Metanoia

One of the best definitions of repentance I've ever heard: Looking in a new direction for your happiness.

More on Getting Real

It occurred to me that I should perhaps explain the process of examen of conscience, for readers who may not be acquainted with this practice. (Which I think describes a lot, if not most, of my fellow Lutherans.)

What it isn't is the sort of stereotypical confession beloved of television and film, where some sweating individual is crouched in a confessional enumerating a long list of sins: "I confess that I was impatient with my mother when she started telling me how to do dishes even though I'm 45 years old and can do dishes, thank you...I confess that I had an unclean thought while looking at numerous Renaissance paintings of penitent Magdalenes, trying to find a good graphic for my blog...I confess that I ate the chocolate fudge pudding I was going to put in the food bank basket at church..." Nope; not like that.

Examen is part of Ignatian spirituality, and it's remarkably contemporary in feel. The steps of examen may vary slightly, depending on who you're talking to, but ere's one pattern for examen that I've taken from Lisa Dahill's helpful book Truly Present: Practicing Prayer in the Liturgy (Augsburg Fortress):

You start by invoking a sense of God's loving presence, and praying for enlightenment as you seek to understand the patterns of your own thoughts and behaviors, trusting that God wants the best for you and wants to lead you into healing and wholeness.

Next, you express gratitude to God for the good things in your life. Some of the good things may be obvious, big-picture things. But as you examine yourself, you may discover little, easily overlooked points of grace in your life that you can also thank God for.

Your next step is a survey of consciousness and actions...what attitudes and motivations and thoughts and deeds in your life seem to draw you closer to God, and what things seem to pull you away. I journaled this; I drew a line down the pages and did some focused exploration of both dynamics. And perhaps there are areas of your life where you feel God's absence despite your desire to feel God's presence; this is the time to come to grips with that experience.

Your next step is what is traditionally called contrition, but is perhaps more accurately described as bringing all your feelings about what you've just discovered about yourself to the table before God. You may indeed feel contrite; you may also feel frustrated, or relieved, or angry, or defensive, or thankful for insight, or any number of other things. Just as the Psalms lay bare all our human emotions, this part of examen is our opportunity to "let it all hang out" before God.

Finally comes hopeful resolution: Lifting all of this up to God in the trust that God is working a new thing in you, isn't finished yet, and is going to keep reorienting you in a Godward direction.

So, anyhow, that's what I've been working on. And it was a bit like a performance review at work; a few surprises, and actually one positive one pointing in the opposite direction than what I had anticipated...but pretty much hearing in my heart and seeing on paper what I knew already. The anticipation of spelunking deep inside myself was far more uncomfortable than the actual process, which was quite gentle and peaceful -- sort of like my recent dental adventure, come to think of it.

But then The CEO, who'd been helping me through this process, pointed to one systemic attitudinal issue I'd finally had to name to myself, that keeps tripping me up over and over again when I'm dealing with other people.

"So," he said, sounding very rabbinical, "what are you going to do about that?"

I was jolted out of sigh-of-relief mode: "Um...hmmm?"

"That. You know what I want you to do, don't you?"

I had a sudden flashback to those old Saturday Night Live Mr. Bill Claymations: Oh, noooooooooo!

"How about a do-over?" I asked weakly. "Clean slate and all that? Tabula rasa?"

He shook his head.

I whimpered a little. "I'm not used to this."

He looked right into my eyes, and then through me like a laser. "I know." I thought I detected the faintest of smiles lifting the corners of his mouth, but he was still serious enough to make me squirm.

"'Kay," I murmured.

"I'm sorry -- I didn't quite hear that."

"Okay."

"Good. You can start anytime."

The picture below is of me, thinking, "He's right. I know he is. But...oh, noooooooooo!"

"The Penitent," Jules Breton 

The Big Getting Real

I'm beginning a thorough and serious examen of conscience before Ash Wednesday. I'm a little afraid -- as I told someone today, things are going to get ugly -- but I want, and need, that YOU ARE HERE marked out on my spiritual roadmap.

Talk about annual performance reviews -- I'm getting one from The CEO.

Sacred Space

Christianity is a faith of paradox, and one of the paradoxes we live with as Christians is a Lord who in a very real sense is a Friend and an Elder Brother; accessible to us, relating to us as individuals, abiding with us personally and in community...but who is also, according to Scripture, the very Word of God; the image of the invisible God; the One in whom through whom and for whom all things were created; the One the great chorus in Revelation sings is worthy to receive blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.

