Surprise Invitations

This past week, my daughter, Kateri, who lives in Detroit, came back to Rochester to surprise her mom for a few days prior to Mother’s Day. It was great because my wife, Lynne, really did not expect it and we were able to truly pull off a surprise.

Now one thing that is so fun about Lynne is that she’s a very expressive person. So her reaction when Kateri showed up during our dinner (which we captured on video) was really genuine (you can watch the video here).

Surprises can go a few different ways, however. Some we like. Others we might find a bit harder to accept.

If you attended weekend liturgies this past weekend (in person or virtual), you had a chance to hear Maureen Hood speak about motherhood. She did a fantastic job, and one thing that really stood out to me – as she talked about her parenting journey – was the unexpected (surprise!) invitation to parent a trans child (in fact, two children!). It reminded me, yet again, of the unexpected nature of the spiritual life. Just when we think we know what’s going to happen, something changes. Just when we settle in to what we think will be our new routine, there’s a shift.

I both love and dread this reality!

What I love about it is that God – similar to Maureen’s description of her non-binary child, Pidge – does not fit neatly into established categories.  In many indigenous traditions, there are so many stories of the “trickster” – the embodiment of God who messes with reality, bends the rules or interrupts business as usual. This trickster energy makes life unpredictable and ever-changing, and it forces us to remain awake and attentive.

This is, in part, what I dread.

I’ll be honest, I like consistency. I am not a big fan of surprises, and I don’t like a lot of change.

So this unpredictable nature of God and life itself is not something I look forward to. And yet it seems to be the nature of the spiritual life. I am still trying to get used to that reality after more than 50 years of life!

Change happens – and it keeps happening. Our job is to change with it when it happens.

In today’s gospel from John 15, Jesus is telling his disciples that they’re going to face hardship and rejection from people. He tells them this, however, because he’s also making the point that the people who are rejecting his disciples failed to ‘keep up’ with the changes in their midst. They were stuck in an old paradigm, and thus could not recognize God’s new activity in the world.

Even if you are not currently facing one of these spiritual “invitations to change,” rest assured, you will be soon! And when we are faced with these invitations, we have a fundamental choice – surrender to the change and let go of the life we knew or keep fighting to hold on to the old reality. If you choose the former, you are thrust (once again) into some unfamiliar territory that you must learn to navigate and move through. And if you choose the latter, well, you probably already know how that’s going to turn out!

So much of what happens to us in life is nothing we signed up for. It’s a surprise – sometimes welcomed, sometimes unwelcomed. We can make plans, but our trickster God may interrupt the status quo in ways that we did not anticipate, could not calculate and can not regulate. It is at these moments that we try to pivot, grieve, breathe deep and try to live into the new reality that is in front of us.

Reinhold Niebuhr was an American theologian who wrote what has become known in Alcoholic’s Anonymous as the “Serenity Prayer.” You may be familiar with the oft-quoted verses: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” The poem goes on, however to say the following, “Taking…this…world as it is, not as I would have it.”

Wherever you find yourself these days – but especially if you find your self spiritually challenged to accept something about life “as it is, and not as [you] would have it,” I pray that you be given the strength to lean in, let go and accept this invitation – with all of its disorientation and all of its promise. And remember, you are in good company.