Tea and cookies are good

I read a post today that a pastor friend of mine posted on Facebook.  The article was titled "Why We Don't Need Women's Ministry".  Now, this pastor friend of mine happens to be a man, so I wondered about his choice of article, dealing with women and all.  We also happen to have a Women's Ministry at our church, so I was curious also, and I took the time to visit the link.  You can read the full article here.


According to the author, it seems women's ministry is all tea, and pastels, and flowers and interior decorating, and hats and needlepoint.  And in the author's eyes, nothing else.  Of course, as people are apt to do, a fellow church member replied to said pastor's posting, saying in essence: yeah, I don't like to go to those garden parties where all the women look good, all the flowers are in bloom, and they pass their time idly by, wearing cute hats and sipping earl grey from their Spode tea cups.


Well, don't think for a minute that I'm against her, because let me make it very clear that donning a hat to an afternoon women's tea party is not on my bucket list (at least not yet).  It's just not me, and it's not something I would ever be comfortable doing.


Not that there's anything wrong with tea and flowers and hats... These are all just expressions of one's personal tastes, after all.  If Women's Ministry at my church meant margaritas and live music and tattered blue jeans, I'd probably be a staunch supporter.  And I know from personal experience, with my own little women's group that these meetings and events create a space of grace that allows for sharing life with fellow believers, an experience which has been invaluable to me.  While we don't wear hats or share decorating tips, we do share meals, tragedies, laughter and prayer.  These women are my sisters, and in years of sharing life and breaking bread together, they have embraced and encouraged me, prayed for me and allowed me to live fully, even vulnerably, from the core of my spiritual existence.  We are called to build up our relationships and to be mindful of our spiritual formation.  And true relationship such as this is not even always about guts and glory.  Sometimes relationship is just sitting in silence enjoying some hot tea and a rest from the frantic pace of the world.


But if we stop there, if that is all we do, we sell ourselves short.  I venture to say that we sell Christ short.  Christ didn't walk the earth to reveal to us the eternal truths of God by saying "I came so that you might fellowship with your congregation more abundantly" - though gatherings like these certainly strengthen relationships in our congregations.  Jesus Christ, through a sublime reality we know as Christ crucified, calls us radically out of life as we knew it, turning us and our world upside down, and setting us on a path anew.  Or at least, it should.  My more recent experiences of the Church have shown me less about radical discipleship and more about clinging to doctrine as a basis for excluding folks who don't fit our picture.  I've endured more information about tending to the needs inside a building and less about meeting folks at their actual place of need.  Unless I'm crazy, God is up to something in our world that is eternally bigger than quibbling over worship style or what we should serve at Wednesday supper.  The best part is that he's invited us to be a part of His mission of restoration and reconciliation.


It is up to us to choose to be honest with ourselves, our lives, our church, and the lives of others.  From what depth are we pushing the faith conversation forward, in congregation and in community?  Are we willing to put down our shield of safe Christianity so that we can participate fully and authentically in the redemptive mission of God in our community - person by person - here, now and today?  As research professor Brene Brown puts it "authenticity is a daily practice.  It demands wholehearted living and loving - even when it's hard".  The cool thing about authenticity is that it can show up anywhere - at a floral themed party with tea or in the midst of the overcrowded, poverty-stricken school down the street.


I dare say that authenticity can even show up at the building we visit on Sunday mornings.


What if we looked at our gatherings differently?  We can start by stripping away the requirements for a successful Sunday event - the proper clothes, the club membership seats, the approved music, the ceremony, the mask, the judgment, the pretending to be perfect since we're Christian.  Of all people, we Christians should surely know that it is we who are sinfully imperfect.  What if instead we opened up the floor for some conversation - maybe even considering a few risky and demanding questions?  What do the actions of an unapologetic follower of Christ look like?  What does sharing hope look like in real life - in traffic, the grocery store, the soccer field, the board room, the street corner?  How might we live differently if we embraced church as a verb, and not a noun?  How do we forge a path of authenticity in our community, paved with the Gospel of Grace?


Are we re-enacting scenes from a script in the past, busying ourselves with correct motions but with nothing truly happening, or are we struggling to meet the challenge to go and share the hope of Christ in our community by authentically connecting with others?  I'm up for conversation - with my tea party hat on, if need be.