It's understandably difficult for us to wrap our heads around this fully human, fully divine Jesus. So historically Christians have tended to overemphasize one Jesus over the other. In the Middle Ages, Jesus was a rather distant and frightening figure; his goodness too good to endure, his suffering too terrible to contemplate. The Eucharist -- God's gift of grace and spiritual nourishment to the people of God -- often became something too precious for common people to partake; "Take and eat" became "See and adore." Saints seemed more human, more able and willing to involve themselves in human affairs than the intimidating Christ of the popular imagination; they increasingly became the middlemen and -women in human interaction with the Divine.

The Reformation came as a needed correction to this loss of the Gospel message. But in the centuries to come the pendulum began to tilt in the other direction, helped on one hand by biblical deconstructionists who approached scholarship with the attitude of "This can't possibly be right," and on the other hand by Pietists whose emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus and insistence on minimalist worship tended to, for all intents and purposes, dethrone the Cosmic Christ and turn the salvation story into a private me-n-Jesus-under-the-blanket-with-a-flashlight drama, in a cynical and superficial culture (including Christian culture) that has lost its grasp of concepts like sanctity and holiness and mystery.

What today's Gospel lesson said to me as I was reading and rereading it, was that we can't have one Jesus without the other. The very human, flesh-and-blood Jesus we meet earlier in Mark -- the teacher, the healer, the individual who reached out to other individuals, the Jesus who had to contend with blockheaded disciples and intrusive crowds and hostile religious leaders -- is also the Jesus of the Transfiguration, a figure so glorious that his closest friends fall on their faces in awe.

I believe that we are living in a time when people are hungering and thirsting for connection with the numinous, the holy. They want to, as one Catholic cleric put it, celebrate the Mystery. Popular culture can't help them. Sadly, many Christian churches these days can't help them either.

One of my ministerial mentors describes church as "a place where God happens." I think all of us who belong to faith communities need to think about how we create sacred space -- space where God happens -- in our worship services and small groups. Sometimes we need Jesus to be our friend -- but sometimes we also need Jesus to be "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty." The mystery of our faith is that Jesus is both. But is that truly reflected in how we live...how we speak...how we worship?


"The Transfiguration," Titian 

The Codeman and the Chairman

My dog loves Frank Sinatra.

I tell this to people, and they smile and nod, and I know they're thinking, "She's just a leeetle bit nuts."

But I'm telling you, it's true. When our local public radio station's Saturday morning jazz/swing/blues program plays Sinatra, my dog is right at the radio. One Sunday evening when 60 Minutes did a feature on some newly discovered Sinatra videos, my dog sat right in front of the TV, ear cocked, entranced, for the whole segment.

Tonight, during the replay of the Olympic figure skating exhibition, Sinatra's "My Way" was one of the musical accompaniments. My dog, who had been snoozing in his little doggy bed, popped to attention and listened to the whole song; then settled back down and fell asleep as soon as the music stopped.

The dog has a thing for the Chairman of the Board. Believe me or not.

Something I Learned Today During My Theological Training

A Catholic priest, a Lutheran pastor and a rabbi used to have lunch together every Wednesday at a local cafe.

One Wednesday, as they were eating and talking about their work, the subject of mortality and legacies came up: When they died, what did they want the people in their congregations to say about them as they passed the casket at their respective funerals?

The priest said, "At my funeral, as they passed my casket I'd want them to say, 'He was a faithful servant of God who gave his all to the Church and served the people to the best of his ability.'"

The pastor said, "As they passed my casket I'd want them to say, 'She preached the Word rightly; administered the Sacraments rightly; was a good pastor, a good spouse and a good mother.'"

The rabbi said, "As they passed my casket, I'd want them to say, Look! He's moving!'"

[rim shot]

Actually, I learned all about the structure and themes of the Gospel of Mark. And a sort of condensed, triple-espresso review of the history, purpose and structure of the liturgy. My head is spinning. And more to come tomorrow.

Friday Poetry Blogging

Winter Promises

Tomatoes rosy as perfect baby's buttocks,
eggplants glossy as waxed fenders,
purple neon flawless glistening
peppers, pole beans fecund and fast
growing as Jack's Viagra-sped stalk,
big as truck tire zinnias that mildew
will never wilt, roses weighing down
a bush never touched by black spot,
brave little fruit trees shouldering up
their spotless ornaments of glass fruit:

I lie on the couch under a blanket
of seed catalogs ordering far
too much. Sleet slides down
the windows, a wind edged
with ice knifes through every crack.
Lie to me, sweet garden-mongers:
I want to believe every promise,
to trust in five pound tomatoes
and dahlias brighter than the sun
that was eaten by frost last week. -- Marge Piercy

For those of you who enjoy fantasizing over garden catalogs, check out Garden Bazaar . And if you're an heirloom-variety/OP vegetable geek, look over at my blogroll and check out Bountiful Gardens. The catalog is black and white, but it's loaded with all sorts of wild and wonderful heirloom veggie varieties. I can also vouch for their excellent customer service. Happy garden dreams!

