A year of Grace Victoria

Getting used to birthday crown

September 16, 2016

My dear Grace,

Wooo! Birthday!!

I have been meaning to sit down and write to you since you turned ONE a couple weeks ago! I can’t believe I have enjoyed your delightful self for a whole year of my life already. I wanted to tell you a bit about what you are like as a big one-year-old girl, and what it is like to be your mom.

You are: charming, giggly, creative, compassionate, curious, adventurous, funny, loving, adaptable, joyful, grounded, brave, confident. You love drumming on things (furniture, toys, your parents, my belly that is growing with your sibling inside, the dog), so Grandma Lois gave you a drum for your birthday with mallets and everything, and you knew just what to do with it! When you drum you get what we call “drummer face” – mouth open, eyes wide and exhilarated. You are fascinated by the piano, and love to climb up on the chair and play it. To our surprise, you have recently learned to

Billy Joel in training

whistle! You also love to dance – every time we turn on music, no matter the genre, you start swaying, or bouncing, or bopping, or conducting, or doing whatever the music moves you to do. We signed you up for music and movement class, starting tomorrow, and I think you will LOVE it! We can’t wait to see where your natural propensity toward music, rhythm, and movement will take you!

You are walking. Man oh man. You have been taking one or two steps for several weeks already, and cruising around the furniture with confidence for quite some time, but the week before your birthday you really took off. First it was three steps, then it was five, then it was all the way across the room. Now, two weeks after your birthday, after lots of practice at daycare and at home, you are a champ. Usually, whenever you walk, you grin and sometimes giggle, so delighted you are to be mobile! You and I just went for a walk down our street, and you walked almost the whole thing yourself, sometimes holding my hand, sometimes venturing off on your own to explore some plant that caught your fancy, then returning. (You especially enjoyed the house with the sprinkler! I couldn’t tear you away, as you stood there, giggling with delight every time water hit your sweet face.) You fell several times, but never cried. Just stood up again, all by yourself, and kept walking, whatever the terrain. I was very proud of you. We talked about the things we saw, noticing colors and different textures.

Do I have something on my face?

You love to EAT. For being such a little peanut (you are in the 25^th percentile for weight and height), you sure eat like a champ. You will often grab food in both hands, and try to fit it all in your mouth at once. You can’t get it in fast enough! Seriously, child, I have seen you eat as much at one meal as a grown person might eat. You would much rather feed yourself (you sometimes just take the spoon out of my hand), and usually we let you. You prefer your food cold. You’ll eat almost anything, really, but you especially like banana, peanut butter, rice cakes, any fresh fruit, peas, and mac & cheese. The only thing you have consistently turned away is my lentil soup (which is delicious, by the way, so you’re definitely being silly – but I kid you not, you looked at me like I tried to hurt you and scraped it off your tongue!). We’ve also discovered that you may have an allergy to eggs and strawberries, but we are really hoping you grow out of them!

You love to PLAY. You have an assortment of toys, and you go through phases with them, but you have always loved holding something small in your hand and carrying it around with you (blocks, lego, my phone…). You don’t really have a favorite stuffed animal, but you love your various blankies. You hold them and bunch them up to go to sleep, you hold them when we take you out of your crib in the morning, you love to play with them. No favorite, really; you love them all! Grandma Lo made you a very special pink bear for your birthday, and you have enjoyed this, cuddling her from time to time, and drumming on her plush belly. I hope she will be a

Klaus looks on, concerned

very good friend for you. Uncle Luke and Auntie Chunzi gave you a cool green bike, which you enjoy using as a rolling stool – yikes! When your legs get a little longer, you’ll love riding this; when I push you around on it, you smile very big.

For all of your delightful qualities, you are also decidedly a toddler. “Terrible twos start at one,” they say, and it is true: you definitely have a defiant streak. When you are grumpy or tired, you slump over and whimper. When someone takes a toy away from you, you cry like it’s the worst day of your life. When we move you to somewhere you don’t want to be, you arch your back, throw your head back, and either squawk like an angry bird, or scream bloody murder. At this point, these tantrums are mostly still cute, and they don’t happen all that often, and they are over quickly, usually ending with you smiling up at us and throwing your arms around our legs. We know you are just trying to figure out how to manage this complex world, and we are here for you to help you do just that!

