Friday Five: Talkin' 'Bout Pop Music

I'm in the office freakishly early today, having met a parishioner for coffee. It's just too early for sermon-writing quite yet. So, it seems like a good time for a Friday Five...

The sad news of Michael Jackson's untimely death has me thinking about music and its effects on us - individually, as cultures, as generations. Let's think about the soundtracks of our lives...

1) What sort of music did you listen to as a child - this would likely have been determined or influenced by your parents? Or perhaps your family wasn't musical...was the news the background? the radio? Singing around the piano?

Lots of piano, but not much singing - my mom is a music teacher, so there was always a lot of instrumentation in our house. My mom loves classical music and my dad loves jazz, so between that and the AM station my mom listened to in the car (think mid-70's, early '80's AM radio), we had some good variety. I remember the jazz records my dad had, including the Herb Alpert one with that girl on the cover.

We only had three cassette tapes for car trips: John Denver's Greatest Hits Volume 2; the Harry Belafonte tape that had "Day-o" on it; and the Neil Diamond record featuring his duet with Barbra Streisand on "You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore." Seriously, people; I loved that song. It was so...dramatic. Watch. And CHECK OUT THE HAIR. You can't beat that.



2) Going ahead to teenage years, is there a song that says "high school" (or whatever it might've been called where you lived") to you?

I was a shy, quiet, nerdy girl in high school. With a weird and mostly secret love for '80's Hair Band music: Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Poison...you know, high quality stuff. And I had an equally weird love (especially considering the combination) for 1940's Big Band music. Which means my personal high school soundtrack was a hybrid of "Pour Some Sugar On Me" and "Moonlight Serenade."

3) What is your favorite music for a lift on a down day?

Generally, Broadway musicals. Sound of Music, Avenue Q, Chicago, Les Miserables - Maria Von Trapp is right; sing a few of your favorite things and the day improves considerably.

On a truly horrible day, though, I prefer Bach.

4) Who is your favorite performer of all time?

I really couldn't pick one. I might have to choose Neil Diamond, based on the video above - but, given my personal CD collection, I'm guessing I have the most representation from the Indigo Girls, Sting, the Dave Matthews Band, and Itzhak Perlman. Today's theme: I am all about the weird combinations.

5) What is your favorite style of music for worship?

At heart, I'm a traditionalist. Give me a giant, well-played pipe organ and Bach's repertoire any day, and I'm happy.

pastoral care, IRS-style

The following is based on a "conversation" I just had with the IRS regarding a notice they sent me last month. While on hold for - well, quite some time - I started thinking, "what if the IRS did pastoral care?" (God forbid.) I imagine it might look something like this:

A parishioner calls his or her pastor, needing some care in a time of difficulty. Said pastor is not in the office that day, and has decided to try a free 30-day trial of Automated Pastoral Care Response.

Good morning. Thank you for calling Automated Pastoral Care Response. To continue in English, press 1. Espanol, marque dos.

(Parishoner presses 1.)

Thank you. We are sorry that you are experiencing a time of difficulty. To help us assist you, please choose from the following responses. Please listen carefully, as our menu has recently changed. For pet loss, press 1. For relationship trouble, press 2. For hospitalization, press 3. For theological dilemma, press 4. For identity crisis, press 5. For all other crises, press 8.

(Parishioner chooses 3.)

Thank you. Please note that if you are not the hospitalized individual, we cannot process your request due to HIPPA privacy laws. To report the hospitalization of another individual, please press 3 and an operator will be with you shortly.

(Parishioner chooses 3.)

Thank you. Please hold.

(Parishioner endures long wait accompanied by saccharine hymnody on phone.)

Thank you for holding. Your call is very important to us. Please do not hang up. If you hang up and call back, your hold time will be increased. Calls are answered in the order in which they are received. An operator will be with you shortly.

(More saccharine hymnody.)

Thank you for holding. If you are calling to report the hospitalization of another person, you need to call our Automated Pastoral Call Reporting System at 1-800-PCREPORT. This department cannot handle your request because of HIPPA privacy laws.

(Parishioner is now confused, as pleasant-voiced lady had just said this phone number could handle said request. Decides to stay on hold. Saccharine hymnody continues.)

Thank you for holding. Your call is very important to us. Please note that if you have heard of another person's hospitalization through rumor or grapevine phonecall, we cannot respond to your request. You must report a hospitalization by filling out Form 1375 part B and submitting it in writing within 30 days. All requests filed after 30 days will not be honored.

