What's On YOUR Desk?

I found this in another blog and thought it was a simultaneously fun and depressing exercise. Fun: the variety of things on my desk reflect the variety in ministry. Depressing: the permanently chaotic state of my desk.

I have a very large desk. So, to keep this from being too long (and warning - it's going to be long enough anyway), I'll stick with what's on the main section...

A pile of papers, on top of which is last night's Pentecost Quiz for confirmation; another pile, which has a Prepare/Enrich inventory on the top; my LBW; a digital camera with which I am supposed to be taking pictures, right now; Free of Charge by Miroslav Volf, just recommended to me; Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott, open to page 135.

Yet another pile of papers with an article called "Ethical Decisions About War" on top; a box of sketches from an artist we are commissioning to do a painting in our entryway; a fax; my lunchbox; my confirmation bible; a clipboard with the sign ups to help provide new hymnals for the sanctuary; scissors, a ruler, and a pencil which I was using to do a little craft project for the Relay for Life sign-up; the omnipresent coffee mug; a lovely picture of the church given to me by a parishioner.

I vacillate between reveling in the chaos of my desk and really, really wanting to clean it. But the cleaning isn't happening today, that's for sure.

I Do, I Don't

I swore, upon entering the ordained ministry, that I would NEVER become one of those cynical pastors who said, "I'd much rather do a funeral than a wedding."

It took about six months to change my mind. As one colleague says, "at least at a funeral the guest of honor never argues with you." Have I introduced myself? I'm Pastor Cynical.

Truthfully, a good wedding can be wonderful. Working with a reasonably healthy couple who want a marriage, not just a wedding, is a lot of fun. I've presided at a few weddings that were fantastic, and not necessarily in the Martha Stewart way - some of the most memorable involved very little from the "wedding industrial complex," as one friend puts it. Those weddings are great.

But for every one of those there are a few less-than-healthy couples, with dysfunctional families, where people argue about the processional music and the mother of the bride asks me, in clipped tones, to make sure I sweep the sidewalk clear of grass bits before the ceremony tomorrow. I am not making this up.

Or brides whose cleavage distracts even me, or groomsmen who keep ducking out of the building for a smoke, a friend designated to push the "start" button on the CD player who says, "Is this going to be over quick? Because I've got to tap the keg," or mothers of the groom who insist that their child doesn't need premarital counseling. I am not making any of these up.

And those can be kind of funny - it's more difficult when the couple has tremendous issues, and I feel like they maybe shouldn't be doing this, but...

A couple was in my office this afternoon. She comes from a previous, abusive marriage. She has two sons, and they have a daughter together. He is pretty damn controlling and doesn't understand why his yelling scares her. She doesn't really want much structure for the kids and he thinks they should straighten up. His dad was a loud alcoholic, but he doesn't think that really affects him at all. Her parents split years ago and she's never had a healthy relationship in her life. I have never seen a couple score lower on the Prepare-Enrich Inventory.

Marriage seems like a really good idea here.

Over the past eight years, I've done three weddings about which I had serious, serious concerns. This one will make four. Out of fifty-some weddings, that's not a high number, but one of those is too many. I pray for these couples. They need serious counseling, and all I can do is give them the name and phone number of a decent therapist (which, believe me, I have done with the current couple).

It's not a good feeling. I hope and pray they will be okay, and maybe they will be. I hope and pray that he will not beat the life out of her, that she will find her own voice, that their kids will not grow up and repeat all these crappy patterns.

Today I know exactly what Anne Lamott was talking about:
I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish. It drove me to my knees. I prayed about it...I prayed for a miracle. I wrote her name down on a slip of paper, folded it up, and put it in the box that I use as God's In box. "Help," I said to God. (from Traveling Mercies)

Help, I said to God.

Friday Five: Surprised by Joy

From RevGals...

Jesus said to them, "Children, you have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No."
He said to them, "Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. (John 21:5-7)

Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. (Psalm 30:5b)

This week I've been watching parents of the young people slain at Virgina Tech trying to make meaning out of the lives of their lost children, and each one seems to begin by focusing on something joyful about that child. It's a gift that most humans have brains wired to respond in that way. For some of us it can be harder to work our way out of dark places, but I believe joy remains the key. It is the spirit of resurrection.

