Prayer Shawls with Anita

Prayer shawls with Anita

Barbara: Hi everyone. And welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God. Today's guest is Anita Stolle. I met Anita at the Lutheran church in Massachusetts, where I was a member before moving to Germany. Anita grew up in Wisconsin and was raised in a Lutheran church, but her mother would take her to visit other denominations and encouraged Anita to be respectful of other faiths.

Anita met her husband when they were both students at the university of Wisconsin. They moved three times for his jobs to Michigan, Connecticut, and now Massachusetts, Anita worked as a pharmacist in retail and in hospitals. Anita's dream is that her children and grandchildren can achieve their dreams.

She would love to be able to knit for her entire life. Welcome, Anita, how are things in Massachusetts for you all these days?

Anita: They're beautiful and Massachusetts right now. We have no snow right now.

Barbara: Great. Today's Bible verse is from the book of Psalms, which is in the middle of your Bible. I'm going to read Psalm 139 verse 13, “for you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb.” Anita, could you share with us why this is one of your favorite Bible verses?

Anita: Because I love that God knitted us together. And it's almost like when you really knit or crochet stitch by stitch and they all hold each other together.

Barbara: Every part of us is just so miraculously formed and God knit us together and each little part comes together right.

Anita: and each part holds the other part together.

Barbara: I get a sense of love from that verse, imagining that God built me and all of us in a thoughtful way and imaginative, too. Throughout this podcast, we'll be showing different prayer shawls through the video component, viewable on YouTube and on the podcast website, which is 40 minutes of faith.com.

I want to show you the first prayer shawl that I received, which was from St. Peter's Episcopal church in Salem, Massachusetts, before my husband deployed. And I know that in a few minutes, Anita is going to have a lot of prayer shawls to show us as well. Anita, I've noticed that there are different ways to pray for people and to show people God's love.

I sure felt God's love and support when the people gave me this prayer shawl, before my husband deployed. Some people are able to read prayers out loud in church while other people pray while knitting or crocheting. When did you start making prayer shawls, and is there a prayer that you or your group say before you start to knit?

Anita: I started making prayer shawls when we moved to Connecticut and I met a woman who introduced me to prayer shawls. She was making them for her church. And she needed help joining the yarn. And so that's how I got introduced. And then the church we were going to in Connecticut did have a prayer shawl group.

And so I joined that group and yes, we pray over the shawls. We meet once a month here at Christ the King. So people bring their work. And we put our work in the middle of us and we all put our hands on it and pray over the shawls that we're working on. Sometimes people know who the shawl is for. It is easier to pray for that person, but sometimes you pray with your pattern work, a repeat of three stitches. You could pray in the name of the father, son and Holy ghost, or you could put a Bible verse to your pattern. So it depends- sometimes you know, who you're making the shawl for. And sometimes you do not.

Barbara: You might be thinking about a particular Bible verse as you're knitting that shawl for a particular person or really for anyone.

Anita: they don't have to be knitted or crocheted. They can be sewn. They can be fleeced. I mean, you can make your Shawl in any number of ways.

They can be small. They can be big. They can be very small that they just fit in somebody's pocket-  say that the person doesn't want to wear a shawl all the time, but they'd like something in their pocket to remind them. 

Barbara: amazing. I love that. I had never heard that before.

Anita: Yes. They're called pocket shawls and there are pocket sized.

Barbara: Anita, I'm so glad you're in the church right now. Would you like to show us one of the pews with shawls on them?

Anita: Yes. So sometimes we make shawls for new mothers or for baptisms. So this would be one that I would say for a new mother or a baptism, sometimes they like them if they're nursing the baby.

Barbara: That is beautiful.

Anita: Shawls can come in any shape or size. This one happens to be a triangle and it can be worn like the one I have with like a collar or it can be worn over the shoulder.

So this one would be for a new baby and it would be great for a baptismal Shawl because it's white. Sometimes we use the church colors.

This is another triangular shawl and it has tassels. Well, there's a Bible verse about tassels.*

Anita: Sometimes shawls are long and narrow. And this one definitely has a three stitch repeat. So this is one where “in the name of the father, son and Holy ghost” would work very well while you're working.

Anita: Sometimes when you're working on triangular shawl you start from the point and work wider, or sometimes they start on the long end and get narrower. This is a baby one and we put ribbon through the edges.

Barbara: I can see it looks like there's almost small squares inside the square shape of the shawl.

Anita: yes.

Barbara: Amazing. You really know what you're talking about, Anita. I'm not too good with with thread or yarn and cross-stitch.

Anita: you would still have a place in our prayer shawl ministry, because we still need people who do delivery of Shawls. We need cards- we'd put a card with each Shawl. I have different cards for when people are sick, for baptism, and here at Christ the King we send shawls to new freshmen in college when they're away from home. So that's something we happen to do here, but people tend to think shawls are only for somebody who is sick.

Barbara: Right. And then this is the one I got from you from Christ the King, before we moved to Germany. So we were leaving Massachusetts and we didn't know if we would be returning back to Massachusetts. So that was a great comfort as well. I really appreciate you saying that it's for many different life circumstances,

Anita: right. And one of the things that I have to remember is a lot of us are women and we have to remember that some of these shawls go to males. So we need some darker colors sometimes. And sometimes that's not our first choice.

Barbara: I appreciate that you said there's different skills. I don't know how to knit, but I can do paper crafts. And it looks like the cards that you have, the way you described it, it sounds like they're different. Each one may be an appropriate prayer for the situation say for a baptism or a college student.

Anita: right. Or we can make individual cards, you know, if it happens to be your best friend that's in need of a shawl, your card would reflect that.

Barbara: wonderful. And then driving as well. You probably do some of that. And then some people don't drive. So it sounds like there's a lot of different types of support that can come together for this ministry. Even if you don't think of yourself as a handy knitter or crocheter or sewer.

Anita: Correct. We’ve had requests, too, come in from outside our congregation. Like, could you mail me a shawl? And we have accommodated that, too. Not every church can accommodate that, but here at Christ the King, we've been able to do that.

Barbara: That's wonderful. So you've described a couple of different ways of doing a prayer shawl ministry. Have you heard of any other unique ideas, perhaps from other places just around the country or around the world? It sounds like there's really an unlimited number of ways that you can do this.

Anita: Yes. There are unlimited number of ways and every church does it different. Every group does it different. I mean, you don't necessarily have to be a church group to do prayer shawls.

Barbara: So pretty much anyone, you don't have to be formally part of a specific congregation.

Anita: correct. And to honor the prayer shawl ministry, there are no charges involved. These are not something that could be sold.

They're made with love and given with love. And all the members of my group supply their own yarn and pattern. We have some patterns that are free, but sometimes they purchase a pattern to use.

Barbara: Wow. I hadn't thought of the behind the scenes things like that because you go to a craft fair and you see knitted things for sale, but this is something that's really special. This is a ministry. And as far as I'm concerned, you're creating Holy gifts for people.

Anita: Thank you.

Barbara: I saw earlier you have some magazines. Are those available to the general public to order or to take a look at online?

Anita: these books are available online. Janet Bristow and Victoria Galo are the originators of prayer shawls. They were in Hartford, Connecticut when they started this ministry in the seminary.

And so they've written a couple of books and they have prayer ideas, ideas for what to put on cards, prayers to say. So they have one that's knitted. They have one that is crocheted, and they also have a journal. So you can keep track of the shawls you make in this journal.

Barbara: That's a good idea.

Anita: I had a form for my people to fill out about the shawl that they had made, why they chose the colors, why they chose the pattern, maybe what prayer they used while they were making it. And I kept a file about the different shawls with a picture in the church office. And I did keep another list of who received a Shawl so that somebody wouldn't receive a duplicate shawl. Not that somebody couldn't get two shawls, of course, but we just tried to keep track here.

Barbara: Then it might be nice, a different shape, a different color. Some people have chronic health situations, or even how did I end up with three from three different ones. I received this shawl from my school, Wartburg theological seminary, after my mother died. And I wasn't expecting it at all. I couldn't believe it.

I just got a box in the mail from them and I thought, wow, that's so precious. It never occurred to me that my school would send me a prayer shawl. So I was very grateful for that. So you have the gift of administration. I take it too, because sometimes we think of sort of right brain or left brain people, and some people are good at crafts and some people are not, and that's great to keep track of things too.

Did you have any guidance on how to start a ministry or did you always join groups that were already established?

Anita: at first I joined a group that was already established when we were in Connecticut, but when I moved here, this church did not have a prayer shawl ministry. And I didn't have a knitting group that I had found here.

And I really enjoyed knitting and working in a group. So I decided to start a prayer shawl ministry here. I had all the anxiety that everybody has when they start a new project. How will this work out? Will anybody join? And I can't tell you the overwhelming support I've received here in starting this ministry.

Barbara: That's really encouraging to hear because somebody listening might think, how am I going to do something like this? And it sounds like you were nervous and then people were so in favor of it. And you have a consistent group of folks for years now. And new people come and sometimes people stop or get sick or pass away. But it's a living ministry.

Anita: one thing that I learned from doing this in the past, was that you really needed the support of your administrative staff, your pastors, your lay ministers. So before I started, I explained this ministry to the pastor and to the staff because you really need their support in handing out shawls and dealing with requests, because sometimes the pastor is the only one who knows that somebody may need a shawl.

Barbara: Have you ever had a situation where there was just a need for privacy and you didn't really know why, but you just said, here you go, we're praying for you in everything, not really knowing?

Anita: in the other congregation I was in, we used to leave one prayer shawl on the back pew of the church. And then anybody could just take it if they needed to give one to somebody or if they needed one for themselves. So we didn't always know where they go.

Barbara: That's very generous. It's not transactional then- you're not saying, well, I'm sorry, you broke your leg, here's a shawl. It's “you take what you need. We want to give this to you.”

Anita: what some people fail to realize is the blessings the creators get in being able to make these for somebody else. The blessings come back a hundred times over.

Barbara: I know you have some stories for us today, Anita, and some of them are funny and some of them might make both of us cry, but I would love it if you wanted to share some stories about how you've seen God's grace in this ministry.

Anita: my first story is that when you were leading our Bible study, there were three of us in your Bible study who were in the prayer shawl ministry. One of the people who started it, her name was Marcia Bandaret, and she'd had a lot of gifts. She was a quilter and knitter in the past, but she hadn't knitted or crocheted in a very long time.

And she also did not drive. So she needed yarn and needles. And she gave money to her grandson who was about 12 at the time, and told him to buy needles and yarn for her to bring to our first meeting. Well, he picked out the color he loved, camouflage green, and brought it to her. And she's like, what am I going to do with camouflage green?

And she brought it to the meeting and she's like, I don't know what to do. Should I even start with this yarn? But my grandson was so excited about the color, and we all told her, just knit the Shawl. It will find the right place. So she knit her Shawl. And she was finished and all she kept saying was, I don't know who's going to want this color green.

I happened to be working with folding the bulletins with another member. And she's telling me about her brother who is very ill. He was a Vietnam veteran and he had cancer from agent orange and he had been in the army. And I said to her, would you like a prayer shawl for your brother? Oh yes, I would really like to give a prayer shawl to my brother. So we looked at the prayer shells we had

Barbara: and guess what?

Anita: army green, right? So she took that shawl for her brother. I cannot tell you the joy we all felt.

Barbara: That's God's mysterious ways right there. I love that story. The grandson and the grandma, and what's this army green business.

That's great. We do have a website to share with listeners right now, and then I'll also put it on the podcast website. There is a prayer shawl ministry for families of service members who have died, www.PS4FS.org  (prayer shawls for families of service members).

 Anita: one of my other stories is when I started this ministry, we had received a new pastor here and they were expecting their second baby, and our prayer shawl ministry was new and I was like, we need to do something for this pastor and his wife when they're expecting a new baby. And so we decided to all knit squares, and we knew the baby was going to be a boy. So we picked a blue yarn and we all use the same yarn and we all made squares the same size and everybody could pick to do the same square or different square, but each square have a little picture, like a duck or a rabbit.

Barbara: right into the wool or the yarn?

Anita: into the pattern.

Barbara: Wow.

Anita: And we stitched them together and then we had a little baby shower with the pastor and his wife and gave them the blanket. So that was our way of welcoming the new baby into our congregation.

Barbara: That is a really special gift. And I love the idea that typically it sounds like a shawl would be made just by one person because it's sort of a continuous work, but this is coming together. So a whole bunch of people made these squares to contribute. And then they were assembled sounds like a quilt prayer shawl.

Anita: it was a way to have everybody involved. And everybody got to contribute. And we have done that when we have some of our members have gotten sick during the years that we've existed. And sometimes we have knit a Shawl and each one doing one row or two rows on that shawl, so that we have all made a stitch in the shawl. So a shawl doesn't have to be just one person's work, it can be many people.

Barbara: It's special enough just having one person knit you a shawl, but to share it around, that's really lovely.

Anita: And when one of our first members, Marcia Bandaret, who made the camouflage, passed away, her family brought the knitting to the funeral home for the visitation, her basket of a shawl that she had started. And one of our members finished that shawl for her daughter, who had not received one. Sometimes you've finished somebody else's work.

Barbara:  We've heard a few examples of different types of situations where you give the shawls. Have you ever had outside organizations that you go to, or that you've shared shawls with people there for different reasons?

Anita: Yes. So I've had hospice organizations contact our church and ask if we had anything we could donate. And when they ask, I give as many as I have to them. And that was one of my biggest fears when I started this prayer shawl ministry, would there be enough shawls? And there have always been enough shawls.

Barbara: You've got the loaves and the fishes going right there, Anita.

Anita: You worry about all kinds of things that you don't need to worry about.

Barbara: Well, that's probably the administrative side of our brains, like, on average we need X number of shawls per year. And one year you might need more, one year less, but then the workers come, and that's just amazing.

Anita: one of our members is very ill, and she knits prolifically. She probably brings me a Shawl or two every month. And it gives her great joy to be able to share that.

Barbara: how has the pandemic influenced the prayer shawl ministry?

Anita: we normally met once a month here in the sanctuary. But during the pandemic, when it first started, we chose not to meet for several months, but the group is very strongly connected. So we decided in the summer that we could meet outside and different people offered up their backyards and we met outside, safely distance with masks. We met into the fall in our winter coats, and then because the church wasn't being used and we're a small number of people, we're less than 10. We met in our fellowship hall, which is like a large gymnasium and we could open the windows and have the chairs very distant. But now that Massachusetts asked churches to come down to 25% capacity, we decided to take a break for the month of January. We'll reevaluate in February. If we can meet again. We e-mail each other and stay connected by phone calls.

Barbara: I suspect it's a blessing to be together in person, but I also am guessing that folks are still knitting away, even alone in their own homes. I know my mom used to knit while she watched TV and I was always amazed that she could watch the screen and stay fully engaged with whatever the show was. And her hands were just knitting away. 

Anita: In November, we had the Shawls blessed during a worship service. Our numbers were down for attendance, but we still put the shawls out. And I filled up every third Pew in our sanctuary with shawls that had been donated over the pandemic, the Shawls just kept appearing.

Barbara: What a beautiful way to symbolize the social distancing space between pews anyway, and then something so precious there. And then having that blessing.

Anita: Yes. And our minister has been extremely supportive of the prayer shawl ministry. He comes to our meetings. He shares prayer concerns from the congregation. We mail cards to people and we, as the prayer shawl ministry, get to sign our names to these cards.

Barbara: I feel like I need to confess to you something, that my mind has really been changed. I am afraid to admit, I think when I was younger, it seemed to me like the ladies get together and probably drink coffee, I didn't understand that this is really spiritual work and maybe it's not the same every place, but this is just the best of everything combined- if you're talking about Bible verses, it might not be an official Bible study, but if you're sending cards, what an amazing ministry, that really is so much more than just getting together and drinking coffee, and you might not even want to have any beverages around when you're knitting. I'm not really sure, but I'm so glad to learn this from you. And to really honor, this is God's work you're all doing.

Anita: We have tried very hard to include some kind of Bible verse every month at our meeting to discuss, or some spiritual topic and to meet the spiritual needs of the members of the group.

Barbara: Do you ever hear back from people who have received prayer shawls? Because I am wondering if the recipients of the prayer shawls feel a connection with God through your hands? I know I have.

Anita: Yes, that was what was so exciting to me because I didn't expect to hear back from anybody. But recently one of our members gave a shawl to a friend who sent three handwritten thank you notes and made a donation to our prayer shawl ministry. I never expected three notes plus a donation. And we will use that donation to mail shawls to somebody else.

Barbara: everything is free. Like you said, nothing is for sale, but donations can be used. And I imagine most of you are just giving freely, you buy the wool or the yarn you pay for the postage. That's just a gift of love from your family, but it's nice to have an opportunity to maybe purchase extra materials or the shipping costs like you had mentioned. Thank you for using that money with good stewardship to further the ministry.

Anita: Thank you. And yes, we have received yarn donations. One of our members passed away and her family donated all her knitting, crocheting supplies to us. And then what we could not use, we passed on to other organizations that could use them.

Barbara: Another website that you had given me, Anita, is www.shawlministry.com . And they have a section with different prayers patterns, and then they also have a list of States and groups who are doing shawl ministry.

And there are resources if anyone is thinking about starting a prayer shawl ministry, or you want to see if there's one near you, even if you're not anywhere in Massachusetts, near Metro West. Are there any other resources that were helpful to you Anita, over the years with knitting in general or prayer shawl specifically?

Anita: Yes. So some of these cards for the shawls, you can just download from the internet too. You can check your different church denominations and see if they have anybody with experience doing shawls. Most denominations have somebody doing this work.

Barbara: the Lutherans may be known to be good hand crafters, but we don't have the corner on prayer shawl ministries. Everybody does. So if you do a search, you're bound to come up with something helpful.

Any other words of encouragement for listeners who may be thinking, I don't know how to knit or I'm not sure about doing this, finding the courage?

Anita: You know, you just have to start and don't get overwhelmed. Just start making a Shawl. It can be as simple as you like. The other thing I want to say that I almost forgot is that I try to make the shawls out of acrylic and not wool. Cause some people are allergic to wool or natural fibers. So just make a shawl. It doesn't matter if there's mistakes, it was made with love and you give it with love and that's what's important.

Barbara: Yes. That's really terrific encouragement. You don't have to know how to do the whole thing from the shawl to the ministry. Start. And I also am honestly, perfectly happy to get something that has a little bump in it.

I know I saw my mom just ripping out rows and rows and rows. And maybe if you're making a sweater with a complicated pattern, you don't want there to be a mistake, but I'm not checking my prayer shawl or worrying. I'm just grateful to have received a token of that love and care and prayer from people.

Anita: I did think of one more story. When I first started making prayer shawls, one of the first ones I made was for a minister who had to leave her congregation and go to another congregation. And I made her a Shaw and I did the church year colors in stripes. And then I thought, how can I make it from the whole congregation? Because I had moved away and I wanted to send it back to her, but I wanted it to be from the whole congregation. So I sent a large card and they could all sign the card. And I sent charms, like jewelry charms, and each person could tie on a charm for the shawl.

So they could tie on a bird, or cross, or praying hands. They all had a choice of a charm to tie on.

Barbara: And that's really creative too, because Lutherans and other liturgical denominations are known for having certain colors associated with parts of the church year.

Like right now behind you, there's white pieces of cloth in front of the alter, and those are called paraments, and banners are in front of the pulpit also. And so for a clergy person that would be very meaningful or maybe somebody on altar Guild, someone who understands, you're going to have a whole bunch of green and some blue and some red and some white, and I'm probably forgetting something, that's really amazing. So you can just use your imagination and get creative. And the charms show that other people cared and wanted to send their greetings and their blessings on the shell. That's really lovely. Thank you.

Anita: You're welcome.

Barbara: I just want to open it up in case there's anything else on your mind about prayer shawl ministries that you want to share?

Anita: if you feel called to do this, please start. I cannot tell you how appreciative the recipients are.

Barbara: So you don't have to be an expert. Listen to that tugging and just go ahead and start and who knows what's going to happen? Thank you so much for your time today, Anita. I really appreciate it.

Anita: Thank you for inviting me, Barbara.

Resources:

Psalm 139:13

https://ps4fs.org prayer shawls for families of service members who have died

https://www.shawlministry.com prayers, patterns, list of states and groups doing shawl ministry

*tassles are referenced in Numbers 15:38

Anita shares God’s love through knitting prayer shawls

Jeff about encouragement

Barbara: Hi everyone. And welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God.

Today's guest is Jeff Cox. I met Jeff in Salem, Massachusetts in the 1990s, when we were both earning social work degrees. He's from Indiana and has served a variety of people as a social worker from youth to senior citizens, to members of the United States armed forces and veterans.

He's currently a social work supervisor at Fort drum, New York, and a reservist in the army. Welcome, Jeff. I usually ask guests how things are in their area- today I'd be interested in hearing if you experienced any reverse culture shock after returning to the United States from five years of living in Europe?

Jeff: Well, Barbara, in some respects I have, after being in Europe for five years, and you see how things seem to be smaller. And there is less preoccupation on big and a more preoccupation on sustainability. It does rub off on you. And there's a lot of lessons that we can learn from Europe. On the other hand, Europeans dream big as well. And they would love to be in New York state or wherever, driving big trucks and doing big things. So it's kind of a balance, but I'm happy to be back and happy to be on the program today.

Barbara: What's one example of sustainability that you noticed in Europe, that seems to be absent, at least in the current area?

Jeff: if you go to Germany, for example, but especially in the Netherlands, you'll see paths along the road and every place and these paths are actually separated for walking and for riding. These paths are well-maintained mostly and people are encouraged. So even in rural areas, you would see paths and especially in urban areas and you would have people riding their bicycles, now electric bicycles around, and they would be fine.

They would actually be somewhat healthier. And we know that exercise and depression have a relationship and people were more connected. I find in the States, when we try to do something, it's considered a novelty, not a right. And a lot of these paths once they are installed, I mean, they have to be maintained, but the amount of usage is remarkable.

Barbara, the Germans actually have created a highway for bicycles across Germany. Multiple kilometers. Which is something that they feel that people would want to commute both recreationally and for a business.

Barbara: Thanks for letting us know those interesting tidbits, Jeff. Today we have a Bible passage from the book of second Timothy, which is towards the back of your Bible, almost all the way to the end.

And in my Lutheran study Bible, I just have a few sentences to let you know about the books of first Timothy and second Timothy. So from the Lutheran study Bible on page 1,959, it says Paul is in prison in Rome, awaiting his death. Most of his coworkers and friends have left him in this time of personal suffering.

Paul is shown writing an affectionate letter to Timothy, urging him to carry on with ministry to do this. He will need to oppose false teachings as discussed in first Timothy. So for more information, see first Timothy, but for today, I'm going to read a passage from second Timothy verses eight to 14 in chapter one from the Inclusive Bible.

“So don't be ashamed to give your testimony about Christ and don't be ashamed of me, Christ's prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God who has saved us and called us to a Holy life- not because of anything we have done, but because of God's own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our savior Jesus Christ, who has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And it was for this gospel that I was appointed a Herald and an apostle and a teacher. That's why I'm suffering as I am. Yet I'm not ashamed because I know whom I have believed, and I'm convinced that Jesus Christ is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that final day. Take what you have heard me say as a model of sound teaching in faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the rich deposit of faith with the help of the Holy spirit who dwells within us.

Jeff, why did you select this Bible passage?

Jeff: as we are moving into 2021, I was remarked about the concept of life as a Holy calling, and the commitment on how we and our individual places of work and our individual places of life is a Holy calling and how we both live our faith, understand our faith and are in community with each other on our faith helps us grow and sustain.

Barbara: Is second Timothy or both of the Timothys together, your favorite books of the Bible, or just this passage felt meaningful for you at this time?

Jeff: this passage feels meaningful for me now, because it really does speak about the apostle Saint Paul and how in his sense of desperation being in prison being harassed and probably beaten, how he was able to continue to talk about how Jesus was the light of the world. And I think that more importantly, he speaks about his unashamed belief in this and how this belief can be transformational.

 Barbara: in my Lutheran study Bible, it mentions that the Timothys may have been written by Paul, but there is some scholarly question. It may have been written by someone else. They can tell just by tone and grammar and things like that.

How do we go about, Jeff, seeking a Holy calling in our daily work?

Jeff: the first way we do this is by being rooted in study by being in a community or in this case, a Christian community, and that seeing our daily life and work are an expression of our baptismal commitment. Specifically, I think that we have to see, whether we're taking care of children, whether we're taking care of parents, whether we're taking care of a dog or cat, how we work in our work, whether our workplaces, a manager or as a direct support, or even in a retail sense, someone who distributes goods and receives money- in every case, how we act and how we relate is part of our faith and is part of our testimony. I mean, we think about our teachers and there may be one or two teachers listening today. And I want to just emphasize how we are transformed by our teachers. They may not be necessarily speaking at length about the Bible but they are living their faith. They are living their commitment. They are helping people be transformed in their life. Seeing that they have opportunities to be the best barber or to be a meaningful cook or a meaningful scientist or a mathematician. And that is one of the gifts that teaching offers. So I think that we particularly in church today, talk a lot about clergy and maybe a lot about other church leaders, but we may not emphasize enough about the daily work of the people, the the laity of God and how that work is transformative in our world in our daily planet.

 Barbara: So I'm hearing you say that you don't have to necessarily have a career in a church or in a faith setting, just everyday ordinary people have a mission to share essentially God's love with everyone, even if it's not in a faith-based setting. Any other thoughts on that, Jeff?

Jeff: Yeah, let me just say something- more people whose understanding of religion and faith may not be very traditional in a Christian sense, even folks like that, how they live and how they follow through is key. I was looking at buying a car recently and I was with one of the car salesmen and he was talking to me about how this was his vocation, his life work, selling cars for the last eight or nine years. And trust me, this last year has been a very tough year for car salesman and how he sees his customers as important and want to help them be successful. And he believes by having the gift to help then be successful, he will turn around and will have more success.

And that has always been a tradition, especially in Protestantism. But in every part of the Christian experience is by study and by having a strong ethics we end up getting better in our life and we are economically better and our families are better and our lives are better.

 Barbara: I want to go back to what you said a few minutes ago about fulfilling our baptismal vows, because that's something that people who practice in a more liturgical tradition are probably more familiar with, but I just want to check in, when you say fulfilling our baptismal vows. What does that mean to you, either if it was an infant that was baptized or someone who may have been older?

Jeff: I think if you look at the liturgy, what's being said is often, do you renounce evil? Do you strive for good? Do you strive for this way called the Christian way, which is not about being perfect, but is living in the grace and love of God?

And do you want to be part of this community that will hopefully guide you and strive you, and then you are given that name? Through water and later sealed in oil, confirmed in oil that we are Christ's own forever, that this experience is a lived experience. It's not simply a experience where your name goes on a roster.

