Pastor Jackie

    I was reading an article on youth ministry and the difficulties associated with it.  The ways that the parents trust the”church” to care for and behave appropriately with their children.  One of the people who was writing the article said “Yes, but people must realize that the church is full of sinners, and sinners make mistakes.”  I have been thinking about that alot as we move forward with a youth program and youth ministries.  Some folks have questioned who gets to work within that program.
    Perhaps, I am very old fashioned, and yet, I still believe that every single person deserves respect.  No matter how old or young they are.  If we could always respect each other, I don’t think there would be a need for background checks, fingerprint checks, jails that are overflowing, wars that keep our children from playing outside, and fear of people we don’t know.  How do we teach our kids to respect each other when we don’t respect them?  When we grab them and shake them, or talk down to them consistently?  How do we teach them to love and value the differences within each of us, if we as adults, only want to make fun of and laugh at people who are different?  
    I’ve been trying to remember that, youth especially, watch what people they respect do, and try to mimic that behavior.  They will never tell you that, but that is how they learn.  That is how they learn how to eat in restaurants, how they learn to smoke, how they learn to swear, how they learn to love.  That is true character, when one acts when no one is watching you the same way you would act when someone is watching you.  My hope is that someday, I will all be able to reflect God’s character in all of my actions.

    Sometimes I don’t think we realize how lucky we are in this country.  I just read an e-mail from the moderator of our denomination who was resporting about people across the world who are missing or have been murdered simply because they are GLBT.  Two lesbians watching a baby in their apartment, all three murdered.  
    We continue to standby as people defend violence against other people in the name of religion.  We allow people to be killed, jailed, starved, raped, and degraded because we are afraid of what other people might say about us, how they might look at us as we go into a restaurant, or how our friends might avoid us if we are TOO out.  I often hear people say, “Can’t you just exist, do you always have to fight for something?”  No, I guess I don’t always have to fight for something, but I do have to stand up for those that can not stand up for themselves.  So sometimes when I get tired, or when I have been pushed around all day, and I want to quit, I try to remind myself of those two women and that baby that were murdered simply because they were trying to be the people that God created them to be.  That makes me mad enough to do whatever I can to secure the human rights for everyone.  May it be so.

    I was reading some new statistics this morning about youth, suicide, religion, and families.  I am amazed at how many of our glbtq youth feel like they can’t go to church because God hates them, or they are going to burn in eternal damnation because of the way God created them.  Teaching Tolerance magazine calls this faith based bullying.  What a name, when I was in school, no such thing.
    We often try to bully people who don’t believe the way we do, don’t we.  I think this is a pitfall of the christian tradition.  We have taken the “Go out into all the world” part as a license to beat each other up over what we “Know” is right.  Sometimes, I wish I really knew the truth the way some people do.  I find it scary and sad, the way we claim the truth.  The fact of the matter is that for me I think the more I study and the more I learn and listen to God, the less I know for certain.
    I believe that wisdom brings wonder and questions, new lens to see the world and each other through, and new ways to be the people that God created us to be.  Let us all grow in wisdom.

    I was wondering this morning as I walked through the church by myself, thinking about an e-mail I received from a friend last night, if people ever really take time in their day to listen for God.  I know lots of people who pray and talk to God, but I wonder about the listening part.  It is very hard to listen, especially if what you begin to hear is not what you want to hear.  There are many days I want to run around with my fingers in my ears saying la la la la la la la.  However, I have never found that very beneficial for myself or the person who is trying to talk to me.
    I was actually thinking that might be exactly what we do to God, when we don’t take time to stop and listen.  Perhaps that is why some of us get awakened in the night, because that is the only time we stop making noise and nonsense long enough for God to speak with us.  
    I was talking with some high school students the past couple of days, and some of them are amazed that we as a congregation want to know what they think.  I can hardly believe that, but they didn’t think that adults, especially adults associated with a faith community would want to know anything about what they thought or experienced.  Just as we want to know what the youth think in my faith community on earth, God wants to dialogue with us in the faith community that joins us beyond earthly bounds.

            I had a friend who just got home from volunteering with the Red Cross, and was sent to
Baton Rouge to help with the hurricane aftermath.  Her description of how things are progressing is scary at best.  This doesn’t even touch the people in Houston or anywhere in Texas and their situations.  How does one respond to such overwhelming need?  I don’t really know, but I do know this. 

            Often it seems like bad things happen to good people.  (I think there was a book by that name) J Here is how I have come to think about that.  Often we get a hold of something that we determine is what God wants us to have, and we hold on so tight that it can’t change into what God wants us to have.  Only by letting go, or loosing what we are holding onto, can we grasp anew what God has for us.  This is often uncomfortable at best and terminal at worst, yet necessary. 

