Vote!

Yesterday, I drove out to the Board of Elections to vote early.  This is only my second time voting in person.  Prior to this, every time I voted in Florida, I voted via absentee ballot.  Ever since I have moved to Ohio, I have voted in person.  And it is a vastly different experience.

Two years ago, I found the experience to be very smooth.  If you know me, you know I get more nervous about driving somewhere new and finding parking than anything else.  As I drove to the Board of Elections yesterday the trip was familiar enough to quell that anxiety.

I laughed to myself when I passed a parking garage with a sign that said more parking for voting was available there and I thought that seems optimistic for voting in a year when the president is not up for election. 

I found parking quite close yesterday.  It was cool and I was walking briskly.  I realized only later that I was wearing all blue—I did not do that on purpose—though I can’t rule out that my subconscious may have dressed me that morning.  I was wearing blue jeans, a navy blue shirt and a blue jacket.

The only thing not blue on me were my sneakers.

And perhaps that’s why they caught the attention of the very first poll worker I saw.  She was waiting to greet everyone as soon as they walked through the door.  She was an older woman with gray hair and she was seated, but she moved to the edge of the seat, when she saw me.

I pointed to my left where the sign was pointing, but she immediately stopped me and said, “Those shoes look so comfortable!”

I stopped in my tracks.  “They are!” I said back not just because I was being friendly but because legitimately they are some of the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn.

“What kind are they?” she asked me, sliding off her chair so she could get a better look.

“Skechers,” I told her.

She pulled back.  “Those always feel heavy to me.”

“Oh, not these,” I told her.  “These are like walking on clouds, like pillows.”

“But they’re not slip-ons?” she asked.

“Oh, they’re slip-ons,” I said, and right there in the voting place, I slid off my right shoe and then slipped right back in again to show her.  “It’s that easy.”

Meanwhile, other people are filing in behind me and this woman who’s supposed to direct them as to where to go is laser-focused on my shoes.

I’m thinking they can read the signs.

And sure enough, everyone seemed to get where they needed to go.

“I have neuropathy,” the woman told me.  “I’m looking for a good pair of shoes.  Take them off again and show me how easily you can slip back in.”

So, once again, I took off my shoe to show her.

Let me just say that this conversation probably went on for five minutes or so and ended with her pulling out her phone so she could get a picture of the shoe.

I can only imagine what the people who came in behind me were thinking like, "Why are they making that woman take off her shoes?"

I eventually went on my way to vote and that was that.

But you know as soon as I got home, I was thinking to myself—God always gives me a story to tell and He knows I’m going to use this story in this week’s Morning Prayer reflection.

I have to admit that there was a part of me that didn’t want to vote this election.  It was not about apathy—I am so far from apathy—it wasn’t that I don’t care.  It was that a tiny bit of helplessness and hopelessness and pessimism had begun to take seed.  Not only the thought, did my vote matter, but even if all the people I voted for got elected would anything change in a meaningful way or are we too far gone as a society.

Part of the problem is that everything we see on the news is the worst of the worst of society.  And specifically with voting, we have been told whether we are democrat or republican that bad things might happen when we vote, that there will be people there watching us or discouraging us from voting, that the other side will cheat, that there will be mass chaos.

And then I showed up to vote yesterday and all I found was an old woman with neuropathy who wanted a pair of good shoes.

There is more light in this world than darkness.

And even the tiniest bit of light can drive out the darkest of nights.

The light of God’s love might some days feel like a pinprick, but if that pinprick is the light of a star winking at us in the night sky, then know that that pinprick of light has the power to illuminate galaxies. 

In today’s reading from Luke, Jesus tells the disciples “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!”

The disciples saw miracles, food to feed the poor, healing for the unwell and resurrection of the dead.

But we too can see the miracles that happen every day all around us.

What I saw at the Board of Elections yesterday was something that was both simple and profound—neighbor loving neighbor, strangers smiling at each other—good will and hope.

We are not so far gone as a people.

We can be each other’s light.

We can be Jesus to each other.

And all it takes is one step … in some pretty comfortable shoes.

Amen.