(Parishioner starts swearing. Damn saccharine hymnody continues.)

Thank you for holding. Your call is very important to us. All calls are answered in the order in which they are received. Please continue to hold. If you would like to make a donation to your congregation using your credit card, please call 1-800-GIVEMORE. This department cannot handle your request. Please note that all pastoral care requests must be made within 60 days.

(Wait: 30 days or 60 days? Parishioner now has conflicting information but is determined to beat Stupid Automatic Phone System and stays on hold, accompanied by infinite versions of Great is Thy Faithfulness on synthesizer.)

Thank you for holding. If you would like to request last rites for a dying individual, please call our Near Death Pastoral Care Response System at 1-800-KICKBUCKET. All requests for last rites must be submitted using Form 666 part C. Please continue to hold.

(I HATE YOU, YOU STUPID SYSTEM, BUT I REFUSE TO HANG UP, DAMN IT.)

Thank you for holding. Your call is very important to us. Your call....

(Phone rings. Operator answers.)

(In I-really-could-not-care-less tone) Thank you for calling the Automated Pastoral Care Response System. This is employee 153869209586749348395. How can I help you?

Parishioner: Yes, I would like to report that my friend is in the hospital.

Operator: Did you fill out Form 1375 Part B?

Parishioner: Yes, but I just found out about this and I'm not sure you will get my form within thirty days. So I was just calling to see if I need to file an extension. But then the phone system said I had sixty days, and now I'm not sure which one is correct.

Operator: Well, you have thirty days from the original notice.

Parishioner: But what happens if my form doesn't get to you within 30 days, even if I sent it?

Operator: Well, even if I go into your account and file an extension, it won't change the amount of interest you will need to pay on your request, so there's not really any point.

Parishioner: Interest? On a small request? How do I find out how much interest?

Operator: That request is handled by another department so I can't help you with that. But if you sent in your form then I would consider it a done deal. Just go onto your Pastoral Care Account online, and once you see that your request has been received, it should be fine.

Parishioner: But what if my friend is out of the hospital by then? Or dead?

Operator: That request is handled by another department. You should call 1-800-KICK...

Parishioner: I KNOW.

Operator: Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Parishoner: Clearly not.

Operator: Thank you for calling the Automated Pastoral Care Response System. Have a nice day.

Parishioner: (hits head on desk)

If you work for the IRS and find this post offensive, please call the Automated Pastoral Care Response System and press "7." And good luck with that.

the facts of my life

I just finished a conversation with a representative from the "Wo.men of Faith" conference coming to our area in the next few weeks. (Yes, that weird punctuation was on purpose; keeps this post from popping up in searches for the name.) She had called to make an appointment and, while this is normally the sort of thing I avoid like the plague, I had a feeling it would be easier to meet for fifteen minutes and get it over with rather than dodge her phone calls for the next six weeks.

I never know what to do about stuff like this. How do I say to Super Chipper Christian Lady (who is WAY too happy for this time of the morning, by the way), "Well, you have lovely brochures and I'm sure That Lady Who Used to Be On Facts of Life is very entertaining and all, but your organization is coming from a COMPLETELY different place theologically and I really don't have the energy to undo all the theological crap you're working on there, so no, I don't plan to send anyone"?

That would probably solve the whole Too Chipper thing, though.

Anyway. I did tell her, after she talked about how 1300 women "made a decision for Christ" at their Cleveland event, that our congregation represented quite a different theological perspective and so I wouldn't be comfortable sponsoring a group from the church. ("We don't really do the 'decision for Christ' thing," is what I said, and I have to admit that it was a bit entertaining to watch her head nearly spin right off.) She assured me that this is an inter-denominational organization and that they don't focus on the things that divide us, but what unites us - "so we talk a lot about Jesus," she said, which is great, except that I'm pretty sure the Jesus you're talking about is not exactly the same as the one I know, and that's where I hit the problem.

Because I don't want to be a theological snob, turning up my nose at all the hoi polloi who can't manage to think as deeply and with as much complexity as I so obviously can. It seems a little bit wrong to decry the intolerance of others while demonstrating total intolerance yourself.

