Tag Archives: community

An American Advent: What Does Justice Have to Do with Advent?

Fighting for justice is the daily work of a mom of young kids.

While the word justice addresses big concerns such as hunger, poverty and racism, justice is also a concern at the Lego table. Years ago, the 19-month difference in my little boys’ ages nearly did me in, especially when Legos were involved! The more aggressive brother hoarded the Legos or disassembled his brother’s creation. Whatever each one had was never fair enough and the tantrums that erupted were Vesuvian. My job as a mom was to advocate for justice at the Lego table by asking questions of my two little boys:

  • Why can’t you at least let me shower before you fight?
  • But seriously, why are you so angry?
  • Can you tell your brother what you want?
  • How can you share what you have so the Lego table can be a fun place for both of you?

Justice is what happens when people work toward the same equitable goal. Justice is two little boys sharing Legos, even though it lasts only long enough for a mom to take a shower.

In America, justice is a touchy word. Currently, Americans are rather possessive of their notion of justice, applying the word only to their own political party – blaming the opposing party for threatening justice. But justice is not a partisan word, it is an Advent word.

The Narrative Lectionary reading for the first Sunday in Advent is spoken by the prophet whose name is pronounced more than one way. Habakkuk (HAB-ah-kuk or Hah-BAK-kuk) is advocating for justice. He is waiting for God to bring about equity for God’s people caught between the superpowers of the day: Babylon and Egypt. The future for God’s people is grim, so Habakkuk turns to God and says, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?”

This is the faithful cry of Americans today, waiting for justice. How long, Lord, will our nation cling to their political parties? How long will we stand for the news to be delivered without integrity, deepening the divide between neighbors? How long will everything that’s wrong be the fault of everyone but our own selves? Lord, how long?

Next week, I will share the story of someone who believed it was her responsibility to advocate for justice. It was not the responsibility of the political powers of the day, or even the more powerful gender. She believed it was her own work to advocate for justice, which changes everything.

This week, consider your own understanding of justice.

  • In a journal or a conversation with a person or the Lord, what would justice in America look like and how much does your own political preference shape your understanding of justice?
  • Turning back to the questions at the Lego table, but seriously, why are you so angry?
  • Can you tell your brother and sister in Christ who may disagree with you how you want justice to look?
  • How can you share what you have so the Lego table America can be a fun place for both of you?

Eventually God responds to Habakkuk. In 2:1-5, God’s response threatens anyone who depends on wealth and pride. Wealth and pride do not bring about justice. Justice requires as much giving as getting, which is very difficult to teach both at the Lego table and in America. May justice begin in our own nation with your own honest reflection.

Photo credit: Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Time Capsule Trumpet

When a friend mentioned her daughter asked to play trumpet in 6th grade band, I was happy to offer my old Selmer. This is the trumpet I’ve packed up, left untouched and moved to four different homes in the last couple of decades. It’s the one I played most days of the week during the school year for roughly eight years.

Opening up the case before taking it to the professionals for a tune-up was like cracking open a time capsule. There was our school song, laminated and crumpled after years of basketball games. (“Sherwood High School, hats off to thee!”) There was the crepe paper, red poppy and American Legion label twisted around the brass for Memorial Day “Taps”. There was my 7th grade handwriting with my name, school and address in the event my trumpet and I were separated at a competition. (Was my mailing address actually Box 1? It’s true!)

Looking back, it seems my trumpet and I were rarely separated during that long stretch of time. Eight years is an extremely long stretch of time for a kid! My recollection of high school band (grades 7 – 12 seated across the gym stage, curtain closed) involves heaping sympathy for the music teachers who, let’s be honest, had little to work with. Yet every day he or she showed up, waving a small not-so-magic wand and hoping for a miracle. I also played for two years in college under the direction of the incredible Gordy Lindquist, a northcentral N.D. legend, made legendary by his ability to tickle the ivories while they were covered up by a sheet, or playing behind his back and in a variety of other contorted and hilarious moves including upside down. You couldn’t help but love being in the room with him, your classmates and your instrument which you played in the ordinary, boring way and not upside down.

