God’s love

Trans-formation

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My column for The Antelope County News 4.14.2021

I wrote this column in response to the recent column by a ministerial colleague from the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church in town. In his column he warned our county of the evil of “transgenderism.” I gave him a call and let him know I was submitting a counter-point. He was gracious. Here’s my column:

It was a Holy Spirit moving; God is in this place, make me an instrument of your peace, bona fide miracle. God worked all things together for good and, I was one of the ones who needed some work before God could get it done.

Years ago, my administrative assistant and I chatted about how our minds have changed over time about different issues. Homosexuality was one. I’d come to see that God’s love is so much wider and deeper than mine. Before I knew Gay Christians, I didn’t think one could be both. Over time I learned how wrong I was. I said, “One thing I still can’t wrap my head around is transgender. I just don’t get it.”

“I have a terrific autobiography by a trans man you can read. It’ll give you some perspective.” She said.

Reading the book opened my eyes. It was a gut-wrenching, brave story of a man, born with a woman’s anatomy, who knew, just as surely as I know I’m left-handed, that he was a man. Reading one book didn’t clear up all my questions about transgender, but it was a start.

Five weeks later, the book was still on the backseat of my car as I went into a local therapist’s office. The therapist made the appointment with me, saying one of my parishioners was her patient and they would like to talk with me together. “Can you tell me what this is about?” I asked. “Let’s talk about it then.” She said.

“Lori has something she wants you to know about her, but she’s concerned once you do, you won’t let her stay in your church. She loves God and your church. She hopes she can stay. But she needs you to know who she is.”  

I looked at Lori. Her eyes were downcast, her shoulders rolled. She was sad-looking, vulnerable. My mind raced. Is she a sex offender? Has she murdered someone? Has she been in jail for some horrendous crime?

“Lori has been told not to come back to several other churches and was evicted from senior housing. It is difficult for her to tell you. That’s why she wanted us to meet together–so I can help her in the aftermath of our conversation today if need be.”

I looked at Lori again. “Whatever it is, you can tell me,” I said.

“I’m transgender, well, I’m intersex,” Lori said. “I was born with indeterminate genitalia. My parents wanted a boy, so the doctor and my parents decided I was a boy. That’s how they raised me but, that’s not who I am. I am a woman. May I please keep coming to church?”

Do you see what God did? Do you remember that book on the backseat of my car? I had chills up and down my spine. Surely, surely, God was in that place! God prepared me for this moment. (Six weeks earlier, I would have hesitated and stammered and hemmed and hawed). Without hesitation, I said, “Oh, Lori! You are a precious child of God. You are loved. Of course, you are still welcome in the church.”

What business of mine was the “equipment” under Lori’s skirts? My business was helping Lori know how broad and how deep God’s love is for all of us.

Nothing grieves me more deeply than when it is Christ’s church that wounds God’s beautifully unique, mysteriously made, created in love, children. If you are gay, straight, bi, intersex, trans, non-binary, green, purple, or blue, make no mistake, any church that says you don’t belong is wrong. God loves you.

Another Way to Look at It

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Willie Green was driving as we headed toward the truck-stop for dinner after church. It was my first Sunday back at my Student Pastorate in rural Kentucky after being away for my wedding and honeymoon in 1983. Seeing a political poster stapled to a telephone pole, I asked Willie,

“who won the election for Governor while I was away?”

In her tobacco-thickened bluegrass drawl she grumbled, “Oh, that Martha Layne Collins, did.”

“You don’t sound happy about it.” I replied.

“I just don’t think it’s right, her being a woman and all.”

It was quiet in the car for a little while. Then Willie said,

“But then, I didn’t think it was right having you be our pastor, either.”

A little nervous, I asked, “So how’s that working out?” She laughed and said,

“It’s working out great! I guess maybe that Martha Layne won’t be too bad a Governor after all.” 

Five years or so later, I was sitting at the kitchen table back home in Omaha visiting my parents. My Dad, who had always been my champion, encouraging me every step along the way in my education and preparation for ministry was reading the World Herald and said something about “that’s the problem with the economy these days, all these women going to work.”

“Um. Dad,” I ventured. “I thought you are really proud of me and the work I do.”

Dad put down the paper. I could see the cogs turning in his brain.

“Maybe the problem,” I said, “isn’t that women are working, maybe the problem is that the economy isn’t.”

“Well, that is another way to look at it.” Said Dad.

