I Give You My Heart...

 "Lord I give you my heart, I give you my soul. 

I live for you alone.

Every breath that I take every moment I'm awake,

Lord, have your way in me."

Reuben Morgan, "I Give You My Heart"

My first day of retreat, the first line of this song ran through my head. Now, mind you, I hadn't sung this song or even heard it for at least ten years! In fact, I was trying to fill in the gaps of it and kept getting the tune mixed up with a pop song. But, the first line was worth investigating because it said exactly how I felt that first day at Marymount. Thanks to Spotify, I found it and prayed with it all week! It was such a gift to be able to put my feelings into a song--well, I didn't, but Reuben Morgan did and I thank him from the bottom of my heart! I invite you to click the link below and listen to this splendid version by Chris Bethel of "I Give You My Heart." Take a minute or two to pray with this song and just give your heart away...to the One who holds and cherishes it. Love, heidi

I Give You My Heart

The power of waiting...

"Never underestimate the power of simply waiting for grace."

Sr. Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB, "Abide" (as quoted in Give Us This Day)

This is so true and doesn't it feel like what we are living through right now? Simply waiting...and waiting. For things to get better, for the virus to slow down, for our jobs to start, for things to return to something closer to normal. It's so hard to know what to do during this waiting time, too. I'm more of a do-er than a wait-er. All this waiting around can be very uncomfortable for me! But, as Sr. Macrina says, there is power in the waiting. The waiting hones us and prepares us, like the crystallis gives the future butterfly the time to get strong and be able to survive outside. This time is beneficial for us, even as it may feel it isn't. When I think of all that has gone on since March, it feels like three years instead of a few months. But we don't know the extent of the good that is happening deep within. There is deep good happening and we need to simply trust God that it is true. Our second reading today was St. Paul to the Romans, "...nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God." (Romans 8:39) Good to know! Even this difficult time is not capable of separating us from the love of God. God loves us all the more--that the one thing we needn't fret about.

Friends, I feel I want to apologize to you for being fairly absent this summer. It's not that I'm not doing the readings, or praying, or any-of-it. It has been hard to try to always be a positive voice through all of this and I believe positive voices are needed. I can get discouraged and frustrated with all that is going on and passing that along seems rather unhelpful. I'm headed up to Marymount tomorrow for five days of deep peace and contemplation. You will all be in my prayers and I hope to return with good stuff to share in future posts. For those you don't know, I have been writing for Treasure Valley Prays, a rich offering by the ELCA community here in the Treasure Valley...the link to the site is here:

Treasure Valley Prays

My love and prayers, heidi

Be like the kids...

"At that time Jesus exclaimed: 'I give praise to you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed the to the childlike.'"
Matthew 11:25

I am so grateful to have a pack of kids who live in my apartment complex. I sit in the treehouse in the evenings and hear them down in the grassy courtyard below. It reminds me of when I was a kid, playing outside after dinner, playing so hard that I slept in a stupor, never requiring a sleep aid! One day one of the kids called out to me, she said she recognized me from Hawthorne, the elementary school where I work. It was surprising because Hawthorne is in a completely different neighborhood; our complex is served by a different school, but no matter. She told the rest of the pack, "Ms. G goes to MY school!" Since I'd been discovered I started reading little stories to the pack in the courtyard. I still have a box of books from reading online with kids during those last months of school, so I just grab a story and gather the pack. These kids are so fresh and dear. They are always open to reading with me. Their wide eyes and open hearts just touch me. This is probably what Jesus saw in kids when he told his followers to be more like them. Be open and fresh. Be willing to change plans if someone wants to read you a story. Be free to play until you collapse in a heap at the end of the day. Be inquisitive and curious. I miss the kids at school so much, but I'm so grateful to have a pack right here to remind me how I need to live my life. Love, heidi

Justice like flowing waters...

"Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an overflowing stream."
Amos 5:24

God is telling the people, through the prophet Amos, that the sacrifices and rituals aren't doing it for God anymore. They may have been OK in the past, but what God REALLY desires is that the people treat each other better. God is surely saying that to us today, don't you think? It's not enough that we go to church. We need to BE church to each other--welcoming, embracing, comforting, healing. If we do sacrifice anything to please God, something must show up in the pocket of the poor and those on the margins. Amos said this many years ago and we are still just learning it (hopefully, we're learning it!) Richard Rohr said something the other day that really stuck with me. We are to love God and love what God loves--which is everything (Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, 6/29). As we struggle to do that in our lives, God is happier than if we merely go to church and try to save ourselves. I watched a wonderful documentary called "Bobby Kennedy for President" on Netflix. After the credits rolled and the tears dried on my face I thought, we are in just as troubled space as we were in 1968! I was inspired to want to dig in and DO something! That is a hero, for all his flaws and missteps, Bobby Kennedy saw wrong and tried to right it, like in his famous phrase. Can I do that? Can I speak up, roll up my sleeves and work so justice rolls down like waters? It's a tall order, I know. God will show us the way! Love, heidi

John the Baptist

"What, then, will this child be? For surely the hand of the Lord was with him."
Luke 1:66

I know they are referring to John the Baptist in this passage, but I can't help but remember having the same thoughts when our kids were born. "What then, will this child be?" Now, that the Larsens are all grown up, I realize I couldn't have imagined the interesting lives they would grow into and the awesome people they would turn out to be. It all happens so fast, doesn't it? It seems like once they got into school it was just a flurry of school years and, suddenly, they are adults and picking up the check at the restaurant! Just like John the Baptist, I was an only child of older parents, so I can appreciate how the guy was under a lot of pressure to make the folks proud. But I love the way he did his own thing. He did it with passion and vigor until it was time for him to step aside and let Jesus take over. He wasn't the Real Deal. He was a precursor of the Real Deal but he realized he needed to decrease so Jesus could increase. Believe me, that is a hard lesson for an only child to learn, too! But, as parents of adults, we step aside so our kids can take the lead roles, don't we? Today, let's think about the hand of the Lord that was certainly on John and is certainly upon us, and our kids as well. From before our actual existence, God has loved us. Does knowing that help us plan our day? Hopefully, it encourages us to get out there and love others! Love, heidi

What can one person do?

"Love your enemies..."
Matthew 5:44

This is yesterday's Gospel, I realize, but I'm still chewing on it so please bear with me. There are years this Gospel has come around and I sit and ask myself if I even have any enemies. I try to work and play well with others and there are years I pronounce myself "enemy free!" Other times, like yesterday, I give it a really good think. We are so polarized in our country that it feels like I actually may have enemies. Those beyond the borders of my opinions can feel like enemies during times like these, when anger and emotions are running hot. It's easy to choose a side and then plant ourselves there--it's comfortable and has a nice view so I'm not budging. It's also easy to feel so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem that we feel helpless to do anything to fix it. These are the same problems our country has dealt with for centuries and they don't seem to be getting better. What can I, one person, possibly do?

Then I saw a news report about a woman, here in Boise, who was sitting on the patio of a restaurant, waiting for her friend to arrive. There were others dining on the patio as well, spaced out according to social distancing and all that. Suddenly a car drives by a the driver spews out a racial insult to the woman sitting on her own. Others looked up, alarmed, and she froze in her seat. The driver sped away. What happened next will be in my mind for a long time. What happened next was nothing. None of the other diners who had heard the word and saw the person the word was addressed to did or said anything to her. Now, this is Boise, where a few days before, many, many people had gathered in solidarity for a vigil honoring George Floyd. There are awakened people here in Boise (that's why I moved here!) but, at that moment, no one there said anything. The woman said the silence was painful. I have thought about this constantly since I saw it on the news. What would I have done? Dearest God, I hope I would have gotten up and gone over to the woman. I hope I would have stepped out of myself a tiny bit to acknowledge her pain right then. I hope I would have comforted her and let her know that it was a horrible thing that driver did. I'm always praising silence as an answer for many ills, but not in this case. In cases like these, we are called to speak up. It's time for us to ask ourselves honest questions. Yes, the situation as a whole seems overwhelming, but it can hit as close to home as a restaurant patio on a summer evening. It's a vast country-wide issue, but it can also be a person-to-person issue. I invite you to watch the news report (link below) and pray with this. One person can actually do quite a bit, if they just will. Love, heidi
Person-to-person