“If imagination is to have a real worth to us, it needs to have a practical, an economic, effect. It needs to establish us in our places with practical respect for what is there besides ourselves. I think the highest earthly result of imagination is probably local adaptation. If we could learn to belong fully and truly where we live, then we would all finally be native Americans, and we would have an authentic multiculturalism.”

It is great sport among some people who live in rural Northern California to deride Southern California. The only way they seem to be able to feel good about the place they live is to put down the place they don’t live. But even as some people claim that “my land is better than your land”, they demean the place of their habitation. Just as people who put down others are actually insecure, people who look disdainfully at other geographies are insecure in their sense of belonging to the place in which they live.

When I hear a person say, “I can’t wait to get out of LA or leave Southern Californial. for a better place,” I wonder what that better place is. There may be good reasons to leave. My observation has been that most people are running away and most problems follow us when we run away. It is much harder and requires more imagination “to learn to belong fully and truly where we live”.

We live in a time of such transiency; people move with greater frequency and families are separated by ever increasing distances. There is less and less investment made in the place we actually live. Why? I think because we are disconnected from the people who share the land of proximity with us. Connecting requires time and energy and we are too often tired. Shall we continue in this vein until all of us are “just passing through” and very few are ever invested in the places where real community actually happens?

Our church community is in Pomona which is part of what is called the Inland Empire. We are beginning an organizing effort, like OneLA, toward the East into the rest of the Inland Empire. (Currently, it is called Inland Empire Sponsoring Committee) We are learning this landscape anew and connecting with new people and institutions that help us have a more complete picture of the challenges and opportunities all of us face. It is better that we face them together than alone. It is better that we develop our imagination with others for the story to be complete.

Our congregation engages in this mission because it is one of the ways we “stand for the whole”. Jesus’ ministry was consistently about bringing people together, all kinds of people. As we follow him, our ministry must also include including others, creating bridges of relationship across chasms of distrust, misunderstanding and confusion. Do we have the imagination to belong where we live? I think we do.

It was one of the hottest days on record for the year and she was going to the store, walking, to get ice cream. I wondered if she’d make it back before it melted, before she melted. It wasn’t even 8:30 in the morning but the temperature was well over 90. I was trying to catch up on the weeding before it was unbearably hot. Thinking I’d finished, I’d gone on to another yard maintenance task and discovered weeds I’d missed. That’s when she caught my attention.

We got to talking and I found out she attends the First Presbyterian Church of Pomona, a church with whom our congregation has a relationship through OneLA, the broad based organizing group of which our congregation is a member. I know the pastor there and many of the leaders. It’s a small world.

We said our goodbyes and she went on her way to get ice cream. Her statements about perfection rolled over and over in my head. I looked around and thought; it is perfect. Even though I see all the trimming, the weeding, the mulching, the picking that needs to be done, that is part of the process of tending a garden. That is part of its perfection and beauty.

God gives us the gift of tending the garden of our own soul, our very own soul. It’s perfect. That doesn’t mean we are finished or complete. Perhaps we confuse perfection with completion. Part of God’s perfection is the process of tending: trimming the parts of our lives that have served their purpose, weeding the habits and thought patterns that inhibit our capacity to use our gifts creatively, mulching our spirit with prayer and fellowship to protect us from the drying effects of difficulty, picking the fruits of the Spirit as they ripen in our lives.

(In case you don’t know, I was serving as the Production Director for an event that happens every four years organized by the Women’s Ministry of our denomination: Quadrennial)

A woman I know from the church I attended in college, First Christian Orange, approached me to say hello at the event and said, “I’m praying for you.” I remembered at that moment how many had said they would be praying for me throughout the week. It is my firm conviction that the reason I got through the week as well as I did was because I was supported by God through the prayer of others. Sure, I took my vitamins, did Reiki every night so I could turn off my brain and fall asleep, but the reason I was able to maintain a sense of calm (most of the time) even though I was sleep deprived, the reason is prayer.

Prayer is a significant way we cooperate and work with God. Prayer is not a way to manipulate God; it is a way to to step into the river with God who is the flow of life, provides the flow of life to all. Our prayers can collectively alter the course of the river with God, who is in the water of life with us.

Prayer is a significant contribution you can make for the welfare of the world and the welfare of people. An early church leader once said about being out at sea, “Pray to heaven and row to shore.” There is much we do by way of activity for the welfare of the world and of people; that’s the rowing bit.  Our work needs the supportive energy of prayer.

