Blessings For Our Younger Selves Zine!

A Church that makes a Zine (short for handmade magazine)?

OF COURSE ECHOES MAKES ZINES!

In the Spring of 2022 we made our 5th zine for the community of Bellingham and we first handed them out at Wester Washington University’s Queer Con (short for Convention/Gathering)! We were grateful to be present, spread the love and support inclusive spaces for people to express themselves authentically (something we believe strongly in at Echoes!)

Here is from the Intro:

Echoes is an evolving community of faith that promotes wholeness, practices radical welcome, and fosters relationship with each other, our neighbors, and our natural home. We created this zine as an extension of our Creative Church gathering as a way to respond and engage with younger versions of ourselves; Because words (and art) matters.

What words would have made a difference in your life? How can this zine be an opportunity to rewrite the stories that were imposed upon you as you remember that yours is still being written?

We hope that our blessings for our younger selves are also a blessing to you, as you journey through whatever beautifully complicated, life phase, age or season you are in.

You Are Not Alone.

You can look for your own copy of the Echoes Zine volume 5 around Bellingham, or come back to this space for a link to our digital version!

Special Thank You to our Intern Torie for helping to create/coordinate the zine!

Blessing for Good Conversation

Blessing for Good Conversation
Written by Emma Donohew for Pub Church February 2022

As you enter into the conversation
May you make space for openness
Pull up a chair for authenticity
And try not to control the path of the words that will guide you

Allow yourself room
As you push aside distractions for other voices to enter your perspective

When interrupting feels almost inevitable
Breathe Slowly
Encounter your quickness with compassion
And wait
Listen
Wait a little longer

Recall the Sacred is found in the spaces between us
Holding what is said and unsaid

May you find words for your own experience
As your listening is deepened
Encountering every rushed judgment with grace

Let the words
like Blessings
Find you
In Each Holy Conversation
Amen.

Photo by Etienne Boulanger on Unsplash

Living by Hope: A Note From Emma

In the beginning everything was in relationship,
and in the end everything will be in relationship again.
In the meantime, we live by hope.
-Jean Lanier

During times of BIG transitions, I live by hope.
Hope that the sun will return and sunsets will soon happen after 5pm.
Hope that even as things change, relationships can transcend time, space and distance.
Hope that spring will come again and flowers will bloom.
Hope that exciting (unknown) things are on the horizon that will bring a joy we can't even imagine.
Hope that we'll keep going, even if it's just day by day.

So as Echoes wades through this transition of saying goodbye in a formal sense to our founder and fearless leader Charis, I invite you to live by Hope with me. Hope that God still has exciting community for us to create in Bellingham together! Hope that the beautiful friendships that have formed will not only continue, but also forge new relationships with individuals we have not met yet.

Relationships are the core of Echoes' community and are what drew me to first come alongside you as a co-leader with Charis (and our first team with Victoria & Jory). I first encountered Echoes online (via Facebook) and thought it was an intriguing & forward thinking way to do/be community. Perhaps like you, it actually took me some time to make it to a Monday gathering, because in 2018 I was leading a Pub Theology group at the same time! So although scheduling was a challenge, God found a way, and eventually I made it to Echoes!

In late Spring of 2018 I was able to meet Charis at a live adventure storytelling podcast event. Our stories and paths crossed in a truly holy moment, and a few months later I was able to do some dreaming with Charis about what it might look like to co-lead Echoes. It was a bold move, not without challenges, but the collaboration that has happened, will always be something I cherish. To bring Creative Church to life, was something that was only possible through Echoes and the experimentation you all are constantly ready to try in order to invite individuals to get closer to God and their whole selves.

I couldn't do it without you all, thank you.

So here we are three years later (since I joined!), with yet another transition filled with Hope for Echoes. Fortunately it's not an ending, just a changing of leadership, and a shifting of the beautiful relationships that make this community whole. While I have some big hiking boots to fill, as I transition to leading Echoes (without Charis, something I'm not totally ready for myself) I know I don't walk this path alone. We are on this journey together, being led by a God who will never leave us. A God who will keep encouraging us as a faithful community even in uncertainty. A God who fosters relationships in unlikely ways with unique people. Thanks for being in relationship with us in these past 8.5 years.
I can't wait to see what's next with you all.

