Angels

We talked on Sunday about angels and I did the typical post-enlightenment pastor thing where I talked about angels as messengers of the good news and how we all are called to be angels. I stand by that demythologizing message, but it's a bit dull.

No wings. No halos. No robes of white. 

(One kid did talk about angels being white and it made me think about how we picture Jesus and the heavenly hosts. I'll never forget sitting in a church in Africa and the only white people were Kirt, Jesus and I. But that's a whole different blog about race.)

My systematic theology doesn't have guardian angels in it. I place my faith and hope in Jesus as a glimpse of eternal love as witnessed in his death and resurrection. That's my core belief and guardian angels lead me into all kinds of weird places, much like Kushtakas and ghosts. 

But here's my problem. Those things don't fit into my theology, but I've bumped into them enough that they mess with my reality.

I don't believe in guardian angels because I don't know what to do with creatures from another plane of existence who intervene to save my ass while Joe Blow's guardian angel lets him get run over by a train. I can't get that to make sense, but I've had a guardian angel save my booty.

Atlanta 1994
I lived in a small intentional community in Barnesville, GA just south of Atlanta on Possum Trot Road. We got a small stipend and worked providing hospitality for friends and family of people on death row. 

I saved up my stipend to go see Cirque de Soleil in Atlanta. I stayed with some friends who worked with Habitat for Humanity, but they couldn't go see the show with me so I was on my own. 

This was before cell phones, before the Olympics boosted Atlanta's public transportation, and before I developed my entire brain to process good ideas. I'd traveled extensively so I told my friends I would be fine, except I really don't have a good sense of direction. I got off MARTA to walk back to their house, but there was a gang of young men gathered around the map so I decided now was not a good time to stand in front of it, in the dark, in the pouring rain, and get oriented. 

I chose a direction and walked confidently. 

This normally works out for me, except when it's dark, I have no money left, and it's raining. After a while, I realized I had no idea where my friends lived, I found myself in an area where there was no sign of life, no stores, nor even traffic in this burned out, boarded up part of Atlanta. 

I still remember stopping in the middle of the sidewalk with tears starting to roll down as I realized I was in some serious trouble. I uttered the prayer that has probably crossed more lips than any other, "O God, help." I've never felt so lost and helpless as I did at that moment.

Then, the door of what looked like an abandoned warehouse flew open and a large, intoxicated woman stared out at me and said, "What the hell are you doing out here?" 

She dragged me into her place and it was a large room with decorated toilet seats adorning an entire wall. With a slight slur, she explained to me that she was having a gallery opening of her designer toilet seats, but nobody showed up so she drank all the wine. She couldn't give me a ride home, but I could call my friend. 

My friend nearly had a fit when I told her where I was, but she came and got me. She made me tell the story several times, shaking her head each time. 

There's no doubt in my mind that my guardian angel would be an intoxicated woman who designs toilet seats. I've tried to come up with all kinds of rational explanations, but here's where I end up:

If I can't get things to make sense, then simple gratitude is the appropriate response. 

The day will come when we will see clearly and understand. For now it's enough to put our trust in the good news of God's eternal love, but always leave room for surprises.

Snow

This is as light as it got today

I drove out towards the end of the road today hoping to find a respite from the rain. Sometimes if you keep heading Northish the clouds clear and the sun pops out, but not normally. Sometimes it's just cathartic to remember the end of the road exists. It's a good reminder that you can't drive your way out of responsibilities and messes.

Margaret Atwood once wrote about the high suicide rate in Vancouver, which I think would speak for Alaska as well. She said something about people keep moving West thinking they can escape their past and start fresh until they reach the coast and realize they are still stuck with themselves. That's how I remember it, but I'm too lazy to find the quote and I think it rings true with the experience in the frontier.

It's a lot like snow. Not that we would know since all of ours is gone now. I'm bitter and slightly grumpy. I love snow and I like to think of it as an image for grace. It floats down and covers all the ugly with pure beauty.

Except that's a shitty image for grace and one that the church clings to way too often. Cover up the shit, make it look pure, and we'll all be happy.

Then it melts, the rain washes it away and you're left with all the piles of dog shit and broken toys left in the yard. This year, we had the added bonus of our pumpkins. The first snow caught us by the surprise so once it was all gone, we had to scrape the rotting pumpkins off the porch.

I want grace to be like the pure and beautiful snow, but it's much more like the rain. It washes away the veneer and let's us face our shit with a garbage bag in hand. You can leave it, but it's way less fun to play in when it's all over your shoes, and you're sliding around, and then you're tracking it through the house.

