Advent Light

Light that finds me always, come find me now - the night is so dark.

- Prayer chant recorded by Stephen Iverson

They say that the light shines brightest in the deepest darkness.  If that is true, then this Advent provides the perfect climate for light spotting.  The news is so dark...

...and yet it is Advent - my favorite time of year.  I begin preparing for this paradoxical season of exuberant joy and silent stillness - biting cold and radiating warmth - of deep darkness and brilliant light - early in November.  First I place my annual order for Advent and pillar candles from Honey Candles in BC - an amazing boutique candle maker that creates bee-friendly all-beeswax candles with a warmth and clarity of light that takes my breath away. (A grateful shout out to Pat who makes sure the candles arrive in time - even if my order is placed in stages as it was this year).  Getting the candles ready for the First Sunday of Advent is pure joy, as is lighting that first candle and chanting O Come, O Come Emmanuel - an annual ritual that I have repeated for almost fifty years.

We become what we do again and again.

I use a pillar in my home office to remind those who come for spiritual guidance of the unseen One who is ultimately our Companion and Guide.  I try to start each Advent with a new pillar - new season, new candle, new beginning - nice symbol.   This year as I prepared the room for Advent I decided to light the old and worn pillar one last time before putting what was left of it in the box of candle scraps to go to the Monastery for their candle-making ministry.  Although distracted with many tasks, I felt that quiet inner prompting that is like a gentle hand on my shoulder drawing my attention back to the candle.  I sat down and looked - really looked.

It was so beautiful.  Despite being old and worn, the quality of light was incredible.  I sat soaking in the light and allowed awe to envelop me.  Such a profound moment emerged from an old and worn candle!  

Many lessons could be drawn from this experience.  I smiled and felt the warmth of hope.

Yes - the news is dark and some days reads like apocalyptic fiction.  And for many so much is uncertain.  There is great suffering both today and anticipated for many in the future.  And yet in the midst of this darkness the light shines.  

God promises us that the light is here - it shines in the darkness and is not overcome. Our Advent tasks start with being light-spotters - to look with expectant longing for every flicker of light's flame.  

Where did you spot the light today?  Where were you warmed by its flame?  Yesterday was the Christmas Pageant and the light shining from the children was incredible (including all the little sheep who quickly discovered that a circular sanctuary with many aisles creates handy sheep escape routes).  Bright light - pure joy.

Once we are reassured and refreshed by this light, then we can undertake Advent's second task of being light bearers in our dark world.

Remember, kind actions - more than anything else - cause the soul

to shine with brilliance.

- Gertrude the Great

This year I chose a Christmas card designed by Mary Southard, CSJ (Ministry of the Arts) called Visitation as my prayer companion for Advent.  The image of three women enveloped in the light who then, with others, become the light lifts my soul on these dark, cold days.  The words within the card proclaim our Advent Mission:

May we be a people of light bringing peace and love to all the world.

Stop.  Look.  See.  Be what you see.  

Shine!

Advent blessings,

Kim                                                                               

Compassion Enlarged

The scenes from the disaster in Texas and the Gulf Coast are horrific.  It is difficult to fathom the scale of the disaster.  The media, skilled at bringing us the human story, provides us with names and faces and images that haunt us. And where no images are available, skilled wordsmiths paint verbal pictures that leave us overwhelmed and heartsick - like the toddler in the flood waters who clung to the body of her dead mother until she was rescued.

We watch.  We cry.  We feel sick.  We want to help.  We reach out and make a donation of whatever we can knowing that these people are family - we want to help.  

Those with sensitive hearts are wise to minimize exposure to the news - it can be overwhelming.  But we must be careful not to shield our hearts from the pain in the world.  Our hearts are meant to crack wide open in moments like this.  That's what causes them to enlarge so they can hold more compassion...which is desperately needed...because Texas is not the only place of brokenness in our world.  

Our hearts need to enlarge so that along with compassion for the suffering along the Gulf Coast we can find compassion and presence for the 16 million people impacted by the devastating floods across South Asia.  16 million people.  More than 1,200 people have been killed in these floods - 500 in the Indian State of Bihar alone.  Tens of thousands are displaced.  But unlike our neighbors in Texas, there are no people telling their stories.  In fact, when I went on the BBC website to look for information about the floods in Asia, it was buried under stories of a cash crisis, doctors fighting in an operating room, the infamous India rapist guru, and reports of a TV show taken off the air in India because of the controversy surrounding its "unusual love story."  Finally I found the story Toddlers Killed in Mumbai Rains - and it linked me to more information about the incredible loss and devastation happening in that part of the world...to our neighbors...our human family.

