Bringing Faith to Life
Posts tagged love
The Big Finish
09 months
Dear Kinesthetic Christian friends and fans,
Since July of 2012 I have been posting to this space, as a way to explore and share ideas about an embodied faith — a faith that lives and moves and has its being in and through me. Perhaps it feels so also with you. Thank you, Dear Reader, for your time in commenting, responding and encouraging me along the way.
At 835 published posts, I am drawing the Kinesthetic Christian blog to a close. But before I go… I have reorganized the Kinesthetic Christian site to feature my favorite “evergreen” posts in categories: “FAITH,” “HOPE,” and “LOVE.”
As scripture tells us, “Faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.” Surely, you’ll agree, our world needs more of all three. I hope you’ll visit the site and share what speaks faith to you with those you love.
Faithfully Yours,
Wendy Rilling LeBolt
Kinesthetic Christian
Love Opens
1Love opens courage steps harm threatens danger waits. Love opens timid stays winds blow through and through. Unlove stands in the way that it does; preying on timid obstructing, obscuring, swirling, gusting. Love moves the way that it can; creating chances opening options softening, seasoning. Love opens minds and hearts, doors and windows. Clearing channels of communication finding its way. Love opens onto a way of saying what needs saying. Love builds by invisible hands which craft and construct, mend and heal. Love dreams -- real as any hard fact so we wait, we hope. Love imagines what can happen when soul by soul together we pray. Where unlove shouts, "Make way!" Love makes a way where there was no way so good can go about its business turning knobs and carrying brides across thresholds. Behold There's a space for the love of God to fill me when I open up; empty lungs want air parched mouth wants drink panging stomach wants food the seeking soul opens for sustenance, moment by moment. Me me Me me Me me the baby birds cry, asserting themselves. fill me. feed me. pick me. Love does
A Perfecting Time
1My hair is long My nails unkempt My clothes askew My face unwashed Thus unadorned I go before my day. This day, as the last and the one before it and the one before that. How many more? I cannot say I have no say Lord, how long? Instead, You turn me to me And I dare to look; one me upon the other, at the we that is only me. And I am I, the one you love, have loved still love. Take me to then, that then when it was just you and I and I was perfect. My hair askew but you were all I knew. My skin aglow when you're all I know. Naked and fresh Unwashed and penniless. That beginning time when You were mine and I was thine. And everyday hence that You proposed I go; Including this day when wilderness itself greets me at my front door and I step willingly into it. I, Worn plain Yet Your love is the same. Perfect and perfecting still.
Don’t just tell me you love me; show me you love me
0Don’t just tell me you love me,
show me
Visit when I’m sick
sick of life
sick of hardship
sick of loneliness
heart sick
Nourish when I’m empty
pangs of hunger
cheeks hollowed
out of options
gut void
Supply when I’m thirsty
offer a sip
of what you’re drinking
melted chips of ice
mouth parched
When I’m unprotected
victim of the hurtful
vulnerable to the willful
invisible
clothe me
Don’t just tell me that you love me,
meet me.
If I’m opposed, understanding
If I’m young, humor
If I’m old, honor
If I’m angry, calm
If I’m confused, clarity
If I’m distraught, empathy
If I’m falling, lift
If I’m hurt, help
Heal
Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.
In-formed by Love, not News
16 years
The gruesome experience “informed” his art.
The break-in and near death experience, “informed” his life’s course.
The death of her mother by suicide “informed” her field of study.
The assault she survived “informed” her very life.
What happens in our lives in-forms us. What we experience forms us, on the inside.
We say we live in an information age. But… TMI. Overwhelmed. Can’t take it all in. Are we convinced that the more we know, the better off we are? How much do we really know after all we have read? Binge reading that which is designed to catch our eye — the moving target or the sensational headline — is not informing. That’s gorging. Over-consumption. Gluttony.
We can choose to stop and ask:
What has in-formed us? What moment? What word? What person? What experience? These have shaped our perception, our point of view, and our understanding.
What is now in-forming us? What are we allowing in to form our perception, point of view and understanding.
