I’m an advocate of learning something about our relationship to God in the season of Lent. We do that through many avenues, but one of my favorite things is to give up something for Lent. Giving up is looking at where we are in excess…and trying to lay down that thing for a period of time…so that we can focus on God. Everyone who knows me, knows I love coffee. So, for example, last year, I gave up coffee. Past Lenton seasons include giving up purchasing clothes, chocolate, a particular word (that is still not in my vocabulary), etc…you get the idea. I am also an advocate of adding in something as a Lenton sacrifice. Some of you have added in breakfast daily, exercise regularly, kind words, a grateful list, reading Scriptures, and prayer time.

Whether you give something up or add something in, this ritual is a way to deepen your spiritual connection with God.

This year I am giving up something. For the last couple of years, I have noticed that there are many mirrors in our lives. I have a long dressing room mirror, bathroom mirrors, and mirrors in our living room. I love the way mirrors reflect light into a room…and use them to make a dark room brighter. But still, there are a lot of mirrors in my life. My office, I just noticed, also has a full-length mirror that I use when I put my robe on. Mirrors are at the mall, in our cars, and in restaurants. They are everywhere.

I began to wonder what it would be like to go without mirrors. Would I forget what I looked like, or would I remember who I am? Would I learn to focus on the inside view instead of the outside view? Would I be able to operate without a mirror? (How would I do make up and hairdos and put on the contacts?)

So, this year I’m giving up mirrors. (I will only use them in my car to see what is going on around me.) I will avoid looking at my external self in a mirror for the 40 days (plus the weekends) of Lent.

It might be frivolous. Or it might go deep. I don’t really know yet. All I know is that I’ve been wanting to do this for quite some time, so I might as well try it during Lent. I will blog about this journey…and see where it leads me.

I’m hoping it leads me deeper in love with Jesus and our world.

As I go on this journey, I only ask you one thing: forgive me if my mascara is lopsided, or if it is non-existent. Remember it’s just my exterior!

Dottie

Mentors make all the difference in the world. Mrs. Walker was my Chorus teacher in High School. She recently received an award for many years of service teaching music, and some of her former students gathered at her son’s house to show our honor and love to her…

Mrs. Walker is magnificent. I was one of the shy ones in school, and so I don’t think she even knows how much she influenced me. I just attended my Chorus class, tried out for the crowd parts in her plays, and sang with the Misfits (a small group that performed in various places). Not much of a star…but learning to sing in the shadow of Mrs. Walker’s love was one of the best things about High School. She believed in everyone, and she made everyone feel loved and important. She taught us to care for each other, and she taught us to listen to our neighbors, and she taught us to harmonize.

Harmony takes work. You don’t always get to sing the easy melody lines, but when you work at hearing the harmonies, it makes the song that much more beautiful. In harmony, no one is singled out, but the perfect vibrations come when all parts are in tune with each other.

Mrs. Walker taught me more than she’ll ever know, mostly because she is a person of deep joy and sure strength. So many of her former students are in love with Mrs. Walker! (She has a new last name now, but to me she’ll always be ‘Mrs. Walker.’) She brought me music, and how do you thank someone for that?

Mentors make all the difference in the world. And that’s one of the deep lessons in life.

In our Scriptures, Paul mentored young Timothy when he reminded him:

“I know that you sincerely trust the Lord, for you have the faith of your mother, Eunice, and your
grandmother, Lois. This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when
I laid my hands on you. For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love,
and self-discipline. So you must never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord.” Timothy 1:5-
8a)

Timothy was young, but he had a gift to tell others the good things that were going on because of the love of Jesus, his Lord. And he was able to do his thing because he had great mentors: a grandmother, a mother, and a man who believed in him, called Paul.

You have been mentored, and you are mentoring others. It is the circle of life that brings great joy and deep meaning. Keep up the good work, and keep on telling your story with power, grace, and deep love.

Dottie

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7568171/

Joel Bullock put this video up on facebook and it made me cry and it made me laugh. I have had conversations like this…conversations where the deer-in-the-headlights of the questioner is around the issue that someone can’t get over the fact that I am a woman pastor.

I remember one experience. A man came into the office asking for help. He was wearing a polyester muscle-man shirt, with his arms showing, and raggedy jeans. He was surprised when he was ushered into the pastor’s office, and she was a woman. He expressed his surprise at my gender and we began a conversation around women in ministry.

The man asked me how i could be in the ministry. He was most stunned to find out I was the only pastor here, and that there was no other male pastor that I worked under. “Who “covers” you?”, he asked. I had the deer-in-headlights expression myself for a moment, and he went on, “Does your husband cover you so that you can be in ministry? Do you go to him for all your major decisions in the church?” I explained to him that my husband works in another field, and that we are partners in marriage, but that, no, he is not my covering.

