The Posture of Prayer

It is a fine thing to think about, write about, and debate the ins and outs of theology - our understanding of the Creator and Creator's ways. It's a fine pastime, and it's even a fine vocation.

What I want to know is this: when and how do we move beyond the words and thoughts to the deeds and actions?

How do we transform our prayers into life in motion?

I think of prayer as being in communion with the divine, a sort of "talking with God." And I think of prayer more as a posture than as specific intention, although when I put words into prayer, that certainly does reflect specific intention.

There are traditional, classic words that we use in talking about the posture of prayer, like lifting up our hearts and pouring out our hearts. These words describe the characteristics of flowing movement in common, the unmeasured, continuous sweep from the depths of our hearts to an open-ended connection to the heavens and to the stream of humanity's needs.

Prayer, then, is about our deepest desires that seek to be satisfied and our unbroken connection to God who satisfies all needs.

In Christianity, our theology tells us that we are the hands and feet of Jesus. We are the earthly vessels and tools that embody the Creator's will for humankind. Creator sets the stage, and we are the actors.

We move about the stage, planting a field, serving a meal, patching a roof, sewing a wound, holding a child, embracing those who mourn.

Singing hymns of praise to the Creator and hymns of solidarity with the suffering and the joyful - something we have lost the habit of doing while moving about the stage of human existence - puts us into a posture of prayer, for the words serve to remind us when our motions have become rote and lost their connection to their deeper purpose.

I like the practice of the Buddhist monks who wear their 108 bead rosary (known as a mala) around their wrists and pray without ceasing as they go about their daily activities.

I strive to pray without ceasing as I go about my days, to keep one metaphorical foot in that liminal space that is connected to the divine even while the rest of my body and my intentions are grounded in the mundane.

General Convention Resolutions and How the Church Responds

For those in the Episcopal Church, there is a conversation going on right now at the House of Bishops/Deputies listserv about General Convention (GC) resolutions and how the church responds to them. I weighed in with the following post a little while ago:

As someone who has served on Executive Council and on our diocese’s General Convention deputation and Standing Committee, I’d like to share some thoughts about the subject of responding to GC, and by extension, Executive Council, resolutions.

The Joint Standing Committees of Council, along with other CCABs (Committees, Commissions, Agencies, and Boards of GC) also receive referred GC resolutions for which we are expected to provide feedback. 

Even though the "requirement" is to "report to" Council on the status of referred GC resolutions, in my memory of now five years of service on Council, I do not recall ever seeing any such report(s). Some particularly conscientious CCABs do include commentary on those GC resolutions referred to them in their minutes, but not every CCAB submits minutes even though that is a required duty that is communicated in training and manuals.

Further, I'm not sure what Council would do with such reports if we saw them. The reality is that the work plans of most CCABs and staff departments, based on their specific mandates (which are shown on the GC Website under the CCABs’ tabs) and referred resolutions, are already in motion with not much excess capacity for following up on additional subjects, as we progress into each triennium.

Reality meets expectations, and reality always prevails, no matter how much we gnash our teeth, stamp our feet, or demonize those good people who don't meet our expectations.

There is an age-old quandary about the weight of GC resolutions and whether they are mandates, requirements, requests, or suggestions. I suspect that depends on a number of factors, including, most frequently, how much energy or importance a specific diocese or deputy has on a specific resolution or topic. Canonical requirements do get attention and compliance, because there are liability consequences for failure to comply, both to the diocese and to the churchwide organization, and there are administrative staff assigned to their oversight.

Most governance entities have a plethora of laws on the books that no one pays much attention to. That's a fact of life. Many of those laws are the brainchild and pet project of only one or a few legislators. It's really not that difficult to get seemingly innocuous laws passed in the wee hours of the legislative session when there is such a profusion of laws that garner interest, support, and controversy in every legislative session to take up the attention of the assembled legislators and their constituents. 

