June 4 - A Memorable Date in My Personal History

June 4 - Every year when this date rolls around, a ton of memories flood my mind and I have to take a few moments to center myself. This year, this date marks several major anniversaries.

1. Today is the 21st birthday of my oldest niece. On June 4, 1992, my beautiful, brilliant, and superstar golf playing niece, Paige, came into this world. She's the one who made me an aunt. I'll never forget how my mom and I quickly grabbed a few things and jumped in the car for a 2.5 hour drive to be there the moment she was born. It was such a joyful, yet fear-filled time as she was born a little early. After a little bit of time in NICU, she came home with my sister and brother-in-law. It has been a joy to watch her grow from that tiny baby into the wonderful young woman she is today. She truly is a blessing to me, just like all of my nieces and nephews. They have added much joy to my life. And, I thank God for each of them. So, today I wish Paige a very happy birthday!

2. Today is also my niece Jessie's birthday. She belongs to one of my brothers. I was counseling camp in Texas when she was born so I was not there for her birth. I'll never forget getting the call from my mom with the news of her birth. It was a wonderful moment that I soon shared with all of the campers and staff at Lake Brownwood, TX. Jessie is also brilliant and adorable. She, too, is a blessing.

3. And, finally, today is the 20th anniversary of my high school graduation. I believe June 4, 1993 is a date that all Pitt County, NC, high school graduates remember vividly. Ours were the last high school graduations in the county that were held outside. That's because our outdoor ceremonies were interrupted by a severe thunderstorm that had tornadic qualities. All 5 high schools throughout the county had their ceremonies end in chaos. I will never forget sitting on the football field and seeing the salutatorian's eyes grow big as he saw the storm coming up behind us. The principal jumped up and told us all to evacuate. After that, it was pure chaos!

My parents, who were sitting not too far away from me in the parents' section, grabbed me, rushed me to the car, and drove home frantically. Most of the rest of my class went inside the school. Eventually, they held an abbreviated graduation ceremony in the gym with my classmates sitting on the floor. I've seen video footage of it. But, I missed receiving my diploma with the rest of my class because I was at home, a wet miserable mess!

Our principal, Mr. Baldree, had threatened us during our graduation practice that if we should choose to misbehave we could receive our diploma in a private ceremony in his office. Once I learned that I had missed receiving my diploma with the rest of my class, I decided to opt for that private ceremony. So, a week or so after that disastrous evening, my family and I went to my high school for my own private ceremony. Unknown to me, someone contacted the local TV station. Because all 5 high schools had their ceremonies disrupted by this dramatic weather event, anything related to the graduation was news in my hometown. My private ceremony made the 6:00 news! Somewhere in my parents' house there is a VCR tape of that interview. I haven't watched it in many years. I don't need to because the images of June 4 will always remain in my mind.

My years in high school cannot be summed up with the story of the night of my high school graduation. I have a lot of great memories of wonderful times with friends. There are memories of some difficult times, too. Like the unexpected death of my childhood friend Chris Moore at the beginning of our senior year. I will never forget his smile that always lit up his face. High school taught me a lot of lessons that applied to life, academically, emotionally, and spiritually. I am grateful for all of those lessons and for the strength they have given me throughout my life.

So, on this 20th anniversary of my CRAZY high school graduation, I say thank you to all of my teachers and to all of my classmates in the D. H. Conley Class of 1993! Happy Anniversary!

The Correct Way to Use Spray Paint

Yes, I haven't blogged in ages. I can't promise that I'll be in better at blogging more often. I can only say that I will try.

Here's the sermon I preached this past Sunday. It's titled "Practicing Resilience" but, as it often happens, I titled it before I wrote it. A better title is "The Correct Way to Use Spray Paint."

