911 Twenty Four Years

Yet my soul,
keep thou silence unto God:
for mine hope is in God.
Psalm 62:5

This is my reflection from two years ago with a few minor revisions.

The saga of un-creation in Jeremiah 4 feels like the reality of World Trade Center Ground Zero.

Jeremiah 4

¹¹ At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: A hot wind comes from me out of the bare heights in the desert toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow or cleanse, ¹² a wind too strong for that. Now it is I who speak in judgment against them.

²² "For my people are foolish; they do not know me; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil but do not know how to do good."

²³ I looked on the earth, and it was complete chaos, and to the heavens, and they had no light.
²⁴ I looked on the mountains, and they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro.
²⁵ I looked, and there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled.
²⁶ I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.

²⁷ For thus says the Lord: The whole land shall be a desolation, yet I will not make a full end. ²⁸ Because of this the earth shall mourn and the heavens above grow black, for I have spoken; I have purposed; I have not relented, nor will I turn back.

Twenty-Four Years

9/11/2001 + 24 = 2025

Where has the grief gone? Where have the memorial services gone? At least a few people on social media still ask where we were when we heard the news, although it's mostly for those of us who are so old we were chronologically mature adults in September 2001. We're still ready to revisit our experience, to retell the horror.

Monday evening 9/10/2001 I'd gotten back late from a seminar for the year-long Community Economic Development Certificate (mini-MBA in entrepreneurship) I'd just started at San Diego State. Tireder than usual, I'd gotten up an hour later than usual. By the time I turned on the morning news it had gone live. I watched the second plane hit the second tower.

And I can't ever forget the hope of two and a half days later.

Thursday evening September 13, 2001, my Presbyterian Church (USA), the large Evangelical Lutheran Church in America across the street and the smaller ELCA around the corner, a nearby Roman Catholic, that big United Methodist, and the United Church of Christ that bordered this neighborhood and the adjacent one gathered at the ELCA across the street and celebrated Eucharist. In the wake of unprecedented destruction on USA soil we offered thanksgiving! A glance into all creation healed and whole. A moment in the future God dreams of and calls us to help create.

Where were you? What words or communities or actions or realities sustained your hope? Still hold you in hope?


• Pentecost 14 Lectionary blog for Sunday, September 11, 2022 with more about God's presence, more on Jeremiah, and another retelling of when I saw the news. This coming Sunday September 14th will feature the same scriptures. As I mentioned about the counsel to preach the text and not the day, the appointed scripture often feels custom picked for the day in history or in our own local family, individual, ecclesiastical, or political lives.

Five Minute Friday :: Result

Gardening supplies for sale on the west side of Los Angeles

• Five Minute Friday :: Result Linkup

Intro

When you search the internet, eBay, or Amazon, you get a results page or list that's supposed to relate to your search terms. If you know how to construct a search string, your results (theoretically) will be better focused and more usable. But theory and reality often diverge.

As they say, the best way to predict the future is to create it. I've spent my life preparing to serve the inner city, an adult lifetime preparing to serve the urban church. And my call to free-range rather than continuing to pursue more settled, authorized ministry hasn't gotten many responses. Both overall result and discrete results have been disappointing and disconcerting. How can my actual life results converge with my intentions, my dreams, and my sense of call?


How to Get Results

As an earthbound lover of creation seeking to live more locally and better steward gifts the Giver has showered on you, you identify good and easily accessible land or someone offers you a plot. You prepare the soil, you plant, you weed, you water, or the skies send rain. Maybe you test the ground and the water and add nutrients. How's the air quality? You wait. Together we hope for good results. Results that previous experience and quality inputs lead you to expect.

When we pivot from horticulture and agriculture to the results we aspire to as humans seeking to contribute to the greater good, quality – and relevant – inputs still are key. But sometimes you need to go with what you have and trust the Spirit.