Everything is important to someone, but not everything is important to everyone. Just because something is law doesn’t automatically mean that it makes sense to the organism to comply either. Organisms have self-protection and survival instincts that trump machinations of its parts, no matter how vocal or strident.

Humankind has a long history of attempting to legislate morality and other people's behavior, but humans are also highly individualistic, egoistic, and contrary. Episcopalians certainly fall into the category of not liking to be told to do things and resisting anything that feels like they are being railroaded. 

Granted, GC and the way we do legislation are our established polity, but that doesn't mean there is any reality that Episcopalians across the church and church's governance believe in, endorse, support, or comply with the church's polity fully. As has been pointed out repeatedly, many church members simply don't have any interest in our polity and lack any awareness of the work of GC. That doesn’t make them bad Episcopalians or bad people. It makes them busy people and people with other interests and priorities. As St. Paul said, all the parts of the Body are needed and intrinsically connected, but not every part is needed to care about the same thing.

Responding to and enforcing legislation is the purview of the administrative branch of governance, whether it's states or dioceses, each with its own character and priorities. Each bishop and Standing Committee arrive at their own understanding of their duties and make choices of how to prioritize those duties. They also differ in the amount, expertise, and capacity of the resources available to them. It's unrealistic to expect a well-resourced, sophisticated diocese to respond in the same way as a more challenged, less-resourced diocese. It doesn't happen, and our expectations can be a harmful source of accusation and guilt. 

In my mind, there is a disconnect between what we say we want our church governance to be, and how we really want to relate to and with one another. The narrative around the concepts behind Episcopal Church polity are lofty and speak of shared governance by bishops, clergy, and laity. The reality is somewhat different, and, in my pragmatic mind, probably has to be for the following reason:  

Bishops and clergy have a vocation in the church that includes how humans understand the characteristics of a job or employment to be. Laity’s vocation in the church tends to be understood by most people at an emotional level as “in addition to” other vocations such as parenting or earning a living.

Although our narrative (and our Prayer Book) says that the first order of ministry is the Laity, the meta-narrative of society tells us something different. The reality is that we are all enculturated into society’s narrative before being baptized and enculturated into the Church’s narrative.

I’ll stop here with this lengthy post.

Writing in the Public Arena

My poor little blog "what a cup of tea." How I have neglected you, without any intention to do so.

Blame it on Facebook, where I spend a great deal of my discretionary online time. I've been engaged there daily, even hourly on some days, commenting on current events and posting prayers and reflections regularly.

So, if you're reading this, and you'd like to read what I'm thinking and writing, send a Facebook message to the Asian "Lelanda Lee" (there is also an African American "Lelanda Lee" on Facebook!), tell me who you are, and I'll Friend you after I've determined you're not a "bot" or someone seeking an illicit online relationship!
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An interesting thing about writing in the public arena is that it requires a commitment of ego. You have to have sufficient ego to believe that you have something to say that others are interested in reading. You also have to have the critical judgment to know what you can appropriately share and what really is not for public consumption. Your readership will let you know if you've met the mark.

The responsibility of "thought leadership" is one I take seriously. Just as our actions have consequences, so, too, do our words and the thoughts we share. I've said it before, and it merits repeating that self-restraint, which is the measure of the maturity we achieve, is an absolutely imperative characteristic of all types of leadership.

Others learn from what we profess as much as they learn from what we hold back. It's a lot like the white space on a page or light on a canvas that somehow focuses our attention on the content that matters, including the content that is invisible to the eye but not to the contemplative parts of our psyches.

I know from the responses I've gotten to the prayers and reflections I post on Facebook that my perspective resonates with many others. I don't think it's about being smarter, thinking better, or observing more deeply. Rather, I think the reason my perspective resonates is because of my empathy and compassion. When I write, I am in a posture of prayer, and I try to be connected spiritually with those I am likely to touch with my words.

