More Ponderings for the New Year

As I prepare to enter a new term at Fuller Northwest, I am instructed to reflect on the life and times of Paul through a particular text book, and in the midst of my reading, I find myself pondering the time a few years earlier, when my Lord was present on the earth.  Looking ahead to Epiphany, holding the season of Christmastide in my heart, and thinking about my own life and times, I lay my questions in the lap of my Papa-God.

Jesus, my Love, as I read about the Mediterranean world, I wonder where you found Yourself socially. Did You know what it was like to go hungry for more than a few hours while You grew up? When did Joseph die or fall out of the picture? He was a craftsman, and artist, a carpenter. Did this mean You were above the servant class and never had to worry about Your meals? Or did Your family struggle to make ends meet?  Did You watch the sparrows because Your stomach was empty or were you able to study because You didn’t have to beg for Your food?


Where did Your solidarity with the poor come from? What fueled Your compassion? Did You carry it with You from the Throne of Grace or was it fostered through experience and observation of the world around You?

Am I anything like You, Beloved? Can others see You by looking at my life? When You grew to be a man, did you intentionally choose a life of simplicity in the nomadic style? Or was it fairly common in Your time? Were people drawn to You because they could see some reflection of themselves in You, or You in themselves? How did You foster hope in those who followed You? How can I do the same? How can I become more like You?

Can I be in solidarity with the poor and still own property? If I’m called to serve the poor, is it right for me to be comfortable and well-fed? If I’m called to the “untouchables”, do I need to become an outcast myself?

Beloved, how can I become more like You?

Pondering the Light: Beginning the New Year in Question

Photo by Trista Wynne

It seems fitting to me to begin the new year with questions rather than with statements.  Not only do I not know what the future holds, but I have many questions about the past.  The more assertions I come across in my studies, the more I pause for reflection and pondering.  So, as the year of 2010 comes to an end, I begin my new journal with ponderings for my Lord.  I post some of them here in hopes that you also will approach the throne of grace with the confidence of knowing that no matter how deep your questionin might be, you will always be loved and accepted as a child of the Most High.

The ponderings below came in response to a song by a couple of my dear friends reflecting on Matthew 2:1-18, and a meditation by one of my professors on the same passage.  Thank you, dear sisters and brother in Christ, for sharing your song and meditations .  Here are my own ponderings as I speak to my Beloved, the Light of the world:

Light of the world, did you know the darkness You were coming into? Were You, as an infant, cognizant of the stench of death? While the blood of the innocents was shed around You, Mary comforted You with her breast, and Your presence comforted her, too. Like Moses, You entered the world in safety, but many did not see their second birthday while You were hidden away.

Did this weigh on You? When You were a child growing up in Nazareth, were You the only one Your age? Did you see the tears shining in Your father’s eyes at the Passover meal when he recited the way that Moses received his name and his people receive their freedom? Did the people speak in hushed tones as You played with the other children? Did you wonder what your life was preserved for? Did the blood of the innocents cry out to you from the ground as it did with Cain and Able? Was Your compassion deepened on account of this lamentation? Were you aware of their spirits crying out for justice?

When You grew to be a man, and accepted Your anointing, had You wrestled with Your past as well as Your future? Were You up late at night pondering the anguish of the world? Did You wake in the morning to the salty taste of tears on Your pillow? Were you always grieved by the pain of those around You?

I, too, hear the lament. Rachel cries out from every corner of the earth! Even the earth itself is grieved in spirit. How long, O Lord?! How long until every tear is wiped away? How long until everyone acknowledges, through actions of love and peace and justice, that You are Lord above all of creation? How long until Your world is consoled?

