Where the Journey of Grace Begins

On Wednesday, September 14 I drove limo for a funeral at The Church of the Incarnation (Episcopal) in Dallas, Texas. I noticed prominent banners publicizing their fall sermons and Bible studies on the Old Testament. Each banner had a thought provoking question that seemed to me to go well beyond an Old Testament survey to probe deeply into human reality and faith. I am considering composing my own answers to these questions, not as an Old Testament overview, but an exercise in my own spiritual formation. I encourage you to ponder these questions and even share your responses.

I am not a member of this congregation or any Episcopal church, but a pastor retired from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) whose ecclesiastical journey has ranged widely. However, in appreciation and out of fairness to The Church of the Incarnation, I want to let you know you can learn more of their take on this at https://incarnation.org/walking-through-the-old-testament/.

·         How do we know what God wants?

·         How do we know when we’ve been rescued by God?

·         Are you ever too old for God to use you?

·         What does standing up to evil look like?

·         What happens when leaders fail?

·         What does an extreme test of faith look like?

·         What do you do when there’s nothing left?

·         Can romance be redeemed?

·         What was the first break-up in the history of the world?

·         Is your money actually yours?

Was Naaman’s Servant Girl a Victim of Stockholm Syndrome?

This week I have been digesting the story of the healing of Naaman from 2 Kings 5. I have gotten stuck at verses 2-3 pondering the servant girl who suggested to Naaman’s wife that he could be cured if he saw the prophet in Samaria (Elisha). She was captured in a military raid and forced into slavery to serve the military leader of the army that had captured her. We’re not told her age, but the story seems to suggest she was young enough not to be considered a grown, adult woman. Still, I think the story suggests that she was old enough to know about and appreciate the Prophet Elisha.

From our modern perspective, we readily recognize the brutal injustice of this practice, especially involving a child. We might also ascribe her sympathy for Naaman’s suffering with disease (the umbrella label of leprosy) to the Stockholm Syndrome, but the text seems to suggest she had an authentic compassion for her captors and masters. Also, the text presents her as an example of faith, recognizing that God worked through the Prophet Elisha. This is all the more remarkable since this seems to come during the reign of Ahab’s son Joram who “did evil in the eyes of the Lord," (3:2) and who seems less aware of Elisha than the captive servant girl (5:7).

This is another example of the theme that runs through Scripture of God at work through seemingly insignificant, powerless people. It also illustrates the power of loving enemies, which Jesus built on solid Old Testament foundations. I find a powerful lesson here for how we people who faith who aspire to faithfully follow Jesus can and should respond in the contentious social and political environment of our time. I think is speaks to how we should speak about those with whom we have political, and yes, theological disagreement. I think it speaks powerfully to how we can advocate for racial reconciliation at a time of increasing tensions. I think it teaches us how to respond to people that we consider to be threatening outsiders from Latin American and Middle Eastern immigrants and refugees, and yes, how we express the love of Jesus to Muslims and all others who do not acknowledge Jesus as Lord.

Reflections on April 6, 2016

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my will – all that I have and possess. You, Lord, have given all that to me. I now give it back to you, O Lord. All of it is yours. Dispose of it according to your will. Give me love of yourself along with your grace, for that is enough for me.

Ignatius of Loyola

Spiritual Exercises 234:4-5

Psalm 36:7-9

How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

Camera as Icon-Eye into Spiritual Reality

First Published: 12/06/2009

As I prepared for my June 2004 pilgrimage to Rome, I wrestled with what to do about a camera. I wanted to be a pilgrim savoring and relishing spirit enriching experiences, not a tourist preoccupied with documenting the sights. For one thing, the density of sights was so intense that even the most avid photo-tourist would have to be selective. I quickly began to see that my camera could be a kind of icon-eye to sharpen my acuity for sacramental images, that is the tangible sights that offered insight into God’s spiritual reality that touched me. I still ended up with about 150 pictures, some of which undoubtedly are touristy.

Above the stairway leaving the Monastery and Church of St. Benedict in Subiaco is a statue of Benedict with an inscribed blessing for those who visit. I certainly felt the light of God’s blessing as I visited each place on this pilgrimage, which I hope to take with me everywhere I go. Though not a major piece of magnificent sculpture or a central attraction, this became to me an icon of the purpose of my pilgrimage, to purposely bask in Christ’s light.

