Scary Stories in a Pandemic Year

 Here we are, at the second Halloween in a year of pandemic.  Of course, you might not know anything is out of the ordinary, depending on where you live.  I am not seeing nearly as many masks as I once did, but my county has a vaccination rate of 82% and a low positivity rate of 3%, according the county school board which will stop requiring high school students to wear masks on Monday, All Saints Day.

I wish I trusted their numbers.  I have this vision of an animation of this disease laughing and saying, "Sure, it's a low positivity rate now.  Take those masks off and see what happens."

I am still keeping my mask on in stores and trying to remember to wash my hands whenever I return from someplace outside my home or office.  And I try to go to stores early in the morning, when there are less people there.  Of course, I did that before the pandemic too.

Yesterday I went to the grocery store early.  We live in a new place this year, so I wanted to get some Halloween candy, just in case.  I'm glad I did.  Yesterday at 3, there was a knock on the door--trick or treaters!  I gave them candy.  I wondered if I missed the memo about trick or treating in the building.  I went down to check the mail, just in case a notice was put in our boxes.  Nope.  I admired the ambition of the children and waited for more to follow their lead, but so far, they are our only trick or treaters.

I am trying not to think about past Halloweens, when we would have had different plans.  Today we will go to church, where I will do something different with the altar, because it is Reformation Sunday.  At Trader Joe's on Friday, I bought some mums, which we can use both today and next week, for All Saints.  

And then we'll see if we get more trick or treaters, if they get to us before we finish up all the candy.  I will bake a chocolate cake for work tomorrow, where we'll be celebrating a colleague's birthday.  We won't be carving pumpkins or doing anything seasonal.  We watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown last week, so we may not even have much in the way of seasonal viewing; I don't want to fill my brain with the typical Halloween movie fare. 

So, it will be a low-key Halloween, more like a typical Sunday that a holiday.  But that will be O.K. too.

Notes on a Trauma Conference

 I spent much of yesterday "at" a conference on trauma; because it was a virtual conference, I could be on campus, taking care of school business (typically light on Fridays), while hearing interesting presentations on trauma research, on trauma in texts, on how to remake our spaces to make them safer for people who have suffered trauma.

I joined the Zoom meeting prepared to turn off my camera and my microphone, but we were never allowed those controls, which is fine with me.  If we wanted to interact, we wrote in the chat, and people did.  In some ways, it was more interactive than a traditional conference.  At a traditional conference, only a few people get to pose a question at the end of a presentation.  That was not the case yesterday.  From what I could tell, almost every question was answered.

All of the presentations were compelling, although the last presenter did talk a bit fast.  I liked that I could control the volume, because his voice would have been hard to hear in a big conference room.  All attendees will get access to the recording.

The presentations had a nice balance.  For example, the first presenter talked about compassion fatigue, but also compassion satisfaction, the good feelings we get from helping people.  Although the conference was sponsored by Wesley Theological Seminary, the presentations seemed applicable to many professions.

I was even able to use some ideas from the presentation in my writing for seminary.  I had been wrestling with how to end my discussion post on God hardening Pharaoh's heart in the Exodus story, so it was interesting to hear a speaker talk about how some of the aspects of God that I find comforting--like the idea of God holding us in a loving gaze--might be difficult for someone who has been abused by someone who claims to love them.  The presenter talked about how a God who saves some people while destroying the oppressor might be useful for a trauma victim.

It's the kind of conference I wouldn't have been able to attend in my regular life, if it was offered in a face to face way.  I don't know that I would have felt I could justify the time away, the expense.  But a free conference that I could watch from my office?  Perfect.  If it had turned out to be less useful, I could have shifted my attention to something else.  

But how delightful that it turned out to be such a good experience.

Last Days of Daylight Savings Time

I almost always take my morning walk at the same time, around 6 a.m.  These days, there's only a hint of sunrise when I get to the lake; we are far from the blazing sunrise of summer.  In some ways, it means I'm not distracted by those intense colors of the morning.  There's still much to see in the dark:

--Yesterday morning on my walk, I saw a shooting star.  Yes, I know I should be scientifically accurate and call it a meteor.  Frankly, my poet self doesn't think either of those terms accurately describe what I saw.  I saw a slender sliver of a shooting star, a silver thread.  I knew it wasn't a plane because of its descent and disappearance.  Did I make a wish?  

--I saw a solitary bird fly overhead, and if it hadn't made a sound, I wouldn't have looked up..  When I looked back down, I saw a feather on the grass.  It was wet when I picked it up, so it probably wasn't from that bird.  I thought about flight and falling and the Emily Dickinson quote, about hope being a thing with feathers.

--From the distance of several blocks, I saw the neighborhood fox trot across the street, fully lit by the streetlamps.  You might ask, "How do you know it was a fox, not a cat?"  In part because of the confidence of the walk, and in part because the tail was held up--most cats don't hold their tails up in that way when they walk.  You might ask, "How do you know it was a fox and not a coyote?"  I can't be sure, because I couldn't see the shape of the tail.  

I am already feeling a bit sad about the end of daylight savings time, about how light it will be when I walk.  I am feeling sad that all these Halloween lights and decorations will be banished soon.  I am sad about how it is still warm, humid, and windless.

But I am happy about the wonders of nature, about feeling like I'm the only one out and about, about having time to ramble, and having mobility, even with the aches and pains that come with middle age and arthritic feet.

Seminary Studies Week 9

It has been a week/month/season of frustrations.  Our house sale is progressing, but we hit a snag because inspectors are backed up.  My spouse and I have had such a wide variety of tech issues that I can't begin to list them.  Our condo has a beautiful rooftop pool that is inaccessible because there's a leak somewhere and all the structural engineers who might be able to advise the best way to fix the leak are in high demand with the collapse of the condo in Surfside in June.

I could continue with this list, but you get the idea.  I am trying not to get bogged down in despair, so I've been focusing on what's going right.  In my 9th week of seminary classes, I'm happy to report that I'm still thrilled to be a seminary student.  I've written one purple legal pad full of notes from classes.  

I imagine that years from now, when I look back on this time period, the thrill of seminary classes will be what I remember.  And to help me remember, let me list a few high notes from this point in my progress:

--Last night, in my New Testament class, I heard the BEST analysis of the Mary and Martha story that I've ever heard.  What if Mary is not the purpose of the story, not the role model that so many of us have heard that she is?  If we see Martha as a weary disciple, does the story change?  The story is positioned between the Good Samaritan story and the teaching of the disciples to pray--how does this positioning help us analyze the story?

