faith – Page 16 – Lisa Lewton

Focus Beyond the Family (Part 2): Watch Your (Jesus) Language at the Table

In my last post, your homework was to imagine yourself in your church home, or in your church homelessness. “Where are you from?” How did you arrive at the place where you are, rooted in or uprooted from church. I am suggesting that your faith walk, as you turn and look back on the path, influences how you raise your own kids or grandkids in the faith.

We know only what we know, and what we know shapes how we might talk about Jesus in our homes. Talking is teaching. You might talk to your kids about nutrition, money, and time management. Talking about Jesus is a way of inviting kids into a wider lens of the Christian faith.

Let me break up that babbling with a story. Maybe 20 years ago, I first laid eyes on the colorful, elastic WWJD bracelets. Soon, those bands were everywhere! Whenever you had a moral dilemma, the bracelet, like the proverbial angel on your shoulder, would remind you to ask: “What Would Jesus Do?”. With one easy question, you would know how to act like a Christian!

At around the same time, churches that teach easy answers began to grow. The bracelet and this-or-that kinds of churches offered an easier way to be Christian. “Be good,” the bracelet whispered to wearers all day long. Christians who appeared to follow the bracelet’s orders were called “good Christians”. If anything bad happened to them, bystanders were perplexed. “Why would something so bad happen to someone like her (him)? She (he) is so nice?”

Kate Bowler is an associate professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke University. At the virtual Festival of Homiletics last week (a geeky preacher gathering), she described WWJD Christianity this way: “Our lives are meant to be proof of God’s work and love, so our lives must be put together.”

Put-together lives prove that the bracelet works; that the Christian faith promises a better life. Lives that do not look put together are questionable. “Why don’t they just slip on the bracelet? It’s so easy!” WWJD Christians wonder, looking at empty wrists from their lenses obstructed by logs.

If faith were a series of moral questions and easy answers, how easy it would be, indeed. Listen to the bracelet. Follow the commandments (all 613 of them), and life will go your way. And teaching kids something easy is much, much easier than teaching them something hard.

All might be well until the perfect future unravels, one string at a time. The easy answers will not stand up to our own human brokenness. The bracelet cannot save the WWJD Christian from addiction, abuse, divorce, war, racial injustice, cyber-bullying, cancer, bankruptcy, and on and on. Life has a way of spinning a tornado, even through the put-together lives.

At the table with kids, watch your Jesus language. If Jesus rewards those who are good (how could something so bad happen to her), if faith promises a better life (we need to try harder to be good so God will give us a better future), how would we explain the truth about being human? Every kid needs to know the difference between a fairy godmother and Jesus Christ. Conversation points abound, so find one and wiggle into it.

~At the table, when the conversation turns to “the bad kid” in your kid’s classroom, Jesus language would wonder what is going on in that kid’s life? How could your child pray for her or his classmate instead of join in the easy work of vilifying?

~At the table, when the conversation turns to politics and “the abhorrent other side”, Jesus language points us past this-or-that language and recognizes the holes in our own argument.

~At the table, when a kid (or maybe a grown-up) expounds on the next new thing to buy, Jesus language might match that question with a story about a time your family was generous with money. Chip away at changing the narrative around money in your home.

In the next post, also the last in this series, we will focus farther beyond the family, as the Christian faith is meant to do. We will point kids to a lived faith in a broken world, recalling the origins of the Christian story. Our story began with sermons that preached a kind of mercy, Jesus language, that does not fit on a bracelet.

Focus Beyond the Family (Part 1): Erasing Easy Answers to Faith Questions

*Welcome to a three-part series called “Focus Beyond the Family”, meant to widen the lens on the wild work of raising kids in the Christian faith. In the next three posts, I hope to get you wondering: (1) what you expect from church, (2) how you might talk about Jesus at home, and (3) understanding faith as an arrow that points us beyond our own families.

