So I was thinking of the Baby J in the manger and I call him the Baby J with no disrespect; we’re just that tight. Anyway, I was imagining Jesus being like the babies in the comedy “Look Who’s Talking,” where the sub-plot revolves around the film’s star babies engaging in very adult like conversations between themselves in the voice-overs while all that the grown-ups are hearing is your standard issue go0-goo-ga-ga-coo.

Now don’t go reading into my theology with where I’m going with this because I don’t believe when Jesus was born that somewhere within that tiny bundle of flesh embodied divinity was a developed mind that understood the sinful state of the human condition, or knew that his life would shift the entire course of world history or that he had any idea about the Good News he would be proclaiming once he had the teeth and the vocabulary to do so. When Jesus was a baby his world was eat, sleep, and poo just like any other baby that’s ever been or ever will be. He was fully human and fully baby just as he was fully divine and fully God.

So having established my theological leanings concerning a Savior who came into the world needing his diapers changed let’s return to the nativity, the visual Hallmark version. There in the stable complete with hal0-illuminated Mary and Joseph, awed shepherds, road weary wise men, and selected barn animals a heavenly spotlight shines down upon a manger where laying on top of the clean fresh hay and wrapped up in form fitting swaddling clothes is the world’s most long-awaited baby. Just rousing from a nap brought on by the exhaustive long journey through the birth canal, the Lord Jesus, (aka Savior of the World, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Lamb of God) awakens to find himself in a frail little human body complete with a wet bottom and a miserably sore belly button. With hay poking at his backside through the scraps of itchy woolen fabric wrapped around him, he blinks open one sleepy eye, takes in the sights and smells of his more than humble surroundings, furrows his eyebrows, inquisitively tilts his head to one side and looking up to heaven says, “You have got to be kidding me! Seriously?”

I LOVE the shock value of how God most often chooses to work in the world and no place is it more evident than in the birth of God’s Son, Jesus. Absolute perfection! No pomp, no circumstance, no kingly crowns or royal castles or fabric finery sown with golden thread. Just a bed of hay in a damp cave, shepherds smelling of sweat and sheep, an orchestra of stable animals and a pile of swaddling cloth to bundle the baby up against the cold of night. And this is how God’s Son shows up on the human stage. Need I remind you we’re talking about the ONLY Son of the ONE God. You’d think there would be something showy for the one and only Savior of the World. Okay, there was the heavenly host of angels which is a little glitzy by anyone’s standards but considering who had at last made their appearance on the earth, even that seems a little subdued. But when all is said and done I adore the surprisingly understated arrival of the King of Kings.

And doesn’t Jesus continue to show up in just the same style these days? In surprising ways. In unexpected moments. Through ordinary people. Has he ever arrived in the story of your life like that? Speaking for myself (who else would I be speaking for?) there have been times in my life I all but missed Jesus’ appearing because he didn’t come as I thought he should or would or even could. There have been other times when my heart knew that what was before me was all Jesus and nothing but Jesus and yet the unfolding of his presence was so out of my frame of imagining that I was the one looking in God’s direction with furrowed eyebrows saying, “You have got to be kidding me! Seriously?” Realizing I was a lesbian more than sixteen years ago was one of those moments. I had another one a few years ago when I was forced out of a church by several people who morphed from being trusted friends to behind the scenes antagonists in the time it took me to sneeze.  There were times before then and other times since when at first glance I believed God wasn’t anywhere in sight. I’d think “God couldn’t have any part in this fiasco. God would never be found in this place. God would never use those people in my life.”  But then enough time passes and looking back I understand that the very thing that had caused me to doubt the presence of God’s Spirit in the first place was the very thing that had been broadcasting God’s presence all along.

So that was the random thought I wanted to mention. Now get back to what you were doing before I interrupted.

My mom died and now a dear friend is dying of cancer and in time a loved one will be robbed inch by inch of the ability to walk and speak and eat and breathe, and I’m powerless to stop any of it from happening and so I’m sad, the kind of sad that leaves me not knowing what to blog about because right now being gay isn’t all that important to me. Simply being human has my full attention. I don’t care all that much today that “the church” condemns me as a lesbian and I don’t have any energy to spare trying to convince them that God loves me just as I am as I know that God does. And in this moment my first concern isn’t that this country is clueless that marriage equality is simply a matter of justice and fairness or that much of the rhetoric that fuels the opposition is nothing less than a weapon leveled at the hearts of gay and lesbian people. These things will be of considerable importance to me on another day but right now my mind and my heart are absorbed in those I’ve lost and those I will lose, the fragile condition of being mortal flesh and blood beings on an equally fragile earth, and what I will do with my life in whatever time I’m given that will make some kind of difference in this world. All of this leaves me hungry for more silence in my life than for more words.

