So, I was really proud of the pumpkins I "carved" (as in, hollowed out and then punched repeatedly with an apple corer...thanks, Better Homes & Gardens). Check them out...
Will Smama writes, Greetings friends! It's been awhile since I've contributed to the posts here at the revgalblogpals website, but I agreed to step into the Fifth Friday of the Month Friday Five slot. So here I be.
As I zip around the webring it is quite clear that we are getting BUSY. "Tis the season" when clergy and laypeople alike walk the highwire from Fall programming to Christmas carrying their balancing pole with family/rest on the one side and turkey shelters/advent wreaths on the other.
And so I offer this Friday Five with 5 quick hit questions... and a bonus:
1) Your work day is done and the brain is fried, what do you do?
Go home, cook dinner, watch some tv (if brain is completely fried) or read (if brain is still able to comprehend the written word). On cold fall days, there's nothing better than a bowl of french onion soup, crusty bread, and a glass of red wine.
2) Your work week is done and the brain is fried (for some Friday, others Sunday afternoon), what do you do?
I used to take a post-church nap on Sundays, but I haven't done that for awhile. The first thing I do when I get home is rip off my Clergy Gear (most especially the heels, if I'm wearing them) and change into Super Comfy Knitwear of Some Kind Which Hopefully Does Not Have Holes, But I'm Not Making Any Promises. I often watch football. Probably because that's what my dad did on Sunday afternoons (and Beloved does the same). Beloved is in charge of dinner on Sundays, so I get to lay around a bit.
Lately, I have to gear myself back up to teach a Sunday evening class. Not a good decision on my part. Moving it to Thursdays in January.
And the cherry on the top of my Sunday evenings: The Simpsons. Season premiere this week, people.
3) Like most of us, I often keep myself busy even while programs are on the tv. I stop to watch The Office and 30 Rock on Thursday nights. Do you have 'stop everything' tv programming or books or events or projects that are totally 'for you' moments?
Beloved and I are still hooked on Grey's Anatomy, even though it's not as good as it once was. And we are eagerly looking forward to the continuing saga of Lost. Lost is the only show during which I cannot do any of my other normal tv-watching activities (knitting, cooking, glancing through magazines). That show requires absolute attention. And even then, I have no idea what the hell is going on.
But the premiere I am most eagerly anticipating this fall is, without a doubt, the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. No idea what the title means. Don't care. LOVE James Bond. Daniel Craig is FANTASTIC.
4) When was the last time you laughed, really laughed? What was so funny?
With some seminary friends at a conference a few weeks ago. You know how there are some friends, even if you don't see them for months or even years at a time, that you can just pick up with as if you never left off? That's those people. Our only problem is that we visited a friend who had recently had surgery, and we had to rein ourselves in because making her laugh caused pain. At which time I realized how much of our friend-time we spend laughing. It was really hard to be serious for a whole hour.
5) What is a fairly common item that some people are willing to go cheap on, but you are not.
Breakfast cereal. I hate generic breakfast cereal.
And hair products. Naturally curly hair requires the good products. No matter how you cut it, cheap products = crap hair. I have finally come to this conclusion.
Bonus: It's become trite but is also true that we often benefit the most when we give. Go ahead, toot your own horn. When was the last time you gave until it felt good?
When Beloved was going through his hard time with anxiety a few months ago, I found myself alternately exhausted and empowered by being his 'caregiver,' if only for a short time. I really admire and respect people who are caregivers on a long-term basis. But even when he was driving me nuts, I felt really good about being able to help him through that. (He's doing great, by the way.)
Choralgirl tagged me for a fabulous meme: identify hymns that have shaped, or which reveal, my theology. She puts it so perfectly that I'll just quote her thoughts here:
Selecting a hymn for my community to sing can happen for so many reasons...because it fits with the texts; because it fits the liturgical season; because it fits our particular context at the moment; because they love it or because it will challenge them; because it's theologically sound; because we need to remember that "me and Jesus" isn't the whole story, or because we need to remember that Jesus loves each of us intimately; because it has a tune that will live in their hearts and embed the text in their consciousness; because it prays; because it praises; because it laments; because it thanks; because it celebrates the gifts all around and within us.
