Dragons at the Manger.

The afternoon of Christmas Eve our family was getting ready to head downtown for the 5:30 Christmas Pageant at First United Methodist. While some of the children in the pageant work hard to memorize lines, and the adult leaders have the young people amazingly well prepared, the whole thing is a rather chaotic, wild, rich, swirling, beautiful mess. (Which happens to draw hundreds of people...so that the sanctuary is, year after year, nearly full.)

As we were getting ready we asked four year old Ella and two year old Olivia if they wanted to be angels in the pageant. Olivia, who is a cute little brown-eyed thing, said, "No, I want to be a dragon."

Many of us have been reading stories for years about children wanting to play their own roles in Christmas pageants. Someone told me that a girl in the last year or two here at First wanted to be a dog at the manger! They had advertised roles as sheep, donkeys, cattle, wisemen, etc. but this young woman wanted to be a dog.

Livy said, "I want to be a dragon." It is hard to see this little girl as a dragon. She sure looks more like an angel to Grandpa but there must be a dragon in there wanting to get out!

The cool thing is that when we got to the church, where adults were helping children into costumes, Nicole heard that Olivia wanted to be a dragon and she smiled. She said, "Sure, she can be a dragon. Let's see what we can find..."

I like the idea that God welcomes not only donkeys, cattle, and sheep at the manger...but also dragons. Luke would have understood, I think. Luke makes a point of telling us that the first visitors to the manger were shepherds. And shepherds were considered dirty, ritually unclean, impulsive, and untrustworthy. There were, I once said in a sermon, the first century's version of traveling carnival workers.

We have a God who is big enough to make a place at the manger for dragons. Wild things. Untamed creatures. Who set fields and trees on fire when they sneeze. Whose appearance is unsettling...and whose scales are rough. But who, in their eyes, have the light of God's kingdom.

Reclaiming Holy Ground.

Our extended family has had a cottage at Lake Webster for more than 70 years. I have memories of going to the beach there, on the grounds of the United Methodist camp site known as Epworth Forest, as a young boy. I learned how to row a boat at Lake Webster. I learned how to catch bluegill (and one spectacular bass) at Lake Webster. I remember spending evenings on the sternwheeler -the Dixie- that would circle the lake picking up passengers.

Since we were missionaries we moved all around the world, it seemed. We seemed to always be on the go. But we would always come back to the cottage at Lake Webster. Then, I grew up (okay...maybe I didn't grow up but I got to the point in life where people expect you to have a job!) and our family moved around. As the family of a United Methodist pastor does. But we always came back to the cottage at Lake Webster.

Ten years ago this past spring my Mom died of pancreatic cancer. Since then I haven't enjoyed going to Lake Webster because the cottage reminds me of her absence.

Now, though, our two granddaughters have decided they love going to Lake Webster. We've just spend three days with them. Ella walked with me on the pier, last night, after a sunset trip around the lake on the ski boat. Both Grandpa and her Mommy went skiing. Ella said to me, "I have had so much fun at the cottage!"

So now the cottage is a good place to go, for me. The girls and their presence have reclaimed this holy ground for me. Their love fills the place. My Mom's picture is still on the door of the fridge. I still sometimes stop, as I swing in the hammock in the front yard, and say, "Oh, Mom..." Bryan, our oldest son, reminded me today as we swam down at the beach how my Mom would wear a rubber swimming cap and swim laps back and forth across the swimming area.

I miss my Mom. But Ella and Olivia have reclaimed this holy ground for me. They have blessed it. They have sanctified it with their gracious -and sometimes very loud!- presence.

When Did OK Corral Come to Main Street?

One of the best parts of my life is the tutoring I do with students in our city. The first question I ask as I escort my 5th graders from their homeroom is this: "Tell me what you did this past weekend?"

One of my students recently told me she attended the funeral of her 19-year old cousin. He had been shot during a drive-by attack. I tried to listen, catch the story, as the student and I walked down the hall.

When we found a place to study, I continued to listen. A girlfriend. Who hadn't been faithful. The cousin had shoved the girl around. Then, the girl's new boyfriend and his buddies drove by, shouted the young man's name, and when he turned they shot him.

So while we did division, we talked.

About how we have this generation of young men who are shooting one another. Destroying one another. I told her it had to stop...this was no way to live. I told her, "I'm so sorry."