The Sierra Leone mudslides and floods that killed hundreds within the past two weeks has fallen completely off the news cycle.  

Both NPR and the BBC carried cautionary stories today about how the world focuses on what is happening in Houston and forgets what happens in Asia and Africa.  There are fears expressed by international aid agencies that people will donate towards the victims whose stories we know (America) and forgot those whose stories are never told (the rest of the world).  There is a fear that our hearts are only so big - that compassion fatigue will set in and the most vulnerable will be forgotten.  Again.

As followers of Jesus we are meant to be broken-hearted.  Our hearts are meant to be cracked wide open - enlarged - healed (again and again and again and again) until they can contain compassion enough for the suffering of the world.  Because we live in privilege and have access to the names and tragic stories of the people (and pets) facing catastrophic loss in our neighborhood of America we must not limit the scope of our compassionate response to what we know and what is familiar.  As Christians we are global citizens - our neighborhood is bigger than America.  Disasters in Asia happen to our family.  Catastrophes in Africa impact our relatives.  Until we can see and respond as citizens of this amazing but ailing planet we will never - and I mean never - have the vision necessary to truly address the global systemic issues that impact all life on our planet.  

Warming oceans enhance the frequency and severity of these weather events.  We share the same oceans and planet - we are all in this together.

Natural disasters impact the poor the most.  Those with privilege have options the poor lack.  We see glimpses of this in Texas.  But when we look at this on a global scale, those who are poor in Texas have access to resources that flood victims in Bangladesh do not.  Our hearts need to be big enough for the suffering in Texas and in Bangladesh.  Our will needs to be fixed on changing the systemic inequities that keep the poor living in the most vulnerable places with the fewest resources.  I am a pet lover and was deeply relieved to see the Humane Society rescuing pets from flooded homes in Houston.  But if we have the will and ingenuity as a people to see that pets are rescued from the flood waters and taken to shelters (and that the animals already in those shelters are flown to other cities to make room for the animals displaced by the flood waters in Texas), we surely can have the will and creativity to see that people whose stories we will never know - who face hardships we cannot begin to fathom - have the resources they need to find safety and the necessities to live a life of dignity.

Please - open your heart to the suffering in Texas.  Do what you can to alleviate the suffering of our nearby neighbors on the Gulf Coast.  But when you make your donation to the UCC (Wind and Flood Disaster Harvey) or the Red Cross or Save the Children or the Humane Society, don't stop there.  Make a matching donation for the other flood victims whose stories we have not heard.  Give to the IFRC (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies) or Doctors Without Borders or any of the UN Relief Agencies.  By doing this you are acknowledging through your actions what we believe in our hearts:  that our neighbors in Texas are beloved children of God -  as are our neighbors who are flood victims in India or Sierra Leone.  We may not have easy access to their stories, but that does not make them any less deserving of our compassionate response.

May our hearts shatter in the face of such tragedy.  May our healing tears water the pieces of our hearts and help them to mend enlarged and able to hold more compassion.  May we see this beloved world and all its inhabitants through God's eyes of love.  And may we act accordingly.

Heartbroken and hope-filled,

Kim

Unhooking From the Defibrillator

Is this really happening?  I find myself shocked by something I read, see or hear in the morning news, conclude that I am now permanently unshockable, only to re-shocked all over again - sometimes in the course of minutes!  It is like being hooked up to a defibrillator that fires randomly but repeatedly.  Is there such a thing as shock fatigue?  Never did I think I would see unmasked white men in self-styled militia uniforms carrying weapons, lit torches and Nazi flags as they marched through the streets of an American city chanting anti-Semitic verses as if it were the most normal thing in the world to do on a Friday night.  In America.  In 2017.  Unmasked - unafraid.  Emboldened by the atmosphere present in our nation.  Never did I expect to see that in my lifetime.  

But here we are - punch drunk by the pace, chaos and intensity of the events happening in our nation and world.  If pastoral merit badges were given for the tendency to over-think an issue, I would have too many badges to fit on my stole.  Not that thinking things through is bad - in fact, a little more thought and a little less talk/tweets would help several national and global crises.   But one place where over-thinking has no place is in our condemnation of racism, hate speech and violence.  

