Friday Bloom Blogging

Red flowering maple, "Pineapple" coleus, red wax begonias 

Just a Closer Walk...

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with GOD: those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it; yet I do not advise you to do it from that motive; it is not pleasure which we ought to seek in this exercise; but let us do it from a principle of love, and because GOD would have us. Were I a preacher, I should above all other things preach the practice of the presence of GOD; and were I a director, I should advise all the world to do it: so necessary do I think it, and so easy too. -- Brother Lawrence


I was out for a walk with God tonight.

Actually, I’ve been doing a lot of walking lately. Part of it is in response to my normally laid-back physician’s baleful glare and sober threats of impending medication when she got the results back from my last cholesterol test. Part of it has to do with – and this is surely proof of the Almighty’s rollicking sense of humor – my being tapped to serve on my workplace’s employee wellness committee, creating a certain incentive to “walk the talk,” literally.

So I’ve gotten back in the habit of taking an evening walk whenever the weather permits. I’m aided in this endeavor by living on a lake surrounded by pleasantly meandering streets, some of them on fairly challenging inclines that provide an extra cardio workout. And – I will confess – I am an incredibly nosy neighbor, so I like to see what’s going on in the ‘hood; who is building what (like Possum Lake in “The Red Green Show,” there is is a constant chainsaw whine going on in our neck of the woods); which summer people are up for the week; and a neighbor’s interesting, if illegal, Araucana chicken operation housed in a cute little Dutch shed in the back yard. (Shhh...don't tell the township zoning board -- I want pastel eggs.)

Anyhow, in the midst of all this self-improvement and self-amusement, I find something else going on; it seems that God is rather fond of a brisk jaunt too, so we’ve been spending more time together. Not that we do a lot of talking; we’re just happy to be in one another’s presence. And I am finding that simply enjoying the presence of God is helping me overcome my tendency to engage in extemporaneous prayertime blabbiness and “I want a pony” petitions. Speaking without words; listening without speaking; that's how it is between us, walking around the lake together.

It’s nice, sometimes, to just hang out with God.



The road goes ever onward... 

Good News, For a Change

If you can, catch the series The New Heroes on PBS, which profiles "social entrepreneurs" -- individuals who've taken the initiative to create positive change in their communities and societies. I saw the first installment, and it was very heartening. It profiled Kailash Satyarthi, an activist fighting industrial slavery in India, both by rescuing slaves and by marketing Fair Trade Indian rugs; Mimi Silbert of the Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco, which helps ex-cons, ex-addicts and others learn marketable skills and regain a sense of dignity and competence; and Zambian Moses Zulu, who is creating a self-sustaining village for AIDS orphans.

As someone who finds myself frequently angered and frustrated by the utter crap -- the constant fluff, fear-mongering and PR churnout posing as journalism -- presented in the American media, this program was like a breath of fresh air. Check it out. You'll feel happier for having watched these programs.

Holy Hospitality

We have this new guy at my church.

He dresses a little...uniquely; you can't miss him. And you can't miss him anyway, because he's appointed himself our church greeter, so that when you leave the sanctuary after the service he's right there at the bottom of the stairs, shaking your hand, saying, "God bless you." And every so often he's moved to stand up during the service and just talk -- usually about God-and-country-gemischt stuff that makes me brux my teeth.

Now, you might be wondering, what sort of Lutherans -- an Ordnung muss sein people if ever there were one -- would let these kind of shenanigans go on during church? I know I thought that, the first time this gentleman held forth during the liturgy. I just don't do worship spontaneity very well...when our kids perform their camp songs with full-body movement for the congregation before the service, I'm the geek adult who just sits there thinking, It's for the children...it's for the children...it's for the children...

So, anyhow, a couple of weeks ago the new guy got The Bag. The Bag is something we instituted several years ago -- when I first started coming to this church they were passing it around, and after a several-year hiatus it's started again. The Bag is a brown paper grocery store bag that members of the congregation are invited to take home with them, fill with three items symbolizing things important to them, then bring The Bag back the next week and explain what they put in The Bag, and why. It's been a catalyst for some amazing stories and self-disclosures; some of our shyest, most unassuming people have had some of the most articulate and moving stories.

But when the new guy got up to talk about the objects in The Bag last week, I found myself holding my breath in trepidation of what was coming next; and I rather suspect I wasn't the only one present doing so. Still, I listened. And what I heard was that this man was a Vietnam vet. His job, during the war, was to accompany body bags back to the States...over and over and over again. One of his mementos was a yellowed commendation letter from a church, thanking him for his presence at the funeral of one of the casualties he'd brought home and accompanied to the dead man's hometown. He also spoke about his faith, about his family's faith history and about how much our congregation meant to him; that after worshipping with us, he knew that this was going to become his church too.

