Bishop Margaret Payne

Fidel Castro and the Supreme Court

2012-02-11T12:41:00.001-05:00

If you had to guess, which one do you think has appalled me and which one do I agree with?

In the past, I have admired the Supreme Court, and especially Sandra Day O’Connor when she was a member. Sure I have disapproved of some decisions, but have agreed with others. On various occasions I have been sympathetic, annoyed, impressed, curious, hopeful, discouraged (especially with the welcoming of Clarence Thomas) righteously indignant and enormously grateful. But I was never truly appalled until their decision that corporations are people and can therefore give huge sums of money to political campaigns. Huh?

Which leads me directly to my recent agreement with Fidel Castro. Last week he made a public comment about his opinion of the Republican presidential primaries in our country, saying that they are “the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been”. This describes my feelings pretty exactly. Thanks, at least in part, to super PACS, candidates have enough money to sink campaigning to the lowest possible level of public political life. I wonder if Santorum will be any different.

With President Obama’s announcement yesterday that he has reversed his disapproval of super PACS and will support that kind of funding in Democratic political life as well, we can look forward to many more months of airways crammed with all the reasons why particular candidates are the scum of the earth. Maybe it’s a good thing after all; it might be the only way to encourage significant numbers of Americans to stop watching television.

S8.12.a. and b.

2012-02-01T16:02:00.000-05:00

The bishop shall “preach, teach, and administer the sacraments in accord with the Confession of Faith of this church” and “have primary responsibility for the ministry of Word and Sacrament in this synod and its congregations, providing pastoral care and leadership for this synod, its congregations, its ordained ministers and its other rostered leaders”.

So, yes, the bishop is pastor to the pastors. Most often people remind me of that when they feel that I am not paying enough attention to them. But provision of pastoral care for the rostered leadership is different from the kind of one-on-one intensive relationships that are possible in congregations that worship weekly together. There are deans, associates to the bishop, designated pastors for each rostered leader and their family members (have you filed that name with my office?) and financial resources available for special care. Holding leaders in prayer, notes, email messages, phone calls – all of these happen….

But focusing too much on that is the same as a congregation’s turning inward and caring only for its members. We care for one another in love and compassion, but also so that we are a community strengthened to live and serve for the sake of the world.

“So that” is a phrase that shows up in the bible pretty often - it’s the glue that holds together maintenance and mission. We need both, but we maintain our life together so that we can proclaim the Word to the world. The variations of the challenge to be responsible for Word and Sacrament ministry in the synod are endless – encouraging homiletical excellence, seeking to model winsome preaching, responding to questions about sacramental practices, looking for ways to teach rather than demand, emphasizing the importance of continuing education , evaluating all that we do in the synod in the light of Word and Sacrament – the Lutheran way to do Christianity.

Lutheran Church Has Bright Future, Gifted New Pastors Abound

2012-01-30T11:47:00.002-05:00

Ordination day is a day of culmination, vows and excitement – one day suspended between the years of preparation and the years of service. This past Saturday Heidi Lemke Johnston became a pastor – music was wonderful, tears flowed, sermon was awesome (John Niketh) and I was able to perform one of my favorite functions - presiding at the beginning of another life of Word and Sacrament ministry.

Now the real work begins – in all its joys, frustrations, sorrows and seasons of the church year, circling endlessly while we ride its rhythm for worship and learning.

Last week I took part in a responsibility related to ordination. New pastors in our region must attend an annual four day continuing education event each January for the first three years of their ministry. It used to be called the First Call Theological Institute but now it’s called the Leadership Guild. Call it what you want – it’s a time to be apart with others who are also in the season of beginning ministry to learn (why didn’t they teach me that in seminary?), commiserate (read: grumble), see old friends and make new ones, worship (without having to lead it), eat together (at least I didn’t have to cook it myself) and generally be supported in the early years of ministry. Two bishops are resident each year – to give presentations, but mainly to talk with these new pastors and pray for and with them. This year was my turn. Outside of poor cell phone reception in the retreat center and a bad head cold, it was great. It was my last time doing this event – one more in a series of ‘lasts’as this last year unrolls.

S812.i.8-10

2012-01-23T07:06:00.000-05:00

In college sports – let’s pretend there’s no corruption – a student athlete is recruited, joins the team, maintains an agreed-upon academic average, comes to practice regularly, plays by the rules, listens to the coach, gives his or her all in every game and finally graduates and is no longer on the team’s roster.

The synod has a roster, too – that’s why the professional church workers are called rostered leaders. And one of the bishop’s responsibilities is to maintain that roster. Sounds easy enough. But here are some of the things that it entails: to approve/monitor persons who are on leave from call and decided annually if that status will continue; recommend special calls (such as chaplaincies and calls to service in a Full Communion partner church) to the Synod Council; seek waivers from the Conference of Bishops for calls that are different from the standard categories of call; approve and facilitate transfers from one synod to another; participate in decisions about movement into the disability roster status; approve retirements; make decisions about who should be removed from the roster; keep an up to date record of the names and addresses of all rostered leaders and their calls; receive and read a report from each rostered leader annually.

The roster guru in our synod is my AA Lyn Morin. She has become an expert in all the policies, practices and communications of the maintenance of the roster. In the past, there was a roster committee to make some of the difficult decisions, but ultimately the responsibility for those decisions belongs to the bishop. As you can imagine, there is oodles of paperwork involved, many emails exchanged, numerous phone calls, a significant number of face-to-face meetings and occasional angst. This task is part record-keeping, part management, part judgment, and overall, it is the way in which we shape and maintain a winning team for the gospel.

S812.h.3

2012-01-21T11:26:00.002-05:00

In the synod’s constitution there is a long list of responsibilities that make up the job description of the bishop. You might want to read them if you are thinking of being a candidate. And actually, you should read them if you will be a voting member of the assembly to help you understand the breadth of the call.

S812.h.3 says that a bishop shall “Practice leadership in strengthening the unity of the Church and in so doing…. Be the chief ecumenical officer of this synod.”

In New England, a synod rich in the history of ecumenical relationships, this responsibility has layers of decision-making. How much time should be spent in ecumenical endeavors as compared to other tasks? How do you decide how to relate to six states’ Councils of Churches, twelve Episcopal bishops, a couple of Methodist bishops and endless Roman Catholic bishops, Presbyterian leaders and United Church of Christ ministers? What are the new tasks of ecumenism? What about interreligious relationships?

It is tempting to delegate, delegate, delegate. But the trust and personal relationships that develop are often the foundation of partnership for new mission starts and advocacy efforts for justice and the fight against poverty. And relationships take time. In my mind, Pr. Ted Asta is the ACTUAL ecumenical officer of the synod – poring over endless mailings, convening and attending dialogue teams, keeping me informed of ecumenical and interreligious activities and helping me to decide which events are most important to attend.

All of this came to mind last night as I participated in an ecumenical prayer service to celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts. I was one of the leaders along with Bishop McManus (RC bishop of Worcester), Bishop Gordon Scruton (Episcopal, Western Massachusetts) and His Eminence Metropolitan Methodias (Orthodox). Also present was Bishop Emeritus Daniel Reilly of Worcester who was present as a speaker at the synod assembly in 2000 when I was elected.

These men have been partners and co-workers for years, each committed to the message of John 17 and each willing to dedicate time, and sometimes risk criticism, to work together for unity in Christ. Gordon Scruton has been a particularly close colleague for my entire term; his friendship, wisdom and authentic life in the heart of Christ have been a source of inspiration and comfort.

Sun, San Diego and Marcus Borg

2012-01-17T10:18:00.001-05:00

The first day of the new year brings to bishops both the opportunity for resolutions and the need to pack for the annual Bishops’ Academy which always begins during the first week of January. The fall and spring meetings of the Conference of Bishops are business meetings, but the Academy is devoted to continuing education. There is a different topic every year. In the past we have studied community organizing and the faith of Islam, and two years ago the time was spent in the Holy Land.

This year we are gathered in San Diego. The primary key-note speaker is Marcus Borg, and he is giving three presentations: “Speaking About – God, Jesus and the Christian Life”. Peter Steinke is also a presenter, speaking on “The Theory and Challenges of Being a Bishop in an Emotional System.” Along with presentations and discussions, there is wonderful worship, relaxed time together, and opportunity for side trips across the border into Mexico to see ministry sites, Epiphany worship at the Mission San Diego de Alcala and the chance to do touristy exploration.

Everyone should be a Peter Steinke fan (coming to our synod on March 22) because his wisdom about systems and effective leadership is incredible. But not everyone might be a Marcus Borg fan.

Although the Jesus Seminar was often mocked, scorned and persecuted (does that ring a bell?), I found it to be an honest and courageous exercise in seeking to know Jesus. How can that be a bad thing to do?

Borg’s three lectures to us on God, Jesus and the Christian life were spellbinding, in an informal kind of way. If you read his books, and especially his two latest, you will know most of what he shared with us. Here are just a few quotations to whet your appetite:

If God is an interventionist, then the ‘non-interventions’ cannot be understood.

Worshipping a punitive God leads to a fear-based Christianity and a fear-based orientation toward life.

Transformation can only happen completely in community

Jesus did not say: I have come to bring church, and bring it abundantly

PS – the next Academy will be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, so the next bishop can look forward to some Caribbean collegiality next January.
PS#2 – you shouldn’t choose a new bishop based on his/her longing for a trip to the Caribbean.

Martin Luther King, Jr. – Dreamer of God’s Dream.

2012-01-16T19:48:00.002-05:00

In the years before the celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. was completely acknowledged as a national holiday, I used to keep all four kids home from school on that day to protest the fact that the holiday had not yet been recognized by the closure of schools, banks and businesses. The teachers almost always sent me a letter critical of my decision. They said that there would be a recognition (assembly presentation, etc) at school, and my kids would miss that. But I felt strongly that the whole country should be compelled to honor King’s life by the more dramatic action of a pause in ‘business as usual’ for the whole country. Of course my kids supported my campaign. We did not spend the whole day in meditation on King’s legacy – sometimes we went skiing – but the point was made. Especially as Christians, there should be significant remembering and honoring of a man whose life was dedicated, and then given up, to a ‘dream’ that is a picture of the reign of God which was the teaching stressed more often by Jesus than any other.

Here is a quotation from King from 1968 which seems to speak as directly now to our time and national tenor as it did then:

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men and women willing to be co-workers with God, and without their hard work, time itself becomes an ally of stagnation.

