Lent

So, how’s it going? Lent? If you have taken on some Lenten discipline, You’re about half-way through it now. How are you feeling about it? It may be getting hard. The novelty has worn off. If you decided to give up something, maybe you’re really wanting it by now, and resenting the sacrifice, wondering, “Why am I doing this? What’s the point?” If you took on some discipline, maybe you are feeling tired of it, feeling it crowding your lifestyle, wondering, “Why am I doing this? What’s the point? I can’t answer those questions, either. I have a distinct memory from childbirth – it was my second-born. During the pushing phase, I suddenly felt completely overwhelmed, tired, afraid. I told the room, “I need a rest. I want to take a break right now.” The doctor and nurse looked up and said, “You can’t. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway; you just need to keep going.” Baby’s being born. Can’t stop now. So, maybe you want to take a rest from Lent. And actually, the truth is, you...

Fight the power. James Hillman wrote a book called Kinds of Power: A Guide to Its Intelligent Uses. In it, he lays out 20 different styles of power: control, office, prestige, exhibitionism, ambition, reputation, influence, resistance, leadership, concentration, authority, persuasion, charisma, rising, decision, fearsomeness, tyranny, veto, purism, and subtle power. I recommend it.  The style he calls subtle power reminds me of what I heard a man refer to as “sneaky power.” That is, the power of women in a patriarchal culture.  The point is, everybody has power. Even powerless people have some kind. You might be using it without even being aware of it. But if you understand the kinds of power and where they come from, you can use them more effectively. So use your power well. Judiciously. Compassionately. Courageously. You might not think you have any power, but you do. There may be risks involved, but there always are. So use it well. To help yourself if you need...

When I was very young I loved watching Romper Room on TV – a popular children’s daytime program for many years. Each city that ran the show had their own local hostess and studio classroom full of children, but the props were basically the same everywhere. One of these was a pair of Bees – the Do-Bee and the Don’t Bee. They were always introduced with a song: I always do what’s right, I never do anything wrong. I’m a Romper Room Do-Bee, A Do-Bee all day long. The hostess/teacher would pull out the Bees for a lesson on ways to be and not to be, which really meant things to do and not to do. So often, “Do” and “Be” seem to be interchangeable, don’t they? My grandmother was a tease and she enjoyed singing the Do-Bee song to me, only mixing up the words: I always do what’s wrong,  I never do anything right. And it drove my little mind crazy! I kept trying to correct her – “No, Grandma, you’re singing it wrong!” But she would just laugh. Devilish Grandma. She was ...

I have this picture hanging in my home. These are the Kapplingers. I am their namesake. The story I received is that they came to the United States as young adults from Germany. George Kapplinger came alone. Hulde Klimpel was unmarried – I don’t know if she traveled here independently or with family. George and Hulde found each other and it was more a matter of practical necessity than anything you would call love. He intended to farm, and he would need a farm wife. She would need a husband – well, to survive. The two of them went to Minnesota where they set up a home and a small farm, which they worked together. Their family grew. Hulde gave birth to seven children – three girls followed by four boys. It was a hard life, but they probably didn’t expect anything different. The eldest child, Ella, told her nieces stories of how she remembered it. Each morning after breakfast, her mother would set her in a chair and put the baby in her lap. She would tie Ella to the chair so she w...

I remember a column that ran in our local newspaper for years. Every Saturday it was on the weekly religion page – titled, Joy Comes with the Morning . The author was a local woman, although I didn’t know her personally. Each week she would write a few hundred words worth of spiritually uplifting stuff. I usually took the time to read it, but I always though it seemed a bit fluffy. And, her headline was one of the things that bugged me. Just fluff. Until I stumbled upon the whole verse that this phrase was snipped from – then I saw it in a different light. “His anger is but for a moment, but his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger in the night, but joy comes with the morning.” (Psalm 30:5) Today I visited the hospital to see someone who was having some exploratory surgery. One of those things where you don’t know what you’re in for, it all depends on what they find. So there are some knowns and some unknowns. Some light and some darkness. When I started visiting thi...