And we're very proud of that. And we have a birthday party. I mean, in some respects it has been a naming ceremony, a public ceremony, especially for infants to name, but it is an opportunity to say that this community, this faith, this tradition, that this person's potential is far greater than what we know.

And only God in this community and themselves in particular can make that happen.

Barbara: So in many faith traditions, the adults speak these words on behalf of the child. If it's an infant, obviously they can't talk. And the adults promise to guide the child as they grow. And one thing that you mentioned that I just wanted to explain, probably a lot of people are familiar with the concept of water at baptism. In many traditions, the infant or child is held and some water is poured over their head. Other faith traditions have full immersion where the whole body goes in and comes right back out. And the oil that you had mentioned to the best of my understanding, is the officiating person, clergy person puts a drop of oil on their finger and makes the Mark of a cross on the forehead of the person being baptized. So I just wanted to explain those traditions.

And it sounds like the baptismal vows that we live then as adults is sort of continuing this language that was brought either as infants or whenever you were baptized at whatever age that we want to continue to live our lives in this way, that this calling isn't just sort of a one and done you're baptized and that's it, then you kind of go on with your life. Any other thoughts on that? Jeff?

Jeff: I think that the oil is often not talked a lot about, but in liturgical traditions, you'll see this in the Roman Catholic church, in Orthodox church and it could be any tradition. Oils are blessed, particularly during Holy week, during a particular part of the year, but they are a sign of what was done was sealed.

Think of it as a seal, you know, nowadays we have like scotch tape, but the reality is it's a sealing of what is done and that sealing is done by the church. Okay. So an officiate of the church seals that person- if you think about it, there's other times that oil is used Ash Wednesday, you know, oil and ashes are put together and placed on people's heads to remember that they are sealed that their death will be, forthcoming or could be forthcoming and that we are sealed in God's promise in a very solemn way.

We also are sealed in times when we seek healing, there is anointing of that same oil. So that oil is used in life, is used in death. And is used all the time to keep and sustain people.

Barbara: I was very moved by an experience that I'm going to ask you about in a minute, Jeff. And I promise we'll get back to Timothy, but just this talking about the oil is a great time for me to ask a question. When I was at a Lutheran church in Texas, I had a really amazing experience there. It was a wonderful congregation. And a lot of churches do things in an orderly way. I used to laugh on Prairie Home Companion, which was a radio show that we listened to many years ago. They had jokes about there were ushering competitions in Minnesota - I may not be remembering all the details correctly where ushering teams would compete. And I'm pretty sure this was a joke, but it might not be, on how to guide people to the front of the sanctuary at the appropriate times. Depending on how many aisles you had, who went, where, but anyway, at this Lutheran church in Texas, when the pastor said, come for communion, people ran from their pews to go to the front of the church to get communion.

There were no ushers leading people from the front Pew or the back Pew or whatever. And then after communion off to the side, so at the same time, but people would first go to receive communion and then they would go to the side. They had lay ministers, who were praying with people.

And I've seen that before in many churches too, and they had oil for anointing. And I don't remember ever seeing that before. So I'm wondering, is that part of what you're talking about, Jeff, are you a little bit more familiar with that anointing of oil after prayers? Just on any regular Sunday?

Jeff: Let me just say quickly about the ushering, is in a lot of African-American congregations ushering is a tremendous honor, and actually there are uniforms. And then there are expectations. Ushering is seen as a place of security. We are now finding that churches are utilizing for their own kind of force protection around people coming in with weapons and so forth. So ushering is a very important gift. It's a gift of greeting and hospitality .

Now praying for the sick is a sacrament in some liturgical traditions and in many ways is a blessing for every tradition. So yes, anointing with oil throughout scripture has been shown as God's sense of healing and that special oil or any oil that may be available helps promote that. Healing ministries have been around well probably before Jesus' day, but they continue today and we reclaim them. We think of St Stephen's ministries, which is a lay ran pastoral ministry, but we also think about how the sacrament is a sacrament and addition of healing.

And that opportunity for people to come up and receive a blessing and ask for God's anointing in their life to change their healing that may not be curable. But is knowing that God will take their suffering and help them live in their suffering rather than forgive it. We in a society want to avoid suffering as much as we can.

And so the realizing how much suffering is in our society is in our life and how we can live in suffering is our way forward so that we do not suffer even more. So anointing and healing and oil are all part of the Christian experience.

Barbara: I hadn't meant to mock or make fun of ushering. I had a very positive experience with ushers, exactly like you had said, Jeff, at the gospel service at Vogelweh, Germany, which is part of the Ramstein American military footprint there. And they gave everybody hugs coming in. And for some people that may have been the only hug or one of just a few hugs that they got the whole week and they had uniforms and everything was really helpful. That was a tremendous service within the community. So thank you for that.

I have one more piece of information for you from the Lutheran study Bible, and then we'll keep delving into these verses. So just on the following page of the introduction to second Timothy, it says this letter teaches that there are practical consequences to faith in Jesus Christ. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor, called faith that avoids practical consequences “cheap grace”. In contrast to this, Bonhoeffer believed that God's grace and faith in Christ compelled him to fight the regime of Nazi Germany, which led to his arrest and execution.

So second Timothy is a call to persist courageously in the ministry of Jesus Christ. So you had talked a little bit about suffering, Jeff, and I think this is a really important point. Can you speak a little bit more about suffering?

Jeff: in many ways we spend so much energy avoiding suffering that we end up suffering more. The best way to address suffering is to live in it and to realize it is the case. And not to say that pain doesn't exist or to avoid it or to do something that is wrong, but is to be involved. And we talk about confession as another aspect of the Christian experience and confession is speaking your truth, the truth about what is going on and asking for God's help and anointing -now we're back to the oil- in their life. And I think that the key that the Christian experience is most meaningful is when we can be truthful in the experience of the Christian tradition, has rules, mores and expectations. And they really are kind of found in, if you think about the 10 commandments and you think about the Lord's prayer and the golden rule in lots of ways, the simple way is more simple- love your neighbor as yourself. You have to love yourself first so that you can love your neighbor more. So if you're suffering and you're not loving yourself, it is extremely hard to love others in your family or other places. So I would tell folks the key is start loving yourself to accept your suffering and realizing suffering exists.

And then through that, you might be well to find relief, whether it's relief from physical pain relief, from problematic relationships or difficult employment, relief from unbearable economic situations or cultural or societal discrimination. Or relief that you have crowds suffering, or if I could use the word trained generational suffering.

So we have realized, and I'm a veteran myself, is that the children of veterans oftentimes suffer as much if not more than the veterans, because the veterans have given their suffering to their children. The veteran is the one who gets all the credit, the children often not.

So there are ways which we can come up and find reconciliation and we can find wholeness and hopefully we can find a more true and broader life. I mean, going back to second Timothy, I think that St Paul addresses about God's grace that we are not expected to be able to do all of this with our own power, but that we have God who is in our life, who has that power and that possibility.

And that is key in knowing that we don't have to hold it all up, that we can, as we would say through our prayers, that we give it to God.

 Barbara: I also want to preface something that is unspoken just until now. And that is yes, we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. And right before that is, we are to love God with all our strength and our mind and our heart and our soul. So this isn't a simple formula. Like first, if you love yourself, then you love your neighbors and then all your suffering will be gone. And you're not saying that Jeff, but I just kind of want to make that clear.

Jeff: I'm not saying that at all. In a lot of ways. It's difficult to love others if we cannot love ourselves. And I think in the Christian tradition, we struggle because we want people to love God, but they do not even love themselves. There is no model for love - so for a long time, we said, God is your father. Well, some folks have had real problematic relationships with males or other folks, or struggle with seeing that as a model. I think for many people, it is still a very valid model and certainly a model for me. But I definitely think that we have to find our sense of peace and that peace is through Jesus.

And that is what kept St. Paul going every day as he was writing that letter in the prison and he was exhorting the community through Timothy to continue on, even in their conflict amongst their suffering, persecution.

Barbara: another point that you had mentioned earlier is about being in study and there's a lot of different ways to do that. Especially nowadays, there are fewer in-person gatherings due to the pandemic, and sometimes individual study is very fruitful and meaningful and for some people, individual study just isn't quite enough. Do you have any thoughts on some of the different ways that we can be in study that you had mentioned earlier?

Jeff: there's two ways to look at the time when you are apart from your community, whether it's a pandemic or you are In a different location, deployed , or more importantly, you're not able to attend. You're sick, you have to work. So we now have more means than ever to find community.

So we do encourage in the Christian sense to, you know, to find community and local congregation because the local congregation is your local mission. And is your local opportunity for pastoral health and healing. But there are wonderful opportunities through your public library, podcasts that were non thinkable several years ago. We can find community online that didn't exist. But we really do want to look at what the scriptures say, love your neighbor. I think we could say, Oh, my neighbor is my zoom group or whatever, but I also think my neighbor is also my next door neighbor. And the challenge is, is how do I know who my neighbor is and how do I engage my neighbor? I live in a neighborhood where a lot of my neighbors are very fearful of others because they take care of older folks or they have diseases of their own, but they want to be engaged by telephone, by wave. Even when they walk down the street, they want to be engaged. And I think that that is something very important. We can be engaged with folks we see at the gym. If we go to the gym or church, or even in our workplace, even if our workplace is virtual or our children, or our helping our children go to school or community groups like Scouts or a soccer club.

There's a lot of ways to engage people and to care and to ask how are you, how are you really? And to be present.

Barbara: I had actually recently done an online search that you are also welcome to do for yourself. I don't have a specific list of websites, but if you search free online Bible study, you'll find a lot of different sources.

Now, some of these. Places encourage you to purchase a book or a study guide or something like that, there's even subscription video services for faith-based groups. So if you pay a certain amount of money per month, say $7 or something like that, then you have access to all these Bible study videos.

So depending on what your learning style is, there's ranges from free to buy a book to buy some digital study, as well as of course, just spending your own time in God's word. And I know I have mentioned some study Bibles that have questions in the margins. I have participated in Bible studies over zoom, which is great.

And there's been Facebook studies, believe it or not. And there's a lot of ways of viewing church services or other faith groups online for free as well. So you don't have to pay, but just to give you an idea of the different range of options that might be available, and then philosophically, of course, that might be a consideration for some people to pay attention to, are the basic beliefs here fairly in alignment with what I believe? And am I gaining in my faith walk by spending some time here in this place with these people, with these authors? And then Jeff, I do have one more question for you. When you had mentioned about suffering, sometimes we pray that our suffering can be relieved and then sometimes the suffering keeps going.

And so we're trying to make sense of that. And as we are looking at a new year coming from, what's been a very difficult year for many people, the Bible verse talks about guard the good treasure entrusted to you with the help of the Holy spirit. What does that mean to you, Jeff?

Jeff: The good treasure that God has given us his word, his community, his teachings, and his life, the life of Jesus born and died and was crucified and came back.

That is the treasurer that we are given. And I think the key is to find that treasure in us and live it through us. But we have to be able to love us and then love others to be able to see it. That's it easier said than done. That's what good pastoral counseling, spiritual direction counseling, therapy, prayer, study, and other recognized and well endorsed ways to find that.

But utilizing the spiritual gifts that the church offers that these are treasures that are meant to be used, not stored away, like Christmas ornaments that come out for a couple of weeks out of the year. And they have to be nourished and they have to be improved upon- sometimes they break.

And they have to be repaired, but I think it's important to everyone, and I say this to myself, more importantly, that your practice is the key and how you practice and how much time you give is the key, especially when you need it. So I encourage everyone, as you look at second Timothy 1:8-14 is to see Paul's testimony about not being ashamed, knowing that Christ is real is a real treasure and that by putting trust and faith in this, we can find that life, which is everlasting.

Barbara: Jeff, one question that I like to ask from one of my professors at school is whose voice is missing? We've had a great conversation about this passage in second Timothy, we've talked about suffering and study and neighbors, whose voice is missing?

Jeff: Probably your listener’s voice is missing. I would encourage everyone to reach out through comments. It's easy to find a million ways on how we cannot move ahead with the gospel.

We can live in an ideal community that maybe existed for a year or two when we were eight to 10, instead of the communities that we exist in today that are not ideal, but I would encourage you. One of the signs of maturity in faith and in life is to not live in nostalgia alone. But to live in reality today and to hopefully improve upon reality so that the gifts we give to future generations are even better.

A foundation built, not on sand, but on God's word, love, and hope.

Barbara: I would also like to suggest that some of us might feel like we are sort of imprisoned with all these safety practices around staying home or not being able to go to all these places that we might want to go to. But I know I'm not really in jail. I might feel like it, but I am definitely not. I am free. And I want to lift up our siblings who are imprisoned either literally, or perhaps figuratively in a more severe way than I am. I would just like to lift up in prayer, our siblings who are trapped in various different ways, whether it's literally behind bars of a correctional facility or behind bars that maybe have been made by other people that are not part of the official system. That again, lifting in prayer and in hope like Jeff said, and knowing that a lot of people feel like their voices, aren't heard, not just people who are in imprisoned. That we want to listen for each others. So reaching out like Jeff said, and then also listening, I would just like to offer for that up praying for one another and then listening that there are people who don't feel heard and who are not heard, or we think we've heard them.

And maybe we've heard the same story every year for decades. But there might be more to it or the people who are very quiet who have deep thoughts and deep feelings, that we want to honor their experiences in life too. Is there anything else Jeff, that you would like to say regarding either second Timothy or any of the themes that we've talked about today?

Jeff: I just wanted to say how proud I am Barbara of you doing this podcast and the commitment that you had over this past year to have this personal ministry, to reach out and to make a difference in this world, utilizing this modern-day technology. I think that how you did this podcast is a good example of how all of us can live.

You did not have the immediate tools to know how to do a podcast. So you had to find a teacher and take the course. You didn't have the immediate physical tools to be able to do this podcast. So you had to get a microphone and get the technology to be able to do it. And you didn't live in a household of 25 people that would be guests on your podcast.

So you had to reach out to your community and friends and be able to bring this all together. And in many ways we may have a dream that we want to live. And as this podcast is one of your dreams, I encourage each and every one of your listeners to find their dream. To find a teacher to find the technology and define the perseverance through the hope to give their treasure of a dream to others.

Barbara: Thank you for that encouragement and the support. And I also want to just throw in there about dreams. I know that many of you already know this firsthand. Some dreams just sit around for a while, right? And you just wonder well, Hey, when is this dream going to happen? And then sometimes dreams might change a little bit too.

I had first imagined that I could have a radio show Bible study with live call-ins and a big support team standing by to help callers with their problems. And you never know, that might still happen, but right now this is a step of a dream of reaching out to people and offering words of love and support and encouragement, knowing that that's something that some people don't hear very frequently.

So is there room for dreams to grow like seeds underground, and you think, well, nothing's happening for a really long time? I planted some seeds on Memorial day weekend because that's when they say it's safe to plant seeds where I live and I was waiting in June and I was waiting in July and I was waiting in August.

And I'm thinking, come on, you guys, it's going to start to snow soon. Let's go. And many dreams, linger for much longer than just a few months. And then is there room for dreams to maybe shift a little bit or change how they look or change how they come about or come about in one way and then maybe change later on?

Thank you, Jeff, for your time today, it's been excellent learning more about Timothy and this passage and baptism and oil and suffering and calling and study. 

Jeff: Thank you very much, Barbara. And but God's blessings beyond all of us this day forth and forevermore.

Amen.

Resources:

2 Timothy 1:8-14

Jeff serves military members and veterans in New York state and in other locations

Most popular and most controversial episodes of 2020

Hi everyone- welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox, and I'm going to be the guest speaker today and take a look back at some episodes in case you missed any- the ones that were most often downloaded, as well as the episode that was the most controversial. I had originally thought honestly, 2020 was kind of a wreck.

And I thought then looking at the 28 episodes that have been published since beginning this podcast this year, there were some really phenomenal concepts talked about, Bible verses, guest speakers. And I thought at first, let me talk about each episode for one minute. Cause I like timers. I like things to be in order.

And then thankfully I realized I'm really not doing anybody a service by talking about all 28 episodes for one minute apiece. So I decided to take a look back at the episodes that have been listened to the most. And I thought, okay, I have this number of episodes that were the most downloaded. I should speak about each of them for certain number of minutes. And then I decided to throw that idea out the window, too.

I'm really getting so relaxed in my advanced age. Just kidding. So I printed out a few highlights of quotes, Bible verses and resources. And I'm pretty good at shuffling cards, but not shuffling pieces of paper- I know it's so old fashioned that I actually printed things out. I am just shuffling and I'm going to grab a few and talk.

So the first piece of paper that I have grabbed is actually episode two, so thank you to Melissa for talking with us about fear. I have a couple of quotes from this episode for you- if you'd like to go back and listen to the whole thing, it was published in June of 2020. Melissa said, 

Melissa: I think we do hold onto fear. I've found that fear is kind of comforting, because we know it, it's something we can expect.

We can expect to be afraid of something. And the releasing of it is hard because when you release it, you're going into another unknown. Living in fear is something that's easy for us to do because it's familiar. We're always afraid of something. We're afraid of success. We're afraid of failure, we fear what's to come, but if we own it, we can move forward.

Barbara: Melissa also talked about a situation in her life. After her mom died, she had invited her father to move in with her and her husband and their child.

Melissa: the blessings just poured down on us, from what we thought was a horrible situation of having to sell the family home we were married at, to buy a new home, to do more renovate, all these things that we thought were hardships turned out to be a blessing. The best thing about it is seeing my daughter's excitement in the morning when she can come downstairs and watch paw patrol with her Papa. It's been really nice because her daycare closed. So now a blessing was having my father here because she was no longer able to go to daycare. He became the daycare so that I was able to continue with my studies, which was a blessing that I know a lot of my classmates and those around the country who all of a sudden found themselves needing to take care of children while figuring out how they were going to do their work or do their work from home. We're facing the blessing in our house was that we didn't have that struggle, but I definitely acknowledge and prayed a lot for all of the parents who were having to do that.

Barbara: thank you, Melissa, for that testimonial. And. I just want to acknowledge since this is a Bible study podcast and we talk about blessings. I know I've talked about this in a few different episodes. For Melissa and I in our Lutheran faith, it's not fair to say, if you do this, then something wonderful will happen. Sometimes that does happen. But sometimes it takes a really long time and you're like, okay, I'm still waiting for the wonderful, and there's a different podcast episode specifically on the topic of waiting, but I just want to express gratitude and thanks that some of the fearful and hardship times in Melissa's life did end up feeling like blessings for her and her family. So that's episode two from June of 2020.

All right. We're shuffling some more. Let's see what another, either most listened to episode or most disputed episode was. This is really funny. You heard me shuffling and I picked episode three, maybe we'll end up going in order. I spoke with Deb about church and society and social justice. And the first website that I wanted to share as a resource today is www.UMCjustice.org . Deb is a United Methodist minister and UMC stands for United Methodist church. So all of the resources are listed on the podcast website, which is www.40minutesoffaith.com . There are partial transcripts of each episode there for you in the podcast section, as well as all of the resources that are discussed during every single episode.

So we were talking about becoming wise and active citizens, and Deb said,

Deb: it means thinking before doing- it's very easy to just react to a scene that's happening, but I have found that if I stop, take a breath, pray, think about sort of the biblical implications of whatever struggles are going on in society.

and then at that, of that model, that tends to be something that's much more long lasting than just doing the first thing that comes to my head, which is usually something out of anger rather than something out of love.

Barbara: Deb also gives us two other examples.

Deb: I had a confirmation statement said to me one year, well, Deb, I only have like 1% faith. I'm not sure I want to get up there and say, I'm going to follow Jesus. And I said to her, God could do a lot with that one percent. And so we don't have to totally know what it is we believe, or we don't have to be totally a hundred percent rooted  in our faith journey if God is leading us, if we hear that voice of God saying, I want you to go do this. Sometimes we just have to go and we grow in that whole process. 

Barbara: Finally, Deb mentioned a lot of things, but for the purposes of today's summary:

Deb: I had a pastor friend tell our church if we're not failing at stuff that we're not trying hard enough. Which was freeing for us. It was like everything we do doesn't have to be a success. We just have to go out there and say, Oh yeah, this works. But yet this didn't work so well, how can we tweak it? What do we need to do different? 

Barbara: thank you very much to Deb in episode three, for talking with us about church and society in June of 2020. All right. We're doing the great shuffle again here.

Okay. We have episode six, which was released in July of 2020, and this is the one that I received the most amount of pushback from. I'm open to engaging in conversation. And that's one of the things that Sara and I talked about. I am interested in knowing that I might not always be right. I still have room to learn. I don't know everything. And to continue to engage in conversation with each other. Sara says: 

Sara: I'm someone who doesn't like confrontation at all, but I like to think that, especially with some of these challenging topics, I want to add   spice and stirred up, because I think it's really important that we talk about these things in church.

If we can't talk about it and how they relate to our faith, I think in many ways we're doing a disservice to ourselves and to others. Because they're important. It helps us understand who God is and how we interact with God as well.

Barbara: the topic of this episode was inclusive and expansive language. I attended a workshop at my school, which is Wartburg, theological seminary. And this is a position that has come out of my faith body, which is the evangelical Lutheran church in America. I didn't make this up on my own and it wasn't Sara's idea. She's a student at the school also.

So we had a conversation about what it is that we learned during this workshop and how it might apply to our churches and in the lives of people who we know. I asked Sara about inclusive language and she said:

Sara: that's a tricky one because it can be different for all people. But I think it, especially in relation to how we understand, God means being willing to use God or God's self, instead of saying he all of the time. which can be tricky, especially when we read the Bible and it's so full of he's.

And then trying to distinguish between, is this he talking about God, the father, is it talking about Jesus, the person? It's being willing to at least have those conversations and look at what does it mean if we just refer to God only as he all the time. 

Barbara: There's obviously a lot more to the episode that I would encourage you to check out, but I have two more comments from Sara when we're talking about inclusive and expansive language and how we bring that into our faith groups and talk about it with other people. Sara says:

Sara: one of the biggest things that we can do about this is have a dialogue with people. It means being willing to hear what other people have to say and genuinely hear that in our seats, it means listening actively without just thinking about what next defensive point you're going to make, but really being open and trusting that the spirit is going to help guide those conversations and be present in that. It comes down to what Dr. Sam Giery talks about it as viewing people from the lens of Christ and not from our human lens, because it's really easy to look at someone and say, well, you did X, Y, and Z wrong.

And how dare you? But that's not how Christ has redeemed us sees us. And so being willing to approached conversations that way, I think it's going to be really important moving forward. 

Sara: part of that is just being willing to have those conversations and meeting people where they're at and growing slowly with them, instead of going straight for where you want them to be, because we're not all at the same point in talking about inclusive language or racism or sexism or any of that.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's partially just a product of how we were raised in the society that we live in. but. Change doesn't happen overnight. It definitely is a process and being willing to commit to the process instead of just expecting change to happen immediately.

Barbara: So thank you to people who have given feedback, both positive and constructive criticism. I don't need to always be told about how wonderful everything is.

If there's a concerning situation, your comments are welcome. If you learn something new and helpful, of course, that information is welcome as well. And I look forward to continuing to bring interesting topics of diverse natures to future episodes. All right. We've got the big shuffle going on here. Let's see.

What's next.

Okay. In episodes, eight and 10, Heather talked with us about human rights. The conversation was so comprehensive that it ended up being two episodes. So we have both episode eight and 10 from July of 2020. I shared with Heather a document that was published by the evangelical Lutheran church in America.

The website is E L C A.org about human rights. And there are a series of social messages and social statements that discuss. Important topics in this day and age, including situations that might feel like ethical dilemmas. There are certainly some issues that might be considered controversial there. And I haven't gone through all of them yet in podcast episodes, but look forward to doing so in the future.

When we were talking about human rights, Heather said:

Heather: as far as how we can do better, it starts inside of us. We have to first rid ourselves of any judgment that we have towards specific communities, and really do some soul searching.

We have to pray and ask God to uncover that. And it can be painful, to reveal these works that we were trying to ignore or that just weren't coming to light. And then, once we work with God on healing those things, because he is the great healer and we may feel really bad about some of the thoughts or ideas that we've allowed to stagnate internally.

But God can remove all of those things from us. If we have a heart for him to do it, and if we allow him to do it, and sometimes it takes a little while, maybe we won't be healed right away, like a miraculous healing that Jesus performed many times, but it takes some work and effort depending on how long you've allowed those things to fester.

So the first thing I think is you have to work internally and you have to work with God on relieving you of those things. And I think also times when God really relieved people of those things very quickly, including myself- there's been times where I prayed on different things for relief and God relieved me of them right away.

So he knows where you're at with that and he can work with you on it. So, another thing we have to remember is, it's not my right to determine another person's worth. And their rights. So the statement that you read said that no person has more rights or fewer rights than another- I don't set the rights of anyone.

I don't even set the rights of myself and I don't establish my own worth or another person's worth or how I should treat them with dignity or not. That isn't up to me. God established that when he created you, and my brother and my sister and, myself. So God gave that worth to me. And it's not my place to take it away from anybody, but to recognize and to promote and help those that maybe society isn't treating with dignity, in different ways.

So, we have to keep those things in mind and I think that is one way we can do better. Then after you feel that your conscience is clear, then you can pray and ask God to lead you forward in what type of action you can do externally. So first internal second, external. And how does that look for you?

It's going to be different for every person. Not every person is going to have people coming in their house to talk about this and not every person is going to be on the street doing peaceful protesting and not every person is going to be working in the homeless shelter with that community. So just because I do things one way doesn't mean that when you have this awakening or this realization of an area that you need to be healed, that you have to follow in my footsteps.

And so that's something as we work with others on human rights issues. Make sure that they are in relation with God on that directly and that we're not telling them, Hey, this is what you should do, but here's some things that you could do. And why don't you ask God to tell you which one of them is going to be your lane?

Barbara: Heather also talked about spiritual gifts and here are some of her thoughts. 

Heather: thinking about, spiritual gifts, there are gifts of grace that are mentioned in Romans, and prayer that you mentioned is absolutely one that I think we should all be doing, but some people are going to be led to specifically pray, and to be a prayer warrior and to pray for a certain thing or a certain cause, certain group of people. For other people there's gifts of mercy. And that might look like, Hey, I'm going to go out and I'm going to serve at a homeless shelter, or I'm going to go serve the refugee community in my area. Or I'm going to invite people to fellowship with me either through my church or my home, or however that looks.

There's also people that God gives the gift of generosity and he blesses them financially.  I hope we don't pigeonhole anybody or ourselves into thinking the only way that I can help with this is either to become a community activist or to give money because that's not the only way.

And the easiest and the most cost-effective way is to pray and ask God to bless that specific sector, that specific issue. But, if you have resources and you feel led to share them, whether they're time, money, or your home or whatever your faith, we should be sharing our faith.

