Keep Breathing: This is Sacred Space

Three weeks ago, when Jan and I were in Minneapolis for the Addiction and Faith Conference, at the end of a long day of presentations and technology challenges, we took an Uber to the George Floyd Memorial.  I confess that I didn't realize there was a memorial.  I thought we were simply going to see the place where George Floyd was killed.  Since it was after 9 p.m., we asked the person working the hotel desk if it would be safe for us to go after dark, and she said yes, so off we went with our friend, Michelle. 

Our Uber driver dropped us a block away from the intersection, and we slowly walked toward the corner where Cup Foods is located.  When I saw the first sign that said, "Here you enter sacred space," I felt a deep reverence come over me.  For a long time I just walked around the edges slowly, taking everything in.  It seemed disrespectful to talk or to take pictures or even to move inside the barriers protecting the memorial from cars passing by.  I couldn't speak.  

It was a warm night with a light breeze.  The area was well lit with a succession of vehicles passing through the intersection.  Cars aren't permitted to stop there but have to go around the piece of the memorial that now fills the center of the intersection.  There were SO MANY PLANTS and FLOWERS.  Some were artificial, but many were live and others had once been living.  A green house sits to the side of the main part of the memorial.  In an ever widening sprawl sat plants in pots, bottles, and planters.  A garden of offerings:  flowers, candles, stuffed animals, lanterns, signs, photos, coins, graffiti, chalk drawings, paper cranes,  bottles, shells, pieces of wood, rocks, toys, letters, and more.  It was hard to know where to look. Messages of anger, despair, hope.  Quotes from famous people, names of others who died without justice.  

It was both peaceful like a cemetery and overwhelming with stimulus.  I was not afraid, but I didn't know what to think or feel.  I could not process what I was seeing, and so I simply gazed around me. At one point, as I stood on the sidewalk behind the memorial and close to the entrance of Cup Foods, a door in the wall opened, and a woman came out, scowling. I wondered if we were trespassing and if she was coming out to tell us to move along.  She didn't speak for about five minutes, at which point she shouted down the street to a man who eventually strolled up and went inside with her.  Jan told us to stay close, and we made sure to keep an eye on one another.  Later she told me that had been a drug deal.  I can be very naïve.  

Writer that I aspire to be, I have not had words to describe this event.  Jan asked me the next day why I hadn't posted my photos, pictures that I had finally started taking in order to remember what I had seen.  I didn't want to trivialize the experience.  I didn't want to read potentially negative comments or arguments.  It was a sacred space, and I've been afraid to disturb it.  Here are some photos.  I will let them speak for themselves.

I haven't known what to say, and so I haven't said anything. 

Lately I have been reading about trauma.  I highly recommend My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, by Resmaa Menakem, for anyone who wants to start the process of healing from ancient radicalized trauma.  "We cannot think our way out of racism."  We all have to learn how to settle our own bodies so our lizard brains don't overcome us, leading us to fight, flight, freeze, or annihilate.  We have to learn to breathe and settle our own bodies so that we can be our best selves, even in the midst of conflict.

I've also just finished reading What Happened to You: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry.  It is an exceedingly helpful book that details the neuroscience of trauma and explains what happens to the brain and how we can work toward healing.  I learned from this book that one of my usual methods of handling trauma is dissociation.  I suspect that's what happened the night we visited George Floyd's memorial.  When there's too much to take in, I dissociate.  I cannot tolerate the pain, anger, despair, hurt, grief, and so I go away somewhere.  It's not intentional; it's simply what happens.  It's taken me this long to find any words to share.

Renakem says we need to metabolize our trauma so that we don't blow it through other people.  We have to learn to stay present in our bodies.  Perry and Winfrey say we need to ask "What happened to you?" rather than "What's wrong with you?"
 

My thoughts on all of this are still incomplete.  I don't have a lot of wisdom to share, just impressions of what I saw and felt.  A memorial to the pain and death of people of color who have died unjustly and too soon.  A memorial to the ways in which breath has been taken from fellow human beings.  A memorial created both to remember and to inspire.

Keep breathing everyone.  This is sacred space.  

