We've been talking about going deeper in our understanding of the heights and depths, breadth and width of the love of God - and how our practices of worship and prayer put us in the way of grace to experience God in the everyday rhythms of our lives. This is where transformation happens. As we learn to integrate the presence of God and the reality of God's good kingdom that is reconciling everything and everyone into our sometimes harried and gritty lives. As we cease to compartmentalize our spirituality into a "God box" or a "Sunday box" and learn to see the Spirit at work, present to us, all the time. This is why the saints of old have cultivated "praying without ceasing" or what Brother Lawrence called the practice of the presence of God.

Yes, it is a practice.

​This is not a novel concept but embedded in our story from the very beginning. Brother Lawrence of the 17th century knew this. So did Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and many before her, including the early desert fathers and mothers and well...even St. Paul.

We are most deeply formed not by what we think or believe, or by what we think we believe, but by what we love and what we worship. For first and foremost, we are desiring, worshipping creatures -- in short, we are created to worship. And so whatever our hearts are aimed at points us toward a vision of the good life. And it is our practices, our liturgies, and our embodied rhythms that capture our passions, our desires, and our affections. Whether that is in the temple of the mall or the temple of HGTV or the temple of the sport's stadium or the temple of Wall Street.

And so what are our practices of prayer and worship and presence in our lives?

Deuteronomy 6 wisely calls us to these rhythms as we wake and as we lie down, as we eat and as we talk with our children and as we go about our day. Knowing that we need these touch points of worship embedded in our daily lives to continue to point our hearts towards shalom.

Do we start our day in the loving gaze of God as we drink our coffee in the morning? Do we pray while we work or do the dishes or ride the bus? Do we pause at fixed hours of the days to acknowledge the one who sustains our very breath? Do we have practices of gratitude and worship, reflection and meditation? Do we sit in the richness of the word and let it ground us in the truth?

There is a depth of relationship, a depth of peace, contentment and joy rooted in the love of God that is indeed available to us. As Brother Lawrence has said, It is God who paints Himself in the depths of our soul. We must merely open our hearts to receive Him and His loving presence. And so I encourage you not to "settle" and to continue then to be dissatisfied with the shallowness of your experience of God.

There is more.

The Spirit is here, with us. And because of the Spirit, there is more than enough!

by Jessica Ketola

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. [Eph 3:18 ]

Surely, the Spirit of God is at work in our midst! And the kingdom of God is much wider and deeper than we imagine...

This was plainly evident as a group of eleven from our faith community experienced the presence, power and provocation of the Spirit last week at the Vineyard Northwest Regional Gathering. I was so thankful for Rose Swetman's leadership and to be a part of this Vineyard family. It was sooooo good!

As I have been thinking about how to distill the richness of teaching, stories, encouragement, and experiences of the presence of God, I have returned to three themes that seem to be at the very core of our community.

The Journey Inward. The Journey Outward. And how we are called to Journey Together.

[Elizabeth O'Connor wrote about these themes extensively as she shared the story of The Church of the Savior; and as The Practicing Church, we also use the language around practices of Formation, Mission and Community that lead us into Faithful Presence.]

I believe that the Spirit is prophetically and provocatively calling us to Journey Outward: to realize that the kingdom of God is much wider than we can fathom. To let go of our fear, denial, complacency and even our complicity -- and to follow Jesus to the edges. Ray Bakke opened up the scriptures the first night in a way I have rarely experienced as he spoke about the inclusiveness, scandal and diversity of the church. Jer Swigart followed the next morning with a compelling call to peacemaking and loving the "other" as the central movement of the gospel. And so we were invited to the edge of our comfort zones, our world views, our theology and our practice. To rethink what it means to follow Jesus through the lens of our sisters and our brothers who are oppressed, who are suffering, those who are facing the unimaginable -- misunderstood, feared, abused and hated. We were called to lay down a version of the gospel steeped in Western Imperialism and to reconvert to the gospel of Jesus. And the punches kept coming through the radical stories we listened to. Stories of saying yes to working with children with disabilities, walking alongside immigrants and refugees, the experiences of injustice of people of color to why the millennials don't think the church cares about what they deeply care about. So many stunning stories. And I believe the prophetic call of the Spirit is challenging and provoking us to awaken from our lethargic and comfortable brand of Christianity to the dare of the gospel.