Then I tucked the Selmer trumpet into its velvet outline, latched the black case and moved it to four homes until finally, finally a girl will play it. With the “Minnesota Rouser” and “Taps” tucked into the horn’s history, now it will learn new tunes. In the beginning, each note will come painstakingly slow until suddenly, a song will emerge, a new life lived.

Has Neighborliness Lost its Value?

(Photo by Nick Hawkes on Unsplash)

A couple of years ago, Marcus and I planned a neighborhood get-together. We know most but not all of our nearest neighbors and we both believe neighborhoods are safer when we know one another. And familiarity with neighbors makes it easier to locate a cup of flour at the last minute for cookies.

Because delivering invitations is a thousand times easier with a cute 8-year old, Karis and I left invitations in a dozen of our nearest neighbors’ doors. They could RSVP to my cell to host part of a progressive party or simply attend. Two neighbors responded (who also happen to be members of St. John) that they were bummed they would miss it. A week or so later, another neighbor asked if anyone responded to me. When I told him no, he knowingly said, “I didn’t think anyone would go to something like that.” (At least he was honest!)

I am so curious what it might mean when neighborliness loses its value. When we are less inclined to gather, what are we missing? When we do not need our neighbors in the same way as the first generations in the Midwest, what is lost?

It has always mattered to me for our kids know at least some of our neighbors so they have trusted adults if something happens when Marcus and I are not home. In my head, we do actually need our neighbors. And if I need those neighbors, I also care for their well-being. I care that my kids are safe and I care that my neighbors are safe.

“And who is my neighbor?” the first century lawyer asked Jesus to clarify. Anyone who needs help, Jesus began to explain, making the answer more broad until it became specific. Your neighbor, Jesus zeroed in, is anyone who needs help whom you would rather not help.

Humanity has never been great at following Jesus’ command to love our neighbors, especially the ones we would rather not help. It is not new that neighborliness demands more of us than most of us can give. However, what does it mean that bearing arms seems to be easier than neighborliness in particular corners of our nation? Have we become so suspicious and even fearful of our neighbor that someone may be more inclined to purchase an assault weapon than attend a friendly neighborhood gathering with snacks? Are we failing at neighborliness?

Let me be clear, I am not advocating for gun control. I am part of a family who hunts animals. We can have conversations around gun laws without extreme solutions. I am more interested in conversations around neighborliness, which I suspect are just as hard but yet more productive.

As we move through this devastating time of mass shootings in my own country, I promise to pursue discussions around neighborliness. I promise to practice inviting my neighbors to gather, even if it may seem a ridiculous idea to some of them. If Jesus was ridiculous with his mercy, I can lean in that direction, too.

Be Wary of Being Wary of Strangers

(Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash)

In the past few weeks, two strangers have given me hugs. (Notice your reaction.) Strangers and hugs do not always belong together, I realize. And at times, they do. Individuals have a responsibility to be aware of one another without becoming too wary of one another.

STRANGER #1

Church buildings are regularly visited by people looking for financial help. People who have lost jobs, lost a battle with addiction, lost hope might swing by a church to ask for help. In Western N.D., stories abound of the striking increase in these visits during the Bakken energy boom. Young men came in droves treasure hunting for hope. Nowadays, these visits are irregular.

A few weeks ago, one young man stopped by St. John looking for a help. After listening to his story in hopes of assuring him he is seen and cared for, a fellow human being, we provided a bus ticket for the following morning and a motel room for the night. He was overcome with gratitude, which seemed to me to be genuine. When I walked him to the door, with tears in his eyes this stranger carefully reached out his arms to give me a hug.
Hugs with strangers have a long history in the Christian tradition. The Old Testament is structured around one particular commandment that did not explicitly make it into the top ten. The command that drives the story of the Hebrew people is this: Welcome Strangers. The Christian Church only exists because of first century households who welcomed a stranger named Paul, whose sketchy story involved miracles and name changes.

