Last Sun­day, April 21 — the Sun­day fol­low­ing the bomb­ings at the Boston Marathon — I filled in for our pas­tor at North Buf­falo Lutheran Church, lead­ing wor­ship and preach­ing, because it turns out he actu­ally knew one of the three peo­ple who died at the scene. He had got­ten to know Krys­tle Camp­bell through his son and daughter-in-law, who have been very close friends with her for years. So he went out to the Boston area to be with them in their grief and to attend Krystle’s funeral… and this is the ser­mon I shared with our con­gre­ga­tion, because many of us, too, were feel­ing the effects of the tragedy, and because all of us at some point feel over­whelmed and need to be reminded that Jesus, the Good Shep­herd, is with us:

Easter 4 (Good Shep­herd Sun­day) – Series C

Based on Psalm 23 and John 10:22–30

It’s been a hor­rific week.  Most shock­ing of all were the bomb­ings at the Boston Marathon on Mon­day.  Even as far removed geo­graph­i­cally as we are, still, some­thing like that shakes us and hor­ri­fies us, and in some way we feel our­selves con­nected to our fel­low Amer­i­cans, our fel­low human beings, who expe­ri­enced it first-hand.

Then – incred­i­bly – we learned it had hit closer to home than we at first knew… that the sec­ond per­son iden­ti­fied as hav­ing died in the attacks, Krys­tle Camp­bell, was close friends with Pas­tor Mark and Emily’s daughter-in-law Erin and their son Elliott, and that the whole Ner­land fam­ily had come to know and love Krys­tle over the years… So our hearts are touched in a bit deeper way, because of our rela­tion­ship with Pas­tor Mark and Emily and their fam­ily. 

Then, too, there was the calamity of the fer­til­izer plant explo­sion in the small town of West, TX – a town some­where between the sizes of Glyn­don and Dil­worth, so we can imag­ine it – result­ing, actu­ally, in more deaths and injuries than in Boston… and yes­ter­day, the earth­quake in China, killing dozens and injur­ing hundreds….

And that’s only the pub­lic part of the week!  Because even as national and global scares and sor­rows are at play, our per­sonal ones hap­pen too, don’t they…  Maybe an ill­ness or a death in the fam­ily, a rela­tion­ship crum­bling or a child being bul­lied, a job lay­off or ten­sion with a neigh­bor, of course the annual anx­i­ety about spring flood­ing… and the list goes on and on. 

Some­times, such trau­mas and wor­ries lead us to daunt­ing ques­tions – ques­tions like some peo­ple around Jesus were ask­ing him one win­ter day as he walked along Solomon’s Porch on the Tem­ple grounds in Jerusalem: “Are you really the Mes­siah?  Why do you keep us won­der­ing?  How can we know for sure?  What are we sup­posed to believe?  If you’re the anointed Son of God, why don’t you just tell us plainly?”

Maybe our ques­tions are worded a bit dif­fer­ently – some­thing like:  Where is God?  Is there really a God?  How can a good God let such bad things hap­pen?  How are we sup­posed to keep on believ­ing in the midst of things like these?  What dif­fer­ence does belief in Jesus make any­way? 

Those could be our ques­tions.  They could be the focus of our thoughts in response to the ordi­nary and extra­or­di­nary strug­gles of life.  But, says Rabbi Harold Kush­ner in his best­selling book When Bad Things Hap­pen to Good Peo­ple, “If the death and suf­fer­ing of some­one we love, or tragic events, make us bit­ter …, [turn us] against all reli­gion, and [make us] inca­pable of hap­pi­ness, we turn the per­son who died into one of the ‘devil’s mar­tyrs.’ If [on the other hand,] suf­fer­ing and death brings us to explore … our capac­ity for strength, love, and cheer­ful­ness – if it leads us to dis­cover sources of con­so­la­tion we never knew before – then we make the per­son or event into a wit­ness for the affir­ma­tion of life rather than its rejection.”

And indeed, count­less “sources of con­so­la­tion” – count­less “[wit­nesses] for the affir­ma­tion of life” – shone forth in the moments and hours and days fol­low­ing the bomb­ings:  Trained first respon­ders and ordi­nary cit­i­zens alike ran toward the explo­sions to help and save peo­ple, ran into the dark­ness to be the light, ran into the evil to be the good.  Thou­sands shared their homes, food, cars, cell phones, any­thing needed, with strangers who were hurt, or not phys­i­cally hurt but emo­tion­ally shaken, those in need of shel­ter while wait­ing to reunite with loved ones, those who just didn’t know what to do.