From Beyond Vietnam, 1968

Instead of a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

2011-12-14T17:28:00.002-05:00

In my years as a bishop the Good Lord sent my way,
an office in Worcester M A.

In my years as a bishop the Good Lord sent my way
two sabbaticals,
and an office in Worcester M A.

In my years as a bishop the Good Lord sent my way
three officers
two sabbaticals
and an office in Worcester M A.

In my years as a bishop the Good Lord sent my way
four years of sex talk
three officers
two sabbaticals
and an office in Worcester M A.

In my years as a bishop the Good Lord sent my way
five chas – u – bles !!!
four years of sex talk
three officers
two sabbaticals
and an office in Worcester M A.

(and onward….)

Six years of listening
Seven states a-calling
Eight million phone calls
Nine staff a-toiling
Ten mission start-ups
Eleven major snow storms
Twelve great assemblies…
And an office in Worcester M A.

A case for cloning

2011-12-06T10:53:00.000-05:00

A simultaneous fascination and frustration of this office is the huge amount and wide variety of responsibilities, with a lot of travel thrown in, and not a lot of discretionary time. Here is a paragraph from my latest report to the Synod Council:

The time since our last meeting – the fall marathon – is one of the busiest stretches of the year for church leaders, and that is certainly true for bishops. Since we last met, I have traveled to Chicago twice (once for a six day meeting of the Conference of Bishops and once for a three day meeting of the ELCA Church Council), gave eight presentations/sermons, attended a two-day synod candidacy meeting, traveled to Wartburg Seminary for the annual bishops’ seminary visit, enjoyed a wonderfully successful Bishop’s Convocation, and participated in more meetings and phone calls than you need to know about. It would have been nice to have two or three of me – one for travel, one for reading and prep for sermons and worship, and another one for administrative duties.

At a meeting recently, a lay person asked me what I did on Sunday mornings – did I usually go to church? Well, yes. Most Sundays this fall I have been at a congregation preaching, though I still think it is valuable for the bishop and staff to hear the resident pastors preach and to experience worship in different places.

All of these duties are pieces of the puzzle of leadership – it’s a puzzle because the effectiveness of any leader evolves from a series of choices, decision-making, prayer and constant prioritizing. It is impossible to do and be all that people expect, and that’s why the associates, ministry specialists and deans all represent me in many meetings, places and pastoral care situations when I cannot be there in person. The most important priority for a bishop is to provide leadership that guides the mission that God wills for our work as part of the body of Christ in New England.

One of the things that Rafaela Malpica Padilla, executive director of ELCA Global Mission likes to say is that the church doesn’t have a mission, but rather, God’s mission has a church. It’s only a play on words, but it makes an important point.
The election of a bishop shouldn’t be a popularity contest or have any agenda except discernment of the Spirit for the best match between the gifts of a leader and God’s mission in this part of the country. I would have needed a couple of clones to fulfill this call in the way that I would have liked. But I continue to be only one person, who has had to make decisions about how to spend my time, and the new bishop will have that same limitation. So a lot of thinking, considering, prayer and discernment is in order.

At the intersection of oppressions

2011-12-03T11:53:00.007-05:00

My desert visit continued with meeting, learning and worshipping times for eighteen judicatory leaders and directors of ministries that focus particularly on the oppression of LGBT people. But there is a broadening of the effort now. Lutherans Concerned/North America has taken the lead in the ELCA commitment to educate people about all kinds of bullying and harassment, and is producing resources to guide the work of those who want to help reduce the pain and violence that comes from bullying behaviors.

Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay and partnered Episcopal bishop, was among us and shared his hard-earned wisdom. It’s hard to imagine the depth of the oppression that he has endured and the courage required to endure it. He shared wonderful stories about his faith journey and his appreciation for those who have supported him. He preached and presided at the Eucharist, and I particularly remember one comment that he made. He said that the church is too often a group of admirers of Jesus rather than followers of Jesus….but we are called to follow. Maybe our awareness of the distinction comes as we measure how our church attends to those who are oppressed.

Another participant was a retired African American Methodist bishop who told how he spent three days in a jail cell with Martin Luther King, Jr., and during that time was converted to non-violence. There is an amazing spirit among those who work intentionally for justice. It seems to me that when we constantly press the question of justice and care for those in our society who are marginalized, we are doing the holiest work that the church can do. Worship and community equip us for mission, or else they are empty. The Holy Spirit was in the desert with us – I could feel the whispering in ways that are not present in other parts of my work.

Tempted to tweet

2011-11-29T19:23:00.001-05:00

If I used twitter, which I don’t, but if I did, I would have tweeted in the last few days. Early in the fall I was invited to take part in a meeting sponsored by Lutherans Concerned/North America to gather resources from several denominations and plan a larger anti-bullying event which will take place next year. When it was announced that this meeting would take place at Spirit in the Desert Lutheran Retreat Center in Carefree AZ, I not only said ‘yes’, but planned to arrive three days early to take time for a personal retreat.

Over those three days I would have tweeted about the desert, ringed by hills that turn red at twilight; cacti everywhere, all different shapes and sizes, some with flowers; the labyrinth – how hard it is to slow down enough to walk it. I would have mentioned the internal cycle of letting down, roiling around, patches of peace and renewal for work. And now I would say that I am awaiting the arrival of the rest of the participants today and feeling both eager to see them and sad to step out of the silence of desert retreat. Time for spiritual renewal is essential. But I don’t tweet.

A Gentle Obligation

2011-11-27T13:43:00.003-05:00

Today is the first day of the new church year, a turning point that goes mostly unnoticed in the culture outside the liturgical denominations. There is a flicker of awareness in the ‘Advent calendars’ that are still available in some bookstores, but they are mostly ‘counting-down-to-Christmas’ calendars now, and very few have religious pictures and verses.

It’s harder for a bishop and staff to live in the rhythm of the church year. The activities of planning for worship, finding the advent wreath that’s stored in the back of the closet, deciding about mid-week services and getting ready for the annual battle against the premature inclusion of Christmas carols are ways that parish life offers to prepare pastors for the season of preparation.

The cycle of the church year is life-giving. It gently obligates us to live in a rhythm that is different from the rhythm we might choose, or that the culture suggests. (With all the frenzy about Black Friday this year, I was thinking how Good Friday goes so unnoticed, sometimes even in churches.) The church year provides scaffolding for the work of the spirit and a set of rituals and festivals that shape celebration. In this age of technology that encourages individual rhythms and rituals, and that enables ‘what-I-want-to-do-when-I-want-to-do-it-ness’, I think that the effort to highlight the church year even more might be a primary way to layer some depth into the easy personal spirituality that is increasingly popular.

The Penn State Saga

2011-11-26T11:21:00.000-05:00

It has been sad to hear about the child abuse and cover-up at Penn State; the damages caused by so many different kinds of sinful behavior will reverberate for years. The two saddest parts in my view are the life-long pain for the victims (you cannot underestimate the damage) and the vigorous defense of those who did not do all that should have been done to hold the perpetrator accountable and to stop further abuse. That defense not only belittles the pain of the victims, but re-victimizes them.

One of the first things that happens in the orientation of a new bishop is a day-long seminar in the legal and moral responsibilities related to situations of sexual abuse. And that’s only the first day. There are other sessions, reminders and conversations throughout the entire time of service in this office to provide the training and understanding of our church’s policy of zero tolerance for sexual abuse. We abide by the law to its fullest legal and moral extent, and we provide immediate and ongoing care for victims and immediate consequences for perpetrators. Beneath those simple statements is a large toolbox of things we have learned to do to make the church a safe place. Yes, there is grace and forgiveness. But in life together in our congregations there is no place for behaviors that demean and damage the lives of others.

One day for giving thanks?

2011-11-22T09:31:00.001-05:00

Recently at a synod council meeting we heard Dave Daubert, one of our consultants with the Doing What Matters process, talk about a new slant on evangelism. He outlined his view of the role of gratitude in evangelism. The general idea is this: if our outreach is all about insisting that we have something to give and teach others, we might find surprisingly few takers. But if we approach others with an interest in and gratitude for the ways in which God is already at work in and through them, we might gain interested partners. This idea is just one aspect of the paradigm shift that ARE believes would be beneficial to the growth and enrichment of the church. (I know, I know, it’s just another church program. But if you haven’t tried “seeing with new eyes”, I recommend it highly)

All of which led me to think about Thanksgiving. Even though the holiday is couched in the gauzy wrappings of familial togetherness and gratitude to a higher power for our blessings, I tend to agree with writer Anne LaMott who says that, most basically, Thanksgiving is the day when we overeat with the ones we love.

How about this: what if we designate 364 days of the year as the days when we intentionally thank God for all our blessings and appreciate our families, and use Thanksgiving as a day to have a Sabbath from all that thanking and stuff ourselves. Just a thought.

What’s with the cows?

2011-11-11T08:55:00.000-05:00

This seems like a good time and place to remind all of us that the Office of the Bishop is an office, not a person. It is a function, not a spiritual estate. It is a role created so that an assembly, through prayer and discernment, can choose a pastor who feels called to the ministry of judicatory leadership. The Holy Spirit truly works through the humility of openness to God’s will, and if a human agenda of power or arrogance or entitlement intervenes, the devil has a good foothold.

So – the picture above will remind all of us that my vocation as assistant keeper of cows, farmer’s wife, writer, parent, grandparent and eager student of ecological stewardship is just as valuable in God’s purposes as the vocation of bishop. I’m dabbling in those parts of life now, but soon they will be center-stage.

Until then, I am finding joy in the work of accompanying the synod through this last year. I sense in our synod a wakening to the surprises of partnership and a new kind of leadership breaking through old patterns. Lucky new bishop – to help discover where love will lead in the coming years.

Meanwhile, I’d like to share with you a wish that was passed along to me by a rostered leader of the synod – that my time of transition might be “without burdens and with a growing sense of lightness in God’s blessing.” I’m not sure about the burdens – they are part of the job description – but the rest describes my heart well.

Different kinds of power

2011-11-07T08:15:00.003-05:00

Having sustained Irene and her inconveniences, it was a further affront to our autumn when Halloween arrived wrapped in wet white. At first I couldn’t understand why the weather forecasters kept talking about how the leaves were still on the trees. Then I realized – more places for wet snow to stick and weigh down branches, more likelihood of falling trees and parts of trees onto houses and wires. Especially wires, as it turns out. More than a million people lost power to their homes. Also churches, businesses, no school in some places for a week – too cold, too dangerous to travel the streets. I kept mentioning that the congregations were not really out of power, they just didn’t have electricity. But significant disruption and discomfort apparently impedes peoples’ willingness to chuckle at bishops’ witty remarks. We lost power for four days on the farm, but fortunately the beef in several freezers stayed frozen.

