Sparrow Songs

He couldn’t have chosen a better day to have a stroke. 

That was one mantra that got us through the first few days.  We’d repeat it to everyone who came, with the litany of things we had celebrated in the days before his brain hemorrhaged.

Because really, what can you say when you’ve repeated the story 100 times to anyone who will listen again? 

On Sunday before the stroke, Suzanne and I celebrated our installation at the church we had just started serving the summer before.  The church was proud and so were we and so was he.   We had a grand time with friends in from out of town, and Dad took all of us out afterwards, celebrating with chips, salsa, queso and tacos. 

The next morning, Labor Day, we all gathered to celebrate Dad’s second granddaughter’s first birthday.  I have this picture of him sitting on one side of the back deck, blowing bubbles with our girls, a picture we would pass around often in the days when Dad was unresponsive. 

He couldn’t have chosen a better to day to have a stroke…after celebrating both of his children and cherishing his grandchildren in grand celebrations of life. 

Back to that installation service- I had only asked for a few things to be included in the service, but I wanted “His Eye is On The Sparrow” sung or played.  It’s a carrying tune for our family- it was played at both of my father’s parent’s funerals, it was played at our wedding, and it was included in my ordination service.  If some songs are on our soundtrack, this song is my anthem. 

I hope you’re singing it in your head now, “I sing because, I’m happy.  I sing because I’m free.  For his eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.”  You’ll know you’re most like our family if you were singing Lauryn Hill and Tanya Blount’s version from Sister Act 2…

The incomparable Lori Tucker, one of the Wild Women of Kansas City, came to sing Sparrow at the installation.  When Lori sang Sparrow that day, she came to the chorus, the “I sing because I’m happy” part.  Her voice slowed and she clasped a hand to her chest, reaching for invisible pearls; she closed her eyes, smiled and prayed the words more than sang them, “I sing because I’m free.”

It was a moment, one of the seldom ones, where someone is so completely giving away what they have that you feel immersed, enveloped, in the intensity and truth of it; it’s a moment sitting in the sun glow of love.  As she sang, Lori brought her hands away from her invisible pearls, swinging them out as though amplifying waves of her joy, casting them out on us. 

Back to the hospital- in the early days, the neurologists, neurosurgeons, and rehab specialists told us that music was a unitive force, that music required executive function from both hemispheres of the brain and that, given our family’s love for music, Dad could benefit from it.  A friend of Dad’s brought a small boom box to the room with a box of inspirational and religious CD’s, and we invited friends with willing (if not necessarily good) voices to sing to Dad. 

Whenever it was me, alone with him, though, I could only think of one song to sing. 

It was all I could do to choke out the chorus through tears…I sing because I’m happy…

I choked through the words because I wasn’t happy.  I choked through the words because I worried that the next time they would be sung would be at his funeral.  I choked through the words because I was exhausted and angry and afraid and overwhelmed and…

I still sang them.  Because in them somewhere was some small pearl of mercy that I needed. 

There’s a song we sing in church, I often sing it when I pray.  The chorus is simple: No storm can shake my inmost calm, while to that rock I’m clinging.  If Love is Lord of heaven and Earth, how can I keep from singing? 

Music breaks in because, how can I keep from singing?  The lyrics of the music change from moment to moment, though:  I’m broken wide open.  I’m shattered.  We’re hopeful.  We’re hopeful but terrified.  We’re so scared.  Things seem to be better today.  Things are so much worse today.  The doctors think things are working. The doctors don’t know if anything can help.  There is no treatment.  He has to be strong.  We have to be strong. 

Back to church- Lori Tucker was back at the church a few weeks ago to sing.  I went to her because my heart still resonated with that sun glow blessing she had cast froma  year ago.  I needed to go to her.  Embracing me, she smiled great big and said, “Baby, how have you been?  How’s your Dad?” 

I told her about Sparrow, about singing it to Dad and about how we were just past the year anniversary of the stroke, how her faith in the song had carried me in those first days.  She listened and her eyes filled with tears as I told her I’d try to sing it to Dad. 

And then Lori told me more about her husband.  Lori’s husband Ham is with her when she sings, partly because he loves her so deeply and loves to hear her sing and partly because seven years ago he had a stroke similar to Dad’s that placed Lori in the role of his primary caregiver.

Lori told me about the weeks Ham was on life support and how she’d sit just like I did singing Sparrow to him.  She said this, “When we were in the hospital, I only prayed for one thing: I said, Lord, I don’t know what will happen, but I know that you will heal my heart no matter what.”

“I know that you will heal my heart no matter what.” 

Then Lori got up that Sunday and sang, “We have come this far by faith…Leaning on the Lord…”

Faith is singing the sparrow song, the one you sing when you aren’t sure if you can get the words out.  That’s all it is. 

Faith is the tiny pearl of mercy there when we forget the words to the songs, when we can’t choke out the words, when our only prayer is for the broken heart we hold in pieces saying “heal this.”  It’s the persistent willfulness we have to put one foot in front of the other, to take whatever words there are and say, “these are going to have to be enough.”   

When Lori sang just a few weeks ago, with the words, “We’ve come this far by faith,” it felt like sparrow words that had carried us forward and are still carrying me today in many ways.  And all I could do was be grateful that they were enough because they were all the faith we could hold. 

And if you need sparrow words today, you can hear it Lori sing “We’ve Come This Far” with Father Timothy Whitmer on the keys by clicking right here.  

Surviving My Jesus Year

A year ago yesterday, my Dad had a stroke.  It was the night before my thirty-third birthday. 

My Jesus Year.

Whether we’re twenty-three or thirty-three, I feel it to be a fairly rational goal simply to make it to our next birthday without being crucified. 

I wanted thirty-three to hold some inflection point for me, some significance.  So, I set a goal. 

