Good morning.

We had our Synod Assembly this week (yearly meeting with the bishop, clergy and lay leaders) and I am aware of how exhausted the clergy are right now. (And I am sure…all other helping professions.) So here is a blessing for my colleagues. Feel free to send it on to whoever you’d like.

A Blessing for a Pastor’s Heart.

I imagine it was because of your heart that you went into this work in the first place.

So I imagine you have a heart that wanted to extend beyond itself, to stretch to love God’s people.

So may God bless the parts of your heart that receive their stories so openly, and comfort their sufferings so compassionately, and share their joys so thoroughly.

And may God also heal the parts of your heart that have been wounded by the very people whose stories you receive and whose sufferings you comfort and whose  joys you share.

And may God revive the parts of your heart that have grown protectively cold.

And may God protect the parts of your heart that are well-loved by those who know you best.

And may God gently place God’s own heart right behind yours so that the sorrow of those in your care can move your heart but find a landing place in God’s.

And may God gently place God’s own heart right behind yours so that the love you give in this work can come through you but doesn't have to come from you.

And as the love of God moves from God’s heart through your own to those in your care, may your heart soak up all it needs in the process.

Because your heart is a human one too, and it deserves to be well tended to.

AMEN.

*I heard this image about God’s heart behind our own somewhere and wish I could remember the source. If anyone knows, tell me!

The Corners by Nadia Bolz-Weber is a reader-supported publication.

If you’d like to support and engage with me and my work and have full-access here, you can become a paid subscriber. And as always, if a paid subscription isn’t for you, just shoot us and email at shamelessmediallc@gmail.com and we will hook you up for free!

 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

My friend Phil used to tell a story about how he was broke and needed to buy a car but he only had $500 to spend.  Then one day he found one – he found a $500 car on Craig’s list and on the phone the seller indicated that it was a blue Toyota - banged up but in working condition. . . and my friend Phil joked, oh, it’s blue? I was really wanting a red one” 

Lord, give me a RED $500 car and I will be satisfied.

I’ve found myself spending a lot of time daydreaming about, well . . . everything. Walking the Camino again. Finally moving out of my apartment and into a house. “Getting into shape” (which is just code for somehow managing to not be 52 - like doing whatever has to be done to be 40 again), checking out airfare to “exciting” places, buying clothes on line that I just have to return because they are clothes that would have fit me when I was 40. There’s nothing particularly wrong with any of these things (except the time travel body idea), it’s just that it all keeps me from enjoying my ACTUAL life.

I mention this because I’ve been thinking about the connection between acceptance and satisfaction.

See, in John chapter 14 Jesus is trying desperately to tell his disciples in about 600 ways that the Father has sent him, that if they want to see the heart of the Father they need look no further than to him, that he and the Father are one. To which Phillip replies “Lord, just show us the Father and we will be satisfied”

Will you though, Phillip? Will you be satisfied?

Jesus was literally standing right in front of him, in that present moment, and he was too in his head to be satisfied by that. I love Phillip for this.

It makes me wonder, in what ways do I assume my own satisfaction is somewhere else – in a future time, in a different situation, with different people – and how does this keep me from experiencing the gift of what happens to already be in front of me.

Meaning, if I cannot find satisfaction in anything I already have then why in the world do I think I could find satisfaction in anything I don’t already have? Meaning, maybe satisfaction is only possible, not by getting exactly everything I imagine would bring me satisfaction, but by first accepting the parts of life I can’t change. Accepting the parts of myself that I can’t change. Accepting the people I can’t change. (Which, if you are keeping score at home, the number of people I can’t change = ALL the people)

Now, I have to state the obvious here – I’m not suggesting people should be satisfied in abusive relationships or accept toxic situations or continue in unhealthy lives or cease growing in life and work. Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. Acceptance is just an honest acknowledgment of actual reality.

Phillip couldn’t accept the idea that Jesus was all he spiritually needed because he thought he already knew what God was supposed to look like and how God was supposed to act and what he got instead was Jesus of Nazareth.

But we’re all in that same boat, in a way.

It’s like Jesus is saying “what more can I tell you? What more can I do for you? What more can I show you? Everything you need has already been given to you.”