Suddenly a lot of things came together for me.

Jesus tells us that when we welcome an evangelist, a prophet or one of the "little ones," the anawim, in Jesus' name, it's a very good thing.

I think, last Sunday, we won the trifecta.

Jesus on Family Values

This is the best commentary I've read on today's Gospel text...so I'll let you read it too, on Dylan's Lectionary Blog .

Sts. Clare and Francis -- two of the anti-family types spawned by this dangerous Jesus person (Icon from St. Joseph Studio ) 

A Nice Lutheran Boy

Many of you know Rick Steves as down-to-earth travel guide and affable host of PBS's "Travels in Europe." (My mother is a Ricknik who absolutely has to watch this program every week.) What you may not know is that Rick is also a member of the ELCA, whose faith informs his travel philosophy and social conscience. Steves has created a series of programs called Faithful Travel for the ELCA's "Mosaic Television." You can order these through the ELCA website. Good stuff even for armchair travelers.

Real Family Values

It's 93 here in Outer Podunk and my brain has turned into a runny pudding, so instead of imparting any self-perceived words of widsome today I instead direct you to my friend Dash's blog for an excellent discussion of "family values." In the meantime...iced coffee...must have iced coffee...

Friday Bloom Blogging...and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

This basket hangs over my purple-and-orange annual bed. I just love those "Jolly Joker" pansies (see the cute little flower over on the far right)...they don't like hot weather, though, and tomorrow it's supposed to hit the 90's here...oh, well...

Meanwhile, I was shopping at my favorite produce market yesterday, wandering through its greenhouses, when I saw a four-pack of tomato plants left over from the big planting-season rush...Red Pear and Yellow Pear...they looked so forlorn, sitting there rootbound and unwanted...long story short, they are now part of my tomato collection. I can't help it; I root for the underdog, even if it's a plant.

One of my hanging baskets 

The Best Li'l Lutheran Mag You Probably Don't Know About

Cafe' is an online magazine published by the Women of the ELCA and targeted toward women in their 20's and 30's. Each issue focuses on one spiritual or social topic -- the current issue is themed around "Forgiveness" -- and features short think pieces, sidebars, links and opportunities to post one's own thoughts. It recently won an Award of Excellence for its class by the Associated Church Press and the Religious Communicators Council.

I checked Cafe' out today -- I know I'm a little long in the tooth to be reading it, but the staff will just have to live with occasional visits by the middle-aged -- it's nice; good for a quick coffee break at work.

Seeing that the ELCA often seems to exhibit a kind of corporate shyness when it comes to letting people know who we are and what we do...I'll do the shilling for them. Go visit Cafe'.

Saluting the Captain

Air Force Chaplain Captain Melinda Morton, a Lutheran pastor who blew the whistle on religious intolerance at the U.S. Air Force Academy, has resigned her commission, after 13 years in the service.

Morton had been forced to resign her job at the Academy, and was transferred to a post in Japan, after her observations were made public. She also became the target of some vitriolic bloggery at the hands of the Religious Right, as evidenced here .

I salute Captain Morton for having the courage to speak truth to power despite the personal and professional cost. Her criticisms of the Air Force Academy only underscore what many of us know from personal experience -- that there are conservative evangelicals out there whose vision of Christianity is as a militant, nationalistic, triumphalist, bullying, take-no-prisoners movement that reminds this correspondent, at least, less of the Gospel and more of 1930's-era National Socialism.

Captain Morton makes me proud to be a member of the ELCA, and I wish her all the best. The Air Force's loss is our church's gain.

Body and Soul

I have a confession to make.

The last few days of my life have been about as unspiritual as you can get. Church on Sunday? I was there in body only. I pretty much phoned in my weekly blog reflection on the Gospel lesson. My prayer life -- flatlining.

And the really irksome thing about it all was that I knew this was going to happen. Because it always does, every month. I can almost graph my spiritual highs and lows on a monthly calendar. Whether this is due to sporadically effervescing hormones, or phases of the moon, or some subtle interplay of multiple forces, I don't know; it just happens.

And it bugs me, because part of me hates the idea that my physicality affects my spirituality. Which is very Greek, and very geek, of me. I had to laugh when I read
The Velveteen Rabbi's recent meditation on embodied spirituality, and her use of the term "brain in a jar," because as a kid (a chubby, clumsy kid) I thought that would be a really swell way to live. I remember watching a Star Trek episode about an alien species that had evolved itself into brain-in-a-jar existence, watching William Shatner's frowny-faced soliloquy on the tragedy of it all, and thinking, "I really don't see a problem here, Captain Kirk." Reading some of the Pauline epistles, I rather suspect that he might have found the idea of disembodied existence appealing as well.

