The Blue Ridge Parkway

 The first stop on my short sabbatical this summer was Atlanta, where we could spend some quality time with our grandchildren (oh yeah, and the kids) over a couple of weekends.  But during the week, we drove up to Asheville, North Carolina.  Part of me wanted to do something new, but there's another part that always wants to go back to that part of the world, the roads, the hills, the mountains.  We have visited a few times since our son moved to Atlanta for work.  We enjoy the street musicians in Asheville, the food, the Famous Bookstore, and we always drive a little part of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I think at first I wanted to go there because of the history of how it was built.  One year we drove to Mount Mitchell.  Another time we found Mount Pisgah.  This year we looked at the tourist information and decided to find Linville Falls.

We knew we could get there simply by taking the Parkway, but the problem was -- we didn't know how long it would take.  At least, that SEEMED like a problem at the time.  So I did what I have learned to do over the past several years -- I turned on GPS.  All I wanted to do was get an arrival time.  

But GPS had something else in mind.  It gave me directions that took me OFF the Parkway and back on the regular roads.  We decided "oh well" and we went with it.  We were running late anyway.  But we knew that when we got to the area, we would want to find the Falls and the Parkway again, which was slightly challenging, as GPS didn't work some of the time.

I told a clerk at a convenience store my problem, and she said, "GPS doesn't like the Blue Ridge Parkway."  I thought about that.  In other words, GPS will not tell you that you should take the Parkway from Asheville to Linville Falls.  It will give you another route (there were some interesting things on this route as well, thankfully).  

When we finally found the Falls, we hiked around a bit, and decided that we didn't have time to take the Parkway all the way home.  If you have to BE somewhere, it is definitely not the fastest road.   There are many places to stop and get out and look around.  And if you don't do that -- if you don't stop and look -- what's the point?  So for most of the way we took the highway.  But for a little while I wanted to be on the Blue Ridge.  

I just wanted to BE there.  And I thought, as we were driving, and stopping and looking -- maybe that's why GPS doesn't like it.  You don't take the Parkway to GO somewhere.  You take it to BE somewhere.  The road itself is a place.  

There is something holy about that, about considering a road which is not just a means to an end, but an end in itself.  There is something holy about wandering the Blue Ridge Parkway (they call the whole 469 miles "meandering').  So much of life is getting somewhere else -- and not paying attention to where we are right now.  I'm learning about mindfulness, and the Parkway seems like a place to be mindful.

After all, God is where we are right now, as well as up ahead of us, and behind us, and below and above us.  Maybe it's all right to turn off the GPS and just be, pay attention, listen and wonder.  Maybe it's all right to stop at the scenic outlooks, not to be in a hurry all the time.  

I meant to write this earlier but I was too busy, and now my heart is heavy with the devastation that I'm seeing from hurricane Helene, lives and places wrecked, catastrophes everywhere.  But God is where we are right now, here as well.  In grief and work and love.  May we pay attention.

Lost in Translation

 It was back in April, right after Easter, and we were traveling home from Brenham to Montgomery.  Even though we've lived here for awhile now, we still take notice of the geography and the names that we encounter, so different in some ways from the geography and names in our homeland of Minnesota.  I noticed at some point that we were in Brazos County, and that we had traveled over the Brazos River.  We both wondered what "Brazos" meant.  My husband thought that maybe brazes meant brown, because that seemed to be the color of the river, at least from where we could see.  So I did what people do these days:  I googled it.  I googled "Brazos" and discovered that it did not mean "brown."  It was Spanish for "arms."  I thought of all the other words derived from this one:  brace, embrace, bracelet, bracket.  I'm sure there are more.

And then I learned more:  that the full name of the Brazos River is this:  "Rio de los brazos de Dios" -- the River of the Arms of God.  That's what the Spanish explorers called it.  They didn't simply see a body of water, flowing -- they saw something of God -- wide, embracing, stretching out.  Somehow it made the river seem alive to me.  What else was I not noticing?