A Little Taste of Heaven: A Thanksgiving Reflection

Photo by Matt Wynne

 Several friends have recently pointed out that I like to talk, write or post about the joy that I find in foods and beverages. Having grown up in a family without a lot of money, I find myself intensely thankful when it comes to food, and I particularly delight in rich, comforting foods that we were never able to afford when I was young. And being a poet at heart, I can savor a moment of pleasure as though it were a taste of eternity. Delectable delicacies caress the palette of my tongue, taking me to lands of fantastical ecstasy, and all the while my inner being dances like a carefree child on a warm summer’s day.


On days like today, which is Thanksgiving here in America, while I savor the sweet aromatic spices and let the plethora of pleasantries lift my heart, my child-like spirit is joined by countless others delighting in festive treats and offering thanks and praise for all of the blessings in our lives. There is much to be thankful for, particularly if you are able to read this post, for you have electricity, warm shelter, and likely some form of employment with which to pay your bills. That is more than many have on this chilly day in November!

On days like today, I am incredibly thankful for a wide variety of blessings, but I offer particularly heartfelt praise for a few that I know what it is like to be without. This year my husband and I are spending Thanksgiving at home with our two kitties. We were unable to travel to be with family due to inclement weather, but that gives us even more reason to be thankful, because we have families who long for our presence. I pray today for you who have lost loved ones, or are estranged from the ones they once had relationships with, and I pray for you who are unable to travel to your loved ones because finances and distance are too heavy a burden to bear. I pray that all who are without will know the freedom of having all your needs met. I long to see the day when every mouth will be fed, when every person will have shelter and security, when all who are oppressed will know freedom and all their tormentors will receive justice and find freedom from their inner darkness, when every person will have clothing, warmth and comfort, and every person will know in every fiber of their being how very much they are loved!

Whether that day comes while I am alive and well in this lifetime, or long after my body has returned to the earth, as a Christian I do believe that day will come. Scripture tells us through the mouths of the prophets of old, that the day will come when true justice will be seen throughout the earth, when everyone will live in peace and security, when nations will no longer wage war against one another because all of creation will be healed, and when all beings, human and animal alike, will experience harmony and will know how much they are loved. I believe we were granted a glimpse of that great and glorious eternal day when Jesus the Christ walked the face of the earth, for He showed us what it was like to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to remove the burden of the oppressed, to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our Papa-God. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, in full communion with Papa-God, Jesus spoke parables that intend to turn the world upside down and to give us a glimpse of what heavenly justice will be like when that day fully comes. In Jesus, we received a little taste of the great feast awaiting us in the day to come.

On days like today, when wars continuously rage in many countries and others are on the brink of destruction, when tensions run high and finances of the most powerful countries are strained at best, when many families struggle to find the means by which to provide even the basic necessities of food, clothing, shelter and security, and when devastating physical ailments and mental illness afflict vast numbers while they attempt to re-establish some semblance of normalcy after traumatic disasters, on these days, I long for that feast day all the more! Even as I give thanks for the many ways in which I myself am blessed, I find that I am homesick for heaven, and so I join with countless others in the past, present and future, and pray boldly and longingly, O Lord, let Your kingdom come and Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven! Amen.

Fruit & Wine: The Joy and Challenge of Vineyard Life

"Waiting for Wine" - photo by Bernice & Trista

Having just returned from the Chateau St Michelle winery in Woodinville, I find myself reflecting on a note from the tour. Our guide talked about the reasoning for planting the vineyards in the semi-arid desert land of Eastern Washington and the benefits of the struggling grape vine. Vineyards that are planted close to the water are subject to a wide variety of conditions because of the maritime weather patterns, while those on the East side of the Cascades experience rather predictable weather year after year, particularly during the growing season. The combination of hot days and cool nights are most beneficial to produce a grape with a balance between acidity and sweetness. Too much heat leads to a soft, overly sweet grape, while too little heat lets the acid take over the flavor.

This makes me think about the content of life, how we are often placed in climates or situations that may at first seem entirely undesirable for what we want to accomplish. I imagine that the vines might complain as they struggle to produce their fruit. But in the midst of this, they have to put all their energy into producing good fruit for their vine growers. Sometimes it seems that this is the way of life; I can definitely relate to the plight of the vineyard.

