Friday, December 18, 2020

An open love letter

 Doug,

You wrote such a beautiful love letter.  Thank you!  I have been wanting to respond for quite some time.  What has delayed me?  Well,  I do have a particular gift of knowing when I am out-matched--  "know when to fold em!" 

 I can't possibly write as beautiful of a love letter to you as you have written to me, but I will do my best to speak earnestly and straightforwardly. 

I became a bit too obsessed with the Holocaust when I was an adolescent.  In particular with the question: "What would I have done if I lived in Nazi Germany and a Jewish family asked for my help?"  I read the Hiding Place several times.  In that intense time of faith discovery the question: "am I brave?" loomed large. .. this became a kind of test question for me regarding the authenticity of my own faith...  what would I do?  

I worried/worry that I would not have been brave.

I do not have those doubts about you, my love.

In the last year I have failed to defend you as vocally as you would have liked, but in a critical moment that should have made a world of difference this is what I said:  "I have no doubt what Doug would have done if he had lived during Nazism in Germany. He is the best person I know."  

What more can one say than that? 

You know that I also think that you are a royal pain in the ass.  We have disagreed vehemently about tactics and strategy since last October, but I don't think you ever wanted to be married to a "YES woMAN."  Sure....I know it is difficult to be married to one of those Muppet hecklers, but I also think you have the grace to realize that a bit of a heckler is precisely what you need! -- A bit of a ballast against your cocksured-ness.  I know this year has winded you. 

I also know that you are the more gentle of the two of us.  

I know it feels like your capacity to sit so patiently at a bedside, or write such a thoughtful eulogy, or make the impossible possible for a heartbroken Mother, or help a newcomer family secure a home or a sense of calling has been forgotten, but I remember. 

And also God....


Nothing is lost to the heart of God,

nothing is lost for ever;

God's heart is love,

and that love will remain,

holding the world forever.

No impulse of love,

no office of care,

no moment of life in its fullness;

no beginning too late,

no ending too soon,

but is gathered and known in its goodness.


I hope you know that you are loved... by me... and with an everlasting love that does not require computation or this-worldly accounting. We have both banked a lot on that being enough, more than enough, more than sufficient. We will see.  We will continue to see.


With Hesed, 

Your Jo.


Thursday, December 3, 2020

Though Christmas has been a show (12/29/2001)


Christmas has been a show

Plotted in October.  Texts, words edited, the songs 

deliberated.  

Fussing over "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear."


This year it will have to come--if it comes-- the way that disappointed me once ...

as a young adult.

 no candlelight services.  

or Oratorios.


This world that I have built to inure me 

from that farm falls away.


I remember Christ singing "O Come Emmanuel" to me

in the disappointment of a tabletop tree and illness and a sense of unremitting loneliness. 

But...

This story turned and glistened differently on another December Eve.

And so we have lived hope 

and it changes the way we wait. 










Wednesday, November 11, 2020

An Armistice --11/11/2020


 You danced on the beach on Armistice Day.

There were no kindly sellers of poppies.

we did not need to justify our lack of red to anyone.

Your bones and sinew are as fragile as any girls. 

this is true of every little boy.

your curls, your pointed chin, the way you laugh as an alto.


As a young girl,  I wanted to be sturdy and strong 

to save things.

 I was not taught that the keeping of the world

depended on body's destruction. 


It was my soul that would be be required.

My soul and the too pointedness of my chin.


We can be strong together, dear boy.

You and I.

You do not need to be cannon fodder.  I do not need 

to bury desire 

God, Mother!

We can walk together.  We can have the same heroines (heroes)!

We do not have to become scared in order to be brave.








Wednesday, November 4, 2020

A very present help



Do you remember when you could call into a radio station and request a song? When I was a kid I called into the local radio station when I was Sam’s age to request B.B. King’s standard Stand by Me for my Mom. 

Stand by Me originated in Gospel music and the 2nd verse of the song is drawn from our Scripture text for this morning Psalm 46.


