We still need to talk about Ferguson

Cross posted at Practicing Families, and Mennonite World Review

I know, I know. The news cycle on this is over, and thoughts are elsewhere. But, Ferguson’s story happens in some form every day in our country. The sad truth is that too many folks consider brown bodies to be less important than others.

In the height of the Ferguson crisis in August, I attended a prayer service, remembering Mike Brown and all the other unnamed Mikes and Trayvons out there. A friend publicly shared her experience of parenting her brown-skinned son, how she is constantly worried that he will be stopped by the police, or worse, shot and killed. She shared the painful reality that so many families of color have to give “the talk” to their children, a talk about the ways they should present themselves in public, and how they should act if they are stopped by the police.

Those are conversations that I have never even dreamed of having with my blond-haired, blue-eyed, teenaged son.

My friend, whose conversations with her son is a fact of life, called on her white friends at that prayer service to make a pledge to do something about Ferguson. What would I do with my white privilege to influence this world positively?

This challenge has been on my mind for weeks. It’s why we still need to be talking about Ferguson and thinking about racism, and praying to see another way to live in this world. The Mike Browns and Trayvon Martins show us the sad reality of this country — that racism is alive and well, and that have so much to teach our children.

My pledge to my friends who parent brown-skinned boys and girls is that I will teach my own children to recognize their privilege. I’ve taught my teenaged son to stay with his brown-skinned friends if they are stopped by the police, and to never, ever leave them alone in times when they feel threatened. I’ve been teaching him to notice the different ways that people are treated, to be mindful of his own behavior. I’ve been talking to my daughter about the ways that different life experiences impact how people treat each other.

This is hard work, but I know it’s the work that Jesus engaged in, and the work to which we are called. Just because Ferguson isn’t on the front page doesn’t mean we stop thinking about it, talking about it with our kids, and working to make our world better and safer for all God’s children.

Give it a Rest!

Cross-posted at http://practicingfamilies.com/2014/08/06/give-it-a-rest/ and at http://mennoworld.org/2014/08/07/give-it-a-rest/

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.  Matthew 14:13

I say every summer, “this summer is going to be more relaxed than last summer.”  And every summer it’s just not.  It’s not that the summer is bad, but that it is more busy than I’d like it to be.  There’s sleep away camp, trips to the ocean, camping in the woods, the baseball game we always go to (even though none of us really like baseball), and the outdoor movies at the library that we love so much.  This summer we’ve been in “hurry up so we can have fun” mode, which as it turns out, isn’t very fun.

Yesterday was my day off with the kids, and there was a big “to do” list. We had to plan meals for the week, go shopping, do some laundry, clean the house, and make sure the kids were packed for their big visit to their Aunt and Uncle’s house for the week.

But when I woke up and looked at the kids, they looked exhausted.  I was exhausted too.  We were trying to cram too much into our short summer, and we needed to take a rest.

So after a quick trip to the grocery store and a few chores, we all collapsed into our rooms for some extended quiet time.  It felt a little naughty–laying around inside on a gorgeous summer day–but it also felt necessary.  We needed some down time–a chance to restore our spirits, catch up on rest, and come back to ourselves.

Jesus is an excellent model for self care.  In the midst of his work, he made time for himself.  He knew that he couldn’t keep going without a Sabbath rest.  He couldn’t continue if he was always exhausted.  That was easier said than done in an intense ministry such as his–even during his times of rest, he was sought out for healing, help and wisdom.  But even in the midst of his intense work, he tried to find moments of rest.

Obviously our lives are not like Jesus’–we have it much easier.  The fact that we have options about what to do with our time and where we spend it is far more than many have.  And so we must choose wisely what we do with our time.

Sometimes we need to forsake a beautiful day of running around for a much needed day of sleeping in and snuggling up.  Sometimes we need to recharge our batteries, and hide away.  And yesterday was just such a day.  Next week, the day off will probably be more vigorous.  We’ll probably try to slip in a walk in the Wissahickon park, or meet up with some friends for a play date.  But yesterday, we needed to play hookie, to give ourselves a rest, and to restore our spirits for what’s to come next.