--In my Hebrew Bible class (what we used to call Old Testament), we've gotten to the Exodus story.  As I read these stories, many of them familiar from childhood, but not recently familiar, it's very strange to reflect and dive deep.  It feels disrespectful to my Jewish friends and colleagues to air my criticisms.  At the same time, my modern sensibilities recoils at some of the capriciousness of this God and at the actions of these ancient people.  I still haven't sorted out my discomfort.

--My Hebrew Bible class is completely online, so I have my professor's lectures on video to watch.  While she doesn't completely allay my discomforts, she helps me imagine that there might be a path if I continue to wrestle.  Wrestling and arguing--these are good verbs for Hebrew Bible class.  My favorite quote from this week's lectures:  "God does not call prophets to be puppets."

--While I imagine I would feel a tighter sense of community if we were all taking classes in person, I am beginning to feel like I'm getting to know some of my classmates.  In my Spiritual Formation class, we were divided into groups that would meet once a week.  Our time availability was how the class was split up.  Each small group has a discussion thread that only they contribute to, along with the discussion thread for the whole class.  In my virtual classes, we break out into small groups every week, which also helps me feel like I'm getting to know people.

--I do feel lucky that all of the tech woes haven't impacted my ability to go to seminary classes or get the work done.  I have the best internet connectivity in our condo that I've ever had in a living space, and I have some back up plans if I need them:  connectivity at school, connectivity at the public library, connectivity at my church.  I can't imagine how people do distance learning if internet coverage is spotty.

I am now closer to the end of my first semester than the beginning.  I'm happy that I'm still excited about these classes, that I'm still learning so much, that I'm still getting so much joy from this experience. 

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

Here we are at another Reformation Sunday.  For those of us who spent our formative years yearning for change--for ourselves, for our societies, for our churches--was this change that has come over the last months and years what we had in mind?

In our younger years, we might have argued that there are newer and better ways of "doing church."  We might have had a vision for a more just society, a completion of the picture offered by Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, and other 20th century activists.  In pre-pandemic times, we might have imagined how we would behave in times of adversity.

It is interesting to wonder how future historians will see our current age.  Are we in the middle of a great transition to something else?  Are we at a hinge point of history?  Will we have the courage to keep creating something new and useful out of great chaos?

Times of Reformation can enrich us all. Even those of us who reject reform can find our spiritual lives enriched as we take stock and measure what's important to us, what compromises we can make and what we can't. It's good to have these times where we return to the Scriptures as we try to hear what God calls us to do. It may be painful, but any of these processes may lead us to soil where we can bloom more fruitfully.

We may think of that metaphor and feel despair, as if we will never be truly rooted, flowering plants. But rootlessness can be its own spiritual gift. The spiritual wanderers have often been those who most revitalized the Church, or on a smaller level, their spiritual communities. The spiritual wanderers are often the ones who keep all of us true to God's purpose.

If you have been feeling despair, take heart. Jesus promises that we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free. You might not be feeling like you know what the truth is at this current point; you may feel tossed around by the tempests of our current times. But Jesus promises that we will know the truth. We will be set free. We don't have a specific date at which we'll know the truth. But we will.

Rest in God's promise that we are all redeemable; indeed, we are redeemed. Rest in the historic knowledge that the Church has survived times of greater turbulence than our own. Rest in Luther's idea that we are saved by grace alone. Rest.

Exegetical Writing

I have spent the last two weeks working on two different exegetical papers, one for my New Testament class and one for Hebrew Bible (what we used to call Old Testament).  An exegesis is a close reading.  It was some of the most intense reading and writing that I've ever done.  You might say, "Wait, didn't you earn a Ph.D. in British Literature?  And you didn't do the same kind of close reading?"

No, we really didn't.  It was a different kind of close reading, and many of us did more close readings of the secondary sources than the primary texts.  I felt that twinge during the past week when I looked at secondary sources that explored the book of Joshua.  I thought, I'll never be able to look at a critical mass of these secondary sources.  Then I reminded myself that a review of secondary sources was not part of this assignment.

Let me describe the process for the exegesis for my New Testament class.  From a choice of 3 passages, I chose Matthew 3:1-17, the passage that describes the appearance of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus.  Step 1 was to write about myself and what attracted me to the passage.  

In Step 2, we turned to the text for our first close reading.  We made a list of  “'speed bumps'—details that slow you down, demand your attention, evoke strong feelings, seem out of place or confusing—such as specific words, actions, characters, situations."  I made a list that included items like these:  

--What made John the Baptist so appealing to his contemporaries? It sounds like they would have had to make significant effort to see/hear him. What made the people go out to the wilderness?

--Do others see the dove? Do others hear the voice?

Step 3 was a different kind of close reading of the passage.  We chose three different translations, and we had instructions about the spectrum of translations needed.  One needed to be a word for word translation (I used the NASB), one thought for thought (I used the CEV), and one in the middle (I used the NRSV).  I looked at them side by side, and happily, the Bible Gateway site makes this easy.  I found the word choices fascinating, and I could have spent twenty pages noting and analyzing those choices.  But again, that would not have been the purpose of this exegetical assignment.

We outlined the passage and made a list of key words.

We then did work with the concordance, and again, I felt fortunate to be doing this in a time of so many online tools that are free.  I could lose the rest of my life wandering through Blue Letter Bible.  We chose one word; I chose "wilderness."  We looked to see meanings of the word in Greek and where it shows up elsewhere.

For my New Testament exegetical assignment, we then moved to step 4, which was a comparison of the same story in a different gospel, so I looked at Mark 1:2-11.  We looked at the order of events in each gospel, and at where the story falls in each gospel, what's going on before and after the story.  We looked at the differences in each version.  We thought about why we had each gospel and what the story provides to each gospel.

Then we wrote a conclusion, met as a class, met in small groups, and then wrote another conclusion.  It was intense all along the way, and I learned a lot, not only from my own work, but from having the small group meeting with my classmates who studied the same passage.  It was a passage that I have read and heard proclaimed from pulpits for my whole life, so it's intriguing to me that I can learn so much new from such a familiar text.

I say that I've never had that experience of close reading before, but that's not exactly true.  In my undergraduate English classes, my favorite English teacher would do something similar.  I took a Romantics class, and we spent weeks on one Wordsworth poem.  But she did much of the work, the digging for meaning, the presentation of the background information that helped us understand the poem.

I had forgotten how it makes me feel alive in such a unique way, to be doing this kind of deep dive.  I hope I get to keep experiencing this on a regular basis.

Sermon Notes: Dying, Dried Up, Dessicated, and How to Prime the Pump

Yesterday, I preached the sermon.  I knew that it would be a variation of this blog post.  But it went in a different direction, one that made me happy--and more important, I preached the sermon that I needed to hear.  

