Lisa Lewton

The Wrong Way For a Parent to Pray

If you were to skim through job descriptions and happen upon the one that demands every ounce of your energy, the full capacity of your heart and then some, and a skillset that ranges from first aid to nutrition to anger management to activity director, you would be reading about the work of a parent.

Of course, there is no job description in the same way there is no manual. And so, one way through the humbling privilege of parenting is prayer.

This morning, I caught myself praying the wrong way. (I usually say there is no wrong way to pray, but just as there are actually stupid questions, there is actually a wrong way to pray.)

I prayed my kiddo would be a certain way and do certain things that would make my life a whole lot easier.

Oops, I realized. That’s not exactly how a parent’s prayer works. At some point in a parent’s life, we are forced to admit we actually have little control over the outcome of our child’s life. The sooner we come to this revelation, the better we are for it. We can shower a human with unconditional love and challenge them to be better, but only the emerging adult in your midst directs the path. It sucks, I know, you pour your heart out only to let it be broken again and again.

A parent’s prayer, then, is best centered on the parent. God, I pray, what do I need in order to parent this child of God so he or she can be his or own person? Do I need more patience? Or more hobbies so I stop worrying so much?

My spiritual director lately broke the news that when we worry about someone else too much, we tend to keep that person stuck where they are. Worrying too much is not a good solution for either the worrier or the target of those worries.

I’m not saying to give up, or not to care deeply about the people whom God as entrusted to you. But instead of praying for our kids to be a certain way, we can pray for God to shape and change us, the parents who most of the time can only hope we are doing the right thing. And in that prayer, ask for forgiveness. Parenting is like living in a laboratory and we sometimes mix the wrong stuff together. God can help with that.

Dear God, you thought I could be a parent? What were you thinking? Okay, then you’d better go to work on me. Give me wisdom to know when to step in and when to step back. Give me a deep, deep breath when I get judgey or when I do that thing with my eyes that tips toward shaming. Thanks, God, for hanging in with these kids now and in all their days to come, and for not expecting to me to be the perfect parent. I like that a lot. Amen.

The Woman’s Sneaky Golden Calf

The Scripture text I’ll preach on this weekend is about a golden calf (not a fancy plate of veal). In a nutshell, the people who followed God were getting tired of waiting for God to do what they wanted (get them to the Promised Land). In their impatience, they constructed their own god and asked that god to do what they wanted.

To make this fancy-pants god, everyone took off their gold rings and earrings and the man in charge melted them. Somehow it came out of the fire shaped like a calf. (All of this is reminiscent of previous ways God’s people tried to do it all themselves without God’s help.)

The idea of worshipping a calf-shaped hunk of gold is preposterous. Why would they expect a shiny and ridiculous version of God to accomplish what only God can do?

Well…that’s where I begin to wonder. Does this strike a chord with you, the idea of getting impatient and then just doing it yourself? That’s where God’s people began to fumble. It was their impatience that bested them.

I am bubbling over with impatience these days. Impatient for worries about the coronavirus to fall away. Impatient for my kids to go hang out with people and not be stuck in our house so dang much. Impatient for my husband’s and my work to stop filling the margins of our lives quite so much. Impatience.

And in my impatience, I am aware now I just might be looking to the wrong, ridiculous things to get through this season. I’m doing too much and forgetting to be gentle on myself. (I bet you are, too). I’m taking shallow breaths and moving too fast from one thing to the next. (I bet you are, too). I feel guilty about not getting to all the people who need spiritual care instead of relying on the Holy Spirit to be there first. (Spiritual leaders, I bet you are, too.)

That shiny golden calf looks like the copious ways I’m trying to do this myself, instead of patiently waiting for God to show me what to do. Show me, God, perhaps I can wait for a moment.

Only a moment, though. I’m kind of impatient.

COVID-19 the New Exercise Regime

(Photo by David Todd McCarty on Unsplash)

Perhaps I’ve been doing it all wrong.

For six months, I have done everything within my meager human power to avoid spreading or contracting COVID-19.

I stayed home when I wanted to travel.

I have worn a mask in all public places, even among people not wearing a mask who look at me with disdain.

I have told my own kids “no” to so many things they would like to do: sleepovers, gatherings with friends, eating out at restaurants, staying in hotels, visits with grandparents when numbers are high, looking disdainfully at people not wearing masks.

Our congregation has courageously said “no” to large in-person gatherings, “yes” to wearing masks, and “no” to putting staff at risk as much as possible even as our county has encouraged large in-person gatherings and watched the numbers soar.

Apparently, according to (not the scientists) my country’s own president, contracting COVID-19 is as good as a regular exercise regime. It will make you feel 20 years younger.

As he encourages people to contract what has killed more than 200,000 just in the territory he is responsible for, the very disease that has overcrowded nearly every hospital in my state (including my city); as he refuses to listen to science and gives more “ammunition” to those who have looked at me disdainfully for six months, who also get most of their facts from Facebook memes, I will say “no”.

