Who would have thought the grizzled Old Testament prophet Ezekiel would have the words of comfort I needed this morning? When I played the Game, the Bible fell open to Ezekiel 34:11-31 and an ancient writing became my soul’s breakfast, images to carry in my heart all day long. I read the passage in three different translations and each version added to my understanding.
Ezekiel, the bone dreamer, has a vision of sheep and shepherds that offers care and caution to the people who hear his words. He describes what the Lord God, our shepherd, will do and has done... I will feed them with good pasture... I will seek the lost and bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the crippled, and I will strengthen the weak... I will watch over those who have plenty and make sure they share (my translation). Our home, a secure place in the wilderness, on God’s hill, will be showered with blessings in season and we will not be afraid. "And they shall know that I, the Lord their God, am with them, and that they, the House of Israel, are my people, says the Lord God. And you are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, says the Lord God."In this stage of my life, I long for that hill showered with blessings, a home that is not an institution or a building or a denomination or a country, but a resting place where all I need will be provided in season. I carry the soul scars from some of my temporary homes that collapsed while I was still under their roofs.
My faith in my government’s ability to make wise decisions began cracking the day Tim died and shattered the day we left Viet Nam. Thirty years later, I still carry the seeds of distrust, now full grown into kindly cynicism. I love my country and believe fiercely in our ideals but cannot abide the lies and deceit, the fat sheep who have prospered at the expense of the people without being held accountable. And now, more families feeling the anguish of death in a far away place, more public debate about the purpose and rightness of the war on terror, more rhetoric on both sides of the aisle, each convinced of the absolute justice of their position... and I remember and cannot forget that olive drab car turning into the driveway, the sinking feeling in the pit of my soul that solid ground was turning into quicksand.
My faith in my denomination as a safe place for Baptist Christians, regardless of our theological differences, started unraveling at a Convention where I stood and watched bus loads of people come in with one point of view, cast one vote for an elected office, get back on their busses and leave the rest of us behind sinking in the mudhole of anger, distrust and a holy war. No peaceful hill with showers of blessing could I find even though I stayed a Baptist for years to come. My denominational home was consumed in the wildfires of change and like the wild animals in California, I fled from the destroying force of fiery righteousness running over people like me.
I have belonged to ten different churches, all but one Baptist. They were different in theology, worship styles, size, mission action, calling, location and structure. Some were the grace full hills of blessing for me. One was my church home in name only. I gave myself and my family to the care of these institutions. Sunday School, Wednesday night prayer meetings and suppers, Sunday morning worship, mission trips, youth groups, deacon boards, choir and endless committees were the field of service for us as we lived out our commitment to the Church in our daily lives. Church was not an optional activity for us. It was a way of life, a witness to our belief in the power of God’s people to change the world, one person at a time. Two of those churches we left with grief and tears, one as a minister’s family and one as a member. Each of those communities gave us gifts and relationships that have endured even in the separation. Now I find myself once again feeling the ground beneath my feet shifting as I struggle with feelings of exile and misunderstanding in my present church home. I wait... I pray... I show up... I work... I weep.
Perhaps my friend Joe was right. I should get used to living in "no man’s land", the land of the in-between, since I don’t seem to fit comfortably on either side. I want both and, not either or... both grace and judgement... confession and forgiveness... buying olive trees for Palestine and mission trips to rebuild homes destroyed by nature... Bach and The Sweet By and By... God as father and mother... God beyond my understanding and God in my heart... church as safe haven for all God’s children and church as prophet for all God’s children. I’m asking for too much, aren’t I? Like Ezekiel, I’ll continue to dream dreams and work to make them come true. A hill, showered with blessings in season, level at the top with room for all to rest and graze and drink and sing praise to the Creator Shepherd , each in a different key (or in Diane’s case, her own unique key), loved and loving... Please, God, can I climb that hill soon?
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
please pass the bread...
