If Beth had a blog

Affirming My Faith

2012-03-03T08:23:00.001-05:00

I believe in a Father who so loves his children to wait in silence for their return in order to give them the best robe, kill the fatted calf and celebrate the feast of reconciliation. Parent to child – is this how I see God? Mostly yes. Mostly I image God as a lap, comforting, welcoming, waiting to be climbed into, lifting up to, lap. And God-silence is one of my favorite things . . . it is the silence of new-fallen snow in the nighttime. . . silence that is full, not empty – full of promise and possibility, safe haven and love – the silence where nothing need be said because all is understood – the comfortable silence of the life-long known to one another. I yearn into that God silence. The feast is just a bonus.

I believe in a Spirit whose power is not revealed in the thunder of the gale nor in the dread of the earthquake but in the still, small voice. I do believe in the Spirit and the silence, but I revel in and cherish the thunder of the gale and need the dread of earthquakes in my life. The gale and thunder reverberate down the very molecules of me, ever reminding that safe is not predictable . . . that love is not definable . . . that sometimes God is the storm and that, too, is good. And earthquakes – how they show me that any ground that I stand on that is not God is uneven at best and perilous dangerous at worst.

From Holy Cliparts

I believe in a Son who broke the power of Silence with the piercing cry "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This I understand best of all . . . who, this side of heaven, does not? Anguish is as much of God as joy – how could it not be when so much begs to be cried out against? How can our hearts not be pierced when God’s own is so wounded?

Dying on the cross he transformed the silence of death into the death of every silence. Capital ‘S’ silence . . . the fear that there is nothing after all . . . nothing to believe in . . . to rely on . . . to commit to . . . that is the Silence that dies . . . falling into the loving noise of God’s own home welcoming. And that is very good.

_____________
Affirmation of Faith is from Massimo Aprile, Italy. In: Rete di Liturgia, 1996, No. 2 © Rete di Liturgia.

Hound Dogs Can't Dance

2012-03-02T08:35:00.004-05:00

“I’ll tell you one thing, Beth: hound dogs can’t dance,” said Eddie. “They’ll try, but they just can’t.”

If I recount Eddie’s observation to town friends, they’ll simply look confused. But when I share it with country friends, they’ll roar with laughter . . . or claim that they personally know a dog that disproves the hypothesis, as in “maybe Eddie’s hound can’t dance, but my pooch can do a two-step like nobody’s business.”

But I’m with Eddie: I don’t care what anybody says and maybe poodles can, but hound dogs definitely cannot dance – they just don’t have the rhythm for it.

Raising My Arms in Praise

2012-03-01T14:25:00.001-05:00

Praise has many postures. My favorite is arms upraised. It makes me feel like I’m a little girl again, lifting my arms that I might be lifted, imagining that it is God, bending over to pick me up and cradle me in the embrace of love.

Ben in his Grandpa's arms

My arms upraised remind me of safety and of being small – just the right size in relation to God.

Hands in the air call to mind Uncle Bob, the tallest man I knew in our family of short fellows, hauling me up on his shoulders where I could see everything. Upraised arms remind me of being tall – just the right size with God.

Arms upraised remind me of lifting my own son up, up, up, ever higher, his laughter a visible expression of joy – just the right emotion when meeting God.

Arms held up through his tears as he cries his sickness and yearns for comfort, my grandson sleeping the fitful rest of the sick child with breaths measured by the rhythm of his father’s chest – just the right spot when needing God.

Voting and the Law of Unintended Consequences

2012-02-29T08:27:00.000-05:00

Okay, I’ll admit it. Voting in the primary of the opposite party (a possibility denied me in my home state of West Virginia but available in Virginia where I now live) has a certain appeal. The chance to vote for the candidate least likely to defeat my candidate in the general election invites a feeling of Machiavellian anticipation and glee.

And even though ethics and love of God should stop me even thinking such things, the real choke hold that stays my hand (if not my conscience) is the question, “what if he wins?” What if the one I like the least as a political leader would actually be victorious because of our collective efforts to manipulate elections in such a way?

The law of unintended consequences is, in my view, one of the most under-recognized truths when it comes to dealing with the affairs of state.

We cannot know everything now, let alone anticipate everything in the then of our futures.

A corollary to the calculus which disregards the problems of the present in favor of the possibility of a favorable outcome in the future is the notion of the greatest good for the greatest number.

As a Christian, that idea should have been put to final rest with the words of Caiphas in John 11.50, speaking of Jesus, “You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” (NIV)

While Christians have taken that claim and made it uniquely their own, our interpretation is not at all what Caiphas had in mind. Rather, Caiphas believed that killing Jesus would somehow protect his people from oppression by the Romans. It did not. And when it comes to the dynamics of oppression, it never does.

In the 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt, remarking on the duty to protect land and animals from exploitation and annihilation, brings the two ideas together:

Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the 'the game belongs to the people.' So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The 'greatest good for the greatest number' applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method. – A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open, 1916

“The 'greatest good for the greatest number' applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction.”

Thus, whether we are casting our votes in a single election or making decisions as ‘we the people’, it would be well to consider the generations and not merely our own singular perceived self-interest of the moment.

And make no mistake, the generations will learn not only from the outcomes of our actions, but also from how we attained those outcomes. If we lie in the ballot box, we teach our children that desirable outcomes make it permissible, even desirable, to lie.

Our integrity is not simply something we owe to ourselves: we owe it to all those within the womb of time.

And lest we disregard this duty and get too proud about our ability to manipulate events to our liking, recall the law of unintended consequences. Things seldom happen the way we foresee; our vision is simply too limited. So even if Merton and King should prove wrong (I don’t think so, but I can’t know everything) about the coherence of means and outcomes, isn’t it simply the better course to act with integrity in each moment?

It is Enough*

2012-02-28T06:51:00.000-05:00

Did you ever notice

that in every story about Jesus

it seems that he was always coming from somewhere

and just about to head out somewhere else?

Especially in Mark

in Mark, Jesus is a man on the move

a man on a mission

with not much time to get it done

This Jesus, this Markan man

never stands still

let alone sits down

for a cup of tea

We get it now

we can see the hurrying

rushing reason of it all. . .

right there before him it stands

the cross

waiting

always

just waiting. . .

But what must it have been like back in the day?

Did they think he was rude?

Or just wonder what the young man was

always rushing off to?

And now, here he comes and here he goes

again

Coming from Nazareth

to the Jordan river

where John and his pals hang out

Was he coming to see John?

Or did he go in order to

jump into the Jordan

for a quick baptismal bath

before rushing off to the next thing?

John . . . check

baptism . . . check

wilderness . . . check

I don’t think so

at least not that last part

There he was

coming up out of the Jordan

fresh and refreshed

when comes the secret telegraph message

from God for his ears alone

at least in Mark

where it is Jesus who hears

and others who must wonder

Jesus who sees

and others who must scratch their heads

heavens rending

dove descending

God-voice proclaiming

all for Jesus . . . all for Jesus

But he hardly gets out of the water

scarcely has time to towel himself dry

when the Spirit dove

turns into the divine cracked-whip

driving

Driving?

Driving Jesus into . . .

W - I - L - D - E - R - N - E - S - S

The wild place

where the wild things are

where rules are left behind

and knowing what comes next isn’t even possible

Where savage and scary and unsafe live

the land of monsters

the place where it all begins

The land called chaos

Wilderness travel

is a going back

back into the primordial ooze

from whence it all began

The place of the ashes and dust of all things . . .

Jesus is chased back

back to beginnings

back to first things

back . . . back . . . back . . .

There is no going forward

for him

for us

until he has first gone back

It’s dangerous

this chaos-place

where rules haven’t yet been made

and those without wings

are dared to fly

those without bread

challenged to eat rocks

those without power

mocked to don their king robes and claim it all

There

back into that nothingness. . .

There

Jesus must go

driven there by God’s own fury

that it should be so

to the wilderness

doth Jesus go

What must it have been like

to survive all that

only to find

on his return

that John was arrested

sure to die

in the hands of such a one as Herod

unfit, surely, for even the sandals of John?

He doesn’t miss a beat

this wilderness-surviving Jesus

it’s like Messiah boot camp. . .

when you come out of that

you’re stronger

tougher

and you stand just a little bit taller

able to see what others cannot

able to see the wilderness

that lives inside

of you

able to see the face of that and live

When you survive the place where the wild things are

you just know

that whatever you do next

is enough

This is my Son

the Beloved

in him I was

I am

I will be

Pleased

And

and

enough

___________________

*Continuing from yesterday's post, this is the 2nd Sermon Reflection from the 1st Sunday in Lent, reflecting upon Mark 1.9-15 (Jesus' baptism, time in the wilderness and beginning ministry after the arrest of John).

God's Unilateral Disarmament

2012-02-27T08:56:00.001-05:00

It Would Have Been Enough*

A warning that the storm is coming

instructions on how to build a boat

strong enough. . . big enough

to withstand the storming waters

In looking to God’s providing,

That would have been enough

Storm waves that rolled but didn’t roll us over

food sufficient for the ride

the dove returning, olive branch in hand. . . or mouth

would have been enough

Standing on dry land

family all safe

livestock and wild things secure

mission accomplished

Survival . . .

For us, for all creation

for plankton and pumas and platypus’ . . .

amoebas and armadillos and aracnids

bacteria and bulls and bugs

viruses and velociraptors and venus fly trays

Our survival would have been enough

But God took it not just one step

but one very gigantic God-leap forward:

“Never again”

The God-promise

while we were still content

to have survived at all

the rainbow-as-a-sign-between-me-and-you-all-of-you

God hanging up for good . . . retiring

the divine weapons of war and mass destruction. . .

turning bows and arrows

into rainbows and raindrops of ‘never again’

Now that was . . . now that is

more . . . oh, so much, much, more

than enough

_____________
*The title is taken from the Jewish prayer/litany response to the rehearsal of Israel’s history with God’s providing; the response: Dayenu literally means ‘it would have been enough’. This reflection is Part 1of the sermon reflections preached Sunday, the first Sunday of Lent, focusing on God's rainbow covenant with all creation as recounted in Genesis 9.8ff.

Hearing the Wind You Cannot See

2012-02-26T15:12:00.000-05:00

Thursday the airwaves around these parts

were full of dire predictions

tornadoes

freezing rain

snow

and wind

such wind

You learn to take these things with

more than a pinch of salt

while still looking skyward

ever seeking to read the

signs of the times

And so it was

Thursday evening

that I stood outside

gazing up

into the dark clouds

feeling the cold of

plummeting temperatures

skating along my skin

No freezing rain

no snow

no tornadoes

only stillness

not a leaf rustling

not a breeze stirring

But the sound

so loud

I turned all around

seeking its origins

I think I’ll never grow accustomed

in these mountain valleys

to the harbinger of wind

the sound of the locomotive

crashing all around

while everything,

everything

is stillness

Hearing it

before you see it

even in the high trees

Wind so fierce

it makes the still air

below it carry the harmony

to its perpetual melody

The only visible clue

the racing of the clouds

across the skyline

Not the calm before the storm

nor even the calm amidst the storm

(eye of the hurricane sort of thing)

but the calm in spite of the storm

The weather here is positively biblical

Lent Devotion: Star Dust

2012-02-25T10:07:00.000-05:00

Skin was earth; it was soil. I could see, even on my own skin . . .

the dust specks God had wetted and stuck with his spit the morning

he made Adam from dirt. Now, all these generations later, we people

could still see on our skin the inherited prints of the dust specks

of Eden. I loved this thought . . . Someday I would count [them],

with the aid of a mirror, and learn precisely how many dust specks Adam comprised – one single handful God wetted, shaped,

blew into, and set firmly into motion and left to wander about

in the fabulous garden bewildered.

–Annie Dillard

I have walked the Pleiades
and followed their courses
I have been bound by the Kimah chains

A Spitzer image of the Pleiades ininfrared,
showing the associated dust (Merope Nebula).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

loosened by the hand of God
I was shaken loose from Thuraya’s whirlings
only to settle here
I am the God-breathed dust
scattered
collected
only to be scattered again
And it is good.

Grief

2012-02-24T17:33:00.000-05:00

Grief . . .
the wall
of the ocean
  that is always
behind you
and you know
you always know
it’s coming
  it’s coming
it’s coming
and
it
is
  going
to
  knock
you
  down

Flickr Commons

Bucket List (UK)

2012-02-23T21:04:00.000-05:00

Well, I’m cheating, really. I don’t have a ‘bucket list’ about the UK, per se, but I do have a list of things I’d like to do next time I’m there. Having already explored a lot of the main tourist attractions and historical sites, I’m on the hunt for the local, the interesting, and the uncrowded.

If I were to truly design a bucket list for the UK, it would simply include the list of Scottish friends I would visit, for they are what draw me back again and again.

That said, there are a few things, new and old (to me) that I’ve simply got to explore my next visit.

On the must see list are:

1. Dickens World in Chatham. It’s the 200th anniversary of Dicken’s birth; I ask you, how can I not go to Dickens World?
2. Hay-on-Wye for the book festival. If you’ve never been and you love books, it’s a must.
3. Fast Castle/Dowlaw Farm, a place, if not the place, where I have been stilled and known God was God.
4. Guernsy- locale of the book The Guernsy Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Some of the best places I’ve been I’ve learned about in books.
5. Eating my way through Inverclyde: the best filled roll in the world at the West Station in Greenock, the haggis appetizer and banoffee pie at the Inverkip Hotel and the Ceylonese Curry (so, so spicy good) at Taj Mahal in Gourock, to name but a few.

Things in Scotland that call out for more exploration:

1. Puppet Animation Festival in Banff
2. Beltane Fire Festival in Edinburgh
3. Gilmerton Cove, Drum Street, Edinburgh
4. Camera Obscura and World of Illusions, Edinburgh
5. Anything, any time, anywhere, with music, preferably involving a fiddle and dancing

Running Away/Running Toward

2012-02-22T19:48:00.000-05:00

Me about the same age when I decided to run away,
hunting Easter eggs at Grandma's house

I ran away once. It was at my Grandma’s house. I don’t even remember why, but I was really mad at my parents - they probably told me no about something. All I remember is that I walked out Grandma’s front door with all the righteous indignation a 7-year-old can manage – off the porch I went and across Grandma’s front yard and I started down the driveway, which meant I could no longer see the house.

My anger and my thoughts – they’ll see – I bet they’ll miss me when I’m gone – I’ll show them – all those thoughts carried me over the rise and down the beginning of the driveway.

Then I looked back and realized I couldn’t see the house. And I ran as fast as my little legs would carry me, back into the safety of Grandma’s house.

The funny part was that no one even knew I was gone. They would have if I’d stayed gone, but I didn’t. I came back, because I was afraid, but also because the safety of the arms of those who loved me was behind me, not ahead of me – it was in the direction we were all going together, not the direction I set out for myself.

Ashes & Dust - Ash Wednesday Musings

2012-02-21T23:31:00.000-05:00

Ashes and dust . . .
A metaphor . . .
God’s way of reminding us . . .
You may be temporary
But I am not. . .
It is not cause for mourning. . .
This ‘being dust’ . . .
Rather, it is cause for reflection . . .
Reflection on the reality of things. . .
And the reality . . .
The enormity. . .
Of God.
As large as our lives loom before us. . .
As big as all the parts of the earth
and its entirety are. .
As vast as is space and the expanding universe . . .
Even all of that
cannot contain . . .
Define. . .
Or refine. . .
God
It is said that we gather at this time
to especially remember . . .
to remember in this Lenten, this ‘lengthening’ time
how very short we are . . .
Rising up
And falling short . . . every day . . .
And to remember that we humans
are finite
set upon the lap of the Limitless,
We are limited. . .
And to remember that the Limitless God stands in relation to us as Creator
Maker
Caressing Potter
Chiseling Sculptor
Careful Painter
Consummate Artist
that we may bask in the glory not of our own special-ness
but in the reflected glory of such an Artisan as This
that we may behold
And be glad

A Feast of Kept Promises

2012-02-21T08:38:00.000-05:00

Spread for me a banquet of praise,

serve High God a feast of kept promises. . .

–Psalm 50 (The Message)

When I was about 7 years old, my Dad promised me that I could take ballet lessons if I got straight A’s on my report card. And I did, so off to years of ballet I went.

But what I didn’t know at the time and only learned much later from my Mom was that they really couldn’t afford those lessons and my Dad had made the promise never believing that I could or would make the straight A’s.

When I proudly brought my report card home, Mom asked Dad, “So what are you going to do now?”

Well, my Dad kept that promise, a promise he could ill afford.

To me, kept promises look like ballet slippers and ballet slippers look like sacrifice.

God’s feast of kept promises is a wonderful table beautifully spread, only this time, rather than being served by God, it is we who are the host and God the guest.

I wonder what your own feast of kept promises looks like?

Being Grateful

2012-02-20T18:55:00.000-05:00

Isn’t it so true? And I have no idea why. I have some guesses, but that’s all they are: guesses. I am guessing that gratitude does in fact turn what we have into enough because being grateful is full-time work – it doesn’t leave much time for anything else.

But even more, gratitude is a state of being that is turned outward rather than inward. It considers the other more than the self. When I am thankful for what you have done for me or allowed of me, there isn’t much, if any, room for me to be anything but thankful.

It’s a reorientation of sorts, isn’t it? A way of looking that sees the 360̊, gratitude allows us to apprehend the before and after of things and to appreciate the contrast which has worked to our favor.

Gratitude recognizes that much of what we have and who we are is the result of the kindness and efforts of others . . . God . . .family . . . friends . . . strangers . . . and even enemies.

I am grateful for the shining sun I did nothing to bring into being . . .

I am grateful for the mind that I have that was gifted to me by the generations . . .

I am grateful for the job I was given by people who were strangers when they decided to trust me. . .

I am grateful for children who are who they are in spite of as much as because of me . . .

I am grateful . . . and I have enough.

Booing the Golden Rule -- Really?

2012-02-19T08:41:00.000-05:00

Some time ago during one of the many presidential debates, candidate Ron Paul suggested that the foreign policy of the United States would do well to follow the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The response of a significant portion of the audience in the hall, most of them, I would hazard to guess, Christians, was to boo.

It is shocking to hear the Golden Rule booed in any context.