Grace gives us the confidence that we matter and we are loved even if our backyard looks like a disaster zone. We don't have to hide it under snow, but can get to work cleaning it up. It's not pretty, but it's easier than moving just because your yard is full of feces.

I give thanks for the snow and for drives out to the end of the road where we get a bit of respite from the hard work of being human. I'm not opposed to denial and escaping reality. Sometimes you need a break from hard truths.  I just know sooner or later, reality returns and the longer you wait, the more piles of shit you have to clean up.

Instant Pot

I'm slightly pathetic when it comes to reading binges. I've found a new love so I'm staying up a little late and delaying work. I haven't resorted to a flashlight under the covers, but it's close. I'm reading Peter May's Lewis Trilogy set in Scotland. 

So I'm recycling an article I wrote in 2011 that still rings pretty true, except now I want an Instant Pot. Those are amazing. Not as amazing as Scottish mysteries, but still phenomenal. 

Paradise

Thanksgiving dinner at church is a little slice of heaven. 

It is paradise not only because I get to eat all the gizzards and hearts without sharing (I like to think of it as redneck chewing gum), but there is something about this gathering of folks that is especially lovely. 

This year we had quite a crew at dinner, close to forty. 

I tell folks it's not a charity dinner; I expect everyone to bring something. I truly believe everyone has something to offer and denying folks a chance to give undermines humanity. 

I made a couple of turkeys and a couple of beef roasts. My favorite turkey recipe is one of those nerdy science recipes that talks about chemistry stuff and it turned out super yummy. The other turkey was boring and the beef roasts didn't quite cook like I wanted them to, but that's life.

I do the best I can and I depend on everyone else to bring the rest. 

No one is in charge, we all chip in, offer our gifts, and God blesses them. We ate well, little kids were running around, folks played cards, and there was a general sense of joy and peace. We hung out for five hours eating and playing games. I won't mention who won the cribbage and ping pong games (it was me). 

Don't imagine we're one of those places where kids are allowed to win. We want everyone to offer their best and allow it be a safe place to fail and learn. But we try not to make them cry.

I'm never sure how to imagine heaven, but a feast where everyone brings what they have and God blesses it with peace and joy seems pretty close.

Give Up

I've given up trying to write my name in the snow.

I just don't have the leg, bladder, or balance control needed to pull it off. Today I admitted defeat after getting pee all over my boots and falling on my ass in the snow. 

That's cold.

As soon as I told myself to give up, I started thinking what an odd phrase "giving up" is. It sounds like surrendering to God. 

"Giving up" made me think of prayer rising like incense. I lift up all those things beyond my control that break my heart but I can't fix or save so I have to entrust them to a "higher power." 

There are things I need to give up. I try to play god and it doesn't work out well for anyone.

But I don't think peeing my name in the snow is one of those things.

It's more like something I need to put down.

There's probably a whole list of stuff I need to put down too.  

• Obsessions that aren't worthy of my time let alone God's. 
• Hurts that I drag along for a whole myriad of reasons, none of which are overly healthy. 
• Defeats, regrets and failings that I should set down in the snow and move on. 

I preach this sermon to myself on a regular basis and then promptly ignore it. My tenacity is one of my redeeming qualities and my fatal flaw. Once I latch onto something, it is nearly impossible for me to let go. 

I'm not a bitter person. I don't hang onto grudges, but I will continue trying to fix something long after it should have been laid to rest.

So, now that my boots are dry and my ass is warm, I'm blaming my bibs, the dog, the depth of the snow for my failure and I'm thinking about buying a Shewee. One more try and then I'll put it down.

All are welcome

"All are welcome" is bullshit. . . 
at least as a slogan for the community gathered and grounded in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

It's entirely appropriate for most other gathering places.

It's a lie for churches. Whoever convinced the community of Jesus followers that our mission was to welcome all people into our building and hope they conform to be like us should have to sniff my girls' volleyball knee pads.

It's liberal Christian bullshit (in the historical sense not political sense). It's a by-product of the Enlightenment when dealing with death and resurrection didn't groove with rationality so we replaced it with being nice to everyone and trying to do good things.

Here are my top two complaints with this church slogan:

1. This is going to sound insensitive, but people who are filled with hate do not belong in our worship. Everyone shouldn't be welcomed into the sacred space where we gather around the table as the community of grace. 

It doesn't mean people consumed with hate are beyond redemption, but I don't think Sunday morning worship is where that happens.

Worship is the place where followers of Jesus gather to be fed with good news and the body and blood of Jesus so we may live as the body and blood of Jesus in this world.

That takes me to #2

2. The church's mission isn't to welcome people, it's to get our asses into the world to love and forgive. We don't welcome people consumed by hate into our worship, but we do engage everyone where they are, we seek to break into the isolation and hate with some love. When the church's mission is about getting people into church, then everything gets screwed up.

