Sami: Trauma and nesting

Lots of words lately...time for some pictures!

One night this week, Sami was enjoying the open window (as per usual) when she suddenly freaked out and started running around like a lunatic weirdo.

I knew something was up but, given the utter and complete darkness here at night (which I am still getting used to), I couldn't see anything in the yard until I got very close to the window. Turns out it was a cute little cat just on the other side of the screen! My windows are at ground level outside, so Sami and her enemy were nose to nose.

Poor Sami! She already has to share "her territory" with Pudge, my landlord's bulldog (here's her view from the window):





...And now there was another invader to contend with! Luckily the trespassing cat scampered off as quickly as it had appeared, and all was well again, though Sami was not quick to let down her guard.

She has had a couple other minor incidents, including getting stuck in the closet once (oops, my bad!), and under the new-to-me borrowed couch twice. I have no idea how she wedged her body under there in the first place, but she couldn't seem to reverse the process.

Also, she seems to feel she's not getting enough play time. She's been dragging her toys into the bedroom every night, and sometimes yowling to wake me up for play time (which, of course, doesn't happen). She used to do this in St. Paul on occasion, but in this place she has to drag them like 20 feet, so it really takes determination. Here she is this morning drawing my attention to her toys in the bedroom:





In general, though, Sami is settling in quite nicely. Check out her latest non-traumatic adventure...making a nest for herself in the bag of plastic bags that she batted down from the nearby shelf. She picks the strangest places to settle!

September 12 sermon

Text: Exodus 32:7-14
Preached September 12 and 15 at First Lutheran Church in Kenyon, MN


Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

So we’re talking about lost things today. I can certainly relate to Jesus’ story of the woman who lost a coin. I just moved here, and I’m slowly getting settled in my new apartment. As we all know, moving involves living in a sea of boxes, at least for a little while. I’ve been doing my fair share of searching for misplaced items, trying to remember which boxes they might be in.

But sometimes I’m not the one searching. Sometimes I’m the one who’s lost.

I’m from a small town, but I’ve lived in bigger towns and cities for the last 12 years. In those places, there are street lights and building lights everywhere. It is so dark here in comparison! The other night we had an intern committee meeting at Hegre. When I walked outside afterward, I was totally disoriented by the darkness. I could hardly tell where the road was, much less which way I should turn onto it to go home!

Darkness was also a factor once when two of my friends and I got lost on the way to our own church in Roseville. We’d been going there for almost four months, but took a different route that night, on our way to mid-week Advent worship, and we missed our exit.

What got us into trouble was the faulty assumption that the next road would parallel the one we missed and would therefore get us where we needed to go. We forgot was that all bets are off when there’s a lake in the way! So we just drove and drove these windy roads, getting more and more lost, until we finally stopped to ask for directions. We got to enjoy some pretty Christmas lights along the way, but we didn’t make it to church until the service was ending.

In all of our readings today, we hear of lost people and lost objects, but of course they are all lost in much more significant ways than my friends and I were driving around.

In our first reading, the Israelites had lost sight of who the true God is. The story really begins a few verses before our reading. Moses had gone up Mount Sinai to speak with the Lord. This is when he received the tablets containing the Ten Commandments. But after Moses had been gone a while, the people started to worry that he wouldn’t return.

So they went to Aaron and said, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Can you hear the big mistake the people have made here? Was it really Moses who brought the people out of Egypt?

I just mentioned that the Ten Commandments weren’t written down yet at this point. But just a few chapters before our reading, Moses had spoken the commandments to the people: “Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, ‘All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do’” [Ex. 24:3].

So the people had heard the Ten Commandments, and the very first one goes like this: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.”

Moses may have been their visible leader, but it was God who brought the people out of Egypt. The people lost sight of this. They confused God with Moses, and they lost hope when Moses was no longer immediately present among them. So they brought their gold jewelry to Aaron, and he made them an idol in the form of a golden calf.

The Israelites confused the eternal, infinite, almighty God with a created, finite, powerless statue. Only eight chapters after promising to obey all the Lord’s commandments, they broke the very first one!

We may think this sounds like a very obvious sin, a big mistake we would never make. We know better than to worship statues. But Luther says in the Large Catechism that “to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. Anything on which your heart relies and depends…is really your God” [LC 10Comm 3, BoC 386].

Certainly there are things other than God in which you trust and on which you rely. I know I have many such things! I rely on my bank account for a sense of security. I rely on my own accomplishments for a sense of purpose. I rely on other people’s opinions of me for a sense of identity and self-worth. In reality, I should be relying on God for all of these things.

