The Truth

I struggled with what to write my article on today.  If I would not have read an article on Facebook this morning, I would have taken the “safe” route and talked about submission, giving ourselves up for the sake of the other, Good Friday and all that Christ gave up, or the Resurrection and New Life we call Jesus.  But darn that Facebook!  I did read it, and it has disturbed my soul ever since. 

Seems the infamous scanty panty company Victoria Secrets has luanched a new line of lingerie meant for college age, but are underhandedly being promoted to teenage girls as well.  And just so you know I am anything but a Puritan or “Footloose” basher expecting young girls to wear 2 gallon size whities that rest on their waste line.  If the bright young things were simply bright undies in wonderful all-growed-up colors or prints and rest below the belly button, they would truly be for young things.  But these “Bright Young Things” are in the shapes of thongs and other scanty panties with phrases on them like “call me” and “feeling lucky?” O.K. Call me prude.  This is crazy.  And yes, for those who will say “we should be responsible for our own kids and not buy this type of smut for them”, good start.  But that isn’t even the point. 

The point is we as a society continue to put our young girls out in the world as objects of gratification for others.  The world will see the ads and so will our young boys.  Men who are “purchasing” another child as a sex slave (and yes, thousands of little girls are sold into the industry here in America each year…) will get another rubber stamp on their already thwarted minds and souls.  Uncles and step dads, just as my own had, will legitimize their attraction to children in their lives and another little 7 year old will be molested in her own home. 

Crazy?  Ridiculous connections here?  No.  There are plenty of studies out there that confirm exactly the connections I lay out here.  The fact is, the true character of a nation is how they treat their least and most vulnerable.  Our character scares me.  If the idea of having a sex-laden lingerie line for teen girls disturbs you as well, please take a few moments and write a letter to Victoria Secrets, North American Office, P.O. Box 16589, Columbus, Ohio 43216-6589, U.S.A., or leave a comment online at customercare@victoriasecret.com.  If we sit back and say nothing, are we not part of the problem?  (…give me a moment to get off the soap box…)

I sat in the back row of a church one dark night, watching others praise God and act as though they actually found joy in their lives.  I did not.  I only wanted out.  At that moment, the One who hung on the cross, the One who bled and died a horrific death, the One who was found missing in the tomb three days later, that One spoke to me… little ole’ sin-stained me… and he said “Do you know you are a daughter to the King of kings?” 

My answer after a brief silence was “No. No I didn’t.” 

His response was “Well, you are.” 

And my life has never been the same.  Never.  The pain, the anguish, the filth that was poured over me by one abuser after another… the names I had given myself through my teen years (ugly, used, whore, slut) were all washed away… and emptiness that had bored deep into my soul was filled for the first time in my life!  I was a daughter to the King.  That made me a Princess.  Not just any princess but a Princess to the King.  A daughter that was adored, protected, and loved; truly loved. 

Easter is more than bunnies and eggs.  It is the moment a wretch like me was given hope.  The Way, the Truth, and the Life was resurrected that day… and the rest of us have been given new Life ever since.  Little girls being held in slavery, young boys being molested in their own homes, middler women who struggle with depression, and elderly fellows who have lived a life of complacency… and everyone else in between.  We have all been given new Life in Christ.  Happy Easter my good friends.  Happy Easter.  

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Lent is quickly coming to a close and the tomb will soon be opening.  Our faith community has spent these past weeks looking at a few of the spiritual disciplines that can help us to unlock holiness in our lives and assist us in living lives that are set apart for the sake of Christ.  We’ve spent time learning about the importance of solitude, fasting, prayer, meditation, study, and submission in our daily lives.  But all of this is not about laws we must follow.  It’s about spiritual tools we have been given that will enhance our ability to get closer to the God who died in order to get closer to us. 

