Rev. Dr. David McAllister-Wilson's Sermon: Bridging the Space Between Cosmic Wonder and Human Misery

Yesterday I went to my first worship service at Wesley Theological Seminary; every Tuesday at 11:00, the Seminary has a worship service, which the community calls Chapel (as in "See you at Chapel today").  Does every Tuesday service include communion?  I'll let you know.  

Yesterday's service was fairly traditional in terms of format:  singing, Bible readings, sermon, more singing, communion, more singing--with prayer throughout.  The sermon impressed me, and I'm not easily impressed.

The president of the seminary, Rev. Dr. David McAllister-Wilson, gave the sermon after we heard the gospel reading from Matthew 6: 25-33, the passage about not worrying about how we'll eat or clothe ourselves.  He talked about the times that he's overwhelmed by the planet's misery, and one way he copes:  by looking at images of the universe, like this one from the James Webb telescope:

He read the part of Psalm 19 that talks about the days talking to each other, in language without words.  I took note of that, because it's a passage that has been speaking to me since I read it earlier in the week and started a sketch.

Rev. Dr. McAllister-Wilson noted his place of privilege that allows him to consider the universe and that most of the world doesn't have this privilege.  He talked about our seminary journey--what is the purpose of seminary studies?  How does it prepare us to talk to people in despair?  How does it prepare us to bear witness to the splendor of the universe in the face of pain?

He talked about Vincent Van Gogh and one of his famous works, which is interesting comparing it to the Webb telescope image above:

He then talked about the other side of Van Gogh's work, using this image to ground his discussion.

We will be effective ministers as we navigate/speak to/bridge the distance between these 2 Van Gogh paintings that summarize so much of existence (cosmic awe/wonder and sorrows of life).

First Full Day as Seminary Resident

Yesterday was my first full day as a resident on the campus of Wesley Theological Seminary.  My day revolved around unpacking, which doesn't make for an interesting blog post, but it must be done.  I will have space for everything, but I already knew that.  So far, I haven't figured out how to hang anything on the cinderblock walls.

The stove works as I expected, even though it's a bit rickety. And wow, is it a small little stove.  But it works.  I won't be cooking elaborate meals.  I had to call the director of housing when I couldn't figure out how the shower works.  I wasn't sure of the protocol--do I call an RA?  Happily, the housing director was able to tell me that the diverter was a ring right at the edge of the faucet accessed by reaching under the faucet--turn the ring, and voila, a shower!

I decided to use my morning walk to go to Wegmans, a grocery store a mile away.  They don't have plastic bags, so I walked back with a paper bag tucked under my arm.  I bought broccoli, carrots, parmesan cheese, cut up cantaloupe chunks, and butter. I walked back a different way and was pleased that I could get back to Mass. Ave., where Wesley Theological Seminary is located. I walked long city blocks, and only after I got home did I realize I'd been carrying about 5 pounds of groceries.  

I was able to get my parking sticker and the key to my mailbox.  My brief trip across campus to the administration building was my break from unpacking.  When the weather gets cooler, I want to take an afternoon walk, but there were heat advisories yesterday, so I decided not to push myself.  Plus, I had plenty of unpacking to do.

I'm still not done unpacking.  I know that I'm the kind of person who won't do much reorganizing once things are put away, so I want to think things through as I unpack.

I had my first seminary class last night.  My main frustration was with my new laptop.  I've noticed that when I'm on a Zoom call, I have to turn the volume up to 100%, so I bought speakers.  Last night, I couldn't get the speakers to work.  I knew it was not a problem with the speakers because the two sets of headphones that I had nearby also did not work.  As I tried to troubleshoot, I knocked over a glass of tea.  Happily, I had a lid on it, but I still spilled some, which left me a bit frazzled.  It was before the class started, so I'm hoping that my classmates didn't notice too much.

After class, I was hungry, but I don't have too much in the apartment.  I roasted some pecans in a pan and salted them--the perfect bedtime snack!  I was still trying to troubleshoot the speakers, so I went to YouTube and selected a full recording of George Winston's Autumn.  Suddenly, the speakers worked for reasons that aren't clear to me.  I just sat and let the music wash over me as the sky got fully dark (just because of night descending, not anything more sinister).

I finished the day with this Facebook post, which is a good way to finish this blog post.  I need to get my walk in before the sun gets too high in the sky (yep, back to that kind of climate, but with more trees than South Florida).

From the window of my seminary apartment, I can see at least one American University dorm stretching to the sky--lots of lights on. Most of us have had at least one class of our new semester today. I'm listening to George Winston's "Autumn," which I used to play constantly during my first year of undergraduate school; I made a cassette tape of my dad's LP, but tonight I'm using YouTube (probably technically also a bootleg recording). Here I am, living in student housing, not sure what year it is anymore.

Last August Moving Trip

I knew that I would make the last August trip to seminary by myself.  I planned to leave at 5 a.m. so that I could get to the area in the early afternoon with enough time to have lunch with my sister and to unload the car.  

As is usual for me, I had trouble sleeping the night before.  I got up to make coffee and to check the weather.  We'd had a string of foggy mountain mornings in the last week, but yesterday, the reports were clear.  I decided to go ahead and get on the road at 4:30.

It was fog free, but I had forgotten how dark it gets with very little ambient light.  It's been a LONG time since I felt the need to turn on my bright lights.  Happily, I was one of few cars on the windy interstate, so I could use my brights.  Later, the fog rolled in over the Virginia mountains.  I felt like I was driving alternately through a bucolic watercolor painting or a Halloween movie set.  The sun was rising by then, so the fog didn't stress me as much as it would have at 5 a.m.

My sister and I had a delicious lunch and figured out how to use Google maps on the phone.  I don't have an app downloaded that would talk me through the navigation, but that was fine with me.  Knowing that I could figure out my way if I got lost was the key thing.

I made my way over to the seminary campus.   I got a bit turned around; I drove by the Target where we shopped after the first moving in, but I couldn't remember the cross street that would take me to seminary. Happily, I just kept going, hoping that the street would intersect Massachusetts Ave, which I knew it had a good chance of doing--and it did!

I worried that the parking lot might be completely full, but there were only a few more cars there than there were when we first arrived with carloads of stuff.  I unlocked the apartment door and took a quick check before unloading the last carload of stuff.

I did a bit of setting up, but it will take more than just a Sunday afternoon to get completely unpacked.  I'm fine with that--it's my moving in style, and I have only myself to consider.  I thought I would go to bed early, but I was too wound up for that.  Eventually, I drifted up, but I did wake up very early--just too excited to sleep.

I want to make sure that I am intentional while I am here, that I don't waste a minute of my time in DC.  I really want to see the new African American history museum, the newest Smithsonian museum.  They are still using timed entry tickets, so I thought I'd sign up for Wednesday.  Ha!  The next available Wednesday is Sept. 14, so I signed up.  I did some strategizing.  On Wednesday, I'll go to the Renwick Museum, which is close to the African American history one, so it will be a test run--finding the Metro, getting myself there.