And that is a resource that's renewable. And I should mention this because it's really important. I think there's been a lot of talk about dignity. I love that we're talking about that today. I want to make clear that as you help or as you're inclined to repent of any judgment that you've had  for certain people, I don't feel that you are going to lose anything by trying to help others. You don't lose dignity by trying to help others to recover theirs. And so the fear that I think that some in the Christian Church have that they're going to somehow give up their rights. To see the rights advance of another group.

That's not based in God's teaching at all.

Heather: God doesn't give you dignity only to take it away and give it to somebody else. He's only asking people that have the resources or the ability to help his children that may not be able to fully realize the dignity that some of us are able to, because of the way society is structured is only asking us to help them.

Those that have less opportunity for that. It doesn't diminish mine at all. In fact, it increases my dignity to show love and to show forbearance. And to allow God to work through me, to on behalf of other parts of his church in his kingdom. So I hope that people see that my heart is really heavy right now about how the Christian Church is so divided on this specific topic and how some people are seeing this as a scary thing that for me, who is called to support and advocate for the black community. It's really hard for me to see that there are Christians that I know are loving people, but they may have a hard heart about this. And they're seeing that this is somehow an affront to their faith or their freedom. I hope that their hearts change on that.

And I may not be the one that can be that, but I'll do my best with people that are open and receptive to it.

Barbara: Thank you, Heather, for talking with us about human rights in episodes eight and 10 this summer.

Okay. The great shuffle continues. Next. We have episode 11 that was released in August, 2020. And my friend Casely talked with us about international faith. We talked about a Bible passage in second Corinthians, chapter five, verses 16 to 20. And I'm not going to read that passage right now, but I would strongly encourage you to look it up.

Casely: It's so refreshing to read and to be reminded again, that who we are is as a result of what Christ has done on the cross to settle the relationship that We have with God, and we also enjoy and encouraged because of what God has already done, that we will settle out a relationship with each other. Each of us has this fresh start. I like that fresh start. And in the last, 25, 30 years, I've had the privilege of being a global missions pastor at two big churches.

One was in Boston, Park Street Church. And then also here in Maryland Annapolis Bay area, community church. And I was fairly content with what I was doing, doing global missions all over the world, whether it is sending people to go to places like South Sudan or South India in leadership development, in training of pastors in church planting, or going to Ghana to do evangelism and discipleship, go into Uganda to do HIV AIDS ministries.

We're going all over the world, ESL programs in El Salvador, in Poland. And I thought I was all set. And then the Lord redirected me- a phone call came through. They were looking for a secretary for the global Christian forum. And the friend said, I think you'd be a very good candidate for that. And I said, I don't think so.

And she said, why don't you pray? And I committed to prayer. And after praying for two weeks and after consulting with so many different people, I was at a point where I was like,  it doesn't hurt to make myself available.

And I think that's a good place to be. when you say I'm available for God to use me, I don't know what the future is. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm just going to be available. And there's been one thing after the other, just confirming just the willingness to be open. And I feel very confident that I am doing exactly what God wants me to do at this time.

Barbara: We also talked about persecution:

Casely: That is the side aspect of our lives. These days, that Christians in many, many places where they are minorities are being persecuted and it comes from whether it's discrimination in housing or employment, or even family issues and marriages. And then sometimes sadly Christians lose their lives all over the world. we are told that this century we have lost more than all the previous centuries combined.

So it is a very sad occurrence. It goes on, every day. I think as Christians, there are four things we can do. I think the first is to pray for perseverance and for faithfulness, for those that are going through periods of persecution. But secondly, also to pray for protection for them, we know that nothing comes to any of us without going through the gracious hands of our sovereign God.

But we also know that he calls us to pray that we'll be protected from the evil one. So we should pray that Christians who are in all parts of the world should pray for brothers and sisters. The third thing I think we can do also to use legal means, government to government advocacy, whatever ways that we have, especially those of us in the Western world, where we have freedom of religion, enshrined in our constitution is respected by all other non Western countries. Also, most of them have freedom of religion, but they don't respect it, especially they are Christian minorities and we can use our influence in government, in policymaking to us that they just respect the constitution that they have, especially because we respect and allow everyone who is in the Western world to practice their religion, that they have.

The fourth idea is that, of Christianity in the Western world do feel marginalized- they will not call themselves persecuted, but they sometimes consider ourselves as being irrelevant to the societies in which we live in because people don't really appreciate the values that we have because we are more pluralistic in a more secular society.

And just as we find ways of allowing all faiths and all religions to practice in safety in the Western world, we should also, of course not discriminate against the very Christian heritage of the Western countries. We should have a balance where we can celebrate our Christian heritage as well as allow others to practice their religion.

And I think that will be a good witness to the whole world. 

Barbara: Thank you Casely, for speaking with us in episode 11, about international faith this summer. Okay, we got the big shuffle. In episode 15, I spoke with Michelle about addiction and faith. Michelle told us a very powerful resurrection story, she called it, and I have a few quotes and I'd strongly recommend that if you haven't listened to this episode, or if you know someone who might be interested in hearing some of what Michelle has to say to share this with them.

Michelle: I don't like the term highly functioning because I wasn't functioning. I was going to work. I was doing all the things I never got into trouble. I never lost my driver's license. I had a really good masquerade going. I was a professional in the community- people did not know that I was suffering in silence and w near the end of my drinking days.

Again, many relationships falling apart, abusive relationships. I was also getting into prescription drugs. So January 5th, 2015 was my last drinking and drugging day. the next day I was found unconscious in my apartment after not showing up for work and taken immediately by ambulance to the emergency room and ICU, where I was suffering from alcohol poisoning and prescription drug overdose and attempted suicide. And I honestly, I truly believe that I was ready to check out. I was in so much pain because I didn't know how stop drinking anymore. And I didn't know how it was going to survive. I wasn't taking drugs with it. I was no longer able to go to work without a drink or a drug, engage in a conversation, leave my house. I had no control anymore.

Barbara: Michelle also shared with us some examples of her journey in recovery.

Michelle: what I saw was these perky little makeup, perfect hair, perfect husbands and families, and just perfectness. It's just all the superficial stuff.

Barbara: Yeah. We wear masks, not even COVID masks, like social masks. Like my life is great.

Michelle: we are trained as a society to where those social things even from a young age: don't let anybody see what's going on inside. And as an alcoholic, I can tell you I was consuming more and more alcohol at each sitting because thirst was never quenched. That thirst was a God-sized hole in my heart.

Barbara: I will never forget that. So there are so many resources from this episode on the podcast website, 40 minutes to faith.com the episode. Was aired in August of 2020 it's episode 15. And it's in the podcast section and there's also a separate resources tab, but I haven't figured out how to get a clickable table of contents. So that's going to be my homework assignment. Okay. But I would encourage you to either listen to the episode or check out the resources on the podcast website. Thank you so much, Michelle, for sharing your personal experiences with us about addiction and faith. And there's a lot more to it.  

And we have another Michelle in episode 12, so not right in a row, but near each other. In August, 2020, I spoke with a different Michelle about spiritual direction. And I asked her if she could give a definition so that someone who may have never heard of spiritual direction can have an understanding of what's involved.

Michelle: spiritual direction is an art. It's an art of accompaniment of one Christian - in a Christian context - of one Christian to another. That enables them to pay attention to their experience of God, their capacity, to respond to God who initiates reaching out to us God, who is love.

And it offers an opportunity to grow in depth and in breadth, in our prayer and relationship with God  as we live into what this means in our daily lives. Spiritual direction can be known by other names. You might say some would say spiritual companions, soul friends, spiritual accompaniment, and in a broader sense, it would fall under this area of having a mentor or a deep listener on the spiritual journey.

Someone who comes for spiritual direction. Can trust that they will be  listened to and honored for wherever they are in their life journey. It is not about proselytizing, but rather listening deeply for the movement of the spirit in an individual's life and meeting them right there in that journey.

Michelle: Spiritual direction would come often in a time of transition- maybe growing into a deeper stage of faith and they're doubting and they need someone to help us with that through maybe they're in grief after moving or losing a job or the death of a loved one or a new diagnosis of an illness.

And having a companion on the spiritual journey where the Holy spirit is the director and the spiritual director, companion is one who helps us foster a listening for that movement of the spirit and train in how to go about that, that in spiritual journey action, a person brings their life story. And their experience of God and their, gifts of prayer and struggle with prayer.

Barbara: Thank you, Michelle, for sharing with us in episode 12, about spiritual direction. And Michelle now has her own podcast as well. And I'll put a link to that on the podcast website.

I'm going to pick one more, even though there's a few more left and maybe we'll have to do another episode of this, of the best of. In episode seven, I spoke with Carol about gloom and all of these Bible verses again, are going to be listed in great detail on the podcast website, but it wasn't only about gloom.

We talked about diagnosis and about hope. So this summer in July, Carolyn, I talked about her faith journey and the diagnosis of her son and her moves all around the world as a military spouse. And Carol is currently a social worker.

Carol: I really liked to help people.  I definitely had some questions about politics and just things in the world.

And I guess I just started looking back on things that I was raised on, things that I feel like people had different views on from what I did. And  either I need to be more open minded or I need to look at the Bible and see what it says to make sure that these things that I'm feeling I want to support line up with the Bible. So first it just kind of started with looking at social programs itself because I'm like, you know, wait a minute. There are people out there who are trying, but it's not their fault. So the more I looked I was just like, Oh, this class sounds really interesting. And it kind of all ended up under the program. Social work, definitely not something I had on my radar at all.

I'm taking classes that the changes in the world are happening right now. I mean, you were seeing so many oppressors that's group and they've always been there.

They've always been there. It's like you said, that it was in the Bible. They were there in the Bible.  we need to do something. And education is something that no one can ever take from you.

So  there's always something to learn. I was with all the changes going on and me questioning how I grew up, as a conservative Republican, most people are not really towards.

Social programs. I kind of always felt like it was bad or it's like a bad use of money.  I was just kind of really questioning everything. I was lucky to be able to go to a Christian college and that definitely helps, relate worldly views back to the Bible or what's going on.

If you think about it, Jesus was kind of a social worker. He was always hanging out with the crowd nobody really wanted to, but those are the people who needed him. And there are so many people in the world. Who need us. I've just learned about all the programs where there's just gaps and people are just falling into them.

Barbara: regarding the diagnosis of Carol's son, she said:

Carol: we definitely had some times of sadness. There's also times of blame of your like,  maybe we should've done this or if he was on a stricter  schedule or, then I watch too much TV or just did anything that I guess you're just trying to really find a period.

cause no one really wants the comma. They don't want it to keep going. You want an answer and there's there just really wasn't one. so once we got that, then he qualified for ABA therapy, which is applied behavior analysis. And on the spectrum now, there's not like Asperger's and Autism.

Nolan was diagnosed with ASD level one. So autism spectrum disorder level one, which means high functioning and, the doctor says, it just may be his personality’s a little quirky.

We could not get the ABA therapy covered by Tri-Care until he had the diagnosis. So I've also learned so much through that. That, even as kids are borderline, sometimes they may go ahead and give that diagnosis just so they can go ahead and start those early services. 

Barbara: Thank you Carol, for talking with us in episode seven, about gloom and faith and hope and diagnosis.

So we didn't get to talk about all of the episodes that were the most listened to, but I would invite you to. Find your favorite podcast distribution service, or go to 40 minutes to faith.com. You can listen to all of the episodes there as well. We look forward to your comments on the website. Your prayers are also very welcome as we pray for you.

I also pray to keep an open mind myself, to keep learning and to share what I have learned in the spirit of continuing a conversation about faith, about the challenges in life and about the many blessings in life.

Resources:

https://engagingfranciscanwisdom.org/ Michelle’s podcast

What's next?

Barbara: Hi everyone- welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God.

I'm offering two prayers, one morning prayer at the beginning, and one evening prayer at the end of this episode, in addition to our regular prayers, to support and encourage you. They were written by Martin Luther 500 years ago, but I still find them relevant and comforting. Morning Blessing:

Let us pray. I give thanks to you, my heavenly father, through Jesus Christ, your dear son, that you have protected me this night from all harm and danger. I ask you that you would also protect me today from sin and all evil so that my life and actions may please you completely. For into your hands I commend myself, my body, my soul, and all that is mine. Let your Holy angel be with me so that the wicked foe may have no power over me. Amen.

I'm trying something new today, and that is to provide a completely unscripted episode. This makes me a little bit nervous, but I find that when I write things out ahead of time, which I like to do to be organized, I don't like how I sound when I read texts that I previously typed out. So I wrote down three things and I looked up three Bible verses and I accidentally found a fourth Bible verse that's really fantastic. And I could have kept going. So today isn't about just one Bible passage, but about three different situations and four passages that I believe are relevant to all of us and perhaps more so at different times.

Today is the one-year anniversary of us getting a truckload of furniture and belongings from our move. We moved from Germany to upstate New York. I had learned when we first moved to Germany in 2015 that I wanted to be able to just let go of our stuff. And one example is that there's websites that say, don't forget this, don't forget that. And one place said, make sure you take all your photo albums with you in your luggage, which sounds like a good idea.

And for a military move, you're allowed to have two suitcases, and that might need to last you for two months, depending on where you're moving to and when your stuff is coming. That's what it turned out to be last year. Everything that we could have in our two suitcases had to last us for two months.

Now there is a small shipment that hypothetically you get more quickly, but that doesn't always happen on time and it doesn't always happen, period. So I thought to myself, you know what, I would love to carry my 15 full-sized scrapbooks in my luggage, and that's just not going to happen because I need to bring clothing and personal items.

And the cats had their own little carry on suitcase. And shoes, it was winter time, warmer clothes. So I just prayed to be at peace because If something had happened to the container or the ship or the transport or whatever, and we never saw our stuff again, I just prayed to be at peace with that because the stuff didn't really matter, even though I was incredibly happy to see it.

I don't think that I'm a materialistic person, but I'll tell you, the temporary furniture provided by the military for which I'm very grateful is tremendously uncomfortable. Even our cat just jumped right up on the couch as soon as the movers left. And we got all our photo albums. Of course there's always things that get broken, but having today be the anniversary of getting our stuff, I just felt, again, such a sense of gratitude as I did that day. We moved out of our house in Germany on October 26th, and things were packed up on the 27th and following. And then we flew over and we were able to borrow some furniture from some friends and we had intentionally purchased some new furniture so that we didn't have to live in a hotel for quite so long, which might sound kind of glamorous- you get to live in a hotel! Well, maybe it's a little bit glamorous, but it's not really tremendously glamorous to my experience, having three cats in a hotel room and housekeeping won't come into the room unless the cats are in their cat carriers. And if you're going somewhere, I didn't want to leave them in their cat carriers all day long.

So really that's a first world problem. I know that, and just listening to your neighbors, making noise and things like that. So I'm incredibly grateful for having a place to live, even though you feel a little homeless when you're moving. We really we're never homeless by any stretch of the imagination.

So some Bibles have a topical index and you can also go online. If you want to look up a verse, say, for example, if you're worried about something or you're stressed, or there's all kinds of different lists of Bible passages that you can find if you're in a certain situation and you'd like to find a Bible passage to go with that.

So I found a passage in Philippians, the fourth chapter verses six to seven. Philippians is a very small book, almost all the way at the end of your Bible. It's written by Paul to a community in Philippi and the people who live there are called Philippians. And at the beginning of my Lutheran study Bible, there's a little background information.

I took a summer Bible study on Philippians, but I didn't take any official classes on it. I wanted to just share one sentence from the Lutheran study Bible about this particular book. It says Paul's thanks are combined with his belief in God's grace for both himself and the Philippians and therefore God deserves ultimate thanks.

So here is Philippians chapter four, verses six to seven, and I'm going to be reading it today from the new revised standard version. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

So, first of all, I want to say that this does not come easily to me at the beginning where it says, do not worry about anything. I was kind of brought up by professional worriers. So it just makes a lot of sense to me to worry about stuff and try to anticipate things. And that has been a pretty common theme to my observation in the military and military family community.

If you know you're going to be moving, let's get going, let's get things organized. In the olden days we had huge ring binders. Probably some people do everything electronically these days, but there's still a lot of paperwork generated- like actual physical pieces of paper. So maybe some people still do have ring binders. I sure did last year.

So I had selected this first for today because. Not worrying about anything does not come easily to me, but sometimes I can.

So when we moved to Germany, I just decided that I had to be at peace with never seeing our stuff again, because I just couldn't pack everything in our suitcase. We sent a couple of boxes ahead to us and we did get our first quick shipment. But again, I'm not going to put 15 scrapbooks in the first quick shipment.

That's kind of for pots and pans and bedsheets and stuff like that, that you might need. But what I also am comforted by in this passage is the reminder to pray and have thanksgiving and let your requests be made known to God. So I think that's really great, and elsewhere, it talks about having our prayers be in alignment with God's will, so I can pray for something wild and outrageous, that's welcome. But at the same time, am I looking to pray for my life to be in alignment with God's desire for my life? And I also really like verse seven, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. That is so amazing to me. I do feel God's peace sometimes. And then there's other times where my own worries or fears or nervousness get in the way of myself.

And then to finish the sentence, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So I don't have a big speech prepared about explaining this verse. I just have it here to share as part of the thought about moving and “stuff”. And I was thinking about materialism and I'm certainly not the greatest example of living a minimalist life, but most of the military families that I've talked with, when you move, you end up giving a bunch of stuff away, you kind of clear through your stuff, if at all possible, often end up discarding, just throwing away things that you kind of think, okay, do I really need this where I'm going? Can someone else use it?

Can I donate it? Or is it something that I've just been holding onto? And I don't need to hold onto it anymore. I don't need this where I'm going. And then we also found, we often end up donating things on the way there and also when we arrive- our kitchen in Germany was smaller than our kitchen in Massachusetts.

And I just realized we don't need all these drinking glasses that you collect randomly- the plastic ones, the ones with logos on them. And even the glassware ones, we just don't need this much stuff. So, let's share it with some other folks who might be able to benefit.

I also have an example of how people take care of each other, because I'm so grateful every time we've moved, people have supported us who in two cases were complete strangers. When we got to Germany, we attended a chapel service and someone had asked my husband, are you here by yourself? And he said, no, my wife is home, but she isn't feeling that great.

And we didn't have a car. We were just walking everywhere and that's fine. You know, it's not the end of the world, where we were in that location, but I had just walked several miles during the day to run different errands. And I just wasn't up to walking to the chapel that evening for a few different reasons.

And the person literally said to my husband, come on, let's get in my car, let's go get your wife and bring her back to chapel, and someone will give you folks a ride home. And I was so incredibly grateful for that. It was probably only a 30 minute walk, but I just wasn't up to it that evening, in both directions, even though I walk that long routinely, it's no problem at all. Just on top of everything else.

And another family invited me over, another woman to have tea with her at her home, which was a really quick walk from where we were staying before we had a car and just an offer of friendship that has felt like a universal experience. Now, not all the experiences have been positive. That's another episode. But in terms of God providing through both material needs as well as friendship. And when we got here to New York, I had mentioned that we stayed in a hotel. I attended a yoga class at the gym and another military spouse said, Hey, I haven't seen you before, are you new? And I said, yeah, we just got here this week.

And she said, I need you to tell me what I can lend you so that you can get settled in better. And I couldn't believe it. We literally just met five minutes ago. Well, maybe it was at the end of class. So an hour previously that same day. And I thought, well, I didn't remember to pack scissors and we own a bunch of scissors. So yeah, I can go to the store and buy more scissors, but I said, do you have an extra pair of scissors that I could borrow for a couple of weeks because you're trying to open things and unpack things. So she lent us a card table and some blankets and I just was so incredibly grateful that literally complete stranger would say, she was very insistent- you have to tell me what you need so that you can settle in better. And we also had the wonderful experience of three families, believe it or not, from Germany, now in upstate New York. The timing has been a little different- one family got here ahead of us and they're already gone, but they were able to lend us some camp chairs and some other things even just a trash can- you can hang a trash bag off of a doorknob, but it's really nice to have a trashcan. So I interpreted those as examples of God just providing for us in different ways. And we would've been okay without those people, but our lives felt so much better.

The second topic that I had written down for today is that I'm facing a wide open future right now. And I wonder how many other people feel like their futures are wide open? And what does that mean? And how do we react to that? For me right now, that means that I have finished my master's degree coursework and I'm going to be job searching and I don't know how that's going to turn out.

So I am trying to wait prayerfully. And also, proactively, I need to send out my resume and apply for jobs and things like that, but it's just a mystery to me about what's going to happen. So I have for you today Proverbs chapter three, verses five to seven. And Proverbs in my Bible is to the left side of halfway. So if you go halfway and then go a little bit back it's after Psalms.

And I had actually been going somewhere else in Proverbs that I had gotten from this list that I had mentioned of different Bible passages related to different topics. I was so happy to see that I had verses five to seven underlined from some other time when I had read it. I have lots of passages underlined in my Bible, and I just thought that they were really terrific, even though it wasn't where I was going in the first place, it was really great. It just jumped out at me.

So from the message version, Proverbs chapter three, verses five to seven: trust God from the bottom of your heart, don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go. He's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all. Run to God, run from evil.

So I can clearly see why I underlined it at some point in the past. And that is just my prayer that I can trust and know that it's going to be okay. Not having any idea what's going to happen, and being grateful that one full-time job in this household right now is enough to cover our living expenses.

And another example of trusting relates actually to the previous passage- when we were house hunting last year, many of the homes actually that we looked at in this area had Bible verses either on the walls as framed artwork or wall stencils - there were a lot of Bible verses, which is totally fine with me, obviously I was happy to see them. And the house that we ended up buying had guess what Bible verse on the wall in one of the rooms? I'm looking at it right now, it says: pray about everything. Worry about nothing. So it's not a direct quote, but I just thought, Hey, that's really cool.

So facing a wide open future, my prayer for you would be that this is able to in some way be comforting and that it's not terrifying, cause I know a lot of people have lost their jobs, lost their income, lost their health, haven't been able to see their families in many, many months in this time of our pandemic.

And I know that that's hard. So I'm not trying to gloss over any of the unhappy situations or very real stresses that people do experience.

I just wanted to read the Proverbs passage from the inclusive Bible for it's gender neutral tone. So here's Proverbs chapter three, verses five to seven from the inclusive Bible. Trust Yahweh with all your heart. And don't rely on your own understanding, acknowledge God in everything you do, and God will direct your paths. Don't be wise in your own eyes. Revere Yahweh and avoid evil.

And the verse goes on to talk about some of the good things that we may experience when we do those things and it's in the Bible, so I absolutely honor that. But for those of you, in case you're reading, and then you see some more stuff, or you're familiar with these passages and you know what comes next, I thought the part that I read that's enough. FYI, the Bible does say in many places, if you do these things, then these good things will happen to you. And some people interpret that to mean that if you have good things happening for you, then that means that you must have either been good or pleased God, or God is blessing you as a reward.

And that is a possibility, it's not my place to say what God is doing or not doing, but I always want to point out that in the Lutheran faith, we are not earning our salvation. So I am doing things, of course, to please God, but not to try to get my way to heaven to earn points or anything like that.

And also I know that sometimes bad things happen to good people. And that's something that I'd be happy to have another podcast episode about- why do bad things happen to good people? That's a huge conversation. So that's another reason that I stopped reading where I stopped reading, because I don't believe that if bad things are happening in your life, it means that you have done bad things to displease God that's between you and God. That's none of my business. But just to affirm that sometimes there's very real struggles in people's lives. People who are faithful and who love God and who trust God. And sometimes it doesn't make sense and we can't see the end of it or understand what's happening. And maybe sometimes later, We can understand what happened and why, but not everybody agrees with that, either, to always kind of look back with rose-tinted glasses.

So I'm just talking about where I am prayerfully right now. Just looking to trust God and looking to be grateful and looking to be thankful.

Finally, I have some passages about life as I experienced it this fall. My mother passed away. And many of you are in the same situation. You haven't been able to see your family members possibly at all since March. And that was the case with me. So that was hard because people who have dementia probably don't remember that they got a phone call a few minutes later. So there's no consolation then for the loved ones of someone who has dementia because you can call them and then they forgot that you called them, where at least if someone remembers that you called them, wouldn't it be nice to think they don't feel as lonely because we just had a nice phone call and then we'll be able to have another nice phone call soon. So that was sad. And then there's also a sense of release, I suspect, among people who have had a loved one with dementia pass away. My belief is that she's now free from pain. It was my impression that she was just confused about what was going on around her. And I do worry that she felt lonely and in physical pain as well. So again, I don't have any for sure way of knowing that, but that's just my sense.

So I have a couple of Bible verses to share with you not knowing what your situation is, your family situation. People either who are having memory loss or dementia or people who have passed away.  I have a passage from second Corinthians, which is towards the end of your Bible. Another letter to people who lived in Corinth, and this is going to be from chapter five, verse seven. And I'm going to read that from the inclusive Bible.

I have a pretty good sense of Bible passages, but I don't remember where they are. So I can't quote you chapter and verse, even though I have seen this verse many, many times, I actually have a postcard with this verse that I'll tell you about in a minute, that's kind of funny. So let me just read second Corinthians chapter five, verse 17 from the inclusive version: we walk by faith, not by sight.

And I found comfort in that verse because I don't understand always what's happened, what is God's timing? And I feel terrible that I wasn't able to visit with my mother, even though I had absolutely intended on buying plane tickets and going to visit her.

But I also respect the safety protocols around nursing home visitors. Of course, it makes sense that you can't visit in person and just hold someone's hand, which is another aspect in my experience of visiting with someone with dementia- for a while she could talk. And then after a while she could talk, but it didn't make any more sense. And then later on, she pretty much stopped talking, but when I held her hand, she smiled and that was of some consolation to me, even though it's not about me, but at least it felt like there was a connection. So I honor that for safety reasons, you can't hold someone's hand when there's a virus going around, that's killing a lot of people.

So I appreciate this we walk by faith, not by sight verse, and I actually have it as a postcard where it's set up like an eye exam. Where the biggest letters are at the top. And then the writing gets smaller as you go down. But when you're just sitting there looking at it, you can read all of the words.

And then my accidental bonus passage that came up was in my message Bible. I had a long passage underlined, and I'd like to read it to you because it was really meaningful to me. And I  don't know when I underlined it, but it's a good one. Well, I mean, it's all good stuff, please don't hear me say that some of it's better than the other, I just meant to say that I don't have every single sentence in my entire Bible underlined. So in that same chapter, second Corinthians chapter five, I have verses 16 to 18 from the message version.

Because of this decision, we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong. As you know, we certainly don't look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside and what we see is that anyone United with the Messiah gets a fresh start is created new. The old life is gone. A new life burgeons, look at it. All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We are Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade people, to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself. Now become friends with God. He's already a friend with you. How, you ask? In Christ, God put the wrong on him, who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.