The week before your birthday, you had a tummy bug that resulted in a short hospital stay because your glucose levels had gotten so low. It was scary, but you were in good hands and we never doubted you would pull through. You were so

In the hospital

brave, such a trooper, so strong. I just admired you so much all the way through – even when you didn’t feel well, you were still your delightful self, charming all the doctors and nurses, eager to play, cuddling up to us when you didn’t feel good. I loved you so much before that, but during that experience, my heart nearly burst with how much I love you. You are amazing, Grace.

We love you so much, Grace Victoria! We have loved you more and more every day for a whole year, and that love continues to increase exponentially each day! I am so grateful you are my daughter, and I can’t wait to see who you continue to become.

                                                                                                Love,

Your ever adoring mom

Couple more favorite pictures:

All ready for her birthday party.

Helping with car shopping

Sermon: A wealth of relationships (Sept. 18, 2016)

Pentecost 17C

September 18, 2017

Luke 16:1-13

            Each year in mid-September, Lutheran clergy from Upstate NY Synod gather for a time of continuing education and fellowship. That event took place this past week. In the plenary sessions of this year’s event, we heard from the Rev. Dr. David Lose, who spoke about how we might address a major problem in the Church today: that, although the biblical story is our central story of our faith, people today are by and large far less familiar with that story than previous generations, such that, as we go about our daily lives, this central story is often not our immediate go-to reference point. As a result, we find ourselves in a world where it becomes increasingly difficult to connect what happens here on Sunday morning with what happens the rest of our week, out in the “real world.”

There are several reasons for this – for one, learning about the Bible is no longer a given in our increasingly pluralistic society; for another, there are so many other competing stories offering reference points for our lives – books, movies, TV, an endless stream of advertisements, gossip about celebrities, you name it! But I think another reason is that the Bible is sometimes just really hard to understand. It’s much easier to follow the tabloids, or a gripping TV series, or a really good novel,

than a parable like today’s, “The Dishonest Manager.”

When I read this tricky parable, my mind floods with more questions than answers: Why would Jesus be lifting up an anti-hero to teach us something about God and faith? Why is he commending dishonesty? Is he asking us to be dishonest in how we engage with others? And to the point of making the biblical story a part of the story of our daily lives, how on earth are we supposed to relate this to our lives in a positive, faithful way?

            Actually, this last question, I might begin to have an answer to, or rather, a more helpful, applicable question, and that is: what does God, and in particular this parable, have to say about how we manage or use our money and resources? If we are looking for a way that biblical witness meets our day-to-day challenges, there is hardly a bigger challenge than that of our relationship to money. Money is one of those taboo topics – we do not talk about it, especially not in the church. Yet it is also something we daily deal with, whether we are planning our budget, or going grocery shopping, or deciding how much money to give to the church or to another charitable organization, or how much allowance our kids should get, or… you get the idea. Every single day we make important decisions about money – and then, in many cases, experience the impact of these decisions on our relationships.

            And it is this impact of our financial decisions on our relationships that this parable can really speak to. But I’m going to start by talking a bit more generally about money – yes, right here in

church. Jesus spoke about money more than any other topic besides the kingdom of God, and so I think it is perfectly appropriate for us to talk about it, too, now and then!

            So, what exactly does the Bible say about money? There are a couple of scriptural themes regarding money, that come up in today’s texts. One is that wealth is fleeting. Look at this manager – one day he is doing great, with a good job, making lots of money. The next, he is out everything. Many in this country can relate to that feeling – a lot of people lost much of what they had amassed during the financial crisis of 2008. The same can be true about privilege, power, popularity, or any number of other idols we look to in our lives. I remember at the start of middle school, I used to be pretty popular. I was the center of my friend group. But then in 8^th grade, everyone else got “cool” and I stayed nerdy, and suddenly I was barely keeping up anymore. In one year, I went from trend-setter to the fringe of social circles. Whether in middle school or retirement, we’ve all had experiences like this – so Jesus’ words at the end of the parable, that we cannot serve God and mammon, or wealth, ring true. Turns out, these idols are fickle and fleeting, where God and God’s Word stand strong and stable. God makes for a much better master than wealth, prestige, or popularity.

