Category Archives: Personal Musings

These posts include stories from my life as I seek to live a transformed faith.

Church for the 21st Century

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Shawna's art notes-remix

Art notes by Shawna Bowman

I just returned from a 3-day leadership consultation with the national offices of the Presbyterian Church (USA). My good friend and colleague, Rev. Shawna Bowman was there too. She wrote/drew the amazing notes above, while we were talking about new things that are happening or that we wish were happening in the churches.

The gathering left me very hopeful about the larger church beginning to shift into a more creative era which addresses and engages our contemporary age more effectively. I met many inspiring leaders who are trying new things and facing many of the same challenges faced by Grace Commons.

One new friend is Dawn Hyde, the pastor at Mission Bay Community Church. She wrote a nice overview reflection on our group time in Baltimore this week. You can read it here. In part, she said:

I am renewed in my belief that God is still working among us and that we now have better ideas for how we can share our resources (intellectual, financial, artistic, and physical) with one another. We dreamt together about PCUSA TED talks, Craigslist for the church, church partnerships, funded sabbaticals and rest, organic new ministries found and funded quickly. We reflected on how we are called to be open… to God, to each other, and to this new reality that we experience in the church. We worshiped together and gave life and breath to words of Isaiah 43 “Do not be afraid. I have called you by name you are mine… [PAY ATTENTION] I am doing a new thing.”

What I love is that it’s not just pastors and leaders in emerging or “presby-mergent” churches that are doing new things. Pastors in traditional churches of all sizes are trying to do new things, too.

So I hope we’ll be able to develop some ways to share our resources better and quicker and support each other’s dreams and creativity.

Art notes by Shawna Bowman

Art notes by Shawna Bowman

What I Want to Say

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pastor-catThere’s a saying that pastors have about five sermons that they preach again and again throughout their careers. It’s the core message that you want to get across to the world.

As I’ve been preaching weekly sermons for two months now, and weekly teachings and reflections for 10 years, I took a moment to list out what I think my top five are. Here’s what I came up with.

My core 5 sermons:

1. Be here now. It’s where everything is, including God.

2. God loves you and you are precious, exactly as you are.

3. Take Sabbath (honor it). It’s one of the 10 commandments.

4. God works through you, filling you with love and power. (And let God help you through others, too.)

5. God is a process, in process, transforming everything.

If these messages are helpful to you, (as they are to me), stay tuned here, because I think I’ll be looking for new ways to say these things in as many different and creative ways as I can. Hopefully the repetition will help it sink it–both to me and to you!

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The drawing on this post was made by Julia at the celebration of my 10-year anniversary as a pastor. It’s a picture of me as a Pastor Cat. (love it!)

New Place, New Ministry, New Possibilities

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Soon I will celebrate my 10-year anniversary of ordination. Unbelievable.

I have been serving Grace Commons and its predecessor, Wicker Park Grace, for ten years. Even as new possibilities open up, I will continue to serve as the pastor at Grace Commons–but things are changing!

Beginning November 1st, I will also become the half-time pastor at St. James Presbyterian Church in West Ridge (West Rogers Park), Chicago. On that day, my role with Grace Commons will also go from full-time to half-time.

I will be a full-time pastor, but for two communities simultaneously. Am I nervous? Yes. Am I excited? YES!

This will be a wonderful next step for me in my development as a pastor. I will explore and experiment with how to bring all that I have learned, discovered, and developed at Grace Commons, the art-gallery church, into a more traditional (albeit open, creative, and generous) church.

Grace Commons has been gathering for Spiritual Practice, our primary Sunday Gathering, at the St. James Church since September 9th, and we’ll keep on doing so. I believe that St. James will benefit from the vitality of Grace Commons, and Grace Commons will benefit from the stability of St. James. Both will maintain their own identities, but we are always changed when we make new friends–and I hope this will be no exception to that rule.

By “sharing” a pastor, these two communities are both taking a step toward a more relational, collaborative, connectional style of ministry. Each community has much to offer the other, and much to gain.

Gathering in West Ridge, quite a bit further north than our original location in Wicker Park, creates new challenges and new opportunities for Grace Commons. We know that many of our far south-siders, who could make the trek to Wicker Park, will not make the long commute to West Ridge every week. That’s the challenge.