I was captivated by the smiling expression of Christ in the ceiling mosaic at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Church of the Holy Cross) and the ceiling fresco at the Monastery of St. Benedict. I took these as windows to Christ’s smile on me as I yearn to be close to him amid the realities of pastoring a struggling congregation and trying to launch a floundering year old son into adulthood. It spoke to me of Psalm 147:11, “The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him.” They allow me to adopt for myself the expression Brennan Manning extracts from the apostle John, “I am the one Jesus loves.”

The cross is the most widespread and readily recognized Christian symbol, and crosses and crucifixes were ubiquitous in Rome. Many were highly ornate, and others were elegant in their simplicity. When our guide pointed out the absence of crosses in the catacombs, I was a little surprised, which helped me attend to and appreciate some of their more common symbols: the Good Shepherd, Chi Rho, birds, people at prayer and worship. But I was enthralled by two crosses. One was on the Pascal Candlestick in St. Paul’s Basilica dating from 1186 CE and reputed to be the first known crucifix depicting Jesus on the cross. Its primitive presentation gives me a sense of immediacy, of entering with the sculptor into the suffering of Jesus. The other cross that fascinated me was the one hanging over the altar in the upper church in the Basilica of St. Benedict in Subiaco. Its unusual shape and texture seem to be an extension of the rock walls of the cliffs and caves that remain exposed and unadorned, congruent with St. Benedict’s three years in his stone hermitage. With the symbols of the four evangelists on the four arms of the cross and Christ portrayed in resurrection if not ascension glory, this cross conveys to me the hope of the Gospel. Its earthiness and luminescence fuse the realities of my daily living with hope, not just of ultimate redemption but of flashes of present glory.

All over Rome we saw flags proclaiming “pace” (peace). In one of the churches many hundreds of written prayers were tucked in every crevice and heaped in a deep accumulation around the base of a statue, even post-it-notes stuck to the hem of the statue’s robe. A mother was helping a young girl write a prayer and try to get it on to the statue. One prayer open on the base read in Italian “peace in Iraq.” Pagan grave markers were inscribed “D.M.” (to the gods) but in the catacombs and other Christian burial markers read “IN PACEM” (in peace). I reflected on our yearnings for peace in the world and in the Church, not just between Protestants and Roman Catholics, but among the people of our congregations. The floor grate in the baptistery of St. Lateran which read “CHRISTUS PAX NOSTRA” (Christ our peace) evokes my longings for peace and centers that longing in Christ. Whether that specific casting is that ancient or not, this site goes back to the time of Constantine, the Fourth Century. Turmoil has plagued the world, the Church and the lives of individual Christians through all these centuries, yet this piece blends my prayers for peace with those of these generations of Christians, and it centers me in Christ so I can be at peace within, even when surrounded by turbulence.

Guns In Your Heart

As a high school sophomore I played timpani in the orchestra. The finale of the spring concert with combined chorus and orchestra was a medley of Vincent Youmans’ favorites built around the theme of his song Drums in My Heart. The climax was a rousing timpani solo that I struggled to learn. The night before the concert I was still trying to get it right. I was totally focused when the performance came, and I got it. In the applause, I collapsed on my stool and heaved a sigh of relief that I had not messed it up. Then someone in the choir behind me shouted, “Stand up drummer boy. They’re cheering for you.” Dazed, I stood up and saw that the audience was standing too, but I still did not realize I was getting the only standing ovation of my life.

This introduction may seem totally extraneous if not spurious to what follows, but as I hear and read the assertions that “we do not have a gun problem; we have a heart problem,” I hear the Vincent Youmans refrain “drums in my heart” echoing as “guns in your heart.” In the 50+ years since I was in high school, I have grown to aspire to experience life as a Christian contemplative. I have heard my spiritual directors ask me the same few questions that I have also asked those who have sought spiritual direction from me. “What does this tell you about what is in your heart?” And “Where can you identify the presence of God in this?”