*****

Then it was July, and I was in Minnesota, a place I know well, or so I think.  We were staying a little north of the Twin Cities, near the City of Anoka, a small historic town that rests on the place where the Rum River flows into the mighty Mississippi.  We walked around the town and peered over the bridges, and drove along the edge of the Rum River, where there were flowering bushes and trees and picnic tables and swings.  I got out of the car and looked around.  I didn't know anything about the Rum River, although I had lived in Minnesota all of my life and knew plenty about the Mississippi and the Minnesota, the St. Croix and the Root Rivers.  So I did what people do these days:  I googled it.  I discovered that the Rum River flows from the great Mille Lacs Lake in north central Minnesota to the Mississippi.  Mille Lacs is French for "thousand lakes".  The Ojibwa people called it "Zaaga'igan" (grand lake), and in Dakota it was called "Bde Wakhan" (Spiritual/Mystic Lake.).  It was a place of spiritual importance, as was the river that flowed out of it. 

The Rum River.  The name is a mistranslation.  When explorers first heard its name, "Spirit River", they thought it meant "spirits" -- like rum.  But it really meant Spirit, as in God.

*****

The River of the Arms of God.  The Spirit River.  The water flows, and shimmers, and gives life.  It is true, what Jacob said.  "Surely God is in this place, and I -- I did not know it."

Contemplative Prayer

 One of the most consequential experiences of my short sabbatical this summer happened almost at the end of my time away.  I had spent a good deal of necessary time with family, both in Atlanta and in Minnesota.  I had finished my certification in Spiritual Direction course in South Carolina, had hiked in areas along the Blue Ridge Mountains, listened to music, and spent a week on the North Shore of Lake Superior, writing and hiking and just being near the water.  There is something about being near water, isn't there?  

At the back of my mind was something I wanted to do in July:  go to contemplative worship one Saturday night at Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church, in Minneapolis.  They offer the Saturday night service twice a month, as part of an emphasis on sabbath.  I had first thought about going on the second Saturday in July, but somehow we got distracted by a River Festival in a small town near my brother's place, so we went there instead.

Kara Root is the pastor of Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church.  Back in 2020, I had read her book "The Deepest Belonging".  Then, this year, she published a follow-up, Receiving This Life, which also tells stories but offers prayers and faith practices as well.  Somewhere along the line I learned that her church offers a contemplative service, and I was genuinely curious.  My time was running out.  I knew I couldn't put it off again.

So we set out for this little church (she often describes it as a "tiny congregation").  Maybe that's one of th reasons I was a little nervous.  I couldn't be anonymous there.  Would they notice us?  How would it feel?

We got to the church a little bit before 5:00 when worship would begin.  I discovered that, due to the heat, they were meeting in their small fellowship hall.  The sanctuary did not have air conditioning.  

And it WAS a small group.  I didn't count, but I think that there may have been twelve people, including us.  We were greeted warmly, and initial awkwardness disappeared during the first few minutes.

I noticed that the small room was filled -- with a couple of floor murals (one was a map of the world, one, I think was a large heart), a stand with candles, a table with notebooks, paper, crayons, playdoh, and some other things.  There were coloring sheets, and there was at least one art display.  There was also an outdoor labyrinth if anyone wanted to go outside in the heat and pray by walking.

The service opened simply, with a few instructions, a prayer, and a little singing without accompaniment.  They were simple songs, and some people sang in harmony (including us!).  The pastor read scripture, someone lead a responsive prayer, and then there were directions about how to use the next half hour for prayer and meditation.  There was one particular station that was new and related to praying for either a current event or based on a sermon theme for the summer (I don't remember which).  

