Coward of the County

I had four records growing up I loved or at least I loved a song on them. I had the Elvis record for children with a song about a dog that always made me cry. I had Goofy Gold with Purple People Eater that always made me laugh. There was the Country Bear Jamboree where my favorite was Blood on the Saddle sung by Big Al (Uncle Bill's nickname for me to this day). 


Blood on the Saddle
Blood all around
There's even a puddle 
Of Blood on the ground

That song just made me weird. Who carries around an ugly bear and sings this demented song as a child? Probably the same one who dressed up like Paul Bunyan.

Then there was Kenny Rogers and Coward of the County. That song confused me, but I loved it. 

I still feel confused at times by how we define courage and cowardice. Not to disagree with Kenny, but I don't think the difference is merely whether you're willing to fight or not. I still think force is the least creative way to solve a problem. It may be the easiest tool to use, but rarely is it the most effective in the long run.

So, what is the difference between cowardice and courage? 

Courage. The call for courage in the Bible is almost as common as the call to love. Unfortunately, I don't think many folks look to churches as places of great courage. 

What is courage? 
Courage comes from the word for heart. 

Courage is doing the "heart" thing when it is inconvenient, costly, awkward, or painful. Locating courage in the heart is different than doing the right thing. Breaking the law or social norm may not be the "right" thing to do, but it may be the gracious and loving thing to do.

Courage is stepping out of what is comfortable to risk something. 

I think people of courage need to have great curiosity and humility. Courage demands a sense of entering mystery. People can do risky things and it is just controlled cowardice with experiences and adrenalin rushes that maintain the status quo.You can be a coward who engages in risky behaviors if they don't break open your heart.

You see I don't think cowardice means backing down from a fight or refusing to take a stand. I've seen plenty of cowards stand tall parroting the latest propaganda proudly. 

Cowardice is insulating your heart to protect it from pain or discomfort. 

It demands lies and deceit to yourself and others. A structure has to be put in place where comfort and ease are the goals. Lots of lies have to be told to keep things easy, evade consequences and maintain a facade of calm. 

Cowardice demands triviality. I still think of Ed Loring at Open Door Community in Atlanta saying, "God's judgment on the rich is filling our time with meaningless decisions." Shop till you drop. When we keep our interactions shallow and our lives busy, then cowardice comes naturally. Courage takes work, investment and time.

Whenever a culture is shaped by consumerism and militarism, then cowardice is a natural by-product fostered especially by media. Our dominant culture is based on accumulating and protecting our stuff. That is not a culture that fosters courage. 

I threaten sometimes to celebrate communion on the roof of the church dangling over the side holding each other up. If we aren't learning and practicing how to face fear and support one another, then how will we be able to do it in crisis?

If the church isn't fostering a counter-culture of courage, then I don't know why we exist. If a church is in survival mode, then it might be more faithful to die.

I know I sound like a self-righteous brat talking about cowards, but it is only because I see myself and too many faith communities bowing to fear and comfort.  I'm not sure how to break out of it and truly be a person and community of courage. 

I'm scared that someday we'll all end up looking like Kenny. Slathering on a bit more plastic, tucking a few more wrinkles to pretend we can insulate ourselves from the pain and death in this world. I'd rather have a broken heart than a plastic face. God bless him though; I still love that song.

Sorry

"Do you all know what necrophilia is?" 

This is not how you want the funeral director to begin a discussion with a room full of middle schoolers and their parents. That was three years ago so I prepped the crew this year. Funeral directors rarely have filters. Life is way too raw for them so they don't coat stories with protective coverings.

Our tour on Monday was much tamer. It is still the unfiltered tour of the embalming room, crematorium, and refrigerator room. There are always follow-up conversations after this tour.

I try to be upfront with parents that catechism class is about connecting faith to all of life so we talk about poop, sex, jail, work, birth and death. Or better yet, we go on field trips to explore all these aspects of life except for sex. Hmm. I don't think they are allowed in Mystic Treasures so you all are safe.

