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Devotional Thoughts Ministry

Sowing Love

It’s love day. Valentine’s Day, 2022. We go all out, don’t we? We buy the cards, the flowers, the chocolates. Or, if you’re like a lot of the fellas I saw at the mall last night, you’re buying the jewelry and the chocolate chip cookie cake in sheer desperation. (Then there was the guy who I think was buying balloons, flowers, and chocolates for at least five different people.) Why do we save all the love-sharing for one day of the year?

I love how things come together. Yesterday in Bible study, we discussed Mark 4–the parable of the sower (or seeds, depending on how you want to look at it). Then this morning, this cartoon landed in my Instagram feed.

Jesus sowing love
This cartoon of Jesus as the sower sowing love gives me a new perspective on the parable. Art by David Hayward (@NakedPastor and nakedpastor.com).

As David writes:

The sower just throws seed everywhere. Some land here and some land there. He just throws it indiscriminately all over the field and beyond its borders and on all kinds of surfaces and in all kinds of places.

Some places are receptive. Some are not.
Some places are dangerous. Some are not.
Some are hostile. Some are not.

The lover doesn’t care.
The lover sows love everywhere.

I like this idea of sowing love much better than the typically evangelistic idea of spreading the word of God in order to “save souls” (never mentioned in the text).

Growing up around avid gardeners, I know a little bit about how seed is spread. When you garden, it’s different. You till the soil and create neat little rows. You go along behind and drop seeds or plant a seedling, gently and lovingly covering it up or patting the soil around it just so. Then you water it. Being married to a lawn care specialist gives me a different perspective. While the grasses where we live are usually sodded, grass where we used to live is broadcasted. When my husband broadcasted grass seed after preparing the lawn, seed could go pretty much anywhere. It certainly wasn’t unusual for some to land on the sidewalk or driveway, only to be swept or blown into the yard.

Whether you’re a gardener sowing seeds carefully or a lawn care specialist broadcasting seed with a spreader or by hand, you don’t quit or stop when things happen. Click here to go to Mark 4, and this is from The Message. If weeds invade the garden, the farmer doesn’t quit gardening. She doesn’t leave the food to rot, nor does she decide not to garden the following year. Same with the lawn care specialist. So what if some seeds land on the driveway where they’d never come up? He doesn’t quit because of that; he gets the seeds into the yard and goes on to the next account.

The majority of times this passage is studied and discussed, participants are challenged to think of themselves as either soil or seeds. If we’re soil then we have to choose if we’re hard and unrelenting, rocky, thorny, or good. Of course, we all want to be good soil. Or maybe we’re seeds. We’re seeds that never even take root or seeds that have a burst of life then die quickly. Or perhaps we are seeds that grow well enough but allow thorns [worries] to choke out our joy. We want to be the robust, fruitful seeds, and that’s what we hope to be.

But what about the sower? We don’t often think about him. We are called to sow the Word in this parable. Now, you might be thinking, how in the world do I get from “Word” to “love”? In John 1, we read, “the Word was God.” In I John 4, “God is love.” It’s basic math. If Word=God and God=love, then Word=love.

The sower, Jesus, sows love. Sometimes it lands on hard hearts. These hearts want this love, but just aren’t ready for it. The little persistent voice questions, “What makes you think you deserve this?” The person lets that love go because they don’t think they’re worthy.

Sometimes, the love lands on hearts that are softened and so ready. There’s that moment–and it lasts for a little while. The heart blooms under the warmth of this love, but then somehow it gets convinced that they’re not receiving the love the right way–maybe because of someone else’s religious doctrines–and it withers.

Still other times the love lands on hearts that receive it happily and gratefully. It’s thriving and growing, but then worries creep in. “Is this for real?” “How can he love me like this?” “How do I love him?” “But what about that time in college when…?” The plaguing of their minds and anxieties, doubts about their intrinsic self-worth, keeps the love from blooming to its fullest and makes it hard for the person to sow love themself.

