#Beautiful

Soft white pedals, singing birds, gorgeous skies, rich green grass, and dazzling white blossoms mark the start of spring each year in the Quad at the University of Washington.

Truly, they represent the exquisite beauty of nature!

With gratitude, this week I caught them in full bloom. This picturesque row of trees brings out the best of nature every spring at UW. They stand

strong in the midst of their backdrop of classic academic Gothic buildings. It is like standing inside of a painting.

People come from all around to see them and beckon the start of spring. Opening us to the hope of warmer days, a great reward after a long winter, which always makes me smile.

These trees were planted at UW in 1964. At the mature age of 54, in their own particular way, they give cadence to the transition of winter and spring seasons.

I grew a special appreciation for Cherry blossoms in Seoul, Korea. I was living in Seoul and was a bit homesick for my home in America. The day I strolled in the midst of the flowers of the

Changgyeonggug Palace I felt perfectly at home and was stunned by the delicate elegance of their beauty in mass, much like the UW Quad. Clearly, this beauty rings out throughout the world.

So, Happy Spring! Here comes the sun! Put away your rain boots (well maybe not yet). Get outside! And don’t forget to stop and smile when you see those stunning cherry blossoms. #beautiful

"For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature." Romans 1:20

Running 100 Miles of Dirt!

When running you can be truly free – uninhibited – there is no need for an engine to rumble along as your feet just go and the rest of your body follows along. Truly, stomping out the rhythmic cadence of running is freeing and empowering. As a finisher of two marathons, I have seen whole cities step-by-step. Truly, the best city tour ever. My friend Stefanie has moved off the streets to run in the woods. She is a trail runner. Her recent accident and journey to recovery is inspiring. Here is her story:

Stefanie was training for the Bear 100 miler. Yes, 100 miles in the woods on the dirt! The Bear is a late September race through the Wasatch-Cache National Forest in Utah, the Bear River Range of Idaho, and runners finish at Bear Lake. 

Unfortunately, in the midst of her training, Stefanie fell on the trail coming down from one of her favorite peaks. She never falls, yet, pain ripped through her arm and knee as she hit the ground. She knew she had to get down the mountain and get medical help. This resulted in a severe elbow dislocation and a torn up knee.

She could barely walk or bend her knee for two weeks and spent six weeks in a hard plastic splint so her elbow would stabilize. Stefanie remembers sitting around home and crying a lot. It was rough – especially in those first few weeks. This was a huge blow to her backpacking and ultra racing plans: It seemed that her dreams had slipped away.

Her Doctor and Physical Therapist knew she had a goal to achieve only nine weeks after that nasty fall. Fighting through PTSD, Stefanie worked really hard in arm therapy to get her range of motion back and made quick progress, but she still ended up in an arm straightening splint (the "torture splint") that she forced herself to wear up until just a few hours before the Bear 100. She missed out on so much training and because of that she nearly backed out of the race, but in the end “dug deep” and went for it. 

Stefanie says, “I knew my arm would hurt, that my asthma would flare up in the cold night air, and my under-trained leg would develop a bad shin splint. I needed to battle through that race.”

It was painful but Stefanie fought her way through the Pines, golden Aspens, and red Maples step-by-step to miles one, two, 10, 60, 78, 99 and finally to the Finish Line. As she looks back, seeing so clearly her unanticipated pain and struggle, she realized that it was about more about the journey to overcoming injury than finishing her first 100 mile race. It was about these four things: 

Deepening relationships, 

Learning to lean on community, 

Building inner strength, and 

Dreaming up new goals.

These lessons, gleaned from her fall, help her to push forward and anticipate the future. Now she knows she has enough grit and heart to face the challenges of the race ahead: wherever that takes! 

I bet we have that grit and heart in us, too (even if we have serious doubts). If Stefanie can pull it off in such daunting circumstances so can we. Let's keep dreaming, build inner strength, take risks, and love people and be loved deeply. Maybe we will fall on our faces but that doesn't mean that the prize isn't ours in the end.

A Christmas Pause and Santa Clause

I can’t really put Christmas into words. Or can I? Christmas is families gathering, love for the needy, church festivities, Advent worship services, neighborhood light shows, Snowflake Parades, The Nutcracker, letters to Santa, cards and gifts for loved ones, special appreciation lunches, Choir Concerts, Pageants, and parties. It seems that Advent as a time of celebration just lasts and lasts. It doesn’t stop between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

It doesn’t pause…until you see the light in that child’s eyes when they hold the candle at the Christmas Eve service.

