My Dear Sister

This time last year, I was on a plane bound for Manchester.  My long-awaited and much anticipated sabbatical was beginning, and I was filled with excitement.  In the days prior to my departure, I packed and re-packed, rolling clothes to be held together with a rubber band, cramming socks and hose into shoes, and forcing my two modest-sized bags to make room for a few essential books.  My heart was full; my expectations were high.  I could never have imagined just how wonderful and life-changing this experience would be! Charles and John Wesley taught and preached about prevenient grace, the grace of God that comes before we know anything about it, and indeed, the hallmark of the Wesleyan revival was an emphasis on grace.  Well, I received grace upon grace in the course of my sabbatical, being welcomed as a friend and even as family in many of the places I visited, and having opportunities I could never have planned for or expected.

While in Bristol, I practically became a fixture at the New Room, visiting the museum 3 different times, slowly looking, reading, and listening as the story of Methodism was presented by way of fascinating exhibits.  I spent several hours in the archive/research area, reading letters written by early Methodists and feverishly taking notes, and I attended an organ concert that filled that old and holy space with beautiful music.  Best of all, I was able to worship there twice, receiving communion both times, and the second time, there was one of those grace moments that came as pure gift, a surprise that left me almost in tears, the opportunity to read the gospel lesson for the communion service.  I wrote about this in an earlier post (Hospitality and Welcome to All), so I won't repeat myself. 

That was an obvious kind of grace, a very public moment that filled my heart with joy and linked me to the early Methodists, those women and men and children who once packed the New Room to hear John preach and to sing their faith with hymns fresh from the pen of Charles.  But there were quieter, less obvious moments, symbolized by the picture at the top of this page.  The life-size figure of John Wesley stands at the window of his bedroom.  The slanted sill, designed by him, hits at just the right point for him to write comfortably as he stood, while for taller people like me, it would induce backache and cramp!  It is so real that I felt almost like a voyeur stealing a glance at the behind-the-scenes history of this public figure who was also a very private person.  Dr. Richard Heitzenrater calls him "the elusive Mr. Wesley" with good reason because just when I think I might be getting a handle on him, I discover something else that makes it clear that Wesley was a complex and complicated man. 

I love this depiction of him doing something so characteristic -- he wrote massive numbers of letters, many of them to women whom he addressed as "My Dear Sister." It made it easy to imagine him pausing for just the right phrase, looking up from the page out onto the busy Horsefair, as he dispensed medical advice, asked searching spiritual questions, and urged his reader to go on to perfection.  It's one of my favorite images from the 10 1/2 weeks of my sabbatical journey, making our tradition come alive in the present in a way that I hope will inspire and encourage others, especially as we face an increasingly frightening world and an uncertain future with hope and holy boldness.  And so, let Mr. Wesley speak a word of grace to you, reminding you as he did Ann Bolton in a letter written February 13, 1768, "The best and most desirable thing of all is that you should live and die wholly devoted to God."  That is an aspiration that surely all Christians can unite around, even in the midst of other disagreements.  Let us, like John Wesley, live and die, wholly devoted to God.

Remember My Choice

When I was at Annual Conference last week, I used the wi-fi at the hotel where I stayed.   That is to say, I tried to use it.  It was supposed to be a simple matter of finding the name of their network and clicking on it, but I quickly came to see that it wasn't so simple after all. It seemed like every five seconds, I was getting a message across the screen that gave me the option of clicking "Disconnect" or "Stay Connected," and then underneath it had a place where I could click "Remember My Choice."

As you might imagine, this got old quick! I grew annoyed when I was trying to do something online because of the constant interruption.  Finally, I just gave up and used my data plan instead, which was also annoying, but in a totally different way.  (Actually, I was paying attention to everything going on at Conference, so I hardly missed using the internet at all.  Really!) Every now and then I would try again, to no avail. I tried to be content with either using my data plan or just shutting down the phone, but it still bugged me that my phone had kept asking me to make a decision when all I wanted to do was just get on with what I was trying to accomplish.  And that's when it hit me.