At the same time, I believe that the Spirit is wooing us, inviting us into the Journey Inward: to realize that the kingdom of God is much deeper than we know. As we encountered the Spirit of God again and again ministering to us through the times of worship and prayer, one thing was clear to me. We need the Spirit so desperately. We need to be immersed and deepened in our experience of the presence of God in our lives and in our community. David Ruis modeled this so beautifully as he spoke and led us in the movement of the Holy Spirit. This is the union we are created for, the water our hearts thirst for, and the life that will sustain us. So we are invited. To sit in the loving gaze of God, to bask in the presence of the Spirit, to worship as we were created to, to practices of prayer, solitude, and stillness, to invitations to listen, reflect, heal, grow and repent. To be vulnerable, to come as we are - in all our glory and our shame. To be transformed, sustained and renewed in the presence of God in the rhythms of our ordinary lives and as we gather together as the beloved community.

Which brings me to the Journey Together: to realize that none of this makes sense without the deep commitment and sacrifice of shared life along with the wide, extravagant welcome that acknowledges that no one is outside God's love. We belong to one another. We are inextricably bound together. One of the really sweet parts about coming together as the people of God is the sense of being connected to a larger family, belonging to this beautifully diverse community and being a part of something bigger than ourselves. Not only did we experience this with our Vineyard family across the region, we also experienced this with each other as we shared our hearts, our laughter and our longings around the fire pit each night. And I believe that this is a work of the Spirit for our entire community. That the Spirit is knitting us together in deeper ways as we share our lives -- our fears and our dreams, our wounds and our desires -- and commit to one another for the long haul. And even this past Sunday as a dear sister walked through our doors, who come to find out had been a part of our Vineyard community in Kenya, I was struck with the beauty of being family, part of this beloved, diverse community that will one day gather around the throne worshipping with one song.

My heart is full of so much gratitude and hope for what the Spirit is doing in our midst. Let us continue to allow the Spirit of God to wake us, provoke us, and stir us that we may grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. That we would journey outward toward the "other" to love our neighbor as we journey inward deeper in our life and union with the Spirit, journeying together to learn what it means to see and be seen, to hear and be heard and to know and be known. That we would indeed know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

by Jessica Ketola

Last weekend, we celebrated Pentecost as we gathered for our Community Creativity Session to dream together and reimagine what it means to live out the gospel together in our neighborhoods. We took inventory of all the gifts within our faith community and our neighborhoods and we were overwhelmed with the abundance of what is possible. And the Spirit began to breathe on some collective ideas and there was some good energy around continuing to explore where the Spirit is leading us.

And then as we gathered for worship on Sunday, Carrie Cates spoke so eloquently to us about the gift and the wonder of the Spirit -- and how we as followers of Jesus and as part of His body are filled with the Spirit. And one line that keeps reverberating within me is this.

Through the work of the Spirit, we have enough.

We have everything we need to be faithfully present to God and to our neighbors. We have everything we need to live into God's Dream. We have enough. We are enough. We don't have to wait until.... when.... if.... this and that happens... when we get healed or free or trained or we get a different job or our kids grow up or we win the lottery.

The Spirit within us is enough.

And this seemed to coalesce so beautifully with Saturday's Creativity Session. As we did our asset mapping, we experienced an epiphany together.

There is more than enough.

There is an abundance of riches. And anything is possible.

For with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. -Matt 19:26

And what you or me on our own could never accomplish, WE can. What we would never have the bandwidth or skills or energy to do on our own becomes possible with the power of the collective WE.

Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much. -Helen Keller

And not only possible -- FUN! You could feel it palpably in the room! To begin to realize that all the dreams that seem so far out of reach are actually possible! And that there is deep meaning, connection and joy found in the discovery of abundance, creativity and shared gifts.

For me, this is the dream. When we all come together in the community to share our small gifts, a few fish, a couple of loaves, a gift of finance, a gift of cooking, a gift of gardening, a gift of therapy, a gift of wood working to experience the miracle. To bear witness to what happens when the same Spirit that multiplied the fish and the loaves for the multitudes breathes on our humble offerings.

And so I believe that the Spirit is inviting us to dream big.

​This was something that was discerned in our time together. That if we shoot for Mars, we just might end up on the Moon. And so I believe that the Spirit is inviting us to leave behind our worldview of scarcity and all the reasons why we simply cannot live into the dream to turn towards a worldview of the kingdom that says...

There is more than enough.

In fact, there is an abundance. And all thing are possible with God. And it's going to more wild and challenging and joyful and meaningful than we could ever imagine.

