Awareness of the Season

This past December I caroled more than I remember caroling in a really long time.  First there was a Lessons and Carols event at my seminary.  Then a friend had a carol-sing-a-long at her house, where we lit sparklers while singing “Silent Night”.  The international students caroled in our courtyards sharing tunes from their home countries.  Finally I went caroling with the church that I work at, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan Square.

As I have become more involved in the church and my awareness of the church year has grown, I’ve noticed that Christmas has fallen to the back of my mind during the month of December.  The season of Advent is what reigns supreme.  I truly have come to love living in a season that celebrates Christ’s future return to the world, meaning more to me than any Christmas present.  But living so deeply in Advent has made me forget a bit about Christmas.  Add to it that there was no snow on the ground before the big day and my holiday decorations are back in Cleveland, without the carols this Christmas really could have slipped through my fingertips.

It has literally been since my childhood since I last caroled, and I had forgotten how this simple act serves as a beautiful demonstration of what Christmas is about.  We celebrate Christmas because there is no gift greater than Christ coming into the world, allowing us to experience God’s grace in an earthly way. It is because of Christmas we can share in the love and grace of God forever.

This year, as I caroled around the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, I shared the love of God.  Sometimes, people received that gift by singing along, like the little girl who kept singing “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells” no matter what tune or words were sung.  There was one family who received our gift by inviting us in their house around the piano, transforming our gift of chorus into an instrumental melody. There were others who couldn’t quite handle the gift, turning away from their window.  Their reaction reminded me that we each have a unique journey of faith that is on it’s own time table, and our job as Christians is to sing boldly to drawn curtains and darkened doorsteps.

Christmas comes so quickly and leaves even sooner.  As we enter into this new year, as we move well beyond Advent and wrapping paper, let us not forget to spread the Christmas message – that God loved us so much God came to live among us as human, dying on a cross for our salvation, and empowering us through a love that is beyond our understanding.

This was an article written for Divinity Lutheran Church of Parma Heights, Ohio, originally published in December of 2012 for the January 2013 edition of the “Divinity Digest.”

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Beautiful Ensemble

Tonight my mom and I went saw a jazz trio perform.  My mom is in town for the holiday weekend, and I have to admit going to a jazz concert was a new venture for the two of us to do together.  It was a lot of fun sharing that experience with her, and as I watched these musicians perform I started thinking of what it means to be fulfilled.

I was memorized watching the guy with the stand-up base.  There were times when you could see that he was totally wrapped up in the music, his leg jiggling, his eyes closed, rocking back and forth as his fingers flew across the strings.  There was no doubt that playing music was fulfilled his spirit.

One of the things that I love about my mom is that she is a person who is fulfilled by her work, which is teaching students with special needs.  I recently started a new job working for St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan’s Square, and for the first time since moving to Chicago, I am feeling fulfilled.  Like my mom, work fulfills me.  It is more than just the process of going to a job – I really enjoy being in service to others.  I love being a part of a system that is bigger then myself, seeing how that system will move forward because of my individual skill sets and the skill sets of others.  I love seeing these individual gifts brought by different people blend together into a common mission.

This is different then having others fulfill me, which I don’t think I realized before coming to seminary.  There is a difference between needing to be validated from an external source and seeing how the skill sets that God has validated internally merge with others.  It is very much like the bassist at tonight’s performance.  He needed the support of the rest of the ensemble to help showcase his skill sets, and it was only being a part of an ensemble that the uniqueness of his gift were really demonstrated.

I believe this is one of the gifts of being in Christian community with each other.  When we work together as one ensemble, we have the support to let our gifts ring out.  We have the freedom to make mistakes because the rest of our community will carry forth the tune until even when we miss a beat.

I am continually amazed by the joys that come with in community with one another, and how often I am reminded of those joys, even when that reminder comes from the notes of a jazz trio.

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The Amazing Grace of Suchitoto

I am currently in El Salvador, exploring with other seminary students (one a dear friend from Chicago, five from Philadelphia, and a spouse) about the current state of this Latin America country and how their experience shapes their spirituality.  I have been in the country for about five days, and the differences between this fine nation and the fine nation from which I come is astronomical.  It is not just the poverty.  It is not just the fact that minimum wage is $5 a day.  It is not just the fact that when it comes to pedestrians crossing the street, the driver has the right-of-way.  It is not just the fact that potable water is practically non-existent.  It is not just the fact that the juices here are the most delicious beverages I have ever drank.  It is not just the fact that private security guards carry shotguns and dogs wander the streets almost as regularly as squirrels climb trees in Chicago.  It is all these things in addition to one fundamental feeling and social ideal that is so thick I can almost taste it – hope.

