It’s hard not to “catastrophize” our current situation.

Whatever it is that is most challenging for you in this time (whether that’s isolation and loneliness, the challenges of homeschooling or providing daycare for your children while also trying to work full-time, the fear that you’ll run out of toilet paper, or concern for your own health or the health of someone you love), it’s hard not to worry (at least some of the time), that it will be like this forever. That even if the stay-at-home restrictions are lifted you won’t be able to go out because you’re in the “at-risk” demographic, or that you’ll be expected to go to work and your kids still won’t have school, or that someone you love won’t be as careful as they should be and will get sick. The endless negative possibilities combined with a lack of knowledge about how long or when, can send your mind and your spirit reeling.

I’ve learned over the years that, for me, the only antidote that consistently works (by which I mean, it consistently work about 80% of the time—nothing is perfect after all) is centering prayer and taking a break. Both things, in moments of overwhelm or “catastrophizing” feel completely antithetical—the last thing I have time to do when I already don’t have enough time is to stop working or to do nothing. But, inevitably (80%) of the time, when I do stop, when I force myself to take an afternoon off or sit quietly in contemplation for 30-45 minutes, things seem to shift back into perspective.

For me, Easter this year feels a lot about looking at things differently—looking at an empty tomb and seeing not the absence of a body but the absence of death itself, looking at a stay-at-home restriction and seeing not impossibility but new opportunities. In my sermon on Sunday, I shared the following video, but I think it’s worth sharing again because sometimes we need to see things in a new way a few times before they can truly sink in.

Unless your personality is similar to mine, it’s possible that centering prayer and/or taking a break won’t be what works to reset things for you, but I wonder, what does?

Fortunately, I had Spiritual Direction (which I do by phone) and so I was able to begin naming all my anxieties, questions, frustrations, and yearnings. And, I was able to hear the reminder that we all process things at our own pace and in our own way—and that there are gifts in how each of us responds to things. I’ll admit that I have to remind myself of that many times a day, but the reminders help me need fewer naps and help me appreciate the gifts that this time and these circumstances have to offer as well as how my own personality, responses, and gifts might be a gift to others.

The gifts in your life are undoubtedly different, but for me, they are:

• More time with my kids (it turns out that I like helping our eight-year-old with his schoolwork, and who wouldn’t love the extra cuddles and giggles that come from being around a three-year-old all day.
• Being home which, as an extreme introvert, is where I’m most comfortable.
• More time outside (because my children need more time outside so their craziness doesn’t explode all over our house).
• More time with our dog, who is getting older and won’t be with us forever.
• Opportunities to take care of small house projects that have been neglected for too long (like our dryer vent hose, which was disgusting!). 

It’s still true that the challenges remain: 

• I haven’t yet figured out how to work at home with two young kids and a husband who owns his own business (which means he would work all the livelong day if we would let him, which we won’t, because we’re mean like that).
• I’m getting better at dividing my time rather than my attention, so I can focus on being with my kids during some periods and getting work done during others, but getting better means that “every now and then I can see how I might someday be able to do that and why I might want to.”
• I miss having space and time to myself.
• Our three-year-old still asks twice a day where we’re going after “nap time” (any time she sleeps) and still asks “why?” when we respond that we’re going nowhere.
• Our eight-year-old misses his friends and can get a little explosive being stuck around the same people all day every day (can’t we all?).

So, you know, it’s a balancing act, a tightrope walk, a day by day, hour by hour, 15 minutes by 15 minutes kind of life that I’m living in this moment in time, even as I recognize how lucky we are to have a home, to be healthy, to not have immediate economic concerns. Because life is always both/and isn’t it? 

How are you faring in these first weeks?

I do this. I sometimes feel like spirituality is all about practices and doing and time spent and commitment and all of the other things I currently feel as though I’m falling short on. I berate myself for not being more devoted to a spiritual practice or taking more time for silence or whatever, and then I forget about it and go back to living my life because frankly I don’t need guilt trips like that. And while I don’t want to be dismissive of practices or people who have time and desire to meditate or pray or read scripture, I do want to remind myself, and others, that spirituality is simpler than that. And far more complex. It is the whole of our lives, and practicing it can be as simple as noticing.

