At the Lakeshore

The waves lapped softly at my feet as I stood in my suit, hose, and heels on the boat ramp facing Dorothy’s family and prepared to begin her memorial service. The mid-afternoon sun blazed down, and I was grateful for the cool breeze from the lake behind me. I’m still not sure what prompted Dorothy to ask me to participate in her service. I had obsessed over it in the months since she called to ask me. I struggled with how to write a funeral sermon, something I had not done before. She was over 100 when she asked my assistance, so I had known the time would come for me to fulfill my promise. As it happened, the exigencies of family travel from both coasts to Texas for the service had dictated that the celebration of Dorothy’s life be a small memorial service at the lake, where she wanted her ashes scattered, as her husband’s had been some years before. Our pastor graciously helped me to prepare for the brief service. I had promised Dorothy I would make it short!

When the time arrived to begin the service, I began to speak as I have in various churches in the years since I graduated from seminary, but more loudly, to drown out the Jet Ski and motorboat on the adjacent boat ramp. I imagined Dorothy smiling somewhere at the commotion and fought down a bubble of laughter. I had assured her sons that I could speak loudly enough to be heard over the engine noise and had asked a member of our congregation, who was standing at the back, to wave at me if he had trouble hearing me. And so on that beautiful Sunday afternoon, we celebrated Dorothy’s long life of service to God and committed her ashes into God’s eternal care.

After all my angst leading up to the service, in the end it proceeded as smoothly as the other worship services I have conducted, except for the roar of the motors. Dorothy’s family expressed their appreciation, and I felt blessed to be with them during their time of grief and remembrance. I understand better now how my seminary classmates who became pastors can say they are blessed to be with people at such a time. I still marvel at all the ways God continues to push me way beyond my comfort zone. And how, with God’s help, I manage to muddle through in spite of my anxieties. Maybe in the next life I will worry less about being perfect and trust more that God loves me just as I am.

Grace and Peace,

Donna

Purple Pain

I spent last week in Boston with my husband, who attended a medical conference, while I walked around that beautiful city taking in the sights, and the beauty of spring, now past in Texas. We attended church our last day in Boston at the Church of the Covenant, a federated church of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ. I walked to the church earlier in the week to be sure we could find it easily on Sunday, and discovered a lovely, old building, its sanctuary decorated with Tiffany stained glass. I also saw a sign that simply said “Women’s Lunch” and with dates and times posted near a stair leading down from the sidewalk.

I went into the church to ask about worship times and stumbled into the office of a Young Adult Volunteer, a YAV as we Presbyterians call them, named Hope, whom I learned is also from Texas and knows several young people who grew up in our church. Hope had volunteered to spend a year in downtown Boston, and she works with the Women’s Resource Center that now takes up much of the church building. She gave me a tour of the church. Like any big city, Boston has its problems, including homelessness. The Women’s Resource Center provides not only meals, but also art classes, and help finding housing and employment, as well as laundry and shower facilities for homeless women. It was a blessing to see the bright dining hall warmed by the fellowship of the women who had gathered there for lunch that day surrounded by God’s love.

Towards the end of the week, while walking across the Boston Commons, I stumbled upon a domestic drama played out near a stonewall. When you are homeless, you don’t have a private place for such disputes. A young woman with purple hair and a hot pink puffed jacket screamed obscenities at a young man, who sat stony faced and immobile, wrapped in a blanket. She accused him of breaking up with her after abusing her, then poured her drink over his head and stalked off. Her pain and mental confusion were as vivid as her language and her purple hair.

Coward that I am, I wanted simply to walk away, but having visited the Women’s Resource Center, I felt compelled to try to talk with her and offer to take her there for help. When I approached, however, and said, “Miss,” she screamed, “Let me alone!” and ran off down the road. I still worry about her and hope she’s okay, and I pray for her. Sometimes that is the best I can do, but perhaps that is enough. God knows her needs better than I do, and I know God loves her and cares for her as much as God loves and cares for me. And I thank God for that.

Grace and Peace,

Donna Bowling

A Cup of Water

  

Most of the month of March, I was away from home, two weeks in Nicaragua, and then a week in Big Bend here in Texas. In both places beautiful mountains surrounded me. Of all the images that I have tucked away in my memory from my travels, however, the one that has haunted me most was watching a small girl, about the age of my grandkids, stooping at a creek near one of the medical clinics we held in Nicaragua to cup a drink of water in her hands. I wanted to shout, “No!” but I realized I had no right to say anything, when I had no clean water to offer her. The doctors at the clinics regularly saw children sick from water borne diseases.

