Rogue Reverend

Personification of That Which Ails You

I was given a really funny book called Taming Your Gremlin several years ago. The greatest thing it did for me was to personify whatever it was, psychologically speaking, that was making me miserable. It gave me the change to draw my gremlin and to talk directly to her.

When I began making progress in running, I personified my negative voice (her name is Nancy) and each run I make I say, “Nancy, you are welcome to come on this run with me, but you are not invited to speak.”

And now, from my newest read, Born to Run:A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, I just figured out to personify my exhaustion. Still working on a name for her, but she is the one responsible for the lead boots I wear sometimes, and for the voice that says, whiningly, “I’m just too tiiiirrrrrrred.” Dear exhaustion: shut up.

Go, Lia. Go, Lia. Go!

Affirmations

I sat with a friend yesterday, who is helping me think through and process some stuff. Before we began brainstorming, she said, “We’re going to write 10 affirmations about this process and the outcome.”

Whut?

We wrote 3. Then I was stumped. Apparently, I’m really bad at writing affirmations. Even when I would write one, she’d say, “Hmmm. That’s good. But we can make it better.”

Towards the end of the exercise, I turned to my friend and said, “You know, I don’t believe any of these.” She replied, “The point of affirmations isn’t to believe them. It’s to change your thinking from where you are.”

I can affirm that.

Heckling for Jesus

I went running in New Orleans on December 17, along the riverfront right at the French Quarter. It was 5:00 on a Friday afternoon, and I was only blocks away from Bourbon Street. Maybe I should have known better. As I ran down this beautiful brick boardwalk, people starting heckling me. Yes! Heckling!

They yelled things like, “What are you running from?” and “What are you afraid of?” My favorite, though, was, “You can’t run from your problems!” This one tripped me up so much (literally) that I fell right there on the bricks.

This morning I’ve been thinking about a hate letter I received from an anti-LGBTQ Christian. He wrote, “You put your soul in danger of eternal damnation for welcoming unrepentant homosexuals into God’s house. You blaspheme the Name of God.”

Then I read about the Alabama immigration law and its effect on churches. This community of believers are complacent, at best, about the loss of their Christian brothers and sisters who are in the United States illegally. The church supports the new immigration law, and seems to only be worried about their own liability. It’s a sort of “we’re glad to have you in our church as long as you don’t get us in trouble” take on Christianity.

Compassion, hell. It seems that everybody has to have somebody to hate.

My prayer for the morning has been:

Loving and compassionate God, I know there is indifference in my heart, please replace it with compassion. I know there is prejudice in my being, please root it out. I know there is cruelty, please heal me so that I may love others better. Amen.

The Absence of Graces

I awoke with the idea this morning that some days are full of grace, and some days have none. And while I know perfectly well when there are no graces, I have a hard time seeing the graces when they are present. Oh, and when I say grace? I mean those moments when you feel like you are right—right with God, right with family, right with friends and loved ones. And the absence of graces? When you are wrong—wrong with God, wrong with family, wrong with friends and loved ones. You can just be out of step, or you could really feel like you’ve stepped in something.

But even on the days where it seems like there is no grace, I am convinced that there is. You still have God. You still have family and friends and loved ones. It’s just harder to remember…

Today, I hope for the grace to remember.

Managing Christmas Expectations

I was asked this week, “Why is it that it seems like all the bad things happen during the Christmas season?”

That’s one of those questions that pastors get asked a lot. And I have my theories about it, but I really don’t have any answers. But if pressed, I’ll probably say something like, “Well, it’s a time that we do tend to get sick more, because we’re inside so much, and there are cold and flu bugs going around.”

So this week I tried this one: “Well, we just have all these expectations that things are going to go right during Christmas, but really, it’s just another time. We’re only disappointed because of our expectations.”

That seemed to resonate.

Mary, in the Magnificat, gives us a good example of how to manage out expectations.

First, notice that she faces the things that are happening to her with a lot of grace. I mean, come on! Giving birth in a manger? Having God’s baby? Really. If I found out that I was having God’s baby, I wouldn’t be particularly happy. I’m not even sure that I would say yes.

Second, there is a sense of humility about Mary’s response, “for God has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.” Try to picture her as a whole person, not just the mother of Jesus, and wonder, do you know anyone who is this humble? Perhaps this humility is not a character trait, but is rather a response to God’s choosing her.

Third, notice that Mary is grateful for what she has. “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

Fourth, she focuses not just on her own well-being, but on the well-being of those around her. “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.”

Yes, Mary expects great things. But they include hardship. Having the Christ in Christmas doesn’t ensure that anything is going to go great. But it does ensure that God is going to be in it—as God always is—prodding us on to be our best, to love others, to serve others. And reminding us, over and over of God’s great love for us.

It’s easy to be the petulant children, angry about whatever is ruining our Christmas. But lets remember Mary, whose unplanned pregnancy, fear of Herod, judgment from others, near loss of her spouse, all these things could have caused her to curse, rather than praise. They could have caused her to complain, rather than celebrate. They could have cause her to cry, rather than be grateful.