Freedom Gifts

Way before Eugene Peterson wrote the beautiful paraphrase of scripture, The Message, he wrote the following in Traveling Light:

Every Christian’s story is a freedom story.  Each tells how a person has been set free from the confines of small ideas, from the chains of what other people think, from the emotional cages of guilt and regret, from the prisons of self. . . . We are free to change.  The process of that change is always a good story, but it is never a neat formula.

We’ll be celebrating freedom next week.  Freedom to live within the rights and privileges of being a United States citizen, freedom to worship, freedom to choose representatives, freedom from tyrannies.  Those freedoms are gifts that we often take for granted.  I’m grateful for them.

I take Christian freedoms for granted too, however.  Not only do I take them for granted, I often wrap the gifts back up and stick them high on a shelf, out of sight.  Even worse, I pick up the chains of tyranny, by imprisoning myself in small ideas; concern with what others might think if I am myself; and I put on sweaters of guilt and regret—and swelter in them before I realize that I have the ability to take an honest inventory of my sinfulness and work to make amends, which will release me.  God supplies and I fail to apply!  It’s a constant challenge, this bent to the sin of forgetting these gifts of forgiveness that are as close as the beating of my heart.

It’s my prayer for us this week that we all free ourselves from at least one piece, if not all, of our baggage that ties us down, by picking up the gifts of mercy and grace, freely offered by God to us all this very second.  Then leap for joy and do a little dance.  Who cares what anyone thinks?  God will love it, and I promise you will too.  After all, it's our Christian story, and I'm grateful for it.

At least that’s the joyful view from my desk!

Grace and joy,

Julie

Care-Giving & Care-Taking

The surprising death of one of our members last week brought to focus the need for community, for staying in touch, for care-giving, for transitions...but mostly for navigating unexpected journeys.  I simply want to lift up some thoughts for us to ponder today.

Often, churches the size of West End provide an easy opportunity for slipping into worship and slipping out.  As a congregation, we have the responsibility to be not only hospitable, but inviting, embracing and including.  As worshipers, we have a great gift in availing ourselves of joining a small group, whether that is a Sunday School class, a Bible study, a prayer circle, an accountability group, or a group involved in service to others.  Giving and taking.  A good and necessary balance.
There is great importance of small groups and Sunday School classes, for shepherding one another within those caring groups as one task.  Time and time again I have heard and have said to myself, "What would we do without our church family?"  As small groups, we have the responsibility for getting to know one another beyond our topic of gathering.  We need relationships, and they need us.  Do you have a balance of prayer, study, fellowship, service and reliability?  And do you have a means of getting information out quickly between you--by all means, including telephone and email if available?  If you need a model, our West End choirs are excellent in all these balanced ways.

Have we, as individuals, thought through how we can pre-plan in case of the unexpected?  Are emergency numbers shared and/or easily found?  Have you talked with family, neighbors and friends about emergency plans and vital information?  Have we as family, neighbors and friends pressed our loved ones to the best of our ability (and modeled for them too) regarding emergency plans, including pets?

Finally, as individuals, are we able to ask for help?  Our culture teaches self-reliance and independence, but the far healthier way of life includes asking for help.  We all like to help others as we can--not asking for help robs others of the opportunity, and can be self-destructive.

Three items have crossed my desk during the past week.  Rev. Margie Howell is working on a book that deals specifically with pre-planning.  I have a stack of prototypes of a new, free magazine in my office entitled Full Circle, chocked full of promising information in the care of aging parents.  And the Council on Aging, is sponsoring a free Caregiving Conference specifically for those caring for an older adult with a special focus on dementia and Alzheimer's Disease on July 26th, from 10:30-2:30 at Brentwood Baptist Church.  Registration is required for the latter by July 20th by calling 269-5355; attendees will get a box lunch and the book Aging & Caring: Things Families Need to Know, all at no cost.

Let's all take time to act on these thoughts.  Care-giving and care-taking is Jesus' commandment to us:  Love your neighbor as you love yourself.  It's the best and balanced way of life.

Grace and joy,
Julie

Re-Discovering Sabbath Time

I wasn't sure I could stand myself for a quiet week out in the middle of nowhere, dog with me or not, but something inside me yearned for a change--immersion in sabbath, for lack of a better description.  It took me a good day to release the tension and monkey-mind thoughts, but in a new routine with no looming deadlines or phone/email intrusions, I experienced a new peace and serenity unlike any I've had before.

