Men and Church and Violence

I was going to write about men and church, based on a recent discussion at a new men’s group forming at my church and some things I’ve read in the recent past. I will get back to this shortly. This past Thursday, however, I attended an event that made a deep impact on me and I want to say a word about that.

Thursday the Minnesota Clothesline Project came to Duluth. The Clothesline Project is an art project which memorializes the victims and survivors of domestic abuse. This particular clothesline had a garment for each of the 643 victims of domestic abuse in Minnesota since 1988. I had received an e-mail about the event and about the need for volunteers to help hold the clothesline, and though it was a busy day, I felt I needed to be there. I wanted to make sure the church was represented. Biblical language has been used to justify physical domination within families, and though I believe such use to be a misuse, I felt I needed to be there. It was not until I arrived that I remember Theresa, a woman I had not thought about for quite some time. Theresa was 19. I knew her grandmother – she was a member of Pengilly United Methodist Church where I was pastor. I only got to know Theresa after her death in 1997 when I was asked to officiate at her funeral. She had been shot and killed by a jealous ex-boyfriend. As I looked at the shirts before we took them outside on the Lake Superior Lakewalk, the memory of Theresa and that horrible event came rushing back. During the ceremony before the outside display, the names of victims of domestic violence from the wider Duluth area were shared, and I heard her name again. I wonder how her family is doing after all these years. I wonder how all those affected by the violence we remembered together last Thursday are doing. I pray for their peace and well-being. I pray for an end to such violence.

The overwhelming number of perpetrators of domestic violence are men. Here we are, back to men. Here is what I hear about men and church. According to the Barna group, more than 90 percent of American men believe in God, and five out of six call themselves Christians, but only two of six attend church on a given Sunday. A number of researchers note that churches tend to attract many more women than men. At the same time, research finds that religious participation leads men to become more engaged husbands and fathers (Hartford Seminary research). One would hope that it might help men be less violent in those relationships, though there are exceptions to that – the faithful church goer who is also an abuser in the home.

Church seems good for men, but men are not adequately engaged in the church as a group. That truism can be found any number of places. So there are those who look for solutions. One such person is David Murrow whose recent book is entitled Why Men Hate Going to Church. I’ve not read the book, but read a review of it in The Christian Century (April 3, 2007) and was directed to some of Murrow’s material on-line at churchformen.com and 300menforJesus.com. Murrow argues that the reason men avoid church is because it has been “feminized.” The local church is perfectly designed to reach women and older folks… but this church system offers little to stir the masculine heart…. The more masculine the man, the more likely he is to dislike church…. Men and young adults are drawn to risk, challenge and adventure. But these things are discouraged in the local church. Murrow believes churches need to create a healthy masculine spirit in church. They need to present Jesus’ masculine side. Part of the problem is that while many pastors are men, “few truly understand men.” Apparently the brains of male pastors aren’t wired in a very manly way, for Murrow argues that the differences between men and women are rooted in brain differences. “Brain differences play out in the entertainment men and women choose. Women buy romance novels; men buy pornographic magazines. She’s stimulated by words; he’s stimulated by images.”

I am deeply ambivalent about Murrow’s work, and others who argue that the main reason men are not in church is that the church lacks “masculinity.” I don’t feel myself described very well in many of these descriptions of masculinity – though I suppose all these years in the church have drained my testosterone. I enjoy reading – a perfect day for me would include a couple hours of reading (I don’t have many perfect days). I don’t hunt or fish, though I do golf – badly. I enjoy some sports, baseball especially, and football. NASCAR does absolutely nothing for me. I have two dogs, pom-a-poos, not pit bulls – and ain’t I a man?! On the other hand, Murrow has something to teach. We have not often enough emphasized the deep adventure and challenge of the spiritual life – our need to battle powers of darkness in our lives and in the world - - - hatred, injustice, uncontrolled anger. Still, the end of our struggles seems the development of a gentler spirit, of kindness, of compassion, of love. Developing such a spirit is deeply challenging, an adventure worthy of all our courage, a risky endeavor – for the road to developing such a spirit is rarely straight.

