I Didn't Think You'd Notice

Yesterday, I was having lunch with a parishioner who is also the wife of my colleague, and a friend. It's been a rocky friendship in some ways, the details of which are long and a bit too personal for this venue, but we've come to a good spot together and I'm always glad for her refreshing honesty.

The first part of lunch - the majority of it, actually - was a familiar pastoral one for me: she talked, I listened. She vented, I tried to empathize. The line between "parishioner" and "friend" can be such a tricky one, don't you think? There are those pastors who will tell you, in good When Harry Met Sally fashion, that pastors and parishioners cannot be friends. And they have a good point: there are some boundaries that you really can't cross with parishioners, even when they are friends, even when they are good friends.

But there are always going to be those parishioners - perhaps not in every church, but still - with whom you feel a natural kinship, and who you know could be your friends if you had met under different circumstances. I'm fortunate to have made a few non-church connections over the years, and to live a city large enough that I can be pretty anonymous when I want, and even I still appreciate those friend-folk in the congregation. I'm sure it's even trickier in a small town.

Yet I find that, most of the time, my friendships with parishioners stay in the pastor zone. I'm always aware of my role in the congregation. I'm always aware that I will have to get up there on Sunday morning and be able to face them, and say something meaningful. I'm always aware that a good friendship requires mutual vulnerability, and that if I treat parishioners in that way, I could be messing with their need for me to be their pastor at some significant moment in life. I'm also aware that some of the issues have more to do with me than with them.

So the first part of lunch was definitely conversation between friends, but it was much more about her vulnerability and my listening. And I was fine with that. It felt normal.

Until, toward the end of an hour, she leaned into the table and said quietly, "I want to ask you something." She said this in the sort of voice that made me instantly nervous. "I don't want you to feel like you have to talk about it, but if I can pray for you in the best way...I've noticed, over the past few months, that there have been more prayers than usual for families looking to adopt or trying to have children. Is that something you're dealing with? And if you don't want to talk about it, just tell me."

This is a very observant woman who knows me well. And truthfully, I have only mentioned the word "infertility" in the prayers twice since December, so it's not as though it's been a huge theme. But it brings up some important questions for me: how vulnerable can a pastor be with his or her congregation? And, at the same time, how much vulnerability is necessary for the sake of honesty in ministry?

I remember the first time I wanted to say the word "infertility" in the prayers. Normally, the assisting minister, a lay person, writes and gives the prayers, so I don't have a lot of control over it. They use some common prayers produced by our larger church, and I encourage them to add others as they feel are appropriate. So the Thanksgiving Eve service was one of the few times when I was writing the prayers, and would be praying them during worship.

It was also the night that marked the one-year anniversary of trying to have a baby. My period arrived, perfectly on schedule, about two hours before the service. I had let myself get far too hopeful that cycle, and I was completely devastated. All those haunting statistics and definitions - infertility is defined as 12 months of unprotected sex without conception - were all I could think of. The very last thing I wanted to do in the world was lead a worship service about being thankful, of all things.

I wanted the word said out loud, not just for me, but for anyone who has sat in church and watched kids and parents and thought, "I wish that was me." I wanted someone to say the word of my worst fear during worship, to start taking the unspoken horror out of it. "Infertility" was my personal "Lord Voldemort." If you don't say it, it won't be true.

But if no one says it, you have no sense of bearing. While I'm no fan of "barren," at least the bible does bring up the heartache: "So it went on year by year; as often as Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, [her rival] used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah said to her, 'Hannah, why do you weep? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?'"

There's a whole other post in there about the infinitesimally complicated relationship between men and women, husbands and wives, when it comes to fertility, but we'll save that for later. There's also the acknowledgment that being honest about this struggle is not just my story to share, and I deeply respect my husband's vulnerability here too. At any rate, even if I completely disagree with some of what the bible implies or says about why these women can't have children, at least it's a topic. Someone acknowledges it. Someone says it out loud.

I just didn't think that anyone would listen, I guess. I thought they would assign the word to someone else, to a desire that we pray for families of all shapes and sizes. I tried to camouflage it with other problems - loneliness, divorce, separation - or with possible solutions - adoption, friendships, peace. But she still heard it, all too well.

So I feel mightily vulnerable (there's an interesting turn of phrase) today. I did talk about it with her, knowing among other things that this is a woman who has faced enormous difficulties, and who is unusually willing to talk about those. I know she will keep confidence, and I know she would never use my vulnerability against me.

But did anyone else make the leap she did? Are they all out there, pitying me, guessing that something must be wrong because, after all, we've been married long enough by now? I don't want to know.

There is no answer, I suspect. You have to be vulnerable enough in ministry to help people understand that the gospel comes in clay vessels - and yet, let's face it, you can't be so vulnerable that the whole enterprise becomes about satisfying your needs. So, as usual, I find myself stuck in the middle. Hoping that not too many people will notice.

Friday Five: Rivers in the Desert

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:19, NRSV

As we near the end of the long journey toward Easter, a busy time for pastors and layfolk alike, I ponder the words of Isaiah and the relief and refreshment of a river in the desert.

For this Friday Five, name five practices, activities, people or _____ (feel free to fill in something I may be forgetting) that for you are rivers in the desert.

A well-timed set of questions...

1. A Day Off.
Part of the struggle of Lent, although it is one of my favorite seasons of the year, is always the busy schedule which inevitably comes along with it. I always know that it will come to an end, so that helps, but it's the one time of the year in which my normally stoic resolve to take a regular day off starts to evaporate. And, believe me, I notice it in myself. For various reasons, some good and some not-so-good, this has been a particularly busy Lent, and I know that my lack of sabbath days has contributed significantly to my slightly cranky attitude at the moment. So I am working on that.

2. A Little Piano Playing.
Yesterday afternoon I had a very stressful meeting planned, one that had been coming for about a month, and I was completely (naturally) distracted by that impending thing all day. About half an hour before it was scheduled to start, I went into the sanctuary and played a particularly beautiful arrangement of "Tallis Canon," which I know as "All Praise to You, My God, This Night." There is something about playing the piano which calms me. My mom says that she could often tell how I was feeling during my teenage years, not because I would tell her directly, but by the music I chose to play after my official "piano practice" time was over. This is why I was completely traumatized by the movie, The Piano: the idea of losing a finger, and thus losing your ability to play, is like the idea of having your tongue cut out. Sometimes expressing yourself artistically is a river in the desert.

3. Talking with Spouse.
This is still a fairly new one for me, having been married about two and a half years; I used to talk to the cat a lot, and he was a good listener, but he rarely gave good feedback. I know how very fortunate I am to have a spouse who really is a good listener, who is extraordinarily calm when I am freaking out, and who will say what he thinks in a constructive way. Don't get me wrong: the man is not perfect, and sometimes I think that my Catholic friends might have the priest/celibacy thing right, but on so many other days I am tremendously grateful for a friend in the house, someone to keep me from driving myself insane.

4. Brain Candy.
Sometimes I just like a little Desperate Housewives/Grey's Anatomy/Sex & the City/insert-junk-entertainment-program-here (excluding American Idol and all reality television, with the exception of Project Runway). It's good to laugh. It's nice to get caught up in someone else's made-up drama, the resolution of which is someone else's responsibility. This is a pretty shallow river - more like a creek - but it's nice to have a little of it once in awhile.

5. Worship.
So I could have listed this one first, but saved it for last. Not because it's always best, but simply because it's always there. I have a hard time with personal devotions, and working on that is a constant struggle for me, but worship - yes, I'm paid to be there, but it's something I need apart from the paycheck. That's the joy of all the Lenten busy-ness; so much of it has to do with worship that it's not as draining as a lot of busy-ness tends to be.

Others that didn't quite make the cut but deserve a mention: a good cup of coffee, a good glass of wine, a nap, a really good book, reading some of my favorite blogs, a conversation with a great friend, and, when all else fails during this particular time of year, Cadbury's Mini-Eggs.

The Ick Factor

I stole this title from an episode of "Sex and the City," which I've been watching regularly since receiving the box set for my birthday. (Side note: yippee!) But it applies to something altogether different than Carrie Bradshaw's typical problem.

I posted awhile ago about a former staff member who is angry that her position was, to be blunt, eliminated in a consolidation of all the part-time music positions into one full-time position. You can guess that this is unlikely to be a painless process, and that is most certainly true in our case. One position was vacant at the time; one person was glad to give up her temporary position; and two others were, shall we say, cranky about the whole thing.

So, long - extremely long - story short, this staff person wrote a letter to me and to the council, and we talked about it, and tonight we met with her and some council members and two people from our staff support committee. And it was pretty much as ugly as I had thought. Ick.

It occurred to me that the reading from last week's lectionary epistle assignment was particularly apropos for the night, so we started off with that: "for we have been entrusted with the message of reconciliation." Easier said than done.

