Yoga

I did my first attempt at yoga this morning. It was an app because I'm embarrassed to attempt a public class where people are expected to know their left hand from their right. I feel like making Ls with every new direction to figure out my left hand would interrupt my breathing.

It was fun enough. I stretched things I haven't stretched before and I learned some new names of moves, which I immediately forgot. I was really good at what I call "double dog dare" position, but I'm pretty sure that's not the correct name.

We begin the season of Lent in the church this Wednesday. I love the seasons of the church. I love the change of colors, music, and rhythms. I like to tell people that if you love or hate what we are doing now, don't worry, it will only last a season. 

Those were regular pep talks to myself when the kids were small. There were things I couldn't do with three small children, but that only lasts a season. There were things I adored with three small children, but that only lasts a season.

Lent is one of my favorite seasons. It is a time of pruning. We are expected to cut back the parts of life that are taking so much energy and not producing fruit. And it is a time of feeding. We take a look at our lives to see what needs some attention; what can help us grow. In other words, you give something up and you risk something new.

Here's the possible list of ideas I handed out in church, in case you're bored of giving up chocolate.

Places to prune:

1. Single use plastic - straws, bags, packaging
2. Screens - make a goal that is attainable i.e. one hour on weekdays and two on weekends
3. Gossip or criticism - say something that builds up every time a nasty thought enters
4. Alcohol - Alcohol still kills more people than drug overdoses in Alaska. Lent is a great time to check in with your body and make sure you are not hooked.
5. Convenience Foods/Meats - Fast from meat or processed food once or twice a week
6. Forwarding Social Media without fact checking

Possible new habits:

1. Worship regularly
2. Give $5 to anyone who asks
3. Journal 
4. Prepare and eat meals with others
5. Read scripture and poetry
6. Walk 20 minutes a day

I'm going to say this out loud even though it kills me a little. I'm going to take a break from coffee. Holy guacamole. I love coffee and I think there is a good chance I'll be irritable in the morning without it, but that's probably why I need to give it a break. And I'm taking on yoga. It seems like a good chance to explore something new and who can resist double dog dare you.

History

History and geography are not my strong subjects. I love stories but memorizing dates and names has never come easily. I love maps but remembering where things are and how to get there also takes a lot of effort.

What stands out to me in history is not necessarily what teachers want memorized or what tour guides want to point out. Big battles and wars mush in my brain, but the stories of life lived in all its weirdness are my favorite.

So I showed my complete ignorance of all things historical and geographical this last weekend in Boston. I’m sorry I didn’t know what Bunker Hill was. I’ll look it, up unless I forget, but it is a nice monument.

I enjoyed the sites for Ben Franklin and Paul Revere; the old churches were cool. I can’t remember which church it was where the pastor refused to take a stand against slavery since there were so many slaveowners in the congregation and he will forever be memorialized for his fear. 

Sophie's enthusiasm for history

My favorite plaque was next to the one about the patriots who hung the lanterns to warn of invasion. It was the story of a man who flew out of the church steeple to the astonishment of the crowd in 1757. Seriously, right in the middle of the build up to independence was the story of a daredevil who had no greater agenda than astonishing the crowd.

I stood there giggling for quite a while. This is what I love about humanity and history. In the midst of the intense divisions and political arguments at the beginning of our nation, someone flew out the steeple to astonish the crowds. 

What made him do it? Was he tired of political arguments and wanted to give people something else to talk about? And what made historians memorialize the act with a plaque? 

Was it a way to practice courage before the real test came? Or maybe a chance to find joy in so much uncertainty?

I don’t know, but it brought me delight and pause in the midst of so many heroes to remember someone who made a completely different choice that didn’t fit any of the normal categories or divisions.

I walked away with the nudge to take bold stands in the face of injustice and sometimes to fly out of church steeples to amuse the crowds.

Giraffe

It's a giraffe. 


So we're playing Pictionary at Senior High night and a kid is drawing Noah's Ark and everyone is yelling out answers until someone gets it right. 

The draw-er was ready to move on, but we all howled, "What is that?" 

His offended answer was, "sheep" and we laughed even harder.