I have found myself questioning at several points along the path why the Master Gardener placed me in certain situations or had me experience seasons of dryness and struggle. When it feels like I am not as well-decorated as my fellow vines or that their fruit is much larger and beautiful than my own, or when my mind is focused on my own growth and I’m simply dissatisfied with what I perceive as progress, I would do well to remember the vineyards of the Chateau. There, the vine tenders do not necessarily take the largest of grapes, nor do they look for the most decorated vines, instead they look for the specific fruit that will make the very best wine in the style they most desire at the time. Sometimes they let the vineyard sit without water for a certain amount of time in order to force the vines to root down deep, and at other times they’ll water freely.

So for us, we who are the branches on the Master’s vine, it means that our task is very simply to work on our root system, to find ways to tap into the Source of Living Water, whether that means prayer, fasting, observing worship practices that nurture us, doing works of justice in the world, absorbing Scripture, seeking Truth wherever it may be found, or leading a contemplative lifestyle. Different varieties of grapes need different growing conditions; we cannot say that because one is planted here that it is better or if they are planted there that it is worse. We do not know how the Master Gardener may use a different style vine than our own; we can only focus on growing our own fruit.

At the same time though, perhaps paradoxically, we who are called to tend the vine, even while being a part of the vine ourselves, must be aware of the conditions of the vineyard we are called to tend. If we, in our own community, have discerned that the fruit which our local vines are producing is not of top quality, or is not present at all, and we do not alter the conditions of the vineyard entrusted to us, it is we, not the fruitless vines, who will be held accountable. We have a responsibility to provide access to the Living Water in a variety of ways, and to help those who are seeking to find a place where they will find others who have similar root systems as their own, even if it is not within our vineyard.

Dear friends, do you see what I see? How boring it would be for us to enter a store and only have one kind of wine available! How much damage has been done to people that, if only they had been granted different growing conditions, or a different style of faith community, would have produced precious, delightful fruit for the Kingdom, but instead opted to jump out of the vineyard life altogether! Such is the risk we take when we have a single-mindedness about us in our teachings. When we say to a Riesling grape, “you should be Syrah,” or to a Chardonnay, “you should be a Merlot,” we are denying the Great Banquet Hall of heaven a variety of precious wines to celebrate with!  (See 1 Cor. 12.)

As for me, when I enjoy the heavenly banquet with my Lord, I look forward to a wide variety of fruit, lots of people with different ideologies gathered around the table, and an endless supply of delectable wines, that I, both as a vine and as one who tends the vineyard, aided in producing during my time on the earth. May I never loose sight of the fact that I am simply part of the vine, even when I am called to tend a vineyard here, amen!

The Infant’s Grasp: An Instinctual Response to the Eucharist

Photo by my friend, Grete Norquist

I had the privilege of holding an infant during the first portion of worship this evening. As we were singing and preparing our hearts to receive Communion, she slept soundly in my arms. In the passing of the peace she stirred and opened her beautiful eyes, seeming to greet each one as they gently touched her and shared the peace with us both. And then, after the words of institution were spoken, the wine poured and the bread broken, she began to stretch out her hand toward the table. The communion stewards came around sharing the elements with us all and her little hand reached toward the bread and the wine; she was instinctually reaching out for the representation of our Lord. Moments later she made signs of hunger and I passed her back to her mother so she could nurse. She was hungry so she simply asked for what she needed, and her desires were answered. This, indeed, is why we gather at the table of the Great Thanksgiving!


This makes me think about a sermon given this morning by Rev. Tom Steffen. He described the author of the 119th Psalm as having the markings of a lover, a connoisseur of the Divine Splendor we refer to as God; not a lover, connoisseur, or devotee first and foremost of the law itself…but a lover, a devotee who loves the [One to whom] the law points. Later he said that the psalmist was also a dancer, one whose study of the law exposed him to pure grace.

