A Few Words From Pastor Bryan
And Kate Bowler
My daughter Emma recently told me about at new book by author and Duke Divinity School Professor Kate Bowler (with Jessica Richie) called, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings For Imperfect Days. First, how cool is it that my grown daughter is sharing books about God with me that fill her soul and move her heart?! Thank you God and thank you Emma! And second, wow, this is quite a book.
I've shared some excerpts from Kate's previous books in sermons this past year and also with our morning zoom devotional group. As I mentioned in this morning's zoom meeting, I think Kate's main "thing" is reminding us that life is always--always--a mixture of both incredible beauty AND challenges and struggles of one kind or another. Life is a package deal in this regard. There are times of course when these things are (or at least feel) way out of balance. Kate, who lived through stage IV cancer in her mid 30's while fighting to stay alive to be with her young son, knows a thing or two about being taken to the end of herself. But she has come out the other side of her journey through the valley of the shadow with some deep wisdom about staying in touch with the beauty while also being completely real about the pain. She is funny, brilliant, poetic, brutally honest, and downright allergic to pious platitudes and cheap cliches. The book she wrote after her cancer experience gives you a glimpse of her provocative style even in it's title: Everything Happens For A Reason (And Other Lies I've Loved).
I love writers who can say so much with so few words the way Kate does. Here's one of my favorite parts of the brief piece of hers that I've posted below;
We will lose and we will gain,
and almost none of it will make much sense at the time,
and it will force our hands open.
Kate's new book is a collection of 100 brief blessings, including one for Ash Wednesday and one for each day in Lent. I recommend the book even if just for these. I shared her Ash Wednesday reflection during our service last Wednesday, and the blessings for the first two days of Lent yesterday and today during zoom devotions. I'm going to share tomorrow's with all of you here both to give you a flavor of her writing, and because I just love this one.
I hope you find this meaningful, and I hope to see you in worship this Sunday,
Pastor Bryan
For When You Need To Let Go
Or When You Need To Hold On
By Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie
God, sometimes it feels like a better person wouldn’t be like this:
tethered to so many hopes,
and fears, and expectations.
Blessed are we pulled between wanting to let go —
sometimes needing to let go—and also needing to hold on.
Blessed are we when we yearn
for connection and love and touch.
Blessed are we when we hunger
for the beauty of life itself and the people to fill it.
Blessed are we when we are unable to say,
“I’m letting it go.”
Because we feel like we will be washed away into an ocean of
nothingness.
Teach us to cling to the truths that enliven our spirits,
and loosen our grip on the painful untruths:
like the one that says we are alone, or unlovable.
Or that desire itself is the enemy.
Teach us to hunger for what is good, and be filled.
There will be no easy addition and subtraction.
We will lose and we will gain,
and almost none of it will make much sense at the time,
and it will force our hands open.
In the ebb and flow of wins and losses, comings and goings,
may we look for the divine in the mystery of it all,
the stubbornness of flowers that still smile at us in the grocery store,
and the need for endless small reminders
that the pain of it all, the comedy of it all,
will point us back to love.
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