If the sky that we look upon 

should tumble and fall

or the mountains 

crumble to the sea

I won’t be afraid

No, I won’t shed a tear.

Just as long as you stand, stand by me


This line seemed to me to be a perfect expression of the kind of trust that a child has in a faithful and loving parent and the sense of security that the presence of a parent can bring despite circumstances.

The 46th Psalm has been called the Song of Songs of faith. It is the inspiration for another song, Martin Luther’s magisterial hymn: A Mighty Fortress is our God. In this hymn Luther begins with the premise that one of the possible translations of “strength” in the verse: “God is our refuge and our strength” could be defense, or strong tower. To have faith in God means to trust that God is a bulwark never failing.

 For me, Psalm 46 elicits an immediate physical response of comfort. As soon as I hear the first two verse:


God is our refuge and strength 

a very present help in trouble

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change 

though the mountains shake into the heart of the sea.


Something within me loosens; I reflexively lower my shoulders and release my breath. This is more than just my personal response.


These words find us 3,000 years after they were originally written. Words that have been prayed through plagues, battlefields, prisons, sickness, death. Words that have uttered before in quarantine, in refugee camps, and in exile, recited while hiding in jungles or facing down crematoriums. These words have seen gallows, sinking ships, bread lines and locusts. These words are stronger than our response to them.


The text promises that God is near-by, proximate, close at hand. It repeats one of the most frequent commands in the Bible: “Do not be afraid!” but

in the form of an affirmation.  Therefore we will not be afraid.


The text does not deny that there are things to be afraid of both in the physical world of nature and in the day-to-day world of people and politics. 


The earth changes ...

The Psalmist tells us to put no trust in the earth

or the sod you stand upon. Even the stability of mountains can be shaken...

Everything can be rendered as chaotic and tumultuous as the sea.


Politics and world affairs also threaten to displace, to bring desolation and violence. The text reminds us to not be surprised when we see great nations dissolving before our eyes.

We are reminded that because of God’s great love we will not be overcome.

In our translation the text concludes with an invitation: “Be still and know that I am God.” Mystics have pondered what it means to “be still and know that I am God.” I don’t have anything fresh or especially insightful to say about what this text might be saying to us in our own time and in our spaces and places, but I will try to say something here anyway.

I take the command “to be still” to be an invitation into a very deep and particular form of listening and attention. A form of listening that accepts as fact that God has promised to be “ever-present in trouble.” This is difficult to remember sometimes. I have to catch myself all the time.. It is my first instinct to pray that God will be with people who are facing tough diagnoses or decisions or death.

When I do this, I try to stop myself and to take a moment and be still in the knowledge that God is already present. 

God is more concerned, more vexed, and more filled with love and care than I am. When this happens, I try to shift my prayer to: “Let this person be made aware of your loving presence God.”

To be still and know that I am God can also be an invitation to deeper insight and reflection.My spiritual director sometimes invites me to imagine Jesus sitting with me in difficult situations. What words of encouragement or comfort might Jesus offer? Maybe Jesus is just their weeping... In tought conversations, I ask Jesus to sit with me and listen for what I cannot hear, to see what I cannot see…

To “be still and know” can be a call to allow God to mediate in our experiences with others 

Be still and know” can also be a call to be more attentive to how God is working in the world. This is why I think we come to worship each week…. not because God is only or even especially here, but it is a way of tuning our attention to the places and spaces where God might be at work. 

There is another way of reading think verse of the Psalmist :to be still and know that I am God.” The Psalmist is saying that God has the capacity to say to the tumult of nations and the earth:Stop, desist: BE STILL! God can bring wars and warfare to an end and quell the tempestuous of nature.

Be still and know that I am God. 

I will be exalted among the nations.

The Psalmist is making a claim that God is ultimately in control. There has been lots of ink spilled about what it means to say God is in control. Does God so throughly determines everything that happens that humans have no freedom? Does God have so little control over what is happening that He is stuck in the muck of human suffering right along side us? 

The middle view in my mind is one that see God—in the words of the Psalmist-- as“ever present” Constantly at work…. Not controlling the acts of humans or nations, but working continually to bring goodness, grace, life, light and truth. 

