Dadda

Paradise is sitting in the shade, reading a book, and listening to the bubbling joy of children.

Until one of those kids starts toddling over to my blanket yelling "Dadda!" 

I've been mistaken for a man before. I threw a bunch of priests off during a procession for the new Catholic bishop, but I was wearing a robe then. This time I was wearing a dress and even though I hadn't shaved my legs in a long time, I really don't think I looked like this kid's dad.

The mom was pretty embarrassed and took the kiddo all the way to the other side of the park and he still ran back yelling "Dadda!" It made me laugh hard and I realized it wasn't so much that I looked like this kid's dad, but the boy really wanted me to be his dad. He wanted to see his dad and I was close enough so he was convinced.

We often see what we want to see, or hear what we want to hear, or even fear what we want to fear. 

People ask me, especially now, if I fear for my husband as a police officer. He's had lots of dangerous jobs so even though I despise night shift, I'm not more afraid now than when he was flying or driving ambulance on country roads. I know he can get hurt and life is precarious, but I want to share with you the statistics from Officer Down Memorial Page for 2020:

Total Line of Duty Deaths: 177

• 9/11 related cancer3 
• Aircraft accident1 
• Automobile crash15 
• COVID1997 
• Drowned3 
• Duty related illness2 
• Gunfire30 
• Gunfire (Inadvertent)4 
• Heart attack5 
• Motorcycle crash2 
• Struck by vehicle6 
• Vehicle pursuit2 
• Vehicular assault7

COVID19 cases contracted in the line of duty is the highest killer of police officers in the last ten years. It is not as flashy of a news story as violence, but reminding him to wear his mask and wash his hands seems like a good strategy to keep my fears in perspective.

We're going to be overwhelmed with narratives telling us to see one way, hear one way, and fear one way. I'm thinking about shutting down my Facebook account until after the elections but I really like seeing pictures of people, dogs, chickens, and beautiful views. 

So here's my request - just because you want to see things one way, don't force reality into it. Observe, pay attention, ask questions, and entertain the possibility that you could be wrong. Fact check from as many different sites as you can; I like to see what BBC and CBC are saying as well as US sources. 

And, finally, when someone says, "the pretty lady is not your dad" listen to them. 

Cast Iron

 For reasons too dull to share, I had to strip my cast iron skillet and start over. I wasn't expecting tears, but  as the layers of seasoning washed away, nostalgia kicked in. Nearly twenty-five years of meals were peeled away.

The hand towel on my oven says, "Made with love and other shit" and that really does summarize my cooking. The cast iron skillet has been the cauldron for a multitude of leftovers resurrected with mushroom soup or curry sauce. The cast iron skillet has made close to one hundred batches of granola. That skillet held the most disgusting thing I've ever made when I thought vodka was a valid substitute for vermouth. It was the only thing Kirt refused to eat.

Here's the thing about cast iron, when you strip it down it is worthless. You can't cook jack until you season it again and build the layers back up. I made a lamb curry stew as the first layer after the stripping and seasoning to make sure we got off on the right foot.

I feel like we are living in a time of stripping away. The layers in our lives and society are being burned away and we are exposed. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes the only way to salvage something is to start over, but destruction leaves us worthless unless we season correctly and build back up. 

And I'm thinking my hand towel might have some of the best guidance for how we build back up.

Bananas

 Bananas are no longer like phones. 

This was a stunning revelation to me on Sunday at kid's church when I was using a banana to call the preschoolers and they stared at me likeI was an idiot with a banana in my ear. I was even making the ringing sound and they still stared befuddled. 

One of the moms finally broke it to me that phones don't look like bananas anymore or ring like the sound I was making (I'm pretty sure they haven't rung like that since rotary phones). Kids hold a flat hand to their ear when imitating a phone nowadays.

I wanted to cry. 

Talking to bananas and making a teenager pick up their banana to talk back to me has long been one of my favorite activities on trips. I know there is so much to grieve right now and so much chaos, but this felt like the last straw. Why do bananas continue to exist if not to call someone across the room?

I probably also wanted to cry because it reminded me of an article I recently read by Lauren Collins called Missed Calls: Long-distance love, death and grief. It was a powerful article about accompanying her father long distance through death. A quote that struck me was:

I'd always thought of Face-Time as a weak substitute for first-order interaction,whether in person or in writing. Like Diet Coke, it was to be avoided except when there were no other decent options. Better to have the real thing, less frequently, than to settle for constant interruptions and glitches. Video calls are unsatisfying not just because of the lack of touch but because they require mutual active presence. Conversation is only a part of companionship. It's hard to just be when you're on a call, hard to see when you're constantly looking.

I know conversation, worship and learning through Zoom have been a huge gift, but I'm so tired when I "end call" I feel like a wimp. I can talk to a preschooler over a banana (at least when they still used bananas) until the cows came home, but thirty minutes on Zoom or the phone and I'm wiped out.

It's okay. Things change and I can adapt, but I needed to take a minute and grieve the banana. Maybe I'll start calling kids on graham crackers.