            I can remember my mom giving me a rose with thorns on it when I was just a little girl.  (I know, its hard to imagine) But, what she told me after I squeezed it so hard that I stuck the thorns in my hands, was “You must learn to love gently, only hold things tight enough to help them feel safe and loose enough to breathe.”  I try to remember this, but continue to have to learn about the thorns over and over again.

            Sometimes, we forget just what separates us from life and death.  I was reminded once again that it is nothing more than a heartbeat.  That is the physiological thing that separates us, yet when life disintegrates to nothing more than a heartbeat; it often seems that we are already dead.  I wonder if in that space of life, if God is what gives that heartbeat depth and breadth.  I imagine that if humankind were void of any sense of wonder and searching, that we might just roam around in that space of  a heartbeat. Sort of senseless, I’m sure you know people that you believe are in that space.

            I pray that we might always remember that the space between heartbeats is ours to do with as we wish.  We are faced with decisions every second of every day about how to treat one another, what to read, what to eat, and how to spend our free time.  At least for me, those decisions must be enveloped with a sense of awe and wonder in the creation that God has made each of us to be.  I rarely make random decisions anymore, without wondering about how they will impact the people around me.  I wonder, if that is not part of the act of picking up the basin and the towel each day.  To serve or to be served, I wonder what the creator would have us to focus on.

Lawrence King, you remember him, the 15 year old that was shot in the head twice by a classmate in California.  There is a great article in the Teaching Tolerance magazine this month.  You can read it by going to www.teachingtolerance.org  then follow the link to the current issue and click on the Lawrence King article.  There are a lot of interesting articles on this web site.  One of the things that makes this a great place to visit (as far as a web site goes), is that it has information that has been researched.  It is not just someones opinion.  Granted, often I think my opinion matters, but not when I want to understand the depth of an issue.
    For example, 75% of gay students report being verbally abused at school, and more than 33% say they are physically harassed.  LGBTQ students are 5 times more likely to skip school than the general population.  Let us only consider these facts, is there really any wonder that they are 5 times more likely to try to commit suicide?  It is not ok to sit silently by and wait for someone else to change policies to save the lives of these youth.  The suicide notes will probably not read, because I was gay.  The amount of lonliness and isolation that is self inflicted in an effort to create a “safe environment” is overwhelming.  We must educate educators to begin to take steps to change this bullying.  I must respond. I can not wait any longer.

    I was listening to a news report on the Republican Vice Presidential candidate and some womens groups in Alaska this morning.  Then I read an article from Anchorage Alaska about Focus On The Family and their conference Love Won Out, which is about homosexuality being a sin and a choice, one I might add that you can change.  You might be asking yourself what these two things have to do with each other, they are both about hate and pushing the “I’m right, your wrong” agenda. 
    I really believe that both are about fear.  The bottom line is that sometimes it is scary to be around people who are different than you and who don’t function the way that you understand.  Sometimes, we can use God as that lightening bolt to throw at those who are “different” from us.  You see my friend, sometimes the lightening strikes both ways.  It is often easier to hate those you disagree with than it is to accept them and to love and respect them.  I find it incredibly difficult to love and always respect those who are throwing stones at me, but that is in fact what I believe the God whom I serve asks of me.  I pray daily, that God will enable me to raise those whom I do not understand up into Sacred Space.

   I spent a few minutes with the director of Positive Directions yesterday, talking about youth and AIDS.  That is one of the groups that AIDS is soaring in, the youth of today.  Could it be that they did not see the generation of men that we lost?  Could it be that in their youth, they can not take the time to use a condom?  I remember in the early 80’s standing at the doors of the bars and handing condoms to every single person that left.  Some of the women thought we were crazy, but….you never know who will decide to play with whom.  (A reality that most of my pastor friends in mainline denominations ignore)
    I am not sure of the cause, but I know that my heart is heavy thinking of the young people I am beginning to spend time with, even if only through e-mail, rotting away with this hideous disease.  I continue to pray for wisdom in decisions, and that extra minute during play time.

There is a song called The Basin and the Towel.  It speaks about the servant Jesus and our need to become servant every day.  The song starts out talking about the disciples bickering about who was better, as quietly Jesus gets up to get the basin and the towel to wash their feet.  Somedays it seems that we didn’t learn that lesson very well.  I am always amazed at the people who think that someone should serve them.
    I was talking with a friend from a main stream congregation who said that he would be happy to help with the homeless except they never seem very grateful.  They always want more than is available.  I always find it more rewarding when I approach opportunities with the attitude of meeting Jesus in the other person, not taking Jesus to them.  Very seldom am I let down.  Somedays, it is hard to remember, so I now have a post it note on my desk that simply says “Don’t forget, the basin and the towel.”