connection – Page 8 – 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?

Ending a Staycation

In the spirit of returning to the simple, I spent a week at home.

The usual fall weekend family getaway to Minneapolis or Rapid City or Sherwood was set aside for a staycation. I cleaned a few closets, baked bread, read books, remembered how to exercise, and took extra walks. I made an impressive Bloody Mary bar for my husband and discovered “The Good Place” on Netflix.

It was a very good time.

I also took my oldest kiddo to the DMV where they let him loose with a license.

It was mostly a good time.

When none of that was going on, I rested. Have you stopped to notice you require copious amounts of rest these days? Sit still for a moment and notice the compounding worries and questions that are now part of your daily life in Covid-19 times. Never before did those worries occupy your mind. Now, they do. Judging by the number of cases in our country, those loitering worries are not going away soon.

And yet, those worries do not define you nor do they get to take over your life. You are beloved child of God, free from the greatest worries about your forgiveness and salvation, and free to receive Christ’s love and utterly free to give it to your neighbor.

Channel your inner Marie Kondo and part ways with a worry. Name one worry and dare yourself to let it go. Bid that worry farewell and let God worry about it instead of you. God is remarkably good, always good, at shouldering your worries. Then do a profoundly simple thing you need so much of right now: Rest.

Three Things to Make in Your Own Kitchen

There are a baker’s dozen reasons to hurry things along in the kitchen.

You don’t have much time, you don’t even like to cook, no one ever taught you how, you’ve misplaced all your pots and pans, or you simply prefer take-out. Some shortcuts only make sense: frozen tater tots, canned beans, Annie’s Mac and Cheese, corndogs, your favorite take-out place.

I do wonder, however, if too much efficiency in the kitchen means cutting short the connection to the cooks who came before you and those who will come after you. Like the communion of saints at the Lord’s Table where we are connected with all the saints of every time and place, there is a sacred generational connection that happens among cookbooks and cutting boards.

Perhaps nothing we do in the kitchen is new. Long ago, a cook figured out how to bake bread and cook meat. Sifting and kneading and braising and broiling are human inventions. Not so long ago, my mom taught me some things that her mom taught her. There may come a day when my kids say the same. Cooking leaves a mark in the world.

Tamar Adler put it this way: “Cooking is both simpler and more necessary than we imagine.” The sacred space of a kitchen is occupied by so many generations all at once. And so I offer you three simple and necessary recipes in a moment when the world is occupied by so much anxiety. May your kitchen be a place of peace.

Buttermilk Biscuits

You need only 10 minutes to mix them together and 15 minute to bake and 2 minutes to watch them disappear. The only problem is that I tend to consume equal amounts of biscuit dough and baked biscuits.

Original Nestle® Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’m a fan of Tollhouse’s version of chocolate chip cookies because my kitchen growing up was never without them. A friend once told me our house always smelled like them. But again, the problem with the dough…

Coffee Creamer

To the saint before me who invented sweetened condensed milk. Thank you and damn you. If I had to choose only one drink for the rest of my life, it would be sweetened condensed milk. After that, I would choose a good cardiologist. For now, this makes your coffee extra special, which you deserve in the sacred space of your own kitchen shared by so many generations at once.

The Food of Mondays

Mondays often have me thinking about food.

On Mondays (this pastor’s Sabbath) I like to hang out in the kitchen and prepare snacks and treats to intercept my kids’ reach for store-bought granola bars and Cheez-its.

They have eaten enough peanut butter protein bites to last a few lifetimes. Rice Krispie Bars with peanut butter are a new favorite. Of course, if the cookie jar is empty the chocolate chips cry out to become cookies. “Help!” they yell. “The chips are down!”

Last week I discovered the world’s most delicious pumpkin bread recipe, complete with a sugar sauce that might be the death of me.

On Mondays I also dream of grown-up food. Most recently, I feel inspired by Tamar Adler’s book, “The Everlasting Meal”. Her cooking is very grown-up, yet also simple and dreamy and good for you. She has made me so hungry for eggs and vegetables.

I’m also inspired by my friend’s Instagram posts @realdakotakitchen. She makes real food for a family with real kids who are slightly but not too grown-up.

Food is among my favorite conversation topics and making it is a favorite thing to do. For me, being thoughtful and strategic about food is a way I care for and connect with my family. It is easy to overlook food’s magnetic power, and easy to get bored with the few things I can actually make well.

99% of us need an abundance of inspiration in the kitchen. The other 1% are the inspirers who make my Mondays, and hopefully yours, even better.

Someone Else Can Unload the Dishwasher, and Other Magic for Today

There are days when being a mom feels like wizardry.

It is slightly magical what a wizard can do in a meager amount of time in the morning. Mom the Wizard notices she can finish a load of laundry and get supper cooking in the crock pot before anyone opens their eyes from beneath their covers.

