Upper Chesapeake Medical Center has restarted a perinatal bereavement support group. I was the first speaker, and the group ended up being relaxed and informal, but this is what I had prepared to say.
In the last year, I have had two miscarriages. The last one was only a few weeks ago. We have been trying to have children for over two years. And I should tell you I am a pastor, so this is a busy time of year for me. It is Advent, the season of preparing our hearts and minds for the coming of Christ by remembering and even reenacting the birth of a baby. It's also a season of waiting.
Does this sound like a super fun time of year for a person dealing with the death of babies and wondering when, if ever, she will ever get pregnant again?
Hint: it's not.
One of the scriptures we read during Advent that I usually open Christmas Eve services with is from the prophet Isaiah. He writes, The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined (Isaiah 9:2). He writes about the Israelites, desperately hoping for a new reign of peace and prosperity after life under the oppression of the Assyrian Empire. Christians read it as the anticipation of Jesus's birth. And it is a scripture that has been sticking with me in this season. Because I feel like those people who walked in darkness--- not (necessarily) because of politics, but because of grief.
I knew I was going to have a miscarriage my first pregnancy. We had conceived on Christmas day last year, which is probably more information than you need to know, but this was after over a year of trying and my desperation was so strong that I basically missed a day of work every month when I got my period because all I could do was sit around and cry. When we learned we were going to have a Christmas baby, it seemed too perfect. I didn't trust it. Perhaps that says something about my faith, you can analyze that later, but this moment should have felt like dawn after a long night. Instead it just felt like more darkness. That is until just before the eighth week, when I finally started picking out baby names and researching potential Halloween costumes. Finally, that light seemed to be shining! And then I had a miscarriage. I remember sitting in the car on the way to the emergency room on my husband's twenty-ninth birthday while he prayed for us and he was still praying that our baby would be okay. I had no such hope. I already knew our baby was gone.
Now the days after our miscarriage were not as dark as that day. I could feel hope again. After all, we hadn't been sure we could get pregnant naturally but we did. And when it started to get dark again, after not getting pregnant for seven months on our own and with some help, the day of the baby's due date ended up being another experience of renewal that let some light seep in. And then I got pregnant again, a week after my first due date, and, even though I was cautious, I allowed myself to hope this time. To hold my belly and talk to the baby. To again try and decide on a middle name for a boy. But I only allowed myself to hope a little bit. I had grown accustomed to the dark.
I miscarried again. And this time I saw no light. And when people reminded me that God was still with me, and that I have a wonderful supportive husband and church, and that I have so much to be thankful for, I just got more bitter. I wanted to be left alone in my grief. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and my heart adjusted to hopelessness.
But I don't think hopelessness is all the darkness of pregnancy and infant loss can teach me, and maybe teach us. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again...”1
One of those things I have learned is the power of community. I have always believed that community is beautiful, but it was not until I was stumbling in this darkness myself that I actually experienced it saving me. Like just his past Tuesday, when I was exhausted and ran into a family acquaintance in a hospital waiting room while looking for one of my parishioners. She asked me which of my sisters had lost the baby. I burst into tears when I told her it was me, not one of my sisters, even though I thought I was doing so well with not crying in public. But while I tried to blink back tears, she took my hand and told me about how between her two children, she lost five pregnancies. She told me about how her son was a twin, but his twin died at seventeen weeks. She had to carry the dead baby within her as she carried the living one. And she told me this story not with triumph, not with the smile and “See, one day you will have a beautiful baby too just like I did,” end to the story. She told me her story just to let me know I was not alone, and she had cried too, so many times.
I want to run the show. I want to be able to plan my pregnancies the way my mother did, when she decided she never wanted to be pregnant in the summer again, so my sisters' birthdays are June 1 and June 3. I want my doctor to tell me the next IUI will work. I want to know when I get that positive on the pregnancy stick that I will be pregnant for forty weeks, not seven or eight. But we don't run the show. We don't have control over our ovulation or the quality of our eggs. We don't have control over crying in the middle of a hospital waiting room with an almost stranger. But when I stop trying to control the outcome, I might start to see beauty and goodness in the light there is, even if it isn't the kind of light I wanted or expected. Like the beauty and goodness there was in sitting with a woman, listening to her story and not feeling so alone anymore.
The darkness of pregnancy and infant loss is horrible. I would give up this journey in exchange for a baby in a heartbeat. But there is still goodness in the midst of the horribleness, still light in the darkness, even if it is a just faint glow. And I believe that is because the darkness is not dark to God, as Psalm 139 tells us. To God, the night is as bright as day. God can work the good from even terrible situations. God can help us see beauty by that faint starlight even when the sun isn't shining.
So though even today I do not expect to see a great light, to feel the warmth of a smile on my face when I get to hold my baby for the first time, I know that this darkness we walk in the meantime is not just a place of death and hopelessness. That we can learn to walk in the dark, and to reach out to our siblings in this journey and help them walk too. And maybe together we will find that even the night can be bright.
Showing posts with label advent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advent. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2016
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Joy Happens In Relationship
This is a sermon from Presbury United Methodist Church's Mismatched Nativity series.
Scripture: Luke 1:39-58 (NRSV)
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.
Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
Sermon:
Let us pray:
Scripture: Luke 1:39-58 (NRSV)
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.
Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
Sermon:
Let us pray:
Patient teacher, we probably don't all feel very joyful this morning. Maybe we are worried about a loved one in the hospital. Maybe we saw our credit card bill and are trying to figure out how long it will take to pay it off. Maybe we just got a bad night's sleep. There are so many things that keep us from rejoicing in you. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts show us how near you are today. For that is good news indeed. Amen.
