lenten compassion (on Ukraine)

To hear Brandi read the essay instead, click here: https://youtu.be/KsdKNSJ9W0Q

Volodymyr Zelensky is trying to save his country. This weekend he spoke directly to Israeli lawmakers, and begged them to intervene on Ukraine’s behalf. Israel, among other nations, has been brokering a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. In the nine minute speech, he asked a question that haunts me in an age where many American Christians live as if it is holy to ignore the pain of others: “Mediating without taking sides? You can mediate—but not between good and evil.”

Zelensky has a word for all of us. Many of us were rightly raised to compromise, to find middle ground, to keep the peace whenever possible. While these actions can create communities of belonging, they also provide cover for evil, destructive behavior.  When we confuse peacemaking with peace keeping, we ignore abusers and call it healthy. For anyone who wants to follow Christ, mediating is necessary. We should do all we can take can to promote peace around us. However, there are times when calling for peace or health in a community requires calling out those who block access to peace and health for all. To not specifically name neglect or abuse—wherever it may be found—is to call the status quo good, ignoring the lives of hurting people.

Zelensky’s words hoped to remind Israel of how ugly evil becomes when people choose to look away. Hitler openly demonized Jews and others for most of his rise to power while the majority of the world acted as if apathy, or both sidesing, or handwringing passivity, or not-my-probleming were appropriate responses. When people with power keep the peace instead of actively making peace by speaking up in precise ways, vulnerable people get damaged.

This week our readings remind us that God’s word points us to a Beloved Community that actively values compassion. In this kin-dom, we trust that God takes our pain seriously, asking us to do the same. In the community of God, we can’t expect for ourselves what we won’t also claim for others. I’m not okay if you’re not okay, because we are tied together, bound by both our shared humanity and divinity. This week’s readings remind us that apathy is not a spiritual gift, that staying-out-of-it is not the way of Christ.

I hope you have time to think about how costly love and compassion often are this week. We expect it for ourselves, and there is an invitation here to imagine how we might offer it to each other. When God claims us, God invites us to belong to the Beloved Community in a way that wraps us up in the healing of each other. What a beautiful thing, to belong to each other.

Week Four:  We belong to God and each other

“Isaiah was not rejected simply because he told Israel to worship Yahweh. He was rejected because Isaiah realized that true worship of Yahweh had implications for how one treated their neighbor.”                                                                                                                                  –Esau McCaulley

“But how sobering, that I can bring forth out of my thought-world into the external world either that which leads to life, or that which produces death in other men…we must understand that the reality of communion with God, and loving God, must take place in the inward self.”                               -Francis Shaeffer

 “Contemplative prayer deepens us in the knowledge that we are already free, that we have already found a place to dwell, that we already belong to God, even though everyone and everything around us keep suggesting the opposite.”                                                                                      -Henri Nouwen

3/23 Ps 103; 131

3/24 Isaiah 43:1-7

3/25 Ps 1:1-3; 23

3/26 Habb 3:17-19

3/27 Luke 9:46-48

3/28 Ps 106:1-8

3/29 Eccles 3:1-8; Ps 13

From Black History Month to Lent

To hear Brandi read this week’s essay, click here: https://youtu.be/B7bo6jGEauk

As Black History Month closes out, I am speaking up again. I didn’t write during February because sometimes being an ally means shutting my mouth and making space for my own heart to pay attention to the wisdom in those around me. (To that end, let me interrupt myself to recommend some incredible Black writers from the last 2 years. Read one and give me a call!

Non-Fiction

Dante Stewart, Shoutin’ in the Fire*

Esau McCaulley, Reading While Black*

Ibram Kendi, How to be an AntiRacist

Jemar Tisby, How to Fight Racism*

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief

*From an overtly Christian perspective

Fiction

Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle

James McBride, Deacon King Kong

Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer

Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half

This concludes our interruption).