We haven’t heard as much from Texas or China as from Boston, but doubt­less, there were sim­i­lar shows of sup­port and com­pas­sion in those places too.  In any calamity, no mat­ter the size, peo­ple plunge into the realm of death to fight for life, light pours into the dark­ness, good tri­umphs over evil.  The hand of God makes it so.  The hand in which we are all held, and from which no destruc­tion, no evil, can snatch us.  The hand, too, of the Good Shep­herd, Jesus, because the Father and he are one.

The fourth Sun­day of Easter is always “Good Shep­herd Sun­day” when we hear Psalm 23 and John 10.  What a bless­ing these famil­iar bib­li­cal images are at this time, remind­ing us of the invin­ci­ble power of God demon­strated supremely in Jesus the Christ.  A few thoughts about the psalm:

“The Lord is my shep­herd.”  When I was on intern­ship, the Direc­tor of Music at that church chose a ver­sion of Psalm 23 for the choir to sing, and she told us that when she was in a car acci­dent some time back and was trapped in her car wait­ing for res­cue, the first line of Psalm 23 came to her mind: “The Lord is my shep­herd.”  But that was all she could remem­ber, and she grew pan­icky, try­ing to think of the next words… until it dawned on her that the fact that the Lord was her shep­herd was all she needed to know. 

“Even though I walk through the dark­est val­ley, I fear no evil; for you are with me.”  The Lord – the Good Shep­herd – is with us… even in the dark­ness.  How do we know?  Because inevitably, we see his light – in the helpers, the good, the love of those with us, as the psalmist says: “for you are with me.”  And “With,” remem­ber, is Immanuel’s mid­dle name:  God With Us. 

Blog­ger Glen­non Melton wrote this week about long­ing, as a lov­ing par­ent, to keep her kids safe from all dan­ger, yet know­ing, of course, that we can’t. Glen­non writes:  “Our only choice is to rede­fine the word ‘safe.’  What is ‘safe’? … That we will pro­tect [our chil­dren]” – and, we might add, every­one we love, and our­selves – “from all harm? … OK, fair enough. … But here is the thing about that. … The col­lat­eral dam­age  is that we will also keep them [and our­selves] from beauty, love, and wis­dom. Because … these … [are] a direct result of risk.

“We take chances on things, we go out into the world – we put our­selves at risk – and some­times we end  up empty-handed and wrecked. … The risks of engag­ing an unpre­dictable world are great.

“But,” she goes on, “some­times risk doesn’t leave us empty-handed.  Some­times as a result of set­ting out into the … world, we find great love, beauty, friend­ship, and wis­dom.  Some­times the rewards of risk don’t leave us wrecked. Some­times we find our pas­sion, our pur­pose, courage, con­nec­tion, and comfort.”

My own addi­tion to Glennon’s thoughts is that “safe” also means, when the ter­ri­ble things do hap­pen, you – our chil­dren, our loved ones – we – are not alone.  When we tell our kids or any­one else, “You are safe,” it doesn’t mean “I am pow­er­ful enough to keep any­thing bad from hap­pen­ing to you.”  It means “I am here for you.  Oth­ers are here for you.  And most of all, God is here for you.  And we all love you.  The ter­ri­ble can never win when you are sur­rounded by, embraced by, under­girded by so much love. That’s what ‘safe’ is.”  And that’s what it means that even though we walk through the dark­est val­ley, God is with us.

“Surely good­ness and mercy shall fol­low me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.” 

I learned just this week that the ancient Hebrew for “fol­lows” is more accu­rately trans­lated “pur­sues” or “chases.”  In all the rest of the Psalms, when­ever that word shows up, it describes the psalmist’s ene­mies pur­su­ing him or her or the peo­ple of Israel.  But here, in Psalm 23:6, the Shepherd-Lord’s mes­sage is, “Even if you, lit­tle lamb, don’t fol­low my lead­ing in paths of good­ness and mercy… or even if you can’t fol­low because the val­ley has got­ten so dark … I will fol­low you – no, I will pur­sue you, chase after you – with good­ness and mercy and light and love.  And you will hear my voice because I will be call­ing you by name, assur­ing you that you are safe, and remind­ing you how much I love you.” 

A young marathon run­ner posted this on Face­book:  “I was a half mile from the fin­ish line when the explo­sion went off.  I had no idea what was going on until I finally stopped and asked some­one.  Know­ing that my fam­ily was at the fin­ish line wait­ing for me, I started pan­ick­ing, try­ing to call them.  [Finally], I was able to get in touch with … my fam­ily, and they were safe.  I was just so happy … that I sat down and started cry­ing.  Just couldn’t hold it back.  At that moment, a cou­ple walk­ing by stopped.  The woman took the space tent off her hus­band, who had fin­ished the marathon, and wrapped it around me.  She asked me if I was okay, if I knew where my fam­ily was.  I reas­sured her I knew where they were and I would be okay.  The man then asked me if I fin­ished, to which I [shook my head] ‘no.’  He then pro­ceeded to take the medal off from around his neck and place it around mine.  He told me, ‘You are a fin­isher in my eyes.’  I was barely able to choke out a ‘thank you’ between my tears.” 

