Be Aware. Confess. Transform.

I am at an ELCA Ethics of Eating  Conference. Lots of thoughts floating in my head and I am sure it will take weeks, maybe months, to process it all.   However, we talked about how it to be change.  Three things need to happen: Awareness, Confession and Transformation. 

May we become aware:  

May we confess: 

 

May God bring about transformation.  Here is a snippet of the work of the ELCA World Hunger. 

God’s Love and Mine,

danielle kathryn

Warmer, Safer, Drier

This past weekend I had the privilege of traveling to Jonesville, Virginia and serving with the Appalachian Service Project. Here is what I learned:

• I have the most level-headed roommate in the world.  I knew that Cameron generally keeps his cool in most situations.  In fact, I have only seen  him upset once since I have known him.  However, as we were driving up a giant hill on ice (with a cliff over to the right side) after 45 minutes of being lost (who would of thought there would be two Rt. 58s and two 647s in the same city!), we got stuck. I was screaming a little bit.  Cameron looks at me and says, “Danielle, I am gonna need you to stop screaming.  Handle this better.”  No anger. Just firm.  We ended up parking on the side of the road and carrying our bags up the hill.  The next morning we tried to move the truck and it went into a ditch.  Cam was cool as a cucumber than too… “They will get me out.”  Oh how I wish that I was so level headed. 

• God can us the least likely to speak to you.  Our team was given three jobs: install a sliding door, put on new siding around the door and create a landing for a wheelchair ramp.  The home modifications were being done for George and Debbie.  Debbie has been confined to a wheelchair since she was 26.  George takes care of the house and Debbie.  I am always amazed how those who have so little to give, give anyway.  For lunch the second day, George made us homemade pineapple upside down cake.  It was wonderful to spend our lunch time eating with the family and hearing more of their story.   My favorite two parts were when we unveiled the door to Debbie.  She kept saying, “Oh my. Oh my.”  I can see outside from my chair.  Later when the landing was finished she talked about how when the ramp is done, her mom will be able to visit.  Right now there is no way for her to get into the house.  What a beautiful image of mother and daughter able to be together in the house together.  Listening to Debbie reminded me of the beauty of God’s creation (which she was so thankful she could see outside the door) and the importance of being with family. 

• Laughter is good for the soul.  If you want to laugh and laugh, travel anywhere with Cameron Bowe and Scott Maxwell.  My favorite moments include: flyinq squirrels, giant rice crispie treats and christmas sweaters. 

• I love the circular saw.  I am not trying to brag, but I am pretty amazing at it!  And I love the power it gives you J

God’s Love and Mine,

danielle kathryn 

What is Success?

The prophet Jeremiah is in deep despair and filled with anguish. God has asked him to bring a message of doom, gloom, destruction…and then ultimately rebuilding and hope.  He has been preaching to all people and the only response has been mockery and laughter.  “Yeah right,” Israel says to Jeremiah, “Life is good.  Prosperity is unmatched.  You are crazy.” 

I was reading Jeremiah 20 today where Jeremiah curses the day he was born and asks God, “Why the heck did you pick me for this task?”  He even says to God, “You deceived me! I thought if I was your prophet and did what you asked that you would make the people listen!”  For Jeremiah, success was measured by the number of people who would repent and heed the warning…which was currently tallied at zero.  Yet what was God’s plumb line for success?

I struggle with this all the time.  Perhaps the easiest way to say it is that I am addicted to attention. I love to hear that I have made a difference.  I have said before that the five minutes after preaching a sermon are the worst.  You are just sitting there, having put yourself out there, you receive no immediate feedback. I think God designed it that way as a reminder to me that human affirmation is not what validates the words spoken.  God’s spirit does. 

What strikes me about Jeremiah is that God essentially says that success is not measured by the number of people but the faithfulness and integrity to which Jeremiah preaches.  God is saying, “I did promise to be with you…but not necessarily to produce the results you want, but to bring about lasting transformation.”  It is not the amount of people that shake my hand on a Sunday morning and say, “Great job, Danielle” that matters.  It is my faithfulness and integrity to my call.  

It makes me wonder:

*Do I ever compromise what I feel like God wants me to say for what is easier for the people (myself included) to swallow?

* Am I so addicted to seeing results that I miss the Spirit’s work along the way?  (I can hear my colleague say, “It is the journey that matters, not the destination.”)

What is your definition of success?  

Loving My Niece From Afar

Loving My Niece from Afar

Perhaps one of the saddest things about out current culture is the distance between loved ones.  It’s funny me because for the first part of my life, I couldn’t wait to get away, to get out on my own.  Then God gives you things like nieces and you wish you were closer.  I just wanted to take a moment and tell my niece Ellie, “I love you and every time I see you face I smile.”  It is funny how God makes space in our busy lives to love a child.  And I love this one….how can you not?

Also, I apologize to Ellie.  Before she was born, I made a comment regarding Milan and Jessica’s name choice.  They didn’t know what they were having or what they would name it.  Just a few hours before she was born I said, “Milan and Jessica are probably going to name their child something dumb like Eloise.”  At 3am I get a text, “Welcome Eloise ‘Ellie’ Kosanovich into the world.”  Oops.  Please forgive me J

Learning to Lament

Earlier this month, I was reading an article on suffering.  A young man serving in Sierra Leone had lost his fiancée.  He writes:

“Questions abounded. How I talk about Benita’s death to the God who could have prevented it and didn’t?  Isn’t that like blaming God? Is it wrong to blame God?  But how do I not blame God? How could God be almighty and not responsible? I understand that the Bible teaches that God is both good and sovereign, but how those two truths related to my present reality was beyond me. 

