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.