Shepherd me, Jesus.
You know the still waters I need to drink from,
the green pastures my soul needs.
Lead me there.

I think you will lead me to what I desire
but that's wrong! What I desire is you.
Lead me there.

Lead me out of my fears and wants
into the path of your life.

The paths of righteousness 
lead through the dark valley, don't they?
Lead me anyway.
I will follow you,
not my fear.
Even there I shall not want.

Friend, you set a feast for me—
and invite my enemy!
You lead me to come and sit—
and I am in your house,
and my cup overflows.

Beloved, your goodness and mercy have married me.

May they shepherd me
all the days of my life. 

__________________ 
Steve Garnaas-Holmes 
Unfolding Light 

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson

Pastor for Spiritual Formation

In one recent study, around 27 percent of young people report that feelings of isolation, loneliness and lack of social contact are having an effect on their mental health and emotional wellbeing. Among those over 55 years, 71 per cent have struggled with lockdown and the prolonged restrictions on social mixing with friends, family and the wider community. It isn’t hard to imagine the sadness and emotional struggles of folks who need to see familiar faces, hear friendly voices and be in supportive company where they know they matter.

Whatever else the church is, it is a place where loneliness is acknowledged and friendship is offered to everyone. Christian community is about welcome, belonging, sharing, understanding, listening, laughing, reassuring, encouraging, valuing and caring. We are called to embody and practice all of these, but the energy source and motivation is and must be the love of God.

When Paul wrote, “Hope doesn’t disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us” (Rom 5:5), he was telling the church where it could find the resources to be the loving Body of the compassionate Christ. “We love because God first loved us”; our love for others is the overflow of God’s love, channelled through our words, actions and relationships to others. Those early Christians, and just as much, you and I, “Once we were no people, but now we are God’s people; once we had not received mercy but now we have received mercy.” (I Peter 2:10) And so, having freely received, we are called to open our hearts and freely give.

It’s hard to know how and when this pandemic will be over. But however that comes about, here is a cry of the heart from all around us. In a lonely society, we Christians can be conduits of friendship, a community where love and compassion flow freely. We are God’s people, a community of the Gospel, a place of welcome, a safe place in a world that feels unsafe and uncertain. I can think of few more important acts of mission and Good News sharing than us becoming a befriending community reaching out with the welcome of God to people brave enough to admit they are lonely,

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

I’ve been reading Luke 24:13-35 this week, the first post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Though eagerly gathered to hear the miraculous news that was being reported, the disciples were nevertheless terrified when that good news appeared in front of them in all-too-real flesh. What seemed conceivable at one remove — perhaps it had been a ghost on the road to Emmaus — was suddenly, shatteringly, staggeringly present.

We can sympathize with the disciples' confusion, as we struggle to reconcile joy and sorrow, certainty and uncertainty, to experience Easter as unalloyed joy. Those who watched their beloved teacher be crucified and the women at the cross experienced great trauma as they witnessed him suffer injustice. When resurrection came, their joy was immeasurable precisely because it was attached to the trauma. And so, the joy was not a simple thing, like seeing flowers bloom in the spring. It was a joy attached to so many other emotions, a feeling so complex we likely do not have a word for it in the English language.

This is Easter joy.
It does not exclude the suffering world.
It does not silence the witness of injustice.
It does not simplify the problems of evil and suffering to an easy answer.

Easter joy is a symphony of hard, complex emotions.
In his book, Into the Silent Land, Martin Laird points out that when we go in search of peace in prayer, we often find what feels like chaos. But, he says, it is precisely in this meeting of confusion and peace that healing happens. Not by erasing our pain, but by opening a path for grace. The resurrection did not erase the pain of Christ’s passion, nor does it take away our own troubles. I find in this gospel a space where those of us who are rubbed raw by sorrow in the midst of joy, who are simultaneously mourning and rejoicing, can reach for healing. Stretch out your hands to me, says Jesus, touch my wounds and find a glimmer of peace. For I am here with you, wounded and yet whole, to the end of time.

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:23-25

Jesus clearly knew that he was about to die, but also that glory awaited him on the other side. As his followers we suffer too. We grieve and die. And yet, as the apostle Paul says, we ‘do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.’ (1 Thess. 4:13) Our grief is tempered by hope, because, as C. S. Lewis said, “[Death is] only the beginning of the real story… the Great Story, which no one on earth has read which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Who among us is not weary? It is Day 380, Year 2 of this mostly stay-at-home life we are living, still primarily virtually, though things are beginning to change: vaccines administered, return to school protocols drafted, outdoor dining is open again, more businesses are readying to reopen and try to recover from the year of losses, and deferred medical and dental appointments are on the calendar.

I have missed singing with you all. This week I have been singing this song, written by David Taylor and Paul Zach, as a response to meditating on Psalm 23, and I invite you to listen in and sing along; it is consolation for those who are weary and yet sense God's faithfulness in all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKUVLy__jv4

Oh, I hunger and I thirst
though I wander and I've strayed
I shall not want
I shall not want.

Though I'm weary
and I fall
Though I'm frail and I'm in pain,
I shall not want
I shall not want.

For I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me
For I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me.

Though I sorrow and I grieve
Though I worry and I strain,
I shall not want
I shall not want.

Though I'm worried and I fear
though I suffer and I die
I shall not want
I shall not want.

For I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me.

You are faithful Lord
You are faithful Lord
You are faithful Lord
You are faithful Lord.

