Success and Fruitfulness

I've spent the last few days at a young clergy leadership conference, connecting with colleagues, visiting growing congregations, and learning about best practices in congregational life.

We talked a lot about fruitfulness--kind of the softer, gentler version of success. It's a wonderful image because we all know that in congregational life you don't always put a program in slot A and get success out of slot B; real people with real lives move in different ways, and sometimes you see the fruits of your efforts many years later, or in transformed individual lives, or in plenty of ways that are hard to measure but still powerful.

But the concept of fruitfulness still holds within it the idea that we do want to be fruitful, that all the wonderful work in the world doesn't really get us anywhere if it doesn't ultimately produce something: more people hearing our congregation's message, changed people, communities that are tangibly better in some way.

It has me thinking about fruitfulness in our own lives, too, not just in a congregation's life. What are the things that bear fruit in your life? Practices, exercises, time you spend in special ways--from which of those things can you see immediate changes? And when have you had an experience that makes you realize a planting from long, long ago was finally bearing fruit for you?

The Usefulness of Pain

I've been thinking a lot recently about the sorrow, pain and limitations we experience in our lives. I don't mean really tragic events, but more thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife day to day limitations we might have from illness or just from aging, or maybe from our life's circumstances or family situation. For me, it's dealing with some chronic pain that flares up and goes away--mostly leaving me in peace but occasionally reminding me that I can't do everything.

And when I think about the usefulness of limits, it's usually in accepting the sentence I just wrote: that I can't do everything. As a relatively type-A person, I sometimes forget that and instead convince myself that I'm the lynchpin for the entire world's working. My limitations, especially when they really lay me low, remind me that I'm not.

But you know, I'd still sometimes rather learn that important spiritual truth in other ways. This past Sunday we talked about experiencing moments of grace which sometimes come out of difficult or messy circumstances. Couldn't we skip the difficulty and get right to the grace? Can't I learn important spiritual truths without having to deal with early arthritis?

This may fall under the category of: we don't have any choice, so there's not much point wondering. We do experience difficulty, pain, mess, and sorrow, and we might as well find some life lessons (and if we're lucky, some grace) amidst it all. But I think it's important that we don't skip over the sorrow, that we give ourselves time to grieve the mess that eventually led to our more enlightened selves.

As usual, a bluegrass song says it best. I heard it on my way in this morning, and since I can't find the lyrics I'll summarize: I don't like sorrow, but it makes my heart open wide. I've had my fill of trouble, but it makes me a better friend.

I hope you give yourself time for both grieving the mess and noticing the lesson. And that the whole thing plays in your head like the very best country heartbreak song.

Speeding Up and Slowing Down

I saw two things this morning, on my drive in, that made me think about the funny ways that people deal with time. First was a new level of multitasking: a man out jogging, all dressed in running clothes and camelbak water bottle, and eating a banana at the same time. Then, I saw the line of cars, which had been speeding along in the rush hour traffic, stopped to let two Canada geese hesitantly start across the road.

Of course there's never enough time. Of course we're busy and rushed and have to pack every single thing together that we can. But we also have time, somehow, to stop for the things that really matter to us.

Today, I hope that I can tell the difference.

Staying In Tune

I want to a concert last night, billed as Shawn Colvin (most familiarly of the hit "Sunny Came Home"). She came out for the first few pieces, which were really great...and then started talking about how she was nostalgic for the days when she played with Mary Chapin Carpenter, and all of a sudden Chapin was on stage with her! They finished the set together, alternating back-ups and solos and each playing a few signature pieces.

The concert was great, and I was especially taken with the way the energy changed when Mary Chapin Carpenter came on. Of course partly that's because she's a big star, and people were really excited, and surprised, to see her.