No, President Trump, I will not hope for COVID-19, nor will I put others at risk (not a stranger nor a family member). No, President Trump, I will not hope to continue to overcrowd the ER and send people from our county to a hospital out of state because there is no nearer bed.

No, I will not listen to a billionaire, but I will listen to my own doctor. I will listen to the deeply concerned medical professionals I know, and to scientists who are not posting nonsense on Facebook.

There are other avenues to take to look 20 years younger. (Exercise, for example.)

But more importantly, the call to Christian faith sets aside such superfluous values. We wonder how the “no’s” and “yes’s” of today impact the marginalized now and in the next 20, 200, and 2000 years. We wonder about the impoverished neighborhoods that have buried the most dead these long six months. About the impact this pandemic will have on the cost of healthcare and whether that will widen the socioeconomic gap between people who are white and people who are not.

In the end, our Christian work may not align with the work of some of our highest political leaders. In some of the toughest of times in the history of the world, the Christian work had to contradict aspirations of the highest political leaders. And it wasn’t until long after that the veil was lifted and that became clear.

Many of the “no’s” and “yes’s” of these days are tough. They bravest “no” and “yes” we might say in these times will be for the common good. Not individuals’ good, not my own comfort, not my own self-righteousness, not my own pride.

COVID-19 is not the new exercise regime. No. No. No.

Welcoming Octobers

Today begins a new month after the longest September on record. September, the first full month of the brand new school year, usually bursts into our lives with the comfort of a familiar routine and a healthy break between siblings.

September, you were not yourself this year and who could blame you. Go recover, next year is sure to be much different.

I am so happy to see you, October. You paint the leaves earthy colors and every year the return of their beauty takes our breath away. You blow them off their sturdy trees and the crunchy leaves feed the soil to unfold in soft radiance in the spring.

There is no spring without fall. No new leaves without the falling of old leaves. No green grass without the natural composting of winter. No return of the birds if they don’t first fly away. No Easter without Good Friday.

October, you set our hope on endings. Not to end all things, but later, in due time to begin the things that promise life. We have wandered far from your promise of life. We argue about politics and barely know the neighbor who lives beside us. We shop online and accumulate things and overcrowd secondhand stores. We stay committed to our political party even though we know how corrupt it is. We let down the kids who live among domestic violence. We accept that a woman must choose caring for family in place of pursuing a career she loves. We refuse to wear masks and create a crisis for long-term care centers in our own communities.

Oh my, October, there is so much possibility for you this year. So many endings, leaves that might blow off their trees, composting that will renew life if not for us, then for another generation in another spring much later.

Let’s begin.

Dreamers Wanted

My cell phone is sleeping. It is turned off and tucked into a drawer until noon, and shortly after will resume its nap until this evening. I’ve been a real crabbypants lately, made worse by checking the proliferating number of COVID-19 cases in our county.

Checking the cases makes me slightly anxious. Feeling slightly anxious leads to feeling slightly more anxious. Feeling slightly more anxious makes me crabby at a lack of cooperation by fellow citizens of Dickinson to wear masks in public. Crabby about masks makes me crabby at people. And too much crabbiness is not very pastoral.

Which is why this is a Sabbath Day for my cell phone and me. Because I have been a crabbypants.

I need a break from my own reactions to this season of America’s history in real time. A break from defensive feelings that keep bubbling up in me: judgement, anger, disappointment.

Today, I am not a defender. I’ll choose to be a dreamer. Dreaming is easier when my cell phone is napping and my amygdala isn’t on edge.

And 2020 could use more dreamers and fewer defenders.

How To Not Plan For the Future

Planning and me go together like cookie dough and chocolate chips. Give me the job of planning the meal, planning the vacation, planning the congregational visioning process, planning the closet reorganizing, planning the preaching schedule, planning the family calendar, and I’m as happy as Homer with a Duff Beer.

Imagining a future and trying to have some say in it…remember when that seemed possible? Remember six months ago when you had a vacation on your calendar? A game plan for the holidays? A coffee date for next week?

Those were the days.

And yet. All this time you have been breathing, and you didn’t have to plan a thing. All day your heart has been lub-dubbing and none of your plans made that happen, either.

God is always up to some life-giving something, it seems, without our getting too involved in all the details.

What Do You Expect?

Expectations are in the air. Whether you know it or not, expectations you carry around for yourself, your family, your friends, and your community and its leaders give shape to your life.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought as I regularly hear conspiracies related to COVID-19. In North Dakota, apparently conspiracy theories are our thing. I’ve bent my pastoral ear to theories about hospitals receiving more revenue for COVID-19 patients , or death certificates recklessly adding COVID-19 as a cause of death, or that this whole thing will go away after the election.

I suspect there might be an expectation that the system is out to get people. That the Democrats or the Republicans or the refugees or the women or the people who are gay are out to get you. There is an expectation that a person’s freedoms are at risk, that the world is getting worse, that all leaders are suspect.

It leads me to wonder about my role as a spiritual leader. What do people expect of me right now? Do they expect me to challenge their conspiracies? Expect me to remind them the very person they are naming as suspect may have been the doctor they have trusted for decades, or the refugee who dreams of work and well-being as much as they do.