Loving God, having faith, and walking hand in hand with Jesus and God’s people didn’t make us immune or invulnerable to all that life encompasses. We will be sad. We will know pain. We will suffer. There are days when even the most holy among us will find their greatest comfort hiding out in bed with the covers over their head rather than on their knees in prayer, and there are days when tears and groanings of the heart speak more of being God’s own than all the words of faith and hope we can gather and dispense. God made us for joy and God made us for sorrow. Sweet and sour. Rain and sun. Light and dark. All are part of this life and all are a part of being human and being alive among others just like us.

So this is the place where I am right now and while it doesn’t feel all that great, it’s really okay. I cherish that there are people in my life who are so remarkable that the thought of losing them breaks my heart. I’m grateful for the reminder that life is so uncertain that tomorrow may never come so that I find more appreciation and purpose for this day and this hour.

I’m sad but I’m not paralyzed by it. Today I curled up in bed for the bigger part of the day and it was only when D returned home that I felt up to venturing into the world with her at my side. But Saturday is another day and so tomorrow I’ll sort through the magnificient abundance of the farmer’s market in the morning, make caramel apples in the afternoon, and finish the day at a spaghetti dinner among my church family. When Sunday comes I’ll continue on by assisting at the communion table before going to the bed of my friend later in the day to tell her how much she means to me, what her life is teaching me, and that I will always speak her name gratefully and tell of her faith and spirit and courage to those who never had the chance to know her for themselves. And then at night as I have in all the nights that will follow I’ll go to bed praying for my loved one with ALS, asking that God will grant comfort and that whatever the length of life would be that it would be a life filled with memories of love and grace that would linger on long after a final goodbye on this side of there.

And so….if this post finds you in your own time of sadness or if your heart is breaking or your tomorrow seems uncertain, you aren’t alone. I’m here with you. I suspect others are too. We’re together, you and I and us and them and God and together we’ll get through this time and until we do we’ll look for joy where we can find it because even here there is beauty. There is grace. There is love. There is hope. Even here. Even now.

If during the last two weeks D and I had encountered condemnation or rejection of our relationship from them I would have told you, but that’s not what happened and so it seems only right and fair that I tell you what did.

For the last two weeks D and I have experienced nothing but genuine warmth and kindness from everyone around us. In the hospital waiting room as we sat with family and life-long friends of my mom. In the family home as we met with Mom’s pastor to begin preparations for the events that would celebrate her life. As we gathered with family and a small circle of close friends at Mom’s burial. As we mingled among several hundred people at the reception that followed the memorial service. In all these circumstances there were no awkward moments. No one turned their back to D. No one avoided eye contact. No one stumbled for words when introductions were made.

As it should be D was treated as part of the family from start to finish. She sat among my siblings and their spouses every time we talked together before and after Mom’s death. She sat beside me at the burial and at the memorial service, and when my extended family gathered on the church platform at the end of Mom’s memorial service, D stood among us. At times when grief overcame me, D would hold me in an embrace or gently rest her hand on mine and no one said anything.

All these people are related to me by either blood or by faith. I know what they believe and I know how deeply held and genuine their convictions are in such things. And yet, in a time of shared sorrow they were able to put it all aside to extend themselves in compassion and grace. They didn’t toss us scraps from the table by doing the least they felt they had to do in such a time but instead they gave of their best selves, allowing compassion and grace to lead them.

They behaved as Christians who seek to follow the example of Christ’s life should behave but even though they were doing as they should that doesn’t mean I’m any less grateful that they allowed grace to prevail. In doing so they gave D and I a wonderful gift; allowing us the space to grieve and to mourn and to seek comfort in the peace of God and in the care of one another. They were generous in spirit to us and I will love them forever for honoring the time and the occasion by putting any issues they had to the side.

There are stories every day of Christians who choose another way; who default to condemnation over compassion. Today I wanted you to hear another story; to remind you that God’s Spirit is moving among all of us. Don’t rule anyone out. Don’t give up hope in anyone. There’s no limiting what the grace of God can do.

As soon as D left, I got to work. Hobbling around the kitchen, I emptied the dishwasher, put the dishes away and wiped down the counter tops. I limped into the living room and folded up the blankets that covered the couch where I’d spent the first couple days sleeping when the stairs to our bedroom had seemed no less insurmountable than scaling Mt. Everest. I crawled into the laundry room, emptied the clothes dryer, folded the clothes, and carried them upstairs where I attempted to strip and remake our bed.

I heard D enter through the garage door 30 minutes later. I heard her give out a long resigned sigh in the kitchen. I heard her pass through the living room and as she began climbing the stairs to our room I heard her say, “Anita, what have you done?”

Upon entering our bedroom she was greeted by a pile of crumbled sheets in one corner of the floor, a pyramid of stripped pillows in another, a stack of folded laundry teetering precariously on one corner of our dresser, a heap of blankets scattered and dripping off one side of the bed, and her wife sprawled like a rag doll beside them.

