strengthening their communities or listening to their concerns.

Here is my hope - that my friends and family who voted for Trump will do these things:

(1) Stand up for the oppressed groups that have been bullied by Trump's rhetoric. Many conservatives who voted for Trump are protesting that they aren't racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, or anti-Muslim - prove it. You and I both are aware of the things that came from Trump's mouth, so make sure that if he tries to enact laws or policies that would harm these people, do your part to stand up for and protect them.

(2) Understand that progressives (or anyone who voted for Clinton) are not going to magically forget everything that happened during this election cycle and suddenly get behind Trump as their president. The uncomfortable fact is that Clinton got more votes than Trump, which means that there are more people angry about the election results than are happy about them. This anger, frustration, and fear is legitimate - even if you don't understand it. Here's what you can do: listen to these angers, frustrations, and fears. Let them sink in. Learn from their experiences. When you are willing to do this instead of just telling them to 'move on', you will find that not only will your relationship grow deeper, you will eventually have the capacity to find some common ground - even if it takes awhile. Be willing to put in that time and effort, because it's the only way unity can ever be possible.

(3) Remember that unity involves compromise. That's right - the candidate you supported will be president AND Republicans hold a majority in Congress. Guess what? Compromise still matters. Nothing will change if our Republican government tries to shove a bunch of divisive, controversial things through Congress. Yes, I know you're immediately thinking "but that's exactly what Obamacare is!" News flash: the Affordable Care Act, as it's called, was a bipartisan law that passed in a Republican-majority House of Representatives. Look it up if you don't believe me. The strongest and best democracies don't give into the Tyranny of the Majority concept - where the party with the majority in Congress just does whatever the hell it wants. If your Representative or Senator or President it being a tyrannical SOB, it's your job as a citizen to call them out for it and/or vote them out.

Here is my hope for my progressive friends and family members:

(1) It's okay to be angry and hurt and scared and frustrated and feel the full depth of whatever it is you're feeling right now. It's okay to withdraw for a time into the places and spaces you feel safest and most secure - especially if you're part of a group that's been targeted by Trump and/or his supporters. Know that you're loved and not alone, and remember that more people did not vote for Trump than those who did. You are an essential and valuable part of your community, your place of worship, and your country. I promise to always care for and support you the best I can - not just with my vote, but with my actions and my words.

Eventually, when you're ready, I encourage you to engage with your conservative friends and family who voted for Trump. They need your voice and your perspective. And we need to understand that although some of Trump's supporters were driven to the polls by hatred, racism, and sexism (the KKK, for example), many others were driven there by fear and a feeling that they'd been forgotten and left behind by the government. We can all agree that feeling voiceless, misunderstood and powerless is a terrible thing. People of color, women, Muslims, LGBTQ folks, disabled people (and many other groups) have ALWAYS felt degrees of marginalization in the US. Rural America and the working class went from feeling largely welcomed and celebrated in this country in the past to now feeling like they don't matter. If you're part of a group that's historically been oppressed in this nation, you have the gift of empathy and the strength of survival in a hostile environment. You are the ones who can truly help make America great, because you are the ones who have survived and thrived against all odds and can teach us all how to be more loving, more inclusive, more hopeful, and more prepared for whatever the future holds. Please don't give up or give in to despair or fear - we need you now more than ever to show us the way.

grief and loss: what lent forced me to face

I’m having a hard time believing it’s already April 3rd. It’s even more impossible to wrap my mind around the fact it’s Good Friday today.

This season of Lent has been unbelievably, wretchedly, unexpectedly long. Why? Well, I’m in my final year of Seminary, so the weeks of the semester seem to cruelly expand with the senioritis that has set in. I’m interning in a church, so when you consider that we started planning for Lent in late January, it’s not surprising that Lent seems almost twice as long this year. It also doesn’t help to live in Chicago, where whenever you get a gentle hint of springlike weather and warmth during February and March, you get slapped in the face by winter winds and vengeful snow the very next day.

On top of all this, I was preparing in the back of my mind a sermon on Grief and Loss during most of Lent, which I preached on March 22nd. Some sermons I’ve prepared seem more like an academic exercise where I’m learning more about the text, tradition, and different interpretations I didn’t know about before. For better or worse, they form mostly in my head, and it takes practicing them a few times before I feel like my voice sounds authentic and natural.