That pause is when the person who opens the gift smiles and says, “I love it.” It happens when a friend sends a card with a beautiful picture of their family. It happens when you swing by the break room at work and there is a Christmas Cake. It happens after you pick up your 

Eggnog Latte 

and head over to the Nutcracker Ballet to see Clara. Clara is once again entranced by her prince who conquers the Mouse King, and off they head to the Land of Sweets. Pause. It happens when you see the lights strung up on a house to warm the neighborhood and people are gathering in the streets to see it. It happens when a sweet little girl and boy say their lines in the nativity play. 

This pause happens when we gather with loved ones and reminisce about years past and make dreams for the future while enjoying the present.

As I reflect on the first Christmas, I think of Mary the mother of the Lord Jesus. I reflect upon her exhaustion on that journey to Bethlehem. She must have thought she could not travel another step as her labor began. This may have led her to question: 

Could this be happening to me in this place without my support system? 

Have I been abandoned by the very God who sent the Angel to speak to me? 

The journey to Bethlehem may have seemed impossible as she rode that donkey. But there was no turning back. With divine courage she gave birth to Jesus in the lowly stable. 

Then, she paused. 

She paused as the Angels sang in a heavenly chorus, “Hosanna in the Highest.” She paused as the shepherds came to welcome him. She paused as the wise men came with gifts for her dear son, conceived in her by the Holy Spirit. She was part of this great miracle she paused and celebrated.

With Mary we pause to see the many wonders of Advent. We are caught up by so much activity: decorating, going to parties and shows, and gathering with loved ones. These activities may lead us into a frenzy of busyness. But, when that moment comes, we pause. 

Can we put Christmas into words? Can we share what it means to us? Possibly not. We can only pause.

500th Birthday, a Reformation Celebration!!!

It is mind boggling to reflect upon the aftermath of a revolution that took place 500 years ago. October 31, 1517 is five centuries away. Begwen welcomes Rev. Brian North as a guest blogger to help us reflect upon the weight of this stunning and transforming moment in history!! Lastly, it’s a reminder to us that “reformation” is a core part of God’s work in our lives. He is always reforming us and reshaping us. Sometimes it’s a fine-tuning, a small adjustment; other times it’s a major shift in a whole new direction and a fuller sense of holiness.

Imagine, for a moment, climbing a steep set of stairs going up the inside of a church tower. At the top of this tower is the church bell – when it rings, it is heard all over town. As you climb up, you stumble over the steps. In an effort to keep from falling you reach out to grab onto something. Unfortunately, you grab the rope that is attached to the church bell, and it starts ringing out for everyone in the town to hear.

This is analogous to what happened to Martin Luther 500 years ago. On October 31^st, 1517, he tacked to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenburg, Germany a list of 95 things that he felt needed changing and correcting in the Church (not just that one church, but the Catholic Church as a whole). The “95 theses” (as it’s usually called) pretty much all revolved around one general topic: indulgences. “Indulgences” were a way for a person to pay a small financial price for their sin, as a way of atoning for what they’d done wrong. Luther rightly felt that doing so was unbiblical, and reduced the important spiritual work of repentance. The intent of his list (which was also mailed to a friend) was to engage in academic debate with other scholars – Luther himself was professor of Moral Theology at the University of Wittenburg, and it was common practice to post things like this on the door of this university-area church as a way of inviting people to dialogue.

But, much like the analogy of accidentally grabbing on to the church bell rope, his 95 theses led to much, much more. Other issues that he had – many of which he considered more important than the question of indulgences – came to light as well. Others – like John Calvin – joined him in seeking to reform the Catholic Church. 1521, he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. And, as we know, this all ended up being the start of a whole new branch of Christianity, typically referred to as Protestantism. (Root word, “protest.”)

Why does this matter to us, 500 years later? Well, we might all be Catholic if it hadn’t happened, for one. Second, I believe that the variety of churches that has grown out of the reformation has been used by God to carry the good news of Jesus in ways that would not have been possible within Catholicism. 

Wherever you are in your journey of faith, and as we remember this 500^th anniversary of the start of the Reformation, let’s remember that God is not through with us, and He is still reforming us. He is reforming you – through His Word, His Spirit, and through Christians around you – and He works through you to bring reformation in to other people’s lives, too. And as that work continues, may the Good News of Jesus Christ ring out into the world, just like a church bell.