Fine Print

I've developed a stupid allergy to Alaskan sun and heat. It hasn't been an issue this summer, but after two months of rain the sun came out and I'm back on meds. That's not the funny part, though.

The funny part was reading the warnings that say I should call the doctor if my vomit looks like coffee grounds; I should not attempt making coffee with them. Okay, that last part wasn't included, but sometimes I think signage has low expectations of people's intelligence or sense of responsibility. 

Maybe we all deserve this, but I'm not sure how to reconcile a nation that feels the need to explain to people that vomiting something that looks like coffee grounds is a really bad thing but at the same time misses that lead in pipes poisons people. 

Living is dangerous to your health. I don't need a risk assessment on everything, but I do appreciate some clarity about the big stuff.  I'm not a scientist or doctor so I appreciate guidance by those who are, but please assume I have a wee bit of sense. And if it is really important, don't bury it in the fine print because I wouldn't be reading it if I weren't stuck inside.

On another note, but also regarding reading fine print for entertainment value, I found in our  church's insurance policy a new provision that we are not covered in case of civil war. 

That almost makes me want to vomit coffee grounds.

Worthy Adventure

I used this quote by Stanley Hauerwas in the sermon on Sunday and I want to revisit it after seeing this sign on Sunday:

“Christianity: It’s An Adventure”

What we do when we educate kids to be happy and self-fulfilled is to absolutely ruin them. Parents should say to their kids, “What you want out of life is not happiness but to be part of a worthy adventure. You want to have something worth dying for. It’s awful when all we have to live for is ourselves.

The phrase "worthy adventure" is a helpful quick test for our decisions. I just finished shopping so I'm thinking especially about our consuming decisions. And who can pass up the profound implications of a "POOP PUMPING: Hike at your own Risk" sign? 

Think about all the things you consume - the stuff you buy, the things you eat, the news you listen to. 

Are they moving you into a worthy adventure? 

I have a mixed bag from my own shopping day. The first aid kit and the squirt guns for camp are definitely part of a worthy adventure; the bag of gummy bears might have been an impulse buy. 

News is a consumer item and I can tell almost immediately what media someone consumes by what they spew. Let me just throw out there that lectures, sneering, or arrogant certitude never make for an adventure.

Curiosity is part of a worthy adventure; ask more questions and listen to a variety of resources. In this time that political ads are ramping up, listen to what they are trying to sell, is it a worthy adventure? 

POOP PUMPING: Hike at your own Risk. I feel like that describes a life of following Jesus. It is the risky journey of trying to figure out what has worth and what is excrement (I used the thesaurus on that one so I didn't say s&%* and upset my dad). 

Communion

The last shall be first and the first shall be last.

Jesus says something like this close to a dozen times so that's a signal to me as a preacher to pay attention. 

I think he means it.

I invite the church to clearly state:
Black lives matter, 
LGBTQ lives matter, 
Native lives matter, 
Women's lives matter, 
Disabled lives matter,
Refugee lives matter,
Poor lives matter.

The church needs to clearly state these lives matter not because they are noble or worth more, but because the state and church have historically and repeatedly deemed them as worth less. 

It's exhausting to reread the history of the Three-Fifths Compromise or the Dred Scott decision where the Supreme Court justice stated that black people were of "an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race . . .(black people) had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Church documents are equally as belittling and demeaning in their support of white, landowning men as the ones with authority and worth. I was going to pull out some historical documents, but reading what churches are saying right now became depressing so I stopped. 

I know that some of you will be irritated and offended. I'm kind of sorry. I try to be nice. But . . . 

The proclamation that the last shall be first isn't any more popular now than it was during Jesus' time.

It's uncomfortable when you are the ones in first right now. We don't need to make any proclamation that "White Male lives matter" because the state and church have said that clearly for hundreds of years. You are loved; you do matter. There's really never been any doubt about that so please breathe through the bubbling defensiveness and listen to some other voices for a bit. 

Here's the fun and wonderful news of God's kingdom - it's not a hierarchy. 

The vision of God's kingdom is communion so first and last are absorbed in the circle of saints. We get to follow Jesus to the fringes, to those places where people feel discarded, and break bread together, listen, feel uncomfortable and learn to love. All of us do matter, but some need to hear it a little louder over all the voices saying they don't. 

Kingdom of Heaven

Learning how to worship on-line with Zoom has been an adventure to say the least, and has led me to swear more than once (but never on camera). It's also challenging to have the level of engagement we normally have on a Sunday morning, but during the sharing of the peace we've had a question for people to "chat" their answers.

Jesus spoke this last Sunday about proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven has come near so the question was, "What does the kingdom of heaven look like?" I loved the answers.

Listening
Mercy
Praise
Music 
Smiles
Peace
Reunions
Alaska
All my loved one who have gone before, including my canine kids
Joy
God being the center of everything
A celebration of creation
Imagination
Forgiveness, acceptance
Creativity
Music, peace, joy
65 F and Sunny
Surrounded in love
Wholeness
Welcome
Love
Delight
Beauty, brilliance, awe
A wedding celebration - focused on love
Unending love