No need to go into the details of it. It is enough to say that the meeting accomplished its most basic goal: to make sure that she was heard, both for her own sake and for the sake of the church leadership, who now cannot be accused of ignoring her. She said some fairly inappropriate things, including a crack about my age ("I was doing this job when you were in high school") which were hurtful, and I'm thankful that I and the church leadership did not respond in kind. Even though I REALLY REALLY wanted to. There are some honest things I wanted to say to her that I didn't, only because it felt like speaking at the time would make the whole situation worse. Consequently, however, I'm left with the sneaking suspicion that we took on more responsibility for the situation than we deserved, and she left without hearing how her actions had hurt a lot of people too. As you can see, I don't think that real, true reconciliation is coming anytime soon. But, on the other hand, it's never possible to rule it out entirely.

Now I'm left with the ick factor: that feeling after a conflict that makes you want to drink a glass of wine, or take a shower, or possibly both at the same time, if you can accomplish that. This too shall heal. I'm glad we did what we did. But it was icky, for lack of a better theological term. And I hope we can all start to move on.

The very greatest gift in all this was handed to me two nights ago by a most unexpected council member. After reading the letter sent by said staff member, the council sat in silence for a moment. One person said something. And then another person, the kind of person whose face is very hard to read, and who seems to support me at one moment and then not the next, said something like this: "Well, Pastor, I hope you don't think this is your fault. Your job here is to preach and teach and we need to handle the adminstrative stuff, and it's not fair for you to get thrown under the bus just because you're up in the front." He kept going for a little while, and I thanked him both then and afterward, but all he really needed to say was the first bit: "I hope you don't think this is your fault." Actually, I can be somewhat objective and think of some things I could have done differently. But I felt a load rise off my shoulders when he spoke. Every Sunday I speak the words of absolution to the congregation, and I love doing that, but it also means that I very rarely hear them spoken to me. He gave me that, and it is no small gift. So there are some non-ick factors here too.

It will be better in the morning - it always is. But, O gracious and forgiving God, heal your church in every place. Mend our wounds, self-inflicted and otherwise. Curb our pride. Teach us to speak honestly and at the right time. How often we hurt each other because we are suffering, and know not what else to do. Loosen our hands and hearts to let go of grudges, to forgive one another, to see a good future ahead. And, if possible, O God, hurry up about it. Amen.

Friday Five: Watcha doin'?

Name five things you plan to do today...


Today is a fun day to write this list, since I (miracle of miracles) actually finished the sermon yesterday. Normally, that is definitely a Friday to-do.

1. Dog-sit. My husband is allergic to dogs, so we are a pet-free home. But some friends are out of town, and that means I'm in charge of their lovely, charming, chocolate lab for the weekend. And since my husband is also out of town for a few days, we're keeping each other company. It's my dog fix.

2. Chick-flick extravaganza. This one highly depends on the absence of husband, as mentioned above. I think I'm going for the Dixie Chicks' documentary, Shut Up and Sing, and The Holiday.

3. Meet with the stewardship committee. This is certainly a "have to," but it's also something I'm looking forward to. Our stewardship committee has been defunct for awhile, and I'm eager to see how they might re-invent themselves. There's some new energy around this - good energy, not "Holy crap, we're out of money" energy (although giving was down this month) - so that's exciting.

4. Go home early. Not that early, but hopefully by 4:00pm or so. We'll see how that one works out.

5. Stay up late, because I can sleep in tomorrow. Husband is a morning person; I am a night person. And though I miss him when he travels - which isn't that often - I also cherish two things about that: one, the whole bed to myself (we have confessed to each other that we both enjoy this from time to time); and two, uninterrupted sleeping-in. His idea of sleeping in is about 8:00am; I like to stretch it to at least 9:00. The dog might complicate this, but at least it's a possibility.

This is not a particularly ambitious list, but it's nice to have those once in awhile too.

Prodigal Repeat

In looking for some sermon ideas on a well-loved, well-known text, I ran across my sermon from three years ago. I don't think I can preach it again (I'll save it for the next congregation) but it was fun the first time around. And long, by the way - fair warning.

_________________________________________

It started like any fight they had had over the past few years, like a hundred thousand fights which mothers have had with teenaged daughters since the beginning of time. Marlene rolled her eyes as Tina screamed her typical list of complaints: you never let me do anything, you’re no fair, everyone else gets to… Marlene wondered sometimes if her daughter had a book in her room called “How To Fight With Your Mom,” and simply took her scripts straight from it.

There was no arguing that their relationship had begun to deteriorate more quickly over the past few months. Marlene remembered how beautiful Tina had been as a baby, how well behaved, how everyone at church smiled at her sleeping through the sermons and playing quietly in the pew. “Such a good baby!” they had said. “Look at her now,” thought Marlene. Where had that good baby gone? Disappeared under layers of resentment and anger and eye shadow, apparently. It was if Tina had turned into another person altogether.

Marlene loved her daughter. But the screaming, the crying, the doors slamming shut, staying out too late, coming home smelling of something odd – things were not good. She didn’t really know what to do. For the thousandth time, she wondered if things would have been easier if Tina’s father hadn’t left when Tina was three years old. But she’d never know; no use thinking about it now. Tina was still yelling, starting to cry and rant and rave when the final – predictable – shout came: “I wish you were dead!” she screamed, and ran down the hallway to her room. Marlene heard the door slam shut. She sat down on the couch, exhausted. Nothing to do now but wait.

Hours went by and Marlene finally went to bed. All was quiet from Tina’s room. Marlene guessed she’d simply worn herself out with yelling and had fallen asleep. In the morning, Marlene knocked on her door. No answer. She knocked again, with a little irritation in her voice: “get up, Tina,” she said. “Time for school.” No answer. Slowly, she opened the door. On the neatly made bed was an envelope marked, “Marlene.” Not “mom,” she thought, as she crossed the room to pick it up. She sat down on Tina’s bed, noticing that the closet doors were open and clothes were missing. So was Tina’s teddy bear, which she had cherished since childhood. Marlene read the note with a sinking heart. She realized that her 14-year old daughter was now a statistic: a runaway. One of thousands of kids who left home every year. Some came back, some simply disappeared forever.

Marlene called the police, then sat down at the kitchen table and put her head on top of her folded hands. She wept for the wasted years, for the endless fighting, the misunderstanding, for her utter hopelessness at what to do with this child. “Watch over her, God,” Marlene prayed. The doorbell rang. Marlene answered it, and saw a young policeman at the door. She smiled through her tears; she could almost hear Tina whispering in her ear, “he’s cute, Mom.” With a heavy heart, she answered the policeman’s questions. “We’ll do our best, ma’am,” he said as he left. “Thank you,” she replied.

At church on Sunday the congregation prayed for Tina, and people wept with Marlene, offering her hot dishes and cups of coffee. But as the weeks went by, people stopped asking as often if she’d heard from her daughter. Marlene began to feel people looking at her with pity, but not talking to her. She supposed they didn’t know what to say. Her closest friends still asked, but they knew the inevitable answer: “no word yet,” Marlene would say. Tina’s name remained on the prayer list, but after three years, no one asked at all anymore. When her birthday would pass, Marlene would wonder: was she still alive? Was she okay? Did she ever think about her mother? Would anyone make her a birthday cake?

Every Sunday Marlene prayed at church for Tina’s return, and for her safety. Sometimes she returned home in tears, sometimes numb, sometimes angry. Until one Sunday in June when she pulled into the driveway and noticed a scruffy young boy sitting on the front step, with a backpack in his lap. Probably wants money, she thought with frustration. Good grief.

She opened the door and grabbed her purse, shut the car door and turned around, and looked again at this boy. Was it a boy? Short hair, but the same strawberry blond as Tina – just dirtier. The boy stared at the ground until Marlene began to walk toward him. He looked at her, just as Marlene realized this was not a boy, dropped her purse on the ground and ran to the steps. She threw herself on the ground in her very best church clothes, and wrapped her arms around this dirty, skinny, hungry seventeen-year old girl. Her daughter. Marlene could hardly speak with joy and wonder. Where had she been? What had happened to her, that she was so thin, so dirty, so…afraid? Marlene held her daughter and felt as if she would break her fragile bones, she squeezed so hard.

“Mom?” came a quiet voice, uncertain, trembling.

“It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter,” Marlene said over and over. “You’re home.”

“But there is something…” Tina began.

“It doesn’t matter,” sobbed Marlene.

“I think it does,” said Tina, and pulled away. She looked down at what Marlene had first assumed was a backpack. Not a backpack. A wrapped-up blanket, dirty and torn, and inside, a baby. Probably six months old. Tina looked at her mother. “I guess you don’t want,” she started, but Marlene cut her off. “You’re home, Tina,” she said with some shaking in her voice. “You’re both home.”

The baby’s name was Peter, after his father, Marlene gathered. Marlene’s friends called and visited, and cried and laughed with joy at Tina’s return. They smiled over the baby and took turns holding him. They brought old clothes of their children’s and strollers and diapers and offered to baby-sit. Tina grew stronger and began to smile again, though some days were better than others. They visited the pastor and scheduled a baptism for the next month. The Sunday after Tina’s return, many people rushed up to her at church and welcomed her back. “We prayed for you,” they said, and Marlene smiled. During the hymns, she reached over to touch her daughter’s hand, just to make sure she was still there. It hardly seemed real.

