Women of the ELCA

Martin Luther used the newest communication tool of his day—the printing press—to spread the news of the redeeming and reconciling love of God through Jesus Christ. Today, Women of the ELCA uses a smart phone app to do the same thing.

With over 6 million iPhones sold in the U.S. today (and over 50 million worldwide), an iPhone app furthers Women of the ELCA’s mission of mobilizing women to act boldly on their faith in Jesus Christ. In the first two weeks of availability, Daily Grace was downloaded by people in China, Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Finland, the United Kingdom, Canada and South Africa, in addition to the United States.

Daily Grace delivers a brief daily faith reflection. In those daily reflections you’ll encounter God’s extravagant, boundless and often surprising grace. Wherever the day takes you, with Daily Grace you’re able to reflect, offer a prayer and prepare for the next step of your faith walk.

More information’s here. Once you’ve downloaded the app, share a review in the App Store℠.

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How long do you want to live? I’ve got a number in mind: 86. That seems like plenty of time and, in fact, downright lucky given I had a little scrape with colon cancer. My parents are in their 80s, and my grandparents lived into their late 80s and early 90s. So maybe I’m short-changing myself. I have a friend who believes she might go sometime in her 70s. But most of us hope for a longer life (and a peaceful death during sleep).

Gerontologist and radio commentator Mark Lachs suggests that living to a ripe old age might have something to do with attitude. Sure, he acknowledges, genes play a big role, but “adaptive competence” might also help a person live into triple-digit years.

Lachs defines adaptive competence as the “ability to bounce back from stress.” He uses as an example his 109-year-old patient, Helen.

“You don’t get to be 109 without life hurling a few curveballs at you,” he said. “And [Helen] has had more than her share: bereavement, gender discrimination, medical issues. And after each, she dusts herself off and moves on.”

Research has proven Lachs’ theory. One of his colleagues undertook a long-term project studying people in their 50s and how their attitudes affect length of life. If they agreed with statements like, “things keep getting worse as I get older,” and “As you get older you are less useful,” they took a dirt nap 7 ½ years sooner than their positive-thinking cohorts.

I go to church with a woman much like Helen. She won’t give her age, but she must be in her late 80s or early 90s. She still works every day as a real estate agent. A couple of years ago, she fell flat on her face, bumped her head and skinned her knees while showing a house. She got up and brushed herself off. Within a couple of weeks her brain swelled and she was rushed to the emergency room where doctors drilled a couple of holes into her skull to release pressure. She worked a hard year at physical therapy, and now she’s back at work, healthy and happy. She loves to joke about the holes in her head.

If you want to live a long life, your attitude could make a difference.

What type of person are you? One who lets life’s every trouble get you down or one who dusts herself off and moves on? How does your faith play a role in your attitudes about life, living and the ups and downs that go with it?

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The best brain science tells us that what we practice, we become. In other words (and from a faith perspective), if we focus on being open to God’s direction, the more we focus on loving as God would have us love, the more we love as God would have us love.

Simple. Direct. Grace-filled.

Tons of radioactive water and waste have been gushing out from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.

It was about four or five years ago that I first heard about Dr. Masaru Emoto’s work with ice molecules. His research methods, which he claims illustrate how healing intention can cause foul water to change its molecular structure to more closely resemble the molecular structure of, say, distilled water, have been challenged by other scientists, and I do not defend his methods here. 

But this an Ezekiel 37:1–14 dry bone moment for me in that this lesson for the Fifth Sunday of Lent reminds us not to assume that we can begin to understand what is or is not possible for God!

So yes, I am hopeful that our prayers for our earth’s water supply matter. I look to God to work a miracle for the sake of all of God’s creation. I pray that God’s Spirit will once again move over the surface of the waters of our earth and heal it.

Join me this Earth Day, April 22 (and the days leading up and after) with this prayer:

Let us pray for God’s healing Holy Spirit to come to the waters and restore them, and may we set our intention to more closely reflect God’s intention for ourselves, our church, our society and God’s world!

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I come again and again to what Celtic people would call the thin place.

The thin place is a moment when the veil between this place and the other side of God’s commonwealth is lifted and we are joined together. For me, this place is in the Eucharist.