 

Hope and Healing at SpiritWorks

Thirteen years ago I met Jan Brown when she started attending Hickory Neck Episcopal Church.  I was fresh out of seminary and had just begun my ordained ministry about a month earlier.  No sooner had I learned about her work than I was referring someone to her for services at the recovery community organization that she had started, SpiritWorks Foundation.  Three years later, in 2011, after having partnered with SpiritWorks on a number of projects, I found I was in need of the recovery community myself.  I sought out Jan's advice as I was facing the consequences of a lifetime of co-dependency.  Exhausted, overwhelmed by my need to please every one, be the hero, and save the day, I was running out of energy, health, and hope.  Jan recommended I start attending a 12-step group, and thus began my journey to co-dependent recovery.  

About a year later I began working at SpiritWorks.  Having experienced healing and hope in the recovery community, I wanted to be part of offering that to others.  Since then I have had the great good fortune of participating in the transformation of lives. It is such a huge privilege to walk with people as they make the transition from despair to hope.  The journey from addiction to recovery can be very challenging, and not everyone makes it on this side of the grave.  Some days the work is heartbreaking, and other days are a celebration of milestones achieved.  We offer groups and activities, trainings and education, community and coaching, healing and hope.

The greatest joy of my work has been creating the First Fridays Recovery Eucharist. On the first Friday of each month, our community gathers.  It includes individuals in active addiction and in recovery, parents with addicted children and parents whose children have died as a result of fatal overdoses, friends and family, allies and mentors, members of Bruton Parish and members of other congregations around the area.  Pre-Covid we even had someone who journeyed each month from North Carolina to attend.  We have baptized babies and adults, witnessed marriages and vow renewals, buried those who have died, and had memorial services for those we've lost.  At First Fridays tears are welcome, and we all celebrate joys together.  To me, the First Fridays worshiping community provides a glimpse of what the heavenly banquet will look like. 

SpiritWorks does not charge fees for its recovery support services.  We rely on contracts, grants, faith communities, and donors to keep us funded and running our two recovery centers in Williamsburg and Warrenton.  Each May we participate in a main fundraising effort called Give Local 757.   The past couple of years we've also participated in Give Local Piedmont, the one we were pushing for the Nifty Fifty prize last week. Give Local 757 is tomorrow, May 11, from midnight to midnight.  Our goal for May is $25,000, and we're almost to $5000.  From 5-6pm we will be hosting an outdoor "Happier Hour" at SpiritWorks for people to drop by for some fellowship, snacks, and soft beverages.  Local folks - come see us at 5800 Mooretown Rd. We accept donations of any size, any kind, any time.  But from midnight tonight until midnight tomorrow, we can also receive prizes if you donate HERE.

It is my great pleasure to support SpiritWorks, and Kasee and I hope you will too, if you can.  We're so grateful for so many who are a part of the healing and hope that we offer to people journeying from addiction to recovery.  

Micah, Martha, and Shadow also appreciate your support!!

Looking for Hope

Sunday's sermon is up.  The text is here.  

Over the past year my process for writing a sermon has been changing.  When I first started, I wrote my sermons way in advance and practiced them over and over to get them perfectly polished for the day.  Once I was ordained and in full time ministry, that ceased to be practical, but I always went to bed on Saturday night with a sermon written.  I couldn't sleep otherwise.  However late, I would finish it.  I might tweak a line or two on Sunday morning or during delivery, but basically what I had on Saturday night was what was what it was going to be.  

My process has been evolving into a more stressful process that involves less sleep.  Now on Saturday night, I frequently have something written, but it's not quite right.  And then on Sunday morning at 5:30 am, usually in the shower, I get the inspiration for fixing it.  Then I scramble to edit it in time for church.

This past Saturday I went to bed without a sermon.  Not because I hadn't been working on it for most of the day or thinking about it for most of the week.  It just wouldn't come.  I had too much to say.  I'd seen the movie, Just Mercy, that afternoon and wanted to include it along with so many things going on in the world.  Trying to figure out how the scriptures were connected and could provide guidance, comfort, challenge, or insight into these events.  Tossing around big abstract words like hope, justice, mercy, and peace, and struggling to make them concrete without being partisan or suggesting there's one right way to achieve them.  I hear my brother and sister preachers suggesting we have to address things going on in the world specifically and directly, but I have to be careful that I'm not just preaching the Gospel according to Lauren.  And I want people to be able to hear the Good News, whether they agree with me on certain issues or not.  It's a real wrestling match.

