Just Shine: May 2019

Open to Possibilities

It’s hard work staying open to possibilities. It’s heart work. To do it, we must live with the tension between what is, and what could be. To be able to name what is when it’s ugly. That gap is painful to witness. It’s easier to say, “Oh, well, too bad, nothing can be done.” To shut that door and move on, with certainty and low expectations. If we have low expectations, we won’t be disappointed.

When we speak about a possibility, long for it, strive for it, we remind ourselves what we value. We serve as witnesses to other people about what may be possible. Then maybe they can take the risk and open themselves to possibilities they hadn’t been able to hope for. We challenge business as usual, and sometimes we get in trouble for it. As we take actions that are out of our comfort zone, we embody those possibilities. We make those ideas into visible signs. Like the idea of publicly welcoming gay people to our church with that little flag out front. It’s an adventure! And we discover community with open-hearted people who see the possibilities and believe they’re worth striving for, even if they’re long shots.

Living with possibilities will lead us to disappointments. What we long for may be a long shot. But when we’re open, we may notice some other possibility we never even imagined. In this this strange way we often create something different than what we intended, but maybe just as valuable. We can’t know in advance the possibilities God and we may be able to unfold.

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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

May 26, 2019

Open to the Possibilities

John 5:1-9 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath.

If you were reading along in your pew bible, you may have noticed that verse four is missing. Verse four was apparently not in the oldest manuscripts of the gospel of John, but you can understand why some scribe added it. It fills in the blanks nicely… “for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.” Talk about rationed health care!

However you take this story, as actual history or as a teaching story, let’s unpack it a little, and use our imaginations. The pool in this story is a source of hope, of miracles. But the miracles are rare, so there is a big crowd of people whose disabilities bring them here every day for a glimmer of hope, or at the least a way to pass the time. They sit around the pool all day, waiting for something to happen. In those long hours they talk; they’ve learned each other’s histories. One fellow takes the award for longest time disabled: thirty-eight years. His name is not given, which means he probably never became a follower of Jesus. We’ll call him Horace. Perhaps Horace’s family carries him out to the pool every morning and fetches him back home every night. Perhaps he very slowly makes his way there himself, settles in, and regales the new people with stories of long ago. Horace was the pool patriarch. He had his place, and his business as usual. To the newcomers he would say, “Better act fast, when the time comes.”

And who’s this Jesus character? Horace has never heard of the man in his life. Asking an outrageous question like, “Do you want to be made well?” Horace is annoyed. “Don’t you get it? I can’t. Here’s why.” At the same time, the Powers That Be have been telling Jesus, “Don’t you get it? You can’t.Here’s why.” But apparently Jesus can, and in front of everyone, he does. He tells Horace to pickup his mat and walk, and no one is more surprised than Horace when he does just that. Horace is stunned. Disoriented. And scared, because the Powers that Be, instead of celebrating his healing, are hassling him about breaking the Sabbath by carrying a mat. That could lead to his being excluded from the community, and Horace has been excluded enough, thank you very much. All the time he’s wondering: can this be real? Can this last? And if I am not the pool patriarch, who am I?

All the other people ringing the pool, each with their own stories, each with their own wounds, witnessing this transformation, what was their experience?

Shock and disruption… This healing wasn’t business as usual. What new order is afoot?

Jealousy… Why Horace and not me?

Hope… Why not me? Maybe there are possibilities for my life that I didn’t know existed. Why am I sitting here day after day waiting for something to happen? Say, can I see more of that Jesus guy? At least something new might happen.

Whether or not you understand Jesus as a miracle worker, he is a revealer of new possibilities. Psychologists tell us that two things can help us overcome the wounds of trauma. First, being able to tell a coherent story of what happened. Horace had that one down. Second, having agency, the power to act, a purpose for living, and something to live for. I hope Horace got that.

In the story Jesus did not cure everybody. He still doesn’t. He revealed new possibilities to everybody. He still does. New possibilities that disrupt old patterns of who belongs and who doesn’t, who matters and who doesn’t, who has power and who doesn’t. New possibilities for abundant life despite disability or hardship or oppression.

As the story continues beyond what we read, the religious authorities don’t like Jesus healing on a Sabbath. That’s a pretext. The religious authorities don’t like Jesus messing with business as usual, opening new possibilities for encountering sacred power outside of their control. I hope you know better than to make this story about Christian religion versus Jewish religion. The Powers That Be, then and now, are interested in power and control. Sabbath observance was just an excuse for power and control in this case. By now Powers claiming to be Christian have oppressed far more people than Powers claiming to be Jewish ever have.