My own belief that the crisis of our time and place is not a lack of faith in Jesus, but rather a lack of belief that Jesus is ‘up to the job’ – I think, without meaning to, we have somehow rewritten our understanding of just who Jesus is and what Jesus does and can do. And so we believe we have to act in the ways we do, because Jesus just isn’t up to the job.

An example: on the eve of the Iraq war, I coincidentally happened to attend a church meeting as a student observer. The minister asked his Session to reflect on what Jesus would do when it came to the decision whether to go to war or not.

The folks had many and varied answers; they were all thinking seriously on it; they were all taking their faith and their understanding of God and God’s word into account, including one gentleman who just couldn’t contain himself; the words literally burst from him: If you’re asking me if Jesus would ride into Baghdad on top of a tank, well, of course he wouldn’t. But Jesus would be wrong!

The silence that followed his outburst was, as you might imagine, stunned. I don’t know how he and his church family dealt with that in the days, weeks, months and years after I left. But his statement has never left me.

What was going on in his heart, I cannot know. But I can tell you what I thought then and what I think now: I think the man is a genuine follower of Jesus Christ, but that somehow, over time, he has stopped believing that Jesus really is the Savior, the Messiah, the Rescuer. Somehow, he has come to believe that Jesus just doesn’t understand what we face; that somehow, Jesus isn’t up to the job.

I don’t know what else to call that except a crisis of faith. So it’s my own guess that too many in the debate hall the night Ron Paul invoked the Golden Rule may suffer the same problem: believing that Jesus is a nice enough guy, that Jesus is a good model to follow for our kids; but when it comes to the world of grown-ups, when it comes to the serious ‘business’ of the work of nations, Jesus is just too darned naive to be considered, let alone believed or followed.

If I am right; if this is so, more’s the pity.

A Far Humbler God

2012-02-18T08:59:00.000-05:00

“[In the contryside, I grew up] listening to the counsel of a far humbler God than He who guided the untroubled conscience of the British ruling class.” –John LeCarre, in his 1989 Introduction to his 1962 novel, A Murder of Quality.

Yesterday’s weekly meeting of ministers preparing, praying, and pontificating (yes, we do that even amongst ourselves), focused on Jesus’ time in the wilderness as told in the Gospel of Mark.

During our discussion phase, dear friend and wise man Bill Cox raised the question: did Jesus know who he was before he was baptized and sent into the wilderness? Or was Jesus’ own identity revealed to him over time?

And if Jesus was not self-aware that he was and is God, does that mean that he was somehow separated from the Trinity? Or, perhaps even more radical, did the very Trinity itself become so self-emptied that She/He/They/It (have you ever noticed there’s no good pronoun for the Trinity?) lost or stepped away from identity in those moments in historical time we Christians think of as the life of Jesus?

In other words, what does the wilderness, the place where God is, or at the least, seems, absent, look like when God’s very self goes there? Can God be absent from God?

It’s a frightening proposition: that God’s entry into time and space was so radical that God’s very self is affected somehow, fragmented even. We speak of the cost of the cross to God, but seldom think on the cost of being human to God.

Greeks saw the gods in time and space as cavorting sportsters, having fun usually at human expense. Bill’s question, however, suggests a far graver idea: that perhaps God lost God’s own self in coming to save my and your self.

It is a vision unsettling, this idea of a far humbler God.

Five Reasons to Have Jon Stewart to Dinner

2012-02-16T14:17:00.000-05:00

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ShareAlike 2.0 License

There are so many reasons to have Jon Stewart at your dinner table, but here are my top 5 (in ascending order of importance - yes, I’m that kind of gal):

1. Perhaps the greatest facial expressions of disbelief of all time;

2. My favorite newscaster – and unlike Tucker Carlson, I actually know that it’s the pretend news, but I stand by my assessment;

3. A wonderful combination of humor and pathos in the same person is pretty rare in my experience - qualities to be treasured;

4. An ability to fill in conversational lags, a definite plus in a dinner guest;

5. But right now, topping my reasons-to-have-Jon-to-dinner is that he might choose to bring A. J. Jacobs with him. I just finished reading The Know-It-All and had read some time ago Jacobs’ tome on living the Bible literally for a year. And I’m hopeful that A. J. would bring Julie, his wife (St. Julie, as she’s known in these parts) along. You see, it’s really Julie I want to meet -- if you've read his books, you'll understand. And maybe, just maybe, if I suck up enough to Jon Stewart, I can get to meet her – Stewart did, after all, write the blurb on the cover of Jacob’s soft back edition of The Know-It-All. I’m guessing he’s got some pull, even if indirect and tenuous, with St. Julie.

So what do you say, Jon? Is Saturday good for you guys?

What Grace Looks Like

2012-02-15T07:31:00.000-05:00

When living in Scotland, I was invited to attend the retirement party of a woman named Ruth. Ruth attended the church where I was interning, but I hadn’t met her other than brief handshakes. My friend Liz, who would be playing the fiddle, invited me as her guest.

But it was Ruth who as the hostess showed me what lived grace looks like to a stranger in a strange land.

This was Ruth’s night, but she took me literally by the hand and told the stories of her work life as a midwife to me. When she referred to people, well-known to everyone else in the room, she had them stand up so I could know who they were.

In every way, Ruth reached out to me and drew me into the circle of friendship and love surrounding her on her night. It was about her, but she managed to include me.

That’s grace: including.

God includes us just like Ruth included me.

My Favorite Day

2012-02-13T14:25:00.001-05:00

"What day is it?" asked Pooh.

"It's today," squeaked Piglet.

"My favorite day," said Pooh.

It’s Monday.

The sun shines.

The birds sit in the naked bush outside the window.

The cat lays snuggled at my back.

The laundry is done.

It’s Monday.

My favorite day.

Dance Into The Light

2012-02-12T15:34:00.000-05:00

Do you see the sun? It’s a brand new day

O the world’s in your hands - now use it . . .

Come on and dance into the light

Everybody dance into the light

These words from Phil Collins’ song Dance Into The Light are what I think of when I hear Psalm 30 . . .

There’s a recognition in his words of a painful past . . . what’s past is past – don’t turn around . . . brush away the cobwebs of freedom . . . the idea that there will always be a cost to living life into its fullness, but to not be captive to that past . . . that cost . . .

It is the idea the psalmist expresses in telling of lament and trouble, of the sense of abandonment and hopelessness being washed away in the simple act of worship and praise . . .

Having a great day? Feeling the love?

Dance into the light.

Having the worst day of your life?

Dance into the light.

Loving everyone you see and meet?

Dance into the light.

Just not seeing it today?

Dance into the light.

Praise . . . the joy-worship of God . . . is itself an act of faith . . . sometimes you feel it, sometimes you don’t . . .

Either way . . . Dance into the light . . . Dance into the light. . . Dance into God . . .

No More Sweeping Under the Rug

2012-02-11T18:33:00.000-05:00

This isn’t science. It’s probably not even logic. It’s simply feeling.

I am hugely in favor of environmental protection. I am a product of a successful education campaign when I was young, which imprinted on my young brain the importance of preserving the earth and all that dwells within it.

So I am a logical suspect to peg as being against wind mills on mountaintops . . . against mountaintop removal . . . against off-shore oil exploration . . . against pipelines running through a primary aquifer . . .

And it’s true to a certain extent: my impulse is to be against all of these things.

But, and it is a significant but . . . I have spent time in Iraq (with CPT, a faith-based violence reduction organization) and that time changed something about me that I didn’t expect.

My time in Iraq changed how I see environmental issues.

On top of war and the ruinous devastations of war, I have also witnessed in Iraq the disastrous impact of unchecked exploitation of resources such as oil and unregulated industries such as cement factories on the people of Iraq.

I actually asked a physician once if Palestinians were more prone to asthma than other groups since the Iraqi Palestinian children we accompanied to the Syrian and Jordanian borders all suffered from acute asthma. The doctor was a kind soul, so he didn’t make fun of me for the stupid question. Instead, he reminded me of what I had already seen and experienced: the pervasive pollution in Iraq, which is killing its population.

Many days, the skies in the south are black from oil burning and the massive use of gasoline generators to provide in-home electricity. Many days, when I blew my nose, the tissue would be black.

It wasn’t the childrens’ Palestinian ancestry that attacked their lungs; it was the Iraqi air.

In the north, the pollution from the cement factories covers the land with white smog clouds.

I understand the complexities of a war fought in large measure about our import of oil. I did not understand that we are exporting our pollution as much as we are importing their oil.

And that is what has changed my mind.

Creative Commons Image by Ferdi Rizkiyanto

If I am going to drive my car; if I am going to use electricity; if I am going to be a disproportionate consumer of the resources of the world (which, as a United States citizen, I am), it only seems fair to me that the results of that consumption be something I must look at up and close and personal, in my own back yard.

We in these United States have proven thus far that our consumption will not be reduced by attempts to price us out of the market. We have proven that we will go to any lengths, economically, diplomatically, militarily, to preserve our perceived ‘right’ to consume at an unchecked pace.

And I am as guilty as the next person, perhaps even more so.

But maybe, just maybe, if the windmills sit atop my mountains . . . if the tops of my mountains are removed . . . if the oil derricks sit where I must look upon them every day . . . if I can no longer sweep the real harm my consuming ways does to this planet under the rug of my feigned ignorance . . . maybe then I’ll change my ways.

Maybe.

Am I a Safe Space?

2012-02-10T12:27:00.000-05:00

The phrase ‘safe space’ in our time often refers to literal safety, comparable to the older aphorism, A man’s home is his castle, the belief that where we live should be free from all unwanted intrusion. It can refer to domestic violence shelters for battered women, protective orders for the victims of stalking, and child protective actions to keep predators of the young at bay.

But ‘safe space’ has also come to signify whether a group of people offer psychological and spiritual safety to each other . . . or not, as in whether it is ‘safe’ to offer another point of view within a particular context.

Like any good idea, the notion of safe space can become meaningless when it over reaches, as in the felt need to have no disagreement expressed with one’s own views, as disagreement is too often equated with threat or danger.

From Flickr Commons

We are allowed to disagree with each other. But in the United States, my own belief is that we don’t know how to disagree or how to be disagreed with very well.

Disagreement can be healthy and can lead to new learnings, new ways of being, for all of us. If I listen, truly listen, to you, I can learn about a point of view I knew nothing of before. My point of view can bring the same eye-opening opportunity to you.

As someone with definite opinions (which means nothing more than that I know my own mind really well), I have often been accused, directly and indirectly, of threatening the safe space of others.

Usually, I am left puzzled after such conversations. What did I do or say that made the other person feel threatened? Is all disagreement threatening? Or is there something about the way I express myself, the certainty with which I speak, that leaves the other person feeling excluded or attacked?

Surely there is middle ground between the extremes of social and political discourse in our time of either (a) not discussing areas of disagreement at all (as in mother’s admonition to never discuss sex, religion or politics with others) or (b) name-calling, shouting vilification.

Which brings me right back to the question: how can I be a better safe space for those with whom I disagree the most?

I can speak more quietly. I can speak less and listen more. I can take off my ear muffs when it comes to the things I don't want to hear. I can try to do better.

But here’s what I’d like from you in return: please do not assume because we disagree, that I am bad or mean or not listening. I may hear you very well, but simply see things differently.

And let’s agree to this: when we post stuff on FB or in our blogs or anywhere into the technological ether, let’s pay attention, special attention, to truth. When I get it wrong, tell me. Insist that I retract the lies. And allow me to do the same with you.

Let’s be more gracious, especially to those with whom we disagree. They aren’t monsters.

A Good Conversation

2012-02-09T19:49:00.000-05:00

I stopped along my travels down a winding country road today just to pop in and say hello to two congregants. I love sitting in their home, surrounded by glass windows opening into the vista of their ‘back 40'. I love the fire place crackling with the warmth peculiar to wood. I love their deep Southern voices washing over me like a warm bath. I love their company.

We always have good conversations during these visits, with topics ranging far and wide. From politics and politicians we wander into local affairs then to war and rumors of war then to a grandson deployed in Afghanistan then to the ecology and how to make a difference in protecting our beloved planet earth.

There is no agenda, no set plan, no particular destination in mind when we set out on these conversational journeys. When we begin, I never know where we’ll go.

I love being surprised this way. I especially love the surprise of my own preconceptions being unbalanced, unhinged, unwarranted. Whatever I may assume that ‘Southern’ or ‘Northern’ means . . .whatever I may assume that young or old, healthy or sick, married, divorced or single, white, black or brown, or any of the myriad of other categories into which we place each other . . . whatever I assume, even, and perhaps especially, when I don’t think I’m assuming anything at all, my assumptions are, in a word, wrong.

I love being surprised by the people I love.

That is a good conversation.

Peace

2012-02-08T12:16:00.002-05:00

Peace

Just now it seems
I mostly know peace
by its absence
rather than its presence

Inner peace
makes about as much
sense
as
Inner peas
to me
just now

I still want to idealize
peace
as the absence of all
conflict

as if peace
were a place
of calm detachment
you can go to
for a visit
every now and again

Instead
of the striving
the working
the sheer effort
of making
and
being
peace

To self
to others

Miracles

2012-02-07T00:38:00.000-05:00

In the Bible
miracles are the bona fides
of the miracle worker
the resume
the business card
the job reference
all saying
yep, he’s the guy you need

But is that all they are?

So some would have it
that the time of miracles
has gone away
disappeared like sand castles
the sand is still there
but the shape of them erased
no longer visible

Some say
there are no miracles
because they haven’t seen one
which seems a bit silly to me

I haven’t seen lots of things
that I’m pretty sure exist
Atoms - never seen them -
Black holes - me & everybody else in the dark on that one
A soul - can’t describe what one looks like to save mine
Met any Angels? - nope - can’t say as I have

Others say there are no more miracles
because Jesus was the miracle
and after Jesus
we just didn’t need
any other miracles
they just wouldn’t stand
the comparison
to the miracle

Maybe
but don’t we need a refresher course from time to time?
I know I do

So here’s where I land on miracles . . .

they happen

the inexplicable

the surprising

right in the middle of the ordinary

they come when they’re needed

and not a moment sooner

sometimes God heals by a touch
sometimes with a CT scan & surgeon’s scalpel

sometimes we understand them later
sometimes we never do

sometimes you get your miracle
and that’s great
but I’m left wondering
where my miracle is

sometimes there’s healing
sometimes there’s rescuing
it’s always dramatic, this miracle business

sometimes they come from the untrustworthy looking guy
who’s dressed funny and smells even funnier
sometimes they come with the gentle touch of a friend

sometimes it’s like a Hallmark card from God saying simply good job
sometimes the meaning and even the miracle are obscure

whenever a miracle comes to town
the thing that happens before – right before
is the tearing open of heaven
like a rainbow pointing up instead of down
like an arrow pointing, shouting
Look this way! Here! Up here! Now do you see?

Now do you see?
The miracle isn’t in knowing Jesus
even demons know Jesus
the miracle is in the following
the living
the loving
the doing

did it ever occur to the ones
who say that miracles are no more
that we are Jesus’ miracle
today?

Miracles are a kind of spring cleaning
when things not needed
things that clutter
things that get in the way
things like demons
are simply thrown away

Miracle work is always unfinished
there are always more miracles in the making
to be performed
more need
more desire
more hunger
to be met
when the miracle worker is off to the next town
Does he leave the ones unhealed behind?
Or does he invite them to follow him
to seek out their miracles?

And have you noticed?
A miracle is never the end of the story
it’s always, always the beginning of the beginning
Miracles are the once-upon-a-time in the life of the follower
they set the stage
but they aren’t the story
the life lived after the miracle
is the story

Simon’s mother is healed
and then
and then she got up off her sickbed and served lunch
so what was the miracle? The healing? Or lunch?

In the grammar of life, miracles are the conjunctions
and . . . then . . . so that . . . because . . . since . . . in order to . . .
linking events
tying one thing to another and then another
in the life of the one
who got his miracle

It is as if all of heaven is watching. . . waiting. . . asking

now you are free - what will you do with it?
Now you are healed - how will you live it?
Now your eyes are opened - what will you see?
Now your tongue is untied - what will you speak?
Now you can hear - what will you believe?
Now your legs are mended - where will you go?

All of heaven holds its breath for the answer -
told in the life of the one who got their miracle
now you’ve got it, what will you do with it?

The ones who say the age of miracles
is past aren’t entirely wrong
We did get our miracle -
all of us . . . got. . . our . . . miracle
Jesus is our miracle
what will we do with it?
What will we do with him?
Inquiring minds are asking
God wants to know

Fog

2012-02-06T10:56:00.000-05:00

76. Fog

THE fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on

From Shenandoah Mountain

I have always loved Carl Sandburg’s poem about fog, I suppose because I have always loved the fog.

I find quiet mystery in the fog, whether it’s driving in and out of the soupy mists in these mountains or walking the quad at Princeton Seminary late at night imagining the long-coated stranger of pulp fiction emerging from the shrouded backbrop of its density or seeing a tendril of chimney smoke, thick enough to stand out against the fog at the magical dusk hour in these high hills I now call home.

Somehow I cling to the awe of the child who sees not danger but wonder in what she cannot see behind.

The fog slows and stills me and even slow-moving cars become friends rather than obstacles, as their welcome red tail lights show the way home.

The Ways of Peace

2012-02-05T08:05:00.000-05:00

The ways of peace are largely untried, but successful more often than we think.

I can almost remember the moment (I was in my late 40's) when I learned that the Cuban Missile Crisis was settled not by President Kennedy’s public showdown behavior, but rather was settled with a behind-the-scenes peaceful negotiation.

I was always taught that the Crisis ended because Mr. Kennedy wouldn’t back down. I was shocked to learn that the United States actually negotiated a settlement whereby we would withdraw our missiles from Turkey and the then USSR would withdraw its missiles from Cuba.

I felt so betrayed because what I had been taught was a lie and it is a costly lie. That lie led me and lots of others to believe that the only way to deal with world enemies was with force and the threat of force, when, in fact, the situation was resolved not by force, but by peaceful negotiation, by talking to our enemy, by making concessions and compromises.

We live in a time when the word ‘compromise’ has become a dirty word, where everything is tinged with the language of righteousness. And the rightness of our cause, whatever it may be, becomes the justification for force.

Thus this president, along with every president I can remember, whatever party they belong to, speaks openly about protecting not only Americans and American land, but also American interests around the world. A public Pentagon document planning through 2020 I once read refers to military readiness to protect American ‘interests’ around the world.

