The Talk I Didn’t Give at Triennial XIII

I have two recurring “speaking nightmares.” The first is that I am walking up to a podium to make a keynote presentation and I suddenly realize that I completely forgot to prepare a talk. Though this has never actually happened to me, I have this dream regularly. The other nightmare is that I am in the middle of giving a talk and discover that the remaining pages of notes are missing and I don’t have a clue what I’m supposed to say next. This had never happened to me either—until last Friday morning!

After being deeply moved by Brenda Salter McNeil’s opening address at “Reflecting God’s Glory,” a conference sponsored by the Women’s Ministries of the Evangelical Covenant Church, I realized that the stakes were high at this conference. God’s spirit was clearly at work in the women who had come from all over the world to be challenged and inspired. I got up early Friday morning to think and pray before my speaking session, and sensed that the talk I had prepared was not the one the women needed. I felt peaceful with my last-minute decision to piece together a different talk. All was well until I got midway through my talk, realized I was a bit behind schedule, tried to skip a few pages and move to last section of the talk—and discovered that the concluding pages weren’t there! Because it was a last-minute hodge-podge of a talk, I really NEEDED those notes. I survived, but it definitely wasn’t my finest speaking moment. I offer my apologies to the women who filled that auditorium. (Okay, I had to get that off my chest.)

Despite the fact that one of my speaking nightmares became reality this week, I’m thankful to have played a small role in this conference. I loved the time I spent with Brenda Salter McNeil, worshiping with an all-girl band (including bass and percussion!) was exhilarating, the international parade of flags was extremely moving, and the Hall of Justice, which highlighted seven injustices faced by women, should be included in every women’s event. Thanks for challenging all of us to join the global sisterhood!

I promised the women who graciously sat through my less-than-steller talk that I would post the script of “the talk I didn’t give” on my web site. Just click on this link to my Articles page, look under "Rediscovering Self" and click on From Here to There. A PDF of the talk will download to your computer. I hope it’s helpful. We need to keep cheering each other on!

Dear Covenant Conference Women

I told you that today I would blog about the conference and post my “script” for the talk I didn’t give. However, with all the storms in the Midwest, my flight home got delayed and delayed and delayed and finally cancelled. Ultimately, I rented a car with three lovely strangers and arrived home 24 hours later than I had intended. What an adventure! All this to say that I didn’t get my blog posted today, but I will definitely have it here for you tomorrow! So please check back on Monday evening to find the blog and the talk I didn’t give. Grandson Henry is spending today with me and we’re going to “play, play, play” (at Henry’s request).

I had a great time with you on Friday. I’m sure it continued to be a fabulous conference. More tomorrow…

Like Mother, Like Son

“Come on, Nana, let’s go out deeper!”

Okay, Henry, wait for me.

“Hey, Nana, am I swimming?”

Yes, Henry, you’re swimming. You’re doing great!

“Nana, here comes a really, really big wave. You better get ready! Oh,
muthhhh-eeeer!”

Phew, we made it!

“Yeah we did, Nana, but we really got clobbered!”

It took me awhile to realize that when Henry said “sobbered” he meant “clobbered.” And I still don’t know why he screamed “mother” in the face of every monster wave. I’m wondering if he once heard somebody (Papa? Dada?) describe a massive roller as “the mother of all waves.” Wherever he heard it, it appears to have become embedded permanently in his lexicon of favorite words.

The first chapter in my daughter Shauna’s just-released book, Bittersweet, is called “Learning to Swim.” (you can find a pdf of this chapter under Articles in the "Rediscovering God" section of my web site if you would like a little taste of Bittersweet!) Thirty years ago she learned to swim on the same stretch of Lake Michigan shore where her son Henry and I have been playing this week: building sand castles, making sand angels, and inadvertently filling our swimsuits with sand each time we tumbled along the waterline in the wake of a towering wave. I have also been sweeping buckets of sand out of the beachside cottage we’re staying in, but strangely, Henry has let me do that alone.

