The Changing Seasons

I realize the autumnal equinox has not happened yet, but my body can already feel things changing. I am sure you too have noticed it getting darker earlier. The early morning and early evening break in the heat. A few leaves even beginning to turn.
Some children are already back at school. College students are getting ready to move in, and parents to feel that empty nest.
Something in me is already starting to hunker down, to gather in, to long for hibernation.
Just as the earth has its changing seasons, so also does life.

I remember entering a botanical meditational garden when I was in Vancouver. The path began with nine large, flat stepping stones, which took one across a small but rushing stream. My guide told me these stones represented the months of pregnancy, then the crossing of the rushing stream as the process of birth. The next section of the gardens was lush, bursting with vibrant colors and fragrance. This part of the gardens represented childhood, filled with huge changes, and vibrant exuberant life. Following that, I came to a wide open expanse, a meadow, filled with wild flowers.

This represented the wandering stage of adolescence, where all of life feels wide, open, and expansive. One then came to a fork in the path. One side of the fork led over a bridge to a gazebo, the other to another whole section of the garden. This represented the choice of marriage, or not, the island of the gazebo representing the shelter and containment, the oasis and contentment of marriage.

But one could choose marriage, or not. I remember this section of the garden was also the most orderly, organized, representing the stage of life where we focus on our career, on ordering and organizing our lives. From there many different paths emerged. As I meandered along, I thought of the various paths we can take in our lives, in terms of our careers but also meaningful work we do because we love it. Perhaps this could also represent continued education and creative and artistic endeavors, learning, traveling, growing, expanding. But at last the path began to narrow, and I came upon a peaceful pool, surrounded by rocks and a few singular plants. There was a stone bench on which I sat. Behind the bench was a kind of fountain, that had only a small trickle of water passing through it. My guide explained that this was for the final stage of life, when the flow ebbs to that small, gentle trickle, till it is no more.

Last weekend, I shared the sacrament of holy baptism with two young children. Later this morning, I officiate at the funeral of a woman who lived to be ninety-five years old. As a pastor, I am honored and privileged to accompany people through the whole journey of this life. We have a baptismal song which is about God being with us through the whole journey of this life: through our birth and early childhood, the springtime of life; through the wide-open expanse, the struggles and choices of adolescence;

through the summer season of adulthood, through relationships, and perhaps marriage; through the season of being fruitful, of having children and watching them grow; of building our careers and homes, through the season of autumn, of deeper learning, creating, expanding; through the season of realizing what needs to be gathered in, and what needs to be let go; finally, through the winter of clarity, focus, simplifying;

the season of starkness, of growing smaller, and of the ultimate letting go, the gentle trickle ebbing into one final droplet.Spring has always been my favorite season, the scents, the colors, the green buds, the new birth, the whole earth bursting into new life.

I spent yesterday with my three-year-old granddaughter, Sylvie, whom we had not seen in a couple of weeks. In just a few weeks, she has changed, grown, expanded exponentially in her vocabulary and abilities. When I walked in she exclaimed, “Oh! You startled me!” (“Startled”? from a three-year old?) Just a few days ago, I went to the cemetery to remember my father on his birthday, to put flowers on my parents’ grave, to cry, to grieve.
I am not sure why, but I am looking forward to fall, even though I previously have not really appreciated this season. Perhaps it is because that is the season of my life which I am now entering. Each stage has its gifts and challenges, which are not fully understood until you arrive in that place.

How about you? As our beloved earth shifts us into the season of autumn, what lessons can you learn from this season to apply to your own life? What things do you need to gather in? What things do you need to let go of?
This day, whatever season of life you are in, may you open yourself to this season of autumn, with its vibrant burst of colors, its letting-goes, and its gathering in of abundant harvests.
May you see God’s presence in all you encounter,
and may you reflect God’s presence to all you encounter.
Linda Forsberg, Copyright September 2, 2015

Photos:  Holy Family Retreat Center, West Springfield; Sequoia National Park; Glacier National Park; Hilo, Big Island,HI; Multnomah Fall, OR; Zach and Victoria, Mother’s Day, Norman bird Sanctuary, Newport, RI; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; Easter Sunday Kids’ Sermon, First Lutheran Church of East Greenwich, RI; Dam at Hetch Hetchy National Park, OR

Laughter and Joy

I spent most of last week with young children. Our church held a program called Vacation Bible School. It is a week-long program, a kind of “mini camp,” which teaches children some stories from the bible. This year’s theme was “Splash!” All of the stories had to do with water: Noah, Jonah, Jesus asking on water, the woman at the well, and the story of Lydia’s baptism. We began each day with “Opening Time,” during which my friend and assistant and I did a goofy skit about the story for the day.

The kids laughed hysterically at our antics. Then the children rotated between music time, arts and crafts, bible story time, snack time, and outdoor games and activities, all of which involved water and getting wet. As exhausting as it was for the staff, it was also a lot of fun.

I have not laughed that much in a long time. Perhaps that is one reason why I love spending time with young children: laughter and joy make up about 90% of their days! When I spend time with children, laughter and joy become a bigger part of my day. I am exhausted, but happy.

Last night my husband Ted and I went to a play in New York City. We got home around 1:30 AM, and got to bed around 2 am, exhausted but happy. Our daughter, Juliana, is an actor in New York City. Even though Ted hates cities, he goes to New York with me whenever Juliana is in a play, to support her in her challenging but fulfilling career. The play was part of New York City’s Fringe Theater Festival. It was called O’Brien and O’Brian (yes, two different spellings). It was a campy, fun, romantic comedy, with lots of twists and turns.