The Powers that Be control the stories we live by. They define right and wrong. Powerful people who are invested (literally) in business as usual are by definition right. Who dares question them? and those who offer new possibilities are wrong, foolish, crazy... The Powers define what is possible: that is, what we believe to be possible. Their power depends on us not seeing new possibilities.

When I first read about HR 763, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019, I thought, “That’ll never work. Big oil will never allow it.” And if we all think that, it’s guaranteed to be true. But I caught myself. I opened myself to the possibilities. This legislation is a long shot. It’s only one possibility for reducing our carbon emissions. But it’s a possibility. And the only way we will begin to free ourselves from our fossil fuel addiction that is killing the planet is to challenge business as usual, to see that a different world is possible. It is possible.

Here is how bible scholar Walter Bruggeman describes the work of a prophet. “To maintain a destabilizing presence, so that the system is not equated with reality, so that alternatives are thinkable, so that the absolute claims of the system can be critiqued.” We in this church have become prophets, because we see a new way. We are open to the possibility of letting go of fossil fuels, for the saving of the earth.

I am also open to the possibility of cost-effective low-income housing that offers dignity to its residents. I know UCC minister Vern Joseph. I know his work as the head of Retirement Housing Foundation, RHF is a UCC-affiliated nationwide non-profit corporation based in Long Beach. RHF builds and manages retirement and family housing. Their elderly residents are hospitalized at strangely low rates. Someone did a study to try to figure out how they manage to stay so healthy. Vigilant staff help, but that’s not all. It is intentional caring community. Dignity and purpose. It’s not that hard. Can you think of about twenty people you know personally that should live in such a place? Vern will be happy to build some for you if you have the money and zoning permits to make this possibility a reality. National money for affordable housing is gone. But there is plenty of money in California at the moment, and our neighbors have formed a YIMBY group, People for Housing. Yes in my backyard. Because loving your neighbor means helping them find a home. It is possible to house low-income people in health and in dignity. Now you know. Together we are open to this possibility.

In our personal lives and our relationships as well, the sacred may be inviting us to step out of a narrow and life-denying story that we have told ourselves. You can call it resurrection. You can call it Creative Transformation. But God is in it. What it isn’t is the same old sad story, business as usual, nothing can be done. The sacred invites to reach for new possibilities. Maybe we are stuck and can’t see a way out. Maybe we think, well, that is just the way things go, that is just the way I am. Can’t change it. But how do we know what is and isn’t possible?

Our low expectations and our attachment to business as usual can be habit-forming. We may not want to get our hopes up. We may not want to give up the misery we know for unknown possibilities. Or we may simply be trapped and not have any idea how to imagine a new possibility.

I wonder how many of you are familiar with the work of Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step groups that use the same principles for various addictions. I don’t know because it’s anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous was created in the mid-twentieth century by a couple of drunks who crashed a small group program at a Methodist church called the Oxford Movement. The church folks got tired of the drunks so the drunks went and started their own meetings. They were looking for a remedy for a condition doctors did not know how to treat. To broaden their welcome, they took the overtly Christian trappings out it, called God their higher power. But make no mistake, they were looking for a spiritual transformation. You can’t make transformation happen, but you can seek the possibility of transformation, and it’s a possibility worth striving for. They say it works if you work it, and it’s a lot of work. And that’s a paradox, because how is a person who has made a wreck of their life supposed to work anything properly?

Total immersion is often recommended: daily meetings for 30 or 60 or 90 days, and doing whatever a sponsor tells you. You can fire your sponsor. But if you’re serious about the program, you have to get another sponsor, and do what they tell you. At meetings people learn the AA principles, but mostly they share their stories of recovery, so others can come to believe that a transformation might be possible for them. Your story of what is possible can change, especially in the presence of people who believe in you. Don’t want to do the work? The AAs have a remedy for that: Pray for the willingness. I like that. I can’t do this, God. I’m not sure it’s even possible. I’ll pray for the willingness to do the right thing, to show up for what I value. In this way, step by step, maybe millions of alcoholics over the years have found sobriety. Another thing AA say is, “Act as if.” To new members they say, act as if you’re sane and responsible and sober and considerate. If you act as if, repeatedly, you will be.