I come back to last Thursday, standing on the shores of Lake Superior with men and women holding up the names of people, mostly women and children, who have died, mostly at the hands of men. Some of the language of masculinity used by those who don’t find the church masculine enough has violent undertones. A song used at GodMen rallies goes like this: We’ve been beaten down/Feminized by the culture crowd/No more nice guy, timid and ashamed/We’ve had enough, cowboy up/In the power of Jesus’ name/Welcome to the battle/A million men have got your back/Jump up in the saddle/Grab a sword, don’t be scared/Be a man, grow a pair! I don’t blame domestic violence on such language, but to ignore the potential connection is unwise. To ignore the list Paul offers for what life looks like when God’s Spirit is at work (Galatians 5, fruits of the Spirit): love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, seems foolhardy. Risk, challenge, adventure and courage are central to Christian faith – but risk for what, challenge to do what, adventure in what direction, courage for what purpose? Could it be that part of the adventure is to become a man who is more concerned with the well-being of the world than with growing a pair? Could it be that one of the contemporary risks for the Christian man is the risk of asserting that real men can be kind and gentle? Might Christian men, acknowledging the damage done by some of our culture’s definitions of masculinity, need courage to be different, courage to control their raging hormones, courage to follow one who refused to strike back against those who were taking him to his death believing that the violence needed to stop somewhere.

Maybe I am risking turning some men off to my church with such thinking, but if it leads some men toward kindness and gentleness, especially when they know the power of their own anger, and toward more self-control when they know that being out of control may include striking out against a loved one - - - well, I am man enough to take that risk.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

PAUL NEWMAN



Amidst the flurry of recent news about the crisis in our financial system, the $700 billion dollar rescue package and the Vice-President debate came the news about the death of Paul Newman. Newman died at age 83 on September 26. Yes, the financial crisis and the current election are more important events and have the potential to affect our lives dramatically. We also need to acknowledge the power of the stories we tell about our lives and how those stories are shaped by the stories in our culture. In our society and culture many of the stories that shape how we tell the stories of our lives are found in the movies. These deeply held stories about our lives are often more powerful in shaping our lives, in the longrun, than some of the news items which scream at us on a daily basis.

The power of film is indisputable…. Movies carry some sort of psychic charge that no other art form can quite match…. The mind seems to step into another sphere of engagement as the images of the screen flood into our receptive consciousness. Colin McGinn, The Power of Movies.

[Movies] remain in the twenty-first century our primary story-telling medium, interpreting reality for us and acting as a type of cultural glue…. Movies help us to “see.” They focus life for the viewer, giving us a richer variety of experience than would otherwise be possible. Robert K. Johnston, Reel Spirituality

Movies are powerful, and one powerful image that has graced the screen in the past fifty years has been the image of Paul Newman. My three favorite Newman films are Cool Hand Luke (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Verdict (1982) – the first Newman film I watched in a theater as best I can remember. Cool Hand Luke provides an image of someone creating a life story that is bigger than his life, and of someone whose sense of adventure rarely left him. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,with Robert Redford, is a film about male friendship, about the value of cunning, about the importance of humor. The Verdict is a film about redemption, where a lawyer down on his luck, becomes convinced of the rightness of a cause and risks everything to do the right thing. These pedantic descriptions don’t do justice to the richness of these films or their effect on our lives.




Part of Newman’s appeal to me went beyond his movies. He was a person who sought to use his fame to make a positive difference in the world. Newman’s Own salad dressings and spaghetti sauces have generated thousands of dollars for charity. Newman’s Sockarooni sauce is a personal favorite. Newman was politically active. Newman’s integrity carried over into his long marriage to JoAnn Woodward. We need not nominate Paul Newman for sainthood to recognize that he tried to do a lot of good. His off-screen life enhanced the images viewed on screen.




Paul Newman campaigning for Eugene McCarthy in Wisconsin in 1968

Films are powerful and their images help define reality for us. I am grateful for the work Paul Newman has left. And if it seems too unrelated to what has been going on in our world recently, here’s a thought.

One scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid involves a knife fight. Butch (Newman) is being challenged for leadership of his gang and the challenge comes in the form of a knife fight. Butch begins to tell Harvey, his challenger, that before the fight begins they need to lay down the rules. Harvey: “Rules? In a knife fight?” Butch: “Well, if there aren’t going to be any rules…” and he hauls off and gives Harvey a quick kick in the groin. Someone counts to three and Butch beats back the challenge, punching out an already double-overed Harvey.

When there aren’t any rules, sometimes someone gets kicked in the groin and is left bent over struggling for breath. Our banking and finance system have been operating with too few rules, and now we find our economic system bent over struggling for breath. Thank you, Paul, for helping me figure out what is going on in the world!

With Faith and With Feathers,
David

With my children getting older, I don’t watch as many Disney movies as once I did. And I am not certain how many lessons for the church there may be in Disney-produced video products – though I recently attended a workshop for United Methodist Boards of Ordained Ministry that made a fair amount of use of video clips from animated movies, including Disney movies. Truth be told, there are life lessons to be found in Disney movies, life lessons appropriate to the Christian witness of faith. We should judge the heart and not the appearance as Beauty and the Beast told us, for true beauty is beauty in the heart. Running away from one’s leadership responsibilities is likely to leave things in worse shape than trying to assume leadership amidst one’s own doubts – that’s the pertinent lesson of The Lion King. Toy Story teaches the value of friendship and community, even when our friends differ from us considerably.

Well, Disney has done it again. Last weekend I attended a stage version of the Disney movie High School Musical. I had seen the movie – having a daughter at home who still tunes into the Disney channel from time to time – and if you tune in you are likely to see the latest movie for they run with amazing frequency. I attended the stage version of High School Musical primarily because the male lead was played by a young man whose family attends my church. I wasn’t really pumped up to see the story again, but lo and behold, there I was and there was Disney again offering another lesson for the church.

The basic story line of High School Musical is of a young man, a star basketball player, who wants to use his gift for singing, and of a young woman, known as an exceptional math student who also can sing. They want to play the leads in the school musical, but their friends are reluctant, at first, to see them in these new roles. One song is entitled “Stick to the Status Quo,” and it could be a theme song for countless churches. Many faith communities go well beyond the admirable attempt to pass on the ancient wisdom of their faith tradition and make every conceivable change a matter of compromising the faith. “We’ve never done it that way before” is heard all too often in churches, and not to their benefit. The play also includes a song entitled “We’re All In This Together” a celebration of community that also appreciates the different gifts people have and rejoices that people might have gifts that surprise us. While it may be a bit of a stretch, I couldn’t help but think of some of Paul’s words in the New Testament where he compares a church to a body, where we need the differing gifts of each part and need each other. Churches would do well to be in tune with the song, “We’re All In This Together” and let go of singing “Stick to the Status Quo.” Unfortunately, unlike a Disney movie, such transformation usually doesn’t happen in ninty minutes.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

P.S. Almost lost in all of the news of the meltdown of our financial system, the price of oil, and the election campaign was the September 12 suicide/death of author David Foster Wallace at age 46. I have not read his most famous novel Infinite Jest, which weighs in at over 1000 pages, but have read some of his short stories and essays and thoroughly enjoyed them. Wallace was considered a genius by some, even receiving a MacArthur “genius grant.” I appreciated his intelligence, his wit and his humanity. He could make me laugh and make me think. I sometimes wonder about the connection between a certain self-destructiveness and creativity. Some of my favorite artists lived brief lives – Bix Beiderbecke, Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac, Thomas Wolfe, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton. But many others lived and worked creatively into later life – Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan is still going as he nears 70, Walt Whitman, Mary Oliver whose new book of poems I am reading and enjoying, and the list goes on. Human beings are too complex for any stereotype of self-destructive creativity to be accurate in more than a limited way. One need not generalize about this death to feel the tragedy of a lost voice – an voice that rang with intelligence and humor, compassion and appreciation for the depth and breadth of the human condition. The more campaign ads I hear, the more I long for such voices.

I have decided to form a new book club, the Methuselah Book Club. Thus all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty-nine years (Genesis 6:27). I figure it will take that kind of life span to read all the books I would like to read! Any other charter members out there?

