After the Conviction

 More than one friend, nonresidents of Minnesota, emailed me the day after the conviction of Derek Chauvin to say how relieved I must feel. 

I did feel relief, but I wondered if I should feel relief. Why did I feel relief and what exactly did that relief encompass? And what business did I have feeling relief? I am a white, privileged woman in her 70's and what stake did I have in the outcome of the trial? 

Besides, this was only one trial, one police officer convicted, and shootings have continued, even as the trial was in process. 

I was relieved that riots and violence and property damage were averted.

I was relieved that Minnesota might not be in the news every night.

I was relieved that in at least one case justice was done.

I was relieved for George Floyd's family--that at least their loved one was known as a real person whose life should not have been taken from them. 

In Sunday's sermon Pastor Javen Swanson gave a brilliant sermon about the heaviness he was feeling, and reminded us that "justice occurs when hearts are changed."

Justice occurs when hearts are changed. 

That's the kind of relief I want--the relief that comes knowing hearts have changed. That has yet to be proven. 

I have been reading Diana Butler Bass's new book, Freeing Jesus, Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way and Presence, and she mentions Dorothy Day who "displayed a restless sense of moving deeper into both the world and God." (186)

Read that phrase again: "...a restless sense of moving deeper into both the world and God." That's what happens, I think, when hearts are changed. 

Bass continues to describe the two spiritual journeys: "the interior one toward knowing our true self and knowing God, and the one directed outward into the world to enact God's justice and love." (186) 

As a spiritual director, I meet with clients who desire to deepen that interior journey, to awaken to the movement of God in their lives. What often happens then is that their growing awareness leads them into the world to BE the movement of God. Or sometimes a client comes to me whose focus and energy is devoted to making a difference in the world, but they feel some emptiness or exhaustion in their spiritual life. 

The interior journey and the one directed outward have a dynamic relationship. Both are needed. Sometimes one is--and needs to be--more dominant than the other. For each of us one journey may feel more challenging, and the other may unfold more naturally. My way of pursuing each of the journeys may look, more than likely will look, different from your paths. 

Both paths, entangled sometimes, but always stretching out in front of us, change hearts. 

This is hard work. Important work. Sacred work. This is the work God has given us to do. 

Here are some words that may help. 

        Go gently into the new day.
        Go with love for yourself and others.
        Kindle patience towards all beings, all things.
        Remain awake as you step in any direction.
        Keep a hand on the pulse of your creativity.
        Remember always what is yours to embody.
        Share yourself freely.
        Go with your imagination lit and your intuition purring with possibility.
        When in doubt, be yourself.
        Step forward. 
                                    Glenn Mitchell, Oasis Ministries

An Invitation
Where are you on the journey to change hearts? I would love to know. 

NOTE: You can watch Pastor Javen's sermon here. You can read Diana Butler Bass's blog here. You can read Glenn Mitchell's daily meditations here.

        

Waiting for the Verdict

Now we wait. 

Yesterday the closing arguments were presented in the George Floyd murder case, and the jury was given its instructions. 

The prosecution urged the jury to believe what it saw.

The defense relied on "reasonable doubt," saying if you don't have all the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies, you can't make chocolate chip cookies. If a single ingredient is missing, it is a not a guilty verdict. Does anyone else find that metaphor insulting? Trivial? Simple? 

Yesterday during my church's online worship service, the text for the opening hymn, "Have Mercy, God and Purge From Us" was written by Gloria Dei's assistant director of music and worship production, Paul Damico-Carper (You can listen here) and several lines keep vibrating within me:

      Have mercy, God, and purge from us enduring corporate sin...

      Lay bare the evil we ignore pretending peace within...

      Unbind our hearts, cast out our fears so we will start today to
      right the centuries of wrongs...

      Embolden us to be participants in turning our entire society...

      Revise our hearts where justice has eluded us too long...

Notice the strong verbs, especially "purge," "unbind," "embolden," and "revise." Active verbs. Nothing passive there. Words of change. 

I tend to think about what needs to change in our society--and much needs to change, but what needs to change within me? Where am I passive, when I need to be active? What do I need to purge? 

