Broom Fight In Bethlehem?

Monks battling it out with brooms at the birthplace of Christ?  Sounds like the opening for a bad joke, but it was actually a headlining story in last weeks news.  Apparently the "Church of the Nativity" built over 1500 years ago, at the site history claims to be the birthplace of Jesus, is maintained by monks and priests from the Catholic, Greek and Armenian churches.  Apparently, the arrangement for this historic landmark is that whatever space you clean, is the space you own. (Not a bad idea for those of us raising teenagers!).  The news story is that a fight of tremendous proportions broke out among the Greek and Armenian monks who began beating each other with the brooms they were using.  Palestinian security forces were called in to settle the dispute.  The irony of the story is that this historic landmark suffers a leaking roof which has been in disrepair for years and as a result has ruined much of the priceless artwork inside the church.  The reason the roof has not been repaired?  The three churches have been fighting over who will pay for it!  (According to the newstory I read, a deal has finally been brokered to address this).

Perhaps what this story illustrates best is what religion void of spirit will ultimately devolve into: broom fights over territorial rights.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer perhaps said it best when he wrote: "Christianity conceals within itself a germ hostile to the church.  It is far too easy for us to base our claims to God on our own Christian religiosity and our church commitment, and in doing so utterly to misunderstand and distort the Christian idea." While the ridiculousness of this story is apparent on many levels, it may hold the key to understanding why so many mainline denominational churches today are being forced to close their doors and turn their historic spaces into condominiums or posh restaurants. 

Churches have forgotten how to feed the soul.  In a culture that is perhaps the most spiritually hungry in centuries, the church is in danger of becoming the last place people will look for a spiritual meal.  The church has allowed political platforms, marketing gimmicks, and territorialism to replace that which originally gave it life: the Spirit of God setting hearts on fire with a revolutionary message of God's kingdom flourishing "on earth as it is in heaven;" a kingdom that transcends denominational boundaries, ethnic/cultural differences, gender bias, and most importantly of all, a kingdom that is not limited by the shortcomings and imperfections of each one of us. When we allow our focus to become territorial and political it is at the expense of that which is truly priceless: the artwork of the church - the spiritual choreography that orders our steps into a thing of beauty which dances hope and inspiration to a hurting humanity.

While it may be easy to throw stones at the men of God involved in this news story, weilding brooms for battles; perhaps we need to search our own hearts and ask where we have perhaps been fighting for territorial rights rather than surrendering to the Spirit.  Perhaps it's time for each of us to allow the Spirit to clean house and to lay down the broomstick battles we have been waging for an open heart of surrender to the Spirit which brings life and healing and which is the only thing able to transform the brokenness of each of us into a thing of beauty, a priceless work of art.

Wrestling With Angels - The Second Act

There are times when life demands that we change - profoundly change. Moments that demand of us the courage to face our failures, our fears, our betrayals. Moments when we can see the vision on the horizon that beckons us with an inner longing to journey forward and yet paralyzes us with a profound dread as we realize that all that has brought us to this place is insufficient to move us into our destiny.

It may be the reality of crossing the threshold from mid-life into our Senior years, it may be the milestone of having to deal with the loss of a spouse or the horror of losing a child, it may be the triumph of having survived cancer, it may be the brutal adjustment of divorce or the hopeful anticipation of re-marriage.   This is not the milestone of the young, filled with the optimistic idealism of youth.  This is the milestone for those of us who have already lived a great deal of our lives, who have a history to look back on and come to grips with, for those of us who have experienced both the triumphs and the tragedies of life and who want to move into the next part of our journey somehow changed and prepared to build a future that transcends the mistakes and shortcomings of our past.

This is the second act.  The place where the stage has been set, the conflict has been revealed and we move forward into the hopeful resolution.  It is a place where we must wrestle with angels in order to see the face of God.  It is the place where, if we refuse to let go; we will leave with a blessing and yet we will walk with a limp, for dust can not look on the face of divinity without being forever marked by it. 

This is perhaps, the most difficult place to be in. That place where we know we must relinquish what has brought us to this point in order to move beyond it into the place that the Spirit is calling us to.  It is these places where, like Jacob, we need to see the face of God, for what is required is more transformation than change.  It is a place where our souls are marked with the fingerprint of the transcendent and we exchange the name our past has given us for the name our future destiny demands.  It is these places where we must face the terrifying beauty of the divine, and refuse to let go until we have received our blessing.  It is these places where our broken humanity wrestles with the angelic. 

If life finds you at one of these places, that Jacob called "Penial" "for I have seen God face to face and my life is preseved," may you be encouraged to refuse to let go until you have received your blessing. May you have the courage to come face to face with the terrifying truth and be set free to move forward into a future filled with promise, grace and magnificent wonder.  May you begin the "Second Act" from a place of transcendent transformation that has wrought beauty from ashes, turned your mourning into dancing and with face to the horizon, may you move forward into your unique destiny.

Would Jesus Go To an Ugly Sweater Party?

I realize Apple is making the news with it's new version of ipad textbook apps that has everyone clamoring to voice an opinion or get on board the financial bandwagon of profiting from this technogical innovation, but I'd like to shine the social media spotlight on an equally culture changing innovation that has been in the closet for far too long.  By in the closet, I'm speaking literally.  Who would have thought that finally, we would have a purpose for that one thing we all keep hidden, relegated to the depths of our closets, embarrassed to bring out into the light of day,  yet unwilling to relinquish to the Good Will Bin or the trash can - the ubiquitous ugly sweater.

