Last night was a night of sleeplessness and restlessness. I haven’t blogged much on here about this pregnancy (we’re due Sept. 1) but it’s been a challenge. I am beyond grateful for the blessing of new life growing inside me, and yet… and yet…
There are moments when I cannot get comfortable, when the pain is too much, and I lie in bed, awake, listening to the quietness of a house asleep, and I wonder if this is all too much for my weak flesh to bear. I lie there, awake, with swirling anxiety and guilt, knowing the church answers to my problems… but those words feel so empty in the face of the reality of my fears. Deep inside, I feel as Jacob, wrestling with the spirit of God, screaming out “I will not let you go until you bless me”.
It’s these nights full of restlessness that I understand the complexities of those Bible stories. I begin to see myself in them… the imperfection of those “heroes” of our Sunday School hours. And once I realize that I’m not alone in this, and that none of us are alone in this, that we have a book full of stories of imperfect people, much like us, who wrestled God into the wee hours of the morning. People who refused to let go of God, even during the hardest moments. And I’m encouraged to hang on… to just hold on, even when I don’t know why I still hold on.
“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible,
but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” – Reinhold Niebuhr
“Walk with me and work with me– watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace…” matthew 11:29
“Perhaps instead of church planting, we should practice resurrection with dying churches… to bring new life to dying congregations. To go to the forgotten places of our city, those neighborhoods long ago abandoned by our peers out of fear and indifference, ignored, overloked, and left to die. To breathe new life and practice the resurrection of our Lord at home, down the street, next door, and to remember those left for dead.”
I wrote this today, admittedly during the last part of the pastors sermon (sorry, dad!). My mind had been wandering the entire service, unable to attach itself to anything, to be still. I sat there, thinking of conversation after conversation I’d had during the preceding week, and the one just that morning with two wonderful friends and fellow dreamers regarding church planting. All these conversations alluded to the traditional trappings of newness, of starting over, the same tried and true ideas of a church plant, though nothing was said directly, perhaps I was the only one thinking along those same old lines. I’ve long wrestled with the idea of church planting, seeing and hearing of so many churches dying off, closing their doors, and churches laden with conflict, unable to move forward. The idea of church planting seemed, to me at least, as a knee jerk response, to break out of the old, conflicted ways, and try again.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
But something obviously has gone horribly awry in our church plants, in our churches. Instead of doing the long, arduous task of rebuilding what is already there, of doing the long, hard work of resurrecting our current congregations, we’ve abandoned them, and left them for dead, or at least silently prayed that they would die. What if, perhaps, instead of beginning anew, we seek out those struggling congregations, and infuse new life into them. And not by affiliation… but simply by the willingness of a few to leave, and cleave. To marry into those new “old” congregations, to commit to nursing them back to health, without requiring anything of them, beyond a willingness to open their arms and welcome these new ones into their church. Requiring affiliation or placing demands would only be seen as a takeover, and would only deepen the problem. But what if… what if we just… joined in?
Tonight I managed to get out of the hospital early enough to go to supper at the church. I had a lovely time chatting and eating with friends. After supper all the kids run around the room together, laugh and play and typically get into some mild mischief (running, finding a way to the drum set, yelling or such). As I was getting ready to leave tonight a group of roaming, little girls came up to me in a flock, one of them screamed my name “AMY!!!!!!!!!.” They ran up and hugged my legs, held my hands and offered me beautiful smiles. It was such a welcoming, loving, simple gesture.
Its the sort of gesture that we forget how to make as polite respecters of personal space adults. But children with their joy and their unconditional affection are not bound by such norms. It reminded me of how the disciples were afraid that little kids would annoy Jesus or get in the way but he scolded them and said let them come to me.
How often do we REALLY live this in our churches? I mean yes we have a whole slew of childrens ministries and activities but most of the time these occur somewhere far away from the communal worship gathering. Of course children have different needs than adults, some would say and I agree they need teaching that they can understand and apply for their age level. But I think we send them away too much, are children not part of the body? of our communities? Now children might be disruptive to prayer, to worship, to the way we do things some will argue…yes I am sure they will be somewhat disruptive at times but I think even these disruptions can be act of worship and their presence is something that we can learn so much from. Their wisdom is so precious.
Children have so much to teach us about love, trust and spirituality and about living unabashed and unashamed of what and who we believe in.