We had more children in church (2 families), so I did less with the King David and the young, beautiful woman brought in to make him feel like a man again.  I did talk about this picture of a once powerful man who lies dying, and those around him are trying to make him engaged again, with a new girlfriend or political intrigue.  But instead, he lies dying.  All of us, no matter how strong, will one day lie dying.

And then I transitioned to the Gospel lesson.  I said, "And the sad fact is that some of us will have died already, years before our physical death."  I was surprised to see people nodding.  

I talked about the offer from Jesus, that offer of living water, that promise that streams of living water will flow from us once we've drunk.  I said, "And you may be wondering when that is going to happen exactly.  You may be feeling dried out, desiccated.  You may be thinking that Jesus was making this promise to other people, not to you."

I talked about the gospel being short on lessons about what we need to do to get those springs of living water flowing again.  I suggested that we pray.  I said, "And you may be saying, 'Lady, did you not hear me?  I have nothing left.  How do I pray?"

I suggested using the words that Jesus gave us for just this very day, when we have no words left to pray:  the Lord's Prayer, Jesus, have mercy on me, a poor sinner, that kind of thing.  I also suggested that we add 3 prayers to our day, and that if we haven't been praying, we start.

This end to my sermon came to me in the minutes before the service started, as I thought about the thorny problem of me giving advice about getting our springs flowing again, since I'm feeling pretty dried out in many areas of my life, and my spouse and I had been having a tough week-end, with disappointments that we were handling with less grace than I would like.  The title of a book by Anne Lamotte came to me.

I suggested that we pray the three most common prayers:  Help, Thanks, Wow.  I suggested that we pray for those who need help, even if it's us.  Then I talked about the importance of gratitude and how it can transform us.  I know that it's a bit of a cliche now, but I did keep a gratitude journal for a time, long before Oprah did it, and I can attest to how it shifts one's attitude.  I also reminded us all of how important it is to say "Wow."  We live in a world full of wonders, but it's easy to stay in our ruts.  I talked about my own experience on a walk that morning, a walk of gray clouds and a sunrise behind the clouds.  I was hoping for a rainbow to give me hope, as rainbows do.  I turned in the direction of where a rainbow would be, and nope.  But then when I turned around, there was a beautiful rosy glow, even though the sun was rising over there.  I imagined God saying, "Hey, anyone can create a rainbow.  But look at this beautiful arrangement of clouds that won't happen again in your lifetime.  Look at what I did with these colors."

I concluded by saying, "So, if you are feeling dried out, if you are feeling like Jesus was talking to somebody else, rest assured, he was not.  Remember these three prayers:  help, thanks, wow."

When we got home, my spouse watched the recording of the service that had been livestreamed, as he always does.  He's analyzing the choir, and his performance, but he did invite me to hear the sermon again.  I was impressed with how well it flowed, particularly since I changed its approach at the last minute.  But I was most moved by how much I preached the sermon I needed to hear.

And I suspect I wasn't the only one who needed to hear it.

Registering for Spring Term

I am at the midway point of my first term at seminary--hard to believe!  Part of what makes it hard to believe is that it is still so warm and humid here that it doesn't seem like late October.  I remember looking at the syllabi in that first week of classes and thinking that November seemed so very far away.  And now, here we are, almost to November.

Another half-time marker is that I registered for Spring semester classes this past week.  There's a J term during the first 2 weeks of January, but I'll need to be in Columbia, SC, finishing up my certificate program to become a spiritual director.  Then I'll continue on with seminary.

I've been enjoying my classes so much this term that I signed up for the second half of each:  Intro to Hebrew Bible 2, Intro to the New Testament:  Epistles, and Spiritual Formation for Ministry 2.  I decided to try adding another class.  Careful readers of this blog may remember that I thought about adding a 4th class, Church History, in the Fall.  I'm glad that I decided not to do that.

But for Spring, I'm going to try a Religion and the Arts class:  Speaking of God in a Secular Age. Here's the course description: "Theological questions are often questions about language. This course explores what it means to speak the language of faith with integrity through complementary readings in modern doctrine and the arts."  While I'll admit that the description is vague, it does give me shivers, the good kind of shivers.

Wesley Theological Seminary is still offering 3/4 of its classes in an online, hybrid, or virtual synchronous format, so I decided to continue the way I have been, in online and virtual synchronous classes.  It gives me options.  But because I already know most of these professors, I also know that the classes will be robust.

And I can start looking forward to them!

Abundant Yearnings

  

How was your meeting?

To answer, I show this sketch.

Abundant yearnings.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, October 24, 2021:

First reading and Psalm
Job 42:1-6, 10-17

Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22)

Alternate First reading and Psalm
Jeremiah 31:7-9
Psalm 126

Second reading
Hebrews 7:23-28

Gospel
Mark 10:46-52

It's interesting to consider how Jesus interacts with people and how they interact with him.  Most people seek him out because they are desperate.  Some people ask for what they need, while others just grab onto the hem of his garment and hope for the best.  Occasionally it's a loved one, intervening for the suffering one.

This gospel's story shows people trying to discourage the one who calls to Jesus.  And then we see Jesus ask, "What do you want me to do for you?"  We don't usually see Jesus ask this question.  Jesus usually knows.

The man has an answer:  he wants to see.  Does he want his vision back or is he talking about a different kind of sight?  Jesus doesn't ask a follow up question.  Jesus declares him healed, and he is.  And then the man follows Jesus.

It's worth noting that not everyone responds this way, and not everyone is allowed to follow him.  Jesus sends some healed people away, with instructions to tell no one.  Some don't even think to follow Jesus.  And we don't know what happens to most of them.  Are their lives changed?  Do they fall back into old patterns?  Do they come to realize they asked for the wrong thing?   Do they wish they had made a different post-miracle choice?  We'll never know.

I keep coming back to the question that Jesus asks.  It's an interesting question, one worth thinking about.  If the Divine came to you today with this question, how would you answer?

Simple Gifts

 My writing time is short this morning.  One of my colleagues who usually arrives early to unlock is sick today, so I'll be leaving a bit early to get to school to unlock.  So, instead of a long, winding post, let me record last night's success in devotion presentation.

For one of my seminary classes, we sign up for devotion time; each class begins with a brief devotion, and once we were divided into smaller groups, we began to sign up for devotions.  They are brief, which makes it both easy and hard--less than 5 minutes usually.  I volunteered to lead our group in leading last night's devotion.