This morning, I'll walk over to the Wegman's off Wisconsin Ave.  I'll buy a few things, like some butter and some parmesan cheese.  I bought some non-perishables at the end of last week, plus some tomatoes at the farmer's market and a loaf of bread.  I brought the leftover bakery bread from last week's adventure which will be better with butter.

I may forgo an afternoon walk--we've got heat advisories.  Or maybe I'll take a leisurely walk and expect to sweat.  And then, tonight is my first class--it's an online virtual class.  I don't have my first in person class until tomorrow night.

I can see the beginnings of daybreak out of my east facing window--how beautiful.  Let me wrap up this writing and get ready for this first full day on campus and in DC.

Desks and Dreams

 This morning is the last morning in North Carolina--well, until I come back for a Crafts for Christmas retreat, where I'll sleep in my house, but go to the retreat during my waking hours.

Today I'll head back to my sister's house, have lunch with her, and then I'll go to my seminary apartment.  I'll begin the delightful work of unpacking boxes and figuring out where everything should go.

It will be the first time I've lived in a place where I get to make these decisions without thinking about what housemates/family members want.  My spouse will be back and forth, but I expect that he will spend the majority of time back in our North Carolina house.  I'll set up the seminary space in the way that works for me, which probably means more twinkly lights and seasonal decorations than we would have if we shared the space.

I am thinking of these weeks at this desk in this house in North Carolina.  

I tried to get back to writing poetry, but it happened in fits and spurts.  My writing time was disrupted by travel, but that's OK.  It was necessary to get me to seminary housing, where I'll be more intentional about setting up a schedule that includes time for creative writing.

I think back to the summer as a whole, the summer that was not hospitable to writing practices beyond blogging, but necessary to get us to a place and space that will be more hospitable.  I'm thinking of this summer as a summer of the upheaval of moving to not just one place, but two.  As we packed, we marked the boxes that would be going on to seminary.  We had a system, but I have to believe that moving to 2 places was a stress that would have been reduced if we had just been moving to one place.

My desk at seminary will be just as battered as my current desk.  My seminary desk will have a history, but unlike my grandparents' desk, which is now mine, I don't know the history of the seminary desk.  I wrote my first short story that had publication potential at this desk, back when it was in my grandmother's house, back when I was in college taking a short story class wondering if I could do something similar with my writing.  I remember scrawling the story as I sat at that desk, never dreaming it might be mine some day.

Hopefully, I will have similar memories about my seminary desk.  Desks are not usually what we think of when we think of sacred spaces--but just think about the dreams we might not see realized if we didn't have a desk.

Technology Fails and Wins: Of Cell Phones, Ice Cubes, and Cookies

Yesterday I called to see whether or not my cell phone would be fixed.  I thought that my issue had been elevated, but the person on the phone told me that it hadn't.  He said he elevated it; I've been told that before.  

I looked at other plans, but the Spectrum plan is cheapest.  It's the best deal, if they can get my cell phone working.  Insert a heavy sigh here.

So, we will keep the phones for now.  When I travel to seminary tomorrow, I'll take the one that's working.  I primarily want a cell phone to summon help in the case of car trouble.  Sending a text is not really what I have in mind.

If Spectrum can't get the phone with the ported # working, we'll probably cancel the whole deal--I can mail the phone back to my spouse or drive it back.  We have 2 weeks from Tuesday, August 23.

On a happier note, the used refrigerator that we got from the consignment store is working beautifully.  It is a wonderful thing to have a gallon of iced tea that can stay cold and to be able to have ice cube trays that freeze ice.  The fridge was plugged in at the consignment store, so we weren't taking much of a risk.  But we saw the fridge in a warehouse type of showroom that had no air conditioning, so of course it would feel cool when we opened the door.

We are going to a potluck community picnic today, so I wanted to make some cookies.  The oven part of our stove has been coming on, so I decided to risk using it--might as well see how it behaves, right?  But I hedged my bets.  The recipe for butterscotch bars is very forgiving.  The oven stayed on for 10 minutes, then it turned itself off.  I tried moving the dial, with no results.  I left the bars in the oven with the dial turned to 375.  Ten minutes later, the oven turned itself back on, and the cookies finished baking.  I turned the oven off, and I wondered if it would turn itself back on, even with the dial turned to off.  So far, that hasn't happened.

What a delight to have homemade cookies from our own oven.  We haven't had that in months.  In case you want the same joy, here's the recipe.  This recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks:  Beatrice Ojakangas' The Great Holiday Baking Book.   She's got a recipe for every conceivable holiday and great ways to celebrate the passage of the seasons.

Butterscotch Bars

1/4 C. butter, melted
1 C.  packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 C. flour (partial whole wheat works well)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 C. nuts (I prefer pecans, but you might like walnuts)

Preheat the oven to 375.  Butter a 9 inch square pan.

Beat the brown sugar, butter, vanilla, and egg together until light and fluffy.  Stir in the flour and baking powder, and when combined, the nuts.  Spread the batter into the pan.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the center is firm to the touch.  A tester may not come out completely clean--the bars will solidify as they cool.  You should cut into serving size bars after 10-20 minutes of cooling.

This recipe is easily doubled and baked in a 9 x 13 inch pan.  You could also add chocolate chips into the batter or melt 1/2 c. of chips and drizzle across the top of the bars.

Debt Relief and the Modern Student

I have been fascinated by the social media "conversation" swirling around President Biden's student debt relief plan and even more intrigued by how often the conversation veers to Christianity and the views of debt and grace.  I do realize that my social media may be having a vastly different discourse than that of others.  As I said to a colleague long ago, I tend to follow lefty Christian thinkers and creative writers and fiber artists which makes my Twitter feed much stranger than that of many people.

It's worth reading the plan itself (which you can do here) rather than what everyone thinks about the plan.  It is income based, which gets lost in the national yelling.  The very wealthy aren't getting debt relief.  The wealthy aren't getting debt relief.  If you make over $125,000 a year as a single person or $250,000 as a household, you're not eligible.  We can argue over whether $125,000 in income as a single person makes one wealthy or middle class, but the fact remains--not everyone is eligible. 

The most important plan isn't the amount of money forgiven, but the changes covered in point #3 that make debt more manageable.  To me, that's a Biblical concept, not a Capitalist one--but I rarely see that aspect covered in all the discourse about whether or not it's Christian to forgive debt and what does the Lord's Prayer mean anyway?

Another aspect rarely discussed is the structural nature of this debt.  Why are so many students in such debt?  Because over the past 40 years, state and federal support of higher education has shrunk to almost nothing, and students have picked up the remainder.  Tuition has skyrocketed for a variety of reasons, but the root of it all remains in the fact that state support of public education has shrunk so radically.  

In this conversation, Astra Taylor makes a powerful point:  "There are 45 million student debtors in the United States. Did each one of those 45 million people just make a terrible mistake? They just somehow failed to really comprehend compound interest? No. When something is that massive, when you have 45 million people all in the same boat, it’s because of the structural issue, because that’s actually the way the economy is set up."

