Back in the Saddle Again

Have you missed me?  It’s been about a month since I’ve had a moment to sit and reflect on the whirlwind of activities:  saying goodbyes, relocation, saying hellos, relearning how to be a sub-contractor with a parsonage, unpacking boxes, missing boxes that haven’t arrived yet (like my theological library, so you can imagine my pain), preaching three Sundays now (three very different services each Sunday), conducting a wedding, assisting in a funeral, administering a baptism, receiving a new member, attending to pastoral care crises . . . I’m sure you get the drift.

This week is no different.  Spent most of yesterday with a family who lost their 54-year-old wife/mother/sister to cancer, followed by a Worship & Arts Ministry meeting.  Today Randy and I will meet with the bereaved families to plan funeral services for her and a former mayor and House of Delegates member—one Friday, one Sunday.  We have a two-day staff planning retreat tomorrow and Thursday.  Besides the funeral Friday for the 94-year-old pillar of the community and church, I’ve got a wedding rehearsal, followed by a wedding on Saturday.  Sunday we start all over again (I’m in charge of an Imagine No Malaria time with the combined Children’s Sunday School). 

Thus is ministry.  This is not victim talk. I want no sympathy, as I am thrilled to be useful to God’s ministry here.  My mother, bless her heart, is concerned that I get enough rest.  I couldn’t put any of these important tasks aside—my heart would break to do so.  To thus I was and am called, and I am in my element, with God’s full grace and mercy!

Not all of our weeks will be so busy.  Like Elijah, God will provide the respite and nourishment needed for the moment, and self-care will happen.  The running joke has been “Hey, pastors work only one hour a week, so what’s the big deal?”  The humor helps, but the love, warmth and compassion undergird it all.  And when the tears, pain and grief bubble forth, God sweeps in to cement us together.

As we lifted up last Sunday, we all want to know “Why?”  I suspect we will know in the bye-and-bye, but in the meantime, we just love.  And love.  And love again.

Thank you, my dear friends across the miles, and now here within spitting distance in Charleston.  Prayers among the Body of Christ lift us up, every one, and make us all as beautiful, filled with agape love and joy that the world just can’t understand.  Let’s pray that makes us attractive to those who need to hear the Good News this week, and always.

Grace and joy,

Julie

Gone with the Wind

This is probably my last blog as a member of the West End UMC staff here in Nashville, Tennessee.  I will not lie.  I am in denial, and may even be through Sunday, when I preach my last sermon there.  Take a deep breath for your pastor, okay?

But for today, I will cling to Scarlett’s enduring quote from “Gone With The Wind,”  I’ll think about that tomorrow.

So with this in mind, I want to share with you what I believe are the 17 reasons hymn lyrics should never be projected in the West End Sanctuary, particularly without a proofreader.  These are bloopers from church worship teams, and in some cases, may be caused by that demon of technology, auto-spell-checker:

1. “Lord, You are more precious than silver… Lord, You are more costly than golf.”

2. Easter. The line was supposed to read “We were naked and poor” but instead it read “We were naked and poop.” Quite possibly the best typo of all time. I could not stop laughing for the rest of the song. It was epic.

3. ‘Defender of the week’ like Jesus is getting an award for being great at sports.

4. When we lived in Latin America: the line in the song was supposed to be “levantando manos santas” (lifting holy hands) but they wrote “monos” (monkeys) instead of “manos” and put that on the screen. Lifting holy monkeys. Um hmm. People standing around us thought the shekinah glory had come over us.

5. “Our God is greeter, our God is stronger.” I like that image. God greeting us as we walk into church. He’s like the little old lady who shakes our hands, only…He is God and God gives high fives! I assumed they left out the “a” and forgot to embrace the contraction, so I sing: “Our God’s a greeter.”

6. I made the power points for our college’s ministry and had a slide that, instead of saying “Jesus my closest friend,”  said “Jesus my closet friend.”  Don’t know how many people’s experience I ruined.

7. I create the lyric sheets for our small fellowship, and one Sunday the “strumpets” were calling during Days of Elijah. Oops.