I remember growing up outside the church and believing that God was the mean one that drowns everyone who doesn’t do what he wants, and Jesus was the nice one who loved the little children.  In our dining room hung a velvet painting of Jesus kneeled on a rock, praying with all his might.  I always figured he was praying to God that he might be nicer to the rest of us.  Little did I know he was praying for himself in a great time of need, though in the end, God’s will, not his own. 

Each Easter I would get on my best dress, my white tights, gloves, bonnet, and little girl’s purse, my patent leather shoes, and head out the door with my family for Easter worship.  Some years I would stay the spring break week with my great grandparents in Wayne and they would take me to Easter worship.  But every year, I went.  It was the only Sunday of the year I spent in worship, but that Sunday, we did not miss.  Even my grandfather got out of his farmer attire of work pants and white tee shirt and put on his best suit, crisp white shirt, matching tie, and shined dress shoes.  Even grandpa went to the church to worship that week.  I knew it was special, but honestly, I wasn’t sure why.

The story was always the same.  Jesus was killed for being so nice.  He was hung on a cross to die a horrible death.  His mom cried at his feet.  His friends took him off the cross and prepared his body for burial.  A large rock was placed in front of the tomb which his body was placed in… and three days later, the tomb was empty.  What was amazing was how excited we would all get each year at that point in the story, even though we had heard it before.  Mary Magdalene would be the first to see Jesus alive and she would run off to tell others.  Peter and John would run to the tomb next and find nothing but cloth.  Later Jesus appeared to all of them. 

This year I will be preaching at that worship service.  The same story will be told, actually by little children this year.  Children like me, back in those days of white tights and bonnets.  Only they won’t be sitting in the seats with their parents and grandparents listening to the story.  They will be telling the story, acting it out.  They will wrap the body for burial and place it in the tomb.  They will come to the tomb and cry on their knees when they find it empty.  They will run for the others and then return only to find cloth.  And they will see their Savior and Lord, Jesus their Christ, with their very eyes… and we will all celebrate!... with streamers and balloons and songs of joy! 

The Easter story was the first story I knew about Jesus, and through it, I eventually came to celebrate the God who sent him.  Not the mean drowning God, but the loving, forgiving, gracious God who was willing to get out of his Sunday best and put on humanity… as dirty, and wrinkled, and filthy as it can be.  Don’t miss the Greatest Story Ever Told this Easter.  And don’t let your kids or their kids miss it either.  It’s too important. 

You can meet us at Concord UMC Thursday night for a re-enactment of the Lord’s Supper at 7 pm, or join us Friday at 12:30 pm at Horton Congregational for a community wide Good Friday service where we’ll hear 7 pastors expound on 7 phrases Jesus used on that dreadful day.  Sunday morning you can meet us on Swain’s Hill for a sunrise worship at 7 am, or back to the church at 10 am for the children’s dramatic telling of the Easter story.  We’ll even share breakfast in between.  But come.  All eternity depends on it.  

Dry, Parched, Crumpled and Withered

It’s hard to believe it was just Christmas, but it was! And now it is just a few weeks from Easter.  Where does time go? A day used to contain 24 hours, but recently it has been whittled down to maybe a mere 16 or 18.  I’m not sure how that happened, but I truly believe it has.  Those few hours get eaten up so very quickly with things that were never even a part of our vocabulary 20 years ago. 

For instance, do you remember writing I don’t know, maybe 20 or 30 letters a day to friends or family?  I remember junk mail was a real issue, but I certainly don’t remember getting 25 to 30 flyers, coupons, or other correspondence in my mailbox each day.  Then there’s the whole constant chatter thing.  Do you remember the phone ringing off the hook like maybe 40 or 50 times a day with a friend asking if you like the same companies they do, or how you feel about an article they read in the paper, or them dropping by to show you a picture they like and thought maybe you would like too?... Me either.

As nice as it can be to have email, texting, and social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, it seems to me they are stealing the hours of my day at a break neck pace.  And if I recall correctly, they were each birthed in order to SAVE us time!  I cannot remember the last time any of them saved me time… not really.  Now, I am not saying I am willing to boycott them or leave my membership or become a social recluse (though I did think about all three… for a while…)  But I do need to consciously work at stopping their power and authority to take my days away, hour by hour, minute by minute. 

