The Road is Wide, the Rain is Falling

The words, "deeply grieved" hardly begin to convey the depth of fear, anger, and concern I feel over the treatment of asylum seekers at our southern borders.  Men, held in standing room only conditions.  Children, separated from mothers, from fathers.  Children younger than my own boys who beg for dessert after every meal and snuggle into my sides while reading on the couch. There is something deeply wrong with all of us who can endure these reports and still believe it has nothing to do with who we are.  

Yesterday, I thought again of Naomi Shihab Nye's poem, "Shoulders" - only this time it is a man crossing a river with his daughter in his arms, the hum of his daughter's dream - his daughter's future - deep inside him.  Only now, that dream is dead. 

This fourth of July, I'm sharing Nye's poem along with a post I wrote in 2017.  At that time, I could not name the force that kept us apart. Now, two years later, I believe that force is this: the belief that the differences that separate us are stronger than the forces that unite us.  

The road is wide, friends.  The rain is falling.  I fear, if we don't reach out, don't learn to hold hands, to see beyond what divides, we will all be swept away.

//
  
Shoulders

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo
but he's not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy's dream
deep inside him.

We're not going to be able
to live in this world
if we're not willing to do what he's doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling. 

//

Cold rain turned his thin, white t-shirt translucent as he bent his body, like an umbrella, over the double stroller.  The newborn baby cried and he cradled it against his chest with one hand while rooting in a diaper bag with the other.  The girl, a big sister at three or four years old, sat quietly in the stroller - her brown eyes wide, her dark hair and pierced ears glinting in the early morning light.  

//

Hundreds of strangers had lined up throughout the morning, eager to bargain hunt at the annual thrift sale benefiting United Way.  A friend of mine, a veteran shopper of the sale, arrived at the door by six thirty.  Among the first in line, she staked out a coveted position as the best deals went very, very quickly. 

I rolled in a few minutes after seven, with a mug of coffee in hand, and took my place thirty to forty people behind my friend.  I waited behind a young Hispanic man with two children in a stroller and in front of an old-timer who'd brought a plastic crate to sit on.  The line stretched out, single-file, across the parking lot, growing steadily as we waited for the doors to open at eight.  

Time passed slowly.  The old-timer held my spot for me while I went to find a toilet.  The newborn in the stroller woke and cried and was jiggled back to sleep again.  Pleasantries were exchanged in that guarded but polite Central Pennsylvania way.  

The old-timer behind me carried on a long conversation with a woman two people ahead of me, bemoaning his no-good sons-in-law who couldn't keep a job, couldn't even change a tire.  The woman, in exchange, revealed she'd recently been laid off after twenty years on a job.  "Ain't nobody wants to hire you when you're my age," she said.  "Believe me, I know."  The general consensus between them seemed to be that young people weren't worth much these days.  The Hispanic man and I, both younger by far, exchanged uncomfortable glances.

By 7:30, the sky was growing darker, not lighter, and the forecast of possible rain turned certain.  I ran back to the truck and grabbed my rain coat when the first drops started and my friend, still stationed at the front of the line, brought me her extra umbrella.  

Scattered drops turned steady and an icy wind picked up.  About fifteen feet away, the building we were waiting to enter offered a small triangular overhang.  The old-timer was the first to take cover, leaving his plastic crate to hold his place in line.  The father followed soon after as the wind forced rain past the double stroller's shabby shades and the baby woke again, crying and hungry.  

He pushed the stroller the ten steps to the overhang and sidled it as close as he could against the wall.  The old-timer scooted over to make room in the tiny triangle of shelter.  The rest of us in line, some with rain coats and umbrellas, watched this father without a coat, trying to protect his children while also mixing a bottle of formula.  We were rooted in place, rubberneckers, observing one small family's drama unfold. 

//

I can't name the force that held us in line, keeping us from offering help or heading, en masse, to wait under a large catering tent nearby.  Whatever it was - fear, longing, desire - the feeling was palpable, like a force-field keeping us all apart, causing us each to suffer the storm in isolation, single-file in the passing cold and rain.  This force, I believe, though I can't put my finger on its exact shape or name, is one of, if not the signature evil of our times.  Under its sway, as Naomi Shihab Nye predicts in her poem, Shoulders, "the road will only be wide, the rain will never stop falling."