This feeling of unease with the soul-body connection seems to be intensifying as I slouch farther into middle age, when my body has a greater tendency to let me down. One morning before work I stared at myself in the mirror -- like the old REM song says, feeling gravity's pull -- pondered my graying hair and thought, "So it's come to this -- I am a bona fide anti-hypertensive-pill-popping, calcium-carmel-chewing, triglyceride-monitoring, saggy-baggy middle-aged broad." It's a little frightening to think that the grinding gears of this jalopy have anything to do with my spiritual life, when it can't even get my blood pressure right.

But, as The Velveteen Rabbi points out, living into God's shalom includes acknowledging that, on the whole, we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." In The Lives of a Cell, Lewis Thomas suggested that, if we truly understood the intricacies and even mysteries of our physicality, we would be staggering around in a constant state of stunned amazement.

I'm trying to get to the "thank you." Part of that is treating myself better -- paying more attention to what I eat; moving more. Part of it is being kinder to myself; learning to give myself permission to have an "off" day once in awhile. That's where the practice of fixed prayer becomes so helpful. The Daily Office is the Daily Office whether I'm in a state of near spiritual ecstasy or just muttering the lines as quickly as possible to get them over with. It's the saying of the prayers, and not my feelings about them at any particular moment, that matters.

And here are some morning prayers, courtesy of The Velveteen Rabbi, that bless our embodiedness. I suppose it doesn't matter how I feel when I pray them either, but I'd like to think I could muster at least a spark of wonder and gratitude, no matter what time of month it is.

Something To Chew On

As long as we're on the subject of food...

This book will help people learn to enjoy their lives more -- perhaps much more. Recognizing the goodness of God in our eating is one way to discover such delight and joy.

So begins Food For Life: The Spirituality and Ethics of Eating by L. Shannon Jung (Fortress Press). In July I'll be part of a group discussing the book online with Jung.

I've not yet started the book, but glancing at the table of contents I note that it addresses its subject from both a personal and collective perspective. One chapter heading I found especially appealing was "Food As a Communal Expression of Grace." I like that; although frankly I'd find it difficult to appreciate the grace quotient of, say, lutefisk, the eating of which to me would be more of a penitential work.

Seriously...if you're interested, follow the link above to Fisher's Net, where you can sign up for the discussion. You don't have to be Lutheran to participate, although if you're not Lutheran you may not get our Jello and sauerkraut jokes. And you might also want to pick up, if you haven't read it already, Robert Farrar Capon's wonderful book The Supper of the Lamb, an extended meditation on the spirituality of food and mealtime hospitality.

"Go In Peace; Feed the Hungry"

I stopped into our local food bank today.

Every month I bring over a grocery bag of food -- usually boxes of cereal, since the manager told me that's what families ask for a lot. I wait until one of the local supermarkets has a decent sale on healthy, not-too-sugary cereal, then pick up a few boxes while I'm shopping. I know it's not a particularly efficient way to donate, but it's meaningful to me to shop for the items myself, instead of just sending money. And it seems that I spend so much time procuring food for my little, most decidedly non-hungry household...it's not going to kill me to spend five extra minutes picking up a few more groceries for someone else who really needs them.

I'm sharing this not to toot my own horn -- usually I like to keep this small personal project under the radar, including my own, as much as possible -- but because I just found out that summertime is really rough for agencies fighting hunger on the local level. Kids who've been in school for most of the year, taking advantage of breakfast and lunch programs there, are at home now, making it hard for families on the edge to keep them fed. And the public tends to concentrate its giving around the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons, leaving a gap in the summer months.

So if you've been meaning to clean out your pantry, or you've decided to turn in your empties, or the penny jar is overflowing and you need to clean it out...now's a good time to do a good turn for your local food bank.

By the Book

Purechristianithink of Rebel Without a Pew tagged me for the roving book meme. So here goes:

How many books do you own?

Hmmmm...a few hundred, maybe. The last time I moved, I downsized my collection by about half. And I enjoy giving books away; my rule of thumb these days, just to keep things simple, is to give away any fiction I purchase, and any books that I know I won't want to keep for future reference. But my book hoard has been slowly growing again, and I find myself playing the game, "How many more books can I fit onto this bookshelf before it collapses?" (Maybe I need to read Physics for Dummies.)

Last book bought: To Darkness and to Death by Julia Spencer-Fleming -- a gift for my mom for Mother's Day.