The opportunity is this: we’re expanding our ministry to include a partnership with the Hesed Community Co-operative in the Little Village/Douglas Park area.

On the first and third Sunday’s of the month, simultaneous to Grace Commons gathering at St. James, some of us will gather at Hesed Community at 5:30 pm for a shared meal, spiritual practice, and creative, original communion liturgy that we are developing for this purpose. (We’re grateful to St. Lydia’s Dinner Church in NYC for their inspiration!)

On the second and fourth Sundays, we’ll all gather together at St. James. Our intention is that we’ll continue to grow and develop in both locations, but keep coming together as a whole community at least twice a month at St. James.

Just to be clear, Grace Commons will be gathering at St. James every single week at 5:30 pm. We want that stability and constancy, even while developing the secondary gathering at Hesed Community Co-op on the 1st and 3rd Sundays.

The St. James community also gathers for worship, and I will be leading that with the community and a wonderful lead musician, at 10:30 on Sunday mornings. This is yet to be developed, but I know it will be interesting and beautiful in its own way.

There’s much more to tell, of course. This is the beginning of a growing dream, and as one person recently said, “we’re sailing this boat while we build it.” So we don’t know what all will happen. I guess we never do anyway! But we are sailing forward with dreams and possibilities–and with each other–as our circles of relationship and spheres of influence continue to grow.

Irish Soda Bread

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I made an amazing Gluten Free Irish Soda Bread for dinner tonight. Wow.

I’m trying to learn to cook and especially to bake gluten-free, so I can avoid spending an arm and a leg every time I want something bready. The banana bread last week was not so good as I blended the bananas up too much in the bread. It didn’t really seem like banana bread at all. As one person said, “So…it’s just more like ‘bread.’” Yeah, that was it.

For the banana bread, I used a recipe off a box, but this time I used my new cook book, Gluten Free on A Shoestring. One big “Yay!” for this cookbook.

Here’s the recipe I used:

3 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
3/4 cup sugar {but I used a scant 1/2 cup instead}
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
6 TBSP unsalted butter diced and chilled
2 cups raisins {I used golden raisins}
2 TBSP caraway seeds (optional) {I didn’t use these. Not my favorite!}
1 1/2 cups milk (low-fat is fine, nonfat is not) {I used unsweetened soy milk}
2 tsp white wine vinegar
1 extra-large egg

Mix the dry ingredients well.

Cut in the butter, so it’s like cornmeal texture. (I used my food processor for this, which was  a dream!)

Mix the milk, vinegar, and egg together, then add to dry ingredients. Mix only until the mixture starts coming together. Don’t over mix it.

Bake in a skillet or ceramic pie plate with two-inch high walls, at 325 for 40 minutes, then 325 for 30 more minutes.

Let it cool for 30 minutes in the pan, then turn it out to cool completely. It does cut more cleanly when it’s cool, but it sure tastes good when it’s hot!

(You can find more of my cooking posts over at Nanette’s Kitchen!)

Abundance in a throwaway culture

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Sometimes it seems like we have too much abundance in the U.S. I just came home from the store where I saw a box of chocolate covered cherries for $1.50. I bought a sweater for $11.00. It does not feel right, it feels wrong to be able to purchase a brand new article of clothing for such a small percentage of my income. But I did it.

I’m pretty sure it was knitted on a machine, but someone had to run that machine, and with my purchase price being so low, I’m sure the retailer’s purchase price was much lower. Which means the wages earned by the people who actually produced it must be very low. I write this partly to remind myself that it is true. It’s easy to look the other way, to put it out of my mind, to forget it.

I bought the sweater partly in response to a good friend who gently commented on some t-shirts I’ve been wearing which I have owned for 15 years. Yeah, they’re a bit ratty around the collar. I’m not extravagant when it comes to clothing, but I think I can do a better job of caring for myself. It’s a balance, isn’t it? And how do we judge whether we’ve achieved the balance point or not? I know there are better ways to replace my falling-apart t-shirts and my otherwise out-dated clothing.

For Halloween I bought a new pair of jeans at the Thrift Store for $2.50 to be part of my costume. I decided they were pretty good for daily wear also! I feel so much better about the purchase I made at the Thrift Store, than the purchase of the $11.00 brand-spanking-new sweater.