Another scriptural theme about money is that wealth is both a blessing and a responsibility, and our faith is expressed not in how much wealth we have, but in how we use that wealth. In today’s text from Amos, Amos begins, “Hear this, you that trample the needy and bring to ruin the poor of the land!” It would seem God is pretty unimpressed by those who use their wealth not only to serve themselves before others, but to actually oppress others by their wealth! This may seem far removed from us – after all, we would never trample the poor, intentionally oppressing them, but besides that, not many of us would even consider ourselves among “the rich,” anyway! But on a global scale, of course, we are very rich. And so what about when we buy intentionally disposable things, or housewares that we don’t really need, or drive when we could have walked, or update our wardrobes each season, tossing the old stuff in the trash? Where do all the resources come from to make all our new stuff, and the single-use packaging it comes in? Who is making them? How might making these goods be affecting those people’s health? Of course, the people who bear the brunt of our buying habits are some of the poorest in the world, who work in unsafe conditions, whose homes become dumping grounds for our garbage, whose land is destroyed to make more factories. Suddenly Amos’s words aren’t so far removed after all! Even if we don’t do it consciously, our first world lifestyle does indeed trample the poor. Yet God is pretty clear that we are to use our wealth not to trample others, but to help and serve them.

Said another way, God grants us wealth and resources not to serve ourselves first, as in a vacuum apart from anyone else, but rather, as a means to be in relationship with one another. Think

Quote attributed to St. Augustine

about the dishonest steward. He had a good job and made lots of money, but when he suddenly loses everything, he is distressed, and does whatever is needed to… what? Make some friends! Build relationships! So his true tragedy is not that he has lost his job, but that when crisis hits, he has no one to turn to. He has no friends, no family to take him. He is desperate, afraid and ashamed he will have to resort to begging. But, shrewd as he is, he quickly recognizes that the solution to his predicament is that he needs to form some relationships. And so he uses the last of his resources, his last days in his job, to make himself some friends. Dishonest or not, he uses his resources to form relationships with others.

And this, I think, is something we can really sink our teeth into. I know there are some among us who make enough money to be very generous in their giving, and are. There are others among us who barely scrape by, and are as generous as they are able to be. But regardless of your particular income and expenses, what is true for all of us is that we have been entrusted with many resources: financial, physical, personal, relational, and more. And these resources, while they are often enjoyed by the one who possesses them, are to be used primarily in the effort to form, build, and strenghten relationships with one another, to serve one another, to love one another. Maybe your greatest resource is money, and you can give it away. Maybe your greatest resource is time, and you use it to serve and volunteer. Maybe your greatest resource is eloquence, and you use it to speak out against injustice. Maybe your greatest resource is compassion, and you use it to reach out to those in pain, and offer healing.

What resources, what wealth, has God, our master, entrusted to you? Have you been honest in dealing with them, or have you allowed them to trample those in need? Have you kept them for yourself, or have you looked for ways you can use those resources to build up, love, and serve those around you? Have your God-given resources been a means for nurturing relationships with others?

Try this with me for a moment. Think of an important relationship in your life with which you are currently struggling. Maybe someone who has hurt you, or whom you have hurt, or maybe someone you have simply lost touch with, or anyone else whom you just find challenging. Write that person’s name down somewhere if you need to. Now think about what would be required to mend that relationship – money? Time? Compassion? Conversation? Is what is needed something that you have and could give to that relationship?

God looked down upon a broken humanity and saw that the only thing that would save them was to give what was most precious to Him: God’s own son. And so God did. God gave His Son so that we would not perish, but have eternal life, so that we would be freed from sin and freed for service and love toward each other. So that we would know what love and grace and forgiveness look and feel like. So that we could offer that gift to one another. How, then, will we use the wealth of resources that are entrusted to us?

Let us pray… Giving God, this world is such a complicated one, and as we try to find our way in it, try to find YOUR way in it, we are grateful for the gift of your living Word. Guide us by that word, and help us to see how we might use the resources you have entrusted to us to love and serve one another. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: The joy of being found (Sept. 11, 2016)

Pentecost 17C

September 11, 2016

Luke 15:1-10

Mom finds a "stranger" way to communicate with her missing son.

            There was a lot of hype this summer over the new Netflix original TV show, Stranger Things. It is sci-fi meets thriller meets drama. The genre is not really my thing, but the show is truly gripping. In the first episode, the youngest son of a single mother disappears without a trace. The rest of the season is about the desperate search for this 11-year-old boy. Both his friends and his mom, even in the face of convicting evidence that he is dead, are completely relentless, as they discover more and more clues that he is alive, somewhere, somehow. Without giving away too many details about the plot, I’ll leave it at this: it is a show about how one’s deep love for one who is lost will compel them to keep looking for that lost one, even when all hope seems to be in vain.