Somehow, we must kindle the courage, the imagination, necessary to enact an alternative to our chosen isolation.  What will it take for us to break out, to break through, to one another?

//

It was the way he curved his body over the stroller, the rounded defenselessness of his back as he leaned, rooting in the diaper bag; it was the way he sheltered them that caused my feet to move, that broke me out of line.  My feet moved, of their own accord, and then I was there, behind him, my body blocking him from the wind, my friend's umbrella held high at an angle over the two children and their dad.  

He turned, slightly, at my approach, acknowledged me with a nod, and carried on preparing the bottle, then feeding his infant son.  We stood close, awkwardly close in the small space, and didn't speak a word.  I smiled at the solemnly shy little girl with her deep brown eyes that drank in the world.

The rain passed, the sun peaked out, and we moved back into line.  The old-timer caught my eye.  "That was a nice thing you did," he said, "real nice."

//

Somehow, we must kindle the courage, the imagination, necessary to enact an alternative to our chosen isolation.  What will it take for us to break out, to break through, to one another?

The Pious Groundhog

The Pious Groundhog

A groundhog

has taken up residence

in the church prayer garden.

He (we assume) is eating

the Hostas and giving our

gardener fits.

What to do?

This is not St. Francis’

wolf, no livestock

has gone missing

and not one single

human has been

devoured.

Still, there are

the Hostas to think of

and the gardener’s hours

of focused labor.

Perhaps the groundhog

might say a prayer for us

while making his daily rounds,

that we might know

the meaning of this thing

and how, charitably, to proceed.

Take Care of the Birds (a Poem)

If you take care of the birds, you take care of most of the big problems in the world.               - Biologist Thomas Lovejoy

My advice to pastors
and others who care 
too much is this: 
hang a bird feeder
outside your office window.

Check its contents
every morning, upon
your arrival.  Do this first - 
before you wake the sleeping
computer or tend to voicemail's
flashing, red light. 

Fill it, as needed, before 
the day's work begins.  

Look up, often, 
from behind 
your computer's screen.

Offer the window-facing
chair to the worried ones
with whom you meet. 

The bluebirds, finches,
and wrens will come; 
the male cardinal,
astonishing, in his 
red, velvet coat.

The fat squirrel will
also come. 

Observe your spirit,
as you observe the birds.

Pay attention as you alternate
between admiring the squirrel's  
clever, clenching claws
and despising his endless,
gorging feast. 

If what the biologist says
is true, it's worth it, isn't it -
this time spent to scatter
seed, to tend the feeder 
of your soul?

One Craft, Many Ways: The Gift of Large Families and Writing Retreats

 

On a recent afternoon, my middle son flew off the bus and in through the front door, driven by an urgent demand.  “Mom!  Mom!  I want to buy a felting kit!  Can I buy a felting kit?” he cried, throwing his coat and backpack to the ground. 

“A what?” I asked, while reminding him to hang up his things.

“Get the computer,” he said, “I’ll show you.”

Curious, I pulled out the laptop and sank into a chair.  Isaiah and his brother, Levi, both in second grade, crowded around me, buzzing and bouncing with excitement.  I googled the words, “needle felting kit” and quickly found the set his art teacher recommended.  We placed an order and several days later, the kit arrived in a small cardboard box.

The box was packed with bags of felting wool dyed in shades from black to ruby red, as well as a foam mat, finger guards, and long, deadly-looking, metal needles.  Isaiah pounced on the kit like a hungry lion tearing apart its prey.  Bags of wool exploded in all directions and he dove into a project following the step-by-step instructions included with the kit.   

He felted like it was his job.  

He felted like his life depended on it.  

In short time, he completed one, two, then three penguins, repeating the same step-by-step directions.

//

Levi also ordered a felting kit.  But, being more frugal than his twin brother, he carefully sorted through options on Amazon, pouring over customer reviews, before deciding on a smaller kit that saved him ten dollars.  He was most excited about the plastic toolbox included with his kit, as well as a special pair of dangerous-looking scissors.

