By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination. Christopher Columbus

Meditation: I am telling my daughter: “Please, focus. Don’t get distracted”! This is easier said than done for a fourteen year old preparing for a test the next day. “Prevail, don’t give up” and you will be able to reach your goal. An important life lesson. On a larger scale, we adults need to hear this as well: “Remain focused. Don’t get distracted by the number of chaotic news messages that overwhelm and confuse you. Be patient, be determined, don’t get side tracked by taking your eyes off the center of your life”. As Christians this center is the person Jesus Christ who embodies for us the values of justice and love. Telling ourselves to remain focused and prevail is much easier than actually done, especially when we feel horrified with the chaos we are bombarded with on a daily and even hourly basis. “Remain undeterred” sounds easier said than done when after sixteen months of craziness most of us feel extremely tired and scattered. We feel emotionally overwhelmed and tired. We wonder as we stare at the prospect of several more years like this: “How will we, how will our country and the world at large make it through this?”

Prayer: Jesus, we feel terrified and wonder how to make it through. Fill us with your Spirit of courage. Help us to proclaim and live Your values, which include hospitality and mercy, especially towards those who are vulnerable. Help us prevail. Help us protest and demand facts. Help us be persistent and demand justice for all. Enable us to keep our eyes on You while overcoming chaos and distractions. Empower us through your Spirit to resist all forces of insanity and oppression. When we grow weary, connect us with each other. Do not allow anybody to get isolated. Help us to continue to do and believe in good. Amen

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9

Perhaps grief is not about empty, but full. The full breath of life that includes death. The completeness, the cycles, the depth, the richness, the process, the continuity and the treasure of the moment that is gone the second you are aware of it. Alysia Reiner

Meditation: Our life journey is a journey of grief. With this. I do not mean that life is dark and sad all the time. However, life is a never ending process of embracing the fullness of it, and then letting it go. As we become spiritual beings, we embrace life in all its fullness, while at the same time realizing that every beautiful moment is fleeting, and yet so rich. My daughter just got beautiful roses from her boyfriend for their first anniversary. I witnessed her getting in touch with her need to hold on while letting go: She watched the beautiful flowers blossom. She smelled the fragrance, enjoyed their intensity and admired their beauty, while at the same time knowing that they would not last forever. And so she asked, if she could take three of the twelve and dry them when they are at their most beautiful. This is how love, life and grief are. We embrace the intensity of the moment and then let it go. We accept that the moment has to die, while holding on to the experience through symbols. The drying roses, the bread and the wine we share during communion… these are all symbols of holding onto the fullness of life and the experience of love, while accepting that life changes and moves on.

Prayer: God of embrace and of letting go, we often worry about the daily things, we worry about losing things and people we love. We want to hold onto a beautiful moment, and yet need to let it go. You teach us that even though things whither and die, they still symbolically hold the beauty of the experience. Even though we cannot hold on, the fullness of life remains – hidden in the symbols we create to remember and to continue to enjoy the essence of that which they stand for. We thank You for roses, fresh and dried, and for the taste of bread and wine that remind us of the fullness of life and of the experience of love. Amen.

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. Matthew 6: 28-29

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. Howard Washington Thurman

Meditation: When I give myself permission to fully take in God’s love and then learn to love myself, I will not shy away from moments that feel like “bliss” moments. Those “bliss” moments that make me feel fully alive look different for each of us. I discovered that exactly what I never thought I wanted to be, ironically turns out to be my bliss: “being a pastor”. Yesterday I had the honor of baptizing a 5 months old and welcoming new church members and friends into our community. When I am allowed to celebrate those sacred moments in people’s lives, I feel like a fish in water, I feel like an eagle soaring, I feel like floating on water… My “bliss” makes me feel fully alive. As I embrace that which I never thought I wanted to be, but that turns out to be in line with who I am, I feel “aligned”, feel “congruent”, feel “alive”…Self-love includes the search and the surprise of finding my “bliss” and allowing to be surprised by joy.

Prayer: God of abundance, you want us to soar like eagles, swim like fish and float easily on top of the water. Show each one of us what that means. We all have different areas of “bliss”. When we love ourselves more fully, we no longer shy away from asking you to bless us by finding our “bliss”, discovering our joy and coming fully alive. God, you are the One that delights in us finding the places where we can most fully be ourselves and come fully alive. And we are grateful. Amen

You will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever. Psalm 16:11

Life is as complex as we are. Sometimes our vulnerability is our strength, our fear develops our courage, and our woundedness is the road to our integrity. It is not an either/or world. Rachel Naomi Remen

Meditation: We have a president whose worldview is built on an “either-or” perspective. He often misses the complexity of reality. He sets on strength, popularity and show of force as he understands it. He sees people and countries either being for him or against him. Everything begins and ends with his own self-interests. As Christians we follow Jesus who fully entered the ambiguity of our world. He refused to follow the cultural norms of his time that divided people into good and bad, rich and poor, worthy and unworthy and clean and unclean. Jesus believed that Israel was chosen, but also that all other nations were called by God. He modeled vulnerability as being his greatest strength. As Christians we confess that “through his wounds we are healed”. This complex and paradox nature of faith is our guiding light, even in times like these. We find our strength and integrity in remaining focused on Jesus and his embodiment of what God’s presence and God’s will are about. Life is as complex as we are. Let us always remember who we are following, in a time when other leaders demand obedience, a loss of our complex reality and loyalty.

