Category Archives: faith

Walking With My Favorite Devotional App

( Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com )

Saturdays are my favorite devotion day. On Saturdays, the app I use, Pray As You Go, walks me through Examen as I walk my dog through the neighborhood. What is Examen, you ask? It is wonderful and has nothing to do with exams! Examen is a spiritual prayer practice taught by the Jesuits. In this practice, you look back at your day and pay attention for God’s activity. You notice how you spent your time and you remember (because you probably forgot) that God spent all of that time with you. What do you notice as you look back? When did you experience tension? When did you feel most alive?

That was one question in today’s Examen. Reviewing the headlines of the past week, I recognized I felt most alive writing liturgy for September worship services, connecting with my love of writing. I felt most alive when I visited with St. John folks over the phone and in person, connecting with the church I’ve been called to serve. I felt most alive sitting at a table or leaning over the kitchen counter listening to my kids recall their first two days of school.

When did you feel most alive in the past week?

It is amazing what you notice when you look back! We often have a better angle on our lives when we look back. The view isn’t always pretty, just to be honest. I had to see again that I snapped at my spouse. I worried more than I needed to regarding the state of the world. I could have stewarded my time more carefully. And so we look back with a lens of self-compassion. Every day, we start over. Looking back, I could see that yes, I did apologize to my spouse and I did tell God what I’m worried about. I did pay better attention to the precious resource of time. Looking back at a week encourages you to let go.

What spiritual practice helps you to let go? Do you journal, spend time in silence, or walk? This app has been my faithful walking companion (along with Pippen, who doesn’t actually care about my devotional practices), for the past six months after my colleague mentioned it. I simply added it to what I was already doing.

Please wonder today what practice might be a worth a try. What might fit well into your life, even if it takes a bit of discipline? What might encourage you to be more gentle on yourself? You don’t need to commit for life, just for now.

A Christian Way to Talk About the World With Kids

Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com

Have you ever noticed how you talk about the world with kids? What age-old words or phrases do you let slip without realizing? Do you call the world “dangerous”? Or explain tragic events by concluding, “The world can be a terrible place,” or, “There are bad people in the world.”

I also wonder how you refer to decision-makers. Are all politicians awful? And lawmakers corrupt? How do your own headlines and editorials shape the way kids around you understand the function of the government?

As any teacher will tell you, kids speak of the world with the narrative they learn at home. Your family’s unique language is their first tongue to articulate an understanding of the world around them. If at home you speak of a corrupt government, your child will do the same at school. If all politicians are distrustful as you process the news at home, distrust may plant a seed that will later blossom into endless conspiracy theories.

The Buddhist are perhaps the first to point out that humankind is aptly named. Our early orientation toward strangers is most often kindness. If you smile at a toddler, that child will naturally smile back. It happens every Sunday during the sermon when people sitting near a baby will hear almost none of the sermon due to the steady, heartwarming exchange of glowing smiles.

We live in a time in the United States when deeply-rooted conspiracy theories are shaping events and nurturing distrust. In my corner of the world, generations-old distrust of the government has placed a filter over information related to the pandemic. And that makes me wonder about younger generations that continue to learn distrust as a first language. I suspect conspiracy theory is handed down and learned at home.

All that is to say, what might be the Christian way to talk about the world with kids, particularly at home. Here a few ideas:

  • Do not avoid the words “I don’t know.” We are inundated with both true and false information and we do not always know the difference. A shrug of the shoulders prevents us from thinking we are always right.
  • Check out the Bible. It blows my mind whenever I read Old Testament stories of how God used “the bad guy” to deliver his word. Jonah was sent into “enemy territory.” Jesus befriended the wrong “political parties.” The fall of the Berlin wall is a good illustration of how God responded to separating humans based on political allegiance.
  • Start a conversation. Ask kids, “How is God in the world right now?” As we watch the terror unfold in Afghanistan, how is God with the people? What does God need from us to care for the strangers we see in the news? Even a prayer for people far away makes us more than strangers. Also, asking kids a question reminds us that they know far more than we assume!
  • Scan yourself for anger. Anger can be productive, but it can also be wildly unproductive. If your anger makes you feel self-righteous, keep that in check. Your kids may learn to be angry with people only because they think differently than they do. Warning: Self-righteous kids are the most annoying friends in high school and college. Try to avoid raising those.
  • Remind kids a basic tenet of the Christian faith. Our faith does not put our absolute trust in a human leader, but only in our Lord. Only God deserves our total allegiance. Only God will save us. Only God will lead us through this life into the next one. Human leaders cannot promise salvation, so if you sense yourself buying into such a promise, back up a bit.

