Earth Day 2020--Taking time out for something important

I took this morning off to travel less than a mile with my wagon and garbage bags around my neighborhood. In years past, I have always wanted to take part in the annual Earth Day cleanup of trash in parks, streambeds, and public lands. Unless April 22 fell on a weekend, it wasn't easy to take the time.  This year, with my home schedule much more under my control, I was able to spend three hours outside in a nearby park, criss-crossing a streambed in underbrush where locals go to hang out and drink. A major thoroughfare borders the woods, too, and a busy corner with a stoplight provides an opportunity for folks to throw all kinds of trash out their car and truck windows.
Litter has always distressed me. Besides despoiling the landscape (Have you seen how many shopping bags the wind deposits in trees?) the toxicity of chemicals and plastics that deteriorate and drain into the watershed makes me angry.
So today was prayer and pickup day. There is so much that needs the attention of prayer: all our front line medical workers, all those suffering near death and their families, all those essential workers and those deemed so unessential that they have been let go of their jobs. Each bottle or can or piece of trash I spotted was an occasion to pray. And I'm including prayers for all those cleaning up after someone else's thoughtlessness. There will be many of us in the coming months.

Coping With Advice Overload Now

Every hour that I've opened up my email, there are some new ideas and resources for pastors for coping with our current pandemic situation. There are those from folks wanting to sell me something--"get this online platform for doing online ministry"--and from others who seem to actually care about my situation. I am a small congregation pastor, learning a ton of new protocols and technology, but still trying to lead for the benefit of congregants, most of whom are woefully naive as to digital media and communications techniques.
Some of the advice is helpful, if a bit pedantic--"keep exercising," "keep up your at-home discipline," "eat healthy stuff." Some of it has genuinely helpful insights. Colleagues I know and trust are sending me something just about every day. I try to read at least a sampling of it every day.
But the volume is getting unmanageable. My inbox has grown from under 100 messages to over 200 an I can't seem to whittle down the messages to a manageable amount. How to turn off the fire hose of information? 
I could just unplug. I did that last week--Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
I could just wholesale delete, letting go of every message over 2 weeks old. If I haven't gotten to dealing with it by then, it's probably unimportant. The idea that I will get to all messages is impossibly naive on my part. Turn it off!
That's the only piece of advice I need to hear now. God's way of reforming us is certainly upsetting, but necessary.

Being Set Apart

Holy Week is "holy" for Christians because it is set apart. That is the literal meaning of "holy"--"set apart."  Yesterday I mused with the congregation I serve that we are all "holy" because we have all been set apart, in these days since being isolated because of Covid-19. We are set apart from each other, set apart from daily routines, set apart from the structure of time we once knew, set apart from what had considered "normal."
We are indeed set apart from some things, but are we are also set apart for something? I have seen numerous writings and essays about being set apart for this time, urging us to be aware of what we have been set apart for:

• more intense awareness of our interconnectedness
• a sabbath for renewing our relationship with God
• time to breath and pay attention to what's important in life
• time to pay attention to the needs of others
• etc.
  

This week is indeed Holy Week for Christians, and perhaps Holy Week for the whole world.
Blessings on your use of this time as Holy.

Can reading save our souls?

I have been listening and reading to the torrent of Christian writers and thinkers that are out there in this current moment of "what do we cling to now?" during this pandemic. It is a fire hose to drink from. I must admit that I'm a bit weary of the advice, even as I'm fascinated how the best and the worst instincts of Christians (as well as others) are on display. There are a few reliable sources in the Christian blogosphere (here I disclose my own proclivities):
NT Wright, Miraslav Volf, Richard Rohr at the Center for Action and Contemplation, most of the writers for Christian Century, and the community of good writers in my own Presbyterian tradition.  If I could only just read for 12 hours a day, I could work my way through the endless monotony of my own routine.
But I can't.
I'm an embodied human, not just a brain. I need sunshine and exercise and good food, and laughter and companions who can converse. I need my husband, the only other human I've been within 6 feet of in the last 3 weeks.
So going into this Holy Week, I will contemplate the holy body of Jesus, how he also needed everything any human would need. "Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us, embodied humans."

Dealing with grief in a pandemic by thinking of others

I didn't envision that my last months as a pastor for the "little church with a big mission" would be like this. Since our governor has issued a "Stay and Home" order to be in effect through June 10, the church will not be holding in-person worship in the building through at least that date. This means I can't be with the congregation in-person during Holy Week. I'm sad that I can't conduct a Maundy Thursday communion in person. I won't be conducting a sunrise service in the Memorial Garden on Easter morning, nor preparing an Easter brunch in the church lobby. (I had already begun thinking of recipes!) I'm grieving the loss of all these things. I know that the congregation is grieving, too, about the occasions that they are missing because of the corona virus--anniversaries, weddings, birthdays, graduations, end-of-school performances, and yes, baseball.