I understand that churches have been jerks to lots of folks who were called by the Holy Spirit to gather with the community following Christ and were refused at the door because they didn't look or act like people expected them to. That is bullshit too, but the remedy isn't trite slogans that make us pat ourselves on the back for being inclusive. The remedy is actually trusting what God is doing in this world.

I trust a God who is in the business of gathering, not a god who sits on his ass waiting for everyone to come to him. 

We are gathered by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit always messes with our expectations of who gathers around that table. 

And we are sent into the world to meet people where they are with love. We are the scattered church where people encounter the grace of God, the shattering love of God, and the all-welcoming embrace of God.

Silence

I curled up with Dostoevsky* last night. 

Kirt's gone so he'll never know and there is no better companion who can hold despair and hope together without diluting either (there are probably better options for warming the bed though).

The Brothers Karamazov all held me tight as I wrestled with the nature of evil, violence, and faith. 

The quotes that sustained me were from the lips of Father Zosima:

If the wickedness of people arouses indignation and insurmountable grief in you, to the point that you desire to revenge yourself upon the wicked, fear that feeling most of all

And

Fathers and teachers, I ask myself: "What is hell?" And I answer thus: "The suffering of being no longer able to love." 

I've just let those thoughts roll around in my mind as I find myself grieving and wanting to spew out blame and easy answers.

I feel reactive and raw so I spent a good chunk of today in silence. It is my protest to the violence of our words and culture. 

And then I did a Jesus thing. I fail doing this a lot so I feel like I need to mark it when it happens.

I gave thanks for the little things I could hold onto in the midst of the chaos. 

The part of communion that tends to stick out to me is "In the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread and gave thanks. . . " The night his friend betrays him with a kiss, Jesus freaking gives thanks for a loaf of bread.

In the midst of wanting someone to pay for the betrayal of humanity, I tried to lose myself in thankfulness for the little things around me.

The elusiveness of the cranberry

My faithful companion

The grace of changing seasons

The beauty of icicles and waterfalls

I need to be quiet.

I need to give thanks even in the midst of such craziness. 

Because I don't want my righteous indignation to turn into my hell.


*Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was a Russian novelist who wrestled with the meaning of existence and the role of suffering and God. He was also much greater than Tolstoy could ever dream of being.

Graveyard

Darkness has descended. 

It is that time of year where I remember how dark dark can be. It's easy to forget until you try to drive and realize you can't see.

It's also that time of year where my girls tell stories about how I used to drag them through the graveyard in the dark when we lived in Michigan. Hannah tells the story; Sophie was too young to remember. 

I should probably deny taking two toddlers through a cemetery in the pitch dark, but I did. In my defense, we cut through so we could access the woods for a night hike. 

I got really stir crazy with toddlers and darkness. 

I'm pretty sure they put headlamps on, but then I made them turn the lights off and adjust their night vision.

That's how I raised my girls. We lived in the delicate mix of terror, boldness, and adventure. The dark cemetery and woods freaked me out too, but a house with toddlers and a black lab nearly made me crazy. 

Stir crazy: Used among inmates in prison, it referred to a prisoner who became mentally unbalanced because of prolonged incarceration.
It is now used to refer to anyone who becomes restless or anxious from feeling trapped and even somewhat claustrophobic in an environment perceived to be more static and unengaging than can continue to hold interest, meaning, and value to and for them. (Wikipedia)

I definitely had moments of stir craziness where I couldn't read Good Night Moon or play Barbies anymore so I had to venture out and feel my blood flow again.

Sometimes I think I stay sane by venturing into the places that freak me out.  I'd rather feel terrified than trapped. 

There's a subtle undertone in our culture that tells us to avoid hard things that cause discomfort. It's my act of defiance to walk in the dark and raise my kids to do the same. At least it makes for a good story.

Profane

We spent the first ten minutes of Mom's Group talking about penises. Or is that penii? 

I'm not sure who brought it up, but that same person kept trying to teach the baby boy in the room to say, "Nobody wants to see that." I think it's important for boys to learn this early, especially if they are going to be the only child in a room with twelve wild women.

I love our squirrelly Mom's Group and I love serving in a community of faith that hasn't fired me yet. 

Here's the thing. Get ready for the shock. . .

I'm not a prudish pastor. 

I think prudishness actually works against the freeing nature of the Gospel so you might find us talking about nearly anything at church. 

I don't want people to imagine grace is meant for the person they think they ought to be; grace gives us the freedom to live in the person we are.

That doesn't mean we stay where we are. There's something amazing that happens when people get to share their pain, laughter and questions together. 

