Happy Birthday!

What is it about birthdays that cause us to reminisce days gone by? My brother turned the big 5-0 a couple weeks ago. His wife planned a surprise “Mel’s Diner” party complete with A & W Root Beer, awesome burgers and chili dogs, and a DJ playing music from every decade my brother and I have lived through so far.  The invite said “No presents” with a large exclamation point after it.  I brought one anyway.  I wanted to give my brother something special, something meaningful.  After all, he had lived an entire half century and I hadn’t, well, not quite yet anyway.

I have this small 3” x 3” photo in a frame on a wall in my home.  It is a photo of my brother, my grandfather and grandmother, and myself.  We are probably 4 and 5 and we’re sitting on the couch snuggled next to our grandparents.  My brother is on the left, then grandpa, then grandma, then me on the right.  We are pretty dirty, even though my brother is in a white shirt and me in a dress.  My grandparents lived on a farm, after all.  As small as this photo is, it keeps a huge spot in my heart.  It has with it so many incredibly fun memories. I am the only one who has a copy of this photo so I took it in to see if it could be enlarged a bit, without distorting the image.  Unbelievably, they were able to take it all the way up to an 8’ x 10’ and it still looked great!  I placed it in a frame and wrapped it for my brother.  I included a card with these words inside, “Mel, you were my protector and my accomplice, my roommate and my confidante. I am so very thankful that God chose you to be my brother all these years.  I am blessed. Happy birthday! I love you.  Your sis, Melany.” 

He loved the photo and the card. He told me so several times throughout the night.  I saw him again this past Sunday at his granddaughter’s 5^th birthday party.  He said it again.  We watched my 3 year old grandson and my brother’s 3, 4, and 5 year old grandsons do incredibly brave and yet stupid things together.  They jumped in a little red wagon and rode it down a pretty steep hill with the tongue lying on the ground in front of it.  They rode down the same hill on little bicycles as fast as they possibly could without dumping it.  They laughed like crazy at each other and us old folks laughed right with them.  We could have stopped them, especially when we realized the wagon was filled with rocks, but we just didn’t have it in us.  The absurdity of what they were trying to pull off was too similar to some of the stunts we tried when we were younger.  It was kind of fun watching them be just as stupid. 

I turned a year older this week too.  There’s something about August birthdays in our family.  My grandpa always said the farmers came in from the fields in November.  It’s no wonder all the babies are born in August.  I suppose he was right.  Each year we celebrate another year aged.  Each year we realize another opportunity is lost.  Each year we realize another memory was created.  We celebrate because life is worth celebrating.  People die every day.  Loved ones go through really tough losses, despair, and pain on a regular basis.  Why not stop for a moment, look at the calendar, and say out loud “We made it another year.  It was sometimes hard, but it was good.  We could have gotten hurt worse than we did, but we didn’t.  And we laughed.  We laughed plenty.  Thank you Lord for brothers and sisters, for grandkids and friends.  Thank you for life and breath and wagons and bicycles.  Thank you for memories made and pains forgotten.”  Any of you having a birthday out there?  Happy Birthday, my friend… and yes, I’ll have another piece of cake.  

Simmerin' Soup

Blessings from the Michigan Area School for Pastoral Ministry.  If you’re a regular reader of my musings, you’ll know what that means, and if not, I can simply say I am away at school with 130 of my colleagues who are also pastors.  And what a morning it has been.  As I write we have just came out of our first morning sessions on the first day of school and have broken for lunch.  I could tell you about the motorcycle club that became the church to others in need, or reflect on some of the diverse images I have already seen on the large screens in front of me. 

Instead, I want to share soup with you.  Yes. Soup. Bishop Woodie White preached this morning during worship and he shared many illustrations, stories, and memories.  He was a young pastor in the Detroit area many, many years ago.  As a bishop in the United Methodist Church he’s a lifer.  Once called to be a bishop, always a bishop… even after retirement.  So Bishop White’s experiences are wide and deep.  He shared the story of a young seminarian in the south in the 60s who went to stand in solidarity with those who were being prevented from having a vote, even though they were Americans.  While standing in a crowd praying, he was shot by a police officer who was called to come “deal with the disturbance.”  It was not this young man’s fight, yet because it was his neighbor’s, he stood, and he died, in solidarity.  Bishop White also shared that this year was the first General Conference (worldwide meeting of UM churches) he had not attended since 1962.  I was born in 63.  I can only imagine all the issues he has seen the church deal with over those years. 