I wondered what to do for a half hour, but my husband settled in quickly with colored pencils and a coloring page with the word "Alleluia" on it.  I walked around for a few minutes, stopping to light a candle at one station, putting a couple of candles on the map for places I wanted to pray for.  I noticed a large heart and then small pieces of paper with names of people and occupations on them -- words like "EMTs", "single parent families", "abuse survivors", "nurses", "teachers","clerks".... and many more.  The large notebooks that I saw earlier had many directions for ways to pray during this free time.  Afterwards, Pastor Kara said that the book had developed organically over time, as they discovered, learned and incorporated prayer practices that worked for them.  There were sheets of papers and pens; one of the options was simply to journal your prayers.  So, for the rest of the time, that is what I did.  I simply wrote my prayers, my worries, my hopes, to God.

Somewhere during this time it occurred to me how odd and wonderful this was:  I wasn't rushing through prayers to get to the next thing.  I was simply allowing myself to sit, and to be, and it didn't feel lazy, it felt full.  I was simply allowing myself to be in the presence of God.  Why don't I do this more often, I thought?   

A bell called us back together for closing prayers and a closing song.  A few people stayed to help clean up the room.  Some people said it was nice to have a couple of Lutherans worshipping with them (possibly because of my husband singing the bass parts).   I introduced myself to Pastor Kara, and told her I had just completed a spiritual direction program.  She said that she was a spiritual director too.

Just one hour.  That's all it was.  But somehow, in just being, in listening, in prayer, God found me.

Openings

 Last week we headed up to the North Shore of Lake Superior for a one part of my sabbatical.  Most specifically, our destination was my friend Anna's retreat, called, "The Spent Dandelion", a place she created to offer respite and reflection time to clergy (and others, I suspect; we all need respite and reflection).  Her place is right on the border of Two Harbors, Minnesota, in the forest and close to the greatest Great Lake.  Besides reflection and respite, one of the virtues of Two Harbors in the summer is a break from the summer heat.  It rarely gets above 75 degrees Fahrenheit and almost no one has air conditioning.

When we drove in Sunday afternoon, Anna was standing in the driveway, waving her arms and pointing us to our designated parking space.  Her husband and their four dogs were also there to welcome us (their cat, not so welcoming).

Almost the first thing Anna did was apologize, though.  It was not 75 degrees.  It was unusually warm for the area that week, and was around 90 as we spoke.  In fact, we had been commenting as we drove north, that we were expecting it to cool down any minute, and it didn't.  Like everyone else, they didn't have air conditioning, but all the windows were open and the fans were going, and they were expecting some "weather" that would cool things off.

Living just north of Houston as we do right now, we are used to hot weather, but also to air conditioning.  So it was a slight disappointment, I'll admit, to go to bed hot, with the fans on and the windows open on both sides of the apartment.  Only the dog didn't mind.  She delighted in looking out the window, and curled up on the bed to sleep.

But during the night, something magical happened.  Indeed, it was just as my host promised.  Some kind of weather came in (although not a huge storm), and the breezes coming through our open window were cool and refreshing.

I remembered this experience from childhood, although I had not felt it for a long time.  In our house growing up, there was no air conditioning, and I remember the windows open at night, box fans in the windows, sleeping with just a sheet on those steamy night.  Then, sometime in the night, the wind would turn, and the air coming in would  be cool and refreshing.

These days it seems like we keep the windows closed most of the time; in the winter, to keep it warm, and in the summer to keep it cool.  I didn't realize how much I  miss the feeling of air coming through open windows.  I didn't realize how much I needed cross-ventilation.

We keep the windows closed for many reasons -- excessive heat and cold, certain noises, the highway is too close, we are distracted by the neighbors, their music and their conversations.  (I remember hearing through the wall a very loud telephone conversation in the middle of the night in my first apartment.)  But I forgot how much we need fresh air, not just cross-ventilation, but cross-fertilization, to be stirred up by the breeze or the music or conversations that float through the air (well, some of them anyway).  I forgot how much I needed fresh air, open windows, open eyes, and ears.  

