Blog : Give Me Grace

Give Me Grace : On Churches and Identity

Posted on June 18, 2016June 30, 2016 by lisha epperson

I can’t explain my fascination with churches – medieval style, gothic churches in particular. I’ve recorded many of my visits, the words and thoughts inspired by each space over the past few years, and feel I’m slowly coming to an answer or at least a new understanding and direction surrounding this unexpected quest.

I’ve wondered about the churches history. Who contributed to the labor that brought the gothic-style buildings I love to life and who might have been invited in? Who found space, but only in the margins? And too, my place in all this. What with the obsession-like call to be in and around these spaces?

Recent visits bring to mind a sense of space and time reclaimed. Threads from stories I never knew have woven themselves into the fabric of my life and identity as an African-American woman living in the 21st century.

This week I sat on the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and listened to a cloud of witnesses call my name – they whispered the “you too” I need to hear when I reflect on my existence as an African-American woman of faith living in the wake of #BlackLivesMatter and the still fresh wound created by the massacre of gods children in Orlando.

These churches, these spaces are built as offerings, as houses of faith for all people – whether they were always used that way or not. They belong to me too.

I won’t pretend I have it all figured out but a story Julia Foote, a 19th-century African-American mystic tells, came to mind. Foote preached a revolutionary gospel based on a “here and now salvation” – one that didn’t look to heaven for a fully redeemed life to begin. She fought the evils of segregation within the church as part of that work and begins her narrative with a story of Sunday morning discrimination experienced in her home church. At that time, many churches ‘balconied‘ or cornered Black people off like “poor lepers”. They were forbidden to approach the Eucharist table until all whites had been served. Foote shares how her mother and another woman left the segregated balcony to receive Eucharist one day, just as two white members approached the table. A church mother grabbed her mothers’ dress to remind her of her place and her mother retreated in recognition.

Foote admonished the community at large – the church mother who berated the women and her own mother, whose faith she faulted for not being strong enough to acknowledge her true position in the kingdom of God . The fruits of slavery lead both parties in error. If they professed love for the same god, why continue swallowing the bitter backwash of slavery by living into roles that in Christ, no longer applied.

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28 NRSV

Fifteen minutes late for dinner with a friend I got up to take pictures. Lost in the details of the sculptures, the faces, the fashion – I accepted the invitation to sit a little longer with my questions.

I am remembering and reclaiming – partly for myself (I’ve struggled to believe I could claim a space in holy sanctuaries like these) and perhaps for a woman from another era, one who asks me to take a seat. She, one of the great cloud of witnesses asks me to stay.

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! Hebrews 12:1-3

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely,^[a] and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, ²looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of^[b] the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-3 NRSV

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

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Frequency {in tune and time with love}

Posted on June 12, 2016June 30, 2016 by lisha epperson

Frequency

1. the rate at which something occurs or is repeated over a particular period of time or in a given sample.

2. the rate at which a vibration occurs that constitutes a wave, either in a material (as in sound waves), or in an electromagnetic field (as in radio waves and light), usually measured per second.

A brutal stomach virus made its way through our home, taking us down one by one over a span of two weeks. It seemed we’d picked up on the frequency of a particularly unfriendly vibe – it wouldn’t let go. When it did we’d bonded over a shared experience of suffering in our little community and talked over the details of how the illness manifested in each of us. But what I remember most is the extra time we’d found for hugs and kisses – how it took the forced slow down of a virus to realign us with another frequency – the one I missed most – the frequency of family.

It made me wonder, how easy it is to get lost and how difficult it can be to find our way back. The virus, as horrible as it was, served as a holy re-centering for me. After a year of realigning our family around the demands of my life as a seminarian and an adjustment to the interruption of our homeschool world with the stress of a public school calendar … well, we needed a gateway back to the natural rhythms of our familial spirituality, our unique family style.