One of the curses of being a pastor is that I tend to think of everything as a possible sermon illustration or in this case as a subject for a post on my blog. That stubborn screen with its option of staying in some sort of electronic relationship with the Hilton's wi-fi network suddenly took on a bigger significance for me.  As I fussed and fought with my telephone and the wi-fi, it suddenly occurred to me that this whole experience was a metaphor for what's going on in United Methodism. We keep having these conversations/arguments about whether or not we should stay connected or just go ahead and disconnect, all without really getting anywhere. 

Despite the fact that so many of our people want to keep on keeping on with the mission of the United Methodist Church, which is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, we keep being interrupted by the persistent query -- do you want to disconnect or stay connected?  I suppose next February in St. Louis at the special General Conference, we will finally have at least a partial answer to that question.  But at what cost?  No matter what, there will be some who simply won't remain in what Wesley called "the Connexion," and whatever is left after all the shouting isn't likely to be very united, it may not be terribly Methodist, and it is likely to be a poor version of a once dynamic church.

Despite all that, the North Carolina Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church met in Greenville in 2018, and there was joy at being together again, in singing "And Are We Yet Alive" and "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling," and in hearing inspired preaching and in worshiping the One in whom all things hold together.  My choice would be to stay connected, which was also what I wanted my phone to do, and oh, how I wish I could simply click on a button that would remember that choice for the UMC!  But, lacking a magic wand or a perfect solution, I will keep praying and keep trying to stay in "connexion" with my sisters and brothers, even though we are struggling to find a way forward.  And who knows?  The Holy Spirit may have a surprise in store for us!  We may discover that there actually was a real way forward in Christ all along.  May it be so!

Love Me; Think Always the Best of Me

These are difficult days for the United Methodist Church, days marked by tension and disagreement over matters of biblical interpretation, especially with regard to the status and role of lesbian and gay Christians in the life of the UMC.  There are a lot of blogs and podcasts avidly discussing the crisis point we have reached; this is not one of them.  I'm not going to rehash arguments or try to rally support, not because I don't have an opinion but because I want to promote something else.  While I do not believe we HAVE to split, I do not believe we will avoid it.  But if a rending of the Body of Christ is in fact on the horizon, I would like to plead the following: that we discuss the details of the divorce not only with civility but with love.

John Wesley was never short of opinions and never shy about proclaiming them. Autocratic, patriarchal, and just plain bossy -- he did not necessarily seek arguments, but he would firmly stand his ground even when threatened with physical harm or even death.  He could be persuaded otherwise on occasion, but not by being bullied.  Instead, he sought to be reasonably convinced, especially by recourse to scripture and the traditional teaching of the Church of England.   Above all, he wanted to be able to agree to disagree in a spirit of love, even if a painful break became inevitable.

In his much-quoted sermon "Catholic Spirit,"  he makes his case for the primacy of love in correcting another's wrong understanding, asking that the benefit of the doubt be given, that there should always be an assumption of good intentions in cases of disagreement and conflict.  He writes:

Love me (but in a higher degree than thou dost the bulk of mankind) with the love that is long-suffering and kind; that is patient, --if I am ignorant or out of the way, bearing and not increasing my burden; and is tender, soft, and compassionate still; that envieth not, if at any time it please God to prosper me in his work even more than thee. Love me with the love that is not provoked, either at my follies or infirmities; or even at my acting (if it should sometimes so appear to thee) not according to the will of God. Love me so as to think no evil of me; to put away all jealousy and evil-surmising. Love me with the love that covereth all things; that never reveals either my faults or infirmities, --that believeth all things; is always willing to think the best, to put the fairest construction on all my words and actions, --that hopeth all things; either that the thing related was never done; or not done with such circumstances as are related; or, at least, that it was done with a good-intention, or in a sudden stress of temptation. And hope to the end, that whatever is amiss will, by the grace of God, be corrected; and whatever is wanting, supplied, through the riches of his mercy in Christ Jesus.

A great deal of the conversations that I am hearing/reading appear to be more about scoring points or amusing the listener/reader than about extending grace with an attitude of love that believes and hopes the best of the other.  Applause and cynicism are often the order of the day, colleagues eye each other with distrust and disdain, bishops and participants in the Way Forward Commission process are mocked or denigrated, and everywhere, there are fresh wounds in the Body of Christ.  I've been through one great theological divorce in my former denomination and never thought to see one in the place that welcomed me home, United Methodism. I don't have answers or solutions or really anything new to add.  All I want to say is that we are better than this.  Even if we have come to the end of the line as the UMC, can we not still love one another and if we must part, let it be in sorrow, rather than fury?  As Mr. Wesley writes:

Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may.  Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.