It drives me nuts when the conversation is reduced to "I like (or, often, don't like) that one," or "Hey, that was catchy." That's too impoverished, too auto-pilot. It misses out on the richness.
And so, I got to thinking. If I could choose ten hymns that together have truly shaped me, that speak to me, that comprise my theology, what would they be?
Oh, this was fun. And a fabulous Thursday break from the sermon, which is stuck about halfway through (not bad for a Thursday). I tried to keep it to ten, but I ended up with eleven. Here goes.
1. Lift High the Cross (Crucifer)
This was always my favorite hymn as a child. And then my parents went and ruined it by choosing it for my grandfather's funeral, which happened when I was 14. For years after that, I tried to avoid singing it, because I assumed that once you associate a hymn with a death, you've ruined the hymn. This turns out not to be the case (although it is tough to sing it for awhile, for sure). Instead, that memory enriched the hymn and the hymn itself enriched my memories of my grandfather. Like many hymns, the lyrics have some trouble spots - a bit more military imagery than I'd prefer these days. And yet...
Cheers to Gordon over at Real Live Preacher (by way of ccblogs), who posted this today. Just the laugh I needed.
Not, sadly, helpful in my total-stuckness as related to the sermon, but that's another matter.
Chorus was asking about slow-cooker recipes for those nights when you either 1.) don't want to cook or, 2.) really don't want to decide what to cook, which then leads you back to 1.) don't want to cook.
I'm still working on gathering good crockpot literature. I have plenty of options which involve Cream of Mushroom soup, but I'd like to move beyond that.
The recipe below, however, is our household's magic default answer to, "What's for dinner?" Easy, quick, and makes great leftovers for lunch. It's not my recipe: it came from Cooking Light, about four years ago. Skip the chicken, use veggie broth, and feel free to add tofu for a vegetarian option. Enjoy!
Thai Chicken Pasta*
1 carrot, peeled
2 cups less-sodium chicken broth, divided
1/3 cup reduced-fat peanut butter
1 tbl chpped peeled fresh ginger
1 tbl low-sodium soy sauce
2 tbl honey
1-2 tsp crushed red pepper, to taste
1 garlic clove, minced
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast
5 cups cooked rice noodles
6 tbl sliced green onions
6 tbl chopped, unsalted dry-roasted peanuts
1. Shave carrot lengthwise into thin strips using vegetable peeler. (Edit: this looks cool but is kind of a pain. I just grate the carrot.)
2. Combine 1/3 cup broth, peanut butter, ginger, soy sauce, honey, red pepper, and garlic in small saucepan. Stir with whisk until smooth. Do not heat up until all other ingredients are ready.
3. Place chicken in large saucepan, add remaining broth. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 4 minutes or until chicken is done. Remove from heat; let stand 20 minutes. Drain; cut chicken into small pieces. Combine carrot, peanut sauce, chicken, and noodles in large bowl. Heat sauce until warm, stirring constantly; do not boil. Pour sauce over noodles and toss to coat. Sprinkle with onions and peanuts. Serves 4-6.
*Technically, this is called "Spicy Soba Noodles with Chicken in Peanut Sauce." For one, we prefer rice noodles, so the name doesn't work for us. And we just call it "Thai Chicken Pasta," because "Spicy Soba Noodles with Chicken in Peanut Sauce" does not really roll off the tongue, if you know what I mean.
Also, I confess that I do not always use the low-fat, low-sodium, unsalted, reduced-fat items. I uses what I gots. If that's regular peanut butter, so goes it. Never seems to make much of a taste or texture difference.
I know, I know, you think I'm kidding. But seriously. Look at this face.
See? Cutest girl ever. And Aunt Shalom is very, very happy to be with her. (Even considering the Massive Diaper Blowout which occurred slightly before above photo was taken.)
Well, besides driving the senior citizens group to the Center of a Different Faith (see post below), it turns out there's something else you probably shouldn't do while hopped up on fertility drugs.
