Apart from all else I enjoyed and admired about this, the closing note about the traditional Chinese style struck a major chord with me. Because, despite my very European (German, Scotch-Irish) ancestry, I think my essays often take on this same form. For the best posted example, see Colorful Language. Does it fit the style you're describing?
I’m sad too about the SBC decision. I became a Christian in high school and made my profession of faith in an SBC church. I have had three females pastors in the past 20 years and words from them have challenged my spiritual growth and helped me understand the nature of God. What is so puzzling is that for the most part it is the women of the church who have guided children and youth, so the early spiritual formation of female and male has been guided by women. I guess it is time for men to start working in nurseries and teaching 3 year olds!
Thank you for sharing Lao Tzu's wisdom with us. It is good to remember that soft, patient gentleness can prevail. What a week! (Though it was delightful to see you and Amanda Opelt harvesting scapes at the same time. The delight of gardeners. 😊)
We are in the throes of figuring out how to convert the sprinkler system in our front lawn into a simple drip system for the grapes and pollinators we are replacing it with. We are tired, low-energy desk workers with no clue how this stuff works. But we will gamely watch videos and give it a go.
We are not particularly handy in this household. So much of what we've accomplished—by which I mainly mean what Tristan has accomplished—has been done with the help of YouTube.
You have poetic sensibilities--that’s why I am so thrilled to hold your “fragments,” read your non-linearity! Thank you for tending our gardens. With or in spite of regularity. Thank you for naming our tensions and holding them with us, thank you for your odes to bumblebees and cherry trees in our urban fantasies. “To be like water.” You are a gift to us all.
I have only been in the HUDSONVILLE CRC 10 years. I was formally Baptized. I watch the entire synod. Thursday was a stressful day to watch the pain and tears of person after person. At times I wanted to turn it off. But I didn’t. I’ve been through two church splits. Baptist. I won’t leave my church. I don’t think l can speak to this. I hope someone can help me make sense of this.
I belong to a far-flung CRC church (all the way down in South Bend - gasp!)...and actually I should say "belonged." We rescinded our membership in January over the LGBTQ+ issues poisoning true unity in the denomination, and by extension, our church home. We still attend as non-members and are every bit as involved with the people-now-family we have been walking alongside these past 15 years, but we can not in good conscience be officially aligned with a denomination that bars entry from anyone, let alone the numerous queer teenagers we are so blessed to share life with through relationships with our own teenagers. Our specific church has been a little slower than we'd like in deciding how open to be, and therefore, whether we continue to stay or whether we find another church home is a repeated conversation at our dinner table. I guess we're just trying to figure out what it means to "be like water" in this place and in this situation -- and how we simultaneously protect the young, impressionable hearts and lives around us. It's as clear as mud right now. How long do we wait for it to settle while in the meantime real people are being harmed? <sigh>
You could ask 100 people what it might mean to be like water in any given situation and you'd probably get 100 different answers. I think one key to understanding the metaphor is to realize that water is active even when it doesn't seem to be moving. By its very presence, it's available to nourish those who need it, and with its weight, it applies gentle but steady pressure. Similarly, your loving presence can sustain those who need that embrace, and your witness can remind your congregation of your convictions. To be clear, I am not saying you should stay and I am not saying you should go; that's not for me to say. But if you do choose to stay, your presence *can* do these things.
Elsewhere, Lao Tzu writes that humans "are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry." I take this to mean that he encourages us to remain openhearted, nimble, and flexible, to not become hardhearted, bitter, or jaded. This, too, I think is a form of gentle and loving witness.
In the words of my Pentecostal friends, "That's a good word." As someone who is more likely to attempt to be a tsunami than a small pool, I needed to hear that my simply being there can bring about loving change, especially if I can manage to stay soft. My husband often jokes about my "justice meter," and really, it's far too easy for that sense of justice to turn into furor and force.
You took a moment to be a pastor here in this comment thread. Thank you so much.