So to all those with whom I disagree, I pledge to love you and think always the best of you.  I ask in return that you love me; think always the best of me.  And may the compassion and grace of Christ be the healing balm that binds up our wounds and binds us all together again someday.

Cheshire Cats and the Holy Spirit

picture taken May 2009, Meredith College

      Twenty-nine years ago, on a bright May morning, I graduated from Meredith College, a four-year women’s college in Raleigh steeped in Baptist heritage.  Founded in 1891, Meredith has long been known for a high quality of education and for certain unique traditions.  These inherited and shared experiences are an important part of what identifies a woman as a Meredith alumna, and we cling to them tenaciously.

One beloved tradition is the dramatic presentation of Alice in Wonderland by members of faculty and staff.  Performed only once every four years, this highly anticipated treat produces shrieks of laughter as spellbound students squint at the stage, trying to identify their professors through layers of makeup and elaborate costumes.  Given its popularity, it is not surprising that use of the search engine for the campus library is called “Ask ALIS,” neatly combining this whimsical love of Lewis Carroll with the unforgettable strains of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” by way of an acronym whose component parts no one can be bothered to remember.

I was asked to deliver the baccalaureate sermon in 2009, which coincided neatly with the 20th year anniversary of my graduation, and not surprisingly, Alice put in an appearance.  While she is disoriented from meeting all the strange creatures of Wonderland and wanders around with no idea which direction to take, she encounters yet another odd inhabitant of this weird world, the grinning Cheshire Cat, and addresses it in an attempt to reorient herself.

'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where----' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
'----so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.
'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk enough.'

I suggested to the graduates that the professors and support staff at Meredith, as well as their families and friends had been their Cheshire Cats whose encouragement and wise counsel had consistently shown them that their destination was dependent on where they really wanted to be.  I hoped that I was imparting some pearls of wisdom to the graduates, but I didn’t really connect my words to my own life until re-reading that sermon on Pentecost of this year.

In 1989, I could hardly have imagined the strange, circuitous paths that would lead me to this point, but the necessary disorientation that accompanies transition has time and again given way to the Spirit’s sometimes gentle and, more often firm nudges.  Every year, I take stock of my life and ministry, seeking to discern whether Christ is calling me to continue traveling in the same direction or to take a deep breath and make a change.   And every year, as I pause to give thanks for my Cheshire Cats, I am reminded that while the Spirit may sometimes swoop in like a rushing wind complete with ecstatic tongues or dancing flames, my usual experience has been less dramatic, more like Alice’s conversation with the Cheshire Cat.  More often than not, I have been led forward as a result of an insightful conversation with a surprising source, but however it happens, I give thanks for the ways in which God takes the past and makes something new come of it, as I anticipate dreaming new dreams and seeing new visions, guided and goaded by God’s Holy Spirit.

 

What's So Extraordinary About Ordinary Time?

picture taken August 27, 2017 

on the occasion of my preaching at 

St. Peter's Scottish Episcopal Church, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis

It's Ordinary Time, a period in the Church year when there aren't any big festivals like Advent and Christmas, or Lent and Easter.  Instead, this is a time for the regular rhythms of worship and for developing or maintaining spiritual disciplines that keep us grounded in the knowledge that we are in the presence of God all the time.  As a pastor, I used to dread the approach of Ordinary Time, partly because the green stoles and paraments often wind up being a sickly color that conjures up visions of healing bruises more than growth and partly because of the well, ordinariness of it. However, I have come to value this liturgical season more as time has passed, and not just because I have a couple of vibrant stoles that triumphantly point to LIFE with a capital L!  I have come to appreciate the change of pace and the opportunity to sink more deeply into habits of prayer and meditation in the quietness of everyday life..

I now treasure the time we call ordinary, not as boring, plain vanilla ordinary, but as the time of usual spiritual growth, of quiet budding, of slow and steady turning towards fruition. To think of it that way is to regain a sense of the beauty of the most humble and yet most extraordinary of miracles: the greening of the earth, the birth of a child, the maturing of a seed into a flowering plant, the almost imperceptible transformation into the likeness and image of God as the Spirit works within.