In Retreat

I just finished a Stress Day From Hell, in the context of a Stress Week From Hell -- I had my annual performance review this afternoon (positive but extremely anxiety-provoking), followed a few hours later by an equally anxiety-provoking forelock-tugging, hat-in-hand presentation to a local agency that helps fund one of our programs at work. So I'm thrilled to be taking a vacation day and heading off to my quarterly lay ministry retreat tomorrow and Saturday. Actually, I'm just heading down the road a few miles; the location this time is so close that I'm commuting...a fact that may have some of you scratching your heads, thinking, "What sort of retreat is that?"

Well, sometimes I think the same thing. Sometimes I'd love to spend a weekend at a real retreat house, somewhere far away, in solitude and silence.

But our retreats are like concentrated seminary. We're spending the weekend engrossed in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark -- an intrepid seminary professor is coming all the way to the general environs of Outer Podunk to teach us -- and we're also going to learn about the purpose and structure of the liturgy from one of our regional pastoral mentors, an excellent teacher who's just a delight to listen to. We're going to worship; we take turns helping with this. We're going to break out into small groups and talk about Life, the Universe and Everything. My pastor's going to be a resource pastor at this event, which will be kind of cool; the resource pastors preside over our retreat Eucharist and then just hang out with us. We're going to eat, a lot -- dietary asceticism not being a value at these shindigs, thanks to the various church ladies and gents who tend to feed us to the gills.

I admit to enjoying an occasional weekend away from the old homestead. Those of you who travel muchly, perhaps unhappily, might find it either hilarious or sad that I can find delight in sitting up in a hotel bed in my jammies, channel-surfing, or playing with the whirlpool function in the bathtub, or people-watching in the public areas. I'm just very easily amused.

Tomorrow, though, I'm heading home at 9:30 pm -- which will make both my dog and my mother very happy -- and heading back to the theology corral bright and early Saturday. I might even manage a blog entry or two in the middle of all this.

Holy Crap!

Check this out: "21 Percent of Americans Holy" .

The very best part of this Barna report: When asked to define "holy," the largest percentage of respondents -- also 21 percent -- said they didn't know what it meant.

Well, alrighty then!

I Have Become...Comfortably Numb

Thank you, God, for the good gift of DRUGS.

I'm speaking many hours later, after my 8 am appointment with dental destiny.

Amazing, what they can do nowadays. I admit to being a little bit afraid this morning, because I wasn't going to be knocked out for my procedure; the last time I had oral surgery, as I blogged earlier, I was so wacked out on Demerol and Versed that the only thing I remember of the whole thing was Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons on the radio. Now, when I confirmed my appointment, the nurse had assured me that this extraction would be quick and painless, and I'd be able to drive myself to and from, but...I wasn't looking forward to this day.

The medical office had a nice saltwater aquarium -- clownfish and striking little neon blue fish and a big, friendly fish that actually seemed to be watching the action outside the glass. For some reason, in my life the nicer the waiting-room aquariums the worse the experience I've had in the medical office, so this pleasant underwater scene did not comfort me. A young woman came in; I figured a student from the university down the street; she had the look of someone in pain, someone also not particularly thrilled to be sitting in this office at ten minutes to 8:00.

Finally I was ushered by a nurse into the exam room. I got settled, and the doctor -- a kindly, avuncular older man -- gave me a hefty dose of numbzit. I sat alone for 15 minutes, doing the Jesus Prayer; then the doctor returned, tapped my tingling chin, started doing stuff inside my mouth while the nurse handed him things I couldn't see because I had my eyes closed. In what I think was a clever bit of parlor magic translated into dental work, he started counting; he stopped at two, started again and stopped at two again, then asked me an innocuous question that of course I couldn't answer; while I was trying to figure out how to respond the doctor suddenly announced, "It's out!" And that was it. And it turned out that a root canal wouldn't have been doable in my situation anyway, which also helped allay my fear that I hadn't chosen the best alternative.