And the wonder and the mystery of this is that we can participate with God in the work of bringing life out of every kind of death.

This week is filled with lots of anxiety as we await the election. I pray that we can find the deep stillness, confidence, and hope that find in resting in God’s promise to be very present with us in trouble 



Friday, June 26, 2020

The Bend in the Road


I recently finished Anne of Green Gables with Sam.  We cried together at the death of Matthew Cuthbert.  Okay, I cried--copiously enough that my tears ran down Sam's cheeks as well.  

There is a chapter right after Matthew's death called "A Bend in the Road."  Before Matthew's death Anne's future is clear and bright.  She has just won the Avery scholarship and will be attending University. She seems well on her way to fulfilling her dream of becoming a writer.  But then a string of calamities. . . . 

Matthew's Death
The bank failure
Marilla's failing eyesight. 

It looks for certain that Green Gable will have to be sold and so Anne makes a decision.

Anne went to the east gable and sat down by her window in the darkness alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart.  How sadly things had changed since she had sat there the night after coming home!  Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy with promise.  Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but before she went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart. She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend--as duty ever is when met frankly.


Anne turns down the scholarship.  She will teach school to help earn money for the family and she will stay with Marilla so that they can keep Green Gables. 

As a pre-teen,  I understood this passage somewhat....  Being betwixt and between childhood and adulthood I was equally drawn between going out into the world and staying close to home and understood the loyalty and dedication that would lead Anne to choose the way she chose.  

But I always struggled with the later books in the Annes Series--after she gets married to Gilbert.  It seems that the bright future that Anne dreamed of having was foreclosed upon.  There is even a vignette in one of the later books where Anne fears that Gilbert doesn't love her any longer.

I don't think my mind has changed about those later books, but as an adult I now see the seeds of the later books being planted in this moment.  There will be many good, happy and exciting things that happen in Anne's life, but she will never become a writer. In the last decade many details of L.M. Montgomery's life have surfaced--most shockingly that she chose to die and left a suicide note and that she and her husband were both seriously addicted to barbiturates.  

Knowing this now I can't help but see Montgomery trying to write herself into a more optimistic and hopeful outlook on the world through her beloved character of Anne.  Montgomery might not have ultimately succeeded for herself, but she certainly helped countless other people.  

Today I find inspiration in the last paragraph of the book:

Anne's horizons had closed in since the night she had sat there after coming home from Queen's; but if the path set before her feet was to be narrow she knew that the flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it. The joy of sincere work and worthy aspirations and congenial friendship were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams.  

And there was always the bend in the road.

God knows I would like to be on another road, and yet I know God walks this road with me.





Sunday, May 24, 2020

Time to Mourn



1,000 names… 1,000 snippet obituaries. 1% of the dead and it is all only beginning.

The front page of the NY Times this morning was a profound piece of public worship. 

Naming! 

In Madeline L’Engles time quintet the capacity to adequately name someone becomes shorthand for love. 

The final act of violence is forgetting. 

Every single one of these deaths matter. If the 92 year old man in the LTC facility was stabbed by a robber or died from the blast of a terrorist bomb. We would remember. We would not shrug our collective shoulders and say “well, he was going to die soon anyways.” We would want justice done. 


How do we even begin to mourn?

This morning lawnmowers buzz around my neighborhood. My sister had to ask the groundskeepers to stop mowing when my Dad lay dying in his hospice bed. My mind returns to both the pain and the holiness of those last moments. The healing that would never have come if we couldn’t have gathered at his bedside.

How dow we begin to mourn our incapacity to mourn? 

The spiritual crises that yawns before us is more than just navigating our incapacity to worship together. The spiritual crises is how to we protect ourselves from becoming inured to our neighbor’s suffering as the astonishing becomes normal….. 

If I was in charge of a belfry then I think I would be ringing it daily for everyone that dies in my town. 

