I was looking for a sign from God, and wrote this poem

Confessions:

I ate the cheesecake.
I left my notes at home.
It was not the dog's fault.
I don't know everything.
I need a sign from God sometimes,
just the tiniest little sign.
Just one word,
or a splash of water,
a piece of bread, broken
and multiplied.
Multiplied! 
I need to see just a small piece
of forgiveness,
a little resurrection.
Just one word
Multiplied.
I don't know everything.
It was not the dog's fault.
I left my notes at home.
I ate the cheesecake.
Forgive me.

As The Deer

A few days ago, my dog decided she wanted to go out a little earlier in the morning than I did.  After a short period of sighing and whining (her, not me), she won and I got dressed, pulled on my sneakers and took her out.

I was just getting light.  We took the familiar turns around the perimeter of the apartment where we are living right now, as I am settling into a new community and congregation.

Then we saw them.  Deer.  Just on the other side of the fence, there were several deer.  We looked at them.  They looked at us.  Then they fled, gracefully, as deer are apt to do.

We had seen the deer once before, not long after I arrived.  I thought it was a sort of sign, then, in my heart if not in my head.  Seeing them made me glad.  Back where I came from, there are urban deer at Nature Center not a block from our house.  The dog and I would run into them, on occasion.  So when I saw the deer, I was reminded of home.  Many things are different, but some things are the same, I thought.  There are deer, for example.  We might not see them very often, but you never know when you'll run into them.

Every day when I take the dog out on her walk, I go by that spot, and I don't see the deer.  I had just about given up, just about, when we got up early and saw them again.

It was a sign.  That's what I thought, in my heart if not my head.

But what does it mean?

You have to be careful about signs, I know.  I have said it myself, even though I can't help looking for them.  They are not magic.  They don't mean that everything is going to be smooth sailing.  Sometimes you think something is a sign, and it turns out to be wishful thinking, an old security blanket you were hanging on to, even though it didn't do you any good.  Sometimes you think something is a sign, but it turns out to mean something different than you originally thought.  Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes at the beginning of John chapter 6, and it was a sign, but even so, by the end of that chapter, a significant number of disciples had fled, as disciples sometimes do.

It was a good Sunday, I thought.  It was cooler than usual when I got to church.  I met more people and learned more names.  At both services there were first-time visitors.  We broke the bread and shared the wine.  I saw a worshipper, a guest, in the grocery store after the service, and we greeted each other.  She loved the service, she said.  They are lucky to have you, she said.  Maybe it was a sign.

I saw the deer again, briefly, and I decided it was some sort of sign, although I am not sure exactly what it means.  For now, the deer remind me not to give up, because you never know when you will get a glimpse of beauty, a flash of grace.  The deer remind me that the glimpses do flee, but they are real.  That is the sign I am clinging to like an old security blanket, even though it might not mean what I think it means.

But I think it means, This is where I am supposed to be.  I think it means, God is here, too.

As the deer.

Signs from God

It's a quiet evening at home.  I'm sitting in the bedroom, reading and thinking and relaxing.  I can hear the television in the living room.  It's a re-run of the old show, "The King of Queens".  I recognize the plot.  It's a flashback episode, the one where Doug and Carrie are recalling their engagement and the days leading up to their wedding.

In the episode, Carrie says "yes" to Doug, of course, but now she is having fits of anxiety so severe that they make her literally sick to her stomach.  She loves Doug, but she is plagued by doubts, until they visit the priest, and he remembers that Doug and Carrie met once when they were children at summer camp.  They were on a hay ride together, the priest recalls, and Doug fell on top of Carrie (or did Carrie fall on top of Doug?  I don't quite remember).

All of a sudden, Carrie is calm and relaxed, no longer anxious and sick.  The story of their accidental childhood meeting is proof that they were "meant to be".

It is a sign from God.

Now I'm thinking back to the very last of our summer outdoor worship services, called "Picnic Church."  It seems so long ago now, but it really was only a couple of weeks ago that we held our last Wednesday evening service on the lawn, complete with hot dogs.

It was a lovely summer night, as all of our Wednesday were this summer.  Not one rained-out-Wednesday for our summer experiment.  It was a great end to the summer.  Even though we had a different guitarist for our last two Wednesdays, our substitute's name was Jesus.  You can't do any better than Jesus for a substitute guitarist.  And he taught us the chorus to a great song, "Montana."  We all danced on the lawn.

