Category: Pandemic Writing 2020-2021

Today, August 12, is the height of the Perseid meteor shower. Christians in some parts of the world call the Perseids the “tears of Saint Lawrence,” after the 3rd-century Deacon and martyr whose feast day falls around the meteor shower each year. The story goes that Lawrence gave the literal treasures of the Church to the poor as alms, and when treasure was demanded of him by the Roman prefect, Lawrence showed him the people themselves, who he knew to be God’s treasures. The prefect didn’t think that was funny, so he had Lawrence killed. A story arose (possibly due to a Latin spelling error) that he was not beheaded as other persecuted Christians were at the time, but instead roasted on a gridiron. In the midst of being grilled to death he is said to have joked “I’m done on this side, turn me over.” Lawrence is now the patron saint of both chefs and comedians.

This very hot week with both its astrological phenomena and all of our typical daily encounters, may we look up and see the beauty in God’s creation; may we look out and see God’s treasures in his people. And may we look in and find ourselves burning with enough passion for God to joke even when we’re being roasted.

During our General/Jurisdictional Conference Delegation meeting this week, the devotional was on Psalm 33, which talks about God watching over us. Christine Dodson (head of our delegation) chose to read the passage from the Message translation. Where the NRSV uses phrases like “people” and “humankind,” this particular Psalm in the Message uses the phrase “earth-dwellers,” and Bishop Ward picked up on it. She said that particular phrase reminds her about the difference between us and God, that us “earth-dwellers” aren’t always so good, and certainly not always so good to one another. 

But the Psalm goes on to say that “God’s eye is on those who respect him, the ones who are looking for his love.” We might be dwellers of this Earth for a time, but may our hearts dwell on the things of God, so that his eye may be upon us.

Last Sunday morning there were helium-filled balloons in the Narthex with doves at the bottom, symbolizing the Holy Spirit. It was a nice touch to go with the rest of the Pentecost decorations that morning, but by the time I began to set up for UMYF on Sunday afternoon, those balloons had floated all the way down the hallway. They were everywhere. Someone joked to me it was as if the little paper doves were flying them around the building. But I thought it went with the Pentecost theme beautifully.

Pastor Mitzi used the text of Romans 15:13 as the benediction on Sunday morning: “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you overflow with love and hope.” Okay, so these balloons were overflowing with lighter-than-air gas, and powered by the Soapstone air conditioning. But after the end of the worship services, they drifted to places only God could have foreseen. May we drift with his Spirit as well, knowing his joy and peace, overflowing with his love and hope, every time we are sent out.

Of all the things that have made people say “I want off this planet” over the last 15 months, I wasn’t expecting a gas shortage to be one of them. I suppose none of us expected any of this. But people hoarding gas sure doesn’t give me faith in humanity. Rev. Betsy Haas, Deacon at Kitty Hawk UMC had this to say about it, basing her devotional on John 17. I’m reminded of the Israelites in the desert, being provided daily Manna from heaven and yet still being unable to keep from hoarding. It turns out that even thousands of years ago we couldn’t really put our faith in humanity.

What the Israelites (and their spiritual descendants all the way to us) had to learn was that they could put their faith in God. God the Son told his disciples not to store up treasures on earth. God the Father had Moses tell his people not to store up food for even an extra day, except before the Sabbath. And while we all might be literally and metaphorically out of gas in the 17th month of 2020, may we take this opportunity to think outside ourselves, trust in God, gather just what we need, leave some in the pump, and maybe, just maybe, remember to do what Moses and Aaron hoped their followers would do in their time of crisis: each evening know that God has brought us through, and each morning see his glory.

There’s a crowd game love to play called Lamentation or Taylor Swift Lyric. The premise is pretty simple. We put a verse on the screen and the players have to guess whether it’s a verse from the Book of Lamentations in the Bible, or if it’s a verse from a sad Taylor Swift song about somebody she broke up with. It’s great entertainment for this “Swiftie” and church staff member. It’s also surprisingly difficult. I played it in a room with about 30 United Methodist pastors at a retreat in Nags Head a few years ago. The pastors missed every. single. question. Although I had suspected we wouldn’t have a ton of T-Swift fans in the group, apparently we didn’t have a lot of causal readers of Lamentations either.

I don’t have a great track record of sticking with published devotionals. They tend to be cheerful, and when I’m not feeling cheerful, that tends to exacerbate, rather than alleviate my mood. But much as I love Taylor Swift, her songwriting is not always cheerful. And much as I love the Bible, it isn’t always either. Lamentations is a great example, but leaders from Jeremiah to David to Jesus himself expressed written and verbal frustrations to the Father about the state of their nations, their lives, and their relationships with God. But they did so with an honesty that displays faith in a God who looks beyond our temporary worries and who is also with us in the suffering. May we look to God even when we’re not cheerful, and may we know we’re in good company.