Tell us about five people, places, or things that have brought surprising, healing joy into your life.

1. Ducks. Okay, this one requires some explanation. We moved into a new house (new to us) last summer, and it has a smallish pond in the back. Frankly, the pond has been a giant pain in the proverbial butt, but it is quite pretty. Requires a lot of upkeep, though. Lately, however, our newest pond problem is a duck couple who have decided that our pond would make a nice summer home, sort of a small-place-in-the-Hamptons option. And our pond professional tells us that, as cute as the ducks are, they will make a huge mess in the pond.

But they are stubborn, these ducks, and apparently they've already put a down payment on this whole thing, because they are hard to chase off. So we have an official duck-chasing-off-piece-of-cardboard on our back porch which, combined with the official duck-chasing-off-broom next to it, are our tools of the trade. This morning we were out there in our bathrobes, in the 32 degree morning air, chasing off ducks - four times. What could be frustrating has turned into a hilarious dance. My husband is home today, and is taking his turn at DUCK PATROL. Very surprising joy, those ducks.

2. Joy By Podcast. I have a fairly long commute - 70 miles round trip every day - and have discovered the joy of podcasts, particularly of This American Life. What I especially appreciate about that show is its ability to find fascination in the smallest details, in what most of us overlook all the time. As much as I enjoy the stories, I also appreciate that lesson.

3. Baby Girl S. S is the one-year old daughter of a close friend, a smiling, giggly, just-starting-to-walk redhead who never fails to bring me joy. I think we have a secret connection because I got to be one of the first people to hold her in the hospital, the morning after she was born. She is joy personified. (And easy for me, since mom and dad get to deal with her when she's crying and miserable - I just get to see the fun parts.)

4. Answered Prayer...Finally. We've been through a long process in our congregation which has finally led to offering a new position in music to a fantastic, amazing candidate. Lots and lots of bumps along the road, including one this January, when the first candidate who had accepted the job got home and changed her mind. And though I'm not a big believer in God the Puppeteer, in the idea that God is manipulating every tiny event to bring us to some certain point, I do believe that God makes all things work out...eventually. So yesterday, our fantastic - and sought-after - candidate accepted our offer. Alleluia indeed!

5. Spring. We had a long winter, and the appearance of bright spring green is wonderful. Additionally, we are constantly being surprised by what grows in our yard, since this is our first spring in the house. "There's another hosta!" "What is that thing?" "I think that's a Lenten rose!" It's different every day, and I love watching it all appear.

For Virginia Tech

One of the writers who regularly feeds my soul is Barbara Brown Taylor (though Leaving Church is something of an exemption, in parts). God in Pain, a book of sermons, addresses the question of suffering: ours, God's, and most certainly the suffering of Christ. Copyright questions aside, one passage in this book speaks to me this day.

At the end of "The Silence of God," her sermon for Good Friday, is a story from Shusaku Endo's Silence. A summary of her summary: a seventeenth-century Portuguese missionary, Rodrigues, goes to Japan to save souls. His inspiration is the face of Christ, portraying courage, serenity, wisdom, and faith. It is a noble but silent image, offering him neither guidance nor consolation.

When he arrives in Japan, he is jailed in the midst of a national uprising against Christians. In his cell, he hears only muffled sounds, a snuffling which he believes to be the snoring of the guards. The next morning, he learns those sounds are the cries of his fellow prisoners, crucified upside down, their faces half buried in pits of excrement. Before him, the guards put a choice: renounce Christ, or his fellow prisoners die.

They bring in a metal image of Christ, and tell him to trample on it as sign of his renunciation. Shall he betray Christ or the Christians? Turning his back on one necessitates the pain of the other.

To quote Brown Taylor directly now...

Torn between his loyalty to [Christ] and his loyalty to those who are snuffling in the dark, he is hung between the two when he hears the voice of Christ, coming to him from the image at his feet. "Trample! Trample! I more than anyone know of the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world."

The silence of God is broken. Christ speaks, not from some safe place outside human suffering but from the very heart of it. He is the trampled one, the crushed and soiled one whose loyalty to humankind leads him to endure all that we endure - right up to and including the silence of God. When Jesus howls his last question from the cross, it is God who howls - protesting the pain, opposing it with his last breath. Only this is no defeat. This is, contrary to all appearances, a triumph over suffering. By refusing to avoid it or to lie about it in any way, the crucified one opens a way through it.

