Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection On Sick Days

Sick Days

When I find that I have neglected a spiritual discipline for a while, the absence of this practice is noticeable. For instance, when I havent been sitting in the solitude and silence of the morning, my days seem longer and my patience thin. When I havent read the Bible outside of Sunday morning worship, my own story, feels lonely and insignificant. But I find that when I take the time to engage the disciplines that give me life, like taking time to read the story of God slowly and deliberately, I begin to recognize how my story and Gods intersect.
During my 2 days down, my 2 dogs took good care of me.
In church, we are constantly assessing our relationship with God. We sing, we pray, we listen, and give as a response to Gods goodness in our lives. An important part of this goodness is our bodies. When we worship, it is important not just that we exercise our souls, but our physical selves as well. In passing of the peace, we touch our neighbors and acknowledge their physical presence; in sharing our joys and concerns we audibly respond and recognize one anothers physical presence; and in communion, especially as we have lately practiced it by intinction, we come forward together, sharing in a common loaf and a common cup, bumping shoulders and saying excuse me to the physical presence of our neighbor. In worship, we respond with our physical selves, because even our flesh belongs to God.
In her book An Altar in the World (currently the subject of our Sunday night book group reading during Lent), Barbara Brown Taylor admits that it took her time to understand that God loved all of hernot just her spirit but also her flesh. She says, When understanding finally camenot by reason but by faiththe first thing I understood was that it was not possible to trust that God loved all of me, including my body, without also trusting that God loved all bodies everywhere.[1] She continues:while we might not have one other thing in common, we all wear skin.
Our bodies have a way of telling us to slow down. For instance, when we get sick, as with a bad cold, this is usually our bodies forcing us to stop, gather ourselves, and rest. This happened to me Monday and Tuesday. After going, going, going for a few weeks, I finally listened to my body that said, Adam, rest.
So rest I did.
In this rest, I was able to read, write, and return to some disciplines I hadnt practiced in a long time (although, most of Monday and Tuesday were spent asleep from coughing the previous night). This period of forced slowness reminded me of this important truth: that all of our selves need to be filled. Whether by reading a good book, taking a long walk, or taking a sick day to recover from a busy few weeks, our bodies will benefit from slower paces and healthier ways of using our time.
I leave you all with this poem I stumbled across in the midst of my recovery. It is a healthy reminder that even as we are still in Lent, who we are is defined by much, much more than what we do.

Camas Lilies
by Lynn Ungar
Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the native ground their bulbs
for flour, how the settlers' hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?
And youwhat of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine setting it all down

papers, plans, appointments, everything
leaving only a note: "Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I'm through blooming."
Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course
your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.




[1] Barbara Brown Taylor.  An Altar in the World.  (New York:  Harper One Publish, 2009,) 41.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection on Sights at a Station and in a City

Sights at a Station and in a City

He stood less than, or right around, 3 feet tall.

His little nose was as red as a St. Louis Cardinals shirt, and I quickly found out why as I shivered and shook from the cold. What kept me warm was his energy. This little guy, so excited about riding a train, would run up and down the train station, between Broadway and Pekin.

Every once in the while hed take his little hand, which had a mitten that hung on like the last leaf of fall, and cup his ear and yell [from no matter the distance],Hey gramma, I think I hear the train!

Before I could even put my bags down, my new friend came and sat directly next to the spot where I was going to plant myself.

Hi, he said, grinning and introducing himself using his full name. His tone was so matter-of-fact that it made me smile.

I introduced myself and before I even finished my last name my little friend said, Hey, youve got a lot of bags. Are you going to Bloomington, too?

When I told him no, explaining that I was on my way to Chicago, his nose scrunched and he repeated what I said back to me, like little kids often do.

He wore John Deere boots, and excitedly explained not only that his uncle Grant bought him these boots, but why:  I have a tractor that has a flat tire, but it can be fixed by uncle Grant because uncle Grant has a tractor too and it works because it was in the parade and I waved at him when he was in the parade and one day when Im not a kid, because Im only 5, Ill ride my tractor in the parade.

As with his introduction, he spoke again with great excitement and enthusiasm. When I asked if this was his first time on the train he told me that a very long time ago, like, when he was 3 he rode the train.

A very long time ago.this, on the day before my 29th birthday.

Later that same day, as I made my way through Chicago, walking stories below skyscrapers and bumping shoulders with people Ive never met, I made some observations:

Like a forest in the thick of summer, light will always find its way to us, even through cityscapes of erected steel and glass.

I listened to the beat of the city, as beautiful as a drum in worship, in the shaking cup held by a homeless woman.

My heart smiled, hearing different languages spoken.

For a moment, I found some sense of comfort, as I felt myself get lost in the crowd.

Psalm 139 came to mind as I watched people from a bench: I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

As he departed from the train, my buddy stopped, turned around and gave me a big hug. He didnt know me. He was probably taught not to talk to strangers. Yet he did anyway. His willingness to engage with me; his eagerness to listen to my story; and his energy for life excited me for a trip that I was previously secretly dreading.

Before this encounter, I was anxious and a little afraid of heading the big city. My new friend's eagerness to hear my story, and share his, made me feel vulnerable and safe. His honest excitement reminded me of God's presence in our midst. This vitality, found in an unexpected place and through an unlikely encounter, is the relational manifestation of the incarnation, as a holy and necessary disruption in our lives.
.

It may look like a pair of size 1 John Deere boots.

It might sound like the sidewalk on Michigan Avenue.