So on Saturday night at 11pm, I realized I was getting nowhere.  What I had was boring.  I didn't know what my point was, and I knew I wasn't going to get it finished.  I needed sleep.  I went to bed, set my alarm even earlier, and actually slept.  When I woke up I said, "Okay, God, we've gotta get something written."  And, as usual, in the shower, it started to become clear.  I rushed downstairs to start writing.  But there wasn't enough time, and I really needed to be dressed to go to church.  I hit print, and took what I had, but there wasn't an ending, and I hadn't had time to read over it.  I had a selection of different paragraphs at the end, not sure where they would go.

When I preached at 7:30am, it felt like a mess to me.  The order was all wrong.  I did my best to tie it all together, but then I hurried to my office before the next service to fix it.  Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time, so I was running down the sidewalk at 9:14 to get to the 9:15 service.  Somehow God must have played a little with time, because I was walking in the door at 9:14 and by 9:16 I had put the sermon in the pulpit, gone to the sacristy and vested, come out to thank the rector for waiting for me, and was standing in the back ready to process.  "This is too stressful, God," I prayed several times over the course of the process.  

But this is what I've learned.  Even though sometimes I worry that I'm just satisfying my ego with all this last minute polishing, trying to make the "perfect" sermon, the truth is that the rewritten versions are SO MUCH BETTER than what I have before I go to sleep.  Sadly, it sometimes takes me the whole morning to get to a coherent message with a solid point.  And no, preaching extemporaneously is not the solution.  I'm not a straightforward thinker, and though I can kind of wing it on mid-week services, I ramble and repeat myself over and over and over when I try to preach without a manuscript.

My point this week is about hope and placing it in God.  Apparently, from the feedback I've received, it was a message people needed to hear.  If I hadn't been willing to keep working on it, I wouldn't have gotten there.  I'm grateful that I'm learning to hear the Holy Spirit on Sunday morning, even though I sure wish she would show up a little earlier in the week.  But I'll take it and give thanks for the opportunity to let God speak through me.

Advent I

Yesterday it took me three matches to light the first candle on my Advent wreath. The first time I didn't hold the flame to the new wick long enough for it to catch. The second time, the flame caught, but in the moment that I turned away to put out the match, the candle flame had smoldered out. The third time I stayed close, making sure the flame had fully caught before dousing the match. Sometimes light is like that. It requires waiting, perseverance, and nurturing for it to kindle into flame.

And hope.

If I had given up after the first try, the candle would have remained unlit. But I had hope that if I just kept trying, the light would come.


Advent is like that. Waiting, hoping, keeping faith that the light will come. That the darkness will not overcome it.

When I was working in the theatre in my early thirties, I had the blessing of being unemployed several years during Advent. It may sound strange to call it a blessing, but it seemed that I always came down with a cold in December, and having time off from work allowed me to take care of my body. Being unemployed also meant that I had an abundance of time to sit quietly and reflect, to write, to read, to pray, to pay attention. Lack of employment also meant that I was poor, well, relatively speaking in 1st world terms, though still quite rich when compared with much of the rest of the world. I didn't have much disposable income, so I was forced to get creative with Christmas gifts and hand make as many as possible. I had to choose carefully the gifts I purchased in order to stretch my meager funds as far as I could. The luxury was that I had plenty of time to travel to be with family and friends and to share the gift of presence.

This year I am very meaningfully employed. I also have some unexpected expenses that are causing me to scale back on holiday spending. And I'm grateful. As I think about all the stuff that my friends and family have, I know that they don't need more from me. Instead I am scheming to spend more time being present – to other people, to myself, to God.

This Advent I am make a renewed commitment:
to resist the clarion call to deals and sales and to seek meaningful gifts from the heart,
to pray for the light that will pierce the darkness our world now experiences,
to stay awake to the pain and suffering of others instead of numbing myself with distractions,
to banish anxiety and despair and to cling to hope.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. That is what we are waiting for this Advent and every Advent. The light that shines in the darkness. May it quickly come and remain kindled in our hearts.

Rainbows and Labyrinths - Advent Hope

God is so good.  I find this time of year hard, when the days are so short.  I thrive in the warm sun.  Ever since Advent last year I have also been struggling with some anxiety/depression that is made worse every time I turn on the news and every time I scroll through Facebook.  I despair of there being any wisdom or love in the world when I see over and over how badly we human beings treat each other.  And I find that even my to-do list can be overwhelming some days.  It has been recommended to me that when I feel one of these anxious "episodes" coming on that I get outside and walk.  When I complained to my therapist one day last January that I couldn't take a walk because it might rain, he said, "The worst thing that will happen is that you get wet."  I didn't appreciate the comment at the time, but I've come to see his point.