8. The slide said “four our sins He died.” Someone behind me asked if we’re on our own for the fifth sin.

9. The best one I have seen was: “Amazon love, how can it be?”

10. I’m personally a fan of “Angles We Have Heard on High” at Christmastime. I always assume they are right angles.

11. I once attended a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” where the phrase “surely He has borne our griefs” was printed as “surely He has borne our briefs” in the programs given to the audience. I laughed for a while.

12. My favorite? It was in the song “The Great I Am.” “Holy, Holy, Guacamole…”

13. My favorite is not a song lyric–it’s a typo in the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our debits as we forgive our debitors…” Not exactly the same meaning.

14. Our church is multilingual, and at Christmas time, we translated "where ox and ass are feeding" into Spanish for our Spanish-speaking attendees. Turns out, we used the wrong Spanish word, so our Spanish-speaking friends had lyrics that basically read, "Where ox and a**hole are feeding." No bueno

15. From Amazing Grace: “ I once was blond, but now I see….”  Good thing Jesus heals the blond!

16.  “Oh that with yonder sacred thong…”  Enough said.

And finally,

17.  From Silent Night:  “Radiant beans from thy holy face…”

 

I hope you got a chuckle from those.  And I guess I can share these more heartfelt lyrics with you.  Rest assured I’ve proofread them (please, dear Lord, don't let there be any mistakes!), and changed them to gender/moment appropriate, with apologies to Michael W. Smith!

Packing up the dreams God planted
In the fertile soil of you
I can't believe the hopes God's granted
Means a chapter of my life is through.

But I'll keep you close as always
It won't even seem you've gone
'Cause my heart in big and small ways
Will keep the love that keeps us strong.

And friends are friends forever
If the Lord's the Lord of them
And a friend will not say never
'Cause the welcome will not end.
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends.

And with the faith and love God's given
Springing from the hope we know
We will pray the joy we live in
Is the strength that now we show.

I'll keep you close as always
It won't even seem you've gone
'Cause my heart in big and small ways
Will keep the love that keeps us strong.

And friends are friends forever
If the Lord's the Lord of them
And a friend will not say never
'Cause the welcome will not end
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends.

Grace and joy, now and forever my West End Friends,
Julie

Loving and Giving Unconditionally

There's a book that used to be on my personal library shelf, now packed away in one of a multitude of boxes, entitled "Troublesome Bible Passages," co-authored by former West End pastor Rev. Dr. David Lowes Watson.  It's a great book, but I think of it when "troublesome Christian practice" crosses my desk.  Today's was in the form of a phone call, not altogether uncommon.

"Tisha" had a dire emergency.  Her electricity was going to be cut off at 1 pm today.  She lives outside of the Nashville Electric System services.  Her electricity payment plan was rather complicated, and she spent a good amount of time explaining it to me.  Her son mows lawns for a living, but wouldn't be paid until Monday.  None of the churches in her city had funds, or weren't answering their telephones.  She had called relatives for a short term loan, and they couldn't assist.  Could West End help?

Given that there was a two-hour window, there wasn't much I could do for her even if I wrote out a personal check.  I looked up the local United Methodist Church in her city, shared the contact information with her, and assured her that the staff should be big enough to answer the telephone, and perhaps might be able to help.  I offered her a bit of hope and compassion, and treated her as if what she shared with me were true (but I suspect not all of it was on the up and up.) 

Nonetheless, I felt for her.  If it weren't that she was so many miles away, and given a little more than 120 minutes, I would have offered her much more, perhaps even calling a contact over at NES.  I figure money management is only the tip of the iceberg in this particular family system. A good frank discussion about her family life, job situation, etc. would be in order, connecting her with resources beyond a quick bailout.  I finally reconciled the situation in my mind to realize that if her electricity were cut off, there were worse situations in which she could find herself.  There are ways to survive for four days without power, even in the summer heat. 

I hope you'll pray with me for the Tisha's in this world, that a Christian with a servant's heart will be able to assist her with Living Power, which in turn will help solve her electrical power issue.  It's all far more complicated than simply handing out a bit of cash.  This loving and giving unconditionally stuff can take many forms, can't it!

