revbaum

You Can Never Go Home Again

Yes, yes, merry second week of Advent. We have been hearing scripture and having readings about the coming of the Christ child and when He comes again.

And we try to go “home for the holidays”, “I’ll be Home for Christmas “…you know the drill. Some have such high regards for Christmas that they imagine an idealistic world of peace. Hope. Love. (and eat, pray, love? You decide.)

You know the Folgers’ commercial where the missing adult child comes home again (and makes some crappy coffee) and mom gets up to the smell of the coffee to find her dear son, in the kitchen with a mug. You know that one? Tears.

How about the family of George Bailey? Dang. Passed the hat for him!

Or the fun stories, like Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation? Fighting the neighbors over Christmas lights and joining around the burnt up Christmas tree? How about the bunny costume in A Christmas Story? Fun memories.

You can’t go back. The tree you once climbed is long gone, memories, like family members, are spread all over.

Mary Chaplin Carpenter sings “Almost Home”, and between you and me, I think she’s talking about an eternal home. And isn’t that the real meaning of Advent- Jesus is coming,? I’ll meet him halfway.

Going home can’t be a place. It is not what it once was, or what you choose to remember it to be. It’s isn’t just beyond the clouds- it has no location. It’s the only thing you can’t find on Google.

Home is an inside job. It is where you are loved, it is where you are safe, it’s where you get your peace and joy. There are no snowflakes, no cocoa, no hugs, no Folgers. Home cannot be made by someone else. Warm sugar cookies aside, there’s not a way to eat comfort food there.

Dig in. Find the peace, love, hope, and joy not “out there” but in here. If you dig deep enough you’ll tap into that spark God left in you when you were created and designed. I call it your “God-part”. It is there and only there, not because of the candles and Eucharist, but maybe with the candles and Eucharist, you have felt it. THAT is what home means. It’s not the warmth of the hot cocoa, it’s the warmth of the Holy Spirit.

He is coming. But He is here, too. “The kingdom of heaven is among you” Luke 21:31.

Go home. Go.

Why I’m Still a Christian

Well. The Christian faith in America… the progressives and the Conservatives. Currently, there are more Conservatives in government and their faith is sometimes on display.

For example:

-selling a Bible with your name on it for profit.

-stating that White Nationalists (who are frequently very Conservative Christians) who believe there are good people among those committed to racism so much that they would travel and gather and run over and kill someone. And chanting “Jews will not replace us.”

-stating that you agree with, believe in, and enjoy an interpretation of scripture that turns women into baby making machines, without a voice, or rights, or anything.

There’s lots of talk about deconstructing your faith. I honesty don’t understand that process very much but I do know what an Examen is. And I did write a substantial paper called a Credo 20+ years ago. I know what I believe on paper, specifically, having studied, prayed, and discerned. I know that I am a panentheist, for example.

But these are just details. Details like those listed in our Creeds. There is so much of the Creeds that I dislike. The Apostle’s Creed was developed by men, more than 1500 years ago, when they were trying to make the main points about what it means to be a Christian.

The thing is, I believe in Jesus. Not because of historical proof but because of my own experience with him. The Creeds say absolutely nothing about what Jesus taught. They don’t say that when he was asked, he said the Greatest Commandment was to love God and love your neighbor. He didn’t say believe in the “virgin birth”, “resurrection from the dead”, blah blah.

I want to say that I no longer associate with the word “Christian” but so many would not understand my meaning. I want to explain that I am a follower of Jesus. I believe what he commanded.

And he didn’t command that we post the 10 Commandments in public schools. A Texas congressman just made very good points in argument with the woman who was pushing the bill. He pointed out how Congress doesn’t even follow them.

A Congress of mostly white men with money who are devout followers of a man that doesn’t know Alaska in a US state.

I’ll keep praying to Jesus. It’s the only way we can survive this time.

Amen?

The Monarch, the Checkbook & James Taylor

Sometimes I buy into superstitious things: avoid stepping on cracks, don’t walk under ladders, black cats in general and the killer? Break a mirror:

I’m refusing the entire idea of 7 years bad luck. Nope. When that happened, the A/C went out.

