Southwest Conference Blog

On Puzzles, and stories

Puzzles exercise the brain. This kind of workout is something I can do on a daily basis. Putting pencil to paper for a little Sudoku (a math puzzle – more entertaining than figuring out my bank balance) while cable news hosts keep me over-informed. Putting finger to computer for online jigsaw puzzles when I need a break from TV. Yes, my mind is sharp and my eyes are strained.

Get back to real life, you say? Can’t get away from puzzles.

Composer Richard Rogers sang on that subject. From The King and I…

There are times I almost think
I am not sure of what I absolutely know
Very often find confusion
In conclusion I concluded long ago
In my head are many facts
That, as a student, I have studied to procure
In my head are many facts
Of which I wish I was more certain I was sure!

Is a puzzlement

A great story set to music. The King of Siam reached out to Anna, the governess from England, to unravel some of the puzzles that persisted in his head. Through conversation and companionship, they both benefited by learning from (and disagreeing with) each other. They were like puzzle pieces representing Eastern and Western thought, and when their edges adapted and found a fit, a better image and understanding of the world emerged.

St. Paul’s is a puzzle. My next sentence choice could take take us in many directions, but the point I want to make here is that we are pieces that fit together. Surprisingly. Each one is the product of a different history. Our shapes vary. (Let’s not get into that.) Our ages may cluster around some vague measure of maturity, but our outlook on life is all over the map.

The analogy is obvious. When one piece is missing – when a unique voice, hug or smile is not present – the picture is not as colorful or meaningful as we’ve experienced before.

But our puzzle is not “done” even when all pieces are present and accounted for.

These short phrases are from a recently concluded TV epic with enough plot twists to boggle the most nimble puzzle fan.

What unites people?

Armies? Gold? Flags?

Stories.

There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story.

Tyrion Lannister
Game of Thrones
Final episode

In our church gatherings on Sundays or during the week, in our conversations, without a sense of hurry and in the embrace of trust, we share our stories. Mostly they are not epic. They are best told not in sound bites (or tweets), not in speeches, but in response to a skilled listener who lets the word images unravel from the head and heart of the teller. No prodding. No judgment. No subject changing. No filling a silence with commentary.

Storytelling is a waiting game.

Is the puzzle of a person’s entire story ever complete?

The picture on the box may be of a covered bridge in the fall, and every jigsawed piece has its place. But what does it feel like to ride a bicycle as a twelve-year old into that darkened corridor, the rhythm of wheels drumming on weathered floor planks? Beneath is the stream where you and Grandpa fished all summer, hooking more jokes than trout. Does this bridge connect home and school? Childhood and adulthood?

Stories: bridges into the heart. A story may be given away, yet remain owned. Maybe we don’t tell it the same way twice, as memories are rediscovered or put aside. Shared, it can linger with a listener. Or result in a joyful moment, like the flash of the silver trout, darting away, laughing.

Stories unite people. And puzzle pieces.

Being prosecuted for compassion

by Bill Lyons

The Gospel tells Christians that giving food, drink, welcome, shelter, clothing, care, and accompaniment to strangers equates to feeding, quenching the thirst of, sheltering, clothing, caring for, and accompanying Jesus himself.[i] Jesus teaches us that these actions have eternal implications because they are God’s basic expectations for all human relationships.

And yet, the federal government in Tucson, Arizona is prosecuting humanitarian aid worker Scott Warren for providing food, water, shelter, rest, and orienting two men who had been in Arizona’s deadly desert for two days. Warren is charged with harboring and conspiring to transport undocumented migrants, felonies that carry decades of possible prison time. [ii]

On May 5, U. S. Customs and Border Protection Agents arrested, held, and continue to intimidate Ana Adlerstein for accompanying a Central American migrant into the Lukeville, Arizona border crossing after prearranging their appearance with the port of entry supervisor. Adlerstein was accused of “alien smuggling” although she has not been charged with a crime.[iii]

