A Chat With The CEO

The CEO showed up again yesterday.

I was in my kitchen, grilling asparagus. Which may seem an odd place and time for The CEO to make an entrance, unless you stop and think about his track record hanging out in kitchens with womenfolk.

I’d been thinking about some of the new trajectories my life seems to be arcing into these days, and found myself feeling overwhelmed by wonder and gratitude. I mean, two months ago I was in a very dark, enclosed place, curved in on myself, and now I’m somewhere new and different. It made me get a little misty, standing there blinking furiously over my olive-oiled vegetables.

“Most people would use a salt shaker on those,” observed The CEO. (You’ve got to love a Savior with a sense of humor.)

We talked about my life. About the juxtaposition of loss and gain, of sadness and liberation, of grief and guilt; about what my pastor had said to me when I’d mentioned my equivocal feelings to him – that experiencing a loss in one’s life can lead to new, good things filling up that empty space, and that it’s normal to question that even while celebrating it.

And I talked to him about an incident – just a momentary, thoughtless curvatus in se incident I’d had over the weekend, where I had been something less than considerate of someone else just because I was so wrapped up in my own head…ironically, in rehearsing what I was going to say and do to demonstrate my all-around swellness as a human being. Afterward I’d berated myself: Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! “I’m sorry,” I told The CEO. “I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to be so self-absorbed that I hurt or neglect other people, even in stupid little ways. I want to be better than this. I want people to…well, to get to know you when they get to know me. Please…help me. Help me get out of my own way. Help me be a better person.”

The CEO smiled. “So what do you think I’m doing already?”

Thank you…I’m sorry…please…thank you. That’s pretty much what we talk about, The CEO and I – whether it’s in the context of the Daily Office or church or in the kitchen. You’d think The CEO would get kind of bored with this, but…he just keeps showing up.

The Out-of-the-Loop Meme

Hat tip to Dash for cueing us in on this meme, which asks us to name what bits of pop-culture flotsam we are completely unconnected to.

Here's my list:

1. American Idol: I've never watched it and have no desire to watch it. If annoying music is what I want, I'll tune in to The Annoying Music Show and listen to, say, William Shatner's version of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds." Now, that's entertainment.

2. The iPod: Now, this one I'm sad about. You see, I have dialup Internet service; so downloading just one song, let alone a whole iPod's worth of music, is a several-hour affair. Come on, Aunt Bee -- work that Outer Podunk switchboard a little faster, willya?

3.The DaVinci Code: I don't want to debate it; I don't want to boycott it; I just don't give much of a damn about it, when all's said and done. Dan Silva is my "Dan the Man" of thriller fiction; I love his protagonist Gabriel Allon, the art restorer/Mossad assassin with a conscience.

4. NASCAR. I don't get it. One day, a couple of years ago, I asked one of my coworkers what the "8" sticker in her van window meant; she looked at me as if I were insane. "You don't know Driver 8?" she asked incredulously. "A song by REM?" I responded. (Well...it is.)

5. Desperate Housewives: I think I've seen a whole 10 minutes of this show. It was enough.

6.Brittney Spears and all other blonde, slutty girl singers (using the term loosely) with raccoon eye makeup and identical bump-and-grind dance routines. To me they're all interchangeable, like those boy groups of several years ago. I can't keep the names and faces and navels straight.

7."Tom-Kat," "Brangelina" et al, and the celebrity magazines and television shows that keep churning out breathless updates on the details of their lives. I'm supposed to care about these people why, again?

8.Sudoku. I guess I'm just not bright enough for this.

9.Coloring my hair. I've never done it. Now, I will admit to, at one point, wanting to go some shade of reddish brown, which was the color of my hair back in my junior high days...but gosh darn it, I've grown to respect my graying temples. In fact, I find graying temples kind of...ahem...hot. And I'm not just saying that because I have graying temples.

10. Movie remakes, movie remakes of television shows, stage plays based on movies and television shows, etc. Get an idea, people.

This I Believe...

Better late than never: On Friday, in the spirit of NPR's "This I Believe," the RevGalBlogPals challenged bloggers to share five things that they believe. Here are five of mine, in no particular order:

Five Things I Believe

1. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

2. Living in the leap -- taking risks, daring to be wrong, daring to be vulnerable, daring to be a little crazy, walking by faith and not by sight -- is how we really live our Christianity into the world, and the best adventure there is.

3. Coffee and chocolate are both proofs that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

4. A lot of religious conflict really has less to do with theology and more to do with psychology -- in other words, I think that how we as individuals work out our human spiritual impulses is largely hard-wired into our brains. I think that fundamentalism (which really isn't a mindset limited to matters of religion anyway) is a function of personality, not of theology. Which is why I have come to believe that arguing theology with fundamentalists in order to try and persuade them to change their minds is about as effective as arguing with diabetics in order to try and recalibrate their pancreatic functioning. It just isn't going to work. I think those of us not of that mindset could better spend our time proactively stating and explaining our own beliefs and practices, for the sake of seeking people who because of their own psychological makeup need the kind of spirituality, the way of thinking about God and our relationship with God and expressing that in life and worship, that we have to offer.