That is quite a passage, packed with so much information. And again, I don't have a big speech prepared about this passage. There is a class I believe called new Testament letters, but I haven't taken it, but it also speaks to my heart. And that's something that I feel comfortable sharing now, that the whole phrase relationship with God, I think is a little bit loaded because it might mean different things to different people. And I've also had conversations with several folks about, I grew up in what I considered to be sort of an intellectual or a less emotional, maybe faith where emotions are okay, but you don't see a whole lot of emotion among a lot of Lutherans. And if you want to talk with me about that, I'd be thrilled to talk about that. So I felt like I knew who God was and I knew who Jesus was and I sang the song what a friend I have in Jesus, but I didn't necessarily really feel it very strongly.

It was in my head. And I'm sure it was in my heart, but I guess I didn't really feel it. And then the first time I went somewhere where there was a little bit more sort of enthusiastic singing, enthusiastic preaching, and I heard great preaching growing up. I'm not arguing about that at all. But I was overcome emotionally the first time I was in a situation where people were really expressing their emotions very freely and in a very different way than what I had grown up with.

And I really came to enjoy having the opportunity to attend in different church service styles in the military chapels. And I know that there's conversations to be had also about different kinds of music, because I grew up with hymns and I love old church hymns that many of them are based on Bible verses. And then you have a bunch of verses and you're singing a whole bunch of words and that's great. And there's some conversations to be had about some music that's a little simpler that doesn't have as many verses with different words, that's a little bit more repetitive, but I absolutely love that kind of music, too.

And it took me many years of Bible study from people of many different faiths to have a stronger sense of relationship. There was a particular example in my mind, and I don't remember what study it's in, cause I've taken a few Bible studies from the author, Beth Moore, and she talked about having a sense one day that God was really saying to her, I love you.

And my family is wonderful, I've just been talking about them and. They said, I love you. And then I said, I love you, too. But to imagine God saying, I love you. And then Beth talked about us saying back to God, I love you, too, God. And that absolutely blew my mind. That's not something that I had really thought about, even though I can sing the song, I love you, Lord. That's a great song, but just the way she was talking, like God is showing us love. And then we say, I love you, too, God. That was really neat.

And another example is that in some Bible translations, you'll hear the word Abba, which means father. And I know I've had a previous episode about inclusive and expansive language, but in this case, Jesus is saying father to God, his father. And when we were in Israel, We were walking through a marketplace and there were tons of vendors, all around, lots of different stuff for sale people saying to the customer here, come and try this. And people coming and going very busy place, and there was a younger guy who was carrying a box of some kind of product in their stall area. And. He called over to somebody who was out of view. And he was just carrying this box walking along and he goes Abba. And I almost started to cry right there in the market because it sounded to me like he was just calling to his dad, just everyday kind of business. And that totally changed my perception of hearing this Bible verse of Abba.

So anyway, I just wanted to share some of these different. Experiences with all of you. Because this passage is about our relationship with God. And it also talks about how we judge other people. And it talks about our old life has gone and a new life starts. And in this case, it's not talking about life after we died. That's a different passage, but it made me think that maybe my mom has had a fresh start. She believed in God, she brought me to church. She was the leader of our children's choir. And again, none of that made it so that she's with God now, but that she has a fresh start. And is free from pain. Now that's at least the way my human brain can think about it.

At the very end of this verse in the message version, it talks about become friends with God. And To me, that's a pretty amazing thing to think because I have been brought up to be respectful of my parents and my elders. Again, I know the song, what a friend we have in Jesus, but I wasn't necessarily thinking of God as my friend- sometimes we think of it as the old Testament God, the Hebrew Bible God, the God of judgment, the God of law, even though there's tons of grace and generosity and kindness and love in the old Testament as well. So it's not just a simple split, but to think about this invitation in this message translation, which I know it takes a little bit of liberty with the Greek language.

So I want to read the same passage in another translation and see what we get. And again, you could read a whole bunch of different translations and get a whole bunch of different passages. So let's take a look at second Corinthians chapter five verses 16 to 18 in the inclusive version.

And so from now on, we don't look on anyone in terms of mere human judgment, even if we did once regard Christ in these terms, that is not how we know Christ now. And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation. The old order has passed away. Now everything is new. All of this is from God who ransomed us through Christ and made us ministers of that reconciliation. This means that through Christ, the world was fully reconciled again to God who didn't hold our transgression against us, but instead, entrusted us with this message of reconciliation. This makes us Christ's ambassadors as though God were making the appeal directly through us. Therefore, we implore you in Christ's name, be reconciled to God. For our sake, God made the one who was without sin to be sin, so that by this means we might become the very holiness of God.

I actually just realized, I read up to verse 21, which I didn't realize before, because in my copy of the message there aren't verses. I had just written down verses 16 to 18. So you just got a double dose. That's your bonus Bible verses. I'm just kidding. I'd rather make a joke out of it. And I'm not going to apologize for having a few extra verses thrown in there. So now you can see some of the differences, the message translation talks about become friends with God, but that's not how a different translation took it from the original Greek.

So that is enough for today. And thank you so much for walking this walk with me. And I'm praying for you for the world, for our faith journeys, for our physical journeys, for our life journeys.

Martin Luther's evening blessing: Let us pray. I give thanks to you, my heavenly father through Jesus Christ, your dear son. That you have graciously protected me today. And I ask you to forgive me all my sins, where I have done wrong and graciously to protect me tonight, for into your hands I commend to myself, my body, my soul, and all that is mine. Let your Holy angel be with me so that the wicked foe may have no power over me. Amen.

Martin Luther adds after that: Then you are to go to sleep quickly and cheerfully.

Resources:

Philippians 4:6-7

Proverbs 3:5-7

2 Corinthians 5:7

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

3rd semester seminary classes

Hi everyone. And welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God.

 Today I will be sharing details of the third semester seminary classes that are being wrapped up next week for the fall of 2020. The first class I'd like to tell you about today is Isaiah. You may have heard of the book of Isaiah in the Bible. It's substantial. And at about the halfway point of your Bible, if you'd like to take a look, I'm going to read a passage in Isaiah chapter 57, from the message version, starting at verse 15:

A Message from the high and towering God,
    who lives in Eternity,
    whose name is Holy:
“I live in the high and holy places,
    but also with the low-spirited, the spirit-crushed,
And what I do is put new spirit in them,
    get them up and on their feet again.
For I’m not going to haul people into court endlessly,
    I’m not going to be angry forever.
Otherwise, people would lose heart.
    These souls I created would tire out and give up.
I was angry, good and angry, because of Israel’s sins.
    I struck him hard and turned away in anger,
    while he kept at his stubborn, willful ways.
When I looked again and saw what he was doing,
    I decided to heal him, lead him, and comfort him,
    creating a new language of praise for the mourners.
Peace to the far-off, peace to the near-at-hand,” says God—
    “and yes, I will heal them.

I learned many things about prophets in this class, as well as in another class that I took last year, Kings used to have prophets who would advise them sometimes giving warnings that were heeded or instructions that were ignored.

The prophets spoke, not only to the Kings, but also to the people about God's will and desire for the people. There are words of warning and admonition and also words of love and care. There's a few points that I'm eager to share with you today. And one of them is that the Bible text has been used, unfortunately, sometimes for humans to be awful to each other.

And so, for example, in this passage, the word Israel is being used, but this is not to say that we should be angry at the nation of Israel that exists today. And I'm not saying that any of you are feeling this, but just to give an example of there have been Bible passages that have been used to persecute people or to judge people.

So the context of this passage, as I understand it is that it's the nation. The people are disobeying God, and we still do that today. And at the same time, I'll be talking in another class, coming up about the message of reconciliation and love and grace and salvation. So not only in the book of Isaiah, but also in other prophets and other books of the Bible, you will hear and read messages of judgment, and then messages of forgiveness and grace and peace. I also got for myself this semester- I have an assortment of Bibles, you know that I like The Message. I have the new revised standard version, which is the official school translation and probably several other translations on the shelf. And I now have the inclusive Bible and one example that I wanted to just bring up is that there are gender neutral ways of saying things that I had never really thought of before, because for example here, what I just read, it says, I decided to heal him, lead him and comfort him and I'm not a him. I don't identify as a him and the inclusive Bible that I have here talks about in verse 17, I was enraged by your sinful greed. I punished you and withdrew my favor, but you maintained your willful ways. I know your ways, and I will heal you. I will lead you and comfort you, you and those among you who mourn, I will bring praise to your lips.

I will bring peace, and it keeps going. And so this is an example of if I self identified as male and was reading this, I will heal him. Lead him, comfort him. I would say, great. This might apply to me, but as female, what does it mean to me? When I hear the phrase, I decided to heal him, lead him and comfort him.

So I might think, well, hopefully it applies to me, but I'm not really sure. And I'm not getting any profit or anything like that from saying, Hey, listen, I have this new Bible translation, but when I read the word, you he'll, you, I will lead you and comfort you. Then I think for sure, that probably could apply to me, even though the actual text is referring to people a long time ago and not every single thing in the Bible is about me, but it's easier to sort of hear.

So I just wanted to point that out.

One assignment that I had to develop for this course was a weekend retreat based on an aspect of Isaiah, the students actually had a choice of assignments and I picked this one because I've attended retreats before and enjoyed them. And I thought, Hey, this is something that I might like to do in the future.

I selected the theme of remembering and forgetting in Isaiah. God remembers us and God forgets our sin. Do we sometimes forget God? According to human history, we sure do. Do we sometimes remember our sins and those of others, even though we don't need to? A concept that came up in the next class I'm going to describe is that we can advocate against injustice even if we forgive someone who has done something awful.

Someday, I look forward to being able to attend a weekend retreat in person. In the meantime, I'm thinking about how to use this retreat idea for a digital Bible study.

One significant theme in Isaiah and other prophets is that of justice and care for those who are oppressed. While the Lutheran faith does not believe that we do good deeds in order to get to heaven, we do them because it's the right thing to do. This is reflected in today's Bible passage from Isaiah 57. One way of looking at it is that we humans can serve as God's messengers with both uplifting words and physical actions to help our neighbors. This includes standing up to oppressive systems that keep people down in order to benefit others.

The next class, Lutheran confessions, sounds serious. And on the one hand it is, but the conversations were so real and relevant. Serious doesn't have to be a downer, is what I'm trying to say. Also, confessions might mean different things to different people. I attended a Catholic junior high school, even though I wasn't Catholic and have never been.

The private confession before attending worship service and receiving communion was something that I wasn't familiar with because in the Lutheran church, we say a confession, everybody together at the beginning of a church service. And we're all forgiven as a group. So for me, confession is part of the church service.

It's not something that I have to do separately and make a big deal of and make sure I do it before I go to church. In this case, What this class was about was that when I was in junior high in my church, I got a book that I still have, which is the short version of teachings by Martin Luther.

It's called the small catechism. And guess what? Along with it is a much longer book called the large catechism. I don't like to use fancy words when ordinary words will be clearer. So for your information, catechism means a summary of beliefs with questions and answers. For example, Martin Luther writes about the 10 commandments, the Lord's prayer and other important concepts by stating what they are and asking questions about what they mean in our lives.

And the reason that this was really important to me to do as an adult again, is that I did care about this stuff in junior high but I needed to basically get through the class in order to be confirmed, which is a confession in and of itself because I don't think that's why I was doing it, but on paper you have to go through this class to get confirmed. It was a good process, but I don't remember learning as much during that class.

And please no offense, in case the pastor who taught that confirmation class is listening, I don't mean it that way. I just mean you think differently later as a second career adult than you do as a junior high student. So I'm really glad I had a chance to go through this stuff again. The  small catechism is sort of a basic outline with a few sentences on each topic.

And then the large catechism gets into much more detail with all of this stuff. I'd like to just give you a few examples so that you know what I'm talking about. And if you really have some time on your hands and would like to dig much more into Lutheran beliefs and all kinds of documents from history that are still informative today, there's a really big book called the Book of Concord, which is the confessions of the evangelical Lutheran church. It's absolutely massive. It's 700 pages long, and I'm not going to read all 700 pages to you today, or even telling you about all 700 pages, but there's some really interesting information. And most of the stuff is online also, which is pretty cool.

I don't mind having a paper book that I can dog ear and underline and write notes into, but I know some people just love having digital access, whether it's on a website or even on an app. So we have creeds, which is what we believe in, we have the small catechism and large catechism that I had mentioned.

And also in this book of Concord are other historical documents that came about during the reformation when Martin Luther and many of his colleagues were saying, Hey, this is what we believe. For example, when we attend a church service, we're not going to church to earn our way into heaven because a huge belief is that we can't do anything to earn our way into heaven, whether it's going to church or doing certain other good deeds.

So let's just be really clear about that, that we are going to church to attend, say a worship service to sing, to praise God, to pray, to receive communion in the case of the Lutheran folks to receive forgiveness after making a corporate confession, but that we're not earning anything by going to church.

And that's also important these days, in times of COVID because I miss going to church, I would like to physically be in church, but since I know that I'm not doing it to earn my way into heaven, as much as I miss it, I can still feel that there's great meaning and benefit from watching church services online or participating even in an online Bible study.

So anyway, back to the large catechism, the longer explanations of things were really helpful to me as an adult. And I had alluded to this in a previous episode as well. For example, the 10 commandments we think, wow, that's just a whole bunch of law. There are 10 laws, but they're pretty broad. And we have all these measures of how we're supposed to act. And again, knowing that it's impossible to keep them all, but also that there are nuances. And so what I appreciate is that Martin Luther wrote not only, you shall not do X, Y, and Z, these 10 things. You also on the flip side of that, then should say, for example, look, to take care of your neighbor, to make sure that your neighbor has what they need and if they need something that you help them.

And that you're supporting them actively and doing things proactively for society, that benefits individuals who might need things. Also the Lord's prayer is talked about in quite some detail, you know, what does this mean? Your kingdom come for example, is God's kingdom already on the earth now, is it somewhere way, far off in the future somehow?

How do we understand that? and how are we taking care of the planet in addition to each other as human beings?

And that's just really a five minute overview of this large textbook or online app that I would highly recommend that you take a look at either online for free or by getting a copy of the book. Another class that I took was called pastoral care and practical theology.

This class included topics that felt applicable to regular people. In my view, for example, our textbook by Pete ward addressed the concept that ordinary people can think and discuss important things about God. Without needing to go to school. Imagine that. So I absolutely love that because I've had the privilege of going to school for a really long time, but

some people think that you should have some book learning and understand sort of these complicated religious concepts, but on the other hand, Regular people who may not have had the opportunity to take all these classes can also have relationship with God. And I have a couple of quotes to read to you.

one talks about tradition. So I belong to a faith that has a lot of tradition and many church services have tradition during the services. Like how do we do things during a church service? And one of the things that this textbook that I mentioned talks about is that yes, we can quote, draw on the wisdom of the church over the ages.

And quote, but this doesn't mean that we have to always do things the same way all the time. And is there room for innovation and there wasn't any particular recommendations made here, but just to honor, if regular people can have a relationship with God through their understanding, then does this mean?

That there are certain people who are experts. And yes, on the one hand there are experts. But one of the quotes that I wanted to read to you is from the Reverend Dr. Joyce and Mercer, I read a chapter in a larger book that she wrote, and she said that there is not a separation. Between the sacred and human experiences.

So what that means to me is that our regular everyday lives can be about God, not just when we're in a church building, which is a good thing, because right now, most people can't be in church buildings because of the pandemic. But even before the pandemic, You know, I would go to church once a week, maybe twice a week or on rare occasion if I had a meeting or something like that, a third time in a week or choir rehearsal or whatever.

and yeah, maybe I can feel closer to God in that church building, but that we don't have to only think about God at certain times or in certain places. And the way I noticed this, I have one more quote from another author, is that over the years of attending women's Bible studies, which I've also talked about in other episodes, I noticed that sometimes women feel denigrated by being quote only.

A stay at home mom when their life circumstances show that to be the best option for their family, or there could be, it appears that there are no other options at the time for their family and the author, Bonnie Miller McLemore said. That daily chores in caring for family allows us to know about God.

So, wow. I don't particularly like doing household chores and I probably don't often think about God while I'm helping out around the home. And. I do value when I have a job outside of the home. And I feel like I'm making positive contributions, but it kind of blew my mind that these two women authors were talking about everyday lives and our relationship with God and that, you know, yeah.

If you can get to church and you like going to church and you have access to it and knowing that that's sometimes isn't possible and that we can feel close to God or learn about God or understand God just in our. Normal ordinary environments. I thought that was pretty amazing. So practical theology encompasses a lot of different ways of looking at the world.

And I got to hear from some of my classmates, in addition to the textbooks on all kinds of different chapters in there's, lots of books and articles and things that you can look at that, but, it talked. A lot about just the balance sort of between quote, regular people and quote theologians, you know, people who really study theology and God, and all this church stuff that we don't have to be separate.

I mean, we may be kind of physically separated, but it doesn't have to be either. Or, and I really liked that it doesn't have to be all this fancy complicated stuff. that God is with us, where we are in our everyday ordinary lives. And I really appreciated hearing about that. So I enjoyed this class and would recommend if you have some time to take a look at some other practical theology type matters.

I really liked a class called introduction to Islam. I was interested in learning more about a faith and a group of people who I didn't know too much about. And I often wonder if what we see or hear on the news is accurate. At this point, honestly, I would say probably not much of the time students were assigned many different readings and documentaries so that we could learn more about this ancient faith and diverse peoples.

I have two books to recommend. The first is by Todd green titled the fear of Islam and the second. Is by Mahmoud Ayoub and it's titled Islam, faith, and history. And like I had mentioned, in addition to these two books, we had lots of articles and documentaries to learn more. And for me, what was especially interesting was the foundation of Islam and how things have diversified over the centuries.

And honestly, I feel like that's. That similar concept also applies to other faiths. So one quote in the Todd green book is that there is one faith and many people, and I honestly feel that way even about Christianity, not everyone who is a Christian, right. Acts or talks the same way based on their faith beliefs, there's inclusivity, there's exclusivity.

There's people who believe that there's certain ways to do things that certain things are right. And certain things are wrong. So. What it made me realize is that we have stereotypes about many different types of people in the world. I think there are stereotypes about Christians. There are stereotypes about people on a faith basis, or even, perhaps ethnic where you're from.

What do you look like? That just aren't true. We assume things. And sometimes we assume the worst of each other and sometimes the worst news gets the biggest headlines. And that applies again to lots of different categories of people and places. So fear-mongering is real. And to me that means that. The headlines are often the very worst news and this one piece of news might be true, but if there's 10 other pieces of news that are different from this one, but we're just hearing this one really horrible one.

I don't mean to minimize any of the bad news. That is true, but there's lots of statistics, especially in the Todd green book, the fear of Islam, the talks about how are these statistics. Presented. So for example, I really hated taking statistics. I had to do it for my master's in social work, but now I'm really glad that I did.

And I had to take a research methods class as well, so that I could understand how is research that's being done presented. So when you hear according to researchers, statistics show or whatever, you might be thinking, okay, well, who paid for this research? First of all. So say a pharmaceutical company paid for the research.

Is it going to be a hundred percent objective and neutral? Well, gee, it would be great if it was, but that's really not guaranteed. So let's take, let's take a look at that. and then also, how, w how was the information gathered, say you're taking a poll or something like that? Are you taking a sample of convenience, which means like, I'll just ask these 10 people that I know, and then I'll say, okay, I did research and these were the 10 answers, or am I trying to get a broad perspective?

Do I even want to get a broad perspective? Do I want to be able to share what a bunch of different people think about this topic? And then how am I. Analyzing the data, blah, blah- this is not a podcast about statistics, but the reason I bring this up is that I learned some really interesting things about different cultures from this class that I didn't know.

And I'd actually really like to have on all of these classes that I've talked about so far and the next one coming up as well, do whole separate episodes on these topics and yeah. Bring in some guest speakers who know more about this than I do, or have a conversation about different aspects of this.

Because one thing that's really important to me is to make sure that people are being treated fairly. And wouldn't it be great if people could even be treated well? So one thing that I worry about is who is being mistreated, who is being oppressed. And is there anything that can be done to improve that situation of people?

And so my assumption has been based on what I've seen in the news, that many people in different cultures are oppressed for various different reasons. And there are some examples from this class that I have read the statistics that were presented to me in the books, articles and documentaries, but I have not had the chance to dig back all the way down to see, okay.

Are there other statistics that go against what this says? So I'm not prepared to read off a bunch of stuff right now, but I can say that my eyes were open to think, you know, What about women wearing a headscarf or avail or a face covering or a body covering? Now? I might think, Oh, wow. Is that okay? Are these women being mistreated?

Maybe on the surface, according to my way of living, that may be the case. And then what I also need to question is, is my way of living the only quote right, or best, or, you know, legitimate way of living. So I was brought up without wearing any kind of headscarf or head covering or anything like that. So to me, that's not customary, it's not necessary.

And I might not understand all of the reasons behind it, but reading books and articles, watching documentaries and learning more about it. What I'm thinking now is let me be open-minded let me learn. Let me talk to people. Let me find out if you are wearing a headscarf or a face covering or a body covering, do you feel like you are oppressed?

Is it true? Not just my opinion. You know, how would I feel if one day, all of a sudden I had to walk around with this covering over myself. Just because I might feel one way doesn't mean everybody else feels the same way. So I wanted to bring that up. And also education was another example that was listed whereby you know, I think, Oh, are, are women in different parts of the world sort of stock?

Are they. maybe trapped for lack of a better word. Are they able to feel fulfilled? Can they get the education that they want? Are girls allowed to go to school? And again, from I even even asking those questions in my mind is coming from a place of judgment because I think girls should be able to get an education.

Wouldn't it be great if everyone should feel fulfilled, not just, you know, women, the example that I'm just giving right now. And so I might think. Well, if women are being treated badly, say for example, they have to wear all these coverings that I'm not used to, which doesn't make it wrong or oppressive automatically, or women can't drive.

I am happy to have the freedom of driving. And also I have the economic position to be able to drive, which is a whole nother story. So in my mind, these things are wrongly bundled together. Well, if women have to wear these head coverings, does that mean they're being oppressed? If they're not allowed to drive.

Does that mean they're being oppressed and if girls aren't allowed to go to school, does that mean that all the women in this culture or in the society are being oppressed? And one example of a statistic that I saw about that is to show in which countries, women have a great deal of education and women have been leaders.

And even in the United States, women of different ethnicities and backgrounds, including faith backgrounds in this case do have a great deal of education and professional status. So that's not to say there's no oppression. Of course there's oppression going on, but it's not universal. It's not fair to say, Hey, everybody in this one category of people or countries or culture or faith are all in the same book.

Cause that's just not true. There's uniqueness. Even, like I said, at the beginning of their section there's uniqueness among Christianity, which I happen to know the best. or even in different areas of the United States, different regions, there's different beliefs sort of cultural norms, and possibly about women or about many other things.

So that's it for today on that class, but I would love to continue the conversation in much greater detail. The final class that I took this semester that I also really enjoyed is called rural ministry. We had several small textbooks assigned and the professor also had us view music videos each week that highlighted some of the stereotypes of country living as well as lifting up the beauty and the faith to be found.

Having lived in a relatively rural area in one part of Germany. And now in upstate New York, I can honestly say that I'd rather be in the country than in the city. That said I have a choice of grocery stores within 20 minutes of my house. So I'm definitely not in a true rural area, which I hadn't realized.

I thought just because I can see more grass and trees than houses, that means I'm in a rural area, but I'm not because I learned there's a really big difference between a really true rural area. I can get to a bunch of grocery stores in seven minutes and then even more within a 20 minute radius. I will include several titles of books on the podcast website, which is 40 minutes of faith.com.

And talk about two of them specifically just now and while the class focused on faith development in rural areas, we also learned about diverse cultures within the United States. One book pointed out that there is a class out there somewhere that people can take who live in cities. In order to better understand rural areas, particularly around faith issues, but there's no commensurate class for people to take, to learn about cities.

I appreciate that. Not all city living is glamorous and fun and also life in the countryside is not always boring and stifling. So it has been good. I'd like to think that I'm an open-minded person, but I learned a great deal from this class. And I wanted to just recommend two books in particular. One is called God land and the author is Lynn Lenz, and she did talk about some wonderful stories about faith development and the possibility of, you know, our churches dying in rural areas.

And please let me amend that to say, are white Christian churches dying? Because you did talk about some churches that had new interfaith ministries or the building was shared among people of diverse faiths and backgrounds as something that is changing. And she also talked about the role of women in many, in this particular case with this book, Christian faiths.

that was, that had been a painful experience for her and for some other people. So I would highly recommend that book and also another book called God's country by Brad wroth talking about, again, the question of church growth and church, perhaps dying. what happens when a church just has really fewer members?

And one of the things we talked about in this class together are the way we measure success is really arbitrary and just based on numbers. And that has to do with everything from our own personal lives. I believe to the lives of organized church groups. You know, what does the number on the scale have to say?

What does the number of years that you went to school have to say, what does the number in your bank account have to say? And then when it comes to churches, what about the number of people who were sitting in the pews or the number of people who went through a certain ceremony in your church? This year, say for example, in some churches they count baptisms or confirmations or marriages or funerals, or how many people took communion.

There's probably a bunch of other numbers that I'm not even thinking. And, and isn't it possible that there's so much more to life and to church or faith than just the numbers that we count. So you might look at a church building and say, wow, there's really not a lot of people who go to this service or something like that.

But is there still faith happening? These are God's people and there's some hard decisions. So the whole class wasn't about that, but that's just one example that I wanted to bring out just in support of the assumptions that we make, that my life, I don't want my life to be about the number on the scale or the number of years of school that I had, or the number in my bank counters, maybe some other numbers, the number of friends I have on Facebook and also not wanting.

To say, well, this church is just a goner. Now, maybe we need to do things differently when it comes to building maintenance and the use of the physical plant and, and things like that. Can we, you know, maybe have other groups also using this church building for different purposes or things of that nature, but yeah, if you would like to learn more, I would recommend those books.

And then, like I said, I'll also be putting other resources up on the podcast website. I want to just. Really think all of the faculty and the other students for bringing up really great examples and lessons and helping us to understand more about all of these different topics. I also learned more about agriculture in this class and rural doesn't always mean farming.

there's plenty of other. ways of looking at land and we actually talked in this class too about statistics and government and numbers and how many people live in a certain area. And I just am really grateful to have had a chance to learn more about this and to have a sense on the  great diversity.

I'd like to think that I always knew that about especially the United States, now that I'm living here again. But just to know that. There's beauty to be found in many different ways. Maybe that's another different way that we measure things. So I'm grateful for having the chance to listen to a bunch of different kinds of music.

That's pretty unusual, not very many classes do that. I'm grateful to have had this learning opportunity. So that is it for the summary of my classes this fall altogether. I would say that it was a really interesting semester. I had a wide variety in all of the classes did talk about also the Bible and things like that.

I really highlighted it for the Isaiah class, but certainly the Lutheran confessions chapter was full of the Bible. Well, and really also in the Islam class, I learned about the Koran and also the concept of Abrahamic faiths. I felt like I had a really good diversity of. Understanding of not only the world, the local place, where I am when it comes to being possibly rural, and also different ways that people relate to creation to God, to their understanding of God and different ways of having faith journeys.