Via the prophet Jeremiah, God charged the exiles in Babylon to bloom where they'd been planted by working for, planning and preparing for, and therefore expecting the well-being of that strangely foreign place where they'd been sent. Because my neighbor's welfare is my healthiness is your wellness is all of our well-being. But similar to when we interact with earth and dirt, we sometimes need to tweak or add to inputs so they'll be more compatible with our desired results.

How many times here have I observed esperar in Spanish means hope, expect, and wait? When our actions align with our hopes, we can expect results that validate our waiting.

Sometimes you need to go with what you have and trust the Spirit. In fact, it would be unusual for anyone to possess everything they imagine would lead to the best result. Your geography might not be optimal for containing your ideal results. The local population may be too small or in general have a perspective that doesn't "get" your aspirations. Because of finances and location, the only place you easily can get needed education and skills right now maybe is okay but not top tier. Given that theory and reality often diverge, often you need to approach desired long run results with small steps filled with possibility.

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911 :: 22 Years

Yet my soul,
keep thou silence unto God:
for mine hope is in God.
Psalm 62:5

I've partly borrowed this from the intro to my lectionary blog for 911-2022 when the saga of un-creation from Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 felt like the reality of WTC Ground Zero. Although they frequently advise us "preach the text and not the day," the appointed scripture sometimes feels custom picked for the day's event.


911

9/11/2001 + 22 = 2023

Twenty-two years later, where has the grief gone? Where have the memorial services gone? Happily or not, at least a few tweeps have asked where we were when we heard the news. That would be for those of us who are so old we were chronologically mature adults on 11 September 2001. And we're always ready to revisit our experience, to retell the horror.

Monday evening 9/10/2001 I'd gotten back late from a seminar for the year-long Community Economic Development certificate program I'd just started at San Diego State. Tireder than usual, I'd gotten up maybe an hour later than I typically did. By the time I turned on the morning news, the news had gone live. I watched the second plane hit the second tower.

And I never forget the hope of two and a half days later.

Thursday evening September 13, 2001, my Presbyterian Church (USA), the large Evangelical Lutheran Church in America across the street and the smaller ELCA around the corner, a nearby Roman Catholic, that big United Methodist, and the United Church of Christ that bordered this neighborhood and the adjacent one gathered at the ELCA across the street and celebrated Eucharist. In the wake of unprecedented destruction on USA soil, yes, we offered thanksgiving! A glance into all creation healed and whole. A moment in the future God dreams of and calls us to help create.

Where were you? What words or communities or actions or realities sustained your hope? Hold you in hope?

Five Minute Friday :: Vision

• Five Minute Friday :: Vision Linkup

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them as their God; they will be God's peoples, and God will be with them; God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." Revelation 21:1-4

Like a vision board packed with pictures of the future you dream of, the not here right now you expect will manifest and you'll then testify to, scripture reveals God's visions for creation's wellbeing and provides ideas we can follow to partner with God to create heaven on earth. In my focus passage from the book of Revelation that concludes the bible, John the Revelator describes the vision God gave him.

"Sea no more" is far from ecological disaster, but picks up the code word sea or ocean that in scripture frequently denotes untamed chaos, as when Genesis 1 tells us about the dawn of creation when the Spirit of God hovered over the formless empty deep darkness. Oh, yes, the new creation does have a river with life-giving water—"enough" clear clean water along with all we need of everything else.

God's vision of the reign of the Spirit is "shalom" justice and bountiful sufficiency. Reading and studying scripture gives us plenty of practice in learning God's ways. Enough food, safe shelter, healthy community. Good work for good pay in good conditions. Abundant mercy and love. No sorrow or dying or pain. The end of war and violence. Scripture sings in the language of geography and space, because we are embodied humans solidly situated on land.

The God who calls us into new creation partnership is Jeremiah's God so near with laws so just. Along with 2 Peter, we proclaim and claim, "According to God's promise we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." [2 Peter 3:13] That's quite a vision!

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October :: Porch Story

• Porch Stories host Kristin reveals an extremely varied October; her book suggestions always interest me.

• Here are a few of this month's stories from round about town!



• Very early in October, Green Teammate Jane and I enjoyed a middle eastern dinner with conversation about our currents.