A month later, it was time for the baptism. Marlene stopped at church on her way home from the grocery store that Saturday, to put a rose on the altar. The church door was open, as Marlene had thought it would be, since she recognized some of her friends’ cars in the parking lot. “Probably setting up communion,” she thought. The sanctuary door was open, so she walked in with the rose in a small bud vase. She heard voices coming from the room at the back – whispers, gossiping. Marlene grinned at the idea, wondering who the topic of discussion was today. As she put the vase down onto the altar, the voices grew louder. She could hear the whole conversation now.

“I’m telling you, it’s just not right,” said one. “I mean, baptism is a special thing. It’s a sign of God’s approval. And I just don’t think we should be putting our approval on the baby of a runaway teenager who caused her mother that much grief.”

“I know,” said the other voice. “I mean, for Pete’s sake, what does that say to our kids? Go ahead, run away, do anything you like, and then when you come back it’s all fine? Kids need to learn about consequences. Forgiveness is one thing, but this is taking it a bit too far, in my opinion. If the church doesn’t stand up for good morals, who will?”

“And you know,” said the first voice, “Marlene never even punished that girl. Three years she was gone! Three years Marlene wondered where on earth she was, if she was even alive, and then she just shows up one day on the front porch and it’s like nothing happened. Doesn’t she worry about her running away again? Finding some other boyfriend and having another kid? That girl needs to learn some discipline.”

“I just know Marlene’s going to end up raising that baby herself,” said the second voice. “Happens all the time. Happened to a friend of mine in Michigan. Her daughter had a baby, ran off afterward, and my friend is still raising it. Should be enjoying her retirement, and instead she’s changing diapers. No sense of responsibility at all, that girl.”

“But what really bothers me,” said the first voice, “is that the church is saying this is all okay. I mean, shouldn’t we say something about it? Make sure people understand that having a baby like this is not a good idea? And then there will be a huge party at Marlene’s afterward – did you hear about that? She’s having a baptism party. Sandwiches and cake and everything. As if there’s nothing wrong with this situation at all – as if this is perfectly normal.”

“That’s just poor taste,” said the second voice. “I guess it’s one thing to welcome Tina back home – I’d probably do the same thing if one of my kids ran off. But to give a party for her illegitimate baby? It’s ridiculous. It’s really inappropriate. I suppose she expects us to bring gifts. What about all those people who do the right thing? You know, get married, and then have kids – don’t they get a reward anymore? Now the party is for anybody, no matter what they did.”

“I don’t know what this world is coming to,” said the first voice.

The organist walked in to practice, thought neither Marlene nor the two women in the sacristy saw him. Marlene stood frozen to the spot, listening to her friends gossip about her daughter. Was the party inappropriate? She had been so glad to see her daughter, so thankful to have her home again, that she just wanted to share her joy with her friends. She hadn’t even thought about whether people would approve. Was it a bad idea to have this child baptized? Was everyone in church whispering about her like this?

The organist began to practice the hymns for Sunday. “Hi Marlene,” he called out as he turned the organ on, but she didn’t hear him. She stood at the altar until she heard the notes begin to chime.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.

Marlene could hear the words in her head. “Amazing Grace,” she tried to sing, but her voice broke with tears. The second verse began.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved; how precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed.

Now she was singing, and the third verse began just as her friends walked out of the sacristy.

Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come; ‘tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

Marlene finished the verse, singing at the top of her lungs, and smiled at her friends who stood staring at her with the look of kids caught peeking in the cookie jar. Their cheeks blushed bright red, and one began to speak. “I…don’t…I mean…”

“Don’t you just love that hymn?” Marlene asked them. “I once was lost, but now am found. Great song.” She put the rose down on the altar. “See you at church tomorrow. Oh – and I hope you can be at the party afterward.”

Then the father said to his elder son, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”

Friday Five: Matters of Taste

After two weeks of sporadic traveling/retreat leading, I'm finally settling back into the office (and gearing up to face a mountain of laundry this weekend). The Friday Five seems a good way to start...

Name five things you like a lot that some close relative or significant other did/does not like. This could be food, movies, hobbies, music, sports or whatever springs to mind.

1. Tuna noodle casserole. This is my favorite comfort food, and my husband just doesn't like it. So I bake it whenever he's out of town (which isn't that often) and eat it for days. It's a very specific recipe, centering around the use of cream of mushroom soup. And peas. Now I'm hungry.

2. Symphony concerts. Again, not my husband's cup of tea; he's a basketball guy. But we keep learning to appreciate each other's passions, and I think the symphony is growing on him. We're starting off with pops concerts, mostly. Symphony lite.

3. Super Spicy Thai Food. Now this one husband and I fully agree on; it's my parents who aren't into the spicy stuff. For years, my brothers and I believed it was my dad whose taste buds preferred the bland, but we now suspect it might actually be our mom, who sort of blamed dad. Either way, I was delighted to marry someone who loves to bring on the red pepper flakes.

4. Reruns. I love to read and/or watch things over and over and over again. I'm not sure why this is (insert your psychological interpretation here). There's something comforting about it to me. So, for example, I can watch the same episode of certain shows - Sex & the City, Friends, or The Simpsons - a hundred times and still think they're hilarious. Husband does not get this. He thinks it's boring, and I'm sure he's not the only one. Perhaps I am too easily entertained. It works for books, too. I love to read certain favorites many times: Anne of Green Gables, anything by Agatha Christie (I usually go a few years inbetween readings so I forget who done it), and a few others.

5. Cleaning the bathroom. Most people hate this job. And it's not exactly my favorite use of free time, but there's something really satisfying about cleaning the bathroom. Of all the rooms in the house, it looks and smells the most "clean" when I'm done. That appeals to me. Again, I might be too easily entertained.

Joy to the World

About six months ago, I got a very nice email from a person in our synod office asking if I would be interested in leading a retreat on joy. This is a retreat for church staff people - not pastors, but anyone else who works on a church staff (and Lord knows, anyone who works with pastors needs to get away every once in awhile). At the time, I was on sabbatical, and drunk with joy most of the time, so I said yes to this kind request.

And six months went by, and I had gone back to work, and some crap hit the fan, and then all of a sudden it was past time to prepare for this retreat, and - oh man - then it was only a few days away, and I still wasn't sure what on earth to say about joy, other than my observation that joy seems a lot like sex: more fun to engage in than to talk about. But I wasn't sure if I could get away with that as my opening statement.

So now I'm at this retreat, and yes - in fact - it has been very joyful, and the session went just fine, mostly because this turns out to be a group of 40 women who could talk all day amongst themselves, and that makes for much easier small group discussion time.

At the suggestion of a wonderful professor whom I am privileged to know, I looked into joy in, of all biblical books, Ecclesiastes. Did you know that Ecclesiastes is sometimes called the Preacher of Joy? I've read Ecclesiastes before, and honestly, "joy" is not the emotion I would have associated with this book, but it turns out to be a fantastic resource. For one thing, it's very honest about the unfair and often seemingly random nature of human life. The righteous perish and the wicked flourish - what's with that? I work like a dog all my life, just to hand everything to my kids - and who's to say they won't bet it all at the track?

You could take this as a "Life's a bitch and then you die" sort of attitude, which is about how I'd read Ecclesiastes before. (It's pretty hard to keep typing Ecclesiastes, by the way. Just so you know.) But underneath all the lamenting is a worthy exhortation: go out and be joyful - eat, drink, and be merry - because ordinary life is the only place to find joy anyway.

As someone who has never had many mountaintop faith experiences, this was a freeing word for me. Joy is not just the spiritual highs, but can be found in the mundane, the ordinary, the seemingly meaningless bits of life. More importantly, if we spend all our lives trying to find some other source of joy, we are likely as not to stop paying real attention to our daily lives and realize, at the end, that all the ordinary stuff was what mattered most anyway.

God's gift to us is our ordinary lives. It's not easy to remember this, and it certainly doesn't meant that every single second of those ordinary lives is, by definition, a gift from God. But joy is our companion along the way. And if we wait until the big moments to look for it, we'll probably miss a thousand joyful seconds along the way.

Friday Five: Artsy Crafty

OK, here goes...

1. Would you call yourself "creative"? Why or why not?
Yes, I think I'm creative. I'm also a person who likes routine, so that's an odd combination. But I love to mess around with liturgical art and cooking (not liturgical cooking, just cooking), and painting. I think I might also be a secretly frustrated interior designer.

2. Share a creative or artistic pursuit you currently do that you'd like to develop further.
I learned to knit while I was on sabbatical - one of my primary goals - and I'd like to keep getting better at it. So far, I'm knitting baby stuff, which is mostly because those are small and hence quickly finished. I have about two-thirds of the sleeve of a sweater for me done too, but that's going slowly.

3. Share a creative or artistic pursuit you have never done but would like to try.
I've tried a little tiny bit of oil painting before, but never anything large. I'd love to try some kind of abstract oil painting.

