Hereby Declaring Mondays as: Favorite Life Story Days

OR:  "If You've Known Me for 20 Minutes, or Been in a Congregation I Serve(d), You've Probably Already Heard These.

Most days are normal.  Thank God.

But some experiences are out of the ordinary.  Some days are extraordinary. Some stories are more interesting.


One of my favorite parts of ministry is hearing people's stories.  I loved hearing about Buda and Sherwood eloping to Missouri.  She wore a red, satin wedding dress she'd sewn in Home Economics (circa 1930?).  I loved that Bruce built a zipline in his backyard for his kids.  I am still in awe that Betty left her abusive husband and was surrounded by love and support in her small, rural community...long before women were allowed that freedom.  My mother-in-law wasn't allowed to go outside as a child to play until the streets had been "watered" to keep the dust down. (When she first told me this, I was a mother of small children, and my first thought was, "Ummm....MUD?")

I am a fan of StoryCorps, a national movement to collect oral histories from people.  I feel like I've heard a lot of stories that, sadly, went to the grave with their perpetrators, so I'm grateful that more stories are being preserved.  I especially love hearing about the shenanigans and adventures of young people coming out of the mouths of their 90-year old incarnations.  It helps me remember that old people are real people with real passions, real histories and real experiences.  They snuck out with girlfriends, had secret marriages, dreamed big dreams, lost loved ones, overcame obstacles and took risks.  Even if they are frail now or their lives have become much smaller...it wasn't always the case!

I have stories, too.

So, I'm dedicating Monday to the preserving of my own stories. I think I'll enjoy them when the nursing home volunteers come to read them to me in the future. I hope you enjoy them, too.

Among my favorite life stories are the experiences of Extreme Hospitality I've known.

Just one for today:

I was backpacking alone in Israel.  I'd been living in Germany for a year and had met a lot of international students.  Before I returned to the US, I wanted to visit some of my friends in their home country. 

I'd been in Israel for a few days. I stayed at the hostel in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem and did some sight-seeing. I went south to visit the Dead Sea and slept on the grass in a park with some just-met friends when the air conditioning in our rented room broke down.  Somewhere along the way I ate something or caught something that started to work its evil power.  By the time I'd flown back to Jerusalem, gotten to the bus station to catch a bus to Haifa (to visit my friend, Tami), and was waiting for departure, I was definitely slowing down.

A man who was also waiting for the Haifa bus asked me, "Are you sad?  Homesick, perhaps?"

"Not homesick; I think I'm getting real sick."

In spite of that confession, he sat next to me on the bus.

In the three hours it took to travel by bus from Jerusalem to Haifa, I went from "not great" to "definitely ill."  I learned that my seat companion was a Professor of Yiddish at Haifa University.  He was an American who had re-located with his family to Israel to teach. When we arrived at the bus station in Haifa, he stayed by my side until he was sure I had a place to stay.  But, I was a day early and my friend, Tami, could not be reached by phone.   The professor invited me to his home until the next day when Tami was expecting me.  He was sure his wife wouldn't mind.  If he'd only known...

Once we got to his home, he and his wife got me settled in their son's bedroom.  I spent the next two days crawling from that bed to the nearby bathroom and back again.  The days passed in oblivion; I was either asleep or throwing up.  My hosts, virtual strangers, brought broth and soda to my bedside until I was able to sit up and eat a meal.  They communicated with my friend and made arrangements for her to meet me once I was well.

Keep in mind, once I was a mother myself, I could only barely care for my own children when they were vomiting.  My husband would not give me even that much credit.

 So, I am amazed that I was invited, sick, at a bus station into the homes of two wonderful people who had compassionate hearts.  I am still grateful.

Their hospitality and fearlessness in welcoming "the stranger" deeply impacted my own reception of those I do not know and my treatment of others in need.  Having once been "the stranger," I try to look at people through the eyes of my compassionate hosts, who saw, not an enemy, not a threat, not a danger, but a fellow human being in need for whom they had the available resources to provide care.