            Perhaps what makes the show so compelling is that this is a theme that grips our hearts, not only present in fiction but in real life. Today is the 15^th anniversary of 9/11, a horrible tragedy that took the lives of some 3000 people. Of those, not a trace was ever found of over 1,100 of them. But that doesn’t mean their loved ones will ever stop looking – for something. Anything. Any sign of their loved one. Like the families of those lost on the Malaysian flight that seemed to disappear out of the sky, they will keep looking, even though it seems all hope is lost.

            That’s what we do when we lose someone we love.

            But here’s a question: what about when we are the one who is lost?

            I’ve been thinking a lot this week about what it means to be lost. Being lost does not only describe those whose lives were tragically taken by a hateful act, 15 years ago. Being lost does not just refer to those whose GPS has led them astray, like my mom this week, whose GPS tried to take her to the Rochester, MN airport, and she nearly missed her flight! Being lost does not refer just to those notorious sinners Luke mentions in our Gospel lesson today: the tax collectors, the sexually suspect, and others who were despised by society.

            No, I think being lost is something every one of us has experienced. I think about the families

Made up of faces of some of those lost on 9/11

of those who were lost on 9/11, who undoubtedly felt angry, confused, helpless, lonely, devastated – maybe even like God and joy and all things good had deserted them. I think about those who are trying to figure out who they are in this world, and wander away from everything familiar in order to find it. I think about people who turn to drugs or alcohol to find solace, or who fall into addictions of other kinds, whether to find something, or simple to escape the nagging feeling of being lost. I think about myself, and all of us, in times when we want so much to do the right thing, but either circumstances are too gray to discern what that right thing is, or we’re too wounded to see clearly, or our sinful human nature takes over even our best intentions.

            There are so many ways we are lost, even when we know just where we are physically. And although for our loved ones we would turn the world upside down to look for them, would get a lamp and sweep the house, would leave 99 sheep in the wilderness to find that one, beloved lost one… we would do this for our loved ones, but when it comes to being lost ourselves, we sometimes feel completely helpless.

            This is something I find so compelling about these two parables Jesus shares today. In the parable of the lost coin, the coin is not to blame here. The coin has no agency, and has not lost itself so much as it is just lost. The sheep, well, the sheep did wander off, but isn’t that just what sheep do? The sheep was being herself, and found herself in a dangerous position, not because she was trying to leave, but just become she was being a sheep. Maybe she even tried to find her way back, and only got more and more lost, further and further from home, the more she tried.

            I think that is sometimes how we get lost, too. We find ourselves lost not because we tried to be, but because life just happened. Circumstances we would not have chosen somehow befall us anyway, like the coin. Or, we were just going about our business, being our human selves, maybe even doing our best, and we suddenly found ourselves away from the fold, away from where we wanted to be. Try as we might, we only ended up more lost, more deeply into the scary, lonely place we were trying to escape.

            I think scary and alone are maybe the worst things about being lost. I always find I’m much more tolerant of being physically lost if I am lost with a friend. Somehow nothing feels as hopeless when I have someone by my side, to bounce ideas off of, to watch out for me, to say, “Yes, let’s try that road.” But being alone, being lonely… This is truly lost. It is not only being without direction, but also, being without relationship. It is being cut off – from love, from companionship, from comfort. It makes me think of a little cartoon my mom used to have hanging in her sewing room, of a little man sitting on a suitcase, all alone in a dessert, saying, “If you feel far away from God… guess who moved?”

            And it is this feeling of being not only lost but also alone that helps us to understand what being found is. If being lost is being alone, being found is companionship. If being lost is fearful,

Lost sheep is found

being found is safety and comfort. If being lost is brokenness, struggle, anxiety, helplessness, dejection, anger, and everything that keeps us from relationship, then being found is affirmation, healing, understanding, reconciliation, and everything that brings us back into relationship – relationship with one another, and relationship with the God who loves us so much, He would drop everything to seek us out, and bring us home.

