Death and Redemption

Following so close on the celebration of Christ's victorious death and resurrection providing the universe with the image of sacrifice-in-love, the news arrived last night:  Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of death, the symbol of twisted religion for violence sake, the man who did not sacrifice, is dead.  And I pause...
  The impulse to celebrate and even say 'alleluia, thanks be to God' is right on the surface.  Yet somehow using my religion's language to encapsulate the death of a man, even one who has committed such evil and violence, is not easy.  I worry I am doing the very thing I abhor in terrorist action, taking religion and manipulating it to fit into my little scheme of how life should go.
  At the same time, a manager of evil has been stopped and I am very grateful to President Obama (and presidents before him) and our Armed Forces who have spent years and given their lives to bring a peculiar kind of justice.  I pray this death does not feed fires of deeper hatred among us across the globe rather we take time to listen carefully to one another, even when we are in deep and abiding disagreement.  It is such a challenge to remain and abide rather than divide into our little homogenous groups of like-minds and hearts.
 "Forgive them for they know not what they do."  Jesus' final words haunt me today.
May the Holy One bring us all to peace and redemption.  

When people realize they can step out their homes, ask for change

There are so many lines to cross tonight from private to public, religious to political, at home to world wide.  The title comes from Wadan Khanfar, Director General of AlJeerza News.  This is an Arab based news program that has provided the world with honest reporting and critique, something NONE of our U.S. based news organizations have done for we are so corrupt, or narrow-minded in our views, or so sure (arrogant) of our viewpoints, or determined to protect our interests (read oil & money).  We forget our own country's history at our peril.
Remember one of your first U.S. history classes?  The American Revolution?  We are beneficiaries of a revolution, just like the one in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, et al.  We had 'Protesters' throwing the ruling governments' products (tea) into the Boston Bay.  We took up arms against the ruling class.  We crossed the line of 'civil' and created an incredibly beautiful country with its own set of problems.  (another post.)
  What we are witnessing is the movement toward enlightenment, as our Historians named it now in the Middle East.  As Christians we have to acknowledge and repent of the Crusades, that time BEFORE education took hold and we thought our way was the only way.  There were no TV cameras, no Internet, Twitter, You Tube, to capture our brutality.  But it resides in our bones.  We know we participated in repression, harm and violence.  We cannot segregate our selves from our history.
  We can confess, ask forgiveness and stand in solidarity for justice and peace for our neighbors.  Especially our Muslim neighbors in the Middle East and North Africa who are fighting for their very lives and the future for their children.  These people are not terrorists; they are mourners who long for the very freedoms we have of stepping out of our homes and asking for change.
  Does the Koran demand blood?  Does the Koran demand allegiance as the only way?
Does the Bible demand blood?  Does the Bible demand allegiance as the only way?
Who decides?
  

Celebrating the Past (Lines) connecting to the future (lines)?

The plane leaves @ 2.55pm on Sunday for Minneapolis, a short layover and on to Seattle.  My place of home, smells of salt water and dead fish (let's be honest), family, an 89 year old mom who 'is going to live 10 more years because God has her praying for everyone and their sister', an ingathering of memory, reflection, and hope.  Isaac and I will travel together after our time of 'trust shaken, not broken' as my spiritual director says to a place of warmth, love, acceptance, sorrow, grief, fear, as each and all find their way in their own worlds of salt & light, darkness and hope, life and death, maybe.  Their anticipation is spoken in emails with lots of !!!, plans for family birthday celebrations and long conversations about this gift we call life.
  I travel alone now as a single woman no longer a wife, partner, friend, lover, companion.  I call my former mother-in-law who can't wait to dine over funky Chinese food in Auburn, WA, with Isaac and me; she desperate to stay connected to the daughter-in-law who always spoke direct, not unkind, but without a covering of sugar, intelligent woman to intelligent woman.
  After 4 days I go to Eugene, OR, my place of coming of age as a pastor, Campus Minister, a true believer and leader of this thing called Christian faith.  I remember falling in love with college students (something I have never been able to do with middle schoolers, in a group anyway) their searching, fear and joy so tangible.  Rooting my faith in the questioning of an intellectual environment I crossed a line toward the internal when the love of my life left me for another.  Faith in my head needed to get into my body and soul or I would fall down, never to get up again.
  'Arise, do not be afraid' are words of angels and the Savior.  I am a believer, still and I arise.
  