So far I've been able to handle a late lunch of yogurt, baby food (strained bananas and plums rock...no wonder I was such a fat little kid) and lukewarm tea. Tonight I'm attempting chicken soup, from a big batch I made last night.

I wouldn't say that this would be my preferred way to spend a day off from work, but it wasn't quite as awful as I had imagined. RIP, old molar. Welcome back, strained fruit.

Yes

As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been “Yes and No.” For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not “Yes and No”; but in him it is always “Yes.” For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” For this reason it is through him that we say the “Amen,” to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 1:18-20

Something my pastor said yesterday in his sermon has stayed with me through today.

Because of the way the world works, because of all the NO's we hear from the time we're tiny tots...how difficult it is for us to trust in Christ's YES to us. We stand cringing, our lips quivering, waiting for the accusatory finger and the angry voice...but instead we hear a YES.

Rushing the Season

I think it must say something about someone's personality if, instead of looking forward to Christmas, s/he looks forward to Lent.

That's where I'm at right now. It may still be the Season of Light, but I'm thinking about the ways in which I am going to observe Lent this year.

One way is by providing some Internet space for people to share their own Lenten journeys, ask questions, and provide some encouragement for those who perhaps aren't being supported in their Lenten observance by their faith community or family or friends. I've set up what's called a dialogue group on Beliefnet for this purpose. If you are not already a member, you do need to register (fairly painless -- you can uncheck all those annoying please-let-us-junk-up-your-e-mail-every-day-with-our-marketing options, and also keep your profile blank, if you'd rather not invest a lot of self-disclosure in that website other than participating in this group) to participate in the dialogue groups. Once you've done that, go to the left-hand sidebar, find "Community," find "Dialogue Groups," find "Christianity" -- and you'll see my group; I use a different nom de plume/nom de guerre over there, but you'll figure it out.

Many people pick a spiritual book other than the Bible to read during the Lenten season. I think this year I am going to read Unfettered Hope: A Call To Faithful Living in an Affluent Society by Marva Dawn, a theologian whose work I've appreciated before. I am more acquainted with her books about the theology of worship; in this book, Dawn tackles the issue of living not only more faithfully but also more hopefully in a society where the various "powers and principalities" tend to create an atmosphere of chaos and despair. I think this book will fit in well with the countercultural thrust of Lent -- a time where, while the rest of the world does its own thing, we keep our eyes focused on Jesus as he in turn "sets his face toward Jerusalem," and like Mary Magdalene in Godspell we ask, "Can you take me with you?"

I'm slowly working out some of my other Lenten disciplines. I want to engage in some quality examen time beforehand to identify some of the issues in my own life that keep me lurching into the ditch on my walk with The CEO, and integrate confronting those into my disciplines. And a lot of it I think is going to stay between The CEO and me.

And, of course, I'm giving up a tooth for Lent.

(That was a joke. Sort of.)

Have a Cookie

My recent flu attack derailed my monthly cookie baking regimen, so this weekend I found myself owing our church raffle winner two months of cookies. (Constant readers will remember that, for the past two years, I have raffled off a year's worth of home-baked cookies.)

I decided to mix up my raspberry bar recipe , but make it a little more February-esque by using black cherry preserves instead of raspberry jam. These turned out quite good; the preserves (a found item in the German section of the new import aisle in our local supermarket) were on the tart side, and the flavor in general was a little more complex and interesting.

What to make for the other batch...pawing around through the family cookbook drawer, I found an Ideals cookie book from the early 70's that one of my aunts gave me when I started getting interested in baking. I'd never tried too many recipes from this particular book, but I did remember one successful, easy-to-make cookie that would make good use of some cream cheese in my refrigerator. So...here is the recipe, submitted for your approval. These cookies are not keepers -- not that that will be a problem -- and should be kept in the refrigerator if you happen to have any left after a day.

Lemon Cheese Balls
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 3-oz package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 TBS lemon rind
1/2 tsp lemon extract (I really dislike the taste of most extracts, so I squeeze some fresh lemon juice into the dough instead; maybe also a little spot of real vanilla)
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 3/4 cup coarsely crushed cereal (cornflakes, Rice Krispies, etc.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and cream cheese; add sugar gradually. Add lemon rind and extract or juice. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and gradually add to mixture. Chill dough several hours. Shape heaping teaspoons of dough into balls and roll in crushed cereal. Please on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake about 12 minutes. (Cookies will not brown.) Makes about 3 dozen.