If your faith orientation is Christianity, you might have hopes of raising your kiddo(s) or grandkiddo(s) in the Christian faith. This is not easy work. Perhaps your child was baptized, goes to (went to) some Sunday School or Confirmation classes, and you sit (sat) together at church. Either you chose that church or your (your spouse’s) extended family chose it for you.

If you are doing the hard work of raising kiddo(s) in the Christian faith, here is a quick tip regarding churches. There are two kinds of churches: one kind provides all the answers, and the other kind does not. One kind quotes a singular verse from the library of books that is the Bible, the other tells you the mysterious, broad-stroke story of God who loved the world so much that God slipped into skin to experience it close up. One kind preaches morality (“be good”), the other preaches that you can never be good enough, so welcome to grace. One kind talks in “this or that” language, the other relies on the two words: “and yet”.

One kind of church promises that faith will make your life better. The other kind of church will never, ever make such a promise. The former kind of church, through the voices of beautiful faces and blindingly white teeth, proclaims that having faith will make your marriage better, your kids more obedient, and will pave the way toward a better future. The latter kind of church promises that you, child of God, are both beloved and broken, and Jesus Christ will always put you back together, and yet life will not always be better. The Christian life is a series of broken roads with no easy-to-follow answer signs, and a never-ending promise of Jesus’ mercy.

What does all of this distinguishing between two kinds churches have to do with you? With your faith? With your life?

I’m enjoying the book, Share Your Stuff. I’ll Go First. It is written by Laura Tremaine, who invites you into thoughtful conversation and reflection. I’ve been journaling my answers as I reflect and I’m looking forward to raising her relationship-deepening questions with friends. One question Tremaine asks is: “Where are you from?” This is a standard, yet telling question.

While she asks the question more generally, I invite you to wonder from a church perspective.

~If you are (or are not) part of a church community, how did you arrive at that decision? From where have you come along your faith walk?

~How has your past experience with the Christian Church shaped what you might expect from the church?

~Do you expect easy answers or more obedient kids or a better life?

~Do you expect church to help fix your problems or to help you live with your problems?

Today, peel the layers of what you expect church to be or do for you and your family as you recollect your own church origin stories. In the next two posts, we will use what you learned to erase the easy faith answers. Then, with a blank canvas, we can create a more lasting portrait of a life of Christian faith.

How to Successfully Avoid Your Daily Devotions

Each of your days begins with the reliable promise of 24-hours. On some days, those hours stretch out languidly, and on other days the hours rush past. One by one, they disappear, like when you blow on the seedhead of a dandelion. Now you see them, now you don’t.

Finding a rhythm during my sabbatical has been tricky, but my days go more smoothly when I begin by reading a daily devotion and spend some minutes in silence. Today, l successfully avoided both.

How? I slept in a bit, made a yummy donut run with my daughter, bought a cart-full of groceries (two teenage boys to feed), and spent the rest of the morning making (and sampling) monster cookies. During my sugary morning, I listened to a sermon from a preaching conference called the Festival of Homiletics, a podcast wondering how customized our lives should be, and another podcast offering great wisdom about summer screentime for families. In other words, I consumed cookies and information, two of my favorite things!

And right…no daily devotions.

The hours in a day have a habit of marching ahead. How often do you take a good look at your day before it slips away (like the dandelion seedhead) and ask yourself what is at its center? Does the center of your day have to do with accomplishing tasks? Looking good? Sounding capable? Or just getting through it? What is it that holds your day together; the string that connects the hours as they unfold? And what does the way you begin your day have to do with the rest of your day?

Before the hours of a new day arrive, I invite you to wonder how you might begin the first hours, and what difference that might make. How can the center, that is, what holds your day together, position you firmly in the love of God in Jesus Christ?

The spiritual practice of devotions (or a walk or a prayer or a guided meditation) might remind you the days filled with hours do not go on forever. You have only so many days, only so many hours, and no matter how you spend them, each one is pure gift from the God who is love.

On the days I successfully avoid reading devotions, I tend to forget the gift of each hour and who gave them to me. The hours march on and therefore so do I until suddenly the seeds are all caught up in the wind and I turn off the last light. Perhaps tomorrow I will be less successful! And maybe even a tiny bit wiser.