In these two statements and in the grasp of the infant at the Communion table, I find my soul’s longing and understand the reason for the darkness that has been gripping my spirit of late. Despite the joy I feel when I am at the altar, burning incense, lifting my prayers on the wings of music, (be it my own or someone else’s) or when I am internalizing Scripture like cakes of sweet honey, I find that when I depart to enter the other parts of life, my spirit is constantly longing for that place of surrender, of honesty, of fulfillment and wholeness. Nothing in this life is quite as satisfying to me as sitting at the feet of my Lord.

It is difficult to focus on the rigorous activity of studying when my heart is pulled elsewhere. I find it hard to be fully present in conversation or work or lecture when my spirit wants to be listening for my Master’s voice. My entire being aches with longing for my Beloved; I simply cannot get enough. The demands and rewards of the world seem superficial in comparison to the Deep Reality that I know when I am fully in the Lord’s presence. No wonder melancholy colors the edges of my life!

I want to sing and dance and run and skip and worship with the freedom of the little child I nanny! Oh how I long to jump into the arms of my Beloved and to be lifted high into the air, spun around and then held close so I can hear that precious heartbeat once more!

Ah, Beloved, Your creation yearns for Your presence! We are all sick with love and mourning, waiting for You to return! How hard it is to continue on when You seem so far away! How long, O Lord? Don’t you see how desperate we are for Your healing touch? Have You forgotten Your precious lovers here on the earth? It has been so long since the compassion of Your Holy Spirit was shown in powerful manifestations – this generation has nearly abandoned Your Way forgetting that You are Love. Even I cannot say that I am without doubt at times. And yet my own life is filled with time after time where Your grace and compassion and love were shown by others, and so I know that You Are… Oh my Love! Your Spirit-song is in the edges of my heart; grant me the courage to sing and to reach out for You – both looking to grasp Your hand and seeking to grasp others for Your name’s sake.


Here I am, Lord, stretching my hands to grasp You! I long to know You more, first and foremost as my Beloved, and then with my mind, and then to show what I know of You through my hands and my words. Draw near to me, Beloved, let me feel Your presence. Breathe Your Spirit deeply into my inner being and let me dance with You, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Putting the Pieces Together: A Refelction on Exegetical Method and Life



"Piecing together the Puzzle" - Photo by Trista Wynne

 This morning I find myself pondering the joys (and pains) of exegesis, that is, the searching of Scripture in its original language in an attempt to discern the intent or meaning of the original author. In many ways, it is as though we have been given a puzzle in a box without the lid that would have the full picture on it. We, however, are not completely lost, for those who have received this same box of pieces we now find before us have passed down their representations of how they have fit the pieces together in their lifetimes. The problem there lies in perhaps choosing one representation over another simply because we were taught to do so as children (or perhaps later, if we came to faith later on in life). If we want to simply take someone else’s word for it and stay with one vision of what the puzzle looks like in the end, we might just end up forcing pieces to fit where they weren’t intended by the One who designed, painted, cut and passed out the pieces in the first place.


Recently my husband and I endeavored to piece a puzzle of a thousand pieces together. We had purchased it on our honeymoon in San Francisco a year after we were married. The puzzle portrayed a three-hundred-sixty-five degree view of the inside of Alcatraz. Now, even though we had the box in front of us, it was an incredibly daunting task. There are a lot of bars of similar shade to be found in that picture. Not only that, but the pieces were cut in very similar shapes so that pieces would fit together whose pattern did not match each other at all. After only a few hours on the first day I stood up and walked away from the table deciding that I was done. I glared at it from across the living room and then leaned back on the couch, closed my eyes and promptly fell asleep; my husband continued to labor for another hour over the tedious work.