I think that the opening verse of Margaret Atwood's poem, which I first read as a young adult, says it all:

     We are hard on each other
     and call it honesty,
     choosing our jagged truths
     with care and aiming them across
     the neutral table.

     The things we say are
     true; it is our crooked
     aim, our choices
     turn them criminal

Stephen Colbert's Tweet Offends Me, and Here's Why

So, another television celebrity has stepped into the racism deep do-do again. This time it's Stephen Colbert and an offensive Tweet from the account bearing his name. Read about it here.

I am an Asian American, and I am deeply offended by the "Ching Chong Ding Dong" words and the reference to "Orientals or Whatever" in the Tweet from Stephen Colbert’s Twitter account. Stephen Colbert is a brand, and whether or not he is personally writing the Tweets from his show's Twitter account, he is accountable, because it is his brand. He doesn't get to benefit from the profit of his brand without also being held accountable for what his brand sends out into the Twitterverse.

The reference to “Orientals or Whatever” is even more offensive than the “Ching Chong Ding Dong” words, which are comparable to the “N” word when used to describe African Americans. It is not ever okay to use the “N” word, and it is also not ever okay to use “Ching Chong.” Saying “Orientals or Whatever” dehumanizes Asians, likening us to furniture and sending the message that Asians are “Whatever” as in “less than human.” The origin of the use of the word “Orientals” means furniture; it was used to refer to decorative objects like rugs and decorative lacquered boxes and chairs. That's why Asians generally find the word "Oriental" used to refer to Asians and Asian Americans offensive. We are not objects; we are human beings deserving respect like every other human being.

When you use dehumanizing language and it gets a pass from people who say that it’s just satire and comedy, that it’s a small thing and we should develop a sense of humor and get over it, that there are more important things to talk about, you are participating in a systematic denigration of a whole group of people based on their skin color. When that systematic denigration becomes acceptable for the ostensible reasons of “It’s just satire” or “It’s comedy; get over it,” that gives tacit approval to thinking of and treating the group of people at whom the dehumanizing language is aimed, as less than the norm or “regular” people, meaning White people.

So, I would challenge my White friends to reflect on this yet another in a long series of such denigrations in the public and pop cultural eye. The reason People of Color are offended by such incidents is because they are offensive. Saying that they’re not offensive doesn’t make it so.

And yes, I think that Stephen Colbert has a responsibility as the name behind his brand to not just deny responsibility for the offensive Tweet because he didn’t write it, not just say that he is offended, too, but to offer a sincere apology to Asian Americans, because he should own the making of the offense and he should lead the brand and its employees to offer the reconciling gesture of his own, personal apology. As for whether or not Colbert's show should be canceled for this offense, that's an irrelevant discussion, in my opinion, because that decision will be made by the network on the basis of revenue production regardless of the opinions on the subject from any perspective.

Your Part in the Power of Social Media

As the year ends, I am seeing more lists on Facebook—from lists of regrets old people have and how to avoid those regrets to things that food banks need but don't ask for. I'm not going to make a list here. Instead, I want to talk about how social media like Facebook is problem for impressionable minds and how to be part of the solution.

A fundamental human tendency is to compare ourselves with others. It starts when we are born. First world parents are given statistics like the percentile their new infant occupies in weight and height and their baby's Apgar score. I realize these statistics are important to help monitor healthy growth and identify potential health trends that bear watching.

But soon, moms and dads are also comparing notes with other parents on their baby's first tooth, rolling over, sitting up, first step, first word, and so on. There are beautifully designed fill-in-the-blank books for parents to memorialize these milestones. The comparisons become internalized by the children themselves as they grow and are perpetuated by the report cards and parent-teacher conferences beginning in pre-school and extending through high school.