Not this one. Not at all. Occasionally the sermon I’m working on completely flips the tables and works on me instead. My head’s still in it, but my heart and my gut are wrenched in so hard it’s painful to keep going. It’s more painful to stop though, so I go deeper and deeper into a text and topic I would rather avoid, quite frankly.

That’s what happened with this sermon and this season of Lent. It’s left me tired and worn out, but oddly enough, with a sense of gratitude that I went through it (and that Easter’s almost here). The remainder of this post will be long - full disclosure! - but it contains a (revised) script of the sermon I preached a few weeks ago. Near the end, I share a little about Centering Prayer, a spiritual practice that I recommended to my congregation as a way to faithfully begin processing their grief and loss.

If you think grief and loss doesn’t feel very relevant to you right now, I understand. So did I. When I started this sermon, I was anxious it may come off as out-of-touch or phony. On the other side of preparing it and preaching, all I can do is be grateful I was open enough to listen and learn from what my faith tradition has done to help me acknowledge and face griefs I need to mourn. Here it is, folks:

Today we will be focusing on Grief and Loss as part of our “Faithfulness in the Midst of Brokenness” series. We will be looking at what the Scriptures say about how God’s people maintain their faith when they have broken spirits and broken hearts. We will talk about the place of lament in the Scriptures and in our church, we will examine a few stories of faithful people in the Bible who grieved tremendous losses they endured, and we will reflect on how we can respond faithfully to God during our grief and sorrow.

What comes to mind when you hear the words “grief and loss”? The first thing I think of is mourning the death of a loved one. This is absolutely one of the biggest reasons we experience grief, but a book I recently read for school - All Our Griefs, by Kenneth Mitchell and Herbert Anderson - expanded my understanding of grief and loss. This book explains that grief is a lifelong human experience. It is not rare or infrequent; it occurs anytime we lose or weaken a connection with someone or something that we are attached to.

We can feel grief any time significant change happens in our lives because change always involves losing or weakening our connections with something or someone. For example, let’s say you move to a new apartment or house that you like better than anywhere you lived before. As excited as you are, there are things you’ll miss about your old home. There are memories of things that happened there, and neighbors and a community that are being left behind. There are people and things about this old home that you are losing, even if you’re moving to a “better” place. To put it more simply, we grieve throughout our whole lives because we love. We love people. We love communities. We love things - like our homes, our jobs, our possessions, our routines, the place we were born or grew up in, we even love ideas.

We cannot escape grief in our lives because humans are created to love.

Think of what Jesus said was the greatest commandment. In Matthew 22:36-40, a Pharisee asks Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

In that exchange, Jesus charges us to prioritize above all else:(1) love God, (2) love your neighbor as yourself, and I’d like to point out that the 2nd commandment - to love your neighbor as yourself - assumes that (3) you will not neglect loving yourself. Trying to love others without loving the person that God created you to be does not work well for long.

We are also called by God to love creation. Genesis 1 and 2 - which we focused on from the beginning of the year through the beginning of Lent - describes the beautiful world that God created, all the land, sea, sky, stars, plants, animals, and finally, humans, and God declares them all to be good, then commands both the man and woman to be stewards of creation.

And so, here we are today, the people of God stewarding what has been given to us during our time on earth, called to love God, love each other, love ourselves, and love the good creation we have been entrusted with. This call and capacity to love generously is the truest and most powerful way that we can live as images of God.

And yet, there is a dark side to this love, and that dark side is loss and the grief that accompanies it. You see, the people we love - including ourselves - and the things we love are not immortal. We are finite. We are broken. When Christ comes again, we believe that we will be raised up to live eternally with God in the new heavens and the new earth - but Christ has not yet come again.

Many of those who wrote the Bible were very honest about their experiences with grief. The Psalmists were especially open with their grief, writing beautiful but haunting laments about the grief they were struggling with. Psalm 31, which was read earlier, is just one example of a lament. Let me read the final few verses from our Scripture reading, just to remind us of its message and tone:

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away.