Shauna’s chapter is a profound treatise on the bittersweet process of dealing with change and understanding “the story of who God is what he is doing in this world.” Facing waves is the metaphor that rolls through the chapter. Shauna writes that “if you try to stand and face the wave, it will smash you to bits, but if you trust the water and let it carry you, there’s nothing sweeter.”

Henry loves Shauna’s book. One day this week he sat at the grass-topped table in the cottage, intently drawing lines and circles on the title page of Bittersweet. “This is my mama’s book,” he announced, when I asked what he was doing. I’m quite sure he was autographing it, as he’s seen his mama do many times.

So, anyway, while were descending (very slowly) the 75 stairs (count them, 75!) to the beach to play in the waves, I quoted Shauna’s line about “letting the water carry you.” Henry nodded in agreement, but as soon as we were neck deep in the water (his neck) he would have none of that “let it carry you” business. Clearly, he wanted to be smashed to bits. He wanted to be tumbled end over end, left on the shore “exhausted and battered, out of breath and shaken up,” as his mother so cleverly wrote.

Each time I sputtered and struggled to regain my footing, I tried to remember Shauna’s profound and beautiful message in “Learning to Swim.” But I need to be honest. Here’s what I was really thinking:

How blessed I am. Thirty years ago I got to tumble playfully through the waves with my daughter Shauna, and now I get to do it with my grandson Henry. I don’t think life gets better than this!

Someday, Henry will learn what his mother has learned: that there are times when the waves really are more than you can face, and you need to turn around, bow your head, and let the water carry you. I’m confident that when it comes his turn to learn that, he’ll be surrounded by family, friends and a church community that affirm the bittersweet journey of faith.

But in the meantime, I’m grateful for these summer days when the waves we’re facing are nothing more than miniature mountains of shimmering blue, and the sand we carry up the stairs on our feet and in our hair and spilling out of our swimsuits is fine and white…and pretty easy to sweep up.

Hey Henry, look at that one! Oh my gosh! Here is comes! Muthhhh-eeeer!

I am a Proud Mama

This morning I sat on a white bench in the early morning coolness and read the first chapter and the epilogue of an advance copy of my daughter’s latest book. I’d read the manuscript before, all except the epilogue, so I didn’t need the full meal, just the appetizer and dessert. But honestly, an appetizer so surprisingly filling and a dessert so remarkably rich are nearly as satisfying as a seven-course meal. If you know Shauna’s writing at all, you understand why I slide into a mealtime metaphor in talking about this book, her second gift to the reading world.

The book is vintage Shauna—tender, profound, laugh-out-loud funny, stunningly creative. I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t love this book. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly wrote about it:

Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way by 
Shauna Niequist
Zondervan, $16.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-310-32816-2
 


Niequist (Cold Tangerines) returns with an often humorous and always contemplative series of personal essays on bittersweet experiences, illustrating through her own life that “rejoicing is no less rich even when it contains a splinter of sadness.” Spiritually, the book bravely sets out to decipher the paradoxically co-dependent nature of happiness and grief. But Niequist’s title should not be seen as simply a convenient theological metaphor; it is also a literary device. Impressively, many of Niequist’s perfectly concocted chapters weave in culinary themes, evoking the sensory, physical experience of the bittersweet along with the spiritual sense of it. When writing of deep friendship and the loss that sometimes accompanies it, her narrative often revolves around a dinner table, a cooking club, or a farmer’s market. Niequist’s ability to describe the sensation of eating a peppery arugula salad punctuated with sweet blueberries is just as evocative as her ability to express the intricacies of love, loss, hope, and doubt. Readers of all faiths will find this book courageous, sincere, poetic, and profound. There’s nothing bitter in this sweet treat of a spiritual memoir. (July)

Okay? Now do you believe me?