But I don't think that she and I are talking about the same image of Jesus, and I do think that matters. There's no need to be mean about it, but I also don't need to smile and say nothing and leave her believing that I'll round up a whole crew of women and show up at the conference with bells on.

(On a side note: did you know that this organization was founded by a man who used to work with Prom.ise Kee.pers and thought there needed to be something like that for women? AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.)

So. I thought this was going to be the most complicated theological moment of my morning, until I got a phone call from the daughter of a parishioner, explaining that her 81-year old mother's dog had just been 'put to sleep' by the 94-year old neighbor without permission: said neighbor felt the dog was suffering (and the dog did, in fact, have cancer) but said mother is upset because her dog is dead and her friend did it and so they are coming in to talk with me shortly.

What do you have to say on THAT one, Facts of Life Lady? Yeah. Me neither.

a prayer for the day

Dear God,

I know a big part of my job is to love your children. All of your children. Which sounds fine in theory and all, but (in case you haven't noticed) a few of your children are getting on my nerves.

So if you could help me remember that Chatty Old Lady Who Needs to Describe Her Various and Sundry, Some Imagined, Illnesses in Great and Repeated Detail and Woman Who Calls Needing Help with Her Bills but Then Has an Excuse for Why She Can't Get Here Today so Leaves ENORMOUSLY LONG Messages Every Single Day and Promises to Come Tomorrow - if you could help me remember that these two people are your beloved children, I could really use some help with that.

Also, if you have any sermon suggestions to send my way, that would be great.

Thank you.

Amen.

ah. THAT's the problem with Facebook.

It would be nice if parishioners had a face-to-face-conversation about a disagreement instead of posting a passive-aggressive 'status update' on Facebook.

That's all I'm saying.

If you'll excuse me, I need to make a phone call.

valuable life lesson.

I know, I know; you're probably expecting something more profound given my extended absence from The Blog. I mean, couldn't this woman have spent some time thinking about SERIOUS issues during said nearly-2-month blogcation?

Nevertheless, here is today's Very Valuable* and Important Life Lesson:

Very Large Amounts of Leftover Salmon from About A Week and A Half Ago DO NOT, In Fact, Fit Down the Garbage Disposal.

This valuable* advice is brought to you by my Beloved, instigator of said altercation with the disposal.

(*Actual value of this advice: $386.86, which is what the plumber charged. Note that we did choose to re-plumb the lines under the sink and replaced a leaky sprayer hose, but still...)

That's it for today. If you're really lucky, maybe someone in this house will try to cram an entire loin of pork down the toilet and then there will be some REAL fodder for Future Valuable Life Lessons editions on This Old Blog.


Also, apparently I have developed a Love of Capitalizing Things while I was gone. Not sure what's up with that.

dipping the toes back in the water

So.

Life goes on. This is a good thing, for the most part, and I am doing much better than two months ago, or a month ago, or even a week ago, for that matter. I have some bloggable moments running through my head, though nothing quite formed enough to put down into words quite yet. I'll keep working on it. (For one thing, I read The Shack, after putting it off for months, and I definitely have some thoughts on that one, but it's Friday and I just don't have the attention span for it at the moment.)

At any rate, I'm still alive and remarkably well, and hopefully will get back to this blog more regularly again.

If you're still out there, thanks for the prayers and support.

break

I've decided to take a break from this blog for awhile.

It's a long story, but here's the short version: after three and a half years of trying to get pregnant, I finally did, on our first try at in-vitro fertlization. We found out the good news on Good Friday.

Monday, I had a miscarriage.

If you know me in real life, please keep this news to yourself.

I simply don't have the energy or interest in reflecting on God and parish life at the moment. Maybe it will come back. I earnestly hope so. If you would like to pray for us, please do. I don't have much interest in doing that either.

Sorry to be so bleak. C'est la vie. Easter is true, but not especially real for us at the moment.

Peace.

Friday Five: Blogroll Spotlight

This week's Friday Five is all about sharing the love - and I think my only problem will be limiting myself to five other blogs I love to read.

So, here goes, in no particular order:

1.Go Fug Yourself - my very favorite distraction/procrastination/otherwise-wasting-time-in-a-hilarious-manner technique. The annual March Madness of Fug pits horribly-dressed celebrities against one another, and it's more fun than I can describe. Besides the great humor, this blog has what I need in any blog I read regularly: great writing.

Seriously. Click on Jennifer Lopez's link on the right side and read any of the dialogues which follow. Awesome.