I know that I am fortunate in having no student loans.  I got lots of scholarships, but I had the advantage of when I went to school, especially grad school, from 1987-1992.  For grad school, I paid less than $1000 in tuition each year because I had a teaching assistantship.  It was very affordable.  It is no longer affordable in that way.

Now the system is structured so that most students, from undergrad on up, have to take on debt, and that debt can be unregulated, so that interest rates are obscenely high.  Most students don't have lots of options when it comes to who offers them the loan and the terms of the loan.  There aren't as many predatory lenders now as there once were, but those loans still exist. 

I have loved the concept of a Jubilee year since I first stumbled across the concept decades ago.  I love the idea that toil will end, that at a certain point, debts are wiped out and everyone starts with a clean slate.  I associate the concept with pre-Christian ideals, not with Christ.  But readers of this blog will know that I have deep reservations about atonement theory, so they won't be surprised.

This new policy may not be as radical a debt forgiveness as a Jubilee year; it may not be what many activists hoped for.  But it will improve the lives of many, and for that we can give thanks.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The Readings for Sunday, August 28, 2022:

First Reading: Proverbs 25:6-7

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Jeremiah 2:4-13
First Reading (Alt.): Sirach 10:12-18

Psalm: Psalm 112

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 81:1, 10-16

Second Reading: Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14


Here is another Gospel lesson which reminds us how different a world is the one that Jesus ushers in. It also shows us that ancient times weren't much different than ours.

We spend much of our day vying for power and position. Even in settings where there's not much to be gained by winning favor, one still sees a ridiculous amount of energy and time spent on power games. Think of the last meeting you had. Think of how short that meeting would have been if you could have gotten rid of people who spoke up to say, essentially, "I agree with what the last person said." Think of all the time wasted in currying favor with the people in charge or with each other.

Alternately, maybe you're more familiar with colleagues who try to cut each other down. Even when the stakes are small, even when the outcomes don't particularly matter, people will wage nasty battles to prove that they're right and everyone else is wrong.

Outside of the workplace, we can also sees this dynamic. In volunteer situations, people often want to prove that they're indispensable. We even see this in our relationships with friends, the one place where you would think we would approach each other as equals. Likewise in marriages--many spouses spend absurd amounts of time trying to prove that one way of doing things is the right way, and all other ways are bad.  Maybe you've had arguments about the right way to wash the dishes or fold the towels?

Psychologists would tell us that we play these power games because we're trying to satisfy our needy egos. We want to feel important because we spend much of our lives feeling insignificant. But instead of addressing that pain by making others feel better, we try to make others feel worse. We put people down so that we feel better. We connive and work to wound others.

Christ comes to usher in a new age. Again and again, he reminds us (in the words of today's Gospel), "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 14: 11). We don't win favor with God in the way we might win favor with the boss. God is well aware of God's importance. We don't need to make God feel like the big man so that we might win a promotion.

God calls us to a higher purpose. We're to look out for the poor and downtrodden. And we're not to do it because we'll be repaid by the poor and downtrodden. We do it because Christ came to show us how to crack open the world and let the Kingdom light shine into the dark cracks. And the way to do that is not to show how wonderful we are. The way to let God's light shine is to look out for the marginalized of the world.

The Feast Day of Saint Bartholomew/Nathaniel

Today is the feast day of Saint Bartholomew, who many of us may think we don't know.  But Bartholomew was also Nathaniel--one name is the Greek version and one is Hebrew.  We think of Jesus as living in a distant outpost of the Roman empire, and in a way, that's true.  But that area of the Middle East was also a crossroads, where various cultures had influence:  Greeks, Jews, Romans, all sorts of people coming and going by sea and by land, all sorts of trade happening, all sorts of cultural elements mixing and matching.

Nathaniel was the disciple who asked, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"  He's won over when Jesus can tell him that he was just under a fig tree.  In the Gospel of John, he's the 4th disciple called, so he's among the first.

Nathaniel is martyred for his faith; his killing was particularly gruesome, including both flaying and beheading.  But before he's killed, legend has it that he brought Christianity to both India and Armenia.  He is the patron saint of nervous and neurological diseases, bookbinders, shoemakers, and makers of leather.  I always find these collections of patron saint job descriptions intriguing.  Is it because he was flayed that he's watching over leather makers?

If we lived in England in earlier centuries, we might see Saint Bartholomew's day as the beginning of a seasonal shift:

"Saint Bartholomew / brings the cold dew."

And here's another:  

"If Bartlemy's Day be fair and clear, / We may hope for a prosperous Autumn that year."

So let's see what the day brings.  It's hard to continue hoping for a prosperous autumn, given the disease spikes the world is facing, and the collapse of a variety of foreign policies, and all the ways the world is so desperately in need of healing.  Our weather forecast here in North Carolina calls for sunny weather, so here's hoping. 

In Praise of the Ministry Fair

This Sunday, my South Florida church will hold a ministry fair.  I wrote the following for the electronic newsletter, and I think it's worth preserving here.

This Sunday, during fellowship time after church, Trinity members are invited to come to a ministry fair.  In times past, different ministries have had a table and people to talk to about ministry opportunities at Trinity Lutheran Church and beyond. Some of these ministries revolve around justice: changing systems so that people have more access to resources and so that people in trouble/need are treated more fairly. Some of these ministries revolve around charity, like Trinity's successful food pantry; we pray for the day that a food pantry is a failure because nobody has that need, but that day has not broken through yet. There are ministries that offer people a creative outlet for their spiritual yearnings, like the choir. There are other types of ministries that a church might offer, ministries that revolve around fellowship.

Sunday is the day to find out what's happening at church beyond worship services. Sunday is the day to discern ways to deepen our faith, ways that can bolster what is underway in worship.

You might go to the ministry fair and wish that we had a different kind of ministry. Luckily, Trinity is an open congregation. We're small, so we don't have a staff to create every kind of ministry that might be helpful. But this congregation has a rich history of lay leadership, and members are open to ministries completely led by non-clergy. If you have an idea, talk to Pastor Keith about how you can lead a ministry team or offer ministry opportunities.

Ministries don't have to last forever. In fact, having a ministry with an end date can be a blessing. I'm thinking of the special projects we've had for Advent or Lent, practices that enriched an already special time.

So come to the ministry fair to see what might be possible. Come and see how the ministries of Trinity can make your faith stronger--and in doing so, how the ministries of Trinity can make our community stronger.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jog

 Here I sit, at my little house in the mountains, waiting for it to be light enough to go out for my morning walk.  There are many markers of seasonal change, some smaller than others.  When we first moved here, back at the end of July, I could go for a walk at 6:00.  I still could, but now I would take a flashlight.

In South Florida, because there is so much ambient light from overdevelopment, there's never a need for a flashlight.  But I would much rather be here, where there are hills to challenge me, and trees and a wide variety of creatures.  So far, I haven't seen a bear, but I have seen a fox and bunnies, along with the usual critters, like birds and squirrels.