We can be honest about what is lovely and what is absurd; what is broken and what has found healing. The defenses drop and we can be truthful with ourselves about what needs to change.

Maybe a dog with a deer leg will distract you
from the mention of penises

We don't do Bible studies at Mom's Group. I have no pithy devotional, but the living word is moving and grooving in that room. We've talked about hairy lesbian porn and penises, but it's also one of the most sacred hours of the month. 

Or at least one of the most real. 

Folks get to show up and be present in the mess without trying to pretend.

One of the things I love about Jesus' life is how he takes the profane and makes it sacred with a touch and a word of thanksgiving. Water, bread, and wine all become unexpected vessels of grace. I might be doing this pastoring thing all wrong and someday the church was be utterly scandalized and find someone who will behave. 

But, until then, we keep creating spaces for grace, places where folks get to show up in their messes, be touched, and a word of thanksgiving offered. That's how I witness the profane becoming sacred.

Temporary

Halloween stresses me out a little. I struggle putting clothes together for a normal day; I don't have the creativity or skill to put a costume together.

I was telling the girls about my hardest college class - costume design. We had to draw people and match clothes. 

My nightmare.

Keith Belli was our professor. He made the mistake of revealing to us that he hated The Gambler so we sang it every chance we got. He had so much patience and somehow I made it through with lots of tears and an A. Never underestimate the power of pity.

I got to visit a dear friend from college during my whirlwind trip outside (that's what we call the world outside Alaska). He made it possible for me to watch Death of a Salesman at Ford's Theater. I almost balked because I imagined the play had to be dated. Arthur Miller wrote it in 1949 about the collapse of the American Dream.

It's not dated; I wept through it. I should have brought tissues, because snot on sleeves is unacceptable at Ford's.

It's still a powerful commentary on the things we hang our lives and hopes on. One moment that stuck out so poignantly was Willy Loman saying, "I feel kind of temporary about myself." 

Thankfully, I had a dark yard and lots of time when I was in the sixth grade to lie there and stare at the vastness of the stars. Those were my crisis and calming moments. The vastness made me critically aware of my temporality. It cured me of any illusions of grandeur; there is no proving oneself worthy in the face of such enormity.

In some ways, I think of those nights staring at the stars as my baptism. That's when I died to any thought my story was central and realized I was part of a much greater narrative. My choices have significance and consequences. The hurt and joy I bring do ripple throughout eternity, but the universe does not revolve around me. 

Willy Loman's response to feeling temporary is standard American: buy stuff,
worship your kids,
isolate,
pick fights,
exaggerate your significance,
bully those with less to make yourself feel greater, 
and finally despair. 

My tears matched those of the father and son in front of me so I didn't feel so alone grieving this life we fall into so easily.

The gift of theater is letting us step back and see ourselves. We get to watch our stories, weep, laugh, wipe snot on our sleeves, and walk out a little more aware of how temporary we are in the vastness.

Tom Petty

“But, how did you get here?” 

This was the question the sweet twenty something kept asking my friend Lance and I at the bar at 1:00 am in Baltimore. He just couldn’t wrap his head around how two pastors, one from Alaska and one from Pennsylvania, could be in his neighborhood bar heckling the singer for Tom Petty songs.

We told him how I flew in and Lance drove down to have some time to catch up.

"But, how did you get here?" 

"Well, the place we ate dinner was closing at midnight and we weren’t done painting the town puce so we walked two doors down because we were promised live music and the musician promised Tom Petty songs, which never happened."

"But, how did you get here?"

He really wasn’t letting it go. Finally Lance made up a ridiculous story that made us giggle for a long time.

But, “here” was an unpredictable place to be.

We met as young pastors fourteen years ago as part of a Lilly Endowment gig to retain pastors and we’ve walked with each other through secrets, sorrows, and silliness I rarely get to explore. 

How did you get here? I’m not going to whine about being a pastor, but there are times that I carry responsibilities and secrets that get heavy. There are times I forget to delight and laugh so hard that my stomach hurts the next day.  I get wrapped in the drama of  the world and forget to be here.

And here is a good place to be. Tending friendships, confessing struggles, playing with theology, and laughing are good places to be. When I fret about the world, I admit that I can’t fix it all, but I can rebel against the increasing division and isolation by digging deeply into meaningful relationships.

So if you are ever at 1919 in Baltimore and a sweet twenty something shows up at 1 in the morning with friend chicken and potato wedges and asks you how you got there, just tell him that Lance and Tari sent you.

Umbrellas

Let me begin by saying how thankful we are in Juneau for tourists. It is a gift to have guests and show off the land we love. Thank you for visiting. 