“You’ve been doing everything. I just wanted to help out around the house,” I said meekly and weakly.

She didn’t say anything.

I went on. “Did you look in the kitchen? I emptied the dishwasher and I cleaned up my mess in the living room and I folded the clothes that were in the dryer and look! I stripped the bed and at least got the bottom sheet on.”

Now this was the moment when my beloved was suppose to be touched by my efforts and respond by saying something really warm and supportive; something like, “Wow Honey, you’re so sweet for getting all this done to surprise me and for trying so hard to help out when you just had surgery. I’m so amazed by how you pushed through and did so much despite being weak and in pain. I have the most resilient, strong, thoughtful, wonderful wife in the whole world!”

That’s what I imagined her saying, but what she really said was more along the lines of, “While I appreciate your intention, doing all this when you’re suppose to be healing isn’t all that admirable.”

She shoots. She scores.

I love how life teaches especially when we aren’t even looking to learn anything. I love how the most ordinary experiences of our daily lives drive home the deeper truths we know in theory but often fail to remember or practice.  That’s why after D sent me downstairs to retire to the recliner while she tidied up my well-intentioned mess, I thought about how right she was….again. It wasn’t my responsibility to make the bed or clean the kitchen or fold the laundry. There would be other days for that but I wasn’t suppose to be doing any of that so soon after surgery. The only thing expected of me for the time being was that I breathe, rest, nap, and eat. I was suppose to be healing.

There are times in life when we’re all confronted with our humanity, mortality, and vulnerability. Physical illness. Emotional heartbreak. Spiritual injury. We get sick. Our hearts are broken. Our spirits are shattered.

In one way or another we’re confronted by our weakness and then give ourselves about three minutes before we start thinking we need to hurry up and get better. We look at others who’ve gone through the same thing we’re going through and have come back into themselves and we feel guilty because we think we should be as far down the road as they are. We shouldn’t still feel so needy and weak and vulnerable and the more time goes by the more our self-talk takes on the edge of a drill sergeant.  Pull yourself up by the bootstraps Girlfriend! Ignore the pain and push on through. You’ve been sick, grieving, depressed, confused, long enough and you need to snap out of it! Come on Soldier! How long are you going to lay there in the mud? Get up! Get up! Get up! Woman-up you wimpy little punk!

Behind D’s admonishment to me was a familiar spiritual truth that was ground into the fiber of another individuals’ being centuries ago . . . “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). When your body is weak and in need of renewed strength, when your heart is broken and in need of mending, when your spirit has been damaged and is in need of restoration, the most important thing you have to do before you is to heal. God and the universe combined has no greater expectation of you than that.

How long will it take for me to heal?
It will take as long as it takes…for you.

How will my healing come?
It will come in the way it will come…for you.

Maybe we think we should experience healing sooner than we are. After all, the people that came to Jesus in need of healing got it right away; a woman touched the edge of his garment and her bleeding stopped, the blind man’s eyes were opened as soon as the dirt mixed with Jesus’ spit was wiped away, the open sores covering the lepers fell away before they could enter the temple, and all forms of spiritual and emotional bondage bolted out of people at the sound of his voice. Jesus healed all these in an instant so we wonder why it seems to take so long for our own healing to come but maybe the reason we wonder is because we fail to remember that all those who were healed with a touch or a word or a spitball had been living their lives in pain and suffering long before encountering the healing touch of Christ. The woman had bled for years and exhausted all other options. The lepers had lived on the edge of society away from their families. For all we know the blind man had one been a blind boy. And from where each of these people stood, their healing didn’t just happen overnight but it came to them after a lifetime of night after night filled with sickness and sorrow. Why did they have to live so long with pain before their healing came? I don’t know the answer to that anymore than I know why you’re grieving continues and your deepest questions find no comforting answers.

I only know that your healing will take as long as it takes and it will come in the way that it comes, and when it comes and however it comes, it will be by the power and goodness of a loving God.

It’s been a week since I was reminded that my physical healing is going to take time and with every passing day it’s true that I’m getting a little stronger. And so this morning I took a shower, ate breakfast and drove to the store to get a few things for dinner. I came home, sat in my recliner and began this post and one minute after I click on the publish button I’m going to take a nap. That’s not because there aren’t other chores to do around the house today but for the time being the most important thing for me to tend to is to rest and heal.

D said so. And I suspect God does too.

Okay. Time to get to the task at hand.

I know you’re wondering how I got my chubby little princess fingers on such an exquisitely rare gem so let me resolve the mystery for you. I went empty-handed to a children’s evangelistic crusade at our church and returned home having hit the Jesus dessert plate jackpot. Okay, here’s how it happened because I know you’re dying for details.

