Death and Taxes

Filling out my taxes on pi day was almost too much titillation for me. I'm still giddy.

I love numbers and forms. I love order and tasks that have a beginning and an end. I love thinking about the money we make and how it gets spent. I wouldn't want to do it everyday, but it's a great way to celebrate pi day.

And I love pi. What is there not to love about a number that has order and infinity all wrapped up into one? Naturally 3.1416 is fun too because it is pi rounded and I'm sure there's something significant about that in my life.

Death and taxes. Thank you Benjamin Franklin. "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

And on Saturday I almost died so it's like Ben Franklin was thinking about my week. 

Please no lectures and don't worry mom it wasn't too close, just a stupid choice that could have ended poorly. There is a voice in my head that kicks in when something seems impossible telling me I should probably try it. The peak was so close and it seemed like a shame not to stand on it. 

I should have paid attention to the dog when she gave me the "what the hell are you doing" look. I'm thankful to have a dog who is smarter than I am. She also chased me while I rolled. That was sweet. 

But when I gathered myself back together, it was a good reminder of mortality and humility. I call these Ash Wednesday moments. There is no magic force field that will keep me from suffering death. I'm thankful it wasn't on Saturday, but I still would rather die in the midst of an interesting life than cling to a dull one.

My grandmother used to beg me to stay home. She worried about all the traveling I did that someday the wanderlust would kill me. And it could have. People die in crazy ways everyday. But the leading cause of death in the US is heart disease. Rarely caused by wanderlust; often caused by poor diet and staying home. 

The funny thing about Franklin's quote regarding the certainty of death and taxes is that it's not true. I think we could say death is inevitable but certainty is a difficult word for something that always catches us surprised. 

And taxes, feel like order and certainty, but are symbolic ways of ordering the universe that could fall apart at any moment if we stopped believing in the symbolism of paper money. You can't eat it or wear it so what is it truly worth?

Now, since I'm a pastor, you're expecting me to pull the "Jesus is the only thing certain" card, aren't you? Can't do it. I tend to lean towards Dostoevsky's "If someone proved to me that Christ 
is outside the truth, and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth." 

Not certainty, but Christ is the truth I trust. I'm willing to trust my heart and life in the God I see in Jesus not because it is certain, but because I see in him a life that has eternal reverberations of grace, a life that gives one courage to keep living even when death is inevitable, a life that is grounded in love instead of fear.

So I suppose, even at the end of a titillating day, I'm glad to still be a pastor and not an accountant. 

Balls and Nuts

I had serious ball envy the other night. He had rainbow illuminated ones and I now have them on my wish list. The cool thing about illuminated balls is your tricks don't have to be that amazing. Everything is more impressive when the lights are turned off.

I know what you are thinking. 

I am so incredibly juvenile and there is no end to ball and nut jokes. 

Not true. 

I made it through an entire day without one castration joke after someone told me about his diverticulitis and how sad he was that  he couldn't have any more nuts. No one can expect me to keep up that self control once the sun set and we started talking about steer. How I made it through pastoral care class I'll never know.

But the juggler we saw the other night was amazing with his light up balls, seven foot unicycle, and knorches (mix of knife and torches). I am inspired so you might want to keep sharp and flammable things away from me. Light up balls really are the safest bet to keep me consoled.

My favorite part in the show was when he threw his juggling balls back into the storage box and we all cheered. He stopped the show and asked us what the hell we were doing. 

I juggled five clubs, threw one over my shoulder, kicked it with my foot back over my head and kept juggling and you all didn't clap. But, when I throw three balls into a box from four feet away you get excited?

I drooled I was laughing so hard. One of my many issues. It's so stinking true of life. Sometimes I pour my heart and soul into something that barely gets acknowledged. What a blow to the old 
ego. Then, I throw crap together and folks think it's amazing. 

Why is that?

Here are my guesses:
1. We affirm the obvious. I know it's true of sermons. Lazy sermons often get the most affirmations because the preacher has probably stated what people expect and that makes folks feel good.