One of my fondest childhood memories of Christmas is from the year my mom did all her Christmas Shopping at the Thrift Store because that was all she could afford. I loved it, because it was such an abundant Christmas! I got so many nice pieces of clothing. And probably some toys, too, but mostly I remember a really great button-down shirt.

Abundance doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. But it does take an investment of time–to make wise purchases, to take care of the things we’ve already got, to recycle, reuse, share. It takes time, and time takes a commitment. So I need to strengthen my commitment.

I want to have an abundance that is solid and basic and responsible. I don’t want an abundance that is based on goods that are inexpensive and easy to throw away because they didn’t really “cost me” anything much. But I know that I am part of a system that creates “abundance” by depriving others of their basic needs.

The things I want, and the things I have, are costing other people much more than they are costing me.

In her book, Graceful Living: Your Faith, Values, and Money in Changing Times, Laura Dunham writes that

Those who view the world as a place of scarcity tend to hoard, not share, what they have, while those who see the earth’s abundance believe there’s enough for everyone and respond generously to the needs of others. (p.7)

Sometimes when I hear people talking about “defending our way of life” here in the United States, I get a sense of this hoarding mentality which doesn’t believe there is enough for everyone.

I actually want to change my way of life, not defend it, so that I can use less, need less, want less. For that, I need friends who are doing the same, and I need a stronger sense of sufficiency. In my next post in this series, I’ll reflect on frugality and simplicity as a means of strengthening a sense of sufficiency. And by sufficiency, I mean it is enough. 

How can I help myself feel that it is enough? How do you?

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This is part of a series reflecting on Laura Dunham’s book, Graceful Living: Your Faith, Values, and Money in Changing Times. Her seven “Graceful Living” concepts are abundance, frugality, simplicity, generosity, sustainability, justice, and Sabbath. If you’re interested in getting a copy of this book, you can email the author directly at lgad@mindspring.com.

Thankful

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I am so impressed with this woman. She is making a pie a day for a year – one to give away every day to someone for whom she is thankful. What a wonderful practice. My friend, Adam Walker Cleveland is a pastor at her church and was the lucky recipient of pie #186.

I’m writing this post from the EconoLodge on my way to Tennessee where I will have three days with my family. I’ll be meeting my new nephew, Jennings, for the first time…for which I am so thankful!

I will also cook with my mom, walk in the woods, rock Kailee to sleep, work with my dad in his woodshop, sit in front of the fireplace, talk with my sisters, and visit with several wonderful nieces and nephews.

It is these simple things for which I am most grateful. Relationships, connections, cooking, eating, being in nature. And just being alive. Waking up in the mornings, still breathing.

While I won’t be making a pie every day, I am going to take a few minutes to just sit and think about all the things that I do have, and take a moment to be thankful for all of that. And to share that gratitude with others, I’m just going to show up and be.with. People can feel it when you love them.

What will you do to share your gratitude with the world?

Non-Violence: Police Awareness training

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I thought I would watch bits of this, but ended up watching the whole thing, two hours! It’s very, very interesting information, which clearly comes from years of experience in social justice movements.

Jerry Boyle from the National Lawyer’s Guild gave a two-hour training/workshop on how to deal with police at the Occupy Chicago site on October 15, 2011. It was live streamed and recorded in the process.

Anyone participating in Occupy Anything should watch this.

If you can’t watch it all, just watch a few minutes and see if it captures your attention. You can watch it in bits and chunks.

An important point made is that the Occupy movement is a political movement with political goals, and not a legal issue. (Stay with me here.) The police, under orders from political figures, might like to make it a legal issue, in other words, make it about laws being broken instead of about society being changed. The energy of the movement could then be diverted away from the political goals of the movement.

People may choose to be arrested to draw attention to the cause, but that decision should be made consciously and carefully, to avoid all energy being drawn into dealing with legal issues.

If that’s too confusing, watch the video! Jerry spends a lot more time exploring it, and does a better job of explaining it.

He also describes how police are trained to respond to protesters and how you might be tricked or steered into escalating a situation to greater violence without any intention of doing so.

For example, if a police officer grips your arm painfully and you pull away (a natural human response), you can now be charged with “resisting” a police officer and they can take the interaction to the next higher level of engagement.

There is a lot to think about in pursuing non-violent social change, and ways to prepare yourself to be more effective and not fall into traps that may be set for you, either consciously or unconsciously.