Those who sign on and depart the system of anxious scarcity become the historymakers in the neighborhood. -Walter Brueggemann

The Spirit is here. Pouring out dreams and visions and fresh revelation and imagination that are prophetic invitations to us in our day and in our time. And these dreams are for everyone, regardless of gender, class, age and race. This big and beautiful Dream of God is for everyone!

So go ahead.

Dream big.

‘In the last days,’ God says, 
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. 
Your sons and daughters will prophesy. 
Your young men will see visions, 
and your old men will dream dreams. 
In those days I will pour out my Spirit 
even on my servants–men and women alike– 
and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28-29)

​by Jessica Ketola

This Sunday we will celebrate Pentecost, the birth of the church and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles even as we come together for our Community Creativity Session in our own holy huddle to wait for the inspiration and empowerment of the Spirit. We will commemorate the bestowal of the Spirit’s gifts that enabled the apostles to leave the Upper Room and preach the Gospel just as we will wait for the Spirit to enable us also to leave our safe and silo'd lives to be good news to our neighbors. And we will remember that God is with us, from Creation to Mount Sinai to Pentecost to today, the presence of God upon God's people, revealed in wind and fire is our beautiful Holy Spirit who is continuing to lead us just as the cloud of shekinah glory led the Israelites through the wilderness. 

Pentecost derives its origin from a Jewish Festival called the “Feast of Weeks,” otherwise known as the Shavu’ot, which celebrated God's providence and the harvest of wheat. The Feast of Weeks, deriving from the Greek word Pentekostos (meaning “fifty”) occurs fifty days after the Passover. Shavu'ot soon came to commemorate the covenant God established with his people through Moses on Mount Sinai as many believe that Moses received the Law on Sinai during the Feast of the Weeks. And so just as the shekinah glory descended on the mountain as God bestowed a covenant with God's people, so the Holy Spirit descended in the upper room as God bestowed a new covenant of his blood. And gifts were poured out in abundance, hearts were emboldened, and the all inclusive sweeping nature of the gospel was made known as a multicultural crowd heard this revolutionary message in their own language. And the Church was birthed as three thousand hearts were compelled to join God's dream in the world, fulfilling the words of the prophet Joel.

‘In the last days,’ God says,
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
In those days I will pour out my Spirit
even on my servants–men and women alike–
and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28-29)

This Saturday, as The Feast of Weeks begins, we will meet for our Community Creativity Session to celebrate that God's Spirit has been poured out upon all people. And we will remember that we are a part of this sweeping story of God that is so much bigger than ourselves and includes everything and everyone! We will pray for the Spirit to move upon us so that every man, woman and child regardless of race, class, gender or difference can hear the good news in a way that makes sense to them. And as we stir up creativity and imagination, we will pray for the gifts of the Spirit to be poured out upon us propelling us into God's Dream for our neighborhoods. And we will prophetically call forth that which is unseen. We will share visions and dreams. And we will pray for the Spirit to continue to birth her work among us.

​by Jessica Ketola

I was recently asked to share my story at the Inhabit Conference on April 27-28, 2018 in Seattle and so thought I'd share it here as well.

This is my story of the foolish and audacious yes -- a glorious and daunting tale of saying yes to what the Spirit is birthing in our community. And it is not for the faint of heart. But I believe that this is what the Spirit is up to today. Beckoning us to leave behind what is familiar, we are being asked to cross the threshold into the wilderness. To leave behind what is dead and lifeless and the systems of oppression to step into the new, into life and into freedom. To let go of our own small, individual stories to be invited into a much larger story that is so compelling, it is worth giving our lives to.
 
foolish and audacious yes #1
Five years ago, my first foolish and audacious yes was to sign myself up for a program called Leadership in the New Parish. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had never attended the Inhabit Conference. I didn’t really know much about the Parish Collective. All I knew was that I was desperate to find a way forward and to explore new practices and paradigms for church.
 
For I was well aware that our current models were for the most part failing us, and yet I was still very much immersed in them. At the time, I was the associate pastor of a small but vibrant Vineyard community church in Shoreline, Washington, where I also served as the director our local nonprofit, Turning Point. But while there were only a few of us who lived in the community where our church building was located, we had intentioned to be a presence for good in our neighborhood. We were following the missional conversation and longing to practice the way of Jesus. And so we did a lot of listening -- opening up our building to be a cold weather shelter, being a part of community round tables, starting a food bank giving garden, birthing a nonprofit, and investing in immigrant youth and families in the neighborhood. And yet in spite of all of this, we began to see that our model of church was actually at times working against us - working against the embodiment of our faith to live into the teachings of Jesus in a transformative way.
 
