Posted on by bethanypasma

Humanity

Walking through crowded New York City streets among hordes of tourists, the sun beating down overhead, the only shade coming from the concrete towers rising above… it’s easy to lose sight of humanity. It would be easy to shove your way through any crowd, elbows out. To huff in annoyance or roll your eyes at drivers who pause in the crosswalk of a light and then get trapped by the very pedestrians they’re inadvertently blocking. To put in headphones and maintain a separation, an emotional distance from the people around you. It would be easy to forget that each person is a person like you, loved by family and friends, with the hum of hopes and dreams deep within. 

 

But reminders are there if you look for them. If you’re paying attention, you’ll see them. You’ll see the four-year-old boy walking with his older brother along the edge of Central Park, so excited about the horses and carriages waiting for riders that he greets each and every last horse with a delighted cry of “Hello, horsey!”

You’ll see the Cartier security guard, bored by hours of standing alone outside, sweating in his suit in the summer heat. You’ll notice how he catches the eye of the security guard inside and entertains him wordlessly while pretending to do down stairs while walking past the window. He’ll be embarrassed when he discovers you watching him, but that embarrassment will quickly change to a shared laugh when you compliment him on his skills. 

You’ll find yourself stuck inside the middle of a group of teens crammed too tightly into a subway car and laugh out loud when you over hear the dry comment, “Well, we said we wanted this mission trip to bring us closer together.” 

You’ll find yourself smiling at babies in strollers on the subway, crying at stories of immigrants on Ellis Island, sharing a smile with a stranger while pausing to enjoy the early morning sun and the mist rising off a pond in Central Park, commiserating with fellow commuters over subway delays. 

You will discover the truth of the Dalai Lama’s words, “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” 

 

Posted on by bethanypasma

The Goodness of God

Sometimes it’s easy for us to proclaim that God is good, to know and experience God’s goodness, to sing words like these. But it’s not always easy. Sometimes it feels like we’re experiencing anything but the goodness of God. Sometimes it feels more like we’re in the “valley of the Shadow of Death” as David puts it, and yet we don’t feel like the good shepherd is leading us. 

Many of you know that in a few weeks, I’ll have surgery for a tumour in my adrenal gland. Waiting for the diagnosis last fall felt like one of those shadow-filled valleys for me. Labour Day weekend was when things really intensified with one final emergency room visit in a year filled with emergency room visits. That one felt like a turning point and brought me some hope for the first time in a while that there would be a diagnosis. I remember coming to church the first Sunday after that and standing up when we started to sing and praying, “God, whatever happens now, I know that with you I’m going to be okay.” And the Holy Spirit whispering to me, “What if you’re not okay? Will we be okay if you’re not okay?” 

That question was really hard for me. I thought a lot about prosperity gospel, about our desire to believe that if God loves us, it means everything in our life will be not just okay, but blessed. But we can be faithful and believe that God wants to heal us and not be healed. Not have broken relationships restored. Still suffer with mental illness. Still wait for unanswered prayer. 

AND YET God is still good. 

During those fall months, going to church was hard. I was on medication that meant I just didn’t sleep, so I felt awful a lot of the time, but sometimes I woke up feeling physically okay but just couldn’t come to church because I couldn’t handle pretending that everything was okay and I didn’t know how to talk about it not being okay. I couldn’t sing about God’s goodness when I felt like I wasn’t experiencing any of it. 

Now, looking back, I see that God wasn’t absent. God taught me so much about who he is and who I am. God taught me anew what it means to rely fully on him. I learned about the beauty of being in community. I learned to let others help me, the beauty of having others pray for me. I learned that God isn’t just good when our lives are going well, but God is good all the time. I learned that maybe the only way for us to know this truth is to experience the shadow-filled valleys that life inevitably brings us. 

I wonder if Lent is an opportunity for us as a church to learn this too. At Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, as a cross is put on the forehead of churchgoers, the words “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return” are spoken over each person. Maybe we need that reminder of our utter inability to save ourselves, our inability to do anything outside of God. And God uses the hard experiences in our lives to teach us this lesson too. And Lent also gives us a picture of who God is, of what God’s self-sacrificial love looks like.

It’s Sunday today. If you were in a church today, you probably sang a couple of songs about who God is, proclaiming things like God’s goodness. Maybe those were easy for you to sing. Maybe they were incredibly hard. Maybe you feel like you’re in the shadow-filled valley now. If that’s the case, remember that God is there in the valley. He’s waiting to show you who he is.