The most phone calls I ever got from middle school parents was after the Hooters fiasco - NOT MY FAULT! We were in Toledo touring the mosque, Orthodox church and synagogue but we split up for lunch and the sweetest older woman took the crew of boys. She had no idea what they were asking. I'm sure they told her how good the food was and when they got back and I was a bit irritated she did tell me how good the food was. 

She also accidentally left a crew of kids at a random diner in a random town off the freeway instead of the agreed upon Denny's. Long story. Before cell phones. I came close to panicking. Misplacing three children is definitely a bad thing. 

I work with folks in a setting where people expect you to be nice and make everyone happy. Okay. Maybe the expectation that I am nice was quashed years ago at the church, but only recently have I been able to abandon trying to make everyone happy. That's a hard one to give up as a pastor and I would argue as a woman of my generation. 

My biggest way of trying to make people happy is saying I'm sorry. I am quick to take responsibility for all of life around me, even the stuff I can't control. I annoy myself with how often I say it. 

My corrective is slightly twisted so I need to work on that too. After something happens I say, "I'm sorry" and then "I'm not really sorry, that wasn't my fault" and then "I'm sorry it happened to you, but still not my responsibility." 

See it just gets awkward. So I've discovered my true Lenten discipline is to only say "I'm sorry" when I mean it.  There are times that I'm hurtful and I need to take responsibility for that. But there are lots of times accidents happen or life happens or people get mad at me and I may experience sorrow because I care for them, but I don't need to heap it on my shoulders and pretend like I'm Atlas. 

We don't really have a good phrase in English when we want to express solidarity in sorrow without taking responsibility.

Maybe something like,

"I'm sorry that you are uneasy confronting your twelve year old son's desire to see hooters and eat hot wings."

"I'm sorry you feel uncomfortable talking about dying with your teenager."

"I'm sorry you are angry because I refuse to get choir robes." 

"I'm sorry I left your kid in a diner playing with straws for hours while we searched for them." See, I really was sorry for that one.

The rest just sound snarky. I suppose I can be sorry that someone is responding and feeling the way they are to a situation without taking responsibility for the situation. 

The best I can do is live as honestly and openly as possible and trust the people around me to respond as they need to. Sometimes that is calling me on what an obnoxious and hurtful person I am. Sometimes that means the folks I love experience some disgruntlement and discomfort that I shouldn't try to apologize away. 

I'm going to wean myself off the excessive "I'm sorrys". I'm actually thinking of replacing it with, "Do you all know what necrophilia is?" That's much less awkward. Or maybe move to Canada where they say "sorry" all the time. 

Dinosaurs

The theme for our Fat Tuesday Follies was dinosaurs. Becky, our church goddess, is amazingly creative and had dinosaurs ready for me to juggle and a slew of dinosaur jokes to share. 

Why can't a T-Rex clap?
Because they are extinct.

Why can't you hear a Pterodactyl pee? 
Think it's the silent "p"? No, they're extinct too.

In case you are wondering, dinosaurs are painful to juggle. There are sharp, pointy things that pierce your flesh, but anything for Jesus. Or at least anything for Becky.

Dinosaurs also scare me. I'm still in a Jurassic Park recovery group. I watched Jurassic World recently and thought I could handle Jurassic Park. The last time I tried to watch Jurassic Park was subbing for a science class in Angoon in 1994. I screamed through the entire thing, but that kept the class quiet. 

In case you are wondering, I am still unable to watch it without screaming through the entire movie. My kids know they can make me meltdown just by mentioning M. Arnold. "Oh Mr. Arnold" AND IT'S JUST HIS ARM! 

I think there are fifty billion Jurassic movies with all the same basic plot. People have the knowledge and desire to breed dinosaurs so they do and in each movie it turns out to be a bad idea. Maybe this time we will live with huge carnivorous creatures in harmony. 