Then the love can also fall on richly fertile, receptive hearts. This is love that takes root and grows. In the parable, Mark tells us that it yields an abundant harvest. That love blooms in our hearts, fills our souls, and pours out of us. It liberates us from all that has been holding us bondage and all that keeps us from loving God, others, and ourselves.

Then something incredible happens. We become sowers ourselves. Now it’s on us to follow the Jesus Way and sow love into the hearts of others. Sometimes the love will fall on hard hearts. Sometimes it’ll get an immediate positive reception then wither. Other times it’ll start growing in someone and their worries and anxieties will choke it out. Then still other times, it’ll land, take root, and grow, and another sower will join us. No matter where the love lands, all we’re supposed to do is broadcast that love everywhere to everyone, season after season.

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Books

“Maus I”–Thoughts and Reflections

When I was in eighth grade, our English teacher had us watch Escape From Sobibor. Sobibor was a Nazi extermination camp in Poland that housed Russian POWs as well as Jews, Romanis, and others who the Third Reich deemed “undesirable.” To this day, I have no idea why our teacher had us watch this. It seems reasonable that it would have been an introduction to the Holocaust as a precursor to reading The Diary of Anne Frank, but it wasn’t, and we didn’t read it. What I do know is that it was my first exposure to the horrors that were the Holocaust and that led me to learning about this period of history, ultimately focusing on the psychological factors that would lead one seriously psychologically fucked up (not an actual diagnosis) dude to, in turn, convince millions of people that one people group was evil because they didn’t look like everyone else.

(*Side note*–In more recent studies on race in America, I’ve learned that the anti-Black laws of the Jim Crow era were considered to be “too extreme” by Nazi standards. Yes, the Nazis in the ’30s looked to America for guidance on how to oppress racial minorities but rejected some of what we were doing because it was too much.)

When Maus hit the news as the latest on the banned book list, I had to investigate this. I also resolved to read it, no matter what. Why? Because reading books outside of my usual preferences of genres and authors stretches my mind. Also, if someone is finding a book offensive enough to want to remove it from age-appropriate curricula, then I’m curious about what’s so bad about it.

Maus tells the story of the author’s parents’ experiences living as Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. The story bounces between the modern day as Artie, the author–Art Spiegelman–talks to his father and also deals with the frustrations of their relationship; and the past as Vladek tells his story and shares his memories with his son. The book is a graphic novel with Jews portrayed as mice, Nazis as cats, and Polish citizens as pigs. Y’all, I’d never read a graphic novel in my life before this one (stepping outside my preferred genre). The anthropomorphisms soften but don’t negate the impact of the story.

I don’t want to give spoilers, but it made me feel. Spiegelman conveys the hope, fear, uncertainty, and sadness his parents experienced as they tried to avoid arrest. His frustration with his aging father also comes through the pages as he grapples with the disparity in the situations between his own upbringing in modern day New York (well, modern in the mid 1980s) and his father’s life back in Poland in the ’30s and ’40s. This frustration comes to a head at the end of the book which left me angry and sad for Vladek, though I could also empathize with Artie’s frustrations over this emotional disconnect between father and son.

As the McMinn County, Tennessee, school board pointed out, there is partial nudity and profanity in the book, and given its subject matter, there are also several incidents of violence. Nothing in this book, however, can compare with watching dozens of nude women and children being gassed to death in a Sobibor gas chamber, nor can it compare with the portrayal of an SS soldier coldly shooting a Jewish mother and her newborn infant, also in Escape From Sobibor. If books and movies lead us to pursue their subject matters–especially history–and that pursuit of knowledge further leads us to learn things like white supremacy is evil and how propaganda works, then there is no explicit threat in these materials. The only reason people have problems with teenagers learning about the people who were the targets of pogroms of genocide aimed at exterminating an entire race of people is, those teenagers might learn how to be more empathetic towards people not like them–or their parents. And echoing what many have said, eighth graders see worse on TV, video games, on social media, and on the internet.

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Mental Health

Will We Recognize the End of Pandemic Exhaustion?

