Author: Rev Kathy

I love the still, quietness of a Louisiana bayou. Underneath it all, it may well be teeming with all manner of critter. But in full view are the stately, moss-covered cypress trees with their roots going deeply into the swamp waters. The trees seem so strong and set firmly in their place in the bayou. Whatever happens around, beside and underneath is of little consequence. They will just stand tall in the place they are supposed to be.

That’s a good way for people to be, too, oblivious to any dangers, comfortably planted in their surroundings. Like the stately cypress, I want to belong, to be firmly planted and growing quietly day by day. It’s a good way to live.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”  – Minnie Louise Haskins

Sometimes life is filled with a kind of darkness, the kind of darkness that keeps one from moving ahead. The path is dark and you can’t see where you are stepping. The situation can be frightening. I have found myself in this kind of darkness many times, afraid of the unknown, fearful that I’ll never make it back into the light.

Boats that sail in the night look for lighthouses to guide them, especially if the waters are treacherous. When they see that beacon of light, they finally believe that all is well. The light is important, the lighthouse a welcome sight.

Darkness on life’s journey is like that too. We search for a beacon of light to guide us when the darkness has us paralyzed with fear. But we have the gift of something even better than light.

I love the line in Minnie Louise Haskins’ poem . . . “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.  – Psalm 46:1-3

I can work up a fear over any number of things. I worry about my children and grandchildren. I worry about my husband’s health, and my own. I worry that my dialysis will stop helping me. I worry about traveling. I worry about financial matters and doctor bills, prescription costs and insurance. You name it, I can feel fear about it at any given time.

Oddly enough, I worry when my life is free from trouble just as much as I worry in times of trouble.

How I yearn for the words of the Psalmist to be true of me . . . that even though the earth might give way and the mountains may crumble, I will not be afraid. To be sure, my life – everyone’s life – is filled with fearful times. It is a spiritual discipline to claim the promise that God is our strength, our ever-present help in times of trouble, and to rest on that promise.

As I close down my dialysis machine every morning, I remember God’s promise with gratefulness, happy to have God’s ever-present help near me and within me. It makes life possible.

My other nephew pup, little Mingus, had a hard Fourth of July, too. The fireworks made terrifying sounds for him, and eventually he had to be drugged. There are several appropriate warnings about shooting fireworks, especially around children and animals. Many animals have Post Traumatic Stress-like fear of loud noises.  Perhaps we should take heed and make sure the animals we love feel safe and protected.

John 14:27 ESV

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Sometimes all of us feel fear. Our hearts are troubled and we have allowed our fear to rob us of our peace. How easy it is to work up a sense of terror over even the most insignificant life circumstance. To be sure, there are circumstances that cannot help but make us fearful . . . illness, the loss of a loved one, the ability to provide and care for ourselves. All of these cause real fear.

But mostly we suffer from imagined fear that can bring us to our knees over things that have not occurred and probably won’t occur. We can so easily imagine ourselves to be in grave danger, and then comes the onslaught of fear.

Last night, the Fourth of July, was loud, very loud. We heard a constant barrage of fireworks coming from neighborhoods all around us. My nephew puppy, Crosby, was in sheer terror at the booming sounds. In times like last night, the precious pup can be inconsolable. It matters not that what he is terrified of cannot hurt him. Though he is safe in his house, he still has great fear.

Aren’t we like that too? Afraid of things that are not going to hurt us?

There is One who left us with sage advice about fear . . .”Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. I have given you peace.”

Beautiful, Spacious Skies.

Katharine Lee Bates wrote a hymn text in 1893 that would become one of America’s best-loved patriotic songs. Bates was a professor at Wellesley College and had traveled west to teach a summer course in Colorado Springs. Bates and the other professors decided to take an excursion to Pike’s Peak. They made the ascent by prairie wagon. At the top, Bates was inspired by “the sea-like expanse of fertile country . . . under those ample skies.” She said that the opening lines of the hymn floated into her mind, and she wrote, “O beautiful for spacious skies . . .”

This is the version of the poem that Katharine Bates copyrighted and authorized people to use:

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus

Between 1820 and 1920, approximately 34 million persons immigrated to the United States, three-fourths of them staying permanently. For many of these newcomers, their first glimpse of America was the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor.

The statue, sculpted by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, had been conceived of as a gift of friendship from the people of France marking the two nations’ commitment to liberty. France provided $400,000 for the 151 ft 1 in. (46.05 m) statue, and a fundraising drive in the United States netted $270,000 for the 89-foot pedestal.

The Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus saw the statue as a beacon to the world. A poem she wrote to help raise money for the pedestal, and which is carved on that pedestal, captured what the statue came to mean to the millions who migrated to the United States seeking freedom, and who have continued to come unto this day.

–The U.S. Department of State

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“”Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!”” cries she
With silent lips.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Because I am the child of immigrant parents, the Statue of Liberty holds a special place in my heart. I celebrate this majestic monument during this Independence Day holiday.

Amber waves of grain, spacious skies, fruited plains, purple mountains majesty . . . words that describe the beauty of this land. It is all too easy in these troubling days to focus on all that is wrong with America, to feel angst over racial tension, violence, terroristic threats. It’s no way to celebrate our Independence Day.

July 4th fireworks, picnics, concerts, parades seem hollow in the face of all that threatens to destroy our nation and put another ugly mark on our history and heritage. So how do we celebrate? What, then, can we do to commemorate the Fourth of July in 2015?

I suggest that we focus on all that is beautiful about this country and open our eyes to truly see waves of grain glistening in the sun and mountains of purple in the sunset. Look into the spacious skies above you and celebrate the beauty that is not marred by words and acts of hate. The Star-Spangled Banner still waves in the skies of a land filled with God’s beauty. Let’s celebrate and protect that.

As I often do these days, I was contemplating the meaning of my life. I often wonder what I did that was meaningful, especially when I look back at all the years of long hours and stress-filled work.

Today I received a message from a beautiful young woman inviting me to her wedding. I knew her as a young teen with multiple life hurts including an assault. She came to counseling every week without fail, and she did the soul work that was necessary for healing. Today, she is whole and full of life. She is celebrating the ability to have a loving relationship even after the betrayal of a past relationship.

i was so proud of her when she was in her teens and I’m proud of her today. She is one of the people who made my life and my ministry worth every long hour I worked. I am grateful for her life. And I’m grateful for mine! She is what my life was about.

In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.  – Buddha

When one approaches his or her later years, it is impossible to avoid taking stock of your life. You long to measure how gently you lived. Taking stock is not always a pleasant practice. It can trigger regrets and disappointments that every person has experienced. But taking stock, looking back, can also bring up extreme gratefulness for all of life’s joys.

I find myself spending a lot of time taking stock and looking back. I am owning the griefs and losses I experienced along the way. But mostly I am giving thanks for all that has been good . . . how much I loved, how gently I lived, and how gracefully I let go of many things that were not meant for me. No regrets! Just gratefulness for a life gently lived.

Sometimes the forest is dense and there is no path. The trees tower over you. The underbrush can be gnarly and covered with brambles. There seems to be no clear way to find the path out of the forest to a place where everything is clear and smooth.

Perhaps, though, the real beauty of a forest is the sense of silent entrapment, the quiet that includes only forest sounds. That may well be the kind of solitude I need in these confusing days. The forest with no clear path is a poignant picture of my current life . . .  no direction, no clearly marked path, just the solitude of the forest that embraces me.

The Bible speaks of the splendor of the forest. Within that splendor, I can find my way again. Illness, transition to a new place, the loss of full-time ministry, the loss of my friends and my home church have been disconcerting. But there is still the splendor of the forest, the sunlight that streams down through leaves of green, and the everlasting hope that God is still, and always, near me. Sometimes that is enough. Sometimes.

Venus and Jupiter are very close together tonight. Conjunction will happen tomorrow evening, so look into the Western sky soon after sundown for a rare treat. We should always open ourselves up to rare treats that happen on occasion. Open hearts, open eyes, open souls can bring us to once-in-a-lifetime events.

God has those rare events waiting for us. We need only to be open to seeing what we may have never seen before. My life is longing for a “rare treat” that can awaken me to new possibilities. So I plan to scan the Western sky tomorrow evening. Who knows what God might want to show me!  I’ll have eyes wide open to see.

This is a quiet time of life for me. I am spending these days and nights making peace with myself, getting to know myself again without all the work trappings or titles. I am no longer an executive director of anything. I am nobody’s pastor. I am not a victim advocate. I am not clergy.

Yet, I have always understood my call to ministry to be a permanent, unending call. So finding present peace for this moment of my journey means learning to live out my ministry without all the “employment” that filled my time for so many years.

This quest is a process that takes time and introspection. Where does worship happen for me? Where do I create those holy moments with God that were so much a part of my life? What is my ministry now that I have no particular place for ministry?

I cannot yet answer all those questions. But I am deeply grateful for the time of contemplation and for God’s presence in this time. Perhaps God was waiting all along for the day when I would enter my quiet time.

