Fence sitting in the Spirit

We are building a fence on the farm behind our house for Junie B. Jones. Fence building is an art. After the basic decisions are made... layout of the posts, metal or wood posts, barbed wire, electric wire, regular wire or wood... the art and craft work begins. Our fence rambles and curves following the contours of the sloping land behind our house. There are no corners because it is a fence for horses. If you have corners, dominant horses can trap other horses in them and hurt them. We are using wood because it is a material kind to horses. They will not be cut by running into the fence. It can be clearly seen and they can look over it without bending or stretching it out of shape.
Our neighbor and friend Gary is using his sawmill to cut the boards for us from trees on the farm. We have more jack pine than a dog has fleas so finding wood is not a problem. Yesterday, with Gary’s help, we began putting the boards up. Unlike the fences my daddy built painstakingly by hand, we have the joy of power tools. Post holes were dug by an auger on the back of the tractor. An air hammer and chain saw (from Gary’s tool stash) made the installation of the boards move quickly. Gary, Dianne, Michael and I soon fell into a rhythm as we figured out the steps of the fence dance. Mama came up to see and when I turned around, I saw her leaning on the fence, looking out over the hills and mountains that circle our farm. All night long that image has stayed with me and this morning, when I woke up, there was a revelation present waiting in my consciousness.
I am a fence sitter. Fence sitters are seen as weak individuals who cannot make up their minds or take a stand but I beg to differ. Like fence building, fence sitting is an art and one we should all practice from time to time. Fence sitting requires one to stop work, whatever that may be, and climb the fence. One cannot fence sit and do anything else. Only your body, balanced on the top of the fence, still and quiet as you watch the world around you, and your soul are needed for fence sitting. Porch sitting and fence sitting are first cousins but fence sitting is a balancing act.
When you are perched on top of the fence, the first lesson learned is the precariousness of your position. If you don’t pay attention, you will slide off, picking up splinters on the way down. You cannot assume you are permanently planted high above the "madding crowd" safe from all the hoo hah in the field below. I can observe the milling around and running of the horses and cows contained in the fence but I must remember I will have to get down occasionally from the fence top in order to feed them. The top of the fence is not my final resting place.
The second lesson learned is not to always stay down on the ground. A new perspective awaits the fence sitter. You can see over the stock in the field and catch glimpses of the world beyond. You can also see your animals more clearly from the top of the fence. Tillie is limping, Junie B. Jones is slobbering, Ferd needs more to eat, Annie is getting ready to calve. Paradoxically you have a long range and an up close view at the same time. I can see the future and the present from the top of the fence. My personal interpretations and truth assumptions are stretched by the visions from the top of the fence. I can see the horizon and the foreground, the field where I now live and the fields yet to be explored, more clearly when I get my feet off the ground.
I am also more vulnerable sitting on a fence. I am apart from the crowd below, a sitting duck, an easy target, and that is not always a bad thing. Vulnerability forces you to pay attention. You cannot assume your position on the fence is more secure that the person sitting next to you. Both of you wobble from time to time. Nor can you assume your view from the fence is the same as your fence sitting neighbor. My mama first sees the fences on the farms when she looks out over the horizon. I see the mountains beyond. We can share what we see and see what the other sees, but our view is still our own.
First Corinthians 3:5-6 is my fence sitting Bible verse. "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills but the Spirit gives life." So I fence sit in the Spirit and observe the written codes killing and the Spirit also giving life. I get down off the fence and enter the fray with renewed vision of the possibilities for a beloved community. I give thanks for all those who are my beloved family in the Spirit who give me life and love, who bind up my wounds, pray for me, then push me back out into the world to be a competent minister of the new covenant. Thanks be to God.

Do I or don't I?

