This week, I had the occasion to provide the Voice in the Wilderness segment on the Pulpit Fiction Podcast. It takes place toward the beginning, right after the intro.
If you’d like to check that out and hear the whole podcast (I always love this one!) feel free to have a listen here.
I think we’ve gotten somewhat used to this grouping in our national political life, but if you think about it, it’s odd that QAnon is pulling together…
-people who are religious, especially white, evangelical Christians,
-people who have left religion purposefully, yet replaced it with this religion-like phenomenon,
-people who are holistic health practitioners,
-people invested in MLMs,
-people who are Neo-Nazis and/or members of white supremacist militias
… and the list goes on.
This week, I attended a public panel discussion from Arizona State University, entitled, “Religion, Violence, and Digital Culture: Understanding QAnon,” and I thought it was very insightful. I’d like to share that below. The QAnon phenomenon has grown for a number of reasons, including the disruption and angst taking place during a pandemic. A sizable portion of our U.S. population believe in these associated conspiracy theories. It’s important to learn more about them.
Today, many in our world are keeping Ash Wednesday together. This is the day that initiates the holy season of Lent.
It is a day of confession.
It is a day of contemplation.
It is a day of recognition that our lives are mortal.
And this may seem heavy to us. . . I have a good friend and colleague named Reid Hamilton who is an Episcopalian priest in Ann Arbor. He calls Ash Wednesday, “The service of d minor, the saddest of all keys.” It can certainly feel that way.
Though the themes of Ash Wednesday can feel heavy, they can feel surprisingly freeing and life-giving too. They remind us that we are human. And remarkably, though the themes of Ash Wednesday can feel solemn, they can feel freeing as they invite us to trust.
Here’s why. Here is the good news we honor and remember today: In life and in death, we belong. We belong to God, and we belong to one another.
No matter what,
It is absolutely true.
From our first breath to our last breath,
From this life to the mystery the exists beyond this life,
We belong.
We belong to God and we belong one another.
All the days of our life, and even beyond our life,
No matter what.
Each time Ash Wednesday rolls around, I find myself remembering Ash Wednesdays I’ve experienced in previous years. I think of the many congregations where I have been present. Some are churches where I grew up, and others are congregations where I’ve served as a pastor. Over the course of my life, I have come forward many times to receive ashes upon my forehead. At other times, I have had that sacred privilege of placing ashes on the foreheads of people I love.
It can be challenging to hear the liturgical words we speak to one another on this day.
“From dust you were created, and to dust you will return,”
It is just as challenging to speak those words of mortality toward others.
“From dust you were created, and to dust you will return.”
Most years, I’ve said those words — I think we need to be reminded of our mortality — but then, I’ve also added the good news that exists around, before, and behind this truth. I’ve added these words:
“You are God’s child, God’s own, this day and forever.”
So today, let me say those words to each of you.
“From dust you were created, and to dust you will return.
You are God’s child, God’s own, this day and forever.”
Let these words sink into your very being.
“From dust you were created, and to dust you will return.
You are God’s child, God’s own, this day and forever.”
Today I remember the many times I’ve heard and spoken words like these over the years. And as I ponder those moments, one particular Ash Wednesday comes to mind in a specific way.
In 2007, I was in the middle of my time in seminary. There was much from that period of time that was beautiful. I was reading everything I could get my hands on and growing in my unfolding sense of call. But it was also a very challenging time in my life.
On Ash Wednesday in 2007, someone I loved very deeply received a terminal cancer diagnosis. He was the pastor of the church where I had grown up, and many times, he had lovingly placed ashes on my forehead. But much beyond that, David and his wife Amy were very much like parents to me. They taught me, nurtured me, and provided safe spaces for me.
We all knew that David had gone in for testing, and during the Ash Wednesday service I attended in Austin, I found myself thinking about him and Amy. I prayed for them and all those who loved them. When the service was over, I stepped into the courtyard of that church, and I received his news over the phone.
David said that the cancer would be ‘terminal’ — that word felt so heavy — but doctors thought treatment would work for about a year and a half.
That news was devastating, and it initiated a long period of anticipatory grief in my life. But as I consider the memory of that night, alongside the painful news, I remember how David chose to break that news to me. I remember how much he emphasized my sense of belonging. I will never forget it.
He was the one who had received painful news from his physician that very day, and yet, he was sharing it from such a posture of care for me. He said to me,
“You know, there are children who just come into your lives, sometimes unexpectedly. You are the child we never bore, and yet you are ours.”