Expectations. In my marriage and in my life as a pastor, I have found that unpacking expectations deescalates an angry moment. It adds clarity to the muck of assumptions and suspicions.

Perhaps my pastoral question needs to center on expectations.

“What are you expecting God to do in the midst of this?”

“How are you expecting communal healing in 2020?”

“How do you expect God needs you and I to speak truth into these matters?”

“What to do you expect our own church and our own local community to look like in a year if we have spoken so many untruths?”

There was no expectation life would emerge from that empty tomb on Easter morning. So I refuse to accept that this world has gotten worse and all leaders are suspect. I’ll expect an alternative. And perhaps I need to expect myself to ask more faithful questions out loud.

New Week, New Mercy

As though the mom-guilt I already experience isn’t enough, a global pandemic is a guilt game-changer.

Ordinarily, I feel guilty about working too much or too little; spending too little time with my kids or smothering them; screen time surveillance for my kids; whether I am taking enough time for our marriage, for myself, for our friends; why I can’t “find time” to exercise.

These days, I also worry about being present for my elementary-aged kiddo on at-home school days, getting her outside, and screen time surveillance is an entirely redefined conundrum!

If you are a parent dealing with an extra helping of guilt, I offer you these words…

*Be gentle on yourself. We have never done this before. Take a deep breath and then another.

*Kids are the most amazing and resilient creatures. While you need to do your best, you need not take the place of Jesus for them. Remind yourself and your kids that God’s mercy makes us enough for this wild work.

*Read a book, take a walk, or stare at the stars. There is enough beauty and wonder to assure you these months are a tiny blip in your life.

*Jesus doesn’t love what you do as much as Jesus loves who you are, beloved child of God.

This is a new week. And there is plenty of new mercy just for you.

Out of Place

I feel out of place. I’m not where I should be.

Each year for the past 14 years I have gathered in Medora with all the pastors, deacons, and synodically-authorized ministers (known as rostered leaders) from the Western North Dakota Synod for a three-day retreat.

Because pastors are creatures of habit and this retreat has been around a long time, I can tell you precisely where I would be at this early hour in Medora: the Little Missouri Saloon. Before you assume we begin the day in the bar, hear me out. Each Monday morning, a couple dozen people meet at the saloon not to wait for the doors to open, but for the fun 5K to begin! There is a chill in the air as people bounce around to stay warm, or drag their feet wondering why they abandoned their cozy beds. (There are a few who may have left that very saloon not too many hours before.)

We meet annually in Medora to worship, learn something new, complain when the Roughrider Hotel can’t keep up with our unreasonable demands for coffee, and most importantly to sit at circle tables together.

And so we have arrived at my out-of-place feeling. I’m not going to sit at a circle table today. If I run out of coffee it’s my own dang fault. And I won’t sit in a pub with some of my favorite people later this evening.

This year, some rostered leaders are in Medora and some of us will Zoom in. From my home, I will join colleagues from my desk and not a table where the shape tells the story of what we’re doing. We are part of this never-ending work to tell an old, old story of God gathering ordinary people. The work goes on and on from generation to generation with no end in sight. None of us will complete the work of proclaiming hope, but we will continue it. We will push through political divisions under the leadership of a narcissistic and vainglorious president. We will cry for justice when people are dehumanized simply for being black and Native American. We will not stop believing God gathers us to do something about the unjust lives of the poor.

Bishop Craig Schweitzer preached last night about our time before Covid, during Covid, and at some point after Covid. It was an encouraging proclamation that we are not stuck for ever in the during part of Covid. There was a time before and of course the circle of time will continue and we will find ourselves on the other side, persisting in the same work.

Although I won’t be at a circle table with them, I give thanks for my colleagues today. I wish we were all in Medora (and so does the Little Missouri Saloon), but more importantly, I know we will gather there again because circles have no end.

The Deep Breath That Is Saturday

Look at you! You made it all the way to Saturday. Perhaps it was a long way, or a quick trip. Here you are.

Saturdays can be a deep breath when you stop to recognize how shallow you’ve been breathing for so many days. You’ve taken in only the minimal amount of breath to get by; today you can breathe deep.

Sit down and breathe.

Feel the weight on your shoulders and wonder what all that’s about. Maybe some of that weight should sit somewhere else. You’ve got breaths to take.

Look around at the people and place in your life. Scroll through the past week and wonder what you missed in the lives of these people in the place where you are, and what you will refuse to miss in the week ahead. Abundant life demands a creative tapestry of the word “no”. No to this if it makes you too busy and your breath too shallow. No to that if your shoulders are heavy with demands that need not be yours.

There is enough breath for you to take it into the depths of your soul. People who studied Hebrew know a lovely secret that the Hebrew word for breath (you read in the Old Testament) is also the word for Spirit. A deep breath is an inhalation of the Holy Spirit. So take a breath and then another and let the life-giving Spirit enliven every cell in your body, every thought, every heartbeat, every movement.

Thank you, Saturday. We should do this more often.

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