I have had two rather vigorous responses to my writing recently and they have both been pulling at me. One response was from someone I do not know in the flesh, and one I know but I don’t know. What an interesting paradox. The first person’s comment affirmed the presence of God for her in my writing and how my life parallels hers. The second person challenged my writing, my theology and my method of thinking. Both of them scare me to death. I have seen too many people, who in sharing their journeys and struggles, become icons and prophets before their own time. Preachers, lay leaders, men and women, educated and uneducated... those who had a special gift of some kind who began to believe too much in themselves... or more commonly, perhaps, others who began to believe too much in them... all of those gifted people I knew have struggled with how to remain true to their own calling while being open to challenge and affirmation in equal measure. Too much affirmation believed leads to an old proverb my grandma quoted often... Pride goeth before a fall. Too much negation believed leads to another old proverb Grandma loved... If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Here is my dilemma.
I do believe I have a gift for writing. It feeds my soul everyday in some way even when nothing visible is produced. If no one else ever read what I wrote, writing would still be my gift. But gifts given have a price tag. Sometimes all that is required is a simple "thank you". Often, however, more is required and that is where I find myself now. Some of you have been breathing down my neck, pushing me, kicking my rear saying send this to someone and publish it. You do not know how hard it was and is for me still, to commit my soul to words on paper and then set them free to float in the web world. It is a risk of monumental proportions to open this small window up and let you know even the tiny part of me you see in my written words. The thought of going from a small open attic window on the back side of the house to a picture window in the living room terrifies me. I also have to wonder if God is showing up and I am not listening. And if God is in this (that is a very big "if" for my introverted soul) I won’t get to the Promised Land of Publishing by simply wishing for it.
My mystic self says "Wait and the way will be made clear" or maybe that is my faithless, lazy, scared to death self. My soul self says "Get on with it and cast your brand of bread on the waters". My ADD self is overwhelmed at the thought of organizing, editing and presenting my work. My friend Janet and I started to work on this and my "push-me-pull-you" deficiencies brought us to a slow crawl. My friend Celeste, who has believed in me since the day she met me, is now on the Publishing Bandwagon and God help me, Celeste is a force. My time of waiting may be drawing to a close.
I am asking you for two things, one seen and one unseen. First, I ask for your prayers. Pray that I will be able to clearly discern the Way I am to go and then pray that I might have the necessary gumption to get up and walk. Pray that I will know clearly what I am to do. Like Gideon, I am looking for a fleece, soggy wet one day on dry ground, and dry on wet ground the next. Like Gideon, I tend to get picky about my signs and need multiple manifestations to point me in the way I should go. I do not need your assurances that my writing has value (or not) in order to have an answer to this prayer. All the responses I receive are welcome but they are not fleeces. The biggest fleece of all is the clear sense of call to do this (for me) hard thing.
The second thing I need is your experience with book writing. Some of you have already published books. My friend Nina wrote a book about her faith life many years ago and it is one of the books I return read, visiting her words, remembering our friendship and giving thanks that her faith journey includes me. Tell me what you know, what you learned, what you wish you had done and what you are glad you did. This is a foreign land for me and I need all the maps I can find. Be my travel guides, please, and share with me the tales of your trips to Promised Land of Publishing.
One of the hard learned lessons in my life has been the value of vulnerability, a soul risking way to live. It is the only way we can become transparent to one another. I am trying in my sixties to risk more, share more, be more, do more with my peculiar gifts. I am hoping the Holy One, God Incarnate, Sweet Jesus, and Holy Spirit shine through me as the thick clay walls that contain my Spirit are transformed into a translucent porcelain. I am praying that I may become more of the self God has called me to be as I age and less of who I think I ought to be. Being, becoming, doing, and speaking because I was first loved into being by the Love that knows no end. Thanks be to God... and to you.

This little piggy went to market...