We are continuing our sermon series on a Mismatched Nativity. You can come up after worship, or just see from your seats that this Nativity is composed of many different sets, and many from places like Haiti and South Africa. Of course, there are also gnome and Snoopy nativities represented, so it is a bit of a strange concoction here. But it serves as a visual reminder for what we have been talking about--- these characters from the story of Jesus' birth were not so different from us. Their lives are not perfect. They had problems like we do. They messed up once or twice in their lives--- but, even if you aren't convinced they did mess up, everyone around them thought they did and judged them for it, made their lives harder for it. Zechariah prayed but really didn’t have hope. Mary was less pure and holy than spunky and courageous. Today, we are talking about Elizabeth, a person of faith who experienced joy but also still felt fear and anxiety, just like many of us do.
Our scripture today is about joy pure and simple, from Mary to Elizabeth and back again. But remember that joy and happiness are not the same thing. We are not talking about a sense of contentment, like after a long day when you finally get to put your feet up and relax. We are not talking about the feeling of pleasure we experience when eating our favorite food. We are not talking about the warm fluttery feeling like the kind you get in your stomach when you realize the next Star Wars movie is out next week. Or maybe you don't get that feeling, but I do! Joy is a deeper feeling than those even though it is sometimes fleeting. Joy is a kind of resistance and resilience. Joy transforms us, and shows us possibilities we once thought impossible.
Let's just look more carefully at Mary and Elizabeth's story. If we picture these women at all, which, let's face it, Elizabeth and Zechariah are left out of the Nativity so often we don't think of them as being a part of the story--- but if we picture these women, we picture halos and light, big smiles and big bellies. Scripture doesn't exactly tell us otherwise, though it does suggest that Mary probably did not have a big belly yet, but I wonder if the halos and smiles put us off from the part of the story we can best relate to--- that Mary and Elizabeth were afraid.
We aren't really sure why Mary set out and went with haste to see Elizabeth. Yes, the angel had given her the good news, but it wasn't like she had a car and could just run over with cake and balloons. Rev. Adam Hamilton in his bible study about the geography of the story of Jesus' birth says that the journey by foot between Mary's and Elizabeth's homes could have taken nine days. He writes, “The fact that Mary was willing to travel nine days across three mountain ranges [hill country, the scripture tell us, remember] to see Elizabeth speaks volumes about how she was feeling. She longed for someone who might believe her and who could help her make sense of what was happening.”1
Now in those days, women would often journey to family member's homes to help with pregnancy, delivery, and taking care of the newborn baby. It was probably not out of the ordinary for Mary to go on such a journey, or at least women Mary's age. But I have a friend who has another theory. She believes that Mary was kicked out by angry and frightened parents. We really have no idea, but think about it--- how many of you would believe a teenager, even the sweetest, most innocent teenager you know, if they told you that the Holy Spirit impregnated them with God? Maybe they got angry and sent Mary away, to wait until her delusion had passed or to negotiate with Joseph's family so no violence would befall Mary, since the law at that time, whether or not it was enforced, was to stone a woman who had committed adultery, even against her betrothed. Whatever you believe, I think these possibilities tell us that this journey to Elizabeth's house was not taken by Mary while she was skipping and singing to woodland animals like a Disney princess. She was afraid and uncertain. Her courage in agreeing to serve God was waning in the face of very real fears and anxieties.
And Elizabeth, she was also full of fear and anxiety, despite the faith she exhibited when we read about Zechariah a few weeks ago. Of course, I could be projecting my own experiences onto Elizabeth, but two different people I talked to this week who had multiple losses and struggled with infertility agreed with me, so this is not isolated. As much as Elizabeth wanted to become pregnant, as much as she realized our God is a God of miracles, for those who experience pregnancy loss and infertility, pregnancy is scary. Every time I told someone I was pregnant this last time--- which was only a few people because I was so scared--- I burst into tears. And not happy tears. Every time someone responded with congratulations, I didn't feel like I could accept it yet. I felt like I was holding my breath--- and I could tell Aaron was too. I remembered seeing people post pictures not of 12 week sonograms but of the actual pregnancy test just weeks after conception and could not fathom how you could share something that was so uncertain.
Elizabeth, you may remember from the beginning of chapter one of Luke's Gospel, went into seclusion for the five months after she conceived. Even though she was a woman of deep faith, a woman who proclaimed, “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.” Elizabeth felt like she was holding her breath. Did Zechariah really have a vision? Did God really mean this baby would be the one, or maybe she would miscarry and have another? God's time isn't our time after all. Even though she had faith, she was afraid. Rev. Hamilton points out that, “It seems to have been Mary's visit that drew Elizabeth out of her seclusion. Mary needed Elizabeth, but perhaps Elizabeth also needed Mary.”2
Mary and Elizabeth were not these majestic superwomen who could do anything and everything easily and without any fear or worry just because God called them to do it. They were people full of faith, people seeking to love God more. And as people of faith, when their belief waned, when their fear reared it's head, they reached out to one another. And that reaching out made their faith even stronger. That reaching out gave them joy, true joy, based on the knowledge that they were not alone. That God was with them, helping them to see beauty and goodness even in the difficult things.3
“Joy happens in relationship.”4 There isn't some magic formula for joy, some specific prayer or action that only haloed people with big smiles can experience. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child that would become John the Baptist leaped in her womb. But her heart leaped too. And she finally felt the presence of the Lord again stronger than her fear and anxiety over her pregnancy. She blessed Mary, crying out to her in joy, which then prompted the most joyful song in all of scripture, at least to me. The Magnificat. With Elizabeth's blessing, Mary was able to let joy fill her again after over a week of walking and worrying, seeking a friend. She knew God had remembered her because Elizabeth did--- not as a teenage mom, but as a person blessed by God.