4. Complete this sentence: "I am in awe of people who can _____________."
...be architects. I love to look at great architecture, but I can't get my mind around all the engineering involved. Them architects is smart.

5. Share about a person who has encouraged your creativity, who has "called you to your best self." (I'm pretty sure that's from the Gospel of Oprah.)
I really can't stand Oprah. But nevertheless, my mom is definitely the person who has encouraged my creativity the most. She's very creative herself, even though she always plays it down. What I love most about her is her total belief that she can do anything she tries. I think that's been one of her greatest gifts to me.

Damn Sinners

Disclaimer: I'm just bitching.

I realize that the church is, among other things, a gathering of sinners. And sinners tend to sin. And sometimes their sin gets in the way of being community. I have never been deceived about this, and I have never been overly romantic about the church; a lifetime of being in the church will teach you otherwise. So I get all that. But still...

Why don't people just freaking talk to you when they have a problem? Why do they sit on their concerns and get madder and madder, and fume silently - or complain to fifty other people - but never actually come to you and say, "hey pastor, I have a problem, let's talk about it"? Am I that unapproachable? Is the council, or the committee in question here, full of people that intimidating?

A certain person in my congregation feels that some changes in staff positions were not adequately explained to her. She has dealt with this by: 1.) Acting as if everything was fine when I talked to her, then 2.) Expressing her anger at me and the council to a few others who 3.) sort of indicated to me that she was a little upset but then 4.) she stopped talking to me altogether and now 5.) has left the congregation without ever saying what the problem was and 6.) has just written a letter that arrived on my desk this morning (hence this post) in which she complains that the church did not communicate directly with her.

First, I acknowledge that mistakes were made. I made some of them. But there were so many times when she could have said something to me. I talked to her, she said everything was fine. Believe it or not, "mindreading" is not a class offered in seminary. If you have a problem, you have to come and talk to me or I may never know about it. And then, when I don't act on it, it may not be because I am the queen bitch of all time - it may be because I don't freaking know about it.

It occurs to me that other organizations have similar problems, but that the church is a uniquely shitty place in which to deal with them. And today is one of the days when that is particularly true.

Yuck. I feel like I need an exorcism of these feelings. Perhaps this post will help; a whole lot of prayer is going to be the next thing I do.

What do you do when people are so deceptive? Because the other problem for me right now is that several times over the past two years, I've had what I believed to be private, pastoral conversations with people, in which I understood what they told me to be confidential. And then they went out and completely misrepresented what I said, or twisted it, or inaccurately reported it. So now I don't really trust being able to talk to people one-on-one about this stuff. I've been burned too many times, and frankly, that is a really uncomfortable feeling. Anyone have suggestions?

Friday Five: Companions on the Way

Dante had Virgil as a guide. Before he had younger siblings, my oldest child had an imaginary friend named Patrick. Betsy had Tacy. Laura Ingalls depended on her brindle bulldog, Jack. All of them were companions on the way.

As we take the beginning steps of our journey through Lent, who would we take as a companion? Name five people, real or imaginary, you might like to have with you as guide or guardian or simply good friend.

I just want to start this off by saying that the mention of Betsy and Tacy above makes me happy. I loved those books. Anne of Green Gables had Diana...there's another happy reference.

At any rate, here are my five at the moment (though I'm remembering an episode of Friends where everyone gets to list five famous people they would want to sleep with, and Ross laminates his list only to meet one of the women - Isabella Rossellini - who hadn't made the cut...perhaps a warning against being too certain about this list. Or a warning that I have watched Friends too many times. Probably the latter.):

1. L, best friend from seminary. I love this woman. She is one of my very favorite human beings on earth, and a great pastor in the bargain. She can speak the truth like no one else (this probably comes from being a Texan) and yet has a sense of the gospel like few others. Which reminds me, I really need to call her.

2. Barbara Brown Taylor. I wrote once before about my love-hate relationship with La Taylor. (Or La Brown Taylor.) I treasure her writings. She also, through absolutely no fault of her own, makes me feel like I can never measure up. But she has a wonderful little book of sermons called God in Pain which has been among my Lenten favorites for a few years, and I can't imagine Lent without it at this point. So I'm on the love end of the relationship today.

3. Martin Luther. I am not making this up. I am a Lutheran nerd. I just think he would be fascinating to meet, and there's something about the penitential aspect of Lent which makes me think Martin would be a good guy to have along for these forty days. Have to settle for something written.

4. My own piano. Okay, I'm taking liberties with the idea of "companion" at this point, but I really would cherish having my own piano, in my house. Playing is one of the things that allows me to express myself in ways that words sometimes cannot do. Playing is often a form of prayer for me. And although the church has a lovely piano, which I adore playing, it's almost never the case that I'm alone while I play, which is a central part of the spiritual aspect for me. Maybe my literary partner in coveting this is Beth from Little Women. I know just how she felt when Mr. Lawrence gave her his daughter's piano, and she cried with joy. I get that.

5. Baby/Fetus/Zygote/Insert Correct Scientific Term Here. You caught me - this one has almost nothing to do with Lent. Or just plain nothing, really. But trying to have a child for a year and then some has given me a constant ache of yearning for a child, and the season of the church year doesn't change that. Lately, when I see a pregnant woman, I think about her child as a companion - someone who is with her (whether she wants this or not!) all the time, who suffers when she suffers, who goes where she goes. That's a huge burden, as well as a huge joy. I realize how much I want that sort of companion (which, if I remember my linguistics correctly, is a word that comes from "sharing bread" - certainly something pregnant women and their children do every second of the day). And just because it's Lent doesn't mean I am going to give up thinking about this for forty days. I couldn't if I tried, at this point. The yearning is a companion. I'm ready to move on to that for which I yearn.

Ashes to Ashes

The Seattle Times' website has an interesting article today called Where do Churches get all the Ashes? If I know what I'm doing, which I don't, at least when it comes to creating links, you can find it here.

I happily admit that yes, I purchase our ashes from the local Catholic bookstore. I have absolutely no guilt about this.

I'm more intrigued by a quote in the midst of the article, where a professor at Loyola Marymount claims that most Catholic churches have replaced, "remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return," with the less-offensive, "turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel."

I can understand the impulse toward that sort of spin. Seriously - who wants a blunt, direct, no-soft-edges reminder that you're going to die? Someone asked at a bible study the other day - a study on Job - whether we still say, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord" at funerals. (Somehow, this is one of those verses which really requires the King James for full effect.) No, I said. Now we focus on baptism; we have died with Christ, and so we shall be raised with him. "That's good," she said. "That's more positive." Maybe, I thought.

Any preacher worth his or her salt knows that we live in a culture obsessed with ignoring death, and there's no need for me to go into great detail about it. My favorite small example of this is the fact that so few obituaries actually say that the person died. "Grandma Smith went on to a better life," or "Jim is now with the angels," or "Elaine departed this life on..." One of the few direct requests I have made about my own obituary is that it says, flat out, K died on said day. This probably gives you a clue as to my feelings on "turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel"'s coup over "remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return."

Last Sunday's Transfiguration gospel used that "departure" language for Jesus' death. As I understand it, that word would be better translated "exodus," and - as Barbara Brown Taylor puts it in a Christian Century article here, "with Moses standing right there, the parallel is hard to miss." For Jesus, death is something he is not only going to suffer, but an event he is going to accomplish - and it's not just Elijah and Moses being polite on the mountain, trying to talk around the fact of his eventual, brutal, death. This death has a meaning and purpose that no other human death ever has, or ever will. On the other hand, our feeble attempts to pretend that death is a force under our control certainly does little to connect our quite ordinary deaths with Jesus' extraordinary one.

The thing I love best about Ash Wednesday is exactly the brutal honesty of that simple verse: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." It gets to me every year, standing up in the front of the church smearing (purchased) ashes on oily, bumpy, wrinkled foreheads. I make the sign of the cross on a man who is living with a brain tumor that is scheduled to kill him in the next five years. I make another cross on the forehead of his nine-year old son. I make a cross on the forehead of a woman whose husband of sixty years died last spring, and she is still barely able to mention his name without weeping. I make another cross on the forehead of a tow-headed toddler who has no idea what I am doing. Finally, someone makes the sign of the cross on me, and there we are - a bunch of dying sinners for whom the only lasting truth is this: the one who died on the sign we carry, who took our death into his own body, is the only one who knows the truth about us all, and who has promised to lift us out of the grave one day and lead us into the promised land.

Why would you want to substitute that kind of pure, unadulterated grace with the command to "be faithful to the gospel"? Don't misunderstand me - I'm all for the reminder. But Ash Wednesday is not about the kind of life you lead - it's about the kind of death that is going to find us all, one of these days, and facing that truth. It's like saying to someone, "I love you," only to have them say back, "and I love spending time with you." This is not satisfying. It's a pale imitation of your desire.

I don't normally wallow in meditations on my own mortality (or anyone else's). Lent is not, for me, a season of perpetual self-flagellation. But if you can't tell, and hear, the truth at the beginning of the whole thing, what's the point?

