New Clothes

Our whole team is finally together here in Lebanon, and this evening we have made it to the Dhour Choueir Conference Center in the mountains above Beirut. We are preparing for a light dinner before the consultation with NESSL and its global partners begins tomorrow. Because some of us are still jet-lagged (including the author!), this will be a short post. But because we are in a land of deep faith with our brothers and sisters in Christ, a short post will offer the depth of what we have come to be a part of and the love of Jesus which is palpable, always reaching out to touch.

Source: New Clothes

Narrowing the distance

20160409 cranes photoHere we go again.

Steve and I are sitting in the airport in Minneapolis as we wait for our flight to Paris to board. From Paris, it is on to Beirut, Lebanon, and a rendezvous with our precious brothers and sisters in the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon. As always, we are traveling with The Outreach Foundation and our intrepid leader, Marilyn Borst. After being in a consultation with NESSL and their global partners, we will make our way back into Syria.

It always make my heart sing to be setting off on the long journey to an ancient land, a land where the church was born and even Saul-turned-Paul saw the light, was blinded, healed and rose from the darkness to preach the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This time I am going not as a church employee but as a theology student, and I just wanted to start this trip out with a short blog reflecting some truth from one of my classes: THL331, Jesus Christ: Liberator, led by Dr. Thomas W. Kelly, professor theology at Creighton University.

One of our texts for that class is a book that Dr. Kelly wrote with a very appropriate title for me coming from a church with the vision statement, “…on the journey with the living Christ.” The name of his book is When the Gospel Grows Feet, and it is about a Jesuit martyr from El Salvador, Rutilio Grande, and the church in El Salvador, and the gospel of liberation that has been preached from the first day of Jesus’ ministry. I have brought that book and my other required readings with me to keep up with the classes I will be missing and as I sit here in the airport, this is what I read:

“The Eucharist is the symbol of a shared table, with a stool for each person, and tablecloths long enough for everyone. It is the symbol of Creation, which requires redemption. It is already being sealed with martyrdom!” (From Fr. Grande’s last homily before he was assassinated)

This all-inclusive meal, the Eucharist, was the symbol par excellence for Rutilio that God wanted everyone to have a seat at the table of creation. He wanted this symbol of Jesus’ final meal to influence and structure social relationships very concretely. What followed in his homily was a careful argument for what the role of the church should be in the context of El Salvador, how that role should imitate the incarnation of Christ, and how it should perceive the world and its people. After a brief introduction of a church in service to the world, fragile but incarnated in history, the homily is divided into three distinct parts: (1) equality of the children of God, (2) the risk of living the Gospel, and (3) persecuted like Jesus of Nazareth. (Page 208)

There are a lot of geographical miles between El Salvador and Syria. But this I know: the church and its saints in El Salvador and Syria bring me closer to the meaning of this Gospel and that distance should be made smaller as we draw closer to it.

Dona nobis pacem.

Evening Prayer- 2 April 2016

An evening prayer from the padre who officiated this wedding in a wee church in Keystone, Nebraska, for my sister and her new husband. Such a blessed time in a special place with special people.

Michael Moore's avatarPastor Michael Moore's Blog


The day is complete

A wedding successfully blessed by God

A long drive back home to the mountains

A weary Padre lights the Vesper Lights

The prayer upon his lips for Sally & Robert

A prayer for new family/friends

For all, dear Lord, I pray

Dona Nobis Pacem

Grant Us Peace
A wee prayer from your sleepy yet content Padre…

View original post

Three years ago 24 March 2016

My sister whose words always move me and many others has shared this today, the third anniversary of the murder of our baby sister Cathy. The pain and the love she shares are palpable and they live together side by side and intertwined in the hearts of the six siblings who remain to mourn.

Sally Gerard's avatarSally Gerard

Cathy is the little girl in the front, right in the middle. Susan is keeping her in check! Cathy is the little girl in the front, right in the middle. Susan is keeping her in check!