I’m tired, y’all. This pandemic is dragging forever, and people are just ugly. A new friend used the term “pandemic exhaustion.” Maybe I’m late to the game. Maybe it’s talked about more in her church than mine. Whichever, this was the first time I remember hearing that term. I suspect “pandemic fatigue” crossed my consciousness once or twice, but exhaustion captures what we’re all feeling more than fatigue does.

Truth to tell, I think I’ve been exhausted by all the ugliness since 2016. It was less bad then. Like many of my friends and relatives, I thought the election and everything leading up to it was fine drama. Some people allowed their ugliness to show through then. One person offered scathing vitriol against everyone who had voted for the winner, little acknowledging or caring that good people had their own reasons for voting as they had. (Focusing on a single issue or two drives me nuts, but that’s how some people vote.) I thought maybe that was the worst I’d have to be exposed to, but no such luck.

When March 2020 hit and this novel Covid-19 virus that had been “over there” showed up “over here,” we thought it’d be over with fairly quickly. We heard all about “flattening the curve,” leading to the belief that if we did everything right, we could make this new enemy go away. Only, it didn’t. The curve went up and plateaued, then down and plateaued, then back up. Every time it’s gone down, society becomes a maskless, gathering free-fot-all, and the curve goes back up. Am I the only one who doesn’t see the relationship here? I know I’m not the only one who thinks that keeping mask mandates in place for an additional two months after cases drop isn’t the worst idea in the world. After all, if something’s working, why stop doing it?

Now it’s almost two years later. People have been acting out in person and on social media. The vitriol hasn’t abated. If anything, it’s gotten worse. My friend and I were talking about this, and that’s when “pandemic exhaustion” entered the conversation.

Masking. Social distancing. Quarantining. Not seeing loved ones. Understanding the germaphobia of TV detective Adrian Monk. Manic hand washing. Students being sent home when a classmate tests positive for Covid. Parents having to adjusts their whole lives–not just suddenly working from home, but also having to be present to children while they, too, are at home. Disorientation. Confusion. Uncertainty of who to trust.

In addition to these issues, any one of which by itself can send someone into a crisis state, there’s also people struggling with previously existing mental health problems. Suicide rates went up. People with depression got worse. Anxiety went through the roof. I spent the first three months in survival mode, fighting constantly to keep anxiety at bay and also helping one daughter as she struggled with college classes that suddenly went online and crying with my other daughter as activity after activity disappeared from her year.

After all this time–over five years at this point–will we be able to recognize the end of the exhaustion? Will we be able to feel when the crisis has abated? When all the health officials have determined that the pandemic has either passed or become endemic, will we be able to trust them? I wonder if ugliness is the new normal or if the end of the pandemic will mark a reset to the way people treat each other?

Even nice, compassionate people are struggling. I’ve watched marriages dissolve. People who believe that the lives of our friends of different shades of brown, those of our friends in the LGBTQIA community, and the lives of the vulnerable in our society (those most susceptible to dying from Covid) fight and advocate. We celebrate the little victories, like guilty verdicts handed down in the lynching murders of innocent Black men. We mourn the hospitalizations and deaths of children who are too young for vaccines. We feel angry at continued systems of oppression and injustice. And it doesn’t seem ever to stop.

When this is over, when our society and culture gets whatever our reset will look like, the compassionate people will still be compassionate. We’ll be a bit scarred, a bit battle-weary and -hardened, but compassion was our trademark before the pandemic and it will still be who we are coming out of it. If anything, our compassion has had opportunities to grow in the moments between the struggles.

Those who have allowed anger and vileness to become their modus operandi will remain angry and vile, though hopefully less so. Crises show us who we really are, and the past five years, and especially the last two, have ripped the masks off of many people, allowing everyone to see them for who they really are. Then there are the few others. These are the people who were angry and could be easily manipulated because of their own anger but who woke up. They had a figurative bucket of cold water splashed over them, and they realized that their anger and vitriol had been hurting them and don’t want that for themselves anymore. These folks are likely to leave ugliness behind. Maybe they’ll join the compassionate. Who knows?

