​Last weekend my parents came down to visit, have lunch, and celebrate 16 years of remission with me and my spouse. During the visit, my mom pulled out a pottery project I made in first or second grade–a mug–kind of. She was giving it back to me after years in her loving care, as my nephew (her grandson) had begun playing with it and filling it up with water–or at least that was the excuse she gave me for returning this gift I had given her so many years ago.

I can’t say that I truly blame her. I mean, as far as mugs go, this one had some pretty fatal flaws–chief among them being it wasn’t sealed in a way that made it safe to actually drink from it. But there was a lot more wrong than right with the mug.

The picture doesn’t quite do it justice, so let me paint a picture for you: The mug was made of a reddish clay that had been wrapped around an old aluminum can that we had been instructed to bring to art class. The lines from the aluminum can are actually visible when looking inside the mug. At the bottom is a circular piece of clay that had been joined to the top part of the mug through pinching and smearing the pieces together. I never really got this part right, so the mug sits at an angle. The top rim of the mug is irregular in shape, thickness, and constitution, while the handle, arguably the best part of the mug, gives testimony to what so often comes of one’s best laid plans. 

The mug is painted with various colors of glazes that–it’s clear–turned out to be something other than what I was going for after being fired in the kiln. Across the face of the mug, the following message is engraved in the clay:  MMOM! Evidently I didn’t think my mom would notice the extra “M” that I didn’t bother trying to smooth out in the clay, and, evidently, the exclamation point gave nod to my apparent desire for her heart to be strangely warmed every time she looked at the engraved message and imagined the sound of my voice yelling for her. 

The pottery mug is as imperfect as my love for my mother. It has voids where I wish voids were not. It leans away when I wish it would sit plumb. It has lines and divots and mistakes–permanently etched in the contours of its body–signs of being shaped and formed by immature hands. 

And yet, even with its imperfections, and even though it can’t hold liquid at all, that mug is still a vessel. It still carries evidence of my desire to tangibly show love to the one who birthed me. It still carries evidence of the hard truth that desire only gets a person so far. It still carries evidence of the budding relationship between a girl and her Mom (or MMOM!), and the ways in which love gives of itself imperfectly, as well as the ways in which love receives just as imperfectly. It is a vessel filled with good intention, poor execution, and the knowledge that love is always big enough to hold more than one thing at the same time. That mug is a vessel…and so are we. 

Sometimes, though, I think we’re vessels who judge ourselves too harshly–focused only on what we can’t hold or what we aren’t made to do, rather than what we can and what we are. I think we often look at our own lines, divots, and mistakes as permanent flaws, instead of hallmarks of our journeys to becoming. I think we look at the love we have received that wasn’t what we needed or wanted or how we needed or wanted, and we discount the desire of the one who extended that imperfect love to us. 

We are vessels, living testimonies that love is, in fact, big enough to hold more than one thing at the same time, and that we needn’t reduce ourselves, others, the world, or God to either/or, black/white, right/wrong, binaried thinking. We can find solace in a moment AND hope for something better than what the current moment holds. We can hold onto a beautiful memory AND live fully in the present where future memories are made. We can receive the love that has been extended to us AND name that, at times, that same love was insufficient. 

We are vessels–living, breathing, complex, and beautiful vessels that, although imperfect in our execution at times, are perfectly equipped to live and love here and now. We may not hold what everyone always needs us to hold or what we think we should be able to hold, but always we carry within us evidence of the One who first held us, whose fingerprints are all over us, whose love is found in the depths of each void, every perceived imperfection, and every mistake we’ve ever made. And perhaps that’s plenty for one vessel to hold.

On the journey with you,
Pr. Melissa 

​This past weekend I stopped at a big box store to pick up a few items we needed at the house. The day was cold and dreary, with a strong northwest wind that felt as if it might blow even the strongest person over. There had been a rain/snow mix the day prior, and puddles riddled the parking lot–water and ice filling the voids in the asphalt. 

As I sat in my truck putting on my hat and gloves, steeling myself for the cold burst of air that was waiting to greet me, I saw an elderly couple making their way across the parking lot heading into the store. I’m not certain why, but I stopped and watched them for a moment–drawn to the way that they moved together. 

Their heads were down, as if to cut through the stinging wind, and they each had an arm wrapped around the waist of the other. I noticed that one–or maybe both–of them were a little unsteady on their feet. But I also noticed that every time an unsteady step was taken, the pair righted themselves by leaning into one another. 

Just before getting to the front doors of the store, a puddle was in their path. Without missing a beat, the man gently guided the woman around the puddle with nothing more than his wrinkled hand on the small of her back. The woman didn’t fight this gesture, in fact, she leaned into it–the two of them moving together in easy rhythm–the product, I supposed, of years learning to move together. 