Jonah, Whalefall, Frozen 2 and Narnia

Recently I saw the trailer for a movie called Whalefall.  It is the story of a young man, who while scuba diving, gets in between a squid and a sperm whale just as the whale is getting ready to eat the squid.  The young man is swallowed whole and survives to find himself trapped in the whale’s first stomach. 

(Apparently, sperm whales have four stomachs.  Also, fun fact, the sperm whale is the largest mammal with teeth.)

So this guy is trapped in the whale’s belly with about an hour of air left in his tank and he has to find a way out.

And I’m sitting there watching this trailer thinking—okay this isn’t remotely believable.  Whenever we watch fictional movies or read fiction stories, we must always take with us a willing suspension of disbelief because there is always something that happens that makes us think—no way, that cannot happen.

And watching this movie trailer and seeing this man snug in the whale’s belly—I just could not suspend my disbelief.

Whalefall is not based on a true story, but considering our reading today, I know you are thinking of the story of Jonah being swallowed by a giant fish, though when I was a kid, it was always Jonah and the Whale. 

In the movie, Frozen 2, Olaf, the snowman comments to the group just as they are about to enter a part of their journey where they have no idea what will happen next that “an enchanted forest is a place for transformation.”  He then adds, “I can’t wait to see what it’s gonna do to each one of us.”

With both the young man in Whalefall and Jonah’s journey in the belly of the beast for three days, both men cross a threshold.  They enter a place of the unknown that will transform them into someone very different.  (Though I will add as an aside that Jonah emerges still cranky at the Ninevites.)

But all good stories have these threshold moments.  If the main character doesn’t change—if the main character remains the same from the beginning of the story to the end, well, what’s the point?  Character is plot and without those intense character moments, there is no plot, no movement.

Now you might say, “But Kendra, Jesus doesn’t change in the Gospels.  He’s the same in the end as He was in the beginning,” and I would say, “Ah, but Jesus is not the main character, is He?”

What?

We are the main characters in the New Testament or more specifically, our surrogates are the main characters, the disciples, the people who are healed.  Every person who comes into contact with Jesus or one of His disciples is changed forever.  They have crossed a threshold and nothing in their lives will ever be the same again.

Last night, I watched the trailer for the new Narnia movie, based on the book The Magician’s Nephew, and coming out in February next year, about fifty times.  I was mesmerized.  Over the past forty years, as I have read The Chronicles of Narnia over and over and over, my favorite book in the series has changed.  For many years, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my favorite, but for most of my later adult years, my favorite has been The Magician’s Nephew.

The Magician’s Nephew is the story of how Narnia came to be, how the great lion Aslan literally sang the world into existence. 

There are threshold moments throughout the book from Digory and Polly’s decision to explore the attic spaces above the row homes, eventually leading them into Uncle Andrew’s magic laboratory, to Digory deciding to literally ring a bell that cannot be unrung, thereby imperiling Narnia for generations, before it even comes into existence.  And Digory’s final threshold moment coming when he has to make a very Eden-like choice, changes him forever.

The new movie, written and directed by Greta Gerwig who exploded into popularity with her take on Barbie, looks to be a wild choice.  Already fans are split from those who think the CGI elements overtake the movie, to someone like me who sees CGI being used not as a replacement for real work, but as a way to create a movie experience unlike anything you have seen before.  The soundtrack during the trailer is Stairway to Heaven and the final scene of the trailer, this kaleidoscope lightshow highlighting the emergence of Aslan is breathtaking.

Hence me watching it fifty times.

Threshold moments.  What have been some threshold moments in your life?  How have they changed you?  Where have you found God in those moments?  Are you in the middle of one of those moments right now?

I hope for two things as you encounter these moments, that you will trust that God is walking right beside you during those moments and that those moments will take your breath away as you see just how God is working to shape you into the person you were always meant to be.

Amen.

 

Who or What Are You Showering With?

When you are blind like I am and take off your glasses before stepping into the shower, sometimes, when you’re finished and you step back out and put on your glasses and turn around to close the curtain, you might notice that you had been showering with a wolf spider.

When I saw that spider the other day, I just stood there, exhausted.  I couldn’t even work up a good shudder.  I briefly considered just walking away and pretending I hadn’t seen it.