If you’re reading this and you’re identifying with the exhaustion–exhaustion with the ongoing pandemic, ugliness, struggles–know you’re not alone, though it can certainly feel like it. Keep playing it safe and kind. Create space for exercise at least four days a week, even if it’s nothing more than taking a 20-minute walk. Develop a habit of mindfulness where you can find silence around and within you. Talk to someone; nurture those close relationships. (I’ve found that in talking to friends, I learn that our struggles are similar, so we can be servants to each other.)

And most of all… Theme for 2022… Be kind to yourself.

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Devotional Thoughts Ministry

What Does it Mean to “Make Disciples”?

There are few phrases in church language that make me cringe, but “make disciples” is one of them. What does it mean to “make disciples”?

This idea of making disciples comes from the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20:

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (NIV)

But consider also this same passage from The Message:

“Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” (Emphasis mine.)

Many churchy people glom onto that “baptizing them” part and think, Making disciples means getting people into church so they can get baptized. Some people think it at least means getting people to come to church, to put their butts in the pews and their offerings in the plate. For many churches, numbers are important, supposedly indicators of how well the pastor is doing and how well the ministries of the church are functioning.

Making disciples has nothing to do with pew warming and getting dunked. Look at what Jesus says in The Message version. Making disciples means training people in the Jesus way of life and putting into practice all he’d commanded them. What does this mean? Short version, check out the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and the parable of the sheep and the goals in Matthew 25. That’s what Jesus had taught them and commanded them–changing one’s attitude, loving and respecting others, loving our enemies (whoah!!!), and taking care of Jesus as he appears in the least of the outcasts of society.

That’s what Jesus had taught them over the course of three years. (The Greek root for “disciple” means “to teach.”) They were disciples; Jesus had made them disciples as he taught them day-in and day-out. Now he’s commissioned them–and us–to teach others what they’ve been taught, or more importantly, what they’ve learned. Jesus never told the disciples to go out and bring people into church; he told them to teach others his ways, and the way of Christ is radical, sacrificial love.

 

 

 

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Devotional Thoughts

Getting Off Track

I’ll start with a confession: I gossiped.

No one had to tell me I was gossiping or confront me on it. The Holy Spirit took care of that part.

When we live our lives living the Jesus way–you know, that whole “love God, love your neighbor” thing–we tend to be more liberated to live full, authentic lives. It seems like we’re doing more. After all, loving people is hard sometimes. Yet, when we are so focused on living lives of love then we aren’t so worried about our own sins or “attacks by the devil” or any of the other myriad things that turn our attention onto ourselves and off of God and others.

This same particular weekend, I had committed another indiscretion, this one dietary. For over five months, our family has been following the Mediterranean diet lifestyle, and it is a lifestyle, not just a fast way to lose weight. It’s been good. The food is delicious and healthy, we’ve been surprised at how our thinking has changed, and as the mom-person, I’ve been pleased that my girls are cleaning their plates (not something that happened all the time when we were eating more processed junk). Eating clean changes the body and those foods that make the tastebuds tango and the pleasure neurons fire don’t necessarily make the gut so happy.

It was the last Saturday of soccer season for my tween, and as is customary, the league provided locally made donuts for the players. As her game was the last one, they invited the parents to take one, too. Deep-fried cinnamon-sugar coated goodness… Surely it won’t make that much of a difference? WRONG! My stomach wasn’t happy. I’d already promised my daughter we’d hit up a new local ice cream parlor for cones on the way home. Yeah… Neither of us was feeling so hot by bedtime. Even though our tongues enjoyed the flavors and textures of all this yummy goodness, the bodies we’d so faithfully kept clean protested the junk.

My spirit reacted the same way to the gossip. It was informative finding out what was going on (it meant a dangerous person was no longer living in our neighborhood), but my spirit felt “off” for listening and discussing the events in the life of the family he left behind. What was pleasurable at first bite didn’t settle in the body well.