In my spiritual direction practice, I will often start a session by asking someone where they have noticed God since the last time we talked. Never has anyone reported a sighting of a white-bearded old man, or a handsome Jesus-esque figure. Seeing God isn’t about visions, and hearing God’s voice is rarely something we accomplish with our ears. Rather, seeing God and following God’s call is about looking for the places in our lives where wonder is present. It is about remembering times when the world took our breath away or we felt energized despite a lack of sleep. For me, God seems most present in moments when time seems to stand still, often for just a moment or two. A particularly beautiful sunset; getting into bed on a cold autumn evening when the sheets are flannel and the duvet is warm and snug; seizing on an idea that makes the project I am working on all fall into place; seeing my son for the miracle I sometimes forget that he is. While there have been big moments—moments that changed the way I view the world and my place in it—most of the time it is the little moments, the small things, that remind me of God’s presence and help me to follow in God’s path.

Too often, I think we make it more complicated than it needs to be. We expect visions of a man in white or voices that echo like thunder, and when they don’t appear we assume we’re just not called, not part of God’s vision. Or we assume that finding God means dedication and practice, silence, and time we simply cannot find, and so we give up on looking and listening for God. But God’s voice is rarely audible, and God’s presence is rarely ethereal. Rather, God’s voice is often the still small voice inside of ourselves, the gut intuition, or that abiding sense we feel every now and again. And God’s presence is far more often a fleeting glimpse of something sacred, something beyond ourselves, that draws us into wonder, or helps us pause in the busyness of life.

And so this week, as we are being bombarded by snow and wind and ice, as the learning curve of a new job and the realities of ministry’s ability to never, ever end threaten to overwhelm me, I remember that I’ve seen God in a few moments of sunshine outside when everything seemed to clear for a minute and life felt like it took a deep breath. I remember that I see God every time my son falls asleep next to me or snuggles in close to me. I remember that God is in the little things that see me through a long winter and a new job and a stressful life and I resolve (again) to spend more time in those places and moments—more time with God.

With the beginning of Lent this past month, I have been thinking about the traditional practices of giving something up or taking something on. Neither of those feel quite right to me this year, and I find myself wondering what it would mean to “practice” Lent. In her book, Bria speaks about practicing ourselves as opportunities in which to integrate our identities—to pull together the disparate roles and personalities we necessarily adopt throughout our days and lives. This integration, Bria intimates, is hard work that we are never quite done with, for even as we edge ever closer to integration, our roles and identities shift with time and we must continually work to integrate ourselves.

When we give something up or take something on for the season of Lent, we are, in essence, practicing a new way of being before God. I imagine that part of what has kept these traditions of giving up or taking on going for so long is that the time span is so limited. We have six weeks in which to abstain or discipline ourselves to do something new. Forty days. Even if we fall short every year, by the time Lent rolls around again we have (rightly?) convinced ourselves that surely we can do _________ (fill in your chosen discipline or abstinence) for forty days. Lenten disciplines are an opportunity to practice being slightly different, and hopefully slightly more integrated, in our relationship with God and the world.

Last year Maggie Dawn posted a great essay on her blog entitled, “Lent: Did You Cheat Yet?” In her post, Dawn argues that failing at a Lenten discipline can be as important and as meaningful as succeeding. She writes, “one of the central purposes of Lent is to remind us that we are utterly human, and utterly dependent upon God. What could be more human than breaking a promise, failing on a discipline, achieving less than we meant to, losing our confidence or our resolve?” What matters, Dawn argues, is how we frame our failure. If simply throw in the towel when we fail and think “well, I tried, maybe next year,” then we’ve missed the point of Lent. If, however, we allow our failure to help us remember that we are utterly dependent on God, and if we pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and try again, then we have experienced the very essence of Lent.

I wonder how framing spiritual formation in terms of “intentionally practicing being a child of God” might change the ways in which we engage, teach, and talk about spiritual formation and spiritual disciplines.

