Just throw some of that stuff that moves alot-what the knuckleball can teach us about hope

“suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us…” St. Paul

So it turns out a broken nail really can ruin your day.  Seriously. Just ask R.A. Dickey.  I had no idea who R.A. Dickey was until about a week ago.  Vance and I have this bonding ritual that involves getting absorbed in documentaries about things nobody but people who make documentaries think about.  Last Thursday night, while waiting on the NBA Finals to start (which BTW turned out to be the best NBA finals game in history), the College World Series to start (I am very disappointed in the state of NC’s showing- although I really do think those guys from Mississippi are bringing home the title, which is another blog altogether), and Davis to come home from basketball practice, we were sitting on the couch mindlessly watching TV together.  Vance, being male, was doing what all men do, channel surfing.  I was just vegetating.  He pauses on Showtime to watch this documentary called Knuckleball.

R.A. Dickey belongs to an elite group. For starters, he is a MLB pitcher.  Second, he won the Cy Young Award, (at age 38 and the only knuckleball pitcher to do so).  He never throws more than 84 mph and he really only throws one pitch-the knuckle ball. Turns out the most amazing thing of all about the knuckleball (besides it can’t be hit), is what it says about hope.  Hope is also the most amazing thing about R.A. Dickey’s life too.  

The knuckle ball is a magical pitch. It strikes out the best hitters in baseball.  One would think more pitchers would want to throw it, but in MLB history, only a handful of players have ever mastered the knuckleball. Only about 5 in the modern era.  Few are willing to teach it and even less baseball managers are even willing to give it a chance.  In today’s game of baseball, the knuckleball is an endangered species.  Managers hate it, because it is unpredictable and slow.  Pitchers don’t want to throw it because it is difficult to master.  Catchers don’t want to catch it.  And I can guarantee you won’t see it being thrown tonight in the College World Series.  In fact, if you dream of pitching in Omaha one day, you better not be throwing a knuckleball.

A knuckleball or knuckler is a baseball pitch thrown so as to minimize the spin of the ball in flight, causing an erratic, unpredictable motion. The lack of spin causes vortices over the stitched seams of the baseball during its trajectory, which in turn can cause the pitch to change direction – and even corkscrew – in mid-flight. This makes the pitch difficult for batters to hit, but also difficult for pitchers to control and catchers to catch; umpires are challenged as well, since following the path of the ball makes it difficult to call balls and strikes.^[1]
The knuckleball was originally thrown by holding the ball with the knuckles, hence the name of the pitch.  This grip can also include digging the fingernails into the surface of the ball. The fingertip grip is actually more commonly used today by pitchers who throw the knuckleball.  So, you can imagine if you break a nail on your throwing hand, your day is ruined if you make a living throwing a knuckleball.  R.A. Dickey had a horrible day on the mound because of a split fingernail.  Who knew?

If you are a baseball manager or a pitcher who throws a knuckleball, you better have a passion for endurance.  Knuckleball pitchers are going walk a lot of batters, lose games, and throw a lot of wild pitches but also strike out just as many.  Baseball managers are not usually known for their patience with pitchers and rarely can they watch someone walk three batters in a row without pulling him off the mound.  If you are a pitcher who wants to learn how to throw a knuckleball, well, good luck with that.  Rarely, will a pitcher who has his sights on a MLB career or college career for that matter, include a knuckleball in his pitching repertoire.

In 1996, R.A. Dickey was the Texas Rangers’ much-heralded No. 1 draft choice. Then, a routine physical revealed that his right elbow was missing its ulnar collateral ligament, and his lifelong dream—along with his $810,000 signing bonus—was ripped away. Yet, despite twice being consigned to baseball’s scrap heap, Dickey battled back. Dickey is now the starting pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays (he was previously a star pitcher for the New York Mets) and one of the National League’s premier players, as well as the winner of the 2012 Cy Young award.  (Um, did I mention he threw two consecutive one-hitters?). 