Christine Blasey Ford’s life has been in-formed by her “incident” with Brett Kavanaugh. Not only has she survived it, but she is living out of it. She has addressed the event and its circumstance and called it out. She has let it in-form her, so she can let it inform us. To speak publicly, in such an open forum, about such a traumatic and emotional experience is nothing short of miraculous. Yet, she has denied the experience its opportunity to torment her. Instead, she has turned the tables on it. She is leading our charge.
Forewarned may feel forearmed, and informed may feel like arming, but this is a different battle we’re waging, against an enemy we can’t see who employs weapons we can’t wield. We are being prepared for this battle by One who knows us intimately and is ever-transforming us. One who is constantly shaping, healing, and molding, sculpting, renewing and re-building with gracious, loving hands. With our consent.
Love doesn’t, love never, forces its way in.
Is it possible that all our experiences are redeemable, even when they’re too horrible to imagine or too painful to admit? Give them to me, God says. We can hold them together and make something magnificent. I am love. With me, all things are possible.
What in-forms you?
What is shaping you?
From the inside out?
United to Love: Rally Day 2018
26 years
We knew they were coming. The group of white supremacists had been issued a permit to gather in Lafayette Park, on this, the one-year anniversary of the “unite the right” event in Charlottesville. At their 2017 gathering, Heather Heyer, a counter-protester, was killed, while others were physically injured and their city was left scarred and deeply saddened. Now they were coming to Washington, DC.
A call was initiated by the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church to respond to the white supremacist rally with a rally of our own. I’d heard that there would be a group from Floris UMC going. Something inside inclined me to sign up.
Let’s be clear: I am not a very brave person. I am no risk taker. I am not foolhardy. I have never stood before the barrel of a gun, never truly feared for my life, and certainly never placed myself intentionally in the presence of someone I knew would be spewing hatred, shouting racist epithets or chanting anti-Semitic slogans. (Heck, I don’t even like the unruly crowds at Redskin games.) All of this swam in my mind as I boarded the Floris bus to head downtown.
There were 12 of us on that bus: 10 courageous women, one pastor and bus-driver extraordinaire, and me. During the ride down, organizers of our group delivered our “marching orders.” In case we were confronted by hostile protesters or situations that posed harm, we were to defuse any altercations, assist anyone subjected to harm and were NOT to engage any form of hatred. Our job was to sow peace, the peace of Christ. But, just in case something untoward occurred, we arranged for an alternate meeting spot, shared phone numbers, and signed into event alerts. Maps indicating the nearest metro stations were distributed, just in case we couldn’t get back to the bus.
This, you might imagine, did NOT assuage my fears. There I was, sitting in the back of a church bus, apparently headed straight into what might be harms way. I sat pretty quietly during that ride in spite of the lively chatter which surrounded me. This was a pack of peacemakers with a purpose! I was completely out of my league.
The plan was to collect for a pre-march pep rally at Christ United Methodist Church, so after Bob’s miraculous parallel parking on DC city streets, we poured out of that bus and onto the sidewalk to head to church. First, prayer. Circling to hold hands, Sara Greer even convinced a group of kids walking our way to join us. All prayed up, we headed to church where we were greeted warmly, welcomed magnanimously and inspired by word, song and fellowship. They handed us a lunch – our last meal? – as we gathered behind the banner to begin our march.
Our police escort immediately surrounded us. They proceeded to stop traffic (!!) so this little band — multi-racial, multi-ethnic, broad-ranging in age and mobility — could all find its way safely.
As we spilled onto the grassy lawn of the mall, instead of the hatred, weaponry, and harsh words I feared, we were greeted by nothing but love. A beautiful stage had been erected right in front of the Capitol building, its banner announcing our common purpose: United to Love.