I'm way too old to have waited so long for such bliss.

What a terrific, generous gift to have five days and four nights in a 100-year-old modernized home, up on a hill surrounded by yard, clover, hay meadows, complete with stable and pond.  Forest embraced the clearing within the 140 acres, and I could feel the tightness melting away when I traversed the winding road.  I'd have to arm-wrestle the judgment as to who was happier--Bella bounding over the rises chasing befuddled deer, stopping just short of the woods, or me watching her running leash-free.  She always stayed within eyesight. "Well, are you coming, or do I have to come back to get you?"  I could not wipe the smile off my face if I had tried.  By week's end, she was walking by my side, and we trusted that neither of us would leave the other for long.

In this great freedom, words and word-playfulness bubbled up so fast I had to stop trying to form them in lieu of simply capturing them on paper, so I wouldn't forget.  When the words eased up, the peacefulness seeped in.  I cherished the embroidered quote in the kitchen:  Isn't it beautiful to do nothing, then take a rest afterwards. 

What a beautiful, productive time sabbath is!  God knew exactly what we need at least once a week when the commandment was put forth to remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.  It's so good and joyful to re-create those moments on my patio, in my study--and so necessary for my soul.  A chunk of a gift for a week may not come along very often, but I've re-discovered how vital it is to listen to God's admonition to take that 24-hour, restful, reflective, playful time.  It saves our lives and souls!

Grace and joy,
Julie

An Unabashed Love Letter

I believe that if I were sent to the moon, or some such isolated place, and had only two or three books I could take with me, one would be my hymnal.

The hymnal has been my friend for a long, long time.  As a wee lass, long before I could corral my attention span through a sermon, I occupied my mind by looking for hymns I knew, humming them to myself.  Before starting piano lessons, I determined how to sing other hymns through a crude ‘shape note’ method, although I’d never heard of such.  With my brief attempt at piano plunking (which is about as far as it got, as I neither inherited my grandmother’s ability to play by ear or found the discipline as a seventh grader to practice), I could at least sound out a C note, and that bit of knowledge opened up more tunes.

The hymnal also opened my curiosity to why and when we did what we did in services every Sunday.  There’s the order, there are the topics, here’s the Psalms, here are the seasons.  My kid-ears tingled to see Wesley’s Directions for Singing which included “Sing lustily….” Really?  In a church book?  Ah, we temper such with modesty, no bawling or drawling, and above all, we sing with an eye to God.  Comical quaintness, but an insight into the 1760s.  I’m sure I drove the pastoral staff bonkers with my questions and accountabilities.

The proof that I’m Wesleyan, however, is that while the tunes hooked me, I absorbed the lyrics like a sponge.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, the hymnal echoed and still resonate a theology of God’s grace, comfort, mercy and promise, far beyond words or emotions.  The truth is abides in the core of my soul, between the texts and notations, with no intentional learning.

A whole new world opened up to me with a simple class in seminary—Music for the M.Div.  Our professor taught us the details that are abundant in the hymnal—cross-references, scripture references, tune choices, reading meters when musically ignorant.  Who would have guessed there could be so much creativity and depth in the back of church pew racks?

I encourage all of you to join us in McWhirter Hall the Sundays of June during the Sunday School hour to learn more about this gem of a book we hold weekly, perhaps more than the Bible itself.  Our Christian Formation Intern, Jonathan Carle, filled with vim and vigor of Vanderbilt’s Divinity School with a deep well of musical talent already, will lead us in this adventure.  It’s a treasure.  And that’s not just the view from my desk—but from my heart.

Grace and joy,

Julie

Where's The Victory?

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!  Almost sounds like an oxymoron, because “happy memorial” conjures up so many conflicting sentiments as we remember soldiers, wars, battles won and lost, lives won and lost.  I often dwell on the sorrow of the losses—needless, if only we could work out differences in a peaceful manner instead of our typical violent selves.  Deep sighs.

So I was struck to see this particular quote pop up this morning in the daily devotional Inward/Outward.  It drew my mind right back into that Memorial Day oxymoron.  Bear with me, as my mind moves in weird directions this morning:

Aren't we privileged to live in a time when everything is at stake, and when our efforts make a difference in the eternal contest between the forces of light and shadow, between togetherness and division? Between justice and exploitation? Oh, be joyful that you are a warrior in this great time! Will we rise to this battle? If so, we cannot lose, for rising up to it is our victory. If we represent love in the world, you see, we have already won.