There are many things that can define us apart from God. There are many ways our culture and our relationships and our work or hobbies can tempt us to put our trust in something other than God.

Our sin may not be as obvious as worshiping a golden calf, but every one of us is just as lost as the Israelites were. We can see it in how we spend our time, in how we spend our money, in how we treat one another. This world is broken, and we are broken with it.

Well, God was furious when he saw what the Israelites were doing with the golden calf. God said to Moses, “Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from all that I commanded them….Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”

God practically disowned his people! He called them “your people,” rather than the usual “my people.” Does this sound familiar? When your child has caused some kind of trouble, how many of you have found yourselves saying to your child’s other parent, “You’ll never believe what your child did today…”? The people have distanced themselves from God, and God is so angry that he wants to distance himself from them as well. In fact, God wants to wipe them out and start all over with Moses!
But this God, the God who brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, is the same God who had made a promise to their ancestor Abraham. God promised Abraham land and descendents. More importantly, God promised to be faithful to those descendents.

In Genesis 17, God says to Abraham, “I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” God had promised to set the Israelites apart as his people, and to be their God forever.

In the same way, we have a promise from God. In our baptism, God claims us as his own. In the gospel reading we heard about a shepherd who left 99 sheep to search for one lost one, and a woman who searched her entire house to find one lost coin. Baptism is the ultimate seeking and claiming activity of God.

In baptism, God comes to us with his promise and makes us his children. When we were baptized, someone spoke these or similar words: “Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” And no matter how lost we each may get, no matter how many things may draw our faith and trust away from God, we are always found in Christ. God has promised that we are his people and he is our God. Forever.

In our text, Moses reminds God of God’s promise and puts the people’s identity right back where it belongs—in God’s hands. Moses says, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?...Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendents like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendents, and they shall inherit it forever.’”

God had promised to multiply Abraham’s descendents and to be their God forever. Moses understood that if God were to destroy the Israelites, God would be breaking that promise. And God understood this too, so he changed his mind and spared the people. God keeps his promises.

The same is true for God’s promises to us. In the waters of baptism, God made us his own and promised to be our God forever. And God will always keep that promise.

Perhaps Romans 8 says it best: “…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.”

This is risky, lavish, foolish love. The shepherd who went looking for his one lost sheep left 99 others at risk in the wilderness, where something could have happened to all of them! The woman who lost one of her 10 coins probably spent more than the coin was worth to light her house while searching and to throw a party when she found it! How impractical and silly of them both!

But God does the same thing. God sent his very own Son in the form of a vulnerable baby. And that baby grew into a man who endured humiliation, suffering, and death, all to make sure that we will never again be hopelessly lost. No matter how far we stray—and we certainly do stray—we are, finally and forevermore, found in Jesus Christ.

This is how much God loves us, and this is how faithful God is to his promises. Every time we gather at this table, God brings us back into his flock. In Christ, we are no longer lost, and God rejoices in our return. Amen.

On groundedness (which may or may not be a real word)

I'm feeling scattered and frazzled and altogether chaotic. I'm not in any sort of regular routine, I'm not eating very well, I'm not exercising, and I'm getting too little sleep. My apartment is still a half-unpacked mess of boxes and the details of my work for these fabulous churches are still being discussed and finalized. There's not a lot of order in my life at the moment and I don't feel very grounded or stable.

This is how it goes with transition, of course, and soon things will settle down and I'll find my groove. But for now, after arriving late (again) for something the other day, I had to assure my supervisor that I'm normally a lot more together than this. (Okay, it was really assurance for myself; she wasn't concerned at all.)

Meanwhile, I had a couple of wonderful glimpses this week of that stability and groundedness that I'm missing. I'm preaching at First Lutheran on Sunday, so I was there a couple different times this week.

I worshiped with the community on Wednesday evening and experienced Christ's presence in the word and in the bread and wine of communion. The distribution was made even more special for me by the pianist's choice of music. She played the very hymn that inspired the title of this blog!

Another day I got to join the pastor and two others in praying morning prayer, which they do four days a week. It was refreshing and life-giving to join together in prayer for one another, for specific individuals in need, and for all the world.

I find something very powerful in hearing someone pray for me, or even in someone telling me I'm in their prayers. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says in Life Together, "Offering intercessory prayer means nothing other than Christians bringing one another into the presence of God, seeing each other under the cross of Jesus as poor human beings and sinners in need of grace."

The fact that these three people brought me into the presence of God calmed the chaos around me that morning. I know others are lifting me before God in prayer as well, and keeping that in mind helps me regain my my footing in the midst of this transition. So thank you for your prayers!