Trust Broken, Now What?

  It has become painfully clear to me in loving another human being, in this case my beautiful and fragile son, trust is a negotiated line.  What I thought was a very clear boundary of right/wrong, acceptable/not, welcomed/no hospitality has become a space rather than a line.  So clear in my mind yet so flexible in his as launching, pushing off, setting his sail, finding his path, all these metaphors do not begin to match the emotional reality of a boy/man who crossed the line from womb to birth in my body.  Now, my boy/man is birthing himself at some great cost to him and to me, again.  The line widens to space and time.  Like the memory of giving birth--space stands spread out with legs wide apart.
  And hopefully, time.  Our sense of time is confined by societal milestones of developmental success, ah, almost 18, graduate from high school, register for the draft if male, get ready for college.  I want to measure sorrow and trauma, joy and celebration in increments of relationship, minute by minute, day by day, over the course of his life and mine together.  Our time together is drawing nigh as his lines open wide, he impatient to be out there on his own.  But I know this:  I am his harbor, his safe haven, his welcoming abode, his warm fire, his home.  Trust has been broken, yet home remains.  Thanks be to God.

The Line of the Cusp

We are waiting.  December 29th marks an odd day, not close enough for Christmas celebration, too far from New Year's Eve/Day.  We are waiting.
For the light to shine so clearly no darkness does overcome it.
For peace to reign in Jerusalem, home to 3 major World Religions, all based in peace.
For some equitable system so the poor are not oppressed by the wants of the middle class and above.
For our families to be places of welcome and joy, rather than rancor and divide.
For delight to return.
We are waiting for the new to redefine the old, or worn out or rotten, or hopeful, or joyous, this mixture we call life.
Standing on the line of the new  year, we wait--in hope, sorrow, anger, despair and deep joy, for you know what?  We are not alone!
At least we have each other, and some of us hold to the ancient/contemporary belief of God.  Who is very busy by the way even when we can't/don't take notice.
2010 is over, what will 2011 bring?  New Life.  Alleluia, Amen.

Dream Lines

A wonderful angel arrived in the gift box from my sister, Loretta, this year.  Adorned with all sorts of sayings the one that captured me is, 'Dream Bigger'.  What if I dreamed bigger about my personal life?  What if WE dreamed bigger about our communal life?
It makes me think of one of my favorite mantras:  "Am I living life with a clenched fist or an open palm?"  Am I trying to control the outcome of my life or am I participating in the Universe's plan, what I name God, to offer the very best of a caring, listening, open human being?
What if we were able to say:  "I am looking out for my own and for yours too"?
DREAM BIGGER!!!

Lines: Alone & Lonely

Two days, in just two days, I will be alone on Christmas, alone with myself and my 17.5 year old son Isaac. Church services finish at midnight on the cusp of the Eve and the Day, the demands of my professional life gone silent for the time being, a day when I say "I plan to stay in pj's until 4pm" as a way to help local people understand NOT being with family.  And there is the rub.
Living in a community with deep roots of which I am not a part, this holiday is particularly marked by sadness when my own precious family is not coming East nor me going West.  Unlike the Wise Men the star does not shine.  Only the dimly lit awareness of loss, abiding with this shepherd as she tends the sheep placed in her care.  No easy answers come in doing this thing labeled 'being faithful to your call'.  People better than me figure out the way to create families of choice while I still choose my original.
There is a line between alone and lonely, I live it almost every day not just the ones marked 'holy'.  Divorce  is the easy thing to blame; Wisdom, in Her beautiful way says, "No, this is the human condition until all is made whole once again.  Wait, ponder, work toward your own and the earth's healing--the line is narrower all the time."
In two days, I get to say Yes once again.