Cookies anyone?

Tomorrow is my oldest son's 14th birthday (I have absolutely no idea how this happened...I swear he was 4 years old just last week) and it's also the date my  mom is retiring.  For some reason, that has been a bit lost on me, I am amazingly excited for her.

This evening I stood in the kitchen, making a chocolate chip cookie cake for my son to take to the Confirmation retreat tomorrow (yes, he's a trooper for spending his birthday at confirmation).  I used the recipe my mom taught me - the one I have memorized; the one that is dubbed the 'best cookies in the world'; the one my mom makes; the one my kids say they are going to make when they have kids.

And I remembered how it used to go when I was very little...

Every Monday when I was a kid (actually, I don't know if it was every Monday or not, it just feels that way when I think about my childhood) my mom and I would make cookies.

She let me measure out the ingredients and even crack the eggs.  She held the bottle of vanilla under my nose and we both agreed it was the best smell on earth.  I'd lick the beaters.  And we would each steal a few chocolate chips.

My mom says she doesn't really remember this next part, but I do.

Once she slyly whispered to me with a grin, "You know, they always put a few extra chocolate chips in the bag just for moms and daughters who are making cookies together."  And I believe I looked at her with awe, thinking I was the luckiest girl on the planet.  And maybe I was.  Maybe I am.

I've carried that memory, however clear or faded it might be my whole life.  It says everything about her. Everything about me.  Everything about my children.  See, I  may have some of the details wrong, but the truth is...that doesn't matter at all, because what I remember is how I felt.  I felt as if there was nothing that could ever go wrong; that everything was possible in the kitchen with my mom.

That feeling is what matters.

This evening, as I stood there with brown sugar and cracked eggshells, my youngest son saunters into the kitchen and says, "Oooo.  Yum.  Can I smell the vanilla?"  And I almost cried.

And then as my oldest - my son who is more a man than a baby - snagged a few chocolate chips and glanced at me with the teenage head bob, I knew why I was so happy.

I don't really need my mom to come and bake cookies in my kitchen with me... but she could.
And I don't really need my mom to help me decorate my house...but she could.
Just as I don't really need anyone to share a Mountain Dew with me...but she could.

Maybe we never overgrow wanting that feeling of 'it's all about you and me, baby...'.  My childhood, my mom, my child who is no longer a child, all wafted through the kitchen mixed with the aroma of freshly baking cookies.  This is what it is to be happy.  My mom and dad taught me that.

It sounds like I think my mom's retirement is all about me, doesn't it?  I don't mean it to sound that way.  I'm good with written words...not always with spoken words.  And so on the eve of my son's birthday and my mom's retirement, I say~

Cookies anyone?

Love you, Mom.

The gift

If you are a woman then it is quite probable, if not a 100% certainty, that you have been invited to one of those home parties.  You know the ones - everything from jewelry to baskets to make-up to kitchen gadgets can be had.  And it's all centered around some conversation, come tasty snacks, and a nice glass of wine.

If you are not a woman...then it is quite probably, if not a 100% certainty, that a woman in your life has gone to one of these and bought something.

They aren't really my thing, but...I go.  Mostly to see friends.  I've even hosted these parties before...not because I want to earn points and get more stuff, but to support friends who are sales representatives.  Plus, sending my children out with their dad and having an evening with friends to catch up is akin to gold.

So, my friend came over to set up her jewelry; I had the snacks ready; the kids were set to go to pizza and a movie with their dad....and, my youngest son wouldn't go.  UGH.  Best laid plans.  All he wanted to do was stay with me.

I tried to explain to him how boring it would be for him - a bunch of women trying on necklaces and braclets, talking 'girl-talk,' and eating foods he wouldn't like.

I didn't matter.  There was no budging him.  So, the other two left and he stayed.

He watched as the representative took pieces to people to try on and my friends tried them on.  He watched as peoples 'oohed' and 'aahed' over all the pretty things.  Quickly he figured out a way to 'help'. He started picking out what he deemed the prettiest of things and took them to my friends, helping them get them on.

He was a very good salesmen.

At one point he disappeared up to his room, only to return with all the money from his piggy bank.  He gave it to the representative so he could buy me a pair of little silver cross earrings.  I saw what he was doing and quickly said, "Oh sweetie.  You don't have to do that.  I can buy them with the points I get.  Plus, you don't have to use your money."

And then...he started to cry.

Big, large, crocodile tears.

I was confused.

"I want to get them for you, Mommy.  Don't you love them?  They are Jesus earrings."

My friend, the sales representative, pulls him aside and whispers, "You have been such a good helper.  I pay all my helpers, but if you would rather use the money I would give you to get those earrings, you can do that...".

Essentially, she gave the earrings to him for free, so he could give them to me.  He wanted them to be a gift from him to me.

I wear those earrings at least three times a week - for the past 4 years and every time I put them on I think about him.  And when he sees the earrings, he smiles and says, "Those are the earrings I gave to you."

And when he says that it's like he's saying, "I love you," in a whole other way.

My friend who is the sales rep, she says she still tells that story at parties.  She says it was one of the sweetest things she ever saw.

Take the gift.  Don't refuse.  Just smile and say 'thanks' and hold the giver super tight.  Because it's never about the gift...it's about what's behind the gift.

Falling into Jesus

Sermon from August 7 - Based on Matthew 14: 22-33 (although it is not my practice to blog sermons...after a few requests for the written version - here it is).

Poor, poor Peter.  This guy gets such a bad rap...if only he had a bit more faith, or trusted a bit more then surely he could’ve walked upon the water, through the violent storm, in the pitch black of the night to Jesus....

Yeah - I don’t think so.  Because last time I checked people were never made to walk on water.  I’m not so sure Peter sinks because he’s afraid or lacks faith...is it possible he sinks because he’s supposed to.  

Peter’s sinking doesn’t surprise Jesus at all... Jesus immediately reaches out his hand and catches Peter.  

Have you ever had one of those falling dreams?  You know, the kind where you’re dead asleep and then all of a sudden you are in a free fall?  Something wakes you up, your heart is beating about a million miles and hour, and you are so thankful you are no longer falling.

Something about falling brings our fragility straight to the forefront. 

Which is actually one of the things that is so intriguing about Peter...and this may be a bit different than you’ve thought about it before, but I think it’s possible that Peter knows he’s going to fall.  

Really, let’s think about this, because maybe he just happens to be one of the smartest in the bunch.  

Remember the boat the disciples are in is getting tossed and turned about in a violent storm.  They have been fighting the storm all night, they are tired, and they presume they’ve been left alone.

Their little boat could capsize at any moment and they could be swallowed up.  Their, and our, worst nightmare is about to come true.

So, when Jesus shows up things are still crazy violent.  The wind is still whipping, the rains are still bearing down on them, it is still the dead of night!  

Jesus’ presence at the beginning doesn’t automatically calm down their lives.  Don’t we all know that?!

Every bit of reason tells Peter he is going to die - whether he gets out of the boat or stays in the boat.  So he chooses to go from total chaos into complete and utter insanity.  

Faced with the choice between going through the storm in the boat or going through the storm with Jesus, Peter’s picking Jesus.

Peter picks falling...into Jesus.

I don’t think we like to admit this very often, but sometimes falling is the best thing that ever happens to us.  Now, I am not advocating, jumping out of a boat on a stormy sea, but the clear choices in life aren’t the hard ones.

The choices which are so hard, so scary, are those in which no matter what we do we feel as if we are doomed.  It’s like Peter - there’s a mess staying in the boat and a mess getting out of the boat.

When choices are clear, when life is going smoothly it’s easy (or maybe easier) to profess our belief in God.  But when choices aren’t clear, when life keeps hitting us with one thing after another, I think we’re more apt to say, “God, why aren’t you doing something?” or “I just don’t know what to do.”