5. There needs to be a re-Reformation in my own tradition, not in terms of theology per se, but of practice -- we need to take both corporate worship and individual spiritual practice much more seriously, and pay much more attention to the spiritual formation of our people. I am absolutely convinced of this. I think this topic is exponentially more important than anything my denomination tends to yak about at its various assemblies and in its house organs.

The Conspiracy on Our Behalf

Maverick theologian Matthew Fox once explained the difference between a fundamentalist and a mystic thusly: A fundamentalist believes that the universe is conspiring against us; a mystic, on the other hand, believes that the universe is conspiring on our behalf.

From a more traditional theological standpoint, of course, things are a little less clearcut; I think most of Christendom's great mystics would point out that it's hard to observe individual and collective human behavior, and the "powers and principalities" that run the world as well as the crushed victims in their wake, and not conclude that there's something seriously awry with The Way It Is. But -- there is a cosmic conspiracy on our behalf. And we heard about it in yesterday's Gospel lesson, in Jesus' High Priestly prayer.

We heard Jesus praying for our protection as we go about our work in this world. That's important to remember in a time where many of us, as individuals and as the Church, tend to function in a spirit of functional atheism. We may talk the talk, and we may walk the walk to whatever degree we're able, but oftentimes we operate under the assumption that we are in charge of holding our own lives and the life of the Church together. Our own failings become a heavy burden; a constant, draining drumbeat of "No." The troubles in the Church -- its frequent lack of a strong prophetic voice; the challenge of fundamentalism inside and outside alike; the decline of church membership and indeed of any religious self-identification at all in the Western world; the ineffectual deck-chair rearrangement that Christians are wont to engage in rather than engaging in the real, hard work of living Christ into the world -- seem at times like insurmountable problems.

But today's text reminds us that we're not in this alone; that, as Scripture testifies elsewhere, we have an Advocate who interceeds for us always and for all time. That is very good news.



"Paschal Mystery," Gisele Bauche  

Tales of the Easily Amused

On the Friday before a long holiday weekend, commuting to a work-related meeting on a nice, sunny morning is not the worst assignment you can get. And my Friday was considerably enhanced by discovering a great radio program.

I usually listen to CMU public radio, our local public station -- honey-tongued hosts playing soothing classical music on weekdays, plus BBC News around the lunch hour; the only news program I take seriously. I hardly ever twiddle the dial on my car radio. But for the past couple of days my reception has been wonky, so I had to nudge the tuner over to an affiliated station, Delta College public radio. Its offerings range from something called the Linda Lee Polka Show to Ed Gordon to Latino music and news, and lots of other programming; it's an interesting change of pace, to say the least. But the show I've absolutely fallen in love with is Women in Music , which it broadcasts Fridays from about noon until 2:00 p.m. Wow. Wow. It's all women, all the time -- classics by the likes of Joni Mitchell, but also a lot of new, independently produced music crossing the genres -- jazz, Celtic, worldbeat. Yesterday I was freakin' my freak to some funky Brazilian tune in a manner that I'm sure frightened several oncoming drivers. (My dance aesthetic can be described, in the words of Seinfeld's George Costanza, as full-body dry heave.) Now, if it makes LC bounce around in the car, you know it's good music. 88-percent-cocoa candy bar good; "hairdresser who doesn't make me look like Moe of the Three Stooges" good; waking up at 3 a.m., thinking, "Oh...today's Saturday" and happily falling back to sleep good.

I know some of you more cosmopolitan folk are probably chuckling right now...but in a part of the world where local radio is pretty much limited to either fundamentalist fulminating or the Toby Keith school of Kaiser kurios country jingoism, finding a program like this is remarkable. It made me smile for the rest of the afternoon.

And -- bonus pleasure points -- I had some time to kill before my meeting, so I zipped around to a little greenhouse just outside of town. I felt like one of those contest participants who get two minutes to fill a shopping basket; I basically sprang from my vehicle and raced through the place like a mad woman. I was looking for heirloom tomato plants, which I did not find, but I did find a fancy-leaved geranium with cream, burgundy and chartreuse patterned leaves. Gorgeous; a Victorian painted lady deserving of more respect by gardeners. It joins my maple-leaved burgundy-green fancy-leaved that I resurrected from a nubbin this winter.

It really does not take a lot to amuse and delight me.

(Almost) Friday Bloom Blogging

More rose pictures from my new perennial garden.