On the off chance you’ve never been exposed to a child and were never one yourself, let me clue you in on something. Whenever a large number of children are jammed in one room together and told to be seated, the odds of them actually remaining in their seats instead of jumping up and down for no particular reason other than hyperactivity is statistically unlikely. This is why those of us with a little more experience with children (having been one or met one) place the youngest and thereby shortest children toward the front of the herd so they can actually see whatever there is that might be worth seeing. It also works well in that the youngest children are usually the only ones in the whole lot of jumping beans who still have any vested interest in vying for the role of teacher’s pet in which case sitting within the teacher’s frame of vision is a crucial element.

Everything was working in my favor that day. I was in the front row, dead center to the stage and so when the leader asked for a volunteer I popped my hand up in the air, kicked my adorability factor up into overdrive and the next thing I knew I was being beckoned up on stage where the leader stood with a wrapped present in her hands.

Her: This present is for you. Do you want it?

Me: Yes!!!

Her: That’s great because this present is for you and I think you’re really going to like what’s inside.

Me: (Thinking to myself: So quit talking and give me the present!)

Her: It’s your present. What do you suppose you need to do to get it?

Me: Hmmmm….say “please?”

Her: No. It’s already yours. You don’t need to ask for it.

Me: Oh. (Thinking to myself: Why did I raise my hand?)

Her: So if the present is already yours and you don’t need to ask for it what do you need to do to get it?

Me: Hmmmm…say “thank you?”

Her: Well, that would be nice to say after you get the present but there’s something you need to do first. (Now she begins to talk slowly as though she’s trying to work the right answer out of a puppy.) If I hold this present out to give it to you, what-do-you-need-to-do-to-get-it?

Me: Pause. Pause. Pause. And then the light bulb lit up over my head. Take it! I have to take it!

And with the right answer finally achieved, the leader placed the package in my hand, motioning for me to return to my chair, front row, center stage, and as you may have already guessed by now, being as clever as we all know you are, the point she was trying to demonstrate was that God’s gift of salvation through Jesus had already been given to us and we simply needed to take (receive) what was already ours, although the point was probably lost on us since our minds were already drifting to snack time and the possibilities it held in sugar consumption.

And that’s the story of how my cherished fake gold Jesus plate came to be in my possession; a story brought back to mind yesterday when I read these words in “Beyond Grace” by Frederick Buechner:

Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.

The grace of God means something like: “Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. Its for you I created the universe. I love you.”

There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.

So just how am I going to smoothly tie my simple little childhood recollection into Buechner’s theologically profound reflection?

Here’s how.

Take the present. It’s already yours. Come on. You know you want to. Just take it.

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“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Thanks Honey but really, no I’m not.”

“You were standing right beside her and I just couldn’t help but notice you were smaller.”

“I can’t be. She was just a regular sized woman.”

“You are a regular sized woman Anita.”

We’ve had a number of similar exchanges over the past few weeks. Sometimes the roles are reversed but the conversation is the same with one of us unable to grasp the reality of being in an average-sized body.

I know I’ll get there, where I see my body as it really is. The reality is I don’t weigh 325 pounds anymore even if there are days when I feel like I do. It’s just going to take some time to adjust, to let go of how I’ve always seen myself in my head and instead look in the mirror and believe that what I see is really me and trust that when D tries to give me a perspective on how I look by comparing my size to someone else, she’s not lying to me just to make me feel good.

If I’m needing to work on seeing my body as it really is, even when the evidence is right in front of my face and starring back at me in the mirror, is it any wonder so many of us struggle to see ourselves as God sees us? We look at our life and remember every little mistake we’ve ever made and sin we’ve ever committed. We’re so obsessed by our weaknesses and failings that we barely have any vision left to see our strengths and the gifts we bring into the world. We remember every person we’ve ever disappointed but we go blank if asked to recount the names of just a few people whose lives were blessed for having known us. We sat in little wood chairs in Sunday School class every week and learned about our sin and wretchedness; our depraved fallen nature and sinful flesh; messages so loud and troubling that they drowned out the messages of glory and joy that we were created in the very likeness of God and that we are the beloved, the children of God, the apple of God’s eye, the delight of God’s heart. We are living epistles, a holy nation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood. We are the lost lamb worthy of the Shepherd’s attention. We are the coin valuable enough to be searched for and celebrated when found. We are the child so loved God lifts up his hem of his robe so he can bolt down the road to greet us with open arms. We are the baby birds protected in the shelter of the Almighty’s wing. Wait. Let me edit what I just wrote. You are the lost lamb worthy of the Shepherd’s attention. You are the coin valuable enough to be searched for and celebrated when found. You are the child so loved and longed for that God lifts up his hem of his robe so he can bolt down the road to greet you with open arms and tear-stained cheeks. You are the baby bird protected in the shelter of the Almighty’s wing. There. That was better.

But for some that’s only the beginning because there are those of you who were told throughout your childhood that you were a failure, a disappointment, unwanted, unworthy, a waste; and those who came to believe through neglect that you were invisible nothingness or that you deserved the abuse you endured.