A Mom on Sabbatical

What have I learned in nearly two weeks of sabbatical time? I can sum it up in two words: slow down.

A year or two ago, I stopped at the post office to mail a package. It was a quick stop between Walmart and a haircut and I was hustling. Hustling is a drug that keeps you moving. It makes you feel amazing and unstoppable and completely unaware of how addicted you’ve become. I was pushing my pin number into the machine on the post office counter, but the machine kept rejecting my card.

“It worked when I was at Walmart a few minutes ago,” I assured the nice man at the counter, saying between the lines that there is actually money in my checking account! “You can slow down,” he gently prodded, seeing how flustered I had gotten. After a few more useless tries, I abandoned the debit card and handed over my credit card.

Later, I would realize I mistyped the four numbers of my pin. In my mindless hustle, I had thrown it off by a number enough times to lock up my card.

Now, nearly two weeks into this slower season of sabbatical, I am noticing more. I notice when I am tired and need more sleep, and then I go to bed earlier and sleep. I notice I tend to eat more when I’m in a hurry. I notice how easy it is for any one person in my family to default to a screen for distraction. I notice the majority of my breaths are shallow.

I notice how fun it is to prepare food when I don’t have to rush. I notice how much more meaningful conversations become when I’m not watching a clock to get back to work. I notice I take more time for contemplative prayer and daily devotions. I notice my families faces (even though not all teenagers appreciate such noticing).

“You can slow down”, came the wisdom behind, of all places, the post office counter! I’m listening. I’m slowing down.

What might that look like for you today? Notice when you are walking fast without needing to. Notice when you read, eat, or talk too fast. Notice your breaths and whether they are deep or always shallow.

In the noticing, often called mindfulness, Jesus’ presence becomes obvious. If there is one thing we do not attribute to Jesus, it is hustle! He was in no hurry moving from village to village, miracle to miracle, conversation to conversation, prayer to prayer.

How might the practice of slowing down help you notice the peace of Jesus’ presence today?

The More Absurd Mom-Chores

Today I think I will clean inside the refrigerator so that tomorrow it will look like I did not clean it at all.

One month ago I washed the windows so that one month later it would look like I didn’t.

I also make our bed, re- (and then re-) organize the kitchen cupboard that provides temporary housing for snacks that quickly disappear, and on rare occasion I have been known to fold and sort clothing and accessories belonging to my daughter’s dolls (under her direction and supervision).

All of these chores can be filed together under the letter “A” for absurd. These are absurd ways to spend time. I know my work will be unnoticed by most everyone but me, and my efforts will be undone rather quickly.

Yet for a brief moment there is order where there had not been. Like God speaking into the chaos and nothingness at the start of God’s first day on the job, it all makes sense for just long enough to take it all in; to believe that order might be possible after all.

And then someone raids the refrigerator, or soaks the windows when he meant to water the grass, or confuses the drawers that belong strictly to the doll’s stockings with the drawer designated for headbands.

What order?

Like a day that does what it does instead of what you expected it to. Like kids for whom you dreamed one dream who now occupy their own quite different dream. Like you, who woke up ready for this day and now you feel as undone as the formerly-organized snack cupboard; as dis-orderly as my refrigerator will be by the time the sun tucks itself beneath the horizon.

We are meant to be both done and undone, we human creatures. To be both orderly and dis-orderly, both lost and found, both “W” for wise and “A” for absurd. You have noticed the order God once pronounced long ago for the very first time did not stick. But God stuck around; kept speaking as stubbornly as the mom who continues to do the absurd chores. Even when it doesn’t look like we did them at all. But we did. We sure did.

Home from Introvert Bible Camp

After five days of silence and a long, quiet drive on the unending pavement that is I94, I am home.