We talked. I told her everything about the situation was wrong. A man never hits a woman...ever. A girl who is loving one man shouldn't be loving other men. Guns are not to be used arguments. "None of this is right," I said. "None of this is right."

She told me she thought some white people were racist. I said, "Yes, many of us are. And so are too many black people. We all have some of that junk in us. We need to start being more honest with one another...take care of one another...figure out how to take care of one another."

How do you do division when you are talking about the shooting of a 19-year old young man? How do you think about math when you see a generation destroying one another?

How do you continue getting the classwork done when you feel this fear rising up from your gut? You see this bright, sharp, young woman in front of you and you think about the rip tides of alcohol, drugs, and violence that will be surging around her as she heads off to middle school and senior high school.

Is there some safe place where we can put these children to keep them safe? All across our nation we have these bright-eyed, sharp, children...in elementary school. There are these dangerous tides ahead. How will we keep the children safe? I'd like to lift them all above this, the way I lift my granddaughter over obstacles at the playground, and set them down on the safe side of 18 or 19 or 20.

When did the OK Corral come to main street?

The More You're Loved, the Farther You Go.

Slipped away to Columbus, Ohio this past weekend. Trinity was hopping with great worship, a big-time food drive, and a packed Upward Basketball/ Cheerleading celebration in the afternoon. But we needed to go. So we did.

There is a playground on the back yard of an elementary school in the Westgate area of Columbus. We headed down there several times, with our 18-month granddaughter, during the weekend. She is just learning her way to navigate around a playground...across the uneven surface of a grass yard.

Two things I noticed.

First, she has gotten pretty comfortable very quickly. What that means is instead of waiting for us to walk by her side, Ella goes on ahead of us. There have been times when she would walk 4-8 feet ahead of us, but that is lengthening out. Now, she will go off 20-30 yards. She looks independent. Like she could conquer the world. If you watch carefully, though, you'll notice she turns her head half-way to the side to catch the occasional glimpse of us. Just to make sure we are behind her. Just to make sure she isn't alone.

She looks back. She sees us. Then, she faces forward and goes!

She is a little girl who is so well loved by every adult in her life? Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, her babysitter, and adult friends at Columbus Vineyard...she is well loved.

Love gives us the confidence to go on...walk ahead...go further. Without love we are always afraid, always clinging, but when we are well loved we have the confidence to move ahead...go out...explore the world.

I John 4:18 says perfect love drives fear out of our lives. I see that in her.

There is a second thing I noticed: she doesn't need to hold onto my hand when we walk across the yard. The uneven grass is a challenge for a little girl, but when I offered her my hand Sunday morning she pulled her hand back and shook her head, "No."

I smiled. Watched her navigate her way across the grass of late winter. It's an interesting moment, isn't it? We love, hold onto the next generation, and then they need to let go...make their own way across the terrain of this world.

Loves gives itself away so that the other can be independent...so that the other person can walk their own path.

Love, as I commented to someone the other day, means holding on...and letting go.

And when you love well the other person experiences the freedom and confidence to let go.

The Boy to My Left.

One of the cool things about life -and ministry, for that matter- is that every once in awhile you get to walk through a good dream. You get to experience something amazing.

Back in 1958 the people of Trinity United Methodist Church moved from downtown out to our present location on East Jackson Boulevard. (Don't worry...this isn't going to turn into a long history lesson!) When they settled out here they dreamt of a worship space and a youth center/ community center. It took us until 1999 to get the sanctuary built, and then people started thinking about that community center...that youth center.

About 18 months ago we moved into a really cool facility. Designed by a firm working with a team of laity, the Trinity Life Center is really cool... hardwood floor, scoreboard, classrooms for little kids and adults, a large lobby or gathering area, a youth room that meets the needs of adolescents, and super acoustics. The really great thing is our church understands that this is a tool for God - to reach and serve the community. Our Upward Basketball and Cheerleading ministries bring about 2,000 to God's house every Saturday. One-third of those folks are not connected to a church.

People dreamed the dream. God worked in them to make the dream a reality.

So this weekend we were blessed to have Bishop Michael J. Coyner join us for services of consecration. He drove all the way from Indy to spend Saturday night and Sunday morning with us.

All four weekend services were in the TLC. Lighting and sound were nearly perfect...no real glitches. Our Chancel Choir was rocking, and our Praise Team was "on." Our food team had coffee and homemade cinammon rolls!