Grace and joy,
Julie  

Eternal Communion

Last Sunday was my last Sunday to administer the sacraments at West End.  I love the liturgy, so rich with history and meaning.  I love the elements—yes, the official Welch’s Grape Juice, and if the Family Stamps home baked bread isn’t available, then I can settle for Great Harvest’s or even a King’s Hawaiian loaf.

I love the breaking of the bread and the lifting of the cup.  I think about Christ’s sacrifice—the body broken, and the blood spilt.  I relish the reconciliation, the re-membering of the members of the body of Christ.  I ponder the crushed grains and grapes taken for us to share, given for us to share.

Best of all, I love the connection.  I cherish looking into your eyes and calling you Beloved, if not your first name.  I try to let my hand linger just for a moment on yours, just in case you need a human touch.  And then—to watch the gently nibbling, or the quick gobble as the bread is consumed; and the tiny sips or the full knocking back the little shot glass brimming with the juice.

I’m feeling all the ‘last’ moments with you in these final days at West End, but the best news of all is that we have indeed eaten together.  If you remember that sermon from five years ago—one I will share during my first Sunday at Christ Church in Charleston as well—we have eaten together, and that makes us family.  We are the communion of saints—past, present and future.  I will re-member you every time I eat or drink at the Lord’s table.

Grace and joy,

Julie

Gifts of the Uncomfortable Feelings

For the longest time, I have done my darnedest to avoid uncomfortable feelings—hurts like sadness, anger, loneliness, fear, shame, guilt and hurt itself.  People-pleasing became my mantra.  I was oblivious to the gifts of those feelings, but I am learning to embrace them instead of shunning them.  Compassion for others, and self-compassion, call for listening to the messages within the pain, addressing them, and continuing the journey.
 

I’m grateful, for instance, that I can feel pain, so that when I accidentally touch my hand to a hot burner, I will quickly remedy the situation to keep from doing major harm.  The same goes with these painful feelings—they tell us there’s something wrong that needs attention.

I don’t like the pain I am feeling when I think of the friends I am leaving behind here in Nashville.  But thank God for the pain!  It tells me that I am leaving people who are valuable to me, whom I love dearly, who have made an important impact on my life.  And the flip side of that coin says, like Chip Dodd proclaims, I hope at my funeral, people come in throngs to wail, beat their chest from grief and cry aloud because they will miss me!  It will mean my life has had meaning and purpose, that I mattered to folks!

Chip, who wrote The Voice of the Heart, and my precious friend and professional helper Janina Tiner, introduced me to this understanding.  Here’s a small bit of his wisdom:

Hurt is the emotional and spiritual experience that tells us we are feeling emotional and spiritual pain.  In healthy relationships there is a willingness to allow someone to feel their own pain, because we have genuine regard, concern and love for that person.

 

Harm, which we often confuse with Hurt, occurs when we emotionally and spiritually wound another in order to prevent feeling the pain in our own hearts.  It is most often exhibited when we cross the boundaries of another without genuine regard, concern or love for that person.

Sadness speaks directly to our need to grieve when someone or something is lost.  Through grief, we find comfort and deeper wisdom, and in the acceptance of the loss, we find healing.

Self-pity, on the other hand, which feels similar to Sadness, is a way to escape the pain of sadness by trying to make others feel sadness for us.

Anger is possibly the most important feeling we experience as emotional and spiritual beings, because it’s the first step to authentic living.  It helps us pursue full life by exposing the substance, desires and commitments of our hearts with passion for justice.  Authentic anger means you really care.

Rage, however, is a toxic acting out with an intent to harm, lashing out at others, based in fear, by the perpetrator, who wants to avoid taking responsibility for their feelings by blaming others.  Anger is based in concern and caring, believe it or not!

And so it goes.  These are the eight feelings in a nutshell: Hurt, Loneliness, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Shame, Guilt and Gladness.  Yep, only one obviously positive feeling.  I also bet you’re asking “Where’s Love on this list?”  Love is an entity unto itself, as it is both feeling and action.  Love = Gladness + Compassion.  You can’t have Love without the mixture combining awareness/acceptance and action, and yes, it’s the solution to every hurt, every disagreement, every estrangement.  It’s simply too big to fit on a simple feelings list!