“Practicing Resilience”

Philippians 4:1-14

May 26, 2013 ~ First Christian Church, Wadsworth, OH

In a sleepy little village a little over 3 hours from here in western New York, a community woke up to quite a surprise this past Monday morning. Someone or a couple of people had vandalized several of the buildings in the town of Randolph, NY. Buildings across the town were spray painted with graffiti. Many of the messages were malicious in nature. But one was clearly a cry for help.

Randolph, NY is a small town. Smaller than Wadsworth with only about 2000 people calling it home. There are similarities. It has several churches which seem to be at the heart of the community. One of those churches in Randolph is Grace Episcopal Church. It is a lovely Victorian style wooden building.

On Monday morning, Father Tom Broad the pastor of Grace Episcopal began his day like any other until he drove up to the church. There on the side of the building someone had spray painted in huge letters: Can I still get to heaven if I kill myself?

Other messages spray painted around the town were typical messages you would expect to find in graffiti: profanities, vulgar language, things I would not repeat. But, the message on this church was different. Who knows why someone wrote that on the wall of the church? Who knows what was going on in that person’s mind at that moment? Maybe he was just copying some lyrics from a rap song he knows. Or maybe he was asking a serious question.

Who knows? But, the question was now out there for all of Randolph, NY to see spray painted on the side of the church. And, the church had to decide what to do next.

Before I tell you what they did, I want to know. If you drove up to the church tomorrow and saw a question like that spray painted on the side of our lovely white church, what would you do? Would you be mad at the vandals? Would you call up the trustees, go to the paint store, buy a can of white paint to cover it up quickly? Or, would you answer the question?

Father Tom and the lay leaders of Grace Episcopal gathered together to discuss the problem before them. They asked themselves, “Was the person who wrote this suicidal or just being shocking for the joy of provocation, an adolescent equivalent of a toddler learning he can cause effect in his world by shouting, “No!”?

The people and clergy of Grace prayed and talked, then decided it did not matter, at least not that day. They also discovered that being angry, or feeling violated, or even scrubbing and repainting the wall were not the most important things they could do on Monday.

Instead, they spoke to the unmet need of those around them. They answered the question. They answered the shocking question, the “cry for help,” they found written in foot-high blue spray paint letters on the wall of their building.

The minister borrowed a can of spray paint from a neighbor. In green spray paint, in foot-tall letters right next to the question, he wrote, “God loves you with no exceptions.”

God loves you with no exceptions!

By doing so, Father Tom and the people of Grace Episcopal Church in Randolph also answered the implied question, “What do I need to do to be loved?” All that we need to do to be loved has already been done for us. [i]

(*If you want to see the pictures, please follow the links at the bottom of the page. For some reason, I can't get them to load.)

Imagine: in foot tall letters, using the side of this church building as a social media platform to express love and grace to someone who is in desperate need of help. What kind of impact do you think a message like that can have?

The church talked about the way to respond. Somehow a letter to the editor didn’t seem the right response. On the church’s Facebook page, Father Tom mentioned that the culprits probably wouldn’t read a letter to the editor. But they would see the spray painted answer on the side of the church building. The culprits would see it and so would so many others who drive by the church every day. And, also the hundreds, if not thousands of others who have seen it since it hit the internet.

Maybe it’s not the way you or I would respond to an act of vandalism like that. But I think it was a courageous way. And, I think it says a lot about the resilience of that small community. You see, the church only averages about 40 people on a Sunday morning. Like many churches, it is a small church with a once and glorious past that is facing an uncertain future. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a message for the world around it. It does! A message filled with love and grace. But both the church and the people on the other side of the doors have become disconnected. In the words of Father Tom:

“I think people in our parishes sometimes think there’s Grace Church in Randolph, the Holy Land on the other side of the world, and nothing in between. This experience has opened us to all kinds of new questions in the local community and the wider world about how people become disenchanted with the church, about how they deal with their problems. We can’t help but pay attention.”[ii]

We can’t help but pay attention! That’s important and that’s what we need to do. We have to pay attention! We have to pay attention to what is happening around us. Grace church literally had a question written on the side of the wall that called them into action. It called them to notice that the world around it is in pain. That the world around it is changing. And, they decided to change with it. They did not change the essence of themselves or what they believe. Instead, they changed their form of communication in order to address a need in the community.

When Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians, he was in jail. The Philippians heard about his imprisonment. They had prayed for him and sought to help him. He was very grateful for their concern and their prayers and he shares with them the secret of his resilience: Rejoice in the Lord, give thanks, keep practicing the faith, and know that we can do all things with Christ who gives us the strength. That’s the secret to being resilient. Notice though that none of those answers were to stay the same. Paul learned fairly early in his ministry that he had to adapt his method of communicating the message depending on his audience. His message about God’s love and grace stayed the same. And, no matter how many times he was thrown in jail or threatened or was in distress, Paul remained resilient because he truly felt and understood that he could do all things with Christ at his side.

If someone spray painted a statement on the side of our building tonight, what do you think it would say?

Would it have the same question found on the side of Grace Church? It might. After the deaths of two teenage boys in our own community, that is a question many kids are asking.

Or, would the statement be something else about the poverty in Wadsworth. Or the drug use. Or bullying. Or hunger. What are the cries for help that our neighbors and friends, our youth and young adults are too afraid to say in public? What are the things that concern us all? And, what would our answer be?

When I started working on this sermon, I kept thinking about those “life comes at you fast” commercials. Even though things seem to stay the same for the most part, life can change pretty quickly. And, if we aren’t ready for it, those changes can overwhelm us. But, when we are prepared, change doesn’t have to overwhelm us. Paul’s surroundings changed all the time as he moved from location to location. He adapted to the different cultures. He kept his faith strong. Even when faced with prison, hunger, and death, Paul held on to his core values: the grace, love, and faith he had found in God through Jesus Christ.

Those are the same values the people of Grace Episcopal in Randolph, NY have. Those are the same values we have. The question for us is how do we share that grace, love, hope, and faith with a world that so desperately needs it? How do we reach beyond these doors into a world that looks vastly different today than it did 15, 20, 30 or even 50 years ago? Do we spray paint our message on the wall of the church? Do we live it out in our lives daily in profound ways? Do we find new ways to connect with those who think they are unlovable?

I don’t know the answer to those questions just yet. But I do know a place to start. Please pray with me: Holy and Loving God, we live in a world that seems to be changing faster than we can keep up. Sometimes, we need to see the writing on the wall to realize there are problems surrounding us. Lord, help us to see new ways to connect with those in need. Help us to be resilient in our faith even as we learn to respond to the changes in our lives and in our world that we face each day. We pray this in the name of the One whose love for us never changes. Amen.

---

[i] “Western New York: Randolph church responds to vandalism with grace,” Episcopal News Service, May 22, 2013 (http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2013/05/22/western-new-york-randolph-church-responds-to-vandalism-with-grace/). & Bob Fitzpatrick, “God Loves You in Randolph NY,” St. Anne’s blog, May 21, 2013 (http://www.stanneswashingtonville.org/2013/05/god-loves-you-in-randolph-ny/).

[ii] Elizabeth Drescher, “Vandalism as Conversation-Starter,” Religion Dispatches, May 21, 2013 (http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/7120/vandalism_as_conversation_starter/).

The Path to Jesus

One afternoon after Easter I came home to discover this pathway made by my 5 year old. She constructed it using plastic Easter eggs from the town's Easter Egg Hunt. I asked her where the path went. She said, "It goes to Jesus, Momma."

"Tell me about that," I said.

"It's like that maze thing we've walked on before. You know, the one where in the center we can be close to God," she explained.

"A prayer labyrinth?" I asked.

"Yes!" chimed in my older daughter.