It begins in the Great Thanksgiving when we join with “angels, archangels and all the company of heaven” to sing the Holy, Holy. Texts use different phrases for this portion of the preface, but I so resonate with the image of all creation over all of time, including all our loved ones, joining with us in the most magnificent Holy, Holy, Holy!

The Eucharist became very comforting to me after my father died more than 20 years ago. I wasn’t prepared for his early death (he was just 70) and I missed him greatly. I had a new understanding of soul and body when I viewed his lifeless form. Somehow I just knew his soul was alive and living, albeit elsewhere. My father and I had long shared a love of music and often sang together. So quite naturally, after his death, I felt the two of us still singing together in the Holy, Holy, me here on Earth and Dad among the company of heaven.

Many more deaths have occurred since my father’s. I think of all those souls singing the Holy, Holy too, with the veil pulled back, all of us together for those moments in the Eucharist. It’s not just the presence of my loved ones; frankly there are those who have died and continue to sing God’s praises that I likely don’t care to commune with, as it were. No, it is also God’s presence. Jesus in the bread and wine. In me. Me sent to care for others. Talk about “you are what you eat!”

Week in, week out, I come to the table, to that thin place where I stand with the Holy One and time stands still.

Where is your thin place, where you encounter both this world and the next?

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As an organization, we’re committed  to promoting health and wholeness in our purpose statement. We also have an ongoing health initiative, Raising Up Healthy Women and Girls.  And we’re all sexual beings. So let’s talk about sex today.

Last week I read about a study in which 1/3 of the young women interviewed experienced post-coital depression and 10 %  said they frequently or almost always felt sad after intimacy. 

The researchers wonder whether some of us are feeling blue after intimacy because we are actually biologically predisposed to this depression.  

I’m not sure what I think of that, because no matter our age, we live with expectations about intimacy from our partners and ourselves. It’s an important part of life. In fact, I can honestly say that if you were to ask my closest friends what two things they argue about most with their partners, the answers would be money and sex.  Sound familiar?

I also wonder how much of these feelings of  sadness relate not only to our present relationships but also to our past or the pressures we feel from society. When I was younger, I could relate not necessarily to feeling sad but certainly to feeling guilt and regret. And I think those feelings were tied in large part to my immaturity, emotional and otherwise.

Our emotional complexity as women makes intimacy much more than just a physical act that feels good. If our expectations are higher and what we bring to it is more complicated, on levels we may not even be fully conscious of, then we are more likely to be disappointed.

What do you think?

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There are two things conventional wisdom says you shouldn’t talk about much: religion and politics. I manage not to talk about politics much, but religion, well … all it takes sometimes is someone asking me what I do for a living, and off we go.

Christmas parties, birthday parties, backyard barbecues … I end up chatting with somebody who asks me what I do, and I say something like, “I work in communications and publishing for a non-profit.” Sometimes this is enough. Other times the next question is, “What kind of non-profit?” My answer: “the Lutheran Church.” I figure “the Lutheran Church” suffices, given most non-Lutherans don’t know that there are several kinds of Lutherans, and if I say “the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,” they might get scared off by the E-word and mistake me for, you know, one of those Christians.

Usually the conversation goes something like this: “Oh, that must be interesting. I was raised [fill in the blank]. But I can’t really say I’m [fill in the blank] because I don’t go to church or anything. I mean, I believe in God and all, but organized religion just doesn’t do much for me.”

At that point I either say something lame, like “Yeah, that’s so true for lot of people these days” and change the subject, or I decide that I’m in the mood to engage, and I ask, “So what would a church that appeals to you look like?”

That, of course, is where the conversation gets interesting. The answer always boils down to wanting an authentic experience of community, and worship and preaching that helps them feel like they’re getting closer to God, living a more meaningful life and giving something back.

My conversation partner also usually says something like, “It’s really hard to just walk into a church for the first time.” I ask, “Has anybody ever invited you to their church?” You can probably guess that 95% of the time, the answer is no.

Then I often give my church a little plug and tell them they’re welcome to join us any time. Someone even took me up on the offer once; not exactly a great track record, but at least I gave the invitation.

So the next time you’re at a backyard barbecue and you’re getting to know somebody, try working into the conversation at some point that seems right that you’re a member of such-and-such Lutheran Church. You might have a fascinating conversation about God, church and religion, and you might even help someone find a spiritual home.

I used to be afraid of these conversations, but I’ve come to welcome them. They’re not as scary as you think.

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