Spiritual cleanliness, like nutritional cleanliness, leaves us more vulnerable to rather loud nudges when we do something to sully our clean spirits (or bodies). Those things that used to bring us pleasure or joy no longer will as we fill our lives with better activities that result in even more joy.

 

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Devotional Thoughts Ministry

You are Welcome at the Table

You are welcome at the table of the Lord. Yes, you. And you. And you. Absolutely everyone in the world with open internet access (and a good translation app) can read this blog. That means I’m potentially addressing anyone in the world, and I’m including them all in the first sentence.

My tween and I weren’t feeling like getting up and dressed for church this morning, so we planned to stay home. No, it’s not that we were being slack; in fact, we attend small group Bible studies and worship pretty much every week. But there wasn’t really going to be a Bible study for her due to a retreat she opted not to go on, and our small group facilitator was out of town, so there was going to be something vital missing for us. Instead, we rested and then took advantage of being able to livestream the worship service of a church about two hours away.

For that hour, we were transfixed and transformed. In our living room, the two of us joining together with thirteen other parties online and many more in person, we worshipped. Responsive readings. Liturgies. Hymns. Spirituals. Prayers. We joyously participated in this worship. And we got convicted and uncomfortable. It’s the kind of discomfort that makes me want to DO something but has no idea where to start. I feel clumsy and fumbling in my efforts, and my OCD and hatred of that feeling–of not having it together before I start–can make me give up before I even begin. But I want to begin. As imperfect as my attempts may be, I pray that God blesses and refines the attempts to bring God’s love and justice to all I encounter.

Click play to listen to the powerful sermon. While it might not tick all the “proper sermon form” boxes, it was most definitely Spirit-breathed. (If you have time, go ahead and watch the whole service; it’s all inspiring.)

This service’s theme of being welcome to the table and there being ample room at the table reminded me of a pastor’s words of comfort and grace one Sunday service over a decade ago. When children misbehave, it is sometimes customary for their parents not to allow them to sit at the table for dinner, or maybe to dismiss them to their rooms from the dinner table. “Go to your room!” they command. Yet God never does this; God never dismisses us from the fellowship of the table. All are welcome. You are welcome. There’s plenty of room at the table, and I’m happy to dine with you.

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Ministry

When a Bandaid Hunt Brings Happiness and Sadness

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Devotional Thoughts Mental Health

Handling Anxiety–Old Testament and New

We think anxiety is a fairly new problem with which to deal. We talk about anxiety disorders and it’s not uncommon to see commercials on television or ads in magazines touting the benefits of this anti-anxiety medication or that one. In short, anxiety is in front of us in a way it wasn’t forty or more years ago.

Yet, anxiety is a timeless condition. Jesus spoke about not worrying in a passage that is quite familiar to me–and, in fact, one I include in Finding Peace. Imagine my surprise when I found another word on preventing anxiety, this time in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes is from the body of Old Testament wisdom literature, presumably written by Solomon. We sometimes joke that the theme of the book is the meaninglessness of everything. Life is meaningless. Death is meaningless. Work is meaningless. Laziness is meaningless. “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “All is meaningless!”

What isn’t so meaningless, though, is finding joy in the every day. The Teacher says, “Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun–all your meaningless days” (Eccl. 9:8-9a, NIV). The lesson here is to make the most of each day. Be present in each day. This is a command; “Do this,” the Teacher says.

I love a good three-point argument, and the Teacher doesn’t disappoint. First, he says “always wear white.” Get dressed in clean clothes. Don’t be slouching around in your pajamas and grungy clothes every day. Second, the Teacher instructs his students to anoint their heads with oil. This was a basic grooming and hygiene practice for this time period. It would be the like the modern-day equivalent of washing and styling your hair. In other words, take care of your body. Last, he says, “Enjoy life with your wife, who you love.” Be mindful and intentional of your relationships. Enjoy them, not just life with your spouse but also your children, your grandchildren, your circle of friends who are like family. Live into the moments with them because those moments are so short.

