The Letters of Paul and Issues of Canon

My New Testament class has been studying the letters of Paul--week after week, on and on.  I haven't changed my mind about Paul; I still find his prose dense and inelegant and in need of specificity.  Paul was writing for specific churches dealing with specific problems, and frankly, most of his advice is not really applicable universally.  His letters are interesting to me historically, but I am still baffled at how much the Church has been shaped by these letters, especially in terms of how we police behavior--baffled and irritated.

It's especially irritating when I consider that Paul thought that Christ would be returning during his lifetime and during the lifetime of the readers of the letters.  He wasn't writing for people centuries later.  He wasn't trying to shape the future church.

In class on Tuesday night, we talked about issues of canonization--how did the New Testament come to exist?  I was cautious about my comments.  I know that some of my classmates are likely to have a very different view than mine.  I do not see the Bible as the inerrant word of God.  I believe that God can be revealed in the Bible, but I also believe that God can be revealed in nature.  I know that books were chosen, and I don't believe those choices were always pure.  Those people had other agendas.  I know that work got lost, and some of that work might have been a better choice.  I know that books that survived several centuries might have been rejected for a variety of reasons.

I am also aware of how hard it was to preserve words and ideas in the ancient world.  It is hard in our current time too, but hard in different ways.

On Tuesday night, our professor asked us what letters of Paul's seem worthy of preservation, and I had to say none of them, outside of historical interest.  I raised my hand and said that if I never had a chance to read Paul's letters ever again, I wouldn't be sad, the way I would if I couldn't access the Gospels, if I had to rely on memory.  The Jesus revealed in the Gospels is much more compelling than the Jesus revealed in any of the epistles.

And it's through Paul's letters that I see how the Church came to be a church that talks about personal sin, not societal sin.  I could make a case that it's through/because of Paul's letters that we have the substitutionary atonement theology, that Jesus was crucified because that was the only way to appease an angry God.  Those developments make me sad.

There's just not much in these letters that helps in my spiritual development.  I try to imagine the early church who found these letters so relevant that they went to the significant expense and time to copy them out for each other.  It's not something I would do.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, April 3, 2022:

First Reading: Isaiah 43:16-21

Psalm: Psalm 126

Second Reading: Philippians 3:4b-14

Gospel: John 12:1-8

I've always had some amount of trouble with this Gospel; I suspect it's because I would have been that disciple who said, "Just think what we could have done with the money that went to buy that expensive oil. Doesn't Jesus know the electric bill is due? We could have helped the poor. And she went and poured it all over his feet!"

I know that traditionally we use this Gospel lesson to make us think forward a few weeks to Good Friday, when Jesus' dead body will be anointed with funeral oils. But there's still something about this Gospel that makes me restless.

Perhaps it is Jesus saying, "The poor you will always have with you." I'm uneasy with the way so many people through the centuries have used this line to justify their unwillingness to work to eradicate poverty. A shrug of the shoulders, that verse out of context, and poof, we don't have to worry about our riches.

I've been trying to sit with this passage in a different context, in the context of the whole Gospel of John. Jesus says that the poor we'll always have with us, but we won't always have Jesus (at least not in human form). I'm trying to see it as Jesus telling us that we must treasure the moments in life that are sweet. Did Jesus know what was about to happen to him? Different theologians would give you different answers, but even if Jesus didn't know all the particulars of his upcoming execution, he must have known that he was stirring up all sorts of worldly trouble for himself. He must have known that he wouldn't have had many more of these occasions to sit and savor a meal.

I'm sure he's also speaking towards our impulse towards anger and self-righteousness. I can criticize the decisions of others in how they spend their money and what they should be spending their money on ("Imagine. She calls herself a Christian and look how much she spends on books. She could get them from the library and send the money she would have spent to Habitat for Humanity"). It's not always easy for me to know how to allocate my resources of time, treasure, and energy.

Truth be told, I find it easier to work on many a spiritual discipline than to sit and savor a meal with those whom I love, the ones, whom, like Jesus, I won't always have with me. I find it frighteningly easy to slide into the behavior of the disciples, that self-righteousness which precludes being able to enjoy a meal together.

In these days that feel increasingly hectic, let us remember to take time to focus on what's truly important. Let us put aside the anger and judgment that can make it so hard to live in community. 

Registrations of All Sorts

Yesterday was one of those days when technology worked, but also when it didn't.  I got registered for Fall 2022 classes for seminary.  It was rather unremarkable, in some ways.  Back in grad school in the 1990's, when I first started, we first had online registration during my last year of classes, and I set my alarm so that I could be ready to register just after midnight when registration opened to everyone.  I wanted to be sure I got a seat.

Yesterday, I registered in a calmer way, at 8:30, and for all but 1 class, I was the first one to claim a seat.  I will take the first part of Church History, Pastoral Care and Counseling in Contexts, and Foundations of Preaching. I will also take Creative Process as Spiritual Practice (yes, that's my heart you hear singing) and Leading Innovation in the Church. There are so many good classes that it's hard to choose--what a delightful problem!

I will take 2 of my classes virtually, by way of Zoom session, Monday night and Tuesday afternoon.  I will have a Tuesday night class, a Thursday afternoon class, and a Thursday night class, which will be face to face.  I do wonder if I should take one more class, but I don't want to be so overworked that I can't enjoy them or enjoy D.C.  So I will probably stick with those classes.

I got registered and did some grading for the online classes that I'm teaching; I'm underemployed, but not unemployed.  Again, technology worked as it should.  I realized that I hadn't heard about my unemployment benefits, even though I applied over a month ago, so I logged on to see what was going on.

My case is listed as pending, which it has been since I filed.  I looked around the site, and as in the past, I found no information.  I decided to call.  And thus, technology failed me.  I was bounced from recorded voice to recorded voice, before being disconnected.  The instructional videos showed me views of screens and dashboards that I could never find.  I was told that my account had been disabled because I tried to log on too many times, but it let me log on again from a new screen.

Finally, I gave up, which is what the state of Florida hopes I will do.  I will keep trying.  I am lucky--I have resources of all sorts.  What would happen if I didn't?

I know what would happen.  I have heard the horrible stories.

This morning I realized that I had gotten so snarled up in the "re-employment assistance" hell that I didn't go to my lectio divina session.  My New Testament professor offered us extra credit for attending, and so I signed up.  In some ways, if I had to miss an appointment, at least it was that one, since it's a come as you can appointment.  I missed an earlier session of lectio a few weeks ago, so I've probably already forfeited the 2 points.  Still it irked me to be consumed with something so soul draining when I could have spent time with the lectio group.  Sigh.

My spouse came home from his on-campus requirement, and we looked online at some properties in South Carolina again.  We have a variety of possible approaches to investing the profits from our home sale, and buying a house within commuting distance of LTSS, the seminary in Columbia, where I am likely to have to do a Lutheran year when I'm done at Wesley.

And then we disconnected from technology altogether, joining good friends who once lived in the neighborhood, for wine and cheese.  It was one of the perfect outdoor nights that we so rarely get here, and we decided to enjoy time in their backyard, instead of going out. 

A Week Thinking about Eucharistic Practices/Supper Clubs of Resistance

I have spent this week thinking about Eucharist practices, which may not be unusual for a seminary student.  In my Thursday night class, we talked about language and ritual and how they are linked to time.  We talked about Eucharist practices.  Some of my classmates talked about how they liked knowing that Christians across the world were celebrating communion the same way.  Because the class was almost over, I didn't raise my hand to point out that we probably assumed more similarity than was actually there--or maybe they just meant that we would all be using bread and wine/grape juice.  As a Lutheran who has spent a lot of time thinking about issues of transubstantiation and symbolism and food and liturgy, I know that we are not all celebrating communion the exact same way, and some Christian practices won't be recognized by other Christians.

Early in the Thursday night conversation at the end of class, I raised my hand to say that I appreciated the words of the Eucharist ritual because I felt it linked me to past generations, although I had spent part of the week writing a paper about Paul's view of the eucharist in 1 Corinthians, so I know that from the beginning, there's been disagreement about how to celebrate the Eucharist.

I want to preserve a Twitter thread that I found as I was finishing that exegesis paper on 1 Corinthians 11:  17-34.  Tuesday morning, March 22, I read these tweets from Diana Butler Bass, which she wrote on March 21: “So far my Lent reading has convinced me: 1) Maundy Thurs and not Good Friday is the point of the Gospels, and 2) there’s actually no “Christianity” until the 3rd century. How’s your Lent reading going?” and “Also, the early gatherings of Jesus people were basically supper clubs of resistance to Empire. (I’m so on board with this).”  Bass is reading Holy Thursday Revolution by Beatrice Bruteau and After Jesus / Before Christianity: A Historical Exploration of the First Two Centuries of Jesus Movements by Erin Vearncombe, Brandon Scott, and Hal Taussig.

I love the phrasing Bass uses:  supper club of resistance to Empire--yes!

And now, it's time to get ready to celebrate Eucharist--time to start shifting into getting ready for church mode.  I wish our church service was more of a supper club of resistance.

Beachside Foxes

Yesterday during my walk, I had several encounters with one of the neighborhood foxes.  As I write that sentence, I wonder if people still use the term "fox" to mean an attractive female.

I saw the fox from a distance of a block, as we both walked east.  As always, I wondered if I was seeing a fox, a coyote, or a dog.  But the head made me think I wasn't seeing a dog.  And it was a slender creature, which made me think it was either a baby coyote or a fox.  Plus, I've seen a fox in the neighborhood before, but never a coyote.

I continued east to the Intracoastal and then around by the marina, heading up to the route around North Lake.  A few blocks away from the path around the top of the lake, I saw the fox again.  This time, the fox crossed the street, stopped under a tree, and stared at me.

I stared back.  I didn't want to make the fox feel threatened.  Plus, I wanted a good look.  My spouse and I have a long running disagreement.  He often thinks he's seen a coyote, and I think he's probably seeing the neighborhood foxes.

Eventually, I kept walking, and the fox trotted off into a back yard.  I walked home, thinking of all the forest creatures that are here, in a beachside town full of concrete and high towers, very far away from any forest.  If I wrote children's books, I'd write about foxes and raccoons who live in the abandoned houses and go to the beach after everyone goes home.

At home, I looked at various pictures to be sure I was seeing a fox instead of a coyote, and I'm pretty sure it was a fox.  It would have been small for a coyote, but more than that, its face was more like a fox than a coyote.  And back to that slang--how did that become a term for a beautiful woman?  Foxes are cute enough, but other animals are much more beautiful.

I spent the rest of the day working on writing for seminary classes and meeting former colleague friends for lunch at a Mexican restaurant.  In later years, when I look back and wonder why I wasn't writing during this time when I was underemployed and a part-time student, let me remember that I'm writing thousands of words a week.  For my New Testament class, each weekly assignment clocks in at over 1,000 words, and that's just one class.  I'm writing a similar amount for Hebrew Bible and I'm writing 300-500 words each week for my Religion and the Arts class.  And some of it might be useful in other contexts--but the larger importance is that it keeps my writing muscles in use.

It's the kind of delightful life that I have to keep fighting back this fear that I might be punished later.  But what kind of punishment do I fear? Will I regret this time of not optimizing my earning potential?  I doubt it.

Let me remember the many delights of this time.  

The Feast Day of the Annunciation

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, the feast day which celebrates the appearance of the angel Gabriel, who tells Mary of her opportunity to be part of God's mission of redemption. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and says, in the older wording that I still like best, "Hail, oh blessed one! The Lord is with you!" Mary asks some questions, and Gabriel says, "For nothing will be impossible with God" (Luke 1: 37). And Mary says, ". . . let it be with me according to your word" (Luke 1: 38).

That means only 9 months until Christmas. If I wrote a different kind of blog, I'd fill the rest of this post with witty ways to make your shopping easier. But instead of spending the next nine months strategically getting our gifts bought, maybe we should think about the next nine months in terms of waiting for God, watching for God, incubating the Divine.

I find Mary an interesting model for modern spirituality. Notice what is required of Mary. She must wait.

Mary is not required to enter into a spiritual boot camp to get herself ready for this great honor. No, she must be present to God and be willing to have a daily relationship, an intimacy that most of us would never make time for. She doesn't have to travel or make a pilgrimage to a different land. She doesn't have to go to school to work on a Ph.D. She isn't even required to go to the Temple any extra amount. She must simply slow down and be present. And of course, she must be willing to be pregnant, which requires more of her than most of us will offer up to God. And there's the later part of the story, where she must watch her son die an agonizing death.

We might think about how we can listen for God's call. Most of us live noisy lives: we're always on our cell phones, we've often got several televisions blaring in the house at once, we're surrounded by traffic (and their loud stereos), we've got people who want to talk, talk, talk. Maybe today would be a good day to take a vow of silence, inasmuch as we can, to listen for God.

If we can't take a vow of silence, we could look for ways to have some silence in our days. We could start with five minutes and build up from there.

Maybe we can't be silent, but there are other ways to tune in to God. Maybe we want to keep a dream journal to see if God tries to break through to us in that way. Maybe we want to keep a prayer journal, so that we have a record of our prayer life--and maybe we want to revisit that journal periodically to see how God answers our prayers.

Let us celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation by thinking about our own lives. What does God call us to do? How will we answer that call?

The Feast Day of Archbishop Romero

 Oscar Romero is now officially a saint, and today is his feast day.  On this day in 1980, he was killed, a martyr for the faith.  When I made this collage card years ago, I couldn't believe that he'd ever be canonized:

Many scholars believe that he was chosen to be Archbishop precisely because he was expected not to make trouble. All that changed when one of his good friends, an activist Jesuit priest, was assassinated by one of the death squads roaming the country. Romero became increasingly political, increasingly concerned about the poor who were being oppressed by the tiny minority of rich people in the country. He called for reform. He called on the police and the soldiers to stop killing their brethren. And for his vision, he was killed as he consecrated the bread for Mass.

I was alive when he was martyred, but I didn't hear or read about it.  I remember reading about some of the more famous murders, particularly of the nuns, and wondering why people would murder nuns or missionaries who were there to help--I had yet to learn of the horrors of colonialism throughout history.

In my first year of college, I was asked to be part of a service that honored the martyrdom of Romero, and this event was likely how I heard of him first.  Or maybe it was earlier that semester when our campus pastor took a group of us to Jubilee Partners.

Jubilee Partners was a group formed by the same people that created Koinonia, the farm in Americus Georgia that most people know because they also created Habitat for Humanity--but they were so much more, in their witness of how Christian love could play out in real practice in one of the most segregated and poor parts of the U.S. south.  In the early years of Jubilee Partners, when I went there, the group helped people from Central America get to Canada, where they could get asylum in the 1980's, when they couldn't get asylum in the U.S.

My consciousness was formed by these encounters and by other encounters I had throughout the 80's.  I met many people in the country illegally, and I heard about the horrors that brought them here.  Then, as now, I couldn't imagine why we wouldn't let these people stay.

Many of us may think that those civil wars are over, but many countries in Central America are still being torn apart by violence.  The words of Romero decades ago are sadly still relevant today:  "Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. ...In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression."

But his teachings go beyond just a call for an end to killing.  His messages to the wider church are still powerful:  "A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed — ​what gospel is that?"

And even those of us who are not part of a faith tradition can find wisdom in his teachings:  "Each time we look upon the poor, on the farmworkers who harvest the coffee, the sugarcane, or the cotton... remember, there is the face of Christ."

If we treated everyone we met as if that person was God incarnate, what a different world we would have!

But for those of us who are tired from the work of this weary world, here's a message of hope and a reminder of the long view:  "We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own."

On this day that honors a man who was not always honored, let us take heart from his words and from his example.  Let us also remember that he was not always this force for good in the world; indeed, he was chosen to be Archbishop because the upper management of the church thought he would keep his nose stuck in a book and out of politics. 

In these days that feel increasingly more perilous, let us recommit ourselves to the type of love that Romero called us to show:  "Let us not tire of preaching love; it is the force that will overcome the world."

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 27, 2022:

First Reading: Joshua 5:9-12

Psalm: Psalm 32

Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Gospel: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Ah, the Parable of the Prodigal Son. We've heard it so many times that we may have forgotten pertinent details. We remember clearly the younger son, the one who squanders his fortune in a foreign land and becomes so hungry and desperate that he yearns for swine food. We understand this part of the parable. Even if we haven't been the wastrel child, who among us has not occasionally envied the ease with which some of our society just do their own thing and give themselves to riotous living. We assume the younger son represents us as our worst sinner selves.

We forget that this story has two lost sons.

Yes, the older son is just as lost as the younger. Perhaps more so.

Look at his behavior and see if you recognize yourself. He has to find out from the servants what is going on. He hasn't been invited to the party. He has done all the right things, been steadfast, honored his father and society, and what does he get? Does he get a party? No!

Which child is more lost? The one who gives into his animal nature, who indulges in carnal pleasures? Or the one who shows himself to have all sorts of repressed anger, a well of resentment that erupts all over his poor father?

In his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen says, "Looking deeply into myself and then around me at the lives of other people, I wonder which does more damage, lust or resentment?" (71). What a powerful question!

Nouwen sees this parable as being about love and how we're loved and how we're afraid that we won't be loved. We spend a lot of time looking for the approval of others. Nouwen says, "As long as I keep running about asking: 'Do you love me? Do you really love me?' I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with 'ifs.' The world says: 'Yes I love you if you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much, and buy much'" (42). Obviously, we can't win this game.

Luckily, we don't have to win. God loves us regardless. Of course, learning this lesson of love may take us a lifetime. We have to force ourselves to the disciplines that will thaw our frozen hearts. Nouwen suggests, "Although we are incapable of liberating ourselves from our frozen anger, we can allow ourselves to be found by God and healed by his love through the concrete and daily practice of trust and gratitude" (84).

The traditional approach to this parable is to see the Father character representing God, which is certainly true. But many of us assume we cannot love the way God can. Maybe not. But we have to try. Nouwen says, "Perhaps the most radical statement Jesus ever made is: 'Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.' . . . "what I am called to make true is that whether I am the younger or the elder son, I am the son of my compassionate Father. I am an heir. . . . The return to the Father is ultimately the challenge to become the Father" (123).

How on earth can we accomplish this? Nouwen suggests that we cultivate these three traits: "grief, forgiveness, and generosity" (128). To those I would add that we should commit ourselves to believing in resurrection. Believe in the possibility of second (and third and fourth and fifth) chances. Believe that the lost will be found. Believe that the Prodigal will return. Throw a fabulous party. And when you notice that someone is missing from the party, someone is standing in the shadows, stewing in resentment, anger, grief, envy--go get that person and invite them to the party. Remember that we are children of a God whose love we cannot begin to comprehend.

Model that behavior.

Flying by Night

Several times last night I thought about that phrase "fly by night," as in "that fly by night dental school," which means you would never let their graduates near your mouth.    But my experience flying by night was sublime, when it wasn't somewhat ridiculous.

Yesterday my folks dropped me off at the Richmond (Virginia) airport at 4 p.m., and I didn't get my checked bag off the Ft. Lauderdale carousel until 1:40 a.m.  Could I have driven faster?  I'd have driven 934 miles, so no, probably not.

I should also say that I didn't pay for a direct flight.  My departure/arrival time was more important to me than a direct flight, and it didn't hurt that the flights with the times I needed were cheaper than direct flights.

As always, the Richmond airport delights.  It would have been easy to stay spaced apart without having to be so far away from the gate that one might miss one's flight.  At the Atlanta airport, I found no respite from the throngs of humanity.  Where were we all going?  It was hard not to see that airport as a superspreader event. 

I brought 2 books with me, and I finished both of them before my second flight.  I read Detransition, Baby, which was interesting, but not the exploration of brave new families that book reviews led me to expect.  Then I read Send for Me, which was spare and beautiful in a spartan way, but not gripping in terms of plot.

I finished that book while the plane was still on the tarmac in Atlanta.  What would I do during the 90 minute flight to Ft. Lauderdale?

Stare at the moon, that's what.  Was it significantly different staring at the moon from a height of 30,000 feet?  Not really.  It didn't make the difference that a telescope would make, for example.  But I saw the sky turn reddish purple and then golden and then the huge mostly full disc of the moon emerged, not quite full, but not a half moon either.  I could see the land below, the glittering lights, the dark splotches.  I could see some long lines of clouds that looked more like surf, but I was sure they were not.

An added bonus:  for much of the flight, the cabin lights were dimmed, so the view was even more compelling.  Not having a book to read didn't bother me at all.

I realize that most of my fellow fliers weren't as lucky as I was--in addition to having a window seat with a view, I was in that 1 exit row seat that didn't have a seat in front of it, so I could stretch my legs.  At one point, I looked over to see if my rowmate wanted to look out the window.  At the beginning of the flight, he had been pecking on his phone so intently that the flight attendant said, "Sir?  Did you hear a word I said about your duties and this exit row seat?"  After the lights went out, he fell asleep.  I hogged the window, guilt-free!

I wanted to tell everyone to look out the window, to tell them what an amazing celestial show they were missing by sleeping or staring into their phones/tablets.  I'm willing to be arrested for many activities, but reminding my fellow travelers to look out the window is not one of them, so I stayed quiet.

Last night, I was the quiet mystic, staring out the window at the moon, not the prophet, shouting at people to renounce their false gods and realize how we can find God in nature.  Last night, I was the woman wishing I had a camera that could capture that beauty and realizing that sometimes (often), it's best to just let beauty wash over us as we fly by night.  

Homecomings

 Today I pack up my stuff and head home--which makes me think about the whole idea of home.  Let me collect some odds and ends here:

--First of all, let me acknowledge how discombobulating it is to be thinking of "home" as a concept when we're in a time of huge dislocation for so many people.  As much as 25% of the population of Ukraine may be displaced, for example.  And although Ukraine is getting much of our attention right now, it's hardly the only refugee issue.

--I can't remember where I read the story of the Ukrainian woman who was on a business trip in a non-Ukrainian European city when Putin invaded.  She has at least one child in Ukraine, and she can't get back.  I've thought of her often and wondered how she's doing, and more specifically, what she's doing.  Did she pack the right kind of clothes?  The clothes we need for a business trip can be so different than the clothes we would need for regular life, and those clothes may be different than the clothes we would need as refugees.  How long was the business trip?  Can she access her money?  Can she get in touch with family in Ukraine?  Is she still employed?

--Her story is not what made me pack such a large suitcase.  I'm flying Southwest, so I can check a bag for free.  I brought clothes for lounging, clothes for church, clothes for cold weather (but no coat), and clothes for warm weather.  If I stayed here a day longer, I'd need to wash a load of socks.

--My parents moved to their current home in 2011.  They're in a continuing care retirement community, the kind of place where one can live in a separate house or an apartment or a room with more care, and there's a memory care unit where those with Alzheimer's won't wander away.  When I visit, I stay in a hotel-like room in the apartment building.  There's no wi-fi in the apartment, so I spend early mornings in the library downstairs.  There's a coffee machine in Archie's Tavern across from the library, and I drink latte after latte each morning.

--I will miss this routine.

--Because my parents moved a lot when I was young, I don't feel like I had an ancestral home, so there's not that sense of loss.  But they've lived here long enough that it does feel like a homecoming when I visit.

--I have been impressed with how all the residents here in my parents' community make their homes their own.  While I was here, in the apartment unit building, on the 5th floor, the St. Patrick's decorations got exchanged for Easter eggs and bunnies.  My parents' housing area has lovely garden spots and a wide variety of bird feeders and bird houses.

--From my parents' neighbor, I learned that chickadees make their nests out of moss, wrens out of sticks, and bluebirds out of pine straw.  It seems that there should be a poem out of all these images of nests and refugees and travel, but I worry it would seem trite in the face of the serious subject matter.

--I will be returning to our rented condo, a place that both feels like home, but is extremely temporary.  And it is strange to reflect how many of my South Florida friends have moved away and how different life in South Florida is.

--It's strange to be in a different place.  I haven't been sleeping well, and I'm not sure why.  I woke up yesterday thinking about the fact that my full-time job let me go without a real explanation.  From an HR standpoint, I understand why they didn't give me details.  From a Kristin perspective, it means I don't have closure, and my curious brain keeps wondering what happened.  I wasn't fired, exactly--I wasn't let go for cause, which means I can still get unemployment.  So it wasn't exactly my fault, but I can't really be sure, can I?

--This trip begins my 5 weeks of intense travel, which wouldn't be possible if I still had that job.  I've got 3 retreats planned between now and the end of April.

--I saw the Holy Week schedule for my home church, and I thought about the fact that my seminary gives us an Easter break.  I thought, well of course they do; so many of us are employed by churches, so we need to be available for Maundy Thursday onward to Easter Sunday.  That fact makes me feel a sense of homecoming in a different way.  No more sneaking away to Holy Week services!

--And now it's time for me to return to my room to put everything back in my suitcase--I'll spend the next 5 weeks taking these same clothes, or variations of them, in and out of this suitcase.  Then I'll head to my parents' independent living unit, where I'll have breakfast with my folks, my sister, and my sister's dog.

--Soon I hope to be living closer, as I do seminary work on campus in person in DC this fall.  That will be yet another homecoming, that is both a homecoming by traditional definition, and so much more.  

--I hope it means I can see my family more often and have this kind of homecoming too.

Psalms of Lament and Imprecatory Psalms

This morning I came across a series of tweets by Diana Butler Bass, where she reminded us that imprecatory Psalms come from a different tradition, that Christians shouldn't appropriate them. She told pastors to stay in their lanes.

I thought, well, I have a seminary assignment that requires me to write in this vein.

Here is the assignment, which is a really cool way to help us understand this type of Psalm:

This assignment has 2 parts (Please post as ONE document):

1) Write your own lament, either individual or communal, following the structure of the lament psalm as discussed in the videos, assigned readings, and power points.

There is no specified length for your lament. 

2) In one paragraph, discuss why you would or would not preach from an angry lament in your ministry setting.

Due Sunday, March 20 by 11:59 p.m. No attachments please. Cut and paste a previously written Word document with both parts in it.

I've been thinking about the assignment for days, but I feel a bit of hesitancy.  My main hesitancy is that there are so many possible laments:  climate change (it's 70 degrees warmer than normal in Antarctica, an event which would have been declared as impossible, until it happened--see this story in The Washington Post), the pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine, various refugee crises, so many of my friends moving away, and that's just the immediate list.

There are advantages to each one, and disadvantages too.  Part of me imagines that all of my classmates will be writing about Ukraine, so part of me wants to do something different.  But Putin is such an easy subject for a Psalm of lament--too easy?  And does climate change have an obvious enough villain?  Could my Psalm of lament ask for a planetary reset?  That's probably not a good idea for humans, depending on how far back we go. 

I have a bit of time before the due date, and this is the kind of writing assignment that won't take as much time as the writing assignment that asks for secondary sources--so I'm not panicked.  But it is time to make some choices.

As I move through seminary, my student mind is most engaged.  But there's always in the background my teacher mind and my writer mind.  My teacher mind evaluates assignments, and happily, so far, my teacher mind has been pleased and impressed.  My writer mind is always thinking, how could I recycle this work into other kinds of writing.  Some assignments don't lend themselves to much else, but this one has potential.

I started working on this assignment yesterday, and I decided on refugees and the Ukraine invasion as my subject.  Today I'll read the Psalms assigned for this week's class and assignment to make sure my writing follows the model.  I'll make a few revisions, and then I'll upload my response. 

I'll be very interested to get the feedback of my professors.  I often do better with my creative responses than with the assignments that require a more strict exegesis.

The Feast Day of St. Joseph

Today is the feast day of St. Joseph, Mary's husband, the earthly father of Jesus. Here are the readings for today:

2 Samuel 7:4, 8-16
Psalm 89:1-29 (2)
Romans 4:13-18
Matthew 1:16, 18-21, 24a

I have done some thinking of Joseph, as many of us do, in the Advent season, when occasionally, we get to hear about Joseph. He thinks of quietly unweaving himself from Mary, who is pregnant. This behavior is our first indication of his character. Under ancient law, he could have had Mary stoned to death, but he takes a gentler path.

And then, he follows the instructions of the angel who tells him of God's plan. He could have turned away. He could have said, "I did not sign up for this!" He could have said, "No thanks. I want a normal wife and a regular life."

Instead, he turned towards Mary and accepted God's vision. He's there when the family needs to flee to Egypt. He's there when the older Jesus is lost and found in the temple. We assume that he has died by the time Christ is crucified, since he's not at the cross.

Some of us today will spend the day celebrating fathers, which is a great way to celebrate the feast day of St. Joseph. Lately, I've been thinking of his feast day and what it means for administrators and others who are not the stars, but who make it possible for stars to step into the spotlight.

Let us today praise the support teams, the people in the background, the people who step back to allow others to shine. Let us praise the people who do the drudgery work which makes it possible for others to succeed.

For example, I am not the kind of person who immediately decides what to do with each piece of e-mail. Consequently, once every few weeks, or more often, I need to go hunting for a particular e-mail. I am amazed at how many e-mails I send and receive in any given day. And yes, much of it is not that important.

But occasionally, an e-mail exchange can quickly settle a problem. Some times, it's good to have an e-mail chain for reference.

Many of us grow up internalizing the message that if we're not changing the world in some sort of spectacular way, we're failures. Those of us who are Christians may have those early disciples as our role models, those hard-core believers who brought the Good News to the ancient world by going out in pairs.

But Joseph shows us a different reality. It's quite enough to be a good parent. It's quite enough to have an ordinary job. It's quite enough to show up, day after day, dealing with both the crises and the opportunities.

Joseph reminds us that even the ones born into the spotlight need people in the background who are tending to the details. When we think about those early disciples and apostles, we often forget that they stayed in people's houses, people who fed them and arranged speaking opportunities for them, people who gave them encouragement when their task seemed too huge.

I imagine Joseph doing much the same thing, as he helped Jesus become a man. I imagine the life lessons that Joseph administered as he gave Jesus carpentry lessons. I imagine that he helped Jesus understand human nature, in all the ways that parents have helped their offspring understand human nature throughout history.

Let us not be so quick to discount this kind of work. Let us praise the support teams that make the way possible for the people who will change the world.


Here is a prayer that I wrote for today:

Creator God, thank you for your servant Joseph. Help us to remember his lessons for us. Help us look for ways to shepherd your Good News into the world in ways that only we can.

Travel, School, Life: The Same and Yet Different

Here I sit in Williamsburg where my parents live, working on my computer, after a plane trip yesterday.  Once that sentence would not be remarkable.  But at certain points yesterday, I shook my head at how events were both strange and familiar.

I haven't taken a plane trip in 2 years.  In some ways, not much is different, although yesterday it seemed like more people were in the Ft. Lauderdale and Atlanta airports.  Yesterday, as I waited in the very long security line at 4 a.m., I laughed at the Kristin who thought the airport would be deserted at that very early morning hour.  Lots of people were returning from cruises, to judge from conversations I overheard, including lots of college students.  What a different spring break life I had as a student, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and I was happy to return home to my own bed and my bread baking equipment.

A major difference, of course, is the masks we all wore, some of us more correctly than others.  I was happily surprised that most people had something around their faces on the plane and in the airport once we got past the security line.  In the security line, all bets were off.  I thought of the crowds on Monday night as we walked to a restaurant and how I worried I might have been exposed to disease that I would bring to my parents.  Monday was the least of my worries as it turns out.  But I still felt relatively safe during yesterday's travel which may say more about my faith in vaccines, booster shots, and my own mask than it says about the accuracy of my safe feelings.

Although the flights and the airports were packed, yesterday's airplane experience was fairly easy.  There was a moment when we landed in Atlanta, where the full moon was setting and the fog was intensifying.  In some ways, it felt like we had landed on an alien planet, as the plane rumbled into the parking spot.  I thought I might end up stuck in Atlanta until the sun burned off the fog, but my layover was several hours, so it wasn't a problem.

I was traveling alone, so I used the time to get lost in a book, Jonathan Franzen's latest, Crossroads.  I understand all the reasons why people don't like him, but he knows how to spin a compelling story, and this one has the best elements of The Corrections, a book which thrilled me.  I'm not done yet, but I'm happy to be reading it.

The Richmond airport was comparatively empty, which was a relief, and I had no trouble getting my bag and hopping into my parents' car.  And then we were off, back to Williamsburg.  If I hadn't known that the temperature outside was in the 50's, I'd have thought that a snowstorm was blowing in.  Even with dark clouds, the rain held off.

We relaxed for a bit, made dinner, and then I was off--back to my parents' study, where I logged on to my seminary class.  What an amazing world we live in!

This morning, I'm thinking back to the last time that I was here, in January of 2019, and my plan was to return several times a year in a more concerted effort to see my parents more often while they are still in the healthy part of old age.  While I've always been aware of apocalyptic possibilities, I would not have anticipated a global pandemic disrupting my plans, along with all the plans of all of us.  Sigh.

And now we're looking at a variety of possible plan interruptions:  a new variation of this virus, a brutal invasion of Ukraine, chief among them. And then there's my own individual disrupters:  job loss, house sale, S. Florida becoming increasingly unaffordable.

Earlier this week, I woke up feeling a bit panicked about money--my last paycheck from my old job was March 15.  But I'm trying not to linger long in that panic.  Similarly, as I walked through the Richmond airport, I thought, we should have moved years ago--but we don't have a time machine to go back, so that line of thinking isn't useful.

There are days when I worry that I'm diving off a dangerous precipice by pursuing my seminary dreams.  But then I go to class, and I am so thrilled to have this opportunity.  I choose to see that through an Ignatian lens:  seminary is a space of consolation, and worrying about money while I have house sale profits in the bank is a space of desolation. 

Let me continue to move towards consolation.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 20, 2022:

First Reading: Isaiah 55:1-9

Psalm: Psalm 63:1-8

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Gospel: Luke 13:1-9


In this week's Gospel, we get the parable of the fig tree, that poor fig tree who still hasn't produced fruit even though it's been 3 years. This Gospel gives us a space to consider our view of God and our view of ourselves.

Which vision of God is the one in your head? We could see God as the man who says, "Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?" If we see God that way, and if we see ourselves as the fig tree, that's a scary proposition; we've got a few years to produce before God gives up on us.

A traditional approach to this parable might see God as the impatient one, and Jesus as the vinedresser who pleads the case for the poor little fig tree. I know that Trinitarian theology might lead us this direction, but I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of a God who gives up on humanity. Everything in Scripture--and the experiences of those who walked this path before us--shows us a God that pursues us, going so far as to take on human flesh and walk amongst us. This doesn't sound like a God who gives up after 3 years.

In an eye-opening conversation at a women's retreat in 2016, a pastor proposed this approach to the parable: what if God is the withered tree and humans are the manure?

It seems an essential question: how are we manure, for God, ourselves, and the world? And what manure do we need to nourish ourselves?

Maybe you've felt yourself in a fallow place spiritually. Or worse, maybe you've felt yourself sliding backwards, a withering on the vine. Maybe you started Lent with a fire in your heart, and you've burned out early. Maybe you haven't been good at transforming yourself.

Look at that parable again. The fig tree doesn't just sit there while everyone gathers around, waiting for something to happen. The gardener gives it extra attention. The gardener digs around it to give the roots room to grow and gives it extra manure--ah, the magic of fertilizer! We, too, can be the vinedresser to our spiritual lives. And we don't have to resort to heroic measures. We don't have to start off by running away to a religious commune. Just a little spiritual manure is all it takes.

That spiritual manure can take many forms: maybe we need to add a different activity, or maybe we need to do less. The parable reminds us that it doesn't take much in times of time or money--we just need to rearrange the dirt around our roots and add some enrichment.

And the parable reminds us that we are biological creations, so at some point it will be too late--but it's not too late now.  Not yet.

Seminary Student Gratitudes

Last night was my first night of seminary class after reading week ended, and for my New Testament class, it was our first meeting in 3 weeks.  Two weeks ago, my professor was on a plane to lead a study tour in the Holy Land, so we had an online module.  As she opened the class, my professor noted how much has changed in those 3 weeks.  Then, instead of an opening devotion or lectio divina, she played a video that showed people reciting/praying Psalm 31 in Ukrainian.  Some of the people were definitely in a shelter of some kind.  Some were surrounded by suitcases.

I thought about how lucky I am to be part of this seminary community, where of course we will pray these kinds of prayers.  Our discussion of Paul's letter to the Romans circled back to Ukraine in interesting ways; after all, Romans 13 advocates submission to political leaders, saying that God has ordained them.

God has ordained Vladimir Putin?  Really?

It was such a good conversation that some of us lingered after the class began to talk about issues of predestination, election and grace--reading Romans 9-11 really triggered one of my fellow students who had gone to a more Calvinist/Presbyterian secondary school, although he is a more mainstream Methodist.  I thought about my own experiences in elementary school years in a private school run by Presbyterians.  But since it was in Montgomery, Alabama, they were closer to Baptists than to Calvinists.  Each Friday in fifth grade we had chapel with a hellfire and brimstone sermon and altar call.  Each Friday in 5th grade, I asked Jesus to come into my heart, just in case he hadn't heard me in previous weeks.

But I digress.  

One of the benefits of a virtual synchronous seminary class is that I can stay late but not have to drive home.  After 40 minutes of additional, soul nourishing conversation, we all logged off, and I headed to bed, where I had trouble falling asleep because it had been such a good class.

Yesterday was a day full of reminders of how grateful I am to be a seminary student.  Yesterday was the day that applications open for on-campus housing for Fall 2022, and I had some questions.  Once again, I called the very nice person in charge, and once again, she was so helpful.  We don't actually have to pay a deposit until we move in; unlike other places, it's not to hold our spot.  Our spot will be ours until we move in (and pay the deposit) or tell the housing office that we've found something else.  It's so different from some school experiences.  

I also did our taxes yesterday.  I had hoped that the tuition that I paid would lead to a bigger refund, and indeed, it did.  Hurrah!  Again, I was happy to be reminded of the advantages of being a seminary student.

Yesterday morning, it was rainy, and I made this Facebook post:  "Well, my current state of mind could be dangerous. I decided not to go for a walk, since it seems rainy. I'm enjoying tea and homemade bread that is toasted and spread with butter, and I'm realizing why people decide never to exercise/work again, when they could enjoy mornings with tea and toast and butter."

But part of what made it so delightful was that I had seminary work to do, and I had the time to immerse myself in it.  And what's even more delightful is that this situation will continue--it wasn't just a one day holiday from the office.

Dinner Out with Quilt Group Friends

Last night, the member of our quilt group that moved upstate was back in town.  So I drove to Delray Beach, where another member of our quilt group moved, and we walked over to DaDa, a cool restaurant in an old house.  I gave myself plenty of time to get there, which meant I got there early.  When I leave and give myself precisely the amount of time it should take to get there, there's inevitably a slow down.

My Delray friend showed me the remodeled downstairs of the apartment building, and I got a coffee out of the upscale coffee machine.  We went up to her apartment to wait for our other friend.  The last time I was in her apartment, in 2019 just after she first moved there, I couldn't imagine doing what my friend had just done:  downscaled, sold her house, and moved to an apartment.  Now I have done the same thing.

The website said that the restaurant didn't take reservations, so we were surprised to get to the restaurant to find that they did.  Consequently, all the lovely outdoor seating was taken.  However, they did have seating inside, and luckily we got to sit way in the back, in a small room, and even more luckily, very few people were seated back there with us.  The front rooms were very crowded and noisy, and I am so glad we didn't have to sit there.

I was also glad that we didn't have to find another restaurant; they all looked full as we walked by them.  In fact, I was astonished at the crowds of people everywhere.  While I know that we're at the height of the South Florida tourist season, and while I know that many people have decided that the pandemic is over, it was discombobulating being around them all.

The meal was delicious.  I decided to order the special--yellowtail snapper, which is one of my favorite types of fish.  It was served with a citrus buerre blanc sauce, which would have made anything delicious.  We decided not to eat dessert there, in favor of the ice cream shop down the street.  The ice cream shop had candy too, but we didn't buy any.  I loved all the different flavors of ice cream, but I limited myself to one, the almond joy, which was exactly how it sounded:  coconut, chocolate and almonds, all woven together.

As I drove home, I thought about all the people we had seen.  As I drove by the restaurant district of downtown Hollywood, I didn't see similar numbers of people, although it was much past the dinner hour by then.  This morning I woke up thinking that perhaps I should use one of our COVID test kits in the coming days.  I'll have to research the optimum time.

It was good to see my friends in person, which happens much more rarely these days.  In some ways, I'm grateful we've had our monthly Zoom sessions--we didn't have to catch up on 2+ years in one evening out.

In fact, I keep thinking about how much easier Zoom is, in so many ways:  less driving, less noise, fewer crowds, less irritation (at least, as long as the technology is going smoothly).  I think about all the other settings where I've assumed that meeting by way of electronics is a pale imitation:  school classes, church.  I've thought they are a pale imitation, or something so different that we shouldn't compare them at all, like comparing apples to tricycles.  

But maybe, they're better in many ways.

I'm still grateful we had a chance to meet in person.  I'm still grateful that we have multiple options.  And I'm also glad that the whole culture is figuring out how to make connections when making connections is a challenge.

Return to the Garden

This week, we turn our attention to the creation story in Genesis 3: 1-7. We've heard these stories so often that we often think we know what's there, only to find that it's not. Many of us think that Eve ate an apple, but it wasn't until John Milton wrote Paradise Lost in the year 1674 that Eve eats an apple. If we read all of Genesis, we might be surprised to find two creation stories. In the earliest one, God creates each part of the world and declares it good, and very good. It's in the second creation story, written much later, that we get this story of judgment.

 
Many of us have been taught that this story tells us how evil entered the world, but that's much too simplistic. In her meditation for A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Dr. Wilda C. Gafney says, "In the garden God offers life, provision, knowledge (conditionally) and boundaries. . . . It is useful to consider the serpent apart from the crutch of postbiblical misidentification with Satan. . . . Perhaps rather than 'tempter,' the serpent is 'tester.' What will humanity do in response to boundaries? Test them, bend them, break them" (p. 80).

How would our current life be different if we had been taught to see Eve as someone who tested boundaries, not someone who disobeyed? She makes a choice and faces the consequences. There's a long line of thought that would argue that she makes it possible for full human expression. With the knowledge that she secures for humans, humans have more options--some of them will be wonderful, and some of those options will be horrible. There's a long line of intellectual thought that says that having those options is better than being puppets in a garden.

I think about our approach to Eve, and I compare it to our approach to Jesus. Jesus also broke the rules of his society--and they were rules that God gave the Israelites centuries before Jesus lived among us. But we celebrate Jesus. Eve, on the other hand, has been used to justify the oppression of women, because if she hadn't disobeyed God, we'd all still be happy in the garden. Men have used this argument to prove that they should be in charge. In an essay that appeared decades ago, feminist scholar Phyllis Trible says that men having dominance is a punishment, not the way that life should be. We've taken the punishment and used it to shape our society into a one that is far from what God intended.

However, Trible still sees this story as one that can give us hope: “The Yahwist narrative tells us who we are (creatures of equality and mutuality); it tells us who we have become (creatures of oppression); and so it opens possibilities for change, for a return to our true liberation under God” (81).

Remain in Port

This morning, during my walk through our swampy morning, I thought about the fact that a gale warning is in effect until tomorrow morning.  Really?  There's not a breeze of any kind, I thought.  I do realize that conditions over the water may be very different.

I am guessing that conditions will worsen over the day.  Just because a gale warning goes into effect at 7 a.m. doesn't mean those conditions will spring up right away.

The ending of the gale warning has stuck with me.  It seems appropriate for so many areas of our lives today:

"Mariners should alter plans to avoid these hazardous conditions.
Remain in port, seek safe harbor, alter course, and/or secure the
vessel for severe conditions.

A sudden onset of rough seas may cause hazardous conditions,
which may occur suddenly at jetties and inlets. These conditions
could catch boaters by surprise. Boaters should remain in port."

I had no intention of boating, so staying in port is fine with me.  I've got lots of seminary writing to do, beginning with a paper on Micah.  The ancient prophets seem ever more relevant in these times. 

Could a Plant Sale Count as Worship?

After church on Sunday, we had several people show up looking for our plant sale that had been rescheduled.  I started thinking about what we mean when we say "church," when we say "worship."  My Lutheran tradition (ELCA) would say that worship needs to include word and sacrament--but wait, does it?  I think of the churches that only do communion on the first Sunday of the month or even less.  I don't want to discuss sacraments in this post.  But I do want to think about expanding our view of worship and what the church does.

I know that I might first talk about worship and the purpose of worship.  When I say worship here, I'm talking about how we show appreciation to God.  I'm also thinking of how worship forms and shapes the worshipper--how we become the people of God.

The people who showed up to buy plants at the church may have just been looking for a good deal on milkweed or looking to buy milkweed from a closer location than the nurseries further west.  So perhaps they weren't looking to show appreciation for God or to be shaped as people of God.  Some of that might happen non-verbally, even if they aren't aware.  Creating a plant sale, on the other hand, does show appreciation of God's creation and does shape us as people of God.

Similarly, people who come to our food and clothing pantry aren't necessarily there to show appreciation for God or to be formed as people of God.  But offering this food and clothing pantry does shape us as people of God and caring for God's people in this way does shape us.

I could go on and on this way.  I know that larger church bodies tend not to count these numbers when parishes report attendance at worship.  I know that these numbers might be counted elsewhere.  I do wonder what happens when there's more participation in these other activities than the Sunday services.

We may be in a world where we are about to find out.

And as we do, I will be on the lookout for whether or not we can infuse those other activities with some of the more traditional worship elements.  If the plant sale included brunch, could we call that a sacrament?  If we did a brunch and plant sale at regular times each month, would that count as worship? 

Food Pantry Portents

 Yesterday morning, I headed over to my church to help at the food pantry.  Along the way, I stopped to get some peanut butter and jelly; the woman who runs the food pantry told me that of all the donations they get, peanut butter and jelly are the items they get the least.

I was amazed at how the food pantry has grown.  We now offer used clothing and other items (some toys, some backpacks, that kind of thing).  A local Girl Scout troop also runs a closet which offers trendier clothing for teenagers.

Our church has 2 fellowship halls, and the food and clothes pantry has taken up most of one of the fellowship halls.  Once, this would not have been possible--we would have needed that space for something else, like Sunday School classes and fellowship/outreach (like a women's group and a men's group).

As I bagged food, I thought about the news stories of people driving truck loads of supplies and food into Ukraine.  That is not our ministry.  We have people who come to our food pantry on such a regular basis that the woman who runs the food pantry knows about food allergies. In a way that makes me sad; we all want a food pantry to be a stop-gap measure, a response to an emergency.  In a way, this ministry feels like one of the more vital ones that we do as a small, neighborhood church.

We could also do some of the other ministries if there was interest and/or membership.  The other fellowship hall sits empty much of the week.  The larger implications are what might be more interesting to me:  how our individual church has changed in such a short amount of time.  Once we had more families with children; now we have almost none.  Once we had both a men's group and a women's group, then just a women's group, and now we have none.  Once retirees would have helped at the food pantry; now many of them have moved or are still limiting exposure to others or are in too poor health to help.

The pandemic is partly to blame, but these changes were in process even before the pandemic.  If I had more time, I might write about what these changes portend, but I have seminary work that needs my attention.  Some people might wonder why I'm bothering with seminary at all--the church is changing, and I might be preparing for a career that will soon no longer exist.

Or maybe we're about to enter a vibrant time of change, where the Church becomes an even better version of itself, and I can be part of what shapes that.new direction. 

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 13, 2022:

First Reading: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

Psalm: Psalm 27

Second Reading: Philippians 3:17--4:1

Gospel: Luke 13:31-35


This Gospel is one of those that might tempt us moderns to feel superior. We're not like that wicked Jerusalem, are we? We don't stone the prophets and others who are sent to us. We're a civilized people.

But think of how many ways there are to kill the messengers of God. Let's start with our individual Bibles. Do you know where yours is? Have you touched it this week? This month? This year? Of course, we might argue that the Bible app on our phone makes it less important that we have a paper Bible on the shelf. But do we use it? We can look up any chunk of the Bible online and read it in multiple versions. But do we?

One of the main ways God has to speak to us is by way of the Scripture. And if we don't read our Bibles, we lose out on a major avenue of communication with God. You might protest that you hear the Bible plenty when you go to church on Sunday. And that's great. Far too many churches have very little scripture as part of the weekly service. But it's not enough. We'd be better off if we read our Bibles every day. It's far too easy to be seduced by the glittering secular world; a daily diet of Bible reading can help us remember God's claim on us and our purpose in the world.

But the Bible isn't the only way we can learn about God and our place in the community. We can read the works of other holy people. There are plenty of books out there that can help us be more faithful. My reading list is fairly eclectic; if you're new to this, I'd start with the works of Henri Nouwen, Kathleen Norris, Madeleine L'Engle, and Thomas Merton, among many others.

You could also listen for God. Many of us are pretty good at talking to God, especially if we're in trouble. But we're not very good at listening. Henri Nouwen suggests that we take 10 minutes a day to quiet our minds, to sit and just listen. You might also keep a journal, which can be a very valid form of active meditation for busy Westerners. Don't just write down what happens to you during the day. Keep a list of things for which you're grateful. Keep a list of your heartfelt desires. Make a space for any sorts of intuition you have. Ask God for insight. Keep a keen ear for what God replies. Write it down so you won't forget.

In this time of Lent, we can repent for all the times we've metaphorically stoned the prophets. We can turn our attention to God and once again, try to be more faithful. God longs to gather us, as a mother hen gathers her chicks. Come be part of the brood.

Making the World Better for Women--and All of Us

 It is International Women's Day, and I feel like I should have something new to say.  But the reality is depressing, and there's not a lot new to say. 

If we look at basic statistics, like how much women earn compared to men in the very same jobs, we see that the U.S. has still not achieved equality. If we look at who is in charge in most workplaces, it's white men. If we look at violent crime rates, there are some years when violent crime rates have fallen--except for rape. If we look at representation in local, state, and federal levels, we see that members of government are still mostly white and male.

And that's in a first world country. The picture for women in developing nations is bleak.

This year, I'm thinking about Ukraine.  I'm thinking about all those women who assumed they were living in a European country, and therefore, they had some modicum of safety.  And now, most of the men in their lives are fighting off the Russian invaders, and they have sole responsibility for the children, and they have decisions to make about the safety of themselves and their children.

I wonder if we will someday feel the same way about climate change--everything is tentatively OK, except there's been a looming threat, and all of a sudden--or at least it feels like all of a sudden--the threat goes from looming to viciously upon us.

I think of pictures of packed train stations in Ukraine.  And I wonder about the pictures that I didn't see in past refugee crises.  I know that these are not the first packed train stations in the past 30 years.  During the hasty retreat from Afghanistan in August, we were in the midst of a big move--is that why I don't remember similar pictures?  Were there similar scenes in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea?

There are years when I could make the argument that we're making the world safer for women--not this year.  This year is the kind of time when I wonder if we ever make progress, if the idea of progress is just an illusion.

Yesterday I was in a parking lot, putting my purchases into the back of my car, trying to ignore the man standing by the car beside mine.  He was barking into his phone, spewing profanities, something about Ukraine, and what did people expect with who they voted for, and these people could just eat a sandwich made of excrement, they could eat a f*** sandwich.  I thought about the time not so long ago when most people would not curse like that in public, especially not when women were present.

Once I would have scorned the idea that we should change our behavior because women were present.  Now I wish more of us would change our behavior for the better, regardless of who is present.

Maybe in this way, we'd really make the world better for women and for everyone.

How to Do True Reconstruction: The Practice of the Better

In today's meditation, Father Richard Rohr offered this bit, which was so good that I wanted to preserve it so that I can find it more easily when I want to go back to it:

"Assisi is surrounded by city walls. Inside those walls are the cathedral and the established churches, all of which are good. That’s where Francis first heard the gospel and fell in love with Jesus. But then he quietly went outside the walls and rebuilt some old ruins called San Damiano and the Portiuncula. He wasn’t telling the others they were doing it wrong. He just gently and lovingly tried to do it better. I think that’s true reconstruction. Remember, the best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. That might be a perfect motto for all reconstructive work. It does not destroy machines or monuments but reinvigorates them with new energy and form."

The italics in the quote are Rohr's.

The First Christians, the First Questions

On Thursday, I made this Facebook post:

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I am proofreading a seminary reading response piece before I turn it in, and I realized that instead of "the first Christians" I wrote "the first Questions." Hmm. And here's the full sentence, to help with the larger context: "I thought about the fact that the Bible really doesn’t say much about the Trinity and how we came to have so much theology that seeks to explain something which didn’t seem very important to the first Christians." You will see that Questions does work in that context, but I did mean to write Christians.

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I was intrigued by the feedback.  Some of my friends who have been to seminary or are in seminary made some comments about Trinitarian theology.  One of my other friends asserted that Trinitarian theology is in the Old Testament if we know where to look, like Genesis using "we" for God, to which a pastor friend replied, "A sign that that's coming from the Elohist source. I think that probably reveals the multiple-gods culture out of which Hebrew monotheism emerged, rather than being a precursor of Trinitarian theology."

That same pastor and my spouse had an interesting exchange about the ways that the earliest Christians were trying to understand God, and the pastor finished by quoting Flannery O'Connor:  "Well, to quote Flannery O'Conner: 'What I am asking for is really very ridiculous. Oh Lord, I am saying, at present I am a cheese, make me a mystic, immediately. But then God can do that — make mystics out of cheeses.' So there's hope for us would-be mystics, I guess!"

But perhaps my favorite comment came from a friend who is neither pastor nor seminarian:  "Did you check to see if "The First Questions" was available for the name of your traveling minstrel group?"

Ash Wednesday Preaching and Altar Creation

Wednesday night, I preached the Ash Wednesday sermon.  It didn't look/sound too different from the meditation/ blog post that I wrote.

What this picture doesn't show is my shoes.  I've had a few days of achingly sore feet, so Wednesday I decided to wear running shoes with my black velveteen skirt.  It may be the most comfortable outfit I've worn in weeks.

I also wore my running shoes because I knew I'd be doing some set up before the service.  My pastor took care of a prayer station for Ukraine:

I did the altar:

During one of my morning walks, I picked up various sticks that I thought would add dramatic effect.  

I also used some of the cactus from a past Lent altar.

Underneath the altar, I used coils of barbed wire and a large, dried palm frond.  I liked the echo of Palm Sunday and Good Friday at the altar.

This sanctuary is frustratingly hard to capture in good photos, but I may try again as the season of Lent progresses.  Plus I plan to make some changes here and there.

I remember when I first went to Mepkin Abbey in 2004, and I was fascinated watching the sanctuary change throughout the 4 days that I was there, from the flower and plant arrangements to the art and icons.  It was one of the first times that I thought about how much more we could do than just the paraments and sad banners left over from the 1970's.  One of the benefits of being at my current church with a shrinking population is that there is no altar guild, and my pastor is happy to let me take the lead in this area.

Last night was the kind of service where I thought about how much I will miss this church when we leave.  I've had all sorts of opportunities that many lay people never get:  to preach, to lead the service, to set up the altar and the larger sanctuary space, and to lead in many other ways in pre-pandemic times.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 6, 2022:

First Reading: Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Psalm: Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

Second Reading: Romans 10:8b-13

Gospel: Luke 4:1-13


This week's text shows Satan tempting Jesus in the desert. Jesus goes to the desert to find out "what it meant to be Jesus" (in the words of Frederick Beuchner). Jesus goes to the desert, that scorched, barren land. We begin our journey with Ash Wednesday, with scorched ashes from last season's palms that we used on Palm Sunday. Richard Pervo points out that it is a journey that starts in ash and ends in flames (think Pentecost). Along the way of our spiritual path, we will face similar temptations to the ones that Jesus faced.

The first temptation is so basic: basic sustenance, stones turned into bread. Most of us in the first world find ourselves caught up in a whirlwind of earning money. Why do we earn money? Well, of course, we need to cover our basic needs: food, shelter, clothing. But most of us have far more than we'll ever use. If you're like me, you have a multiple sizes of clothes in your closet, and even if you stayed within one size, you've probably got a month's worth of clothes that you could wear before you'd have to repeat. If you're like me, you've got a month's worth of food in the fridge and pantry, even when it's not hurricane season. If you're like most Americans, you have several cars, several computers, several televisions. Maybe you even have several houses.

Jesus is then tempted with power, and it's the rare person I've met who doesn't wrestle with questions of status and fame--and the power that comes with it. Even if you wouldn't sell your family or your self to be on TV, you've probably felt this temptation--or envy, because you weren't someone getting offers of fame and fortune.

The third temptation shows the danger of succumbing to the second temptation: once we become wealthy and powerful, we're likely to forget that we're not God. We use our money to insulate us, but we forget how fortunate we are to have that money. We begin to think that we earn that money because we're so talented, so capable, so educated--for many of us, the fact that we have one job over another is largely a matter of luck.

We could also read this temptation as the yearning to control God. How often do we pray in an attempt to control God? Maybe we pray for specific results to a problem. Maybe we pray for things we want, even if it's something that seems good, like an end to world hunger. Most of us aren't very patient with God's time scale. We wish God would just hurry up and show us the Divine Plan.

We need to look to the model of our savior, who also wrestled with temptation. We need to be resolute in our refusal.

The beauty of the cyclical nature of liturgical life is that it is full of chances to turn around. Even if you recognize that you've given in to these temptations or the many other temptations the world offers, it's not too late. God calls us to return. God gives us any number of welcome home parties. God waits patiently, like the parent of the prodigal son. And God knows that we will stray again. Like keeping to a sensible eating plan, this spiritual path requires more vigilance than we can sustain all the time. And yet, we can keep adjusting our trajectory.

Welcome to Lent, the season of ash and penitence. Repent, return, retool your lives. It is time again to commit to resurrection, to submit to the purifying flames of Pentecost. As we begin our Lenten journeys, let us remember that ash will not have the last word.  Let us remember that we are on a journey to Easter, where the power of the grave will be defeated.

Ash Wednesday in a Time of Plague and War

 It is Ash Wednesday, and I will be preaching the Ash Wednesday sermon tonight.  My pastor asked me if I would like to do it, and I said yes--this was several weeks before the invasion of Ukraine.  Does the invasion of Ukraine change my message?

Maybe it will--I'll let us all know tomorrow, once I know what I actually preached.  I usually go into sermons with an idea of what I will say, but I don't write it all out.  If the Holy Spirit wants to say something, there's room.  It's partly that, but it's partly that I'm lazy and often crunched for time.

A lot of us approach Ash Wednesday as a kind of wake up call, a reminder that we all die in the end, and so we better get on with what we plan to do with our lives.  Because we live in a secular culture that wants us to forget this reality, in many ways the Ash Wednesday message that we're returning to death is an important one.

But the pandemic has driven that point home in a way that the symbolism and sermons of Ash Wednesday services never quite managed to do.  Almost everyone I know, from all walks of life, is making different life decisions than they would have made three years ago.

The eruption of war in Europe has shifted our attention to the ash part of Ash Wednesday.  We may be thinking of the futility of all that we do, when it will all end in ash and decay.  With nuclear saber rattling happening and mass bombings in Ukraine, do we need to emphasize the "Remember that you are dust" message of Ash Wednesday?

Our church will have a prayer table with candles to light as we pray for Ukraine, and to me, that's a potent Ash Wednesday symbol too. We are asked to remember that we are dust, but we are not told that our descent to ashes gives us license to forget the tribulations of the world.  Many of us are old enough to have seen that iron curtains can come down, that freedom fighters can emerge from prisons and go on to win national elections. 

Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent in dust and ashes, but we are heading towards a very different season, the season of Easter.  This season of ash will end at the high holiday, Easter, that tells us that death, decay, and ash will not have the final word.

Preparing for Lent

Today is the day before Lent begins, Mardi Gras, and it's also Shrove Tuesday. It's the day before Ash Wednesday, the day before Lent begins. Mardi Gras and Carnival, holidays that come to us out of predominantly Catholic countries, certainly have a more festive air than Shrove Tuesday, which comes to us from some of the more dour traditions of England. The word shrove, which is the past tense of the verb to shrive, which means to seek absolution for sins through confession and penance, is far less festive than the Catholic terms for this day.

Will this be the year that we go back to having pancake suppers on the day before Ash Wednesday?  Or did we give up on those long ago, even before the pandemic made it unsafe to gather in groups?  Most of the churches that I've attended wouldn't expect that people would come to church on both Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, no matter how delicious the pancakes or how meaningful the evening service.

Some of us will spend today thinking about whether or not we want to adopt a special Lenten discipline.  Some of us will give up something for Lent:  chocolate or gossip or sugar or caffeine or social media.  But there are different approaches to Lent that make for a more meaningful season.

Poet Kelli Russell Agodon had this nugget of insight in an exchange on Twitter: "I gave up sweets and chocolate for no reason for WAY too many years. Yes, I've switched things up--how can I be useful as opposed to 'how can I sacrifice.' The difference is huge."  She's decided to post a meaningful poem a day, by poets who are writing now and need some encouragement.

There are many ways of being useful.  We can donate time.  We can donate money.  We can resolve to go about in the world with cheerful faces.

Or maybe we've been so useful that we're burnt to a crisp.  Maybe this is the Lent that we want to add something; traditionally we would add more devotion time, more prayer.  Maybe this is the year we want to add some deep self-care:  a spa day a week, a massage, a retreat.

Or maybe this is the Lent where we finally believe that we are enough:  we don't have to do more, to be more, to give up more.  God loves us, just as we are right now.