We did a lot of laughing! Deep, belly laughing. The entire audience reveled in this feel-good performance with a happily ever after ending. Today we are exhausted, but happy.
Last Sunday we went to a place called Pulaski Park, in Chepachet, Rhode Island, for a giant church picnic. We began with a worship service. It was a worship service where three different churches, who are in partnership with each other, came together as one: Gloria Dei Multi-Cultural Ministry from Providence, Rhode Island, La Iglesia Luterana (an Hispanic Latino ministry which grew out of Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, and serves a different area in Providence), and my own First Lutheran Church of East Greenwich, Rhode Island. People of various languages and ethnicities, of every hue and shape and size and age, gathered together to worship God as one.

Worship was in Spanish and in English. The music was a blending of various styles. The food at the picnic was specialty dishes from various cultures. Children of all ages laughed and played together. For me it was truly a glimpse of the reign of God, of the heavenly banquet, where all God’s people come together as one. At the end of that glorious day, I was exhausted, but happy.

When was the last time you laughed? When was the last time you let out a deep, uncontrollable, belly laugh from your core? When was the last time you felt true joy? True happiness?

As a pastor, I experience the whole spectrum of life with people. The vast majority of the time, when people make an appointment to speak with me, it is because they are struggling with something devastating: anxiety over a life-threatening illness; grieving the loss of someone they love; struggling with the break-up of a long-term marriage or relationship; feeling oppressed with an addiction that’s threatening to destroy them. These burdens can be overwhelming. As a pastor, accompanying people through these struggles can be overwhelming, depressing, and stressful.
I find that the only way I can have the strength to deal with the heavy burdens of this life, is to be sure to have some kind of balance. I deal with death a lot more than the average person, but I also baptize a lot of babies. I deal with a lot of struggles in peoples’ lives, but I also participate in a lot of celebrations. I accompany people through many sorrows, but thankfully, also through many joys. I shed a lot of tears with people, but also share a lot of laughter.

Today, I ask you, when as the last time you laughed, really laughed? When was the last time you celebrated? When was the last time you felt filled with joy? Remember to live in balance.
This day may you have ears that hear the laughter of children, and eyes that see the beauty in every face. May you know deep, abiding joy.

May you see God in all you encounter,
and may you reflect God to all you encounter.
Linda Forsberg, Copyright August 26, 2015

Photos:  Sylvie in our Secret Garden;Jesu (Linda) and Peter (Brett) walking on water; Jesus (Scott) and the woman at the well (Linda); Paul (Brett) and Lydia (Linda); O’Brien and O’Brian; Worship at Polaski Park (three photos); beautiful Ginger after officiating at our wedding; Ted and Linda in Sweden, celebrating Ted’s birthday; Sylvie’s joy at the beach

Wisdom: “She”

Wisdom is one of the ancient names for God. In the bible, Wisdom is feminine, “She.” In the Hebrew bible the word is “Chokmah.” In the Greek New Testament it is “Sophia.” Last weekend in churches around the globe we read this text:
“Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table.She has sent out her servant girls, she calls from the highest places in the town, “You that are simple, turn in here!” To those without sense she says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.” Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” Proverbs 9: 1-6

There is an entire body of material in the Hebrew bible called “Wisdom literature.” It includes Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Song of Solomon. Many of the Apocryphal books (books written in between the Old and New Testaments, considered to be part of the bible by Roman Catholics, but not by Protestants) are also considered Wisdom literature. Wisdom, therefore, opens us to the feminine side of God.

So I began my sermon last weekend by doing a prayer exercise with people. I asked them to pray to God the deepest desire of their heart. I then asked them to name God, using the name with which they call upon God in prayer. Many said, “God” or “Holy Father,” or Lord. I then asked them to visualize this God we pray to with a visual image. Many said Shepherd, Father, Rock, Strength, Light.

Of course we know in our minds that God is bigger than all of our names and images. Many people also say we know that God is beyond gender, neither male nor female. But how important it is for us to realize, as Saint Ignatius of Loyola always said, that God is always “More.”
About five years ago during Lent our whole community of faith did what is called a “God survey.” It is a survey developed by the psychiatrist Ana-Maria Rizzuto, in her book, “The Birth of the Living God.” Rizzuto wrote this book because she noticed that the vast majority of her psychiatric patients talked to her about God, and the vast majority of them had a very problematic image or understanding of God. Many of them conceived of God as violent, abusive, or so distant as beyond their reach. In working with these patients Rizzuto discovered that for most people our image or understanding of God comes from our earliest, most primary human relationship(s), in other words, usually our mother or father, or sometimes a grandparent or primary caregiver. If our mother or father was wonderful and loving, that can be a good thing.

But if, as for so many people I counsel, our parent is abusive, or abandoned us when we were young, our God image fares similarly. I used this God survey with about forty people in our community of faith, and our conversations yielded results very similar to Rizzuto’s. So, I invite you to think about your own image of God, and then to think about your earliest, most primary relationship(s), and to ask yourself if your image or understanding of God looks a lot like your parent(s).

That same Lent we also read the book “The Shack,” by William P. Young. This book is based on the true story of a father whose very young daughter is abducted. This is every parent’s worst nightmare. In this story, the father, named “Mack,” asks God all of the “Why” questions we all ask: “Why did this happen to me? Why, O God, did you allow this to happen?” In his rage against God this father cannot experience God in the usual ways, so the Triune (three- dimensional) God comes to him in many new and surprising ways. The Father/Creator God comes to him as “Papa,” but in The Shack “Papa” is a large black woman who loves to cook, and invites Mack to come and eat at her table. She is a variation of God as Wisdom (Chokmah/Sophia).

In “The Shack” Jesus, the second part of the Trinity, is depicted as a Jewish carpenter, which, of course, he was. The Holy Spirit, also feminine in the bible (Hebrew Ruach, Greek Pneuma) is depicted as an Asian woman gardener, wispy and shimmering, never able to be pinned down. There is also another depiction of Wisdom/Chokmah/Sophia as an Hispanic/Latino woman in a business suit, advocating for those who have been victimized. In other words, this little book challenges our previously conceived images of “God,” and invites us to explode the boxes we have put God in, to expand our images and understanding of God.