I mention all of this baseball trivia, because I think that maybe the kind of hope it takes to throw a knuckleball is kind of like the hope St. Paul describes in his letters to the Romans.  St. Paul said hope doesn’t disappoint. Which I honestly have a hard time relating to since I, like many of you, have had a lot of hopes which have ended in disappointment. And sometimes it’s easier to not hope at all rather than to risk starting with hope and ending up with disappointment.
We had hoped. We had hoped that the time and money spent on a graduate degree would mean we’d have a job by now. We had hoped that our parents would love us unconditionally.  We had hope we would have had a baby by now.  We had hoped we would beat cancer.  We had hoped that by this time in our life we would be married or be able to retire or feel successful at something.  And that didn’t happen.
Because hope as a starting point looks like Palm Sunday with the crowds entering triumphantly into Jerusalem shouting Hosanna. But Palm Sunday always turns to Good Friday eventually.
And maybe that is why Paul chose to speak of a hope that does not disappoint but he connects it to suffering of all things. Which feels a little suspect to me. Connecting hope and suffering.  I, for one, have a hard time swallowing that particular pill.  And I am not looking to be on one of those inspirational billboards either.   I don’t like to be reminded that suffering produces endurance and endurance character and character hope and hope doesn’t disappoint us.
Whenever I am in hot mess, or I am in some kind of emotional or physical suffering, and some well meaning Christian says “Well, when God closes a door, he opens a Window” I start immediately looking around for that open window so I can push them out of it.  I don’t find ignoring the difficult reality of our lives in favor of some kind of blindly cheerful optimism to be particularly helpful. I find it to be downright delusional.
But maybe the way suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope is that suffering, endurance and character actually free us from the burden of having to be naively optimistic. Maybe hope is not something we strive to muster up for ourselves.  Maybe hope is a gift. Maybe real hope is always something we are surprised by. What does hope look like when all else has failed us?
Perhaps, just maybe, hope is something that so captures our souls that we can’t help but become more than who we thought we were and living for something that is seemingly impossible and absurd all at once.
And when it comes down to it, I want hope – I just want a hope that doesn’t disappoint.  I want the beauty and the possibility that comes from something other than our own humanness and limitations. I want a hope that is not just Pollyanna optimism.  Don’t we want beauty and possibility that comes from something other than our own limitations or the limitations of others? 
Because a hope that does not disappoint looks less like being idealistic about ourselves and more like being idealistic about God’s redeeming work in the world.  “It’s a hope that comes not from blind faith, but from being wrong and falling short, and experiencing betrayal and being a betrayer and it comes from suffering and the grave and what feels like a night from which dawn could never emerge and then how God reaches into the graves we dig ourselves and each other and again loves us back to life.”
The kind of hope that never disappoints has nothing to do with optimism or the avoidance of suffering, but rather it is a hope that can only come from a God who has experienced birth, and love and friendship with lepers and prostitutes and betrayal and suffering and death and burial and a decent into hell itself.  And I will take resurrection any day of the week over everything in life turning out as I had hoped. Life is brutally hard and St. Paul wrote about the kind of hope that sustains reality. This is a faith that does not offer platitudes to those who lost children this week to suicide or a tornado. This is a hope that does not waver in the face of broken relationships, illness, poverty, violence, economic hardship or even death itself.  This kind of faith creates a defiant hope that believes God is still writing this story and despite the darkness of it all, a light still shines.  God can redeem the ugliness and turn it into something of beauty despite every single mistake we have made, every poor choice, and all that we have endured, even death itself.
So it turns out that God loves the knuckleball.  In fact, it just might be God’s favorite pitch.   I suspect if God were a baseball manager and God walked out to the mound to give his struggling knuckleballer some advice, God would say, “Just throw some more of that stuff that moves a lot.”

1.                               Hoffman, Benjamin. "Not So Easy on the Eyes" New York Times (June 23, 2012)

R.A. Dickey returning to big leagues". The Daily News Journal. 18 May 2010

I've got friends in high places

So, the humor of me owning a copy of the Book of Common Prayer, an app for the Daily Office and just buying a book on Smells and Bells, The Power of Liturgy, is not completely lost on me.  Most of my friends, (even the more liturgical ones), scratch their heads a bit at my obsession. 