In the New Testament, we encounter a different rabbi, a different but no less wise teacher. We see Jesus and hear his instructions. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), we see Jesus telling his listeners how to live. His teachings have two main foci: Authentic faith living and not being wrapped up in temporal concerns. In the second part of chapter 6, Jesus tells his listeners to look around them, to see the flowers and birds. God takes care of them, so would not God take even better care of God’s own children? The birds don’t stress about working and never go hungry; they always have enough. The wildflowers that are so beautiful–even more beautiful than Solomon in all his royal robes, Jesus says–are tomorrow’s fire fuel. God makes them look that good, so God will also attend to our bodies’ needs for clothing.

Then Jesus gives a command, this time a “don’t.” “Don’t worry about tomorrow,” he instructs, “for tomorrow will take care of itself. Today’s got enough worries of its own for you to deal with” (Mt. 6:34). We don’t feel anxious about what’s going on now because we’re experiencing it in this moment. Anxieties come when we start fretting about some future event or concern. Will we be able to afford that new hot water heater? How will we pay for our child’s college? What if no one at the reunion talks to me? These are legit, real concerns, and many people struggle with them.

What Jesus is saying here is, “Be present to today.” A few verses before this one, Jesus asks, “Who of you can add one inch to his height by worrying?” We can’t. Worries, stresses, anxieties–however you want to label what you’re feeling and going through–do not benefit us in any way and, in fact, rob us of what joy we can find in today. My husband and I are in that “How are we going to pay for that new HVAC system?” season of anxiety. It’s hotter than Satan’s arm pit outside and our air conditioner chooses now to act up. If I were to spend all my time fretting about this very ugly reality, then I would forget to pay the here-and-now bills, feel too overwhelmed to want to shop for groceries, and be completely unable to show up for my girls. These are all of today’s concerns and responsibilities, and they are what require my attention now. As I live into these things, guess what happens? I manage to let go of some anxiety. The HVAC is still an issue. However, by following this simple command of Jesus, I have changed how anxious I feel.

However you choose to live into today, do it. Be present to every minute. Show up for yourself in ways both small and big–everything from getting dressed in the mornings to working out. Show up for others and be present in your relationships with them. Focus on the now instead of the uncertain future. These will all help you beat anxiety.

 

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Devotional Thoughts

Health Sacrificed to Idols

We Americans are selfish. We’re selfish in our rugged individualism. Don’t need no one, don’t want to be beholden to anyone, don’t wanna take care of no one. Even American evangelicalism with its emphasis on one’s personal relationship with Christ is an extension of the American idol of individualism.

We see this same idolatry of the individual in how people are responding to vaccinations and new mask mandates. “Don’t take away my freedom!” they cry. Or, “My body, my choice!” Conspiracy theories abound about the supposed lack of safety in the vaccine or crazy ideas of Bill Gates planting nanochips in people through the vaccine. (Do you really think Gates doesn’t have anything better to do?) What’s the point of getting the vaccine, they argue, if you can still catch the virus? Or, if masks worked, there wouldn’t still be people getting sick. Thing is, masks are like parachutes; they’re not worth much if you leave them in the bag.

This is so disparate from how the Bible tells us Christians are supposed to live. (I’m not being exclusive toward nontheists, but they know to get vaccinated and to wear masks, so it’d be like preaching to the choir.) While we are certainly free from death through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and we have freedom in Christ, that freedom is very different from the way we understand freedom here in America. Paul writes in Colossians 3:12, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” Compassion… Kindness… Humility… These are not “me first” character traits. These are “others first” traits. We are to wrap ourselves up in these traits, allowing them to cover us completely, just like our clothes do.