May we all find ways to rest, even in the midst of our hectic lives.

This was supposed to be about Pentectost

Cross posted at Practicing Families: http://goo.gl/BD389d

This was going to be a post about Pentecost, a reflection on my family’s love for our city wide Mennonite Pentecost service, a service that involves as many languages at the building can hold, as service that reminds me that from time to time, we can get along and be one.

But I don’t think I can write that post today. Because today I received one of those texts you never want to get from your child, “Mom, the school’s on lockdown; what do I do?.”

My thirteen year old son goes to school in downtown Philadelphia. He takes the train with his friends to school and back every day. He has a lot of freedom for a middle schooler, freedom that is well earned as a mostly-responsible kid.

Today, he went to school, and did all the things he was supposed to do. But today, an angry student from the college across the street, pulled out a gun in class and threatened a classmate. And that sparked a lockdown of the college, and my son’s school. The lockdown was an appropriate response to a violent situation. But, it terrified my son, and me.

The Columbine High school shootings happened fifteen years ago, and the attacks on the Twin Towers thirteen years ago. Both of those incidents changed how we parent. We raise our kids in times of terror, when our schoolchildren no longer prepare for distant cold war threats, but for angry people who only know how to express themselves with extreme violence. And that violence happens in places where we are trying to keep our kids safe.

What do we as parents do to respond? How do we keep our children safe, but teach them to live in a spirit of hope and not fear?

One of the things I love about Pentecost is that for one day in our church life, we can imagine being one. We can imagine that the church can put aside our theological, cultural, race and class divisions, a for one day and worship together in unity. This is–of course–much easier said than done. But it’s exactly why I love this day. It’s something to work towards together with other communities of faith, particularly when our own congregations look less like Pentecost than we wish they would.

But when things are frightening out there, it’s tempting to shut our doors, to shut out the spirit, to live in fear. We are tempted to keep to ourselves, to isolate from others, to stay only with those that share our culture and values.

But this is not how we are called to live. This is not what we are called to teach our children.

As difficult as it is to send my son out to the train some mornings, not knowing what his day will bring, I trust him into the care of the Beloved. I trust him with what he’s been taught in our home and community, and what we try to practice in our lives–that God loves all God’s children, and is present in every moment of their lives.

I also know that isolation does not give us glimpses of the beloved community. It does not give us Pentecost. It doesn’t bring us any closer to understanding who God is and what it means to follow in the way of Jesus.

When we our tempted shudder our doors and windows, to hide from a world that feels too violent to bear, may we open ourselves to the wonder of Pentecost. While fraught with unknowns, there is still joy in the gathering together, in the sharing fellowship with others who experience the world differently, and learning from them.

May we teach our young people to be God’s hopeful Pentecost children, even when the world feels frightening. AMEN.

I Doubt It

Cross posted at Practicing Families

At the dinner table, my pre-teen kids and I sometimes play a game called, “I doubt it.”  Somebody says something about their day, and the rest of us get to say whether we believe it or not.

“Today in school, the electricity went out in the school, and we had to work by candlelight, like in the olden times.”  

“I DOUBT IT!”

“I met Taylor Swift and she wants me to be a backup singer!”

“I DOUBT IT!”

“They were just handing out free tickets to Disney World today–flight and hotel included!”

“I DOUBT IT!”

It’s a silly game, but it’s fun and gives us permission to dream and imagine the seemingly impossible.

It may be an overcorrection on my part, but when I was a kid, there was not permission given to say “I doubt it.”  Not about the Bible anyway.  But I had doubts–plenty of them–and I felt such guilt for them.  I was not allowed to voice that very human feeling of doubt, because doubt meant that I didn’t believe.  And that was certainly not true for me.  .