Last book read: Fictionwise, I'm in the middle of To Darkness and to Death (I love it when a plan comes together...) Last non-fiction book read: Loving Jesus by Mark Allan Powell

Books that mean a lot:

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, the top two books of my childhood.

My mother's big old green cookbook, a circa-1950 wedding present, which I loved to death as a little kid, looking at the photos; it is now minus covers and much of the introductory pages, so I don't even know the title of the thing. Many of the recipes, like Stuffed Goose Necks and a l'Italienne Wieners, have not stood the test of time, but every once in awhile I still find a good one in there.

The Children's Illustrated Bible, which I got for Christmas when I was about seven years old -- sometime earlier, I had overheard my parents murmuring concern that I did not seem adequately interested in religious matters(!), so this volume appeared under the Christmas tree. And, of course, since I knew my parents had a frowny-faced agenda in giving it to me, I refused to even pick it up...in their presence. When they weren't around I surreptitiously read and re-read it. I can still see the illustrations in my mind's eye -- including a blond Jesus who looked like Chuck Norris; what was up with that?

My mother's, aunt's and uncle's 1930's-era high school lit books, which -- unlike my school -- introduced me to the classics of American and British literature at a very young age.

Time-Life science books: Ditto -- they filled the gaps where my public-school education failed me.

The Psalms, the Book of Isaiah and the Gospel of John -- when I finally got around to reading a real Bible.

Our Bodies, Ourselves. Um...that's all I'll say about that.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek -- The juxtaposition of natural history field notes and the asking of Big Questions really moved me when I first read it. And the prose reads like poetry in places.

Uprisings: The Whole Grain Bakers' Book -- how I learned to bake bread that didn't have the weight and texture of cinderblock.

...and a large and ever-growing host of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, by an assortment of authors, that has enlightened, moved, amused and inspired me.

What magazines do you read regularly? Anymore, I don't. I used to be a voracious magazine reader, but these days about the only ones I read are in waiting rooms, or if I'm hanging out in a Barnes & Noble. I do enjoy the magazine I get from Heifer Project , because it's uplifting; unlike the constant media onslaught of bad news from the developing world, it highlights stories of individual families and communities around the world who are empowering themselves and others.

Tag Five People: If you are reading this, and you haven't participated yet -- tag; you're it.

"Psst! Next book: Dog Grooming For Dummies!" 

Flying Without a Net; Living in the Leap

Suffering and rejection are the summary expression of Jesus' cross. Death on the cross means to suffer and to die as someone rejected and expelled. That it is Peter, the rock of the church, who incurs guilt here immediately after his own confession to Jesus Christ and after his appointment by Jesus, means that from its very inception the church itself has taken offense at the suffering Christ. It neither wants such a Lord nor does it, as the Church of Christ, want its Lord to force upon it the law of suffering.

This makes it necessary for Jesus to relate clearly and unequivocally to his own disciples the "must" of suffering. Just as Christ is Christ only in suffering and rejection, so also they are his disciples only in suffering and rejection, in being crucified along with Christ. Discipleship as commitment to the person of Jesus Christ places the disciple under the law of Christ, that is, under the cross...being expelled, despised, and abandoned by people in one's suffering, as we find in the unending lament of the psalmist, is an essential feature of the suffering of the cross, yet one no longer comprehensible to a form of Christian life unable to distinguish between bourgeois and Christian existence. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

St. Teresa of Avila, the story goes, was hastily leaving a convent one night -- actually, she had been kicked out of it, after attempting to reform its complacent and unspiritual sisters -- when the wheel of her donkey cart hit a ditch along the road and sent the good saint sprawling into the mud. As she sat in the ditch, covered in muck, Teresa is said to have prayed to Christ, "Lord, if this is how you treat your followers, it's no wonder that you have so few of them."

Yet this is indeed the scenario that Christ foresaw for his followers in Matthew's Gospel. The first hearers and readers of this Gospel were members of a Jewish Christian community around 70 AD who, in the wake of Rome's defeat of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple, found themselves being expelled from their synagogues, as the larger Jewish community grappled with how to live faithfully in their new religious and political reality. Some commentators suggest that Jesus' comments about rejection and persecution did not actually originate with Jesus, but were redacted into the story because of this situation. But I can't help but think that Jesus and his disciples lived every day with the realization that proclaiming the inbreaking Reign of God was countercultural enough to put them at serious odds with the powers that be; I'm sure this was grist for more than one campfire conversation.