Carrying and Being Carried

Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Many years ago, after an ice storm like the one that recently hit my part of the world, I fell down my front stairs one morning as I was heading to work. One moment I was gingerly making my way sideways down each step, and then the next moment I was at the foot of the stairs, looking up at the sky, the wind knocked right out of me. For about a minute, I couldn't move; I was numb. And as I lay there on the ice, looking up, wondering how badly I'd injured myself, I felt an additional fear: There's no one here to help me.

Sometimes our paralysis is intellectual or emotional. Writer's block; many of us are familiar with the terror of facing down a blank computer screen. Or maybe, faced with a tough decision or series of decisions, we are so overloaded with information or options or possible outcomes that we simply can't take a next step; we feel our minds crashing like an overstressed CPU. Sometimes our paralysis is caused by a cocktail of physical, mental and emotional factors. But whatever the reason, we find ourselves like the woman in the infamous TV commercial: I've fallen and I can't get up.

This is the situation of the young paralytic in our Gospel lesson. Except -- he has friends. Faithful friends. Persistent friends. Resourceful friends. When they hear that Jesus is in town, and they arrive at Jesus' location only to find a huge, jostling crowd already there, trying to get close to Jesus, they resolve to do whatever it takes to get their friend the help he needs -- even if it means climbing onto the roof, digging through the tiles and lowering their friend through the hole.

It's interesting that I found it hard to find artwork for this post that actually showed the paralytic's friends. Artists seem to prefer focusing on the drama of the paralyzed man suddenly picking up his mat and walking. But if you read the text, the friends aren't just bit players in this story. It's their love, their trust, that Jesus commends.

Not all that long ago I was the person flattened on the mat. Not by anything serious -- I know people going through crises that make my own life seem like a stroll down Easy Street by comparison. No; my problems were more on the scale of being nibbled to death by ducks; every day one more thing -- a health issue; a work setback; an anxiety about my mother; dealing with hostile others. I started greeting the morning in the cynical spirit of Dorothy Parker: What fresh hell is this? I felt myself shutting down. I couldn't move emotionally or spiritually, and even had a hard time making the trip out of bed every day.

And that's when my friends showed up. Not in concert, mind you; most of them don't know one another. And I'm sure many of them weren't all that conscious of the aid they were lending me. But all of them, in their own ways, helped pull me up on the roof and then got me to a place where I could see Jesus. And that was a gift I desperately needed.

I run into a lot of Christian freelancers online who have been so hurt or disillusioned by the Church that they've resolved to go it alone in the world. What I tell them is: It's just too hard. You need other people. Yes, they'll drive you insane sometimes, but you need them.

And it works both ways. I know that I am the least happy and whole when I am suffering a bout of curvatus in se -- self-absorption, solipsism, all me all the time. Sometimes I need to be confronted by someone flat on the mat to startle me out of myself, to help me remember who I am and why I'm here.

Jane Siberry has a song, "Life is the Red Wagon," whose chorus goes, "You pull me/I'll pull for you." This is how it is, to live on the earth. And this is where we meet Jesus, the powerful one who was also the weak and vulnerable one, who heals us when we're not able to pull and blesses us for the pulling.


Artwork by James Tissot

The Chik Turns One!

I'm terrible at remembering birthdays...so it's no surprise I forgot that this blog was born Feb. 16th last year! Wow. Hard to believe.

Tea'd Off

Well, now that I got my Winter Olympics editorial off my chest, on to kinder, gentler things...namely, tea.

I've never been an enthusiastic tea drinker; I enjoy the very pale, flowery green tea served in Chinese restaurants, but I've never been able to replicate the flavor at home; and I can only drink black tea if it's been majorly amended with milk.

But one of my bosses introduced me to white tea at this year's office Christmas tea. White tea is made from the very youngest tea-leaf buds, when they're coated in white fuzz. It's wonderful; I love it. Since then I've tried the Stash white/green tea mix, and that was good, but my current favorite is Choice brand Organic White Peony tea from my food coop. I enjoy it plain, with some barely-sweet snack like shortbread on the side. (And, by the way, there are no peonies in white peony tea, because peonies are poisonous. So don't be picking flowers out of your perennial bed and trying to make peony tea out of them.)

If you don't think you like tea, try white tea -- tea for non-tea-drinkers. It's a nice warming treat on an extremely cold morning.

Saturday Five, With Bonus Rant

Yeah; I'm slow. Anyhow...

Which of the Winter Olympic sports is your favorite to watch?

The freestyle skiing events.

Do you speak Snowboardese?

Dude -- gaffers should probably not speak Snowboardese.

