Refractions and Reflections

A couple of my Facebook friends shared this article yesterday, wherein Matt Moore describes how for years he plead with God to make him straight. Though I do not affirm his moral conclusions on the matter, I think it is a thoughtful post, and in fact quite gracious (from a Conservative viewpoint) to those who may be in the Church and experiencing same-sex attraction - it doesn't discount it or degrade them for their plight. Moore concluded, however, that his prayers to God were based not on a desire to be "right" with God, but on a desire to "fit in" or be found acceptable to other Christians. He cites the Romans 1:18-26 anti-homosexuality clobber text and states, "Homosexual desire – and all other sinful desire — exists in the hearts of people because worship of God doesn't. ...So why didn't God answer my prayer to rid me of my homosexual desires? Because homosexual desires were not my main problem. They were a problem, for sure. But the root of...

When I was in the first grade, I discovered one of my classmates lived right around the corner from me. She became my first unrelated friend. We lived in rural Northwest Ohio and spent the summers riding our bikes and/or walking down the freshly tarred back road she lived on. Maybe three quarters of a mile away, past nothing except a neighboring farm warranting its own traffic signs (My sister kindly went and took these two shots for me today.) :) and fields growing corn taller than we were, we would visit a drainage ditch with two tunnels under an even "backer" road. We called this magical place "The Bridge". I introduced my brothers and cousins to The Bridge right away. My older brother almost stepped on a snake there once. My youngest brother liked watching two small otters that played there one year. My cousin David caught a crayfish, a.k.a. the strangest-looking creature I think I ever saw outside of a zoo or a science book. Me? I would lie on my sto...

There comes a limit to my compassion, my understanding, my friendship...my love. Especially when it seems someone kicks and screams against it...or misuses or takes advantage of it. In my entire life there have been MAYBE 10-12 people with whom I have particularly not meshed...people toward whom, for some reason or other, I found it difficult to live out the love of Christ. Or even just my own love. I'm a pretty loving person, after all...generally speaking. But yeah, there have been times when, though I didn't not love someone, I chose to be selfish rather than giving...perhaps the person needed me and I chose to be lazy or self-serving rather than go the extra mile to do something for them. I have a couple of regrets in this area, in fact. But I'm talking about the people against whom I would rather take revenge . Someone from whom I would like to withhold love, in order to punish them, or at least in order to just "be done" with them in order to protect mys...

Okay, so I know this is "old news" already, but I need to say something concerning Robin Williams. Most of what I read/heard about his death was nothing short of loving, compassionate, and sorrowful to learn of the deep despair he experienced. But those views that were critical were really grating to me - to use a cliche, like nails on a chalkboard. I'm not going to link to any of those critical viewpoints here, because I don't wish to give them any more publicity; but you know what I'm talking about - Rush Limbaugh, the news anchor dude who referred to Williams as a coward and then apologized because people expressed disapproval of his viewpoint, and Matt Walsh, among others. First, the reason I even felt the need to address it here is that all this harmful noise reminds us that there is still a rampant disregard and stigmatism out there for the legitimacy of mental illness (including depression), even in the mainstream. Second, I just can't understand so...

Tonight I watched the Broadway play (on video)  Passion by Stephen Sondheim . In it, Giorgio is a military captain who is deeply in love with a married woman named Clara, with whom he has been having a passionate affair. He receives orders and is stationed away from Clara in the home of a Colonel Ricci whose ill cousin, Fosca, also lives there. Giorgio and Fosca meet, and he is disgusted at the way she seems to submit to her illness and languish joylessly through life. He encourages her to look to the good things life has to offer. She asks how. He says, “Well…by helping others.”   “Helping others?” She replies. “I have worked in poor houses, Captain. Pity is nothing but passive love – dead love.” (I thought that was a great line.) He fails to draw her out of her self-pity, but she falls in love with him because he tries. She becomes obsessed, though he is honest with her from the beginning that he does not return her affections. She pretends ...

  Often we hear various attributes of God compared and contrasted, such as holiness vs. grace, transcendence vs. immanence, judgment vs. love, etc. But recently I have come across theology books that don’t contrast so much as try to articulate a little better how seemingly disparate attributes work together with each other. I find this particularly interesting in regard to God’s love and His judgment. For instance, in his book God the Almighty Donald Bloesch says, “ We know God to be love in His innermost nature, and this means that His wrath and judgment are not another side of God but actually expressions of His love. ” I’m pretty sure he deduces this from the fact that Scripture explicitly says, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16) but nowhere does it say, “God is justice” or “God is judgment” or “God is wrath” (as in, equating the centrality of His being with the concept of judgment itself).    But how can this be?  Can a judgment for someone's destruction be ...

  This weekend I watched the movie The Godfather for the first time. (I know, where have I been?!) I really liked it – I must now see the sequels!   I found the character of Vito Corleone pretty interesting. In the opening scene, he denies one man’s request and tells him, “You never wanted my friendship. And you were afraid to be in my debt. …You never needed a friend like me. …[And now] you don’t even think to call me godfather. …What have I ever done to make you approach me so disrespectfully?” So the man changes his approach, says, “Will you be my friend?” bows his head, and kisses the godfather’s hand. That changes everything; the don will now come to his aid – stand as his ally, his protector…his friend. But no one gets something for nothing. The trade is unconditional loyalty…up to and including a returned favor if ever asked.    When not conducting business, the mob leader is quite the family man. He dances with his wife at their daughter’s wedding...