Since I don’t--- I would challenge you to meditate and pray with the NY Times this morning





Thursday, May 21, 2020

Ascension - Pentecost




Jesus isn’t localized in one place. This seems to be the message of the ascension in nutshell. Jesus ascended to heaven so that he can be present everywhere. This feels like a good message for our current moment. You don’t have to go to any particular building to be near to Jesus. There are other ways to experience true communion. Nadia Bolz Weber recently expressed this when she writes:

I do not know when we can gather together again in worship, Lord.
So, for now I just ask that:
When I sing along in my kitchen to each song on Stevie Wonder’s Songs in The Key of Life Album, that it be counted as praise. (Happy 70th Birthday, SW!)
And that when I read the news and my heart tightens in my chest, may it be counted as a Kyrie.
And that when my eyes brighten in a smile behind my mask as I thank the cashier may it be counted as passing the peace.
And that when I water my plants and wash my dishes and take a shower may it be counted as remembering my baptism.
And that when the tears come and my shoulders shake and my breathing falters, may it be counted as prayer.
And that when I stumble upon a Tabitha Brown video and hear her grace and love of you may it be counted as a hearing a homily.
And that as I sit at that table in my apartment, and eat one more homemade meal, slowly, joyfully, with nothing else demanding my time or attention, may it be counted as communion.
Amen.

That said: the ascension also seems to be about absence and hiddenness. If I were one of Jesus’ early followers I would not want to trade his earthy presence for the same type of ephemeral and spiritual presence that I experience now in the 21st century. My longing for my friend would be palpable: to touch, to hear, to walk with in companionable silence. Indeed, it feels like for as long as I can remember I have been seeking out intimacy with a living Lord. I can’t say that I haven’t found it, but I would say that I cannot hold on to this feeling. 

This is the longest that I have been away from church in my whole adult life. When I was in Jr High I had an extended time of not attending, but, if anything, I was even more God-haunted. It was a powerful time in my life because I gave up on a vision of faith that was killing me. I grew up attending church alone and absorbing by osmosis a holiness theology that left me feeling like I could lose my salvation at any moment. The fear was tearing me apart and I needed to get away from it for awhile. At summer camp and on the Christian radio station I started to find other ways to think about the nature of salvation and God grace. I am wondering this morning—if little by little, imperceptibly, I haven’t slunk back towards this hyper-Arminianism of my childhood. In any event, I am feeling the same burden—the same existential dread about every decision—maybe I am going to mess this up, maybe I am doing this wrong. Perhaps, it is time—once again—to re-assess some things. 

The church embodies Jesus, but complexly. 

I know it is tearing many of us up to be away from our communal assembling, but perhaps there can be spiritual benefit from this time spent away. The Church is Christ’s body on earth, but not in a simple way – this is a complicated piece of theological sociology. We are the hands that serve, but we can also be the hands that hurt. We can be the voice the comforts, but we can also be the voice that castigates. We can be the eyes that look on the world with compassion, but we can also be the eyes that look at the world with scorn. 
It was within Christ’s absent presence that the church arose on Pentecost. In that mystery. In the blank space left by the embodied Lord ascended and snatched up to heaven....It was into a space of tangible longing and lack that the Spirit moved into -- like a rush of wind, like a mighty fire. 

May this also be true for us. 

Friday, May 8, 2020

#Ahmaud Arbery: The complicity of Saul



Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. (Acts 7:58)

The lectionary text for this week recounts the stoning of Stephen. There is a quote attributed to Karl Barth which is mostly apocryphal—“Preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” This morning I sit with two tabs open the Revised Common Lectionary and Twitter. 

 I read the following tweet referencing the brutal murder of Ahmaud Arbery: “Black motherhood is praying everyday that my child does not be come a hashtag.” 



This never-ending loss of life that is symbolized by the sign of the hashtag is devastating.

In Acts Stephen’s martyrdom echoes the crucifixion of Jesus. 

Both the lynching tree and the vigilantes bullet stand in the shadow of the cross and replicate the mob violence of public stoning.  

This morning the figure of Saul sticks out to me—Saul complicit without throwing a stone . 