These are not isolated incidents. Similar arrests and intimidation of U.S. citizens living their faith’s values have been reported all along America’s southern border. Prosecutions for harboring undocumented migrants has risen from 3,461 to 4,532 in the last three years – a 30% increase. In an NPR interview Teresa Todd, a four-term city and county attorney in west Texas, framed the situation this way, “It makes people have to question, ‘Can I be compassionate’?” Todd was arrested and continues to be harassed by federal and state law enforcement officials for giving a migrant shelter in her car until medical help could arrive. [iv]

Living our faith in relationship to our neighbors regardless of their citizenship should never be a crime. Preventing the deaths of people in the desert is what God asks of us. Law enforcement officials should never be permitted to arrest, harass, or intimidate people of faith for embodying the hospitality the Bible describes and to which Jesus enjoins us. People of faith should never be afraid to live compassionate lives. And yet those are the realities many people of faith in America’s border states experience every day. U. S. immigration policy should not make the desert a death sentence.

As a Christian leader I feel compelled to bring these assaults on our core value of compassion into the light. Silence as a faith leader in this moment surrenders our Constitutionally protected religious right to love our neighbors. Not only am I praying for change, I am working for it in the public square. I invite you to be present, speak truth to power, and take action with me to preserve our core values to feed, quench the thirst of, welcome, shelter, clothe, care for, and accompany our neighbors of every immigration and documentation status without fear of reprisals, prosecution, intimidation, or threats against our liberty from government authorities. May the Spirit of the Christ who calls us to love one another as we have been loved by God bolster our courage and strengthen our resolve to protect and preserve the dignity of every person created in God’s image, and to create the loving world Jesus envisioned.

– Rev. Dr. William Lyons, Conference Minister, Southwest Conference UCC

[i] Matthew 25:31-46

[ii] https://www.google.com/search?q=migrant+deaths+in+the+sonoran+desert&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS759US759&oq=migrant+deaths+in+the+sonoran+desert&aqs=chrome..69i57.6548j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[iii] https://tucson.com/news/local/steller-column-intimidation-campaign-intensifies-against-border-humanitarians/article_e6cef226-0d05-55e6-ab0f-6b9d3a2661b8.html

[iv] https://www.npr.org/2019/05/28/725716169/extending-zero-tolerance-to-people-who-help-migrants-along-the-border

image credit: Dan Sorensen on flickr

About Alabama, and Georgia, and Ohio, and…

by Abigail Conley

I thought maybe I should write about that time I needed emergency contraception and the gift of the website that helped me get something that would work for my body. A woman called soon after I clicked that button to confirm my information and calmly, professionally, compassionately asked questions to make sure the prescription they were overnighting would work.

I thought maybe I should write about my friends who have been raped, and the stories we tell behind closed doors. At 25, we could still talk about trauma more than twenty years old.

I thought maybe I should write about making sure young women in my congregation going off to college know how to not get pregnant, to not take open drinks at parties, and hearing what happened any way.

I thought maybe I should write about the trust that Planned Parenthood would help newlyweds and graduate students access contraception and the task of accompanying friends through lines of people accusing her of murder when she was doing everything she could to not get pregnant at a time that a pregnancy would have been financially devastating.

I thought maybe I should write about buying a pregnancy test for a scared youth sponsor, a woman in her mid-30s who would was still unsure of how to care for her body.

I thought maybe I should write about the people who whisper “abortion” through tears years later in their pastor’s office. I thought maybe I should write about the people who whisper “abortion” with fear of judgment with no regrets about their decision.

I thought maybe I should write about the women who I kicked out of the church office as they so proudly talked about their plan to intimidate women seeking abortion. They weren’t quite as proud of their plan to offer enough incorrect information that it was too late for her to obtain an abortion when she found her way to a provider. I thought maybe I should write about the two very conservative women from my church who witnessed that exchange and the grateful look in their eyes as they pronounced, “That’s not right. You don’t know what happened.”