I didn’t grow up in a liturgical tradition.  I grew up in a more revivalist, evangelical kind of place.  And growing up, I have to admit that even the Methodist church frightened me.  I couldn’t figure out the simplest liturgies.  I doubt the irony of my being married to a fourth generation (is there such a thing?) is not lost on God.  The first time I ever attended a Roman Catholic Church I was so confused, I walked out the back door when Mass began.  The kneeler was just way too stressful for me and I thought it might be the invitation and it seemed a good time to leave.  And I was completely stressed out by learning to cross myself properly.  It was way too challenging for me to master.

Somewhere I was taught that being around liturgy was bad for the real Christian and we didn’t need printed prayers.  I grew up around Christians who thought that liturgical churches were full of dead, Sunday only Christians too bound tradition to ever experience the Holy Spirit or even see a real, honest miracle and people didn’t get saved in liturgical churches.  It never occurred to me until I was much older that I really never understood exactly what we were being saved from much less that salvation is not a moment in time but rather a life long process.  And if Jesus saves us from anything, it usually is ourselves.  It ourselves that are the real danger, not Hell.

My sister in law and I still laugh about the wedding we attended together when we were both about 7 months pregnant. It was about 4 in the afternoon, the family was traveling in a herd again and we didn’t stop for lunch on the two-hour car ride to the church.  When, the minister announced that they were offering an altar call (at this wedding), I leaned over and said, “I think I better just run down front and let him save me again, if I ever plan on eating tonight.  He’s not stopping till he saves someone and it might as well be me.”  On that particular day, Jesus was saving me and everyone in my family from one of my typical pregnant emotional meltdowns.  True story.  Promise, cross my heart.  Just ask Kristen.

 To be honest, I am utterly grateful that Cranmer penned prayers wiser than my own.  And I am not sure how the concept that the Book of Psalms was Jesus’ prayer book got lost in the middle of revivalism, but it did.

The predictability of liturgy is home to me now.  Today, I will break out in hives and begin hyperventilating when ministers start winging it and talking about what God has laid on their hearts.  I also want to run out the back door if the sermon is not centered on at least one of the passages from the lectionary and I am one of those OCD types who know what the lectionary passage is before I get to church on Sunday morning.  I think Davis still might believe that I am just incredibly good a guessing what scripture they might be reading at church on any given Sunday.   Not seeing the appropriate liturgical colors being used will kind of drive me insane and I prefer the date to be listed in liturgical format. 

I quit trying to explain myself to people a while back. I have purposefully tried to steer my son away from the things I valued as an evangelical. 

I have no idea how the book, The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris wound up in my hands.  That was my first exposure to ancient Christian traditions.  The extent of my ignorance really can’t be measured.  And I learned that much of what I had been taught in my fundamentalist tradition about church history was quite simply not truthful.  Reading that book began a journey.  The Christian liturgical calendar outlines the story of redemption.  Liturgy gave me an appreciation for the Bible a source of worship and depth that was lacking in my faith roots.  The Book of Common Prayer with its Collects, Responses, and Psalms are the bonds that have held the Church together through history and across denominations. The confessions, the creeds, the saints, the martyrs, and the liturgical year: it is all One, Holy, Apostolic Church. And apparently I was part of that too, even though I had been taught that only the extemporaneous prayers please God.

So, what do I love about high church?

I love the Church year.  I love keeping time with the history of Redemption.  Advent, Epiphany, Trinity Sunday, Ash Wednesday, Lent, Holy Week, Pentecost, and even Ordinary Time- all these days teach us again and again and again our place in The Story.

To remember and participate in the Gospel Narrative artistically and visually is invaluable.  And singing theology…well…words fail me , I know, shocking isn’t it?    Even if the sermon is repeatedly terrible, in the liturgical tradition, a great deal of scripture is still spoken aloud each Sunday.  And the lectionary can keep us from our own agendas.  And the good Lord knows we need that….how we need to keep away from our agendas….

There is something powerful about standing around in a group every Sunday confessing out loud to God that we really all are a bunch of failures who are in need of grace.  Saying the Apostle’s Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, all declare how utterly dependent we are on the grace of God.

