Day 23: Christian optimism and pessimism

I'm still not feeling great so I allowed myself a tiny bit of Instagram scrolling and came across a reel by Kate Bowler about Lent. It was really good. I forwarded to a girlfriend who does Lent with me every year.  

Basically the message is - Lent isn't a 40 day fix up.  It's starting with dust and sitting with who we are and to give up on the fantasy that we will be able to be "finished" some how.  

I love it because I think there is a huge temptation to think of Lent as a 40 day self improvement plan and to me,  that misses what Lent is. It is creating space to feel our humanity and reach towards God with honesty. 

But the reel did something more. It made me think of this huge contradiction in how Christians seem to approach human suffering. Because i don't want to write an incredibly long post I'm going to use stereotypes and broad brushes here. Theology is complicated and humans are even more complicated. 

But I see the struggle that we all have to have a people of faith -- if God is good,  why is there human suffering? And I think, as Christians we rightfully look to Jesus who fully carried this question. And yet,  we can't look fully as Jesus. Because Jesus doesn't give us a straight satisfying answer.  

On one hand,  there are those among us who look to Jesus's conquering of suffering. Jesus healed people. Jesus raised people. Jesus suffered willingly but then defeated death. God wins in the end. Suffering is temporary and healing is inevitable. 

Others among us see Jesus and say - he wept at Lazarus death.  He was a man of sorrows. God came to suffer with us.  To dwell with us in our suffering. 

Some of us lament. Others unswerving optimism.  Perhaps we all find courage in Christ.  

I think it is hard to hold. But perhaps both views are true. God has both conquered death and suffering and yet somehow still dwells with us in it. 

Holy week is coming. The way of sorrow.  The stations. The garden. The grief. The dawn.  The empty tomb. The joyful women. 

Lent does start with dust and finding a way to be honest in our humanity. It is a path marked with grief and bodies that don't cooperate and tiredness and frustration and an inability to reach God the way we want to.  But it ends with an empty tomb and a sun soaked garden.  

Easter is coming. May we rest in God's grace and God's power. 

Day 22: My Many Colored Days

On Bright Red Days how good it feels to be a horse and kick my heels!

On other days I'm other things. On Bright Blue Days I flap my wings.

Some days, of course, feel sort of Brown. Then I feel slow and low, low down.

Then comes a Yellow Day and Wheeee! I am a busy, buzzy bee.

Gray Day....Everything is gray. I watch. But nothing moves today.

One of my favorite Dr Suess book is the lesser known "My many colored days. " I read it often to my kids to help them have another way to identify emotions. 

Today was supposed to be a yellow day.  Chapel with Miles,  lifting with Eddie,  writing class with Eddie,  work meetings, house projects and gardening with Zander in the afternoon.  

I did some of the things but the rest of the day I was curled up in a hoodie.  Bummed.  Such beautiful weather and my body is not up to doing anything. 

I made the most of it.  I turned on hymns and rocked in the hammock swing. Sunlight on my face.  Grateful for the sandbox that Zander played in, the swing under me,  the blue sky,  the new green,  the soft music and the nice sunlight.  

If I can't get anything done,  I'll at least enjoy the moment of rest.  

As a Midwestern girl,  so much of my identity is wrapped up in work. My family worked for fun. Giant piles of landscaping materials showed up in the yard and all us kids shoveled and hauled them whence they needed to go.  Trees chopped into firewood and nearly stacked on the side of the house.  Work for the family business, a solid part of family vacation -- don't worry,  we also played hard -- but at least one day was spent on opportunistic work since we were in the neighborhood. 

Work feels good for me.  Like exercise. Using my body. Getting stuff done. Helping people.  Making the world a better place.  Even my hobbies are productive - gardening,  painting,  playing music,  learning, hiking,  traveling. 

Sitting still is hard. Especially sitting still and just not doing anything. Maybe I can get some spiritual practice in or reflection or discernment. When my body doesn't work,  my mind is there to work with. 

But today.  Mostly I just dropped the list and let it be. I enjoyed the weather and just let myself rest and heal. And I think,  that was my spiritual practice today. 

Day 21: Big Ideas

Out of the box thinking is one of my birthright.

Sometimes my Dad would wake me up at night to share an idea that was keeping him up.  I loved big ideas. 

Sometimes I  would join him on long road trips for business. He had inventory to deliver.  I had an insatiable appetite for adventure. We would rock out to Chicago and Simon and Garfunkel while passing through endless cornfields of the Midwest all while coming up with new business ideas and random inventions. 

I grew up not even knowing there was a box to think outside of. My default worldview was that life presented problems to be solved. 

When I was in library school, I learned a lot about organizational knowledge and structure. Some organizations are designed to bring about innovation and others are slow adapting,  designed to preserve values and tradition. All organizations change and adapt but over different periods of time. 

Decentralized,  nimble organizations like start ups and small non-profits are structured around innovation.  Government,  education, Healthcare, the church gave very good reason to move slowly,  adopt cautiously and value tradition first. 