It was cold at the farm last night. I know this because after I stuck my feet out to cool off after the first hot flash of the night, they cooled off quickly. As I lay there waiting for sleep to return, listening to the night noises (a full moon night full of barks and bellers and train whistles) I began to think on feet. The only pretty feet I have ever seen are the feet of babies and small children. Most feet get so much wear and tear they look worn and torn pretty quickly. Some of us get pedicures ( a wonderful sensual experience), use foot cream, paint our toenails, buff the calluses with scratchy pads, cover them up with socks and shoes and go on our way. As you age, it gets harder to ignore your feet. They hurt sometimes, ache and creak, spread out as the day goes by but still they hold you up. They are not pretty but they are a very important part of our body.
When I look up "feet" in my concordance I find a long list of references to feet.. Kiss his feet lest he be angry; Thy word is a lamp to my feet; How beautiful are the feet of him who brings good tidings; How graceful are your feet in sandals, queenly maiden; She wet his feet with her tears. My favorite foot passage is in the Gospel of John. "Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things in his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. He came to Simon Peter and Peter said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand." Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no part in me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!"
The only religious folks I knew in South Georgia who washed feet were the Primitive Baptists. They believed in predestination and foot washing as a sacrament, equal to the communion meal in significance. It was easy to dismiss them from my lexicon of spiritual practices until our church had a Lenten service where we washed one another’s feet. Those of us who showed up were a little nervous. Showing your naked, ugly, possibly smelly feet to someone you don’t really know THAT well was almost more than we could bear. Letting them place your feet in a basin of warm water, pour water over your feet, lift them out and tenderly, awkwardly dry them with a towel was one of the most intimate sacraments I have ever experienced. Trust, humility, loving kindness and laughter transformed a mundane seeming act into a hallowed moment. I will remember that worship until I die. Washing and drying someone else’s feet, having my feet washed and dried by another person was a power full way to act out being a servant priest. As I looked at my feet, cradled in another persons’ hands, I remembered the old nursery rhyme. "This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home. This little piggy had roast beef, this little piggy had none. And this little piggy cried Wee Wee Wee all the way home." All of our little piggies, our knobby, ugly, long toed, crooked, covered up selves for a brief moment, rested in the hands of Jesus, clean and warm and safe. What a surprise... what a joy... all because of the humble act of foot washing. Thanks be to God.

Oh, Mary, don't you weep, don't you mourn...

Jerene held her new granddaughter cradled so tenderly and proudly, her face shining and happy. Amy brought her baby boy, the miracle child, to worship for the first time and I wept. Cindy is a new mother and my heart leaps for joy. Her journey through the valley of the shadow of death with the birth of her first born son has not been forgotten but is now transformed. Alison called to tell me Aidan, who has learned to crawl through the doggie door, fell and skinned his face. I remember getting a phone call from the sitter when Alison was two telling us to come home. She had fallen and skinned her face. Megan called and the not so joyful noise in the car was the descant for our conversation. And my mama fell yesterday...
My heart stopped when she told me. She is sore... a sprained wrist and some other aches... but nothing broken except our complacency. My mama is supposed to live forever even though Michael and Judy and Jeannie and Mona’s and Lisa’s mamas have died, my heart wouldn’t let me go to the place where my mama dies. Yesterday it did an I was plunged into the abyss. The old spiritual "Sometimes I feel Like a Motherless Child" has a different feeling today.
My mama... One of my tender childhood memories is resting my head in her lap and feeling completely safe as she brushed my hair. When I got bored in worship, mama’s lap was always available for a nap. For my twelfth birthday, she granted my wish (over my father’s protests) to have a permanent so I could have curly hair. She told me I was beautiful and because of her, I was. She isn’t perfect. The "Irene Gene", from her mother, that is sure bad weather is always just around the corner, was passed down to her and then to me. But she is my mama, my first experience of Love that knows no end. I know some people have had different kinds of mama’s ... mothers that hurt and demand are not Love. It is a hurt I can only imagine and one that I grieve.
Now, after the fall, I need my Mother God more than ever. She, like my mama, offers a love that is different from father love... both necessary, just different. Being a mother is first of all giving birth, whether biologically or emotionally. The act of creating new life, not holding back any part of yourself, jumping off into the river of life and taking the risk of swimming and sinking, drowning in the utter abandonment of one’s self for the good of your child, is truly a leap of faith. Mother God knows that feeling. Adam and Eve, the first children in our story of life, were given all they needed and more. The joy of watching them discover the world, seeing them grow and change, the conversations, the delight in their delight, was tempered by their falls. Our mamas have to watch as we learn the hard way, give us room to stumble and skin our faces, help pick us up, kiss our boo boos and let us go again, taking pride in our hard won victories and silently bearing our sorrows.
Today I need my Mama God to watch over my mama and me, to help us get ready for another separation. I pray that Jeannie and Judy and Lisa and Michael and Mona will feel the loving arms of their mamas in the gentle arms of Mama God as she holds them in her lap. I pray for all those children, small and large, who have never known a mother’s love, that they may find their way to the Mother’s Loving Heart. who is quietly watching over them, waiting for them to come home. My mama, who will go before me in death, will be waiting for me with our Mother. Thanks be to God for my mama and for every day being Mother’s Day in the calendar of my life.