I thought maybe I should write about the fact that I have never been raped, or sexually assaulted and still, if someone grabs my wrist, a panic arises so deep inside of me I am yelling within seconds; somehow my body knows this movement spells trouble for so many women.

I thought about writing about those things.

I thought about writing about those things but you could read similar stories in a few million places on the Internet.

I thought about writing about those things, but why should I have to tell stories of pain in order to convince someone that all those other women and I are actually autonomous humans, too?

And instead of writing those things, I think I will share Janet Ruth Heller’s poem about Deborah, the prophet and judge of Israel:
It is not recorded of Deborah
That she settled down with Barak,
Raised a tribe of Children,
And left off judging Israel.

We may be mothers. We may be wives. We may be many things. But today, I am longing for women to be able to just be.

An Easter Story

by Abigail Conley

In the days before Easter, I was bombarded with Church—not my own church, but advertisements from the many churches hoping I’d show up there on Easter morning. They wasted advertising dollars on me, for sure, but it was also a reminder of all the anxiety of holidays in the church. Will there be enough food? Will people show up? What if we’re not packed for Easter? Like it or not, Christmas and Easter become the days we wonder if our churches measure up. Those are the days all our anxiety about our future can easily come to rest.

So here’s an Easter story that has absolutely no flash and is full of resurrection and is one of the best Easter miracles I’ve ever witnessed.

On Easter Sunday this year, our lone thirteen year old handed me a handwritten announcement. It was a carefully written invitation to her school’s production of Music Man. This is the first time she’s offered an invitation in this way, even though I know there have been several other plays and musicals. The adults sitting in front of her in worship have told me we should make sure she knows she can sing in the choir.

One of the performance dates is on my calendar. I have no doubt the production will be terrible in all the ways that middle school musicals are and wonderful in all the ways that middle school musicals are. I typed the announcement in this week’s email knowing full well this invitation is wonderful and terrible. I typed the announcement trusting that there will be another adult or two who show up just because this kid from church invited.

Most people don’t know this kid is in foster care. Hesitantly, we hear bits and pieces in prayer requests about other siblings and biological parents. Some people connect the dots while others don’t. Mostly, it doesn’t matter either way. I know more of her story because I’m her pastor, but I can’t share most of it. It’s not mine to share and, well, foster care.

Here is what I do know though: we are doing something right if any thirteen year old can hand an announcement to her pastor and trust it will be well received. That’s not just about the pastor, but a church that loves her and welcomes her and is interested in her life. We are especially doing something right if that kid has all of the baggage that comes with being in foster care and still can learn to trust her church.

The announcement is now tucked away in a special folder I keep full of notes and cards and letters to go back and look at on the hard days. They are little stories of resurrection, one and all.

So here’s to churches with one thirteen year old or one seven year old or none of those who celebrate any way. Here’s to churches with not quite enough bulletins or way too many and will make do either way. Here’s to the beauty that comes with community—as lovely as the woman headed back to the tomb, as lovely as a potluck breakfast with too many carbs. Here’s to all of us who live in the promise of resurrection, for Christ is risen, and we are rising, indeed.

A Christian response to anti-Semitism

by Talitha Arnold

Friday is the first night of Passover, the joyous celebration of God bringing the Jews from slavery into freedom. Today is also Good (or Holy) Friday, the Christian commemoration of Jesus’ death at the hand of the Roman Empire. For both Jews and Christians, this is a deeply holy day.

Tragically, the Christian Holy Friday has often been a time of holy terror for Jews. Throughout the centuries, the remembrance of Jesus’ suffering and death served as an excuse for Christians to inflict that same suffering and death on Jews. A Jewish friend recalls from his 1950s boyhood that he never went outside on Good Friday to avoid being beaten up by neighborhood boys because “the Jews killed Jesus.” Such beliefs are still prevalent. Recently, an acquaintance asserted, “Of course the Jews killed Jesus. The Bible says so.”