STRANGER #2

Yesterday I had the honor of presiding at a funeral and remembering a beloved child of God who is held forever in Jesus’ arms. It was a sad day for the community gathered around this family I have known and loved a long time. I made it through the service but not out of the building before my face became a wet mess.

I was nearly to the doors, nearly to safety of my car when a woman I do not know saw me and reached out her arms. “Thank you,” I muttered, smearing her shirt with my tears.

The letter to the Hebrews features a famous verse instructing us to show hospitality to strangers. They might be angels in disguise, we learn, which sounds more like a line from a Disney movie than an epistle. Strangers may not look like angels, but they certainly look like human beings. And sometimes, that is reason enough for a hug.

The Best Summer Job

(Photo by Tegan Mierle on Unsplash)

Seats around a campfire are sacred. Since the invention of fire, humans have encircled them to swap stories, learn from one another, and stay warm. I recently read Tish Harrison Warren describe their backyard firepit as the place her family has felt particularly connected since the beginning of the pandemic. Campfires illuminate the dark night with pops and crackles, often a soundtrack of belonging. Add an additional soundtrack of your favorite Bible Camp campfire tune and you have discovered the best summer job!

The denomination to which I belong, the ELCA, has a strong tradition of outdoor ministry. It is likely some of the most unique and creative pastors you know were once counselors at a Bible Camp. No job description for a camp counselor could capture all the job entails, but a simple phrase might suffice: “Be ready for anything, including exhaustion and elation in the very same minute!”

I had zero desire to be a Bible Camp counselor. My singular experience as a camper was the summer between 7th and 8th grade when I went to camp knowing almost no one and mistakenly hoping junior high girls would be kind and welcoming. You can imagine how that went!

But by the time I finished my second year of college, the sting had gone away. A beloved professor at my college was married to the Executive Director of Metigoshe Ministries. His need for additional counselors converged with my lack of summer employment, so off I went to camp, again knowing almost no one. This time, however, I would not leave camp sad, but changed.

Camp staff often explain their work by saying the days are long, and the weeks go quick. A day of camp is filled to the brim, making your daily life a constant pouring out of Jesus’ love. This work is not easy, but no work that truly matters ever is. Work you do that changes lives requires your whole life, not a few hours of it, not a little bit of your energy or time, but all of you. Your heart, your mind, the very self God has created is meant to be shared.

My own experience as a camper sharpened my vision for campers who felt left out. In fact, that very camp skill has followed me around, keeping an eye out for the forgotten ones. Much of the skills I acquired at camp, however, are not all directly transferable. I don’t get to give mud facials even though I wasn’t too bad at that. I don’t dress up in crazy outfits, chase children at night, shingle a roof, toss greasy watermelon, or help construct outhouses in my work as a pastor. Those remarkable skills have gone untapped.

So much of what I learned took place in the same type of circle in which people have been learning since the invention of fire:

  • One fire is enough for everyone, even better if you have to squeeze together.
  • Whether or not you can sing, music gets to you with the promise that you belong right where you are.
  • Life is not lived in your own seat but in a gathering of seats among people meant to be different from you.

The nightly campfire tradition of Bible Camps is perhaps what makes the transition from Bible Camp to whatever is next for camp staff profoundly difficult. Outside of camp, days rarely end around the sacred space of something equivalent to a campfire.

Right now, there is a young adult whom you know (or maybe are) who is waffling about summer plans. Tell that person there is a seat at a campfire just for them, as long as they desire to do work that matters. If money gets in the way of their decision, could you do what I know a camp staff dad often did, and subsidize that person’s income with a little of your own money? That’s an investment in the work of the Spirit, I assure you. Maybe you could get a mud facial in exchange! Maybe.

So Broken I Need Jesus

Really, Iowa? What the heck, Kentucky! I’m getting my butt absolutely kicked in the family March Madness competition. I didn’t really need that $20 anyway, right?