I would write thirty-three pieces for my blog in my thirty-third year, as acts of public spirituality and theology. I began to brainstorm ideas.  I wrote a covenant and shared it with the contemplative spiritual community I was a part of.  I readied myself for thirty-three groundbreaking blog entries. 

We had a houseguest the night before my birthday.  A visiting Japanese scholar who had become part of our church during his study at a local university, to whom I had offered a bed for the night and a ride to the airport early the next morning. 

As he shared dinner with us, he began to share stories about his home: Hiroshima.  Using my tech know-how, I fired up the TV, mirrored my computer on to the screen, and suddenly we were immersed in his hometown thanks to Google Earth. 

Our guest was beside himself with excitement; it was the first time he’d seen his home in months.  He pointed to exterior windows and said, “that’s the room I share with my wife.  Here is my son’s room, and my daughter‘s!”  He laughed, “my wife did not sell my car while I was gone!”  He walked us around the corners of his neighborhood, to the nearby subway station, and almost cried when he saw his favorite street food vendor. 

And then he took us up high and brought us to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.  The Park is home to the major memorials and remembrances of the 1945 bombing. 

As we stood virtually amidst the stone memorials and leafy green trees, his face fell.  He said, “My loneliest day in the United States was August 6.  That day we remember the bombing of Hiroshima.  Now it is a day we spend with our families in remembrance, together, for peace.” 

My phone buzzed.  A text from Mom: I just got home and your Dad’s not here.  He’s not answering his cell phone.

It would be a short twenty minutes before the bomb landed, this time with a phone call from Mom: “The police called.  They found your Dad in a parking lot.  They think he’s had a stroke.” 

Boom. 

It took five months before I felt like I could really hear again after that explosion.  There was plenty of listening in the midst of chaos.  Dad responded well to treatment at first, but threw two pulmonary emboli that developed into C.Dif., that developed into sepsis and then kidney failure.  There was Overland Park Regional and then Research, then Select Speciality, Madonna in Lincoln, and then…suddenly…home…with daily rehab and care, after nearly six months in hospitals.

In those months (and still today, praise be to God), Mom and Dad’s communities were constantly overwhelming us with phone calls, texts, emails, and visits, and everyone just wanted to know the same thing we wanted to know: How is he?

So, we did the only thing we could to keep folks informed about the journey: we started a CaringBridge page and began to journal. 

I took main charge of communication and put myself to remembering as many names and details as I could.  I wrote down doctor names, numbers, nurses (and their snarky nicknames: Good Looking Nurse Keith, No Nonsense Nancy, and others), room numbers, visitors and volunteer helpers, cups of coffee drank, meals made, bought, brought and consumed. 

I wrote down flickers of Dad’s eyelids, twitches of his fingers.  I wrote down the color of his skin, the swollen-ness of his legs.  I wrote the rattle of his breathing.   

At some point each day I’d try to translate these into a narrative for the net of grace that was supporting us all, and I’d post them.  Later, I’d go back to read the comments of affirmation, encouragement and the very few small pieces of unsolicited advice, and I’d just cry.  There was so much love in them, and I needed that love.  We needed that love.  We were so afraid. 

All the posts ended with the same affirmation: “God is good.  All the time.  We’re not okay, and we don’t know when we will be.  But we know we will be, and that the only way we’ll get there is together.  Thank you for loving Dad and thank you for loving our family.” We believed it then as we do now, but that affirmation was the small handhold our faiths latched to, most days with only one or two fingers clinging desperately.

Dad’s been home now for nearly seven months.  Those months have been filled with near-daily physical, occupational, and speech therapy, and have seen him move from nearly immobile to walking slowly with the help of a cane.  His speech frustrates him constantly, as he understands everything being said to him but struggles to form the correct words and sounds with his mouth in response. 

Most of our conversations are held in “Yes” and “No” questions, where we figure out what he’s trying to say to us slowly, sometimes with great victorious fanfare and often with conceding resignation. It’s a process, we know that.

Just to be vulnerable for a moment (or perhaps more vulnerable than I’ve been so far): although I’m certain he himself does care about this, I don’t really care if my Dad can never carry on a conversation with me again although I hope for and with him that he gets to the point that he can.  I’m just grateful that he is still with us, that he has a will to live and a faithful perseverance to which he shows us everyday, and that he knows the love of my daughters and my niece in every moment their toddler selves are willing and able to give it.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the stroke. That means today is my thirty-fourth birthday.  I made it through thirty-three without being crucified, although I certainly made the journey to Calvary more than once this last year. 

Perhaps it will seem strange that one of the weirdest by-products of the last year was writer’s block.  In the midst of a season of loss, I lost my words. 

I spoke with my wife about it.  I spoke with my therapist about it.  I spoke with my spiritual director about it. 

The words were just not there. 

This blog has often been a repository for “perfect” words for me.  I’ve written mostly things that I’ve found heavy-handed and/or un-vulnerable, and they’ve come as the result of eight hour writing binges spent obsessively writing and re-writing and editing and re-editing sentences and paragraphs to come up with the “perfect” phrasing, the smartest thought or the most significant meaning.  I’ve polished all of them to an invisible standard important only to me. 

But this year blew up perfection and in its place it left vulnerability, compassion, the need to ask others for help, the need for grounding my spirit in the immovable and ever available grace of God, and the desire to only seek engagement with the things that are truly mine to do. 

In a conversation with my therapist, we were talking again (for likely the tenth time) about the Writer’s Block.  He said to me, “Didn’t you write all those CaringBridge posts?  Isn’t that writing?” 

I made some quick excuse, “Yeah, but that’s informative writing.  Not transformative writing.” 

He lifted the left side of his lip underneath his freud-shaped glasses, tapped his pen against his temple and pilfered out a “Hmm.” 

“Hmm” is the Holy Spirit saying through another beloved, “You need to listen to the assumptions you’re making about where you want the Spirit to lead you.” 

I went back to the CaringBridge that week after session.  I read old comments and stories from the stroke.  I cried again in moments of brokenness and lostness that we felt. 