In I Corinthians 8, the apostle Paul is talking about food sacrificed to idols. A little background information… Corinth was at the crossroads of the western trading world. A busy port city, it had a very religiously diverse population, but being that it was in Greece, the Greek deities were a significant part of that. Worshipers of these various gods and goddesses would offer meat as part of their sacrifices then eat it there in the temple. The Christian sect of Judaism (as it was known in the first century) was brand new to Corinth and it wasn’t uncommon for a convert to Christ to have dinner with his Poseidon-worshiping buddy. Paul cautions this convert to be careful, though. If the new believer sees him eating this meat sacrificed to Poseidon, then that believer may think it is okay to cross over on the faith practices.

Paul warns against causing this weaker brother to stumble in his faith. It was legal under the law for Yahweh worshipers to dine with Poseidon worshipers. It was permissible under this new church’s mandates for that table fellowship to happen, too. In other words, by all authorities, both civil and religious, Christians had the freedom and the right to eat meat sacrificed to the Greek gods. BUT… They were called to give up that personal freedom and that right in order to exercise their freedom in Christ and their obligation to protect the faith walk of their younger brother in Christ.

Though Paul is speaking of denying ourselves in order to protect the spiritual walk of one who’s spiritually weaker, we can certainly take that same message and apply it to how we Christ followers should act in regards to our brothers and sisters in community who might be physically weaker. What would you be willing to give up in order to protect someone else who may not be able to protect their self? Jesus says in John we’re supposed to sacrifice our very lives for others, and yet many folks won’t get a little shot or don a mask for the wellbeing of others. Paul writes later in that chapter, “If what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall” (I Cor. 8:13, NIV).

Paul is willing to give up eating meat in order to prevent a sibling in the faith from stumbling in their faith walk. (Bible historians believe that most meat available for consumption had been sacrificed to a deity.) What are you willing to give up in order to prevent a weaker member of your community, a person also created in the image of God, from falling ill and possibly dying? Can you give up your pride, your rugged individualism, your idea of your “rights” and “freedoms”? Can you take a moment to think about all the people your decision impacts? What if it’s your unvaccinated child who gets sick and dies in the hospital because you refuse to wear a mask out in public? What if you inadvertently pass the virus to another adult who unknowingly infects their immunocompromised child, and that child ends up on a ventilator? What if all these hospital beds are full of Covid patients when your mom has a stroke and has to be transported 200 miles away to the next nearest hospital with available space?

So many people are willing to sacrifice health to the idols of civil freedoms and individualism. The Christ way, though, cares neither for civil freedoms or your individualism. The Jesus way says, “Be free in me and love one another as I have loved you.” The Jesus way emphasizes community and tending to that community. Again, it goes back to that “love one another.” Do you think the Good Samaritan was overjoyed about delaying his journey and making the financial sacrifice to tend to the beaten man? No, but he did it. He did it because he knew that the way of compassion is the right way. Getting a shot and donning a mask demonstrate the compassion of Jesus. It shows love. It shows that you worship God above all else.

I entreat you to make the compassionate choice. It has never been about you anymore than it’s been about me. My twelve-year-old, half-vaxxed little girl who I adore is my reason for masking. Traveling out of state with my fully vaxxed teen is why my clothes drying rack is currently wearing about fifteen masks–and that twelve-year-old is why we will suck up wearing masks in nearly 100 degree weather. It’s about keeping others safe. Always.

Who can you protect from illness, hospitalization, and possible death this week?

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Writing

First Kiss

In writing, it’s important to show, not tell. I’m practicing showing. I hope you enjoy.

A casual moment. You catch each other’s eyes, hold them just a moment too long. The air around you sizzles with electricity. Quick inhale in a nearly inaudible gasp. Lashes cast quick shadows on suddenly hot cheeks as you steal a glance at the other’s mouth before your gaze returns to their eyes. The question hovers there, unspoken: May I kiss you?

You move toward each other. One asks the question on a soft exhale: “May I kiss you?”

“Yes,” the other breathes the answer into your mouth before breaths mingle and lips touch for the first time.

It’s heady and exciting. Electricity arcs between you and courses through your veins, making your fingertips tingle where they touch the back of the other’s neck. Your blood flows heavy and languid as you sink into the kiss, savoring this first taste of the other.

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