Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is Like a Toddler

If you have been in a room with a toddler for eight seconds, you have heard the words, “Watch me!” The toddler, amazed at every single thing he or she can do, is full of invitations.

“Watch me!” as I wiggle my fingers.

“Watch me!” as I pick up a spoon.

“Watch me!” as I attempt a failed but spirited somersault.

“Watch me!”

In exhaustion from all the watching, you turn away. It is a mere second but in that blink of an eye you miss it you. You miss the miraculous moment. Your center of attention shifts and you do not witness the hilarious attempt at gymnastics.

Life with a toddler means missing many of these moments. There is simply too much action to watch it all. With an abundance to do and scroll and text and engage online, we get caught in the world wide web of distraction.

The Holy Spirit is a like a toddler.

“Watch me!” the Spirit beckons, as it burrows about in our lives.

“Watch me!” the Spirit calls, as it points you in a faithful direction.

“Watch me!” the Spirit whispers, enfolding you with Christ’s love.

“Watch me!” the Spirit shouts to the church, while we are busy doing churchy things that have to do with budgets, buildings and volunteer management.

Blessedly, the Holy Spirit remains as persistent as the toddler. If you miss the first somersault, chances are you will see another one if you wait ten seconds. Miracles abound.

However, would you ponder what it is that shifts your attention from the Spirit’s work in your life? What distracts you? How might you pay better attention to your life with God? How might you actually focus when the Spirit bellows out, “Watch me!”

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

Nature, Nurture, and Option #3

Perhaps it is because my son turned 16. Or because I am on vacation and have room for wonder. Or maybe it’s because my mom saw me write my age on a document and kindly reminded me, “45? You’re getting old!”

Whatever the reason, I am struck by the wonder of watching a kid transform into an adult. It reminds me of something I often heard when I was pregnant. Women would say some version of, “There is just no way to be ready for how amazing it really is.” That’s how this phase of life feels, too. More amazing than I could be ready for.

Don’t get me wrong. Right now I’m on vacation, which means I can see a wider view of our lives. We aren’t rushing out the door in the morning; I’m not pleading with anyone to do their chores. Offering you extra time and energy, vacation can help adjust your vision to see your actual life: the joys, challenges, hopes and dreams. In the thick of everyday life, we cannot see the wonder, only the chores left undone.

But right now I’m seeing it. The way the people who belong to God and are entrusted to my husband and I are growing up. I can see the nature of my husband and I in them. I can see our nurturing, far from perfect, but our best efforts. I can also see option #3, the Spirit, accompanying and caring for them now and always.

A person need not be a parent to be part of the holy work of shaping young humans. It is also the work of attentive neighbors, loving aunts and all the encouraging people the Spirit sets in their lives. I heard it once from who knows where, that a good goal is for a kid to have seven caring adults in his or her life. Seven adults who are there when needed, who remember the birthdays and other big days, who do not judge, only affirm, who are part of the Spirit’s nurturing work of growing beloved grown-ups.

Who are the teenagers you know? Are you one of the seven for some lucky teenager? Today, how might you be a part of the Spirit’s work of accompanying growing grown-ups as they move from kid to adult? How might you remind that as so much changes in their lives, the steady love of Jesus does not.

Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/TyQ-0lPp6e4

When Does Worship Actually Start?

There is an abundance of confusion in the Christian church concerning worship. The root of the confusion has to do with how we live the rest of our lives. We live much of our lives as consumers. Passively, we consume media, products, services, and entertainment. When we passively receive something, little is expected of us. We simply receive what is offered.

Particular Christian churches thrive by selling entertainment in the form of worship music. It is not uncommon for Christians to gravitate toward congregations with entertaining musicians and impressive lighting. It allows worshippers to sit back and be entertained, just as we have come to expect in most areas of our lives. This kind of worship teaches people to passively receive, or consume what the church has to offer. Little is expected of the consumer.

Eugene Peterson spent many paragraphs pointing out the dangers of creating consumers in worship. There is a danger in passively depending on the product a worship leader can offer for spiritual renewal. The worship music might be excellent, but choosing a church based on what it offers, on what you might consume, will inevitably disappoint.

Instead, worship is a co-creative act. Passive worship is not worship.