This past weekend I met one of my favorite obligations – attending the meeting of the synod candidacy committee and watching a different kind of power unfold. The committee meets about five times a year. Ted Asta, Barbara Lamson and the chair (presently Elizabeth Krentz-Wee) do all the real work, but I sit in on the meetings to join the accompaniment of candidates and communal discernment. It is one of the most hopeful things I do. It’s a faithful but challenging dance with the candidates – support and accompany and enable, but also challenge and prod and expect growth. It is a privilege to listen in on God’s whispering (or sometimes, slap-upside-the-head) call to those who have answered by placing themselves on a path to rostered ministry. It’s reassuring. It’s personally powerful because it puts my own path and life into perspective. God always has and always will stir hearts to respond to all the kinds of calls that are needed to shape a church and to be witness to grace and compassion in the world. No one call is more precious or important than another. All are pieces of a big picture whose last piece will slip into place on the last day. And so the trick is to find where you fit in, and fit in faithfully, instead of imagining that it is your job alone to make your place.

$4.50

2011-11-03T15:20:00.008-04:00

That’s the amount of money per day that is allotted for food when you live on food stamps - $31.50 per week. The Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition (part of the national Fighting Poverty with Faith program) sponsored a ‘Food Stamp Challenge’ which lasted Oct. 27 – Nov.3, inviting people to eat on that amount of money for one week to help understand the difficulty, to be in solidarity with those who must live on food stamps, and to encourage them to continue afterwards with anti-poverty work.

I decided to do it – mainly because I want to stay in touch with these desperate realities in our world. It started on the day after Bishop’s Convocation.

Here’s the scoop – I failed. But my failure taught me, among other things, that having other money available is a cushion against the reality that people in poverty can’t avoid – it’s easy to eat too many carbs and …forget satisfying cravings. Even if I had lasted the week, I always knew that I had a piece of fish, fresh vegetables and a latte waiting for me to give consolation after my experiment. Limited food resources reminds us how much food has to do with consolation, energy, and a sense of having what you need to live with hope.

Here are just a few notes from the journal I kept:

Forget organic – too expensive

Carbs are the best value for the money – but would need to budget over a few weeks so that I can buy in bulk – things like rice, potatoes, generic cereal, noodles and bread goes on sale often. So much for my diet.

Beans and rice are a good source of protein

Occasional eggs – fortunately I love eggs

Almost bought a huge, really cheap blue fish with the head still on. Nah.

Saw a gorgeous head of lettuce – I’ve been craving greens (somehow canned green beans don’t do it for me) but $1.99 was way too much to spend.

Bananas and butternut squash were $.69/lb – a better buy

Dented cans still have good food in them

Fortunately I like oatmeal and peanut butter – but it would get really old if I had to eat it every day. Had a peanut butter sandwich one night for dinner.

The smell of McDonald’s drove me crazy

One of my Starbucks treat to myself would be a whole day’s food – I would have to give up my soy chai latte obsession for good

No avocado, no cantaloupe – nailed a big bag of seconds apples for $5 – lasted the whole week, but it’s definitely more satisfying to eat carbs.

This was no fun.

Occupation

2011-11-01T09:49:00.000-04:00

That word is everywhere these days. What does it mean to ‘occupy’ Wall Street, and other places in other cities? And what does it accomplish?

I hope that these protests raise awareness of the role of greed in our culture – physical bodies stating by their presence that it’s not OK for the very rich to get even richer, especially by things such as insider trading and disproportionate taxation. Meanwhile, the politically putrid partisan paralysis of the government makes it incapable of solving problems. Neither major party, nor the Tea Party, has answers yet. So what is there to do to get notice except go and sit in the street? I hope that the desire to occupy continues into occupying voting booths, and I hope that candidates will both note the occupations, and feel called to respond with real solutions – beyond bashing the opposing political party and its leaders - to the needs that are being expressed.

And there is the continuing occupation of Palestinian territories – a different kind of occupation. The occupiers are not citizens, but soldiers, and they have the power of the Israeli government behind them. So they have weapons and use them, and they destroy whole villages and ways of life with implicit international consent. The settlements that these occupiers have built are far more permanent than the tents and lean-tos that have arisen in our cities. There’s a difference between frustrated people occupying a space to make the case for change to their government, and a government occupying a space to take it away from people who have inhabited it for centuries.

Cape Cod, Tats, and Icons

2011-10-28T10:40:00.001-04:00

The bishop’s convocation used to be in September, but since it’s moved to October the attendance is better – people have exhaled from the rush of a new program year. As bishop, I get to have the event named after my office, but I don’t do very much of the work. The synod support staff works hard in preparation, the worship team works hard planning worship and creating a worshipful space that transcends the hotel room atmosphere, the pastoral staff spends time connecting with people in meals and conversations, and so do I. My report and sermon and worship participation are my other contributions. The event is always moving for me, because it is one of the two times of the year when pastors gather from around the synod and become my congregation, all in one place, for a couple of days.

The Continuing Theological Education Team hit a home run this year. The accommodations were terrific, the keynote speaker, ELCA pastor Nadia Boltz-Weber, was provocative and powerful, the agenda was simple and restful. By taking risks in bringing change to this gathering, they enriched it.

I’m thinking about images, and the ways that they communicate. Nadia has a lot of tattoos, and in our church culture, they tend to mark the person as apart, and different, and maybe a little scary. But as with all assumptions about external things, when you take the time to get beyond them you are often surprised, and find commonalities that you didn’t expect. Nadia has a spiritual depth and commitment to biblical and theological study that mark her in a deep way as a sister in the love and proclamation of the gospel. Icons – we had many beautiful ones in the worship space. They draw us in and beyond to a place where we can more easily shut out the images that the world presses on us, and absorb peace. And the image of Christ in one another was especially noticeable to me in this gathering – maybe because it was my last one.

Here’s one more thing that I noticed: we have lots of new pastors in this synod who are bringing ideas and energy and a challenging vision to our life together. But we also have plenty of older pastors (in both senses of the word) who are welcoming them and their energy and ideas, while sharing wisdom, experience and scholarship with them. We need both.

Back at the farm

2011-10-19T10:15:00.002-04:00

Between Iowa and Worcester, I have a couple of days at the farm. Although sometimes it seems inconvenient to have home so far from office, it also provides a place to decompress from travel and to rest in the peace of the country.

Today the rain has stopped and an autumn wind has moved in to toss everything around a bit. It’s not a very brilliant fall this year, but there are splotches of color on the hillsides, and they do a good job of accessorizing the brown and green leaves. It’s windy – blowing away the humidity so that it finally feels like summer is over. Thank goodness.

Kurt has just separated the cows from the calves to do the weaning. It’s noisy – so much for the silence. The calves are complaining because they would rather get milk from their moms than learn how to eat grass, and the moms are complaining because they have a lot of milk aching in their bodies that they want to give to the calves. Oh well – soon the cows will dry up and the calves will grow up, and then it will be quiet again. Meanwhile, I’m outta here.

The Castle

2011-10-15T09:10:00.002-04:00

Back from Wartburg – a wonderful visit. I had never been to that seminary before, though I have always heard good things about it. Candidates from our synod do not usually feel inclined to look into it as a possibility for study – maybe because it seems so far away in the middle of Iowa.

But it’s a great place – very much oriented toward the creation of community, which is pretty essential in the world today.

One of the most fun things about it is that it is contained in one building – a huge one, built to look like the Wartburg Castle in Germany. It sits on 35 acres and there are other buildings on the land – apartments and small homes (they call them the Monopoly Houses) that provide housing for the students. But all the offices, classrooms, refectory, chapel, meeting rooms, library, archives and a couple of small museums are in the one building: a good place to hunker down in a cold Iowa winter and a safe haven in the basement if a tornado threatens.

The student who picked me up at the airport told me that when a friend of his, an incoming student, drove to the school to show it to her family, her son said: Mom! You’re going to Hogswart! Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to include a bit of wizardry in the curriculum.

Notes from the Conference of Bishops (COB), Sept.29-Oct.4, 2011

2011-10-04T10:24:00.001-04:00

We are a church seeking to imagine and plan new ways to proclaim the gospel, as well as ways to steward the tradition and valuable ministry that is already part of our denomination. Bishop Hanson set the tone, speaking to us about the call to be a community of trust, with a culture that can be a true incubator for growth. The following quotation from (of all people) the State Demographer of Minnesota communicates a reality that is in the air for our church as well as our culture - hard to hear, hard to process and even harder to accomplish, but true:

The people who put their energy into getting back to how things were are lost. The people who look to the future to see what might be possible are the people to whom the future belongs.

As people who understand the future as a place that is already in God’s hands, in forms as yet unimagined, this is not a statement of judgment, but hope.

Here are some of the things that the days contained:

Regional meetings · Committee meetings – one of my roles is chair of the Theological and Ethical Concerns Committee. This committee has had different tasks over the years since I first was assigned to it in 2000. Amidst other responsibilities, we are working on two challenges that have arisen from the actions of the 2011 CWA: redesigning the way in which the ELCA will make a witness about corporate social responsibility, and reviewing/revising the process of the creation of social statements.
Worship featuring Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori as the preacher on Thursday - she shared the evening with us as and then addressed us the next morning.
Presentation from seminary presidents, discussion about how to sustain quality theological education. Will there continue to be eight seminaries? Will they combine with other educational institutions? ·
Report from a group of nine bishops (one from each region) who are exploring ideas about possible reorganization of synods. This group is led by a pastor from our roster Jim Nieman, now serving as dean at Hartford Seminary. Jim has written and worked extensively in the field of denominational systems, and has been a gift to the whole church in this area.
Evening banquet to honor the recipients of the 11th annual scholarship awards from the ELCA Fund for Leaders (one of my earlier roles was to serve on the steering committee) and it was exciting that one of the recipients was Brian Rajcok. Brian is from New England and is now in his first year of study at Luther Seminary. Your gifts to this fund help to support our seminarians and assist in the reduction of their student debt.
NEWSFLASH: Bishop Jessica Crist of the Montana Synod was elected chair of the Conference of Bishops! Not only is she the first woman to serve in this role, but we can claim her as a leader who studied and worked for years in New England – she is a former pastor of UniLu. · Reports from officers, committee chairs, agencies, other leaders
Discussion on: mission (including joint conversation with the DEMs – Directors of Evangelical Mission), the elections of bishops (there will be 36 elections in the next two years), constitutional changes, assemblies, governance, research information, mission support challenges and the complicated picture of what health care reform means for the pension and benefits packages of rostered leaders and employees of the ELCA.

