Let there be no Divisions Among You

I was so inspired by the unity and messages communicated through the Women’s Marches yesterday across the world. Yes, of course there were some messages at some of the marches that I did not agree with, but by and large I saw hundreds of thousands of people who rejected the negativity and hatred we have seen far too much of. Yesterday, women and men gathered together to proclaim tolerance, life, inclusion, love, unity, equality, justice, mercy, respect, diversity, kindness, and peace.

People marched for so many reasons. Some people showed up because they want to ensure their daughters and granddaughters continue to have the rights women have fought for in our country over the past couple of centuries. Some marchers went to be a voice for those who fear daily discrimination, abuse, deportation, and being marginalized. Some were motivated by their faith in Jesus who taught us to love our neighbor (especially the neighbors who are different from us), welcome the stranger, and show hospitality to all.

This morning, one of the readings we read in church was from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in which Paul urges the Corinthians to stop their disagreements and focus on the unity they share in belonging to Jesus and sharing the good news of Jesus’ sacrificial love. Paul wrote, “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose” (1 Corinthians 1:10). Friends, there is far more that unites us than divides us!

Whether or not you agree with the messages or the tactics of the Women’s Marches, I hope we can all agree that each of us needs to be more active in bringing about the kind of world we want to see. Let’s spend less time complaining on social media about our political leaders, the media, the protestors, etc., and more time loving our neighbors, trying to understand the perspective of someone different than us, caring for those who are in need in our communities, and taking action to create systemic and sustainable changes in our communities, our country, and around the world.




I have some concrete things in mind that I’m planning to do in the upcoming weeks and months- things to try to fill the world with the love, grace, and compassion Jesus showed everyone. I encourage you to make a list of actions you can take to make a difference in issues that are important to you.

May we keep gathering together.

Be a voice for those who don't have a voice in our society.

Show acceptance, grace, and mercy to everyone no matter who they are, what they look like, what they believe, or where they are from.

Take action. Keep moving forward.

And most of all, keep loving everyone.

30 Brave Things

I’m officially 30 years old now.  It’s one of those big milestone birthdays but rather than being freaked out that I’m getting old I’m actually really excited for this next year.  It promises to be filled with wonderful, challenging, and new experiences.  And on top of that I’m really grateful for the experience, wisdom, and growth I have gained in my first 30 years of life.  While there are times I wish I could go back to a simpler time in life, in reality I wouldn’t if it meant losing the knowledge, perspective, and maturity I have now.

For 2016 in lieu of making New Year’s resolutions I chose the word “brave” to focus on for the year with the intention of bringing bravery in to areas of my life in which I want and need to do hard and challenging things (see my post from earlier this year: A Year of Being Brave).

As I reflected on the year so far and my milestone birthday I wanted a way to mark this year.  Rather than just celebrating one day I wanted a way to challenge myself to continue to grow, to embrace this new decade, and to ensure I carry out the adventures I have planned.  And the idea that resulted was doing 30 brave things this year to honor my 30 years of life so far.

My list isn’t complete yet.  As I have found so far this year doing one brave thing often results in needing to do another brave thing.  Either it goes well and then I have a chance to take things a step further or doing the brave thing doesn’t go well and I need to continue be brave to repair or adjust to what happened when I did the brave thing.

In no particular order here’s the start of my list of 30 brave things to celebrate 30 years of life:

1. Don't get caught up in worry or excitement for the future-stay put and grounded in the present
2. Do two days of silent retreats at some point this year
3. Engage in prayer, reflection, and evaluating seminaries to decide which one I will attend
4. Apply to seminaries
5. Start seminary!
6. Take the first steps of becoming an ordained pastor within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
7. Ride my bike across the United States
8. Go on some dates with some guys
9. Move away from home
10. Travel someplace new (Costa Rica?)
11. Set and accomplish some fitness goals
12. Let more people be a part of my journey
13. Write more often and share my writing with others 
14. Live more deeply into this truth: I am a deeply loved by God. 

Being brave is at the same time messy and beautiful and necessary.  I can’t wait to see the beautiful mess of this next year!

Inner and Outer Journey

A little over a year ago a friend and I walked through the Morton Arboretum on a warm summer day.  As we walked and took in the sights and sounds of the flora and fauna, this very new yet wise friend started gently asking me some questions.  They were questions that had long been at the back of my mind but questions that I never allowed myself to really answer.  He challenged me in the most encouraging and empowering way to find a way to answer this question that I had asked myself perhaps hundreds of time over the previous 15 years: Is God calling me to be a pastor?

As I have reflected, the outer and the inner journey to this place have become clear.  It is the inner journey that made the outer journey possible and made it make sense. 

The outward journey included so much of my life experiences culminating in getting to try out ministry- working in a church, teaching, learning about theology, engaging in work that allowed me to both show the Gospel to those in need and share the Gospel in words with those who needed to hear it. 

While so much of these experiences and ministry shaped me ultimately it was seeing a deep brokenness in another person that unveiled my own deep brokenness.  My brokenness isn’t as physically evident and hasn’t manifested itself in quite the same way as I saw in this person, but at the end of the day we are all broken.  While grasping my own brokenness I leaned into the tension created by the hope, life, and transformation I have experienced in my own life through my faith in and love of God. 

And I was left longing for more, to go deeper, to partner with God in a new way in bringing this life to others.  But so many barriers stood in the way.

This is where the outer journey joins with the inner journey.

Over the past year many people have joined in my journey of answering if God is calling me to be a pastor.   Friends, co-workers, family, mentors, pastors, and new acquaintances have contributed in small and large ways to removing the barriers that had prevented me from answering this question for so many years. 

