Christmas Eve 2012

I just wanted to share a few reflections from our service last night.

Somehow the church always seems too bright when we start Christmas Eve -- we know we're going to candles eventually, but I keep thinking about trying to put the baby to sleep.  On the other hand, we're celebrating the Light of the World, so I want the place ablaze with candles.  And the musicians need light to see the music  and the congregants need light to read and sing...so, light it is. 

I looked out and saw a family who used to be very active in the congregation but who only come on Christmas and Easter and when their daughter is doing Something Big in the service.  The mom's mother tells me that her daughter thinks the music is too depressing,  in minor keys and draggy.  And I realize, as I'm listening to the Christmas music (which one might expect to be upbeat and joyful), that even THAT tends to be in minor keys and less than hand-clappin', toe-tappin' stuff.  Part of it, I know, is to capture the mystery and sense of wonder at Christmas; part of it is also, I think, a reflection of the fact that we live in the not-yet, the time between times.  The Savior of the World has come (Joy to the World!) but there is still great brokenness in the world (Oh ye, beneath life's crushing load, whose forms are bending low...).  Our music often reflects that conflict between joy at the initiation of the promise and longing for the fulfillment, and often lament frees us to praise.  But maybe we ought to be a little more focused on trusting our joy than reflecting our woes.

I looked out and saw our congregation -- native-born and immigrants, folks of a broad ethnic diversity; folks who work with their hands and folks who are strictly white-collar;  some strangers whom we have not seen before, who we may not see again; the new family who have been part of our congregation since the mid-summer; the three folks we baptized the day before; the man who lives on the streets by choice as he battles drug and alcohol addictions; the woman who's overcome nearly fatal depression and her own addictions; the man who struggles with mental health issues; the single mother who's at her wit's end and the folks who are facing their life's end.  There were the young adults home from college and the young man who moves half-way across the country this week to start his adult life.  He's an only child, and though he's been away at school for four years I know that this move will be different for his parents.  I saw the faithful saints who are there every Sunday and the folks who are there under duress and family pressure "just for Christmas, please..."  And together we sang of good news, glad tidings of great joy for all people.  I always emphasize and repeat it:  for ALL people.  

I preached on a Zombie Christmas.  Honest.  I talked about the difference between "making Christmas" according to our somewhat mindless cultural standards and taking the time to accept what Christmas wants to give us; about the difference between being the walking dead, what T.S. Elliot called "the hollow men" and those who are truly alive, even in the struggles of life. Quoted my dear friend Peg, whose mantra these past few weeks has been "Darkness does not win."  Repeated it again at the end of the service to the family who are celebrating their first Christmas since their grandson/nephew died of an overdose last spring; to the woman whose husband is sinking into dementia; to the family who are living on the edge of poverty but whom we were able to help a little so that their daughter could celebrate a modest Christmas. 

The choir sang "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" (longing) and "Sing Joy to the World" (hope).  We lit candles to sing Silent Night and made a circle around the sanctuary (a double circle on one side of the sanctuary!) and went out into the night, the luminarias on the front sidewalk still glowing dimly in the cold.  Some went out in hope, some went out with longing; all went out under a blessing.

When I was little, on Christmas Eve, I would look through the narrow strip of sky between my bedroom and the Cain's house next door and would try to find the brightest star in the sky, and wonder if that was the same star that had shone over the stable in Bethlehem.  Last night in Massachusetts the sky was cloudy, and just before midnight a soft snow started falling, muffling the sounds of party-goers leaving the neighborhood for their own homes.  But there was light all around, light infused with love, light reminding me that darkness does not win.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it nor overcome it.

Christmas in Real Time

 It occurred to me this morning that all of those Christmas specials you see on tv, all those shows that want to help you decorate, cook, celebrate in a way worthy of a magazine spread seem to take place in some unknown time and place where people have nothing better to do than print their own wrapping paper (with a potato stamp they carved themselves), bake traditional foods from every ethnic heritage (from scratch), knit elaborate sweaters from wool that they shear, card, spin and dye themselves, and then host their nearest and dearest 700 friends for an open house.  Really? 

In my world Christmas preparations take place in the midst of preparations for the congregation’s Christmas, trying to make some sort of order in the house (at least keeping a pathway to the door if we need to flee in the middle of the night!), eating on the fly, and trying to shop, wrap, bake, etc. whenever and however I can.  Some years we throw in a funeral or surgery just for fun.

There is a tendency for the cultural representations of “perfect” Christmases to make us feel inadequate in our preparations; to feel disappointed when there is a disagreement at the dinner table or someone isn’t enchanted by the gift we’ve given them.  Since I usually wound up getting scolded by the end of the day as a child (the combination of excitement and sugar being too much for my brother and me to handle) I remember going to bed and thinking, “Christmas should be happy.  I am NOT happy.” 

As I write this I am NOT happy.  I’m in a bit of a snit because Christmas will not be what I had hoped for, and this is what really reminds me that our cultural Christmas will NEVER truly be a celebration of the mystery of God-With-Us.  Oh, they may overlap.  But we don’t want dirty shepherds and stinky stables in our shiny bright, holly jolly Christmas.  We don’t want a young woman, barely more than a girl, giving birth – birth is messy and painful and dangerous.  We certainly don’t want to think about God coming to people sleeping in barns or under highway bridges or in tents by the river.  There is very little room in our Christmas for many of the players at that first Christmas. 

Some of you are old enough to remember “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol”, an animated version of the Dicken’s classic with a Magoo twist.  One of the songs from that show that has always stuck with me talks about having a Christmas that celebrates “as long as we’re together heart and hand…we’ll have a Christmas far more glorious than grand.”  The prophet Isaiah promises that “The glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” I wonder if our efforts to make Christmas a grand affair don’t blind us to the glory of God in the very human Jesus, whose flesh was hurt by the things that hurt our flesh, whose heart was broken by the things that break the heart of God.

It’s hard to avoid being sentimental.  And it’s important to remember that people had meaningful, joyous celebrations of Christmas before Handel wrote the Messiah, the mice ate the bellows of Franz Gruber’s organ, Queen Victoria had a tree cut down and hauled into the palace or Hallmark printed a single card.  Our Christmases happen in real time.  They are full of stress, anxiety, disappointment and there are things that just don’t get done.  That’s okay.  Enjoy the cultural Christmas, but don’t let it distract you from the Real Christmas (more than just a candle-light service!) and for heaven’s sake, don’t confuse the two!  The Real Christmas was not about children and sweetness or even "pretty".  It was about the Child, about mystery and wonder and absurdity; about the kind of love that never lets go, that gives Itself; about making the very people we despise, the things we over-look Holy.  And when we think about that kind of love embracing us, when we let it sink into our bones and infuse our lives we will have a Christmas far more glorious than grand. 

Advent Blues...and Purples

I LOVE Advent.  This is difficult because the majority of people in Baptist churches (even lefty-leaning, theologically questionable, touchy-feeling American Baptist Churches like ours) respond to this statement with "What's an Advent?"

Advent is the period of time that begins four Sundays before Christmas (NOT on December 1, unless that happens to be the fourth Sunday before Christmas) and goes through Christmas Eve.  Advent is very old in liturgical traditions -  hence unknown to, and suspected by, the majority of Baptists.  I had never even heard of it until I was in college, and in many congregations it is something "new" that the current pastor, or the one just past, introduced.  The practice of lighting an Advent wreath is pretty generally accepted because it's pretty and it gives us the chance to work the children into the service in another way.  But try to practice Advent as a penitential season; try to avoid singing Christmas carols throughout the month or refuse to put out the pointsettias until December 24, and you will have some mighty unhappy Baptists on your hands.