When I leave for the COB, Lyn always says, “Have a good time in Chicago!” And I think to myself: define ‘good’. Days are long, often beginning with breakfast meetings at 7 and usually going into the evenings. Expectations for what bishops should do back home are high. Most new bishops report feeling “swamped” – I know I did. But still, there is something profoundly ‘good’ about being together in work and worship and fellowship, living in this episcopal call to serve the church, hearing about all that is going on to proclaim Christ in ELCA synods across the country, and learning more each time. So I guess I am good and tired.

Chicago, Chicago….

2011-10-01T09:25:00.000-04:00

I’ve worn a groove in the air to Chicago; here’s one of the reasons I go there. The Lutheran Center is in Chicago (well, ten minutes away from O’Hare Airport, to be exact) and the bishops meet every fall and spring for a week for the work of the conference.

You’ve heard plenty of travel horror stories and I won’t contribute mine, but you’ve got to hear about this trip. There were no traffic problems on the way to Bradley Airport; I snagged a parking spot in my favorite area; the plane was on time; I was upgraded to a seat with extra leg room; the person next to me was small, quiet and nice; my suitcase came through the opening onto the baggage carousel just as I arrived; the hotel shuttle pulled up just as I walked through the door to its location; my room was ready at the Marriott; I had remembered everything I was supposed to bring. All of this had never happened to me before in one trip. Does anybody remember the picture of Snoopy dancing on top of his doghouse? That’s how I felt.

Synod Council – you rock!

2011-09-26T11:04:00.000-04:00

This past weekend the synod kicked off a new year with the first synod council meeting on Friday evening and Saturday. A bishop has a similar relationship and responsibility to the synod council as a parish pastor does to the congregational council. Vice president Mark Winzler is the lay leader of the council and synod, and he presides at the meetings. He and I work together to plan the program year, develop agendas and work with officers and members in a variety of ways. The synod council has a lot of ongoing duties: roster decisions, planning for assemblies, staying in touch with our ministry partners, thinking and praying about how to provide leadership for the synod, wrestling with issues that the church is facing – they don’t meet five times a year to feel important, nod over endless reports and rubber-stamp decisions.

There has always been a synod council, but its nature has been evolving. It now has a feel that is more spiritual community and less administrative board. The council is a lively bunch: it is diverse (several members under 30, several members non-white, men and women, lay and clergy), it makes statements that are noticed by the whole ELCA, it decides how to use money, it decides which mission ideas should be pursued, it laughs a lot, it prays a lot and it gets to eat great food prepared by Katherine Duffy, our queen of hospitality. (At 11:22 on Saturday mornings, the smell of homemade brownies begins to permeate the meeting room.) These people keep asking: what is God calling this synod to do, and how can we provide leadership to help that happen? How can we get the idea across more fully that synod means “walking together”, and not “them” and “us”?

When I go to synod council meetings, I have a good time. I never fail to be amazed at the wisdom of the community and the trust that has developed so that people feel free to speak openly and listen carefully and respectfully to one another. Discernment happens. Synod council – you rock! You are my red leaves on the burning bush of the synod and ambassadors who are hopeful, faithful and eager for God’s purpose. I feel blessed.

The Palestinian bid for recognition at the UN

2011-09-22T16:47:00.000-04:00

The Palestinian determination to seek full membership at the United Nations is long overdue. The Palestinian people have endured, not always patiently or peacefully, but endured, decades of encroaching settlements, land theft, occupation, human rights violations and lies while waiting for the international community to hold Israel accountable. Why should they put off this effort any longer? The promises pouring out of Israel that peace-talks will resume, the threats from the U.S. that such a bid will make things worse – none of them are anything but an effort to support the ongoing falsehood that Israel will allow a viable Palestinian state if they can find a way to get out of it.

Turkey and Egypt are wearying of support for a nation that will not engage in honest negotiation. It is a love for Israel and the Jewish people that makes me want them to transform their victimhood into a new reality of partnership and sharing of the land. Of course there is anti-Semitism, and that is as wrong as it ever was. But the world is witnessing other genocides and famines and plenty of other isms that compete for our compassion. As they should. It’s time finally to put the Israeli-Palestinian dispute into another realm and look for new ways to solve it fairly.

September weekend, sunny and cool

2011-09-21T07:43:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning - Hartford CT - meeting with voting members from the summer churchwide assembly. Coffee, fruit, and homemade coffee cake. How can we get across the idea that being part of the wider church is a gift, not a burden?

Afternoon - Torrington CT – three ordinations, palpable passion for call, thirty (30!) clergy attending – a field of albs and red stoles witnessing the promises – I am so grateful to them for their giving of a Saturday afternoon for this.

Sunday – Portland ME – celebrating 50 years since the laying of the cornerstone at St. Ansgar, a Sudanese pastor and children’s choir, word and sacrament, growing numbers of tiny worshippers cavorting in the baptismal sprinkling.

Kittery ME – stop on the way south to buy winter slippers for John, sea smells and tourists’ enthusiasm mingling with the sun, a giant lobster roll, a tent sale, and then the rest of the weekend’s 515.8 miles to get home.

Life for Mabel

2011-09-19T14:42:00.002-04:00

One of the responsibilities of my office is to serve as an ex-officio member of the Board of Lutheran Social Services of New England. It’s part of the expectation of the office, along with membership on boards for Lutheran seminaries and colleges.

Last week there was a LSS board meeting, and at this one we heard about the disability services provided by agencies of LSS. Mabel came with her case worker to help tell us about the program. Mabel has mental disabilities and was homeless for a long time. With the help of the incredibly personalized services of LSS, Mabel now has her own apartment, visits her doctor regularly and has learned how to clean and to arrange for healthy meals for herself. Mabel is a hoot – a tiny (about 4’10’’ and 90 lbs.) force of energy who had astonishing confidence speaking to a typical professional-looking board. The caseworkers are passionate about improving the quality of life for people like Mabel – people who are so easily overlooked by society, or given band-aid solutions. They told us stories of other cases. Each time I hear more detail about the programs of LSS (especially their new work in human trafficking) I see the hands of Christ and I am deeply grateful that we share the name “Lutheran”.

Of Burning Bushes

2011-09-15T14:08:00.002-04:00

On the edge of the pasture next to our barn is a burning bush – not the Moses kind, but the kind that is modestly green year round except for one shining season in the fall when it turns bright red. When the maple trees turn red, the bush outdoes them. When a late autumn afternoon sun shines on it, you feel like rushing out with a bucket of water to put out the flames.

While I was tending my one tomato plant (did I mention that it is fabulously productive this year?) which is near the bush, I looked up and saw a remarkable thing. The bush was essentially green – not the green-y green of early summer, but still green. But one leaf was red. Bright red. There were not a few leaves turning red, or a couple of red leaves here and there - there was one….red….leaf. Is that leadership or what?

In the synod I keep an eye out for red leaves – a pastor or lay leader or congregational member who is fully connected to the bush, but shining with the color of the next season, even though no one else is there yet. I listen hard to that person and I try to imagine how their vision can be spread. I try to figure out how the other leaves can catch that fire.

A Week-End in September

2011-09-12T10:00:00.003-04:00

This past week-end was weighted emotionally with the tenth anniversary of 9/11, as we thought and prayed about sermons, and watched or listened to accounts of that tragedy and of the ways in which individual lives and the path of our country have changed since then. It was a week=end to remember terrible shock and endings at the same time that we lived with a gospel text about forgiveness, and many congregations celebrated the beginning of a new program year.

A bishop’s schedule is tied closely to the program year of the church. But unlike a parish pastor’s, there is less worship planning, more travel around the synod and the wider church, and a renewed emphasis on candidates and the call process. The first six weeks of the fall are often the busiest of the year – synod council meeting, preaching commitments, ecumenical meetings, one of the three annual week-long Conference of Bishops meetings, Bishop’s Convocation, the annual visit to a seminary of the church – and the landslide of calls that result from autumn energy translated into finally getting around to calling the bishop about….(fill in the blank).

This week-end I made my annual visit to Hammonasset – the incredible annual youth ministry gathering at Hammonasset State Park in Connecticut. If you aren’t an attendee already, you should get connected to this amazing event. A brief talk at this week-end long camping event was the first public appearance I made as bishop, and I’ve been able to get there every year except when I was on sabbatical. At each visit I am unfailingly inspired by what great kids and youth ministry workers we have in New England.

On Sunday I preached at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Ridgefield, CT for the worship leading up the the ground-breaking for a new sanctuary. One of my greatest joys in this call is spending Sunday morning in worship with one of the congregations of the synod, which I do on most Sundays when I am not away on business or vacation. It’s a lot of driving, but the personal contact and shared worship is irreplaceable. And this week-end it was SUNNY.

Reminder : the buck stops here

2011-09-04T18:56:00.002-04:00

The first time the buck stopped on my desk I glared at it, willing it to go away, but it didn’t. It took most of my years as bishop to get used to the idea that I’m the one at the end of the buck trail for the synod. In my past ministry lives I had always been an assistant, a partner, one of the team members, or the person who delivered the buck, with relief, to someone else’s desk. I was already elected by the time that I remembered that I don’t like to be the one who bears the final responsibility for decisions. Too late.

This fact came to mind again along with Irene’s visit. Although there was not too much I could do but keep in touch, and think about next steps, the fact is that holding the people of six states and part of a seventh in my heart, and also planning our response to damaged communities, means that I can’t wait from a word on high to let me know what my leadership role should be. I have to figure it out for myself.

Pastors and other leaders bear the same kind of responsibility for their own areas, whether it is in the church or in another vocation. It has been a help for me to include regular consensus building and advice-seeking as a way of life to prepare for the oncoming buck, but there are always situations where a difficult or painful or controversial decision must be made in our life together as the synodical expression of the ELCA, and those land on the bishop’s desk.

Count Down

2011-09-01T11:36:00.003-04:00

Time moves in an unmarked flow, but humans chop it up so that we can imagine control over it: seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, centuries. Week-ends, vacation weeks, sports seasons, festivals, birthdays, anniversaries. Some segments are cultural, some are of the earth and its cycles, some are ecclesiastical and some are personal. My birthday means nothing at all to most of the world, but to me it is the annual signpost on the journey between the day I filled my lungs for the first time in order to scream outrage, to the day when those lungs will exhale wearily for the last time. So much breathing in-between. Instead of counting the breaths (a tedious task) I gather them into bigger clumps of days, years, life-stages, vacations, relationships, quests and jobs – for the purpose of organizing and evaluating all the air I’ve used.