I am profoundly sad to see the church get in the way of the gospel once again. I was born and bred in the CRC, but don’t see a path to staying at the moment. What I find most troubling is the uncharacteristic speed of the decision. In a denomination that typically struggles to keep pace with a glacier in its decision making, on this issue the synod acted drastically in one year and reaffirmed in one more year. To so decisively rule on an issue with clearly different view points leads me to believe the decision was political rather than theological. That in and of itself is troubling. My garden consists of only containers for the first time. I am thoroughly enjoying the progress of peas, several lettuce and radish varieties, beets, peppers, spaghetti squash, and cucumber. Such simple joy in watching their growth!
But also may God grant us his wisdom in all its rich Variety, knowing that diversity is what he has called the church to, a multi faceted surface that shines his light in rainbows that break up the darkness.
Thank you, Jeff. I always feel enriched and encouraged by your writing. I am the daughter of an Air Force chaplain, grew up on Air Force bases except one year in my dad’s hometown in WA, where I attended a Christian school of the CRC variety, went to Calvin, and have been a member of San Jose CRC for over 44 years. They have been our extended family all those years and helped to raise our children. I love them and my denomination’s legacy. I feel so saddened by what is happening. Thank you for your gracious reflections.
“Be like water.” That will stick with me awhile. So beautiful and challenging.
I’m sitting with your assessment of the Yoshino Cherry tree and that we can be “fundamentalists” about many things, even trees. “…seeing things as they actually are, not as we wish they would be.” Well there’s another line I’ll be noodling on for awhile. “Seeing things as they actually are” can be labeled as selling out. Instead, is it more like “being like water?” Water permeates and molds and even destroys. Is it possible that accepting things as they are and being more like water that permeates around the things might have more power than trying to fight what actually is?
I think of two examples, one from my current work world where our company of 300ish people was purchased by a Fortune 100 company. For 18 months the previous owners have been fighting for everything to stay the same. When I suggest we instead accept that this is our reality and embrace where we are, the implication is that I'm giving up or selling out.
Second, I find that sometimes I struggle to stay with communities of faith (fundamental evangelicalism in particular), and feel like staying might be selling out on my values of inclusion. I am always inspired by your ability to stay with and in the reformed church when I want to run from it. In this case I'm judging myself the way others in my work life may judge me.
Thanks for clarifying. Yes, it helps me to understand what you're getting at. I don't know what role you play in either of these systems that you describe. In the first example, perhaps part of seeing things as they actually are means empathizing with the unprocessed grief and the desire for control that are probably inspiring that desire for things to stay the same. In the second, as I said to someone else, I can't say that anyone should stay in a faith community or that anyone should go; all I can do is nudge people to do what is right for them for the right reasons. And in that instance, seeing things as they actually are means understanding one's own motives for staying or going.
Your notes are always a place of peaceful refuge in my day, and you help me think more deeply and broadly on whatever topics you're writing. You also regularly bring me "home" to our family's 8 year experience living in Shanghai and Singapore almost 20 years ago, and I love that so much! Never quit!!
How powerful and love embracing are your words. The fact that I was in a pretty much equally and blue state has tipped quite dramatically red. The newcomers are many with great wealth and came to a beautiful place to put a heavy footprint on acceptance of all. You are beyond inspiring. Can’t wait for your book
Thanks as always for your compassionate and truthful approach to writing about pain and despair and hope. I've been surprised as a female pastor at how the news has affected me. I'm not Baptist, nor do I have any connection to the SBC. I've found, however, that this very public display of something that I encounter all the time in community and ecumenical spaces has felt like a magnet pulling together all of the pain and rage and exhaustion that usually are manageable in their small pieces. It gives me some amount of gratefulness that others get to see so clearly what I deal with all the time. Interestingly, my first thought when you wrote about being like water was relief, that instead of trying to change the whole landscape I could get back to the gentle, steadfast work that I love, my own stream's work around the rocks and plants and wildlife to whom I was sent. Rather than trying to harden myself and control others, I could surrender yet again to the truth that sets me free. I had a seminary classmate who began grad school saying that he didn't believe in women preaching. Then he had a class where God spoke to him profoundly through a female professor, and he decided that hey, apparently God does speak and teach through women. That gives me hope (along with a small eye roll) that simply doing the work I feel called to can change minds more than trying to convince people. As far as what I'm growing, I'm relatively early into a relationship with a wonderful person who has far too much faith in my ability to keep plants alive. I am currently learning as best as I can how to tend to many new botanical roommates while also learning to tend to our budding relationship. In the midst of the frustration of the SBC news along with so much else, it has been therapeutic to tend to these lovely growing things in my life.