Some churches choose to retain the red paraments of Pentecost for a few weeks into Ordinary Time as a way of focusing attention on the ongoing work of the Spirit.  I like this practice as a corrective to our tendency to neglect this mysterious Third Person of the Trinity, and using bright red is a sure-fire way to catch and hold one’s attention.  Still, I am glad that most of us do unfold our humble stoles and vestments of green, donning them week in and week out, as we remember that all of life is sacred, even the most ordinary moments in it.

In his notes on 1 Thessalonians 5:16-17, John Wesley wrote:

In everything give thanks ... This is Christian perfection. Farther than this we cannot go; and we need not stop short of it. Our Lord has purchased joy, as well as righteousness, for us. It is the very design of the gospel that, being saved from guilt, we should be happy in the love of Christ. Prayer may be said to be the breath of our spiritual life. He that lives cannot possibly cease breathing....

Thanksgiving is inseparable from true prayer: it is almost essentially connected with it. He that always prays is ever giving praise, whether in ease or pain, both for prosperity and for the greatest adversity. He blesses God for all things, looks on them as coming from him, and receives them only for his sake; not choosing nor refusing, liking nor disliking, anything, but only as it is agreeable or disagreeable to his perfect will.

I invite you to think of ways this can be an extraordinary time of spiritual growth and maturity for you through the most ordinary of things.  Take a walk, paying attention to the sunlight through the leaves.  Listen to the ocean as it roars against the sand during a thunderstorm.  Hold the hand of someone you love, marveling at the warmth of flesh against flesh.  Savor a verse or two of scripture, allowing it to comfort or challenge you, as the case may be.  Give a cup of cold water to the homeless man crouched in the doorway of the church, seeing in him the very face of Christ.  And give thanks.

Ordinary time.  It's the right time to be grateful for God's extraordinary grace and to grow in love of God and neighbor.

The Dreaded Mother's Day Holiday Approaches

This photograph, taken on my wedding day in 1989, is my favorite picture of Mama and me together, partly because I was looking my best and was about to marry the man I love, and partly because Mama was doing what she did naturally, showing how much she loved me.  The summer before she died, she told me that she wanted to be buried with a picture of me "if that wasn't being selfish."  Typically, she worried that she might be putting someone out by making a simple request for something that was meaningful to her.  When she died a few months later, the articles we placed in her casket included Dentyne chewing gum, Kleenex, an extra pair of socks for her always-cold feet, a dollar bill from her brother who jokingly wanted to prove that you CAN take it with you, pictures of Daddy, photos of my sister and her family, pictures of my husband and children, and this one of the two of us.  Seeing it squeezes my heart with a bittersweet joy that is closely akin to pain because I miss her so much. 

Mother's Day used to be a big deal to me because it was the one day we actually took time to express how much we appreciated and loved her.  Sappy, sentimental cards, fragrant roses and carnations, a long telephone call if not a visit, and a pastel sweater or bottle of perfume -- those were the coin of the realm in which we paid our tribute, and the explosion of pink roses that covered her casket was the perfect blanket for her grave on that cold November day.

I became a mother on April 12, 2001 when we adopted Sergei and Natasha in Arkhangelsk, Russia.  He was a month shy of 14; she was 8 1/2, while I never carried them in my body, as my mother did me, I carried them in my heart.  She had the fruitful experience of feeling as well as seeing her body swell with the new life that created space for itself literally in the center of her being.  She made room in her heart, her body, and her life for me to grow and learn and laugh and love.  I am forever grateful for her faith and her example but most of all for her love.

Those of us who adopt have a different, though in some ways, similar experience to those who give birth. Adopting means making room where once there was only yourself, and it means setting out on a journey to parts unknown. From the time Scott and I received the video and pictures of our daughter and knew that she was ours, and then when we discovered we could also adopt her brother, we were seized with a fearful joy. Being a mother has brought me tremendous happiness, amusement, anxiety, fear, frustration, and the most profound sense of the ways that God mothers and loves all of us.  And there is a part of me that is pleased that I can look forward to texts and calls from my two "little monsters" this Sunday, but with Mother's Day approaching, I have to say that I miss my mother, dead these 7 1/2 years, more than tongue can tell.