What I'm holding to, amid this grief, is a vision of the continuation of Church, as the body of Jesus Christ, caring for all its parts and relationships. 

The little Church has been known by its members and friends as the congregation who cares. The church has a big mission--to care for the world. So in keeping with that mission, the church has had to switch strategies.

My grandmother used to give us this very practical advice: the best way to set aside feeling sorry for yourself (i.e. grieving your loss) is to care about someone else. This is something we can do, and leave aside those things we can't do right now. Here's what everyone can do to show that you care:

1) Get out your church directories and make some calls. Even though we've started up with worship via "ZOOM" there are still folks we haven't seen. If you have been on the "Zoom" worship, think about who isn't there and make a phone call to see how they are doing. Just listen. Ask "what's it like for you in your place?"  "Who else have you heard from beside me?" "What prayer requests do you have that I can pray for, and what prayer requests can I pass along to the wider church?"

2) Take a hiatus from watching, listening, or reading the news, at least for some period of time. Just like after 9-11 when the video of the falling towers was being played and replayed over the media, unrelenting consumption of news media can feed into trauma.

3) Make daily quiet time a habit. You already may have a devotional time, prayer time, mindful meditation time as part of your daily schedule. This is a time to keep it up, or start it.

4) Make daily exercise, indoors or out, a habit too.

We will be a stronger church when this is past. God may be doing a new thing, and the Church is now and will be a partner in it.

Being reminded of our fragility--What do we do with too much?

Zoom worship for our little church, Sunday March 22

Just weeks ago on Ash Wednesday we were signed with ashes and bidden to remember these words: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

When we look back on this time from future, I’m sure one of the things we’ll remember is that this global pandemic happened during Lent/Easter, and embraced Passover and Ramadan, too. Every day brings reminders of how much we are dust. The wild swings of not only markets and pronouncements from government leaders, but also our emotions--moments of deep grief and moments of elation back to back, all while still trying to navigate the regular ebbs and flows of daily life. For many people regular life was difficult enough.

It all feels like too much.

And it is too much.

There’s little we can do against the forces of nature or political and cultural change. We can’t control the weather or the stock market. Our health is fragile and can be taken from us suddenly.

Regardless of what we might tell ourselves, we are always living in uncertain times. Some moments in history allow us to see that more clearly than others, but we are and always have been dust returning to dust.

The good news, of course, is that that we are still God’s people and so have a basis for hope that is beyond the wild swings that remind us of our fragility. Christians practice hope, not the fleeting kind of hope that comes from the news media or a soaring stock market or a scientific breakthrough, but the lasting hope that is only found in the cross of Jesus Christ. For, in the end, it is only here that we can find solidarity and solace in the midst of uncertainty.

During this season of Lent, as we are still on our journey toward the cross, let’s pray together that we are reminded both that we are dust and that our hope relies in and with Jesus and the cross.

Wash your hands and open your hearts.

Breath, Just for Today

Breath prayer for today:  Inhale with "Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit..."
Exhale with "Have mercy on us who need to breath."

Many of you know that I am one of the 100 or so volunteers with the National Response Team for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. I have been deployed to many, many disaster situations over the past 15 years, both natural and man-made disasters—from fires and tornadoes, hurricanes to mass shootings and industrial accidents. In all of those situations, I always had the opportunity to know that I would eventually leave. Right now I feel like I am deployed to an emergency scenario that has no end. What I do know now is that there are protocols for spiritual care that we follow in such places, the most basic of which is “put your own oxygen mask on first.” We can’t be spiritual leaders without practicing for ourselves those very spiritually life-giving practices that connect us to God and to each other—regular prayer and meditation, worship, bible study, yoga, etc. So…
In order to feed my own spirit, I am reading the offerings of my colleagues around the country. I’m also following the advice of my colleague MAMD--looking to what I, uniquely, can offer in this time. I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of spiritual and theological words that this crisis has unleashed. It’s a tidal wave. I can’t digest it all. The time I spend reading it, limits the time I can think and write on my own. What I can do is recognize the good stuff from the bad. In other words, I’m a better curator than a creator of devotional writing—separating the healthy stuff from the unhealthy stuff for spiritual hygiene. So...

In these blogposts you will see a lot of borrowing and curating. 

In the meantime...breathe and pray.