2. Choral Reef: Music Under the Surface continues to be among my favorite RevGal blogs. Again, and always, great writing - and a ton of thoughtful, fascinating, and downright funny posts. If I ever get to work with a musician as thoughtful as this writer, I'll be the luckiest pastor on earth.

3. In addition to my regular visits to The Text This Week, my newest Happy Preacher Place is Working Preacher. I'm not sure if this counts as a 'blog,' technically, but it's become a great resource for preaching tidbits - especially the "Sermon Brainwave" podcast, which is fun and insightful. Without a weekly text study, I'm particularly thankful for the opportunity even to listen in on a conversation about the lectionary assignments for the week.

4. Winner for Best Name: Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. As RevGals provides me a great resource for support and encouragement of the female pastoral life, so Stirrup Queens is my resource for surviving infertility. Lots of great blogs here, and a daily update (I cannot imagine how much work this is for the blog writer!) on who especially needs a kind word. Illness of any kind can be tremendously isolating, and I'm thankful for a blogging community which helps me feel less so.

5. Desert Year, a fairly new blog with a heartbreaking reason for existence, from Gannet Girl, at Search the Sea. Those who read this will know how hard it is to describe. If you don't, I highly encourage you to start. Gannet Girl is writing about the death of her son last year. Sometimes I still feel as if I am eavesdropping on things which were never intended to be public - except that, obviously, that's not the case. My own knowledge of grief is quite limited. And so I am deeply thankful for someone who can so eloquently write of her own painful journey. I love this blog. And I wish every day that it did not need to exist.

Happy reading to all, and thanks to each of the authors (not to mention all those others I read regularly) whose words enrich my life.

Friday Five: Signs of Hope

After a Lent-induced break from the Friday Five for a few weeks, I'm jumping back in with this one...

Over at RevGals, Songbird writes:

My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. Song of Solomon 2:10-13

In the late, late winter, as the snow begins to recede here in Maine, we begin to look almost desperately for signs of spring, signs of hope that the weather has turned and a new day is on the horizon. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, Easter and Spring twine inextricably, the crocuses and daffodils peeking through the Earth as we await the risen Christ.

Share with us five signs of hope that you can see today or have experienced in the past.

1. The Sanctuary Window Tree
In our fairly modern sanctuary, we have a very large skylight running down the entire length of the roof right over the altar and pulpit. Outside this skylight is a tree - deciduous of some kind, though I'm not sure exactly what it is. Part of what I love about this tree is the way it announces the seasons as you watch it week after week; it's lush green in the summer, yellow in the fall, bare in the winter, and now, in these days, it's beginning to show the first signs of leaf-growth again. Of course, all the trees are doing the same thing, but that one is a sort of mine-canary for me. In a good way.

2. Lenten midweek services
I almost always love midweek Lenten services, for a variety of reasons: there's opportunity for creativity in worship planning (there always is, of course, but somehow it's easier to pull off in a short series like these); I love evening worship in general; it's a more quiet, contemplative service; no lectionary constraints (although I like the lectionary as a general rule). This year, the Lenten midweek services were my first 'solo flight' in the new parish: the first time I've been completely in charge of a worship opportunity. We're doing a Taize-inspired service ("Taize with training wheels" is my theme), and it's been exceptionally well-received. And we get to end every service with one of my favorites - even though it's not technically Taize:

Take, o take me as I am;
summon out what I shall be.
Set your seal upon my heart

and live in me.

I could sing that all night.

3. This poem.

I blogged it once before, but it's been such a perfect piece for me this Lent that I'm going to do it again: Breakthrough, by J. Barrie Shepherd.

This lenting
is a longing, looking,
isolating and locating process,
a passing of the time between
what has to be, what may become,
a late, last, solitary lingering
among the soiled and crusted snowbanks
of deep-drifted hurt and disappointment
seeking out those tender-tough new shoots
that pierce the calloused surface
of all losing with the agony
of life becoming green again.

4. New steps on the baby quest.
I've kept mostly quiet on the baby-quest front for awhile on this blog, for several reasons. We're holding things closely right now. But there are many signs of hope, and have been, for the past several months. Although that's all I'd like to say (and, to be clear, no - I'm not pregnant), it's a more hopeful place than it's been for a long time. For which I am profoundly grateful.