Do you have a person like Elizabeth and Mary had? A friend who is there to help you find God when it is hard, a friend who can help you hear God's voice when you can't? That is what this week was for me, from church people to life-long friends, to Muslim women, to a virtual stranger in a hospital waiting room, I encountered people like like Elizabeth, who emerged from their own pain to speak a word of blessing upon me.
This is a congregation full of Elizabeths and Marys who need to take the journey to reach out to one another in love and let God transform them. So let us open our hearts to the joy God already has in store for us. In the spirit of reaching out, I invite you to turn to your neighbor and rejoice together, as Elizabeth and Mary did together. Offer one another signs of God's joy!
1Adam Hamilton, The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2011), 63.
2Ibid., 65.
3I thought about this following a comment on The Young Clergy Women Project Facebook Group, posted 1 December 2016, accessed 10 December 2016.
4Another comment this time on the YCWs Preach the Narrative Lectionary Facebook Group, posted 10 December 2016, accessed 10 December 2016.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Where is the one who will be our peace?
The drafts are piling up, but I can't seem to find the time to finish any of them. But I do have this sermon to share that I preached at Presbury United Methodist Church this morning.
First Reading: Micah 5:2-4; 6:6-8 (Inclusive Bible)
But God will give them over to their enemies
until the time when she who is in labor has given birth;
then the remnant of the ruler's sisters and brothers
will return to the Children of Israel.
The ruler will rise up to shepherd them in the strength of the Lord,
by the power of the Name of the Lord their God.
They will live in security, for now the ruler's greatness
will reach the ends of the earth.
They'll say, “This at last is the one who will be our peace!
When Assyria invades our land and tramples our fortresses,
we will raise up against the invaders seven--- no eight!--- shepherds,
leaders of the people.”
…
“What shall I bring when I come before the Lord
and bow down before God on high?” you ask.
“Am I to come before God with burnt offerings? With year-old calves?
Will the Lord be placated by thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oil?
Should I offer my firstborn for my wrongdoings---
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
Listen here, mortal:
God has already made abundantly clear what “good” is,
and what the Lord needs from you:
simply do justice,
love kindness,
and walk humbly with your God.
Second Reading: 1 John 2:3-11 (NRSV)
Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. Whoever says, “I have come to know him,” but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked.
Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word that you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says, “I am in the light,” while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.
Sermon:
They will live in security, for now the ruler's greatness
will reach the ends of the earth.
They'll say, “This at last is the one who will be our peace!”
Our reading from the prophets this morning is not one of our regular readings for Advent, this season of preparation in which we look back to the birth of a baby in a barn two thousand years ago and forward to the Second Coming of Christ. Yet this reading from the fifth chapter of Micah, as strange as it may seem for Advent, echoes messianic promises of peace and security.
And isn't peace and security what we want? But the problem is the world isn't very peaceful or secure. And you don't have to look further than events this week to see that.
Yes, I am talking about Ferguson.1 Many of you heard about Ferguson, Missouri, over the summer when 18-year-old Mike Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson. While there are accounts that Mike Brown fought with the officer, he was unarmed, and eyewitnesses say his last words were, “I don't have a gun. Stop shooting.” The events of that day and the pain following it were revisited again this week as a Grand Jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson. Whether or not the jury's decision was right or wrong, many people saw this as another example of the racism that is still pervasive in the country. An unarmed teenager was gunned down by a police officer and the law did nothing to protect the teenager.
Michelle Alexander, who is a civil rights lawyer known for her work on racism within the prison system, wrote a powerful piece for the New York Times this week about how she was going to tell her son, who is ten and black, about Darren Wilson's trial. She writes that she wanted to say, “Don’t worry, honey, you have nothing to worry about. Nothing like this could ever happen to you.”2 But she couldn't. Since Mike Brown was killed just a few months ago, more than a dozen teenagers have been shot by police, and almost half of those teenagers were black.3 Where is the one who will shepherd us in the strength of the Lord? Where is the one who will be our peace?
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said that “True peace is not the absence of tension, it’s the presence of justice.” Peace around the country would not happen if we could just all get along, to use Rodney King's words after the uprisings in LA. Peace comes with justice, when young black and brown men and boys cannot walk around without fear of being shot by the people who claim to protect them, there is a problem. Even if those men and boys were getting into trouble. And, for many people protesting, it isn't even about Mike Brown. It is about how racism continues to plague our country in insidious ways, even though we are supposed to be better than that.4
Now I say all of this but should share with you that, when my father called me after the decision was announced, he informed me that, as a child of a police officer, he will always support the police officer. I know that for some of us, perhaps most of us, Darren Wilson shooting Mike Brown is more complicated than you may feel I have described it. I'm sure it is! But I think that we can agree that what we have heard throughout the week has shown us the depths of the brokenness of our world, the pain that reverberates throughout this country, the need for shepherds of peace. The need for Jesus.
