community – Page 6 – Lisa Lewton

This is Your Soul. This is Your Soul on Hate

If you are as old as I am, you may remember the powerful commercial by the Ad Council to illustrate drug use. Above a sizzling frying pan, you saw an egg and heard the monotone words: “This is your brain.” The egg was cracked and dropped onto the pan, followed by these matter-of-fact words: “This is your brain on drugs.”

Drugs fry your brain, we understood without question, yet questioning how much we wanted eggs for breakfast anymore.

What the Ad Council did not mention is drug use that becomes drug addiction can divide families…can alter one’s perception of one’s self and one’s neighbor…can steal hope and shape the future.

That old ad keeps coming back to me because something is happening in Christian communities, or at least in the one I serve as a pastor. The same thing is happening among some groups of friends and certainly among families.

I’ll stick with what I know as a pastor. The one body of Christ I’ve been called to lead has been disrupted not only by a pandemic, but also by a strange strain of sizzling hot hate. It is deep hate against “the other side” and I see it most clearly on Facebook.

Clearly I don’t see many people, so once in a while I will check a person’s Facebook page if they pop into my prayers. Sometimes I can learn something about the person’s life that might need specific prayers.

What I might find is deep anger, mistrust, and sizzling hot hate in shared posts and capital letters. Hating quarantine. Hating a political party. Hating wearing masks. Hating. Hating.

I see it on the pages of people whom I know to be sincerely generous and kind. I have walked with them through tragedy and confirmed their kids and baptized their grandkids. I know them past their Facebook pages and the hate that sizzles on their pages.

And I worry so much about their souls. Not in the “will they go to heaven” sort of way. Jesus already took care of that worry. But I wonder in the “how are you surviving” sort of way. What is such hate doing to the way you are loving Jesus and seeing the world and being in relationship with your neighbor?

I think you can remove the word “drugs” in the egg ad and replace it with the word “hate”. Hate can divide families…can alter one’s perception of one’s self and one’s neighbor…can steal hope and shape the future.

I suspect if you are reading these words, you may not be the hater. But if your Facebook page does reflect sizzling hot hate, take a quick inventory of whether it’s really you in there. Is that really you on your Facebook page, or have you let hate shape who you are on social media because it is what’s trending?

An Instragram post on @henrinouwensociety yesterday reads: “Prayer converts the enemy into a friend.” If that is true, then prayer may be able to take the sizzle out of hate. It may be able to mend broken relationships. Certainly, the death of Christ did something even greater – set forgiveness where there was none, set life where there was death.

Who knew a pandemic that in theory would bring people closer together to fight harder against it, (think The Great Depression and WWII and 9/11) would be the thing that lets loose the hate?

How to Teach Your Kids About Voting

Kids are watching. Always, they are watching.

A thousand times I have told parents at visits prior to baptism, at confirmation orientation, and in conversations here and there that kids learn the Christian faith not from cool pastors, but primarily from parents and guardians. Kids make sense of what matters by watching what the humans whom they trust do (not say) each day. And so, kids learn how to handle an election by watching what the grown-ups do. Dear God, what have they learned in 2020?!

It was helpful to listen to today’s episode of NPR’s Life Kit podcast: “How To Talk To Your Kids About Civics” on this election-eve. A big take-away for me is the importance of exposing kids to more than one viewpoint. Kids who learn a narrow way to look at the world are less equipped for difficult conversation. The podcast highlighted parents who call the principal when yoga is introduced, or the plight of Native Americans is told with honesty. Parenting to protect from exposure can keep kids stuck in a narrow worldview.

And here we are in 2020. There is a strain to protect a worldview on the left and a worldview on the right, with a deep resistance to difficult conversation. And kids are watching.

Do you know why you believe what you believe? Is there a story in the big book of your life that shaped what you believe? Or maybe your pages hold opposing stories and you haven’t quite worked it all out yet. You are open to the conversation.

Listening to stories is the teaching tool of the gods. Instead of telling my kids who to vote for, I’ll tell them the stories that shape what I believe. I want them to know my view of the world, and also that it is limited by my understanding and experience. It is not meant to be their view of the world, but I do hope it helps them make sense of their own view of the world.

I have heard parents say and we have all read parents’ post ugly words against other humans because their view of the world was threatened or challenged. This is not how I want my kids to learn what I believe.

Start with the stories and let the conversation unfold in the questions. And perhaps 2024 will be an entirely different story.

Can’t This Just Be Over?

Depending on where you live, it’s been roughly seven months. More than half a year since we went to church with all the people, sang our hearts out (or sang modestly if you are Lutheran), and shared the peace with hugs and handshakes. No matter how you look at seven months, it is a long time.

Visiting today with someone at church (distanced and in masks because, you know, we are still experiencing the long time), the question arose: “Can’t this just be over?”

Can’t masks and distancing, cancellations and limits just be over?

Can’t quarantining and the absence of 409 just be over?

Can’t restrictions on playdates and sleepovers just be over?

Can’t this “incredible gift” of the unending abundance of family time just be…well, on hold for a few days?

Yep. I get it. Seven months is a very long time.

And yet, these seven months and this very day are what we have been given. Even these days are part of the twisty-turny adventure of life with other humans, and what might we miss if we wish for something else?

