Coming Home

Yesterday, the caregiving committee at our church hosted a session on "self-care for caregivers." The irony of the fact that I can tell others all about the importance of such a topic, while doing an abysmal job of practicing it myself, is not entirely lost on me.

At the break during the session, a congregation member asked me how I was doing at self-care these days. I had to admit that I could be doing better.

"Don't I remember you talking about how you have a chair?" he asked me.

Of course, I have multiple chairs--but I knew the one he was reminding me of. I have a particular chair, a comfortable one, where I only sit when I'm seeking out quiet time in God's presence.

It's been sitting vacant for longer than I care to admit right now.

I have struggled, to be honest, to find my own rhythm of staying spiritually connected with God and with my own deepest self, in the midst of learning the rhythms and demands of full-time ministry.

And at the same time, I've moved from one faith tradition rooted in a particular stream of Christian spirituality to another which has different gifts and finds its home in an entirely different stream of Christian spirituality. One which is rooted more firmly in an action-oriented, social justice stream of spirituality. It's a beautiful thing to witness--but it is simply not one of the streams of spirituality that I most naturally gravitate toward.

I've also come to realize that, for years spent trying to navigate a call to ministry in an often hostile environment, I learned to rely on the gift of God's inner voice to carry me through some pretty difficult seasons. I wonder now if God's voice wasn't exactly the gift that I needed for that season of my life--a grace given for the journey.

Now, I'm learning the beauty of hearing God's voice in the midst of the faith community in new and holy ways. But I do confess that I sometimes long for the clarity of encounter that I had so often experienced during those wilderness years.

Anyway, for a variety of reasons, I've struggled to give myself permission to find my way back to the practices and streams of Christian spirituality that restore my soul and that allow me to drink of the living water of God's presence, that nurture me and give me what I need in order to be able to offer the best of me to those I am called to walk alongside.

If I don't find a way to do that, as we were reminded yesterday, I'm not doing anyone else any favours by simply working harder and continuing to ignore my own self-care needs for sabbath and renewal.

So this morning I found my way back to my chair, without any easy answers but with a renewed sense of conviction that I need to find the patterns and practices that will allow me to serve as one "like a tree planted by streams of water, which bears its fruit in season" instead of as one who is trying desperately hard to manage of her own strength.

So thank you for the reminder. I've found my chair again, and today I showed up, and sometimes showing up is enough.

Christ Has Come. Christ is Coming. Christ Will Come Again.

A reflection for the first Sunday of Advent.

I have said it before, and it continues to hold true in my own experience, that more often than not it seems that the sermon that I preach is every bit as much a word from God that speaks into my own life as it is for the life of the congregation.

The process of sitting with Scripture and prayerfully considering how it wants to speak into the life of the church is a sacred one that I experience as holy space and as one of the parts of my vocation that I most look forward to because it's inevitably a space of encounter with God. And although I work very hard to separate my own needs from the needs of the congregation, still God seems to meet me in this place even as I hope that the sermon will also create a space that invites the congregation into a similar place of encounter.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and I had the opportunity to speak this morning at Bethel Place, the seniors' apartment complex adjacent to the church where I work. And the Gospel text for the first Sunday of Advent is a challenging one (Matthew 24:36-44), featuring Jesus speaking about the end of days that will come without warning, like the Great Flood or like a thief in the night.

It's not exactly the kind of warm fuzzy that you'd hope for as we enter into this season of expectation and anticipation, as we begin counting down the days until we can celebrate the birth of Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us.

But Advent is not only one extended baby shower. It also anticipates the time when Jesus will come again and all things will be restored to their intended goodness, when we will see justice fulfilled and experience true peace on earth.

And I don't know why it had never occurred to me before, because it seems obvious to me now, but as I was studying this week it struck me that Advent is also a season in which we remember that Jesus' coming continues even now--that the Son of Man continues to come at the times and in the places when we least expect it.

Maybe that explains why I've been feeling an undeniable sense of longing as I started listening to some of my favourite Christmas albums this afternoon for the first time this season.

There is just something about the promise of God-with-us, Emmanuel, that awakens a deep longing within me. I've been doing the best I can this fall, but it's not always been easy, and I've gotten stuck in a pattern of getting done what needs to be done without ever truly making space to nourish my own soul. It's easy to do, and I suspect that I'm not the only one who gets caught in this pattern.