I love a lot of things.  I love the use of architecture and beauty to glorify God. I love the sense of history.  I love that some creeds have survived centuries. I love the centrality of the Sacraments.  I love that they think there are Sacraments and they are not to be neglected.

And I understand the things that are not loved.  It is not user friendly.  It can be empty, insincere, and elitist. It can go over the heads of some people.  It is demanding and it requires practice.  It is not for the easily bored or lazy or the wandering mind.  And do I ever have a wandering mind.  But wandering minds really do want to know.  They really do.

But it has endured through the centuries.  The language of liturgy is alive with rich possibilities when we grow weary of  Powerpoints and entertainment and the flash of the modern mega-church.  Liturgy has a depth to it that I think we all long for.  It is changeless just like God. Grateful for smells and bells, the power of liturgy, the treasure of the ancient church. 

When you have forgotten why you believe

I don’t know how the stars hang in the sky

I don’t why the rivers overflow their banks

I don’t know why the snow falls to the ground

I don’t why tornados tear through the land every now and then

Standing in the sunshine, I believe

I don’t how He fed the thousands with a just loaf of bread

I don’t know why children aren’t fed at all

Sitting at my table eating here tonight, I believe

I do remember that’s why I believe

I don’t know how why the birds woke me up with a song this morning

The power of the universe, knows my name

I don’t know how he caused the lame to walk and the blind to see

I don’t know how I rate to wake up to another day

I do remember, that’s why I believe

I don’t know how people pray their troubles down

I don’t how people stand their ground

  

I don’t know how people survived slavery

I do remember, that’s why I believe

I don’t know why Elijah heard the voice in the silence calling out that day

I don’t know how Abraham carried Isaac away

I don’t know why some mothers cry at their childrens’ graves

Watching my son grow

I do remember, that’s why I believe

I don’t know how he walked out of that grave

I don’t why the words written in red survived

I don’t know how love works at all

Reading them here tonight in my safe home

I do remember, that’s why I believe

Adapted from Dr. Bernice Reagon Johnson's lyrics – I Remember, I Believe

When you really are having your worst day ever...

No one warns which days will forever change our lives. No one wakes us that morning and says, “This day will require you have an unwavering trust in the sovereignty of God.” God doesn’t even do that.  I have spent the better part of a decade trying to live in this:  Wring every single drop of good, every single drop of love, every single drop of hope ought of each day.  Live every day as if it was your last.  This day, this moment is unrepeatable.  You can’t recover it like lost data on your hard drive, you can’t save it to a cloud, You can’t DVR it.  You can’t buy it on the clearance rack at Target and it certainly is not going to show up in your much loved, much frequented consignment, gently used, re-sale, vintage store.  Days are not vintage material. (Novel worthy maybe- vintage never).  

So, when he asked me in his broken, hushed voice, “What do you do if it is your worst day you have ever experienced?”  I will be honest I felt like vomiting, because really I didn’t have a good answer.  Truth be told, there are days that just are not worth repeating.  Truth be told there are days that we if could, we would demand a refund.  And had we known about the day BEFORE the day happened, we would have never gotten out of bed.  And truth be told, I have been asked that a lot…it came with my job.  It was tempting; particularly if I knew the theology of the person I was talking to, to offer up some very pat Christian answers.  It was tempting to walk away emotionally.  It was tempting to re-frame whatever the experience… in a message of hope.  But on that day…on that day…I said…

Truth be told I crumble.  I don’t do worst days well.  That is what I told him.  I told him I wish I had a bullet list of coping skills that would get him through what he had to face in the next hour, the next day, the few weeks he had left. I told him that to be honest I didn’t know how he would get through. I told him I thought it would hurt alot.  I told him he would probably be scared.  I told him that I really didn't know how, but I told him, the only way to get through the worst day and the one after that and the one after that…is to fall down.  I told him that the only way I knew to get through was to fall down.  I told him I was not one of those self help experts who say the only way through is through and that he would be stronger, and it would look better and there was a reason, etc…etc…I told him the only thing at the end of your worst day ever was quite simply grace and we have to fall down to reach it.  So when you have a day you can’t quite simply wring good out of, when you have a day that DOES NOT bear repeating, when you have a day you would rather forget…fall down.  There is no re-framing, no positive, no good ending for your worst day ever…there is only this…and this is all that remains of worst…is grace.  At the end of the fall there is always grace to catch you.

