Learning to Embrace a Lifelong Pregnancy

I've been reading a great book called "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri. It is a beautiful story of a family from India who move to the United States and the struggles they have living in a place where they are so different. At one point, the mother who has just had her first child and is named Ashima, says this about living in a foreign land: "It is sort of like a lifelong pregnancy--a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been an ordinary life, only to discover that previous life has banished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiousity of from strangers, the strange combination of pity and respect."

I've thought of these words often this week. Two of my sons are married to spouses who are from different countries. Sam is married to Ying (or Iris) who is from Weihai, China. Ben is married to Jeuen from South Korea. Sam and Ying live in New York. Ben and Jeuen now live in Sal Paulo, Brazil. Is this the way they feel sometimes when they are in the United States? Is this the way Ben feels living in South Korea and now Brazil? Is this the way

some of my friends sometimes feel being Asian/American?

I've never lived in a foreign country, but believe it or not, I think I have felt this feeling before. Let me try to explain. The line that resonates most with me is this one: "It is sort of like a lifelong pregnancy--a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts." And I get this feeling often when I'm trying to live as a Christian these days. I know it seems strange to say that. I mean after all I live in the United States, a nation that still considers Christmas and Easter to be holidays! How ridiculous to feel like this.

But I do. And I don't think I'm alone.

Many of the Christians I worship with and hold values with, see the values of their Christian life (inclusion, grace, justice, peace) directly opposed by much of the culture in which we now live in. We struggle with a world dominated by beliefs that frankly are the opposite of what we believe, as Christians. The values we deem to be what is best for our world and for all of humankind. And so we constantly live with questions like these: How do you live peace into a world at war with itself? How do you live generosity into a world dominated by not only a need to have more and more and more, but also into a world that needs to have all the power? How do we live trust and hope into a world dominated by fear and mistrust? How do you live a life that seeks to hold every last person in this world as a person of sacred worth, in a world that seems to be intentionally stripping the dignity away from every human being? How do you celebrate a "savior" whose family spent years as a refugee family in Egypt, in a world that so disregards the dignity of those who are currently refugees?

The spiritual "air" in which we breathe these days is so full of spiritual "smog" that it almost feels like we can't breathe. We hope for so much more beauty, more love, more justice, more compassion, more understanding...and when we see the world going the opposite way...it literally hurts! Life for the Christians I live with seems to be "sort of like a lifelong pregnancy--a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts." (By the way, these same feelings are also felt by many of my Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist friends.)

And yet, we do not give up! We continue to wait! As Paul puts it in Romans 8:28: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." Our job is to put our foot in the ground and do everything we can to "hold the space"...standing in and living hope into a world yet to be.

So how do you survive in this kind of world? Well, for Ashma and her family, they would gather all the Bengalis friends and family they could for weekly gatherings. The "Indian diaspora," so to speak. It was there that they didn't have to hide their accents. It was there that they could take off their "American" clothes and simply just be! It was there that they spoke their native language, told stories from their country of origin, and laughed without fear.

In some senses, those gatherings are kind of like our churches on Sunday morning. On Sunday mornings, the "diaspora" gathers in a space where we are free to be "us"! We come together to worship and tell the stories of an unconditional love of a God who does care, who does see, who does show up, who does respect...all of us and every living thing in this world. The church is a safe space where we can shed our "non" clothes, ("non" being the land many researchers who have studied the PNW have used to describe the fact that more people in the PNW check the "none" box when asked what religion they have than any other region in the US), and smile and embrace the wonder of saying yes to a God that is real to us! It is a safe space where we openly sing songs about a crazy thing called "agape" love. It is a safe space where we can breathe in the amazing air of a grace upon grace that is extended fully to everyone present and respond by shouting "Amen!" But it is also a place where we often weep, just as Jesus wept for Jerusalem, for a world that just doesn't get it or us!

And then, at the end of the service, we have a sending, where we are all sent back out into the world that often doesn't get us with a call to keep living that amazing grace...no matter what may come.

This week I received a wonderful note from someone trying to lift my spirits. The front of it was our "Still, I'll Rise" picture with a dandelion, and then these words, "The energy it takes to hold the fears, sadness, dreams, and joys of a congregation is often overlooked. Prayers for the pastor who continues to show up, encourage, and hold space with and for the community. With the Good News of Easter, the Easter people will rise!"

Wow! What a wonderful note! It literally helped me to rise up and face the day! And as much as I believe a pastor is responsible for doing all that, I also believe this to be the responsibility and work of being the church, the community that holds the fears, sadness, and dreams, and joys of each other!

Your pastor and friend, still holding space for each of you, Brook