Oh well. The truth is, I am one of those annoying fans who jumps into men’s college basketball at the very end. Only after the players have sweated through an entire season do I even sort of begin to care. The losses that broke their hearts, the injuries they recovered from, the victories along the way. I know none of it. I do know my bracket is completely broken and I am currently in 18th place of the 18 people in our group!

Nonetheless, I have come to terms with my brokenness over the years. A broken bracket, like broken me, is not the end of things. I have come to terms with life as it waffles between easy and hard, joyful and sorrowful, hopeful and disheartening. Tomorrow will come and I will mess it up/get something right all over again. I am so broken, I need Jesus, and there he is.

Preachers of mainline congregations tend to wonder how much that particular truth resonates with people who gather with us for worship. Do they come to worship (online or in-person) for the familiar tunes or for the tunes that find the crack in our hearts and seep in? Do they come for words to comfort them or to comfort the poor and forgotten? Do they come for a deep drink of the Spirit of life or to become vessels for others to take their own deep drinks?

Maybe they come because they are in 18th place and lost their $20 and are processing the shock of their brokenness. How did it come to this? I thought Iowa would see me through, but none of us are immune to disappointment. And yet, the one who has come to put our broken selves together does not join us only in the end, like I do in this tournament. The one who cares most deeply for your brokenness is there through every broken heart, injury, and victory. Now. Later. Always.

In the Noise and in the Silence

(Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič on Unsplash)

It took me years upon years to learn why parenting littles was absolutely exhausting. Aside from the sleep deprivation and the fact that often our most demanding work years fall in the same season, kids require every iota of an introvert’s energy. Did my sons, whose birthdays fall within twenty months, care that I identify as an introvert?

Toddler Sons: “Mom, play cars, trucks, tag, push me on the swing, read me that book, watch me, watch me, watch me!”

Mom: “Actually, the introvert that is me requires blocks of quiet time and alone time, so I’m just going to sit by myself for a while as you risk your life being a toddler.”

Toddler Sons: “We completely understand. Go and feed your soul while we sharpen knives in the kitchen.”

There is no “tv timeout” that allows for an introvert to recover from so much people time. Even time with our own family in our own home as any introvert knows, can be over the top exhausting.

I’ve been recalling this as my kids are older and do actually allow introvert recovery time. They do their own thing, have their own friends and do not demand, “watch me, watch me, watch me” all the live long day. I can sit and read chapters of a book. I can take a walk. I can drink a cup of coffee while it’s steaming hot.

It is easy for me, too, to do my own thing. And yet, a fundamental need for all humans beings requires sitting together some of the time. Even if no words are exchanged, each one of us needs someone to regularly look us in the eye to assure that we have not mistakenly put on an invisibility cloak. I need your eyes to assure me I matter to you.

I recently sat with an elderly dude whose entire world is about to change. He told me his story a few times in the half hour or so we sat together. I didn’t need to say anything, but my eyes (and I suppose my ears) assured him he was heard. Words matter less when the person you sit with knows he matters to you. I did not know him well, but I did know we are both beloved children of God who need someone else’s eyes to remind us God sees us, too.

In the noise of life with young kiddos, we assure them they matter with our songs and silly conversations and with pushes on the swings that surface the giggles. As we grow older, it is often in the silence that we come to know and remember someone notices we are still here. Hanging out in this life, as unsure as anyone else what comes next.

We Live Here in 2022

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“Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce…But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:5&7)

     The two verses above need context. The surprising words are spoken by the prophet Jeremiah to God’s people who were displaced by the Babylonian army. Far from their homes in Jerusalem, they were now refugees in a foreign land: Babylon. The words are surprising because God’s people did not want to live in Babylon, they wanted to go home to their old, familiar routines.