A young friend of mine recently celebrated seven years of sobriety. When she came into AA, she had lost everything: her driver’s license and her job, and all self-respect. I met her about five years ago and I have had the privilege of watching her grow from a bundle of raw nerves who was acting as if every day by the skin of her teeth, to become a responsible employee and wife and soon-to-be mother. It was a lot of hard work on her part, one day at a time, with a lot of support from friends and mentors, and a higher power. She has shown me it is possible, in supportive community, to rebuild a life.

So when we find ourselves saying, “I can’t,” or “That’s just not possible,” let’s catch ourselves and ask, “Is the sacred inviting me to be open to new possibilities that I can’t yet see?” Can we pray for the willingness to do things differently? Can I live in the tension between what is now and what might be? Are we willing to act as if the old story that has imprisoned us no longer applies, and a new story of life and hope is starting on our watch? May it start on our watch. May we be open to new possibilities for life and love and hope. Amen

Here are some other bits from last Sunday's worship...

Unison Prayer (Paraphrase of Psalm 67 by Christine Robinson)

Bless us, O God— whisper in our hearts and light our times.
Help us to understand your love and your law and bring them to bear on the world’s ills. Let all the people of the earth praise you with all their diverse voices.
Let them call out the ten thousand names. Let all nations praise you with the best of their ways. Let us all enjoy each other’s wisdom. Let the peoples of the earth bless the earth and heal her together. Bless us, O God, with your presence in our hearts,
And in the soul of our nation.

Creed

a poem by Laura Martin, Associate Pastor, Rock Spring UCC, Arlington VA

I believe in the held (musical) note,
And in the space of silence after.
I believe in the slow rise of creation,
In the light of late May.
I believe in the weight of peonies,
In the fragile,
In the imperishable.
I believe in the shark’s tooth found on the beach,
In the sweep of constellations,
In the history of my own muscles.
I believe in the conversations of shadows
And the dust shaken from courage.
I believe in the first and the forever,
In the you and the Us,
In the already and the still coming.

Love in Action

Yesterday I went on a hike hosted by “Southern California Botanists.” Botany hikes are not good exercise. We get about five feet down the path and somebody says, “Hey look at this plant!” We all gather round, ooh and ah, take pictures. We go another five feet down the path. “Oh wow, look at that plant!” Some of these plants are tiny grey mats of fluff that only a botanist could love. But a few were gorgeous. I had never heard of Turkish Rugging before. A whole bluff covered with little purple balls. I got to learn about these plants from the guy who wrote the book on Orange County native plants. Literally. Tucked under his arm, Fred Roberts had “the book” listing the 22,000 Orange County wild plants. Fred also co-wrote the book on OC native wildflowers. It was funny to watch him reel off the Latin name of a plant and then say, “But let me check!” Then he pulls out his own book, and spells it correctly for us.

This kind of field trip is not for everybody. Scott was relieved when he heard about it that he hadn’t tagged along. But what a gift it was for we who love this land and want to know it better, and for some reason enjoy knowing Latin names of things. Fred shared with us his passion, his love for these gifts of God, and he was also equipping another generation of volunteers to pass that love on.

Fred has been doing a botanical survey of rare plants at Crystal Cove State Park, right near the beach. Several varieties were thought extinct, because the botanists hired to do surveys before Fred didn’t bother climbing the bluffs to look for them. That he cares enough to look for them matters. If you identify a colony of rare plants, you can protect them, and that helps protect the land they’re on. Love in action.

We heard a piece of good news from Fred’s friend Dave, who is retired now, but used to manage Orange County’s coastal state parks. The bluffs we saw were not wildlands before the 1980’s. They were horse corrals and vegetable gardens. The soil was almost entirely bare sand, and what few plants were there were almost all invasive weeds. The bare cliffs were crumbling into the sea. Crystal Cove State Park was formed in 1978, and Dave’s crew began replanting a few native plants. With the cows and horses and plows gone and a little priming the pump, the seed bank hiding in the soil woke up. Many more varieties of natives than they’d planted began to appear. Now the bluffs are topped with deeply rooted native bushes that help prevent erosion into the sea. As Dave told us this, you could see the pride in his face.

