The dogged faith of the Syro Phonecian woman

This is a reflection I just shared with Jubilee today on Matthew 15:21-28, the lectionary reading for today:

Maybe every week the news is bad, but this week has seemed especially turbulent- the riots in Ferguson, MO, ongoing violence in Gaza, the war in South Sudan, children and families languishing in the militarized zone of the US Mexico border.

When I read the gospel passage for this Sunday I groaned, “Oh no, not the one where Jesus seems like a real jerk!”  How could I make sense of this passage that has always left me and lots of others befuddled?  How could I even read a passage where Jesus apparently drops a slur on a foreign woman during this time when relationships between nations and races are exceptionally tense? Maybe I would just skip it altogether, it is not like we have to follow the lectionary or have a thoughtful reflection at every worship service.   We could just go heavy on the songs and prayers, read the psalm about unity and leave it at that.

So, I said to my husband that we would just have a long prayer service because I didn’t want to tackle the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman.   He said, “Oh, I just read Kenneth Bailey’s commentary on it in Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes,” and he tossed me the book that his parents had given us for Christmas.  So with the help of that gift, a little book by Elton Trueblood called The Humor of Christ, and more on-line commentaries than I care to mention, I seized the opportunity to take on the challenge.  Between visiting with old friends, getting my kids off on their first day of school, cleaning bathrooms, peeling pears, snapping beans, hanging laundry and washing dishes, I took some time to be reminded about just how good Jesus is. It is now clear to me and I hope to you by the time I am done that Jesus is definitely not a jerk, even in this story.  

 Jesus calls all people to unity in him. This is very good news, especially during a week like this.

Before we tackle the story from Matthew, let’s look at the context of the other lectionary passages for today.  In Genesis 45 we see Joseph forgiving his brothers in Egypt.  The tables have turned and the one who was sold as a slave now has the power to destroy or help his starving family.  After shutting the door and weeping so loudly that everybody can hear, he calls his brothers to him and says, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.” Joseph’s tears on his brother’s necks, mingling with their tears on his neck are like the precious oil running down over the robe collar in Psalm 133; the oil of unity that restored these men as brothers after circumstances that could have sealed them as eternal enemies. Today’s reading from Isaiah 56 says: “Thus says the LORD: Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed……for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered."

 So, if the Old Testament themes for this week point to forgiveness, unity, and gathering people together why are we given this Gospel passage in which a woman seeking healing for her demon possessed daughter seems to be humiliated? Remembering that Jesus is the embodiment of compassion and that all scripture points us to that truth, let’s look at the story together:

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." 

Jesus and his disciples have entered a gentile community and this woman has gone further than even his disciples at this point by publicly calling Jesus “Lord, Son of David.”  She declares him to be Messiah- which Bailey points out is very unexpected for a gentile woman.  He has gotten her attention because through her greeting she has shown him that she knows just who He is.  

Bailey sites eleventh century doctor theologian Ibn al-Tayyib who notes that the mother cries out “Lord have mercy on me.” Bailey notes “the caregiver is at the end of her rope and also needs healing.”

But he did not answer her at all. 

His silence was typical for a Rabbi in that context.  According to the social laws Jesus the rabbi would not be expected to speak to woman and a gentile.  But why did he speak to the Samaritan woman at the well but not this woman?  Jesus, the one who healed on the Sabbath and touched the lepers was not one to uphold societal expectations.  I wonder if his silence could have been a time of prayer.  Maybe he realizes that this encounter would be remembered by his disciples and he was careful about just how to respond.  His disciples interpret his silence as disapproval so they say:

 "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us."

Just as they asked Jesus to send the children away from him, they felt the same way about her: she doesn’t belong, they don’t want to be bothered.

So Jesus puts into words what they all must be thinking

  

"I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
 

Thus begins a dialogue that can be seen as an exam. Bailey interprets these words as the beginning of a test for this woman who has already shown courage and wisdom. As a good teacher Jesus wants to draw out her strengths even more.

  According to Bailey, Jesus is teaching his disciples by voicing and exposing their deep prejudices. They interpret his words as “Of course I want to get rid of her! We have no time for such female Gentile trash.” Meanwhile the woman is challenged to stay in the conversation and not go away because she believes that Jesus will heal her and therefore he does not mean what  he says.

But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me."

Grieving parents of tormented children will not go away.  Like the mothers of the disappeared in Argentina or the mother of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and all the other mothers around the world whose children are oppressed by powers and principalities- be that mental illness, demon possession, addiction, systemic oppression and violence, miseducation- they have already had their hearts torn open, they have nothing left to lose or fear. Mothers will do anything to get help for their kids. Whether it means a modern mother sitting on hold for hours on end as she navigates mental health care bureaucracy, or suffering through miscarriages of justice that lead to mass incarceration, sending her kids unaccompanied into the US, and enduring social stigma as this woman surely did, mothers of hurting children have got to be tough.  They also are bearing an incredible burden that can sometimes feel worse than what their children are enduring.  They will humiliate themselves for the sake of their children.  They and their children have already been treated like trash, they can’t get any lower.  Things cannot get any worse.  She saw in Jesus hope for healing and she would stop at nothing to get it.

Jesus says, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Really Jesus, you said that to her?

In The Humor of Christ, Elton Trueblood says:

“If there is a harder problem than this in the New Testament interpretation we do not know what it is.”  I take great comfort in knowing that even people who have spent way more time on this than I have find this to be a particularly challenging bit of scripture. He goes on, “Taken at its face value the sentence is rude and contemptuous.  Above all, it is at complete variance with the general picture of Christ which we receive from the rest of the Gospel, particularly in connection with the poor and needy…..As it stands alone, the situation is intolerable, but perhaps the completion of the dialogue can provide us with a clue”

Here, Trueblood points out, “We must remember that words are made very different in connotation by the tone of the voice and by the look in the eye of the speaker.  There are things which we can say with a smile, but which cannot be said, without offense, with a straight face.”

Bailey sees this as part two of the exam.  He says what the disciples are thinking, “Jesus is only for Jews.” Because he trusts, that of all people, this woman has the wit and the tenacity to prove them wrong and thus make clear his purpose to spread his healing and love to every corner of the earth.  Bailey says “is her love for her daughter, her faith that Jesus has the power of God to heal, her confidence that he has compassion for Gentiles and her commitment to him as Master/Lord so strong that she will absorb the insult and press on, yet again with her request?”  

 She knows that Jesus loves her and so kneeling at his feet she says, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

She has touched upon a mystery of our faith: The stone that the builder rejected shall be the cornerstone; from discarded crumbs Jesus is feeding his people and growing his kingdom; there is healing in a single thread of his garment, in the spit from his mouth, the sound of his voice and even the crumbs from his table.  His grace, even if it comes as crumb, is all sufficient.

Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly. 

In humble, relentless trust in God’s infinite goodness she laid her burdens at the feet of Jesus and healing came.  Can we do the same? How does this story speak to our broken world today?

Joseph and the Syro-Phoenician Woman both responded in love rather than resentment.  They both had every right to hold onto anger and bitterness but instead they chose the path of love.  Joseph’s brothers and Jesus disciples were forever changed by the love shown in those stories.  Our liberation and healing is bound up in the liberation and healing of our enemies.  By exposing the evil thoughts of his disciples Jesus offers them a path to transformation.  By using and thus taking away the power of hurtful words to hurt Jesus does far better than lessons in political correctness that might change language but never expose or eradicate the rottenness of our hearts and thoughts.

Are we willing to be humble – to face humiliation- before the Lord and before others for the sake of healing?   People that were trained for sit-ins and freedom rides sat through mock sessions of verbal abuse and ridicule so that they would have the courage to endure the genuine cruelty they encountered.  Jesus was despised, rejected and acquainted with grief.  He saw in the Syro-Phonecian woman a sister who felt his pain and the pain that was to come.  He offered her healing in that moment but the story did not stop there.  Immediately following that encounter he told his disciples to feed thousands with a few fish and small loaves of bread.  There was enough.  Later, He said to his disciples take this bread, and this cup, my body and my blood and let me live in you.  In his final hours he endured every insult and injury so that we would stop insulting and injuring one another.  He invites us into a new way of living in and through his body and blood.  Just a crumb, just a drop of faith is enough.

In her article "A National Shame" in the August Sojourners, printed before the Ferguson debacle, Ruby Sales exposes the tragedy of unarmed black youth being killed by police. In 1965, when Ruby was 17 a deputy sheriff in Alabama leveled a gun at her and her friend, a white man named Jonathan Daniels, took the bullet intended for her and died instantly.  The murderer was acquitted by an all white jury.  After Jonathan Daniels’ murder Ruby could not speak for seven months. But then she found her voice and went on to seminary, the very Episcopal seminary that her friend had been attending when he was killed.  She has dedicated her life to being a voice for human rights.  In her article she asked the prophetic question, “What does it mean to be church in the 21^st century when too many of our black brothers and sisters are still seen as disposable waste?” 