Can you find a headline from these past seven months of your life that gives you a bit of peace? A moment that makes you smile when you remember? Something that makes you proud, or hopeful, or grateful, or aware that God is with you in the twist and turns?

I might tell you the story of finally driving through dramatic badlands of the North Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, or discovering (possibly not for the better) that I can make bread and I will make bread and yes, Little Red Hen, I will eat it, too. But most likely I would share the most flabbergasting headline that goes something like this: “An Introvert Discovers Socializing Can Be Great!” Yes, friendships have been so fortifying.

In seven more months of twisting and turning, you will have another story to tell. You will discover a catching chapter title to tuck into the great big book of your life. Don’t miss that moment and that story before it’s all over.

It is often in these long, drawn-out times that we can look around and realize God has not been so far off. God has been in the frustrations and the exhaustion, as well as the laughter and the bread.

Can’t this just be over? Not quite yet.

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.

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.

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.

Lucky To Be Alive Right Now

(Photo by Tairon Fernandez on Pexels.com)

And…back to “Hamilton”, when Eliza (almost Hamilton) sang again and again, “Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now!”

It was the slow birth of America and Eliza was caught up in the excitement of midwifing a country. The people were on the brink of freedom and they felt lucky to be alive to see it.

Today, we are not united by American freedoms, we are divided by them. Divided by narcissistic political ideologies, by Christian extremism, by racism so embodied in our values we miss it, by our fear of the stranger.

And yet, how lucky we are to be alive right now! How lucky we are to be part of the loud cry to dismantle racism; that our kids might see our generational mistakes for what they are, name the pain that has been caused, and pave a path of hope for those dehumanized by the American quest for power.

How lucky we are to be alive in a pandemic when all our busy schedules were put on hold and we, for a moment, glimpsed the truth that relationships and people matter most.

How lucky we are that our kids are experiencing disruption and we have been able to walk with them. Life is a series of disruptions and this time we could encourage them through it.

How lucky we are, if we might live like we are alive right now to the Spirit’s breezes and windstorms. How lucky we are to be alive in the Spirit’s aliveness, calling us out of our stupor to birth a new possibility for the neighbor and the stranger. How lucky.

COVID-19 on Mars and Venus (but actually on Earth)

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, John Gray proposed many years ago. Or to paraphrase a woman I volunteered with a couple of weeks ago at baseball concessions, “Women have many things on their minds, men have just one.”

Hehehe.

Yesterday I was on a Zoom call with pastors from around the country. It was our first gathering in a cohort through Luther Seminary We discussed chapters from our first book, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, a book that happens to align well with the times, although I suspect it was chosen before March.

In a break-out group of about 7 people, 4 of us were women. We shared openly what has been tough on our souls these past 4 1/2 months. Consistent with what I am hearing from other women, the pandemic is leaving women wondering how much we can actually work our paid jobs and at the same time live our vocations as moms and partners.

For me that means, can I be emotionally present with my kids as they process the changes and grieve the losses through the year ahead, and at the same time lead a large congregation through the same soul work? Can I be fully me, fully present, fully awake to the joys and sorrows both at home and in my call? Do I have the capacity to be mom, partner and pastor all at once in this season of uncertainty?

For now, yes. And it was affirming to hear yesterday from my colleagues who are female that they, too, are overwhelmed by the same pressure. I was in good company.

For me on Venus, I will be very gentle on myself regarding what I can actually do. I’m going to cook good food at home, take walks, mine for conversation with my kids and spouse, and be available and prayerful in my work. I expect to do more listening than anything else. I expect to get frustrated, cry, and enjoy a brown ale to ease the pain. I also expect to lean on my partner, my friends, and my family in a way I maybe never have before, knowing it takes more than a village to be well through a pandemic. Not one of us has done this before. It is a wilderness. And wilderness is full of the presence and light of God, on any and every planet.

Faith Over Fear

“Why wear a mask when I want to live out of faith, not fear?” asked someone else. (Actually, a lot of someone elses.)

The congregation I serve has been both in-person and online for two months after 11 weeks of online only. Leadership has set an expectation now, as COVID-19 case numbers rise in our county and state, to wear masks when we gather in the church building.

My colleague and I wear masks before and during worship except when we are preaching. It is hot as blazes and extremely hard to enunciate through the cloth over my face, but we do it because this is how we are loving our neighbors and inviting our community of faith to do the same.

“But why would I wear a mask if I want to live out of faith and not fear?”

There is conflicting information in the United States about COVID-19. Is it a thing or is it a hoax? Who is making money off of this and why is the government telling me what to do? Why can I stand in line at Walmart but not gather in a crowd at a funeral? Why will my school be social distancing but my high school football team play face-to-face?

“And why is my church telling me to wear a mask when I want to live out of faith and not fear?” asked several someone elses.

It is a lovely question if, and only if, the question is intended to engender conversation and not inflict a political opinion upon someone else. Asking questions is the way we learn; stating uncompromising political opinions is the way we continue to divide.

“Why would I wear a mask when I want to live out of faith and not fear?”

Why? Yes, why? Could that begin a conversation instead of end it? Be shaped as a question and not a closing statement? Could we really wonder why wearing a mask is in fact the way we live out our faith, unafraid of the mean looks and despicable memes?

That is a question that might lead to faithful, not fearful conversation.

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