Prayer: God, we are afraid of what this simplified “either-or” leadership will do to our nation and to our world. Give us courage to speak up. Keep our vulnerability alive and transform our compassion into strength. Take those areas where we and others are hurting and allow for a deepened integrity to fill our nation. Let the world unite against all splitting efforts to divide people and nations. God have mercy in these times where nationalism, popularism and other “isms” try to dominate. We rely on Your Spirit and on Your guidance in deeply troubling times. Amen

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. 1. Corinthians 1:27

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable. Paul Tillich

Meditation: Sometimes Christianity is being misunderstood or misrepresented as a moral system of expectations for us to strive for “holiness” or “perfection”. The notion of “sinfulness” is being used to make people work hard as if they were able to avoid their human weaknesses.  Preachers at times create the illusion that we can and have to make ourselves “acceptable” in God’s eyes, if we just try hard enough. What a misleading message! Jesus embodied the love of God that embraces, accepts and forgives. The message that we “are accepted in spite of being unacceptable” is at the core of Jesus’s message, including our sins, transgressions, short comings and even our misled self-righteousness. If we truly believe in the love of God that Jesus embodied, our “courage to be” will become our liberated way of living boldly. Martin Luther called this way of living “to sin boldly”.

Prayer: God, help us face our imperfections and our shadows. Let us not fall for the human illusion of perfection. Help us to embrace our imperfections and have compassion for our own and others’ limitations and mistakes. You give us joy and courage to live boldly. By You accepting us fully and us joining You in Your compassionate ways, we overcome our feelings of shame and of guilt. And we are grateful. Amen

So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Hebrew 4:16

The entire political system is contrary to everything a feminine heart stands for. It lacks inclusion. It lacks tenderness toward children. It lacks honor for relationships. It lacks reverence for the earth. It lacks love. And without those things, the feminine psyche disconnects. Marianne Williamson

Meditation: Tenderness, inclusion, honor, reverence and love… these are the values that are currently being sacrificed. They are being killed and then buried under the political altar of the current secular religion that has taken over our land: The “Zeit Geist” religion that worships money and power, that increases wealth at any cost for those on the top and that creates intentional divisions based on the self-serving portrayal of a distorted reality. Many of us feel distressed. Many of us feel disconnected. Many of us are dispirited. And yet, there is a compassionate God who sees, hears and witnesses what is happening. A God whose essence is visible in Jesus who embodied those qualities of tenderness, inclusion, respect and love. Back then those in power killed and buried Jesus, thinking that this way they had gotten rid of him. And yet, they could not silence him nor contain the power of his Spirit. After his death he gained even more power than he had during his life among us. And so once again, as we endure the soul killings and value burials of our current times, we call upon and wait for God’s powerful Spirit of resurrection.

Prayer: Jesus, we call on Your Spirit to comfort all of us who feel disconnected, distressed and dispirited. Every day we experience how many of our values are being killed and buried. Sometimes we come close to losing heart. Compassionate One, we feel lost. Gather us, keep us connected with each other and with You. In the midst of our losses, we are grateful that we know You and the power of Your life, death and resurrection. Amen

Seeing the people, Jesus felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew 9:36

True love doesn’t happen right away; it’s an ever-growing process. It develops after you’ve gone through many ups and downs, when you’ve suffered together, cried together, laughed together. Ricardo Montalban

Meditation: I discovered not long ago that an ancestor couple of mine (Count Zinzendorf and his wife Dorothea) experienced a traumatic separation against their will after they had been married for 20 years. The husband had wisely transferred all his assets to his wife, shortly before politics got him banned for seven years from their shared property and from the Moravian church community that they as a couple had established together. After those seven years he had grown so accustomed to living apart from his wife that, although he could have returned, he chose for the next ten years to travel constantly. He attended to missionary activities all over the world. They were married at the age of 21, separated against their will at the age of 41, and then she died very lonely at the age of 57. Her husband returned after her death to their estate and spent one year secluded and grieving. I know they loved each other, but after the traumatic separation they never found back to each other the way they had lived before. It feels tragic to me how their love story enfolded and how it ended. To experience love, a couple has to remain in that ever growing process together. The togetherness determines the growing love through shared suffering, shared laughing and shared crying. I am grieving for my name sake great-grandmother Dorothea Erdmuth and also for her husband Nikolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf who kept their marriage on paper, but who lost their living and expressed love when shared experiences gave way to external circumstances and to decisions of prioritizing other things over and above their marriage.