Maybe the void I left created room for another voice to rise. It certainly created room to teach me new things about myself and my approach to pursuing justice and reform in the systems in which I participate. One of the things I learned this month is that I often approach the need for equity from a scarcity mindset. I mistakenly believe if I don’t do the work then the work won’t get done. That I care and know more than the average white woman in my world, so it is my job to draw attention to the wrong around us. Like a costumed teenager flipping signs selling subs on a street corner, I think no one will pay attention unless I raise my voice.

My active hushing led me to see the vanity in thinking I’m the only one. I now see the narcissism, sadness and stress I carried when I thought the appetite for change and discomfort are lacking in those around me. My voice is simply one of many, and all of us actively pursue justice for those around us in some small way. My voice and my role matter, but I am wrong to think courage and compassion are scarce. I now see that we live in abundance. We live in hope.

Most of us do love comfort, but all of us easily give it up for people we love. Most of us think our ideas are the best ideas, but we shift and imagine anew when we are at a table of mutual trust. Most of us do think we work harder for less than anyone ever sees, but we find deep wells of compassion when we are moved by the hard work of another. Most of us instinctively center our own experience, but we inconvenience ourselves and step aside when something in us sees the dignity and humanity in a person often pushed aside.

We know how to care for each other sacrificially. We know how to admit we didn’t know as much as thought we did. We know how to challenge the stereotypes that drive us. We know how to apologize and commit to do better. We know how to give second and third chances with no expectation of total reform. We know how to do hard things just to show up for someone else. We do it all the time. We do it for the people we claim as ours.

What would it take to claim more people as worthy of our care? What would it take to see the value in people we usually don’t see? What would it take to expand our us?

For people who find hope in the life and witness of Christ, Lent begins this week. I think Lent is a wonderful time to take inventory of our lives. How do we live, who do we value, where do we find hope, how do we invest in the restoration of our community to the One who made us all to belong? Each week I’ll send daily readings that I hope remind you that the incarnation of God into the body of Jesus is the ultimate gesture of embodied solidarity. God expanded God’s us through the person of Jesus Christ. Join me as I try to go and do likewise…

Remember friends, God’s kindness leads us to repentance, and God’s mercy is sufficient to meet us in every hard place. Silence trains you to listen to God, to find your own voice and to value the voices of others. Stillness reminds you that you are limited (and loved!), and that you are a human being, not fully measured by your productivity or impression on others. Solitude teaches you to know and love the image of God in you, and to embrace the process of each day, seeing every interaction as a gift. Begin a daily practice of silence, stillness and solitude, and embrace Lent to find a new rhythm of grace.

Week One: Commune with God in silence

“God is that way with us, He wants to hold us still with Him in silence…They cannot all be brilliant or rich or beautiful. They cannot all even dream beautiful dreams like God gives some of us. They cannot all enjoy music. Their hearts do not all burn with love. But everybody can learn to hold God…We shall not become like Christ until we give Him more time.”                                                    -Brother Lawrence

“We enter into a patient dialogue trusting that such a discussion is good for our souls.” –Esau McCaulley

“Maybe you search for understanding, but find only one thing for sure, which is that truth comes in small moments and visions, not galaxies and canyons; not the crash of ocean waves and cymbals. Most traditions teach that truth is in these small holy moments.”                                                  -Anne Lamott

3/2 Matthew 5:1-12

3/3 Proverbs 2:1-15

3/4 Ps 94:12-22

3/5 Micah 6:6-8; Mark 7:5-8

3/6 Luke 7:18-23

3/7 Ps 90:12-17; 91:1-2

3/8 Ps 95:1-8

lent readings, week four

To hear Brandi read this week’s essay, click here: https://youtu.be/ckwo4jFowFY

I grew up in an achievement-oriented household. Our protestant work ethic was actually our life ethic, and we were raised to work longer and hustle faster than anyone else. This led me to believe all sorts of things about how my value was rooted in my effort. Looking back, I know it is truer that we were being taught to demonstrate our value as beloved kids through our effort, but the two messages still conflate for me in, at times, devastating ways. Part of adulting is exploring the unintentional messages you’ve adopted, and to clarify what will remain for you.