Many of us like to think that our children are innately spiritual. Kids do seem to have a more intimate connection to God than most adults. But, unless we nurture that connection, they will lose it. As children grow into youth and youth grow into adults, we seem to lose that intimate connection. We become more cynical, more rational, more down-to-earth realistic. We lose that ability to wonder, to imagine, to relate to the Creator in joyous child-like awe.

I love to see how my children connect with God through their play and laughter. We forget how to do that as adults because we are too serious. When we let go of the need to control life, God appears all around us, even in a pathway made with those annoying plastic Easter eggs. That's one of the many reasons why I want to be intentional about helping children and youth to stay connected to God through play and ritual, through love and laughter. When we deepen that innate spiritual connection to God as children, it gives us strong foundations for a lifetime of faith. Those strong foundations help to sustain our faith in adulthood when the storms of life try to tear them down.

My girls have grown up with labyrinths in their lives even before they were born. The church I served while I was pregnant with them had a rose and white laminate floor labyrinth in the Fellowship Hall. I often used it with my youth during youth group meetings. It was open to the public every Tuesday for individuals to walk. I know I walked that labyrinth while pregnant with them. I chased the older child around that labyrinth after church when she was a toddler. The movement in towards the center and out towards the world was a part of their prenatal experiences.

When we moved to Richmond to Union Presbyterian Seminary, we discovered an outdoor labyrinth just yards from our apartment door at the seminary's walking track. My 5 year old learned how to walk and run on that labyrinth. I cleaned up skinned knees from when they fell following its gravel path.

I'm not sure exactly how much praying either one of them has ever done while "walking" the labyrinth. They'd take short-cuts to the center, sit for a few minutes, get up and say, "Okay, chase me now!" Yet, when I came  home to see the plastic Easter egg path to Jesus, I knew they understood what the labyrinth was all about, finding God on the path of our lives. God is already there on the path waiting for us. We have to be intentional about noticing God's presence. We have to slow down sometimes to notice! That's why I love the labyrinth. It will even slow down a child long enough for her to feel God's presence, even if it's just for a moment.

The Critter and the Day of Resurrection

Maundy Thursday began in such an interesting way. As I was feeding my cat, she and I both heard a strange noise coming from the chimney. The damper was closed and wedged shut so there was no way anything was getting inside. But, the noise was spooky and it freaked us both out.

I ran upstairs to wake my husband. My parents were also visiting. So, down came the men to see what was going on. No one wanted to open the damper to let out whatever was in there. It would have been impossible to catch a bird if that flew out of the chimney. Or, most likely it was a squirrel. If one of those rushed out into the family room, I'm sure furniture and books would have gone flying as we tried to catch it. Imagine Chevy Chase chasing the squirrel in National Lampoon's Christmas. That would have been us!

Instead, we decided to leave it there and see if it could get out on its own. We put an end table against the glass doors to keep them shut just in case it got by the damper. Then we waited.

All day Thursday it continued to make terrible scratching sounds. Thursday night, it grew silent. When the sun came up on Friday, it began again. Were we just going to leave it there and wait for it to die?

That sounded like the only option available to us. Until I googled, "how to get a squirrel out of your chimney."

The suggestion I found was to put a rope down the chimney and wait until it climbed up the rope on its own. Since my husband is afraid of heights, my father climbed the ladder, dropped a rope down the chimney, and tied it down. Then, we waited.

We waited until Sunday afternoon. We hadn't heard any noise from the chimney since sometime on Friday. My dad climbed back up the ladder and untied the rope. Then, my husband slowly opened the damper to see if anything would fall out.

Nothing!

The chimney was empty!

Thankfully, the chimney was empty and whatever was in there managed to use the rope to get out! I thought a lot about this incident that paralleled the Easter weekend. The critter became trapped on Maundy Thursday. While it didn't die, it wasn't until Easter afternoon that we discovered it was free. It felt horrible to know that the animal was going to die unless we could find a way to free it. I am thankful that my dad was visiting so he could climb the ladder and tie the rope which enabled the critter to escape its potential tomb.