Last week began a three-month sabbatical from my work as senior pastor. At a hermitage in Northern Minnesota, my sabbatical commenced with a silent retreat that positioned me as unavailable to my family and congregation. It was a week of fast learning for all of us, me in particular, that I can step away (far away) and all is well. People continue to be cared for, kids are fed, and sometimes my husband can find a new shampoo bottle in the drawer in the bathroom when his runs out, although sometimes he cannot, like this week.

Who excitedly transforms into a hermit for five days in a tiny cabin tucked among a dozen or so other cabins occupied by fellow hermits to whom you cannot speak? Hermit, by the way, refers to someone who escapes everyday life in exchange for the quiet. It was like Bible Camp for Introverts. Nap, walk, read or write for hours. Food and water is left on your doorstep and time is spent listening to God, which means listening to the woods and its creatures, listening to your body and responding when it needs food or rest, and listening to the Spirit’s whispers in your prayers.

I learned (again) that we actually need very little, and the less there is (food, water, furniture), the more it is valued.

I turned off my phone Monday afternoon and did not touch it again until Friday. I missed it only twice, both times when I had an urge to Google an author whose work I was reading. Thank goodness that was not an option. You know what happens when you want to Google one thing. It’s “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” every time! On your way to Googling, you stop to check your Instagram feed, which reminds you to send an email, at which point you decide to look at your bank account, and on and on. There is no such thing as a quick Google.

All genders can be seen ambling along the paths at the hermitage, but one day I noticed a half dozen or so women roughly my age. Later, I saw them congregate in the main building on my way to the shower. (Yes, hermits do shower, thank the Lord.) It appeared to be a women’s retreat. How brilliant! A gathering of women, perhaps moms, who took a couple of days to respond to no one’s needs but their own, answered no one’s questions, explained to no partner that your shampoo can easily be found by pulling open the drawer!

Moms often give in a way that makes it slip from our minds how we, too, are children of God. Children, all children, need to be known and loved and released from the mental load, if only for long enough to sneak into the woods for a few days of quiet.

A Quiet Week

Today begins a three-month sabbatical for me, compliments of a generous congregation in southwest North Dakota. They have gifted me with three months to spend time with my favorites: family, books, pen and paper, and quiet. My first stop is a particularly quiet one: the woods.

I am returning to a place of silent retreat, where I will leave all devices behind. It will be a quiet week when the noise my phone makes and the voices in my head reminding me to do this and do that will fade away. Rest will be priority; reading and journaling the lone items on my to-do list. Each day will be guided by the Spirit’s words – which I will actually hear over the voices that have then faded away.

Listening is much easier when we do not try to hear everything all at once. I hear nothing when I expect myself to hear everything. There are invisible volume buttons to adjust. Turn down the work volume once I get home. Turn down the mom guilt dial when I am doing my best at work. Turn down the unrealistic expectations for myself volume at home and at work and suddenly I might hear God reminding me to let go. Let go of trying to hear everything, God might whisper, and the quiet will tell you the one thing you truly need to hear.

It is enough simply to be. Next week, after an ear-full of quiet, I may tell you what I heard.

Week 2 of 3: The World Needs You to Pray (prayer at home)

“KITT,” I would say with authority to the invisible watch on my wrist, “I need you to come pick me.” In real life KITT did not, but in my imagination, the talking car immediately responded, like I was totally David Hasselhoff in “Knight Rider”, and away we would go.

(https://screencrush.com/knight-rider-car-for-sale/)

My eight-year old self (and yours) never imagined actual communication through a watch, but now it’s a thing! I splurged on an Apple Watch and spent too much of a Saturday talking to my watch, gazing at it, and being confused by it. I adjusted my fitness goals, set my alarm, read the news, called my dad (like Knight Rider to KITT) and checked the weather a ridiculous number of times. My watch knows me well because I taught it what matters to me, such as moving around during the day, waking up early, and determining how many layers to wear when I go outside.

Prayer is something like being obsessed with your Apple Watch. The more time you spend, the more you are known, both by God and your own self.

