O Come Immanuel

It is Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent. The topic is PEACE and it is my turn to give the message, to stand in front and share insights with our church—friends really, all of them, to varying degrees. I am being apprenticed by our pastor and I am new at this "preaching" thing. 

Truth be told, I struggle with the idea of preaching, being a preacher or pastor, preferring instead shepherd, better yet exhorter or encourager. But I digress. My point is that in this time and place I see and experience myself as more of a messenger, checking my unhealthy need for control throughout my preparation and presentation—attempting on so many levels to stay out of the way of the Holy Spirit, trusting that God will do what God does. God brings clarity to chaos and peace to our frail and hurting humanity.

Our Advent will unfold weekly: peace, hope, joy, love. My preparation time for PEACE prior to this particular Sunday morning has been about 10 days and there was a night when I dozed off in the living room only to find my mind working with the scriptures much like human hands kneading bread. At this point what I'd gathered included: Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6, Mary's Psalm (Luke 1:46-55), Elizabeth's blessing (Luke 1:39-45) truncated to end with “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Luke 1:42). 

At some point leading up to this Sunday morning I added Isaiah 55:13 (that's the cypress and myrtle reference) in which I now hear a hint of Living Water. Yet, the focus remained on Mary's Psalm, her response to Elizabeth's greeting. Mary sings of the future, when, finally, God's justice will come. She reflects the deep and abiding hope of the people of Israel, that God's salvation will bring justice to the land, wholeness, and peace.

I am in awe of Mary's faith in that moment when God's plan (the birth of Jesus) is revealed. I am both humbled and inspired by her ability to be so at PEACE in the promises of God that when Elizabeth acknowledges the miracle, Mary bursts into song. 

I conclude that perhaps her peace is the place for us to begin believing we too are forever blessed.

As the thoughts I'd gathered come to an end I invite the people to pick up a scroll of sorts, a collection of scriptures on PEACE printed on plain paper then rolled and secured with a blue or purple band. 

My next stop is the closing prayer. I did not prepare anything in advance, trusting that whatever is on my heart in the moment will manifest in my words spoken aloud. I begin:

Lord, Thank you for this time together this morning...

I look out to meet the eyes of the people gathered and see a cloud (or is it a constellation) of pink and silver stars, an orb large enough to fill the theater, floating mid-air, above the people. In the seeing I understand that each star or point of light represents a life changed by passing through this place, generations of people changed by the Holy Spirit working within this community called Fellowship. 

I am overwhelmed by this magnificent manifestation—the Holy Spirit revealing God's glory. Tears of joy push up from my heart and I cannot speak. There is a pause, a silence, a waiting. I remember the price Jesus paid, how God prepared then freely gave this Divine Gift. When the tears subside and my words return, the prayer continues:

... thank you for giving Jesus Your Son, thank you for Christmas, for the Resurrection, the beauty of a Church in unity. We ask your continued blessing in Jesus' name. Amen

 

Photo Credit: Sergey Nivens

I Slumbered Too Long

I am guilty. I have been intentionally fasting from media, staying withdrawn from society. This had felt restorative in recent years as I healed from the death of my husband and the emotional trauma of being suddenly un-coupled. 

I awoke today, June 24, only to find I'd slumbered too long, that America as I'd known her had violently changed course. And, a tide of self-righteousness had eroded a freedom I'd known all my life: choice. 

Tears, then anger, then the memory of standing silent, voiceless, at the statue of St. Agnes* on display at the United Nations Headquarters. The history reads: "The damaged statue of St. Agnes found in the ruins of a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Nagasaki, Japan in 1945. The Cathedral was completely destroyed when the atomic bomb exploded about half a kilometre away. The charring and mottling are the result of the intense heat and radiation." 

The charring and mottling are so severe that her back is without form, the sculptor's detail erased by the blast. I weep in the presence of the statue. I weep as she comes to mind today. 

Disgust grows within me at the continued rancid quest for domination, the inhumanity of humanity. The St. Agnes before me in memory is reminiscent of the Scourging at the Pillar or the brutality unleashed on human beings by American slave-owners and profiteers.

My memory now leaps to the 1993 when Michael Griffin shouted, “Don’t kill any more babies!” before shooting Dr. David Gunn three times in the back. Following the protest organized by Rescue America at Pensacola Women's Medical Services clinic, the  organizers' response sickens me: “While Gunn’s death is unfortunate, it’s also true that quite a number of babies’ lives will be saved,” said national director Don Treshman. [more] We were living near Minneapolis at the time. In a Letter to the Editor, I wrote of using our resources toward caring for the children and parents already here, instead of spending it on this pro-choice/pro-life war. The hate mail arrived in droves from those identifying themselves as pro-life.

Years later when my children were teenagers, demonstrators gathered along Hastings Way holding posters of aborted fetuses, grotesquely enlarged to six feet in height for maximum impact. There were families with much younger children in the cars around us. Had the pro-life contingent gone mad?

Today I ask, has the pro-life contingent made a plan? Are the pro-life voters prepared to welcome the 625,346** infants this coming year? Ready and willing to provide the $14,800*** per child for a typical two-child household? Is there a commitment to cover this $9.2 billion in the first year of life? 

