Community

There is something so wonderful about sitting with a group of friends and talking. It doesn't matter if the discussion is being led, or if it comes and goes as the group wills it; what matters is that we are gathered together in this time, at this place. What matters is the moment and the community.
A while ago I joined a knitting group. The group meets in a coffee shop on Wednesday nights for three hours, talking and laughing and enjoying the time away. Many of the group are young mothers; some have demanding jobs. It was clear to me from the start that most of the members of this group came to knitting as an escape, an away place, a time where things were different.
I came to the group for similar reasons. Being in seminary while working in a church means that almost all the time you are surrounded by one type of person: religion geeks. And that is exhausting. And so I came to that group on Wednesday nights to escape my real life and be with people who did not talk about church.
It was a different kind of community for me. These women were so varied, ao different, yet they shared a commonality in their love of fiber arts. The group gave me a space to find myself, to find my identity outside the student, the youth minister, the preacher. I was able to find my identity as a knitter.
I believe it is important that we make room for community time jn our lives. Not just the communities we are a part of every day, but communities that are made up of different kinds of people. In my knitting group I was able to meet people whose lives were drastically different than mine, and I could appreciate them for those differences. I was able to see beyond my church and school walls to the world outside. And none of this would have happened without my knitting.
Knitting allowed me to connect with these women, to find a point of familiarity and engage in conversation. And from conversation about projects and yarn and technique, we were able to move forward to conversations about favorite movies, family, and more. From such a simple starting place, we were able to connect and create a community.

Faith and Trust

A few weeks ago, I sat on the floor of my living room struggling through the lectionary text for Sunday morning.  It was Saturday night, and Sunday was fast approaching.  I was in charge of the service for the next day - not only the sermon, but the welcome and announcements, communion, and benediction.  But the text for the week was frustrating - the Little Apocalypse text from Mark 13:1-8.  The text is Jesus prophesying the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, and contains the famous quote of "nations rising against nations" and a reference to the beginning of the "birthpangs."

With most texts, I am able to find a starting point - this tidbit in the commentaries is interesting, or that line of text irks me.  But this entire text bothered me.  The commentaries seemed to believe that it wasn't likely Jesus had ever really said these words, and that Mark was writing with the foreknowledge that the temple would be destroyed.  As I read the commentaries and tried to find my tidbit to sermonize on, I found myself stuck in the midst of a faith crisis.  

Being in seminary, I've become accustomed to these moments.  I know that about once a month or more, I will come across something in my reading that makes me stop and wonder why I believe what I believe.  And I know that I will struggle through that thought and struggle past the problem, and eventually come to the other side.  It may take time - there have been times when I have simply pushed the crisis out of my mind so I could deal with it later - it make only take an hour.  But I have gotten used to these struggles, these crises.

I put aside that particular crisis to deal with the sermon at hand, and by the time I finished writing, I couldn't remember what my crisis had been about in the first place.  Somewhere along the way, the issue had resolved itself.  Somewhere along the way, it had become less important.  

I realized last night something interesting.  I believe that we all have faith within us - just the right amount.  I say just the right amount because there are times when we will struggle in our faith and it will feel as though we don't have enough of it.  There will be times when we have more than enough faith and we can feel good in the fact that we trust God.  In those times when we struggle, though, when it feels like we don't have enough faith...that is when we need to use our faith to trust God.  In the middle of sermonizing, in the middle of Bible study, in the middle of discussions or debates, when we come to that moment when our brains hurt so much that we cannot imagine thinking through the problem another time - that is when we need to use our little bit of faith to trust in God.  

It isn't that we should use our faith so we don't have to think through things.  We cannot have blind faith in God.  But in those moments when it is difficult, when we are struggling, when we cannot move forward for our frustration...those are the moments when we can use our faith in God and trust.  We can trust that God will explain, that in time we will understand.  We can trust that God will quiet our troubled minds and give us peace.  We can trust that God will help us to understand.  

To Create

The act of creation is an important piece of the human existence. As humans, we were created by God.  Not only that, but we were created by a God who is a Creator.  The very first thing God does in the Bible is to create the world, and all the things on the world - night and day, earth and water, plants and animals and humans. Creation is an intragral part of God's very being.

If we as humans were made in God's image, then we are made to create.  We were made to create with our hands, and to step back and see that our work is good.  The world around us shows that we have created since our own creation. We cannot stop creating.

Creation has become such an integral aspect of our existence that we no longer think about it.  We teach children how to fold paper into cranes, but do not teach them how this creating is mimicking the creating of God. We watch TV shows about cooking and sewing and even about "How It's Made" but we do not make the connection between our love of creating and God's.

I describe myself as a writer, a knitter, a seamstress.  But each of these things fit into one category: creator. I am starting this blog out of a desire to not only create and show my creations, but also to discuss these creations and their connection to God and spirituality.  I hope you will join me in this exploration.