• LA Metro Fall Conference happened in my old South Central 'hood; not any pictorially memorable metting moments, but the pumpkin-themed table décor was seasonably pretty—pumpkin desserts, too!



• With the school no longer on site, Green Team meetings in Glendale no longer bring a plethora of pics, but I found a worthwhile glimpse of the playground plus one of intertwined flowers and greens.





• A small sampling of the many excellent images a romp through one of the largest local Farmers Markets yielded; I also enjoyed a [not illustrated here] savory Peruvian lunch.



• Sunday morning closest to St. Francis day for annual Critter Blessing No. 3.



• Last moonflower of 2019.



• Another Level Ministries celebrated Ten Years! at The Proud Bird—within easy earshot of LAX. Surprising that I didn't find any memorable photo opps at the celebration itself.



• Roxy Kitteh flew from DFW through PHX to SAN nine years ago!


• It's been far too long since I blogged blueberries (or any berries), so here's some for this year as the berries season slows and concludes.



• As a church geek, theology geek I had to celebrate Reformation Day 502. I didn't get a bulletin cover designed for my church this time, but upcycled a design from a previous year for this blog and for twitter. Really appropriate since again I discussed the Jeremiah pericope with my SS class. Can you say "neighborology"? Can you live neighborology?

Porch Stories :: Reformation500

Reformation :: How God Surprises

• Just as with any major birthday, event, or anniversary, the Church and the churches have spent a long time anticipating the 500^th year since Martin Luther {or the university beadle, or someone, or however} posted 95 theses or propositions on the door of the Wittenberg church or otherwise distributed them. During the past year, the judicatory (oversight structure) of the church I attend sponsored 6 all day Saturday Reformation Roadtrip events. I attended five of them; you can find pictures on my monthly blog summaries.

• As I do most Wednesdays, I'm joining Kristin Hill Taylor's Porch Stories. She's been emphasizing adoption and brings us a grace-filled account: How God Surprises.



• This was our first ever Blessing of the Animals! I served on the planning committee, designed the poster {the custom banner with cute critters came from a big box printer}, and took my Roxy kitteh for her special blessing.



• During the month of October 2017, worldwide Reformation 500 fever became intense. Martin Luther would have loved the exposure social media could have given him—though someone mentioned twitter might have banned him. Might have banned him? Definitely would have! The late Timothy Lull spoke about Luther's "polemical overkill"... During worship each October Sunday, we had a Luther quotes segment. Our October games/activity evening featured Rick Steves' Luther and the Reformation movie produced mostly for people not very familiar with Christianity {not to mention Protestantism and/or Lutheranism}. Before the film, we had dinner and discussion for people new to Christianity or simply investigating its claims.

• We borrowed Martin and Katie cutouts from the judicatory office. So happy we could be on their rotation! They joined us during the movie and at worship the next morning.



• Porch Stories this week is How God Surprises! On Reformation Sunday itself, in the adult Sunday School class I facilitate we discussed the new covenant God promised us via the prophet Jeremiah {31:31-34}. How God surprises! With newness, change, re-formation, and re-surrection. God is not finished with the Church and the churches yet. I reminded everyone we are the only expression of the church at this particular longitude and latitude, but worldwide in this year 2017 there are countless valid expressions of Christianity. Hundreds in this city, too.

• I designed the worship bulletin cover; as much as Reformation Day is about newness and surprises the Holy Spirit brings, God used Martin Luther, many of his contemporaries, and countless others in centuries after him to bring about change and newness, so I included one of the official Reformation 500 graphics. Luther himself reminded us he stood "on the shoulders of Jan Hus," the Czech {pre-}Reformer whose inspired attempts at enacting newness in church and society didn't do well, yet still set a precedent. "and the truth" on the fourth line didn't print, and the church office didn't mention it so I didn't have a chance to try a trick or two, but that's cool, too, because God uses that kind of imperfection.