As I read the thought occurred to me: how many of these things did I write? 

Thirty-four. 

I get it, Holy Spirit.  I get it.  God is good. 

All the time. Especially the times when we’re so wrapped up in our stuff we can’t see it.

For this birthday year, I’m committing to writing here on a regular basis.  I’ll keep the Dad updates on Caring Bridge, but here I’ll post my own stuff.  I don’t know if that means thirty-four entries or four entries or fifty entries. 

But I’m going to push through my Block and write.  To do that I’m also committing to write posts in two hours or less, and posting them without neurotic editing.  I’m committing to only checking view stats and comments once or twice a day, and I’m committing to saying things that come from a place of gratitude and vulnerability instead of “professionalism” and “polish.”

I know I’ve learned a lot in the past year, but I still don’t know if I’ve learned anything valuable or worthwhile for anyone else.  So in the spirit of being another pilgrim on the journey, I just want to share some of the things that have happened, that I’ve heard or experienced, and hope that you might find yourself and the Holy Spirit in them too. 

Because on the anniversaries of the bombs blowing up in our lives, what better thing can we do than remember to gather around each other in love, in care and compassion for one another, in remembrance, in peace, and in purpose for a new day.

What better can we do than to remember that God is good, all the time, thirty-four and more times over. 

A Letter for My Second Daughter On Her Induction Eve

Dear New Baby Girl,

Tomorrow is your Induction Day.  You are joining a small tribe of love that consists of your sister, your mom, your dog, and me, in descending order of importance.  The perks of your membership are one free year of breastfeeding, unlimited diaper changes, and a 24/7/365 concierge service that is glad to come cuddle you and/or clean up vomit whenever and wherever you need.  We, though, do have a few expectations of you: that you will do your best to allow us to sleep through the night and that you’ll do your best not to blow your diaper out all of your Easter and Christmas Eve dresses. 

Your sister got a letter just like this one.  I want you both to start early with words and letters- they are some of the most precious gifts I have to give you.  Right now, your sister is almost two-years old.  She has an amazing amount of words already, but the words she’s really choosing to use frequently are, “NO!” “Show?” “My Snack?” and “Baa,” which is what she calls her pacifier.  You’d think we had spent the last two years serving at her every whim. 

Don’t worry, I know by the time you’re two, you and I will have written your first book of poetry, all while Lydia watches her show while eating her snack and holding on to her Baa. 

What is your name, anyway?  We keep calling you Baby Sister, and we think we know what we’re going to call you, but you could very well come out and we could look at you and say, “Well, she doesn’t look like a Blank Blank.”  We’re not actually naming you Blank Blank, but your grandparents get all worked up about not knowing your name and it’s a little fun to torture them with it.  Actually, we landed on your name fairly quickly, but we’ll talk about that later, after you’re born and we see your face, and we make sure that the name fits who you are.

There’s so much you need to know!  Where do we even start?  First, the important things out of the way: as you come out (hopefully) tomorrow, the first voice you will likely here is Justin Timberlake, your mommy’s favorite “PUSH IT” mix musician.  His music is good, but it’s not as good as people like Marvin Gaye and Patti Smith and Chris Thile and Lauryn Hill and Ben Folds.  You may come out and here these people called “The Indigo Girls” singing.  If that’s the case, I can’t help you.  They are your mommy’s absolute favorite. 

Other important lessons you need straight out of the gate: ranch dressing does make things taste better, but when you use it on strawberries like your sister does, people will think you’re weird.  Your dog Jeffy Lu startles easily, so be gentle with her when you’re doing things around her like playing with anything or just generally…breathing.  There will be moments when your sister throws fits and lays down on the floor sobbing; do what your Mom and Dad do and just let her be.  It’ll look weird, but most of the time she sobbing because we gave her the cup with Batwoman on it instead of Wonder Woman. 

I know they’re not particularly important lessons, but this is what being a family is: embracing the everyday weirdness and the everyday amazingness. 

Which brings me to this: you are being brought into a community of mutuality (again, I know, a big word for a baby, but just like your sister, you are going to be a prodigy).  You are the most important person in our little circle, and you are not the most important person in our little circle.  We will hope things of you, expect things of you, want the best things for and from you, and you should hope things, expect things and want the best for and from us.  When you’re a family, you face all of life together.  That means we hold the hard things in one hand and the good things in the other, all while we hold each other closer and closer. 

You are being born in a particular time for our family when we are holding a lot of hard things.  Some day, but not today, we will tell you about the journey we’ve been on with your Grandad as you’ve grown for the last two months inside Mommy. 

I need to make sure here that you know one hard thing about it now, though.  When your sister was born, your Grandad was at the hospital all night long, waiting for her to come, and he was one of the first people to hold her.  Your Grandad won’t be able to physically be there in the hospital waiting room because he will be in his own hospital room, just like you.   Out of all of us, your Grandad is the most excited and expectant to meet you.  If he could, he would be there with an annoying shirt on that says something like “Granddads are dads without rules.” 

But, my sweet girl, he won’t be able to be here on your Induction Day.  That’s as hard for your Daddy, your Mommy, and your Grammy as it is for you, so we can hold that all together.  Out of us all, it may be pretty true that your Grandad loves you most and is so glad that you’re here.  Some day, hopefully soon, he is going to hold you and greet you like he wants.  And we’ll all cry that day, too.  But that’s okay…crying is something that makes us all stronger. 

Until then, you’ll have to settle for love from me and your mom, from your sister who really does want to be your big sister, from your Grammy (who may squeeze you twice as hard until Grandad can squeeze you again, so just be ready), from your Nana and Papaw (who may love as much as your Grammy and Grandad do), from your crazy aunts Jennifer and Kaymo, from your much more reasonable Uncle Blaise, and from your weird little cousin Ada who will eat your lunch (and your breakfast and your dinner) if you let her, and from your strong mighty smart sweet cousin Kendall who is just going to smile big when she meets you at Thanksgiving.  