"All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you. I never had a selfless thought since I was born. I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through; I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.   "Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek, I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin; I talk of love – a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek – But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin." I have begun to awaken to the wider world of which I am a part. I have begun to realize that the crux of all things meaningful is inherently connected to a solidarity with the rest of humanity. We are indeed all in this together. Is humanity broken? Yes, I believe it is. Is there a solution? Yes; in Christ, I believe there is. But the solution has little to do with good works and nothing to do with formal religion. As much as I grow in my rhetoric of love and social justice, the fact remains that I am still a self-obsessed person in a world of sel...

Although Easter was yesterday , all that talk about resurrection gets me thinking about what it means to be alive. Lots of people have lots of different opinions on this – hence all the debates on abortion, life support, euthanasia, etc. Perhaps one of the things “being alive” means is that you get to have an opinion. And you get to learn how to live side-by-side on this great big planet with other people’s opinions, too. Love, in my opinion, is one of the more important aspects of being alive. Sure, a person can for one reason or another cut off all his or her relationships and still breathe, and walk around, and “exist”…but that reminds me more of someone on a ventilator than someone who has a strong pulse and a reason to build his or her strength again to a point of thriving. Relationships…compassion…we thrive on love both as an experience and as an activity. Inventiveness…creativity…is another special aspect of being alive. I think each person brings his or her own nuance to ...

Most of us have seen many variations of this picture through the years (me included)...but this year, this one caught my attention. I guess it's because you can see the individual lash marks on His body. You can see where the bruising would be if He had afterwards lived long enough for it to occur. Isaiah said, "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; THE CHASTISEMENT FOR OUR PEACE was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed" (53:5, NKJV). Self-harm has become an epidemic in our culture - people inflicting pain and wounds upon themselves in order to "feel" or in order to punish themselves for perceived "wrongness". People feel they deserve to be chastised. Masochists seek someone who will "love" them enough to beat the unworthiness out of them and bring them a reward of pleasure. When damaged people pour out their own insecurities on us, we believe the lie that this is what we somehow deserve....

In my Homiletics class this semester we are preaching from the Book of Revelation. Today was a preaching day, in which several of my classmates orated their sermons to the rest of us. One of them in particular gave me some clarity on an issue I've been struggling with lately having to do with the relevance of preaching on sin. Basically, my struggle has been with the judgmentalism I have perceived in Christianity. MANY times I have needed grace, and many times I have needed time to overcome certain sins in my life. I think I owe others the same grace. And often, I have been condemned and judged by well-meaning Christians for things the Bible does not label as sin; basically, people demand that I live by their personal convictions. And of course, being the stubborn girl I am, I refuse to give in to their demands. Not only this, but I see in Scripture an emphasis on loving God and one's neighbors. I think many/most sins are rooted in the fact that they hurt God or other peopl...

I dare say, it seems to me that most people, Christians included, view the God of the Old Testament as a pretty loathesome fellow. Some would never admit this, but let's face it...most of the time we view His treatment of people in the Old Testament, and even His own chosen people, as impatient, inflexible...and even perhaps inconsistent, or moody. For what it's worth, I do not think it is fair or accurate to view the God of the Old Testament as being different than the loving Father God as revealed by Jesus in the New Testament. He is, indeed, one and the same. Here are a couple of thoughts for your consideration. Allow me to reintroduce you to the Prophets - the Old Testament harbingers of doom, gloom, impending judgment and just plain dourness. We will start with Jonah, who just so happens to be one of my favorites. And yes, you might have guessed he would be one of my obvious picks. After all, God basically forced him to go call the people of Ninevah to repentance. ...

The subject of this post is somewhat connected to the last...but from a different perspective. A couple of years ago I took a counseling class on "Addictive Behaviors in Family Systems." In it, I learned that many counselors believe that their job is not usually to take an "all or nothing" approach with those who come to them for help in overcoming an addiction (such as alcoholism). In fact, the client chooses for him-/herself what his/her goal will be...whether he/she wants to quit the behavior altogether, or just limit it in some way (how often, how much, etc.). The counselor, then, assists the client in reaching this goal. How do I relate this concept to pastoral ministry? The correlation to pastoral counseling, especially in the area of addictions, seems obvious. But is it? Is it the pastor's duty to urge everyone to perfection immediately, or should some people be steered closer to Christ in incremental "stages"? (I've heard the idea that if...

I'm reading a book for one of my classes right now...it's called Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership , by Gary McIntosh and Samuel Rima. It is definitely one of the best books I have ever read. I'm finishing up chapter 17 right now, which discusses the Scriptural description of grace that frees us from the expectations of others. One of the Scripture passages discussed in this chapter is one that I have been looking at quite frequently lately, and I have felt like there is something there that I'm just not getting. After reading this chapter...I get it!! (The passage is Colossians 2:16-23.) As Christians, we believe that the God we believe in has revealed Himself personally in Jesus Christ. If we really believe this, then we must view our relationship with God in light of what Jesus taught about Him. And Jesus taught that in Him we have freedom to live in right relationship with God without worrying so much about unbearable expectations and legalistic demands that ...

I am in Ohio right now for my brother and sister's high school graduation, and for the last week I have been staying in my sister's room while she is housesitting with a friend somewhere else. My sister's room was my old room when I lived at home. It was the room wherein I grieved my brother's death 12 years ago. And it was the room that my sister laid in over this past year after numerous aggressive chemotherapy treatments, not knowing if she was going to live or die. This room has witnessed a lot of emotional pain and suffering. I have a friend in Joplin named Millie. She is 96. Every so often she asks me what I think of death. She asks, "Do you think that, when we die, we go straight to heaven...or do you think we will be in a grave, waiting for whatever happens until heaven is a reality...?" I imagine if I were 96 I would want to know the answer to that question, too. And I believe that, as a minister, it is my duty and my privilege to share with Millie ...