Twenty Years

     Last night, I commented on the photo below with the following comment, "this was a proud moment!"  And yes indeed, it was a proud moment!  Hannah was showing a Karate master her "yoi stance," and he was impressed.

     Yet, I have to admit that I had another brooding feeling that made me less than proud.  I was not comfortable with the way that Hannah's mother looked as she gazed upon her daughter with pride.  I had to look at the picture a few times to realize that indeed, that large woman, barely fitting in her karate gi was, in fact, me.
      As I went to sleep last night, I recalled the year between March 2008 and March 2009 when I successfully lost 60 pounds.  By the time I received my 25 pound prize from Weight Watchers, and certainly when I received the prize for 50 pounds, I had a reached a healthy place where weight loss wasn't difficult, it was just something I had learned to do.  When I learned I was pregnant in March of 2009, my midwife warned me that "fat cells have memories."  She suggested that I not gain much weight with my pregnancy, and she also warned that it would be difficult not to gain because fat cells want to return (the body craves stasis, even if that stasis is unhealthy).  2 1/2 years later, I have proven that her theory is correct; while I am still 22 pounds less than I was in March 2008, I have gained back 40 of the original 60 pounds.  I now long for those days in 08/09 when losing weight didn't seem like a chore at all.
     I have been a member of Weight Watchers since we arrived in Michigan City.  And while I am pleased that I have not gained a pound (and actually lost a few along the way), I am greatly bothered by the fact that I have not learned to embrace health again.  It is part of my psyche and concern often times during the day, but the passion and the drive from 2008/09 has not returned.
     As I reflect upon this last year of ministry, I am aware that I am focusing upon my ministry "as if my life depended upon it."  Why, last night, I lost sleep because I wasn't sure how I was going to keep the positive and welcoming energy alive with our church softball team, while remaining true to the church softball rules (which require that every member of the team be an official member of the church).  Because I spent 8 anxious months on severance pay prior to receiving my current call, ministry seems like a life or death situation; when I wasn't in ministry, I worried about how I would support my family's lives in the future.
     But ministry is not supposed to be anxious.  My congregation has not called me to serve from a place of fear, but from a place of wholeness. We are called to serve a God "who has not given us a spirit of fear," whose gift of love casts out all fear and is filled with grace and compassion.
     In the midst of participating in ministry from a place of fear and anxiety, I have forgotten to care for my body "as if my life depended upon it."

    Today marks 20 years since our family lost my father.  I was brought to tears this morning when I did the math in my head and realized that I have been grieving for him for that many years.  When I think about my high school graduation, my brother's college graduation, my sister's wedding, and the birth of each of his five beautiful grandchildren, I grieve for the experiences that he has missed.  He struggled with, and lost a battle with, the disease of obesity then, as I struggle with the disease today.
     20 years from now, Hannah will be nearly 23 and becoming an adult.  I will be there with her to companion her on her journey if I begin to care for my body "as if my life depended upon it." And then I can continue to care for my family and my congregation from a place of freedom and grace.

I Know My Own and My Own Know Me

I Know My Own and My Own Know Me

April 29, 2012

John 10: 11-18

Rev. Ericka Parkinson Kilbourne

11 ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.¹²The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.¹³The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.¹⁴I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,¹⁵just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.¹⁶I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.¹⁷For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.¹⁸No one takes^* it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.’

            Who really knows you?  Your spouse, your children, your parents, your best friend, your co-workers, your church friends?  And what does it mean that they know you? That they know your name…perhaps first, middle and last?  That they know your favorite ice cream flavor or exactly how you like your coffee?  Or is it that they know just the right way to aggravate you or just the right way to make you laugh when a tense situation has arisen? Or is that the one person who really knows you is the one, as it is often quoted, knows all about you, and loves you anyway?

            Since graduating from high school, I have moved to a new state six times, and each time to a new state and new situation.   Nothing is lonelier than feeling “unknown.”  While it is exciting and sometimes refreshing to move to a new place, it is also somewhat exhausting having to introduce yourself, look for common ground between yourself and possible new friends, and then to tell stories about your past, your passions, your loves and your very self in order to come to a place where you are “known.”  We have almost been here in Michigan City for a year, and I have to say that I am delighted to embrace the fact that I feel comfortable and fairly known here in the city, in our neighborhood at the courts, and here in our congregation.