I will say that the spider looked even more traumatized than me.  He didn’t even flinch when I came at him with a whole roll of paper towels, because when you’re killing a wolf spider, it requires at least half a roll of paper towels.

Can you believe that it is October?  When Reverand Jane mentioned stewardship in her sermon this past Sunday, my first thought was “Stewardship?  But it’s March!”  And then I started counting the months out and realized it was October and in less than three months the year will be over.

It is cold enough now that there are no more sleeping bees.  The milkweed pods are bursting open with their silken seeds.  Dried leaves litter my yard and spill from the gutters.  Earlier in the summer the grass seemed to grow six inches overnight, but now it is slowing down.

The other morning when I went for a walk, I could see my breath fogging in front of me.

Several mornings, I have left for my walk, got to the end of the drive and said, “Nope,” and then turned back around to the house to grab a jacket.

We are rapidly approaching the time of year when I say, “Okay, we’re at that point where I won’t be warm again until May.”

Time flies so fast the older you get.  I was reading that the reason why time runs so slowly when we’re children is because everything is new.  Our brains are being bombarded with new information daily.  Perhaps that’s why the school year always seemed to last forever, but the summer flew by in a heartbeat.

The key to making time flow more slowly as we age is to engage in new things.  Learn a new language, a new skill.  Avoid the routine.  Even doing something as simple as taking a new route to a familiar place can slow down the pace of the day.

Or we can try a more contemplative approach and not just look for God wherever we are at but allow ourselves to get excited by the positive things that happen throughout our day. 

Our reading from Luke 7:18-35 has a lot in it, but I want to focus on this one verse.  Listen again, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.”

Can you imagine?

Let me ask that question again: Can you imagine?

Something amazing was happening.

Something wonderful and perhaps a little scary, because this Jesus, this guy from Nazareth, was doing some pretty incredible things.

People blind at birth are seeing again.

Paralyzed people are walking again.

Sick people are being made well again.

Perhaps you can pass off those things as naturally occurring.  Sometimes people do just get better.

But tucked into that list are these words, “… the dead are raised.”

Can you imagine?

I have spent the last few weeks working on two little books, one entitled “Lazarus, Come Out” and the other, “Little Girl, Wake Up.”  They are two works imagining the events surrounding Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus being raised from the dead.  Lazarus’ story is told from the point of view of his sisters in the days leading up to his death and the days following and the grief they feel and pain they feel from what they think are unanswered prayers.

Jairus’ daughter, who I have imagine with the name Anna, is the imagined story of what happened after she was raised from the dead.  What does it mean to live again?  How does a child comprehend what has just happened to them?

But whether it’s Lazarus or Anna or the son of the Widow of Nain (also raised from the dead), these were signs—the season was changing.  Something new was happening.  Time seemed frozen in those moments. 

What is the season of life you are currently inhabiting?  What are signs in your own lives that things are changing?  Where do you see God at work?

For me personally, I turned 50 earlier this year and apparently different parts of me reached their expiration date.  I had emergency gallbladder surgery in the spring.  And now, this fall, I have had my first two root canals and other tooth excitement.

I have been exhausted.

And yet, as far as my writing is concerned—I have never been so productive in all my life.

Writing sustains me.

Thinking about God fills me.

Finding God someplace new every day is what nudges me out of bed in the morning.

I mean a spider in the shower is what fueled this reflection.

Do something new today.  Look for God somewhere you wouldn’t expect to find Him.  I promise He is there.

Amen.

 

CHEER UP SLEEPY BEE

The other day, early in the morning, I was out for a walk when I noticed a sleeping bee hanging upside down from a dead milkweed leaf.  It is the season for sleeping bees and this year I have seen these vampire bees as I call them, sleeping, inexplicably, upside down.

But on this morning, the sun was just beginning to rise and when it did, it highlighted this tiny dewdrop suspended from the bee’s furry back.

It was just perfect.

Unfortunately, I had not brought my special close-up camera that morning.  I was carrying my more midrange camera.  In order to get a picture of the bee, I had to stand about four feet back and then try and zoom in.  It was not ideal.

And then I thought, you know, it’s a short walk, just a block, back to the house.  Should I go back, get my camera, and hope that the bee is still here?