Define Nordic Combined. Don't look it up. Take a guess if you must.

Aha! I know this. It's cross-country skiing combined with ski jumping...right?

Curling. Please discuss.

I love curling, because it is the only Olympic sport that I could conceivably ever do myself. Since I'm built more for strength and endurance than speed and agility, I'd be the one pushing the stone down the ice (I have to admit, I don't know the lingo); I'd let someone else do the thing with the broom.

If you could be a Winter Olympics Champion just by wishing for it, which sport would you choose for winning your Gold Medal?

Again, I think I would only be believable as a curling competitor.

Now for the rant. I have had it up to here [LC gesturing right up to her 5'3" top of head] with all the scoldy, frowny-faced commentator hand-wringing over Lindsey Jacobellis, the American snowboardcross competitor who, just seconds from winning the gold medal, wiped out while making an exuberant grab for her board. She was "hot-dogging"; she let down the team.

Is it just me, or do you think that if Lindsey were a he and not a she there would not be this sort of judgmental broughaha? That Lindsey would be praised for "going for it" and exemplifying that ol' Olympic spirit even if it didn't work out? Ya think? I recall the same sort of criticism being leveled in the past at female figure skaters attempting quad jumps -- they were just showing off, they weren't being team players...I once heard a commentator even opine that a female quad jump would be a "freakish" move that shouldn't be allowed in competition because only some steroid-pumped female anomaly would be able to achieve it. So much for Citius, altius, fortius.

Then, to add to this nonsense, a local newspaper sports columnist recently opined that many women's Olympic sports -- including hockey -- were "novelties" designed to harvest medals for the United States and fill up television time, and not legitimate athletic pursuits. This from someone whose idea of women's athletics is probably ordering his wife to the kitchen in the 25-foot Beer Relay event while he rests his posterior in his La-Z-Boy.

Feh. As far as I'm concerned these "experts" can all biff themselves. Which may not be the correct Snowboardese term, but -- dang -- it felt good to type.

Friday Poetry Blogging

The Thread

Something is very gently,

invisibly, silently,

pulling at me-a thread

or net of threads

finer than cobweb and as

elastic. I haven't tried

the strength of it. No barbed hook

pierced and tore me. Was it

not long ago this thread

began to draw me? Or

way back? Was I

born with its knot about my

neck, a bridle? Not fear

but a stirring

of wonder makes me

catch my breath when I feel

the tug of it when I thought

it had loosened itself and gone. -- Denise Levertov

"My Sheep Hear My Voice..."

"My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand." John 10:27-28




Artwork: "The Good Shepherd," Eric Gill

Yearn To Learn?

Check this out: ELCA's Select Multimedia Learning Resources -- all sorts of interesting stuff, especially for Bible students looking for seminary-quality lectures on DVD or tape. Hey, maybe I'll get "Evangelism For Shy Lutherans." (That was a joke.)

Word Cloud

I just made a LutheranChik "word cloud" by running my blog through Snapshirts . This is pretty cool. You can do it too.

"I Know My Own and My Own Know Me..."

In case you need another reason to follow The Daily Office: Sometimes, when you really need "a word," it's right there.

I needed a word this evening, after finding myself in yet another conversation with people who would rather leave a church than share it with people like me, and after reading human rights reports of individuals churches and governments alike worldwide who would like to amputate me, and other people like me, from the Body of Christ.

And here was the word:

I know my own and my own know me.

And so I am sharing this word with anyone reading who's ever felt as if he or she were being pushed out of the sheepfold, or denied entrance at the gate. And I am also sharing this word with anyone who feels that he or she has been designated an official sheep culler in the Reign of God.

I know my own and my own know me.

Artwork: "The Good Shepherd," Eric Gill

Love and Spiders

I don't know how many of you had the opportunity to catch Nature last night on PBS, but it was all about Martin Nicholas, a wonkish water treatment engineer from the U.K. who is also, in his spare time, a respected amateur arachnologist -- someone who studies spiders.

But he doesn't just study them. He loves them. The man is geeked on spiders. And I can't tell you how much I enjoyed watching him, on this program, as he traveled to the New World to hunt for spiders. He exuded visible, nearly palpable joy every time he found a different species in the wild. He made me love spiders, just seeing him.