And what of the messages ground into the hearts and minds of young people and adults who in secret confusion and torment about their sexuality hear from church pulpits and loved ones that homosexuality is a perversion, a sin, an abomination, and that there’s no place in God’s kingdom or in the church for the unrepentant homosexual; messages that compare gay men and women to pedophiles, adulterers, murderers, and those who practice bestiality.

When I look in the mirror the main obstacle I have to seeing who I really am is letting go in my mind of the 160 pounds that are no longer there on my body, but to see ourselves as God sees us means we have to be willing to let go of so much more. We have to let go of messages, whether the intention be for good or evil, that in one way or another diminished our identity as God’s handiwork. We have to let go of any neglect or abusive that scarred our hearts and devalued our worth. We have to accept ourselves as being human and have compassion on ourselves for living that out in sometimes messy, fumbling ways while acknowledging those other moments when we rose to the occasion and let glory shine through us. We need to silence the voices in our head from those who judge us and remind ourselves again of what the gospel message tells us and only then, but certainly then, we will begin to see ourselves in shades and glimpses as God sees us. Beloved. Beautiful. Adored.

Repent and believe in the gospel, Jesus says. Turn around and believe the the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in the world the gladdest thing of all. (Frederick Buechner)

If you could but for a moment catch a glimpse of yourself through God’s eyes, everything would change. I pray for nothing more or less than each of you would see what God sees because then you would know and never again question or doubt the unfathomable love God has for you and all the delight that fills His heart with every glimpse of you.

Two years ago my adorable howbeit it manically neurotic TweetyCat died in my arms on the way to the vets. This left us a one cat household with AnnieCat inheriting the reigning position of head feline. In our grieving over Tweety’s death we made a mistake. We assumed AnnieCat was grieving too and would be ever indebted to us for bringing a subordinate cat in the house, if for no other reason than to do her bidding and serve her as a living chew toy. We have come over the past two years to accept this was in fact not what she wanted. We know this because months later she continues to climb onto our faces at 3:00 a.m. waking us from a dead sleep with kitty paws on our eyelids to re-emphasize her displeasure at our decision to bring another cat into the house. But that’s AnnieCat’s story to tell and if she has more to say about it then she knows where the laptop is kept and she can start her own blog which would give her something a little more productive to do at say, 3 in the morning.

As for D and I we’re a two cat household and so a few weeks after TweetyCat returned home enshrined in a little wood box to join the feline ashes of the most furry Sophie and the certifiably emotionally disturbed Sarah, we began visiting nearby animal rescue centers for a new cat. D and I clearly knew what we wanted and did not want in a cat. We had a list. We did not want a male cat. We did not want a grown cat. We did not want a black cat. We wanted a fluffy little calico kitty with a pink bow tied behind her ear. We wanted a little princess to complete our house and since we were just entering May, the season when baby kittens are in bloom we felt the odds were stacked in our favor of getting just what we wanted and so on a Saturday afternoon we stopped in at the nearby pet store where the local animal shelter provided dog and cat adoptions every weekend afternoon from 1-4 p.m.

Let’s go over this again. For weeks D and I had discussed and agreed upon what we were looking for and just in case you already forgot or skimmed over the previous paragraph and missed it altogether, let me review. We wanted

• A kitten.
• A girl kitten.
• A calico girl kitten.

In other words, we were not looking for him. He was the antithesis of everything we wanted in a cat but there he was, a boy cat, the equivalent in age to a pimply teenaged sass-you-back-as soon-as-look-at-you boy and black as midnight in a sandstorm during an eclipse of the moon. His wire cage was situated between two other cages on a table and there he was, stretched out on the cage floor with one long arm reaching through the wires of the cage next to him with his paw lightly resting on the head of the cat napping there. That’s what did it. There was something so tender and sweet about seeing that little guy reaching out to touch another cat that it melted us. We watched him for the longest time, and then reminding ourselves what kind of cat we were looking for and that he wasn’t it, we left the store.

I was back in five minutes, having left D at the check out stand at The Container Store with the words, “I’ll be right back. I just want to go ask if the animal rescue will be having adoptions tomorrow.” Fifteen minutes later and tired of waiting for me to return, D found me in the pet store holding the cat we didn’t want who was hanging like dripping jelly in my arms. “We’re taking him home, aren’t we?” she asked. “Hold him,” I answered. “Just hold him.”

For the past two years, not a single day has come and gone that our little black cat, officially dubbed Simbakitty, has failed to make us laugh out loud and just as often scratch our heads. There are days when he acts so much like a rambunctious, curious little boy I fight the urge to dress him in overalls and stick a baseball cap on his head. He chases spiders that aren’t there. He walks around the house unaware that dangling from his pitch back face is a full white beard acquired in a wrestling match with AnnieCat that remains wedged between his teeth. He dashes through the house like a madman until he’s running so fast he slides out of control across the wood floor coming to a sudden and loud stop against the wall. He meows like his shorts are on fire every time either one of us gets out of the bath because at some point in his formative years one of us made the mistake of getting out of the bathtub and giving him a kitty treat and now and forever he feels compelled to remind us that baths, showers, the flushing of the toilet, the running of the faucet, or a bath towel in our hands must naturally lead to the immediate dispensing of kitty treats.

