All Saints Day

My mom loved decorating for Halloween, her favorite season. This year, I am particularly thinking of her as I look around at the decorations around me. She died ten years ago this week. 

Every Halloween, she meticulously untangled spider webs into thin strands, carefully placing tiny spiders along the banister or in the corners of the patio. She cut out little bats from purple, orange, and black construction paper, then hung them with ribbon she curled with the sharp edge of the scissors. Her manner of decorating an act of great effort, detail, and subtlety. 

When my dad, the Christmas decorator, bought the blow-up Frosty for Christmas one year, she was aghast. Why would he put up a blow-up decoration in favor of the magnificent fifteen-foot-star he handmade with wood, twinkle lights, and greenery? 

On a morning walk this week, these memories made me laugh as I looked at a neighbor’s lawn filled with deflated Halloween inflatables — looking like a Halloween decoration graveyard — adorned with a few subtle candy corns hanging by the door. I wondered what my mom would say to that and who in the household liked which decorations. 

When I came home, I noticed a new post on NextDoor. It was a photo of the very lawn I just stopped in front of, but taken at night. The Halloween graveyard became alive after dark, bursting with color and so much character. A mother of the house told her neighbors to stop by, honk, and take delight in the spooky decorations her 15-year-old son has collected for years, finally making their debut this year. 

This Halloween, I invite us to delight in the decorations of the season: the ghosts, witches, pumpkins, and all the wonderfully strange things that make their appearance on our streets. What memories do they stir for you? Perhaps they bring back Halloween parties, nights spent trick-or-treating, or the delight of punny jokes told on St. Louis doorsteps. Sometimes the smallest details can open the door to memories we haven't visited in years.

On Sunday we will celebrate All Saints Day and invite you to bring a photo of a loved one who you are celebrating this year. It might be someone who died recently, or someone you carry each day. May our altar become a decoration of our collective hearts, memories, and tastes — garish and refined. May we make room for is all in the ways our memories remind of the many forms love takes and when someone is no longer physically here, the traces of their love remain, fine and sticky as a spider’s web, waiting to catch the light. 

Blessings,
Pastor Lauren

There is a lot in this world that demands our attention

In a recent session, one of my movement clients asked if I was getting out for walks and enjoying the beautiful weather. (For reference, as I write this, it is 55º and mostly sunny.) I answered with humor and complete sincerity: “What outside? Is there weather?” This week requires a more-than-usual amount of focused time with my books, at my computer, or in my studio. If something is not on my schedule, it will not likely happen, and going out for the sake of going out did not occur to me.

As my client told me how much I had to get out there, even for a few minutes with a cup of coffee or something, a voice in my head said, “You should spend an hour in nature every day, unless you’re too busy. Then, you should spend 2 hours.” There is a version of this saying with different times and another version with “meditation” instead of “nature”. The general idea is the same— Humans need time and space for being; when doing starts to take over, we need even more being. That increased intention helps to shift our perspective. It helps us bring us back into balance.

After that brief interaction, I made my way back home and back to my computer. I scanned the area and wondered if I could sit outside and do my work. It was a little chilly for my taste. So, no. But I could take in what was around me as I walked. Observe. Breathe. Be present in those few steps from one place to the next. Being was my doing for that moment. 

There is a lot in this world that demands our attention. Our energy. Our doing. I pray that we all remember our Being. It’s the only thing we are guaranteed to have for our whole life. It’s precious. And important. The doing? That’s just a small part of it. 

Take care out there…
Pastor Tijuana

Yes, And!

If you’ve heard me talk about anything lately, you’ve probably heard me talk about improv. Last Sunday, we talked about the difference between being inspired and being innovative when we perform together.

Being innovative on stage is surprisingly ego-driven. I’m thinking five steps ahead of where my team is. I’m trying to plan what comes next, to be funny or clever, or to position myself in a way that makes me look good. I’m so focused on what I can contribute that I can lose sight of what is already unfolding around me. 

But being inspired asks something different of me. It asks me to be present.

