Author: Jessica Petersen

Lent liturgical seasons spiritual practice

Compassion

by Jessica Petersen

This post is one in a series of reflections in response to the spiritual practices in Beth A. Richardson’s book Walking in the Wilderness: Seeking God During Lent.

Our spiritual practice this week was compassion. Beth A. Richardson shares: “In Hebrew, the word translated as compassion comes from the root word rehem, meaning ‘womb.’ When we have compassion for another, we have the sort of love that a parent has for a child.” This week, my child taught me about compassion. 

During worship last Sunday, Pastor Jeff led us in Beth Richardson’s loving-kindness meditation (Walking in the Wilderness, p. 90-91). It was the third time I had practiced it that day: once on my own, and then in each worship service, of which this was the second. Our 8-year-old daughter was sitting next to me. When Pastor Jeff gave the instructions to “pray fro yourself,” she was silent, like everyone else. When we were guided to “pray for a good friend,” she whispered to me who she was paying for. It was distracting, but it told me she was participating, and I smiled. When we heard the instructions to “pray for someone for whom you do not have strong feelings, such as an acquaintance” she again whispered to me who she was praying for. And when we were told to “pray for someone you dislike,” she whispered the name of a child at school who has been teasing her. I opened my eyes and looked at her, realizing that I, too, needed to pray for this child. I have had so much compassion for my own child and her emotional responses to how she is treated by this classmate, but I realized I have not been particularly compassionate toward this other child. I had not prayed for this child, and I needed to. My daughter led me to my growing edge, to this place of conviction, to an area where I have not been extending compassion in my life. 

I have continued to pray for this child throughout my week, and not just for this child, but for my own feelings toward them. In the past, I have been filled with frustration and confusion and sadness about their behavior. I have prayed for my daughter to manage the situation as best she can, with the help of her teacher. But until this week, I have not prayed for this other child, the one who probably needs compassion more than I will ever know. This week, I have gained a new understanding of compassion and praying for our enemies. I am grateful that God has worked through my child to teach me, to lead me, so that I can continue to grow in compassionate love toward others, loving as Christ loved. 

But here’s the thing: the blessing exercise leads us first to pray for and bless ourselves, then to pray for and bless a good friend, then an acquaintance, then someone we dislike. There is wisdom in this gradual shift of focus from ourselves to our loved ones to those we don’t know well to those we dislike. It enables us to care for ourselves, have compassion for ourselves first, rather than forgetting about our own needs as we focus on the rest of the world. And then it enables us to be open to the Spirit’s leading. Each time I practice this loving-kindness meditation, different people come to mind. Praying into compassion has helped me to extend my prayer practice into practicing compassion this week, for myself, as well as others. 

Beth A. Richardson asks, “How do we find the healthy balance of caring that lies somewhere between compassion and numbing as we witness so much crisis and turmoil?” An excellent question to consider, and to ponder in prayer. I think it is different for each of us, and at least for me, I know the “balance” looks different each day. But I was reminded this week that it begins with prayer. Let us pray: 

Bless all people, everywhere, with your love. 

Bless all people with your healing. 

Bless all people with your peace. Amen.

Lent liturgical seasons spiritual practice Uncategorized

Trust

by Jessica Petersen

This post is one in a series of reflections in response to the spiritual practices in Beth A. Richardson’s book Walking in the Wilderness: Seeking God During Lent.

Last week, the spiritual practice Beth A. Richardson invited us into was Trust. Admittedly, I had not put “trust” in the category of spiritual practice before. But I certainly practice trust in my spiritual life, even though I had not reflected on it in those terms, or practiced it intentionally. Trust was just something I did when I did it, or recognized when I wasn’t doing it. 

Beth A. Richardson writes: “As followers of Christ, we commit our care and keeping to the Holy One, the Creator of all things. And trust becomes a spiritual practice.” She goes on to quote Daniel Wolpert, who says: “A prayer practice is just that: practice. It is taking time to learn how to listen for God. It is taking time to see the hand of God at work in our lives.” In my experience, this is true of all spiritual practices, which are all a form of prayer. 