I have fought this battle nearly every year of my ministry.  I love Advent because for me it is the perfect counterpoint to the craziness of the cultural Christmas.  It is an empty, quiet, restful place in a world of overloaded calendars, bright lights, and chicken fights over the last parking space at the mall.  I love the hymns set to plainsong and sung in minor keys in contrast to chipmunks  and fifty-seven versions of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"... Okay... I love the chipmunk song.  But not in church.

But most of my congregation want Hark the Herald Angels Sing and Joy to the World all month long.  I try to convince them that Advent will help us prepare for Christmas and that Christmas is a season and not a day and we WILL sing ALL of the Christmas songs in the hymnal in CHRISTMAS...but most of them won't be there for the Sundays of Christmas.  They will take off the Sunday between Christmas and New Year because, after all they were already in church twice this week, and there's company coming (or they're traveling) and the week after New Year's we may already be celebrating Epiphany.  So they do miss singing those songs.

I saw an opinion piece in a professional magazine a while back that argued that pastors should just forget about Advent.  If people are not regular church goers, they're coming to church for Christmas this time of year.  If we don't give them Christmas they'll be disappointed and won't return.  They'll go to the mall or a restaurant where they know they will find it (at least they'll find the Christmas they think they want).  For pastors there's always a fine balancing line between giving people what they want and what you believe God wants they to hear.

This past Sunday the gospel quoted a passage from Isaiah 40, a passage that we often see in its original setting and in the gospels in reference to John the Baptizer:

A voice is crying out:  
"Clear the Lord's way in the desert!
Make a level highway in the wilderness for our God!
Every valley will be raised up,
 and every mountain and hill will be flattened.
Uneven ground will become level, and rough terrain a valley plain.
The Lord's glory will appear, and all humanity will see it together; 
the Lord's mouth has commanded it." (Isaiah 40:3-5, Common English Bible)

It occurs to me that this passage has a powerful message.  It is not "just" in the Incarnation (that's theological talk for "Christmas") that God's glory is revealed, but in our preparations that the glory of the Lord is revealed to all humanity, to all flesh.

Yet I wonder,  how much of our Christmas celebration (even in the Church) is about festivities rather than faith?  How much of it is about glitz rather than joy?  I'm always a little confused by those home decorating shows that talk about deciding what your Christmas "theme" will be.  The theme is Christmas:  what more do you want? The really important question is how do your preparations make room for the glory of the Lord?  How do they invite ALL flesh to experience it, to see it?

It's not so much that "They" are trying to steal "Our" Christmas (don't get me started on that little bit of hysterical paranoia) as much as it is that we have decided we can hand over the mystery of Incarnation to merchants and party planners without losing or at least diminishing the extraordinary scandal of God-with-us, God-as-one-of-us.

It is a grave mistake to confuse any of the pagan practices we've adopted (lights, trees) or European traditions that developed (carols) or were "re-purposed" (in most of Christian history gifts were given on Epiphany in imitation of the Magi or on the feast of the generous St. Nicholas, NOT at Christmas) with the celebration of the Incarnation.  And quite honestly, I personally don't have a problem with letting our winter holiday carry all the trappings of a "traditional", i.e., 200 year old, Christmas celebration even if the people celebrating haven't got a clue about what sparked the party.  Most Christians don't really think about that either.

It's about the Baby and more.  It's about the flesh.  It's about Word made flesh, and how we treat the flesh of others around us, flesh made holy by the One who is Holy.  It's about God's refusal to overpower us but to come to us in our own greatest vulnerability.  How does insisting strangers wish me "Merry Christmas" reflect that truth?

For me, Advent helps me remember that perspective, helps me think about the real reason that Christmas is worth celebrating.  And this year Advent has helped me understand that I don't always need to get my own way.  So this year we are singing Christmas songs all through Advent, though I'm choosing them carefully and framing them in a particular context.    We are using them transitionally and prayerfully, and I'm trying to pick those that reflect the whole story of Incarnation (and maybe even a hint of penitence),  like one of my favorites from childhood:

Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown 
When Thou camest to earth for me,
But in Bethlehem's home there was found no room, for thy holy nativity.  
O Come to my heart, Lord Jesus:  There is room in my heart for Thee.

Thou camest, O Lord, with the living word That should set Thy people free,
But with mocking scorn and with crown of thorn They bore Thee to Calvary.
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus:  There is room in my heart for Thee!

Underneath are the Everlasting Arms

When I was a young child, my dad converted part of the basement into a family room.  It was the early 1960's.  So you know what it looked like - pressboards of faux pine panelling, brown and tan linoleum tiles (put down with black mastic; no peel-and-stick vinyl!), the homemade storage unit painted orange and tan, the orange couch, the tv in the solid maple "Early American" box (color, no less!)...

It was a great place.  My brother and I could go down there by ourselves on a Saturday morninng, watch The American Farmer (it was REALLY early -- and this was a metro NY station!), then Mighty Mouse  (my brother's hero), Crusader Rabbit and Rags the Tiger (an early cartoon by the creator of Rocky and Bullwinkle -- apparently it only showed in a few markets) while we had "foot fights" on the couch.  Foot fights consisted of us laying at opposite ends of the couch, putting our feet together, sole to sole, and struggling to see who could make the other one bend their knees to their chests.  Since I was two years older and a lot heavier, I usually won.  I loved foot fights. Sometimes we would pour oyster crackers into those pastel Tupperware cereal bowls, put them on the floor, and eat out of them like we were cats.  Seriously.

What I only found out recently was that my dad had built the room as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  He and my mom wanted a room with no windows where we could hid safely if there was a need.  That information astounded me.  In my mind, it transformed that great play space (did I mention that the linoleum tiles were in this great interlocking key pattern that you could walk around forever, kind of like a primative labyrinth?) into a symbol of protection and caring.

And it made me think about other ways I've been protected in my life without ever knowing it.  There's a great motivation in recognizing the protection that surrounds and protects us, but there's a deeper grace, a sense of wonder about the invisible protection that goes with us in the world.  The symbols are many:  the soldier half-way across the world on a battlefield or a ship in the middle of an ocean; the public health nurse who makes sure that vaccinations go into the most dangerous neighborhoods; the patrol officers who used to "walk the beat"; the neighbors who would keep an eye out for you and who would let your mom know if you were doing something dangerous; teachers and professors who made sure I was doing the best work I could.  Like Hermione Granger weaving a web of protective spells, their caring and attentiveness was invisible, but powerful.

I think of the day I was being ordained, one of the older ladies of the church grabbed me and said, "I've been praying for this day for years."  And I think of the openning verse of the old hymn "For the Beauty of the Earth:  "For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies; For the love, which from our birth, over and around us lies."

On this Thanksgiving Eve, I am profoundly grateful for that web of protective love, that grace which is the gift of heaven, those folks who loved me not for what I had done or who I might be, but simply because I was.  I am.  They are the arms of everlasting love who have born me safe thus far, and I trust that they will be there, often unseen and unappreciated, until grace leads me home.  "Lord of All, to Thee we raise this, our hymn of grateful praise."

No Unlit Candles

Sometimes someone else just says it better than I can.  I regularly follow beautytipsforministers.com, a great blog with the subtitle "Because You're in the Public Eye and God Knows You Need to Look Good."  In the most current entry, PeaceBang, the blogger, writes about hospitality and welcoming people into our homes (and lives) in ways that are truly gracious.  It's worth reading.  But what set me writing was a comment about a story someone had heard in a sermon about an older woman who had died and left behind a full set of Spode china that had never been unpacked.  Her adult daughter wept at the discovery, for she had not even known her mother had the china.