Your notes are indeed a 'peaceful refuge', as Glenna wrote below.
'Be like water.'.. I can almost hear a quiet bubbling brook as I read- steady, sustaining. My husband was a CRC pastor for the past 16 years (Montana & Central California). Last year, we left pastoral ministry & this denomination I was born into. We moved to the east coast, where my husband is completing a Chaplain Residency program. At the age of 57, we're starting over with subdued joy and trust in God's goodness, but with other emotions as well: grief, uncertainty, & lament. I'm grateful when water also reminds me of the Spirit as a life-giving spring, as the One who flows & refreshes & convicts & guides me to love & grace & hope.
Thank you, Jeff, for your compassionate and truthful words as we live in life's tensions. Very grateful for your leadership in God's family!
I'm living in southeast Finland (South Karelia), and from our balcony, we have a beautiful view of Lake Saimaa, the largest lake in Finland. This week, I went wading in the lake and I was thinking about the very thing you mentioned about water having this sense of healing and gentleness, but at the same time being incredibly strong and powerful. When I think about the people who have inspired me the most, I see those same characteristics, gentleness and power intertwined. I think of my mom who has this gentle loving heart and who also has a fiery spirit and will fight unceasingly for what she believes in and to empower and protect those she loves.
Like you and many others, I am deeply saddened by the decision made by the Southern Baptist Church. In times of hardship, we find unity.
I'm originally from Missoula, Montana. As you might have heard, Montana has a transgender representative in the legislature whom others tried to silence when she spoke against laws that would harm transgender and other LGBTQ+ youth. Their efforts to silence her ended up amplifying her voice, and she has been featured in many publications and has had multiple interviews. So, I can only hope that this effort by the Southern Baptist Church to silence women will only serve to empower and amplify their voices.
Apart from all else I enjoyed and admired about this, the closing note about the traditional Chinese style struck a major chord with me. Because, despite my very European (German, Scotch-Irish) ancestry, I think my essays often take on this same form. For the best posted example, see Colorful Language. Does it fit the style you're describing?
The art was lovely on your blog!
I’m sad too about the SBC decision. I became a Christian in high school and made my profession of faith in an SBC church. I have had three females pastors in the past 20 years and words from them have challenged my spiritual growth and helped me understand the nature of God. What is so puzzling is that for the most part it is the women of the church who have guided children and youth, so the early spiritual formation of female and male has been guided by women. I guess it is time for men to start working in nurseries and teaching 3 year olds!
Let's hope so. Amen.
Thank you for sharing Lao Tzu's wisdom with us. It is good to remember that soft, patient gentleness can prevail. What a week! (Though it was delightful to see you and Amanda Opelt harvesting scapes at the same time. The delight of gardeners. 😊)
We are in the throes of figuring out how to convert the sprinkler system in our front lawn into a simple drip system for the grapes and pollinators we are replacing it with. We are tired, low-energy desk workers with no clue how this stuff works. But we will gamely watch videos and give it a go.
We are not particularly handy in this household. So much of what we've accomplished—by which I mainly mean what Tristan has accomplished—has been done with the help of YouTube.
You have poetic sensibilities--that’s why I am so thrilled to hold your “fragments,” read your non-linearity! Thank you for tending our gardens. With or in spite of regularity. Thank you for naming our tensions and holding them with us, thank you for your odes to bumblebees and cherry trees in our urban fantasies. “To be like water.” You are a gift to us all.
I have only been in the HUDSONVILLE CRC 10 years. I was formally Baptized. I watch the entire synod. Thursday was a stressful day to watch the pain and tears of person after person. At times I wanted to turn it off. But I didn’t. I’ve been through two church splits. Baptist. I won’t leave my church. I don’t think l can speak to this. I hope someone can help me make sense of this.