In any event, in last Sunday's and this Sunday's lesson both, we find Jesus warning his listeners that his message of reconciliation, of inclusion, of re-imaging community according to the values of God's Reign, was dangerous stuff. He talks about being called before the political authorities. He talks about being rejected by religious authorities. And, this week, he talks about, in this most family-minded of cultures, being rejected even by one's own kin. His message: Follow me, and you will lose whatever comfort, protection and group identity afforded to you in this world by political, cultural and familial power brokers who want to tell you who you are, how you should live, what you should think and what you should believe. Follow me and you fly without a net.

I suspect that a lot of clergypeople who follow the lectionary decided to preach on the epistle lesson, from Romans, instead today -- good, stern stuff about sin that plays well to the pew, especially since that's easily transferrable to Those Other, Bad People Out There -- or offer a painless paen to dads for Father's Day.

As Bonhoeffer notes in the quote above, the Church over the past two milennia has lost its grip on the radicality of the Gospel; it's become, in many cases, just an amen choir to the agendas of government, bourgeois society and its own internal quest for temporal power. And woe to the person (as St. Teresa, Martin Luther, Oscar Romero and countless others have found out) who actually seeks to refocus the Church on its original Christ-commissioned work in the world.

So...with all that in mind...why would any sane, non-masochistic individual sign onto the Jesus program?

Because that's where Jesus is. That's where God is. And that's where God's beloved anawim, or "little people" are -- all those who have been, in various ways, marginalized, disempowered, wounded, even crushed by political, cultural and tribal forces.

"Do not worry..." "...have no fear..." "Do not fear..." "So do not be afraid..." The same Jesus who prepares his followers for what to expect from the dominant culture also assures us of God's presence and saving power as we work for God's Reign. And instead of the safety net we think we can count on from playing by the rules as dictated by the powers and principalities, Jesus offers us the vision of a fathering/mothering God whose love and care extends even to a fallen sparrow, much less to the wounded friends and followers of God's Anointed One; who knows each hair on our heads; who offers, as one of the epistles puts it, the life that is life.

Flying without a net? Living in the leap. That's Jesus' challenge to us.


Lesbia Weeping Over a Sparrow, by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema 

Friday Bloom Blogging!

Frankly...I'm just showing off now, horticulturally speaking.

I planted these flowers in a little triangular bed next to my back steps -- "Firecracker" salvia, "Wizard" coleus and red-flowered, red-leaved wax begonias. I love them. On overcast days they practically glow.

You just can't beat playing in the dirt.

 

Interior Ministry

I haven't been talking much about my lay ministry program. That's because we're on hiatus for the summer; we don't have another retreat coming up until the end of September, when we're going to be continuing our study of the Old Testament and, if memory serves, practicing our preaching skills. (I'm looking forward to this because, even after several lay sermons under my belt, I don't feel as if I'm preaching; I feel like a writer giving a public reading; just not the same. I want to be able to wean myself away from the hard copy and just talk to people without my thoughts dissolving into gibberish.)

Our training break is a good thing for me, because after several months of immersing myself in this endeavor I have some time to process everything I've learned and experienced since February. We covered so much biblical material, both in our trainings and in my online Torah class, that I feel compelled to go over it again before the next retreat.

I'm still committed to sticking with the program as long as they'll have me. Technically, I'm still an applicant, not a candidate; when we had our orientation several weeks ago, and one of my fellow newbies asked how and when we are officially welcomed into the program, the response we got was somewhat vague -- there's a largely undefined evaluation process (With whom? Evaluating what? For how long?) that goes on before we get the acceptance letter in the mail. Me being an anxious sort with definite suck-up/overachiever tendencies, I immediately began to worry about not making the cut. I'm still mildly nervous, the way I am before an annual evaluation at work, but I'm not losing sleep over it.

An interesting phenomenon I've been noticing in myself: After these past months of mostly thinky, academic training sessions, I'm starting to shift my focus to actual ministry: What am I going to do with this? The other day I had occasion to be in a senior apartment complex where some local clergyperson was conducting a worship service for the residents; as I walked past, I found myself wondering how I'd go about setting up my own worship service for various small groups. While blog-surfing the other day, I thought about something my pastor had said about creating an online presence for our church, and I started thinking, "If I were going to design a blog for our church, what might it look like?" Or what other kind of ministry-oriented blog might I want to start, on my own time, for the virtual community? Is there some other activity I can do that involves writing? Or maybe my real vocation involves something I haven't even thought of yet.

The CEO is being very coy about details, by the way. The last time I asked, the response was, "You'll see." (He strings me along like this all the time. I think it's so I keep talking to him.)

This discernment process is something very interesting and mysterious and even exciting.