Yet I still come back to soup.  Bishop White shared that every Monday as a child his mother would make vegetable soup.  Only later in life did he realize why.  His mother cleaned the fridge each Monday and took all leftovers and created the soup.  He said there would be white potatoes and red tomatoes, yellow squash and even green okra.  His mother let it simmer together all day every Monday.  At dinner time everyone would join around the table and the pot of soup would be placed there in the middle of everyone… and the aroma would begin to waft by each of their noses.  Mom would then begin to ladle out scoop by scoop into their bowls. 

Bishop White, just a young boy then, would notice each time that the white potatoes were still white potatoes even though they had mingled with the other vegetables throughout the day.  And the red tomatoes would remain red tomatoes and the yellow squash would remain yellow squash, as well.  The okra, as Bishop told the story, sadly remained okra.  But something happened.  When he picked up his spoon and began to eat the soup, he would realize week in and week out that something had happened.  Something extraordinary had happened.  Although the potatoes remained potatoes and held all their integrity as potatoes, they were not the same potatoes for the tomatoes and the squash and even the okra had affected the potatoes… and made them even better.  And the tomatoes, though still tomatoes, were changed for the better as well.  And down the line this little boy would realize just how much being thrown in the same pot and spending time with each other throughout the day had made something spectacular happen.  He called it common ground.  A harmony of common ground had occurred; a ground where each could stand with integrity, but was transformed into something even more.  He admitted that even the okra had gotten better, yet of course, it was still okra. 

I hope you spend some time in a pot this week.  Simmer with those a little different than you.  I can’t wait to return home and inhale deeply.  The aroma will be stunning, I am sure.  

Out For Summer, But Not For Life

I am never too old to learn… and neither are you.  I just returned from a few weeks of Sabbath and then vacation, but am not headed back to work yet.  Instead, I leave on Monday for nearly a week of pastor’s school with over a hundred of my colleagues on the beautiful campus of Michigan State University.  There will be a workshop on how to use Facebook to minister to the unchurched and our own congregations.  There will be others on how to take better care of our bodies, how to manage conflict in our faith communities, and how to use drama as a spiritual discipline.  Bishop Woodie White will be sharing his insights on many of the intersections between race and religion, a conversation that is well needed in a polarized society of blacks and whites, rich and poor, “conservative Republicans” and “liberal Democrats”.  We live in a seemingly us and them society that isn’t much willing to even have a conversation anymore, not if it means we have to listen to someone else.  And Tom and Dee Yaccino will be teaching us all a thing or two about forming community. They have spent years in South America embedded in the lives of the people they have come to know.  They don’t wait for, or expect, these people to “show up” at the church.  Instead, they expect the church to show up in the lives of those who live in the communities around the church.  What a novel idea. 

I look forward to this school every year because I know I will be stretched, strained, and even worn to the bone by the time the school is over.  I will be expected to listen more than I speak, and talk with others about my reflections.  I will take pages and pages of notes and I will begin to make connections between what I will learn and how I will apply it back in my community, my church, and even my life at home.  And this is only one of three to four continuing education events I attend each  and every year as a Christ follower… in addition to ongoing reading and study.  This year one of the professors at Spring Arbor University, Dr. Richard Cornell, will be teaching a Sunday morning class at Concord United Methodist Church on the Book of Revelation.  I can’t wait!  I know I will learn a ton that I did not know before the class began.  We have another adult class that runs throughout the school year, as well.  It walks through a book of the bible, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, page by page.  It’s a great class for beginners who have rarely or never read scripture, or a great discipline for the person who has been reading the bible for years. 