Gratitude is often expressed by people for whom we pray. They express a sense of being supported and carried. Thank you to any who prayed for me or thought about praying for me through the time of Quadrennial. And next time you wonder if offering a prayer of hope, a petition for healing, a call for understanding really helps, know that your prayer is added to the river of life in which God moves and stirs possibility and promise.

The Claremont School of Theology (my alma mater – to note by bias), has made public its plan to include the training Muslim and Jewish leaders in its curriculum, and possibly for Buddhists and Hindus.  It is a bold move, one fraught with severe reactions from people who fear losing the depth and breadth of their own faith tradition. Fear is never a good long term motivational strategy.

We live in the most diverse region on the planet. Los Angeles City is the first world city with people from every continent but Antarctica. California is one of the most diverse states in our country. No longer do people from different religions “keep to themselves” in their own complete economic enclaves and social communities. We live in a democracy with people from a host of different faith traditions. Our world is increasingly smaller and people from different religious traditions are interacting with greater frequency in business and government. Shouldn’t our religious leaders, our Christian religious leaders be given some introduction to how to navigate these waters?

If you believe that Jesus is the ONLY way to salvation and that everybody else is going to burn in hell, then any move to have conversation with people of other faith traditions that doesn’t involve conversion will be abhorrent to you. There are plenty of Biblical texts to back up this theological view. However, there are plenty more Biblical texts to back up a view of universal salvation, meaning Jesus may be OUR way as Christians, but Jesus is not the ONLY way. Perhaps God’s grace is bigger than our imagination.

The time we inhabit is a time of transition; renown author, Karen Armstrong, has called it an axial age. There have been others in the past: the beginnings of world religions for example. This axial age is a time of in between: in between what we have known and what we cannot yet quite imagine. Transitions are fraught with peril and opportunity. The peril we have seen splashed on the front page in religious clashes in the Middle East, in parts of Asia. The opportunity we can help create when we recognize the humanity of another person, that they too are created in the image of God. The opportunity we can help create as we learn to welcome and work with people whose religious views are very different.

Instead of watering down our own faith, conversations with people of other faith traditions are opportunities to deepen our own faith. Why are people afraid that we will “lose our faith” if we work with people of other faiths? Because, I think, they are not secure in their own.

The decision to bring developing religious leaders from different traditions under an educational roof for a short while is one small, bold step to offer an antidote to the religious fundamentalism that seethes in cultures around the world, including our own, including Christianity. This is not a time for tolerance. This is a time for understanding.

Some of you may remember the “Love is” comic strip. It still appears in newspapers. One of the most famous captions was “Love is…never having to say you’re sorry.” The truth is “Love is…being ready and willing to say you’re sorry.”

Apologies for slights big and small, intended and un-intended, help re-create a climate of safety. It amazes me still that there are adults who believe it is unnecessary to apologize to children: parents, teachers, youth workers. If anyone needs and deserves a culture of safety it is our children: the children in our families, our churches, our classrooms, our neighborhoods. Children learn to ask for forgiveness and admit a wrong because the adults around them have the capacity and maturity to do likewise.

Forgiveness, asking for it and offering it, is central to our Christian faith. This requires practice. I continue to be baffled and frustrated by people who believe the best way to discipline a child is with a swat to the backside. This is a clear sign to me that the foundations necessary for a culture of safety are missing. A culture of emotional and physical safety gives a child the fundamentals necessary for a productive life.

As parents, both Mike and I found there were good reasons to apologize to our children. We are far from perfect as parents. They learned that their feelings mattered. As we showed them respect, they in turn gave it to us 10 fold. “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail.” Proverbs 22:8. And in Galatians 6:7, “God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow.”

In the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental disaster continues to unfold and will for possibly years in the aftermath. Instead of an apology, finger pointing and blame have been the order of the day. The lives of thousands and thousands of people are forever altered because their livelihoods are ended. The health of the eco-system of the entire Gulf coast is in jeopardy. All we can get from the people who created the problem, who do not even live in the region is finger pointing.  How can we feel the future is safe in the hands of these people?

In our society today, an apology is seen as weakness. It is really a sign of moral character. The moral character of our nation would be much improved if more of us had the strength and moral courage to stand in genuine humility from time to time and simply say, “I’m sorry.”