Cold Turkey

I'm sitting here, munching on a handful of pistachios, suddenly coming to the decision that I am no longer going to post on Beliefnet's Christian-to-Christian Debate forum, or even visit there. No goodbyes...I'm just quitting. It's too mean, and too weird, it wastes my time, and it isn't making me a better person.

I feel bad for some of my friends who are also regulars there, who are going to have to bear the burden of representing mainline Christianity and progressive social values. But I don't feel bad enough to go back.

Anyhow...you read it here first.

What "Evangelism" Really Means

I just love this quote from Dylan's Lectionary Blog this week:

The great urgency I feel (and believe me, I feel it!) as an evangelist (by which I mean a person called to enflesh Good News in the world such that people experience Good News in the world -- it's a shame that the word 'evangelist' has come in the popular usage to refer to someone who yells at everyone within earshot about Bad News) is to build communities of mercy, love, and justice broad enough to take in the fullest extent possible of God's passion for Creation.

I want to be like Sarah Dylan Breuer when I grow up!

Under Construction...

Hey, come visit Open Thou Our Lips , a blog that some of my friends and I are creating to discuss the Daily Office, and our experience of God in our daily lives. (Thanks to bls , whose blog helped provide the spark for this project, and thanks, *Christopher , for setting it up.) If you follow the Daily Office, or would like to, or have an interest in Godtalk on a personal, experiential level, come join us as we get a conversation going. Work and pray; it's the best we can do any given day.

News From the Empire

Regular readers of this blog know that I do not often wax political -- partly because it's really not my blog's reason for existence, and partly...well, partly because I have a fairly new laptop, and I'd hate to ruin it by disgorging throw-up on the keyboard on a regular basis. But some days things need to be said, and this is one of those days. So, with no further ado:

Item: The Anti- Anti-Lynching Senators

You might wonder, here in Anno Domini 2005, what sort of knuckle-dragging Neanderthal would not endorse a Senate bill apologizing for the government's dereliction of duty in not condemning the practice of lynching. Well, actually, there are six, and counting:

Senator Richard Shelby, R-Alabama
Senator Thad Cochran, R-Mississippi
Senator Trent Lott, R-Mississippi
Senator Lamarr Alexander, R-Tennessee
Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas

Thanks to Bloodless Coup for this information, which is being updated. You might also find it interesting to read the official websites of these legislators to see what kind of legislation they are willing to publicly endorse.


Item: Kill the Messenger

A U.S. House panel has voted to eliminate all public funding for PBS and NPR. Their recommendation would cut 25 percent of federal funding for public broadcasting this year -- that's $100 million -- and end funding altogether within two years. This is just the latest salvo in an ongoing assault on public broadcasting. Kenneth Tomlinson, chairperson of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- an organization set up, ironically, to protect public broadcasting from partisan bias -- is a Republican with a close relationship to the Administration, spent public monies on ridding public broadcasting of "liberal bias," and conducted a secret investigation of the program NOW, formerly hosted by Bill Moyers. In doing so, Tomlinson appears to have been ignoring his own surveys of public broadcasting consumers, who express satisfaction with the fairness and balance of news programming.

To read more about this, check out "Keep the Public in Broadcasting" . And let your own legislators know how you feel about this attempt to kill public broadcasting.

Item: The Rich Get Richer

The increasing gap between haves and have-nots has become so worrisome that Alan Greenspan -- not exactly a raving Bolshie -- and other economic policy makers are expressing concern about the future of democratic capitalism. You can read more about it here .

When in Rome...have a cookie. (See below.) And pray that you won't be asked for a pinch of incense and a "Kaiser Kurios!" Sometimes it's all you can do.

Snack Attack

After all that heavy theologizing...time for a cookie break, I say.

The following recipe comes from my aunt -- also an enthusiastic berry picker and jam maker -- who baked these every year for Christmas for as long as I can remember. I've tried using different kinds of jam in them, but to me raspberry jam tastes best.

For some reason the people at my parish are particularly wild over these cookies, and in fact one of my fellow parishoners swoops down upon them every year at our big annual yard and bake sale, buys 'em all up and freezes them -- says they taste good eaten right out of the freezer. I myself prefer them still a little oven-warm and gooey. But since I'm trying to cut down on sugary, buttery things, I will be content to enjoy them in my imagination. You, on the other hand -- eat; you look thin.

RASPBERRY BARS

350 degrees 25-30 minutes

1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. soda
1 1/2 cup oatmeal
2TBS water (to start -- you may need a bit more)
1 cup raspberry jam

Spray 9 by 13 pan with cooking spray.

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Sift together dry ingredients except oatmeal; stir into creamed mixture. Add oatmeal and 1 TBS water. Mix until crumbly.