Don't Settle

If you're like me, there is probably a little voice in your head reminding you from time to time, maybe right now, that you have a calling in this life.  That feeling that your passion and your action ought to be connected somehow, and connected on a regular basis.  Pure, true and deeply felt passion - like something you might have felt years ago, back before paychecks, taxes and commuting took stronghold in your life.


You may have pushed this creeping thought to the back of your mind or the back burner of your life or the C-level priority on your GTD list.  This has probably never happened to you, but I know that I have on occasion, figured that what I really needed to be doing right now, instead of this calling, was putting out fires or exercising more, or catching up on my to-do list or cleaning out the fridge before a grocery trip.  Again, this probably does not describe you at all, but you probably know someone like this, someone that needs to take a hard look at what's important vs. what's urgent.


But maybe, you actually have pushed that burning desire to the bottom of your one-day-some-day-but-not-today list.  And if you have, perhaps it wasn't because you were too busy to roll up your sleeves and get to work.  Maybe the dream is to big, too wild, too audacious, or maybe you just feel like you could never achieve it.  I don't have to tell you this, you already know.  You know what makes your heart skip a beat and makes you come alive.  Its usually the topic you can't stop talking about, or the cause that makes your heart break or the hobby you have that you squeeze in when you get a break from the hustle and bustle of life lived at breakneck speed.  Sometimes we are so successful at pushing the dream or the calling out of our conscious minds, that we haven't had that tug on our hearts since we were kids. (For accurate demonstration of being fully present in the moment and playing full out by embracing life with joy - see photo above).


Some days you doubt the calling and some days you believe the calling.  That is how it is for me.  In fact, usually when I'm closest to examining the bent for service and ministry that God has given me, I get most disrupted.  I often wonder just exactly how I am supposed to live out my calling in the midst of holding down a business, raising a child, organizing my receipts for the IRS and catching up with my husband when things slow down at the end of each day.  I think sometimes it is lack of courage to step outside of the boundaries of my safe, well-defined life.  It is a radical thought to go against the grain of the way things already are - especially when things are seemingly secure.  But, courage, like any other virtue, can only be developed by learning and by practice.  It is not something we are born with naturally, we can only attain it by doing it.  To be a courageous person, I have to get in the habit of living courageously.  

Security is mostly a superstition.  It does not exist in nature,

nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.

Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits

in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.

-Helen Keller

If you're honest, you likely dream of living a life that is different from the one you've settled for.  You might ask yourself sometimes, as I do, "Is this all there is"?  Is this the life you thought you'd be living into?  I used to live next door to an 83 year old veteran of the US Navy aptly named Roscoe Campbell who had been through and seen just about everything in his difficult life, body overtaken by arthritis, hearing lost to the ravages of old age, wife dead and he living as a boarder in my next door neighbor's home.  As I would struggle to face the glare of the morning sun without my first cup of coffee fully infused in my blood, he would greet me every single morning, bright and chipper, and I would always say "Hey Roscoe, how are you this morning?"  And with a jubilant shout across the dew-covered lawn he would reply "I'm Great!  The Good Lord got me up this morning!  What else could I ask for?"


That is the amazing thing about today. You and I both woke up this morning.  We have another day to build a life we don't want to escape from.  To turn towards a more authentic way of living and relating in our world.  A life that we haven't settled for, but one we've created anew.  We've created... You've created.  Not a life created by the impact of circumstance, situation or position in life.


I challenge you today to embrace the amazing opportunity that today is.  In fact, its all we've got.  One lesson that death teaches, is that it always comes for us.  It is the one thing in life we cannot escape.


If you really want to live before you die, do what you love.  Take stock of what you absolutely love, and do more of those things.  And if there are things in your life that you don't love, well, don't do them.  Figure out a plan to get your soul out from under the entanglement of those things or people or places that suck your life energy out of you.  Stop trading authenticity for security.  Remember, security is just a clever illusion.


When I turned 21, someone I once knew challenged me to stop playing my life safe.  To start making life matter, to make every moment matter.  And to take the plunge and "play full out" with my life.  To play full out - don't hold back, live fully in the present moment, stretch uncomfortably and give relentlessly.  Whether to play or not play the game of life is not your choice to make, but as long as that heart of yours is ticking, you can choose how you will play.  And in the end, the only person who really and truly cares about your life and what you do with it.... Is you...


