Livin’ the Dream

It hasn’t been on purpose, but I realize I have been conspicuously absent from this blog for most of the summer.  Rather than finding myself hunched over my computer, I’ve been out and about savoring every bit of this glorious season’s sunshine and warmth and, well, just participating in life.  It has been a total gift to have had the opportunity to preach occasionally and, beginning this October, I will have a somewhat steady gig with a congregation currently in a pastoral vacancy.  I have been finding myself re-discovering who I am and what gives me joy.  That may sound elementary, but to this recovering alcoholic, reclaiming life has been no easy task.  I wasted a great deal of time feeling sorry for myself.  I was sure I had ruined everything and there was absolutely nothing to look forward to our hope for.  Yes, there was a time I believed I could never have fun or enjoy myself, let alone be ‘happy’ without alcohol.  Not true!  I haven’t had a drink in nearly a year (I will mark one year of sobriety this Friday), and, while I have no idea what my future holds, I am finding myself pretty jacked up about it!

I don’t think about a drink anymore.  Really.  The AA folk used to tell me this day would come and I didn’t believe them.  But it really has.  I’ve gone places and done all sorts of things I never thought I would go to or do again—at least not without booze—and have enjoyed myself!  Seltzer with lemon has become my drink of choice (I prefer the sodium free when I’m stocking my fridge at home, but any seltzer will do, even club soda if need be, just please squeeze a wedge in it!).  I’ve been to concerts and clubs and birthdays and funerals and celebrations of all sorts—and have come through unscathed.  I think it is because I am so damn happy; I don’t want to risk this sense of well-being and deep-seated joy ever again.  NEVER.  I never want to slip back into the abyss that was my life prior to getting sober.  I shudder at the thought of all the years I wasted.  Never again.  Life is too good, its gifts too precious, to risk missing even another moment of it.

At the risk of sounding like one of those AA folk (and yes, I still go to meetings), I want to reassure anyone who’s a few hours or weeks or days into sobriety that it absolutely will get easier and so, so much better!  I thought my experience was as bad as it could get—rehab, job loss, compromised health, but I could have died.  I know that now.  If I could have gotten away with drinking for another month or year, I could have very easily killed myself; if not by alcohol consumption directly, then by a car accident (thank God I never killed anyone!) or some other reckless behavior.  Looking at things from this perspective, I am one incredibly lucky woman: lucky to be alive and sober and able to sit by the pool and look up at the night sky and experience joy and thank God over and over and over again!  No matter that I considered them lies, the promises are coming true in my life.  Slowly, but surely, I am reemerging as someone more true to herself than I had ever imagined possible.

Hang in there, peeps.  From the one year mark, and for as far as I can see, life is looking oh, so good!

Photo Credit: Bing Images/liberonetwork.com

It Is Enough

I have not been around these pages for a while.  I apologize.  I have missed you.  The only explanation I can offer is it’s summer (I absolutely love summer and am savoring every last moment of it).  Anyway, here is my sermon from yesterday ….  –PP

Sermon for Sunday, August 9
1 Kings 19:4; John 6:35, 41-51

 [Elijah] went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life …” 1 Kings 19:4

It is enough.  Elijah has had enough.  He cannot bear another day.  He cannot take it anymore.  There is something familiar about this scene; something we recognize.  We have seen this sort of depression: in ourselves, in others.  Elijah is not simply tired or discouraged.  Elijah has reached the point where he can no longer bear the thought of another day.  He collapses under the weight of his despair, right there where he is, a day’s journey into the wilderness, there beneath a solitary broom tree.  He cries out to God for release, for death.  Elijah welcomes sleep.  He wants only for his life to be over.

Yes.  There is something familiar about this scene.  According to the World Health Organization, there are 350 million people worldwide who suffer depression.  And, contrary to what we might suspect, depression is not just an American problem, or even a western problem, depression and anxiety exist in every country of the world.   According to the available data, 5% of the world population has experienced depression within the past two years.  That’s 1 in 20, and those numbers don’t even take into account the hundreds of thousands of occurrences that go unreported because of the stigma of mental illness.   Chances are either we, or someone we love, has sat beneath that broom tree.  Elijah’s despair is painfully familiar to too many of us.

Two weeks ago, a woman collapsed into her despair and fell to her death from atop Caesars Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.  She was a bright and beautiful young woman, a wife and mother, the foster daughter of a friend of mine, and someone who had struggled with depression her whole life.  This was certainly not the first time someone within my circle of acquaintances had taken his or her own life, but this one was close.  The obituary did not report the cause of death, only that the woman’s death was unexpected.  It was heartbreaking to get that phone call and the memorial service was nearly unbearable.  So many unanswered questions.  So much pain.  Family members tried to speak, struggled to lift up and celebrate this woman’s life, and the minister did a commendable job of witnessing to God’s unconditional love in Christ; but it was hard.  Even for this pastor, it was hard.  The harsh reality of this woman’s death still presses heavily against my heart.  Did God not see fit to send angels to minister to her in her distress?

In the days since, I have found myself thinking of little else.  I have wondered what I might have said, had I been the one asked to preside at that service.  I have searched the scriptures and brought the whole of my faith to bear against what appears to have been the absence of angels beneath the broom tree that overshadowed that woman’s life.  There are no answers and I hesitate to speak with certainty about anything, but I kept coming back to one story in particular—about how the devil taunted Jesus to leap from the pinnacle of the temple for surely God would send his angels to bear him up in their wings.  True as that may be, Jesus does not jump; he does not test God.  But I’ve been thinking about those angels and their wings and that is where I have located my hope in the face of suicide—the angels do come; somehow, somewhere, in those moments between suffocating despair and death, the angels come with heavenly bread.