While it is a challenging time to raise kids, it is an excellent time to be in conversation with them. We all need help processing what we see in the news. It is easy to avoid, but we need to talk about why there are people who drive around our neighborhood with flags in their pick-up trucks for my 9-year old to read F— Biden. I wonder why that person feels so strongly? I don’t know, but I’m sure there is a reason. He/she is a child of God, too.

Waiting For School, Waiting For Cooler Weather, Waiting For Supper

(Photo by Chad Stembridge on Unsplash)

Waiting for the laundry to finish, waiting for mom to buy more granola bars. Waiting for the cookie jar to refill itself, waiting for that device to charge. Waiting for the eggs to cook, waiting for kids to stop bickering. Waiting for the movie to begin, waiting for tomatoes to ripen.

I am impatiently waiting for the tomatoes! So many tomatoes in my backyard. Any moment now, I’m sure, they will show their true colors: red, purple, and yellow. Then I will smile a loving smile and make a BLT.

Impatiently is one way to wait. I can watch tomatoes impatiently and water them impatiently. Waiting impatiently is a sure formula to miss the details. If I am too impatient, I won’t notice the earthy smell of the leaves that have been working hard for months to grow. I won’t notice that sneaky orange cherry tomato I overlooked earlier. I won’t notice how wild it truly is that our food comes from tiny seeds!

Waiting impatiently mutes the wonder. It hurries us through the minute, the hour, the day, the lifetime. Wait impatiently and your frustration might get the best of you. Wait with wonder and your senses might perk up.

In these weeks of prelude to the school year, I am waiting for kitchen counters to stay clean all day long, and for someone else to make their lunch. I am waiting for the return of the beloved routine, and for kids to enter new challenges.

I will take another stroll by the yet-to-ripen tomatoes to avoid becoming too impatient in my waiting. They may remind me that suddenly they will be big and ready to leave the vine. I may never get such a privileged close-up view of their growing up. Every moment I’ve been waiting, they’ve been transforming. And I tell them as I wait and wait, that they are the most wondrous tomatoes I have ever laid eyes on.

The Magic of the 20-Second Hug

When I was a little girl, I had a persistent light cough that was attributed to dust. Among the many tactics we tried to eliminate allergens in our house to limit the coughing was a mostly strict ban on stuffed animals. Only my two plush puppies, Rover and Scrappy, survived the ban.

While no allergy is ideal, this one had its perks. No stuffed animals were allowed to move in. Meaning, my mom could say no to any and every such request.

Thirty-years later, my mom says yes to every such request from her granddaughter, which is how I ended up with a giant, red, heart pillow with the words “100% Huggable” from a garage sale last week. Where, I ask you, does one put a giant, red, heart pillow with the words “100% Huggable” in one’s home? Oy vey.

While the pillow is not my favorite, it is cool because my daughter picked it out for me, and because the words have a ring to them. I recently learned of the 20-second hug. Perhaps I read it somewhere or caught it in a podcast. Simply put, hugging your partner for at least 20 seconds (in one continuous hug) is magical. Consider. You cannot naturally hug someone you are annoyed by for 20 seconds. Eventually in those 20 seconds, you probably decide he/she is not so bad after all.

Please test the theory and if it doesn’t work for you, I have a pillow that could be your consolation prize.

Blessed Are the Curious Children, for They May Properly Embarrass the Grown-Ups

(After a bike ride to the public library)

You have one or have met one: The child who simply oozes with questions.

If my daughter were a Nerf Dart Gun, she would fire continuously. Some darts might be soft and painless while others would be oversized and spikey. And you would never know which dart was about to fire until it hits. She once asked a woman in public whether she was a boy or girl. She has asked two people who happen to be standing next to each other whether they might get married. And of course, the usual array of uncomfortable questions: how much a person paid for a house, how much money a person makes, why a single person isn’t married, when the newly married person will have a baby, and on and on, painting my face a deeper shade of red with each and every dart.

It is in a child’s job description to embarrass parents. That way, when the child grows to be a teenager it all evens out. Any embarrassment a teenager laments is simply returning the favor.

For most parents, we deal with moments of curiosity-induced embarrassment understanding this is how kids make sense of the world. They ask their way into the moment. They wildly wonder out loud.