When my grandmother (Velma) and her sister (Shirley) were elementary students in the 1930’s, they had to memorize the 23^rd Psalm in Sunday School. After a few weeks of learning it, my grandmother told her Sunday School teacher she didn’t like the 23^rd Psalm, and the teacher was perplexed. How could anybody dislike such a peaceful, comforting series of verses? It turned out she just had a problem with one of them, verse 6: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,” which she mistakenly heard as “Shirley, goodness, and mercy shall follow me.” My grandmother told her teacher “Shirley follows me everywhere now, I don’t want her to do it all my life.”

This Sunday we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday. We’ll read what David and Jesus each said about shepherds and sheep. We’ve been singing the Sheep Song in preschool chapel. I hope we all have goodness and mercy following us, not as a little sibling dragged along, but as the characteristics of Christ which we imitate and leave in our wake… all the days of our lives.

Ecuador has one Olympic gold medal. If you know anything about Ecuador, or other South American countries, particularly Andean countries, you might guess that medal is in the sport of soccer, or tennis, or golf, or even volleyball. It is, in fact, in the slightly less-followed sport of Speed Walking. Jefferson Pérez won gold in Atlanta in 1996. There is a legend that he won the gold, then walked home, which is partially true. He flew back to Quito and walked 285 miles back to his home city of Cuenca. And Ecuador loves him. There are things named after him everywhere, particularly in Cuenca, but even in Quito. My favorite one, though, is the Trole (trolley) station. If your’e riding the Trole, you’re obviously not walking, so it has always seemed to me an ironic choice of monuments. Jefferson Pérez kept going back to World Championships and Olympics through 2008 and placing and medaling to let everyone know this wasn’t just a fluke. But that Trole stop to me is almost like the whole country of Ecuador saying to this hero of an obscure sport, “we want to celebrate… but we’re just not quite sure what to do with you.” 

All throughout the Eastertide scriptures, Jesus keeps appearing to the disciples. And they’re never quite sure what to do with him. But he proves who he is, he tells them he’s not a ghost, and he comforts them with familiar imagery. I would guess that Jefferson Pérez looks at his namesake station and says “I’d rather walk.” But I know that Jesus looks at us and says “I’d rather walk with you.” May we walk with him.

One of my favorite stories to tell about my brother is how he made fun of me once after I referenced the 1980’s cartoon Gummi Bears. Somehow in our childhood, I loved this show but he’d totally missed it, and when I brought it up decades later, he was sure I’d imagined it. So I made the same reference that night at dinner with a bunch of his friends, and they all burst out singing the theme song: “Dashing and daring, courageous and caring, faithful and friendly with stories to share…” My brother’s face was priceless as he displayed just how stunned he was that this was a real thing. I didn’t let it show, but I was a little stunned myself that six people who hadn’t seen a show since preschool could dig all that out of their memories.

But my brother’s former Children’s Choir director tells a story about him too. He was just in second or third grade, sitting next to her in the worship service while my mom and I were doing something musical. The point in the service came when we said the Apostles’ Creed, and while the Children’s Choir director dutifully turned to page 881 in her hymnal, my brother just started reeling off all the words. She’d been in the church since long before he was born, but I suppose he had been in worship a higher percentage of his Sundays than she had, and some things had started to stick, the way the book of Proverbs says they will.

In some parts of the world, this Sunday is called Low Sunday, to differentiate it from the Feast Day of Easter the week before. I’ve heard pastors joke about the Low being a reference to attendance this particular week. I hope all of us, whether watching or showing up in person to worship, will continue to do so even on the “low” weeks, so what’s in there will continue to stick.

In Ecuador, and a few other Andean countries, we have this concept of a Minga. Minga is originally not even a Spanish word, but a Quechua one, because the idea originates in the indigenous cultures in the mountains. Sometimes it gets translated into Spanish as “faena,” which means “task.” The concept is that sometimes the entire community needs something, so they gather together to do it. Where our culture has taxes and government agencies to take care of things that theoretically will benefit everyone, Quechua culture has the minga: a promise that something will help everyone, and an ask for the work to make it a reality.

When someone first tried to explain una minga to me in English, they said it was a “community work day,” and that’s how I experienced it as I helped a Quechua community paint and pour concrete. But as I began to go back to some of the same communities over and over again and hear people say “We built this missionary training center through the minga,” or “the community all uses this kitchen so we had a minga,” I realized the pride the community took in having worked together, and the way they would smile at the word minga, not thinking back to the work itself, but thinking back to the fellowship they experienced alongside their co-laborers and brothers and sisters in Christ.

This week after spreading pine straw with Soapstone (our spring fundraiser) for days, my body is tired but my soul is encouraged. And my hope is that weeks and months from now, all of us think back not on the tasks that we have done, but in the connections forged throughout our congregation and with our neighbors in North Raleigh; that we would know that work wasn’t just done by our arms and backs and pickup trucks, but in ourselves and our relationships; that our own little minga, through God’s love, makes us his buildings and his fields where his work is done.