And the story of a God who enters into the thick of it; who humbles themself to the messy process of human birth; who makes themself vulnerable as a baby boy dependent upon a young, first-time mother for his every need; who enters into the world in the least likely of places, in the glorious monotony of the everyday, is truly good news to me.

Because God has come, and God is still coming, and God will come again.

This is the good news of the Christian faith. It's good news that feeds my thirsty soul today--God is still coming. God is still in the habit of showing up in the least likely places. There has never, ever been a point at which God has abandoned the world that they created, that they love--and they won't start now.

It's good news that I can hold to tightly in the days ahead, good news that in this season invites me to simply be still and trust that God is still among us, good news that invites me to let go and breathe every once in a while, good news that for this moment I can rest from my doing and just be, good news that I belong to a story that is far bigger than me.

God has come. God is still coming. God will come again.

Thanks be to God!

You are Mine

But now, this is what the Lord says--

he who created you, Jacob,

he who formed you, Israel:

"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned;

the flames will not set you ablaze."

(Isaiah 43:1-2)

I spent the day yesterday at a Leadership Day thinking and talking about baptism with other leaders and pastors in the Mennonite Church. On the whole, it was a good day. It was also a hard day for me.

Because the truth is that the practice of baptism in the Mennonite Church is very different than in the Mennonite Brethren Church. While to an outsider the two seem very similar, the reality is that each has its own distinct way of practicing baptism, and its own questions and challenges around the practice of baptism.

And I was unprepared for how much it would seem like immersion in a new culture to spend the day thinking and talking about a way of understanding and practicing baptism that's very new to me.

Immersion. What a funny choice of words.

Because I was baptized by immersion--I waded into the tank filled with water thoughtfully and lovingly prepared so that it would be comfortably warm by the time the baptisms occurred, affirmed my desire to follow Jesus, and was completely submerged beneath its surface--an imagery of dying to one way of life, and rising to a new one. 

It was deeply meaningful to me, and is a milestone in my faith journey that I cherish. I had the opportunity as a pastor to baptize a couple of people, too--and although it didn't happen often, those were moments I loved and have such special memories of.

Now, I belong to a church tradition where immersion is not the primary imagery associated with baptism. It has its own practice and theology around baptism, and it is beautiful in its own way. In no way am I saying otherwise. I am deeply appreciative for this place that has embraced me and welcomed me as one of its own.

But yesterday, I was overwhelmed with grief as I found myself realizing how much it hurts to feel rejected by the very church that offered me the initiation of baptism in the first place. Having to leave because the place where I found welcome no longer welcomed me is hard. Having the community that welcomed me to join them through the rite of baptism tell me that there was no longer a place for me still causes deep pain. 

It feels like a covenant that has been broken in some way, and once broken, it can never be the same.

And yet, today those words from Isaiah 43 came to mind as I continued to wrestle: "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you..."

The truth is that nothing can undo the hurt--that damage has been done. 

But I also believe that God was with me when I passed through the waters of baptism--the same God who redeemed me, summoned me by name, and calls me God's own. I believe that same God is with me still, and was instrumental in leading me through a season that sometimes felt like walking through flames into a place that is good and spacious and inviting, a place I've come to love a great deal, a place whose practices will grow in me and add their own cherished memories and deep sense of meaning as I live with them and allow them to live with me. 

I wholeheartedly disagree with the recent meme that says, "If being hurt by the church causes you to lose faith in God, then your faith was in people not God." Sorry, church--this is a total cop out and we need to stop blaming the victim!

I saw another meme, though, that I think works much better. In it, the words "then your faith was in people not God" are crossed out with a big red "x." Instead, it reads: "If being hurt by the church causes you to lose faith, your hurt is valid. God sees you."

So, for all of you who know this particular kind of pain, let me say this: You are God's beloved child. With you, God is well pleased.

They were God's words to Jesus at his baptism. And they are God's words to you at yours as well. And nothing, absolutely nothing, can take that away.

You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone

I have Joni Mitchell and "Big Yellow Taxi" to thank for the earworm that's running through my head right now: "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone."