September 1, 2011 - it’s not my birthday or anniversary. Most years it is just the day when I turn the corner to autumn thinking from summer thinking – looking for orange leaves instead of looking for one more thing to grill and put between two halves of a bun. But this year it is also the day that begins my last year as bishop, and I have decided to use it as the starting point for a year’s worth of blogs about life in that office. I will enjoy reporting and reflecting and I hope that you will enjoy finding out more about the inner and outer life of service that a colleague of mine has described as “relentlessly interesting”. Maybe it will help voting members from New England to choose their next bishop. Let’s see how it goes.

Returning Soon!

2011-08-16T15:49:00.003-04:00

Bishop Payne will resume Blogging in September reflecting on her last year of service as Bishop.

bibling rivalry

2011-02-28T13:15:00.000-05:00

There was a wave of stunned disapproval emanating from the bookshelves in my study when I carried my new kindle into the room for the first time . How could she have done this? That thing is a machine – no anticipatory creak when opening it for the first time, no smell of new paper, no integrity of purpose – it’s all books to all people. And her – an English major – the shame of it.

Rivalry happens. I still love all my books, especially the ones that I return to again and again for wisdom or the sheer love of the writing, or ones written by friends, or ones that have been companions in hard times. But I love my kindle. It whispers: hey, I’ll carry all those books for you. It has a light in its corner so that I can read in dark rooms. It nestles in small places in my bag. It connects me to a story whose end I can handle when the endings of the stories swirling around me are uncertain. I have a bible in it – but does anyone know how to download the NRSV or The Message? Just don’t mention this to my books; it will only hurt their feelings.

From warm to wintry to wacky

2011-02-27T14:25:00.003-05:00

Five years ago sailing friends introduced John and me to the tiny island of Elbow Cay in the Abacos, part of the Bahamas. There is a town on it – Hopetown – which looks all the world like a pastel New England village. We returned there with them this year – we stayed in an old house that has a view of the ocean out back and a view of the harbor out front. It was a wonderful week of the usual delight of warm weather in February, and the charms of this place: beautiful beaches, bicycle travel, raisin bread from the bakery, a coffee shop, good seafood, terrific pina coladas, lots of good reading and visiting time, and my favorite touch – hymns twice a day on the church chimes from the Methodist Church down the street.

But now I’m in Minnesota – it’s snowing and cold, though not as cold or as much snow as I left behind in New England. I came to do a presentation, and afterwards drove up to Collegeville to visit with some of the pages from the St. John’s Bible and spend two days in silent retreat at the guesthouse of St. John’s Abbey.

Do you know about this bible? Check it out at http://www.saintjohnsbible.org/. It is a project that will have taken 15 years – the first illuminated, handwritten bible of monumental size to be commissioned by a Benedictine Monastery in 500 years. It is being made using traditional materials: calfskin, ancient inks, gold leaf, and is being written with quill pens made from goose, turkey and swan feathers. Along with the wonder of the calligraphy and illuminations, the art commissioned for it is so powerfully stunning that it would make me shiver even if it weren’t so cold here. The reprints do not do it justice. If you ever have a chance to see some pages – don’t even think about not doing it.

Wacky – can’t help it. My accommodations tomorrow night before I fly back East are directly across the street from the Mall of America. People come from Europe and Japan to go there! So I thought I should walk across the street. I’ve been there once before and had good sushi, but I also need to take a peek at the indoor roller coaster, aquarium and collection of shops one more time. I wish I could use a bicycle there.

And more snow…..

2011-02-02T15:05:00.003-05:00

Ok. So after a while, the spirituality of shoveling snow gets a little old. But I do love snow, and love snow days. They give me grace that I rarely give myself. Not bad – inside with books, tea, extra time and the web. My extrovert friends cringe when I extol the virtues these delights, but the introverts among you know the contentment.

In January I traveled to Florida to gather with other bishops at our “Academy” – con ed, worship and fellowship. No snow in Tampa, but it wasn’t tropical. Still, the chance to spin at a different speed was nice. Then meetings, snow days, rescheduled meetings, snow days…..and then to Calumet for the annual rostered leaders event. Why don’t more of you come? There were great presenters, excellent food, relaxation….and it’s free. Are you too Lutheran, too wimpy or too busy?

The spiritualities of mourning, feasting, sleeping and shoveling snow

2011-01-25T11:07:00.002-05:00

Every year the seasons of Advent and Christmas are punctuated by sadnesses that glare against the hope and joy in worship and mall. This year the New England Synod lost, after complications following a kidney transplant, the Rev. Howard Mathisen. He was the head of our Ministerial Assistance Program, a strong advocate for the health and well-being of pastors, utterly devoted to the community of the Mighty Counselor, and a mighty fine counselor in his own right. Through our sadness we remembered from Howard’s faith his conviction of the hope we have in the promises of Jesus, dimming the power of the glare of death.

Christmas feasting was rampant in our house this year. Like the Olympics, we have required events and optional events. Required are chex mix, smoked salmon, honey baked ham, rum balls and a major meat experience: this year it was standing rib roast. (Of course it was Black Angus) Optional are crescent cookies, sticky buns, leg of lamb, and multiple chocolate opportunities. Guests arrived, wine flowed, children ran around and gifts were exchanged. Wrapped in the celebration of the birth of our savior, feasting is an echo of the abundance of God’s love.

Did you know that black bears sometimes just drop down where they are to hibernate for the winter? They might pull leaves and twigs over themselves, or find a space under a log, but it’s no big deal. They will eat nothing for half a year and lose only one third of their body fat. Twice a day their pulse will quicken and they will stir, but then go back to sleep. It would make sense for us to stop racing around every once in a while and just drop down and sleep for longer than we normally do. This is more likely to happen in winter and we should not fight it, but accept it as a spiritual discipline of renewal. By the way, in one study of bear behavior, it was learned that their food of choice was Dunkin’ Donuts.

A complimentary spiritual discipline to sleeping is shoveling snow and so spirits are highly evolved in New England this year. The challenge to brave each “wintry mix” with a shovel and determination to clear the driveway, if not the highway, is an exercise in mixing exhilaration with restraint. Unless you are running out of places to put the snow or wish you lived in the Southwest or feel resentful that your partner never shovels or forget your limits and harm your body….it’s a great thing to do.

Family Systems

2010-12-17T15:51:00.002-05:00

As we come to the fourth Sunday in Advent we are thinking about Jesus’ unique family of origin that was made up of the Holy Spirit and Joseph and Mary. Although the gospel lesson for this Sunday reminds us of Joseph’s side of the story, I always think a lot about Mary at this time of year. Driving in town last week I saw a bumper sticker on the car in front of me that read: Love Your Mother, a sentiment of which I highly approve. There was a round image next to the words and so I pulled closer to try to make it out, aware that the driver’s annoyance at a tailgater was undoubtedly rising to within a hair’s breadth of road rage. The image was a picture of the earth.

Usually by now in Advent I am ready to ponder Mary as chosen, willing, courageous, patient, and a model of faith and discipleship for both genders, and how she and Jesus shared a parent/child bond that all of us have known in one form or another. But this year I am thinking about how God has placed us on a planet that we call Mother Earth and how we are not loving our mother the way we should.

When I spend time at the beach and tidal marshes in New Jersey (one of my favorite spots on Mother Earth), I see that at mid-day there are always pick-up trucks parked at the end of streets. I never knew what to make of that until I realized that sitting in the trucks were workmen eating their lunch while gazing at the ocean, or marsh, or inlet. Surely it would be faster and easier to drop down in a corner of the construction site and pull out their lunchboxes. But when I stop to chat or wave, there is always a comment about the beauty and salt air and how lucky they are to be able to take time to enjoy it. At our farm among everybody who works here is the same sense of privilege to live and work in a place where we get to hang out with Mother daily and cherish her moods and seasons.

I love cities – their energy and diversity – but when I spend too much time in them I lose my sense of connection to a world that is not of human making; I lose touch with awe. There are so many floods and earthquakes and tornadoes and excessive snow and ice events. Maybe they are just cyclical and maybe Mother Earth is angry. There’s a saying in some households: When momma ain’t happy….ain’t nobody happy. It seems that is more and more true in our relationship with our momma in the biggest family system in the universe.

Advent Layers

2010-12-14T11:09:00.001-05:00

Along with the ideas and images of preparation, pregnancy, light in the darkness, endings, beginnings and John the Baptizer, there is a backdrop of wilderness to Advent. Every year I try to incorporate a touch of wilderness into my own Advent journey. I think of a wilderness experience as something out of my comfort zone, something that symbolizes what we need to hack through to make Christmas happen. So this year I went to Washington, D.C. to advocate for peace in the Middle East.

The group I traveled with is the Middle East Ready Bench, of which I am a member in the Conference of Bishops, and several ELCA resource people. Over two days, there was an opening reception at the Rayburn House Office Building co-hosted by the ELCA and LIRS (Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services), dinner with a guest speaker, time spent getting briefed on latest details and then visits to various people and places in the capital. We thought of this as a “listening tour” – we asked more questions that usual and tried to listen well.

Noam Katz, Israeli Minister of Public Diplomacy said: Could it be that the only ‘doable’ solution is a lose/lose scenario where each side admits it must give up something that it really wants in order to achieve peace?

We made visits to the State Department and divided up to visit the offices of House Reps, and then a meeting with Sen John Kerry’s staff from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sen. Kerry is an ally in the understanding that there are two sides to the story of the conflict in the Middle East – and both he and his staff have been to Augusta Victoria Hospital.

Navigating the hallways of the House was a challenge – they were cluttered with piles of office furniture – evidence of the great re-shuffling that took place at the polls in November and now is taking places in the offices to get ready for January.

While we were there the National Christmas Tree was lit in great ceremony (isn’t the one in Rockefeller Center the national Christmas tree?), Bill Clinton surprisingly revisited his role as preside at a presidential press conference and Sasha had a basketball game. Every wilderness has its pockets of humanity.

Advent Interludes

2010-12-11T08:10:00.000-05:00

My Advent wreath slows me down. Sometimes when I walk by too quickly it crooks a candle at me and says, “Hey. C’mere. Slow down and sit with me a while.” So I do.