And now, we’re talking about military action, directly or by proxy, against Iran -- not around the nuclear threat, but against their stated intention to blockade the Strait of Hormuz (where much of our oil flows through Iran’s territory).

Thus I am, as a citizen, literally required to ask, “How many people am I willing to kill in order to drive my car?” I know it’s not that simple, but the idea of self-defense has been expanded to mean not merely the protection of my life, but also of my way of life.

I don’t like or excuse Iran’s behavior. But their bad behavior does not justify mine. That, I think, lies at the heart of the Golden Rule.

I Am Needing

2012-02-04T09:11:00.001-05:00

I am needing
I will need
I have needed

Bible-promised
match-struck lightening
sleeping bag embracing
computer calculating
arithmetic perfect
food nourishing
picture memory keeping
perfume wafting
capital L
Love

[Jesus]

It's All Pie!

2012-02-02T23:57:00.000-05:00

I spent the day gathering data from last year, preparing for next week’s congregational meeting.

From 9laughs.com

It’s tedious work, but there’s something in me that likes to measure things. Somehow, it makes me feel as if I’ve accomplished something. I’m that way with lists too – there’s nothing quite so satisfying as checking some chore off the to-do list. And today, I made a pie chart! (I really need to get out more!)

Today’s data focused on how I spent my time as pastor in 2011. The results are interesting to us, perhaps, but hardly surprising: most of my time was spent in (1) worshiping and preparing for worship; (2) pastoral care – things like visiting the sick; (3) Bible studies (well, we are a church after all); (4) young people ministries; and (5) outreach.

Young people coming in #4 may not sound all that impressive to you, but when you consider that we only have 5 young folk under the age of 18 who regularly attend our country church, and that the average age of the congregation is surely above 60 (some Sundays, at 56, I’m the youngest one in the room), I think that’s actually pretty good.

The thing that I really don’t like is that I spend more time in meetings than in missions. But that’s a bit deceptive, not as to my time, but as to the church’s. I am not spending much time dedicated to mission work; but the church is.

Close to 20% of our giving goes to one form of mission or another. Some members of the church could truthfully be said to literally be living-in-situ missionaries. We collect shoes sent to Kenya, food for the local Food Pantry, serve as a drop-off point for the recycling of used batteries, organize Thanksgiving baskets of food for local needy families, organize dinners to raise money to meet medical expenses for a local family, Angel Tree Christmas families, and join with other local churches to meet emergency needs as they arise.

But I keep going back to #1 - worship. And I wonder: is worship only when we gather on Sundays and the preparation associated with that gathering?

Do we not also worship God when we feed the hungry and clothe the homeless? Is God not glorified when we open our doors to welcome the stranger? Does heaven hear our praise when we gather in yes, one more meeting, to wrestle over the issues of the day and try to come to good, wise and godly decisions?

Maybe I’ll redo the pie.

Maybe it’s all worship.

I hope so.

It’d Be Funny If It Weren't

2012-02-01T22:10:00.000-05:00

From tcu.edu

The absolute funniest Candid Camera episode I ever saw was The One Millionth Customer. The lady was set up at a supermarket to be the millionth customer. As customer 998 won an all-expenses paid trip throughout the United States and #999 won a world tour, the woman set up to be the millionth customer was ecstatic . . . until she was told her prize – wait for it – a walking tour of the sister store in Newark, New Jersey!

Boy, was she mad. She said a lot of bleeped words – the only one you were allowed to hear as a home viewer was “unfair”, followed by a lot more bleeping.

Then, of course, affable Alan Funt came out to tell her she was on Candid Camera. But the reveal didn’t stop her even for a nanosecond. Even when she found out it was a joke, she was still mad!

She was the millionth customer! (even though there was no millionth customer)

She should have received the best prize, not the other two (who weren’t receiving anything at all, since it was all a joke).

She was cheated!

It just wasn’t fair!

The sense of disappointed entitlement was so staggeringly ridiculous that it became funny - funnier even than the original joke. The thing that still gets me is that the woman wasn’t mad that she was the butt of the joke; she was mad because it was unfair.

It occurs to me that in these United States, too often we act like the sham millionth customer, disappointed in the outcome of a contest that doesn’t exist . . . demanding our fair share of a pie that isn’t there . . . treating our expectations as reality and crying like children when they’re not met.

I would have more respect for Democrats if they stopped promising me the moon.

I would have more respect for Republicans if they stopped telling me who took the moon away from me.

I would have more respect for us as a nation if we voted for the candidate who promised to give the most to someone else – someone that needed the ‘it’ more than we do.

I would have more respect for myself if I didn’t act like that woman at the supermarket every time someone disappointed my expectations. . . if I didn’t scream, if only in my mind, It just isn’t fair! . . . if I thought more about what’s in it for you and less about what’s in it for me.

Really, I would.

What Will I Miss When I Die?

2012-02-01T08:52:00.000-05:00

A question posed as a writing exercise: what will you miss when you die? is one I consider literally at first. What will I miss? I suspect from my faith perspective, the literal answer is nothing, since I believe that with death, there is perfect union with God. In such a state of completeness, there is no absence, hence nothing to miss.

But, if the ‘me’ of now is the ‘me’ of then, if the ‘me’ of then feels the separation from this life, the me-of-then will miss . . .

The people I love . . .
and the chance to make things better between us . . .

All of my grandson Rowen’s firsts yet to come . . .

Sunsets . . . snow falling . . . the quiet of a winter’s day . . . rain storms . . .

I will miss weather . . .

Smells . . . of clover and cinnamon rolls baking . . .

Girls in Easter dresses . . . children laughing . . . and the night sky . . .

Smoking cigarettes in the dark talking with a friend . . .

The missed chances and missed choices . . .

Laughing . . . and crying . . .

Sentimental movies . . . and popcorn – with lots of butter and salt . . .

Snuggling under a warm blanket on a cold night . . .

Seeing a new place for the first time . . .

The faces of the old . . .

Hands to hold and be held by . . .

Sitting by a bonfire on a summer’s night . . . walking the Scottish highlands . . . sled riding . . . having another dog . . .

Eating food . . . Indian food spicy enough to make me cry with the heat of it . . .

Tasting strawberries on my tongue . . . sun-warmed tomatoes with salt . . . corn fresh from the garden . . .

Waking up to sunshine . . .

Seeing a rainbow . . .

Who my children will become . . .

What Does the Holy Spirit 'Feel Like'?

2012-01-31T08:53:00.000-05:00

That was the FB question I posted for the church today.

Remember, I am a literal thinker, so I really mean what happens within our bodies, minds and spirits when we believe we’re having a direct encounter with God’s own Spirit.

The best word that I have for such times in my own life is heavy.

‘Heavy’, again, in its literal sense.

Most modern-day writers who speak of the encounter with the divine identify a ‘spirit of heaviness’ as something connected to sin and the broken world.

But it’s not like that for me, this heaviness which I would not call a ‘spirit of’ at all.

I hear and read others speak of a lightness – either a lightness of being, of a sort of floating self, held aloft by the palm of God’s own hand, or of an all-pervading light.

For me, it is the reverse.

Image: Ute Kraus, Institute of Physics, Universität Hildesheim, Space Time Travel (http://www.spacetimetravel.org/).
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany

When God comes knocking at the door of my soul, there is darkness and a great heaviness. . . the darkness being the presence of everything . . . the heaviness of heavy water and black holes, where everything collapses into not itself, but into God.

It is the in-between place outside of time and in between breaths.

It is a descending thing, as if I am sinking into God – every particle of me.

Physically as well as spiritually, it’s like I’m being trash-compacted into the smallest possible me there can be.

It’s neither danger nor safety.

Nothing of the external goes away and I may ‘leave’ this space any time I wish and I always come away ‘more than’ in some indefinable way.

What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight;

what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.

–Matthew 10.27

When The Siren Goes Off

2012-01-30T21:45:00.000-05:00

Today while I was talking on the phone with a congregant, The Siren went off. In this community, too small to qualify even as a village, The Siren is a call – all hands on deck – come now!

Or it’s an exercise.

I’m not sure which it was today. Most likely it was a call for the volunteers who make up the Fire Department or Rescue Squad to respond – quickly.

The Siren is loud enough to be heard for miles.

I live right next door. (That’s my back yard and garage in the picture).

But whether it’s the sound of the Rescue Squad sirens or the Fire Engines, or the even louder clarion call for help of The Siren, I hear them all.

Sometimes they’re headed way out into the country. Sometimes they’re headed right next door.

But whenever I hear them, I always stop what I’m doing and say a little prayer – for the safety of all those responding to the call, for the healing and rescue needed for those to whom they respond.

What I don’t always remember to say or pray is my thanks – thanks that these men and women put their lives on hold to respond to the call, Come now!

And so I say it now: to all the members of fire and rescue squad departments the world over, and especially to the volunteers, Thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your willingness. Thank you for your kindnesses to strangers. Thank you for being there for all of us.

For answering when The Siren goes off, thank you.
_____________________
If you want to give a shout out of thanks to the McDowell Volunteer Fire Department, check out their web site at McDowell VFD and check out the rest of the site too.

"I Dont' Know -- We Didn't Get It Yet"

2012-01-30T10:25:00.000-05:00

Creative Commons/Flickr

When I spoke to my grandson Rowen on the phone yesterday, he was with his dad getting pizza. Making conversation, I asked him, “What are you getting on your pizza?” There was silence. Hoping to prompt him a bit more, I asked, “Are you getting pepperoni?” His response: “I don’t know – we didn’t get it yet.”

I chuckled at the literal truth of his statement and we were off to other 4-year-old conversational topics, like why it wouldn’t be good to let Sidney the Mighty Huntress of the Night (our shared black cat) eat the birds outside my window.

But reflecting back, what strikes me about Rowen’s very clear understanding of what he does and does not know is the child’s motif of living in the present.

How old are we when we start predicting outcomes? When expectations become the norm? When failed expectations equate to failed realities in our minds?

It seems the by the age of 5, we humans are pretty good at predicting outcomes. DELL

But that’s not the same as creating expectations. Rowen was unwilling or unable to speculate that because he usually had pepperoni on his pizza’s that he would this time as well. He was simply content to wait until he saw the pizza to ‘know’ what this pizza would be about.

When do we stop being content to live in the Land of Not Knowing, the land that might just as well be named the Land of Simply Being?

Of course, we have to make predictions, operate on assumptions based on past experience in order to operate in this world.

But we also have to allow room to be surprised, to be content to not know what comes next with any real certainty, to be surprised and delighted every time pepperoni comes our way.

Heed the Advice of the Wise: On Being a Following Shepherd

2012-01-29T09:21:00.000-05:00

When I first met Arthur Pow, he was tending the flowers of the church grounds at St. Luke’s in Greenock, Scotland, where I was serving as a student minister intern. I was leaving church when Arthur, then in his 80's, took a break from his gardening to meet me.

We spoke for a time, during which Arthur spoke to me of shepherds and their dogs – following the flock, not leading; gently keeping an eye out, not herding.

I think now and I thought then that Arthur was giving me a bit of wisdom.

Lead by following. I wonder: is that part of Jesus’ notion that the first shall be last? Watching out for the strays, taking it slow – no hurry, leading by following?

I tend to want to charge ahead, only seldom checking to see if anyone is following, to hurry, to be impatient with the ‘flock’, which, by its very nature, slows each other down.

But maybe slowing each other down is part of what we do for each other when we come together.

A slow herd seldom falls from the cliff.

_______________
Arthur was a retired physician who loved flowers. Arthur died peacefully this January 16th past. Well done, good and faithful friend to so many. Dr. Pow's Obituary

The Culture Clash of the Literal Mind: The Birth of a Food Terrorist

2012-01-28T13:01:00.000-05:00

I have a literal mind. I barely understand metaphor, symbol, signage, in my own culture. Plop me down in someone else’s culture and I am lost. So I read and study and do exactly as I am told.

Like the day I became known as the ‘Food Terrorist’.

Serving with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Iraq, I was attending a meal hosted by a friend’s sister. Somehow around the tablecloth laid out on the ground, I got separated from the rest of the CPT group and ended up being tended by an Iraqi gentleman whose name I never knew.

The table is laden with food, every dish within arms’ reach of every guest. Bowls of red soup, chicken so tender it pulled away from the carcass which rested on a steaming bed of rice. Using the flat bread to grasp, emulating my Arabic dinner companions, foregoing the fork thoughtfully provided for we Westerners, and concealing my offending left-handedness as best I could, I commenced eating.

And eating . . . flavor upon flavor in my mouth . . . eating beyond satisfaction – eating for obligation (“Never, never, never, refuse any food that is offered to you”, I had been told) and eating for joy . . . the gentleman beside me filling my plate with accompanying smiles . . . again and again . . . and again . . .

I do not understand his words, but the gestures and the smile are universal . . . here – try this . . . and this . . . and this . . . and I do.

And it is bliss.

But then I notice . . . the quiet . . . mid-bite, I look around and see the stunned faces, Arabic and Western alike – none can believe how much I can eat.

It is at that moment that my new friend pronounces me a Food Terrorist.

Laughter fills the silence.

The meal has ended.

Isn't It Time to Put Peace On the Table? A State of the Union Commentary

2012-01-26T11:26:00.003-05:00

In his State of the Union Address to Congress Tuesday night, referring to Iran and its nuclear ambitions, whatever they might be, President Obama said,

And we will safeguard America’s own security against those who threaten our citizens, our friends, and our interests. Look at Iran. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before. Its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions. And as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent. Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.

But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better. And if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations. State of the Union Transcript

What was interesting to me, interesting and heartbreaking, was the response of the audience: when the President said, “I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal”, he received a standing O. [Minute 56:26]. But when he said, “a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible”, four or five people gave a few claps [Minute 56:47]. And when he concluded with the hope that Iran might rejoin the community of nations, there was absolute silence. [Minute 56:54].

When the President said that he would “take no options off the table”, the meaning is plain in American political parlance: the President retains what he views as his prerogative to use nuclear weapons against Iran. Setting aside for the moment the implications of that statement, simply consider the response of the elected representative body of the United States to it: universal approval. Everyone or virtually everyone in that hall stood up and applauded the threat to drop nuclear bombs on Iran.

But when the President immediately followed with the statement that peaceful resolution remains possible, only four or five people even offered a few claps of approval. And when he concluded with the hope that Iran rejoin the international community, he was met with a silence deafening in its contrast to the standing ovation of just moments ago.

I am left wondering: would our world be different if our yearning for peace were as strong as our desire for war? Would our world be different if we longed for peace with the same enthusiasm we bring to our force and threats of force? Would our world be different if we understood peace to spring from strength and force from weakness?

Isn’t it past time to put peace at the center of the table?

I have to think so.

Loving the Likers

2012-01-25T22:29:00.000-05:00

I love being ‘liked’ on Facebook.

Does that make me needy? Maybe, although I don’t think so.

I just get a real sense of connection and affirmation when something I post gets liked by folks in the FB world. I appreciate the shout out and expect that most folks are as busy as I am with other things, so even the millisecond it takes to click ‘like’ feels like a gift.

So to the author of the recent FB pass-around of the top ten FB ‘personalities’ (i.e., the one who never says anything, but always ‘likes’ everything - well, you get the idea), I have to say that I love those likers.

They let me know that they read the post even if they don’t have the time or energy to post a written response. They make me smile. And that’s a good thing.

So to all the likers out there, you’re good with me and I hope you’ll keep clicking away.

Celebrating Red

2012-01-24T19:31:00.000-05:00

I remember tomatoes warm from the sun, tomatoes a color I bite into and know pleasure.

I remember a silk dress I love – twirling in it in church, feeling like I was the Pentecost flame, arching ever more upward with each turn.

Scarlet Kingsnake
Non-venomous snake

I remember a snake so small crossing my path (or was I crossing his?) on the Appalachian Trail, a quiet intrusion of color in a quiet place made colorless by the very profusion of the sameness of the browns and greens of the forest – a small creature of white and red stripes – not crimson, not blood, just crayon-box red – ordinary and beautiful.

And now, in the winter, I revel in the cardinal in the bare forsythia branches outside my window. His is the color of pride and I am impressed.

Today, I celebrate red.

Rush & I Won't Be Dancing at the Inaugural Ball

2012-01-23T20:05:00.000-05:00

Some time ago, Rush Limbaugh said, “Bottom line, we don’t like being told what to eat; we don’t like being told how much to exercise . . .” regarding First Lady Obama’s Let’s Move initiative to eliminate childhood obesity. Politics USA

Mr. Limbaugh has, on the same issue, made a joke about Mrs. Obama coming for our furnaces as a way to get kids to go outside and play.

Given the health catastrophe created by obesity, in one sense, this is about as funny as making a joke about lung cancer or a woman having only one breast, having lost the other to breast cancer. . . not funny. But in another way, it actually is pretty funny . . . about as funny as these one liners . . .

Bottom line, we don’t like being told what to read or how to r– r— r–e–a–d it . . . (about Laura and Barbara Bush’s literacy campaigns)

Bottom line, we don’t like being told what to do with street kids . . . what does it matter whether we house them or use them for ear muffs? (about Dolly Madison’s support of orphans)

Bottom line, we don’t like being told what to wear to work – who cares if we want to go barefoot? Toes? Who needs toes? in response to Helen Taft’s efforts to insure workplace safety.

Bottom line, we don’t like being told how long to work our animals – next thing you know, they’ll be telling us we can’t beat our mules – the saying ‘stubborn as a mule’ is true, don’t you know? in response to Florence Harding’s efforts to promote the humane treatment of animals.

Bottom line, we don’t like being told that West Virginians are people too (by the way, did you know that it’s legal for a man to marry his widow’s cousin in West Virginia?) in response to Eleanor Roosevelt’s work for the people of Appalachia.

Bottom line, we don’t like being told that we shouldn’t throw our trash out the window of our cars – we like how the cans glitter in the sun in response to Lady Bird Johnson’s ‘Beautify America’ environmental campaign.

Bottom line, we don’t like being told that we should volunteer – if someone’s telling me to do it, I’m not a volunteer, now am I? in response to Pat Nixon’s volunteerism campaign.

Bottom line, we don’t like being told what we put in our mouths – that’s our business whether it’s a hamburger from McDonald’s or any kind of pills I can get my hands on in response to Nancy Reagan’s ‘Just Say No’ campaign.