I belong to a far-flung CRC church (all the way down in South Bend - gasp!)...and actually I should say "belonged." We rescinded our membership in January over the LGBTQ+ issues poisoning true unity in the denomination, and by extension, our church home. We still attend as non-members and are every bit as involved with the people-now-family we have been walking alongside these past 15 years, but we can not in good conscience be officially aligned with a denomination that bars entry from anyone, let alone the numerous queer teenagers we are so blessed to share life with through relationships with our own teenagers. Our specific church has been a little slower than we'd like in deciding how open to be, and therefore, whether we continue to stay or whether we find another church home is a repeated conversation at our dinner table. I guess we're just trying to figure out what it means to "be like water" in this place and in this situation -- and how we simultaneously protect the young, impressionable hearts and lives around us. It's as clear as mud right now. How long do we wait for it to settle while in the meantime real people are being harmed? <sigh>
You could ask 100 people what it might mean to be like water in any given situation and you'd probably get 100 different answers. I think one key to understanding the metaphor is to realize that water is active even when it doesn't seem to be moving. By its very presence, it's available to nourish those who need it, and with its weight, it applies gentle but steady pressure. Similarly, your loving presence can sustain those who need that embrace, and your witness can remind your congregation of your convictions. To be clear, I am not saying you should stay and I am not saying you should go; that's not for me to say. But if you do choose to stay, your presence *can* do these things.
Elsewhere, Lao Tzu writes that humans "are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry." I take this to mean that he encourages us to remain openhearted, nimble, and flexible, to not become hardhearted, bitter, or jaded. This, too, I think is a form of gentle and loving witness.
In the words of my Pentecostal friends, "That's a good word." As someone who is more likely to attempt to be a tsunami than a small pool, I needed to hear that my simply being there can bring about loving change, especially if I can manage to stay soft. My husband often jokes about my "justice meter," and really, it's far too easy for that sense of justice to turn into furor and force.
You took a moment to be a pastor here in this comment thread. Thank you so much.
I am profoundly sad to see the church get in the way of the gospel once again. I was born and bred in the CRC, but don’t see a path to staying at the moment. What I find most troubling is the uncharacteristic speed of the decision. In a denomination that typically struggles to keep pace with a glacier in its decision making, on this issue the synod acted drastically in one year and reaffirmed in one more year. To so decisively rule on an issue with clearly different view points leads me to believe the decision was political rather than theological. That in and of itself is troubling. My garden consists of only containers for the first time. I am thoroughly enjoying the progress of peas, several lettuce and radish varieties, beets, peppers, spaghetti squash, and cucumber. Such simple joy in watching their growth!
Thank you.
So many things.
Yes! Let’s Hope so.
But also may God grant us his wisdom in all its rich Variety, knowing that diversity is what he has called the church to, a multi faceted surface that shines his light in rainbows that break up the darkness.
(Ephesians 3:10 )
Jeff, Thank you for the lesson on Lao Tzu. I like the Chinese method of circling around a topic from different perspectives. D
Thank you, Jeff. I always feel enriched and encouraged by your writing. I am the daughter of an Air Force chaplain, grew up on Air Force bases except one year in my dad’s hometown in WA, where I attended a Christian school of the CRC variety, went to Calvin, and have been a member of San Jose CRC for over 44 years. They have been our extended family all those years and helped to raise our children. I love them and my denomination’s legacy. I feel so saddened by what is happening. Thank you for your gracious reflections.
“Be like water.” That will stick with me awhile. So beautiful and challenging.
I’m sitting with your assessment of the Yoshino Cherry tree and that we can be “fundamentalists” about many things, even trees. “…seeing things as they actually are, not as we wish they would be.” Well there’s another line I’ll be noodling on for awhile. “Seeing things as they actually are” can be labeled as selling out. Instead, is it more like “being like water?” Water permeates and molds and even destroys. Is it possible that accepting things as they are and being more like water that permeates around the things might have more power than trying to fight what actually is?
Kari, can you say more about what you mean when you say that seeing things as they actually are can be labeled as selling out?
I think of two examples, one from my current work world where our company of 300ish people was purchased by a Fortune 100 company. For 18 months the previous owners have been fighting for everything to stay the same. When I suggest we instead accept that this is our reality and embrace where we are, the implication is that I'm giving up or selling out.
Second, I find that sometimes I struggle to stay with communities of faith (fundamental evangelicalism in particular), and feel like staying might be selling out on my values of inclusion. I am always inspired by your ability to stay with and in the reformed church when I want to run from it. In this case I'm judging myself the way others in my work life may judge me.