And then I’m all like:

“But Lord, I don’t want you, I want a map to you and I will be satisfied”

“But Lord, increase my income and I will be satisfied”

“But Lord show me the Father and I will be satisfied.”

But will I? Will I be satisfied?

Back to my daydreaming habit: I think that avoidance of the present moment is what keeps me from satisfaction.

Because how in the world can I actually experience anything I have now as being good if I live in the resentment or, even worse, the nostalgia of the past or if I live in the escapist hope or fear of the future. Like the old guys in AA meetings say, when you have one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you’re just pissing on the present.

We’re just missing out on the sacrament of the present moment, which is exactly where God is to be found.

This is why the I AM statements in John’s Gospel are so amazing.  Jesus said, I AM the way the truth and the life. Not I was the way, or at some point I will be the way. No. There is an I am-ness to the Lord. Which means now.

I need the I Am-ness of God. 

The right here-ness of God.

The right now-ness of God.

Because it’s not like God is hiding somewhere in our preferred future- like God is waiting for all the ideal circumstances to line up for us – like she is hiding in the future when we meet our husband and then she will finally jump out of the bushes and make all our dreams come true, or when we finally have a baby, or the moment when everyone in our lives finally starts acting the way we think they should.

You may never marry, you may never have a child, and for sure people will never magically act the way  you think they should.

But God is not to be found in eventualities.

God is to be found in actual reality.

THIS is the day that the Lord hath made.

THIS is the body that the Lord hath made.

THESE are the people that the Lord hath made.

Let us rejoice and be as glad as is realistically possible in all of it.

Because now, right now, is when God is saying be still and know that I AM God. Right now, as sirens wail, and coffee brews, and the dog still sleep, and my eyeliner from yesterday is smeared under my lids because I didn’t wash my face last night. Right now.

Be still and know that I am God.

Take a deep breath.

There are no red $500 cars to be found. Yet everything you need has already been given to you.

About The Corners

If you’d like to support my work, access more content, and engage with me and other subscribers here, you can subscribe to The Corners using the button below. You will have access to essays, conversation threads, Q & A, and all the archives.

(I’m a big believer in paying for content. I have paid subscriptions to many publications and am a patron of several artists and thinkers whose work I love. BUT I am also someone who had very little money for most of her life and even lived on government assistance for many of them, so I know what it is like to not have extra. This is why The Corners is set up as a “those who can pay do and those who can’t need not have to” model. Just email shamelessmediallc@gmail.com for a free subscription) 

The Corners by Nadia Bolz-Weber is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

READ my NYT bestselling memoirs: Pastrix; The Cranky, Beautiful Faith Of A Sinner & Saint (Re-released 2021), Accidental Saints; Finding God In All The Wrong People(2015) and SHAMELESS; A Sexual Reformation (2019).

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Matthew 2

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened . . .

An Epiphany Story of 2 Masculinities

A story of 2 men -

Herod, who is a ruler on a throne of power, and Joseph who is a peasant in an unconventional marriage. One man is powerful and one man is not. And yet the text only describes one of these men as being afraid.

And it wasn’t the peasant.

Matthew’s Gospel tells us that King Herod made the Magi tell him where this baby was because he was frightened.

Frightened of a baby.

Threatened by a horoscope and a newborn.

And this fear that his position in life is so tenuous that it must be fortified by sacrificing whoever it takes is not a theoretical one by the way - this Herod guy literally killed two of his own sons because he felt threatened by them.

His own sons.

Fear that what he had could be taken away, or fear of not getting what he wanted turned him into a monster. So much so that when he can’t quite locate the right baby, the one that is so threatening to him, he just sends for all the children two and under in and around Bethlehem to be killed.

Take that in.

This is what fear does.  

This is what fear does. Fear disguises itself in so many ways: as greed, hate, isolation, addiction…the list is endless. But in the end fear is at the root of all of it. And while you and I might not be murderous tyrants, none of us are free from the effects of fear in our lives. It keeps us isolated and small and it steals away joy and possibility.

But in Joseph we see a different kind of man than Herod. Joseph was not afraid.

An angel came from God and spoke love, was love, embodied love, sought to protect love – like a divine can of compressed air, and this cast out Joseph’s fear so that he could function the way he was intended to.  And here’s one clue – one way that we can know that Joseph was not afraid: he didn't bat an eye when the angel said that his baby and wife weren’t safe so he should take his family to Egypt.