The psalmists were not the only ones in the Bible to write of their sorrows and grief. So many of the most faithful people in the Bible experience deep grief and loss in the stories throughout Scripture. Hebrews 11 was our other Scripture passage for today, and I’ll briefly list off some of the people listed as great examples of faith in this chapter:

• Abel - who was killed by his own brother.
• Noah - who lost literally everything except his family, the animals, and the ark when God destroyed the world with a flood.
• Abraham and Sarah - who lost their homeland and left their families when God called them, knowing nothing of the land God was calling them to.
• Isaac -  who sent his youngest son, Jacob, away so that Esau couldn’t harm him.
• Jacob - who worked for 7 years to marry Rachel, was tricked into marrying Leah, had to work another 7 years to marry Rachel, and was tricked into believing his beloved son Joseph was killed by a wild animal when he had actually been sold by his brothers into slavery.
• Moses - who answered God’s call to liberate his people and lead them into the Promised Land, only to have the disobedience of God’s people result in 40 years of wandering through the desert, and then Moses died before they arrived.
• Rahab - the woman in Jericho who protected the Israelite spies and gained their protection, so that when the Israelites came and attacked the city, she and her household would be safe, and indeed they were not harmed, but their hometown and every single person and animal in it were destroyed.
• David - whose firstborn son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar, and in response another of David’s sons, Absalom, killed Amnon, then later started a rebellion that almost toppled David’s kingdom...I’ll stop here.

We need to remember that the Bible is not just some cut-and-dry “rule book for life” telling us what we should and shouldn’t do. More importantly, the Bible contains the witnesses of the saints who have come before us, people who have much in common with us, for they too have loved deeply and grieved deeply. Being faithful to God does not mean we stifle emotions, avoid acknowledging our grief, or seek out simple answers to our hard questions about grief. The truth is, no matter how faithful we are or how faithful God is to us, grief is a lifelong condition because we cannot help but love people and love creation. When the people and things we love are taken from us, we will feel anger, sadness, numbness, and the many other emotions that come with grief, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. God also experiences grief, because God’s love is so deep and so wide that nothing can separate us from the love of God. When we, the beloved people of God, are in pain, God grieves with us.

So what do we do? If grief is our lifelong companion, how do we not just give into despair? How do we keep our faith in God even in the darkest times of grief, when we may even be blaming God for the losses we have endured?

I won’t pretend to have the answers to those questions, because they are questions we will have to wrestle with time and time again throughout life. I won’t just say “God is enough”, because honestly, there are times it will not feel like God is enough. There are many times in the Scriptures when God’s people cry out, asking God why they have been abandoned. Has God indeed forgotten God’s people? No, but when someone is in the midst of deep grief, they cannot just pull themselves out of despair and pretend everything’s okay. The Bible gives so much space for people to express their grief, and we as a Church must also make space for our people to express our grief.

Our churches - Immanuel and CEC - have had much to grieve over the past few years. Beloved members of our congregations have died or moved away. We have endured different kinds of change and stress. In our own personal lives, we have all suffered loss. We must ask ourselves during this time of Lent, have we really faced our grief, or have we pushed it aside to deal with another day? As one of my professors at Seminary says, if you don’t deal with your grief, your grief will deal with you.

By the grace of God, we do not have to face our grief alone. As the Body of Christ, we are called to do life together - all of life, not just the easy parts. One of the best ways we can minister to each other during times of grief is to be a listening presence for someone. Sitting and listening to someone who is grieving provides a physical reminder that God has not abandoned them. As God’s people, we are called and gifted to be the hands and feet of Christ. However, we must be careful not to do what Job’s friends did. They were present with Job after he endured tremendous losses, but instead of just listening and supporting Job, they also tried to “help” Job by offering their explanations for why he suffered such loss and grief. God later rebukes those friends, and then doesn’t even provide the answers for why Job suffered. We don’t always get the answers to our “why, God” questions, but we will always benefit from the gentle, listening presence of one of God’s people.

There are many other acts of kindness and service we can provide for brothers and sisters who are suffering from grief. We can offer to bring meals, check in with them on a regular basis, keep them in prayer, or send them an encouraging note, among any other ways we think of to show them how loved they are.

Yet if we are the ones suffering from grief, what can we do? Besides allowing ourselves to face our losses and seek support from our brothers and sisters in Christ, what do we do when it feels like our world has fallen apart? Years ago, I decided to adopt the spiritual practice of Centering Prayer during Lent. Right at the start of Lent, I suffered a big loss in my life. Throughout Lent, Centering Prayer forced me to face my loss and begin processing my grief in a healthy way.