The open windows reminded me of something else too:  they reminded me of a childhood enchanted with God's presence, in the mysteries of the world, of nature, of all the things I was thirsty to know, and didn't yet.  They reminded me of the stories of scriptures, and the stories in fairy tales, and the stories from the books that I was starting to learn to read.  When did I close the window and learn to live in artificially comfortable temperatures almost all the time?  

I am thinking about this.

I just completed a course on spiritual direction.  Theoretically, I can go and be a spiritual director now.  I am still learning what that means, though.  I am by no means an expert.  I need spiritual direction myself, someone to remind me that the Spirit is out there, and in me, and to open the windows that are closed in me and catch the breeze.  I need someone to remind me to be open to the enchantment that is already in the world.

I think, in its most basic form, this is what spiritual direction is.  It is to remind each other to open the windows in our lives, open the windows to the voice of God in scripture, to open the windows that point to God's presence in tears and shouts, in maple leaves in fall, in red-tailed hawks circling, in the wind.

Turn

 We haven't been up on the North Shore for ten years, I think.  I moved down to Texas in 2015, and although we have visited our family in Minnesota, there hasn't been the time to drive north.  But we used to go, every summer, for three or four days, and take our dog along.  Part of my sabbatical this year was one week on the North Shore at a theological retreat center run by my friend Anna.  It is a place to unwind and relax and get inspiration from the forests and lakes and the cool breezes.  

Of course, it was 90 degrees when we arrived on Sunday afternoon --with no air conditioning, because no one has air conditioning around here.  They promised that the weather would change, though and sometime during that first night, coolness rolled in through the open windows.  It was a feeling I hadn't experienced since my childhood, pre-air conditioning.  Fans in all of the windows, my mom coming into our rooms late in the night and changing the direction of the fans so that they would blow the cool air in instead of blowing the hot air out.  

On Wednesday we had planned to go to Grand Marais.  We had so many good memories there -- hiking trails, eating at restaurants (with our dog), the local artists, the World's Best Donuts (really!).  But some of the places we remembered weren't open (although the fabulous Drury Lane Bookstore was).  However, I couldn't decide which book to buy and ended up leaving empty-handed.

On the way home, we kept looking for places to stop and hike and get good views of the lake.  Inspiration.  That was part of the reason I came, right?  As Anna's tagline goes "Retreat Reflect Restore".  But retreating reflecting and restoring is not a straight line.

We stopped at Tettegouche State Park but decided that wasn't the right place, at least not on Wednesday.  So we continued driving, debating where to stop, until we remembered a Scenic Overlook close to "home", at Silver Creek Cliff.  That is where we stopped, and that is where we walked.  We walked part of the way up and back, because we were already tired.  There is a tunnel there, but it wasn't there until 1994.  Before that, the narrow road ran right along the cliff.  There were spectacular views, but with some unfortunate downsides -- for example, sometimes falling rocks would close the road for days (or perhaps longer.  I don't know).  The tunnel opened in 1994 as well as the walking path, so you can get close to the edge of the cliff (without rocks falling on you).

I walked with my camera out, because I always want to take pictures of what I am seeing, but I was disappointed in every picture I tried to take.  They just weren't spectacular enough, I guess.  But the walking was good, and I did see a monarch butterfly and some milkweed.

Then we got to the part where we decided to turn around.  I don't remember if it was right away, but in my memory it seems like it was.  I turned around, and there it was.  The Lake.

All I had to do was turn around.  Which doesn't seem like such a hard thing to do, but, at the heart of it, that is what repentance is.  Turning.  Turning around.  Returning.  I don't know about you, but when I usually think of repentance, I think of it in my head.  My brain.  My heart. Thinking, or feeling, differently,  But somehow I think that repentance, like faith itself, is really a whole body experience.  No offense to Paul, but we don't just change our minds.  We turn our heads, our bodies, our lives, in a different direction.  