Connection and support

After two weeks living in Dennison, I'm feeling a little less anxious about moving away from my seminary community.

For one thing, if I wanted collegial support, there are at least three different text studies in the area I could attend. I went to one on Tuesday at Lands Lutheran Church near Zumbrota, and I met a delightful group of pastors. It was a great opportunity for discussion of what the week's lectionary texts might have to say for our communities. And since it was followed by lunch, it was also a great chance just to connect socially.

I also have been quite successful thus far in maintaining connections with my seminary friends, both near and far. I think I mentioned all my online chatting, phone calls, and video calls, and I've also been lucky enough to spend time in person with a few friends. Last weekend I went to St. Paul to see a movie with a friend, who then came to my new home to hang out, and I enjoyed dinner with another friend the next day.

Today, I met two friends in Mantorville, where we had lunch at the Hubbell House and a little dessert at the Chocolate Shoppe.








They are in Rochester for this internship year, so it was a great place to meet in between. We're looking forward to exploring the many little towns in this area over the next year to see what treasures we can find in the form of awesome eateries!

I'm so grateful that I'm able to maintain these connections, and I'm also excited about getting to know the new people I'm meeting!

Slices of rural life

Here we go...the first of many such incidents, I'm sure, with harvest season fast approaching. I took this picture through my windshield, since I was certainly moving slowly enough to capture the moment.





Somehow, though, getting stuck behind a tractor doesn't bother me even 10% as much as getting stuck in urban traffic. I don't know why that is. Maybe a tractor being out and about feels more productive to me, but I know the cars backed up on city roads are full of people bustling about being just as productive, so that doesn't really make sense.

It's probably just more enjoyable to be out in the open space with a lovely view of the landscape and fewer vehicles actually involved in the "traffic jam." Less claustrophobic than sitting in gridlock surrounded by cars (and their exhaust) with nothing but walls to look at on either side of the road.

Anyway, this happened on Sunday, the same day I saw 10 wild turkeys on my way to church. They were in two groups right near the road; sadly, I didn't have my camera out and ready. Lesson learned!

The turkeys seemed pretty interesting and a little out-of-the-ordinary to me, until my supervising pastor shared what she saw on the way to church, and my turkeys suddenly seemed much more mundane in comparison. She saw a man with a broom sweeping...wait for it...a gravel road!

If anyone has any ideas what that could possibly be about (other than a very unfortunate and seemingly hopeless case of OCD), by all means, share your thoughts. Could there be a logical explanation for this that I'm just not seeing? New workout trend of some sort, perhaps? Sweeping where there's no hope of ever finishing the job so you just have to keep your upper body in motion forever?

First hospital visit

On Sunday after church I went to Northfield for groceries. (How's that for an exciting opening? Are you on the edge of your seat?) Since this Target and Cub are completely different from the ones I'm used to, I can't find a darn thing and I end up wandering the stores in the most inefficient manner possible. I really need to make some notes on where things are or draw myself a map or something.

Anyway, all the random wandering meant I was running late for my plans with a friend, so I was feeling frustrated and frantic. But I had a voice mail when I left the grocery store from the secretary of one of my churches (one I haven't yet been to, so I hadn't met her or anyone else). She said they had someone in the hospital and their pastor is on vacation all month.

After coordinating with the supply pastor, off I went to the hospital on my way to St. Paul. I was slightly disappointed to alter my fun plans, but happy I could handle this on my own, meet someone from this congregation, and spare the supply pastor a trip out of his way.

And, as is so often the case with these situations, it was as beneficial to me as to the person I visited, if not more so. I prayed a simple prayer, but mostly I just listened to his reminiscences, and he preached to me (without even realizing it) about the certainty of Jesus' promises in the face of failing health.

As I was leaving, he said, "Thank you for visiting. Thank you for bringing the Lord's blessing to me."

Wow. I'm not sure I had ever before heard the link between my simple actions and God's work articulated so directly. Talk about humbling...who on earth am I to do such a thing? And yet, sure enough, God used me to bless this lovely man who had already blessed me. I am still marveling at it.

Sunday at Grace

Well, I survived my first experience singing liturgy in public! And no one walked out or looked pained or anything, so I think it went okay. The rest of the worship service was lovely as well, and it was a delight to get to know some of the folks at Grace in Nerstrand, where my supervisor, Judy Reitz Gustafson, is pastor. Here's a look at some of Grace's interior.