I also put together my own hanging basket...after agonizing over the color scheme for my perennial garden, when it came to this basket my attitude was, "Whatever" -- so that's what it is; a "whatever" combination of brightly colored cascading flowers: yellow lantana, blue lobelia, orange, dark purple and maroon miniature petunias and a "lotus" plant with fine, slivery leaves and red tubular flowers. When it's settled in and growing I'll post a picture of it; I think it's going to look really cool.

(Almost) Friday Poetry Blogging

In honor of the Alma Highland Games , where I'll be Sunday afternoon -- here is one of my favorite poems by Robert Burns, which you can either read or listen to.

Anatomy of a God Thing

You will recall, a couple of posts ago, my whiny online handwringing over my vocational impasse: Who am I and why am I here? You'll also recall that today is the day I was to finally put my mother's ashes to rest in a family plot.

We did that this morning -- a dark, drizzly morning. I met my pastor at the cemetery. (The gravediggers were there too, snoozing in their pickup truck off at one end of the place.) It was actually more conversation than liturgy; my pastor asked me how I was doing, which spun into an extended and wildly rambling conversation about a lot of things, there in the mist. And then we got out the liturgy for the Burial of the Dead, and said that, and it was over. (And, as if on cue, the gravediggers' truck slowly proceeded up the drive. We thanked them for being there, which seemed to take them aback; big, rough guys getting all bashful and gee-shucks.)

I invited my pastor back to my house for coffee, and we talked some more -- about my life and his, about our church, about ministry in general. He told me that he was interested in adding a spiritual practices component to the training he helps give the young counselors at one of our synod summer camps and asked me if I'd like to be in on that process. Then he talked about an idea he had for lending out our congregation's lay ministers to other area congregations, to assist them in creative ways; would I be interested in that as well?

I think for me vocation is going to be less about seeing a clear path laid before me, stretching into the horizon, and more about simply being nudged around the next corner: Turn here. Now turn here. Now turn here.

Day of Future Past

Here’s something you might not know about me: I like ghost stories. Real ghost stories. Stories like the ones about visitors to Gettysburg who, while traversing the grounds, are suddenly startled by soldiers in Civil War dress...running, shouting, even asking questions of the frightened visitors. I myself tend to be on the skeptical end of the ghosthunting continuum, but it’s interesting to read about people’s haunting experiences and wonder why they happen.

Numerous theories are floating around (so to speak) that attempt to explain these phenomena. Of course the skeptical suggest that ghostly experiences are simply a function of people’s overactive imaginations. Others hold to what I suppose is the traditional view of ghosts as spirits somehow trapped on this earthly plane because of trauma in the last moments of their life or unresolved issues over their lifetimes. There’s one theory out there that emotionally charged situations create a kind of natural hologram that may replay at certain times – this especially speaks to hauntings where the ghost plays out the same scene over and over again, and doesn’t seem to be cognizant of people or surroundings. Then there’s the tantalizing speculation, beloved of science fiction fans everywhere, that for whatever reason there may be places or situations in which the fabric of time flutters like a sheet on a clothesline, briefly overlapping one moment in time with another.

I thought about this today as I re-read the lessons for Ascension Day. We contemporary Christians, at least those of us who aren’t biblical literalists, often have a difficult time making sense of Ascension Day – the popular imagery of Jesus disappearing up into the sky like a comic-book superhero. Our understanding of divinity is more nuanced than that; we don’t believe in a literal Sky God spatially located “up there.” But yet I don’t think we can so easily dismiss this story as theology set to visual metaphor. I’m convinced that the apostles did indeed experience a post-Easter “faith event” involving the risen Christ that transformed and empowered them in a startling, profound way that changed the world forever.

So…where did Jesus go, anyway? (And the facile “He’s with us always” doesn’t count, kids.)

Last night I read an Ascension sermon by the Rev. Luke Bouman on the The Text This Week website. Bouman offers a vision of Christ, not leaving us for a place, but leading the way into the future, just as he always leads the way. It's a future where, in the words of Julian of Norwich, all will be well and all manner of thing will be well; it's a future where we will finally realize, in the words of the writer of Ephesians, the hope to which he has called us, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.

Is it possible that Jesus' post-Resurrection appearances to his friends -- so earthy and real, as real as hands breaking a loaf of bread or the touch of a finger to a wound, yet so fleeting and ethereal -- as well as the moments in which Christ's presence touches us profoundly now -- are his way of wooing us into that future, by bringing us to crossroads in our lives where the now and the not-yet intersect before our eyes? "Come on...this way...follow me."

"Ascension (After Rembrandt)," by Wayne Forte  

Earth to Earth, Ashes to Ashes...

Tomorrow morning is my mother's interment. It's going to be a short, to-the-point ritual, just my pastor and me at the cemetery.