Levi’s box arrived a few days later than Isaiah’s and, given the intensity of Isaiah’s progress, Levi felt pressured and behind.  He chose a project and worked doggedly toward its completion, clearly not enjoying it as much as he thought he might.  Within a day, he completed an adorable owl with big blue eyes.  Then, he tucked his tools into the toolbox and placed all the wool and the toolbox into a larger cardboard crate.  This, the storing and saving, pleased him more than the crafting itself.

//

Finally, my third and oldest son asked if he could try felting.  Isaiah gave him a small amount of white wool and he set about felting haphazardly, without the intensity and stress his brothers displayed.  He made a small, white ball, then added a green dot, which became an eye.  Then, he added a yellow beak, followed by a short, white tail.  He laughed at every new idea, every new addition.  He was playing, improvising, like a jazz musician.

Watching him, I commented to my husband, “His work is so outside-of-the-box.”

My husband said, “I don’t think he even knows there is a “box.””

//

I watched my boys working at the living room coffee table over a series of several days.  I tended their needle-jab wounds and held wayward pieces of wool in place while fearing for my own fingers’ safety.  I encouraged them when the going was rough and exclaimed over their finished projects.

They were all creating, but each did it in their own way. 

This can be one of the gifts of being part of a large family, being part of a group large-enough to allow space for a variety of ways of being.  This can be one of the gifts, too, of attending a writing retreat. 

//

The Friday night Open Mic event is one of my favorite parts of the God’s Whisper Writing Retreat.  One-by-one writers of every genre share glimpses of where their words have taken them.  As each writer shares, the variety of voices and styles present works its magic on the group as a whole.  I can almost feel the artists in the room heave a collective sigh as it becomes clear, There’s room for my voice too, for my way of being and creating in the world.  There’s room for me AND you.

Part of the beauty of God’s Whisper Writing Retreat is that it echoes this “large family experience.” Exposure to others, coupled with the space to explore and hone your own abilities, leaves attendees with a clarity about their unique gifts and this clarity produces confidence and enthusiasm.  God’s Whisper Retreat celebrates one craft, honed and practiced in many ways.  Everyone receives the same life-giving message: There’s room for your voice too, for your way of being and creating in the world.  There’s room for me AND you.

*   *   *

Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned author, there's room for you at God's Whisper Writing Retreat - sign up NOW to register at the Early Bird Price which ends April 1st.

Prayer Loom (a Prayer What??)

Destiny itself is like a wonderful wide tapestry in which every thread is guided by an unspeakably tender hand, placed beside another thread, and held and carried by a hundred others. 

- Rainer Maria Rilke

For the past few years, we've tried to adopt a family prayer practice during the season of Lent.  By which I mean to say, we've engaged in an entirely hit-or-miss time of devotions with our older two kids after the younger ones are in bed.  It's been good - good to try, good to fail, good to lean into the long waiting season leading to Easter's joy. 

For two years, we used Praying in Color resources, coloring a simple shape to mark each day of Lent (or, let's be honest, as many days as we remembered).

This year, we're trying something new: a Prayer Loom.  

//

Several years ago, my Spiritual Director erected a small wooden frame in her meeting space.  At the end of our session, she invited me to weave a strip of fabric onto the frame as a symbol of my prayer for the season of Lent.  I chose a long, thin strip of cloth from a basket of assorted materials and wound it, somewhat awkwardly, on the frame.  

That was it. 

That was, as I said, several years ago, and I haven't seen or returned to the concept since.  But, this winter, the image and memory of that simple prayer practice loomed large and welcoming in the recesses of my mind. 

If I had to put words to the practice, I'd say this: a prayer loom gives us an opportunity to pray with our hands and creates a visual representation of our conversations with God.  Weaving together prayers with others (in community) reminds us how our lives and longings are knit together in God.     

//

Last week, I asked my husband to build two small looms - one for church and one for home.  Using old roller-blind-dowels and scraps of plywood, he constructed two simple frames, which I strung with yarn from our craft cabinet.  Then, short on fabric, I bought several spools of ribbon (on sale!) in various colors and cut it into pieces for weaving.  There's something so good about the feel and sight of those ribbons, especially here in the long, slow slog of winter's end.  