Despite all I had learned about prayer in my life, I had no idea how to communicate with God about my grief.  I knew how to thank God, praise God, ask God for help and even confess my sins to God.  I was clueless, though, about how to talk with God about grief. I needed lessons in the language of lament.” 

The young man continued his story sharing how he learned to lament, to weep in anger, deep sorrow, with a true sense of missing.  Today we lost a very dear person to our church family and it struck me that many of us struggle with the same thing that the man in Sierra Leone did, we don’t know how lament. 

The scriptures are full of laments--cries of sorrow from the depths of people’s pain.  Turn to the Psalms. Turn to Lamentations. Let the words of scriptures be our words as we lament.  Get angry.  Let tears flow.  Let sadness come.  Grieve. And remember that even in the midst of unexplainable pain, God’s promise is that we are not alone in the pit.  God is there taking it all and delighting in your honesty.  Remember, my beloved brothers and sisters, that nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from the love of God.    

Cracked Pots

One of the first retreats I ever led at Christ the King was entitled “Cracked Pots.”  We talked about how we are so often trying to hide our cracks but, in Christ they have a purpose.  Think about a pot and a candle.  If you put a lit candle in the pot you can’t see the light, but if you put a candle in a pot with cracks, the light shine through.  That is the way it is with us.  Our cracks are what tell the testimony of God’s love not our feigned perfection. 

I have had the pot from that retreat sitting on my desk for five years.  This afternoon I was reading Jeremiah and it made me think about that pot.  It says in Jeremiah that God said, “Like the clay in the Potter’s hand, so are you Israel.”  For the Israelites, God is encouraging repentance.  That the destruction coming due to their unfaithfulness could be recast/remodeled if only they would repent and turn back to the Lord.  What hope there is that thought.  God can remodel the mess I made of my own clay into something, albeit cracked, shines forth Christ’s light. 

So this day, may you shine brightly just as you are—cracked and beautiful! 

Jeremiah 17

In my devotional time, I have been working through Jeremiah.  Set against the background of political disaster and immense human suffering that accompanied it, Jeremiah is still predominately a book about hope.  Today, as I sat at my desk enjoying a chai latte, I was struck by the wise commentary of Jeremiah.  Jeremiah offers that Israel is not feeling the weight of destruction for no reason.  No, they have trusted in human wisdom over God’s word.  They have “taken it into their own hands.”  It struck me that I do that so often thinking that I can be more effiecent or effective than the creator of the universe.  Yet, as Jeremiah shares, fruitfulness not comes from our human striving but in trusting in God.  “But blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.  They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.  It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.  It has not worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7-8). 

Heal me and I will be healed.
Save me and I will be saved. 

Often in my times of mediation, I try to capture the word of God in picture.  Here is my visual interpretation of Jeremiah 17.   

Finding My Voice Again

A word that is often used to describe me is effervescent.  I remember the first time it was used (or at least the first time I can remember).  It looked it up and the definition was “bubbly, like a soda pop.”  As a Diet Coke lover, I’ll take that.

After the cancer came in 2008, I can remember feeling like my physical body healed (except the large scar) but struggled emotionally and spiritually.  I felt anything but effervescent.  I used to look into the mirror and, regardless or my weight, could see beauty.   Now, I could only look into the mirror and be angry.  My body had betrayed me.  There was no beauty in it, only the potential for cancer.  And then came the spiritual struggle.  My response to God was not so much to ask why but to stop talking, to stop praying and speaking from a place of God’s presence dwelling in me.  I felt like I lost my voice.

And yet, it is coming back (not the cancer, my voice).  February 13^th will mark three years since I heard the words, “You have cancer.”  This blog is my way of finding my voice again.  It is my way of allowing God’s word to trump cancer and its fall out.  Its my way of reminding myself that cancer didn’t steal my desire or passion for God.  I have a voice and this is my way of using it.  

The Water Always Wins

Each Tuesday, I teach a Select Course for several members of local congregations who are seeking deeper theological understanding and who are often discerning a call to ministry in some fashion.    Recently, we were watching a video on the Lutheran understanding of Daily Baptism.  The idea of daily baptism comes right out of the catholic notion of confession.  In Luther’s time there was a heavy emphasis on recalling and naming in detail all your sins.  You would then, feeling sorrow—not merely attrition—go to see the priest.  You would be given things to do to atone for your sins.  As our sin is great, the amount of things needed done to atone was great.  In fact, if you didn’t finish doing them here on earth, there was purgatory. 

Luther looked at the people of God and thought, “There has to be another way.”  He searched the scriptures and realized that there was something to this confession thing (although he didn’t believe that you needed to enumerate them in great detail), Jesus had already atoned for our sins.  There is nothing we can do that God has not already done for us.  Luther would return to baptism.  The water that touched your forehead was not for naught.  That water meant something.  It meant that you were a beloved child of God, forgiven of your sins and sealed with the Holy Spirit.   Luther emphasized that when you confessed your sins, the words you need to hear were not “Do this or do that” but simply “You are forgiven.” 

It struck me in class that for Luther the water always wins.  The old creature who is so slick and often appealing cannot win, the water does.  The sin that separates us most moments after our baptism doesn’t win, the water does.  So Luther encourages us to remember that every time we wash our face that the water wins, that we are beloved, forgiven children.  Amen!  

It is a funny thing to be in ministry.  I find that there are days I have nothing to say (often when I am writing a sermon) and days I have so many thoughts and only my journal as a conversation partner.  As I navigate what it looks like to live justly in my calling to a middle-class, predominately white congregation, I invite you to journey with me.  May we discover our calling to be part of the word-made-flesh's redeeming and creative work in the world. 

God's Love and Mine,
danielle kathryn