Getting Lost in the Woods

Ordinarily, we might greet the quiet of Christmas morning like an old friend.  December tends to be incredibly busy as we make grocery lists for special meals; bake cookies; shop for gifts; serve holiday meals to hungry neighbors; attend parties; carry on family traditions and so on.  When Christmas morning finally arrives, we are usually ready for the slower pace that welcomes us.  We listen to the gentle music playing in the background as we enjoy the company of our loved ones, or maybe even the quiet comfort of reading a good book.  However, this year is unlike any in our collective memory.  This year we have been reminded again and again that the best way we can express our love for our family, neighbors, and community is by staying home.  By calling our loved ones and sending notes instead of dropping in for a visit. By sharing in holiday meals over zoom, google meet, or facetime instead of in one festively decorated dining room. We have attended churc...

  Many of us would really love it if things were binary.  To think inside the box of either or.  We can either have apples or oranges.   We can either leave the lights on or off.  We can either be liberal or conservative.   We can either be right or wrong.  We can either make choices that are good or bad.  We long for clear, precise, and easy answers.  Yet whenever we change our perspective, by looking under the microscope or looking down from 20,000 feet above--we recognize a binary approach sometimes leaves us polarized.   Particularly given how nuanced life is and how complex the systems and institutions we are a part of really are at their core.  Life is really more of a spectrum, or a direction we journey towards, where at different moments we may travel forward, backward, north, south, east, or west.  Take for example living faithfully.  How often have old systems, including within the Church, told us ...

  If there is one place we will nearly always encounter God, it is in the wilderness.  There are few, if any other, people to be found.   Nor is there much in the way of human-made structures.  Instead, we find dust, sand, and soil; various types of vegetation; even a few creeping, crawling creatures.  And if we dare to quiet our hearts and listen, we will find God.  Which lets face it, can be terrifying.  ​ If we face the voice of God, we might risk discovering something about ourselves or our world which might require us to shift, change, and grow.  We’ve seen it happen again and again throughout scripture.  Jacob’s wrestling match; Hagar and the angel; Moses and that burning bush; the Israelites wandering for forty years; and of course, John the Baptist.  The wilderness is a place of isolation and revelation.   Yet the wilderness is not always a physical place.  One preacher  recently suggested that the wilder...