Last night's class session (and the readings and the discussion threads leading up to last night) focused on both on fasting and on simplicity.  One of my groupmates suggested we do something with the song "Simple Gifts," which appealed to me.  I wasn't sure we could legally show the videos I was finding on YouTube, so I made an alternate plan which involved my spouse playing the violin while I focused the camera on a bowl of fruit.  I liked that video so much that I decided to use it, even though I learned that I could have used something done by professional musicians.

Here's how it went.  My two devotion mates read the lyrics* one stanza at a time, and they did a great job.  Then I played this video for a brief meditation time:

Then I prayed this prayer I wrote:

----

God of our deepest yearnings:

Help us to understand our true hungers 

and empty places.

Fill our grasping hands

with good gifts

----

As I was parking the car after work last night, the first two lines came to me, and I decided it was a good idea to write the prayer down, so that I would feel less anxious about the process.

I was anxious about the technology working, but our plan would work, even if I couldn't get the video to play or to screen share the lyrics.  But the technology worked--hurrah.  Yesterday was a tough technology day with a keypad doorlock that didn't work all of a sudden, and I had to restart my laptop several times to get it to work.  Happily, by the end of the day, the technology demons had moved on to torment someone else.

I am so happy with the way the devotion time turned out--what a nice end to my week of seminary classes this week.

*Traditional Lyrics

'Tis the gift to be simple
'Tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
It will be in the valley of love and delight

When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed
To turn, turn, will be our delight
'Til by turning, turning, we come round right


Modernized Lyrics

It’s a gift to be simple
It’s a gift to be free
It’s a gift to come down where we ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
It will be in the valley of love and delight

When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed
To turn, turn, will be our delight
'Til by turning, turning, we come round right

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel in a "A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church"

The readings for this Sunday:

1 Kings 1:  1-5, 11-18, 29-31

Psalm 90:  1-10, 12

Colossians 2:  9-14

John 7:  37-44

In today's Gospel, we see Jesus offering himself as living water, and we see the varying responses to him.  Some see him as an important prophet, and some go as far as to declare him the Messiah.  But others question his background: where he's from?  They hearken back to the teachings that prepared people to look for a Messiah that would look like the mighty King David.

By this time, they've forgotten about David's faults. David is seen, by them and by us, as one of Israel's greatest kings.  But Dr. Wilda Gafney's A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church shows us that while David had military strengths, that power came at great cost, particularly for women in his life.  In today's selection of readings, we realize that even the greatest ruler will be old and impotent eventually.  Jesus offers us a power that is more permanent.

A different Gospel, Matthew, begins with the lineage of Jesus, which includes David.  But this list of ancestors reminds us that being of the lineage of David means that Jesus comes from a line of not just the greatest rulers, but also outcasts, victims, and abusers.  In short, the humanity of Jesus means that he comes from the wide variety of what it means to be human--and Jesus shows us a different way to be human.

Again and again, Jesus tells us that he's coming to usher in a new realm, but it won't be what people have been hoping and praying for.  He's not there to overcome an earthly empire like Rome.  Again and again, Jesus reminds us that far greater powers than earthly empires hold us in a powerful grasp, and that he's here to break us free.  

Jesus continues to offer us living water.  How will we respond?

Autumn Delights: The 2021 Edition

Last night was the first night that we could sit on the balcony without breaking into a sweat.  It wasn't cool by any stretch of the imagination, but it was temperate for the first time.  Yesterday morning, there was a breeze before sunrise, a much more vigorous breeze.  Again, it wasn't a cold breeze, but it was a relief to have any breeze at all.

I spent the past week-end trying to have some autumnal delights, even in the heat.  I walked over to the pumpkin patch of a local church and picked out some pumpkins.  One of the women staffing the patch had a small boy with her, and his delight in the pumpkins was a joy that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't gone to the patch that day.

I needed to buy pumpkins because I wanted to transform the altar at church.  We are using Dr. Wilda Gafney's A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, and Sunday's gospel reading was about trees that bear good fruit and how a thorn bush will never bear good fruit.  It was the perfect excuse to buy some apples and pears for this wooden bowl:

And then on Sunday, I created a new vision for the altar, a vision that can take us to Advent, with some changes here and there:

Here's a close up of the right side as you face the altar:

And here is the left side of the altar, the one with the wooden bowl of apples:

I know that I am lucky to be part of a small church that has no altar guild, and so I am free to create these altarscapes.  I am even luckier to be part of a church that appreciates this creative work of mine.  I am sure that there might be a person or two who wishes for an altarscape that is less cluttered, less busy, and if someone wanted to design and create that vision, I would share these opportunities by dividing up the weeks of altar design.

It was a full morning at church, as I was also part of the sermon team.  Our pastor preached on good fruits, and then I took the congregation through a creative exercise.  We have a stash of blank notecards, so we handed each parishioner one as they came in.  I had the congregation write a card to themselves, imagining the voice of God telling them where they are bearing good fruit.  So many of us focus on the ways we are failing, on the thorn bush side of ourselves.  I want people to remember.  I read them the passage from Galatians 5 that explains what good fruit looks like:  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  I offered to mail the cards to them later, if they gave them to me--and I did get a stack to mail.  Hurrah!

After a long morning at church, it was good to come home to cook.  On the Smitten Kitchen website, I saw this recipe for a winter squash and spinach pasta bake, and happily, I saw the recipe before I did the grocery shopping I needed to do.  On Sunday afternoon, I made the casserole, and I confess that I had my doubts as I smoothed the gloppy mixture into a 9 x 13 inch pan.  It has to bake for 90 minutes, and it made the house smell delicious.  It tasted as good as it smelled, and it is such an easy preparation:  no sauteeing, no making of separate sauces.  I'll be making this one again, but I'll be making it even easier by using frozen, chopped spinach.  I didn't have fontina cheese, so I used cheddar, which was just fine and cheaper.

We finished the autumnal week-end by working on variations of "Simple Gifts," which I'll be using for devotions for a seminary class this week.  At first, my spouse plucked it on the violin.  Then I suggested that he try playing it with a bow, and it came out in the most amazing way; I'm glad that I was recording.  I decided to go back to the bowl of fruit, so that people would have a visual focus:

It is good to remember that although this autumn has a different set of joys than autumns of the past, there are still joys to be had.  And I have enough perspective to know that in future years, I'll be wistful about these very joys. 

The Feast Day of Saint Luke

On October 18, we celebrate the life of St. Luke, an evangelist and a doctor, or perhaps a healer would be a more accurate way of thinking about the ancient approach to medical care.