It reminded me of cleaning out my grandmother's apartment when she died.  Now, Nanny had a very small apartment and she was very generous about giving things away.  I never left her house as an adult without taking something home with me that she insisted I have -- an electric coffee pot, a cast iron skillet, a picture for my living room, a piece of jewelry...but when she died we found two items that made me very sad. 

One we knew about.  It was the pretty nightgown, brand new, with the tags still on it, that she had bought about five years earlier.  She bought it so she would have something "decent" to wear if she had to go to the hospital.  But any time she stayed in  the hospital, she wouldn't let my mother bring it to her because she didn't want it to get ripped by a procedure or stolen.  So this lovely nightgown just sat in her drawer.

The other was a beautiful Christmas candle, a six inch pillar that had a classic plaid design on the outside, including a thin windowpane pattern done in gold glitter.  I know, it sounds a little tacky, but it wasn't.  When I found it on the top shelf of her pantry, my mom said something like, "Oh, she's had that for years.  She thought it was too pretty to burn."  The wick was brand new.  It had never been lit.

I understood wanting to use it as a seasonal decoration.  And it was pretty.  But I'm sure it wasn't a $25 candle or anything like that.  And it made me sad that she had not had the opportunity to sit and enjoy the flame of the candle with a neighbor or by herself.  I took the candle home with me and that Christmas I lit it to remember and honor my grandmother.

But I also decided that I would not die with unlit candles.  If I'm going to buy something for myself I'm going to enjoy it fully.  The ancient Greeks had a concept of perfection that understood that something was "perfect" (as in complete) only when it was used for the purpose for which it was intended.  Candles are meant to be burned. 

Many of us see something that we love and buy it but then feel guilty about it.  But we don't return it to the place we bought it.  We keep it, often hidden away, and feel guilty about it.  We don't use it because we don't feel worthy of having it.  It may be "too flashy", "too expensive" or "too nice" to use.  But it seems to me that just having it is wrong all the way around. 

It's not perfect unless it's used.  It's literally useless (even though it may have great potential) unless it's used.  So why would you spend good money on something that is absolutely useless, not even offering you the pleasure of appreciation?

And furthermore, if it is worth having it is worth you using it.  You are worth the pleasure of using and enjoying it.  If you can't, give it away or sell it!  But I encourage you to wear the perfume on a daily basis, to put on the pretty blouse even if you're not going somewhere special, eat the special chutney, use the beautiful pen, light the candle.   They are just things.  They have no worth at all if they are not used.  If you can't use them by yourself, use them when you have company or if you're going somewhere yourself.  Honor yourself, honor those you love by using the "good china" of your life.

You know, yesterday in Bed, Bath, and Beyond I saw a candle and thought, "Oh, that looks like Nanny's Christmas candle!"  I think I'm going to go back and buy it.  And this Christmas Day I will light and give thanks for the gifts of love.

Oh, Really?

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that had me sputtering all the way up I-495.  It read: " FYI Mr. President, I did It by myself!"

Now, this gave me pause for a second -- having been an adolescent in the '70's, doing "it" takes my thoughts in directions I know this person did not intend.  I think that they meant they "made it" by themselves.

But they are wrong.  Sure, you may have made good choices and lucky choices, worked hard and achieved financial success.  But no one under the age of 80 or 90 in this country has made it by themselves.

I have heard people say of a wealthy entrepreneur, "Well, he/she worked hard for what they got."  And this is usually true.  But lots of people work long, hard hours at much lower pay rates for the good of community, and this is where the real issue lies for me.  Because even working hard, you had a system in place that assured you an education, the ability to use communications, that maintained utilities and transportation, that kept you from childhood disease and disabilities that were common 100 years ago, that provided you with access to materials and protected your business when you developed it. 

The question is not whether or not we have to pay taxes.  Every civilized society needs to have a contribution to the common good.  So the question is not whether or not we should pay taxes, but whether or not our taxes are going to improve the common good.  Do we live in a better environment, a better world because of our contributions?  Would we live in a better world if we relied on the generosity of those who have more to take care of those who have less?

Anecdotal evidence suggests not.  Being a Calvinist by nature, having seen a fair share of human tendency towards sin, I am less than optimistic about our willingness to take care of those we do not identify as being "one of us", however we draw the boundaries of "us."  There are certainly frauds and abusers of our social safety net, but if it feeds hungry children and keeps them from dying of asthma and other treatable illnesses, I think it improves all of our lives.  I don't have a problem with programs that ask for some kind of reciprocity, like the "workfare" or "learnfare" programs of the '90s, if they also take into account that mothers cannot work or study without someone to care for their children and that childcare cannot be the mere warehousing of children.  That means that we need to provide teachers and work programs that contribute to the common good.

Are mistakes made?  Of course.  Government workers are neither angels nor monsters, not geniuses nor idiots. They make mistakes. The question is, do we really believe that life was better for most people when there were no government regulations on working hours nor a minimum wage?

We have all benefited from government programs.  My grandfather fed his family during the Great Depression by working a WPA project.  Many of our fathers and grandfathers went to college on the GI Bill, enabling us to be born into far better circumstances than we would have otherwise.  Many of us were able to extend our publicly funded primary and secondary educations with the help of government backed college loans.  We were all protected from people who put arsenic in milk and sold sugared alcohol as "medicine" by the FDA.  Polio, diphtheria, typhus and "childhood diseases" that were regular killers have been practically eradicated by required (and often state-funded) vaccinations.  The Interstate highway system has dramatically reduced the time it takes us to get somewhere for a vacation, to transport goods (thus increasing the availability of non-local foods when they are out of season or simply won't grow where we live), and to ensure a faster response time in national and civic emergencies by first responders.  And regardless of their politics, most of our retirees get pretty surly when you suggest cutting Social Security or Medicare benefits. 

FYI, no one does it by themselves.

What Happened?

I remember the first time a grocery bagger called me "M'am".  I was just 30 and felt ancient.  Today a grocery bagger called me "Miss", and I felt even older.  My hairdresser called me, "Hon" and I looked around for my walker.  How did I get this old? 

Anything for Hallowe'en?

Just had to close the door and shut off the porch lights -- I ran out of candy within an hour and a half.  We had lots of Disney princesses and zombies, witches and a few vampires (mostly male) and a couple of policemen, which I haven't seen for a couple of years.  More thank-yous than I've heard in a number of years. 

I love the little ones on Hallowe'en:  and I love the big kids who are creative enough and self-assured enough to put on a costume, and the parents who dress up, too.  When I was a kid, Mrs. Williams was the only one who did that, though some of the grown-ups would dress up to meet us at the door.  Mrs. Burke, across the street always wore huge, ugly rubber hands and feet. 

And I love Hallowe'en in general -- I do NOT think it is part of a Satanic conspiracy, nor a glorification of evil.  I do not believe it encourages children to embrace demons nor to become beggars.

Halloween was a big deal at our house.  It was my grandmother's birthday and she would always tell us she was a "Hallowe'en Wootch".  She would always come to check us out and put something in our treat bags, yelling "Any-thing for Hallowe'en?" as she came through the door. 

We would buy our costumes two weeks ahead and pester my mother to let us wear them early -- she'd usually let us put them on once, and only to wear in the house; it only made us more excited to wear them again.  We got to put them on at lunch on Halloween, and the afternoon was an all-school parade with everyone in costumes (including some of the cooler teachers) and then we would go trick-or-treating through the neighborhood, in pairs and triples, until dark.  Of course, most women were at home in those days, so there were people there.  When we went home we would pour out our candy, weeding out what we didn't like and removing all the unwrapped candy and a few apples (this was the era when a few people supposedly found razors in apples, so they were literally forbidden fruit).  After that we usually wore our costumes to bed and as often as we could after that until they fell to shreds and the elastic bands broke off the molded plastic masks.