Dear Cathy,

Words do not come easily for a letter like this. Would that you were here because if you were, then that would mean that you came back from California. I sit here at the table by the window looking out on the trees struggling because of the drought, and yet like you did so many times, they continue to fight to live and to be all that they were meant to be. Like you, they nurture the many little birds that look for shade in the heat of the day; they grow the fruits and devote so much energy to those tiny bits of what will become food for others. I wish I could call you. Sometimes I still hit call on my cell phone after I bring up your…

View original post 500 more words

The Beloved Community

Cleaning up some documents on my laptop today I came across this poem I wrote a couple of years ago. I remember writing it after being inspired by writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. He talked about the beloved community. I hope we can reach for that idea in this election season. That is my prayer today.

It comes at the beginning with the ruach of Yahweh.
A life-giving breath that loves from the start.
It’s meant to give life to all of creation.
It keeps all together, we each are a part.

Early on in the story of this time in the light.
Sin enters and alters the beauty created.
Hands made for embracing start grabbing instead.
Community is broken so that greed may be sated.

Yahweh’s love for the world he had breathed into being.
Now came in the form we call incarnational.
His logos, his word, his infinite glory.
Came into our midst, this love so relational!

He showed us by coming alongside us in life.
His mount-given sermon, was offered to all.
Quit worrying! No anger! Share what you have.
Forgiving each other in life sacrificial.

And laying down his life for the sake of this world.
He showed us the way to give to each other.
When we let go what’s inside our tightly clenched fists.
And offer what’s there in love to another.
They’re now in position to receive in return.
A generous measure of love from the father.
Hands again open to embrace, not to grab,
Hands open to sister and open to brother.

Together we’re called to this wonderful life.
Together we’re called to this costly sacrifice.
It’s all that we need, it will surely suffice.
Beloved community, and abundant life.

 

Theology Classmates

My foray into higher education at Creighton University has kept me hopping over the last two months. But I made it through to spring break! No, I am not traveling to Myrtle Beach or South Beach or any other beach with the younger folks in my class. I am taking a few minutes to write something for this blog which has taken a back seat to writing for classes. I have written reflections on assigned movies, a letter about St. Ignatius and the Society of Jesus, mid-term essays, final essays and two research papers. It is hard to adjust my writing style to one that is more academic, but I am giving it my best shot!

THL110 class on final nightOne of my classes ended this past Monday as the seven of us in Theology 110 took our final. This group of new friends were a great reintroduction to university life. For seven Monday nights we met for four hours per class and our wonderful teacher, Mr. Mueting, fed us 2,000 plus years of theology. (That is about 300 years per week but one week we covered 800!) Every week he would bring us snacks to carry us through the dinner hour. Last Monday before we sat down to take our final exam we had a potluck dinner to celebrate. We took our picture to mark the end of this required class for all students at Creighton. There we are, Nancy and I, the two fifty-somethings; Heidi, mother of eight and studying creative writing; Manny who works for a bank and has three children; Kat the social worker who brought her perspective about adolescents searching for their identities; Brisa from Mexico whose bright purple socks made us smile; and Kit, a former EMT from Hawaii who is studying to be a nurse. Life in this class was never dull especially when Mr. Mueting, a dramaturge at heart and a former contestant on Jeopardy, stood at the front and opened the fire hydrant and poured out his extensive knowledge of theology.

It has been a marvelous two months.

Along with this class I have been taking another class in a more traditional format: 30 students (all 20 or 21, except for me!) led by a tenured professor whose doctorate in theology is on full throttle for each Monday and Wednesday class. This class has been such a gift as I have heard affirmation about what it means to love God and love your neighbor and that those two things are in tandem and should not and cannot be separated!

In both of these classes I have had good opportunities to share about the church I have been privileged to stand with in the Middle East and to bring a perspective that others might not be aware of. Even as I have been taught, I have tried to teach.