Anyway, that’s how I see it.  The bread that comes to us from heaven, comes as sustenance, yes; but it is primarily a sign and a promise.  For the Israelites who cried out in the wilderness, complaining against Moses and fearing they had been led into freedom only to die from hunger, God says No and rains down bread from heaven; food to eat and the assurance that God has not and will not ever abandon them.  When Elijah collapses beneath the broom tree, weary and spent, ready to surrender to death, God sends his angel to minister to him: a cake appears there on the ground before him, a sign that he was not then nor ever will be beyond the love and grace of God.  And when Jesus has compassion for the crowds and provides loaves and food for thousands, he does so as an expression of his own self-giving.  They came hungry and were fed, but the sign ultimately points to the one sent by God whose own flesh was to be bread for the life of the world.

Once the sign, the bread, has been pressed into your hand; once the promise has been sealed upon your heart; there is no way out, no way to escape the grace and mercy of God.  No peril nor hardship nor sword.  No height nor depth.  Not even death, itself.  Nothing in all of creation can separate one of us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  It’s madness, really, to believe such a thing.  That God loves us that much; that God has claimed us forever; that we are his and Jesus gave himself that we—you and I—might come to his table on this warm August morning and taste the sweetness of the promise.  I have seen the wonder of that promise realized in the faces of those who have taken the bread in eagerness and in tears.  In that moment there is nothing except Jesus, his self-giving love, and his promise:  broken and given for you and for me and forever.

Just this past week, I finally got around to seeing the movie, Selma.  I’m like that; it sometimes takes me a short forever, but I do try to keep my thumb on the pulse of popular culture.  Anyway, the movie wasn’t nearly as good as the hype, but it did raise a disturbing question:  would I have marched?  Would I have been willing to submit to beatings and scorn and possibly even death to stand up for something I believed in, for what I felt in my bones was God’s will?  I could not answer that question.  The year is not 1965; this is not Alabama.  But I also know the question is not limited by time and space and circumstance.  Would I march?  I stand before you this day forced to admit I probably would not.  Shucks, I have a hard time speaking up when someone starts making judgmental and disparaging comments about another member of the community.   I know I should say something; but I don’t.  So, no, I don’t suspect I would have joined the thousands who marched from Selma to Montgomery.

We all fall short of the Glory of God.  Each and every one of us fails miserably at giving full expression to the hope and faith we have in Christ.  We have good intentions, mind you.  But our feet hold us fast and our voices fall silent.  We are forever chasing after distractions to keep our minds occupied and away from thoughts of justice and poverty and racism and Jesus and life and death.  Even those of us who come to church on Sunday morning, often have the darnedest time lingering in the promise; claiming it for ourselves.  Five thousand people ate their fill on the grassy hillside across the lake.  Some went home.  Some followed.  All fell victim to doubt.  Who is this one who claims to be sent from God?  Bread of angels?  Bread of life?  We scan the landscape of our lives and cannot, for the life us, recognize the sign.  Oh, if only we could.  We wonder, briefly, what it would be like to rest on the wings of angels and trust God above all things.  And then our thoughts run off after some thing or another and we find ourselves frantically chasing we know not what.

As I watched that movie, I found myself profoundly moved by the moment when Dr. King and the crowd behind him, all kneel down in prayer, right there on the bridge; pausing in the presence of God; open to a sign.  I was reminded of the friends and family who gathered in silence trying to reconcile their often fragile faith with the inescapable reality of desperation and despair, daring to hope for some word of comfort.   Not unlike the crowds who stood in the very presence of our Lord and still could not recognize the sign, I thought about how we, too, hesitate to trust what is right before us, in our hands and on our lips.  The body of Christ, given for you; for me.  Bread from heaven.  Bread of angels.  Bread of Life.  Broken and pressed into our hands.  Take.  Eat.  Otherwise, the journey will be too much for you.  The promise is so outrageous, the possibility so incredible—forgiveness, mercy, sustenance, life—given for me, for you; restoring our strength; giving us life; right here, right now, lifting us up on the wings of angels.

Come to the table, beloved of God.  Touch the promise to your lips.  Dare to taste and see.  The Lord is oh, so good.  Amen.

Image: Elijah Under The Broom Tree/pic2fly.com

Go!

Happy Fourth of July everyone!
Here is a preview of my sermon for tomorrow:

2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-13

Prophets seem to have been multiplying like rabbits lately.  They are turning up everywhere.  Television. Newspapers.  On line and on street corners.  Men and women who are so convinced of their own spiritual superiority, their own certainty of what God intends for God’s people, they loudly call for the repentance of, well, pretty much everybody.  I recently stumbled upon a YouTube video that had caught the attention of a number of independent news outlets.  It depicted a bearded man, otherwise quite ordinary, bellowing his warnings of fire and brimstone and hell in the midst of a neighborhood music festival.  I suspect, among all those who gathered for music and some afternoon fun, there had to at least been a few petty thieves and adulterers and otherwise run of the mill sinners; but this fiery preacher had zeroed in on one person in particular: a seven year old girl.  Now, the music festival just happened to fall on June 27, the day after the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality; and maybe that little girl supported equal rights or maybe she simply liked rainbows, but she was holding a rainbow flag, all pigtails and innocence, being screamed at by an angry man to repent of her sinfulness and accept Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.