The beautiful sanctuary (obviously should have turned the lights on before taking the pics...sorry about that).




Closer view of the chancel (altar area).




One of many very pretty stained glass windows, this one portraying Jesus the Good Shepherd.




And the narthex (entry area).




The rest of my busy three-day weekend was also great. I spent some time with various friends back in St. Paul, and hosted one here at my new place as well. Back at it today, with some sermonizing to do this week...preaching at First Lutheran on Sunday!

On identity

I read a great blog post on Stuff Christians Like that recalled for me all the reflection I've done around ego and identity over the past couple years. The author was right on in saying, "Today, across the planet, people like me and people like you are going to walk out their front doors and ask people they see, 'Who am I?'...And the sad thing is, the answers will fail us."

Most of us want others to think highly of us, and I often find it almost impossible not to put too much stock in their opinions. But of course when we ask others to define us, their answers leave us unsatisfied and insecure. Whatever validation others might offer as to our unique gifts, talents, and personal characteristics, their affirmation can never reach the deepest part of our being, the part of us that knows God as the only source of our identity.

This is a wonderful reminder as I begin a new role. It's important to keep in mind that I am not defined by my identity as a student, or my identity as an intern pastor, or even my identity in the relationships of my life, as important as these all are. I certainly hope I can serve effectively here, and I hope people benefit from my work and enjoy my presence, but whether they do or not, I remain a child of God, called and claimed in the waters of baptism.

Luther says "the power and effect of baptism...is nothing else than the slaying of the old Adam and the resurrection of the new creature, both of which must continue in us our whole life long" (LC Baptism 65; see another translation here). A friend calls this the daily death of our "self-made selves," wherein God negates all the ways in which we define ourselves and affirms instead that we are defined solely by God's gift of life in the cross of Christ.

And so our identity lies not in the power of other people's opinions of us, or in our own pride in our talents and accomplishments, but in the power of the Holy Spirit that raises us to life each day. Thanks be to God for such freedom!


Image: Baptism of Jesus by He Qi.

Well begun is half-done?

And so it begins...
A journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step...

Just seeing how many "beginning" cliches I could pile up before I annoyed myself. Turns out it's only two. The third one sent me over the edge. :-)

Anyway, I started my internship yesterday and "worked" a very leisurely 10:00 to 3:00 or so, part of which was lunch at the Tavern in Northfield (which I highly recommend). By the way, I had no idea how charming Northfield is! The Tavern is in a historic downtown area where there are very fun coffee shops, pubs, boutiques, and art galleries. And at least two different people have told me about the upcoming Defeat of Jesse James Days, which sounds like quite the event.

There are still a lot of details to be worked out for the year, like the specific ways I'll be involved with each of my congregations and how the Sunday rotation will work. I'm kind-of a planner, so I wouldn't mind having more solid information, but I appreciate some of the reasoning behind these things being unresolved.

One of the best features of this internship program is the fact that I'll get to work with eight congregations and seven different pastors. They want to take advantage of the strengths of each so I can learn from the best teacher(s) in each area whenever possible. So they're working together to rethink how things have been done in the past to ensure the best possible learning experience for me, which is pretty cool.

Meanwhile, I'm kicking off this Sunday by singing some liturgy...not my strongest area. I get so nervous I forget to breathe, and that doesn't help anyone's singing! But for now I'm doing assisting rather than presiding parts, so most of it is spoken, which I can handle. The setting is Now the Feast and Celebration by Marty Haugen and the only parts I sing are the kyrie and one "The Lord be with you." So I think I'll survive, but if you don't hear from me next week, you'll know I was wrong.

Pardon my randomness...

A few observations and occurrences as I get settled into my new home and start my internship:

• I officially set up my new post office box (which had previously been unofficially set up by phone) and found a paycheck waiting for me! Someone's on the ball here!
• With the paycheck was a $450 mileage check for September. I knew I'd be doing a lot of driving, but that is A LOT of driving. Methinks it's time to find some books on tape...Kenyon Public Library, here I come!
  
• I forgot how dark it is in the country! I hope my eyes adjust for all the aforementioned driving I'll be doing. I was sort-of caught off-guard on my first drive back from Northfield the other night. It's wonderful to be able to leave my windows open at night, though, without being awakened by building lights, traffic, and sirens.
• I'm super-happy that the Target and Cub in Northfield are only 10 minutes away. Just sayin'.
  
• I set up a bank account today and met three people who work there who belong to my congregations. They already mentioned the famous lutefisk supper at Vang, and it's like six weeks away.

More on my actual first-day experience soon!