Compost has become dear to me as of late. We purchased a kitchen compost container last summer. Mike’s grandma had one; it was a plastic bucket on the sink. She’d throw kitchen scraps (non-meat stuff) over the hill. The plum tree on that hill was extraordinarily healthy and the hillside grew the most spectacular display of nasturtium flowers. Our compost piles (yes, there are two of them) are located behind the lemon tree. The lemon tree is one of the happiest I’ve seen.

When we take from the dirt, we need to give something back. This is a general rule. One of the reasons the dust bowl of the Great Depression was so devastating had to do with the breaking of this rule. In addition to the practice of mono-culture, growing the same crop over and over in the same place, farmers did not replace what was taken out of the soil in the process of growing the plants. That’s not sustainable.

We have increased our household’s contribution to the land that feeds us by making more dirt. Wait, isn’t God the one who made the dirt? Is it possible that we can actually make dirt? It is amazing that we can participate in this regenerative process with God. In fact, it is our responsibility to be stewards of the dirt we call home. It is amazing how alive the dirt becomes; there are baby worms in it. I do not know how they get there, but they grow up in the dirt we make. Does the stork bring them?

Our spirits require the same kind of tending. Life requires our resources of patience, perseverance, hope, compassion for others and ourselves…the list goes on. We cannot sustain the endless depleting of these resources. We must put something back into the ground of our own being, the soil of our soul. Often, people think they are replenishing the soul when all we are really doing is distracting ourselves. Making compost for actual soil is unsightly and sometimes smelly work. Replenishing our soul can require of us actions that may seem tiresome or non-productive.

The garden of the soul requires replenishing and tending. The leftover, throw away parts of our lives can often be transformed into rich soil. It needs the tender grace of God for transformation and that means we must avail ourselves of God’s tenderness by showing up with God, in prayer, in worship, in study. Making dirt requires effort, but it grows a great garden.

It is called “Dirt: The Movie”. Yes, the movie and we watched it. Yes, for fun. The movie is an entertaining look at dirt. Dirt is the skin of our planet. Like our own skin it is a living, breathing piece of the planet. Like our own skin it protects. It draws in nourishment from the sun and pollution from the air. Our bodies are made of the same stuff of dirt and star dust.

Why do you suppose the creation story depicts the making of the first human from the dirt of the earth? Adam is NOT a name, like the one we use today. Adam is a Hebrew word that means “earth creature”; basically “formed from the dirt”. And the dirt is in-spirited with the breath of God. From dirt we have been made and to dirt we return.

Dirt is not dead; it is teeming with life. As another Earth Day passes, we should give thanks for dirt because dirt is what makes it possible for us to eat. Without dirt, there would be no fruit and vegetables. Without dirt there would be nothing to feed chickens and cows and pigs. When we don’t take care of the dirt, we are hurting ourselves and all living creatures that God has given to our care.

Yesterday, I was at Rose Hills with a family as they buried in the dirt a loved one. I wandered around the hillside and noticed the names. I counted 5 different nationalities in a 40 foot square space: Chinese, Caucasian, Italian, Spanish and Japanese. It occurred to me that in China, Japan, Mexico and Italy this would be impossible, simply because those parts of the world aren’t nearly as diverse. From dirt we were made and to dirt we return. We are made of dirt and star dust, all of us. That we have in common and the spirit that animates life in us is the thread that weaves us together.

“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name (i.e. Jesus),” the religious leaders protest. Peter proceeds to dress them down for the public lynching of Jesus. Peter is making a judicial charge, charging these men with having Jesus killed by hanging him on a tree. No mention is made of a cross, of a sacrifice. The plans they had to silence the teaching of Jesus cannot be permanent or final, because the decision to kill Jesus is not God’s decision. God’s response to the decision to kill Jesus is a decided, definite, “No.” This is the power of resurrection.

There are MANY problems with making the crucifixion the keystone for salvation. If God needs Jesus killed for our salvation, God is culpable in the murder of Jesus; this is an abusive parent! If suffering brings salvation, then it becomes all too easy to justify and even glorify the suffering people experience. Peter’s accusation, that Jesus was lynched, should make us wary to consider crucifixion as a necessary part of our salvation. Would we say that the countless lynchings of innocent African Americans in our nation’s history is redemptive, leading eventually to the end of segrgation and the beginning of a  more just and free society for all people? I would hope not. The brutal killing of Black people in our country provokes in most of us intense remorse and even anger. It hopefully provokes in us a determination to be a different kind of people, a different kind of nation.