If you wonder what to pray about, do not look far. Look at your own body and then at the bodies who are closest to you (maybe not in terms of proximity). Start there. Pray for God to help you know yourself, to understand why you feel the way you do in regard to your own life. Pray for wisdom and imagination. Lighting a candle or three helps.

Then, pray for those who mean the most to you. Pray for your spouse, your parents, your kids, your siblings, your aunt and uncle, grandparents, and cousins. Pray for them one by one, even if it takes some time. You are not praying for something to happen to them. Remember, you are not God and God knows more than you. You are praying for wisdom and imagination for them. For their well-being, for the peace of Christ’s presence to enfold them.

“Prayer is the place where priorities are re-established,” wrote the late Eugene Peterson.

You discover when you pray for your own self and for those closest to you that your priorities shift. You find yourself closer to God. You feel closer to family members. Prayer is not complicated, but it does take time and it may reroute your plans for life. What you had been worrying about might fall away. What had never occurred to you before might appear in your brain. You might come to realize how hard you can be on yourself. God’s resounding grace reclaims its space in your soul when you pray. And you remember you are known already, without the hassle of the Apple Watch, or the Hasselhoff with KITT. You are known, you hear your heart sing whenever you pray.

A preview of next week: In the last week of this short series on prayer, we will wonder what difference your own prayers make in the wider world.

Week 1 of 3: The World Needs You to Pray (First, what is prayer?)

Welcome to a three-week focus on prayer practice. I hope this mini-series meets you where you are and invites you to be gentle on yourself in your own unique practice of prayer. (For a deeper dive into prayer, perhaps a book by one of my favorite authors, Father James Martin, is for you.)

A few weeks ago in a Zoom conversation with my spiritual director, I found myself in tears. Pastor Brice has met with me nearly each month for the past 17 years, beginning at the infancy of my pastoral life. His work as a spiritual director is to direct people to recognize God’s presence. My time with him opens my imagination to the mercy of Jesus Christ in my everyday life.

I entered this particular conversation carrying a few heavy burdens. I was anticipating the long stretch of Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, working diligently to equip the leadership of our congregation to make no-win decisions related to the pandemic, responding to my own kids’ distinct needs, caring for my spouse in the annual high stress of beginning the last quarter of the school year. In a nutshell, I was tired. If you look around, you might notice pastors or deacons who are tired. We carry the weight of people’s displeasure for decisions related to the pandemic, while at the same time are experiencing personal fatigue that has accumulated for the past 15 months. I write this not to lure you into sympathy for clergy, but to give you an unusually honest glimpse into the lives of the people who care for your souls.

With Pastor Brice, I spend roughly 20 minutes in contemplative prayer. I light a candle and stare at it for much of our time. What is it about contained, dancing flames that slows down my breathing and loosens my shoulders? Brice will express a few winding thoughts to move my own thoughts out of the chaotic parts of my brain. I open my eyes just enough to scribble some of his Spirit-filled wisdom onto paper, to capture the moments when I recognize God’s presence. That day, I scribbled around tears that fell on my paper; tears that interrupted the hustle to the empty tomb.

In a podcast with Kate Bowler, Father James Martin describes prayer as intentional, conscious conversation with God. He said, “It’s a back and forth. It’s you sharing yourself with God, and it’s also God sharing God’s self with you in different ways.”

In that moment with my spiritual director, I had finally let God get a word in. When I did, I heard God tell me to quit talking about Jesus long enough to let Jesus do the talking in me and to me. I heard the Spirit in the tears that relinquished me of my responsibility to make a community content. I heard Jesus’ promise to care for all the people, including me.

Prayer practice might look like this for you, if even once in a while. Like any conversation, it does require your attention. Maybe on a walk, in the shower, or while you’re sautéing onions. You might wear some type of air pods to deter people from talking to you while you are in conversation with God.

As you do that, make sure to listen. After all, God, your most faithful conversation partner, has already been listening to you.

A preview of next week: Prayer changes the way you look at your own life, your family, your marriage, and your work. It is the quiet path toward being more gentle on yourself, and more aware of God’s presence.