The Good News is that, no matter how warped, negative, or harmful our earliest relationships, and hence images of God may be, there is a Living God (hence the title of Rizzuto’s book, “The Birth of the Living God”), who is always trying to break through to us, always inviting, wooing us, saying, “No, I am bigger than THAT!” The second piece of Good News is that the bible teaches us that all of us are created in the image and likeness of God. (Genesis 1) This “imago dei” is within all of us. So if Wisdom/Chokmah/Sophia is within all of us, then we all have Wisdom that is innate. If you spend any time with very young children, as I do, you know that they truly ARE wise beyond their years.

The third piece of Good News is that God IS ALWAYS MORE. So, especially for those of us who have difficulty with the masculine, patriarchal image or understanding of God, God invites us to explore the other side of God, the feminine face of God, in this case Wisdom/Chokmah/Sophia. I myself discovered Her when I began Divinity School at Harvard. Two weeks before I began Divinity School I was sexually assaulted for the second time as an adult (and had been twice as a child also). Harvard at that time was radically feminist. Thank God for me. It forced me to develop a relationship with the feminine aspect of God. But I confess, as much as I prayed to Mother/Ruach/Wisdom/Sophia, that old white guy with the beard from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was in my head. It’s difficult to get past Him. But I kept at it. Finally, after about six months of praying daily to Mother/Ruach/Wisdom/Sophia, She broke through to me. She and I have been in relationship now for over thirty years. In her I find Mother Strength, Comfort, Wisdom.

This day, may you see Her in all you encounter,
and may you reflect Her to all you encounter.
Linda Forsberg, Copyright August 18, 2015

Photos:  Artwork from the Women’s Restroom at Nepenthe, Big Sur, CA; ditto; ditto; Lighthouse, Florence, OR; Native American mother and child statue, Mount Hood, OR; my mom, Helen, with her first child, Leslie; Aunt Joyce, with Sylvie; Redwood tree, Jedediah Smith State Park, CA;  Sylvie and I; Aunt Joyce and Sylvie, a glimpse of Wisdom/Ruach/Chokmah/Sophia

Family

For the past two days I was in New Hampshire for a family reunion. Cousins, some of whom I had not seen in years, sharing stories and food, like Word and Sacrament, nourishing the spirit, the heart. The years and distance fell away. We were One. We vowed to do it again, next summer, and every summer after that.
The older I get, the more I realize that relationships are the most important thing in this life. “To love another, is to see the face of God,” sings my favorite line from my favorite play, Les Miserables. I have grown to know the truth of those words.
My father, Cliff, was an only child. My mother, Helen, was the third of six children. She and her elder sister, Hermine, were just a year apart.

When they were young they double-dated, my mom and dad, Hermine and Arthur. My mom and her sister Hermine married just a year apart, and wore the same wedding dress.

Eight years ago, our mothers died, just one year apart. First Arthur, then Hermine, then my mom, Helen, then my dad, Cliff.
My parents had four children; Hermine and Arthur had four children. When I was a young girl, summer was my favorite season. A highlight of every summer was a visit from my cousins. Hermine and Arthur lived in Mexico, so when they visited, they would stay for a whole month. Their oldest two kids, Art and Jon, would stay with my aunt and uncle. Their youngest two kids, Karen and Chris, would stay with us. Karen was one year older than I, and Chris one year younger. Oh, would we have fun during those summer months. Oh did we get into mischief!

Oh was it good to laugh and reminisce with Karen! On a walk yesterday, we vowed to make this reunion an annual event. We vowed to make sure our children get to know each other. Karen said, “These are the relationships that will always be with us.”
We also celebrated new beginnings in our family: marriages, births, friends who had been grafted in, and therein new additions to the family. We said a toast to “Familia!”

We laughed at the quirks and dysfunctions of our family. But we also lamented the loss of those who had estranged themselves from our family. We feel incomplete without them. We long for their return.
I cannot help but think of a little book by the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, called “Life Together.” In this splendid little discourse Bonhoeffer wrote about the joys and struggles of living in Christian community. I have found the same teaching in all of the world’s different faith traditions, which all stress that this spiritual life is not a solo sport. We cannot do it alone. We need the support of a family of faith, or a spiritual community. Bonhoeffer compared the community of faith to a family. He said that Christ blessed us with the gift of our family of faith to strengthen and comfort us, but also to challenge and expand us. I remember a banner hanging in the chapel at Harvard Divinity School which read: “Jesus Christ came to comfort the disturbed, and to disturb the comfortable.” That saying echoes Bonhoeffer’s sentiment. When we are disturbed, hurting, grieving, struggling, we need family and community to comfort us. But when we have become too self-absorbed, too complacent, too comfortable, we need others – family or community – to challenge us, to hold us accountable, and to help us to grow and to expand. Indeed how much easier to be with people who are just like us, who think just like us. But how dwarfing, how narrow, how insular, how boring!

Bonhoeffer exclaims, in fact, that God has blessed us specifically with those people we find most difficult, most challenging, in our family or in our community, because it is in fact those very people who stretch us, who expand us, to become bigger people.

If there is ever to be peace in this world, it must start here, in our hearts, in our families, in our communities, where we may not agree with each other on everything, but we love and respect one another beyond our differences, beyond our disagreements, seeing the face of God reflected in each face. May we know that in God’s eyes we are all beloved. May we love one another, as God has loved us. May we be One, as God is One.

This day may you see God in all you encounter,
and may you reflect God to all you encounter.