Only if you know you are dust can you hear the good news of Ezekiel's valley of dry bones. Only if you say you are dust can you listen as God breathes life into the earth and makes of it an earthling in Genesis 1. Only if you say, "I am dust," can you hear the stone rolling away from the tomb, raining gravel bits down onto the empty grave. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. No matter where you found the ashes.

Friday Five: The Tourist Edition

I am downtown on retreat this week. Most of the retreatants are from out of town, so I get to experience this place through the eyes of visitors. So in the spirit of tourism:

1. What is one place you make sure to take out-of-town guests when they visit? (you can be vague to preserve your anonymity if you like) The local falls is beautiful, especially in spring - but even in the glittery ice of winter. So we tend to take people there. Our friends from small towns usually want to go shopping downtown too.

2. When visiting another city or town, do you try to cram as much in as possible, or take it slow and easy? After a childhood of "see it all as quickly as possible" tourism, I'm more of a slow-and-easy gal.

3. When traveling, where are we most likely to find you: strolling through a museum, checking out the local shopping, or _________________? I would like to say that you'll find me at a museum, or thoughtfully wandering through some park, or experiencing the lesser-known attractions. But honestly, you'll usually find me shopping.

4. Do you like organized tours and/or carefully planned itineraries, or would you rather strike out and just see what happens? Depends. When I traveled to Israel, we were on a strict itinerary - and that was just fine. If it's a place I've been before, I like to wander on my own.

5. After an extended trip, what do you find yourself craving most about home? My bed. I love my bed.

Oh Baby

First, I've been completely flattened by the flu for the past week, so I'm just now struggling to my feet and finding my desk full of even more stuff to be done. (Lent! Aack!) And yet today my mind is stuck in a familiar rut.

It started when I commented on a post linked to Rev Gals, asking for advice about a sermon. On the site, the question was an abstract one: can you preach about something you haven't experienced? More to the point, since preachers do that all the time, can you do so with appropriate grace and humility?

It's an interesting question, so I hit the link, and discovered that the topic at hand was infertility. The author was asking whether it would be okay for her to bring this up in a sermon, even to focus on it, when it's something she has not experienced for herself. I wrote a mini-response to her. And I've been thinking about it the rest of the day.

I have two distinct perspectives on this (possibly three, but let's start with the two). First, my perspective as a preacher.

The first five years of my pastoral life I spent as a single person. And I had all kinds of people - even though they never meant to, I realize - question whether or not I could really preach about family things, parenting, children, marriage, when I hadn't experienced those things for myself. I do have a family, I would insist: I didn't just spring from the loins of the earth. But, nevertheless, I get their point. I'm guessing that they've been lectured at, by the church and its esteemed representatives, about family life - and they're sick of it, and they don't want to hear about having a good marriage from single-girl. I didn't really want to preach on that anyway, so it never mattered much.

I'm reading a book on torture and the eucharist. (I realize this sounds like an impossible stretch - give me a second.) The author traces the use of torture in Chile, and sees it as the liturgy of the state: the state's attempt to atomize people, separate them completely from one another, in order to demonstrate and solidify its power. His call is for the church not to submit to that, or allow that sort of power to run unchecked, but to enact its own liturgy of connectedness and life as a counter to torture. It's not a complicated book, but it's hard to sum up.

And the point for this blog is this: that, in Christ, we are all connected to one another in the church - to one another's joys, and to one another's sufferings. So yes, in that way, I can preach about something I have not experienced myself, because it is part of the experience of my whole body, the Church. And part of being ourselves before God is honesty about the range of human suffering and joy.

But my other perspective is as a woman struggling to conceive. And here I have some different ideas. For one, I cannot at this point imagine getting up in the pulpit and confessing anything about my own fertility problems. That is simply way, way too much vulnerability for me. And I know that my journey with this is not half as complicated or long as that of others, so even my own experience does not guarantee the right sort of sensitivity, or "stupid-proof" me from saying something that would hurt another person.

I know that I need to know I am not alone. And I know that one of the great things the church can do is provide a community of people who are probably struggling with a million things they will never say out loud. I know I need to hear that all things are possible with God, and yet I need to hear that God is still with us when nothing works out the way we thought.

This is such holy ground, and I hardly know what to say about it. How can I be so angry at God one day, and so hopeful the next? How can I be so utterly convinced that we'll never have a baby one week, and so totally convinced that we will the next? Where else can I go but the church, to be honest before myself and God? Who else will tell me, if not the church, that I am loved so deeply in all my imperfections, by a God who knows all about the wilderness?

As a preacher, I continually realize afresh the power of my words - a power I frequently wish to abdicate, actually, since it turns out that people really are listening to what I say. I want to be responsible with that power. I want to say something out loud about infertility. I just don't know what it is, and I doubt it's going to be about myself.

Friday Five: American Idols

I have never seen American Idol. But somehow I don't think that will stand in the way of answering the questions...

1) If I could sing like anyone, it would be Aretha Franklin. She is awesome. AWESOME.

2) I would love to sing the song "Chain of Fools," by Ms. Franklin the Awesome. Or one of many Broadway show tunes that I also love: Eponine's ballad in Les Miserables, or "How Could I Ever Know" from The Secret Garden, or "All That Jazz" from Chicago (man, I would kill to play Velma Kelly).

3) It would be really cool to sing on Broadway.

4) If I could sing a dream duet it would be with Sting. If I could insert myself into an existing duet, I'd love to sing with the Indigo Girls. If there were room in a trio for one more, then I'd go for the Dixie Chicks.

5) If I could sing on a TV or radio show, it would be Prairie Home Companion, I guess. TV and radio aren't my interest. I'd go for Broadway or the movies anytime.

Collar This...

A new blog with this title appeared on Rev Gal Blog Pals this week (heretofore unnoticed by me, having been in a flu-induced stupor for the past four days). Here it is. I feel like I have stumbled upon the most narrowly-defined-and-exactly-what-I-needed support group ever.

Which has inspired the following brief thoughts on clergy shirts for women.

1. Not every clergy woman wants any of the following: awkward boob darts, puffed sleeves (unless you are Anne of Green Gables, these went out some time ago), or pink.

2. As mentioned in a comment on Collar This, the ratio of chest-to-neck for women is not the same as that for men.

3. It would be nice to have color choices which are not always a.) black, or b.) pastel. I am either the Angel of Death or the Easter Bunny, apparently.

4. Not all clergy women are...busty. Enough said.

5. Why do these things have to cost eighty bucks? Seriously? How hard can this be?

6. Why can't someone come up with a decent pattern for a clergy shirt? Can we work on this? I will pay eighty bucks for that, if I can make my own and choose my own colors (I really want a red one for Reformation Sunday).

There is, then, the whole discussion of whether and when to wear clergy shirts at all. Personally, I stick with a strict Sundays/Funerals/Weddings plan. I find it helps me to remember what my role is on those days. I can see why people choose to wear a collar daily, if that's their reason too. Out here in the West, most people are so informal that a daily collar would probably be more off-putting than anything else, and you have to read your context.

But a few years ago I heard Robert Jenson talk about why he wears a collar all the time. It used to irritate me to no end to see pastors wearing collars among groups of other pastors. You're a pastor - we know, we get it, I would think. It felt like a power play. Jenson talked about the humility he felt the collar gave him (and Jenson is not famous for his humility in general, I'd say, which is OK, since he is about as damn smart as any human being on the planet). His was an extremely beautiful and thoughtful rationale for the collar, and it made me think about wearing mine more often. So far, I haven't.

It obviously makes you more public. I think that was part of what Jenson talked about: that his life in the world, as pastor, was to be a sign and symbol of Christ, and you can't really do that in secret. I wonder if there are some gender differences here. In my area o' the world, people are still getting used to female pastors, and one in a collar doesn't necessarily make any sense to them. It's like seeing a giraffe wearing a dress, or something; there's no category for it.

I still think my problems would be solved if I could find clergy shirts that actually fit.

How many Lutherans...

...does it take to change a light bulb? (Totally obvious, rather un-funny answer: "Change? What do you mean, change?")

In that spirit, here's the Friday Five:

Change is a given in life, yet it's not easy for any of us. So strap on your seat belts and let's talk about it:


1. Share, if you wish, the biggest change you experienced this past year.
Hmmm. I went on sabbatical for three months and came back much more ambivalent about my call to parish ministry. I didn't really see that coming; I thought I'd return totally energized and ready to go. I'm not leaving, I just realized some things about myself.

2. Talk about a time you changed your mind about something, important or not.
After the first few dates with my now-husband, I had decided that we probably weren't all that compatible and I'd have to break up with him. So, the next week, I gave him this half-true story about not being over my last semi-boyfriend (there's a whole story behind the "semi" part, but that's for another time). And he responded with such kindness and wisdom that I thought, "you know, there might be something more to this guy." And I decided not to break up with him. We were married less than a year later.