At St. John where I serve, by the time worship begins, worship in many ways began months before. Could we wonder whether worship actually begins when the planning and discerning begins? In that case, by the time the worship service starts, the Worship and Music Director has studied at least a couple of resources, carefully chosen music to encourage people into a deeper focus on the Scriptures, and coordinated with a number of members helping lead the service. The preacher has spent hours pouring over the text. For me, sermon prep averages between 8-12 hours.

If we say worship begins when discerning the service begins, then I wonder if the worship service is still being created when people gather and the bell rings, marking the start of the service. It is at this point when those who are gathering shape the service: engaging in music and prayers, welcoming newcomers, noticing who is missing, and expressing some connection to the sermon with your face. (People, preaching to stoic faces is incredibly hard! Please smile or nod to indicate that you are indeed alive.)

This kind of participation in worship demands something of those who gather. Worship, then, is not a one-person or one-band “experience”. Worship is a communal expression of our faith in Jesus Christ and our yearning for deeper faith. It is not something we rate, like an Amazon purchase, nor is worship something we complain about when it doesn’t “meet our needs.”

Worship is not meant to meet your needs. That is Christ’s job. In worship, the Holy Spirit invites you not to sit back, but to dig in. To open your heart and let the Spirit do its work in you. There is too much at stake to sit back even for a single worship service.

If you become a worship consumer, what does that mean for your neighbor who is hungry, addicted, tired, imprisoned, or depressed? Your neighbor needs the Spirit to deepen your faith as you worship in order to share the deep love of Christ with your life.

Photo by Eliecer Gallegos on Unsplash

Your Life as a Roadmap

A roadmap shows you the road to follow to get you from here to there. On some trips, you can choose between a scenic highway or faster interstate. On other trips, there is but one possible route.

If you have no idea where you want to go, that is, if you know the here but not the there, a roadmap can still be helpful. I can’t remember who told me their family vacations begin without a destination in mind. The family gets into the car and from the backseat the kids decide, “Which way, right or left?” until they find a place to stop!

I prefer plan – a designated route from here to there. But again, as I remember throughout these weeks of Lent, I am not in charge. The Lenten story will end exactly where I wish it would not, year after year. The destination of Lent is a deadly cross before an empty grave. In the Christian faith, there is no other route on the map but the one from death to life.

The roadmap of your life otherwise resembles leaving the kids in charge. Right or left? Who knows what you might see or learn, which roads will be closed or which will surprise you with beauty. What will you notice about people and poverty and privilege? How will you be awakened to our work as Christians in a world God loves?

We can follow a map without knowing the way from here to there. It is a great relief not to be in charge of the world. We can be open to “right or left” as Christ guides us through the scenic route or faster interstate. The Holy Spirit is a great travel companion.

Photo by Tabea Schimpf on Unsplash

Disruption at the Communion Table

Like a speed bump not meant to be seen but only felt, the holy surprises you. The holy, or a moment the veil between heaven and earth is lifted, when an ordinary task is accompanied by a deeper and mysterious sense. It is an unexplainable feeling from within that there is more going on than can be seen.

When your day is disrupted by the holy, you know it. And sure, the holy is a beautiful disruption, but still, a disruption. Holiness can really get in the way. As you move through your day and follow your routines, holiness is like the prick of a tiny needle. You remember, if only for a moment, that the air around you is keeping you alive and don’t you forget it. You are alive because all kinds of mini-miracles have occurred in your life. You are alive, caught up in the beauty of life and the mysterious presence of the Spirit.

Last week, when the Communion meal was complete, I was putting the dishes back on the credence table for the thousandth time. I truly love the routine of putting these dishes away after a community has been fed with mercy for the neighbor. When I set down the last of the dishes, the holy, the speed bump, the prick of a needle woke me up. My heart sunk deep in my chest and tears poked at my eyes. It suddenly struck me how incredibly humbling it is to carry the old dishes that have been held by how many pastors before me. They held up the same old silver cup and told the same old, old story of a Savior who would do absolutely anything to fill you with God‘s love, to fill you with God‘s mercy, to fill you with his body and blood. And there I was, disrupted in my routine, pricked by the holy, and all I was attempting to do was stay within the sacred 60-minute bounds of Lutheran worship.

But holiness is a speed bump that cares not how fast you are moving through life, or how smoothly you are handling the everyday routine. The Spirit will remind you in speed bumps and pinpricks that your life is not your own. The air you breathe does not belong to you. The silver dishes I put away do not belong to me. You, mere mortal, beloved child, do not even belong to you.

“Slow down,” the holy nudges. “Take a peek. Here is life.”