Often in Advent, the readings on Sunday will be about the end times. We are to be preparing ourselves for the second coming of Christ. And wouldn't that second coming be a beautiful thing? We have gotten ourselves in a huge mess--- a mess we can see not only when we look at persistent racism in our country, but also when we read about schools like the University of Virginia where students have been gang raped and then unable to find support and protection from their administration until Rolling Stone magazine brought it to the whole country's attention. We drive down the street and see empty houses and yet so many homeless people. The list goes on and on. Where is that one who will be our peace that Micah told us about? The world is so bad that not only Christians dream of Jesus' return complete with rather violent destruction. In secular culture, our obsession with stories like The Walking Dead, a hit TV show about the zombie apocalypse, show some kind of sense that we are spiraling unavoidably into ruin. We've given up on the world as it is. We want everything to be destroyed so we can start over. Our brains get tired when we try to imagine living the way God originally intended for us to live.
But in Advent, though we may prepare for the Second Coming, we also celebrate how God put on flesh and dwelt among us,5 how God dwelt among us then, and God still dwells among us today. God is in the anger in the uprising in Ferguson, and in the comforting actions directed toward Darren Wilson and his family. God is in the voices breaking the silence about rape on college campuses, and in the hands of those making Thanksgiving meals for folks in need. In the beginning of chapter six of Micah, we see God dwelling among us. God reminds us of how God saved us from slavery in Egypt, sent us leaders to guide us, and brought us justice. God saved us in the past and will save us in the future. That is the story of Advent, folks!
So how do we respond? Where do we find ourselves in this story? This is the question both our scripture from Micah and 1 John are concerned with: What does God want from us as God enacts this drama of salvation all around us? For us to sit quietly at home reading the bible and ignoring the drama and pain of the outside world? For us to stand up in worship and say that we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and then go about our life as usual, waiting for the so-called rapture? Studying scripture and witnessing to the power of Jesus in worship are good things, certainly. But God has made clear what God really wants from us: God wants us to do justice, love mercy, and be a humble walking companion. “God wants the world to see whose we are.”6 This is part of the answer to the first question that Micah brought up--- where is the one who will be our peace? If we do as God has required us, then we are the hands and feet of the one who brings us peace. If we do justice, we are exhibiting Christ, who bring peace. If we are kind to one another, showing one another compassion, we are exhibiting Christ, who brings peace. If we walk humbly beside God, listening with open hearts for God incarnated all around us, we are exhibiting Christ, who brings peace.
So this Advent, I have some homework to help guide you. (I know you all love homework!) Using some Lenten calendars I found online last year,7 I came up with one little thing to do each day throughout Advent to help us do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly. My prayer is that these activities help us to better show who we are and whose we are in this crazy, broken world of ours. And that, in learning to better be children of God, we might bring a little light and life, justice and love, to this place.
Let us pray together:
First Reading: Micah 5:2-4; 6:6-8 (Inclusive Bible)
But God will give them over to their enemies
until the time when she who is in labor has given birth;
then the remnant of the ruler's sisters and brothers
will return to the Children of Israel.
The ruler will rise up to shepherd them in the strength of the Lord,
by the power of the Name of the Lord their God.
They will live in security, for now the ruler's greatness
will reach the ends of the earth.
They'll say, “This at last is the one who will be our peace!
When Assyria invades our land and tramples our fortresses,
we will raise up against the invaders seven--- no eight!--- shepherds,
leaders of the people.”
…
“What shall I bring when I come before the Lord
and bow down before God on high?” you ask.
“Am I to come before God with burnt offerings? With year-old calves?
Will the Lord be placated by thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oil?
Should I offer my firstborn for my wrongdoings---
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
Listen here, mortal:
God has already made abundantly clear what “good” is,
and what the Lord needs from you:
simply do justice,
love kindness,
and walk humbly with your God.
Second Reading: 1 John 2:3-11 (NRSV)
Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. Whoever says, “I have come to know him,” but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked.
Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word that you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says, “I am in the light,” while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.
Sermon:
They will live in security, for now the ruler's greatness
will reach the ends of the earth.
They'll say, “This at last is the one who will be our peace!”
Our reading from the prophets this morning is not one of our regular readings for Advent, this season of preparation in which we look back to the birth of a baby in a barn two thousand years ago and forward to the Second Coming of Christ. Yet this reading from the fifth chapter of Micah, as strange as it may seem for Advent, echoes messianic promises of peace and security.
And isn't peace and security what we want? But the problem is the world isn't very peaceful or secure. And you don't have to look further than events this week to see that.
Yes, I am talking about Ferguson.1 Many of you heard about Ferguson, Missouri, over the summer when 18-year-old Mike Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson. While there are accounts that Mike Brown fought with the officer, he was unarmed, and eyewitnesses say his last words were, “I don't have a gun. Stop shooting.” The events of that day and the pain following it were revisited again this week as a Grand Jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson. Whether or not the jury's decision was right or wrong, many people saw this as another example of the racism that is still pervasive in the country. An unarmed teenager was gunned down by a police officer and the law did nothing to protect the teenager.
Michelle Alexander, who is a civil rights lawyer known for her work on racism within the prison system, wrote a powerful piece for the New York Times this week about how she was going to tell her son, who is ten and black, about Darren Wilson's trial. She writes that she wanted to say, “Don’t worry, honey, you have nothing to worry about. Nothing like this could ever happen to you.”2 But she couldn't. Since Mike Brown was killed just a few months ago, more than a dozen teenagers have been shot by police, and almost half of those teenagers were black.3 Where is the one who will shepherd us in the strength of the Lord? Where is the one who will be our peace?
