Category: Spirituality - trish hermanson

Who's Gonna Save Us?

9/11/2020

l long for someone to save America from violence, the pandemic, and economic turmoil. I long for someone who is “larger than life” to rescue us, as Bonnie Tyler sang in “Holding Out for a Hero,” an anthem that has echoed through our culture for more than three decades.
My yearning for a political messiah seems inherent across the political spectrum, whether we’re left, middle, or right. We want someone to ride in on a white horse and save us.
     But when I place my hope in a politician or a political party, am I committing a modern form of idol worship? Have I forgotten our national motto: “In GOD We Trust”?
     It’s crazy when I search for a superhero because no person, party, or platform can ultimately rescue America. Commentator Cal Thomas says, “…revival of the American spirit won’t come through politics and politicians…. America’s central problems are not economic and political; they are moral and spiritual.”
     So what can I do? For my soul’s sake, I can ask my Creator to revive me. For my country’s sake, I can look beyond campaign rhetoric and vote for who I hope will best preserve our Constitution and our shaky union.      Bonnie Tyler’s original music video is overwrought with her plea to save her from a burning house. Our national house is on fire today. Perhaps our faith in a candidate is just as overwrought. Who’s gonna save us? Neither. Rescue begins at the individual level.
     ***
      Artwork: GoGraph.

The Strangest Recycling Program

8/20/2020

That’s my grandson Oak reaching toward a stash of shells we found strewn across a beach near his home in Alabama. He and I were observing the strangest recycling program - gorgeous shells washed up and ground into sand by the force of wind, waves, and feet.
     It’s mysterious to me why God trashes part of creation when it’s at its peak in beauty. But then, I thought about how sand becomes the building block for construction, the primary raw material to create concrete and glass.
     It’s a grand recycling scheme, something that I suppose we’ve all undergone. Did you ever get demoted? Swept out of a high-profile position into something less noticeable? It feels like a drop in status, but perhaps it’s actually a stepping stone into something closer to what you were made to do.
     Like a seashell, sometimes I’ve felt washed up on life’s shore, crushed in my aspirations by the wind, waves, and feet of others. Perhaps I was getting repurposed. Perhaps I was, as Jesus described, like a seed that must be buried before it can sprout into leaves, flowers, and fruit. Being recycled can be painful. Often it demands risk, as Peter Mayer describes in this song about pumpkins that face being repurposed out of their patch.

Straddling a Seesaw between Passion and Practicality

7/17/2020

As I finished feeding my granddaughter Eve a bottle, writing thoughts bounced in my head, but Eve just wanted to nap. So for a moment, Eve became my desktop, and we were both happy.
     That’s how life is sometimes - passions in my head while practicality demands my hands. I straddle a seesaw between the wanna do’s and what’s literally in my lap to do. A hiking trail beckons, but so does the laundry.
     In times like this, I remember a French monk who lived nearly four hundred years ago. Brother Lawrence learned that routine kitchen tasks like peeling potatoes could transcend into something higher simply by contemplating that God was with him. This is easier for me to do when I’m engaged in a delightful task like feeding Eve, but it’s a stretch when I’m cleaning a toilet.
     Yet it’s incredible to contemplate that I’m not alone when I carry smelly trash outside or hunch over my desk paying bills. God is with me. Simple acts become holy.
     Singer Peter Mayer captures that revelation in “Holy Now,” which I invite you to listen to here.

Brenda Received Her Calling before Birth

7/6/2020

Brenda received her life’s calling before she was born, but didn’t realize it for years.
     She was still in the womb when her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Her father and seven siblings took a vote and decided her mother should end the pregnancy so the cancer could be treated. Brenda’s mother objected. “It’s my child and I won’t do that.”
     She died five months after Brenda was born.
     Brenda told me, “My daddy never said my mother’s name. Never showed me pictures of her.”
     But Brenda loved playing nurse as a child and dreamed of becoming one. The dream nearly evaporated when she took on the rigors of nursing school while raising three children. One day she sat in her car crying and wished she could talk with her mother. “I heard an audible voice: ‘She gave her life for you, and she didn’t have to.’” That spurred Brenda on, and she finished school.
     I’m grateful she did, because today Brenda is an oncology nurse treating my daughter Ashley. As she told me her story, she had an epiphany: Her mother had cancer and gave her life for her; now Brenda gives her professional life to those with cancer. “I never thought about that before,” she said. “But I think It’s a calling.”
     Brenda’s story took my breath away. I’ve never audibly heard God, but sometimes I get a thought to call someone, or an idea to act upon. When I do, things happen that - dare I say? - carry the fingerprints of the supernatural.
     I think sometimes God nudges me.
  How about you?

Where's Your Refuge?

6/15/2020

A six-foot-long alligator growled and flashed his teeth at Duane and me from a pond on an Island off the coast of Alabama recently. If he’d attacked, I’d have scrambled up a tree, which is what this magnificent oak tree is known for. Locals call it the Goat Tree, because in the island’s past, wild goats scrambled into it to take shelter from roaming alligators.
     Don’t we all face “alligators” at one time or another? Health issues that sneak up on us. Bosses that growl at us. Money problems that threaten to bite us. None of us are immune from problems. So where do we run to?
     I may be going out on a limb with what I’m about to say, but trust me, it’s as sturdy as an oak. We know this world isn’t what it ought to be (racism, pandemics, the IRS). And we know we’re made for much more than we experience. I’ve come to believe that this deep yearning is the voice of our creator beckoning us for something more. He’s in the process of taking all the brokenness and remaking it - and us - for a better world. In the meantime (and it can get pretty mean), if you can’t picture yourself scampering up a tree for shelter, then visualize running to a rock as Whitney Houston sang here.
  Whatever alligators are nipping at your heels, I invite you to take refuge.