I'm not feeling sad. I'm feeling satisfied; that this is the task that needs to be done to end the beginning of my bereavement. In the book Practicing Resurrection (did I mention that I really love this book?), author Nora Gallagher quotes someone, in talking about grief, citing a quote by Dr. Seuss: "When the drops stop dropping, the storm starts stopping." I feel like the drops have started stopping.

And -- ain't it cool -- tomorrow also happens to be Ascension Day. We didn't plan it this way; this is simply the first day my pastor and I could get together and do this. I talked to him today, and when I mentioned that there was a pause at the end of the line, and then he remarked, "There are no coincidences."

Here's an excerpt of the Epistle reading for tomorrow, from the Letter to the Ephesians:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

I think it's maybe the eyes of the heart, enlightened by the grace of God, that can stand in a rainy cemetery saying goodbye to a loved one and see, not the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

Call and Response

Vocational churn.

That's how I'd describe my lay ministry retreat this time around.

I always experience this to some extent during my retreats, but more so this time around.

Don't get me wrong: It was a great retreat. Our biblical studies segment was wonderful -- the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. I can't tell you how much I enjoy these lectures; I could literally sit there all day and listen to our professors, and I'm always sorry when class is over. To my delight, we also had a new segment, on spiritual practice; a pastor in our synod who's also a newly minted spiritual director (at least we have one now, that I know of) taught us about breath prayer. We had a segment on ecumenism; on how to create partnerships with other faith communities that help meet the needs of the people around us. And we had devotionals as well as a group Eucharist and farewell to a couple of graduates. It's amazing to see how people blossom in this program; how one woman who was so painfully shy when I first met her that she blushed crimson every time she was addressed in class now very confidently led one of our services and even gave an extemporaneous homily -- something I've yet to garner the courage to do. We have small-group breakouts where people can be very honest and self-disclosing; it's humbling to hear people's stories and to know that they're entrusting them to the rest of us.

But in my motel room Saturday night, the questions started again. Why am I here? What do I want to do with all this? What does this mean?

For the last couple of weeks I've been reading Nora Gallagher's Practicing Resurrection, an excellent book that one of my bloggy friends (Hi, Charlotte! Thanks again!) sent me after my mother died. In it Gallagher writes of her experience losing her brother, and of entering into the discernment process to see if she is being called into the ECUSA priesthood. The book parallels my recent personal life in so many ways that reading it gave me the shivers -- handling a loved one's ashes; coping with the mental and emotional fog that descends after a loved one dies, making one listless, thick-headed, disinterested in most things; crying jags triggered by the most innocuous things. And Gallagher's discernment experience seems so much like my own as well, in many ways.

Do I feel called to ordained ministry? At this very moment, no, I don't, despite the fact that I'm freer to pursue that now than I've ever been before in my life. When I was in college, newly exposed to doing theology in a real way, spiritually nutured in the sort of worship aesthetic that spoke to me and encountering, for the first time in my life, female clergy who inspired me -- I thought, "I'd love to be a pastor." I had a vision of myself someday tatted up, standing behind the altar with arms raised, praying the Eucharistic Prayer; or being almost rabbinical in teaching people, in being a spiritual and ethical counselor. Now, 20-some years and multitudinous experiences later, I don't have that fire in the belly; perhaps because I have a more clear-eyed understanding of what the pastorate is about -- the administrative tasks, the conflict resolution and what my pastor calls "anxiety management," the fundraising -- I mean, that sounds like my job now, and those things don't often give me a sense of service or meaning or accomplishment. I've had several people, including one of my fellow students, urge me to look into seminary, but...I just don't hear that, right now.

The ELCA has a host of diaconal and quasi-diaconal programs (many of them rather amorphous in scope and seemingly overlapping). Do I want to pursue any of those? Frankly, I am struggling (and Gallagher's book brings up this subject as well) with a fear of being "owned" by my church body. Even the thought of the standard psychological spelunking that prospective seminarians -- and potential enrollees in the second tier of my own program -- must undergo makes me nervous. I resent the idea of authority figures holding a claim on my personal life, and all the complications that that suggests. And I don't want, frankly, to be sucked into the belly of the beast -- into that "company woman" mentality that revolves around the institutional church. I just don't want to go there.

Or do I just finish my three-year program, say, "Well...that was interesting," and do nothing with it other than what I'm doing already in my parish? Is that enough? Is that why God sent me on this path -- just to circle back again?

There's a passage in Practicing Resurrection -- I wish I could find it now but I can't -- that talks about finding God in the margins. This resonates with me -- not only finding God in the margins but finding people who need God in the margins. Maybe that's where I'm called to be -- working somewhere just out of view, backtracking to keep people confused, like the fox in Wendell Berry's poem.

Is there even a word for the job I want to do in the Reign of God?

