Tag Archives: peace

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.

To Know and Be Known

(Photo by Gabby K on Pexels.com)

This is not a schmaltzy Valentine’s Day post, lest the photograph mislead you. Tomorrow is not my favorite day of the year, although I have found it to be a good excuse to buy my kids a new book and chocolate. The point of Valentine’s Day is to express our human love for one another, but with that comes heaps of opportunities for missed expectations (disappointment) which can lead to not loving moments on such a lovely day of the year. At least there is chocolate!

Because our staff is reading The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery, I better understand my relationship with Valentine’s Day. Turns out, Valentine’s Day, it’s not you, it’s me! Have you heard of this tool to understand our personalities? The Enneagram, as Ian Morgan Cron, co-author of the book explains, is “a tool that awakens our compassion for people just as they are, not the people we wish they would become so our lives would become easier.”

Yikes. Have you ever wished someone would be different and therefore easier to love? Guilty. Have you crossed your fingers hoping someone you love might change as the years go by? Guilty. Learning my enneagram number taught me that although I am a unique human being created in the image of God like no other human being, I am also like many other human beings in the world. We are people who avoid Valentine’s Day because it can be accompanied by disappointment. When we encounter disappointment on Valentine’s Day, we distance from the very person who is trying to love us.

Like other people who identify as a 5 (The Observer), I prefer to think more than feel. I have to work hard to process my feelings. I like learning and listening as long as it isn’t small talk, and when someone says, “Tell me about yourself”, I wish I had an invisibility cloak. I will know a hundred things about a friend or conversation partner before they know 10 things about me. Anyone who identifies as a 5 would describe themselves similarly.

This new understanding of myself has been clarifying in a life-giving way, just in time for Valentine’s Day. I know myself more truly as a pastor, mom, wife and friend. Most importantly, I know to be more gentle on myself and others, especially on Feb. 14th. I am a 5, my husband is a 2, and that could lead to a whole series of blogposts.

For now, remember you are known by the Maker as your true, broken, messy self, which makes slightly more sense when you know your own true, broken, messy self.

#SpiritualLonging

(Photo by Michael McGetrick on Unsplash)

A hunger for bread. A thirst only water can quench. A yearning for someone I love to hold my hand.

Our deepest needs are the least complicated.

Daily life, on the other hand, is mostly complicated. I am a wife, mom and pastor, making each day an exercise in meeting and missing expectations (my own, my family’s, my parish). We have expectations for ourselves and our work. Expectations are placed upon you by family members and your daily work, paid or unpaid. “To whom much is given, much will be required,” Jesus whispered in the ear of an overwhelmed woman. (Luke 12:48)

In the complicated seasons of life, what is required is overwhelming. At home, schedule the kids’ doctor appointments, sign up for baseball, buy her dance outfit in the size that fits (unlike last year), teach him how to drive, be available for conversation whenever a kid or partner is open to meaningful conversation, plan the meals, unclog the drain, surveil the screen time, fold the towels, check the homework, tell people to shower. And then there is your paid work if that’s your thing. And then there is joining your partner in caring for a marriage if that’s your thing. Maybe you care for aging parents or a sick kiddo, maybe you travel for work, maybe you are financially stressed, maybe, maybe, complicated, complicated.

I am convinced women today need to face the long list of what we expect of ourselves and what is expected of us and get real. Deep down, we do not long to administrate our families or “balance” time at home and work. Our true longing is much less complicated – as simple as bread, water, and the touch of a loved one’s hand.

These are spiritual longings, weaved into your very being. Spiritual longings are uncomplicated desires to set aside the unrealistic expectations you assume are required of you. Usually, the only person requiring unrealistic expectations of you is…you. Your family does not want you to work so damn hard. Your work does not need you to give up your well-being. You do not need to lose yourself in the dark woods of endless expectations.

When the message is to try harder to get through the woods, or to be your better self to find your way, I think that message is wrong and destructive. A better way might be to sit down wherever you are in the dark woods. Take a bite of bread and a sip of water and let Jesus hold your hand for a while. Take uncomplicated deep breaths. The drain will stay clogged and the towels will pile up. But you, beloved child of God, will hear Jesus whisper that you’ve gone too far into the woods. “To whom much freedom and life is given, trying harder is not required.”

That promise is my longing, filling my spirit with each deep, uncomplicated breath.

Advent Wondering: Peace in My Neighbor’s Neighborhood

In 2020, our world became both smaller and bigger.

The world was smaller in the sense that we scarcely moved around in it. I spent much of my time at home with the four people in my immediate family. In shared spaces, we all did our work. We cooked and ate and washed dishes together. I took lots of walks. We watched movies and played games and drove each other bonkers and then we got over it. There is a sense of peace in being connected with the people in your home.

The world also grew bigger. From my living room in June, I watched the burning streets of South Minneapolis on Facebook. Peace may have been something I was enjoying in my small world, but not in my bigger one. More than ever before, 2020 made me aware of the absence of peace for so many of my neighbors whose neighborhoods are not quiet like mine. Not all my neighbors trust the police like I do. Not all my neighbors feel safe going on long walks or stopping at a convenience store like I do.

Injustice against black and brown bodies was not new news to the big world, but it became more tangible news as our siblings in Christ persisted in speaking up about an absence of peace. Perhaps for the first time, I felt invited into the lament of a wide world with a narrow sense of what is normal (white food, song, experience) and what is not (black food, song, experience).

Peace is not reserved for our small world. Peace is not mine, it is God’s dream for the world. Peace requires peering out far enough for the world to become bigger, and neighborhoods to look more like one big world and less like separate worlds.

God arrived in a manger in only one world, after all, in another time when peace was only enjoyed in small worlds. This Advent, as I dream of peace in my small world, I’ll also dream of peace in the world that is unfolding more and more each day.

Escape

Photo by Marcos Miranda from Pexels

Last week I escaped. I got in my car early Wednesday morning before anyone but our puppy was awake and I drove until the afternoon. I drove away, which can be at the right time, an incredibly lovely thing to get to do. To drive out of my neighborhood, onto the interstate, a few hundred miles, then out of the state can be tiny gifts of freedom, one after another.

I had planned this escape for nearly a year and it landed at precisely the time I needed to escape. These months of pandemic, quarantine, racial honesty and tension, kids at home and needing to be here, there, and everywhere had worn me down.

What do you do when you know you need to escape? Out of the state or just out of the house? Away from the people whom you love so much so that you can renew your strength to love them even more.

In my experience, men tend to be a bit freer to make these escapes. Outdoor sports and weekends with the guys simply seem more acceptable, maybe even more encouraged than a woman’s escape. That is not true in every household, but it is true in many.

So as I tell you with renewed freedom and life that I escaped, I say this with awareness and a twinge of guilt that I had the chance to drive away. Away from people at home needing food, encouragement, refereeing, structure, and so many things from me at most minutes of the day. Away from work with its weird pandemic intensity. I escaped and I was free for four entire days.

I’m going to keep you in suspense about where I went in hopes that you will think about your own need to escape. Escaping does not make you a bad parent or spouse or pastor. It makes you a restored, renewed, whole, and more at peace child of God.

I could escape because I have family members who love me, a spouse who understands when I need to drive away, and co-workers who support me. And women, I know these are luxuries that do not abound. I escaped with gratitude and returned with gratitude, but mostly I returned more aware of who I am, beloved child of the generous God who shows up in the silence. The one who gives me the signal to escape that I often miss but this time did not.