And he cuddles. Every night. All night. I come to bed and within five minutes, never more and often less, he stands up in his kitty bed, stretches and then ambles up beside me, waiting patiently until I throw back the covers far enough for him to crawl in (I lack all power to say no) and drop against my side like a furry rock. Once settled there and having licked my arm with his sandpaper tongue four licks short of blood shed he rests his chin on my arm and stretching one front arm acroos the bed his paw comes to rest on D. This is how we go to sleep every night.

We did not want this adolescent male cat with black fur. We knew exactly what we wanted and he was not it and yet here we are a couple years later and this guy owns us, heart, soul, and kitty treats. He’s the perfect cat for us. Silly, loving, sweet, affectionate, crazy. He’s our furry little knucklehead of a boy cat.

He was the cat we didn’t want.

What else in my life have I been convinced I didn’t want that ended up being the very thing that brought me the greatest joy? Too many things and moments and events to even count.

Grandma’s name was Rosina. She was a true Swiss and the quintessential grandma. She and Grandpa had a family dairy (that continues to this day) and my childhood is stuffed to the brim with memories of being near her side watching her bake dozens of cookies for the tour groups of school children who would visit the dairy so they could milk a real live cow or bake loaves of bread to feed the farm hands in the cook house. I’d sit in the kitchen nook near her while she made multiple calls on the old rotary phone to the florist as she ordered flowers for this or that person she knew who was sick or grieving or celebrating something or another. In the evening I’d be in the living room chair next to her while she sewed on one needlepoint painting after another until they spilled out of her and Grandpa’s home and found their way into our homes, onto our walls, and into our hearts. My grandma was a wonder. I adored her. I still do.

Last Sunday was Father’s Day. It was also the day five years ago when my equally adored dad, Grandma’s boy, died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. For the past couple weeks I’ve been thinking about Dad, about my Grandparents, about my childhood that was so ridiculously joyful and fun and filled with love that I should have been charged rent for growing up in my shoes. As a memory to the dad I loved, who loved his mom, who loved the Lord, I did the thing I knew that would make them both smile. On Sunday, I made a double batch of one of Grandma’s favorite cookie recipes for the church social hour. It was a small gesture. A silly one really. But sometimes you have to do something to say thank you and to honor the memory of those you love even if it’s a very small and silly thing and so I baked a few cookies and spoke their names among others. Judging by the crumb-less serving platters I took home, the church was incredibly supportive of my little cookie gesture.

If you ever want to make some unbelievably yummy refrigerated cookie bars then give these a try and when you do, remember they were first made by a Grandma with a heart just as sweet as the first bite you munch on.

My Grandma’s Graham Cracker Dream Bars

Line the bottom of a 9×13 pan with a layer of whole graham crackers. Cut the crackers so that the entire bottom of the pan is covered to all the edges. Don’t go all crazy trying to cut the graham crackers with a knife because they’re just going to break. Instead, use the knife to shave off one edge of the graham cracker until it fits perfectly in the pan. That’s how my Grandma did it. I’m just saying.

In a *double boiler melt:
1 cup butter
Add:
1/2 cup whole milk
1 cup sugar
1 egg, slightly beaten

Cook everything above in the double boiler until it thickens slightly, stirring continually. It will take about 6-8 minutes over medium high heat.

Add:
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts (or any nut)
1 cup finely crushed graham crackers

While still still warm pour mixture over the graham crackers in the pan. Smooth with a spatula and then lightly place another complete layer of cracker grahams on top. Place pan in refrigerator to cool.

While the mixture is slightly cooling, make the frosting by creaming together:
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup butter
a couple squeezes of fresh lemon juice
a teaspoon or more of lemon zest to taste

Spread frosting over the top layer of graham crackers and return to refrigerator until bar cookies are firm. Cut with a warm knife. Optional: Sprinkle finely chopped nuts over the frosting before chilling. Replace lemon juice and zest with vanilla.

*Okay. I know you don’t own a double boiler but it’s kind of important to prevent the egg from scrambling and the mixture from scrotching so do what I do. Fit a metal heat-resistant mixing bowl over a deep saucepan.

The Gospel reading for the day was Mark 4:26-32 that includes two brief parables.

Jesus said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.’

