Reflection Roundup: Mama Said, Mama Said
Each week we gather news stories, notable pieces, and other important items for Christian leaders today. As always, listening broadly draws together differing perspectives from which we can learn but may not concur. Here are 10 things worth sharing this week.
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1. Many of our moms reminded us of the important things. In Jake Owensby’s particularly unique situation, his mother’s words were not meant to convey the colloquial meaning he initially thought. In “It’s a Heart Thing,” Owensby unpacks his mom’s scriptural reminder of Jesus’s promise to his followers, reaffirmed in Acts 17: “God is not far from any of us.” This piece will resonate with all of us questing to reignite a sense of wonder in our lives with God and our existence on the whole. “Tomorrow is another day,” and one in which, whatever we are experiencing, we are accompanied by the inseparable presence of God within and among us.
2. Some things, though not new, are too good not to share, especially when it comes to digital media, a source so prolific that gems are easily missed and then buried in the mine of generative flow. For instance, “How do I involve God in my sexuality?,” a guest post by spiritual director Tara Owens of Anam Cara Ministries for the late Rachel Held Evans’s blog. If we’re not asking the questions this piece addresses, someone in our lives is. Owens offers excellent contextual perspective on the greater meaning of human sexuality and how it expresses itself in the whole of who we are.
3. Amid situations of growing intensity, we tend to move more quickly toward possibilities, strategies. Victoria Atkinson White, managing director of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity, suggests, “Sometimes the best way to move forward is to stop.” How can we show “others that we are listening to them, we care about how they feel and what they need, and that the church IS capable of change”? White writes, “The important thing is to stop what is no longer working” remaining mindful that our gatherings facilitate our relationships both with one another and with God, not some of the particularities that may in themselves need a season of rest.
4. “Is there an antidote to ‘digital intensity’?” is a good wake-up call about what we are dealing with in our vocational lives. If we’re not experiencing this fatigue directly, our congregants most assuredly are. What is happening as a result of the “cognitive overload” of endlessly trying to interpret communication among images on a flat screen, or the added hours of availability digital connection has served up, extending and intensifying the workday? Herein lies yet another opportunity to evaluate the processes that have quickly become status quo as to their overall effectiveness for connection, either vocationally or congregationally. This only increases the value and impact of our irreplicable, weekly, in-person gatherings. Something happens when we pause and come into one another’s presence, aware of the continual presence of God.
5. Cal Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center hosts the podcast The Science of Happiness, episode 90 of which describes “Why Love Needs Laughter.” This is a quick listen in which one couple describes their experience with the daily three – keeping track of three funny things that happened to them in the course of their day and sharing them at the end. The center’s research has shown shared laughter increases positive feelings within relationships and the lives of the individuals comprising them. This has huge implications for our closest people but also gives us insight into how to enhance the moments we spend going about our routines in spaces of our lives when we find ourselves surrounded by strangers. We might say it’s “how to make someone’s day” just by being present in the moment.
6. Peter Scazzero, in “Do You Follow the Right Jesus?,” articulates hard-hitting questions we must ask ourselves: are we attempting to impress others with our spirituality, do we see ourselves as better than other people, are we tempted by a false definition of success, or might we seek to avoid suffering or the perception of failure at all costs? From a founder of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship comes this timely piece for Christianity Today, asking us to peel back layers of ourselves in honesty and reveal the image we worship.
7. In Christian fellowship, we often refer to God as Father, but might we open this metaphor or this personification to include Mother? In “The Hen,” for Christian Standard, Jon Wren shares some brief thoughts regarding the word picture Jesus paints in Luke 13, comparing his own love for Jerusalem to the maternal love of a hen sheltering her chicks under her protective or disciplinary wings. “Jesus wanted his followers to know he cared for people with the same fierce and protective instincts as mothers have for their children.” This weekend might be a good time to personally experiment with this maternal metaphor with God in prayer, opening up a new set of possibilities for ways in which to relate to God more intimately. Consider this one from the heart of Glenn Pemberton: “Happy Mother’s Day, Lord.”
8. “Masked, fully vaccinated people can safely attend worship indoors,” reports CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. That said, the article for Religion News Service contains a “Choosing Safer Activities” chart that serves as a helpful resource when individuals are choosing the ways of moving through the present pandemic world of activities in personally appropriate ways. In “Americans return to in-person church with emotion – and uncertainty about the future of worship,” Michelle Boorstein, religion reporter for the Washington Post recounts Justin Chang’s story of returning to communal worship. “For those who seek in-person worship, vaccinations and loosened legal restrictions are bringing them back to a place that can’t be replicated.”
9. In continuing our reflection on moms, Pam Tebow (whose mom is she?!) shares wisdom in “How to keep choosing contentment by faith and not feeling” via the blog of Canadian farmer’s wife and front porch theologian Ann Voskamp. Tebow admits contentment is not a course that we elect, but the school of life obliges its lessons if we are open to receiving its gift.
10. Nothing reminds a person of our smallness than the grandiosity of nature. In “Thunderous Plunges and Mossy Trickles: A Spring Guide to Waterfalls,” find a thawing of the soul, the thundering of a new season’s life, and places not so far away in which one can witness a rainbow’s promise nearly every single day. This piece, compiled for the New York Times by Elaine Glusac, might just provide a needed transition from workweek to Sabbath rest.