Originally Posted on Coracle

I like traditional spiritual disciplines: centering prayer, lectio divina, fasting, contemplative listening, but I also love looking for, and creating, new spiritual practices that help us to see and hear God more clearly or in new ways. The traditional spiritual discipline that corresponds with New Year’s resolutions is creating a Rule of Life. Rules of Life are created by choosing a set of spiritual practices that you want to commit to doing for this period in your life. They are a way of being intentional about our spiritual lives and they provide a structure to help us practice and live into who God is calling us to be. I’ve written Rules of Life at various times in my life and I find the process rewarding, but at this juncture in my life, they feel too much like resolutions—too much like empty promises and grand visions that I won’t actually ever live into. Instead, I’m considering creating a vision board for this new year that centers around a particular phrase. Choosing particular words for the year has become a popular practice recently, as have vision boards, and this year they feel like the right balance of hope/vision/promise and reality/life.

As of January 1st, I am the new acting Associate Pastor at a local congregational church, and I’ll be moving into a new office at the church at the end of the month. It’s a position I’m excited about, but it also represents a big change for me and my family as I transition from being a stay-at-home mom and PhD student to a working-outside-of-the-home mom. I think we’re all ready for this change, but it also brings with it new challenges and concerns about time management and finding a way to balance home and work. A few weeks ago a book I was listening to quoted a line from T.S. Eliot’s poem The Second Coming: “Things fall apart; The centre cannot hold.” The reverse of this quote (the center will hold) has captured my imagination ever since. I don’t quite know what it is about this phrase that so appeals to me, but it continues to pop into my mind at random times and I find myself wondering what it means for me, what it might mean in my life at this time.

As I consider what will go in my new office, I’m thinking about including a bulletin board with this phrase at the center. Rather than filling it with images and words like a traditional vision board, I think I’m going to leave it empty so I can add to it over the course of the year. I want to see if living into this phrase over the course of the year will help me see God in any new places or in new ways. And so this year, rather than writing resolutions or crafting a rule of life, I think I’m going to start with an empty bulletin board and a phrase I want to live into and see what happens.

Originally Posted on Coracle

One of the traditions I want to begin this year is the Advent Calendar. When Caleb was a baby we found a simple one that we both liked on sale at Pottery Barn Kids. We’ve hung it every year, but we’ve never bothered to fill it before now. With the traditional twenty-five pockets to fill, I must admit that I find the project a little daunting. My type-A personality would like for it to be:

1. something Caleb looks forward to
2. generally cohesive
3. reasonable to do every year with regard to time and money
4. meaningful and appropriate for the season.

To that end, we have considered filling each pocket with chocolate (cohesive & fun, but not particularly meaningful), Bible verses (cohesive & meaningful, but probably not super fun for a three year old), activities to do each day that help us prepare for Christmas (cohesive, probably meaningful, possibly fun, but way too much for us to undertake during an already busy season), toys or gifts (cohesive and exciting, but probably not getting at the reason for the season and also beyond our budget).

In the midst of trying to decide, I had the unusual pleasure of sitting in worship at my home church while we were visiting my parents for Thanksgiving. In the course of a sermon full of thought-provoking nuggets, the pastor said something that shifted my perspective on finding good Advent and Christmas traditions for our family. He said that we’re not in a war with our culture over Christmas. I come from a Reformed tradition, and my pastor reminded me that in this tradition we do not believe the Church to be against culture, but rather in the midst of it. In a sermon about the importance of keeping watch during Advent, I was reminded again of the Christian call to bear witness—to pay attention and notice and point to the places where God is present. This reminder helped me to think of Advent not as a fight or struggle to find good and meaningful traditions that will stand the test of time, but rather as an opportunity to pick through the options our faith and our culture offer for celebrating this time of year to find the ones that help me point to the coming of God’s light and love.

With these criteria in mind, we’ve decided to fill our Advent Calendar with a mix of things:

1. Pieces of our nativity set that Caleb can set up, play with, and add to over the month of December
2. Fun things to do that help us get ready for Christmas (make cards for people, bake cookies for neighbors, go see Santa, get our Christmas tree, make decorations for our house, watch a Christmas movie, go on a drive to look at Christmas lights)
3. Coloring pages with Scripture verses from the Christmas story
4. A few small gifts: an ornament for the tree, a Christmas decoration for his room, and a gift on Christmas Eve

It’s not the kind of cohesion I initially wanted (all of the same thing), but it is our best ideas for how to point to God’s in-breaking of light and love in ways our three-year-old can begin to see and understand.

