"Inspired by a Grasshopper"

I have a sister who loves all creatures.

This afternoon she touched a slug that was eating my prized penta plants. "It's soft," she said.

Yuk!

Then, on our trip to an apple orchard she had a little visit with a grasshopper.

"Hi, cutie," she said to him. I have another sister. She does not pick up grasshoppers. But she knows enough about poetry to say, "That reminds me of a Mary Oliver poem about a grasshopper."

Well, you don't have to mention Mary Oliver more than once before I'm heading to my book shelf to look up that poem. Here it is:

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

- Mary Oliver

"Night Swim"

Sunday night there wasn't another soul on the lake.

The weekend revelers had gone home. The year rounders had all tucked themselves in their cozy cabins.

I am alone on the dock.

It is warm and still. Silent.

There is a faint, gray glow over the glassy lake although the sun had set hours before. I'd expected compete darkness. Instead I can see the dark outline of the opposite shore. The glistening lily pads. The proud heads of wild rice stalks. Standing tall, now.

If ever there was a time for a night swim, this is it.

I slip in. Water smooth as silk on my skin. Only my skin.

My breath catches with the momentary chill. I warm as soon as I move.

What is is about the night swim that feels so pure? So purifying? Is it because there is nothing between us and the water? And it feels we have returned somehow to a more natural state. To the very beginning.

Is it because in the dark we are just a little vulnerable? Trusting that we are safe in the darkness that surrounds us. In the dark water that envelopes us. In the unknown.

I paddle away from dock and turn back toward shore. I gasp. Overcome by the beauty of what I see.

The full moon, bold and luminescent, is perfectly framed between the boughs of two giant pine trees. It's radiance warming the surface of the lake. Casting moon shadows on the shore. Just below, the cabin. Small and tidy. Windows glowing with warm, orange light.

I stay in the water for a long time, tears in my eyes. I am so grateful.

I climb onto the dock. Usually this would mean a scramble for a towel. Modesty and the night chill would dictate that. But the air is so warm and the lake so deserted that I just stand there, arms outstretched at my sides, trying to take in as much of the night as I can.

Later, I describe my night swim to a friend who says, "Wow! That was a thank you God moment, wasn't it?"

Amen to that, my friend.

Amen to that.

Something about these ... ... clouds had me thinking about heaven. And angels.

Imagining the celestial sweeties romping 'round the cumulus.

Basking in the bright light above.

Looking down and wondering what we're so worried about.

"Relax. Enjoy life. Have faith," They might say. "We'll see ya later."

"How Does Your Garden Grow?"

With eager hands
And faiths from all lands
God's love these teens do show.

Last week my daughter's interfaith youth group worked on a community garden. In a city neighborhood where affordable fresh vegetables are rare. And green space, rarer still.



This is what is known as a food desert.


Christian, Jewish, Muslim volunteers weeded, watered and raked.




And talked and shared.

An intern for the Interfaith Youth Leadership Coalition, April Palo, summed up the power of such work beautifully:

"We didn’t just work in a garden for a few hours; we did more than that. We went beyond our religious boundaries. We went beyond our comfort zones. We shared and talked and worked, and as we did, we provided a heavy counterweight to the institutional forces of oppression in Minnesota. Most importantly, we brought interfaith work into communication with social justice activism, right here in our own backyards. "

You really should read April Palo's entire article about the group's work in the garden. It's hopeful and inspiring. And not long. Just click here.

"A Different Approach to Global Mission"

Mission trips might mean something a little different in our church than in yours. When we travel to other countries we don't consider ourselves proselytizers. We form partnerships with Christian communities and stand in solidarity with them to deepen both our faith and theirs.

We have partnerships with congregations and/or seminaries in Cuba, Cameroon, Brazil and Bethlehem. Small groups from our church travel to each place every year.

We truly see these relationships as equal partnerships. We are not the big American church that's come to fix the small, poor church's problems. We are simply there to be with them. To pray with them. To worship with them. And to learn from them. And that makes all the difference.

Last week, the big biannual national Presbyterian convention took place in Minneapolis. The city swarmed with hundreds and hundreds of Presbyterians with name tags. At one of a number of luncheons held during the week, I gave a short speech on our approach to global mission work.