 She didn’t offer any easy answers except the assurance that we are all beloved children of God.   Do we believe that of ourselves and our neighbors both seen and unseen? Do we see and treat ourselves and others as beloved children of God? If Jesus were to speak and bring to the light all the prejudice that we try to cover up would we be humbled and transformed.  Would we have the courage of his disciples to write it down even if it makes us squirm? In the face of insults and injury can we be like Christ? Would we respond like Jonathan Daniels or Jesus Christ and lay down our life for our friends? When we cry out in prayer and are faced with silence, do we keep praying? Do we trust that Jesus and his provision are truly enough?  Is there room in our hearts for a mustard seed or a crumb of faith to take root and make miracles in our own lives and communities? Are we relentless in our prayers and our pursuit of Christ no matter the cost?

I have no other hope for this world but the poor, homeless, rejected man named Jesus who smiled as his healing flowed to that mother and daughter.  May it be so for all the rejected, hurting souls throwing themselves at his feet.  By God’s grace, may we grow closer to Jesus through this story of the faith of the Syro Phonecian woman.

Standing against capital punishment

This evening I joined about 25 people ranging in age from 18 months to 94 years old on the steps of the University of Georgia for a prayer vigil.  About 20 came from our community and there were a few folks from Athens there.  We unfurled a large banner that read, "Did you Know that the state of Georgia is planning to Kill Marcus Wellons tonight?" Smaller signs read, "Choose Life," "RIP Death Penalty" and "Execution is not the Solution." I stood with a sign that read, "Let the One without Sin Cast the First Stone" beside a friend who survived the Khmer rouge in Cambodia. She propped up a large banner that read "Execute Justice not People."We just stood there in the heat on the street, bearing witness to the fact that while we go about our business a man will be strapped to a gurney and have his life taken by lethal injection.  We wanted people to stop and think, "This is wrong."  Some people asked a few questions.  A few folks took pictures.  Some glared or looked puzzled, most gave affirming smiles and nods. 

From what I have heard, Marcus Wellons has changed a lot since the day he raped and murdered his fifteen year old neighbor.  The biggest change has been his growth as a follower of Jesus. What a tragedy that our society favors vengeance over redemption, recompense over forgiveness.  It seems to cheapen a belief that Jesus died for our sins if we support killing people for any sins.  Father, forgive them for they don't know what they are doing.

The vigil we attended was one of many across the state, organized by Georgians for Alternatives to of the Death penalty any day that an execution is scheduled in Georgia.  Find out more about their important work here http://www.gfadp.org/home

For more information about the death penalty this is a good site:www.deathpenaltyinfo.org

We closed our vigil by reading this prayer written by --Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J.:

Please join in praying for the victim's family, Marcus Wellons and his family, especially his mom, and the warden who will have to carry out the orders.

A Prayer to Abolish the Death Penalty

God of Compassion,
You let your rain fall on the just and the unjust.
Expand and deepen our hearts
so that we may love as You love,
even those among us
who have caused the greatest pain by taking life.

For there is in our land a great cry for vengeance
as we fill up death rows and kill the killers
in the name of justice, in the name of peace.

Jesus, our brother,
you suffered execution at the hands of the state
but you did not let hatred overcome you.
Help us to reach out to victims of violence
so that our enduing love may help them heal.

Holy Spirit of God,
You strengthen us in the struggle for justice.
Help us to work tirelessly
for the abolition of state-sanctioned death
and to renew our society in its very heart
so that violence will be no more. Amen.

mulching and the danger of reading newspapers

 I was having a conversation with a friend about the need to fast from the news at times as a spiritual exercise.  I had also just loaned her a book of poetry by women called Cries of Spirit.  She asked if I had a favorite and I said no, it depends on the moment.  She likes Margaret Atwood so we turned to the index and found this title, "It is Dangerous to Read Newspapers."  It fit our conversation perfectly.  The following week I used newspapers to mulch a weed patch near my  house where I hope to grow some black raspberries.  Here is the poem that got scribbled from the intersection of our conversation, Atwood's poem (copied at the end), and my meager attempt at being a gardener.

Mulching

Margaret Atwood wrote

And I agree

It is dangerous to read newspapers

So I gather the pages

To spread over

Broken down cardboard boxes

Where I hope

Next fall

To plant black raspberries

right outside my bedroom window

Like an addict

I say

I’ll just look at this  one

story of a beloved father killed by a fallen limb

story of a murder victim’s family hoping for no parole

picture of a mother found guilty for murder of her newborn infant son

                        her pregnancy a secret

                                    his murder now public

                                                she faces life behind bars

Have you seen this missing teen? Car found burned

Or this one? Has tattoo on neck

Or this one? Has pierced navel

Or this one? May have a hair weave

I spread out the pictures of

lavender lips

and beautiful food

and premium wines

the happy couple who sold their town home in just two weeks

and all the advice

and empty crossword puzzles

never started

I cover them with warm hay

So sweet in my nose

I want to cry

and walk away

I will return in fall

I will plant black raspberries

Small sticks in the ground will look dead at first

The newspaper will

be dirt under my nails

that will wash away

And here is Margaret Atwood's poem:

It is Dangerous to Read Newspapers

While I was building neat
castles in the sandbox,
the hasty pits were
filling with bulldozed corpses

and as I walked to the school
washed and combed, my feet
stepping on the cracks in the cement
detonated red bombs.

Now I am grownup
and literate, and I sit in my chair
as quietly as a fuse

and the jungles are flaming, the under-
brush is charged with soldiers,
the names on the difficult
maps go up in smoke.

I am the cause, I am a stockpile of chemical
toys, my body
is a deadly gadget,
I reach out in love, my hands are guns,
my good intentions are completely lethal.

Even my
passive eyes transmute
everything I look at to the pocked
black and white of a war photo,
how
can I stop myself

It is dangerous to read newspapers.

Each time I hit a key
on my electric typewriter,
speaking of peaceful trees

another village explodes.

(by Margaret Atwood, 1939-)

Praying with our feet

                On Monday I joined others from our community on the first leg of a Holy Week pilgrimage to honor immigrants.  We started at the Church of the Holy Cross Catholic Church in Atlanta and walked three miles to the Church of the Open Table into Chamblee, an Atlanta suburb. 

This walk, a call to pray with our feet, began six years ago by members of the Alterna community in LaGrange, GA and now has several hundred participants and the support of many local congregations.  Each day of Holy Week people remember Jesus’ last days leading to his crucifixion and carry in prayer our brothers and sisters who, like Jesus and our ancestors, are immigrants.  Every year the procession is led by an immigrant who carries a wooden cross.  The cross this year had the names of children whose lives were directly affected by our detention and deportation system. 

After morning Mass a few dozen walkers gathered outside in front of the church.  Anton Flores read the story of Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers.  He pointed to Jeremiah 7 where the Lord demands that we not rob the outcast, the orphan, the widow, the strangers among us of their dignity.  He challenged us to consider this question:  If we separate justice from worship are we turning our houses of worship into robbers dens?  You can read his reflection here.

We then formed a line and walked two by two along the narrow sidewalk past the strip malls and highways that could be anywhere in the United States.  Two police officers followed us to provide protection as we crossed the streets in safety.  Just this morning I heard this story on NPR that a man who  had lived and worked in the US for eleven years was arrested in LA and deported.  His crime: jaywalking.  During the Holy Week pilgrimage immigrants cross the street with police protection.  On most days, many of our sisters and brothers cannot casually cross the street in this land without fear.

I brought my four year old daughter.  Our neighbors also came along with their two young children.  Their daughter had just injured her ankle and couldn’t walk so they brought the double stroller.  They carried their one year old in a back pack so that my daughter could hitch a ride.  Since we had a stroller and rain was in the forecast, I went ahead and brought umbrellas, raincoats and water.  Before I had kids I used to look disdainfully at four year-olds being pushed in strollers like royalty.  But I knew we couldn’t keep pace with a large group of adults in normal weather and knew it would be even harder if it rained.  Here we were pushing our children and all our extra gear while the people around us walked empty handed.  My daughter walked for part of the way but soon her legs grew weary and we fell to the very back of the line while I carried her.  I imagined doing this in the desert, without water, with invisible prickly pear thorns in my ankles and doubted that we would be able to keep up.  I thought of all the mothers who make the journey across the border with young children without strollers, coffee, diapers, sippy cups, cell phones, snack trays, sunscreen, umbrellas or toys.  All they carry is an eight ounce plastic water bottle and hope for a better life.