I really hate this, but it’s been my experience and people have told me the same thing and honestly, it is the witness of the entire Bible - 

Storms are often when we most encounter God.  The closest I’ve ever felt to God was in the worst times of my life.  I wish that wasn’t true, but it is.

Peter - about to lose his life - finally knows that his whole life, his whole being, is utterly in Jesus’ hands.  The only one who can save him in Jesus...and he finally knows it.  “Lord, save me.”  

Lord, save us.

Save us from the things we know we need saving from and the things we don’t.  

Peter’s worries that night were all about the storm...I don’t think he stopped worrying just because Jesus had him, but I do think he knew he’d make it.  

So what are your worries? What’s your storm? What’s the thing that gives you the ‘falling dream’?

Now here’s the thing - Peter picks Jesus - he makes a choice...seemingly the right one.  Choose Jesus - isn’t that what we often say.  Well, seriously, of course I want to choose Jesus...I sometimes just don’t  know where he is or what if I make the wrong choice.  I am in a storm after all and can’t really see straight...

I actually don’t think this is about our choice.  This is about Jesus‘ choice.  Jesus‘ choice to be with us no matter whether we stay in the boat or get out of the boat; whether we go left or right; whether we stay or we go.

Jesus is actually on the water and in the boat.  

Where’s Jesus in all you are going through?

Wherever you are.

The promise I want you to hear today is, Jesus is with you in it, even if you can’t see him, feel him; even if when your trust falters, even when you’re fairly certain that God’s got bigger things to worry about then what you’re going through...

I was thinking about this - about Peter’s willingness and unwillingness to trust, about the storms of life, and about how sometimes it really is hard to know how we’re going to make it when we just feel like our heads are under water and we’re drowning.  

I was reminded of this image someone once used to talk about trusting our faith.  And I think it is about that, but I think it’s actually more about God’s faithfulness to us.

So maybe this is an image, a story, a vision, that you can carry with you.

All of my children can swim - they are great swimmers.  We started them early...

When they were learning the lifeguards stood in the water, put their arms out and said, “Come on.  Get in.  You will be fine.”  And they were.  Maybe when we’re younger we just don’t know any better.

Soon they were swimming...maybe not across the Chesapeake, but swimming none-the-less.  They learned if they moved their arms and legs with enough vigor and determination - basically if they thrashed around enough- then they wouldn’t sink or swallow too much water.

However, when it came time for them to learn how to float on their backs the experience was entirely different.  The whole thing is counter-intuitive.  We want to thrash to stay afloat, but if we do that when we’re on our backs, then we end up swallowing a bunch a water and sinking.

Lying on our backs we are sure we are going to fall...sink straight to the bottom of the pool.

But eventually, if we give up control and trust that the water really will support us, really will hold us up, really can do what seems totally impossible, then we float!

We realize that the thing we need to float has been there the whole time and it has nothing to do with us.  Floating has everything to do with the water. 

You making it through the storms of life has everything to do with God’s promise in Jesus - never will I leave you, never will I forsake you, I am with you until the end of the age.  

We have been caught by a God who will move heaven and earth; wind and water to save us. 

Save us Lord, because we need you so.  Amen.  

How is it with your soul?

I am restless by nature.  If God asked me to move a mountain, I would be all over it.  I'd gather a team, grab a bunch of shovels, put on my boots and get to work.  I do.

I am not a good sitter.  When I am feeling especially overwhelmed I often think, "Wouldn't it be nice to sit on my back porch, sip a soda, and read a book (or maybe a 'trash' magazine like Cosmo or something).  But given the chance, I really don't know how to do that well.

It's much harder for me when Jesus says, "Come, sit with me for awhile."  I want to know what's next.  I want to know why.  I mean in there a point in just being still, Jesus?

Well, the other night, I was having dinner with a few friends and one woman started talking about a Spiritual group she attends.  It's not really a Bible study, but they talk about the Bible.  It's not really a support group, but they support one another.  It's just a gathering of people who every single Monday answer this question: "How is it with your soul today?"