This is where I need to teach you another big word early: gratitude.  Gratitude is the feeling your heart has when you acknowledge that your life is about so much more than just you.  Start early, kid, because sometimes this feeling gets lost in the everyday busy-ness of just trying to be yourself.  Your life is a gift to you as much as you are a gift to us.  Gifts are most often given to us by other people, and knowing that other people support us takes a lot of the heaviness off our shoulders when life gets hard and heavy.  Two of the most precious words your sister has already are, “Thank you.”  Don’t worry- we’ll make sure you get them early.  Those words are like a prayer, because every time we say them they help us grow closer to the people we love. 

I’ll be honest with you- I’m scared to death about the world you’re being born into.  It’s a lot different here now than when your sister came.  I’ll save you many details.  It’s just- In many ways we’re all just a lot more honest about who we are, and in many other ways we never known less who we are. 

The only job you have, sweet girl, is to know discover who you are, to find your own voice, and to speak honestly and boldly with it.

There are some words that I love, from a book called the Bible (we’ll cover that later…too much for this letter), and they go like this:

Who will separate us from Christ’s love?  Will we be separated by trouble, or distress, or harassment, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?…

But in all these things we win a sweeping victory through the one who loved us.  I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.” 

As you face the death and life and angels and rulers and present things and future things and powers and heights and depths and everything else, here’s the one thing that I need to leave you with:

Do you realize that you will be the most loved baby girl in the history of all the baby girls that have ever been born in the world anywhere ever? 

I mean, like, there will only be one other person whose parents have ever loved them as much as we love you, and that person is your sister. 

Because you are ours and we are yours, and

nothing,

nothing,

NOTHING

will ever

ever

EVER

change that. 

If nothing in this world can change that God loves you, nothing in this world will ever change that we love you. 

We know those things in our bones, too, and we can’t wait to help you know them too.

See you soon, sweet beloved daughter,

Dad (and Mom, who will sign this letter when she wakes up)

How Can We Keep From Singing?

Of all the things it needs, this last week needs prayer.  This last week needs prayer, and this next week needs prayer.

These are the words I offered as our pastoral prayer during worship this morning at Community Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Kansas City, Missouri.  

This past week, Suzanne and I were on vacation together in Colorado.  We did our best not to look at our phones or to engage the world much, but it was exceptionally difficult as our phones chimed every day with escalating and terrifying news updates.  On one of our days, we hiked a small-easy trail near Conifer, and sat beside the crisp mountain rivers.  As I wrote these words, those waters flowed the words of a song back into my heart.

For those not in Kansas City (and even for those in the city), I’ve connected some of the pieces of this prayer via hyperlink to things that occurred in and around the Kansas City Metroplex in the last week.  Also, note that it is the practice of our church to conclude the pastoral prayer with the Lord’s Prayer each week.

…and, yes, in case you’re curious…I did sing the first part…so you should too as you read this…

---

Minister:  Christ Be With You.

Congregation: And Also With You.

Minister: Let us pray…

…A deep silence, for our sighs that are too deep for words…

My life flows on,

in endless song,

above earth’s lamentation.

I hear the clear,

though far off hymn

that hails a new creation.

No storm can shake my inmost calm

while to that Rock I’m clinging.

Since love is Lord of heav’n and earth,

how can I keep from singing?

Robert Lowry, “My Life Flows On”

Where do we even start this morning, O God?

The world this week has tried to keep us from singing,

and our hearts come filled with lamentations.

 

We began our week together with a senseless act of violence,

the death of Officer Gary Michael, Jr.

For his service and life, we offer up our thanksgiving.

And for the man whose brokenness led to Officer Michael’s death,

we grieve for what his life has become.

 

And even as we grieve this, we lament that even yet in the streets of our cities,

people die by the hands of one another,

that our homicide rates creep higher still.

We weep at the lives lost this week in three officer-involved shootings in our city.

We pray for the families of those who have died,

and we pray for those who found themselves on the other side of the gun.

 

And even as we grieve this, we offer up our own anxieties and fears

of a phrase we wish did not exist,

a phrase created to protect ourselves

but ultimately a phrase that could lead us on the path of death.

The phrase,

Mutually-Assured Destruction.

Our hearts break for a world that seeks fire and fury

before it seeks peace and understanding.

We pray this morning for wisdom to rain down,

for tensions to ease,

for good to face down evil.

 

And even as we grieve this…our hearts break

for the terror, the horror,

the disgusting acts found in Charlottesville, Virginia yesterday.

O God, we decry to you, we condemn and we grieve deeply

the brokenness and the insanity that is

white supremacy and white nationalism.

We mourn the loss of three lives–

three.  lives.

Three lives lost in this angry and value-less cause.

There is a picture I keep seeing, O God, of young white women and men,

men who look like me.

I see them holding torches and the flames reflect in their eyes,

and I see something so familiar:

the glint of privilege,

the glint of entitlement,

the flicker of self-hatred,

the flicker of  fear.

 

Extinguish within this moment any notion that seeks to deny the truth

that we are all Your beloved, and

that we are all Your wanted and beloved, and

that we are all Your needed and wanted and beloved,

and that your love is strong enough to heal all brokenness.

Make it our song that we cannot keep from singing,

our song that rises above the chant of “blood and soil,”

make it our song that cries out

Bread and Wine

Body and Blood

Justice and Mercy

Grace and Peace

Death and Resurrection

Love and Love, and LOVE, AND LOVE.

Alpha and Omega,

give us the song of action beyond lamentation in these days.

Because the voices of hatred and indifference in this world are getting louder,

lift our voices, move our hearts, and give us the words to sing,

as you always have, to speak truth to power,

just as you did so long ago when you taught us to pray, saying,

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever.

Amen.