Egypt.

The place his ancestors were enslaved. The place that God rescued his people from slavery.

With fear cast out, Joseph was able to believe it possible that God’s redemptive work can happen anywhere - even Egypt. With fear cast out, Joseph no longer had to see everything through the lens of what it was in the past. With fear cast out, he was able to beat a king, protect his wife and child, and preserve that which is good in the face of tyranny. (Just as an aside, we really need to start having better conversations about men. I don’t think that maligning traits that have historically seen as “masculine” is helpful. I want to start lifting up examples of beneficent masculinity, but I digress...)

Herod’s fear caused death and Joseph’s fearlessness protected life. Of course the irony is that Herod feared this baby for all the wrong reasons. The Christ child did not knock Herod off his pathetic little throne. History took care of that.  

No. Jesus of Nazareth did not overthrow Rome, he laughed at Rome. He saw Rome for what it was: temporary. Fleeting. Harsh and demanding and tyrannical, yes, but temporary. 

And this child, protected by the songs of angels and the heart of his mother and the fearlessness of his father, came to free the people.  Free us from the shackles of sin and fear. Gospel people are free people and free people are dangerous people.  Free people aren’t ruled by fear. Free people see Rome for what it is. 

And you know what?

There are angels hovering round us, good people of God.  There are messengers of love all around.  And again, and forever, they say: do not be afraid.  Do not be afraid. For in the heart of God there is enough love to cast out fear. Herods of the world, take note.

Happy Epiphany.

Wise Women Also Came

(image and poem by the astounding Jan Richardson)

Wise women also came.The fire burnedin their wombslong before they sawthe flaming starin the sky.They walked in shadows,trusting the pathwould openunder the light of the moon.

Wise women also came,seeking no directions,no permissionfrom any king.They cameby their own authority,their own desire,their own longing.They came in quiet,spreading no rumors,sparking no fearsto leadto innocents’ slaughter,to their sister Rachel’sinconsolable lamentations.

Wise women also came,and they broughtuseful gifts:water for labor’s washing,fire for warm illumination,a blanket for swaddling.

Wise women also came,at least three of them,holding Mary in the labor,crying out with herin the birth pangs,breathing ancient blessingsinto her ear.

Wise women also came,and they went,as wise women always do,home a different way.

About The Corners

If you’d like to support my work, access more content, and engage with me and other subscribers here, you can subscribe to The Corners using the button below. You will have access to essays, conversation threads, Q & A, and all the archives.

(I’m a big believer in paying for content. I have paid subscriptions to many publications and am a patron of several artists and thinkers whose work I love. BUT I am also someone who had very little money for most of her life and even lived on government assistance for many of them, so I know what it is like to not have extra. This is why The Corners is set up as a “those who can pay do and those who can’t need not have to” model. Just email shamelessmediallc@gmail.com for a free subscription) 

The Corners by Nadia Bolz-Weber is a reader-supported publication.

A blessing for the new year:

As you enter this new year, as you pack away the Christmas decorations and get out your stretchy pants

as you face the onslaught of false promises offered you through new disciplines and elimination diets

as you grasp for control of yourself and your life and this chaotic world

May you remember that there is no resolution that, if kept, will make you more worthy of love.

There is no resolution that, if kept, will make life less uncertain and allow you to control a pandemic and your children and the way other people act.  

So this year,

May you just skip the part where you resolve to be better do better and look better this time.

May you give yourself the gift of really, really low expectations.

May you expect so little of yourself that you can be super proud of the smallest of accomplishments.

May you expect so little of the people in your life that you actually notice and cherish every small lovely thing about them.

May you expect so little of the supply chain and the service industry that you notice more of what you do get and less of what you don't and then just tip really well anyhow.

May you expect to get so little out of 2022 that you can celebrate every single thing it offers you, however small.

Because you deserve joy and not disappointment

So, I wish you a Happy as possible New Year.

Love, Nadia.

The Corners by Nadia Bolz-Weber is a reader-supported publication.

Below is a digest of the posts you shared, liked and commented on the most the last 6 months of 2021 in case you missed or want to re-visit them.

And again, THANK YOU!