P.S. Spiritual Direction is not only for pastors. I would recommend it for anyone who would like to deepen your relationship with God. Pastor Brice is obviously my favorite. I did spend time at a monastery several years back and found that to be renewing as well.

P.P.S. I try to publish a weekly post on Mondays, but if you don’t want to miss it, you can subscribe to my blog on the right. Subscribing will also give you a sneak peak at a few extras, including excerpts from a book I expect to self-publish this summer, called “Spiritual Longings in a Woman’s World.”

P.P.S. I find you awesome because you read all the way to the bottom of this post.

Holy Week: The unDead End

The human experience is often habitual. From our morning routine, to the route we take through the grocery store, to the way we choose to relax. If you were to zoom out on your life, you would notice other examples of habit. How you set goals (or don’t) and whether you expect to achieve them. How you respond to your self-criticism. How you dream (or don’t dream) about your future.

When we move comfortably in rhythm with our habits, we might wonder whether this is all there is. Is this the only way? Does your familiar habitual experience lead irreversibly in one direction? Do all roads close in on the one dead end at the very end?

I am wondering because some habits are not particularly life-giving. Whenever you feel stuck in a job or a relationship, it feels very much like moving toward a dead end; as if this truly is all there is and there is absolutely no other way.

If you want a ridiculous example, I can supply many from my own life. To offer you just one. I have been wearing disagreeable sunglasses for almost a year. They never quite fit properly and they have left a small scratch on the bridge of my nose that will not go away for the obvious reason that I keep wearing them. In the very center of one lens, there is a damning scratch that occurred when my kids were fighting like zoo animals in the car one day and I threw my glasses because…because…well, that was just a dumb thing I did.

For the past year, I have answered “yes” to the question, “Is this the only way I might protect my eyes from the sun? Is this scratched and scratching set of sunglasses my only option?”

Here is another example, this one from the Bible and not so petty. I give you, the story we call Palm Sunday.

When Jesus sat on a donkey and strode into Jerusalem, he was mimicking a Roman victory parade. If we were first century residents of Jerusalem, we would have known that after your country (always Rome in the first century) wins a war, a prominent military figure would sit on a fancy-pants horse and enter a city through a parade of worshippers. It was “the only way” to assure a city the victors would forever be the victors. There was no reason to doubt the men in charge because, can’t you see, military men like this one will forever rule the world and therefore be worthy of your praise.

But…Jesus was on a donkey, not a horse. His victory would be by death, not by inflicting death on others. Which means this “ruler” of ours would not promise to live, but be killed. Eek.

Jesus’ life-long sermon was, “Nope, this is not all there is.” Victors who rule by might alone? Not all there is. People who are weak, poor, lost, addicted, not religious, lonely, left in the gutters? Not all there is. Women whose proper place is wherever the men decide? Not all there is. Kids who are subjected to sexual abuse because their voices don’t matter? Not all there is. The rich buying their way through life? Nope.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus preached this sermon without words. His parade into the city was a colossal joke, a prank meant to light a fire under the church and city rulers. It worked.

On Easter Sunday (and every single day) God preaches that sermon again and again. “This is not all there is.” Christians are brazen enough to look for the living among the dead because all roads, no matter how deep the ruts of our habits, do not lead to a singular dead end. The tomb was a most profound hoax of a dead end, revealing itself three days later to be an un-dead end.

I did order new sunglasses yesterday. Just in time for Easter.

A question for littles

Sometime when you are driving home and everyone is in a delightful mood and you are not in a hurry, take a different route. You could ask you kiddo to tell you where and when to turn. Ask them what they notice? What’s it like to take a different route?

A question for former littles

Do you feel stuck in any particular habit? (First, the grown-up must share an answer from her or his own life.)

A spiritual practice

When you have 5 extra minutes (or maybe during your shower) think of words you use to describe yourself. Be honest and let the words come to you. Notice whether the words are positive or negative. Are some of the words untrue? Do they lead you to dead ends in your life? How might the un-dead end of the empty tomb renew your sense of yourself?

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