Hallmark Mothers- The Noble Lie

For Ginny and all the other woman who have mothered me including my own….

Since I am no June Cleaver, (although I do love wearing dresses, heels and pearls-just not to cook and clean in), Carol Brady, (she did have really cute hair and she and Mike did appear to have time for sex with six kids and all – never mind about the fulltime live in housekeeper), and I ain’t no Hallmark mother either, and none of us, no matter how much we try to tell people otherwise, are.  I thought I might share a few words about the reality of trying to be a Proverbs 31 woman.  SPOILER ALERT:  It is impossible.

I have this incredible insightful, wise, funny, smart friend (I forgot to add gorgeous, can cook, dance, sing, has great shoes and  hair), who has forgotten more about the bible than I will ever know.  And about once a month or so she gathers a group of women around in a circle to share their collective wisdom, spiritual gifts and insight into scripture.  This month we read and talked about the Proverbs 31 woman as well as some very famous biblical mothers.  And it is just amazing to me what you can find tucked away in some passages in the bible.  And what will just shine through the cracks of time and it just speaks. 

As many sermons as I have heard on the subject, (and sometimes it really does bother me that there is no such thing as a Proverbs 31 man and no preacher ever preaches on that on Father’s Day- just sayin’), I never knew till Wednesday night how the description came to be. And ladies, I got be honest, it took a load of my mind and a weight off my shoulders and I could breathe a deep, deep, deep sigh of relief and stand up and say “Whew, glad you finally cleared that up for me God.”  Talk about pressure.  Just reading Proverbs 31 will make even the best mom and the most virtuous woman feel like a chronic failure. 

A wife of noble character who can find?

She is worth far more than rubies.

Her husband has full confidence in her

and lacks nothing of value.

She brings him good, not harm,

all the days of her life.

She selects wool and flax

and works with eager hands.

She is like the merchant ships,

bringing her food from afar.

She gets up while it is still night;

she provides food for her family

and portions for her female servants.

She considers a field and buys it;

out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

She sets about her work vigorously;

her arms are strong for her tasks.

She sees that her trading is profitable,

and her lamp does not go out at night.

In her hand she holds the distaff

and grasps the spindle with her fingers.

She opens her arms to the poor

and extends her hands to the needy.

When it snows, she has no fear for her household;

for all of them are clothed in scarlet.

She makes coverings for her bed;

she is clothed in fine linen and purple.

Her husband is respected at the city gate,

where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.

She makes linen garments and sells them,

and supplies the merchants with sashes.

She is clothed with strength and dignity;

she can laugh at the days to come.

She speaks with wisdom,

and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

She watches over the affairs of her household

and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children arise and call her blessed;

her husband also, and he praises her:

 “Many women do noble things,

but you surpass them all.”

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;

but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Honor her for all that her hands have done,

and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Proverbs 31 begins: “The sayings of King Lemuel—an inspired utterance his mother taught him…”

According to my friend Ginny, as well as just about every Old Testament scholar I could Google, - we really don’t know who King Lemuel was.  Some scholars believe it was a poetic name for Solomon, some think he was a non-Israelite King named Massa, and some think he is purely a poetic figure.  I kind of like the last explanation best.  It kind of makes me feel a little better knowing that perhaps that lovely description was poetry at its best and not meant to be taken literally.  And his mother must not have ever wanted him to marry and leave home.   And if I had of married King Lemuel, I hope Mother Lemuel lived in another country that didn’t have camels or other means of ancient travel.

Fortunately for those of us who live in real skin, the bible is not lacking in character studies of mothers.  Take-Sarah for instance, wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac.  God calls her the mother of nations and quite literally she was.  She also laughed at God, gave her husband up, lied, and forgot to pray about that whole being barren thing.  My favorite part of the story is in Genesis 18:15 where the Lord asks, “Why did you laugh?”  She says, “No I didn’t.” And I love this part…”Yes, you did.”  I have laughed at God a time or two myself.  And God in is infinite mercy, called me out on it too. 

