On Saturday this past week, I spent the entire day working in our vegetable garden. It was great! I harvested cabbage, picked green beans, peppers, and tomatoes, and poked around in the squash, watermelon, and cucumbers to see how they were doing. I also took the onions that had been harvested a week and a half ago from the garden shed, where they had been curing, downstairs to the basement baskets for storage. Such a relaxing and productive day!

Before calling it quits in the garden, I decided to prune and tie up the tomato plants. We (mostly) single stem our tomatoes, which means we prune the suckers, prune up to the first fruits, and prune most of the non-productive side shoots of the plants so that more of the plant’s energy goes into fruit production. As the plants grow and fruits form, it is important to keep pruning and tying up the plant to support it as it grows (sometimes up to 10 feet tall!) and produces fruit. So, that’s what I was doing. Pruning the plants and tying them up with elastic (so that there’s some give as the plant grows).

When I got inside following all of that pruning and tying, I looked down at my hands and my fingers, and they were stained green. There was dirt and green from the plants under my fingernails…a real mess! So I washed and scrubbed my hands and cleaned under my fingernails with manicure tools. Still, a green stain remained. On Sunday morning as I got ready for church, I scrubbed my hands and nails with a brush, but STILL, a green stain remained Even as I type this on Monday morning–after countless soaking and scrubbing sessions–a green stain remains on some of my fingernails. 

As I’ve reflected on the condition of my hands, I couldn’t help but wonder about what else leaves its stain or its mark on us. After another topsy-turvy week in politics, my mind immediately went toward the difficult or detrimental things that leave their marks on us:  The turmoil in our country, the uncertainty of our collective future, the anxiety of not knowing what will happen to the civil rights that so many of us count on–it all leaves a mark on our lives–our hearts, minds, and spirits. 

Beyond politics, however, there are myriad human experiences that leave their mark on us:  The stain of grief, the wound of abuse, the blemish of regret, and the smudge of mistakes we’ve made, all dot the landscape of our lives in ways that cannot be simply scrubbed off or pruned away. They are simply there–sometimes barely noticeable, other times, as fresh as the day they first made their mark on us–always present–even if in just the slightest of hues.

What I have realized, however, is that the terrible and difficult things are NOT the only experiences that leave their marks on us–it’s the wonderful, lovely, and beautiful experiences too. A first kiss, a knowing look shared with another, a Sunday morning service that offers a message that seemed tailor made for us, a silent morning with just a cup of coffee and our thoughts–all of them “stains” of goodness and grace that leave their mark on us too.

The truth is, that whether good, bad, or indifferent, the marks that are left on us as we live our lives can never really be pruned or scrubbed away. There’s always a stain of something–caught under our fingernails, splattered in our bones, smudged on our hearts. Which got me to thinking that perhaps the point of life isn’t to keep the stains at bay, or to rid ourselves of the smudges entirely. Perhaps the point is to live our lives in such a way that we, our church, our neighbors, our community, and our world carry fewer of the stains of anger and cruelty and hate, and more of the marks of compassion, the blotches of beauty, and the pigments of justice and mercy because we are here. Maybe, in the end, it’s not about how cleaned up we could pretend to be, or how sterile we have kept our relationships or our endeavors. Maybe it's about how many loving fingerprints we have left on each other’s hearts.

So this week, my friends, maybe stop scrubbing. Maybe stop working so hard to look perfect or be perfect or like your life is as cleaned up and together as you wish it was, and let the stains be. And maybe, put your energy instead into leaving some beautiful stains and smudges on the lives of others. The world doesn’t need more plastic people with perfect Instagram-worthy houses or families. The world needs more people walking around with love and compassion crammed under their fingernails, with more contentment and grace soiling their spirits, with more kindness and community staining our hearts.