Infinite Blessings,

Emma

A Farewell From Charis

A Heartfelt Farewell & Thanks

To all who love Echoes,

 Charis here. I had the honor of starting Echoes 8.5 years ago, and today I’m making the hard-to-believe official announcement that I’m stepping away from leadership in order to take a call to serve as the pastor at Burlington Lutheran Church. I’m thrilled to also announce that Emma is taking the helm - I don’t think there could be anyone more suited for leading Echoes. That’s the summary in case such a long letter is daunting to read!

 Here is a bit of my reflection regarding my experience with Echoes:

 My goodness, what an amazing 8.5 years it has been. As I write this letter I’m thinking about the early early days, even before the first official Echoes event at Bellingham Pride in 2013, to the full-on excitement of the first thought of starting a brand-new spiritual community. It started with me and my housemate, Andrea. Then we met a couple at an Easter service who were interested, and they recruited another couple. Six! We had six!

 At Pride a few other folx joined in. Then a few came from google searches. A few came as a result of the first totem pole blessing. One couple saw the banner hanging at one of our meetings. Several were word of mouth. I’ve never failed to marvel at people finding Echoes. Some stick around, some stay as long as they need the community, others have moved (those have been so painful!), and for others Echoes just wasn’t a good fit. We are unique enough that some folx just can’t quite envision this community as something they might need, and we are small enough that some can’t hide in the background. Echoes has always had, and will always have, extremely permeable boundaries - anyone is welcome to come, and welcome to exit when the time or spirit moves. Those who have been at Echoes for years are part of my very being.

 When someone hears about a church the first question is usually, “Where is your building?” That’s never been easy to answer, because we’ve been intentional about not owning property. Meetings started at my house, and then they moved to the Re Store, and then to the Whatcom Land Trust. When we were outgrowing the land trust, St Paul’s offered us free space in their auxiliary building, which was absolutely perfect - plenty of space for larger gatherings, tables for creative church, a sound system, and a kitchen. Covid changed that, of course, and our community pivoted to online, more outdoor gathering, and, more recently, meeting in the ground floor of Our Saviour’s. (I’m hoping that more gatherings can happen at the Black Drop, too!)

 A few years ago we did the hard work of coming up with a mission statement. I still think it’s awesome. "Echoes is an evolving community of faith that promotes wholeness, practices radical welcome, and fosters relationship with each other, our neighbors, and our natural home.” Honestly, it’s better than any other church mission statement I’ve read. And it’s real.

 I’ve certainly grown as a human, becoming more whole. When Echoes started I was a staunch ally of the queer community. I knew I was bi, but for a variety of reasons I didn’t come out publicly until 2017. It was so freeing that that was never going to be an issue at Echoes. This community has been safe for me, even as we were providing safety for others. I’m not sure I would’ve been able to step out as a queer pastor, likely the first in Skagit County, without Echoes.

 In 2018 I met some incredible people who became the first “staff team” of Echoes. Jory came to a few meetings, Victoria was introduced to me by a professor who had come to Bellingham so her students could go on the Easter Walk, and Emma —— we met, appropriately, as a result of a storytelling event. Having co workers who “got” the vibe and mission of Echoes changed so much for me - we were able to expand what we offered (hello creative church and wild church!), and provide different leadership. This year we have had our first intern, Torie, who considered us their best fit of any faith community in the whole region. Wow.

 Echoes is definitely the only church that has partnered with the Whatcom Land Trust for a year-long series. We’ve volunteered with scores of non-profits, we’ve blessed animals and totem poles, melded metastory with local story for Easter walks, hosted Doctober movies, marched at protests, and highlighted so many people doing amazing things. We’ve planted so many trees, and pulled up hundreds of pounds of invasive species, protecting salmon habitat all over the county. Pub Church is drawing good-sized crowds, Wild Church has expanded to other communities in our region, and Creative Church offers unique spiritual engagement found nowhere else locally (thanks to Emma!).

 I can think of at least 50 names of people who have been integral members of this community, past and present. I’m grateful for Each. And. Every. One. Of. You……Truly.

 The regional leadership of our denomination, the ELCA, has strongly, fervently supported Echoes from day one. The national leadership has, too. And they still do. My hope is that Echoes will continue to evolve and grow in ways that will continue to be instructive for the wider Church. This really is a unique Jesus-following community that has a lot to offer.

 I’m leaving so that I can work full-time as a pastor in a church that is loudly promoting inclusivity and community engagement. Burlington Lutheran is also a unique church, and I’m incredibly honored to be elected as their next pastor. I being there on Feb. 1st.

