Week of September 29

Dear Friends:

“Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living. As Annie Dillard memorably put it, ‘How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives...’ ” 

When I read this quote by writer Maria Popova with the words of Annie Dillard embedded within, it struck a deep and true cord within me.  Presence—full and gracious and unhurried presence-- is truly a difficult art. Being present for people requires an exquisite patience and forbearance, and a willingness to temporarily suspend the lengthy to-do lists we have banging about in our heads. Sometimes presence requires us to stop being “productive”, knowing the ultimate results of our presence are beyond the capacity of measurement. Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time taking care of small children or tending to the gravely ill knows this to be particularly true. Productivity ceases to matter when our fullest presence is most needed.

Even in less dramatic ways, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”  Being present to our lives brings a joy and wonder and depth that makes life worth living. This week I will be preaching on the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, a wonderful and challenging story that reminds us to be responsive and empathetic to the people around us, even those we might want to avoid or step around. Being present for one another, to be sure, is difficult work; but, I am certain, it is the holy and wholly rewarding work that God calls us all to. 

Yours on the Way,

Jennifer



Week of August 18

Dear Friends:

 This is the time in the summer when one can’t help but have the sense of an ending.  In ways subtle and not-so-subtle, autumn seems to be waiting in the wings for its cue to enter. The subtle: the shifting angle of sun giving several fewer minutes of light each day; the leaves have taken on that deeper, duller green rather than the more exuberant chartreuse of early summer; and the cicadas and crickets have set up their constant chorus throughout the day. The not-so-subtle: the ubiquitous advertisements for back-to-school supplies; the mum displays making their required annual appearance outside garden stores; and, most appalling, a Halloween candy display in the aisle of a local grocery trying to get an early plug in for their candy corn.  

Noooooo! Don’t go, Summer! 

Still, we know well that “for everything there is a season, and a time for every a purpose under heaven…” 

So even us we live into these last, golden days of summer with its feeling of expansiveness, let us be praying for our younger children as they prepare to start school again, and for our older children as they begin to leave for college, graduate schools, new jobs, and other new beginnings.  Let us be praying for all those embarking on new beginnings.

But summer isn’t over yet! We need to taste and savor the particular sweetness that comes when an ending is in sight. I think this final stanza of Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s poem, Summer Haibun captures well the paradox of both savoring and saving:

 

“There are not enough jam jars to can this summer sky at night. I want to spread those little meteors on a hunk of still-warm bread this winter. Any trace left on the knife will make a kitchen sink like that evening air

the cool night before
star showers: so sticky so
warm so full of light”.

 

Yours,

Jennifer

 

 

 

Meditation

"Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you."

― Oscar Wilde

"Look to this day, for it is life,
The very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the verities and realities
Of our existence:
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of beauty
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow only a vision,
But today well lived
Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day."

―Sanskrit proverb