            But that isn’t all God does. What each of these parables have in common – both these two and the one that follows, which is the well-loved parable of the Prodigal Son – is that when what was lost is finally found, there is a celebration. There is joy! All of heaven, in fact, rejoices that the lost has been found, that the one who was cut off, scared and alone, has come home, home to the heart of God.

            Such joy, I think, is foreign to many of us. We are scared of such joy, because as soon as you let down your guard and allow yourself to experience joy, you make yourself vulnerable, thinking, “This could all be gone again in a second!” This fear comes from years of painful experiences. But I was watching my daughter, Grace, this week, a new walker, and the way she toddles around, she is not jaded by the woes of the world. Anytime she walks anywhere, she giggles with delight. As I worked on this sermon one morning, I saw her dig through her toy basket, find her Sofie the Giraffe toy (which, for whatever reason, every baby loves), squeal with delight and come running toward me,

waving Sofie over her head as she made her squeak. Pure unencumbered joy at having found her beloved toy.

            This is the joy I imagine God has upon our return, our being found. It is the unencumbered, even naïve joy of a toddler who has found her favorite toy. It is the wiggly joy of a dog when you’ve returned after a long day or a vacation. It a heartfelt embrace after a fight with someone you love. It is pure delight. God’s is a joy that does not come easily or without cost – indeed, reconciliation with us came at the cost of God’s own Son – but because of that, we know that it is a joy that is true. When we are found, when we come back to relationship with God, when we seek healing and reconciliation with God and with each other after brokenness, God celebrates with all the angels of heaven. What was lost has been found! My beloved has returned! What amazing grace!

            Let us pray… Gracious God, we are often so lost in this world, unsure of which way to turn, or how to find the safety, love, and companionship we crave. Help us to know, when we are in this darkness, that you will not leave us in this lost place, that you will do anything and everything to bring us home, and welcome us back into your joy and your light. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Choose what is life-giving (Sept. 4, 2016)

Pentecost 16C

Sept. 4, 2016

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Luke 14:25-33

            When Michael and I go to a restaurant, we usually follow the same routine: he picks up the menu and 30 seconds later he puts it down, having decided what he wants. Meanwhile, I look through the menu for several minutes, considering things like my mood, whether or not I want to bring home leftovers, what food groups I need more of this day, and how much each dish costs. I weigh pros and cons until the waiter or waitress comes, and then I ask them what they would order, and then finally, finally make a decision.

            Now, Michael rolls his eyes at me when I do this (lovingly, I’m sure), but really, am I not just doing what Jesus tells us to do? I’m counting the cost, considering carefully all the angles before making my decision. I’m only being a good Christian. …

Ok, so maybe Jesus didn’t say these difficult words about the costs of discipleship in reference to ordering food at a restaurant. But he did say them, and, challenging as they are, his words to us today are to be considered in all the choices we make, as we strive to be Christians in this complicated world. Today we hear one of the toughest teachings of Jesus, a teaching that rubs against what many of us consider our most cherished values: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Yowzah! It’s amazing Jesus had any disciples at all! Why would he give the crowd – and us! – such a demanding list of costs to following him? Doesn’t he want people to follow him? Why would he scare us away?

            His purpose becomes clearer in the analogies or parables that follow: it is about counting the cost. A builder doesn’t start building until he knows he has the funds to finish the project. A king won’t go to war unless he really thinks he’s got a shot at winning. In more contemporary terms, you don’t sign your kid up for the traveling hockey team unless you are willing to travel every weekend, missing church and any number of other activities. You don’t retire until you know you will be able to afford health insurance. You count the cost before you make big decisions.

            In short, Jesus is telling us: being a disciple is not a cakewalk. There are costs. There are things to consider. Yes, I’m here to bring life and salvation, and this comes as a gift, as pure grace, but when you receive that gift, when you become a true follower of Christ, there are going to be some things in your life that can’t be the same as they were before. Your life will change. And some of those changes won’t come very easily for you.

            Demands like this might sound strange to our 21^st century American ears, because for us, being a Christian seems pretty easy! As Christians we can worship when, where, and how we please, our lives are not in danger for our beliefs, and we can generally go to church, put some money in the offering plate, volunteer when we feel up to it, and enjoy a potluck and some fellowship now and then. We can engage however much or little we want in this thing called, “being a Christian.” But texts like these show us that there is something more to the Christian life than that.