Especially now, during Lent, as we prepare our hearts to stand before the open tomb of Easter morn (but any other time, as well) we need to stand tall and reclaim our time.  As I have been teaching on the spiritual disciplines these past weeks, it has become apparent that these are called disciplines for a reason.  If we are not purposeful and disciplined about including them in our lives, they likely will never happen.  So this week we are focusing on meditation. 

Psalm 1 sings out “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.  That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.”  Oh, how I want to be planted along that stream of water!  Please, nourish me Lord! I get so dry and chapped and feel as though I could be blown away in the wind if it were not for those extra pounds I put on through the holidays!  But when? When will I find time to meditate on your laws, to love You Oh Lord, and love others in my life?  Between the emails and the texts and the facebook messages and likes and bleeps and tweets of a twittering, chirping, obnoxious compute?  [sigh] Okay. Okay. I get it.  I won’t find this time, but I can make this time. 

Each of us can find 10 or 20 minutes each day, even before the computer gets turned on, and we can just breath.  No purpose.  No response.  Just breath.  And after we have found ourselves breathing for several minutes, uninterrupted by the outer world, then we can actually turn to scripture and be fed.  We can plant our roots along the stream’s edge and allow God to filter up into our veins the Living Water that brings new life day in and day out.  If we don’t, Christmas will turn to Easter and Easter to summer and summer to fall and before you know it, we will find ourselves dry and parched, crumpled and withered, floating away in the wind… extra ten pounds on our rear, or not…

P.R.A.Y.

As we moved forward another week into our Lenten study on the spiritual disciplines, prayer was the area of focus.  Within prayer are four easily remembered subcategories: P. R. A. Y.  When used daily in conversation with God, the discipline of prayer can add another depth to our personal faith and relationship with our Creator. 

P is a great reminder to Praise.  Praise the one who clears the way for rain and sun, sleep and work, forgiveness and growth, grandchildren and nice warm mocha coffee each morning.  It’s easy to forget all that we have and are blessed with.  I spent the night with one of my daughter-in-laws last night to lend a hand while my son is back in Haiti for a couple weeks.  I knew full well before I left my home that a coffee pot would not be in the vicinity.  So I got creative.  I brought along a few grounds, a pack of hot chocolate and a coffee filter.  This morning I was able to heat up a bit of water in a pan, and then plop in a coffee filter stuffed with grounds, twisted tight at the top, and then securely closed with packing tape.  A few bobbles of the filter pack and voila!  Fresh hot coffee!  Add a packet of hot chocolate and now we’re talking business. 

As I read the new blogs up this morning from our Haiti Team #2, I see they are getting creative too.  While attempting to paint the new Merlet Community Center, it seems a paint roller on a thin wobbly stick wasn’t getting it.  So the bossman (foreman) got out his handy dandy machete and whittled them a new, sturdier version.  My point is this, often we don’t recognize all we have until we don’t have it: mocha coffee each morning, sturdy painting extenders, homes with indoor plumbing and running water, and the list goes on.  Not to mention loved ones, coworkers, neighbors, and friends.  Just remember to say “thank you.”

R is a moment to repent; turn and go in the other direction.  It’s easy in any given day to become selfish, snotty, haughty, not to mention more vicious sins like hatred, lying, and hurting others.  So take a moment in your prayers today (and every day) to repent.  I simply start with “I’m sorry…” and then finish the phrase over and over until there is nothing else I need to turn from.  And then I ask for God to forgive me.  Graciously, he does.

Next is A for ask… and ask… and ask… I ask for needs of those around me, those who have asked me to pray for them, those I see injustice happening to, those who are suffering, and I toss myself on the heap, as well.  “Please help me to be more organized, less selfish, and this whole sugar thing… could you help me with that too Lord?  I’m really struggling here and could use some strength.”  Jesus said once that we don’t have because we don’t ask.  Hmmmm… there’s some food for thought.