I am headed to a Missional Living conference today in downtown Houston, and as I get ready to go, I am reminded to stop and listen to that calling that God has placed on my heart.  The calling that asks - Yes or No?  Now or Later?  Ready.... Or not?  Will you serve yourself or Me, today, Susan?  Am I listening?


Are you listening? Are your ears open?  Who is God guiding you to serve?  What is your life passion?  When have you heard the substance of your calling?  Where has injustice in this world stirred your heart?  Why do we wait, thinking that one day, someday, we will make a difference with our life in this world.  Today is the day to make the difference.  What is your calling, and why are you waiting?  Isn't it about time to dust off that spark, rekindle that warmed-over passion, shred the scripted life and start playing big with the God-given life calling that you've carelessly or indiscriminately cast aside?


Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. - Henry Miller

Stage Five

There are a few very specific bits of information you become intimately familiar with when someone you love receives the unfortunate diagnosis of cancer.  How to make milkshakes chock full o' nutrition when they lose their appetite during chemo treatments.  What amount of fever sustained in the midst of treatment should make you jump up and head to the emergency room.  Who to consult about the true meaning of "5-year survival statistics".  And, last but not least, how the cancer is staged.  In summary:

Stage 0 = carcinoma in situ (keep checking in with your doc, but happy you've dodged a bullet.)
Stage 1 = localized cancer to one part of body (damn you are lucky, it's local!  Celebrate with a toast.)
Stage 2 = locally advanced cancer (We can get it all out and you get to keep your body parts!)
Stage 3 = more intense local advancement (Houston, we have a problem.  Bring out the big guns.)
Stage 4 = metastasized (All hell has broken loose. Docs play Russian Roulette for as long as they can.)
Stage 5 = The aftermath (Recovery from cancer staging, PICC lines, Resource Breeze and blood gas tests.)

Ok, so you probably know that Stage 5 does not really exist.  At least, not in the clinical reference manuals of your local oncologist's office.  But Stage 5 seems very fitting for the after-effects of surviving the loss of a loved one to cancer.  There is just SO MUCH going on when you are in the midst of a cancer fighting crisis.  Stage 5 is YOUR recovery, the work to be done once the fighting and the crisis are over.

The extensive work of a very dedicated psychiatrist named Elizabeth Kubler-Ross yielded her book On Death and Dying in 1969.  In this writing, she proposed the now infamous Five Stages of Grief, which are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  More recent studies have explored her stages and some affirm them, though other studies have not determined that there is ever a clear end to grieving.  I am here to tell you that once stage 4 is over, life does not magically go back to normal and coping with loss is not a well-scripted act that you can quickly read through.  Nope.  Instead of the patient doing the work of fighting, the ball has now rolled into your court and its your turn to do the hard work.  Experts in the field call this psychological process of coping with significant loss "grief work", and I can tell you from personal experience not to ignore it.  Neither the passage of time, nor the softening of painful memory heal you after your loved one's death.

After my mom's death, I failed to complete the grieving process for an extended time.  Losing her fragmented my existence, my reality, my hopes and dreams.  There were so many thoughts running through my brain - altogether different and yet simultaneous - wishing she were still here, denying the permanency of her absence, hoping to deal with the terrible feelings and also wishing to avoid all emotions of pain...  The thing was, and still sometimes is, I am terrified of letting go.  Instead of talking about it or dealing with my sadness, I leaned on my Type-A personality to keep full steam ahead, letting the busyness minimize my suffering as much as possible.  But when the raw, agonizing pain finally took hold of my heart, and created night after night of insomnia, I knew I needed to face it.  And very slowly, I did, one tiny step at a time.  Some days I could do nothing and other days the loss did not even cross my mind.  And that's okay.  There is no "right" way to feel or to be.  The most important thing is to acknowledge however you are feeling.  Even two years after her death, and after a healthy dose of acceptance, I still experience moments of frustration, being overwhelmed, and not being able to voice my thoughts clearly.  I no longer sleep lightly, waiting for her to call out in need, but I still suffer from occasional insomnia.  Sometimes in worship, a line from a song will suck every ounce of emotion out of me through tears, and daily I miss her insightful ways and her ability to laugh at herself.  On the other hand, I vividly recall her suffering, and am relieved that though I cannot see, nor hear nor imagine what God has prepared for her, I am confident that she suffers no more.