An Army of ONE

NBC Nightly News With Brian Adams will be broadcasting live from Africa tomorrow, and featuring Bono as he travels around the continent on behalf of the fight against global poverty. Check out the link above to learn more.

Hold That Thought

I mentioned on the RevGals' blog that I was going to talk about my weekend retreat, and about vocation. Well, that was a headache ago. Now, I know that the mystics of yore often suffered from headaches that ushered them into close encounters with the Almighty...alas, for me a headache is just a headache; and the tom-tom beat currently pounding against my skull is making it difficult for me to think about much of anything.

I can tell, you, though, about my motel room. The community where our retreat was held didn't have any representatives of the big lodging chains, so we were housed in a local mom-and-pop establishment. Each room contained an Amazing Electric Waterfall: A light box featuring a photo of a waterfall that, when you plugged it in, started playing sounds of falling water and singing birds, while the water in the picture appeared to move. It was quite amazing, and almost made me ignore the general condition of my surroundings. (I really watch too much CSI...but I couldn't help but wish that I had one of those special lights to check for biological trace evidence.)

You don't want to hear about that. And I'll tell you the rest tomorrow. But not tonight.

Have You Heard -- the Word is Love

Thanks to my semi-comatose state upon arrival home after my retreat, I didn't have much of an opportunity to journal about this Sunday's text. And my pastor gave such a great sermon today, about what a "command to love" really means -- he likened it to a computer command; not a punitive, "Do this or else" directive, but a kind of key to opening up a new way of seeing and being in the world -- that I really couldn't top that.

So what I'll do instead is share with you the Prayers of the Church that I wrote for today, when I assisted:

The Prayers of the Church

Let us pray for the whole people of God in Christ Jesus, and for all people according to their needs:

Holy and gracious God, who holds us in embrace, who counts us as friends and who calls us to love one another as you love us: This love is often hard for us to understand and to express. Help us see the world and the people in it through your eyes, through a lens of love, and live into that love by what we think and say and do.

Lord in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We pray for all leaders of governments everywhere, and for all citizens everywhere, that in our respective roles we may make decisions for the common good, and especially for the poor, the dispossessed and all others in need.

Lord in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We pray for the whole Church, everywhere it may be found, and especially for those attending our Synod Assembly, that the Body of Christ may truly reflect the love of Christ in its words and actions.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We pray for all who find themselves in harm's way through war, want and oppression, and we pray for all those suffering from illness, disability or addiction, that your love may be made real and immediate for them.

Lord in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We pray for our loved ones, whoever and whereever they may be, and for our households and circles of friends, that those may be places where your love is found.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We now lift up to you in love persons and situations close to our hearts, naming them aloud or in our hearts...

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

Into your hands, O Lord, we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in your mercy; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

And now may the peace of the Lord be with you all!



from "Love and the Pilgrim," Edward Burne-Jones

Friday Poetry Blogging

Be your own poet, with the Haiku Generator !

(Can you tell LC is rushing around en route to her retreat?)

What Does It Say...

...when I'm spending the afternoon sitting at my display at an underattended nonprofit-agency meet-and-greet affair held in the fellowship hall of a local church, and more than anything I want to be sitting inside the church's sanctuary instead?

Ms. Fun

As some of you who read my Sunday blogging learned, I had a little fun, unlikely fun, this past Sunday.

In Monday-morning-quarterbacking my fun (being Lutheran, I can't help but exegete and hermaneute my own fun), I realized that it has been eight years -- eight years! -- since I have been out with a bunch of people, just enjoying ourselves.

I used to live in a small city (not nearly as small as Outer Podunk, but small compared to -- well, the big city), where I worked for a large firm that provided court reporters to law firms around the state for transcribing various legal statements. I headed up the quality control department, supervising a small staff of legal proofreaders. Now, it takes a certain type of person to read through reams of depositions, usually on a rush basis, check all the jots and tittles and make sure that the court reporter typed what the people present actually said -- that the transcript gets the affects and effects right, that it doesn't read prostate when the speaker said prostrate. It takes a bookish, nerdy, geeky, nit-picky, insatiably nosy person; and that's what we all were. Somehow we all wound up in this community; somehow we all wound up working for this company.

We were introverts. But we were introverts who needed introverts; so we became fast friends. And we'd go on spontaneous outings. I'd be home and get a call: Want to go to the movies? Want to go out to eat? We went antiquing; we went to art fairs; we went up to Interlochen Arts Academy to catch performances; one of the gang threw an autumn formal dinner for us every year. I was the only single person in the group, so sometimes I became a convenient excuse for the others to organize an outing; one of my friends told me that she'd tell her husband, "Oh, we're going to take LutheranChik out, because she's all by herself this weekend"...actually they weren't sorry for me at all, but just wanted to get out of the house. (And I was happy to be exploited in this manner.) And I was the youngest member of the posse -- the Kid. (This is a very only child thing, by the way. I was thinking about this the other day, and about my need for medical science to keep bumping up our lifespans, so that I always have people to hang out with.)