This week, we were invited to practice trust by doing a “Trust Inventory” (Walking in the Wilderness, p. 72). When I completed the inventory, I found it helpful because I had never named my fears and how they are getting in the way of my love of God, neighbor, or myself in such an intentional way before. I found it helpful to name them, reflect on them in those terms, and offer them to God. But soon after completing the inventory, I realized my list of fears was incomplete. It wasn’t that I had not named things I feared. I had. But as I moved through the day and the rest of the week, other fears began to surface. Not new fears; rather, fears I had not yet named as “fear.” But whether I called them “fear” or not, they were still present.

Here’s an example: as I began to work on my sermon on Monday morning, I was overcome by a feeling of inadequacy. I began to question whether I could write and preach this sermon. Let me be clear: there is a certain amount of fear associated with the task of preaching that is healthy, and that for me, keeps me humble in my process of interpreting scripture and developing a sermon. But I experience another layer of fear related to public speaking. Often, I wish I could write the sermon and let someone else preach it. In fact, my preference for avoiding public speaking was a barrier to accepting my call into ministry for a time. Like Moses and others in scripture, I said to God “but I cannot speak well!” And as God provided for others, God provided for me – not by giving me someone else to speak for me, as God provided Moses with his brother Aaron (Exodus 4:10-17) – but by reminding me that while I may not be a gifted speaker, I am a gifted writer, and writing is a tool for public speaking. And so I leverage my gift for writing, and I practice, and I am able to preach.

And yet, every time I am scheduled to preach, I am afraid. I had not called it “fear” prior to last week. I have named it many other things: lack of natural ability, anxiety, Imposter Syndrome. And while none of that is inaccurate, fear is at the root of my struggle with public speaking. Fear that I won’t be up to the task, or that even if I am able to interpret the scripture well enough to write a decent sermon, my poor delivery will get in the way of others receiving it. This happens every single time I prepare to preach. It is part of my process. And, I’m aware that every single time I write a sermon, the Spirit guides my interpretation of scripture and gives me the words. Every single time, when I show up and do my part, God shows up and does God’s part. And that includes guiding me through the preaching of the words I have written on the page, which is the most terrifying piece. Even though I am afraid, my experience of God showing up and guiding me each and every time enables me to do it, and to do it again, and to do it again. While I don’t preach weekly, even moving through this process every few months is a helpful spiritual practice for me, an exercise in practicing trust in the Holy One. 

While the Trust Inventory may have been the prescribed practice this week, writing and preaching my sermon was my practice, my exercise in once again moving through the process from fear to trusting God to do what God always does, because God is faithful. 

Lent liturgical seasons spiritual practice Uncategorized

Lectio Divina

by Jessica Petersen

This post is part of a series of reflections in response to the spiritual practices in Beth A. Richardson’s book Walking in the Wilderness: Seeking God During Lent.

Lectio Divina is a spiritual practice of “divine reading.” Beth A. Richardson says “Lectio Divina invites the reader to interact with the text using the eyes and ears of the heart by asking the question, ‘What is the Holy One saying to me in this passage?’” Helpfully, Richardson explains that “in Lectio Divina the scripture is read for formation rather than information.”

I have experienced the formational aspect of Lectio Divina myself. When I was first introduced to Lectio Divina, I was in an intense phase of reading scripture for information. As a college religion major, I was required to read large portions of scripture at a time to prepare for class. In order to write my papers and prepare for exams, I needed to be able to zoom out to look at the narrative arc of a text or the entirety of a biblical book in order to dissect a short passage. I was required to read commentaries and cross-reference, to use the study tools available to help me interpret the text. 

I found that when I was reading large portions of scripture regularly for my academic work, my personal scripture reading became very focused. I found myself reading one verse, or maybe a few more, per day. I read this tiny portion of scripture and spent time contemplating, without using study tools. I retrospect, I was intuitively doing the opposite of what my academic work required because that’s what my soul needed. This is when I encountered Lectio Dvina. I don’t remember how I learned about it or who shared it with me. What I do know is that this practice of divine reading and listening to the text was exactly what I needed at the time. I was already asking the question: “What is God saying to me in this moment?” And this is precisely the question Beth A. Richardson says we are asking when we engage in Lectio Divina. In contrast to my academic studies, where I was primarily focused on “what are the possible meanings of this text, within the historical and canonical context?” I was instead asking God what God had to say to me, in my life, at that time. 