We travelled to Atlanta in a fifteen passenger van.  Even though it was only a two hour ride, when we needed to use the bathroom we stopped.  For those who make it safely across the border on foot the next leg of the journey for many is to be smuggled from the border to a city in the interior.  This could mean being packed like sardines into the cab of a pickup or the back of a truck and told to be still and quiet while the truck drives, non-stop to its destination.  My bladder can’t stand the thought of a 9 hour drive, with kids, without a pit stop.   That is why they are told not to eat or drink before the trip.  This is what people will go through to work in chicken plants, pick our fruit and vegetables, clean our messes, keep us bringing home cheap bacon.

We stop  in the parking lot of a Mexican supermarket.   A young woman with a guitar and nails in her ears greets us with a smile and sings praise songs in Spanish.  Those who are able sing along.  My daughter later tells me that her “best day was the lady with the guitar.”

We arrive at the church and are served bread and soup.  Just as it is time to go home the sky opens and  the rain that waited so we could walk on dry ground, begins to pour.

Yesterday, on Maundy Thursday other members of our community joined in the 8 mile leg of the pilgrimage.  About 250 people walked through the city of Atlanta.  The walk ended with a ceremonial foot washing.  Twelve US Citizens were given the honor of washing the feet of twelve immigrants.

On the night that Jesus was betrayed he said to his disciples, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:14-15)

Deadheading

Lent 2014

In the early morning rush of waking sleepy heads, making breakfast, washing dishes, packing lunches the radio announces that the violence in Central African Republic has risen to such extremes that children are being decapitated.  I quickly turn off the kitchen radio.  I can’t bear to listen to the report that will follow those words.  I can’t bear for my children to hear or to try and calculate answers to the questions that would follow this knowledge.

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I close my eyes and picture her sweet flower of a face, the dimpled grins of her three older brothers, the sweet new baby smell of her newborn brother, the scarred and broken body of her father, and the gentle long suffering smile of her mother.  They never told me of the hell they left behind, only of their thankfulness.

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I deadhead the daffodils.  The brittle blooms crumble in my palms.  It is easy to destroy something that is already dead.  My children try to help and bring me fistfuls of bright yellow blooms too short to fit in a vase.  The flowers are wasted.  I get angry over flowers picked too soon.

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Children are being decapitated in Central African Republic.  The reports say that many of the killers are Christians avenging family members who were killed by Muslims.  It is easy to destroy something that is already dead.  What does it take to kill one’s love for neighbor, one’s love for children?  How can life return to a nation where death has spread like cancer to the brain? 

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During Lent we have been singing this song each Sunday:

Lamb of God you take away, take away the sins of the world.  Grant us your peace.

Lamb of God you take away, take away the sins of the world.  Have mercy on us.

My husband reminds me that “the sins of the world” are not only my short temper but these unthinkable, unspeakable acts of violence that Jesus has forgiven.

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My six year old daughter asks me, “Mommy, how old do you have to be to be in a war?” 

“People don’t get to choose.  If war comes to them, it affects the whole community.”

“But how old do you have to be to fight in a war, like a soldier?”

I picture the child soldiers of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and other kidnapped children around the world forced to murder and maim.  What is the word for raped, drugged and drunk ten year-olds with machetes and AK-47s? Not soldiers.  Zombies?  I don’t give a full answer to her questions, because I know that at some point she will ask again and she will know and not be able to erase that knowledge of stolen childhood.

“In our country you have to be eighteen.” 

After a long, thoughtful pause, “So people could die when they are eighteen?  That is so young!” 

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We visit our friends who got out of Central African Republic alive and now reside in an apartment complex near Atlanta.  We come to greet their fifth child, a son.  When their family stayed at our community they announced that mother was pregnant by singing a song of joy.  They named him, Bienvenue, Welcome.  When I walk up the stairs and into their quiet bedroom I am shocked to find not mother and baby but father alone in bed.  The same week that baby was born, father’s left eye and most of a malignant tumor had been removed his head.  The part of the tumor that touched a nerve on his brain could not be removed.  Doctors had taken skin from his leg and stitched it onto his face as a flesh eye patch.  He had needed a tracheotomy during surgery so his throat was bandaged.  With a grim prognosis-unable to walk, half blind, barely able to speak or eat- his body, like some ancient prophet, was a map of his wounded homeland.  My children want to come up and see the baby but I tell them no.  I go to the children so my husband can come with empty hands to give our friend the only gift he has to offer. He lays his hands upon him and prays.

Our sons kick a soccer ball in the parking lot and balance on a brick wall.  Our daughters find a garland of fake sunflowers.  They snap the blossoms off the plastic stem and crown the new big sister’s head with blooms.

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At the end of a sunset walk my six year old is in tears.  Her fists are clenched and her face red hot.  She is enraged and indignant because her friend had just told her she is not strong.  We walk through the dance of talking it out; “When you said this, I felt that.  Please don’t do it again”  “I’m sorry”  “I forgive you.” Terse apologies are spoken.  They turn away from one another and go home into the descending dark.  I wonder if this practice will make them into blessed peacemakers when the stakes are higher?  My daughter wails with disappointment over their tenuous truce, “My birthday wish did not come true!  All I wanted was peace in the world.” 

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My nine year old picks the only pink hyacinth in the yard.  I flush with anger.  I am enraged - over a picked flower.

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It is Sunday morning.  The news does not rest.   In Central African Republic a mother grieves.  She told a reporter that two of her children were killed on their way to church.

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It is another glorious sunset.  The sky a garment of pink and lavender.  My daughter holds a fluffy white dandelion head in her hand.  “Mama, let’s wish on it together so that it will come true.”  I wonder what our wish will be. Her hand on the nape of my neck , her voice soft and patient in my ear.  Had I already forgotten? “Peace in the world.”  We blow with all our might until the last black fleck is gone.   She grabs my hand in triumph, “Our wish will come true!”

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At dawn I open the door to dark shadows on our welcome mat.  The cat has left an offering - a disemboweled and decapitated mouse.  Its parts evenly spaced on the mat.  Head.  Body.  Entrails.  The cat rubs against me with pride.  I lift the mat in disgust and carry his offering to the compost heap.  Cotton candy clouds of dawn speak only of beauty above the carnage.

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My mother calls for advice about talking with children about the crucifixion.  Do they need to hear about the nails?  Of all punishments in that time and place this was the worst.  Worse than being fed to the lions.  Worse than decapitation.  Do they need to know how much pain he took upon himself? The time will come when they will know and will not be able to un-know.  For now, let them know they are loved.  Let them know of the empty tomb and of Jesus calling Mary by her name and asking, “Why are you weeping?”  

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Lamb of God you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us.

Lamb of God you take away the sins of the world.  Grant us your peace.

Spring Moss

A few weeks ago our neighbor helped our youngest daughter made a rock garden with chunks of moss, granite and twigs.  It has been sitting as a centerpiece on our table for Lent and also lent (no pun intended) some inspiration to this dish.   

What is more vernal than green eggs on the first day of spring?  The first time I made green eggs it was a recipe from the Good Housekeeping cookbook for a spinach roulade.  It is delicious but has a mushroom filling that only works for mushroom lovers.  The thing I gleaned from that recipe is that you can puree your eggs, milk and spinach so that there is no picking out of the green stuff because it is all green stuff and it is delicious!  One night I made steamed asparagus and only some of the kids ate it.  The next night I sautéed spinach and garlic and again only a few of the kids ate it.  Later that week I made a quiche with the leftover asparagus and spinach but they were completely pulverized!  Everyone ate it and asked for seconds.  I will be eternally thankful that my neighbor in Philadelphia gave me her Kitchen Aid immersion blender.  Once I realized the joy of pulverizing I borrowed it so many times that she finally said I could keep it.   (Thanks, Roxanna.  It has served us well and is still going strong about 4 years later.)

My recipe for green eggs is also inspired by coucou, a Persian dish that is a lot like a frittata that my friend Nacim taught me to make in college.  Persians celebrate Naw Ruz, the new year on the first day of spring.  I have fond memories of her family welcoming me into those celebrations and I still want to celebrate when spring arrives.   The way her family makes coucou you need a lot of fresh parsley and zero dairy.  You also cook it on the stove over very low heat and have to watch it carefully—not what this busy, milk loving mom is going for.

So, with gratitude to God for giving us friends and neighbors old and new and to the bright green moss and bursting forth of spring here is my recipe for

Spring Moss    

             

This recipe takes about 30-40 minutes total

Preheat oven to  400

Defrost one box of frozen chopped spinach ( It will defrost pretty quickly if you put it in a plastic bag and soak it in a bowl of hot water)

Crack seven eggs in a big bowl with the spinach (if you don’t have an immersion blender than do all of this in a blender or food processor)

Add a cup of milk

Put in a nice hearty pinch of dry dill (maybe a tablespoon?)