It’s hard to admit that as intentional as I was with trying to find space for it all, sometimes my efforts fell flat. There was never enough time. Such big changes left us in a constant state of flux. No day resembled the other and each week required a seismic shift in pace and tempo to make it to the next. A thin, irregular love became our new normal.

As much as we cherish our free-spirited lifestyle – it’s centered around connection. When the stress and grind of “too much” created gaps we couldn’t fill – we fell out of sync, sharing sporadic, irrational moments of hurried love. What was missing was the spirit of love and physical affirmation our family thrives on. Love is intentional regular repetition. I, we – needed time to reconnect with the heartbeat of our ordinary by doing love.

We needed time for that.

A season of stillness offered a time of slow and easy love. Illness pushed me into active and present service and reacquainted me with the ministry of love. Unhurried meal preparation, the meditative flow of being there – on my post and available for love whenever and wherever it called felt good and filled me up. The Lovelies reunited in sweet ways too, sharing without complaint and making sure space was available for whoever needed it. It is sacred practice, this thing of being family, it is practice indeed.

Love is the again and again of radical communication and our God is a communicator. Through time and touch, he communicates with us as we communicate with each other. We are bound, each of us to the forever of a nucleus of love that sustains. There is hope in each exchange.

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

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Abide {a story of a weeping husband and a few rings}

Posted on June 5, 2016June 5, 2016 by lisha epperson

Abide : accept or act in accordance with (a rule, decision, or recommendation).

Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. – John 15:4-5

I keep my wedding bands in a small clay bowl. They join a vintage NYC token, a memento of our chance meeting on a subway platform almost 30 years ago. I take them off before approaching the work of ministry in my kitchen or when preparing to style one of the many full heads of my childrens hair. The bowl sits on the second shelf of a cabinet in the corner of our kitchen, very near the table I love so well. It’s become part of my daily rhythm to take them off and, often a day later, slide them on again.

I’ve wondered over that action the past two years. I’ve reached to open the cabinet door puzzled by my dilemma and unable in every way to quell my concerns. When had putting the rings on become a question? We were living and depending on the vine but the branches we leaned on had begun to weaken. Burdened with a deepening sense of frustration, I asked God what I should do when I didn’t want to wear the rings anymore.

They aren’t the rings I got married in. We wore matching gold bands for our wedding with the promise he’d give me a dream ring in year 5. When the pain of infertility met us at the doorstep of our early marriage dreams, I forgot about the ring. Focusing on a dream of motherhood consumed me. Its fulfillment satisfied a part of me that could not exist without it. That part of me was too busy to remember the rings or what they meant. I’d changed.

Year 5 brought our first spirit child and my promised dream ring but by then we’d already settled into an unsustainable pattern of never enough. And so began years of living pressed deep between the pages of a theology of suffering. We made it work, until we couldn’t. And still we changed.

The suffering strengthened us but it also made us tired. We became parents in the middle of it and walked through a long-awaited pregnancy with a fear I won’t name – changing yet again. We came through the battle bloodied and fragile – scraping the bottom of the barrel of belief but still holding on. We needed help then, but didn’t know how to ask for it.

Seated in the truth of 20 years are stories only married people know. The person I love most is also the person who challenges me and money or the struggle to make and keep it wore us down. The grind of trying so hard to make it all happen, all the time – wears on a soul. Our marriage became more about making it to the next day than a ministry and that bred dissatisfaction. I began to imagine another life. I believe Rodney did too. I missed my best friend. I think he did too.

The weeks leading up to our 20th anniversary were tense. Every exchange seemed to be filled with the question – will we move forward? Will we make it? I didn’t have an answer. Only the sustaining liturgy of words and thoughts in my Book of Common Prayer – a practice that kept me praying all year, especially when I had no words of my own.

Afraid of what the night might bring I stalled in the family room as long as I could before crawling into bed the night before our anniversary. A threshold I couldn’t escape waited for me and its doors flung wide to make room. The question demanded a response.