So, I said, why not?

I “ran” back to the house (that’s ran in quotes because I am physically incapable of running), grabbed my special close-up camera and headed back to my sleeping bee.  But when I got back, I couldn’t find him.  I didn’t know if the sun had risen enough to warm him up and get him moving.  Had it flown away?  Luckily, I found another sleeping bee, hanging upside down from a dead milkweed leaf nearby, but this bee didn’t have the special sunlit dewdrop hanging from him.

Still, I was glad to get the picture.

But after I had taken a few pictures, I looked back at a nearby plant and saw my original sleeping bee.  He had not flown away—I had just forgotten what plant he was on.  The sunlit dewdrop wasn’t quite as spectacular, but I was so excited.  I turned on my camera, focused in on the bee, pressed the shutter release and … nothing.  The camera shut off.  The battery was dead.

For every story of the spectacular pictures I have gotten over the years, the rainbow over the rocket launch complex in Cape Canaveral, the pictures of hurricane damage that cost me my very first and, as of this second, only parking ticket of my life, the bobcat pictures at church, the baby swans swimming behind their mother in a retention pond, the flotilla of white pelicans making their way through the waters of the wetlands—for every one of those pictures, I have a story, but I also have a story for every picture I haven’t gotten.

And there have been many.

There is a scene in the movie The Princess Bride where Inigo Montoya is sword fighting with the Man in Black and Inigo demands to know the Man in Black’s real name, but he won’t tell him, saying, “Get used to disappointment.”

But the disappointment I have had over the years with pictures has not stopped me from going out every day with my camera and searching out moments where God’s presence is so apparent it leaves you speechless.

Disappointment has not stopped me from taking risks, leaving the moment, so I can run back home for a camera.

 

I did that just yesterday when I passed a leaf hanging from a spider web.  I ran back inside, got my camera, took the picture, posted it online and said, “Look, even leaves have bad days.  This one is hanging by a thread.”

Haha.

But seriously, ask yourself this question:  When was the last time you stopped what you were doing and paused as you took in the world around you and acknowledged the wondrousness of God’s creation, the power of God’s love?

My confession this morning is that the reading I used for today is actually the reading assigned for tomorrow’s Morning Prayer (shhhh, don’t tell anyone), but I wanted to use it (Luke 6:1-11) because of the story of the man with the withered hand because it applies so much to the world around us these days.

So in this reading Jesus heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath.  The Pharisees are standing nearby, waiting, hoping that Jesus heals the man, not because they think the man should be healed, but because if Jesus heals on the Sabbath, He will be breaking the law.  You can picture the Pharisees leaning forward, licking their lips, tenting their fingers in a true villain pose as they wait to see what everyone knows Jesus will do.

Jesus heals the man.

He doesn’t tell him to come back tomorrow.

He doesn’t ask him to prove that his withered hand is a true disability.

He doesn’t ask the man if it’s his fault—if he sinned—and that’s why he has a withered hand.

He doesn’t consider if the man is deserving of healing.

He doesn’t ask for the man’s papers.

He simply tells the man to come closer and stretch out his hand.

And the man’s hand is restored.

Healing the man is, as Jesus explains, doing good.  And there are no rules that bind us when it comes to doing good.  When we have the opportunity to help someone in need, we help them, unconditionally.

This is Jesus preaching radical empathy.

Now, what in the world does this have to do with bees, you might be asking?

Well, it has to do with this … I believe that in order for us to do big things in this world, we must first be able to do small things and then build from there, otherwise the needs of this world will overwhelm us.  We are not Jesus and I think even Jesus was occasionally overwhelmed.  Consider all the times He left the scene so He could go off by Himself and pray.

Before we can move out into the world, we must be able to address our inner world.  Before we can preach radical empathy in our own daily lives, in our actions, more than our words, we must learn to love God’s creation, all of God’s creation, on the smallest of scales.

For me, that means stopping to consider the sleeping bees.

It might mean something different for you, but I want you to think about it, to think about what made you pause today, where you saw God today, to linger in those God moments.

I have been researching sleeping bees.  They are able to sleep upside down by either hooking their little feet on the leaves or biting the leaf.  Their mandibles work in such away that once they bite down, even sleeping, they will not let go.