Now, we had accomplished a good deal right at the start. We noticed patterns and sorted the pieces into piles of like coloring, placing the yellowish ones here, the grayish ones there and the dark brown ones in another pile, and gathering the straight edges into one area. My first task was to fit the frame together. My husband focused on a section in the middle. When I had come to the end of all of the straight-edged pieces, some appeared to be missing. That couldn’t be; we had just opened the box! Searching high and low to find the presumably missing pieces, I scoured the piles until my eyes hurt and then some. That was when I had given up that evening. At the end of the night, we covered the work area with a couple of large flattened boxes to protect our work from the paws of our kitties.

A few weeks went by before we sat down to work on the puzzle again. With renewed vigor we plunged into our work, this time having a larger portion of visual satisfaction in the tangible results of our labors. We pieced small portions of the picture together on opposite ends of the table and then slid them together and found where they interlocked with the frame I had worked so hard on the first night. I would send a dark piece his way and he a light piece in my direction. This goes there, or that goes here, and the pieces would stay just long enough to be fit together with another and then sent to the other end of the table once again.

At one point into the third full day of working on our puzzle, my husband wondered about a couple of pieces on the sides. He pulled one from the left and one from the right side and placed them in the space where the supposedly missing pieces should be. He was right. They fit perfectly and still matched the pattern of light and shadow. The frame was now complete; I had simply placed a couple of pieces in the wrong place and assumed it was right because they fit. I was much encouraged by his discovery, and found that I had a renewed energy to continue on our endeavor together. On the third day the work was finished.

Exegesis is a bit like that puzzle work. We organize the pieces (stories, or fragments of stories called pericopes) into piles, sorting them by genre, attributing them to certain authors, observing themes and pondering the big pictures we each have received through our various traditions. This, like the gigantic puzzle which my husband and I worked on, is not a task to be done alone. It is created in such a way that the whole community of God needs to be involved. Sometimes we need someone else to ask what might happen if we rotate this piece, or to tap us on the shoulder and suggest that that piece might be better placed on the other end of the puzzle.

We are greatly blessed to have at our fingertips, or only a short drive away, access to material from some of the most thoughtful, soulful people throughout the history of our faith. I am a student working on the puzzle of interpreting the Scriptures for the community of God, practicing my work so that in time to come I will give others the tools they need to join me in this delicate, delightful, fulfilling work that has been set before us by the Great Artisan – our Lord, Creator of the world through the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ, one God throughout all time.

I am not alone. My work is in community. We support one another and bring to the table our own understandings based on the work of those who have gone before us and have left us pictures, poetry, songs and sermons giving us their unique perspectives regarding the work that we now have in our hands. I was raised in the tradition of Martin Luther, and I am grateful for such a deep structure of grace-filled roots. I also am delighted to be at the table with others who share their traditions drawing their inspiration from the herritage of people like John Wesley, John Calvin, and William Seymour. Together we tap into the deep, rich wells of the desert mothers and fathers like Anthony and Amma Syncletica, the sixteenth century mystics like Julian of Norwich and John of the Cross, the Eastern Orthodox saints like Catherine of Sienna and Basil the Great, the heritage of the Roman Catholic spiritualists like Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton and the charismatic lineage of Francis of Assisi and Aimee Semple McPherson.

Life is also a bit like this. Not one of us is alone. We were not born into or raised in a social vacuum. Each of us has the blessing of the interactions that have shaped us from before we were born. And I do mean blessing, for even the most difficult circumstances, when shared within a loving, prayerful, discerning community, can become the seedbed for the re-shaping of the families, neighborhoods and government entities around us for the benefit of the world. We each have been given a unique piece, something to add to, the puzzle of life. Through prayer, community interaction, introspection, reading of Scripture and involvement with the people and world around us, we can find our place in the multi-dimensional puzzle of life to the delight of our Great Love.

Here is what I hear the Lord speaking to me, and through me, today:

Beloved, do not be discouraged if you have been told to put your piece here or there, only to find that you are later picked up and placed in a completely new arena. Most of your inner-turmoil arises when you misinterpret My direction as a message to glue your piece down on the table rather than for the message of temporary placement that it was originally intended to be. Throughout your entire life here on the earth, you are in temporary placement. Only in the completion of My plan will you truly understand your placement.