It’s evening. I am home from my last meeting of the day. I finished cleaning up the kitchen and put in a load of laundry. I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down with journal, ready at last, to ponder the word for the day. Luke’s gospel tells a tender story of Jesus’ mother, Mary. He tells us that when Mary delivered her child in an unfamiliar and inhospitable place, and shepherds from the fields came to her to see her child and tell her about the angels – the angels who told them the good news of great joy, and that the child would be a sign of this good news of great joy – then Mary, a woman who had just given birth for the first time, Mary holding her newborn infant, listened. And she just treasured it all and pondered it in her heart. And later, when Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to the temple, and they were approached by Simeon – Simeon spoke directly to Mary with words of hard truth about how life would be for her son, and for her, as his mother. Then Mary and Joseph ...

“ Human contact is becoming a luxury good .” I read this in a Sunday New York Times article about how the proliferation of screens in our society has cheapened the life experiences of lower- and middle-class people. Technology has become so economical, it is now being pushed hard on most of us wherever we go – from supermarkets to airports, from schools to hospitals. And, of course, in our homes. Recently, someone shared with me that they think Amazon’s Alexa is great for elderly people who live alone, because it gives them someone to talk to. Those who can afford it pay for the privilege of being attended by human beings rather than by a digitized voice or a touchscreen. And Silicon Valley executives, who have promoted laptop-for-every-student policies, are sending their children to private tech-free schools where hands-on interaction is encouraged – like in the old days. Why? Because it’s better for them. We are discovering how soulless a technological lifestyle can become. We...

When I was a child I thought Sunday afternoons were a form of torture by boredom. Kids didn’t go out and play with their friends because Sunday was for family-time. In our house, that meant watching our parents take naps. Garrison Keillor wrote that he remembered his father on Sunday afternoons, lying on the couch dozing with a paperback volume of scripture commentary in his hand.  For some conservative protestants, the sabbath is meant to be completely devoted to God. So reading scripture is good, and I suppose scripture commentaries would be fine too. For these Christians, the sabbath is a very serious day. Play is not permitted. Adults in Scotland and Ireland have memories of playground swings being chained up to prevent them from being used. For Jews, work is forbidden, as the Torah mandates, and work is interpreted in some ways that surprise us. For example, everyone walks to Shabbat services because driving a car is forbidden. Meanwhile, gentiles all go out for Sun...

I hate fruit. Most of it, anyway. It’s been a lifelong condition. I try to avoid talking about it at all, because people have a strange reaction to the fact.   First, incomprehension. Like, how is that even possible? Are you sure? Then they will run through a list of wonderful fruits to test me. Apples? Surely you don’t hate apples. Peaches? Watermelon? How could anyone hate watermelon? This goes on for a bit, and gradually they become angry. Judgy. Like it is a moral offense for me to hate fruit. Clearly, there is something wrong with me. Yes, clearly there is. But it seems equally strange to me that you would take it so personally. So, this word is kind of challenging for me. It has all kinds of beautiful, wonderful connotations in faith and life for most of us. But, for me? Not so much. I might rather contemplate the green, leafy vegetables of the Spirit – or even the tubers of the Spirit. But, here’s what I can contribute to this meditation on fruit. I have peeled an...

In front of our house in Iowa I planted rows of moss roses along the sidewalk. My friend Randi, who knew everything about growing things, told me a neat thing about moss roses. If a stem breaks off you can just stick it back in the dirt; it will take root and continue to grow. Sure, enough, stems did get broken off – this was a sidewalk where children played – and sure enough, when I popped them back in the dirt they did just fine. I don’t know if you could do that with just any old dirt, though. This was Iowa dirt. Some of the best dirt in the world. I came to understand when I lived in Iowa that its greatest beauty is in the ground – its soil. Black and beautiful. Not only was the soil its greatest beauty, it was its greatest value. Everyone in Iowa cared about it – it was the economy. On the TV weather forecast, along with the temperature and humidity the reporter would tell us the subsoil moisture level. Of course, we wanted to know. I never tried to grow a garden when we ...