Linda Forsberg, Copyright August 11, 2015

Photos:  Our grandmother, Hermine (Minnie), when she was a young woman, standing, second from left, and our great grandmother, seated, fourth from left; part of our NH reunion (Karen, Haydn, Avery, Nick, Ellie, Leslie, Whitney, Linda, Art; uncle Fritz, Hermine, and Helen; mom and dad at their wedding, Hermine and Arthur at their wedding; Leslie, Karen, Linda; Karen and Linda; Jonathon and Art’s wife, Linda; Uncle Ray, the one remaining of his generation

Bread for the Journey – Strength for the Day

For Christians the assigned readings for what seems like the entire summer all have to do with bread. Not just any bread, but the bread of life. For the ancient Israelites wandering in the wilderness for forty years, this is the manna that God showered down upon them from heaven each and every day. One of my favorite stories from the Hebrew bible is this coming Sunday’s story about Elijah, trying to escape the death threats from evil Queen Jezebel, collapsing exhausted in the desert under the only speck of shade – a broom tree, and falling asleep lamenting his miserable life.

He is fed by an angel, which literally means “messenger,” cakes baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. The angel bids him to “get up and eat, lest the journey be too much for you.” (I Kings 19:7) The text said he “Got up and ate, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb (another name for Sinai) the mount of God.

All of the New Testament readings assigned for these summer months are about Jesus as the bread of life from heaven, paralleling him with the manna, the bread of heaven, and with the bread of angels fed to Elijah. Christians believe the Eucharist (also called the Sacrament of the Altar or the Lord’s Supper) is spiritual food given to us to strengthen us for the living of our lives in Christ.

In Hinduism food is seen as a great gift from God, and eaten with reverence and thanksgiving. Food is offered as a sacrifice to a god as part of Hindu worship. This offering is called prasada. Hindus respect all forms of life, and thus are vegetarian. Buddhists are also often vegetarian, and especially in the Zen tradition, encourage eating mindfully, conscious of how the entire cosmos is present in every piece of food (sun, water, earth, etc.). Muslims also see Allah as the source of all sustenance, and give thanks for the gift of food. In Native American traditions, even when eating meat, the hunter would give thanks to the spirit in the deer or buffalo, or whatever kind of food would be consumed, for giving its life so that we might be fed.
But in all these traditions, there is a distinction between physical food, and spiritual food. Physical food is given to us by our Creator, yes, to nourish and strengthen us. But God also provides us with other “spiritual food,” other things to feed and nourish us on a spiritual level.

In many religious traditions, the sacred text is seen as a form of spiritual food. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Bible is often spoken of as food for our souls. So too with the Hindu Scriptures, the Buddhist texts, the Qu’ran, and also the stories passed on in Native American tradition.

Prayer or meditation, in every spiritual tradition is seen as a kind of “communion” with God, and is seen as a form of daily nourishment for our spirits, as a kind of “soul food.” Muslims pray five times a day. When I was in Turkey a few years ago, I was deeply moved by the chanted call to prayer which hailed from the minarets five times every day. I too prayed every time I heard this call to Salat (prayer). For Jews the traditional Shema is prayed three times a day, morning, noon and night. Some Christians believe that we are to “Pray without ceasing,” as Saint Paul said. (I Thes. 5:17) Buddhist mindfulness means a constant state of awareness that all of life is sacred. In the Hindu tradition I have participated in a living yoga sadhana, which means a commitment to a daily spiritual practice, not just a practice of physical yoga, but of meditation, of healthy eating choices, and of healthy attitudinal choices and of awareness in all of our relationships.

In other words, every spiritual tradition reminds us that the Holy One invites us to be fed and nourished, every single day, not just once in awhile. I ask you, do you eat the bread of life once in awhile? Or do you come into God’s presence each and every day, many times a day, to be strengthened for this journey of life?

Martin Luther is known to have said, “I have so much to do every day that I cannot get by on anything less than two hours of prayer!” After Shakespeare he was one of the most prolific writers, as well as a busy pastor, professor, scholar, husband, and father. So, if you think you do not have time for daily prayer, for daily reading of scripture, for communing with God on a daily basis, think again. In my own life I am very disciplined with certain things. I try to get physical exercise five-six times a week. But I will easily skip physical exercise before I skip my daily spiritual practice. Countless people tell me how much energy I have. I know that my energy comes from the Creator of the Cosmos, who feeds and nourishes me each and every day through my time of prayer, reading scripture, and communion with God.

This day, I invite you to commit yourself to a daily spiritual practice, to open yourself to letting God feed and nourish you each and every day. May you find, as I find, that “your strength (also translated as your youth) is renewed like the eagle’s.” (Psalm 103:5)
This day may you see the Holy One in all you encounter,
and may you reflect the Holy One to all you encounter.

Linda Forsberg, Copyright August 4, 2015

Photo credits:  Eucharist at NE Synod Assembly, 2014, Springfield, MA, ld by Rev. Steph Smith, Pastor at Cathedral in the Night; Linda under solitary tree at White Sands, NM; Linda hiking across Kitchen Mesa, Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM; Holy Communion at annual church picnic, Goddard Park, Warwick, RI; Church Beyond Walls’ Communion Table, Providence, RI; quotations from the Qu’ran, Mosque in Turkey; Linda doing yoga in Athen, Greece; Victoria heading out from the Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; Linda at Greek Monastery, Greece

Made New

I just returned from a badly needed vacation. I had been feeling exhausted and burned out. My husband, Ted, and I travelled to Oregon and California. For two weeks we immersed ourselves in our amazing, healing earth. We hiked and rambled through National and State Parks. We drove down the Oregon and California coasts.

We spent a lot of time with trees, redwoods and sequoias . I always find trees especially healing. In almost every religious tradition, the tree is a symbol of Life. Only within the past year did I read in a biblical footnote that trees represent the sacred feminine. That makes sense: Mother Earth, Tree of Life, Bearing Fruit, with “leaves for the healing of the nations.” (Rev. 22:2)

These ancient trees took hold of me. I entered into communion with them. I poured out my soul to them, and they to me.
I was so inspired by them that I wrote seven poems there in their groves.