Now, I’m all for repentance.  God grieves our sinful natures and longs for restored relationship, but I do not believe that bearded and otherwise ordinary man was one singled out and called by God to be a prophet among God’s people.  Of course, not all false prophets are so vulgar as to holler at children and threaten damnation.  Some are far more manipulative, with well-crafted messages and polished presentations.  Some draw large crowds of like-minded self-perceived chosen ones.  Some even have their own cable television shows.  How’s a person supposed to know?  How do we distinguish between a charlatan spewing lies and a true prophet proclaiming the truth?  Sadly, public perception of Christianity has become so distorted by the racquet, as to effectively silence the whispers of those seeking to speak of truth and mercy and love.  Churches struggle with evangelism.  No one wants any part of such a thing; no one wants to talk to strangers about Jesus; no one wants to risk being perceived as “one of them.”  So much for being sent out two by two.  We’d much rather stick close and keep our mouths shut.  We certainly don’t know enough.  We can’t possibly be sure enough.  We’re not even convinced we’re called, let alone sent.  And so, all that is true falls silent on our lips.

When I was in the third grade, I took up the violin.  I was excited about it.  I practiced faithfully.  I even spent my Saturday mornings rehearsing with a county orchestra.  My friend, Patty, played the oboe and she was in the orchestra too.  We ended up sitting together on the bus.  Every Saturday morning we rode to rehearsal and back and talked about all sorts of things, but mostly about Jesus.  Now, I went to Sunday school.  I sat with my parents and grandma in church.  And I dutifully recited the prayers my brother and I were expected to pray every evening at supper and at bedtime.  But I wasn’t at all sure about anything.  Patty, on the other hand, was really sure—maybe not about everything but certainly about Jesus.  I have this clear and precise memory of the two of us on the school bus.  Patty was sitting next to me with her notebook open on her oboe case, frantically sketching out a drawing to help me understand what she knew with certainty.  She drew two high mountains, with a huge chasm between them.  Jesus was on one side, she explained.  And I was on the other.  How was I ever going to get to the other side?  According to Patty, the answer was simple: Jesus had laid down his cross to bridge the gap between us.  It seemed like good news at the time.  It still does.

I don’t know what church Patty’s family attended.  I don’t know if Patty went to Sunday school or if she prayed grace with her siblings at meals.  But, with all the wisdom and innocence of a third grader, she knew enough; was sure enough; was convinced she was not only called, but sent—at least to me.  And I have never forgotten.  You don’t need a loud voice to proclaim the good news of God in Christ.  A whisper will do.  A whisper and the certainty that your authority to speak at all comes—not from you—but from Christ who dwells in you.  That’s how Paul explains it anyway.  Truth tellers point to Jesus; charlatans boast of themselves.  He writes to the church at Corinth with urgent concern.  The Corinthians are being led astray by the loud voices of false prophets claiming the authority of visions and revelations.  Paul, too, could boast if he wanted to, but he doesn’t.  It is not his own authority he claims.  Sure, fourteen years earlier, he had his own encounter with the Risen Christ; but, still, he claims no authority for himself.  He wants only to be judged by what he does and the words he speaks.  He knows better than to confuse his authority with that of his message.  Indeed, he is forever humbled by a thorn he bears in his flesh; an ever-present reminder of his weakness, his sinfulness, his unwavering confidence that God’s grace is sufficient.  No hardship, insult, persecution, or calamity will ever silence Paul’s voice, because Paul does not speak for himself; he speaks for Christ; for the One who dwells in him, each day renewing his strength to give voice to truth and mercy and love.

The last time I was with you, I shared about wanting to step into Mark’s narrative to urge the disciples to listen up and pay attention; to learn their lessons well, because the day was coming when Jesus would no longer be with them.  Mark’s is a fast paced gospel, and already we have the disciples being sent out to expand Jesus’ ministry of repentance and healing.  They can no longer use the excuse of not knowing enough, or that they are merely students, or even that they lack the confidence to be on their own.  Today is their graduation day, so to speak.  One last class and they will be sent out, two by two, into an often unwelcoming world.  Today’s classroom?  Nazareth.  Jesus’ home town.  And at first, everything is going splendidly as usual: the entire synagogue is mesmerized by the authority with which Jesus speaks.  But then suddenly and without warning, everything turns sour.  Someone realizes who Jesus is: a carpenter, a local boy, one of their own—one of the common folk, like the rest of them.  Who does he think he is?  The entire town takes offense and refuses to believe.  For two thousand years since, people have been taking offense.  Unable to distinguish between true and false prophets, they opt to not believe.  Learn your lesson well, disciples.  Watch what the Teacher does.  Listen closely as he instructs you to do the same.

Go.  Where you are welcomed, stay.  Where you are not, where people refuse to hear and believe, simply leave.  Shake the dust from your sandals and move on.  You don’t have to raise your voice or stomp your feet or make a spectacle or threaten anybody.  A whisper will do.  The authority and power you have is not yours, it is that of Christ who dwells in you.  It is yours by virtue of your baptism.  And Jesus can as easily work through you and me as he can through a reluctant band of students who would much rather stay in school than graduate.  Just for today, turn down the volume on all the voices clamoring for your attention and listen for the whispers.  There, there you will find the grace and truth of Christ:  In the scribblings of a young oboe player on a school bus, in the quiet witness of a child being bullied by a street preacher, in the hardships and humility of prophets and disciples who have, despite indifference and offense, entrusted God’s words of truth and mercy and love to generation after generation and finally into your hands on this summer Sunday morning in July.  Like so many who have gone before us, we will soon gather at our Lord’s table of grace and then be sent out, dismissed into a world that so often seems to want only to coerce us into silence.

