Reflections...

One more plane to go before getting home: a stop in Chicago and now in Charlotte before finally arriving in Richmond. I don’t remember taking off from Portland as I was fast asleep in my seat as soon as we started to taxi away from the gate.  The Chicago to Charlotte leg was filled with healing conversation with a younger woman returning home to a young adult with autism after caring for her father following surgery for the last week.  Time in between flights filled with reading blogs and social media posts with views from all sides of many questions and issues at General Conference.

Many of those entries are written by clergy whom I admire greatly.  Their words are written to inform, but with concern for congregations and awareness of their leadership roles in their respective levels of the denominational structure. Some I read from people who stand firmly on the conservative and progressive sides. Their words speak their hearts, sharing their understandings and feelings about where we are as The United Methodist Church and as truly hurting people – whether that hurt comes from lack of action on full inclusion or failure to produce an exit strategy for churches that want to leave. Me…Well, I’m just one of those Lay Speakers you "have to put up with" as one of our SEJ candidates for Bishop said this week.  Now, admittedly, I do have a little more experience on the annual, jurisdictional, and general church levels that most United Methodists sitting in the pews. 

Some blogs and posts make it sound as if the denomination is already dead.  Some have offered great hope for the future.  Here is where I see things on this day after, despite being so tired that I don’t remember leaving Portland.

We have an opportunity before us that is unprecedented.  Never before have our bishops been asked to offer leadership in direction of the future church as they were in Portland.  And they responded.  They have now said that they will lead us forward as partners in shaping what lies ahead.  This is history making, especially for a young denomination (…remember, we are only 48 years old) that has the opportunity to shape church in a new, ever-changing world.  No other mainline denomination is in a place to do this on a truly global scale.  I feel better leaving this General Conference than I did in leaving the last two.

If we had made decisions at this General Conference on one or both sides of many of the major questions before us, we would have left Portland as a more divided, if not separated church.  There would have been more anger and hurt – HEAR ME - on both sides and in the middle.  Our only way to move forward positively is to sit together: right, centrist, and left; American, African, Filipino, and European; English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, and Kiswahili speaking; male, female, and questioning; abled and those with limitations; blonde, blue-eyed and dark, hazel-eyed.  We don’t do it well in our local churches. We certainly are not doing it well as a nation. Would you really expect that we could do it as 864 United Methodist delegates from around the world brought together for 10 days?

We have local congregations filled with folks who have little to no understanding of what it truly means to be Wesleyan and/or United Methodists.  We haven’t done a very good job of teaching people who we are at the very core of our beliefs.  Until we do, we’ll have folks who stand up at General Conference or Annual Conference or in Charge Conferences and argue that we shouldn’t be involved in care for the environment because a particular partner seems to state that theories of evolution should be taught in our schools.  Who cares if John Wesley advocated for better sewers and water in his day?  Until we help people understand our heritage, we will have those who stand and in their well-intentioned comments hurt women in the room who have gone through abortion instead of focusing on abundant health for women and children. Do those people know of our history of beginning hospital systems in the United States and internationally, health care systems that have saved millions of lives?  Until we do, we’ll be divided even if our name and polity stays the same.

We’ve got to reach a place where our conversations are about how best to reach people for Jesus and transform the world instead of Robert’s Rules of Order and legislative process.  We’ve got to stop trying to manipulate the system through political maneuvering, attempts to stop debate, disrespecting our leadership and failing to recognize the human sides of all that we discuss.

We’ve got to…sit at the table together...sit beside each other on airplanes…sit beside each other in the church pews, around the potluck fellowship tables, and in small groups…but not just to share space. We’ve got to recognize each other’s worth, gifts, and graces.  We’ve got to reach out to support and nurture each other.  We’ve got to talk – call each other by name – feel each other’s pains and joys – walk with one another in order to see our own humanity on every side – and stay at the table no matter how hard the conversation becomes.  That’s the only way we will live into a future as UNITED followers of Jesus Christ.

Enough for now.  I’ve got a plane to catch – and no more points of order to cringe about.  I’ve got a church to go help build – one that has the potential to truly change the world.

What Will Tomorrow Bring?

Tomorrow will be a pivotal day in the life of our United Methodist Church.   By now, most of you who will read this post know that The United Methodist General Conference, meeting in Portland, OR, requested that the Council of Bishops come to us tomorrow with a plan for how the denomination can more forward as we find ourselves at an impasse on issues related to human sexuality. 

