Nanette Sawyer

Joy ~ Consenting to Worthiness

Nanette Sawyer — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:15:52 +0000

This is the third week of Advent, and at Grace Commons we have a tradition of honoring Mary on this week. In the past we’ve used the theme of Courage and Action, contemplating how much courage it takes sometimes to move into action. Mary, the mother of God, is such a great, courageous example for [...]

Abundance in a throwaway culture

Nanette Sawyer — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:30:03 +0000

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 [...]

Thankful

Nanette Sawyer — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:40:38 +0000

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 [...]

Wordle!

Nanette Sawyer — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:00:24 +0000

What fun! This week I was introduced to a new website: wordle.net. Just type in words, or paste in large amounts of text, and “create.” The larger the word, the more times it appeared in your text. This wordle is based on a combination of words people wrote down during the Taize Vespers gathering on [...]

Non-Violence: Police Awareness training

Nanette Sawyer — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:30:47 +0000

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 [...]

A Life Well-Lived

Nanette Sawyer — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 14:00:54 +0000

I often speak about God’s dream for the world–that our world would become a place of shalom, meaning peace and wholeness and well-being. When I invite people to the communion table, for example, I often say that at the communion table we embody God’s dreams for a world where there will be no more tears, [...]

Graceful Living: Faith, Values, and Money

Nanette Sawyer — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 19:09:09 +0000

In November I’m blogging this book by Laura Dunham, Graceful Living: Your Faith, Values, and Money in Changing Times. Laura is a Presbyterian minister, a certified financial planner, and a former college professor. We’re taking a look at Stewardship at Wicker Park Grace, and how our relationship with money affects our relationships with the world [...]

A Network of Friends Seeking Transformation

Nanette Sawyer — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:00:06 +0000

I’m always amazed when I watch this video, by the huge amount of similarity we use in talking about our emerging efforts at being church in new ways. Created in the spring of 2010 at a gathering in Minneapolis, this video features 16 really cool people doing awesome things across the country. Each of us [...]

Becoming Bully Proof

Nanette Sawyer — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:16:54 +0000

Yesterday a good friend of mine was in a car accident (no one was injured), and the driver of the other vehicle leaped out of his car and called her a horrible string of names that can’t be repeated here. Being in a car accident is a scary thing, for everyone involved. For a moment, [...]

Poverty of Heart Means Openness

Nanette Sawyer — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:30:37 +0000

The reviewer at Publisher’s Weekly described my understanding of hospitality as “capacious.” I had to look that word up! (You can read the full review on the Amazon.com site.) Capacious means containing or capable of containing a great deal, roomy. Yeah. So, not only my book, but hospitality, too. A roomy heart and life. Capacious! [...]

Born of a Woman

Nanette Sawyer — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 15:00:44 +0000

Last year (2010) in the weeks leading up to Christmas, we did an art project at Wicker Park Grace during our Sunday Gatherings in which we transformed Christmas advertisements into a spiritual symbol. The idea was to disconnect from the excessive commercialism that Christmas has become, and reconnect to the underlying spiritual story of how [...]

Story Bread, connecting us

Nanette Sawyer — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 06:24:28 +0000

In case you missed our new video earlier this summer, here it is again. It’s just 4 minutes long, and gives a good sense of the spirit of Wicker Park Grace! Towards the end of the video you’ll see me breaking bread and talking about the meaning of communion. That week I called the communion [...]

It’s All about Relationship

Nanette Sawyer — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:00:19 +0000

Every once in awhile, someone finds me on facebook to tell me what it was like to read my book. I love that and I’m so grateful that something I’ve created helps people. Despite having “hospitality” as the title, the book is really about how to become a more loving, whole person. One reader wrote [...]

Don’t Wait for a Gandhi

Nanette Sawyer — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 00:13:03 +0000

If you have a situation that seems endless and is a negative situation, don’t wait for a Gandhi, don’t wait for a King, don’t wait for a Mandela. “You are your own Mandela; you are your own Gandhi; you are your own King. You know your issues; you know your concerns, and you know the [...]

Life

Nanette Sawyer — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 03:41:50 +0000

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 [...]

Missional + Faith + Community

Nanette Sawyer — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 20:42:01 +0000

Wicker Park Grace was started with grants from the Presbyterian Church (USA) as a “new church development (NCD).” Seven years of annually smaller and smaller grants end this year. The initial idea was to start a church in a new way, maybe a “church without walls.” Something that would be more resonant with millennial people. [...]

Looking for the Evil Within Us

Nanette Sawyer — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 21:08:03 +0000

In my book on Hospitality-the sacred art, I have a chapter devoted to hospitality to our enemies. These are two words we don’t put together in our heads (or our practice) very often. Hospitality. Enemies. The idea is very akin to the Jesus concepts of “Love your enemies,” “pray for those who persecute you.” When [...]

Psalms for Praying

Nanette Sawyer — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 22:17:56 +0000

This is one of my favorite books for prayer and liturgy. We use this book almost every week at Wicker Park Grace for our liturgical psalm. We sing a refrain, taizé -style, sometimes an actual song from Taizé , and sometimes an original refrain composed to go with a particular psalm. In between the communally [...]