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

He also said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’

I tend to be a visual learner…and teacher and so when I read “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground…” I reached into my right pocket and hurled a heaping handful of seeds at the right side of the congregation, and when I came to “It is like a mustard seed, which when sown upon the ground…” I reached into my left pocket and flung a fistful of mustard seeds over the left side of the congregation. I took no small delight in watching these dear people I love ducking for their lives but at the same time I had a greater purpose than my own personal amusement. I wanted to tangibly communicate that the kingdom of God is no less a present reality in their lives here and now than as the seeds that crunched under their shoes and that fell from their hair with every shake of their heads. The kingdom of God slipped into the realm of this world and humanity when the Son of God came to us. It is present reality and a future event, it is now and it’s not yet. Yet another head-scratching mystery of God.

After exploring the parable of the mustard seed that turns up in all the Gospels, we looked together at this parable of the growing seeds that appears only here in Mark. A farmer plants seeds in a field and then the farmer leaves the field and returns home. Day and night he goes through his regular routine and all the while the seeds in the field are growing. The farmer has no idea how the seeds grow but the thing he does know is that he can’t make them grow and become a harvest. All he can do is scatter the seeds and then it’s up to the seed, the earth, the sun, and the rain to do their part. And they do. The seed grows and becomes a stalk that grows a head that blossoms into full grain. Only when the harvest has arrived does the farmer return to the field with sickle in hand to gather the full harvest.

The farmer couldn’t force the seed to grow anymore than the zealots in Jesus’ day could usher in the kingdom of God through a revolution or the Pharisees could make the kingdom arrive through strict adherence to the law. The kingdom of God will come in it’s own time and it’s own way. Like the earth produces of itself “automatically” so too does the kingdom of God. We scatter the seeds of the kingdom…seeds of love, grace, mercy, compassion and peace, and then it’s up to God’s Spirit to take those seeds to produce the harvest that God desires and sees fit.

What this parable teaches me is that all God asks is that I be faithful to do my part in tossing the seeds, and then let go and trust that God will be faithful to bring forth a harvest. There’s nothing I can do to make people or the world change. I can’t force people to be committed to equality. I can’t bring forth a harvest of understanding, love and acceptance. I can’t make anyone accept gays and lesbians. I have no control over the injustice others do or the lies that others speak. All I can do is scatter the seeds I’ve been given as faithfully as I know how. I’m not called to bring forth the harvest. I’m called to go out into the field and with these hands and this heart and this voice and this life sow seeds of kindness, truth, mercy, forgiveness and love and then I’m called to do the hardest thing of all. God calls me to walk away from the field; to stop striving and laboring under my own power to make the seeds grow into the harvest I think they should be and blossom at the time I think they should bloom but to entrust the fields to God’s care. It will be God’s Spirit who will watch over the seeds you and I have scattered and from them God and only God will bring forth a harvest, greater than any harvest we could have anticipated or hoped for.

Now, here’s the beautiful thing. It happened after church.

As soon as the benediction was given and the congregation began to leave the sanctuary for the table of cookies in the fellowship hall the children came running to the front of the church to scoop up the seeds that were on the floor. As they gathered them up in their hands they were so excited and happy, telling me how they were going to take them home and plant them. They had no idea what the seeds were or what they would grow in to. Not one of the children even bothered to ask me what kind of flower seeds they were. They didn’t ask because they didn’t care if they were posies or petunias. They just wanted to take them home, scatter them, and see what would happen.  The activity of seed scattering excited them more than anything else. It was only the few adults who remained behind picking up seeds for themselves that continued to ask, “But what kind of seeds are they? No really, I need to know. I need to know what kind of seeds they are to know when and where to plant them.”

That was the real teaching of the morning for me. Not the sermon I preached but in what I saw after church in the joyful excitement of the children. I long to be that free of expectation so I can take delight in scattering the seeds and stand in wonder at what God brings forth at the harvest.

Just last evening, a day late and a dollar short for the sermon, I read this wonderful quotation by Henry David Thoreau that seems more than fitting for the mystery that lies at the heart of Jesus’ parable.

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

I’m with Thoreau on this one. I’m prepared for the wonders that will spring forth from the seeds of the kingdom of the God.

I’ve been obese all my life. I spent my life transitioning from baby fat to chubby to overweight to obese to morbidly obese.  I only knew what it was to be the biggest kid in every class and the largest woman in every gathering. There were limitations on my life because of my weight. There were things I wanted to do that I didn’t have the physical health to do. There were places I wanted to go I couldn’t go because my physical girth made it too difficult to get there. Being big became my place in the world and while it wasn’t easy and make for some agonizing moments of humiliation, it was all I had ever known and so in the way that humans do I found a way to be comfortable in what was familiar even if at times familiar was painful, embarrassing, miserable, and inconvenient.