"If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.  But the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I'll always be with you." - Winnie the Pooh

Blue Shoe

Anne Lamott, in her book Blue Shoe writes this rich dialogue between Harry and his mom:

"Won't you and I die at the exact same time?"  he asked in rising panic.

"No honey.  Where did you hear that?"  

"From Stefan.  He and his mom are dying at the exact same second."

"No they're not, darling.  And besides, I'm 30 years older than you.  So you will probably live much longer."

Harry gaped at her.  He pushed his eggs away.  Then he covered his face with his hands and began to sob, 


"If I had known that," he cried, running back to the window, "I would NEVER have agreed to be born."

Why do I keep thinking it should be any different?

When I was 21, my dad died unexpectedly at 57.  

He had a scheduled operation in Dallas on July 21st, just five days before his 58th birthday.  I really wanted to leave Houston and make the 5 hour trip up to Dallas to be with him and my mom during and after the surgery.  She, however, said she had it all under control, and the room was too small anyway, and it was raining.  My mom is the character basis for the definition of the archetypal hysterical and worrisome mother.  So I sat and waited and just knew something was not right.  

When the phone rang that Wednesday morning in 1999, the words streaming out of the receiver had me crumpled on the floor like a poorly written term paper.  My dad was not doing well after surgery, she said, get here quick.  In a flash, my best friend/roommate was pleading with Continental to secure a ticket for me to fly to Dallas immediately.  Rain be damned!  Why did I listen to her in the first place?  

Rushing around the house like a crazy person to find my missing shoe and my driver's license, the ring of that phone stopped me again, but this time, it was altogether different.  It was a paralyzing, gut-wrenching style of different.  Because I then knew that my father was dead.  My God, how did this happen?  I had no warning, no "last words", no final "inside joke" shared between father and daughter, no hug goodbye.

My mom had watched it all - she, ever-present supporter and champion of my father, was there in the hospital room from the time they arrived that morning to the time he began to have trouble breathing.  Panicked, she hit the call button and a code team rushed in the tiny room, medical equipment and people squeezed into every last inch of real estate, but they were up against a silent killer - a blood clot in the lung.  Within minutes, my dad went from sharing conversation with my mom, to gone.  Pulmonary embolism, the coroner said.  And she was there, my mom, the trooper, to the very end, to the "til death do us part".

And not to be outdone, when I was 31, my mom died very expectedly after years of surviving terminal cancer.  


Her diagnosis came as a shock in early January 2004.  This time, we knew every painstaking detail of the enemy, the damage, the pain, the suffering and the futility of medicine against an invader like stage 4 metastatic cancer.  Well this time, damn it, I was not going to sit idly by, collecting regret upon regret.  Not only did I accompany her every trip to MD Anderson, but I also managed to have her as my housemate, where I could keep a watchful eye to make sure she ate her vegetables and didn't die.  The trouble is that she did die... Right there in front of me on the second floor of Houston Hospice on a quiet and breezy September evening two years ago.

I had every opportunity to talk to her over the five years she fought that beast.  We shared and spoke and reminisced.  We laughed and loved and drank good wine.  She knew the depth of my heart, loved the gracious nature of my husband, held the precious hand of my firstborn.  Mom filled me with stories of our family, anecdotes about her younger life, and enough strength and sureness of self to move a mountain if need be.  And even after all of that, I was still left bewildered and lost in the wake of her passing.  How can you live fully in every single moment and still end up with regret?  The regret, I realized, was not that I failed to do something, but who on earth would not want just one moment more with someone they love?  All of the preparing and knowing and planning, well, those were just things to occupy my anxiety and energy during that wild ride.


Why do I keep thinking it needs to be any different?

I have heard many answers to these two questions over the past thirteen years.  Short answers, long answers, confusing answers.  Life is hard sometimes, and also short sometimes, but care and love and do and serve and breathe and laugh anyway.  Even God suffered the loss of a loved one.   This is not some new concept saved up during all of humanity just for little old me.  Adversity is a committed teacher.  And death is real. My lesson learned? If you really want to live before you die, live generously, love ruthlessly, serve compassionately and push yourself into those uncomfortable and vulnerable moments as often as you can muster; because she's right, its not like Stefan said at all.  






"To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.  Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable." - CS Lewis The Four Loves