Meals at our house were not complete without bread. If mama didn’t make biscuits or cornbread, there would be a stack of "light bread"on the table. Daddy needed bread to sop his grits up at breakfast and his gravy at supper. Our plates weren’t licked clean. They were wiped clean with bread. GrandMary’s biscuits were the best biscuits in the world. Every day of her adult life, three times a day, she made biscuits from scratch, rolled the dough into little balls, placed them in the old iron skillet, patted them down and baked them. For many years she cooked on a wood stove and said it was the best heat for baking. She also made griddle cake cornbread. The thin cornbread batter would be poured into a round cast iron griddle cake pan, sizzling at the edges as it cooked and browned around the edges. My Grandma and mama made yeast bread, fragrant and hearty, best home deodorizer in the world. To come home from school to the smell of fresh, hot bread, grab a slice and cover it with butter, eat the chewy crust and the soft center, was and is still one of my sweetest memories.
Our bread choices were limited as I was growing up. We had cornbread in various forms... muffins, griddle cakes, sticks, sheet... and biscuits... not canned but the real McCoy... and yeast bread... rolls, loaves that were homemade and store bought. In those three types of bread were endless variations. We were never bored with our bread. We made it and if it was good, we gave thanks. If it was flat or heavy, we gave thanks and ate it anyway. Bread was important and we lived the phrase "Bread is the staff of life"... please pass the butter and the blackberry jelly.
As our covenant group gathered around the communion table last night, I was struck by the bread that sat on the table. It came from a bakery and was real bread with a solid crust. As we prepared for communion, we named the broken places in our bodies and named those we knew who were broken and hurting in some way. In the silence, Pat began to break the bread, speaking the ancient words... "This is my body, broken for you". The bread was resilient and crusty, resisting being broken and torn. As we passed the bread saying to one another "This is the Body of Christ, broken for you", the bread was still full of texture and strength. It took some effort to become and share the Body of Christ with each other.
The beloved community can only come into being when we are willing to be broken for one another, be the staff of life, make ourselves vulnerable and weak so that new strength might come from the Body of Christ. All of us have invisible wounds. Some are more easily identified by labels... divorced person, single parent, gay, old, lesbian, widow, abused child, sick, bisexual, rich, poor or transgendered... but the hurts often lie deep in the darkness of our fear, never seeing the light of communion.
When you see me and do not know me, you see a woman who wears hats on Sunday, dressed to the nines, seemingly articulate and self assured. I am a woman who has a loving marriage and children who come home with our grandchildren most of the time because they choose to out of love not guilt. I live on the farm of my dreams in a house we built that is the home of my dreams. My real self is far more complicated than the one dimensional image you see when you do not know me.
I wear hats on Sunday because it is my connection to a woman who loved me without reservation, my Grandma. I play dress up because it is fun and helps me remember clothes are necessary but can also express some of my personality. I have spent years finding my voice, finding ways to speak my truth without dissolving in tears and chin quivers. My marriage is both a gift and hard work My first marriage ended when my husband was killed in Viet Nam. He was 21 and I was 20. That was my introduction to the real world. I give thanks for the marriage Michael and I have that has seen us through some very hard times. My sister’s suicide left invisible scars and unanswered questions that will be with me until the day I die. Our children struggle and suffer like I did. I can no longer kiss the boo boos and make them better. All I can do is listen and love and show up. The farm and house of our dreams came after many years of moving from place to place, remodeling old houses, living in cities, raising our family and waiting for the right time and place. Because we could not afford nor did we desire a home built by strangers, we were our own contractors. We knew every workman and woman who helped us and we were covered in paint and dirt and dust for the whole process. The mistakes are ours as well as the successes. My life, like the communion bread, has not been easy, one joyful song after another. Neither has your life.