Turn.  That is what Jesus asks us to do, and not just once, but every day.  You never know which moment it will be, when you will turn, and see something different, or see something, or someone, in a different way.  We will be astonished by beauty, by vastness, by grace.  

That is what repentance, that is what turning, does.  It is re-orienting ourselves to God.  But not just our minds.  Our faces, looking up into rain or sunshine. Our backs, leaning over a garden.  Our whole bodies, our whole selves, repent.  And it seems to me that this turning is also at the heart of our lives.  Again and again and again -- we turn.

The Kingdom of heaven has drawn near.

The Power of “Amen”

 It was Saturday afternoon.  I was ready for Sunday, and getting ready to go out of town with my husband on Sunday afternoon, for a quick anniversary trip.  Just overnight. 

I got a text from one of our new members.  If there is such a thing as a “desperate text”, that is what this was.  Her good friend, the man who used to attend church with her and her granddaughter, was dead.  Heartbroken was not a strong enough word for what she was feeling.  I called her.  She wanted to know if it was possible for us to have a funeral the next Friday, even though he had not joined the church.

I said yes.  It didn’t even seem like a hard decision.  She was hurting; how could we not do this for her?  He was her best friend, had been like a father to her granddaughter.  It was even more than that.

And, she said, he had taken his life.  When we met together to discuss music and scripture readings, the first thing she said to me was, “What is a scripture reading that lets people know that a person took his life but he is in heaven?”

I knew my task then.  We chose his favorite songs, and sang Amazing Grace.  I chose Psalm 130, and parts of Romans 8.  And I started to write, or tried to write, a sermon.  I felt the weight of saying the right thing, and not saying the wrong thing.  I didn’t know anyone else who would be there, but this heartbroken, grieving woman.  

I wrote and rewrote and rewrote again.  I think I was afraid of naming the reality because there have been times when people have not wanted the reality named.  The most important thing is to tell the truth.  But it seemed hard.  

So there we were, at 1:00 in the afternoon.  There were a respectable number of people there  on time, but they kept coming during the first part of the service, slipping in and taking a seat.  These were people that this man had worked with at two different jobs.  All of them thought it was important to be there for him, for his family, for each other.  

I remember that my parish member wasn’t sure about having remembrances.  She couldn’t think of anyone who would be able to speak.  I decided to do something a little risky, and invite people to share something they remembered.  Five people raised their hands and stood up and said gracious words about their friend.

Then it was time for me to speak.  By this time our little church was pretty full.  I began.  I shared a couple of memories.  I acknowledged this man’s struggle with depression, and how depression lies, and we were here to tell the truth.  And then I came to the hard part.  I said these words:

“And I am glad you have come here to the church as well, to T’s church, to the place she and K and her granddaughter worshipped.  Because, I am sad to say, there was a time when the church would not have had his funeral in the sanctuary.  There was a time when the church believed that people who took their lives were somehow beyond God’s mercy.  We preached judgment then, instead of grace.  And that makes what you are all dealing with even harder.  

“And so today I want to be very clear — that K was and is a child of God, and that God loves him, knew his pain, and received him as his own.”

It was then I heard it.

AMEN.  

A chorus of voices from the pews.  They said Amen and they kept saying Amen, whenever the grace and mercy of God was proclaimed, whenever words of eternal life invoked.  

AMEN

This is not a common practice in the denomination to which I belong.  But I felt the power of this one word.  The Amen of agreement, the Amen of encouragement, the Amen of radical mercy.

In that moment I felt that the words I was saying were not mine alone, and that the ministry I was offering was also not mine alone.  All of these people who came — they came to grieve, and to receive hope — but they also came as ministers and witnesses to the power of the gospel.

AMEN

After the worship service, the congregation shared food and stories, hugs and tears.  So many people said to us, “Thank you for letting us come here.  Thank you for your welcome.”  The gratitude overwhelmed us.  

