"Taking up" some years, "giving up" others?

Several years ago I stopped giving up something for Lent. I value the spiritual discipline of fasting and respect those who practice it, but prefer to take up a spiritual practice during our forty day preparation for the season of Easter. To "take up" something, I focus on an area of my life and faith in which I want to follow God more faithfully.

This year, however, I may need to give up something. I may need to give up rage. My dictionary defines rage as "violent and uncontrolled anger." I have not resorted to violence lately, but I have had thoughts and feelings that, if expressed publically, would contribute nothing to the common good. I need to give up those thoughts and feelings and ask God to help me to channel my energies more productively.

I need to give up my rage at Roman Catholic bishops for what I deem hiding behind a cloak of defending First Amendment rights to impose their archaic opposition to birth control on our society. I willingly participated in a form of birth control for a significant portion of my adult life and do not consider that remotely sinful. The bishops have a right to their opinion, but they have no right to force that opinion on those outside their community. So I'll ask God to help me to listen respectfully and express myself passionately, but with an eye toward the common good.

I need to give up my rage at news media for referring to the Roman Catholic Church as "the church." A number of faithful religious bodies comprise "the church." When I rant as yet another ill-informed or ignorant newsperson incorrectly calls one church "the church," I accomplish nothing. So I'll ask God to help me to write a letter or email explaining the situation, hoping that when enough of us do that the pundits will choose more correct words.

I need to give up my rage at our Supreme Court for changing the rules to allow essentially anonymous contributions to political action committees that spew negative advertisements into our airways. Our political process needs no help oozing with sleaze, but wailing and wearing sack cloth will accomplish nothing. So I'll ask God to help me channel my energy into turning off the offensive ads and to contacting elected officials with my complaint.

I need to give up my rage at people who unabashedly offer as truth words and figures they know to be untrue. I learned that technique in debating, but it does nothing to help the uninformed. Perhaps shouting, "That's a lie" offers little help, so I'll ask God to help me to ask, "On what do you base that claim?" or "Where can I verify those figures?" Uncivil discourse keeps us in a negative spiral. We need models of civility to guide us toward the common good.

Expressed appropriately, anger communicates intense thoughts and feelings. Rage simply gets in the way and begets additional unhelpful responses. So I'll try to give up rage for Lent. God may use that space to help me to become a better listener. Perhaps I'll even hear the good news more clearly just in time for the season of Easter!

Grace and Peace,

LP

Blessed by Our Past, Welcoming Our Future

At 1 p.m. on 27 June 2007, I met with Clairanne Hann and Fran Isaly and asked them to co-chair a Steering Committee to plan a celebration for our centennial year as a congregation. They accepted the challenge and began recruiting team members. More than once, they and those they recruited asked, "Do we have to begin now?" In the next thirty-eight weeks the nearly five years of prayer, reflection, discernment, planning and preparation will yield almost a year of celebration in our congregation.

Our Centennial theme is "Blessed by Our Past, Welcoming Our Future." That points to two of my greatest hopes for our Centennial. I hope that we deepen our appreciation for our heritage. Please read our history and view the displays of facts, photos, and figures of our past. From humble beginnings we have become one of the largest and most influential congregations in our presbytery and a far above average congregation in our denomination. Pastors receive too much credit, so when noting the triumphs and achievements to which God had led us in one hundred years, ponder the hours, energy, and faith people in the pews have devoted to our ministries. For every ministry we find meaningful, we have hundreds of forbearers to thank.

I also hope that during this year we will renew our commitment to the present ministries that lay a foundation for our next one hundred years. Adopting feeding the hungry as our signature outreach ministry has inspired and enlivened us. Who knows what ministries will emerge on that foundation! Our commitment to being a faith community that eschews homogeneity to live into the message often on our sign, "All Are Welcome Here," proclaims that we value what we have in common more than what makes us distinct. Living into that proclamation challenges us and prepares us for the reformation God always works in us.