Learning to put down the scrub brush with you,
Pr. Melissa​

It’s construction season in Iowa, which means, amongst other things, that some of our usual routes to and from our usual places have been detoured. For our household, this looks like “scenic routes” north as we travel on Hwy 146 and Hwy 63. 

Don’t get me wrong, a good detour opens unfamiliar territories in familiar geographies, but when you’re just trying to get to see family who already feel like they live a million miles away, it’s somewhat frustrating. And yet, a week or so ago, it was in one of these unfamiliar territories that I was reminded of the holiness that exists off the beaten path.

My spouse and I were making our way back from an excursion that led us north to pick up a rain barrel we had found on Facebook marketplace. We had an early morning meet-up, a quick stop at Menards for a spigot handle, and a hearty Perkins breakfast before winding our way home on the marked detour that would take us around the road closure at Searsboro. Of course, I had fully taken advantage of Perkins’ “bottomless cup of coffee” –something I grew to love at the old Perkins on University Avenue in Cedar Falls during my time at UNI–but, unfortunately, age and time have left me without the bottomless bladder I once had to go with it. So, like the seasoned day-traveler that I am, I pulled our vehicle into the gas station of a small town along the detour route.

When I walked in, I couldn’t see an obvious restroom sign, and I wondered to myself if this was still the kind of gas station bathroom that opened only to the outside with a key attached to a hubcap that could only be retrieved from the cashier. Just as I was hopping onto memory lane thinking about all of the times I engaged in this exercise in my youth, the cashier appeared behind the counter, and stopped in their tracks–just staring at me.

I asked if they had a restroom, and they stammered a little–continuing to stare. I asked if the restroom was open, and they said that it was–pointing to the back of the store. I kept looking at this cashier–they were young, had a nose ring, and looked like they wanted to be anywhere but there. Then, as if snapping themselves out of the trance my presence had clearly put them in, the cashier smiled and said, “Sorry. I just saw your t-shirt and, well, I just never expected to see that around here.” 

I looked down to see what t-shirt I had elected to throw on my body that morning, and it was my One Iowa Action t-shirt from LGBTQ Day on the Hill a couple of years ago. I looked back up at the cashier who was still standing there behind the counter grinning from ear to ear, and then I realized what was happening. I offered a knowing smile and a nod back to them. The kind of smile and nod that speaks of community and shared experiences in a small town, laced with the hope that there is life “out there”--beyond the looks and the whispers. And then, just like that, the gaze we shared broke, and we both went about our day.

In our sacred texts, there are a number of stories about Jesus sending out The 12, Paul commissioning Timothy and others, Peter leading the apostles after Jesus’ death, and so often we have been taught to read these stories as opportunities to go out and “convert the heathen.” But what is lost when we read these stories in this manner, is the impact that presence has on a life. In other words, maybe somewhere along the way we lost the point of these stories entirely. Maybe, instead of conversion to our faith, perhaps The 12, Timothy, the apostles, and you and me, are meant to offer ourselves in service to conversion in the truest sense–”the process of changing or causing something to change from one form to another” (Oxford Dictionary).

In the end, I think, conversion is NOT about forcing a person to change, so much as it is changing the environment around the person to see how much closer such a change brings them toward wholeness. In that small town gas station that day, my presence–in that t-shirt I sort of carelessly threw on that morning–broke through whatever that young cashier was dealing with and–for a moment–reminded them that they are not alone in this world. And to me…that’s Gospel (i.e. good news).

One of my favorite saints (are we allowed to have those?) is St. Francis of Assisi, and he is attributed with saying, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary use words.” No matter where we go, or with whom we engage, we are living, breathing, loving embodiments of Good News. We are the walking Gospel–sent out to break through isolation, to work for justice, to feed those for whom food is scarce, to offer a drink to those who are thirsty. We don’t need a soap box to stand on–we don’t even need a bible. We just need open hearts, eyes to see, and ears to hear. We just need a willingness to believe that we are enough–that our presence speaks what no words can…oh, and maybe an affirming t-shirt. 😉

On the detour with you,
Pr. Melissa

​Before I went on vacation, I had a conversation about black mourning bands. The person to whom I was speaking shared with me that they had been thinking a lot about black mourning bands that people used to wear around their upper arms to let others know that they were grieving. This way, if a person was struggling or getting tearful in some way that seemed out of sorts for them or that seemed out of sync with the context around them, others would have some sort of idea why:  They were mourning.

