Author Archives: Devoree

Bullying

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There have always been bullies.  Yet it seems that the bullies today are getting meaner, uglier and relentless.  Social media has been a venue for horrible attacks on young persons and even adults.  There is a boldness that comes from feeling protected by the technology.  It scares me.

I ran across this music video recently and it was really uplifting.  It is called Love Yourself by Khari.

I wish every person could feel good about him/herself and revel in the person they are.  We are not all the same but unique and special in our own way.  God created someone beautiful and loves each one of us exactly as we are.  Our job is to find out how to be the best “me” we can be.  It starts by respecting who we are and not who someone else says we are supposed to be, or some ideal placed upon us by media or persons who think they know everything or trying to sell us something.  I am okay, I am a child of God, I am loved.  I can love myself.

Christmas 2015

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This was a very special Christmas.  With all the stuff going on in the world that makes you want to curl up and hide, it was especially nice to think about Jesus and how he came into the world to be a fighter for justice, to show that love is a cure to all our woes, to help us see that being in relationship with God and with each other is heaven on earth.

Decorating the tree was great- I got to pray for so many people as I hung each ornament.  The house looked cheery and I noticed that many people chose to decorate early this year.  My guess is that like me, they needed something bright and happy to counter all the killing, abuse, violence and hatred in the world.  Celebrating Christmas gives you strength and energy to make a difference in the world around you.  I am grateful for my faith, for Jesus and the celebration of His birth.  Worshiping with my church family was special this year.

I was surrounded by my dear wonderful family.  It is fantastic having adult children who want to spend the Holidays with you.  I am abundantly grateful for family and friends.  I pray for all those who are lonely, grieving, or can’t enjoy Christmas for whatever reason.  I wish them comfort.  My prayer is for the deep peace of Christ to enter into their hearts to help them heal.

 

THANKSGIVING

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I have long decided that the Thanksgiving holiday was based on something very wrong – the taking of land from the native Americans and the subsequent oppression of the people.  I pray that some day we can right those wrongs by treating all people with dignity and making poverty a thing of the past. I celebrate Thanksgiving as a day of thanks to God.  That said,  There are so many things to be grateful for these days.  We tend to focus on the negative but the positives far outweigh the negative most of the time.

I am thankful for my family and how they surround me with love all the time.  This is truly a blessing since I know many who cannot say the same.  I have good friends upon whom I can trust.  I am thankful for basic good health.  I have my issues but overall I can function in this world without too much assistance.  I am grateful for medicine and medical care when the need arises.  I am happy to call America my home. It is not a perfect place but compared to other places in the news these days, it sure is a good place to be.

As I think about all the things I am thankful for, I cannot help but realize that they are too many to list.  I am very glad that I have a functioning mind and that I have a relationship with God.  I don’t believe in God because someone told me to do so.  I believe in God because I have experienced God in my life, profoundly.  I am thankful for Jesus, through who I have learned to know and love God deeply.  Christianity, for me, has been a good path.  There are other paths that would also have worked for me, I think.

I am basically  a happy person. I do have a great deal to be thankful for and I hope that others may share in the bounty of God’s love.  I will try to do everything I can to make the world a better place for everyone.  Huge task but each little kindness, attempt at justice, advocating for another, and act of care is part of the process.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Month of Thanksgiving

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image2    I am thankful for color! I have been so elated with the fall colors this year.    I     hIMG_3717aave seen so many gorgeous colors changed in sunlight and cloud. Even the browns are spectacular. I have seen brass and copper and gold. Yellow has been bold and intense. Reds, oranges, salmon etc.etc. Wonderful! image1The lateness of the change of color seems to have offered many multicolored trees. This takes my breath away. God, the Artist, painting an extraordinary canvas. It reminds me of the line from How Great Thou Art – “I scarce can take it in.”IMG_3661a