In the time it takes me to change direction, sit down, exhale, strike a match, (no Bics allowed near my Advent wreath) remember the number of candles to light and light them, wet the end of the match before I throw it away, put the matches back in their place, then sink back in the chair in candlelight…..I have slowed down.

Along with being an antidote to hurry, an Advent interlude is also a mini-liberation from our bondage to screens. In his book The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four Thousand Year Journey to Your Inbox, John Freeman notes that since the beginning of time humans have read by reflected light, and now we spend hours a day staring into light that is beamed right into our pupils. There are many not-good physical consequences related to this fact, but they do not address the deeper problem of the stress of addictive 24/7 attention to screens of all sizes.

Among other scary things, he explains how the “reigning economic system” is built on isolation and perpetuates isolation. One of the most glaring results of a study from Stanford University is that the two hours a day that people burn up on the internet generally come from the time that they would have spent with family and friends. Once that withdrawal and replacement has begun, it’s hard to stop. The irony of communicating so much this way is that it tethers us more completely to machines and addictive behaviors and separates us from human interaction, limiting our human development in many ways.

An Advent interlude is one small step toward reclaiming time for different purposes. We slow down, we sit by candles, we wait, we think about what it feels like to delay and anticipate, we think about spirits stretching, we think about what it might mean for us to live in a counter-cultural way that defies isolation by valuing worship, family time and community time above screen time.

On the road again: Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston

2010-11-27T14:02:00.003-05:00

Although my itinerary for the past couple of weeks might sound cosmopolitan and urbane, we’re talking church meetings here – the coffee circuit, much more enjoyable than any cocktail party circuit.

Beginning in Minneapolis, I attended the bishop’s convocation of our USA partner synod – Southeastern Minnesota. Bp. Usgaard (Huck) and his wife Lynette have become friends over the years and it was fun to hang with them and the synod leadership. The theme was: ‘Cross Training’ – four different speakers addressing four aspects important for strengthening pastoral skills. I brought greetings and preached a sermon, but mostly enjoyed the company and the presentations. To help me feel at home, they gave me a pair of sneakers (with bling) that I wore the whole time – see picture above – and watch for them in New England at a meeting near you.

The site for the convocation was a mile from the Mall of America. You should go there sometime, really. Is it the Mecca of Materialism, or is it just a gigantic marketplace that takes its place in the lineage of memorable marketplaces since the beginning of time? It was eerily un-busy when some of us went there for dinner at a good restaurant - yes, you can get fabulous sushi in Minnesota. The mall is a destination spot for people from all over the world; Russians, Japanese and Europeans have been sighted there along with groups from schools and the ubiquitous teen shoppers. No matter who you are, you are amazed by an amusement park inside a gargantuan structure that is filled with standard and highly unusual shops, county fair smells, and less a sense of consumer frenzy than Disneyesque wholesomeness. It’s rather heart-land-ish, and if you set aside disdain, it’s a fun place to visit.

The ELCA Churchwide office is in Chicago, and I was there in my role as one of the liaison bishops for the November meeting of the Church Council – the national version of your local congregation council. These times are both wrenching and hopeful as we all navigate toward a leaner and reshuffled way to do church. Some good news is that when you get further and further down to the basics there is a sense of clarity. If we can resist the idolatry of ‘the-glory-of-the-way-we-always-did-it’ I know that there will be renewed strength and witness, and that God will guide our imagination into new ways of shaping church.

Boston time was spent learning about our campus ministries there in the process of doing a quadrennial campus ministry review – Harvard, Boston University, UMass at Lowell, MIT; we got a first hand look at the ways that students and young adults are connected to the community and meaning of Christianity in its Lutheran expression.

Why participate in campus ministry? How about because it revitalizes congregational ministry, reconnects a generation that is missing from the church, sows seeds that flourish into Christian leadership years later and rewards us with new energy and hope? The congregation of University Lutheran in Cambridge is passionately committed to campus ministry – doing the hard work of ministry to and with undergrads, graduate students and young adults. If your congregation is anywhere near a campus, and you want to do evangelism that is more than just opening the door on Sunday, give them a visit and ask questions. Turning outward in genuine interest and expectancy will transform your congregation.

Now, finally, back home for Thanksgiving. I am grateful this year to stay home – me and three local relatives will be smelling turkey and overeating together lovingly. There is such a tizzy in America about giving thanks on this one day. Besides the fact that it memorializes a meal that was a precursor to white devastation of Native American people and their culture, it is also a custom that suggests that it’s enough to make a fuss about giving thanks only one day a year. Instead, I wonder if we should set aside one day a year to take a break from giving thanks, and spend the other 364 days stunned by the abundance that surrounds us and looking for ways to share it.

Silence and its siblings

2010-11-06T11:21:00.001-04:00

If the life of a bishop were only all about visitation, meetings, travel, worship, public witness, administration, preaching and teaching, then the office would be woefully underserved. At the heart of any ministry that is God-pleasing is a love affair with silence. And although monogamy is desirable in marriage, a minister should share love with prayer, meditation, solitude, deep breathing and designated time apart.

Early last week I had two days by the sea, and more recently one whole day of solitude, soul calming music and mindless tasks for my hands. Every day includes time for shutting out the tumble of jobs to be done that are crowding at the edge of my mind like cats at the door wanting in. I call this my “quiet time” and so it could be prayer, meditation, dazed inaction, yoga or listening to my breath. Although I am of German stock with genetic skill at organizing, sometimes it is more holy just to show up without an agenda and find out each day what God will give into a receptive silence. So it goes in the life of this bishop.

Reformation Sunday

2010-10-31T16:21:00.001-04:00

We have just two days to go – and then, finally - freedom – freedom from negative political ads. Can you imagine what the ads about Martin Luther would have said?

“Martin Luther: Do you really want to send this man into your pulpit? He has betrayed your faith, engaged in a marital relationship, maligned the Holy Father and damaged your eternal life by opposing indulgences. He has 95 reasons why he thinks you should believe him, but we have just one reason why you should not believe Martin Luther – he is the enemy of Christ’s Church. This is your bishop, and I approve this ad.”

Truth was just as hard to come by in those days as it is now, but we think that Martin Luther was worth believing, and that’s why we celebrate the Reformation. Sometimes it might seem like you need a dictionary to get through this day – we hear unfamiliar words: justification, righteousness, redemption, divine forbearance.

But not really. In the gospel lesson, Jesus says simply:

If you continue in my word,
you are my disciples,
and you will know the truth,
and the truth will make you free…… It’s as simple as that.

It’s a promise – that if we live in relationship with Jesus, joined to him in our baptism and shaped by his teachings, then we will have forgiveness of sin, escape from death, a hot line to truth, and freedom.

In the 16th century, that promise was buried - people were not allowed to read the bible for themselves, and corrupt religious leaders wanted power and money more than they wanted people to know all the promises about God’s grace.

But when something precious and beloved is buried and beyond the reach of those who need it, there are usually people who will do anything to get it back.

Recently the whole world was focused on thirty-three men who were buried in Chile when an explosion tore through the mine where they worked.

They got safely to a place where they had enough air, a little bit of food, a little bit of light, and a little bit of hope that flickered for seventeen days before the world knew they were still alive, and they knew that the world knew they were still alive.

And then the rescue began. Workers came from everywhere - journalists and photographers came by the thousands, loved ones of the thirty-three men set up a village and a vigil to pray and hope for rescue.

You saw it all on TV and on the web – it went on for weeks - you probably prayed and hoped, too. Then came the amazing hours when the men were lifted one by one to the surface and all the planning, the time and money, the engineering feats, the weeks of chipping away at rock and hoping for what had never been accomplished before ended with the rescue and the restoration of the men to their lives and loves.

Today as we gather in worship we are celebrating another rescue.

For a time, the precious promises of God were buried and beyond the reach of the followers of Jesus. And Martin Luther was willing to do anything to get them back.

God’s promises were buried, but still alive, and Luther retrieved them. He burrowed through rocky layers of tradition and false doctrine and human ego and he found his way to the promises in the bible, where they were still alive.

Then with the Holy Spirit, he got down to the hard work of bringing them to the surface so that they could be reunited with the people of God – many of whom didn’t even realize that they existed. And we call that reunion the beginning of the Reformation.

Digging up the promises, unearthing grace – not the cheap grace that is just happiness in cheerful circumstances, but the grace that is amazing, that envelops us and sinks into our bones when we can’t think of another reason to celebrate.

But sometimes, these days in America, I think that they are buried again, this time under new versions of doctrine and new ideologies and modern fundamentalism that distorts the gospel and bends it to the purposes of egos that care not at all for truth, but want power and might. We should not feel too proud of turning our backs on indulgences until it is clear that we are turning our backs on its modern forms, and turning our hearts toward the work of compassion, even love of enemies, and justice and peace – the things that Jesus taught us.

Here’s why it’s worth knowing about God’s promises – they have super-powers. Any kind of promise has the power of transformation – the promise of a vacation transforms work-days into days of anticipation, the promise of ice cream transforms a cranky child into a cooperative one, and the promise of love transforms life itself.

But God’s promises are even greater – they transform slavery into freedom, darkness into light, and death into life. They are the foundation of the universe and at the same time, the foundation of each one of our lives if we put our trust in them.

So many people are as trapped as those miners and don’t even know it. They are living on little bits of life and love, surrounded by the rock of their unacknowledged sins – and all the time, God’s promises have the power to bring them back to a fullness of life and reunion with love that they can’t imagine.

And so, especially because we are Lutherans, we are called to live in those promises and to help with the excavation. We are called to live our lives in doing what matters to God while we live in the promises, and that’s what celebrating the Reformation is really all about. Amen.

God the dresser of the vineyard, God the planter of the wheat, God the reaper of the harvest, God the source of all we eat.

2010-10-21T16:37:00.002-04:00

The above lines are quoted from a hymn that we sang during the Bishop’s Convocation this week. Among all kinds of creative and contemplative opportunities for worship we used liturgies and hymns from ‘Sundays and Seasons’. Check out Augsburg Fortress for liturgies and tons of other resources that are amazing. Actually my very favorite phrase from that hymn is “God, the nuisance to the Pharoah”. You gotta love a God that annoys tyrannical rulers.

The Convocation was three days set apart to meet with pastors and other leaders from our synod around the theme: “Care of Creation”. Besides powerful worship, time to relax and enjoy community and great presentations, (see below) it was important to let the truth of our call to care for the earth sink into our bones. There are so many different ways to work on this – take your pick. My own most significant way is to be wife to a farmer and support him in his passion for farms, trees, cows, conserving land and sustaining small family farms.