5. Chocolate. EVERYWHERE.
Yes, I get that the Easter Bunny is some kind of pagan fertility symbol co-opted by a consumerist culture hell bent on unhealthy snacks, sugar obsessions, and a complete disregard for the true scandal of the gospel of resurrection.

And you know what? I don't really care. I love me some chocolate. And Easter is a tiny peek of heaven for all chocoholics. Bring on the pagans. I'm ready.

No, seriously! I'm working! I swear!

I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook.

Love: catching up with friends, reading fun status updates, seeing photos, joining random and entertaining groups, wasting a bit of time while still feeling semi-connected to real people.

Hate: feeling awkward about the whole 'should I or shouldn't I be friends with parishioners' question, the new layout (HATE), not having control of other people's posts which might include me, being asked to be friends with someone I don't really want to be friends with but then I feel bad about ignoring them, the new layout (did I mention that?).

I've decided that I can't be anonymous on Facebook, so I'll just accept friend invitations from parishioners (I do not, ever, request to be a friend to same), and keep my status updates church-appropriate. This is fine. I get most of my anonymity needs met on this blog. Someday that might have to change too, but for now, I think we're alright.

But here's a new, completely unforeseen, reason to be on Facebook: this weekend, I am doing a funeral for a young woman who died of cancer. Her friends have created a FB group, and they are posting all their memories and stories about her. I got an invitation to this group, and it is funeral-homily GOLD. What an amazing resource for a preacher! I never met this woman, and those funeral sermons are always the hardest: and now, from the most unexpected source, there's a ton of help.

I guess I'll stick with Facebook awhile longer. Even with the new format.

scene from a sunday morning

I am standing at the altar this past Sunday, preparing to offer the prayer of the day.

You know how pastors usually (we hope) look like they are concentrating on the liturgy, in all sincerity, trying their best to offer hopeful and helpful words, to conduct themselves in keeping with the holy nature of the moment?

Yeah. Sometimes this is what actually happens:

“Holy God, [oh, crap. There’s a spider on the altar. Crawling toward the soon-to-be-location of the chalice. Can’t be good.] through your Son you have called us to live faithfully [I think I have a Kleenex in my pocket. Or did I just get rid of all of them when I took my alb home to wash it after the coffee-spillage incident a few weeks ago?] and act courageously. [Oops. That’s a cough drop.] Keep us steadfast in your covenant of grace [OH! There it is. Now I’ll just slip it out of my pocket…] and teach us the wisdom [and slide my hand carefully across the altar…] that comes only through Jesus Christ [SQUISH! Got him. Dead.], our Savior and Lord [now slide carcass carefully back toward me…] who lives and reigns with you [oops, left little spot on altar. Too bad. Better than dead spider.] and the Holy Spirit, one God [slide Kleenex back in pocket, and remind self NOT TO USE THIS KLEENEX FOR NOSE-BLOWING LATER], now and forever. Amen.”

Just so you know.

we now interrupt your regular Lent schedule to bring you a fun meme.

Chorus has nominated me for a Kreativ Blogger award - thanks! (Also, you should head over to her blog to check out her super cool bathroom renovation.) Here are the rules:

List 7 things that you love and then pass the award on to 7 people...tagging them and letting them know they won! You can copy the picture of the award and put it on your sideboard letting the whole wide world know you are KReATIV!

Seven Things I Love:

(Sidebar: I am taking the Sean-Penn-Oscar-Acceptance-Speech approach to this and not naming Beloved. Because he knows anyway.)

1. The sound of rain on the roof when I go to bed at night.

2. Tuna noodle casserole with peas.

3. My four-month old niece's smile.

4. Samoa Girl Scout Cookies. "Addicted" might be a more accurate term than "love."

5. "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR.

6. The public library.

7. Laughing until you hiccup and then cry.

I am passing this on to:
Choralgirl (at Choral Reef)
i are a writer
Nachfolge
The Kitchen Door
The Swandive
Cheesehead in Paradise
Seeking to Build a Bridge

Have fun!

Friday Five: The Fork in the Road

Singing Owl writes,

I am at a life-changing juncture. I do not know which way I will go, but I have been thinking about the times, people and events that changed my life (for good or ill) in significant ways. For today's Friday Five, share with us five "fork-in-the-road" events, or persons, or choices. And how did life change after these forks in the road?