The desire to recreate what is dead and the desire to make a lot of money are too intense to resist. 


The desire to recreate what is dead . . . 
I know the destruction desiring money can bring, but longing to recreate what is dead is haunting because it seems so noble. 

We hear from poets and novelists time and again about the horrifying consequences of resuscitating the dead. I remember some creepy story by Edgar Allen Poe about a monkey's paw and wishing someone who was dead would return. I was going to look it up but I'm too creeped out with the wind to read Poe tonight.

I want to be the first one to say that death and extinction stink. I'm not a big fan of either, but I recognize that we cannot resuscitate the past. We can't bring it back.

I also make gagging sounds when folks talk about "time to move on" or other trite phrases about leaving the past behind.  It's not like the alarm rings, you dump your sorrow, pretend like all is sunshine and rainbows, and move on down the road. 

We can't resuscitate what was. We also can't pretend like we don't carry the scars of grief with us everywhere we go. There is no moving on from a meaningful relationship anymore than there is moving on from losing a limb. You learn to live without it, but the scar remains.

That's why I frame my life in death and resurrection language. Things die. They no longer exist as they once were and it is okay to be really sad because that sucks. 

And it is okay to hope that a new creation and life may come out of death. A life that often surprises us. A life we sometimes don't even recognize. 

But it isn't cut off from what was; it doesn't leave behind what was meaningful. The risen Jesus carried the scars of the cross and that's how he was recognized. We don't get to recreate what was, but everything gets woven into our person, into something new.

Lent's approaching. Thinking about death. And dinosaur jokes. 

Except now I'm thinking about chickens and how I much prefer juggling my rubber chickens. They are after all relatives to dinosaurs.

Flash

I'm giving up flashing policemen for Lent. It's finally sunk in not all the guys driving in cruisers are my husband. I apologize for any illicit behavior on my part that has scarred them for life.

Lent is a great time to give up a destructive habit. I sometimes give up swearing, or yelling, or when I'm too enamored with all my destructive habits I give up peanut butter. That is naturally cheating because I detest peanut butter. 

I've never given up cheating, but that would mean refraining from games for forty days. I don't consider stealing the deal from my daughters when we play cribbage as actual cheating; I'm teaching them to pay closer attention.

I do sometimes think about being better behaved. It would be embarrassing to have the headline, "Pastor Arrested for Pressing Bosom up Against Church Window" in the Juneau Empire (Kirt wouldn't let me put boobs, but I had lots of fun running alternative words by him. If I had a dime for every time he shook his head). Luckily that time I refrained. Who knew a police car not driven by my husband would cruise through the church lot on a Saturday night? 

I'm a turdbird for multiple reasons.

1. It is my way of rebelling. My brother was the party guy who got in trouble normal ways. I came home challenging the meaning of existence and questioning social order. 
2. It makes me laugh. There's so much sadness in the world and sometimes I'm mischievous because it feels like I'm defying sorrow and suffering. I refuse to give into the hurt and darkness so I do random acts of goofiness. 
3. It breaks down walls. There was a lovely moment in LA at the Food Bank where one of the community service volunteers was getting ready to leave and she gave me a big hug. She said, "You call yourself a dork, but I think you're just fun and goofy." Sweetest words I've heard in a while. 

It does get me thinking that well-behaved people are rarely interesting or approachable. I don't mean people need to cuss, drink, and flash policemen to be interesting, but there needs to be a resistance to what is expected of them at times. There needs to be a pushback to the norms we so easily settle into and then declare as mandatory for everyone.

You can think poorly of me as a pastor for swearing, yelling, and flashing, but when I read the story of Jesus I don't see purity as the main point. It's about loving folks, especially folks we aren't "supposed" to love. 

So I don't always do what I'm supposed to do. I won't totally blame it on Jesus, but I do believe it makes me more alive and faithful to flash my husband every now and then. I know one of these times it will actually be him.