Bottom line, I fear, is simply this: we don’t like. . . we don’t like anyone telling us what to do – even when it’s good for us. . . not our First Ladies (or at least some of them), not our preachers, not our bosses, not our family and friends, not even our parents. . . because we are exactly two years old and we just don’t like it!

The conversation would be ridiculous and easily dismissed if it weren’t for the fact that so many actually take it seriously.

Seriously, if you want to continue to eat those french fries, go right ahead. But if I’m paying for it (as I do through my taxes when it comes to school lunches), aren’t I entitled to a voice in what goes on the menu? And isn’t healthy better for our kids than unhealthy when it comes to food choices? Do we really want the measure of a good school lunch to be what the kids want as opposed to what’s good for them? Do we really want what kids eat at school to be an issue of personal freedom as opposed to an issue of health?

I doubt it. Really. Think about it: do you want your kids or anyone else’s, for that matter, to stop reading books or to read only trash at school in order to assure their personal freedom? No. What you want is for them to read good books, books that demonstrate quality literature, a sense of history, books that will teach them something worth learning. And don’t you want their bodies to be as well fed as their minds? I know I do.

So, Mr. Limbaugh, I actually thought the furnace joke was a little bit funny. But only a little bit – because I believe you on the other stuff. If I didn’t (believe you), it would be different. But I do. I believe you that you mean it when you imply that encouraging healthy eating among the young smacks of totalitarianism. I believe you that you mean it when you say, even when it comes to children, that you don’t want anyone telling you better.

And that, Mr. Limbaugh, leaves me with these observations:

Bottom line, we don’t like it when you tell us that childhood obesity doesn’t matter.

Bottom line, we don’t like it when you tell us that nutritional education is a form of mind control. That’s just plain silly.

Bottom line, we don’t like it when you act as if the health of our young shouldn’t be important to us.

Bottom line, we don’t like it when you try to teach us that the freedom to be foolish is more important than the collective wisdom of every branch of science when it comes to our young.

Bottom line, Mr. Limbaugh, we don’t like it when you tempt us to be dumber that we ought to be when it comes to our kids. We don’t care who you like or don’t like. That shouldn’t make any difference when it comes to evaluating the truth. If all you’re offering us, Mr. Limbaugh, is a way to lampoon our political ‘enemies’, those, sir, are empty calories indeed.

And while we may love those empty calories, we know they’re bad for us.

And so we’re going to stop eating from your plate; it just isn’t good for us.

That’s what I wish we would say.

___________________
SOURCE for causes supported by various First Ladies: National First Ladies' Library

Hard Good-Byes

2012-01-22T09:11:00.000-05:00

I’m big on good-byes. I really don’t know why, because they’re so hard; but I have always felt that good-byes, literal, in-person partings, matter. I'm the Mom who stands waving until you're out of sight, even to the point of running from the back door to the front to see you up the highway with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes -- Shakespeare knew what he was talking about -- it really is sweet sorrow.

I’ve experienced comical partings, as when I said good-bye to a summer co-worker and friend, Molly, at the train station. Molly is young enough to be my daughter. Even though we had only known each other for a short time, as the train pulled out, I broke down sobbing. A sympathetic man asked, “Your daughter?” Still sobbing, all I could manage was a choked “No!” I’ve always worried about that poor man who must have thought all sorts of horrible thoughts, having no idea that I’m just a big cry baby when it comes to good-byes.

And like all of us, I’ve experienced the heart-breaking good-byes: saying farewell to friends and family as they were dying. Being there, being able to have the recognition observed between us that this really is a good-bye mattered; hard as it was, I always knew I was where I should be.

But perhaps the hardest good-bye of all wasn’t my own, but one I witnessed.

I didn’t know it would be, but it was the last time I saw my Grandma Mary. I had taken my son Ben to see her at the nursing home where she was an unwilling resident.

We said our good-byes at the front door where Grandma had walked with us. I had taken a few steps towards the front door, where the sun was streaming through the glass. Then I turned back.

Grandma was holding onto Ben, her arms around his waist, clinging to him as if she were clinging to life itself. Under the protection of his embrace, she was so small.

Ben’s face was full of sadness; Grandma’s, determination: if she just held on to him tight enough, he would carry her out of there and away from her broken body. All her strength of will, always considerable, was locked in that hug.

And just for a moment, the two of them were melded together – one.

I have often thought that walking away from her was one of the hardest things Ben ever did.

All good-byes are hard, some more so than others. And some catch us unawares.

But somehow, they all matter.

At Last

2012-01-21T09:42:00.000-05:00

At last, Etta James is at peace after a life of fame and almost fame and lost fame, of abuse by others and by self, of glorious moments and inglorious periods.

In reading her bio on Wikipedia, I was forcefully struck by sadness at the recounting of her early childhood, filled with revolving caretakers, a largely-absent mother and unknown father, and a man named ‘Sarge’ all-too-willing to exploit Jamesetta (her birth name), who, by the age of 5, was demonstrating her musical ability.

Late at night, Sarge would waken Jamesetta and force her, by beating if necessary, to sing for his poker buddies, sometimes when she was soaked with urine from having wet the bed. Wikipedia

Sarge’s behavior isn’t all that unusual: parents and other adults are often willing to exploit children to their own ends. Sex trafficking, forced labor and enslavement continue to be worldwide problems.

But even in otherwise loving safe harbors, parents will unthinkingly demand ‘performance’ from their children. I’m sure I’ve done it myself: say ‘mommy’. . . show them how fast you run . . . draw them a picture . . .

While it isn’t necessarily exploitation to ask things of our children, when we do it for our own glory or pride, when we fail to consider their desires, their shyness or reluctance, when we demand rather than ask for a ‘performance’ to prove how special we are because our children are in some way special, loving encouragement turns into exploitation.

Even the definition of exploit reveals the bitter irony: when used to refer to something I do to, for, or with myself, it’s a positive, as in I love hearing about Beth’s exploits, referring to tales of adventure or heroism; but when used to refer to my treatment of another, as in Beth exploited Ben’s talents from an early age, it refers to my use of Ben for my own advantage or gain, without counting the cost to Ben.

It is the recognition that what I can do for my own honor or glory quickly becomes dishonorable and vainglorious when I insist it come from another.

In otherwise loving homes, parents are challenging children to play the sports they played, to practice the musical instruments they always wanted to learn, to reenact their childhood dreams, instead of nurturing the children’s own dreams and talents. That’s exploitation. And even if there isn’t a beating or a drunken barrage behind it, such behavior is costly.

It denies the image of God beauty of another.

Children are not mini-me’s; they are human beings in their own right. And far too many are longing for their own ‘At Last’ day of freedom from the exploitative demands of those charged with their nurture and care.

A Face in the Crowd

2012-01-20T19:26:00.000-05:00

Nobody does the face-in-the-crowd to comedic effect better, I think, than Monty Python, especially in Life of Brian. Photobombing, “to drop into a photo unexpectedly, to hop into a picture right before it’s taken” Urban Dictionary, intentionally seeks a Python-esque moment, usually, I suspect, with less success and much more irritation on the part of those who had a very different picture in mind than Python.

But seeing the cat and dog photobomb got me to wondering what famous scenes or pictures do I wish I had been a part of, even as a mere face in the crowd?

This being January, Dr. King’s I have a dream speech on the Mall in Washington, D. C. comes to mind, as does Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. I have no Forrest-Gump desire to have been at the center of the action, so I guess I’m not really a photobomber at heart. But I would have liked merely to have been there, to hear with my own ears, see with my own eyes.

I would liked to have been part of the crowd when some important decisions were made, like the decision for the United States to invade Iraq. Well, ‘like’ is actually the wrong word; I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have ‘liked’ any part of that experience, but for once, I would want to understand what people are thinking when they reach decisions that so dramatically affect so many people in such horrible ways.

I would have liked to be in the audience for the first performance of Shakespeare’s Henry V. For that, I wouldn’t even mind not being in the group shot.

When Sound Turns Into Music

2012-01-19T10:55:00.000-05:00

Some time ago, my friend and fellow pastor, Melissa, speaking about my struggles to learn to play the cello, with lots of descriptors by me of the screeches and howls I was managing to evoke from my instrument, spoke of her own love of playing and the magic moment when sound turns into music. Even though I haven’t gotten there on the cello, I knew just what she meant.

A symphony of laundry
from Wikimedia Commons

The rough and tumble mix of voices in the choir melding into one sweet note of accord . . . the murmur of husband and wife emerging into one long note of love . . . the sing-song cadence of the preached sermon transforming into a spoken song of praise . . . a single, understandable word emerging from a baby’s gibberish . . . the moment on the dance floor when you and your partner move as one . . . when the seemingly random calls of the birds clarifies in my ears into the song of the flying world . . . when the sung notes of a single man in the Baptistry in Piza reverberate into a choir of sound as he sings to and with himself . . . when crunching tires in the snow evoke the rhythms of the swishing jazz drum player . . . when the wind-whipped laundry on the line on a cold and bright winter’s day segues into hand-clapping, foot-stomping, finger-snapping, rhythmic gusto . . . when sound turns into music . . . Melissa’s right . . . it is magic.

Transforming Boundaries

2012-01-18T08:56:00.000-05:00

Human-created boundaries have a very different meaning to the divine I Am.

We humans work so hard to live as boundary people. Boundaries just seem so necessary to us . . . good fences make good neighbors, we say, quoting Robert Frost . . . wrongly . . . for Frost hated the very idea of walls and fences . . .

SOMETHING there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. . . No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. . . Oh, just another kind of outdoor game, One on a side. It comes to little more: He is all pine and I am apple-orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors." Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: "Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down!. . . Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Robert Frost would tear down the walls . . . but Jesus . . . oh wonderful, beautiful, playful Jesus . . . Jesus would walk on them . . . he would straddle that middle space that stands in between us all . . . like Mary Lou Retton in her best balance beam form . . . like a child running along the wall . . .

Jesus doesn’t ignore the walls
He doesn’t tear down the walls
He doesn’t honor the walls
And He doesn’t go around the walls

He simply jumps up on them. . . runs along them . . . laughs and calls over them and in the jumping and running and laughing and calling, the walls are changed . . . still brick on brick, rock on rock, walls are now . . .

The sailing ship of a small boy imagining adventures at sea . . .
The empty canvas of the urban artist . . .
The tightrope of a girl with gymnast desires in her veins . . .
A place for neighbors and friends to rest their elbows while they pass the time enjoying each other’s company . . .
A place for the ivy to grow stronger in the sun’s heat baked into the bricks . .

It is the blessing not of the doctor’s cure, but of the divine’s sharing . . .

Mormon Shout Out

2012-01-17T15:02:00.000-05:00

This summer I spent a few days on a girls’ trip to NYC, with the obligatory sashay through Times Square.

We didn’t get to see The Book of Mormon, but as we stood in the Square, I laughed out loud to see among the many and vast lighted ads beckoning all to jump into the very-American consumer trough, a billboard for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons.

I absolutely love that the Mormon church took head-on the lampooning of their faith by advertising for it right where folks gather to see the play. And like the Quakers and Methodists before them, they’ve executed the perfect jujitsu move, using someone else’s hostile momentum to their advantage, claiming their identity proudly.

I still want to see the play and I’m sure I’ll laugh heartily with everyone else. But I’ll also be remembering the millions of Mormons represented on the billboard outside smiling and telling me it’s okay; the joke’s on them.

The Invisible Woman

2012-01-17T00:33:00.000-05:00

I am invisible. It’s true. If you’ve never met me, or met me only casually, if you encounter me as one of a thousand faces in a crowd, mine is the one you won’t remember, mine the profile you couldn’t identify in a line-up, mine the visage apparently dreamt of by spy novelists when they describe the nondescript, the crowd-forgettable character no one can remember having seen after the crime is committed. The Nondescript Character Trope

Friends laugh and deny until they travel with me into new environs. Loved ones shake their heads until they’re watching me be jostled and stepped on in a crowd that parts like the proverbial face-off between Moses and the Red Sea before them. Colleagues disbelieve until we stand together meeting an acquaintance who recognizes them yet does not even see me standing at their side.

Seattle Mariners catcher Dan Williams,
often not recognized by people who
have met him, including huge fans!

I am invisible. Back in the law-practice days, it could be a handy trait turned to quick advantage against the unwary opponent who discounted me because of that forgettability factor. And in my college days, it was a downright blessing when it came to classes I’d just as soon skip as attend, for I was never missed.

And once we’ve spent time together, you will remember me. That’s something.

Most of the time, as with all other human conditions and oddities, I navigate around the invisibility factor in my life, making myself memorable if the occasion seems to warrant and otherwise simply accepting that you will not remember an encounter that I will. Or I take it as an object lesson for me, to really see others, really hear them, really notice them.

But some days, I forget how forgettable I am. And in the forgetting of this wall-blending attribute, I am caught unawares and wounded, as I literally watch someone not see me, not notice me notice them, not register my existence.

Being invisible makes for good spies, waiters, and even pastors, disappearing that The Word not be obscured.

But every now and again, it would be nice to be noticed, to be seen and be remembered, by a stranger. It would be nice not to have my feet crushed whenever I travel into a group or a crowd. Every now and then.

What's In a Name?

2012-01-16T11:11:00.000-05:00

Watching the BBC production of Sherlock Holmes featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, I found myself waiting on the credits, trying to remember his name – actually his last name – when I noticed his first name and had to laugh – you just don’t see many Benedicts in the United States. Benedict Arnold kind of ruined that for all the would-be Benedicts here. The name is synonomous with ‘traitor’ and who wants to name their kid ‘traitor’?

Some names just seem to disappear because someone infamous changes the very meaning of the name, so that Benedict (at least in the U. S.) no longer means blessed, it’s literal meaning from the Latin benedictus, but rather, ‘traitor’.

Adolf no longer means noble anything . . . and Judas, like Benedict, refers not to the praise of God (the literal meaning: God is praised), but to the act of personal betrayal.

And on the personal level, can’t we all think of names we would never give our children because that name has become associated in our minds with some horrible trait or behavior based on someone we knew, probably in kindergarten?

Naming is a powerful thing, speaking desire into reality. But acting is also powerful and actions can change the meaning and intention of the naming.

Shakespeare was, it turns out, just wrong . . . a rose by any other name would not smell as sweet.

But the reverse is perhaps also true . . . a horror of a name can be redeemed by the life of the one ‘wearing’ it.

MLK: The Quintessential Cultural Icon of our Age

2012-01-13T16:27:00.000-05:00

The term cultural icon has been defined as “figures who have changed our cultural landscape throughout the years”. Open Culture It seems like a good definition to me.

Searching the web to see who might be considered the cultural icons of 2011, I stumbled upon somebody’s list for the last 50 years:

10. Paul Newman
9. Princess Diana
8. The Beatles
7. Oprah Winfrey
6. Muhammad Ali
5. Michael Jackson
4. Marilyn Monroe
3. Frank Sinatra
2. Madonna
1. Elvis

No politicians. . . no religious figures . . . no one save Princess Di from outside the United States . . . Eight of the 10 are entertainers, one a sports figure and one a paparazzi-drawing public figure.

To be fair, their list was of ‘pop’ cultural icons. And the Lord knows, with this list, I’d have to bend over backwards to be fair. The comments were even worse than the list, as many made the case to move Michael Jackson to the top.

Pop (short for 'popular') or not, I want to know . . . where is Che? And if we’re talkin’ t-shirts here, how about Dylan, Baez, Hendrix & Morrison? Buddy Holly for that matter? JFK? Jackie O? Bollywood? Andy Warhol? Liz Taylor? Elton John? Gandhi? George Carlin? David Bowie? Noam Chomski? Paolo Coelho? Leonard Cohen? Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert? And if we stretch just a bit further than the 50 year limit, how about Salvadore Dali and Ann Frank?

Dr. King featured on postage stamp of Kyrgyzstan

How about a man so famous all that’s needed are his initials to identify him? How about MLK, for God’ sake?

Even a quick Google search reveals something like 2.7 million hits for t-shirt and other images featuring Dr. King . . . Google I have a dream . . . and you get more than 85 million hits . . .

When we recall the words to the songs of the musicians on the above list, we may remember where we were . . . but when we recall the words to Dr. King’s I have a dream speech, we remember where a nation was.

Dr. King was many things: preacher . . . prophet . . . Nobel laureate . . . unfaithful husband . . . visionary . . . lightening rod . . . agent of reconciliation or polarization or perhaps both . . . father . . . friend . . . saint and sinner . . . child of God . . . and, I submit, the quintessential cultural icon of our age.

Call and Response

2012-01-12T10:02:00.000-05:00

Call and response, where the congregation verbally responds to the preacher with ‘amens’, ‘preach it’, ‘that’s right’, clapping, laughter, whoops and shouts and spontaneous singing, responses mostly from the charismatic traditions, contains lots of repetition, because it is a rhythmic thing – it is more a dance than a speech or even a song – and in dance, steps are repeated – there is beauty in the repetition, in the pattern –
  And so it is with worship –
     So it is . . .
  That every Sunday we sing the same hymns . . .
  Say the same prayers . . .
  Listen to the same message . . .
  Repeat the same words . . .
  Fold hands and bow heads in the same ways . . .
  See the same faces . . .
  Stand in the same places . . .
And so it is that every Sunday, we enact the Word of God, waiting to be surprised. . . and often we may not even know what we’re waiting for or even that we are waiting . . .

Sitting Pretty

2012-01-10T13:59:00.001-05:00

The turkey vulture or as it’s known where I live, the turkey buzzard is anything but beautiful . . . it’s red-skinned featherless head and hunched appearance, its ungainliness when not flying, not to mention what it’s actually eating off the asphalt, tend to make me recoil on sight from these critters.

My son Ben and grandson Rowen, however, have developed quite an affinity for the turkey buzzard and Ben even managed to find a children’s book celebrating the bird’s contribution to creation (yes, all creation needs its garbage collectors, I grant you, but that doesn’t make them beautiful).

Yesterday, I saw these birds in a different light.

There’s a large water tower adjacent to the house of my friends where I’ve been staying. Yesterday was the day of Stu’s funeral and before we were to leave, I was standing outside basking in the warmth of the sunlight on an otherwise cold winter’s day. Looking towards the water tower, I noticed at first one and then another and then another of the buzzards alight on the rail surrounding the tower, with their wings outspread.