We have all we need to stay strong.  God’s grace is sufficient.  God’s power is made perfect in our weakness.  God’s truth continues to find its voice on your lips and on mine, in the hesitant whispers finding courage and strength in the power of Christ that dwells in us.  This gospel, this message of God’s truth and mercy and love that has been entrusted to us cannot be silenced.  No matter if the entire world takes offense, we will continue to dust ourselves off and carry on.  It is who we are.  It is the ministry to which we are called.  Christ keeps leading, keeps going before us and we, well, we who have been baptized into His Body, ready or not, we are carried along and forward into His future.  Amen.

Image: YouTube screen capture/Danthropology/2015/07

Who Cares?

This was difficult to write. I had mixed feelings about preaching it.  But I could not remain silent.  What follows is my sermon from this morning. –PP

Mark 4:35-41
June 21, 2015

Racism.  That is the word that is on everybody’s mind.  There is no point in dancing around it.  The massacre in Charleston has left the entire country reeling.  Nine people dead.  Brutally murdered in a house of worship.  The perpetrator has admitted he sat among the victims, accepted their hospitality, almost didn’t go through with it because they were so nice to him.  But it had to be done, he said. Some insist he was mad.  Others maintain he was driven, not by madness—but by his intense hatred of black people.  Most of us are left questioning where Jesus was on that dark night in Charleston.  Did he not care that nine among the faithful were about to perish?  Could Jesus not have shook off sleep long enough to quiet the storms of madness and hate and rescue nine of his own?

At least those are the questions we feel we are left with.  Had I sat down to prepare this sermon prior to Wednesday night, I would have probably written about Jesus being in the boat with his disciples—asleep, but very much present.  I inevitably would have gone on to mention how the “nave”—this area in our churches where the congregation sits—is derived from the same word as “navy”—and actually means “boat.” I might have expanded upon Jesus’ call to his disciples and to us to cross over to the other side—to bring the good news of God’s kingdom to foreign shores and among strangers who are nothing like us but whom Jesus loves nonetheless.  And I certainly would have assured us all that we, like the disciples in Mark’s story, need not be afraid.  Jesus is right here with us—in the boat.  But none of that felt true to the whole of God’s story as it has been unfolding across this country in recent days.

It occurred to me, more than a few of Jesus’ disciples were experienced fishermen, so being out on the sea—even in a storm—should not have necessarily caused undue panic among them.  No, there had to be something about the wind and sea that night that scared the begeebees out of them; a foreboding that so frightened them, they desperately shook Jesus awake.  “Do you not care?” they shout over roar of wind and waves.  “Do you not care that we are perishing?”  I’ve never been quite sure whether the disciples were expecting a miracle or just wanted Jesus to lend a hand bailing the water out of the boat.  But one thing’s for sure, what happened next caught them by surprise.  Jesus rebukes the wind, calms the sea, then turns to his stunned disciples and asks, “Why are you afraid?”  “Have you still no faith?”  Ouch.  Hey, wait a minute.  What just happened?  Who IS this guy?

Throughout the whole of Mark’s gospel, the disciples wrestle with that question.  Indeed, who is Jesus?  Who is this one that even the wind and sea obey?  When they finally reach the other side of the sea, Jesus and the disciples are greeted by a demon-possessed man called Legion—because he is many.  Anyway, Legion has no questions; the demons know precisely who Jesus is.  No sooner have the disciples pulled their boat up on the shore, that this crazed man throws himself on the ground at Jesus’ feet, shouting, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”  Jesus responds by calling the unclean spirit out of the man with the same authority as his voice had when he calmed the tumultuous sea   You and I, we who know the rest of the story, we want, at every juncture, to step into Mark’s narrative and encourage the disciples  to pay attention and listen up, to learn their lessons well.  If they think they were afraid in the boat, things are only going to get worse.  The day will come when Jesus will die, when they will really feel abandoned.

That’s what it feels like, doesn’t it?  Storms rage in Ferguson.  In Baltimore.  Now in Charleston.  We are left feeling frightened and helpless.  Where is Jesus?  Does he not see that people are perishing?  Ah, if God were to raise up a prophet among us to answer our questions and assure us we have not been forgotten.  Yet, even despite the storms that rage, we still gather, still cling to our Lord’s promise that he is indeed present:  In the bread.  The wine.  In the community of the baptized.  So, why then are we still so afraid?  Is our faith somehow lacking?  Have we lost sight of hope?  So many questions.  Do I believe Jesus was present in that Bible study?  Yes.  I am as sure of that as I am of anything.  Jesus was with those men and women just as he has been present with every man and woman who has died in the faith, beginning with the first Christian martyrs down through the ages, and yes, in Charleston as well as our own communities.

There is a demon raging on our shores.  In our cities and towns.  Even in our churches.  Its name is Legion, for he is many:  racism, hatred, greed, privilege, indifference.  Demons that can be and are exorcised little by little and every time a member of the Christ’s Body speaks with the power of his or her baptism.  No.  Your uncle may not tell his racist jokes in your home.  No.  The disparity of resources provided to our urban and suburban schools is not acceptable.  No.  Under no circumstances can discrimination be justified.  Black lives matter.  Every life matters.  We are all in this together.  Certainly no one can hope to eradicate racism on his or her own.  But, I believe one person can make a difference, that those differences can add up.  A friend of mine recently bought one of those dew rag bandana things.  It was red, white and blue, and seemed, to him, a fun accessory for the upcoming Fourth of July festivities.  As news of the Charleston tragedy spread, he called me, horrified—certainly by the murders, but there was something else:  that dew rag of his?  Dear God—it could be construed as representing the bold stripes of a Confederate flag…