But St. Luke was so much more: he’s also the patron saint of artists, students, and butchers. He’s given credit as one of the founders of iconography. And of course, he was a writer--both of one of the Gospels and the book of Acts. As we think about the life of St. Luke, let us use his life as a guide for how we can bring ourselves back to health and wholeness.

The feast day of St. Luke offers us a reason to evaluate our own health—why wait until the more traditional time of the new year like the start of a new year? Using St. Luke as our inspiration, let’s think about the ways we can promote health of all kinds.

Do we need to schedule some check-ups? October is perhaps most famous for breast cancer awareness month, but there are other doctors that many of us should see on a regular basis. For example, if you get a lot of sun exposure, or if you live in southern states, you should get a baseline check up from your dermatologist. If we've put off medical care because the nation is in the grip of a pandemic, this feast day is a good opportunity to think about how to get that health care safely. The pandemic will be here for awhile, so let's not delay any longer, if we need professional care for our physical selves.

Many of us don’t need to visit a doctor to find out what we can do to promote better health for ourselves. We can eat more fruits and vegetables. We can drink less alcohol. We can get more sleep. We can exercise and stretch more.

Maybe we need to look to our mental or spiritual health. If so, Luke can show us the way again.

Luke is famous as the writer of the Gospel of Luke and Acts, but it’s important to realize that he likely didn’t see himself as writing straight history. He was maintaining a record of amazing events that showed evidence of God’s salvation.

It’s far too easy to ignore evidence of God’s presence in the world. We get bogged down in our own disappointments and our deeper depressions. But we could follow the example of Luke and write down events that we see in our own lives and the life of our churches that remind us of God’s grace. Even if it’s a practice as simple as a gratitude journal where each day we write down several things for which we’re grateful, we can write our way back to right thinking.

As we think about St. Luke, we can look for ways to deepen our spiritual health. In popular imagination, Luke gets credit for creating the first icon of the Virgin Mary. Maybe it’s time for us to try something new.

We could experiment with the visual arts to see how they could enrich our spiritual health. We might choose something historical and traditional, like iconography. Or we might decide that we want to experiment with something that requires less concentration and training. Maybe we want to create a collage of images that remind us of God’s abundance. Maybe we want to meditate on images, like icons, like photographs, that call us to healthy living.

St. Luke knew that there are many paths to health of all sorts. Now, on his feast day, let us resolve to spend the coming year following his example and restoring our lives to a place of better health.

Female Leadership: The National Council of Churches

I noticed this news story yesterday but didn't have time to write about it here.  For the first time, the leadership of the National Council of Churches has all female leadership.  The ecumenical group is now led by Bishop Teresa Jefferson-Snorton, "leader of the Fifth Episcopal District of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church." These women were also elected:  "the Rev. Elizabeth Eaton, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who is vice chair; Kimberly Gordon Brooks, first vice president of the 3rd District Lay Organization, African Methodist Episcopal Church, who is secretary; and the Rev. Teresa “Terri” Hord Owens, general minister and president, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), who is treasurer."

I am intrigued by the diversity of Protestant faith traditions represented here.  Sure, it could be even more diverse, but this start is a good one.  The article notes this fact too:  "All but Eaton are women of color."  

The article states, "The 38 member denominations of the NCC comprise some 35 million Christians in Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican, evangelical and historic Black denominations and 'peace churches.'”  So the fact that the leadership is now led by women, most of the women of color, is no small thing.

I have spent much of my life declaring that if women were in charge (at home, in the workplace, of the government, of any other institution), the world would change dramatically, and for the better.  I hope that I have been correct.

Beyond God the Patriarch

 In my Hebrew Bible class, we've just finished Genesis (we're reading the Hebrew Bible, but not reading the Bible in the Hebrew language).  Our discussion thread prompt has prompted me to keep thinking.  Here's the prompt:  "What/who was Jacob wrestling with at the Jabbok River? Please make reference to the assigned readings and videos in your post. In your relationship with God, do you tend to wrestle like Jacob or quietly accept? Why?"

As I thought about the question, I realized that I don't see my relationship with God in either of those ways.  I don't feel like I wrestle or quietly accept.  I don't see God that way at all.

I wrote a longer discussion post, but I don't want to paste it here, because my work hasn't been graded yet.  I don't want the anti-plagiarism software to flag my work, which it might, if it finds something similar out there, even if the something similar is my own work.

Yesterday morning, I woke up thinking about how many of our stories in the Bible have the hero, usually male, wrestling with God.  There's Jacob, the obvious choice.  Others come to mind:  Moses, various prophets, Job, Paul.  How many chosen ones quietly accept?  We might list Mary, the mother of Jesus.  The quiet accepters don't command our attention in the same way; it's not the same kind of compelling story.

Yesterday morning I was wishing that I had a friend who was a rabbi who could meet me for coffee and analyze this pattern.  I'd like to get a Jewish take on these stories, from someone who's been trained in theology.  I have a sudden vision of a book club, one with people theologically trained in different traditions.  I would never want to leave that coffee shop!

What if we had a different story about God?  What if we saw God as the best kind of boss, the kind who knows how to bring out our best qualities?  What if we saw God as the best kind of teacher, the one with skills that we didn't even know we needed, until we were taught them?  What if we saw God as the patient, kind, and wise type of animal trainer, the one who knows how to help us move beyond our fears?

I thought about how our societies might have been so different if we had these kinds of different theology.  It's too late to change the past--can we change the future by adopting a different theology?

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, October 17, 2021:

Isaiah 53:4-12

Psalm 91:9-16

You have made the LORD your refuge, and the Most High your habitation. (Ps. 91:9)

Hebrews 5:1-10

Mark 10:35-45


Imagine being one of the 12 disciples; imagine the possible rivalries. Every so often, as with this Sunday’s Gospel, we see the very human side of the disciples.

Most of us, from the time we are little children, we want to be loved best in all the world. Unfortunately, many events happen to convince us that love is rare, and that if one person is loved, it means we must be loved less. Humans tend to see love as finite and to feel like there’s not enough to go around.

If Jesus was a different kind of leader, he might have decided to pit the disciples against each other, so that he could feed his own ego watching them compete for his favor. Those of you from dysfunctional families or Machiavellian workplaces have probably seen this technique in use. Sadly, it's not uncommon at all.

Happily, we don’t worship that kind of God. We might expect Jesus to be a leader of comfort and compassion. We might expect Jesus to figure out a way to respond so that everyone gets to feel good about themselves and be assured that Jesus loves them all exactly the same.

We don’t worship that kind of God either. We may behave like three year olds, but Jesus treats his disciples like the grown ups he expects them to be.