Two terrible days in their lives; a lifetime of influence in mine.

Bikes and Aluminum Foil

Today was beautiful.  We've had so many beautiful days in a row that I'm getting suspicious.  This is Illinois, after all.  Winter, ice storm, cold, winter, cold, winter, cold.  A nice spring day or two.  Then the blazing heat and suffocating humidity of summer.  Until the nice autumn day or two.  Then winter, cold, winter, cold and the cycle repeats.  Last spring was pretty unpleasant and I didn't get my bedding plants in the ground until the end of June. It was freezing cold, wet and a tornado blew through town.  Then it was hot.

So a beautiful day Should Not Be Wasted.  I wanted to ride my bike, Trusty Steed. (Yes, my bike has a name. Doesn't yours?)  But Trusty had a flat tire, so Spencer and I decided today would be Clean and Repair Your Bike Day.  Spencer actually had a grander thought: it should be National-Fix-Up-Your-Bike Day.  His reasoning was spot on: "If we can have a National Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day, we should definitely have a National-Fix-Up-Your-Bike Day."

So, unbeknownst to millions of Americans, N-F-U-Y-B Day was today.We'll try to get the word out sooner next time. (photo is not my bike, but same brand, frame, etc.  looks similar)

Bicycles, to me, are the perfect form of transportation.  Riding them is fun.  They are inexpensive. They are good for you and your heart.  They don't hurt the earth.  They look good.  Some people really like the clothes.  But, take it from me, bike clothes are NOT flattering.

If there weren't so many fast cars on the road (interstate) between my house and my job, I would definitely ride a bike. I love my bike and we have shared some of my life's happiest memories. But that will be another blog.

For now, one of the great things about bikes is they are easy to repair. So I changed the tire and while I was doing that, I was giving the rear wheel a bit of a sprucing up.

Which brings me to an important tip:  Aluminum Foil, Vinegar and Chrome.

If you dip wadded up aluminum foil in vinegar and rub it over your chrome, it'll take the rust spots off and bring back that beautiful chrome shine.  This is almost as good as my tip to buy a rice cooker.

Frank and I discovered this amazing, wonderful, cool little science-project/home-repair tip when trying to clean up a 1950's dinette set we bought in Jacksonville. A little labor intensive, but very satisfying. (photo is not mine...same table; our chairs are orangy-red.)

Today, I gave Trusty the aluminum foil and vinegar touch up she's been needing! I changed her tire and went for a quick spin to the neighbors to visit Spencer (who had gotten as far as removing the front and back brake cables from his bike when he decided National Fix-Up-Your-Bike Day was officially over.)  While at the neighbors, Ron boosted my tire pressure while Sharon dug up her neighbor's irises.  Spencer and Madi played Wii.  I admired the new trees Ron and Sharon planted ($35 for 10 trees from the Sangamon County Soil and Water Conservation District Tree Sale.  This year's sale is over, but watch for next year's!)

On this beautiful day, life in the neighborhood was good.  Even the chrome on my bike was gleaming.

A Moment of Perfection

Sitting on the deck this morning for my prayer time was a moment, a sweet, brief moment, of perfection.  Better even than the bowl of french vanilla ice cream with fresh-cut strawberries I had last night.  It's hard to top that.

Behind me was the morning's chaos of Getting to School.  Before me lies the work of a church...the finances, the scheduling, the sermon writing, the wedding counseling, the day-to-day work of every pastor.

But in between chaos and ordinary was perfection.  The air this morning was like the little puffs of breath a baby exhales while peacefully sleeping.  Like the gentlest of caresses or a silken shawl, it touched my skin, then slipped away.

And my busy mind took a breather. Sitting with my eyes closed I could hear the eager morning chatter of a hundred birds, smell the fragrance of spring trees that have flowered abundantly this year.  And my mind shrugged its impatient shoulders and sat still.