The first time I remember practicing Lectio Divina in a group setting was in my first year of seminary. All M. Div. students were required to be part of a spiritual formation group, led not by seminary faculty (aka: our professors), but by local clergy. Our leaders were people who had been through seminary, and now served in the local church, those who knew the gifts and challenges of a seminary education as well as the realities we would face as we fulfilled our future callings. My group leader felt that Lectio Divina was an important practice for future clergy – not for our work (although, it certainly could be helpful) – for our personal spiritual formation. Our leader regularly led us through Lectio Divina during our group meetings. At first, our texts for Lectio Divina were scripture passages. Then, he invited us to contemplate religious art. He shared poems. He encouraged us to practice Lectio Divina with the front page of the newspaper. He shared music for an auditory version called Audio Divina. Because of his expansive view of spiritual practices and holy “texts,” I encountered God in new and unexpected ways. 

While I have not practiced it regularly, I have returned to Lectio Divina again and again over the last 15 years. I’ve always found it helpful as a means of discerning God’s voice in scripture, and in other texts. It focuses my prayer on scripture and invites me to be open to receiving what God might say. However, I haven’t practiced Lectio Divina in  while…until this week. 

This was an odd week to return to focusing on Lectio Divina, because I was on a family vacation. I have 2 young children, and while time to myself is *always* in short supply, the lack of routine and more compact living arrangements on vacation make it nearly impossible to find time alone. However, I found myself in a contemplative state of mind this week, paying more attention to the world and the people around me, asking God “What are you saying to me through this?” I found that this contemplative mindset enabled me to be more open to God in my daily life.  

Additionally, I did engage in the practice of Lectio Divina twice this week. Once, with Psalm 63:1-4 during which I found myself truly praying the psalm and repeating the phrase “your steadfast love is better than life” (v. 3a in the NRSV version) over and over in praise to God. I also practiced Lectio Divina with 2 Corinthians 5:16-18. I chose this passage because I know it well. God led me to contemplate humanity and my own human-ness. I was reminded that Christ gave us the ministry of reconciliation, and God brought to mind a situation in which I am called to be a catalyst for reconciliation between two people who are struggling to acknowledge and accept one another’s full humanity.

These two experiences are representative of my experience of Lectio Divina over the years. Sometimes, I simply hear a word or phrase that sticks with me. Other times, I hear God speaking or calling me in a direction I did not anticipate. I am grateful for this practice – now and throughout my life – as a means of helping me to draw near to God and to ask what God is saying to me in a given moment, whether the “text” is scripture, artwork, music, secular writing, or an event in my own life. God is always speaking, but am I listening? Lectio Divina helps me to listen.

Lent liturgical seasons spiritual practice

Lament

by Jessica Petersen

This post is part of a series of reflections in response to the spiritual practices in Beth A. Richardson’s book Walking in the Wilderness: Seeking God During Lent. Last week, I reflected on the practice of being present.

As we continue our journey through this Lenten season, I have been focusing on the practice of lament this week. I am grateful to my guide, Beth A. Richardson. I deeply appreciate the way she describes lament.

“Lament is a prayer for help that comes from a place of pain or distress. Lament gives voice to our intimate feelings, our deepest longings. Through expressing our laments, we give voice to the exiled parts of our deepest self. Lament can be part of our process of healing. We offer our concerns and our wounds to God. And, if our wounds are not healed, they are acknowledged and offered in prayer to the One who walks with us in our wilderness.”

Beth A. Richardson, Walking in the Wilderness: Seeking God During Lent

I have engaged in the practice of lament for nearly 15 years, but having a new guide helped me to engage in and practice lament in new ways this week. I wrote about lament during Lent last year. In that post, I explain how I became acquainted with the practice, my understanding of lament, and how it has been helpful to me over the years. 

Here I am, a year later, with perhaps more to lament. My dad is receiving hospice care as he nears the end of his life, one of our children is in the midst of a particularly challenging season, and my heart breaks when I read the news. I needed to engage this practice right now, and I didn’t realize quite how much until I did. 

