You are dust

English: Ashes imposed on the forehead of a Christian on Ash Wednesday. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ash Wednesday, the day millions of Christians will go to worship, or stop by a pastor or priest on a busy corner in the city, and receive a blessing and a smear of ashes on their forehead.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Some blessing!

On Ash Wednesday my heart aches..it aches as a pastor, especially.  Until I became a pastor, I never realized how much our call (profession) is about death.  As a pastor, I think about death each day.  I am reminded of death…the little deaths we each encounter daily, in the changes in our world.  I am reminded of death in the words I proclaim in the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion.

“In baptism our gracious heavenly Father frees us from sin and death by joining us to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“In the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread, and gave thanks; broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take and eat; this is my body, given for you.”

“For as often as we eat of this bread and drink from this cup we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

I am reminded of death as I prepare for weddings; marriage vows remind us of the brevity of life.

“Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health,  and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?”

As a pastor, I face death with the people I am blessed to know, and their loved ones, as they face their final hours, as they encounter death.

“….., our sister in the faith, we entrust you to God who created you. May you return to the one who formed us out of the dust of the earth. Surrounded by the angels and triumphant saints, may Christ come to meet you as you go forth from this life.” 

As a pastor, I am reminded of death daily…but never so much as on Ash Wednesday.

On Ash Wednesday, smearing ashes on the foreheads of the parishioners who stand before me…the youngest – not yet in school, the teens, the sturdy adults, the frail adults, coming forward with walkers and canes, my husband, my own birth children…I face each and declare that they will die.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

We can botox ourselves into a frozen face, we can pinch and push ourselves to portray youth in our dress, we can insist in anthems, “Forever Young,” “We Are Young.”  Yet, the truth is, we will die.  Our life, as we know it, will end.  For many of us, sooner than we desire.

Buddhists teach that the First Noble Truth is life is suffering; it includes pain, getting old, disease and ultimately death.  Ash Wednesday is a Christian affirmation of that truth.

So, as we all will die, as we all will suffer as we face aging and disease, the question becomes how do we live in the meantime?  What choices do we make each day, each moment, in the face of death, that honor life?  Those choices are our spirituality.  Those choices are our response to “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Giving up

god (Photo credit: the|G|™)

The morning before Ash Wednesday…I have a meeting to plan a memorial service for Friday later today.  I want to stop by the church building and remove the banners from the sanctuary, so it will have a stripped down, stark appearance during Lent.

I will also check for my stash of ashes…purchased the first year I began the ‘imposition of ashes’ during Ash Wednesday service.  I may burn the palms collected and dried from last years Palm Sunday service.  Yes, those of us in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) practice Ash Wednesday, Lent, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter.  These are the practices of the catholic (universal) church…not only the Roman Catholic Church.

I’ve also been thinking about the upcoming season of Lent…last night at dinner, my son asked, “What are you doing for Lent?”  Last year my daughter added a practice – walking every day, which I’m thankful to say she’s continued this entire year.  When she is stressed or bored, she takes off for a walk.  In past years she gave up reading in bed.  My son is giving up watching Netflix instant alone.. he’d stay up and watch two, three hours of episodes of TV in a row, in the early hours of the morning.

In past years, way back, I’d given up chocolate…or ice cream.  More recently, as I’ve struggled with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) I’ve been less inclined to give up or add anything for Lent. Especially years like 2013, when Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, falls so early in the calendar year.  Working through anxiety, the most usual form of my depression, is enough.

At the beginning of the year, I purchased a book of psalms, to read daily, as a new spiritual discipline for the year.  I made it through about a week, then spent a couple of  weeks berating myself for not reading each day.  At spiritual direction, I mentioned how disappointed I was in myself.  “Why did you decide to add the practice?” my director asked.  I thought about it…someone else, on line, had mentioned buying a book of psalms, reading through them in a year, and I thought it was an interesting idea, so I jumped on it.  I jumped on the idea, not pausing to think if it was for me or not.