Four years ago Adam and I lost twin boys in late October. In the years since we’ve learned that so many others have stories of infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, and loss, each as heartbreaking and hard as our own. For us, it was something in-between: not quite a miscarriage, and not quite a stillbirth. I was nineteen weeks pregnant when my water broke. The twins were born alive, but they were so premature that there was never a question of them surviving. There is no comparing losses, no clear spectrum of pain on which to judge the seriousness of one’s own experience, but I have always thought it was a heartbreaking gift that our boys were born alive: that we got to meet them and hold them while they were breathing, that there was something tangible and good and life-giving in the midst of so much loss and pain and death.

I remember the days and months after their birth and death as a blur of grief and sleep and an emptiness that taught me the true meaning of bereft. In the years since, my grief has been cyclical: arriving, staying, and then departing only to circle back and arrive again. At first it came often and stayed for long, unwelcome lengths of time; and then, as time passed, it came less and less frequently. Now the grief hits hard about once a year (in late October), and the rest of the time its presence feels more like a ripple on the surface of water: noticeable, but not disruptive.

I’ve had enough pastoral care training, and spent enough time as a hospice chaplain, to know that grief never really leaves you; it changes and it ebbs, but it’s never completely gone. And, honestly, I’m grateful for that fact. I would never want to forget our boys, and knowing that grief will never let me is something of a twisted comfort. Nevertheless, every year I am surprised by the end of October—its suddenness and its intensity. Every year, when the warm early days of October begin to fade and I remember what’s coming, I think it won’t be so bad this year—surely enough time has passed that it will be sad but not devastating. But every year I am wrong. Every year the end of October springs up like a terrifying monster in a haunted house and leaves me shaken and down for the count. I’d like to think that with a few more years I’ll learn, but I suspect that it is grief’s nature to be surprising as well as devastating. So for now I take comfort in having four years behind me. I take comfort in the fact that most of the time my grief is just a pang or a passing “what if” rather than a knock-down-drag-out sucker punch. For now, I take comfort in the fact that I have a hilarious almost-three-year-old that would likely never have existed had our twins survived. And for now, I take comfort in the fact that October ends with All Saints Day, and November always arrives.

(Originally Posted on Coracle)

Often the time I spend outside is with our toddler. It’s sometimes a challenge to convince him to come outside when he has so many fun toys inside, but we both like to sit on our front step and watch the street. We live on a small cul-de-sac that doesn’t see much traffic, but there are dogs in the windows across the street and we frequently will see bunnies or squirrels if our dog isn’t outside with us. In an effort to engage my son so that he’ll stay outside longer, I’ve begun playing a modified version of “I spy” with him. I’ll look around and find something fairly obvious and unique that isn’t directly in front of us and then I’ll tell him what I see. He then looks around until he spots it and then points it out with glee. When I run out of unique objects, I begin naming colors and he’ll start finding things with that match the color I’ve picked.

I don’t often think much about spiritual formation with my toddler—he’s only two-and-a-half after all, but I do look for opportunities to help him notice what’s around him, to slow down, and to put words around what he sees and feels. All of these tasks are challenging, mostly because of his age, but I think they’re the foundations of spiritual formation (observation, meditation, and reflection) and important building blocks for life. Playing “I Spy” outside is one way I try to engage him in these practices and practice them myself.

Lectio Divina means “sacred reading” in Latin and it is a way of reading the Bible for formation rather than information. The basic steps involve slowly reading a short passage of Scripture once or twice listening for the word or phrase that stands out, shimmers, bothers, or calls to you. Then, with that word or phrase in mind, you slowly read the passage again, pausing at the end to ask what God might be trying to say to you through this word or phrase (another way to ask this is to ask how this word or phrase intersects or speaks to your life at this moment). In the third step, you slowly read the text again and ask yourself how you’d like to respond to God. Then, you read the text one final time and allow yourself to rest in God’s presence. Lectio Divina takes seriously our belief that God speaks to each of us individually in and through Scripture.

Scripture, however, is not the only medium through which God can speak. If we believe that God created the world, then God’s fingerprints are all over nature and it too can reveal God’s presence and Word to us. Lectio in nature mimics the process of Sacred Reading, but it looks for what it is in nature that stands out to us (much like the burning bush stood out to Moses) and then asks what God might be saying to us through that aspect of nature.

