We are having a lot of fun trying some new things with our worship videos now that the pandemic has made it so that my congregation can’t worship in person right now. We have been using some very simple video editing software but recently we received a grant to upgrade our software and equipment for our online ministry. This is a subscription I am looking into:
Adobe Premiere Pro CC | 1 Year Subscription (Download)
“O bless the Lord my soul – all that is within me – bless God’s holy name.”
In just a few hours, it will be my fiftieth birthday. I’ve been spending the whole day today thinking back over the last decades. My twentieth birthday I think I was at home with my parents – spending a few days at home before heading to another summer at camp. My thirtieth birthday I was at my first call as a pastor in New York. I was single and my congregation threw me a little birthday party. Soon after that, Chad and I fell in love and we continued on this journey together. By my fortieth birthday we had two young children, my dad had just died, and I was in the brief lull between my call as a pastor in Colorado and moving to my next church in Texas. The boys and I were visiting my mom for a few weeks and the boys gave me a crooked little cake. And now I will be fifty. The last decade has flown by in hyperspeed. My boys are many feet taller. Mom died. I got my doctorate. I was on a Norwegian reality show. I moved back to Minnesota. I wrote two books, traveled to Norway three times, and the South Pacific, and a few big road trips, and collected a lot more silver hair.
I’ve tried to commemorate this occasion in various ways. First, I began a project while I was still in New Zealand back in February. I made a list of fifty things I wanted to do before my fiftieth birthday. It was a great list and I was having so much fun checking off items bit by bit. I was trying new kinds of ice cream, learning how to make new recipes, taking classes, making plans to meet people I admire, and complete difficult tasks. I completed well over half the tasks but then the pandemic struck and made a few of my items necessary to delay. The list will still be completed, but not before my fiftieth birthday. Then, I made a list of fifty things I Know – I thought it would be a fun writing exercise and a super blog post – but some of the most important things I’ve learned in the last decades aren’t things I’m comfortable blogging about or talking about. I’ve always been pretty private. I’m only ready to tell my stories and secrets when I am ready. I can’t be rushed.
In fact, I dig in my heels if I feel I am being rushed. I’ve always been that way. I don’t like to be told what to do and I will not be hurried along. I go at my own pace. I do what I want when I want. Stubborn. Steadfast.
But there’s something about turning fifty that makes me less proud of that quality – even though in the past it has served me well. Because I sense time getting shorter now. Anyone will tell you that the years pick up speed as we go – and I have begun to suspect that if I continue to demand to go at my own pace, to not be rushed, to pride myself on my steadfast nature rather than nurture the ability to move and be moved, well, it will not go well for me. I’ll age brittle and bent, not how I want to age – with my hair flowing long and free, laughter and wisdom brimming.
I want to remember my fiftieth birthday as the threshold of “yes”. A “yes” to motion. Less of my death-grip on control and measured responses and worry. More of letting go, exploration, and messy. Less of buttoned up. More of the scenic route. More of “why not try this?” Less of “this worked last time.” More of looking forward and appreciating what is right next to me. Less of ruminating on the past.
In two hours it will be my fiftieth birthday. I thank God for each year. Each person I have known. This life! The flowers, the meadows – how the grass looks like waves on a North Dakota prairie, how the snow sounds different on a really super cold day, how the smell of woodsmoke takes me back to a thousand summer nights, how listening to the Samples always makes me happy, how good friends and good food make life worth living, how glad I am that Chad and I found each other and decided maybe we did want kids after all because my boys are my heart, how I am such a disaster 68% of the time and yet my congregation loves me and lets me be their pastor, how the right turn of a phrase, or the sunlight setting just so, or plants pushing up through the earth in my garden, or the sound of the wind in the leaves – how any of it, all of it – is so beautiful! So precious! So good.
I understand the psalmist – “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” How can I offer up anything but praise for these years, this life? For all that has been and for whatever remains, “O bless the Lord my soul. O bless God’s holy name.”
And so, dear listener, for what or who do you give thanks today? What do you hope to have more of in the next years? Less of in the next years? How is God moving in your life? What are you yet becoming?
Who know all that will yet be? But we know God is with us. God is with you, dear friends. “O bless the Lord, my soul- all that is within me – bless God’s holy name.”
Grace and peace to you, dear friends. In Jesus’ name – Amen.