Or it might sound like the rhythmic clanking of an Amtrak train.

See you at church on Sunday!

This is the pulpit in the sanctuary of Fourth Presbyterian
Church in Chicago, Illinois.


This is the sanctuary of Fourth Presbyterian Church in
Chicago, Illinois. 

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection on Support



Support to Serve


During a season that is often associated with the desert wilderness, perhaps the last thing we’d expect to find are the stones we are tempted to turn into bread covered with snow. But, here we are, one full week into the journey of discovery. By now the Ashes have been washed away and our practices are becoming more of a routine…or we are at the point where the temptation to return to former habits is stronger than the hope we have in our hearts.

Perhaps just one week into it we have already given up what we have taken on, or we have taken on again what we committed to giving up. On the 8th day of Lent we may feel as if these 40 days of wandering are going to last 40 years. In fact, rather than seeing past our brokenness we might become too familiar with it again.

And that may leave you, as it has me before, feeling lonely and isolated. And in the wilderness, that is one feeling we don’t want to be left alone with.

Today’s daily lectionary reading is from Mark 1.29-40 [click here to read the text]. Having just called his disciples, Jesus now finds himself on the streets and in the homes of those he shares life with. I began to notice how the healings take place in Mark’s first chapter. Rather than Jesus going up to people and asking, “Do you want to be healed?” the people come to him:

“Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.” (Mark 1.31)

A few lines later we read…

“A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean.” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.” (Mark 1.40,41)

             Often the church collectively focuses so much on extending itself as a helping hand, that we sometimes forget to reach out and ask for help when we find ourselves in need. While this is more of a struggle for some of us than others, if there is anything the stories of our scripture teach us, it is that God is always mindful of us, and wants to bring healing to Gods people.

Sometimes, this simply means we need to ask other people for help.

             Today I was reminded of this as I was walking the neighborhood surrounding First Presbyterian Church. As the snow fell softly, I heard in the distance the bells chiming. While I do not remember the hymn it played, I do remember the thought that came to mind: the church is a respite for us during the season of wilderness discovery. On Sunday mornings we come to gather corporately to pray and to sing, to listen and to offer our lives back to God in worship. The bells of the church reminded me that God is good, that we belong entirely to God, and that our lives are rooted in God’s love.

            The bells do not merely say, “Be good, come to church.” They do not merely say, “Keep the commandments,” but rather, they say, “come with us, the way to Love is not hard, God’s has made it easy. You are not alone in this season, this city, or in this life.”

Week one into the wilderness and we are covered in snow, but in our hearts we know, we aren’t alone.


See you Sunday at 301 Pekin Street!

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection on Spring Change

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
   you Easter parade of newness.
   Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
     Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
     Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
   Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
     mercy and justice and peace and generosity.
We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.
~Walter Brueggemann {for entire poem click here.}
Spring Change

Change is happening around us.

While the snow still loiters on sidewalks, over the last few weeks the light has lingered longer in our neighborhoods.

On the occasion when the temperature rises above freezing, birds begin to sing. Their song is a welcome sign to ears that have been deafened by the sound of snows frequent falling.

This Sunday, a significant human-imposed sign of change happens when we set our clocks to spring forward. Instead of setting at 5pm the sun will escape to the other side an hour later.

Change is happening all around us.

Even when the cycle of change feels familiar, it is exciting to see what this new season in the year will bring. Knowing they lie beneath the frozen earth, we expectantly await emergence of spring flowers, transforming the brown scenery that has consumed our yards and parks into beautiful blankets of color. If you are like me, you are ready for the trees to change their clothes by putting on their green leavespassing from dormancy to life that is springing forth.

Today is Ash Wednesday, and for many of us this means the appearance of our foreheads will change as we participate in an ancient ritual known as the imposition of ashes. Today we change the color of the fabric, the paraments, in our sanctuary from green to purple. Ash Wednesday begins our journey of Lent.

Every year, Ash Wednesday calls us back to the paths from which we have strayed, refocusing our attention on both the path and the goal of our journey through life. From this point forward, our Lenten Sundays will plunge us into the center of our faith, reminding us of who we are and who we are striving to become.

Ash Wednesday, which echoes the Hebrew Testaments ancient call to sackcloth and ashes, is a continuing cry across the centuries that life is transient, that change is urgent. On this day, with ash smudged onto our foreheads, we are both confronted with the masks we wear and reminded of our journey toward our true selves. “Indeed, Lent, we learn on Ash Wednesday, is not about abnegation, about denying ourselves for the sake of denying ourselves.”[1] Perhaps: but Lent is also about much more than that. It is about opening our hearts one more time to the Love of God in the hope that this time, hearing it anew, we might allow ourselves to become ourselves.

Ash Wednesday begins our journey into the wilderness.

It acts as a call to prayer.

It acts as call to action.

It acts as a call to forgiveness.

Ultimately, it acts as  

an invitation

to change our ways,

to get beyond the negativity in our lives,

and

to become new again, no matter what our lives have been like until now, and to pursue our lives fully.

Change is happening all around us.

Soon, from nothing will emerge the something of spring.

May these noticeable changes remind us that life is right in front of us

and

that you

never

ever

wander too far

away from who

God

created

you

to become.

Friends, on this Ash Wednesday, with ashes smeared on our forehead, may we accept the life we have received and the love we will find, both now and forever...



[1] Joan Chittister.  “The Liturgical Year:  The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life.”  (Nashville:  Thomas Nelson, 2009), 120.