   I have found myself returning to these verses ever since they showed up in the Narrative Lectionary in November. (If you happen to be a person who reads annual reports, and you know who you are, you will find these verses in mine!) We all wish to return to a pre-March 2020 world where we went in and out of gatherings without worry, and the medivac didn’t constantly traverse from Dickinson to a larger hospital day after day after day. I miss the days when vaccines weren’t so hard to discuss and masks were more about Halloween. I miss the faces of the folks in the congregation I serve parked in the same church pews week after week. I miss the old, familiar routines.

   And so did God’s people stuck in the unfamiliar land of Babylon! It comes as a surprise to me that Jeremiah did not tell God’s people to wait it out. He didn’t say to stay the course and cling to the future promise that they would return to their old, familiar routines. Nope. Jeremiah told them to settle in. Build houses in the unfamiliar land and move in. Plant a garden and wait for it to produce as you make this unfamiliar place your home.

   I can long for the old, familiar routine, or I can embrace these unfamiliar times because I live here now. I can spend time wishing for life to go back to pre-March 2020, or I can settle into this time I might not love and certainly do not understand. I do not understand the division and stubborn stances on both sides. I do not understand why a call to the common good cannot overcome the fences we have all built between one another, even within our own families. While it is true that fences create order in neighborhoods like mine with lots of dogs, fences can be dangerous for communities. Too many fences give us permission to disregard the welfare of the city. We can focus on our own fenced in area, make it beautiful, insulate ourselves in a comfy chair, and become indifferent to the needs of the people we cannot see over our fences.

    Jeremiah instructs God’s people to care for the welfare of the unfamiliar city in which they are now residents! This is strange. God is so caught up in neighborliness that God’s people are to care for their neighbors in a land in which they did not choose to live. They were not allowed to fence themselves in.

   Could this be a guiding verse for 2022? We did not choose to live in this time. We might not like how our society has responded to the pandemic. It is likely we all long for the old, familiar routines. But we live here, and we live here now. The needs of our neighbor matter as much today as they did when  Jeremiah preached these words in chapter 29. How might you peer over a fence and care for the welfare of your city? How might this be the year you settle into this time if only because your neighbor’s wellbeing matters more than your political opinions?

    Jeremiah, as far as we know, was not voted “most popular” in high school. He received no recognition for his community-building work. In fact, he likely had very few friends. But he knew the whole point of a city had to do with watching out for the welfare of the people, even in the time and place they did not choose. At our best, this is what churches do. We set aside our differences, “peace be with you”, and settle in for the sake of our neighbor. Here. Now.

Thank You, Friends

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There are a handful of decisions that change everything. Looking in the rearview mirror of your life, you can spot a choice you made that led to this, while chances are a different choice would have led to a significantly different that. Where you live, how you spend your time, whether to work outside your home, whom you married or didn’t, whether to have kids, whether you go to church. Just as Annie Dillard sagely said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” the choices we make accumulate into a life.

Once upon a time, we moved to this town and settled into a house. After many months, Marcus and I made a decision to invite a few couples for a wine and cheese party. I vaguely remember handwriting invitations asking people to bring a favorite bottle of wine and dropping the invitations in the mail. I also vaguely remember a long Google search to learn how to pair wine and cheeses, due to the fact I knew nothing about either.

Roughly 14 years later, these friendships are like roots that keep us planted. Whenever my husband and I imagine life in a different town, we cannot imagine life without these friends. They have helped us move to a new house, they have cared for our kids, brought us homemade food in busy and stressful seasons, held us in prayer, vacationed with us, and have frankly made us better humans. It is a profound privilege to be welcomed into someone’s life, and a generous gift to discover mutual encouragement and grace.

We seem to be getting older, this group of friends. One by one, our kids graduate and move away and through each change, we are steadied by our friendship roots. Last night, we celebrated Friendsgiving. I saved time and stamps by texting them an invitation. I asked them to bring both food and a story. Using Priya Parker’s 15 Toasts, I nervously asked if they would come with an origin story from their own life, and suggested bonus points if it was a story their spouse hadn’t heard.