It is wrong for white men carrying torches and weapons to reprise the worst of white supremacist/nationalist/KKK behavior - protected under the guise of free speech.  Spewing racist  hate speech to provoke and intimidate others is no more free speech than is shouting Fire to create panic and casualties in a crowded theater.  Intent matters.

It is wrong for white citizens to turn away and think it is a "Southern" problem or "African American problem" when each of us benefits from institutional/systemic racism.  

It is wrong for citizens to minimize or ignore anti-Semitic hate speech.

It is wrong for us to "normalize" or "soften" racist rhetoric and hate speech by re-branding it as "alt-right" and seeing it a reasonable alternative within civil discourse.  

It is wrong for our leaders to use racist or hate speech themselves or to set up false equivalencies that weaken the stand they must take against racism and hate speech in all its forms.  I do not condone violence and hatred as a way to address violence and hatred.   But there is no moral equivalency between the KKK/White Supremacists reprising the worst of the intimidation tactics they historically used and the Antifa counter-protesters who engaged them.  Again, I do not support violence as a means to address violence and hatred - it is like using gasoline to put out a fire.  But the two entities are not the same.  The end-game of Neo-Nazi rhetoric is the genocide of whichever identified group is in their sights.  It cannot and must not go unchallenged.  It must not be normalized. It must be called out for what it is and not prettied up with verbal cosmetics.  Leaders who refuse to call it out forfeit the legitimacy of their leadership.  

I can't believe that, in 2017, I feel the need to write it is wrong for citizens to minimize or ignore anti-Semitic hate speech.  Or it is wrong for our leaders to use racist or hate speech themselves.  Isn't this a given?  Not any more.  

So how do we unhook from the defibrillator and engage in transformative action?  I have no simple answers, but can suggest some steps that I have found to be helpful:

1 & 5.  Name and confront racism, hate speech and violence in a nonviolent and hate-free way.  Work with your gifts and abilities in whatever way you can to eliminate these poisons from our society.  Otherwise, you participate in normalizing them.

The quickest way for these poisons to take root in society is for them to go unchallenged.  Without a quick response, their roots go deeper and they are harder to uproot.  This response must be strong, clear, and itself rooted in nonviolence that is free from hatred.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has produced a helpful publication called Ten Ways to Fight Hate which we have posted on the Boise First UCC website:

http://www.boisefirstucc.org/what-s-happening/ten-ways-to-fight-hate

2.  Educate - Educate - Educate

The only way we can address the racism and hate speech endemic in our country is to understand its roots and the ways in which it was created and is perpetuated - understanding the systems and structures that fuel not only racism, but also white supremacy.  Understanding the historical/cultural context in which both arise provides tools for intervention.

3.  Self/Community Reflection

From that place of contextual understanding we can then look at ourselves and our communities to see how we, intentionally or unintentionally, perpetuate racism and hatred.  For example, I am white and of European descent and come from a working-class family with parents who believed that their relative poverty was due to unfair advantages given to immigrants and peoples of color.  This was not true, but it was what they believed.  When I understand the context of how and why my parents saw the world this way, I can then take steps to address the biases I internalized as a child.

I do not want to be racist and work hard to not think and behave in racist ways.  But I was raised with biases and privilege that cause me to make micro-assessments that are filtered through bias and privilege.  Since this happens initially outside of my awareness, does that give me a Get Out of Racist Jail Free card?  Absolutely not!  I can not undo the biases programmed into my mind, but I can take responsibility for them and learn to spot them when they are active.  Education and awareness are critical for all white Americans so we can take responsibility for the ways in which we perpetuate racism.  And it is also a key for understanding what fuels white supremacy and the subtle ways it is legitimized.

We also need to do this reflection as Christians.  For example, I grew up being taught that Christians were God's chosen people and that only Christians would go to heaven - everyone else was destined for hell.  Christian exceptionalism has caused hatred and violence and emboldened our ancestors to launch Crusades, commit genocide and steal lands already occupied by others.  It fueled the American exceptionalism that haunts our nation today.  As Christians, we live with and benefit from that legacy while continuing to perpetuate it.