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said that “True peace is not the absence of tension, it’s the presence of justice.” Peace around the country would not happen if we could just all get along, to use Rodney King's words after the uprisings in LA. Peace comes with justice, when young black and brown men and boys cannot walk around without fear of being shot by the people who claim to protect them, there is a problem. Even if those men and boys were getting into trouble. And, for many people protesting, it isn't even about Mike Brown. It is about how racism continues to plague our country in insidious ways, even though we are supposed to be better than that.4
Now I say all of this but should share with you that, when my father called me after the decision was announced, he informed me that, as a child of a police officer, he will always support the police officer. I know that for some of us, perhaps most of us, Darren Wilson shooting Mike Brown is more complicated than you may feel I have described it. I'm sure it is! But I think that we can agree that what we have heard throughout the week has shown us the depths of the brokenness of our world, the pain that reverberates throughout this country, the need for shepherds of peace. The need for Jesus.
Often in Advent, the readings on Sunday will be about the end times. We are to be preparing ourselves for the second coming of Christ. And wouldn't that second coming be a beautiful thing? We have gotten ourselves in a huge mess--- a mess we can see not only when we look at persistent racism in our country, but also when we read about schools like the University of Virginia where students have been gang raped and then unable to find support and protection from their administration until Rolling Stone magazine brought it to the whole country's attention. We drive down the street and see empty houses and yet so many homeless people. The list goes on and on. Where is that one who will be our peace that Micah told us about? The world is so bad that not only Christians dream of Jesus' return complete with rather violent destruction. In secular culture, our obsession with stories like The Walking Dead, a hit TV show about the zombie apocalypse, show some kind of sense that we are spiraling unavoidably into ruin. We've given up on the world as it is. We want everything to be destroyed so we can start over. Our brains get tired when we try to imagine living the way God originally intended for us to live.
But in Advent, though we may prepare for the Second Coming, we also celebrate how God put on flesh and dwelt among us,5 how God dwelt among us then, and God still dwells among us today. God is in the anger in the uprising in Ferguson, and in the comforting actions directed toward Darren Wilson and his family. God is in the voices breaking the silence about rape on college campuses, and in the hands of those making Thanksgiving meals for folks in need. In the beginning of chapter six of Micah, we see God dwelling among us. God reminds us of how God saved us from slavery in Egypt, sent us leaders to guide us, and brought us justice. God saved us in the past and will save us in the future. That is the story of Advent, folks!
So how do we respond? Where do we find ourselves in this story? This is the question both our scripture from Micah and 1 John are concerned with: What does God want from us as God enacts this drama of salvation all around us? For us to sit quietly at home reading the bible and ignoring the drama and pain of the outside world? For us to stand up in worship and say that we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and then go about our life as usual, waiting for the so-called rapture? Studying scripture and witnessing to the power of Jesus in worship are good things, certainly. But God has made clear what God really wants from us: God wants us to do justice, love mercy, and be a humble walking companion. “God wants the world to see whose we are.”6 This is part of the answer to the first question that Micah brought up--- where is the one who will be our peace? If we do as God has required us, then we are the hands and feet of the one who brings us peace. If we do justice, we are exhibiting Christ, who bring peace. If we are kind to one another, showing one another compassion, we are exhibiting Christ, who brings peace. If we walk humbly beside God, listening with open hearts for God incarnated all around us, we are exhibiting Christ, who brings peace.
So this Advent, I have some homework to help guide you. (I know you all love homework!) Using some Lenten calendars I found online last year,7 I came up with one little thing to do each day throughout Advent to help us do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly. My prayer is that these activities help us to better show who we are and whose we are in this crazy, broken world of ours. And that, in learning to better be children of God, we might bring a little light and life, justice and love, to this place.
Let us pray together:
Patient
teacher, we know how frustrating we must be. We know that you rage at
the sin of racism, and all those sins that have so broken our world.
But we also know that you have told us what is good. Justice.
Kindness. Humility. Love. As we celebrate the coming of Christ this
Advent season, have us hold onto what is good so that we may be part
of enacting your healing power on this world little by little. Amen.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Water Breaking Forth in the Wilderness
In 2009, I went on an experiential educational trip to the border with Methodist Federation for Social Action folks through BorderLinks. There, I saw "water breaking forth in the wilderness" (Isaiah 35:6). I wrote about the experience for December 18 of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church's Young Adult Advent Devotional (see page 19 of this PDF or continue reading below). I have been reflecting a lot recently on my adventures traveling, and this experience is one that burns brightly for me this Advent season.
Scripture: Isaiah 35:1-10
Focus: Opening your eyes to hope
Focus: Opening your eyes to hope
In the desert where we were, a tall blue flag shot up into the
sky, anchored to the dusty earth by a blue jug.
Water.
Here, on the border, where so many are lost in the wilderness, whether
the symbolic wildernesses of greed or grief or the actual desert, here,
there was water breaking forth. This hospitality is what we had been
waiting for, whether we knew it or not.
We were a group of young adults participating in an experiential
education program focused on immigration. Earlier that day, we met with
some high school students living on the border who, when we shared our
names and what the border meant to us, overwhelmingly spoke of death.
That stuck out in my mind as we saw this flag that symbolized water,
which was being offered by a migrant shelter in Altar, Mexico, a simple
place with hot food and a warm place to sleep.
When we arrived, no one was there yet for the night, so we waited. We
had no idea what we should expect, but one of us got out a guitar and
began to sing. Slowly, people began to arrive, including a young family,
a teenage boy, and two brothers. They were exhausted and the language
barrier made it difficult to strike up a conversation, but they joined
us in song. Then we ate together, piecing together stories.
That night was filled with life and warmth, even though the realities of the dangers of the desert hung over us.
Reading Isaiah brought me back to that night at the migrant shelter.
Isaiah's litany is one of hope in the midst of death; the hope we have
been waiting for in the midst of the death we have seen around us.