July’s:

On Beheadings and Birthday Parties

A sermon on Herod, John the Baptist, and the s**t we just don't need.

July 12th, 2021

. . . I know that losing face can hurt,

it just can’t hurt what matters.

Because out of a sacred regard for you – God has placed within you that which cannot be harmed, cannot be rejected, cannot be demoted. And as citizens of the Kingdom of God, as those who are also send by Jesus as healers – sent by the Holy One of God to cast out the demons of oppression and exploitation and loneliness - in the end there really is nothing for us to protect or defend.  There is no ranking system to maintain, there’s no outside approval to clamor for.

And there’s another term for that you know – it’s called freedom.

July Questions and Opinions

a monthly feature for subscribers

(each month, I spend a day asking and responding to questions)

July 22nd, 2021

My question: Who, in your own life, has taught you the most about forgiveness?

Your answer: My kids. They have such beautiful hearts. But perhaps most kids have something to teach us. They get mad, they forgive and they go off and play together again. Why can’t I do that as easily? I mean why can’t I look at my spouse after an argument and say “sorry and do you want half of my sandwich and do you want to go play?”

My response: OMG that should totally be our response. I love this.

_______

My question: Who, in your own life, has taught you the most about forgiveness?

Your answer: In my alcoholism, I harmed many people and at the end took out my rage on someone who was totally innocent, someone who did not even know me, a random victim. As a result, I became a convicted violent felon. But I also got sober and attempted to live a life as suggested in the program I joined. This individual testified against me at my sentencing hearing, as well she should have. And a year later testified during the hearing when I was disbarred as a lawyer. However, on the 10th anniversary of my sobriety, I sat across a table from her and we discussed many things, including our relationships with a power greater than ourselves. On that day, she forgave me for all I had done to her and later testified on my behalf when I sought and received back my license to practice law. God forgives and calls us to do likewise. I experienced the soul freeing that comes with forgiveness by another human being. That was almost 20 years ago and yet her forgiveness has remained with me all that time.

August’s:

The Most Shared Post of the Year (by FAR!):

If you can't take in anymore, there's a reason

an essay on circuit breakers, empty buckets, and the shame-show of social media

Aug 17th, 2021

…friends, I just do not think our psyches were developed to hold, feel and respond to everything coming at them right now; every tragedy, injustice, sorrow and natural disaster happening to every human across the entire planet, in real time every minute of every day.  The human heart and spirit were developed to be able to hold, feel and respond to any tragedy, injustice, sorrow or natural disaster that was happening IN OUR VILLAGE. 

So my emotional circuit breaker keeps overloading because the hardware was built for an older time. . . 

. . . I’m not saying we should put our heads in the sand, I’m saying that if your circuits are overwhelmed there’s a reason and the reason isn’t because you are heartless, it’s because there is not a human heart on this planet that can bear all of what is happening right now.

Meditation for judgmental b******s like me.

An essay for subscribers

. . . I don’t know about you, but I am exhausted by my own thinking - how I am always taking in what is happening and processing it through some fucked up criticism calculator to determine how far whatever is happening is from what it SHOULD be. 

But then I think about how Jesus said “consider the lilies of the field” not “critique the lilies of the field”.

Those lilies could be straighter. Whose field are those lilies in and why don’t they care enough to keep it weeded? I prefer yellow lilies and these are white. If Jesus really cared about me he would know that I am allergic to lilies.

Maybe in this next phase of life, I can manage to “see everything, judge little and forgive much” as Richard Rohr says instead of “see only what I want to, judge everything, forgive nothing”, because living in a constant place of distain for how far the distance is between how things are and how I think they “SHOULD” be is not good for my skin. Or my relationships. Or my heart. 

September’s:

9-11

Subscriber essay

September 12th, 2021

As someone who is grieving - as so many of you are - I realize how the death of a loved one can cause us to sideline all the s**t we usually focus on but that doesn’t really matter in any spiritually meaningful way - things like petty resentments, snotty opinions, making sure our preferences are always met, vanity, grudges etc. I sometimes wonder if Mary and “the disciple whom Jesus loved” had any resentment between them. And I wonder if, in the moment of Jesus’ death, those resentments melted away in the heat of their shared grief and then disappeared forever when Jesus said, “here is your mother, here is your son”. Grief is a monster. But it is a monster that gives us to one another.