None of us can run the race of life alone.  We need one another… and we need God.  Above all, we can­not fin­ish the race on our own; like the young woman who posted on Face­book, evil and death inevitably block our way.  But Jesus has run the race ahead of us, has crossed the fin­ish line, and has dou­bled back to come to our aid.  He places his finisher’s medal around our necks … and we know all will be well. We are safe. 

Amen.

Last Novem­ber, I answered a call for essays from the daily news­pa­per of the metro area near­est us (Fargo, ND / Moor­head, MN). The topic was “What Makes Your Small Town Spe­cial.” The Forum writer at the helm of this ini­tia­tive is pick­ing her favorite essays and vis­it­ing the towns rep­re­sented, result­ing in a peri­odic series that gets read­ers (vir­tu­ally, any­way) out beyond Fargo-Moorhead to learn about some of the vital com­mu­ni­ties nearby.

Vital? Yes, vital! While some small towns appear to be dying, cer­tainly, oth­ers still have a lot to brag about and are younger in terms of median age than you might expect (Hen­drum, for exam­ple, has a median age of 37!). We were delighted by yesterday’s all-day visit by The Forum’s Car­rie Sny­der. She really went above and beyond in terms of her gen­er­ous gift of time and inter­est, many inter­views con­ducted, and more pho­tos taken than she’ll ever be able to share in print! The city lead­ers and res­i­dents thank her!

The Hen­drum story is slated for Mon­day, March 25; I’ll keep you posted. In the mean­time, here is my essay that gar­nered us such attention:

Above: Hen­drum City Post Office

What Makes My Small Town Spe­cial: Hen­drum, Minnesota

by Heidi Mann, sub­mit­ted Novem­ber 25, 2012

My hus­band Greg and I grew up in East Grand Forks and Moor­head, then lived in sim­i­lar cities through­out young adult­hood, never enter­tain­ing – or desir­ing – a small-town life. Until sum­mer 2002, when I was invited to inter­view for a posi­tion in Hen­drum, Minn., pop­u­la­tion then: 350… maybe.

We would learn a month later of the church’s deci­sion to call me as pas­tor, but the very evening of the inter­view, as we were escorted down the street – not the side­walk; the street! – to view the par­son­age, we were sold on this lit­tle town. “It’s so quiet!” we exclaimed, head­ing home to more heav­ily traf­ficked and pop­u­lated Fargo.

I served Hendrum’s Immanuel Church for seven years. In 2009, when my new free­lance busi­ness could have been set up any­where, and Greg could have worked in his employer’s Moor­head office as eas­ily as in Hen­drum, still, we stayed. We had fallen in love with a com­mu­nity where most peo­ple know most oth­ers, the small school sys­tem and the charms of small-town life.

Like the time shortly after mov­ing here, when some­one returned Greg’s cell phone before he knew it was miss­ing, hav­ing rec­og­nized it as his by just the first name on its screen. Or the time Greg had a col­lege exam in Moor­head but found our car had a flat; our next-door neigh­bor imme­di­ately offered a lift, and before I could call the local mechanic, I saw him in our dri­ve­way, exam­in­ing the tire. “How’d you know?” I asked. “Oh, Jim told me when he came for cof­fee” – Jim: another good neigh­bor who had noticed Greg’s dilemma. In a small town, word trav­els fast – usu­ally for the good!

We’ve also been charmed by local busi­ness­peo­ple who know our kids by name and look out for them. Nowa­days it’s price­less to feel secure let­ting a child walk alone a few blocks to the bank or hair salon. Sure, I call ahead – “He’s anx­ious to deposit his gift money, but I can’t get away; would you please show him how his pass­book works?” “He wants to walk alone. I’ll send a check along for the hair­cut; please call when he heads home” – but it allows our sons to branch out while stay­ing safe.

We love Nor­man County West School – small enough for teach­ers and staff, regard­less of posi­tion, to know all the kids, regard­less of grade; where one who doesn’t quite qual­ify for an IEP is still on the radar of con­cerned special-ed teach­ers; where senior cit­i­zens whose grand­chil­dren are grown still attend games, con­certs and plays to lend sup­port; where tech­nol­ogy is a pri­or­ity – Smart­Boards and iPads used in all class­rooms; and where aca­d­e­mic achieve­ment has earned NCW sev­eral des­ig­na­tions among Minnesota’s top schools.

