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Getting into It – Part II

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Yesterday I posted about my decision to get into winter and enjoy cross-country skiing as an alternative to my running.  Yesterday afternoon I drove to a nearby county park, Cottage Grove Ravine Park, anticipating excellent snow and groomed trails.  I was a bit rushed because the sun was low in the sky and I was unfamiliar with the park.   I missed the entrance for the parking lot, so I started a quick turn around.  In my haste I slid off the road and into a snow bank.  

At first I thought I could simply drive out.   The spin of the front tires told me otherwise.  I tried to clear the snow from the front of the car.   It was too compacted and I had no shovel.   Sheepishly I asked a couple of skiers to assist me.   Though we pushed and pulled, the car was stuck.  Finally I had to admit I was truly trapped in the snow and called AAA for assistance. 

A car like mine waiting for help

While I was calling AAA on my cell phone, a second call came through.   I soon discovered I had a pastoral emergency with one of my parishioners!    With some embarrassment, I called the family and explained my predicament.   I would come as soon as the tow truck pulled me out, which was further delayed because the truck driver got lost.

As I sat in the car, waiting for the tow truck, I ruminated about my plans.  I had wanted to “get into it” by doing some skiing.   Instead I literally “got into it” with my car in the snow.  I was frustrated, but also reflective.   My haste had put me in this predicament and I could blame no one but myself.   There will be future opportunities for skiing and exploring.  I was thankful that my slide had cause no damage to car or myself.    Finally I decided once again to practice what I often preach to others,  patience and thanksgiving.    I could “get into it” by seeing the mercy of God in my own foolishness.

Getting Into It

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Getting Into Winter

This fall and winter has been frustrating for me as a runner.  I continue to deal with various muscle spasms that primarily stem from an SI joint problem in my pelvis.  In summary my pelvis is twisted and needs special manipulation to become untwisted.  I have been to my physical therapist several times for this manipulation, but I cannot seem to hold the proper alignment for very long. I try to run a couple of miles and my muscle spasms are back. 

So I am going to try a different route.   Instead of whining about “not running,”  I will try to embrace winter and the sport of cross-country skiing.   I remember a quote from Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak.   He was participating in an Outward Bound adventure course when he found himself paralyzed with fear during a rope-rappel down a cliff face.  He was certain that he was going to die.  The instructor asked if anything was wrong. 

 He responded, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then,” said the instructor, “it’s time you learned the Outward Bound motto.”

“Oh keen,” Parker thought.  “I’m about to die, and she’s going to give me a motto.”

But then she shouted ten words that reshaped Parker’s life, words whose impact and meaning he can still feel. “If you can’t get out of it, get into it!”

Parker wrote, “I had long believed in the concept of ‘the word made flesh,’ but until that moment, I had not experienced it.  My teacher spoke words so compelling that they bypassed my mind, went into my flesh, and animated my legs and feet. No helicopter would come to rescue me; there was no parachute in my backpack to float me to the ground.  There was no way out of my dilemma except to get into it — so my feet started to move, and in a few minutes I made it safely down.”

I plan to “get into it” with cross-country skiing and see what happens.  I will keep you posted.

Have you ever experienced a time when you had to “get into it?”

Jesus’ Visit

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Jesus' Visit to Us

In my last two posts I reflected on two visits to fictional churches.  Tomorrow is Christmas, the celebration of God’s visit to earth.  Of course, it was more than a simple visit; it was God’s full embrace of human life.  Still, the reception he received was cool at best.  There was no room at the inn, but the shepherds raced to greet him.  Magi came from distant lands to honor his birth, but his own King Herod tried to kill him.  Jesus’ birth created controversy.

Even today people respond in a variety of ways to the concept of God becoming flesh.   Some see it as a nice story that instructs us to see all births as sacred.  Others see it as a dangerous myth that confuses vulnerable minds with wild tales that have no scientific, rational basis.  While others simple choose to ignore it, their lives having no room for God.

But many of us see it as the turning point in human history.   God’s invasion to take back creation from sin, satan and death.   God’s wild, mysterious gamble that humanity could be restored to its wonderous place in creation.  I rejoice in that gamble, and fully believe it paid off for all of us.  God’s visit has transformed us into God’s residence.  Thanks be to God!