It was great, being around a group of very smart,wry Women of a Certain Age who, evidently bolstered by the idea of safety in numbers, became quite uninhibited in public. Waiters raised disapproving eyebrows at us; movie ushers shushed us; we once made an antique dealer blush as we critiqued a Nekkid Lady Plate in his display. Sometimes we'd get to laughing so hard during our excursions that our sides literally hurt.

I've missed that. A lot. As much as I cherish my own time and my own thoughts -- it's good to get out with other people for no other reason than to enjoy one another's company.

And now I seem to be able to, again. In fact, I'm going to be going out for dinner this weekend after I get back from my retreat, and going to a barbecue next month. (Being me, when I go out with people and then get invited back, my gut reaction is, Why? Why would you want me to keep hanging around you? And, yes, I've had my head professionally spelunked to, among other reasons, explore why I'd wonder this; but understanding why doesn't make me stop asking.) On one hand it seems odd, so soon after Mom's death; it makes me think of Scarlett O'Hara in her widow's weeds, dancing with Rhett Butler. But on the other hand...good Lord, isn't it time?

The other night, as I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the changes and responsibilities and opportunities swirling about me, I had a real heart-to-heart with The CEO. "I really don't know what to do," I said. "I'll do anything you want."

You think The CEO maybe wants me to...have a little fun?

Wednesday Bloom Blogging

Back by popular demand...weekly bloom blogging! Since I'm going to be retreating this weekend, I'll bloom-blog early. This is a "Sterling Silver" rose from one of my new rosebushes. You can't really tell from this photo -- and I tried taking a picture outside, and the color didn't translate either -- but this is a truly mauve rose; a dusky lavender color, not as pink as this photo would suggest. It's just gorgeous. This particular branch was bent in transit, so I saved the bud for my little vase.
And here is a newly opened rose on the rosebush. It's been raining all day, so my roses will get a good settling-in. I have another new rosebush, a dark purple grandiflora variety, and a dark purple butterfly bush, and a growing assortment of perennials here and there between them all.

Pre-Pregnant and Loving It!

Don't know if you've heard about the Centers for Disease Control's new guidelines regarding women's health -- their recommendation that all menstruating women, no matter what their plans regarding having children, consider themselves "pre-pregnant" and, moreover, be treated accordingly by healthcare professionals. Here's an item from Bitch magazine's blog that includes a link to the original Washington Post article outlining the CDC's recommendations.

Now, a lot of people are angry at what they perceive in the verbiage of this pronouncement as a patronizing governmental attitude toward women -- an attitude that sees women as nothing but walking uteri breeding future citizens for the Empire, which in turn has a self-serving interest in dictating lifestyle changes to said walking uteri: hectoring women of childbearing age -- some of whom have no desire to have children, or to have more children -- to lose weight and eat their folic acid and leave cat poop alone, all for the sake of those theoretical pre-conceived babies.

I have to say, I'm not that upset about this. I'm amused, but not upset.

Having a passing acquaintance with bureaucracies, and working in committees, and writing committee boilerplate, and dealing with committee boilerplate that has been codified into policy, I know that it is very easy for people in these situations to be sucked into a kind of mind-numbing collective vortex in which they not only generate assholic statements but lose the ability to discern the assholicity of such statements. Thus a noble idea -- encouraging the public to get involved in improving prenatal health and preventing birth defects and complications -- comes out sounding like something out of The Handmaid's Tale.

So...to any government surveillance types reading this (I know -- they're too busy listening to our phone conversations) -- no hard feelings. I'm actually looking forward to my doctor asking me -- as the guidelines for healthcare professionals direct -- if I'm not intending to have a child in the next year, what I'm using for birth control. That'll make a nice note in my records.

It Had To Happen Sometime

I have absolutely NOTHING to say. My mind is a complete and utter blank tonight.

Do you have something to say? About anything?

My Turn

I understand that my human has been blabbing online about intimate aspects of my gastrointestinal system and, even worse, complaining about me to all of you.

I resent this deeply.

First of all: I'm old, dammit. If I were a human I'd probably be in assisted living. Would you push your 90-something grandfather out the back door into the rain a half dozen times a day and say, "Time to poop"? I think not.

Another thing: Our thermostat used to be set on 72 degrees. Now it's on 68 degrees. So it's not like it's Miami Beach in here either. Why is she doing this to me? Did I mention that I'm old?