Oh no.

I called for repairs and prayed a lot. For this moment, I could get it cooler for just shy what I had of emergency funds. But I had just enough and the house is cooling off.

The guys who got the A/C kicking took the box of broken mirror pieces I picked up but could not lift.

I went outside and what did I see? A monarch butterfly moving with the breeze. That happens so rarely now but it was big and beautiful and it made me smile.

When I came back inside, James Taylor was singing “You’ve Got a Friend” on the radio. (If you didn’t know, I’m JT’s biggest fan.)

I heard it differently this time. JT wasn’t singing about his being a friend. The song reminds me of someone who once sent me a card that only read “winter, spring, summer or fall”- the next line is “all you’ve got to do is call”. He didn’t put that and he didn’t show up. I was going to a funeral & didn’t need another gut punch.

So the song reminds me of my love of JT. However, on the wings of the monarch and under a cooling house, I heard the song as if God were singing it. I heartedly recommend doing that.

My friend. Yes. That’s why I haven’t ditched the whole religion. Because he has come to me, I believe. Plain and simple.

And today God sang to me.

Fight-Flight-Freeze

I was taught our autonomic nervous systems handle our flight or flight response to threats. So many people are talking about stress management. Our bodies are responding to the stress even if, in our minds, we are not at all stressed.

Not long ago I learned that there is an additional response to flight/flight. And that is “freeze”. Becoming immobile. I can relate to that, too.

However, after 62 years on this planet, I think I may have learned a thing or two, albeit the hard way, most of the time.

When I was forced to look at the state of my physical health, like going to see a doctor and having to get on the scale I’ve avoided, I had the usual stress responses.

I fought. I fought hard. I fought everything and anything. I fought you because I didn’t like me. I fought me because, if I didn’t like you, I dang sure didn’t like me. I fought because like is a battle to win, isn’t it?

Flight. Oh, I can fly far, far away. I am the queen of denial, as they say. I fly off to dark shadowy places where I can feel sorry for myself, play the victim, and redouble my efforts at building walls to protect myself.

Did I “freeze”? Of course. I was stuck, or I thought I was anyway. Immobilized. Unable to move forward or back, right to left, left to right.

I successfully utilized fight, fight and freeze in avoiding my stress and not being a responsible adult with my life. I was in a perpetual loop; if I tried to change, fight, flight, or freeze would swoop in and hold me back, as if to say, “You’re never getting out of this”.

Then I discovered another word. I had seen I had that option but I really didn’t want to get out of my stress loop. I was accustomed to fighting, or flying or freezing when given anything that stressed me out. I knew what that felt like and what to expect. Eventually, however, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results is the definition of insanity!

So… my new word? It’ really two. FACE IT. Stop trying to avoid it. Face it.

I had to accept that my choice of wings with blue cheese dressing was a poor decision. I had to accept that binge eating had been a coping skill that was killing me. I had to open my eyes to the new dose of blood pressure meds and the underlying fear of type two diabetes. I had to FACE IT.

Face the fact that the food industry doesn’t care about making me healthy, they care about me purchasing more. Face the fact that if I really want something, I can put on my big girl panties and make a change.

I faced the fact that I was destroying my body and always had been. I faced the fact that I had so much more pain and inflammation. I never got enough sleep. I was fueled by anxiety and fear.

You know what? You can change it. Face it. Stop running, stop avoiding, stop denying. Face it. Would you treat the person you loved the most in this world the way you are treating yourself?

An out of popularity AA slogan is “surrender to win”. That’s exactly what I did. I surrendered. My way was going to kill me. My way was going to perpetuate poor health.

It was time to face it.

It feels good. Not all the time, but most of the time, my pain is less, my confidence is vastly different, I’ve exchanged hope with the weariness I had been feeling. This is MY life. My God-given life. God gave me this body and it is good!

Life can be so much better.

I invite you to join me on this journey. But only if you’re ready.

Peace.