Today was one of those days when I was too whiny to walk.  It was chilly and so overcast that it felt like twilight inside my house all day.  I had run errands and done some house chores and was starting to move around the house aimlessly while craving sugar.  I kept telling myself that I needed to go out and walk.  When I went out for the mail, it had started to rain, and I just couldn't bring myself to be out in it.  At about 4:20 I looked outside and saw a glimmer of sunlight.  Just go, I told myself.

Out I went, bundled up, Ipod in pocket, hood up, scarf wrapped warmly around my neck.  As I walked out of my neighborhood, I could hear the sound of raindrops hitting my hood.  The air smelled of wet leaves and smoke from a wood fire.  As I turned the corner out of my neighborhood, I looked over the trees to the east and saw a rainbow.  I started laughing with delight.  "Thanks God!" I said out loud.  I took out my phone to take a few pictures.  The further I went, the brighter the rainbow got.  It lasted all the way until I got to the labyrinth.  I kept turning to look at it.  For awhile there was a double rainbow.  The bow went from horizon to horizon, arcing across the sky as the sun sank down. 

When I got to the labyrinth, I could see the sun setting in the west and the rainbow in the east.  Raindrops continued to fall on my head.  I've never walked the labyrinth when there was a rainbow before.  I walked on behalf of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry who is in the hospital with a subdural hematoma today.  I also walked for a young friend who is having a challenging experience today and for Randy, my old theatre colleague, who lost someone dear to him.  I walked for those killed in San Bernadino and for those struggling in Chicago.  I prayed for all who are in the darkness.  In the center, I offered a blessing to Eastern State Hospital as I often do.  Peace.  Healing.  Wholeness.  Compassion and patience for the caregivers.  Bless this place as a place of healing.

I know I'm an idealist and probably naive.  But the good news of the Gospel tells me that God's going to win in the end.  The rainbow is the symbol of God's promise to us.  Whenever I see one I'm filled with hope.  I don't believe I've seen one in Advent before.  It was such a wonderful reminder to me not to give in to despair.  It may suck right now in many ways.  But that is not the end.  There is always hope.  Thanks, God.

How Do You See God?

On my way to Newport News this morning I saw a sign saying there were wind restrictions on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.  Not a problem for me since I wasn't going that far, but it was an indication of weather conditions in the area.  50 degrees with 15-20 mile an hour winds makes for very chilly outdoor sitting.  Brrr...  When I first arrived at CNU I considered sitting inside, but I ran into one of the staff who booed me when I said I thought it was too cold to be outside.  So I decided to give it a try.  I was bundled up in a base layer, clergy shirt and CNU sweatshirt with my down coat, scarf, gloves, and a prayer shawl for a lap blanket.  The blanket made all the difference in keeping my legs warm. 

Breathe in peace.  Breathe out love.  I started the new breathing exercise that my therapist has taught me.  Breathe in peace.  Breathe out love.  As I began praying for the campus, a young woman walked up to me with two beverages in her hand.  "Would you like a hot chocolate?" she said and held out one of the cups.  "Yes, I would," I told her.  "Thank you."  Gratefully I wrapped my gloved hands around the warm drink.  "I heard you say you were cold," she said as she headed off to class.  Wow.  These students are so thoughtful and generous.  I wonder if they are on all campuses, or if there's something special here at CNU.  I certainly wasn't that thoughtful when I was in college.

One of the Canterbury students brought her lunch out to eat with me, and we had a good conversation.  Tonight the group is having dinner together at Scott Baker's house.  When he's not busy priesting, he loves to cook.  I've heard rumors of tortellini soup and lasagna, and I made pumpkin and pecan pies.  It should be a fun evening, and 8 students are coming with me!  We're fortifying them for their exams next week.

One of the students from another campus ministry came over and brought me some more hot chocolate.  The CRU (Campus Crusade) students had a hot chocolate station in the Plaza today, while they were doing an evangelism experience.  My young friend invited me to go over so he could introduce me to the CRU team.  As people sipped hot chocolate, they were invited into conversation about some images that had been attached to a posterboard.  I understand that the images came from mysoularium.com.  The CRU students asked a series of questions about the images including:
Which three images would you choose to describe your life right now?
Which three images describe what you wish were in your life right now?
Which image would you choose to describe God?
and a few more. 
We had a fun time picking our images and saying why we had chosen them.  It was a great way to get conversation going, and I may use it with the Canterbury students or at SpiritWorks.  I talked for awhile with the student who asked me the questions and ended up saying a prayer with him, too.  He and his girlfriend want to be medical missionaries one day.  When I was in college I just wanted to get through exams!