            No matter how much we want to be known, and no matter what level of comfort and safety and reliability come with being known, there is always a piece or two, sometimes larger than others, that we want to keep to ourselves, though. Do you find that to be true?  We want to go where everyone knows our name, but not necessarily where everyone knows our whole being.  I’ve been reading a little bit about shame for the doctoral thesis I am writing, and one of the best definitions I have found is this: shame is when you have failed to manage to keep up the façade of the “You” you wish to share with the world.” In other words, there is the “you” that you want to make known, when making new friends, when beginning a relationship, when building a relationship…and then there’s the “you” you’d rather keep hidden.  Like all the bad habits that all of us have.  Chewing your nails, having a quick temper, forgetting things easily, being impatient, secretly loving soap operas but all the while saying, “well, I don’t really watch much television,”…and then there are things that only a roommate or spouse can find out about us…snoring, leaving the toilet seat up, finishing the carton of milk and leaving it in the refrigerator. And then there are those deeper things we keep hidden, and we pray that not even the person sleeping next to us will find out…the feelings of doubt…when we doubt ourselves, when we doubt our God…the feelings of resentment we might still hold for a family member or former friend.  Regret for something that happened five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago.

            Yes, no matter how much we would like to be “known,” there are those certain things that we would rather remain “unknown,” to most or all of the rest of the world.  When we feel shame, it’s not that we feel guilty about one thing, ask for forgiveness, and then move on.  No, when we feel shame, our entire being is wrapped up in that one feeling, and we wish to hide our entire selves. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, their fall, their choosing to eat of the apple, lead them to be entirely ashamed of themselves, and so they hid.

            And so we hide, too. Hide those things which seem to horrible, too awful to share. We declare, “If you knew this about me, well you just wouldn’t love me anymore.”  And we spend a great amount of time and effort to put forth the “self” which we want to be seen and known, and we hide the “self” of which we are ashamed.  And while some of this is just good manners and being socially aware, all too often, we are doing damage to ourselves with all of our hiding, with all of our masking.

            That is why this scripture is so comforting to me.  Jesus says that he is the good shepherd, and that he knows his own his own know him.  It’s comforting when I’m living in a new place, or perhaps entering a new situation, meeting new people, and feeling lonely and “unknown:” I can always rely on God, through Christ, to be familiar.  And most importantly, I can rely upon the fact that God, through Christ, knows me.  When I moved to Mississippi, right after college, I couldn’t have been more of a fish out of water.  In that small town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, I was quite old to be unmarried, it was quite uncommon to be a woman pursuing a call and vocation in the ministry, and my thoughts on race, when I expressed them, were strange and threatening.  At one point, the United Methodist minister suggested that I not quote Martin Luther King Jr. again, the next time I addressed a crowd at his church.  I can honestly say that I have never been lonelier than I was in those first six months of my ministry there. And at the same time, I can honestly say that my relationship with God was strengthened in a way that it never had before.  In the midst of loneliness, in being misunderstood, in being rejected, I never relied so much on the fact that God knew me…and that I was loved by God.

            Being known by God through Christ is not only comforting when we are alone or lonely, but it is also comforting when we are hiding our true selves from others.  At first, it may feel a bit threatening or scary that God knows us….knows everything there is to know about us…God knows the self that we put forward in the community, at work, at church, in our neighborhood, and God knows the self beyond our “public self.”  God knows and loves our quirkiness, our messiness, our compulsive idiosyncrasies.  Anyone who has ever spent any time with sheep know that it is not the shepherd’s job to love only the perfect and well-mannered sheep…if that were true, there would be no sheep to tend.  Sheep are messy, they are unruly, they are impatient and don’t excel at cooperation.  So are all of us, at times.  And if it were the great shepherd’s job to tend to only the perfect and well-behaved sheep among us, then there would be none to tend for that shepherd, either.

            John Calvin writes in the beginning of his Institutes on the Christian religion that the more we learn about ourselves, the more we learn about God, and that vice-versa, the more we learn about God, the more we learn about ourselves.