On Thursday, we drove the loaded car to my sister's house, the same trip I took 2 weeks earlier.  It was interesting to see how the trees had changed in subtle ways:  a yellow leaf here and there, trees with a more reddish tinge than green.

Yesterday we drove back to North Carolina.  We had thought we might spend a few days in seminary housing, but we have some last tasks in North Carolina to take care of (like getting license plates), so we decided to come back early.  A much earlier plan had been to drive up in 2 cars and leave me there while my spouse returned to North Carolina.  In so many ways, I'm glad we changed our plans.  It was much easier with 2 drivers and 1 car.  Driving 2 cars and trying to stay together was tough when we did it back in July.  I'm glad we weren't trying to do it again.

We had thought we might have a more leisurely morning and leave at 11 or so.  But after looking at the radar, we decided to get a head start on the weather that was expected to roll in.  All along the way, we watched the clouds all around us, wondering when rain would fall.  For the most part, it held off, which made for a good trip.  I prefer to drive under cloudy skies, not sunny, not raining.

I was still fairly exhausted when we got home at 5:00.  I tried to stay awake, but finally, I decided to admit defeat.  Plus, I was feeling a bit chilled and shivery, which made me worry about what my body might be fighting off.

Happily, this morning, I feel a bit better.  I had hoped that I was feeling shivery because it was raining and chilly last night, and I think it's the case.

And now, on to the tasks of the week:  getting driver's licenses, getting smart phones, moving money so that I can pay for seminary classes, doing some shopping for my seminary apartment.  I am going to need some lamps, and I'm trying to remember where I saw them in our thrift store shopping a few weeks ago.  Plus I may do some food shopping so that I get to campus with some time before I need to shop.

A Saturday Sail

 You may think that I spent all of yesterday unpacking at my seminary apartment.  I did not.  There will be plenty of time for unpacking and organizing later, when my loved ones have gone back to their regularly scheduled lives.

We took advantage of the good weather yesterday and went for a brief sailing trip--although there was no wind, so I don't know that we should call it a sailing trip.  Maybe an outing on a sailboat.  The day offered hot sunshine, which made my spouse and sister happy.  My brother-in-law is at his happy place when he's on the boat.

As we made our way through the towns on the Chesapeake Bay, I thought, we used to sail more often; what happened?

Well, for one thing, the pandemic.  In 2020, everything was cancelled in terms of family gatherings.  In the summer of 2021, we were still being very careful.

As I got ready for our outing, I thought about all the places I've gone this summer, all the times I brought a swimsuit.  This trip, I didn't.  But I didn't really need it.  The nephew who once begged for us to go with him to the pool at the marina now has his own summer job--as a lifeguard at a pool near his house.

It was a hot day on the Bay, and we weren't going to jump into that water because of all the jellyfish.  I'd rather sit and sweat into my cotton clothes than a swimsuit that will stay soggy all day.  It worked out.

The best part of the day for me was the drive home.  While my spouse slept in the back seat, my sister and I had a great conversation about all there is to do in the DC area.  We didn't just talk about museums and theatre.  We talked about all the great worship opportunities I'll have:  weekly chapel at seminary, the National Cathedral nearby, and the chance to go to other religious institutions, along with regular churches.  I have always been amazed at what the churches in the DC area accomplish, and I'd like to check them out, along with the intentional communities that so many of them have founded along the way, like the Sojourners community.

Or maybe I'll commit to Luther Place--I spent some time this morning exploring their website.  Long ago, in the 80's, I did volunteer work with their homeless ministry.  It looks like they've continued to do important social justice work.

But before I can start implementing my plans for maximizing opportunities over the next few years while I live in DC, I need to go back to North Carolina.  I've got some last tasks to do there:  getting license plates for the cars, getting smart phones set up, finding new health insurance.  The Lutheridge community has their annual picnic and meeting on Saturday at the lake.   Then on Sunday, I'll drive back up here, this time to settle into seminary housing on a more permanent basis.

The Feast Day of St. Bernard of Clairvaux

 Today we celebrate the life of the 12th century monk, St. Bernard of Clairvaux. What an amazing man!

Those of us interested in monasticism owe a debt to St. Bernard, who was responsible not only for founding his own monastery, but for sending monks out to establish monasteries or to rescue already-formed monasteries from heretical directions. We give him credit for the founding of hundreds of monastic communities.

Bernard was also responsible for helping the church avoid schism at several key points. He also defended the church against various nobility who wanted church holdings.

We could give Bernard credit for moving the church towards a more personal faith, although I imagine he would be horrified at the manifestations of those ideas of a personal relationship with Jesus that many of us have. He's also responsible for elevating the status of Mary within the church.

I confess, as a Lutheran, the veneration of Mary always mystified me. Then I visited Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist order of monks. I found the references to Mary soothing, and the Compline service which included prayers to Mary as we faced a stone statue (very abstract in style) surrounded by candles helped me sink into a deep sleep.

As I research these monastics of older centuries, it's intriguing to me to see how ideas that we associate with later centuries were present even in medieval times. We see medieval thinkers wrestling with an emotional/mystical approach to faith (like Bernard of Clairvaux) and with an intellectual/rational approach to faith (like Peter Abelard). Throughout Christianity, we still struggle with the best way to integrate these two approaches.

Most people I know still wrestle with the the issue of how to live an authentic life, one where all our values are in sync. In an earlier age, we might have found sanctuary in an abbey. Monastic communities are some of the most successful incarnations of intentional communities--how could we follow their models if we want to live an integrated life?

RIP, Frederick Buechner

I was sad to hear of the death of Frederick Buechner earlier this week, although he did live to be in his 90's, so it wasn't the kind of sadness that I would have of one lost too young.  Buechner was a Presbyterian minister and theologian--but that's a simplification, really. He wrote more than thirty books, and who knows how many sermons. The scope of his writing is breathtaking: novels, devotional items, sermons, autobiography, theology.

But here's what's most intriguing to me: he's the kind of writer whom readers of all types adore. I've met atheists who like his writing. Christians of all stripes love him. He achieves a kind of universality achieved by few; Henri Nouwen comes to mind as someone with similar writing achievements. Buechner writes the kind of theology that's insightful and full of surprises, but so solid that he doesn't inspire controversy. It's not an easy feat to pull off.

Years ago in this post on my creativity blog, I wrote:

"I want to get back to thinking about the future in these terms: what would I do, if I believed that anything was possible? What do I enjoy doing? To put it in theological terms I want to structure my future in the way that Frederick Buechner would advise in his book Wishful Thinking: 'The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.'"

Theologian Barbara Brown Taylor says: "From [Buechner] I've learned that the only limit to the revelation going on all around me is my willingness to turn aside and look."

Here are some more Buechner quotes:

"You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it. ... You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next." Beyond Words

"Martin Luther said once, 'If I were God, I'd kick the world to pieces.' But Martin Luther wasn't God. God is God, and God has never kicked the world to pieces. He keeps re-entering the world. He keeps offering himself to the world by grace, keeps somehow blessing the world, making possible a kind of life which we all, in our deepest being, hunger for." From discussion with reporter Kim Lawton on Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly

"The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt." The Hungering Dark [59]


"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." Now and Then

Moving Right Along

 Today one phase of moving into seminary campus housing will begin.  But it's a slow motion move.  I will be back in North Carolina next week, and then again the week-end after Labor Day for Crafts for Christmas at Lutheridge.  But after those trips, I won't likely be here again until November.