When I’m inspired by my team, I have to listen to what is actually happening. I have to hear what my scene partner is saying, receive their idea, and allow it to shape what comes next. If I’m going to say “Yes, and…” to them, I first have to say yes to what is already there. Yes to their words. Yes to their idea. Yes to the direction we are moving together. And then, from that place of listening, I can offer something of my own. I must first allow myself to be changed by what the other person is offering.

The practice is not to get ahead of one another, but to stay with one another. To resist the urge to redirect, to plan five steps ahead, or to decide what something should become before we’ve given it a chance to unfold. So, instead, we listen and then respond. We allow ourselves to be changed by what the other person brings.

It isn’t easy to stay present and trust that we can build a new world together, one step at a time. As people, we often want to know where we’re going. We want to have something clever to say, to make a meaningful contribution, to ensure that things turn out well. But what is beautiful about a good improv scene is that we arrive somewhere great only because we followed the same path together. The path where we responded to one another along the way, rather than walking down several different paths, all the while trying to get everyone else to follow ours.

I’m deeply inspired by this practice of presence that improv requires. And I keep wondering what it might look like to carry this way of being into all of our lives.

What if listening wasn’t simply the pause we take before offering our own thoughts, but a way of being genuinely open to another person? What if we weren’t so focused on what we could contribute, how we could be helpful, or what we thought should happen next? 

To be inspired by another person is to make room for the possibility that they might take us somewhere we never would have gone on our own. Their words might change our perspective. Their ideas might open a door we didn’t know existed. Their presence might invite something new and different out of us. But we can only discover those possibilities if we are truly listening. If we are willing to stay present long enough to be moved by one another.

Perhaps this is an invitation for all of us: to slow down, to listen more deeply, to resist the urge to always be the one with the next idea, or to move on too quickly. Let us be less concerned with directing the moment and more interested in discovering what the moment is asking of us.

Blessings,
Pastor Eli

National Coming Out Day!

This weekend marks National Coming Out Day. For some, this day recollects the day we came out to the people we love supporting us with rainbow cakes and buying pride shirts. For others, we us bear the stories of rejection, shame, and hurt. This week, I am mindful of the courage it takes to come out as we balance the fear of telling the truth of who we are with its freedom.

On the Camino, I met new people every day from all over the world. I found myself telling my story over and over, different details sticking out with each retelling as I introduced myself, my passions, my questions, and my relationships to strangers who became friends. The more I told my story, the more comfortable I became introducing myself and inviting people into my life - for a mile or for 100, each time becoming more comfortable with both celebration and rejection.

This year, it strikes me that National Coming Out Day is not about honoring the first time we reveal an inward truth to the outside world. It is an invitation to practice. To practice the courage of revealing a piece of ourselves to someone new. To practice becoming more and more comfortable with the unique expression of God we are. To practice seeing God more clearly by allowing ourselves to be seen thus giving permission for others to also be themselves. Some relationships will be broken and others will be opened.

Coming out is a practice, a sacrament, a way we see God and notice God in others. Coming out invites us to declare deep truths about ourselves, our relationships, and our commitments and is never a one-time thing. Instead, it is an evolving practice, a spiritual disposition. 

On this Coming Out Day, I introduce myself as I did on The Way: My name is Lauren. I am here to practice presence and seek God in the people, places, and stories of today. I live in St. Louis, MO where I get to practice ministry in a queer-centered church as a same-gender loving woman raising a 16-year-old in a complex political, cultural, and economic environment. I am a follower of Jesus, who strives to grow closer to the crucified of our time, which includes women, non-binary people, Black and Brown people, poor people, disabled people, and anyone who is told they don’t belong. 

Who are you? Who will you become if you let yourself be known? 

Blessings,
Pastor Lauren

And a Happy Pride to All!

This past Sunday, I preached at our Mass on the Grass service (which, conveniently, was moved to St. John’s Episcopal because of the rain) and I found myself preaching something entirely different than what I had planned.

The Gospel passage was Matthew 21:23–27. Jesus is teaching in the temple when the chief priests and elders approach him and ask: “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus responds by turning the question back toward them. Eventually, they answer, “We do not know.” And Jesus refuses to give them the answer they believe they are entitled to.