In the past, my practice of lament has mostly taken the from of praying psalms of lament and praying freeform prayers of lament to God for myself, others I know, or the world, without paying attention to form and pattern. What I found particularly helpful this week was the reminder that biblical lament follows a particular pattern: address, complaint, petition, affirmation, resolution. I noticed it in the psalms of lament I prayed. And I employed it when I engaged the practice of writing my own lament. (I created this template from Beth A. Richardson’s guide to writing your own lament, if you want to engage in the practice yourself.)

I found that the form and pattern served as a permission slip and a framework that enabled me to share freely and without holding back. The prayers of lament I wrote this week are too personal to share; they were helpful because they were fully authentic, written for no audience other than God. The practice of writing them was healing for me, and I am grateful. My circumstances haven’t changed; my life is not easier; and yet, I was reminded that I am not in this alone. I can trust God to work in the midst of even my deepest sorrow and most difficult day. 

Finally, I want to share this prayer that blessed me this week with its truth.

God,
Collect our tears
Tears of sadness
tears of joy
Tears of anxiety
nervous tears
Tears that don’t know why they run like rivers down the face
Gracious God, 
collect our tears in your bottle 
And pour them back on us as life-giving water! 

Safiyah Fosua, The Africana Worship Book: Year B

Lent liturgical seasons spiritual practice

Being Present

by Jessica Petersen

This Lenten season, our church is reading Walking in the Wilderness: Seeking God During Lent by Beth A. Richardson. I appreciate many things about this book, but my favorite component is the invitation to engage in a different spiritual practice each week. Introduced on Sundays, we are incorporating the practices into our worship and study each Sunday and during the week following. 

The practice for the first Sunday of Lent was: being present. This week I have been intentional about being present as often as possible. 

I have practiced sitting and meditating. I have gotten distracted while sitting a meditating. I have taken walks and noticed the changing of the seasons, tiny leaves sprouting on trees, the early arrival of the bluebonnets in central Texas. I have been present and aware of my body and its cues, from noticing sore muscles from my workout to letting exhaustion lead to a nap instead of a cup of coffee.

A flower that blooms in our flower bed each year at this time.

This week, I was serving on the Board of Ordained Ministry for my Annual Conference. We met at the camp where I attended youth retreats as a teen and clergy events throughout my ministry. It is the same camp where my interviews for my ordination process were held. It was a gift to be there, to be present to what I am experiencing in my spiritual life now, while reflecting on where I have come from. It was a joy to pray with a candidate the night before her interviews, laying hands on her and interceding for her. I think that prayer time was when I was most present this week.  

My shadow, in front of the chapel at Mt. Wesley (Kerrville, TX) where I accepted my call to ministry 20 years ago.

I have noticed that the busier my schedule is on a given day, the more likely I am to try to do two things at once. The result is that I am not entirely present to anything or anyone. I noticed this when I was placing a grocery order on my phone while at the playground with my daughter. I noticed it again when I was talking on the phone while folding laundry. 

In my experience of practicing being present this week, I have realized that presence means being fully engaged in where I am, in what I am doing, and with the people I am with. Practicing presence is not as simple as “put the phone away,” although that can certainly help. I can get lost in my mind just as easily as in something I am looking at or holding. Presence is about being. In Beth A. Richardson’s words, “If we are truly in the present moment, we are open to the movement of the Holy One. We become a channel for the spirit’s promptings in us.” May we be present, and may it be so.

Advent holy spaces Means of grace spiritual practice Uncategorized

Slow to Arrive…But I Am Here Now

by Jessica Petersen

Advent began slowly for me this year.

Typically, I dive right in. I get out the tree and put up the lights on the first Sunday of Advent. It’s a burst of energy to start the season. I excitedly pull out my kids’ nativity sets and begin our family tradition of lighting the Advent candles on our dining room table. I finally turn on that Christmas playlist and begin baking peppermint-flavored goodies. It usually “feels” like Advent from the very beginning.

But this year was different. This fall was extremely busy, in a way I did not anticipate. The months leading up to Advent were stressful due to a variety of circumstances. Plus, our family started the Advent season with illness. It was just a cold, but it traveled through our entire family and was followed by strep throat for one of the kids…resulting in one or both kids home 6 of 9 school days in the first 11 days of Advent. It was challenging to muster the energy to do anything, especially when we limped into the season in the first place, stressed and exhausted.