We know that Saul is more than just complicit in his silence.  He looks on with silent approval. He thinks the stoning is necessary to maintain the sanctity of law. 

What to say?  I do not want to be made complicit in my silence.  

 I want people who I love to stop allowing murderers to lay coats down at their feet. 

I want them to stop saying “let’s wait and see.” 

I want people I love to stop defending these lynchings and stonings with defense of law and order.

There aren’t two sides!

I don’t want to hear about the difficulties of policing.

I don’t want to hear any more shitty arguments about the right to defend one’s domicile or to stand your ground. 

I don’t want to hear about the lawlessness or “violence” of peaceful protests.

I don’t want to hear character assassinations of unarmed victims.

And most of all I don’t want to be made into a Saul myself!

Abraham Joshua Heschel summarize the prophets message: in our society not everyone is guilty, but everyone is responsible.

I want these killers to stop laying their coats down at the feet of my white womanhood. 









Thursday, May 7, 2020

I believe nurses!

I believe Doctors and Nurses! 

Those are the people who are saying that the covid-19 is a serious threat to public safety.

….But let’s focus on nurses for a moment!

I have many, many, many Facebook friends who are nurses and to a person they are all saying the same thing: stay home and keep the social distancing protocols. You do not want to expose your family or yourself to get this disease.

So, why aren’t we believing them!? Why are we believing Republican lawmakers? A president who is a habitual liar or random people on youtube making conspiracy videos?

Almost every nurse I have ever known personally has been an absolutely exemplary person. They are gentle but don’t try any bullcrap with them. They are smart and able to explain complex issues simply and clearly. They are astonishingly competent. They can crack jokes about the most difficult (and disgusting stuff) and yet never lose their compassion.

I believe Nurses!

I can’t think of a class of people that I trust more.

(The only group of people that comes close is elementary school teachers and we have been belittling them for the last 20 years.)

Seriously, before you hit send on your plandemic video, ask a nurse what they think about this disease?

Although they might be too busy protecting people and saving lives to return your message.


Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Image of God ...... or when people become "Strawmen"





We should always avoid making "Straw Men" arguments.  We should work hard not to reduce our opponent's arguments to absurdities;  I will go one step further-- whenever possible we should imagine the best version of our opponent's argument and contend with this version instead of what the person has actually said.  That said:  sometimes people make absurdly stupid arguments.  For instance, GOP Ohio state lawmaker Nino Vitale has publicly insisted he won't where a face mask.  The reason?  He does not want to hide the image of God present in his own countenance.  No one should deny that Vitale bears the mark of his Maker, but his comment displays a woeful lack of understanding about Christian teachings around the image of God.  In the age of social media such absurdly stupid arguments can function as profound distractions. I am blogging about it aren't I and why?  Well, in part because his comments provide an emotionally powerful verification for me.  How stupid! All my opponents are kind of stupid. ...

I am trying my best to stop feeding off such vindication.  If I was Vitale's teacher then I think I would start by saying:  indeed the image of God can be a basis of thinking about our own inherent worth (although all theologians don't see it this way).  For thinkers who focus on the image of God as an affirmation of the inherent worth of every human-beings it is natural to talk about this image in connection with human rights.  Yet, it is important to remember that the focus of Christian teachings on the image of God is not individualized--every person is fully, truly, and wholly made in the image of God.  The question you should be asking is does your right to "be seen" trump your neighbors right to be safe (particularly your weakest neighbors).  

Yet, we all know what kind of response I would likely get if I posted this in the comment sections of his article. 

A few years back I decided that I would try my best to not argue with people on Facebook.  I boldly told Doug that the people on Twitter and in the comment sections of articles do not really exist. ( I meant by this that the mostly anonymous opinions that people screech out in the middle of the night probably don't represent that person's worldview.)  

Yet, the comment section seemed to be a considerable voting bloc in the last election. 

 Is it wise to let all of these misguided opinions to remain unchecked? 