 I can envision attending Echoes occasionally, and possibly subbing in for Emma when needed. I’ll be following how y’all are doing, and all the friendships will remain active. Don’t hesitate to reach out! And let me know when you do outdoor stuff, okay?

 Some things to consider as Echoes continues to evolve:

• Giving regularly if you’re not already (even if you don’t attend Echoes); all amounts help

• Volunteering to lead things or provide behind-the-scenes support

• Tell others about Echoes; especially since many gatherings are now online

• Keep praying for this community!

 Ever grateful, and ever committed to the mission of Echoes,

Charis
burlingtonlutheranpastor@gmail.com

Blessing of the Animals 2021

Blessing of Animals 2021
We gathered despite the Atmospheric River that was covering the Pacific Northwest!

We are here to heal, not harm. 
We are here to love, not hate. 
We are here to create, not destroy. 
— Anthony Douglas Williams

Genesis 1: 2 & 25

‘God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them.
And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind, cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let us make humankind”. And God blessed them. God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good.’

A Blessing For the Animals on the Feast of Saint Francis:
—Rev. Jan Richardson

You who created them
and called them good:
bless again these creatures
who come to us
as a blessing
fashioned of fur
or feather
or fin,
formed of flesh
that breathes with
your own breath,
that you have made
from sheer delight,
that you have given
in dazzling variety.

Bless them
who curl themselves
around our hearts,
who twine themselves
through our days,
who companion us
in our labor,
who call us
to come and play.

Bless them
who will never be
entirely tamed
and so remind us
that you love
what is wild,
that you rejoice
in what lives close
to the earth,
that your heart beats
in the heart of these creatures
you have entrusted
to our care.

Introducing our Intern: Torie!

We are excited to introduce you to our Intern for Fall 2021- Spring 2022 Torie Pilkington! And what better way than by letting them do it in their own words.

Hello to all the wonderful people of Echoes!

I have met some of you already and look forward to meeting more of you as time goes on, but I’d love to introduce myself in the meantime. I am Torie Pilkington, the new intern. I am agender and use they/them pronouns or my name. I’m also proudly autistic and ADHD. I live on the border between Marysville and Arlington and go to the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. I am in my third year of four working towards a Master of Divinity degree and am blessed to be completing my field experience with you all. If you’re willing, I’d love to explain more about the journey that led me to you all and some of my motivations behind choosing Echoes as a place to learn this year.

I started to look at internship possibilities around April of this year. I was unsure about what exactly I was looking for. I was starting from scratch because the church community that my husband and I were part of since we moved here in February of 2016 had ceased to be a safe place for me. I was immediately overwhelmed. How was I to find a safe place when my experience of church has been an overall negative one? There were many hard conversations with my advisor about church and the negative presence that it has been in my life. I had almost given up hope on a healthy church. I remember questioning whether the church was a redeemable institution. I thought a healthy community might be out there, but I was exhausted and honestly angry that it was so hard to find a space I was welcome in without having to hide who I was.

*A fun little aside – my legal name is Victoria Hope. My parents named all four of their children to mean something specific, praying over what that might be. My name means “conquering hope”. I always tease them and say that they essentially named me “stubborn”.*

Stubbornness characterized my continued search. I started looking at what my advisor called “parachurch organizations”. These are faith-based organizations that gather around a specific need that they wish to meet in a community. None of the organizations that I reached out to replied. I had about three weeks until school started and I was still at square one. I started looking up anything near me and digging through their website. I had almost decided to wait to take the class that requires a field experience. Then, someone posted about Victoria Loorz and wild church on our class Facebook page. I find the church has a tendency to sterilize and tame the beauty and danger of nature, so I went searching for a place that held wild church and I found you. Immediately upon looking at the website, I had a sense that this community was a sacred one. Echoes was a queer affirming church that experimented with what it meant to do church, finding God in things that others might see as mundane or less sacred. Echoes feels like a place that I will be safe in my questioning. I feel invited into experimentation and I appreciate the culture that you all have cultivated.

The timeline in which I established an internship has made it a bit interesting to figure out exactly what this might look like - for you and for me. I’ve never been what people might call “goal-oriented”. I dreaded the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. Even now, people ask me why I am in school. I try to find a professional way to say that I’m here because it felt like I needed to be. I’ve been trying to embrace the answer that sometimes, our bodies, spirits, and souls just know things. It’s how I felt when I started my MDiv journey and it is how I felt when I found Echoes. As I step into the journey that Echoes is already on with each of you, what I most desire to learn is how you hold your stories. What has drawn you to a church like Echoes? Why have you not given up on the idea of church? What are you all building together?