Another thing: Our mom used to let me out whenever I asked. Now I have to wait until lunchtime to go out, and then I have to wait until almost 5 o'clock to go out again. And on Fridays I have to wait all day. So I think I deserve to have some slack cut for me, especially when it's cold and wet outside. She's got a steam cleaner. What's the problem?

And is it my fault I can't sit on the toilet seat?

My human found my old sweater in the closet. I usually hate my sweater, and tell her so, but I let her put it on me today. She said, "Now you'll be warmer when you go out." She thinks I'm going to want to go outside now because I'm wearing this stupid sweater? She must be freaking nuts. Although I must admit I do look a little stylin' in it. But...she's still nuts.

These things just needed to be said.

Lucky for me I'm so darn cute. 

Speaking of that "Home" Thing...

I was all dressed up and ready to go to church this morning...got in the car...pulled out of my driveway...but the car didn't seem to be moving right, even taking our muddy road into consideration. (The drought is over here; it's been raining for three days.) The engine sounded like it was straining.

This can't be good.

I pulled into a neighbor's driveway, turned around and came back home.

My right front tire is as flat as a pancake.

So I guess this solves the "How am I going to get through the Mother's Day hoo-ha at church today?" problem.

Home

Home is anywhere you are. -- Tom Paxton

In my family we use the term gemuetlich to describe certain places or activities. It's a great German word; a word that Lewis Carroll would call a "portmanteau word"; a word packed with meaning. It's not easily translatable into English, and is perhaps best explained in pictures. Imagine, on a blustery winter's day, sitting feet up in a favorite chair, wrapped in a wooly afghan, sipping some soothing winter drink and basking in the warmth of a crackling fireplace. Imagine coming home after a long time away, so glad to be back in a familiar place, rejoicing in each touchstone sight and sound and smell. Imagine getting home from work, kicking off your shoes, shedding your corporate uniform and putting on your most comfortable "home clothes." Imagine an enjoyable evening just snuggling on the sofa with a loved one, glad for the closeness and companionship. Imagine a lazy weekend morning making waffles with the kids. Imagine Tolkien's hobbits contentedly puttering around in their tidy and well-provisioned hobbit-holes. Imagine a place where, like the song says, everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came.

For something to be gemuetlich is for it to feel like home -- not so much in the physical sense but in the psychic sense; a place of comfort and nurturing, shelter and rest, and freedom to be onself; that place you always want to get back to, even if it's just an ideal in your mind.

And it usually is. "Home" is surprisingly elusive. It comes to us in moments. It doesn't linger. It is a refuge precisely because it is so unlike the world around us -- a world that is not nurturing, not sheltering or restful, a world run by a variety of impersonal systems, interlocking gears that regularly grind us down or choke the life out of us.

In today's Gospel lesson we hear a lot about "abiding." It's a quaint word, these days, one that we probably primarily associate with the hymn "Abide With Me." It's another one of those portmanteau words. We may think of it in terms of "stay" or "remain," but it really has a more profound connotation: to make a home with.

Tom Paxton has a great song called "Home Is Anywhere You Are." What Jesus tells us in this week's Gospel lesson is that, for us, home is anywhere he is; and that, for him, home is anywhere we are. When I think about this, I think about Jesus' stays at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus of Bethany; the easy familiarity of his hanging out in their kitchen, maybe helping peel a few vegetables or knead some dough. That's what he's promising us today.

The last time I heard one of John's "abiding" texts, I was sitting in the ER of a big-city hospital with my mother after her heart attack. There were no beds available in the hospital proper, so we were camped out in an ER room -- surrounded by tubes and monitors and other beeping equipment, and the managed chaos outside the fabric curtain that led to the hallway. She had ordered supper, and was picking at a chicken salad sandwich while I tried to make light conversation, all the while thinking, Oh. My. God.

Suddenly our pastor, whom I'd called after we'd arrived, came through the curtain, breathless. We talked for awhile, and then he said, "Let's have Communion." He didn't have his own prayer book handy but I had stuck my little Book of Common Prayer into my bag en route, so he used that instead. (A hat tip to all my Anglican friends.) As he paged through it looking for some Scripture, he came upon one of the "abiding" texts of John's Gospel, and after he read it aloud he riffed on it, in an impromptu homily, talking to us about the word "abide"; how, even in this strange and intimidating place, and no matter what was happening to us or around us, Christ was abiding in us, and we in him, so that even here, even now, we were all home and Christ was home.

So we can be home with Christ no matter what our circumstances. I think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in prison, about to be executed, cheerfully going about his pastoral duties on behalf of other prisoners and even his guards. He knew he was home and that Christ was home in him.