Our sacred scriptures include verses that support Christian exceptionalism as well as anti-Semitism, anti-Judaism, slavery, and the oppression of women, non Christians, the disabled and those who identify as LGBTQ.  The authors of the Gospels, written decades after Jesus lived in Palestine, cast him as antagonistic to Judaism and murdered by the Jewish people  - despite the fact that Jesus was an observant Jewish teacher who many historians believe sought to be a reforming prophetic presence within Judaism (not the creator of a new religion) - who was executed by the Romans. The Revised Common Lectionary omits the most offensive passages from Sunday worship (like telling slaves to be obedient to their masters and women to be obedient to men) but still includes frequent anti-Semitic references.  It should stop us in our tracks when we realize that what we often read aloud during worship we would NEVER say in public or polite conversation.  Will Christianity writ large ever address this hypocrisy?  Will we?

Ouch - that hits close to the bone.

Perhaps acknowledging the ways in which we participate in the behaviors we rightly condemn in others will help us to have compassion for those engaged in the cycle of hate and violence.

Compassion does not mean condoning - but it does lay the groundwork for possible conversation and engagement with those actively perpetuating racism and hate speech -  if that can be done in a safe setting.  A counter-protest is not the setting in which that can happen.

4.  Integration

Integrating our words and actions with our values is difficult work - but also holy work!   Having integrity does not mean being perfect or having all the answers.  It does, however mean being aware and willing to learn and grow - and aligning our words and actions with our values.

Having integrity in our witness is key.  Otherwise, we followers of Jesus are like the angry parent who slaps their son for hitting his brother while saying "don't you ever hit him again!" Or the person who screams at the top of their lungs "I TOLD YOU TO BE QUIET!"  

A witness without integrity has no power.

1 & 5.  Name and confront racism, hate speech and violence in a nonviolent and hate-free way.  Work with your gifts and abilities in whatever way you can to eliminate these poisons from our society.  Otherwise, you participate in normalizing them.

The quickest way for these poisons to take root in society is for them to go unchallenged.  Without a quick response, their roots go deeper and they are harder to uproot.  This response must be strong, clear, and itself rooted in nonviolence that is free from hatred.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has produced a helpful publication called Ten Ways to Fight Hate which we have posted on the Boise First UCC website:

http://www.boisefirstucc.org/what-s-happening/ten-ways-to-fight-hate

*****

In the face of our current national climate, I totally understand the desire to dig a hole, crawl in and pull the hole in after you.  But I am also heartened by the courage I hear expressed by others - people who are finding their voices and speaking truth clearly and from a place of integrity.

May we feel the feelings - the anger/rage - the fear - the disgust - the disbelief - the sense of being overwhelmed - but not act from a place of verbal or physical violence or hatred.  May we let our strong feelings tell us how serious the situation is and how high the stakes are.  May we use that energy to educate and to integrate our beliefs and values with our words and actions as partners with God in the ministry of truth and transformation.

It is time to unhook from the defibrillator and get to work.

Pressing on with hope,

Kim 

We'll see - or - Equanimity as a Lenten Discipline

In my previous post I celebrated a successful operation, reboot and mused about what kind of Lenten journey this reboot might provide.  I was excited about the prospects of Lent based in joy and gratitude and had so many ideas about where this spiritual journey might take me.

None of those ideas included coming down with a post-operative infection!  It started two weeks ago Friday when I noticed I felt a bit "off."  Then the next day I felt very sleepy and even more "off" - something was not right.  Then on Sunday I could see what was wrong as my belly became angry red and began to swell.  Post-op infection.  

I was fortunate to have great medical care - the kind you can easily access when you have the privilege (in our society) of medical insurance.  But even with great care and some slow and steady improvement, small surgical interventions were necessary to get ahead of the infection.  I felt so sick the first week that my memories are a blur.  By week two I was feeling just a little bit better.  Since the surgical interventions the pace of progress has accelerated.  The wound-v.a.c. is helping the antibiotics to get ahead of the infection.  I can feel the difference.  Phew!

What impact did this have on my Lenten observance?   I haven't opened my beloved devotionals in two weeks.  Prayer time became very basic and a bit primal - no strength for the daily offices.  A major problem has a way of stripping down a situation to its essentials - no room for anything extraneous.  I have discovered that this is one of the gifts that problems bring us.  They also help us to prioritize what really matters and get back to our bottom line.