In the same way that I knew Echoes is where I was supposed to be, I know that Echoes has people from which I will learn. There is something sacred about a community in which each person is seen and accepted for who they are. When I say that I want to learn from you, I don’t mean to put responsibility on you. Learning happens in community. When we feel safe with other people, we can be our true selves. We can experiment and grow. It will be impossible not to learn from you as we share our lives with one another. I know that I must prove myself trustworthy. Even the description of intern can be off-putting if the structures of your past have been harmful. However, I ask that you give me a chance to do that work as I come alongside you in these next few months. I look forward to knowing each of you. To me, we find the sacred in other people. I do wish to learn about the practical running of a church – the liturgies, rhythms, and practices that facilitate a positive experience.

In order to form a community, there must be something that draws people in and makes them feel safe and able to grow. I am especially excited to enter into the advent season with you. I grew up non-denominational, so I missed out on some of the beauty that can exist in ritual. I invite each of you to find the sacred all around us with me and the others at Echoes. Blessings to each of you on your journey. I hope that I might be invited alongside for a little while, but blessings all the same.

Torie

Red Road to D.C. Bellingham Totem Pole Blessing

Photo by Charis Weathers

Red Road to D.C. Totem Pole Blessing
May 22, 2021, Bellingham, WA

The Lummi House of Tears Carvers have created another beautiful totem pole. This one emphasizes our collective need to protect sacred spaces. The pole is traveling toward DC, where it will be presented to President Biden, and later installed at the Smithsonian. Along the way the carvers and their team are hosting many (MANY!) blessings, to imbue this pole with hope, healing, a call to action, and a spirit of unity.
Echoes had the honor to participate and coordinate the Bellingham blessing. It was a wonderful interfaith gathering, in which faith leaders came together to offer solidarity of heart, mind, and action. The following are some of the words that were spoken. Can you add your commitment to action, and a blessing to this pole as it travels?

A Call to Action

To the clergy present:

For those of us who are in the lineage of those who used religion to dominate and destroy, we acknowledge the sins of the past and the ongoing sins of complicity when our religions accept and approve of oppression, greed, and self-centeredness. 

We commit to not ignore the past, but to do better, to work for justice, fairness, and to share our power and privilege with others. We commit to protecting sacred spaces and mother earth, to upholding Indigenous sovereignty, treaty rights, and listening, deeply listening, to others. 

Response: I will do this.

To the gathered:

For those of us who are in the lineage of those who have dominated and destroyed, we acknowledge the violence of the past and ongoing complicity when we look the other way and so approve of oppression, greed, and self-centeredness. 

We commit to not ignore the past, but to do better, to work for justice, fairness, and to share our power and privilege with others. We commit to protecting sacred spaces and mother earth, to upholding Indigenous sovereignty, treaty rights, and listening, deeply listening, to others. 

Response: I will do this.

Bellingham Totem Pole Blessing

Great Creator who continues to create and to give: like the copper on this totem pole was a gift in the tradition of giving in the potlatch, may we become more giving people. May we know and understand that the truly wealthy are those who give abundantly. May we not live in a position of scarcity, but instead see the abundance around us that can sustain us all if we all share. Teach us to be people who share extravagantly, with one another and with the land.

Lead us, Great Spirit…...In Our Shared Responsibility (Charis Weathers, Echoes)

Great Connector, we seek your empowering presence amongst us, so that we can go beyond words, into collective action.  We express our gratitude for this powerful totem and the winding journey it has taken so far, being sprinkled with rain from the clouds and water droplets from the rivers throughout the Pacific Northwest.  Bless your sacred winding waters that flow through this land, the life blood of the earth. Help us see each unique river as a pathway, and way finder for us all. We ask wisdom for decision makers to remove the dams that block the life force of these waterways; and allow free movement of the Chinook Salmon. We give you thanks for these beautiful fish, our neighbors that provide us and the orca whales with the food we need to survive. May we always work to ensure that all of your creatures can find their way home.