Then there is Rebekah, mother of Esau and Isaac. Talk about a schemer and manipulator. She was also a prayer-er.  She got on her knees asked God for a son.  God being God still, gave her two. We are not told why she liked Isaac more.  Maybe she hated redheads and venison stew. Maybe Esau really did smell bad and never did take to the whole bathing thing.  Maybe (and this is my thought), Isaac was a momma’s boy and just stayed up under her more.  At any rate, Rebekah was determined to make sure Isaac got the birthright.  And like many mothers, she made sure her son was in the right place at the right time, with the right clothes on, and Isaac stole Esau’s birthright with a bowl of soup.  And to be honest, what mother doesn’t combine prayer with a little planning? I suppose Rebekah could teach helicopter moms a thing or two.  But I also admire her commitment to prayer.

And then there is Naomi.  The world’s greatest mother in law.  She saw Ruth’s potential. Ruth needed a little mentoring.  Naomi reminded Ruth of the importance of a good manicure, modesty, a good meal, manners, and a good dress and there is a right way to catch a man.  The line of David comes through Ruth, which is kind of a neat thing considering that Ruth was not an Israelite. Never underestimate the hard earned wisdom of older women. 

And my personal favorite- Rahab.   Talk about a hot mess. Joshua and Caleb are planning a shock and awe attack on Jericho and they needed a place to do a little re-con. They are gathering intel on the enemy and ask Rahab to hide them.  The bible says that Rahab ran a house of prostitution.  Now there are a lot of ways to look at that.  The bible doesn’t exactly say what she was selling.  She could have been selling meals, a cup of java, laundry services, a hot bath, a foot massage, a kind ear, a bed or sex. (And given the options of single mothers back then- maybe she didn’t choose her profession as much as it chose her.  I know- my friend Ginny reminds that not all single mothers in the bible happened to run a brothel.  But I still think God sends an extra measure of grace to women who find themselves in less than favorable circumstances).   But one thing was clear-she was a savvy businesswoman.  She knew Jericho was going down and she told Joshua if he promised safety to her, her kids, her momma and her daddy and her brothers and her sisters and her nieces and nephews and uncles and aunts and cousins- she would lie for them and hide them and when the enemy came knocking – she said, “what red string? I have no idea who you are talking about.  Strange people, I ain’t seen no strange people round here, maybe you better check out the next street.” See the thing about Rahab that I admire is that she didn’t always see God- but when she did- she took a stand.  The other cool thing about Rahab- she did what it took to protect her family. And not just her immediate family but her extended family and it sounds like everyone she loved she considered family.  She covered them all.  And the only woman listed in the lineage of Jesus- Rahab.

So through all those cracks Wednesday night it occurred to me that while the Lord aspires for me to live up to King Lemuel’s poetic description, the chances are pretty good that I WON’T.  To be honest, I think God expects us to fail far more than we expect to fail. Why else all would there only be 21 verses devoted to a perfect woman and hundreds of verses devoted to the rest of us?  Motherhood will not grant you sainthood.  And while we tend to focus on burnt dinners, hectic mornings, 5 pm meltdowns, the drama of middle school girls, the unfinished homework, boxed macaroni store bought cookies, and dirty laundry and crumpling on the floor into tears and teenage tantrums…maybe we should focus on seeing God when we can, praying as hard as Rebekah and knowing at the same time we might make a hot mess of things and mentoring like Naomi.  Those were real women with real lives who lived in real skin and told real stories, not about being the perfect mother, but living with a God who is an extravagant spender of grace and lavishes mercy on all who mother.

Grateful for all the women God has used through out time to mother us all.

Where mercy leads

Dear Vance,

This is a letter I would have written 18 years ago if I knew then what I know now.  Remember how I fussed over which flowers for the wedding; should we use a flower cake topper (we did- no this isn’t a test to see if you remember); basket weave icing vs. a rolled fondant; the type of food we were going to serve at the reception  (which in the end didn’t matter much since we DIDN’T have much food at the wedding); my Dad having us change our wedding clothes in separate bedrooms at the house- (really?!? we were legally wed for goodness sakes)!