But to clarify:  I do not believe God brings problems into our lives in order to help us simplify and prioritize.  I do, however, believe that God works with the "stuff" of life in whatever form it takes.  And unlike the miller's daughter, God regularly spins straw into gold.

The infection left me with feelings of being helpless and out of control.  No matter what I did (or agreed to do) it didn't seem to be making things that much better.  I have grown accustomed to living in a world where often medical interventions make an immediate positive difference.  Hearing that something is going to take time brings me no comfort at all - especially when I do not feel well.  It was at this point that I accepted that Lent was also out of my control.  It would take whatever form it took.

And so it did - very quietly.  While having a procedure in the Interventional Radiology Department, I found myself trying not to focus on my pain.  Very quietly my heart reminded me of the practice of Tonglen - that wonderful Tibetan meditation/prayer form that teaches you to take your personal pain and use it as a way to identify with all those in the world experiencing pain right now.  You draw in their pain with your inbreath, and exhale peace and relief to all who are suffering.  This was a practice I always wanted to explore in greater depth - and here was the perfect classroom.  Tonglen in Interventional Radiology.  Tonglen in the Procedure Room at my surgeon's office.  Tonglen for Lent.  Paul Knitter would smile and understand.

Recently while watching some political satire I remembered the United Worship Service we shared with our Buddhist neighbors on the eve of the Presidential Election in 2016.  We talked much that night about equanimity - and I reflected on how this virtue has received scant attention in popular Christian literature.  The Apostle Paul touches on it briefly and Jesus appears to have lived it.  But it is not a Top Tier Virtue in the Progressive Christian Lexicon.  And yet here I was living deeply into this notion of equanimity.  Aside from taking my antibiotics and following my surgeon's advice, there was little else I could do to move this forward.  It would take as long as it takes and much of that was outside of my control.  Can I lean into equanimity with this infection?  With the circumstances of life?  With my ministry?  Can I explore the virtue of equanimity and see how it fits for a follower of Jesus?  Can I live that Buddhist story of the Zen Master, the Boy and the Horse with an open mind and heart and see where this all of this takes me?  

We'll see...   : )

Kim

The Zen Master, the Boy and the Horse (this version is taken from the website The Buddhaful Tao):

In this village, a little boy is given a gift of a horse. The villagers all say, “Isn’t that fabulous? Isn’t that wonderful? What a wonderful gift.”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.”

A couple years later the boy falls off the horse and breaks his leg. The villagers all say, “Isn’t that terrible? The horse is cursed! That’s horrible!”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.”

A few years later the country goes to war and the government conscripts all the males into the army, but the boy’s leg is so screwed up, he doesn’t have to go. The villagers all say, “Isn’t that fabulous? Isn’t that wonderful?”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.”

The Great Reboot

It is March 1st - I know this because since my operation a week ago Monday, I keep a note page for each day so I can track significant details.  March 1st is important because it is the anniversary of my beginning ministry with the church I currently serve.  That was back in 2009 - The First Sunday in Lent.  This year March 1st is the First Day of Lent - Ash Wednesday.

I have confessed in previous posts to leaning more toward Advent than Lent.  But this year I decided to give Lent my full attention - to see if I could be open to the spiritual lessons and growth for which this season is known.  Of course my equation did not include spending the first part of Lent recovering from surgery.

Surprise!

And yet here I am on Ash Wednesday - away from all the traditions and tasks that have brought such meaning to my soul in the past.  I love how the Sisters at St. Gertrude's taught me to fuse the reminder of mortality (Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return) with a reminder of the cosmos (From stardust you come, and to stardust you shall return).  Nice.  I will not be in church tonight fusing anything - another will lead worship.  

So instead of doing what I have done for decades, I spent Ash Wednesday outdoors.  I took myself for a gentle walk.  I watched hawks soar and neighborhood dogs protect their property (the two black labs barking frantically at their fence calmed right down when they were told that they were "such good puppies" for protecting their back yard).  I talked with several pets and smiled at a dozen strangers (all smiled back).  I have lived here since 2009 and have never walked in my neighborhood.  And when you take your time, there is much to see!

The sun felt so warm, reminding me that the origin of the word Lent is the word spring.  It has been a cold and dark winter for so long...but spring always returns.  Always.