And so over the course of that year, I began to have a new imagination for what the kingdom could look like in my community and in my neighborhood and it set me on a trajectory that has forever changed the course of my life and of our faith community.
 
foolish and audacious yes #2
And so my second foolish and audacious yes was to the invitation of the Spirit to move into the neighborhood. We sold our home. We uprooted our family of 6. And we took some huge risks. Because we weren’t entirely convinced that this neighborhood stuff would really work in our suburban/semi-urban context. We didn’t look like many of the neighborhoods that were having success in more urban and walkable neighborhoods. But would it work here? And would we be able to transition our commuter church to have an imagination to root in our neighborhoods? Was this even possible?

Now I wish I could tell you that it all went glowingly after this. But as we journeyed to follow the Spirit into the unknown, we found that often life comes out of death. New paradigms are birthed out of disorientation. New assignments are born out of scattering and wilderness. This is the way of the Spirit, of transformation, of death and of birth.
 
And so our first attempts at neighboring were pretty much a flop. Who knew it was so hard to get to know your neighbors? We held barbecues in our front yard that no one came to. We baked cookies as offerings of friendship that were never returned. I have vivid images of my husband who would literally run after the neighbor’s car down our driveway just to say hello.
 
foolish and audacious yes #3
Our third foolish and audacious yes was to disrupt the status quo in our faith community. And this is where it got real. We were growing increasingly discontent with the way that our lived experience as the church was forming us and how irrelevant we seemed to our neighbors. So we entered a community discernment process and made the decision to move our regular Sunday service to a Sunday night dinner church and the whole thing blew up. I mean, for real. The ugly church stuff that those of you who have lived through are now having PTS symptoms just thinking of it, and half of our community left. I know this may not be exactly heartening to you. But it is what happened. It was horrible. Awful. I cried every day and at times, our lead pastor and I considered just giving up, throwing in the towel and going to work for Amazon. We felt disillusioned and disoriented, and yet somehow through it all, the Spirit sustained us.
 
foolish and audacious yes #4
It was less than a year later when I said my fourth foolish and audacious yes -- which was the biggest yet (you think I would have learned my lesson by now) -- but I said yes to step in as lead pastor. Utterly foolish after our beloved pastor of 20 years was forced to resign suffering from congestive heart failure. This was another huge blow. Utterly audacious to believe that there was still hope for our struggling and now traumatized congregation.
 
But I had this crazy good dream, this fire in my belly. You see I had no interest in doing church if it meant more of the same religious activity. In fact, I wanted nothing to do with it. But this dream. Where our neighborhoods are pulled into shalom, seeking justice for those without power and privilege, where everyone across difference, race and class are coming together to seek the flourishing of our communities. The hope of seeing God revealed here in us, the body of Christ - where our neighbors begin to see that God is for them, where church is experienced around the table, and hopes are shared on the bus and the coffee shop and the community forums. This, this was compelling.

And so this is where the story gets crazy good. For we as the church are celebrating Eastertide and we know that there is life after death. And I have seen miracle upon miracle of this spirit of resurrection at work in our church and in our neighborhood. It has been just over one year since we re-launched The Practicing Church in our living room and I’m beginning to believe that this dream is actually possible. We have seen many miracles of the Spirit: sending us people across the country to join us; opening up housing so that we could live in proximity; miracles of finances and jobs in the neighborhood; miracles of friendships and shared life with our neighbors as we share a weekly meal together and connect over parties, fire pits and summer bbq's. And we are beginning to be a part of the fabric of care here, active in our neighborhood associations and schools, hosting a social justice book club, participating on diversity and equity task forces, breaking bread with our immigrant neighbors and continuing to be faithfully present to children and families through our after school tutoring program.  
 
And I feel like I’m home. I no longer feel the incongruence and disconnects of my former church experience. And while we are only just beginning to live into God’s dream, learning what it means to be faithfully present, it feels resonate and integrated in a way that I have never experienced before. And yet we still don’t know what it’s going to look like. We are staring into the darkness of the unknown, waiting for the Spirit to lead us on. But we believe with all of our hearts that the Spirit is birthing something new in the church, inviting us to believe that there is a better way - to live as a beautifully diverse beloved community into the dare of the gospel.

And so the question remains.
 
Will we be just foolish enough?

Just audacious enough?
​
To say yes?
 
