Treadmill Theology

Posted on May 28, 2018 by Sarah Lowther Hensley

Disclaimer: I am not a professional theologian. I have not even ever played one on TV. Furthermore, I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. So, read on if interested in how my crazy mind works, but at your own risk.

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Either from oxygen deprivation or some sort of Spirit-directed introspection, I have arrived at what I consider an important breakthrough in my understanding of the divine.

This came to me on the treadmill, so…walk with me a few minutes and I will fill you in.

I’ve been walking on the treadmill daily for several months and, while walking, I’ve been binge-watching one of my favorite shows on Netflix.

The show just wrapped up its 14^th season, and I have stayed up-to-date with the latest happenings.

For my re-watch binge I started back at the first-ever episode and am now up to Season 7. It’s been fascinating to experience old episodes, knowing what happens to the characters down the line. I witness them make life choices, take actions, learn lessons, and start/stop relationships …and I already know how it turns out.

“Don’t get on the plane, you guys!”

“Yes, girl, you can DO this. Don’t give up! It’s gonna all be OK.”

I know these characters better than they know themselves…yet.

So, back to my important breakthrough in understanding the divine…

No matter what season of my life I’m in, God has already seen it. He already knows how this – and future seasons – turns out.

I don’t mean this in any predestination-everything-happens-for-a-reason-because-it’s-God’s-plan way.

Not. At. All.

God is not some Emmy-winning-script-writer-in-the-sky.

I mean it in a God-exists-outside-our-linear-experience-of-time-and-already-knows-what-happens way.

God knows me.

Before I was born he knew me.

When I was a child he knew me.

When I became a wife and mother he knew me.

He knows me right now.

He knows what life choices I’ll make, what actions I’ll take, what lessons I’ll learn, and what relationships I will start/stop.

Not because he makes those choices for me, but because he has already watched me make them.

He knows how it all turns out.

He knows me better than I know myself…yet.

It’s comforting to think that God has always been with me. God is with me now. And God will continue to be with me through every season.

He’ll be with me as I make all those choices and experience those consequences.

Perhaps if I make an effort to spend time with God, listening for his voice, I may even hear some helpful comments coming my way.

“Have you thought of this other path? It may not be usual and ordinary…but I think you will like where it leads.”

“Give your friend the benefit of the doubt. He is trying his best.”

“Go ahead and have that ice cream, girl! It’s one of life’s awesome joys!”

He’s seen all my episodes from every season and even knows when my series gets cancelled.

Maybe my eternal life will turn out to be a sort of never-ending syndication*. I’m counting on a reunion movie thrown in.

*Update 5/29/18 7:45 a.m.: Still thinking…syndication – or spin-off? Still thinking…

Broken

Posted on April 30, 2018 by Sarah Lowther Hensley

Two weeks later, after multiple X-rays, scans, ultrasounds, and other tests, the extreme pain remained.

Unexplained.

Two weeks later, after two ambulance rides, two ER visits, being admitted for “observation” (Medicare-ese for “you are here but you aren’t”), a blood clot, and more tests, we found out why.

Broken.

The leg is broken.

Guess what?

So is our healthcare system.

I know I am not alone in my frustration at the American healthcare system – arguably the most expensive, the most confusing and, often, the most maddening and inefficient healthcare system in the world.

I recently read Elisabeth Rosenthal’s book An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back.

I can’t recommend it enough.

It breaks all the sectors down one by one and peels back the dysfunction.

In my opinion, healthcare is a basic human right.

But in America, a nation boasting of endless opportunity and wealth, our healthcare system gets lots wrong.

And it is a life and death tragedy.

In this most recent case, the pain has been intense and needlessly prolonged by a turf-segmented healthcare “system”.

(I want to be clear that the individuals providing (or trying to provide) healthcare are almost universally awesome and dedicated to their jobs…it is the system that often gets in their way of doing them.)

The leg is broken.

So is the American healthcare system.

And that is sick.

Easter’s Black Eye

Posted on March 31, 2018 by Sarah Lowther Hensley

I recently came across some Easter pictures from the year I was ten. They’re a bit faded now, but there I was, dressed up in my pink Easter dress and sporting a blue and green black eye.

I was a certified tomboy (which makes the pink dress all the more of a miracle) and I got my black eye through honest horseplay.

That year I put on the expected Easter finery, hunted for eggs, ate chocolate, and went to church, all while sporting a beauty of a shiner.

This Easter, I don’t have a black eye; but organized religion in America sure does.

I am writing these words on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter – a Saturday that marks the paradoxical moment of suspended animation between the experience of death/defeat and the promise of life/victory.

In many ways, this day reflects my current location on my spiritual journey.

I’ve had a falling out with my “church” while also sensing an ever stronger pull to be part of the “Church”. There has been a “death” for me in the sense of belonging to a church, while also a promise of “life” within the greater purpose of the “Church”.

Just as religious leaders in Jerusalem called for Jesus to be executed, some leaders in today’s American church call for the de facto execution of the poor, displaced, and oppressed. They cheer as political leaders cut people off from healthcare, food, education, and safe harbor.