Lead us, Great Spirit…...In Our Shared Responsibility (Emma Donohew, Echoes)

Eternal Creator, we give thanks for those who have gone before us and always walked on the good path, like the praying grandmother. We acknowledge that the only thing can that be passed on to others is love, and we pray that we can pass on good traditions and love. Let us honor both our elders and our children, as those who are closest to you. Keep us on the good path to honor our ancestors, and provide future generations with healthy land and abundant resources that are shared among all. 

Lead us great spirit.....In our shared responsibility. (Erum Mohiuddin, Muslim)

Great Spirit, Protector, Creator, Illuminator, guide us to deeply listen to the wisdom of the Full Moon, Grandmother Moon, receiving and reflecting her light of truth and her medicine of trust brightly shining on reparation, on transformation, and on justice. We ask you to guide us to witness and emulate the strength and the freedom of Diving Eagle with spreading wings of the Sky father who flies high and lands to impregnate the earth, offering teachings on right use of power. May healing light illuminate this sacred Red Road journey and influence decision makers every step of the way, emboldening them with the courage to follow a clear path of planetary justice and protection, a path of honoring the ancestors and caring for future generations of all beings on this beloved planet earth as we humbly pray

Lead us, Great Spirit……in our shared responsibility. (Jillian Froebe, Interfaith)

Great Healer, we lament the racism and colonialism that continue to harm people and lands today.  May this Totem Pole bear witness to these wounds, and remind us of the worth and dignity of all things. Guide us on a healthy path to build a future where no child is held in a cage.  Many hands of many ages, touched and shaped this Totem Pole.  It grew on this land for hundreds of years, nurtured by this air and these waters; older than our grandparents.  May it carry, wherever it goes, the reminder that we are all connected to one another.  Touch and shape us into a Society of Justice, where all are respected and honored.  Lead us, Great Healer: to speak and hear the truth, to lament, to repair what’s broken, and build a future where all of us thrive.  

Lead us, Great Spirit…...In Our Shared Responsibility (Rachel Weasley, Quaker)

We have offered words from our hearts, imperfect as they are, in hopes that this great offering - this pole carved with such love - will bring healing. Healing to peoples, healing to communities, healing to nations, strong healing that can begin a journey of many generations after so many generations of trauma and suffering. As the moon rises and sets, as the tides ebb and flow, as the chinook at last returns to her home waters, as the wolf hunts and tends his pack, as the bear finds her way downslope foraging with her cubs, as the people pray, as the rivers flow and the rain falls, we pray:

Lead us Great Spirit...in our shared responsibility. (Rev. Nomon Tim Burnett, Zen Buddhist)

Learn more about the journey here: https://www.redroadtodc.org/

Photo by Charis Weathers

Blessing for Walking

A Blessing for Walking
Written by Emma Donohew for the January 2021 Labyrinth Walk

There’s not much you need for walking
Any dog will attempt to tell you so
With a subtle nudge to get you out the door

So gather what little you need
To begin walking

Perhaps this blessing is small enough to take with you
To fit in your pocket
Or next to your keys

This blessing is here to make haste
And help you wander
And along the way, help you wonder

Reminding you that the path is there to guide you
Encouraging you to keep putting one foot in front of the other
Find joy in your footing
Both solid & unsure

You may meet someone on your path
Greet each other silently, slowly
Making space for one another
Ensuring together that neither loses their way

Take pleasure in your steps
The layers below you
Building you up

There isn’t much you need for walking

So Let the ground beneath you
Cradle and embrace you
Step after Step
Amen

Waking Up in the World

Our summer thermostat seems to be given to too hot or too cool this year. It has been lovely for the ripening apples, which are hanging heavy on most branches this year. But this cool, hot weather has been unkind to our tomatoes. To think, my great-grandmother was a dry land wheat farmer in northeastern Montana. As you probably know, this means she relied on the rain and snow to irrigate her wheat fields. She and the fields were entirely at the whim of the weather year to year. A hard life to be sure.

This morning I am thankful that I am less at the whims of the weather than my ancestors. Although we have our own climate challenges to face, my daily life doesn’t involve watching the sky to determine what must happen next.

This past week, I was getting pretty deep into writing poems for my second book. I am always surprised where my curiosity leads me. In the past week, I started wondering what church hymns were “new” or “very popular” in the 1850s.

One hymn that was written in the early 1850s, went through several iterations and became very popular around the 1880s. I even recognized it when I played the song on YouTube. The hymn is “Tarry With Me (Oh My Savior).”

The first chorus begins:

Tarry with me, O my Savior!
For the day is passing by;
See! the shades of evening gather,
And the night is drawing nigh.