Isn't it the truth, though?

Except that in my particular case, in this moment, it's sort of the opposite. I can recognize the gift of what I've been given precisely because it's been absent for so long leading up to this point.

If I hadn't come from the background that I do, if I hadn't come to ministry from this particular perspective, if I shared that call story that I've heard so very often from my male colleagues in ministry over the years ("I didn't want to go into ministry, but they tapped me on the shoulder and told me that I should be a pastor, and eventually I gave in to their encouragements"), I'm not sure that I would have such a distinct sense of the gift of this moment.

This Sunday, at the end of our worship service, I will be licensed toward ordination.

It's a process in the Mennonite Church with a title that doesn't exactly make one's heart beat faster in excitement and anticipation.

But it's such a tremendous gift for me.

And here's why:

It was nineteen years ago that I first sensed that God might be calling me to a leadership role within the church. Nineteen years. That is just barely less than half my lifetime at this point. I still remember the moment, the exact words I heard God speak, the disbelief of it all. I well remember the process of making sense of the moment that unfolded from there over a period of years, the ups and downs along the way.

But, as a woman in a church conference that is still struggling with the question of women in ministry leadership, for most of the past nineteen years I've had to do the lion's share of that processing and discernment on my own.

The age old wisdom of the church says that there are two aspects to discerning a call to ministry: the "inner call" that is sensed by the individual being called to ministry, and the "outer call" of the community of faith who together with that individual discern their gifts and characters and suitability for leadership in the church.

But, in a tradition where my gender made my suitability for ministry fundamentally questionable regardless of my story or the particulars of who I am, I have been left largely to my own devices to struggle with the inner call that I was discerning, and how to reconcile that with the mixed messages that I received from the larger church.

Even when I went through the ministry credentialing process in the past, the memory that rises up of that experience is of one of the men on the committee that interviewed me asking whether I might consider going into the world of academics. My sense is that had less to do with my story or my particular gifts, and more to do with the fact that the church has just never quite been sure what to do with me. It wasn't exactly overwhelming affirmation of what I understood of the kind of work that God was calling me to.

But now... this act of "licensing of a minister toward ordination" is my first taste of the truth of what I've always believed in my heart to be true, that I'd never fully feel like my discernment of God's leading would be complete without the church actively entering into this discernment process with me.

It's a process that was initiated by the church, not by me.

And the period of licensing is a period in which the congregation is invited to actively participate in the process of discerning my suitability for ongoing pastoral ministry along with me.

The church has never given me the gift of taking my sense of call to ministry seriously like this before. They are not brushing me off, or nudging me to consider other directions. They have already interviewed me, listened carefully to my story, taken my sense of call seriously, and offered accountability to me as a leader.

And the licensing on Sunday will signal once again that they are taking this discernment process seriously.

That is not something that I have the luxury of taking for granted. Because I know what it's like when it's gone, and so I have a profound sense of the gift of what I've got now that I probably would not have otherwise.

All of which is to say, there are many of you who have so faithfully been companions on this journey over the past nineteen years leading up to this moment, and many of you who continue to walk with me going forward. Who have encouraged, prayed, cried with me, held me while I cried, celebrated the milestones, listened to the struggles. Who have been my community and have carried me to this point. I'm so grateful for all of you.

And to the church family who are giving me the gift of their companionship in the journey in this season, I want you to know the value of the gift that you're giving, and the significance of this process that can seem like a formality or a series of hoops to be jumped through. It's not.

It's a passing milestone, in many ways, but in my heart it's the fulfillment of a longing nineteen years in the making. And I just wanted you all to know that.

Because sometimes if we just see what's on the surface, we can miss the gift that lies beneath.

And that would be a shame!

The Healing Power of Nightmares

Fun fact: In grade 12, I wrote a research essay on nightmares, as a follow-up to our reading of The Lord of the Flies in English class. My grade was 99%. I remember this vividly, because my class earned a stern lecture for our overall lacklustre performance on our research essays, resulting in me tearfully confessing to my mother later that evening that we'd not handed in work that lived up to our teacher's expectations of us. My mom had to explain to me that the teacher probably wasn't speaking to me so much as to some of my classmates.