"No, behind the sheep." 

"Oh, it's a giraffe."

And then he looked at his incomplete giraffe and we all died laughing. Luckily I was sitting down or I might have peed. 

Here's what I love about life and find humbling on a regular basis - I can see things clearly in my head and I think I've drawn an easy to understand picture for those around me, but in reality we are not seeing the same thing.

I'm slowly learning to ask more questions, leave room for more interpretations, and admit that I can be wrong or at least have an incomplete picture.

When I find myself being reactive to someone's perspective, I think of that sweet phallic giraffe. First of all, it makes me laugh and laughter does tend to diffuse some of the reactivity. Secondly, it reminds me that what I see clearly or think I'm communicating clearly can come across in ways I don't intend. 

My second favorite part of youth group, because I don't want you to think I'm a crappy pastor, was the "God's love is like . . . game." The teens wrote down random objects around the room on a card without knowing why and then passed it to someone else who had to finish the sentence, 
God's love is like . . . a boot. It helps you wade through the muck of life. 
God's love is like . . . ping pong. It takes some back and forth.
And my favorite:
God's love is like . . . a coffee pot. I can't remember what the person said but I think it's a perfect image.

Teenagers make me so much wiser if I remember to stop talking, play more, and listen. 

VelociPastor

I am so predictable. Amazon knew that I would be interested in watching - VELOCIPASTOR!

Seriously, it's my love of pastoring, chickens (they are just a few steps away from velociraptors) and ninjas all wrapped into one movie. If there was juggling, I would have to shell out the $4 to watch it, but the trailer has been enough.

I confess I have watched the trailer multiple times and shown it to those I love because this kind of horror has to be shared. I still scream every time he eats the guy in the confessional - the trailer is truly enough.

The plot is age old. 

Here is the summary from Rotten Tomatoes: After a devastating family tragedy, a priest travels to China to find deeper spirituality, but instead is endowed with an ancient ability that allows him to turn into a dinosaur. At first, he is horrified by his newfound superpower, but a local prostitute convinces him to use his newfound gift to fight evil -- and ninjas.

Okay. Maybe that twist with the ninjas is not age old, but the rest is as old as humanity. VelociPastor is a new twist on the old story that we can kill our way out of evil. If only the good guys could kill all the bad guys, then we all could be happy.

This story never turns out well even when there aren't dinosaurs and ninjas involved. I love the idea, don't get me wrong, people do horrible things to each other and there is something rewarding in the drug dealing murderer getting eaten in the confessional. 

But, then I look at Jesus hanging on the cross and I have to recognize I follow someone who refuses to repay evil with evil, but clings to mercy even in the midst of horror. I have to recognize I follow a God who tells us time and again not to judge and we are not in charge of vengeance. 

Mercy. Love. Forgiveness. Grace. These are the words that shape our life of faith and ministry. 

There is one point in the trailer where his prostitute friend says, "you talk all the time about helping people and this might be the first time in your life that you can." This is what starts him on his killing spree. 

Jesus never actually calls us to "help" people because I think he had a good sense of humanity's distorted ability to destroy people and call it helpful. We are called to love, gather, feed, and serve all God's beloved children. I'm pretty sure eating them isn't acceptable.

Inconvenient

I didn't know who Kobe Bryant was. 

I'm sorry. 

I haven't really paid attention to sports or celebrities since the 80s, but multiple people I love were pained greatly by his death so I'm learning.

I found myself choked up reading about all those lost in the helicopter crash and seeing pictures of Bryant with his arm around his daughter. My heart broke for all those who lost loved ones and all those who lost a hero.

And then my mind wandered to Stevie Ray Vaughan's death in a helicopter. It was years ago, but I had just seen him in concert and he was so alive and amazing and pulling his life together that it seemed unfair for him to be snatched in the prime of his life. That's when I remembered some wise words an imam once told me:

Death is inconvenient.

We were on a tour of the mosque in Dearborn, in the embalming room next to the nursery, and the imam was describing how a body needed to be buried within 24 hours. I asked about family that couldn't get there in time and he said, "Death is inconvenient." 