For 2 weeks, I kept saying it didn’t feel very “Advent-y.” Sure, we put up the tree. It took us nearly 2 weeks to get it decorated, working in 5–10 minute spurts, but we got it done.  We hung the lights outside. We put a wreath on the front door. We pulled out the nativity sets and Advent wreath. I wouldn’t say I did any of it with enthusiasm. I was just going through the motions.

But isn’t that where we find ourselves sometimes? I had not thought about the preparation of my house for Advent and Christmas as a spiritual practice before this year. But now I think it is, for me. I say that because I could have chosen not to do it, to put it off, or to be grumpy when my children asked if we could decorate the tree (because, frankly, I didn’t feel like it). But I chose to do it. To say yes. To engage. And at first, it felt like I wasn’t doing anything. I was doing the “work” of preparing a home for what it is “supposed” to look like during this season. But in the process – and I call it a process because it took 2 weeks instead of a few hours – something changed in me. It was like when I pray not because I feel connected to God or because I want to, but because that’s what I’m supposed to do, and in the process of praying, something happens deep within my soul. Going through the motions of preparing our home for Advent this year was a soul practice like that for me this year.

Last Friday, a few days prior to the third Sunday of Advent, I attended a contemplative Advent retreat. It was small and intimate, with a few friends and a few people who were new to me, all of us pastors and/or therapists. I went for a moment of pause. I had planned an individual retreat during the month of November, and my plans fell through twice. I decided that a guided experience at a particular place and time might work out better.

The morning of my retreat, I began the day with preparation. I did yoga, which is a cleansing for my body and mind. I gathered the items I would need for the day retreat. I spent a few minutes putting the finishing touches on the Christmas tree with my preschooler. And I drove the 45 minutes to the retreat location, another type of preparation.

The retreat began with breakfast tacos. After introductions and fellowship, we entered a long period of silence – about 2 hours. A few of the other participants and I set off for the lake, to spend our time in silence near the water. Whether poor directions or poor listening, I don’t know, but we went the wrong way. We walked in silence, each in our own world of contemplation, near enough to see and hear one another’s footsteps but not conversing. And when we finally realized that those glimpses of the lake were getting farther away rather than closer and decided to turn around, there was a lot of backtracking to do. While this might sound frustrating, it was exactly what I needed. It was part of my process. And it was not lost on me that my journey that morning had mirrored my Advent journey thus far.  

When we finally arrived at the lake, I was ready. I had taken an indirect path to get there. But the walking, the movement, the process of going through the motions of walking to the lake without going there at first, had prepared me for when I arrived.

The stress and anxiety I had been experiencing for many weeks prior to Advent had begun to dissipate earlier in the week due to circumstances resolving themselves, but it had not left me entirely. As I walked the wrong direction, and much farther than I anticipated walking, the stress and anxiety continued to melt away.

When I arrived at the lake, the journey I had been on felt much longer than it was. In realty, it was about a 2 mile walk with all the backtracking, but those 2 miles transformed my heart and mind. They helped me to get ready. They prepared me to be vulnerable, laid bare, in the presence of God.

At the lake, I sat down, and I looked out at the expanse in front of me. It was unimpressive, really. The water level was low, far below where I sat, with at least a couple hundred yards of exposed shoreline between the lakeside park and the water’s edge. I couldn’t easily get down near the water, like I wanted to. And yet, as I sat on the ridge overlooking over the water with the wind whipping my hair, I encountered the Holy Spirit. I was reminded of my baptism as I looked at that ordinary and unimpressive lake, recalling that the waters of baptism are extraordinary because of the Holy Spirit’s work, not because the water itself is special. I heard the Spirit in the tinkling of the wind chimes, sounding like bells. I felt the Spirit in the wind, on my skin and blowing my hair. I was fully present.

And I began to write in my prayer journal. The phrase that I kept writing over and over, in the midst of all that I was pouring out to God, was “I am here.” I was so grateful to be there in that place in that moment. Not pulled in many directions at once – body, soul, and mind fragmented by stress and overwhelm as I had experienced for weeks leading up to that moment. And God reminded me that God is always here – no matter where I am, no matter how scattered or fragmented, no matter how high the wall of anxiety and stress is, hemming me in on all sides. God is here. I am here. We are here together.