Jesus reminds them that they don’t know what they’re asking. Again and again, Jesus tells his disciples, and centuries of believers to come, that the last will be first. Again and again, Jesus stresses that we're here to serve. Following Jesus isn't about self-empowerment. We don't follow Jesus because we hope to become rich. Other religions, like Capitalism, might make that promise, but not Christianity. Christianity is NOT just a big self-improvement program.

Sure, we might become better people, but not by the route that the larger world offers us. Christ tells us that we fulfill our destiny by serving others. It goes against most everything else we've ever learned. We're not supposed to look out for number one? We're not supposed to be most concerned about ourselves and our families? No, we're not.

You might feel as much despair over the need to have a servant’s heart as you did by last Sunday’s Gospel about giving away all our wealth. But here again, we can change our trajectory by taking small steps.  The ways to serve are as varied as humans themselves.  Ask God to show you how to have a servant's heart.  Be on the lookout for how God responds.

Who knows where this path may lead? But we know that Christ calls us to follow it. By imitating Christ, we can change ourselves, and in the process, we can change the world.

Meditation on This Sunday's Readings in "A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church"

The readings for Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021:

2 Samuel 21:  1-14

Psalm 58

Revelation 6:  9-11

Luke 6:  43-45

This Sunday, we hear Jesus talk about fruit, about how we'll be known by our fruit.  Good trees bear good fruit, while thorns will never be mistaken for good fruit.  This Gospel may make us feel resignation and/or despair.

Those of us who are perfectionists and/or judgmental may never feel that we're seeing good fruit in ourselves or anyone else.  Happily, God is not as harsh as our harshest critics.  Those of us who have made bad choices may feel like this passage dooms us to the world of thornbushes forever so why bother?  But if we've been in church any amount of time at all, we know that's not God's larger message either.

This week I'm thinking of a lecture in one of my seminary classes.  My professor  Dr. Emily Peck-McClain got my attention by declaring her love for Paul and calling Paul a gift to us with a liberative message that is not often proclaimed.  She called our attention to Galatians 5, which also has a fruit metaphor; it's the passage that talks about the fruits of the spirit, and it makes a good counterpoint to this Gospel.

Paul gives us the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. My professor reminds us that Paul is writing to communities, not to individuals. The fruit of the Spirit is born and comes to fruition in community.

The good news is that we don't have to produce all of these fruits all by ourselves. When the whole community is together, these are the fruits that we see. We are intended to have all of these fruits together communally. And then we are equipped to carry on the redemptive work of Christ in the world.

What a beautiful vision:  all of us as individual fruit trees, making a beautiful orchard together. It's that time of year when I'm yearning for apple orchards and pumpkin patches. As many of us enjoy the fruits of the season, let us think about the fruits of the spirit and how we make more of them manifest, both in ourselves and in each other.

Divine Arms, Divine Assistance

For the past few weeks, I occasionally see a man walking his dog.  He's walking two dogs, in a way.  He holds an older dog cradled in one arm, while holding the leash of the other dog.  When he gets to a patch of grass, he puts the older dog down so that she go to the bathroom, and then he picks her back up again.  

I spoke to him briefly one morning, which is how I know the dog is female and 18 years old.  I told that man that it made me happy to see him taking such good care of his dog, and he shrugged off my praise.  

As I've watched the man care for his two dogs, I've thought of that care as a way of understanding how God cares for creation.  While I want to believe in a God that gives us everything we want and need, if we just pray hard enough or do the right kind of visioning exercises, I can't really make that idea work and still believe in free will.  While I want to believe in a God that can swoop in and make things right, erase years/decades of bad behavior/choices, I really have a hard time making a case for the existence of that kind of God.

Do I believe that God can undo the rules that God made for this creation?  It depends on the day that you ask me.

I do believe in a God who does not abandon us, no matter the bad choices we've made or the toll that the years have taken.  I believe in a God who will hold us in Divine arms, when we are old and/or broken.  I believe in a God who cleans up after us.

And of course, God is also there when we're not broken.  God is there when we're vigorous.  But sadly, my experience has shown that many of us can't let God hold us or assist us until we're in desperate need of that assistance.

Imagine how our lives would be if we sought that Divine partnership earlier.

Discussion Threads and Classroom Discussions

 hen it comes to online classes and discussion threads, we often say that a good discussion thread mimics the kind of conversations we would have had in a face to face classroom.  But having experienced online classes as a seminary student, I've begun to think that a good discussion thread is actually better than most face to face class discussions.

I have been part of in person class discussions, both as a teacher and as a student, that were truly glorious:  full of points none of us would have developed on our own, full of eye opening moments, full of wonder.  But I've been part of many more that were not like that.

As a seminary student, I've been enjoying creating my own discussion posts, and those short pieces of writing have helped me engage with various texts far more deeply than if all I had to do was show up to an in person class.  I've enjoyed reading the thoughts of my classmates.  Even more, I've enjoyed virtual class lectures that weren't interrupted by shallow thoughts, as so many were in my graduate studies back when I was earning an MA and a PhD in English.

It's time to start thinking about the classes that I will take next term, and given the huge uncertainties, I'm planning to take the second half of the classes that I'm currently taking, and to take them in their online/virtual formats.  I am surprised to find that I like this delivery system so much.  I also know that much of the success of the classes is because of the professors, so I'm happy to stick with these professors for another term.

Eventually I hope to do at least a year on campus, in a more traditional format.  But this year, Wesley Theological Seminary is offering very few classes in person, in that traditional format.  It will be interesting to see how these years of pandemic instruction have changed education forever.

Limping and Seeing the Face of God

I have spent the better part of the last hour watching my professor's wonderful lecture on Jacob for one of my seminary classes.  One of her conclusions struck me:  "We all come away limping in our relationship with God both in ways we can see and in ways we can't."  I will continue to think about that idea, since I see limping as a bad thing.

But what if limping isn't bad?  What if limping forces us to slow down in ways that are good?  Maybe limping helps us develop compassion.  I know that it has for me.  I think of days of arthritis flares in my feet.  One day, as I left a building and thought with despair about how far away I had parked, I reflected on all the times I've felt disdain for those who will circle the parking lot, waiting for the closest spots to come available.  As I limped back to my car, I felt new empathy for those people.

My professor finished her lecture by talking about faces throughout the story of Jacob.  Early on, Jacob puts on a persona; he hides behind a face that isn't authentic.  At the end of the story, he is able to be fully present, as he reconciles with his brother Esau.  This ability to be present opens up new possibilities.  Jacob moves from persona to presence to possibility.  The poet in me loves that repetition of the letter p.