Have you ever known someone with a magnificent obsession like this? I have. I used to know someone who loved to quilt as much as Martin Nicholas loves to find spiders. A late uncle of mine was fascinated by Native Americans, and spent many hours on his farm looking for arrowheads; he was fairly well read on the Native Americans who lived in our area, and I think if he'd lived long enough to get connected to the Internet he'd probably be on it all day doing research. A college friend of mine was a train buff who used to work on restoring old locomotive engines and had an encyclopedic knowledge of every train line that ever ran through the state. I work with someone who loves flowers, especially heirloom perennials, who lives with stacks of nursery catalogs, whose yard is a constant work in progress and who travels around the countryside cutting slips from old rambler roses growing on old farmsteads and in cemeteries so that these vintage varieties will be preserved.

Every once in awhile I experience a brief magnificent obsession: English ivies, bread baking, embroidery, tomatoes, Civil War history...you name it. And even though most of these are short-lived, I've not regretted any of them. Like close but transient friendships, these fleeting spurts of concentrated attention have all helped me become who I am; they've added color and texture to my life. They've all been worth it.

Eric Liddell, the famous English runner of Chariots of Fire fame, said, "God made me fast for a reason. When I run, I can feel God's pleasure.” I suspect that God feels pleasure when we take the same delight in the diversity and complexity and beauty of the world, or in the pursuit of a creative pastime, as God takes in God's creative, redeeming and sustaining work.

Love what you love with all your might. Because I think that's what God does.

Because Everyone Deserves Flowers and a Poem on Valentine's Day

Soule of my soule! my Joy, my crown, my friend!
A name which all the rest doth comprehend;
How happy are we now, whose sols are grown,
By an incomparable mixture, One:
Whose well acquainted minds are not as neare
As Love, or vows, or secrets can endeare.
I have no thought but what's to thee reveal'd,
Nor thou desire that is from me conceal'd.
Thy heart locks up my secrets richly set,
And my breast is thy private cabinet.
Thou shedst no teare but what but what my moisture lent,
And if I sigh, it is thy breath is spent.
United thus, what horrour can appeare
Worthy our sorrow, anger, or our feare?
Let the dull world alone to talk and fight
And with their vast ambitions nature fright;
Let them despise so innocent a flame,
While Envy, pride, and faction play their game:
But we by Love sublim'd so high shall rise,
To pitty Kings, and Conquerours despise,
Since we that sacred union have engrost,
Which they and all the sullen world have lost.

-- "L'Amite," Katherine Fowler Philips

P.S. Don't forget the chocolate.

 

The Great Crack-Up; Or, "I'm Coming Out"

For those of you poised at the edge of your seats to hear the latest installment of What's Wrong With Me, here's what's going on with my back molar.

I got a late appointment at the dentist today. I like my dentist. He's fun, at least as fun as a dentist can be. He pipes the local oldies station all through his office and sings along. He's also a pilot and a World War II buff, so every room is filled with model airplanes and aviation artwork -- never a dull moment sitting there, unlike my doctor's exam room where all I have to look at are Viagra posters and scoldy notices about insurance billing.

They've gotten my history of this problem and taken my X-ray, and I'm sitting there in the chair listening to "Dancing Queen" while examining a framed print of a fighter plane when the dentist comes back in. He is not singing "Dancing Queen."

"You have got a big problem," he tells me somberly.

He shows me the film. There's an ominous dark splotch underneath the root of my tooth. It's an abscess...a big, ugly one. But the molar itself looks fine.

"Have you had any kind of recent head injury?" the dentist asks.

"No..." I think back to my recent parking-lot tumble. "Well, I fell on the ice around Christmastime. But I didn't fall on my head."

"Hmmm. The thing is, if you hit at a certain velocity, with your bite in a certain alignment, you could have significantly damaged something down there, without it showing up right away on an X-ray."

Long story short: No matter how healthy it looks on X-ray now, the tooth is going to die. The dentist told me I could choose a root canal, and all the hassle and cost that that entails, or have the thing extracted. He said, "If I were you, I'd just get it out of there." I said, "That sounds like a plan to me."

So...I am taking massive quantities of antibiotics, and tomorrow morning I have to call an oral surgeon.

Shit.

No one on either side of my working-class extended family has ever been too fastidious about dental health; they all lived under the assumption, I guess, that they'd have dentures by age 30 anyway, so why bother. I've always rebelled against that. I always told myself that, by golly, I'm checking out with the full set of teeth God gave me.

Shit.

You Know You're Wasting Too Much Time Watching the Olympics...

...when you find yourself wondering how a couple of snowboarders would do color commentary on a worship service at your church:

"Did you see that assisting minister? Dude, she biffed the corporate confession!"

"Yeah...when she went for a fakie and bonked the font, and then fraggled the presiding. What a noob."