I am really appreciative of that and look forward to digging into much more detail at whenever possible.

Resources:

Isaiah 57:15 and following

The Inclusive Bible

Survival of Rural America by Richard Wood

God Land by Lyn Lenz

God’s Country by Brad Roth

The Fear of Islam by Todd Green

Islam: Faith and History by Mahmoud Ayoub

An Introduction to Practical Theology by Pete Ward

Luther’s Small Catechism by Martin Luther

Luther’s Large Catechism by Martin Luther

The Book of Concord

Faith with Sarah

Barbara: Hi everyone. And welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God. Today's topic is how we understand God and our guest is Sarah Mount Elewononi. I met Sarah in Massachusetts and she lives in Pennsylvania now. Sarah has deep United Methodist roots with broad interfaith appreciation and friendships. She has worked for 20 years in pastoral ministry and holds a doctoral degree in liturgy and sociology of religion.

Sarah dreams of growing into her new identity as a cyber circuit writer, hoping to build and strengthen safe harbors communities where disciples of Jesus are rescued from the wrath, where they can grow strong and make a difference in the world. Sarah, how are you all in Pennsylvania these days?

Sarah: we're doing okay. We have two daughters who were doing school in a hybrid fashion for one quarter and about to start doing five day a week in the second quarter. And it all of a sudden became everything at home for the rest of November, and my husband's still goes out to work sometimes and works from home sometimes.

So we're getting along. We've been worshipping through a church I belonged to before I went to seminary in Massachusetts, which has been delightful. I've been able to sing in the choir there and the girls have gone to Sunday school.

Barbara: let's take a look at our Bible passage today from the book of Genesis, which is the very first book of your Bible- we have a really long reading today that we are going to be sharing throughout this conversation instead of reading it all right away. If you'd like to follow along, we'll be talking about several aspects of chapter two, verse 15, all the way through chapter three, verse 24. Chances are that you've heard the story before about the garden of Eden: Adam and Eve were given fruit bearing trees and animals and many other plants, but they were not to eat from one tree. Then along comes a snake, temptation, eating the fruit, fear, hiding, judgment and more. Let's unpack this together.

Sarah, how did you come to select this passage for our conversation?

Sarah: it's a critical passage. I was working as a pastor and dealing with conflict and trying to find my way through the conflict. I discovered something called nonviolent communication. I'm wrestling with certain Bible passages or working to see scripture through this new way of looking - in nonviolent communication, one of the key pieces is recognizing that judgment, blame, shame are all methods of violent coercion of trying to make people do stuff they don't naturally want to do, which was kind of a new way for me to think about things. I was learning this and also working as a pastor, the scripture came up during lent and I looked at it, I was like, Oh,

Barbara: It's full of blame and shame and judgment.

Sarah: Not only that, what does God say not to do? Don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When we think we know what's good and what's evil, that's judgment- we're labeling things as good and evil, and that's a judgment that we're making and God says, don't go there. Don't do that.

And they go ahead and do it. And what's fascinating is that they assume after they've done that, that God is also judging good and evil and that God has judged them as bad for breaking their rules. Cause along with this whole scheme of judgements, then there's also rewards and punishments. If you do what someone wants you to do, you get rewarded. If you don't do it, you get punished. Adam and Eve assume that they're going to be punished. They hide from God and that breaks the first commandment of Jesus: To love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength. If you're afraid of somebody, you can't love them with your whole being.

They hide themselves from God. They're feeling ashamed. And then God calls them anyway and has a dialogue. And who told you and why did you eat from this fruit? Adam says, Oh, Eve gave it to me, blames Eve. And then Eve points to the serpent.

Oh, well it's the serpent's idea. So the blame and guilt and the shame breaks both of Jesus's great commandments right there. And it's a different way of reading the story than what was handed down.

Barbara: I'm really intrigued that you have some alternatives for us to consider, because I suspect that many people have had experience here on earth with this concept that you've talked about of a God of judgment and a God of law.

And then people communicate that and implement it and enforce that. I am so happy that you introduced this concept of nonviolent communication and it made me also think then about the 10 commandments - how can we integrate these concepts of a God of love and the 10 commandments and this nonviolent communication and in our earthly experiences?

Sarah: what I've been working on ever since I got these insights from years ago, and  I've been teaching scripture to pastors for the last few years, so I've worked through a lot of these.

So one piece of this too, is abundance in nonviolent communication. You assume there's abundance. We're fighting to get our needs met. Everything we do is trying to meet a need. And if we try to force people to do stuff, to meet our needs, it usually goes wrong.

One way or another, it breaks relationships. And so if you can rely on abundance and recognize what we're fighting over the strategies, not the actual needs, then you can say, okay, this strategy isn't working for this person, but there's 10,000 other ways to meet this need. How can this need be met without making this person do this thing they don't want to do?

How do you understand commandments? I puzzled over this first or got the most clarity with Jesus and the command to love one another. And Jesus is washing the disciples’ feet and says, this is my commandment that you love one another. And that never made any sense to me.

How can you command somebody to love? I can't, there's free will. That's another key. And so the way I think about this is, I thought about the word commandment. And that story of love one another comes up on Maundy Thursday- that word Maundy is related to the English word mandate and a mandate is kind of like a relay race when I've got tube running with and I get to my partner, like passing the baton, right? So if you understand it this way, what God is really doing, what Jesus is saying, this is how things work in the way I've created the world. I've created the world with abundance. You have everything you need and don't go to the place of judgment.

And don't assume that I'm the judge. Just leave the judgment aside. And here's a mandate, here are some things that we know work and don't work to live a happy, healthy, fulfilling life. Right. So loving one another. And here's the conundrum with the washing of feet, right?

How many people really dread or would never want to have their feet washed? This was not the Jesus says if you don't wash feet, you're going to hell- he does not say

Barbara: that,

Sarah: but what Jesus is, meaning is if you can trust one another on this intimate level, that the disciples are allowing Jesus to trust them.

When they let Jesus wash his feet. If you can be that intimate and vulnerable with one another, then you will really understand what love is. Right. It's the way it works. And likewise with the 10 commandments, right? If you'll kill somebody, regardless of whether it's a justified adjust war or not, or if you kill another human being, you're going to have repercussions.

I mean, you can be healed from such a thing, but we're not meant to kill one another. We're not meant to be coveting what one another has, because we have abundance.

We don't have to take somebody else's stuff, there's money there. you know, we're not meant to tell lies, so when we do these things, we're getting into trouble. And so this is a mandate and even the word commandment has that mandate in the root of it too, that it's a way that works.

It's the user manual that God gives us.

Barbara: I've been reading a document called the large catechism for one of my school classes. And I had exposure to it when I was a kid in confirmation class, but I confess that I have a very different understanding of it now than I did then, because there are nuances that Martin Luther writes about.

Okay. So yes. You have all these commandments, don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. And then Martin Luther adds on. Okay. So we're not supposed to kill, to use the example that you had and not only are we not supposed to kill, but, in most of the commandments we are to then act proactively in support of other people.

Yes. Fear of each other. So it's not just don't do this cause I can think, yeah, well I haven't killed anybody but am I actively working to care for and support and work for the betterment of other people?

Sarah: Right.

Barbara: Just the basic commandment,

Sarah: right. And the Methodists, do the same kind of thing when they talk about doing no harm and then doing good, like both of those are important pieces of living life of faith.

Great.

Barbara: And I agree with what you said that God has provided abundantly for our earth and for humanity. And I've noticed that there are some people here on earth who really truly do not have enough, even of the very basics of food. And I'd appreciate your thoughts on where is God and where are we with each other when we have enough, but some people are literally starving?

Sarah: this has to do with, the way societies are set up so that there are some people who have way more than they need. And many people who don't have enough. Right. And systems get in place like slavery of different kinds or feudalism.

There's so many different ways to make sure that some people are getting more and other people don't have enough. Right. And so anytime. there's people without enough it's because we haven't ordered the life the way God would have us order life.

Barbara: I agree with you. And I might think, well, it's just a little old me here in upstate New York, but there are groups working globally to support anti-hunger efforts and systemic change and all that might sound kind of pie in the sky But each effort that we can take, there are ways to advocate for change both on the local level, just in my own neighborhood with a soup kitchen or a food pantry.

And then right on up to. The highest levels of government that can implement. But ultimately it comes down to human selfishness, which is sin. And I have that, I shouldn't just say, Oh, those rich people living in fancy places. It's all of us, not just those other people over there.

part of what we're doing is becoming awake to those systems that are running counter and are based on different stories than the story we get in scripture of God's grace and abundance.

Sarah: as far as the Adam and Eve story, the whole concept of original sin works against us. in that if we think that God is a God of wrath who punishes us for our sin,.

That if we can see it instead that our misery, the wrath all around us comes from our not living in right relationships. but God is doing everything God can to pull us out of that. And the domination culture of any empire, that punishes people and keeps people poor and, keeps people addicted and isolated and depressed.

and rewards the few, God keeps. In grace, meeting us there and pulling us out, showing us this other way to live, which is in freedom.  One cardinal rule is, anybody can say no at any time. And that has to be okay because otherwise we're forcing people to do stuff.

Barbara: Do you mean we can say no to God, or we can say no to each other?

Sarah: all of the above- we only come to life in God's grace because we've said yes to it, because we see it meeting the needs that we have better than anything else, or because we're trusting and hoping that that will be the case.

Barbara: It sounds to me like we humans have taken really the worst qualities and the worst things that we can do to each other and make it happen regularly. I would like to think that I don't treat anybody poorly, but surely that can't be true- we're all saints and sinners, according to the theology that I'm the most familiar with in the Lutheran faith. I can try my best, but I'll never keep every law fully. So even if I don't think that I am intentionally pushing people down or demeaning them, that you have this concept of God's not pushing us away- we're kind of pushing each other away from God or maybe even ourselves.

Sarah: in the old Testament, the various powers, whether they were King David, who had Bathsheba's husband killed, those powers are not living according to God's way. And oftentimes people have assigned to God, the ultimate judge, the one who's punishing, to legitimize their own violence against others. And after Constantine people were being baptized at sword point, and that's when Jews started being slaughtered for not becoming Christian-

Barbara: we have a pretty unholy legacy of treating other people very horribly, killing them.

Sarah: and the emotional, spiritual violence in the church. How many Christians, though we have a practice of confession, how many people actually feel washed clean and free after they confess?

Instead, they're hiding pieces that they're afraid of God, or, that whole image of God is being the one who's going to condemn us and send us to the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, when all God wants to do is pull us out of that. 

And we don't even have to talk about the wrath to come. It's not the punishment we get when we die. It's the wrath we're in the middle of right now. If anybody wants to flee from the wrath, come and find a safe harbor, come and join with others who understand God in this liberating life-giving, grace-filled way.

Barbara: One thing that I'm used to now, and I'm curious if you have something similar in your faith tradition as well, is that at the beginning of a church service there's a corporate confession of sins. So we all say the same words at the same time, basically, “I'm sorry for what I've done and also for what I didn't do.”

And then the clergy person forgives the congregation. I'm wondering how are we doing that these days with people not being able to go to church? In some places, faith groups are still meeting in person, but how can just ordinary people who may or may not be in a church service every week, have a sense of I've done some things wrong and then to feel God's forgiveness?

Sarah: this is what my idea of safe havens is about. And this actually comes from another big learning I've had in recent years, related to food addiction and having small group accountability, and having buddies to talk to. Accountability is not coming to a group and admitting all the wrong I've done so that they can then, agree. Yes, you've done horrible. And this is your punishment, or we're going to shun you, or, there's all kinds of ways the Christian faith traditions have spun that out, give you penance.

That's not the point. The point is when we're in a small group and we all understand we're struggling with this together and we have similar struggles, or even if you might not have a food addiction, but if I can trust you not to judge me from my food addiction, but to have compassion about it, then I can say to you, well, I haven't been doing too well.

These last couple of weeks, I've been bingeing on stuff and I'm suffering. And the beauty of the Methodist tradition is we didn't start in America with large congregations that met in a church building on Sunday morning.

We started in prayer groups that met in a parlor and we were able to be forthright about the ways we've done harm, about failing to do good, and then encourage one another, admonish, one another, that God's grace is available to change. And early Methodists didn't know about food addiction, but they certainly knew about alcohol.

And so early Methodists were very much temperance people and often became teetotallers because they recognized that some people just needed that bright line where they didn't have any. And if they had even a little bit, it could trigger them to a binge. And that's exactly why Methodists ended up pioneering grape juice. Mr. Welch was a Methodist and he figured out how to pasteurize your grape juice so that it was possible to have grape juice in April. Choosing to honor the weakest member- not everybody had an alcohol problem, but some people did. And so we're going to adjust, switch our communion element to grape juice so that the weakest member isn't tempted.

Barbara: I'm impressed because I have a different episode on addiction and sometimes it's a big deal to try to get grape juice introduced or it's in a separate location. So I think that's terrific.

Sarah: having the small group who agrees to protect the weakest members where you can safely name that your sins or the things you're struggling with, the things that are preventing you from living a grace-filled life, can all help you. And then you share those mandates, those different ways, those different means of grace that can help you.

 So now if it's an addiction, having bright lines, that you don't cross is a really helpful thing. And what I would love to envision is a Methodist congregation that has a bright line around the sugar and flour so after worship, I'm not tempted by all business that's laid out in coffee hour.

Barbara: I absolutely, I love what you said about accountability in love. I really think that's the first time I've ever heard that.

And you gave an example of people holding each other accountable in love, but I also get the sense from you and please correct me if I'm wrong. Are you talking about God also holding us accountable in love, which is different from how some people hear not only the creation story, but many other aspects of God?

Sarah: God wants help us to live a life that's free and happy and joyful. Playful, grace-filled. God's tried so many different ways to get us out, and offered so many different options, culminating in the Christian view in Christ, you know, God becoming.

One with us being born in this culture of domination and living in it, being killed by it, cause a huge factor in this whole thing is fear, Death being the biggest thing. So we're no longer afraid of dying if we really believe in eternal life through Christ, then we don't have to be afraid of what the empire can do.

We don't have to be afraid of the forces that want to kill us, what we'll continue to do the right thing and the loving thing and know that that won't die, even if we do. and even. Another piece that I love, it doesn't really show up in scripture but in, in the apostles creed, in the Nicene Creed, it says that Christ descends to hell,?

Sometimes we say the place of the dead, but what that's about is Christ reaching- my favorite icon in the Orthodox tradition is Christ reaching for Adam and Eve hands. He smashed the Gates in the locks and it's open. So

Barbara: they're not stuck there

Sarah: anymore. Daughters of Eve, all the sons of Adam, everybody.

so we're not imprisoned there. another piece of friendship I wanted to share, It has to do with racism and and even homophobia. My, one of my best friends in college there's was an African-American gay man.

and he hadn't come out to us when we first got to college. It took a couple of years for him to feel safe enough for that. But he was my first close black friend and just by being friends with him, helped me to understand and come to terms with what we call institutional racism,  cause I was never raised to be prejudice towards black people,  not in a straight forward way from my family.

though I certainly grew up in a very white culture and a very white part of New York state, but, His friendship. helped me to be, transformed and changed and to, to become an ally, to people who are being oppressed to be an anti-racist as Kennedy talks about it.

and that's actually one piece of my understanding of the Trinity is that friendship with God and friendship with one another,

Barbara: I suspect that that might be a really incredible concept literally to some people that, How is our relationship with God similar to a friendship and that it's not fire and brimstone a hundred percent of the time, or, much of the time at all, that this hand is stretched out to us in love.

Sarah:  that realization was part of my conversion experience that happened a few years before I had the understanding from non-violent communication. I, in my first year in ministry, that was so very hard. I was not doing well with them and not showing the marks of success that one would want to see, or that were being measured by the Methodist, in our reports.

And. I also, had a failed romantic relationship at the time and, I was just feeling badly all the way around. And I was working with a spiritual director and was able to share with her that I couldn't even pray anymore. And there was like big blockage and I didn't know what it was at first, but, As I prayed about it and employed, the creativity that I've learned to use in that prayer.

I finally came to realize that I was picturing Jesus as the judge on the throne and all of these failures. I was attributing to. Me being cast out where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. I was afraid of the wrath of God. And so I couldn't pray. And, within a couple of months, while on a retreat and being handed some modeling clay, I, made this lovely, depiction of a dancing, Trinity three human figures of three different colors, holding hands dancing, and.

in that I heard God's saying come and play. And I love the concept where the Trinity is dancing into each other's. Roles and each other's, places. And that playfulness. And I really needed that to get out of my own prison of thinking that God was the judge who   would send one people to wrath, but God's a Trinity.

And dancing is one of my most wonderful favorite healing activities ever.

Barbara: I like to ask whose voice is missing and the concept of a dancing Trinity , you don't really see that in this passage in Genesis. You hear God and here's the creation and the snake and Eve and Adam, and then God again, and the dancing Trinity isn't the only voice who's missing, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on some other ways of thinking about the story.

Sarah: we have Genesis one and the very first verse or two of Genesis one has what Christians have come to see as a Trinity.

the spirit of God is hovering over the waters and, here's where it's helpful to know what other religions in the area we're thinking about in terms of God and God in creation and in those stories - many of the cultures of the empires around the Hebrew people were, depicting God as a violent King.

Who was slaying a sea monster of chaos who was feminine usually. And in the slaying of the chaos, all the blood and the body parts became the earth and the creatures. Wow. And it connects to, deep rooted understandings and beliefs that matter is evil. It says we're  good spirits trapped in bad bodies.

 So that's the creation story that was all around the Hebrew people. That's the God they were hearing about. And as they started to tell this completely different story about God, it's very interesting because the characters are still there, the waters of chaos are still there, but now the spirit of God is hovering like a chicken over its eggs, hovering over the chaos until something new is born. And when I look at the wrath around us these days, politically, in our churches, my own United Methodist church is getting ready to break apart. one of my go-to words of hope that I, I say to myself and to anyone who will listen one is that the spirit of God is hovering over the chaos and something new is about to be born and just hold on.

Hold on and be midwives to that new birth. Keep your eyes open for what the new thing that's coming that's really gonna usher a different way of life than what we've had.

Barbara: That's true. Really lovely. Our text today doesn't specifically say our bodies are bad, but I do believe that many people think our bodies are bad. Our bodies are sinful and yes, we can act in sinful ways, but this creation story. Says that our bodies are good. And then there's different ways throughout the Bible where we humans have just bungled lots and lots of things. And we do sin, but what God created is good.

Sarah: and not only good, but with the human beings, that's when God says it's very good. Emphasized even more. And why else would God become a body?  What is the incarnation other than Christ and even the understanding of being born of Mary?

The Virgin Mary isn't about your body being sinful if you're having sex, that's not at all what they were dealing with. What they were trying to get across is that bodies- from being conceived in a womb and all the bloodiness of being born, that that's good. And that's the way God wants it to be.

And it's blessed. And so for God to become fully human, God's gonna go through that fully human experience of having a body and not just pretending, not just dipping a big toe into life and death, but actually fully living and fully dying. And then there's resurrection.

Barbara: And now we're full circle again, because as Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden, one of the conditions that God had mentioned was a painful childbirth.

Sarah: Hmm. I haven't worked on that piece of the story so much, but I think that's just more of kind of a description of what actually happens and that God recognizes it's happening, but I still don't see in the text that God is saying, I'm doing this to punish you.

And maybe it's a consequence in some way of our not right relationships, but it's not a punishment. it's not a condemnation. I believe for now, no condemnation goes from the beginning all the way through. And any time somebody thinks God is condemning somebody, they've missed the mark, they're off base.

Barbara: we've got law and gospel, so we can't deny in Bible there is a bunch of judgment and in the Bible is an awful lot of grace and love and forgiveness and redemption.

Sarah: those laws, those bright lines, if you think of it more as this mandate, as these methods, these ways of getting free, and they're tried and true, they've done well by people for a long time, but sometimes also, there's a tendency of making more and more hedges. Making that line brighter and brighter to honor that central piece. And sometimes those can be too bright, too strong, too stringent, especially if we start turning and judging people for not keeping the law.

Barbara: cause we're not earning our salvation by keeping the law.

Sarah: Exactly. That's the danger.

Barbara: I know that some people to this day are still hearing really strong, critical messages.

They feel condemned, they feel wretched. And we don't want to say, Oh, everything you do is perfect. Don't worry. You don't have to change - I believe what we are saying is God loves you as you are. And there is hope. And from my soul to your soul, maybe there's something that we can hold each other accountable for, like you said in love, but that we're not throwing you in jail spiritually, and then throwing away the key.

So how can we take a look at resources that are available to people, with this message of love and grace?

Sarah:  there's some really good research out there now about the formation of habits, how you can't rely just on your own willpower. I've learned self-control works better with a group effort when you have that support those people you can talk to, that compassion- and you learn to have compassion for yourself, too.

There's a whole field called parts work that looks at our internal selves as having multiple parts doing different things. All trying to meet needs, but some of the ways that they've been doing it don't serve us well. So, back to food addiction, cause I just know it well, one of the parts is the controller who says, I'm not going to eat this.

And you can do that for so long. But sometimes your willpower is going to give up. And then there's the indulge that says, Oh, you've worked so hard and you just succeeded at this. You deserve a little something. You've had a bad day. So those two parts kind of fight against each other, which goes right into what Paul is saying, I do what I don't want to do and you don't do what I want to do- if you can understand that those are parts of you, but it's not your whole self. You put your best self in the driver's seat, and you take those other parts, you treat them like you would your beloved children. You don't put them in the trunk, but you sit them in the back seat with the seatbelt on and you listen to them because they're trying to meet a need. Well, what else can I do to reward myself after a tough day? I can have a bubble bath, I can go take a walk, I can call my friend Barbara. There's other ways is that I can get my needs met that will make them better. And how can I not have to have the controller always in control? How do I let that relax every once in a while?

Barbara: I know that we still have the old fashioned way of just sitting with our Bibles and having prayer time in meditation and maybe journaling. And that really works for some people. I have to admit that for me, being a participant in a Bible study is much more helpful. I'm perfectly capable of sitting in quiet and that doesn't really bother me, but it just kind of helps me to focus.

Do you have any favorite resources that people could turn to some resources to check out a way of connecting with God?

Sarah: one of the best resources I've been using since my girls were born- they're 15 months apart- my prayer life got really interrupted for a while. And then I found this wonderful podcast called Pray as You Go. It has its own app and there are Jesuits from England and they put out six podcasts a week and they pick one scripture passage, they always integrate music and they do a little bit of Lectio Divina. They read a little bit the passage and they give you a question and some time to think about it.

Another place and people that I've really appreciated is the center for action and contemplation in Albuquerque led by father Richard Rohr, and there's a podcast with father Richard called Another Name for Everything. And one of the other teachers at the center, James Finley, teaches contemplative prayer and he's got a nice podcast there, too. And with the food addiction, what I found that really helped me is something called bright line eating- it's been really wonderful and it's really working for people.

Barbara: Thank you so much, Sarah, I just got such a sense of God's love from talking to you

Sarah: Thank you. I've enjoyed it.

Resources:

Genesis 2:15 – 3:24

Nonviolent Communication https://www.cnvc.org/learn-nvc/articles

Pray as You Go Podcast https://pray-as-you-go.org

Another Name for Everything Podcast https://cac.org/podcast/another-name-for-every-thing/

Bright Line Eating: The Science of Living Happy, Thin, and Free by Susan Peirce Thompson, Ph.D.

Jennifer about Racism 2

Barbara:  Today's topic is racism and our guest is Jennifer Hamrick. This episode is the second half of a conversation that Jennifer and I started last week. You don't have to listen to last week's episode first, but just so you know, it includes information about a trans racial adoption that Jennifer and her family completed a few years ago, along with the beginning of her journey, to learn more about racism in the United States today, we're going to be continuing that conversation.

Jennifer: people ask us all the time, where did you get her? And we were like, Virginia from Virginia.

So it was novel to us. We were newly adoptive parents. We had never experienced that before. And we were in awe of her beauty as well, because she was the most beautiful baby in the world. And so we understood why people were asking, but it does cause people to feel very uncomfortable.

So it's just best not to ask where did you get her or how much did your adoption costs or did she come from foster care those kinds of things are private questions and we don't generally walk up to somebody and ask them about their medical things. Like, so what kind of problems do you have or what kind of issues do you have?

We don't ask marriage questions like that. We allow those questions to be private, but when it comes to someone who's adopted into a family and it's obvious those questions seem to be okay. And again, for someone like me, who has. pretty open personality. People generally, who are asking, they generally know me and they're okay.

And I'm willing to set a boundary. but there are other people who are very private and they are not comfortable answering the questions and as well, this is Anna's story. And so I want to protect Anna and her story. So I've made sure whatever I've shared.

has been approved by her birth mom. Her first mom should have a say in this and she is anyway. So that's kind of how we look at it through the lens of the point you brought up. Sure.

Barbara: I have a few very slightly different words from a different translation of Micah chapter six, verse eight, and this one is from the message: “but he's already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It's quite simple. Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love. And don't take yourself too seriously. Take God seriously.

Jennifer, what are your thoughts about fairness and compassion?

Jennifer: for someone to want things to be fair they need to have compassion. I think those are together in that, for a white person in this context, most things have been more in our favor. We were talking about mortgages earlier- if I want those to be fair, that might mean I need to look at how it's not for the other person, cause I'm doing okay over here. You know, as the white person, my mortgage rate is lower.  If I want things to be fair, that means I have to go and look the other way. A lot of times we only want fairness and we only pay attention to fairness when we're the ones who are getting the short end of the stick.

And speaking of that, that makes me question, I'm going to write this down. So I am constantly wondering about phrases that we use that have racist background. I'm going to jot that down and look it up. And I may have you removed that if it is- and you may leave it in because this is how you continue learning.

It goes back to that humility and not to take yourself too seriously. I just used the phrase short end of the stick, and I've just got to thinking, I wonder where that came from? Could that be disrespectful to some particular group of people?  So I'm going to research that and that's just a small example of how I can walk humbly, I can love others. I can show kindness.

Barbara: As a follow-up I received further details from Jennifer about this. The first possibility is that when harnessing a matched team of animals, one uses a stick called an evener, which is attached by a pin at its center to the wagon or farm implement. Each end of the evener is attached to the harness of each draft animal.

When pulling with two animals of different sizes, an unmatched team, you adjust the stick towards the side near the larger animal. Each animal is then pulling an amount of weight corresponding to its size. Thus, the term evener. The larger animal is pulling more of the load because he or she has the short end of the stick.

Another example that was similar to this, but with people, a person who had the short end of the stick was carrying a heavier load than the other person. So what does all this farm stuff have to do with this conversation? First of all, we wanted to check if short end of the stick had any potential racial implications.