Add 2 heaping tablespoons of sour cream (maybe a ¼-1/3 cup?)

About a Tablespoon of finely chopped garlic

½ teaspoon of salt

Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth

Put a nice glug of olive oil on the bottom of a cast iron skillet enough to coat the bottom and sides nicely.  Heat the pan and pour the blended mixture in immediately after blending.

Then pop it in the oven until it gets puffy on top

( I made sweet potato and white potato fries as a side dish.  Chop those up and toss with oil and salt and rosemary and put in the oven before you make the egg dish)

When it gets puffy take it out of the oven and loosen the sides all around.  Now, here comes the trickery:  (You can skip all of this and just bake it in the pan until it is done.)  Or you can put a plate over it, flip it put it back in the pan upside down, return it to the oven for a few minutes to finish baking and then flip it back on to the plate to have that mossy look on the plate.  Don’t worry if it doesn’t come out in one perfect piece.  Have you ever looked at a clump of earth lately?  It is pretty lopsided.  But, if that feels like too much fuss you can just serve it from the pan. 

Enjoy!  (And pass the ketchup for your picky eaters, it worked for us!)

Pilgrimage to the Corner Store (or Winter Ode to Joy)

The first yellow crocuses smiled up at me this bright February morning in Georgia.  I feel a twinge of survivors guilt for all my friends and family braving the cold and snow up North.  Here's a poem I wrote in Philadelphia in February 2010 while seven months pregnant with baby four.  Our sink was full of dishes, two feet of snow covered the ground and there was a blizzard outside.  My husband could have gone to the corner store to buy the dish soap; but I needed desperately to get out of our messy child filled home.  I know that it is possible to wash dishes without dish soap.  But oh, for a few moments alone and for that squeaky clean gleam, I was willing to do anything.  So, I left them at home to embark on foot, the only way to go. 

Pilgrimage to the Corner Store (or Winter Ode to Joy)

Gleaming bottle on the shelf

A remedy to heal myself

Ultra concentrated Joy

One yellow lemon scented squirt

is all I need to banish dirt

or rather dried and crusting grits

milky pools and bacon bits

I clutch and pay and leave the store

to face the snow outside the door

The two block walk feels like a mile

At myself I have to smile

Huddled waddling

through knee deep snow

that has not ceased to fall and blow

to frost my glasses, freeze my nose

                as steadily I trudge toward  home

On my snowy path I plod

and utter silent thanks to God

who knows and grants his children’s wishes

I now have soap to wash the dishes

 

A drive to the lake

Some days just come out as poems.  It takes a lot of concentration to drive a full fifteen passenger van with a screaming child that is your own.  I know this one is kind of long, but I would love to hear comments.  

White car on black road

A butterfly in the sun

Swept up in car wind

I must drive carefully

My daughter screams

TURN UP THE MUSIC

I CAN’T UNDERSTAND

THE WORDS!

I turn it up

So I do not

 have to

find the words

to speak to the man beside me

who thinks in Kaba, Songo and French

I wonder what he

and the other seven people

think

his wife and brother and three children

and the single mother and her toddler

refugees from wars

I can’t understand

I wonder what they think

Of my daughter

Who screams from the

Way back seat

TURN IT UP!

WHAT IS THE SONG SAYING?

And I wonder how

War or parenting can make

Children who are so quiet

And how

I and parenting can make

Children who scream so loud

I turn off the music

And tell her

I can’t tell her

What it all means

If it is so loud.

So we drive in

A kind of

 silence

Eight quiet passengers

and my four fussing children

my precious cargo

I remind myself

That this is fun

That this too shall

Pass

I notice the butterflies on the road

and pray each time

that the big white van

won’t crush their

long awaited wings

with 60mph winds

Stupid Butterflies

I want to scream

Don’t you know this road is not safe

Don’t look for life and comfort here!

The sign says:

Low or Soft Shoulder

I remember Yoga class

And let my shoulders drop

And breathe

And listen

To my daughter say

Mama I have to

Pee

So we stop

Fifteen minutes away

At the gas station

And interrupt the

Indian man on his cell phone

To ask where to find and use

The Rest Room

And he points us

Outside

To the room

With scum gray walls

And she sighs with relief

As she sits on that dirty seat

We return to

Thirteen patient passengers

And the van that smells like

Bodies

Like the smell of the airport

In Dar Es Salaam

The smell of people

I love

I breathe

and smile

We are almost there.

The sign says:

This road ends in the water

We tumble out and

 step off jagged rocks into

 the welcoming waves

and the air is sweet for the drive home

Butterfly for Breakfast with Baked Oatmeal Recipe

                Sometimes grace unfurls its wings and settles in the least deserving and unlikely of places.  On any given morning at our breakfast table we feast on a buffet of whining, spilling, complaining, begging, belching, singing, scolding, story telling, scientific instruction, day planning and oh yes, food.  Yesterday we were startled out of our small busy selves to delight in new life.

                Michael had gone out to do the milking.  (This doesn’t happen every morning, but our friend who usually milks is on vacation so for these weeks he is doing it.)  I made baked oatmeal with last summer’s frozen blueberries that we are still enjoying until the ones on the bushes ripen.  While breakfast baked, my eight and ten year olds sprawled on the couches and read while I tried to wash some dishes and unearth our kitchen table and counter from the layers of end of the school year papers.  At breakfast time I insisted that they get dressed even though school is out.  My eight year old daughter, Zora, came down dressed for a birthday party that would happen two days from then.  I reminded her that if she wore those clothes now and they got dirty they wouldn’t be clean on Saturday.  (We share 2 washing machines with 40 people -and one is broken now- and only line dry our clothes so just washing and drying whenever is not an option.)  I try not to be too controlling about what the kids wear but, I have been trying to help the kids think about “town” clothes and “farm” clothes.  I think I seemed more controlling than helpful.  She kept on the sweet outfit but her mood had soured considerably.

                We gathered around the table and I suggested that we sing a couple of songs like Bruderhoff families do in their homes at breakfast.  Since Michael had milked and I’d made breakfast I felt very wholesome and “farmy.”  Zora whined, “Why do we have to be like other families?  Why can’t we just be like our family?”  And I retorted, “Why can’t our family sing together before we eat?”  At three year old Phoebe’s suggestion we sang, “This Little Light of Mine.”  Phoebe, sang beautifully while Zora buried her head in her arms, big brother, Malachi sang and mocked her while five year old Seraphina was still in her room getting dressed (we’ve learned not to rush her).  Malachi suggested “All God’s Critters Got a Place in the Choir.” We started to sing but Phoebe broke into hysterics while Zora still pouted.  I sighed, “Maybe one song is enough for today.”

                Zora and Seraphina had Raisin Bran because my food looked awful.  The rest of us enjoyed the baked oatmeal.  Michael and I were drinking coffee and talking through the plans for the day when suddenly I gasped.  There on the shelf behind the table was a butterfly!  We had been expecting it but it still took my breath away.  I brought the green caterpillar home on a sprig of parsley two weeks ago and put it in a glass trifle dish as our centerpiece.  We delighted as it munched through leaves and pooped.  Then we watched it get very still on its twig. One morning it was caterpillar the next chrysalis.  After that it got a little boring.  A dry stick in a glass dish full of caterpillar poop isn’t so attractive so I moved it off the table.  The night before, I had notice that the chrysalis had turned black- a sign that a butterfly would emerge soon.  But in all the bustle of getting four kids bedded down I forgot to mention it.  It was only when we saw it gently opening and closing its new wings that we remembered that we had invited it in to our home.

                I got the twig and held it at the table while we all watched it.  Malachi reminded us of a caterpillar that we raised in Philadelphia.  The butterfly ended up flying in our kitchen and its wings were damaged before it ever went outside.  We were not going to repeat that tragedy.  So, Michael grabbed the camera and we went outside and stuck the stick in a potted plant and watched it.  Zora gently put out her finger for it to crawl onto then she let it back onto its twig.  Michael snapped some shots and we all went back in.  Not fully redeemed but in that twinkling moment turned one degree closer to glory. 

We weren’t suddenly transformed into a new family. There are still books and papers on almost every horizontal surface.  There are baskets full of dirty, folded and needing to be folded laundry.  The sink is full of dishes.  The kids still whine and fuss.  But, the six of us got quiet enough for one moment to watch a butterfly and to delight together.  We invited a stranger into our home and it blessed us beyond measure.  I hope that is what they will remember when they are older.