Trick or Treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!  We'd say it to each other, but never to the people in the houses.  Sometimes people would require  us to do a trick before we got the treat -- to sing a song or recite a poem.  Ask kids today if they will do a trick for you and they look at you like YOU'RE the zombie.

Hallowe'en costumes, or at least times to dress up and pretend you are someone or something else, are an important part of most children's growing up.  We all need times when we can experiment with who we would like to be, or who we might become; we all need ways to face and understand what we fear.  What better way to beat the Devil (or the Wolfman or a Vampire or Zombie) than to become a parody of that monster?  To laugh at the fearsome is the best way to conquer it.  The practice of dressing up as heroes and monsters as a way of encouraging us to emulate the best and dis-empower what is evil is one of the most basic practices of human cultures.

Hallowe'en may be rooted in pagan customs, but then so are most of our dearly cherished Christmas customs.  In my opinion, those who insist that celebrating Hallowe'en are taking the whole thing far too literally.  And you cannot encourage people into vigorous spiritual lives by stripping them of the opportunities to exercise their imaginations, to explore mythology and celebrate symbols rather than clasping them with a heavy-handed literalism.

So lighten up, folks.  It's about play and laughter and unexpected treats.  It's about acknowledging the legitimacy of "the rules" the rest of the year by flouting them in a non-threatening way for one evening a year.  It's not recruiting for Hell's Angels. 

Vacation!

Whoo hoo!

I was originally going to be heading to China and Tibet this week.  Instead I am heading to...Allentown, Pennsylvania.  The China trip got cancelled because Tibet is closed to outsiders and I wound up with two weeks of vacation to use somewhere before the end of the year and my brother and his family are coming to visit my parents in PA so I'm heading down there as well.

It's been a long time since we were all together.  We will still be minus my beloved, who is teaching all week, and my kids can only get down for one day as they are young adults with little vacation time.  But I am looking forward to this.

I am looking forward to being with my nieces and nephew, who are terrific young people.  I am looking forward to not having to get up and be somewhere and do something for someone every day.  I am looking forward to not being the One In Charge.  I am looking forward to drinking wine and giggling with my sister. 

And I am looking forward to doing a little mending on the tears and weak spots in my spirit.  I am tired, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  I just want to rest. 

That may be a little hard to do emotionally -- family of origins are notorious emotional traps and we all have our quirks.  So I will have to be on guard against that.  Maybe find a way to put a "key lock" on the emotional buttons.

But I am going to practice some real Sabbath time, to open myself to receiving surprising grace.  I hope you get a chance to do the same.

Putting the Garden to Bed

      We had our first hard frost last night and this morning dawned bright and dry, so it was time to put the garden to bed for the winter.

      Let me say, first of all, that it is something of a surprise and a joke to my parents that I should have become a gardener.  I was the kid who would do anything, anything, to get out of pulling weeds.  I volunteered to clean the oven or the refrigerator (two tasks my mother hated), I offered to make supper, anything I could do to stay out of the garden.  And we did not have an acre of veggies to weed -- we're talking a two-foot strip of foundation plantings and maybe a 2 foot by 3 foot bed of flowers.  Hated it.  Hated the dirt.  More than anything else, hated the worms. 

       I did not become a gardener until I became a pastor.  As a young associate pastor I lived in an apartment "downtown" and my senior pastor invited me to garden with him in a flower bed alongside the parsonage and one that ran the length of the Christian Education wing.  It was remarkable.  It was enjoyable.  You put seeds in dirt, watered them and POOF!  You had tomatoes and zinnias and marigolds!  When I married and began living in houses with real yards I expanded my repetoire; first it was tomatoes and cucumbers, then herbs and carrots and beans and lettuce.  When we moved to the country I grew my own strawberries and leeks and had a rhubarb plant the size of a bathtub.  I scratched flower beds out of "moonscape" soil,  digging in peat moss, fertilizer, and compost, planting iris from the Mannassas battlefield and cuttings from everyone else's gardens.  If you were giving it away, I would take it.  I still plant Four O'Clocks that bloom a color you can't get here in the US because my German neighbor gave me seeds from a plant she had smuggled into the country.  I grew a bridal veil spirea from a single 6 inch cutting I rooted in a glass of water.  I waited 5 years for a lilac bush to bloom (it took that long before it had branches tall enough that the deer couldn't eat the buds).

        I made peace with the worms, making sure I wore gloves when there was a chance they'd be active near the surface, moving them to other parts of the garden with my shovel when they didn't dig themselves back undergrownd right away.  Then I started composting and saving seeds.  I became a Gardener.

      Many of my colleagues also garden as a way of relieving stress.  I think it has something to do with our need for immediate gratification.  You weed a flower bed, you mow the lawn, it looks good.  It doesn't matter that it will need to be done again in a week.  You accomplished something NOW.  You start seeds and in 10-14 days there are little green shoots popping their heads through the potting medium.  You plant the seedlings in June and in July there are flowers and by August there is fruit and there are seeds for the year to come.  So much of ministry is the planting of seeds that may or may not germinate during your entire tenure at a congregation. 

       Sometimes you get a note or a Facebook message from someone you pastored 20+ years ago and they tell you that something you did made a difference for them.  Most times you never know.  Sometimes people tell you you've been really helpful, but you don't see any changes in the choices they make, the lives they live and you think, "Really?  Did I really help you?  Or did I just convince you that God doesn't care what you do?"  Gardening reminds us that not EVERYTHING we do is in vain.  And in some ways it's a metaphor for pastoral work.  You would not believe the pleasure I get from pruning...

      My garden is a lot like me.  It starts each year organized and neat.  Sometimes I even have a plan for where things will go, though most years I just put things where I think they will look good and be happy.  I mix flowers in my vegetable garden for cuttings and my foundation planting includes asaparagus, a lovely, feathery backdrop to the flowers and shrubs.  I water and weed and mulch; at least early on.  But by mid August and early September, I'm tired.  What lives, lives.  What doesn't, doesn't.  What is doing well becomes bossy and I realize that once again, I've put too many plants in too little space and the whole thing looks blowzy and overwrought.  I start cutting the blossoms in the front yard for bouquets around the house and in my office.  But it's still not enough to tame the beast.

     So when the first frost comes it really is a relief.  Today I pulled out the contraband Four O'Clocks, zinnias, nasturiums and the purple ruffled basil - they were wilted and rubbery and definitely done.  I also cut back the iris blades and the stalks of coneflowers and daisies.  The peonies and sage were still quite healthy and the mums looked beautiful.  The alyssum survived and the bullies of the garden had actually sheltered and protected some nicotiana and cosmos (though I doubt they'll survive tonight without being covered).  Once again there is breathing space.  After putting out all the energy to offer food for the butterflies, bees and birds and beauty to feed my soul, the garden is winding down.  It has kicked off its shoes, put up its feet, and is ready to take a snooze.

     Jewish and Christian theologies declare that we meet God in history, which has a beginning and an end and moves forward towards a goal.  But there is also a sense in which we find holy comfort and rest in the rhythm of the cycles of nature.  "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." 

I confess it.  I have gotten totally hooked on the tv show The Mentalist. 

Why?  Well, quite honestly, it's Simon Baker as Patrick Jayne.  I've already confessed that I'm a sucker for a curly haired, baby-faced blond.  Add in a dose of snarkiness and I'm caught.  And I think Baker is phenomenal at silently conveying emotion without being melodramatic and over the top.  His character's struggles with composure in the face pain and anger and inner turmoil are beautifully subtle and real. Love the supporting cast, especially Tim Kang, who plays Cho.