This book contains stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe that became innovative literature discoveries at the time and extremely popular in its genre including: The Fall of the House Usher, The Gold-Bug, poem The Raven. Poe was one of the first American writers who wrote mostly novellas. Within twenty years Poe created two short novels,two poems, one play, about seventy stories, fifty poems and ten essays that were published in magazines and almanacs and then gathered in collection books. Poe was highly valued by Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle and Howard Phillips Lovecraf who admitted his pioneer role in the genres they were popularizing. In his thriller stories Poe tries to show psychic side of the crime from the inside. He is not interested in social roots of the crime, but in unmotivated actions that go beyond normal behavior of a person in the society. Nevertheless, in a series of stories while describing the acts committed by characters under influence of “contradiction demon” or“perversion demon”, Poe puts in rational reasons. The character from the story The Black Cat understands that his brain is poisoned with alcohol, and as a result his mental health and temper were injured. But this reasoning is too plain and trivial for the thriller.Narrating on behalf of the criminal, Poe brings actions under the control of contradiction demon. Combination of plans puts volume to the stories the events are at the same time rational and not, motivated and incredibly paradoxical.
Edgar Allen Poe ( January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country’s earliest practitioners of the short story. He is also generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. Poe was the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. This volume is a classic among American fiction anthologies.
My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love. (I John 4:7-8)
12-14 So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it. (Colossians 3:12-14)
34-35 “Jesus said, Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” (John 13:34-35)
16-18 “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. (John 3:16-18)
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.I Corinthians 13:4-8
9 Love must be completely sincere. Hate what is evil, hold on to what is good. 10 Love one another warmly as Christians, and be eager to show respect for one another. 11 Work hard and do not be lazy. Serve the Lord with a heart full of devotion. 12 Let your hope keep you joyful, be patient in your troubles, and pray at all times. 13 Share your belongings with your needy fellow Christians, and open your homes to strangers. (Romans 12:9-12)
Last night I was trying to remember the last song we sang on Christmas Day. Normally it’s nothing I would spend any time thinking about. Why would I? One season blends into another and one Sunday blends into another – and endless pattern of choosing hymns for the right church holiday, the rise and fall of the organ music always in the background. Music has always just kind of been there. Of course, there are songs I love and look forward to singing. Over the years I have so appreciated the skills and contributions of the musicians I have known. But I took music and singing together as a congregation for granted. It would always be there – like air, like the ground beneath me.
And then it was gone.
The last time I sang with my congregation was on Christmas Day 2019. I was supposed to lead worship on December 29th as well but there was a snowstorm that day and then I left for sabbatical on January 1st. By the time I returned from sabbatical, the world was already turned upside and our church had ceased in-person worship.
We are weathering the changes as well as any congregation. People check on each other, send cards, make phone calls, we create video worship services, hold zoom meetings, still participate in mission, and offerings are up. By most accounts, we are kicking butt at being the church in the pandemic.
But I miss the singing. It surprises me how deeply and truly and to my bones I miss the singing. I’m not a musician, I always had to rely on others to do song-leading – but if I could have anything back right now from life together as we knew it, it would be the singing. Hearing the voices beside me and behind me rising together. Some on key, some off. Singing the old hymns and the new. Singing the songs I used to sing when I would sit in church beside my mother and my grandmother. Singing the songs of faith I learned around a campfire by a Minnesota lake or surrounded by mountains in Montana. Singing ancient hymns I once sang and danced along to at a reggae beat on a New Year’s Eve service in Ghana. Rowdy Lutherans gathering at the Cormorant Pub to sing hymns and eat, drink, and be merry.
I miss the singing.
And to think we might not have that back for quite some time is hitting me hard. We church leaders keep getting reminders that experts say singing is a particularly dangerous activity because of the way it can spread particles in the air and spread illness. There’s no telling how long it might be before we can safely sing together again in our churches. And in quiet moments, especially for those of us with elderly congregations, it is sobering to consider that we may *never* again get to sing with some of our dear ones again. At least here on earth.
So I keep trying to remember the last song we sang together. I looked it up this morning and it was, “Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!” The final verse rings, “Good Christian Friends, rejoice, with heart and soul and voice; Now ye need not fear the grave, Jesus Christ was born to save! Calls you one and calls you all, to gain his everlasting hall. Christ was born to save! Christ was born to save!”
It’s a happy song – because everyone knows you end worship with an “up” song – a song that people might be glad to have in their memory the rest of the day. I didn’t know when we planned it six months ago that the closing notes of that hymn would be the ones that would need to echo in my memory for months and months, perhaps years. I didn’t know then that all the things I was looking forward to setting down briefly as I left for my time of rest on sabbatical would be literally scattered everywhere upon my return. Like puzzle pieces that no longer have a shape that really fits anywhere anymore. No more routine. No more greeting the same dear faces when they come by church for quilting or Bible study or worship. No more potlucks. No more confirmation kids roughousing in the youth room. No more little kiddos running about during the children’s message. Everything is different. Nothing the same. We are still a congregation but figuring out what that means now.