“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’” -God Knows by Minnie Haskins

by Jessica Ketola

We continue to celebrate the joy of Easter, new creation and life bursting into our lives and our community. For we truly believe that God has a big, beautiful Dream to bring shalom, justice and love to our neighborhoods, and that we are to be a part of it!

And as we talked about last Sunday, if our WHY as The Practicing Church is this Dream of God, the renewal of all things, then our HOW is the stunning work of the Holy Spirit present and active among us.

I'm very excited for this Sunday as Rose Swetman will be with us speaking about the very real and active presence of the Holy Spirit among us. For we want to be a people of God's presence, filled with the power of the Spirit. This same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. [For a deeper dive, check out these short videos from Vineyard USA about the Holy Spirit.]

And while we love the Spirit of God, the work and the empowerment of the Divine in our midst, we know we are to live this out in an embodied way. We see this model beautifully in the life of Jesus. We want to be a people grounded in the love of God and love of neighbor. And we will hold fiercely to the tension of being a people of God's presence and power while being rooted and grounded in love in an embodied way in our neighborhoods.

Here is a beautiful story of presence and place from some folks in our Vineyard family in Campbellsville, KY.
​
Coffee That Cultivates Community

For what happens when we combine the divine resolve and power with human, embodied agency? Walter Brueggemann would say, "The outcome is a human agent who can act and dream outside imperial reality. And dreaming outside imperial reality, that human agent can begin the daring extrication of this people from the imperial system."

Agency Plus Resolve, Walter Brueggemann, Journey to the Common Good

In other words, freedom, shalom, and renewal happens. Resurrection happens. And we see the movement of the gospel story, of Exodus, of a people leaving empire and slavery to step into human agency as people of God's presence. God's dream is realized when we join God's plan, purposes and presence with our human embodiment to be the hands and feet of Jesus here on the earth. Here in our homes, our neighborhoods, our schools and our work places.

My prayer for you this week is that you would be filled with the presence of the Spirit everywhere your feet walk this blessed earth and every time your hands touch the stranger, your neighbor and those you love. May you feel the life-giving, creative breath of God bringing you and your neighbor to life, awakening dreams and desires, and renewing and redeeming everything and everyone.

Be filled with the Divine Spirit and be embodied and present in your places!

by Jessica Ketola

Joy To The World!

​This week, we light the Advent candle of JOY. And my heart is bursting with joy. As I celebrate all of the remarkable things that God has done this past year and as I think about each and every one of you and God's goodness and faithfulness in my own life and the life of our community. And just as I was sitting down to pontificate about all of this, an email pinged my inbox from our regional director and Pastor Emeritus, Rose Swetman. Her words resonated with me so I thought I would share them with you.

This Sunday is the third Sunday of Advent and is known as Guadete Sunday! Guadete, “rejoice” in Latin is represented by lighting the rose-colored candle in the Advent wreath. The theme for worship is joy. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit, a gift, an enablement of the Spirit.

Theologian Henri Nouwen described the difference between joy and happiness. While happiness is dependent on external conditions, joy is "the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing -- sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death -- can take that love away." Thus joy can be present even in the midst of sadness. I believe this was in Paul’s thoughts as he wrote perhaps his most personal letter to the church at Philippi:

      "Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.
     Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
     And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you."

Neither Henri Nouwen nor the Apostle Paul are talking about some happy clappy form of fake joy, no, they are talking about the deep sense of belovedness that is our birthright, our inheritance. A belovedness that knows without a doubt that no matter what suffering comes our way there is a God that is in the process of reconciling all things to Himself. Everything in heaven and in earth has been delivered from sin and death and is in the process of being put right and the indescribable good news is that we are invited to participate in God’s renewal for our families, neighborhoods, workplaces and beyond. We have been invited to live out our faith in the Way of Jesus and become a part of the story God is telling in the world! - Rose Swetman​

This, my friends, is the good news. That even in the midst of a turbulent and violent world, we are loved and we are held. Love surrounds us. It is the air we breathe and the ground we walk on. This is our joy, the light invading the darkness. The good news that the angel announced to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord." [Luke 2:10-11] 

​GOOD NEWS of GREAT JOY for ALL PEOPLE. Regardless of what you may have heard, the wonder of God coming as flesh and blood as one of us, entering into our mess and suffering hunger, pain and betrayal so that we can know the depths of God's love, is the best kind of news imaginable. And it is for everyone! All people -- regardless of skin color, culture, religion, class, or gender. And it is especially good news to those who have been ostracized and oppressed, marginalized and excluded. And this Sunday, we will continue to explore this grand reversal of God's kingdom that brings down powerful rulers and lifts the humble poor. And so we wait, we watch, and we continue to join in the story of joy, hope, peace and love wherever we see it bursting into the world.

by Jessica Ketola

​Peace on earth. O, how our hearts long for peace.