Bone and heart tired, I made my way to the bed imagining the field of muted flowers emblazoned on our sheets. I found him there – weeping. Core shaking, I can’t do this life without you tears. When he reached for me I joined him in a healing and hopeful lament. Equal parts cleansing and apology, humility, forgiveness and gratitude. Grace – all grace.

And then the word turned promised answer – Abide. It hovered over us like a cloud of manna we could reach for when we wanted.

Wrapped in the commandment to abide is obedience and observance, following and holding. Choosing to abide is remembering the promise, to stick to and stand by the decision we made.

There’s a hard truth behind the process of pruning. It’s painful. God lopped off whole chunks of our hearts to make our union ready for some of the things we’d face. What remains still needs refining. This is a season of pruning the unwanted parts, paring and slimming down to increase future fruitfulness and growth. I won’t pretend it hasn’t been hard.

We believe we have something worth keeping. God help us as we work for it. We can’t do it without him.

God says abide. Our rings are wrapped in stories bound in the forever of Gods dream for our union. The years represent the tangling of two lives multiplied now many times over. Our past present and future are in the filigree flowers, in the precious shimmer of tiny diamond chips set firmly in a band of platinum and gold. It is my dream ring. I will wear it always.

Happy Anniversary to my love … I know he’ll read this.

The next day he brought home my favorite peonies.

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

♥

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Give Me Grace : Nap Time

Posted on May 28, 2016June 1, 2016 by lisha epperson

I first realized the power of nap time as a new mother. The details of those long days of early parenthood have all but vanished from memory, but I do remember naps. Spontaneous, stolen, sweet midday sleep. I would not have survived those years without it.

As the years plowed on, naps as I knew them fell to the way side. I couldn’t steal them at the skating rink or in the car. With children in tow – a nap on any form of mass transportation was impossible. And night-time was for me, my chance to read or watch a movie, to write or create. Although it often happened, I didn’t want to trade ‘me time’ for sleep.

Fast forward to a life with older children and hours dedicated to my life as a seminarian and I remember the power and privilege of a nap. They were a source of rejuvenation when I returned home from school, 20 minutes was all I needed to ease my transition from one world to another. These naps were good but looming deadlines kept me from fully enjoying them.

As I reacquaint myself with life as a full-time mom/educator I’m remembering nap time as a tool in my arsenal for survival.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last week after a reading lesson with my 5-year-old he said he felt tired and wanted to rest. I pushed the books to the side and told him to make himself comfortable on the other end of the couch. He did and fell asleep almost immediately. I grabbed my phone to catch up on emails and Facebook when I had the same idea. This was the perfect opportunity for a nap. Down went the phone. I released myself to sleep.

Michael Hyatt swears by the power of a nap. Studies show that within 20 minutes , a powerful sleep-promoting neuro-modulator called adenosine begins to break down. High levels of this chemical which builds up throughout the day can leave you feeling desperate for a nap. Finally the adrenal glands prepare a stash of cortisol to help you feel more alert when you wake up and the immune system begins to reset itself back to normal. The power of a nap is felt most significantly if its limited to a 20 to 30 minute pick-me up.

I’ve also made a connection with my life online. Long stretches in front of a screen are another great reason for a nap. It offers a hush on the non-stop mental chatter I’ve grown accustomed to and gives my mind and eyes a much-needed break.

Every day that week, the pattern continued. We’d curl up on the couch for his reading lesson and enjoy a nap afterward. My 8-year-old joined us sometimes but often she’d busy herself with other projects while mama enjoyed the glory and health benefits of sleep.

And nap time gives me the burst of energy I need for playtime.

Nap time made room for frisbee in Central Park, a day painting and walking the galleries at the Museum of the City of New York, a too late for kids, but fun anyhow dinner at our favorite Ethiopian restaurant and, time to catch up with Preston Yancey in his first book – Tables in the Wilderness.

Nap time might be what saves me this summer. Do you take naps? Have you found time for play? How are you filling it?

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

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