Hope that is helpful to clarify.
Thanks for clarifying. Yes, it helps me to understand what you're getting at. I don't know what role you play in either of these systems that you describe. In the first example, perhaps part of seeing things as they actually are means empathizing with the unprocessed grief and the desire for control that are probably inspiring that desire for things to stay the same. In the second, as I said to someone else, I can't say that anyone should stay in a faith community or that anyone should go; all I can do is nudge people to do what is right for them for the right reasons. And in that instance, seeing things as they actually are means understanding one's own motives for staying or going.
Your notes are always a place of peaceful refuge in my day, and you help me think more deeply and broadly on whatever topics you're writing. You also regularly bring me "home" to our family's 8 year experience living in Shanghai and Singapore almost 20 years ago, and I love that so much! Never quit!!
How powerful and love embracing are your words. The fact that I was in a pretty much equally and blue state has tipped quite dramatically red. The newcomers are many with great wealth and came to a beautiful place to put a heavy footprint on acceptance of all. You are beyond inspiring. Can’t wait for your book
Thanks as always for your compassionate and truthful approach to writing about pain and despair and hope. I've been surprised as a female pastor at how the news has affected me. I'm not Baptist, nor do I have any connection to the SBC. I've found, however, that this very public display of something that I encounter all the time in community and ecumenical spaces has felt like a magnet pulling together all of the pain and rage and exhaustion that usually are manageable in their small pieces. It gives me some amount of gratefulness that others get to see so clearly what I deal with all the time. Interestingly, my first thought when you wrote about being like water was relief, that instead of trying to change the whole landscape I could get back to the gentle, steadfast work that I love, my own stream's work around the rocks and plants and wildlife to whom I was sent. Rather than trying to harden myself and control others, I could surrender yet again to the truth that sets me free. I had a seminary classmate who began grad school saying that he didn't believe in women preaching. Then he had a class where God spoke to him profoundly through a female professor, and he decided that hey, apparently God does speak and teach through women. That gives me hope (along with a small eye roll) that simply doing the work I feel called to can change minds more than trying to convince people. As far as what I'm growing, I'm relatively early into a relationship with a wonderful person who has far too much faith in my ability to keep plants alive. I am currently learning as best as I can how to tend to many new botanical roommates while also learning to tend to our budding relationship. In the midst of the frustration of the SBC news along with so much else, it has been therapeutic to tend to these lovely growing things in my life.
Your notes are indeed a 'peaceful refuge', as Glenna wrote below.
'Be like water.'.. I can almost hear a quiet bubbling brook as I read- steady, sustaining. My husband was a CRC pastor for the past 16 years (Montana & Central California). Last year, we left pastoral ministry & this denomination I was born into. We moved to the east coast, where my husband is completing a Chaplain Residency program. At the age of 57, we're starting over with subdued joy and trust in God's goodness, but with other emotions as well: grief, uncertainty, & lament. I'm grateful when water also reminds me of the Spirit as a life-giving spring, as the One who flows & refreshes & convicts & guides me to love & grace & hope.
Thank you, Jeff, for your compassionate and truthful words as we live in life's tensions. Very grateful for your leadership in God's family!
I'm living in southeast Finland (South Karelia), and from our balcony, we have a beautiful view of Lake Saimaa, the largest lake in Finland. This week, I went wading in the lake and I was thinking about the very thing you mentioned about water having this sense of healing and gentleness, but at the same time being incredibly strong and powerful. When I think about the people who have inspired me the most, I see those same characteristics, gentleness and power intertwined. I think of my mom who has this gentle loving heart and who also has a fiery spirit and will fight unceasingly for what she believes in and to empower and protect those she loves.
Like you and many others, I am deeply saddened by the decision made by the Southern Baptist Church. In times of hardship, we find unity.
I'm originally from Missoula, Montana. As you might have heard, Montana has a transgender representative in the legislature whom others tried to silence when she spoke against laws that would harm transgender and other LGBTQ+ youth. Their efforts to silence her ended up amplifying her voice, and she has been featured in many publications and has had multiple interviews. So, I can only hope that this effort by the Southern Baptist Church to silence women will only serve to empower and amplify their voices.