With all of these good people who share this time in history with me, I have learned about the saints who have handed down this faith to us, and it is these people I am most grateful to. Listen to their voices:

  • Disasters teach us humility. – Anselm of Canterbury
  • Man should not consider his material possession his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need. – Thomas Aquinas
  • What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like. – Saint Augustine
  • Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee. – Saint Augustine
  • Occupy yourself in beholding and bewailing your own imperfections rather than contemplating the imperfections of others. – Saint Ignatius
  • I wish not merely to be called Christian, but also to be Christian. -Saint Ignatius
  • Experience proves that in this life peace and satisfaction are had, not by the listless but by those who are fervent in God’s service. And rightly so. For in their effort to overcome themselves and to rid themselves of self-love, they rid themselves of the roots of all passion and unrest. – Saint Ignatius
  • Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire. – St Catherine of Siena
  • You are rewarded not according to your work or your time, but according to the measure of your love. – St Catherine of Siena
  • Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty. – Oscar Romero
  • If we are worth anything, it is not because we have more money or more talent, or more human qualities. Insofar as we are worth anything, it is because we are grafted onto Christ’s life, his cross and resurrection. That is a person’s measure. – Oscar Romero
  • There are not two categories of people. There are not some who were born to have everything and leave others with nothing and a majority that has nothing and can’t enjoy the happiness that God has created for all. God wants a Christian society, one in which we share the good things that God has given for all of us. – Oscar Romero
  • “he Lord God, in this plan, gave us a material world, like this material bread and this material cup which we lift up in offering to Christ the Lord. It is a material world for everyone, without borders. This what Genesis tells us. It is not something I make up. – Rutilio Grande

I think that there is song worth singing in those quotes, and a life worth living. And if we who call upon the name of the Lord could join that choir and craft our lives to the lyrics of that song, like St. Catherine said, we would set the world on fire.

Amen.

Voices of anger. Voices of Peace.

Homs peace signsIt’s the very end of the first week of February, 2016, the month of love as Valentine’s Day looms just eight days from now. I’m four weeks into classes as a graduate student in pursuit of a Master’s of Arts degree in ministry at our local Jesuit university, Creighton.

It’s been challenging in many ways. I still get up every morning, take a shower, make the bed and get Jana down to the print shop. Instead of heading off to a paying job, I wash the dishes, do the laundry, and then launch into studying for the two classes I am enrolled in: The Christian Tradition, Then and Now and Jesus Christ, Liberator. There is so much reading! I have to write papers! I have to use words and a style of writing that are worthy of the academic institution I am now a member of.

Here is the problem: this is not the way I write. If you have read my blog (thank you! if this is so), you may have noticed that I write in the first person and with a lot of emotion. I am a feeler. Look at my Myers Briggs profile. INFP. The “F” there stands for the fact that I tend to make decisions based on feelings or values, rather than logic or reason. As a matter of fact, when I first took the MB profile evaluation I scored absolutely zero on thinking.

I am a feeler. It becomes more clear to me every day.

So this week has been interesting as I have been asked to write academically. Here were my questions on the midterm of my beginning theology course:

How does John’s gospel fulfill its purpose?

What is Augustine’s theology of will?

Why was “The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas importance to Christians of their age?”

How did Benedict XVI use the philosophical concept of logos in his Regensburg lecture?

It’s hard to write answers as a feeler when what is required is the answer of a thinker.

Somehow, I got through that.

And the assignment for my Jesus Christ: Liberator class, which I absolutely love, was to write a reflection on a movie called Voces Inocentes. This movie is about the war in El Salvador that the U.S. threw its resources into on behalf of the landed, rich minority, represented by the government, against the oppressed majority of the poor. Why do we seem to always find the wrong side to support since the end of World War II?

Since this is a theology class, and we are studying about theology in the form of Christology, Jesus as liberator, our job was to write a reflection on the movie with our texts in mind. It should be thoughtful, not emotional.

So today I wrote my reflection. I tied it to the textbook chapter that talked about a document called Gaudium et spes (the joy and hope), that came out of Vatican II and changed the church’s vision about its mission in and to the world. I tried to be academic even as the feeling heart that is right under my skin wanted to cry out in anger.

Really? How is it possible in this world that eleven- and twelve-year old boys have to choose between being conscripted into an army to fight against their families or join the guerillas trying to overcome injustice in their land? Either choice comes with a price: losing their humanity or losing their lives. Why can’t little boys just kick soccer balls and tease little girls? Why do these same boys have to become “man of the house” because their fathers have left the country to stay out of the war and find ways to support their families in other countries? Why are children in the crossfire? Why are women considered things to be used and discarded? Why does an old woman of faith decide that prayer will not end this war?