If you're interested, here it is:

As someone born and raised here in the Twin Cities, I would like to welcome all of you to Minnesota and its very varied weather. About the only thing you won't see this week is snow. And I can't even promise you that. Summer is the stormy season. Just ask the Lutherans.
Spring is allergy season in Minnesota. Which is why the tissue comes out at our church in Minneapolis. But that's not the only reason.
Spring is the time we say goodbye to the graduating high school seniors. And they say good bye to us. We have baptized them. nurtured them. Taught them. Loved them. Confirmed them. Then, in May many of them stand before us and deliver their so called, "senior sermons" during an entirely youth led service. That's when we get to see if any of it sticks. And it does. Gloriously. We weep for joy. And because we can't imagine our community without them as they head off for college. This spring's poignancy was for me enhanced by the fact my daughter, Sarah, was one of those seniors.
Sarah's sermon was short and to the point. A style of speaking to which I only aspire.
Just kidding. I'll keep this brief.
Sarah talked simply about love, the greatest commandment. And her gratitude for church experiences, which showed her God's love in action.
And it took me back to a small church in Matanzas, Cuba. She and I sitting on wooden pews, watching a small, wiry, man pacing, full of energy. Tim Hart Anderson translating almost as quickly as Carlos Pietra could talk. Sarah was about to learn something important. We all were. Even the grownups on the __ annual visit Verseilles Presbyterian, our partner church in Matanzas.
"What is the most important thing in your life?" Carlos asked us. We always start our visit with a joint Bible study with Verseilles members. We went around the sanctuary with our answers. Faith? Family? Justice? The Westminster travelers ventured. Then the Verseilles members...one right after the other...love. Love. Love. Love. Love. These were not idle words.
When my daughter and I had lunch in the beautiful home of Maria and Domingo, Maria said, "I prepared this for you with love." And I could see in her eyes that she meant it.
If in the beginning we believed we were travelling to Matanzas to take care of them, we learned otherwise quickly We and the Verseiles members cared for each other. And in because of that so I noticed our relationships within our own Westminster group changing.
We took better care of each other. We were gentler with each other. More caring. More loving. We were more open with our faith. It was as though the brave faith of the people of Matanzas, which had survived a communist revolution and the desperate special period, made us feel brave. Or safe, maybe. We wept...yes Presbyterians...talking about Christ. It was powerful.
And that kind of experience Comes back to the entire congregation. through sermons and testimonials. In our changed relationships with the people back home.
My daughter has been back to Matanzas twice since and goes again next week. She'll be with Cuban friends her age leading a vacation bible school for younger kids in the neighborhood, which I'm told brings all kinds of young vitality to the church. And noise. And new members. And our youth leaders get a living, breathing understanding of the gospel.
This is the power of a shared, equal partnership.
Do we , as a group, bring supplies? Medicine? Eye glasses? Absolutely. Do we, as a church, commit resources to the church and the Presbytery? Generosity with our resources is central to who we are as Christians, too.
But when individuals members of our church want to send money to their individual prayer partners in Matanzas, we explain that that would not be a partnership then. Not an equal one any way.
And I just bet...and I truly believe this...that if you asked someone at the Verseilles church what we brought with us when we came, they would say energy, companionship. And love.
The idea of an equal partnership is hard is hard for some to accept. #Especially when all of our partner churches struggle mightily with things like poverty, HIV/AIDS, political unrest, or violence. And yet, it is because their faith flourishes in these environments that they have so much to offer us. And it is because we see them as rich in spiritual resources that our partnerships are so enriching for us all.
Right now my 15 year old son is frantically studying Spanish. Even taking a summer course so he can speak it well enough to go to Cuba next summer. I don't want to tell him this yet, because I've frankly never seen him motivated to study anything...but where I'd really like to take him is to our partner church in Bethlehem. I was at Christmas Lutheran Church a year and a half ago.
What I'd like my boy to see in Bethlehem is that hope is alive in a place where it would be very easy to despair. And that is how you know Christ exist. Because hope does not disappoint. Expectations might. But hope does not.
I'd like him to see that faith is deeper sometimes when you have to work to hold on to it. That it's possible to literally pick up shattered pieces of the wreckage and make art from it. Beautiful art. And that is how you know that God exists.
And what possibly could my 15 year old boy offer Christians in an ancient land whose challenges he can only begin to imagine? Well...his very presence could tell them that, even in their dwindling numbers, they are not alone. That there are Christians, young and old, here who stand with them. Wish them well. More than that, pray for them. They know, too, that he becomes a voice for them here. A young voice. And trust me, a loud voice.
Plus, my son is kind of a goof ball. They'd probably get a kick out of him.
In one of my less proud mama moments as Sarah was preparing to make her first trip without me to Cuba I fretted that maybe she and the other Westminster youth maybe weren't going to "do" enough. Yeah, they were teaching vacation bible school in the morning but then there was a lot of just "being" with the kids their age from Matanzas.
I mean, like, what would she say in a college interview if they asked her what she did on her mission trip. Did she build anything? Did she feed anyone? Did she bring anything?
I understand now how she would answer the questions:
What did you build? Relationships.
Who did you feed? Each other.
What did you bring? Companionship. Hope. Love. of course love. the greatest commandment of all.

"The Greatest Commandment of All: My Senior's Sermon"

We baptized a baby in church today. Always an emotional affair.


I don't know what baptisms are like in your faith tradition, but Presbyterians involve the whole congregation.


The minister baptizes the baby. The parents promise to raise the baby in the love of Christ. And we, the church family, stand up and pledge to, " love, encourage, and support" the child and to help them "know and follow Christ." And, you know what? In our church, we really do that.