With the Easter season just beginning, we tell this crazy, unbelievable story of Jesus coming back to life. After Jesus was murdered, he was put in the grave, and three days later, he came back to life and spent time with his friends, teaching them and helping them to understand.  This is what happens in fictional books our kids read–did this really truly happen to Jesus?  And if it did, how was it possible?

Jesus’ disciple, Thomas, had doubts.  When the rest of the disciples saw Jesus after the resurrection, they told Thomas, and he said, in so many words, “I doubt it.”

So when Jesus showed up again in the room, without opening any doors or windows, Jesus knew Thomas had doubts.  He went directly to Thomas, and invited him to touch his wounds and sore spots.

But Thomas didn’t even have to do touch Jesus to believe.  Just the invitation to have his doubts gave Thomas what he needed to believe.  Just the invitation to wonder was enough for Thomas to believe, enough for him to say, “Jesus, I believe!”

Our kids have doubts about the things we talk about in church, the things we believe, the faith we hold dear.  And if we are raising them to believe in something, they have to have space to put that to the test.  They have to have space to make it their own.  This doesn’t happen in great depth when they are very young, but as they get older they need space to question, to say, “I doubt it.”

Doubt doesn’t mean we don’t believe.  It means that we are trying to understand more deeply.  It means we are trying to make our faith our own.

We can hold on tightly to our children, and ask them to believe what we do, or we can give a space for them to say, “I doubt it.”  I’m convinced that when we give them a safe place to ask their questions and to doubt, they will be stronger, more faithful followers because of it.

Just like Thomas.

The Other Side of Fear

Fear has been a bit of a theme for me this year.  It started at the Laurelville Worship and Song Leaders retreat in January when Megan Ramer (the pastor at Chicago Community Mennonite Church), preached an amazing Easter sermon called “Fear Not.”  Then, in preparation for lent, the theme of fear sprung from the gospel stories–Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, Nicodemus facing his wealth, the Samaritan woman speaking with Jesus, and Jesus’ journey to the cross.

The question for Germantown Mennonite this lenten season is, “What lies beyond the fear?”  As we’ve begun to reflect on that, the story of our removal from conference and denomination has been a strange source of hope for some of us.

In 1997 and again in 2001, we were removed from two separate Mennonite conferences.  And with these removals, Germantown Mennonite, the oldest Mennonite church in North America, was no longer part of the denomination it brought to the New World.

There was a ten year period where it was very difficult to be at Germantown Mennonite church.  We were angry, we were heartbroken, and we were fearful.  We wondered where God was in all this.  And, we wondered what would happen next.

One lenten season, shortly after our 1997 removal, I remember my friend, Doug Brunk, dramatically reading Ezekiel 37.

After Ezekiel lamented to God, “Can these dry bones live?”, the Lord told Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones, saying, “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”

This was where we were at the time.  We were brittle and needed the Holy Spirit to breathe new life into us.

And eventually, the Spirit began to stir within this congregation.  And amazing things started to happen.  New life emerged.  The church began to grow, not just in size but in joy.  We began to laugh and talk and play again.  Now, seventeen years after our removal from Franconia conference, there is a joy in having been through the hard things together, and lived to experience a resurrection of our own.  It doesn’t mean that there aren’t hard times, or that we don’t ever experience the sadness of life.  It means that we carry with us a wisdom of living through death, and coming to a deeper appreciation of our life together.  

Perhaps it feels a little cliche right now to say that after this current mess with the denomination, there will be joy and dancing.  If I heard someone tell me this in 1997, I would have reacted with anger.  Joy doesn’t feel like the right answer in times like this.

But take it from a congregation that has lived through two removals from conferences, a congregation that gets put in the “other” category whenever we register for any Mennonite event, a congregation that loves this tradition for which we are a part–there will be joy.  It will happen.  The bones of this denomination feel brittle and void of life, but our God is opening the graves and breathing new life into God’s people.