Anger. Boiling blood. That is how I wanted to react.

And then I saw a Facebook post from friends in Syria who are living in a war that they experience every day. It takes their neighbors. It takes their sons and daughters. It has torn their country apart and my country and many others are making choices that disrupt their lives. And we pray and they pray and somehow it doesn’t end.

Where is God? Where is grace? Where is peace?

I don’t have an answer to any of these questions. But I am left with this amazing speech by the unnamed priest in this movie that makes the feeling side of me think:

…the word of God must also be heard by those who have not yet found grace within themselves. What is grace? Grace is the presence of the Divine in every one of our actions. Innocence is stolen from our children and hope is replaced by fear. The skeptics say, if God existed, there would be no war. And I respond if men would obey the word of God, then there would be no war! Because God our father has given man the privilege to live in grace, or on the contrary, to provoke disgrace. I assure you when one lives in the grace of God, war does not exist. There are others who choose differently. It is time to raise our voices against them. To defend our right to live! To use our strength to oppose the force of death. Today it is not enough to pray.

It is not enough to pray today. Today is a day to ask people to look in the mirror and see the reflection of God there. And then, to look into the face of the neighbor and see the same thing. Look into the mirror and see Chava the Salvadorean boy, to see Ali the boy from Aleppo, to see John from the streets of Omaha…to see Jesus. Would you throw the rock at Jesus? Would you fire the gun at Jesus? Would you drop the bomb on Jesus? Can we not see the humanity in each face and also see the reflection of the divine? Can we choose to live in grace and not disgrace?

Can’t we have a conversation together about how what I do affects what happens to you? What you do affects what happens to me? Can’t we see that what we have is more than enough and it is enough to share?

I just want to finish by sharing this video which came to me in an email from Creighton University this week. It is a message from Pope Francis about conversations among those who are different in culture and faith. But they are all humans, made in the image of God. And this has helped me with my anger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6FfTxwTX34&feature=share

Dona nobis pacem.

Heartburn

That's my trip journal for four trips to the Middle East. The spine is busted from stuffing it full of inserts of hymns, printed prayers, photos and bios of my teammates, devotionals I've led and other memories on paper too important to discard.

That’s my trip journal for four trips to the Middle East. The spine is busted from stuffing it full of inserts of hymns, printed prayers, photos and bios of my teammates, devotionals I’ve led and other memories on paper too important to discard.

I was looking through my dog-eared, spine-busted journal tonight for an email address. There are so many inserts into this broken-backed book! And while I found the email, I also found this. On this night, before I begin my journey into a master of arts study of ministry at Creighton University, it reminds me of one of the big reasons I am stepping out.

I wrote this article in May, 2013, shortly before my second trip to Lebanon. I am so happy to share it tonight.

 

 

Wading Into Deeper Waters

There is a difference between heartburn and a heart that burns. The former is felt usually around some poor eating habits or gastrointestinal issues. It’s very uncomfortable if you’ve ever experienced it, but you can take a pill. The latter can also be uncomfortable, but I would describe it more as comfort-afflicting. If your heart has ever burned for something or someone, your only response is action. If you don’t do something about it, it just gets worse. There is no magic pill.

My heart has burned for the situation across the Middle East since I was in high school and my step-brother Charlie worked for NBC News in Lebanon, covering their civil war which raged for fifteen years. Every night we would watch the news and see pictures of the atrocities that Charlie had stood in the midst of to get the story to us in the U.S. It was hard to watch and understand why these things went on, but more than anything, we hoped Charlie would be safe.

My heart kept burning through the years and then I met Maya in a women’s bible study here at West Hills. A native of Lebanon, she returned there to visit family in 2006 and was stuck in the middle of another war. When she came back thoroughly shaken, heartbroken and angry, reliving her childhood, she shared with us her story. This woman of faith simply asked, “Why do they hate us?”

Then I met Marilyn Borst of The Outreach Foundation and she was taking a group of faithful women to visit the churches of the Synod of Syria and Lebanon. We would travel to Beirut and visit the churches founded by missionaries in the 1800s. We would travel to Damascus and Aleppo in Syria, doing the same. We shared worship. We shared time at a women’s conference. We were welcomed into their homes. We shared coffee and tea and sweets. We met with Iraqi refugee families who were being cared for by the church. We heard stories of courage and of love and of faith, a faith lived out for over 2,000 years.