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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

May 12, 2019

Love in Action

Acts 9:36-42 Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

It has been my pleasure to participate in a Breaking Bread Group over the last two months. A half dozen of us gathered at each others homes. When it was my turn, we went to happy hour at Taps so people didn’t have to drive to Irvine. We took turns telling about our lives, and our faith, and our take on our church. It does me good to listen to participants of our church, as well as talk to you. One member of our group said this: “We are a conservative church. We believe Jesus.” That took me a while to process. What he meant was that we believe what Jesus taught. And at the center of what he taught was not right belief, but love in action. The most important commandment Jesus gave us: Love God, with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. And the second: Love your neighbor as yourself. We gather here to remember what love looks like.

Love sometimes looks like simple respect. That is no small thing these days. Love sometimes looks like sharing, caring, offering but not forcing. Love can look like setting respectful limits instead of resenting. It sometimes looks like commitment when it would be easier to walk away. At its simplest, love looks like sharing a gift or a kindness with another, regardless of whether that other looks like us, or belongs with us, or is respectable.

Sometimes we get caught up in abstract ideas about what our religion is or isn’t. I enjoy talking theology, but that is not the heart of what Jesus taught us. Love is not a feeling. Love is a verb, a doing. We will not always succeed in loving like we think we should. We will do it imperfectly, and we will risk being hypocrites. That’s what happens when you have worthy goals.

Love does not require any miracles. Thank God. Peter worked a miracle, raising Tabitha from the dead. Whether or not you take the bible story at face value, consider. Peter has just created impossible expectations. The next time someone dies, call Peter! He’ll raise them from the dead, right? What do you mean you can’t do it this time, Peter? Don’t you love us? Aren’t you right with God? Poor Peter.

There are some things love cannot mend. But maybe it is just as well that most of us do not know how to do big heroic acts of love like Peter. Just little stitches like Tabitha’s that, over time, knit together lives of sacred worth and care.

Tabitha’s simple acts of love, in making clothing for others, are ordinary, and have inspired people for thousands of years. Tabitha’s love wasn’t abstract. It was clothing people well who would otherwise have had rags. She gave what gifts and time and talents she had to serve others. It seems from the story that she gathered others to serve with her, and that is a pretty good way to keep a church thriving. Love in action.

Churches through the ages have had Tabitha circles, sewing or quilting or knitting in community. Often the products of those circles go to people needing warmth or comfort. A friend of this church described knitting a prayer shawl for her friend who is facing cancer. She discovered a whole system of praying as she knit, so that loads of prayer and love went into that shawl. Her friend took a picture of herself wrapped in the shawl, waiting in the doctor’s office. But love in action can take different forms.

Another example of love in action. Last year I went to the Iftar meal at the mosque in Anaheim. People came together on a rooftop on a spring evening to share with each other the struggle and celebration of Ramadan. They had fasted all their daylight hours. The people from Brea Congregational had not fasted; it was actually First Food Sunday, complete with potluck! Nevertheless we were welcomed to accompany them as they prayed and broke their fast with a delicious feast. Reaching out across barriers that some would make hateful and violent, to invite strangers to celebrate a holy feast with them. Our Muslim friends showed us love in action.

Sometimes love is remembering. Each second Tuesday of the month, an interfaith memorial service is held at St. Philip Benizi church in Fullerton for the people of Orange County who have died “without fixed abode” in the previous month. All the names are read aloud. The souls of the homeless are not forgotten. Love in action.

Sometimes love is taking public stands on issues, because justice is what love looks like in public. My friend Sarah Halverson brought her baby to the Costa Mesa City Council meeting last week, She was there to speak for flying a rainbow flag at city hall each year from May 22, Harvey Milk Day, through June, Pride Month. Sarah didn’t need to stay with her baby for three hours till 9:30 pm and speak in favor of the flag. The Council already had the votes. But she wantedto speak for her church’s values, to support her friends, and to remind people how important it is to make a safe space for LGBTQ people these days. Love in action.

Another example of love in action. Many of you have asked, “How can we help,” when you heard of Mike Flynn’s accident. It sounds like our help is not needed right now, but Lauren knows we offered, and I hope she knows how much love and prayers are there for Mike. Our love can’t fix him, but we hope it brings their family a little comfort and encouragement. There will be a card for you to sign in the Hall after the service.

A final example of love in action. Edith died last week at the age of 91. I never met Edith. I learned about her from my friend, who had to tell me about Edith. Every year for twenty-five years Edith called up my friend and asked her who could she drive to Idyllwild for their annual retreat. Edith would drive from Orange to Newport Beach to pick someone up to take to Idyllwild. And back again at the end of the weekend. Never mind that she was older than the person she was driving. You all know that driving someone distances in Southern California traffic is an act of love. My friend was walking down the street with Edith one time when she fished a Kleenex out of her purse, bent over, and scooped up a piece of gum. Because then it wouldn’t get caught on the bottom of someone’s shoe. Love can be that simple. That was how Edith operated, apparently all the time.