We can't help ourselves in making these comparisons of ourselves with other people. It's in our culture and our mass media. Television shows and commercials send subtle as well as overt messages to developing brains about who we should be, or be like, and what we have to own and do in order to achieve those statuses. Many youth grow up internalizing feelings and self-images of inadequacy, and many parents internalize guilt when their children don't have the opportunity or the desire to achieve these externally, commercially driven models of ideal childhood and youth.

Perspective and countering positive, affirming messages have great difficulty wending their way through the commercial messages geared towards selling products. Young people already feeling challenged to mature in a complex world are particularly vulnerable to external messages of social standards that have nothing to do with who they are or where they’re at. They don’t yet possess the judgment to know the difference between what’s real and possible and what’s fantasy and advertising.

In the last few weeks, as we have entered the holiday season that began with Halloween, then Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, and soon, Christmas, and New Year's, I am especially aware of these social messages that besiege us. I am aware of acts of terrible disappointment and despair that have resulted in violence against others—domestic, vehicular, and gun abuse—and violence against self, including attempted and successful suicide. The violence begins with the individual, but affects untold numbers of people far beyond the immediate families. The effects last for years and in some cases, become internalized and generational despair that has power to harm and destroy families and communities.

From my perspective, I see how social media like Facebook plays into shaping our thoughts about ourselves. In social media it's very easy to compare one's self and life to another person's life and feel disappointment and crushing despair that it won't or can't get better. I felt that way a number of times as a teenager, and I would weep because I could not see how my life could be as beautiful as what I encountered in the wider world that was light years away from my daily existence as a poor teenager from an immigrant family.

Facebook is seductive. I posted a status just a couple of days ago about planning some 2014 vacation time with good friends, because I was feeling happy and wanted to share my happiness. But, since that post, I have felt like maybe I was also being boastful, because my husband and I can afford such vacations. And I have worried about contributing to the despair of those young people who don't feel like such aspirations are possible for them. It's not just what we say, it's also how we say it.

It's important for us users of social media to be consciously responsible in what we say to the world, because we are, indeed, talking to the world—our part of the world, multiplied by the nature of the sharing that happens in social media. It's important to express ourselves in ways that point to the light and not to the darkness, that express gratitude and hope, and not anger and despair. I think it's especially incumbent on those of us who are leaders and elders by virtue of our positions, age, and experience to walk in the light continuously, as exemplars of our love and hope for our children and youth.

Acknowledge, encourage, affirm, and express gratitude. You will never go wrong doing those things on social media. What you think about someone else can matter to them, especially if you choose to share a positive thought that uplifts. You just might make someone's day and give someone something to hang onto in the midst of a tough time. You will be glad you did. 

Radical Hospitality Sermon

Radical Hospitality Sermon

Third Sunday in Advent, Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary

December 15, 2013 at St. Mary Magdalene Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

Lelanda Lee

Isaiah 35:1-10

James 5:7-10

Matthew 11:2-11

Psalm 146:4-9

Me Ke Aloha Pumehana. Aloha Kakou. Mahalo E Ke Akua No Keia La. Amen’e ~ I greet you with the warmth of my love. May there be love between us. Thanks be to God for this day. Amen.

I am delighted to have been invited to be among you this morning. It is a huge privilege and joy to be here with you. I was excited to read your parish profile and learn more deeply about who you are and who you seek to become. Among your parish goals you listed two things that jumped out at me:

·      To transform your warm welcome to a deeper understanding and practice of genuine hospitality; and

·      To clarify and deepen your understanding of church membership and develop more intentional practices of integrating new members

Today’s Gospel about John the Baptist in Herod’s jail resonated in the context of our conversation this Sunday. I picture gnarly John the Baptist, he of the wilderness appearance and itinerant lifestyle, stuck in a jail cell that must have caused him untold stress and uncertainty. That uncertainty caused him to send his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"

In light of one of the major events of this Advent – our global celebration of the life of another once jailed individual, Nelson Mandela – I think of how that great man must have also experienced untold stress and uncertainty during his 27 years – 27 years! – of imprisonment. How he must have wavered, too, from his certainty of what is right and what is wrong, and how much his faith, his belief in his call and his purpose in life, must have been what he held onto in order to maintain his great discipline and commitment to that right and that purpose throughout those long prison years. In all that I have read about Nelson Mandela and his prison years, one thing has struck me as profoundly important and strategic – an early decision Mandela made, which was to show radical hospitality to his jailers. That hospitality also was expressed much later when he invited his primary jailer to sit in the front row at his inauguration as president of South Africa.