My spirituality is more praxis than contemplative.  That is, I am more active than thoughtful.  Ironically, I love worship liturgy, and rituals, especially at times of crisis, while I struggle with routine.  Yes, it is ironic, as some people see liturgy and rituals as routine.  I am impulsive, I dislike routine.  Hence, my blog isn’t updated weekly, though it would be a good practice.  My prayer life is more of an ongoing conversation with God, as a friend, “Wow, look at that sunset!  thanks” than a formal, set structure of time and words.  Yet, in time of need, I embrace the Jesus Prayer (Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner).  The words, the repetition bring comfort and calm during chaos.

So, the Lenten practice of giving up or adding isn’t for me.  Which doesn’t mean that the spiritual practice of adding or taking away, so that we might be more aware of our humanity (humility) and God’s presence isn’t a good practice, for some.    This year, I’m going to embrace the me created and continually being re-created, re-claimed by God.  The me who is aware and appreciative of the many blessings in my life, aware and appreciative of God’s grace, the me who is perfect and yet imperfectly made.

Caesar can keep his….

Jesus (Photo credit: smohundro)

Actually, the quote is out of the Bible, in the Gospel of  Luke, Chapter 20, verse 25.  Here it is, in New International Version, beginning with verse, 20, to set a bit of context.

²⁰ Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be sincere. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said, so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. ²¹ So the spies questioned him: “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. ²² Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

²³ He saw through their duplicity and said to them, ²⁴ “Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?”

“Caesar’s,” they replied.

²⁵ He said to them, “Then give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

²⁶ They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent.

   Caesar can keep his….guns.

In the past month especially, I’ve heard the phrase ‘guns and Christians’ thrown around a lot.  On yahoo, the phrase results in 107,000,000 hits.  On google, 12,200,000 hits.

I know some pastors own guns; some are hunters.  I’m a pastor but I don’t own a gun and am not a hunter.  Disclosure out of the way.

Somehow, in America gun ownership and gun is seen by many as a divine right.  The Second Amendment is tossed about as proof that God intended Americans to own all the guns they want, and to use them pretty much whenever and wherever they want.

The host of christiangunowner.com proclaims he (she) represents:

“Just believers in Christ that express that belief by living their everyday lives attempting to do their best to follow Christ. But they also acknowledge their human nature and occasional failures. The true Christian gun owner believes he/she is to be a servant to humanity. But that belief does but not extend to being a doormat to those who refuse to live by the rules of reasonable human behavior.”

I’m still waiting to receive my copy of the book “America and It’s Guns: a Theological Expose” by James E. Atwood & Walter Brueggemann, published June 2012.  Once I have read it, I may revisit guns and Christians.

For now, I look to the teachings of Jesus (who, in spite of web images such as the one on this post, never held an automatic weapon):

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.” Matthew 5:38-40 (also Luke)

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” John 15:12

If you want to insist upon gun ownership with limited control, let’s have that debate.

Just keep God (Jesus) out of it.

Remember those mourning

christmas 2007 (Photo credit: paparutzi)

SMLC, where I serve as pastor,  publishes an annual Advent Devotion; I submitted this and was asked to share it on SMLC’s fb page, so I’m going to share it here as well:

November 25th, after worship a number of us stayed after Coffee Break and decorated the sanctuary for Advent/Christmas. I noticed that those who helped ‘knew’ their jobs. The men had been putting the new tree together for a couple of years. The women knew where the greens and candles and nativities went. Those of us who were newer helpers were added to the mix with instructions for specific tasks; “Here, please put this over there.” Within a short time, the sanctuary was festive and ready for even Christmas Eve, missing only live poinsettias.

Maybe decorating for Christmas is pretty much the same in your home. You pull out the same decorations, the same ornaments year after year. Each is known and loved. Each has its place. The family members know their roles too. Those who put the tree in the stand, those who hang lights, inside and out, those who unwrap ornaments. Those who put out the nativity set with care.

There is comfort in knowing where the ornaments, where the decorations belong. There is comfort in belonging, in knowing your job and how to do it. There is comfort and peace in the traditions we remember each year as we prepare for Christmas…the decorating, the baking, the card writing, the gift-wrapping.

For some of us, there is pain too, in this season of traditions. Pain that comes from an empty chair at the table, pain that comes from a missing pair of helping hands. Pain from an aching heart, mourning the loss of a loved one, a loved one who was there, just last Christmas, or maybe one who has been missing for ten Christmases or more. This Advent season, take a minute to remember those who might be hurting, those who might be mourning the loss of a loved one, mourning what will not be again, or mourning the lost chance for what might have been. Remember them with a card, a hug, or a cup of hot cocoa and a listening ear.