Much happened Friday and Saturday in legislative committee work.  Some ended that time late Saturday night feeling that their work had been productive and truly focused on vital ministries of our church.  Some left the Oregon Convention Center more hurt than when they entered, finding little safety in being open and honest in their feelings about the church and its people.  Some finished the night feeling smug and holding the power. Some felt that the church had been hijacked.  Depending upon where you find yourself on the spectrum of personal theology and missiology, the hijacking was at the hands of those who attempted to manipulate the system, those who protested, those who declared they would take their buildings and leave, those who felt too wounded to continue. The list could go on.  Many, like me, left feeling disheartened, sad, and wondering about the future of our life and mission together.

Rumors abounded on Sunday about plans in the works and conversations being held among various groups.  Possibilities were being floated all across Portland about how pieces of legislation that had been voted down could be brought back to life, how new visions could emerge, how we could leave not feeling as useless and helpless as we did in Tampa four years ago.  By mid-morning on Monday, we decided to pull our Virginia delegation together after what was planned to be a celebration dinner in honor of Bishop and Mrs. Cho.  We would have conversation about what was being heard.  About an hour before the meal was to start, I received a handwritten note from Bishop Cho saying that he would need to leave early to participate in a called meeting of the Council of Bishops.  Before members of the delegation left the restaurant, we talked, processed what we had heard, sang, and prayed.  By the time I got back to my hotel room, Facebook and Twitter were on fire with talk of the meeting of the Council and rumors of all types of plans and actions.

Many of us in the Virginia delegation gathered for prayer before the start of opening worship this morning.  We entered worship not knowing what the day would hold.  Some were very frustrated by the talk of being “one” that was a part of our celebration of our ecumenical relationships during worship.  Others struggled with the recognition of the 250 anniversary of the start of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church.  How could be celebrating the church that came from our lack of action as a united church on slavery?  When a much longer than expected break was called following worship, we all knew that something had to be coming from the bishops.  We would not be able to move from our place of great uncertainly without some type of response.  There was even a rumor that someone was going to move that the conference just adjourn.

The response came after the break.  The Council shared the broken heartedness we all felt, but was as divided as the body.  The bishops felt their call was to the unity of the church and would do their best to preside over our remaining sessions to help that come about.  Needless to say, this was not what people wanted to hear; there was a need for a different type of leadership from our bishops.  Soon after the statement about their meeting, a motion was made and moved forward by the body for the bishops to begin meeting immediately.  The request was to bring to us tomorrow a plan for how we move past the impasse where we find ourselves.  One option being raised is for a study commission which would bring a plan to a called General Conference in two years, offering a way for the churches on the most extreme ends to exit.  There is conversation that if the bishops do not lead us in bringing a plan to the floor an attempt will be made to resurrect “The Third Way,” a proposal from the Connectional Table that died in committees.  Another attempt is being made to bring a new proposal for “A Simple Way” to the floor.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?  As chair of the Virginia delegation this year and a voice that I hope you trust, I can tell you these things for sure:

• Your delegates are struggling mightily with this.  We are blessed by your prayers and notes of love and support.  There are numerous folks from Virginia who have been here and continue to be here in Portland nurturing and caring for us – from offering spiritual guidance to bringing us doughnuts.  Each of you is offering us gifts that we will never be able to repay.  You are blessing all of us in ways that you cannot imagine.  This is the United Methodist connection at its best.
• Continue to lift us in prayer.  You elected us – lay and clergy – to a task that is physically challenging, mentally draining, emotionally difficult, and spiritually exhausting.  No matter where we are on the continuum from progressive to centrist to traditional, we all love this church.  We’ve given our lives to it:  from the youngest 20-something to the seasoned 80-somethings.  When we come home this weekend, just love us.
• Members of this delegation have been gathering for prayer from 7:15 – 7:45 AM every morning.  Prayer is what will sustain us.  Because of the tone we have set in talking with one another, in worshipping together, in struggling with issues since you elected us last June, we have a bond that I feel is very different from the two previous delegations I was part of in 2008 and 2012.  Whatever happens during these last 3 days of General Conference will happen to all of us, and it will personally change us forever.
• Remember that our work will not end on Friday at 6:30 PM when the motion to adjourn is made.  We have a story to tell you at Annual Conference and together, we will have to process what happens here in Portland.  We then will have to make our way to Lake Junaluska with the rest of our jurisdictional delegation to elect new bishops.  At this moment, that’s a task that is hard to anticipate given all the uncertainty of the next few days.  Please don’t stop the prayers when this week is over!