No, it doesn’t, and we Christians need to pay attention to how we tell the Good Friday story, especially in this time of rising anti-Semitism. Affirming our faith and seeking to follow in the ways of Jesus Christ should not lead to the prejudice and bias that fosters discrimination, fear and violence.

So how can we Christians tell the story of Good Friday? We can tell the truth that Jesus’ crucifixion was a Roman execution meant to strike fear and suppress opposition. Thirty years before Jesus’ death, the Roman Legion crucified 3,000 Jews to stop a rebellion in Galilee. When Christians tell Jesus’ story, we need be clear that the religious leaders of Jesus’ time were responsible for the well-being of their people, living under the shadow of a brutal and oppressive regime. Many were justifiably concerned with anyone who put their people in jeopardy by challenging that regime.

We can affirm that Christian scriptures were written over decades to different audiences with varying degrees of familiarity with Judaism and different relationships with the Roman Empire. When we speak of Jesus’ last days, we can tell the truth that the Gospel writers were trying to establish a new religion and therefore sometimes disparaged or vilified those who opposed them.

We can also underscore that the Gospels don’t agree in their portrayal of that opposition. As noted above, some Jewish leaders understandably feared Roman retribution, not just for themselves but for their people. Some opposed Jesus for theological reasons and believed he was undermining the faith that had given their people hope for generations.

Still others opposed Jesus for less virtuous reasons. In Jesus’ time, as in ours, unholy and unhelpful alliances existed among political, economic and religious leaders. Jesus’ advocacy for the poor, the vulnerable and the outcast — which was deeply rooted in his own faith as a Jew — may have been welcomed by some leaders and by the people, but it put him at odds with many in power, especially those at the top.

Moreover, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke often distinguished between the religious establishment and the people. Their Gospels also acknowledged diverse opinions toward Jesus among the leaders themselves. In contrast, three decades later, John’s Gospel was written primarily from a “you’re either for us or against us” perspective.

Hence, John spoke only of “the Jews” with little distinction between leaders and people or recognition of the diversity among the leaders. John also absolved the Romans of almost any responsibility for Jesus’ death. In Mark, Pontius Pilate turns Jesus over for crucifixion because he wishes “to please the crowd.” In Matthew, he literally washes his hands of the situation. But in John, the Roman imperial governor pleads Jesus’ case — an odd perspective, given the Roman Empire’s brutal response to religious resisters.

Because John’s Gospel has been the main text used in many Good Friday traditions, Jesus’ death often has been framed solely as the result of the “old Jewish religion” resisting the “new (and better)” Christian faith. From there, it’s only a small step to the “bad Jew, good Christian” thinking that’s often permeated Christianity from its beginning.

Yet as scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan observe, if the Jews as a whole wanted Jesus dead, why do Mark and Matthew state that the leaders needed to arrest and kill Jesus “by stealth” or that they were worried about a “riot among the people?” Perhaps the real opposition to Jesus that led to his death was rooted less in religion than in the leaders’ fear of losing power or status. Such fear is a human trait, not limited to any particular religious or ethnic group.

As Christians, we need to tell the truth of the Good Friday story. The story of Holy Week is not about the inherent evil of a particular ethnic or religious group. It is simply the all-too-human story of vested power (political and religious) that is threatened and then responds with force and violence.

The Jews didn’t kill Jesus. Fear and hatred did. Neither is the sole domain of any particular religious group or faith tradition. The question isn’t “who” killed Jesus but “what.” We Christians need to remember that this sacred week.

The Rev. Talitha Arnold, senior pastor at United Church of Santa Fe, wrote this for the Interfaith Leadership Alliance.

The Labyrinth of Lent

by Jocelyn Emerson

For me, Lent is a time to slow ourselves down, to ponder, to wander, to contemplate, to be still. Lent is a journey. Each Lenten journey is different and unique.

