Blog : Give Me Grace

Give Me Grace: on accountability

Posted on November 27, 2016November 27, 2016 by lisha epperson

It’s no secret I was deeply disappointed by the results of our most recent election. I haven’t been able to write about it. 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for an unrepentant, misogynistic demagogue who promised to build walls and continue this country’s legacy of othering people of color. This was a difficult election for all of us, but wow! It’s been a struggle to come here and pretend that didn’t happen. I couldn’t do it.

Our differences have crept out in tweets and posts and status updates. We’ve all seen them. As much as I feel this election may have revealed about the communities I engage with online, I also know it’s revealed for you, more about me. We’re all so different. What do we do about that? How do we hold each other accountable as Christians without hurting each others feelings?

I’ve talked with a few of you privately, in an attempt to understand but still … no words. Perhaps you’ve felt that way too.

But I both honor and am grateful for this space. I believe in the good work Gods done in this little corner of the online world. It is kingdom building, kingdom dreaming work. But it is not done. We still have so much work to do.

And so the link-up continues.

This little experiment we’ve got going could be all God glory or a holy hot mess. At every turn lies the potential for rapturous joy or some kind of hellish explosion. I’ve wondered which way we were headed and prayed about ways to with grace, move forward.

The only word that repeatedly comes to mind is accountability.

Accountability.

For as many stories we have about women who’ve bravely taken a stance when it mattered, there is also a history ripe with the stories and images of women weeping over the injustices of the world – and doing nothing about it. I won’t let that be me. Please don’t let that be you.

If you voted for our current president-elect I ask you to take a stand against the kind of othering that will further divide our country. I ask that you hold your chosen leader accountable.

So for now, that’s all I’ve got. Forward for now means accountability. Use your voice for good in the places and spaces he’s allowed you the opportunity. Be kind – to all. Show and be love.

That opportunity exists here – in our online world. I still believe that.

I’m willing to trust God to show me more of what moving forward can look like. How about you?

In the meantime, and until more words come … there is still so much to learn, experience and celebrate.

Here are a few of the good things that made their way to my world this week … enjoy!

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

Listen to Isabel Wilkerson — The Heart Is the Last Frontier by On Being Studios #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/isabel-wilkerson-the-heart-is-the-last-frontier

Listen to Vincent Harding — Is America Possible? by On Being Studios #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/vincent-harding-is-america-possible-1

and a little something on gratitude

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Give Me Grace: Thy Will Be Done

Posted on November 6, 2016November 6, 2016 by lisha epperson

‘Thy will be done’ is no longer a kind of resignation to what may happen. Properly understood, it becomes a cry for what God intends for us, for human beings to be realized in this community, and the life of the ones who make themselves vulnerable enough to pray it. – Don E. Saliers

This election has had my stomach in knots. From the borderline harassment of friends “in Christ” who tag me in Facebook posts in support of their chosen candidate, to the barrage of negativity that’s followed the campaign trail from the beginning, I’ve never been more tense about an election. I don’t have to tell you it’s been horrible. You already know that.

This isn’t a post about how I’ll vote on Tuesday. And it certainly isn’t a post to sway your choice one way or the other. This is a post to remind you to keep on living … no matter what happens on Tuesday – because that’s what God’s people do. The people of ‘the way’ – you and me – we keep pressing on. Our faith tells us to respond to the struggle with hope.

This is a post about how I’m learning to express my holy resistance as life – how I make my prayers real by living.

In the middle of the mess I’ve managed to take my littles to the playground.

I’ve explored the creation of liturgy and watched the meditative movement of my daughter as she counted rows of pews at my field-ed site.

I’ve immersed and found myself in the history of the church. I made chocolate chip cookies.

I’ve choreographed whole dances in my head while enjoying the musical gifting of Ruth Cunningham. Most weekends I’ve made it my business to get my tribe to a healing space for a little family saving Sabbath.

and we’re looking up … always looking up. Check out the ceiling at The House of the Redeemer.

The point is, we’re living. I expect we’ll do more of the same no matter the outcome on Tuesday.

This election has forced me to be intentional about my surrender to the “thy will be done” moments of life.

There are many and this is one.

It doesn’t mean I won’t vote. I look forward to casting my ballot – to staking my claim in a future I can believe in. It’s too important not to. But I’ll exercise my right to take part in the process without worrying. I’ll add my voice to the cry for kingdom come believing it’s already done – that justice, love, and peace are born and reborn – the fruit of our endless prayer.

Thy will be done. In Jesus name.

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

♥

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Deeper Waters: The Power of Immanuel

Posted on October 31, 2016October 31, 2016 by lisha epperson

so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

– Ephesians 1:18-23

In the text, Paul speaks of an inner knowing, the enlightenment of a soul filled with the power of God. Paul speaks of the kind of wisdom and understanding that places the gift of God in the here and now. Paul encourages believers to trust the hope that lies within them, to have confidence in their calling.