The Church is Changing

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We are in the process of rethinking who we are as church in our congregation. The transition period is a little unnerving for a woman who likes structure. I have been praying a lot in these many months. I’m trying to discern where God wants me in this. As is always the case, when I pray there is hope and a sense of well being in me. It is still uncomfortable but I know God is present and active and I trust that I will be called where I will grow.
So, that was not enough, the region has decided to undergo a complete transformation as well. Here is one way I am being called to act. I have taken on some leadership at this level. It is a bit uncertain as well but I am trusting that I was led this direction for a reason.
I just returned from General Assembly and guess what? The entire denomination is beginning a transition. The writing is on the wall and we are at a place where we either change or die. WOW!
In every case the movement is away from a corporate model to a model much more like the beginning of our Christian movement. I mean WAYYY back when people were gathering who still knew the person Jesus or his disciples.
I am all for that kind of thinking. It pains me to see what some people do in the name of Jesus. They act like they have never read the Bible or heard the stories of Jesus’ ministry on earth. The man was passionate about justice, about caring, about equality and about living a life filled with love. If we can get ourselves out of the confines of the church building we might find that living a life that is truly Christ-like is actually easier than we thought. He said love one another. If we take that to heart we can change the world.

Black Lives Matter

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I long for the day when saying All Lives Matter means black lives too. Until then we must chant Black Lives Matter so we can get that into conscious thinking. Yeah all lives matter, but do they? Think about it. Think about it hard. Then tell me why Michael Brown is dead because he was walking in the street and why Dylann Roof is alive after gunning down 9 people.
Life is precious. God gives us life.

FEAR

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How can we get away from all the fear mongering in our media and in our politics? I have just about had it with all the scary headlines designed to get people all riled up. I might even get active in a political party if it weren’t for the crazy notes they send trying to scare me into giving money. The thing that scares me most is that we are allowing this to happen because we think we have no say. We think that only the rich can influence how our government runs. This is not true. If people would take seriously their right to vote, especially those for whom the vote was secured by deep personal sacrifice, we might have a government as it was meant to be – of the people, by the people and for the people. Does anyone have any idea about how to get the populace to understand that they matter? During the presidential campaign in 2008 President Obama told us that one voice could make a difference. Do you think it is possible to shift a majority of those apathetic Americans from disinterest to active participation in the system? We are a country that is defined by its freedom yet only something like 58% of voting age persons voted in 2008, probably less in 2012. It should be nearer to 90% don’t you think? I know it is hard to believe that we have any voice but you don’t if you choose not to vote or tell your representatives what you think. Yes there is great influence by those with lots of money but it can be changed if enough persons joined together to support good legislation.

2015

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I just realized that I almost 2 months have passed since the new year began.  My latest posts have been surrounding the “black lives matter” work happening in the St Louis area.  It has been on my mind and in my heart.  I have been praying and supporting those who are in the trenches.  I will continue to do so.

I have also been fretting (meaning keenly aware of and maybe obsessing a little – definitely preoccupied) about my entry into the third part of my life. Well, unless I live to be over 90, which I suppose IS possible, I am in the last segment of my life.  Using the 4 seasons, I am in the autumn.  The body is definitely showing signs of wear and tear.  Vision is going, hearing isn’t too bad, but things are starting to sag. Hair is changing.  I am starting to forget things.  I actually am getting hot flashes.  My mountain climbing days are over!  haha  I laugh because I was never much good at climbing but now I can’t.

What surprises me is that I am not upset about it, I am not depressed or thinking that “It’s all downhill” from here as in doomsday,  Although that metaphor would be good since the hard work has been done and now I can coast.   I have been thrown into another time of disequilibrium where I am not really sure what my place/role  is in this new episode. In the past I would be very stressed, ill-at-ease, worried, and anxious but today I am relatively calm and patiently waiting for God to reveal what comes next.  The funniest thing is that this fretting about the decade change is about to be resolved because I will be one year older in just a few days.  Now I can get on with it and stop thinking I’m in a new decade.

What has come to me is that I must let go of some things to make room for others.  This has been hard to do.  After some 25 years of youth ministry, I have chosen to love those kids from afar <smiles>  that is not to be involved in the day to day work of that kind of ministry but rather help from the periphery.  I took a leave of absence from the praise band and am focusing on getting my voice back in shape as a soprano singing in my range.  I will be ever-grateful to the musicians I have worked with for giving me the opportunity to grow musically in ways I never thought possible.  Styles I’d never tired, songs I didn’t think I could do, and always a chance to feel my way into something different.  I’m also letting go of children.  Yes, I know you never REALLY let them go but you do give them the space they need. We are empty nesters now (again!) and it is all about letting go so you can be something else.  My spouse and I are discovering each other again.  This is fun.