This can be a source of frustration for people who want to reform these kinds of slow moving organizations. It's easy to get impatient with beaucracy and out of date practices.  But moving slow gives innovation time to mature, be understood and allow ethical debates to occur. This can,  in the best space, create space for wisdom and a protection of people from harms.  In negative ways,  perpetuates harm.  

I'm currently studying the history of the constitution with Eddie and continuing my study of church history. Both histories are heavy with examples of slow change that led to both wisdom and perpetuated harm.  

I was walking with a friend today and we talked about strategic leadership. Setting a vision and bringing people along. Different types of organizations need different types of leaders. 

It got me thinking how someone like me,  born with new ideas popping like popcorn in my brain can work in realms defined by tradition,  rules and hierarchy.  This is one area that has always caused me to pause at the idea of doing ordained ministry.  I love the beautiful traditions of the church. I think they are important and should be preserved and yet,  I can not help myself but think of 100 different ways to wrap those beautiful traditions in new ministries to reinvent church.  

This is the contradiction with my prior post on being the holy remnant.  Being faithful to our faith and traditions and allowing God to do the work of rebuilding the church.  

And yet, it is who I am, to reinvent things. I don't actually know how to live without doing it. My brain wakes up with 20 ideas how to move in strategic new directions with experiments that would provide insight on how to build and refine a plan,  the resources necessary to get started in a minimal way and what questions need to be answered to understand if the whole premise is viable. Im a start up guy,  through and through,  but morally,  I struggle with the start up world. Only billion dollar ideas cut it there and you have to be willing to throw people under the bus to be successful. 

I loved having a start up.  But I would love more to launch ideas that changed lives more than they made money. And so, right now,  I bring big ideas to Sunday school and parenting and homeschooling. And sometimes it's ridiculous. But God has been using my big ideas in small ways and they've made a difference for kids in my life.   

But I keep wondering... is there a place for wild ideas outside Silicon Valley? How can I be faithful to my faith and faithful to who God made me to be?

Day 20: My preplanned change in plans

 

Her face was serious. 

"I wanted to meet with you before pulling the principal in so I didn't throw you for a loop..."  

I smiled.  "Don't worry.  I'm on your team."

We talked for 45 minutes in tiny plastic chairs about what she sees in the classroom,  strengths,  weaknesses,  patterns.  And we opened a discussion that will continue with the principal,  perhaps some therapists or other experts. 

March.  Right on time. It seems like every match or April I find myself airing opposite a grave faced teacher trying to brainstorm some new snag which often leads to questioning what what is the best way to help them each the next set of milestones. 

Every January,  I enroll in school and make default plans for the coming year knowing full well something will change before fall comes around. I don't think there's a single year that all the kids ended up in the place that I registered them in January. 

This year,  I've already met with the principal about Miles and I'm scheduling a meeting about Zander. Am I concerned? No.  I've come to trust this as a process God uses to teach me who my children are becoming and how to guide them in their next step. 

In fact,  I'm grateful for it. It has taught me how to see my kids.  Really see them. Observe.  Ask questions.  If teachers and others hadn't met with me and shared strengths and struggles,  I may have missed some amazing parts of who they are.  

I've learned how to look and what to look for to help a child learn to play,  to talk,  to brush teeth, to eat,  to read, to write. Some kids need to learn these things differently.  Some kids need to learn things we aren't used to teaching and some kids teach us to unlearn things... actually,  I think all kids teach us to unlearn things if we are wise enough to let them.  

Wise,  loving teachers,  administrators,  therapists and others have partnered with me for as I've been a parent to observe,  discern,  experiment, pray and guide my kids into their next step of growth. Sometimes,  it's scary. Sometimes,  it's uncertain. Sometimes,  it takes a few tries but I've always been amazed to see God at work creating the right path for each of them. 

I was think this weekend to write a post about gratitude for childhood. 

The weather has been amazing. Warm sun. Gentle breeze. Miles dug out a bike and got it going.  I watched him ride around the block in the golden light. 

Eddie was in the backyard measuring and cutting wood for a game he's helping to design. 

Zander gathering eggs. Andrew and Philip setting up a board game for the brothers to play together. 

My heart was light watching them live,  thrive and be brothers to each other. A deep joy in watching them develop like Polaroid pictures into the unique people God made them to be. Each of them on a journey of becoming,  as we all are. 

I feel like the by-watchers in John's gospel. 

 "Come and see. Come and see what God is doing in our midst." 

And I bear witness to the slow,  miraculous work of forming  adorable 7lb lumps of clay into light bearers. 

Raising kids is the most spiritual journey I've ever been on. And it continues to grow and challenge me with every unplanned twist and turn.  

Day 19: This week's gospel

 

I am having a hard time coming up with cool Sunday school lessons at the moment. 

I brought this up at spiritual direction and we talked a while about it. 

The thing is,  I  LOVE this set of gospel lessons from John. They are meaty and challenging but that perhaps is what makes it difficult to encapsulate them in a simple message that is accessible for children. 

These stories reveal a side of Jesus that is unpredictable. The set up is similar in each of them - one on one encounters with Jesus and some expectation about who he is and how he should be. But in each of the dialogs,  there is a disconnect between Jesus and the person seeking him. The person is grounded in the physical reality while Jesus speaks of spiritual things and its clearly going over their heads. Honestly,  there are times it goes over my head too and I wonder if the conversation would make more sense in the native language. 