Not About Public Gun Policy

We have heard gun rights and gun control advocates hurl invectives and statistics at each other that seem only to polarize rather than find a way forward. It has become a zero-sum-game in which to compromise is to lose, and winning requires vanquishing the other side. I have nothing to add to this political-cultural dialog and debate. Invoking issues of the heart stimulates my Christian contemplative aspirations. I am intending to explore a spiritual direction approach to the place of guns in the hearts of both gun rights and gun control advocates. I have neither ambitions nor illusions about swaying political opinions. That is not my point. Rather, I hope to be something of a writing spiritual director whose questions can help anyone who has any thoughts about guns to spiritually discern what those thought suggest about what is going on in and the place of God in their hearts.

Personal Presuppositions

All of us bring presuppositions to every issue in life. None of us start with a blank slate of objective information. For me to suggest that I am bringing objective neutrality to the questions surrounding guns, specifically the place of guns in our hearts, would be disingenuous. I played with toy guns with the neighbors when I grew up in Oakland, California in the 1950s. Though others had BB-guns and some pistols that shot plastic bullets, my parents did not allow me to have guns that shot any projectile nor was I allowed to play with others when they brought those guns out. My grandmother lived with us through those years and was definitively opposed to guns, so even though she knew my friends and I played with toy guns, I made an effort not to do so when she was around. This was the heyday of TV westerns, and those with a lot of gun play were off limits when Grandma was watching, except that she liked “The Rifleman,” perhaps because of the father-son angle or she just liked Chuck Connors. Otherwise we were pretty much limited to Roy Rogers, Rin Tin Tin, Wagon Train, Bonanza, and a limited dose of The Lone Ranger who could shoot a gun out of the bad guy’s hand without hurting him.

In junior high, I remember feeling torn at a summer camp where I had to choose between riflery and archery classes. I chose archery rationalizing it was more of a sport, and actually worked on my archery skills for some time after bringing a bow and arrows home from that camp experience.

While not routine, gun accidents and crimes among relatives, friends and neighbors were known in our neighborhood and among our family’s friends. Some were minor and near misses, but several were tragic. I do not remember any anti-gun lectures from my parents, but I did hear plenty of head-shaking, tongue-wagging questioning of the wisdom of having guns around the house. My parents had friends who hunted, but my father’s interest was in fishing, perhaps with much the same rationalization I used with archery. Yes, we killed and ate the fish. Yes, we bragged about the size and number we caught. But whenever hunting and fishing were discussed together, my father consistently eschewed the guns.

With this background, I can say I have no particular moral objection to hunting per se, though I have never gone hunting myself. I would suggest that eating the meat of hunted animals is almost morally indistinguishable from eating the meat of farm animals. Humane practices and conservation rules should apply to both. I am ambivalent about friends who engage in trophy hunting without compunction, but I do have reservations about personal ego interfering with ethical thinking. Having said that, I would not condemn all trophy hunting.

I have never been a gun owner and have no ambition or expectation of becoming one. But I would not impose my choice on others as a moral obligation or even preference. For centuries firearms have been vital tools in agriculture and sustenance. I recognize the legitimate role of firearms for law enforcement and military purposes. Exploring the proper societal and spiritual implications of these careers is a significant issue beyond the scope of what I am exploring here. Because I believe our attitudes about law and self-defense are heart issues, I will leave that for those spiritual explorations, but suffice it to say that I am not intending to suggest a legal proposal about guns one way or another.

Window into the Heart

Twenty-some years ago, while on a four month sabbatical in the L’Arche Daybreak Community in Ontario, I had the privilege of weekly spiritual direction/companionship conversations with Henri Nouwen.  Once I was bemoaning that I had snapped at then seven year old Erik and spoken too harshly. Henri quoted Jesus in Matthew 12:34, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Henri and I talked for some time about what my words to Erik indicated about what was going on in my heart. He told me, “If you want to know what is going on in your heart, listen to what you say when you speak before you think.” I have amended that to include what you manage to stop yourself from saying by thinking at least a little. Henri also told me that being more vigilant and disciplined about what I speak doesn’t solve the problem. The solution is to change what goes into and feeds my heart.

So I hope to explore how what we think and say about guns reveals what is going on in our hearts. Whether you consider yourself a gun rights or gun regulation advocate, particularly if you are vocal about guns, what does that tell you about the overflow from your heart?