I cannot share these poems with you because this morning I submitted some of them for publication. They will not publish anything that is already published, even if only in a personal blog. But I hope they get published so you can read them some day!
I return to you feeling made new. Feeling truly rejuvenated. Feeling washed in healing Light. Partly, I think, it is because we need perspective. The burdens of this life sometimes seem huge, overwhelming. But to walk by the ocean, to touch a redwood, a sequoia, to stand on a mountain of ancient rock, sail on a lake almost two thousand feet deep, to feel small, to stand face to face with something so much bigger than we are, makes our burdens seem smaller too.

Not everyone has the resources to travel. My husband and I have made choices to allow us to do this. We live in a four room apartment, rather than a large home. We live simply all year to be able to afford an annual adventure. For me I need to travel far enough to truly unplug. For the one week that we were at Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, we had no cell phone service. This was exhilarating. A true Sabbath. A time of literal rest. Of re-creation. At the end of our adventure we visited my friend, Peggy, and her boyfriend, Ron. I have known Peggy since Junior High School. Ours is my longest friendship. She sometimes knows me better than I know myself. In her face I glimpse the face of God. In her presence I am known fully. In her love I am made whole.

I invite you to embark on your own adventure. To commit yourself to taking a Sabbath. To spend time with those whose love is balm for your weary soul. To immerse yourself in God’s creation, in this healing earth, and to let it restore you and make you new.

This day, may you see the Holy in all you encounter,
and may you reflect the Holy to all you encounter.
May you be made new.

Linda Forsberg, Copyright June 28, 2015

Photos:  Linda at Trillium Lake, viewing Mount Hood, OR; CA coast; Sequoia at Sequoia National Park, CA; Linda with Redwood on Boy Scout Trail, Jedediah Smith State Park, CA;Ted at Hidden Grove, Sequoia National Park, CA; Ron, Peggy, Linda and Ted, at Balboa Park, San Diego, CA; Linda on Multnomah Falls Trail, early morning sun, OR

Friends: God with Skin On

This morning we said goodbye to some friends who have been visiting from Ohio for the last three days. We only see them once every couple of years. As they drove off, my husband Ted waked into the backyard wiping his eyes. “I’m terrible with goodbyes,” he said. Ron is one of his oldest friends. Ron’s wife, Sharon, and their two teenage daughters, Taylor and Alex,and I really hit it off. I said to Ted,”It is too bad they don’t live closer. I could see myself being really close friends with Sharon and the girls.” The older I get, the more I appreciate the gift of friends.
I am not into “cute.” Please don’t buy me a stuffed animal. The same goes for “cute” stories. But sometimes children say things that, while they may be “cute,” are also profound. Many years ago a friend told me the story of a little boy who was terrified of thunder storms. Whenever it thundered, he would run from his room into his parents’ bedroom, and jump into bed with them, terrified. As he grew older, this got to be a bit much. One night when this happened, his mom said to him, “Joey, this has got to stop. You can’t keep jumping into bed with us every time you get scared. You know that you are never alone. You know God is with you, always.” Joey replied, “Yeah, I know that, but sometimes I need God with skin on.”

I know, I know, “cute” story. But the older I get I realize that there is something profound about children’s realization of “God with skin on.” The older I get the more I appreciate the theology of the Incarnation – God made flesh. For Christians, “God made flesh” is what we celebrate at Christmas with the birth of Jesus. But the early church fathers and mothers emphasized that God-made-flesh also means that we experience God made flesh in our human relationships – that we ARE the body of Christ. Other religions teach something similar. At the end of every yoga practice we hold our hands in prayer posture in front of our hearts, and bow to one another, saying, “Namaste.” “Namaste” literally means “May the holy in me acknowledge the holy in you.” Zen Buddhism teaches us to be mindful, seeing the sacred in all things, in all people, in every moment.

The older I get the more I realize that the most important thing in this life is our relationships. Many years ago as a pastor I came in contact with a young man, fifteen years old, who was dying of leukemia. He wrote a letter to his high school classmates, which I have shared at countless funerals. He wrote: “Facing my death has taught me a lot about life. So many people waste their time and energy focusing on things which, in the grand scheme of things, are truly not that important. Facing death has taught me that really there are only two things that are important in this life: our relationship with God and our relationships with those we love.” Again profound wisdom from a young person. Again, God. God with skin on. God made flesh in you and me and our human relationships.

Yesterday I officiated at the funeral for a beloved friend. Karina was ninety-one years old. I have known her and loved her for nineteen years, ever since I began serving as Pastor at First Lutheran Church. When I met her, she was in the fulness of life, strong, remarkably youthful in her early seventies, vibrant. Our relationship began as pastor and parishioner. Over the years it became something different. We became intimate, beloved friends. She was a brilliant woman, who spoke several languages besides her native Latvian, and had lived a life of amazing hardship and amazing triumphs. She was cultured and well-read. She would always ask me what I have been reading lately. One summer I was reading each of my three young adult children’s favorite books,to gain a deeper understanding of my children and what makes them “tick.” Zach’s was One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Marquez; Victoria’s was The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand; Juliana’s was Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint Exupery. I told Karina my favorite of the three was The Fountainhead. Turns out she had read it, and several other of Ayn Rand’s books. She told me the history of the author, about her politics, etc. Then I noticed the massive Atlas Shrugged (another Ayn Rand) on her bookshelf. Last summer I told her I was reading Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth. Turns out, she has read everything by Joseph Campbell also! I have only one other friend who has read him; this is NOT light reading! At one of my last visits with Karina in her home, before our more difficult visits in the hospice center, Karina said to me, “Who would have thought that you and I, such different ages and backgrounds and life experiences, would have so much in common, and become such close friends! What a blessing you are to me, my dear friend.” Truly, the blessing was mine. Today on my bicycle ride, I felt deeply sad to have lost her. But the deeper feeling is one of gratitude for having had her as my beloved friend.