And lastly Y is for yield.  Yield to the Lord God Almighty that gave you breath in your mother’s womb.  Yield to the One who saved you from your own sin and death.  Yield to the God and Creator who wants the very best for you.  Jesus also reminds us that if we take special care to provide for the needs of our own children, then how much more does our Father in heaven?  Way more.  More than we can even comprehend.  So why not yield?  What is there to fear?  What is best for us?  What we never could think of ourselves?  Are you kidding me?? Giving self fully to God each and every day will bless our lives and the lives of those around us in such incredible ways, we can’t even imagine.  So give it up… and start living the life God intended for you… and along the way… P. R. A. Y.  

My Brother's Keeper

Tragedy.  Defined by Wesbter’s as “An event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress“.  Now put the word family in front of it and you get “An event causing persons living together in a household, familiar with each other in deep ways, to experience great suffering, destruction, and distress“.  Tragedies have occurred in families since the first family to set foot on this earth.  Adam and Eve’s first born, Cain, took the life of his younger brother, Abel. 

Since that time, family after family has walked this treacherous road we call tragedy and wrote a new page in their family story that will never be torn out.  Tragedy is like that.  It is so deeply embedded in who we are by what we have gone through, that it is never forgotten.  The event that defines all other events in my life is the day my grandfather fell in a well on our family farm and drown.  Another young man drown trying to save him and a third has suffered mental complications ever since.  Three families were defined that day.  And since that day, all other events in my life are arranged around that one single family tragedy.  My first period started “the week of the auction, after grandpa died.” 

Nearly thirty years later, another family tragedy hit.  This time it was my own father.  He had struggled with a horrendous cancer that took his tongue, jaw bone, throat, cheek bone, and eventually began to eat away at his brain stem.  It was excruciating to live with.  The last time I saw him, his one eye had sunken lower on his face, where his cheek bone used to rest.  Bones are in place for a reason.  They keep order and protect things around and behind them.  It was just a couple weeks later that his caregiver found him in the upper loft of his barn.  He had shot himself.  The pain was more than he could bear.  The suicide was more than I could bear.  I hadn’t known my father for very long.  My mother and he divorced when I was just two and he spent several years of his life running from state to state before living in prison for several more.  One tragedy after another was beginning to pile up in his life… and ours.

This week we had a tragedy in our own community, on our own block, in fact.  I was driving home from work and the street was closed off.  My mind began to race, “An accident? A heart attack?...”  I called home and my husband answered.  The tragedy was across the street.  A neighbor.  So I got out of my car and went up to an officer and asked if clergy was needed.  It was.  Another family tragedy.  Another family will begin to define themselves by a day, a moment, an act. 

Most tragedies cannot be prevented.  Some can.  What makes them bearable and allows us to live onward, though the pain left behind is deep and wide, is the love those around us show and the prayers that are lifted on our behalf.  I am thankful for those who were praying as my three year old sister walked up to the casket and placed a stick of gum in my grandpa’s suit coat pocket.  He had stood at the door to the barn each morning with a similar stick in his hand, watching her waddle across our backyard to offer her morning hug and retrieve the gum.  I am thankful for those who prayed as I stood before a few lone neighbors and friends in my father’s back yard, wearing my clergy robe and stole, speaking words of hope and grace as tears ran down my cheeks at his funeral. 

Continue to pray for my neighbor, and yours too.  There are family tragedies all around us.  Some hit the airwaves more than others, but each tear apart lives and remain in the hearts of those who dangle along the family blood line.  In the first book of the Holy Bible, after Cain took his brother’s life and God had asked where his brother was, Cain responded “What am I? My brother’s keeper?”  The answer is yes.  Yes, each of us is.  Keep praying for those surviving family tragedy… today, tomorrow, next month, and yes, next year.  If we cannot love our neighbor in this way, tell me, how can we truly love them at all?