What It Means to Show Up, Die, and Live Again
In a pandemic, we perceive the days differently. We take our steps more slowly, each task different from the “norm” as we work from home. As we do e-Learning with our kids. As we think about what will change in a world that is attempting to make sense of everything that has happened since mid-March.
And even in the strangeness of augmented routines, we sense an invitation to arrive. Each day. We show up.
Some Words In The Silence
When it comes to COVID-19 we want words that tell us that everything will be normal again. Our deep desire is to wake up to hear words – miracle words – that the “curve” now looks more like Kansas than Appalachia.
In the silence, we surrender the words because we are there to surrender the outcomes.
Photo by davide ragusa on Unsplash
Post-Its, Dinner Tables, and the Search for Awe
In the stay-at-home season that is COVID-19, we like many others are eating all of our meals at home. As a family, we’ve always had a high value for eating together. Now without the option of eating out, our table is carrying a great deal more weight.
During one of our walks, my wife and I discussed how easy it is in this pandemic to be overcome. The weight of unemployment numbers, financial projections, and the stories of health workers crash like tidal waves on our souls.
It is difficult to stand under the weight of it all.
So, Holley came up with an idea. Each night as we sat down to dinner we would talk about one thing from the day that brought us joy or hope, or something that was beautiful. Each of us responds and we write down those responses on a small card.
What It Means to Be Still
The lesson for this quarantine season feels very clear: The only way through is to go in - deeper and deeper, whatever may come. God is with us - never leaves us or forsakes us. I believe that. And I am also unsteady from time to time.
For me, it isn’t either “faith or fear.” It is that God longs for us so much that to live with God is to live with faith AND fear in a delicate dance. It is believing while we’re scared, anxious, and unsettled.
But how?
The One About A Wedding And A Pandemic
In a time of upheaval, we find light in the most peculiar of happenings.
I had to let a lovely couple, Ross and Vanessa, know that with the COVID-19 pandemic I couldn’t officiate their wedding in person. The venue they booked for their wedding had already cancelled, but we were in the midst of brainstorming other possibilities.
Then, other considerations emerged. An anticipated state-wide “stay at home” order. I recognized a need for all us wobbling humans to be wise instead of invoking our rights. Finally, closing of our church campuses to all non-essential activity decimated our creativity.
Or so we thought.
(thumbnail photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
It's Okay to Need
Admitting that we need things humbles us because it shows that we aren’t all powerful. Knowing what we need also puts us in the place of examining the why of our need and the feasibility of that need being met at all.
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Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash
Ash Wednesday and What We Do With Limits
This is Ash Wednesday. It isn’t a morbid call to think about our death, though that’s not a horrible thing to do. The ashes also don’t call us to overwhelming amounts of guilt around the crucifixion, though that is also a fitting line of thinking.
Ultimately, Ash Wednesday invites us to enter into our limits.
a promise before departing
This week, I head off the grid for a bit. So, today's note reflects that reality. It is brief, but hopefully helpful for you today.
Photo by Jakub Sejkora on Unsplash
it can always rain harder
The goal of formation is to be ready for the rain. It is to steady ourselves spiritually for the days when absurdity is all we can see. Formation through the Scriptures of lament, complaint, and whatever-in-the-world-Ecclesiastes-is give us language for the rain.
Photo by Antony Xia on Unsplash
Finding Saints Beyond My Boundaries (BONUS POST)
A bonus post (for regular readers) on boundaries and finding ancient saints - like St. Teresa of Avila - who push us beyond them.
Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash
The Story About My Tattoo
“There are days when we need to be reminded of where we are and who we are. We are made in the image of the Holy, given places and experiences and relationships in which we find out what it means to interact with the God-with-us in all of it.”
A story about my tattoo and why we all need a reminder of the “holy” all around us.
Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash
Let The Story Be
Chances are, just like Joseph, we are the signposts stating that God is with people who aren’t always operating at the highest and most beautiful level. Yet he is with them all the same.
That is what the story is. We should let it be.
Photo by Nigel Tadyanehondo on Unsplash
speaking the language of the team
The language we use for the things that give us joy, that bring us pain, the way we talk about our challenges and struggles, they all draw an outline around the figure of our soul as we move through space. We often take these teachings to apply to individual speech acts. What I say, what my child says, what I respond to – and yet it has to be bigger than that. And it is.
Because we always learn our words in community.
watching for blue finches
A blue finch shows up and we may or may not see it. Sometimes we are blinded by the suffering, desperately searching for answers or a way out, and we are unable to turn and notice the beauty at our side. The divinity on display in a shade of blue that was sourced from a pallet that only exists on the other side of eternity.
Photo by Stefan Steinbauer on Unsplash
we are made to be known.
My wife Holley spent the spring entry period battling a wicked sinus infection, a fact she shared with the walking parents in our neighborhood who pass by every morning with bleary-eyed kids in tow, headed to school. Our daughter, tall and wild and graceful, steps out the door as well to join the fray.
The weeks passed and antibiotics did their due diligence, until standing on the porch one morning a walking parent – a mom that we talked to often – saw us and said:
“Are you feeling better?”
Behind this perceived pleasantry is a hint of something more. We are part of a network, a neighborhood of houses and lives and spirits. Our kids go to the same school and we share geography, taxes, and sidewalks.
In that moment, a great secret was revealed: we were in some sense known.
(Photo by Justin Luebke on Unsplash)
Friday Randomness
Writing a weekly blog can be a tricky business. You want to bring the best of whatever it is you write, and there are times when issues are ripe and thoughts are flowing and you feel like some sort of conduit for God's revelation and inspiration.
And then there was this week.
So, in lieu of more eloquent thoughts - of which I have none - I wanted to give you some random things that have given me life this week. My hope is that they would do the same for you.
Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash
the wisdom of being sick
Sickness is the most human thing that we can ever experience. It is the reminder that tiny, microscopic organisms can wage war and actually take territory in our bodies. Then again, our bodies actually fight back and heal themselves, carrying out a deep divinity wired into them that says "Battle. Survive. Do not surrender."
There is an innate wisdom to sickness, and sadly I have a front row seat to three pearls of "sick wisdom" that I'd love to share with you. (Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash)
we need to process.
A longer post on why we need to take time to process our lives, rather than jump to a reaction and opinion. (Photo courtesy of Brooke Cagle/Unsplash.com)
Of Cardboard and Ashes
A bit about Lent, moving, formation, and what happens in the "time in between."
life is not linear
An announcement about big changes and the lines we draw in life...