During this time of year, early fall, when the temperatures get around fifty degrees or so, it becomes cold enough that bees enter a state of torpor.  They are almost frozen still until the sun warms them enough to get them moving again.  The bees you see at this time of year are male bees who have been kicked out of the hive.  They cannot return.  I read one thing that said a good place to find them sleeping is in goldenrod.  And that all these bachelor bees tend to hang out together and sleep near each other.

As it happened, I knew exactly where to find some goldenrod Monday morning—right next to the milkweed where I had seen the other bees—so I went out, with a fully charged camera. 

My research was spot on.

There were dozens of sleeping bees among the goldenrod, hanging upside down in the cool, crisp morning.

It was a God moment.  And here’s the thing, I am pretty sure that those bees were there the day I had gone back home for my camera.  But now I was actively looking.

My prayer for us all this morning, is that we stop and pause and linger throughout the day as we explore where we see God around us.  It is a necessary prayerful practice that primes our hearts for the radical empathy that this world requires of us.

Amen.

 

Rumble Strips

They’re called rumble strips.

They are those deep grooves on the pavement that alert you, for example, when you have swerved onto the shoulder.

Or they appear on exit ramps to tell you to slow down as a warning that there is a serious curve/turn up ahead.

I hate them.  And I hate them for the reason that makes them so effective.  I hate the sound.  I hate that I don’t just hear, I feel it in my bones, like fingernails on a chalkboard.

But, as I said, they serve a purpose.

Earlier this year, during my Morning Prayer reflections, I spoke often about stumbling blocks, about those little things that pop up in our lives and just ruin our day, get us off track.  And even if the stumbling blocks are small, they compound, they build on each other.  One little thing added on top of a thousand little things can break us.

This past month or two has been a trial for me as I’ve dealt with broken teeth, tooth infections and most recently two root canals done at the same time.  Physically, I am spent.  Emotionally, I am spent.  And when I saw yesterday that I had a brake light out, all I wanted to do was sob.  I know, it’s just a bulb.  I know.  But my goodness, I’m tired.

I’m know I’m not tired like Jesus was tired after 40 days and 40 nights fasting and wandering in the wilderness.  It was during this time that Jesus was tempted by Satan.  We don’t know all the ways Jesus was tempted.  We don’t have a calendar that shows us on Day 20, this happened.  But we do know, from today’s reading that at the end of the 40 days, Jesus was tempted in three very specific and intense ways.

And what I want to point out is that Jesus faced these temptations when He was at His weakest.  Not on Day 1 when He was still basking in the joy of His baptism.  And yes, I think baptism was a joyful moment for Jesus.  So not then, but on Day 40 when He had absolutely nothing left but His spirit, the spirit that in His fasting and prayer had been honed and sharpened and strengthened.  Jesus passed those tests not because He was physically strong, or emotionally strong, but because He was spiritually strong.

We tend to neglect our spiritual selves a lot in this world.  We know the value of eating well.  We know the value of taking mental health days or breaks, watching for signs that burn out may be coming.  We’re pretty good at hearing those rumble strips warning us to slow down.

Whether we listen to those warnings … well that’s where our spiritual health comes into play.

Because our spirit knows us better than anyone or anything.

Slow down.

Watch for God.

I told you last week that no matter what happened at my root canal, I would have a story.  I also promised not to give a sermon this Sunday on root canals, but I made no promise about Morning Prayer.  So here it is.

This was going to be my first root canal.  I had two teeth that were in trouble, but told initially that only one would need the root canal.  Unfortunately, when I got there, they did those special 3d x-rays and told me I needed two root canals.  Both teeth were infected.  Trust me when I say this, that was the only time in the hour and a half I was there that I was in tears.  The procedure didn’t hurt.  The bill did.

And it was around that time that they decided to take my blood pressure right before administering the nerve block.

For the record, I was 160/100.

“Wow, that’s high,” I said to the dental assistant.

She laughed.  “We call that normal.”

So they numbed me, they leaned me back, and right then everything was quiet enough that I could hear the music they were playing.

It was Zach Williams, “Old Church Choir.”

