My Heart on this 500th Reformation Day [a.k.a. Halloween]

There's this prayer about the church that includes the line, "...where it is corrupt, purify it." I love that line because it sums up being human. It's one of the optional prayers for Reformation Day that falls on October 31 every year (a.k.a. Halloween). This year adds up to 500 of those (1517-2017).  Martin Luther (monk, professor, saint/sinner) challenged the corruption of the medieval church at the time even as he added his recipe for antisemitic sauce. Catholics have long since instituted many of those reforms.

Here's where my heart is this Reformation Day. I'm grateful for the legacy of grace that loves first. A friend of mine recently told me that her teenage daughter doesn't wonder 'what would Jesus do' but rather that "he would love first." Love is the first move of God in Jesus. Through it we have some kind of shot at love being our first move too.  Corruption and purity, as the prayer names, are held in tension by every human institution, by every human, and by me.  No sooner do I say, "Love first," then do corrupt purity codes kick in - the things I hold close and dear can quickly become a measure of someone else's humanity and worthiness.

So today, Reformation Day, I remember that I am loved first. I'm pretty sure that love doesn't always win the moment. Inflicted suffering is evidence to the contrary.  But loving first is my hope - "knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts..."*

Hope is different than optimism. Optimism is a bit blind to actual human experience. Optimism says that things are going to work out in the end as form of denial. Hope sees corruption AND purity. Hope sees my own part in that murky paradox. Hope does not disappoint because it sees the truth of suffering and frees me to love first as I am first loved.  Happy Reformation Day.

Beyond by Colleen Briggs (2013)

*Christian Bible, Letter to the Romans, chapter 3, verse 5 [Romans 3:5]

Colleagues, A Love Language All Its Own

Yesterday I followed a whole heap of colleagues in formal procession and full regalia into a colleague's funeral. Most of us had also just been surprised beforehand by the news of another colleague's sudden death the night before - both were in their 60s. As we filled the sanctuary aisle on our way to the pews, the image came to mind of police officers lining the streets when they say goodbye to one of their own. An imperfect metaphor but one that gets close to describing the shared connection of work in common. My colleagues so often hold space for other people's big moments of life and death. It was different to show up for each other in this way, a motley crew covering the spectrum of grief, love, and loss.

Last Thursday, I picked up a colleague who had flown in for the funeral. He said he was grateful to be able to be with his "team." His gratitude is a bit of what I mean when I use the word "colleague."  There's a lot of love in the word. My colleagues represent a variety of kinds of work in the church world and, in my experience, it's one of the weirder professions one can be called into. The weirdness is part of the love. There are things that we understand without words because of common experiences that defy description. Honestly? There is much among colleagues that mystifies me after only a few years in the mix as a second career person. I can also honestly say that I couldn't continue to do the work without them. It's a love language all its own.

Defiant Faith: Red and Yellow, Black and White

I'm home writing sermons. One for Boogie Bob's funeral and one for Sunday. It was supposed to be a full day of writing but our Director of Youth and Family texted that she's down with the stomach flu so I ended up in chapel this fine Thursday morning with my church's preschool kids. I sang with them:
"Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world."

It broke my heart open, choking back tears as these beautiful, little people of all the song's colors sang with me. I sang this song to my kids every night when they were tiny. It's simple. Pure. Defiant. So many moments this week have felt loaded with defiant faith. A refusal to let natural or man-made devastation be the last word. From a hospital baptism using a glass bowl gifted from dear friends to a 1:1 meeting about alternatives to prison to home communion with a 94 year old to the surreal painted lady butterfly migration happening through Denver to a super quirky screening of the new Martin Luther movie, it's been a poignant, strange week.

A week made all the more surreal given Colin Kaepernick's knee, carnage and grief in Las Vegas, and hurricane after hurricane. Made all the more surreal by patriotism and the common good being shaped in ongoing debates about protests, guns, race, health care, immigration, media, diplomacy, aid, education, gender, incarceration, taxes, and more.  All of this to say that a defiant faith is what fuels my hope, prayer, and actions. It's easy to give up and hide. It's easy to disrespect other people and turn up the volume on my opinions. It's much harder to fight for your humanity as I hold onto mine while we disagree.

Martin Luther King Senior came home from a trip to Germany and renamed himself and his son after learning about Martin Luther's 15th century commitment to non-violence as a way to turn self-interest and corruption upside-down so that all people could live. No small thing, that name change. I'm committed to non-violence right down to the way I talk about you. Do I get it right every time? Not by a long shot. Do I get angry? You bet.

On the docket is confessing on Sunday my part in the mess, receiving training on October 15th to better understand connecting conversations across difference, and remembering that my faith doesn't mean I'm good, it means I live a new life. Every. Single. Day. I get a chance to live. Because if Jesus loves all the children of the world, then that means you and I are in this together whether we like it or not. It doesn't mean I keep the peace for the benefit of the status quo while people continue to suffer. It means that I lean into the chaos of our present time and see what's possible for all of us so that we all may live.*

Peace,
Caitlin

*Paraphrase of Jesus' words in the Bible (John 10:10) - "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."