Playing “I Spy” with a toddler doesn’t give one much time for contemplation and reflection, but it does offer the opportunity to notice our surroundings and to pay attention to what might be calling out to us. Whether it is through a tree blazing with fall colors, a piece of trash that escaped the garbage truck, a neighbor we don’t know, or a squirrel busily storing nuts, God can speak to us if we are willing to listen.

(Originally Posted on Coracle)

I’m a big believer in Sabbath. Adam can be a workaholic at times and I’ve been known to nag, harp on, remind him that he should take off at least one day a week. I can see the toll it (eventually) takes on him when he’s been working too hard for too long: suddenly ministry becomes a weighty burden that he can’t seem to get rid of, work relationships become strained, and perspective about the relative importance of things is lost. And I can see the toll it’s taking on me as well: I have less patience, I feel worn out, life feels heavier. But deep-seated convictions and empirical evidence do not displace our need for income to pay rent and buy food. And recognizing the problem does not change the fact that there is still laundry that needs to be done, meals that need to be planned, a dog that needs to be walked, and a seemingly endless list of other household tasks that need to be accomplished during the increasingly rare days off.

So how do we, I wonder, create space for Sabbath and rest when the tasks of life seem to require all of our waking hours? And is it possible to carve out space for rest without defaulting on our rent because we didn’t work enough hours or creating rifts in our marriages because we didn’t do our fair share of household tasks?

I’m not sure some days.

But what I do know is this:

The Spirit calls us to life. In this moment of my life, the balance between work and rest is (perhaps necessarily?) off-kilter. But the Spirit calls me to rest and greater balance so that I might live life more fully, and enjoy life more abundantly. And I know that while I can’t find a full day for Sabbath, I can find moments. I can close my eyes and breathe deeply for a few minutes between tasks. I can acknowledge the demands on my time and still choose to sit with Caleb for a minute to play cars or read a story. And I can continue to look for places where I can cut back or carve out more time for rest and relaxation, trusting that the Spirit of God is looking with me, helping me to find a better balance between work and rest.

Originally Posted on Coracle

The legal separation of church and state is crucial to preserve religious freedom, but such a separation does not exist within Christianity itself. Whatever your political views, it is hard to argue that Jesus was not political, not to mention the clear connection between religion and government in Old Testament narratives (it is God, after all, who chooses and anoints the kings of Israel). To be sure, Jesus did not engage in politics as a politician, but rather challenged the political and religious orders of his day. He critiqued and condemned the corrupt practices of government and religion and preached and modeled a new way of life and faith.

Few would argue that social justice lies outside of the realm of religion and the church, so I wonder if the disconnect comes with how we accomplish social justice. Yet to pursue social justice without advocating and lobbying for political change is like trying to dig a hole with one arm tied behind your back: you might make progress, but it will be slow and halting. Whether we like it or not, political structures are an inherent part of our world. They support both the just and unjust economic, social, and cultural situations we live and work within.

More importantly, to distance ourselves from politics implies that there are arenas in our life in which God is not present. This, I believe, is where spirituality (and religion) is often misunderstood. Too often we hear spirituality used as an excuse to withdraw from the world, to retreat into private prayer and solitude, rejecting all worldly engagement. While retreat and withdrawal are both useful spiritual practices, neither is meant to be done at the cost of our faithful engagement with the world. Rather, they are designed to help us pause so that we might see the world more clearly.

In a 1966 document entitled “The Theological Basis for Christian Social Action,” the Presbyterian Church wrote that

“if we bear witness and serve the Lord, then, as a church and as individuals, we have a clear responsibility to concern ourselves with the social and political sphere also. To say nothing and do nothing in this sphere is to deny our own Gospel. It is to say that there are at least some areas in the world and in our own lives where God is not Lord.”

Spirituality is not an otherworldly pursuit—it is a faithful engagement with the whole of life. If spirituality is listening for and responding to the movement of the Spirit in our midst, politics is one of the faithful ways in which we respond to the call of the Spirit, working to shape the world in God’s vision. Whatever our political persuasion or convictions, our faith and spirituality impels us to work to bring about God’s vision for our world. To ignore politics in this pursuit is misguided; rather, we are called to faithfully engage in politics in our effort to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

Originally Posted on Coracle