It’s one of my favorite songs, specifically the line, “There ain’t nothin’ gonna steal my joy.”

And I was like, thank you God, for that song.  I mean that was so weird that a Christian song would play.

And then, another Christian pop song began to play, followed by another and another—it was a playlist of my most favorite songs that only God and I know.

So, now I’m laying there thinking did I stumble on a Christian endodontist?  Did he market himself as that?  Did I miss something?  I mean the Cincinnati area is technically at the northern edge of the Bible Belt, but that was a lot of Christian music.

After the endodontist was finished, I was left alone with the dental assistant as she prepared to cement my one crown that had fallen off during the procedure.  I don’t remember how exactly we got started on this conversation, but she mentioned that this was a second career for her, and I asked her what she had done before.

She mentioned office work, bookkeeping and then mentioned she had been a bookkeeper for a church.

Well, when she said “church,” I figured she opened the door, I might as well walk on right through that.  I told her I enjoyed the music that had played during my root canals, that I appreciated the music in fact.  She told me that the music is curated by the staff.  I told her how I went to St. Barnabas down the street and that I would be preaching in a couple weeks.  She played for me some other Christian music that I didn’t know.  She told me how she had prayed with patients in the past, and I thought if I had known that I would have asked her to pray with me.

People, when they’re hurting, when they’re struggling, tend to ask for signs from God and here’s what I’ve learned over the years—God doesn’t provide a sign “on demand.”  He doesn’t provide signs at all.  What we identify as signs are the things that God is doing in our lives all the time, constantly.  It’s just that sometimes we catch a brief glimpse and we say, “Thank you, God for that reminder.  Thank you, God for that sign.”

When in fact, He is always there.

Rumble strips.

That’s how I started this reflection.

Rumble strips.

The strips that say, “Watch out!  Slow down!  Be careful!”  The strips that say, “Hey someone put us here because they care about you and don’t want you crashing the car!”

God is our rumble strip and more.

So much more.

He’s not with us only when we’re approaching life’s biggest obstacles or challenges, He is with us all the time.  You do not need to ask for a sign.

You need to open your eyes.

You need to listen with your heart.

You need to feel with your spirit.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

My Turn in the Ant Pile

Twenty-two years ago, I noticed some pain on the left side of my jaw.  I had been a teeth grinder all my life.  I still remember my dad waking me up in the middle of the night when I was a kid and we were at a hotel for a night on a road trip.

“You’re grinding your teeth,” he said to me.

Not that there was anything I could do about it.

So I imagine when that pain started twenty-plus years ago, that I thought it was TMJ.  It probably also occurred to me that I had a wisdom tooth back there that had been giving me problems since I was sixteen.  Every now and then it would decide that it was time for it to push through and fully erupt and I’d be in pain for a while until it realized it wasn’t happening and chilled back down.

But this particular pain in 2004 continued to build over the days until I woke one morning with pain radiating down my jaw and something about that—the radiating—told me I probably needed to see the dentist sooner rather than later.

I got an emergency appointment, and he led me back to a room I had never seen before and looked like something they only used for prisoners.  He sat me back in the chair and took out a metal pick and then barely brushed the top of my wisdom tooth, the part you could see hiding in the gum tissue.

I about hit the ceiling.

Long story short—the tooth was infected.  He put me on amoxicillin and handed me off to an oral surgeon who said yes that tooth and my other two wisdom teeth needed to come out.  I made plans to take off that day from work, enlisted my grandmother to drive to and from the appointment and stay with me that day while the twilight sleep wore off.

You can have everything planned and then, almost a literal act of God happens. 

This was Florida, 2004.  It was a heck of a year for hurricanes.  About two days before my scheduled surgery, Brevard County issued mandatory evacuation orders for everyone living on the barrier islands where Hurricane Frances was predicted to make landfall.  I lived in Cape Canaveral, about a block from the beach.  My oral surgeon was on Merritt Island, also a barrier island.  I called their office and told them we needed to reschedule.

And then I evacuated to my uncle’s house in Orlando.

Hurricane Frances made landfall near Vero Beach, Florida as a Category 2 hurricane.  When it was safe to do so, I headed home.

My new appointment to have my wisdom teeth out was scheduled for a few weeks later.