I have another hope that, at least in my mind, has the potential to deepen our joy and discipleship. I hope that what we do this year will inspire us with awareness of how special this time, these ministries, and these people are. We have reason to look back with gratitude; yet, our heritage also fills today with blessings. We have reason to look to the future with hope; yet, the presence and promises of God fill today as well. We provide our greatest legacy as we faithfully discern God's call and participate in Jesus' ministries here and now. Who knows what worship will look like in 2112? Today's services certainly differ from those of 1912. Vibrancy and integrity now make room for what will become. Who knows how we will communicate in 2112? In 1912 our government licensed radio stations for the time. Yet, the faithful will need to communicate in order to feel connected with God, reach out to those in need with compassion and love, and work for justice for all. No group does that like a congregation, especially a congregation in a connectional church. The relationships we form and ties that bind us today fill our lives with meaning now and yield blessings for future believers to receive with gratitude.

Let's party for thirty-eight weeks. Let's recognize how blessed we are to have this time and each other and let's do all we reasonably can to strengthen our connections with each other, so that in failure and fidelity we receive the embrace of God, "who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine, to whom be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen" (Ephesians 2:20-21).

Grace and Peace,

LP

Accept the embrace of the complex wonder of a moment

On Tuesday we celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. I fell under the spell of Dickens's writing during my thirteenth summer. Before our family vacation I noticed a book with small print that I assumed would take me a while to read and purchased for sixty cents (ten cents more than my weekly allowance) a paperback copy of Hard Times. My mother insisted that I not read during the day because she wanted me to play outside. So in bed at night with a flashlight I opened to chapter one and read:

Now what I want is the Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to the Facts, Sir!

What a deliciously true and deceptively false statement. I reread and pondered that opening paragraph for quite some time before continuing. Even without knowing why or how, I understood that this was a book to savor more than finish, words to chew before swallowing, thoughts meant not simply to entertain but to form. Some of my most profound journeys began that summer evening.

Many novels, songs, and poems entertain and/or delight, but thanks be to God for those that challenge us not to tread lightly over what they say and mean. Many speeches and sermons amuse and/or inform, but thanks be to God for those that change who we are. Clichés and repetitive phrases have their place, but thanks be to God for musicians, orators, novelists, preachers, and other artists who invite and compel us to think, reflect, consider, grow.

So much of what and how we now communicate is relatively quick and simple. Emails and texts have replaced most letters and notes. The volume clearly has increased. What about the depth? I do not desire to turn back the clock. With email I can contact more people in an afternoon than I could have reached in a week not long ago. I appreciate and depend on that. Yet, all that now happens in an instant only increases our need to take time to accept and offer words and images to savor, dwell on, masticate, contemplate. Life is too short and our potential is too vast always to rush from word to word, event to event, commitment to commitment. Deep joy and meaning regularly come not as we rush to the finish, but as we accept the embrace of the complex wonder of a moment and allow it to awaken, enrich, and expand who we are.

Thank you, Charles Dickens, for teaching me to expect more of those who vie for my attention and of myself. Thank you for making me aware that some works are to fathom more than finish, that the comfort of clarity may obscure the wonder of ambiguity, and that time spent thinking often takes us where feeling alone cannot go.

Friends, take time not simply to complete a task but to ponder why it matters and how it shapes us. Expect the same of others. Such moments may seem to accomplish little, but the foundation they lay endures.

Grace and Peace,

LP

A tension between form and freedom in worship

"The Church has always experienced a tension between form and freedom in worship." "... the order for worship should provide for and encourage the participation of all." Those sentences from our denominational constitution remind us that during worship we come to God together. Private devotions, an important component of our spirituality, can reflect each individual's unique gifts and needs; but corporate worship seeks to unite us all in prayer and praise.

Contemporary music and language often help new pilgrims to hear and tell the old, old story in words they understand. The rumbling of a pipe organ and an occasional "thee" and "thy" often refresh long-faithful saints. Some feel especially close to God when our children gather for our Time with The Younger Church. For some, God speaks most clearly when we share silence. Drama and drums say to some, "You are welcome here." Some hear that message at font and table. The familiar provides something on which to depend. The new or different keeps us alert and alive. As we plan worship for a community, we typically choose not between right and wrong, but between trying to include everyone or making room only for those like us.

I rejoice that pianos have 88 keys; that some are black and some white, and that in three hundred years composers and pianists have not exhausted the possible melodies and interpretations. I rejoice that we do not have to worship alone, that parts of the liturgy evoke memories while others make memories, and that we all have opportunities to receive God's gifts and offer God gifts. Worship is rarely flawless. With us there, how could it be! Yet, flaws and all, God is praised and we are fed. Thanks be to God!

Grace and Peace,

LP