For me, the Labyrinth is a beautiful metaphor for the Lenten journey. You start at the beginning following the path set before you. Depending upon which style Labyrinth you walk, you twist and turn, sometimes facing the center (your goal), sometimes turning away from the center. If you stay on the path, trusting its wander way, you will end up in the Center — the center of your heart, the center of your soul, that sacred place where Spirit resides within you. Each step you take on the labyrinth is an invitation to prepare for the center — to slow, to deepen, to open yourself to the movement and presence of Spirit.

As you enter the Center, your walk has prepared you for being fully in the Presence of the Sacred. You are invited to commune with the Sacred. Stay there as long as you would like, Pray your questions and await answers. Release what no longer serves you. Heal. Sing. Be Still.

When you are ready, with gratitude in your heart, you follow the same path outward. Each turn toward the Center an opportunity to embody deeper gratitude for the blessings you received. Each turn away, an opportunity to prepare to re-enter the outer world, to integrate what you received in the Center with your ordinary life.

This is the Lenten journey. You have an opportunity this Lenten season to journey to the center of your Heart. What is there? What are you cherishing? What needs healing? What needs releasing? What are the shadows hiding? What is the Light illuminating?

I hope this Lenten season you will journey deep into the Center of the Center of the Center of your Heart.

image credit:
Jocelyn Emerson
Purple Adobe Lavender Farm Labyrinth
Ojo Caliente, NM

Remains

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

How do we make sense of an internal commitment to love while the external world is spewing so much fear, and so much hate?

These are my efforts to reconcile that reality.

Anger, fear, and hate exist as a demonstration of futility. These emotions and states of mind are finite, limited and diminishing. It can feel powerful. It can feel easy and safe. It can feel certain and strong. It is the very opposite of this, though.

These states of mind and emotion have the largest taxation on our soul. It’s exhausting. They cannot be sustained and leave us lonely, empty and lost.

Anger, fear and hate occur when we are idle and reactive.

Love is cultivated and nurtured in our skillful, intentional actions.

Love is powerful. It can be steady, understated and quiet. It can be fierce, passionate, charged. Love holds us, replenishes us again and again.

While hate languishes and grapples and clings and begs and wails and cries as it dies…

Love remains.

When the Church Gets It Right

by Abigail Conley

It’s the week of church meetings of a different sort. The United Methodists are meeting to figure out their relationship with the LGBTQ+ community. The Roman Catholics are meeting over their sexual abuse scandals. I never know if people who aren’t clergy are as aware of these sorts of meetings. They always blow up my social media and then some.

I don’t discredit the importance of these meetings. I can only begin to imagine the pain wrapped up in the meetings. Like many people, I have my own share of church-inflicted trauma. There are styles of prayer that will make me physically ill because they remind me of a different sort of church. There are songs and styles of preaching that do the same. I mostly keep away from them now, though some trigger pops up unexpectedly every now and then.

And yet, I remember this: it was the church that taught me to trust people.

Strangely, wonderfully, hopefully, transformingly: the church taught me to trust people. I say people because I still don’t know what to do with the institution, and that’s another conversation entirely. But if I begin to count the people who cared for me and honored the covenants I was born into, there is no end.

I think first of Ruth, seemingly ancient in my mind. Her hair was always done in a French twist, which fascinated me as my family sat behind her in church. I remember talking with her, which means she bothered to talk to me as a child. I remember the feel of her hand on mine as it grasped the back of the pew. The endless patience I recall from elementary school had to be there all of my life, including when I played with Cheerios to make it through worship as a toddler.

Truth be told, it’s probably my fault that the children’s sermon at my childhood church was short lived. The pastor didn’t really know what he was doing when he started that particular addition to worship and I gave lots of unhelpful answers and so it only lasted a few weeks. That same pastor, though, gladly fulfilled my requests of him at church potlucks: black pop only and help removing the devil from my deviled egg. He shook my hand at the door, too.