Baked Oatmeal with Blueberries (modified from Simply in Season)

Preheat oven to 350F

Combine:

2 cups rolled oats

1/3 cup Brown Sugar

1 tsp baking powder

In a 4 cup  measuring cup (so that you don’t have to dirty up a bowl) whisk together:

one cup of milk

Add ½ cup of applesauce

                2 T of oil

                1 beaten egg

Pour over oat mixture. ( I had about a cup of leftover cooked oatmeal that I added at this point too) Mix well.   Stir in 1-2 cups of fresh or frozen blueberries

Pour into a greased 8 inch square pan.  Bake 25 or so (I think I baked it longer maybe 45 minutes because the leftover oatmeal made it mushier).

Serve warm with milk. (offer dry cereal to your picky eaters)

Monsters, Personhood, Race and Abortion

I'm not claiming to be an expert on any of this but I do want to add some of my thoughts surrounding this case and I would love to hear what others think about it too.

“Dr. Kermit Gosnell is not the monster the media is making him out to be”  these were the words of his defense attorney after he was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences for the murder of three babies and death of a woman who had attended his notorious abortion clinic on Lancaster Avenue in Philadelphia, PA.  Strangely enough, I agree.  If you aren't familiar with the case here is a non-biased link which sums it up pretty well  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Gosnell

When this case first surfaced a few years ago I would have agreed with anyone who called him a monster.  I remember the horror and disgust I felt at the descriptions in the news of the filthy and deplorable condition of his office when they shut it down.    I remember cradling my new daughter’s head in my hands and cringing at the thought of a baby’s spinal cord being cut by scissors as “procedure”.   A good friend of mine called me just as I had absorbed a huge dose of information about this case and I began to spew out the details and my emotional reactions.  I was expecting affirmation of all I said but instead my friend listened to my tirade in polite silence.  Then she told me that she was also very upset about the same news but for different reasons.  She knew the man, not the monster.  She had gone to school with his kids, she told me of a woman that we both knew and respected who had been going to him as her gynecologist for decades.  Our friend trusted him and admired him as a doctor who was reaching out to care for the young, poor, black, and underserved women of Philadelphia.  She was so upset at the way the media was making him out to be a heartless beast.  Suddenly this monster in my mind was a friend of a friend, a person whose good intentions had gone severely askew; but a person, nonetheless.  As furious as I am about his actions, demonizing this man does nothing to promote life or diminish the continuing tragedy of abortion.

The question of personhood is central to much of the talk surrounding abortion.  Though he did not testify in court, it is clear in his plea of innocence that Dr. Gosnell believes viable fetuses to be non-persons.  That belief allowed him to objectify children that could survive outside of the womb as tissue to be extracted not people killed.  A brief look at world history reveals that the ability to see people as less than human paves the way for genocide.  It is not murder because they are not people.  Labeling criminals as “monsters” also strips them of their humanity.  If we want a society that recognizes that personhood has a clear beginning at conception then we must maintain the belief that personhood continues throughout one’s entire life.

I called this friend yesterday to see what she thought about the outcome of Dr. Gosnell’s trial.  She was relieved that he did not receive the death penalty, and also relieved that the trial had not been as sensationalized by the media as it could have been.  She also no longer held any illusions about him as a misunderstood champion for the poor.    What we both found most distressing was that his irresponsible actions had gone unchecked for decades. 

I could not help but wonder if authorities would have intervened sooner had the majority of his victims been white.  Did is earlier reputation as “the people’s doctor” blind people to the atrocities that he was carrying out?  The fact that authorities turned a blind eye on the countless reports of abuse and negligence seems to affirm that the scourge of racism is felt even by the unborn.  I am actually not advocating that abortion be made illegal and thus return women to dangerous back alley abortion clinics much like Dr. Gosnell’s.  I am urging people on both sides of the debate to consider the fact that African-American children are the primary victims and that they seem to be valued as less than human by our society even before they are born.  Though you may not agree with this whole website the data in the following link helps to make this point more clear. http://www.abort73.com/abortion/abortion_and_race/

We live in a sick and violent society.  Dr. Gosnells’s clinic revealed symptoms of much deeper problems in our community.  It is good that his clinic is closed and that he will no longer be able to hurt women and children.  But it is foolish to believe that now that this “monster” is out of work that this problem is solved.  The fact that women still sought out and paid money for his services despite the awful conditions reveal deep seated problems that still exist.  If we want to change our society we need to hold individuals to account for their actions, while still respecting their humanity and also seek to transform the forces that are still producing such a high demand for abortions. 

Ascension

 Happy Ascension day!  This is the day on the church calendar that we celebrate Jesus ascension.  I led worship last Sunday at Jubilee and decided to focus on this story and thought I might go ahead and share it here too.  My husband Michael has been trying teaching himself to read the New Testament in Greek and I had some fun learning a little for this.  We sang "Christus Victor,""Holy Holy Holy," "Over my Head," "Only in God is my Soul at Rest" and "Our God Reigns"  We also had special music from Genia and her siblings Christ and Georfie from Congo Brazzaville.   She sang a song about Jesus being the living water and had also written a song about Jesus walking on water.  She taught some volunteers the songs and moves she made up to go with it.  When she was done I asked if anyone could translate and there was a visitor who spoke perfect French who could help us fully appreciate the message.  Hope you enjoy!

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Acts 1:1-11 

1 In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning ² until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. ³ After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. ⁴ While staying^[a] with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; ⁵ for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with^[b] the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”⁶ So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷ He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” ⁹ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. ¹⁰ While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. ¹¹ They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Of all the stories in the Bible of Jesus' life on earth- his immaculate conception, countless miracles of healing, feeding crowds, taming the weather and walking on water, his resurrection and ascension into heaven – one of the hardest ones for me to wrap my head around is his ascension. I read a commentary that said when folks believed the earth was flat and didn’t know what was beyond the sky it was not a stretch for them to think of a flat earth sandwiched between heaven above and hell below. Now that science and technology have allowed us to probe and explore the depths of our earth and our vast universe and even consider universes beyond our own, belief in a bodily ascension in which Jesus went “up” to heaven seems really hard to believe. So this week as I read and reread this story and countless sermons and commentaries on it in preparation for today, I tried to read the ascension with new eyes. To lay aside my doubts but to also lay aside images of old European paintings of Jesus swirling up in a cloud, his blond curls blowing in the wind, while is disciples gaped in amazement. I have been trying to imagine what it was really like to be there and what it means for us, his disciples two thousand years after the fact.

Forty days after his resurrection the eleven living disciples that he had chosen were staying in Jerusalem because Jesus had promised the gift of the Holy Spirit would come to them soon. When he appeared to them this time they wondered if he could go ahead and restore the kingdom of Israel already. After all they had been through with him they still didn’t get it. They wanted an earthly king to establish an earthly kingdom. Jesus assured them that it was not for them to know the times that his Father had set, then he told them that they will be his witnesses throughout all the world. They were asking Jesus what they hoped for when he rode into Jerusalem on palm Sunday,  "Can you go ahead and rule us as an earthly king?" Instead he empowered them by sending them out to his witnesses. After this “he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight." Where he would have authority over everything not just Israel. 

“He was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.” The last time we saw a cloud in the Bible is the story of the transfiguration in which Peter, James, and John see Elijah, Moses and Jesus together and hear the voice of God from a bright cloud. It is also upon a cloud that Jesus tells us he will return. The Greek word used for cloud in this case is Nephele which is the same word used to describe the cloud that guided the Israelites through the wilderness and the clouds in Revelation upon which Jesus and angels proclaim the glory of God. Shekinah is a word that doesn’t appear in the Bible, but ancient Rabbi’s used it to describe the presence of God like the pillar of cloud that guided the people. Shekinah is derived from the Hebrew verb שכן to settle, inhabit, or dwell. So here we have two words the greek “Nephele” makes us look up to the clouds the Hebrew “Shekinah” makes us settle down. 

When you picture a cloud in your mind what do you think of?  Something light and airy, fluffy and blown by the wind? All of these are true. When you think of dwelling or inhabiting what do you picture? Something solid with walls and a roof, unmovable, unshakable, permanent, rooted, safe? All of these could be true too. But let’s try to stretch our understanding a little wider have you ever thought about how much a cloud weighs in pounds? Scientists say that a little cumulus cloud weighs about the same as 100 elephants! A thunderstorm cloud is like 200,000 elephants! There is a tremendous weight to clouds. So when we imagine Jesus being taken up in a cloud, that is the presence of God, we can see the power and weight of God’s glory, something like thousands of elephants, revealed in something as light as a cloud. In his ascension Jesus went away with a promise to endow us with his Holy Spirit. I imagine his Ascension less as a bodily trip into outer space as a bodily vaporization of a solid Jesus into God’s Holy presence that then becomes accessible to each of us like drops of Holy Spirit rain in a cloud- showering down healing, blessings and his very presence to sustain us as we wait for fullness of his Glory to be revealed.