Today’s Nerf Dart came in the form of: “Mom, why did dad marry you?”

This is a dart I had not seen before. I’m not sure I’d ever pondered the question! Why did he marry me 20 years ago? I had no answer. “Because we were young and didn’t really know anything” didn’t seem the appropriate response! She’ll have to ask her dad.

Isn’t it crazy that a 9-year old can pose brand new questions to a 43-year old? Age might invite wisdom, but adding years is not exclusively the formula to becoming wiser. Curiosity does that. Even if the curiosity makes you blush in front of strangers and friends! If nothing else, those who are curious are contagious with wonder and wonder might call us to see one another in a new way.

I hope to overhear my husband’s response to today’s question. It makes me curious. Perhaps I might ask it myself.

Messy Make You Awesome

(Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash)

Oh, how I would love to open my kitchen cabinet doors to discover a gleaming oasis of organization. Instead of moving mixing bowls to get to a serving bowl, all bowls would be equally accessible. Some people’s dreams are inspired by dramatic home renovations on HGTV. I simply long for less crashing when I reach for a bowl.

Until the day arrives when only my husband and I open the kitchen cabinets, the crashing will persist. There is no possibility of an oasis for now. Like the lives we live, the cabinets will be messy, imperfect, oasis-less.

I have rounded the corner to the last third of my congregation’s gift of a sabbatical. The abundance of time I have to hang out with Jesus in prayer, to say yes to late night conversations with kiddos and my husband, and to Uber my kids here there and everywhere will shift in a month.

In my morning devotions, a question posed was whether I carry around heavy burdens from my past. Whether old sins linger and weigh on my shoulders. For me, it is the little things that snowball into a heavy burden. It is the everyday obnoxious, pestering questions:

Did I do enough for my family? For the church?

Whom did I disappoint?

Why did I say that?

Why didn’t I say that?

Could I have done that better?

Those are the pesky questions that keep me up at night and scratch at my soul, more than heavy burdens from my past.

And so, when I opened the kitchen cabinet and moved three things to get to a bowl this morning, I wondered if God was reminding me there is no oasis here. No organization or perfection to simplify life. As long as your heart is involved and your daily work (at home or anywhere) involves leading with your heart, you are in for messy cabinets, messy calendars, messy moments, messy sleep schedules. As long as you deeply care for people, do not expect perfection in your pantry.

This is why I wrote myself a note today. While the previous paragraph makes complete sense to me right now, in a couple of months when the messy cabinets are messier and I long for more time just to sit with Jesus, I will need a reminder. I will need a reminder that life with people involved is like needing the bowl that happens to be tucked into the corner, behind three other things. Always there is reaching and crashing. Remember, the note will nudge me, messy cabinets accompany life. The reaching, perhaps, could sound like Jesus’ reaching for me when I get stuck in the pestering questions. The crashing, perhaps, could sound like the slippery waters of baptism protecting me from the sticky burden of worrying whether I have done enough, or whether I am enough.

The moral of the story: If your cabinets are messy, you are awesome. Or more importantly, you are enough. And that is awesome.

Thanks for the Who

(Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash)

In the book, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, authors Amelia and Emily Nagoski suggest two lovely gratitude practices.

  1. WHO: Give thanks for someone(s) in your life.
  2. WHAT HAPPENED: Give thanks for something that happened that day.

These two practices are inspiring and avoid an icky result of most gratitude practices. Giving thanks for a who and a what happened prevents us from giving thanks for things. Giving thanks for things leads us to be thankful that we have things. Then we notice people in the world who don’t have things, which leads us to feel guilty that we do have things while others don’t. And gratitude becomes an exercise in guilt.

I am excited to practice giving thanks for some of those who are who in my kids’ lives. (You made it to the end of that weird sentence. Good for you.)

*Thank you, Lord, for Driver’s Ed instructors. What were they thinking? Keep them safe.

*Thank you, Lord, for coaches who set aside a ginormous amount of time for an often thankless job. Keep them sane.

*Thank you, Lord, for grandparents. May the trade-off of too-much sugar for so-much sweet grandparent love all work out in the end. Keep them smiling.

*Thank you, Lord, for gracious strangers who reveal comforting kindness at just the right moment, such as when a kid on a bike needs to cross a busy street. Keep them plentiful.