It's the founding question of John Wesley.

Every week to  be confronted by the question, "How is it with your soul?" by people who care is, to me, enchantingly lovely.  It sends chills up my spine.

How is it?  What a different question from, "How are you?"

It has stuck with me so much these past few days.  There is, for me, something about the poignancy and sweetness and directness which beckons me to look inward at my relationship with God.  As I think on that question I honestly can't help but sit and slow down.

As I've been praying and dreaming over this question, I've started to know again that Jesus, he really wants to be with us.  Maybe even enjoys our company.

Oh, I know all the theology, that we are Baptized into Christ and made new and holy through the blood and body and water of our God who will stop at nothing to redeem this world.  I truly believe all those things, but sometimes our words and theology may get in the way of our relationship with God.

There's something very, very compelling about God caring so much that God would say to us, "How, my dear child, is it with your soul?"  And I'm just wondering if I can answer it....


the cry of the soul
deep within the caverns of your body
i lie....restless for you to remember
there is more to you than flesh and bone

i am your true heartbeat
i am divinity
and loveliness

and you push me down
isolate me and cut me off
and it hurts.

what i know so well is
that i am
the you
the father
and son
and spirit
made.

i am here.
i am well.

Look how much...

The breath he was holding escaped his lips

as he peered out the airplane window.

"Look how much ocean there is, Mom," he says, "Wow!"

And I felt his breath in my ear~

Full of excitement and wonder and anticipation

as we were hurled into unknown adventures.

This must be, I thought,

a tiny bit of the excitement that God felt

on that second day of creation.

I imagine God gasped, even as the Spirit breathed into this world,

"Look....look how much there is and can be and is to come..."

Thank you, Carter, for reminding me of wonder on the FIRST day of our trip to Guatemala (and we hadn't even left the country yet).

Unintended recipient

I get a lot of junk mail and it's probably my fault.  You know, I'll order some super cute item for one of my kids' knight collection and BAM! I'm on every medieval collectors mailing list around.  Or, I order a new pair of running shoes and now, not only do I receive every athletic magazine on the planet, but also every road race promotion and outdoor adventurist advertisement known to humanity.

And then there are the catalogs that come with all the cute graphic t-shirts.

At least half of these catalogs are from stores I have either never heard of or never set foot in.

I don't look at all the catalogs, but...I do look at a lot of them, just to peruse what's out there.

Today was no different.  Not one piece of mail I needed, but 5 catalogs.  As I flipped to the last page of one I just happened to notice the postal instructions from the company.  "Please deliver to Current Resident."  The words 'current resident' were underlined, as if to highlight the fact that it could possibly be to the benefit of the company if the magazine ended up in the hands of an unintended recipient.

Which, of course...it would be, because as soon as it lands in an unintended recipient's hands, the company has broadened it's marketing base.

Never bought a lego set in your life and you love Volkswagen Bugs...we have just the thing for you!  A lego baby blue VW bug.

Companies know that every magazine that goes out has the potential to reach one new person.  They know their words don't go out with no return...even if they don't see the return right away.  Someday a person may be looking for a frog hose holder or a lego pirate or a self-scooping kitty liter box.  You just never know...

Which brings me to God.  Yes, I know cat boxes, legos, frogs, magazines and God are an unlikely combination.

But, hear these words from God found in Isaiah, "So shall my word which goes forth from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

Unintended recipients seem to be what God is all about.  Wherever the Word lands, God says, God can do something there.  I'm thinking that God would almost rather have the Word read by a bunch of people who have NO IDEA what they are reading or hearing, rather than a bunch of people who went to seminary, who can debate dogma and theology on blogs and in classrooms.

Yes, proper teaching and preaching and exegesis are necessary.

But even when we screw it up (which we will) that doesn't mean that the Word returns empty or does nothing - that would be a fairly low and flat view of what the Word of God can accomplish.  What we view as unintentional or accidental or mis-delivered may just be the means through which God will work.

