by Elizabeth | Mar 7, 2013 | Learning Story
As soon as I hit send on the “Living Inclusive Stories Newsletter,” my mind wandered back to those eighth grade girls clad in the soft rabbit-fur coats, standing by their lockers, chatting about their ski vacations. I wondered how they might feel if they read what I wrote (This, I hope, is a good sign of thinking “inclusively”). Trying to peer inside their minds and hearts, I realized they might not have really intended to be exclusive. Here are a few possible reasons any of us can fail to include others.
1. We feel awkward and shy ourselves. First of all, they were eighth graders. How many of us toss up a picture of our eighth grade self on “throwback Thursday” without a slight cringe at the memory of struggling to fit in our own skin? As we grow into the well-fitting clothes of Christ-kindness, we pursue others with a warm confidence and welcoming assurance.
2. Community bonds can interfere with welcoming new relationships. Many of these girls had been bonded since birth through their parents’ familial or friendly ties. They had spoken their first words together, performed in the fifth grade play together, and visited family vacation homes together. The dilemma of Christian community is that we enjoy one another deeply, so it can be hard to leave comfortable relationships, even for a few minutes during greeting time, to welcome a stranger, but we must.
3. Sometimes the “outsider” unknowingly raises barriers. That would be me. By my sophomore year, when I had met wonderful friends, one of them informed me that when I first arrived, some girls thought I was a snob. She said, and I quote, “All we knew about you was that you were a good tennis player and you were smart.” And it turns out that those attributes combined with my own shyness and awkwardness, made them think that I was excluding them. It takes courage to approach others, especially when we think they don’t welcome us. But Christ moved into the lives of people who would eventually crucify him because he loved those alienated from him.
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What stories do you have of leaving others out because you felt uncomfortable?
What stories do you have of leaving someone out because you felt comfortable with old friends?
Do you think you as an outsider might have unknowingly given the impression that you didn’t want to be included?
by Elizabeth | Feb 21, 2013 | Learning Story
On Monday, I mentioned that in church we had sung, “It is well with my soul,” and I didn’t have time to tell the story behind that song for me. Here is a brief version:
Peggy and I became friends in a small group couples’ Bible study. Since her husband often travelled, and my husband, a resident, worked many Sundays, we often sat together in church. I loved standing next to Peggy, tall, lovely songbird, listening to her strong high voice. She told me, “It is well” was her favorite hymn, though I can’t remember why.
Then, one day, Peggy was murdered. In her driveway, one night after coming home from work. It made no sense. Everyone loved Peggy. Her murderers didn’t even know her. Our pastor preached a powerful sermon that has helped me through other inexplicably bizarre stories. He said, “The question is not ‘why’ but ‘who’.”
Back to the hymn. In that season, I listened to this song over and over. I could hear Peggy singing it in my head. I never came to understand Peggy’s death. But I did come slowly, slowly to be able to say, “Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well with my soul.'”
Sunday began a week of praying and waiting for stories of major trials in three people whom I dearly love. When we sang, “It is well,” I knew it was God’s way of reminding me of his steadfast goodness. When we sang the chorus, the men led out, “It is well,” and the women sweetly echoed, “it is well….” In that lovely chorus of women’s voices, I thought I could just hear Peggy’s, singing from heaven, telling me, “It is truly well with my soul.”
I’ve copied the words below for you to read and consider. May you know God’s love in the midst of difficult circumstances today.
- When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
- Refrain:
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
- Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
- My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
- For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
- But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!
- And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.
by Elizabeth | Feb 12, 2013 | Learning Story
In our neck of the woods, on the Florida Gulf Coast, near neighbor to the oldest Mardi Gras celebration in the nation (in Mobile) and the largest (in New Orleans), there are a lot of folks feasting and partying today, perhaps because Lent begins tomorrow, or perhaps because they’ve always done it this way in their families.
I was trying to explain all this last night, to my poor husband, who is now taking the fourth day of call in a 5-day period, and is trying to understand what the big deal is.
This morning, I am thinking that we have great reason to celebrate this fat Tuesday, and when I think of celebrating the good news, this favorite song by Welcome Wagon comes to mind…So listen to this and get up and dance at the good news that the Son of Righteousness has come with healing in his wings!
But for you who fear my name,
the sun of righteousness will rise
with healing in his wings.
And you shall go forth again,
skip about like calves
coming from their stalls at last.
You shall be my very own
on the day that I
cause you to be my special home.
I shall spare you as a man,
as compassion on his son
who does the best he can.
But for you who fear my name,
the sun of righteousness will rise
with healing in his wings.
And you shall go forth again,
skip about like calves
coming from their stalls at last.
You shall be my very own
on the day that I
cause you to be my special home.
I shall spare you as a man,
as compassion on his son
who does the best he can.
(instrumental)
But for you who fear my name,
the sun of righteousness will rise
with healing in his wings.
And you shall go forth again,
skip about like calves
coming from their stalls at last.
[ But For You Who Fear My Name Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]
by Elizabeth | Jan 31, 2013 | Learning Story
Sweet rest is sufficient.
Cartoonchurch.com
“My grace is sufficient for you.” Recently I experienced one of those heavyweight championship bouts with horrendous insomnia. Some of you know the kind – top ten terrible — when you are awake alone for so many hours you go beyond worrying whether you will sleep that night and begin to believe you will never actually sleep again.