Some days it felt like those barriers were 15-foot thick cement walls that I was chipping away with a toothpick and other days those barriers came down like drywall with a bulldozer. 

In the past year I have learned a lot about discernment, I have been given abundant opportunities to learn to listen and to wait, and I have been shown so much grace and love.

Many of you who are reading this have been pillars of hope and encouragement.  You helped me better understand God’s love for me.  I felt God’s love and understood it was not dependent on anything I did, any work I completed, nor what job position I held.  God simply delights in me. You helped me embrace and understand the ways God has both equipped and prepared me to go to seminary and become a pastor.

As I more fully accepted my identity as a beloved daughter of God my fear become courage, uncertainty become clarity, and limitation became freedom. The forming and strengthening foundation of my identity as a beloved daughter of God allowed me to set aside the fear of disappointing those I love, the sadness of being separated from a community of people who have become like family, and the trepidation of stepping away from what had become so comfortable.

A beautiful friend shared this picture with me to represent my journey to all that is possible with God.

Slowly my response to God has become a very confident “yes.”  My response to God is less an answer to a specific question and more a response to God’s love for me.

This is obviously the very short version of the internal and external journey I have been on the past year.  And by no means is this journey over.  For all of us, discernment is a constant process of listening to God and responding to God.  I plan to share more about my process of discernment on this blog in the coming months.  But for now I ask for your prayers (and any advice you might offer!) as I try to figure out which seminary I’ll attend next fall.

Easter Seems so Far Away

There are so many thoughts and threads going through my mind today.  As usual I’d like to try to tie them up all in a neat little package but the world is far more complex than this.

I’m remembering a year ago when I was in Haiti.  An experience that I still don’t really have the words to describe or capture.  A year later I still struggle with the scenes of desperation and despair I witnessed.  And I have no hope of working out the tension between the glimpses of hope and the unmistakable hold death still has.  I constantly remember the smiles of the children receiving lunch at school as well as the pleas of the children waiting outside the school to see if there would be any leftovers for them.

On today’s date in 1980, the Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, was martyred for speaking out against the violence, poverty, and social injustice in El Salvador.  The legacy and stories of this man have shaped me and so many others.  As I remember his death, I also remember Romero’s remarkable faith and courage that were formed and displayed so vividly in his work of showing God’s love in word and action.

And today is also my favorite day of the church year: Maundy Thursday.  It is the day in which we remember the last supper Jesus had with his disciples in which he began the sacrament of communion.  It’s a day marked by a celebration of community, grace, and the connection we will forever have with Jesus and our fellow members of the Church.  After supper Jesus gave his followers a new commandment: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34).  I love the messages Jesus shared with his disciples and with us even as he knew his death on the cross was coming the next day.

With all this remembering I’m finding it difficult to move forward today.  It’s so frustrating to recognize that in the grand scheme of things, not much has changed since these events 1 year ago, 36 years ago, and nearly 2000 years ago.  The world is still heavy with pain, suffering, evil, and death.  In Haiti, instability and extreme poverty remain.  While there are certainly pockets of hope these oases are fragile and could be destroyed so easily.  In El Salvador the gang violence has reached an all time high, and so many of my friends and acquaintances there are forced to live in constant fear.  In our world, we continue to see more and more examples of people being divided rather unified.  We see this in our politics, on social media, in our culture, and most devastatingly in the Church.  There are an infinite amount of examples of how we fail to love our neighbors as Jesus loved us.

Even though Easter is only three days away, today it seems unbearably far away.

A Garlic (and Life) Update

In the fall a little over a year ago I planted garlic in the community garden at Our Savior Lutheran Church (read my blog post about it if you don’t remember: Doing a Dumb Thing).

When I planted the garlic I was so worried it wouldn’t make it through the winter.  I thought the garlic would just have to make it through the winter and then I would be able to take care of it and I would be able to ensure it would grow and turn out well. But plans change.  I left my staff position at Our Savior last spring, which meant to a certain extent I was around to take care of it, but I wasn’t able to give the garlic the attention I thought I would be able to give it. 

Other people are now in charge of the garden and the care of the garlic and all the other wonderful things that grow in that garden.

Planting the garlic in the fall required a lot of trust that everything would turn out ok.  Then I found myself in the spring when I thought I would be able to regain some control actually having even less control.

I had to trust that other people would take care of the garlic.  Above all I had to trust that what I planted was not planted in vain.

The garlic is perhaps the most physically evident part of the work at Our Savior that I started and then entrusted to other people.  Ministries I started or deeply invested in have and will continue to morph, change, and end. 

We all know change is hard.  For so many reasons and in so many ways life usually doesn’t go as we thought it might or imagined it could.  We are given the choice then to defiantly grasp on to what might have been, or we can release that and learn to embrace all the blessings that are to come.

I would be lying if I didn’t admit that it was SO HARD to release what I had given so much of my time, energy, and passion to.  It was so hard to concede that I couldn’t do everything.  To come to terms with the fact that I won’t always be able to see the harvest (literally and figuratively).  To accept that this season of my life was ending. 

But as time as went on I realized that by no means was it an end…more of a transition than anything.

I have seen the building of ministry continue at Our Savior.  I have seen people rise and take on new or bigger roles.  I have seen the love and compassion of Christ continually displayed in and through people at Our Savior.

Through mourning and releasing what was and what could have been, I have found so much freedom and joy in discovering what God has in store for me in this next season of my journey!  

And as far as I know, the garlic did well.

The garlic in late May growing!