Let me take a moment to explain Centering Prayer. There are a few variations of this spiritual practice, so I’ll describe the simple way that I learned it. Centering Prayer is a time set aside to (1) sit still, (2) center yourself on God, and (3) simply listen. By sitting still, I don’t just mean not moving. I mean you try and still your thoughts and your anxieties. You try to clear your mind entirely. This is difficult, this is frustrating, but with practice, it becomes easier. Even then, there will be off days when it’s harder to do, and that’s okay. Often, people choose to focus on their breathing as a way to still their mind. Some people choose a word that they repeat whenever thoughts are crowding their mind. I find it helpful that when a thought enters my mind, instead of getting angry at myself, I imagine it drifting away. The point of this spiritual discipline is that once our thoughts are cleared away, we are free to be centered on the presence of God, and we just sit and receive this time with God as a blessing. There’s nothing we need to accomplish, or achieve, or ask, or do. We just sit in God’s presence and let the Holy Spirit renew us.

I’ll be honest, practicing Centering Prayer forced me to face my grief and loss intensely. Once I paused my busy day and sat in the presence of God, I could no longer go on pretending “everything’s okay” and that I was over my grief. However, Centering Prayer also helped me become okay with the negative things I was feeling - anger, frustration, regret, disappointment - and it helped me on my process of becoming whole again.

To close, we’re going to sit in centering prayer for a minute or two. Let this time be set apart to God, be patient with yourself as you learn how to do Centering Prayer, and I’d encourage you to continue this practice, especially if you are in the midst of grief. God is faithful, God loves you, and God grieves with you.

Everyday earth shaker: Gabby

This week, over a thousand leaders in the Evangelical Covenant Church - pastors, lay leaders, missionaries, non-profit leaders, scholars, administrators, community organizers, and more - are together in Chicago for their annual Midwinter conference.

Some describe it as camp for pastors and leaders. Some say its like a family reunion (one with a massive extended family, full of strong personalities..). Whatever else it is, it's five days of workshops, worship, eating, drinking, meetings, interviews, and networking with a bunch of incredible leaders and ministers who care deeply about God, the Church, and their communities.

There are so many people at this conference who are everyday earth-shakers in their own right. People whose daily work and prayers are bringing hope, grace, and change to many different corners of the country and globe. People who have been trained and invested in by the church, by schools, by their families, by organizations. People who have grand plans, dreams, visions, and strategies to build ministries that connect people with God in so many ways.

That's all wonderful and inspiring, and I'm grateful to be part of that conference and learning from those incredible people, but today I'm going to write about an earth shaker named Gabby.

I've only spent ten, maybe fifteen minutes of my life with Gabby, and there's a good chance that's all I'll ever get. I met her on the L train, riding back from Midway airport to my apartment one snowy night in early December.

I had just spent the weekend in Boston, celebrating at the wedding of a good friend from high school. The wedding was unbelievably beautiful, and I loved getting to spend time with a few friends I hadn't seen in years. They are the kind of friends I can pick up with right where we left off (partly because we're not so great at staying in touch, partly because I'll be forever grateful they helped me survive the traumatic years of life as a teenager, and partly because I just admire and love the kind of people and friends they are).

It was a great weekend, but I was far past my energy and strength reserves as I traveled home from Midway. I was awake enough to dimly notice the magical glitter-snow that fell silently from the sky, but I just wanted to get home and crawl into bed. Finals week was kicking off the next morning with an 8'clock exam in Hebrew, and I wasn't sure I was ready for all that needed to by done over the next few days.

About fifteen minutes from my final L stop, a woman walked onto the train. She was short and stout, wrapped up in a lot of layers. Instead of sitting down, she stood up in the center of the aisle and introduced herself to everyone in the train's car.  She spoke a little too loud for me, interrupting my attempts to review my Hebrew flashcards. Her name was Gabby, she had downs syndrome, she was homeless, and she needed $17 more dollars so she could afford to stay in a cheap hotel that night, instead of having to sleep out in the cold.

If you know me well, you know I've cared about the homeless for most of my life. You know that when it comes to my faith, a huge part of living that out means caring for (and advocating for) those who don't have the resources to live in safety or security. You know that I'm interested in working in justice ministries or nonprofits that try to change communities so they are more just and find value in everyone - not just those whose wealth and/or privilege have elevated them to the higher social classes in this country.