As a white person, I am used to being comfortable. I desire comfort, but this is not a comfortable time. For one thing, waiting for this verdict is not comfortable and if a "not guilty" verdict is found, life will be anything but comfortable. But can a person of color ever describe their life as comfortable? 

And if the verdict is "guilty," does that mean life can return to being comfortable for me, a white privileged woman? It shouldn't. And life in this society will still be uncomfortable for too many. 

I need these words from poet Steve Garnaas-Holmes:

    We will do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
    We will no longer be afraid
     to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with God.
     Even in the lingering darkness we are not afraid. 

And now we wait. 

An Invitation
What does being comfortable mean to you? What do you do with your discomfort? I would love to know. 

 NOTE: To see more of the portraits I feature in this post go to  https://www.mrjohnsonpaints.com

Anatomy of A Weekend

NOTE: This post was written before I learned about the shooting of Daunte Wright by a police officer. How trite everything else seems. I recommend history professor, Heather Cox Richardson's commentary in her daily newsletter, Letters From An American

If you are a fan of Downton Abbey (and who isn't?), you probably remember the Dowager Countess of Grantham played by Maggie Smith asking "What's a weekend?"

Thanks to my husband's retirement, my flexible, self-directed writing and spiritual direction schedule, and pandemic limiting activities, weekends have not had much meaning. 

One day tends to feel like another. What I do on Tuesday, I can easily do on Sunday, as well. 

The one exception has been "attending" Sunday morning worship services. On YouTube. For much of our lives, Sunday morning church has been a grounding landmark, and that has been no less true this past year. Sunday gets us to Monday and on Saturday we know what we will be doing, where we will be on Sunday. 

Several months ago, however, we realized we needed a Saturday-- a day that would be different from other days in the week. We needed change, a highlight, a day off from the ways we had settled into life during the pandemic. 

We started roaming. Saturday has been our day to explore Minnesota. Where can we go in one day? We have driven each direction. 

Sometimes we have a specific destination, like Duluth to see the memorial recognizing victims of a lynching there in 1920. 

Sometimes, however, we just pick a direction and go, driving down country roads and through small towns. We have counted eagles, hawks, and most recently, swans, and have marveled at the beauty of the land and the change of the seasons. We have lunch in our car--MacDonalds crispy chicken sandwich is our first choice and later, as we head home, an ice cream cone. 

Lately, we have stopped at antique stores, and if we are lucky add to our latest collection: vintage copper. 

This past Saturday the small town of Darwin, MN was on our route and much to our surprise, it is the home of the largest ball of twine. Now who can resist that? 

And when we pull back into the garage, we feel as if we have been on a trip. We are glad to be home and back to more routine activities, like making banana bread or for Bruce, working in the garden. And church on Sunday morning. 

Then on Monday morning, I am ready to return to my desk. 

An Invitation
Do your weekday activities differ from what you do on the weekend? I would love to know. 

Friends for Dinner

For the first time in over a year, we entertained INSIDE the house! We have gathered friends and family on the patio periodically, but remember, I live in Minnesota, so winter weather has greatly limited that ability.

Now that we have had both vaccinations and are in the "safe" zone, as are many of our friends, we are beginning to open our home, and we invited two friends for dinner on Good Friday.

I laughed at myself and wondered if I would know how to set the table, for Bruce and I have our dinner each evening on tv trays while watching the PBS News Hour. Meal time has been casual, to say the least. My sister teased me, saying I could Google how to set a table if I had forgotten on which sides of the plate to place the flatware. 

Like riding a bike, however, I remembered how to do it, and I delighted in the process. I love setting the table not only because we have a variety of pretty dishes, but as I prepare the table, I open my heart to the guests who will enter the door. And after such a long time of not opening the door, of no one crossing the threshold, I was so eager to share our space, or food, our love.

During the day, as I chopped and sautéed and simmered, I glanced at the waiting table with its tulips, candles, white Damask napkins, blue and white Danish dishes and my mother's flatware, and I remembered other times of gathering with friends or family. The insightful conversation. The warm laughter. The increased connections. Oh, how I have missed that! 

And it was good. I fixed risotto with peas and a delicious green salad with celery seed dressing. Our friends brought a yummy trifle with strawberries and blueberries and even left some for us to enjoy the next day. Don't you wish you had been there?