Edith clearly loved what she did, as did Tabitha, and she loved others through what she did. As do Fred and Dave. Love in action. No miracles required. No perfection required. Special skills can help, but thoughtfulness or enthusiasm work almost as well. What are your personal ways to put love in action?

I thank you, members and friends of Brea Congregational, for being love in action over and over again, in large ways and small. You bring food for the food shelf. You support Citizens Climate Lobby, including hosting that amazing Sustainable Living Faire. You marched in the OC Pride parade. You welcome visitors of all description. I see love in action as we do the small and ordinary tasks that keep us celebrating on Sunday morning and sharing this church’s message of inclusive welcome and love for all, including care for the earth. Thank you.

There is a risk in claiming an ethic of love. We will not always do it well. We may never think we are doing enough. And others may judge us as lacking. Occasionally we may do the opposite of love. (Speaking for myself, anyway.) This is the risk we take, being human, and trying to live up to high principles. Loving ourselves means accepting our limitations, forgiving our failures, and practicing kindness for ourselves as well as others.

So put your love into action, whether it’s babysitting or fixing a car, saying a prayer or writing a card, calling your congressperson or driving someone to the doctor. Do it with a friend, make it a habit, do it for the fun of it. Celebrate the people who show you love in action, like Tabitha. Watch what they do, learn, help. And if you can’t do what they do, just enjoy what they do, and figure out your special stitch in the fabric that is our love for one another and for God. And rely on God’s all-encompassing love to weave our little stitches together into a beautiful tapestry of sacred worth and care. Amen.

Counting Our Blessings

Do we really have to be in danger of losing something to appreciate it? How about we practice counting blessings, without having to lose them first? Maybe there are people who just grow up with an awareness and trust of the sacred, a sense of gratitude, but I’m guessing most of us will have to cultivate it. Process theology claims that God is acting in each moment and through all things to bring forth life and beauty and goodness…blessing. Our job is to accept God’s invitations to enjoy, to learn, to to co-create with God. But first we have to remember God’s presence. to notice it, to find the blessings that are all around us, waiting to be received.

We can cultivate memory, counting the blessings that have happened in the past. That’s what John invites us to do with the signs he reports in his gospel. With my modern scientific eye, those kinds of miraculous signs in the Gospel of John are not compelling to me. I can’t suspend my disbelief. But there have been times in my own life that have felt truly sacred; so when I am feeling discouraged or scared, there they are, touchstones that remind me: God is here, inviting us into abundant life. And there are plenty of biographies and bible stories that inspire me. What are your special memories of inspiration and sacred encounter, your touchstones?

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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

May 5, 2019

Counting Our Blessings

John 21:1-17 After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. 2 Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. 3 Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

4 Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” 6 He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. 7 That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. 8 But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

9 When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. 10Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” 11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. 12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.

One hundred and fifty three-fish. Big fish. Work all night, and have nothing to show for it. Listen to a hint from Jesus (whether you recognize him or not), and prepare to be amazed. The gospel writer John wants us to be amazed. He wants us to know exactly how many fish the disciples caught that morning. So much of John’s Gospel is philosophical and abstract and repetitive, but not this passage. This passage contains a hundred and fifty-three big fish. Enough to feed everyone’s family, and still have enough to seel and pay everyone well, and maybe even pay off some debts or fix the boat. This the last of those “signs” John loves to share in his gospel, to show us that God acts powerfully through Jesus. These signs do not fix everything. The next time the disciples went fishing, their catch was probably nothing special. But signs did expand peoples’ ideas of what was possible.

Catching 153 fish was John’s bonus sign. he had already written an ending for his gospel in the previous chapter, with these lines: Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to trust that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through trusting you may have life in his name. But then, John couldn’t resist adding one more sign, or 153 if you count each fish.

What functions as a sign for you? What reminds you that God is active in the world? What brings you life and trust that the sacred is acting for good in our world? Different things work for different people. Whatever works for you, remember it. Cultivate it. And share it.

Let’s call this practice “counting our blessings,” whether they be fish, or other things. “Blessings” might not be your favorite term; if so, bear with me. What I mean is that, in spite of whatever struggles and fears and losses you face, keep lifting up your connection with the sacred, the things that delight you and inspire you, the special experiences, large and small. Count your blessings.