One author whose books grace my shelf, mostly unread, is Ernest Becker. Becker was a social theorist who wrote about fundamental questions regarding the human condition. I have dipped into Becker’s work from time to time, but have not had the opportunity to delve more deeply into his writings and I look forward to the day when I will do that. Becker’s most well known work is The Denial of Death. It was awareded the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 1974, the year Becker died. The companion book, Escape from Evil was published posthumously. Cheery titles, I know.

Recently, I read an essay from Becker’s book Angel in Armor: a post-Freudian perspective on the nature of man. In “Everyman as Pervert, an essay on the pathology of normalcy” (again, intersting title – thankfully that wasn’t the book title!) Becker argues for a view of human maturity as accepting self-transcendence. That is, human beings are more mature, more fully human, when they can be open to an encounter with the fullness of the world, its mystery and complexity. “This is the way we give life its abundance of meaning: we revel in the multiplicity of natural mystery” (32). Becker argues “it takes strength to allow oneself to feel transcended” (33), that is, to acknowledge the depth of the other. We become human “by developing powers commensurate with responsible social living, by learning to endure failure, by respecting the integrity of other humans, by sagaciously testing the limits of his claims, by being suspicious of force, and seeking to check its use and dominion among men” (34). Becker’s vision of a healthy human community would be of “stong, independent, self-reliant people, who will be happy and patient to live with threatening complexity and overwhelming mystery” (34). “Man becomes supremely man by cultivating a sense of tragedy, responsibility, and awe” (34)

I would quibble with some of Becker’s terminology and certainly find his use of masculine pronouns troubling – but he was writing in a time before we became more cognizant of the limits of such langauge. However, I deeply appreciate Becker’s main argument – we are more fully human when we are open to the mystery and complexity of the world around us, when we can grant that others to whom we are related are truly other, that is, they have an integrity all their own which we need to appreciate.

In a very different genre, the poet Mary Oliver invites us to appreciate the beauty and complexity of the world in which we live. Oliver is a favorite poet of mine, and her most recent book of poems is Red Bird. I am savoring it a poem a day. One poem in this volume is “Another Everyday Poem” and in it she writes of considering lillies and ravens – each a miracle. Yet she also notices that “for the lillies/in their bright dresses/cannot last/but wrinkle fast/and fall,” The raven, too, in scavaging for food, reminds her of the brevity of life and beauty, but in the end even this brevity “makes the world/so full/so good.”

Openness to the world in all its beauty and mystery and tragedy – awe in encountering the mystery of another - - - Becker and Oliver, each in their own way invite me to this life stance. But I have heard the invitation before and keep trying to answer it, helped by writers like Becker and poets like Oliver. Jesus asked his disciples, among whom I count myself, to consider the lillies of the field, and he invites disciples to fullness of life. The prophet Isaiah invites us to consider the withering of the grass and the fading of the flower, in contrast to the enduring reality of God. Knowing that we, too, wither and fade, we nevertheless can find in the midst of our lives renewed strength, wings to take flight, as we are open to the God who is made known in the very mystery and complexity of life.

In his final months, Ernest Becker was interviewed by Sam Keen for Psychology Today. In that interview, Becker tells Keen, On my hard days, I am a Stoic and I know that the courageous thing to do is look straight at the wintery smile on the face of truth. But on those soft days when I am permeable to everything around me, anything seems possible and I know that the courageous way is the one with greater trust and greater openness to what is strange.

To live life with the courage to be open and trusting, even while acknowledging the wintery face of truth, is what I mean when I write about living with faith and with feathers.

David

It has been too long between posts. End of summer projects (installing some new blinds, removing paint from a small deck so that it might be stained) and gearing up for Fall church programming have consumed my time – as have the Olympic games and the political conventions.

I have been interested in politics since junior high school, and don’t ask me why. My parents were not particularly politically active and I don’t remember political discussions around the dinner table. Somewhere along the way I became interested in elections, political processes, history and I have remained interested since. My doctoral dissertation focused on Christian political ethics and theories of democracy. My children will remember political discussions around our dinner table.