The hymn is asking Jesus to be with us in the evening, as the day comes to a close. This is what me might call an evening prayer or even its more formal name of “vespers” or a service of evening prayer offered by churches.

In the Lutheran Book of Worship, the evening prayer begins, “Jesus Christ is the light of the world,” and the people respond the light no darkness can overcome. It continues, “Stay with us Lord, for it is evening,” and the day is almost over. This sounds familiar!

Verse 2 of “Tarry With Me” continues:

Deeper, deeper grow the shadows,
Paler now the glowing west,
Swift the night of death advances;
Shall it be the night of rest?

True night has now descended with the sun’s going down. But also, the hymn is talking about night as a metaphor, evening as the end of our days (our life on earth). The singer is asking Jesus if tonight will be the night of their death, and if so, are they headed to heaven.

{There could be a whole other post about equating darkness with doubt and fear. About shadows and blackness being equated with sin and what is nonspiritual. I wanted to acknowledge this, and the problems of systemic racism and white supremacy in our liturgies. But for now, I acknowledge it, and recognize that it would take several more posts to address this with the sensitivity and depth it deserves.)

The hymn alternates for another three verses between hoping in the goodness of Jesus and also fearing death. This feels very true to me. I know that in the middle of any crisis, I am hoping for deliverance from it and that Loving One will be merciful. (Act quick God!) But also, what if there is no deliverance? What do I need to do to get out of this mess? Am I on my own?

I believe the Holy One and I are always present together in the present moment. But so often, I am not paying attention to it. I compared God’s presence like having the television on in the background, in another room. Something I am not really aware of as I get busy with other things. Just noise.

This is my normal way of moving through the world, and of course I will often rely on myself to figure things out. Because I mostly haven’t been paying attention.

Again and again, this is why spiritual teachers call their prayer lives, their spiritual lives a practice. Because it takes practice! How discouraging. At least I feel like that. I would like to just have faith, or always respond kindly to life’s upsets. But how I do not do that!

Athletes train for hours a day, for years to reach their full potential. As children, some of us may have dreamed about becoming pro athletes or being famous sports stars. But I suspect that many of us, when we saw how much work, how many hours went into things decided, NO THANKS! We became discouraged. We moved on to something else.

So, it shouldn’t surprise us that we don’t have perfect faith, an easy path through the trials of life, or total confidence in God. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been practicing very hard. Oh, the grace of the Merciful One is there in my life in abundance, but I have been doing other things. Easier things. Things that are less difficult.

I am NOT saying all of this to make you feel guilt or shame. I am NOT telling you that you need to spend hours and hours in prayer every day.

What I am saying, is that the hymn feels accurate to me, a movement between hope in God and doubt. Between faith and fear. This is, just as Luther said, because we are sinners and saints all rolled into one.

We are human beings. We are dependent on God’s goodness, daily. Just as my great-grandmother’s fields were dependent on the rain and snow that fell from heaven. We need God’s grace as wheat in the fields needs water to grow. To come into fullness. To be made ready for the harvest at the end of the season.

So too with our earthly lives. Which are, at the same time, our heavenly lives. For the Kingdom of God is both within us and to come.

At its simplest, the spiritual life is really just one thing. Waking up to the presence of the Joyful One in our lives and in the world. Waking up to the truth that Jesus is present in each of us, everywhere. Waking up the fact that we spend most of our days and hours asleep or on autopilot, missing out on the deep truth, that the Holy One is with us at all times.

Let us take some time this week to reflect on the areas of our lives that are asleep. Or maybe where there is some remaining darkness from the night. Or perhaps where we are just coasting by.

Where are we being asked to wake up? To be attentive? To enter into our days?

August and Everything After: Time, Mystery, and Season

August often seems like the longest and shortest month of the year to me. Growing up, I always loved the heat that would come with the final month of summer. It meant more days at the public swimming pool, more days riding my bike through the dusty streets of my small hometown, maybe even the annual trip to pick out new school supplies. What can I say? I am one of those kids who loved school. Loved learning. Loved the surprise of a new teacher and the new possibilities that seemed limitless each year. For some of you school probably felt like a prison or punishment. Let me just take a moment now to honor that. No matter how you felt. 

I never wanted August to end. The long hot days stretched and stretched themselves out like a cat in a patch of warm sun. The days went on and on. August meant the county fair. It meant one more cool dip with my family in the river. It meant that the corn and watermelon were still sweet to the taste.