When your amazing sister-in-law gives birth to your very first niece after 47 hours of labor without any pain medication (no shit, people; that is a superhuman effort as far as I'm concerned), you might not want to think that you're fine and walk into the room 15 minutes after the baby is born. Because when you see your brother and his wife, a woman who is still trembling and sweating with the effort of having given birth - and you see your beautiful niece laying on her mother's chest, still squinting even at the little bit of light in the room, still adjusting to her first few minutes of life in the outside world - when you see all this, your first reaction might surprise you. You thought you were fine. You've been fine for nine whole months. Even the little twinge of jealousy that cropped up like a weed when they announced her pregnancy disappeared as quickly as it came. And the little moments of longing every once in awhile when you've seen her were nothing unusual, nothing overwhelming.
So this moment was going to be fine too. The woman was in labor for two freaking days. How can you not want that to come to an end, and for the baby to finally arrive? How can you not be delighted for her, and for them, and for your parents, who will meet their first grandchild?
How can it be, that when you walk into the birthing center and the midwife says, "She'd like all the mothers to come in now" - how can it be that you know, right then, that you are not going to be okay, but you ignore that warning and tell yourself to suck it up. Because your stupid drug-addled, infertility-warped mind thinks, right off the bat, I can't go in then, because I'm not a mother, and maybe I never will be.
But you will ignore this, because you are a grown-up and you know perfectly well that these drugs are effing you up, and this is a big important moment for your family, so you need to get over it already and deal with it. So when the midwife comes back out and says, "oh, actually, all the women can come in," and you walk in and you see that new mom and dad, you really thought it would be okay, it's been fine for nine damn months now, and instead, the only thing you can think is this:
That might never be me. Never. Never. Never.
And, no matter how hard you try, you can't get that out of your mind, and your sister-in-law's sister (possibly the most self-centered woman in the world) keeps going on and on about the miracle of motherhood and how amazing it is and isn't this wonderful and wow, you're so amazing, and you think, "I am going to kick her ass if she doesn't shut up right now," which is not really the thought you want to have in a room where someone has just been born.
And it feels almost profane to be there, in that room, because there are too many people there, too many women jostling to see the baby, and you wish there could just be time for one person at a time, one little moment for each visit. You want your parents to see their granddaughter without all the effusive commenting from That One, who won't shut up. And you know you would probably be okay with seeing her for a few moments on your own, but all of a sudden it's just too much, and your sister-in-law looks like a combination of the mother of Jesus and a women who just got the shit kicked out of her - holy and beat up at the same time - and you know, right then, that you have to leave. RIGHT NOW.
So you duck out, hoping that the guys hanging around the door will mistake your tears for tears of joy, and you go find your husband in the waiting room, and you fall completely apart, at which point your parents come in and find you crying, and then you feel really horrible because you ruined their first night with their first grandchild. (Well, you didn't ruin it. You know this. But the drugs will tell you that anyway. They're powerful little suckers.)
So you leave, and cry all the way home, and even when your dear Beloved tells you, "of course you're upset, how could you not be? It's perfectly normal," and you know he is right, the drugs still tell you you're a freak, you're an idiot and a jerk for being this way, how could you be so unbelievably self-centered, why is it all about you?
You know the drugs are wrong. You know that three years of wishing, trying, hoping, and praying to be that holy, beat-up woman in the bed are bound to back up on you every once in awhile. You know that this is just normal, and very soon you will be back to yourself and eager to see your niece and delighted by every sound she makes. You know this will be true, but it's not true yet.
But the good news is that, when you get up in the morning, you feel a lot better. After all, you only have to take these drugs for two more days. You decide that it's better to stay away from the new niece for the weekend, not because you don't want to see her, but mostly because your sister-in-law's family is in town and they won't have as much time with her on a daily basis as you do, so they ought to have the weekend. And also, a little bit because you might need 48 hours to let everything settle down in your emotional self (and you'll be done with the drugs tomorrow, so that will help).