I don't know.   I do know that I am not that great of a debater.  I realized a few years ago that I have a tendency to simplify arguments. I am a pontificator and preacher by nature and inclination.  I believe firmly with Mr. Rogers that too much in our world is shallow and complex, but that the point of existence is to find truths that are simple and deep.  

I am trying my best to keep saying over and over again the things that I find to be simple, but deep.  I also will try my best to take every opportunity afforded me to say them. 

If I had any response to Nino Vitale it would simply--your neighbor's life is as precious as your life! Where a mask.    

If he refused to understand that basic point it wouldn't be because he is stupid.... 

It would be because he doesn't want to understand.... and the solution for that is not more argument.... 

it is conversion. 



Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Nature

The Robin is steadily flitting back and forth from its nest. Perhaps, there are babies? I saw my first gosling on Sunday speeding down the overflowing stream between two aggressive parents. Sam and I explore along Laurel Creek somewhat regularly, but on Sunday it was annoying/fun/hopeful to see the teen boy in the video game shirt rather in-adroitly playing in the creek (as if for the first time.) He may or may not have fallen in... Sam and I may or may not have laughed. 

This world is delightful: “Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don't have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see.” 


A polar vortex this weekend! We might get snow in May! This denizen of the great Northwoods has only experienced snow in May one other time and that was flakes dancing on the wind--there was no accumulation. Oh boy! What about all the people sleeping in tents? 

It is ALL a bit too much. 

This virus that ravages through some bodies ...laying absolute destruction ….and others it lilts through unnoticed. 

Wherever you turn your eyes the world can burn like a transmorgification. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. 

Nature is not enough. Nature is too much. 

I need the stories that begin with Jesus reading from a scroll announcing good news for the poor. I still need the theological poetry of Paul wherein he names that all creation is groaning awaiting a redemption that can only come when that scroll-reading Jesus becomes all-in-all: Behold a new heavens and a new earth! 

And yet, it is still all so beautiful or as Marilyn Robinson writes:



And I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try.” 


Monday, May 4, 2020

Out to sea


I watched a video of an Extreme Surfer about five years ago.  He caught waves on sandbars in the middle of the ocean and rode them for an exceptionally long-time.  He was talking about what he does when he falls in to a wave.  In short: nothing.  No flailing or struggling.  The only thing to do is to relax and let the wave drag him towards the shore.  This image has returned to me when I have faced difficult times--my Dad's cancer diagnosis, our previous job search and move to Canada.
Sometimes the situation is so overwhelming that there is nothing one can do but hold one's breath and wait to hit the shore.  That takes faith.

The difficulty though...we aren't necessarily sure we are oriented towards the shore.  When people say this time is unprecedented they are saying we might be heading out to sea in ways that we aren't quite able to imagine.


When I feel "out to sea"  I try to control things.  I crave decisive action, and yet I have found that at these times decisive action might not necessarily be particularly helpful (too often it is just flailing against the waves and taking in water).

Another image that comes to my mind is the bank run scene in "It's a Wonderful Life."  The people are panicking and seeking out certain action and immediate cash payments.  Old Man Potter is poised and ready to snap everything up.  George Bailey has the clarity to see that "the people are panicking but Potter isn't" and to implore people to think out of their values and not from their fear.

What is necessary now was also necessary before covid-19.  Our values and morals were made to serve us at precisely such a time as this.  This is a time to live deeply into our commitment to the value of each life, to the dignity of working people, to the realization that the economy serves humanity and not vice-versa.

The Old Man Potters are not losing their heads.  Jeff Bezos and other are chopping up every inch of this world that they can get their hands on right now.

The Bible continually reminds us "Don't be Afraid."  This message spoken by Angels, or God, or weary prophets is one of the most significant and persistent divine words.  Easier said than done.  And yet, thankfully Scripture also reminds us again and again that the opposite of fear is love.  Fear drives us to forget what we truly and most deeply value.  Fear can lead us to destroy what we are trying so desperately to protect.  What does relaxing into the wave look like today?  Well, it is not doing nothing.  It is doing what is essential.  Breathing in the surfer example.  Staying open one more day in the case of George Bailey.  And for me?