You and I, all of us, are members together of the Body of Christ.  Our Lord dwells  in us and with us.  Ours are the only hands and feet he has on this earth.  Ours are the only voices he can raise to cast out the demons of racism and indifference.  Jesus once walked among us.  He taught his disciples and us everything we need to know about love and mercy and justice.  He has not left us orphaned.  The Spirit leads and inspires us; still raises up prophets among us to call us back to Jesus’ truth.  This past Wednesday, nine of God’s prophets died in Charleston.  Nine brothers and sisters numbered among the Body of Christ:  Cynthia, Susie, Ethel, DePayne, Clementa, Tywanza, Daniel, Sharonda, and Myra.   In their dying, they have, I pray, at last shaken us from our slumber; their memory pleads with us to listen up, to take notice of the evil around us, to pay attention to the Spirit’s leading and not stay silent.  I don’t have any answers, and I have absolutely no idea what a world devoid of racism might like.  But I know it begins with me.  It begins with you.  One dew rag.  One person.  One voice at a time.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Consequence of Choice

One of my biggest problems when I was still drinking—aside from still drinking—was I somehow had myself convinced that I would be totally unable to write without lubrication.  I can remember, a full two years before I gave up alcohol for good, I had managed to stay sober for about 30 days.  I was on medical leave at the time and feeling pretty awful, so my sobriety was more a consequence of circumstance than a choice.  After a few weeks, I was feeling better and planning to return to work.  I will never forget sitting in front of the computer, trying to write a sermon, and staring at the cursor mocking me from the blank page.  The pressure was on.  I had to write something.  And there was only one way I could imagine making that happen.  I went out.  Procured a bottle of Merlot.  And returned to the computer with glass in hand.  Voilá!  The words started flowing.

Unfortunately, the wine kept flowing long after that first sermon was written and preached.  It would be a full two years before I would find myself sober for any considerable length of time.  Again, more as a consequence of circumstance than anything else.  I ended up in rehab for 30 days—at the conclusion of which, I was, eh, shall we say, encouraged to resign my position.  I was sober alright.  I was also broken, depressed, and convinced I had been sentenced to a lifetime of repentance and misery.  I would never preach—let alone write—again.  The cursor would forever mock me from the blank page.  There would be no words:  no sermons; no poetry; no musings.  The flow of wine and words had dried up.  I think I started this blog to prove just that.  What I discovered, however, was it was still possible for me to coax words onto a page.  It felt clumsy at first, but the words eventually did come.

Before long, I was writing again!  Mostly about my struggle with sobriety at first, but then I started stringing nouns to verbs and crafting bits of poetry and fiction and actually found I was enjoying myself!  Discovering I could indeed still write without lubrication was, for me, the single most precious gift of my sobriety.  At around nine months sober, my bishop asked if I felt ready to supply—to fill in for pastors who , for one reason or another, would be away from their congregation on a given Sunday.  The previously unimaginable happened:  I said yes.   And last month I sat down and wrote my first sober sermon—ever.  My joy was nearly uncontainable.  It was actually pretty good.  And leading worship was, as they say, like getting back on a bicycle.  I took up the mystery and rhythm again without missing a beat.  I preached like a woman who truly did have something to say.  And I ended up having an absolute blast!  I was called upon again to supply last Sunday and I’ll be filling in somewhere else this Sunday, and have another half-dozen or so dates scheduled throughout the summer.

I am ecstatic.  Not so much about the preaching gigs—although those are a pretty big deal—as about feeling alive and forgiven and whole.  Maybe it does take a full nine months to a year for a career drunk to get comfortable enough in her sobriety to step out into the world with confidence.  At least that is proving to be my experience.  When I was drinking, I was as all but agoraphobic; ridden with anxiety and certain everyone “out there” was judging me.  In early sobriety, I felt humiliated and embarrassed and just wanted to be left alone to wallow and cry.  Slowly; ever so slowly, all that began to change.  The idea of living and laughing and writing and being happy began to feel like a real possibility.  Even for me.  And, what’s proven even more amazing is it’s turning out even better than that!  When I look in the mirror, I still see a middle aged woman, but on the inside, I’m feeling like a bright and capable somewhere-still-in-her-thirties kind of gal.

My sobriety is no longer a consequence of circumstance.  It is a life choice.  A gift.  One I want never to take for granted or risk losing.  People promised me it would get better.  I did not believe them.  And, aside from the merciful presence and encouragement of God, I cannot tell you how or why I was able to stick with sobriety through so many months that felt like deprivation and misery.  Somehow, I did it, though.  I stayed sober long enough to begin to live sober.  And life is good!  Oh, I still have plenty of problems.  Decades of drinking wreaked havoc with my health and my finances are in a shambles, but those concerns have receded into the background.  What is front and center now is—safeguarding my sobriety, yes, but—mostly wanting to smile like crazy because it’s summertime and the marsh grass is green and the sky is blue and I can write and life is so incredibly wonder-filled.  Thank you, God!

Refuge

[The Pickled Pastor will be preaching again this Sunday!  Yay!  My sermon follows below.]

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” Mark 4:26-29

Anyone who has grown so much as a tomato plant in a pot recognizes the absurdity in Jesus’ story of the sower.  Crops require care in their planting and plenty of water and tending if one hopes to succeed in growing juicy red Jersey tomatoes or tender sweet ears of corn.  Had Jesus intended his instruction to be taken as agricultural advice, the fields of the faithful would have, through the centuries, ended up scorched and barren and taken over by weeds.  Jesus was not, however, talking about agriculture, so please feel free to keep watering your tomatoes!  No, Jesus was talking about the Kingdom of God, the coming of which does require patient and prayerful waiting on our part.  There really is little else we can do.  Once the seeds have been scattered, any effort on our part to insure a bumper crop for Jesus can only result in our risking doing more harm than good.