It's a big life change, but readers of this blog know it's not the only one.  I talked to one of my college friends who has known me longest, and he said, "Wow, this has been quite a year for you guys!"  In his voice, I could hear that he understood both the negative and the positive.

I want to remember the progress I've made in healing from my broken wrist.  A month ago, I was still having trouble getting into and out of my clothes, which means I was doing it mainly with my left hand.  A month ago, I still had only 3 positions in which I could sleep because I still had so much discomfort in my right arm and shoulder.

And here's a milestone which I want to record, though most people won't understand the significance.  My driver's license now lists my hair as brown.  The very nice DMV employee said, "Hair color.  Brown?"  I thought, yes, it really isn't blonde.  I can't even claim strawberry blonde.  Rust probably isn't one of the options.  I said, "Brown is fine."  Will I color my hair again?  It's hard to know.

On a less mundane note, I had 2 different Zoom sessions last night.  One was with my Mepkin journaling group; we're discussing Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation, and we had a vigorous discussion of Merton's view of Mary.  I also met with my small group from my spiritual formation class that I took across my first year of seminary.  I thought about how long it had been since I've been deeply engaged with theology and how much I'm looking forward to diving in again.

But first, the packing of the car, the getting settled in a new place.  Onward!

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, August 21, 2022:

First Reading: Isaiah 58:9b-14

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Jeremiah 1:4-10

Psalm: Psalm 103:1-8

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 71:1-6

Second Reading: Hebrews 12:18-29

Gospel: Luke 13:10-17


This week's Gospel, and others like it, is often used to show the rigidity of the religious officials of Christ's time. And indeed, the Pharisees and other temple officials were extreme in their adherence to the law. But they have a point--couldn't Jesus wait one more day to heal the woman?

I feel immense sympathy for the woman who is so afflicted that she cannot straighten her back. For eighteen years, she has suffered. It's the rare person who doesn't at least have a glimpse of what that must feel like. Our burdens can weigh us down so much that we can't look up from the floor.

Yet in our busy times, I also find myself feeling an odd sympathy with the leader of the synagogue, who says, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days to be healed and not on the sabbath day." The leader of that synagogue two thousand years ago couldn't have imagined the times we live in, our own age when it seems impossible to get away from work, where we're expected to be on call twenty-four hours a day.

Of course, it's important to remember that the religious leaders are not acutely concerned about the "on-call" nature of life. They are not scolding Jesus because they've tried to create a retreat from hectic life that he's now disrupting. They scold Jesus because there are rules that he refuses to follow.

To be fair, the religious leaders thought that strict observance of the rules of the purity codes would lead to the salvation of the Jews. Viewed in that light, their horror at the miracles of Jesus makes a certain amount of sense. The future of the chosen people is at stake.

Over and over again, Jesus reminds us that following the rules will not save us--and in fact, they might interfere with our salvation. Jesus makes it clear that any day is a good day to unloose people from the issues that bind them. Again and again, he tells us that we are to stay alert for opportunities to minister to each other.

Imposter Syndromes

 Over the week-end, I realized that another course shell for seminary had opened.  On Saturday, I spent a bit of time exploring while at the same time trying not to feel panic.  Some part of my brain watched from a distance, amused at the panic that I was trying to fight off.  I've done seminary classes before--why would I feel panic?  

I earned a Ph.D. in English--why would I feel panic?  And for that matter, where does this odd case of imposter syndrome come from?  I expected to feel like an imposter when I started grad school right out of undergraduate school.  But now?

To be clear, it's not a sense of imposter syndrome about being prepared for ministry.  It revolves around the issue of school itself.  It's partly about fear of being able to do the work--but I have been around enough decades to know that much of that ability is a time management ability, not an intellectual ability, and I have both time management and intellectual abilities enough to do MDiv level grad work.

I also feel weird about the money and the time that going back to grad school requires.  That's part of my imposter syndrome too.  I don't feel judgmental when I read about others who go back to school.  On the contrary, I feel a bit of envy.  But when I follow these opportunities?  My ugly inner voice sneers, "Who the heck are you to think that you deserve this?"

Along the road to this point in seminary, I've met so many women who decided to go to seminary in midlife, and that decision seems to have worked out well for each of them.  I am going to hold fast to the vision that they offer and the support and encouragement that they've give me.

Strange and Yet Familiar

What a strange week it has been in so many ways.  And yet, in some ways, the strangeness feels familiar.  Here I'm thinking the news of the FBI raid and classified documents hundreds of miles from where they should be stored, in the possession of Donald Trump in Florida--in some ways, it seems unprecedented, and in other ways, I shrug and say, "Of course it goes this way."  Traces of polio in the NY sewer system?  Of course it goes this way.

All yesterday, my brain returned to Salman Rushdie, who was attacked on Friday night by a man with a knife.  Yesterday morning, the news came that he was on a ventilator, and I dreaded where this story was headed.  But this morning, he's speaking.  Still, his injuries are so severe that in some ways, it seems shocking.  Yet in others, it seems like the logical outgrowth of the times we live in--and a fearsome road sign.  How does this trajectory end?  In armed civil war, as in the nineteenth century in so many countries?  Or with more of us taking more precautions of all kinds?

As I thought about Rushdie, about attacks on artists, my thoughts drifted to my own work.  While my mean inner voice sneered that I needn't worry, my rational brain thought about my work that would challenge those of a traditional Christian faith . . . or those with a traditional view of gender . . . or those with specific views of what should be taught in the classroom.  While most of us won't face the kind of severe threat that Rushdie has faced (hopefully we won't), we are none of us as safe as we might think we are.

I have been getting back to poetry writing, after a season of being mostly away--in part because of my broken wrist, in part because of moving.  Three weeks ago, these lines came to me as I thought about my spouse and myself and the ways that we have such different interests and how it can be hard for me to understand his approach and how he might be baffled at my midlife shift to seminary:

He's never seen a wall

he didn't dream of moving.

She rewrites every sacred text.

I thought these lines might make a good poem, and I tried.  That approach went nowhere in the first incarnation.  

But as I read updates and tweets and posts from the Churchwide Assembly* for the ELCA (which is the group of moderate, mainstream Lutherans which is one of my current worshipping preferences), my poem went a different direction and became something more interesting.  I had a glimpse of it and wrote this tweet:

"Wrestling with a poem that will include this line: 'She rewrites every sacred text.' It will include chickens and drying herbs and a churchwide meeting in a far away place. And some sort of art with fabric."

I am at the point with this poem where I am not sure if it is finished.  Does it have more to offer?  Should I just leave it alone?  It feels like I have more to say, but I'm not sure exactly what or how.  Once I might have been sure I would sort it out.  Now I am just as likely to wander away and never come back to this poem.  Is that O.K.?  Is some essential part of myself being lost?