You look forward to Monday, when you'll be able to see the baby one-on-one. You drink a small cup of coffee with your breakfast. You get to work and sit down at the computer and look across at the bulletin board, where a few months you posted a prayer by Walter Brueggemann that ends like this:
we wait and receive and we thank...
because you are the only Lord of the Future,
you are the one who births at the eleventh hour,
you are the one who comes to barrenness and makes new,
you promise like the stars for number while we count according to the old math.
And you pray,
Damn, I hope so.
Here is what I learned today.
If you, as a pastor, ever find yourself on fertility drugs which, let's say, speed up your hormonal reactions to things (and especially enhance your ability to get cranky REAL FAST), then it would be wise not to volunteer to be a driver for the senior citizens' group trip to the Center of a Different Faith, wherein you will be required to listen patiently not only to the speaker who represents said Different Faith (who did a very nice job), but, more importantly, where you will be forced to listen to Old Lady Who Never Shuts Up in the Van AND I MEAN NEVER, MY GOD PUT A CORK IN IT.
If you find this situation unavoidable, and additionally notched up a bit by the fact that you are also in the midst of giving up coffee (THIS DOES NOT HELP), then I have found the best way to deal with it, besides gritting your teeth in such a manner as to probably give you TMJ instantly, is to get into your office, shut the door, breathe deeply, and eat a whole box of Dots candy.
That is today's lesson.
Carry on.
Thai Food Delivered to Home of Brother and Sister-In-Law: $37.50.
Watching Sister-In-Law in Early Phases of Labor: Painful, but Exciting.
Imminent Arrival of Niece: Priceless.
Come on, baby!
My personal DNA reveals that I am a...
This is one of those days when anonymity comes in handy.
Seriously. Some hymns and/or liturgies do not belong on the organ. Because when you play them on the organ, it sounds like the World's Worst Carnival has come to town, and that's never good, especially on a Sunday when there happen to be a massive number of visitors for no explicable reason, and there is nothing that can kill a piano liturgy faster than an organ (digital, my friends, a heart-pain no matter what). And I have to smile up in the front and pretend like everything is fine, because everyone can see me, so if I let on in even the smallest way that I am HORRIFIED by the music I'm hearing - well, that's not fair.
But inside, TRUST ME, I am screaming like a banshee. JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN PLAY IT ON THE ORGAN DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD.
I love a good pipe organ. Really, love. I could listen to Bach preludes all day long. I play the organ. The organ rocks. Best. Instrument. Ever. I know something about being a church musician, too. It's harder than it looks and people are never, ever satisfied. I get that.
But, just like you can't play Toccata and Fugue on a piano and expect it to sound like it should, you can't play this particular liturgy on the organ and not feel like the circus clowns are coming to get you.
And, after all, there's nothing scarier than a clown.
Dude. This organ music is making the rodeo clown sad. THAT'S NOT A GOOD SIGN.
Every once in awhile someone comes into my office with a story so horrific, or unbearable, that I wonder how they are still standing up and walking around. (Generally, they wonder that too.) This happened this morning. The details of the conversation don't belong even on an anonymous blog, but suffice it to say that this woman has endured more than any one person ought to, and it hurt just to listen to it. People don't always tell the truth, of course, and even when they do the truth you hear is their version of events, but - if even half of what she said is true, then that would be more than enough.
After those conversations, I usually have two reactions.
One: to wonder, again, why a good God allows such events, especially when one person seems to be living through more than their fair share of them. This is where all my decent theology about "God isn't fair, which really benefits all of us because 'fair' would leave us in the ashes anyway," or; "God is present in our suffering," or; "your questioning and lamenting is a prayer and a form of faithfulness just as it is," really hits the wall. I believe all these things. I really do. They are the only way I can wrap my mind around a world where things that are and the things that should be are so far apart. I realize she wasn't really looking for answers, so I don't feel the pressure anymore that I used to when I first started this gig, to be God's receptionist and try to answer all questions about where he's been lately. So that's good. But I still have to face the fact that theology can't solve everything. This is where 'ministry of presence' had better be okay with the good Lord, because that's all I've got.