And I came home with new friends and new connections in this global gathering we call the Body of Christ. And my heart burned to return, to be back in the company of those women and those churches, to share life together again. And we would have returned the following year, 2011, but once again, war broke out.

This time the war was in Syria – first an uprising in a small town, now a two-year old war – and we couldn’t go back because it wasn’t safe…for us. It’s not safe for them either, but they live there. Or they did.

The Presbyterian Church in Aleppo, Syria, where we sang Amazing Grace and shared with the families who were caring for Iraqi refugees was completely destroyed in November, 2012. We got this news from synod officials who had traveled to be with us in a large gathering in Erbil, Iraq. Those of us in that room who had worshipped at the church in Aleppo were grieving: grieving for the ministry that would no longer be done in that neighborhood, grieving for the plans of the renovation of a Christian high school that would have served all faiths, grieving for the work that Assis Ibrahim and his congregation had done together as incarnational witnesses. Their church home was destroyed, many of their own homes were destroyed, their jobs were gone. Those who cared for refugees were now refugees themselves as they fled to safe parts of their country or to Lebanon.

In some of Paul’s epistles he refers to a collection for the church in Jerusalem. The churches created from his and other missionary journeys were collecting money for the benefit of the persecuted church there. The Outreach Foundation and other churches in our denomination are doing the same thing for the present day persecuted churches in Syria. They are collecting money to send to the Synod of Syria and Lebanon to aid these now displaced brothers and sisters in the small but important ways they can. And the people of our church have responded to that plea in the form of a $10,000 gift granted by our Mission Team. And my heart burns with gratitude at this response. We are not called to suffer as they have been. But we are called to stand with them: to show up when we can, to release the resources that God has provided us to be used in their time of need.

This burning heart of mine will return to Lebanon in May. My prayer is that these people of God will know his peace that passes all understanding. That they will be comforted by his gracious Holy Spirit. That they would have abundant life restored to them. That they would continue to shine the light of Christ wherever they are. And that they will be strengthened in this time of trial.

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Romans 8:18

And now in January, 2016, I am happy to reflect back on this. The church building in Aleppo has been rebuilt in a safer place and the saints worshipped there for the first time on Christmas. The church body never stopped meeting, climbing five flights of stairs to meet in an apartment together for the last three years.

The Aleppo College for Boys, that Christian high school, has never closed its doors during the continuing conflict, now approaching its fifth anniversary. It continues to be a place where Christian and Muslim learn side by side.

My church, West Hills Presbyterian, has given other gifts to the Syria Appeal of The Outreach Foundation totaling some $25,000. (You can give too! http://www.theoutreachfoundation.org)

I have traveled back to Lebanon three times and to Syria twice. Steve and I will be returning to both again this spring.

And the inspiration of the church in persecution has put a vision of ministry in front of me, and the fulfillment of that vision begins tomorrow night when I take my first class at Creighton University.

May God continue to cause my heart to burn, and may he inflict you with that as well.

Dona nobis pacem.

Julie and Julia…in church

The Lord is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy,
and with my song I praise him. (Psalm 28:7)

That was our call to worship this morning in church. Mike read verse 8 as well, but as I look at the words on a bright and sunny Sunday, it is this verse that speaks to me.

My heart does trust in him and he does help me. I believe that. Every day. But what happened in church today reminds me anew just how much he helps me.

What happened? Well, Jesus walked in again.

I was getting ready to sing with Mike and Nicole and Stan on the opening song for the 10:55 worship service. The countdown was ending and we were standing on the chancel, mics in hand, ready to launch into Mike’s anthem Undefeated, when she walked right in front of me.

It was Jesus. I had first met her a year and half ago when she walked into church on a weekday. We had an amazing half-hour encounter that was such a bright spot in my life at that time, that I put it down in words. Hit that link and read it. Jesus did walk into church that day!