Amen. 

So I've been practicing being inconvenienced and uncomfortable hoping I'll be a bit more prepared. I'm not sure there is any way to be prepared for death pulling the rug out of the life you imagined, but it never hurts to practice.

I hike on Mondays as part of my day off and today it was definitely inconvenient and uncomfortable. It took a long time for me to get motivated to leave my cup of coffee and head out into the sideways precipitation and slush. The great gift of ritual is that I always hike on Monday whether I feel like it or not and the dog knows it. 

We headed out expecting to be miserable, but then surprise! The sun popped out, the temperature dropped a little so the slush was ice, and an eagle posed so we could get a good look at how beautiful she was. 
It's good practice to do the hard and inconvenient thing with some dread trusting that life and joy surprise us. 

I've had enough experiences like that to help me keep going when I'd rather curl up.

Then we turned a corner and the sleet and wind scoured my face. It was tempting to turn around, but we kept pushing because I knew around the next corner there could be a totally different experience. (It was different - we went from wind to post-holing in deep snow). I'm not going to say it was particularly fun, but it was a good reminder that sometimes you have to put your head down and keep pushing until you round the next bend.

I know none of that is helpful when people are in the throes of grief, but doing uncomfortable and inconvenient things might be good practice if you aren't. 

Fixing

I passed a snowman with serious issues today on my hike. Cassie barked at him and I considered fixing him. 

And then I asked the obvious question, "Why?" 
Why do I feel like I know the way things should be? 

Then I started laughing and Cassie barked more because I'm weird, but the snowman reminded me of the Jesus fresco in Spain that a parishioner tried to "fix" and Jesus ended up resembling a messed up monkey.

Here is my resolution on Martin Luther King Jr. Day:
I will not approach people as projects in need of fixing.

I think one of the first steps in violence and in racism is the dehumanization of the other and then the decision to either destroy or fix them. 

I will engage in relationships outside of my culture, age, gender, and all the other little boxes so my blind spots are revealed and my world becomes bigger. I miss our little interfaith group because this was one of the gifts we offered each other; we opened new perspectives and removed blinders. 

We didn't have to agree about beliefs or perspectives, but we could honor that folks were seeking to figure out salvation faithfully. I might find some things inaccurate or wrong, but I can only speak about what gives my life hope and meaning. 

I'm not in charge of fixing and we can look back at church history and see the many times the church tried to fix things and Jesus ended up defaced.

Real

I like writing on Mondays. It keeps me from thinking about my lists or getting one line from an addictive song stuck in my head.
Shot through the heart and you're to blame . . . 
On a train bound to nowhere . . . 
If you like pina coladas . . . 

I've come to realize that writing on Mondays gives me something to think about that doesn't cause me stress on my day off. I've also come to realize that the work of trying to publish something might be a bit too ambitious for me.

Today, I bundled up in the 3 degree weather and went for an amazing hike. It was so stunningly beautiful it didn't seem real. There are days when Alaska is crazy beautiful and I feel like I'm living in a post card, or with  a painted backdrop, or in a Cecil B. DeMille  drama. But then I realize I have snotcicles and it is all so very real.

I'm not sure if any other parents of teenagers struggle with the time spent on Fortnite, but I'm slowly figuring out how to compromise. Our basic guideline is that you have to experience as much real reality as you do virtual reality. You need as much time experiencing the aches of climbing, a frozen face, and the reward of a beautiful view as you do gathering axes, blowing things up and the other weird things that compromise the game I'm trying not to judge too harshly.

I enter virtual reality through books and my dear son enters it through games. We both need reality checks. Instead of delving too deeply into what is real, I tend to think that something is real if it involves a certain amount of discomfort or suffering. 

That's not masochism, but a recognition that reality takes an investment and risk; it means an openness to the elements and facing them on their terms. Reality is encountering the world as it is instead of a world designed and manipulated to keep us comfortable and spending money. 

The first thing I tell people when they are thinking of visiting us in Alaska is that it's not Disney. This isn't a catered experience sure to leave you mildly amused without leaving your comfort zone; this is real - sweat, snot, and some tired legs kind of real.