And in that moment, I realized that I had taken a circuitous path not only to the lake, but to Advent this year. I had gone through the motions, doing the things, and it was the process of going through the motions that enabled me to arrive in this season of Advent, to engage actively in preparing my heart as I had been preparing my home. I am here now, getting ready for the coming of Christ, a miracle like no other…God coming to us in the most vulnerable form as a human baby, saying “I am here.”

prayer Uncategorized

A Prayer for When You’re Too Busy

by Jessica Petersen

I’ve been way too busy lately. The start of school is always hectic, as is the beginning of fall programming at church, and I am knee-deep in both. This transition from summer to the school year and the coming fall feels more “normal” that it has in years. In-person events are back, and somehow, there seem to be more of them than ever before. Perhaps we are making up for lost time. My calendar has been out of control the last few weeks. Maybe that’s true for you, too.

One morning this week, as I faced yet another day of back-to-back meetings and events, I scribbled this prayer in my journal. Just the mere act of taking that brief moment to connect with God helped immensely. It changed my day. If you’re too busy, perhaps this prayer will help you, too.

God, I am tired. Worn out from being over-scheduled. Too busy, with no room for my soul to breathe, or to listen to my body. I hate it when I have weeks like this. I feel disconnected from you and others, a slave to my schedule and to-do list, and yet, I consented to this.

Why?

I don’t have an answer to that.

But I know you are telling me to breathe, to listen, to be…even if just for a brief moment of reconnection with my body and with you. Calm my mind. Quiet my anxious heart and enable me to be still. Help me to breathe deeply – your breath in my lungs – reminding me that I am yours. May your breath renew me.

For I already know that I need to make changes, that my schedule cannot continue to be this full. Guide me and show me your wisdom, your way, for me to live fully into who you have called me to be. Amen.

blessings holy spaces Uncategorized

Blessing for New Life

by Jessica Petersen

I am sharing a blessing today that I wrote in my journal during a retreat last July, while sitting in front of Hope Monument at the Oblate Renewal Center in San Antonio. I will let this image be for you what you need it to be, and I will leave you with this blessing that blessed me that day, word for word as it came to me. May it bless you, as well.

Hope Monument (sculpture by Beverly Paddleford) at Oblate Renewal Canter in San Antonio, TX.
(Photographed by Jessica Petersen on July 23, 2021)

May you remember that
it is the way of things
that new life comes
springing up from the emptiness
where something once was.

For there cannot be new life
without death, loss, grief, sorrow…
there must be an ending for
there to be a beginning.
A period at the end of a sentence,
a space, a breath, before
a new sentence, paragraph, or page.

And in that space, that breath,
where it feels like there is nothing,
there is always God, Spirit, grace.
Because God is in all, through all.

Even when we forget to look for God
in the ending
or acknowledge God
in the beginning,
God dwells in it all.

Weeks or months or years from the day
when an end became a beginning,
we may look back and give thanks
with a tender heart
for the new life that was birthed from death,
for the gifts that came,
even as we grieve and remember.
And may God be in it all.

prayer Uncategorized

I Can’t Find the Words

by Jessica Petersen

Lately, there are days when I feel like I don’t know how to write anymore. It’s as if I have forgotten how to formulate coherent thoughts into words and sentences, weaving them together into something that is cohesive and meaningful. It’s not that I haven’t been writing recently. I have. But I haven’t finished anything (with the exception of sermons) in a few months. When I sit down to write, I’m finding it hard to get started, and when I do begin to make progress, I usually need to stop (because: kids, work, other responsibilities, etc). Additionally, the world seems to be moving so quickly that when I pause and return a day or two later, everything I have written seems irrelevant. So, I start again, and don’t finish again, and the cycle repeats. And sometimes I wonder what I even have to say amidst the war in Ukraine, horrific mass shootings occurring with regularity, discriminatory laws against LGBTQ+ persons, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the border crisis, the breakup of the United Methodist Church, systemic racism, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and so much more…

If I’m honest, I couldn’t type that last sentence without crying. It is A LOT, and that list is only a snippet, a tiny percentage, of the pain and injustice, the growing polarization and division, the complete and utter heartbreak that is occurring in our country and in the world. Words elude me to even begin to describe this.