Isaiah, age 7, helped with the ribbon cutting. His involvement was, frankly, annoying.  The scissors were dull and he bobbed and wove on the kitchen stool where he was sitting, bumping into me and nearly nipping me with the blades several times.  But, his involvement piqued his interest and he was the first to use the loom, weaving one, then another prayer through the threads.  Throughout the evening and into the following morning, he kept returning to me to ask, "Mom, can I weave another prayer?"  

//

I made a prayer loom.  Not because I'm super holy or a tremendously amazing mother, but because I need it.  I need the color, I need the texture, I need the visible reminder that our longings toward God are more than ephemeral.  I'm sharing it here, not to make you feel impressed or jealous or shamefully inadequate.  In fact, if this post makes you feel any of those things, move right along.  Life's too short or that.  

I'm sharing it, because it's one of the things giving me life this season.  I'm sharing because I need it. Maybe you do too?  

* Local to central PA? Stop by the Grantham Church prayer room to see and use a prayer loom during this Lenten season. (Try saying that, five times fast, "Prayer Room, Prayer Loom.")

* If you want to make your own loom and don't have a fabulously-amazing woodworking friend, try googling images of prayer looms.  They don't need to be free-standing and could be easily made using branches of various sizes, dowels, or even paper. Whatever you do, keep it simple, keep it messy, don't spend a lot of money on supplies, and leave lots of room for grace. 

Desire and Persistence

My cat teaches me

about desire, about persistence. 

//

Seated for a time of prayer, I hear

him at the screen door, crying. 

I open the door, open my heart. 

Seated again, he climbs, purring,

into the warm curve of my lap. 

His black fur is wet, his large

white feet streaked with mud

and bits of grass. 

I settle him and prepare

to pray, but he's unsatisfied. 

He buries his head, his damp nose,

under my resting hand.  “More,

more,” he purrs, willing

my hands into motion

when they pause. 

He is the persistent widow,

the hungry child

asking for bread. 

I watch him settle once need is met. 

He sleeps against my chest, content. 

His body rises and falls with my breath. 

 

This is how, my heart whispers,

you might come to God.    

//

My cat teaches me

about desire, about persistence. 

What Is It? (Look, Gather, and Be Filled)

A sermon for Messiah Village's annual Thanksgiving Service, based on I Thessalonians 5:18 and Exodus 16:9-21, 31.

In this passage, God responds to the Israelite's complaints by telling them to "draw near."  Then, God provides for their needs, because that's who God is.  But the way in which God provides is so strange, so unexpected, so utterly confounding, that when the hungry, whiny Israelites wake up, step out of their tents, and look around, they turn to each other in utter confusion.  

Seeing nothing more than fine, white flakes spread across the ground, they ask each other, "What is it??"   

Their befuddlement is so complete, they take to calling the strange food 'manna,' which is the Hebrew way of asking "What is it?"   

Any parent can tell you that a meal that starts with the question, "What is it?" isn't likely to go over well.  Most of us like to know what's been put on our plate.  We don't want to be surprised.  We don't want to consume a meal we may not recognize or, worse yet, may not even like.  

But this story doesn't focus on the Israelites' confusion or preferences, it focuses on God's provision.  God provides and all the Israelites have to do is wake up each morning, step outside and ask, "what is it."  They are to look for what God has given.  Then, they are to gather and consume as much as they need.  Three times that phrase is repeated in this passage, "as much as they needed, as much as they needed, as much as they needed."

God's glory appeared in the wilderness, God heard the complaints of his people, and God provided for their need.  As advent approaches, I'm struck by the parallels between this passage and the stories of Christ's coming.  The stories of John the Baptizer appearing in the wilderness, and Jesus, the bread from heaven, sent from God to meet our deep need.  Jesus, like the manna in the wilderness also seemed like a strange and unexpected gift.  The question with Jesus was not "what is it" but, "who is he?"

Exodus reveals a God who appears and provides, daily.

In response, the Israelites are call to be people who look and gather, daily.  