My message that evening was all about God-sightings.  I talked about learning to see God in our lives, and to tell about it, and asked people if they had seen God around lately.  We had asked the same question the week before, and there was this uncomfortable pause.

"Have you seen God around anywhere lately?"

No one said anything.

But tonight was different.  They had seen God around lately, and suddenly (I was proud to say), people weren't afraid to tell about it.  They had seen God around every Wednesday, those impossibly sunny and beautiful Wednesday evenings, when it never rained and there were not mosquitos.  They had seen God in other places too, but we kept going back to the lack of mosquitos and the fact that EVERY SINGLE Wednesday had been nice.  And every week, the people just kept coming back, more and more of them, for food, for worship, for community.

It was a sign from God.

It is hard to argue with that, especially in this neck of the woods.  It does seem like a minor miracle for every single Wednesday evening this summer to be sunny.  It must have been a sign from God, a sign that God had blessed our summer plans to reach out beyond our doors.

It was meant to be.

Signs from God are tricky things, though.

I can hear the TV in the background again, the return of the episode from The King of Queens.

As it turns out, the story about Doug and Carrie meeting when they were children:  it wasn't true.  It was actually Doug's cousin Danny that Carrie had met at summer camp.  Doug knew it, but he was afraid to tell Carrie that there was no sign from God.  It was just him, only Doug, loving her, asking her to marry him.  That was the sign.

Signs from God are tricky things.  A sunny day, a chance meeting, a memory of dancing on the lawn:  they are all good things, for which we should rejoice and give thanks.  It was meant to be.  God is working through this sun, this dance, this meeting.

But then, what does the rain mean?  What do the tears, the two left feet, the failures and the missed opportunities mean?  That it was not meant to be?

Signs from God are tricky things.

Even when it rains, even when there are mosquitos, even when you have two skinned knees because dancing on the lawn didn't go the way you planned:

Don't give up.

It was meant to be.  You were meant to dance, to share your food, to be merciful.  For better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.

Say "yes."

I Can't Help Thinking...

I didn't preach last weekend, which is sort of unusual for me.  I have come to identify the 2nd Sunday of Easter as "Associate Pastor Sunday", and Thomas and his story have gotten really really familiar to me.  I have defended Thomas from allegations of doubting, and pointed out that if all of the other disciples got to see and touch Jesus for themselves, why should it be a big deal for Thomas to get to see and touch Jesus too?  I have pointed out that Thomas was not with the other disciples on Easter Evening 1, but that he had returned to them on Easter 2.  I have noticed how the disciples cowered in that locked room, and how ultimately, those locked doors could not keep Jesus out.

I didn't preach last weekend, but I was listening, and I was studying anyway.  I got together with my Bag Lunch Bible study to read and reflect on this gospel reading.  As we were reading, I heard Thomas' voice, saying, "I will not believe.  Unless I see his hands, unless I can see those marks, unless I can touch them, I will not believe."

And I thought I could hear the whole world in Thomas' words.

There is a lot more skepticism in the world than there used to be.  There are more doubters than their used to be.  I know a fair amount of young people who say they are agnostics or atheists.  Or they are skeptical of organized religion, if not the existence of God.  Sometimes, it's hard to blame them.  Look around at the world for awhile.  Look around at the church, too.  I know a lot of good people in the church, but I know there has been a lot of hurt too.

So I heard Thomas' words, and I imagined that the world is looking at us, bearers of Jesus' name, carriers of his mission.  I imagined that the world is looking for marks, for some sort of sign.  Not nail-holes, but some signs of love, that we are willing to do something, bear something, suffer something, for the sake of love:  something real, something they can see and touch.

Sunday afternoon I was at a meeting at my church.  It was a rainy afternoon and there were about 130 people in our fellowship hall, from about a dozen different churches.  There could have been more, but people had many other commitments.  Some were actually setting up for homeless families to stay in our church.  But the meeting at my church was unusual for a couple of reasons.   People were telling stories of their lives, hard stories of juggling jobs and trying to make ends meet, stories of foreclosures with no recourse, stories of people living in fear of being deported.  There were representatives of both Latino and Anglo churches in the room, and they were leading together, and we were listening to each other, stories that could transform us, if we let them.

"Unless I see the marks, I will not believe."

Who can blame him?  Who can blame them?

And where are my marks?  That is what I am asking myself, while I am listening to stories, and praying that I will let them transform me.