As I prepare to turn off this computer and rest as I can tonight, I’m reminded of two things.  The first is a statement by Parker Palmer in his book, A Hidden Wholeness.  Palmer writes: “Only when the pain of our dividedness becomes more than we can bear do most of us embark on an inner journey toward living ‘divided no more.’”  My prayer is that we as a church can live “divided no more,” but I have no idea tonight how we’re going to get there.  That leads to the second reminder.  My prayer tonight is this, a line from “Empty Me” as sung by Chris Sligh:

“Lord, empty me of me so I can be

filled with you.”

Come, Spirit, Come. NOW!

“Live your life with love, following the example of Christ…” – Ephesians 5:2 (CEB)

I tried to write Friday night, but I couldn’t.  I tried to read Friday night, but I couldn’t.  I even tried to just watch television Friday night, but I couldn’t.  There was no energy to do anything.  I just cried….

It started right before the afternoon break in our legislative committee work.  For the last two General Conferences, I haven’t reached this point until Tuesday or Wednesday of the second week.  It only took until Friday this time.  Don’t take me wrong.  There are moments of great joy, celebration, and true relationship building at our UMC General Conference.  Yet, there are moments that make your heart break.  Friday afternoon, that came as individuals stood to make speeches for or against a petition, using every political and parliamentary maneuver to try to influence the process, offering every “code word” to sway votes.  It breaks my heart that my fellow United Methodists – on both sides of issues – act this way.  But sadly, it’s not just here in Portland.  It’s in almost every local faith community, of every tradition, in every setting.  So I cry…for my own doubts and questions of faith, for my church, for our country which finds itself in exactly the same place we are as a denomination, for the world.

And I celebrate…the awesome experience of being a connectional church. 

·         I received a text message on Friday morning that reminded me of the sounds of the trumpets, only to walk into worship to the music of a brass small ensemble.  And leading that and other worship experiences have been people of all cultures, colors, ability levels, languages, sizes and shapes.  There was even a gospel choir from Norway that had us all out of our chairs. Yes, a gospel choir from Norway…not where those of us in the U.S. would expect a rousing gospel song to come from, but it was amazing.  These have been the most wonderfully diverse worship experiences, calling us all to recognize the gifts of all people.

·         On Thursday, I sat beside a woman from Mozambique who speaks very little English and tried my best to communicate.  The next day, I walked by the table where she was sitting and suddenly heard, “Where are you going?”  I knew I was to turn around and take my appointed place beside her, if for no reason other than her feeling of acceptance and security.

·         As the tears began to flow on Friday, a new friend from Sierra Leone came over, put her arm around me and said, “We all want the same thing, but it will only come in God’s time.”  While I don’t like the idea of waiting, it was her gesture of love that was important. She made sure to sit beside me when we changed spaces.

·         As those tears continued, a staff member from Discipleship Ministries came to check on me, letting me know that the staff had seen my Facebook post from earlier and wanted to support me.

·         I was invited to join a lunch conversation this morning.  When we gathered, it was me and three young clergy – one from Colorado, Montana, and Pennsylvania.  What an honor to be the old, lay person invited into this holy time of fellowship.

There are important decisions ahead that will greatly impact the life of our denomination. There will be more tears – and there will be more celebrations of what it means to truly be United Methodists.  Our deepest Wesleyan values do not rest on decisions around human sexuality. They are built upon our understanding of grace, our belief that we cannot keep our faith to ourselves – that whole idea of the connection between personal piety and social holiness, and our recognition that we are not an institution, but living examples of Jesus’ love that if we really put our minds to it could change this crazy world.

I’ve seen all kinds of blogs and posts by clergy from all parts of the world in this last week.  Many have talked about the Wesleyan quadrilateral, missiology, theology, and UMC polity.  Maybe my lay understanding is too simple, but fact is that everything comes down to trust, and we have very little – with each other or church leaders.  I honestly think that it is all because we don’t trust ourselves to lean into the Holy Spirit and give up control to a power much greater than ourselves. We’ve never really learned that important teaching from Jesus of giving up everything to follow him. Pure and simple.

