Poop

I am as obsessed with bodily functions as any nine year old boy or at least as much as Martin Luther.

Dearest Martin Luther wrote about his bowels more than any person outside a gastroenterologist. I would quote more of his poop and fart quotes, but they are totally inappropriate. That's saying a lot for me. My favorite quote was when Luther thought he was facing death and said,

“I’m fed up with the world, and it is fed up with me. I’m quite content with that. The world thinks that if it is only rid of me everything will be fine, and it will accomplish this. After all, it’s as I’ve often said: I’m like a ripe stool and the world’s like a gigantic anus, and so we’re about to let go of each other.” (Martin Luther,  Table Talk, 5537).

Seriously. He had some issues.

 I haven't come to the point in my life where the two major subjects of conversation are bowel movements and sleep, but there are times I come close. Like when we go on trips.

There is no way to travel with twenty-two people and share three bathrooms without some awareness of bodily functions, especially when they feed us split pea or bean soup. I think folks can keep up polite facades for a good twelve hours, but after that things slip through.

I'm all for Febreeze in bathrooms and such, but I'm also all for recognizing that none of us smells like roses. I do try to convince my husband that my gas is cute and smells lovely unlike his which originates in the bowels of hell. But, I know it is not true.

Our bodily functions keep us humble. Everybody poops and everybody stinks. Perfection does not lie in constipation or rose scented farts. Perfection, or at least Christian community, does lie in trying to live with one another in our stench as well as our fragrance.

That's why I love going on trips. Anyone can fake having their stuff together and smelling lovely for an hour, but over a long weekend, we have to learn forgiveness and trusting each other with our less lovely selves.

I'm happy to be home with my own bathroom. Don't get me wrong. But, I'm always thankful for a chance to love and be loved a bit more fully in all our fetidness.

Don't Be a Good Person

My kids are allowed to say, "shit" but they aren't allowed to say "bored." I'm sure I've shared that before, but I hate all derivatives of "boring" with a burning hate. "Shit" is just fun to say and appropriate in so many situations.

The official definition of bored is, "feeling weary because one is unoccupied or lacks interest in one's current activity." 

The cure to boredom is not more entertainment or more stuff to do, even though we invest tons of money and time into those cures. The cure to boredom is being interested and invested in one's current activity. I can stare at clouds for hours without being bored, but Super Mario gets about ten minutes of my attention before I glaze.


And even though I know the word is off limits, I find driving kids around to be one of the most boring things I do. I love spending time with my kids and that they are active, but there are times I feel like that one creepy worm thing from Star Trek is eating my brain. (I'm not a Star Trek fan because that thing still gives me nightmares.)

So, I signed up for a hand-to-hand stage combat class. See what I mean about the worm thing eating my brain.

I needed to do something interesting and frightening so I can check back into the less interesting aspects of life. The first class was last night and I learned that my body does not bounce back like it did 25 years ago in college. Little stiff and sore today.

There were several times I felt utterly ridiculous, but luckily I laugh at myself well. I loved that the teacher apologized every time he swore, which was a lot. Oh yeah, there's a pastor in the house, you better behave.

But, my favorite part was a line he kept telling us, "It is more important to be a good partner than a good person."

On stage, being a good partner is more important than being a good person because you are working together for the audience's belief. You need to act with purpose your role and expect your partner to respond appropriately. 

Being a good person is defined in my head and I think most of our culturally assimilated heads as behaving in a way people expect us to behave. Good people don't rock the boat, speak the truth if it is uncomfortable, or let their children say shit. They punch softly from a great distance. That is not believable for an audience. It also leads to sheltered, shallow relationships.

So, what makes for a good partner? We did an exercise of giving and receiving energy. Little creepy, but fascinating to feel and get into sync with another person. A good partner listens and responds appropriately. A good partner trusts that the other is not an incompetent idiot who must be carried or coddled. A good partner is loving and critical because that is the only way you grow and improve.

I wonder what the church would be like if we focused less on being good people and started figuring out how to be good partners.

Cranberry

Cranberry is not a color.

I refuse to call the new Lutheran hymnals cranberry (they're not that new but time is relative).

It is red.

I will admit that I have a streak of incorrigibility in me. I'll be the first to acknowledge sometimes I  do something just because I'm a brat. For instance, Kirt and I went on a hike this summer and he was chiding me for  my poor choice in clothing so naturally the next time he turned around I had removed the unsuitable clothes.  Luckily he couldn't arrest me, but I made my point whatever point I was trying to make.

But, I feel pretty strongly about this cranberry vs. red thing. We're not allowed to call it red because the red hymnal was just phased out four decades ago. People will get confused, but calling it cranberry eliminates all confusion. People start looking for Ocean Spray juices and bladder infections, but at least they won't dig through the basement to find the old hymnals.

It also degrades the great fruit cranberry.

Maybe that's why I hate using cranberry as a color. I love it as the amazing berry it is.

Wimps go blueberry picking. That's easy. You stand up, swat a million mosquitoes and fill your bucket in an hour.

Cranberry picking is for the tough ones. You journey out into the wet, slightly unsettling, jello-like bog after the first freeze. You lay down or kneel and search. There's only one berry per plant well hidden in the rest of bog vegetation. It takes a long time for your eyes to adjust and rarely do you walk away with a full bucket. Each one is a precious treasure.

I also love the tartness of low bush cranberries. I love the pop. I love the pucker. That's cranberry.

Calling something cranberry when it is obviously red reveals one of the great challenges for the church. Our language is so heavy with baggage from the past couple millennia we feel like we need to invent new and creative ways to express ourselves. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it's distracting and makes me snigger.