You may or may not also know how vast the gap is between the rich and the poor today:

(see scholarly report below):
http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-working-for-few-political-capture-economic-inequality-200114-en.pdf

(OR see non-scholarly summary of those findings below):
http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/01/23/the-85-richest-people-in-the-world-have-as-much-wealth-as-the-3-5-billion-poorest/

Also, you may or may not know that many of Chicago's (and our nation's) homeless shelters and mental health facilities have been closed thanks to a number of short-sighted, compassion-less a-holes (that's the nicest way I could say that..) who have no problem amping up military & police budgets in the name of "security" while cutting funding to facilities that get the marginalized and sick off the streets and give them the care they need. Apparently, their security and safety don't matter as much as the security and safety of those with resources.

Whew. Anyways. The point is that I know all this information, I know what a crisis has hit my city's homeless and mentally ill folks, and I know how my faith and understanding of God intersects with all this, yet...

I was tired. And stressed. And at the end of my rope. And in that moment, Gabby was a disruption to my self-pitying state of being, and I didn't want to deal with her and the frightening burdens she carried with her. So instead of responding with an ounce of compassion, I looked back down at my stupid flashcards and tried to studiously ignore her.

Thankfully, I wasn't the only one in the train's car. A young man around my age walked up to her, handed her a few dollars, and sheepishly mumbled an apology for not having more cash to give her. A young woman seated near where Gabby stood said she was sorry she didn't have any money on her, but then started talking with her and asking all sorts of questions about herself. Gabby warmed up to her right away, chatting with her til the young woman got to her L stop.

Then there were only a few people left on the L. I was feeling ashamed at how I'd reacted internally to Gabby, and grateful for the two people who'd showed her genuine compassion and love. I felt like the biggest hypocrite and jerk in that moment. And then Gabby came and sat across from me.

She asked me if I was OK. I looked up at her - finally looking her in the eye - and told her I was just tired from traveling and feeling a bit stressed. She had thought I was scared (scared of her? Who knows what reactions she gets from people when she asks them for money.). We kept talking for the rest of the trip, until I reached my L stop. We didn't talk about anything super memorable or life-changing, yet a month and a half later, I still feel how I was impacted by her kindness in the midst of her own suffering and uncertainty. She changed everything in a moment's time, helping me move from a place of exhaustion, stress, and selfishness to a place of gratitude and love.

For all that I've been taught over the years about going into the places of struggle and pain in this world, bringing the hope and love of the gospel to those who are in need, I repeatedly find myself in debt to those who are seen as "less than" in our society. Gabby hasn't had the education, seminary training, traveling experiences, family stability (and on and on) that I've had, yet she knows how to bring love, hope, grace, and reconciliation to a tired, burnt-out young stranger who just happens to be on the same train. Interacting with Gabby for a few minutes cut through all the crap that was stressing me out and holding me hostage to my fatigue and anxiety, freeing me up to remember that God can do incredible work in anyone, anywhere.

Thank you, Gabby, for the powerful act of showing love to a stranger and for the reminder that God does mighty work through those we judge as small and humble. You're amazing.

Everyday earth shaker: Richard Carlson

Lately, I’ve been tired of reading the stories in the news. All I see in the media is violence, political vitriol, and a whole slew of ways humanity can treat each other terribly.

I’m feeling a bit more weary than a 26-year old should feel.

And so I finally sat down to finish the reflection on the first “everyday earth shaker” I chose to profile - the late, great Richard Carlson.

It has been three months now since Richard passed away. A few weeks after his funeral, I realized that Richard was a beautiful example of what I was hoping to explore for this blog series on everyday earth shakers - people who are “the ones who see the world for what it is, yet work to shape a world they know is better, higher, and far greater than what we can imagine.”

I contacted three people who were incredibly close with Richard to see if they would be willing to be interviewed for this post: Phil Anderson, a good friend and colleague of his for the past 35 years; Paul DeNeui, who was a student, colleague, and friend of Richard over the years; and lastly, Jolene, his wife, partner, and best friend for well over four decades. The three of them graciously agreed to share their stories and memories of Richard with me. I was blessed beyond words to spend this time with them, collecting their words and their thoughts on a man loved and missed by many, a man who changed every corner of the world he touched.

*****

Jolene first met Richard in the late 60s in Chicago. She was teaching English, Speech, and Drama  at a high school in Douglas Park, and Richard was pastoring the Douglas Park Covenant Church at the time. She had heard of Richard before, as he had attended North Park College with her sisters. At North Park, Richard had majored in history. Richard was highly intelligent, part of a small group of students who formed a “brain trust” of sorts that was into debating the big topics of the day. Jolene shared that this interest in beating people with his sharp mind and arguments would fade later on as he grew into his positions as pastor and professor. His desire to take people's arguments apart changed into a desire to listen to them and discover things with them - perhaps this is the difference between a person who is merely intelligent and one who is wise.

