Snowflakes

 We've been watching quite a few movies recently that have to do with time travel: Back to the Future, Endgame, and Harry Potter.

Here is what I realize - don't mess with time. 

Unless snowflakes are involved. 

I don't believe in or ever hope for time travel to solve our problems and regrets, but spending an afternoon with children in the snow may be the most amazing time travel one needs. 

I got to walk with three boys this past Sunday as part of our church's walk and talks. We were gifted with big flaky snow that was perfect for catching on your tongue. We managed not to run into each other or fall down while attempting to do this and every sweet memory of childhood came rushing back as those flakes landed on my eyelids and giggles erupted around me. I then told them how I loved to imagine I was a space cowboy and would pretend I was traveling through space shooting at the stars when I looked up at snow. Then we started making zing zing zing sounds together shooting snowflakes/stars because I'm not alone in imagining that. 

When Jesus says, "Truly I tell you unless you become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven," I do not think he was talking about how holy and perfect little kids are. I'm around them enough to know they can be little turds, but children offer us the gift of vulnerability and shamelessness. They offer the gift of imagination and story. 

Interrupting or preventing childhood trauma is huge for me so they may get to live in that gifted state for as long as possible. It is also vital for my own health to make space to be present with children where I get to travel in time to dwell in imagination, vulnerability and boldness. I know many hate to see the snow, but for me it was a time machine. 

Fan

Naturally a squirrel was to blame. Last Thursday a squirrel entered the Loop Substation and knocked out the electricity in Juneau and crashed the church computer. 

It was not pretty - for the church or the squirrel.

Speaking of rodents, I kind of believed before this weekend that a computer ran by magic hamsters inside the little box. Or elves.  I now know there are no magical creatures inside the box.

Like many things in Juneau, computer repair can take a while and we needed this computer so I connected with a tech by phone. He talked me through making sure the old computer was truly dead and then brain surgery. 

At least that's what it felt like to me. I'd never looked inside a computer and now I was disconnecting sacred wires and then reconnecting them so we could salvage something off the old hard drive.

My new best friend and computer tech Roy talked me through almost four hours of computer repair. It was a little slow going trying to connect at the beginning, but once I looked inside the old machine trying to figure out what wasn't working I said the most obvious thing, "Can I stick my hand in the fan?" 

Like any good computer tech, Roy asked, "Why would you do that?" 

And my brilliant response was, "Because I want to see what happens." 

He started laughing so I sang him the Fan Song:

Put your hand in the fan and you will lose a finger
Put your foot in the fan and you will lose a toe
Put your face in the fan and you will look at others differently
Put your body in the fan and rearrange your anatomy.

Everything changes in a relationship once you laugh together. Humor has taken such a mean streak recently that I want to reclaim the power of silliness. One of my favorite quotes out of Raising a Rare Girl was about her husband:

"who preached a sermon about the power of humor not just to 'lighten the mood' but to help a person transcend what Christian contemplatives call their 'small self.' For an instant a laughing person could let themselves go like a helium balloon, find themselves in the unfathomably spacious blue sky."

I won't lie, the thought of spending hours with a computer tech and dealing with technology seemed like a circle of hell. It wasn't a highlight of my life, but giggling makes everything a little more bearable and freer, especially when Roy asked every fifteen minutes if I still had all my digits. 

St. Francis

Several leaders from different congregations gathered on Sunday to join in the prayer of St. Francis. Sunday was the festival of St. Francis, which normally involves the blessing of animals since he is famous for taming a wolf and being a human bird feeder (I might be mixing up his stories with his statues).

Thanks Mary Ann Hornbuckle for photo

Francis was a privileged youth and my favorite story is when he denounces his way of life and dedicates himself to communion with God and the poor. 

His father is enraged that Francis keeps giving their wealth away to the poor so he chases him to the town center and confronts him. In front of the people gathered, Francis strips down naked, hands over his clothes and denounces his birthright. 

There are no garden statues of that. 

And a little family counseling might have been helpful.

But I love the bold defiance and vulnerability. 

We weren't naked, but standing in the freezing rain in an enraged nation and praying for peace felt like bold defiance and vulnerability. 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy. 

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive, 
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, 
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.