My group and I spent the last 48 hours in a city of El Salvador named Suchitoto.  This community is about 90 minutes away from the capital of San Salvador, and in its municipality houses the survivors of a horrific masacar of civilians that happened during their civil war in the eighties and nineties.  I had the great privilege of hearing the testimony of two of the masacar survivors.  Sitting on the remnants of homes that have been destroyed, it was beyond heart-wrenching to listen to these brave souls share of torture so extreme that I would have thought I was listening to a holocaust survivor.  I had no idea that El Salvador went through a civil war that was as brutal as it was, had no idea that our government contributed financially as much as it did for fear of communism, had no real understanding that the fear of communism was really as awful as it apparently was.  Listening to these survivors, actually seeing what this war meant and the people it affected, all the while recognizing that this seemed to many like the best option at the time, was life changing.

I also didn´t realize how much I projected my U.S. history on other things.  For example, my father has many friends who fought and survived the Vietnam War.  When I hear guerilla warfare, I think about people I know and the trauma they felt.  I think about what that word means to U.S. soldiers who fought in an Asian war.  I didn´t recognize that my lens on that word is so focused to my culture.  Hearing the testimony of these survivors, people who were caught between the Salvadorian government and guerilla fighters, I struggled to let go of my Vietnam-associated connotations.  El Salvador is not Vietnam.  Similar words mean different things here.

In addition to hearing the testimonies, we ate lunch with our speakers.  I have never been so frustrated at being a foreign-language flunky as I was at that meal.  Sitting next to two of the most courageous people I have ever met, I couldn´t speak with them without an interpreter.  I couldn´t tell them from my own lips how grateful I was for the gift of their story, share with them that I will never be the same person for having heard it.

After lunch, we went to their new settlement.  After being refugees in Guatemala for almost two decades, the survivors were able to move back to El Salvador and rebuild close to where their original home was.  We hiked a half a mile into the mountain, and saw their houses (63 families returned) and visited their library.  We saw their memorial monument and dodged chickens that were running around the streets.

I was able to witness the crucifixion of their community, and celebrate in the beginning of its resurrection.  It is a feeling I wish all people could experience, and one that I can never explain well enough to do it justice.

We returned this evening to a guest house in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.  My group reflected on what Suchitoto meant to us, how we are now forever changed.  One member of our group began singing “Amazing Grace”.  In true Lutheran style, we broke out in four-part harmony on that patio in the warm evening, the haunting words of a spiritual from our home nation filling the silence of the house that is serving as home while we explore another nation.  Suchitoto´s resurrection made those words more powerful to me then I could ever have known.

This place is what God´s tranformative love looks like.  It is such an amazing grace inside an amazing place.  I pray that I never forget the feeling of this night, or forget the faith of those survivors.

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Shelter Me Genius Words

“Shelter me oh genius words / just give me strength / to pen these things/ and give me peace to well her wings.” – Cartel, The Minstrel’s Prayer

The past few days I have been on the listening ends of conversations.

The other night I was haunted with a dream which knocked the wind right out to me.  This dream couldn’t have come at a worse time, because it has made it impossible for me to get solid night’s sleep during perhaps the busiest weekend I’ve had all fall.  My best friend got married on Saturday, and in the course of four days I drove over 800 miles, saw several hundred people, and worshiped three times.  More than anything else, though, I listened.

I listened to my heart as I reflected on that disturbing dream.  I listened to local radio news stations as I traveled from Illinois to Ohio.  I attempted to listen to school books on audio tape in the car.  I listened to my friend feel anxious about the transition from single to married life.  I listened to God through the voice of my home pastors mouth.  I listened to my nephew burst into tears when I walked into a room.  I listened to my niece try to barter with me to return to Cleveland “really soon, okay?”.  I listened as a fellow bridesmaid told me how she felt the church was an empty place for her.  I listened as I watched my sister pretend to be happy when she is clearly suffering in spirit.  I listened as I gave a stranger a tissue in the bathroom of the reception hall as she told me her husband wasn’t at her daughter’s wedding because he had died of cancer. I listened as the rain fell and the wind blew.  I listened, and listened, and listened.