Some of us know we are home, and that Christ is home in us, even when our ostensible spiritual homes want to keep us in the equivalent of their mudrooms until they can figure out what to do with us, or who tell us in so many words that when we "clean up" to their satisfaction we can finally proceed to the living room where the real house party is going on. We know because, as Christ explains in our text, those who abide in him, who make their homes in him, and he in them, produce spiritual "fruit"; become part of God's family enterprise, manifesting God's love and truth in ways that others can see and hear and experience. If that fruit is there, then Christ is there. If you know what it's like to communicate thoughts about faith you thought you were incapable of expressing to others, or to be brave in ways that you didn't think you could manage, or give of yourself in a self-sacrificing, kenotic way that you might have once thought impossible or mad -- you know what it is to have Christ the gardener in your soul, tending you and helping you bear the fruit that speaks to his presence in your life, whether or not the mudroom monitors of the institutional church acknowledge it.

The song is right; and Dorothy is right; there is no place like home. Not only that -- there's no place like home. Our home is in our relationship with Christ. And that's a good place to be. He seems to think so.

"Suzanne With Milk and a Book," Carl Larsson 

Good Advices

Keep your hat on your head/home is a long way away. -- "Good Advices," REM

On Fridays I share an office with a social worker -- a very bubbly, generous, earth-mama woman with a large extended family. (It's great working in the same office with social workers, because free therapy becomes a job perk.) She has been worried -- downright worried -- about me ever since Mom died because I don't have siblings or a wide social circle of support (church and present company notwithstanding). For the past month she's been mothering me in endearing ways; even shed some tears with me.

Yesterday afternoon, as she prepared to leave the office for the day, she turned and said, "Now, you know Sunday is going to be a hard day for you." I didn't need reminding. Actually, I've had a three-day headache that I think is probably partly in anticipation of Sunday. I told her my own coping strategy -- i.e., get quickly in and out of church, and then stay away, as much as I could, from all the Mother's Day joie de vivre.

She nodded. "My advice to you," she continued, "is to go to a cineplex somewhere Sunday afternoon and find an action/suspense movie -- something with absolutely no intellectual content or pathos or Big Issues in it; you want goons and bombs and cars flying over cliffs. Just sit in the dark and eat popcorn and watch that."

Actually, I think that's pretty good advice, although these days that would mean going to see MI-III, and Tom Cruise annoys me. But I'm sure I'll think of something.

Here, on the other hand, are things not to do if you're you're in a sad mood and anticipating being in a sadder one, based on my experience of this past week:

Do not watch films about doomed love. (I finally had the opportunity to rent Brokeback Mountain -- interestingly, in my little town the dozen copies at the local movie rental have been constantly rented out, and I had to sneak into the store midday on a weekday, while running errands, to get a copy.)

Do not listen to Billie Holliday recordings.

Do not knowingly put yourself in situations where you will be exposed to people who hate you and piss you off.

Do not exegete/hermeneute sad song lyrics, news stories, and so forth (see the Billy Collins poem below).

Do not eat fast food that, in the final analysis, tastes like crap and makes you feel like crap after you've eaten it, just because you don't think you have the time to make something better.

Try not to lose sleep, even if you live with a pet who has suddenly decided that 4:00 am is the new 6:00 am.

On the other other hand:

Do visit the local plant nurseries and greenhouses. Play mix-and-match with the flowers, like a kid with a box of crayons.

Do dig in the dirt.

Do accept social invitations, and do make overtures toward potential new friends, even if your sadness is due to a bereavement and it seems as if you're violating some sort of unofficial-but-assumed mourning period during which you mustn't think or talk about anything except your bereavement.

Do feel free to tell God, if you're having a bad day, "You know -- at this moment my life really sucks, and I hate it." I have it on good authority that God actually appreciates raw honesty, even if it's honesty that necessitates the use of words like "sucks."

And with that -- I am off to a plant nursery to help de-suckify my weekend.

Atkins Schmatkins

For the statistically minded: Turns out it takes LutheranChik (with a little help from one small dog who occasionally wants samples) approximately one week to consume a two-pound loaf of bread -- toasted for breakfast, in sandwiches to take to work, savored au natural and, this morning, rendered into French toast made with an egg from my friend Farmer Ken, and vanilla soymilk, and cinnamon, and covered with Michigan maple syrup from another local farmer.

Life is hard. Eat well.

Postscript: Okay, potato salad fans: I am looking for a potato salad recipe that kicks, for an upcoming potluck where LC is trying to make a good impression. I was originally going to bring the LC clan's ancestral infarct-in-a-bowl hot German potato salad, covered in bacon dressing and hard-boiled eggs...but in light of recent family history I'm thinkin' maybe not. Then I thought of a potato salad I've had at a public function that was made with maybe two-thirds white potatoes and one-third sweet potatoes in a light sour-cream-ish dressing with celery and scallions that I thought was quite yummy...but I'm not sure I can replicate the taste to my satisfaction. So get out your cookbooks, friends, and give me some ideas! They will be much appreciated.