While on retreat at Conyers Monastery this spring I found some goose down by the pond. I picked up some soft as a cloud down and and held it in the palm of my hand. When I closed my eyes I could not tell the down was there, but I felt warmth on my palm, assuring me of its presence. Psalm 91 says, “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” God’s love and protection for us is complete but not confining, we have the freedom to move and can easily blow Him off or scurry away and leave God’s presence but if we enter into those gentle wings or that bright cloud we will be filled with warmth and comfort and safety. 

The Angels said, “what are you doing looking up?” Jesus had already given them a job to do, to go and be his witnesses.  They just assured them that it was time to shift their gaze to one another and trust that He would return and the Holy Spirit would come to help them. So how do we bear witness? He is present in our listening ears and kind words spoken, in acts of generosity and service in bearing one another’s burden and washing one another’s feet. In our courage to speak truth to power, to challenge oppressive structures, to declare authority over powers and principalities that seek to destroy. How do you know he is there? I was talking with a friend who went through a very hard time and kept asking God for help yet nothing changed. She began to lose her faith in God. But then when she had the courage to leave that bad situation she realized God was there all along, waiting for her to move in faith, and giving her the strength by the Holy Spirit to do it. We have been entrusted as the hands, feet, eyes, ears and mouths of Jesus and to let people know where we have seen him. So have you seen Jesus? Have you felt his presence? What is your story?

Warm Coffee on Good Friday Morning

              

This is a reflection from Good Friday 2012.  My friend Coffee is now 93 and a half.  Her vision and hearing are getting worse, but she still came to my second grade daughter's school musical this week.  I am so thankful to know her and that she let me share this experience with you all.  May the joy of walking with the ressurrected Lord fill you with peace and hope! 

               I sat alone in cool darkness on a folding lawn chair in a little patch of woods that we call our Gethsemane, the place where each year members of our community hold an all night prayer vigil between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  I chose the dawn shift.  Night shadows crept away as morning’s light helped me to discern the shapes of leaves, the trees in the distance, the small bodies of birds whose songs filled the air.  I heard quiet footsteps moving slowly along the path and then I saw her form, small and slightly stooped, using her cane for balance, approaching the garden.  It was my friend Coffee, the oldest member of our community.  She settled into the other creaky old lawn chair beside me for the last hour of prayer before “Peter,” one of our community volunteers would end our vigil by describing to a gathered crowd how he felt and all that happened that night.  We smiled but didn’t exchange words, honoring the sacred quiet that had been nurtured by our friends through the night.

                Though my mouth was closed, my eyes were prayerfully open that dawn.  I regarded her ninety-two and a half year old frame in the rickety chair and saw that she did not, like me, look like someone who just rolled out of bed and stumbled into the darkness.  She had taken the time, at dawn, to independently shower and wash her hair and dress for the day.  Her hair, still damp and clinging to her scalp made her look more delicate than she usually appears to me when her hair is dry and frames her head in a cottony cloud of white.  She grabbed at her head and huffed at herself for not taking the time to dry her hair or even bring a hat.

                At this point I could no longer simply close my eyes and return to inner silence.  This time of prayer required loving action.  I looked under tarps for the blankets that were not there.  They had been taken inside by others when April showers briefly wet the night.  I wrapped my orange scarf around her head and told her I would be back.  My 33 year old legs were nimble and full of life.  I took no notice of the roots and stones and slight dips and rises in the terrain as I hurried out of the woods.  The path that had been lit by tin can luminaria whose candles had expired in the night led me to the community library where I found heaps of crocheted Afghans.  I grabbed an armload of blankets, carried my light and easy load back across the dewy grass and returned to the thicket where I found Coffee reading the Bible.  I draped her shoulders in purple and blue and her lap was warmed with orange and brown.  She offered to give me back the scarf on her head but I insisted that she keep it on her still damp head.  I was warm from the run and thankful for the blanket on my own lap and the crisp air on my neck as we sat together in prayer.  I was thankful to be sitting beside my friend who had become regal - wrapped in the colors of heaven and earth.

               Coffee would scoff if she heard me describe her in this way.  As a preacher’s daughter, Christian educator, long-term missionary in Korea, and a decades long member of intentional Christian communities she has spent nearly a century cloaked in humility and service.  She has shared with our community that the biggest challenge in aging is the struggle of not feeling useful and of being a burden to others.  Though she no longer has any official jobs in our community, the one thing she does faithfully is come to morning prayer at 8AM Monday through Friday.  My husband and I come when we can but the pressing needs of children and work make it a challenging discipline to keep in this season of life.  Each morning she faithfully wraps up beloved ones in prayer and offers them to God’s tender care.  She takes seriously the work of prayer and our community and countless others are better for it.

               Soon a small crowd had gathered and we waited expectantly in silence for Peter to come.  A college-aged man ran in with a towel pinned over his clothes like a toga and told his harrowing account of that last night with Jesus.  After he gave his dramatic speech and hurried away for fear of capture we all scattered away from our imagined Gethsemane back into the present time and space.  I could have walked away alone at my normal hurried pace, but instead I chose to walk at Coffee’s pace.  The topography of the field from her point of view zoomed into my focus.  She held my arm in one hand and her cane in the other as she commented.  “My, this is quite a hill for me,” she paused to catch her breath, “But, Jesus’ path was steeper….and he had to carry a cross too.  That is something to think about.” 

               Later that day I found my orange scarf neatly folded in my mailbox with a short note of thanks.   I wondered if she even knew what a gift she had given to me that morning.  Did she know what a blessing it was that I could offer her comfort in a place where Jesus had received none, that I could be a faithful friend to her in a place where Jesus’ friends thought only of themselves; that I could, in a simple physical gesture, offer to her the comfort and peace that she daily offers to loved ones through her prayer and presence; that in her moment of need, and I am sure there will be more in the years to come, she brought me closer to the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Power of a Poem

                At breakfast this morning we were talking about cats. Then Malachi started talking about ancient Egyptian cat mummies.  We remembered how we had seen one at the Academy of Natural Sciences when we lived in Philadelphia.  Then the kids remembered how there was a real human mummy there too.  Between bites of my husband’s blueberry buttermilk pancakes my nine year old son commented, “Isn’t that just wrong, to have someone’s body in a museum.”  I breathed.  How much should I tell them?  Tell them the truth.  “Yup, it is and some people have worked hard and are still working to get people’s bodies and body parts returned to their people and given a proper burial.”  I then told them about my friend Diana Ferrus who showed my sister and me around the Western Cape of South Africa when we visited in August 2001.  Through a friend of a friend I got connected with her and she took us under her wing to poetry readings, cultural events and drives out in the veld to visit her friends and family.  She also told us the story of Sarah  Bartmann and read us the poem she wrote for her “I’ve Come to Take You Home.”  Sarah Bartman had been sexually exploited as a “scientific curiosity” both in her life and death.  After her death in 1815 she was dissected and a plaster cast of her body as well as her skeleton and pickled brain and genitalia had been on display in the Paris Musee de l’Homme as evidence of the link between ape and man.   They remained on display until 1974 and in the museum until their return and burial in 2002.  I spared my children the graphic details of her exploited life and simply said that people viewed this Khoisan woman as a freakish animal and that her bones and parts of her body were at the museum.  Then I read them Diana’s Poem, a love poem offering peace, comfort and gratitude to a body that had not yet been honored.   Then I read them the details in Diana's book about how Sarah Bartmann's body was returned to South Africa.  An 1850 law declared that all museum artifacts belong to the French state and could not be returned.  Though there had been pressure put on the French government to return her remains to South Africa, even a plea from Nelson Mandela, there had been no real action to change the law.  A French Senator was moved to introduce a bill to make it possible for Sarah Bartmann's remains to be returned.  When he found Diana’s poem on the internet, he decided to include it in the bill to show how the people were "emotionally and psychologically affected by her remains still being in France."  With her permission, her poem was translated into French and read before the senate.  They voted unanimously to return her remains and included the poem in the published bill.  This was the first time a poem was included in a French law.  I wonder how many other laws include poems?  Diana was among the South African delegates that went to Paris to fetch Sarah’s remains and bring them home.  One year after I visited her, Diana read her poem at the burial of Sarah Bartmann.

                  In a rare moment of grace, the children were listening.  I pleaded, “Do you see what one poem can do?  It can bring justice!  It can help change a law! It can help right a wrong!”  Malachi asked me “Is that why you write mommy?”