Mike and the Mechanics had a song called The Living Years. It tells a story about a father and a son. Told from the perspective of the son in the years after his father died, you can tell from the words of the song that he regrets having missed some opportunities. That he let the tensions and frustrations get in the way of their love. Most parents and their children experience tensions to one degree or another. It’s just part of the growing pains. Kids grow away from their parents and their parents have trouble understanding their kids. Parents can feel like they don’t even know their kids anymore, they’ve changed so much from the ways in which they were raised. And it may be mostly superficial changes. It may be that underneath, they are still much the same, that they still hold inside the values their parents taught them by word and example. But in their need to grow up, to become who they were meant to be, separate from their parents, kids may be unwilling to recognize or a...

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he addresses Church members who are passing judgment on others. He tells them when they judge others they condemn themselves as well, because they are no different, no better. He feels that they, in judging others, are setting themselves apart. Then Paul zeros right in on the problem: “Do you despise the riches of God’s kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4) By your hard hearts, he adds, you are storing up wrath for yourself. He preaches a God of grace and mercy. Now, from a cursory read of the scriptures, it might not be easy to see, but truly, God is overflowing with forgiveness, compassion, and grace. The question is, are we? The story of Jonah addresses this. God sends Jonah to the city of Nineveh  to warn them. They must repent of their wickedness or the city will be destroyed. Jonah doesn’t want to go. That, in itself, is not uncommon among those...

When we think of the story of Abraham taking his son, Isaac, up the mountain for a sacrifice to God, we are not sure what it was really for. The idea of sacrifice is a troublesome one. Sacrifice always means suffering, and to what end? Is there a reason for it? Because we believe in a God that is good and loving and generous. A God who can make a feast for 5000 out of five small loaves and two fishes. A God who sets people free and keeps a whole nation well fed in the barren desert. For 40 years. A God who makes something out of nothing. So we kind of thought there is no longer any need for sacrifice. Back in the day of Abraham, though, sacrifice was the thing. Normally, Abraham would have taken a lamb from his flock to be sacrificed on the altar, but on this particular day he heard God make a different request. A sacrifice, my friend Julia once told me, is giving up something good for something better . Of course, there are times we trade in something good for something...

It seems like my thoughts have to run all over the place, zig-zagging around the world before they settle on one thing. Even once I find some focus, I am easily distracted. For example, this morning while I am writing I look out my window and see a gray cat acting strangely. She’s at the edge of the wooded area in the yard, bouncing around, arching, even flipping backward. She’s either got some prey – a mouse or a bird – or she’s trying to jump out of her skin.  Gradually she edges herself back into the woods. She alternates between gyrations and perfect stillness. I put down my journal and go outside to get a better look. Another cat – tortoiseshell – comes by, out of curiosity, I believe, and stands several feet away, watching. Although I keep the fence between the cats and me, we are like a tableau: the tortoiseshell cat and me, watching the gray cat wrestle, pause, wrestle. The dogs next door bound up and down the yard, clueless as to what is happening a few feet away....

Things don’t ever stop in this world, so we all have to take turns keeping them going. Someone has to work the night shift at the 24-hour Wawa, so our friend John took that job. It wasn’t his first choice, but it’s steady work. I hope he gets paid extra for working all night. Someone has to keep us safe while most of us sleep, so we have police officers on the night patrol and dispatchers round the clock. If you call them, they will be there for you. We need them out there. We also need people to work all night at the hospital because that’s when emergencies seem to happen. And patients need their vital signs checked and their meds given even during the night. New York is called the city that never sleeps, but even in small towns there is always someone awake. New parents grow acquainted with the wee hours because newborn babies don’t know and don’t care if it’s day or night. I, personally, have had minimal experience with the night shift. Once in high school I filled in...

I grew up with that perennial favorite of the Christmas season, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and I can still remember most of the songs. A key plot point of the story is when Rudolph and friends end up on the Island of Misfit Toys. Cast off toys. Not because they are broken – they’re just a little weird. They never get chosen to be a gift for a child because they are a little bit off.  Rudolph with his red light-bulb and the elf who really wants to be a dentist, they seem to belong here too, because they don’t fit in. So they are not chosen. I’m guessing that just about everyone in the world, sooner or later, gets to have the experience of not being chosen. For some it comes early – elementary school. Maybe during that old ritual of choosing up teams for sports. I remember that feeling. Knowing I wasn’t going to be chosen, kind of not wanting to be chosen because I hated softball; shifting uncomfortably, waiting for the inevitable outcome. For others it just might com...