My second reaction: to be grateful for my own life. Isn't that perverse? "Wow, your life really sucks right now and damn, I can hardly imagine what you're going through. Thank God I don't have to deal with that." (Note that I do not say that out loud. Ever.)
I have that reaction after visiting people in the hospital too. Walking out to the parking lot, I often find myself focused on the particular body part that landed my visitee in the hospital: if it's a broken hip or replaced knee, I feel the strength in my legs; if it's pneumonia, I breathe deeply; a stroke victim makes me think about my thinking. (This experience would be troubling if I were visiting, let's say, a colonoscopy patient. So I don't always do this. But it's a fair generalization.)
On the one hand, I know my reaction is perfectly normal. We all do this. Read about a car accident which killed a child, and you want to hug the first child you know and love. Hear about a horrible divorce, and you go home and kiss your partner and rejoice. Listen to someone complain about their terrible parents, and you call yours just to hear their voices. C'est la vie.
There is something perverse, though, about the fact that it so often takes someone else's tragedy to remind me to be grateful for my life. To look honestly at what is good, right now, and to notice it, and pay attention to it, and not let it pass you by, because it won't last forever.
I'm going to quit before this turns too Oprah-style "live out your gratitude." It's just an odd experience, is what I really wanted to say.
Teacher: "Tonight we're going to talk about testimony."*
Very Sweet, Hard of Hearing Older Woman: "What did she say?"
Teacher: "Testimony."
Very Sweet, Hard of Hearing Older Woman: "Sex Warning?"
Teacher: "TESTIMONY."
Very Sweet, Hard of Hearing Older Woman: "SEX TESTIMONY?"
Oh.
My.
Good.
Lord.
Help me.
Not fall over laughing.
Amen.
*(Note: "Testimony" is the chapter we're studying in Dorothy Bass's excellent book, Practicing Our Faith. In case you think I have gone off my mainline/Lutheran rocker.)
It's the perfect Friday Five for me, because I've been on a business trip since last Sunday afternoon, heading home tomorrow - a week of continuing education at Alma Mater Seminary. As my laptop is hopelessly out of date and depressingly slow, I haven't been on the computer much (just as well, given the news websites I would otherwise be visiting).
Back to the Five. Mother Laura writes,
So for today's Friday Five, you're invited to share your experiences with the exciting, challenging world of business travel....
1. Does your job ever call for travel? Is this a joy or a burden?
I really hate flying, but I've gotten better about it over the years (now I only scream in my head when we take off, as opposed to out loud). And once we're in the air, I actually enjoy some of the freedom. If it's for a conference or church-based reason, I wouldn't call the travel itself a joy, but the destination usually is. And I count myself very blessed to have served in two congregations which unquestioningly support regular continuing education. I would have withered on the vine long ago without it.
2. How about that of your spouse or partner?
Not much business travel for him. Them teachers tend to stay put.
3. What was the best business trip you ever took?
A few great conferences over the years come to mind. "Best" is hard to choose, but for the sake of brevity, I'll go with a trip to Canada, several years ago. Spectacular scenery, good program, wonderful friends. What more can you ask?
4. ...and the worst, of course?
Nothing horrible. But, being a West-Coaster, I do hate traveling to the East Coast and having to get up day one for an early meeting. I'm not a morning person anyway, and that three-hour time difference is a killer.
5. What would make your next business trip perfect?
Anyplace I can go with the seminary friends is perfect for me.
Beloved got great news today - he's been moved from a non-continuing contract (teacher-speak for, "you might have a job next year, you might not, good luck with that") to a continuing contract - after only one month of school! We were crossing our fingers that a continuing contract might come his way after Christmas break, so it's fantastic to get the offer so early. He's gotten great feedback from the principal and, even better, he's really enjoying the work.
Of all the nerve-wracking things we did during our move, his giving up an 18-year continuing contract in Old City to take a one-year-only contract here was top of the list. Thanks, God, for making it all worthwhile.