Kicking off this rally, Bishop LaTrelle Easterling told us, this was not a meeting of counter-protesters. In fact, it came about in response to a request directed to the bishop imploring her to lead the effort to deny the “unite-the-right-ers” permission to rally. “Absolutely not,” she told them. “If we take away their rights, they will have the right to take away ours.” Instead, we will rally under this banner. Not as counter-protesters, shouting down hatred, but as representatives of a force stronger than hate, because, as Dr. King said, “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
United to Love had a permit, too — for the mall, not Lafayette Park, thank goodness! I would not be standing eye to eye with white supremacists, but surrounded by love in all colors and denominations. Relief! I even saw a bit of humor in this. As we staked out our place on the grass, we were instantly dive-bombed by dozens of large flying bugs that resembled dragonflies. One in particular hovered so close to me and held me with such intent focus, I imagined him a dragonfly-drone collecting data on this new species of invader. I waved a happy so-long, as he buzzed off.
Then I settled onto a borrowed beach blanket to enjoy the spectacle: song and word, prayer and praise, fellowship and message. A rally it was, to God be every bit of the glory. Yes, we knew that hatred and bigotry was gathering just a few blocks from us but we couldn’t hear them and we couldn’t see them; it was only from news reports via digital media that we heard they were there. Instead we were focused on the future, on ways that moved us forward, on a path we could chart together. We, a diverse group of interfaith worshipers, gathered in support of our common humanity and each other. That, I felt sure, was not what was happening in Lafayette Park.
Then the funniest of thoughts creeped in. What if all these dragonflies really are drone-spies sent by the “unite the right” rally organizers to report on that “other rally” down on the mall? I wondered what they’d think of what was being shared here: messages of hope, commitment, and unconditional love, amid preaching and teaching affirming that we, in our diverse array, are each expressions of a God whose nature is love.
OK, now that I’m relaxed and amused and my life doesn’t feel quite so endangered, this out-of-doors praising God inclines me to worship with a bit more abandon — to raise my hand in affirmation, clap my hands in rhythm and raise my voice in response. I’ll be honest, I feel WAY more free to really worship here than I feel inside a sanctuary on a Sunday.
Our times make it clear that now is the time we need to raise our hand when we see injustice and raise our voices to stand against it. From Micah 6, we take our marching orders… what does the Lord require of you?
As I look behind me and scan the gathering of the faithful around me, a peace that passes understanding settles over me. The trepidation I came with is gone. No, I’m not a risk-taker by nature, but I’m no standby-er either. I rise to wander through and greet a few folks, but mostly to snap photos of the amazing expressions of God’s mercy, love and justice, on display right there on the DC mall.
How proud I feel to have marched behind the banner which is now draped over the fence with the Capitol building as backdrop. Midway through the rally, as the afternoon sun beats down on us, and most of the crowd have taken shelter in the shade to right or left of the stage (but not the hardcore like us!), Dr. David McAllister-Wilson, President of Wesley Seminary addresses those gathered. He wonders to us, What is unite the right? How are they right? He concludes that they have gotten it confused. Not unite the right, rather, unite the righteous. “Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.” ~ James 3:18
Many speakers refer to the distinction between our rally and that of “those gathered a few blocks away.” It starts me wondering if our times are something like the day in another capitol city, Jerusalem, some 2000 or so years ago when there were also two parades. Along one parade route people shouted Hosanna and waved palm branches, welcoming Jesus riding humbly on a donkey. Along the other rode Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Judea, adorned in his imperial majesty. One rally peaceful, one rally proud. The peaceful not a counter-protest but a different message, entirely. 
Sometimes, when we as people who are not brave, not risk-takers, and not particularly well-suited to diffuse differences or sow peace, let the God of love drag us up out of our pews into our nation’s capitol on a Sunday, we are forced to see and hear what is going on in our day.
I marched and rallied on Sunday in order to magnify the message that Jesus reverberates through the ages: “faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Love is the eternal answer to the toughest questions of every age.
The question that remains is: what will the followers of Jesus do with the message of love? Right or righteous?
A love like no other
1
Sometimes there is a friend, early on, say, in high school, who writes in your yearbook. Pages and pages, continued here and then over there, with a message that defies time and space.
Dispensing with the cursory, superficial gibberish, this friend heads straight for the truth with words so profound that, at 17 years old, you actually transcribe them so you can call on them again and again. Each time you do, they speak something new.
They planted a seed in me then, and now they reverberate through the ages. It’s as if Jesus Himself spoke to me through this friend.