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

As our sermon series has been focusing on leaning into Jesus during loss, grief, deep sadness and depression, I was reminded of some of Richard Rohr's words, from Everything Belongs :

"I think Jesus' primary metaphor for the mystery of transformation is the sign of Jonah (Mt 16:4,12:39ff, Luke 11:29). In Luke's Gospel passage in which Jesus tells us 'It is an evil and adulterous generation that wants a sign' (Luke 11:49), he then says the only sign he will give us is the sign of Jonah. As a good Jew, Jesus knew the graphic story of Jonah the prophet, who was running from God and was used by God almost in spite of himself. Jonah was swallowed by the whale and taken where he would rather not go. This was Jesus' metaphor for death and rebirth. Think of all the other signs, apparitions and oracles that religion looks for and seeks and even tries to create. But Jesus says it is an evil and adulterous generation that looks for these things. That's a pretty hard saying. He says instead we must go inside the belly of the whale for awhile. Then and only then will we be spit out upon a new shore and understand our call. That's the only pattern Jesus promises us...

We seldom go freely into the belly of the beast. Unless we face a major disaster like the death of a friend or spouse or loss of a marriage or job, we usually will not go there. As a culture, we have to be taught the language of descent. That is the great language of religion. It teaches us to enter willingly, trustingly into the dark periods of life. These dark periods are good teachers. Religious energy is in the dark questions, seldom in the answers. Answers are the way out, but that is not what we are there for. But when we look at the questions, we look for the opening to transformation. Fixing something doesn't usually transform us. We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves.We use learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions and some days without meaning. That is the path, the perilous dark path of true prayer."

May you help us, Lord, to practice this downward way, as we hold tight to you and listen for whispers of your Spirit.

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. Psalm 23:6

"Goodness and mercy pursue me." God's friendliness and kindness will run after me and chase me down, grab me and hold me. The verb "follow" is a powerful and active verb. We are being chased by God's powerful love. We run from it. We try to escape. We fear that goodness, because then we are no longer in control. We do not trust such a generosity, and we think our own best efforts are better than God's mercy.

Lent is a time to quit running, to let ourselves be caught and embraced in love, like a sheep with a safe pasture, like a traveler offered rich and unexpected food. Our life is not willed by God to be an endless anxiety. It is, rather, meant to be an embrace, but that entails being caught by God...

See yourself as the sheep of the Good Shepherd, as the traveler in God's good valley, as the citizen at home in God's good house. You will, when you see truly, be free and joyous and generous, unencumbered and grateful...

Walter Brueggemann
A Way Other Than our Own: Devotions for Lent

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

With the past few weeks of the Wednesday reflection focused on holding onto Jesus in suffering and loss, these words from Rev. Garnaas-Holmes seemed timely and true.

He began to teach them
that the Human One
must undergo great suffering.
—Mark 8.31


Not just the one human, but The Human,
all of us, wherefore Peter wanted none of it:
plagues of virus and violence, hate and greed,
the lost mourned, futures mourned and dreaded,
great suffering, great suffering.

This is the Cross—no divine scheme,
but our septic rut,
how wrenched we are,
suffering suffered
and suffering caused,
the haunting claw,
the jaw yet to come,
world's mess and mangle,
deep well of anguish, deepest wail. This—

this is where the Beloved
joins us,
bears our wounds,
shares our trauma—
and asks us to follow.

So we open our brokenness,
our trembling selves,
to the Loving One,
who enters in,
seeps in the blood,
sleeps in our grave
with an arm around us,
and after time,

oh, after time,
with an arm around us,
begins to rise.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Ash Wednesday (February 17th) marks the beginning of a Lenten journey when we remember Jesus’ ministry, his ability to heal and care for humanity, and at the same time, his passion, death and his glorious resurrection. In a “typical” year it might seem too soon to even talk about Easter on Ash Wednesday. However, I don’t know if that’s the case for 2021.

We have been in a sort of Ash Wednesday and Lenten journey for so long already. We have been on a journey in which we have witnessed pain, suffering and even death. More and more people dying due to COVID-19, political upheaval in the nation, racism, discrimination, violence, injustice, poverty and many other issues seem endless. We yearn for that Easter moment.

Before Easter happened two millennia ago there was suffering, pain, anguish, uncertainty, fear and death. Although pain and suffering are not God’s desire for us, they are an inevitable reality in this human life both then and now.
We say or hear on Ash Wednesday the remarkable phrase: “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” This year it can be an invitation for us to talk and grieve with our community about how awfully painful these days are. We are invited to do so, however, while keeping the other real fact in mind: Those words are said and heard on a day in which we also know that, even in the midst of suffering and death, Easter is also our reality.

May our Ash Wednesday proclamation and celebration this year be a glimpse of realistic hope that will help us to face together these excruciating and painful times. We know that Easter will come. Though tomorrow is uncertain, we do know that Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Hallelujah!

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

...our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it
— Amanda Gorman, in “The Hill We Climb”

I was riven by Amanda Gorman's fiercely resolute poem for the inauguration, drawn not only by the images of light, but the way she lays out what the light demands of us. Where can we find light, she asks, among all the shade of events recent and distant? Look around, look inside. Strive, not for the perfect union, but "forge a union with purpose." Look not at "what stands between us/but what stands before us".

She demands we see ourselves, see each other, as aflame, always alight, always light. If you wish, she whispers, you can be all flame.

Jesus, Light of the World, shine upon us, and within us.
Shine the light of hope into our despondency;
Shine the light of truth into our world, and into our minds;
Shine the light of peace into places of division and conflict;
Shine the light of new possibilities into our stuckness;
Shine the light of joy and laughter into our boredom;
Shine the light of faith and trust into our fears and anxiety;
Shine the light of your presence into our loneliness;
Jesus, Light of the World, shine upon us, and within us.


Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation