The Nibble of Anxiety

 Anxiety has begun to nibble at the outlines again.  For about a week, I felt blessedly free:  the house was sold, I was caught up on both seminary classes and the online classes that I teach, and the high stress people at work had gone on vacation.  Let me try to write my way out of my anxiety.  And let me also confess that my anxiety is the low grade kind, which makes me feel a kind of guilt for feeling anxious but not feeling like my anxiety warrants attention.

Of course, that is how our anxieties trick us and grow larger, which is why I try to defuse my anxieties early in the process, as early as I feel that nibble.

Today I feel a new anxiety because my spouse has both a colonoscopy and endoscopy tomorrow, which means today begins a process for him:  no food today, only clear liquids, no alcohol, and we'll end the day with a medicine that furthers the cleanse.  Note how I said that diplomatically.  I feel anxiety about this process to get ready for the procedure and anxiety about tomorrow's procedure.

I feel anxiety because two of my online classes finish at the end of February, and so the grading demands have picked up.  This week I will settle into grading; and tomorrow I'm taking a sick day to help care for my spouse, so I'll have time to catch up then.

I should feel less anxious about seminary classes than I do.  Yesterday, my spouse hooked up a laptop to the TV so he could watch the New Testament class lectures with me.  That was a treat.  We both learned a lot about the art of Roman-Greco letter writing and about Paul's approach.

But the nature of seminary classes is that there is always work to do, always reading, always writing.  I did realize during the break between terms that I like having that work to do.  During the break, I felt at loose ends.  I do wish that I didn't feel the need to check and double check and check again to make sure that I haven't forgotten anything.  But that checking doesn't take too much extra time, and it feels less like an anxiety symptom and more like a behavior that keeps me on track. 

Let me also remember the joys to help keep my anxieties tamped down.  At some point in December, our condo building created a game room, and my spouse and I have been enjoying improving our pool game.  He's much more serious about improving than I am, but so far, it hasn't impeded my enjoyment.  He's slightly better than I am, but not so much that we can't enjoy our games.

It's not the rooftop pool, which is still closed for repairs (sigh).  But it's something we wouldn't be doing if we weren't renting a condo in this building.  And we wouldn't be renting this condo if we hadn't decided to sell the house.  And we did finally sell the house!

That knowledge, that we did sell the house, is enough to tamp down most of my anxieties.

Banned Books and All We Cannot See

It is a very chilly morning, 40 degrees with a wind chill advisory.  So I'll stay inside this morning, do some writing, watch the lecture videos for my New Testament class, and generally stay cozy.  While we didn't have the same kind of winter weather as much of the rest of the nation this week-end, it was still a blustery day yesterday, the kind of wind that breaks the palm trees.  During my walk yesterday morning, I hauled huge fronds out of the roads, marveling at the weight and heft of them.

Let me record some of the smaller nuggets of the week, so that I'll have them later:

--It's been one of those weeks where there's been lots of news of books being banned--the latest is Art Spiegelman's Maus.  I bought the book when it first was published, back in 1986.  It was one of the early works in a genre that would come to be called the graphic novel, and I remember lots of conversations about whether or not a graphic novel could be a serious work of art, or were we just elevating -- gasp -- comic strips?  I remember following Allison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For; even back then, I realized that a comic strip was an art form that could do far more than older generations had assumed it could.

--Maus is not being banned because it's a graphic novel.  Someone somewhere is concerned about the nudity.  I thought, there's nudity?  Nude cats, nude mice?  Is it about all the dead bodies?

--And now, because it's been banned, a whole new generation will discover this book.  Hurrah!  I used to tell my students that when I had my first book published, they all needed to go to school boards and get my book banned, and voila!  Instant best seller.  I wasn't kidding.

--In my teenage years, Gone with the Wind was a banned book, and I read it.  It wasn't banned because of its troubling approach to slavery.  No, it was rumored to have hot sex.  If hot sex was there, I never found it as a teenage reader.  I was a teenage reader who read garish romance novels, so my definition of hot sex was likely different.

--In addition to seeing outrage about books and efforts to ban them, I'm seeing people talk about Ukraine or not talk about Ukraine.  I do wonder how we will think about these days in years to come.  Will we be surprised that we didn't see the next twist in the pandemic coming?  Will we wonder how we lost our way when it came to Ukraine?  What am I not writing about now that I will look back and shake my head about?

--It was 2 years ago when I first mentioned the strange new virus in China.  This blog post ended this way:  "With this new corona virus, I hope we're not all about to find out how much worse it could be."

Thinking about other aspects of the week:

--On Friday night, we went over to friends who had invited our old neighborhood group to gather to celebrate the sale of our house.  It was delightful. I felt like I was on the set of a TV show that was being filmed in beautiful light, and that if I had watched such a TV show, I'd have been saying, "I wish I could have a life like those characters in that TV show--look at the delicious food they get to eat and the riotous fun they have with that strange card game." The night couldn't have been much more perfect.

--Yesterday I drove to Total Wine, the first time as a non-home owner.  I remembered the week-end before we put our house on the market, when I drove to The Fresh Market to get some fancy potpourri.  It was several weeks after category 4 Hurricane Laura made landfall, and I heard a news story about a small community far from the larger communities, all of them still struggling to recover.  I remember hoping that we could get our house sold before a hurricane ravages our coast--and now we have.

--We had a seminary class discussion about how our theologian of the week, James K. A. Smith, would feel about our streaming services.  I said that I thought he would not approve, because those types of services, where we can watch in our pajamas drinking the coffee that we prefer instead of what's in the percolator, don't require more of us.  I later wondered how many of my fellow students would know what a percolator is.

--It's been a good week, over all, but I do have this feeling that I'm about to get seriously behind in my seminary work.  Let me focus.

Sketching the Female Tree-Mermaid

For much of my life, I would have told you that I was no good at visual arts.  I was a word person.  But if you could look at my school notebooks, you would notice that I was always drawing.  I would have dismissed those efforts as doodling, the kind of drawing that doesn't count as art.

I still do that kind of doodling, particularly during meetings where I'm having trouble paying attention.  Sketching lines which turn into vines.  I'm also fond of swirls.  Sometimes the lines want to be something else, something larger:  a bird beak and then the whole bird.

This week, I was taking notes during a meeting, and then I drew a box around the date of the meeting.  At the edge of the box, I drew this:

I thought about how it looked like a tree, so I decided to start a new sketch that would be a tree.  I drew a few swirls, and I realized that my tree also looked like a woman dancing, perhaps a very flexible woman with her leg stretching to the sky.  I continued to sketch, and I ended up with this:

As I sketched lines at the base of the tree (or the woman's skirt), I noticed that it had a certain mermaid vibe going, so I emphasized that.

In the end, I liked the sketch enough to save it, which I don't usually do with my meeting doodles.  Maybe I should start calling them illuminated meeting notes.

If William Blake had to sit through some of the meetings that I have attended, he might have sketched a whole different set of doors of perception.

While I'm recording my sketching life, let me also record the words of my teacher from late in 2021.  She said the my swirling style reminds her of Van Gogh.

I think of my 7th grade self.  In 7th grade, I became obsessed with sketching a horse.  I had a friend who could draw such beautiful horses.  I could not.  I just kept drawing the same sad type of horse, over and over.  It was probably that experience that made me think I couldn't draw.  I kept drawing a horse, week after week, seeing no improvement.  It didn't occur to me to try something else.

Many years later, when I was in my 30's, I did try drawing something else, and I was delighted to be able to draw a flower that people could recognize as a flower.

Now I draw any number of creations, and many of them have a bit of whimsy--or a lot of whimsy, in the case of this female tree-mermaid.  They delight me, and they make the hum drum parts of life more enchanted.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, January 30, 2022:

First Reading: Jeremiah 1:4-10

Psalm: Psalm 71:1-6

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Gospel: Luke 4:21-30


In this Gospel, we see the reactions of Jesus' listeners to his proclamation that the Scripture has been fulfilled. They can't believe that this boy that they knew as a child could be the Messiah. And then they decide to throw him over a cliff.

I wish I could say that I thought this behavior was bizarre, but I don't. Unfortunately, many people, even dedicated Christians, have this reaction to the Sacred.

How many times have you seen clear evidence of God working in your life? How many times have you discounted your experiences? "It can't be God. It's just coincidence that the issues for which I prayed for help and guidance have been resolved." We should be shouting for joy, and praying prayers of thanksgiving, and instead, we chalk it up to randomness.

In some ways, this behavior is similar to the desire to throw Jesus off the cliff. We discount the power of God, and so we diminish our relationship with God. Later, in the Good Friday story, we scoff at Simon Peter's denial of Jesus, but we often deny God on a daily basis. Many of us are committed to a scientific, rational view of the universe that leaves no room for a divine power. We throw God over the cliff.

Or worse, we're committed to a view of the universe as chaotic and threatening. We discount the power of good to overcome the powers of evil. Again, we throw God over the cliff. God commands us to be children of the light, committed to love. Many of us prefer to wallow in our feelings of fear and despair. Ah, despair, the sin that medievalists would remind us is the deadliest of the deadly sins--for it is despair that keeps us from believing that life can be different, that God is really in control. And if we can avoid believing that, then we can avoid our responsibilities towards this world that God created.

One of the most insidious ways that we continue to throw Jesus over the cliff is in our daily behavior, especially if those around us know that we are Christians. So often, our behavior undercuts our Christian stance. What will the rest of the world think of our triune God when they see us behave in ways that they know are distinctly not Christian? How do we lead people away from Jesus by our unflattering behavior? It's time to remember that we are to be an example of the kind of world that Jesus came to help us create.

The new year, which is quickly moving towards becoming the old year, is a good time for reflection, a good time to turn inward and to become aware of areas where we could still use improvement. Sure, God loves us the way that we are (a gift of grace to be sure). But God always calls us to be better. It's time to work on our attitudes and beliefs and actions that throw Jesus off the cliff, attitudes and beliefs and actions that make others think that God is indeed dead.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is also the anniversary of the day that the concentration camp Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army.  I remember a high school history class where we talked about the shock that those soldiers felt as they tried to understand what they had discovered.

I remember the first time I saw a photo in a book of those bodies stacked like cordwood.  I know it's hard to believe that one could get to one's teenage years without seeing such a picture, but in the pre-Internet days of my youth, it happened.  I had read about the Holocaust, of course.  But that first picture that I saw hit me in a visceral way.  Was I seeing human bodies or something else?

When I was in high school in the early 80's, I thought that the Holocaust was the only genocide of the 20th century, but sadly we know that's not true.  It becomes increasingly easy to wipe out whole populations, and whole populations increasingly do not care about basic human rights, which makes it increasingly easy to wipe out whole populations.

Today some people will light candles, some will write letters, some will pray, and some of us may not remember at all.  I'm thinking of a poem that I wrote in August of 2016, as the campaign season ramped into high gear. I couldn't get the Sylvia Plath quote out of my head. Did I read Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" before I wrote it? I think I was writing it, and the title came to me, and I looked it up and proceeded to read it; Ray Bradbury was such an expert storyteller.  Later, the literary journal Adanna published it.

History’s Chalkboards


“Every woman adores a Fascist,  
The boot in the face, the brute  
Brute heart of a brute like you.”
                            “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath


Every woman adores a Fascist.
Turns out men do too.
But we imagine the boot
on someone else’s face,
a face that doesn’t look
like ours, the face that arrives
to take our jobs and steal
our factories, while laughing
at us in a foreign language.

No God but capitalism,
the new religion, fascism disguised
as businessman, always male,
always taking what is not his.

Brute heart, not enough stakes
to keep you dead. 
We thought we had vanquished
your kind permanently last century
or was it the hundred years before?

As our attics crash into our basements,
what soft rains will come now?
The fire next time,
the ashes of incinerated bodies,
the seas rising on a tide
of melted glaciers.

And so we return to history’s chalkboard,
the dust of other lessons in our hair.
We make our calculations.

Meditation on Epiphany 4 in Dr. Wilda C. Gafney's "A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church"

In my church, we are still working our way through Dr. Wilda C. Gafney's A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church. This Sunday, we'll explore Epiphany 4, with the Gospel from Luke: Luke 3: 21-23, 31-38. It begins with the story of the baptism of Jesus, with God declaring a status of beloved even before Jesus has done much with his ministry.

It ends with a genealogy. In some ways, it's a similar genealogy to others throughout the Bible. It's a way that humans have always categorized: who belongs to who, who might have trained which offspring, what stories are we part of.

If you read a traditional translation of Luke, you'll notice something about this genealogy: it's as if the men have done this birthing of offspring all by themselves. Dr. Gafney has gone through and added back all the females. It's such a simple change, and yet it is also powerful, radical, and revolutionary. The last entry subverts all of this categorizing: "the child of God."

Gafney explains it best: "The Gospel presents this Jesus as a child of earth, woman-born as were we all, while omitting the women of his lineage. It is one of the chief contradictions of the scriptures that their message of a God who loves beyond categories is bound up in categorical language that minimizes, silences, and often excludes women" (p. 53).

Today let us begin to love as God loves, to declare every part of creation "Good" and "Very good," as God did in the first creation story in Genesis. God looks at creation, and just as God looked at Jesus and declared Jesus beloved, God declares all of creation as worthy of love. In our darkest times, let us remember that God is pleased with us all, just the same way that God is well-pleased with Jesus. Let us love similarly.

The Confession of Saint Paul

Today, January 25, the Church celebrates the conversion of St. Paul. Take a minute to imagine how the world would be different if we had had no Saul of Tarsus. There would have been no Saul persecuting the Christians, no Saul to have a conversion experience on the road to Damascus, no Paul who was such a singular force in bringing Christianity to the Roman empire.

Early Christianity would have had some traction even had there been no Paul. Those disciples and apostles had a fire borne of their experiences to be sure. But it was Paul and his compatriots who brought Christianity to populations apart from the early Jews. Without Paul, Christianity might have withered on the tiny Palestinian vine, since the other disciples and apostles didn't have the same fervor for converting people outside the immediate geographical area.

Would someone else have come along? Probably. The Holy Spirit does work in interesting ways. But Paul was a fascinating choice, a man with extensive training, a man who could speak to multiple populations. For those of us who feel we don't fit in anywhere, we should take comfort from Paul's story. The Holy Spirit can use misfits in fascinating ways. The Bible is full of them.

Some criticize Paul's letters for their inconsistencies. I would remind us that Paul was writing to real congregations who were facing real problems. I imagine that he would be aghast at the idea that anyone centuries later would use them as a behavior manual to teach right behavior. It would be as if someone collected an assortment of your e-mails and centuries later saw direct communication from God in them.

For those of us who have found Paul troubling in terms of his ideas about women, about married people, about slaves, I'd recommend Classics scholar Sarah Ruden's Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time (Pantheon 2010), which I first wrote about here. She gives a window into the ancient world which I had never really peered through before. Her depiction of sexual relations of all sorts makes me shudder, and more than that, makes me so glad to be alive today. The Roman empire really was a rape culture in all sorts of ways. Viewed through this lens, Paul's ideas on relationships seem radically forward-looking.

Here is a prayer for today:

Triune God, you work in truly wondrous ways. Thank you for the ministry of Paul and all the ways that we have benefited from his missionary fervor. Let us use the life of Paul as inspiration for our own lives. Let us trust that you can use our gifts in all sorts of ways that we can't even imagine. Give us the courage to follow your calling to the far reaches of whichever empires you need to send us. Give us the words that congregations need right now. Grant us the peace that comes from having partnered with you.

The Body Politic and the Parts of My Brain

 I have spent the last two days being intensely aware of my joints--so achy.  I know it's likely about either changes in the weather and/or the fact that I've been on my feet more than most week-ends, but it's unsettling.  The part of me that has read every book on the body keeping score even as the mind isn't aware of all the stress, that part says, "You sold the house, and now you have to deal with all the difficult emotions you've been suppressing and delaying."

The Apocalypse Gal part of my brain says, "The U.S. has just ordered the families of diplomats to leave Ukraine.  Your aching joints are not what you will remember when you reflect on the early part of 2022.  Enjoy these halcyon days while you have them."

I think of the Body Politic.  Are there small countries feeling fretful this morning?  Countries beyond the current locus of conflict?  I think of all the countries of Central America, countries that are more familiar to me because they were the settings of proxy wars of my college years.  I think of our college conversations about what we would do if the U.S. suddenly went from a cold war to a hot war status and tried to make all of the men of our generation go to war.  We were in the early years of men being required to register for the draft in order to be eligible for student loans.

Those years seem so distant--and it is a shock to realize how long ago those days were.  I hear an occasional dispatch from those Central American countries, an election result for example, and then the news moves along.  Those stories don't merit more than just a mention at the top of the news hour.  

The Sensible Woman part of my brain says, "Are you sure you've completed every task for seminary that you need to have done right now?  Have you thought about your seminary tasks for the coming week?  Don't forget to check on your online class that starts today, the one that you're teaching; make sure to send that welcoming e-mail."

The Foxfire part of my brain works in concert with the Apocalypse Gal.  They want to start canning.  They wonder if we could raise chickens in this condo, if it all comes to that.   They made a huge pot of yellow split peas and barley yesterday.

Sensible Woman thinks about the days to come, when she will be tired of this concoction that she will now be taking to work.  She has lunch for days, months, but part of her just wants to eat Beef and Guinness Stew or maybe a lovely ricotta cake.  She hasn't made a ricotta cake yet, but she's aware of the tub of ricotta cheese in the fridge with a pull date just past.

All of these selves will now suit up for a walk in the chilly morning, a walk before work, the last chance to let all of these thoughts swirl before heading to the office, where these thoughts can swirl in a different setting.

Video Sermon on Simon Peter's Mother-in-Law and Service

Two weeks ago, my church went back to meeting remotely.  While I do miss seeing everyone, it's clear that this Omicron variant is everywhere and so very communicable.  My church is made up primarily of older folks and people who are immunocompromised, so it's wise to meet remotely.  

Another plus:  I get to make the occasional video sermon.  I do it differently than the taped Zoom call kind of sermon delivery.  I make small segments, and I think about what I'm filming as I deliver the words and what images would go well with those words.  It's an interesting exercise in creativity that I don't get to experience often.

For today, I created a video sermon that considers Simon Peter's mother-in-law.  You may or may not remember that she is healed by Jesus, and then gets up to serve everyone.  My first and more traditional response is to see her as an oppressed woman.  But since I spent much of the week thinking about her, this thought bubbled up:  what if she's a wise elder, teaching Jesus, showing him a new direction for ministry?  Here's that video segment.

To see the whole sermon, go here.

Farewell Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh died yesterday.  Dave Bonta made this interesting observation on Facebook:  "Centuries from now, when the French and US wars in Indochina merit little more than a footnote in history textbooks, Thich Nhat Hanh will be remembered as one of the great teachers of the 20th century."

Many people who are posting tributes to him today are commenting on his practice of mindfulness, a skill most of us sorely need.  For my certificate in spiritual direction program, we read his book Silence, which was one of the better books of the program.  As I recall, it's a book that explores all the inner voices that can make us miserable.  Hanh says, “If you’re like most people, you probably have a notion that there’s some as yet unrealized condition that has to be attained before you can be happy” (p. 71). He goes on to talk about analyzing where we got these ideas of happiness and what would make us happy—and more importantly he goes on to talk about how we need to let go of those ideas of what would make us happy and just focus on what we have in our life, focus on what’s there.

I realize how I approach so much of my life as a giant self-improvement project, a self-improvement project that I’m failing all the time. What a relief it would be to let go of that and just focus on what is.  I imagine that many of us would find it a relief.

In this book, Hanh reminds us again and again that there are many kinds of non-silence, and a meditative mindset is the only way to silence. That doesn’t mean we never talk or that we never go online. It means that if we’re eating, we’re eating and focused on truly experiencing the food and the sensations of eating. If we want to talk, we focus on that. We don’t walk and think. We walk and focus on the sensations of walking, along with noticing and appreciating our surroundings.

For people who feel that all of this silence can slip into a solipsistic mindset, Hanh reminds us :  “Your thoughts can make you and the world around you suffer more or suffer less” (p. 54).  Maybe we would be more mindful of our thoughts if we truly believed we could repair the world by doing so.

Of course, most of us have trouble mastering mindfulness even when the goal is simply to heal ourselves.  It's a spiritual practice that requires more of most of us.

But Hanh never stopped reminding us of how important it is.  And it's only one of the principles and commitments that he advocated.  Truly, one of our important spiritual minds is gone, at least in the human flesh format.

Younger Student, Older Student

We are almost at the one year anniversary of the day I discovered Wesley Theological Seminary's track on Theology and the Arts.  I spent much of the rest of that week-end exploring the school and the track, and I was so inspired by that week-end that I started all the processes that led me to being a seminary student.  

And last night, I started my first class in that track:  Speaking of God in a Secular Age.  We began by introducing ourselves, then we had an introductory lecture, and then our professor highlighted aspects of the syllabus to keep in mind.  Wow--we are in for quite an exploration!  We will be looking at language itself, and the limits of language as we try to describe the Divine.

I chose the class in part because it fit with my schedule, in part because my advisor recommended it, and in part because I really wanted a class in my specialty track.   It also seems like a class that will be a good fit with the virtual synchronous delivery format.  While I would love to take a class in Chapel Visuals, that seems like a better in person class (and it is being held in person, if the seminary shifts back to in person meetings this term).

This week, as I've written out my introductions for each class, I've reflected on my seminary journey thus far.  In August when I wrote my introductions, I talked about going to the University of South Carolina for graduate work, but I didn't say that I earned a Ph.D.  I left that out for a variety of reasons: because I didn't want to brag and because I didn't want to sound pretentious and because I didn't want anyone else to feel intimidated (go ahead and laugh, but I really did think about that) and because when people find out I'm an English major, they often comment about how they better watch their grammar around me.

But as I made my way through my first term in seminary, I have realized how many students are here after earning a different set of advanced degrees and having had at least one non-pastor career.  At least two of my fellow students have Ph.D.s in Linguistics, and many of them have advanced degrees in some variation of Psychology.  Many of us are coming from education fields, which are likely pastor adjacent for most of us, meaning that we are living our faith in similar ways as a teacher as we would as a pastor.

Part way through last term, I thought about the older students I had met in my grad work in English.  Most of my fellow grad students were my age, in our 20's, most of us fresh out of undergraduate school.  But there were a few who were older.  I think of one woman, we'll call her LH, who returned to grad school after she had done the bulk of the work of raising her children; she seemed easy going and full of wisdom.  When my spouse got his first motorcycle, one of my friends hopped on, but said he couldn't actually operate it because he had hand injuries; come to find out, he was a Vietnam era vet, who had gotten injured as he trained to go to Vietnam in 1975, back when I was in 5th grade.  He is the reason I understand the difference between a Vietnam vet and a Vietnam era vet.  

As I think about my years at USC, I wonder how many of my fellow students were older, but they just didn't let the rest of us know.  I think of a creative writing guy who seemed young because of the age of the women he pursued, but come to find out, he was in his 40's or maybe older.

I thought of my USC grad school years again last night during the first class lecture, which covered ideas about language that I once might have found intimidating and baffling.  Now, even though I'm aware of all that I don't know during a lecture like that one, I have faith that I will figure it out.  When I was in my 20's, I didn't have that faith while at the same time feeling that I should already know what I didn't know, which would have made me feel even more insecure.

While I miss some aspects of my 20's, like my ability to run long distances on non-arthritic feet, I feel lucky to be able to see this time of my life, my mid-50's, when I feel secure in my intellectual abilities and mostly secure in my emotional abilities (more prone to anxiety than I would like to be, but better able to soothe myself).

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, January 23, 2022:

First Reading: Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Psalm: Psalm 19

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Gospel: Luke 4:14-21

In this reading from Luke, we see Jesus in one of his early public appearances, reading in the Temple. The passage that Jesus reads from Isaiah gives us an idea of what God has in mind for us and our mission in the world: preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, set the oppressed free, give the blind their sight. In the years that follow, in the chapters of the Gospel to come, we see Jesus doing exactly what he said he would do.

We might be tempted to say: "Sure that was fine for Christ, but he was part God." The next part of this sentence is usually one designed to let us off the hook: so, therefore, I don't have to do what Jesus did (feed the hungry, visit the sick, work for the rights of the oppressed); after all, I'm only human.

Jesus was human too, and therefore, anything he did, we could do. In fact, some theologians posit that Jesus came to show us how to live God's vision for us right here on earth, in our own communities.

Interesting to think about church communities and individual Christians. How are we living out Christ's mission? Notice that Jesus doesn't say, "I came to show you how to model your church/synod/denomination according to modern business practices so that you can build up your endowment." Jesus doesn't say, "I came to give you this cool prayer--if you pray it three times a day, you'll get rich." Jesus does not say, "I came so that you might know to meet in a building once a week." Jesus doesn't say, "I came to revamp your worship service with music/media/atmosphere that's more accessible to the modern seeker mentality." Jesus has a very different agenda than the ones that modern people might want him to have.

As we will see in the coming weeks, Jesus focuses on community. Not just once a week, meet for an hour community, but a deep, committed group of people. He works with the people he meets, people like you and me, people who are far from perfect. He works where he is, in a distant outpost of a powerful empire. He doesn't say, "Well, I better move to Rome, because that's where the rich and the powerful people are, and they know how to get things done." He looks around, sees what needs to be done, and does it.

And it's important to realize that he does his work at great risk to himself. Empires realize that their future is threatened by communities that are deeply committed to the vision of God. They'd rather have us spend our hard-earned money--and work ever longer hours to get more money--on cheap junk made by oppressed people on the other side of the planet.

In the first weeks of this new year, it's a good time to think about how we might make this year different. How can we be part of the work that makes the scripture be fulfilled?

Hello Anxiety, My Constant and Different Friend

Today is my first day of my second semester of seminary classes.  Last week, when I was cleaning out a pile of papers at my desk at school, I found a note that I had written in August, a note on a to do list that said, "Please let me be able to do all of this, plus seminary classes."  Happily, I was able to do it all. 

I feel similar anxieties today.  And yet, they are also different.  Since time is short, let me write about my anxieties, in the hopes of banishing them.  Tomorrow, I will write a more upbeat post about what I'm studying.

Back in August, I was still expecting to be losing my job at some point, although there was talk of keeping the Hollywood campus open.  I didn't feel particularly anxious about my ability to do my job, or about my job interfering with seminary.

Today, my campus is under construction, which produces its own anxieties.  At some point, my job duties expand, and I can't decide whether or not they will require significantly more time.  There will be more people on campus, another feature which makes my anxieties bloom.

Back in August, I had some fear of not being able to do the work.  Now, having done the work for one term, I don't feel those same anxieties.  But I am taking one additional class, so there will be more to do.

Back in August, I worried about the pandemic and all the ways it might interfere.  Then and now, I'm taking classes remotely, so there's some safety.  But if I get a case that lingers, I do worry about what that will do to my progress.

Back in August, we hadn't yet put the house on the market, although we had hoped to put it on the market in early August.  We spend all of fall semester hoping that we were close to selling it.  Today, we still have that hope.  We signed our share of the paperwork yesterday, and hopefully we will finish this process in the next few days.

Well, let me start the work of the term.  Let me write go write my self-introduction for my seminary class Discussion Board threads--the term begins!

Saint Peter's Confession and Ours

On January 18, we celebrate the confession of Peter, a lesser feast day in many traditions. Peter also plays a part in several other feast days, but here we celebrate one act. If you want to refresh your memory, turn to Matthew 16:13-19. We so rarely have a feast day that celebrates one event in a life that it’s worth considering why it’s so important.

Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?”

Peter is the one who replies, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.” Peter recognizes Jesus as the one for whom they’ve been waiting.

But why, of all of the moments in Peter’s life, is this one so important that it gets its own feast day?

The standard answer might be that the Church gets its start here. We might throw in some discussion of apostolic succession that is so firmly rooted in this confession. And indeed, these facts might be why the early church decided to devote a feast day to this event. These facts alone might make the church historians happy. But it may puzzle the rest of us.

What does Peter’s confessions mean for us, the believers living so many centuries after the event?

I’m keenly aware that this confessing Simon Peter is the same one who will deny Jesus not many chapters later in Matthew. This feast day is a good one to do some self-assessment. In what ways do we let the world know that Christ is the Messiah? In what ways do we deny Christ?

How could Peter be so sure that Jesus was the Messiah? By the way Christ behaves. How do we travel through the world? Do our travels bear witness to God’s Good News or does our life in the world undercut the Good News?

On this day that celebrates Peter’s confession, let’s look at our attitudes. Are we gloomy people? Or do we bring brightness into the world? Do we focus on the bad news that comes our way? Or do we trust in God’s goodness? Do we live in a fear-based economy or a world drenched in love and generosity?

How do we treat others? Or think of it this way. You may be the only Christian that many people ever meet. What assumptions about Christians will people make based on the way that you behave? Obviously, a mean-spirited Christian isn’t going to make people want to know more about this Savior we call Jesus.

We might look at our finances. What are our priorities? We can tell, and the world can tell, by the way we spend our money. Are we giving enough to the poor and the dispossessed? Do we help fund social justice to the same extent that we fund our retirement accounts?

Many good Lutherans I know would recoil at this idea that our actions are important. They might remind us that we’re completely unable to save ourselves and that God’s grace is the only way to redemption.

True, but we need to consider our post-redemption lives. God saves us, but not so that we can sit on the sofa and feel satisfied. God saves us so that we can help with the ongoing resurrection of creation.

We might think of confession in an old-fashioned way, that we go around witnessing to people about how much we love Jesus. But a much more compelling confession is the way we live our lives. We don’t want stranger to say, “Ugh. One of those Christian types. I can’t stand those people precisely because of that way that behavior.” We want bystanders to say, “What’s her secret?”

It’s no secret; it’s simply Good News that’s several centuries old. Let our very lives sing out in praise of the Messiah. Let our path be a living confession of which the Church will be proud for the next two thousand years.

Remembering to Continue to Arc Towards Justice

 It is strange to be one of the few people I know who is working in an office on this Martin Luther King day holiday, an office in a school no less.  In the past at the school where I currently work, we haven't had classes, but full-time people still had to work.  Today, under new ownership, we have classes.

Most of our programs require a certain amount of hours practicing skills, so if we didn't come to campus today, we'd need to make up the time somewhere else.  But we could do that.

I wish I could tell you that I'm one of those citizens who celebrated the federal MLK holiday with a day of service, back when I worked for schools that observed that holiday.  But usually on that Monday, I treated it as a day off.

I wish we looked to this holiday as a day to dream even bigger than service projects, to dream the way that Martin Luther King dreamed.  Like King,we could change our society. We could make it better, bending towards justice. What would that society look like?

We have to dream that dream before we can achieve it. We have to find the courage to hold tightly to our visions. We have to face down all the fire hoses, both those of our minds which inform us of the impossibility of our dreams and those of our society, that tells us to move more slowly.

But first we have to dream. Dream boldly, today of all days.

And we have to be patient and realistic. We have to realize that the work that we do may not yield results right away--perhaps not in our lifetimes. Years ago, this episode of On Being featured an interview with John Lewis, an old Civil Rights worker and a member of Congress. He ends the interview this way: "Well, I think about it, but you have to believe there may be setbacks, there may be some disappointments, there may be some interruption. But, again, you have to take the long, hard look. With this belief, it's going to be OK; it's going to work out. If it failed to happen during your lifetime, then maybe, not maybe, but it would happen in somebody's lifetime. But you must do all that you can do while you occupy this space during your time. And sometime I feel that I'm not doing enough to try to inspire another generation of people to find a way to get in the way, to make trouble, good trouble. I just make a little noise."

Today is a good day to think about how to make that noise--and to think about the next generation. History will bend in some direction: how can we help it arc towards justice?

Lenny Duncan's Words of Institution and Prayer

Yesterday I came across this Facebook post made by Lenny Duncan.  I loved the poetic version that he created for the part of the liturgy where the eucharistic elements are consecrated and prayers offered. I wanted both to preserve it for myself and to offer it to others.

Lenny Duncan's post:

"Every year I get asked to preach somewhere on this weekend. If they are Lutheran, and I am presiding at the table, this is the version of the of what I use as words of adoration, institution, etc every year based on an ELW setting. I change them slightly every year. Please use freely:

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,

you have brought us this far along the way.

In times of bitterness you do not abandon us,

but guided us into the path of love and light.

In every age you sent prophets

to make known your loving will for all humanity, like the Rev. Dr King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, bell hooks, and the millions who responded to the cry of George Floyd for his mama:

The cry of the poor and the oppressed has become your own cry;

our hunger and thirst for justice is your own desire.

In the fullness of time, you sent your chosen servant

to preach good news to the afflicted,

to break bread with the outcast and despised,

and to ransom those in bondage to white supremacy and sin.

In the night in which he was betrayed,

our friend and protector Jesus took bread, and gave thanks;

broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying:

Take and eat; this is my brown body, given for you.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

Again, after supper, he took the cup, gave thanks,

and gave it for all to drink, saying:

This cup is the new covenant in my brown blood,

shed for you and all people for the forgiveness of sin.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

For as often as we eat of this bread and drink from this cup

we proclaim the Rebel's death until he comes.

Christ has died.

Christ is risen.

Christ will come again.

Remembering, therefore, his death and resurrection,

we await the day when Jesus shall return

to free all the earth from the bonds of slavery and death.

Come, power of Jesus! And let the church say, Amen

Amen.

Send your Holy Spirit, our advocate,

to fill the hearts of all who share this bread and cup ( for online: for those who have bread and cup today)

with courage and wisdom to pursue love and justice in all the world.

Come, Spirit of freedom! And let the church say, Amen

Amen.

Join our prayers and praise with your prophets, rebels, oddballs, poor, displaced, and martyrs of every age, that, rejoicing in the hope of the resurrection,

we might live in the freedom and hope of your Son.

Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Holy Parent, now and forever.

Amen.

Meditation for Racial Reconciliation Sunday

My church will celebrate Racial Reconciliation Sunday tomorrow.  Here's a meditation I wrote for our church newsletter:

On a Sunday devoted to racial reconciliation, it's wise to take a very wide view and to remember that racial reconciliation isn't just about U.S. slavery and its impacts. We live in a world surrounded by the consequences of the disastrous impacts of colonial incursions and conquests. We live in a world that both celebrates history, but often doesn’t learn the harder lessons of history. We live in a world of strange juxtapositions.

Recently, I wrote an essay for my Old Testament class, an essay that looked at the arrival of Israelites to the Promised Land and their interactions with people who already lived there, like Rahab, the prostitute. I worked on this paper in the week before Thanksgiving, a holiday that celebrates the arrival and survival of Europeans in North America. Some see this history as ordained by God while others see as an indigenous genocide. During my Thanksgiving travels, the verdicts of two court cases came back, with one defendant (Kyle Rittenhouse) found innocent of murder during racial unrest and three white defendants who killed Ahmaud Arbery, an African-American jogger, found guilty. These cases that show that our culture still suffers from the aftermath of this colonial conquest that divided the world into insiders and outsiders. These cases show that when we classify the world by way of who belongs and who is outsider, people end up dead. Sadly, it’s a lesson that humanity needs to learn over and over again, as cultures can’t seem to leave behind or heal from the damage that colonialization does.

Some people would argue that the ancient story of Rahab has nothing to do with us in the 21st century. It’s easy to feel that way if we feel like we’re part of the group who controls the story and the resources.
I was reminded of the cyclical nature of these societal conflicts when my Thanksgiving travels took me to the State House grounds of Columbia, South Carolina, grounds which include a statue honoring the women of the Confederacy. Decades ago, when I was in graduate school at the nearby University of South Carolina, I would walk to the State House to visit this monument. Even as I understood the disasters that came from centuries of slavery and the time after the Civil War, I found the statue moving as I contemplated women in wartime helping their communities survive. Courage restored, I would go back to my graduate studies, a setting that wasn’t always welcoming to women.

In much the same way as Confederate women during the Civil War, Rahab is a hero, saving her family and making a way where no way seems to exist, while at the same time, she’s problematic. Like Confederate white women, Rahab enables genocide. How do we process these facts?

As we consider many of the people in the Bible, and people from more recent history, we see a similar mixture of heroic and lesser attributes mingled in one person. We see how in the best of circumstances, that mix can set a people free. In other narratives, we might see a cautionary tale. And since we’re still in need of both inspiration and caution, these story still have value to all of us today as we resist modern powers of colonialization and try to heal the wounds caused by past conquests.

Dream Jobs in a Different Category

 A few days ago, I saw a job posting for Dean of Chapel at Berea College, and I can't stop thinking about it.  I won't apply because I'm not qualified.  It requires an MDiv degree, "Traditional ministerial/chaplaincy credentials (ordination, etc.)," and 10 years of chaplaincy experience.  I do have teaching and higher ed administration experience, which some candidates might not have, but that's not enough to make up for not having the MDiv degree and ordination.

Although I did cherish my time in campus ministry as a college student, I haven't really thought of myself as the best candidate for campus student ministry, so why am I intrigued by this posting?  It might be these parts of the job:

"Provides leadership in the planning of ecumenical worship, convocations, and other special services

Builds relationships with religious professionals assigned to the campus (Intervarsity, FCA, Newman Club, etc.), and together with the President, serves as liaison with local pastors and churches

Regularly offers sermons/homilies/messages during weekly noon worship services and other events on and off-campus

Oversees the daily administration of the Center and its programs, and provides supervision, support and guidance to CCC staff members in their specific roles and areas of focus

Teaches 1-2 courses a year in the area of academic expertise and/or General Studies"

Or is the appeal of this job the fact that it's at Berea College?  I have always found that college so inspiring.  It would be so great to be part of a school like that.

As I think about my trajectory over the past 10-15 years, I remember the times that I wished that I was teaching at a school with a religious focus, so that I could talk about some aspects of faith and literature and regular life without feeling like I need to censor myself.  So it makes sense that this job would appeal.

I also like the idea of developing special kinds of opportunities for students, the kinds of stuff I would do for retreats.  In the pre-pandemic times, that was one of my favorite parts of my job, creating decorate a pumpkin tables and a vision board drop in station.

In some ways, it's a moot point, so you might wonder why I am writing about this at all.  I want to remember the wide range of jobs that are out there.  I often get fixated on a certain type of job, and I forget that there could be other possibilities.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, January 16, 2022:

First Reading: Isaiah 62:1-5

Psalm: Psalm 36:5-10

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Gospel: John 2:1-11


Today's Gospel presents the first miracle of Jesus, the turning of water into wine at a wedding. No doubt that some preachers across the country will take this opportunity to talk about weddings and the sanctity of marriage; they'll see the participation of Jesus as his sanction of this institution. Perhaps others will talk about miracles, while others talk about the proper way to treat one's mother.

I'm less interested in the marriage issue than in the miracle issue. In this Gospel, Jesus resists his mother's urging to help out with the wine. Why does he do that? Does he have a splashier miracle in mind as his announcement that he's arrived? Is it the typical rebellion of the child against the parent?

And then, why does Jesus change his mind?

You might make the argument that Jesus shouldn't care about whether or not the wedding guests had wine. You might argue it's a trivial miracle. But scholars would remind us that to run out of wine at a wedding would be a serious breach of hospitality. The whole extended family would suffer great embarrassment and shame—and there might be rippling effects through a community with strict codes that modern readers can scarcely imagine.

At a Create in Me retreat at Lutheridge, Bishop Gordy, who was then head of the Southeast Synod of the ELCA, led a fascinating study of this text. He sees the this first miracle as showing us that Jesus was not so focused on his own agenda that he couldn’t act on the need for compassion for this couple who is about to experience great humiliation.

Bishop Gordy also pointed us to the abundance in this miracle. Just like the loaves and fishes miracle, Jesus provides more than humans can use—not just enough for the given situation. The wine doesn’t run out. Indeed, they have wine left at the end of the wedding feast.

And it’s good wine. God doesn’t just give out leftovers and lesser quality. We’re the ones who operate out of a scarcity consciousness. The miracles of Jesus, particularly in John’s Gospel, remind us that not only will there be enough, there will be great abundance.

What does Jesus need for this miracle? Water and jars. What could be simpler? Gail O’Day notes that the jars were used for purification. The old forms aren’t destroyed, just filled with newness and new purpose.  Bishop Megan Rohrer says, "The jars used when turning water into wine were used for purification. Once there was wine in them they could no longer be used for that purpose. Christians are not called to purity, we are called to taste and see that God is good."

We often hesitate to ask God for what we truly need and want. We’re afraid of rejection. We’re afraid that the task is too hard. The miracle stories remind us that God can use the materials at hand to give us more abundance than we can use.

Perhaps this could be the year that we rid ourselves of our scarcity thinking. We worship a God of abundance and great giving. Rejoice in this good news.

The Despairs of Mid-January

 I was going to write a cheery "What I Read on My Winter Break" kind of post, but I am feeling a bit of despair this morning.  Let me try to write my way out of it, or at least write my way into making sense of my despair.

I am also feeling a bit of guilt, because I feel like the things causing me despair aren't life shattering, the way a death would be.  But let me get it on the electronic page, for the good of my mental health.  In future years, I'll be happy that I recorded my life with some degree of honesty.

--The main thing causing me despair is that it looks like another contract on our historic house that we are trying to sell has fallen through.  It is a very strange housing market in South Florida.  The presence of so many investors means that it's a hot market.  But it also means that buyers aren't afraid to change their minds or make demands that will make sellers change their minds.  Ugh.

--I remind myself that we've only had the house on the market a total of 2 weeks.  We get an offer, the house is tied up for 4-6 weeks, the deal falls apart, we list it as for sale again, we get a few offers 24 hours later, and the cycle begins again.  Ugh.

--We are lucky, in that we have resources.  We are not desperate.  I do begin to understand why houses in our neighborhood go on the market and then later sell for so much lower than what it seems they should be worth.  It's exhausting, and I see why sellers might settle for a much lower price, rather than face the process again and again.

--I am also feeling despair about the state of the pandemic.  Here, too, I realize I'm fortunate.  I can limit my exposure to other people.  I am vaccinated and boosted.  I have masks.  In the commuter student seminary student housing, I saw an old poster that listed the COVID symptoms, and once again, I realized how futile it seems to know if we might have symptoms or allergies or psychosomatic aches or stress.  Not a day goes by when I don't feel sniffly or headachy or sore throaty.  Even if I could get rapid tests, it doesn't make sense to use them each time I feel this way.

--Part of what's making me feel headachy is the construction at work.  That's also making me feel despair.  I worry that all that made our campus cozy and welcoming is being destroyed.  There's not a thing I can do about it, but try to keep everyone's spirits up.

--I suspect that another underlying part of my despair is post holiday despair.  I've spent the last 8 weeks seeing family and friends in person, which I don't get to do very often these days.  We've had better food, twinkly lights, time to read, time for conversation.  I've used up every scrap of vacation time that I have, and now I need to accrue more.  And in my current job, I will never be able to accrue the amount that I need.

--I hear the voice of my spiritual director asking, "How are you praying about this?"  Let me remember to pray about all of this, the despair and disappointment, the dreams for the future, the restlessness of my soul.

Commissioned and Back from the Last Onground Intensive

 I am sitting here at my grandfather's desk, trying to pull all my bits and pieces together before heading into my work office, and my later in the morning trip to the lawyer's office to sign closing documents.  I would likely feel a bit discombobulated anyway, but having a closing today does add to the sense of whiplash.  Let me try to ground myself by writing.

It is strange to think that a week ago, I had just taken my parents to the airport, which was more hectic than I had ever seen it from the drop off vantage.  My parents managed to get home to the Richmond airport and then over the snowy roads to Williamsburg.  It is strange to think that two weeks ago, our Marco Island time together was just beginning.

As I sat in the chapel of the seminary on Saturday, I thought about how 2 years ago, my church blessed me and anointed me with water from the Holy Land before I started my certificate program.  I thought about sitting in the chapel at the commissioning service feeling happy at the thought that I would be returning to seminary three more times before my own commissioning service in June of 2021.  And then the pandemic descended and one onground intensive was canceled, and I only just returned to the seminary campus in January of 2022.

My own commissioning service on Saturday was different from the one in 2020, and vastly different from the one in January of 2021, which was done by way of Zoom.  For my commissioning service, those of us being commissioned came to the baptismal font:

Here's a longer view of that space:

We stood between the font and the iron ropes.  The leaders of the program gathered behind us, and they said words of blessing over us.  I hope to get a copy of the words, so that I can savor them more fully, since I can scarcely remember them today.  We did not get anointed with oil, so that the Zoom experience and the in-person experience would be similar.  That was fine with me; I am happy to be anointed with words.

All too soon it was over, and we all went out into the Saturday sunlight and drove away.  I drove to my grad school friend's house.  We had a lovely lunch and talked about the future of higher education and housing issues.  Then I left her and went to another grad school friend's house.  We went for dinner to Motor Supply Company, a restaurant that was one of the first to open in the Vista district, back before it was the revitalized strip that it is today.  We have been eating there for decades, dating back to when it first opened and seemed so upscale, so glamorous, such a great use of a space that had once been a mill or a warehouse.  It still is.

I spent much of yesterday driving home.  The trip back almost always seems zippy at first, as the states fall away, but then there's the long slog down the peninsula of Florida.  You would think that a long drive would give me time to process all these changes and to think about the future, but that is not my experience.  

And now it's back into the intensity of "normal life," along with campus renovations.  At least my seminary classes haven't started yet.  There's still time for a bit of regrouping before "regular life" becomes even more intense.

Second Day of the 2022 Onground Intensive, with Icons

 I am tired this morning--this morning, it's a mix of the bad tired of not getting enough sleep in a bed that's not my own mixed with the good tired that comes from getting modules completed and staying up late to have good conversations with a Create in Me friend.  So let me try to capture the second full day of the intensive.

I tried to tell myself that it's called an intensive, not a relaxive, but I did feel myself racing from place to place yesterday.  We had a morning learning session on Native American spiritual practices.  I didn't learn a lot that was brand new, but it was interesting to hear it presented in the form of story and Native flute.

And for those of us reeling from the latest pandemic developments, here's an interesting note:  because they were suffering an outbreak of smallpox, the Catawba tribe was not relocated to Georgia with the rest of the South Carolina tribes.  Because they were not relocated to Georgia, they were spared from the trauma of the Trail of Tears and from being relocated even further west.

We had two small group sessions, and in between, I enjoyed a post-lunch walk with my spouse's brother.  I wasn't expecting him to be on campus because seminary students don't return until later in January, but he had to return to work on his externship--a happy surprise.  It was good to catch up.  I'm not sure we've ever had one-on-one time.  I usually see him when there are gobs of family members around.

The highlight of yesterday was the trip to the Greek Orthodox cathedral:

It was actually 2 cathedrals.  We started out in the smaller, older one.  

We got an information session about spiritual direction in the Greek Orthodox tradition, and then we went to the new cathedral that was finished in 2015.  We got an information session about the tradition of icons and about the specific icons in the cathedral.

This icon of Jesus is in the main dome, seven stories from the floor.  The distance from one tip of his nose to the other tip is 15 feet, although it doesn't look that big from the ground.

He is depicted as having no lower body, because the church filled with believers makes up the lower body.

There's a lot of information about the cathedral and all of the icons here.  My favorite piece of information that's not included is that the iconographer met with the Sunday school students to find out what specific animals they wanted him to include in his depiction of the creation story:

I was surprised that there weren't any dinosaurs: 

Two years ago when I first started this program, I heard about this field trip, and I am so glad that I finally got to go and see for myself.  It was one of the parts of the intensive that I was most looking forward to.

We returned to campus for dinner and Compline service.  Even though we were all tired after Compline, a group of us came to our on campus ramshackle house and enjoyed some treats and wine--and most of all, some good conversation.

In a few hours, there will be a commissioning service, and I will be a certified spiritual director.  Tomorrow I will drive home, and hopefully on Monday we will sell our house in the historic district.  Then I will get ready for seminary classes.

Let me focus on staying present to today's delights.  Let me not get overwhelmed by what is coming in the rest of January.

First Full Day of the 2022 Onground Intensive

 As I moved through the first full day of the onground intensive, the one that will leave me a certified spiritual director, I had to remind myself several times that it's called an "intensive," not a restful retreat, not a reconnect with every old friend you've ever had week, not an explore Columbia voyage.  We went at an intense pace yesterday, and today we won't have the afternoon break that we had yesterday.  But I am looking forward to exploring icons in a Greek Orthodox church this afternoon, so hopefully, we won't need a break.  

During yesterday's break, we went to the Fresh Market to buy wine and treats.  By the end of the evening, we were too exhausted to set out the treats.  But it was the good kind of exhaustion, the kind that comes from being fully engaged.

I began the intensive in the chapel.  I had volunteered to help with the morning service, and I wrote some Epiphany prayers (for more, go to this blog post and scroll to the end).  The other volunteer whispered, "Beautiful prayers" when I was finished, and that made me so happy.

The day was filled with a mix of educational sessions and small group work.  I've had the same small group for 2 years, and I feel fortunate that I like them so much.  This program would be impossible if one didn't like one's small group, or if a small group had a divisive person in it.

Yesterday's educational sessions addressed the history of spiritual direction in the Roman Catholic and Anglican/Episcopalian traditions (morning session), and in the afternoon, we explored the history of spiritual direction in the Protestant tradition.  They were good sessions, very informative, almost overwhelming at times.  I didn't know about John Wesley's mother Susannah, who had 10 children who lived and who ran the family home like a monastery of sorts, thus giving John Wesley some of his most inspired ideas about how to live in Christian community.  I must remember to read more about this remarkable woman.

Along the way, I made this sketch, and a haiku to go along with it:

I created it after hearing/reading the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew several times throughout the day and a session of lectio divina; here are the words to the haiku:

Take another road
Become overwhelmed with joy
The true treasure chest

In the evening, after a wonderful dinner, we heard from Axiom Farms, the ones who prepared our meal.  They have all sorts of initiatives to reach out to underserved, minority populations, to bring them healthier food and information about how to grow one's food and most importantly, to inspire people to have hope.  They have created a garden on the grounds of the seminary.  There's plenty of room--the seminary sits back from the road, and between the buildings and the road is a huge expanse of lawn.  The partnership with the seminary made me want to change all my plans--and do what, exactly?  Come to this seminary?  Buy a plot of land and farm it?  Give them money to support their work?  Yes, to all of those.  I'm not likely to act on any of them, at least not this month, but it was good to feel that hope for the future myself, even if I'm not the target audience for Axiom Farms.

We adjourned to the courtyard for our evening worship.  There's a Native American group that we'll learn more about today who came last night.  They had a smudging ceremony in the courtyard.  We each stepped forward to be smudged with sage that smoked in what looked like a giant shell.  The elders swirled the smoke around us with big feathers.

I wish I could have heard better.  At first I thought the same words were repeated with everyone, but as I watched, I realized that wasn't true.  I was second to be smudged.  The female elder of the tribe said, "Oh, such strong shoulders" as she touched them with the feather.  She said, "And a good heart."  I'm not sure of the rest, although at one point, she did say, "We're getting rid of all negativity."

Later she told me that there are 4 types of smudging smoke:  tobacco, sage, sweetgrass, and cedar.  I wonder if those smudging ceremonies are different.

The one we experienced last night was very powerful.  Many of us cried a bit, and a few of us were deeply shaken, and I'm not sure whether it was in a good way or a bad way.  Once again, I was reminded of how cerebral most of our mainline Protestant worship services are, and how it might be much more powerful/effective to do more embodied practices.

We then went into Alumni Hall for a drum circle, which is different from many drum circles.  There was a big, round drum in the center of the room with 6 people around it.  Their drum sticks looked like they had big cotton swabs on the end.  Around this drum circle, we sat in chairs that were much too close to each other, but this room is the largest on campus.

It was interesting to be in a room of Native Americans, after hearing from African Americans, all of whom were trying to reclaim cultures and practices that can heal both people and land.

We learned that some hymns, like "Spirit of the Living God" and "Amazing Grace," can be sung to Native melodies played on the Native wind instrument which I think is called a flute but looks more like a recorder.  We learned some Native phrases so that we could sing refrains to other songs and chants.  For one song, two women did a bit of a dance between the drum circle and our seated circle.  It was a meaningful experience, but nothing can compare to the smudging ceremony.  

It makes me want to create/recover similar ceremonies that draw from Protestant traditions.  I'm aware of the dangers of appropriating the culture of others, but I'm also certain that Christian communities have done something similar with incense and thuribles, so I don't think I'd be in the dangers appropriation territory.

I am ready to see what today brings.  I am so glad that I decided to attend in person.  In fact, knowing that we would experience the Native American version of Christian worship and that we would be going to a Greek Orthodox church to see icons in their home setting--those were two main reasons that convinced me that in person would be better for me than remote.

And if anyone asks if these experiences would be worth it, even if I get sick, I would say that yes, barring long COVID, it has been worth it.

Epiphany Stars and Prayers

Yesterday, I decided that I needed to change my cover photo on Facebook; my old one had Christmas themes.  I had Epiphany on the brain, or more specifically Epiphany Eve.  I hadn't snapped a picture that would have been good for Epiphany on Christmas Eve, so I looked back through my trove of pictures.  I chose this one from an Epiphany star project that I did for a church a few years ago; I chose this one because of the twinkly lights:

When I chose this picture yesterday, I couldn't see the words on the star.  I feel like I've gotten an important message.  Of course, back in 2017 when I took this picture, I also felt like I was getting an important message.  I don't think it bothers me that the message hasn't changed.  I am pondering saying yes to a whole different set of questions five years later.

I was prompted to change my Facebook photo after reading my e-mails.  Our director of the spiritual director certificate program wrote us an e-mail to let us know that the seminary campus was without electricity, and how she was trying not to lose heart:

"In my prayer this morning, I reflected on John 1, in which Jesus asks the disciples to 'come and see.' This is the invitation—to 'come and see' how God is at work when plans fall apart, when we have no power and all is dark, when we have to adapt, and adapt, and adapt again, when a pandemic continues wrecking griefs of all kinds. . . when the light of Epiphany seems dim. Jesus says, 'come and see.'”

She concluded this way:  "Maybe we will be the light of Epiphany for each other tomorrow. Let’s 'come and see.'”