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among others,
To make music in the heart - Howard Thurman
I’ve a lot on my mind lately, more than I can put to words. At the forefront of each and every thought is my general frustration with spiritual myopia. There are new questions the church is being faced with, questions for which we don’t have answers, questions which we must be careful in answering, questions that affect real people, and not just our theology. We must “Examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:40)
Sunday, as I walked into the bathroom to put on my makeup, where sat my son, trying his hardest to potty in the big boy potty. I walked in, smiled at him, and turned to the mirror to apply my makeup. Suddenly, his quiet voice sang out, “Mommy, you’re beautiful!”
I looked at him in stunned silence. Then suddenly, from the depths of my heart, welled up an unexplainable joy. My son, full of innocence, yet wiser than his mere 2 years would assume, without any prompting from anyone, burst forth with this nugget of truth. And in that moment, I heard the chorus of angels, and the voice of God, telling me again what he’d been telling me all these years, that I’d refused to believe. I am beautiful. For the moment, those simple words have burst forth in the forefront of my thoughts, and my days are empty of the anxiety and endless vanity they once held. I’m sure I’ll need reminding again… but for now….
I am beautiful.
As my family has been searching for ways to curb our holiday spending, we’ve come across some very creative ideas. I’ve been slaving over the sewing machine, and Forrest has hibernated in the basement in his studio creating collages. As I was up late last night putting the finishing touches on a project, I found myself wondering if the person for whom I was making the gift would appreciate the effort that went into it. I suppose I’m cynical because I’ve been on the receiving end of handmade gifts before, and I know what my attitude has been… come on, you know what I’m saying… you inwardly groan, force a smile and mumble your thanks. As I thought through this last night, I was struck with how horrible my attitude has been, and how I’d missed the true gift… the gift of time that the person had poured into their creation. I silently prayed a prayer for forgiveness for the selfishness that hides in my heart, and confessed my idolization of consumerism. My prayer today is that those who receive each of our handcrafted gifts, they will know the love that was poured into each and every gift… that they will know that for the duration of that project, every stitch, every detail… represents a thought and prayer for them, that they were lifted up before the Most High.
I have been in pain this week. Physical pain that has awakened me from sleep, one night I woke up crying and I couldn’t figure out why then it washed over me my left hip was bursting. I fall deep into the endless routine of trying to stay awake at work, running around rather than riding because it hurts to sit down. I try to muddle myself through the day to day life stuff like showering, laundry and cooking with no reserve. The season is changing and my ever sensitive barometers are screaming. I am waiting to fall down and just sort of collapse in a swollen daze.
I have several friends right now who are hurting too, not physically but emotionally, relationally. Their pain is as a real as mine and they walk around exhausted and spent wondering if they too will fall eventually because they just can’t seem to see an end. As much as I love taking care of sick children, it is my calling I am not immune to the pain they face. There is nothing more challenging to anyone who loves beauty and joy than a dying child or an abused child. I am surrounded by these children and I love it but I have to ask myself the questions they raise.
Pain is everywhere.
Where is God in the pain? The honest to goodness truth is I rarely have the luxury of pondering this, there is just not enough left at the end of day for theology when I am in pain. I have had a lot of people over the years try to explain away the pain with theology tell me its my cross to bear, tell me it will be better in heaven or tell me Christ understands my pain. Liberation theology talks of the suffering of Christ, the crucified Christ who knew true physical and spiritual pain, some disabled theologians have gone far enough to say the disabled, suffering Christ saved the world. I don’t think any of these adequately explain pain or suffering.
I think its something I wrestle with on dark nights at 3AM when I am holding a dying baby. I have no real answers but two things seem to be true. Pain calls us either to isolation or community. Pain calls either to action or cold indifference. Pain calls us either to lock ourselves in a dark room by ourselves to yell at God and the universe and blame ourselves. Or it calls us to rely on our brethren for subsistence, while we hurt or why we are weak, they are strong for us, they care for us. Pain either breaks our heart for others’ pain and leads us to caring and loving others who suffer in community and in love. Or it hardens our hearts so we either cannot see past our own pain or are so numb and overwhelmed to the pain all around us we are frozen in indifference and sorrow. Christ knew grief, he knew sorrow, he knew persecution, he knew isolation. Yet he filled his life with caring for the sufferings of others and loving them. To me choosing community, choosing sharing our pain and likewise caring for the pain of others is what Christ taught.
The question that I find more important is not why is there pain in the world, it is why are we not moved by it?