And like I said, we are doing great – all the zoom calls, all the video worships, all the staying connected with phone calls and cards and Facebook groups, oh my!
But oh, how I miss singing together.
May 7, 2020
Happy birthday, Mom. I remember you and see you in the peonies growing outside, the green grass, the coffee I sip, the sweets I will eat, and looking back at me in my mirror. Maybe I will make some waffles later today. I still miss you all the time. There would be a million things to tell you now – do you know any of them? Does the veil between us allow any information through? Can you see how tall your grandsons are? Can you see how silver my hair is becoming? Do you know we moved back home and I published a couple books? We went to Norway a few times and New Zealand and Australia. Every place I saw I thought about how you would have loved to see those places, too.
Your things are all scattered now. I have kept so many – your purse, your hairbrush, some dishes, your rings. I still wear your black jacket for the spring and the autumn. If you came back we would have to find you all new things. But I doubt you would want to come back. Norma is gone, your sister is gone – the world changing so much and half mad.
Sometimes I don’t know if I will see you again. I hope so. But I feel you near me less and less. Like a mist slipping away across the fields as the sun rises, so are you slipping away from me. Half the world tells me it’s all over at the last breath. My heart tells me there’s more and that the Father’s house has many rooms and there’s a place for me there, too…and I just hope my room is next to yours.
The Prophet is a book of 26 poetic essays written in English. In this classic, Gibran, one of the greatest poets of all time, shares deep wisdom on life. Gibran was born January 6, 1883, in the village of Bsharri in the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, Ottoman Empire (modern-day Lebanon). His parents were Maronite Christians. Kamila was thirty when Gibran was born, and Gibran’s father, Khalil, was her third husband. Gibran had two younger sisters, Marianna and Sultana, and a half-brother, Boutros, from one of Kamila’s previous marriages. As a result of his family’s poverty, Gibran received no formal schooling during his youth in Lebanon. However, priests visited him regularly and taught him about the Bible and the Arabic language.While most of Gibran’s early writings had been in Arabic, most of his work published after 1918 was in English. Such was The Madman, Gibran’s first book published by Alfred A. Knopf, in 1918. The Processions (in Arabic) and Twenty Drawings were published the following year. In 1920, Gibran re-created the Arabic-language New York Pen League with its original founders Arida and Haddad; Rihani, Naimy, and other Mahjari writers such as Elia Abu Madi. The same year, The Tempests was published in Arabic in Cairo, and The Forerunner in New York. In a letter of 1921 to Naimy, Gibran reported that doctors had told him to “give up all kinds of work and exertion for six months, and do nothing but eat, drink and rest”; in 1922, Gibran was ordered to “stay away from cities and city life” and had rented a cottage near the sea, planning to move there with Marianna and to remain until “this heart [regained] its orderly course”; this three-month summer in Scituate, he later told Haskell, was a refreshing time, during which he wrote some of “the best Arabic poems” he had ever written.In 1923, The New and the Marvelous was published in Arabic in Cairo, whereas The Prophet was published in New York. The Prophet sold well despite a cool critical reception. At a reading of The Prophet organized by rector William Norman Guthrie in St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, Gibran met Young, who would occasionally work as his secretary from 1925 until his death (no remuneration was paid). In 1924, Gibran told Haskell that he had been contracted to write ten pieces for Al-Hilal in Cairo. In 1925, Gibran participated in the founding of the periodical The New East.Although born and raised into a Maronite Christian family and having attended a Maronite school, Gibran was also influenced by Islam, and especially by the mysticism of the Sufis. His knowledge of Lebanon’s bloody history, with its destructive factional struggles, strengthened his belief in the fundamental unity of religions, which his parents exemplified by welcoming people of various religions in their home. Gibran’s mysticism was a convergence of several different influences.The popularity of The Prophet grew markedly during the 1960s with the American counterculture and then with the flowering of the New Age movements. It has remained popular with these and with the wider population to this day. Since it was first published in 1923, The Prophet has never been out of print. It has been translated into more than 100 languages, making it among the top ten most translated books in history. It was one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century in the United States. Kahlil Gibran died on April 10, 1931 from cirrhosis of the liver. (Find out more about Kahlil Gibran at the in-depth source of this author information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahlil_Gibran)
Check out this classic today at Amazon:
It was January of 1993 – the lonesome stretch of winter when the novelty of the season has worn off and everyone knows there’s still a long way to go until spring. I was between college and seminary and traveling around with a Lutheran Youth Encounter team. I’ve shared with you stories of those years before. We put on programs in churches sharing music and stories and puppet shows. The team I was on that year traveled mostly in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Canada, and North and South Dakota.