Not only that, but the Wizard can plow through several work emails, order the groceries, and finish last night’s dishes. Of course, the coffee has been made and a cup or two consumed and the Wizard has also scheduled a few of her kids’ doctor appointments.

Then someone rolls out of bed and the Wizard realizes it’s still only morning! Wow, it is amazing to be a wizard.

But soon, the Wizard’s magic spells become a hindrance. The Wizard’s apprentices expect the Wizard to empty the dishwasher when it isn’t exactly the Wizard’s chore. But the Wizard’s apprentices are left spellbound, so the Wizard begins to open the dishwasher door and dry off the tops of the glasses that never get dry, when she stops.

“Wait,” it occurs to the Wizard. “Someone else can unload the dishwasher.”

The “Hallelujah Chorus” can be heard, just barely, coming from nowhere.

This has the Wizard thinking. “Someone else can probably do most of the laundry. And wash the dishes. And get supper going.”

The Wizard realizes that even with a book of magic spells, raising kids in a global pandemic is intense, demanding, and emotional.

It is as though someone has cast a magic spell on her, the Wizard. She fully knows not all things are for her to do. Wizards work best in good company, and even wizards are only magical when they give their magic away.

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.

The Wrong Way For a Parent to Pray

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Walking the Car Lots

I have one dad and one daughter.

When I was the young daughter of my dad long ago, we could not leave the city of Minot without driving through a car lot or two. Minot was the big city where we went for doctor appointments, regional basketball tournaments, and car parts (my dad ran a gas station). And Minot offered a half dozen car lots for my dad to drive through.

Up and down the rows of cars we went, slowing to a stop so my dad could get out from the driver’s seat and I would roll my eyes and wonder when it would ever end. More rows of cars. More car lots. More slowing to a stop. More opening the door even in the dead of winter to peak inside the windows.

And shortly after those days did end, I had a daughter who loves to walk through the car lots not too many blocks from our home. Up and down the rows of cars we walk. Slowing to a stop so she can peak in the windows and act appalled at the price tag. Today, she said to a very expensive and very shiny SUV, “Now that’s just stupid.”

So here I am again. More rows of cars. More car lots. Because my one dad and my one daughter are two of my very favorite people in the entire world.

A Prayer For Teachers

Dear God, Maker of the Magnificent,

Thank you for teachers. For the people whom you equipped with gifts of kindness, curiosity, and words, we rejoice. For those whose smiles have been branded into the hearts of their students, thank you. Keep them safe and well.

In this surprising time and in all times, teachers handle surprises. All day, who knows when glue will spill, or a stressed out kid will lose it, or technology will raise their blood pressure. They have survived endless weeks of indoor recess during frigid winters and their grace is a shining light in the world.

God, it was a grand idea that you made teachers. After online school in the spring, parents like me cannot thank you enough.

Today, bless teachers as they plan for this strange school year, doing the work they would normally be doing and so much more. With no incentive beyond doing what is best for kids, teachers are hard at work behind the scenes and they need you, Lord, to show up in their classrooms, on their devices, and in the rare quiet moments they have these days.

Make technology amazingly cooperative for each of them. Surround them with parents and guardians who care about their well-being. Strengthen their counselors and principals (especially the cute one at DMS) to respond to these challenges with a deep breath and extra wisdom.

Teach us all, God who put on flesh, to be humans who are gentle with one another. Teach us to be humans who first see the best in each other, and then help us bring out the very best in one another for the sake of the ones who will be walking into school doors next week.

Thank you for my cousin Penny in her 37th year of teaching, and my friend Suzanna in her very first. Amid the unknowns, I do know people like Penny and Suzanna will make this year special as usual for my own three kids in three different buildings. And you will be there, too, giver of peace and hope. As we find our way into this new school year, we find you here with us.

In the name of the one whose teaching of mercy and hope around the corner is enough for these days, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Worry to Here and No Farther

Just how far ahead do I worry?

Do I worry as far as the first day of school and what this historic day might look like for my kids in elementary, middle and high school? Can we make it that far as five healthy people?

Do I worry a month beyond the start of school, after it is likely one of my kids’ classrooms will be exposed, we will stay home, and then start over again? Do I worry that far?

Do I worry to Thanksgiving? Christmas? 2021?

No, I will not worry that far ahead. I worry about my retirement fund that far ahead, but nothing else. Life is not my retirement fund, although it is equally unpredictable.

I will be cautious and faithful to the work of caring for my neighbor by wearing a mask, while praying for health care and vaccine research folks. I will be grateful for every human whose work supports my kids education. I will work with my family to love our neighbor uniquely in this unique time. And I will not worry too far ahead. Instead, I will remember Jesus is with me now, and goes ahead with me later.

Worry. Perhaps. But not too far ahead.

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