It’s a hard time to be a Mennonite.  There are things that the denomination has done that feel awful, and have done violence to our spirits.  But there is hope.  God is moving among us.  And soon, very soon, we will dance joyfully together.

  The Decemberists, “After the bombs”.

After the bombs subside

This long low campaign calls it good for the night

We meet in the streets, we meet in the bar’s cold light

We grip at our hands, we hold just a little tighter

After the bombs subside….we’ll go dancing, we’ll go dancing, we’ll go dancing.

Written on our Hearts

I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you.  Psalm 119:11

When my kids were little, I’d sing them the same song every night, “My Life Flows On.”  It’s a favorite hymn of mine.  It’s the song my church community sang after a difficult experience with our wider denomination; it’s a song I sang after my mom died; and it’s a song that I go back to in times of trouble.  I’d sing it to my kids at night as I’d rub their backs, stroke their hair, and enjoy a moment of calm before they drifted to sleep.

I’d sing:

My life flows on in endless song

Above earth’s lamentations

I catch a sweet though far off hymn

that hails a new creation

No storm can shake my inmost calm

while to that rock I’m clinging

Since love is Lord of heaven and earth

how can I keep from singing?

Rarely am I able to sing this song without a tearing up.  It is my song of hope and comfort, and a reminder of God’s faithfulness through so many difficult moments in my life.  It’s the song that brings me back to my center, and back into the comforting arms of a loving God.

That ritual of singing it to the kids every night phased out as the kids grew up, but they didn’t forget this song.  A few weeks ago during worship, the congregation sang My Life Flows On, and my daughter’s face lit up.  She leaned into me, and whispered in my ear, “I know this song!  How do I know all the words?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle.  She knew every word to the song because long before her consciousness could hold a memory, she was learning the words to the song.  The words of faith were being written on her young heart from infancy.

This is one of the ways that the word of God is written on the hearts of our children.  In song, in talking together about the stories of faith, and holding the scripture close to us every day.

Though we don’t emphasize scripture memorization in the church the way we used to, music is a way to have the words of faith written on our hearts.  Music speaks to the soul, and says things that we cannot communicate with words alone.  This is as true for kids as it is for adults.

Keep singing, families.  Those songs rest deep in the hearts of our kids, and will come to them when they need them most.

Time Out for Advent

Advent is one of my favorite times in the church year. It’s a call to the church to wait and prepare. This is not a frenzied preparation, but a hopeful time of anticipation.

But, this is not usually how it feels in my life between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

As a pastor, my advent is busier than other times of year. My church has extra services, worship becomes more involved, there’s a Christmas pageant, the choir has extra rehearsals, and the sanctuary needs to be decorated. And that’s just at work–in our family, the kids have holiday concerts, recitals, school parties and secret santa exchanges.

(Just typing that last paragraph made my blood pressure rise!)

The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas has the potential to be too full and too stressful. This can result in flared anger, running at an unsustainable pace, and a schedule filled with too many “must do” activities. Let’s face it, the season has the potential to absolutely stink.

Our family visited with my dad in Arizona over Thanksgiving. We flew out from the east coast, then took a 2.5 day train ride home. The train ride was spectacular–our family read, played cards, napped, laughed and talked together. We had a wonderful time.

We were excited to get home, but we had no choice but to rest and enjoy the ride. We had to slow down, notice the scenery and observe the change from mountains to plains, from rural to urban. This was a much better experience than the airplane ride to Phoenix–while the plane trip was short, we were cramped and everyone around us was grumpy and in a hurry.

In this season of advent, I’m thinking of the time of advent preparation as a leisurely train trip, rather than an unpleasant airplane ride. We will arrive at our destination, and we will enjoy the ride. We have plenty of time along the way to notice, to rest and to enjoy the scenery as we go.

A parents, we get to set the tone for advent with our kids. We are their tour guides through the first seasons of their lives. What do we want our kids to notice? What do we want their sights set on?