Today, I have a special prayer for you: I hope that you find fulfillment, and that you are at peace with yourself and God. Because that is what I think is most important, what gives meaning and direction. His love is so great, Dear One, that the very thought of someone who loves me that much, in spite of the cursory lip service and lack of time I give Him makes me cry almost in shame and in joy.
There are so many pressures. After all, you will only be happy if you get straight A’s, hit .400, play at every game, go to every party, attend every Prom, lose 10 pounds, get accepted to five colleges, win a scholarship that covers tuition, room and board, and more or less win honor and glory in every endeavor.
But you don’t have to. Even if you hit .155 or sit in McDonald’s on Homecoming night, or fail every class, God loves you and is proud of you anyway. And that alone is enough to give you courage to stay up an extra hour studying, or keep running for office, or whatever. Someone who loves you so totally deserves never to be let down.
All of my love.
Imagine a love like this…
Is it sad? or am I sad? can we be honest?
0It’s interesting how language lives. It upgrades. It downgrades. It takes to the streets and to the wires and the wireless: it is news, radio and late night tv. Who would have ever imagined there would be an urban dictionary? Who could have predicted that words today would have such different meanings than they did yesterday?
Yep. How we use words is a-changin,’ and not just generation to generation, but person to person, thanks to popular culture characters and personalities in the news. We seem to keep finding new ways to express things for an impact. As Sacha Baron Cohen, aka Borat, helped us discover, “Not so much” is a very useful expression. Other things he had to say, not so much.
One must guard, though, against the imprecision of words which may on the surface appear harmless, but in fact have significant impact. The word of concern to me right now is “sad.” Recently I have heard so many applications of “sad.” As in, that’s sad, they are so sad, that was just sad, such a sad country, a sad, sad person.
Is it sad? Or am I sad? Because these are two very different things that have become entwined, perhaps to our peril.
Much in our world today makes me feel sad, but it is not sad. It may be cruel, unjust, uncivil or unkind. It may be ignorant, ill-informed or ill-advised. It may be belligerent and abusive or fraudulent and deceptive. But I would challenge us to get better at addressing it by being more precise with our language.
Sad doesn’t capture it. Giving it the “sad” label, which has become popular, may be intended to express our discontent, but this misses the mark, and diminishes these:
Sad is… losing a parent, a child, a spouse, a beloved friend.
Sad is… getting a potentially deadly diagnosis.
Sad is… hearing your season, your career, your life is finished.
Sad is… you’re out of a job, evicted from your house, no longer welcome.
That is sadness. It is an emotion. Often accompanied by deep, gut-wrenching, heart-racking sobs which come from a depth you didn’t know you had. That is true sadness.
Using ‘that is sad’ for a behavior, choice, policy, proposal, or person is a stand in for our disappointment, discontent and perhaps even disbelief. We are angry, disgusted by what we see, hear or read. But that is not sad. We are sad. Let’s say what we mean.
Sad, in its current linguisity (if that’s not a word, it should be), as a label, is lazy. But more than this, it allows us to dismiss something we don’t like by concluding that this is terminal case. Nothing to do about this one. “That’s sad” has become an off-hand way to dismiss people, things, and practices. It’s a “safe” way to have the last word, pretending to have empathy because sad sounds like a feeling. I am entitled to my feelings. You can’t disagree with sad.
In fact, when used this way, sad is not a feeling, it’s a label; a cowardly way to assign a category to what we can’t or would rather not deal with — distancing and dismissing it all at once.
The thing is, you and I are sad for a reason. True sadness invites me to sit with you and tell you how sorry I am. It asks, “Can I help you?” “What may I do for you?” “How can I pray for you?”
Let’s not succumb to putting the sad label on people as a cushion to rest on. Who are we to decide who and who isn’t a hopeless human? We are made to help.
In the faith that I follow, there is no such thing; no one is hopeless and no cause is hopeless. Our Lord went looking for that one very lost sheep, and when he found it, he carried it home. I’ll bet that lost sheep was very, very sad. But Jesus left the rest behind just to search for him.