Julie and Julia in churchTo see her again today was like an affirmation that in this new year, I was right to continue to trust God, and my oh my! he would still be there to help me. After the service ended I rushed over to Nicole to tell her about my Jesus sighting. Nicole was just as excited for me, and then I took a quick glance toward the pews as I removed my in-ear monitor, and there she was!

I thought she was leaving after the previous service, and maybe she had been, but there she was. She was sitting at the end of the same pew Steve and I had occupied at 9:25, and now at the end of the 10:55 she was there with Marti Bloes, our elder for Caregiving. How appropriate! The King of caregiving next to our elder of Caregiving.

I rushed over and said to Marti, “Her name is Julia! But everyone calls her…”

“Peg,” she filled in before I could finish.

“But I call her ‘Jesus’ because that is who she was to me a year and a half ago when she first walked into my life.”

She brightened up when I said her name, and could not place me. She is still the sweet, befuddled elderly lady she was that long ago summer day, but I knew more than that. I told the story to Marti and she smiled as well.

I grabbed my phone, searching on my blog for that story. I wanted to remind her of what she had said and done for me that day. I apologized for describing her as “a white-haired, elderly woman,” and she smiled.

And I kept reading:

And then she told me about how she had refused counseling after her husband died because she knew she herself could get through the grief and come out on the other side without help…until she couldn’t. She spent one hour with a counselor who just listened; that amazing gift of presence is so important!! And at the end of the hour that counselor wanted to tell her one thing. She said, “Peg, there is nothing you can do about this now. God owns it. He will make all things right in their time and your time here is not done yet. Let God have this grief because he knows what to do with it. It’s his. Let him have it.”

She thanked the counselor and they never met again. But Peg would put her head down on the kitchen counter every morning after that for a year and just thank God for what was his and not hers. And daily she would start to feel different from the day before, until one day God spoke to her and said: “I have given you a new heart.” And she believed it.

And then she looked right at me and said, “He will give you a new heart because you have thanked him for it over and over again.” And she was standing there, speaking clearly, not befuddled, not struggling to come up with a name, clear-eyed, clear-minded and all I could see was Jesus. It wasn’t Peg after all. It was all I could do to keep the tears from streaming down. She was there to comfort me.

It was quite the new year’s gift this morning after worship. I am pretty sure I will see Julia/Peg/Jesus again. She lives in the assisted living facility up the street. She feels a need to come back to church, and I am glad it is mine.

When I came home, I stood at the sink to wash up a few dishes and looked out the window at the tall pine trees that stand in the north yard. Yesterday, the strongest branches were still holding on to deep globs of snow. Only the strongest branches can hold on to that weight, I remember thinking yesterday. The rest of them have let go of their loads and have sprung back up to the sun.

Now looking back at the story of Peg from a year ago, I am seeing that differently.

“Let God have this grief because he knows what to do with it. It’s his. Let him have it.”

The big globs of snow that I had been holding on to, that had been pulling my branches down with their weight, were grief: grief at the loss of a dear pastor and friend, grief at the loss of a little sister taken too soon, grief at change I wasn’t ready for. I wasn’t holding on because of strength; I just didn’t know what to do with it.

And now I do. Just give it over to God. It’s his. And like the snow, it melts away. My branches reach back to the sun and, oh!, how I feel the light and the warmth on my face.

And my heart leaps for joy.

525,600 minutes

“525,600 minutes…how do you measure a year?” Jonathan Larson did the math for me when he wrote that beautiful song in his musical Rent.

365 days times 24 hours times 60 minutes equals 525,600 minutes in a year. And today on the first day of 2016, I want to look back and see how my 2015 was measured.

WordPress, this wonderful platform on which I pound my thoughts out to share with whoever wants to read them has measured my year in this way:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,400 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 57 trips to carry that many people.

There were 102 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 761 MB. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was January 26th with 189 views. The most popular post that day was Not as she died, but as she lived.

I write the blog for me, but it makes my heart feel joined with you when you stop and read my words, so thank you. If I say something that triggers a response – good or bad – please take a moment and comment. My two most faithful commenters are my writer sister Sally and a sweet padre I have never met named Michael. Interestingly enough, Padre Michael is going to marry Sally to Robert in April so we will both get to meet him!