My winter began in the summer of 2014.  In the midst of a perfect storm of circumstances I required emergency surgery.  It did not go well - either because the surgeon was minimally competent but  having a very bad day, or less charitable reasons that I prefer not to explore.  The aftermath was a quality of life that rated negative numbers on a ten point scale.  I have been working with an extremely competent surgeon since June of last year, taking steps to be as healthy as possible in order to get this mess fixed.  We had planned on doing the surgery possibly as early as Summer of '17.  But circumstances changed dramatically and she decided the time for intervention was NOW.

I went into the procedure terrified, using my experience from 2014 as the template for my expectations.  After scaring myself silly, I decided that the only thing I had control over was the lens through which I viewed this experience - and the fear lens was not getting me anywhere good.  Instead, I picked up the grace lens and took a deep breath.

My fears did not totally subside, but I was able to relax and notice the web of love that was holding me.  My team of doctors did an amazing job - fixing the unintended consequences of the previous surgery and giving me back my life.  Today, a short ten days after surgery, I feel better than I have felt in years:  Me 2.0

I plan to keep the grace lens in place for Lent - leaning into some of the spiritual disciplines that have always sustained me while actively looking through the lens of grace as I go through my day - and being open to the new that will emerge.  I suspect that this Lenten journey will be very different from any previous one:  Lent 2.0

I shared my vision of Me 2.0 with a dear colleague who had a very clever response:  Runs much smoother.  Fewer glitches and security breaches.  Additional power and memory capacity.  It will fly off the shelf!

...and if that is an accurate description of my reboot, I can't wait to see what Lent 2.0 is like!

With love, gratitude and grace for the journey,

Kim

Trials

The word itself sounds foreboding.  It does not evoke images of sunshine and bunny rabbits.  Instead, it conjures up unpleasant ideas of an adversarial courtroom drama or some specific set of circumstances that one finds to be - well, trying.

Trials are certainly not the subject of Epiphany - the day we would have celebrated at church yesterday had it not been for continued extreme weather.  So no choruses of We Three Kings and presentation of our gifts for the people of Honduras (two members of our community are leaving on Thursday for a medical mission to the poorest of the poor in Honduras and we planned on bringing specific needed items to offer as gifts - like the Magi - so they could take them on their mission trip).

No church - no chance to share our gifts (right now) - no leaving the house.  Sigh.

I have a bench near the big picture window in my breakfast nook - it is a cozy place for me to sit and read whilst looking out at the beauty of creation.  I often pray there.  Late Sunday morning I found my way to the bench (with devotionals in hand) to have a time of reading and prayer and gazing at the beauty of creation.  I watched the heavy snow - then rain - then sleet - then more snow - then torrential rain falling outside of my window.  For an area that sees little precipitation, we were certainly cracking any remaining records!

I was moved by the Epiphany reflection offered by Richard Gaillardtz (a professor at Boston College)  entitled The Great Manifestation (which is what the word Epiphany means).  He writes:

The feasts of Nativity (Christmas) and Epiphany are bound together.  Christmas invites our contemplation of the mystery of the Incarnation:  God became human in Jesus of Nazareth.  With the feast of Epiphany the camera view widens to take in a range of human responses to the Incarnation.  Perhaps these epiphanies led the wise men, the witnesses to Jesus' baptism, and the wedding guests at Cana to recognize that they need not escape the world to find God; God had come to them.  If Christmas celebrates the Incarnation, Epiphany calls forth the spiritual habits of recognition.  Do we have the spiritual vision to identify the humble and unexpected epiphanies occurring daily in our own lives?  Are we as driven as the wise men to seek out the presence of God in the embrace of our spouse or child, in the face of an annoying coworker, in the panhandler on the street corner?

What a great call to us for this Season of Epiphany - to seek out the presence of God who is always in our midst!  It is easy to experience God in those sunshine and bunny rabbit moments - with butterflies and rainbows rounding out the picture.  But what about seeking God in the harder places (like the annoying coworker or the challenging circumstances that sweep into our lives like a whirlwind - unbidden and unwelcome).  Can we seek God in the ordinary stuff of life - good or bad?  Is God always present - and when we are unaware of God's presence is that due to God's absence or our lack of perception?

After my prayer time I continued to ponder these ideas as I worked on some paperwork...until I heard the first loud drip...followed by another...until the drips quickly joined together to resemble a mini Niagara Falls coming from the ceiling above me (and above my computer)!  By the time I moved furniture and found my bucket, the one leak had grown into three main leaks - one of which was pouring through my overhead light.  Water was coming in everywhere!