Now, you might ask, how can someone who is the prisoner, and not the jailer, be one who shows radical hospitality? Let us engage in some deconstruction of what radical hospitality means for us as followers of Jesus.

In the usual course of events, especially in this season of holiday preparations that began with Thanksgiving and extends to New Year’s Eve, we might be tempted to think of hospitality primarily in the context of a large family and friends’ meal with a roasted turkey or ham, or both, as the centerpiece of our celebrations and how we extend hospitality to those we invite to share our joyous and thankful times together. We might, through our charitable impulses and sense of gratitude for all that we have been given, even extend our sense of hospitality to helping to prepare, pay for, and serve such a holiday meal to those less fortunate than we are, to those who don’t have a home, or the resources, or a family, with which they can enjoy what we think of as a hospitable Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year’s Eve gathering.

Let me help us find a new definition of hospitality in Radical Hospitality. The word “radical” is from the Latin “radix,” which means “root.” Radical Hospitality, then, is about hospitality that is at the root of who we are and what we do. Radical Hospitality is embedded in our identity as Children of God. Let’s start at the beginning and talk for a moment about who we are and whose we are.

As Children of God, we are created in God’s image with God’s attributes shaped in us. God is love. God is goodness. God is compassionate. God is merciful. God is about relationship with God’s Creation. God wants God’s Creation to be reconciled with God. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." God cares for the least among us, for those who have the greatest needs. We often say, “God has a preferential option for the poor.” God wants to be reconciled with all of us. As Children of God, it is our “Attitude of Radical Hospitality” that sets us apart as belonging to Jesus, an attitude that we carry with us wherever we go, wherever we encounter the Other. The parable that stands out as an exemplar of Radical Hospitality is the story of the Good Samaritan who extends hospitality to the man lying in the street, to a man in need who was a stranger to him in a place that wasn’t his home but merely along the path of where he happened to be traveling.

I’d like to share with you some examples of Radical Hospitality that we find in various cultural settings around us.

·      How many of you have seen the blockbuster film of a few years ago, “Avatar,” about the science fiction planet and its blue people, known as the Navi? The Navi had a way of expressing love and caring for each other that I found very profound and moving. They said, “I see you.” “I see you.” Just think for a moment about how it would make you feel if someone said to you that they “see you,” really see you. What an acknowledgement of your personhood. What a validation of who you are. Do you see the checkout clerk at the supermarket? Do you see the newcomer in church on Sunday morning? Really see them as individuals with their own stories to tell?

·      In the East Indian subcontinent, the greeting “Namaste” is often used, and we Boulder County people certainly are familiar with being greeted with “Namaste.” [Bow, with hands together in front of my chest, and say “Namaste.”] “Namaste” may be translated as “the not-me salutes you,” or more loosely and more commonly, “the divine in me greets the divine in you.” What a beautiful acknowledgement of your creation in the image of God from my creation in the image of God.

·      In The Episcopal Church, we have an Anti-Racism Training curriculum dating back to 2005 that is entitled, “Seeing the Face of God in Each Other.” Anti-Racism Training, which over time has morphed into addressing not just Racism, but the other “-isms” that we humans inflict upon one another, such as ageism and homophobism and other oppressions, is comprised of content and exercises geared at helping us, as Christians, to see God’s characteristics and divine spark contained in each person, and to learn to acknowledge and honor God in each person.