Please, God, can I have a Pentecost for Christmas?

I went to a professional meeting this weekend with Michael. Every session began and ended with prayer. I went to a church meeting last night that did not. I was struck dumb (not really) when I realized we did not pray. My friend Janet questioned me about why that mattered to me. For me, it is a way to set our intention. We are Christian believers. When we meet, whenever two or three or fifty or three thousand of us are gathered together for God’s sake, shouldn’t we ask for, plead for, expect the presence of the Holy One to be among us? And when we pray for God to be present, I am able to see God’s face in the faces of those who are around me... those who love me or not... those who are angry with me... those who agree with me and those who don’t... those whom I have hurt and those who have hurt me. It all melts away when I/we call God down on our heads. Incarnation becomes more than a sterile theological concept when I see the face of God in the faces that surround me.
My sneaky suspicion is that most of us do not really believe in the power of prayer. It is easier to believe in the power of the atom. This weekend I sat in a small group with a woman whose four year old child was healed she believes through prayer. Another woman, a teacher, assaulted three times by students, lost her memory and ability to walk, and believes she was healed because prayer helped her to forgive. Our worship committee chairs begin every meeting with a prayer-full time. It is carefully considered and planned. We are invited into holy space before we begin the work of worship. It sets the intention. What we are about is searching for ways to reveal the Holy every Sunday morning to somebody, not everybody, just somebody. To do that without inviting the presence of the Presence would be profane. Every worship will not be an earth shaking event for everybody but it would never be a spirit filled worship at all if we did not invite God to come to us in many different ways. If we want God to come be a part of our lives together and individually, we must pray. For me, prayer is not an optional activity.
I am reminded of the story of Pentecost. There they were, a rag tag group of students whose teacher had been executed by the state at the request of their home church. The city was full of tourists from all over the world speaking many different languages. They were gathered in a room having a business meeting, trying to decide which person would take the place of Judas as a disciple. They were down to two and couldn’t decide so they cast lots. Now as I understand it, casting lots is like my Bible game of opening the Book and pointing to a verse and seeing what words God sent to me. You participate in an act that seems to make no sense and trust the Divine to show up. God showed up and the Spirit, shaped like flames, rested on each of them. They were able to speak in languages they did not know and were understood by all of the different groups in town that day. I don’t know what really happened that day but I believe something special did happen. Believers in Jesus as the Son of God were able to transcend their limits of culture and language. Old memories and prejudices melted away in the fiery heat of the Presence. They were transformed into a new creation. An incarnation of their Beloved Teacher came to life that day long ago and the echoes of Pentecost still rock my soul.
I am praying for Pentecost for my beloved church community... that we might be able to speak and hear other languages so we might tell our stories and be understood... that we could hold each other in such high esteem that the anguish of one of us becomes painful for us all... that the differences become superficial as we see the face of God shining through the faces around us. Come Lord Jesus, come. I am weeping and my heart is broken. Let me be blown away by your Presence, blown into a new way of being, blown away from all that divides us and blown to your loving arms. Come now, Lord Jesus, come. Please?