As I blog this from our farm, the cattle are lowing (read: mooing loudly) outside my window. To me, when we sing carols at Christmas, one of the most amazing things that we learn about the baby Jesus is that even though the ‘lowing cattle’ woke him up, he didn’t cry. Our calves are being weaned right now and the lowing doesn’t make me cry, but it makes me crazy. Imagine constant noise for five days. Earplugs help, but my main strategy is to schedule myself to be away for the weaning. So it goes with life on a farm. Other than the unpleasant fact of having to grow up and stop nursing, the calves are happily grass-fed and love to cavort in the fields.

At the Convocation, Paul Santmire gave two presentations that were fascinating as he helped us see ecological stewardship from a Lutheran perspective. Watch for changes coming soon to a liturgy near you, and don’t let anybody ever tell you that Lutherans can’t find God’s Word in the contemplation of nature. Nancy Wright gave a riveting talk on our faith in its relationship to environmental justice. The care of creation is not just about reusing paper, changing light bulbs and driving more environmentally friendly cars. The people who will suffer first and most from our abuses of the earth are those who are poor and live in places that will continue to either dry out or flood, (remember Pakistan?) be unable to support crops and force migrations that will tax the whole human community. “Greening” is not just a passing ‘politically correct’ phase, it is a matter of life and death for millions of people and the only real strategy to save the earth. Even if it is inconvenient.

Back to New England

2010-10-15T19:38:00.001-04:00

Despite feeling truly called to my work as bishop, I do feel a bit put-upon when I have to leave for a week every year just as my favorite season moves into in full swing. I already told you about the bishops meeting – I’m always engaged and grateful once I get there, but getting on the plane and leaving the colors behind is hard. Autumn. The humidity is gone, pumpkins are everywhere, apples need to be picked and the trees have put on their “Buddhist saffron robes” and preside over it all. (See the poem “Being Trees in Autumn” by Stephen Garnaas-Holmes for a wonderful exploration of that image, which is his.) The colors peaked a few days ago – the trees were so full of themselves one day that I swear they actually sparkled against an ‘only-in-autumn-blue’ sky. A car stopped on the road by our farm to prop up their children on the fence for some photos against the backdrop of cows and leaves and sky and the gently sloping field.

It was a dry year in this part of Massachusetts, so the cows had less to eat in the fields during the summer and we didn’t get in enough hay to last through the winter. No extra hay to sell this year – we’ll be looking to buy it instead. Farmers have a lot to teach the rest of us about learning that we are not as fully in control of life as we like to think. It takes a dry year or an unexpected diagnosis or a spoiled relationship to wake us up – not only to uncertainty or shortages or pain, but to the doorway into another realm that these experiences open up for us.

The feeling of control we have is always an illusion. Losing that pride of control may seem catastrophic and may lead to discomfort or even tragedy. But the truth is that we never really had it as fully as we imagined, and when it slips, we have a chance to get a glimpse of grace. God’s grace is not always wrapped in cheerful circumstances, but is always there. Maybe this is a good time of year, with the darkness deepening and winter coming on, to experiment with letting go of our illusions of control, and finding out through prayer and people who know about illusions what happens when we let ourselves see a truer reality.

Here am I, Lord....whaddya mean, enter process for assignment???

2010-10-07T14:23:00.003-04:00

Every year the bishops fan out across the country and a few of them land in each of the eight ELCA seminaries. It’s a chance to visit, meet the faculty, attend worship, but most importantly, to have time with the seniors who need to begin to engage in the process that will lead to approval and assignment for first call. It’s complicated. But we believe that the Holy Spirit works in the processes of the church as well as the individual spirit to connect leaders with a call from the church.

So here I am at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina; the picture is from the simple and spacious chapel. This is a small campus with a big heart for mission and specialties in Baptist and Methodist studies, military chaplaincy training and high expectations in the study of biblical languages.

For the first time in many years in the ELCA, there are more candidates than first call possibilities, and this trend is likely to continue before it reverses. But what a great crop. As I talk with people so eager and hopeful about doing ministry, it makes me feel eager and hopeful, too. And it makes me want to do all that I can to assure that there are healthy congregations ready and able to call these new leaders.

As bishops, we represent our whole region at these visits. Many of the students here are from the south, and seem inclined to envision ministry in warm places. As I spoke about our region, I declined to mention our chillier winters and the white stuff that appears from time to time. I adore snow, but I didn’t want to foist my preferences on them. But the good news is that there’s also a terrific crop in the seven other seminaries, as well as other places, and when the Lord calls us to follow the path of servant leadership, he calls as many to snowshoes as to flip-flops, so I know we’ll get our share.

A gaggle of geese, a herd of buffalos…a bunch of bishops?

2010-10-06T10:49:00.003-04:00

When one third of the Conference of Bishops gathered in Washington a couple of years ago to advocate with congress members for the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, we looked like the ‘scurrying-purple-chested-cross-bearers’. But when all of us meet together, which we do three times a year for regular business, we just look like a meeting of Lutheran pastors. Which is what we are.

Every fall, just as the New England foliage is getting near to its gorgeous peak, I board an airplane and head for Chicago for a five day meeting of the Conference of Bishops. On the total range of sacrifices, it’s a small one. But I do feel a little sad when I leave. However, when I get there, it is always a delight of renewed friendships, good worship, pretty good food, and the satisfaction of hearing about and participating in the amazing work that the ELCA does in mission and ministry.

This year’s meeting just ended. It was a tough one as we faced together the reality of reduced mission support and the necessary changes that result from it. Much time was spent in determination of priorities, listening to one another tell of our situations in starkly different parts of the country, pondering the viability of different aspects of our organizational life together and considering projections for the future. All the decisions will be finalized over the next couple of months, and you will be hearing more about changes and re-focusing.

We also talked about the genetics social statement, the message on people living with disabilities, roster issues, lay theological education, the Board of Pensions, Augsburg Fortress, and we spent a couple of days in various forms of conversation with the eight seminary presidents.

But what struck me most during this meeting was the authentic and deep partnership among bishops and churchwide staff that transcends current problems, and perhaps is strengthened by them. For example – despite differences in position of conscience and VAST differences in the mood of each synod in reaction to the decisions of the 2009 CWA, the bishops support one another and together are determined to provide leadership for the ELCA that will take us to a new and more effective place of mission. Our ministry in this time is not about preserving an institution – any expression of it – but about finding new ways to enable our faith to bear fruit in this complicated and tempestuous world.

Congrats

2010-10-03T16:56:00.002-04:00

This is the third day that I have been sitting in meetings in Chicago with the other ELCA bishops – more about that later. But in the midst of it, I got to celebrate with two of the New England Synod first year seminarians who have received scholarships from the Fund for Leaders in Mission. On the left – Amanda Nelson who is at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. On the right – Edwina Landry who is at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. Our synod keeps cranking out terrific new leaders for the church. The ELCA gathered all this year’s scholarship winners in Chicago to congratulate them. The Fund for Leaders in Mission now has $20M in its endowment, but we still had rubber chicken at the banquet.

Have you ever felt like an outsider?

2010-10-02T12:51:00.004-04:00

Sometimes there is a stretch of time when one issue pops up again and again until you finally pause in the daily sprint through life and pay attention to it. That has happened to me lately with the reality of immigration issues in our culture and the desperate need for reform. Immigrants come to our country as outsiders. I remember times when I felt like an outsider, and I feel drawn to think about that experience from the view of the immigrant culture instead of the ‘at-home’ culture.

During a retreat of Region 7 bishops, we visited the Tenement Museum in NYC. It is an amazing project. You join a group that goes into one of the old tenements in the city – and you become a family of immigrants just arrived in America. You relate to the social worker, and then visit an apartment set up just like a tenement. An actress is there – inhabiting the role of a real immigrant whose story is known. You talk with her, ask advice, learn her story. Afterwards the experience is processed with a guide, and you learn more of the true life history of the character. This visit gave me an unforgettable glimpse of the life and challenges of being an immigrant.

Meanwhile I had been working with our assembly resolutions, and so spending time with the ELCA Social Policy Resolution – “Toward Compassionate, Just, and Wise Immigration Reform”. You received a copy of it in an earlier email from me. It reminds us of all the places in the bible where the act of welcoming the stranger is noted as God’s expectation of people of faith. Have you read Leviticus 19:33-34 lately? And remember Matthew 25:31-35? Might that welcome be even higher on God’s “to do” list for us than feeding the poor?

But the issue really came alive for me in a new way this week when I spent time at a seminar at which Christian leaders from all over New England came together to look at the topic of immigration from a biblical perspective. Our retreat leader was M. Daniel Carroll, an OT professor from Denver Seminary, who could give Walter Brueggemann a run for his money in the depth of biblical knowledge and passion for holding up the bible as an actual guide for our faith lives as we try to live as Christians in this world. Also he was funny. Anybody who can make me alternate between laughing and feeling the holy tug toward working harder for justice has me at hello. Not only can you buy his book- Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible, and read his blog which is http://www.denverseminary.edu/m-daniel-carroll-r-immigration-and-other-matters, but he has a wealth of other resources to offer. PLUS – there is a plan for him to come to Brown University in March 2011 to give another presentation. I will let you know about that. And I promise that if you spend a few hours walking through the bible with him, you will know how to think about the immigration debate in new ways, feel the OT come alive, and be reminded that what we do with the poor and marginalized people in our midst is a window into our nation’s soul.

Back to Blogging

2010-09-20T15:33:00.003-04:00

Initially I started this blog for two reasons: as a way to report on my trip to the Holy Land and a way to try out a different kind of communicating. So those two reasons are over, but now I have decided to continue it. After all, the life of a bishop is mostly not big trips abroad. If you would like to join me on smaller happenings and briefer reflections, please check this blog from time to time.

When I was first elected, I got a letter from a seasoned bishop welcoming me to the office. He said that this call would be “relentlessly interesting” and he was right.

Since last June, besides time for vacation and slowing the pace, I have traveled a loop through Maine to visit pastors and check in with Gustaf Adolph (the congregation that suffered the incident of arsenic poisoning), gone on retreat with the synod staff, installed the Calumet staff for the summer, enjoyed time at Hammonasset, talked with a lot of people one on one, gone on a ship with the Seafarer’s ministry and thrown long-stemmed red roses overboard in memory of those who have died in that work at sea, been amazed again at all the incredible ministry that LSS accomplishes and met with our synod Candidacy Committee.