But partly it was because all of a sudden a solo act became a duo, and frequently a duet. The prep times were longer--both women spent a fair amount of time getting their guitars in tune, and joking about how long it took them--and sometimes they had to remind each other of the lyrics. So it one way, it could seem that the solo act was more polished, more together. I was so struck, though, by the special experience of seeing two musicians perform together, and especially two musicians who had known and played with each other for so many years. They had great stories to tell of acts in Colorado and Paris and everywhere in between, and they listened for each other's note and knew just when to come in.

It made me think about the people we go through life with: partners, friends, members of our congregations, family, colleagues. And the special joy of experiencing a whole lifetime of work and play with someone, the way that makes the time we spend tuning worth it.

It was a really neat evening. And it prompts me to say thank you to the people in my life who have been singing with me for a while.

Why I'll Wear a Hoodie

Like many faith communities, the Washington Ethical Society is inviting folks to wear a hoodie this Sunday to our regular 11am service. I've been following other communities making this call on Facebook, and have seen people having some of the same wonderings I had when I first thought about a show of solidarity like this. I thought I'd share my thinking a bit here.

When I first saw news anchors and public figures and little kids showing up in hoodies, I worried that we were reducing a human being--Trayvon Martin--to his article of clothing. And frankly, I thought that I, as a white woman, might look a little silly in a hoodie, as though I were pretending that I knew just what it might be like to be a young black man in America, when obviously I don't have a clue.

Then I saw the clip from Geraldo Rivera. Suddenly I got it. The hoodie wasn't about Trayvon's death so much as about the idea that America's young men of color were supposed to dress a certain way for fear of intimidating white folks. That if they didn't dress that way, then they were partially to blame for violence perpetrated against them. Just the way women are to blame for rape if their skirts are too short.

On Sunday morning, we'll talk about why we're wearing hoodies to our children, who join us for the first part of the service--and of course because some of the children are very young, we'll be cautious about our words. But in some ways, what I'll say to them feels as important as the more adult conversation we'll have later. That we're wearing hoodies because we believe that everyone deserves to be safe and protected, no matter the color of their skin and no matter what clothes they are wearing.

That's why I'll wear a hoodie on Sunday morning. I hope you join me.

For the Beauty of the Messed-Up Earth

I was talking with someone about our early spring the other day and she used a phrase that hit me squarely between the eyes: essentially, that she was really enjoying the flowers and beautiful weather in the few moments when she could let go of her fear for the planet and anxiety about the climate crisis.

That's me, too. I am torn, daily, between celebrating the beauty around me and lamenting the reason we have it in mid-March. And this seems, to me, to be part of a larger tension that we hold in our lives, the tension between enjoying the bounty we have and remaining aware of the problems in the world. As a parent, I am so happy to have relatively healthy children, and to have the resources to be able to provide all they need and more. But how do I reconcile that true feeling of joy with the knowledge that so many children don't have all they need? Does it make the joy less real? What responsibility does it mean I hold?

I'm thinking about a platform address on this topic in early May. What do you all think? Is this something you struggle with, too?

Religion: Combine at Your Own Risk (and Reward)

Like many folks, my imagination has been captured by the story of the woman who was denied communion at her mother's funeral, reportedly because she is a lesbian. Now there's a new twist to the story, saying that she is also a Buddhist--or at any rate that she is interested in Buddhist philosophy and practice--and that her religious leaning may also be a reason she was denied communion.

I actually don't much care why she was denied communion; every pastoral bone in my body says that a funeral is not the place for a theological conversation and is the place to offer grace and love as freely as humanly possible. I'm not Catholic, though, and I do understand that different traditions carry different rules about communion.

What I'm really interested in, though, is the conversation that emerges from this new piece of information, the idea that this woman is a Buddhist-Catholic or a Catholic-Buddhist or just someone who resonates with both traditions. There's enough for a whole platform address in there, but I'm curious about how and when religious traditions have encouraged syncretism (the blending of different beliefs) as well as how and when they draw a line. And how about us individually? In the multi-religious marketplace are we free to combine at will? Must we do within a community in order to do so responsibly? What are the risks, and the rewards, of finding our own religious paths?