In other words, was it maybe an archaic term that was used long ago that we were not familiar with that we somehow could be demeaning a group of people. And it appears in this case that the answer is no, it's about farm animals.  I know that many people do very heavy farm work as well.

Honestly, this was a light bulb moment for me because I started to sing Handel's Messiah when I was in high school, and I didn't understand why one song in the Messiah quoted the book of Matthew chapter 11, verse 30, which says “his yoke is easy”. Actually, in the book of Matthew, Jesus says “my yoke is easy”, but in the Messiah, Handel wrote his yoke is easy. I thought a yoke was a heavy piece of wood linking to working animals and I could not imagine why it would be easy. At some point I heard in a sermon the interpretation that we are yoked with Jesus and he carries the heavier load of our yoke. When I heard that sermon, I was not familiar with the origin of the expression short end of the stick.

It has just come to my mind during this conversation and follow-up that if we mix our metaphors here, Jesus has the short end of the stick when it comes to sharing our load of work! My mind is just blown.

Jennifer: So I think for me, if I want to be concerned with fairness, I need to be concerned with those who are not receiving fairness. a lot of times we only look for that when we're the ones being treated unfairly.

We don't notice it when it's someone else being treated unfairly. So to want to do that, requires compassion. I have to have compassion for that person or for that group of people who may not be being treated with fairness. So that's how I would answer that question.

Barbara: Thank you. And I really agree with you that you hope that this conversation will give others the nudge to start listening to the voices of authority on this subject, which is Black and Brown people who are writing and speaking boldly.

Could you suggest a couple of resources for people who would like to know more?

Jennifer: I went through this journey by myself. First of all, I started it by looking up adoption resources and just digging headfirst in.

I mentioned that first one earlier, and there were very few that had a Christian bent and it wasn't until last October, 2019, that Be the Bridge the book was released. So I did all of my initial research using secular resources, which I highly recommend. I'm not putting those down at all.

And I think it's very shallow if we only look at this context or this subject from a Christian perspective, we need to find out what everybody is saying on this topic, because otherwise we can't have compassion for those people. I read a number of books that were secular and I may not have appreciated I don't know all of the life choices as a Christian, but I totally could understand their pain in how they were treated as a result of something as God given as the color of their skin. Like something that God gave them to be intentional, like God was intentional with how he made our bodies and yet that could cause them to be mistreated. So from now on, it's probably always going to be, Be the Bridge because man, how neat to be able to start my research, looking at this through the lens of Christ.

And then Emanuel Acho’s “Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man.” Emmanuel is a former football player. I had to look that up cause I knew that he was a former sportsman, but that's not where I know him from. I know him from these conversations- he sits down on a set and he has an uncomfortable conversation with someone. And I think that those are great sounding boards and great springboards.

I love that both of the resources I've just given you are centering the voices of Black individuals who are choosing to speak into this space right now. Another one is the AND campaign and they use the ampersand as their symbol. And that is a campaign that combines Biblical convictions and social justice. So phenomenal resources founded and run by Black individuals. I really do hope to point people to the Black people who are speaking into this space because they are the authorities on this subject. They've lived it. All I want to do is point people to Christ, but I also want people as they are looking for Christ to look for the way Christ hurts for marginalized people.

Barbara: I'm grateful, Jennifer, that you mentioned that there are some resources that are kind of secular in nature. They don't really talk about church or faith or anything. And there's other resources that do talk about faith matters. And one thing that really breaks my heart is that I know that we are all saints and sinners and sometimes churches hurt people.

Or sometimes people who are part of faith groups say things or do things. So I am grateful that we have the gift of discernment and maybe I'm not always wise in my decisions, but I can look at a bunch of different stuff and pull truth and try to see that there are people who mean well and who still make mistakes and who still do things wrong.

And there's resources to be had all over the place that can support and encourage this justice that we're talking about. You don't have to go to church to promote justice or something like that, but this is a call especially to people who are listening who may have faith, but we're not saying you have to belong to a church to promote justice, but then you are invited and you are welcome.

And that we are coming from a place of love and openness and inclusivity.

Jennifer: Fantastic.

Barbara: I'm wondering Jennifer, where is the fear in this topic? Why is this a problem? And that's a huge question. I don't mean to open a can of worms. I wish this could have already been taken care of and I feel so frustrated that this unfairness in this unjustness is still happening. So I'm wondering, as you've been reading and learning and studying and interacting with people, where is the fear around this whole topic? This whole situation?

Jennifer: I think one angle of fear is white people are afraid if they admit they have biases or have done racist things, they're admitting that they are a horrible person, so it's easier to just completely deny the entire topic and just push it away and shame anybody who is talking about it. One of the ways this fear manifests is by saying, well, If you would just stop talking about it, it would go away.

And as we all know, someone with cancer or mental illness or a broken bone, you don't just stop talking about it to make it go away. You have to actually address it.

Barbara: I wonder if that's another situation of privilege? In my privilege, I can ignore it and my life won't be too badly affected. But then I'm ignoring the people who are very much affected by it. 

Jennifer: the fear comes from admitting that we may have done, something wrong, thoughts, something wrong, or we might be wrong. And honestly, that's not what this whole journey is about. This whole journey is about recognizing, that all people.

We're created in the image of God and not all people are treated as such. so I think that's one fear. And then I don't know exactly which population of people has this fear, but, a lot of people fear that they're going to have to, share their wealth or give up half of their belongings so that other people can have their stuff. And I think that's been a prevalent message throughout the election season. And I think that if you look at scripture what did Jesus say to the rich man?

Barbara: Matthew 19:16-22 from The Message":

A man stopped Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” Jesus said, “Why do you question me about what’s good? God is the One who is good. If you want to enter the life of God, just do what he tells you.” The man asked, “What in particular?” Jesus said, “Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as you do yourself.” The young man said, “I’ve done all that. What’s left?” “If you want to give it all you’ve got,” Jesus replied, “go sell your possessions; give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow me.” That was the last thing the young man expected to hear. And so, crestfallen, he walked away. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and he couldn’t bear to let go.

Jennifer: we have a fear of loss. And I have read from some Black individuals who speak to the matter, white people have a fear of a loss of their status in this culture, and what that tells me is that white people do know that there's a privilege to being white. We have the privilege of pretending we don't have a privilege.

Barbara: Right. I'm not asking you personally, I know you would give every shred of clothing in your house if that's what you believe that you were being called to do. I'm not asking you to do that, but I'm willing to pay more taxes so that we can have a different system than what we have now in terms of benefits and oppression and things like that. I would say even fear of losing power.

Jennifer: That's a big one. My kid applied for a job today and he clicked, when it says, ethnicity, I clicked white. I was with him, we were sitting together and that may harm his chances of getting a job at this restaurant because they may have a desire to hire someone of color.

And I'm okay with that. If my son doesn't get the job and someone else does, and it's because they have been in a less privileged position. I'm okay with that, that doesn't bother me. That doesn't threaten me. but that's partly because I have been doing this work. I have a feeling that might've bothered me five years ago, six years ago, actually five years ago, I was really doing this work because we found out about Anna November 4th, five years ago.

So five and a half years ago I would have probably had a different answer. So I think that's a really good point to make that I'm willing to make changes in my life that maybe change my status or my position.

Barbara: It could be fear that he would lose this job opportunity. If the hiring people say for whatever reason, we have two equally qualified candidates, let's hire the candidate who did not check off white and we're both saying we're absolutely willing for that.

And I believe in your book, you mentioned that affirmative action started off within the white hiring culture, but I don't remember exactly what you said. I don't have it open right in front of me. 

Jennifer: I really wish I could recall the details off the top of my head as well, but it is a very good thing to research.

I believe I heard that on the uncivil podcast where they talked about the affirmative action was actually designed to benefit white individuals and they gave them land. So that terminology ended up being used differently later on, but originally it was designed to benefit white people in this country.

And, so it's just kind of interesting that that's one of those things we were not taught in our education system.

Barbara: And it may be fair to say that people are upset or depending, I guess, on who you are, where you're sitting, what your view of it is that affirmative action isn't fair.

I was curious, Jennifer, are there any other elephants in the room that we have not talked about yet when it comes to race or adoption or anything else that's on your heart?

Jennifer: My last piece of advice or my last little thing I want to talk about is something I heard in a book I'm reading right now called White Awake. I heard it because I'm listening to it on audio. So I mix those words up, heard and read it.  It's by Daniel Hill. And I think you'll appreciate this particular book because it's written by a minister about his desire to minister, to people in marginalized communities.

So, it's been a fantastic book for me as a chaplain's wife and as someone who wants to love others in the form of ministry, as we do these Be the Bridge groups in our home. So it's been a really good read, but the advice that I would like to just highlight is that he said when a white person is wanting to learn and they really desire to connect with people of color or diversify their friendships, go into the friendship and let that person know what you want of them.

So the example he gave was he was talking about race and racism with a friend and she broke down crying and he tried to find out why are you crying? And she said, I'll be honest- I really do want to help you with this. But. This really brings up a lot of pain for me. So our black and Brown friends are exhausted.

They've been exhausted for as long as I've been here, but this specific year is a different and a deeper exhaustion. And, so not all of them are going to be in a space where they want to have these conversations with white people. So that is one of the reasons I love be the bridge because.

That organization is pulling together people of color who are interested and have the energy and the desire to have these conversations. So. I recently gave advice to someone who read my book and they go, Oh, I've got this one friend, which is kind of a cliche, but I've got this friend. I want to ask her all these questions I wrote to this person and said, okay, before you ask any questions, I want you to send a note and it needs to sound something like this.

Hi, I just read a book on racial reconciliation and I would like to ask you some questions, but I know that this is a challenging topic, especially for right now. Is that something you'd be willing to talk to me about, if not, I completely understand. so that would be my advice. We need to approach our friends of color, understanding that they may not be in a space to have the conversation right now.

Barbara: And is it fair? Which in my mind, the answer is no. To assume that one person can and should speak for a large group of people. And that could be a whole bunch of different categories. And to honor that there's already a lot of stuff out there. So it might be easier for me to just check in with someone who I already know.

Whereas you have literally pages and pages of websites and books and podcasts, and it's all out there. They don't have to buy your book to get the list either to just Google it. and you've mentioned a few great ones. Why don't people who are interested to learn more avail of what's already there and yeah, sure.

Talk with your friends, but to not expect them to take their time, because if we're the. 10th or the 50th person, you know, how do we honor where everybody's at? And even, you know, I had someone email me something and I'm like, yeah, I'll get to it. I have three homework assignments due and then they emailed me again and I'm like, I'm getting to it. I got to prioritize my time and that is a totally frivolous example. But, thank you for honoring people's time and their emotional capacity. And you know, what's already out there for us, for anyone.

Jennifer: Absolutely. Well, a lot of times we come to this conversation like, wow, I've just learned this new stuff and I'm raring to go and I'm going to fix it.

I'm going to find a way. And the best thing to do is a lot of learning on your own. do a lot of reading, podcasts, whatever. Approach your friends with gentleness and with an out, give them an out so that there's not this feeling of obligation. and also join organizations that are already created.

There are plenty out there that are working to do this. And when I read  waking up white is another white author who's written about this. And one of the things she said was she wanted to go out and start a new organization, and she's like, wait a minute.

That's not what I need to do. I need to join organizations that are already doing the work. so we don't need to be ready to save the day. We need to just join where others are already doing that.

Barbara: Great. And that also makes me think what are my needs, and what are the needs of a lot of other people out there?

So in this case, my need to like, I'm so excited about this. I want to talk to everybody about it. Okay, great. But how can we honor each other? In our excitement and wanting to address this. And yeah.

Jennifer: So if it goes back to the compact yeah, exactly. If my eagerness is hurting someone else, because we've had a lot going on this year, if my eagerness to learn and do, and B is not compassionate, then I'm not doing the part where it says walk humbly with your God.

Barbara: To the best of my understanding your Financial Peace University and your Be the Bridge have been in the capacity of a faith community or a chapel. Is this something that just anybody can go online and find something near them but it doesn't have to be kind of through a church or an organized faith group?

Jennifer: Both of the organizations are biblical organizations and they are very upfront about that. However, we have had people go through financial peace who are of no faith background and the principles are perfectly adherable even if you are not a person of faith. So neither one are Bible studies necessarily. So their foundation is the scripture, and you'll find scripture where they back up what they say, but neither one are Bible studies. So they are definitely available for people, even if they are not.

And just Google them.

Barbara: I'd be just as happy to send everyone over to you folks, but not everybody's going to be able to get to you. And I don't know if there's online opportunities or not, but I'd look forward to digging in more.

Jennifer: Perfect. Well, thanks for having me today.

Barbara: Thank you so much for your time and wisdom.

 Resources:

Micah 6:8

Matthew 11:30

Matthew 19:16-22

Be The Bridge https://bethebridge.com/

Financial Peace University https://www.daveramsey.com/classes

And Campaign https://www.andcampaign.org/

Emmanuel Acho https://uncomfortableconvos.com/

White Awake by Daniel Hill

Waking Up White by Debby Irving

Once You See Racism by Jennifer Hamrick

www.creatingafamily.org

www.elca.org

www.ucc.org “White Privilege: Let's Talk” curriculum 

 https://gimletmedia.com/shows/uncivil 

Jennifer about Racism 1

Barbara: Hi everyone- welcome to 40 minutes of faith. Today's topic is racism and our guest is Jennifer Hamrick. I met Jennifer in Germany and she's back in the United States now. Jennifer has been a military spouse for 15 years. She met her high school sweetheart when she was 17 and he's a chaplain now.

Jennifer was raised in the Southern Baptist church from the age of two, accepted Christ at age eight, and she has had a growing personal relationship with him, especially since middle and high school as her church was phenomenal at encouraging that personal, intimate one-on-one relationship. Jennifer worked as a teacher before becoming a stay at home mom and ended up homeschooling because they were about to embark on their army journey.

She's from Charlotte, North Carolina, lived in eight places with the military and currently lives at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York. Her dreams were to be a mom and a writer, and she loves teaching Financial Peace University and hosting Be the Bridge groups with her husband. So the more people we can set free from financial burden and racism, the more her dreams come true.

Welcome, Jennifer. How are things in Brooklyn for all of you?

Jennifer: it is rainy and cold and COVID has gotten more again, we're having a little bit more restrictions- we are actually doing pretty good. So we are in a little bubble of COVID where it's not very high.

We're learning what it's like to live in a big city in the midst of a pandemic. We have been very impressed with how the people that we've been in contact with at restaurants, MTA, they've been very friendly and welcoming and, helpful- they give you masks if you forget one, we've had that happen a number of times with a little one who left the house without his mask. So in the midst of a very challenging time, we're doing very well.

Barbara: I'm glad to hear that. I can imagine it's challenging to move in the middle of a pandemic, but welcome back to the United States.

Today's Bible passage is from the book of Micah, which is located past the halfway point in your Bible after Isaiah and Jeremiah. Here is Micah chapter six, verse eight, from the new revised standard version: “He has told you, Oh, mortal, what is good? And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and walk humbly with your God?”

 Jennifer, why is this passage important to you, especially in the context of racism?

Jennifer: I think for our family, we were able to kind of skip over the justice part. We felt like, Oh, let the law enforcement and attorneys take care of that.

Oh, we can be kind. Yes, that's easy. We can just be kind to everyone. And walk humbly with your God, we kind of felt like we were doing that all along. And as we started on this journey, we realized there's more to justice than just letting someone else take care of it. I've never been convicted or arrested, so I don't have any personal reaction or interaction with it.

But learning that other people who don't look like me often have a problem with our justice system, that was eye-opening. For us to love kindness means that's not just being nice to people, but that's to actually care for their betterment. And then walking humbly with our God, it was very humbling to realize how much I didn't know. And to recognize that I had a part in making the world challenging for people of color where I didn't even notice that that was a thing. So, as we look at those three things, justice and kindness and humility, I think that sums up quite a bit of this journey that our family has been on and to include a constant recheck for myself. Yesterday, for example, to speak to the humility, I wrote a response on somebody's, Facebook page and I wrote “girl, same thing”. And I realized maybe that's inappropriate. Maybe that's not polite. Maybe that's disrespectful. It was to a friend of color, something that she had written. And I just kinda thought maybe that was not appropriate.

So before I changed it, I sent her a private message. And I said, you know what? I just wanted to ask you something, was that disrespectful? Was that condescending? I meant it in a friendly way, but I can see that there's a way you could, hear that and it's not appropriate. And she was very quick to say, Nope, that's exactly what I would have said to you.

And so I have to constantly humble myself to make sure I am still looking for ways that I am mis-peaking. So anyway, I think this verse just is a reminder of all the different aspects that looking at race and racism impacts our communities.

Barbara: Thank you. And we'll be unpacking different aspects of what it means to put these concepts into action as we talk today. Jennifer, after you adopted a biracial baby, you learned that many Black and Brown adults who were adopted wished that their white parents had discussed race more during their at-home years. It sounds to me like you did a great deal of research to learn how to support your daughter and educate your own family.

What are some examples about topics that you can talk about with your daughter and for that matter, everyone else in your family too?

Jennifer: When I started researching, we had 10 weeks from the day we found out about Anna till the day she was due and it was very fast.

I dove head first into researching adoption. So I went to a website called creating a family.org. And that website was so rich with resources. I just, I didn't have anywhere else to start. So I started there and I read everything that I could get my hands on, especially when it related to adopting trans-racially.

And that's a term I find some people don't quite understand. It just means across races. Like I adopted a child who was not the same race as me. And a lot of people assume that a white family adopting a black child is going to be fine because you love that child as you would any other child, which is absolutely true.

And they disregard the challenges that the child will face as a result of not being raised in a family that matches their skin tone. One small example- and I will tell you this one, because it was the first one that really got my attention. The story was told by an adult adoptee recalling a time when she was about 13 or 14 and heading out to the mall, her white mom said to her sweetheart, I don't think you should take that purse. It's too big, people could assume you're trying to steal things. And she was like, Mom, this is fine. She's you know, I'm fine. I'm going to go to the mall. You'll see. It will be fine. And about that time, the mom's friend pulled up and rang the doorbell and came on in and this friend happened to be black.

And she said to the 14 year old, Hey, where are you going? And the, the girl said, I'm going to the mall. And the black woman just looked at her and said, not with that purse. You're not. And the girl just got her eyes really big. And she said, okay, my mom was right- how people are going to perceive me.

And she was trying to save the day, trying to protect from being, considered trying to steal . And  it wasn't until this black friend came over and didn't even know that this conversation had happened, that the young girl kind of believed her. And part of that is because that young girl has lived in a white family, her whole life, and she doesn't see people doing that to her family.

And when she's with them, they don't do that to her. It's different when that child steps out into the world on their own and the world is going to see them. How the world sees people of color. So I have never been followed around in a store and I have friends who say they have never walked through a store without being followed.

Barbara: I was really sad to read a similar example. Your saying that may be the first time that anyone has heard an example like that, and I really want to support that to the best of my understanding, that's a hundred percent accurate. I read a book called “I'm Still Here” by Austin Channing Brown. And she wrote that her dad taught her to never have her hands in her pocket when she was inside a store, because someone might suspect that she had put something into her pockets, even if she had not because of the color of her skin.

So I absolutely believe that that's a valid experience that you just gave an example of. This isn't just a one-time thing.

Jennifer: Yes. That to me was the very first example that I could see. If I raise my daughter with the experiences that I've had, she's going to be grossly under-prepared to protect herself when she goes out into the world. So I read everything that I could get my hands on, and a lot of them I did not include in my book because they were strictly adoption related, but they opened my eyes to a whole world and honestly broke my heart.

And I just realized there has to be something that I can do. First of all, I can educate my family and I can educate my daughter, but I felt like there was more that needed to be done. I think this is a conversation that just needs to be had in our culture.

It needs to be an ongoing conversation. So I really appreciate you having me on today.

Barbara: you're welcome. It's my pleasure. And I want to give a shout out also, Jennifer, the book you mentioned, the title is “Once You See Racism” and I'm so grateful that you're looking to share all of the profits from your book this year with a charitable organization.

So you're not looking to make money off of this. This is something that you want to share what you learned. And we'll have lots of resources on the podcast website, which is 40 minutes of faith.com, including the book, but there's going to be so much more information in there for people we can barely scratch the surface  of the many lessons that you learned while we're talking today.

So thank you for your generosity.

Jennifer: Thanks. There is a big fear I had that someone would think I was trying to profit off of the tension that we felt, especially in 2020 and that is absolutely not the case. I genuinely want people, especially people who are like me raised to love everyone, raised to treat everyone with fairness, raised to see everybody the same and to love everyone.

I wanted to approach those people and say, so those are all well and good, except they don't work. I really think we need to look at this a little differently, consider that there are some things that we, as a white culture in many places, a strictly white culture, because I was raised in a city, but I had very few people of color in my daily life.

And I felt like if this group of people, the sweetest, nicest people in the world can completely be unaware of what's going on around them, that's a problem. And so that's what I want to do. I want to help people who really, truly want to love others well, to understand this concept.

Barbara: And you gave a hint to that when we talked about our Bible passage, that many of us go through life thinking, Hey, that's great that God wants justice, you know? Yeah, there's systems in place for justice or, yeah, that's great that God wants us to be kind  we're pretty kind to people, where there's a lot more to it.

You can really hear that verse in different ways based on your understanding of the world or your awareness of situations that may be unjust or where kindness clearly is not happening. Even if our own little bubble might include what we perceive to be justice and kindness. I have a question for you, Jennifer, about what you have realized about the lack in our education around race, that it was incomplete to say the least?

I really admire that you freely say you felt astounded at how much of America's story hadn't been taught to you in school. What do you know now that you didn't know before? And why is it important to know that the American education system does not provide the whole story to students even to this day?

Jennifer: the first thing that I realized was that our textbooks tended to downplay the severity of the experiences that the slaves dealt with. I feel like it was almost glorified in a way, some of the textbooks even have said things like some of the slaves were treated like family and they got to live inside.

And, really, just covering up a multitude of tortures and pain that black people were subjected to. So I mean, even if you look at this movie, Gone With the Wind, which was a movie I watched a lot of times growing up, I saw myself as the white woman, I saw myself as the hero of Scarlet, I guess she wasn't really a good person, but that's all right.

But when you place yourself in the movie, you place yourself in the movie in the person you most look like probably or identify with. And as I researched, I learned that's not where my friends of color would have seen themselves. How would this movie feel to them watching it? And that's just one small example of it being, I think the term is most often used as whitewashed it's, it's been kind of cleaned up a little.

And so when it goes to our textbooks, We're not hearing the whole story. We're not hearing the depth and I'm not going to go into it here cause some of the things that I read were so graphic, they actually made my stomach turn, and I understand that that is a typical reaction for a white person when they finally wake up to this kind of conversation.

I couldn't eat for a while. Just the realization of all that I didn't know. And the fact that our black friends really do know these things like their communities, their cultures talk about this. They talk about their ancestors. They talk about their history, their culture, those experiences.

And I'll be honest, white culture does not talk about that part of our history. And so there's a huge gap in understanding and I worry that my black friends thought I had this experience and this history and this knowledge, but didn't care. In reality, I did not know this stuff. I obviously knew the basics of our history, but I didn't know the depth of pain and I never researched it until I started researching for adoption.

And I was just astounded at how our textbooks and how our education system does not even scratch the surface. After slavery was abolished, we have the Jim Crow laws, which I might have heard about that in college, like one week in one chapter of one class, but to read that and then to see how that moved into our policing system and how some of those institutions still have traces of that, while some of the people are fine and not racist necessarily. But the way we started- our systems are set up the foundations of our systems. So it's a fascinating way to learn about our history, to go back and look at things and how if you follow that one thread all the way through, it is astounding.

I homeschool and I have taught my kids a lot of this stuff. I did not want to be part of the problem of not educating the next generation about this stuff.

Barbara: I have a quote that's pertinent to what you just said. My faith tradition is Lutheran and I'll put a link on the podcast website from the ELCA website, it's elca.org. They have a social statement on race, ethnicity, and culture. And just the one sentence quote that I wanted to read from page three says: “we falter when we cling to old ideas that prevent us from becoming the people God calls us to be.”

And that really reminded me when we had the verse from Micah. Who does God call us to be? I don't believe that God calls us to oppress our siblings and to treat them horribly and to create systems that perpetuate racism and oppression. And we sometimes don't even realize- when I apply for a mortgage, I don't think about other people who are denied a mortgage because of their race, or people whose mortgage rates are higher because of the color of the skin than the mortgage rate that I can get. And I took a class this summer with a really terrific curriculum that talked about racism as a business. There's an economy of drugs, imprisonment, fear, and crime that has been created intentionally. This didn't happen by accident.

And when you don't know what you don't know, that's exactly why we're having this conversation. The saddest thing that I learned in this class that I took this summer was that there's an app that people can have on their phone to notify their designated point of contact that they have been pulled over and where they are just in case things go horribly.

I was so sad to hear that something like that had to exist for the protection of people who might not get through that encounter over a broken tail light, or allegedly not signaling when they changed lanes.

Jennifer: Those things happen regularly.

Barbara: did you experience any pushback from people who might disagree with some of what you've learned?

Jennifer: Most of The pushback has come very subtly. I believe that the majority of people who have a problem with what I'm saying haven't honestly taken a look at what I'm saying. And I say this repeatedly - we need to listen to what people are saying. And the whole first chapter, I really unpack terminology because some people really don't understand exactly what we're saying when we say white privilege.

Some people really bristle at the terms and if they really stopped and listened to what the terminology means, they would be a lot more apt to go. Oh, I can see that an example. I remember vividly saying to people when I heard the term white privilege, my parents were not privileged. They worked for everything they had.

They had me very young, started a business. They were never given anything. They almost went bankrupt. I had this whole litany of reasons that proved I was not privileged. And then when I discovered what privilege really means what it means in the context of racism.

Oh, it's going back to what you said when I'm pulled over. I'm either embarrassed cause I got in trouble, or angry cause I got pulled over and I wasn't doing anything wrong. I'm never scared. I've never been scared- so that's privilege. And privilege is being able to go into the store with whatever purse I want and not worrying a bit about being suspected of stealing.

Those are just the examples of privilege I'm talking about. And when people grasp that, they're a little more willing to listen to the next step. And I think it takes slowly understanding different small aspects. And understanding where no one in this conversation is punishing people or angry at people for being white.

It's just a matter of recognizing that there is a different lived experience for people who are white and people who are of color. And if we can recognize that we can then eradicate those things. There are proven statistics that show people who have ethnic sounding names are hired less frequently.

Jennifer, Jessica, Barbara, those are really, those are names that their resume gets put on the next desk. And then if your name is more ethnic sounding, it's sometimes not given as much credibility, and there are people sadly who are changing their names so that they can have a chance.