My sister Susan took this picture as walked on my birthday. On UNO's campus, it is the Castle of Perserverance, one my favorite places.

My sister Susan took this picture as walked on my birthday. On UNO’s campus, it is the Castle of Perseverance, one my favorite places.

My walking app, MapMyWalk, also measured my year. I really started walking seriously in August after I returned from the Middle East. MapMyWalk logged 322 miles on 82 walks that took a total of 88 hours and amounted to 771,000 steps. I lost twelve pounds and hope to lose another ten in the next year. It was a resolution I didn’t make in January!

 

 

Flanked by Rev. Kate Kotfila of Cambridge, New York, and my new friend Mahsen, from Hasakeh, Syria, we fold peace cranes together.

Flanked by Rev. Kate Kotfila of Cambridge, New York, and my new friend Mahsen, from Hasakeh, Syria, we fold peace cranes together.

I made my eighth trip to the Middle East, traveling to Lebanon with my mentor Marilyn Borst as she led a group of faithful women on behalf of The Outreach Foundation. We spent blessed precious time with our counterparts, women from Presbyterian churches in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. We worshiped. We had communion. We laughed and cried. We went on a memorable field trip to a Bekaa Valley winery on three buses and each bus rang out with singing and shook from dancing. We folded paper cranes for peace together on a quiet porch in hot weather. One hundred women with ten thousand stories to tell of love and loss.

Paper cranes 209Besides the cranes I folded there, I have folded 500 here at home, with 500 more to go to make my 1,000. Each one has been prayed over at least four times: as I write the name or memory on the paper, as I fold the paper and rewrite the words on a wing, as I string them together in strands like rosary beads, and as I hang them in the flock in my office. The first 323 had two additional prayer times: as I removed them strand by strand from the church office where they flew initially and the rehung them reverently in my office at home.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Write. Fold. Repeat.

I can measure this year in uncountable songs. The worship set that plays randomly in my ears as I walked those 771,000 steps. The choir anthems sung on Wednesday night rehearsals and most of the 52 Sundays in the year. Hymns and praise songs on Tuesday night worship team rehearsals with two or three voices and an amazing band that are lifted to the glory of God on Sundays as well. Singing Handel’s Messiah for the eleventh time in thirteen years with the Voices of Omaha, a choir this year of 165 voices.

2015 marked some endings.

We finished the addition to our home so that Jana can have a safe place to live. No more stairs for her to go up and down. Her seizures make that a gamble for her safety we could not live with. In the process we said good-bye to a tree that had been planted in Daddy’s memory.

My Aunt Heddy died on Christmas day. She was my dad’s last sibling and she lived for 95 years, longer than either of her parents and all of her four siblings. She taught me how to embroider when I was a little girl and she became my mentor and guide into the world of quilting.

Sami Sadeeh was killed in Syria, defending his country from rebels. He was one of four national guardsmen who watched over our safety as we journed through Syria in 2014. God rest his soul.

My friend Hala, a religion teacher and a preacher who lives in Beirut, lost her father. He died in Aleppo, Syria, and she could not be there to say good-bye because of the war. May God continue to comfort her as she lives not so far in miles from her mother and siblings, but an uncrossable distance in time of war.

I left a job I had held for ten and a half years as director of Support Ministries at West Hills Church. It was my own decision and I was and continue to be at peace with it.

Julia Child SteveIn those 525,600 minutes of 2015, there were celebrations, too! Steve and I marked thirteen years of wedded bliss. We opened the year with his 57th birthday and closed the year with mine. All my siblings – the Omaha ones and the Colorado ones – made it to 722 N. Happy Hollow to celebrate Christmas together on my birthday weekend. All these moments were marked with Steve’s amazing cooking and good bottles of red wine.

Even as I get ready to step into a new year of adventures – back to school for goodness sake! – I marvel at this year that was. And the thread through the whole 525,600 minutes is the faithfulness of God experienced in whatever place I was standing in each of those minutes. And I know that this golden thread of his love will continue to weave and tie and hold together the minutes of life to come.

So happy new year. And it’s leap year, so we get 527,040 minutes. I know they will be as full and memorable as the last 525,600.

Let’s get started…