Restorative Justice

Nanette Sawyer — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 20:49:37 +0000

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday morning, Sept 11, 2011, at Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church. I gave a shorter version at Wicker Park Grace that evening. Click the audio icon at the end of this post to listen in. You can also right click here and “save link as” to download the mp3 [...]

Communion Means Loving Across Barriers

Nanette Sawyer — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 20:13:18 +0000

I wrote about communion in the Wicker Park Grace e-newsletter this week. It’s so important that I want to repeat it here. As a pastor, I have struggled with how to interpret communion and how to practice it in a community deeply committed to radical inclusion. In many times and places, communion has been interpreted [...]

Catching the Light

Nanette Sawyer — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:42:47 +0000

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 [...]

Meditation to Relieve Anxiety

Nanette Sawyer — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:00:26 +0000

Recently I wrote up a meditation for someone who has been experiencing a lot of anxiety about her future. I thought it might be helpful for others, so I’m sharing it here! Here is the idea for a meditation practice you could try: 1. Close your eyes and begin to focus on your breathing. Push [...]

Disarming the Clobber Passages, #3

Nanette Sawyer — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:00:15 +0000

In the final discussion of the movie Fish Out of Water, we moved on the three new testament passages used in discussions about the lgbtq community: Romans 1: 26-37, 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. I touched upon Romans 1 in my recent post #2 on the Clobber Passages (July 24), so I’ll focus [...]

Being the Tides

Nanette Sawyer — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:17:30 +0000

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, [...]

New Video Glimpse of Wicker Park Grace

Nanette Sawyer — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:19:41 +0000

Big thanks to Brandon Sichling for making this 4-minute video to give viewers a glimpse into the life of Wicker Park Grace!

Disarming the Clobber Passages, #2

Nanette Sawyer — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:58:08 +0000

Last week in the Wicker Park Grace Movie Group we watched the next 10 minutes of A Fish Out of Water, and talked about the Holiness Codes of Leviticus, and the Romans 1 text which talks about “natural” and “unnatural” sexuality. The Holiness Codes, of which Leviticus 18:22 is a part, gave guidelines to the [...]

Perfectly Imperfect

Nanette Sawyer — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 20:11:08 +0000

The name of my blog used to be “Perfectly Imperfect,” by which I was trying to say that it’s okay to be imperfect. More than that, I was trying to remind myself that it’s okay that I am not perfect, but it didn’t work! The name just made me feel like I had to be [...]

Disarming the Clobber Passages, #1

Nanette Sawyer — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:06:56 +0000

Last week we started a movie discussion group at Wicker Park Grace, based on the movie Fish Out Of Water. It tells the filmmaker’s story, who came out as a lesbian when she was in college and was rejected by all her Christian friends who told her she was going to go to hell. To [...]

One Splash for the Creator

Nanette Sawyer — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 13:59:31 +0000

I was a bit daunted when I was invited to write a couple of lectionary reflections for the print edition of the Christian Century. One of the weeks I was asked to write about was “Trinity Sunday,” a day when preachers reflect on the Creator/Christ/Holy Spirit triad/unity. It’s so easy to get caught up in [...]

A Bit of History — 2003 TV show

Nanette Sawyer — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 20:46:54 +0000

Back in 2003, the first full year that I was working as a minister in Wicker Park, I was interviewed for a “Spiritual Journey” segment on a Chicago TV show called 30 Good Minutes. In the video I tell the story of my separation from Christianity as a teenager, and years later feeling welcomed at [...]

A last word on Hitchens & god is not Great

Nanette Sawyer — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:19:25 +0000

I would be much more convinced of Hitchens' arguments if his book was about "How Fear Poisons Everything, even Religion." Or maybe, "How Shame Poisons Everything."

Stations of the Cross (original art)

Nanette Sawyer — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:30:48 +0000

In 2007 the Wicker Park Grace community created original art representing the Stations of the Cross. Traditionally, there are 14 stations, each representing a moment on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. We added a station 15 to represent the resurrection and complete the story. The idea of creating these stations was to bring the ancient [...]

Messy Blogging :: an interlude

Nanette Sawyer — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:12:34 +0000

Okay, just a quick comment on the blogging process. I didn’t realize that last post would show the whole crazy-long sermon and force every reader to scroll through the whole thing. Next time, I’ll post the long thing in a comment, so people can just skip it if they’re not that into it. It feels [...]

“Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” by Harry Emerson Fosdick

Nanette Sawyer — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:34:35 +0000

"There is nothing new about the situation. It has happened again and again in history, as, for example, when the stationary earth suddenly began to move and the universe that had been centered in this planet was centered in the sun around which the planets whirled. Whenever such a situation has arisen, there has been only one way out—the new knowledge and the old faith had to be blended in a new combination. " Harry Emerson Fosdick

Irreducible objections

Nanette Sawyer — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:50:18 +0000

While there have long been Christians arguing for literalism, there have also long been many highly visible Christians, leaders within the Church, who have been arguing against it.