And now two confessions:
1. We are always a bit relieved when October rolls around and the ships stop coming. It's like after company leaves and our entire town puts on pajamas to lounge on the sofa and drink wine. I personally appreciate the return of quiet. There were no helicopters, crowds, or float planes when I hiked today to disrupt the melody of the water and wind.

2. If you visit Juneau and carry an umbrella or wear a poncho, then we point and laugh. I'm sorry.  I don't know why this is true, but those things seem appropriate for Disney not a rain forest. An umbrella is a sure sign that you're not from here because people who live with 285 days of precipitation know how to handle rain.


Those of us who live here wear whatever and get wet. Like idiots. Or locals. However you want to cut that one.

I've given into the Juneau pressure to fit in. I'm not sure if it is self-consciousness, pride, or seeking acceptance, but I just stood in the pouring rain with lots of other parents at a cross country meet without a rain coat, umbrella, or poncho. It's like defying the wet of the rain. 

We live with so much rain, we don't need any protection; we're above it. 

Except we're not; I was cold and wet. 

The web of self-consciousness, trying to fit in, and pride can tangle me into some stupid choices. I'm old enough to know this. There have been too many opportunities I've passed up because I thought I might look ridiculous or get teased.

So, I've started carrying an umbrella on Sundays. I always walk to church on Sunday morning regardless of weather and one Sunday I was wrapping my backpack so it didn't get wet and putting on all my rain gear because I didn't want to show up to church all wet, when it finally hit me that I could use one of the myriad of umbrellas my parents have either brought or purchased when they visit. 

I carried an umbrella while walking on a busy street. 

People did point and laugh. I took some heckling, but I realized two things:
1. I stayed dry with less effort

2. Umbrellas make me happy. I sang Singing in the Rain and Mary Poppins' songs the whole way. The pointing and laughing might be related to that, too.

This past Sunday was a little too windy for an umbrella and I started thinking how amazing a transparent poncho would be (I don't know why transparent, they just seem a little cooler), but I'm not quite self-confident enough to walk down the street in a transparent poncho yet.

National Anthem

I heard the news. I read the news. I'm thankful I don't watch news because I can't take anymore. The written descriptions of Las Vegas are enough.

I had to step away and pull out the Juneau Empire whose main story was about the Juneau man who can tie cherry stems with his tongue. I drank my coffee, talked to my chickens, dressed all in black (I'm not sure Johnny Cash would appreciate the glazed donut streak on my black pants, but I still carried a "bit of darkness on my back") and I headed out to wander the woods.


And rant.

I needed to rant. To get out all the things I'm so sure are wrong with our world and who's to blame out of my head. I ranted to the dog and ravens. My beloved children have taught me the ineffectiveness of ranting to people. Ranting about putting laundry away or unpacking backpacks is nearly as effective as bashing my head against the wall. I got it out of my system; I realized I don't have any amazing answers or good people to blame. Then I dug through my brain for some kind of soothing balm.

I landed on Tuesday night's national anthem. Tuesday night was a huge volleyball game with the stands full of Thunder Mountain and Juneau Douglas football players, friends, parents, and fans. The air was already electric with the cross town rivalry. 


I know and love the young woman who stepped out to sing the national anthem to this crowd. She blanked. She started the anthem twice and blanked. Then something lovely happened. She started it a third time and we all sang. The football players, friends, parents, and even the volleyball players sang what words they knew to the tune they could carry and we lifted the song of our nation when it faltered.

I'm not a fan of national anthem performances so this was exactly what the anthem should be. We all risked raising our voices the best we could. Even with our differences, we offered what we had and the song filled the space and I saw more than one teary eye.

I'm pretty convinced we need fewer public rants and more leaders who make space for every voice when the national song falters. We need fewer egomaniacs and more who are willing to risk being part of a song that is bigger than themselves.

And as the rants start, when I am tempted to join in the vomiting of what is wrong with this world and who is to blame, I will remember the quote from Dale Earnhardt Jr. in today's paper.

I am about to quote something from NASCAR. The closest I've come to NASCAR was on the Autobahn when I made race car sounds and a running commentary on my maneuvers, but our Monday paper is pathetic so once I finished the cherry stem article, it was either the Classifieds or the full page article on Earnhardt.

So here's the quote from Earnhardt that feels like a bit of a balm in our broken world, "I don't always claim to be right, but I think in transparency in conversation and compassion you can learn from others. There is only one way to sort of do that and that is by communication and sharing."

Transparency, learning, compassion, sharing . . . those are probably some helpful words as we wrestle through the faltering of our national song.

Ugly Chicken

Ptari is looking a little ugly. 