In Christ’s Peace, Pastor Joene

Making Sense

03.365 (02.08.2009) Faith (Photo credit: hannahclark)

Is making sense of what you believe important?  That is, does your faith or religion live alongside of your other life experiences or knowledge?  Is there consistency, or doesn’t that matter to you?

I’m in the midst of reading “Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion” by sociologist Phil Zuckerman.  Zuckerman interviewed 87 apostates; people who once believed, who once followed a religion (not all were Christian) but left their faith.

Some believers left their faith when the teachings of the religion clashed with other factors in the person’s life.  For example, a gay man left the Mormon faith because that faith could not accept him.  He freely admitted that it wasn’t the Mormon tenets of faith that caused him to leave; if he were heterosexual he’d still be a Mormon.

Others left their faith when what they were taught conflicted with their other world knowledge.  These individuals tended to be conservative, literal interpreters of the bible.  Once they started thinking about Old Testament stories, and realized them to be myths and not historically accurate, these people dismissed their faith entirely.  If the story of Adam and Eve wasn’t ‘true,’ then God doesn’t exist.

I find it interesting that so far those interviewed didn’t move to other denominations or faiths.  They rejected out of hand believing in something greater, or more than can be readily understood.   So far the only religion mentioned with any positives is Buddhism, because it teaches living in tension, simultaneously holding conflicting beliefs.

I think there is a yearning, in our increasingly complicated, networked world for easy and quick answers.  Some of these answers come from conservative Christians who teach a literal understanding of the bible.  If it says so, it happened, as written.  Having clear cut rules and behaviors to follow reduces ambiguity, eliminates the need to think for ones self.  And that can be comforting, I guess.

However, I don’t believe that any religion allows humanity to totally understand God.  We just aren’t capable of that kind of understanding, any more than I expect my cat to finish this blog for me in comprehend-able English.   Living in faith doesn’t mean having all the answers; it does mean learning to live with questions and trusting a “Higher Power.”

The End of the World is Here!

Creation of Adam ( ) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to news reports, Pat Robertson (700 Club)  responded to a viewer on his  that the earth is not only 6000 years old, as many fundamentalists believe. ““They’re out there … So, there was a time when these giant reptiles were on the Earth and it was before the time of the Bible. So, don’t try and cover it up and make like everything was 6,000 years. That’s not the Bible.”

The end of the world is here!  I agree about something with Pat Robertson.

99.9% of the time, if Pat Robertson said it, I disagreed.  His comments about Hurricane Katrina, his comments about Haiti being “cursed by the devil,” his comments tolerating infidelity.  If words came out of Pat Robertson’s mouth,  I disagreed.  Short and simple.  He is a widely quoted Christian; I am not.  Yet, he does not speak for me.

Until yesterday.  Yesterday  he took a viewer to task for being concerned that her family didn’t believe in creationism.  “The woman said that her ‘biggest fear is to not have my children and husband next to me in God’s Kingdom because they question why the Bible could not explain the existence of dinosaurs.”  And Robertson, instead of agreeing with the woman, instead of affirming that the earth is only 6000 years old, instead Robertson said, in essence, “rubbish.”

Finally, finally perhaps the very vocal percentage of Christians who insist on creationism will calm down.  Finally those of us who do not think that science and faith are incompatible will not be called heretics.  Finally perhaps people will come to realize a different perspective about the Bible; that it includes stories about people and our understand of and relationship with God, written over thousands of years, by a number of authors.

Perhaps the end of the world isn’t here…perhaps there is hope.

 

Twinkies and New Carpet

Tomorrow a wonderful young man will turn a year older…from age 8 to 9.  This is a shorter school week, but he still won’t be able to celebrate with a birthday cake at school, or cupcakes, with his classmates singing Happy Birthday.  In America, that is a cherished memory for so many of us…except those of us unfortunate enough to be born in the summer, during school break, or on a holiday.

This young man will be in his 3rd grade class in school on his birthday, with his classmates able to sing Happy Birthday but without a birthday cake.  No, he’s not allergic to eggs, or flour nor are his classmates.  There is no life risking reason why a cake isn’t allowed.  The reason is idolatry.