Maybe it seems weird to name those simple things as honoring covenant, but to me they are. People cared about me, took care of me, and made space for me because we were church. The breadth and depth is astonishing now.

Randy both taught my Sunday school class and let me rollerskate down the hallway with his daughters. Kenny and Sheila had long ago lost control of their house when the third kid was born, and so they hosted all of the kids in the church for sleepovers. We played crocodile on their king-sized waterbed—an absurd game of someone lying in the middle trying to knock everyone else off the edge—and ate blueberry pancakes in the morning. We piled on wagons for hayrides and Kenny misjudged bridges so we had to get off and walk. Still, they kept us safe along the way.

It was this strange world of people who were different than family and different than just being together in a small town. I say that because these people were still there long after I left a small town, just there, choosing to be church.

The church where I was ordained took care of me as a seminary student long before they ordained me. Elizabeth, in charge of the children’s Easter egg hunt, pressed $20 for gas into my hand because she knew it was a long trip to the church in a time when gas prices were very high. They asked if I needed help buying tires for my car and packed up extra pizza to take home. When I had the youth van rental charged to my credit card, a reimbursement check was waiting for me when I got back from the event. They gave me every reason to believe them, to trust them, day in and day out.

And I think of the other things they got right. They loved the gay kid in a church that wasn’t ready for any conversations about becoming Open and Affirming. They made space for the adult with Down syndrome. Occasionally, there was the hot mess at a board meeting because, well, that whole wrangling with institution thing. But each and every person taught me trust, simply by existing together as church.

I skipped over the people in college, the church I attended as a teenager, the churches I have served after ordination. Each adds its own flair to the larger picture: these are people who live into covenant in ways that would not be possible except for the Spirit among them. And I trust them—indeed, with my very life in the vocation of pastor.

Many of us find ourselves tied to the church in spite of a million things. Some days, I’m one of them. More often, I am overwhelmed, dazzled even, by these church people who faithfully work to reflect the Christ they serve. I am humbled by the gift of trust they gave to me, and I hope to share with others. It is my deepest hope that, with God’s help, the lasting memory will be all the times the church got it right.

Be the change you wish to see.

by Sandra Chapin

How many of us feel that there are things in the world we’d like to see changed? I celebrate those who speak truth to power, those who hold up a mirror or focus a spotlight on actions that do harm, that limit opportunities for some of us to live full and dignified lives – who are routinely dismissed as having little, if anything, of value to contribute. Other harm to people on a global scale is ongoing as decisions are made, or avoided, in regard to climate. Our kinship with animals and plants is cast aside.

The scope of social justice issues is wide. I include the need for an attitude adjustment in our everyday interactions. I promote tenderness and gentleness. I’ll try not to be too icky sweet about it.

Let’s start with cute pet videos online. Recently Spence showed me a video on his phone of a cat reclining in a drowsy position and a human hand entering the scene holding a small teddy bear. The bear is nudged against the kitty who responds by reaching out its paws to grasp the bear in a hug that melts the heart. Awww. It’s just so sweet! Not icky. Even the stoic among us who disdain showing emotion would surely smile on the inside.

I am not a cat owner (is there such a thing as a cat owner?) but…

Most people would be moved by the simplicity of the act, the relationship of animal and human with a common ground of nurture and comfort. Cat and human (and teddy) are engaged in this tender and gentle moment. My take-away is to pose a question: Am I missing similar human-to-creature encounters? Not to be touching wild things, but to be aware of eye-contact as a gentle exchange of regard. To appreciate the lean and luminous lizard. For the lizard to appreciate not getting squashed by me – as if I could move that fast.

Sharing the earth with lizards and lions.