Preparing ourselves for Jesus' arrival this Advent season is about
opening our eyes to that hope at the same time it is about how we can
nurture those blossoms God has planted in the wildernesses of this
world. As that shelter on the border was, we can be waters breaking
forth, offering life to people in their wilderness places.
PRAYER: Holy One, we reach out to you, seeking relief from the
wildernesses around us. But we know we aren't the only ones. Return us
to your joy, and give us the courage to bring your realm to this place.
Amen.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Invitation to Peace
The second Sunday of Advent, we had three baptisms at Presbury United Methodist Church and I felt called to remember the prophetic life of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. It was a lot for a young preacher to attempt in one sermon! What follows is adapted from the sermon I preached.
Scripture
Lesson: Isaiah 55 (NRSV)
Ho,everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and
your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
Sermon:
Invitation to Peace
Let
us pray:
Patient
Teacher, let not the Word that goes forth from your mouth return
empty!
Plant
your Word within us this morning,
pour
out your Spirit upon us so that we may bear good fruit;
for
the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.1
I found myself reflecting this week on the Isaiah text we read together as though I was on Robben
Island in South Africa, a place I visited four years ago. Robben Island is a desolate place. Even now that it is
covered in tourists, it feels empty and cold. You can see Table
Mountain and Cape Town across the water, but it feels so far away. It
was easy to see how such a place could be used as a prison, as it was
used since the seventeenth century until the mid-nineties, for it
feels as though this little bit of land had broken off from
civilization and was drifting off into the sea. And yet, it is a
place that signifies, to me, the invitation to peace we read about in
the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah.
The text is introduced in my translation of the bible as an Invitation to Abundant Life. Yet, for the community who first read this invitation, they must have felt like the prisoners on Robben Island, desolate and cold, cut off from home and community unjustly. Such an invitation to abundant life that we read in scripture or hear in the words of great leaders like Nelson Mandela seems strange. And yet, when I was visiting Robben Island in 2009, I saw it has indeed become a place where it is as though the mountains and the hills break forth into song and the trees clap their hands. One of the most powerful things about visiting Robben Island was how the South Africans touring it with us burst into freedom songs.
The text is introduced in my translation of the bible as an Invitation to Abundant Life. Yet, for the community who first read this invitation, they must have felt like the prisoners on Robben Island, desolate and cold, cut off from home and community unjustly. Such an invitation to abundant life that we read in scripture or hear in the words of great leaders like Nelson Mandela seems strange. And yet, when I was visiting Robben Island in 2009, I saw it has indeed become a place where it is as though the mountains and the hills break forth into song and the trees clap their hands. One of the most powerful things about visiting Robben Island was how the South Africans touring it with us burst into freedom songs.
Now,
I know that not many of us are familiar with South African history---
I never even learned about apartheid in school and I don't know if it
is taught today. But in light of Mandela going home to his ancestors,
joining the great cloud of witnesses, this week, I could not shake
the connection between Isaiah's and Mandela's invitations to abundant
life, characterized by full bellies, joy, and peace. So even though a
history lesson may be strange for a sermon, I hope you can hear the
calls to abundant life within it.
The
first connection I saw between these two invitations is that both
invitations came from people in exile. When we read, “For you shall
go out with joy and be led back in peace,” in the fifty-fifth
chapter of Isaiah, it is a reference to the Babylonian exile, when
important, prestigious, and powerful Israelites were forced out of
Israel when it was conquered. But even after two generations of
exile, prophets believed that they would return home.
So
too the story of not only Mandela but of all South Africa is one of
exile and a longing for home, especially for native black South
Africans. South Africa was colonized by the Dutch and the British
beginning in the 1600s. Slavery, war, and exploitation of labor and
land were characteristics of Europeans' occupation of South Africa.
And, as was the case in our own country, inequality was present from
the beginning. The government run by the white minority established
apartheid, officially introduced in 1948 when Nelson Mandela was 30
years old. Apartheid is a word that means “apartness,” and was a
system of violent racial segregation not unlike Jim Crow in our
country. In it, however, people of color were not considered to be
citizens at all, did not deserve any rights at all, and for whom most
services like medical services were inferior to those for whites.
People of color were to be constantly reminded of their so-called
inferiority, even to the extent that Mandela received short trousers
instead of long pants that white prisoners received when he got into
prison in Robben Island to remind them, he says, that they were
boys.3
This system of segregation provided a labor force for the whites in
charge.
Mandela
resisted apartheid from the beginning, and worked for freedom. He
started as a lawyer, often working with poor blacks on things like
police brutality. He urged South Africans to fight for their freedom,
and spread a vision of an egalitarian society where people could live
free of domination based on race. He moved up the ranks in the
African National Congress, a political party that was eventually made
illegal by the apartheid government and was forced underground.
Mandela was constantly harassed by the police, and was eventually
imprisoned for twenty-seven years in that place of such cold
loneliness on Robben Island.
And
yet--- here is the second connection--- yet, leaders like the
prophets of Israel and Nelson Mandela and
Jesus kept dreaming and proclaiming a
different world. They spoke of peace in the midst of violence,
abundance in the midst of hunger, equality in the midst of huge
economic difference. Now, in Mandela's case, this dream was not a
nice, nonthreatening one. Mandela was actually considered to be a
terrorist by our own government until 2008. While I find that
absolutely ridiculous and embarrassing on our part, I must confess
that as a pacifist I struggled reading his autobiography when in it
he talks about his decision in the African National Congress to take
up arms against the white supremacist government. But I still
consider him to be a fighter for peace because, even in his acts of
sabotage he was against hurting civilians, and his presidency was
defined by reconciliation. He was elected president, the first true
democratically elected president, in 1994, and he served until his
retirement in 1999.