Just one year ago, I met a young woman on the opposite end of the age spectrum, Eveling. She is half my age. We met at an anti-racism trip to New York City which our two churches did together. Her church is multi-cultural; mine is predominantly white and suburban. She is half Mexican and half Guatemalan, and speaks Spanish fluently. I have been studying Spanish for one year now, since our anti-racism adventure together. It turns out that Eveling and I are both avid cyclists and both love to read and learn and travel. Last fall we did a one-hundred mile bicycle ride together to raise funds and awareness for a ministry called “The Church Beyond the Walls,” which is an outdoor church which ministers to all kinds of persons, many of whom are experiencing homelessness. I asked my children, who are Eveling’s age, “I know this sounds weird, but do you think it is okay at my age if I have a friend who is your age?” They all concurred that we can have friends of any age.

I see how each of my friends expands me, and I hope that being in relationship with me expands them. Each friend reveals to me another facet of the diamond that is God. (Another friend, Maria Decsy, shared that image with me).
For the next three weeks, I will not blog. My husband Ted and I have each just celebrated a significant birthday. We are celebrating this gift of Life by going on another Spiritual Adventure: to Oregon and California. We will be hiking in many national parks, and driving down the Oregon/California coasts. I promise to share lots of great photos and experiences from our trip when we return, and tales of friends, new and old. Our trip concludes with a visit to my friend Peggy, whom I have known since the seventh grade, longer than any other friend, and her boyfriend Ron. How I love this dear friend, and ache to see her. I have a favorite line from the musical Les Miserables: “To love another is to see the face of God.”

This day, each day, may you see the holy in every friend you encounter,
and may you reflect the holy to every friend you encounter
on the Spiritual Adventure of this Life!
Linda Forsberg, Copyright June 30, 2015

This blog is dedicated to Karina Lucens Hammond, my beloved friend

Photos:  Ron, Taylor, Alex and Sharon, at the “Wave” sculpture, Newport; Linda and storm clouds, Turkey; Charlene at yoga; Ted and Sylvie, Karina, Eveling and I @ mile 50 of 100; Ron, Peggy, me and Ted; header photo:  Ted and I with our beloved friend, Bob Henderson, who now lives in the fulness of God’s presence

Where is God? A Response to Charleston

Last Wednesday night I was at bible study. There were eight of us. We gathered outside for a cookout, followed by bible study. The Vicar from our church even put a sign out by the road, with an arrow, “Cook out and bible study this way,” in case our neighbors walking by wanted to join us. We had started this summer bible study in the evening because a young single mom had asked us to. She works during the day and could not attend our morning bible study. “I could really use some strength from God’s Word to help get me through the week,” she had said. So we did. We had a great discussion around the picnic table.
The next morning I got up early, as usual, for my morning prayer. My cell phone buzzed. I thought, “It must be a pastoral emergency for someone to text me this early.” I checked the message. It was from the young mom: “Pastor, have you seen the news? A gunman shot and killed nine people at a bible study last night. How eerie. That could have been us.”
That WAS us.
My gut reaction was, “Another example of people being persecuted for their faith.”
But then I read that this was yet another horrific act motivated by racism, by hatred. How long will these acts of racism go on? How long, O God?
Why? Why? Why?

The age-old question. Ironically last weekend’s first lesson was from the book of Job. Job was a righteous and faithful man, who loved God with his whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loved his neighbors, yet horrific things happened to Job, and he asked God, “Why?” Why do horrific things happen to good and faithful people? In response to Job’s question, to OUR question, God comes to Job in a whirlwind (see Job 38), and says, “You want to duke it out with me? Gird up your loins like a man, and tell me, ‘Where were you when I created the cosmos?’” God waxes on about God’s creative power and all God has made, and in the end, face to face with God who is Mystery, we read that Job worships God. But Job and we never get a satisfying answer to this theodicy question (why does God allow evil to happen, especially to good and faithful people?)
My friend Steph Smith (Pastor at Cathedral in the Night in North Hampton, MA) came to visit last weekend. We stayed up Friday night drinking tea (Steph) and wine (me) and talking about Charleston. Steph said, “Maybe ‘why’ is the wrong question. Maybe instead we should be asking ‘where is God in all of this?’”

I immediately was taken back to a little book I had read in college for a course on the holocaust. It is a book by Eli Wiesel called Night. Eli Wiesel is the winner of the Nobel Peace prize. He was a prisoner at Auschwitz when he was a little boy. One day when he was ten years old, some prisoners tired to escape. They were captured, and hanged. The prison guards forced all of the other prisoners to watch as those who had tried to escape were hanged on the gallows. Wiesel writes that as he stood there watching something no ten year old should ever have to watch, he heard a voice behind him ask, “Where is God in all of this?” Then he heard another voice respond, “There. God is right there, hanging on the gallows.”

For those of us who are Christian this is reminiscent of the cross. Human hatred and racism and inhumanity hanging a human being on a cross. But God, with us, in our suffering. God taking all that is horrific and violent and hate-filled in us, onto God’s very self, forcing us for all time to look at our hatred and racism and violence.
But God-with-us also saying, “This is NOT the final word.”

Last weekend the assigned Gospel was perfect too because it was the story of Jesus and his disciples out in a boat. Jesus is asleep on a cushion, when the boat becomes swamped by a tremendous wind storm. His disciples try to wake him, screaming, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” That is a question many of us asked God this week: “Do you not care that our black sisters and brothers are perishing? Why are you sleeping? Wake UP!”