He hallows it by engaging it. He shows us how. We are not supposed to love suffering. We are allowed to hate it and to do everything in our power to bring it to an end, only we may not avoid it. That is not one of our choices. Today we look on the one whom we have pierced. More important, we listen. To the silence. To the howl. What is the gospel, in the land at the foot of the cross? When God is silent, people of faith cry out. When people of faith cry out, it is God who speaks.



Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Amen, Amen.

What I'm Reading

Some stuff I am, or should be, reading at the moment...what's on your list?

Dreams from my Father, by Barack Obama (for a book club)
Provoking the Gospel of Luke: A Storyteller's Commentary, by Richard Swanson
The Good German, by Joseph Kanon
Reclaiming the Great Commission, by Bishop Claude Payne and Hamilton Beazley (this is the one I "should" be reading, but haven't started yet...)

And, for a continuing education project:
A Commentary on Colossians and Philemon, by Marianne Meye Thompson
Public Theology and Political Economy: Christian Stewardship in Modern Society, by Max Stackhouse.

Friday Five: Dental Edition

From Rev Gals: Cheesehead and I are both laid up this week with various tooth maladies. This one's in honor of us:

1. Are you a regular patron of dentists' offices? Or, do you go
a) faithfully, as long as you have insurance, or
b) every few years or so, whether you need it or not, or
c) dentist? what is this "dentist" thing you speak of?
Every six months - I'm a regular. However, I did entirely forget to go to the dentist for the first three years post-seminary, until I realized that my mother was no longer making appointments for me and I really should get myself to a dentist's office pronto.
Rather unusually, I've always liked going to the dentist, because our dentist was a family friend. Plus, I have really good teeth, so my experience with the actual dentist goes like this:

Dentist, poking around with metal stick: "These look great."
Me, mumbling to respond: "Thanks."
Dentist: "Keep up the good work."
Me: "Okay."
End scene.

My dental visits are much more about the hygienist than the dentist.

2. Whatever became of your wisdom teeth?
They were removed during Christmas break of my freshman year of college, resulting in huge swelling and horrible bruises. But, as I remember slightly through the haze of pain medication, I did get to watch a whole bunch of movie musicals while I recovered.

3. Favorite thing to eat that's BAAAAAD for your teeth.
Dots and/or Mike & Ike's. Pure sugar, baby. (Jellybeans, along the same sugar line, are how I lost part of a molar.)

4. Ever had oral surgery? Commiserate with me.
See comments on #2 - I hope never to do this again. Not fun.

5. "I'd rather have a root canal than _________________."
Undergo another church conflict.

Bonus: Does your dentist recommend Trident?
Nope. But he does give me a flower at each visit. Pretty, and tooth-friendly.

Of Wax, Artists, and Mellancamp

Easter was wonderful this year - sun shining (after a freak snowstorm on Monday), children laughing, hymns played and sung well, and a profusion of tissue paper butterflies on the Good Friday cross. Great day.

I realize it's Doubting Thomas Sunday this week, but I think a more appropriate post-Easter (or post-Christmas) reading, at least for me, would be the story of Jesus' transfiguration. More specifically, the walk back down the mountain - back to daily life after the high of a light-filled festival. Back to daily life, where we constantly confront the question of what real difference the celebration makes in the midst of the mundane.

This year was our third Easter vigil, and the first time we actually got to start outside, having endured pouring rain for the past two years. So we had a roaring new fire and lit the paschal candle. The candle is very tall, so though we did put it out after the vigil was over, once we lit it again on Sunday morning, it was easier to let it burn all morning than try to re-light it for the second service. Herein lies the only real problem with young acolytes: too short for the paschal candle.

But the problem with letting the candle burn all morning is that, if you didn't put the little gold cap on just right, it will drip wax all over everything: down the candle itself, all over the font, all over the candle stand, onto the floor. (The floor part is no great loss; I'd do anything to get rid of the pink carpet, including a little paschal sabotage now and then.)