Observing that couple move together burst my heart wide open. In their movement across the parking lot that day, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of how the Spirit must work with us. How we are, at times, guided through and even around the obstacles that lay ahead of us. And how, at each turn, we make the choice whether or not we will fight against that guidance, or whether or not we will lean into it. 

In their loving care for each other, I saw the possibilities for steady movement forward when we lean into one another–allowing ourselves to be righted and steadied by those around us. I saw the easy rhythm between them–give and receive, guide and be guided, hold and be held–and I understood that rhythms like that in our lives of faith are not born one random Sunday morning. They, too, are the product of years learning to move together–as one community, one human family, one body of Christ.  

One body who has prayed together for years. One body who has cried together for decades. One body who has celebrated together, weathered storms together, felt lost together, and got found together. One body–composed of a beautiful symphony of people God so loves–serving together, planting together, and tearing down together, learning to move in easy rhythm–together. 

To move in this way takes time. It takes practice. It takes dedication and courage and a willingness to keep showing up. To keep leaning in, maybe not because we need it at this particular moment, but because someone else is relying on us to help steady them. 

I’m not sure where you are today–whether you are someone ready to hold, or someone needing to be held. I’m not sure if life has brought you to a place where you are desperate for a guide, or if it is calling out to you to do some guiding. I don’t know if you are in any position to give of yourself in some way, or if your hands are outstretched simply longing to receive. But I do know that we need each other. Week after week. Year after year. We need each other to help steady us when the cold winds blow. We need each other to gently guide us around the puddles and voids that threaten to swallow us. We need the body of Christ to help each of us move through this thing we call life so that we, too, might find our way into easy rhythm. 

Learning to move together with you,
Pr. Melissa 

"I could have just kept sleeping." These are often the words I mutter as I turn my alarm off on Monday mornings and begin shuffling my way to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. I'm not sure what it is about Sunday nights, but I always sleep so hard and so soundly during them--so much so that getting up and going makes Monday mornings EXTREMELY difficult for me. 

The difficulties don't stop at getting up either. I'm slow to brush my teeth, I'm slow to pop my contact lenses in, and I'm slow to get dressed in warm clothes for my morning walk with Hank. Heck, my Monday morning coffee cup (yep, I'm that person) is one that I got at the St. Louis Aquarium, and it has a sea turtle on it with the words, "Slow until I get my coffee" printed across the front. The struggle is most definitely REAL.

Once I'm outside, one might think that the struggles are over...not so. As Hank and I start our way up the hill from our house, the negotiations begin:  "Okay, I'll just go up the street, then I can turn around." "We'll just go around the block--the small block--no, the bigger one--then we'll head for home." "I'll go until something hurts." Over and over, new negotiations happen, and over and over I keep walking--one foot, then the other. Lather, rinse, repeat, as needed. And before I know it, as if by magic, I've walked my 30 minutes with Hank and we're heading for home--our walk doing what it always does:  Improving my mood, getting my stiff joints gelling, and getting a little energy burnt off of Hank. 

As great as that outcome is, however, it is NEVER enough to get me going straight out of bed. I'm pretty sure it never will be. There is no amount of motivation that will ever psych me up enough to move when morning comes too soon, when my osteoarthritis has spent my sleeping hours stiffening what seems like every joint in my body, or when Hank has snuggled into that sweet spot behind my knees on a cold morning. Motivation waxes and wanes. It is not a sustaining force. The only thing that sustains is the repetition of showing up. Consistently--morning by morning. 

But it's more than just consistency, it's also learning to re-frame the way I view my Monday morning resistance. So often, I view the slowness and the stiffness and the negotiations as obstacles, but they are not. They are not things that I need to overcome or experiences that I must train myself to lay down. They are not evidence of some moral flaw or of something that I lack that super together people (whoever they are) have in spades. Rather, they are simply part of the process. They are neither for me nor against me...they simply ARE. Whether I accept that they are, well, that is up to me.

Fr. Richard Rohr says that “All of life is grist for the mill. Paula D’Arcy puts it, 'God comes to us disguised as our life.' Everything belongs; God uses everything. There are no dead-ends. There is no wasted energy. Everything belongs.” This doesn't mean that transformation isn't possible. It most absolutely is! It just means that it will not come through our willpower. It will not come through sustaining an unsustainable level of motivation. It will not come through self-judgement or spending our lives wishing away what is. Transformation will come as we accept that everything--our resistance, our negotiations, our sore muscles--EVERYTHING--belongs. 

And it doesn't just belong, it is precisely where God works. In our ordinary lives. In the quiet moments before we resign ourselves to getting out of bed. Every step we take. Every moment that feels like an obstacle. Every experience of resistance and negotiation. God is working--using our very ordinary lives and our very regular experiences to bring us somewhere new...to make us new.

So friends, what is it in your life that belongs that you continue to fight? A busy time at work? A longer-term health issue? The ramifications of growing older? How might God be showing up in it? How might God be coming to you disguised as your very own life?

On the contemplative journey with you,
Pr. Melissa