So I watched the political conventions and I must say that I am delighted that this year in our presidential politics we will be making history. Barack Obama accepted the democratic nomination for president on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. If elected, he will be our first president with African ancestry – this in a country that at one time considered persons with even a drop of “African blood” less human, less than equal. King’s dream of a country where the content of character rather than the color of skin matters is coming a little closer. It is not here – that people still ask whether the country is “ready to elect and African-American president” tells us as much. We are also closer to a dream of a country where women have equal rights with men. If elected, Sarah Palin will be the first woman to be elected to the office of Vice-President. We are not there, yet, either. Questions about the appropriateness of a mother of five running for the office of Vice-President smack of sexism. Do we ask such questions of fathers of five? With both Obama and Palin, we should ask searching questions about their political records, their policy plans and their hopes and dreams for our country. That some questions will reflect our nation’s continuing struggle with racism and sexism tells us that we have on-going work to do – but we knew that already.

Speaking of on-going work, one of the most moving moments of either convention was the appearance of Senator Ted Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention. Whether you agree with him politically or not, the Kennedys have given years of public service to our nation, and it was good to see Senator Kennedy, dying of brain cancer at this convention, and to hear him address the delegates and the nation. This will probably be his last convention.

Politics is about more than elections and elected officials. Politics, at its best, is about how we decide to live together as a nation, how we will organize our common life and care for one another. Such decisions must not simply be given over to elected officials but must remain our shared concern. After the election we need to keep working to make a dream of a better county more real. Just as Dr. King said 45 years ago – “now is the time to make justice a reality for all God’s children.” And as Ted Kennedy reminded us in 1980, “the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

On Wednesday, August 27, I joined others in my community to do a little something to make the dream of a better world more real. Our prayer-walk through the Central Hillside in Duluth made the news. If you want to see that clip, here is the link:

Norhtland News Center story

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

I have also posted some thoughts about the concept of “vision” on my other blog, Bard’s Brushstrokes if you would like to check that out.

Bard's Brushstrokes

The Summer Olympics are over for another four years. We will remember the stories of Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson, Walsh and May-Treanor, and Dara Torres (who at age 41 was a marvel to everyone – I guess at age 49 the Olympics are now officially out of reach for me – another dream shattered!!). There are countless other stories, of course. There is the story of the U.S. men’s volleyball team winning the gold medal after the coach’s father-in-law was killed in a random act of violence in Beijing. Turns out that the father-in-law, Todd Bachman, was a good friend of someone in my church – small world sometimes.

One story that did not make quite as much noise, but nevertheless made The New Yorker (one of many magazines to which I subscribe) was the story of U.S. marathoner Ryan Hall (August 11 and 18 issue). Hall was a bright hope for a marathon medal this year, and may be in the future (he finished tenth in Beijing). The New Yorker story was fascinating in sharing some of the history of distance running in The United States. I also found one small section of the story intriguing. It seems that Ryan Hall is a devout Christian, and that this created some initial discomfort among his Stanford University running mates. One of those teammates was quoted in the article. Most of us weren’t religious. I’m not religious at all, and I felt threatened. What’s this guy going to do? Is he going to try and convert me? Is he judging me? It was partly my problem, of course. He’s one of the few Christians I know who aren’t judgmental.

Judgmental – it is a word that one hears often, too often, when religion is discussed. It is a word one hears often when Christians are mentioned. According to A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, Bryan A. Garner, “judgmental” can relate to making a judgment, but most often is used of “judging when uncalled for.”

O.k., but who determines when making a judgment is uncalled for? Sometimes the problem is not with the Christian, but, as admitted by the student above, the problem is with the person calling someone else “judgmental. While these are valid points, they can become an easy escape from a vitally important matter – the association in the minds of many between Christian faith and being judgmental. Another helpful term in this discussion, for me, is the term “moralistic.” When I teach my course on religious perspectives on health care ethics, I introduce the term “moralistic” to my students. I define “moralism” as: (1) the extension of the label “moral” to areas that don’t seem to apply, and (2) the rigid or inflexible application of moral rules. I tell my students that the danger in being “moralistic” is that the term “moral” loses its ability to call forth meaningful reflection. Being moralistic is to use the term moral when or in ways that it is uncalled for. Christians are frequently criticized for being judgmental and moralistic. While these assessments are not always valid, while the problem is sometimes with the person making the assessment, there is enough truth here to merit concern among Christians who don’t live their faith judgmentally or moralistically. I once heard a preacher in a United Methodist Church say that while he did not want to be a “narrow person” he would be as narrow as the Bible led him to be. Narrow, judgmental, moralistic – is that really central to Christian faith? I would like to think not.