Still Alice

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Still Alice

I recently finished the novel Still Alice by Lisa Genova.  Alice Howland is a respected fifty-year-old Harvard professor of psychology who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease.  Her memory loss throws her whole life and family into a tail-spin.  One scene in particular, after her diagnosis, stood out for me.

Alice is a runner and she finishes a run outside an Episcopal church.  Though raised a Roman Catholic, Alice has no active faith.  Yet she feels an impulse to enter the church with some vague hope for help.  Inside, she reads from a banner, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble.”  She knows she has a great need for help, but “who is she to ask for help from a God she wasn’t sure she believed in?”   She hopes someone, a priest or parishioner, will come so that she might unload her burden.  No one comes. 

The scene haunts me because I believe so strongly that God is our refuge and strength.   There are no magic answers that will suddenly take Alice’s questions and fears away.  But there is the loving, powerful presence of God that carries people in the midst of their struggles.   I realize Still Alice is a novel, well written and thought-provoking.  I just pray that when someone with such questions or doubts walks into Resurrection Lutheran Church, there is someone who can bear loving witness to God’s compassion and care.

In what ways does your reading current fiction shape your faith?

Christmas Journeys

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The Journey to Bethlehem

The Christmas story is filled with journeys:  Mary’s and Joseph’s trek to Bethlehem, the magi’s visit to the child, the holy family’s escape from King Herod into Egypt.   Even the shepherds had a night hike from the fields to the stable in order to see the baby.    Perhaps we all need to do a little traveling to discover Jesus.

This week my two daughters are traveling home.  Christina flew in Saturday after her first semester at college.  Suzanne will arrive tomorrow from her new home in Bloomington, IN.   I will be glad to have them under our roof for a time; it will certainly add to the Christmas joy.  Yet I know it is temporary; their life-paths are taking them on new adventures that may or may not be in close proximity to Carolyn’s and mine.  I guess that is part of trusting Jesus to guide the way.

I am also remembering one snowy December evening when I was flying home to Washington state for Christmas.   I had been gone a whole year, having worked the summer near my college in Philadelphia.  I had to change planes here in the Twin Cities and a snow storm had shut down the airport.  I was sitting in the terminal, waiting for my Seattle flight, feeling homesick and very much alone.  I wondered if I would ever get home as the snow piled up outside.  As the night got deeper and longer, I thought about Joseph and Mary’s journey to Bethlehem.  How lonely they must have felt, yet God was right there with them.  It slowly dawned on me that God was with me that night as well.  Emmanuel, God with us, is the intimate message of Christmas.   Little did I know at the time, that I would invest more than thirty years in the Twin Cities, discovering God’s presence and power among its residents. 

In what ways have Christmas’ journeys impacted your life?

Heroes

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Joyful Preacher

Last Labor day I flew down to Arkansas to load a U-Haul truck with furniture and files from my father-in-law’s home.  James McCrary died a few years ago and it had taken time to sift through all his things.  Several of the files I brought back contained his sermons from nearly forty years of preaching.  My wife has now been reading through her father’s sermons, discovering some real gems worth keeping and sharing them with me.

The Rev. James P.  McCrary remains one of my heroes.

He was a great father-in-law as well as a dedicated Presbyterian minister who loved to tell old, corny jokes.  He had the gentlest of spirits and loved to converse with anyone.  Though he never ran a race, he appreciated my desire to run marathons and encouraged me whenever he had the chance.  I remember one Thanksgiving when he was visiting us and he insisted on helping me rake the leaves in my backyard.   He said that he wanted to work up a good appetite for the meal and what better way than to rake.

Also he gave me the greatest advice that any father-in-law could give prior to the wedding.  He told my wife and me, “you can walk down the aisle on your wedding day, fall flat on your face and still pick yourself up and have a great marriage.”   Fortunately, I didn’t fall on my wedding day and neither did my wife, since Jim walked her down the aisle, then turned around and preformed the wedding.

He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 73, and though he lived for ten years with the disease, he continued to have a gentle, loving spirit.  I can’t help but think that Jesus greeted him, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Do you have heroes who have shaped you?

Entering the Story

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Children's Christmas Program

Sunday afternoon was Resurrection Children’s Christmas program.  In spite of the snow and cold, families made the trek to our “Bethlehem Marketplace” and then participated in the retelling of the Christmas story.  Children were dressed as angels, shepherds, stars, sheep, wise men as well as Mary and Joseph.  The stable of Bethlehem was filled with life.