Chaos in Consolation

We were going to get new couches.  The couches we have are relics of my wife’s life before we married, when she decorated her whole home in every imaginable shade of purple, before I uttered the heretical words, “I don’t think I love purple as much as you do.”  We made it through that dark day.  Three years married and going strong!

Now, the dark purple couches are the chosen spot for our sweet medium-sized white-haired dog to do all her shedding and for our grubby twenty-month-old to wipe the veggie straw crumbs off her fingers.  Just like I say, “We were going to get new couches,”  I could sum up this phase of our life together with any number of other similar statements:  “I wanted to go to that writing workshop last year, but it was, like, two whole days long,” “The film fest sounds fantastic but do they have some kind of childcare?,” “Yeah, we went to the Auto Show to look at minivans.”

A spiritual mentor and I sat talking about this chaotic parenting place I’m in.  “I just need a routine.  Something I can hold onto in the midst of this chaos of parenting a toddler and preparing for a new baby!  Where can I find some new discipline?,” I begged.  She looked at me with stable, centered eyes and said, “Maybe it’s time for you to find and embrace a spirituality of chaos.”

Our friends in parenting have shared that, until their kids were four-to-six-years-old, they lived in a cloud.  They paint a picture of themselves, sleep-deprived with pureed pea stains on their shirts, smelling faintly of the last poopy diaper they changed, always covered in sticky fingerprints, for four…straight…years.  Their stories always end with “…and then, when the kids were maybe school age, the haze lifted, and we felt like people again.  Coincidentally that’s when we stopped drinking so much.”  Four to six years old, I always think.  Lord, have mercy.  

In our cloud of chaos, there’s a lot of mercy in the image of us holding tight to one another, me to my wife to our daughter and her to us, all of us preparing to expand the circle with our new daughter-to-be-born.  I’m learning to call the mercy we share consolation.  We cling fast to each other, just learning how and why we want to be held together, focused so closely on one another that there’s little time to look outside of our chaos cloud.  That’s consoling.

This post is the first of a few missives from that cloud.  This is an attempt to hold fast to what I need to hold fast to in these days, and to also peek my head above the cloud for some perspective.  It’s just barely under a year since my last post on my site.  This last year has been consolation-upon-consolation: emerging from sabbatical refocused on God-Family-Calling, finding joy in the giggles and play of my sweet little one, living into the fulfillment and challenge and contentment of loving my beloved spouse.  Even departing the congregation I loved to serve in Smithville was a consolation– anytime we follow God’s calling to seek a new spirit of energy and direction, there is mercy and grace there even if there’s tension and sadness in the transition.

These words, consolation and desolation, comes from Ignatius of Loyola. Iggy saw our lives caught between desolation and consolation.  We find ourselves in places of desolation when we turn in on ourselves, cutting ourselves off from the communities that love us and losing our ability to see the landmarks that have marked our journey with God.  In these places, we look around and wonder, if I wasted this much time getting to here, why should I even try to get beyond this?  Chaos tends to lead us to accept desolation quickly, because desolation is human and it’s easy.  Chaos can also be comfortable, especially when you can’t particularly control what’s going to come next.  Say, when you’re parenting a toddler.

Writing has been a place of desolation this last year for me.

So, I’ve spent a little time revisiting people that stirred in me an interest to write, and that took me back to Anne.  I read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, where she talks about shitty first drafts and making excuses not to write.  And she says,

“I don’t think you have time to waste not writing because you’re afraid you won’t be good at it.”  

Anne lobs this at me from a consolation place, and begs me to follow her there.  And I want to go.  There the energy goes back outside of ourselves, balance returns, vision clears, and we look around us only to discover all the Ebenezers we and God placed as we walked thus far together.

My family has been an amazing and constant consolation place for me in this last year.  AND…big AND…I also still have felt a stirring in my soul to write.  That I haven’t written hinges on nothing more than overindulged self-doubt and over-empowered imposter syndrome.  The only way we move toward consolation, though, is by praying for the strength to get there, dedicating our thoughts and words to discerning where God is in our lives, and trusting that our communities will love us into finding our right way.

So…here’s what I’m saying…I’m going to sit on my purple couches and I’m going to do my damned best to write more.  I’m going to sit in our cloud of chaos, cling close to my amazing family, and face this desolation by writing out of it.  Because, in writing, I’m praying, discerning and seeking community.  In writing, I’m working toward chaos in consolation and consolation in chaos.

As long as that work’s happening, I can stand to sit on these couches until my kids are four-to-six years old.   But then we’re buying new ones.  And they won’t be purple.

An Obituary for Sabbeardical

Sabbeardical, nine weeks, went to the great beard-yond on September 7, 2016.

He was born on the Fourth of July, 2016, “beard” of Rev. Ryan Motter. Caught with wanton abandon and hipster desire, Ryan thought, “How can my face say, ‘I am resting in the goodness of the Lord?’” Thus, Sabbeardical grew, much like Athena from the head of Zeus.

Sabbeardical was a patchwork of grace, a tapestry woven of unusually fast-growing strands and sadly puberty-forgotten stubs. He loved long walks with his dog sister, Jeff Louise, with the wind whipping about his three or four long spots. Although the neck beard was so strong with him that once considered donning a Straw Hat and running away to live with the Amish, his life was destined to be as brief as every other rumspringa.

His least favorite activities included being pulled during 4 AM cuddle sessions with his sister Lydia Grace, and eating toast with jam.

One of the most rewarding relationships of his life was with Rev. Suzanne Kerr Motter. Recognizing that he was the most major facial accomplishment of Ryan, Suzanne said of her deep love for Sabbeardical, “I love that Ryan followed his dream of having a beard. I didn’t love the dream itself, but I loved Ryan following his dream.” Sabbeardical cherished those words, almost as much as Suzanne’s other deeply loving words “Your mustache gets in my mouth when I kiss you.”