Living to Die

Living to Die, Dying to Live

I remember when my best friend’s big brother was killed in an accident. The whole town grieved. I remember, very clearly, telling God how loved this guy was, the world needed him back, so please take me and bring him back. I later had a dream that cleared things up for me, but this was the first time I really thought death was better than life.

I grew up in a home with a dad and his weak heart. We were told, quite strictly, to not upset him. Therefore, nothing emotional, as a general rule, was ever discussed, at any length, as I was growing up. I knew he could die any minute, although at the age of five, I was pretty unclear on what that meant.

At some point as a teenager I decided that eternity with God was a whole lot better than to trudge the road here on earth. In the depths of my own-of-control and poorly managed depression, I was often suicidal – not in a “I’m going to jump off this bridge” sort of way, but basically the belief that I’d be better off far, far away, long gone from this earth.

I had no respect for my body. In fact, I hated it a lot. I hated being female, because I saw how we were treated like fragile china plates. I also knew that being female made me vulnerable to sexual abuse. I was all too familiar with that.

At the age of 20, I went to the Air Force recruiter and asked about signing up. My dad had died about a month before my inquiry. They told me I had to lose 15 lbs, I think. At the time I did not feel I was overweight, just that I hated my body and didn’t care for it one iota. Obviously, I never lost the weight, not then anyway.

My untreated depression came to a head when my childhood trauma began to come back to me in flashbacks and body memories. Boy, did my hatred for my body increase then! I was tried on all the different ones, plus mood stabilizers, tranquillizers, benzos, you name it. And another ten pounds would be on the scale.

I have to stop and interject that before and after this time, I was determined to NOT take care of my body in the hopes that it would give out and I could die. I continued to smoke and drink and eat whatever. I didn’t care. This life sucked anyway, what did it matter?

Ok, back to the story. So I met with the shrink in seminary and got lots and lots of meds. After three years, gaining about 40 pounds, I developed a blood clot in my leg which gave me a lot of nerve damage there, and pain. I was on a walker. I was in my internship and thought God had done a cruel joke in calling me into ministry.

I graduated from seminary as a size 24. When I started I had been a 14-16. My leg was painful and numb at the same time, I didn’t know what I was doing, and off I went to be a fulltime pastor. The walls frequently felt they were falling in. I would have a brief reprieve from the depression and feel hopeful, but then crash down again.

My first suicide attempt was in 1979. I didn’t find the right combination of medication and have my depression under control until 2014 or so.

I still hated my body. In addition to the weight, signs of aging were beginning and I also started having chronic pain. Now medicated with opiates, I fought with the same 20 lbs back and forth, hating every inch of me, feeling like a train wreck if I had to see a doctor and they had to see my medical history.

Then I saw a Facebook post from an old friend and how she had lost 70 lbs in eight months. I figured it was all Ozempic. I thought I would ask her about it. And then I became an Optavist.

It hasn’t been three months yet and I’ve almost lost 30 lbs. I’ve gone from a size 20-22W to a 16-18 W, which are loose. I feel GOOD. My pain is greatly decreased. Seeing the pounds come off, I have a great attitude. I want to be with God, yes, but I don’t have to die for that to happen. My aging body continues to grow and change because I am alive!

I am so grateful for this change. I’m so grateful God isn’t done with me yet, that God’s plans for me obviously include living longer and that’s okay. I want to help people not only in the faith walk, but in changing how they feel about their bodies because it will change their lives.

My word to guide me in 2025 is surrender. An old expression from AA used to be “Surrender to Win” and I am winning, y’all. I hope you are, too.

Mystic Mag

https://www.mysticmag.com/uncategorized/interview-lisa-baumgartner/

Clogheenmilcon Fen*

The green, green

Hills of my

Birth,

Rebirth me now,

Wash me with new waters

For renewal; recycle &

Redeem me.

Walk me through

This threshold

But don’t leave me,

Never, ever leave me.

I need your greenness,

Your life and breath

Inspired in me.

What an inspiration you are

And always will be

For what was,

For what is to come

On this side

Of the threshold.

*Clogheenmilcon Fen is a nature reserve just outside of Blarney. The car wanted to stop there. Yes, Spirit led.