Resources for Atheism discussions

Nanette Sawyer — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:48:14 +0000

"Can we honor our experiences of life's sacred character without holding jealously to creed and dogma? Can we understand how science too calls us to those experiences?" ~ Adam Frank, NPR blog

Blinding moments of un-conviction

Nanette Sawyer — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 02:25:35 +0000

Blinding moments of un-conviction make space for new perspectives, new insights, and even new convictions to enter us. That's a good thing if we can maintain a spirit of humility and mutual respect in the process of unfolding knowledge within ourselves and our fellow humans.

Messy, not perfect.

Nanette Sawyer — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:14:08 +0000

I had to change the title of my blog. It turns out just having the word “perfect” in the title was making it harder for me to blog. (It used to be called “Perfectly Imperfect.”) I thought putting the word “imperfect” along with “perfect” was making the point that imperfect is really the perfect way [...]

Tabouli Recipe

Nanette Sawyer — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 03:09:19 +0000

This tabouli recipe has been enjoyed a couple of times at the community dinner at Wicker Park Grace, including tonight. So I said I would post the recipe. I think what makes it wonderful is mixing all the liquids into the boiling water and pouring it onto the bulgar (cracked wheat) all at once. This [...]

I’m working, I promise

Nanette Sawyer — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:23:56 +0000

General Assembly is a whirlwind. There is so so much material being discussed and debated that I cannot keep up! At the moment I am pretty completely focussed on the work in my committee. You can see what we are up to through this link. Click on PC-Biz and go to committee 11. We have [...]

Contoversy, controversy, controversy

Nanette Sawyer — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:22:23 +0000

On Thursday, July 1st, I head to Minneapolis for ten days of intensive meetings for the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). I am a commissioner, elected by the Presbytery of Chicago along with nine other commissioners to participate in this week of work on behalf of the national church. The PC(USA) website says [...]

Spicy Peanut Sauce

Nanette Sawyer — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:03:04 +0000

When I turned 40, my friends made me a fabulous cookbook with recipes contributed by everyone who came to the party! This peanut sauce was popular at last week’s potluck dinner after spiritual practice at Wicker Park Grace. It was given to me by Sarah in the birthday cookbook. Spicy Peanut Sauce 1/4 cup garlic [...]

RevGalBlogPals

Nanette Sawyer — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:28:10 +0000

Sometimes the truth we speak is simply asking the real questions we have on our minds or naming the real confusions that are confronting us. Other times the truth we speak is naming what we believe to be the best course of action—something like I said about Huckleberry Finn: we should follow his example and where love conflicts with doctrine, we should choose love.

Honestly, that’s the best I can do.

Bible Basics 1

Nanette Sawyer — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:46:27 +0000

Here's a little peek into what we're up to at Wicker Park Grace. Two weeks at the Sunday Gatherings focused on Bible Basics. Why? Because people have been asking questions like the ones included here.

“Yes, Virginia, there is…”

Nanette Sawyer — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:34:20 +0000

Sermon delivered 12/27/09 at Wicker Park Grace Reflection (transcribed) The Escape to Egypt (Matthew 2:12-16) 12 The wise men, having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, left for their own country by another road. 13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream [...]

Self-portrait :: Story Cycle :: Worth Remembering

Nanette Sawyer — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:18:05 +0000

Well, I am down for the count with this cold/flu everyone has. So instead of watching TV from bed, I worked on an art project that the Wicker Park Grace Art Forum peeps have been encouraging me to do. I’ve shared at the Forum some work I’ve done with collage and digital manipulation of photos, [...]

Mid-night Tweets (Micro-blogging)

Nanette Sawyer — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:46:43 +0000

It’s the middle of the night.Woke up thinking of all the ways I am imperfect. But this is the nature of being human, right? Have to forgive. about 15 hours ago from Twitterrific This is why we need each other to love each other.To say that we are *good enough* to be loved.Every mistake feels [...]

Patterns of Hope

Nanette Sawyer — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:19:16 +0000

I was very disturbed to read in the news a couple of weeks ago about a Census worker found murdered in Kentucky. (You can google it. It’s gruesome.) The white census worker was found hanging from a tree in a graveyard. And this week an African American friend of mine told me that there is a [...]

I love the YMCA!

Nanette Sawyer — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:10:32 +0000

Thanks to the good influence of my summer roommate, Rachel, I joined the Logan Square Y in August. (It’s called the McCormick Tribune Y, though it’s in Logan Square.) Rachel taught me some basics with free weights and I also quickly grew attached to a bike which works like a video game. You watch a screen [...]

Shawna’s live painting at Moltmann conversation

Nanette Sawyer — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 06:46:48 +0000

Shawna painted this 8 x 6 foot mural during the Wednesday night session of the Moltmann conversation. It took her a couple of hours. She began during the welcome and painted all through the opening presentations and the communion service. After it was done, it was auctioned off to participants of the conference and ended up [...]