Now I don't know about you, but I am a one bucket household.  The race was now on to find large enough bucket substitutes that I could lift and empty.  The next few hours were a blur as the rain kept falling inside and outside my house.  I was wet - cold (the heating was working just fine but I felt frozen) - and frustrated.  Having just put a new roof on the house last year, this was not in the plan!

There were moments of tears as well as moments of using my expanded vocabulary - the one I reserve for moments when I am only overheard by family or close friends.  To say I was feeling discouraged was an understatement.

Then I remembered the reading from earlier today - what would it be like to seek God even in the challenging circumstances of life?  This certainly was challenging - what if I changed my focus from my frustration to looking for God?

I would like to tell you that as I had this epiphany the heavens immediately closed the doors to the firmament and thus stopped the rain from falling - or that I heard the faint chorus of angels as the water stopped pouring from my ceiling.  Or (even better) - a legion of brooms and buckets appear a la the Sorcerer's Apprentice, but the water they fetch is inside my house and they carry it outside to be dumped down the storm drain (I can get quite imaginative when wet, cold and frustrated).  But of course none of those things happened.

What did happen is that my attitude changed - my stress level dropped - my sense of humor returned - as did my perspective.  The water was still coming in - but I was in a better place to deal with it.  By focusing on where God was present now I found myself supported - upheld - and just a little bit peaceful.  And God was present - just not how I expected...or wanted (with dancing brooms carrying buckets).

It is impossible to escape trying situations - trials come to us all and sometimes they require multiple buckets!  Often they come without invitation or explanation and are completely outside of our control.  Sometimes they are the direct results (or unintended consequences) of our decisions.  But whatever brings these trials into our lives, we can use them as opportunities to practice the spiritual disciplines that transform our hearts and world.  And that brings us to another definition of the word trial: To test something to assess its suitability or performance.  Trials give us a chance to test the values and behaviors we say we believe in.  We can then assess what is working or what needs to be discarded or rethought - or what just needs more practice.

Thoughts from a one bucket gal living through a three bucket situation -
Kim

Traveling to Bethlehem

I have fond holiday memories of helping my Grandmother set up her mother's creche (nativity set) on her mother's sewing cabinet.  Although Great Grandma's creche was lost in the confusion of Grandma's final years of life,  I can still set up my beloved creche on her mother's sewing cabinet - an old family tradition continued.

I remember being at Grandma's house and having to get up on a chair in order to set each piece where it was meant to go.  I loved hearing the story of that first night in Bethlehem and the birth of baby Jesus.  In my imagination I would ponder what it might be like to be present for that first Christmas night.  As a teen I longed to travel to the actual city of Bethlehem and pray at the spot where Jesus was born.  That dream was abandoned many years ago but the longing to go to Bethlehem revisits me each year as Christmas approaches.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I was spending the end of Advent and Christmas Eve in Bethlehem!

I first noticed my relocation on the Tuesday before Christmas.  I was visiting with a beloved member of this congregation when suddenly a choir of angels began to sing - filling that cold winter's day with warmth and love (and tears)!  I immediately recognized Bethlehem in their songs of love.  Then I thought back to the recent weeks and saw Mary and Joseph in the loving parents and grandparents who were nurturing our young ones - and in the little ones I saw the Christ child so clearly!  So many kind people step up to be helpful before Christmas - shepherds one and all!  On Christmas Eve the Magi visited us in the form of Jewish and Muslim neighbors who assisted in our nursery so our youngest ones were cared for on Christmas Eve.  As the electric lights dimmed and candlelight spread throughout the darkened church, I knew I was standing on sacred ground - the holy place where Christ was born...

...because Christ is born anew in each tender act of love and mercy.  And when we participate in them or witness them - we are in Bethlehem!  

I do not believe that traveling to Bethlehem need be limited to the time surrounding Christmas.  I have a hunch - and a hope - that each act of love and mercy will take us there.  Even now I feel the cold of the night warmed by the breath of the animals while a wee baby sleeps in their feed trough.  A bright star lights up the night sky - may we navigate by its light as we become God's peacemakers in this crazy and wonderful world.  And may we heed the voices of the angels who tell us to be not afraid!  

Let's go share some good tidings of great joy - God is with us - each and all of us!

A very Merry Christmas and Blessed New Year,

Kim