Prayer: God of love, how fragile love can be. There are external forces that interfere, traumatic events and disruptions. Then there are values and priority setting that sometimes put love or marriage at the bottom of the list. God, I bring my grief about my ancestors’ marriage story to you. Their marriage lasted, but their love missed sixteen years of togetherness for it to survive and grow. Help us all who love each other to prioritize our togetherness over all external forces. Help us to value our love and togetherness more than work, duty, ambition and even pious pursuits. Amen

I found the one my heart loves. Song of Solomon 3:4

My mother calls it “the black tax”. Because the generations who came before you have been pillaged, rather than being free to use your skills and education to move forward, you lose everything just trying to bring everyone behind you back up from zero. Trevor Noah

Meditation: What do young people of this generation do when they start being successful, but the generations before are expecting to be “saved” by them? When children start becoming their parent’s parent early in life, they are unable to attend to their own development. Each small success is being demanded to be shared with the generation before. Each earned money is seen as the former generation’s rightful earning. Guilt is the force that is being used and shame is the glue that holds this pattern together. How challenging it is emotionally and spiritually for the current generation to demand time to establish themselves first, before being able to share of their bounty. Education and skills are the riches that this generation has, and they should and need to be free to use them for themselves first, without guilt and without shame. The generations before are adults. They are responsible for themselves. They, too, can use their skills and get more education… And as the current generation advances and grows to be able to share when thriving, it will. But until then, let no “hidden emotional tax”, no guilt, no shame, no expectations hinder them from growing and from moving forward.

Prayer: God of bounty, You know the burden that inter-generational hidden “taxes” can become for the young generation trying to better themselves. You see how many are being made to feel guilty for being successful, and before truly thriving, they have to share or give away what they have gained and thus become depleted again and again. We pray for Your Spirit of differentiation and empowerment. Do not allow the shackles and patterns of former oppression to hinder our current generation’s freedom, health and growth. Amen

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 (NIV)

Something life defining and deeply intimate is over. The child speaks what their parent could not. He or she recognizes how their own experience has been authored, how one has been authorized, if unconsciously, to carry their parents’ injury into the future. In rising above the remnants of one’s ancestors’ trauma, one helps to heal future generations. M. Gerard Fromm

Meditation: There is a phenomenon called “intergenerational trauma transmission”. In this experience the current generation inherits the fallout of their parent’s trauma, who in turn have inherited traumatic experiences from their parents. When trauma remains shamefully hidden, when it remains unspeakable, stays unresolved and speechless, it will surely be non-verbally transferred onto the next generation. This generation then takes it on and has to grapple with it on behalf of the former generations. Only when a current generation finally speaks the unspeakable and finds words for the trauma that happened generations before can the trauma repetition be broken. Although it often feels like a betrayal of the ancestors, it is not. It is actually the redemption of the ancestors. When the current generation speaks the unspeakable, reveals the truth and names the shame of former generations, great freedom and health is born out of the current generation’s refusal to carry the injury and pain of its parents forward into the future. Jesus joined this trauma interruption when he was asked who had sinned so that a child was born blind. He vehemently opposed the idea of a “curse” being carried forward or sin becoming an illness that is being passed down generations. In healing the blind man, Jesus asserts symbolically that God wants to break any and all traumatic transmission processes that we unconsciously carry forward.

Prayer: God of new beginnings, we pray that You come into the trauma and shame of our families and into the secrecy behavior of our families. We pray that You give us courage to name that which got injured and traumatized in the generations before us, and therefore also within us. Help us to lay down the burdens we carry on behalf of our parents and grandparents. You want to heal all trauma within us by us naming it and moving it out of the shadows into Your healing light. God, You are the one breaking the intergenerational trauma curse. You set us and the next generation free. And we are grateful! Amen

He saw a man blind from birth, and His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God would be displayed in him.” John 9:2

 

Women in particular need to keep an eye on their physical and mental health, because if we’re scurrying to and from appointments and errands, we don’t have a lot of time to take care of ourselves. We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own ‘to do’ list. Michelle Obama

Meditation: April and May are the busiest times for children and youth who are finishing the school year and who have many extra rehearsals and performances added to their plates. And that means that parents, especially mothers, are stressed out alongside their children. Yes, it adds up: the amount of driving, late nights of studying, extra evening and weekend events and extra support the children need, combined with increasing pre-summer stress at our adult work places. It is easy for parents, especially mothers, to forget about their own needs, physically, emotionally and mentally. I recently decided to see a counselor, just to have a place where I can vent, where I will be listened to and validated. I openly share this way of me receiving extra emotional support with my daughters. I am role modeling as a female to not always be on the giving side, but also to allow myself to receive care. What a healing concept!

Prayer: Gracious God, You want us to rest enough in the midst of our stressful lives. You want us to take care of our physical body and our emotional body so that we can remain mentally healthy in the midst of high demands. Let us be humble and teach our children that receiving emotional support is a spiritual way of allowing You to attend to us, listen to us and validate us through another human being. Thank You for people who make it their vocation to listen and to attend to others. Amen

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Matthew 11:28-29