It wasn’t the first time David had said something like that to me, but it stands out in my mind as a particularly strong memory that our lives belonged to one another.
Today, on this Ash Wednesday, we remember that we belong to God and to one another — no matter what may come.
There is nothing that can separate us from that love of God.
Even our losses.
Even our health crises.
Even our mortality.
I wonder. . . do you ever fear that something is separating you from God or from others? Whatever it is, you ever fear that it will trump your belonging?
We all fear things like that from time to time, but today, we rest in the truth that nothing — absolutely nothing — can separate us from the love of God. Nothing! And as we are rooted in that love toward God, we are absolutely connected to each other. Always.
Even when we argue, or even when we experience estrangement in relationships, they are never the last word. Even when we lose loved ones to death, that is not the last word. If any brokenness exists to death, it is never the last word, because in life and in death, we belong to God.
God holds our life,
and God is restoring all things,
both now and in the life to come.
So hear these beautiful words from the Apostle Paul as they are recorded in Romans:
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Hear these holy words again as they mark your life:
“From dust you were created, and to dust you will return.
You are God’s child, God’s own, this day and forever.”
This is my personal phrase lately:
“Receive from everything, share from everything.”
It’s also how I’m trying to live in these days.
There are times of upheaval, both personal and collective, when we rightfully ask ourselves, “What should I do? How should I act? How are my neighbors and my community calling to me? What do I need? What do my loved ones need? What do my neighbors need?”
We might ask these questions out of urgency. We might ask these questions out of anxiety. We might find ourselves zooming out of the moment, getting perspective, yes, but also distance, asking these questions hypothetically within the big picture rather than dealing with the reality of the day-to-day picture.
Within it all, my personal phrase is,
“Receive from everything, share from everything.”
The truth of the matter is… change happens in the day to day, mundane aspects of life, and above all, change happens through a web of relationships. There are times, absolutely, when our daily, mundane lives need to be disrupted with cries for large-scale change. We are experiencing this now.
We activate change, however, in the daily mundane aspects of life and above all, through our relationships. We need to build change, not hypothetically in some conceptual big picture, but in the communities we are already in, allowing those very communities to expand, transform, and transform us.
Receive from everything, right where we are —
receive care, receive messages, receive love, receive challenge, receive questions, receive resources, receive conflict, receive imagination, receive lament, receive hope, receive connection, receive relationship.
Share from everything, right where we are–
participate in being a catalyzer,
share care, share messages, share love, share challenge, share questions, share resources, share conflict, share imagination, share lament, share hope, share connection, share relationship.
We can participate in building change when we act, when we share, in our daily, mundane lives through the web of our relationships.
Let life catalyze us.
Participate in catalyzing change.
“Receive from everything, share from everything.”
You’re loved as you are.
You’re
worth it,
fabulous.
Not when you,
Not if you.
You, right now,
Loved presently,
Loved thoroughly,
Loved wholeheartedly.
Worth it,
Fabulous.
Michigan Nones and Dones, one of my primary communities, is in the midst of a conversational series entitled, “Envisioning a Post-Pandemic World.”
For three weeks, we’re exploring this topic through three lenses:
1) the spiritual practice of imagination,
2) the experience of transcendence, and
3) the vision of building relationships.
Last weekend, we spoke about our experiences of transcendence, and this turned out to be very powerful. Transcendence is difficult to define, in large part, because it involves sense of expansiveness beyond ourselves and our typical, day-to-day lives. We were purposeful not to over-define it, but people shared what it means to them. Rather than inviting people to give abstract, personal definitions — defining transcendence as God, Spirit, Community, Universe, Connection, Nature, Purpose, etc — we invited people to tell stories.
When did you experience a moment of transcendence?
This turned out to be so powerful.
It turned out to be so empowering.
I watched people come alive as they told stories about some of the most sacred moments of their lives — those beautiful times when they felt as though they were in the midst of something larger than themselves, or perhaps in the midst of an experience beyond what they had known before. The details of these stories involved music, intuition, care, nature, life transitions, and the journey from life to death — all while feeling accompanied by a larger sense of Presence, Expansiveness, or Interconnectedness.
We can share a lot of ourselves, and a lot of what is Beyond Ourselves, in stories. It’s empowering.
