Boundless Love

Well, my heart just about burst today. The pressure had been building over several days and today it reached a whole new level. I had to take a time out to gather my thoughts and to spend time with God in reflection. I knew I was experiencing something extraordinary and wanted to embrace it and accept it fully.

It all began with a special birthday.

I know I’ve had special birthdays in the past…the time my parents threw me a party at the old amusement park in Little Rock including a ride around its ancient merry-go-round and the time I got to host a dance, albeit in a tiny little rented out room at a local tennis club but a dance none-the-less for my thirteenth birthday. The eve of my twenty-seventh birthday upon which Andrew proposed to me is among the best, but this year’s was especially unique. It wasn’t just one moment that was special. It was hours and hours and hours of love being poured out from every connection I could imagine. I was overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and care shared with me on this anniversary of my birth.

After an exhausting yet rewarding day at work, the celebration began with a simple surprise dinner planned by my children and husband that included flowers picked out especially by son and daughter, a decorated TV tray with pasta and a ukulele serenade. The joy continued with cupcakes, hugs, cards and an abundance of calls, texts and messages via facebook. There was nothing grand about this birthday, it just happened to remind me second after second of how loved I am. My heart and mind were open to the acceptance of that love giving me access to that thin space that lies between us and God. It was a pure taste of heaven.

The joy continued throughout the weekend, and this morning, I came to the mountaintop as I reflected on the words presented by The Rev. Dr. Dan Matthews, who was visiting my church, Calvary Episcopal Church, as a guest preacher and speaker. As Dr. Matthew’s reflected on John’s gospel reading of the woman at the well (John 4:5-42), he said, “It always changes your life when you find acceptance.”

I had yet been able to express how I felt about this birthday. That simple statement of Dr. Matthews’ summed it up for me. Regardless of past or recent mistakes or self-professed failings, over the past 48 hours more than a hundred people had reached out to wish me well and to celebrate me. Not only did this morning’s reflection enable me to recognize God’s boundless love reaching out to me through each loving and kind word shared with me, it also gave me a moment to realize that perhaps what had made this birthday so special was also my own acceptance of myself.

This message to us during the service began to help shed light on my birthday reflections, but it was his following presentation on incarnational theology that brought it into powerful perspective. As I listened to him describe his own faith experience and vocation through the Episcopal Church, I found myself beaming with agreement and felt tears welling up in my eyes. He gave example after example of the Episcopal Church choosing to act in love and recognizing ours and others humanness. I won’t try to fully explain his views on incarnational theology here but promise to post his class as soon as it is available online. In simple terms, it’s about approaching each person who crosses your path with boundless love. That’s how I’ve tried to live my live, and I am grateful to all those who have shared God’s love with me.

Dr. Matthews’ words connected deeply with my soul. The love he was describing, I had recently experienced in all its glory. As the class ended, I stood and tried to walk out of the class space as discreetly and as quickly as possible. I knew I was experiencing a holy moment (and I was about to lose it…I mean fall apart from it’s intensity).

I walked into the empty church and fell into the second pew. Sunlight beamed down upon me as tears streamed down my face. I wept…not in sadness but from great happiness and in sincere gratitude. They were tears of immense joy brought upon by my ability in that moment to acknowledge and embrace the full grace of God.

I took healing and strengthening breaths. I imaged with each breath the Holy Spirit filling my lungs with strength for the journey I would face again when I walked down off of this mountain and back out that door. I stared into the beautiful stained glass window before me. The longer I sat there the brighter the colors became and the clearer the image in front of me. I realized it was the baptismal font, the image reminding me of the promises I have made:

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good
News of God in Christ?

I will, with God’s help.

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving
your neighbor as yourself?

I will, with God’s help.

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

I will, with God’s help.

(The Book of Common Prayer, pg. 305)

I smiled. I took deeper breaths. I gave myself some time. I reckoned that it took Moses 40 days to come off of the mountaintop. I smiled again. I took another deep breath.

After promising to continue striving to live into my baptismal promises as best I could, my eyes raised further. There in the upmost point of the window, at it’s brightest, was the dove, the Holy Spirit Itself. I stared at the image, the light powerful and yet comfortingly not forcing my eyes to close. They stayed fixed upon the light until the brightness of the dove was emblazoned upon my sight and led me forward, the center of my vision.

Boundless love for my birthday. Thanks to God and to all of you for sharing this most amazing birthday gift. God give me the strength to share the same with others.