I mean, this is a very hard climate to get a job in. And if your name is what keeps you from getting a job. You shouldn't have to change your name. Someone gave you that name it's special, it's yours, and you should be able to have it. So one practice that I've tried to tell my kids, this is very, elementary, but if you are ever in a hiring position, one thing you can do is have someone white out over the names so that you are not using a bias when it comes to that particular aspect.

It's a very simple example. But if we can take away that one aspect of a hiring practice that is detrimental to people of color, or at least people with ethnic sounding names, that's one way my family can help make a change going forward.

Barbara: That's really terrific. That's a great example. I feel like a lot of people share the sentiment that you just said. I wasn't handed anything on a platter. When I was a kid, we had to eat cereal for dinner because money was tight. But when I really look on policies and practices, from the top down, I was handed everything on a platter, even if I ate cereal for dinner.

I don't know if there are statistics on college admissions, for example, or financial aid or getting that first job, just systemically, there's so much benefit that some people just have no awareness of cause if it feels normal, then we got it.

Jennifer: Exactly. And we only view the world through the lenses that we have accessible to us. And for me, my lenses were white Christian Southern. And I didn't have other lenses until I decided to. And so we were adopting Anna and I thought I should probably look at this through some different lenses so that I can raise her the best way that I can.

And to me, it was when I put those other lenses on, I saw it everywhere. I had a complete revelation that it angered me This is see that this is how my country is, and I've been a part of it. I have been a part of this. I've never done anything to intentionally harm anybody. And yet my not knowing was part of the problem.

The GI bill, was offered to the soldiers and then the vast majority of black soldiers came back, they didn't qualify for it. So the soldiers who came back, the white soldiers were able to go to college and get a degree and buy property.

And so the generational wealth that has passed down on that side can never be made up. Like we've taught financial peace for so many years, the compound interest that people have over a long period of time that cannot be made up.

And so that's just one tiny thing. We're talking about things handed to you on a silver platter. White people in general were able to succeed and pass down property or a little bit or help their kids go to college. And in a vast number of cases, black families were not. So they're pretty much always starting from scratch- and of course there are outliers. There are plenty of people who are doing great, without having had this generational wealth, but you still have to admit there was a privilege for those who started ahead of the game or started further down the track.

I don't want to come across as undermining or downplaying any successes people of color have and I don't want to sound like I'm belittling. Cause that is not it. I genuinely feel like the culture of black Americans is so incredibly strong and so incredibly intense, that in many ways, I'm envious of it. I'm thinking I wish my family had that kind of cultural upbringing and the closest I can say is having had the Christian faith, but there's an additional beauty in the culture that black culture has. I don't want to come across as condescending in anything that I'm saying. So. Please hear that.

Barbara: Absolutely. When it comes to practical matters, Jennifer, I've been a licensed social worker for many years. And one thing I've heard from a variety of people is about hurtful questions that they've been asked.

Do you have any tips of what not to say or ask when it comes to adoption and race?

Jennifer: so you're going to find different answers to that question. We are very open. We  will answer any questions and it's partly because Anna's story, her birth mom is in our family.  I mean, she's not related to us, but we have an open adoption and she has given her blessing for us to share her story. And so we have a lot more openness than some people may have. One thing a good thing to avoid to say, “is she your real child” or “are they real siblings?” That can be very hurtful. Yes, she is my real child. I did not have her biologically, but she's my real child and she's my real daughter.

And as far as the mom, the dad thing, she's a momma's girl and it's a real thing. So sometimes when Matt goes to put her to bed, she's like, but I want mommy. So she's my real daughter.

And I'm an educator. I love to teach people and I love to show people that open adoption is a really good option, to allow birth moms and their children to stay in contact. So I'm kind of an open book with that, but a lot of people are not. So really the best thing to say many times is “you have a beautiful family” and just, you know, if you need to say something about someone's family, you have a lovely family, or your daughter is lovely.

One thing that's not commonly understood regarding race is many people, many white people want to touch black kids' hair. And there are two main reasons that I would say let's don't do that. First of all, it is kind of condescending when an adult stranger goes up and touches some kid's head

Barbara: like any adult or any kid, at least these days.

Jennifer: Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of condescending and it's kind of frowned upon, but also in black culture their hair is very special and very unique. And it takes a lot of care and mama probably spent a good bit of time on it.

I think when I was parenting my boys and they were all white, they're all biologically mine, people tousled their hair all the time. And that wasn't quite so offensive, but for someone to come up and just touch Anna's hair because, Oh, look, I want to, you know, feel what it's like, just respect that that is a cultural no-no. There's actually a book, the title of it is “Don't Touch My Hair”. And it's a cute book and the purpose is to help children understand just because somebody's hair looks different from yours doesn't mean you should touch it. You don't have the right to touch it.

And with the history we have in America, I don't know if you've heard this before, but, black hair was often used to say certain things in slave times the way someone's hair was braided could give directions, distance to the next safe place, you know, times and dates that they could share.

So there were messages written in the way the hair was braided. When that was discovered, slave traders started making them shave their head, or keeping it covered. And that takes away someone's humanity. And so as a white person, I don't have that instinct that makes me uncomfortable when someone would touch my hair as a little girl, I felt that they were admiring it and white people doing that to black children they are probably admiring it, but there's a history there in the black culture. That's something you don't do. And a lot of white people don't know that.

Barbara: it seems to me like what's more important, me being curious about someone else's hair or respecting their humanity, their dignity?

And why do I have to point out that their hair is different? Like how does that help anybody for me to make a big deal? I'm not going to ask you questions about your son's hair, I've obviously I've met them, but that they're kids with blondish hair, but why do I have to make a big deal about someone's difference?

Just because I'm curious- to me, that devalues someone else, and it puts my curiosity as more important than their dignity.

Jennifer: yeah , it's very true. It almost makes it like, Oh, that's kind of different. That's novel and so the word that a lot of times you'll hear people who speak about this is that fetishize it.

You're taking something that is my normal in this case and as normal and making it a fetish to you. Like, this is interesting.

Barbara: This is not like mine and, and that's marvelous. We're saying this is wonderful and maybe people don't mean it in an unkind way, but I would say leave my hair alone.

People feel like that even with their bodies, I don't know if you had people touching your pregnancy belly and you're like, really, why are you just grabbing me?

Jennifer: What if I wasn't pregnant? How embarrassed would you be right now?

Barbara: Taking liberties with each other, I guess, is the bottom line.

Jennifer: Yes. Just respect their space.

Barbara: some of my friends are in marriages or relationships where not both of the spouses are white and someone will say about their child, where did you get them? And that's really offensive to even if the child wasn't adopted. In any case, that's sort of an invasive question.

Jennifer: just offer a compliment. If the person wants to talk, they will.

Barbara: I hope today's conversation about adoption and racism has been thought provoking for you. Since Jennifer and I are both white, we prayerfully seek to honor the voices of people who have experienced firsthand some of the concepts we're talking about. We don't claim to be experts about everything, and we sincerely wish to be humble as we discuss aspects of racism.

The information we've talked about so far has covered so many areas that it's going to take two episodes to share everything. Tune in next week for more information from Jennifer on these topics, including more resources. The workshop I took this summer was titled white privilege. Let's talk. The curriculum is available at no cost on the United church of Christ website, which is ucc.org

Resources:

Micah 6:8

Once You See Racism by Jennifer Hamrick

www.creatingafamily.org

www.elca.org

www.ucc.org “White Privilege: Let's Talk” curriculum

Jennifer prayerfully learns about and promotes racism and prevention

.

Second semester seminary courses

Barbara: Hi everyone. And welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God.

Today's I'm going to be talking about second semester seminary classes. These took place earlier this year from February 2020 until May 2020. I have a few Bible verses and books to recommend as well as a poem to read.

My new Testament class was terrific and very helpful. I learned a bunch of new words and new concepts, some of which I'm going to be sharing with you today. I thought I had a pretty good vocabulary, but I did learn a very important new vocabulary word, which is polyvalence: it does not mean that I have a lot of curtains, although maybe some people think that I do.

It means that when each person reads the Bible, they can understand it in a different way, based on their own life experience and perspective. So to me, that sounds refreshing to hear. And at the same time, there's a concept known as eisegesis, whereby we can read the texts with our own biases, and that is not always helpful or accurate. So on the one hand, we can understand the Bible based on our own experiences. And on the other hand, we don't want only our experiences to be the sole factor in influencing how we understand what the Bible says. I would like to recommend a textbook, which is titled “Introducing the New Testament” by Mark Alan Powell.

One of the questions I will always remember from this course is “whose voice is missing?” So when we're reading different passages and stories, of course, it's important to see what's happening, but it's also helpful to notice is there someone whose voice we don't really hear and might there be more to understand when thinking about that person to the best of our abilities, based on what we've learned about the culture and things like that?

My favorite assignments for this course were comparing different Bible translations. I'm going to illustrate one of those assignments now. I'm going to be reading fragments of four different translations of Mark chapter four, verses 35 to 41, but I'm not going to read the entire passage in all four translations. Students were asked to find four different translations and take a look at them to see any similarities of note, differences of note, and then also to read some commentaries, to see what researchers and scholars have to say about these passages.

I selected the new revised standard version as my first translation, because that's the required version for our school. I also selected The Message. I read the passage in Spanish- I speak passable Spanish, not great, but enough to understand the basics, and also The Voice, which I had heard of before, but is a little bit less familiar to me.

In the NRSV it's called “Jesus stills a storm”, in The Message this story is called “the wind ran out of breath”, and these subtitles were not part of the original texts they were added in by translators. In Spanish, this passage is subtitled “La Gran Tormenta”, and in The Voice, I didn't have a subtitle.

So the disciples get into a boat. And I'll say something from one of the commentaries a little bit later about them getting into the boat. In the NRSV in verse 37, it says “a great windstorm arose”, and the disciples said to Jesus in the NRSV, “teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” In The Message they say, “teacher, is it nothing to you that we're going down?”

And in The Voice, the disciples in parentheses are shouting over the storm: “Jesus, master, don't you care that we're going to die?”

I thought that was interesting just in terms of interpreting the attitude of what was happening during this big storm. Next in the NRSV Jesus rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “peace, be still. Then the wind ceased.” In The Message, Jesus told the wind to “pipe down and said to the sea, quiet, settle down. The wind ran out of breath and the sea became smooth as glass.”

In The Voice, Jesus said, “that's enough. Be still. And immediately the wind died down to nothing. The waves stopped.” Next, Jesus reprimanded the disciples. In The Message version and said, “why are you such cowards? Don't you have any faith at all? In the NRSV, he said, “why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And in The Voice, Jesus says, “how can you be so afraid after all you've seen? Where is your faith?” Finally in the NRSV, the disciples are “filled with great awe and said to one another, who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” In The Message, the disciples are in “absolute awe, staggered. Who is this, anyway, they asked. Wind and sea are at his beck and call?” In The Voice, the disciples were still afraid, slowly coming to grips with what they had seen. The disciples said to one another, “who is this Jesus? How can it be that he has power over even the wind and the waves?”

In Spanish, the disciples said that they were going to die. We have four different potential outcomes according to these different translations: perishing, going down, the Spanish version says sinking, and going to die. The sinking didn't really sound as bad as the others, but I did appreciate the more modern version of going down in The Message. I also appreciated the different things that Jesus said to the wind, for example, “pipe down.” The connotations were a little bit different with the language. That's hard for me to explain, but it was really neat. Now I can also recommend which I have in the past as well- You can own as many physical copies of the Bible as you like. But I use a website called Bible gateway.com.

There's other websites as well, where you can type in the verses that you want to look at and select which version you want to look at. So there's many, many different versions in English. And as you can see here, Spanish, I have German in the next one, and there are other languages and other translations that are available.

I also really enjoyed reading the Spanish text. I don't want to hurt anybody's ears by reading it, for fear of my accent, but I just wanted to really encourage if you have either another language in addition to English or a first language other than English, that to me, reading the Bible is not only an intellectual exercise of the brain, but it's very much an exercise of the heart.

And for some reason, I just respond to some of the words in a different way.

So, for example, the Spanish translation has Jesus asking the disciples, “todavia no confian en mi?” According to the translating program that I used, confian means trust. So that made me wonder, what is the difference between faith and trust? Is there a huge difference? It's a very slight nuanced difference, but it somehow feels different. The other verses say, have you still no faith, don't you have any faith at all?

Where is your faith and trust? Somehow to me trust is a more tangible word than faith. Although you can't touch trust either, but I like that. I should have mentioned at the beginning of this assignment, students who were taking Greek, some students are required to take Greek, actually had to translate passages from the original Greek writing into English and students who were not taking Greek were doing this alternate assignment of comparing various translations into the English.

 One of the commentaries that I read was written by Charles Swindol. And he writes, Jesus said at the beginning of this story, let us go over to the other side. He didn't say, let us go to the bottom. So the disciples became fearful and thought that they were going to die.

And it seems that they either forgot or just didn't believe that Jesus said let's go over to the other side. And The Voice translation says even the experienced sailors among them were sure they were going to sink. I was in Israel last year, and the tour guide said that even though the disciples fished on the sea of Galilee, it was a general cultural fear of being on the water. So it was reasonable, but they were afraid. Another commentary talked about the fact that Jesus was sleeping in the boat and some readers would consider sleeping during a storm to be trust in God, but that the disciples hadn't gotten that far- this is from a commentary written by Kim Huat Tan.

So when we see people who are trusting in God, do we sometimes judge them, like, aren't you worried about what's going on? Aren't you going to take action to try and do something about the situation? If there's anything we can do about something, great. But if sometimes trusting in God is the only thing to do, is that okay? Can we just allow ourselves and others to trust in God? So that's an example of one of the homework assignments for that class. And I have another one that I'll do a little bit later on.

I have another book to recommend the title is “Sacred Pauses” by April Yamasaki. I've read several books about trying to lower the amount of craziness and running around in our lives. This particular book approaches quiet time with respect. So rather than mocking it, according to our historical Puritan work ethic, the author talks about working hard is fine, but you don't have to prove your value by being busy all of the time.

Do we feel like we have to prove our value by being busy all of the time? And I suspect that for many of us, the answer is, or at least has been “yes” in the past. So if you're looking for a book on trying to scale your life to a more manageable pace- perhaps that's already been affected by our COVID-19 pandemic situation right now- I would highly recommend this textbook.

And one of the activities that we did in this class that I talked about also in the fall semester is students were invited to co-lead different sections. And one of my classmates wrote a poem from phrases that she gathered from each of us in response to our readings.

The author's name is Carrin Mahmood, and I'm going to read a few excerpts from the different paragraphs that she collected from each of us, the phrases that she turned into a poem. The title is Walking Through the Valley.

Walking Through the Valley

Birth

We are one with Creation, invited into the very cosmos by the One who creates it

We are one with Creation, invited into the very cosmos by the One who creates

We are one with Creation, invited into the very cosmos

We are one with Creation, invited

We are one with Creation

We are one

We are

Home

Longed for

My haven, my containment

Welcoming my spirit, confining my wanderlust

In the end, home is in the palm of God’s hand

My resting place

Music

The rhythms of my heart

The dance of my soul   

The gift of the Creator, to calm my anxious heart. And fill my hollow places.

Melodic prayer, answered in harmonies which only the Holy Spirit can offer

Homework

Expectation, Discipline, Fortitude, Comprehension

A  gift of learning

Delving into the Word, and Walking closer to the Savior.

Bothersome, Exhausting, Guilt inducing, Ravishing

Important, Growth Producing, Necessary

Done

Earth

Our Divinely created inheritance, longing for the Kingdom come,

Crying, “Spare us from ongoing brokenness”

Our foundation, Our life blood, Our source

Crying, “Respect me and I will forever nourish you”

Our refuge, our hope, our responsibility

Ours to tend

Crying

Crying

Crying

Quiet

Peaceful bliss, and deafening distraction

But in the quiet, I am still, and know God is God

Warmth

A tending to life as the earth tilts towards the sun

A promise of growth and fertility

A comfort to cold bodies, outdoor workers, our homeless siblings

A care of the spirit, a helping hand, loving smile

A knowledge that we sit at the hearth of the One who made us

Sunshine

The promise of a new day

The relief of regularity

The thanksgiving for growth and succession

The song that bursts forth because a new day

Elderly

Fragile yet Strong

Vulnerable but Dynamic

Discarded AND Crucial

Pathfinders, Wise, Relevant, Important Vital-

Images of the Creator, in their beauty we are handed the responsibility for both absorbing and accommodating

Grief

We cannot hide from life, nor should we

For it’s all a gift, most sublime

There are incandescent days of glory    

Which mark our steps of gifted time

But on life’s scale, ever tipping

Grief too is part of our story

And being present to those moments

Includes the, bruising part of glory

For even in the darkest moments

When our breath seems far away         

Our grief is held in God’s heart also

And in God’s hands our burdens lay

Death

Inevitable

Temporary

Transitional

Death

Hope

When there’s darkness all around us

And from the pit we claw and grope

If we but rest our hearts in Jesus

There we find eternal hope

When it’s hard to feel the joy

When God’s love feels far away

If we could rest our hearts in Jesus

knowing hope comes day by day

For God is joy and God is peace

And God is our perfecting love

So children rest your hearts in Jesus

Whose abundant hope comes from above

Thank you to Carrin for assembling the words of the students in that class into a poem.

I completed a significant research project this past spring that started many years ago at my undergraduate university in Boston. I attended Simmons and was not bothered at all that it was a women's college at the time -it's now a university- because in the classroom, we had the chance to really focus on academics and the only people who could answer questions that were posed by the professors were female students. Because we were in Boston, there was also plenty of opportunity for socializing with anybody you cared to socialize with in the community. Research showed even at the time and does still to this day from many different institutions, including Harvard Business Review, that academic learning for women is frankly different in a co-ed environment versus a single gender environment.

I'm not looking to throw any men or boys under the bus, but research shows that teachers call on boys more often than girls, even without knowing it, not intentionally, without realizing when researchers literally counted the number of times. And that men tend to interrupt women more often. I could go on and on, there's tons of research, but this is just a very short summary. I wanted to look at the concept of women's Bible studies because I believed that in the past women had been segregated from Bible studies, perhaps for intellectual reasons.

And I learned later through my research that even hundreds of years ago, it was separated just for purposes of keeping the focus so that basically men could keep their focus. And perhaps it benefited women. And I have attended both co-ed Bible studies and women's Bible studies, and I've learned a great deal in all of them.

But to me, there was something really intangible about attending women's only Bible studies in a positive way, in terms of relationship, building, praying for each other, being honest with each other. And not that you can't be honest in a coed study. But depending on who's in the study, if you're in the study with someone you're dating or someone you're married to, or someone you used to date or someone you used to be married to, that changes the interpersonal dynamics of attendees.

I ended up expanding the topic of the research paper from only Bible study into faith formation groups, because I learned that Bible studies was sort of my concept of my experience of group learning, but there are other types of faith, formation groups, such as spiritual direction groups, or even retreats that might not technically be considered a Bible study. There were no studies that I was able to find to specifically say, during faith formation groups, women learn differently in single gender groups.

I can only imagine what a massive research project that would be, but based on research of non-faith based learning and anecdotal stories. The consensus was that women build relationships among each other in a different way in women's only faith development groups. So I really enjoyed doing that research.

I had good advice from both the subject matter experts with whom I spoke as well as for my faculty advisors and the writing center that I had mentioned when I talked about having my work reviewed by the writing center during a previous podcast. So I wanted to recommend in the end, the consensus was if the location is large enough to offer multiple studies, please be sure to offer a women's only study or faith formation group. Yet knowing that most of the churches that I've attended have not been large enough to offer multiple studies at the same time just because they've been too small. One of the people with whom I spoke specifically said, don't force women to go to a women's only faith development.

If you offer a variety of studies, you could certainly have married couples going together, especially if it's a topic based study that they might be interested in. Some churches offer a study about financial values, say, stewardship, or even something more nuts and bolts like budgeting or financial management with a biblical focus. There are also studies about parenting or marriage. So if possible, offer a women's faith formation group. I just wanted to support and encourage people. Women's studies are just kind of fluffy- one person said that they had heard that. And that's definitely not been my experience. There are very intellectually rigorous studies. Also a conversation sometimes flows a little bit differently. Sometimes women want to share their experience. And when that happens, sometimes other people hear, “Hey, I'm not alone with whatever experience that I'm going through right now.”

And that prayer requests can be more honest if there's a trusting environment of confidentiality if it's women only. So that was a really positive experience. And I'm so glad that I was able to do that research and submit that paper.

The final course that I wanted to talk about was on faith development and discipleship. I particularly wanted to recommend a book written by Austin Channing Brown. The title is “I'm Still Here.” It was a very eyeopening book and I strongly urge everybody to read it. It was really powerful about the author's experience, both growing up and in a faith-based workplace. That was eye-opening even though I thought I was fairly well-versed on the topic of racism or how people can be treated or certainly still are treated.

So I can't speak highly enough about this book. And there were also some other really neat books that I can include in the resource section on the podcast website, 40 minutes of faith.com, additional titles, some of which are about welcoming. How do you welcome people to churches? What types of things can faith-based groups do to be truly welcoming and provide faith development for people? And not just newcomers- there's plenty of folks- I'm in some fantastic spring classes that I'll be talking about next month in a different episode that, you may have learned something as a kid. For me, it was called Sunday school. And I thought, I learned about this stuff, but revisiting it again now, as an adult is far more meaningful than it was when I was a little kid- even though I was interested, I cared about it, but there are some really significant nuances. So all that goes to say that faith development is an ongoing process and it's not like, you learned it when you were a kid, so you don't need to talk about that stuff again, even when it comes to the basics.

So newcomers deserve to talk about the basics, but frankly, people who've been around for awhile also need to talk about the basics of faith.

Again, this spring, I did have some textbooks that I really struggled to get through. And that's okay. I was a little more prepared to give myself grace based on the advice that I had received from mentors in the fall that I don't have to understand every single word of every single textbook.

I also wanted to talk briefly about, about the pandemic coming down on us during this spring semester. So I had been living in Germany last year when I applied to this program and I knew that the bulk of the semester was online, which it had to be because I was living in Germany.

So I was used to attending classes by zoom. And the classes were also recorded. So due to the time zone differences with Germany, there were a couple of classes that I needed to watch the recording the next day.

So when the classes had to be online only in the spring, it didn't really affect me at all because I was already in upstate New York at that point, far away from the school in Dubuque. And the pandemic itself, of course, did hit me, being home, wearing a mask, not sure if I need to wear rubber gloves when I go into the grocery store.

But academically, I had a routine already in place at home and everything was on zoom. I felt bad for my fellow students who were really used to being in the classroom and who looked forward to that. And some of them really needed that support. One of my friends said that they force themselves to sit in the front row because then they would just really concentrate and have fewer distractions being that close to the instructor, just from their learning needs.

And also just being stuck in a dorm room for days on end. I can imagine that that would be really hard for me. So it made me appreciate that I had a house with some different rooms that I could walk around in. I had a kitchen that not all the students had. So I wanted to honor that it was a lot lonelier for some people when the pandemic hit, even though you think, well, online learning, that's not so bad, but even socially, some people really missed that.

So really to this day that there could be some significant mental health struggles among folks who just appreciate it, that daily check-in, as they went to class, maybe chatted for a bit after class, even folks who were introverted, at least, if you're going to go get some food , that you could talk to people in a group, if you wanted to.

Also, some mental wellness situations are at least, if you've got to get up and get out of bed and go to class or you'll be marked absent , at least there's some sort of informal check-in on, how are you doing?

So I just want to your honor, that this can be really hard for some people. And I really got walloped with zoom fatigue. I didn't know what it was called. All I knew is that I just didn't want to be in front of my computer anymore. I think one day I had. Eight hours worth of zoom. And maybe some of you have had more than that, but between class and meeting, some of, which were optional, but I just, at some point had to say, I just can't do this.

I had to set a maximum number of hours for myself that I could be on sort of face to face with people, even if it was a Bible study or something like that, which I really appreciated my local Bible study here moved from in-person to zoom. And that was a treasure I'm so glad that that happened. And I also was brought up that if you do something, you do it right. So if one meeting was from six to seven and the next meeting was from seven to eight and the next meeting was from eight to nine, you know, first of all, you have to be five minutes early, that's military culture and you don't leave early. And then I'm like, okay, I need to take care of my physical body.

So three, one hour meetings in a row is certainly doable.  it's not impossible. But it's just uncomfortable mentally and emotionally as well as physically. So I decided that it was okay. Nobody was going to hate me. If I came a minute late to a meeting or excused myself a few minutes early before the meeting ended so that I could literally use the restroom, grab a snack if necessary and just stretch my body.

Since then there's been some research that shows there's are different levels of interaction. When you're say sitting around a conference table or something like that, you're not looking at each other in the face for the full hour. You might be looking down at the materials in front of you. You might look at the person who's speaking, and then there's a bunch of stuff kind of in your peripheral vision, you could even sign out and look out a window or something like that.

But when you're. Trying to look in your camera or you've got all these faces right in front of you on the screen that you're paying more attention, you're not getting body language from people like you would in a room. So you're trying, and to look more at their facial expressions, there's also some more distractions, say the chat function in zoom, which is sometimes very entertaining.

And then sometimes there's just a lot of different stuff what's going on. So I totally experienced that. And just needed to set a maximum number of hours per day that I was going to be on zoom. And if I missed a meeting, that was okay. Or if I went for half an hour, that, that was okay. Also, we did have some pretty fun times though.

My school had some nice social events on zoom in addition to academic stuff. So that was great. So all in all the spring semester was pretty good. It was really strange with COVID. I felt really overwhelmed at one point, especially when the shutdown just started in New York and people were just dying, not so much in my own community, but especially in New York city.

And in certainly Europe, the death toll was so high that I had a hard time concentrating on schoolwork. So that was a little bit of a challenge. But, in the end, by the time the semester ended, I wouldn't say that everything was back to normal by any stretch of the imagination, but at least in terms of academic work at all got done.

Yeah. So I wanted to do the last Bible translation experience that I had for you. again, reading just parts of the passage, and this is from the gospel of John, which is towards the end of your Bible. So well after the middle, the Hebrew Bible takes up more than half of the Bible, which, Christians know as the old Testament.

So I'm going to be reading a few verses excerpted from John chapter one verses one through 10. And the first translation that I selected again, was the new revised standard version, which the abbreviation for that is NRSV. And I, again, selected the message, which you've probably noticed by now is one of my favorites.

And then I picked a German translation as well. And I also became familiar with the 21st century King James version, which is abbreviated KJ 21.

So a lot of the first few verses are the word in the message verses one to two is: “the word was first, the word present to God, God present to the word. The word was God, in readiness for God from day one.” The German used a very interesting word, and I'm going to read just half of verse one: “Das Wort war bei Gott, und das Wort war Gott selbst.”

So “selbst” is self in German- that is a word that I didn't see in any of the English translations. So they kept using the word God, which is fine, but it felt more personal to me to read the word “self” in the German.

So I'll read verse four from the NRSV: “in him was life and the life was the light of all people.”