Over the past dozen years I’ve lost nearly 160 pounds, the last 50 since January of this year. I’m at a weight I haven’t weighed since high school when I was merely passing by that number on my way to a higher weight. My entire life I daydreamed about what it would be like to be within a normal weight range and now at the age of 52, I’m there. I’m at a place with my body and health I never dreamed was possible and now that I’ve arrived, I’m understandably thrilled and grateful, and at the same time it’s totally unnerving and just plain weird. I look in the mirror and think to myself, “That’s not me. This isn’t who I am.” When I’m standing at the store counter buying size 12 pants there’s static in my head telling me, “They’re too small for you. They don’t belong to you.” In a way that’s hard to explain I feel at times like an impostor in the world because this body I’m in isn’t the body that I’ve always known and lived inside while relating to the rest of the world. I don’t want to go back to life before my weight loss but at the same time, that life is definitely more familiar to me and this new one has me a bit rattled and unbalanced on my feet.

And I’m not the only one reeling from the changes. People who have always known me as “the big girl” are acting a little disoriented too.  I was with someone recently who has always related to me as someone much bigger than she and so throughout the day our conversation was interrupted with random comments of “I just can’t get use to you looking like that!” and “You’re nearly the same size as me!” And that’s the thing. Not only are people getting use to seeing me in a differently-sized body but the changes in my body are making them aware of their body which is why their conversation is drifting more and more frequently toward their own interest in losing weight and getting in shape.

There’s a lot of crazy thinking that goes on in the head of someone, at least this someone, after losing so much weight. I’ve gotten to know a number of former abundantly-padded people who share the same experiences and feelings and so I know I’m not the only one who goes through an adjustment period in getting the old head and heart matched up to the new body. It just takes time. It takes time to learn how to relate to the world in a different body and to get comfortable with how the world relates to you.

I imagine the same would be true for anyone going through any major life transition where they leave what’s familiar for something that’s entirely new to them. Maybe that’s part of what increases the internal tension many of us go through in coming out as queer.  We spent a good number of our days relating to the world, or at least believing we did, as straight women and men (and just imagine for a moment, if you dare, how it must be for our trans brothers and sisters!) We had our place in the world, knew how we related to the world and the world knew how to relate to us. And while we might have felt less than who we knew we really were and felt the pain of not being fully whole and fully alive, most days we were okay because at the very least the life we were living was familiar.

Coming out to ourselves changed all that. We came to see something about ourselves we’d never seen before, maybe for no other reason than we had refused to look at that part of our lives and if we had happened to catch a glance of ourselves had pretended we didn’t see what we saw. Accepting we were gay was difficult for a number of reasons including conflicts with our faith teaching, but it was also uncomfortable simply because it was “the unknown.” We knew what it was like to identify as straight because we’d done it for so long but accepting ourselves as GLBT or Q was like free-diving into whole new territory! It wasn’t familiar and so that made it uncomfortable for us in the beginning. I look in the mirror and see a normal sized person but my head is still saying “This can’t be you. You’re suppose to be bigger than this!” and in the same we might have always known deep within we were gay but our head was still saying “This can’t possibly be true. I’m suppose to be straight.”

A huge shift in self-identity and how we see ourselves in the world is always bound to come with some pretty dramatic internal upheaval, and then just for good measure, go ahead and ratchet up the intensity off the charts by notifying the world around you that a part of your identity is different than it appeared and was presumed to be. Just like people who’ve known me all my life are temporarily relating (and reacting!) differently to me as a normal-sized person, people relate (and react!) differently to us when they’re put into the position of leaving their ideas of us as a straight man or woman behind for that of a gay woman or man. We’re changing how the group (church, family, friends, society) identifies with us and anytime anything or anyone in the group changes, there’s going to be transitional chaos for everyone. Did I emphasize that last sentence enough?

It’s going to take some time for me to grow accustomed to the new reflection looking back at me in the mirror. I’m going to have to buy a few more size 12 pants before I can let go of my plus-size clothing brain. When this body becomes more familiar to me then I’ll be more at ease in it because the head will have finally gotten in sync with the body. And other people will need time too. People who have always known me as morbidly obese will need to spend more time with me in the smaller body I’m now residing in to adjust to the idea that a smaller Anita is still the same Anita. It just takes time.

If you’ve just come out to yourself or have taken the next step to come out to others, it’s a little more complicated than all that. There are all the religious and societal considerations that complicate our own internal acceptance and other people’s reactions but there’s still this one basic aspect of shifting identities underneath it all that will naturally be resolved in due time. You need to give yourself and others time to adjust to the changes. You need time to get comfortable in your own skin. As a lesbian. As a gay man. As bisexual. As a man. As a woman. And others need time and usually they need more time than we do because we have the advantage of embodying the changes 24/7 while they’re trying to make sense of it from the outside looking in.

My physicality and your sexuality might have taken on a different form but we need to remember, as they need to remember, that at our heart and soul we’re still the same as we always were, and that these shifts we’ve gone through in our self-identity will only be for the better; allowing us the freedom to be more fully who we always were but was held back from fully expressing trapped in a body or identity that never really fit us to begin with.