With love and light,

LT

A Soft Spot for Lent

I have a soft spot for Lent. Not only does my church, Calvary Episcopal Church, do Lent like no other with the Lenten Series and Waffle Shop, Lent has been a significant game changer in my life, as I know it was for Jesus, too.

Do you know about Lent? In Christian communities, it’s often a time in which the readings about Jesus living into His ministry are read and discussed. For forty days and nights (the same number that Jesus spent in the wilderness) churches around the world reflect on Jesus’ life as it leads towards the cross and ultimately our salvation at the cross. Too much? Take a step back and let me share a story.

I grew up in a church that followed liturgical seasons. You’re probably familiar with them, too, regardless of your religious practice (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Advent, etc., etc., etc.). You get it. Each season has a significant focus on the life of Jesus and the Christian faith, and each season includes a series of readings from the Bible so that throughout the year, participants in liturgical services end up hearing a significant account of Jesus’ life as well as readings from the Old Testament (the first part of the Bible) leading up to His life. It’s pretty amazing how in depth the study can be and how much of the Bible is actually read through this practice.

I grew up hearing all of these readings and following cycle after cycle of seasons, year after year, but in my early 30’s, Lent made a significant impact. It was one of those major hill climbs on my spiritual journey. And when I say hill, I mean reaching towards the peak.

I was a youngish wife and mother of two, working hard both professionally and in trying to live out God’s call for me to do good or share my gifts or whatever it was that I still hadn’t totally figured out. Feeling a strong pull towards something different, towards something that might help others, I left my job of eight years, a job with great meaning, a place with beloved colleagues and a ministry in itself. It was not without a lot of prayer that I made this leap of faith towards something new.

It was only weeks into my decision that I started to wonder if I had misunderstood what I felt strongly as a calling. I was confused and hurt. I could not understand how the positive and powerful spiritual pull I had felt had lead to something so painful and difficult. I prayed. I prayed hard. I called upon friends. I asked for help and guidance.

Eventually, a thought settled on me. In my new career, I no longer felt as if I was using my gifts and talents to serve others, something important to me in both my profession and ministry. I decided if I was not using them in my professional work, I would need to make sure I was using them elsewhere.

I called upon a local church to see if I might offer my services. Although my confidence was badly bruised from my current predicament, I knew I had a lot of experience to offer as a communications specialist as well as a lay-leader bible study facilitator. I offered to help facilitate a bible study at their church as well as to help coordinate their communications volunteers. The bible study was to start the Thursday before the first Sunday of Lent and a volunteer organizing meeting would happen a few weeks later.

The readings during that Lent were cathartic. Interestingly enough, they are very similar year to year. As I studied the main gospel lesson with the several women who gathered on Thursdays that Lent, I found myself healing. I found myself strengthening. I realized that just as Jesus was tempted in the desert, I was finding myself tested. I realized that I too had the strength inside me to resist that temptation and that I wasn’t going to put a bushel over my head any longer.

I made a decision to make a change. Interestingly enough, just as I closed the door on the oppression I was experiencing, God opened a window. To this day, it remains one of the most amazing moments of answered prayer in my life. After several weeks of Lenten bible study, being guided to and surviving the wilderness and walking the ministry of Jesus towards Jerusalem, I stood before a group of volunteers wanting to learn more about how they could help share the message of their church. After the gathering, a kind man walked up to me and asked me if I was happy with my current employment. I answered him honestly and said, “no.” The window opened. The job of my dreams awaited me, one I knew would make the difference I was praying for.

When I walked away from the church building that night, I opened the doors to the outdoors and the trumpets of angels were blaring. It was the local train coming through blowing it’s horn, but the timing could not have been more perfect for angels’ trumpets, and it will forever be angels’ trumpets blaring through that night that awaiting me as I walked in a new direction towards light out of darkness.

Ah Lent, it does have a soft spot in my heart. It is not easy. It is challenging, but it is oh so worth it, for Easter and resurrection is coming, my friend. There is always a way out of the darkness. We just have to find the path. We have to be willing to make the study, to open our eyes, our ears, our minds, our hearts to the possibility that there is another way and that God wants to lead us there.

I also want to note that there was great purpose in that trying time before the angels’ trumpets blared. I will forever be thankful for each and every person that crossed my path during that time and the lessons learned from each of them. Without that experience, I would not have been prepared for the new path before me.

I wish you the most blessed and thoughtful Lent. I hope that angels blare their trumpets for you. Just know that you might have to do a little homework to hear them.

In 2014, Lent will begin March 4 and continue through April 17. You don’t have to wait to start attuning your ears, hearts, eyes and minds.

With love and light,

LT