            What is that something more, practically speaking? Jesus talks a big game about taking up our cross, and giving away everything and turning away from the people dearest to us… but what does any of that actually look like? Today’s text from Deuteronomy sheds some light. After a discussion on the ways God has put before God’s people the option of life and prosperity, or death and adversity, the author implores us, “Choose life, so that you and your descendants may live!” Well, when you put it that way, it seems like such an obvious choice! Choose life and prosperity or death and adversity? Uh, no brainer! I’ll choose life!

But what if we phrased it a little differently: “Choose what is life-giving.” Suddenly, we are compelled to consider: what is life-giving? What choices do I make during the course of the day that are life-giving, for me, and for the people around me? Are there choices I make that are life-giving for me, but bring death to someone else?

There’s an Ignatian spirituality practice that asks this question at the end of each day: what did I do today that made me feel full of life, and what did I do that made me feel that life was draining out of me? It’s a hard question to ask, because if you ask it seriously, and reflect on it deeply, you may find that some of the things you do that are automatic, or that are coping mechanisms for your stress, are in fact the very things that drain the life out of you: working too much, eating junk, drinking or smoking too much. Maybe even, watching mindless TV or YouTube videos, or getting sucked into Facebook or Pinterest or Instagram, or buying more stuff. Anyone guilty?

I’ve done this exercise, and was surprised to find that some of the things that are most difficult for me to do, like getting up to go for a walk in the morning, are actually, when I think back, my most life-giving activities, and things I default to, like looking through Facebook, make me feel tired and wasted. Choosing life, choosing what is life-giving, is not always such an easy choice, because you know, scrolling through Facebook is a lot easier than going for a meditative walk, or reading the Bible, or praying, or speaking up for the poor, or fighting for justice, or any number of things Jesus calls us to. But as Jesus tells us, choosing his way, the way of life, comes with costs.

This becomes especially difficult when we apply it back to Jesus’ tough words today, the ones about hating father and mother, spouse, siblings, and children. For many of us, these people are the very thing that brings life to us! Scholars have worked so hard to come to terms with this – surely Jesus didn’t mean hate in the way we mean that word. Jesus is about love! The most helpful way I have come across to understand this is: hate is not so much a feeling, as an action. To hate something, in Semitic, Jewish, understanding, is to turn away from it, and turn toward the kingdom of God. It might be that turning toward the kingdom of God is turning toward your family, that tending to those important relationships is your most important kingdom job. My grandmother would have said that her most important vocation – and she did some impressive work for the Church in her day – was to care for her aging mother. I think my mom would say the same about when she cared for my grandma, all the way until the moment she left this world and entered eternal life.

But sometimes, our prioritizing even these blessed relationships can turn us away from God’s will. I read one reflection this week from a female pastor, who grew up in a household in which women speaking in church at all was prohibited. Women should remain silent, and certainly shouldn’t be pastors! But this woman felt so strongly the call to serve God in this role. So she had to turn away, to “hate” her parents, to fulfill God’s will for her. Of course, she still loves them, and spends time with them, even though they disagree on this point. Like we talked about last week, letting mutual love continue sometimes requires us to accept our differences and find a way to embrace each other nonetheless. But this pastor had to put the will of God ahead of the will of her parents. In Jesus’ words, she had to hate them.

It’s a high price to pay. We sometimes have to make tough calls like that in our lives of faith, to make decisions that best serve the whole Body of Christ, even when they are difficult for us or for our loved ones. It’s good that Jesus warns us that this life of dedication to seeking God’s will and following Christ might require some difficult choices.

But you know what’s even better? Though Jesus asks us to make some difficult sacrifices, he doesn’t ask that without offering it himself. And when Jesus makes his ultimate sacrifice, the result is not just resurrected life for him. It is new life for us. It is the promise of life and grace and forgiveness, so we know that when we fall short of the demands of discipleship, when we are confused or overwhelmed by all the choices before us and aren’t sure which way is the life-giving way, even when we make the wrong choice: God continues to offer us life. God continues to love us and forgive us, and place before us again the option of choosing life. That is the true gift of God’s grace and unconditional love: thanks be to God!

Let us pray… Life-giving God, you bid us to “choose life,” but sometimes this isn’t as easy for us as it sounds. Grant us the courage to make choices that lead to life, not only for us, but for all your children, and for our neighbors near and far. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.