Finally, I remembered one of the best strategies for beating the monstrous fear, which is the larger beast than the Insomnia itself – rest. Repeat something true and meaningful — for me, on this night, “Be still and know that I am God, came to mind.” Repeat it gently, and rest in its reality. Take deep breaths, and rest. Be very still. Know that God is God.
As my body began to calm and my mind began to slow the race, another verse entered my head, welcome but unsought: “My grace is sufficient for you.”
There is no fairy tale ending. I didn’t fall asleep and rest like an infant should. I drifted eventually into one of those light imitation versions of pseudo-sleep and woke feeling the reality of the night, as if I had hardly slept at all. BUT – I did rediscover the reality I need to know in times of fullness and scarcity – God’s grace is sufficient. I actually marveled through the day at how relatively energetic I felt – where did that come from, I would think, as I walked out of an hour and a half at PT with a little extra?
Brene Brown talks about how fear of not having enough interferes with an attitude of joy: “These are anxious and fearful times, both of which breed scarcity. We’re afraid to lose what we love the most, and we hate that there are no guarantees. We think if we can beat vulnerability to the punch by imaging loss, we’ll suffer less. We’re wrong. There is one guarantee: if we’re not practicing gratitude and allowing ourselves to know joy, we are missing out on the two things that will actually sustain us during the hard times.” The Gift of Imperfection
She quotes Lynne Twist’s book, The Soul of Money about being enough:
“For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” the next one is, “I don’t have enough time.” whether true or not, that thought of ‘not enough’ occurs to us automatically before we even think to examine it or question it….
We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mindset of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough and we’re not enough.”
I think Brown and Twist are on to something with this fear of scarcity. They take me back to my need to rest in the heart of sufficiency:
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 2Corinthians 12:9
How about you? What do you not have enough of, or fear not having enough of? How does God meet you in this fear?
by Elizabeth | Jan 23, 2013 | Learning Story
It is REALLY hard to write the introduction to a [relatively short] Bible study on love. I am doing edits now and went back to this today. I’d love to know your thoughts. What do you hear people say about love? What do you think about some of these internet discoveries I made regarding the contemporary understanding of love? Please love me by giving me your thoughts:-)!
Love.
Philosophers, poets, moviemakers, and ordinary people have searched to understand and explain love since the beginning of time. A Google search on “studies of love 2012” reveals that the contemporary world thinks of love almost exclusively in terms of romantic or sexual love, although some studies focus on the brain’s response to a mother’s love or supportive relationships. Following current evolutionary science, it is popular to talk about love as a “primitive human instinct.” One MIT professor has determined that romantic love is best understood in the context of economic resources.
In the midst of such cultural conversation, we must ask, to quote Shakespeare out of context, “Is there an ‘ever-fixed mark’ of love?” Is it possible to understand love, and more importantly, is it possible to live love in a world seemingly desperate for it?
The Apostle Paul says it is not only possible; it is essential. In 1 Corinthians 13, often called the “love chapter,” Paul chides the Corinthians for their lack of love by laying out a long description. Paul begins with what would have seemed a bold claim: “without love, I am nothing” (v.2) and concludes with a confident assertion, “Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love” (v.13, NIV). Sandwiched in between these two statements is a long definition of love in about fourteen parts, depending on how you count. Every time I hear this passage read at a wedding, I wonder if the couple truly believes they will love like this (I know I did!). I’m lost at love with the requirements of “patient and kind” (v. 4), but I’m guessing everyone would admit they sometimes “insist on [their] own way” (v.5) And as nice as it sounds to say love “bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things,” (I Cor.13:7), who can really do this?
There is only one answer, the subject of our study and object of our worship – God. God can love like this, does love like this, and amazingly, empowers us by his grace to love like this. Indeed, without love we are nothing, but with God’s love, as we shall see in this study, we become something.
by Elizabeth | Jan 18, 2013 | Learning Story
As I wrap up a chapter for the new Bible study on loving enemies, I am thinking again about how stories help in the process of reconciliation. When we share stories in community helps us forgive our enemies and embrace “strangers.” Whose story might you need to listen to today?
In the new heaven and new earth, every tribe, tongue, nation, and people group will join together to sing the praises of our Creator and Redeemer. The concept sounds great, but what it means is that one day we will worship with our worst enemies, and we will work side by side with people who wronged us or whom we wronged while living on this earth. Miroslav Volf, writing about the impetus for remembering wrongs for the ultimate hope of reconciliation, writes:
…the irreversibility of time will not chisel away the wrongs we have suffered into the unchangeable reality of our past, the evildoer will not ultimately triumph over the victim, and suffering will not have the final word; God will expose the truth about wrongs, condemn each evil doer and redeem both the repentant perpetrator and their victims, thus reconciling them to God and to each other.
(The End of Memory)
If we are going to live in the forever-kingdom reconciled with those we have harmed and those who have harmed us, we need to open ourselves to the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation in this world. What does it mean to begin now to live forgiveness and love of people who are different from us? We usually recognize our differences with other people pretty easily. Seeing the common core we have as created, sinful, and redeemed humans is sometimes a little harder. Knowing one another’s stories opens our eyes to how similar our hearts are to people we differ deeply with on the surface.