​And yet it is almost too hard to hope for. Amidst the oppression and suffering, violence and war, hate and strife, our hearts are weary. The words of O Holy Night echo our longing. “A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.” Weary. Yes, we are weary. Tired. In fact, sick and tired. As U2 laments, 

Heaven on earth, We need it now
I'm sick of all of this, Hanging around
Sick of sorrow, Sick of pain
Sick of hearing again and again
That there's gonna be Peace on earth
[U2, Peace on Earth]
 
This profound longing is what Advent is all about. It is about standing in the midst of the darkness and subversively lighting a candle. It is joining in the weary lament of the world and holding space for grief and for suffering. It is also declaring that a new dawn is coming. It is a prophetic act that lives into a reality that is not yet what it will fully be. It is a stubborn hope in the midst of overwhelming despair. The Prince of Peace has come and is bringing healing to the world.
 
But this peace is not a false peace. The prophet Jeremiah laments, “They offer superficial treatments for my people’s mortal wound. They give assurances of peace when there is no peace.” I think so many of us in the Western white church are guilty of saying, “Peace, peace; when there is no peace, ” [Jeremiah 6:14 KJV] and my heart is grieved.
 
For I am painfully aware that it is all too easy to gloss over the gaping wounds of our brothers and sisters who face oppression and violence, discrimination and injustice. It is tempting to avoid the anguish of sitting with those who are suffering and to move on quickly to the sparkling images of peace and love and brotherhood. But peacemaking is far from idyllic scenes of comfort and warmth and cheer. In fact, it is often messy, uncomfortable, and daunting.
 
And yet, Jesus declared, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” [Matthew 5:9] He called us to love our neighbor as ourselves, even to love our enemies. And he subversively broke down all the cultural and social divisions of the day that excluded others because of class, gender, religion, politics and race, declaring that we were all one in Christ.
 
Truly He taught us to love one another; His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother; And in His name all oppression shall cease. [O Holy Night]
 
But what does Peace look like on earth? Here in my neighborhood? Here in the gritty mundane of my everyday life?
 
I do not pretend to know God’s big dream for how peace on earth is to come to my neighborhood in its entirety, but I see some hopeful signs.

~ As we share a meal and conversation around the table with neighbors, strangers and friends every Wednesday night. I am always surprised by who walks in my door and the blessing of receiving the gift of community where all are welcome and everyone is valued. As we gather for a Holiday Neighborhood Party once again and extend the invitation far and wide, we are overjoyed as new connections are made and community is forged across difference. As we find ways to come together, to build friendships and to offer extravagant hospitality, we practice peace in our neighborhood.  

~ As Lynn Newcombe, the Director of Turning Point, and I sit around the table of the Shoreline Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Task Force, we are in awe of the inspiring work of passionate leaders to affect change throughout our community, from the schools to the city to local nonprofits. It is an absolute privilege to be a part of this beautiful work of peace.  

~ As Cecelia Romero-Likes, prepares to lead and facilitate a Social Justice Book Discussion Group, sponsored by King County Library and hosted at City Hall, we are absolutely thrilled to participate in peace making in our community. We will read books by people of color and cultivate practices of empathy and listening, learning from different perspectives and worldviews.  

~ As we begin to partner with local churches to serve those who are often marginalized in our community, as we offer presence and muffins and coffee on Aurora at the THS Methadone Clinic, I believe we are practicing peace as stigmas dissolve into faces and names, people with hopes and dreams just like us.  

~ As we open up our doors every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to offer tutoring and mentoring to at-risk children in the Shoreline School District, we practice peace. As we build friendships and community at Turning Point across culture, race, religion, language and socioeconomic divides, we practice peace. As we share a community meal together and listen to the stories of those who are “other”, we practice peace. And it is one of the richest gifts we receive. ​

~ As so many in our community practice presence and otherliness every day. As teachers, students, professors, artists, mental health practitioners and business professionals; as neighbors, colleagues and friends; and as social justice advocates and community organizers, we practice peace as we listen well to the stories of those around us and offer the gift of presence.