Never was that more apparent to me then during "Youth Sunday" recently at our church. It's an entirely youth led service. Graduating high school seniors deliver the sermons. My daughter and two others did this year.


She was not nervous.


I was. And tense.


The morning did not begin well.


My husband chose a seat in the sanctuary from which we would have a terrible view of the pulpit. Instead of quietly asking him if he'd like to move, I barked, "Why are you sitting here? You can't see anything from here."


He looked shocked.


So did everybody sitting around him.


It's a side of me that perhaps my church friends had never seen before.


Oh, well. Now they have.


If I wasn't proud of myself that morning, I sure was proud of my girl. She was poised and calm. And so grown up. She's a darned good speaker.


She was the final of the three to deliver her sermon and here's what she said:

I have been -involved in this church for as long as I can remember. In fact in a video that was made for and Interfaith youth group I’m in, I say that my friends have called me a “church-a-holic.” When this video was made, I had no idea that it would be shown all over the country, much less all over the world. Now even youth groups in Russia probably know me as “that crazy church-a-holic girl”

But it’s true… I’ve grown up here participating in the youth group, going on countless retreats and amazing mission trips, Travelling to Cuba, serving as a Deacon, working the front desk, acting in Cabaret and singing in choir, until I became a church choir drop out, for which Chris will never forgive me.

Apart from church and school, I spend most of my time making music. My parents dragged me to classes with names like “Musical Trolley!” and “Music for Creepers and Crawlers!” when I was just 18 months old. And by the time I was old enough to start thinking for myself, I was hooked. I’ve studied piano for 13 years, but more recently I’ve fallen in love with singing. Ever since I started taking lessons three years ago I haven’t stopped singing, or humming whatever song in running through my head. Usually I don’t even realize I’m doing it, which drives my brother crazy, and the three words I hear most frequently from him are “Just…shut…up.”

This year in my choir at school we were given a commissioned work to sing for the North Central American Choir Director’s Association Convention. The piece was by Joan Szymco, a composer from Portland, and the first time we sang through the piece I was blown away. Not only by the music, but also by the text. Szymco took two quotes by Mother Theresa and brought them together with the word “remember.”

It goes like this…

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other

Remember

All works of love are works of peace”

When I heard the passage from Romans that was read this morning, this poem was the first thing I thought of..

Love does no wrong to a neighbor.

All works of love are works of peace.

These ideas are deceptively simple, and when taken at face value seem even juvenile. In fact, they are the ideas that we began to learn in kindergarten. But it seems that we stopped learning them then. That as we’ve grown up and matured, it is assumed that we’ve accepted these ideas, without thought or question. If the commandment to love one another is the most important, why do we so often fail?

But clearly this isn’t the case. It’s easy to get discouraged by people’s acts of hate and intolerance.

Maybe Joan Szymco is right. We forget, and we need to be reminded. We need to remember to belong to one another and to act with love.

Music is a powerful way to teach that, but so is the work we do here.

When we were in Bethphage last summer for a mission trip serving people with severe mental and physical disabilities, I was reminded every day, by my friends from this church and our new friends from Bethphage that we belong to one another. Especially one woman I worked with, Amanda. She has an incredible memory and can recite almost the entire movie “Wizard of Oz,” but often has trouble speaking otherwise. During an ice cream social at the end o our week together, we were joking around and I called something she did awesome. Later, she pointed right at me and said, one of the few things I heard her say wasn’t a line from a movie, “you’re awesome!”

It’s moments like these when I am reminded that we belong to each other. When I am reminded that simply loving one another is the best way to create peace.

My friends and I have been so lucky to grow up in this church, Where we are loved and constantly encouraged to act with love. The greatest commandment of all.

"Wow, she really nailed it with that last line," one of the church leaders said to me after the service.


"Thanks," I said. "We really do feel blessed to have our kids raised in such an open, loving community."


Open to everybody.


After the service the youth involved lined up and greeted the parishioners.

Was that ever emotional!

The woman with the colorful jacket is a lovely lady from our church. She's been unbelievably supportive of my girl. She's taken an interest in her music and her school progress. I can't tell you how much that has meant. Just look at my daughter's face light up as she comes through the line and comments on her sermon. What a gift this kind of community is.

Here...

... comes my girl's first grade Sunday school teacher. And now I can't stop the tears. Neither can the teacher.

Because she and the other loving adults in this placed raised these kids, taught these kids, nurtured these kids just as much as we parents did.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

"Biblio"

Congratulations to Hailey!


She wins this beautiful book...



... which includes photos of the Gutenberg Bible.

I asked you to share your favorite book from the bible. I loved reading your answers. Different books are so meaningful to people for so many different reasons.

I love prayerfulness of the Psalms. The promise of Isaiah. And the prose of John.

I love that it is God's word and will withstand the test of time.

Hailey, let me know where to send your new book by e-mailing me at trish.vanpilsum@foxtv.com. Congratulations.