I’m extremely enamored with this paradigm, and I plan to write a lot about how this psychological understanding, which has evolved from a long line of great teachers, blends so beautifully with Christian spirituality.  I would cherish your prayers in this endeavor, and expect to put pencil to paper soon from a mountaintop near Charleston, the new view from my desk to come!

Grace and joy,

Julie

PS—West End’s copies of the July-August edition of The Upper Room arrived today.  Check out the devotion for July 16.  You might recognize the author!

Those Awkward Tweens

 You know that time.  That in-between time.  That awkward in-between time.

Sue Monk Kidd says it this way:

It was the in-between time, before day leaves and night comes, a time I’ve never been partial to because of the sadness that lingers in the space between going and coming.

That’s where I am, and will be lingering, for the next month and a half, until I leave for Charleston, West Virginia, where I’ve been appointed as Associate Pastor to Christ Church United Methodist, a few blocks from the State Capitol.  It reminds me a lot of West End, and they’ve welcomed me with open arms and a warm, hospitable spirit.  I’ll be responsible for Parish Life.  How’s THAT for an all-inclusive job description!  I’m extremely blessed.

But you know the space—the almosts and the not yets.  Sad and grieving to be leaving friends here.  Excited and challenged to consider new adventures yet to be.  I’m grateful to have time to say goodbye (the root of which is ‘Go on your way with God’ which doesn’t ring with finality).

I will not be one of your pastors anymore, but I will always remain a friend.  My home is already assigned to me (four bedrooms, fenced backyard for Bella, on a mountaintop).  I’ll share my address if you email me for it.

Some of you have asked what you can do to help.  Here’s my short list:

1)       Pray for me, Christ Church, and my ministry there for God’s pleasure.

2)       Pray for Nancy Hawthorne as she assumes her appointment here at West End.

3)       Pray that my house sells quickly (and to all our realtor members, I had to pick a name out of a hat    because I simply couldn’t decide among you).

4)      Share any moving boxes with me that you may need to get rid of. I promise I will pay it forward!

Not so inspirational this week, I fear, but occasionally we have to cover nuts and bolts.  My favorite quote is one by Dag Hammerskjold, which I have probably shared with you before (and I always do when I marry a couple), but it rings true again and again for the gifts and lessons I’ve gained from my time at West End:

For all that has been, we say Thanks.  For all that will be, we say Yes.

Thanks be to God for our time together, and for our remaining days of preparation.

Grace and joy,

Julie

Gearing Up for Mother's Day

For the first time in years, I'm going to spend Mother's Day with my mom.  We'll get dressed and head to her church, where I assume there will be some mention of the special day, like handing out flowers, or cards or somesuch. 

Mother's Day Sunday can be a tricky wicket for pastors, however.  We want to honor the mothers in our midst, but we don't want to offend women who aren't.  Whether by choice or circumstance, the second Sunday in May can be painful for non-moms.

I stumbled upon a delightful blog by Amy, messymiddle.com which addresses the conundrum.  Her words are prayer-ful, and worthy of a pastor's time.  And to Amy, who describes herself as in that messy middle, caught between Already and Not Yet, I give my thanks and solidarity!

To those who gave birth this year to their first child—we celebrate with you
To those who lost a child this year – we mourn with you
To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains – we appreciate you
To those who experienced loss this year through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away—we mourn with you
To those who walk the hard path of infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment – we walk with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make this harder than it is.
To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms – we need you
To those who have warm and close relationships with your children – we celebrate with you
To those who have disappointment, heart ache, and distance with your children – we sit with you
To those who lost their mothers this year – we grieve with you
To those who experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother – we acknowledge your experience
To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood – we are better for having you in our midst
To those who have aborted children, we remember them and you on this day
To those who are single and long to be married and mothering your own children, we mourn that life has not turned out the way you longed for it to be
To those who step-parent, we walk with you on these complex paths
To those who envisioned lavishing love on grandchildren, yet that dream is not to be, we grieve with you
To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year – we grieve and rejoice with you
And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expected and surprising –we anticipate with you

This Mother’s Day, we walk with you. Mothering is not for the faint of heart and we have real warriors in our midst. We remember you.

To women everywhere, I pray for grace and much joy,
Julie