Yesterday, I ordered books for seminary classes this fall, lots and lots of books.  I made this Facebook post:  "Just ordered all my books for Fall seminary classes and am now enjoying multiple freak outs: Can I really read all of these books in one term? Can I really do this work? Each book is inexpensive, but all of them together cost how much? And I know that the answer is that I am a strong, capable woman who can do this work and afford these books, but my inner freak out voice is not easily banished. Note to self for future terms: perhaps order the books one class at a time, instead of all at once."

Again, a process so strange, yet so familiar--I've successfully completed one year of seminary studies.  Why am I having anxiety now?  And yet the anxiety is familiar.  And perhaps that is why my brain returns to these patterns, so strange, yet so familiar.

*For more on what a Churchwide Assembly does, see this post on this theology blog.

Junk and Treasure for Sale

I have never been a person who loves thrift stores.  I don't mind an occasional quick trip, but I'm not a person who can go to store after store; I'm not interested in spending hours in a show.  In part, it's because there's not much there in my larger size, so I'm less inclined to go on a hunt for clothes.  In part, it's because I don't have much patience for searching through other people's junk on the off chance I'll find a treasure.  I already have too much stuff in my house.

Yesterday we went on a quest for a soup pot.  When I first thought about seminary housing, I thought I would buy a new set of pots and pans and leave the older stuff at home.  As I was packing, I thought it was absurd to buy a new set when we had almost 2 complete sets.

I don't have a large pot with a non-stick surface, so that's what I was looking for yesterday.  We headed down to the nearby town of Fletcher, which has some wonderful thrift-type stores.  But when I looked at the prices at the first store, I realized we were in the world of consignment shops, not thrift stores.  The prices seemed similar to what I would pay for the product new.  And they didn't have a soup pot.

They did, however, have a refrigerator.  It wasn't the one we'd had our eyes on, the model we bought for our kitchen remodel of 2003. It was a basic model, freezer on top, stainless steel outside.  It wasn't significantly cheaper than the model we could get at Lowe's--IF we could actually get that fridge.  We didn't buy it right away, but we did circle back later in the day to get it and to pay for delivery.

We went to a more traditional thrift store, the kind that supports a pet rescue, where we bought a microwave.  It's an older model, high power and rather huge as microwaves go.  We don't really have a good surface for it in our present kitchen.  Our countertops are too small for the microwave, which tells you how big it is or how small countertops were back in the 70's when our kitchen was installed.

So, at the end of the day, we bought a fridge and a microwave:  a kitchen remodel!

We also went to a more traditional thrift store, the local Good Will store, where we didn't find much, but the stuff was much cheaper.  We also went to my favorite kind of thrift store, where there were various venders, and many of them offered all sorts of trinkets from the past, like old bottles and kitchen equipment and such.  It reminded me of the big warehouses where we used to go in grad school, warehouses full of junk and treasure for sale, warehouses that would later be transformed/bulldozed into apartments and restaurants for a trendy section of town  (now the Vista, back then just Huger Street in Columbia, SC).

It's interesting to go thrifting, or any kind of shopping, after having spent a season paring down our possessions in advance of our move.  Part of me thought about all the stuff we jettisoned--could we have made money?  Of course, we'd have had to haul it up here to make money.  And it's hard to know if any of it would have actually sold.  I don't think we got rid of anything that was actually vintage instead of just old.

I understand the appeal of thrifting, the thrill of the hunt, the challenge of making something new out of other people's castaways.   But I'm also wary of the potential consumerism of it all, the amount of time it could take, not to mention the money and the storage space that might be required.  And let me back away from my judging tone here--I'm wary for me, not for the whole world.  For the whole world to be saved, we might need more thrifting, less of the other kinds of shopping.

Churchwide Assembly 2022

I have been following (and I use that word loosely) various updates (mainly in the form of tweets and Facebook posts) from the ELCA's Churchwide Assembly.  Watching the national form of this flavor of the Lutheran church conduct its business from a distance is an interesting exercise.  

The actual business is interesting, but so are the various reactions and then reactions to the reactions.  It's clear that the church has so many ways to break a human heart.  I could make that argument about any institution.  I could go even further and say that any person or institution or group can break our hearts in a number of ways, and in a way, it's a good thing.  It means we care.

Back to the ELCA:  I see a church that's trying to do the right thing, to move in life-giving directions, to correct what's gone wrong with the trajectory.  Some will grumble about how long these processes take, and I understand these grumblings.  I can also see that mistakes could be made if we moved too quickly.  It's a tricky needle to thread.

There are questions that I can't answer, questions about whether or not we have too much top down authority.  There are ways that I wish the corporate church would empower local congregations and individuals, but I don't have many expectations that way.  I've seen some react in horror that the national church behaves like a corporation, but in fact, it is more like a corporation than a congregation, and as such, it has a different set of priorities.

I have seen national gatherings of other denominations rip themselves to shreds over various questions, and I'm grateful that the ELCA isn't doing that this year.  I hear the people who would say that we're avoiding the hard questions, so it's not a good thing.  But I don't think so.  We're considering the questions in our traditionally slow and deliberate way.

I do think that the next Churchwide Assembly could be explosive, once we've had a chance to consider these issues.  And we'll be electing a bishop.  But then again, we'll have had time to consider these issues, to argue, to hash out differences.  Maybe it won't be explosive.

It's also sobering to think about how the world might be very different in 3 years. We may look back and shake our heads at what we thought was important at past Churchwide Assemblies.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, August 14, 2022:

First Reading: Jeremiah 23:23-29

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Isaiah 5:1-7

Psalm: Psalm 82

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18

Second Reading: Hebrews 11:29--12:2

Gospel: Luke 12:49-56


In churches that use the Common Lectionary, we only get an apocalyptic whiff every now and then. This week’s Gospel is one of those days. Jesus tells us that he's come to separate family members, to sow division. We certainly don't see Family Values Jesus here. In fact, if we read the Gospels from beginning to end, we see that Family Values Jesus just doesn't exist. Again and again, Jesus tells us that if we follow him on the path he shows us, we're likely to lose a lot that the world tells us we should hold dear--that might include some family members. Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus also assures us, that if we lose our lives, the lives that society sets out for us, we might actually find those lives.

But all too often, we don't see the signs we need to see, the signs that would let us know what kind of lives we're living, what kind of lives would satisfy our souls. We're good at forecasting the immediate weather when we notice obvious patterns: the direction of the wind and the appearance of clouds. But we're not good at noticing the bigger picture, like noticing God, when God becomes incarnate. We don't pay attention to doing what we know is right and good. Again and again, Jesus tells us that we need to pay attention.

It's interesting that these Gospel lessons come to us in the month of August, a time when the historian's mind might turn to apocalypse. We've just passed the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Barbara Tuchman wrote a book, The Guns of August, that explores the events in August of 1914 that led to World War I. Many regional conflicts burst into conflagration in August.

