Dear friends of Faith, as I begin my practice as a Spiritual Director—one who listens to and with God as others tell about their lives in order to draw out and encourage their journey with God—I am also nudged to write about church, disappointment, grief, and God’s promise among us here and now. This is a longish article…
I went to the funeral of a dear man last week. I met Pastor Daniel Winifred Erlander at Holden Village during the magical summer when Vespers ’86 (aka Holden Evening Prayer) was new. Marty Haugen and Tom Witt were village musicians (their “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” on piano and organ raised the roof of the Village Center), and I was volunteering with kiddos in return for my keep and an introduction to the North Cascades. At the end of my time, Dan and I spent the 2-hour boatride down Lake Chelan chatting about PLU, where he, along with Susan Briehl and Martin Wells, would be my campus pastor, a brilliant, funny, incisive and deeply compassionate leader. Dan was also family, a 2nd cousin of some sort to Doug’s mom, and he preached at our joint service of ordination in 1993.
Dan passed in late August after too many years with dementia. On October 15, Tom, Mary, Martin, and Susan—pastors and musicians who inspired both Doug and I to love and serve the church—offered their best to honor this precious friend and bless us who mourn. Oh, God was there. We sang, wept, and shared our hope and heartbreak together in the very palm of God’s hands. Thirty years ago, I longed to be like those people, to do church like THAT! I still do.
The thing is, as we celebrated the life of this champion of God’s love, I found myself also mourning dreams for my own life and work, beautiful, hope-filled expectations for our congregations that were both unrealistic and deeply cherished. I got mad. I inwardly blamed myself and other church leaders for the declining attendance, disinterest and skepticism toward Christianity shared by more people every year (including our own families). I blamed myself for “the ones who went away.” I got mad, then I got lonely: These people all around me, they’re making it work, they’re in the loop, they’ve got it right.
But that’s not true.
I’ve been sitting with my anger and self-pity for a while now, and I’m noticing some things. I notice that the hopes and dreams I imagined thirty years ago in mountain retreat and campus chapel really are betrayed by ordinary Sundays, ordinary congregations, ordinary pastors and leaders in 2022. The churches we’re attending and serving are older, emptier—very different than I expected. What did you expect?
A few weeks ago, an elder asked, “Has what they’re teaching in seminaries changed?”
I felt put on the spot, criticized from the sidelines. It made me mad. And it hurt. Of course things have changed. Times have changed. People have changed. God is the same, but how we speak of and worship God across 80-plus years has changed.
And change is hard. OH. SO. HARD. At least it is for me. We will most surely be angry, lonely, blaming or self-pitying sometimes. Because change requires loss, and loss requires grief. And I would rather be angry than admit and grieve a loss.
A few weeks ago, a 20-something asked, “Is anything better now than it used to be?”
I felt sort of sad and challenged to sift ashes for gold. Under today’s heavy headlines, it often seems humanity’s best lies in the past.
How would you answer? What would you say? Really: what were things like in the decade when you were born? Is anything better now?
I was born in 1966, two years before MLK was assassinated. I’m grateful for everyone who believes that people of every skin tone, ethnicity, and gender are fully human and worthy of love and respect. I’m grateful that the hard histories of Black, Asian, Indigenous, Jewish, and other peoples are more broadly told and their wisdom more fully seen. I’m grateful that LGBTQ+ people sometimes feel safe in public places. I’m grateful that we know so much more about physical and mental illness, learning disabilities, and health. I’m grateful for science and wisdom that offer understanding of and care for our planet and its critters, and for every hope that humanity may yet be able to thrive.
Better? Worse? I don’t know. I know I am moving through disillusion and disappointment toward realistic gratitude and resilient hope. I hope that if needed, you might also.
Pastor Dan taught the Bible with pictures. This is one of my favorites.
It’s how Dan imagined God’s dream, the mystery of God’s unstoppable will, “according to God’s pleasure set forth in Christ, as a promise for the fullness of time, to unite everything in Christ, everything in heaven and everything on earth” (Eph. 1:9-10, Dan’s paraphrase). Here I see the heart of Christ and the Church I still love, drawing everything and everyone with our brilliant and broken bits together around the forever feast of all the heavens.
I’m not Pastor Dan or Susan, Martin, Tom, or Mary, and this is not the future—or the church—I expected. But I am God’s Brenda, placed in this time and place with you. In Christ, this must be enough and more. For God is still and always working all things toward union in the kephale, the mind of Jesus, whose Spirit flows in worship and song and every good gift from mountain to valley, richer to poorer, better to worse—whenever two or more share gracious love and holy life. So thank you, friends, young and old, for sharing God’s love and life with me, with us. Here. Now. This is a taste of the Feast to come; it wouldn’t be the same without you. Amen.
Coming Soon: Emotionally Healthy Relationships 2.0
Dear friends, our Wednesday evening EHR class is a good, good experience, as is our Young Adult version starting up on Thursdays. Thank you to all who are participating for sharing your time and your lives as we grow closer to and more like Jesus!
If you were interested but unable to participate in this round, we will begin another course in-person and/or online in January. Please connect with Pastor Brenda to be included in this opportunity.