The way I am feeling lately feels similar to something I experienced during my Clinical Pastoral Education internship. While serving as a hospital chaplain during the CPE process is always intense, my situation was unique because one of the long-time chaplains at the hospital where I served was dying of cancer. I was assigned his units to cover, which meant that I spent my days on in the ICU, the oncology unit, and the cardiac unit. Additionally, I spent time caring for staff who were grieving the impending loss of their own caregiver and support person. I was twenty-five years old, fresh from seminary, and it was A LOT. And when it was all beginning to feel like too much, a thirty-two-year-old patient in the ICU was determined to have lost all brain function.

As I approached the ICU to be present with his family, I heard wailing before I even reached the doors of the unit. And when I walked through the doors, I stopped in my tracks. Through the glass walls, I could see the patient’s loved ones gathered (far more than were allowed in the ICU; the room was packed) wailing and weeping and lamenting. I wanted to run the other way. It was too much. But this was my work, what I had been called to that day. When I entered the room, it suddenly became silent. Then, someone asked me to pray. I didn’t know what to pray. I didn’t have words. I bowed my head and remained silent as I tried to find the words and instead tears came…for the family, for their pain and grief, for the impossibility of doing anything to fix or help this situation. And I cried with them and for them and eventually prayed something (I have no idea what, because the words did not come from me but from the Holy Spirit) and somehow, whatever I prayed was comforting, helpful, meaningful to those in the room. After I prayed, the mood in the room was different. Individuals began to talk and share, and I listened. But I didn’t say much, and I didn’t need to. I learned that my words were not what was needed; it was my presence that mattered, my willingness to be with them in their worst moments, to cry and lament alongside them.

I guess what I am saying is that I don’t know what to say right now. But I am here. I am crying, even if you can’t see it. I am lamenting, even if you don’t hear it. I am praying, even if you don’t know it.

While some might think this is a cop-out, what I know about myself is that I have a tendency toward productivity and busy-ness, sometimes at the expense of what God is calling me to. I could put in the time to write a carefully thought-out and polished theological statement (and perhaps that will come, in time) but if I did that today, it would be at the expense of what I really need to do: cry, pray, lament.

So, here I am finishing something I began to write only this morning…800+ words about how I can’t find words. It’s probably not well-written. Perhaps it’s just babbling. But it is finished. And it is my offering for today…as I cry, pray, and lament for the world, for women and girls, for those without the privileges I have, for those hemmed in on all sides and lacking options, for those who simply want to live.

*If you want to read more about lament as a spiritual practice, you can do so here.

Lent liturgical seasons

For Holy Week

by Jessica Petersen

Throughout this week,
the week we call “Holy Week,”
we will recall
and in a small way –
enter into –
the stories
of the final week
of Jesus’ earthly life.

While the week begins
with a parade,
bursting with hope,
soon things will change.
The tables will turn.
Jesus’ teachings will agitate leaders.
Her anointing of him will appall observers.
The meal Jesus and his friends share will be the last.
Jesus’ prayers in the garden will be interrupted.
His trial will be unfair, his crucifixion unjust.
The curtain in the temple will be torn,
because of
God’s grief,
God’s rending of garments,
God’s lamenting,
at the atrocity of it all.

And we will lament too…
with words,
with tears,
with groans and
with mouths agape….
that it had to be this way.

There is no way to
put this week in a box,
cover it in paper
to make it beautiful
tie it up with a tidy bow
so that we can just enjoy Easter
without walking through the rest of it.

What is Easter,
without the rest of it?
We cannot celebrate
without first
lamenting, grieving, waiting.
Even though we know the story,
we cannot skip to the end,
as a means of avoiding
walking through and working through
the messy, painful middle.

And so we lament.
We remember.
We open our hearts
and we ask God
to do something
deep within us…
to transform us
and make us new
because
if we come to next week
the same as we are now,
what was it all for?

Many thanks to Professor Amy-Jill Levine for her book Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. This Lenten season, our congregation read the book and it shaped our worship and study. Her perspective and insight informed my own reflection during this season.