Jolene and Richard met in January and were married by the following November. A few short years later, they moved to the west side of Chicago so Richard could pursue his doctorate at McCormick while teaching there. Not long after that, Richard and Jolene started their family.

Transitioning to being a father was hard for Richard, Jolene explained. As for any parent, it involved big changes in his schedule, his priorities, and it made him put certain dreams and ambitions on hold as he got used to parenting. It became easier as the children got older and as he had more time adjusting to being a dad. She shared how he loved playing games with his kids, and he always loved them unconditionally, which helped him navigate the parts of parenting that did not come so easily to him.

Jolene paused, then looked me straight in the eye: "He tried his hardest."

Listening to Jolene share about Richard as a father and husband was an amazing part of this experience. After Richard's death, so many shared stories of him as a teacher, pastor, mentor, and friend, but the longest and most impactful relationships he had were as husband and father to Jolene and their kids. Both Phil and Paul talked about how important Richard's family was to him, even though he always struggled to balance work and his life at home. Phil explained this struggle to maintain balance revealed Richard's heart and deep calling as a teacher, which always remained a priority to him. Richard gave 100% to everything he did, which is both an inspirational and a cautionary tale to us.

Hearing that Richard struggled to balance work and his personal life resounded with me...and I don't even have a husband and children yet. I'm barely into adulthood, and I already find myself often torn between trying to be an excellent student, intern, employee, friend, girlfriend, daughter, and sister. There's no way to do all those things perfectly all the time, and I find myself letting work supersede my relationships a bit too much (fittingly, I even typed "student, intern, and employee" first). I would love to sit down with Richard and talk with him about this.

Back to Richard's story.

In 1978, Richard joined the faculty at North Park Theological Seminary (NPTS), just one more community that could not resist being changed by Richard's spirit and presence. Phil Anderson joined the faculty soon after. He first met Richard in October of that year while interviewing for the church history position. Phil knew they'd be fast friends. They both were in the practice of keeping their office doors open so students and faculty could drop in to chat, often stopping by to talk with one another. Phil shared, “I miss those lengthy conversations about literally everything.” Paul DeNeui talked about how when Victoria's (a restaurant on Foster Ave.) was still in business, Phil and Richard would often go there together. They were quintessential regulars with their own booth and everything. NPTS misses those two and all their beautiful friendship brought to the Seminary.

When I asked Phil and Paul what Richard's main passion or calling was in life, their differing answers - when taken together - are perfect in describing Richard. Paul said that teaching was his ultimate call, though being a pastor and an activist were vocations he needed to go through before being ready to teach. Phil said that Richard was a pastor even as a teacher.

Pastor and teacher. Those gifts don't always go together...trust me...but when they do, that person is bound to shape whatever community they are in for the better. Richard was a teacher who never stopped learning, whose curiosity and sharp mind made him - in Phil's opinion - the NPTS faculty member with the most well-rounded education and field of expertise. At the same time, Richard was a pastor whose office was the informal counseling center for the seminary. Faculty, staff, and students were all welcome to come and sit in Richard's office (assuming his cluttered office could hold them at the time!), where they always encountered a kind listener whose compassion, grace, and wisdom held their stories and their pain gently.

Richard wasn't afraid of people's pain and the mess that often follows in its wake. He witnessed plenty of pain during his career. Back in his days as a pastor at Douglas Park Covenant, he was deeply involved in the civil rights movement. He not only marched with MLK, but he also used his voice to exhort the church to live into its role as one who actively upheld God's justice, righteousness, and compassion in broken communities. Chicago has its share of brokenness and injustice, but Richard didn't avoid it or shy away from it. Instead, he was a prophet to the Evangelical Covenant Church (and the church as a whole), reminding everyone that caring about social justice isn't about "issues" - it's about uplifting people who are hurting and oppressed, people who need to be cared for. Jolene aptly described Richard as a “man of all languages,” one who could connect with people of any race, social class, or walk of life. This gift may be rooted in (as Paul shared) Richard's passion for pouring life into people.