I'm trying not to make her self-conscious, but she looks like a mangy chicken. A molting chicken is an ugly chicken who doesn't lay eggs. I'm happy she isn't dying, but she is U-G-L-Y.

I was talking to her today as I was cleaning out their nasty, stinking coop about how it didn't matter to me that she wasn't pretty or productive, I still loved her, it was just a little harder.

It wasn't that I loved her any less. I don't believe in loving more versus less, falling in or out of love. 

Love is. 

Love is steadfast faithfulness. There's no more or less, but there are definitely times it's easier and harder.



I feel a little shallow saying it's harder for me to love when my beloved isn't pretty or productive. I wish it was just about chickens, but my guess is it's true in all my relationships. 

It's harder for me to love something that's ugly and requires work without any return. 

There. I said it out loud. 

I think it's important to say that confession so we recognize love takes practice; it doesn't come naturally. Our instinct is to cherish the butterfly and stomp the spider, but how do we become people who love and cherish the beautiful and hideous? How do we love when it is hard and when it is easy?

And to know when it is time to end a relationship. There are times that the ugliness of life can so corrupt a relationship that it's destructive to remain and the least broken, most loving thing to do is sell the chicken to the butcher. 

I'm just joking. Mostly. I'm a sick and twisted person. I still love her lots so don't fret. I'm actually working on her Halloween costume. I think she'll love it. 

Dead Fish

"Do you think I'll die if I licked a dead salmon?" 

How do you answer that as a parent?

"Yes, I think you will die regardless of what you licked because we all die.  Are you asking about imminent death from some salmon parasite disease? I'm not sure."

Why I'm allowed to parent, I don't know, but we googled "licking dead salmon." That's an interesting search and there are parasite issues that are uncomfortable for humans and deadly for dogs. I then forbid her from licking or kissing the dog. I have boundaries.

After we learned more about parasites than I ever wanted to know, I finally broached the subject of why she was licking a dead salmon. 

"Even if you thought he would turn into a prince, he'd still be dead." 

I should have known. It was a dare. With money attached. Now it all makes sense and I'm slightly proud.

I once ate the remains from an all you can eat Chinese buffet in Elijah's bib pocket for $10. It was a dare from the youth group. Or maybe I said, "how much will you pay me to eat this?" It looked more disgusting than it was, but it still was kind of gross. 

Well worth $10 from a bunch of teenagers. 

Yes, I made them pay.

There's something motivating about dares with money attached. I've been wrestling with how the community of faith can be a more courageous community and I feel like dares backed with money might push us all out of our comfort zone. Imagine if we played truth or dare on Sunday mornings at church pushing and cajoling each other into a greater honesty and risk. 

It has its hazards. Risking and revealing ourselves just for the titillation of it is dangerous and addictive. But, there is something vitalizing when we are uncomfortable and slightly grossed out. 

If you can lick a dead salmon, then maybe it's also possible to risk intervening when something is wrong,
       speaking and standing up for those who are silenced, 
               and even acknowledging hurt and offering forgiveness.

If you can push yourself out of your comfort zone for one thing, then maybe that's all the practice you need for the stuff that really matters.

Or maybe it's just gross and funny. Either way you win.

Meat Bubble Wand

I decided to write again for two reasons:

1. Kirt goes off night shift and I can no longer stay up until 2 AM reading mysteries so I need to get a life. I also need a break after I was up half the night fretting about one of the characters. Do normal people invest this much emotional energy in books or is that reserved only for Dancing with the Stars?

2. I had a dream last night that made me wake up laughing. There I was up in a tree where I really wanted to blow some bubbles with the bubble mix I had handy, but I didn't have a bubble wand. Don't worry. I took the meat I was chewing and wove it together to make a bubble wand. Then, I started to brag to people in the dream about my amazing meat bubble wand. 

Last Human on Earth from Dr. Who.
Her face got smeared, which only
makes it creepier and more absurd

It still makes me laugh. If you were in my dream and saw the chewed up steak woven in a circle bubble wand, you would giggle too. My ideas are brilliant even in my dreams.

I remember after 9/11 David Letterman asked when it was okay to be funny again. It was a good question.

There is so much sadness and fear right now. There are obviously times when humor is inappropriate and disrespectful, but I would argue that we don't laugh nearly enough. If you are open to laughing then you also tend to be open to grieving. They come from the same place in your body and defy the urge to shutdown emotionally in the face of fear and sadness.

Laughter doesn't make me escape reality, but it helps me name the absurdity of life without being overwhelmed by it. 

Just say out loud "meat bubble wand" and you'll get a taste of what I mean. 

Mystery

I'm going to take a break from writing for a bit. I'd like to say it's for some introspective reason, but it's mainly just because I found a new mystery series. And Kirt's on night shift so I can read way after midnight. I'll binge until I read through them all or they become too predictable. 