Last week I was at the county jail where I meet with some of the women for Bible study and discussion a couple times each week. “Any results yet on the election?” someone asked. It was Friday afternoon. I told them it was still not called for either candidate, but it looked like Biden and Harris were pulling ahead. The reaction among the women was mixed. What surprised me was two of the women, one young, one older, both said they didn’t want Biden and Harris because Harris is a woman, and “women shouldn’t be doing jobs like that.” I checked my watch, hoping it would tell me what year it is.  When it didn’t, I told the women the story of me and Willie Green and the election of Martha Layne Collins in Kentucky thirty-five years ago.

It turns out the women had discussed it with a man who did some other ministry in the jail, and decided they agreed with him that women aren’t fit for leadership, that women need to know their place and stay in it. Why? Maybe because they, like so many of the women I meet at the jail, have known nothing but abuse from men for most of their lives. Instead of having the gift of parents, teachers, pastors and professors, male and female alike, who cheered them on and encouraged them to aim higher, these women have been put down and pushed around and told they don’t count. But they do. I told them they do. I told them being a woman in no way makes them less than a man, and, in my opinion, Senator Harris being a woman in no way disqualifies her from office.

Women, like men, can and should do all that God has given them the gifts to do. God created all of us in God’s image, and God said, “that’s good.”

The day after I was at the jail, on Saturday, the election was called for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I wasn’t particularly a Harris fan through the primaries, but when she spoke on Saturday as the Vice-President elect of our nation I broke down and sobbed great big, racking unexpected sobs. I think it’s right. I think it’s just right, her being a woman and all. And I suspect on Saturday afternoon God said something like, “it’s about time!” before saying, “now that’s really, really good.”

Love, a Country Church and Covid-19

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My Column for The Elgin Review March 25, 2020.

We love our little country church. We love its bell tower and bell—Its rope recently repaired by Jon Grothe so Norman could ring it first to call us to worship on his confirmation day last spring. We love the timelessness of the church’s clean prairie design. We love how it sits proud, nestled in a grove of trees atop the little rise across from our graveyard, next to our playground, neighbor to Kinney cattle and Currie family fields. We love the church’s interior, the warmth of the well-worn walnut pews, the banners made by the Reddings hanging neatly, demarking the seasons of the church year, the burgundy curtains over the age rippled windows. We love the pretty old piano that Joann Anderson wakens from its weekday slumbers into full-voiced praise on Sunday mornings.  We love the cross that lights up above our chancel and the brass vases on the altar lovingly filled with flowers by Sharon Wilkinson. We love the plaque at the back of the sanctuary bearing the names of our congregation’s charter members, names that include Clarks and Kinneys and Curries, descendants of whom are still among our members today. We love our little country church.

But what we love more than all those truly lovely things, is each other. Sunday morning in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic we loved each other so much we kept away from each other and didn’t find our way to our little church on the top of the rise ½ mile south of HWY 70. Instead, we traveled a new way to find each other via Zoom, the online meeting application. Gwen Kinney connected with Zoom by landline while on speaker phone with her mother-in-law, Phyllis at The Willows in Neligh. Barb Henery and Sharon Wilkinson mastered new tricks of technology and video-conferenced in from the comfort of their homes in Elgin. Others called in on cell phones and landlines while Mike and I attended from the comfort of the parsonage in Neligh.

Our worship service wasn’t what we are used to. We didn’t sing hymns because they lag badly on Zoom. When we prayed the Lord’s prayer it wasn’t exactly in unison—our voices were like echoes and descants of each other’s. I shared scripture and some thoughts about the story and we passed Christ’s peace to each other, not by shaking hands, but by listening as each took a turn “checking in,” sharing how we are doing in the midst of social distancing and news about the pandemic. We prayed for each other and for our neighbors and when I’d given the benediction at the end of the service, I had tears in my eyes as I clicked the button on my computer to end our Zoom session for the day. God was truly with us.

Park Church isn’t our building, as lovely as it is. Park Church is people who love God, each other, and you, our neighbors. If you find yourself lonely, longing for community and connection during this challenging season, you are welcome here. For now, our services will be on Zoom. E-mail me at beckyzmcneil@gmail.com  or call me at 402.540.5615 and I’ll give you the link and instructions for meeting with us. If you’re having difficulty during this time, give me a call or send a text. I’ll try to help. God is with us. God is always with us.