And that’s just some of it. You see what I mean? Relentlessly interesting.

Last Sunday, I joined Resurrection Lutheran Church in Roxbury, MA for the coming year. This is the fifth urban/multicultural congregation I have joined since being reelected in 2006. Each year in a different place I spend time finding out about the ministry, worshipping there when I can, helping with planning and giving my monthly pledge. If you think you have it tough, you should see the challenges these congregations face. In fact, come to think of it, you could – get a mission partner. Sorry for the commercial – it just came over me – but my deeper thought to share with you is that I have discovered the Spirit stirring in me when I go outside my own comfort zone and connect to a place where God is at work in a setting that both cries out for accompaniment and also announces the kingdom.

I’m not sure how often I will add to this blog. I don’t want it to become something that I have to do, but something that is a way of sharing with you the interesting life and also the waves of reflection that wash over a bishop at work. We’ll see how this evolves. After all, I wanted to try a different kind of communicating, right?

The Last Day

2009-12-23T10:15:00.000-05:00

This morning we had to pack, get loaded onto the bus and leave by 7 am. First we went to the Mount of Olives, and Mark Brown gave us a tour of Augusta Victoria Hospital and its grounds. It made me so proud to be a Lutheran! An interesting insight from the director of the hospital: when there are meetings among doctors of several local hospitals, the Israeli doctors are always on time, and sometimes the Palestinian doctors are late because they are greatly delayed at checkpoints. The Israeli doctors can help by calling to expedite things, but it helps them to understand the daily frustrations.

After that we took a quick trip to Bethlehem, and had a chance to stop at the Church of the Nativity. Though I had been there before, the place never fails to stir my spirit - especially so close to Christmas.

Then we drove to Tel Aviv and had a meeting with US Ambassador James Cunningham. He was gracious to give us an hour and a half, and seemed to have an excellent grasp of the situation. As you know, there is hope with this new administration, but also the familiar dynamics of impasse. It is always a frustration that the religious voice so often goes unheard, but he did seem interested and impressed by the interfaith nature of our group. He said: if all of you, with such different ways of faith can find consensus on central areas of agreement in this effort to find a peaceful solution, that helps me to believe that it can be done.

Our group had a final meal together before leaving for the airport. It was a time for relaxation, plans for issuing a statement, and beginning to bid one another farewell.

I am writing this last message to you as I sit on the airplane, ready to head back home. I am looking forward to a blessed celebration of the birth of our Lord, and I wish the same for all of you.

May the peace, brought and taught by the Prince of Peace, be more fully present in our hearts and world.

Bishop Margaret Payne

2009-12-22T15:28:00.001-05:00

Part of the wall at the Bethlehem checkpoint.

2009-12-22T15:24:00.000-05:00

A settlement overlooking Bethlehem

2009-12-22T15:23:00.000-05:00

A last view of Israel - Tel Aviv just before sunset on our last day.

2009-12-22T15:21:00.001-05:00

Mark Brown, of Lutheran World Federation, points to the place on the Mount of Olives where affordable housing will be built as soon as permits are secured from the Israeli Government.

Walking toward Yad Vashem - the holocaust museum.

2009-12-21T15:30:00.000-05:00

Next - almost over...

2009-12-21T15:26:00.000-05:00

Mon - Heard a provocative speaker in the morning who is a Jewish lawyer who often represents Palestinians in civil rights cases. Encouraged our work, and said that the Christian witness is the "canary in the coal mine." Things are careening out of control and we must continue to be present and speak out.

Next we visited Yad Veshem - the museum that tells the story of the Holocaust - always a powerful experience and reminder.

At Hebrew Union College we heard speakers who are working in the peace movement here. They are passionate, and all that they say resonates with our feelings and work. Yet they do not seem to be "heard" in this culture, and they experience the same sense of frustration and marginalization that we so often experience in our own country when we seek to speak the truth to power.

After the speakers, we had lunch with some first year rabbinical students. Ah - the joy and idealism of young people so excited about becoming leaders in communities of faith! It really was a lot like my work with our own candidacy students - a sense of call, wanting to accompany people in faith journeys - longing to serve God and make a difference in the world. All rabbinical students must attend this school for their first year. One of the students at my table was from Minneapolis. I told him that he was from our Lutheran "Holy Land."

Met later with staff from the American Consulate. Although they were a young, bright, dedicated bunch, there seemed to be a disappointing lack of either awareness or attention to the faith community.

Looked over the shoulder during the meeting at the papers of another member of the group - Dr. Sayyid Muhammad Syeed - the National Director of the Islamic Society of North America. He had a magazine entitled "Islamic Horizons". It looked just like "The Lutheran". It was the same format - articles, letter from the presiding leader (Sayeed is our Mark Hanson), advertisements, opinion pieces, and a page entitled: Growing Future Leaders. So many similarities in communities of faith. Our last day is tomorrow.

Observations & Reflections

2009-12-21T07:49:00.000-05:00

Listening Saturday Night to a Jewish speaker who used to be a member of the Knesset. Supportive of two state solution.
Might there be a possibility of offering financial compensation to settlers who would be willing to relocate to another area?
With new pressure from Obama, there is now a sense that there must be an acknowledgment that there must be a two-state solution. Does Israel really believe it, or is it just the "right" thing to say right now?
In seeking peace, we must ask: what can the other side not accept? Unless we know that, we cannot make progress.
Sunday morning after worship at Redeemer in Jerusalem, a Canadian diplomat approached me and asked that I pass along to the ELCA his own gratefulness, and that of other members of the international diplomatic community for two things. First for the strong work and witness for justice and peace that our church provides, and secondly for the presence, leadership and pastoral care that Mark and Marcia Holman provide. He and others are deeply grateful and praised them highly for their love and care.
He INSISTED that I pass this message along and so now I have.
I am grateful to have been asked to be the ELCA rep on this trip - so thanks from me, too.

Sunday, December 20th

2009-12-21T07:48:00.000-05:00

It's fascinating to get to know the other members of the delegation more and more - especially the Muslims since I haven't before had a chance to do that. One couple is Dr. Shaheer Yousaf and his wife Khadija Sheikh - a delightful couple. She likes to remind us that her name is that of Mohammed's favorite wife. Not his first wife....but his favorite one.

This afternoon we visited with two impressive Palestinian leaders - a political scientist and a leader in the government. Many of the comments and reminders of the " facts on the ground" were familiar to me, but two things stood out: first, that President Obama lost the new hope and confidence of many Palestinian people when he backed away from the demand for a "freeze" on the building of settlements, and asked only for "restraint". And secondly, the reminder that the theft of land, water and human rights continues against Palestinian people. Hard to hear but important to remember.

Please come here to see these things for yourself, to give hope to our Palestinian brothers and sisters - and them come back to tell the story again and again until the world finally hears the truth and acts.

2009-12-21T07:47:00.000-05:00

Here's coffee hour at Redeemer Sunday morning.

2009-12-21T07:44:00.000-05:00

After worship at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem Sunday morning - from the left - Bishop Jane Stanovsky - United Methodist, Pr. Mark Holman of Redeemer, me - the short one - and Rabbi Paul Menitoff. Jane and Paul are two other members of the delegation.

The Damascus Gate

2009-12-19T12:29:00.001-05:00

"we are all people of the same book"

2009-12-19T12:12:00.000-05:00

Last night we had our second worship experience - we attended the Shabbat service at a reform synagogue in Jerusalem. It was a lively service of songs, chants and reading - very mixed generationally, warm and informal singing without instruments. It was all in Hebrew but the community spirit of gathering for worship spilled into those of us who do not speak the language as well. It was like the O Antiphons for our Advent. One of the simple, repetitive chants was the same tune as one of the chants from Taize - such an intermingling of traditions, but in the very same sense of gentle praise.

This morning - a gorgeous, sunny, warm, busy day for a quick visit to the Old City. I enjoyed the sounds and smells and did my share in supporting the local economy.

This afternoon - an amazing time of sharing with group members..."we are all people of the book"..."this is a place of all our origins"...."we will not find peace in the world until we find peace here". What does it mean to be here together in Jerusalem? So many different things - a shared sense of awe and holiness. The joy together of "kneeling where prayer has been valid." ( I wish that I had said that, but it was T.S. Elliott) Delights for us? One another, the shared "passion for compassion", seeing both Jewish and Palestinian children playing this morning.....the amazing soundtrack of Jerusalem.

A busy Saturday just inside the Damascus Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem

2009-12-19T12:11:00.000-05:00

vegetable stand

2009-12-19T12:10:00.001-05:00

the group as we share our faiths, share challenges and delights and strategize about peace- making efforts

2009-12-19T12:07:00.000-05:00

Shopkeepers display their wares near the Church of the Redeemer.

2009-12-19T12:06:00.001-05:00

2009-12-18T14:17:00.000-05:00

Looking out over the landscape from the mosque - this is one of the spots where it is thought Moses might have been as he sent the Israelites ahead to the promised land.

2009-12-18T14:14:00.000-05:00

At the mosque - two members of our delegation - Fr. Mark Arey - Director of Ecumenical Affairs for the Orthodox Church and Episcopal Bishop Barry Beisner.

2009-12-18T12:01:00.000-05:00

Although I have been to the Holy Land before, this time I am representing Bishop Mark Hanson in an interreligious delegation of which he is a member - the National Intereligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East. (NILI). The group was formed in 2003, and has been active since then in many efforts to work toward peace. The membership includes key religious leaders from across the country.

We arrived in Amman, Jordan just in time for a formal dinner with three members of the (equivalent of the) Senate of Jordan and a recent prime minister as well as the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Jordan is very active in encouraging and enabling the work of peace between Palestinians and Israelies.

Ron Young, the leader of this trip has called it "a journey of listening.". So even though I have not met the participants before, I feel prepared to participate since I have already been practicing in our synod's listening emphasis!

We realized that the first three days of this pilgrimage will be the three sabbaths of our participants - the three Abrahamic faiths. So on each day we will worship together in each other's traditions.

Friday morning - we all look a bit jet-lagged, but managed to straggle onto our bus. All of us but our one Palestinian member got through the checkpoint successfully. Even though he has an American passport, he was born in Palestine, and he will have to travel to Ramallah to get permission to enter Israel even though he had called ahead of time. Such is the kind of regular harrassment that takes place.

We stopped in Jericho for lunch, and then attended worship at a mosque just outside of the city. It is a mosque named for Moses - a common figure to all three faiths. It was our first shared worship experience - a sacred time.