And today, as I was driving home in a state of exhaustion, my iPod flicked to this song by Cartel, The Minstrel’s Prayer – “Shelter me oh genius words / just give me strength/ to pen these things / and give me peace to well her wings.”

I am a person who likes to have a plan.  I am a person who likes to know which step should be taken next, and I always hope that for others who are aching, I am a person that they can turn to find answers to their questions.  I have always listened.  But this past weekend, I heard something deeper in the stories, and for the first time saw the peace for them in my silence.

There is wonder in my heart why so many people are coming to me to tell their stories now at this point in my life.  I have always been a person who had a lot of friends that shared information, but the level of listening I did this weekend is far more than I ever remember doing before.  The listening was also more sacred to me, and I was humbled by the weight of intimacy that was created in just a few mere words or sounds.

Perhaps on some level it is because I am more stable within myself that I hear the genius vulnerability in the sounds which surround me.  Perhaps it is because God is trying to speak to me through their words as I crave a clearer plan for the next steps of my journey.  Perhaps it is because on some level I know that the more I listen the more I will feel God’s presence surrounding me.

I was asked to give two blessings this weekend, neither of which I had prepared for in advance.  Even though I hadn’t planned anything out, my words were far from “winging it.”  I felt truly connected to the Spirit, even in a room full of people I barely knew, wearing a gown and having 75 bobby pins tucked inside my hair.

God’s words sheltered me, and I hope penned the words of Christ’s unconditional love into the minds of the people I spoke to..  I hope that when I spoke to those who gave me the gifts of their stories that I spoke words that gave them peace.  I know listening to God’s genius words in those intimate moments of others is something I do not take lightly, or for granted.

And I ache to listen.

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The Words are for Better

“I hear your voice inside me. I see your face everywhere.” – Pat Benatar, “We Belong”

Last night I made the six-hour trip back from Chicago to Cleveland.

I literally just moved to the windy city two weeks ago today, but I am needed back this Saturday to attend a synod candidacy retreat, which basically means I will have an information meeting with the people overseeing my education process.  It was interesting to spend six hours in the car by myself.  A person get’s to be pretty comfortable with her iPod when it’s the only source of entertainment breaking up the monotony that is the farmlands of Indiana. 

I was reminded of my drive to Chicago with my mother when we channel surfed the radio instead of turning up the iPod. Despite the fact that some stations claim, “we play anything,” there is almost no routine from state to state, broadcast to broadcast.  One song in particular kept making the rotation, Pat Beatar’s “We Belong”.

About the fifth time around, I started singing along to the song as I was hearing it;  “We belong to the light, we belong to the Father.  We belong to the sounds of the words we’ve both fallen under. Whatever we deny or embrace, the words are for better.  We belong, we belong, we belong together.”

Here’s the thing: those aren’t the words.  The real words are “thunder” instead of “Father,” and “for worse are for better”  instead of “the words are for better.”  For years, probably my entire life, I’ve misheard those words.  My mom corrected me, which is great if I ever decide to take this to the thrill of a karaoke night, but deep down, I still like my version better.

There is something really comforting in knowing that we belong to the light of our Creator, and that in that light, we belong to one another.  It is a comfort to know that despite our ecumenical perspectives, despite our age or our race, we can listen to the word of God and be moved.  Furthermore, we belong to one another as a result of that moving.

I’ve only been on a seminary campus a few days, but I am surprised at how many of my fellow students feel a sense of frustration with their calling.  They are frustrated about the hoops, about the lack of boundaries of predecessors, and most definitely about the money.  For a long time they have felt as if they are carrying the light of Christ alone.  Despite their frustrations, these students are finding great relief in recognizing we are all in the same boat – we are all battling obstacles that make it challenging to believe that our calling is natural light and not artificially induced.

I am further surprised to realize what a sense of freedom it is to talk about this path with one another.  I can’t help but wonder what it must be like for the people who recognize a calling for Christ, but whose roles do not require the blessing that is a seminary experience?  We do belong to one another, but how many of us feel that sense of belonging outside of our school or church doors?

Why is it easier to deny than embrace that the words are for better, that the words are forever, and that by sharing that gift we can truly feel the benefit that through God, we do belong together?

In a few days, I will make the long journey back to my new home.  I will feel alone but bask in the safety of knowing I’m not alone.  And when the radio roulette plays my dear friend Pat, I will remember that we belong to the light, we belong to our Creator.  We belong to the sound of the words we’ve all fallen under.  Whatever we deny or embrace, the words are for better.

For through Christ, we belong together.

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