Sabbeardical is survived by the Reverends Motter, Lydia Grace, and Jeff Louise, as well as Chest Hair, Back Hair, and Old Whitey, the long white hair that grows reckless and free out of Rev. Ryan’s right ear.

In lieu of burial, Sabbeardical will be donated to science, so that others might gain wisdom from his majesty, his threadbare wantonness, and his unnatural growing patterns.

Donations of razors and shaving cream can be made in his memory to Rev. Ryan Motter and other men incapable of growing majestic beards: Travis Smith McKee, Josh Patty, Andy Beck, Ryan Arnold, Jonathan Chandler, Ryan Steitz, Justin Steitz, David Borrowman and Jeff Becker. 

And it seems to me you lived your life

Like a candle in the wind

Never knowing who to cling to

When the rain set in

And I would liked to have known you

But I was just a kid

Your candle burned out long before

Your legend ever did

Rest in Peace, Sweet Prince.

Rest in Peace.

*This obituary is best read while listening to “Ashokan Farewell,” which you can listen to, after a fifteen- second commercial for Eggo waffles, by clicking here. If you didn’t see this notice before you read the obituary the first time, then go back and read it again with the music on in the background. Because…Sabbeardical deserves it.

When Grace Comes

I was going to take off the first week and spend it at Taizé. If not there, definitely Iona. If neither of those, then I was definitely going to walk the Camino. After that, I was going to spend a week at the Abbey in Gethsemani, get in touch with Thomas Merton and the Holy Spirit. And then, time to relax on a beach somewhere, with some awesome alcoholic drink made in a pineapple, served with three umbrellas on top and a bunch of maraschino cherries.

But…on the first morning, I woke up in my parents’ basement…where I live until we find a house for ourselves. It was 5:30 AM, and Lydia was awake, just like she had been three times in the night. Suzanne woke up, got ready and went to work. My mom usually takes care of Lydia on Mondays, but that day she had a morning appointment. Dad had an early job and left around 7:30. So, at 9 AM, on the floor in the basement of my parent’s house, with my infant daughter incessantly trying to stick her fingers in every electrical plug in sight as the “Baby Einstein” Pandora station played in the background…I thought,

“This is not the sabbatical I imagined.”

Over the course of the last five weeks, every person curious about this time has immediately asked, “Ooooo…what are you doing for your Sabbatical?” The first thought comes quickly: Mention the three trips – a week with friends in Illinois, a week at the Academy for Spiritual Formation in Nebraska, and a week studying the Enneagram in Dallas. With rare exception, the person asking is disappointed with “just three trips?” That’s even before mentioning that most of my mornings are taken up with Lydia, trying to teach her for the five-hundredth time that the red cup will only stack on top of the blue cup.

Sabbaticals are meant to be about rest for spirit, body and mind. But the truth is, sabbaticals are often yoked with great expectations of major travels, significant projects and ministry-changing revelations. Not only that, we pastor-folk are built to feel guilty if we are not “producing something” or “doing what we think some of our church members might be wanting us to do,” which is another way of saying, producing something.

That’s not my sabbatical.

My sabbatical is spending time watching two tiny teeth come in on Lydia’s bottom row.

It’s waiting for my sister’s bump to become a baby niece (seven days left!).

It’s about going to see summer blockbuster movies at matinee times, alone, and reading books by poolside, alone.

It’s about house hunting, one house after another, after another, after another, after another.

It’s about trying to get back to running after losing my momentum three years ago, beating myself up on the days I’m too lazy to go and feeling like my legs are cement on the days I do.

It’s about about early mornings spent with a cup of coffee, a journal, and my bible, and evenings watching the Olympics with my arm around my wife.

Sabbatical is about learning the meaning of Grace…you know, that thing that breaks in when our greatest expectations are frustrated and best intentions thwarted. When God breaks into our lives in such a disruptive way, its best that we take the space and time to pay attention.  The practice of sabbatical rest (and it does take some practice, because resting comes anything but natural in this world) is good because it gives us the distance we need to let our Creator enter our lives and say, “Woah…you got kind of worked up there for a bit. Let’s slow down, take a deep breath, and start fresh.”

Our expectations will continually be thwarted if they’re set without grace. Our identities shape our holy needs. If we don’t know who we are, if we’re not in touch with the person God is breathing us into being, we will constantly set impossible expectations for ourselves, our lives, the lives of our family and friends, not to mention the lives of the beloved churches we serve.  If we are too busy to remember whose we are, we will set priorities that only further separate us from the One who is at the center of our world.

To keep the deep rich goodness of life with the Holy Spirit, God calls us to breathe. Breathing is a holy task. Creation came from God’s breath speaking forth words of weaving onto the waters of chaos. How can we expect to re-create ourselves during Sabbath seasons (or any other seasons, really) if we don’t give ourselves the space and grace necessary to truly breathe in this holy truth apart from the chaos of our regular lives?

Taking a deep breath, I’m embracing some new identities for myself, things that I dreamed might be part of my calling as a pastor and things that are reshaping that vocation in ways I never imagined: pastor’s husband, father, uncle, writer, poet, mystic. Many of those words still feel totally foreign to who I am, and that’s good: few identities worthwhile ever come easy.

Grace will give all of us a chance to let go of the expectations that we might already have for those new identities and the expectations I might make for them, so that the breath of God might be enough to sustain this resting body for a moment of reframing and reimagining.

Thoughts from Convocation: #Sabbatical2016

It’s been a week since I spent a lot of time with our African-American family from across the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).  The National Convocation came to Kansas City for its biennial session, drawing nearly a thousand representatives from South Carolina to California, from Ferguson to Baltimore, from Washington, D.C. to Nairobi.

The National Convocation is a gathering “for the discussion of pertinent issues related to black church life in the context of total church life, for fellowship, program promotion, leadership training, and such other general purposes as shall support and strengthen the congregations involved in the total mission of the church.”