My professor also talked about how she approaches this story when she preaches it.  She has the members of the congregation turn to their pewmates, to people who aren't their families.  She has them say to each other what Esau says to Jacob:  "Truly to see your face is to see the face of God."  She talked about how moving it is for people to hear that said to them.

I would love to experiment with varieties of that experience when it's safe to be that close together again.  Maybe in the intervening time, we could do it with mirrors, although I shudder at the cost if the congregation is large.

I am also imagining how the world might change if more of us trained ourselves to see the face of God in everyone, not just hearing that our own face reflects God.

God as the New Moon Cradled in the Arms of the Old

This week, my seminary Spiritual Formation for Ministry class studied the practice of meditation.  We were given a task, to go on a 10 minute walk and meditate on creation while we were walking.  Then we had a discussion post thread that asked, "What was your experience of meditating on creation? What did you notice? Why did your mind drift during your experience?"

I really loved my response, so I want to record it here:

"When I went out on a morning walk, I intended to notice the trees and the living creatures. I was surprised that my mind kept looking at the moon and thinking about God revealed in the moon. This morning, the moon was a tiny sliver shining, but you could see the outline of the whole moon, and I thought of the old saying, “The new moon cradled in the arms of the old.” I thought about how God is often revealed in just a sliver and/or just an outline of the whole. I thought of the inbreaking kingdom of God, the now and the not yet, and how the moon this morning seemed an apt metaphor. My mind did wander because it was dark, and I was walking, and I didn’t want to fall or be surprised by other creatures on my walk."

Several of my small group members mentioned that moon metaphor, and I confess my thoughts have returned to that image several times.  I don't often see the moon and think about God.  I'm more of a sunrise gal, and if I'm going to find the moon worthy of notice, it's usually when the moon is full.

It was a great experience, and I'm glad to have had it.  It seems like the kind of experience that could be useful in a variety of settings, which is another reason I'm noting it here.  All of my groupmates talked about the value of the experience, which makes me think it would be worth replicating:  with students, with a parish, on a retreat . . . 

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The lessons for Sunday, October 10,  2021:
First Reading: Amos 5:6-7, 10-15

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Job 23:1-9, 16-17

Psalm: Psalm 90:12-17

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 22:1-15

Second Reading: Hebrews 4:12-16

Gospel: Mark 10:17-31

Today's Gospel is not one that you'll find in most stewardship campaigns.  I've been part of church council discussions that revolved around whether or not it was reasonable to expect people to give away 10% of their income.  And along comes Jesus with this message about selling everything and giving it to the poor, and then we'll be ready to follow Jesus.

We've spent centuries rationalizing our way around the demands of this text. We talk about how the needle's eye is really a gate in Jerusalem (something that scholars doubt), so that we can convince ourselves that one could be both rich and righteous, even if that might be rare. We return to our stewardship messages, reminding each other that Jesus calls us to be generous. 

Many a believer and non-believer alike might ask, "You can't really believe that Jesus means that literally."

But what if Jesus was serious?  One of the main themes of Mark is the cost of discipleship.  Here is a very real cost.

So far, this century has taught us much about the danger of counting on our possessions for security. We've seen how quickly wealth can be liquidated--and for what? I remember getting an account statement after a particularly volatile quarter. As I considered the drop in value, I thought of how much happier I might be had I given that money to the poor instead of hoarding it for my future. Now it's vanished, gone, like steam. No one has benefited--except, perhaps, for the people who made a profit off my money before it vanished. And I'm fairly certain the poor didn't see the benefit of that.

Jesus returns to this message again and again: our attachment to money is spiritually dangerous, the biggest spiritual danger that most of us face. Comparatively speaking, he doesn't spend much time at all on other sins. He never talks directly about homosexuality, the issue that's splitting so many churches. But he returns again and again to the message that the rich must share with the poor.

Jesus calls us to radical generosity. We are to do more than just follow a set of laws, like the young man was so capable of doing. We are to jettison our stuff, so that we're more able to follow Christ. Jesus calls us to give away our wealth, so that our grasping hands can be open for the blessings that God wants to give us. We are to unclench our hands, release our money (and fear), and trust in God.

Most of us aren't very good at trusting in God.  We'll trust the Wall Street investors who control our retirement accounts much more deeply than we'll trust God.  But we can learn to trust God.  What would happen if we increased our giving by 1% each year?  What would happen if we took all the stuff we no longer use to people who could use it?  What would happen if we adopted a meatless day of the week?  What other types of activities could we do to decrease our reliance on our own wealth?

Like every other spiritual trait, we grow stronger as we practice. Unclench those greedy, grasping hands. Open your hands and your heart to the gifts that God wants to give you.

Meditation on This Sunday's Readings in "A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church"

Readings for Sunday, October 10, 2021

2 Samuel 20:  1-3, 14-22

Psalm 50:  14-23

1 Corinthians 6:  1-6

Mark 6: 1-6

In this Sunday's Gospel, we see Jesus rejected by his hometown.  We may be familiar with the disbelief of the hometown crowd:  they know his family, they've seen Jesus as a child.  There's that sneering tone:  "Who does this guy think that he is?"

And note the power that their negativity holds:  "And he could do no deed of power there, except on a few sick people laying hands and curing them" (verse 5).  It's a curious turn, since the people acknowledged his wisdom and power just a few verses before this one.  And then they doubt, which affects not only them, but Jesus himself.  He moves along to the next place.

Is this lesson the one we are meant to learn?  If we're not gaining traction, move along?  If we encounter doubt and undercutting of our projects, move along?  What happens if we don't move along?  And how do we know when it's time to leave?

The Gospel reading seems less straight forward when we think about all the people who are named, all the relatives of Jesus.  In his commentary on Mark, Mark for Everyone, N. T. Wright reminds us that many of these relatives will be important in the life of the early church, including his younger brother James.  But in these early chapters of Mark, James is not always on the side of Jesus.  But within the coming decades, James will be part of the team that spreads the Good News that Jesus tries to preach in these early chapters of Mark.

As we consider this Gospel, let us remember that God's timeline is often not a human timeline.  I find it useful to think in terms of chairos time, God's timeline, a time that is separate from chronos (clock) time.  A project that seems impossible today may not be impossible forever.

The Feast Day of Saint Francis in a Time of Pandemic and Planetary Collapse

Today we celebrate the life of St. Francis. Many congregations do this by having a pet blessing service. Here again, we see a powerful life story reduced to something significantly more mundane. I would argue that the church almost always does this reduction act--and why? Why give up the power of these stories that way? We see that in our approach to Jesus Christ, and in our approach to every other believer who has a dramatic story. Are we afraid of the implications?