We are preparing our children to be like branches from the roots of Jesse, and in doing this, we tell them the story of Jesus, and of God’s work in the world. What better way to nurture the roots than by slowing down and telling them the story–that’s the best nutrition our little trees could ask for!

May our sights be set on preparation, waiting, and noticing Jesus in our midst, and may that anticipation be the root our children’s love for God and others.

Blessed Advent!

I am no Longer a Pacifist

I’ve been a Mennonite for twenty years and a Mennonite pastor for 3 years.  But after a trip to Israel and Palestine this summer, I can no longer call myself a pacifist.  I blame Christian Peacemaker Teams for this.

In August I spent two weeks with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Israel and Palestine, and came out of the experience unable to use this pacifist label for myself any longer.  And this is why:  Pacifist mean to oppose war and violence.  And I’m tired of opposing things.  I want to be for something.

After spending just a few short days in Hebron, a tense city in the West Bank, I realized that opposing war–being a pacifist–is a position of privilege.  It’s easy for me to say that I oppose something like war and violence.  I live a pretty safe and secure life.  Opposing peace and violence while living a middle class life in the city is easy to do; it is a privilege to declare myself a pacifist.

In Hebron, Palestinians have to go through checkpoints every day of their lives.  Their bags are subject to search in these checkpoints, and they can be stopped on the street by soldiers to show their papers to any military person who wishes to see it.  There are places in the city that they are not allowed to be, places that settlers can drive their cars but Palestinians cannot.  They live in an apartheid system.

After being stopped  by military or border police several days in a row, while my Palestinian friends had to show their papers and explain where they were going, I could feel my blood pressure rise, and my fists clench.  How can I simply be against war and violence when this is happening right in front of me!

I understood at that moment why Palestinians threw rocks at Israeli soldiers.  Or worse.  If my blood was boiling just watching this happen to Palestinian friends a few times, how much harder would it be to experience that personally every day.

And then I met Hanee.  Hanee is not a pacifist.  But he has chosen  the path of nonviolence.  Hanee, a Palestinian man, lives next to an Israeli settlement in Hebron, and faces daily threats from settlers and soldiers as he walks to and from his home.  He’s been denied water to his home.  He’s been delayed at checkpoints to discourage him from going to mosque to pray.  His olive trees and cars have been burned repeatedly, and his property is littered by trash that settlers throw in his yard.

He realized at a certain point that fighting back was not working.  Non violent resistance was the only thing that seemed to be effective.  So, when his son was beaten up in front of him by soldiers, Hanee did something quite counter intuitive.  He filmed it instead.  And he sent that video the international news organizations who highlighted Hanee’s situation.  That had more of an impact than armchair pacifism or violent intervention ever could have.  Hanee intervening with violence in his son’s beating would have meant that both of them would have been jailed, and imprisonment would have economic ramification for his whole family.  Videotaping  the beating sent a message to the soldiers and to the government that this would not be tolerated.

It’s then that I realized I’m not a pacifist.  Because I’m not just against war, I’m for peace.  I’m for finding creative ways to solve deeply entrenched problems.  I’m for standing in the way of violence which means my beliefs have to be active.

Too often pacifists are accused of being cerebral, but offering no actual solution to violent situations.  And, I can’t disagree with this criticisms.  Those of us who believe in peace, must be more than simply against war and violence.  We must be peacemakers, and actively resist violence.

Pacifist is not a word that really fit for Jesus.  He was pro-peace, pro-action, pro-people.  And he used his words and his body to show us these things.  He didn’t philosophize about war and violence.  He stood with people.  He confounded the powerful by sitting where he wasn’t supposed to sit, and touching those he wasn’t supposed to touch.  That’s active non-violent resistance, not pacifism.

I reject the word “pacifist” as a label for my own beliefs.  It is stricken from my vocabulary. Instead,  I believe in active non-violent resistance.  I believe in peace.  And like Hanee, I’m willing to use my voice, my body and my creativity in seeing a non-violent solution come to pass.