3. Bishop John Shelby Spong wrote a controversial book called "Why Christianity Must Change or Die." Setting aside his ideas--what kind of changes would you like to see in the Church?
I would like the church to welcome gay and lesbian partnered folk into the ministry. I would like the church to have the guts to say, "we're not going to spend the next fifty years talking only about sex," and move on with big discussions about ministry, mission, and scripture. I would like the church (and I'm thinking about us crazy liberals) to stand up to the right-wing and say, "you do not speak for us. Ever." Just a few things.

4. Have you changed your hairstyle/hair color in the last five years? If so, how many times?
Absolutely, though not drastically. I color the grey stuff regularly (though after a few instances in the last two weeks of being mistaken for a college student, I might stop). I love changing my hair.

5. What WERE they thinking with that New Coke thing?
Money, honey. Truthfully: I never tried it. I'm a coffee girl.

Images of God

I'm working on some retreat session that I'll be leading this weekend for about 100 junior high kids. One of the things we'll explore is the variety of images the bible gives us for God. I've started a small collection here - but if you have more to add, please comment! (Many are images with numerous references; here, I've chosen one representative.)

God is...
Shield (Psalm 3)
Fortress (Psalm 46)
Potter...and Father (Isaiah 64:8)
King (Psalm 47)
Eagle (Psalm 91)
Maggots and Rottenness (Hosea 5:12)
Farmer (Isaiah 5:1-7)
Lion (Hosea 5:14)
Dwelling place, or Home (Psalm 90)
Rock (Psalm 18)
Warrior...and horse (Exodus 15:1-10)
Light (Psalm 27)
Shepherd (Psalm 23)
Parent...mother, I think (Hosea 11:1-4)
Vinegrower (John 15)
Father (Matthew 6:9-13)
Fire...and soap (Malachi 3:1-4)
Mother (Isaiah 66:12-14)

And if you count Jesus, then there are many more...
Bread of life (John 6)
Vine (John 15)
Child (Luke 2)
Mother hen (Luke 13:31-34)
Light (John 8)
Good shepherd (John 10)
Gate (John 10)
Resurrection and life (John 11)
Serpent (John 3)

Here's one last that doesn't exactly fit into the "image" category: "On that day the Lord will whistle for the fly that is at the sources of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria" (Isaiah 7:18). God whistles!

Such is a hint of the biblical witness. Why are our imaginations about God so limited?

Quote of the Day

Try to love the questions themselves...at present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Letters to a Young Poet

Disappointment

Oh, man. I'm not going into detail as to preserve my anonymity here, but suffice it to say that the person to whom we had offered a new staff position - a position which has caused some heartache in the congregation, over which we have suffered some conflict, and which has been damn near seven years in the making - turned us down. And not only that, but turned us down after we flew said person out here and said person gave us a verbal "yes" to the job.

Sometimes this work is bitterly disappointing.

I wish I had something more theological to say. Lament psalm, anyone?

Oh Say Can You See

Here's the thing.

Most of the time, the property committee at my church is a bit on the slow side. This is a pain when it comes to things like clogged toilets and simple repair jobs. It's a handy way of assisting me in my procrastination to deal with things that I just don't want to deal with. No excuses there. Just the truth.

So we have this flagpole outside our sanctuary doors. It's been leaning for the past seven years I've been here, and no one ever really talked seriously about fixing it. It only came up every so often, when someone would ask why we didn't have a flag, and I'd say, "well, the flagpole is leaning and there's no light on the flag, so we can't have it up all night, and we don't have someone to raise it up and down every day." We do have a giant American flag (right next to a giant "Christian flag," which, to be honest, I had never heard of until I came here...) in our coffee-hour area. But we have no flag in the sanctuary, which is my personal line-in-the-sand. Beyond here lie monsters, that sort of thing. I figured, as long as the flagpole is broken, and we have the gigantoid flag inside, we're good. No worries.

But then the property committee started speeding things up. Things are getting fixed, which is nice. Including the flagpole. Hmmm.

I'm happy to be American. I'm not overly happy with the direction of America. I realize this country is much more than the sum of its current leaders. And my father-in-law, a career military, Air Force, Base Commander guy, has some criticism of the current administration - so I feel okay about having similar criticisms myself. (Not that he and I should be talking about politics on a regular basis. We still have less in common than that which divides.)

But the whole flag/church thing troubles me. For now, I've decided that as long as no one tries to get any kind of flag anywhere near the sanctuary, I'm going to leave it alone. This is not the hill I'm going to die on, as one of my parishoners would say.

You know what bothers me the most? Two things. One, that flying the flag makes me sad. I should be proud to fly it in all my liberal glory, and claim that symbol for my left-wing voting, gay-rights supporting, women-preacher loving, pro-choice, anti-war, despise-this-president, place-way-too-much-hope-on-Barack-Obama self.

The second thing is that so many people equate faithfulness and patriotism. And that these are generally the folks who also equate no-badmouthing-the-president with patriotism. It's a sort of twisted problem you find on the SAT's: all patriots should support the war. All Christians should be patriots. Therefore, all Christians should support the war.

Flags are powerful symbols. It occurs to me that, when you stand on the corner and look at my church building, you see two powerful symbols: a huge cross, and a pretty big flag. All I can do is remember which one points me in the right direction, no matter who the president is. And hope that the worship, preaching, teaching, and fellowship of this place will help us all remember where our hope really lies.

But I still wish the property committee was a little slower.

Good Book

Every once in awhile, you find a really good book. The latest one to arrive on my desk - a recommendation from our youth & family minister - is called The Dogs of Babel. I love to read good writing, even (especially?) when it has nothing directly to do with work. I'm only about halfway through, though I've gotten there in the last two hours. And I realize that "the story of a grieving man who tries to make his dog, the only witness to his wife's death, capable of speech" is a strange tagline for a book. But it's worth reading. Check it out.

Pink Velvet Joy

Yesterday was my birthday. And my husband, my darling husband, gave me exactly what I wanted: the DVD set of the entire series of Sex and the City, in a special pink velvet box.

I realize that I probably should have wanted something more like the complete works of Luther, or at least the complete DVD set of Seventh Heaven.

Nope. Pink velvet joy, baby.

Friday Five: A List

Today's task is to list five living people, whom I may or may not know personally, but whom I admire. Hmmm....

5. This young woman in my parish who shall remain anonymous. She came in to talk to me the other day about her faith. Not having grown up with any kind of church background, she feels pretty lost in the whole faith thing but has an astounding stubbornness to tackle it head-on. I admire that a lot. I admire her willingness to admit what she doesn't know.

4. Jimmy Carter. Best. Ex-President. Ever.

3. Terence Fretheim. My very favorite seminary professor. Great teacher, great passion for the bible, great asker-of-interesting-questions, and unbelievably good at remembering people's names. Super smart, but always makes you feel like you are just as important as anyone else. I aim to be the kind of teacher he is.

2. My husband. (He could also be listed at number 1: we have a tie here, really.) I have always admired his ability not to take everything personally. This is a gift I most assuredly do not have. Not that he's uncaring, but simply that he can hear a criticism, agree or disagree with it, and move on. He doesn't stew in many things the way I do.

1. My parents. (See disclaimer above.) These are people who take their faith seriously, but who are humble about it. I really admire the fact that they keep wanting to learn new things, that they're willing to re-think old assumptions. How devoted they are to their church, for all the right reasons. And how they want to challenge that same church, for all the right reasons.

It feels good to think about these people. Not a bad assignment for a Friday.

To the Pain

Remember that scene from The Princess Bride? At the end, when Wesley is laying paralyzed in bed, and the Prince comes in, ready to kill him, and Wesley dares him to a duel. "To the death!" says the Prince. "No, to the pain," says Wesley, and goes into this long description of how he will cut off the prince's hands, and his feet, and gouge out his eyes..."and my ears, fine, I get it," says the prince. But Wesley replies, "No; I will leave your ears, so that every scream of every child who sees your hideous form will ring in your head forever." And the prince gives up.

I'm teaching a class on Job, and this week we're taking on Job's first friend, Eliphaz. Whose first speech to Job basically involves the idea that Job is being tested, or disciplined, by God. Apparently, to the pain, since God has ruled out "to the death" in the prologue. ("Just don't kill him," God says to the Accuser.)

So I googled the phrase, "God never gives us more than we can handle," my nominee for "least helpful phrase ever uttered to a suffering person." And I found a few things. Oddly, I also found a link to something about Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy. Not sure what the connection was there.

And I looked up "test" and "discipline" in my concordance. Most of what falls under "test" comes from a few things in the Old Testament about God testing Israel. There are some laments not to be tested in the Psalms. And there's a bunch of "don't put the Lord your God to the test" from the gospels.

"Discipline" pops up in Hebrews. Those verses, combined with some "testing" stuff from James, are what's really bothering me at the moment. Because I have a really hard time with this whole idea. It all comes off a lot like God saying, "this hurts me more than it hurts you." It feels highly oppressive; an idea easily abused to silence those who are suffering.

It sure bothers me in my own life. Is God sending us infertility to "test" us? To "discipline" us? (I wouldn't argue that I could use more discipline, but this doesn't seem particularly helpful as a teaching method.) Does God send cancer, or famine, or hurricanes, or political turmoil - you fill in the blank - to "test" us?