Two years ago, during December this small school district moved its entire student body, K-12 from two old buildings to a shiny new, modern building.  A building with tiled murals on the wall and a beautiful new school crest on the floor entrance.  A building for the community to be proud of.  A building with air conditioning in the gym and a cafeteria auditorium with almost comfortable seats for parents, grandparents and friends to sit on during band concerts and school plays.  A building that has carpet instead of that nasty old linoleum on the classroom floors.

A shiny new building, a building that has become an idol for the community.  A building, new carpet that is more important than building childhood memories.  No birthday cake, I was told by the mother, not because of allergies, but because of the carpet.  The powers who be have decreed ‘no cake’ lest cake fall on the new (almost) carpet.  The mother isn’t angry, she isn’t threatening to sue the school board…the mother, being a loving mother, has found a compromise.  She is taking in a Birthday Cookie for the class to enjoy, so that her son and his classmates can celebrate his birthday.

Ok, I used Twinkies in this post’s title, so where is the tie-in?  This past weekend, in stores with limited suppies of Hostess products because of an ongoing strike, there has been a run on Twinkies.  Shoppers have been snapping them up; I fear 2012 may become the ‘Twinkie Christmas.  Will we gift each other with the iconic treat that no one (really, did anyone?) enjoys eating?  Will we be seeing, instead of Gingerbread Houses, Twinkie Houses, decorating our homes?  Twinkie wreaths on doors?  The iconic treat that was in lunchboxes, the iconic treat that has been on shelves for years.   Yes, there were rumors growing up in the ‘duck under your desk during the nuclear explosion’ years, rumors that the only things to survive a nuclear war would be rats, cockroaches and Twinkies.  Twinkies made it into fallout shelters cause they had a shelf life rumored to be in the centuries.  Now that Twinkies may be no more, due to the poor business decisions and greed of the Hostess Company, Twinkies are turning from an iconic treat into an idol.

If religion is about acknowledging that there is ‘something’ greater than me, individually, and greater than us, collectively, then idols are the opposite.  We take something known, something we can manage, something we can put in place and control, be it carpet or Twinkies, and we worship it.  We place the idol, the object of our worship, above loving other – other people, we place the idol above loving ourselves.

If you disagree, then why is keeping carpet clean (begging the question, why have carpet in a building that will be used by school aged children) more important than allowing events that can build powerful, positive childhood memories.  The kind of memories older adults have, and bemoan are no more.  Why are we buying up and bemoaning the potential loss of a ‘treat’ that is so unhealthy (and truth be told-not tasty either) that it has no place among the organic and whole grain food choices of today?

A blankee

I love ritual.  That’s kind of ironic, as my personality is very spontaneous, and i love variety.  Yet I love ritual.  I love religious rituals.

This past week I’ve been spending a lot of chrono time and kairos time with a parishoner.  That is, I’ve been beside his hospital bed and with his family, and I’ve been in prayer to God for him and his family.  This man, while not young, was very active, and had surgery a week ago; early the morning of his surgery he was out in his barns, doing the daily work before heading down to the hospital.   He expected to be home the next day and back to work the day after.  Instead, he suffered some of those complications that we read about, skimming over, when we sign medical forms giving permission for surgery.  He suffered heart stoppages, strokes and is at this date unresponsive.

This week has been emotionally painful, watching a family suffer and mourn a loved one not yet dead.  Watching as they have been hopeful, then discouraged, at the bedside of their husband/father.  I’ve embraced rituals like a blankee; the rituals provide support and comfort as I bring a presence of the Body of Christ to his bedside.

Last Sunday, during worship at the congregation where I serve, we tied a prayer quilt for this man and his family.  We tied in prayers, and asked for God’s blessing.  I delivered the quilt later that day, placing it over the mans legs, in the hospital bed.  It has remained there, as a reminder of the power of prayer, and of faith in a God who is both active and present, even if not in the ways we ask for in prayer.

Each time I visit, I bless this man, sometimes using holy oil – healing oil-  from a small silver vial gifted to me years ago by my bishop.  Since the earliest church, blessing with healing oil has been a ritual of faith.  About a month ago at the congregation I served, we had a healing service.  Worshipers came forward and I made the mark of the cross on their foreheads traced in holy oil, as I named each person and said, “….in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, be strengthened and filled with God’s grace, that you may know the healing power of the Spirit.”