Do you know what the coolest part of the services were? As much as I loved the music, it wasn't the choirs or music teams. As much as I respect our Bishop, and was blessed by his preaching, it wasn't the Bishop sitting to my right. No, it was a 7th grade boy who was sitting to my left.

The boy to my left first showed up at Trinity about three years ago. He was a neighborhood kid who was often on the edge of trouble. A guy in our church named John invited the boy to our mid week meal and program. Then, John invited the boy to worship.

Now, the church has become the center of the boy's life. He spends Saturdays at the church helping with Upward Basketball. He helps sweep up bread crumbs after Communion on Sunday morning, and he works the sound/lighting board during our services when needed. Life is tough at home but Trinity has become another kind of family for the boy.

During that moment in worship, when we prayed the Lord's Prayer, I heard the boy to my left praying the prayer. He knew every word. After it was over the boy leaned over to me and whispered, "Do you know every word to that prayer?" I said, "Yes, I do." He beamed at me and quietly said, "So do I."

I don't know what kind of price you put on moments like that, but I think it was worth the $3.5 million it cost God's people to build this brick instrument of grace.

Sometimes Silence is Good.

After 13 years serving a congregation you get to a point where you don't have the energy to play church. You get real. You get honest.

This weekend was one of those days when we talked, in worship, about some real stuff.

You can tell when the message is getting close to the hearts of people, you can tell when you are shaking some of the foundations and assumptions of peoples' lives, because they get very, very quiet.

This weekend it was like people had stopped breathing.

We were talking about how determined Joseph and Mary were to love their son, and introduce him to the God who loves him with everything he has. They had their son circumcised and named on the 8th day after his birth. They took him all the way to Jerusalem 40 days after his birth for the Jewish ritual of purification. They took their son to synagogue every week. They told him the stories of the faith.

A look at attendance patterns in our Sunday school shows the children from our most active families are present about once every three weeks. So we talked about this. We talked about how parents fool themselves into thinking their children are getting a spiritual foundation when we are only around enough to give our children spiritual quicksand.

I challenged parents to make God a commitment -not an afterthought. I reminded them that if they are here now and then, their child is always going to feel like an outsider...a stranger. I spoke to those who are sort of on the fence about being here because they have heard of a better nursery or children's ministry or youth center or teaching ministry in another church down the road. I said what most pastors would say: "If your heart is somewhere else, then go! Don't stay on the fence, sort of here and sort of not, because you're not helping your children...our church...or the other place. Go! Be all in or all out...but make a decision!"

It was quiet.

Sometimes silence is good, I think.

The people attending the synagogue in Nazareth, when Jesus preached from the prophet Isaiah, tried to kill him. They didn't like what he was saying.

No one threw a shoe today. No crowd tried to throw me off the sledding hill at Oxbow Park.

It was just quiet.

And I think that is okay.

Rivers of Joy and Creeks of Sadness.

Overwhelming joy. Joy that, like some river which refuses to be contained, insists on spilling over and covering everything in sight.

That's sort of what life was like around our church this past weekend: overwhelming joy.

Things got started on Thursday afternoon and evening. We're adjacent to a public elementary school. Our congregation cares about those kids and their families. We do things like sponsoring the school's back-to-school cook out. We grill and serve the food...help direct foot traffic.

The students were having their Christmas/ holiday program in our church gymnasium/multi-purpose room Thursday night. We offer the school our facility. There's no cost. It is a great place for the program...the school doesn't have anything like it. In the afternoon the teachers walked them over to the gym...with its lighted Christmas tree and lights running the length of the stage. It was cool! Then, Thursday night nearly 1,000 students, parents and relatives filled our Trinity Life Center. Oh, man...

The flood of joy continued Saturday morning as we hosted "evaluation day" for our Upward Basketball program. It was a snowy, cold morning. Cars pulled up from 8:30 to 2:30, parents and their children came into the TLC, and you should have seen their faces! The kids could hear basketballs bouncing off the hardwood floor, and their faces lit up. Scores of volunteers from the church -men and women- were working with the kids. Last year we had about 140 children in the league...so far we have 287 signed up! In our first year of Upward Cheerleading we have more than 55 girls already registered. There was joy...and tons of sweaty little kids...everywhere you looked.

There was worship Saturday night and Sunday morning. All the services are places where the living Christ shows up, but Saturday night something special was going on. People were worshipping...the room was warm... the lights were beautiful. It was just right...