It was an oddly-compelling sight and for the life of me, I could not figure out what they were doing in this seeming defiance of gravity and balance. They actually held position as long as I watched and presumably beyond. I found myself going into the house only to come back out and see if they were still at it: they were.

After asking the folks gathered with no success, I, of course, went to the internet. While there may be alternative explanations, the consensus seems to be that this is the flight enhancing interactive design plan of an I. M. Pei:

In the morning, Turkey Vultures are often seen standing on tree limbs with their wings outstretched to the sun. They are a very lightweight bird with long hollow bones filled with air. As the sunshine warms them, the air in their wing bones expands, warming them up and making it easier to fly. Cathartes aura, the Latin name for Turkey Vultures, translates as Golden Purifier or Cleansing Breeze. American Indians called these birds the “Peace Eagles” and regarded them as a symbol of strength in accepting difficulty. Turkey Vulture

And now, as I contemplate the uplifted wings of the turkey buzzard, I am reminded of the meaning of its Latin name: cleansing breeze . . . eating carrion may be the work of the garbage collector of the bird world, but the cleansing breeze of their work is indeed an occasion for wing-lifting, bold posture thanksgiving.

Fly well, Peace Eagles, fly well.

Things I Wish I Had Said

2012-01-08T20:44:00.000-05:00

You take the last piece of cake.

Yes, I’ll jump off that cliff with you.

Let’s go for a ride.

Come with me.

Be my friend.

Can I say grace this time?

Have all you want.

No!

Yes!

Yes!

Yes!

What is a Lamset, Alex?

2012-01-07T19:21:00.000-05:00

Another in my continuing silliness of making up definitions for the random letters for the online security check to make sure that you’re a human being (as opposed to what, I want to ask), aka captcha.

The definition possibilities are:
1. A lamb in the blocks, race position fixed
2. A fine sewing needle – or –
3. A straw hat

The answer?

Lamset

Monday we gather, we friends of Stu Hammel, to bid him the final farewell in this thing we call a funeral. It has been an incredibly sad week. But for these few hours, there’s been a respite – the calm in the eye of the storm . . . the place where family and friends sit and actually laugh, allowing themselves to wander from the focus on the sadness . . . forgetting for an instant . . . looking away from and towards . . . away from the pain and towards the things of life – the mundane as well as the wonderful.

There have been times in my life when I have cursed my ‘waste’ of time. But I see things differently now . . . now I think it’s not possible to waste time . . . rather, I think we simply live . . . for however long it is allotted to us, we live . . . whether ridiculously or sublimely, we live.

That is how it should be.

_____________
My own favorite definition for the made-up word lamset is a straw hat, although it would be #1, a lamb in the blocks, race position fixed, if I ever thought I could get a lamb to pose for the picture.

Iowa Schmiowa

2012-01-06T18:54:00.000-05:00

My friend Stu died on Wednesday. It is only Friday and already, it seems so very, very long ago. Life continues apace on planet earth . . . people shop at the store and silly as well as serious discussions carry on even among us, those who mourn.

And the news keeps spinning out.

Last night, or was it this morning? I think it was this morning . . . there was the usual US Presidential race coverage on television, only now, it was about New Hampshire instead of Iowa. Did Iowa already happen? I ask the fellow mourner sitting beside me on the couch. I don’t know and I don’t care, she replied.

I thought about that for a moment. Me neither, was my equable answer. And it was true. I really don’t care whether the Republican candidates have already been to Iowa or not. I really don’t care who won and who’s claiming they won, even though they didn’t.

When did ‘news’ become a nation’s soap opera? When did it become that you could simply fill in the blanks to never-ending and never-changing narrative? When did our news become about the unimportant, the trivial? And when did the really important things get pushed away to make room for the drivel we dub ‘news’?

I wasn’t looking that day.

I should have liked to have a vote in our collective decision to be held captive to the irrelevant by the irresponsible.

I wasn’t looking that day.

I’m sure Iowa is a lovely place to live and meaning no disrespect, I have to say . . .

Iowa, Schmiowa . . .

Nowhere for a Fish to Live

2012-01-06T00:01:00.000-05:00

When I was about 7 years old, my parents got me 2 gold fish, a gold fish bowl and some fish food. I was set. A few days later, the first fish died. The other fish actually lived about 5 years, but it turns out that gold fish actually have an average life span measured in decades.

I most likely killed both fish with my ignorance.

Even more alarming in some ways is that my 1-inch long fishie stayed about that size all his (her? I never knew for sure) life because he lived in a fish bowl. Goldfish 101

Goldfish stay small because their environment is small . . . the fish bowl is nowhere for a fish to live.

I wonder what prison cells we build for ourselves, decorating them inside and out and calling them something else?

I wonder how our own growth is stunted by the small places of mind and body and heart into which we insert ourselves for safe keeping of one sort or another, only to find that we have accidentally made ourselves small?

For the Man Who Was So Much More

2012-01-05T08:33:00.001-05:00

My friend Stu, Stuart F. Hammel, late of Reading, Pennsylvania, died yesterday morning at 3.52 a.m., lying in his family bed, with his wife Twila holding his hand and whispering reassurance into his ear.

Stu at the Golden Gate bridge -
one of Stu's 'thin places'

What keeps coming to me as I think about such things as life and death and the singularity that was Stu is exactly that . . . Stu was a singular guy.

He was my college professor and debate coach more than 35 years ago. Naturally, I harken back to those times . . . truly halcyon days in our lives, Stu and Twila and me.

I think on Stu and cast about, trying to define Stu’s place in my own life . . . college was such a foundational time, but it was so very long ago . . . how can I recapture that time? Those feelings? The defining beginning of a tapestry that would weave our lives, together and mostly, separately?

This is what I come to: Stuart Frederick Hammel was a man who looked at people and decided about them . . . and what he decided was whether they were worth knowing . . . worth adding to the Stu Hammel ‘collection’.

And for some reason, Stu decided that I was someone worth knowing and worth knowing better.

That’s quite a gift to give someone: the belief that in your eyes, they are worth knowing and over time, worth knowing better.

I hope you have such people in your own life.

For one, I am so very, very, grateful that I had a Stu . . . no, the Stu, in my life, deciding that I am worth being known.

Thank you, dear friend. May your eternal rest be all that I imagine it can be and so much more.

______________________
Stu's obituary

For more on Thin places (the places where we feel our closest connections to God and the cosmos), check out Iona's web site.

The Envy of the Dead

2012-01-03T19:08:00.000-05:00

When I was fifteen, my Grandmother on my mother’s side died. Grandmother and I were separated by great distance most of the time, so I did not know her as well as my other grandmother. But I can remember being outraged on her behalf with the sense of propriety that only an adolescent can muster against the lesser-ness of her elders, in the face of the laughter and loud and even boisterous chatter of those visiting the family at the funeral home. There was even cigar smoke, for God’s sake. Who were these people and how dare they ignore the reality of my grandmother’s body lying right in front of them? It was an insufferable affront.

My memories of that time remind me of Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, in which, as I recall it, Ivan Ilyich grows increasingly resentful over the seeming lack of care from his family about the very clear reality that he is dying.

I wonder, though, were they truly uncaring or were they simply doing what the living do: living?

As I sit with others in caring for my dear and dying friend Stu, it is clear that Stu does not resent that our lives continue without him. He regrets it; he is sad for what he will miss. But he does not begrudge the living their lives, their continuity.

Should I suffer like Stu and Ivan Ilyich, should I have the slow rather than quick kind of meeting with death and dying, will I begrudge the living? Or will I rejoice in their largess even as I regret its loss in my own journey?

Will I hate the laughter surrounding my body as the living discuss the cares of the living; will I resent it even then?

I hope that my corpse will be filled with grace rather than resentment, acceptance and love rather than envy.

That would be a good death, I think.

On Being a Humble Truth-Seeker

2012-01-02T07:50:00.000-05:00

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wrote hundreds of years ago on truth, capital-T Truth:

The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of the Truth, but rather the pursuit of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectibility is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent, and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand, and say: Father, I will take this one—the pure Truth is for You alone. Wikiquote

Mendelssohn, Lessing & Lavater
Wikimedia Commons

Lessing’s premise, that it is more blessed, more holy, indeed, more true, to seek Truth rather than to claim or possess it, is, in our time, an extraordinary one. . . for are we not the quintessential holders, claimers and defenders of the True?

Lessing’s answer is clear and succinct: no. And if we pretend that we are, we aim at usurpation of the divine.

Left with a choice, he says, he would always choose the seeking after of Truth, for Truth, ultimate, settled-for-all-time Truth is the purview of God alone.

What an extraordinarily humble and wise thing to say.

Daniel Berrigan’s Advent Credo redound, “This is true. . .” rings in my head. But even those claims, lofty, noble and in my view, true, as they are, must be uttered with the same humility urged by Lessing: I can only ever see through a mirror dimly when it comes to anything, including the divine vision of justice, mercy and love, let alone the ultimate divine claim upon us: the claim of, to, from, and for life.

This is awfully abstract.

I write in abstractions today for I am not yet ready to write in the concrete: a friend lays upstairs dying and we who love him gather round. This I know to be true; but is it True? I cannot say.

The Eighth Day of Christmas: Blessed Are. . .

2012-01-01T08:27:00.000-05:00

From A Catholic Notebook blog

From the song The Twelve Days of Christmas, today, the first day of 2012, is the 8th day of Christmas, represented by eight maids a milking.

Although it is discounted by much modern scholarship, there has been a suggestion that each ‘day’ of the song represents a teaching from the Bible, particularly for Catholics during the time of their persecution in England. Wikipedia: The Twelve Days of Christmas

In that understanding, putting aside for the moment the historicity of the claim and the distaste at remembering persecution, today would be the day to recall the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5.3-10 (NIV)

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The practice of blessing is one we might do well to adopt in this year of 2012 mythology of cataclismic endings, Mayan predictions of the end of time and Christian crazies continuing to presume to tell all the date and time of our collective end.

For the practice of blessing is one that reminds us that in our creaturliness, we inhabit the here and the now and while Jesus’ beatitudes may be promising future reward, they speak most eloquently, I think, not to reward in a distant horizon we can barely imagine, but rather to our present circumstance, telling us that no matter how challenging, no matter how bleak, our poverty, our sorrow, our humility, our hunger, our mercy, our focused hearts, our passion towards peace, even our suffering for the cause of justice in the here and the now have meaning . . . cosmic meaning.

Blessings are not blow-out-the-candle birthday wishes . . . rather, blessings speak something into reality. Blessing are an act of creation. And as such, blessings are incredibly brave and faith-filled things to offer . . . the creation of comfort where there seems to be none to be had . . . the creation of hope where things seem hopeless . . . the creation of rest right smack-dab in the middle of unrest . . . the creation of peace in the midst of violence . . .

My blessing offered for us all this year some of us name 2012 . . .

Blessed is the human as it struggles and writhes in its own birth, life and dying pangs, for it will find creativity . . . and solace . . . meaning and purpose . . . life and all its attendant joys . . .

May it be so, O Lord, may it be so.

Auld Lang Syne

2011-12-31T08:35:00.001-05:00

Happy Hogmanay to all my Scots friends. (Happy New Year, or more accurately, Happy Eve of the New Year, to the rest of you.)

And in traditional Scots, May the best ye hae ivver seen be the warst ye’ll ivver see. (Translation: May the best you’ve ever seen be the worst you’ll ever see. Martin Frost)

Auld Lang Syne, thought to be the most popular and well-known song in the entire world, is sung in some version in Peru, Chili, Finland, China, France, Greece, Hungary, Japan, Korea, The Maldives, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sudan, Taiwan, Zimbabwe and Thailand, to name but a few.

It has been sung in countless movies including It’s a Wonderful Life.

And, of course, Jimi Hendrix gave it his magical electric guitar spin in his performance of December 31, 1969 at the Fillmore East. Hendrix died in 1970.

Having spent a year interning in Scotland as a student minister, I have heard the song played and sung many times. But my best memory is the celidh (dance, pronounced kay-lee) held in my honor at the end of my time in Greenock.

After a night of trampling on the feet of good-natured partners (I am an enthusiastic, but talentless dancer), we ended, as is traditional, with Auld Lang Syne. For me that night, it was not simply the ending of a good night of fun, but the end of a time magical . . . a saying of good-bye to friends and colleagues and to a wonderful, blessed time of learning and growth, restful care and challenge.

The clasping of hands, the approach and retreat of the ‘dance’ of the entire room in one large circle, was symbolic of so much more than I can put into words . . . coming close and retreating away my literal coming into and going away from the lives of so many incredible, kind, giving, good people (with typical Scottish reserve, they will cringe at my very-American excess of language, but it’s all true).

And so to Bill (The Very Reverand William Hewitt) and Moira and family . . . to Liz and Idris and the crew . . . to Stuart and Patricia, Christine and family, to Ann and Anna, Bob, Allison and the kids, Susan, Cath and Jim, Campbell, Nessie and Douglas, Ian, Monica, Les, Ruth, Ishbel, Margaret, Fraser, Ida, Ricky, Marion and George, Liz, Gordon, Morag, wee Kirstie, Peter and Ann, and so many others . . .

To Wilma and John and all the ones who have gone on before . . .

I’ll nae be thir tae see it, but dance a dance and drink a wee cup for me, dear friends.

All your kindness to this strange American in your midst, I will never forget. Oh, and put a cuppa on, for I’ll be home soon. Love, Beth

Looking Back

2011-12-30T08:26:00.000-05:00

My Top 10 international stories of 2011 (not necessarily in any order of importance)

1. Osama bin Laden - dead. US college students party in the streets like it’s 1999 and I am embarrassed by and for us as a nation.
2. Arab Spring
3. Purported end to US occupation of Iraq. Irony: those in the US who supported its war against the people of Iraq (claiming it was to depose tyrant Saddam Hussein), opposed the Arab Spring, out of so-called concern about what would fill the vacuum created by the loss of dictatorial leadership in places like Egypt - apparently, that was not a concern when it came to Iraq.
4. Occupy Wall Street
5. Tsunami in Japan with the attendant nuclear power disaster, the long-term effects of which remain unknown. Related story: failure of governments of the world to reach agreement on further climate-change strategies.
6. US proving that any boy really can grow up to be president, as many in the very party she personifies will not support Michele Bachmann because she is a woman – irony may not be news, but it sure is interesting.
7. The US wages yet another undeclared war in the Middle East in the deposing of Gaddafi of Libya and calling it a NATO action (as if NATO is something different than the US).
8. World-wide economic tail spin
9. Death of Kim Jong Il, the effects of which for North Korea, its neighbors and the world, remain unknown

10. Oh, and apparently, the most interesting thing for the world to check out online was making a 13-year-old girl’s attempt at fame (Rebecca Black sings Friday) an international joke.

My Top 10 Personal Stories of 2011
1. My son got a job and moved away from home . . . again . . . and I must admit how much I miss him.
2. The lights were on at Obaugh’s way too often this year. . . Obaugh’s is the local funeral home in the community where I live and when someone dies, owner G. W. turns on the front porch light. In this tiny place, we said far too many good-byes, including from our own church and the families in our church . . . Bobby McCray, Sonny Smith, Ruth Wade, Eugene Hodge, Levi Armstrong and Joey Roberts. Levi and Joey were young, killed within weeks of each other in car accidents.
3. Chris & Heather Scott and their girls Ruth and Esther moved away, leaving me with one less ministerial playmate . . . I still feel their absence.
4. I stayed close to home most of this year but did manage to visit friends in Chicago and have friends visit me from Scotland and Pennsylvania. Oh, and I went on my first and maybe my last cruise (I didn’t get seasick, but that was just way too much ocean for me)
5. I got a new car, well, new to me, anyway . . . and a new computer.
6. Inspired by RevGalBlogPals and my good friend Liz Crumlish I started to blog. And technology came to our church by way of Podcasts (temporarily suspended while we get a new web site up and running) . . . we’re on FB now, and I’m a guest blogger on the Thoughtful Christian’s blog Gathering Voices (shout out to David Maxwell for thinking I’ve got something to say)
7. At age 56, I began cello lessons and am even learning to read music for the first time!
8. There was an earthquake in Virginia and Ben and I felt the shocks
9. I saw an abundance of butterflies, squirrels and deer, insects and bunny rabbits.
10. I went to my first film festival

History may be writ large, but it is lived small . . . in the everyday-ness of our existence, we find our meaning, purpose and place in the world.

This year mine has been less about the larger world and its events and more about home and family and friends.

In the small as well as the large, so many have suffered so much and my heart aches for them all.

But as for me, it has been, by and large, a very good year. For that, I am thankful.

And I am wondering . . . what have been your Top 10's for 2011?

Less is More

2011-12-29T09:47:00.000-05:00

- = +

Seeing the above symbols on a billboard recently, I puzzle and puzzle: what does it mean? The best I can do is “Less is more.”

At Christmas time in the United States, there is much preaching on less . . . less consumerism, less consumption . . . all appropriate given our over-use of the world’s resources and our relative share thereof.

But I think now not of consumerism, but of the approach of the New Year as measured on the Gregorian calendar favored in the Western world.

One of the customs here is to make New Year’s resolutions: promises or commitments, typically to one’s self, to do better, to do more, at something . . . more dieting . . . more effort at drinking less . . . more time given to good causes . . . more work at being an all-round better person.

What if, this New Year, we sought to do less rather than more, to even be less rather than more.

It goes against the grain for we can-do Yanks, doesn’t it?

But maybe, just maybe, this is a time for less promises rather than more . . . less commitments we will not keep (largely because we don’t want to, even though we think we should) . . . less effort . . .

Maybe, just maybe, this can be a year when we stop listening to the voices in our heads and on our television and computer screens telling us that we don’t do enough, that somehow we aren’t enough . . . and simply be content . . . content knowing that we are doing our best . . . content knowing that even amidst the hard times, and there will be hard times, we are blessed . . . blessed with each other . . . blessed with the ability to be useful to our fellow human beings, even if our bodies restrict us to a life of lying in bed . . . blessed knowing we can serve and allow ourselves to be served . . . blessed to simply be . . .

This year, my resolution is to make no resolutions . . . to take life on its own terms . . . as it comes . . . day by day . . . that will be enough . . . and so will I.