We all have our rationalizations for hanging onto them: they were a gift from a family member, they were handmade for us by a friend, they're too comfortable to get rid of.  Perhaps we should start a support group for those of us struggling to justify why we hold onto these items, that simply take up needed closet space, and that we keep buried like ugly secrets in the depths of our wardrobes. Judging from the social media invites, ugly Christmas sweater parties were all the rage this year.  Just the invitation alone brings a smile to your face.  Why is that?  Perhaps because ugly sweaters are something we all have in common and something we all feel just a bit foolish for admitting we have.  Maybe because it's therapeutic to confess and to realize that we are not alone, apparently ugly sweaters are a mass pandemic.

The question remains however, what would Jesus do?  Would we find him at an ugly sweater party?  Having recently hosted an ugly sweater party, I can speak from personal experience.  I hosted my ugly sweater party in a part of the country that is statistically the least "churched" state in the nation and where believers are referred to as the "frozen chosen."  With very little promotion, no marketing campaign, and no arm twisting,we had a terrific turn out of people, young and old, children, teenagers, adults and seniors.  Everyone showed up on a cold New England winter night with a hot meal to contribute to the potluck dinner, a smile and an ugly sweater.


 As I sat, proudly wearing my ugly sweater and looked around the room, I realized that the question of would Jesus go to an ugly sweater party was irrelevant.  He was already here.  In our midst.  Emmanuel - God With Us. I saw Him as I watched teenagers talking with seniors and laughing as they swapped stories of their ugly sweaters and compared stories of their lives.  I saw Him in the reminiscent smiles on the Seniors faces as they delighted in the young children dashing under folding tables, giggling as they chased each other around the room.  I heard Him as I listened to the conversations of parents with young children sharing empathetic laughter with parents from a by-gone era the trials of child-rearing and laughing together at the tragedies and the triumphs that come with parenting.

Perhaps finding the courage to bring our ugly sweaters into the light of day, laugh together and realize that we are not alone - is a step towards recognizing that all of us have broken humanity in common and that the same God who wrapped divinity in swaddling clothes in order to reach out to us, is smiling with us as we dare to don our ugly sweaters and share the joys and journeys of our lives.

How Not Enough Money Could Be All You Need to Succeed

It was a disaster. The production was scheduled to go in two days.  When I walked into the auditorium to check on the set design - I felt the panic rise in my throat.  It was a nightmare.  The artistic team who had assured me they "had it all under control" had done the best they could to design a set that went with our dramatic theme of overcoming the hardships of life - but the stage looked like someone's living room the morning after a big party - not an artistic representation of a battlefield. We had no time to start over, we had no budget to purchase anything, and we were expecting hundreds to come to the debut  in 48 hours. I collapsed into a seat in the front row of the gothic cathedral auditorium, put my head in my hands, took a deep breath, whispered a silent prayer of "HELP!" and did what years of experience had taught me to do: looked for a creative solution.

Too often we admit defeat because we "don't have enough money." We put our dreams in a straitjacket due to the limitations of a restricted budget, but we sell ourselves short if we allow our goals to be limited by a dollar sign.  Perhaps the issue is not a lack of money, but a lack of creativity.  Years of successfully leading non-profits with very limited budgets, have shown me that there is always a way around not having enough money, but it will require thinking outside the box, being flexible, and being willing to work up a sweat.

If you find yourself in a situation where you have a fantastic idea, but not enough money to carry it out; perhaps it is a blessing in disguise.  You may simply need to develop a more creative approach to bring it into reality.  Here are some of the steps in the process that may help you unlock a more creative solution.

1.  Start by looking at the resources you HAVE (not what you don't have).  Be creative with this - you may be overlooking some key resources.  Example:  We didn't have any budget for marketing/advertising.  Solution: I wrote an interesting newsworthy story to run as a press release in the local papers and put it out on Facebook where it spread like wildfire.

2.  Brainstorm how you can maximize/build on what you have.  Example: For the set design disaster I mentioned in my opening, I sent teenagers on a frantic scramble for what little props we had in our props closet.  They were carrying down a couple of Greek columns that had been made out of styrofoam/cardboard and accidentally broke one of them.  I put our artistic crew to work re-designing the stage with broken columns and fires made out of old metal trash cans, cheap fans, colored floodlights and toilet paper. 

3. Be flexible enough to reshape your goals to work creatively with what you have.  Example: I had scheduled a major Christmas presentation and had written a beautiful vocal choral piece into the script.  Three weeks out from the production date the choir director told me they couldn't pull off this piece which was essential to the story line and artistic content of the production.  I took the recorded vocal piece and choreographed a dance to it instead.  It ended up being one of the highlights of the production.

Creativity costs nothing.  A creative approach will set you apart from all the rest who may simply be throwing dollars at a problem.  What is it that you have written off because you don't have enough money?  Perhaps it's worth a second look, from a different perspective.  Maybe all that's needed is a little more creativity.

Oh, what happened to the theatrical disaster I mentioned at the start of this? With absolutely no budget, but a very creative and hardworking team, we pulled off an incredible inspirational production with a dramatic set and packed out the 900 seat auditorium with over 1,000 showing up for a standing room only crowd.

Tell me about a creative solution you have come up with - I'd love to hear about it!