There is a resiliency and wonder to God’s creation from which we can, however, draw much needed encouragement in our waiting.  Take, for example, the lowly dandelion.  Have you ever tried to eradicate dandelions from your yard?  Such is no easy task.  They are stubborn little devils.  You can “Roundup” until the proverbial cows come home, but dare to sleep and rise night and day for a week or so and you’ll have a whole new crop of sunny yellow faces mocking you from your otherwise well-tended lawn.  A miracle of sorts, really.  Survival and proliferation are tucked into their DNA.  I smile every time I see a child pluck up a puffy white dandelion and blow.  I cannot help but wonder if children, too, were not part of God’s plan at the time of Creation, innocently helping the Sower in the scattering of His seeds.  Children have never tended to these plantings of breath and breeze, yet those pesky little dandelions do keep popping up everywhere—dancing happily in the summer sun.

We think of weeds as a nuisance to be plucked up and destroyed.   Still, after millennia of planting and tending and harvesting, weeds persist in their annual taunting.  Why do you suppose that is?  Might it not be God’s gentle reminder to amateur gardeners and farmers alike that, when all is said and done, any harvest that comes of our plantings is God’s doing and not ours?  I believe weeds are proof positive that human beings simply aren’t in charge.  Which is an incredibly good thing, because whenever we get to thinking that we’re responsible for the harvest, it’s like saying we are the ones who make tomatoes and corn to grow.  I don’t care how green you fancy your thumb to be, you can’t do that.  Only God can make tomatoes and corn to grow.  The same God that designed the DNA of a dandelion created tomato plants and corn stalks just so, so that they may grow and blossom and bear the very fruit that makes it possible for you to plant your seeds and kernels year after year.  It truly is a miracle.  Really.

One of my favorite places in south Jersey is the Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge.  The broadness of the horizon somehow opens my eyes to new possibilities and, especially when I am feeling stressed, I find I can breathe easier there.   Along with providing a place of safe refuge for water fowl and other critters, it is also a place where weeds are free to grow unhindered.  Yes, Forsythe is one of those magical places where weeds are no longer considered weeds, but rather “native plants” given room and space to grow and thrive and give full expression to the design embedded in them by their Creator.  In early June, the vegetation in the refuge is beautiful.  There are dandelions, sure, but also mustard weed and clover and dozens of other flowering plants bursting with color and purpose.  Each one holding within itself the magic of its survival: seeds sown by bird and breeze, the scattering of the Sower.  The whole of creation sleeps and rises night and day, paying no mind to the harvest.  Winter comes and goes.  The snow melts in springtime.  And every year, by early June, the grasses, the weeds, the wonder—reappears.

I believe the same can be said of the Kingdom.  You and I, we tend to equate the coming of the Kingdom to the condition of the church.  We scatter the seeds of the Gospel and then we till and tend like crazy—as if we’re responsible for God’s harvest; as if we have the ability to raise up believers from among the weeds.  Seasons come and go.  The church thrives and we congratulate ourselves.  The church dwindles and we blame ourselves.  Surely there is something we can do.  Revitalize our youth ministry.  Incorporate a more contemporary style in our worship.  Introduce a new program.  All such efforts are to be applauded.  Potentially, they will make for an enhanced experience for members; maybe even get a few visitors to “stick;” but, no matter how successful we fancy ourselves and our church to be, we simply can’t make believers.  Only God can.   We have been entrusted with the Gospel, with seeds to scatter and sow.  But we can’t take credit for believers any more than we can for the tomatoes and corn we proudly pick out of our back yard gardens.  God does that.

Perhaps our role as church is less about raising up a hearty crop of Christians as it is about providing safe refuge for the fullness of God’s creation.  Who decides which stems to nurture and which need to be rooted out?  How can we possibly determine whether what appears to us as weeds may not, in fact, be the most treasured of the Sower’s plantings?  Certainly Jesus showed a certain partiality to the more scraggly stems among God’s people:  the poor, the leapers, tax collectors and prostitutes.  Somehow, Jesus was able to recognize in weeds such as these the embedded DNA of the Creator; saw in those the world may have regarded as undesirables the coming of the Kingdom in its fullness.  The very last thing the Sower needs is gardeners the likes of you and me offering our conflicting opinions and haphazard willingness to help His harvest along.  Best we stick to scattering and leave the increase to God.

After a week of rain, I spent last Sunday afternoon at Forsythe breathing deeply and taking in the wonder and beauty of my surroundings.  The sky was clear and blue.  The sunlight reflected on the water like so many gemstones glistening.  And wildflowers were blooming everywhere:  yellows and purples and so many shades of white.  Yes, even the occasional dandelion by the roadside seemed to dance.  Here was the splendor and fullness of God’s creation as God intended it, all tucked safely within the refuge—far and away from the asphalt and misguided prosperity of the world.  And I got to thinking—this; this is the work to which the church is called.  Not with grit and determination to inch ourselves ever closer to the coming of the Kingdom.  No, the Kingdom is best left safely in God’s hands.  But rather to scatter the seeds of the Gospel faithfully, trusting the Sower, and then provide a place of safe refuge to believers and undesirables alike; recognizing, even in those we may regard as the weeds among us, the embedded DNA of the Creator.