But also — I heard so many stories, from this man’s co-workers, stories about all that they shared with one another at work.  These people who worked together were a family, bonded together both by the work they did, but also by dinners and stories and lives they shared.  

I have worked as a pastor for so long that I have forgotten the kind of bonding people can do at work, the ways in which our coworkers can become our family, and even — our church.  A community of support — and faith.

A community of “Amen.”

We can be that for one another.  When we are afraid to tell the whole, hard, and merciful truth.  When we need to name the pain, but also the love.  When we need the mercy of God to be shown in each other’s arms, and eyes, and voices.

Amen.

May we say it, and hear it, and be it, for one another.

  

Make America Godly Again

 It was back in June, and I was shopping for clothes to take on a retreat.  I suppose it was an excuse — do I really need more clothes? — in a nice women’s shop. I had picked out a couple of sale items, when I turned and saw her.  She was wearing a t-shirt that said, “Make America godly Again.”

And immediately I wondered, I wonder what godliness would look like to her?

I didn’t ask.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into a theological discussion right then, and, it was June, and out of the corner of my eye I also spied what I THINK was their tasteful and sort of understated Pride-themed shirt.  It was white but had all kinds of colors woven into it as well.   

The woman’s “godly” t-shirt:  gray.

Maybe this was a coincidence, but it did make me think.

I posted about the incident and my question on facebook.  Some people did ask me why I didn’t ask HER.  Maybe I should have.  But I thought possibly it would have been a longer conversation.

On facebook though, I did get a response that made me think.  One of my friends talked about godliness and how people just went to church more back in the 1940s and 1950s (and even 1960s).  The church where I grew up was full, and, I will admit, I sort of wish that the church was full like that again.

It got me nostalgic for awhile, thinking back on the crowded Sunday School Rooms, and youth group (although I didn’t really like youth group, but that’s another story).  I thought about every Sunday worship and what it sounded like when a lot of people are singing hymns they know and love, together.  Most of the stores weren’t open and there wasn’t much on TV.  If you asked people, almost everyone said they believed in God.

The Good Old Days.

But was that godliness?

I’m older (and still Christian, by the way), but I know some things about the “good old days” that I didn’t when I was growing up.  The good old days weren’t good for everyone.  I just didn’t know about it then.  I didn’t know about segregation.  My northern suburb didn’t really have any people of color.  I didn’t know about lynching.  I didn’t know that people thought it was somehow godly to bar the doors of their churches and not let people of color worship with them.  It was considered godly to have separate schools and separate water fountains.  

But everybody went to church.  And believed in God.

So “Make America Godly Again?”  How do we know we were godly before?  How are we even defining godliness?  What is our criteria for godliness anyway?

When I think back on my childhood, (and frankly, even parts of my adulthood), I think I defined godliness as what I wasn't supposed to do -- drink, smoke, swear, be too familiar with the opposite sex before marriage,  My grandparents also included dancing and playing cards (they believed it was a sin to use face cards and we only played Rook.)  So godliness was a sort of respectability, although that turned out in some cases to be outward respectability.  And perhaps, in some cases, that included going to church.  

I still remember my aunt telling me once, when I talked to her about the "good old days" in her hometown and home church, about men being active in church, that she replied, "And then they went home and beat their wives."

So, "make America godly again?"  I have mixed feelings.  I would want to know what the definition of godliness was.  I would want to know what the criteria was.  I would hope that rather than barring the doors and keeping people out, true godliness would include mercy and wide welcome.  It would include seeing the image of God in one another, and even the stranger.  You know, like Jesus, who hung around with sinners and accepted dinner invitations from them.

I think as well that I would be careful about wearing a "Make America Godly Again" t-shirt.   If I did, it wouldn’t be gray.  It would be all the colors.  Godliness would be vibrant, with open arms.  Godliness would rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.  Godliness would laugh, and sing.  And be humble.  Godliness would have room for more people, not fewer, because it would be based on the huge surprise of grace.