I've always had a tender heart...

Regardless, nightmares. What I remember of that paper was that one theory on why people have nightmares is that bad dreams serve as a way for our subconscious minds to process hard feelings that might be too uncomfortable for us to process during our waking hours, and that they therefore have healing potential.

It was a grade 12 research essay in the days before the internet, in a small high school with an even smaller library upon which to base this research, so take that for what it's worth.

I had a nightmare this week-end.

All I recall is that in my dream some men from "the church" decided that I should be removed from my job immediately.

Even worse, they had exercised their power somehow in order to ensure that I would never be allowed to serve in a pastoral role again. Anywhere. Ever.

In my dream, it was awful, and I couldn't imagine what I should do next--but I wasn't shocked.

It has since served as a reminder to me that, however happy I am in my current pastoral role, however satisfying I find my work and however generous and warm my congregation, some wounds just take time to heal.

So, for all of you reading this who are healing, in whatever way:

May you be patient with the slow and steady work of healing. May you find companions for the journey who are aware of their own woundings, and who are not frightened by yours. May you find joy in the moment, which doesn't negate the hard stuff but which comes alongside it and coexists with it.

And may you find yourself held by Love, who sees your wounds and honours them with her oh, so tender touch.

Always and Forever

What do you do when your world falls apart?

There have been many times--too many--when I've had to wrestle with that question over the past several years. I've lost communities that were deeply part of my identity, dreams that I wasn't ready to give up, and relationships that were caught in the crossfire. 

And the pain is real.

Maybe that's why I connected with the story of John 21 so deeply this week-end while away on a retreat, with time and space to tend to my own spirit and my own relationship with God.

I've lived through the horrific events of Good Friday, seen death where it seemed unfathomable that it should be found, wondered how on earth to pick up and move on.

And, like the disciples, I've found myself back in my fishing boat, returning to what I know, more than once along the way--the magical lustre gone from the fishing, because we can never truly go back once we've walked in step with this man--returning to doing the only thing we know how to do, mechanically going through the motions. One foot in front of the other, step by painful step.

I also know Jesus well enough to recognize that even today, in the midst of the pain and the anguish of doubt and hard questions and numb disbelief, Jesus is given to showing up right in the very midst of the mess. Sometimes, as with the disciples, we don't realize who it is right away. Until, through the fog, we recognize a familiar shimmer, a certain aura, as if we're in the middle of a dream.

The One we thought was gone forever is not quite so fragile as we might want to believe.

In John 21, Peter is thrilled to see Jesus--throwing on some clothes, he dives into the water, in his haste to reach Jesus as soon as humanly possible. They eat breakfast, in what seems to be stunned awe and disbelief that Jesus, who had died, has appeared to them, broke bread for them, shared a meal with them.

After the meal, Jesus and Peter have an awkward little conversation. Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you love me?" And Peter, the rock upon which Jesus has promised he will build his church, the one who denied Jesus three times just days earlier, responds, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." 

But in a little Greek twist that isn't at all obvious in most English translations, Jesus and Peter are using two different forms of the word 'love' in their conversation. Jesus asks Peter, "Do you agape me?" Agape, some scholars argue, is the highest form of sacrificial love among the Greek words that we translate as the English word love.

Peter, however, responds not in kind but rather with, "Yes, Lord, you know that I philia you"--I love you as a brother would is the implication.

Not quite the same thing, some scholars argue.

A second time, a very similar exchange takes place.

But the third time, Jesus changes the question to ask Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you philia me?" (This is all really poor Greek grammar here, but you get the point...)

Peter is hurt, but tries to assure Jesus: "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."

Some will argue that in this third repetition of the question, Jesus is willing to meet Peter where he's at.

Maybe that's true.

But it strikes me that Jesus follows this question immediately by telling Peter that "when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." He says this, the passage tells us to make sure we catch Jesus' point, to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.

A kind of death which sounds very much like agape love in action to me.

It's powerful to me that after Peter's denial of Jesus, through the fog of confusion and pain and uncertainty, Jesus gives Peter his calling back. "Feed my sheep."

To have your vocation restored when you thought for sure you had lost it truly is a gift beyond measure.