If God's word can work through Pharaoh and Saul, then I'm fairly certain the religious and denominational and racial and ethical and sexual lines we've drawn aren't going to stop the Word of God from accomplishing all that God intends.

Which brings me to my primary point of pondering...
If the magazine marketers intension is mailing to whoever so that people will buy from them...
Then what's God's intention?

Isaiah's words don't actually say.
Maybe we're not supposed to know.  Did you ever think of it that way?  I mean...of course, we want to  know, we think we know, but we do not fully know the mind of God, even as we are given the mind of Christ, as Paul says.

Sure, we know a lot about what God's ultimate intentions are for the world and mostly those intentions are related to restoration of relationships between God and humanity.

But wouldn't it be interesting to trust that God sends the Word out...and then see what good came come from it rather than just deciding whether the way it's proclaimed or interpreted is right or wrong.

I hear enough about the fundamentalists and the liberalists; the ELCA Lutherans and the Missouri Synod Lutherans; the evangelicals and the protestants; the spiritual, but not religious and the religious and sorta spiritual...

Really?
How about listening to how they've experienced the Word of God in their lives and in their worship and in their vocations and honoring that.  Because even if you don't agree with them, with us, with me...God is still at work and promises to accomplish something.

One cannot (well, they can, but it doesn't make it true) deny the glory of God working in unexpected places or ways.  If it's God, it's God, even when it doesn't fit in our dogmas and theologies.  We can't say God's Word can transform our lives and save the universe...basically do anything, and then say but we better keep a close eye on it otherwise it will fail to accomplish God's mission.

It is not up to us to control God's Word.  It is up to us to share it as much as we possibly can, in as many places as we possibly can, in as many ways as we possibly can.

What we deem as unintended recipients or inconsequential interactions, God may see as current residents, who happen to be in the right place at the right time.

The Word promises to return to God full.  That filling up may just take a bit of time sometimes, especially when we end up spilling things on the ground.  But the Word made a promise to God to return full so that we might all dance in the light of God, so that the trees might clap their hands to the music of God, and so that the all might join in the song the God is conducting.

"So shall my word which goes forth from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.  I will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands."  Isaiah 55: 11-12

The Secret of the White Swan

Every year around Pentecost I am reminded of this conversation with my oldest son.  He's 13 now, but I still recall this as if it was yesterday.  Fire, wind, dove, water, tongues...swan?

You know the drill... the kids are called up front for the children's message and the pastor asks a fairly innocuous question related to God and the lessons of the day.  One Sunday when my boys were aged 7, 5, and 3 the pastor of my home congregation called all the kids up front and asked, "Why do you come to church?"

They raised their hands and answered his question with things like:
"To talk to God."
"To learn about the the Ten Commandments."
"Because my parents make me..."

My oldest son raised his hand and said, "To learn about the secret of the white swan."

The pastor looked at me, looked at him, and then said, "What?"

My son adamantly said, "You know!  The secret of the white swan."

The pastor quickly brushed it to the side and moved on with his lesson, because what do you do with that?

Well, later on, as we all climbed into the car, I said, "Carter, tell me about the secret of the white swan..."  Now he's totally frustrated.

"Mom," he says, "you know...the secret of the white swan!"
"No, I'm sorry I don't know, honey."

With an exaggerated sigh he starts to explain with large hand motions from the back seat of the van.
"You know...it's when they take the baby and put him in the bath tub and then the big white swan comes down [large rushing hand motions] and lands on the baby's head."

Ah, now I have it, but this is a very comical image to me.  A giant swan plopping down on a baby's head.  I envision the baby hardly being able to breathe.  So, through my stifled giggles I say, "Oh.  Carter you mean when a baby is baptized...".

He looks at me as if I'm the one who's finally getting it.  "Yeah, Mom.  Uh - the secret of the white swan, that's what I've been saying."

"It's a dove and a font," I say.

"Dove.  Swan.  Same thing.  Who cares.  It's still what church is all about and that was the question."

Amen, Carter.  Amen - on so many levels.