            Jesus said that he is the Good Shepherd, that he knows his own and his own know him.  May we live into this message.  May we begin to know more and more about ourselves, as we grow into an understanding that by grace and through Jesus Christ, our God knows all there is to know about us and loves us anyway.

            And may we grow to know more and more about God, who calls us into authentic relationships, that while studying scripture, worshiping, and serving, we might know more about ourselves and each other.

            May we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd this morning: “I know my own and my own know me.”  Amen.

No One is Alone

http://www.internetismyreligion.com/
Today we watched the above testimony in my DMin Class at McCormick Theological Seminary (Gospel and Global Media Cultures).
When we reflected afterward, I shared my immediate feelings out loud (as most extroverts do!).  I was vascilating between being deeply moved and inspired by his speech and also wary of what seemed to be a veneration of the created, rather than of the Creator.  In other words, I was drawn to his description of God, and the ways in which he experienced God through the utterly selfless gifts of the humans who made his life possible, and at the same time, my dogmatic and theological mind wondered if this was merely a statement of the ways in which humanity was god, which would mean that there is no God at all.
This evening, while making dinner, Hannah and I listened to what is now our favorite musical, Into the Woods.  In particular, we listened to "No One is Alone," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-3YJijA5Rw
As we listened, I was reminded of Jim Gilliam's reflection, and especially his description of the days when he was near death and only had the promise of a button which he would press to gain momentary relief from his pain.  As he desribed this harrowing experience, the only point of connection I could conjure up from my experience was from when I suffered from extreme post-partum depression after my daughter was born.  This does seem to (and it does!) pale in comparison to his experience, and yet it is the time in my life when I experienced what theologians call "the absence of God."  In those months, I did not know and could not access God.  In many ways, I have never been so alone as I was in that experience.  In the two and half years since then, my faith has been slowly repaired...and as I reflect back upon its reparation, this has mostly happened through the ways in which God has worked through humanity. 
God does not work only through humanity, but surely, it is (and has been) through humanity that God works in many beautiful and incarnational ways.
I am grateful for Jim Gilliam's witness.

Pastor Mama

This morning I preached from the lectionary text, John 3: 1-16 http://bible.oremus.org/  The claim statement of the sermon was, "Today is Trinity Sunday.  And instead of giving you a 3-point lecture on the intricacies of the doctrine of the Trinity, so that we might know it and explain it even better, I was rather inspired to revel in and explore the fact that our faith is not something we own, or have, or control, but rather, in Trinitarian language, our faith can be summed up in the words of David Lose, “it is through the unpredictable power of the Spirit that we can receive Jesus as God’s surprising and unexpected messiah who reveals to us the gracious and loving nature of the Father.” (David Lose, Luther Seminary, St. Paul Minnesota) May it be so."
After church, there was a pool party for the youth, to which I arrived late because I needed to meet with a couple for pre-marital counseling.  When I finally arrived, my two-year old, who had been at the party since it began, was losing her patience. I had given clear instructions that she was not to go in the pool without me.  After the party, two of the youth asked if they could come back to our apartment and later asked their parents if they could have a sleep over.  They watched Hannah for about an hour while I attempted to nap. We then embarked upon an adventure which was to include dinner, a park, ice cream, and grocery shopping.
 I explain all of this to set the scene of what occored many hours after my "inspired sermon" about the unpredictability of God.  In line at the grocery store, at quarter to nine, as my two year old attempts to open every package in the cart, the pre-teens are doing their best to stop her (and all the while losing their patience), and I'm wondering just how I got to this very place on the night before a doctoral class is to begin in Chicago.  Looking for inspiration, I turned to the 12-year-old and asked, "what was my sermon about this morning?  Oh, right, the unpredictability of God!"
And that is when my attitude was turned to gratitude. Gratitude for the amazing abilities of the two-year-old who had peeled the label off of the peanut butter container before I had a chance to buy it, gratitude for the intelligence of the 10-year-old who just explained in great detail what his sugar rushes entail (AFTER I bought him a freezy, juicy something at Dairy Queen), gratitude for the 12-year-old who remembered to bring napkins when I forgot them, and gratitude for my husband who rested this afternoon so he could prepare for a week of parenting solo.
"The wind^* blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’  I am grateful for the movement of the Spirit.