The seeds will grow, though we know not how.  Tender sprouts finding refuge in our buildings, our prayers, and our hearts.  Joining their voices to ours, praying for the coming of the Kingdom.  Gathering at our Lord’s Table of Grace.  Washing one another in the wet promises of Baptism.  All of us together; growing in God’s perfect time; thriving according to the will and purpose of our Creator; safe in the refuge of His boundless mercy.  When the grain is ripe, the Master Gardner will return with His sickle.  All in God’s time, my beloved.  All in God’s time.  We are left to sleep and rise and wait and pray.  Do me a favor; just a single little favor for this week’s supply preacher:  next time you see a puffy white dandelion, before you run for the Roundup, conger up your inner child, reach down, pluck it up in your hand and blow.  Then take a moment to marvel at the mystery and wonder of Creation.    God is oh, so good.  May His Kingdom come.  Amen.

There Is A God

She was crazy attractive in a disheveled sort of way.  Work boots.  Torn jeans.  An over-sized shirt and a mane of thick tangled up curls.  I met her at an AA meeting I attended while living in a different city.  She was, and continues to be an inspiration to me.  Not because of anything she ever said, but simply because she was sober; and, so far as I was concerned, her sobriety was nothing less than a miracle.  I didn’t know a whole lot about her.  Only what she shared.  She had been cross addicted and homeless, I suspect both being the parting gifts of a relationship gone sour.  The old timers welcomed her at the club house.  Let her detox there on the old worn couch and later made sure she had something to eat.  The club opened early and closed late, and she was there every day all day for weeks.  Alternating between sleep and sobs.  Those old timers got her sober and, so far as I know, she still is.  The woman I met was living a life of joy and gratitude and freedom.  And though I have long since moved away, I will never forget her.

Sobriety takes a tremendous amount of courage.  Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.  The easiest, indeed, what seems the only choice is to “do whatever it takes” to perpetuate the madness.   Self-perpetuated insanity feels like a much preferable option to dealing with the dismal reality of life and circumstances sobriety would inevitably reveal.  There are those who have experienced what is referred to in AA circles as a high bottom: they recognize their lives spiraling out of control, assess their options, and choose sobriety.  It takes guts to admit you have a problem and set off in a new direction, but I’m not talking about that sort of courage.  I’m talking about hitting concrete at 70 miles an hour and having the courage not to die.  That’s what it felt like for me anyway.  Sitting there amidst the wreckage.  Never wanting the fog to lift.  I didn’t care if I lived or died.  No.  I take that back.  Death would have come as a welcome end to the tragedy my life had become.  Surely it would soon be over.

Except it wasn’t.  Someone appeared in that fog, alright, but it wasn’t The Grim Reaper.  Rather, it was a young upstart in a suit sitting behind a desk and two women from church who put me in their car and drove me to rehab.  I kept insisting I didn’t belong there, that I could do it on my own, that the whole rehab thing is just a scam to bilk money out of insurance companies.  But none of that was true and I knew it.  I didn’t have that sort of courage.  Not like the woman I had met some two years prior.  No matter the mess I had made of my life.  No matter that I was sick and getting sicker.  Sobriety was too scary.  I was terrified for the fog to lift.  When I insisted I could do it on my own, what I was really asking for is another chance:  let me try again.  I screwed up.  Okay.  But I can do better.  I can live in this fog and keep all my balls in the air.  Just let me show you.  Please don’t do this to me.  I don’t want sobriety.  I’m afraid.

I still am.  Nearly a year has passed since last August, and I am still scared.  But old timers have taken care of me, and a family of sorts has embraced me and, for the first time ever, I have found the courage—not to get and stay sober, but—to admit I can’t do it on my own.  I need the eclectic mishmash of folk who make up my AA home group.  I need the discipline of meetings and the support of those who have travelled this path ahead of me.  And I desperately need the companionship of the friends who have and continue to love me.  It has taken me a lifetime to do it, but I have finally found myself taken up by the Body of Christ: loved by others who , rather than holding me in high esteem because of my valiant striving toward perfection, cradle me in my brokenness with the healing grace of understanding and compassion.  I was lost.  I am found.  Much to my grateful surprise, I am now sober and alive and free.  Go figure.  Me.  Yes, beloveds, there is a God.

 

I Don’t Play Golf

Never was much for watching it on TV, either.  Too slow.  Too quiet.  Just a lot of grass and whispering commentators droning on for hours.  I did, however, have an absolutely splendid time at the ShopRite Seaview LPGA Classic last week.  Five glorious days of sunshine and exercise.  Anna Nordqvist won.  With an 8 under par.  I know that because everybody went crazy when she sunk her final putt.  I read the 8 under par bit in Monday’s paper.  I was not nearly as excited and involved with the game as I was the swelling crowds and the anticipatory atmosphere.  I was there for all of it.  Through two days of the ProAm (when amateur golfers—mostly men—play with the pros) and the qualifying games that led up to Sunday’s big event.

I systematically alternated between crop pants with long sleeves and shorts with tank tops hoping to get the most tan possible without risking a burn.  I hiked from hole to hole watching tee offs and putts and marveling at the rare sighting of a female caddy hauling an enormous bag of clubs.  I ducked into the shade when I wanted to get out of the sun and sat in the grass to lose myself in the warm breezes of late May.  I ate free hotdogs and sampled a variety of flavored lemonades.  There was minigolf and face painting for the kids and dozens of vendors hawking their wares.  And, in stark contrast to the carnival atmosphere by the entrance, hundreds and hundreds of spectators who all seemed religiously serious about golf.