*Thank you, Lord, for the moms who are absolutely real when my kids come over to hang out. For the way they feed my kids with food, hospitality and an honest glimpse at the truth that all our homes are often hot messes. Keep them real.

*Thank you, Lord, for Faith Formation Directors (Christina Jorgensen) who mail my kid a cute card after an amazing week at Bible Camp, who promise that faith in Jesus is cool both at camp and everywhere else. Keep them in that particular job for a very long time. Please.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you.

The End.

Why I Don’t Tell My Kids God Has a Plan

(Photo by Idella Maeland on Unsplash)

It seems like the standard, automatic Christian response: “God has a plan.” Why in the world would I not say that to my own kids? Because this Christian mantra makes me uncomfortable. Let me tell you why.

I notice the words are spoken in the face of events we do not understand and would like to make sense of: cancer, tragedy, a difficult transition, or an uncertain future. “God has a plan,” the Christian deduces.

Perhaps saying these four words will provide a sense of comfort when our kids face trials (from heartache to addiction), or intense decisions (from how should I dress to whom shall I marry). We hope in these words to remind our kids they are part of a bigger design and God has it all under control. However, I suspect these four words dilute the incredible gift of God’s presence.

For at least three reasons, I avoid this Christian phrase.

  1. If everything is in God’s plan, then the terrible thing becomes part of God’s design, too. With this mantra, we tell our kids they may be destined for cancer or heart disease or divorce or addiction or fetal demise or a fatal accident because God is just that kind of event planner. Nations are meant to go to war and domestic abuse is a thing that happens. And who determines whether something is or is not in God’s plan? This seems very confusing both to kids and grown-ups.
  2. This notion really sucks for the poor. If God’s plan means some humans are impoverished while others are not, we risk placing kids in a position of inherent privilege. They are simply “the lucky ones,” which is how slavery persisted and how Hitler did his convincing. A strong enough belief in God’s immutable plan abdicates kids from the messy and complex work of loving our neighbor. A plan is straightforward, but loving our impoverished neighbor is anything but.
  3. Christian words meant to eliminate complexity make me nervous. Reducing confusing things to “God’s plan” releases us from the hard work of sitting with God and wondering. All seasons of life require reflection with God, an unpeeling of the many layers around each difficult experience we encounter. An automatic response discourages kids (and grown-ups) from deep conversation with God about the complexity of human life.

God’s plan, I hope to help my own kids understand, is to walk with them, listen, encourage and comfort. It is to set the people they need in their lives at precisely the right time. God’s presence is enough of a plan.

And You Thought THAT Felt Scary?

(Photo by Ivan Shemereko on Unsplash)

So many years ago for the very first time, I witnessed the pink lines on the stick. That was scary. What was happening in my body at that moment felt scary. The feeling intensified when a “helpful” co-worker told me, “Just you wait. A few weeks ago before my first child was born, I sat weeping on the steps in my house, wondering how something the size of a watermelon was going to come out of me.” “Thanks for the encouragement,” I did not say.

Outside the entrance of Mercy Hospital nine months later, Marcus and I loaded up our first born, trying to make sense of the car seat situation. We were now responsible for a human being’s survival! That felt scary.

In the next several years, we would leave our kiddo and then kids with a babysitter, then a day care provider, then a teacher. Each time, that felt scary.

We would leave them behind at a new school, a camp, a sleepover at a friend’s. Today, one of my sons walked alone into a room to take his permit test. He didn’t say it, but I knew it felt scary. Big questions, big stakes. He passed.

He left behind the part of his life in which he could not drive, only bike or walk or sit in a passenger seat. He left behind some of his dependence upon me and in doing so, he now shares some of the scary feelings with me. Moving into a new season of life is never without them. The scary feelings accompany independence.

In an audiobook I’m currently reading called Learning to Pray, James Martin, SJ, suggested talking to God about feelings such as these, and asking God what these feelings might mean. What does it mean, God, that I am scared when my kiddos gain independence. Along with that question, he offered another. Who is Jesus for me?

What do these feelings mean? Who is Jesus?

I feel scared when my kids gain independence perhaps because I worry whether Marcus and I have equipped them enough for that particular new independence. Of course, I feel scared for what might happen, scared for so many reasons. The scary feelings are simply too much for me to carry on my own.

Kids absorb some of the scary feelings when they gain independence. While I am still responsible for a human being’s survival, my kids are big enough to carry much of that responsibility, too.