Remember looking for our first and only house every weekend for year?  As you said, I would have bought ALL of them and made my mind up too quick.  True.  I can make a rapid decision.  Remember all the nights and weekends we spent working and remodeling that house? Remember all that?  Well, the house is paid for now, the floors are scratched and scuffed from the numerous things I have dropped on then.  There is a hole in our bedroom ceiling where the pipes burst two years ago.  The tile is cracked in the kitchen and sink has dings.  Remember how we bathed Davis in that sink until he was 9 months old.  Not because we scared to put him in the bathtub but because we didn’t have a functional bathtub.  Everything we did is starting to show its age again.  Like the Good book says, moth and rust will soon destroy.

We replaced those windows last year and installed plantation shutters.  We had to replace the frame to our back door after the little robbery incident.  The door we have opened a thousand time to go to ballgames, school, church, let the cat out, the backyard and sometimes just to get fresh air when one of us (usually me) was having a melt down. 

We live in home after all, not the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Real live people live here, not wax figurines.

We never have installed knobs on our kitchen cabinets, but as you will most certainly attest that has never stopped me from leaving them open.  We never have put gas logs in either fireplace, but blankets work just fine and we both agree HD TV is the only way to watch MLB.

Remember when you found my beloved Sebastian dead on the bed and I was 10 ½ months pregnant and you decided that perhaps a better way to tell me was from the pay phone down the road at the Quality Mart?  Yeah, we still had pay phones back then.  Remember how that cat hated you?  I don’t why; he was a perfectly normal psychotic kitty.

Remember the first day we brought Davis home from the hospital?  You carried him around all the rooms in the house to introduce him to his new home.  Remember how he never cried once in the hospital but cried the entire first night we had him home?  Remember how I decided finally at 4 am, that I was defying the lactation nurse nazi and giving that baby a bottle.  I completely gave up on the notion of nipple confusion and turns out he ate just fine.

Remember Davis’ first steps, watching countless episodes of Teletubbies and Thomas the train, playing basketball in the living room as well as baseball.  Remember how the tooth fairy forgot to come one night and we told Davis that she called and said she was sorry she was so busy, but she would BE SURE to come the next night.

I think I heard you say last week we have watched Davis play over 550 baseball games.  That’s a lot of time watching grass.  We only have three seasons left and then he is off to college.  Hard to believe isn’t it?

Well, we have had our share of crisis, you and I.  We have had our share of fights.  We have had our share of messes to clean up, some we made, and some we didn’t. Sometimes we probably didn’t think we could make it. 

We have learned to put up with each other’s faults, like my compulsion to have clean towels every day and my need to make hospital corners when we make the bed.  I have learned you don’t make rapid decisions but when you do, they are good ones.  You have learned to put up with my inability to load a dishwasher or fold t -shirts.  You still leave notes to remind me to shut the door.  You don’t complain too much about me feeding the birds on the porch and I just overlook the piles and piles of envelopes and overstuffed closets. I don't really care how much basketball you watch or football and I have learned to play some of your silly games you love to make up.

But we are building a marriage, you and I.  Not with wealth and not with luck, and not by ourselves.  It is only by the mercy of God.  With mercy leading us, through the tears, the laughter, the sick days, the hurt feelings, the winter blues, we have built a marriage where mercy leads. 

This is the marriage mercy built: the bruises and the scrapes are really just souvenirs of a marriage lived full and loud and messy and richer than we dreamed.  Because, really if we knew what we know now we would have been to scared to walk out of that church that day.  And all the love we had that day could only take us so far and it was mercy that led us and love was the strength in our legs and grace was dropped on every footprint.

I have come to appreciate marriage for what it becomes: a storyteller. It carries a life all its own reminding me of all the life I might otherwise forget.  Look we will never be the poster couple for a marriage seminar, and you won’t see our faces or story scattered all over books on how to make a marriage last, but when I think about it, this has become my dream, not when we put those shiny gold bands on each other’s fingers, but over the years as we have gotten bruised and loved up.