Read more about Diana Ferrus and Sarah Bartmaan here:

http://dianaferrus.com/  (this website is still under construction)

http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/saartjie.htm#.URayN5Zu2b8

 An Advent Meditation in response to the killing of children in Connecticut today

It has happened before
to even more
Herod decreed the slaughter
of the innocents
and every day

it is standard procedure
to stop young hearts

but today
we weep together
for the twenty
our children
at school today
eleven days before Christmas
my daughters, your sons
nearly bursting
with excitement

How much longer until Christmas?

her son his daughter
our children
wrapped
in body bags
their last day of school
police lights twinkle

hidden away in closets and attics
are the presents
that won't be opened
by those children
this year
and more guns and ammo
to thicken the darkness
and deepen the grief

each advent
we will remember
and carry this load
of grief
until He comes
again
this time
with fire

Sharing Adam's Birthday

            
 It has been a real blessing to me and my family to get to know a family that has been visiting our community for the past 2 weeks.  Please keep them in your prayers and seek God's direction for the days ahead.  A shorter version of this story appeared in Conspire Magazine Winter 2013.

    I have always loved birthdays -looking back with gratitude, looking forward with hope.  Gathering with family and overlapping circles of old and new friends converging to celebrate one life.  I have been blessed with many memorable birthdays but this year was the first I shared with a family whose son shares my birthday but is not on this earth for the celebration.  I have gotten their permission to share their story with you my family and friends and pray that you will be blessed in the reading of it.  I know it is a little long so make yourself a cup of tea and join me please I wish you could have been there for a slice of carrot cake and an ice cream sandwich.

I met Jason and Helena before last Sunday’s worship service.  In the usual course of introductions we named and listed and smiled about our children.  They pointed to their sons David, 6 and Caleb, 4 and then I named our four kids Malachi 9, Zora 7, Seraphina  4 and Phoebe 2 and pointed out the three girls.  Malachi, as usual was off somewhere.  Then Jason said,  “I don’t know if you know, we have three.”  Helena pointed to the small photo on a chain around her neck of a bright eyed smiling little boy, their Adam.   Their eyes began to glisten with tears and I felt my face flush and eyes join them in tears that expressed what any words in that moment could not.  I can’t say that I have ever met people and been moved to cry with them in that same interchange.  Needless to say, I knew we would be friends. 

                Later that week Helena was walking with her boys at the same time I was meeting my kids at the bus stop.  We converged behind our house where my husband Michael has hung three rope swings from the giant oak and created  a tight rope between two smaller trees.  Instantly, without the formal exchanges of words to define their identity, the children spoke to one another the pure language of play.  Helena said, “So this is Malachi.  He is so much like Adam.  He is such a beautiful boy.  I’m sorry I’m going to start to cry.”  Beneath the sheltering branches we smiled and wept and laughed together as the children swung and climbed and balanced.  Malachi played with David like his older brother probably would have, a little rough but not cruel, and David was delighted.  Helena is always reminded of her son when she sees boys his age but our son in his mannerisms, body type, smile, disheveled hair and the way he played with her boys bore a resemblance that seemed to be both painful and beautiful to her.  When her husband joined us his response was almost the same, “So this is Malachi?”  He looked at his wife and sighed, “...so much like Adam” as a fresh lake of tears flooded his eyes.  He was glad when I offered to watch his boys so he and Helena to go together to work in the garden.  The sight of them all together was too much for them to bear at that moment

                Jason and Helena came with their boys to our community for a 2 week visit from Canada.  They had been invited by one of the partners here who was a childhood friend of Jason’s.  We had known for months  that they would be coming and of the tragedy that had precipitated their need for a change in scenery.  Adam had died last September in a farming accident.  They needed a break from the farm and some space to grieve.  Beyond that I did not know what to expect.  Would they want to talk about it?  Would they be reclusive?  Would we have to be careful about the kinds of questions we asked?  Would we have to guard our joy in life for fear of offending their grief?  Those questions fell away as we entered into the daily rhythms of work and play together.  As we pushed our littlest ones on the swings one day after lunch Helena said, “I am just so thankful that I know Jesus and that I will see Adam again in heaven, it gives me such hope.  I can’t imagine going through what I have been through without Jesus.”  She thought about the refugee families that come through our community who have endured even greater loss, if grief can be measured or compared, and could not fathom how anyone could do it without Jesus.    This was the voice of a woman who had a blessed assurance of God’s goodness, not because her life had been perfect but because God’s goodness had prevailed in the face of unbearable loss.  She was quite frank in confiding that she could see how people would be compelled take their own lives after such loss.  It was the Good Shepherd himself that was walking her tenderly through the valley of the shadow of death, giving her strength each new morning to rise from the pit of despair.  Before they came I expected their visit might be a chance for us to offer hospitality and to be open to minister to them in their loss, which I believe, by God’s grace is happening.   I did not anticipate, however, how deeply God would be using them to minister to me and to the rest of our community.

                I asked her if her children talked about Adam.  “Oh yes,” she replied, “ every day and at night we always pray for him and when we look at the sky, I think we are looking at Venus, the brightest light in the sky, but we say that it is Adam’s star.”  One week before Adam went home, as Helena puts it, he drew a picture of a rainbow and of a ladder going up into the clouds.  Their was a little boy in the ladder with a star in his hand.  He told his mommy, “This is me, I’m going up to heaven to give Jesus a star.”  In the moment he drew it, it was to his mother a beautiful picture by a tender hearted little boy, a week later it was a premonition of the journey he would take, and for the rest of her life a piece of heaven to comfort those he left behind.

                On Friday, Jason and Helena offered to share their story during noon devotions.  In our community library full of about 30 people they hardly knew they shared more in that half hour than many dare to share even with their closest friends.  Helena began by telling the story of her life.  Of growing up poor, one of seven children who desperately missed her father.  He was a truck driver who was on the road more than he was home and she felt that loss deeply.  As a young adult she worked with street children in Paraguay where she saw children that had suffered sever neglect and abuse and where she met demons head on.  One day when she was walking alone there a man ran up to her, in broad daylight, and held a knife to her throat and said to her in Spanish,  “I am going to kill you.” She looked in his eyes and could see that the voice speaking and doing this to her was not the person there.  She spoke directly to his tormented soul and said calmly, in Spanish,  “Jesus loves you.”  He screamed in terror and fled.  Another time when she was taking an early morning walk two men approached her with ill intent, when a police officer appeared, like an angel, and arrested  them on the spot.  She spent time in other countries and was content to be single and resolved to dedicate her life to working with suffering children.   What a surprise when she met and married Jason and experienced great satisfaction and incredible joy in welcoming their own children into their lives.  She expressed the incomparable love a mother has for her firstborn, then the wonder in feeling that love expand to embrace David and Caleb. 

She then told the events of September 9, 2011 - the day their world turned upside down.  How Jason would not let her see Adam’s face as she held the bloody hand of her beloved son and felt it go from warm to cold.  How they had to forgive and seek daily the strength to live in forgiveness of the accident, the split second of inattention, that cost their son’s life.  How Jason’s father, a man not prone to fanciful visions, had a vision soon after the funeral of a shooting star that zipped  right in front of him and there was Adam’s smiling face saying, “Grandpa, look what I can do!” then the star did a somersault and zoomed into eternity, assuring them all that he was whole and well.   How they could count on their fingers the days since his passing that someone has not told them, “We are praying for you,” and how those prayers have sustained them through the terror of grief.  How neighboring farmers, without being asked, showed up with combines and took in the wheat harvest for them that fall.  How on the evening of September 9^th this year their community filled their lawn with lit candles.  How a mother told them that in the three days of school before the accident Adam would swing on the swing set at recess and  talk with her son about Jesus. 

                While Helena talked Jason remained silent behind the beard that he began growing that terrible day.  He had just one story he wanted to add.  For the entire year Helena had prayed for the spot of land upon which the accident happened.  Not the whole field, just for the redemption of that one piece of earth.  She begged God for sign, that somehow, in some way there would be a visible difference.  When Jason took in the harvest on that row the hopper was full of grain, they got 70 bushels per acre.  Each of the other rows only 50 bushels per acre.   It was such a marked difference, with no earthly explanation that Jason could only concede that it was a miracle that he saw with his own eyes.  When he told Helena she said, “God does love me!”  Jason, on the other hand, was very upset by this outcome.  How could God care enough and love them enough to produce this miraculous harvest but not be able to save their son’s life?  There was not an ounce of pious serenity or aloof religiosity in their story.  Every day is marked with tears.  Their children and their marriage were not perfect before or after the accident.  Yet God has remained sovereign and has become more real to them.  They point not to their flawed forgiveness or their tested faith but to the power of the Holy Spirit, to a loving God who knows the grief and pain of losing his first born son, and to Jesus their savior who has held them back from the brink.