I love language filled with memories and brokenness. It doesn't mean I won't use contemporary language, but I
blend it with the language ripe with church memories knowing they won't always be good memories nor relevant to everyone - sorry.

I love when I refer to the red book and people recite the confession or tell me their favorite hymn. It is ripe with memories for some in a way that cranberry isn't. And I don't feel nearly as ridiculous talking about something that's red as I do cranberry.

Toothbrush

Do not be alarmed if you see my toothbrush. 

There is a lot of red permanent marker on it saying things like, “MOM” and “Use and suffer”. I’m not a heartless person, but there are few things I hate more than a wet toothbrush when I am about ready to use it. Buying toothbrushes at Costco is great except nobody in our house can remember what color they are. I used to put mine in a special place, but that didn’t help so now I make threats. IT IS MY TOOTHBRUSH!

The best story I ever heard about wet toothbrushes has nothing to do with this article, but makes me laugh every time I think about it. A couple was newly married and the husband discovered his toothbrush was wet and accused his wife of using it. She told him with a clear conscience she didn’t use it, but it might have dropped in the toilet.

Okay. Back on to the toothbrush with my name and idle threats on it. I feel a wee bit guilty about my possessiveness. Sharing is caring as my mom would always say. But there are boundaries. There are things essential to our being that should not be shared or compromised.

Pastors normally stink at healthy boundaries. Along with many folks in our culture, we have a sense that we should give and give. Generosity is incredibly important and selfishness is destructive, but giving without healthy boundaries stunts the growth of the people around us. It can also lead to bitterness and emptiness in ourselves.

I bring this up because I had an interesting conversation with a man who decided to sleep in the church. I told him he was not welcome to do that. There are too many safety and boundary issues. He told me that Jesus would let him stay there. 

Here is a challenge for me as a Christian, a woman, and a pastor. People play the Jesus card and this is when keeping healthy boundaries get hard. I follow a guy who died on the cross out of love for the world so it seems like I as a Christian leader should be willing to lay down and let people walk all over me.

Hmmm. The problem is, I don’t feel close to loving people when I do that. I become resentful and angry towards them. And I do feel like I cheat them out of growing experiences by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves (that’s the basic definition of enabling). Or I create dangerous situations where the chances of someone getting hurt far exceeds the chances of successful transformation.

Jesus had boundaries. He carved out time to be by himself and pray, he called people on their destructive patterns, he grieved at losses in his life, and he stood up for himself and his integrity. His life given on the cross was not a lack of boundaries, but a self that was so secure and defined it didn’t need to meet violence with violence. The cross is his unwillingness to play the power games of the empire.

Do I think Jesus would have shared his toothbrush? No, because they didn’t have toothbrushes in first century Palestine. Do I think Jesus would have let the man stay? I don’t know. I’m not trying to be Jesus, but follow his way in this world. I also know that our church community does not have the gifts or boundaries in place for overnight guests who let themselves into our space uninvited. Do I think Jesus would have been in relationship with people in transition, the poor, and hungry? Yes I do. And we do that. Not always well, but aware that we are called to be in relationships without fixing or giving everything away people want and still maintaining the core of who we are.

I do know I’m not sharing my toothbrush, everything else is a wrestling match trying to stay faithful to the call to love and healthy boundaries.

Warmth

King David was old and advanced in years; and although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm.So his servants said to him, "Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king, and be his attendant; let her lie in your bosom, so that my lord the king may be warm."So they searched for a beautiful girl throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king.The girl was very beautiful. She became the king's attendant and served him, but the king did not know her sexually.

1 Kings 1:1-4


I told Kirt the other day that if pastoring didn't work out, I could be a bed warmer like Abishag. He did not recall the story and I didn't actually recall her name so we looked it up and laughed. He pointed out that I failed in at least one of the qualifications needed, possibly two but he wasn't going to push his luck. He also pointed out that I didn't want to be a bed warmer, I wanted one.

That's pretty true. This night shift makes for a cold bed. It takes about five blankets to make up for the furnace I'm married to, but that's probably enough details about our life together.

The story has been rolling around in my head for a couple of days now. Whenever a woman gets named in the Bible, you want to pay attention. It doesn't occur that often and something memorable and profound must have happened for her to be recalled by name.

Initially the story struck me as sweet and funny. An old man finding comfort in the arms of a young woman to keep him warm at night has a tenderness to it. I've been in nursing homes enough to know the desire for companionship in bed does not necessarily fade with years.

Then there is the horror of this story. A young, beautiful girl forced from her family to spend the night with an old man nestled in her bosom. The story gets even more horrifying because after David gives his list of revenge killings to Solomon and dies, his other son Adonijah, who should get the throne but loses to Solomon, asks Bathsheba for Abishag as a wife.

One's mind can wander all kinds of places about Abishag and Adonijah. Did they make eyes at each other? Was it part of his grab for his father's throne? Did they know and love each other? Could her scandal of sharing an old man's bed be redeemed as wife to David's son? 

It doesn't really matter because Solomon goes into a rage and has Adonijah killed. We never hear about Abishag again. Her name simply means, "the father wanders." 

Comfort and horror. There is something lovely about David finding some warmth in his old age and there is horror as the consequences of his wandering sets his sons at each other's throats. There is the horror of this young girl caught in the midst.

Like most Bible stories, I don't think there's a tidy moral. It's messy. There's comfort and there's consequences. But this week, I'm thinking of Abishag and all the young women who get caught in the midst of power games.

I also think I'll settle for an electric blanket.