Connemara

There is a place

Of height

And depth,

Of green

And brown. Sun, sky, wind

Bright and

Strong.

Great Spirit

Pulls at my soul,

Enfolds it,

Holds it.

The birds sing

Their language.

I try to translate

Because I know

What they are saying:

“Come now and breathe,

Listen to the song

Spirit sings through

The wind.

Remember.

Take this moment

To recognize

The vibration

That is the heartbeat

Of Mother Earth.

Remember.

Breathe to receive

This is the living, green

Great Spirit.”

And I said “yes”.

Galway

Good and gracious God,

Who poured out the oceans

With the high, jagged cliffs,

God of the depths,

God of the garden,

Ignite within me those

Gifts of the Spirit and

Awaken within me

The heart of my desire.

Pour out your peace within,

Expel the fear around

And guide me, Great Jehovah

To a place of peace

With new eyes to see

The shadows in my heart.

So shine your Light

And separate the

Darkness and Light.

Brighten the light

And be with me in the darkness

And those shadows

Deep within.

May I surrender to you now

And go from here

Redeemed, renewed, reborn.

Amen.

My Choice?

# My Choice?

We should not be surprised by the Supreme Court leak of the decision that has been doomed to fail since the Religious Right became organized. As Stephen.Colbert pointed out, each of the last justices appointed by Trump LIED under oath about their position on Roe. And Susan Collins believed them like so many other ignorant folks. Except Collins believes in choice. She’s just gullible.

My religious friends wail about the rights of a fetus. They believe they are saving lives. Whose lives? Women of color who don’t have the means to travel across the country for a clinic? Women who are told about the grave nature of their pregnancy and the pain that both mother and baby will experience after birth? Other friends argue for adoption. Great idea. How many people can drop what they’re doing to experience 9 months of unusual feelings and discomfort and then endure childbirth, which can be fatal? The emotional pain for the mother of a baby being given up is huge and never forgotten. Her body is forever changed. She is forever changed. Adoption is not a fair answer.

BECAUSE IF THIS WERE ABOUT BABIES WE’D HAVE FREE CHILDCARE, FAMILY LEAVE AND FREE MEDICAL CARE WHEN DELIVERING A BABY. But it’s not. It’s about controlling women. It is about CHOICE. How I choose to live my life is no one’s business. Men can choose to walk away from their children. They can do this LEGALLY. Their bodies are never put at risk to deliver the child, their bodies are not changed as a result. Men have no business trying to make this decision for a woman.

It should not be a religious discussion. It should be a long thought out decision make with a doctor. No one else should be in that examination table. That’s called privacy and it is strongly protected by serious governmental control. When that curtain is pulled it is a protection of the patient.

Personally, I don’t want a Supreme Court justice behind the curtain with me. Not do I want the religious right. How I apply my faith to my body is ALSO my business.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT PROTECTING babies, children, or women. It’s an attempt to control them. The risk of a woman giving birth is real. Ive ministered to a family who lost their wife/daughter/sister in childbirth.

Don’t attempt to control contraceptives for me or anyone else. Again, if men could get pregnant, there would be birth control in a drive-thru.

Women of color are disproportionately affected. If you take away the clinic where they get their birth control, women will get pregnant. Pregnancies they weren’t counting on and don’t want. And then what? She has no CHOICE. She is sentenced to a lifetime commitment, her body stretched, torn and scarred.

Infant mortality is the US is worse than almost all other developed countries. Again, this would be different if the issue was actually about babies.

But we saw this coming. Every election cycle, it’s brought up: men trying to control women.

DON’T TRY TO TELL ME WHAT I CAN DO WITH MY OWN BODY. I FIGHT AND VOTE TO PROTECT IT. 70% OF THE AMERICAN POPULATION BELIEVE IN A WOMANS RIGHT TO CHOOSE. OVERTURNING ROE HAS BEEN A SLOW SYSTEMIC MANIPULATION OF VOTERS. The religious right decided this, then took control as the religion of choice to Republicans, teaching them about the role of women in society. This represents 30% of the population, 50% of the political divide and 60% of the Supreme Court. This is wrong.[[