He was the one that was deer-in-headlights-stunned now. “But the Bible says…that women can’t lead in the church…can’t be pastors!” He began to quote me many Scriptures as if I had never read them before. I smiled and began to discuss the way we read the Bible. I explained that the Bible says many things and that it can be used as a vehicle for love or a vehicle for hate. It is our mandate to find the love, the grace, and the genuine message of God in the words and stories of our Scripture.

He quoted me more Scripture.

I smiled, and said, “Well, it appears that you don’t follow the Bible word-for-word either. You come in here with much of your body on display, and you are wearing a polyester shirt! Everyone knows that polyester is mixed fibers, and…”

He chuckled. “You got me there, Pastor.” He knew the prohibition in the Old Testament against wearing mixed fibers. “Maybe you have something there. I don’t follow it word for word either.”

I explained that I am a pastor because God called me. I let him know that I wrestled with my call in a way that no one else can know, and that I wrestled with the fact that I am a woman in an era when women are still given cultural prohibitions. I let him know that God and I were on good terms, and that I was doing my best to follow God’s will for my life.

I asked him what he needed. He needed money. He was broke. I assisted him with some resources and a prayer for his life to be opened to the economic streams so he could care for himself and his family.

As he was leaving, we shook hands and he said, “Pastor, you made me think.” He smiled. I smiled. And then, suddenly I remembered something and I replied, “Oh! I do have a covering! My covering in the United Methodist Church is my Bishop, and SHE covers me in ministry.”

Then we laughed.

Sometimes it is better to laugh than to cry.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/01/08/20110108arizona-giffords-brk.html

Listening to the news about the shooting in Tucson where 6 are killed and 18 shot, including Arizona Congresswoman Gifford… They are reporting that one of the dead is a 9 year-old little girl. And it all makes me very sad.

When will we learn to really love our neighbor? Why do some feel that disagreeing with someone’s politics necessitates violence and harm? How is it that hate-mongering has ruled the day?

This event is an outward sign of an inward societal pain. And though it’s evidence is horrific and tragic in Tucson today, Arizona has been following a rhetoric of hate for a long time….

Just this week I spoke with Dream Act students who are fighting their way to their dreams in a state that shuts down any possibility of them seeing their dreams come true. Yet, with valor, they keep moving forward, hoping for change and a chance. This week we heard in the news that a new politic of dismantling citizenship from even the innocent babes is being pushed forward. So, because we can’t love an immigrant, we punish the most vulnerable? This week I spoke with many young men who couldn’t find work, who lost their family homes to foreclosure, and who wondered how they could contribute to putting food on their children’s tables, and they feel lost and left out.

When we hurt, we tend to “kick-the-dog.” But what if we stopped that childish behavior, and instead opened our hearts and arms to hear the pain, to heal the hurt, and to walk alongside those we understand and those we don’t yet understand? There is another way. It is the way of love. We can replace a politic of hate with The Politic of Love.

Please join me in standing for kind words, merciful acts, and a courageous movement toward Great Love. And please join me in praying for the victims and their families in Tucson. And please join me in praying for the shooter and his family, for they too are in pain.

Unto my family today, a new baby was born: Baby Elizabeth Alexi. She came quickly, and entered the world with curiosity, joy, and peace. It’s hard to write about the experience because it was so amazing that words seem inadequate. I can say this: she is beautiful, and she is my grandchild, and I am in love. That says it all!
Congratulations to my daughter and son-in-law, Sara and Alex, and to the big brother, Niko. God bless us all.

It was amazing to be with the group of families who take care of the children of their neighborhood this Thanksgiving. They are called Dejar Venid los Ninos a Mi…Los Ninos, for short. Many people joined in the effort: Christ Church Assembly of God provided food boxes the Saturday before Thanksgiving; CrossRoads provided our usual food distribution on Wednesday before Thanksgiving; and Debi Murphy, a member of CrossRoads, gathered together her workplace, along with some young adults from CrossRoads, to provide a breakfast on Thanksgiving Day. They were surrounded with people who reached out their hands in love and care.

The most exciting part of this week was that a little church nearby agreed to partner with Los Ninos and invite them to move inside their building on Wednesday night and Saturday morning. No longer do we have to meet outside between two trailers in the heat of summer and in the cold of winter. Now this little community of people that loves to learn about God, will be housed indoors, and will be free to grow into a new space. This was a moment of great celebration and Thanksgiving!

I am thankful that the group we call Los Ninos…received some much-needed food, were served a breakfast by loving workers, and found a new warm/cool place to gather.
Faith, hope, love,
Dottie