On Sunday evenings, our youth have an opportunity to learn as well.  Free Methodists, Presbyterians, United Methodists, and even teens who don’t attend a church, all come together on Sunday evening to SECYM (Seek Him or Sunday Evening Community Youth Ministry).  They learn how to live with others who are different than themselves, how to serve others who are in greater need even than they are, and how to live like Jesus did when he was walking this earth.  It’s a daunting task. 

In just a few weeks, we’ll be kicking off our classes for kids as well.  Sunday mornings we have a couple of classes that teach kids how Jesus lived, and on Wednesday evenings we go a step further and claim how Jesus lived for ourselves.  Living like/for Jesus is a choice, you know.  It’s a choice when you are five and it’s a choice when you are fifteen.  And honestly, it’s a choice when you are fifty five or even seventy five.  As Christ followers, our learning never stops.  We can never really know all who God is, even with the example of Jesus… so we keep learning… we keep reading… we keep listening… and we keep growing.  Or we don’t.  What choice will you make as another summer comes to a close and a whole new plethora of opportunities fall into your lap?

Just Leave, Would You?!

Va-cate:  Leave (a place that one previously occupied); “rooms must be vacated by noon”. Give up (a position or employment).  Render void, to surrender possession or occupancy.  Synonyms: leave, quit, evacuate, empty, abandon, clear, void. 

Yes.  All of those.  I am on vacation right now and I left: my home, my community, my church, my responsibilities.  I gave up my position of employment: others are filling in, responsibilities have been shifted, the work will still be done, but not by me.  And I certainly have rendered myself void and surrendered possession of all kinds of garb that really had to go: baggage, hurts, guilt, exhaustion, excessive multitasking, and more.  Isn’t that what vacations are all about? 

It’s easy to get caught up in the “where are we going”, “how will we get there”, and “who will we see when we get there” stuff and miss the real point of a vacation.  Sure, we often go somewhere when we “leave” the place we typically occupy and we have to get there through some means of transportation, and often we do look forward to spending time with others we just don’t have time to when we are going full speed ahead.  But I have been on those vacations where I needed a vacation from the vacation when I got home from the first vacation!  I know you know what I’m talking about.  We pack so much into a mere three day weekend or week off that we are downright exhausted when we return home and are not sure we have anything left in us to return to our normal pace of work/family/responsibility. 

I’m not pointing fingers here… okay, I am pointing fingers, but I think the tourism industry and Chamber of Commerce are behind this lunacy.  And add to that the home improvement centers and hardware stores.  I mean, I say the word “vacation” and my hubby has a list started on the fridge of things he’d like me to get done before I return to my hectic I’ll-see-you-next-quarter lifestyle.  This week the list includes scrubbing walls so they can be prepped, prepping walls so they can be primed, priming walls so they can be painted, and then painting walls so they can be… well, painted!  Oh, that’s both upstairs and downstairs please.  The tools and supplies are all at here for you.  [big smile followed by big hug] … sigh… I need a vacation.  I know, I know, “You just got back from a week of Sabbath!” Right.  So I have to go back to work now??

I will admit though, the baggage falls off my back with each push of the scraper.  And all the hurts?  They begin to mend as I start applying the drywall mud.  And the guilt?  You know the “I wish I could do more to help more people and get more accomplished” guilt thing?  Not here. If the day whittles away with several walks out to the gardens or the kittens jump on my lap one more time to lick me clean or nibble on my shirt, there’s no guilt here.  I might get the painting done.  More than likely I won’t.  But I’ll get more done than I could if I wasn’t on vacation!  And the exhaustion?  Yes, that is gone too.  I notice myself walking slower, eating slower, and even thinking and talking slower. No exhaustion for this girl. And last but not least, that pesky old multitasking monger that rides my back like a freaked out monkey on steroids?  He’s on vacation too.  Been napping for a couple days now.  I think he was just as exhausted holding on as I was carrying him. 

Have you noticed the beautiful print on the wings of a butterfly and the elegance in their flapping?  Yah, me neither.  Not in a while anyway.  But I did today.  And will again tomorrow.  I hope you get a chance to vacate before summer is over.  Don’t worry. It doesn’t cost a thing… just your pride.  Your work, community, even your family, can live without you in the driver’s seat a few days… if you let them.