Sunday, November 25, 2012

Kindergarten

I am waiting in anxious anticipation of school starting.  My little girl begins kindergarten in a matter of days.  No more lazy mornings. No more extra snuggles, no more  days of planning field trips and outings.  She will be gone from 8-3 or some near semblance of that and I am left with an empty pit in my stomach, a litany of fearful thoughts rushing through my head and a bucketful of regret on all the ways I should have done more, been more, played more, read more, baked more..... with this tiny little gift God gave me.

Have a wasted precious time with my baby girl?  We are so much a like that we hit heads constantly.  My high standards for everything are too often pushed upon my little girl who is just a little girl, and my push for perfection is pushed onto her at times as well.  I am left with the echoing wonder of how often did I do that?  Will she remember?  Will she fight herself and her own expectations of herself as I fight mine?  Does she feel she will never meet my expectations?

She cracks a joke, twirls around and swirls after her brother into the other room requesting tickle time, when I am done with.... (fill in the blank).  Then at the end of the evening I realize, and of course she reminds me, I never got to the last game of tickle time.  I missed our morning snuggle or we didn't do  an art project today and the pangs of regret ring through.  

Sometimes I sneak into her room at night and snuggle up with her when everything is done wishing I had not put her aside, but the other things.  Regretting that I missed that game, or tickle time, or story, or snuggle time.  Hoping I have time to make amends tomorrow.  Yet with the advent of school the tomorrows are not the same and there is now no time to make amends.

The downward spiral of regret can threaten to take you over unless you put it back in perspective.  If I keep up on the cleaning I can spend more time with them because I won't be a crazy woman feeling overwhelmed by the house.  We need to eat, I have to cook dinner, and maybe just maybe she needs some practice in patience.  Goodness knows I stink at having those.

So here I sit at 10 o'clock crying my eyes out because kindergarten fast approaches and our lives will be changed forever.  I wonder if she will hate it or love it, strive and thrive, or withdraw and crumple.  I have seen her do all of the above so I truly don't know what she will face or how to help her or what to do.

I realize in this moment that is being a parent.  Loving someone so much you cry for them, you cry because of them and you do all that you can to support them, yet you are powerless.  You are completely powerless over the ultimate outcome and you have to simply step aside and watch.  I wonder if God ever feels this way.  I wonder if this is part of his pain. Watching us flounder, grow, and use our free will, while all the time he is standing beside us trying to let us walk on our own two feet without helping too much so that we can grow and make our own decisions.  

I know I need the help now.   God please give me the strength and courage I need to live in today, not regret yesterday and do what I need to in order to be a good parent to my babies.
Thank you Lord. Amen.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Holy Spaces


8/26/12

Today we hear a very old story of King Solomon building a temple for God. I have read this story many times, but each time something different strikes me as being important. Today verse 27 where Solomon says “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannont contain you, much less this hourse that I have built!”. He goes on to ask that God answer prayers said in the temple, or even when facing towards the temple. Finally he asks that even foreigners' prayers be heard when praying towards this house, so that all people may know the Lord's name and fear you. For the people at this time fearing the Lord was not like a battered child, but a deep respect and awe for the power of the Lord. An acknowledgment of God's awesome power and might for those who weren't even the people of Israel.

Solomon is telling us so much about God right here that we can use to better understand God right now, here in this place and in our lives. It is amazing. God is bigger than any building, any community, any space. God is surrounding us, loving us, and walking with us. God is close to us and can not be contained by us. Let that sink in for just a minute. What does that mean? For me, that means no matter where I am, what I am doing, thinking or feeling, God is with me. God is surrounding me in my everyday life. How amazing is that?

With that acknowledgement Solomon continues to pray regarding the temple. Despite the very knowledge that we can not contian God in a building Solomon asks that those who pray in that building or towards that building be heard and the prayers be answered. Even with the knowledge that God is all around us, Solomon acknowledges are human need to have a space of community, a visual representation of sacred “God” space to aim our prayers at.

We hear so oftent that the church is a people, not a place. I have said it and so have many others, but I think Solomon reminds us that the space, the place that we worship is important too. Sometimes we need to be assured of God's presence. Sometimes we are so lost, lonely, broken, forlorn and on the brink of devastation that we can't imagine God walking beside us. We need to know with a gurantee where we can find God. Where we can pay and be assured we are heard, where we can just be and hope to soak up some peace. This is why churches are important. Why we come here sometimes even when we are busy and have a million things to do.

Not only is God guranteed in this place but even those who have just heard of God's love and commitment to his people are welcomed to come and pray. All are welcome to the house of the Lord. All can come here no matter what get to know God's presence a bit. What an amazing message for us this day. I want you to take a few moments right now if you so choose to just allow yourself to feel God's presence with us today. Let your soul reach out and feel the Lord in this space. I can only imagine the people at the temple during Solomon's prayer felt a little like this too.

Who is truly King of your life?



How do you know something is true? How do you know that it isn't a piece of information or fact that has been twisted into a new truth. After witnessing a particularly nasty political season we all have seen truth twisted so that it bears no resemblance to what it once was. We have witnessed those who manipulate truth in order to change minds, sway opinions and gain followers. It does not matter if you are on the left or the right. It doesn't matter if you are a politician now or two thousand years ago truth was not easy to figure out. Pilot knows this better than most. He is ruthless, brutal and cares nothing for the Jews nor most of his subjects. He only cares about where he is in the pecking order with Caesar and this little issue with Jesus is truly in his way.

Pilate has to reach a conclusion. He has gone between the people accusing Jesus of trying to be a king and Jesus trying to figure out if he is truly trying to have political power or if he is just angering the Jewish leadership. He has to deal with the matter without making great waves and it getting back to Caesar. If there is a riot between Jesus' followers and the rest of the Jews that just means more trouble.

Jesus tells him twice that he is not a king. He is not a ruler of a particular group. He does speak of his kingdom being not of this world - which finally gives Pilot something to go with. He also tells Pilot that his followers will not take up arms to save him since his kingdom is not of this world.

This gives Pilot the room he needs to satisfy the Jewish religious elite and stop any rioting from occurring. All he has to do is order Jesus to his death.

But then Jesus says, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Pilot truly questions what is the truth....

That I think is the question Jesus leaves with each of us. What is the truth we live? Who is king over our life and our soul? Do we let the worries of this world, the twisted truths that we see, hear and live everyday rule our lives, or do we look towards that which is not of this world? Do we look toward God to help us hear the truth, to help us find our way? Can we hold up what we think we know as truth to God and truly listen? Are we willing to see that it isn't what we thought it was? Are we ready to see things in a new way – for that is what God does. That is Jesus' truth. A new way of living and being. Jesus' truth is a way of understanding God's love in new ways that release us from our pain when we allow ourselves to listen to the truth.