On this day of Pentecost, may the fire of the Holy Spirit fill our hearts, take over our souls, and do something totally outrageous and unexpected among us!

Lessons From Around the Magnolia Tree

In the back yard of the house next door to the one I grew up in Fieldale, there was a magnolia tree.  We have a picture of my mother holding me on the day I was baptized 55 years ago with one of the neighbors under that magnolia – fairly small at that time, but so was I! All of these important issues – where acts of faith and witness were needed – first came into my life in the community around the magnolia tree.  It was faith taken from the pews of the church and put into action around that tree.

No matter what time of the year, you could look out the windows on the side of our house and see signs of life in the magnolia tree – from the birds that roosted there to the evergreen leaves. The smell of those large sweet scented flowers filled the air around our house when they were in bloom and when they were not blooming, you could see those hairy flower bulbs which are borne at the tips of the twigs and know that they would blossom again.

Living in that particular house was a family whose only child had come back to live with them in her middle age following a mental health crisis.  I grew to love and care about JoAnn because my mother and father set the example.  Even though she had some rather unusual ways of doing things and preferred to stay in the house alone, she was loved and cared for as part of our neighborhood.  We looked in on her for many years after her parents’ died and until her death.

Jack and Clara Norris opened their house to me when I was 6 weeks old and cared for me while my parents worked until I finished elementary school.  Mr. Norris was very involved with the Lions Club.  He is the first person I knew who talked about organ and tissue transplants.  He worked hard to make people aware of the need for corneas for transplants.  And as I grew, in the community around the magnolia tree, came the need for bone marrow, kidney, and tissue transplants due to illness and injury.

That magnolia tree saw my brother go off to the Vietnam War and was there when he returned.  There are pictures of our family under or near that tree on both those occasions, one in particular with my brother in his dress blue Marine uniform with a tiny little sister holding on to his leg.

Families not far from the reach of that magnolia tree lost 4 sons to AIDS in the 1980s.  Two of whom I went to school with, one who was the first boy to walk me home from school.  Of course, we were in the second grade and it was only a short distance!  But in a small town, 4 men dying of AIDS is a tremendous number.

Some of my fondest memories of Thanksgiving and Christmas are of our large extended family gathering for dinner.  I remember one Thanksgiving when my mother and one of my aunts decided to take meals to a couple of the neighbors who were alone.  I vividly remember my mother coming back one Thanksgiving in tears.  They found one of the neighbors lying on a mattress in awful surroundings, having drank everything he could find.  He had not eaten in quite some time. That Thanksgiving meal has been a lasting example to me of giving with open hearts.

That tree stood tall as friends and neighbors cared for one another with compassion during times of grief, addiction, abuse, racial turmoil, cancer, injury, and a host of other events.  That tree was a part of celebrations of home comings, weddings, graduations, family gatherings,  Halloween shenanigans and so much more. 

There are many other stories of how our community cared for one another.  But each one centers on strong faith put into action – sort of like the trunk of the magnolia tree – standing firm, deeply rooted in the teachings of Jesus and an ever-present faith in God.  A faith that has been passed on from generation to generation.  But without the outstretched branches that tree couldn’t show life – there would be no evergreen leaves or flowers, no birds singing.  Faith cannot stand by itself.  Like the branches of the magnolia, it is when the faith reaches out in into the community that it blossoms.  Remember that the magnolia flower is at the very tip of the twigs on the branches.

The lessons I learned from around the magnolia tree were about an active, working faith.  As John Wesley wrote, “Faith hath not its being from works, (for it is before them) but its perfection.”

The magnolia tree had to be cut down back in 2002 because of disease, but it keeps on giving.  I have several bowls made from its branches, a rolling pin, and a hand mirror.  When I look in that mirror, I see the legacy of that living faith.  For as James wrote, “If you keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right.”

So why am I headed to Portland on Sunday for the 2016 General Conference of The UMC?  If you read closely, you understand why.  If you read between the lines, you know where I stand on most social justice issues – and why.  If you want to do anything in response, pray.  Pray for courage.  Pray for transformation. Pray for me and all the other 853 delegates…and look in the mirror for your own lessons.