Dear beloved, trust Me. Listen for My voice. I speak through the Scriptures. I speak through those who truly love you. I speak through My creation. I speak through your intuition. I speak logically. I speak creatively. I speak in parables, poetry, song and dance. I speak through your body. I speak to others through you. Listen to Me. Act as I did in Christ. Follow my lead in the dance of life. Only then, when you have learned what it means to be My companion, will I call you to speak.


Come, beloved, draw near to Me, and I will show you what I created you to be.

What do They Taste in You? A Contemplation on Fruitfulness in the Kingdom

"A Fruitful Fall Altar" - photo by TristaWynne

In Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, Parker Palmer writes,

Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have: it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place… When the gift I give is integral to my own nature, when it comes from a place of organic reality within me, it will renew itself – and me – even as I give it away. Only when I give something that does not grow within me do I deplete myself and harm others as well, for only harm can come from a gift that is forced, inorganic, unreal (pp. 49-50).

This quote, indeed a large portion of Palmer’s book, makes me think of our churches today, and leads me to contemplate my own life as well. I wonder how different the world might be if we each were taught to become ourselves rather than trying to become someone or something else. Life is not one-size-fits-all, and neither are our worshipping communities. We are created with unique talents, abilities, passions, hopes, dreams and desires. What would the world look like if we all encouraged each other to become the beautiful ones God has created each of us to be rather than pushing our own agendas on one other? What would our congregations look like? How would our relationships at home be different? What about our relationship within our own skin?

Sometimes I find my mind, emotions and body all telling me different things, for they all seem to be seeking after someone else’s dream of who or what I am to become, or what I am to do. In the stillness of the night however, often about four o’clock in the morning when the city around me is quiet, I’m awakened in the darkest hour; in those moments I discern the calling of the One who created me, and I have peace. This One does not ask me to do anything or to go anywhere, but simply to be. Connected: that is what I am called to be.

Jesus, my Lord, says,

I am the vine, you are the branches.
Those who abide in me will bear much fruit to the glory of my Father in heaven.
Abide in my love.

When I am striving to do things through my own strength, or trying to fill a need simply because it is there, I am not being faithful to this call to abide in my Lord’s love. I find myself in a place of emptiness because I was not rooted in the simple call to be still and know that I am God. When I take time to listen, to know the One who formed me, then I become better acquainted with myself. And when I know myself, then I am less likely to over-extend and reach the point of burnout, and I am more likely to bear fruit for the coming Kingdom.

In light of this confession, I extend to you the following invitation for meditation just as my Lord has been extending to me:

Consider your interactions in the last 24 hours, the last week, the last month, etc.

When have you felt like you were empty or depleted? Is a relationship, volunteer endeavor or other activity feeling forced or draining you?

Ask the Lord for wisdom in your situation and covenant with your spirit to listen for the voice of our Lord.

Find a piece of fruit and take it into your hand. Observe it. Feel it. Taste it. Consider its source. The plant from which it came was not depleted when it was picked. On the contrary – it had more energy to create even more fruit, and was made healthy.

Consider the fruits of the spirit. Contemplate how they are being formed within you even at this very moment. How are they being expressed in your life so that others can taste and see that the Lord is good?

Ask the Lord to show you how best to be fruitful and to be filled. Root yourself deeply in the Presence of the Living God. Listen for your Maker’s voice in Scripture, nature, music, healthy relationships, insightful people and your own heart.

The Lord created you and you are beautiful. Trust that the One who formed your heart will not lead you astray, nor leave you empty.

God bless your journey toward fruitfulness and abundance.

 May we be found continually drawing from the strong, ever-growing vine of Christ’s love through the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God, the Father of all humanity, so that we may overflow with healing, nourishing, life-giving fruit for each other and for the people and world around us in Jesus’ name, amen.