Now here is a confession. Good Friday is a solemn night--a time of lamentation, and we invited our friends to watch our church's service on Youtube with us and then we would have dinner. Well, we were not very solemn. Instead, we were almost giddy with our eagerness to be together. As we hugged, we seemed to have moved into Easter's rejoicing. I trust we were forgiven.

Our routine after our guests have left is to do a complete clean-up. Bruce is in charge of filling the dishwasher, and doing the additional hand washing. I return the table to its previous look, wipe, and put away the dishes. We are a good team. And as we do that, we review the evening's conversation, which feels like an additional blessing. 

The next morning when I got up and walked through the house, I sensed a different energy in each of the rooms. It was if the house remembered one of its main purposes--to be a place of love and welcome. 

I can't wait to do it again. 

An Invitation
Have you entertained recently? How did that feel? I would love to know. 

 

Blessing the Neighborhood

 I tucked our palms from Passion Sunday into the birch basket on the front door. The forsythia branches in the basket signal spring and new growth. I like to think the palm branches, which scripture tells us were spread on the road as Jesus entered Jerusalem, wave blessings into the neighborhood. 

                            This blessing 
                            is making 
                            its steady way up 
                            the way 
                            toward you.
                                        Jan Richardson
                                        from Circle of Grace

This blessing is for you if you are Christian and moving through Holy Week towards Easter. Or if you are Jewish and in the midst of Passover. Or if you are Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist.

And yes, it is a blessing if you know yourself as an unbeliever or one who is unsure of your beliefs. Blessings know no boundaries, and it is good to remember that during these days of pageant and ritual. 

Here's what is most important to remember:

    An American rabbi was once asked what he thought of the
    words attributed to Jesus in St John's Gospel, "I am the way,
    and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except
    through me" (John 14:6). The rabbi replied, "Oh, I agree with
    these words." To which the surprised questioner asked further,
    "But how can you as a rabbi believe that Jesus is the way, the 
    truth, and the life?" "Because," answered the rabbi, "I believe that
    Jesus' way is the way of love, that Jesus' truth is the truth of
    love, and that Jesus' life is the life of love. No one comes to the
    Father but through love."
                                p. 119 A New Harmony, The Spirit, The Earth
                                and the Human Soul
                                John Philip Newell

The only way to God is through love. The only way to live, whatever your faith or unfaith, is through love. 

And that's the blessing the palms are proclaiming.

                            This blessing
                            looms in the throats
                            of women,
                            brings from the hearts
                            of men,
                            tumbles out of the mouths
                            of children.

                                        Jan Richardson

An Invitation
What happens when you extend a blessing? I would love to know. 

Spring and Our Own Growth

 A friend wrote that the life of faith is linear because "life with God moves always forward." Yes, but more and more the movement of my life with God feels circular, cyclical. 

Saturday we drove into the country on unfamiliar roads. Maybe we had been on some of them before, but not at the same time of earth's unfolding. The fields had an almost scrubbed clean look, steady and quiet, but I imagined the soil actively warming itself, preparing to receive the seeds of new growth. 

I saw trees at their barest, skeletal branches open to the sun, ready to welcome their own greening. They've done this before, but still it feels new. Against the unadorned landscape was the occasional hard to miss surprise of willow trees, forsythia yellow in color, leading the way into the exuberance of spring. Don't you love the reminder that not everything happens at the same time?

I saw an eagle's nest and caught a glimpse of a white head, like a ping pong ball, poking out from the nest. Eagles return to the same nest year after year. Some years their young survive, but not always. I think about how often I see eagles, even in my own urban neighborhood, but each sighting thrills me. In ponds and small lakes, wherever there was open water, I saw swans swimming, a fairy tale ballet with spring as the encore. 

We've been here, the tip of spring, but it feels stunning, astonishing every year. And we are part of that miracle, for we have moved forward from where we were a year ago to where we are now. We are not the same. Perhaps we look basically the same, but we know underneath the surface we have changed. 