It is in the sharing of our brokeness, whatever that might be, that we begin to catch a glimpse of what heaven might be. No one’s grief or pain is greater than anothers. We all fall short, do not measure up, struggle to find affirmation of our soul selves. In some strange way, the Spirit of Light can never move through Communion until we own and name our darkness to ourselves and with each other. Forgiveness without confession is like store bought bread. It falls apart and dissolves easily. Confession creates the yeasty, crusty, resilient soul that knows the dark places can always be transformed when brought into the Light. Breaking bread with one another is never easy. It is not supposed to be. We are transformed by our pain and suffering, not consumed by it, when we can be the Bread of Heaven for one another. May it be so.
Our bread choices were limited as I was growing up. We had cornbread in various forms... muffins, griddle cakes, sticks, sheet... and biscuits... not canned but the real McCoy... and yeast bread... rolls, loaves that were homemade and store bought. In those three types of bread were endless variations. We were never bored with our bread. We made it and if it was good, we gave thanks. If it was flat or heavy, we gave thanks and ate it anyway. Bread was important and we lived the phrase "Bread is the staff of life"... please pass the butter and the blackberry jelly.
As our covenant group gathered around the communion table last night, I was struck by the bread that sat on the table. It came from a bakery and was real bread with a solid crust. As we prepared for communion, we named the broken places in our bodies and named those we knew who were broken and hurting in some way. In the silence, Pat began to break the bread, speaking the ancient words... "This is my body, broken for you". The bread was resilient and crusty, resisting being broken and torn. As we passed the bread saying to one another "This is the Body of Christ, broken for you", the bread was still full of texture and strength. It took some effort to become and share the Body of Christ with each other.
The beloved community can only come into being when we are willing to be broken for one another, be the staff of life, make ourselves vulnerable and weak so that new strength might come from the Body of Christ. All of us have invisible wounds. Some are more easily identified by labels... divorced person, single parent, gay, old, lesbian, widow, abused child, sick, bisexual, rich, poor or transgendered... but the hurts often lie deep in the darkness of our fear, never seeing the light of communion.
When you see me and do not know me, you see a woman who wears hats on Sunday, dressed to the nines, seemingly articulate and self assured. I am a woman who has a loving marriage and children who come home with our grandchildren most of the time because they choose to out of love not guilt. I live on the farm of my dreams in a house we built that is the home of my dreams. My real self is far more complicated than the one dimensional image you see when you do not know me.
I wear hats on Sunday because it is my connection to a woman who loved me without reservation, my Grandma. I play dress up because it is fun and helps me remember clothes are necessary but can also express some of my personality. I have spent years finding my voice, finding ways to speak my truth without dissolving in tears and chin quivers. My marriage is both a gift and hard work My first marriage ended when my husband was killed in Viet Nam. He was 21 and I was 20. That was my introduction to the real world. I give thanks for the marriage Michael and I have that has seen us through some very hard times. My sister’s suicide left invisible scars and unanswered questions that will be with me until the day I die. Our children struggle and suffer like I did. I can no longer kiss the boo boos and make them better. All I can do is listen and love and show up. The farm and house of our dreams came after many years of moving from place to place, remodeling old houses, living in cities, raising our family and waiting for the right time and place. Because we could not afford nor did we desire a home built by strangers, we were our own contractors. We knew every workman and woman who helped us and we were covered in paint and dirt and dust for the whole process. The mistakes are ours as well as the successes. My life, like the communion bread, has not been easy, one joyful song after another. Neither has your life.
It is in the sharing of our brokeness, whatever that might be, that we begin to catch a glimpse of what heaven might be. No one’s grief or pain is greater than anothers. We all fall short, do not measure up, struggle to find affirmation of our soul selves. In some strange way, the Spirit of Light can never move through Communion until we own and name our darkness to ourselves and with each other. Forgiveness without confession is like store bought bread. It falls apart and dissolves easily. Confession creates the yeasty, crusty, resilient soul that knows the dark places can always be transformed when brought into the Light. Breaking bread with one another is never easy. It is not supposed to be. We are transformed by our pain and suffering, not consumed by it, when we can be the Bread of Heaven for one another. May it be so.
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