I’ll confess that I wasn’t really familiar with the Convocation when I signed up to attend, and that I mainly did because I felt the call of hospitality with the Biennial Session being held in my city.  I am grateful that I went and for the warm inclusion of this part of our Disciples family.  The Convocation’s voices are leading our denomination in paths of gospel witness and social justice that must be heard, understood, and followed.

So, here are a few key reflections for me on this time.  Even as I write them, I realize they’re inadequate glances at deep wells for conversation.  My thoughts are just starting places:

Convocation gives voice to names and faces you may never hear at General Assembly

Shortly after the conclusion of the Convocation, the list of preachers for the 2017 Indianapolis General Assembly was released, and it includes an African-American woman, a Latino-american man, and a White woman, plus the as-yet-to-be-named(-or-categorized) General Minister and President candidate.

The Disciples have spent the vast majority of their last one-hundred years in Assemblies listening to White male voices.  While perhaps there are White male voices with words worth all of us hearing today, the voices of the Convocation have many more things left to say that most of us still need to hear (and rehear, and rehear, and rehear.)

The stories and names of the Convocation bring so much to our shared history.  Voices like Jesse Jackson, Jr., Dietra Wise Baker,  and J. Lawrence Turner are shaping our life together.  Listen for and hear the ministry being done by Chris Dorsey, Derrick Perkins, Ayanna Johnson Watkins, and Angela Whitenhill, Christian Smith, Rhonda Aldridge, Milton Bowers.

Not only that, but take a moment to recognize the historical sculpting done by our African-American Disciples, as we have benefited so greatly from the contributions of Preston Taylor, Jacob Kenoly, and Thomas Buchanan Frost, just to name a few.  Look them up.

 

White Church needs to learn A LOT from the Black Church about Music in Worship

As I came into worship on the second night, I noticed a father, mother, and two young daughters sit down in the seats behind me.  As worship began to get into the swing of things, we were all on our feet, moving with the rhythm and feeling the Spirit alive in the songs.  As a new song began, the man behind me let out the loudest groan, caught in ecstasy, from deep within him.  He clutched his daughter close and said, in a voice loud enough for his daughter and everyone around him to hear, “Oh, I LOVE THIS SONG.”

Perhaps I have missed this in the worship services at my church, but I rarely hear the first refrains of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” followed by guttural exclamations and shouts of “Oh, I LOVE THIS SONG.”  Maybe our folks do this while they listen to K-LOVE in the car?

If most White churches require music meant primarily to evoke comfortable nostalgia instead of spiritual engagement, is it time to reload the iPod and pitch some of the hymns?  How will the children of our churches learn to love worship if their parents don’t hold them close and say, “Oh, I LOVE THIS SONG?”  I know I sing one hymn to our daughter each night to get her to sleep, mainly because I want her to know the words to it in her bones.

The Black Church knows music in its bones.

 

Black Lives Matter.  Period.

Michael Brown.  If there was one name mentioned more than any other, his was it.  

On Friday afternoon, a panel viewed and discussed the movie Injustice Anywhere- The Movement.  Take the 51 minutes to watch the movie by clicking here.  Do it if you’re a Disciple.  Do it if you’re a human being.  The collection of stories of those who were involved in Ferguson will give you a great deal for which you can pray, and a great deal that causes you to consider the call you have to fight racial injustice.

The Christian Church must confront the overwhelming evidence of unjust African-American deaths at the hands of law enforcement, mass incarceration of African-Americans, and systemic poverty that disproportionately afflicts people of color.

There are at least two obvious “on-the-nose” reasons for our support.  First, our 2020 Vision Mission Imperative calls us to be anti-Racist and pro-Reconciling, “that recognizes the systemic and symptomatic pathologies present in the United States since slavery.”

Second, at our recent 2015 General Assembly, Sense-of-the-Assembly Resolution GA-1518, “Black Lives Matter: A Movement for All,” was adopted.  Its language is clear: “the General Assembly…will support Black Lives Matter: A Movement for All by joining the cause; sharing awareness; supporting and encouraging our congregations to be safe spaces and sanctuary for peaceful protestors, participate in and host sacred conversations and dialogue on race relations and inclusion, and be spiritual allies in prayer…”.

Sense-of-the-Assembly resolutions are only as serious as our congregations allow them to be and I can tell you this: our African-American congregations take this one deadly serious.

 

The Convocation Feels Way More Hopeful Than General Assembly

“Hindsight.  Insight.  Foresight.”  These three words were the theme for our time together, and each day centered around a word, all drawn from a core scriptural focus:

2 And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

Habakkuk 2: 2-3, KJV

The Convocation evoked an important contrast to many of our Disciple Assemblies: it asked us to look backwards and inwards as well as forwards, to celebrate history, embrace current opportunities and challenges, and imagine a mission and vision of what could be.

So often it seems Assemblies are generalized responses to the overwhelming statistical depression afflicting the so-called Mainline.  Themes like, “Teach Us to Pray,” “Soar,” and even the 2017 theme of “One,” give the sense of disembodied hopes and dreams we pray for instead of imperatives and missions we share.  They are amorphous rallying cries that speak more to our fear of dying than to our common identity, and thus they don’t give us as much hope as I think they’re likely meant to.

The Convocation teaches us that Hope must be embodied to be emboldened.  The Black church knows a shared narrative of God’s grace being shared with us, and it knows it potently.  Jesse Jackson, Jr. lifted up these words from Frederick Douglass, “I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”

Perhaps we Disciples can learn to awaken in ourselves this impulse to move in shared mission together.  Perhaps this is where our hope lies, in taking the inspiration of the Convocation and making it our own, working for justice and praying for God’s hindsight, insight, and foresight to build a better, more sustainable church.

Prayers for Our Daughter

On the day that you were born,

the world stopped for five seconds,

dust paused in the hospital lights like

small ice crystals glittering the world,

and the blue scrubs, caught in the wander,

slowed to stop and wonder,

“How will this one be different than the others?”