But I'm hit with that moral dilemna of the shifting social paradigm again.  Because Jayne is a man whose life is consumed with finding and KILLING the man who murdered his wife and daughter: his nemesis, a serial killer named Red John.  It is all he lives for. He will do anything, say anything to accomplish it.

In order to meet this goal, this ex-psychic con-man got himself connected as a consultant with the California Bureau of Investigation (I don't know if any such agency really exists, I know there are similar kinds of police in other states).  And in helping the CBI solve cases (at least the ones he's interested in) he uses trickery and manipulation to uncover murderers or to get them to confess to their deeds.  In one show he is kidnapped by the daughter of a man he put in prison because he used her without her knowledge to trap her father.  She is the "villain", torturing him and planning to kill him -- yet when she accuses him of using and manipulating people for his own ends without thinking about how much pain he's inflicting on them, you realize she's absolutely right.  Often he uses cruel tactics to eliminate people from suspicion.  I think the model for his character is the mythical figure of Kokopelli.

I guess my point is that despite being smart, cute and likeable, Jayne is at best amoral and often immoral. In one episode he did force someone who had killed a not completely innocent man, incidentally in a larger scheme, to recognize that the man had been a person and that the killer should feel remorse. Yet he himself expresses no remorse when he has killed someone he wrongly thought was Red John, nor is he particularly moved by the grief or pain of many other survivors (though in most cases he is softer with parents who have lost children). 

I get it.  Life is messy, answers are not easy, sometimes the wrong and the right are hard to distinguish.  We are meant to like Jayne:  but he is manipulative, and sometimes abusive.  He is disengaged, avoiding emotional entanglement with people because he fears they will be hurt (and obviously, he's protecting himself - you wonder which is the stronger motivator for this character). There is a growing attachment between him and the team leader, Theresa Lisbon, who  is in many ways Jayne's moral opposite.  I suppose the hook is this:  Is he irredeemably broken?  Can the love of his teammates heal him?  We've already been led to understand that killing Red John will not do that for him nor will it satisfy him.

I like that the "bad guys" on this show are, for the most part, real people, the kind you might meet in your everyday life.  They don't wear labels that say "Monster" (as Wednesday Adams has pointed out, psychopathic murderers look just like everybody else).  But Jayne isn't such a good guy himself, and he doesn't seem to grow morally.  He is dismissive of any kind of spiritual anchor, and frankly, is not the kind of guy you'd want your daughter to date.  And I worry that these are the kind of men - and it is mostly men- who are held up as heroes in popular culture.

What Happens to What has Been?

I don't usually write what I call "real" poetry -- it's too hard to get all those feet to work out and to get the right meter and then to get things to rhyme on top of it.  And even if you manage all that it often comes out sing-songy and a bit ridiculous.  I have GREAT respect for poets who write good poetry!

But every now and then I'm hit by a series of images that suggest what I think is "blank verse" (yes, the English Major must confess, she's not even sure what the rules of that genre are).  The first three lines below were the last part of a conversation I was dreaming when I woke up this morning, and since they did not evaporate as most of my dreams do, I decided to follow them where they took me. FWIW.


What happens to what has been?

Should it be discarded like yesterday's newspaper,
fit only for containing vegetable peelings
or absorbing the grease left in the pan?
Is it the unbreakable mold
of all our tomorrows,
binding us to a destiny
begun before we knew
we had the possibility of choice?
Or is it fodder for the day, our daily bread
providing us with nourishing experience,
offering wisdom that opens the possibilities
of paths we never knew existed?

What should happen to what has been?

Who Remembers the Maine?

     Maybe you remember the Alamo (if you're old enough to have watched Fess Parker as Davy Crockett or you live in Texas).  But the Maine was not even a blip on my academic radar.  I did hear about it somewhere along the way -- the Maine was a ship that was blown up, which started a war -- I think it was the Spanish who blew up an American ship in Cuba and that's what started the Spanish American War.  The only thing I know about THAT war is Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill.

     Americans seem to relish the history of when we have been wronged and using those wrongs to justify any number of actions of retaliation.  Remember the Alamo.  Remember the Maine.  Remember 9/11.

     It is on September 11 I write this.  I do remember still.  I remember watching the second plane hit the tower, the chaos and fear as reports came in from Washington DC and then from Pennsylvania.  I remember the confusion as we tried to make sense of these seemingly unrelated events, too catastrophic to be coincidence, too full of hatred to be conceivable.

     I remember the soul-ripping horror of watching a body fall to the earth, someone who had jumped from one of the towers, realizing with horror that I was actually watching someone die.  As I watched the Twin Towers crumble, I remembered (and still do) the day I stood on the observation deck and had a drink at the Top of the Towers, remembered how far down the earth was from that spot.

     Several months later I learned that my brother had been scheduled for a meeting at the Trade Center that morning, but that it had been moved uptown at the last minute.  I remember how that bit of information hit me in the solar plexus and literally knocked the air out of me when I heard it, even at that distance of time.  I remember scanning the newspapers to see if I knew any of the victims -- it was entirely possible given where I grew up and the kinds of jobs many of high school classmates assumed. I remember that a woman in my church had a daughter who was critically burned at the Pentagon.  It had been her first day on a new Air Force assignment and her office was one that was directly impacted by the crash.  She survived by diving under a desk and was pulled out from under the debris.

     I remember.

     Today I am choosing to remember by engaging in a time of prayer and remembrance for the victims of the terrorist attacks, both those who died and those who live with the physical and psychic scars of that day.  I am choosing to focus on forgiving someone for a personal hurt, because practicing forgiveness frees us from other people's ability to control us through pain.  Forgiveness is not saying, "It's okay."  It's saying, "I will not let my fear of you, my anger at you, my distrust of you rule my life.  I am moving on."  I am choosing to remember by making a financial contribution to a group that focuses on peacemaking.  And I encourage you to do something along those lines as well.

     Because if we only remember how we were hurt we wallow in fear, rage and distrust and we can never move on.  If we only remember so that we can justify our own acts of violence we add to the circle of destruction and hostility.  Our remembering should contribute to our healing.  We do not show our true strength, or what Lincoln called the "angels of our better nature" when we do unto others as they have done unto us.

      Every so often you see an old movie or tv show that gives you a skyline view or a bird's eye view of New York, and you see the towers and you get a jolt of remembrance.  Oddly enough, I remember when the towers first went up, how people complained about how they ruined the New York skyline, about how ugly they were.  People tried to prevent them from getting built.  Now people want to remember the towers and talk about how their absence scars the city.  But they are remembering the wrong things.

      Remember the courage of the first responders.  Remember the compassion of those who opened up stores and places of worship and apartments to provide shelter.  Remember that moment of heartbreak when your only thought was "All those people", not "All those people like me."  Remember the people from around the world who responded with sympathy and generosity, some of them offering help from resources far smaller than what any of us have.

     In truth, we remember because we experienced it.  It changed us.  But I hope that my grandson remembers 9/11 the way I remember the Maine.  As something that happened a long time ago but that has no power to hurt him or threaten him, because we used it to make his world better.   I want to remember 9/11 in such a way that he doesn't have to.

Surfing the Paradigm shifts

     I began watching the new version of Hawaii Five-O with some reserve.  I was a huge fan of the original because I had a massive crush on James MacArthur (I'm a sucker for a baby-faced blond).  And I was actually hoping that he'd be asked to do a cameo or guest role at some point if I watched long enough (that was actually in the works at the time of his death during the first season).