Paul tells us this inner knowing may not be something we see with our natural eyes, but with the eyes of the heart. It isn’t something we have to hope for in the future. We can enjoy the benefits, the glorious inheritance – here on earth. Today.

Paul makes clear the power we have, comes from the same source entrusted to Christ from God himself. This ancient power transcends time and is greater than any kingdom or authority. It is the ancient wisdom and truth of Gods power that envelops an embodied church. We as believers are filled, covered, embraced, loved through the fulfillment of a powerful promise – a promise of power that works and is with us always.

I read the text as a reminder to use our spiritual eyes, to filter everything we face through a lens of Immanuel – God with us. This active stance keeps us mindful of the power of His presence in our lives. Beyond what we see or feel we have to trust the working of his great strength on our behalf. Period. It’s our job, as believers, to stay in faith. He promises this power to believers. We are called to be active, engaged and committed to the call of Christ.

I’m grateful for the reminder of this important requirement. I believe, but so much more often, get stuck on the wonderment and miracles of Jesus. It’s natural for me to lean toward the thrill of unexplained occurrences, the impossible made possible, but the work before that is the work of faith. And that’s where belief comes in. We have to position ourselves to be conduits for that power. A power we don’t get to see or touch.

Paul offers, in the text, a straight no chaser truth — Immanuel, God is with us.

We’re digging into the word for a bible study on Ephesians at Deeper Waters and today … it’s my turn. Join me.

Give Me Grace: Wild

Posted on October 30, 2016October 30, 2016 by lisha epperson

…. I gained a new attachment to the Holy Spirit, whom I steadfastly experienced as “she”. She was unpredictable. She was not safe. She was life giving. While my heart continued to swell whenever I heard a string of wild geese passing overhead, I also learned to recognize the shrill call of a red-tailed hawk who hunted the fields around my house. I knew that she ate the wide-eyed field mice with the white bellies whom I liked so much, along with any chick that strayed too far from it’s mother’s shadow, but I could not hold that against her. It was the price of her wild beauty, the price I paid to watch her fly!

To see her fold her wings and stoop, falling through the air like a lighting bolt on her prey, was to wonder if Jesus did not see something more like that than “something like a dove” when the heavens split open at his baptism. Maybe the gospel writers did not want to scare the rest of us off, so they left out the part about the talons. I will never know, but I do know that as I emerged out from under the safety of one pair of wings, I was ready to climb onto the back of another. I was even ready to be gripped in her claws, if that was what it took to be carried aloft. – Barbara Brown Taylor

I gave my life to God on the second floor of a music studio in Manhattans Theatre District. The eclectic bunch of actors, dancers, models and musicians that grew from a weekly bible study to a full-blown ministry was very likely what my heart needed to accept a Jesus I couldn’t see. I didn’t need him to be black or white or dressed in priestly robes followed by a throng of onlookers begging to touch him. I didn’t need it to make sense.

When I met the tiny female past of the congregation I knew the moment as my introduction to an expression of God I needed to see. Opening my heart to the concept of she in church would help me make sense of the spirit rumblings in my heart. I’ve welcomed the female as part of the divine my entire life but saw no mirroring of this in my everyday world. This was the late 80’s and although female pastors were a thing – they were also a thing to question. Sitting under the teaching of a female pastor made me deal with a heavily embedded patriarchal view of the church, one I couldn’t trace because of my distance from all things church as a child. Where had that come from?

More importantly she taught a heavily almost cultic dependency on the Holy Spirit. Here, the Holy Spirit determined how long service lasted from week to week, determined if a couple should marry or not, and spoke out in the middle of services through a fully surrendered congregant. The spirit instructed, directed … taught. Pentecost happened and the spirit gave – life. The spirit gave love. In practice the spirit functioned as Amma, Ema, Mama.

This non-denominational with a Pentecostal vibe was the contrary, fully embodied, fire-baptized, tongue speaking experience I needed to feel God in his entirety. Surely woman was part of that. An ancient knowing I could never explain told me so. This was a Jesus who honored women, a Jesus I could feel. No matter what happened or as afraid as I might be of a future in Christ or what this God thing would do to me, I knew my conversion as complete. There was no turning back.

Fast forward almost 30 years and I’m wrestling with the rumblings again. I identify with Barbara Brown Taylor’s identification with the Holy Spirit as unsafe, wild, capricious, even dangerous. And again I find myself figuring out but not running away from the scars I’ve gained from a life in Christ. Instead I find myself ever turning toward. And in that turning, that acknowledgment that something, he, she, it is there, I find myself willing to pay whatever price, count any cost, bear the mark of a woman in Gods grip.

In God’s grip, I won’t lose sight of the wild geese, the field mice or the baby chicks. A soul stilled by the blessing of a glimpse of such wild beauty knows its place in the eternal. In stillness, I’m learning to see and to remember. I am and will always be – part of the sacred cycle. God’s creation. Life. Soul-flight of this kind, is worth any price for the gift of memory. And I remember. I do. I am held, yet free. Wild.

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

♥

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