You Are Never Alone

There are all sorts of ways that we can sometimes feel alone. Perhaps the easiest to point to is how we can feel alone at night in an empty house. But we can also feel alone in the middle of room full of people gathered for a company holiday party. Sometimes it has little to do with the people around us, like when we feel alone even when we are surrounded by our closest friends. Sometimes it has a lot to do with the company we are keeping, like when we feel alone while visiting the home of a family member who does not accept us. The point is we all feel lonely sometimes.

As we enter the holiday season which can bring many joys but also some loneliness, I encourage you to remember that you are never alone...even though we all feel lonely sometimes. In those moments when your heart is aching, in those moments when you wish someone would slow down and really see you, or in those times when your entire body seems to scream out for someone to just hold you so you know you are safe and loved...in whatever form those painful lonely feelings may take in you, remember you are never alone.

It may sound trite, but it is one of the truest things: God is always with us. God is within us, sometimes longing for us to turn and run into the already open arms of Love. If you have a lonely moment this holiday season, I encourage you to try this visualization...

Close your eyes and try to visualize every detail, every feeling, every sound, of climbing up in the lap of Jesus and being held. Try things like this: In your mind's eye try to see the way the clothes are laying on Jesus's chest as you lay your head there. Can you smell the detergent? Maybe cologne? Is the shirt he is wearing soft? What do you hear? A heartbeat? His breathing? Maybe Jesus is softly humming one of your favorite songs? Is he gently rocking you? Rubbing your head? Scratching you back? Does he say something to you or does he simply hold you in his arms knowing that his embrace speaks more than any words? What do you notice in your visualization?

While Jesus is not physically with you each day, this visualization is an invitation to remember that Jesus is with you always--that you are never alone. The loving embrace of God is always awaiting you. This holiday season, I give thanks for the strong and loving arms of Jesus that are as near as the next moment that we choose to close our eyes and think of him.

Gratitude

At the beginning of this month I took a moment in this email to encourage everyone to make this a whole month of gratitude. Well, here we are that the main event: Thanksgiving week. The seven-day countdown begins now.

Between today and next Thursday, I really encourage you take some time each day to pause and be grateful. I have seen a few of you posting things for which you are grateful on Facebook. You could do that, or perhaps you could write out a list of gratitudes in your journal, make it a dinner conversation each night, or come up with another creative way to focus on gratitude this Thanksgiving. A good way to be sure to follow through is to do your gratitude practice at the same time of the day each day and try to connect it to something in your normal routine.

As a way of practicing what I am suggesting, I will share a bit of my gratitude with you here. Today, I thank God for each of you. Truly. This week marks five years since I moved to St. Louis, and so I have been thinking about our time together. We have faced some challenges as a church this year, but we did so by trusting each other and never losing sight of the promise that God is preparing a new path of ministry and growth for us (Jer. 29:11). I am thankful to continue to walk in gratitude and hope as I/we eagerly await what God will do through us in the year ahead!

Tending a Garden of Gratitude

Thankfulness—gratitude—is a choice. Each day we have the opportunity to choose whether we will focus on the frustrating or the positive, the lack or the abundance, the bad or the good.

Today is November 1st, the beginning of a month that invites us to think about thankfulness and gratitude. While we all experience a lifetime's worth of ups and downs—the key difference is not in who endured the most. The key difference is in where we set our gaze. None of us can control what will happen today or tomorrow, but we can choose what we focus on. We can choose to look for the positive, find reasons to be grateful, and insist on a positive attitude even when it might be easier to be cynical or jaded.

Colossians 3:15 says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.” Last week, Eugene Peterson died. In his paraphrase of the Bible, called The Message, he translated the last phrase of that verse, “Cultivate thankfulness.” As we embark on this month of gratitude, I give thanks for the life of Eugene Peterson, and I challenge you to cultivate thankfulness in each day of November. Set your gaze on the positive and seek to become a person of carefully, lovingly, cultivated gratitude.

I Corinthians 12

12 Christ is just like the human body—a body is a unit and has many parts; and all the parts of the body are one body, even though there are many. 13 We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jew or Greek, or slave or free, and we all were given one Spirit to drink. 14 Certainly the body isn’t one part but many. 15 If the foot says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not a hand,” does that mean it’s not part of the body? 16 If the ear says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not an eye,” does that mean it’s not part of the body? 17 If the whole body were an eye, what would happen to the hearing? And if the whole body were an ear, what would happen to the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God has placed each one of the parts in the body just like he wanted. 19 If all were one and the same body part, what would happen to the body? 20 But as it is, there are many parts but one body. 21 So the eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you,” or in turn, the head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” 22 Instead, the parts of the body that people think are the weakest are the most necessary.