Where does this judgmental, moralistic version of Christian faith come from? Delwin Brown in his recent book What Does a Progressive Christian Believe? argues that conservative Christianity in the United States has taken two primary tracks – one emphasizing right action and one emphasizing right belief. The “right action” conservative Christians, prior to the Civil War, focused on both personal and social holiness, and led opposition to slavery, promoted the rights of women, and struggled against poverty. He goes on to write: In the immense social strife after that war… their concerns turned sharply inward and private. By the 1870s evangelicalism was no longer preaching “social holiness.” Now the focus was on personal piety, which increasingly became trivialized as abstinence from card-playing, smoking, drinking, dancing and other “sins of the flesh.” (8)

Judging such actions, in and of themselves, to be significant, to see these as tremendously important moral issues, is a classic case of becoming judgmental or moralistic. Issues of human sexuality became a prominent concern along with dancing and card-playing, so that sexuality was often viewed as a suspect human phenomenon. Anything that smacked of sexuality was to be avoided. Again, this led to significant instances of judmentalism and moralism. It is a rather sad commentary to me that one very helpful piece of writing on the moral issues in human sexuality comes from a Buddhist (that’s not the sad part) and was not something I ever encountered in my own Christian journey through that kind of conservative Christian faith (that's the sad part). Sharon Salzberg, in Lovingkindness, writes: All too often, people will sacrifice love, family life, career, or friendship to satisfy sexual craving. Abiding happiness is given up for temporary pleasure, and a great deal of suffering ensues when we are willing to cause pain to satisfy our desires…. Sexuality is a very powerful force. A mature spirituality demands that we, without self-righteousness, commit to not harming ourselves or others through our sexual energy. (175-176) Here, sexuality is not condemned. It is acknowledged as powerful and because it is powerful we need to be careful in how we use our sexual energy. This is more helpful than much of what I remember learning in my early sojourn with Christian faith, where sex was suspect and you just didn’t go there – don’t ask questions. That kind of judmentalism and moralism are what people have experienced too often. That’s why people think that most Christians are judgmental.

Being judgmental is not the pure province of this kind of conservative Christianity. I have also seen it on the more liberal side of Christian faith. Here the problem is less making certain kinds of trivial behavior (card-playing, e.g.) a grave moral issue, it is more the inflexibility and rigidity that some “liberal” Christians use when discussing the moral commitments of Christians. Delwin Brown in his aforementioned book writes, You can be a Republican and a Christian – indeed, you can be a very conservative Republican and a Christian! (3) I know some Christians who would shudder at such a statement. They identify the social morality of Christian faith so completely with certain political positions that any who disagree are insufficiently Christian or prophetic. Some of the most heated, pitched battles among Christians are among the narrower, more judgmental, more moralistic people on both sides of an issue.

Somehow I think Christian faith at its best lives with the paradox of holding passionate and thoughtful intellectual and moral commitments, and doing so with humility and graciousness. Patrick Henry in The Ironic Christian’s Companion describes this kind of Christian faith beautifully. Once upon a time the term “Christian” meant wider horizons, a larger heart, minds set free, room to move around. But these days “Christian” sounds pinched, squeezed, narrow. Many people who identify themselves as Christian seem to have leap-frogged over life, short-circuited the adventure. When “Christian” appears in the headline, the story will probably be about lines drawn, not about boundaries expanded…. Curiosity, imagination, exploration, adventure are not preliminary to Christian identity; a kind of booster rocket to be jettisoned when spiritual orbit is achieved. They are part of the payload. (8-9)

Can we get there in Christian faith? When we get there, how might we change the perception that most Christians are intellectually narrow, arrogantly judgmental, and priggishly moralistic? Oh for the day when people are concerned about Christians not because they are too judgmental, moralistic, or narrow, but because they are too adventuresome, courageous, and creative in their intellectual and moral commitments.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

Traces of Grace

So, I get home from Jurisdictional Conference early morning on July 20 and am in worship later that same morning. Thankfully, some kind and gifted persons from my congregation had agreed to lead worship on that day. I shared my experience with the congregation - the beginning of the next chapter of our life together.