Jesus reminds us that the end is always near. We tend to think of the end in apocalyptic terms: mushroom clouds or poisoned water or melting glaciers. But Jesus comes with a different vision: he promises the end of oppression, the end of inequality. He holds out a dream of a world where everyone has enough and no one has to endure a boot on the neck.

For those of us with eyes to see, we can notice the beginnings of God's plan for the world, even while worldly powers think they're in charge.

Blessing Backpacks, Blessing Us All

Based on what I'm reading in various Facebook updates, the Blessing of the Backpacks as part of August church services is becoming fairly common across the nation, or at least in the Southeast. I'm all in favor.

Trinity Lutheran Church has expanded its Blessing of the Backpacks approach. We bless backpacks and the children that will take them to school. We collect school supplies for those that don't have them. We bless teachers. In a move that's dear to my heart, we bless administrators and cafeteria workers and bus drivers and librarians--all the support staff that make learning possible. We bless students from pre-K to college age, which includes grad school.

Lately, I've come to believe that as a people of faith, we need to spend more time on blessing and laying on of hands. And as I remember my own school years, I remember it as being fraught with dangers of all sorts. Yes, by all means, let us bless our students and their backpacks. Let us bless the adults who are charged with so much responsibility.

I would love to see us bless a wide variety of workers. It's a great way of reminding us all that our ministry can come in many forms. Most of us won't be pastors, hospice chaplains, or people who are employed by a church. But most of us have a mission field. When we think about our coworkers, we may be the way that God ministers to them.

And it's not just our coworkers. Our mission field may be our neighbors or others in our community. In an ideal world, weekly worship blesses us and equips us to be the hands of God, reaching out to a world in desperate need of healing.

Driving and Memories

Yesterday, I returned home from my quick road trip to take a car load of boxes for seminary up to Maryland.  I made this Facebook post:

"I left Maryland at daybreak and pulled into my North Carolina driveway at 1:35. Five states between dawn and noon: Maryland, W. Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. From the Interstate, I waved hello to my mother's birthplace (Winchester, Virginia) and my grandmother's birthplace (Johnson City, Tennessee). I waved hello to various schools that dear friends attended--too many to name. I crossed beautiful rivers and waved hello to the Appalachian Trail and other places I hiked in my youth. I said a prayer of thanks for all the green trees and the hope that resurrection of a tired planet might be possible."

I spent much of the drive awash in memories of previous road trips across these mountains.  While I've made the trip from Florida to the North Carolina mountains frequently, this past road trip took me to Virginia, where I haven't been in years/decades.  And I haven't been to Johnson City, Tennessee since I was in my late teens.  I have a memory of my mom and sister and I stopping in as we went from Knoxville to Charlottesville on time.  My maternal grandmother came from a farm in Johnson City, and my maternal grandfather's first call was to 5 churches in that area--that's how they met.

Instead of my zippy, subcompact Prius, I drove the SUV, a Rogue with all sorts of safety features and room for many more boxes.  I learned to drive on a 74 Monte Carlo, so you'd think I would be used to larger cars.  I am not.  It feels like a significant achievement to take a road trip in the Rogue all by myself.

There are many moments when I think, when did I become this timid person?  I used to take long road trips, back in the days before cell phones, in cars that leaked copious amounts of oil and were held together with chewing gum and good wishes.  I guess that one of the hazards/blessings of growing older is the awareness of all that can go wrong.

I am looking forward to the next road trip when I'll have another driver, and I can spend time looking at the views.  I was so focused on the road that I didn't really feel like I could take in all the mountain vistas.

First Time on Seminary Campus

 My original plan had been to be back on the road yesterday--7 hours up to Maryland on Friday, and 8 hours back to North Carolina on Saturday.  But as I looked at the calendar, I realized I could spend an extra day.  And yesterday, I was glad that I did.

I was glad for all the regular reasons:  time to recover from Friday's drive, time to enjoy a day with my family.  An unexpected bonus was our trip to see the campus of Wesley Theological Seminary, where I've been taking classes online for a year and will be taking classes in person in just a few weeks.

We headed down about 11:30 after a fun morning of walking the dog, going to the Amish market, and eating treats for breakfast.  My sister was the driver, and she knew exactly where she was going, which made it easier.  We pulled into the deserted parking lot and took a look around.

We couldn't get into housing, which was a plus in a way.  If I'm living there, I don't want anyone from off the street to be able to wander through.  There was a number we could call for assistance, but I didn't see the need to interrupt anyone's Saturday, just to show us the inside.  I'll see it in 2 weeks, when we move in.  We did look in a few open windows, and it looks like pictures I've seen.

The classroom building was open, so we wandered through.  It looks fairly modern, in terms of seating and equipment.  But there's lots and lots of art throughout the building, a wide variety of subjects, mediums, and approaches. We were also able to see the chapel.

My sister snapped a few pictures.  Here's the courtyard, where we both said, "Oh, there's more to this campus than I thought":

And here I am, standing next to a high bell tower:

Here's the bell tower at full height:

We didn't take a picture of either of us standing at the iconic statue of Wesley.  That would have been a long walk down a grassy field.  I'm glad that the seminary is set back from the road.  I'm glad that there are so many trees and green spaces.  I'm glad that there are so many high windows to capture that sense of being nestled in nature.

After our brief exploration of campus, we headed down Massachusetts Avenue.  I was reminded once again of how much DC packs into a very small geographical space:  embassies and universities and all sorts of organizations.  Oh, yes, and the three branches of the federal government.

DC has always been one of my very most favorite cities, and I'm looking forward to exploring it again.  And I'm happy that I'll have a home base on the seminary campus to come home to each day.

Transfigurations: Atomic and Spiritual

On this day in 1945, the world was about to change in dramatic ways that we likely still don't fully comprehend. On this day in 1945, the first nuclear bomb was used in war.

The effects of that bomb obliterated much of Hiroshima--and vaporized some of it. There were reports of people fused into pavement and glass--or just vanished, with a trace remaining at the pavement. The reports of the survivors who walked miles in search of help or water are grim. And many of those survivors would die of the effects of radiation in the coming years.

In a strange twist, today is also the Feast Day of the Transfiguration in Orthodox churches, the day when Jesus went up the mountain with several disciples and becomes transfigured into a radiant being. Those of you who worship in Protestant churches may have celebrated this event just before Lent began, so you may not think of it as a summer kind of celebration. Pre-Reformation traditions often celebrated this day in conjunction with blessing the first harvest.

I find these intersections interesting.

Today is a good day to think about what distractions, atomic, cosmic, or otherwise, take our attention away from the true work. Today is a good day to think about mountaintop experiences and how we navigate our lives when we're not on the mountaintop. Today is also a good day to meditate on power and how we seek to harness it and how we use power once we have it.

Today is a good time to spend with the texts for the day, to carve out some time for quiet contemplation. Go here for readings, complete with links, so that you can read online, if that's easier.

Today is also a great day to celebrate the transfiguring possibility of power. After all, not all uses of power lead to destructive explosions. Some times, we find redemption.