No one is hopelessly lost, but our language certainly can make them sound that way. Can we revive our language. When we say “that is sad,” is that what we really mean? Or are we simply parroting a phrase made popular by a very human being? Instead, when we are sad, can we say so?
Can we sound out our own feelings and then use our language precisely? to describe, to admit, to honor, and to speak truth in love. Because love changes things. It brought that lost sheep all the way back home.
Out of the Dust There is Life
07 years
by wlebolt
in Christian, culture, current events, faith, hope, In Action, Life, relationship, Sermon Response
When my girls were small, I had magical healing powers. I could kiss a scrape or bandage a cut and presto! It would be “all better.” They would smile and go back to playing. Today, these girls are young women, and I no longer have that power. They spend their days working hard in places far from home, and when they hurt they’re on their own. They’re old enough to know that kisses do not work long distance, only in person.
I’m grateful that my girls know that Christ can be such a person, thanks to Sunday school teachers, worship leaders, mentors and pastors. Thank goodness, because the world my kids navigate is very different from the one I grew up in. It’s different, even, than the one they knew as children. Today, it seems, there is more shouting and posturing, more blatant hatred and prejudice, and more evident disrespect for persons and planet on a global scale. Nearly everywhere there is rubble, covered in dust.
This is the world my children have inherited from me, and the world I receive today in news, navigation and neighborhood. So many dusty images flood my mind, of collapse and heartbreak, earthquake and explosion, fire and flood, with medics and rescue personnel searching desperately for survivors.
In Mexico City recently, the collapse of buildings brought rescue efforts to the scene of a school. Oh children, especially children — the weakest, youngest and most promising among us — bid us to pause… hoping, waiting, listening, praying.
How in the midst of all of our commotion can we hear a tiny cry, barely a breath? But when together we pause and a hush falls, we do hear it. Then suddenly there is furious digging, hand to hand and shoulder to shoulder, cobbling through earth and stone and rubble to reach the tiny one before it’s too late.
Shovelfuls of earth yield to hands which brush away dirt and debris as the small, still form is lifted to safety. Silence doesn’t dare hope. But suddenly, there are shouts: “The child is alive!” Oh, such cheering and joy must reach through tear-stained cheeks to the very ears of God. Out of the dust there is life.
Hope is there when brother acknowledges brother, father welcomes son, and foe becomes friend. When we all gather with one cause, one intention, and one mission, our hopes are realized. We do this for our children, for all children.
“Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
You will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.” (Isaiah 58:12)
The business of rebuilding the ancient foundations falls to us. We will be called repairer of broken walls, restorer of streets with dwellings. Dwellings where our children can raise their children, with loving care tendered to kiss scraped knees, and all children can play together.
Lord, thank you for the resilience and tenacity of children. Help us to love them well by providing sturdy support and a firm foundation on which they can build.
We’re Just a Pile of Change
2They’re no different from me.
They who now don’t have houses,
don’t have water,
don’t have cars,
are missing pets,
lacking livelihood,
have lost loved ones.
They’re no different from me.
Oh, but I want to make them
the object of judgment
the image of wrath,
victims of poor planning,
poor execution, poor choices,
I want to make them these,
for my own well-being.
But I can’t.
They’re no different from me.
“Oh,” I cry, “but look at them!”
They are dimes and I’m a quarter,
They are copper, I am nickel
They are silver, I am gold.
Because, here I am and there they are.
But no, they are not different from me.
They of the lifeboats, and the life jackets,
Who hold fast to the hands of the small ones,
Who carry all that remains wrapped in plastic.
They are chosen, too.
Who am I, if not they?
I’m at your service,
I’ve chosen to be chosen.
For any outcome, any service, any sacrifice.
There’s no fine print in the service contract.
I am at your disposal.
I knew the risk when I signed up.
But did I know that it might come to this?
That you would risk me,
for the other You so love, because
You love me that much, too?
That’s the only way it can be
In God’s economy.
Lord, help me see
coins of different denomination,
different luster, and different lineage,
yet of singular value. Inestimable.
By the Lord’s accounting,
We’re all just a pile of change.
One by one, He loves us.
One by one, He meets us.
One by one, He saves us.
God only counts to one.
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”