"Dude, even the li'l grommet who lights the candles could do a better job."

"But hey -- the presiding minister got some phat air during the Great Thanksgiving. Sick steez, man."

"He just barges that ritual, dude. Schwank."

The Reign Versus the Regs

The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, "Unclean, unclean." he shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp. Leviticus 13:45-46

In my offline life, I work for an agency whose activities are controlled by books full of state and federal regulations -- "the regs." The regs determine, often in excruciating detail, whom we can help, and how. The regs are impersonal and unforgiving. If you need a particular kind of assistance that our organization can provide but you don't meet an eligibility criterion -- perhaps you're a couple of months on the wrong side of an eligibility age, or your income is a few hundred dollars over the guideline -- too bad, so sad. Regs are regs.

This is the situation in which the leper in our Gospel lesson finds himself. Because he suffers from a certain type of skin disease, he has been ritually banished from life in the community. He is not allowed to be near his family or friends; in fact, he is banished to the outskirts of town. He is not allowed to dress like a healthy person. He is not allowed to practice the rituals of his faith. If he does encounter a non-diseased person, he is required to keep a significant distance and loudly warn that person of his uncleanness. He has in fact become for all intents and purposes a "dead man walking."

Why were the Mosaic cleanliness rules so strict and unyielding? They're obviously partly grounded in a nascent understanding of contagious disease and a desire to protect the health of the community, even at the cost of a member of that community. In reading these ancient stories about Moses and the people of Israel, one also comes away with an appreciation for the awe and fear the people felt in the presence of the tabernacle where they believed God lived in their midst, and their terror of offending God by letting the abnormal, the flawed, the diseased too near this holiest of holy places. A diseased person like a leper not only risked God's displeasure by his or her proximity to God's holiness, but also threatened the safety of the entire community, if God decided to punish all of them for the presence of this unacceptable individual.

So he or she is cast out. It's the best solution for the most people. It's the regs. "God said it; we believe it; that settles it."

The leper in our story does an unexpected thing. Instead of trying to keep Jesus away from him and his ritual uncleanness, which is his duty according to the rules, the leper instead calls out to Jesus for help. His plea is almost a dare: "If you choose, you could make me clean."

Jesus' response is also suprising. Most translations of the text say that Jesus was "moved with pity," but some manuscripts instead say that Jesus was moved with anger; that may indeed be the more original version. Why would Jesus be angry? In Mark, Jesus often appears angry at disease itself -- at the pain and suffering of the people around him. Pastor Brian Stoffregen of Crossmarks offers an alternative perspective on the scenario, and suggests instead that Jesus may be angry at the whole system -- a system that dehumanizes the suffering and makes their personhood completely dependent upon the whims of the religious authorities. The leper's initial statement to Jesus can also be translated, "If you choose you could declare me clean," which would hearken back to the official clean bill of health that the leper needed from the priests to be reintegrated into society. Perhaps the leper, on some level, recognizes that Jesus possesses an authority that supersedes that of the priests; or maybe he's just decided that he has nothing left to lose in asking.

But in any event, Jesus responds compassionately: "I do choose"; and then, in a shocking move, Jesus touches the leper and heals him. Imagine the reaction of any people around Jesus as he breaks this social taboo, and in so doing assumes the ritual uncleanness of the leper. What social taboo in our society might be equivalent to this?

Jesus then warns the leper not to not talk to others about this healing, but instead to simply show himself to the priests "as a testimony to them." When I was younger this comment was presented to me as an example of Jesus being a good, obedient "Bible-believing" rabbi who followed all the rules; but I now think that this is an example of Jesus doing exactly the opposite. I think Jesus wanted the religious authorities to know that there was something, someone in their midst who was bigger than the regs; who had come to bring wholeness, and was willing to do whatever it took to achieve that, even if it meant breaking rules and ignoring societal norms.

Kelly Fryer writes that, according to the ethic modeled by Jesus, if we have to choose between leading with a "law" foot or a "love" foot, we choose the "love" foot every time. This sounds so obvious...but how many Christians are actually willing to do this? How many Christians are willing to risk being "wrong," law-wise, in service to love? I've had numerous conversations about various hot-button topics in the Church with Christians who've told me, "Well, if it were up to me I'd be on the other side of the issue...but the Bible says..." In other words, they're going to lead with the "law" foot, because it's safe. It covers their fannies. When I hear statements like this I'm reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings, where he talks about a love that's willing to take on the guilt of breaking rules i