A Very Present Help

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My column for The Elgin Review, March 17, 202

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. (Psalm 46:1-3,7 NRSV)

What a strange and disquieting thing it is to live on the front side of a silent, invisible disaster. Last spring, when the floods came to northeast Nebraska, the waters roared and foamed, the ice creaked and cracked in our rivers and our eyes could see the devastation unfolding around us. There was evidence of the danger at hand.

This spring Covid 19 threatens to roar over us like a world-wide flood, not of waters, but of disease and we cannot yet see it. Trucks whir past our houses down the highway. Children laugh and goof around on the sidewalks. Calves frolic in the fields. Everything feels so normal, and yet not. I don’t know about you, but the pit of my stomach feels funny.

Here in Antelope county, life around us goes on almost like normal for now. For my kids, living in other places, the spread of the virus and its threat is more real.

My son in New York City has been working from home since last week. He texted us his current fear is catching cabin fever. Usually he works on the 39th floor of one of the World Trade Center buildings. Now, his “office” is his large computer monitor in his very small bedroom in his small apartment shared with two roommates. He may be working from there for the rest of the spring.

My daughter-in-law just started working from home in Minneapolis instead of in the big corporate office where she usually writes software.

My son in Pittsburgh, PA drives Lyft for a living. He wonders how long he will be able to or want to continue to drive in close quarters with strangers who may be carrying the disease. He doesn’t want to get sick, but even more urgently he doesn’t want to become a vector for the spread of Covid-19. What if he gets it from one of his passengers, and before he knows he’s sick, spreads it around the city by driving people where they need to go? But, what will he do without income?

Last spring, when Nebraska flooded, we knew what to do. We looked out for our neighbors. We did what it took to rescue strangers. People worked hard to help each other out of harm’s way, and when the devastation was done, people helped with the clean-up, comforted those who grieved and helped each other get back on their feet.

With faith in God, and trust in our neighbors, we weathered the 2020 floods.

I’m confident we’ll do the same with Covid-19. Wash your hands. Keep your distance. Cancel your gatherings and trips and celebrations. Prepare but don’t hoard. Check in on your older neighbors. Hunker down at home. It won’t be forever, but forever God is with us.

If you’re feeling unsettled by this pandemic, if social isolation leaves you feeling sad, know that your neighbors at Park Congregational United Church of Christ stand ready to care for you. You can reach out to me at beckyzmcneil@gmail.com.

Snow Angels and other prayers

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They shuffle in, the first two with hair disheveled and bad dye-jobs, locks matted from too much time in their bunks. Faded florescent pink sweats hang baggy on their tattooed frames. Younger than my boys, I guess. Twenty-two, twenty-three perhaps. Another, older, rounder, with a short-auburn bob finds her place at the end of the table, quietly pulling out her chair. The fourth carries a thick red-leather, red-letter Bible in her willowy hands and wears her hair piled on top of her head. Her granny-glasses have lenses so thick her eyes precede her into the room, reminding me of a grasshopper–a very pregnant pink grasshopper. Her stomach swells taut against her sweatshirt, revealing her inside-out belly button below. She talks without stopping to breathe. At the end of this short parade comes a slim, tall woman with curly dark hair cropped like Peter Pan’s, slouching. There’s an energy of anger pulsing just beneath the surface of her skin. A thin blue vein beneath her eye twitches in time to her heart beat. Intelligent eyes silently claim, “I don’t belong here” as she curls, like a fetus onto the rolling chair.

The women of the county jail are a motley crew.

I carry with me, on my coat and in my hair, the crisp, fresh smell of snow.

“We have snow!” I say, with the delight of the first blanketing of a season, when the crisp, cold freshness is still novel and exciting, and driving on ice and through snirt (snow mixed with dirt) hasn’t yet grown wearisome and disgusting. “It’s so pretty out there.”

Without windows, the women were unaware of the hushed beauty pillowing the landscape on the other side of the cinder blocks surrounding them.

“I love snow!”

“I wish I could see it!”

“The men may get to go outside to shovel it.”

“I’d love to see it falling from the sky.”

“I’d make a snow angel if I could.”

Five of the six of us laugh.

It is my first visit to the jail to share Bible study with the women. I didn’t know they couldn’t see the snow.

Around an oval conference table in a nondescript interior room, they tell me their stories. Meth and Crack and a parole violation. Dealing in several counties, and jail time awaiting in each one.