     I liked the way they "updated" the bios of the characters,  with Kono being a surfer chick instead of looking like an ex-sumo wrestler, and Danny being a divorced father from New Jersey (Yay, Jersey!).  I loved the way they referenced the big black Mercury Jack Lord drove in the original.  But there was something I did not like in that first show; the premise that the Five-O task force had "immunity" to pursue their targets, that the ends justified the means.  I remember saying to some friends, "The REAL Steve McGarrett does NOT require immunity!"  Because one of the things that made the original show so appealing to people in their 30's (as my parents were in those days) was that these were cops who were straight arrows.  They were upholding the law.  Period.  Jack Lord's Steve McGarrett would no more think about breaking the law to take down a criminal than he would have come to work in drag.  Or even a Hawaiian shirt, unless he were undercover.

     Well, I got kind of hooked by the show, despite some discomfort with the high level of violence it uses. I mean, really, who's cuter than Scott Kaan as Dano?  And is that guy from Iron Chef America the actor playing Wo Fat?  They've had some great twists in the plot-lines.  But there's always been something "not right" about the show for me, and I couldn't name it except as nostalgia.  And last night's episode, the season cliff hanger, told me why.

     We see Kono going into a house (her house?) and the bad guy is watching her.  Commercial.  Next thing we know Chin Ho is getting a really bad guy (an ex-cop who was on the take while on the force and continued in crime once he was caught) out of prison.  The ex-cop says to him, "I guess that immunity deal you Five-O guys is pretty convenient some times."  Then we're told that the really bad guy has somehow gotten his henchman to capture Kono and hold her captive and that's why Chin has him out of jail, to trade his freedom for Kono's.  (Forget the fact that this was really poorly explained and you had to make the leaps).  And now he also has Chin's wife captive and the detective can only save one of them.  When Chin wants to know why the really bad guy is doing this he says, "You were a dirty cop, Kelly, but instead of being disgraced like the rest of us, you got your badge back and work with Five -O."  Chin says, "I never took any of that money!"  The ex-cop says, "No, but you knew who did and you didn't say a word."

     And that's where it hit me.  The really bad guy was right.  And the proof is that Chin has used his immunity to free a dangerous, vicious criminal to protect his family.  Did he have any authority to do that?  We don't see any conversation with the rest of the Five-O team, he just does it. This McGarrett breaks into the Police Department locker and steals evidence money to use as a ransom for one of his team members.  They ignore all kinds of evidence rules and far more criminals are just gunned down rather than brought to justice.  These ARE "dirty" cops.  As much as we like them as people (or not) they are not upholding the law, they are exacting vengeance or acting out cultural frustration or just exercising the kind of incipient violence that we seem to crave but are afraid of enacting ourselves.

     Cop shows used to be modern morality plays, reminding us that right always overcomes wrong, that good is a better choice than evil.  But there is no clear morality here.  Clearly the paradigm has shifted.  Many of the story lines are based on the characters avenging personal wrongs under the veil of law enforcement.  The underlying message seems to be that the "greater good" is served by getting these really bad guys off the street, but it's hard to tell what makes them much different than the "good guys", except that the good guys are cuter and are loyal to each other.

    It's a similar story with NCIS and NCIS:LA, two shows I love to watch, but with which I have grown more and more uncomfortable over the last two seasons.  These folks apparently have the ability to  access your most personal data immediately, to track your every movement, and then to send you to Gitmo as a terrorist on any kind of a charge.  Evidence protocols and search warrants appear to be strictly advisory.  Mark Harmon is adorable and what middle-aged woman wouldn't want to grow up to be Hedy, but honestly, if these are the folks we are leaving in charge of our FREEDOM, we have left the foxes in charge of the hen house.

     So will I watch the Five-O opener in September to see if Kono drowns or is saved?  Will I watch the last two minutes of NCIS that are required by the urgent promos?  Can I watch them as mere entertainment?  And if I can, can I still support them knowing that many people will be influenced by them to think that this is how the good guys should behave?  I have to wonder, who will protect us from these protectors?

Wake up time

Being an eternal being, my guardian angel does not understand the concept of time.

Therefore, he/she wakes me up to tell me things on heaven's schedule, not mine.  Apparently, "Wake-Up Time" in heaven is currently between 4:15 and 4:30 a.m. (EDT).  Sometimes these wake up calls are purely functional.  I might miss that episode of "Path to the Draft" that the NFL network has been playing every hour on the hour for the last 8 hours (By the way, if you have trouble sleeping, I highly recommend the NFL network for your slumbering pleasure).  

Sometimes, frequently on Sunday mornings, I am awakened by a generous insight into the scripture I've been wrestling with for the sermon.  But sometimes, like this morning, I get a true wake up call.

It's about letting go.   It's all about letting go.  Not just letting go of the things.  I've gotten pretty good at that, though you would never know it to see my office or my house.  I have a lot of things, but I'm not attached to them.  I keep them because I might need them, but I could walk away from them tomorrow without an ounce of regret.  My personal book collection has been winnowed down to two bookcases, and if you know how I love books (or have helped me move), you know that's pretty good.

No, the letting go has to do with letting go of my expectations and my regrets.  It has to do with acknowledging that my life looks very little like what I imagined thirty or forty years ago -- and being okay with that.  It has to do with letting go of the belief that I can and should fix everything that I see that is wrong with the world, myself, my church, my family. It has to do with letting go of my own beliefs about how the world and people should be and living with who and what they are.

In John's gospel, Jesus uses the image of the grape vine and branches for discipleship living.  Tending vineyards is, in many ways, a counter-intuitive practice.  Part way through the growing season, you take off one-half to two-thirds of the grapes and put them into compost or feed them to the pigs, or whatever.  That way all the plant's energy goes into making sweeter, more flavorful grapes.  It's about letting go of the idea of a big harvest so that you may have a better harvest.

Then, once you've picked the grapes, you cut the vines back until basically you've got a stalk with three or four branches.  That's it.  If you've ever driven past a vineyard in late fall it looks for all the world like a bunch of spindly sticks tied to a barbed-wire fence.  But grapes grow on new wood, not old, so you want enough stem to support the new growth, but not enough to drain it.

And once the new growth starts, you pinch back much of it, selecting the strongest shoots, the most promising branches.  You don't leave too many, because they suck the strength from the plant and from fruit production.

In Hampton Court Palace outside of London there is a greenhouse where they grow a grapevine that was planted in the reign of Henry VIII.  A 500+ year old grapevine, carefully tended, that still puts forth fruit.  Its trunk looks like a tree.  It is an amazing sight.

When I was a child a neighbor had a grape arbor in the back yard.  It essentially grew wild and the grapes it produced were small and bitter.  My regrets about the things that were missed along the way, by choice or by chance, are suckers that drain my life of appreciation for the incredible blessings I've received along the way.  My focus on what's wrong with things blinds me from seeing what's right with the world, myself, my church, my family.  My insistence that the world and certain people function as I believe is best poisons my relationships and diminishes my ability to appreciate vision God holds for them.

Which is not to say we are called to live without dreams, hopes, expectations or disappointments.  But it's about nurturing and tending the right ones and letting go of those that are not realistic and past possibility and which may be harmful to ourselves and others.  Some of my dreams were broken by someone else's success.  Could I wish them ill or pain so that I could have what I wanted?  No!  And it is about remembering that there is only one person in the entire world over whom I have control: me.  And I only have control over how I respond to life, not over how life happens for me.

This morning I woke from a dream about being pruned and by a voice that whispered, "It's about letting go.  You have to let go."  It's Wake Up Time for Susan.

eat, pray...