I keep having this strange, surreal experience. I keep encountering pictures with people from one year ago.
I often use the app Timehop to see what I was doing on this date throughout the years. Timehop syncs with social media pages and your camera roll to show you memories you made from various years. As I’ve been viewing this lately, I’ve had this sensation every time I see myself or loved ones in February 2020. We have no idea what is coming.
We really didn’t. How could we? Who could have foreseen a global pandemic and being separated from one another for more than a year?
When I see these photos, I feel a twinge of sadness as I miss what we shared together. I also feel myself hoping-forward because I want this again. I want these particular connections again. I want in-person, physical connection as a daily sphere of living.
These photos feel surreal and sad, but they also feel hopeful. I’m ready for this again.
Today, I’d like to share an 11 minute podcast from NPR’s Shortwave. It’s entitled, “Why 500,000 COVID-19 Deaths May Not Feel Any Different.” It discusses the concept of psychic numbing.
“Why is it so hard to feel the difference between 400,000 and 500,000 COVID-19 deaths—and how might that impact our decision making during the pandemic? Psychologist Paul Slovic explains the concept of psychic numbing and how humans can often use emotion, rather than statistics to make decisions about risk.”
Yesterday, I shared a piece about eucharist practices and the ancient Greek word often translated as ‘remember.’ This is not merely about mentally recalling an event of the past. In this framework, it’s about making it present in our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
In that same spirit, I’d like to share a guided meditation from my friend and colleague Ken Wilson at Blue Ocean Faith, a congregation in Ann Arbor. How can we pause to remember each other during this time of a pandemic, and in a deep sense, feel the connection and presence of one another? How do we participate in what we remember?
I was very moved by this recording this week. It’s 12 minutes long, and I recommend listening.
Within the recording, Ken Wilson says,
“But first let’s remember how normal it is to feel another person’s presence even when we may not see them or hear them. A young child will feel calmed by the presence of a parent or other loving caretaker in the room with them—even if the person is temporarily out of sight—as long as they are in mind and thought to be present, the child feels secure. More mysteriously, perhaps we have all had moments of feeling someone’s presence in a room before we consciously knew they were there. And, of course, it’s a very real presence that occurs when we call someone to mind, when we remember them. After all, everything that we experience, in a sense, takes place in our minds. In both practices, we activate our memory to be aware of the presence of loved ones, and memory includes the capacity we call imagination, which is also, by the way, a key component of faith, since faith is the assurance of things hoped for.
“For each practice, you can focus on the beloved others in the way that is most helpful for you. Sometimes calling their name to mind, invokes a sense of their presence. Or calling to mind a visual image of the loved one. Or any other remembered physical sense of the person: touch, smell, a particular facial expression, a laugh. However, it may be that you most readily call someone to mind, focus your attention, in particular on the positive feelings connected to the loved one. It’s not so important to have a vivid memory as to call notice and savor any positive feelings, however subtle they may be—warmth, security, comfort, delight, admiration, and so on—to and to rest your focus on those feelings.
“In Hebrew Bible, there is no such thing as ‘mere memory.’ Instead, memory is understood as a re-participation in the event remembered.”
When we make space to be present to the moment before us,
When we create intention to notice the surroundings around us,
We are soon reminded of people.
Isn’t that true?
We walk around the grocery store and see a food item that someone especially likes.
We cross an email off our to-do list and remember someone we’d like to check in with later.
We smell a comforting scent and remember the people present in a long-ago memory.
The remembrances of people are around us all the time. This means we are invited into community all the time.
I find myself thinking about the word ‘remember.’ Though we don’t typically think about it this way, in English, the word is literally phrased as ‘member again.’ This is a way to express belonging. In community, we are members of one another. We belong.
And when Jesus shared his very last meal with his closest friends and confidants, he blessed bread before them, and broke it, saying, “Take and eat. This is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” He then poured the cup of wine before them and said, “Drink this, all of you. As often as you do so, do this in remembrance of me.”
In the recounting of this moment, the Greek word for ‘remember’ means ‘to make present.’ Jesus is not simply asking disciples to think about him when they eat future meals together. He is asking them to reenact this moment in a way that makes him present.
In this very Sacrament, and
In a life of sacramental living —
noticing, reflecting, contemplating —
people become present to us all the time.
So when we remember them —
as they are membered once more in our thoughts,
and made present to us —
perhaps would be meaningful if we reached out to say hello, making ourselves present too.