Privileged?  “Privileged” may stroke my ego for just a moment, but in this context doesn’t stir up feelings of joy if I’m thrust in a position of conflict, between justice and exploitation.  I might have chosen a word like “courage,” or “guts” or even “strength beyond ourselves.”  But privileged?  To one like me who avoids conflict at almost any cost?

I suppose “privileged” is a synonym for blessed, but it sure sounds more sanctimonious. Now, I realize by way of our heritage, that we are all blessed—to be blessing for others, not ourselves.  Yeah,  yeah, I say, we know that, what else is new?  I let the word “blessed” just slip back out of my psyche.  It’s such a gentle word, compared to “privileged.”

So I hop back into the quote.  Surely there has to be a key to why we would be so privileged to be part of a battle?  And there it is:  “rising up to (this battle) IS OUR VICTORY….IF we represent love in the world.”

This Memorial Day weekend, I give thanks for those who have risen up in the battle FOR justice and AGAINST exploitation.  The victory may feel very different from a “win,” but hold onto the victory that is in the simple, but courageous “rising up.”  And the privilege to do the right thing.

Grace and joy,

Julie

Putting Out Fires

When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.

That’s a reminder I often need to hear.

If there had been fire departments in Jesus’ day, we might find those words as one of his quotes in Scripture, with the addition of fighting fire with Living Water.  Even coals of kindness are laced with compassion and mercy—not vengefulness.

I found myself angry this week at a spiritual-political culture, although at the time I focused in on one group.  I reached out to others to flesh out my feelings and determine how I could forgive or reconcile a situation.  Normally I stew, fuss and fume and sometimes do something or say something stupid.  Thank God this time I listened to the godly advice of trusted colleagues and a spiritual advisor.   The anger/resentment has been diverted to a new Voice.

Bless them all—they helped me discern, reflect and be kinder—even to myself—but to stand strong to claim a voice of injustice that is reflected in a culture.  Cultures can take on personalities and forces above and beyond the individuals involved, typically when power and control over others come into play.  It takes a greater voice of leadership, morality and ethics to change the culture within a particular political setting—whether it’s a nation or group of nations, a church or The Church—you get the drift.  And more times than not, the greater voice is the Greater Voice, our Higher Power.  God.

I may have little influence—indeed, am probably powerless—in my specific wrestlings this past week, but linked arm in arm with others in the Body of Christ, we can hold on to our faithfulness, direct the energy of our anger and hurt to positive channels.  Kind of like the power of a fire hose, under the pressure of the Holy Spirit.  My bit at any given time may just be a little squirt, but I’ll continue to be mindful to be filled with Living Water so as not to damage another, or me.

At least that’s the view from my desk.  This day, no fires in my line of sight, thank God!

Grace and joy,

Julie

Believing with All Your Heart, Mind & Strength

Last week at the women’s retreat on prayer, we had deep discussions about what we honestly and authentically believe about God, the One to whom we pray.  Last night at the Christian Believer’s closing for the year, we talked about what it meant to be a believer.  In a Sunday School class last week, we also talked about faith and belief—without works, it is nothing.  Belief forms who we are and who we want to become—the core of our motivation and intentions.

Belief.  In what and in Whom do you believe?  It’s good to re-evaluate, take inventory once in a while, so that, like the Zen Cowboy says, we’re riding the horse in the direction it’s traveling. 

Some tips to help with the inventory:

Where are you now in your spiritual life?  Where do you want to be?  What steps are you taking to get there?

If you want to see where you place your priorities, peruse your calendar and checkbook.  Where we spend our time and money is a good indicator of what we hold dear to our hearts.

While doubt is a healthy exercise, when can you let go to simply trust?

What is the desire of your heart?  Do your desires align with God’s desire for your heart?

In the midst of inventorying, try not to get stuck in your head.  Talk things out in a small group with other believers on the journey.  Their view, from their place on the path, can provide insight—and help you realize you are not alone.  We all wrestle!

Above all, act.  A wise person once said that becoming the person we want to be is an active, not passive process.  To be, we have to do.  If you have ears to hear, go and do.  

This is all at the heart of our Judeo-Christian heritage.  Love God with all your heart, mind and strength.  With all that you have and all that you are.  And Love is action...not just warm fuzzy feelings.

That’s the view from my desk this morning.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go act on it!

Grace and joy,

Julie