***

On the phrase “less is more”:

"Less is more" is often misattributed to Richard Buckminster Fuller or to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and it has become a prominent motto for minimalist philosophies. It was actually used much earlier in Robert Browning's "Andrea del Sarto" (1855), and the similar German phrase "minder ist oft mehr" by Christoph Martin Wieland in Der Teutsche Merkur (1774). Wikiquotes

Andrea Del Sarto by Robert Browning

I do what many dream of, all their lives,

--Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,

And fail in doing. I could count twenty such

On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,

Who strive—you don't know how the others strive

To paint a little thing like that you smeared

Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,--

Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,

(I know his name, no matter)--so much less!

Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.

There burns a truer light of God in them,

In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,

Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt

This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.

Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,

Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,

Enter and take their place there sure enough,

Though they come back and cannot tell the world.

My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.

The sudden blood of these men! at a word--

Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.

I, painting from myself and to myself,

Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame

Or their praise either. . .

Rachel Weeps: On the Loss of a Child

2011-12-28T09:35:00.000-05:00

A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted,

because they are no more.

–Matthew 2.18
(quoting Jeremiah31.15)

On the Roman Catholic calendar, today is the Feast Day remembering the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, the boy children who, in the Matthean narrative of the birth of Christ, are the collateral damage to Herod’s effort to find and kill the Messiah.

On such a day, it is common and appropriate to remember the thousands and hundreds of thousands of children who die each year from poverty, as casualties of war, living in refugee camps, as part of the exploitation and human trafficking that views children as commodity rather than human being to be treasured.

But this Feast Day, the trembling of Rachel’s shoulders seems much closer to home than what even horrifying statistics can convey.

My own father died of cancer in 1993. He was in his early 60's and his own mother, my Grandma, in her 80's.

For all my sorrow at my own loss and my sadness for my mother’s loss of her husband, it is always the vision of my Grandma, Dad’s own mother, that draws my mind’s eye backward to that time.

I can still remember Grandma standing there at the casket, alone, allowing herself no comfort from any quarter.

Grandma hovering over the body of her baby boy is the loneliest sight I have ever seen.

A mother then myself, I understood and my heart broke for her . . . no parent, no matter how old, should have to stand in such a place mourning such a loss.

This feast day, this day set aside to remember those murdered out of the fear and jealousy of a tyrant who would be threatened by a toddler, I am mindful of all the parents who have stood and watched as their own children have returned to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

However your own child was lost to you . . . whether in the vagaries of the madness of war . . . or the puzzling loss of the body turned against itself with disease . . . car accidents or random unexpected tragedy . . . suicide or homicide . . .

This day and always, my prayers are with you. I can only try to imagine the depth of your loss. I know not the source of your comfort. I hate that you have suffered in such a way. I ache for your loneliness. And I cling to the belief that God stands ever at your side as you keep your own vigils, weeping your tears, crying your anguish. I know not whether there be any comfort in that presence. I only know that you and your pain are not forgotten and neither is the one you loved so much that you risked giving life where it might be taken away.

May Comfort and Peace find you and grant you rest.

A Blessing of Discomfort

2011-12-27T11:38:00.000-05:00

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator,
Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word who is our brother and Saviour,
and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide,
be with you and remain with you, this day and forevermore.

AMEN

Blessing by Sister Ruth Fox, Order of Saint Benedict (OSB)

A friend's Christmas letter ended with this blessing. I can think of no better challenge as we enter another year, another span of time wrought by challenge, pain, sorrow, wars and rumors of wars.

It's an odd blessing, perhaps, this notion of seeking from God discomfort rather than comfort . . . anger rather than calm acceptance . . . tears rather than laughter . . . foolishness rather than wisdom . . .

But contained within such words of blessing is the acknowledgment that we are put here not for ourselves or our own ends; rather, we are here to tend towards God . . .

Tomorrow is the feast day for the observance of the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents (Matthew 2.16-18) in the Roman Catholic tradition. Protestants tend to shy away from this horror found right in the midst of the account of the birth and first years of Jesus. Scholars will claim it didn't happen. Folks in the pews simply will not notice this account of infanticide, glossing over such a harsh narrative in favor of the wise men coming to pay homage to the Christ child with a glance at the holy family's flight into Egypt, without much thought or attention given to the reason for the flight.

Jesus' first human status was 'refugee'.

Before he was 'teacher', before he was a learned student or even an impudent pre-pubescent, Jesus was a refugee. And the occasion for the family's flight was infanticide: the killing of children en masse.

It is appropriate in our collective remembering that we join with our Catholic brothers and sisters and remember the holy innocents, and in remembering, to have our own fire for justice rekindled within.

Sisters, brothers, may you be blessed this day with the discomfort of knowing there is work to do towards God's own justice . . . righteousness . . . and peace . . . and that you are called to do it.

Amen.

There's a Song in the Air

2011-12-25T10:21:00.000-05:00

It is winter in these mountains where I live . . . the sun shines, dazzling the eyes as it reflects off the frost giving us the hoped-for white Christmas. The air is cold . . . stick-your-nostrils-together-when-you-breathe-in cold, but the winter birds chirping away don’t seem to mind.

Last night’s candlelight service is now but a memory.

And my Christmas has begun. . .

As a pastor, my Christmas begins when yours ends. . .

I love it all . . . the hustle and bustle of last-minute preparations . . . the beauty and pageantry of the late-night service . . . the stillness that descends on the gathered as candles are lit . . . and in some ways best of all, the time after . . . the time of reflecting on who was there and who wasn’t . . . hearing the carols again in my heart . . .

You (well, you and the winter birds) are my Christmas play list and I thank God for each and every one of you. . . the ones I know so well and the ones I will never see or meet. Thank you and Merry Christmas.

Christmas Eve in Amman

2011-12-24T10:38:00.000-05:00

Christmas Eve, 2005, Amman, Jordan.
On Christmas Eve, I went to midnight Mass at a local Roman Catholic Church with a Roman Catholic colleague, a Jewish girl, her 'lapsed Protestant' boyfriend (from a Protestant family almost never having been to church himself) and a young Muslim friend. The worshipers were almost all Philipino domestic workers and the service was in English.
During communion (the Mass), I stayed with our guests while my Catholic colleague went forward to receive the host (the communion bread). Jamil, my Muslim friend, asked why we didn't all go up and as I was trying to explain, it got less and less sensible to me.
As we sat, Jamil said, “I like this - it is very nice - it reminds me of Jesus (whom Muslims embrace as a prophet) loving and feeding the poor.”
I turned to see the people (many of whom are among the poor) walking forward to receive the host from the priest and I saw with new eyes. Jesus did come to feed the hungry, physically as well as spiritually. Is communion an enactment of that reality as well as the reality of atoning sacrifice for salvation? I want to think so.
We, our guests and I, continued to watch quietly. The question occurs to me: who, starving to death, would I not feed? It is the question I am left with as I marvel that my Muslim friend wanted to participate and saw no reason why he should not. Feeding those who lack: it really is pretty simple, isn't it?

Beloved,
I wrote this reflection five years ago, as I prepared to return to Iraq in the wake of the kidnapping of four of my colleagues from CPT, the peace group I go to Iraq with. It was a very difficult time, without much joy. The rain and cold of that Christmas Eve night was appropriate to the mood . . . darkness was all around and the light was hard to find.
As we sat in the service, the priest prayed to God, “Let us be dazzled by Your light.”
I saw very little of God’s light in those days, but one sparkling moment was when my friend Jamil, his eyes alight with wonder, spoke of the beauty of Jesus feeding the poor.
In this Muslim man’s eyes, I saw the light of God that night. The light from Jamil sustained me on many lonely nights, as he and his friends at the hotel we stayed in awaiting our entry visas into Iraq comforted and cared for me, prayed for my kidnapped colleagues (their friends as well), and generally brought joy out of their poverty to an American woman, who, but for them, was very much alone in her sorrow.
And so, this Christmas season, I pray for each of you . . . in your own sorrow and loss, in your own poverty, may you be aware of the surrounding joy of those you mistakenly believe have little to offer . . . may you who inhabit the churches have your eyes opened to the godliness of those whose feet have never darkened the church’s doors . . . may you standing on the outside see the beauty and wonder of the Jesus who would feed you and may you receive the courage to come inside, for you have much to offer as well as to receive . . .
May this be the Christmas when we all sit down at God’s table as welcomed guests and receive the great meal of love that God in Christ prepared for us from before the beginning of time itself.
In God’s own dazzling light,
Beth Pyles, Pastor

I Won't Be Alone

2011-12-23T01:13:00.000-05:00

On speaking of Christmases past, Sarah remembers happy times with family, most now gone, and says, “They’re all gone, but I can close my eyes and be with them again. I might be by myself on Christmas morning, but I won’t be alone.”

“I might be by myself, but I won’t be alone.”

I can think of no better statement to capture the essence of the coming of the Christ child, for there are many times when we are by ourselves, but with His coming, we are never again alone.

Hallelujah!

They Don’t Know You Like I Do, Ma

2011-12-21T15:21:00.000-05:00

I will never be cool enough to go viral . . . shoot, I’ll never be cool enough to be cool in my kids’ eyes . . . well, maybe in my step-kids’ eyes, but they never had the ‘luxury’ of actually living with me, so I’m not sure that counts.

Some years ago, while attending seminary as a second-career student, some fellow seminarians actually younger than my own kids, opined that I just might be the coolest old person they knew. I was very flattered and rushed to call son Ben and tell him. Without missing a beat, his reply came over the line at the light-speed of the sharp-witted: They don’t know you like I do, Ma.

We both still laugh about that one. . . so funny because it is so very true.

I love Jesus and I love my family and friends and I love my church and I love my life and am generally a very content woman . . . but every now and again, like when watching the Blackberry Night Bikes commercial (this is not an endorsement, but I love, love, love those bikes), I wish I were that cool . . . or at least cooler than I am . . . cool enough to have my 15 seconds (used to be minutes, but things move a lot faster now than they used to) of fame for something totally silly . . . totally unimportant to world peace . . . and totally me . . .

Alas, it is not to be . . . I am a great audience for other people’s creativity . . . but there are no Guinness Book of World Records records for the cool of appreciation . . .

Underpants? For Me????

2011-12-20T22:04:00.001-05:00

I am so excited to share this particular Christmas with my grandson Rowen. He is now 4, the perfect age to grasp the wonder and awe and majesty, to rejoice in the anticipation as much as the event, to relish each surprise as it comes his way. To see Christmas again through such eyes is a delight and I can hardly wait.

In my family, and I suspect in yours, when it comes to Christmas gifts, some are absolutely inspired and will be remembered for a life time, but most are pretty pedestrian, the giver more appreciated than the gift.

And as soon as November rolls around in my family, we stop buying things for ourselves or others unless they’re to be saved for Christmas. Need a new pair of socks? Wait for Christmas and maybe Grandma will get you some. Getting low on dental floss? There’ll probably be some in your stocking. And if you’re lucky, there’ll be a can of your favorite black olives all wrapped up under the tree for you.

We wrap everything and call it a gift – I love that about us, even if it does make for some pretty funny gifts (use your own imagination, but think on the advantages of Polident once you’ve reached a certain age).

But my absolute favorite gift moment has to be my son Ben, exclaiming as he opened one such family gift from me, “Underpants? For me????”

Like Rowen, Ben was still a small boy and there was no irony in his voice. He was genuinely thrilled to be receiving a gift of white jockey underpants. Every single gift he opened was a new and wonderful surprise and he received them all, even the underpants, with equal joy.

I love that about him. I loved it then and I love it still. This son of mine always finds joy in receiving. He doesn’t measure and find wanting. When it comes to gifts, he sees the glass not as half full, but as overflowing.

And isn’t that so very true?

The gifts we receive are gift and giver, all rolled into one . . . what rapture, what joy, that you would think on me . . . that you would give me this . . . from you . . . oh, how lucky, how blessed am I!

Gifting is holy ground and all who stand upon it are blessed.

I don’t know whether Rowen will have his father’s unabashed excitement and gratitude at receiving gifts or not. I hope so. I hope I hear from him this Christmas, “Underpants? For me????” because he is surely going to receive some.

Merry Christmas, Ben. Be watching for those underpants.

Love, Mom

The Importance of Wrapping Paper

2011-12-20T12:40:00.000-05:00

During Bible Study today, Rosalee shares a Christmas lesson on the importance of wrapping paper . . . years ago she and a fellow teacher got identical gifts for their students, but the other teacher wrapped hers and Rosalee did not. Rosalee’s students felt somehow that they had gotten less than the other students because their gifts weren’t wrapped. It wasn’t that they wanted wrapping paper; they actually believed the gifts themselves were different. The wrapping paper somehow transformed the other gifts into something more.

In my own family, I have seen this in the positive sense, where even white socks and underwear become like the North Star in the wonder of giftedness they inspire simply by being festively wrapped.

And so it is, I think with life.

Chefs and fashionistas and wedding planners and interior designers have always understood that packaging matters, which is just another way of saying that we consume, we take in, we understand things, first with our eyes.

But when it comes to wrapping paper, our hands matter almost as much as our eyes . . . whether we rip and tear eagerly or slowly and carefully take apart what has been so thoughtfully put together . . . whether we notice the color and design of the paper or only see a blur of color as we dive into the gift underneath the wrapping . . . no matter how we approach it all, our hands hold the reality of gift before our minds grasp the nature of the thing presented and make their judgments . . .

In that moment, when the gift sits on our laps, when the wrapping paper surrounds the gift with care, when we behold with our eyes and deconstruct with our hands, there is holiness . . . the recognition of something special having arrived . . . the anticipation serving to actually transform the thing awaited into wonder and beauty and love . . .

That, for me, is Advent . . . the wrapping paper surrounding the gift of the coming of the Christ child . . . the wreaths and the candles, the children’s pageants and the poinsettias, the greening and candy making, the Christmas cards sent and received, the unwrapping of the Biblical story, the waiting and waiting and waiting . . . all make the event, the coming, the triumphal entry, even more than it was already . . .

Jesus is often for me like a pair of comfortable old socks . . . welcome, fitting just right, familiar . . . but the coming, the Advent anticipation, the wrapping paper wonder of it all transform that comfortable familiarity into something bigger, something my hands and eyes know so much better than my mind . . .

Even comfortable old socks can be transformed . . . even the one who wears the socks can be surprised.

Hallelujah!

O Holy Night

2011-12-19T21:28:00.000-05:00

I remember many holy nights, some bursting with the soaring strains of the hymn – Christmas Eve services past . . . three male friends at a Christmas party spontaneously dropping to their knees as they sang off-key and gloriously . . . Fall on your knees . . . the laughter, the wonder, the soul-touching music . . .

Tonight as I drove the mountains home through the dark tunnel of the night, the radio brought the glorious word to my hearing in a new way . . .

It was the last verse rather than the first that spoke into this night . . .

Truly he taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

From that holy night to this, the message is heard anew and anew . . . when he appears, the soul feels its worth . . .

From God’s worth comes ours . . . and we are taught again how to love one another . . . taught again the law of love and the gospel of peace . . . taught again that all our imprisoning chains are broken in Him for the sake of our brothers and sisters. . . taught again that oppression no more shall find its home on earth . . .

O Holy Night as sung by Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo

A Winter Blessing

2011-12-19T10:09:00.001-05:00

I have always thought of winter as the metaphorical season of our discontent, to borrow from the Bard. But as I sit here today, I'm revisiting and coming away with winter now as my metaphor of Sabbath. The summer of doing and memory creating gives way to the winter of simply being.

May this be your season of Sabbath rest into the God who loves and adores you.

Shabbat shalom. Peaceful, blessed, Sabbath to you and all you hold dear.

A Suitable Messiah

2011-12-16T11:57:00.000-05:00

Whatever else is true, it is emphatically not true that the ideas of Jesus of Nazareth were suitable to his time, but are no longer suitable to our time. Exactly how suitable they were to his time is perhaps suggested in the end of his story. –G. K. Chesterton

I am in search of a suitable Messiah . . . one who will come when I call . . . who will be strong . . . one whose omnipotence shows in ways I can measure . . . whose omnipresence is obvious by the changes wrought in the world . . . one whose omniscience prevents every bad thing before the badness even has a chance to grow from budding thought to flowering full-bloom evil . . .

I am in search of a suitable Messiah . . . strong, sure, purposeful, direct, clear and clearly in charge . . .

I am in search of a suitable Messiah . . . not a dependent, crying, needful baby . . . not a god who grows . . . not a savior who needs me to do the saving . . .

I am in search of a suitable Messiah . . . and this baby Jesus in the manger simply will not do!

A messiah who needs rescuing is an oxymoron.

Such a messiah isn’t suitable at all.

It's About Time

2011-12-15T16:30:00.000-05:00

It’s about time. . .

It seems that I have been running late . . . behind . . . past due . . . for a long time now. Often when I enter a room, my greeting is, It’s about time you got here, underscoring my behindedness in all things.

A part of me wants to respond But! But I sent you . . . my prayers . . . a card . . . a phone call . . . a warm wish . . . friends . . .

The buts most often die on my lips unspoken, for the ones reminding me that it’s about time are being quite literal and they’re right. It is about time. . . the time we make as well as the time we take . . . the time we make just to sit and be with others.

Cards and calls and prayers all matter, but there’s nothing quite like physical presence when it comes to comfort and friendship and reassurance.

The ultimate in our understanding of the Christ event, I think, is this reality of presence. For a long time, God had been sending hints and voices and promises. But one day, God came in person, all wrapped up in swaddle.

And in that moment, all humanity inhaled love and exhaled its new understanding . . . it’s about time.

Time

2011-12-14T08:35:00.002-05:00

If time were a color
it would be white
for its ever-present
presence of all things
jammed
crammed
slammed
into this one moment

If time were a color
it would be black
for its ever-absent
absence of all things
emptied
poured out
sacrificed
given
and given over
out of this one moment

Time
into
and
out of

Do we travel time
or does it travel us?

Noticing the Wings that Fly

2011-12-13T21:37:00.000-05:00

Sunday, I travel 6 miles to Headwaters Chapel for the first of two church services. I park along the road, in front of the Varner family farm. Sometimes the cows are lined up along the fence in hopeful greeting; what they think I bring, I cannot say, but whatever they’re hoping for, I disappoint, turning away from them and towards the chapel.

Last Sunday was a beautiful, cold, crisp, clear winter day. The cows had long since given up hope on me, so there was no greeting, or so I thought.