Grief is such a strange thing, and so personal. All Kubler-Ross wisdom aside, how each of us manages our way through a loss will never be duplicated, even by ourselves at another time. I have found this to be true in my own life, though the other truth is that - so far - I have not yet navigated a loss which snatched the whole world away from me.
There is grief in infertility, of course. Grieving what has not yet been, or fearing what may never be, is a real thing. Different than grieving a miscarriage or stillbirth, yes. But a thing which has not yet been can still be nearly as real, nearly, as things which are. A yearning to be something (a mother) and to love someone (a child) comes with its own grief, as unique as any other.
I have walked with others through the loss of a born child. Not an infant, not yet, and if I am the luckiest girl in the world, perhaps not ever. My first pastoral experience with this came when a mother called the church on a Sunday morning before worship to tell me her son had been found in the woods, with a shotgun next to his body and a six-pack of beer, empty, in the truck bed. It's a long story. It always is. But they changed, those parents, in that day. In one way, their son's death freed them from twenty years of holding secret his mental illness; "I keep telling myself, 'the truth will set you free,'" said his mother on the phone that day. But in many other ways, his death diminished her, and her husband, and their daughters, forever. Permanently.
Of all the interviews I have seen in the past few days with Paul Newman, the best by far is the moment Barbara Walters asked him how he felt about the death of his son, some ten years later. "It gets different," he said to her. "Not better, but different." I have not known that pain myself. But I have no doubt he is right.
Loss, of course, is not something you can create - not loss-by-death, anyway. If I have not experienced it personally very much, I can't do much about that, except be grateful. And yet I wonder at times how that might diminish my understanding as pastor. I know how I felt when my grandfather died of Alzheimer's, but I was fourteen at the time, so it's been awhile. And I know how I felt when my grandmother died during my first year of ministry, but again, the fact is that your grandparents are supposed to die before you are, so even when you mourn them with all your being, it's not precisely out of the norm to do so.
Grief is so intensely personal and private that it's rare to hear an honest accounting of it. A few weeks ago, I checked with RevGals to read that one of our bloggers had lost her son, and that is how I found her blog, Search the Sea. (Isn't that a stupid phrase, by the way? "Lost" her son? Good God, it's not like he was wandering around in the frozen food aisle and she accidentally walked out the door. It almost puts the onus of the loss onto the one left behind: well, you lost him. Didn't you hold on tight enough? I may have to stop using that phrase altogether.)
So I have been reading her words now, since her son's death. This has been both enormously gratifying, and yet feels almost wrong, as if I were driving through a neighborhood at night peering through windows, and saw something meant to be entirely private because someone forgot to close their windows. I know that the writer realizes her blog is public. If she didn't want to write these things down, if it didn't feel like it might, maybe help someday, she probably wouldn't do it. But still, the loss is so great that her words feel like glass, like they could shatter at any moment. Like if I read them too often, they'll fall apart in front of me. Fragile. And precious. And sharp.
I have not posted on her blog, other than one initial word of consolation, because I do not know her. I will not link this post to her, because perhaps her own writing is exposure enough. But still, I want to thank her. For letting us in. For telling her own story. For being honest. For getting up in the morning.
She wrote early on that the phrase, "I can't imagine what you're going through," is not helpful. It may be true, but it just doesn't help. But here's the thing: I can't imagine it. I don't know that grief. I hope with every fiber of my being that I never do. She is in my prayers and I don't even know what to pray for, really, except to say her name and hope that God knows what to do from here. (I pray more and more like this, now. A two word prayer: your turn.)
I've thought about writing this post for awhile, and I didn't because mentioning it felt like I was pointing out a particularly interesting zoo exhibit. ("Look, kids! A grieving mother! Let's see what we can learn, shall we?") That's not it, of course. But what her writing does for me is give a glimpse, a tiny peek, into her own story of grief. I am grateful for that, as someone who peeks into grief on a regular basis, because somehow each story enriches the whole body. Makes our individual responses less crazy, less lonely, more real.
Thank you, Gannet Girl.
In a lovely surprise, Choralgirl gifted me with the following wonderful bit:
In all honesty, it made my day. Thanks, friend. How sweet.
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