I hope you had a wonderful Easter Sunday filled with the promise of new life.

The tomb is empty! Thanks be to God!

The Old Rugged Cross

We were standing in a nursing home in Philadelphia, Mississippi wondering what we were there to do. The youth crowded near me as this was an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar faces. Volunteering in the nursing home was a little bit of a surprise for us. The mission trip's purpose was working on the Choctaw Reservation, painting houses. Not volunteering in a nursing home.

The residents were excited to see us. Fresh young faces. They smiled at the youth and began talking with them. Some of the youth opened right up as they realized the wrinkled faces were no different from their grandparents. Others were still unsure.

A man with a guitar showed up and began to play music. Soon everyone began to sing. We sang all kinds of songs: religious songs, funny songs, songs from their youth. Many of the youth joined in and happily sang along.

At one point, Tabitha reached over and tapped me on the shoulder. "Look at them," she said. I turned and saw an elderly couple sitting in the back. They were holding hands, obviously still very much in love. Tabitha said, "I want to find love like that. That is so sweet."

The song leader asked for requests and someone wanted "The Old Rugged Cross." I'm not sure exactly what happened next. Somehow, Caitlin and I ended up at the front singing a duet as we led the group in "The Old Rugged Cross." It went painfully slow as we sang all four verses. Caitlin looked at me with eyes that said, "Can't we speed this up?" We could only sing as fast as the accompanist played. It was almost as if Caitlin and I were killing Jesus ourselves.

Yet, as we looked into the eyes of the residents, we knew it spoke to them. It spoke of their faith they had nurtured their entire lives. A faith that was real and present to them as they faced the illnesses that plagued them in the present. A faith that gave them hope for the days they faced ahead. Especially the day that was closer to them than they wanted to admit. The day of their death.

As I prepare to sing this song in worship today, my mind returns to that nursing home in Mississippi. I see that couple who had experienced a lifetime of love and still held hands deeply in love with each other. I see a wrinkled face that found hope in an old rugged cross. I see the faces of youth who learned that love and faith are powerful ideals that can carry us through whatever we may experience in this life. I see hope that empowers us all that came to us from a hill far away. For that rugged cross on the hill far away, I am very thankful.

The Sorrow

In those moments, when the sorrow descends and rests upon your heart, your whole world changes and it will never be the same again. At least that was the way it was for me when I heard the words, "I'm sorry but there is no heartbeat. Your baby has died." The sorrow comes like a thief in the night stealing the joy from your life.

I've thought about that day a lot recently as politicians have recently discussed women's health issues in the news. Once again, abortion is a hot political topic. Once again, birth control is up for debate. Honestly, these are both issues I thought were decided a long time ago. Why must it come up again and again?

I thought about that day as I read about Michelle Duggar's recent miscarriage. The sorrow she is experiencing is immense. I cannot even begin to imagine living it out on TV with all the world to watch. All I wanted to do was hide, to bury myself deep under the blankets and not come out until I could forget. The problem is you can't forget. Even now, eight years later there are days where I remember the pain, the sorrow, and the dreams that were lost. Even now, with two healthy children who are the light of my lives, I will always remember what might have been.

The sorrow, the emotions, and the reality of life is what always angers me when politicians use issues like birth control and abortion to "win" votes. These are not clear-cut issues with right or wrong answers. The answers here are as varied as the stories of the women who tell them. Listen to my story and see how recent politicians' viewpoints would have impacted me.

It was 2004. My husband and I had been married for 4 years. After much discussion, we decided we would try to get pregnant. Well, there is no trying for me. I'm about as fertile as they come and it didn't take long for the line on  the stick to turn pink. Yes! I'm pregnant. We were very excited. But we didn't tell anyone in the beginning. We wanted to wait until we were through that tricky first trimester. Well, we did tell our boss, the senior pastor, because he was leaving on sabbatical. We thought it might be weird for him to come back and find me 6 months pregnant!