Families have been attending Christmas programs for generations. I remember being a wiseman as a child (some might joke that it was my one-time experience); I hope someday to see my future grandchildren being shepherds or sheep. Christmas programs allow all of us to enter into the story of Christ’s birth and to experience the wonder and surprise within it.   Too often we treat the stories of the Bible as abstract history lessons that are dusty and dull.   To act out the story helps it come alive and fresh, filled with truth, hope and love.

 Haddon Robinson, a noted evangelical preacher, did many of his sermons as a first person narrative.  He said recently, “You can take that story from the point of view of one of the characters and tell it. You don’t have to be a great actor. It’s amazing how interesting it is for people to hear somebody who as a character relives that story. In our day it can make a great impact.” http://www.preaching.com/resources/articles/11565763/page-4/

This Christmas eve I will be retelling the Christmas story in a first person narrative.  It will be my first at Resurrection, but I rejoice that the children have prepared the way.

Shoveling Snow and Trust

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Like many Minnesotans, I have spent time shoveling snow the past three days.  Saturday’s blizzard left some deep drifts in front of my garage door that only a shovel could reach.  I was out twice Saturday during the storm and early Sunday morning to be sure that I could make it to Resurrection on time.  Each time I started to shovel, I thought, “This will take forever, my tiny shovel against all this snow!’  Yet each time, with perseverance and patience, I made my way down the driveway to the street.

The spiritual analogy for me is that following Jesus can seem like a daunting, overwhelming task, like shoveling snow in a blizzard.  We often think our faith needs to come from some dramatic change that radically transforms our life in a moment.  And there certainly can be dramatic moments when Jesus comes suddenly alive.  We read about such moments in the Bible; Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus is an example (Acts 9).

But that is only a portion of our faith.  Jesus compares our faith to a tiny mustard seed that slowly, steadily becomes a great tree (Luke 13).  Or the book of Hebrews describes trust as a runner who perseveres in day after day training in order to win the race (Hebrew 12).  Like shoveling out a driveway, each prayer, Bible study, journal reflection, spiritual discipline helps clear the path of trust in God.  Such work builds patience, a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It also keeps us mindful of God’s ever-present grace and love that surround us.

Of course, I rejoice that I did not need to shovel all the way to Resurrection Lutheran.  There are limits to any analogy!

Sunday Prayer Dec 12 2010

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Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, the brilliant sunrise this morning bears witness to the wonder and glory of your power.  Grant us the heart, mind and soul to praise your name and bear witness to your steadfast love.  As people dig out from yesterday’s snowfall, we remember those who have no home.  We pray for all who work in emergency shelters and for those who provide services to the homeless.   Grant them wisdom, compassion and perseverance as they seek to help.  We also thank you this day for all the men and women who clear our streets and roads and make it possible for us to travel.   We ask in the name of Jesus, our Savior and Lord.

Sin Abounds Yet Grace Abounds More

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Last night at confirmation we were discussing the Lutheran concept of being both a sinner and a saint simultaneously.  Many of the students grasped the concept that we are sinners by our natural tendencies to be self-centered but that God forgives us and makes us saints because of God’s gracious love.   So in a small group a student asked, “If God will always forgive me, why do I need to worry about sin.  It just doesn’t matter, I can do what I want and be forgiven.”

I responded, “Yes, God forgives our sin, but our sin does not simply hurt God.  Sin frequently hurts and harms others and ourselves.  For example, you may lie to your parents about being at a friend’s house, but actually you were at a party with alcohol.  Your parents discover the lie and they may forgive you, but their trust in you is broken.  They not sure whether you are telling the truth when you talk with them again.  Your sin of lying caused harm to your relationship with your parents as well as with God.”

Another example is when someone abuses alcohol.  Over time the abuse can lead to addiction which can harm the drinker’s body and also the relationship with family and friends.   The one act of drinking is not the sin, but the constant abuse of it leads to brokenness and harm.  

Sin is not only want I do that breaks God’s rules (such as cursing), but also sin has other repercussions that can hurt myself and others.  Forgiveness often involves the need for healing in relationships and myself.   Fortunately, God is able to bring healing to us as well.  Micah 4:2  But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.