Grasshopper starts talking. Five babies taken away, but this one, this one, she is determined, this one, her sixth, (is she even twenty-five?) this one will be born drug-free. She’s going to give this baby the life he deserves. She knows God is with her always has been always will be she just needs to trust in Jesus and get back to church and doing what the Gospels teach and not listen to the people who are always trying to lead her astray and she may have had the other kiddos taken from her because of drugs but not this one because this time she’s getting into the Word and following the Way and she’s not messing up again no way and if the baby daddy doesn’t want to support her and wants her to get messed up again she’ll just leave this time that’s all there is to it because she knows she’s God’s precious child and so is this baby and this time it’s all going to be alright so she’s actually happy to be in jail because it means less time to be tempted to backslide and turn her back on God which she isn’t going to do this time. No way.

Bonnie weeps. When she finds her voice she says she misses her fourteen-year-old boy. She feels so guilty. She really messed up and he’s the one who’s paying the price. “A boy needs his mother. Mine really loves me.” She says. “I really messed up this time” and again she weeps.

Five of the six of us weep.

Stoney silence from Peter Pan.

We feast on stories shared from our lives and from God’s good book. Grasshopper sings, “Jesus Loves me.”

Five of the six of us sing.

Our hour draws to a close. Teeth are starting to chatter and blue goose bumps have risen on the bare thighs of the bleached blonde girl wearing prison issue pink shorts instead of sweats.

I ask how we can pray for each other. “For my boy.” “For this baby” “For my boyfriend” “For me and my court date on Wednesday.”  I ask them to pray for me and my churches and for my six kids.

Peter Pan unfolds her long limbs and uncurls her lips and for the first time speaks very quietly saying, “Pray for my daughters, they’re 16 and 17 and live in Detroit where I am a social worker with a Master’s degree. Oxycontin got me here and I want out.”

Six of the six of us pray.

I step into the blinding brightness of sunlight bouncing off freshly fallen snow.

A holy dance of longing and liberty moving me.

What if God Simply Wants to Hold You?

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My Column for The Elgin Review 12.11.19

“What if God simply wants to hold you and love you?” Anne, my spiritual director asked me. Sitting in her cozy corner room looking out the windows at quiet sports fields blanketed in snow below, I held that thought.

I have a nativity scene made of cast resin with only three figures, Mary, Joseph and the baby. Mary lies on her side, her arm crooked in the way of mothers after giving birth, ready to cradle her baby at her breast. Joseph sits, his knees drawn up and his hands open, in nervous readiness to hold his newborn son. The baby is swaddled and sleeping. In this nativity there is no manger, only loving arms as cradles and new parents’ eyes gazing down in wonder on their sleeping son. Sometimes Joseph holds the baby, sometimes sweet Jesus sleeps in his weary mother’s arms under his father’s watchful gaze.

“What if God simply wants to hold you and love you?” I imagined God holding me as tenderly as my nativity Mary and Joseph hold their newborn son. Seeing me, not with critique, but with wonder, looking on me with tenderness and awe. Holding me, safe and protected. Soothing me with sweet lullaby sounds.

I was avoiding time in prayer. I was overwhelmed and soul-weary. I had been wounded and I was ignoring God. I told Anne I wasn’t on the outs with God, I was merely keeping my distance. She laughed and asked why. Slow to answer, eventually I said, “Because, I’m afraid. If I listen for God’s voice, God is going to ask me to do something hard, or something I don’t want to do.” She looked quizzically at me. “Like going to Zaire, or leaving the congregation I loved to do not-for-profit work. God has asked some fairly big things of me in the past, and I’m not ready for something like that right now.”

“What if God simply wants to hold you and love you?”

Long ago the prophet, Isaiah wrote,

But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel,
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you…
…For I am the Lord your God…
…Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you…
…Do not fear, for I am with you.  (Isaiah 43:1-5 selected New Revised Standard Version).

My conversation a year ago with Anne stays with me still. At the core of the story of Jesus is the profound truth that we are loved. We are loved by the source of all creation. We are created in love to be loved, to share love, to live in love.

You, my dear reader, I ask you what Anne asked me, what if God simply wants to hold you and love you?

Will you give God opportunity in this holy season to gaze upon you with love?

You are always welcome to worship God with us at Park Congregational United Church of Christ. We’re ten miles west of Elgin on Highway 70 and ½ a mile south. This coming Sunday we are having a no-rehearsal Christmas pageant during our service at 9:15.

I love to hear from you. My email is beckyzmcneil@gmail.com