There were a couple of requests for sermons so I'm going to put them on here until I exhaust Inspector Gamache. 

I'm too lazy to edit. 

Matthew 11:16-19
[Jesus spoke to the crowd saying:] 16“To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,
 17‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
  we wailed, and you did not mourn.’
18For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; 19the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

I am not a big fan of spirituality. I actually think it’s one of the worst things to happen to Christianity next to our obsession with the idea of the angry God killing his Son instead of us. I think they are two extremes related to our shame of flesh. They go hand and hand along with rapture stuff, which we don’t buy into at all, cause all of these things try to get us out of life in the flesh. They all try to convince us that true faith is about escaping this body and this world and added bonus all the jerks around us.

Trying to escape the world and call it faith is always a heresy. Anything that takes us out of this world or seeks to distance us from the incarnation, where God chose to reveal God’s self in the flesh, is an anathema to the heart of our faith.  We’ve manipulated Jesus into a well-behaved, always wearing white, really boring and unaffected by the things around him but always ready with a great lecture on what we should be doing kind of savior. We tend towards a Jesus who is very clean and incredibly dull but loves us from a healthy distance and promises us an eternal paradise with no sagging body parts and no annoying people.

Maybe you’ve escaped that cultural image of Jesus, but at it’s core is the old Christian temptation to somehow avoid or at least correct God’s deep investment in creation. A faith that separates us from this world is not Christianity. A faith that disconnects us from our bodies, each other, or the gritty world is not a faith grounded in the crucifixion and resurrection of the flesh of God. A faith that allows us to judge those around us because we are more spiritual keeps us from loving those around us.

Jesus is scandalous. Two thousand years ago as well as today. He refuses spirituality, or at least he refuses to define God’s will as something that can be separated from creation. God’s desire is not to escape or destroy creation, but to reconcile and redeem it. 

I got thinking about all this when in our Gospel reading, Jesus acknowledges that folks are calling him a glutton and a drunkard. Don’t think that justifies eating and drinking too much in your lives, but it must have seemed appalling to the religious folks of Jesus’ time to see Jesus eating and drinking with delight as well as hanging out with unclean folks. It just didn’t seem very holy or very spiritual.

There were lots of spiritualities during Jesus’ time too. The Essenes were a religious group who isolated themselves and kept strict purity codes. They thought the end was coming and sought to have a perfect community and start a new kingdom. The Gnostics pursued a secret knowledge so their inner light could be restored to God often by forsaking their bodies. The Stoics sought to escape creation through logic and discipline. The Sadducees and Pharisees kept strict dietary and purity laws.

Religious folks have always been trying to move beyond the mess of our bodies and this world to get closer to God. 

But then Jesus, the one we say is the very enfleshment of God, shows up and makes a mess. He doesn’t give us nine steps to escape aging, death, suffering, or the jerks around us. He enters deeply into it all, he drinks and eats, he gathers and loves those who have been cast off as unwanted, he suffers and dies. 

What if God’s desire for our world and all eternity is not to escape it or for us to be calm, disembodied spirits, but for us to be present here and now looking for God’s presence? Maybe churches need to stop trying to be spiritual and start advertising our fleshiness- Holy Church of Carnality. We don’t love and forgive in a spiritual sense; that’s something that can only be done in the mess of the flesh.

The church needs some flesh. That’s why this table and meal is at the center of worship, but eating lunch with a bunch of crazy kids who are telling you stories about their families, often a mix of comedy and tragedy, is a glimpse of God deep in the flesh. All summer I get to be a guest at God's table and have my faith restored moment by moment. 

Not always in a sweet way. They make me zany sometimes. We get frustrated with each other, sometimes lies are told, excuses made, hurtful names are called. We wrestle through the ugly and stay in relationship, stay at the table. That's a God sighting. Not just the beauty of sunsets, but we see God in the work of living in truthfulness and grace.

The church should be messy and fleshy. Being in relationship with a God who insists on love and forgiveness is not an otherworldly, mystic experience. It's showing up in the flesh.

I’m not making this up either. I included a passage on the back of the bulletin from Mark Allan Powell who was here for synod assembly. He goes into greater detail about the glutton and drunkard, but I want to read the last paragraph for you.

Spirituality is not to be achieved by negating the world or by renouncing what life has to offer us; rather, true spirituality is experienced through recognizing the world as God’s world and embracing all that life has to offer us. People who love Jesus must allow no divide between “spirituality” and “worldliness.” In Jesus, all that is spiritual takes on earthly flesh and becomes worldly. For people who love Jesus, then, the quest for spirituality is also a quest for earthiness and humanity. The more we love God, the more we will love God’s world.

