Like you, perhaps, I am weary of the battle that is being waged in our church family.  And I am embarrassed that what so many of God’s people see and know as the United Methodist Church is that we harm people:

• We charge clergy, bring them to trial and defrock them.
• We excommunicate.
• We silence burgeoning calls to ministry.
• We injure our LGBTQIA brothers and sisters over and over again.
• We alienate entire communities, families, and younger generations.

Yes, I am weary and embarrassed of this battle.  Moreover, my heart is extremely heavy knowing that I am part of a church, ordained by a church, that continues to injure deeply God’s people all the while proclaiming that we are following Jesus.

What the world sees of our church right now is not the hours and hours dedicated to ending homelessness or malaria.  What the world hears of our church right now…

Instead of driving his 1999 work van with the worn tires, Hubby was going to take my car for an out of town trip. Knowing that our cleanliness styles are contrary, I decided to surprise him and clean up my car in the fashion he prefers. (Clean, that is.) After going through the super duper car wash with all the bells and whistles, I emptied out every speck of trash, right down to the McDonald receipts and gum wrappers left by my youngest son. Then, in a daring move, I put 3 quarters into the huge vacuum cleaner to vacuum the floors. While pulling on the hose to reach the front seat, somehow the nozzle grabbed onto the front of the dress I was wearing. Surprised, I pulled the hose up to get it off my dress, but all that did was pull my dress up over my head. Frantic…

I understand the glorious alchemy
of salting slices of just picked raw eggplant 
to draw up the bitter essence from the flesh
so that it may be rinsed away, 

and it’s not hard at all for me to delight
in the mysteries of the scent 
rising from the oven as the slices
are baked for inclusion in a dish
to be served late tonight to someone well loved.

I understand these things.
I feel the joy of service and making
when I turn to them from news of this world
that’s starving for such joy.

I don’t know how to approach those children
dead on beaches and in the streets; 

how to speak to those among us so willing 
to let freedom be wrung out of us,

can’t bear to lose the sweetness
being drawn from us daily;

I don’t know how to love a nation
so openly bent on hate and madness, 

how to love and live in that world…

Fundamentalist Christians have to struggle not to make an idol of scripture.  Jesus is the Word of God.  Scripture is vitally important, because scripture introduces us to Jesus.  Jesus speaks to where individuals are and calls us to growth now, just as He did the people in the scriptures. He wasn’t adding more rules. The Jews had plenty of them. Our call is to an ongoing, deepening relationship with a living Savior that continues to change us. Though scriptures may be like letters from God about Jesus, they are not God, and He is not limited to them .

Catholics have to struggle to not make an idol of the structure of the church.  Again, Jesus is the Word of God to each of us.  The spirit of God grows in us through a personal relationship with Jesus.  The church can be a safe place of nurture with its rich tradition of spirituality, but…

I am a mere

droplet

in a bucket

a teeny tiny

minnow in a grand ocean,

I am a blip

a hiccup

in a rippling eternity

yes, I am very small

potatoes

this limited and flawed

(sometime fraud)

spud:

ephemeral, forgettable

sometimes a dud, and also

a paradox

because like you

I am potential

pulsing transition

a limited edition

ineffable, not replicable

embodied possibility

and with acrobatic hearts

we can cartwheel kindness

spangle dreams

cascade grace

across a rippling eternity

changed forever

by our echoing trace

(how ’bout them French fries?)

*Special thanks to Tabby Ren Elle for our conversation about “small potatoes” in a recent comment, providing the bass line from which to riff this poem.

Over all it’s been a reasonably productive, though challenging year. The challenge of moving has been a bit of a bummer, but the advantage of it being such a drawn out, tiring process is it has helped us become eager to get moved, instead of just needing to move.

Also, my faith has been stretched by the process and that’s a good thing. I realized recently that what I used to think were tests of faith (which I usually failed!) are instead a stretching of our faith as part of the journey. Hopefully, each time we are stretched, we make it a little longer before we have to pray, “I do believe. Help thee my unbelief.”

I hit a couple of areas where I realized that I would have to change or I was going to totally fail in some of the most important areas of my life. And then…

This one-note-struck
of all my recent talk
about my rage and sorrow
at how humans suborn
all the machinations of Evil
and take each other for pawns
to be moved at will
in games huge and tiny
can be grating, I know.
It grates on me as well.
I wake up raw most days
and on the other days it’s not long
before I am drawn to picking at
the new scabs and nearly-healed scars
of my previous wounds.  
I have them always on my mind.
I feel them festering and itching on my skin.
I taste them, dark and sour, in my mouth.

You don’t know how much I would prefer
to speak only of my garden 
filled with midsummer close-to-ripeness,
or of hours of simplicity watching my cat,
or of the peace in lying with my love
long hours in a just-enough-room bed.
I speak of these things often…