My purpose in sharing these examples of Radical Hospitality is to point out that this kind of hospitality is not about being the hostess with the mostest or the Martha Stewart of home entertainment. Rather, it is about exemplifying the Great Commandment, which is to Love God with all our hearts and minds and souls and to Love One Another as Jesus has loved us. That Great Commandment doesn’t say Love One Another, but only in your homes; it’s not place limited. The Great Commandment trumps all the other rules about how we behave towards one another as fellow humans created in God’s image.

When we exchange the Peace in our Eucharistic services, it is an important theological part of our entire worship service. Exchanging the Peace is about acknowledging and extending to one another through the human touch of shaking hands, with family, friends, and strangers, the Peace of God – not my Peace, but God’s Peace – that is shaped in me, to another person, and receiving the Peace of God that is shaped in that other person. That is why I always say, “The Peace of God,” or “The Lord’s Peace,” when I shake someone else’s hand in the Exchange of the Peace. That is why I sometimes bow and touch my heart, when I exchange the Peace, as if to say, “Namaste,” “the divine in me greets the divine in you.”

There are other words for the exchange of the Peace from our fellow descendents who trace our heritage back to Father Abraham:  Shalom in Hebrew, and Salaam in Arabic. I was on a dual narrative study tour of the Holy Land – Israel and Palestine – in mid-November, with Churches for Middle East Peace, which was led by its executive director and an Israeli guide and a Palestinian guide, as part of my duties as a member of The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council, the board of directors of the church. It was largely a political tour in that we met with embassy, consulate, Knesset, and Palestinian Authority leaders, as well as with Bedouin chiefs in the Negev and Israeli and Palestinian activists on the ground. The Arabic perspective on Salaam is an important one, because the exchange of Peace for Arabs encompasses an element of safety as well as an element of welcome and hospitality. We eleven pilgrims on our study tour were extremely humbled by a Bedouin chief who greeted us with coffee, followed by tea, made with water that is trucked in at great expense, seated on blankets spread out under a tree, just one day after his village’s guest tent had been demolished for the 61st time in a continuation of that area’s land disputes. “Salaam” or Peace means Welcome and Safety and that we share what we have with you, a guest also shaped in our Creator’s image, even in the midst of our personal hardship. We expose our vulnerability and share what we have with you, our brother and our sister in the human family.

The word that I like best to express Radical Hospitality is the Hawaiian word “Aloha,” because I think “Aloha” really captures the sense of how Radical Hospitality is not place-bound, not limited to being expressed in only a particular place like your home. Instead, “Aloha” is carried in one’s heart and expressed as an attitude of love, peace, safety, and acknowledgement of the God-in-you from the God-in-me. We refer to “Aloha” as the “Aloha Spirit,” and we understand the “Aloha Spirit” to transcend the Hawaiian Islands and to be expressed by Hawaiians wherever they find themselves in the world. We non-Hawaiians could also benefit from and practice the “Aloha Spirit.”

I think it’s important to emphasize that Radical Hospitality also has a requirement for an ancillary or corresponding response associated with it. This idea of an ancillary or corresponding response is something that we probably don’t emphasize enough when we do Christian Formation work and prepare people for baptism and confirmation, or in other words, to state right up front, explicitly, that becoming a follower of Christ has a price. We are called to renounce “Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God.” We are called to renounce “the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God,” and we are called to renounce “all sinful desires that draw us from the love of God.” Renouncing is not just to say the words, “I renounce,” but it’s a promise to engage actively to resist and to turn away from all those things that draw us from the love of God, one of which is a failure to behave in a Radically Hospitable way to all the Children of God, including those we don’t know, perhaps don’t like, and feel judgmental towards. Radical Hospitality is about practicing the reconciling love of God towards all of God’s Creation.