At bedside, my prayers have been informal…asking for healing, asking for relief from pain.  Yet, sometimes I’ve ended with the Lord’s Prayer.  The Lord’s Prayer, another ‘blankee’ another ritual, words given to us by Jesus, to use when we don’t know what to pray.  “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done….”  I have prepared with my Occasional Services book, marking the formal prayer, the ritual, for that time if the family must make a decision about medical care.  Structured prayer, words repeated for centuries by people of faith can bring comfort in the safety of ritual, even during times of intense pain.

There are times of such uncertainty, times of such emotional, physical or spiritual pain, that we feel lost.  At those times, embracing ritual offers a safety zone, a blankee, a place a time to let go and feel, to break down, to collapse, knowing that the ritual will give the moment structure and a path back to healing, to life, to wholeness.

Why?

When I was much younger, beginning in late elementary age, I’d wonder why I was born when and where I was.  Perhaps those thoughts aren’t unusual, but kids, don’t share them with other kids.  Out in my sandbox, building miniature farms and kingdoms with neighborhood kids didn’t seem the right time to ask, “what’s the point of life?” or “why was I born here and now, instead of in Africa or 300 years ago?”  If I ever verbalized my questions to my mother or father, I don’t remember.  Based on conversations I did have with my father, I think he’d have replied that I was the result of random actions that combined/collided to create ‘me.’

I do remember, during late elementary age and junior high, sitting under wide shade trees in a nearby park and wondering aloud with neighbor friends of the same age, about death.  What would death be like?  Would death be like the time before birth? — which no one could remember.

“Why am I here?” “What is after I am here?” I think the thoughts, categories, beliefs that we lump together under the term ‘religion’ are our collective efforts to answer these  questions.   True, both questions are self centered, individualistic questions…perhaps other questions were formed around ‘natural’ occurrences, like rain (ask I blog on a rainy Monday morning) or the lack of rain…perhaps earlier questions were formed after periods of intense, extreme rain (Hurricane Sandy) or drought.  Why is this happening?

Have people in Europe and America become less religious as we have claimed ‘facts’ about our reality?  We can do a pretty good job of predicting, at least days before it hits, the track of a hurricane.  We can’t control but we can observe and track droughts.  Is our increasingly ‘none’ response to the question, “what religion are you?” a progression the past 500+ years since the Renaissance and increased humanism?  Because we like to think we have ‘all the answers,’ can’t we accept that there is something greater than us as an answer?

As I begin…

As I begin this blogging journey, a bit about me – to know my perspective (my post-modern awareness that one’s perspective colors/influences everything).

I am demographically a ‘middle aged, white mid-west American.’ I have been married 30 years to the same man and mother of three: two boys/men and a 17 year old daughter.   I am a college graduate with over 20 years of account executive experience.  I am an ordained ELCA pastor; I was ordained 7 years ago this month, after an over 20 year struggle with God about my call.

I wasn’t raised in the church, in fact I was baptized about 6 months before I was married to a Lutheran raised in the pew, Lutheran High School educated man.

Though I wasn’t raised in the church, as a child I went on occasions, usually Girl Scout Sunday, when I read the lessons and served coffee during fellowship hour.  Sometimes my older sister took me to Sunday School.  I went through a short stint of singing in the choir; ironic as I can’t carry a tune.  The older church people appreciated, I think, the presence of me and my jr high age girlfriend more than they appreciated our voices.

As a child I was aware of a presence of God, but didn’t have a language to help me understand that presence.  Jesus Christ was a vague understanding of someone who was ‘always there.’  I remember playing outdoor games of tag or hide and seek in the summer evenings, and quickly turning to see Jesus who was always there.

So, now seven years as an ordained ELCA pastor, I am very much both religious and spiritual.  It’s not a dichotomy!  The Lutheran understanding of faith is very much ___ and___, not ___ or___.  I am both saint and sinner.  I believe and I have doubt.  I see shades and shades and shades of grey.  I am open to exploring and incorporating new to me faith practices into my own existing understanding of God.  This blog will be my effort to both share my religious understandings and practices as well as explore new spiritual practices.