Speak Only for Yourself

An essential principle of spiritual direction and spiritual companion conversation (and therapeutic counseling and court testimony for that matter) is that you can only speak for yourself. You can talk about your own experiences and emotions. You may not speculate about, affirm or critique what may or may not be going on in someone else’s heart regardless of how obvious it seems to you. Jesus understood this well when he said, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” (Luke 6:41-42; Matthew 7:3-5)

Writing and Talking about What You Find in Your Heart

As we are all prone to rationalizing and passing over uncomfortable insights into our hearts, I suggest that you write out answers to these questions. This may be a generational thing, but I do believe we are more likely to connect with the realities in our hearts when we hand write with pen and paper rather than typing on a computer or some other mechanical/electronic device. Rather than editing and honing answers, I suggest letting the words flow freely as you probe ever more deeply into your heart.

Even more beneficial is finding a trusted spiritual companion with whom you can have conversation about what you are finding in your heart. This should not be someone with whom you have made common cause or with whom you have had disagreements about public policy and guns. Rather, this should be a sensitive, objective spiritual guide who will not inject themselves into the issues but guide you in exploring and responding to what you discover in your heart. This will be most beneficial when you are on a journey of spiritual discovery. Choose someone whose relationship with God you respect and whose spiritual discernment you trust, someone whom you consider to be farther along the path with Jesus than you are. If you can find an experienced spiritual director, so much the better.

Juxtaposing Our Hearts with the Bible

We are used to Bible studies aimed at life application, practicing principles we learn from the Bible. This is a different process of bringing our hearts up next to the Bible to listen for God in the spaces between them. This is not about citing proof-texts to say what you should think or do about guns. Rather it is a means of gaining insight into the often hidden or ignored recesses of our hearts. The point is to allow the Holy Spirit to aim the Bible to shine God’s light into our hearts. In that way the issues are about our hearts not guns.

I have framed several questions around some important themes. You do not have to respond to every question. Choose those that you sense give you insight into your heart. Generally, these will be the questions that make you most uncomfortable or that you least want to answer. A few Scripture passages follow the questions. Answer the questions before you read the Scripture passages. No answers are right or wrong. What matters is the accuracy and completeness of the picture they give of your heart.

Once you have given your answers, read the Scripture passages and see if they modify your answers in any way. Do other Scripture passages seem relevant to you? If you are having conversation with a spiritual companion, ask if they have any Scriptures to suggest. Ask if they can make connections between things in your answers and between your answers and Scriptures that you have not mentioned.

Questions for Your Heart

Do you own a gun or guns? Why or why not? If so, what do you use them for: collecting, target sport, hunting, protection, agriculture, military or law enforcement? What effect do you think owning or not owning guns has on your heart?

Have you ever shot a gun? Have you ever shot a gun at a living creature (hunted)? Have you ever pointed a gun at a person? For what purpose? Have you ever shot a person? With what result? What light do your answers to these questions shine into your heart, especially places you have not looked before?

When you think or talk about guns for protection and self-defense, what are you counting on for security? Your training and skill? Someone else who is trained and skilled? The technical features of the gun? Law enforcement? God’s guidance? Divine intervention?

What fears arise in your heart when you think or talk about guns? Fear of random criminals? Fear of terrorists? Fear of your own government? Fear of angry neighbors, friends or relatives? Fear of otherwise responsible gun owners? Fear of accidents? Fear of suicide?

Have you ever been injured in a gun accident? Do you know anyone who has? Does it matter if this was an adult or a child? How does your heart respond to injuries and deaths from gun accidents?

Have you ever had a gun pointed at you? By whom under what circumstances? If so, what responses did that evoke from your heart? What rises in your heart when you think of this person?

Have you ever been shot at? Under what circumstances: crime, rage, military, law enforcement? Have you ever been hit by a gunshot? If so, what was the nature of the injury? How do you think that has shaped your heart? How does your heart respond to the person or persons who shot at you?

Do you personally know someone who was a shooting victim? Under what circumstances? What is/was their relationship to you? How does their experience influence your heart?

Do you personally know anyone who has shot another person? Under what circumstances? With what result? How has their experience and relationship to you changed your heart?