The history of the black mourning band is interesting, to me at least. According to a quick Google search, the earliest example of someone wearing a black armband is a portrait of the Queen of Bohemia painted in 1614. Though unconfirmed, it is speculated that the Queen wore the armband to honor her deceased brother, the Prince of Wales. Later, in the UK, entire households used to purchase new sets of black clothes to wear upon a loved one’s passing. The heads of households would even purchase new black clothing for the house servants.

The practice eventually spread from Europe into the US. As the practice spread, black clothing evolved into the black mourning band once again, especially during the Great Depression when money and goods were hard to come by. Today, most people do not wear mourning bands when someone close to them dies. We still continue to see a kind of black band or patch worn by athletic teams when a fellow athlete dies, and we see law enforcement officers of various kinds move a black band over their respective badges when a fellow officer has died. Otherwise the practice has pretty much gone the way of the DoDo.

While at my nieces’ graduation from graduate school in Lacrosse, WI, this past Friday, my family was filled with mixed emotions. We cried at different parts of the service, and even cried for part of the time after the service. We were SO PROUD of my niece, AND very aware that her brother, my late nephew, was not there to share in the day.

As we sat in that place where tears and laughter meet, I noticed some strange looks from others in attendance. I am sure our tears and our laughter, our joy and our despair, all mixed together were quite confusing to onlookers. Initially, I found myself thinking that maybe if we had been wearing black armbands that day, the stares wouldn’t have been so intense. But then, something made me reconsider.

As we wound our way back through the limestone bluffs of southwest Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota, and northeast Iowa, I wondered if mourning bands were really necessary. Why do any of us need to wear a black armband to let others know that we’re grieving or–more to the point–that we could use a little tenderness and understanding from those around us? What if we just assumed that EVERYONE is grieving? 

Really, what if we approached our daily interactions by simply assuming that everyone could use a little tenderness and understanding in this often harsh and judgmental world? What if we entered every meeting at work, every Facebook exchange, every after church conversation, and every phone call with the insurance company assuming that those in attendance and those on the other end of our exchanges were grieving? What if we spoke to our children as if they were mourning–the loss of their childhood, the loss of a friend, the loss of a baseball game? What if we spoke to our spouses with the kind of compassion we extend to those attending a funeral? What if we spoke to ourselves in the same manner? I don’t know, but my hunch is that what we’d find is a world full of people in various stages of grief–people who are–at all times–mourning something.

I am reminded that the word “compassion” comes from a Latin word that means “to suffer with,” and that it is this word that appears in our sacred texts describing how Jesus so often viewed those around him–even crowds. For example, in Matthew 9:36 we read, “When Jesus saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus did not feel sorry for those around him, as if he was somehow so set apart from others who suffered. Rather, Jesus acted and moved as if he–too–knew what it was to be harassed and feel helpless. As if suffering was not an isolated experience, but rather, a communal one.

Which leads me to believe that maybe we don’t need to wear mourning bands anymore. Maybe the next evolution of this ancient practice requires no special fabric or equipment at all. Perhaps it requires only walking through the world as if we are suffering with one another–not set apart from one another. Perhaps it requires us learning to lead with kindness and understanding, rather than skepticism, cynicism, or opposition. Maybe we don’t need to have all the answers or need to hold each other to some impossible standards. Maybe all that is needed is learning to see the mourning band that permanently resides on our hearts, understanding that it resides on the hearts of those around us well.

Learning to lead with compassion,
Pr. Melissa