Each year on 9-11 I commemorate the sorrow of that day 20 years ago by listening to this recording of Rabbi Irwin Kula chanting the messages left for loved ones by those who were in the Twin Towers.

As always, hold your loved ones close. - Nadia

“Girl, you gotta just submit and let people bless you.”

an essay on old ladies and new stories

September 15th, 2021

For most of my life, when asked how I am, I would answer by referencing the last shitty thing that happened to me. But after a lifetime of seeing the glass as half f**k-you I wish now that I could tie these kinds of moments together with ribbon and don them in my greying hair. I want to make a wreath of them, a potpourri of blessings to make myself more beautiful. Because, readers, I so often have done the opposite. I so often have mined my memories for ore to fuel a coal fire of hurt.

Maybe as we grow older we get to tell different stories about our lives than the ones we have worn smooth by repetition.

October’s:

A list of books, websites, movies and storytelling I am loving:

an occasional feature for subscribers

October 2nd, 2021

A Story I love:

My friend and fellow Moth Storyteller, Jon Goode just killed me with this one: (also, his instagram is amazing.)

November’s:

May Their Memory Be For Blessing

an essay on grief

November 30th, 2021

. . . I’ve been known to say that when someone dies or we experience a loss, we don’t get to control the guest list. Grief sticks their foot in the door and the b*****d waves all his friends in. So often when I find myself crying about something, I am suddenly also crying about something else.

. . . Maybe for the memory of our dead to be a blessing, we must fully allow the sorrow to metabolize into forgiveness for ourselves and others. Because life is too beautiful not to. So, may even the memory of who we were in the past be for blessing.

Thanksgiving and belongingness

an essay for subscribers

 Jesus said to Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world.  It’s not that he is King of some heavenly realm in the afterlife.  Like a big decadent post-death dessert buffet waiting for all those who have endured the suffering of good Christian diet foods their whole life.  Being citizens of the Kingdom of God means belonging to a truth.  It allows us to construct identity for ourselves and for the whole world based on something other than practical concerns and families of origin and political categories.

Your belongingness to the truth is determined by the voice of the Christ who calls you by name. And nothing else actually gets to tell you who you are.

December’s:

People Are All We’ve Got

an essay on Advent, Fleabag and Aloneness for subscribers

December 12th, 2021

Fleabag (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) has a 5 minute conversation with Belinda (played brilliantly by Kristin Scott Thomas) in which the older woman speaks transcendently about, of all things, menopause, and the freedom it brings; but you do get flirted with less…”It’s not a party until someone flirts with you… There’s nothing more exciting than a roomful of people”

“But,” fleabag responds. “People are…s**t”

“Look at me, listen…people are all we’ve got.”

And the soul felt its ____

The Annunciation and tattoo cover-ups

Dec 18th, 2021

I think that this is exactly what Mary understood: That what qualifies us for God’s grace isn’t our goodness – what qualifies us for God’s grace is nothing more than our need for God’s grace. 

I hope so. Because I just can’t manage to muster up a yes to what seemed like God’s conditional maybe toward me.

But God’s yes about me, for me, and toward me? That different.

That’s a useful miracle.

So, I won’t say that I hope this season is merry. I won’t say that I hope it is happy and bright. But I will say this: I hope you hear a divine “yes.” this season.

In other words, may your soul feel its worth.

The Corners by Nadia Bolz-Weber is a reader-supported publication. If you’d like to support my work and get access to exclusive content consider becoming a member. If a paid subscription isn’t for you just email shamelessmediallc@gmail.com and we will hook you up for free!

Thank you, friend!

Thank you for reading The Corners throughout 2021, for being willing to accompany me during this s**t-show of a beautiful, terrible year.

And to my paid subscribers: I am so grateful that you are willing to support me and my work. I promise to not take you for granted. I strive every day to be worthy of the trust you my readers have in me and in my writing. Your support has allowed me to pivot from mainly being a public speaker (not a COVID-possible job) to staying home and writing prayers and essays, making The Confessional Podcast, opening a pop-up Chapel on-line and beginning to write a new book (on forgiveness). Additionally, all the money I would normally be paid to regularly preach and teach at Montview Presbyterian and St. John Episcopal Cathedral here in Denver, instead goes directly to support New Beginnings, the congregation I serve inside the walls of the women’s prison.