Scripture as a Window into Our Hearts

Of course, firearms had not been invented until centuries after the Bible was written. They did have knives, swords, spears, arrows and even some rather inventive weapons. Making direct correlations to modern firearms is tenuous at best. Jesus was much more concerned about the workings of human hearts than rigid rules of behavior, and in a broad sense that is true of God’s relationships with people in the Hebrew Scriptures too. I reiterate that my purpose in this is with our hearts and not with public policy. These passages are not correlated with specific questions, and I do not offer them as proof-texts for gun laws. I offer these as starting places. You and a spiritual companion may well think of many others. What I hope is that as you bring your answers to some of the preceding questions up against Scripture, you will find your heart being reshaped to become increasingly congruent with the heart of Jesus.

In the fourth century Abba Poeman said it this way. “The nature of water is soft, that of stone is hard; but if a bottle is hung above the stone, allowing the water to fall drop by drop, it wears away the stone. So it is with the Word of God; it is soft and our heart is hard, but those who open their hearts the Word of God often, open their hearts to the fear of God.”

Deuteronomy 8:17 Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.”

 Joshua 24:12 I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove out before you the two kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword or by your bow.

1 Samuel 2:9 “He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail.

Psalm 33:16-17 A king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save.

Psalm 44:3 For not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm give them victory; but your right hand, and your arm, and the light of your countenance, for you delighted in them.

Zechariah 4:6 He said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.

Matthew 26:52 Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.

Luke 22:35-38 He said to them, “When I sent you out without a purse, bag, or sandals, did you lack anything?” They said, “No, not a thing.” He said to them, “But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted among the lawless’; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.” They said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.” He replied, “It is enough.”

1 Corinthians 4:7 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?

1 Peter 3:14 But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated,

1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

Finding God on My Journey

This cartoon from the November 25, 2015 issue of The Christian Century is not only an appropriate counterpoint to the unholy alliance of sports and religion in our culture, but also to a presumptuous view of God predicated on making our personal comfort and convenience the highest good and holding God accountable for satisfying us. From internet memes promising God’s blessing for reposting it to blatant prosperity gospel preaching, much of popular Christianity reduces God to our petty gofer, as though that evinced faith. Job’s words are prophetic corrective to such narcissism bordering on idolatry. “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” (Job 2:10)

In the six months since finishing my last interim pastorate, I have prayed diligently for another congregation to serve and to discern God’s presence and guidance on my path. Recently someone asked if I had a call yet. To which I responded, “No, and it doesn’t look like that’s on the horizon, so we’re recalculating our path with changing objectives.” The person who asked, chuckled a bit and said, “Usually I hear pious people cast that as God is changing my call. I found your candor refreshing.” I can’t say that I feel particularly refreshed in this process, but having received and thanked God for many wonderful gifts in 40+ years of pastoral ministry, should I now blame God for this uncertain, uncomfortable, confusing season?

Please understand, I do believe God called me not just into pastoral ministry in general but also to specific communities of service. Having said that, I am also very aware of painful seasons on this journey, often direct outcomes of human brokenness, my own and that of those with whom I have served. My understanding of God’s sovereignty is not that God orchestrates daily details to teach me lessons or manipulate my route, but that our human free will is not greater than God’s sovereignty, so that as life’s joys and disasters come in the natural order of things, God’s redemptive purposes will not be frustrated, and if I am spiritually alert, I may be allowed to discern God’s presence even in the dark.

As with much of what I have written, I am not so much seeking to teach or preach to others as to sort out my own thinking, yearning to discern the nudges of the Holy Spirit. So I give thanks for serendipitous provisions of financial means to keep on top of costs of living without implying, for example, that God made certain people die at specific times so I could get an honorarium for conducting their funerals. That would be perverse.