Firmly pat half the crumb mixture into the pan. Spread with jam. Stir remaining water into remaining crumbs. Sprinkle over jam filling and lightly pat smooth.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Cut into bars.

Shaking Off the Dust

If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Matthew 10:14

As I was thinking about today's Gospel lesson, I couldn't help but pause at this seemingly un-Jesusian instruction. I understand that shaking the dust from one's sandals as a sign of contempt was, in that time and place, some pretty serious street theater. Where's the "God of second chances" here? What happened to forgiving seventy times seven, and going back for the lost sheep, and "Father, forgive them," and all that other grace stuff?

In going through the process of "What does it say?"-"What does it mean?"-"What does it mean for me right now?" I came across a couple of commentaries that helped me better wrap my head around this passage.

The people Jesus seems to be targeting here are not folks who just don't get the Reign of God -- heck, most of the time the disciples themselves (and, by extension, the rest of us) don't get it. No; they're the people who, in some deep-seated, unequivocal way, don't want to get it, ever. They're people who have, for whatever reason, declared a final NO to God's YES to them. The shaking-off-of-the-dust is simply an acknowledgment of, and exclamation point to, the rejection of God that has already taken place.

Does this scenario exclude the possibility that, sometime in the future, these same individuals might experience a powerful metanoia moment that opens their hearts to the good news of God's redeeming, reconciling work? I don't think so; but in this story Jesus is concerned about the now: You are here. So is God. Deal.

And, in addition to this -- I think Jesus is also giving his disciples permission to walk away from the hard cases, before the hard cases break them. I think that's an important point for those of us who try valiantly, sometimes, to get others to understand God's redeeming, reconciling grace, only to get dope-slapped again and again and again by hateful people; not clueless, struggling people, mind you, but literally hateful people who have unequivocally rejected the good news of God's love and acceptance, who speak and act in ways completely oppositional to the way of Christ. Walking away from someone doesn't mean hating that person; it means...just that; walking away; stating our case, commending the situation to God and moving on. Sometimes, sadly, I think that's the "next right thing" we can do.

To Be of Use

I was a third-grade Brownie dropout.

Inspired by an old Girl Scout handbook, desirous of winning a sashful of merit badges and performing feats of outdoor derring-do, I harrassed my parents until they allowed me to join the local Brownie troop. But -- alas -- there were no merit badges. There was no outdoor derring-do. Because I had the bad luck to join the lamest Brownie troop ever. Once a month we met in the elementary school gym, sat in a circle, sang "Whene'er You Make a Promise" -- and that was it. Our leaders acted as if they'd walked into the wrong afterschool program by mistake("You mean this isn't study hall?"?)...but then, much to my dismay, they kept coming back. I felt cheated; I wanted something to do. Four months later, I was out of there.

Many years later I started a new job. Upon arrival at the office on my first day of work, in that state of dazed confusion common to new employees, I was informed that there wasn't enough office space for me there, so I would have to go over to a satellite office across town. I was handed a large cardboard box containing a jumble of my predecessor's files and told to "look through them." When I asked what my first assignment was, my supervisor couldn't tell me. "Just -- look through the files and see what the other person has been working on," my boss kept murmuring. After several days of this -- asking for direction, getting evasive answers, paging through the files as directed and learning absolutely nothing from them -- it became quite clear to me that no one knew what I was supposed to be doing, including my boss and including my predecessor. In the long run, this proved to be advantageous for me because I wound up more or less writing my own job description. But it was a pretty surreal, "Ground Control to Major Tom?" experience. And, until I was able to earn my chops in that organization by carrying out successful projects of my own, I felt pretty devalued both as an employee and as a person: Who am I and why am I here?

In this Sunday's Gospel lesson , we find a Jesus who gives his disciples -- people who, in this story, are just barely past the "Hello, My Name Is _______" stage of their relationship -- a clear idea of who they are and why they're here. First of all, Jesus empowers them; gives them the authority to do things in his name. Next, he gives them a series of tasks: To proclaim the in-breaking of the Reign of God; to teach people what that is going to look like; to bring wholeness to their physical, mental and spiritual brokenness. Later in the Christian story, Paul calls this work the ministry of reconciliation.

A Native American elder from the Southwest was once asked by an anthropologist why his community was so accepting of those who differed from the norm. He responded, "In our tribe, we can't afford to waste people." Likewise, in the Reign of God, Christ wastes no one. We are all called to ministry. Some of us might still be wandering around in confusion, wondering how exactly we got here and if we're really in the right place...doesn't matter. "Get to work." And as we can see just by looking around in our own immediate circles and communities, let alone the world at large, there's work a-plenty in the reconciliation business.