Well, like most professional clergy I am having my post-Easter crash.  Holy Week, from Palm Sunday through Easter can have anywhere from three to six "regularly scheduled" services, in my case the latter, and throw in a funeral for good measure, a congregant in critical care and you have a case for full-body melt-down.  I can still do as much as I did in my thirties, but my recovery time is a whole lot longer.

Many pastors leave town for this week after Easter.  They clear out for a spiritual version of Spring Break (Jello shots at the monastary anyone?) or they just go someplace where no one knows who they are or what they do and sleep.  I was not smart enough to do either.  I took off on Monday because I hadn't had a day off for three weeks, then tried to go back to work.  I was exhausted by last night.  But I had a "coffee date" with a colleague who's going through a divorce today, so I soldiered on.

It has been one of those days.  The computer took 25 minutes to boot up because it decided to install 11 updates, one of which took so long I believe the Pentagon is now using my laptop as an external backup.  Then it shut itself off.  I turned it on.  It shut itself off again.  I turned it on.  It reconfigured Windows...at which point I was late for work.  But my brother-in-law needed a ride to the Senior Center.  We drove to the Senior Center.  It was closed.  We drove back home.  I got to the office very late.  My secretary's car wasn't there.  Fortunately, she was, she had just parked behind the building.  I opened my e-mail.  I got news that someone from my congregation had been arrested on a pretty serious charge.

Tried to figure out how to respond.  He is out on bail, but this is a serious charge.  The intersection between discernment and discipleship and grace is a tricky one...not only is it a moving target, it is in very rocky terrain.  There are pitfalls and large rocks that block the path and fall from above.  What looks like grace one day looks like craven fear another.  What looks like courage one day just looks like vengeance on another.  There are people who like this guy who will have all kinds of bad emotional history re-opened because of this event.  There are people who love him who are going to have to figure out whether or not they can stay with him. 

In the meantime, I was trying to handle my own anxiety.  I avoided the urge to just go have a huge ice cream (the local stands are now open), but I reminded myself that that would not make me feel any better in the long run.   I got to my coffee date early, so I ordered lunch.  I was going to go with "La Mystery" (turkey, swiss, roasted red peppers, sundried tomato and pesto, grilled) but I went with "Peace, Love and Happiness" (greens, onions, sun dried tomato, pepers, avodaco, hummus and feta on a whole wheat wrap) instead. 

It was the lower fat/healthy fat choice and it WAS a prayer.  I knew that food wouldn't actually give me what I was craving, but I needed to take care of myself, especially with depleted physical and emotional resources.  It comes down to making a choice between what you really, really want and what you know you need.  The happy co-incidence of the name of the sandwich and what it was made of just gave me a little lift -- I asked God and the counterman for Peace, Love and Happiness.

 And chips.  Because, really, how can you have Peace, Love or Happiness without chips?

PS.  I posted this and then realized it sounds very shallow.  I want to be clear that I don't take any of this lightly -- I'm still in the middle of it all and trying to find the right path.  I guess I'm trying to say that sometimes the littlest things can at least give us a place to stand, however temporarily, as we figure out where to go next.

What were you thinking?????

CAUTION:  CONTAINS REFERENCES TO BODILY FLUIDS AND PERSONAL HYGENE PRODUCTS!

     So yesterday I bought one of those "body shapers -- the all in one, knees to neck kind where you wear your own bra, so you're not smooshed flat by the lycra.  The cut reminded me of one of those statues of Minoan goddesses.  Yes, I really should lose those 10 pounds but there are some clothes I want to wear now and I thought it might help.

     I went to put it on this morning and because I planned on wearing a dress I suddenly thought, "What's the mechanism for using the bathroom in this thing?"  I am old enough to remember "body stockings", the knit shirts we wore with our hip-hugger jeans -- they were the original "onesies", right down to the snapped crotch. 

    This, however, had no snaps, no "hook and loop" tape.  There was a little overlap in the crotch that created an opening about three inches in diameter.  Now, this might have worked if I were a drag queen...but being differently detailed anatomically speaking, I could not imagine how I might use it.  Am I supposed to hold it open while I pee?  Eeeeuuuuuuwwwww!  And what if there's splash?  Then, the full horror struck me.  What if I had to, well, you know?  My system doesn't flush quite as regularly as it used to.  What was I supposed to do if I had to defecate, get naked in the stall?  Except for my bra, of course, which wouldn't be part of the whole shaper.

     And it got even worse.  I'm also old enough and in the kind of professional position that I wear pantyhose on Sunday mornings.  Would I have to wear them OVER the shaper?  That would be uncomfortable...but what about panties?  How could I possibly wear panties with this thing and still go to the bathroom?  Sorry, I don't do commando.

     This garment does not come from an unknown company.  It is made by people who have been making women's underthings for a long time.  They know how we're built.  They presumably understand that no matter how fabulous we may look, nature may still call.  AND OH, NO!  What if it's "that time"????

I cannot believe this garment was developed by, tested by, or even looked at an adult female human being before it was shipped to stores.  I mean really, what WERE they thinking?  It's going back to the store.  Maybe I'll exchange it for something truly useable, like those ice cubes that don't dilute your drink...

Sacrificial Acts

Still thinking about Lenten discipline.

I am, at heart, a timid person.  I hate confrontations.  I always try to be the peacemaker, not for the sake of peace itself, but because I am afraid of conflict.  I just say this because I want to be honest about where this reflection begins.

As I thought about how I would focus my Lenten discipline in the light of the election process going on right now I kept thinking about how much of our culture is driven by fear.  I repeat here my basic conviction that the core of the gospel message is "Don't be afraid" and I was thinking about a Lenten discipline that would help me "fast" from fear.  How can I recognize when I am reacting to what is happening in my life out of fear rather than faith?  How can I "follow that fear" to its root, to recognize and name what I am afraid of, and then invite the love of God to displace that fear in my life?

So this is what I'm committing myself to do during this Lent.  I'm going to wear an elastic band on my wrist, and I'm going to do some periodic "check-ins" on my emotional state.  Any time I identify the signs of fear in my body I'm going to give the band a little "snap" on my wrist to snap myself out of that state and then I will ask God to replace that fear with love.

I'm also going to address situations that initiate fear/anger directly.  I will challenge people who perpetuate a fear-based response to life in an assertive, non-agressive way.  I will do this at least once a week.   I don't believe I will have to "manufacture"  occasions for this action -- I think I spend a lot of emotional energy in vauge, unacknowedged fear, a lot of it "caught" from others.  Normally I would just swallow it and walk away.  I'm not sure that's a loving thing to do.  In theory, at least, it would be more loving to invite that person to recognize their own fear and to leave it behind. 

I don't know if this is realistic, but I'm going to give it a try.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday

So the shroves have all been driven in and I'm still trying to decide how I will observe Lent.  As a pastor, I always wind up more focused during Lent as I'm usually adding an additional service each week (even brief, informal services require construction and reflection time as well as chasing down the things that are necessary to "make them work"); and I'm doing a spiritual discipline class or Bible Study on Sunday evenings for folks who want to do some focused work AND I usually have a baptism preparation class thrown in -- as I do this year.  In one congregation we met cooperatively with the UCC church and the Methodists during Lent for a 7 a.m. breakfast (!).  I always told my colleagues that just getting there each week was my Lenten penance.

For a number of years I encouraged people (and tried myself) to "take up" something for Lent - to practice a discipline that would deepen or broaden my spiritual life.  I've tried memorizing a psalm each week as a form of meditation; I tried to read morning, noon, and compline prayers each day.  And over the years I've given up candy, meat, tv (the HARDEST of all!) among other things.  In seminary a girlfriend used to suggest that we should give up sex, which given the reality that none of us ever had so much as a casual date would have been pretty easy, if not a true sacrifice.