That is all YOU. You allowed this to happen and I am deeply grateful.

Throughout this last year, I have tried to be as honest as possible about what it feels like to be a human right now, and to then hold that up and view it for a moment through the prism of divine grace and see how the light bounces off.

Below is a digest of the posts you shared, liked and commented on the most the first 6 months of 2021 in case you missed or want to re-visit them. (I’ll post part 2 tomorrow)

And again, THANK YOU!

The Corners by Nadia Bolz-Weber is a reader-supported publication.

January’s:

Epiphany

an essay for subscribers

Jan 6th, 2021

A story of 2 men -

Herod, who is a ruler on a throne of power, and Joseph who is a peasant in an unconventional marriage. One man is powerful and one man is not. And yet the text only describes one of these men as being afraid.

And it wasn’t the peasant. 

A Pandemic Sermon on Meditation as Repentance

(sermon starts at 15 min)

This is the beauty of our faith, not that we once were bad but now we’re good, but that Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling us out of our trances. . . The trance of self-interest. The trance of self-righteousness. The trance of self-loathing. Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling us out of the empty promises of our personal and cultural trances and into what is most true and most real – this present moment.  

And part of the good news we are called to repent and believe is that there is no upper limit to the times we can return to God by changing our minds or changing our hearts or changing our direction. It is not like the three tries you have to remember your password before the system locks you out. The gates of repentance are always open.

February’s:

Apparently I cannot heed my own advice.

subscriber essay

Feb 5th, 2021

inhale. exhale. walk the dog. buy the groceries. call the friend. This is the day the Lord hath made.

And I don’t want to miss it.

p.s. here’s what I am cooking today

You?

Sunday Prayers

Feb 28th, 2021

God, the thing is, my attempts to control myself aren’t working. I still haven’t started practicing yoga every day like I keep saying I will. Yesterday I lost my cool with a GE customer service rep. And the “Covid 19” I gained this year is not budging, for which I am merciless to myself. So I am remanding myself into your protective custody, because you are always kinder to me than I am to myself. 

Help me see that it is my unfair expectations of myself and others, and not my failure to meet those expectations which is making me miserable.

March’s:

Who are we now, after a year of this?

March 14th, 2021

I want so badly

to hug my friends again

and laugh like hell again

and have amazing conversations again

and yet I am not sure how long I could do any of this before crying or just getting really quiet. My emotional protective gear has worn so thin, and grief just leaks out everywhere now.

I am so afraid that I will never be who I once was. And I am also afraid that I will be.

(Not to mention, I’m not entirely clear what size jeans I wear as the me I am now)

And yet, when I quiet my anxious thoughts, I start to suspect that I am now closer to the me you have always known and always loved. So help me trust that, Lord. 

As things change, help us be gentle with ourselves and with each other. We are all wearing newborn skin right now.  

Amen.

March Questions and Opinions

Monthly subscriber feature

March 18th, 2021

Your question: I’ve never understood Easter.... I mean the collective unconscious belief in a person risen from the dead. Usually I avoid Easter cuz I get a really odd feeling watching people praise a risen person.I was Raised to believe that to believe in god you believe in the resurrection.... do they go hand in hand?

My opinion: People vary on this. I mean, maybe for you resurrection is just a metaphor. And that's ok. No one gets to revoke your Christian card. I happen to believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Partly because I WANT to - meaning, I LIKE how nuts it is - how radical to believe something so outrageous. Because the Gospels are almost disturbingly physical: eating with sinners, spitting into dirt to heal the blind, walking, touching, embracing, suffering, dying etc. The idea that God would decide to have a HUMAN body is so beautiful to me. So much so that I want there to be a resurrected actual body at the end - one that still bears the sacred wounds. It's less satisfying to me if at the end of all that it was just an IDEA. But in no way do I think others have to believe what I do. I truly do not.

April’s:

Resurrection Isn’t Reversal

April 4th, 2021

We are not who we were. But we do get to discover who we are. Help us not foreclose on each other. Maybe just grant us a holy curiosity for a while?