We could use more people like Richard, those who pour life into others instead of withholding or rationing love and understanding to them. Richard didn't see love as a finite or scarce resource that we should only dole out to those who "deserve it" or who have it all together. He saw love as something that is both infinite and universally needed in this world. Everyone who was blessed to know him got to experience the love and grace that Richard passed on to them from God, and I'm so grateful for how his loving witness changed North Park, the ECC, and every other community he was part of.

In the words of my roommate and good friend Kelly Perez, "You are a game changer, Richard Carlson. May we continue to carry on your legacy."

God bless you, Richard, and a heart-felt thank you for the way you lived your life. Your life reminds me to not give up on hope.

everyday earth-shakers

Last week, my nine-year old cousin convinced me to start reading the first Percy Jackson book series. She said the books were great and impossible to put down (which I took with a grain of salt, as she is only nine, after all). 

Considering I read them at the pace of a book per day over the first four days, I'd say her assessment was spot-on.

For those of you who are woefully unfamiliar with the series, it centers around Percy, a teenage boy who discovers he's a demigod (half human, half god). Life had always been hard for him - he was raised by a single mother, since Poseidon doesn't stick around with his baby mommas, apparently - and Percy struggled with ADHD, dyslexia, and being a general misfit in every school he attended (and was inevitably expelled from). Learning of his identity as Poseidon's son only makes life harder, as he is compelled to become a hero and take on quests to save both the mortal world and Mt. Olympus.

Cue the remarkable feats and unbelievable exploits Percy and his friends must perform to survive and succeed. The story line around our hero really does draw you in, as its plot is patterned on the same (yet perennially compelling) structure nearly every other adventure story you've read follows.

After reading an excessive amount of Percy Jackson one evening, I forced myself to drop the book and get outside for a walk before the sun sank below the horizon. It's not the dark I fear in San Antonio, as I'm living smack dab in suburbia, but the bugs here in Texas are quite fierce. (My unofficial job, outside of nannying, has been to provide nourishment for all the mosquitoes within a 2-mile radius of my aunt and uncle's ranch. Consider this accomplished.)

Anyways, on this lovely evening's walk, I was musing to myself about how much our culture loves the hero, the celebrity, the exceptional one who rises to the top. As much as we in the US trumpet our allegiance to democracy and equality, we think the person who is the most successful, most powerful, or most influential is inherently better than the rest of us mere mortals. This especially resounds when they overcome challenges and adversity. 

In the heroes we love from books and stories, they are often forced to step up on doomsday and rescue everyone from the brink of disaster, from an evil tide that is perilously close to taking down everything good, noble, and just.

As these thoughts tumble through my brain, I see a small visual aid confirming my train of thought: A tiny boy of no more than four years old, with jet black hair and a disarmingly sweet, shy smile, waves at me from his driveway wearing...a Batman t-shirt.

We love heroes. We don't require their character to be flawless or their conduct perfect - in fact, perhaps we prefer when they have weaknesses akin to ours - but we love them for their courage and abilities. Among the sharp contrasts in the comic-book world of good vs. evil, light vs. dark, just vs. unjust, we revel in their daring exploits that save the day.

Our world's a bit muddled in comparison, isn't it? Sharp contrasts between "good" and "evil" are not so simple, even to the discerning eye. With such polarized politics, a media that can spin a story multiple ways, a constant stream of leaders - political, entrepreneurial, and faith leaders, to mention a few - who let us down with their soft spines, opportunistic posturing, and pointed, exaggerated rhetoric that demonizes their opponents, it's not easy to sift through the muck to determine who is on the side of good, truth, or justice.

Our systems of government, economy, and society are so complex that it's incredibly difficult to sort out just policies from the unjust, right from wrong, truth from lies. Consider this moment in time: 
   -Our "open and democratic" government is aggressively attempting to hunt down a man for revealing a national security program whose monitoring of U.S. citizens appears to be highly unconstitutional. 
   -One of the core elements of our economy - the military-industrial complex - ensures that the U.S. rakes in huge profits from the sale of weapons and military technology to other nations (including some rather sketchy regimes), yet we claim to be a nation that values peace and abhors violence. 
   -Our country's prison-industrial complex is becoming increasingly privatized, meaning that corporations and individuals directly profit from the incarceration of an ever-growing percentage of the U.S. population (which is already vastly higher than any other first world country, and this includes a disproportionately high percentage of minorities in our prisons).

And this is only a few of the twisted realities that exist in our nation today. Pardon my cynicism. The more I learn about how the world operates, the more possibility I find for frustration and cynicism. 