The first week in Nicaragua, the mission team from our church helped the people of Las Lajas, Nicaragua install a Living Waters for the World water purification system. Now the children at three schools will have access to clean water, thanks be to God! It was a blessing to celebrate with the people of Las Lajas. But there are so many more places that need clean water, all around the world. Living Waters for the World says that a child dies every 20 seconds from lack of clean water.

While we were in Nicaragua, we looked for a new site to install another water purification system next year. We visited two places and talked with community leaders. My heart is with the community of Los Chimbos, where we would install a system in a school. The community is poor, even by Nicaraguan standards, but they have formed a committee of parents who want to provide clean water to their children. Their water comes from a spring that was once unpolluted. But several families built homes near the spring and now the water is making the children of Los Chimbos sick. I tried to imagine what it would be like to give my kids or grandkids water, knowing it would probably make them sick. The sign we posted on the new water system in Las Lajas says, “Jesus Christ is living water for our bodies and our souls.” The same Jesus who said when you give a cup of water to one of these little ones, you will be rewarded. The only reward I want is to know there are no more children dying from lack of clean water.

Grace and Peace,

Donna Bowling

Perfectionism

I have been fighting a pitched battle recently with my drive for perfection. At times such as this, it’s a curse. As a child, I faced constant demands for perfection. Resistance is a challenge--especially since there are times when the quest for perfection is valuable, as in my prior career as a lawyer. My clients deserved better than a half-baked job on their case. I try to remember that I am not now, and never will be, perfect. If that’s good enough for God, I need to let it be good enough for me, and to remember my salvation does not depend on how I perform the tasks before me. Thank God for that!

We are gearing up for our next mission trip to Nicaragua. This year we will help the community of Las Lajas install a Living Waters for the World clean water system. My job is to organize the spiritual and health education for the people who will use the clean water. The spiritual part includes reminding them that God wants the best for them, including clean water. It’s the health education that is causing me sleepless nights. I’m comfortable teaching adults, but Las Lajas has also arranged for us to teach the students at three elementary schools, a total of some 150 kids. I have a curriculum, but I have to modify that to prepare something like a portable Vacation Bible School. We will be making copies and gathering materials, all of which we must carry with us to Nicaragua. Several women from our church who teach kids as a profession have volunteered to meet with us next Saturday. I am so grateful for their time and their expertise.

I keep reminding myself that while I have to do my part in the preparation, God is with me in this latest adventure. I know how important this work is. People’s lives are at stake, including the lives of children like my grandkids. Too many die around the world from lack of clean water. I’m grateful for the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of some of them, and I’m trying to remember that whatever I am able to teach them will be more than they know now. God is once again stretching my horizons, and I’ve been thinking about Mother Teresa, who said, “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he did not trust me so much.” Amen, Sister!

Grace and Peace,

Donna

Another Slaughter of the Innocents

My heart has been hurting since I heard the news of the recent slaughter of school children by the Taliban in Pakistan. I cannot wrap my mind around that kind of hate. I can vaguely comprehend a mentally ill person doing such a thing. But to gun down more than a hundred children and their teachers in the name of some twisted, self-created god is beyond me. Echoes of Herod’s slaughter of the children in Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus echo in this Christmas season. And I weep for the parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters and all those who are grieving because of this horrific act.  Even the survivors’ scars will last a lifetime. I close my eyes and see kids the same age as my grandchildren, and I grieve for those who have lost the future promise of those young lives.

I spoke this week for the first time in several years about the Institute for Civility in Government, and its work to encourage civility in the process of government. Two Presbyterian pastor friends founded the Institute. I helped them write the story of the Institute in the book, Reclaiming Civility in the Public Square: Ten Rules that Work. I told those who came to hear my talk that as I was writing the book, I was coincidentally also teaching an adult Sunday school class on religious violence. Because of that juxtaposition, I reached the conclusion that the opposite of civility is not incivility. The opposite of civility is the violence that comes with the breakdown of civil society—the kind of violence exhibited by the Taliban in their bloody massacre. I told the audience that the Institute defines civility as: “Claiming and caring for one’s own identity, needs and beliefs without degrading someone else’s in the process.”

In the discussion that followed my presentation, I was struck by one man’s suggestion that the Institute’s definition of civility sounds like grace. I’m still thinking about that, but I like that idea. It’s not exactly how my theological dictionary defines grace, but favor and kindness, the definitions for the Greek and Latin words from which our theological term grace is derived, do sound like another way to define civility. That is we stand up for our own beliefs, but we extend favor and kindness to others as they do the same. If all of us practiced that kind of civility, we might have a bit less violence in this weary world.

Grace and Peace,

Donna