A Healing Rosh Hashana

In the two weeks I spent in Israel and Palestine with Christian Peacemaker Teams, I became accustomed to the chatter of lively Arabic wherever we stayed or visited.  There was a comfort to what sounded like babel to me, and joy at the occasional word I could understand–Hamdilah, Hibibi, Shukran, Salaam.

Hebrew was a different kind of babel.  I recognized that it was a different language from Arabic, because I’d taken just enough Hebrew in seminary to know that it was Hebrew but not enough to retain what anything meant.

But I spent enough time in Israel and Palestine that I have to admit–I began to bristle at the sound of Hebrew.  Having a machine gun pointed at my head a few times while someone barked Hebrew words at me formed an unconscious reaction.  I can remember my blood pressure rising then, and could feel the urge to hold back tears of sadness and anger.  I could feel the urge to respond, to yell back.

I saw oppression in the West Bank that cannot be unseen, by people who believe a theology and ideology that destroys one people group while elevating another.

A week after returning from Hebron, Rosh Hashana services were being held in my church’s building.  A new Jewish community was forming an needed a place to worship.  We welcomed them into our worship space, but I felt myself bristle when I heard Hebrew again for the first time.  The last time I heard Hebrew–in the West Bank–someone was screaming at me, “Go to Egypt!  Go to Syria! There are murderers there–not here!”

But in the Rosh Hashana service, held in my church’s building, I saw my Jewish friends wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh as their prayer scarves while they prayed in Hebrew.  I heard them praying–in Hebrew and English–for oppression to end.  They understood the oppression I’d seen, and were holding that in prayer as they entered the new year.

And in that service of prayer and song, after weeks of hopeless stories in Israel and Palestine, I could envision the wall of the Al Ibrihimi mosque in Hebron–a wall that now separates the mosque and synagogue; a wall of tension and hurt–coming down.  I imagined the Hebron checkpoints unused outside the Mosque, the machine guns abandoned, the fear wiped away.

There is hope.  There can be peace.

The words of our Jewish, Christian and Muslim ancestors are words of hope, drawn from our loving God, who longs for our wholeness and peace.  Peace, Salaam Shalom.  May God’s peace be made real in the Holy Land this year.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Cross posted at practicingfamilies.org

School is starting, and I can see the excitement on the face of my youngest, and anxiety on the face of my oldest.  Both have very different ways of handling transitions and new experiences.  And both are valid.

My youngest strives to be perfect–to fend off bullies, to be an advocate, to keep everyone in her class in line.  It’s an exciting and exhausting job she’s taken on.  But, she’s a leader, and that’s what she does.  So we try to give her the tools to lead with love and compassion.

The oldest is just happy to slip under the radar, to get through the school day without being called on so that he can come home and rest in the safety of his family.  And we try to give him what he needs to get through in his own way.

This week’s Psalm (139) could be a mantra for our new school year.  We are fearfully and wonderfully made.  God took great care with us when God made us, and we are perfect just as we are.

God loves us just the way we are.  We can try to change our kids, and God loves them just as they are.  Our kids can try to do things better, and God loves them just as they are.  With all our failings as parents, and with all our kid’s imperfections, God loves us.

This week as I’m organizing the school shopping list, and buying pencils glue and uniforms (perhaps you’ve already gone through this in the last few weeks), this verse has been my centering prayer.  God made us fearfully and wonderfully.  As much as I try to guide and direct them into better choices, they are wonderful just as they are.

Perhaps this is a comfort to you.  Maybe it will be a comfort to your kids.  They can keep trying, and with all their faults and imperfections, they are absolutely perfect to God.

There’s something about knowing we are perfect to God even though we see all that’s wrong with us, that is completely empowering.  All the the improvements are only icing on the cake.  We are fully loved and accepted in the arms of God, no matter how much we screw up.  And our kids are fully wonderful in the eyes of God, even though they don’t always feel that way.

Friends, you are fearfully and wonderfully made by the creator.  May you and your families know that deeply and fully.