Sure, this work needs to be done. But I think God knows that we need the work. God's gift of grace is like a Russian nesting doll with innumerable smaller gifts resting inside it; those gifts include the privilege and dignity inherent in our calling as Christians to be Christ's hands in the world. The world often makes us feel like nobodies; God, on the other hand, makes us somebodies, beloved members of the household of God and workers in God's inbreaking Reign. To be of use for God; how great a gift is that?

I, the Lord of earth and sky
I have heard my people cry
All who dwell in deepest sin
my hand will save.
I, who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright
Who will bear my light to them?
Whom shall I send? (Chorus)

I, the Lord of snow and rain,
I have borne my people's pain
I have wept for love of them.
They turn away.
I will break their hearts of stone,
give them hearts for love alone,
I will speak my word to them,
Whom shall I send? (Chorus)

I, the Lord of wind and flame,
I will tend the poor and lame,
I will set a feast for them.
My hand will save.
Finest bread will I provide
till their hearts be satisfied.
I will give my life to them.
Whom shall I send? (Chorus)

Chorus

Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go, Lord, if you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.

"Here I Am, Lord," text by Daniel Schutte; music by Daniel Schutte, Michael Pope, SJ and John Weissrock


The Harvest Moon by George Mason 

Lectio With My Brother

If I could describe yesterday in one word...to borrow one from Dilbert's triangular-haired Alice, GAAAAAAAH!

At work, a floppy disk containing a photo file I needed for a press release somehow became hopelessly corrupted, forcing me to go to Plan B. (I hate Plan B.) My day was further complicated by a sudden request for data from the "powers and principalities" in my organization that had me crunching numbers for most of the morning, a task I hate almost as much as Plan B. Physically...well, not to get into the gory details, but I felt like retiring to a faintin' couch with triple Advil, a hot water bottle and a pound of therapeutic M&Ms...but I couldn't. Then, when I got home, I found myself fighting the good fight, or at least a fight, on multiple fronts, on Beliefnet ("Must...restrain...Fist...of...Death..."). Same ol'- same ol'...intimations that I can't possibly be a Real Christian [tm], or that I need some major retrofitting to become one, or that I am "disordered" in some particularly horrible way, or that I'm just stupid and inadequate and baaaad all around.

So by the time I got around to the Evening Prayer, I had pretty much had it. One of the lines from the appropriately whiny/kvetchy/ingratiating Psalm of the day summed it up nicely: "My eyes have grown dim watching for your promise." But then I got to the Gospel reading, from Luke, and groaned. It was one of the "hard sayings" of Jesus, the grim parable of the three servants given sums of money by an unjust ruler to invest for him while he leaves town; two of them earn interest for their master, which makes him happy, but the third, who is afraid, buries his money instead of putting it to work, and gets punished bigtime...and then the pissed-off ruler demands that his enemies all be killed. The End.

Now, generally speaking, my rule of thumb with lectionary readings is that the more confusing or distateful they are, the more I need to pay attention for an especially valuable insight buried in there somewhere...but this evening, while I read and reread the lesson, trying to remember all the commentaries and discussions I've ever encountered of this particular parable, all that came to mind was a vision of The CEO giving a divine Powerpoint presentation in the conference room of the heavenly mansions,with my personal performance graph up on the screen, flatlining.

No.

Now, as some of you may know, when Jesus hangs out with me, sometimes he's The CEO, "in whom and through whom and for whom all things were made." Sometimes he's Rabbi Yeshua -- challenging, provocative and occasionally downright aggravating, but in a good way, like your best college professor. Sometimes he's my Brother -- a bit of the other two, for sure, but also someone who is closer to me than anyone else in the world. Tonight Jesus was my Brother, with an arm around my shoulder.

No.

It wasn't an angry "no." It was the kind of "no" I might say to someone I cared about who was beating herself up.

"What?"

No. Let's not do this anymore.

"You don't want me to pray the Daily Office?"

Let's read something else. Where's your Bible?

I got out my Bible.

Just page through the Gospels. You'll know when you find it.

"Now, wait a minute," I protested. (You have to give me chutzpah points for arguing with Jesus Christ.) "That's like bibliomancy...the kind of stuff I tell newbie Christians not to do."

In my mind's eye my Brother started raising a Christ Pantocrator eyebrow.

"Oh, all right." The eyebrow went back down.

I flipped through a few pages.

There. It was the Gospel of Matthew, in the 6th chapter:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

My Brother, smiling, made a tah-dah gesture.

"I don't get it."

You will. Just keep reading it.

So I did. I read it several times. And the last sentence kept reverberating in my head.

What does it mean to lose something? It means you don't know where it is; right?