Still, the scary feelings can be overwhelming. Jesus, then, is the porter who carries the heavy, scary feelings not only as far as your hotel room, but to all places at all times. He is the companion who does not leave my kids even when I leave them at a new school or a friend’s sleepover. He is the friend at camp and the passenger in the car.

Jesus is the one who reminds me the scary feelings are fine as along as they do not hinder the independence. (Easy for him to say.)

In years to come, at my child’s graduation, wedding, or who knows what, I will look back on the day of the permit and giggle at myself. “You thought THAT felt scary?” I’ll say. But I’ll say it more nicely than that co-worker. I don’t need to be a jerk myself.

Focus Beyond the Family (Part 3/3): “Kids, the world is bigger than your baseball game.”

(Photo Credit: https://www.legion.org/memorialday/photos/237598/memorial-day-border. May 29, 2017)

My kids and I spent Memorial Day in my hometown of Sherwood, North Dakota. Two miles from Canada, I grew up understanding a border to be peaceful, and international neighbors to be neighbors. Each year, roughly a week after joyfully arriving at the last day of school, students were called back to school to take part in the annual Memorial Day program. You can read more by clicking on the link in the photo caption.

In a nutshell, Memorial Day in Sherwood typically begins at the Canadian/American border, where Canadian veterans and members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and American veterans and local police officers march from their respective ports to the borderline, where they exchange their nations’ flags.

People my age and older recall riding a bus from Sherwood School those freezing mornings (my memories involve freezing rain, but maybe I’m exaggerating) with our instruments and joining the march to play…something…I can’t remember…I’m sure it was “lovely”.

The program continued at the school, with a choir singing each country’s anthem as well as the songs of each branch of the military. A slideshow, which has evolved into an impressive video production, displays pictures of each of Sherwood’s veterans who are now deceased.

Next, the program moves from the north end of Main Street where the school is located, to the south end where a stone memorial at the city’s fire hall commemorates two men who died fighting an oil fire near Sherwood in 1991. The program concludes at the city cemetery, where a designated person places a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldiers.

Each of the 84 years of this program has drawn a crowd, often including the governor of our state. It requires a great deal of planning and manpower, even though the number of volunteers to pull off such a program has dwindled over the years, in proportion to the shrinking of a small town like my hometown.

This year, even though the border portion of the program could not take place because of the pandemic and closed borders, I wanted my kids to spend Memorial Day in Sherwood. We sat on the bleachers, just as I had for so many of these programs, just as I had for the funerals of the two men who perished in the oil fire.

“Kids,” I try to remind my own, “The world is bigger than your baseball games, your jobs, your hobbies, your accomplishments.” When a moment arises to gather for something that is not kid-centered, I find those moments invaluable. Every kid, every grown-up, every human needs to know we are small parts of something larger than ourselves.

Not long ago, I admired the parents who spend so much of their time and money coaching kids’ sports teams. Volunteer parents receive very little gratitude for the sweat equity they have in their kids’ sports. Now, however, I am not so sure. I am starting to wonder about the danger of living in communities where we spend much of our free time and money watching our kids’ activities. Kids learned to be watched and adored or yelled at. They get to be part of a team, and that offers good life learning. But the humble act of sitting in the bleachers and hearing a story you’ve heard so many times about people whom you will never know, but whom you do know played a part in your living where you live…I suspect this is how we practice being human together.

Regardless of how I feel about war and politics and American flags, I need my kids to know they live in a community. You live in a community. Every one you know lives in some kind of community. A community functions best when we all proclaim a singular hope to make them community better for everyone.

My generation has often exchanged shared communal activities for kids’ sports, my own family included. I wonder what that means for the next generations. Who will set out the chairs for the community program? Who will organize the order of the program? Who will do the work of telling our story? It is a story that is not mine or yours or theirs, but ours. A story we may not even tell precisely the same way. (All family stories are like that; we do not remember things the same.)

I hope to raise kids who know that the responsibility of living in a community falls on them. Jesus’ call to love a neighbor is a call to them. The yearning for peaceful borders is not something to entrust to someone else.

Kids’ busy lives are not the whole world. The world is bigger as much as it is filled with possibilities for them to make it better. I only believe that because a community taught me, year after year on freezing Memorial Day mornings when I thought school was over but apparently it wasn’t because I needed to sing “O Canada” and play taps and occasionally I found it all very boring.

Now, I get it.