Soon, after much anxious waiting and hopeful planning, I went to the doctor for a 12 week check-up. Only, as I lay on that table, she got a concerned look on her face as she felt my belly. Then, she tried to find a heartbeat. Her eyes grew darker. I could tell something was wrong just by looking at her. She said, "Oh, it might be nothing but we need to get you scheduled for an ultrasound." Only, that would take 3 days. Three of the longest days of my life.

When my husband and I arrive for the ultrasound, the tech is all cheery. Until he reads my file. He starts the procedure and finds a small fetus. But, it's so small he can't see what is going on with it. He turns to me and says, "Hon, I'm gonna need you to go get undressed because I need to do a trans-vaginal on you." "I'm sorry, but could you explain to me what that is first," I say to him. So, he does. And, I cooperate. And, yes, it is very uncomfortable. I WANT to know what is going on with this baby, but, I can not fathom any good reason why a politician would make a woman have one of these invasive ultrasounds before she chooses to have an abortion.

The trans-vaginal ultrasound does it's job. It lets us know that I have indeed miscarried. My fetus stopped developing at 8 weeks. Here I am at 12 weeks carrying a baby that has no heartbeat. A baby I had hopes and dreams for. But, it is gone.

Yet, it's not gone. It's still there in my uterus. The medical term is a "missed miscarriage." No one knows how long I could have carried that non-developing fetus in me. It might have stayed there for months had I chosen to let it abort naturally. My doctor said we could stay the course for about a week and see what happens. Or, I could have a D & C that very day. The sooner it happened, the better for my uterus. The longer this baby stayed there the more likely I could develop a serious infection. But the choice was mine to make.

The choice was mine to make. Not some politician in Georgia who says I should carry a dead fetus full-term no matter what. The choice was mine. I was the one dealing with all of the emotions, all of the sorrow. I needed to end this pregnancy which had already ended itself. I needed to "clean house" and move on, at least physically. Mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, I had a ways to go. But, it was my choice to make. So, I made it. On Friday, May 28, 2004, I had a medically necessary abortion because of a missed miscarriage. One of the saddest days of my life.

The sorrow that comes from losing a pregnancy can be overwhelming. The emotions each woman faces is very different. Different as each story. Different as each woman. The sorrow I have experienced this past month as I have read different politicians (both male and female) express definitive view points on this issue has almost overwhelmed me. And, I am angry. I am angry that many think issues like abortion are either black or white. It is not. Especially when stories like mine, an abortion that was not wanted but needed, becomes a part of the political foray.

I cannot tell you what to think or how to vote or what you should believe. I only want to tell you my story so you can understand that there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to these politically divisive issues. Personally, I believe abortions should be avoided at all costs. But, to completely outlaw them will only make our world an even more tragic place to live. If you haven't watched Dirty Dancing in a while, you should! That movie has a lot more to say about abortion than it does dancing.

Many will say to me that I did not have an abortion. Yet, there are politicians out there today who want to make what I did illegal. How is that helping anyone? How is that helping our society? It's not. You see, that's a private decision that needs to be made between a person and her doctor. Plain and simple.

I believe our arguments over political issues like abortion and birth control sadden God. God knows we live in a crazy place. God knows there is sin in our world. God knows that we will make mistakes. What God really wants is for us to come together to talk about our differences. God wants us to respect each other. God wants us to love each other. God wants us to honor each other's opinions. God wants us to love our enemies. Because when we do, that's when the Kingdom of God is most present in our world. And, the sorrow that surrounds us all is replaced with a sense of peace.

The Sewing Project

The huge project my daughter and I worked on a few weeks ago received a blue ribbon. I mentioned this project in my post The Spiritual Art of Sewing. The project was to decorate a potato. In case you can't tell by the picture, she made a Chinese girl by the Great Wall. It was a lot of work. We had a lot of fun, too! She did a great job. I just love her smile.