                Yesterday was my 34^th birthday.  It was also Adam’s ninth birthday.  Jason and Helena planned to take their children out to the mountains for a hike, to do the kind of thing Adam would have loved.  I invited them to stop by my house in the evening, only if they wanted to, only if they were up for it.  Michael had baked a carrot cake, my favorite.  Zora and Seraphina had iced it and covered it with sprinkles of every color, their favorite.  We had gathered around a fire beneath the big oak for popcorn and hot apple cider and grilled meat.  The autumn chill and darkness were too much for our kids to bear so we headed inside for the cake.  Caleb and David showed up just as we were going inside.  They told us it was Adam’s birthday.  I wondered if their parents would come, if it would just be too hard to grieve and celebrate at the same time.  As the kids began to play, David suddenly burst into tears.   He said he wanted to go home.  Caleb wanted to stay, so our friend Bernard began walking David to the house where he was staying.  A few minutes later Helena came in and wished me happy birthday and Jason and David soon followed, the tears gone.  The lights went out and our house burst into song as family and friends wished me a happy birthday.  I prayed for Adam’s family as I blew out my candles, aware like no birthday before of the gift of breath.  After cake was served the kids initiated a game of whisper down the lane.  We all laughed hysterically at the distortions of our words.  Then Helena disappeared for a moment and returned with two boxes of ice cream sandwiches.  They were Adam’s absolute favorite dessert and the last thing he ever ate.  She asked if it would be OK to share them to honor his birthday.  As the kids ate contentedly at their good fortune of two desserts and the adults ate contemplatively David climbed up on Malachi’s lap and Malachi let out a rip roaring belch.  A week earlier I may have corrected or scolded but in this moment it was a comfort to my guests to be in the presence of a real live nine year-old boy.  David laughed then we all burst into laughter as Malachi burped again, as we danced the narrow line between the mundane and the sacred, tragedy and celebration. 

                Today is Sunday again.  In one short week the way I look at my son with his crazy hair and goofy mannerisms, the way I look at my heart with its petty grudges and struggles to forgive, the way I look at ice cream sandwiches, and the way I look at Jesus with his care for even a sparrow that falls to the ground have changed forever.  Today Jason and Helena took Malachi along with their boys for a long afternoon walk in the woods, his favorite, and I am sure Adam's too.  In worship Jason reluctantly accepted the offer to talk about the daily choice to forgive and the sacrifice God made of his own precious son, one Jason knows all to well, to give us that gift of forgiveness.  Each coming birthday will remind me of the time spent with Adam’s family, the gift that his life is to an expanding circle of friends, and of the unbroken circle that binds us with one another throughout eternity that makes it possible to look back with gratitude and look forward with hope.

A Prayer for the Departed

Last Wednesday night as I was falling asleep I began to think about the film The Departed.  That film troubled me so deeply that I wondered if one could develop PTSD from watching a film.  Perhaps I could coin a new term “Post Traumatic Film Disorder.”  Anyone who knows me well may wonder why I even saw the movie.  The problem with being pretty detached from mainstream culture is that when my husband and I went out on a date to the movies about 5 years ago we had put so much energy into finding childcare and getting to the theater that we didn’t even think about what movie to watch.   The only information we had was the line-up of stars and the critical acclaim, so we thought we’d go ahead and watch it.  About two hours and too many murders later I was shaken to the core by the cruelty, greed and power of the character played by Jack Nicholson who was based roughly on Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger.   I was equally troubled by a group of young men in the audience that laughed out loud at just about every killing.

So as I lay in bed last Wednesday night trying not to think about the scary images that still come back to haunt me I began to pray against the stronghold of violence in our culture.  I prayed for peace and justice and that such a mean and wicked man could be brought down.  The following morning as I was washing up breakfast dishes and listening to NPR I stood hands deep in soapy suds in utter amazement.  They had announced that James “Whitey” Bulger had been caught in LA on Wednesday.  It is moments like these that affirm my belief that our thoughts are not random and that prayer can connect us to the heart of God and to the needs of people we may never meet here on Earth.  He would have already been arrested when he came to my mind that night, but I still think God brought him to my mind on purpose.  I know that the arrest of one man and the prayers of one woman will not bring sudden peace to crime ridden streets, it won’t stop violent media from streaming into hearts and homes, it won’t make those young men in the theater weep instead of rejoice at suffering.   But perhaps troubling things come to our minds so that we can join the fight against them and their destructive power.  Rather than being paralyzed or overcome by fear we can be stirred to action, even if that action is as simple as a prayer.   So the next time my mind is assaulted by some troubling detail of the state of the world today I will turn it into prayer and not be too surprised when God hears and answers it.  Imagine if we all prayed more.  Oh and Michael and I learned that we are better off spending our date night money on nice restaurants, or concerts or contra dancing - things we KNOW we’ll enjoy and not trust Hollywood to entertain (or terrorize) us.   

“For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”   (2 Timothy 1:7)

Spring Migration Song

Over my head                  

                I know the hummingbirds are back

I hear music in the air                   

but not exactly here

Over my head                                

 swarming 4-wheelers buzz

I hear music in the air                    

engines rev in annual courtship display

Over my head                                  

low flying helicopter breaks sleep sirens wail

I hear music everywhere             

soon I will migrate

There must                                        

to a place so quiet

Be a God                                             

 that I heard and saw

Somewhere                                      

a hummingbird hover

Over my head  

Mourning Cloak

Yesterday, March 28 marked the three year anniversary of two deaths. One of my friends lost her father to cancer and my cousin lost her husband and the father of her young children to a trucking accident.  It also was my husbands birthday and very close to the birthdays of my own children.  I wrote this poem about grief and rebirth two years ago.  The mourning cloak is a kind of butterfly that my friend saw on the day they buried her father. May this poem be a blessing to you as well this day.

 

Isaiah 6:2

Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew

Psalm 30:11-12

You have turned my mourning into dancing;

You have taken off my sackcloth

And clothed me with joy,

So that my soul may praise you

And not be silent.

O Lord my God I will give thanks to you forever

Cloaked in mourning

You will rise today

Allowing the Constance

Of breath to carry you through

Swaddled snugly in grief

You will move through this day

inching your way

toward and

away from  

thought after endless thought

You will see in your face

His face

You will hear in your voice

His voice

You will continue to breathe

And continue

The life that he helped to create in you

Wound up in silvery threads

of tears and snot

You will open puffy red eyes

and find

that this grief

will not break you

that it can be borne

as you were born

and will be born

again and again

And, yes you will lament

that you are unraveling

The threads of sisters mother brother

Stand parallel

In tension

Disconnected without the

Woof of papa to hold them together

You hope

that time and memory will

rebind you

and the distance will not grow

And yes, you lament

that your feet will not stand

on one year old grass

Beside the stone that

marks your remembrance

but you accept

that they will tread the streets

of this city of brotherly love

and find solace

And you will stretch out

This blanket of grief

And find that though

It seems as constant as breath

It will not bind you.

You will hear on your lips

Words of praise

And thanks

For life

And you may shield your sorrowed face

And you may cover your weary feet

Yet still you will spread out wings

And rise to greet this day

.

farts, earthquakes and prayer

I was at the kitchen sink making an attempt to bring some order to the chaos, while a pot of rice, beans, and leftover chicken simmered for dinner.  My nearly 3 year old daughter was at the counter measuring teaspoons of sea salt and brown rice into a dry measuring cup (one dump through the sieve will sort it out fine).  She began to sing to herself the first line of a song my son brought home from camp last summer, “Oops I farted, an earthquake started….”

A few moments of silence, scooping, sorting, washing, rinsing, then, “Mommy, I was singing that song cause there was that big earthquake in Japan.”  The song continues, though she had not sung “and that’s how the dinosaurs died out.”  Had she begun to connect dots and wonder if somehow a natural act of her own body had caused people in Japan to suffer? I assured her that that song was pure fiction and that the disaster in Japan was not a result of her or anybody passing gas.  She honestly seemed relieved to hear this assurance from me.
  

Soon she was on the dining room potty releasing the cause of the fart.  I took a few moments to look at the computer.  “Mommy, God really loves those people in Japan……he really cares about them….and God really loves us too. We should pray for the people in Japan.”  So I drew near to her and I prayed for people in Japan to have homes, to have enough food, to have comfort, to trust that God and his love are real.  “Mommy, God is so so good! Lets sing that song about that. ” So we sang “God is so Good” in English and in Japanese.  She asked me sing it in Spanish too so we sang a verse in Spanish.

I don’t believe that farts cause earthquakes but I do believe that the heartfelt prayers of a child can cause blessing to people all the way over in Japan.  They can even cause a harried mother to stop flitting from one incomplete task to the next and to pause long enough to remember and trust that God is indeed good.

Welcome to my table

At the end of the day I often sit with a cup of tea and talk over the day with my husband. My kitchen table is the center of my home where most of the meals, teaching and conversation happen. The hope of this blog is to create a gathering place where I share a bit of what is happening in my center. Welcome.