I could tell of the quaint post office, the church, the police­man and vol­un­teer fire­fight­ers our kids know per­son­ally, towns­peo­ple turn­ing out to sand­bag together against floods. And of course it’s not per­fect; no town is. But we still call Hen­drum “home”… because, in short, we’re still in love.

Wikipedia: Copy­edit­ing tool and so much more

I often use Wikipedia, the free online ency­clo­pe­dia, for my copy­edit­ing work because fact-checking is often part of copy­edit­ing projects. Though Wikipedia isn’t con­sid­ered cred­i­ble enough to be a stand-alone source of doc­u­men­ta­tion in an aca­d­e­mic paper or schol­arly work, it works great for double-checking a bit of information.

So when I saw a fundrais­ing ad on Wikipedia in Decem­ber, I opted to donate a few dol­lars. If every­one who uses Wikipedia donates a mere $3 or $5 a year, it will con­tinue to be a ready resource for us. But my point here isn’t to make a fundrais­ing plea. It’s to share what I found in my inbox today as part of a “thank you” from Wikipedia: this video. Take a look … Read the rest of this entry »

I have a Google Alert for the phrase “copy edi­tor needed,” so every once in a while a pos­si­ble project oppor­tu­nity floats into my email inbox. I got a kick out of yesterday’s:

Assis­tant Copy Edi­tor Needed

… is look­ing for an Assis­tant Copy Editor. The Assis­tant Copy Edi­tor will train under … the cur­rent copy edi­tor. … We are start­ing our search early because of the high spec­i­fi­ca­tions we have for this posi­tion. They are as fol­lows: Read the rest of this entry »

What do Pulitzer Prize-winning play­wright Edward Albee, Olympic swim­ming medal­ist Greg Louga­nis, and I have in com­mon? We’ve all been inter­viewed by Bruce Con­verse on Rain­bow Radio, a weekly radio pro­gram that was awarded the Human Rights Campaign’s 2007 “Equal­ity Award.”

In turn, I wrote about Bruce and Rain­bow Radio for my Jan­u­ary fea­ture “Some­one You MUST Know” in “10,000 Same-Sex Cou­ples e-Magazine,” for which I write, copy­edit, and lend other edi­to­r­ial sup­port. My arti­cle begins as fol­lows: Read the rest of this entry »

Wanted to share my most recent arti­cle for “10,000 Same –Sex Cou­ples eMagazine”:

Some­one You MUST Know:

Min­nesotans United for All Fam­i­lies Com­mu­nity Orga­nizer Luke Ferguson

by Heidi Mann

Luke Fer­gu­son is one of dozens of com­mu­nity orga­niz­ers work­ing with Min­nesotans United for All Fam­i­lies to oppose a mea­sure on the Novem­ber 6 bal­lot that, if passed, will limit mar­riage to one man and one woman by state con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment. Cer­tainly each per­son employed by or vol­un­teer­ing with Min­nesotans United, or sim­i­lar orga­ni­za­tions in Maine, Wash­ing­ton, and Mary­land, where sim­i­lar mea­sures will be on the bal­lot, has their own unique story. Because I got to know Luke per­son­ally a few months ago (and – full dis­clo­sure – I am also a Min­nesota res­i­dent), I invited him to be this month’s “Some­one You MUST Know” as a way to rep­re­sent and honor all who are serv­ing in such capacities.

I asked Luke what brought him to this work. His response, in a word: bul­ly­ing. But prob­a­bly not what you’re think­ing; not the type of bul­ly­ing so many of our read­ers (and sub­jects of our arti­cles, such as last month’s “Some­one You MUST Know,” Caleb Laieski) have endured as LGBT indi­vid­u­als. Rather, Luke’s expe­ri­ence demon­strates that bul­ly­ing can go both direc­tions. In his own words:

“My house­hold was actu­ally very con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian. I was raised to believe that being gay was wrong. I attended a small pri­vate Chris­t­ian [grade] school that only served to rein­force the teach­ing I got at home about gay and les­bian peo­ple. In fact, before I went to high school, I was so shel­tered I didn’t real­ize that peo­ple thought dif­fer­ently than my fam­ily did.

“Then I went to high school, a huge pub­lic high school in Min­neapo­lis. It was one of the most open and accept­ing places towards LGBT stu­dents you could imag­ine. But once I expressed my view that I didn’t think it was OK to be gay, I got bul­lied. I was called ‘bigot’ and ‘homo­phobe.’ I have vivid mem­o­ries of being really con­fused. I had never heard the term ‘homo­phobe’ before and I didn’t know what it meant. I was scared of gay peo­ple. My fam­ily and church just taught me that it was wrong. … Read full article.