Will someone who is celebrating a victory, please share with me the plan for this parenthood?

I remember a Women of Faith conference at the Xcel Energy Center when the speaker asked us to stand if we'd miscarried, suffered the death of a child, or had an abortion. Women stood together -- nearly all of us -- united by the sorrow, not giving voice to individual stories, simply standing there for a moment, acknowledging the pain and loss of so many.

I believe: life begins at conception and that every life is precious.

I believe: choice is the free will God offers to all humanity.

I believe: we cannot legislate and enforce morality, and in using shame-based tactics we do more harm than good.

On March 13th, 2009, I launched this blog as "a woman ... tentatively exploring the Creator who intelligently and divinely grants her the dignity of free will while laying out a plan for every breath of her life before she was a heartbeat in a living womb."  

As I look into the faces of my granddaughters and grandson my eyes brim with tears. My heart longs for peace, if not for me, then please, Lord, for them. 

Rw

* Statue of St. Agnes images from Wiki Commons

**CDC figure annual abortions

*** US News & World Report

What If

This is me, the image captured in 1978, on a classic family trip to California... a visit to Sea World, a day at Disneyland, enjoying the beaches of Los Angeles... three sisters in the back seat, mom and dad in the front.

Though many might observe that I was a clueless innocent, the landmark decision Roe v. Wade was one I supported and agreed with, even then. I already had a heart that championed women, having experienced betrayal years earlier, in fifth grade, when I realized that the faith community into which I had been born was not interested in me serving at mass unless I was a boy. 

And just a few months after this photo was taken, I experience sexual harassment during an after-class conversation with one of my high school teachers, doubly toxic because the teacher was also a friend of my father's and included in summer outings to Lake Holcombe and the Mississippi River. 

Now, decades later, I believe that my hunger to advocate on behalf of women was present within me at my birth or conception, divinely woven by God, perhaps since the beginning of Creation as described in the poetry that opens the Book of Genesis.

Today, the photographs of demonstrations surrounding Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization broke through my self-imposed fast from media. Alongside a disturbing and toxic patriarchal bias revealed in a book I am reading on faith models that embrace local and organic expression, the photos brought out the warrior-advocate within me. Even as I drive the handful of miles from the house where I am pet-sitting into the city where my church is located, I find myself pulling together words of protest and plans for active advocacy on behalf of women.

Despite my anger and pain, I arrive safely, find a seat and breathe deeply, exhaling the anger, then join in the worship and listen to the teaching. Somewhere within the hour spent here within the community of people following (admittedly imperfectly) the teachings of Jesus Christ, I find my heart searching for goodness and blessing.

Every viewpoint is a view from a point. --Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation 

What if...

... we are on the cusp of a new life-affirming season?

... the decades impacted by Roe v. Wade are coming to a close?

... another path lies ahead, a time when abortions will decline in number?

... more and more men (and women) embrace condoms, celibacy, monogamy, and parental responsibility?

... more and more women (and men) put down the weapons of seduction and manipulation?

What if the time has come when we will look at one-another and see the glory of our humanity (women and men) created in God's image?

Then God said, “And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us. They will have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small.”  

So God created human beings, making them to be like himself. He created them male and female, blessed them, and said, “Have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth and bring it under their control. I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds, and all the wild animals.”

"I have provided all kinds of grain and all kinds of fruit for you to eat; but for all the wild animals and for all the birds I have provided grass and leafy plants for food”—and it was done.  

God looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased. Evening passed and morning came—that was the sixth day.

Genesis 26:31 GNT

Rw

Waiting for Sunrise

I softly awaken in the familiar house—the grandchildren and their parents having arrived home from Wisconsin last night. I use the restroom, and without turning on any lights, go to the kitchen to retrieve my water bottle. I discover hot coffee. My son, one of the parents, kept it on warm when he left for work this morning. I am thankful.

I pour it into a teal-colored mug before filling the carafe with cool water and dispensing it into the coffee maker's reservoir. I swing out the small door than conceals a damp filter filled with grounds, remove it and add a new filter and two scoops of rich, brown coffee. I press large brew button that lights up to confirm that the process has begun. 

I take my mug into the dark living room and snuggle back into the comforter. The sky outside the sliding glass doors is darkest gray; the bare trees that adjoin the river are barely visible in the faint moonlight. I think of the year I lived here, the days and nights spent pondering the river, my sadness so heavy that it held me captive. I think of my friend, a man I met when I first attended grief group. He was active in the Elks Club and I enjoyed the black-light bingo events with him and other friends who gathered there. The celebration of his life was this past weekend. He is reunited, now in heaven, with the woman he loved most—his wife. 

My thoughts move to my husband—an image of he and our grandson decorating the Christmas tree at the Blue House years ago. I leave the nested sofa and walk down the hall to check in on our grandson who is sleeping peacefully. Tears fall. 

In the time it takes me to gather my computer and begin to write, an unimpressive clouded day begins without the fanfare of sunrise. A storm is coming, my daughter-in-law observed last night, when I complained about the lack of whole milk and fresh chicken—empty shelves—at the local store. 

The winter gray sky confirms her words. A storm is coming. The day begins.