Some people hesitate to claim blessings because they don’t want to be smug, or “better than,” or celebrate that they have something that others need and lack. But if you recognize that blessings are not prizes to be competed for or hoarded but rather gifts to empower, be enjoyed and shared, then there’s no problem.

So how shall we count our blessings?

I have talked to people who got one blessing that was enough for a lifetime. One stunning experience transformed them. All else is seen in the light of that experience. They have encountered the sacred in a most powerful way. You can’t schedule that kind of experience. Which is just as well, because it often involves nearly dying first.

But many things bless us that we take for granted. Sometimes it takes losing them, or nearly losing them, to wake us up. A trivial example: I used to go camping in Joshua Tree every spring and fall. Lots of rocks, beautiful starry skies, meteors, and no showers. When I returned home, that first warm shower was such a gift! That I usually totally take for granted. A more serious case: in 2015, my husband Scott came close to dying of a pulmonary embolism. So every day I wake up beside him is a blessing, and I know it. It always was. I just wasn’t paying attention. Funny how that works.

We can seek blessing in the present moment. It might be a devotional reading, an insight or a connection from scripture, or just a little mantra that reminds us who we are, and whose we are. We can seek blessing through activities we love. Creating. Moving our bodies. Exploring nature. Nurturing. You know what blesses you. Make a little time for it. And serving. When you serve, you are like our ancestor Abraham, who was blessed to be a blessing.

We can cultivate blessing in our relationships. I knew a couple who married late in life. They were both cancer survivors, living on borrowed time, caring for one another through bouts of chemo. “I don’t know what I do without her; I am the lucky one in this relationship.” “No, I am the lucky one. Every day you take care of me.” That kind of attitude makes for one good marriage. They blessed each other, and they blessed everyone who witnessed their love for each other.

Jesus had some wacky weird blessings; we call them the beatitudes. They challenge our idea of what a blessing even is. They invite us to look for blessing in the middle of suffering, because God is there too. And they invite us to be a blessing to people who are struggling.

Counting troubles is easier than counting blessings, have you noticed? It’s kind of the default of our human nature. There is plenty of trouble around us. Some of it is whipped up by a news industry that knows that outrage sells. And some of it is quite real. Still, most of us here have lived pretty charmed lives compared to people of other times and places.

Our ancestors figured out how to keep their faith, in the face of wars and disease and dire poverty. I want to know how they did it. I suspect one way they held onto faith in a good God in horrid circumstances was to lift up and remember whatever blessings brightened their existence, however modest. They knew how to do some life-giving math that goes like this: you add up all the blessings, and subtract out your expectations of how things could have gone, should have gone, and the despair and resentment that comes with those should haves. My shorthand for this kind of math is simply: love wins in the end. If love hasn’t won, it’s no the end. People faithful in hardship also knew how to borrow the blessings of their friends, their church, their history, their faith. When you watch someone else’s eyes sparkle as they share their joy and gratitude, that’s a blessing right there.

The point is: be intentional. Don’t wait for blessings to hit you over the head. Seek them out. Do your best to let go of the thinking that weighs you down, and lift up the blessings. I do this by making my list of five gratitudes a day. That process makes me look over my day, and remember, and appreciate. It always brings me joy, especially on the days when I can’t stop at five.

There is one final blessing in today’s gospel reading. “Peter, do you love me?” says Jesus. “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” “Feed my sheep.” This call and response is repeated three times. It is a ritual of reconciliation. On the night before Jesus died, Peter denied even knowing him, three times. Peter was crushed by his own failure. Now Peter is allowed to declare his love for Jesus, three times, and Jesus in turn gives him a job to do. This job was far from easy or trouble-free. We didn’t read the part where Jesus predicts Peter’s future suffering. But the job comes with forgiveness, belonging and purpose. There is nothing like the blessing of acceptance when you don’t think you belong, a second chance when you think you’ve failed, a purpose when you think you don’t matter. Peter needed these things, and we do too. Jesus is good blessing us in this way. He’s still doing it. When we rely on this deep truth, we can share these blessings with others when we make them welcome, or offer them another chance, or affirm the value of who they are and what they do. May you count your blessings, and share them. May you be blessed to be a blessing. Amen.

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Open to Possibilities

Love in Action

Counting Our Blessings