I thought about how to approach this question - on the one hand, it's hard to think of five specific things, but then again, it's hard to think of less than fifty - and I decided to go backward in time. So here's my list, starting with the most recent and working through to the one that probably started it all. And what I've found, thinking about each one, is that they began with a very mundane moment. That moment is what I think of as the 'fork.' The rest comes down the road.

1. A persistent radio commercial.
When Beloved and I were in the process of moving to New City - as in, when I was living here and he was living in Old City - I commuted to work about 30 minutes each way. Early on, I started hearing a radio commercial for a particular fertility clinic in the area. I had been meaning to get a second opinion, and that damn commercial just kept airing, so I finally called one day, made an appointment, and found my very wonderful doctor. Given how far we've come along the treatment process since then, I think of that ridiculously persistent commercial as a particularly providential fork.

2. A phone call in the downstairs church kitchen.
I was downstairs with the quilters when the phone rang during lunchtime. Since the secretary was out, I decided to answer it (frankly, I think I might have been fleeing a particularly chatty quilter at the time). It turned out to be my now-colleague, calling to see if I would be interested in a position in his congregation. Took me completely by surprise. Six weeks later, I had an interview. Three weeks after that, I had a call in hand. Two weeks after that, I told my congregation I was leaving. None of which were anywhere on my radar when I answered the phone in the downstairs kitchen.

3. Meeting for a coffee at Starbucks.
About six years ago, I met a colleague for coffee at Starbucks one day. For the life of me, I have no memory of why we were there, but what I do remember was his offhand question right before we were done: "hey, are you dating anyone?" And then he told me about this friend of his who knew this guy that I might like, and maybe we could all do a group-date-thing sometime, and I said "sure," because frankly, my love life was complete crap so why not try something different. It took nearly nine months to meet said "friend." To whom I became engaged seven months later, married five months after that, and here we are.

4. A conversation with mom in the car.
I don't have a particularly dramatic call story. The earliest part of it shows up in the final 'fork,' below. At this point in the story, I had made the decision to go to seminary - primarily through the persistent encouragement of others. It was the summer before my junior year in college, and I was home, working at the bakery as I had for a few summers before this. My mom and I had gone - somewhere, to the grocery store maybe? - and we were in the car on the way home. I remember with perfect clarity the hill we were on when I turned to her and said, "I think I'm going to go to seminary and be a pastor."

My parents were (and are) extremely active church people, so this wasn't an out-of-body experience for my mom (though she did tell me years later that she was quite surprised, but she tried to hide it so I wouldn't think she was unsupportive). For me, though, it felt like the first time my call was real. Saying it out loud, to my mom, was a whole new level. Of all the moments involved in my call story, that one feels like the biggest 'fork in the road' to me.

5. It all comes back to an offhand comment after Sunday School when I was 15.
Sunday morning youth group. I'm 15. I have a huge crush on our youth pastor, who was fresh out of seminary and looked like Tom Cruise (so I thought; Top Gun had come out two years before and I loved Tom Cruise). Harmless teenage stuff. One day, after bible study was over, I was walking across the fellowship hall and said pastor shouted after me, "Hey, Shalom! You should think about being a pastor."

I did not take this seriously. AT ALL. Mostly, I was flattered that he thought I could do what he did, but I had no interest in it. I really had no idea what pastors did, anyway. Didn't they just hang around the church all day? How interesting could that be?

It took five more years before that particular fork in the road became clear. Without it, there would be no conversation with my mom in the car; no Starbucks chat about 'the guy' I might like; no phone call in the downstairs kitchen; no move to the New City and consequent interest in the fertility clinic. There would be a different road, of course, and it might have been great too. But this one is pretty damn good. Fun to look back and see how we got here.

ashes, ashes

I found this poem someplace last year, and hurriedly copied it off and placed it in my "Lent" file. Now I can't tell where it came from, but it seems to be going in exactly the right direction.

Blessed Lent to all.

Breakthrough

This lenting
is a longing, looking,
isolating and locating process,
a passing of the time between
what has to be, what may become,
a late, last, solitary lingering
among the soiled and crusted snowbanks
of deep-drifted hurt and disappointment
seeking out those tender-tough new shoots
that pierce the calloused surface
of all losing with the agony
of life becoming green
again.

- J. Barrie Shepherd

cooperation makes it happen

Does anyone else remember this song from Sesame Street? "Cooperation makes it happen, cooperation, working together...dig it!" I am so a child of the '70's.