The river of joy continued into Sunday night as the children of Trinity put on their Christmas pageant in the TLC. They were awesome...parents and grandparents were nearly coming out of their chairs with pride and delight as the children sang their songs...delivered their lines.

It was almost too much! Sort of the way, when the family would get together, my Grandpa Owen would keep delivering more food to the table... long after you had eaten more than enough. So much joy...it left me beaming and almost exhausted.

And then there is the other side of life. I did something to my right hand late last summer while skiing at Hamilton Lake. The thing has gotten worse through the fall. Tingling and numbness...becoming more pronounced. So my family physician sent me to a hand specialist. During the morning's appointment (the hand will be as good as new after some minor surgery in January) the nurse asked for my medical history...my family history. I sat there answering her questions and suddenly I felt like weeping. Somehow that conversation tapped into an underground creek of sadness. Usually, I do pretty well getting along without the people I have loved who have gone to God's house. But sometimes I miss them... I really miss them. I studied the ceiling tiles, took a deep breath, and looked away from the nurse.

I regard it all as a gift from God. The rivers of joy and the creeks of sadness: I regard it all as a gift from God.

Leaning Back.

Funny how a granddaughter can change your life.

I never expected this.

But I have been knocked out by the joy Ella has brought into my life.

There are a lot of things that just "get me" about her. The way she walks as she holds onto the finger of an adult. Her legs reaching out in a wide arc. Her bare feet feel the ground or surface ahead... almost like another set of hands.

There is the way she hears someone digging in the freezer in the kitchen, and she motors in on all fours saying, "Ice...ice."

There is the way, when she hears music, she begins to move her hands as if she were conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra...only not in an obvious way. With more subtlety.

There is even the way she, when she gets frustrated, puffs up with rage and looks like she is going to blow a gasket. The other night at a barbecue place in Columbus she lost it. The only thing on the table in front of her was a small, stuffed penguin we had bought during a visit to the Zoo that afternoon. Ella rose up, and swept her arm across the table knocking the penguin into the air. Almost as if she was saying, "Okay...the penguin's going to get it...and one of you could be next."

It's all cool.

But the thing that gets me is the way she comes up and leans back against me. She just settles into me. Stretches her arms, tilts her head back over my side as I lie on the floor, and throws her arms around my neck.

Her vocabulary is pretty limited right now, but I think what she would say in those moments is, "I feel safe. I feel safe with you...and we're sort of one."

John Wesley, who founded the Methodist renewal movement, talked a lot about the "assurance" of salvation. What he meant by that, I hunch, is we know when we lean back into the grace of God we are going to be okay. The love of Jesus is going to catch us.

There is a Christian song that talks about "leaning on the everlasting arms." It doesn't talk about leaning on the shoulder of God...or leaning on the tummy of God...or throwing our arms around the neck of God.

But I think you get the idea.

And so does Ella.

New Creation and Jump Ropes.

God has a way of stretching us. In some surprising ways. Some of the stretching is painful beyond belief. A job loss. Unanswered prayers (at least they're not answered in the ways we want them answered!) The break up of a relationship. And other times the stretching is surprising... an easy blessing...that makes us smile and shake our heads in disbelief.

At our church we -like many- we have a mid week program. We call it TNT. Which sounds kind of silly and a little explosive. (TNT stands for "Trinity Night Together.") There is a meal...worship time...classes. One element every Wednesday night is an "open gym" for elementary age children. Kids from inside the church and outside the church (our church and neighborhood have sort of blended together so I'm not sure where each starts and stops).

Tonight I went into the gym to hang out with the kids. Those few minutes are a blast! Some of the 3rd and 4th grade girls turned to me and thrust a jump rope in my hand...asked me to swing it around so they could jump.

I had a basketball in one hand...I thought I was going into the gym to shoot hoops with the boys. But I swung the jump rope. And there was a lot of concentrated joy in that place...and it sort of soaked into me.

They don't tell you in seminary that you are going to end up playing jump rope with 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders. It might be a good idea if they did. It might be a good idea if they told us that carrying a cross will be heart crushing on some days, but there will be moments when some little girl with pigtails will grab us by the arm and say, "Pastor Mark, hold the rope and swing it for us!"

I'd never -in all my years- really swung a jump rope like that. It felt a little...uh...different. But good.

God keeps teaching me new lessons. Some hard. And some delightfully easy.