As I turned from the car door to swing my robe on at the road’s edge, I felt more than heard or saw movement.

And then I heard it . . . the sound of hundreds of birds’ wings beating . . .

The flock lifted up on waves . . . staying low, it was almost as if they ran rather than flew across the road to the field further away from this mid-morning intruder.

A smaller group held back, waiting until all the others had landed on the other side before lifting up in identical fashion. . . the staggered crossing created a long ten-count of beating wings . . . the only sound in that moment in the whole of the valley . . .

As they resettled in the far field, I realized why I hadn’t seen them before . . . even though I knew they were there, even though I watched them fly in and land, as soon as they touched down, one by one and in groups of hundreds, they disappeared into the short grass.

The wing sound was my only real proof that they had been there.

I was sorry I had disturbed them even as I longed to hear their wing song again.

If they hadn’t moved, I would have never seen them.

Ears are for hearing and eyes for seeing, but hearts that soar and feet that dance and wings that fly are for noticing.

I'm Dreaming of a White (Socks) Christmas

2011-12-10T09:43:00.001-05:00

I have many Christmas memories, most of them wonderful, some of them truly horrible. I survived the horrible and cherish the wonderful.

And of all things, every time I see a new package of white socks, I remember Christmas at my Grandma’s house.

Every Christmas day, my Mom, Dad and I would have our own Christmas time and then we would travel ‘over the river and through the woods’ to Grandma’s house, where extended family gathered for more celebration.

Often, distant family would come who hadn’t called to tell Grandma they were coming. But she was always ready for them, for at Grandma’s house, no one left without a present.

As soon as she’d see Aunt Irma and Uncle Lernie, or Aunt Irene or Uncle Dice pull up, Grandma would send me hurrying to her bedroom dresser, to get from the top drawer (where I wasn’t allowed to go otherwise, because that’s where Grandpa kept his ‘secret’ stash of pink lozenges that I so loved) a package of men’s or women’s white socks to wrap and put under the tree with their name on it.

It might not be white socks anymore, but my own mother always has a little stash of gifts for the unexpected guest and now, so do I, because you never know who might drop by at Christmas. And every guest, bidden or unbidden, must have a gift.

Welcoming the unexpected is a wonderful lesson my Grandma, Mary Edra Tennant Pyles, taught me about the meaning of Christmas.

And like Bing Crosby, I too dream of white Christmases, but mine are filled with socks more than snow.

This Christmas, may you be met with gifts of white socks everywhere you enter as the unexpected guest; and may you be ready to welcome such guests into your own circle of love.

The Simplicity of Truth

2011-12-09T00:46:00.000-05:00

My family loves to play games – cards, board games, drawing games, you name it, we’ve played it.

For a time, a favorite was Balderdash, where you lie (bluff) word meanings, trying to convince competitors that your hoax definition is really the genuine article.

My son Ben was a teenager when we spent hours and hours working our way through the Balderdash card box, continually amazed at how many words there are that we’d never heard of.

And much to Ben’s chagrin, I could almost always tell when a definition was one of his creations: he’d take a word like verdigris (actual definition: the green stuff on copper) and come up with something like the true and genuine meaning of fictitious grist for the mill, usually seen in the pulp novellas of the 19th century in England and generally read by poor women of the day. . .

The less Ben knew, the longer and more convoluted his definitions became. Even when I told him, less is better, he just couldn’t help himself. . . his manufactured truth just had to be a thing of complexity.

And so it is in life: truth is a fairly simple thing; deception, by its very nature and in its effort to obscure and disguise the truth, is a thing of nonsensical complexity.

Some years ago an independent candidate for president had a running mate who, during the debates, was asked the usual questions, but he gave simple, direct answers. I still remember the shock and surprise of the moderator: this man was not acting according to the script. Don’t you want to say more? he was asked. No, was his simple, truthful answer.

It’s a pretty good template for judging truth: the more words, the less truth.

Spepash and Other Nonsense

2011-12-08T08:55:00.000-05:00

I cracked myself up yesterday. E-mailing a blog post, I had to fill in the usual “word verification box”, filled with the wavy letters, to make sure that I’m a human and not a spam or a bot (I know, it’s not ‘a’ spam, but I couldn’t resist, as visions of Monty Python’s Spamalot fill my head).

In any event, I have decided to start collecting the random letters the magic word box throws up at me (testing, as often as not, whether I am old rather than whether I am human – who over 50 can read those letters, I ask you?), with the object of creating new words.

And so I give you my first offering from the magic words that aren't words box:

Spepash

Spepash: the feeling you get when you can’t read those fuzzy, wavy letters, and thus become filled with that sense of failure as a human being that only a machine can invoke.

Spepash

That’s my definition and I’m sticking with it.

I admit, I did play around with some alternatives . . .

What would a ‘spepash’ be? I asked myself.

I’m sure it would be something
amazing
and
interesting

and fun

and just full of
spe
and
pash

spepash

the opposite of balderdash?

Quick as a flash?

a 99.9 yard dash?

Full of panache?

But while such speculations are fun, words have meaning, after all, and in the Beth.Pyles online pocket (yeah, try that!) dictionary 2.0, spepash is machine-created dread.

Use in a sentence: A wave of spepash crashed over Beth as she sat before her computer, fingers trembling lest she err, and began to tenuously type one by one the barely discernible letters into her security box; the stakes were high -- having failed twice already, she would be locked out forever if she failed this time.

Spepash

__________
Really, who could make this stuff up? Check out CAPTCHA (for Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart). It seems that while I know that I'm a human being, my computer doesn't.

Not Holier Than God

2011-12-07T17:30:00.000-05:00

I was trolling the web, looking for a cute image on the idea of ‘spiritual temperature’ when I came upon the 2008 blog posting by David Wayne.

I love the Bonhoeffer quote from his book, Life Together:

Christian community is like the Christian's sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature.

And David’s paraphrase of John Calvin, that “ there are some people who have higher standards of holiness than God. . .” is as funny as it is sharp. Who says the great reformer didn’t have a sense of humor?

In my own time and place, it is not the vice of complaining that draws my attention; indeed, it isn’t any vice at all that occupies on my mind just now.

Rather, I sit with a community that is in pain . . . there has been no collective catastrophe, but there are so many individual ones, both great and small, that I find myself to be so very spiritually tired. . . not numb . . . not bored . . . not fed up . . . not impatient . . . not judging . . . just sad . . . and tired, soul-weary-tired.

Some of us will survive our current crises, some will not.

This winter is not the season of our discontent; rather, it is the season of our loss.

Counting that loss, however, is part of the problem. Doubtless, Bonhoeffer had no thought of the seasons of loss in the life of a church when he wrote the challenge to avoid the constant taking of our own temperature, but it is a metaphor that serves well in such times, I think.

Of course we must be self-aware. Of course, we must provide good care to self and to others. Of course we must observe our own sabbath rest.

But in the midst of heartache, it does little good to seek to measure it.

In the midst of sorrow, there is little point to counting our own tears.

Such efforts are not only in vain, they are also a way for us, for me, to try to step around what’s happening, to avoid the pain by acting the part of impartial observer, collector of the statistics of sorrow, as if that would somehow minimize the real hurt happening around and within.

God does not count the cost. But God experiences it. So too must we.

Today I am sad. And I am tired. Sitting with that is necessary. And measuring it will not make it hurt less or pass sooner.

This is the season of my sorrow.

May I sit with it grace-fully.

When Is a Soldier Not a Soldier?

2011-12-06T11:21:00.000-05:00

When is a soldier not a soldier? When he or she is a mercenary . . . or part of the growing “private military”, also known as private security contractors (PSC’s).

In Iraq, a soldier is not a soldier when he or she is in country paid indirectly rather than directly by the United States government. A soldier is a PSC and not a soldier when he or she works for a private contracting firm receiving billions of tax dollars for the privilege. A solider is a PSC and not a soldier when he or she can act with impunity in violation of local, national and international laws without consequence.

In practical terms, when I have encountered enlisted US military soldiers in Iraq, they were eager to hear a word from home, and apologetic of their limitations in hospitality (such as forcing Iraqis to remain standing in ankle-deep mud in the cold and rain for an ‘audience’ with a higher up, while inviting westerners inside for warmth and comfort. [Side note: we stayed outside with our Iraqi friends]).

When I have encountered private contractors, whether security or otherwise, they have refused eye contact or engagement, have fired upon a vehicle I was riding in (a ‘friendly’ warning shot), have been rude to Iraqis and others, and have generally created a cringingly bad impression of the United States and its citizens, to say nothing of their actions of violence towards the unarmed civilian population whose language they do not speak and whose cultural norms they apparently do not care to understand.

It is widely reported that the United States is leaving Iraq effective December 31 in terms of its military presence.

Which brings us back to the opening question: when is a soldier not a soldier?

The fact is that the United States is not leaving Iraq in terms of its presence of force. Security contractors will largely take the place of US military personnel.

And whenever government officials of the United States, whether Democrats or Republicans, speak of our forces in Iraq, they studiously avoid mention or inclusion of PSC’s, who, for some time, have actually made up the majority of our on-going presence in Iraq.

Honesty and integrity loathe the misuse of language and false categorization that create this mass denial of reality.

Why is it so important that the American people be led to believe that our occupying presence no longer exists in Iraq? Why do we so misuse language that it no longer effectively communicates anything of importance?

When did Jesus’ admonition, elegant in its simplicity: Let your yes be yes and your no be no, get forgotten in our collective consciousness?

When did a soldier stop being a soldier?

Doing It with Others

2011-12-05T16:29:00.000-05:00

It’s different doing it (whatever the it is) with others than doing “it” alone.

Whatever the “it” may be, the very doing of it with others makes it of a different order altogether. Acting in concert transforms the action into something it would not have otherwise been. It’s not simply that we do the “it” either alone or with others. By acting with others, as opposed to alone, the very “it” is itself changed.

Yesterday I sat in a group of musicians, average age 12. As part of my cello lessons, I was included, with the other few adults, in the concert recital.

But because of my grown-up duties, I had been unable to attend the group rehearsal, so had only the brief warm-up before the concert to actually play with the other instruments.

Thus, when the piano accompaniment came along and we were clipping along at a different tempo, I was lost. When other instruments near me were playing melody to my harmony lines, I was totally thrown.

I had practiced for a solo, but was being called to play in concert.

The cello is an orchestral instrument.

Like the cello, we human beings were crafted to be orchestral instruments playing symphonies, with the rare solo moment, made even more special for the symphonic surround.

There is little, if any, point, to practicing for a solo existence when I was crafted to live and act and have my being in community.

Cliff Notes: Advent 2 Sermon

2011-12-04T19:23:00.000-05:00

It Could Have Happened Like This

The angel Gabriel, an eternal optimist who leaves realism to God, is charged by God to go and visit a human female to bring her the ‘great’ news that she will have a child without a father . . .

Perhaps he first goes to Jerusalem and seeks out a girl . . . maybe her name was Tabitha . . .

Tabitha, it’s me, the angel Gabriel, and boy, do I have some great news for you! God wants to send a baby into the world, a very special baby, and God wants you to be his mother! What do you think of that?

Imagine our fictional Tabitha . . . busy cutting and chopping, helping to prepare the evening meal . . . she hears a buzzing in her ear . . . it sounds like words . . . but there’s no one in the room . . . so she just swipes at her ear to chase away the imagined gnat and goes on chopping . . .

Gabriel is astonished . . . immediately back in heaven, he reports to God what has just happened . . . God merely smiles and tells him to go back . . .

Next imagine Gabriel visits a girl in Bethlehem itself . . . now this is a good plan, he thinks to himself . . . they’ve got to be here for the census anyway, so why not start out here?

Anna, he shouts, having learned that a whisper simply will not do . . . and poor Anna immediately drops to the ground in a dead faint . . .

And so it goes, girl after girl, town after town . . . one is too busy to be bothered . . . one doubts her own sanity and refuses to believe Gabriel is an angel of the Lord . . . one is too frightened by the shame and degradation she will experience . . . one gets so angry she chases Gabriel out of the house with a broom . . .

By this time, Gabriel, still an optimist, is getting frustrated . . . Lord, what am I to do? None of them will do it!

God smiled and told Gabriel, Go back. . . you’ll find her . . . have faith . . . which is a very unusual thing to say to an angel . . .

And so back to earth he goes . . . out of towns and out of ideas, he finally turns his attention to Nazareth . . . a town so small it’s not really a town at all. . . kind of like McDowell or Headwaters. . . and there he notices a teenage girl all alone . . .

By now, Gabriel has figured out that he needs to get them alone . . . too many human voices drown out his message or distract the girls from his good news . . .

There she is, all by herself! What good fortune! But Gabriel doesn’t get too excited . . . after all, by now, he’s done this a thousand times . . .

But this one . . . she really is different . . . she’s just as confused as the others, but she is also curious . . . and she listened to Gabriel . . . really listened . . . much of what he said still didn’t make sense to her, but she got the basics . . . God wanted her to have a baby . . . God’s baby . . .

Gabriel waited with bated breath (well, it would have been if angels had breath) for her answer . . .

“Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

She agreed! She said yes!

And all heaven poured forth its Hallelujah!

And she, the girl named Mary, the one who said yes to God’s invitation into the divine love story, sings her joy . . .

. . . my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,

for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him

from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy,

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

–Mary’s Magnificat, Luke 1.47-55 (NRSV)

In the Meantime

2011-12-03T22:01:00.000-05:00

The greening of the church . . . that wonderful time when the scent of fresh pine mingles with the accumulated treasures of generations in dressing the church up for Advent . . .

I love the decorating, the gathering of community, the transformation, but it wasn’t until today that I connected what we’re doing so directly with our anticipation of the coming of Jesus. . . that I saw the greening of the church as an act of waiting-for-Messiah hope . . .

Dressing the church in the green of life is like waiting for spring in the dead of winter while enacting it in the meantime.

That’s what it is to anticipate Jesus . . . waiting, but enacting him in the meantime.

Leaping in Expectation

2011-12-02T18:25:00.000-05:00

While uncertain, the word hope may have a connection to the word hop, as in leaping in expectation.

Isn’t that a wonderful vision of hope?

Think of Christmas mornings when you were a child or even better, the night before, when you could scarcely make yourself stand still, let alone lie down to sleep.

That kind of expectancy, the jump-up-and-down excitement of your small child self knowing that something good, no – something wonderful, lies beyond. . . the hug-yourself-in-anticipation of what is coming and coming soon . . . that is the hope of the coming of the Messiah.

Zechariah’s hope for a Messiah wasn’t abstract . . . it was the sheer joy of a man waiting a lifetime for the gift of his own child.

Elizabeth’s hope literally leapt within her.

Simeon’s hope was so great that when it was realized, he could say that now he could happily pass from this world.

The point is that Messiah’s saving love and presence has a form and a shape and that form and shape is each of our own lives. . . for one, salvation looks like a child in the womb . . . for another, holding a baby long awaited . . . for another, a wife home from the hospital . . . for another, a call from a friend long missed . . .

What is the shape of the thing hoped for in your life?

This Advent season, may Messiah’s coming and coming again fill that longing, taking on the shape and form of your desires, your yearnings, your salvation.

Hope in the Midst of Pain

2011-12-01T22:48:00.000-05:00

Should not your piety be your confidence and

your blameless ways your hope

–Job 4.6

One of Job’s friends, a fellow named Eliphaz, utters these words, presumably intended as comfort to Job in his distress.

Job’s children have died. His wealth is gone. His health has evaporated before his eyes. There is no reason for any of this that has anything to do with anything Job did or did not do. In other words, this is not some sort of divine punishment against Job. If anything, these horrors are visited on Job because he is so righteous, as some sort of test of the limits of human love for God.

The implications of such a view are for another time.

What draws me today is this line from Eliphaz about hope.

A FB friend today wrote about his own anguish and pain (he suffers chronic debilitating illness and is plagued by virtually constant physical pain).

One of his friends offered ‘comfort’ in the form of scripture on the source of hope and the rewards of righteous living.

Doesn’t this miss the point today as much as it did back on the ash heap at Job’s place?

Our own goodness, such as it is, is no source of hope or confidence. Our goodness is our response to God’s own goodness, no more, no less. It is offered to God for its own sake, without expectation of reward or protection from harm.

And innocence is no protection from harm.

And most of all, in the midst of our pain, our real, cry-out-in-the-dark hurting, the hope we seek is that the pain will stop. That’s all.

Whether the pain has a purpose or whether we can glean some learning from it is for the time after the pain has passed.

In the midst of the pain, the consuming fire brings us down to primordial basics: it won’t last forever; you are not alone; I am here; make it stop!

If Job’s blameless ways were the source of his hope, Job would have had no reason to suffer in the first place.

The fact is that suffering is the one universal of being human, whether of the good and upright stripe or the not-so-much school.

So for those suffering today . . . chances are it’s not your fault . . . the pain really will pass . . . and you are not alone . . . not now, not ever. . . and sometimes all you can do is ride it out, feel the pain, and cling to whatever glimmer of hope you can find.

May your persevering not be in vain.

May your pain be eased.

And in its midst, may the kind hand of God reach out and hold you up.

My Hope For You

2011-11-29T22:50:00.000-05:00

This Advent, my hope for you is . . .

clear skies

smooth sailing

hip-hop-poetry-slam-joy moments

new friends

nothing extra

knowing you’re necessary because the earth, like a machine, doesn’t come with any unnecessary parts

enough challenge to keep it all interesting

enough ease to find your rest

a replenishing well

a winning team to root for

lots of wow moments

a life well-lived

love well given

____
Nod to movie Hugo for the unnecessary parts line & a shout out to Judy & Rich for the late-night inspiration. Go, Rehobeth!

Infinite Hope

2011-11-28T22:35:00.000-05:00

We must accept finite disappointment,

but never lose infinite hope.

–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

My grandson clutches the latest Christmas catalogue to his body and when asked, identifies each and every item in it as something he wants, needs, fervently desires . . . even the things for girls . . . yes, I want that too . . . only for boys, is his stock response to his challengers.

The temptation during this time of year can be to chastize, to bemoan the crass materialism that makes even little children’s reach exceed their grasp, but I’m changing my tune on this one.

It is the job of children to have reaches that exceed their grasp, for their desires to be bigger than their own abilities to achieve those desires.