Perhaps we tame these figures because we realize that if we follow the teachings of Saint Francis, or Christ before him, too closely, we'll be required to give up our comfortable lives.  But we live in a time of plague and planetary collapse where many of us will be required to move to something different.  Saint Francis shows us that giving up our privilege and comfort can bring us a new type of joy.

We often remember St. Francis because of his work, "The Canticle for the Creatures." Many people see him as one of the early environmentalists. I have no problem with animal rights crusaders and the environmental movement, but it's important to remember that St. Francis spent many years of his early ministry living with lepers and caring for them. He gave up everything he owned--and he was rich--in a quest for a more authentic life. He inspired others to follow the same path, and he founded two religious orders that still thrive (and one that has vanished). In his later years, he worked to end the Crusades. He also created the first Nativity scene, and he used live animals, so that visitors to the scene could more fully use all their senses.

In churches that celebrate the life of St. Francis, will we hear these parts of the story? I doubt it. Those are the parts of the story that are threatening to the social order. We can't have young people behaving in the way that St. Francis did. What on earth would happen then?

Our society would be transformed. And one of the ways that Christians have let down their faith, this is one of the most damning: we dampen the transformative message of the Gospel or we dumb it down into some sort of self-help drivel. The Gospel can transform us as individuals, sure, but then we are called to go out and transform our societies. God has called us to do redemptive work.

Here's a prayer that I wrote for today:

Creator God, we don't always take good care of your creations. Please give us the generosity of St. Francis as we wrestle with the best way to use our resources. Please open our hearts the way you opened the heart of St. Francis so that we can take care of the members of our society who are at the lowest levels. Please give us the courage to create communities which will allow the light of Christ to shine more brightly.

First Meeting with Seminary Faculty Advisor

Yesterday I had my first meeting as a seminary student with my faculty advisor.  Before the meeting, I was happy to discover that I had been assigned to the director of the Theology and the Arts track, who is also the director of the Luce Center for Theology and the Arts, which sounds like one of my dream jobs.

Our meeting didn't last long, but it was wonderful.  It was a meeting where we were supposed to talk about my progress and my form that I filled out, the form that mapped out my future semesters and which course I would take.  My advisor and I agreed that it's really tough to make that plan right now.  There are so many questions.  Where will we be in the course of this disease?  Will there be courses on campus?  Will there be on-campus housing?  Will I still be employed?

I said, "Part of me thinks that this may be my last full-time job with health insurance, so maybe I shouldn't give it up."  My advisor told me that his wife is an Episcopalian priest who has just taken a job in Maine, and that's given them a chance to compare health insurance plans.  We talked a bit about what we might all accomplish if we didn't have to consider basic health care/health insurance and how we would provide for it.

My plan for the near future, next semester, is to take the second half of the classes that I'm taking now.  They're basic classes, the building blocks for future classes, and happily, they are ones that work well online.  My advisor finds himself wrestling with that question of which classes really need to be in person and which ones can be adapted.

As we closed, my advisor reminded me that he's there to be an advocate for me, if there's ever anything for which I need that kind of support.  Or that if I'm ever confused about requirements, I should come to him.  I said that I'd keep in touch with him by way of e-mail to let him know that I was making progress.  He smiled and said, "You gotta love mature students.  They understand the benefits of staying in touch."

I also realize how lucky I am, that I've always had advisors who wanted the best for me, without any of the creepiness that can develop.  And I feel lucky now, with my current advisor.  At a later point, I'll have more questions that I'll need help with.

And perhaps I'll continue to have the kinds of questions that are more on me to decide.  How fast should I be progressing?  Do I move to DC full time or think about the hybrid options?  I like the idea of reporting to campus for long week-ends periodically, but my heart really yearns to be part of the seminary community.  Of course, at this point, the seminary community isn't what it was before, with more of us feeling safer about online classes.  

So yes, I have lots of the sorts of questions that cannot be answered right now.  I am learning to live with the mystery, to live with the knowledge that has always been true, but in pre-Covid times, many of us could pretend otherwise.  Our lives will have all sorts of twists and turns, and while we can have long-term plans and goals, they are likely to be upended, and we'll have to pivot.

And for most of us, there are all sorts of ways to pivot, if we remain nimble and open to the possibilities.

"Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness": October Arrives

 Let me capture the earliest hours of October 2021 with some snapshots, while at the same time wondering if future generations will understand what a snapshot is.

--This morning the AC cut off, and I wondered if it had sprung some sort of leak.  No--what I was hearing was rain.  I usually don't hear the rain in the well-protected 6th floor condo where we live now.  October is off to a rainy start down here in South Florida. If we can't have leaves scuttling across the pavement, at least the rain will keep the temperature less hot. Can I write a whole blog post about the weather? A poem?  I'm sure that I can, but it seems so tiresome.  Once you've read the autumn poems of Keats and Yeats, why bother?

--Earlier this week, I looked up from writing accreditation documents to see the young man who always finds me when he needs to see his parole officer on the 3rd floor.  I have a key fob that will open the 3rd floor door from the rickety staircase outside, and he was stuck in our elevator once and doesn't want to be again.  He comes periodically, but Monday, he told me this was his last visit.  I was expecting the heartwarming ending, but he told me he was going to prison for leading cops on a high speed car chase through Plantation.  He told me that he wasn't afraid of prison, that he was tired of being on probation where he had an ankle monitor and people could monitor him.  I didn't point out that he was about to go from the frying pan into the fire, in terms of being monitored.  I said a silent prayer for him, and out loud, I said, "I wish you all the best."

--Yesterday I got word that one of our colleagues who works on multiple campuses had been told that yesterday was her last day.  I moved student files out of her office so that if she comes to clean out her office, she can do so without anyone watching her do that.  As I moved student files to my office, I tried to decide if this act makes me compassionate or a stooge of some sort.  Then I wondered if I even knew the definition of stooge.  Then I moved more files.  Then I thought about how long it would take to clean out my own office.

--But let me end on a happier note.  Today I have my first meeting with my seminary faculty advisor.  I wrote to him because I had a form that needs to be filled out before I can register for Spring classes.  He wrote me the kindest e-mail back.  I realize I shouldn't be wowed by professional courtesy, but I am.

--Even more impressive:  my faculty advisor is the head of the Theology and the Arts program at Wesley, the one who wrote me a very helpful e-mail back in Feb. when I had first discovered the program.  The seminary assigned me the advisor who I would have most liked to have guiding me.  Hurrah!  Again, I realize that I shouldn't be so surprised and happy.  But I've been in academia a long time, and I realize how much it takes to perform these miracles and wonders.

And now that the rain seems to have stopped, let me go out and take my first October walk.