Mandela
oversaw the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
during his presidency, where war criminals, those who had perpetuated
the sin of apartheid in South Africa could be brought to justice.
However, those convicted were not thrown in Robben Island's cold
cells. Rather, the commission offered amnesty in return for truth and
breaking the silences around the human rights violations that had
occurred. It offered opportunity not to dwell in the past, but to
break silences that blocked the possibilities for the future.
In
his inaugural speech, Mandela said:
We understand it still that there is no easy road to
freedom. We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve
success. We must therefore act together as a united people, for
national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new
world. Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let
there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for
each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill
themselves. Never, never, and never again shall it be that this
beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another
and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world. The sun
shall never set on so glorious a human achievement. Let freedom ring.
God bless Africa.4
That is an invitation to abundant living. While we do not know the exact impact the invitation of abundant life in Isaiah had on the exilic community, we do know the impact Mandela's invitation had in South Africa. I saw the impact in a conversation I had while in South Africa with a refugee named Fabien from the Democratic Republic of Congo. One of the things I asked him was why he thought his country and the countries around him are still plagued by such violence and cruelty. War is constant in countries like the Congo. I mean, I had my ideas about how nations like ours continue to colonize countries like the Congo economically and politically by encouraging debt and corruption. But Fabien said that the violence was a result of a lack of leadership.
His answer kind of dumbfounded me. So simple and yet so powerful. In South Africa, the first democratic president had been a political prisoner for almost thirty years: he had been degraded and abused and yet he and other leaders preached reconciliation. Unity. Peace. These leaders extended an invitation to build a world like the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah envisions, one in which everyone who thirsts--- no matter their color, no matter how much money they have, no matter what--- can come to the waters.
This
Sunday, the second in Advent, is one in which we have already come to
the waters, the waters of baptism. And so, on this Sunday, the
invitation to build a world of abundant life is extended to us. We
prayed together today that through baptism we would be incorporated
by the Holy Spirit into God's new creation and made to share in
Christ's royal priesthood. The new creation is a world of peace and
plenty so complete that the nations of the world run toward it, of
justice and joy so catching that even the mountains sing and the
trees clap their hands. And as ones who share in Christ's royal
priesthood, we are to be leaders, extending the invitation to this
new creation.
Mandela's
leadership demonstrates for us that this invitation is not to an
imaginary place or a vision of the world where we will go when we
die. This invitation is a different way of living here and now when
we speak out and witness, even at great cost to ourselves, for that
which is good and right. This invitation is a different way of living
when we stand up to say enough is enough in the face of bullying and
hate speech. This invitation is a different way of living when we
reach out in love across our differences. There is no easy road for
freedom, but when we work together, we will bring glory to God. So
let us respond to the invitation this holiday season.
I
found a prayer of thanksgiving for Mandela's life that I wanted to
close with. Will you pray with me?
Merciful God,Author of salvation, Giver of every gracious gift,we give thanks for the life and witness of your servant, Nelson Mandela.His quest for freedom was was a witness to your saving power in our world– a power that can break the shackles of sin and oppression and hatred.And his commitment to justice gave us a glimpse of what your kingdom should look like– a place where swords of war can actually be traded for the plowshares of peace;a place where bitter enemies can, by your grace, become friends.Receive your servant, Mandiba, and grant him the eternal rest of your saints.May he rest in your mercy and rise in your glory.And may we, your Church, follow his witness of peace and justice marked by reconciliation.For when we do, we know we are also following the ways of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns now and forevermore. Amen.5
1Based
on Kimberly Bracken Long, ed., Prayer for Illumination,
Eighth Sunday after the Epiphany, Feasting on
the Word: Worship Companion, Advent through Pentecost (Louisville,
Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 85.
3Nelson
Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson
Mandela (New York: Little,
Borwn and Company, 1994), 383.
4Nelson
Mandela, Inaugural Speech, 10 May 1994,
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Inaugural_Speech_17984.html.
5Prayer
by Bgosden, A Prayer of Thanksgiving for Nelson Mandela, 6 December
2013, covered in the master's dust,
http://mastersdust.com/2013/12/06/prayer-thanksgiving-nelson-mandela-1/.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
"I like to pray like this"
An Advent Reflection.
When we prayed, she pressed her palms together tight.
"Comforting God," I begin.
"Is it okay if I pray like this?" she asks, holding her hands up to show me, fingers straight, pressed together. "I like to pray like this because then my palms feel warm."
I wanted to cry. Of course, I told her, it is ok to pray like that. Your body knows how you need to pray. And I could not think of any more beautiful reason to pray in any particular way than it makes your palms warm. In a place where there is so much cold isolation, seeking the warmth of your own body that comes as you pray to the One Who Loves You just seemed so absolutely essential to me in that moment. I unkinked my fingers and pressed my palms together too, feeling my palms get warm.
On the day of this conversation, my third with this woman, she was feeling some sunlight breaking through the fog, and she thought by speaking with a chaplain, she could continue to nurture that breaking through. She felt prayer was a tool that could help strengthen her, which is why she focused so intently on how to pray when we talked.
For myself, I could not get over how excited I was to see such a huge improvement in her. The last time I spoke with her she cried the entire time. Every interaction I had had with her made me anxious because it took so long for her to respond to me, as though my words to her got stuck in that fog around her, moving as though through molassas and so taking forever to get to her ears. But despite this anxiety, I feel very close to her. Part of the reason probably is our ages; we are only two years apart. But part of my connection to her too is I feel that deeply spiritual Spanish-speaking patients I had talked with before charged me with her spiritual care. For them, she was someone I was to actively seek out and be actively praying for. And so I was.