Photo by JL Merilles on Unsplash

Annual Meetings and Why God Picked Moses

What is an annual meeting but a reunion of hopes and dreams? A re-gathering of your hopes and my dreams, my hopes and your dreams, grounded (we hope) in the stirrings of the Spirit. At these meetings, we review how resources have been shaped into hopes and approve how future resources are to be shaped into dreams.

A congregation’s hopes and dreams often get knotted up in the how muches and how manys. How many people are there? How much money do they give? How many years will the roof hold out?

Long ago, God called Moses into ministry. Not only was Moses called to be a leader for God, he was to be the voice of God. What terrified Moses was his very ordinary fear of public speaking. How much could God expect from a guy whose public speaking audience had been limited to sheep? How many people would be listening, Moses wondered. I’ll pass, he concluded.

After a few more exchanges, God gave in. He accepted Moses’ counteroffer to let his brother, Aaron, do the talking. Moses would lead and Aaron would speak.

It turns out, our human how muches and how manys do not get in the way when God wants to get something done. When God has an idea, it will happen. We can get on board or not, but no matter how arduously we point out a lack of how muches or how manys, God will make a way.

While annual meetings require human how muches and how manys, we can hardly believe that’s the point. The point of an annual meeting is to check in with the Holy Spirit. Are we listening to the Spirit’s hopes? Did we pay attention to the Spirit’s dreams?

It is a wonder the how muches and how manys tend to work out, as they did for Moses. We, like Moses, will certainly question God’s ideas. Often, they are absurd, at least at first. Why expect the sheep-whisperer to lead straying and wooly people…oh, perhaps that was a good idea, God. Sheep and people share much in common!

Even so, God will present to a congregation an array of mildly absurd ideas that require the time, talent, and treasure of its people. We might try to hold out, but it will work no better for us than it worked for Moses. If we listen, the reunion of hopes and dreams at an annual meeting will also happen to be the hopes and dreams of the God whom we follow.

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Thank You, Saints

(Photo by Cosmic Timetraveler on Unsplash)

Fran shared a treasured recipe for Oatmeal Carmelita Bars. Morris taught me how not to drive a motorized wheelchair down a hallway. Jan upholstered a rocking chair before my first child was born. Dorothy gently suggested I needed a different sweater to go with my clergy shirt. Glen invited me to decorate wooden Christmas ornaments with him at a nursing home. Marilyn gave me voice lessons. And Jackie taught me never to guess a woman’s age based on her hair color.

After my seminary coursework was completed and I moved through internship and my first call, the lessons I learned were taught by the saints. Saints, as we remember them yearly in the church the first week of November, are not perfect people but human people. Saints are the broken and lovely sinners whom Christ redeems. And saints can be excellent teachers. If you close your eyes sometime and recall the saints who have shaped your life for the better, the reel might surprise you. One by one, you will recall moments when God provided comfort, levity, wisdom, or strength through someone who showed up in your life. The Spirit stirred up a conversation or set you in a particular place at a particular time, and there you were: the recipient of a holy moment.

Thank you, saints, for the holy moments.

I could not have been prepared for the level of trust people granted me in my mid- to late-20’s as I practiced being their pastor, but I can only assume such relationships are built when trust is mutual. I needed them as much as they may have needed me. I needed them to teach me the church is broken and lovely saints, and perhaps I could be one of them, too. I was made better by their food and wisdom, their forgiveness and invitations. In return, I offered the assurance that all we need has already been given to us in the unbreakable promise of Christ’s mercy.

It is helpful for me to reminisce back to these early saints and holy moments. In the 17 short years I’ve been a pastor, the church has dramatically changed. Even if these early saints are still around (a couple of them may be) they, too, would be part of a Christian church disrupted by a pandemic, in which mutual trust between leaders and parishioners has been tested. We (churches) have not made it this far into a pandemic unscathed, I think. We are still a wobbly bunch, forming our opinions and trying to discern what lines are being drawn.

We are still broken and lovely sinners, we who are church. We draw lines Christ has already erased. We confuse political opinions with religious ones. We share memes instead of recipes for Oatmeal Carmelita Bars. We too easily ignore how deeply we might influence one another’s lives for the better. Alas, one cannot be a saint without also being a sinner. And so, we wobble together, steadied only by that unbreakable and eternal promise of Christ’s mercy.

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

(Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash)

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.

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.