Other leaders remain wishy washy about whether all are welcome and accepted in the church; they debate and negotiate with those who think the church needs gatekeepers and bouncers to keep some people out. Jesus welcomed and accepted every person. He was pretty clear about it. He died for all.

American church leaders have largely remained tone deaf to the heartfelt cries of #MeToo.

The American church has a black eye.

We can dress it up all we want, but it’s hard to ignore.

So, here I am on this Easter Saturday…disillusioned with a church that is seemingly drifting farther and farther away from the example of Christ.

I am probably not getting dressed up tomorrow to worship at a church.

Maybe. Maybe not.

But this coming week I am going to pack my bag, meet a bus on a lonely stretch of highway, and join with other disciples heading to D.C. to rally and call for an end to racism.

My trust in a church is dead, but my faith in Christ and his Church is alive and well.

This Easter I may not be in church, but I am looking forward to following Jesus.

And shiner or no, I am determined to smile.

Happy Easter.

Teaching a New Song

Posted on February 28, 2018 by Sarah Lowther Hensley

The State of West Virginia is simultaneously heart-swellingly beautiful and heart-wrenchingly wretched – a condition she has experienced and suffered since even before her birth with civil war as a midwife.

Her mountains and streams sing a song, whispering to any listening soul that God is in heaven and all is right with the world. Her people are generous, loyal, and hard-working.

But her political and business leadership is quick to betray her natural beauty and her big-hearted citizens – selling her out to the lowest bidder, prostituting her for the crumbs and scars inflicted by those who covet but do not love her.

Her mountains are lopped off and shipped out. Her streams are filled with pollution. Her people are enlisted to play second fiddle and low-wage back-up singer to the forces that see her as an economic interest, but otherwise have no interest in her or her well-being and future.

Her current leaders rush headlong into actions that leave her less safe, less healthy, less empowered, and with less capacity to care for her people or her own natural beauty. Small-minded and visionless, they trip over each other in their fawning frenzy to please their out-of-state masters and political puppeteers.

Within the past week we have been reminded that we don’t have to accept the status quo. In a show of amazing solidarity, West Virginia’s teachers rose up together, hand-painted their signs, planted their feet firmly on the picket line and in the halls of power, and said, “Enough!”

All 55 county school systems were shut down, as teachers stood up and spoke out.

This is about more than the teachers, more than the schools, more than wages and benefits.

Ultimately, this is about self-respect and the right to be respected by others.

West Virginia’s teachers are standing up for us all.

They are standing up for our children.

They are standing up, in their own way, for our mountains and streams and our individual and collective right to self-determination.

They are standing up for West Virginia’s song, buying it back one handmade sign, one chant, one set of linked arms at a time.

In fact, they are changing the tune and composing a new song for West Virginia.

I applaud them.

I support them.

I thank them.

#WVTeachers

#55Strong

#SingANewSong

Perpetual Intention

Posted on January 28, 2018 by Sarah Lowther Hensley

Two square cubes and three rectangular blocks.

From these simple objects, I mark each new day.

The rectangles display the months of the year, one month per side.

The squares display numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6/9, 7, and 8, from which each day of the month can be shown in its turn.

Twelve months…a repeating pattern of days of the month…1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 (sometimes), 30 (sometimes), and 31 (sometimes).

My perpetual calendar – a gift from my sister many years ago – can show each day, but only if I intentionally move the blocks around to show the correct date.

Some years it gathered dust on a shelf.

Some years I changed it once in a while but mostly forgot.

Lately, I have become OCD about changing it daily.

It’s really just a few pieces of wood with some writing on them.

If I forget to change the blocks for a particular day’s date, the day still happens.

But the intentionality of changing it…of saying “here is a new day”…means something to me.

Each new day deserves its own intentionality.

I WILL acknowledge it’s a new day.

I WILL be intentional about making the most of this day.

I WILL pay attention to the small, everyday, simple things.

Intentionally WILL.

It’s not about a bigger, longer, better “to-do” list of intentionality.

It’s about taking stock of the basics…not letting life’s “to-do” list of busy-ness crowd them out.

The basic building blocks of a “day”…a “month”…a “life” are extremely simple.

We are the ones who make it complicated.

Perpetually.

Writers Read

Posted on December 28, 2017 by Sarah Lowther Hensley

2017 has been a tough year for writing.

It has been a tough year.

I’ve done tons of worrying and stewing, but not much writing.

Just. Could. Not. Write.

Luckily…

Writers read.

This year, during my own dry spell as a writer, I ramped up the reading.

Here’s a list of the books I read this year.

My goal for 2018 is to maintain this pace of reading, but also revive my writing mojo.

Feel free to leave book recommendations in the comments.

In the meantime…thank you for including my blog in your reading list now and then.

I wish you a very Happy New Year.

-Sarah

*Note, I have added links to Amazon for reference, but the VAST majority of these books I read for free through our local library and the Overdrive app.*