Please give me courage to trust the hope I feel right now. Save me from squandering this moment of new life. Remind me that all the fear and cynicism in the world never protects me from pain and disappointment in the way I think they will. Give us back to each other when the time is right. May we recognize you, our wounded and resurrected God, in our belly laughs and crocodile tears…and maybe … even in each other. 

Amen.

Doubt

a sermon (for inside the women’s prison) for subscribers

April 11th, 2021

…doubting isn’t the opposite of having faith…it’s a component of having faith.  Doubting can mean that we haven’t forgotten the story.  Doubting means that we don’t have it figured out all on our own. But the best thing about doubting is that, I mean,  at least it’s honest.  

So if that’s where you are…if you are a doubter like me, then it’s ok ….but you should be prepared for something.  It’s a thing I never hear people in the church talk about but I know it exists because I experience it all the time: it’s this thing I call: tests of doubt…not a tests of faith…but tests of doubt.  And you should probably watch out for them.

May’s:

I do not know how to do this part

a Pentecost Sermon

I may occasionally wish that trying hard and winning was the primary belief of the Christian faith, or perseverance and victory, or woke tweeting and righteous indignation was the primary reality of our faith but it is, it was and it will always be Death and Resurrection – that is the primary metaphor, the primary idea, the primary key signature of the Christian faith. 

Were the Christian story anything else – were it the spiritual ponzi scheme pawned off by toothy-grinned TV preachers, it would truly offer us nothing in moments like this.  

But to the Spirit, it is in moments when the tomb is the darkest, when the night is the longest, when our self-sufficiency is the most useless that she is like “finally…THIS I can do something with”

May Questions and Opinions

Monthly subscriber feature.

May 25th, 2021

(this monthly event features my responses to questions, but also my reader’s responses to my questions and I defy you to find more thoughtful, heartfelt content than the things you Corner-dwellers say on these threads!)

My question: What is your understanding of “grace”?

Your opinion: I have always loved and used Tullian Tchividjian's explanation of grace.

Grace is a divine vulgarity that stands caution on its head. It refuses to play it safe and lay it up. Grace is recklessly generous, uncomfortably promiscuous. It doesn’t use sticks, carrots, or time cards. It doesn’t keep score. As Robert Capon puts it, “Grace works without requiring anything on our part. It’s not expensive. It’s not even cheap. It’s free.” It refuses to be controlled by our innate sense of fairness, reciprocity, and evenhandedness. It defies logic. It has nothing to do with earning, merit, or deservedness. It is opposed to what is owed. It doesn’t expect a return on investments. It is a liberating contradiction between what we deserve and what we get. Grace is unconditional acceptance given to an undeserving person by an un-obligated giver

June’s:

God grant us compassion toward our bodies

a prayer for subscribers

June 10th, 2021

Lord, on days when I struggle with antagonism toward my own precious body, replace that contempt with your own gleaming compassion. Help me be gentle with her like you are with me. 

May I forgive my own trespasses against her – the times when I underfed and over worked her, the times when I only asked endlessly of her and gave so little back. The times I spoke with such unkindness.

My dissociations. My addictions. My bizarre expectations.

Thank you God, for creating this body to experience the pleasures of this life and this Earth. Thank you for one more day of movement. Increase the grace I have toward her as we age, she and I.

Lead me not into the temptation of anti-aging products and the market’s false promises of youth and beauty. But deliver me from diet culture. 

For thine is the image in which I was made and upon which improvement is impossible.

On Communion: Jesus ate supper with more types of people than I myself would feel comfortable with.

June 20th, 2021

Sinners, tax collectors, soldiers, sex workers, fisherfolk, and even lawyers. And his LAST supper was the worst. He broke bread with his friends who were just about to abandon, deny and betray him. And yet, he took bread, blessed it, broke and gave it to these total screw-ups and said “this is my body, given for you, whenever you eat of it, do this in remembrance of me.” He instituted the Eucharist by giving bread and wine to all the people who were just about to totally screw him over.

And then what does the church do in remembrance of him? – try and keep the “wrong people” from receiving the Lord’s Supper.

Some would argue it is reckless to just feed all who hunger. That the Eucharist is too sacred to just hand it over to anyone. But maybe the Eucharist is too sacred to not just hand it over to anyone.

If we are to be judged for having gotten this wrong, let it be that we sat more at the table than fewer.

Because it’s not our table.

It’s God’s.

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