On (Pa)Renting Children
as an extreme
full contact sport played
prayed
to St. Anthony, the one who finds
the lost
as an exercise in ambivalence
as in hope.
We bow but seem
only to be staring
at our shoes
in humility.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
bodies and blood: for the feint of heart
Please read this post with caution: It may be somewhat upsetting.
The first week of our work there was an RV set ablaze in the parking lot.
The first week of our second month there was a pool of blood in the entrance used by our foodbank volunteers.
Yes, shocking.
Querido and I have been in ministry together and to one another for nearly five years. We have experienced profound loss, the birth of our first girl child, the realization of dreams and we have set a course into the storm. We have been appointed by our Bishop to serve South Tacoma and are willing to admit that this particular ministry is quite a squall.
It rages. Sometimes we join it. We rail against the God of muscle and bone, life and death even though we know these things are part of creation and they are good.
They are good.
God says they are good.
We preach body and blood. We know therein lies hope: blood is the fluid that nourished my baby daughter in my womb, carries oxygen to my brain as it conjures hopes and prayers. We avoid the more traumatic elements but we offer the cup of hope when we serve the Wesleyan Love feast of bread and juice. We know that God has provided food and thereby has blessed our bodies acknowledging that we are not just spiritual beings. We interact with all of creation: wheat, fruit and so are nourished by the very soil we will become someday when our bodies return to their former state.
Perhaps this is why the blood at my feet caused me to lose sleep last night.
My feminine imagination went first to the pain of childbirth. My male colleagues were generous enough to join me in this. A real man will be affected by his female pastor's concern and seek out the lost even if it means bravely facing the unknown contents of a dumpster. God spared him finding anything but melon rinds and used plasticware... This time.
Many of you have careers that call you into relational struggle, test your creative endurance, require that you remain the un-anxious presence. My career choice compels me to invite you to lean on me when these challenges upend your spiritual practices and knock you off center. When you need a hand to hold as you approach the end of the day, the season, the life you have been given I will be with you.
My career, my calling is to remember blood as a ballast, rage as redeemed, Christ in the storm calling us deeper in so the salty brine will cleanse our wounds. My vocation is to witness the dumpster contents and know they are all capable of holiness especially when they have been discarded on holy ground where they may be found by someone with eyes to see them as such.
This is what I've been called to tell you. They say there is a section of the book we claim called "gospel"; if it doesn't sound like good news it probably isn't what we ought to be preaching. The good news here is that whether we know the source or not the evidence of human suffering on our church doorstep is a holy and beautiful reminder that God is calling the broken to come home when we are battered, broken, abused, afraid.
My mother worries these fires and blood are evidence that I may be in danger. I say there is no doubt I am in danger... We are all in danger but God is in it with us, calling to us from within it. The earth cries out as it receives our blood, redeems it, knows what to do with it and so will we.
It doesn't get safer, I get braver. It doesn't get easier, I get stronger. Join me on the journey; we will borrow bravery from our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. We will redefine beauty and feast on love. We will know the earth and return to it daily as the fearful parts of us die and we are reborn with every breath, every heartbeat feeling the source pumping through our veins and pouring out of our hearts.
The first week of our work there was an RV set ablaze in the parking lot.
The first week of our second month there was a pool of blood in the entrance used by our foodbank volunteers.
Yes, shocking.
Querido and I have been in ministry together and to one another for nearly five years. We have experienced profound loss, the birth of our first girl child, the realization of dreams and we have set a course into the storm. We have been appointed by our Bishop to serve South Tacoma and are willing to admit that this particular ministry is quite a squall.
It rages. Sometimes we join it. We rail against the God of muscle and bone, life and death even though we know these things are part of creation and they are good.
They are good.
God says they are good.
We preach body and blood. We know therein lies hope: blood is the fluid that nourished my baby daughter in my womb, carries oxygen to my brain as it conjures hopes and prayers. We avoid the more traumatic elements but we offer the cup of hope when we serve the Wesleyan Love feast of bread and juice. We know that God has provided food and thereby has blessed our bodies acknowledging that we are not just spiritual beings. We interact with all of creation: wheat, fruit and so are nourished by the very soil we will become someday when our bodies return to their former state.
Perhaps this is why the blood at my feet caused me to lose sleep last night.
My feminine imagination went first to the pain of childbirth. My male colleagues were generous enough to join me in this. A real man will be affected by his female pastor's concern and seek out the lost even if it means bravely facing the unknown contents of a dumpster. God spared him finding anything but melon rinds and used plasticware... This time.
Many of you have careers that call you into relational struggle, test your creative endurance, require that you remain the un-anxious presence. My career choice compels me to invite you to lean on me when these challenges upend your spiritual practices and knock you off center. When you need a hand to hold as you approach the end of the day, the season, the life you have been given I will be with you.
My career, my calling is to remember blood as a ballast, rage as redeemed, Christ in the storm calling us deeper in so the salty brine will cleanse our wounds. My vocation is to witness the dumpster contents and know they are all capable of holiness especially when they have been discarded on holy ground where they may be found by someone with eyes to see them as such.
This is what I've been called to tell you. They say there is a section of the book we claim called "gospel"; if it doesn't sound like good news it probably isn't what we ought to be preaching. The good news here is that whether we know the source or not the evidence of human suffering on our church doorstep is a holy and beautiful reminder that God is calling the broken to come home when we are battered, broken, abused, afraid.
My mother worries these fires and blood are evidence that I may be in danger. I say there is no doubt I am in danger... We are all in danger but God is in it with us, calling to us from within it. The earth cries out as it receives our blood, redeems it, knows what to do with it and so will we.
It doesn't get safer, I get braver. It doesn't get easier, I get stronger. Join me on the journey; we will borrow bravery from our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. We will redefine beauty and feast on love. We will know the earth and return to it daily as the fearful parts of us die and we are reborn with every breath, every heartbeat feeling the source pumping through our veins and pouring out of our hearts.
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