What Publisher’s Weekly can’t possibly know, of course, is the thirty-three year back-story that I know about the little girl who Bill and I described with the seemingly opposing images of “a party waiting to happen” and “the ultimate bookworm.” From the time she was three Shauna was clearly both: a wild and funny extrovert on the search for a good time (preferably with something good to eat and drink thrown in) and an earnest devotee of the printed word in search of a good book (she had read the entire Little House on the Prairie series numerous time before she hit kindergarten).

Later, we accused her of “never having an unexpressed thought.” When Shauna now describes her son Henry’s nonstop verbal barrage, we try to hold back the “oh, you deserve this!” response that high-energy, strong-willed Henry so often prompts from us. Once when Shauna was home from college and she and I were driving from Chicago to our family cottage in Michigan, she went off on a riff about “the nonstop stories that shoot through my head.” I was speechless, awed by the sheer volume of words and ideas that gushed out of her brain and her mouth. When she finally had to stop to catch her breath, I managed to whisper, “I think you should be a writer. You need to do something constructive with all this verbal stuff.”

Something constructive she has definitely done—with two delicious books, hundreds of savory blogs and a steady stream of tasty tweets. Really, I’m not just speaking as a proud mama when I say that Shauna is a uniquely gifted writer who spins her life experiences into stories that can help each of us, her readers, more deeply experience and fully appreciate our own lives. Now that I’ve finished this blog, I’m going to treat myself to another few chapters of Bittersweet.

Bittersweet will ship on July 23 if you pre-order now.



Mother of Exiles

Bill and I were vacationing in Michigan when we received the call from the White House asking if Bill would introduce President Obama’s Immigration Reform speech on Thursday morning at American University. “Do you think I should do this?” Bill asked me. “Of course, this may be the speech we’ve been praying for!”

Early on Thursday morning we enjoyed an impromptu meeting with a gathering of evangelical leaders who had been working and meeting behind-the-scenes to encourage the President to move forward with immigration reform. Some were Republicans, some Democrats, but all united by faith and by what they believe to be the biblical mandate to “welcome the stranger” in our midst. None of them advocate amnesty for people who have broken the laws of this land by being here illegally; but all are committed to providing hard-working, responsible undocumented immigrants a tough but fair path toward legal residency.

For years many Spanish-speaking people attended Willow’s church services, some fluent enough in English to follow the service adequately, others listening through translation headsets. But it became increasingly clear that many of these brothers and sisters, especially recent immigrants, would benefit from being able to worship in their first language—their heart language. So about 6 years ago we started a Spanish-speaking service called Casa de Luz.

I don’t speak Spanish but I know that means House of Light. For us, it has been a moving experience to watch Casa de Luz become a place where more and more Spanish-speaking people in our community are finding the Light of Christ and finding a House where they feel at home. I have often sat through Casa de Luz services, wearing the headsets so I can listen to English translation, and I have been gripped and inspired by the faith of these brothers and sisters that God has brought into our church community.

At Willow we also have a Care Center that offers a food pantry, ESL classes and legal services to Spanish-speaking people in our community. As a result of Casa de Luz and the Care Center, we’ve enjoyed an increasing connection with the Spanish-speaking community in the Chicago area.

Last December we offered one our annual Christmas programs entirely in Spanish, and on Tuesday evening, December 22, five thousand Spanish-speaking people sat in our auditorium singing and worshipping and celebrating the birth of Christ. Many of us who had been at Willow since its beginning thirty-four years ago, stood in the back and wept, awed by the realization that God had entrusted us to embrace this precious community of people that is too often relegated to the sidelines of American life. We were overwhelmed by God’s grace in allowing their beautiful language, their rich culture, their strong family ties, and their warmth and expressiveness to change us, to soften us, to enrich us as a church.

But here’s what else made us weep that evening: we realized that this community that has become part of our community is a vulnerable community. We have discovered that many of these dear people God has brought our way are undocumented. Most of them came here out of desperation, escaping poverty or hoping to be reunited with family members, but with no legal way to enter the country they made the desperate choice to enter illegally. Others came legally, but were unable to extend their visas so they eventually lost their legal status.