Yet.

Cynicism solves nothing. It's a bitter, pessimistic reaction to a heavy flood of bad news that batters us down daily. If this reaction becomes permanent instead of merely temporary, it poisons and immobilizes us.

There must be something better I can do with my time. If I'm tired of the influx of bad news, injustice, and the apathy that chokes most people from acting to change things, then I need a different remedy.

Starting this fall, I'm going to make an effort to interview people in my life who are doing small but faithful, disciplined acts to make the world a more loving, hopeful, just, and compassionate place. I'm not talking about the generic and overused "make the world a better place" kind of act - "better" is too relative, isn't it? - but those who make it their life's practice and purpose to follow God's vision for the world he had, and has, in mind.

From these interviews, I will write a post that shares what they're doing in their communities, just to remind us all that there's still a reason to hope, to act, and to reject the apathy that's more contagious than we care to admit.

These people won't be much like the superheroes our culture adores. They'll be so much more than that. They are the everyday earth-shakers, the ones who see the world for what it is, yet work to shape a world they know is better, higher, and far greater than what we can imagine.

I'm sure I'll still post on other topics and things that come up in the fall, but every few weeks, you can come here to be introduced to another everyday earth-shaker who's refused to give up on God and the world he created to be good.

Take that, cynicism. Try not to let the door hit you on your way out.

pruning trees and building bridges

The door slides open, and hot air sweeps into the cafe.

It's early summer in San Antonio, TX, and God forbid it cool down below 90 this afternoon.

The last time I posted, it was only halfway through a stubbornly long, frigid winter in Chicago. A lot has changed beyond just the season and setting. I'll spare you five months of details, decisions, curveballs, and day-to-day living, instead relying on an illustration to sum up the time since then:

Imagine my life's journey represented by a tree that's ever-reaching, stretching, sweeping toward the sky. Though it looks healthy and strong as it is, every once in a while, it's necessary for the branches that are dying or crowding out the others to be pruned away. The tree will always resist its limbs being cut away at first, but in the end, it can only thrive after it lets go of those parts.

In theory, that illustration is quickly understood. In practice, there's a bit more to it.

Ultimately, this tree stands taller and stronger (and perhaps wiser?), and for that, I'm grateful.

{Enough of me as a tree; I'll resume my human form for the rest of the post.}

I've mentioned I traded in Chicago for San Antonio - only for the first half of the summer - but I need to mention a little side trip I've taken since heading down South. I spent last week at Duke's Center for Reconciliation's Summer Institute in Durham, NC, learning from some incredible people about the Church's call to be an agent for reconciliation in the world. My seminar focused on reconciliation within institutions, since I'm presently enrolled in one (at North Park Theo. Seminary) and will likely be involved in various institutions for the rest of my life. We talked of the potential divides that form in institutions (racial, ethnic, ideological, generational, to name a few) and how to theologically, strategically, and institutionally address them.

I can sense your excitement from here, so PLEASE, try and keep calm. Now, I know institutional reconciliation may not sound super sexy or exciting, but I can promise you that it should matter to all of us. Particularly those of us in the Church.

As Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove point out in the introduction to Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, the Christian Church is foremost among those who desperately need unity and reconciliation. There are over 38,000 denominations worldwide(!!!), yet Jesus prayed his disciples would be "one as God is one". Ouch.

It's funny how easy and quick it is to separate once differences seem overwhelming, yet how heart-wrenchingly difficult it is to truly reconcile those who've fallen apart. It would be simpler and infinitely more convenient to just ignore the breach and move in two different directions.

But unfortunately, reconciliation isn't optional when it comes to the Lord. His vision and plan for us includes the courage, endurance, truth-telling, grace, and above all, love, required to become right with all of creation - even with the ones who've hated us in word or deed.

Last week's conference reminded me of all this, and brought me one step further toward the role of reconciler in whatever community I'm in. Being one who builds bridges in a world that tries to isolate and individualize everything is daunting and intimidating, but I happen to serve a God with reckless courage and a vision far broader than my own.

Oh, and there happens to be many other people out there who've been struck by the beauty and power of reconciliation, and I was gifted with meeting over a hundred more of them last week.

Hope continues springing forth, despite it all. When it starts to fade and disunity or despair seems to have the last word, I'll remember Ellen Davis' blunt reminder - "Hope is a job" - and I'll get on my feet again, grateful I'll never be alone in this work.