So what is next?  I’m still in discernment but what is coming clear is that I will be doing spiritual direction and more retreat work.  I am very much drawn to the visual and musical arts.  While I have been involved in this way in the past, I seem to be moving into different areas.  I am utilizing my writing skills for liturgical work, curriculum writing, and blogging!  I look forward to what new directions I am being called.  In all things prayer is keeping me steady, patient and grateful.  I know more will be revealed.  I trust in God’s time and I am feeling gratitude for the life I have had, excitement about the life to come.

 

God Bless Those Who Work Toward Peace and Justice

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I am so grateful for all those who stand alongside those who are marginalized for one reason or another. It is not an easy place to be. It takes a lot of courage to get outside your own protected box and help those who are not so protected. Injustice is often veiled/masked in a way that you miss it unless you look hard at it. In our happy little world where we have what we need and more we can completely be unaware that there are many who are hungry, homeless, working poor, or ignored. While most people in the US have enough to eat etc, there are still many who struggle to have all basic needs met, like food AND medicine AND job security AND a decent safe place to live.  Choices have to be made and quite frankly I think it is horrible to have to do that in a country as rich as ours. Before someone says anyone can “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps” let me tell you that that phrase is nonsensical. You can’t. There are systems in place (racist, sexist, homophobic, ageist) that make it hard for people to ever escape from poverty, or have the luxury to just relax about life from time to time.  So, thank you to all those who are working to make a difference, who are trying to move our country into the 21st century, who think lives matter. Thanks for helping those who are struggling to help themselves, thank you for standing beside them. Thank you for helping those whose voices are not heard.  Thank you for supporting those who are are saying enough is enough, we are tired of fighting these systems.   The work is hard and can be so frustrating but as we inch toward real justice and yes, though it seems glacial at times, it is really the work of love and compassion. Peace is possible. Justice for all is possible, but love must be the basis for this. We have to love one another and remember that if some of us suffer and we do nothing about it, we are all the worse for it. Equality does not mean we all have the same stuff. It means we are all valued as human beings and that we all respected for who we are.  Children of God.

Where Do We Go From Here?

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I have been trying to process the events around the country involving the police and people of color. I’ve written a bit about the immediate situation but overall it has been very difficult coming to grips with what has happened and continues to happen.
There is racism in the United States and if you don’t believe that you are living in some sort of insulated world. These events of the past several in Ferguson and New York etc. have brought a well known (in minority communities) injustice to the common knowledge. People are outraged, people find it incredible that this is happening in our country. It has been happening but in places most of us never go. As a result, it seems it doesn’t exist. I have to give the social media some credit here. The sad part is that once it is no longer “newsworthy” it will fall back into the “out of sight out of mind” category.
These events have sparked some dialogue in the communities involved and I can only hope that some good will come of it. If there is a move toward conversation and relationship building in the communities, there will be improvement. Fear is decreased when people get to know each other.
There is an effort to press for reform of the criminal justice system. It is broken ad much needs to be done about it. I am hopeful that the energy will propel this forward. There is a strong clergy involvement. People are still talking about it.
I have to come to terms with my own frustration about the glacial pace of Reconciliation work in my own church. We have been working on this for some 70 years and still we struggle. I work on the area team but find little interest in the regular church going crowd. I was drawn into the work by my son who as a teen and young adult was very interested and active in the work. As leadership ignored him and showed little interest in his participation he fell away from the work and from the church itself. I have remained but have seen the work become less and less shared. We have had to change our approach because attendance at programs has dropped. People just don’t want to talk about it. We have moved out of the churches and into the community. Still it is hard and frustrating work. The events of this summer and fall have made a opening for our work. I remain frustrated but hopeful. It hurts to think about these things.  I know God has a different plan for us, one of equality where basic needs are met and all are given respect and care.  It is too easy to let this very important need for change in our society slip back on the shelf when something big like the terrorist killings come to light.  We must be diligent. We must keep praying and we need to keep it in the societal conscious.