Sitting in the sanctuary before worship began, I found myself overwhelmed with gratitude. Gratitude that we were able to gather. Gratitude for the people who came before us who insisted that they had the right to gather, to worship, to love, to bless, and to build community, even when the people in power told them they did not.

I had gratitude for the people who had no recognized authority, no institution to grant them permission, no official body to ordain them, and broke the rules anyway. Who made new rules. Who gathered around tables. Who performed rituals. Who shared communion. Who created church because they knew that God was already there.

At MCC, we believe in the priesthood of all believers. At the communion table, both clergy and laypeople are given the authority to bless the elements and participate in making them holy. And that truth matters.

Because when MCC began, there was no ordaining body waiting to give us permission to exist. There were people who said we should not be a church. People who said we should not perform marriages. People who said we should not celebrate our bodies, our relationships, our genders, our lives. People who said we had no authority to claim sacred space. And yet here we are. What a holy blessing.

We are here because people before us understood something profound: God’s love does not require permission. And neither does our own capacity to love.

We do not need permission to love or to dream. We do not need permission to build something more beautiful than what we inherited. We are Way Makers. We are Dream Defiers. We are Sacred Rebels. And our rebellion is rooted in love.

This past weekend, Pastor Lauren and I also had the joy of offering rainbow ribbon blessings to folks who were carrying all kinds of things with them: joy, grief, uncertainty, hope, and new transitions on the horizon.

May we trust the holy authority that God has already placed within us. May we believe the dreams of our ancestors who are delighting in our existence.

And may we keep making trouble, because we know that love has the power to make room for everyone. May we keep gathering. May we keep blessing. May we keep dreaming. May we keep widening the circle.

With love and delight,
Pastor Eli

Traveling makes me think...

Traveling often inspires me to reflect on my life at home. Getting out of my usual surroundings gives me a fresh perspective, and I come back determined to change…something. Organize my time better. Clean up my apartment. Give more attention to projects I keep putting off. 

The more immediate changes often do get implemented, and as I settle back in, others fade away. Those remote plans don’t always work with the realities of life. The shift in perspective, however, lingers. It causes me to ponder why I wanted to make changes, in the first place. What about my regular day-to-day did I want to “fix”? Now that I’m back in it, do I still need to address those things? Can I find a different way that does work with reality? 

I recognize in this the importance of ongoing reflection. Of observing my life from a proverbial distance. Acknowledging what is good, what needs improving, and that both of those are blessings. I think I’ll sit with that for a while. I invite you to join me here. We might be surprised by what we learn about ourselves. May we inspired by it, as well.

Blessings,
Pastor Tijuana

What are you longing for?

This is the question that blessed us into our journey together over the summer. Though apart in distance, I felt your presence in my prayers and in my visions, bowing toward you as if sharing a labyrinth path, seeing you on the turns. 

Sabbatical, different from a vacation, is a time of leaning into longings of the spirit, drawing closer to God and to one’s vocation. By engaging in a pilgrimage, where the primary learning is about myself, not the places I traveled, I leaned into the places that make my heart sing: setting aside time for prayer, learning new things, reconnecting with friends, moving my body, and sitting in nature. 

One day, in New York, I met Paul, a Dutch man who moved to NYC to paint the city. Traveling around town on his bike, he takes out his canvas, brushes, and paints to paint the colors and shapes that stick out to him that day. In saddlebags that convert to a roaming art store, my friend Tahiré and I looked through copies of his paintings. They captured grey days and sunny ones, reconnections and difficult conversations, trees that bloomed and ones that fell down. His art showed the complexity of a living land where artists, students, professionals, celebrities, and the unhoused share Central Park, often at the same time. 

In talking to Paul, I caught a glimpse of someone in love with their vocation. Someone who sparkles with excitement over the smallest part of being an observer of the world, adding record and beauty of it to the world around him. Watching him, hearing his story, and looking through his art brought me to my first, and biggest, lesson of sabbatical, said best in Mary Oliver’s words: “Attention is the beginning of devotion.” 

Paul gives attention to shapes, colors, and emotions, devoting himself to life around him. I have learned I give attention to people, communities, and the details in a landscape. What have you learned or are you learning about yourself? What do you give attention to?

Blessings,
Pastor Lauren