This is an area where I feel the need to remove my shoes. We are standing on holy ground, and I am full of the fear of the Lord - in its straightforward, terrified, sense. The only testing story which gives me any hope is of Jesus in the wilderness, turning down the temptations of Satan in favor of a modest, fully human life. That Jesus is the one with me in my suffering.

I am not sure, however, that I am ready to believe any of it is a test. I wonder what people will have to say on Sunday. Should be interesting.

A Word on Epiphany, One Day Early

The foolishness of the wise is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than by the way the three Magi went to Herod the Great, King of the Jews, to find out the whereabouts of the child who had just been born King of the Jews to supplant him. It did not even strike them as suspicious when Herod asked them to be sure to let him know when they found him so he could hurry on down to pay his respects.

Luckily for the holy child, after the three Magi had followed their star to the manger and left him their presents, they were tipped off in a dream to avoid Herod like the plague on their way home.

Herod was fit to be tied when he realized he'd been had and ordered the murder of every male child two years old and under in the district. For all his enormous power, he knew there was somebody in diapers more powerful still. The wisdom of the foolish is perhaps nowhere better illustrated.

From Listening to Your Life, a devotional book by Frederich Buechner.

Friday Five: Birthday, Redux

This Friday Five is great because I have a January birthday too! I'm still waiting for mine. Now I'm really in the mood for a celebration...

1. "It's my party and I'll [blank] if I want to..."
My favorite way to celebrate my birthday? Lately, just dinner out with my husband and a great friend (and her husband) - both the women have January birthdays, so we call it our BIRTHDAY EXTRAVAGANZA (it's important to say this in all capital letters).

2. "You say it's your birthday... it's my birthday too, yeah..."
Yep, I share my birthday with someone famous: Martin Luther King, Jr. I have always been illogically proud of this - illogical because I, of course, had nothing to do with choosing my birthday. But I'm honored to be associated in any super small way with Dr. King, so I'll take it.

3. "Lordy Lordy look who's forty..."
Milestone birthdays...require a milestone celebration, in my opinion. I guess my next milestone will be 40, but that's a ways off still. But why ignore your great years? I say, pull out all the stops and party.

4. "Happy birthday, dear... Customer..."
Have I been sung to in a restaurant? Yes. When I was 10, and my parents took us to a local restaurant where they made balloon crowns for the birthday kid's head. It was fantastic then. I no longer crave this, however.

5. "Take my birthday--please"
One advantage of my birthday: see comments on MLK Jr. above. Disadvantage: petty, but true...it's awfully close to Christmas. I get all my presents in a 20-day period. Then that's it. Which is no big deal when you're my current age, but as a kid, it's a bummer.

Job (as in, The Book of) + Happy = Odd

I am so excited because I start teaching an adult class this Sunday on Job. It seems strange to me that "Job" and "excited" are in the same sentence, but nevertheless, there it is. I find Job completely fascinating. Stephen Mitchell's recent translation (called simply, The Book of Job) is great. We're starting with the introduction and Job's first raging response in chapter three this week. Good stuff.

And it's always interesting to me to hear what parishoners bring to the table. Cliche aside, I undoubtedly learn as much from them as I am ever able to offer. Particularly around issues of suffering and grief, and hope in the midst of them.

I wrote earlier about a list of items called "Wisdom for Pastors," by Krister Stendahl. Here's the one that's making the most sense for me today:

Be aware that you are not the only medium of the Word; God's Word will also echo to you from the hearts and minds of those you are to serve and shepherd.

This is most certainly true.

Mindfulness

Let me preface this by saying that the following is not a New Year's resolution. Having only ever kept one such resolution in my entire life - a commitment, when I was about 15, to put lotion on my hands every day - I no longer practice this form of discipline. I do, however, think the following is a really good idea which needs to be incorporated into my life, and happens upon me at the start of a new year. Disclaimer noted.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that my husband and I have been trying to have a baby. In spite of all warnings by my 8th grade health teacher, it turns out that this process is not as easy - for us - as one would have anticipated. I know the struggle to conceive is mightily distracting for me. So I have been trying to face it head on. I have been trying to admit that, after one year, we are officially in the "infertile zone." Which doesn't mean we'll be there forever, but there's no longer any point in denying the problem.

I found a book the other day on infertility, written to help women with the "mind-body connection," and trying to encourage practices which help stem the panicking tide of "we'll never have a baby!" One of the disciplines mentioned was that of mindfulness. For some reason, this particular chapter struck me as deeply important.

Of course I don't have the book in front of me - I never have the book in front of me when I'm writing things like this - but the author talked about how much of the time we spend anticipating the next bend around the corner. For women struggling to conceive, you're always waiting for the next thing: the next time you'll ovulate, the next time it will be well-timed to have sex, the next time you might get your period. You skip over the present moment with worries about what might, or will, be.

I do this in my church work too. I am never content when things are going well, just waiting for the next crisis. And in the midst of the crisis, I am waiting for the next person to get angry. My anxiety has become almost overwhelming. I usually live at a sort of low-grade anxiety level - a kind of yellow-alert-stage thing, if the government were grading me - but even I have noticed that it is getting really, really bad. Time to do something about that.

Mindfulness is the intentional focusing on this moment. The sound of the keys as I type. The sound of the guitar as it plays on NPR in my office. The taste of the decaf (stupid infertility) latte I drank in the car this morning. This moment. Not the next day, not the next week, not the next time I will have to buy tampons, not the next person who gets mad about the liturgy I chose for Advent.

Of course, Jesus already said, "Today's trouble is enough for today." Damn, that man was wise. I think I will try that for awhile. See how that goes. It's helping already, I can tell you that. I'm sure I will fail regularly. But there I go again, anticipating something too far ahead. For right now, my office is warm. There is snow outside. It is time for Performance Today on the radio. And that is enough.

Procrastinating with the Friday Five

I SO should be working on the Christmas Day sermon right now. I should also be writing that very last sentence for the Christmas Eve one - but I always get stuck on that last bit, so I'm procrastinating with holiday food questionnaires...

1. Favorite cookie/candy/baked good without which, it's just not Christmas. Spritz and Peparkakor; both Swedish cookies, both Grandma's recipes. Must have both. Pretty much anything with almond flavoring, actually.

2. Do you do a fancy dinner on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, both, or neither? My lovely in-laws host Christmas Day: this year I put my claim on Thanksgiving, which is about the only major holiday a pastor can host. Not much church involved. Then we head 300 miles west after Christmas to have another celebration with my family. Two Christmases! Gotta love it.

3. Evaluate one or more of the holiday beverage trifecta: hot chocolate, wassail, egg nog. I'm going to add another: Glogg, the Swedish version of mulled wine. More like everything-you've-got-in-your-liquor-cabinet-plus-cloves. You can get drunk off the fumes. Not that I do that.

4. Candy canes: do you like all the new-fangled flavors or are you a peppermint purist? Not a cane fan in general. But I say, stick with the classic. Nobody liked New Coke, either.

5. Have you ever actually had figgy pudding? And is it really so good that people will refuse to leave until they are served it? I cannot imagine that anything called "figgy pudding" is that great. But I have had a good fruitcake, so all things really are possible.

Same Old, Same Old

This is the greatest challenge of preaching on the Christmas story for me; that familiarity breeds contempt. And the particular sort of familiarity people have (including me, by the way) with the Christmas story makes it difficult to break through with something new. I trust that God is always doing something new, even through my preaching, but when it comes to preaching on a story everybody knows, that's hard stuff. Last year, a former colleague told me my sermon "sounded too much like last year's." When I vented about that comment to another colleague, he replied, "hey - Jesus gets born every year. How new can you get?"

On my bookshelf, above my desk, is a list called Wisdom for Pastors, written by Krister Stendahl. One of the pieces advised is this: "you shall not think you already know the message; pray, ponder, be still, and listen." Here's the one right below that: "don't underestimate the power of the Word by not waiting for it to speak."

He is so right about that, and yet during a week when - in perfect irony - there seems to be no time to wait for anything, how is there time to wait for the Word to speak? What if the Word has nothing to say until Monday morning? Too late then.

Simply a bit of homiletical venting, I suppose. There will be something to say - that, God has promised. And I could certainly tune up my listening. Wouldn't that be a change?

Late Friday Five

Somehow, I was not getting the right page on Rev Gals, so I missed the Friday five. But here goes, even if it's now the Tuesday five...

1) It's a Wonderful Life--Is it? Do you remember seeing it for the first time?
I never actually saw it until high school. And loved it immediately. My favorite scene is still the dance on the oops-there's-a-pool-under-there floor.

2) Miracle on 34th Street--old version or new?
Embarassingly, the new one. Mara Wilson is adorable. And truthfully, I've never seen the old one all the way through.

3) Do you have a favorite incarnation of Mr. Scrooge?
Not really. I'm big on the Muppets, though.

4) Why should it be a problem for an elf to be a dentist? I've been watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for years now, and I still don't get it.
You'd think all that Christmas candy would make for high dentistry need among elves.