Later on another student I know came up, clearly feeling the stress of the end of the semester.  He didn't have time to linger, so I offered him a hug.  Someone who I think is a professor rode by on a bicycle and asked for prayers for a person suffering with cancer.  For awhile I watched some men in a cherry-picker lift thingy putting up the big Christmas tree in the middle of the Great Lawn and fixing a giant star on the top - it will be lit Sunday night.  I had to keep shifting the station to stay in the sun but the shade rapidly overtook me, and finally I gave up and retreated to the campus coffee shop.  I had made it my full time, though, with a brief break inside for a pit stop and my usual visit to the OSA office.  The student aid there will be studying abroad in London next semester, so I was glad to get a chance to say good-bye to her and offer blessings for her next adventure. 

It may have been chilly and windy at the prayer station today, but the warmth of the students more than made up for it.  Whatever else it may be, Advent is the Season of Hope.  Spending time with the CNU students fills me with hope.

Darkest Night

In the middle of a conversation with my parents yesterday during which we had talked quite a bit about triaging various expenses and repairs, my dad suddenly piped up and said, "I have some good news!"  His voice was so bright and cheery.  I said, "You do?  Let's have it."  He said, "The days start getting longer tomorrow."  The glee in his voice was a delight for me to hear.  Both my dad and I struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Basically we get the blues in the winter, and though we both dislike the cold, what really makes us droop is the lack of sunlight.  The days are so short and it's so hard to get outside, especially when it rains.  We both would prefer to hibernate inside by the fire and emerge when the crocuses and daffodils start poking their little heads up, heralding the coming of spring.

I have struggled this Advent, not just with the cold and darkness, but also with the barrage of images of death, violence, disease, and just downright meanness in the world.  And then, when the report about the torture done in this country in our name came out, I felt like a knife had been stuck in my back.  I don't usually write about political issues because I haven't figured out how to do enough research to be informed enough to articulate something that would be helpful.  Mostly I just listen and try to learn.  It doesn't seem like all the online hostility furthers the conversation anyway.  One thing I do know, though.  Torture is wrong.  I am a follower of Jesus, who suffered torture before being crucified.  I may be naive, but as a follower of the one who told us to love our enemies, I believe that torture is wrong.  Period.  And the fact that my fellow countrymen committed such atrocities fills me with shame.  This torture was committed on my behalf.  And for that I want to put on sackcloth and ashes.  I am grateful that I live in a country where I have great privilege and much more security than many living in other places, but I am ashamed that security has become the idol to which we have sold our souls.  The prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures cried out, "Repent."  Indeed.  Repent.  We are a country in need of repentance.

The words of the Confession from Enriching Our Worship keep returning to my mind, especially these:
"We repent of the evil that enslaves us,
the evil we have done,
and the evil done on our behalf."

The evil done on our behalf.  I repent of the evil done on my behalf.  Please forgive me, God.  Please forgive the United States of America, Jesus, for doing to others what was done to you.  Please forgive us for the evil we have done.

It feels like the darkest night will not end.  It looks like injustice will triumph.  At times it even feels like hope is lost in a country where we can't even find a way to have civil conversation with one another.  It is a dark, dark time.  And yet, what we know is that Jesus was born into a dark time as well.  The people had walked in darkness a long time before his birth restored the light.  When he came he brought hope that all would be redeemed.  I do not know how all this hatred and violence will be redeemed, but I do know that "nothing will be impossible with God."

My friends, I have some good news.  The days are getting longer.  The people who have walked in darkness will see a great light.  
 

For a child has been born for us,

a son given to us;

authority rests upon his shoulders;

and he is named

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

His authority shall grow continually,

and there shall be endless peace

for the throne of David and his kingdom.

He will establish and uphold it

with justice and with righteousness

from this time onward and forevermore. (Isaiah 9:6-7)

This Christmas I pray for all who have suffered torture and for their tormentors, for all who have suffered violence and for those who are violent, for all who are victims of disease, despair, and destruction.  I pray for the establishment of justice and righteousness in this and in every land, hoping that we one day we will no longer be walking in darkness but will be the people who walk in light.