Now these people live in the shadows of American society. They work hard at low-paying jobs, they pay taxes, they send money home to poor relatives in their country of origin, and they long to become contributing members of their new American community. But they find it nearly impossible to make ends meet and they live in fear that they will be discovered as undocumented immigrants and deported.

God used these precious people to draw our congregation into the immigration debate. A year ago Bill and I read Matthew Soerens and Jenny Hwang’s excellent book, Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion & Truth in the Immigration Debate. Since then Matt and Jenny have helped lead our church elders and staff through an educational process about immigration reform from a biblical perspective, and later this month Matt will speak to our congregation about what it means for us to “welcome the stranger” that God has brought our way.

This is a difficult debate—we all know this—but for us it is no longer just about laws or policies or ideologies. It’s about the very real struggles of people we know and love, people desperately wanting to honor God and provide as best they can for their families. Knowing their stories doesn’t erase the complexity of this issue, but it certainly does reframe it.

Sometimes when I attend Casa de Luz, I don’t wear the headsets with the English translation. I sit in the back row and I listen to words I don’t understand, but I sense the presence of God’s spirit and the faith of God’s people. And I become convinced again, beyond a shadow of doubt, that my family and my church come closer to living out God’s kingdom on earth—closer to bringing heaven to earth—when we wrap our hearts and our minds and our lives around a rich diversity of language and culture and race and experience.

You see, our Casa de Luz congregation needs us—the established English-speaking majority at Willow—but we also need them, because they remind us week after week after week that the family into which God invites us all is truly a global family. And we’re missing something beautiful if we miss out on that.

Our country has faced many divisive issues in recent years; we don’t need another one. My prayer is that the Christian community will lead the way in calling for a serious bi-partisan effort to bring about comprehensive immigration reform. Since the President’s speech on Thursday I have been reflecting on that profound phrase: e pluribus unum—“out of the many, one”—and on the beautiful words of the sonnet inscribed on the bronze plaque on the Statue of Liberty. Described in the sonnet as the “Mother of Exiles” who offers “worldwide welcome,” the magnificent woman lifts her lamp to “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” In the months to come may we live up to that vision of America.

Bill's Introductory Comments for President Obama’s Speech on Immigration Reform

A recurring triad in the Christian scriptures is the mandate from God to show appropriate concern for widows, orphans and aliens. In recent years the challenge of caring for the "stranger within our gates" has escalated to new levels of confusion and frustration because our current immigration laws leave millions of people with no practical way to come out of the darkness.
 
Our current immigration laws also leave our border states and cities in a condition of chaos and uncertainty. 

Many families in our country live with the overwhelming weight of fear every single day. They wonder if they will be deported and separated from their families, perhaps forever. I believe they must be shown a way to enter the mainstream of American life so that they can become fully contributing members of our society.


Our church started a Spanish-speaking ministry several years ago. It has flourished and became one of the defining ministries at Willow Creek. The joy that our Latin American congregants have infused into our congregation is palpable. However, when we learned that many were undocumented, we began to ask why. Again and again we heard stories about the economic hopelessness that first drew them to this great country and we heard about their current daily dilemma living in an almost surreal state of limbo.

But today is a day of hope. Today an earnest bi-partisan conversation begins that those of us in the Faith Community have been praying about for many years. We urge the members of Congress to consider all parties who are affected by this escalating issue. We ask you to act with a spirit of urgency and unity to chart a tough but fair path for the millions of people who entered our great nation with the same kind of dream my grandparents did a century ago.

Mr. President we thank you for your courageous leadership in this challenging initiative. We want you to know we hold you in our prayers. 
 
And now it is my privilege to introduce to you the 44th President of the United States…Barack Obama. 


--Bill Hybels