My family and I still have to make important decisions, not just about daily details but also about the direction our journeys are to go in this transition from one stage of life into the next. We must make those decisions by being as alert to possible to the whispers of the Holy Spirit bellowing in our hearts, knowing that God is much more concerned with the kind of person I am and how that influences my decisions that with the specific choices I make. No matter where I am or how I make the money to pay our bills, I need to be growing into “maturity, the measure of the full stature of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13) I need to beware of “selfish ambition” but look “to the interests of others” letting the Holy Spirit cultivate in me “the same mind that was in Christ Jesus” … emptying myself and taking on the form of a slave. (Philippians 2:3-7)

Brought to Completion

Contemplation
April Lawrence 

I greatly admired how my parents seemed to embrace what life brought next rather than clinging to what they had passed through. As their son I felt their joy as I started and finished high school and college, got married and had children, moved through my career from Christian education editing, writing and research into pastoral ministry. Several time when I spoke with my mother on the phone as she approached her death at 94 she said to me, “I’ve had a full, wonderful life and done everything I wanted to do. The only thing I haven’t experienced is dying and I’m looking forward to finding out what that’s like.”

I was able to embrace intentional interim pastoral ministry as wonderful transition from my full career of pastoral ministry. I was deeply enriched by the four congregations I served as interim pastor. The last one concluded in May, and I had two positive interviews with other congregations who decided to go in a different direction. Though somewhat disappointed, I accepted it with an expectation that something else awaited me if I would be alert for God’s presence. I have been driving funeral cars (hearse/coach and limousine) and conducted a few funerals. This seemed an appropriate way to wait for the next congregation to serve. But now I am discerning that a full-time interim pastorate is not what is next for me. So I am wrestling with God about how to understand and embrace this stage of my journey.

The Epistle reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for next Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent this year, is Philippians 1:3-11. As I have meditated on this through the week, I have been arrested by verse 6. “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” In 69+ years of life and 40+ years of pastoral ministry, I could often have prayed along with Thomas Merton, “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.” As I have been transitioning out of pastoral ministry, I have looked back at my preaching and teaching and the congregations with whom I have served and recognized how God has formed me with several clear themes. I have felt some satisfaction and been able to also echo the conclusion of Merton’s prayer, My Lord God, “you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Right now I am again feeling that I do not see the road ahead of me and listening acutely for the signs God is with me on this leg of my journey. As I review not only how God began good work in me but how God has added to that work over the years, Philippians 1:6 tells me to trust that God will finish it. Only, right now I am not clear about what God is working in me during this transition and the path ahead that seems obscure. As I meditate on this line, I hear myself encouraging others who were stumbling on their journeys and wrestle with how to incorporate this as the Holy Spirit’s nudging. I want to embrace where I am, but I am struggling to perceive and understand where I am.

What does it mean for me to think of myself as funeral man at this time? How do I respond to what I can only describe as grieving that I will not be preaching regularly again, with the intimate connection that has brought me with the text, the Spirit and the people of the congregations I have served. For some time I have imagined myself as a storyteller, a sort of “old man of the mountains.” This emerged clearly in my interim pastorates, but now no one is listening to me tell the holy stories. Yes, I write, but publishing is still elusive. Candy and I feel the ambivalence of our responsibility to support her father in the twilight of his years and to support our son Erik as he launches as a full-fledged adult and musician. I ache to embrace the present stage of my journey, but am having trouble identifying what it is I am to embrace.

As I meditated on Philippians 1:6, I notice that it is plural, not singular. While some translations say, “good work in you,” the NRSV and other translations say more precisely, “good work among you.” Though not a Greek scholar, a little checking does suggest that the “you” is also plural, not singular. So perhaps I should not be asking so much what God is completing in me but what God is completing in us.

As I meditated on this, I thought of Jeremiah 29:11, which is often used to encourage young people when they are uncertain about their futures, typically individually. “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” But as I look at that whole passage, it is not addressed to individuals but to the community of Judah in exile in Babylon. They were encouraged to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (v. 7) I sense the Spirit telling me not to be so concerned about my individual, personal path, but to seek the completion of God’s goodness for those around me.

First of course, is my wife Candy who is feeling the instability of this time even more than I am. Then for our son Erik that God will take him on the next steps toward the completion of God’s plans for him, though he seems to be searching for the path ahead of him more than I am. And yes, for the rest of our family, for Northway Christian Church with whom we are worshipping and fellowshipping as we take these steps. And yes, for the families and funeral personnel with whom I work almost every day. I am writing and posting this as a concrete way of embracing what is coming now in my life and watching for signs that God is with not just me but us on the journey, even when I have no idea where I am going.