• We wrote prayers on post-it notes and tacked them to the front door that opens out to the world; we probably achieved a total of at least 95. Here are a couple of the many displays we had around campus during October. Reformation Sunday brunch menu included bratwurst, potatoes, sauerkraut, red cabbage, rye and pumpernickel breads, and a festive cake.



• I need to trust I learn at least a little every day, although my monthly summaries tend to be more activity-focused than learning-oriented. However, my third year participating in the #Write31Days daily blogging challenge taught me it was okay not to go for perfection {as if anything any human ever did ever had been perfect} or completeness. For 2015 and 2016 I did 5 minute free writes to provided prompts; this was my first year writing to a topic, and my inspiration to write about Celebrating Place truly excited me. I knew it also would be a chance to include photographs and other illustrations. Very early on, my current situation of still needing healthy affordable housing along with continued discouragement and disappointments made daily blogging feel overwhelming. I finally convinced myself

1. this is a writing challenge; as much as pictures enhance a post, I can add those later.

2. unlike timed free writes where I only check to be sure auto-correct guessed correctly and delete mistakes like repeated words, for this series I could edit/expand my text later, and find additional illustrations when I actually had time.

• I was excited Laura agreed to guest blog about West Virginia; I'm still waiting for Malinda's contribution, and that's okay, too.



• Several Facebook friends found Reformation 500 overlays for their profile pictures; most were quite traditional in style – just as I tried to do on my graphics for this Reformation – but I happened to notice a friend in Previous city had a bright, contemporary, spring-like overlay from Lutheran World Federation...

Five Minute Friday: Neighbor

Neighborology is essential at any time and all the time, but maybe particularly in the wake of well-publicized (or barely mentioned) major environmental events like hurricane Harvey, acting in ways scripture instructs us and Jesus demonstrated may be more important than ever. In that case? For the Five Minute Friday free write Kate Motaung hosts, neighbor's our one word prompt.


This morning I updated the website for one of my churches in Previous City; in his front page article the pastor observed:

"Natural disasters bring out the best and the worst in us humans. They provide us with object lessons of the Lutheran anthropological insight that we are simul justus et peccator, at the same time righteous and sinful. The sinfulness is evident in the price-gouging that was occurring before the storm even hit, and there will probably be looting once the waters subside enough to facilitate it.

"But even more striking are the occasions of people reaching out to help their neighbors, taking no account of their race, class, gender, sexual orientation, political affiliation or correctness. People in a tough situation helping their neighbors. People in a tough situation not being picky about who it is that is helping them. Loving their neighbors—as themselves.

"There's a lesson here for our lives after the waters subside and we return to the elite infighting of the chattering classes and the high-horse lectures about the brazen immorality of the other side. When a sea of troubles rises around us, wounds that are not easily healed can be ignored for a time while we attend to the more basic needs of the human community."

taking five on my own...

Particularly during the last Revised Common Lectionary year C (also known as "Luke's Year") in the adult SS class I facilitate we studied quite a few passages from Luke's gospel, from the prophet Jeremiah, and from the book of Deuteronomy that in many ways reveals the heart of Torah with its concern for the other, the neighbor, those in need, the overall well-being of the community —"neighborology"— the word about the neighbor.

According to the gospel account according to Luke, after the guy asked "and who is my neighbor?" after Jesus' counsel to love your neighbor as yourself, Jesus responded with that memorable "A guy was going down to Jericho..." that ended with the commandment "go and do likewise." Jesus' example was a despised religious "other-than."

In the current national political situation in the USA, in the way Christianity has become fragmented and divided in the USA, along the world religious landscape, with immense complications of immigrant, refugee, and other non-citizen sojourner status... which of these are my neighbors? Certainly not all of, my neighbor can't be everyone one of them? God's says I'm my brother's keeper – that means my sisters and brothers are my responsibility. To what extent? Please tell me, then, who is my sister, my brother? Or not?

A long time ago I worked with a guy who told us he'd been seeing a psychotherapist who worked from a Christian perspective. One day he came to work and reported his therapist had told him to stand in front of a mirror, look at his own reflection, and declare, "I love you!" "Wow! That was hard," my colleague admitted. The late Jewish theologian Martin Buber tells us love is the responsibility of an I for a thou. Am I my own neighbor? Am I responsible for myself?