The 21st century King James version says: “in him was life, and that life was the light of men.” I want to compare the part of the message with a phrase in German. In the message, it says: “the Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out.: In German. It says “Es leuchtet in der Finsternis, und die Finsternis hat es nicht auslöschen können.”

And what was interesting to me is that “Finsternis” isn't the same word as darkness. Darkness is “Dunkelheit”. And I learned German when I was a little kid. So my perception may or may not be academically accurate, but I perceived Finsta as a little bit sort of heavier a little bit more frightening.

I mean, darkness is. Probably scary to most kids anyway, but it's not the same. It's almost like gloom. There's more of an emotional attachment. So to, just to me, just to my perception. And so I appreciated reading the German translation translation that the light sort of glowed or lit in this gloom, which also isn't a direct one-to-one translation either.

And the gloom couldn't extinguish it. So I really liked that again. I would recommend if you have other languages in your ability, just to take a look at, see what you discover, if anything, and then again, I don't want to read every sentence of all four translations, but what I really liked at the very end.

In the NRSV it says he was in the world and the world came into being through him yet. The world did not know him. The message says the world didn't even notice the German says a continent in dimension nicked, which is recognize. And the 21st century King James version says, and the world knew him not.

So I appreciated different, nuances in the different translations was very helpful.

One thing that I really like about the message, even if it's not the most academic translation is it feels very personal to me.

I feel more convicted of my spiritual blindness. When I read the message that the world didn't even notice. And in German people didn't recognize him. So I would recommend this as an exercise. If you've got some spare time, you might learn something interesting.

If you didn't hear it. I have a podcast episode with Professor May Persaud about Bible translations that was released earlier this summer. So that's available if you want to learn more about why there are different translations and what. The different emphases are in some of those translations.

Resources:

Mark 4:35-41

John 1:1-10

Introducing the New Testament by Mark Alan Powell

Sacred Pauses by April Yamasaki

I’m Still Here by Austin Channing Brown

Health with Ollie

Barbara: Hi everyone- welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God. Today's guest is Olli Bergh. I met Ollie at Wartburg theological seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, where he's studying to become a Lutheran Pastor. He didn't grow up with much faith- his dad was Christian, but his mom wasn't religious at all. Ollie came to Christianity because of getting a job at a Lutheran church as a choir director, then he was baptized, heard the call while helping out with communion and went to seminary. Before that he had some minor theater gigs as an actor in the semipro theaters in Portland, but he has so far been a lifelong student.

Ollie's from Portland, Oregon, lived in Berkeley, California, and currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska. He's married with a little one on the way. Ollie's dreams are to hopefully be a beloved parish pastor, and to write some kind of theology book.

Welcome, how are things in life?

Ollie:  it's really rainy here and that's actually weird- it's usually pretty dry and then it's either dry or snowy. Last year, fall was two weeks long- this year we're actually getting a fall. So that's nice.

Barbara: Well, I hope the rain will do some good and not end up causing harm. It seems like it's either a drought or a flood and we just want things kind of right in the middle.

So we're going to be taking a look today at some interesting things having to do with health and what we eat and drink and what the Bible has to say about it and what the Lutheran church has to say about it and our common sense, and maybe kind of how it feels to be having some health issues from time to time.

Today's Bible verse is from first Corinthians chapter eight. So for those of you who are going to look up first Corinthians, it's a book after the gospels. So it's towards the end of your Bible. I'm going to read excerpts from a longer passage that talks about what kind of food we can eat. Here's first Corinthians chapter eight, verses eight to nine, and verses 11 to 13 from the message.

“But fortunately God doesn't grade us on our diet. We're neither commended when we clean our plate nor reprimanded when we just can't stomach it. But God does care when you use your freedom carelessly in a way that leads a fellow believer, still vulnerable to those old associations to be thrown off track Christ gave up his life for that person.

Wouldn't you at least be willing to give up, going to dinner for him. Because as you say, it doesn't really make any difference, but it does make a difference. If you hurt your friend, terribly risking his eternal ruin. When you hurt your friend, you hurt Christ a free meal here and there isn't worth it at the cost of even one of these weak ones.

So never go to these idol- tainted meals if there's any chance it will trip up one of your brothers or sisters.” Ollie, there is so much important stuff in these verses. How do you understand these instructions to us?

Ollie: for me, it's about what do we do with our gospel freedom? Yes. And especially coming from the United States, we talk about freedom all the time. You sure. But we talk about freedom as an end and actually freedom is a means. And so we have to think about what we do with it. We have to actually use our brains.

Barbara: Imagine that.

Ollie: that's the really exciting thing about this passage is Paul is saying that we should use our freedom, our food freedom, which for Jewish people it was a big deal. It still is a big deal.

Barbara: rules in Deuteronomy Leviticus and other places.

Ollie: And Paul is saying, when we're free to eat whatever we want, this is something Jesus gave us, but don't do that.

Barbara: by the way, here's some other things to keep in mind.

Ollie: So that's the fun of it for me is, I think for a lot of us, when we read the Bible, we get to this point of, okay, we have this freedom, but then there's this next step. And that's what we have to think about.

Barbara: Excellent. And we'll be taking a look at some examples together. Our faith denomination has a document called a social statement about caring for health. I'll include a detailed blink to that on the podcast website, which is 40 minutes of faith.com.

I'm not going to read the entire 28-page document right now. Just some excerpts. So on page three, it says “because human beings are mortal suffering and death are part of our lives. Perfect health eludes us. Although health depends in part on individual behavior. It's also to a significant degree beyond individual control.

Many factors contribute to health or its absence, genetics, physical and social environments, individually, well behaviors and access to care.” And what really hit me over the head in a good way is on page 35. It says “imperfect health, which is as good as state of health as we ever have, does not mean we are forsaken by God.”

It seems to me that part of American culture is a vision of perfection. Even if it's artificial or untrue. How did you feel when you received a recent diagnosis of diabetes?

Ollie: I literally felt like I had sinned against God. I felt awful. I remember when I was little, elementary school, I had a teacher who her son was diabetic. And I think what she was trying to do was educate kids on how, Hey, it's totally okay to be diabetic. You know, there's nothing different about that here. Let's prick the finger and show you how that is. And instead of being this like warm, welcoming thing, to me, it was terrifying, so bad and just the teacher did it and her son did it. And I was like, I don't want any of that. No, no, please. No. And so, I think God laughed and then 20 years later, I got diagnosed with type two diabetes  and I just instantly remembered that moment and, and how afraid I was and how this is something that I've been trying to avoid, but I hadn't been eating well.

I've been consoling myself in food and trying to deal with the stresses of living in Berkeley, California, and the stresses of being in a new city being a new kind of person. Right. I was only recently Christian. I had moved to Berkeley to go to seminary and taking on all these new, different things, new people, maybe people that I wasn't friends with him immediately. It takes a while and I was just eating a lot.

Barbara: Which is pretty normal. You're not alone.

Ollie: I woke up, one day I was starting to develop what they're called xanthomas when your cholesterol is so high, that your cholesterol needs somewhere to go. So you get bumps. I go to the doctor. I have diabetes. Wow.

Barbara: Sounds like it was a big shock and now we're dealing with the ramifications and I feel bad because I am avoiding gluten and dairy products, but I imagine that there's more workarounds for me. Like I can make gluten-free baked goods, but I can't figure out how to do a sugar substitute. In your case, have you gotten some good advice? Is it still as devastating now as it was when you first found out?

Ollie: Not devastating. I've been able to figure out a lot of substitutes. The hard part is that carbs are carbs, you know? And I kind of told myself this story, Oh, if I switched from the regular pasta to the lentil pasta, you know,

Barbara: we did that too.

Ollie: I was like, Oh, that'll fix everything. No, it it's still carbs. They're better carbs. But they're still gonna affect my sugars. The hard part is snacks. All snacks are carbs. I haven't figured out a good solution- cheese and meat is good, but you get sick of that eventually.

Barbara: Well, let's keep it exploring this because there's a lot of different angles, including the Bible verse and the social message. One word that's not in today's passage but is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible is fasting.

What are your thoughts about fasting for health or faith reasons? Especially as it might relate to requirements around our health situations.

Ollie:  the first thing when we think about fasting is be careful because it's trendy right now, and when things are trendy, they get out of hand because intermittent fasting, for some people, it is a good health, but for a lot of people, it might not be. As a diabetic, I can't. But fasting is a really important part of our calling as Christians that, especially as Protestants, we've lost because, for instance, Luther, in his small catechism, talks about how to prepare for going to communion. And he says fasting is a fine principle because a lot of people would fast and that's how they would prepare. It's a good way to do it because when we fast, if we think of it, as we are entering into the suffering of the world, right,

Barbara: I'm not going to eat. And some of my siblings around the world literally don't have enough food. They don't have a cupboard that they're denying themselves.

Ollie: Exactly, so we who are lucky are saying, symbolically I can stand in solidarity with them, but I do this in freedom.

Barbara: Nobody's forcing me to, I'm not trying to earn points to get into heaven.

Ollie: exactly. And it's good because we're imitating Christ. And then as we're imitating Christ, we've been fasting. We go up to the table and Saint Augustine says we receive the body of Christ. And we remember that we have nothing. We go up with empty hands and is placed in our hands. Is everything- a great gift. That's why we have that freedom - you and I are maybe health compromised. We just have to adapt our fast.

Barbara: So rather than not eat any food for prolonged periods of time, that might throw us out of whack.

Ollie: We instead should, eat maybe just the minimum during our fast, just the minimum.

Barbara: Which is fairly un-American unless you're in a tough financial situation and literally don't have enough food.

Ollie: Right. And that's interesting too, because sometimes when we get really poor in America, the cheapest food is the worst food for us. McDonald's, you know? And so even when we have to think about eating the right thing, maybe that's our fast, instead of eating less, we just eat right.

Barbara: Caring for the body that God has given us to the best of our abilities. 

I'm going to actually broaden this a little bit because even though the passage in Corinthians talks about meat, the ELCA social statement has a few sentences on some other things that I'd love to get your take on. On page seven it says "each of us has responsibility to be a good steward of his or her own health out of thankfulness for the gift of life. And in order to serve God and the neighbor, this means taking effective steps to promote health and prevent illnesses and disease. For example, eating well, getting adequate exercise and sleep, avoiding use of tobacco and abusive drugs, limiting alcohol and using car seat restraints.

It means balancing responsibility for health, with other responsibilities. It also means seeking care as needed, recognizing that the disability disease and illness do occur even to those who are good stewards of their health." How about that?

Ollie: you know, it's funny because it's really spot on and maybe it's almost obvious, right?

Barbara: Yeah. But did we do it?

Ollie: it's funny how we are trying our best to do something, we're trying to exercise, we're trying to eat right. And then all of a sudden, for me, it's always about Wednesday or Thursday I realize, how did I get out control?

 Yesterday it's like, I ate six different pasta dishes. How did – WHY?- and I looked at my blood sugars and I go, I know this is bad. What's going on? So it's a conscious thing. And also it's a commandment and I know, we talk about freedom and we talk about where as Lutherans and we're worried about law. I want to know what should we do?  if my doctor is quite literally being like, Hey, you need to eat right. You need to exercise. If my church is saying, Hey, you need to eat right. You need to exercise

Barbara: that to me also sounds like the Bible verse about not leading our siblings astray. And one of my friends in college actually didn't drink. And the reason for it was this verse that some people have a hard time controlling their drinking and to create an environment where in, I talked with Michelle about this in a different episode.

Can you actually have fun without alcohol? Can you have moderation that doesn't result in kind of stumbling down the street? So how about leading our siblings astray with our own behavior around consumption?

Ollie: we can definitely think of that part as our invitation of Christ are emptying out. I've been really dwelling and Philippians too lately. It's the solution to me for everything. And I see a lot of, Philippians two in here of that self-emptying of Jesus and that we are graciously joining in.

When we say I am going to help my neighbor by not drinking too much or drinking at all. I think the same principle is the principle that the reformers had in mind when they said let the priests marry. You know, maybe there's a freedom to do anything we want, which is kind of radical if you say that about drugs. Yeah. But we shouldn't.

Barbara: Well, the greatest commandment is to love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

Ollie: So how do we love our neighbor? We first treat ourselves right with what we put in our mouths, because if we do that, then at least we're thinking about someone else when we do it. If we won't do it for ourselves, do it for someone else, that that's always helped me.

Barbara: We need food to live. So what about optional foods and beverages instead of what we just need to survive? We need the basic nutrients that our doctors and nutritionists are recommending to us. And then there's a whole bunch of other stuff. I have some cake on your birthday or whatever- I bet those six pasta dishes were fantastic, but I'm thinking more consuming that we really don't need to be consuming. And it seems to me like, you go to a restaurant and you get a portion that's the size of a frying pan.

Ollie: Orthodox monks are really good at keeping the fast, cause it's sort of like their full time occupation in a way. And they always right before the end of the year, we'll eat like a little piece of cheese, which is prohibited from the fast so that no one can say that they kept the fast, right.

Barbara: So it's not works righteousness. It's not proving how good I am.

Ollie: Exactly. You should eat birthday cake, especially if it's your birthday or if it's your friend’s birthday, I got the big piece of cake, right? I'm not gonna deny it. I probably should eat the small piece of cake. But food is not just nutrients, there's something de-humanizing about thinking of food as nutrients. Because I'm sure Jesus didn't eat just because you got to eat. we know Jesus went to weddings. There was probably some feasting there. So I think  part of our call is to enjoy one another and that might mean eating out a little bit. But of course we have to be aware of our health. And part of our health is our social health of eating too.

Barbara: we do make choices on our own dealing with food and social expectations, but I'm thinking church potluck dinners, outdoor get-togethers and people are saying, try my homemade whatever it is. And so then that involves our neighbors might not think we're loving them if I'm like, no, no, no, I can't. Thank you for offering me this, whatever it is. There's some social aspects too, of you say, love your neighbor. But sometimes we have to set limits.

Ollie: if you can figure out a great way to balance that, you should publish a book because I'm a people pleaser. And I do want to try it because I love food and I want to make someone happy. But sometimes it turns into, am I trying this, or am I eating another meal? Cause it's been foisted upon us. But that shows something really amazing about Jesus and how Jesus works through us is that food is more than just food- it's a pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie is a whole story.

Barbara: Yes.

Ollie: My mom hates pumpkin pie. She makes it every year. I love pumpkin pie. And that's a whole story that we can kind of share together, which is why we go up to the table and eat a meal because we're sharing in that story. And Jesus says, here, this is going to be my body. This bread, because bread is a whole story. A meal is community.

And a challenge too, because we eat too much, or we don't eat right. And that's also part of the story. We can't deny that bit.

Barbara: It's really hard. I've been to various different weight loss meetings and techniques and stuff. And sometimes they say, can you just eat one spoonful? Does the 10th spoonful taste any better than the first spoonful? Does the 10th spoonful taste any different?

And if it's the same, then do you really need 10 spoonfuls? But even sometimes if you had 10 different spoonfuls of 10 different desserts, that's probably not good either. So how do we say to someone I care about you, whoever it is that made this delicious dish, and I'm also trying to take care of myself?

We talked a little bit about superficiality and perfection, and then on the other end of the spectrum, you have, of course I'm going to eat all of this. Cause I want to make all these other people happy. Well, and it tastes good, but I'm going to suffer the consequences.

Ollie: I really like what you just said there about really what we need to do is enjoy the person. Yeah, they're giving you this food, but isn't that just the same way of saying also like this here is my body too, we do this too. Jesus says, this is my body. Here's some bread. And, the lady at church says, this is my body. Here is some jello salad, you know? And I say this because, as a preacher man, I can think of really good things to say, but do I practice this?

No, I'm bad at it.

Barbara: when you're at a potluck, at least it's easier wandering around the room - someone gave me a plate one time and half the stuff on it I wouldn't have picked for myself, but they were trying to be nice to me.

And so I was just able to wander around and it was just a little paper plate full, and I put a napkin on top of it and got rid of the stuff that I knew wasn't good for me, cause I didn't want to embarrass the lady who was trying to be nice to me, but it's harder when you're at someone's house around the table; this whole social statement is also designed to facilitate conversations.

It doesn't have to be in a church, but can we talk about this and maybe auntie so-and-so or grandma, so and so. Maybe grandpa's do this too, but usually it's the grandma.  maybe it's not gonna work with them, but in general, can we have a conversation about what are we having at church?

I love donuts and they're a huge temptation and they're not good for me. They're not good for anybody, but it's easier when you have painful consequences later from eating something. But if you don't have painful consequences and you're just like, Oh, I know this isn't good for me, it's harder to resist.

Ollie: I'm really good at forgetting about the pain that I suffered. So then I'm like, I'll be fine. You know, this same conversation about what we eat at fellowship is not just about health, also about race.  And it just shows that actually this question is hard, no matter how we approach it, for some reason, eating together after church is a lightning rod because somebody says, well, what about abuela brings tamales? Then someone's like, but does that mean we can't have jello salad?  Then someone says, well, we need to eat healthy. What about the carrot cake? I don't know how we have this conversation.

Barbara: I don’t like to sound like I'm judging all these people who are pushy with food.

I'm trying to protect myself and trying to not hurt their feelings. But we also judge in the other direction. And on page eight of the social statement, it says “we should take care not to blame people for their health problems, and work to minimize both the stress of coping and the potentially isolating stigma of some conditions. Most of all, we stand ready to be present with and care for those who suffer, whatever, the reason.”

Ollie: that sounds just like Paul.

Barbara: Lots of judgment going around all over the place. We're so good at that. And that's not our job- maybe to care for each other to alert each other.

Ollie: there's this ethical vision I think in Christianity that we can't do in this world and it's that we would always be so pointed outside of ourselves. Like I would always be so worried about you, Barbara, that I would never worry about myself because you're worried about me, you're caring for me.

And so I don't have to worry about mine because I can worry about yours. It's impossible because we're broken and that judgment is so strong.

Barbara: And are you called to disregard your own health in the interest of others? And some people might say yes, but in your blog you wrote I'm called to be diabetic.

How am I going to serve other people if my diabetes is raging out of control? And for a while, you can probably get by with a lot of different health situations, but eventually it's gonna catch up to you.

Ollie: and that's the thing is I heard that call from someone whose job it is to care about me, my doctor. I said in that blog, that means that it is a commandment coming from the voice of God. And it's my personal opinion because the way that I can care about others' needs is actually a self-sacrificing thing is by worrying about my diet.

I think of my baby on the way, so every time I check my blood sugar, I can think of her. And I can think of my wife. It's never helped me to think of myself.

Barbara: you to do it for other people. Cause you want to be around for her high school graduation, God willing, and many years after that, too. But we don't know the hour of our final calling for any of us either. But if this is something that someone who's a subject matter expert, you doctor said, this is what you need to do medically to care for what God has given you, then let's do that.

Ollie: People whose jobs it is to know about this stuff. We should listen to them.

Barbara: systems are really important to me too. I have a question about that for you. On page 13 of the social statement, it says “health care as a shared endeavor entails a comprehensive and coherent set of services of good quality care throughout one's lifespan. At a minimum, each person should have ready access to basic health care services that include preventive, acute and chronic physical and mental health care at an affordable cost.

The United States does not currently have a healthcare system that is capable of care for all people.” And then it goes on, there's lots of different advocacy kind of stuff. So even though I have good health insurance, my copays and deductibles are a lot. I worry that some people have a tough decision when it comes to the cost of medications and the ease with which we can buy cheap food, which you referenced earlier that might be less healthy for us, whose voice is missing from this conversation?

Ollie: I think it's the voice of the poor, and it's the voice of people have to make a decision- Are we going to eat tonight or are we going to pay this medical bill? And the thing that I think of is that's also my wife and I, we have good jobs, we were educated and that I think means that we're poor, because we have bills that are, that are crazier than we can ever believe.

And so like, when I hear that, when I think about how are we going to afford this cost? I think about those that can't even afford the deductible.

Barbara: I just want to have a call to justice along with this conversation about how do we eat less gluten or less sugar or something like that, that people who might not have any health problems or even if you do,  I'm willing to pay more taxes so that more people can have healthcare coverage and that someone isn't saying, well, if I buy my insulin because it's not free then I probably can't pay my rent, especially with people getting laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic . So just to raise that awareness.

Ollie: that's why I really liked this passage in Corinthians is, people are like, I don't want to pay more taxes. You know, the government's already taken more money from me than they should. Yeah, that's true. And they're not using our money, right. You know, they're spending it all on the military and which is important and hard when funds are not being used well, and yet, as Paul says, is my not paying taxes is going to cause another to stumble?

So if what I can do is pay more taxes and that might help my neighbor, that's good. That's part of me giving up my rights as Jesus gave up his rights for us.

Barbara: And another thing that comes from my social work background, but it's also in the ELCA social statement is about people's right to make their own decisions about their own bodies. And on page 22, it says “the dominant principle in healthcare ethics is the right of individuals to be freely self-determining with regard to their own bodies and medical treatment decisions.

This principle rightly protects against unjustifiable medical and familial paternalism. This church supports an individual's freedom to make healthcare decisions, according to her or his own conscience and moral discernment.” And that goes back to what we were talking yeah. Before about judging each other in all different directions.

So if someone is gonna say, you know what, I'm not going to follow this doctor's advice or whatever that they have the right to do that too, even though we don't want them to.

Ollie: That's where loving each other gets really hard. Cause when we love somebody, we weirdly want to control them. People are always free to change. And so our love has to always be sort of rooted in that. And so when, when someone makes a stupid decision, the question is, do we love people because of who they are or because they agree with us?

Barbara: That's a great question. Another biblical concept that's not addressed in these passages is healing. And I'm wondering if you could talk for a minute around your thoughts of, some people are healed and some people aren't healed and it's not a judgment either.

That's not how I see it, that if I'm good enough, God will heal me. Or if I pray hard enough, God will heal me. God answers prayers. And in different ways, for everyone. So when you talked in your blog post, you're living God's calling of how you were made with or without diabetes.

Ollie: in the old Testament, there's a lot of our heavenly reward is long life. You know, if we're righteous, we get a longer life. If we aren't righteous, we get a short one, but really, the thing about life is that life is grace to be born is an act of God's grace.

Likewise dying is an act of grace. And when God calls us to die, we have to be ready that to trust and to have that faith, that this is what's best for me. I love monks. Protestantism is an experiment in trying to make the whole world a monastery.

How's that? Marriage is a call to permanently be with somebody as best as you can. Yes, these things are gonna break down, so that's why divorce has to be okay. And we have to have grace for divorced people, but the idea being that here with this person, I'm going to discern God's word for me.

I'm going to discern how to love my neighbor. I'm going to discern how to pray in this way with this person, these people. The monastery is a place of always discerning how to love your neighbor and how to do it in a certain way. And as Protestants we’re saying, that idea is our whole lives.

I just saw a video of a monk talking, and he's blind. He says with such confidence, I know that it was for my betterment for the good of me that God made me blind. And I think that God made me diabetic because it's good for me. You know, this is the best for me. I don't know why. I don't know why people get cancer. And it might not be liberating for someone to say, this is for my betterment that God gave me this. But my conviction is that God is working something good in this moment of crap.

And that's a perspective I can only come to because of the freedom God gives me. And I gotta be cautious in preaching.

Barbara: somebody is going to be mad probably no matter what we say, and you're not talking to make people happy. We are talking about our sincere beliefs and trying to be as gentle as possible. But every once in a while, a prophetic voice, that's not necessarily kind and gentle is okay to maybe just, not all day every day.

Ollie: And there are people that are good at that. They are all day everyday a prophet of the Lord, and I more power to them. I can't even hang out on Twitter long enough without wanting to shrink up and die, you know?

Barbara: So we're not saying you have this horrible situation because God hates you, you or God wants to punish you, or you did something bad to deserve it or anything like that. There's a mystery to some extent, and we know that there's sin in the world also. And so if you're drinking water that's not potable and your body is suffering because somebody else polluted the water, that's sin.

And we'll keep praying on this. But right now, we have what we have, and we're prayerfully working through to understand it as best we can and then to deal with it as best as we can. And I do have an interesting definition for your thoughts on page 33.

It says “the total wellbeing of persons is the integration of each person's spiritual. Psychological and physical dimensions, the harmonious interrelationship of environmental, nutritional, social, cultural, and other aspects of life.”

Ollie: It sounds spot on in Zen Buddhism. They often talk about no dualism, non-dualism, and that's really hard, especially for Western minds. Because we think of ourselves as minds, bodies, spirits, and we keep them completely, they're separate things. This is not true. And that's a very dualistic way to think of it. Okay. The word for soul in Hebrew nefesh roughly translates to your throat- often you hear this lift up your soul really.

It's like just stand up straight. That's one way you can think of it, because our souls or minds or bodies, that's all interconnected that you can't get rid of one without getting rid of the other if your soul is hurt, obviously your mind is going to be hurt. We can't divorce our minds from our bodies, our souls,

Barbara: and yet, how good are we at avoiding that or eating our misery, for example, or just completely trying to ignore it. And then it explodes someday.

Ollie: I eat my misery because somehow my heart hurts. So I'm going to eat a cheeseburger with my mouth.

Barbara: How's that make sense? Not at all, but most of us do it, maybe not cheeseburger, but whatever your self-medication of choices.

Ollie: Yeah, exactly.

Barbara: we've tried to pack a whole lot into this conversation, starting with a really powerful Bible passage, diabetes, gluten, dairy, God healthcare, and the works.

Ollie: Jesus's life is at work in, you. Your life is at work in Jesus. And that probably makes your mind blow up, but it's kind of a summary of everything we've talked about in.

Barbara: And some people might not think that that's true in their lives. So I always want to give a shout out to someone who might, they've been rejected by a human being affiliated with a faith based organization who may have said that they are speaking for God and that you and I have a very broad sense of welcome.

Of people and not rejecting people. It's not my place to judge you. Now, if you asked me for advice, I might have some advice for you, whether it's right or wrong, but we're not in the business of kicking people out of church. And I know that hasn't happened to everybody, but just in terms of that's really revolutionary what you said

Ollie: Your black life lives in Jesus. Your trans life lives in Jesus. Your disabled life quite literally lives in Jesus's body, more than maybe any other ism I can think of right now. All our lives are at work in Jesus and his life is working in ours.

Barbara: Thank you so much. This has been excellent.

Ollie: thank you for having me and God bless your work here.

Resources

1 Corinthians 8:8-9, 11-13

Ollie’s blog

https://lutherdharma.tumblr.com/post/631564275566166016/a-commandment-from-the-lord-be-diabetic?fbclid=IwAR12IFeS6GRxeV7IHPrEIsDmfkL-4y9PVpOuxajk8_MZQE9D02Bh09RCws4

https://www.elca.org

https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/HealthSS.pdf?_ga=2.168500385.10930410.1603662769-1974621.1603662769

Ollie is learning about care for health on behalf of others!