Remembering what I love.

What do you love?   Love that today.  Love it deeply.  Love it for itself.  Find in that love the courage necessary for today.  Just today.



Sunday, May 3, 2020

A Mothering God




And I praise you for crows calling from treetops
The speech of my first village,
And for the sparrow’s flash of song
Flinging me in an instant
The joy of a child who woke
Each morning to the freedom
Of her mother’s unclouded love
And lived in it like a country.
-Anne Porter

If by chance I should find myself at risk
A-falling from this jagged cliff
I look below, and I look above
I'm surrounded by your boundless love

-John Prine


When I was in high school my Mom and I read the Bridge Over San Luis Rey together. It was when I began to learn again (after a period of Middle School overconfidence) that my Mom was indeed smarter than me. [a much better grammarian as well :)] It was also when I began to realize something that my Mom seemed blind to—that, in the words of Toni Morrison’s Beloved—love can be too thick. Or, to put the idea into theological terms not all sin is privation. That we can do harm to others when we love them idolatrously. And yet, I also began to understand even that error can be undone by the application of more love. Oh, the ironies! If we push deeply into this overabundance and excess and over-acceptance we creep into the territory that Christians call grace--a whole continent that unnerving to explore and yet, also, so easily domesticated.

My imagination is defiantly governed by a male deity which is mostly okay—I loved and was loved by my Father ...though he had his faults. I suspect that if I allowed myself to deeply imagine a mothering God that it would unsettle most everything. I got a bit of glimpse at what that deity might look like from Amy Laura Hall’s book on Julian of Norwich.

What would it mean for me to live fully into

The joy of a child who woke/Each morning to the freedom/Of her mother’s unclouded love/ And lived in it like a country.

I think this might be a fruitful spiritual discipline for me.

This quarantine reminds me most of being a very young child home through the long days of winter with my Mom, stuck in the house with no car, the wild winds howling outside, the fire in the wood stove, drawing pictures at the coffee tables, keeping busy.

On a more personal note, I have been in a difficult time in my life where Wendell Berry’s line in his poem Do Not be Ashamed is very resonant: Though you have done nothing shameful,/they will want you to be ashamed.

It was my mother who continually called me to attend to the herons beginning their evening flights, the vacant lots raising up blue chicory flowers, and tenacity of the dandelions.

It was my mother’s love that embarrassed me: made me wonder when we read The Bridge over San Luis Rey if her love wasn’t too much, too overwhelming. And yet, in this season of life I need to be confounded and surrounded, above and below, by God’s boundless love. It is the only antidote or as Thorton Wilder wrote the only meaning and the only survival.

And so I will rest hard into love and I will ask the mothering God to
bring us ... life
Out of every sort of death
And teach us mercy.



Monday, April 27, 2020

i thank You God for most this amazing




Good morning! I have a riot of orange blooms out front interspersed with the daffodils. The dog has felt the vigor in the air and has been anticipating a walk with more fervor than normal (or maybe he really needs to go pee). The past few years I have had a special place in my heart for the peacefulness of early winter and the settling of the earth into the season of Advent. Yet, one of the unexpected gifts that this quarantine has granted is the time necessary to really notice the glories of Spring. Over the past few years, the collection of Spring bulbs in the front planter has been a thing to notice as I backed the car out of the driveway or comment on briefly to my office mates. I didn’t necessarily need the crocuses to bloom or the ducklings to appear. This year--I do. 

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
-e.e. cummings.

Sunday, April 26, 2020

We need to stop running

The news is getting to me.  Yesterday,  I saw a study from the WHO that stated there is no conclusive evidence that people are immune after an initial infection with covid-19.  My Facebook feed is filled with gallows humor about the latest monstrous lie coming out of the White House (that we can use disinfectant on sick people's blood).  I have read many long-form articles about the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1919 and, in particular, the virulent resurgence the following Fall and Winter.  Then there are the individual posts carping on State governments couched in familiar narratives of government overreach and "fake news."