I chose this passage because I think it can give us some insight into Paul's challenging command to "give thanks in all circumstances."  I don't know about you, but there are times when I find gratitude and thanksgiving come easily.

I'm thankful when the house is warm.

I'm thankful when my kids are happy (and quiet). 

I'm thankful when medical tests come back with good results, when money is plentiful.  In short, I'm thankful when things are going the way I want them to - the way I think they should.  I'm thankful when I can easily identify "what it is" that God is doing in my life and in the lives of those I love. 

But some mornings, I wake up and step outside and struggle to know what God is doing.  Like the Israelites, I find myself asking, "what is it" God is doing?  "What is it" that I even have to be thankful for? 

Maybe you have those mornings too.  Sometimes those mornings stretch into days and weeks and months; whole seasons of asking God, "What is it you are doing?  Where in this wilderness are you?"

I love this story in Exodus for the way it answers these questions.

Where is God?  God is with us, appearing right here in the middle of whatever wilderness we find ourselves in.

What is God doing?  God is providing, as much as is needed, every day.

In response we, like the Israelites, are invited to be people who look and gather what is given in every day and every season.  We place our trust in God who appears and gives as much as we need.  We accept and give our consent to the words of Moses, "This is the bread the Lord has given you to eat."  We look and gather and are filled, because of who God is.

God is meeting our needs, but God may not be meeting our wants.  And the difference between the two - wants and needs - can be the center of a lot of pain and suffering.  The way we navigate the difference between having what we need and what we want can be the difference between a life of peace and contentment and a life of anger, frustration, bitterness, and resentment. 

Let me give you an example from my own life.  Eight years ago I was working part time as an Associate Pastor, feeling fulfilled in a job I enjoyed deeply, when I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant with twins.  Now, if having two healthy, unexpected babies is the worst thing that ever happens to me, I have very little complain about.  But, at the time, I found the news and the changes it would bring very unsettling.  

I would need to quit my job, I would need to surrender to living a life that was markedly different from the one I planned.  Friends and family were quick to tell me that this pregnancy was a blessing from the Lord and, with time, I told a friend, "I know this is a blessing, but it's not the one I would have chosen."

Over time, as I grew to love my boys and my new life, I realized how large the 'I' in that sentence loomed.  Who's to say I would have chosen best? Isn't it possible that the answer to the question "what is it" might be, "something bigger and better than you could ever imagine"?

I like that the bible tells us manna tasted like wafers made with honey.  Honey was a rare treat, a symbol of luxury in biblical times.  Imagine if the Israelites had never gotten beyond the question, "what is it."  What if they'd never placed those small, seed-like flakes on their tongues, had never allowed themselves to taste the goodness because they first needed to know what it was?

Have you ever tried to get a child to try something on the tip of a spoon without first telling them what it is?  I do this with my own children sometimes, wanting to share a special treat, and they put up no end of loud protest.  But, I insist, luring them with sweetness. "Trust me," I say, "it's good."  Do you know the kind of trust it takes for a young child to open their mouth and receive in that way?

I think this is something of what Paul is asking of the early church.  He's reminding them to be people who trust in a God who provides; people who believe that the answer always, ultimately, to the question, "what is it," is "it is good, because God is good." 

I want to encourage you if you're in a season of life in which you don't know what God is doing.  Or, if you can't understand why God is allowing things to happen as they are in your life.  There are few more difficult circumstances to find yourself in.  You're pain is real and we pray that this season will pass quickly.  

If you find yourself in a season in which thanksgiving is difficult, I want to encourage you to keep looking and gathering what God is giving and to invite others to join you in the wilderness you face.  The Israelites went out together in the morning and turned to each other to understand God's strange provision.  No one stood alone outside their tent that day.  

Also, like the Israelites, may you remember that the sweetness you taste this day, like those wafers that tasted like honey, is only a small foretaste of the meal that awaits us when we reach God's promised land - that place flowing with milk and honey, where tears and sorrow shall be no more.  

Let us praise the God who appears, even in the wilderness.  Let us be people who go out together, looking for what God is doing, gathering what God has given.  Let us be people who can say, "We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good."