 

And then, like a sudden ice age that

caught Mastadons so off-guard they were frozen whole with their eyes open,

you have stood our lives stock still and

are changing us glacially,

carving new valleys and peaks in our souls,

every time you drag up onto your butt,

and pull forward, looking at us eagerly for confirmation.

 

The thaw is already coming,

heat building, every time your legs like

pistons powering a building internal combustion,

plant, root, shoot you up with a shout of accomplishment,

proclaiming, “HERE I COME, READY OR NOT.”

 

Grow up.

We beg you.

Explode out into this world.

Start with its foundations.

Rattle them.

Let us just be the voices in this wilderness who cry,

“The one who is more powerful than us is coming after us. Prepare her way.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last weekend, Lydia was dedicated at Lee’s Summit Christian Church.  Suzanne has been part of the church family there for nearly ten years, serving loyally and loving steadfastly.  As we prepared for Lydia’s dedication, Suzanne told me that the church’s practice is to print a small bulletin insert with a scripture, the details of the kid’s birth, and then something of the parent’s choosing on the back.

“You should write something,” she said.

I’m not much of a poet, but as feelings poured out onto paper this poem came.  After some small consideration between the two of us, we decided that the poem probably wasn’t the best fit for this service.  Suzanne’s comment, I think, was, “I don’t think anyone’s ever said the word ‘Mastadon’ during a child dedication.”

So, I went back to the page, and wrote a prayer for our daughter.  The prayer that came out is printed below, the poem above.  I like them both, but what does this mastodon father really know?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When You knit this Beloved girl together,

we dreamt You had so many hopes for her,

 

Because we have so, so, so many hopes in her,

A hope for her growth, strong yet healthy,

A hope for her spirit, free yet compassionate,

A hope for her curiosity, wild yet ready,

A hope for her love, boundless yet wise,

A hope for her life, vibrant yet intentional.

 

We’d be lying if we told You that, with all our hope, comes no fear.

Save her from the idea that she is anything less than Enough.

Protect her from any who might take her spirit,

Keep her from disillusionment and cynicism,

Shelter her from those who would take advantage of her grace,

Comfort her when the world breaks her heart.

 

If we can ask You one more thing,

give her parents the strength

to do all these things with You,

and with the village that You

are weaving together around our daughter.

 

Thank You, God. For everything.

 

Especially her.

 

Amen.

Let It Rise: #Sabbatical2016

I almost forgot the recipe. A few years ago, I baked the honey whole-wheat bread almost every other day. I knew that in these first days of Sabbatical, I wanted to make the bread again. But, I couldn’t remember the recipe.

A third-cup of wild honey, two scoops of yeast to start, and three cups of very warm water. Mix in five cups of bread flour, and let it rise, at least half-an-hour.

I have become…picky…when it comes to the bread that we use for Communion in church. This is what we do when we are the ones who handle and break the bread each week. The very best bread is homemade, fresh and warm, with that aroma of comfort emanating from it. The absolute very best Communion bread is the kind that some creative liturgist bakes in the church oven before service starts, filling the church with the smell of the Wonder Bread plant and making everyone anticipate eucharist because they are literally salivating for it. When you lift the loaf, bless it, and break it, a small puff of steam rises like the Holy Spirit itself. That’s good bread.

Mix in another third-cup of honey, a tablespoon of salt, and three tablespoons of melted butter. Add in two cups whole-wheat flour and mix well. Flour a flat surface and knead with whole-wheat flour until not real sticky. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to coat the dough. Cover with a dishtowel, put it in a warm place, and let it rise.

The problem comes when the best isn’t available. Take the best loaf from the over-flowing Panera donation that the church’s food pantry receives. If there are two best loaves, freeze one and save it for later. That is the third, *last ditch* loaf (used only if necessary), but only if there’s no freezer burn. Only in cases where there is no suitable bread left in the church should the bread be “store bought.”

On those days, I want to buy it because I want to make sure it’s the best loaf. Plus, I don’t want it to be just an “el cheapo” loaf of French Bread, a generic loaf with nothing special about it. If it can’t be fresh and homemade, the loaf has to look nice, asthetically pleasing, artisanal. You know, in case someone ever chooses this particular communion moment as the subject of their still-life painting.

Punch the dough down. Divide into three loaves. Place in oiled loaf pans, and let it rise.

On Monday, after Suzanne had gotten ready to go to work and Lydia was squared away in Grammy’s care, the reality of sabbatical began to set in. I have heard that the first one to three weeks of Sabbatical feel a bit like vacation. For this Enneagram 8, that vacation lasted about two hours.

I needed something, something to create, someone to care for, something to challenge. So much of my identity in the last five years has come to be bound up in my identity as a pastor who tries to be everything to everyone. I told Suzanne, “I’m a do-er, I need something to DO.” The next morning, Suzanne went to see her spiritual director and apparently told her about what I’d said. On the phone after her session, Suzanne said, “Mary Kay says that there’s a reason we’re Human Beings and not Human Doings.” I said, “Mary Kay is not my spiritual director.”

When dough has topped loaf pans by one inch, bake at 350 degrees for thirty minutes. Do not overbake.

So, bread was made. Measuring honey, leveling cups of flour, putting muscle behind mixing and then letting it rise. Mixing more, kneading with dusted knuckles and open hands, and then letting it rise. Punching it down, cutting it and letting it rise.

There is a time for us to break bread and a time for the Bread to break us open. So this is my confession at the beginning of sabbatical. I have become terrible at least two things: letting things rise, and noticing them when they do. Silence is something I recommend to others regularly and too often fail to practice myself. Reading has become something “I need the right time for,” and writing has become a chore.

Sabbatical isn’t vacation; it is time to let God’s spirit rise and a time to notice that Spirit as it whispers, “Remember my recipe for you. You are enough.”

Lightly brush the tops of loaves with two tablespoons of butter to prevent crust from getting hard. Cool completely.