Porch Stories :: 15 years

On this week's virtual Porch Stories and in their actual lives, Kristin and Greg Taylor celebrate 15 years of marriage—you can read about their very mature anniversary plans for an awesome reflection of Kristin's "Seeking God as the Author of Every Story" blog description!

desert spirit's fire @ 15: Mercy Roads

Most years I write a blogoversary post; officially and formally desert spirit's fire debuted on the middle day of July – the 16^th – but it feels providential that I didn't post closer to that day, because 2017 marks this blog's 15^th year, making it the perfect subject for my own Porch Story today.

Fifteen years ago I'd very recently finished a year-long certificate in Community Economic Development. After too many rough, tough, disappointing years, when I excitedly began the CED program I believed it would help me re-enter a life of meaningful service to the city and to society. Two months after graduation, I still held that conviction. In the decade plus since then, Planet Earth's itinerary has included a national and global economic downturn that's affected all individuals and entities other than the ultra-rich and super-wealthy. Along with financial struggles, I'm still (yes, "still") trying to grieve other losses and situations that turned out very other than I'd minimally anticipated.

And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat... Exodus 25:22a

Martin Luther tells us the cross of Calvary is God's Mercy Seat or Gnadenstuhl— God's Throne of Grace and Mercy where God meets us where we are, how we are, rains boundless mercies and offers resurrection hope.

A Porch Story tends to be the type of testimony of God's faithfulness we'd recount sitting on a porch with a friend or enjoying lunch in a kitchen or at a café. In other words, most porch stories are about the little incidents and mini-moments that remind us of God's presence, that fuel and fill us so we can keep talking the talk, walking the walk.

You know how the Apostle Paul frequently lists the many disasters, shipwrecks, and other calamitous adversities he'd experienced? At least once, maybe twice in this blog I've mentioned in passing I've been through a few "Pauline-style" catastrophes, too! {Maybe especially as a woman and} in the interest of keeping on keeping on, I've done my best to sail through and hardly mention them at all to anyone.

Let's turn that around?! Truthfully – yes, really – over the course of these fifteen years, along city streets, suburban byways, urban freeways and a few country roads, other wayfarers have offered me grace-filled surprises of welcome, hospitality, and participation. Other pilgrims have put aside their druthers to rain solace, mercy, friendship, love, and inclusion on me. Is looking to the neighbor's needs rather than insisting on our own not the way of the cross? Has that not been God's call to God's people for all times and in all places? Last fall when we had several lectionary readings from Jeremiah and Deuteronomy, I talked with my adult Sunday School class about neighborology—the word about the neighbor—that's central to Torah. Neighborology that encountered us right where we lived when the guy asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor" with Jesus' reply, "A guy was going down to Jericho..."

Who has been a neighbor to you? How have you been a neighbor? Who has shown God's mercy to you? To whom have you offered grace? What are a few of your mini-moment porch stories that fuel you along the way, fill others as they journey, to keep talking the talk and walking the walk?

Five Minute Friday: Empty

Today the church commemorates the bleak Friday we call Good; Kate Motaung hosts our weekly linkup and suggests the prompt empty.


"How the city doth sit empty that once was full of people" poet-prophet Jeremiah grieves.

A few hundred years later, religious and political powers that be crucify Jesus of Nazareth outside the gates of that once empty city, outside a crossroads of commerce now packed full of people. Anything but empty! At the ninth hour of 3pm / 1500 Jesus dies; they remove his body and leave the cross of criminal execution empty. They bury Jesus in a borrowed grave. As usual Saturday follows Friday. This particular Saturday is an empty Saturday we know as the day nothing happens yet everything happens. Sunday follows Saturday. On Sunday? An empty grave! Just as we wait for a new morning through the course of night's [apparent] emptiness, the emptiness of death has been a surprising way to wait for the fullness of new resurrected life...

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