Meteorologists began watching a new disturbance in the Atlantic, a storm that would become known as Hurricane Jeanne.  She was headed in the exact same direction as Frances.

Fortunately, I was able to get my wisdom teeth out a few days before evacuating for Jeanne.  Jeanne wound up making landfall almost exactly where Frances had, but as a Category 3 storm.

I remember sitting in my uncle’s house, eating my post-surgery meal of crackers and cheese in a can.

Tomorrow morning, I will be having a root canal on the tooth that used to be neighbors with that impacted wisdom tooth.  I feel like apologizing to my teeth.  I’m sorry I have a small mouth.  I’m sorry you don’t fit.  I’m sorry I grind my teeth.  I’m sorry you’re always hurting.

I am fairly confident that no hurricane will disrupt the procedure.

But as I tell everyone, no matter what happens, you know I will have a story to tell.  Stories are how I make meaning out of my life.  Stories are how I try and share that meaning with you.  I am actually preaching on Sunday the 27^th and I have joked that if I can do a sermon on finding God in root canals then I will have won sermon-giving (as if sermons were a competition.)

But as I get older, one thing I am learning as Job had to learn in today’s “epilogue” to his story, sometimes meaning is hard to find.  Sometimes, like with Job, you never find meaning.  Job got his chance to address God and demand answers for his suffering and he was rebuffed, with God saying basically, “Hey, where were you when I created the world?”

Despite His lack of answers, God does restore Job’s life, restore it in ways, we are led to believe, were much better than his already good life from before. 

But I don’t know that Job ever figured out why so many bad things happened to him.  What was the point to all that suffering?

I am reminded of a story I love telling people about the time a friend of mine had her little children with her at the soccer field and her daughter sat in a pile of ants.  This was Florida, so the pile of ants was a pile of fire ants.  Interestingly, just the day before, her son had also sat in a pile of fire ants.  (I’m telling you I lived in Florida for twenty-five years and after I was bit by a fire ant pumping gas one day, I never wore flipflops again.)

So my friend is furiously trying to brush the ants off her daughter and her daughter, remembering her brother from the day before, says to her mom, “It’s okay.  It was my turn in the ant pile.”

There was no great meaning behind her suffering.  Everyone suffers.  And at the age of five or so, she already understood that.  It wasn’t her fault.  It wasn’t her mom’s fault.  Probably wasn’t even the ant’s fault.  It was just her turn in the ant pile.

Look, I titled my memoir, “A Genesis 50:20 Girl.”  I am all about God using bad things that happen to us to work good things in our lives.  God doesn’t cause bad things.  But He will use them.  But sometimes we can become so focused on finding meaning in our lives that we fail to take the time to grieve for the people and things we’ve lost.

Yeah, suffering happens to everyone, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t really hurt when bad things happen to us.

And so, it is okay to sit with our pain whether physical or emotional or spiritual and listen to it and acknowledge it but also recognize that in our pain we are not alone, that God is with us. 

Sometimes meaning doesn’t come.

But that doesn’t mean that we are ever alone.

Amen.

P.S. I’m probably not going to preach on my root canal on Sunday the 27^th, but this probably isn’t the last time you’ll hear me talk about Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne.

Lazarus Come Out

On Monday, we gathered at the church for Part 2 of my contemplative photography workshop.  I will always miss my days of walking the property Hope Episcopal Church in Florida and how there was truly something amazing to see every day from bobcats to hawks to herons to otters to osprey.  I was spoiled.

But what I have loved in leading this contemplative photography workshop at my new church in Ohio is that even though it doesn’t have the wild, untamed woods like Hope, there is always something to see, both inside and outside of the church.

Even on a busy road in a busy area of an otherwise bucolic, small town, there is wildlife, primarily deer.  Deer are everywhere in Ohio.  They are Florida’s version of Sandhill Cranes.  If you are driving down a side street and traffic suddenly comes to a stop, chances are, there are deer crossing the road up ahead.

The grounds of St. Barnabas are filled with wildflowers, even now as the summer season is winding down and leaves are beginning to fall. 

Out behind the church is an enormous rose stalk.  The stalk has reached nearly nine feet and at its pinnacle is a perfectly formed, deep-red rose blossom.