John Wesley was especially close to his mother Susanna, and her death left a profound void in his heart and life.  She had been his spiritual adviser, his critic and defender, and his rock and support in the tumult of the early days of the Methodist revival just as she had been from his birth.  Unlike me, he was somehow able to preach and officiate at his mother's funeral, rejoicing in her release from sorrow and pain while also grieving his own loss of her physical presence in his life.

The picture below is of a miniature sculpture that perfectly captures Wesley's grief as he leans on her tombstone.  In lifelike detail, his body expresses the sadness and resignation as he contemplates the finality of death, even as he commends her body to the earth in "sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ."  He seems to be physically as well as emotionally spent as he rests his head in his right hand and as his left hand holds his hat loosely at his side.  I think I have a glimmer of an idea of how he felt -- bereft and hurt, yet hopeful. Holding those feelings in tension, Wesley carried on with his proclamation of the good news, and so must I.  Like him, I must pause to feel the depth of mourning for the mother I relied upon, the mother who always loved me, no matter what, and I must cling to that same resurrection promise and joyful hope. And so, just as Wesley did, even  through my tears, when I remember her on Mother's Day and every day, I will say, 'Thanks be to God!

In Memory of Her/Known Only To God

When I was a sophomore in college, my psychology professor gave us an assignment in which we were required to write our own obituary.  At 19 or 20, the idea of death seemed pretty far off, even for me, the mortician's daughter, but I gave it a shot.  I don't remember everything I wrote, but I do know that it bore little resemblance to the way my life has actually turned out.  Stopping to think about how one might be remembered and what one's legacy might be is a pretty good exercise, but it isn't one that would have made much sense to most of the people of Jesus' day.

I recently read a post on growchristians.org called "Saints Don't Need To Be Heroes."  It was written to mark the feast of two lesser-known disciples, Philip and James, and the writer commented that she wished she knew something heroic about them until she realized that she already knew all she really needed to know about them -- they gave up everything in their familiar lives to follow Jesus.  Given that, it really didn't matter that the Bible doesn't tell us anything about them beyond that.  If Shakespeare was right that the world is a stage and we are merely players, it follows that not everyone is going to be the leading lady or the hero of the story.

All of which made me ponder the many biblical women of whom we know little, women who were disciples and apostles and faithful followers of the itinerant carpenter named Jesus.  Some of them have names we recognize:  Mary Magdalene, Salome, Joanna, Susanna, and Mary and Martha of Bethany. But others are simply  mentioned and never named:  the Samaritan woman at the well, the Syro-Phoenician woman who pleaded for her daughter, and the woman who anointed Jesus' feet and wiped them with her hair. 

This last woman is depicted in the picture above by an artist named Ivanka Demchuk.  This woman, whose name is known only to God, knelt before Jesus and broke open a very expensive container of ointment to pour over his feet.  Her lavish, extravagant, bold gesture of love earned her the criticism and scorn of some in attendance, but the response from Jesus?  He told them that she had done a beautiful thing to prepare him for burial, and he furthermore said that whenever the gospel was told, throughout the whole world, what she had done would be told "in memory of her."  If those last words sound familiar, perhaps it is because they foreshadow the Last Supper when Jesus took bread and wine and gave them to his disciples with the commandment to re-enact this act and to do so "in remembrance of me."  And even today, this woman's prodigal offering of valuable perfume is told and remembered and celebrated, and even today, Christians gather at the table to enter into the holy mystery in memory of the One who first hosted the sacred meal.

I would like to know more.  I'd love for the bravery and faithfulness and steadfast love of these mothers in the faith to be remembered along with their names.  Heaven knows, the Church needs to know and teach and rejoice that they are just as much a part of the story as the more well-known men!  But perhaps in the end, it doesn't matter so much that we don't know the back story, that we don't have a clearer picture of them.  Perhaps in the end, it is enough to know that women provided for Jesus and the others out of their own resources, that women gave their all, breaking taboos in the process, to follow him and to proclaim the gospel throughout the earth. 

And so, today, let us give thanks for the countless women of faith whose names are known only to God, for as long as the gospel is proclaimed throughout the earth, these things will be told in memory of her, and her, and her, and her.  Alleluia and Amen!