But exactly that head scratching opens me to the mystery of God. It makes me remember a much as we use "what would Jesus do?" As a very useful thought tool. It isn't always clear what Jesus would do or what Jesus would say. And lingering in the mystery of what Jesus actually did and actually said in very ordinary situations draws me deeper into faith. It is both relatable and unpredictable.  

This Sunday, we find Jesus asking a woman for a drink,  then telling her she should be asking him for a drink.  Then they get into a spiritual discussion,  she's trying to keep up but he's clearly next level.  Then the disciples come and it seems like they are used to Jesus doing stuff like this because they don't even ask what's going on. But they brought back snacks and he says they should be asking him for food and i can almost imagine eye rolling,  like Jesus .. dude,  just like have some bread man,  it's not that deep. 

These verses make me laugh. It's easy to imagine these conversations as confused and a little absurd. What will Jesus say next?

They also open small windows into the nature of Jesus and the nature of God. What it means to live as "one reborn" or as "one from the wind. " Jesus uses words like food, water,  wind,  rebirth, reaping and sowing to paint what life connected to God is like. And every time I read them I catch a small unexpected glimpse into the mystery of God. 

Also, I'm not teaching the woman at the well in Sunday school,  if you are wondering. I'm teaching the good shepherd instead.  It's much easier to explain.... but i am trying to figure out how to reach the blind man story so if anyone had any suggestions i am totally open to crowd sourcing Sunday school.  

Day 18: Discernment the easy way

Discernment can feel heavy.

 At the heart of it, there is usually a decision waiting to be made -- a new job to take, a new house to move to, switching schools, switching jobs, starting something, ending something. I enter periods of discernment to look where God is leading me next and trying to align myself with the work God has prepared for me.

I feel like this middle aged discernment, has been a rolling season that doesn't end -- in each new season praying about what's best for the kids, whether I should work outside the home, what things I should volunteer for, how much time I should spend each week exercising, how to organize the day's schedule to support everyone's growth.

Today I was talking to my spiritual director about the current questions of discernment that I am weighing and the story of the sower and the seed came to mind. The seed particularly.

God has designed the seed to grow and different seeds grow in different conditions. Some require fire. Others need to be frozen for a time. Others soaked in water. Some even need to be eaten and digested. 

In my discernment, I worry about getting all the conditions right. I'm like a gardener reading all the details on the packet -- what zone are we in, what type of soil does this need, what steps do I need to take to get a good germination rate?

But in nature, God orchestrates the system, the ecology, the web of life interdependent to create and sustain life. God has given each creature and plant and mineral a role to play and they do not discern the role that they play in the ecosystem, they simply live as they were created.

Perhaps, I need fewer cycles thinking about what the right next decision is and more time watching the Spirit at work. Perhaps, the Spirit is blowing and if I watched and trusted, that next automatic response to the work of the Spirit in the world around me is the roll that God calls me to play. Perhaps I am created,  as all creatures are, to play my part instinctively.  

Discernment imagined this way is light. It is not a decision I have to make, it is the natural progression of trust. God is bigger than my ability to micromanage my decisions and God will use me even if all I do is what comes natural to me. 

Day 17: The faith of my ancestors

 

I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees. 

What was the Lorax? 

Any why was it there? 

And why was it lifted and taken somewhere from the far end of town where the Grickle-grass grows? The old Once-ler still lives here.

Ask him, he knows. 

I worry about the the church. When I was growing up, 70% of people were members of a religious organization. Today, that number is under half. I see it in my church, in churches I visit. The church is growing small and it's getting older. 

My church is maybe half the size it was in 2019. The pandemic seemed to accelerate a shift that was happening gradually and many churches find themselves too small to support staff or buildings and are making hard choices about what that means. My church isn't there but it struggles with being a small church when it's been so used to being a big church.

Personally, I've wrestled with the issue of how to be faithful in the face of this trend -- evangelism? A new approach to church? New ministries? Or...a quiet acceptance that the world is choosing another way?

I was at our synod's elementary school retreat. Kids from churches from all over California gathered in the Redwoods for a weekend of camp songs and Jesus stories and prayers sung to superman, the Addams family and Johnny Appleseed. I sat for a while with a retired pastor and we chatted about the future of the church while we watched the kids prepare skits and make neon lanyard keychains. He said something that day, that has given me deep hope.

"There is always a remnant faithful."

The ark.

Lots family.

The 7,000 who didn't bow to Baal in the time of Elijah.

The exiles returning from Babylon. 

The 12 disciples in the upper room.

Sometimes the faithful, must persist for hundreds of years of darkness to hold on to the faith. They must practice and teach, read and pray while the world burns around them. 

But God does not forsake them and from the remnant, God rebuilds.

Perhaps there is as call to do things differently. To be church differently. To worship in different places at different times. But perhaps, the call is to draw on the courage and faith of our ancestors and continue gathering dispite our small numbers. To break bread. To say the words. To remember the promises. To hold onto the faith.

For in that, we have the seed and a seed can be planted in the fullness of time.