We may have suffered losses. We may have worried and wondered and waited. We may have raged, but also been resilient. Perhaps even as we have recited litanies of what we miss, we may have found spaciousness and even focus for our energy, our gifts. This has been a time like no other, but even in that otherness, we may have experienced the movement of God and glimpses of who we were created to be. 

At one of our stops, an antique shop, I bought a bundle of twisty, curly pussywillows, another one of those signs of spring I count on. Normally, I buy them in the grocery store's flower section, and they are quite domestic looking, manageable and straight. This bunch of pussywillows, however, looks wild and unexpected. I can almost hear them whispering, "Spring will return, as it does every year, but maybe it will feel different, be different. Maybe you are different."

Here's what I think about moving forward in my life with God. Each single step feels like I am moving on a linear path, but when I look back after taking many steps, I see I am on a curve. The curve doesn't lead me back to where I have been, but rather carries me through the cycles of life, the cycles of the universe and invites me to find new growth. 

An Invitation
Spring is just beginning here in Minnesota. You may be in a different stage of spring. What are you noticing this spring? I would love to know. 

NOTE: It has been a heavy week. I invite you to pause and lift these names:        Soon Chung Park, 74;
                    Suncha Kim, 69;
                    Yong Ae Tue, 63;
                    Hyun Jung Grant, 51;
                    Xiaojie Tan, 49;
                    Delaina Yaun, 33;
                    Daoyou Feng, 44
                    Paul Andre Michels, 54.

One More Note: We celebrate our son Geof's 42nd birthday today. He is a blessing in our life. 

The Pandemic and Walking A Labyrinth

The labyrinth is an ancient meditation tool, a path to prayer, a path of prayer. Meditation in motion. A container for reflection and an intentional way to connect with God, the Holy, the Sacred.

Living during this pandemic reminds me of walking a labyrinth.

When I stand at the threshold of a labyrinth, I sometimes feel anxious, for I have no idea what my experience might be, and that is exactly how I felt a year ago when life changed so dramatically. The path ahead was an unknown, and all I could do as I tried to look ahead was take a deep breath and ask for guidance. 

Tentatively, I took those beginning steps, asking what was required of me. How am I to live during this time? The walk towards the center of the labyrinth is a time to release. And isn't that what we were asked to do? We put on our masks and released our normal ways of living and moving in the world, experiencing losses along the way.

Along the way, we adapted, finding ways to manage the challenges. Zoom meetings with friends and family. Online church services. Ordering groceries online or shopping at times that weren't busy. Our day to day rhythms changed, and we relaxed into a slower pace. 

And yet, daily we yearned for this time to end. 

On an actual labyrinth, there is the moment when the center seems close. That was where we wanted to be. Home and safety; a feeling that we made it. But the labyrinth plays a trick on us: the curving path swings us away from the center and we go round and round yet again. 

Life during the pandemic turned out to be much longer than imagined.

And reaching the center was not what we wanted it to be. We thought once we arrived in the center, the pandemic would be over, and we could return to our normal ways of living. No such luck.

Being in the center may have felt like nothing was happening, but on good days we felt this was a time to receive --greater clarity about what is important to us; an awareness of our own resilience and who we are; gratitude for our health and the love and support of our dear ones; and an appreciation for stillness and solitude. Perhaps we accessed our contemplative side and noticed the movement of God in our lives. 

Now that more and more of us have been vaccinated, we are ready to resume movement and the path away from the center is a time to return. That is a long path, too, however, and no less important than the walk to the center. This path is a time to ask ourselves new questions.

    How have I changed since I first stood on the threshold?

    What do I bring with me from the hibernation time in the center? 

    What has changed in my life and what are my intentions for life after the pandemic? 

    What have I learned? What choices have I made that supported 
    who I was created to be? 

Eventually, we will cross the threshold and leave this particular labyrinth, this specific time of our lives, but the lessons, the learnings can remain with us and prepare us for the next labyrinth in our life.

A Prayer from Henri J. M. Nouwen

        The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my
    life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words
    that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There
    are no times places without choices. And I know how deeply
    I resist choosing you.
          Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every
    place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this
    season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able
    to taste with joy the new life which you have prepare for me.
    Amen. 

An Invitation

What stage of the labyrinth are you on now? What are you learning? I would love to know.