So, on Monday at the contemplative photography workshop, I made sure to head out back to check on the rose.  I was carrying my camera.  It was not turned on.  I didn’t anticipate having to take any quick shots like I would if I was taking pictures of bees.  There was a little wind, so I knew the rose might be swaying, but I wasn’t worried about getting a good picture.

As soon as I turned the corner, a tiny hummingbird flew through the air in front of me, alighting on the rose bloom.  I blinked and it was gone again, not to return.

I looked up at the sky and groaned very loudly.  “Gah!” I said.  You see, the hummingbird is on my bird bucket list.  It’s not that I don’t see hummingbirds.  I do.  It’s that I’ve never gotten a picture of one before.  Same with the goldfinch.  Plenty of them around, but I have no pictures of anything other than a yellow blob.

I groaned again.  A hummingbird on top of an enormous, almost record-breaking rose would have been the ultimate picture and I had missed it.

Today’s reading is the story of Jesus telling the disciples that they must go and attend to Lazarus who has died.  We all know the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, but I love in today’s reading, we get to see the disciples acting like the disciples, confused as to what Jesus is talking about and taking him far too literally.

Jesus tells them that Lazarus is asleep and he is going there to wake him up.

The disciples are like well, if he’s asleep, we’re sure he’ll be okay.

To which I imagine Jesus closing his eyes briefly and letting out a long sigh, like any middle school teacher, before reframing his statement explaining that Lazarus is dead.

Today’s reading ends with Thomas saying, “Yeah, let’s go.”

We all know the story of Lazarus.  We know about Mary and Martha.  We know that verse 35 “Jesus wept,” in multiple translations is the shortest verse in the Bible.  We know that when Jesus tells them to remove the stone in front of the tomb that Martha protests because of the smell.  We know they remove the stone anyway and Jesus says these words, “Lazarus come out!”

There is a pause, a dramatic pause.

And then, a man appears, still wrapped in his grave clothes—linen strips we are told, so if you need to picture an Egyptian mummy here, go ahead.  But the mummy is Lazarus.  He is no monster.  He is alive.

There is rejoicing.  The crowd gathers around Lazarus, removing his grave clothes, presumably hugging him and kissing him.  Mary and Martha are most likely in tears.  They are all praising God.  Someone slaps Jesus on the shoulder.  “Yeah,” they say, “we knew you could do it!”  The party lasts for days.

Or at least that’s what I imagine, because in the Bible the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead ends with Jesus commanding that they unbind him and let him go.

But I also got to thinking about my missed opportunity with the hummingbird and rose the other day and I thought what if you were the person who missed the moment Lazarus walks out of the tomb by a minute?  What if you were Thomas—and I use Thomas as an example here because he is the disciple who misses the first appearance of the risen Jesus in the upper room—what if you are Thomas and you’re running a little behind the group.  Maybe you got a stone in your sandal and stopped to dislodge it.  What if you needed to work out a cramp in your hamstring?  What if you just needed a drink of water?  I’ll catch up, you say to yourself.

And then you miss seeing a miracle.

“What’s going on?” you ask as you come up on the crowd gathered outside the tomb.

Peter grabs your shoulders and shakes you.  “I can’t believe you missed it!”

“What did I miss?” you ask.

Peter points to the man in the center of the crowd with linen strips hanging off of him.  “Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead?”

“I thought he was just sleeping,” you say.

“No, man,” Peter explains.  “He was dead, like dead-dead, like you can still smell the death coming from that tomb.  And now he’s alive.”

“He wants something to eat!” someone shouts from the crowd.

Martha races past you, shoving you to one side so she can get some figs and bread from inside the house.

And then you begin to see just what you missed, perhaps the greatest of miracles.

And much like me, you raise your fists to the sky and groan, “Gah!”

The point of contemplative photography to me is to train yourself to pay attention, to not miss the miracles that are happening in your world every day—not on the other side of the world—not on the other side of state, closer to you than the other side of the street, right there in front of you as you move throughout your day.

Be more discerning.

Walk slower.

Hurry less.

Prayer is about intention.

Make finding God your intention every day.

Amen.