In my sermon I asked people to think about Charleston. I also asked them to think of something overwhelming and horrific from their own life.
For me the thought of deep and tumultuous waters is horrifying. When I was a little girl, my adult male swimming instructor kept me after class, I thought for private instruction. No, he took me into the deep end of the pool. I could not swim, so I had to cling to him as he molested me. I never went back to swimming lessons. I never learned how to swim. For forty years I was terrified of deep water, water over my head. Then I went on sabbatical. We travelled in the footsteps of Saint Paul around Turkey and Greece. When sailing in Turkey, in the Mediterranean Sea, on a scorching hot day, our guide put down the anchor in water about a hundred feet deep, and asked if any of us wanted to jump in for a swim. The other folks, all significantly older and less athletic than I, jumped in and frolicked in the sea. I was gripped with fear. “Do you have a life preserver? A float?” I asked. “We have noodles.” There I was, while everyone else frolicked, clinging desperately to my noodles for dear life. Ted my husband, stayed right by my side.

Later, back on the van, an older couple, a wife and husband who are Episcopal priests, came over to me. “Linda we noticed that you are terrified of water.” “I had a bad experience when I was a kid,” was my stock answer. “Well, we have a healing prayer ministry at our church, and if you will let us, we would love to pray for you, that you will be healed of this fear that overwhelms you.” I thought to myself, “I am fifty years old. It is time. It is time to be set free from this.”
I said yes. They and Ted laid hands on me and prayed. At one point during the prayer the male priest said, “O God, help Linda to forgive whoever did this to her,” and my whole body clenched up with anger. “Like hell I will forgive him,” I thought to myself. The priest must have felt my body tense, and prayed,”Not to ever condone what he did, but to set you free.” For some reason, maybe my forty year journey in the wilderness, I opened my heart. At the end of the prayer they anointed me with holy oil.
Our trip ended, those people went home, and Ted and I continued on to Greece. While in Greece, we were on a sailing vessel in the Aegean Sea. It was a scorching hot day. Our guide put down the anchor and asked, “Anyone want to jump in for a swim?” Ted looked at me and said, “Now we will see if you are really healed.” I did not jump in. But I climbed down the ladder. No life preserver. No float. No noodles. I pushed off, and swam. I kept my eyes on a tiny white chapel on shore, like so many tiny white chapels sprinkled all over the Greek countryside. I focused on the gold cross on top. I swam. I swam to shore. Later I swam back again. As I felt the water surrounding my body, it no longer terrified me. I had been set free.

I share this story because horrific stuff happens in this life. Horrific like Auschwitz. Horrific like Charleston. Horrific like child molestation.
I do not know why God allows horrific stuff to happen. But I do believe, in fact, I know, that God is with us, right there, beside us, in the horror.
I also know that fear of the horrific can cripple us, as it crippled me. But I also know that God is able to bring some transformation, some healing, some resurrection, some new life even from something horrific. I know this because there have been countless times in my life when another victim of child sexual abuse has been crippled, and I have shared my story, and it has helped to set her, or him, free.
We cannot let the horrific cripple us from being bold, from being courageous, from living our faith in this world despite the horror, from helping to set others free.
Today our world needs to be set free from racism and hatred. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, we cannot overcome evil with evil, nor hatred with hatred. That only contributes to the arsenal of evil and hatred. Only good can conquer evil. Only love can conquer hate.

I closed my sermon with the Buddhist Metta Prayer:

May you be at peace.
May your heart remain open.
May you know the beauty of your true nature.
May you be healed.
May you be part of the world’s healing.

Linda Forsberg, Copyright June 23, 2015 For a preached version, go to http://www.firstlutheraneg.org and click on this week’s sermon. Unfortunately in the preached version I left out the Eli Wiesel story.
Photo credits: White Sands, New Mexico; Kitchen Mesa, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico; Ghost Ranch, NM; the Cave of Saint Tekla, Turkey; Christ in the Desert Benedictine Monastery, Abiquiu, NM; Box Canyon, Ghost Ranch, NM; Me with my noodles, Turkey; the chapel on the shore, Greece; set free, Greece

Summer Sabbath

It seems as though I have been running a marathon since Easter. Usually I am able to slow down after holy week Not so this year. In fact, it feels as though the pace of life has ramped up since then: baptisms, weddings, funerals, confirmation, first communion. Numerous times work events have been held on my days off.
I am feeling it.

How I long for summer sabbath!
How about you? Is summer a time for you to slow down? Rest? Relax? Maybe even take a vacation?

Next week, beginning on June 25, I will be directing some folks who are on a week-long silent retreat. I myself will also be on retreat. If you have never been on a silent retreat, I highly recommend it. It is an opportunity to unplug from everything, and enter the Silence. I belong to a group called, “Friends of Silence.” The motto of this group is, “Is there enough silence for the Word to be heard?” I don’t know about you, but I long for more silence in my life. Everywhere I go, there is noise. Even when I visit our elder members in nursing homes, I notice that often the television is left on in peoples’ rooms, just to provide some background noise. I see people jogging with headphones. I even see people bicycling with headphones. I cannot imagine filling up the silence with noise. Sometimes, when I have a long drive in my car, I never even turn on the radio, but drive for hours in silence. It is in the silence that I hear God speak.

My retreat will be at a retreat house in Farmington, CT, called Our Lady of Calvary. It has spacious grounds for rambling. There is a gorgeous chapel for contemplating.

There is a bicycle path just a few miles down the road.

Even our meals are eaten in silence. We speak only twice a day. Once, during daily mass when we share the peace. Once, each day, when you meet with your spiritual director, to share the fruits of your silence.
When I return from this retreat, I will work for one more week, then I will go on vacation for two weeks. My husband Ted and I will be going to Oregon and California, hiking in many of the national parks, and driving down the Oregon/California coast.

Immersing myself deeply in this sacred earth brings me into a place of deep sabbath. It never fails to renew and restore me.
I remember reading that Jesus spent over ninety percent of his time outdoors, but that for most of us Americans the ratio is reversed! This summer, I encourage you to spend time immersed in the beauty and mystery of our Mother Earth.