This week the importance of this passage from scripture came into my life twice. I think it may be one of the wisest metaphors ever written about the body and about living in relationship with others.

This week I broke the first, smallest knuckle on my pinky finger playing volleyball in the local Tuesday night gay volleyball league. I'm set for surgery tomorrow morning to pin the joint back into place. The last phrase of the scripture about the weakest parts of the body being most necessary is a lesson I am learning every moment this week as I constantly notice ways that we use pinky fingers and never think about it!

But the wisdom of this passage goes far deeper than pinkies. During the week this week one of our members got really upset with another member of our congregation. Every time I tried to help mediate the situation I kept hearing this passage in the background. If we are one body--which we are--then even when we disagree with one another, we cannot sever the relationship. If we are one body, that would be like an eye saying to a hand I do not need you. Let me tell you, I love and need each one of you. We are each a precious creation of God, led here by the Holy Spirit.

While my eye might not have thought much about my pinky before this week, it is pretty much all my body is focused on now. Even if you feel like you are sometimes overlooked, remember that every part of God's body (the church) is here for a reason. I hope to see YOU on Sunday.

Meetup Groups

If you missed it last Sunday, we launched our new Meetup Groups, which will begin gathering during the first week of October. We are not holding any other programs or classes this Fall in an effort to encourage everyone to give Meetup Groups a try.

Each group is organized around different interests, and with 12 different groups (like the apostles!) meeting 6 out 7 days a week, there is sure to be a group that has things you are interested in! From Gardeners to Swing Dance Learners to Readers to TV watchers, there are groups for all different types of interests. So far over 100 people have already joined a group! To explore the 12 groups, simply click here.

Know that these groups will meet for 10 weeks, so this is not a forever commitment. After each semester, we will open a new slate of groups, so there will always be new ways to meet friends. And that is main goal. We hope that these groups will help you build better and more friendships with the amazing people in our church!

So, take a look at the groups and see which one is for you!

If you have any questions, the group leaders will be available on Sundays throughout September to talk with you about the Meetup Groups.

Penny Power

Sometimes it is the simplest things in life that have the greatest impact. A number of years ago I watched a five-year-old named Aharon give a fellow church member a penny. The man was obviously having a rough time, and Aharon turned to him and said, “Here take my penny. I found it yesterday, and it was a lucky penny, you know? Head’s up. It should help make things better.” And it did. Not because the penny was lucky, but because in Aharon’s hands it became worth far more than one cent. It transported the man into a new and better reality.

The problems of this world are too much when we begin to think about how we might overcome them all. And yet, if we are to learn anything from Aharon, we must consider whether the real solution is found in seeking world-changing ideas. Perhaps the best path is in the small stuff? Rather than trying to solve the world's biggest problems, maybe we can give a single person a reason for renewed hope or just help transport them for a moment to better reality.

That is small-scale change, no doubt. But, it is miraculously large in its impact. In my view of Jesus, he was more of a penny-sharing kind of world-changer anyway. What do you think?

RESURRECTION!

This week the pastor of the MCC in Omaha, Nebraska, shared this picture on his Facebook page with the message, "Perhaps this image can be a metaphor for Christianity in the West."

For more than 20 years people have been discussing the decline and possible death of Christianity in the Western World (basically meaning Europe and North America). As I chatted with my colleague from Omaha, one of the things we discussed is the irony that for decades Christians have worried about the death of our faith...even though we practice a faith that is based in a story of death and resurrection.

Perhaps we could all stand to have more regular reminders in our lives that we practice a resurrection faith. No death is final...be that the death of the physical body of a loved one, the death of a pet, or the death of a beloved restaurant, store, or organization. All death creates an opening for new life, for resurrection.

With all the anxiety in our world today, we are all tempted to put our "death glasses" on. Those glasses cause us to look around and see all the things that are dying. This week, I encourage you to ponder the image of this tree. See the new life springing forth from death. Then, I challenge you to put on your "resurrection glasses" instead. Try to look at the events happening in your life, our church, and our world with resurrection glasses that see the new life and the hope of the resurrection work God is always performing all around us!