~ And this Sunday as we light the candle of peace, we will hear from Iris Reano, who will speak to us about what peace on earth means to her as an indigenous woman and a single mom. And I could not be more excited! Iris is an eloquent and gracious woman and it is our profound privilege to listen to her story and to see what peace looks like from her perspective.  

So this Advent, we hold the many tensions. We stand in the midst of the darkness, the great upheaval, the injustice and the suffering, and we light a candle and pray, Come, Lord Jesus, come. We practice peace in a hundred and one small ways and yet we long and groan and pray for peace to come in its fullness. We do not gloss over the divisions, the gross injustices and oppressions of our day. Rather we choose to awaken to the groaning in our communities and our neighborhoods and we groan too, allowing our hearts to break and to grieve and to repent. And yet we are not overcome with despair. No, we are people of great hope. For Christ has come. Christ is here. And Christ is coming again. And He is bringing wholeness to everything and everyone and healing all that divides us. And so we can be confident that peace is surely coming here on earth, around our dinner tables, conference calls and playgrounds, so let it begin with us.

​by Jessica Ketola

Floods. Fires. Smoke so thick it hurts to breathe. Ashes falling from the sky. A premonition of what we fear. Whether it is a nuclear bomb falling from North Korea, or the sky falling in on our young immigrant neighbors, “the Dreamers,” the relentless onslaught of hateful rhetoric from religious and political leaders, the KKK and white supremacist groups, or the brutally oppressive weight of a police officer crushing into Michael Bennett’s chest, it feels like the sky is falling. Like we are living in the midst of an apocalyptic movie, with orange suns, swirls of smoke, eerie light and ominous music. But before we begin to channel Chicken Little, inciting mass panic with our cries, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” let us remember that fear is never the answer.

History tells us that “fear mongering” — whether justified or not — can elicit a societal response called Chicken Little syndrome, described as "inferring catastrophic conclusions possibly resulting in paralysis". It has also been defined as "a sense of despair or passivity which blocks the audience from actions”. So before we hole up in our dens numbing ourselves with endless hours of Netflix, emergency supplies and our favorite vices, let us consider the ashes that are falling on our heads.

Yes, we are living in turbulent times. But there have been far more turbulent times. And throughout history, the leaders who have emerged to influence culture for good were those who responded not out of fear, but out of hope, faith and love. And so in the midst of the turbulence, we must not be overwhelmed and paralyzed by hate and fear.

My good friend and pastor Rose is always reminding me of Dorothy Day’s words. “People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.”
 
So yes. Though we are living in a time of great political and societal upheaval with the threat of an atomic bomb greater than it has been since the midcentury, there is simply too much work to do. Now is not the time to bury our heads in the sand. Now is the time for courage. For love. For action. For peace. Now is the time to show up for one another, to get rid of that ugly hate and bitterness in our own hearts that erodes the very thing we are here for — love, meaning and connection.
 
I loved Anne Lamott’s recent post, “Sunday, eventually, I sat there with the first hope I've felt since Charlottesville, since the speech in Arizona, since Arpaio--that there is a path, a little light to see by, and most importantly, companionship. Us! You and me, motley old us, singing and writing and picking up litter, marching for peace, taking care of each other’s kids and elderly, ladling out food for the poor, making each other laugh; together…

"Don't let them get you to hate them." Well, I did let them, let them get me whipped up into a vicious kind of superiority, visions of revenge and perp-walks, where I'm channeling Sissy Spacek at the end of Carrie. And it was good. Yes, there is beauty and meaning in resistance to evil; and yes, there is a reasonable terror that we are closer to launching nuclear weapons than any time since 1962. There is the deepest grief and shell shock in memory. But for me, there is also plain old hate.

Hate is, on the one hand, comforting; and on the other, malignant.

And right there in church, I realized I didn't want it anymore. What I wanted was the love, the organized resistance, the guacamole. I wanted to continue to help fund the resistance, and to help people keep their spirits up, to serve the poor, pick up litter, listen to the very lonely.

And I wanted to get over the hate, to get on the same old path of the Berrigans, of Gandhi and Dr. King and Molly Ivins, peace and truth telling and never giving up."
 
So as the ashes continue to fall from the sky, reminding us that the world is ablaze with hate, let us remember who we are. Beloved children of God. All of us. Old and young, red and yellow, black and white, legal and illegal, conservative and liberal, Christian and Muslim, American and North Korean, straight, gay and transgender, rich and poor. We all weep and laugh, desire and hurt, hunger and thirst. And we all are created for love.