And yes, it is often the job of the grown-ups in the room to act as the wise corrective, bringing back, reining in, that childish desire to something reasonable.

But it is also the job of the grown-ups in the room to accede to those desires . . . to give as well as to give in . . . to recognize and respond to the infinite hope that resides in every child.

Hope is a funny thing . . . mostly, those who need it the most have it the most. . . or so it seems to me.

But there are those who didn’t get their hope quotient. . . those whose catalogues of dreams got lost in the mail . . . those for whom the infinity of hope has been obscured by the finitude of disappointment.

For those you know who are in need of some infinite hope today . . . may your prayers for them be converted by God’s own Spirit into whispers of hope into their hearts.

May they, may you, be reminded of the possibilities of an infinite hope.

Advent: A Time of Hope, Not Wishes

2011-11-28T10:08:00.001-05:00

“Advent is the time of hope, not wishes. Christians truly believe that Jesus is working through our work to bring about liberation and allow us to live in dignity and peace. And we do not wait idly, we wait expectantly, and we continue the struggle in the meantime.”

–“The Holy Margins” by Julie Myers, CPT

Advent is a time of hope, not wishes. Julie writes her reflection from Christian Peacemaker Team’s (CPT) Colombia home, recalling the continuing work of the people of Colombia to reclaim their land and their dignity, at great personal risk.

I cannot imagine a better understanding of this thing we call hope: keen desire mixed with fervent effort.

Hope is not fatalism, simply awaiting what will come. Nor is hope, as Julie points out, merely wish or desire, for blended in with the desire of hope is the expectation of it.

Hope is reality working against the odds.

So today, during this week of hope during the Advent season, I ask myself: for what do I hope?

I live in such plenty that it is often difficult to experience any sense of lack or desire. It is often as if all my desires have been met.

But this is the lure and the lie of material comfort: the mirage that all is well and nothing is left to be desired.

For what do I hope?

Big things like world peace . . . plenty of food on every table . . . reconciliation among and between us all . . . shelter for every head . . . creation cherished . . . children safe and loved . . .

But those things are more like wishes than hopes.

I hope, I desire fervently, I work for, I expect . . .

that someone’s Thanksgiving was a little brighter, a little less lonely, a little more fed, because my community gave of itself food for the table . . .

that a few children will have a happier Christmas and will find hope for themselves because someone brought them some toys and tokens to show that they matter and there are people who care . . .

that mine will be a reconciling voice at the table of family and friends . . .

that the generations in my family will flourish, knowing they rest upon a foundation of love and care from the generations before them . . .

These are my hopes . . . my desires . . . the things I work for and fervently desire . . .

I wonder . . . what are your hopes?

Cliff Notes: Advent 1 Sermon

2011-11-27T18:42:00.001-05:00

Keep Watch

“Mark 13 speaks to those who expect too much and to those who expect too little. [But most of all, it speaks to] those who have forgotten to expect anything at all”, says author Lamar Williamson.

We worship the God of the impossible, who can will the unimaginable. How can we expect too much from such a God as this?

Maybe it’s not that we expect too much from God, but that we expect too much from others and from ourselves.

We expect too much when we demand perfection and refuse to accept or forgive anything less.

And sometimes, we expect too much from our world, allowing disappointments and setbacks to turn us from hope towards bitterness.

We expect too much from human understanding when we read our Bibles and think we know all the questions and already have all the answers. When we hear Jesus’ words and think that ‘end times’ are at hand, we claim too much, for in God’s word, there is no such thing as end times. God’s Word is of beginnings, not endings.

When we claim God’s judgment and not God’s love as the final word, we claim at the same time, too much and too little, for our God. We claim too much in our certainty that we know, when even Jesus reminds us that such knowledge is reserved to God and God alone. And we claim too little when we think the devastating picture Jesus paints is the final word.

We claim too little if we stop there, overlooking Jesus’ promise that such times are a beginning – a promised birth. His pronouncement, will all its fearsome imagery, is a promise of wonderful things to come: just as a mother struggles in agony to bring forth a child, so will all creation struggle in pain to bring forth God’s new creation.

We expect too much and too little if we understand this passage as anything less than a promise of the redeeming transformation of all creation. This is a word of Good News indeed, for we are in great need of such change.

But this text speaks most of all to those among us who have forgotten to expect anything at all. Jesus encourages the unexpectant, in the words of Ignatian Brother Larry Gillick, to live towards our eternal existence, to know that the ‘when’ is now: “The fall of the leaves is not the beginning of the end, but the beginning of the beginning. . . God is always coming to make more of us than we can make of ourselves.”
To the unexpectant, to we who have so much we can think of nothing we lack, to those of us who stopped waiting for anything a long time ago, Jesus is issuing a wake up call to the spiritual and earthly reality of his transforming presence in our lives and in our world.

Live as if I were coming back right now! says Jesus, because I am. In every moment of every day, I am coming back to you. Can’t you see me?

Advent Reflection: Only God Can Make a Pie

2011-11-26T10:16:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is the first Sunday in Advent and we will celebrate with carols, candles and communion.

And the waiting will begin. . . waiting for Messiah to come again . . . waiting for Baby Jesus in the manger . . . waiting for the spark within each of us to be reignited into the very Spirit of God in our midst . . .

And in the meantime, we will go about our lives . . . busy with the day-to-day of existence with even the cracks of time and space filled with the joy or burden of "the holidays" . . .

Can't recommend the book
as I haven't read it,
but it's a great picture!

My own symbol this year of the waiting space is the perfect pie crust.

Pie making requires first and foremost a good crust. I've been making pies since I was about 12 and only recently did I stumble on the great tip for the perfect flaky crust: do not stir or over-work the dough -- rather, lightly fluff the water into the flour/lard mixture only until it is moistened: crust does not like to be overworked. The more gentle we are with it, the more flaky and wonderful-melting-in-the-mouth goodness it will yield. As with so many things in life, less really is more.

That's a great lesson for Advent: less is more. Not only the less of consumer consumption, but also the less of trying so hard. Advent is a time, if ever there were, to relax into God and God's good grace, to do our part gently and with patience and then step back to allow The Divine work to simply happen.

We might mix together some ingredients, but to borrow from poet Joyce Kilmer, only God can make a pie.

A Thank You to My Family

2011-11-25T18:44:00.000-05:00

After all the food was eaten, the dishes washed and put away, football watching wound down, and the family game (Taboo this year) played to satisfactory conclusion, after all that, came my favorite time of Thanksgiving . . . gathered in comfortable pauses and quiet conversation, family all around, young and old, happily in each other's presence, too tired to care about any remaining mess and simply glad to share snippets of thoughts, moments of our lives.

Thanksgiving has always been a favorite, blessed, gathering in my family. In that space, wherever we gather, we don't so much express our thanks as live it out in time spent with each other.

And in the aftermath, with the turkey gone, the pies all eaten save the secret piece stashed in the back of the frig, the family scattered back to the winds from whence we all came, I find I am thankful . . . thankful these people are family to me and I to them . . . thankful that we can gather together and share and laugh like fools and cry like babies . . . thankful for the memories that will carry me forward to the next Thanksgiving.

Blessings to all now and evermore.

Thankful Hands

2011-11-24T03:00:00.000-05:00

In my own mind, giving thanks brings to mind grace at meal time, the obligatory thank you to the holy host before impatiently digging in. If you’ve ever been at a family Thanksgiving where the one praying seemed to go on and on and on, you’ll know what I mean. It’s interesting to note that in the Jewish tradition, thanks are offered after the meal, not before. Maybe if we followed that tradition, we’d be more patient with the thanks. Maybe.

But maybe our temptation to impatience is more about not truly appreciating the cost of the meal, even in earthly terms. Maybe the farmers among us, whose hands have mixed with the soil that brings forth our food are more patient, more aware, more thankful. For the farmer knows, really knows, in-his-very-cellular-structure-knows what I as a former city-dweller can only understand with my mind: bringing forth the bounty of the earth is no easy task.

At this time of year, to remind us of the debt of thanks we owe, we consider the Pilgrims and their difficult winter, saved only by the hospitality of the Natives who shared their food with them. The Pilgrims’ thanks were heart-felt, because the food they received came as they were on the brink of starvation. This was not just another meal in a long line of generally satisfying dinners. No – this . . . was . . . salvation.

Jesus reminds us that he did not come for the healthy, for they have no need of him. Rather, Jesus came for the sick. It’s common sense, isn’t it? Only the sick need a doctor. Only the dying know the joy of restored life. Only the starving know the saving grace of a meal. Perhaps only those whose hands have been empty can really give thanks when those hands are filled.

Conversely, only the satisfied could say with poet Robert Frost, “Of apple-picking . . . . . I am overtired of the great harvest I myself desired.”

It is all too easy in our place and time to grow weary of the burden of our plenty and in our weariness, to miss entirely our lack. Thankfulness comes from the deep place within, the place where, in our smallest child-like selves, we know that what we have, who we are, is the result of grace, not merit.

It is the nature of thankfulness to recognize the gifts of others in our lives. Thankfulness is not gladness, nor is it self-satisfaction; rather, thankfulness is full appreciation for the reality of our condition and its cause. Maybe the real trick about thankfulness is to understand that our hands are really empty even when they seem quite full.

Paul calls the Thessalonians and us to a life of continual thanks, for God wishes us to be a thankful people. Perhaps when it comes to thanks, the question for us is whether we can know ourselves to be starving pilgrims and desperate farmers, even when we feel like weary over-satisfied apple pickers.

There Will Be Pie!

2011-11-23T08:41:00.000-05:00

A Thanksgiving Prayer

Mindful of the many pies I’ve yet to bake for the coming Thanksgiving festivities, I penned the title for today, There will be pie!, thinking literally of the pies, the smells, the savory tastes, that evoke so many Thanksgiving memories.

Googling the phrase, however, has taken me in a totally different direction, far away from the pies that will, in a few short hours, rest in my oven.

At first, I was excited to see that Johnny Cash had penned a song There'll be pie in the sky but fan that I am, I have to admit There’ll be pie in the sky, by and by when I die are hardly his best lyrics.

Where, I then asked of my magic Google machine, did the phrase pie in the sky originate?

Turns out it’s a phrase coined by labor leader Joe Hill in the song The Preacher and the Slave, lampooning the Salvation Army for its perceived lack of care for the needs of the poor in the early 1900's, as a parody of the hymn In the Sweet Bye and Bye.

Long-haired preachers come out every night,

Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;

But when asked how 'bout something to eat

They will answer with voices so sweet:

You will eat, bye and bye,

In that glorious land above the sky;

Work and pray, live on hay,

You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

It goes on from there in similar vein. As I read, I feel the ouch of it: as a preacher, I must ask myself whether I, too, promise a vague heavenly release while ignoring the real pain standing right in front of me? I hope not, but the question is an important one for people of faith.

Was Joe Hill right? Do we meet real pain with bromides and vague promises? Do we dismiss present suffering as of no account or cost because of the prospect of heavenly ‘reward’ (a word I loathe in the context of life with God, whether here or hereafter)? Do we, blinded by promises of glory, miss seeing the real human being with real need standing right in front of us?

Or do we offer our own real presence to the real pain of others? Do we attend as well as tend them?

May it be so, O Lord, may it ever and always be so, especially in these holiday times when joy and plenty stand in sharp contrast to suffering and want, making it all the worse for the comparison.

May we be mindful of the needs of others: the need for companionship as well as for provision, the need for a smile and a warm touch as well as a plate of food, the need for caring as well as for sharing.

***

Really, really, really, I wasn’t thinking at all about politics, religion or even Jesus when I sat down to the computer this morning. It was really just going to be about pie. Really.

Newt Gingrich's "Let Them Eat Cake" Moment

2011-11-22T07:56:00.000-05:00

At the Iowa Family Values forum on Saturday, presidential candidate Newt Gingrich commented on Occupy Wall Street activists, saying, “Go get a job right after you take a bath.” It’s likely not a coincidence that his remarks came on the heels of Gingrich having been heckled by Occupy folk while giving a speech at Harvard.

Whether Occupy Wall Street folk are clean or unwashed is pretty much beside the point as I see it.

Gingrich sought to tie his remark to the challenge of Captain John Smith to aristocrats in the early American settlement to either work or starve, “If you don’t work, you won’t eat.”

Unfortunately, Gingrich’s remarks are more consonant not with Smith, but with the remark, “Let them eat cake,” apocryphally attributed to Marie Antoinette during a time of famine in France.

There are no studies of those participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests and communities across the nation, but among those on the streets are those who do have jobs as well as those who do not; those who have worked for a lifetime and those who are waiting to enter a job market that has no place for them; those who have protested wars at home and those who have fought them.

The unemployment rate (which measures those who do not have jobs who are looking for jobs) for young adults has topped 19% during this economic crisis and hovers consistently at above 16%. The Wall Street Journal, "Generation Jobless"

The young are being hit the hardest in these times. And this is while corporate profits have hit all time highs.

Given that joblessness is so high for young people who are looking for work but not finding it, Mr. Gingrich, might I suggest that telling those who are looking for work to get a job hardly qualifies as either helpful advice or meaningful challenge. Rather, it smacks of an utter lack of awareness of lived realities for so many in this country.

Admittedly, we continue to be much better off as a nation than many other countries.

But I stand with the 16th-century Reformers on this one: human beings were made for work, for vocation. Our work is our divine calling. We serve not only ourselves and our community with our work; we also serve our God. Being denied work is tantamount to being denied the opportunity to serve God.

Unfortunately, from this presumption, work is equated, wrongfully, with worth in our society. No work; no worth.

And, Mr. Gingrich, your remarks smack of that same assessment.

But the folks on the streets are not worthless. They are human beings. And they are working. They simply aren’t being paid for their work.

We can disagree with each other. We can challenge the foundations of the opinions of others. We can call into question the reasoning of someone whose opinion differs from ours. But we cannot dismiss or denigrate the very existence of others.

There’s a word for that: dehumanization, the effort to make a person or persons something other than a fellow human being, so as not to have to take them into account.

It is beneath you, Mr. Gingrich. It is beneath you as their fellow human being. It is beneath you as someone who would seek to hold the highest office in our land. And most especially, it is beneath you as a Roman Catholic Christian follower of Jesus the Risen Christ, who took us all into account.

Lost in Translation

2011-11-21T09:09:00.000-05:00

The well-meaning laughs of Iraqis I met when, unknowingly, instead of asking “Do you speak English?”, I was instead asking in my halting guide-book style Arabic, “Do I speak English?”

The howling laughter of a team mate in the Kurdish north when, rehearsing what I would say to a rude gentleman, in my best Kurdish, I demanded to know, “What is my name?”

My confusion when my Google translation for the Spanish “Toi Feliz” read “Happy toi”, confusion colored with laughter as all I could think was “Happy toys” [the translation is “I’m happy”, toi being short for “estoi” or “I am”].

Pronouns in other languages defeat me. They’re mostly so much more logical and sensible and economical than English, with a different word for the plural ‘you’ and word endings to indicate the proper pronoun.

But sensible, logical and economical just do not translate in my brain into anything I can make sense of. When it comes to language, I am the proverbial wanderer in the desert and the only thing that saves me from utter humiliation is my cheerful recognition before I even begin that I’m likely to get it wrong and that my listeners are likely to be very forgiving of my limitations.

And that is a wonderful space in which to be, desert or no desert: the space of forgiving acceptance of limitation. Knowing that I rest safely in such hands, being lost in translation isn’t such a bad thing. It teaches me compassion for others by the compassion shown me. It redirects me away from judging and towards grace by the grace extended to me. It creates patience in me by being on the receiving end of so very much patience from others.

And perhaps most important of all, it teaches me humility: the humility of the guest in a foreign land, relying, ever and always, upon the kindness of strangers. After all, aren’t we all strangers in one way or another in this pilgrim land?

Cliff Notes: Christ the King

2011-11-20T08:25:00.000-05:00

God Wants You in the Wow Not the Woe

(Sermon Reprise - First given in Nov. 2008)

Addressing God directly, poet Rainer Maria Rilke writes:

We must not portray you in king’s robes,

you drifting mist that brought forth the morning.

Once again from the old paintboxes

we take the same gold for scepter and crown

that has disguised you through the ages.

Piously we produce our images of you

till they stand around you like a thousand walls.

And when our hearts would simply open,

our fervent hands hide you.

In Jesus’ parable of the sheep and goats, Jesus is giving us a vision of God-as-King. This story is first and foremost God’s story. If we look to earthly kings to understand our God-King, we look in vain.
A king is someone who has the power to force others to bend to his will. . . someone who orders rather than asks. . . At least an earthly king does.
Our heavenly God-King seeks, asks, knocks . . . the very thing he told us to do with him, he does first with us . . . persists in knocking at the door of our goat selves, begging for entry.
We humans have been very busy trying to reinvent our God-King into our own image: as Rilke says, we have covered him up with the trappings of earth-bound majesty . . .
We’ve painted him with beauty who became our ugliness that we might be freed from its cost . . .
We’ve crowned him with splendor who came and comes quietly, like a thief . . . in the night . . .to take away that which belongs always and only to us . . . our judgment . . .
We’ve burdened him with gold who burdened himself with the weight of our sins . . .
Christ our King, our God, wants for us the wow of God, not the woe.
The joy, not the sorrow . . .
The awe, not the indifference . . .
The service of love, not the debt of guilt . . .
The wow, not the woe . . .
Meeting Jesus face to face is risky business. Barbara Brown Taylor in The Preaching Life, says, “. . . to tell if they are really Jesus’ eyes . . . look into them, to risk that moment of recognition that may break your heart, or change your mind, or make you mad, or make you amend your life. Whatever effect it has on you, that seems to be one thing the sheep know how to do that the goats have never tried: to look, to see, to seek Christ in the last, the lost, the least. . .”
The ‘least of these’ are giving as well as receiving, teaching us even as we are giving to them. . .the hard brokenness of the goat misses the chance to learn grace from those who have nothing to give but grace . . .
The soft compassion of sheep is mistaken all too often in our world for weakness . . . for a lack of standards, for a lack of clear moral principles . . . but Jesus embraces as strength what the world holds to be weakness . . . and therein lies Jesus’ strength.
We are all, each and every one of us, the least of these . . .
The bad news is that we’re all goats . . . sometimes . . .
The good news is that we’re all sheep . . . sometimes. . .
The Great Good News is that God our shepherd is a sheep . . . all the time.