I wrote her a supportive e-mail:

"Just wanted to write a quick note to tell you that I love the pastoral spirit of this e-mail, that I am bolstered by your words of good cheer in the face of adversity, that I love the reminder that God invites us to come and see what God is up to in this world of wreck and ruin--and that new creation comes in the midst of wreck and ruin. Our beloved community will rise to this occasion."

We ended up having our afternoon session at Columbia College, dinner back at the seminary campus, and our evening worship service in the muted beauty of the seminary chapel.  I loved hearing the magnificent organ and seeing the candles flicker.  I loved the sermon, which referenced Archbishop Tutu and reminded us of the importance of being Christ in the world the way that Tutu was.

This morning, I will assist with the morning service.  I will offer some prayers of intercession.  Let me finish this post by jotting down some possibilities:

For those of us who need help understanding the signs that they see, let us pray:

For those of us who search for new leadership and new directions, let us pray:

For those of us who lose control of our fears and insecurities, let us pray:

For those of us finding that we need to take a new road, let us pray:

For those of us who need a new dream, let us pray:

For all of us, we pray.

Help us to bring the message of God's love to the world, whether our approach is more like the angel choirs or the steady light of a distant star.  Help us to be the star, shining a message of God's love to the world.  Give us the courage to follow our visions.

Traveling to the Last Onground Intensive

 If it was this time yesterday, I would have been on the road for two hours.  I got up, brewed some coffee for the thermoses, and headed north to Columbia, South Carolina for the last onground intensive for my certificate in spiritual direction.  By Saturday afternoon, I will be a certified spiritual director.  Two weeks from today, my next round of seminary classes start.

As I drove, I reflected on the past 2 years.  As I've made my way through this program, it's become clear to me that seminary was really what I wanted to do.  I have liked the certificate program well enough, but the way that many people approach the practice of spiritual direction is a little too close to therapy for me.  I am not trained to do that.

I had a fairly easy trip up I95 and I26.  Along the way, I listened to NPR, with stories of rising COVID rates and the snowstorm that shut down part of I95 in Virginia.  I listened to analysts looking back to the storming of the Capitol on January 6.  I thought about my trip two years ago to the first onground intensive and how much has changed since then. 

As I drove through South Carolina, I saw an unusual amount of downed trees, and I got to the campus of Southern Seminary (LTSS) to discover that power was out on the campus.  Happily, the commuter house where I'm staying still has power, water, and wi-fi.  I'm not sure what will happen as the week progresses if the power isn't restored.

I am guessing that we will move to an alternate site, which will make this strange intensive even stranger.  It was always going to be strange, as this new, more contagious variant has made more people decide to do the intensive remotely.  Half of my small group will be attending by Zoom.

I did think about whether or not it was wise to be attending in person.  But I really yearned to be at the seminary campus, even though it will be a different experience than last time--perhaps it will be even more different than I was expecting.

One of my Create in Me friends is also working on her certificate, so she came over the mountains yesterday.  In the late afternoon, we went to a really cool cloth shop (we're both quilters) and then to a Latin place for dinner.  We ordered the Latin Sampler for 2; it could easily have served 4 or 6 or 8, depending on appetites.  We have a kitchen in our commuter house, so we brought leftovers back.  Will we eat them?  Meals are part of this intensive, so I suspect that I will not.

After we returned, we had a long and satisfying conversation with our other housemate who had arrived while we were out; one more will arrive today.  We talked about how this certificate program had changed the trajectory of our lives.  We talked about backpacking and hiking.  We talked about health and the pandemic.  

Throughout the day, I keep thinking about how I had envisioned this January unrolling, back when I first realized my job would be ending in September or December, and so I applied for seminary.  Back then, the intensive was scheduled for MLK week-end, so I planned to go to the intensive and then to keep driving up to study in person at Wesley for the Spring 2022 term.  Much has changed since the planning that I did in the spring.

I want to do some writing while I'm here.  As is often the case, I'm astonished at how long it has been since I have written in my offline journal.  I need to start doing some deep thinking.  It is the day before the feast day of the Epiphany, after all.  I am ready for epiphanies (to which my epiphanies reply, "And we are ready for you to notice our steady light that has been trying to guide you)".

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, January 9, 2022:

First Reading: Isaiah 43:1-7

Psalm: Psalm 29

Second Reading: Acts 8:14-17

Gospel: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

In this season of New Year's resolutions, consider this question: How would your life changed if you believed that God loves you the way you are, right now, before you even make any changes to become a better person?

It's true. God's not waiting for you to become more spiritual before God claims you. Even if you never get to the point where you pray more often, where you give away more money, where you become that good and patient person you are sure you can be, God loves you, marks you, claims you, is deliriously happy with you.

You don't have to lose that twenty pounds for God to find you worthy. You can have a wrecked household budget, and God still loves you. God loves you even when you are crabby, grumpy, all those emotions we try so hard not to feel.  God loves you before you kick the addictions and in the midst of all your wrong choices.

During our long years through the nation's educational systems, most of us learn all the ways we are inadequate, and most of us never unlearn those lessons. Even as grown ups, often the focus (in pop culture, in our jobs, in our families, in churches even) is on our failings, on all the ways that we would measure up if we just did this thing or that thing or another thing.

And then we work hard on self-improvement, and we've still got those messages: well, great, now you can focus on changing this next enormous thing.

All this effort towards self-improvement can make us a bit self-absorbed, and we forget to work on some of the real and serious problems in the world. What would happen if we decided that God needs us to be the person that we are, right here, right now, without any changes? What if we declared ourselves to be good enough?

Try it for a week or two or three. Tape the words of God to your bathroom mirror: "You are my beloved son/daughter; with you I am well pleased." Act like you believe that God loves you. Silence those voices in your head that tell you otherwise. Cease that negative self talk. And minimize the amount of time you spend with people who don't value you.

We don't have time to waste with all negativity. God loves you before you ever make a self-improvement plan. In your baptism, God has already declared you perfect. Perhaps this year, instead of endless self-improvement plans, remember that God needs you just the way you are, without any changes, and God has a purpose that includes us, in all our imperfections.

Epiphany Sunday, Epiphany Week

Although the actual feast day is January 6, on January 2, many churches will observe Epiphany, the day when we celebrate the arrival of the magi from the East to see and bring gifts to the baby Jesus. We may or may not remember the rest of the story. This year, even more than other years, I am thinking of the murderous Herod. I am thinking of those travelers, those academics who studied the stars but not human behavior, who inadvertently set a crisis into motion. I am thinking of Herod, unbalanced Herod, so threatened that he killed all those children who might have grown up to be a threat to him.

Literalists may protest that there's no shred of evidence that this massacre actually happened. Surely history would have recorded this slaughter, this genocide. The story about Herod's murder of toddlers and babies may not be literally true, but it wouldn't be behavior that would be out of the realm of possibility for Herod.

Like many stories in the Bible, even if it isn't factually true, the story points to a larger truth.

But even if we don't think that Herod's story speaks to us, it offers a powerful testimony to the corrosive effects of power. We would be wise to think of our own power, our own feelings of inadequacy, how we attempt to control the elements of our lives or how we don't. We would be wise to think about how these stories play out on larger stages.

These past decades, many of us have had a closer look at the behavior of rulers who have felt threatened, and it's not a pretty sight. We see many people killed in the crossfire and killed by the fall out. We see lives diminished and potential stamped out.

We see the truth of that proverb that warns us that without imagination, the people will perish.

We would be wise to think about all the strangers who show up to tell us of a different way, a different paradigm.

We would be wise to keep our eyes trained to larger vistas. Sometimes the Good News comes in ways we can't ignore, like those angel choirs in the sky, but for some of us, the message is more subtle.

Now is also a good time to think about wisdom, about gifts, about staying alert and watchful. Let us not forget these important Advent and Christmas messages. Most of us have already bid good-bye to Christmas and returned to our every day lives. Today is a good day to take one last Epiphany moment, to recover our capacity for wonder, to delight in the miraculous, to look for the unexpected, and to rejoice in the amazing Good News of a God who loves us so much that the Divine One comes to live with us.