And yet, I learned far more from her than I provided for her. She was just so innocent but so knowledgeable at the same time. It reminded me of a poem I liked a lot in high school (printed below) that I still feel drawn to at the same time I find some of its language clumsy. This is what I want for this young woman. I want her to feel that God says yes to her, that God calls her sweetcakes. I want her to feel her belovedness. And I want to feel it too.
This poem is so joyous, which is again what I want for this patient, but the joy is also what I felt when I saw how much better she was doing. I felt that God was saying yes to her.
I talk about our belovedness a lot, and I talk about hope a lot, but too often the hope I am talking about is the sad hope in something like, to borrow my friend David's words from one of his Advent blog posts, "10-year old children somehow thinking they can oppose militarism and religious fundamentalism just by walking to school."2 There is a hardness to that kind of hope at times, I think. It is hope that if we keep running into the wall at top speeds, we will make a crack in the wall until evenutally it crumbles. And I am the kind of person who gets swept into focusing on that kind of hope, being content with being sad because I am working for change, for something better, never mind if I am miserable now.
This young woman's visible change, the way she so broke through the fog around her to teach me about prayer helped me to feel hope differently, to feel hope as impossibly happy, to feel God saying Yes Yes Yes.
This is what Advent is for me this year: a time of healing and listening for Christmas, a season when God says yes to us.
---
1 Kaylin Haught, "God Says Yes to Me," from Steve Kowit, In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop (Tilbury House Publishers, 2003).
2 David Hosey, "What is foolish in the world," City of..., 18 December 2011, http://hoseyblog.blog.com/2011/12/18/what-is-foolish-in-the-world/
*This picture is of Ruth and Naomi (a romanticization of the story that I will be learning about in my January class on Ruth), but, more than that, to me it is about prayer. About finding that closeness, that warmth wrapped up in God. Also check out more of He Qi's work here. He came to visit Drew last semester and is amazing!
When we prayed, she pressed her palms together tight.
"Comforting God," I begin.
"Is it okay if I pray like this?" she asks, holding her hands up to show me, fingers straight, pressed together. "I like to pray like this because then my palms feel warm."
I wanted to cry. Of course, I told her, it is ok to pray like that. Your body knows how you need to pray. And I could not think of any more beautiful reason to pray in any particular way than it makes your palms warm. In a place where there is so much cold isolation, seeking the warmth of your own body that comes as you pray to the One Who Loves You just seemed so absolutely essential to me in that moment. I unkinked my fingers and pressed my palms together too, feeling my palms get warm.
On the day of this conversation, my third with this woman, she was feeling some sunlight breaking through the fog, and she thought by speaking with a chaplain, she could continue to nurture that breaking through. She felt prayer was a tool that could help strengthen her, which is why she focused so intently on how to pray when we talked.
For myself, I could not get over how excited I was to see such a huge improvement in her. The last time I spoke with her she cried the entire time. Every interaction I had had with her made me anxious because it took so long for her to respond to me, as though my words to her got stuck in that fog around her, moving as though through molassas and so taking forever to get to her ears. But despite this anxiety, I feel very close to her. Part of the reason probably is our ages; we are only two years apart. But part of my connection to her too is I feel that deeply spiritual Spanish-speaking patients I had talked with before charged me with her spiritual care. For them, she was someone I was to actively seek out and be actively praying for. And so I was.
And yet, I learned far more from her than I provided for her. She was just so innocent but so knowledgeable at the same time. It reminded me of a poem I liked a lot in high school (printed below) that I still feel drawn to at the same time I find some of its language clumsy. This is what I want for this young woman. I want her to feel that God says yes to her, that God calls her sweetcakes. I want her to feel her belovedness. And I want to feel it too.
God Says Yes to Me 1
by Kaylin Haught
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
This poem is so joyous, which is again what I want for this patient, but the joy is also what I felt when I saw how much better she was doing. I felt that God was saying yes to her.
I talk about our belovedness a lot, and I talk about hope a lot, but too often the hope I am talking about is the sad hope in something like, to borrow my friend David's words from one of his Advent blog posts, "10-year old children somehow thinking they can oppose militarism and religious fundamentalism just by walking to school."2 There is a hardness to that kind of hope at times, I think. It is hope that if we keep running into the wall at top speeds, we will make a crack in the wall until evenutally it crumbles. And I am the kind of person who gets swept into focusing on that kind of hope, being content with being sad because I am working for change, for something better, never mind if I am miserable now.
 | |
| Beautiful art by He Qi of Ruth and Naomi.* |
This young woman's visible change, the way she so broke through the fog around her to teach me about prayer helped me to feel hope differently, to feel hope as impossibly happy, to feel God saying Yes Yes Yes.
This is what Advent is for me this year: a time of healing and listening for Christmas, a season when God says yes to us.
---
1 Kaylin Haught, "God Says Yes to Me," from Steve Kowit, In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop (Tilbury House Publishers, 2003).
2 David Hosey, "What is foolish in the world," City of..., 18 December 2011, http://hoseyblog.blog.com/2011/12/18/what-is-foolish-in-the-world/
*This picture is of Ruth and Naomi (a romanticization of the story that I will be learning about in my January class on Ruth), but, more than that, to me it is about prayer. About finding that closeness, that warmth wrapped up in God. Also check out more of He Qi's work here. He came to visit Drew last semester and is amazing!
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