It it was one of those “caterpillar” days when one feels imprisoned by certain life circumstances. On this day I felt the darkness of being in a cocoon, not knowing when I would break out, or even if getting out was possible for me. I had experienced a number of losses … the ability to walk by myself, the ability to bathe myself, the ability to write. And now, on this day, I discovered that I was losing my hair.

It was very hard for me to remember that a caterpillar and a butterfly are one in the same. I wondered when I could get out of the cocoon stage and fly again.

In her book, “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” Annie Dillard tells about the monarch butterfly that flies all the way across Lake Superior, and makes it all the way without a rest. That is a distance of about 500 miles! We don’t understand how those delicate butterflies do that.  But thousands make their way across that mighty lake every single year during their migration.

Still, Annie Dillard says that none of them arrive without being wing-battered, snatched at from behind, hind legs torn off by the birds that pecked at them along the way.  It really is rough out there!

We know that, too, about our life journeys … It really is rough out there at times. We are sometimes wing-battered, but the Book of Jude tells us that there is One who keeps us from falling.

“There is one who is able to keep you from falling. He is able to present you without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing.”

In spite of my life losses, I can rejoice about that.

Isaiah 43:2

When you pass through the stormy seas, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.

Storms threaten us in life, but they always give way to calm. Stormy seas definitely threaten smooth sailing for us, but our boats most always survive and we sail again with calmer winds in our sails.  For so many people, illness has brought life storms. Often the storm rages for a long time and causes great fear.  But sometimes we are able to make it through the storm and find ourselves back in gentle winds.

I can honestly say that the stormy seas of serious illness came upon me with a vengeance in 2014.  But the storm calmed and I knew beyond any doubt that God was with me on that journey.  Will the calm wind always blow gently through the sails of my life? Probably not. Will God be with me when the storms come?  Absolutely.  I will hang on to that.

In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.  – Francis Bacon

The days passed slowly, the nights seemed to last forever. Those nights in the hospital were definitely dark times for me, hours of fear filled with worry. The dark time frightened me and made me wonder how I would get beyond that fear.  Eventually I learned to embrace the darkness as a quiet time of reflection. I learned that God provides enough light for those who are patient. I experienced God as healing light, a light that was working within me.

I learned that I would survive this darkness and be whole again. Most of all, I learned that in order for the light to shine so brightly, there must be darkness.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcomea it.  – John1:1-5

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.  – 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Beginning in February of 2014, I began to waste away. The Scripture passage describes me well when it says the “outer self is wasting away.”  My kidneys had failed and I had infections upon infections leaving me weak and, at times, completely unresponsive.  During that time I was unaware of the fear my husband was experiencing.  When I came to myself and began to recognize the world and the people around me, I learned of the seriousness of my illness.  I was completely unaware that I almost lost my life.

It was in those days of very slow recovery that I recognized my outer self wasting away. There were so many things I simply could not do, and I had to re-learn basic life activities. I can honestly say that, because of the prayers of so many friends, I experienced the miracle described in this Bible passage . . . my “inner self is being renewed day by day.”

I am so grateful that I did not lose heart, for after all, given the immensity of eternity, it was only a light momentary affliction.

The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.   – Deuteronomy 31:8

The road ahead suddenly seemed treacherous. There were jagged stones that made the path uninviting. I was afraid to travel that road that day over a year ago, and I questioned whether or not going forward was even possible.

I did have a friend present that day, and for that I was most grateful. As everyone knows, hospital meals are not always palatable. On this day, though, they brought a nice chicken pie and I was hungry.  But there was no way I could feed myself. My hands were simply not functional.

My friend fed me that day.  I was discouraged, despondent, wondering if I would ever function normally again. I was very afraid of the road ahead. I could not see a smooth path ahead, only a road covered with boulders. How would I move ahead?

The only comfort that minimized the stones in the road was the promise in Deuteronomy: The Lord goes before you and will be with you. He will never leave you or forsake you, so do not be discouraged and afraid.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.  – Psalm 46:1

My own journey, like yours, takes me through days of bright sunshine, days of hope and anticipation, and days of peace when all seems right with the world.  But we also encounter shadows along the journey and sometimes we experience nights that are darker than a thousand midnights. Nights of indecision, despair and fear.

My time of illness included many of those dark days, with the fear of not knowing what would happen next. I learned during those frightening days that I don’t have to have perfect faith, dauntless courage or unfaltering hope. Because the journey through our lives is both struggle and hope, not just one or the other.

I am convinced that we must see a new image of God as one who is a help in the midst of trouble, not a rescuer from the trouble. I hope that my life journeys will take me through the shadows safely and move me into the bright sunlight.

May we experience God, always, as a very present help in times of trouble.