Sacrificial death is NOT necessary for salvation, in spite of what the theological establishment might want to assert. Will my views/interpretation which is also held by other Christians, clergy and lay alike, eventually win out? I’m not particularly hopeful about that, but then again, I do believe in resurrection, ultimate hope. This is the gospel I proclaim. Therefore, I must speak up and out about what violates this hope. Sacrificial death violates this hope, the hope that calls us not to embrace suffering, but to alleviate it. Jesus died on a cross for commiting treason against the Roman Empire. His death is a sign of what corrupt power can and will do. His resurrection is the sign of what God can and will do.

Unfortunately, this confidence can be fragile. I have observed this lack of confidence in adults when it comes to learning about their Christian faith. Rather than step into the unknown, many adults steer clear of anything resembling “study” or “learning”. The older we get, the more likely we want to avoid situations that are unknown and unfamiliar to us. When Jesus said, “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:15) perhaps he meant to encourage the kind of enthusiastic openness to the new and unknown that we witness in young children, eager to know their world.

Some of you have risked the unknown by studying together the gospel of Mark this Lenten season. I asked the adults in the afternoon class if the learning and conversations had made any difference to them. Everyone qualified their statements with, “I’m not a Bible scholar…” I said, “Neither am I”, demonstrating the fragility of our confidence. But I realized neither statement is true. While we may not be PhD trained biblical scholars, we are Bible scholars because we are intentionally engaging the text, using the most recent scholarship we can and our own intellects and hearts.

After qualifying their responses, each person indicated they had learned things, internalized more about the faith story we share. Each of them knew they’d heard of these things at some point in worship, in a sermon, but now it was IN them. “So,” I asked, “would you say you have more confidence about understanding scripture?” Each of them answered, “Yes.”

Wow. That is more than I could ever hope for. If we can develop confidence in our understanding of scripture, we can actually have a conversation about it with other people who may just want to know about this faith we share. We are the bearers of the good news, evangelists. One of the many ways we share that good news is through our capacity to help others hear and know the story of Jesus.

I hope you will continue to risk learning to grow your capacity to bear the good news as a follower of Jesus.

Sierra stream

If you have a busy life, you know how difficult it can be when something upsets the apple cart of your schedule, your list of things that need doing. It can be impossible to “take life as it comes”. For those of us who are trying to make a positive contribution to our community and world, there needs to be planning and “getting things done”. Then something happens that reminds us to ALSO take life as it comes.

Today, I got that reminder. I broke a tooth, ended up at the dentist, grateful they would see me on such short notice. Within two hours of the break, I was sitting in the oral surgeon’s office, being scheduled to have said tooth removed. Great, lovely. I will not be able to help at the church yard sale on Sat. to help raise funds to send women to a major conference in June. Don’t know if I’ll be preaching or Mike will pitch hit for me. I will miss the engagement party of a church member, whom I’ve known since she was five. All the plans I have for the next 2-3 days are cancelled or up in the air.

I am more mad at myself for being careless enough to bite down on a date pit. Crack! The oral surgeon tried to assure me the surgery was very straight forward, but that wasn’t what I was fussed about. “I’m just mad at myself more than anything,” I said. Then I heard myself say, “but I guess I just need to let that go.” These words of advice came from somewhere other than inside by muddled head. God?

How often have you wished you could just rewind the day a little bit and choose differently? Regret is a heavy stone to carry around. Forgiveness is a Christian practice very often ignored when it comes to forgiving ourselves. Taking life as it comes requires we develop our capacity to forgive ourselves and recognize God’s forgiveness in our lives so we are free to live more fully from places of love and trust.

There are “things to be done” I can still do, at least before the anesthesia makes me loopy and the pain killers kick in. I will also be required by circumstance, to take life as it comes. It’s a humbling reminder that I am human, prone to error and can’t control everything. For this I accept God’s forgiveness and determine to be more patient with my fellow travelers on life’s journey.

Thank you to one of those travelers, Susan Reed, who helped me learn how to post this message even in the midst of our being interrupted by this “tooth event”, and graciously received life as it came in a change for her day as well.