2. We often want folks to succeed. His act before the great ball throw was pretty lame so I think the crowd generally wanted him to be redeemed.

3. If something is so complex that we can't immediately process it, then we tend to check out or at least our brains take a few more minutes to figure out what is happening. Some things stun us and we need time and space to respond. 

4. We are so engaged in an impressive moment that clapping or cheering take us out of it. 

The best bet if you have to be in front of people is to check your ego and prepare the most diligently and faithfully that you can. You can't ever control how people respond; you can only control what you present and how you respond.

Sometimes it stinks because you may put lots of work and head injuries into a new trick and no one seems to care. Or lots of hours into a sermon, or a project, or a presentation and no one gives you a standing ovation. 

It's okay because ultimately it's not about you. Performances are a gift. Sermons are a proclamation. Projects are teaching experiences. Once you've done your work, you have to let them go. If we build our identities and worth around how people respond, then we'll be completely neurotic. 

And if there is an awkward lull where I feel like a failure, I always figure that ball and nut jokes are a great back-up plan.

10 stupid choices and 1 smart one

I read somewhere people like blogs with lists and that made me laugh so naturally I'm doing it. Lists don't have to have a point so I should be good at this.

10 Stupid Choices in no particular order :
(Stupid is normally a bad word in our house, but I love the etymology of it. ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from French stupide or Latin stupidus, from stupere ‘be amazed or stunned.)

1. Sleeping with my head covered. I'm not sure it's a choice; it's my DNA. I have to sleep with my head covered and my feet out. I take a specially made cozy everywhere I go so I don't have to put creepy hotel covers over my face and I have a hole for my feet. I think the lack of oxygen explains a lot in my life. 
2. Making out on a red-eye flight because I was bored. Who knew he would be a stalker? Luckily, I was quick enough to tell him that Angoon had met its quota of white people and he would have to wait for someone to leave before he could visit. I've never been a good liar.
3. Being too lazy to get my keys out of the house and instead putting my car into neutral and pushing it out of the garage. This wouldn't have been that bad of an idea if the driveway wasn't sloped and curved. Imagine me holding onto the seatbelt trying to slow the vehicle down. Now imagine it crashing into the basketball pole at the curve in the driveway. That was fun to explain.
4. Getting into the backseat of a car with chopsticks in my mouth. Yep, I still have the perfectly round scar on my soft palate. Nothing is more entertaining for ER nurses than lots of blood and a good story.
5. Tubing a flooded river at midnight with the organic gardener. This one could have ended really poorly. It was a long four hours and if you've never ridden rushing water through barbed wire and a herd of cows drinking, then you aren't stupid. 
6. Wandering the streets of Atlanta alone, lost and without any money at night. Also one of those moments when I stopped and realized it could turn out badly. That's the night I was saved by my drunk guardian angel who had a gallery opening for painted toilet seats in inner city Atlanta and no one showed up. Except for me, standing on the sidewalk praying.
7. Ten is too many, this list has grown tedious. All other stories are derivatives of alcohol or men motifs.

One smart choice that I'm not even sure is a choice. 

I get to live my life in grace. I get to live my life in the freedom to make mistakes and own up to them. My family, friends, and church community always surrounded me with a sense of being loved. It didn't mean they shielded me from consequences of stupid choices, but they supported and walked with me through them. Grace doesn't make consequences goes away, but it doesn't abandon us to face them alone.

There have been times that they've also graciously given me a heads up that something is destructive or unhealthy. Sometimes I even listened.

I suppose that's what I hope for my kids and even the church community. I want them to be surrounded with enough grace so they can make some stupid choices and experience failure and pain. 

Obviously, I don't want the choices to destroy their lives. I'm not advocating recklessness, but I don't want to protect and frighten them to the point that they have no good stories. Those life experiences that amaze or stun us are often the experiences that make for rich lives and build us into the resilient characters we are today. 

Next week, top ten uses for edamame. Not really, I just love saying that word. 

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.