What’s the difference between police who wear blue shirts and police who wear white shirts? It’s very significant! The white shirts are supervisors and get their orders from people like the mayor. The blue-shirted officers get orders from the white shirted officers.

If a white shirted officer escalates something (like the pepper-spray into the eyes of peaceful demonstrators in NYC), that is a *political* act, meant to provoke.

If you’re interested in the Occupy Movement, and especially if you are participating physically, it’s definitely important and helpful to have a better understanding of how police are trained to deal with situations.

This can help everyone stay safe, and also empower everyone to make clear conscious decisions about how to interact with police and further the non-violent goals of the political movement.

But even if you’re not involved in the movement, this is a very interesting video about police.

Life

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I just found out that a dear friend has stage 3 cancer. I don’t even know what that means, except that she had surgery yesterday, and I was told by another friend to pray, pray, pray.(For privacy I am not putting her name, but she doesn’t live in Chicago.)

I used to live with her in a farmhouse in Hatfield, Massachusetts, and it just so happens that another friend, Ani, just emailed me a picture of sunset from her porch tonight in Hatfield, where Ani still lives.

The earth is such a beautiful place, filled with life. And life is impermanent.That is so scary, in part because of all we love and don’t want to lose.

I had a cancer scare myself a couple years ago. It didn’t turn out to be cancer, but it sure generated some serious thought about the nature of my life. Would I change it if I knew I had a very limited time to live? Usually I think I have another 40 or 50 years to live, and a person can get a lot done in 40 to 50 years. That feels so abundant! But what if I don’t have that long?

I want to say this out loud, (or write it down, as it were), that the big fear that rises up in me is that I would lose her, my friend. Of course that is the biggest and first fear. But that may not happen at all. It is entirely possible that she heal from this surgery and from this cancer. I know that many of my readers have also experienced cancer in your own bodies, or in the bodies of your loved ones. So this prayer is also for all of you and all those you love.

I imagine my friend strong and whole and healed, and pray for that, imagining life, and sodzo (healing, salvation, rescue, wholeness), and shalom (peace, well-being, completeness, safety.) This is my prayer.

I am going to do yoga now, and dedicate it to my friend’s sodzo and shalom. I know that we are each part of something so much larger than our-selves. And that large something is the wholeness of God. We cannot escape from it. We are safe in it. Embraced in the sunset pictured here. Embraced in the arms of God.

Catching the Light

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When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?

Psalm 8:3-4

While I was on retreat in Maine this June, I did some experimenting with my camera. I aimed it toward the sky, which was filled with more stars than I ever see in Chicago. I tried to photograph them in the dark. I have a good camera, which I can manually control to hold open the aperture and expose the image for a long time.

The stars without the camera were incredible, but once I got the knack of photographing them, even more stars became visible. The camera allowed me to see further, and more deeply, than my bare eyes could.

Metaphorically, what are the lenses that help us to see more light? How long do we have to look, before the stars shine through?

Seeing these stars appear through the camera made me think about how much bigger than me everything is. My body, my eyes, (my mind) don’t have the capacity to stay open long enough to take in enough light to be able to see what is really there.

The psalm I included above asks, “what are human beings”, but the stars made me think, “what is God?” God, like the stars, is so far beyond my capacity to see.

Click on the image below to see more clearly the photo I took.

Being the Tides

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In June I took a one-week retreat to a little cottage called The Sea Urchin. It’s nestled on the coast of remote Maine where I first encountered the tides in any significant way. I’ve made my peace with the tides by now, but the first summer that I spent a week at the Sea Urchin, I noticed that I watched the tides flow in and out with some anxiety. I wanted to see the tide at high tide and at low tide. It was hard for me to accept the process of the tides, to realize that most of the time they were in transition.

This seemed a wonderful lesson for me! What a metaphor for life. I made it a conscious self-reflective practice to open myself to the large arc of continual movement of the tides. They were no less wonderful when at mid-tide than when they were at high or low tide.

In life I need to accept this flow as well. Life is not about getting to high tide, or getting to low tide. It is about being the ocean, which moves, and changes.

How great it was to step outside the striving pattern of my daily life, to simply be with the changing tides for one full week. I felt that I breathed more oxygen in the first 24 hours of my retreat than I breathed in the last year.

You can see a set of pictures from my retreat here, in my flickr account.