All this was prompted by a Facebook friend who was asking for ideas about what she might give up for Lent this year.  She remarked that she tries to avoid things like "candy" or "chocolate" because she had learned she couldn't do it without thinking "I wonder if I'll lose weight now!"  As a pastor I've often counseled against giving up something for Lent (like smoking or over-drinking) that you should be doing anyway, and if you're concerned about your weight for health issues, you probably shouldn't be eating the candy anyway.  BUT, I'm not so sure that what we give up for Lent shouldn't be for our benefit.

I understand the whole concept of penance and of sacrifice during Lent as being a way of connecting with what Jesus gave up for us for our salvation.  But if we're giving something up or taking something up in order to strengthen, encourage, and deepen our relationship with Christ, isn't that for our benefit?  Are we falling into that theologically questionable duality that says taking care of our souls is "better" than taking care of our bodies, ignoring the sacredness of incarnation?  On this side of heaven we are enfleshed souls, declared "very good" by the One who made us this way, and there are more questionable practices than giving up something that will do you good body and soul, even if it's only temporarily.

I wish that, like the Greeks, we had more than one word for body.  To practice good stewardship of my fleshly body (soma) is not the same thing as living according to (sarx) "the flesh", or natural human tendencies.  To discipline yourself to do something that is good for your body is not the same as asking "What's in it for me?"  By the same token, to do something that is purely "spiritual", like praying three times a day in order to make yourself more holy is hardly living in a state of grace.

I do plan on embracing a spiritual discipline during Lent, and I'm thinking in terms of something sacrificial this year.  I have no idea what that will be.  But I'm thinking I want it to be something that reminds me that I am not saved by penance nor by understanding, but by grace; that I am a beloved daughter adopted by God's love.  Just as I am.  Just because I am.

I'll let you know what I finally decide on doing.

Occasions of Grace, pt.2

I've been trying to keep an eye out for more of these moments.  There's two I want to share with you. 

The first happened today in worship.  Our congregation has the practice of having the first scripture lesson read by one of our young people.  The boy(and he really is a boy) scheduled to read this morning was doing so for the first time and is rather young.  I don't know exactly what happened, I guess at the last minute he was too nervous to get up -- so his older brother (who's only in 7th grade himself) got up and walked into the lectern with him, and then they read in unison, the older brother supporting his younger brother when he faltered.  Their mother was beaming with pride and joy, even after the service.  It was really wonderful.

The second moment happened in our annual meeting.  Our Moderator is a bright, articulate young woman, very organized, very task focused, but rather shy about speaking in public.  To begin the meeting she offered "Openning remarks" that were basically a homily on a a scritpure passage -- not only was it well done, but the fact of her putting herself "out there" voluntarily and in such a vulnerable way was really powerful for me.  She was living what we have been talking about doing in the congregation, openning ourselves to more intimate relationships.  It was grace-filled.

It is hard for us to avoid being influenced by the negative messages that are so prevalent in our culture.  it is so easy to fall into the influence of fear as the motivator for our choices.  But grace can encourage us to live beyond the bonds of fear and open the doors to new possibilities for relationship and community.  And sometimes all it takes is a companion willing to share the journey or a willingness to show people who we are.  Grace abounds.

Occasions of Grace

Most of us think of experiences of grace as those knock-you-over-the-head, mountaintop experiences -- those times when SOMETHING BIG happens to us spiritually.  And those experiences are few and far between in the "real" world.  They tend to happen at retreats or in focused group experiences, in prayer groups or at hospital beds, in experiences of birth and death.

But moments of grace, glimpses of grace occur far more frequently than we realize if we will recognize them for what they are, if we are on the look out for them.  I've been wanting to share two of them with you. 

Both of these happened in December, in the pre-Christmas craziness that is the life of a pastor-mom.  This is the time of year when you are trying to do everything that the pastor does, everything that the pastor's wife did in days gone by, and everything that moms do to "make Christmas happen."  The first happened in, of all places, the Christmas Tree Shop.  I had gotten supplies for church events (cheap candles, some kinds of paper goods, wrapping paper to back the Chrismons we had made) as well as an "order" for home festivities.  As I was checking out, the music in the background was Karen Carpenter's beautiful alto voice singing, "I'll Be Home for Christmas." 

"That makes me so sad," said the elderly woman cashier.

"Yes," I replied, in that we're just making small talk here kind of way you do with cashiers.  "She had such a lovely voice, so sad to lose her so young." 

"No,"  she said.  "It makes me so sad to think that that awful disease killed her, that she couldn't beat it."  The genuine sadness in her voice caught me up short.  This woman was truly filled with compassion for a young woman she had never known, who died more than 25 years ago.  That kind of genuine human connection is so rare in the world, even for people we know, that I had an experience of a holy presence.  It floored me to meet this woman of such true compassion, and to recognize that compassion in her made me feel cared for as well.  If she cared for Karen Carpenter, maybe she cared for me, too.  Unearned, non-required caring.  Grace.

 (For those of you too young to know, Karen Carpenter and her brother Richard were a very hot "pop" music team in the 70's.  She died of anorexia at a time when we were just giving it a name and knew very little about the disease).

A few days later I was trying to "get in" communion to all the shut-ins before Christmas.  Because I have a team of dedicated deacons, I hadn't seen many of our homebound forlks for some time and I feel strongly about sharing communion with them at Christmas and Easter.  I had last tried to see Ben when he was in the hospital at Thanksgiving, but he had been asleep and I had left a note.  The next time I was doing calls he was back home, but he and his wife live some distance away, so they're not an easy visit. 

Ben is a walking miracle.  When I first came to the church I was told, "He should have died a couple of summers ago.  They were sure he would.  But he pulled through."  He is a small, bald man with a white fringe of hair and a white mustache and eyes that always look like he knows a secret funny story.  He's charming and gracious and always truly curious about pastoral ministry.  He nearly always asks me something about my life as a pastor.  He's also had a case of the shingles in a very painful location for more than a year and has been homebound because of it.  He has COPD and a bad heart. 

The Christmas tree was up -- he and Irene had pretty much ignored Christmas this year because of his health problems, but their kids had come over and put up the tree.  We chatted a little about kids and Thanksgiving and plans for the holidays and what was happening at church, then I asked if they wanted communion.

"Oh, yes.  Yes, please."  Irene told me that for her communion was the most powerful thing about worship, and the thing she misses most about not being able to get out to church.

I opened my little traveling communion set and set it up for the three of us (When I go out with my deacons they only set it up for the person we're visiting.  I'm a firm believer that you need two people to have communion, but I'm on those visits as a participant, not a director, and I let them follow their own process). 

I said the words of institution and prayed the blessing, and I  held out the tray with the three little squares of bread:  "This is my body, given for you.  Take..." and as I spoke, Ben reached out and put his hand under mine, to hold me up, and I realized that HE was serving ME. 

It took my breath away.  I have never had anyone do that for me before.  I faltered saying the rest of the phrase, "Take and eat, remember Christ and give thanks."  I teared up.  It was such a lovely, grace-filled act, I could barely absorb it.  Again when we took the cup, he held up the other end of the little wooden box that holds the elements.  Loving care.  Unasked for, unearned.  Grace.

I think I've mentioned before that I believe in grace for everyone else but have trouble believing in it for myself.  God sent me two angels this Christmas to remind me that grace is for everyone, even for me.  And the power of those two moments shine like shafts of light and hope in the chaos and craziness of the life I live and are reminding me that grace abounds every day, in the places where we least expect it, if we will open our eyes, our ears, our hearts to receive it.