My next story is about a couple (humans) of mature years who I see often at Panera Bread. I go there to pretend I’m at a Parisian cafe composing some great work. They have a different agenda. They get coffee and sit at their favorite table and then proceed to work on a cross-word puzzle. I never see them speak, yet with heads together each takes a turn at the puzzle, even sharing the pencil. I can’t tell what the rules are. What pattern do they follow? Do they move in sequence – across, down – or scan for a category of expertise? Does he start a word and she complete it? Silently for more than an hour they sit in this back and forth manner. Seamlessly. Lovingly.

I am not in a coupled relationship but…

Watching them makes me calm. And curious. What is it like to be part of a pair that (I assume) has been evolving for years and years? I know couples who do not demonstrate such tenderness, at least not in front of others. Couples whose interaction hint at problems unresolved and a staying together more about habit than respect.

Over time I have struck up an acquaintance with this couple. They are as sweet as they appear. Not given to excessive conversation. That’s not why they come to Panera. Seeing their choreography with the puzzle I believe they have not had a cross word between them. That’s the lens I choose when I look at them. Real human to human contact can be prickly, and I remind myself that friendships need to be tended. Like my coffee at the cafe, better when sweetened and stirred. When we hold a person gently in our heart, it is easier to hold more and more.

Speaking truth to power. The Bible is full of it. Consider the prophet Nathan confronting King David with a story of a poor man and his beloved pet lamb, and a rich man who wanted lamb for dinner but not one from his own flock. (2 Samuel 12:1-9) Nathan’s words brought David to his knees.

Actions communicate truth. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. They were confused and protested. Servants or slaves performed this lowly chore, not a person held in high esteem. (John 13:1-15) Was Jesus confronting the power of privilege which can erode relationships and unravel a community?

In speech. In action. In attitude. Be the change you wish to see.

Blessed by Science and a Capacity for Awareness and Awe

by Jim Cunningham

Through science I have come to realize that I have been blessed for 13.8 billion years… now that is a lot of blessings. If any one of multi-trillions of events did not happen just so… I would not be here today. All of it gift, miracle, and blessing!.

Through science, a research geneticist taught me that it is likely that 78% of human egg/sperm unions do not result in a live birth. Most fail in the first days to six weeks. So when I was conceived my chances of being born alive was 22%. I call that a miracle, a blessing, a gift!

Science has taught me that I began as one cell and after a multitude of cell divisions and specializations, I am born with 1-5 trillion cells and as an adult have some 25 to 100 trillion cells. Wow. Miracle! Blessing! Gift!

Each day also a gift and blessing. Each breath and heartbeat a gift and blessing! If I were to go to bed and count all my blessings… well, I would never get any sleep.

I remember hearing a story where a student asks his Rabbi, “What is the key to a spiritually healthy life?” It happened to be the Rabbi’s day of silence but not wanting to disappoint the student, the Rabbi wrote on a piece of paper one word… “Awareness.” The student looked puzzled and asked, “What do you mean by ‘awareness.?’” The Rabbi again wrote one word on a paper, “Awareness!” The student said, “I do not understand? Please, I really need to know what you mean by ‘awareness.’ !” Finally, the frustrated Rabbi breaks silence, “When I say ‘awareness’ I mean awareness, awareness, awareness!!!”

I pray that I may never lose my awareness of 13.8 billion years of gift and blessing and miracles!… that I may never lose my awareness of the gift and blessing and miracle I am… that I may be keenly aware of the vast number of gifts and blessings and miracles I am privileged to enjoy every day of my life. I awake, aware that just waking to another day is a gift and blessing and miracle followed by millions more before I lie down to sleep… each breath, every heartbeat, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, speaking, ability to use my hands, to walk, to think, to learn, to read, to eat, clothes, food, water, a roof over my head, heat, air conditioning, medicine, a bed, pets, rocks, trees, gardens, air, diverse humans who share the journey… even pain and suffering, and oh so much more!

Awareness. Awareness. Awareness.

Thank you to the source of it all… a source I experience and call GOD.