As for me, I was a stranger in a strange land.  For a non-golfer, non-golf enthusiast to venture into a professional golf event is akin to travelling to a foreign land.  The language—bogies and birdies and eagles—is unfamiliar.  The natives all conform to the same local customs of dress and move about in clans, following their chosen leader, trancelike.. And “the course” is completely set apart from all things familiar—worry, stress, and relentless obligations—providing a virtual oasis in the desert of reality.  For hours upon hours, there is only “the game,” the sunshine, and an endless expanse of green grass punctuated with clusters of trees and the occasional traps of soft white sand.   I dare say, it was one of the best vacations I’ve ever had!

No, I don’t play golf, but I now have a far better understanding why so many people do.  And, while I still have no intention of ever picking up a driver or hauling around a bag of clubs, I’m already looking forward to returning  to the LPGA Classic next year!  Fore!

Peonies

My grandfather was a farmer.  And although it may be hard to imagine, alongside the tomatoes and strawberries, peppers and corn, there was another important crop:  peonies.   I can remember, as a kid, buckets of bunches of peonies next to the boxes and stacks of produce at market.    Every spring, in the days leading up to Memorial Day, folks would be buying peonies.  Bunches and bunches of peonies.  Flowers for the cemetery, blossoms of affection for loved ones lost.

Maybe because it was the 1960s and so many families were still grieving family members lost in the wars, but it seemed to me those peonies were bought and carried to the graves of all the beloved dead.  Not just soldiers, but grandmothers and sisters, moms and dads and uncles.  As I grew up, people started taking all sorts of flowers to the cemetery for Memorial Day, but when I was small, people took peonies.  Lots and lots of peonies—cut and gathered from my grandfather’s farm.

I don’t think I’ve seen a bunch of peonies for years, but I remember them being enormous beautiful flowers that came in shades of red and pink and white. Sadly, I also remember them being quite buggy.  Ants, I think.  In a time before modern day insecticides, I remember the peonies being incredibly beautiful, but always full of bugs.  You wouldn’t have wanted to bring these flowers inside, but they were perfect for the cemetery.   Anyway, that’s the way I remember it.  And Memorial Day always reminds me of peonies.

Nowadays, Memorial Day is about remembering those who gave their lives in service to this country and it is a good thing to honor the memory of these brave men and women.  I, however, will be taking time out of this day to celebrate the memory of my parents and grandparents and all who I have loved and lost along my life’s journey.  I don’t do the cemetery thing.  Never have.  Never thought the dead cared so much whether or not their loved ones brought flowers to their graves.  But in my heart, I will be laying down bunches and bunches of peonies  in the soft green grass and saying, thank you—for all the memories and for loving me.

Happy Memorial Day.

Nine Months!

I could have had a baby!  At least that’s what I’ve been thinking as I’ve inched closer to the nine months mark.  Granted, my actual sober date is still 48 hours away, but if we stick with the pregnancy analogy, I could, theoretically, go into labor any time now!  Nine months has seemed like an incredibly long time and I can’t help but think of the women who had three-four-five-even (omg) six children.  That’s a lot of pregnant time; a lot of waiting and growing and a great deal of time spent praying, I am sure.  At least those things pretty much sum up these past nine months of my life.  A new life has been growing inside of me alright and I’m still not sure what I’m going to name her!

When I was hovering around day one, still being sober at nine months seemed an absolute impossibility.  I think I spent most of my alone time at rehab silently scheming what constellation of circumstances would warrant an exception to this new sober rule.  I didn’t imagine for a minute I was going to be sober forever.  I was just taking a much needed break.  I’d get myself healthy again, put some weight back on, straighten out my life, get my career back on track, and everything would be fine.  Certainly by then, I would be able to enjoy a glass of wine here and there and a frozen margarita on a night out with friends and the occasional cold bottle of beer after an afternoon spent in the sun.

Memorial Day weekend isn’t officially here yet, but for all practical purposes, it’s already summer.  Everyone’s in shorts and restaurants and bars are spilling onto their outside decks.  I’ve been down to the docks.  I’ve heard the music and chatter and laughter of already tanned and presumably happy people enjoying what I had always thought was the good ol’ summer time.  I don’t think that anymore.  Summer time is about the ocean and the beach and sunshine.  About the wonderful feeling of coming home to a just warm shower to rinse away the residual sand and sweat of what should have been an exhausting afternoon but wasn’t because I’m so happy I could burst.  About living easy and lingering in the wonder of it all.

I can no longer imagine why anyone would want to waste a summer afternoon in a bar.  I have no intention of missing even a moment of these precious days, of watching this new life that has been growing inside of me take in the miracle of being alive.  Ever since last fall, when the whole of creation seemed to turn bleak, I’ve been waiting on this life; waiting for the sure signs of warm days and the marsh grass turning green again.  I had a doctor’s appointment last Thursday.  Early.  I had to drive through a few towns and then across a long bridge.  The sun was shining like crazy and I had the car windows open and the radio playing and, when I got to that bridge, I nearly squealed with delight:  “The grass is green!” I cried.  “The marsh grass is finally green!”  I swear, the back bays in summer make for the most beautiful sight in the world.  All green and blue and wide.

Such is the new life these past nine months have brought me.  I feel as though I have emerged from a seemingly endless winter.  Indeed, I have! Whole decades of mornings lost and days endured in a relentless fog of regret and irritability.  I find I no longer mind so much if I can’t find a parking space or someone is being obnoxiously rude or plans get rained out.  There will always be some place to park.  Always an escape from toxicity.  Always alternative activities.  Everything is new; and I find myself almost giddy with delight.  I love being sober!  I love this new life that has been born out of my past!  No exceptions please.  I want the real thing.  These nine months have been so worth it!  It’s a girl!  And I think I’ll call her Me!