We drew back the curtain on our lives and raised our glasses to our moms, to healing, to choices that led to something good. And we raised our glasses to decisions that led to a moment of friends gathered around a table. I use the word decision, and yet I am not certain that word fits.

Another look in the rearview mirror suggests God has a way of surrounding you with the people you need at just the right time. Although we did make a decision to invite people to our home so long ago, a decision that fills me with gratitude, God had already brought these particular people to this town, just like us.

Trusted friends are worth more than anything money could ever buy, even though it is a risk to open the door and let them see your life for real. What you may discover in doing so is that life requires good company. And toasts.

Why You May Never Want to Be Lutheran

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If the term “Lutheran” is unfamiliar, it is a way to practice the Christian faith. There is a wide variety of denominations (branches of the Christian church) within the Lutheran faith that range from more conservative to more liberal, based on how that denomination reads the Bible. I serve as a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). As I refer to the Lutheran faith in this post, I am speaking of the ELCA because it is the Lutheran practice most familiar to me.

I am a Christian who is Lutheran, which is something you may never want to be. Yesterday I complained to my colleague how challenging it has become to choose hymns for worship, when the tune that is more familiar might be the one with the term “scepter”. Prior to “Game of Thrones”, that word, for some people, might have called to mind Christ the king, but now, it is less likely.

We love our old hymns and our old ways in this relatively old faith tradition. In the 500+ years the Lutheran faith has existed, the world has experienced droughts and wars and fascist leaders and economic disasters. Hurricanes have devastated countries and native people in parts of the world have been mistaken for objects.

Each time tragedy strikes, the Lutheran faith has had something to say, albeit sometimes too late. You may never want to be Lutheran because we have a deep-seeded belief that this world’s tragedies do not become our story. We need not be consumed by the state of the world, no matter how messy that state may be, because we proclaim a faith not shaped by hand-drawn boundaries. To be Lutheran is to be less caught up in “faith over fear” and much more caught up in “faith for the sake of our neighbor”. A Lutheran’s focus does not land on personal freedoms and rights, but on our neighbor’s well-being.

But that’s just a Lutheran thing. Again, it might not be your thing.

This old world has a way of returning to times of unrest, based on how much we don’t like “the other”. We simply change how we identify “the other”. “The other” has been the Jews, the slaves, the Yankees, the AIDS victims, the women, the immigrants, the homosexuals, the blacks, the Native Americans, the liberals, the conservatives. When Ecclesiastes wrote almost 3,000 years ago that there is nothing new under the sun, he may as well have written that yesterday!

A couple of weeks ago I deleted Facebook from my phone. To post devotional material for Devotions from the Badlands and my writing page, I have to go the long way and log on from my laptop. That simple omission from my iPhone has brought a great wave of relief. I no longer lazily click the blue logo that lures me into the maelstrom of memes and misinformation. I feel so much better! And to tell the truth, I’ve been sleeping better, too.

Even I, who know a few things about the Lutheran faith, can get turned around amid the intensity of this pandemic. Even I can forget that God alone is our refuge and our strength, which Lutherans interpret to mean we wonder how to provide refuge for the neighbor who lacks strength. For example: the immunocompromised, people too young for vaccinations, families who have experienced so many quarantines because they have followed the CDC’s guidelines, long-term care residents, and people who live in impoverished American neighborhoods where the average life expectancy now falls even further behind where you likely live.

The Lutheran faith is not for everyone. It’s much easier to keep the anger streak going on Facebook than it is to face the needs of our neighbor. Logos like “faith over fear” are much more compelling than “faith for the sake of our neighbor”. That would make a terrible meme. It’s not catchy at all. Not even the word “scepter” could redeem it.

I suspect there is a well of good questions that might create conversation with kids to notice how our actions impact the vulnerable. What our faith has to say when we share memes that demean another human being. Who “the other” is right now and when you were growing up. How the needs of our neighbor matter more than our being right and more than our individual rights.

The Lutheran faith is old, but not as old the Savior (with the scepter) whose love was first and foremost for “the other”.