This is a victory.

I am generally held captive by a mind that over-processes, flits, worries and spins like a dervish (which I have actually seen once on the Today show).  A mind that was blank for a mili-second or a minute is a victory.  It felt like my brain relaxed. Like it slipped a little more deeply and comfortably into the easy chair of silence.  I liked it.

A moment of physical, mental and spiritual perfection.  Is this a glimpse of what prayer can be? Dare I hope for more?

Blessings today,
Julia

Unbinding Your Soul

I've recently finished reading and leading Unbinding the Gospel (the red book) by Martha Grace Reese. About 28 people participated in three different classes. To just say "I loved it!" would inadequately express the deep joy I had in prayer and the closeness that developed between participants.

But, reading the book over 8 weeks was a little bit like my daughter, Anna Sophia, learning to drive on a stick shift. Not only did she have to learn the fundamentals of driving and traffic, she had to do it while shifting gears. It was too much.

One group of participants felt that way, too. We read the chapters about faith sharing...interesting. And we learned to pray better...awesome. But learning to pray so we could better faith share was, well, a bit much. We are not, however, discouraged. Quite to the contrary.

We're going through the whole book and the prayer exercises again. I think mostly we just want to hang on to this precious place of encouragement, sharing and spiritual growth.

Which brings me to an important discovery: there is a fourth book in the series called Unbinding Your Soul.

GREAT CONCEPT. The subtitle is "Your Experiment in Prayer and Community." It is a book that encourages a group of people (church people and NOT church people) to get together for three weeks of prayer and faith sharing together. It invites us to "talk about religion." To talk humbly and kindly about the deepest things of our spirit. Even if we don't understand everything (anything?) the same way.

This book will only work for people who are open to practicing prayer. And it uses the Scripture of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and the Greek Scriptures (New Testament). So, for the avid atheist, this may not be a good fit. But for those of a Christian tendency, but maybe not happy with church or looking for something more "real," this might be a wonderful way to experience the very best that church has to offer: real relationships that help us love God more deeply and opens our eyes to the people beyond our own wingspan.

Prayer can be better, deeper and more meaningful. I haven't ever said this before: I really love to pray.

Really pray. Really love. Really love to pray.

Blessings, Julia

PS: By the way, for pastors within the Illinois Great Rivers Conference: our very own Mike Crawford is mentioned and Roger Ross was given three pages of his own to write on in Unbinding your Soul.

Simple Faith

I long for simple faith. I wish I could easily proclaim orthodox understandings without wondering, "Do I really believe that?"

But I don't have simple faith. I have complicated, agonized faith. Unclear thoughts that roam free, untethered to words or reason. So, I blog in search of clarity. I write to nail down those pesky, free-flying, out-of-focus thoughts. I want to look at them up close. Examine them and see if we can be friends.

Well, starting right now, I blog.

I am propelled in this direction by the convergence of three random things.

First: my husband told me yesterday, out of the blue, I should write more.

Second: my chair of Outreach for our church said last night our church needs a blog (this is not that, but might be a precursor). This got me thinking about blogging.

Third, in wandering around the internet this morning, I ran across a link from a Norwegian pastor to the website "Desiring God." I glanced at it and moved on. A couple hours later I googled "pastors and blogs." The first link was to John Piper's blog entitled "6 Reasons Pastors Should Blog." He is the owner of the Desiring God site. I should stumble on the same website quite by accident, TWICE? By the way, the article was compelling.

So here I am.

And now I can give you an immediate example of my spiritual struggle.

On one hand, I view those three random incidents as The Hand Of God. That's the simple faith I long for. God at work in the details of my life. Guiding and shaping and opening doors. I do believe that.

My head is screaming, "Are you kidding me? You think God has nothing better to do than lead you, via Norway for crying out loud, toward a place where you can write about things you barely grasp?"

My simple spirit shouts back: "Yep."

And that's when the fight started...