Mercy has led us… Happy Anniversary…and may mercy leads through many more…

All my love,

Kathleen

Would you like to have dinner sometime?

When I was really young I was afraid of the dark.   Like everyone who has that fear, I was afraid half the time.  I still don’t know how not to fear what could not be seen, let alone trust anything in the dark, the unseeable…it can be good.  I suspect like most of you I have a suspicion that something out there was going to get me and I give rein to my over active imagination which always INVENTS things for me to fear.  In the 23^rd Psalm God does a counterintuitive thing when it comes to our very real fear of enemies. God doesn’t say “Let’s go smite them” (I love that word smite…It is myvorite word in the whole Bible. I always have wanted to tell someone I was really

angry with…I am going to smite you…To be honest; I was smiting a lot of people earlier in the week).  And God doesn’t say, “Let’s look at all the facts and determine the level of threat ” God says “Hey! Let’s just eat.”

Even, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for God is with me; God’s hand comforts me. God sets a table before me in the presence of my enemies: God pours oil on my head,  and my cup overflows. GOODNESS AND MERCY WILL FOLLOW ME ALL OF MY DAYS.

I don't know what to tell you about what is going on in the world today.  I am too scared and I don't know and I am wise enough to know I don't know. I  am no shepherd and I can’t lead you anywhere.  There is no clever theology or social  commentary that can take away the sting of this last year, much less make sense of it.  Sandy Hook.  Shootings at movie theatres.   Children dying.  People too sick, too  young with little hope of healing. The collapse of our health care system.  The militant lines that have been drawn against civil rights of others different from  ourselves.  Killing people at a mosque while praying.  Bombings in Boston.  Towns  being leveled because a fertilizer plant imploded. Steubenville.  Attempted  poisonings on elected officials.  Ricin poison found on envelops in a post office.Threat of war at the Korean borders.  Nuclear arms.  Measle outbreaks.  Economies failing.  

But I can tell you this… God is right there in the middle of it. 

God is in the presence of every single thing that attempts to  

threaten our peace.  God sets a table right in the middle of enemies, fear and evil.  

And God says “Eat.”  

So I will tell you THE story.  THE only story that really matters.  THE only story that needs to go viral.  I really don’t have any stories of my own (well, actually I do but those are more novel worthy and not worthy of repeating). But tonight I can tell you again of how God decided to live with us and to be our friend.  I can tell you the story of God and how he walked among us.  I can tell you about this very same God who named the stars, delivered a nation, buried Moses, spoke to Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, danced with David and gave dreams to Ezekiel and carried Elijah off in a chariot. I can tell you about a God who speaks in earthquakes, fires, wind, and with a word makes a storm calm. I can tell you how this same God who decided to be human and

 was born in a time as violent and faithless and terrifying as our own and this Jesus was so full of grace and truth and love for his enemies that he was killed by those he came to love. And I can tell you how on the night before he died he gathered around another table with some real screw-ups and broke bread and said forgive one another and wash each others’ feet and how he held up a cup and said it was that cup of love would save us from ourselves.  And he told that group of ragamuffins to always remember that love every single time they gathered together to eat. And I can tell you that even from the cross on which he was hung he did not stop loving the enemy and I can tell you that despite human fear and violence, death did not have the final word and Jesus defeated death itself and then he again gathered his friends on a

beach and fed them fish sandwiches for breakfast and told them after he left go and feed sheep.  God knew we would be hungry and so he wanted to make sure we are fed.  Fed by THE story so that we know that not even death can separate us from the love of God.  Remembering every time we eat together as God’s people that we can face every evil and fear this world has to throw at us and know that love is stronger the grave.  Every time we break bread together, eating lets us know that love conquershate and death does not have the final word and forgiveness is more powerful than violence.   And despite it all, IT IS ALWAYS WORTH IT TO LOVE people.  The table God prepares for us right in the middle of the fear and evil shows us WHO WE REALLY ARE AND CAN BECOME.  And in that becoming we give away the very food we have received to a world that is just like us –

desparate to be loved and not feared.