As kids, we were so loved, so believed in, that we were encouraged to try and excel in any bles-sed thing we took a liking to. It was amazing. My parents were always game to teach a thing, drive a distance, or enlist for an adventure. Now, as a parent of 4, I have no idea how they found the energy to encourage us to try so much. I often encourage my kids to try to be quiet and not make any plans that require my help. Ha!

In all seriousness, my need to go, to do, to produce, has been with me since I had language to describe that drive. I live life at a sprint, which means the last year has been a relentless teacher of stillness, silence and solitude. I am so grateful to have been grounded in this way (I recommend this term with at least three connotations to consider):

The air traffic control version when flights are grounded and all hell breaks loose in the terminal as people’s plans vanish,

AND,

The grounding-as-punishment earned by wayward teenagers who refuse to abide by the rules set to help them (and others) flourish,

AND,

The contemplative practice of spiritual grounding, helping one be present in one’s body in the very moment one is in).

Grounding is good for us. It hurts, it frustrates, it destroys plans, it slows us down, it restricts us. And, it is good for us. This week of Lent, ask how grounding functions in your own life. (PS-This is a backdoor into a conversation with yourself and God about how and why you do what you do. How much of your doing, of your pre-COVID routine, is a way for you to prove to yourself that you belong? That you are valuable? What happens to your sense of worth when you are forced to stop doing, when you are grounded?)

For me, my understanding of my place and purpose tends to vanish when the “thing I do” or the “institution I challenge” or the “people I teach” are taken away. It is terrifying. I fear I am built to perform, and thus feel lost when I am grounded. By leaning in to the wisdom found in silence, the presence found in solitude and the value found in stillness, I am learning another way to be.

 When we were younger, we sometimes stumbled across the rare Saturday when no one had a game, a practice, a rehearsal, or a job. My youngest sister always anticipated this miracle first. Armed with the knowledge that no one had to leave, she would patiently wait until one of us appeared to be going somewhere. Then, dressed in pjs and a bathrobe, she would throw her little body between said person and the door, yelling, “It’s bathrobe day! You can’t leave!” Knowing what this meant, the person would usually start laughing, gently resisting her order. Looking up, other siblings would began to chant, “Bathrobe Day!” Inevitably having succumbed to peer pressure, 15 minutes later we would all be in pjs, starting a movie marathon. The only movement allowed on bathrobe days was when one poor soul had to make milkshakes for the rest of us.

My sister knew things I didn’t, even as a kid. She knew that grounding was good for me. She knew that every productivity addict secretly longs for bathrobe day. Lent offers us a similar kind of wisdom. This week, approach grounding with curiosity. Allow yourself to wonder if you matter even when you can’t produce. Allow yourself to ask God how to trust you are loved even when you are alone. How to know your life has impact even when your stillness slows your roll.  How to know your voice matters even when only God can hear it.

This week, pursue grounding for all the good and ugly it might reveal in you. Try bathrobe day, and separate the you that does from the you who is. She is in you, and deserves to know she is loved before she does a thing. I pray you notice that when you are grounded, you stumble into a beautiful grounding before God and others that allows you sit in silence, in stillness, in solitude, in love.

To Ponder:

“But how sobering, that I can bring forth out of my thought-world into the external world either that which leads to life, or that which produces death in other men…we must understand that the reality of communion with God, and loving God, must take place in the inward self.”                               -Francis Shaeffer

“Contemplative prayer deepens us in the knowledge that we are already free, that we have already found a place to dwell, that we already belong to God, even though everyone and everything around us keep suggesting the opposite.”  -Henri Nouwen

To Read:

Mar 10 Ps 103; 131

Mar 11 Isaiah 43:1-7

Mar 12 Ps 1:1-3; 23

Mar 13 Habb 3:17-19

Mar 14 Luke 6:20-31

Mar 15 Ps 106:1-8

Mar 16 Eccles 3:1-8; Ps 13