New Research on Mary and Martha and Lazarus

For years, I, like much of the church world, thought that Mary and Martha and Lazarus were siblings.  You may remember Lazarus as being raised from the dead or Mary and Martha as siblings with different ideas of how to treat Jesus when he comes to visit.  But what if we've gotten it all wrong?

In the closing sermon at this year's Wild Goose festival, Diana Butler Bass presented the work of Elizabeth Schrader, a PhD student at Duke.  She did research on the Lazarus text and noticed that the word Mary had been changed to Martha.  Why would someone do this?  And how can we be sure?  

Happily, Diana Butler Bass published her sermon here.  It's worth the read.  She makes the case that it was likely a 4th century change, a change to disempower Mary Magdalene.

But more important, she makes the case for why we should care.  Imagine how Christianity might have been different if we had seen Mary Magdalene as an important pillar of the church, just like Peter:  "The word magdala in Aramaic means tower. And so now you get the full picture. In the Synoptics, Jesus and Peter have a discussion. In that discussion, Peter utters the Christological confession. As a result of the Christological confession, Jesus says, "You are Peter the Rock." In the gospel of John, Mary and Jesus have a conversation, and Mary utters the Christological confession. And she comes to be known as Mary the Tower."

Would we have a better world today if we had prioritized Mary as much as we did Peter?  I would say yes.   I envision a more egalitarian world, of course.  I'd also like to see a world where we realize that we can contribute to the Kingdom of God in a wide variety of ways.  

If we had seen Mary and other women as important and vital, we'd have seen that there are other ways of being a disciple.  But it's not too late, of course.  If we see the Bible with fresh eyes, maybe we can move to that more egalitarian vision, so many centuries after the death of Jesus.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The Readings for Sunday, August 7, 2022:

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23 (23)
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40

I've heard many a minister preach on this text, and others like it. Almost all of them rush to assure us listeners that Jesus doesn't really mean that we should sell all of our possessions and trust fully in God to provide for us. Yet as I read the Gospels, I see that Jesus gives us these instructions again and again. Why are we so quick to dismiss these instructions? What if Jesus really meant what he said? What if it's not some kind of code, but something we're meant to take literally?

Again and again Jesus warns us not to trust in earthly treasure. He's clear: earthly treasure will always, ALWAYS, fail us. That's not the message the world wants us to hear. The world wants us to rush and hurry, to buy more stuff, to build more barns for our stuff, to accumulate and hoard and lie awake at night worrying that we won't have enough. The world wants us to pay attention to our bank accounts. Jesus wants us to be on the lookout for God.

One of the often repeated messages in the teaching of Jesus is that God will provide for us everything we need. Why is it so hard for us to believe?

Jesus is very clear that money and the pursuit of money can seduce us away from God's mission for us. Once, when I was stuck in an airport in Kentucky, I saw a book in the bookstore with this title: God Wants You to Be Rich. Really? In what Gospel would that be? I scanned the book, hoping that the author would cleverly remind us that God wants us to be rich in love, not rich in money and stuff. Alas, no. The author assured the reader that God's deepest desire for us is for us to accumulate money.

I don't know what Bible that writer was using. Read the Gospels again. Read the New Testament again. So much of the New Testament can be summed up thus: Stay awake and alert, focused on what's important; what's important is to love each other, the way God loves us; don't get too attached to things that don't matter--they keep you from loving your fellow sheep.

Again and again, Jesus tells us that we can't serve two masters. We must choose. Take a hard look at your life and the way you spend your time. What have you chosen? Do you spend more time in prayer or more time sorting through your financial investments? Do you read your Bible more than you read the business reports that swirl around us? Do you look for ways to welcome the poor and the outcast? The Bible tells us that we'll find God there.

Where is your heart these days? What do you spend your waking hours thinking about, your sleeping hours dreaming about? How is God trying to get your attention?

Cross Quarter Hinge Point

Early August is a hinge point in the calendar.  In some ways, it's not as obvious a hinge as the autumnal equinox or the summer solstice; in fact, it's the time directly between those two hinges--we're as far away from the start of summer as we are from the start of autumn.  But in some ways, it's just as significant a point of seasonal shift.

August 1 marks the Celtic festival of Lughnasa, which Christine Valters Paintner describes in this blog post: "Lughnasa (pronounced Loo-nassah) is one of the ancient Celtic feasts celebrated on August 1st marking the time of the beginning of the harvest and the gathering in. It is said to honor the Celtic sun-god Lugh who was an ally to the farmer in the struggle for food. With the Summer Solstice six weeks before, you can start to really feel the shortening of the days in August in Ireland. There is a subtle shift in the light and the air that leans towards autumn’s crispness and cooler days. The energy in the world is changing."

We may have slogged through summer long enough that we may feel that nothing will ever change--it will be hot and humid forever.  The light hasn't changed significantly, the way it will in a month or two.  But we are losing more daylight each day as we hurtle towards a different season.  Students aren't in school yet, but the time draws closer.  Most of us aren't agricultural people anymore, but if we were, we'd be seeing crops in their final ripening.  Harvest would be coming soon.

Now is a good time to take an accounting.  Have we been planning some summer festivities that we haven't gotten to do yet?  Now is the time.  Do we need to adjust our trajectories for the rest of the year?  Let us make some plans.

Endless Summer

 Yesterday was one of those days when I looked at my watch at 4 p.m. and said to my spouse, "Really?  It's not bedtime yet?"  It wasn't a particularly bad or tough day.  It just seemed to go on and on and on.

Finally I went to bed at 8 p.m.  The sun hadn't set yet, but the golden light stretched across the pines, maples, and oaks that I can see out of the bedroom window.  It was wonderful falling asleep with a view of the forest.

Admittedly, the word "forest" is a bit of a stretch.  While this part of western North Carolina is surrounded by all sorts of forests, I live in a neighborhood that has a lot of trees, a neighborhood between hundreds of acres of Lutheran church camp and a strip of shopping development (think Walmart and Lowe's and lots of fast food chains).

Here we are at the beginning of August.  Summer isn't over yet, but the end is in sight.  Here and there I see a leaf of autumnal color on a tree or on the ground, and it seems a harbinger.  At the same time, it seems that summer will never leave.

It's been a long summer for many reasons.  Would it have seemed as long and endless if I hadn't broken my wrist on April 15?  I know that buying a house was not on my radar when I thought about this summer.  We had an unexpected opportunity at the end of April, which meant that we had to put our moving plans on fast forward.

Years from now, when I think about this summer, I'll likely remember the endless packing of boxes.  Will I remember the stress of moving out of a condo?  Probably.  Will I remember how stressed I felt about our gravel driveway and the mountains?  Perhaps, but I'm realizing that a variety of deliveries happen in this neighborhood, and everyone is much more sanguine about the challenges than I was before I moved here.

Much like endless days, I look at this first day of August, and I say, "Really?  It's not October yet?"  But the light has shifted at both end of the day.  It's clear that the seasons are shifting, although one must be alert to notice it.  It's not the flamboyant changes of October, the chillier air, the pumpkins, the leaves changing colors.   But it's there, for those with eyes to see.