The week following was busy and blessed. I prepared for the following Sunday – July 27. I officiated or helped officiate at two weddings on the 26th – and that was a joy and privilege. Then we went on “vacation” - - - which involved moving our son’s belongings from Fargo, North Dakota to Duluth, where he will be entering a Master’s degree program in “Political Advocacy and Leadership” at the University of Minnesota here, and our older daughter’s belongings from Duluth to Minneapolis where she is entering medical school at the University of Minnesota. Our younger daughter was touring with Strikepoint, the world class handbell choir from First UMC where I am the pastor. When I think about my children, I am often overwhelmed by feelings of grace. They are delightful human beings.

All of this – and sorry if this seems the blog version of home made vacation slides (do some of you even know what those are??) – is a prelude to the mission trip we left for on Sunday August 3. Jurisdictional Conference, a busy week, an even busier vacation - - - and then off to South Dakota, Tree of Life Ministry on the Rosebud Reservation (a place we had been two years before). I was none too excited about doing this given all that had come before. I was tired. I was still trying to integrate all that had happened at Jurisdictional Conference.

As we were leaving, traces of grace wove their way into the journey. I heard that friends from the United Methodist Church in Alexandria, Minnesota, the community in which we had lived before moving to Duluth, and the church which my family attended as I was traveling as a district superintendent, were also going to be at Tree of Life. Their pastor, Jeff Hanson, is a close friend, and Jeff Reed from their church is a person I continue to get to know better and appreciate deeply (see the link to Jeff’s blog under “Links”). As we turned south from the freeway toward Rosebud and Tree of Life, a deep sense of peacefulness filled my heart. Was it returning to a familiar place? Was it knowing that in addition to being with good friends from my church (Ron, Carolyn, Laura, Dale, and my wife Julie) we were going to be at Tree of Life with old friends from Alexandria? Was it knowing that I was really going to be in a very different place doing different kind of work for a few days? I don’t know, except to say that this peacefulness was a trace of grace.

Arriving that night, the people from Alexandria were going to share in communion, and we were invited. Though I had yet to eat dinner that evening, I felt I needed to wait to do that. Some deeper hunger needed to be fed. As we shared the bread and the cup, I knew that though I had traveled reluctantly, this was where I needed to be. Traces of grace.

One day a few of us worked to begin repairing and restoring a home that had been badly burned in an electrical fire. As I walked through the house, there in what had been a bedroom was a box of VHS tapes – American Graffiti, Forest Gump among others, reminding me of a common humanity shared across racial-ethnic and socio-cultural and geographic lines. There, in that same room, was an overturned plastic crate on which a bird had built a nest. I walked over to look more closely and inside that nest were four eggs – new life emerging in a burned out building. Traces of grace. Where was God tracing new patterns in my life in places where I might be feeling a little burned out?

The traces of grace continued after leaving Rosebud. As mentioned, my older daughter is entering medical school and on Friday of that same week, we attended her “white coat” ceremony. The ceremony marks the entry of new students into medical school, but more importantly is meant to remind them that theirs is a humanistic profession – humanistic not in opposition to “theistic” but humanistic in contrast to a narrow scientism which forgets that medicine, while deeply rooted in science, is ultimately about the healing of persons and families. Listening to speakers talk about the meaning of the medical profession I was reminded that in many ways my own career as a pastor is a humanistic profession, too. It is a theistic humanism, rooted in a deep conviction that human life is ultimately healed as it is healed in relationship to God – but humanistic nonetheless. Pastors should be theologically astute, but the best theologian who does not care for the people God has entrusted to their leadership and care is not a terribly good pastor. Traces of grace can be reminders of why we do what we do.

Pictures can convey traces of grace, too – and here are some from our mission trip – including a picture of that remarkable scene of new life. May this be a trace of grace for you.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David