Anyway. Today I was meeting with a colleague to "plan" (quotes will become evidently clear in a moment) our "joint" Ash Wednesday service. This is not the person I work with, but another pastor from a church across town. We are doing a "joint" (again, using this term loosely) service between our two churches: his congregation, generally more elderly, is hosting the mid-afternoon worship, and we are hosting the evening one. Our idea was to share leadership in planning and facilitating the services.

[When this first came up, he said offhandedly, "Now, we've never done the imposition of ashes, so you'll need to help me with this part." Hold the phone, friend. This is a guy who's been a pastor since, I think, God was a boy (or, for about 30 years; God is younger than I thought), and I could hardly believe that he had never, in his whole ministry, done the imposition of ashes. I mean, what the hell else do you do on Ash Wednesday? It's the whole freaking name of the day! But then another colleague mentioned that many churches in her youth didn't "do ashes" because it was considered too Catholic, so maybe he comes from that piety. I'm trying not to judge here. So far, it's not going terribly well.]

I realize that many people might say, "goodness, Pastor Blogger. It's less than a week before Ash Wednesday! Shouldn't you have gotten around to the planning of this thing earlier?" To which I would say, "Yes. Probably. You bet. Not to disabuse you of your clearly high opinion of pastoral planning abilities, however, let me tell you: this is pretty generally how it goes in the church. Nothing will humble your image of yourself as a well-organized person as quickly as parish ministry. Seriously. It takes about a month."

So. Pastor Close to Retirement gets here to "plan" the service. He comes with a fully completed bulletin. My name is nowhere in it. He goes through the service piece by piece, saying after each one, "I'll do that," "I'll take that piece," "I'll do that part," and I keep thinking, "WHY AM I EVEN HERE?" and then finally, when we get to the Imposition of Ashes he turns and says, "will you do that?" To which I wanted to respond, "well, it sounds like it's the only thing I'll get to do, so, sure."

Also, I get to help distribute communion.

Sure glad I signed up to "help" "plan" and "lead" our "joint" Ash Wednesday service. There will, however, be actual ashes. So we will not need to call it "Ash" Wednesday worship, which is good.

Clearly, our pastor friend is not a fan of Sesame Street.

welcome home, friend.

You put us through quite a week.  But we'll forgive you.  Glad you're back.

a poem for the day

In Old City, the local NPR station ran The Writer's Almanac every day at 9:00am; a perfect time for me. Here in Still Relatively New City, it's on at some random time I can never remember, like 12:30pm or 2:15 in the afternoon, or something. So I've resorted to receiving TWA over email. It's not quite the same, but what I do like is the ability to savor a particularly good poem.

I don't know what the copyright rules are here. Maybe I'm not supposed to publish this. But I don't get any money for it, and in fact, I'm going out later today to buy whatever volume this poem is in - so hopefully it benefits the author.

Today's poem:

The Bat
by Jane Kenyon

I was reading about rationalism,
the kind of thing we do up north
in early winter, where the sun
leaves work for the day at 4:15

Maybe the world is intelligible
to the rational mind;
and maybe we light the lamps at dusk
for nothing...

Then I heard the wings overhead.

The cats and I chased the bat
in circles - living room, kitchen,
pantry, kitchen, living room...
At every turn it evaded us

like the identity of the third person
in the Trinity: the one
who spoke through the prophets,
the one who astounded Mary
by suddenly coming near.

from Otherwise, by Jane Kenyon. Published by Greywolf Press, 1996.

the hills are alive

This past week's Friday Five from Rev Gals was inspired by The Best Movie Ever, The Sound of Music. I didn't have time to write on Friday, but I do have a Sound of Music story of my own. It goes like this:

For years, The Sound of Music was on NBC (I think) every Easter. It might still be, for all I know; I'm usually in the official Pastor Coma o' Easter by the evening, so I no longer watch television that particular night. But when I was young, we watched it every year.

We didn't have a VCR, so all I knew of the movie was what I saw on television. Every year, Maria would climb to the top of the mountain and sing, and then she would descend and get kicked out of the cloister for being too spunky, and then she would transform the house of Von Trapp and the Evil Baroness would get her comeuppance (even though I secretly thought the Evil Baroness was also the most beautiful woman in the world in her dance dress), and then the Captain would fall in love with Maria, and then the nuns would sing her down the aisle.