We traveled in a beige paneled van from place to place and this was in the days before everyone had a cell phone with GPS. We used maps and directions given to us by people at the churches we were headed to. We learned in those days that most people are not very good at giving directions. We also learned that there are some roads in North Dakota that are not plowed all the way through during the winter. We figured this out one day as we were trying to take a short cut from one small town in North Dakota to another, cruising along on a wintery gravel road. We went over a small hill and as we came down the other side were stopped abruptly as we were buried up to our hood in snow.
So there we were. No cell phones to call for help, the winter wind swirling the snow all around us. The temperature hovering around zero. Miles from anywhere. The seven of us all responded differently. One stayed in the van eating snacks. Some tried to dig out the van. A couple more walked down the road for help. One put on headphones and waited and worried. And after briefly attempting to help dig out the van but feeling our efforts were futile, me and my friend Chris bundled up, took pictures, trudged to an abandoned house nearby to explore, pretended we were the Ingalls family in the Long Winter, and laughed until our sides hurt. I maybe should have been worried and afraid – and I’m sure if I had been alone, I would have been. But I wasn’t alone. I was confident that help would come and in the meantime, I had a ball goofing around with Chris. Sure enough, within a couple hours, the two who had gone for help returned with a tractor to tow us out of the snow bank. All was well.
But I have often thought about that day – how what I remember the most of it wasn’t being lost or stuck or cold or scared or how we were late for our program that night. No, what I remember is laughing with my friend and how a friend can make even the least favorable circumstances better just by being there.
The Bible contains many scriptures about fear, anxiety, and worry. God knew that part of every life is experiencing those emotions. And it seems to me there is plenty to feel anxious about. Pandemics, finances, the well-being of people we love, what might happen, what might not happen, aging, will I say something stupid, will I miss my chance, am I wasting my time, will he fall off the wagon again, how will that debt ever get paid off, will the business crumble, will I ever feel healthy and good again, will my loved ones be deported, why are there so many guns, will somebody take away my guns – you name it. Fear, anxiety, and worry are our daily companions.
But they aren’t our only companions. Something we talk about a lot is God’s promise that God is with us to help carry the burdens, shine a path along our way, give us wisdom we need step by step. God is our daily companion along the journey of life and knowing that brings us comfort as we face the fears, anxieties, and worries of life.
But God knew that sometimes we need God with skin on – so that is why God has also given us the companionship of friends. What a precious gift friends are. It’s our first friends who teach us important lessons about sharing and taking turns and forgiveness. Friends we meet when we are young help us survive the growing pains of the pre-teen and teenage years. Whether playing on a sports team together or going to camp together, it’s never simply experiences that make life rich, it’s experiences shared, isn’t it?
Studies show that friendships not only make us happier but they help us live longer and better lives. People with friends recover more quickly from illness. Social ties reduce stress which helps to lower blood pressure. Getting together with friends helps lower depression. And this doesn’t mean one has to be a social butterfly – even having one or two real friends is all that one needs.
We experience the grace and love of God through our friendships – God works through them in our lives to remind us of important things – to laugh, to relax, that it’s okay to talk about things that matter, and that we aren’t alone as we journey through the seasons of this life. As the old saying goes, “Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.”
And friendship is something we find in our community of faith as well. While the word of God gives us life and hope and grace, we come to understand what that means through our life together. Oh, congregations are far from perfect – there can be hard feelings or misunderstandings or brokenness in a congregation just the same as in any group of human beings – and yet, somehow God works through us to help dispel the darkness for each other.
I know many of you are missing the community we share here – it’s hard to not be together. And I know many of you carry worries of all different kinds, maybe things only you and God know about. And when you are feeling fear or worry or anxiety, remember you are not alone. God is with you.
And remember also that at any moment you can be God with skin on for someone else by sharing your word of kindness or compassion or grace. Your friendship to someone today will help make their burden easier to bear. You have the power to do that. Your words and actions are incredibly powerful – you can bring healing and hope and joy to someone today. Your phone call or letter can shatter the loneliness someone is feeling today.
We rarely think of ourselves, our words as that powerful – and yet it is so true. Oprah tells a story about Dr. Maya Angelou. She said they were at a party at Dr. Angelou’s home and a guest told a “joke” that had foul language and ideas. And to everyone’s shock, Dr. Angelou quietly escorted that man out of her home: kind, firm, but unmistakeable. And she said to Oprah that she did that because words have power and weight especially in our homes. She said something like, “I will not allow you to paint my walls and my furniture with your filthy toxic words.”
Words matter. Your words matter. Words build or destroy, plant seeds of friendship and goodness or division and pain. How will you use your words today?