But even as the days were long, seemingly endless, they passed quickly into September. Into the new school year. Into earlier sunsets and cooler nights. Into the first turning of the leaves and yellowing of the grasses.

And time continues to pass more and more quickly, the older I get. I hear it all the time, “Can you believe it is August ALREADY?!” or “I don’t know WHAT HAPPENED to July!” As if the month has somehow sneaked past us and escaped out the front door when we weren’t looking. Maybe you feel this way too.

It is easy to lose our sense of time. Or our proper sense of time. We live in a culture that is always looking ahead. The internet, our news cycle, advertising seems to speed up year after year. They almost seem to say, “Why worry about the current events of today when you can worry about things that are happening TOMORROW!”

It’s true. It might seem ridiculous, but it is true. Our modern lives are so very fast, that we rarely have time to see things in their proper perspective. Don’t believe me? Just think about Christmas! For all of the cringing you might have just done, stores place Christmas decorations out earlier and earlier each year. Last year Loews had their aisles set up in September. SEPTEMBER!

We have become so used to anticipating the future, that when it comes, we are often done thinking about it. We are over it. We may even find a sense of relief that Christmas or whatever we were celebrating is finally over. We spend so long in anticipation of a thing that when it arrives, we are sick of it. And who can blame us?

Two months of Christmas carols on the radio before Christmas makes a miser out of almost everyone (except maybe my mother who is a Christmas fanatic.) ((Don’t ask.))

So, what does all of this have to do with time? What does it have to do with our lives during the pandemic? How does this have anything to do at all with God? Am I just wasting our time?

Well, August is the time when many of us are traditionally away from our churches on vacation or with our extended families or at a friend’s wedding. It is that lazy or busy time of the year when we spend the least amount of time in a building on Sunday mornings.

September means the start of a new church year, new church programming, the start of Sunday school for kids. Or at least it used to. The pandemic has changed our lives dramatically. Most of us don’t worship face to face. Most of us aren’t going very far at all on vacation. It can be hard to tell one day from the next if all of our days are spent at home.

While we were attending church face to face, maybe we took those Sunday for granted. Maybe they felt boring. We worshiped in roughly the same way each week. We sang. We read scripture. We broke bread. Those were the outward, visible, routine actions we took together.

t underneath all of that, another kind of time was happening, a Divine time. The Holy One was in the mix, working behind the scenes. At the reading of the Word and the breaking of the Bread, the Loving One was breaking through the ordinary, revealing the extraordinary underneath.

When we worship together, it isn’t just about who is in the pews (or on the Zoom screen), it is also about the surprise of the risen Jesus. The son of God who looked and lived just like any of us, who was killed, and who rose from the dead. And who continues to break through all boundaries. Life and Death. Living and Dying. Mundane and Mystery.

As Lutherans, we claim that communion is an act of consubstantiation. This means that symbol becomes fact. This means that Jesus’ presence is present alongside the bread in wine. But how that happens is a mystery.

Just how Jesus comes alongside us in our present lives, often feels mysterious and mystifying. It doesn’t make any rational sense. It is extremely hard to explain. And yet, I know it is true. Maybe it is the same for you.

A new friend was reading an essay I had to write for my seminary application. In it, I talked about what I called “a moment of radical grace” that reshaped the entire course of my life in 2009. She said, “Can you tell me more about that? I would LOVE to know more.”

The truth is, I can’t explain it any better than I did. I just don’t have the words for what happened to me as I was wandering through Grace Cathedral in San Francisco as a tourist. Nothing special was going on. I hadn’t been to church or identified as a Christian in more than ten years.

Nothing was expected, but everything was given.

In a single, ordinary moment, something extraordinary took place, but my life didn’t look much different from the outside. It would take years and years for me to see how that moment unfolded.

Even looking back, I can’t tell you what happened. I know the moment it did, but not how to tell you about it.

But today, I know when I am present enough. When I am still enough. When I think to listen enough in the moment (right now as you are reading this even) I find those same words to be true. The Holy One, who is everything, is waiting there (here). At this moment, and the next (now) and the next (now). Ready to receive me. Ready to impart grace and blessing, if I can only hold still long enough to notice.

So, it is with us and our worship. Even if we are just going through the motions. Even if our lives are so radically changed at present. So, take a moment now. Just a single moment. I promise you there is blessing there. Here. Now. For you.