And then, with the nuns' voices singing, "how do you solve a problem like Maria?" and the bells of Salzburg ringing in my ears, a commercial would come on, and my mom would turn off the television and say, "time for bed!" and I would happily trot off to bed and dream about long cathedral aisles and handsome, fertile, widowed captains. I guess. After all, we were only allowed to watch G-rated movies when I was a kid. Which meant we watched mostly Disney movies from the 1960's featuring computers that filled a whole room and a very young Kurt Russell, or cartoons. And in the cartoons, the movie ends when the couple gets together and there's a wedding. Or at least a big pretty dress and some kind of dance. Maybe with fairies. That's what I knew of movies: when people get married, then the movie's over.

Until one year, when I was probably 10 or so, and Maria had walked down the aisle in her wedding dress, and the commercial came on, and I stood up from the couch to go to bed, and my mom very unexpectedly said, "I guess you can stay up for the end of the movie this year."

I'm sorry, what? There's more? But she got married! Isn't that it? THE MOVIE DOESN'T END HERE? MY PARENTS LIED TO ME?

I think it's possible that The Sound of Music killed my childhood.

Anyway, I stayed up for the end: the whole crazy Nazi-chase, Rolf-betrayal, nuns-stealing-car-parts, mountain-climbing end, which I loved. My childhood actually rolled on, fairly uninterrupted. No permanent scars.

I used this story in a sermon once. Can't remember why.

Mostly, I just think it's funny.

paging the reverend emily dickinson

There are a lot of theories out there about the best way to understand, or frame, the work of a pastor. Pastor as CEO; shepherd; prophet; priest; (probably not king); counselor; preacher; teacher; presider; administrator. While in seminary, I read descriptions related to all of these - some very helpful, some not. Some very honest, some very idealistic. Some clearly written by people who had certain expectations of pastors; some written by pastors whose ideals had fallen short.

I have never really found an image for myself, which would help me frame and sift through my own work. I've gone with 'presider' most often: someone who provides gentle guidance, who serves the liturgy (the 'work of the people'), who helps things happen but is not the center or source of the activity. This image falls short pretty often, though.

Today I was in the midst of Pastor As Administrator (embodied in Pastor As Cleaning Off Her Desk) when I ran across the most current issue of Christian Century. (Side note: it's fairly impressive that I'm only one issue behind. I must have been doing Pastor As Reader and Study-er lately.) And in it, I found the first description of a pastor-image which really, thoroughly, and completely works for me: Pastor as Poet. Here's the paragraph that got me:

Pastors are not the only ones working on the kingdom of God. But they don't help by abandoning their specific call to be poets and taking on the work of the realists and the engineers. Someone has to teach people how to dream.

M. Craig Barnes, I salute you. This one, finally, works. (By the way, I don't think pastors have the corner market on being poets. If this image works for you, take it along.)

There are holes in it, like in any image. Pastor-Poets still have to clean off their desks, for example, and that's not particularly poetic. There are administrative tasks to be done, and personalities to be negotiated with, and budgets to be aware of. But behind even these tasks, behind all the tasks, is still the work of the poet. This is what makes the work so interesting to me, the idea that there is a reality behind it all, and my task is to help us all think beyond the obvious, beyond the familiar.

It's what, as Barnes points out, makes it necessary for pastors to recognize that someone who is really angry about the new choir director is actually masking their grief that the old one, a dear friend, left. It's what makes it possible to realize that the person who asks for prayer that they will find a new job is also asking for a new identity and hope. It's what makes it crucial to place the scripture into everyday life and wonder how they meet, where they rub one another raw, how each illuminates the other.

This is probably why I often think of sermons as midrash: a creative re-reading of the texts. Poetry does the same thing, calls for the same skills - and not even skills so much as passion, desire for coming at the old thing in a new way. Looking at it upside down, inside out. Seeing the texts and our lives as gems, held gently and examined in various lights, each facet slightly different than the others.

Read this article. It's great. "Poet in Residence," in the February 10 issue of Christian Century.

There are few things better than reading a description of what you do, and thinking, "Hey! That sounds like great work! I want to do that! How can I do that?" - and then realizing, "Hey! This is what I do!"

I'll take one of his last sentences with me for a long time:

What if, instead of working so hard at omnicompetence, pastors were free to work hard simply at being better poets?