Tonight, at bible study, we are studying the book of Genesis. In the very beginning of the bible, it tells the story of God creating all that is, and then resting. Sabbath literally means “rest.” For Jews the day of rest is the seventh day of the week. It begins at sundown on Friday, and ends at sundown on Saturday. The idea is that if God needed to rest, so also do we! For Christians the Sabbath day was changed to Sunday, because that is the day Jesus rose from the dead: “On the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.” John 20:1. In the torah provisions were made to let the land rest also, every seventh year. That is where we get the word “sabbatical.” Those who knew the earth well, knew that it also needs a rest. If you work the earth without letting it rest, you deplete it of its nutrients, and it will not produce to its fullest potential. Do you see a lesson in all of this for us?

I know a colleague who boasts that he never takes a day off. I think others can attest to the fact that he seems exhausted and burned out. Someone who has a healthy balance of work and rest, on the other hand, is much more vital, energized, and productive.

So…as we begin this season of summer, I encourage you to take a sabbath. Each week, be sure to take at least one day to rest and replenish your spirit. During these warm summer months, immerse yourself in this sacred earth and let it restore and rejuvenate you. Take that longed for vacation, even if you spend it relaxing at home, or exploring your own environs.
Remember the sabbath, and keep it holy.

This day, each day, you see the Holy in all you encounter,
and may you reflect the Holy to all you encounter.
Linda Forsberg, Copyright June 17, 2015

Photos:  Linda’s morning prayer at beach in Nova Scotia; Linda Nova Scotia; Ted, Nova Scotia; Our Lady of Calvary Retreat House, Farmington, CT; Chapel at Our Lady of Calvary; Bicycle Path, Farmington, CT; California Coast, Torrey Pines, San Diego, CA; bTed resting during bicycle ride in Maui; Te in Denny’s garden, Alexandria, PA; Linda at pomegranate orchards, Turkey; Ted and Iznik, Newport, RI

The River of Life

Today is my birthday. I am fifty-five years old, and thankful for every year. Tonight I get to babysit for my youngest grandchild, Lola, who is nine months old. I can’t wait! Tomorrow our family on my husband Ted’s side scatters the ashes of its matriarch, Ted’s elder sister, Joyce. Although she spent the the last half of her life in Dorchester, MA, she is coming Home to Newport, where she first began this adventure of Life.  The last stretch of her journey was difficult for Joyce. Her diabetes caused to have half first one leg amputated, then the other. The family will gather at our home. From the eldest member of the family, to the little ones, we will gather to remember her, with gratitude and thanksgiving.

My husband Ted says that when he dies, he doesn’t want a lot of hoopla. He just wants his immediate family and closest friends, the ones you can count on one hand, to gather outside at Fort Adams State Park, where Ted and I ride every day on our bicycles. We got married there, under “our tree,” which is no longer there, but I see it in my mind’s eye. Besides, it is part of us. When he dies Ted wants me get a bench, in his memory, where people can sit and look at the ocean. In Newport they anchor these memorial benches on concrete. Ted wants to be cremated, and says it would be perfect if they could mix his ashes in with the concrete.

He doesn’t want a lot of words, but does want me to play a song, “The River of Life,” by Jonathon Butler. The words to this song are amazing. I invite you to play it so you can hear the music.

Everyday, I see your face
Like a prayer, I pray each day
That my heart would be whole
And my soul be filled
And my mind nearing you, with you

With your arms open wide
I can see in my mind
Your letter just waiting for me

I run, I walk, I fly like a bird
(I run, I walk, I fly)
I swim to the sea …
(I swim to the sea)

But I’m drifting away
Yeah, to the river of life
Oh, to the river of life
You’re my river of life

Like a tower, you’re my grace
Like a shield, fear every place
Surrounding with angels, the millions above
I stand on the mountain top, you show me your love

The glory around you, is all on my head
Cleanse me from everything I’ve done
Everything I said

I walk, I run, I swim to the sea
(I walk, I run, I swim)
I fly like a bird, like the eagle with wings
(I fly)

And I fly to your arms, deep down inside
And I fly to your arms ‘cos you’re my river of life
(My river, my river, my river)
You’re the river of life
(My river, my river, my river)

Yeah, I fly to the river
I run to the ocean sea
I know the flowing in me
All the sounds that I hear inside of me

River, yeah
So and I run to the ocean, I circle the sea
To the river of my destiny, to the place where I’ll be
Safely in your arms tonight, ‘cos you’re the river of life
(The river, the river, the river)

I am in the midst of reading William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience. James is a pragmatist and a psychologist who wrote in the year 1905. He writes about religion not on the institutional level, but on the level of the personal experience of famous people of faith, as well as of everyday people, the people James works with as patients. He says that all people, atheists as well as people of faith, have to come to grips with the same issues, the struggles of this life, and ultimately, facing our own death. He writes that the difference is, that the immature of both persuasions fight against these struggles of life, and against death. Mature atheists, on the other hand, come to a place of resignation: the struggles are just part of life; that is just the way life is; death is a part of life. He writes that his experience of mature people of faith, on the other hand, is that we face the struggles of life, and even death itself, more passionately,  more enthusiastically (interesting that the word “enthusiasm literally means, “filled with God” “en-theos”). We embrace the whole thing, knowing that it is all part of the River of Life, knowing that the drop of water that we are joins the great stream, the great River, flowing ultimately to the Ocean that is You, O God. Rest in peace, Joyce, in that Ocean that is God.

This day, may you see yourself as a part of this great River,
the River of Life.

Linda Forsberg, Copyright June 10, 2015

Photos:  Linda at Glacier National Park; Ted, Fort Adams State Park, Newport; Ted and Sylvie, Bretton Point, Newport; Sailboat, from Dave’s Condo, Newport; Joyce and Sylvie; Joyce and Sylvie; Sunset, Newport