So I found myself on Wednesday afternoon, having taken Monday and Tuesday off for a little rejuvenation, carefully picking wax out of the candle, off the gold cap, off the font, up off the floor. Trying not to break the candle with my frustrating attempts to remove the little gold cap and set it back on correctly. And I thought to myself - something about this little, boring, mundane act is reflective of the post-Easter struggle. Is this it? Jesus died and rose again...so that I could pick wax off the paschal candle? Shouldn't there be more to it than this?

But then I met yesterday with an artist who is creating a mural for our entryway. At the moment, the theme is "Living Water," and the visual is centered on a waterfall, dancing around rocks and leaves and through light and darkness. She and I talked about how to help people understand that, though not explicitly religious, the symbolism of water still conveys something crucial to our faith. "I think people need to learn how to see God in the every day," she said, "as Luther said - 'God in, with, and under' - everything."

Then, in the car on the way to work this morning, I hear the gospel according to John Mellancamp:

Your life is now
your life is now
your life is now;
in this undiscovered moment
lift your head up above the crowd
we could shake this world
if you would only show us how
your life is now

Easter is still now, of course, quite literally - seven Sundays, not simply one. But it is not only the lilies and butterflies, the 200 extra people who show up a few times a year, the procession and the breakfast and the hoopla. It is also picking wax off the candle, listening to a brokenhearted friend, hoping for new life, choosing hymns for next week, interviewing the organist, going to the high school tennis match. Everyday life, ordinary life, infused with grace, one step at a time.

In The Details

I love the Easter Vigil. It's one of my favorite services of the year, probably because it's inherently dramatic, it's so unlike anything other worship service, and it involves no sermon; three lovely realities for a pastor.

But then there's the Easter Proclamation, that unbelievably long chant which goes on and on and on and on, and if you the singer end up on a note anywhere close to the one you started on, you're either profoundly lucky or damn good.

This thing scares the life out of our regular assisting ministers, so I'm still singing it three years into our attempt at the Vigil. I can sing, but I've never had any formal training, and when I start to practice this chant, my lack of training comes back to bite me. Hard.

I suppose you could read it instead, but somehow that would sap some of the mystery out of the experience (even if the mystery at the moment is, "how is the pastor going to get through this? and how long is it, anyway?"). Chant done badly is painful; chant done perfectly is amazing; but I'm aiming for chant-done-reasonably-well, the JCPenney of chant - not Nordstrom, but not Wal-Mart either. Right down the middle. Not distractingly bad, not heaven-shakingly good. Confident enough so that no one has to spend the whole time wondering if I'll make it through.

So I've been practicing, and every year, this is when I start to doubt the wisdom of the Vigil. Little choruses in my head chant their own refrain: I cannot stay anywhere close to G, the note I start on. Who can actually sing, 'Oh, how wonderful the condescension of your lovingkindness! Oh, how inestimable the goodness of your love...'? Condescension? Inestimable? These are not words which lend themselves naturally to lyric form. You never hear these words on American Idol, and there's a reason. Your tongue trips over them.

On the other hand, there's something about the hard work of making this chant sound even passable which seems appropriate for the night. Ah, these words are strange - and so is the story they tell. Yes, the syllables are awkward, painful - and so is the body whose suffering we remember. Can I learn to sing this refrain? Can any of us really learn to hear it? Can we tune our ears to hear the truth which "inestimable," "condescension," "paschal," and "vanquish" would tell us?

Oh, but then there are the bees. The bees make it all worthwhile. They have their very own line:

We sing the glories of this pillar of fire, the brightness of which is not diminished, even when its light is divided and borrowed. For it is fed by the melting wax which the bees, your servants, have made for the substance of this candle.

For most of the chant, I am focusing so hard on the notes, trying to stay in the right key, trying to move the notes on the syllables correctly, that I hardly hear the words themselves, much less the meaning. But for one brief second, when it is time for the bees, it changes. I can see a hive of them, buzzing in and out, busily creating that from which this candle will one day be made. It only lasts a second, but it's enough.

Perhaps that's all the Vigil, or any worship service, can hope for; a second or two, maybe more if you're lucky, when you catch a glimpse of the astounding truth we claim. "God is in the details," wrote Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (such an architect thing to say). In the bees, in the wax, in the chant, in the gathering, in the darkness, as we light the candle one more time.

And we pray, O Lord, rule, govern, and preserve with your continual protection your whole Church,
giving us peace in this time of our paschal rejoicing;
through the same Lord, Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit. Amen.