So, dear friends, Radical Hospitality calls us to deepen our actions, to deepen the way that we live as the Children of God and as the followers of Jesus. Here are a few suggestions for how we might engage our call to living into Radical Hospitality:

·      First, let us identify God’s characteristics shaped in us as individuals and as members of the parish of St. Mary Magdalene. This entails both theological reflection and self-reflection, both individually and as a community, on an on-going basis.

·      Then, let us practice our “elevator speech” about our identity as Children of God and practice with intention opening ourselves to be known by the Other and to know the Other as our part of seeing the Face of God in Each Other.

·      In today’s Adult Forum between the services, we will be introduced to a few exercises that can be practiced on a regular basis to engage one another in sharing who we are and learning who the Other is, through some simple conversation starters.

·      And finally, there are a number of topics that could be covered in workshops here at St. Mary Magdalene, such as Racial Justice and Reconciliation, intercultural versus multicultural engagement, effective conversations on difficult topics, and so forth. I lead many of these workshops and would be delighted to be invited back to spend time with you. These may also be conversations that are timely in your parish search for a new rector, to help you explore your parish identity and goals more fully.

Let us pray:  Loving God, may the words and thoughts of our hearts and minds be guided by your holy attributes shaped in us, and may we remember that we are created by you and belong to you, Our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.

Intervening in Other People's Lives

Intervening in other people's lives. Otherwise known as a ministry of accompaniment.

My husband and I have tried this mode of ministry in a lifelong experiment that has lasted the entire 30+ years that we have been together. We have had mixed results.

There have been some big wins - like our adopted family from the former USSR and their successful attainment of work permits, green cards, and finally, citizenship. They are living the "American Dream." Their children will graduate from high school and go to college. The parents know how to scrimp and save and sacrifice for the family back home and for the family here in the U.S. They know how to live many people to a small apartment with little expectation of privacy, for the good of the entire clan. They have patience and endurance. They have their eye firmly on potential and possibility. They believe in their capacity to reach their goals.

There have been some modest gains - like another family who acquired their green cards but finally had to return to their country of origin because they weren't successful in repeated attempts to find suitable employment that would sustain independent housing. The economy after the "Great Recession" of 2006-2009 has decimated job opportunities for those at the margins who want to make a contribution and be self-sustaining. There has been a ratcheting down of workers on the ladder of employment, with over-educated, over-skilled people taking unskilled jobs just to earn a paycheck. That bumps the under-educated, under-skilled, and immigrant people totally off the ladder.

I have spent countless sleepless hours pondering how to help one young person with whom we've engaged for eight years. We began with a litany of bad credit, outstanding collection accounts, and a suspended driver's license for outstanding traffic violation fines, mostly due to the mental and physical trials associated with family abandonment and bigoted behavior towards a person who identifies as LGBT. We worked through suicidal ideation and internalization of personal attacks based on prejudice against LGBT individuals. We've come really, really far. But we're not where we need to be - yet. I hope it's "yet," and not "maybe never." Sometimes, the "yet" feels doubtful.

It is difficult to know how much to give and to do for another person and how much to teach and to raise up. The balance is ever shifting, and I am merely human in my understanding and in my commitment. It's not unlike the parenting that is called upon when raising one's own children. Even then, I did not know how much to give and to do, how much to teach and to raise up. I'm sure I over-did in some arenas and under-did in others. There have been times when my daughter has said as much in very plain terms. My son has been kind not to criticize in my hearing.

I have long been an adherent of the ministry of accompaniment. I believe in it. I know that it's not enough to write a check, put it in an envelope, and send it off, and think that I've done enough to better someone's life, to salve someone's suffering, to give someone hope.

Each of us ministers in different ways. We see the world through different lenses, and we mete out our responses through the lenses of our hearts and of our experience. I accept that I am not privileged to know how or where or when what I do will make a difference in another's life. I just pray daily that I am doing enough and that I will find the will to continue to do enough. It's really hard some days to believe in this ministry of accompaniment.

Some days, I just want to retire from the world.