I am also noting a thinning of posts about sour bread starters, inventive homeschool strategies, or poems about how the birds are singing again and nature is resting.

There are lots more people admitting that their kids are restless and unruly, that it is actually impossible to work and homeschool at the same time, and that people miss their grandchildren or grandparents.

Here in Ontario and in Michigan (where my attention habitually returns) there are indications that some of the social distancing rules will be lifted at the end of May.  That is still quite a ways off and we will still be encountering a near future where the summer festivals have been cancelled, where the baseball stadiums are silent, summer camps are offering online offerings, and it is even unclear whether we will be even able to enjoy the beaches or parks.

What should we do?

It reminds me a bit of a misadventure I had once when I was in living in London-- I went out for a jog and just as I thought that I was almost finished... I discovered that I was actually incredibly lost.  Right away I knew that I needed to stop running-- and it was a good thing that I did because I ended up being lost for three hours in the byzantine maze of post war suburban houses (too early in the morning to ask for directions).

I don't know what needs to be done right now, but I do know that we all need to stop running ...

... and maybe be a bit more creative than I was all those years ago in actually finding our collective bearings.










Saturday, April 25, 2020

Saving what we love: reflections on Star Wars and Pete Seeger

I, like a goodly percentage of human beings on this planet, love Star Wars. We were living in Chicago when The Force Awakens opened and somehow I—with very little foresight — scored tickets for the first showing on opening night. I tricked Simeon into thinking we were going Christmas shopping. I remember his forlorn face as we passed our usual movie theatre and as he watched the costumed twenty-somethings boarding the bus. What fun it was to show him the tickets. 

I cried actual tears when it was revealed that the hero of the story was a young woman. As they say, representation matters, and that is true even for middle-aged women! I had witnessed many women being brave in films—especially a  resilient bravery in gritty places: depression era farms, coal mines, concentration camps, diners, beauty salons. Yet I confess I enjoyed seeing one empowered by the FORCE, in charge of saving the universe, wielding a light saber.

The second film in the new trilogy, The Last Jedi, was even more an homage to women, and not surprisingly this angered some male super-fans. The one character that attracted the most ire was Rose—how dare an Asian woman be a brave and sturdy mechanic and not a willowy and exotic, scantily clad oracle of esoteric wisdom.




This didn’t mean Rose wasn’t wise. Indeed, I believe she was given the most important line in the new trilogy. In a climatic moment she stops Finn from making a desperate kamikaze run against the First Order. When she gets to him she says: “We win not by destroying what we hate, but by saving what we love.” I don’t have any desire to trade in gender essentialism, and yet, this is a lesson I have learned in so many different ways from women that I love. The great and profound social pressure on men in our world is to make themselves into cannon fodder for some great cause and to be willing to throw their bodies onto pikes to destroy what they hate. This instinct persists even when the tools are not militaristic. I think of Woody Guthrie’s guitar that famously was inscribed with the words “this machine kills fascists.” Yes, that is a complicated message—how and in what way does folk music “kill fascists?” There is a lot to consider there.

And yet the images, the metaphors, the imagination of death and killing is still there. I prefer Pete Seeger’s inscription on his banjo “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.” 

How do we save what we love instead of destroying what we hate? How do we never forget the sacred glimmers of what we love found even in our enemies?

So, my spiritual discipline today is to write a short list of the things I love. Maybe this is something that you would like to do as well.

Johanna, Simeon, Samuel, Doug, Jesus, Truth, Friendship, Community, Vulnerable Love, Daffodils, Spring, Easter, Advent, Reconciliation, Robins, Old Karl Barth, Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians, Ikiru, Curry, a Trip to Bountiful, my in-laws, 10 acres in Buckley Michigan, Church, Dogs that swim, Pussy Willows, Tomato Plants, Spotting a deer in the corner of the field, Words, breakfast, beers, coffee, ducklings, Preaching, Our Lady of Guadalupe, the opening paragraph of Cannery Row, the way it feels to turn a corner and see something new. 

As much as possible I will work to protect and save these things.