Herzschmerzen

Hot. 

That's kind of all I can think. 

Sophie and I are in Florida with the Juneau Jumpers at the national competition. I haven't been out of Juneau in 7 months so it's good to get out every now and then for a reality check on America. There are a lot of Applebees and Golden Corrals outside Alaska.

I've brought some reading material with me since I knew there would be quite a bit of down time. For the pool and short waits I have a mindless mystery that I can pick up and put down without much effort. And then I also brought Herz Schmerzen.

I wanted to immerse myself in German again before we travel in August so I grabbed one of the books that's been sitting on my shelves for a while. It was given to me by someone who thought it would be an easy read for my level of German.

What I love about the German language is how it captures an experience in a word; often it is a very long word. This isn't quite true for Schmetterling, which means butterfly without any of the grace and beauty.

It is true for Herzschmerzen. Herz is heart. Schmerzen is pain, hurt, ache, broken. We know the word broken heart; it's just that Herzschmerzen sounds like what I feel when my heart hurts.

The book is easy reading, but not light reading. Unfortunately, I am able to understand most of the German and it is a book about interviews with children who escaped the war in Yugoslavia. 
The interviews are full of heart break. 
Many of which flood into my brain as impersonal TV news images. Images that didn't seem believable in the 90s coming out of Europe so we often ignored them.

I find myself thinking of Syria and all the other places I'm too ignorant or "busy" to think of the families fleeing. All those refugees who still know the heartbreak of war.

But here I am at a jump rope competition where there have been plenty of tears and Herzschmerzen. These kids, the hundreds who are here, have trained for countless hours and in a minute, all dreams are crushed with a miss or nerves. I don't want to discount that sorrow in any way. What is weird is how I want to respond. I want to fix, buffer, or even consider bailing on such risks because watching your flesh and blood cry hurts more than anything I know.

Then I remember how important heart break is. Obviously not war and having your dad's leg blown off when he goes back to save your teddy bear. That interview was horrible, but digging through pain, guilt, and disappointment gives us the empathy to take the sorrow of the world seriously. 
Sometimes you have to just sit with heartbreak and let it wash over you until you can catch your breath. 
Sometimes it makes you push harder. 
Sometimes it keeps life in perspective. 

I'm not sure folks always learn a lesson or come out better, but often we come out more human and hopefully a little more aware of how painful life can be. Coming out of heartbreak helps us realize people do come out on the other side of pain. The heart is never the same after Herzschmerzen but there is another German word that might be helpful. Versöhnen. It means to reconcile, make friends again. 

I don't think you ever get over or move on from heartbreak, but you figure out how to reconcile to a new way of being in this world. You make friends again with your own being, with a changed reality, with a world where there is plenty of pain, guilt and disappointment. 

I often think of the sticker I have in my office. Life is short so tell people you love them, but it is also scary so shout it in German.

Moonstruck

I just finished watching Moonstruck with my girls. 

There were no guys at home so it seemed like a good time to watch this hilarious romance with Cher and Nicolas Cage. I love this movie for many reasons, but one reason is the plethora of great quotes:

"Old man you give those dogs another piece of my food, I'll kick you till your dead."

"Someday you'll drop dead and I'll come to your funeral in a red dress!"

"Love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die" 

I didn't realize there was such a death theme until I strung all the quotes together. It's not action packed and wouldn't do well in 3-D, but we all laughed, smiled, and cried a little bit (maybe the tears were just me).

It got me thinking about all my favorite lines (they might not be correct, but they are what I remember without looking them up)

Blues Brothers:

There's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark out, and we're wearing sunglasses.

When Harry Met Sally:

You look like a normal person, but actually you are the angel of death.

Gone With the Wind:

I'll think about it tomorrow; after all tomorrow is another day.

Talladega Nights:

Old man, I'm gonna come at you like a spider monkey.

I have a good chunk of Monty Python movies memorized and strangely enough some of The Exorcist. 

If you know me at all, then you know it is dangerous to take me to a movie theater especially if it is scary. The Exorcist is scary, but there was a cute boy with a mullet in college who went in to see it so I dragged my college roommate in with me to watch it also. Mistake upon mistake. We hid behind a chair watching him and listening to the movie. The only redeeming part is how often some of those quotes come in handy.

It's funny to think about what you have memorized. There are so many weird quotes from such random sources wandering around in my head. We've been memorizing the 23rd Psalm in church. It seems like a handy poem to have wandering around in my mind, as well as hymns, fragments of Bible verses, books, conversations, lyrics and lots of movie quotes. I had a professor who often said something like, "you'll never be bored if you have memories."