But more than that, I think that Jesus knew the bond of love that Peter shared with Jesus even before Peter himself understood it. The lengths that Peter would go with and for Jesus. What if Jesus knew all along that Peter already did agape love him? What if even when his language changed to that of philia love he knew that Peter's love would indeed go the distance, that Peter's love for Jesus would stay loyal to the very end, that Peter would indeed lay down his life for the sheep Jesus called him to feed?

What if Jesus' love is always so great that we don't have the capacity to hold it for ourselves, to give it adequate language, or to understand what we're feeling and where it will lead us?

And what if that doesn't bother Jesus. Maybe, as with Peter, Jesus is happy to hold the magnitude of that love, offering us little glimpses of what will continue to grow in us.

Maybe Jesus holds the love that we can't yet hold, the belovedness that we're not yet able to absorb. Maybe Jesus carries all of that for us, until bit by bit we're able to hold more and more of it for ourselves.

Maybe, as with Peter, all we need to do is what Jesus invited us to in the first place: "Follow me!"

So, what do you do when your world falls apart?

You slowly pick out a way forward, one step at a time--knowing only that you love this man, and that he loves you
even more.

You are loved. Always and forever loved.

Queer Eye and the Church

There is a new season of Queer Eye on Netflix. And this show, it just gets me in the feels every single time. It's so not about the makeover, friends. It's about the compassion and love shown in every last episode. It's about these five human beings who model humility, compassion, grace, dignity, and forgiveness. It's about their ability to be fully present to someone else's story, to see past all of the externals, and to shed light on the beautiful human being that has been right there all along.

I'm watching an episode this morning about a young, African American, lesbian woman whose religious adoptive parents kicked her out of the house when she came out. It is heartbreaking. She talks about how her whole life she has been told that she is not black enough, not white enough, not straight enough, not gay enough.

Meanwhile, it's been a rough week.

In large part, it's because of a few things that have come up this week that have brought to the surface for me the deep pain that comes from being told, overtly or subtly, that you are not enough. My church experience, the predominant message that I've heard from this church family that told me that they were here for me, that baptized me and welcomed me as one of their own, was that I'm not enough. Not male enough. Not married enough. Not gifted enough. Not humble enough. Too gifted. Too female. Too single. Too outspoken.

I have tried really hard to be gracious. But the truth is, it hurts.

Until eventually I had to walk away, into what felt like the wilderness.

And, as always, it turns out that God meets us so very often in the wilderness.

I am in a very good place now. A place of welcome. A place where the encouragement is freely and frequently offered. A place where nobody is telling me that who I am is not enough.

I'm grateful.

But you don't learn to love yourself in five days, as they say on Queer Eye. And this week, the "not enough"s keep rearing up their ugly little heads.

What strikes me is how deeply painful it is to be told that you're not enough, and how many people hear that message on a daily basis, for so very many different reasons.

And how often we try to hide, to push down those parts of us that we think, that we've been told are not enough.

And how that kind of masking doesn't address the deep pain that's also hiding deep down.

And how much genuine beauty and goodness is hiding out there in this big, beautiful world as a result.

Then, I see the Fab Five do what I pray that I will learn to do better, what I pray that our faith communities can learn to do better: just listen. Their ability to be present to pain and to create space for someone to share their story--all of their story--is inspiring to me. They have an incredible capacity to be present to pain, and not to try to shush it or pamper it away too quickly.

In the process, healing happens.

Beneath all of the labels that we apply to people, beneath all of the stereotypes and fears and boundaries that we erect, is the beautiful, glorious image of God in every created person. I believe this with all of my heart.

I also know how deeply wounding it is when people tell us that who we are is not enough.

And, to my friends in the Church, can I tell you that it's extra damaging when we are the voices telling someone that who God made them is not enough? That speaking as the body of Christ has tremendous power for good, but also for harm?

May we be people who listen deeply.

May we be people who have the capacity to hold the hard as well as the beautiful, and who don't try to quiet either one too quickly.

May we learn to apologize well when we need to, and to forgive when it's appropriate.

May we create space to celebrate difference, to see the beauty in the unexpected, to open ourselves with love.

May we be kind to ourselves, and kind to others.

And may we know that, in God's eyes, we are always, always enough.

You. Are. Enough.