You see, the greatest resistance is repentance. We must turn away from our own comfort and fears, our apathy and our lack of compassion. We must expose our own judgments, privilege, biases and superiority. And we must let perfect love cast out fear. Fear of the "other" and fear of what we do not understand.

​Love compels us to live boldly and wholeheartedly, to listen with empathy and vulnerability, offering our gifts generously and wholeheartedly to the world. This is why it is so important for faith communities to be living out this way of love together in an embodied way in the places we live, work, and play. For just like Jesus, we are called to be people of peace, love, reconciliation, grace, and forgiveness. For such a time as this.

So let the sky fall. For surely love brings heaven down to earth.


​by Jessica Ketola
 

Today I want to share a recent post I contributed as a guest blogger at Kindred Magazine. This is a wonderful magazine of gifted writers, and I hope you will check out their musings.

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HOSPITALITY. I FEEL it may be a lost art. In the busy chaos of life, frenetic schedules, and individual pursuits, is there truly any space for opening our homes and our lives? Too few meals are shared with beauty, feasting, and wine over meaningful conversation that lingers on well into the night. But this makes sense. After cramming like a maniac to meet the deadline at work, surviving the two-year-old’s birthday party, running a load of laundry with what appears to be all the underwear one owns, somehow remembering to pay the AT&T bill that is five days overdue, and finally picking up a roasted chicken and bagged salad before collapsing in front of the latest episode of The Bachelor—is there really anything left?

And what about community and the sense that we are a part of something far bigger than ourselves? Sometimes I fear we have lost this as well. In the midst of a culture built on fierce individualism and personal freedom that trumps the common good. In the relentless barrage of technology and information that surely is a poor substitute for true friendship and connection. In the fragmentation of life where we often travel in isolation cages with wheels from garage to work and then back to garage again.

I find myself longing for the good old days. A place in time where everybody knows your name, where the pace of life slows, where conversations over meals are savored, and where there is dancing, storytelling, feasting, and laughter. Where communities gather regularly to share in worship, commerce, socials, barn raisings, and harvesting. Of course, I’ve never lived in such a time. My limited knowledge comes merely from the books I devoured as a freckle-faced, red-haired kid. Along with the delectable indulgence of watching my weekly allowance of television, which was either the more scandalous The Waltons or the more genteel Little House on the Prairie. My own history only goes as far back as the ’70s, but I guess I can thank my Jesus-crazed hippie parents and those formative years in the commune for my freakishly abnormal value for community. In fact, I don’t know how to do life any other way.

Going against the status quo might come from the hippie parents as well. For it bothers me that life today is organized around the economics of capitalism. At the expense of our own well-being, our children, our communities, not to mention those whose backs our “happiness” has been built upon. Don’t get me started. Just. Don’t get me started. From our food sources to our housing, healthcare, prisons, and education systems. It’s not that we are without the intellect, resources, or creativity to fix them. It is just that it simply costs too much.

But I fear my rant is dismal and bordering on the catastrophic when I consider myself to be an optimist. But this I do believe with all my heart. With all my hippie-loving-communal heart. In these uncertain times when we can’t help but feel disillusioned and demoralized with the constant onslaught of politics, injustice, war, and violence, there is one thing we can do.

One amazing, defiant, subversive thing.

Practice hospitality.

If you are looking to “stick it to the man” (and most likely you are in our current climate), get to know your neighbors. Yes, your actual neighbors. And no, I am not kidding. Even the neighbor in the sketchy house with the overgrown yard. Go over and introduce yourself. You might find out a thing or two, not the least of which that your elderly neighbor’s been ill and shut in. Get to know your neighbors—the master gardener next door, the plumber who insists on parking his truck in front of your house, and the single mom across the street. This simple act has the power to transform your community.

If you are hoping to make a difference in the midst of rampant racism, bigotry, and wall-building, welcome others different from you into your home. Share a meal and hear their stories. You just might find out that these new friends are the most courageous and resilient people you know. Invite the stranger. Welcome the outsider. It’s the most subversive act you can do.
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If you are longing for meaning and connection, invite others to your table. Eat together. Share wine or a book or a cup of coffee. Feast together. Share a meal, share your presence, and share your life. Yes, this will require slowing down, saying no to some good things, letting go of perfection, and being vulnerable. But it’s worth it. Being present to others invites the best of what it means to be human. So go on and be subversive. Invite. Feast. Tell stories. Listen. Connect. Learn. Laugh. Empower. Transform.
Practice hospitality.

by Jessica Ketola