5) Who's the scariest character in Christmas specials/movies?
Jim Carrey's version of the Grinch. But not scary in a good way; scary in the fact that he looks like crap.

Thoughts on Sunday's Sermon

Two disclaimers: one, in an unusual move, we are not following the Advent lectionary texts this year. We're reading through Luke 1 consecutively, so this week we pick up with the Magnificat. And two, the following by no means constitutes an actual sermon. Hey - it's only Thursday! Just some leanings.

Paired with the Magnificat is Hannah's song in 1 Samuel. The two women echo one another; or, more accurately time-wise, Mary echoes Hannah. One woman who has waited a lifetime to bear a child, the other who is barely a child herself.

What I will not preach on is the secret sisterhood between myself and Hannah. My husband and I are trying to conceive our first child, and we have been at this for a year. While I am not quite in the same league as Sarah (nor is my husband "as good as dead," as Paul so kindly describes Abraham), I know the waiting...and the waiting is more than hard. It raises questions that have no answers. It causes pain that has no cure. It breaks my heart almost beyond repair. It makes me anxious beyond words of comfort. And - most heartbreaking and yet life-giving of all - it does not quench hope. I doubt I have yet waited as long as Hannah. But I know a bit of her grief.

What I will preach on, I think, is something less private and more commonly known this season. A few weeks ago, my congregation held its annual Christmas hymnsing/talent show/reason to eat chocolate in disturbing quantities. (Though a self-described Advent Nazi, I find this Sunday afternoon event takes the edge off of the "no Christmas carols on Sunday mornings during Advent" rule). One soloist sang a piece called, "Going Home for Christmas," and yes - it was every bit as sappy as its title suggests. But I was sitting next to a woman I know to be undergoing a devastating divorce, and watching a woman across the aisle whose husband recently died, and thinking about a friend whose father died at the age of 58 on All Saints' Day, and thinking, "why the hell are we listening to this song at church? What about people for whom home is painful, or non-existent, or life-draining, or horrible in some other way? What about those for whom 'going home' suggests pain beyond measure? Shouldn't this worship space be a place of honesty, where we do not pretend that home is always Norman-Rockwellian?"

The desire to 'go home' at Christmas is indeed strong. Living some 300 miles away from my own family, I understand it. Yet Hannah and Mary do not sing about keeping the dear traditions, about returning to places of calm and peace, about Mother at the cookstove and stockings on the mantel. Their songs are of reversal, of turning the world upside-down, of disturbing the calm and breaking the traditions.

I'm not sure where this is going, entirely, except that "going home for Christmas" does not seem to be much of a biblical idea. My grandmother - I did not know this for years - always hated the song, "I'll Be Home For Christmas." She hated it because it came out during World War II, during which her brother was serving in France. She hated it because she did not know if her brother would ever come home for Christmas, and the song did not comfort her; it taunted her with an assurance she did not have.

God's ideas about "home for Christmas" are quite different than ours. Perhaps, if God indeed is our home, we ought to rethink the whole thing.

Hey, thanks!

To all who commented on earlier posts - thanks, truly, for the wonderful welcome to Rev Gals. It's so lovely to have others who resonate with the struggles and joys of ministry. Hospitality - even electronic hospitality - is always a gift. Seriously....thanks!

"Slow-Motion Grace," Indeed...

Sometimes you find an article, or hear a sermon or a song, or read a book, or even hear a passing comment, that speaks perfectly to you in that moment. Such is L. Gregory Jones' wonderful piece in the latest Christian Century. "Slow-motion grace," it's called.

He writes of Jayber Crow, the main character in Wendell Berry's novel of the same name. First off, I love Wendell Berry. Score one for Jones. But more than that, it is the piece of the storyline around which this article revolves - the enmity between Jayber and Troy, the man who married the girl Jayber loves - which strikes me to the core.

I wrote in an earlier post about church conflict, which continues into another week. I wrote that I hate church conflict, and this is still true. Something in me desires peace almost - almost - at any cost, and I particularly loathe being...well, loathed. It is distasteful, and disturbing, and more to the real point, it hurts. It hurts a great deal.

But the problem is that I can switch so quickly from hating the conflict to hating the person at its center. And though some of that is simply a natural human reaction, self-protection perhaps, it is nonetheless exactly the opposite of what Jesus calls us into, of what Jesus lived. I am no fan of the phrase, "Hate the sin, love the sinner," as it too often lends itself to a poisonous self-righteousness. But how shall we live together when we not only disagree, but do so painfully? And when the conflict is not clean and clear (as it rarely is), but hidden and vicious? What then?

All I have today are two quotes, the first from Berry:

Of all the trials I have experienced, [Troy] was the hardest. He was the trial that convicted me over and over again. I did not like him. I could not like him. Maybe I didn't need to like him, but I needed at least not to dislike him, and I did thoroughly dislike him. I also enjoyed disliking him. In his presence I was the perfect absence, the night shadow, of the charity that I sought for and longed for.

And the second from Jones:


....it is not enough simply to understand God's love in Christ, or even to absorb it into one's soul. It must be lived in the company of others; one must cultivate a way of life that bears witness to love through membership in a community.

Somehow, I doubt that I will live this vision today. But to have it before me is enough for now.

Letting It Go

So I'm joining the Rev Gals blog ring. Which is a way of being more public (in a deeply private, totally anonymous way) with this blog - and a way of being more accountable to myself, at least, for posting more often. And I already have the "Does This Pulpit Make My Butt Look Big?" mug, so I'm ready to go.

Angry Eyes

Toy Story is one of my favorite movies. Not that I watch it a lot, but I always enjoy it when I do see it. I love the sly humor hidden inside a basically-harmless children's movie. Like when Mrs. Potato Head is helping Mr. Potato Head pack for some toy adventure out in the world, and she says, "I've packed your angry eyes...just in case."

I am in full possession of my angry eyes at the moment, though I am trying to keep them hidden away in my backpack rather than frighten innocent bystanders. I hate church conflict. I hate it. I hate feeling like people are talking behind my back (because they are). I hate it when people won't just come to me and tell me what the problem is so we can work on it. I hate it when they behave like children and then expect me to just...what? Turn the other cheek?

Crap. There's the rub. How do you know when it's time to turn the other cheek, and when it's time to do something for the sake of the whole community? And yes, I realize that Jesus did not offer any exceptions to the "turn the other cheek" thing, but then again, Jesus never had to run a congregation. I am not a fan of my own thought there, by the way.

But it does seem like there are times when you need to stand up, when others are being unnecessarily cruel and hurtful, and do something to protect yourself. I just worry that my angry eyes are going to take over at that point and that I will do something to regret later.

So today, my prayer is for patience. For kindness toward all. For the ability to pray for someone who is hurting me intentionally. For the humility not to get on my high horse and let them have it - and for a change of heart, that I might stop wishing for revenge with such vicious fervor. And I don't know if I will pray to be able to turn my cheek. Not all suffering accomplishes something, a seminary professor used to say. May there be some wisdom to guide me, and them, and us all, into a better day.

Is this really it?

I should never read Barbara Brown Taylor.

She is the Meryl Streep of pastoral writers to me, someone against whom I measure myself only to come up short. This is why I stopped reading the Mitford series too: one, because the pure-saccharine nature of the books started making me a little nauseous; and two, because Father Tim and his everlasting goodness made me feel like a huge failure.

"My breasts fairly leaked every time I met someone in need," BBT writes about her call into the ministry. (That's an approximate quote; I can't find the right page in her new book, Leaving Church). If Father Tim had been a woman, that would likely have been his problem too. The sort of self-extending, give-away-your-last-five-dollars, drive-a-stranger-to-the-bus-stop love they seem to have for everyone they encounter may, in fact, drive them nearly to despair. It may drain them of the last bit of energy they have. But it still seems like the sort of problem a pastor should have.

I do not seem to have this problem.

Maybe my instinct for self-preservation will keep me from burning out. Maybe it will keep me from writing my own version of Leaving Church someday. Maybe it will keep me out of the poorhouse. But maybe it also keeps me at a bit of distance from God, a safe arms-length from the burning bush, just out of the reach of the hot coals seraphim are reaching out to my lips. I think of myself sometimes as standing on the edge of a precipice, unable to make the leap, knowing that the fall will be exhilarating but still preferring the safety of the view from above. And I am not sure how to change this, other than to pray for a change I am still not sure I really want to receive.

If I don't have the million problems most pastors seem to, am I really doing my job? Is this really it? And, if doing "it" meant necessarily inheriting those million problems, would I really stick around? I have no answers to these questions. At least part of my anxiety today comes from the fact that we are buying a house and I am staying up at night worries that we can't afford the thing, even though in the daylight all looks well.

What I appreciate in the book is her frank admission of the complexity of this work. If parishoners got mad at her, I probably shouldn't sweat the occasional dilemma here. Even Meryl Streep gets the odd bad review (I think). Oddly enough, though, it's precisely the nature of her admitted weaknesses that give me pause. I don't think I will solve this problem today.